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http://www.archive.org/details/farmersencyclopOOjohnrich

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THE J J, g

FARMER'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA,

AND DICTIONARY OF

^ RURAL APFAIRS;

EMBRACING

ALL THE MOST RECENT DISCOVERIES

Agricultural €l)emT0tra*

ADAPTED TO THE COMPREHENSION OF UNSCIENTIFIC READERS.

ILLUSTRATED BY

NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS OF ANIMALS, IMPLEMENTS, AND OTHER SUBJECTS INTERESTINQ

TO THE AGRICULTURIST.

BY

CUTHBERT W. JOHNSON, ESQ. F.R.S.

BARRISTER AT LAW ; EDITOR OF THE FARMER'S ALMANAC ; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OP KONIOSBERG; THE HORTICULTURAL

SOCIETY OF MARYLAND; ETC. ETC.

5lbaj)teb to t()e Hnitei 0lato.

PHILADELPHIA:

CAREY AND HART.

184^.

/

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by

Carey & Hart,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

eiFTOF

BTBREOTYPED BV L. JOHNSON.
PRINTED BY T. K. & P. O. C0LUN8, PHILADELPHIA.

'J

PREFACE

THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

The Farmers^ Encyclopedia, as originally published in England, contamed
much matter not particularly interesting to those living on the western side of
the Atlantic. In the American edition, the localisms and irrelevant portions
have been supplanted by the introduction of much information more immediately
relating to rural affairs in the United States. In effecting these alterations, the
matter introduced by the American editor amounts to about thirty per cent., all
of which has been derived from the best sources of intelligence. The main ob-
jects which interest the American farmer, such as cattle, and the great crops of
maize, cotton, tobacco, hemp, and other staples of the north and south, have
received the most particular attention.

In treating of farm-stock, implements, &c., the editor has had no individual
interests to serve, and no prejudices to bias him. He has, therefore, doubtless,
often failed to say all that partiality or predilection might have dictated in particular
cases, and the discussion of the relative merits or demerits of contested agricultural
subjects he has left to be carried on in the most appropriate places, namely, the
pages of the numerous excellent periodical publications, industriously employed
in diffusing the lights of agricultural science through every part of the Union.
To many of these the editor is deeply indebted for most valuable information, the
particular sources of which he has been careful to acknowledge in the proper
places. A volume filled with so much instruction upon agricultural and rural
affairs as will be found condensed in this Encyclopaedia, cannot fail to be wel-
come to all parts of the United States in which the general diffusion of education
has created a thirst for the best information.

On announcing the work, the American publishers engaged to give sixteen
numbers of sixty-four pages each. This promise they have more than fulfilled.
The book will be found to comprise 1173, instead of 1024 pages.

"I .-re
x'asture

CkO^rzA'y

EXPLANATION OF PLATES.

PLATE 1.

Short-Horned Com,

PLATE 2. p. 1117.

Varieties of Wheat, with the most destructivt Ene-
mies.

a, Summer or Spring Wheat.

6, Winter or Lammas Wheat.

c, Egyptian Wheat.

rf, Turgid Wheat.

e, Polish Wheat.

/, Spelt Wheat.

g. One-grained Wheat.

hy The Wheat Fly of Scotland, New Eng-
land, &c., the larva or worm of which destroys
the grain in the head or chaff.

t, One of the Worms magnified.

k. The Hessian Fly, which attacks the stem
near its root.

/, A portion of Wheat Straw affected with
Rust, magnified, to show the parasitic plant or
fungus giving rise to the disease called Rust,
Blight, and Mildew.

m, Another portion of a Diseased Stem in a
green state, and before the fungus is quite ripe.

n. The small portion marked 1 (/) is still
more strongly magnified.

o,p, q, r, s, ^ M, Very highly magnified repre-
sentations of the Fungus Parasite in different
stages of growth and maturity.

0, Showing it in the young state ; p, full-
grown ; q, two plants bursting and shedding
their seeds when under water in the micro-
scope ; r, two plants bursting in a dry place ;
», apparently abortive ; t, seeds in a dry state ;
w, a small part of the bottom of a pore with
some of the parasitic fungi growing upon it.

PLATE 3. p. 139.

Barley, Oats, Buckwheat, and Millet.

a, b, c, d, Varieties of Barley.
e. White, or Common Oat.
/, Siberian or Tartarian Oat
g, Common Buckwheat.
h, Tartarian Buckwheat
t, Emarginated Buckwheat
ic, German Millet
ly Common Millet
m, Italian Millet
n, Polish Millet
o, Indian Millet

PLATE 4. p. 1044.

Rice, SugaVf Tobacco, ifc,

a. Canary com.

b. Rice Plant

c. Wild Rice.

d. Sugar Cane.

e. Indigo Plant

/, Virginian Tobacco Plant
g. Common Green Tobacco.
h, Havanna Repanda Tobacco,
t, Quadrivalvis Tobacco of the Rocky Moun-
tains.
k, Mana Tobacco of the Rocky Mountains.

PLATE 5. p. 575.

Hay-Grasses adapted to particular Soils and Situa-
tions.

The first group exhibits the Tall Hay-Grasses
of temporary duration ; the second group, Tall
Hay-Grasses of permanent duration ; the third
group. Grasses adapted to particular soils and
situations.

a, Ray or Rye-Grass (Lolium perenne), Pe-
rennial Darnel, Perennial Rye-Grass.

b, Orchard Grass, or Cock's-foot {Dactylis
glomerata).

c, Woolly or Creeping Soft Grass (Holcus
mollis).

cc, Tall Oat-like Soft Grass, Andes Grass
(Holcus avenaceus).

d, Meadow Barley-Grass {Hordeum pratense).
dd. Meadow, or Fertile Fescue {Festuca pra-

tensis).

e, Tall, or Infertile Fescue (Festuca elatior).
/, Spiked, or Darnei Fescue Grass (^Festuca

loliacea).

g. Meadow Foxtail (Mopecurus pratensis). S

h. Great or Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass^
Spear-Grass (Poa pratensis).

i, Rough-stalked Meadow Grass {Poa tri-
via lis).

A;, Timothy, or Meadow Cat's-tail (Phleum
pratense).

I, Floating Fescue (Festuca fluitans).

m. Water Meadow Grass {Poa aquatica).

n, Fiorin (jlgrostis stolonifera).

PLATE 6. p. 576.
Grasses.
The first group exhibits the Early Pasture
Grasses ; the second and third groups Pasture

V

EXPLANATION OF PLATES.

Grasses adapted to particular soils and situa-
tions.

a, Sweet-scented Vernal Grass {Anthoz-
anthum odoratum).

h, Downy Oat-Grass {Avena pubescens).

c, Annual Meadow Grass (Poa anntui).

d, Fine Bent (Agrostis vulgaris mutica).

e, Narrow-leaved Meadow Grass (Poa anr
gustifolia).

/; Dog's-tail Grass {Cynoswus cristatus),
g. Hard Fescue (Festuca duriuscula).
h. Smooth Fescue (Festuca glabra).
i, Long-awned Fescue (Festuca hordeifornm).
k, Sheep's Fescue (Festuca ovina).
I, Alpine Meadow Grass (Poa alpina).
m, Turfy Hair Grass (Aira ceespitosa).
n, Common Quaking Grass, or Ladies'
Tresses (Briza media).

PLATE 7. p. 577.
Chrasses, If c, found in Fields and Meadows.

a, Field Brome Grass (Bromus arvensis).

b, Soft Brome (Bromus mollis).

c, Darnel (Lolium temulentum). The Chess
or Cheat of Europe.

d, White Darnel (Lolium arvense).

e, Welsh Fescue (Festuca Cambrica).

f, Crab, or Finger Grass (Digitaria sangui-
nalis).

g, Red Top (Tricuspis).

h, Blue Grass (Poa compressa).
i, Creeping Soft Grass, or Couch Grass.
k, Creeping Dog's Tooth (Cynodon daclylon).
I, Upright Sea Lime Grass, Star, or Bent
(Elymus arenmius).
m, Matt Grass (Psamma arenarium).
n, Gam a Grass.

0, Scott's Grass (Panicum hirtellum).
p, Guinea Grass (Panicum poly gamum).
q, Cow Wheat (Melampyrum pratense).
r, Tare, or Common Vetch (Vicia sativa),
s, The Lentil (Ervum lens).
ty Chick-Pea (Cicer arietinum).
u, Spanish Lentil (Lathyrus sativus).
V, Canadian Lentil (Vicia pisiformis).
w, AVhite Lupine (Lupinus albus.)

PLATE 8. p. 339.
Plants cultivated for Hay or Herbage.
c, White,or Creeping Clover(rn/oZiMmrepms).

b, Common Red, or Biennial Clover (Trifo-
lium pratense).

c, Meadow, or Cow Clover (Trifolium medium).

d, Yellow, or Shamrock Clover (Trifolium
procumbens).

e, Lupuline Clover (Medicago lupulina).

f, Flesh-coloured, or Roussillon Clover (Tri-
folium incarnatum).

g, Saintfoin (the Bourgogne or Esparcette of
the French).

h, Lucern (Medicago sativa).
i, Yellow Lucern (Medicago falcata).
k, Long-rooted Clover (trifolium maero-
rhizum). -jk

" PLATE 9. p. 619.
Inferior Herbage, Plants occasionally cultivated.

o, Burnet (Poterium Sanguisorba).
b, Spurry (Spergula arvensis).

c, Furze or Whin (Ulex EuropoMs).

d, Common Broom (Spartium scoparum).

e, Spanish Broom (Spartium jumceum).
/, Parsley (Apium petrosilinum).

g, Bird's-foot Trefoil (Lotus comiculatus).
h, Lotus Tetragonolobus (Lotier cultiva, Ft.).
i. Ripple Grass, or Ribwort Plantain (Plan-
tago lanceolata).

k, Yarrow (Millefeuille, Fr.).

PLATE 10. p. 1108.

Weeds and Plants troublesome to the Farmer,

a, Cockle, or Corn Campion (Agrostemma
Githago).

6, Mellilot Clover (Trifolium officinalis).

c. Tares. Smooth Tare (Ervum tetrasper-
mum).

d. Black Bindweed (Polygonum Convolvulus).

e. Dodder (Cuscuta Europcea).

/, Mellilot trefoil of Switzerland.

g. Charlock, or Wild Radish (Raphans Ra-
phanistrum).

h, HarifF, Cleavers, &c. (Galium Aperine).

i, Couch Grass (Triticum repens).

k, Rest Harrow (Ononis spinosa).

I, Colt's-foot (Tussilago Farfara),

m. Corn Mint (Mentha arvensis).

n, Black Foxtail (Alopecurus agrestis),

0, Wild Carrot (Daucus Carota).

p, Hedge Parsley, or Dill (Torilis infesta).

5, Fool's Parsley (JEthu^a).

r, Bawd-Money. Fennel. (Meum bunias),

s, Corn'Poppy (Papaver Rhaas).

t, Buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus).

u, Blue Bottle. Ragged Robin. (Centaurea
Cyanus).

V, Mayweed. Stinking Chamomile. (An-
tliemis Cotula).

V, V, St. John's Wort (Hypencum).

w. Ox-eye Daisy (Chrysanthemum Leucanthe-
mum).

w 10, Chamomile Feverfew (Matricaria Cha-
momilla).

X, Common Fumitory (Fumaria officinalis vel
vulgaris).

X X, Yellow Toad-Flax (Linaria vulgaris).

y, Cinquefoil (Potentilla Pennsylvanica).

y y. Soap Wort. Bouncing Bet. (Saponaria
officinalis).

PLATE 11. p. 628. ,

Russian Bee-Hive and Echium vulgare, called
in Russian Ciniak.

1, The Hive with the upper door removed
so as to show the interior, and arrangement of
the honey frames, a, Movable doors ; b, wooden
pegs ; c, movable pieces on which the doors
are supported; rf, slats separating the comb
from the doors ; e, frames in which the honey
is deposited; /, entrances with slides.-

2, One of the Honey Frames drawn out.

3, Grating, or Adapter.

4, Movable Board for separating.

5, A Transverse Section of the Hive, show-
ing, at /, the places of entrance ; at a, the
depth to which the frames extend ; and at c,
one of the combs.

6, The Echium vulgare, or Ciniak, with its
Root, Efflorescence, and nut-like Fruit.

EXPLANATION OF PLATES.

PLATE 12. p. 292.

Cattle.

1, Short-Horned Bull.

2, Ayrshire Cow.

3, Devon Bull, 2 years old.

«
PLATE 13. p. 638.

Horses.

a, Arabian.

b, English Racer.

c, English Hunter.

d, English Improved Hackney.

e, English Black Horse.
/, English Draught Mare.
g, Suffolk Punch.

A, Clydesdale Horse.
I, Irish Racer.
k, Shetland Pony.

PLATE 14. p.4Jl.

Grain Drills.

1, Cooke's Grain Drill.

2, The same arranged as a Horse Hoe, or
Cultivator.

3, Suffolk Com and Manure Drill.

4, Groundsell's Patent Drop Drill.
6, Pennock's Grain Drill.

PLATE 15. p. 603. v
Harrmvs, Extirpators^ and Scarifiers,

1, Gang of Harrows.

2, Berwickshire Harrow.

3, Biddell's Extirpating Harrow.

4, Harrow Tooth.

5, Finlayson's Self-cleaning Cultivator, or
Scarifier.

PLATE 16. p. 667.
Destructive InseetSy ifc.

l,The OakPruner (Elaphidiwi putator). See
Borers, page 205.

2, Locust Tree Borer {Clyttis flexuosus). See
page 206.

^ Potato-vine Bug (^Criociris trUineata).

viil

Mag-

4, Cucumber Flea (Haltica striolata).
nified. See pages 172 and 173.

5, May Beetle, or Dor Bug (Phyllophaga
quercina). See pages 172, 173.

6, Pine Tree Weevil (Hylobius pales). A
most destructive insect to the Southern pine
forests. See Weevils.

7, Moth of the Com Cut- Worm {Agrotis
clandestina). See Cut- Worm.

8, Female Fly of the Peach Tree Worm
(JEgeria exitiosa). See Pear Tree Borer.

9, Bee, or Wax Moth (Gallerea cereana). See
page 168.

The three insects which follow are to be re-
garded as friendly to the interests of man, as
they prey upon those which are destructive.

10, Caravus Gorgi, one of a large family
which preys upon caterpillars, &c.

11, Lady Bird, or Lady Bug {Coccinella borea-
lis). This insect lives upon plant-lice and
other injurious insects.

12, Trogus Fulvis, an insect of the Ichneu-
mon Family, which commit great havoc among
caterpillars and gmbs. See Ichneumon Flies.

N. B. Most of the subjects of this plate were
furnished expressly for this work by Professor
Haldeman, of Marietta, Pennsylvania, and
drawn under his inspection by Miss Lawson,
of Philadelphia.

PLATE 17. p. 902.

Ploughs.

a. The Holland, or Rotterdam Plough.
6, Small's Chain Plough.
c, d, East Lothian Plough, two views, with
scale of feet, &c.

e, English Swing Plough.

/, Skeleton Plough of Kent.

g. Subsoil Ploughing.

A, English Plough Head.

1, Scotch Plough Head.

k, Ploughshare for Stony Ground.

/, Ploughshare for Clear Ground.

m, m. Skim Coulters.

n, Wheel Coulters.

0, Smith's Subsoil Plough.

THE AMERICAN EDITOR'S
INTRODUCTION.

** To render Agriculture more productive and beneficial to all, it is necessary thattits principles should
be better understood, and that we should profit more from the experience of each other, and by the
example of other countries wliich excel us in this great business." — Buel.

The work upon husbandry now ushered before the American public is the produc-
tion of an English gentleman of great intelligence, assisted by some of the best
authorities upon rural subjects in his country. By collecting and condensing the
most interesting details relative to farming, chiefly derived from living authors, such
as Professors Liebig, Lowe, Sir J. E. Smith, Brande, Youatt, Stephens, Thompson,
Lindley, I. F. Johnson, etc., etc., he has been enabled to present the very latest infor-
mation, and furnish a fund of matter which cannot fail to attract all who take an
interest in rural affairs, so long studied and so thoroughly understood as these must
needs be in Great Britain.

The absence of speculative views, with the very practical and matter-of-fact character
of the information given upon all subjects treated of, will perhaps be found to consti-
tute the highest recommendation of ** C. W. Johnson'' s Farmers' Encyclop2edia, and
Dictionary of Rural Affairs."

The comparatively limited range of English Agriculture is strongly contrasted with
the diversity of culture met with in the United States. A work limited to an account
of productions of the soil and climate of England would leave out many of the
most important crops which exact the attention of the American farmer and planter.
Hence the necessity of adapting a book of the kind to the new localities into which
it is introduced. This, as may be well supposed, presents a task of no small labour.

It has been charged upon agriculturists, that improvements in husbandry encounter
great opposition, and generally work their way very slowly ; whereas inventions and
improvements made in the manufacturing and mechanic arts are seized upon and put
to profit almost as quickly as promulgated. The late and justly celebrated Mr. Coke,
of Holkam, England, the great benefactor of his own country, and, indeed, of every
other country where agriculture is cherished, succeeded, by the adoption of an en-
lightened course of tillage, in converting a sandy and comparatively sterile district
into one of very great productiveness. But, though his improvements were on so
large a scale, and the results so very striking to observers, such was the general
ignorance, apathy, or prejudice prevailing in the neighbouring counties, that he esti-
mated the rate at which his improved process spread around him, at only about three
miles a year. A better condition of things would seem to exist at present in the
United States, doubtless owing to the extension of education. But a few months
have passed since the treatise upon Agricultural Chemistry of the celebrated Dr.
Liebig, reached this side of the Atlantic, and though much of it is couched in the ab-
struse phraseology of science, still has it been eagerly sought after in all directions,
and gone through several editions. Can any stronger proof be furnished of the high
state of intelligence pervading a large portion of the agricultural population of the
United States ?

The advances in agricultural improvement have, of late years, been in what mathe-
maticians call a geometrical ratio, the pace increasing with great celerity at every suc-
cessive step. In proportion as the influences of modern education become diflf'used, the
savage characteristics of man are softened down, and the better feelings of his nature ac-

2 INTRODUCTION.

quire predominance. Bloody and desolating wars are viewed in their true light, and
the useful arts of peace appear the only proper sources of individual pleasure and
national prosperity. As, among these arts, none possesses the vital importance of
agriculture, from its furnishing the means of immediate subsistence, so it may fairly
be said; no other excites at the present day a greater and more pervading interest
throughout Europe and America, with all who seek independence or the gratification
of the most rational of tastes.

The inhabitants of the United States possess advantages for the prosecution of
agricultural pursuits, which, for variety and extent, surpass those enjoyed by any
other people on the globe. They occupy the greatest portion of the North American
continent, embracing all varieties of soil and surface, with a climate which in the
southern parts admits the culture of many of the most valuable productions of the
tropics, whilst the northern limits verge upon, but do not reach the less favoured
regions where too severe and enduring frost entails a scanty vegetation.

Commencing nearest the tropical limits, the chief attention of the planter is direct-
ed to the culture of the sugar-cane, rice, tobacco, indigo, and especially cotton, more
of which last is raised in the Southern States than in all the rest of the world besides.
In the amount of sugar procured from the cane, Louisiana takes the lead, though
Florida, Alabama, and others of the extreme iiouthern states produce considerable
quantities. South Carolina yields the most rice, which is also raised to a greater or
less extent throughout the southern states, and even as high as Tennessee, Kentucky,
and southern Virginia. The cotton region is still more extensive, spreading through-
out the extreme southern and south-western states, from the Atlantic far west of the Mis-
sissippi, and rising into middle Virginia, and even the lowest portion of Delaware.
In the quantity of tobacco produced, Virginia stands foremost, being followed succes
sively by Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina, etc.

The Middle States raise in the greatest abundance, maize or Indian corn, wheat,
rye, barley and oats, whilst in a large . portion of the Northern Stales, the wheat,
rye, oat, potato, and especially grass crops, are extremely productive and valuable.
Although maize is most extensively cultivated in the middle states, it is abundant
in almost every section of the country, and from its affording so large an amount
of the food of man and animals, is universally regarded as the most valuable cereal
crop of the United States. Besides these there are many other rich products of the
fields and forests, which enter largely into the aggregate of national wealth.

The first history of American Agriculture differs from that of countries in the old
world, where the advances in the arts were slow, and every acquisition marked by
rudeness and simplicity. Not so, however, in America, whose intelligent European
settlers came with all the appliances of advanced civilization, prepared to chop down
the forests and clear away the thickets which had so long encumbered the ground and
furnished a scanty subsistence to the savage hunter. For a lime the roots obstructed
the plough and prevented the deep turning of the soil: but they afforded no impedi-
ment to the raising of grain crops, since the light virgin mould, abounding in the
alkalies and all other elements of fertility, required but the slightest stirring of the
surface to answer the purposes of the plough and harrow. Here then commenced
the career of the American planter and farmer, upon a capital accumulated by nature
herself through the most gradual accessions. Rich harvests of grain, crops of tobacco
and other products sent to Europe and sold at high prices, stimulated to renewed ex-
ertions, and the generous soil was subjected to a scourging course of tillage, by which
many of the essential elements of its fertility were finally exhausted without any
compensating additions. In Virginia, where the primitive settlements were made,
large tracts of many hundreds and even thousands of acres, the once profitable cul-
ture of which is shown by the extensive ruins of stately mansions, now lie waste
and uncultivated, or are covered with a new growth of the oak and pine, renewing
forests to which the deer, once driven away, has returned.

The lands bordering on the Atlantic have thus been worn out by successive years
of cuiture without adequate help, the thinnest soils first, and next the deeper moulds.
But \^^ not those whose lots are cast in other and more prosperous parts of the Union
sympathize over the decayed fortunes of once flourishing districts, and overlook their
own gradual decline. It is in vain for the farmers of the western valleys and prairies
to boast of the depth and inexhaustible productive powers of their lands. With every

INTRODUCTION. 3

crop, some of the elements of fertility must of necessity be removed, and the greater
the crops the speedier the exhaustion, unless some adequate compensation be made.
The following fact, stated in the hfth volume of that valuable American periodical,
" The Cultivator," shows the progress of deterioration in one of the finest wheat dis-
tricts in the whole country.

" Thomas Burrall, Esq., has a most excellent wheat farm in the neighbourhood of
Geneva, (New York,) which he began to clear and improve twenty-one or twenty-
two years ago, and on which he has made and applied much manure. Mr. Bur-
rall informed us, in the summer of 1836, that he had noted down the average product
of his wheat crop every year ; that dividing the twenty years into three periods, he
found that his wheat had averaged twenty-nine bushels per acre during the first of
these periods ; twenty-five bushels the acre during the second ; and but twenty bushels
tlie acre during the third period — thus showing a diminished fertility of nearly one-
third, under what may there be denominated a good system of husbandry."

All, then, who are engaged in agricultural pursuits, and even those now luxuriating
upon the most fertile soils, must, sooner or later, be reduced to the necessity of adding
to their fields some of the agents of fertility, and of adopting new means by which
they can obtain crops that may be compensating and profitable.

The late Judge Buel, in referring to a picture drawn by the Hon. James M. Gar-
nett, of the deteriorated condition of Virginia agriculture, says : — " Let not the
Northerners take credit to themselves, from this outline of old Virginia husbandry, or
from the ingenuous detail of the causes which brought it to so low a condition. Though
not exactly the like causes have operated, the same deteriorating system of husbandry
has prevailed with us, though perhaps to a more limited extent. Though we have
personally attended more to the art — to the practice — yet we have been equally defi-
cient in the science with our brethren in Virginia — equally indifferent to the study
and application of the principles upon which good husbandry must ever be based.
And although we may have begun earlier in the business of reform, whether from
necessity or from choice we will not say, we are still too defective in practice to boast
of our trivial acquirements. The tnith is, we have regarded the soil as a kind mother,
expecting her always to give, without regarding her ability to give. We have
expected a continuance of her bounties, though we have abused her kindness, and
disregarded her maternal admonitions. We have manaored the culture of the soil as a
business requiring mere animal power, rather than as one in which the intellect could
be brought largely to co-operate."

*' But," continues the judge, in the full fervour of his zeal for the promotion of
agriculture, " there is a redeeming spirit abroad. The lights of science are beaming
upon the agricultural world, and dissipating the clouds of superstitious ignorance
which have so long shrouded it in darkness. The causes which have for some time
been actively operating to improve the condition of the other arts, and to elevate the
character of those who conduct them, are extending their influence to agriculture."

The course of tillage followed in America since its first settlement, and with such
exhausting and disastrous effects upon the soil, has been of late aptly styled the old
system, to distinguish it from the New Husbandry, which last consists in the employ-
ment of means calculated not only to arrest and prevent the exhaustion of soils, but to
increase their productiveness. It is indeed gratifying to know that in many parts of
our country which have suffered from the impoverishment of the land ; agriculture
has for many years shown signs of progressive improvement, reduced farms having
been brought into increased value, and the products of many of them being raised
even above the amount afforded in the days of their first exuberant culture. This
has occurred in New England, in the Valley of the Hudson, in New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania, the upper portion of the Peninsula including Delaware and Eastern Mary-
land, in several parts of Western Maryland, Old or Eastern Virginia, etc.

It is the chief object of the numerous and many admirable agricultural publications
so extensively circulated at the present day, as well as of the active societies everywhere
instituted, to set forth the principles and practical details of the new system of hus-
bandry, and to demonstrate the advantages resulting from the judicious application of
manures and all sorts of fertilizing agents ; — from good tillage ; — from proper rotation
of crops; — from the assistance to be derived from root-culture; — from the substitution
for naked fallows, of clover and other good fallow crops. All these means are to be

4 INTRODUCTION.

adopted in conjunction with ample draining, with or without the additional advantages
derived from sub-soil ploughing.

Many of the processes which may be resorted to in carrying out the new system
are in a great degree mysteries to thousands in the United States, although familiarly
known and long employed in other countries, where with not half the natural advan-
tages the labour of the husbandman is far better rewarded. Such has been the agri-
cultural improvement effected in Flanders, that the whole country may almost be
styled a garden, each acre being capable of supporting its man. Scotland, in little
more than half a century, has changed from comparative unproductiveness, into one
of the richest agricultural districts in Europe. In Great Britain, the products of the
grain harvests have increased within sixty years, from one hundred and seventy to
three hundred and forty millions of bushels. The system inculcated by the new
principles, has even in some districts of our own country, where they have been well
followed up, increased the value of farms, two, three, and four hundred per cent. —
from twenty and thirty dollars to one hundred dollars per acre. " It has," says Buel,
" made every acre of arable land, upon which it has been practised ten years, and
lying contiguous to navigable waters, or a good market, worth, at least, one hundred
dollars, for agricultural purposes."

The zeal for the promotion of good husbandry which pervades the country at large,
is displayed in the geological surveys which have been finished, or are in progress, in
most of the states ; in the agricultural surveys in several others, together with the
liberal premiums appropriated by legislative authority, and innumerable societies, for
the encouragement of every thing tending to improve and advance the agricultural
interests. It is also shown by the extensive circulation of the many periodicals de-
voted in whole or in part to agricultural topics. Every section of our extensive
country has more or less of these invaluable aids for the dissemination of useful
information. Although wishing to avoid, as far as possible, all invidious distinctions,
where there are so many just claims to notice, some of these publications cannot be suf-
fered to remain without a passing notice. Such are, " The American Farmer,''^ re-
cently published in Baltimore by John S. Skinner and successors, the pioneer of.
American periodicals specially devoted to agriculture : " The Cultivator,''^ published
in Albany, N. Y., by the late Judge Buel and successors : ^'-The New England Far-
mer,'''' by Thomas G. Fessenden and successor, the Rev. H. Coleman : " The
Southern Agriculturist'^ in Charleston, S. C, by B. R. Carroll; and "77te Farm-
er's Register,'''' by Edmund Ruffin at Petersburg, Virginia. These able works con-
stitute the chief officials on agricultural subjects in the northern, middle, and southern
states.

Book-farmers have long suffered under general discredit, and been exposed to
abundance of taunt and ridicule, even from their own agricultural brethren. Doubt--
less the imperfection of much of the scientific data furnished and practised upon has
often given occasion to unsatisfactory results. But the rapid progress of science
has developed new facts, and furnished much more accurate information. Under
the direction of Davy, agricultural chemistry made vigorous advances. His many
splendid discoveries, and especially his demonstration that the common alkalies, pot-
ash and soda, and the alkaline earths, magnesia, lime, and alumine, were not simple
elementary substances, but the oxides of metals, seemed to give a new impulse to
those who sought to make chemistry subservient to agriculture. But even with the
brilliant achievements of Davy and the subsequent valuable researches of Count Chaptal
in France, agricultural chemistry remained very imperfect. Too exclusive attention
had been devoted to the mineral constituents of soils. Most gratifying and important
results have been since obtained through the able investigations pf several eminent
French chemists, among whom we may name, Raspail, De Saussure, Braconnot, and
Boussingault, all of whom have devoted special attention to ascertaining the nature
and properties of organic substances entering into the composition of soils. What
England commenced by Davy, and France followed up so ably by her distinguished
chemsts just named, Germany seems to have the honour of almost perfecting
throngh the brilliant achievements of her chemist. Dr. Liebig, the highly important
results obtained by whom have been quite recently placed before the world in a trea-
tise entitled *' Organic Chemistry." The interesting developements made in this
work of the chemical agencies operating in the various stages and conditions of growth,

INTRODUCTION. 5

maturity, and subsequent decomposition of vegetable and animal substances, and the
mutual relations subsisting between these and the earth and atmosphere, have drawn
upon Liebig the admiration of all Europe and America.

It must, nevertheless, be owned that though generally adopted, the accuracy of
some of Liebig's results has been more than questioned by distinguished chemists in
Europe and the United States. The particulars of these and the effects of the several
agencies acting upon the life of vegetables and animals, will be found in the Encyclo-
paedia of Agriculture, arranged under various heads, such as, Soils, Humus, Carbon,
Oxygen, Azote or Nitrogen, Hydrogen, Ammonia, etc.

Whilst agriculture has, within the last few years, been thus receiving such rich
tributes from abroad, many scientific investigators of the highest merit have been
zealously and successfully engaged in the United States, in experimental researches
which have added greatly to the stock of useful knowledge. Among these, it would
be signal injustice to pass unnoticed the names of Professors Jackson and Dana of
Massachusetts, who have devoted great attention to the analyses of soils, the chemical
composition and properties of humus as found in ordinary mould, and in peats and
bog-mud, the results of which have been published in the reports of the Agricultural
and Geological Surveys of Massachusetts, and in separate essays. Professors Rogers
and Booth of Philadelphia, the former in his Geological Report of New Jersey, and
the latter of Delaware, have furnished numerous and highly accurate analyses of the
valuable calcareous marls and green-sand deposits found so abundantly in the states
named, as well as in others of the middle and southern regions, together with much
information relative to the application of these inexhaustible agents of fertility ; — Nor
can we omit the name of Dr. Harris of Massachusetts, whose highly interesting and
useful treatise upon destructive insects, is a most valuable acquisition to the stores
of agricultural knowledge.

The success with which science has developed the agencies concerned in the
various stages and processes of vegetation, and the certainty with which deficiences
of soil can now be detected and remedied, have suddenly elevated agriculture from
the condition of an art under the guidance of common observation and empirical ex-
periment, to a science regulated by recognised principles of induction. We are
indeed much mistaken if the day has not arrived when the successes of the book-farmer
shall cause his incredulous brother farmer of the old routine system, to cease his
taunts and spend some of his leisure hours in searching into books containing modern
information in regard to matters of husbandry.

In preparing the work for the American farmer, the editor has had several objects
to fulfil. Of these, one of the principal was the reduction of the price, the cost of
the imported copy being so great as to prevent any extensive circulation of it in the
United States. Much of the irrelevant and less important materials in the original
have been omitted, their place being supplied by the addition of information con-
nected with the interests of American husbandry. In the selection of such informa-
tion, the editor has to acknowledge his great indebtedness to distinguished writers at
home and abroad, who have contributed, by elaborate works, separate treatises and
communications in periodicals, to promote the cause of agriculture.

The American edition will contain a far greater number of plates and figures illus-
trating the various subjects ; notwithstanding which, its cost will be only about one-
fourth that of the imported work.

a2

THE

EARMER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA,

AND

DICTIONARY OF RURAL AFFAIRS.

ABATE (French, abbalre; Spanish, aha-
tir ; Italian, a^6a/cre); to beat down. In com-
merce, to let down the price in selling.

In law, means the beating down or removal
of an obstruction or nuisance, which, accord-
ing to the common law of England, any per-
son may remove, provided he does it in a
peaceable manner, so as pot to occasion a
breach of the peace, such as the obstruction
of an ancient light, which is a private nuisance,
or the erection of a gate across a common
road, which is a public nuisance, and which
any one may beat down and remove.

ABELE TREE (Populus alba). European
White Poplar, or Dutch Beech, otherwise call-
ed the Arbeel. The Abele is a tree of very
rapid growth, but seldom exceeds forty or fifty
feet in height. The leaves are large, and di-
vided into three, four, or five lobes, which are
indented on their edges.

This tree is not to be considered as a native
of England. Hartlib, in his " Complete Hus-
bandman," 1659, states that some years ago,
there were ten thousand Abeles at once sent
over into England from Flanders, and trans-
planted into many counties ; that the timber is
incomparable for all sorts of wooden vessels,
especially trays ; and that butchers' trays can-
not be made without it, it being so exceedingly
light and tough.

*' A specimen of their advance," says Eve-
lyn, "we have had of an Abele tree at Sion,
which being lopped in Feb. 1651, did, by the
end of October, 1652, produce branches as big
as a man's wrist, and seventeen feet in length.
As they thus increase in bulk, their value ad-
vances likewise, which, after the first seven
years, is annually worth one shilling more.
The Dutch, therefore," he continues, "look
upon a plantation of these trees as an ample
portion for a daughter." Besides the uses of
the wood before stated, it is considered good
for wainscoting, for floors, laths, and packing
cases ; and, from the boards of it not splitting
by nails, but closing over the heads, it is
esteemed superior to deal for the latter pur-
pose. It is found to answer for works under

water. Peaty and low damp soils are the most
proper for the Abele, and in these it is well
worthy the attention of the forest planter. It
should never be planted near the margins of,
nor in grass fields, for it extends its roots
under the grass to a great distance, and sends
up numerous shoots. The Abele is propa-
gated by layers, cuttings, and off-shoots or
suckers. The month of February is the best
season for planting the cuttings. In two years,
many, if not all that have rooted, will be fit to
plant out for good, on the sites where they are
to remain for timber. The size of the plants
considered the "best for final transplantation, is
from one and a half to three feet in length, but
much larger plants will succeed very well by
paying proper attention to keep the roots as
perfect as possible.

The Abele is sometimes made a variety of
the Gray Poplar {Pnpulus canescens), and seve-
ral British as well as foreign botanists have
confounded the two species, but they are very
distinct.

There are many varieties of the Abele, aris-
ing from local circumstances. The variety,
called on the continent, Polan de Holland, is
preferable for avenues and for landscape gard-
ening, from its rapid growth, its majestic
height and aspect, and from its fine white
leaves contrasting well with the green of other
leaves. There are some magnificent ones
near the Hague, and more particularly exten-
sive avenues of them along most of the high-
ways in the lower districts of Belgium, near
BrugQ3 and Ghent. It is so common on the
romantic banks of the Rhone, that some French
authors call it Arbre du Rhone.

According to M'Intosh, the best cuttings are
taken from the wood of the preceding year ;
and when made, each cutting should be nine
inches in length, and planted in nursery lines
eighteen inches apart, and the cuttings about
six inches distant from each other. When in-
serted in the ground, they should be put in
deep enough to resist the drought ; and if only
two inches of the top appear above ground, it
will be found sufficient. In two years, or three
at most, these cuttings will be fully grown to
fit them for being finally planted out; but if

7

ABIES.

ABORTION.

they are to remain the third year in the nur-
sery, they ought to be taken up and re-planted
at a greater distance. The Abele often sends
up naturally vast numbers of suckers from its
roots, and such are sometimes used for young
plants; cuttings are, however, preferable.
Langiey asserts that he has known great
quantities produced by chips only, where the
trees have been hewed after felling ; and one
of our earliest authors has proposed ploughing
down these chips, with a view to produce an
economical coppice.

Amongst other uses of this tree, it may be
mentioned that, on the Continent, the wood of
the larger branches is prized, on account of its
lightness, for making wooden shoes ; while the
smaller twigs are used for fire-wood. By
splitting the wood into thin shavings, like tape
or braid, the stuff called sparterie used for
hats, is manufactured. These shavings are
always made from green wood. One work-
man can, with the aid of a child to carry off
the shavings, keep several plaiters employed.
The ancient Greek athletae wore crowns made
of the branches of this tree, because it was
sacred to their patron deity, Hercules. {Julius
Pollux, de Ludis. Miller's Did.)

ABIES. In botany, the Fir or Pine tree
geaus, well known for the valuable timber ob-
tained from many of the varieties. The origin
of the Latin name is unknown, that of the
English appellation is the Saxon Furh-wude,
fir-wood. See Fir Tree.

ABLACTATION (Latin, abladoy The
weaning of an animal. Also a method of
grafting, without cutting the scion from the
stock.

ABORTION (Latin, abortio). In veteri-
nary surgery, miscarriage, slipping, slinking,
casting, or warping, all meaning the expulsion
of the foetus at so early a period of pregnancy as
to render it impossible for it to live. The im-
mediate causes appear to be the death of the
foetus, or derangement in the functions of the
womb or its dependencies, arising from some
external cause or causes operating on the mo-
ther. Amongst these operating causes may be
reckoned too much, or too little food, producing
plethora or emaciation ; sudden fright acting
on the nerves, or sympathy with ■certain smells
or sights, such as the smell or sight of blood,
of bones, of horns, and particularly of the
aborted foetus of another animal ; — on a simi-
lar principle, perhaps, to that which causes
even some strong-nerved men to faint away
on witnessing a surgical operation. Acci-
dents, also, such as falls, bruises, over-cj/iving,
or fatigue, and the like, may frequently bring
on abortion.

The signs of approaching abortion are, great
languor, uneasiness, and restlessness* some-
times a discharge of bloody matter, and the
sudden filling of the udder, similar to the signs
of approaching parturition.

.portion in the Horse. — Abortions very fre-
qu«;ly happen among mares. This often
arisls in consequence of over-exertion during
the latter period of pregnancy. Mares are
liable, also, very frequently, to various acci-
dents in their pastures, which may be the
cause of their slipping their foal, such as
8

kicks, tumbling into holes and ditches, over-
exerting themselves to get over fences, and the
like. On this account, when a mare is near
her time, she should be kept by herself, in some
convenient place. But there is another, and
we suspect a very general, cause of these ac-
cidents in mares ; we mean a stinting of them
in their food, either in quantity or quality. It
appears, indeed, that some imagine that the
mare, when she is in foal, may be turned out
almost any where : but this opinion is ill
founded; for although the mare does not re-
quire to be kept so high in condition as when
she is at hard work, yet she is not to be turned
out into a pasture where she may be in a man-
ner starved: but how often do we see the
mare-in-foal on tlie worst piece of ground in
the whole farm, exposed, during the rigorous
winter season, to endure the cold, as well as to
put up with scanty food. Every well-informed
farmer knows, that the slinking of the foal is
often the consequence of such treatment. On
the other hand, when the mare is not worked
at all, and indulged with too high keep, she is
almost equally in danger of abortion, her high
condition having a tendency to cause inflam-
mation and other disorders; an-d these de-
ranging the reproductive organs, frequently
produce miscarriage. It would seem, then,
that moderate exercise and diet ^re best suited
as means to avoid the misfortune of the pre-
mature exclusion of the foal.

Abortion in the Cow. — Abortion occurs of-
tener in the cow than in all other domestic
animals put together. Perhaps it is one of
the greatest annoyances the proprietor of cows
has to encounter, and unfortunately, for aught
we see to the contrary, it is likely so to con-
tinue; for in spite of the improved state of
veterinary medicine, and the researches of
skilful veterinary surgeons, both at home and
abroad, abortion still continues as frequent
and annoying as ever. The causes are fre-
quently involved in obscurity; but it may be
mentioned, that an extremely hot and foul cow-
house, a severe blow, violent exertion, starva-
tion, plethora, an overloaded stomach, internal
inflammations, constipated bowels, bad food or
water, improper exposure, and the like, will
now and then produce abortion. Any thing
whatever, indeed, that seriously affects the
health of the animal in general, or the state of
the reproductive organs in particular, may do
so. But abortion occurs again and again
when no such causes as those enumerated can
be traced. The disease, if such it may be
called, as we think it may, is even said to be
infectious. No sooner does it show itself in one
animal than it is seen in another, and another,
till it has spread over the most part of the cow-
house. Some say this is to be attributed to the
odour arising from the things evacuated. Pos-
sibly it may be so, there is nothing unreason-
able in the supposition ; for although we cannot
perceive the smell, nor account for its peculiar
influence, it is still quite within possibility
that such an odour does exist, having the
power attributed to it. There can be no great
harm, however, in acting as if we were as-
sured that the mischief has its origin in the
source so commonly supposed, provided we do

ABORTION.

ABORTION.

not shut our eyes to any other which accident 1
or investigation may reveal. In the meantime, I
the number of abortions may be diminished by j
carefully avoiding all those causes which are
knov/n to be capable of producing it. Let the
cows be regularly fed : let their food be good, |
and in proper quantities ; let them have water
as often as they will take it; 'avoid sudden ex-
posure to cold or heat ; and, above all, let the
cow-house be well ventilated. Prohibit all
manner of rough usage on the part of those
who look after the cows, whether they be preg-
nant or not. If any of them accumulate flesh
too rapidly, gradually reduce their allowance ;
and, on the other hand, if any become emaci-
ated, discover the cause, and remedy it, always
by slow degrees. Sudden changes in the
matter or mode of feeding should also be
avoided. The same sort of diet does not
agree equally well with all the cows ; and this,
in general, is indicated by undue relaxation,
or constipation of the bawels; this should be
watched, and removed at once. Attention to
these, and many other minor circumstances,
will amply repay the proprietor for the little
additional trouble.

** That improper or too little food," says Mr.
Lindsay, '' is a prominent cause of abortion, is
strongly indicated by the following facts. A
friend of mine, a respectable grazing farmer,
kept a dairy of twenty-two cows, ten of which
slipped calf at different periods of parturition.
The summer had been very unfavourable in
every respect, both as regarded the ground
where the cows were pastured, and in getting
in the hay crop. He had little or no hay of the
last year's growth, and the hay of that year
when cut into was in a very bad state ; but as
he had no other, he was obliged to give it to
his cattle. The consequence was as men-
tioned above ; and besides, many of his stock
died of various disorders ; and many of those
which recovered remained long weakly."

"The most common cause of abortion in
cows," says White, " is improper feeding dur-
ing winter and spring, before they are turned
to pasture. The filthy pond-water they are
often compelled to drink, and feeding on
the rank fog-grass of October and Novem-
ber, especially when covered with hoar-frost,
are likewise frequent causes of miscarriage.
I remember a farm near Berkeley, in Glouces-
tershire, which afforded a striking proof of the
injuries of stagnant pond-water, impregnated
with dung and urine. This farm had been
given up by three farmers successively, in
consequence of the losses they sustained
through abortion in their cattle, their not being
in season (that is, not conceiving), red water,
and other diseases. At length a Mr. Dimmery,
after suffering considerably in his live stock
for the first five years, suspected that the water
of his ponds, which was extremely filthy,
might be the cause of the mischief. He there-
fore dug three wells upon his farm, and having
fenced round the ponds to prevent his cattle
from drinking there, caused them to be sup-
plied with well-water, in stone troughs erected
for the purpose ; and from this moment his
live stock began to thrive, became uncom-
monly healthy, and the quality of the butter
2

and cheese made on his farm was greatly im-
proved. It should be observed, that on this
farm the cattle were, regularly fed with good
hay during the winter, and kept in good pas-
ture in summer : so that there cannot exist a
doubt that the losses sustained by Mr. Dim-
mery were entirely attributable to the unwhole-
some water the animals were compelled to
drink."

"In order," adds Mr. White, "to show that
the accident of warping may arise from a viti-
ated state of the digestive organs, I shall here
notice a few circumstances tending to corro-
borate this opinion. In January, 1782, all the
cows in the possession of farmer D'Euruse,
near Grandvilliers, in Picardy, miscarried. The
period at which they warped was about the
fourth or fifth month. The accident was attri-
buted to the excessive heat of the preceding
summer; but as the water they were in the
habit of drinking was extremely bad, and they
had been kept upon oat, wheat, and rye straw,
it appears to me more probable that the great
quantity of straw they were obliged to eat in
order to obtain sufficient nourishment, and the
injury sustained by the third stomach in ex-
pressing the fluid parts of the masticated mass,
together with the larsre quantity of water they
probably drank while kept upon this dry food,
was the real cause of their miscarrying. A
farmer at Charentin, out of a dairy of twenty-
eight cows, had sixteen slip calf at different
periods of gestation. The summer had been
very dr>', and during the whole of this season
they had been pastured in a muddy place,
which was flooded by the Seine. Here the
cows were generally up to their knees in mud
and water, and feeding on crowfoot, rushes,
and the like. Part of the stock had recently
been brought from Lower Normandy, where
they had all been affected with indigestion by
feeding upon lucerne, from the effects of which
they had been relieved by the operation of
paunching. In one, the opening made was
large enough to admit the hand for the purpose
of drawing out the food ; the rest were ope-
rated on with a trocar. In 1789, all the cows
in the parish of Beaulieu, near Mantes, mis-
carried. All the land in this parish was so
stiff as to hold water for a considerable time ;
and as a vast quantity of rain fell that year,
the pastures were for a long time, and at seve-
ral periods, completely inundated, on which
the grass became sour and rank. These, and
several other circumstances which have fallen
under my own observation, plainly show that
keeping cows on food that is deficient in nutri-
tion, and difficult of digestion, is one, if not
the principal, cause of their miscarrying. It
is stated by Mr. Handwin, that feeding in pas-
tures, when covered with white frost, has been
observed to occasion abortion in these ani-
mals."

If there be any probability of a cow miscar-
Tjing from exposure to any of the common
causes already enumerated, let her by all
means be put apart from the others ; and let a
skilful person attend to the evil from which
she is expected to suffer. If the approach of
abortion be evident, bleeding may be had re-
course to ; for if it do not check abortion, it

9

ABORTIVE.

ABSCESS.

will yet do no harm though it take place.
When there are any premonitory symptoms
of abortion, they are precisely the same as
those which present themselves in ordinary
labour, vWith the exception of their being less
marked.

Fumigation of the cow-house is resorted to
as one of the means of preventing the spread
of abortion : tar, sulphur, gunpowder, feathers,
and the like, are burned for the purpose of
destroying the odour. We have never seen a
single instance of the i)ractice being attended
with the smallest success ; while it is obvious
that, if carried beyond a certain point, it may
produce the very evil it is intended to remove
or mitigate.

It is a remarkable feature in the history of
this complaint, that those cows that have once
miscarried are particularly liable to do so
again at the same period of their succeeding
pregnancy. Greater care is therefore requisite
to guard against those causes which do, or are
supposed to, excite it. The treatment of abor-
tion, when it does take place, differs not from
that adopted in cases of parturition, only that
the cow which miscarries should be removed
with all that belongs to her from among preg-
nant cows.

If the signs of approaching abortion be dis-
covered early, the accident may sometimes be
prevented. If the cow is in good condition,
then immediately let it be bled to the extent of
five or six quarts, and the bowels opened with
half a pound of Epsom salts, three or four
drams of aloes in powder, or as many ounces
of castor oil, administered in a quart of gruel ;
but if the cow is in very poor condition, and
the miscarriage is anticipated from her having
been exposed to cold, it would be more advan-
tageous to avoid bleeding, and give her a warm
gruel drink, with an ounce of laudanum in it.
If after this abortion does take place, let her be
kept in a comfortable place by herself; and if
the after-birth has not passed off, let no injudi-
cious and unnecessary administration of vio-
lent forcing medicines, such as capsicum or
hellebore, be given. Nature, with a little as-
sistance, is generally equal to the perfect re-
storation of the animal.

Abortion in the Sheep. Ewes are much
subject to abortion, in consequence of the
numerous accidents they are liable to, such as
fright, overdriving, being worried or run with
dogs, a remarkable instance of which came
under my own observation. A pack of hounds,
in pursuit of a hare, got among a flock of
sheep belonging to a farmer, and so hurried
and alarmed them, that thirty out of a flock of
two hundred ewes prematurely dropped their
lambs. It is the same in sheep as in the other
cases of domestic animals, — scarcity of food,
and exposure to severe cold, having a great
tendency to make the ewes prematurely drop
their lambs, or produce them weakly and crip-
pled at the full time ; and although there may
be "^ little danger in giving too much food,
sucnKLS allowing them to feed all the winter
on turnips, the danger is trifling compared
with the starving system. (Miller.)

ABORTIVE. A term applied by gardeners
and farmers to flowers, seeds, and fruits, which
10

do not come to maturity, in consequence of ex-
ternal injury from the weather, from insects,
or other causes affecting their growth. Thus
fruit often becomes abortive, in consequence
of cold winds or frosts in spring checking the
flow of the nutritive juices; and after losing
its healthy colour it shrivels, and falls. The
same effects arise when the leaves of fruit-
branches are devoured by caterpillars, or the
fruit-stalks sucked by insects (Aphides, Cocci,
&c.). The only preventives are sheltering
from cold, and destroying the insects.

ABSCESS (Latin, oisccs.m*). In velerinaiy
surgery, a circumscribed cavity in an animal,
containing matter. [In common language, an
imposthume or gathering.] The deposition
of matter in a solid part of the body is
always preceded, and in some degree ac-
companied, by inflammation. The local symp-
toms are, pain on pressure, heat, swelling,
hardness, and, where it can be seen, redness.
These are easily recognised, in proportion as
the inflamed part is near the external surface.
If the part in which, an abscess is about to
form be soft, yielding, and well supplied with
blood, it soon softens and points, the pain di-
minishes, the skin becomes thin, a fluid is felt
fluctuating under it, and by and by the skin
bursts, or a portion of it drops out, and the
matter escapes. What is called the process
of granulation succeeds to this ; and, provided
the matter be completely evacuated, and the
outlet be such as not to retain any that may
form subsequently, the cavity soon fills up.

Such are the different stages of an ordinary
abscess. The general health of the animal is
rarely affected ; but if an abscess form in a
dense unyielding texture, in a part which can-
not without much difficulty accommodate it-
self to an increase of volume, then the swelling
may be less, but the animal will endure a
great deal more pain, [as is often exemplified
under similar circumstances in the disease
called felon or whitlow in the finger or human
hand.] The irritation, indeed, is sometimes so
great, from this cause, as to induce fever, and
even death; and hence the formation of an
abscess in the foot of an irritable horse is
not an unfrequent cause of death. During
the deposition of the matter in such cases,
we have general symptoms added to those
termed local. There is loss of appetite,
thirst, a hot skin, quick and hard pulse,
constipated bowels; in short, the animal
is fevered. When an abscess forms in a
part remote from the surface, its presence is
not easily recognised. The general practi-
tioner has here an advantage over the veteri-
nary surgeon. The expressed feelings of the
patient, and the occasional slight shivering fits
which accompany the formation of matter, are
guides which the veterinary surgeon can
rarely or never command. The shivering, if
it occurs, passes unobserved, and the animal
can give no account of himself; dissection,
therefore, sometimes reveals large abscesses,
whose existence was not even suspected dur-
ing life. Fortunately these are not frequent.

It is a curious circumstance, and one that
well illustrates the preservative principle of a
living being, that, unless there be some me-

ABSCESS.

ABSORBENTS.

chanical obstacle, as in the case of the horse's
foot, the matter always seeks its exit by an ex-
ternal opening. If this were not a law in the
animal economy, and if the matter were to
spread indiscriminately on all sides, it might
not only accumulate to an enormous extent,
and produce much destruction, but by en-
croaching upon vital organs, it might be a very
frequent cause of death. The instances of
such a thing happening are rare ; but they are
easily accounted for by the presence of some
mechanical obstacle which the absorbents
could not overcome. Why an abscess should
point at one part rather than another, is truly
wonderful ; but it is not more so than almost
every other process of importance in the ani-
mal economy. We may attempt to explain it;
but, in truth, to perceive that such is the case,
and that because it would have been wrong
had it been otherwise, is as far as we can pro-
ceed. We know that the absorbents remove a
portion of that side of the cavity which is next
to the external surface ; but we do not know
what urges them to act on that side in prefer-
ence to any other ; and, perhaps, in a practical
point of view, we need not care to know.

The causes of abscess may in general be
traced to an injury done to the texture of a
part, or to the introduction of some foreign
substance by which it is irritated. In the for-
mer, the formation of matter is a part of the
process by which the injury is repaired; in the
latter, it becomes necessary to interpose a
bland insensible medium between the sur-
rounding parts and the irritating substance,
while the same means serve to expel it. Thus
a severe bruise, the insertion of a thorn, a nail,
or any similar agent, may be followed by an
abscess.

The treatment of an ordinary abscess is
very simple ; as a general rule, the matter
should be evacuated as soon as discovered.
Let a broad-shouldered lancet be used, and let
the opening be made sufficiently large ; and,
what is of still more consequence, let it be at
the lowest part of the tumour, in order that the
cavity may be completely and constantly
drained. The general practitioner has some
scruple about making an artificial opening,
often for good reasons. His patients dread the
lancet more than a tedious cure ; "while ihe
skin is thinner, and consequently the natural
outlet is sooner formed. But in ihe horse, and
the dog, and still more in the ox, il>e skin is
thick, its removal proportionally slow, and the
natural process is both tedious and painful.
It is, therefore, better both for the animal and
his owners, to have an artificial outlet made
for the matter as soon as the abscess is
brought to a head, either naturally, or by the
application of a bran poultice. Little more is
necessary than to keep the part clean ; trim
the hair from the edges of the orifice, and by
applying hogs'-lard, prevent the acrid dis-
charge from adhering to, and removing the
hair from the skin beneath. Let no pretender
stuff the cavity with a candle, or tent of tow,
or rowels, or any thing else. All these inter-
fere with nature's operations, prevent the
escape of the matter, produce fistula, and other
evils, often far more serious than the original

abscess. If the cavity do not fill up so readily
as might be expected, allow the animal a little
more nourishing food than that recommended
for invalids; and inject once, or even twice a
da}', a liniment composed of equal parts of
spirits of turpentine and sweet oil ; or, if the
matter discharged, instead of being thick, pale
yellow, and without smell, be dark-coloured,
variegated, and smell offensively, a solution
of chloride of lime, or one to three drachms
of nitre in six ounces of water, may be used.
A hernial tumour [or rupture] has been
mistaken for an abscess : and, in consequence,
the blacksmith has plunged a lancet into the
gut, or inserted a rowel. This is a most un-
likely mistake for a veterinary surgeon to
make. The heat, the pain, the rigidity, and
the situation of an abscess, would be sutlcient
to distinguish it from a hernial swelling. If
there be met with a tumour without heat or
pain, very compressible, elastic, and situated
on the belly, the veterinary surgeon would
pronounce it a rupture, or hernia; and of
course would never dream of touching it with
the lancet. — Miller.

ABSORBENT SOILS. Such soils as im-
bibe water. See Earth, the use of, to vegeta-
tion.

ABSORBENTS. In veterinary medicine,
those drugs are termed absorbents that are
given internally for the purpose of neutralizing
any acid which forms in the stomach and
bowels, in consequence of impaired digestion.
Prepared chalk is generally used for this pur-
pose. Those medicines are likewise termed
absorbents which are applied externally for
absorbing moisture. Armenian bole, calamine,
flour, and the like, are employed in this way.
They are sometimes dusted between folds of
the skin when galled, and raw from friction,
blisters, or grease. They are likewise useful
in canker of the horse's foot, foul in the foot
of cattle, foot-rot in sheep, and sores between
the toes of dogs ; and they are beneficial in
some forms of mange, in staying bleeding,
and assisting the cure of a penetrated joint.

Absorbents. In veterinary physiology, a
class of vessels whose office it is to convey the
product of digestion, and the residue of nutri-
tion into the circulation, to be mixed with and
repair the waste of the blood. They are di-
vided into lacteals and lymphatics. The for-
mer are all situated in the cavity of the belly;
and by extremely minute mouths, opening on
the inner surface of the stomach and intes-
tines, they receive the nutritious portion of the
food, and carry it to a vessel which runs along
the left side of the spine, and which, in its
turn, empties itself into the left jugular vein.
The lymphatics are distributed over every
portion of the frame, at least over. every por-
tion that contains blood. Their different
branches are so minute and so numerous, that
a celebrated anatomist who attempted their
dissection, is said to have thrown down his
knife in despair, exclaiming, " that the body is
entirely composed of absorbents." The uses
of the 'lymphatics are, to remove the residue
of nutrition ; and when the supply of food is
deficient, to remove such portions of the body
as can be spared and converted into blood. It

11

ABSORPTION.

ABSORPTION.

is they Aat effect the removal of parts which
disappear without the action of external
agents. The lymphatics ultimately empty
their contents into the same vessel as the lac-
teals ; ^ and they follow, in their distribution
through the body, the same course as the
veins. In the horse they are liable to a dis-
ease termed farcy ; and in all animals they are
frequently inflamed in the neighbourhood of a
sore. The absorbents, both lacteals and lym-
phatics, are very delicate in their sides, nearly
transparent, have numerous valves which
compel their contents to flow only in one di-
rection ; and their larger trunks have numerous
glandular bodies on them. The use of these
glands is not well known ; but, from one or
two circumstances, it would appear that they
have to produce some change on the fluid
which passes through them before it is fit to
mingle with the blood.

ABSORPTION. An important process in
vegetable physiology. As plants are not fur-
nished with any individual organ similar to
the mouth of animals, how, it may be asked,
do they effect the introduction of food into
their bodies ; Is it by the general surface of
their stem, leaves, or roots, or by any peculiar
part of these 1 By whatever part it may enter,
it must, at any rate, pass through the covering
of the outer bark (epidermis), which the earlier
physiologists thought it could not do, but by
means of pores more or less visible. Yet
some of them describe the outer bark as being
so close and compact a texture, that the eye,
aided even by the best microscopes, was un-
able to discover in it the slightest vestige
either of pores or of apertures. But Hedwig
and De Candolle detected superficial pores in
the leaves, at least, of many plants ; and so
will any one else, who will be at the trouble
of repeating their observations with lenses of
similar powers.

The next difficulty was with regard to the
outer bark (epidermis) of the flower, fruit, and
root. No pores had been detected in the
flower and fruit, though it was evident that
they were refreshed and invigorated by the ac-
cess of moisture and of atmospheric air ; and
no pores had been detected in the root, though
it was evident that the whole of the nourish-
ment which the plant derives from the soil
must of necessity pass through the root. It
was also evident that no aliment could be
taken up by the plant, except in the state of a
liquid, or of a gass — that is, by absorption or
by inhalation, as the chyle is taken up into the
animal lacteals, or the air into the cells of the
lungs. The greediness with which plants ab-
sorb water was perceived and acknowledged
even in the earliest times, and even by men
who were not botanists. Anacreon, in one of
liis little trifles in honour of drinking, makes
the very trees of the forest drink :

'H yjj iii\aiva irivci,
* Tlivtv Si Sevdpe' airffv. Ode xix.

"vhe black earth drinks, and the trees drink it ;"

that is the moisture which it contains.

By merely immersing in water a plant of
almost any species of moss that has been
some time gathered, or long exposed to
12

drought, so as to have had its leaves shrivel-
led up, the moisture will immediately begin to
penetrate the plant, which will thereby resume
its original verdure; an experiment which
proves the fact of the entrance of moisture
into the plant through the outer bark (epider-
mis).

It might be doubted whether any of the
moisture thus imbibed had passed through the
root. But if the bulb of a hyacinth is placed on
the mouth of a glass bottle filled with water,
so as that the smaller roots (radicles) only
shall be immersed, the water is imperceptibly
exhausted, and the plant grows. The mois-
ture must, consequently, have passed through
the root. Plants seem, indeed, to be peculiarly
well adapted for the absorption of fluids by the
roots, from the infinite number of little absor-
bent fibulous sponges (spongiolae), in which
the fine fibres of the root terminate. It is
owing to this important property that the
scientific gardener, in the transplanting of his
young trees, or the scientific and ornamental
planter, ire the transplanting of his trees of
full growth, is so extremely careful to pre-
serve entire even the minutest fibres and ex-
tremities of the root. Sir Henry Steuart's
Planter's Guide has taught him the great im-
portance of these little organs.

Hales instituted a variety of experiments to
show the absorbing power of roots, and the
force with which it acted ; as did also Duha-
mel and Marriotte, to show the absorbent
power of leaves. But the most complete set
of experiments upon the absorbent power of
leaves is that of M. Bonnet, of Geneva, whose
main object was to ascertain whether the ap-
sorbing power of both surfaces of a leaf was
alike. With this view he placed a number of
leaves over water, so as that they only floated
on it, but where not immersed ; some with the
upper surface, and others with the under sur-
face, applied to the water. If the leaf retained
its verdure the longer with the upper surface
on the water, the absorbing power of the upper
surface was to be regarded as the greater ; but
if it retained its verdure the longer with the
under surface on the water, then the absorbing
power of the under surface was to be regarded
as the greater. Sohie leaves were found to re-
tain their verdure the longer when moistened
by the upper surface, and some when moist-
ened by the under surface ; and some were
indifferent to the mode in which they were ap-
plied to the water. But the inference deduci-
ble from the whole, and deduced accordingly
by Bonnet, was that the leaves of herbs absorb
moisture chiefly by the upper surface, and the
leaves of trees chiefly by the under surface.
What is the cause of this singular difference
between the absorbing surfaces of the leaf of
the herb, and of the tree 1 The physical cause
might be the existence of a greater, or of a
smaller number of pores, found in the leaves
of the herb and tree respectively. The chemi-
cal cause would be the peculiar degree of afli-
nity existing between the absorbing organs and
the fluid absorbed. Duhamel seems to have
been content to look to the physical cause,
merely regarding the lower surface of the leaf
of the tree as being endowed with the greater

ABSORPTION.

ABSORPTION.

capacity of absorbing moisture chiefly for the '
purpose of catching the ascending exhalations
which must necessarily come in contact with
it as they rise, but which might possibly have
escaped if absorbable only by the upper sur-
face, owing to the increased rapidity of their
ascent at an increased elevation ; and regard-
mg the upper surface of the leaf of the herb as
being endowed with the greater absorbing
power, owing to its low stature and the slow
ascent of exhalations near the earth. This did
not throw much light upon the subject ; and
the experiments were still deemed insufficient,
as not representing to us the actual pheno-
menon of vegetation, though the fact of the
absorption of moisture by the leaf is fully
confirmed.

If, after a long drought, a fog happens to
succeed before any rain falls, so as to moisten
the surface of the leaves, plants begin to re-
vive, and to resume their verdure long before
any moisture can have penetrated to their
roots. Hence it follows incontestibly, either
that moisture has been absorbed by the leaf, or
that exhalation has been suddenly stopped by
closing the pores of the leaf, or both. The ef-
ficacy of rain and of artificial waterings may
be accounted for partly on the same principle ;
for they have not always penetrated to the root
when they are found to have given freshness
to the plant by either or both of the processes
just alluded to. The moisture, then, that enters
the plant as an aliment, is taken up by means
of the pores; or, in default of visible pores,
merely by means of the absorbent power of the
outer bark {epidermis), not only of the root
and leaf, but often, as it is to be believed, of
the other parts of the plant also, at least when
they are in a soft and succulent state.

It is to the modern improvements in pneu-
matic chemistry, and to them alone, that we
are indebted for our knowledge of the real
functions of the leaves of plants, and of their
analogical resemblance to the lungs of animals,
it being now proved indisputably that the
leaves of plants not only contain air, but do
both inhale and respire it. It was the opinion
of Dr. Priestley that they inhale it chiefly by
the upper surface ; and it has been shown by
Saussure that their inhaling power depends
entirely upon the integrity of their organisa-
tion. A bough of Cactus Opuntia, detached
from the plant and placed in an atmosphere
of common air, inhaled in the course of a
night four cubic inches of oxygen ; but when
placed in a similar atmosphere, after being cut
to pieces and pounded in a mortar, no inhala-
tion took place. The inhalation of air, there-
fore, is no doubt eflected by the pores of the
outer bark (epidermis) of the leaf.

It is important to attend particularly to the
distinction pointed out above, that it is not the
whole of the root which is endowed with the
power of absorbing nourishment, but only the
points of the root fibres, termed spongelets.
The surface of the root whose outer bark has
acquired a certain consistence does not absorb
the moisture of the soil in contact with it; but
the roots, and also the smallest rootlets, con-
stantly lengthen at their extremities ; and these
extremities are composed of a fine cellular

tissue, compact, spongy, and the whole newly
developed, possessing in a high degree the
hygroscopical faculty proper to vegetable
tissue.

M. Carradori {DegU Organi Assorhenti) has
remarked that there is a slight absorption,
either by the surface of the roots, or by the
fugacious hairs with which the roots of young
plants are often furnished: but this effect
seems owing to general hygroscopicity; and
he himself agrees that this absorption is ex-
tremely feeble, especially in old and woody
roots, comparatively with that which takes
place at their extremities. These experiments,
however, are not made with such minute accu-
racy as to enable us to appreciate this com-
parison.

When we cut a branch of a tree and plunge
it into water, its woody tissue thus laid bare
quickly absorbs a quantity of water ; and in
this manner is the life of branches preserved
which are kept for ornamental purposes, but
this eflfect has a limit. The extremity which
has been cut and plunged in the water is not
renewed, as in the case of the root ; and is,
consequently, more or less quickly altered or
deteriorated by being in contact with the water.
We renew its action by cutting olf the rotting
extremity, and thus place a new and healthy
surface in contact with the liquid. The water
which in this manner penetrates into the
woody tissue of vegetables, preserves their ex-
istence, at least for a certain time, as if it en-
tered by the spongelets. This is the same
thing, we may rest assured, in these pheno-
mena, as is presented in the developement of
the cuttings of trees, which are also nourished
in general only through the water sucked up
by the surface of their denuded wood. These
means of nutrition are, however, accidental or
artificial ; and absorption is a natural opera-
tion by the spongelets in general, or by the
suckers in some vegetable parasites. M. Sen-
nebier observed that, if we divide a plant into
three parts, the roots as far as the crown, the
stem as far as the branches, and the leafy top,
then plunge the lower ends of these into water,
the whole three will pump up a certain quan-
tity, but the leafy parts more than the others.
This absorption particularly takes place at the
cut surface, where the woody parts are laid
bare.

A branch of raspberry put in water and ex
posed to the sun has absorbed a hundred and
fifty grains, but only imbibed eight grains when
the division has been covered over with wax.
It sucked up no more when, having the divided
part covered, it was plunged in the whole of its
length, than when only a short zone at the ex-
tremity was immersed. This proves that the
outer bark is impenetrable to water.

The woody portion, when laid bare, sucks
up moisture in every way ; that is to say, when
we cut a branch and place it in the water, it
sucks it up, either when put into it by the
upper or by the lower cut part. The habitual
or upright direction, however, appears to offer
certain facilities for this more than an inverse
one. This, indeed, results, first, from the ob-
servation of M. Pollini {Elem. di Bo/an., i. 281) ;
for the watery juices mount a little less high

B

13

ABSORPTION.

ABSORPTION.

in the branches placed in an inverse direc- i
tion ; secondly, from the observation of com-
mon gardeners, and of Mr. T. A. Knight, that,
in the cuttings made in an inverse manner, it
is more 'frequently only the lower buds which
are developed, and not the higher ones, as
happens in those made in a direct manner. It
is necessary, in order to render these experi-
ments comparative, that the horizontal cuttings
be made equal; and, as we were doubtful
whether this circumstance had been taken into
consideration, we made the following experi-
ment : — We placed two branches of willow in
water, the one in a direct manner, the other
inverted, and contrived in such a manner that
these two absorbing bodies were equal; but
the branch which was placed inverted pushed
its roots a little slower than the direct one.
(Mem. sur les Lentictlles, Ann. des Sc. Nat.., 1825,
Jan., pp. 18, 19.)

The wood tends not only to absorb the water
by its transverse section, but also lengthways.
Thus we placed in water (ibid., p. 4) a branch
of willow, the section of which was covered
with mastic, but which had the part immersed
denuded of the bark by taking off a cortical
ring of an inch in length. This branch pushed
its buds and roots in a manner similar to the
branches which are immersed by a transverse
section.

The hygrometrical power of wood is such
that when we expose it to the air it easily im-
bibes the surrounding moisture; and, when
preserved in shady places, it never dries of
itself. Count Rumford {Mem. sur le Buis et le
Charhon: 8vo, Paris, 1812) dried in an oven a
piece of wood taken from the interior of a
beam which had been placed for one hundred
and fifty years in a battlement, and observed
that it lost about ten per cent, of its own
weight ; and he thinks that this is the greatest
degree of natural desiccation which wood can
attain in our climate. An oak faggot, exposed
eighteen months in the air, and which might
be regarded as excellent wood for burning, lost
twenty-four per cent. The same experimenter
observed that, when chips of wood have been
well dried in a stove, on their exposure to the
open air they very freely imbibe water. If
these chips are placed for twenty-four hours in
a room, the extremes of this power of absorp-
tion have proved to be, on one side, the Lom-
bardy poplar, whose chips, five inches long by
six lines broad, have sucked up 0-87 grains ;
and, on the other, a billet of oak of the same
dimensions, which sucked up 1*40 grains.
"When the same chips were exposed for eight
successive days, it was found that they did not
increase in weight if the air had remained at
the .same temperature, but they lost in weight
if the air became more heated. This experi-
ment, then, proves that the absorption is rapid;
and that the equilibrium it attains will be
determined by the surrounding atmosphere,
certainly also by its own hygrometrical

ani cei

pojfer.

Tiies

lese necessary conditions of existence

have been effected by the organization of the

spongelets as organs of suction, and by the

nature of the water, which is abundantly dif-

14

fused over nature, and also impregnated with
their principal nourishment.

The nature of the action of the spongelets is
remarkable in this, that the choice which they
seem to make of the matter which they absorb
does not appear to be determined by the na-
tural wants of the plant, but the facility is less
or more influenced by the nature of the liquids.
Thrs, M.Theodore de Saussure {Rech. Chim.,
ch. 8) found, that if we place plants in water,
with which is mixed sugar, gum, or the like,
the spongelets will absorb a greater proportion
of water than of the materials which are dis-
solved in it; for the water which remained
after the experiment was more saturated than
before the roots were put into it. Again, if we
plunge the roots into different solutions, they
will absorb so much the more of these in pro-
portion to their fluidity, although at the same
time such solutions may be injurious to the
plant, and yet will they absorb a less propor-
tion of viscous matter, although this may con-
tain more nutritive materials. Thus, of blue
vitriol (sulphate of copper), the most hurtful
of the substances employed, they absorbed a
large quantity, but a very small quantity of the
gum, which is not injurious. When we placed
plants in solutions of gum, of different degrees
of thickness, we found that the quantity absorb-
ed was smaller in proportion as the solution
was more viscous. Sir H. Davy, also, observed
that plants perished in those solutions in which
there was a large quantity of sugar or gum ; and
prospered when the solutions had only a small
quantity of either. (Agricultural Chem.)

The effect of the viscosity is obviated when
we put the roots in water which holds organic
matters in suspension. Thus, the drainings
of dunghills, and impure waters, are taken up
by the roots in smaller quantities than pure
water. It should seem that these particles
have a tendency to obstruct the imperceptible
pores, passages, or cells of the spongelets. M.
Th. de Saussure remarks that analogous laws
may be observed in the case of liquids in
which different substances are dissolved, the
more fluid being absorbed in a greater quan-
tity than others. It would accordingly appear
that the roots exercise a kind of choice in the
soil ; but that the choice, far from being relative
to the wants of the plants, is a circumstance
purely mechanical.

On the other hand, M. Pollini, who has
repeated these experiments, found that of the
solutions of different substances in water, the
roots sucked up different quantities, without
any apparent regard to their viscosity. Thus
he constantly found, he says, that the roots
absorbed more of common salt, or of potass,
than of the acetate or of the nitrate of lime,
and more of sugar than of gum. He found, on
the other hand, that if he cut the extremity of a
root, the water which entered by the wound
contained indifferently all the salts which had
been dissolved in the water ; and the portion
which remained after absorption did not con-
tain more than before. O'^oggin di Osserv. e di
Sperienze sulla Veget. degli Albert : Verona,
1815.)

Another circumstance remarkable in the

ABSTERGENT REMEDIES.

ACACIA TREE.

experiments which we have hefore detailed is,
that the disorganized tissue of the spongelets
appears to give a much freer passage to the
juices than that which had been uninjured.
Thus plants can only live for two or three
days in a solution of blue vitriol {sulphate of
copper), of which they absorb a large quan-
tity ; while they will live eight or ten days in
a solution of gum, of which they absorb only a
very little. Branches cut and plunged in the
different solutions follow similar laws, and
absorb both water and its solutions.

It is very probable that the spongelets of dif-
ferent species of plants are not all organized
in a uniform manner, and that there are some
which more easily admit of certain substances ;
but microscopical observations are still far
from accounting for these differences, and the
facts drawn from culture are equally obscure
in directing our judgment upon the pK)int.

The manner in which plants of different
kinds exhaust the soil relatively to each other,
the general action of manures, the prodigious
number of different plants which we can cul-
tivate in the same patch of a garden, tend to
prove that the differences of absorption in
vegetables are of great importance. Instead
of the variety, however, of aliments which sus-
tain the life of animals, we find among vege-
tables a great uniformity of the substances
absorbed. The quantity of liquid absorbed at
different epochs of the life of plants, and under
the influence of different atmospherical cir-
cumstances, appear more intimately connected
with the ascent of the sap than with its suction.

Absorption varies according to the state
of the plants and the periods of their growth ;
going on more rapidly in proportion as the
leafing is rapid. At the time of flowering and
fruiting, also, more nourishment is absorbed
from the soil. We likewise know that absorp-
tion, as well as the progression of the fluids
absorbed, depends greatly on the influence of
heat and light; that it is most active in spring,
that it diminishes in autumn, and is reduced
almost to nothing, if it do not altogether cease,
in winter. — Miller.

ABSTERGENT REMEDIES, in farriery,
are those used for the purpose of resolving or
discussing tumours and concretions on the
joints and otlier parts of animals. They
mostly consist of volatile, stimulant, and sapo-
naceous matters.

ACACIA TREE (Robinia Pseud-Acacia Lin-
nseus). The Acacia tree is well known in
America, from which it was introduced by the
name of the Locust tree. It grows very rapidly
in the early stages of its progress ; so that in a
few years, from seeds, plants of eight and ten
feet high may be obtained. It is by no means
uncommon to see shoots of this tree eight or
ten feet high in one season. The branches
are furnished with very strong, crooked thorns ;
the leaves are winged with eight or ten pairs
of leaflets, egg-oblong, bright green, entire, and
without foot-stalks. The flowers come out
from the branches in pretty long bunches,
hanging down like those of the laburnum, or
the still more lovely Wistaria sinensis. Each
flower grows on a slender foot-stalk, smelling
very sweet. It is of a white colour, but there

is a rose-red variety. It blows in June ; and
when the tree is full of bloom makes a hand-
some appearance, and perfumes the whole air
around. The flowers are followed by seed-
pods, oblong, flat, having a longitudinal rib
next the seeding suture, on the outside of that
being drawn out into a membranous margin;
one-celled, and two-valved. The seeds are
sometimes as many as sixteen, kidney-shaped,
ending in a hooked beak, like a lens, and are
of a rusty colour.

In North America, where this tree grows to
a very large size indeed, the wood is mufeh
valued for its duration. Most of the houses
which were built at Boston in New England,
on the first settling of the English, were con-
structed of this wood ; and since then it has been
much used in America for various purposes.

The seeds of the Acacia tree were first
brought to Europe by M. Jean Robin, nursery-
man to the King of France, and author of a
"History of Plants." M. Robin brought the
first seeds from Canada; in consequence of
which, succeeding botanists have, in honour to
his name, termed the genus Robinia to which
the Acacia tree belongs. Soon after its intro-
duction into France, the English gardeners
received seeds from Virginia, from which
many trees were raised.

The wood, when green, is of a soft texture,
but becomes very hard when dry. It is as
durable as the best white oak of North Ame-
rica, and esteemed preferable for axletrees of
carriages, trenails for ships, and many other
important purposes. The turner finds the wood
of the Acacia hard and well suited to his pur-
pose, and is delighted with its smooth texture
and beautifully delicate straw colour. .

The tree, when aged, abounds with certain
excrescences or knots, which, Avhen polished,
are beautifully veined, and much esteemed by
the cabinet-maker. It makes excellent fuel,
and its shade is said to be less injurious than
that of any other tree ; while the leaves afford
wholesome food for cattle. A gentleman in
New England sowed several acres of it for
this purpose alone.

It has been employed with signal success in
Virginia for ship building, and is found to be
very superior to American oak, ash, elm, or
any other wood they use for that purpose. In
New York it has b^n found, alter repeated
trials, that posts for rail-fencing, made of the
Acacia tree, stand wet and dry near the ground
better than any other in common use, and will
last as long as those of swamp cedar.

The Acacia tree seems happily adapted to
ornamental planting. Whether as a single
tree upon the grass, feathering to the ground
line, or as a standard in the shrubbery, tower-
ing above a monotonous mass of sombre ever-
greens, the Acacia has great charms for us,
and may justly be called a graceful tree; and
although its light, loose, and pleasing foilage
admits the light, and seems to harmonize so
delightfully with the polished lawn, or the
highly cultivated shrubbery (and there is
hardly a shrubbery to be found without them),
yet we should like much to see the Acacia tree
planted in the woods everywhere, where forest
timber is an object of attention.

15

ACACIA TREE.

ACACIA TREE.

In France the Acacia tree appears to have
been more generally diffused throughout the
country than [in England] ; for it does not only
ornament their gardens, and shade their public
walks, but the sprightly foliage of this beauti-
ful tree shines through their woods and forests
in every direction ; so much so that it might
be taken for an indigenous inhabitant of the
soil.

In one of the Memoirs by the Agricultural
Society at Paris, the properties of this tree are
very highly extolled. Its shade, it is said, en-
courages the growth of grass. Its roots are
so tenacious of the soil, and shoot up such
groves of suckers, that when planted on the
banks of rivers it contributes exceedingly to
fix them as barriers to check the incursions
of the stream. Acacia stakes, too, are more
durable than any other known wood.

The choicest pieces only of the best oak
timber are applied to the purpose of trenail-
making in ship-building; and, as the Sussex
oaks are generally reckoned the best, most
shipwrights, even in the north, have them from
thence, and the demand for them is so great,
that trenail-making is there become a very
considerable manufacture. If it be proved
that the Acacia tree is equal to our best oak
for this important purpose in our naval archi-
tecture, then do we strongl)^ recommend (and
we write practically) to every landed proprie-
tor to plant the Acacia as a forest tree, more
especially as it will grow upon almost any
description of soil, but more particularly upon
sandy or gravelly shallow soils, where the oak
does not thrive.

In forty years the Acacia tree will grow
sixty feet high, and will girth six feet, three
feet from the ground; and, although brittle
in a young state, the characteristics of the
timber of a grown tree are toughness and
elasticity.

As a durable timber, it has been proved that
nothing can exceed the Acacia wood, when of
proper age. But there is one important use to
which these trees may be applied, which has
hitherto escaped the notice of the planter,
namely, hedges. From its rapidity of growth
it forms a fence capable of resistance in one-
fourth of the time of any other plant hitherto
used for that purpose. Had we to fence in a
whole estate, we should, 'in preference to all
others, plant Acacias. They bear clipping,
and may be raised to twenty or thirty feet high,
if required, and are so strong that no animal
can force through them. The only instance
of an Acacia hedge we know of, on the conti-
nent of Europe, is to be seen round part of the
boulevard of the city of Louvain. Plants for
this purpose should be taken from the nursery
lines four feet high. At every point where the
stems cross one another, a natural union or
grafting takes place, and, as the stems in-
crease in size, the spaces between will gradu-
ally decrease ; so that in the course of a few
yedjrs the fence becomes a complete wooden
wal not occupying a space more than twelve
or fifteen inches, forming a barrier that no
animal can force. Fences of this description
may either be made on the level ground, or
concealed from the distant view.
IG

It is difficult to account for the name com-
monly given to this tree by the Americans,
namely. Locust tree; for the Locust tree
(Hi/menaea Courbaril) is a native of South
America.

In the arboretum of the gardens of the Hor-
ticultural Society of London, there is a proof,
perhaps the very best proof that this country
affords, of the great rapidity of growth, and
also the beauty of this truly interesting and
highly valuable tree. About twelve years ago,
this aboretum was planted for the express pur-
pose of introducing the trees of all countries —
the research of enterprising men. The Acacia
was planted with the other individuals of this
very splendid collection, and the result has
been, that the Acacia has made greater pro-
gress than any of the oaks, the ash, tlie
elm, the maple, or, indeed, any of the hard-
wooded timber trees within the wall of the
gardens.

The Acacia trees, in their rapidity of growth,
are exceeded only by a few of the poplar and
willow tribes.

There is a singular character about the
suckers of this tree. They are rarely seen to
appear on the lawn, but in the shrubbery fre-
quently. They rise singly, not like the elm,
and other trees, in thick masses, choking one
another, but they start out of the ground at
once, with all the boldness and vigour of a
healthy shoot from a powerful stool ; and in a
sheltered situation will grow, the same year,
from twelve to fifteen feet long from the
ground ; and it is the more remarkable, that
these suckers grow in this vigorous way
immediately under the shade of the parent,
and other large trees. What is also very
singular, so strongly are they attached to
the root below the ground, at the insertion,
that they are very rarely from accident dis-
placed.

Mr. William Lindsey mentions a very strik-
ing instance of the astonishing rapidity of the
growth of this tree. He observed a strong
shoot make its appearance in one of the woods
at Chiswick, and he had the curiosity to see
what would be the result by applying a stake
to this sucker for protection. By the end of
the season, it was twenty ^ei high, and mea-
sured three inches in circumference. When
the full-grown old Acacia trees are felled, the
following year hundreds of suckers will start
up from the roots in all directions, and grow
as freely as if a fresh plantation had been
carefully made. So that, on the score of
economy, we know of no tree that can be
planted equal to the Acacia. As an under-
wood, it far exceeds any other tree in produce;
and for stakes, arbour-poles, hop-poles, and
for pale-fencing, there is no wood equal to the
Acacia. In America, the use of the Acacia
has been confined to trenails of ships, in con-
sequence of its scarcity. But were it, either
in that or this country, as plentiful as oak, it
would be applied for more purposes in naval
architecture, such as knees, floor-timbers, and
I foot-hooks, being far superior to oak for its
! strength and duration ; and from the tree ar-
riving much sooner at perfection, and spread-
I ing into so many branches, it affords full as

ACACIA TREE.

ACACIA TREE.

large a proportion of crooks and compass-
timber as the oak tree.

A cubic foot of Acacia, in a dry state,
weighs from forty-eight to fifty-three pounds'
weight. If wb compare its toughness, in an
unseasoned state, with that of oak, it will not
be more than 8-100 less. Its stiffness is equal
to 99-100 of oak ; and its strength nearly
96-100 ; but, if it were properly seasoned, it
might, possibly, be found much superior to oak
in strength, toughness, and stiffness. A piece
of Acacia, unseasoned, two feet six inches
long, and an inch square in the vertical sec-
tion, broke when loaded with a weight of two
hundred and forty-seven pounds avoirdupois.
Its medium cohesive force is about 11-500
pounds. {Dictionary of Architecture.)

We are not aware that this tree has added
in any shape to the list of medicines. The
Acacia of the shops was formerly made from
the unripe pods of the true Acacia tree ; but
of later years, the Acacia Germanica of the
shops is made from unripe sloes, and is pre-
ferred as an astringent medicine to the true
Acacia.

The Acacia is easily propagated from seeds
or suckers. (Mil/fr.)

[The following highly interesting account of
this tree, and the mode of cultivating it in the
United States, is given by Dr. S. Ackerly.

"The cultivation of the locust tree, on Long
Island, and in other parts of the state of New
York, has been attended to with considerable
profit to the agricultural interest, but not with
that earnestness which the importance of the
subject demands. This may have arisen
from the diflficulty of propagating it by trans-
planting, or not understanding how to raise it
from the seed.

• • • • •

" The locust is a tree of quick growth, the
wood of which is hard, durable, and princi-
pally used in ship-building. To a country situ-
ated like the United States, with an extensive
line of sea-coast, penetrated by numerous bays,
and giving rise to many great rivers, whose
banks are covered with forests of extraordi-
nary growth, whose soil is fertile, rich, and
variegated, and whose climate is agreeably di-
versified by a gradation of temperature; to
such a country, inhabited by an industrious
and enterprising people, commerce, both fo-
reign and domestic, must constitute one of the
principal employments. As long as the coun-
try possesses the necessary timber for ship-
building, and the other advantages which our
situation affords, the government will continue
to be formidable to all other powers. We have
within ourselves four materials necessary for
the completion of strong and durable naval
structures. These are the live-oak, locust, cedar,
and pine, which can be abundantly supplied.
The former is best for the lower timbers of a
ship, while the locust and cedar form the upper
works of the frame. The pine supplies the
timber for decks, masts, and spars. A vessel
built of live-oak, locust, and cedar, will last
longer than if constructed of any other wood.
Naval architecture has arrived in this place
and other parts of the United States, to as great
perfection, perhaps, as in any other country on
3

the globe. Our ' fir-built frigates' have been
compared with the British oak, and stood the
test ; and in sailing, nothing has equalled the
fleetness of some of our sharp vessels. The pre-
servation and cultivation of these necessary
articles in ship-building, is a matter of serious
consideration. It might not be amiss to sug-
gest to the Congress of the United States to
prohibit the exportation of them. The pine
forests appear almost inexhaustible, and they
will be so in all probability for many genera-
tions to come ; but the stately cedars of Mobile,
and the lofty forests of Georgia, where the live-
oak is of a sturdy growth, begin to disappear
before the axe of the woodsman. The locust,
a native of Virginia and Maryland, is in such
demand for foreign and domestic consumption,
that it is called for before it can attain its full
growth. It has been cultivated as far eastward
as Rhode Island, but begins to depreciate in
quality in that state. Insects attack it there,
which are not so plentifully found in this state,
or its native situations. These give the timber
a worm-eaten appearance, and render it less
useful. The locust has been extensively raised
in the southern parts of the state of New York,
but the call for it has been so great, that few
trees have attained any size before they were
wanted for use. Hence they are in great de-
mand, and of ready sale, and no ground can
be appropriated for any kind of timber with so
much advantage as locust. Besides its appli-
cation to ship-building, it is extensively used
for fencing ; and for posts, no timber will last
longer, in or out of the ground. On Long
Island, where wood is scarce and fencing tim-
ber in great demand, the locust becomes of
much local importance from this circumstance
alone, independent of its great consumption in
this city among the ship-builders. In naval
structures it is not exclusively applied to the
interior or frame. In many places where
strength is wanting, locust timber will bear a
strain which would break oak of the same
size. Thus an oak tiller has been known to
break near the head of the rudder in a gale of
wind, which has never happened with a locust
one. Tillers for large sea vessels are now
uniformly made of locust in New York. It is
the best timber also for pins or trenails
(commonly called trunnels), and preferable to
the best of oak. The tree generally grows
straight with few or no large limbs, and the
fibres of the wood are straight and parallel,
which makes it split well for making trenails,
with little or no loss of substance. These are
made in considerable quantities for exportation.
" The locust tree does not bear transplanting
well in this part of our country, but this in all
probability arises from the custom of cutting
off the roots, when taken up for that purpose.
Most of the roots of the locust are long, cylin-
drical, and run horizontally not far under the
surface. In transplanting, so few of the roots
are left to the body of the tree removed, that
little or no support is given to the top, and it
consequently dies. If care was taken not to
destroy so much of the roots, a much larger
proportion of those transplanted would live
and thrive. So great has been the difficulty in
raising the locust in this way, that another
b2 17

ACACIA TREE.

ACANTHUS.

method of propagating it, has been generally-
resorted to. Whenever a large tree was cut
down for use, the ground for some distance
around was ploughed, by which operation the
roots near the surface were broken and forced
up. From these roots suckers wouid shoot up,
and the ground soon become covered with a
grove of young trees. These, if protected
from cattle, by being fenced in, would grow
most rapidly, and the roots continuing to ex-
tend, new shoots would arise, and in the course
of a few years, a thrifty young forest of locust
trees be produced. The leaves of the locust
are so agreeable to horses and cattle, that
the young trees must be protected from their
approach. When growing in groves they shoot
up straight and slender, as if striving to out-
top each other, to receive the most benefit from
the rays of a genial sun.

"Another dirficulty has arisen in propagating
the locust, from inability to raise it from the
seed. The seed does not always come to per-
fection in this part of the state of New York,
and if it does, it will not sprout, unless pre-
pared before planting. The method best
adapted to this purpose was proposed by Dr.
Samuel Bard ; but it is not generally known,
or if known, is not usually attended to. When
this shall be well understood and.practised, the
locust will be easily propagated, and then, in-
stead of raising groves of them, the waste
ground along fences, and places where the
Lombardy poplar encumbers the earth, will be
selected to transplant them, as, by having them
separated and single, there will be an economy
in using the soil, the trees will grow much
better, and the timber be stronger.

"Doctor Bard's method of preparing the seeds
was to pour boiling water on them, and let it
stand and cool. The hard outer coat would
thus be softened, and if the seed swelled by
this operation, it might be planted, and would
soon come up. This has been followed with
success in Long Island ; and on a late visit to
North Hempsted, I was led to admire Judge
Mitchell's nursery of young locusi trees, plant-
ed in the spring.

*' The judge took a quantity of seed collected
on this island, and put it in an earthen pitcher,
and poured upon it water near to boiling. This
he let stand for twenty-four hours, and then
decanted it, and selected all the seeds that were
any ways swelled by this application of heat
and moisture. To the remainder he made a
second libation of hot water, and let it remain
also twenty-four hours, and then made a second
selection of the swelled seeds. This was re-
peated a third time on the unchanged ones, when
nearly all were swelled, and then he prepared
the ground and planted them. He planted the
seeds in drills about four feet apart, and in
eight or ten days they were all above ground,
and came up as regular as beans, or any other
seeds that are cultivated in gardens. When I
saw them, the middle of July, they were about
a "Ibot high, all thrifty and of a good colour
ana condition.

"It is the judge's intention to leave them in
iheir present situation about three years, and
then transplant ; and provided he does not mu-
tilate the roots in removing them, they will
18

bear transplanting, live, and thrive, and be the
most productive forest tree that a farm can
have. This method of preparing the seeds
and planting the locust, cannot be too warmly
recommended to the farming interest. On
Long Island, where fencing timber is growing
scarce, the cultivation of the locust tree is of
great moment. In the centre of the island, on
and about Hempsted plains, where there is no
timber at all, it must be a most valuable acqui-
sition ; and from the trials made in raising it
from the seed, all difficulty must be removed
to its extensive cultivation."

After this account was written. Judge Mit-
chell transplanted the young trees referred to,
on a side hill of waste ground which had lain
for many years uncultivated, and his farm was
soon improved by the addition of a large grove
of valuable locust trees, in the most thrifty con-
dition.

When planted out from the nursery, the
young trees must be protected from cattle,
which are fond of the young buds.

Professor Henshaw lately made some expe-
riments, with the view of determining how far
the vitality of the seeds of the locust acacia
was impaired by heat. He put some of these
seeds into boiling water ; others he actually
boiled 1^, 3, 6, and even 15 minutes ; he plant-
ed them afterwards in the earth, and they all
sprouted and grew in half the time that seeds
did which had not been boiled or soaked.]

ACACIA. The Rose Acacia (Lat. Robinia
hispida). This graceful shrub is a native of
North America. It grows twenty feet high,
when the soil and situation agrees with it, and
its beautiful rose-coloured drooping flowers
bloom in June. It often blows again in July
and August. Its branches are covered with
prickles till they are two years old, when they
fall off. This gives it the appellation of hispida,
or hairy. It loves a good soil, and is very
hardy. The flowers bloom on the wood of the
same year; therefore the plants should be
shortened every season, unless they are planted
in a shrubbery, in which case cut away only
the dead wood. The smooth tree Acacia (Lat.
Mimosa Julibrissin) is a green-house shrub,
and a native of the Levant, but it succeeds in
the open ground if carefully sheltered from
frost and cold wind. It loves a fresh, light
mould, and blows its beautiful rose-coloured
flowers in August. It is multiplied by layers.
The Sponge tree Acacia (Lat. Mimosa fumesiana)
is also a green-house shrub ; but it will thrive
in the open air if very carefully protected. It
comes originally from St. Domingo, and in
August it throws out a small head of sweet-
scented yellow flowers. It loves a good rich
soil, with a sheltered south aspect. It is raised
by seed, and multiplied by layers. (L. Johm^on.)

ACANTHA. The prickle of thorny plants.

ACANTHIS. The plant called groundsel.

ACANTHUS (Lat.). The name of the herb
bear's breech, remarkable for being the model
of the foliage on the Corinthian capital. Mil-
ton, in his Paradise Lost, iv. 696, speaks of it,

" On either side
Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub.
Fenced up the verdant wail."

Todd's Johnson.

ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS.

ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS.

In modern botany, Acanthus is a genus of
herbaceous plants found in the South of;
Europe, Asia Minor, and India, belonging to
the natural order Acanthnceae.

ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS. This term
has been applied to the act of accustoming
plants to support a temperature or a climate
different from that in which they are found
originally growing. This differs from natu-
ralization, which is the act of transporting or
transferring a plant into a country different
from its native place of growth. Nobody can
deny the possibility of these naturalizations ;
but there are some doubts upon the acclima-
tions of plants, doubts which have been corro-
borated by M. Schubler (Linnxa, 1829, p. 16) ;
and it renders this important question the more
deserving of examination, that the facts which
are reported are complex and somewhat con-
tradictory.

On the one hand, we see wild plants appear
fixed within the same climate from the epoch
of which we have any knowledge, and culti-
vated trees, such as the olive, that have for
many centuries kept within the same limit.

On the other hand, we see certain trees,
such as the horse-chestnut, which, although
originally from the tropics, have reached as
far north as Sweden. We see that in garden-
ing, the Aucubajapanica and the Pxonia Montan,
after having been cultivated in the hothouse,
have passed into the greenhouse, and now flou-
rish in the open air. But before we infer from
these facts the possibility of acclimation, it
will be necessary to analyze them more fully.

Taking the instance of a plant which may
have been placed at the first in the hothouse,
and afterwards cultivated in the open ground,
what are we to conclude, but that, while igno-
rant of its nature, and while its rarity rendered
it more precious, we were unwilling to run the
risk of losing it. There is not a gardener, or
one who has had the management of a botanic
garden, who has not made such calculation a
hundred times, and who, doubtful of success,
has been led to follow this prudent course with
a multitude of plants. Those plants which are
received from tropical countries are usually
thus treated, on the supposition that they par-
take of the general nature of plants brought
from those countries ; and we afterwards try,
by groping in the dark, those which form ex-
ceptions to the general law. We thus succeed
in naturalizing some of them ; but this does not
yet prove that they have been acclimated, for
they have not been exposed on their arrival in
the climate they were afterwards seen to sup-
port. Even had this been done, the experiment
would have been frequently doubtful ; for when
plants arrive in Europe they are for the most
part weak, and too young to try the experiment
with ; while every one knows that young
plants, such as those of the bead tree and the
silk tree, will thrive in a temperate climate in
their adult age, if they are very vigorous when
planted, but which are easily destroyed by the
frost when young.

An exact knowledge of the manner of living
of each species tends to explain some of the
illusions which we are apt to fall into on this
subject Thus^when a plant newly arrived in

Europe, and consequently little known, is cul-
tivated in the open ground, it often happens
that it is placed in a soil or a position contrary
to its nature, that it is watered too much or too
little, and that it is pruned unseasonably, and
the like ; it consequently perishes without the
temperature of the climate being to blame.
Some years afterwards its nature becomes
better known, and the management which it re-
quires ; it is planted anew in the open ground,
is properly cultivated, and it succeeds, and we
then say it is acclimated, while it is simply
naturalized.

The greater number of cultivators think
that plants produced from seeds collected in
the same country are much stronger than those
produced from foreign seeds, and make this an
argument to prove the doctrine of acclima-
tion. Sir Joseph Banks (Trans. Hort. Sue. i.
21), in particular, adduces in favour of this
opinion the culture of Zizania aquatica, esta-
blished by him at Spring Grove ; but he also
relates that the first seeds collected in England
produced delicate plants, and the second strong
plants, so that this example proves as much
against as in favour of the theory. Dr. Mac-
culloch, also {Journ. of Science, 1825, p. 20 ;
Feruss. Bull., Sc. Agr., ix. p. 262), in his Essay
on the Island of Guernsey, strongly doubts this
pretended superiority of plants coming from
seeds. We will not stop to notice that this
opinion is in opposition to the very generally
received idea, that the changing of seeds is
useful. We do not think it less probable that
those seeds taken from trees supposed to be
languishing, in consequence of not being yet
properly acclimated, produce young plants
much stronger than those which are taken
from trees more healthy, and growing in their
natal soil. We will not discuss that which
certain cultivators, such as M. J. Street {Trans.
Hort. Soc, viii. 1 ; Ferussac, Bull., Agr.), assert,
that the individual plants coming from cuttings
are much stronger than those coming from
seeds; but we will ask whether this experi-
ment has been made with any degree of cer-
tainty, that is to say, in a comparative manner ;
and when the fact is so, that native seeds have
had better success, whether this may not have
arisen from the circumstance that certain sorts
of seeds do not succeed well when they are not
sown immediately after maturity, as in the case
of the coffee plant, or perhaps from their being
a greater number of seeds to dispose of, and
more of them sown 1 In fine, supposing that
experiments are in accordance with the ad-
mitted opinion, does this prove any thing more
than that a tree which produces good seed is
of a nature to accommodate itself to the soil;
and is not this rather a proof of naturalization
than of acclimation'? Let us see if there
exist any clearer proofs of the reality of accli-
mation.

One of the principal results of culture is the
formation of varieties which otherwise would
have no existence in nature, and which have
different degrees of susceptibility according to
the temperature. We know that these varie-
ties, in many instances, are much more delicate
than the wild species. We may instance the
varieties of double flowers, which are less

19

ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS.

ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS.

hardy than those of single varieties of the
same species ; varieties of white flowers, which
are generally less hardy than red or yellow
varieties ; and the varieties of the oleander,
with double rose-red flowers, and with single
white flowers, are often killed by the frost,
while the common oleander, with single rose-
red flowers, may stand the winter.

It is, however, those species produced by
culture, and chiefly by hybridizing, which are
of a more hardy nature than the wild species.
Now we xjonceive that the choice of these va-
rieties affords the means of introducing certain
sorts into climates where the original species
could not have succeeded. This effect is
most apparent in such varieties as have under-
gone some change in the season of vegetation :
thus the late variety of the walnut tree, w^hich
we call St. John's walnut, will thrive in those
localities where the frosts are felt late in the
spring, and where the common M'^alnut tree is
soon killed by the cold. Thus the very early
varieties of the vine will bear fruit in certain
climates, where either from there being little
heat, or from the rapid approach of autumnal
frosts, other varieties would not succeed.

There exists, in many species of plants, the
remarkable phenomenon of certain individuals
being more early or more late than others, with-
out our being able to attribute the circum-
stance to the influence of locality ; while, at
the same time, we cannot perceive any sen-
sible difference in the organization. Now, by
carefully collecting the seeds, or the layers, or
the tubercles, or grafts, of such early and late
varieties, we obtain artificially such agricul-
tural sorts or varieties as present certain use-
ful qualities, and such, in particular, as will
thrive in climates where the original species
would not succeed. For example, by gather-
ing the tubers of such potatoes as ripen first,
and by repeating the same, many times in suc-
cession, we may by this means obtain a va-
riety which will ripen in three months. To
us, such a variety is of no more advantage
than in giving us an early vegetable ; but if
cultivated in climates farther north, it might
introduce the useful culture of the potato in
places where this was previously unknown.
Attentive observation of such species and va-
rieties may furnish means of advancing the
culture of certain vegetables beyond their ordi-
nary limits. For example, if the varieties of
the olive brought from the Crimea, which ap-
pear less affected with cold than European
varieties, should come to be introduced on the
shores of the Mediterranean ; or if they should
propagate extensively the variety called Cailiou
in Provence, we might be led to conclude that
the olive is accustomed to a greater degree of
cold, although there might only be the substi-
tution of a hardier sort for a more delicate
one.

In fine, although we are not authorized to
observe that the vegetable tissue cannot, by
thei^ects of habit, accustoni itself to a differ-
ent \«mperature than that of its native climate ;
and although we are disposed to recognise, in ,
many cases, this influence of habit, yet the |
preceding facts seem to lead to the following !
inferences : 1. That if certain species of vege- 1
30

] tables are susceptible of being acclimated, this
occurs within very narrow limits ; and we fre-
quently exaggerate these limits by confounding
acclimation with naturalization. 2. That the •
cases in which acclimation appears to take
place in reality, chiefly, if not exclusively,
comprise species where there is a formation
of new varieties, or where we have managed
to change the season of the vegetation of
plants, as arising from periodicity. 3. That
practical results, almost as important as those
of acclimation, more properly so called, are
obtained by ably following up certain pro-
cesses of culture. (Miller's Dictionary.)

[A sensible and eloquent writer in the
American Journal of Geology, has, in a paper
upon the " Acclimating Principle of Plants,"
treated the subject in a highly interesting
manner, and illustrated it by referring to many
instances where plants have actually adapted
their growth and habits to a great extent of
country, and diversity of latitude. His views,
it will be seen, are not in exact accordance
with those contained in the preceding article
upon a similar topic. They are, however, cal-
culated to be particularly interesting in the
meridian of the United States.

"Plants," observes the writer referred to,
" have directly no locomotive powers, but indi'
recfly, they have in a great degree the faculty
of changing their places, and, consequently,
their climate. The embryo germ wrapped in
a kernel, or seed, is virtually a plant, ready to
germinate when thrown upon its parent earth,
and affected with heat and moisture. It is in
a most portable shapfe, and can be transported
Avith ease to an unlimited distance. Nature in
many instances superadds to seeds, wings,
down, feathers, and chaff', by which they be-
come buoyant, and are carried by the winds
of heaven, by the storms that sweep the forest,
and by the streams, and currents of rivers, and
the ocean, to an immense distance, and
through many degrees of latitude ! They be-
come finally deposited in some genial soil, and
at one remove, or through a succession, they
occupy extensive regions. Nature manifests
her great care of the embryo, by coating some
of her seeds with shells, which protect them
from the attacks of insects, and the action of
the elements ; others have bitter, narcotic, or
poisonous qualities, which forbid animals eat-
ing them ; and many are filled with oily, or
resinous matter, which resists, for ages, and
even centuries, the action of the elements, un-
less acted, upon by the proper degree of heat
and moisture. By such qualities they endure,
and await a suitable time and conveyance to
their destined place, in order to extend and
vary their families.

Birds also convey the seeds of plants in
their crops over a wide extent, before they be-
come triturated and digested ; and when these
winged carriers die, or decay, from accident
or age, the seeds are deposited, and take root
in some distant land. Animals also convey
them in their stomachs to a considerable dis-
tance, and pass them uninjured by the powers
of digestion.

Man, more provident than all, to whom
plants are necessary, whose support, whose

ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS.

ACCLIMATION OF PLANTS.

comforts, and whose pleasures connect him
with them, carries their choice seeds, slips,
and scions, far and wide. His interests foster
their growth, his attentions enrich their pro-
ducts, and his skill and science preserve their
existence, and adapt them to their new condi-
tion. In an improved community, man's
wants multiply ; he has occasion for the more
varied and rich fruits ; more abundant and
luxurious clothing, and furniture of vegetable
growth; odours to regale his senses, vegetable
flavours to pamper his appetites, and all the
medicinal plants to heal his various diseases,
and invigorate his shattered constitution. He
attaches himself to agriculture and horticul-
ture : plants become his companions ; he car-
ries a creative resource into those departments,
and by his attentions, forms new varieties and
excellences, unknown to the wild state of
vegetable existence. Such are the means na-
ture has provided for the propagation and
extension of plants ; such are the indirect
locomotive powers they possess. We must
no longer, therefore, consider vegetables such
inert and sluggish beings.

Human care, and the providences of nature,
have given to many plants a great extent of
climate and latitude, an enlarged growth, and
an increased and improved product. Let us
bring together such instances as are within the
knowledge of all, and which ought to stimulate
our cultivators to greater efforts.

The valley of the Euphrates was doubtless
the native region of all those tine and delicious
fruits which enrich our orchards, and enter so
largely into the luxury of living. We thence
derived all the succulent and nutritious vege-
tables that go so far to support life ; and even
the farinaceous grains appertain to the same
region. The cereal productions began in that
same valley to be the staff of life.

Our corn, our fruit, our vegetables, our
roots, and oil, have all travelled with man
from Mesopotamia up to latitude 60**, and even
farther, in favourable situations. The cares
of man have made up for the want of climate,
and his cultivation atoned for this alienation
from their native spot. The Scandinavians
of Europe, the Canadians of North America,
and the Samoides of Asia, are now enjoying
plants which care and cultivation have natu-
ralized in their bleak climes. Melons and
peaches, with many of the more tender
plants and fruits, once almost tropical, have
reached the 45th degree of latitude in perfec-
tion, and are found even in 50°. Rice has
travelled from the tropics to 36°, and that of
North Carolina now promises to be better than
that of more southern countries. The grape
has reached 60°, and produces good wine and
fruit in Hungary and Germany. The orange,
lemon, and sugar-cane, strictly tropical, grow
well in Florida, and up to 31^°, in Louisiana,
and the fruit of the former much larger and
better than under the equator.

Annual plants grown for roots and vegeta-
bles, and grain, go still farther north in pro-
portion, than the trees and shrubs, because
their whole growth is matured in one summer;
and we know that the developeraent of vegeta-
tion is much quicker when spring does open

I in countries far to the north, than in the tro-
I pics. In Lapland and on Hudson's Bay, the
: full leaf is unfolded in one or two weeks,
j when spring begins, although it requires six
! or eight weeks in the south. Nature makes
I up in despatch for the want of length in her
seasons, and this enables us to cultivate the
annual plants very far to the north, in full per-
fection. The beans, pumpkins, potatoes, peas,
cabbages, lettuce, celery, beets, turnips, and
thousands of others, seem to disregard climate,
and grow in any region or latitude where man
plants and cherishes them. The fig is becom-
ing common in France ; the banana, pine-
apple, and many other plants, have crossed the
line of the tropics, and thousands of the plants
valuable for food, clothing, and medicine, and
such as are cultivated for their beauty, fra-
grance, or timber, are extending their climates,
and promise much comfort and resource to
man. Plants lately introduced, whose cultiva-
tion has not run through many ages or years,
have acquired but little latitude in their growth,
and show but little capacity to bear various
climates, because time has not yet habituated
them to such changes, and human cares have
not imparted to them new habits and new
powers.

Nothing can be effected by suddenness in
acelimuiing plants; too quick a. transition
would shock them ; it must be a very gradual
process, embracing many years, and many
removals. The complete success that has at-
tended the plants first named, the earliest com-
panions of man, proves this. In the more
recent plants, success is exactly in proportion
to the length of time that a plant has been in
a train of experimental culture.

The most striking method of testing the
effect of climate on plants, is to carry suddenly
back to the south, such as have been extended
far, and become habituated to a northern cli-
mate. Such plants have so much vigour, and
the habit of a quick and rapid growth so firmly
fixed on them, by a long residence in the north,
that when suddenly taken to the south, al-
though the season be long and ample, they
continue, from habit, to grow and mature
quick, and obtain the name of rare-ripe ; be-
cause they do not take half of the time to
mature, that those of the same family require,
which have never been so changed. Garden-
ers give us early corn, peas, fruit, and turnips,
by getting seed from places far to the north ;
and cotton growers renew the vigour of the
plant by getting the most northern seed. This
practice is common in the case of most plants,
and is founded on the supposition that plants
do, and can acquire habits.

The fact supported in the first number of the
American Journal of Geology and Natural
Science, "that plants are most productive near
the northern limit in which they will grow,"
that they bear more seed or fruit, and have
more vigour of constitution, offers much en-
couragement to agriculturists. This proveb
that it is not a meager, stinted existence, de-
void of profit or productiveness, that we give
to plants, by pushing their cyilture far north,
but a strong and healthful grow^th, one that
repays the labour and attention, by a greater

21

ACER.

Acros.

product than belongs to more southern situ-
ations.

Every view that we can take of this
interesting subject, every fact within our
knowledge, whether drawn from the actual
state' of cultivation, or from physiological in-
vestigations into the habits, nature, and con-
struction of plants, goes to show that plants
do become acclimated, both in the natural and
artificial way, to a great extent. Enough has
been witnessed to prove that plants have a phy-
sical conformation, that does accommodate
itself to circumstances, and have capacities
more extensive than are generally ascribed to
them : enough has been realized to encourage
farther efforts, and to give us hopes of much
future benefit."

As allied to this subject see Climate^ influ-
ence of, on the Fruiffulness of Plants.]

Accounts, Farm. See Farm accouhtts.

ACER. The Roman name for a genus of
trees, comprehending different species of the
large deciduous kind, as the sycamore, &c.
See Maple Tree.

ACETIC ACID, and ACETUM, terms em-
ployed to signify Vinegar, which see.

ACETOSA. See Sorhei,.

ACHILLEA. A genus of plants consisting
of sixty or seventy species, found exclusively
in the colder climates of the northern hemis-
phere. They are all herbaceous, perennial
weeds of little importance, except to botanists,
and are only seen in cultivation in the collec-
tions of the curious.

ACIDS (Lat. acetum ; Goth, aceit ,- Sax.
aeceTs). Liquids and other substances are
called acids, which commonly, but not always,
affect the taste in a sharp, piercing, and pecu-
liar manner. The common way of trying
whether any particular liquor hath in it any
acid particles is by mixing it with syrup of
[blue] violets, when it will turn of a red colour ;
but if it contains alkaline or lixivial particles,
it changes that syrup green. [The blue liquor
obtained by steeping purple cabbage leaves in
hot water, is also a convenient test liquor for
acids as well as alkalies.] They combine
with various earths, alkalies, and metallic ox-
ides, and form the peculiar class of bodies
called salts. {Todd's Johnson.)

[In agricultural chemistry, the acids are di-
vided into the inorganic and organic. The first
kind, or inorganic, are derived from sources
wholly mineral. The second kind, or organic,
are derived from animal or vegetable orga-
nized substances. The sulphuric acid, or oil
of vitriol, is one example of a mineral or in-
organic acid. It exists abundantly in nature,
combined with mineral bases, as in plaster of
Paris, where it is combined with lime, forming
the sulphate of lime, or gypsum. Muriatic
acid is another very abundant inorganic or mi-
neral acid, and abounds in sea-salt, combined
with soda, forming the muriate of soda or com-
mon salt. Nitric acd, or aquafortis, is another
of Jjbis class of acids, existing abundantly in
the well known substance called saltpetre, or
mtraite of potash. These three constitute the
principal inorganic or mineral acids.

As all vegetables contain acids, these may
be regarded as essential to their life. But these
22

acids do not always exist in a free state, being
generally combined with some of the alkalies or
alkaline substances, such as potash, soda, lime,
and magnesia. "These bases evidently regulate
the formation of the acids, for the diminution of
the one is followed by a decrease of the other ;
thus, in the grape, for example, the quantity of
potash contained in its juice is less, when it
is ripe, than when unripe ; and the acids, under
the same circumstances, are found to vary in a
similar manner. Such constituents exist in
sihall quantity in those parts of a plant in
which the process of assimilation is most ac-
tive, as in the mass of woody fibre ; and their
quantity is greater in those organs whose of-
fice it is to prepare substances conveyed to
them for assimilation by other parts. The
leaves contain more inorganic matters than
the branches, and the branches more than the
stem. The potato plant contains more potash
before blossoming than after it.

" Now, as we know the capacity of saturation
of organic acids to be unchanging, it follows
that the quantity of the bases united with them
cannot vary, and for this reason the latter sub-
stances ought to be considered with the strict-
est attention both by the agriculturist and
physiologist.

"We have no reason to believe that a plant in
a condition of free and unimpeded growth pro-
duces more of its peculiar acids than it re-
quires for its own existence ; hence, a plant,
on whatever soil it grows, must contain an in-
variable quantity of alkaline bases. Culture
alone will be able to cause a deviation.

"In order to understand this subject clearly,
it will be necessary to bear in mind, that any
one of the alkaline bases may be substituted
for another, the action of all being the same.
Our conclusion is, therefore, by no means en-
dangered by the existence of a particular al-
kali in one plant, which maybe absent in others
of the same species. If this inference be cor-
rect, the absent alkali or earth must |)e sup-
plied by one similar in its mode of action, or
in other words, by an equivalent of another
base.

"Of course, this argument refers only to those
alkaline bases, which, in the form of organic
salts, form constituents of the plants. Now,
those salts are preserved in the ashes of plants,
as carbonates, the quantity of which can be
easily ascertained.

" From these considerations wemustperceive,
that exact and trustworthy examination of the
ashes of plants of the same kind growing upon
different soils would be of the greatest import-
ance to vegetable physiology, and would decide,
whether the facts above mentioned are the re-
sults of an unchanging law for each family of
plants, and whether an invariable number can
be found to express the quantity of oxygen
which each species of plant contains in the
bases united with organic acids. In all proba-
bility, such inquiries will lead to most import-
ant results ; for it is clear, that if the produc-
tion of a certain unchanging quantity of an
organic acid is required by the peculiar nature
of the organs of a plant, and is necessary to
its existence, then potash or lime must be ta-
ken up by it, in order to form salts with this acid

ACIDS.

ACIDS.

that if these do not exist in sufficient quantity
in the soil, other bases must supply their place ;
and that the progress of a plant must be wholly
arrested when none are present.

" Seeds of the Suliola Kali, wlien sown in
common garden soil, produce a plant contain-
ing both potash and soda; while the plants
grown from the seeds of this contain only salts
of potash, with mere traces of muriate of soda.
(Cadef.)

"The existence of vegetable alkalies in com-
bination with organic acids gives great weight
to the opinion, that alkaline bases in general
are connected with the developement of plants.

" If potatoes are grown where they are not
supplied with earth, the magazine of inorganic
bases, (in cellars for example,) a true alkali,
called Solanin, of very poisonous nature, is
formed in the sprouts which extend towards
the light, while not the smallest trace of such
a substance can be discovered in the roots,
herbs, blossoms, or fruits of potatoes grown in
fields. (Otto.)

" When roots find their more appropriate
base in sufficient quantity, they will take up
less of another." — {Liebig's Organic Chem.)]

Vegetable acids abound in most plants ; thus,
the Acetic acid (vinefrar)- is found in the chick
pea {Cicer arietinum), in the elderberry (&i>7i-
bucus nigra), in the date palm tree {Phcenix
dactyitfera), and in numerous others.

The Oxalic acid is found combined with
potash in the Oxalis Acetnsel/a, or wood-sorrel
(whence its name), and many other plants ;
united with lime, it is detected in the root of
the rhubarb, in parsley, fennel, soapwort,
squills, &c.; and in an uncombined state in
the liquid which exudes from the Cicer arieti-
num, [chick pea, or Spanish GarbamaJ]

Tartaric Acid [or Cremor tartar] is com-
monly procured from tartar or tartrate of pot*
ash (whence its name). It has been detected
in many plants, such as in grapes, tamarinds,
bilberries, white mulberries, the Scotch fir,
couch grass, dandelion, &c. &c.

Citric Acid has been found in oranges and
lemons, cranberries, red whorileberr}', bird-
cherry, woody nightshade, the hip, and the
onion.

Malic Acid is the only acid existing in the
apple, [pear,] barberry, plum, sloe, elder, ser-
vice, &c. It is found with the citric acid in
the gooseberry, currant, bleaberry, cherry,
strawberry, raspberry, &c. ; combined with
lime, it is found in the house-leek, wakerobin,
&c. ; and with potash and lime, in rue, garden
purslane, madder, spinach, lilac, mignionette,
&c.

Benzoic Acid. — This acid is found in ben-
zoin, balsam of Tolu, storax, &c. ; and in
marjoram, clary, chickpea, Tonkin bean, &c.

The Frussic, or Hydrocyanic Acid, exists in
laurel leaves, peach blossoms, bitter almonds,
flowers of the sloe, leaves of the bay-leaved
willow, &c. : there is little doubt but that all the
bitter almond kernels contain this acid.

Gallic Acid abounds in the barks of many
plants, such as the elm, oak, chestnut, beech,
willow, elder, plum tree, sycamore, birch,
cherry tree, sallow, mountain ash, poplar,
hazel, common ash, sumach, &c.

f These are the chief vegetable acids. There
are others which have been detected occa-
sionally ; such as the moroxylic, in the Mortis
albn, or white mulberry ; the boletic, in the
j Boletus pseudo-igniari.us ,- [a species of mush-
' room,] the meconic, in opium ; the kinic, in
■ the bark of the Cinchona officinalis ,- the cam-
j phoric from camphor; the suberic from cork,
i &c. ; but none of these are of that importance
to the cultivator to require a particular notice
j in this place. The composition of the princi-
j pal vegetable acids is much more similar than
the intelligent farmer might be inclined to
suspect, as will be readily seen from a com-
parison of the following table of their composi-
tion, chiefly by M. Berzelius : —

Hydrogen.

Carbon.

Oxygen.

Acetic acid

- 6-35

4683

4682

Oxalic acid

- 0-214

33-222

66 534

Tartaric acid -

- 3951

36167

59-682

Citric acid

- 3-800

41-369

54-831

Benzoic acid -

- 5-16

74-41

20 43

Gallic acid

- 5-00

6664

38 36

iThovison*

s Chem.)

[The organic acids of animal origin are, like
those obtained from vegetables, very numerous.
As examples, there are, the formic acids, first
obtained from ants, but now ascertained to
exist in sugar and some other vegetable sub-
stances : Lactic acid, obtained from milk; —
Uric acid, procured from human urine, and
Hippuric acid, from the urine of the horse and
other animals when stall-fed : Margaric and
Stearic acids from fat, etc. The Phosphoric
acid, though found combined with minerals, is
very abundant in the animal system, being
combined with lime to form the bones, and ex-
isting in the urine and other fluids and solids,
in union with alkaline bases, forming phos-
phates of soda, potash, lime, and magnesia.

Phosphoric acid has also been found in all
plants, the ashes of which have been examined
by chemists, always, however, in combination
with potash, soda, magnesia, or lime. Most
seeds contain certain quantities of the phos-
phates formed by the union of phosphoric acid
with some one or more of the alkalies just
named. In the seeds of different kinds of grain,
there is abundance of phosphate of magnesia.

Phosphoric acid, in one or other of its com-
binations, plays indeed an important part in
agriculture, and is an indispensable constituent
of all good land.

" The soil in which plants grow furnishes
them with phosphoric acid, and they in turn
yield it to animals, to be used in the formation
of their bones, and of those constituents of the
brain which contain phosphorus. Much more
phosphorus is thus afforded to the body than it
requires, when flesh, bread, fruit, and husks
of grain are used for food, and this excess in
them is eliminated in the urine and the solid
excrements. We may form an idea of the
quantity of phosphate of magnesia contained
in grain, when we consider that the concre-
tions in the caecum of horses consist of phos-
phate of magnesia and ammonia, which must
have been obtained from the hay and oats con-
sumed as food. Twenty-nine of these stones
were taken after death from the rectum of a
horse belonging to a miller in Eberstadt, the
total weight of which amounted to 3 lbs. ; and

23

ACINUS.

ACORNS.

Dr. F. Simon has lately described a similar
concretion found in the horse of a carrier,
which weighed 1^ lb.

" It is evident that the seeds of corn could
not be formed without phosphate of magnesia,
which is one of' their invariable constituents ;
the plant could not under such circumstances
reach maturity."]

ACINUS. The stone of any berry.

ACONITE (Gr. «xcymv ; Fr. aconit). Pro-
perly the herb wolfsbane, but commonly used
in poetical language for poison in general. It
is often met with, in this sense, in the works
of Dryden, Shakspeare, Granville, and others.
See Wolfsbane.

ACORNS. The seed or fruit of the oak ;
BBcejin, Saxon, from ac, an oak, and copn, corn
or grain ; that is, the grain or fruit of the oak.

The Greeks had a tradition, that the oak was
the first created tree; and hence, having a
similar idea as to the Arcadians being the first
created men, they compared them to the oak.
Virgil tells us to

" Thresh the wood,

For masts of oak, your father's homely food."

And Ovid corroborates their use : —

"Content with food which nature freely bred.
On wildings and on strawberries they fed,
Cornels and bramble l»erries gave the rest,
And fallen aconis furnish'd out a feast."

Turner, who is the earliest English author
on this subject, writes, " Oke, whose fruit we
call aciirn, or an eykorn (that is, the corn or
fruit of an cyke), are hard of digestion, and
nourish very much, but they make raw hu-
mores. Wherefore, we forbid the use of them
for meates." They were long the food of the
early Greeks, as they are of the lower order
of Spaniards, even to this day ; but then it
must be remembered, that the acorns of Spain
are more sweet and nutritious than those of
England. And yet the early Britons certainly
eat them : their priests, or Druids, taught them,
that every thing that was produced on the oak,
even to the parasitical mistletoe, was of hea-
venly origin, a superstition which was com-
mon, also, to the Persians and the Massagetoe.

The Saxons valued them chiefly for fatten-
ing swine. Their king Ina, in the seventh
century, gave them a law, respecting the fat-
tening of their swine in the oak woods, which
privilege was called a pawnage, or pannage.

The oak is often mentioned in Holy Writ, as
the oak of Ophra, Judges vi. 11 ; of Shechem,
Gen. XXXV. 4 ; and of Deborah's Grave, Gen.
XXXV. 8. See Oak.

Although acorns are said to have been the
primitive food of mankind, at present they are
only used in raising young oaks, or for the
purpose of fattening deer and hogs, for which
last they are said to be a very proper and use-
ful kind of food.

In Gloucestershire, according to Mr. Mar-
shall, they are in high esteem among the far-
mers, who seem to be as anxious about them
as ^eir apples. They consider them as the
bes« means of fatting hogs, and think they
mal* the bacon firm, and weigh better than
bean-fed bacon. The price of acorns there is
from Is. 6d. to 2s. per bushel, according to the
season and the price of beans. Few are sold,
24

however; every farmer collecting his own, or
letting his pigs feed upon them.

Some care is necessary to be taken when
hogs are fed upon acorns, for otherwise they
will be subject to constipation, and the disease
called the garget. These may, however, be
avoided, by mixing laxative substances with
them, and not allowing them to have too many
at a time ; at first a few, twice a day is often
enough ; afterwards three times a day. The
hogs, while they eat this food, should not be
confined to the stye, but be suffered to run at
large ; for if their liberty be too much abridged,
they never thrive well, or grow fat on this sort
of food.

In Hertfordshire, and the New Forest in
Hampshire, it is no uncommon thing, with the
management above directed, and the assistance
of a little wash, and a few grains now and
then, for a farmer to kill several hogs in a
season, which weigh from eight to ten score,
and sometimes even more. Hogs fed in this
way make very good well-flavoured meat ; but
it is not thought by some so fine as when they
are taken up, and four or five bushel of pease
or barley-meal given to each to complete their
fattening.

" The pigs are gone Moming" is a very com-
mon provincialism (see Mr. Wilbraham's Che-
shire Glossary) ; and the expression is also con-
firmed by Shakspeare's " inW-acom^d boar."

Acorns are sometimes given to poultry, and
would be found an advantageous food for them,
when dried and ground into meal.

Tusser, speaking of acorns, says,

" Some left among bushes shall pleasure thy swine.
For fear of a mischief, keep acorns from kine."

They are considered injurious to cows, because
they swell in their stomachs, and will not
come up to the cud again ; which causes them
to strain as it were, to remit, and to draw their
limbs together.

In medicine, a decoction of acorns is reput-
ed good against dysentaries and colics. Pliny
states, "that acorns beaten to powder, and mixed
with hog's lard and salt, heal all hard swell-
ings and cancerous ulcers ; and when reduced
into a liniment, and applied, stays haemor-
rhage." {Phillip's Fruits.)

When employed for raising oak timber from,
the method of planting the acorns, which is
practised by some, is to make holes to receive
them, at the distance of 12 or 15 inches from
each other, in an oblique direction, so as to
raise up a tongue of turf under which they
are to be deposited, and where they require no
farther kind of nursing. In the course of from
twenty to thirty years, in this mode of planting,
the spot, it is said, will be fit to be coppiced,
that is, partially cut down as underwood, leav-
ing the most healthy plants. The thinnings
may be sold for railing, and generally fetch a
good price. A better method is, however, to
dibble them on land that has been properly
prepared by ploughing or digging, which may
be done by women, three or four within a
square yard ; or they may be sown broad-cast,
when the surface is fine and moist, and rolled
in with alight roller. The former is probably
the better practice. They may likewise be set
about the middle of November, by a land chain.

ACORUS.

ACRE.

a quarter of a rod asunder, and six inches
apart in the rows ; dibbling them in, zigzag,
ahemately on either side a line stretched
tightly on the surface, with blunt-pointed dib-
bles, letting a little mould fall down to the
bottoms of the holes, to prevent water lodging
round them, and burying them about two
inches beneath the surface. Each square rod,
when planted in this way, takes 132 acorns,
nearly a pint, when they are middle-sized,
which is equal to two statute bushels and a
half on an acre. The expense, in England, of
planting acorns in this manner is about 5s. an
acre. See Plajctino.

ACORUS, from the Greek ct, privative, and
KiPM, the pupil of the eye. The botanical name
of a plant of the thistle kind, that produces the.
drug called in the shop Calamus aromuticus. It
is found abundantly in the neighbourhood of
freshwater marshes. The ancient practice of
strewing the floors with the leaves of these
sweet rushes is still kept up in some of our
cathedral churches upon certain high festivals.
The plant, which belongs to the natural order
Aroidex, flourishes luxuriantly in loose, moist
soils, and sends forth many deep-green, long
sword-shaped leaves from its perennial, creep-
ing, and horizontal stems. It seldom flowers,
but the blossoms which it sends forth are of a
greenish colour. The root, or more properly
the stem, is the part which, when dried, is
used medicinally, occasionally as a stimulant.
It is slightly acrid and aromatic. {Tliunrnm's
Dispensary.)

ACRE (aecpe, Sax. Acre, Lye says, is
common to all the European languages. Sax.
Die.). He might have added further, that it is
an Eastern word ; and that agr, akoro, and akko-
ran, denote in the Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic,
a field, a husbandman. So the Saxon aecceji-
mon, a husbandman. Wachter, in his Glosr
sary, gives akennan, a day-labourer. {Todd's
Johnson.) In Skakspeare's King Lear, we
have —

•' Search every acre In the hJgh grown field.
And bring him to our eye."

The prevailing and standard measure of land
in Britain. An acre in England contains 4
square roods; a rood, 40 perches, rods, or
poles, 5i yards, or 16^ feel each, according to
the statute in the act passed in 1824, for the
equalization of weights and measures through-
out the United Kingdom, which is in this in-
stance confirmatory of the old law of England.
But in some parts of England there are other
measures under the same designation of acre.
For example, in Devonshire, and part of So-
merset, 5 yards (instead of 5^) have been
reckoned to a perch; in Cornwall, 6 yards
(anciently called the Woodland perch); in
Lancashire, 7 yards ; in Cheshire and Stafford-
shire 8 yards ; in the Isle of Purbeck, and
some parts of Devonshire, 15 feet and 1 inch.
In the common fields of Wiltshire and the
neighbouring counties, 120 poles, or 3 roods,
were reckoned to an acre.

The Irish acre is 7840 square yards, and is
equal to 1 acre, 2 roods, and 19 poles, nearly,
of English measure.

The Scotch acre contains 5760 square Scotch

I Equal

100

100

siatute

acres.

ells, and is equal to 1 acre, 1 rood, 2 poles,
nearly, of English measure.
The following Table shows the comparative
quantity of each of the above measures : —

A. R. P.

120 3 20 Devonshire customary measure

119 2 26 Isle of Purbeck, ditto,

84 0 4 Cornish or Woodland ditto,

61 2 37i Lancashire or Irish ditto, y

47 1 2^ Cheshire and Staffordshire ditto,

133 2 0 Wiltshire tenantry ditto,

79 1 6i Scotch measure,

The French acre, or arpent, according to Mr.
Greave's calculation, consists of 100 perches,
of 22 feet each, amounting to 48,400 square
French feet, which are equal to 51,691 square
English fleet, or very near one acre, and three
quarters of a rood, English measure. The
Strasburg a'cre is about half an English acre.

Table exhibiting the Number of Plants which
may be raised on a Perch of Land, at different
distances : —

In a perch are 272^ square feet, or 39,204
square inches. A perch will contain

Trees or
Plants.

2450

1960

1633

1069

816

612

490

392

272

261

Inches
over.

36

4

4

36

54

Number of Inches
asunder.

4 by 4

6—4

6—4

6—6

8—6

8—8

10—8

10 — 10

12 — 12

15 — 10

Square Inches
to each.

16

20

24

36

48

64

80

100

144

150

An acre will contain

Trees or

Inches

Number of feet

Square feet

Plants.

over.

asunder.

to each.

108

360

20

400

160

. .

16^

272i

134

144

18

324

302

72

12

144

435

60

10

100

680

40

8

64

888

48

7

49

1089

8 by 5

40

1210

6

36

1361

8

8 —4

32

14.'52

6 —5

30

1555

20

7 —4

28

1815

^

6 —4

24

2178

5 —4

20

2722

8

4—4

16i

2904

5 —3

15

3630

4—3

12

4840

3 —3

9

5445

4 —2

8

7260

3 —2

6

8712

2^-2

5

10,890

2 —2

4

19,305

n-H

n

21,780

2 —1

2

43,560

1

1

C

25

ACRE. ACRE.

♦

A Table for reducing Square Yards into Acres, Roods, and Perches.

Sq. Yds.

30

60

91

121

151

A. n. p. Sq. Yds

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

200
300
400
600
600
700
800
900
1,000

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

1,100
1,200
1,300
1,400
1,500
1,600
1,700
1,800
1,900
2,000

2,100
2,200
2,300
2,400
2,500
2,600
2,700
2,800
2,900
3,000

3,100
3,200
3,300
3,400
3,500
3,600
3,700
3,800
3,900
4,000

4,100
4,200
4,300
4,400
4,500
4,600
4,700
4,800
4,900
5,000

5,100
5,200
5,300

7
10
13
17
20
23

0 26
0 30
0 33

0 0 36

0 1

0 1

0 1

0 1

0 1

0
3
6

10
13

0 1 16
0 1 20
0 1
0 1

23
26

0 1 29
0 1 33
0 1 36
0 1 39

0 2

2
2
2
2

2

2 23

2 26

2 29

2 32

2 36

2 39

3 2

0 3
0 3
0 3

0 3 16

0 3 19

0 3 22

3 25

3 29

3 32

3 35

3 39

0 2

0 5

1 0 9
1 0 12
1 0 15

5,400
5,500
5,600
5,700
5,800
5,900
6,000

6,100
6,200
6,300
6,400
6,500
6,600
6,700
6,800
6,900
7,000

7,100
7,200
7,300
7,400
7,500
7,600
7,700
7,800
7,900
8,000

8,100
8,200
8,300
8,400
8,500
8,600
8,700
8,800
8,900
9,000

9,100
9,200
9,300
9,400
9,500
9,600
9,700
9,800
9,900
10,000

0 19

0 22

1 0 25

1

1

1 0

1 0

0 28
0 32
35
38

1 1
1 1

1 15

18
21
25
28
31

1 1
1 1

1 2

35

38

1

5

8

11

15

18

21

24

28
31
34
38

1
4

3 11
3 14
3 18

1 3 21

24

1 3

1 3 27

1 3 31

1 3

34

1 3 37

10,100

2

0

14

10,200

2

0

17

10,300

2

0

20

10,400

2

0

24

10,500

2

0

27

10,600

2

0

30

10,700

2

0

34

10,800

2

0

37

10,900

2

1

0

11,000

2

1

4

Sq. Yds.

11,100
11,200
11,300
11,400
11,500
11,600
11,700
11,800
11,900
12,000

12,100
12,200
12,300
12,400
12,500
12,600
12,700
12,800
12,900
13,000

13,100
13,200
13,300
13,400
13,500
13,600
13,700
13,800
13,900
14,000

14,100
14,200
14,300
14,400
14,500
14,600
14,700
14,800
14,900
15,000

1.5,100
15,200
15,300
15,400
15,500
15,600
15,700
15,800
15,900
16,000

16,100
16,200
16,300
16,400
16,500
16,600
16,700
16,800

0
3

7
10
13
17
20
23
26
30

2 33

2 36

3
3
3
3
3

2 3
2 3
2 3

2 3 26

2 3 29

2 3 33

2 3 36

2 3

3 0
3 0
3 0

3 0
3 0

0 19

0 22

0 26

0 29

0 32

0 36

0 39

1 2
1 6
1 ■ 9

3 1

1 22

3 1 35

Sq. Yds.

16,900
17,000

17,100
17,200
17,300
17,400
17,500
17,600
17,700
17,800
17,900
18,000

18,100
18,200
18,300
18,400
18,500
18,600
18,700
18,800
18,900
19,000

19,100
19,200
19,300
19,400
19,500
19,600
19,700
19,800
19,900
20,000

20,100
20,200
20,300
20,400
20,500
20,600
20,700
20,800
20,900
21,000

21,lp0
21,200
21,300
21,400
21,500
21,600
21,700
21,800
21,900
22,000

22,100
22,200
22,300
22,400
22,500

3 1 39
3 2 2

3

3

3

3

8

3

3

3 2 28

3 2 32

3 2 35

2 22
2 25

3 3
3 3

38

2

5

8

12

15

18

21

25

3 3 28

3 3 31

3 3 35

3 3

4 0
4 0
4 0
4 0
4 0

38

1

5

8

11

15

0 18
0 21

0 24
0 28

31
34

0 38

1 1

18
21
24
27
31

1 34

1 37

2 1
2 4
2 7

4 2 11

4 2 14

4 2 17

4 2 20

4 2 4

26

Waierson's Manual of Commerce,

ACRIMONY.

AEROLITES.

Table of Land Measure.

In an acre are
4 roods, each rood forty perches.
160 perches, sixteen feet and a half each.
4,840 square yards, nine feet each.
43,560 square feet, 144 inches each.
174,240 squares of six inches each, thirty-six
inches each.
6,272,640 inches, or squares, of one inch each.

ACRIMONY {Acrimonia, Lat.). A sharp
property in some plants and vegetables, by
which they excoriate and blister the ton^e,
mouth, or other parts of the body, on being
applied to them. The nature of this sort of
acrimony has not yet been sufficiently exa-
mined by chemical investigation. It seems to
differ in some measure according to the nature
of the plants ; as in the common onion, water-
cresses, cabbages, &c., a part of their acrimony
is lost, by their being exposed to a boiling heat ;
while other kinds, as ginger, capsicum, arum,
&c., do not become much milder by undergo-
ing that process.

The juice of the fungous excrescences of
some trees possess so much acrimony as to be
capable of blistering; and some kinds of
fungi contain a juice or liquor of a very cor-
rosive quality ; and it is probably on this ac-
count that many of those which are commonly
procured disagree so much with the patient,
when made use of as articles of diet. By
being more perfectly stewed, or otherwise pre-
pared by means of heat, they might most
likely be rendered safe and nutritious. Much
caution should, however, be used, even when
thus prepared, in eating such kinds *as are un
known. "There be some plants," says Bacon,
in his Nat. Hist., "that have a milk in them
when they are cut; as figs, old lettuce, sow-
thistles, spurge. The cause may be an incep-
tion of putrefaction : for those milks have all
an acrimony, though one would think they
should b» lenitive."

ADAPTER (Adapfo, Lat.). In the manage-
ment of bees, is a board used to place the
hives or glasses upon.

ADDER (Aerrep, aerrop, naT>t>]\e, as it
seems, from eirrep, Sax. poison; MoBS-Goth.
nadr, vipera ; Teut. adder). A viper, a poison-
' ous reptile, perhaps of any species. In com-
mon language, however, adders and snakes are
not the same, the term adder being generally
understood to imply a viper. See Animal
Poisons.

ADEPS. In veterinary science, animal oil
or fat. The fat differs in different animals ; and
hence it has received different names. In the
horse it is called grease ; in the ox and sheep,
tallow, fat, suet ; and in the hog, hog's lard.
At a low temperature all these possess various
degrees of consistence ; but in the living ani-
mal, they all exist in a fluid state, and are dis-
tributed over various parts of the body. An
immense quantity of fat is often found in the
belly, all deposited in extremely small cells,
which have no communication with each
other. No fat is ever found within the skull.
Fat performs important functions in the
animal economy. When the supply of ali-

ment, for example, is greater than the demand,
the surplus is stored away in the form of fat;
and when the demand, either from deficiency
of food, over-exertion, or disease, becomes
greater than the supply, then the absorbents
carry the fat into the circulation, and thus, for
a time, the evils that would very soon arise
from a defect in the quantity of blood are pre-
vented. Some animals accumulate fat more
readily than others. Health, a round chest, a
short back, and tranquil temper are highly
favourable to its formation; and when to these
qualities are added inaction, clean litter, and a
plentiful supply of nourishing food, the animal
is soon fit for the butcher. A warm atmo-
sphere, provided it be a pure one, is also
favourable to fattening. [See Lahb Oil, &c.]
{Miller's Dictionary).

AERATION. The process by which the
soil is exposed to the air and imbued there-
with, air being indispensable to the healthy
growth of plants. When a flower-pot is filled
with rather dry earth, if it be plunged under
water a profusion of air-bubbles will be
seen to rise, owing to the water penetrating
between the particles of the dry earth, and
forcing out the air previously lodged there.
As the more loose and porous a soil is, the
greater quantity of air it will contain, it will
follow, that the more a soil is ploughed and
harrowed, or dug and raked, the better it
will be aerated — one of the chief beneficial
effects of frequently repeating these opera-
tions.

Besides the direct influence of the atmo-
sphere, the agency of water is all-important in
the process of aeration. All water openly ex-
posed contains more or less atmospheric air;
and, in consequence of this, it acquires an
agreeable taste, always destroyed by boiling,
which renders it vapid and disagreeable, by
expelling the air. The importance of air con-
tained in water to the growth of plants appears
from water being found beneficial in propor-
tion as it has had opportunities of becoming
mixed with air. But the best water, with re-
spect to the properties of the air it contains, is
rain, which, falling in small drops, often tossed
about by the wind, has an opportunity of col-
lecting a large proportion of air, and, accord-
ing to Liebig (Ortcanic Chem.), ammonia,
during its descent to the earth ; and hence the
smaller the bore of the holes in a garden water-
ing-pot, the better ; and the more minutely the
garden-engine scatters the water, the more ad-
vantageously, so far as the air is concerned.

There is another point of view in which
aeration appears beneficial, arising from the
excrementitious matters thrown into the soil
by growing plants, as ascertained by M. Ma-
caire; for as these matters become decom-
posed in the processes of fallowing, irrigation,
and draining, the gases there produced would
not so readily be carried off from the soil, but
for a due circulation of the common aip
through the earth. See Gases, their use to
vegetation. (Miller's Dictionary).

AEROLITES (From the Greek ««/), air, and
xS'.i, a stone). Meteoric stones, bodies that
fall from the heavens. The origin of these
remarkable bodies is still a mystery.

27

AFRICAN MARIGOLD.

AFTER-GRASS.

AFRICAN MARIGOLD {Tugites erecta,\
liin.). A favourite hardy annual, which does j
not come from Africa, as its name would indi- !
cate, but from Mexico. See Maihgold. I

AFTER-GRASS, on AFTERMATH. The
second crop of grass, or that which springs
after mowing, or the grass cut after some
kinds of corn crops.

The composition of the after-grass generally
varies considerably from that of the first or
spring crop. The nutriment of the latter, from
most of the grasses, is materially less than
that of the former. This was clearly ascer-
tained by the elaborate experiments of the late
Mr. G. Sinclair, the results of which are dis-
persed throughout his valuable work on the
Grasses. To give a few instances only —

First Crop. Second Crop,
dr. gr. dr. gr.

64 dr. of round-panicled cock's-foot

grass afforded of muritive matter 2 1 12

Meadow fo.\-tail grass - - 3 .1 2 0
Larger-leaved creeping benl-crested

dog's-tail grass - - - 4 1 2 2

Hard fescue grass - - - 3 2 11

Welch fescue grass - - 2 1 11

Yellow oat grass . - - 3 3 11

And the same remark applies to the rye-grass
(Lolium perenne), not only of upland pastures
but of meadows. Thus, Sinclair found (Hart.
Gram. Wob. 384) that this grass when flower-
ing, taken from a water meadow that had been
fed off with sheep till the end of April, yielded
of nutritive matter 72 grs.

But the same grass from the same meadow
which had not been fed off, yielded 100 grs.

The same weight of this grass, from a rich
old pasture that had been shut up for hay at
the same time, yielded of nutritive matter 95
grs. But the grass from the same field, which
had not been depastured, yielded 120 grs.

Some of them, however, contain exactly as
much nutritive matter in the aftermath as in
the first crop : thus, 64 drs. of the

Sweet-scented soft grass yielded
fimooth-sialked meadow grass
Short blue meadow grass
Cow grass - -

Creeping fescue

First Cmp. Latter Crop,

dr. gr. dr. gr.

4 1 4 1

13 13

2 0 2 0

2 1 2 1

12 12

and one or two were found to contain more
nutritive matter in the aftermath than in the
first crop : thus 64 drs. of the

First Crop. Latter Crop*
dr. gr. dr. gr.

Sweet-scented vernal grass yielded 13 2 1

In the vicinity of London most of the after-
grass, or second crop, was formerly made into
hay, and was considered of considerable value
for the ewes of suckling lambs, and milch
cows; but in harvesting this crop, so as to
make it sell well, great nicety is requisite, the
nature of after-grass being more soft, spongy,
and porous than the first growth, and conse-
quently more liable to be hurt by rains. The
practice is therefore on the decline.

In the midland counties their management
of -^e feeding off the after-grass is in general
jua^ious. It is commonly suffered to get up
to a full bite before it is broken, and not turned
in upon as soon as the hay is off, or suffered to
stand until much of it becomes improper for
ihe food of animals. Farmers, however, make
28

a point of saving autumnal grass for spring
feed, and contend that it is the most certain,
and, on the whole, the best spring feed yet
known. This would seem to be a wasteful
practice, at least in respect to the more for-
ward after-grasses. These ought certainly to
be broken sufficiently early to be eaten, without
waste, before winter sets in; and the latest,
that is to say, the shortest, may be shut in for
spring feed. If after-grass be too long and
gross, it is apt to lodge, and rot upon the
ground in winter ; therefore, on rich lands, it
ought always to be more or less off before Mi-
chaelmas, in order to prevent its being wasted
or lost in the winter.

It is remarked by the author of " Practical
Agriculture," that, " In some districts much of
the after-grass is frequently cut and made into
a green soft sort of hay, as has been already
mentioned ; but in others it is fed off by live
stock in the autumn." And that " both modes
may be useful under different circumstances.
In situations where plenty of manure can be
procured, as near large towns, and where the
chief dependence is upon the sale of hay, or
where lamb-suckling prevails, it may fre-
quently be a beneficial practice to take a se-
cond crop of hay, as the first may by that
means be more fully spared for sale, the after-
crop supplying the cows or other cattle that
may be kept on the farm. But in cases where
manure cannot easily be obtained, and there is
no local practice carried on which requires
such sort of hay, it is better to let it be fed off
by stock than run the risk of exhausting and
injuring the ground by taking off repeated
crops. There is also another circumstance,"
he says, "to be considered in this business,
which is, that of the state of the land in respect
to dryness, as where it is low, wet, and very
retentive of moisture, it may be often more
hurt by the poaching of the cattle in feeding
off theherbage than by a second crop of hsij."
But that, " independent of these considerations,
it may, in general, be a more safe and usual
practice to "eat off the after-grass by stock, and
only take one crop of hay, as by such means a
more abundant annual produce may be afford-
ed, and the land sustain less injury."

It is, however, added, that "where a crop of
rowen is made into hay, the most profitable
application of it is probably in the foddering
of such cows as are in milk ; as it is well
suited, by its grassy quality, and its not heat-
ing so much, when well made, as other sorts
of hay in the stack, to afford a large flow of
milk. It is this reason that induces the cow
farmers to cut their grass so many times in the
summer. Another beneficial application of
this hay is, as has been seen, in the feeding of
such ewes as are employed in the suckling of
house-lambs during the winter season ; the
intention in this case is the same as in that of
the preceding instance. There is another ad-
vantageous use to which this sort of produce
may be applied, which is that of supporting
young calves, and all sorts of young cattle that
are kept as store stock." And that, " where
sheep require the support of hay in the winter
season, it is also well adapted to that use."
In the manner of feeding after-grass, there is

AGARIC OF THE OAK.

AGE OF ANIMALS.

also much variety in different districts. " It
has," the same author says, "been observed
by a farmer in Middlesex, that the condition on
which he rents his farm is that of taking out
the cattle at Michaelmas, but that sheep remain
till February." In that county the practice is
to turn on the cattle immediately after mow-
ing ; but in the northern districts, this grass,
to which they have given the name oi eddish, is
kept till November, or even a later period, for
the purpose of furnishing fat stock, or for the
pasturage of milch cows, from which a supe-
rior quality of cheese is made, and by which
time it has attained a considerable head : how-
ever, this latter practice would seem to be
attended with some loss, as has been shown
from its being trodden and trampled under
foot. In the stocking of after-grass, Marshall
found the midland graziers of opinion, that one
cow to an acre, on well-grown alter-grass, was
an ample stock. Good grass-land may, how-
ever, admit something more ; and instead of
pasturing of rowen, or after-grass, by heavy
cattle in the autumn, to avoid poaching the
ground, particularly at a late period in that or
the winter season, it has been recommended
by Dr. Wilkinson, "to confine the consumption
of this grass principally to the support of
sheep, unless in very favourable seasons, or
where the soil is uncommonly dry ; in which
cases milch cows, or other heavy cattle, may
be admitted without inconvenience."

In some places it is the practice, as " where
there is a great scarcity of spring feed, to re-
serve after-grass in the autumn for spring
use." Some, on the basis of experience, con-
tend that it is the most certain, and, on the
whole, the best spring feed yet known. It
would seem, however, as has been shown, to
be a wasteful practice, at least in respect to
the more forward after-grasses. The for-
wardest ought certainly to be eaten without
waste before winter sets in ; and the latest,
that is, the shortest, be shut up for spring feed.
Arthur Young, it is stated, found, from repeat-
ed experiments, as suggestfed above, " that old
after-grass feeds sheep that give milk better
than turnips, which are more adapted to the
fattening of stock ; and that this grass holds to
a period, if wanted, when most other resources
fail, the last half of April and the first half of
May — periods always of want and difficulty,
where rye-grass is not sown." Marshall also
assures us, that as a certain and wholesome
supply of food for ewes and lambs in the early
spring, the preserved pasture is to be depended
on as " the sheet anchor, in preference to tur-
nips, cabbages, or any other species whatever,
of what is termed spring feed :" and the same
thing has been experienced by Dr. Wilkinson,
who has observed, that "this food with him
afi'orded a more nutritive and healthful quality
of milk from the ewes to their tender lambs
than turnips, even in their best state." But
however useful after-grass pastures may be
under this management, there is evidently a
great loss of food incurred by it, especially in
severe winters. {Sinclair's Hart. Gram. ,- Lowe's
Prac. A^r.)

AGARIC OF THE OAK. [Spunk, or touch-
wood.] In farriery, a substance sometimes

employed for restraining the bleeding of small
vessels.

AGARICUS. See Mushroom.

AGAVE. In botany, comprehends those
plants which srardeners call American aloes.

AGE OF ANIMALS. The age of a horse
may be ascertained by his mouth, and the exa-
mination of his teeth, till he is eight years old,
after which the usual marks commonly wear
out. These are usually forty in all ; of which
twenty-four are double teeth, and from their
office, denominated grinders, four tushes, or
corner teeth, and twelve fore-teeth.

The first which appear are the foal-teeth,
which generally begin to show themselves a
month or two after foaling; they are twelve in
number, six above an'd six below, and are
easily distinguished from the teeth that come
afterwards, by their smallness and whiteness,
having some resemblance to the incisores, or
fore-teeth of man.

When the colt is about two years and a half
old, he commonly sheds the four middlemost
of his foal-teeth, two above and two below;
but sometimes none are cast till near three
years old. The new teeth are readily distin-
guished from the foal-teeth, being much
stronger, and always twice their size, and are
called the nippers or gatherers, being those by
which horses nip off the grass when they are
feeding in the pastures, and by which, in the
house, they gather their hay from the rack.
When horses have got these four teeth com-
plete, they are reckoned to be three years old.

When they are about three and a half, or in
the spring before they are four years old, they
cast four more of their foal-teeth, two in the
upper and two in the lower jaw, one on each
side the nippers or middle teeth ; so that when
you look into a horse's mouth, and see the two
middle teeth full grown, and none of the foal-
teeth, except the common teeth, remaining,
you may conclude he is four that year, about
April or May. Some, indeed, are later colts,
but that makes little alteration in the mouth.

The tushes appear near the same time with
the four last-mentioned teeth, sometimes sooner
than these, and sometimes not till after a horse
is full four years old ; they are curved like the
tushes of other animals, only in a young horse
they have a sharp edge all round the top and
on both sides, the inner part being somewhat
grooved and flattened, so as to incline to a
hollow.

When a horse's tushes do not appear for
some time after the foal-teeth are cast, and the
new ones come in their room, it is generally
owing to the foal-teeth having been pulled out
before their time, by the breeders or dealers in
horses, to make a colt of three years old ap-
pear like one of four that he may be the more
saleable ; for when any one of the foal-teeth
have been pulled out, the others soon come in
their places ; but the tushes having none that
precede them, can never make their appear-
ance till their proper time, which is when a
horse is full four, or coming four ; and there-
fore one of the surest marks to know a four-
year old horse is by his tushes, which are then
very small, and sharp on the tops and edges.

At the time when a horse comes five, or
c2 29

AGE OF ANIMALS.

AGE OF ANIMALS.

rather in the spring before he is five, the cor-
ner teeth begin to appear, and at first but just
equal with the gums, being filled with flesh in
the middle. The tushes are also by this time
grown to a more distinct size, though not very
large : they likewise continue rough and sharp
on the top and edges. But the corner teeth
are now most to be remarked ; they diflfer from
the middle teeth in being more fleshy on the
inside, and the gums generally look rawish
upon their first shooting out, whereas the others
do not appear discoloured. The middle teeth
arrive at their full growth in less than three
weeks, but the corner teeth grow leisurely,
and are seldom much above the gums till a
horse is full five ; they differ also from the
other fore-teeth in this, that they somewhat re-
semble a shell ; and thence are called the shell-
teeth, because they environ the flesh in the
middle half-way round ; and as they grow, the
flesh within disappears, leaving a distinct
hoUowness and openness on the inside. When
a horse is full five, the teeth are generally
about the thickness of a crown-piece above
the gums. From five to five and a half they
will grow about a quarter of an inch high, or
more : and when a horse is full six, they will
be near half an inch, and in some large horses
a full half-inch above the gums.

The corner teeth in the upper jaw fall out
"before those in the under, so that the upper
corner teeth are seen before those below ; on
the contrary, the tushes in the under gums
came out before those in the upper.

When a horse is full six years old, the hol-
lowness on the inside begins visibly to fill up,
and that which was at first fleshy grows into a
brownish spot, not unlike the eye of a dried
garden-bean, and continues so till he is seven ;
with this difference only, that the teeth are
gradually more filled up, and the marks, or
spots, become fainter, and of a lighter colour.
At eight, the mark in most horses is quite worn
out, though some retain the vestiges of it a
longer time ; and those who have not had a
good deal of experience may sometimes be
deceived by taking a horse of nine or ten years
old for one of eight. It is at this time only,
when a horse is past mark, that one can easily
err in knowing his age ; such practices are used
to make a very young horse or colt appear older
than he really is, by pulling out the foal-teeth
before their time, which .may be discovered by
feeling along the edges where the tushes grow,
for they may be felt in the gums before the
corner teeth are put forth ; whereas, if the cor-
ner teeth come in some months before the
tushes rise in the gums, we may reasonably
suspect that the foal-teeth have been pulled out
at three years old.

It is not necessary to mention the tricks that
are used to make a false mark in a horse's
mouth, by hollowing the tooth with a graver,
and burning a mark with a small hot iron ; be-
cau^ those who are acquainted with the true
maiV^ will easily discover the cheat by the
size and colour of the teeth, by the roundness
and bluntness of the tushes, by the colour of
the false mark, which is generally blacker and
more impressed than the true mark, and b.v
30

other circumstances which denote the ad-
vanced age of horses.

After the horse has passed his eighth year,
and sometimes at seven, nothing certain can
be knoAvn by the mouth. It must, however,
be remembered, that some horses have but in-
different mouths when they are young, and
soon loose their mark ; others have their
mruths good for a long time, their teeth
being white, even, and regular till they are
sixteen years old and upwards, together with
many other marks of freshness and vigour ;
but when a horse comes to be very old, it
may be discovered by several indications, the
constant attendants of age ; such as his gums
wearing away insensibly, leaving his teeth
long and naked at their roots ; the teeth also
growing yellow, and sometimes brownish. The
bars of the mouth, which in a young horse
are always fleshy, and form so many distinct
ridges, are in an old horse, lean, dry, and
smooth, with little or no rising. The eye-pita
in a young horse are generally filled up with
flesh, look plump and smooth ; whereas, in an
old one, they are sunk and hollow, and make
him look ghastly. There are also other marks
which discover a horse to be very old, as gray
horses turning white, and many of them being
all over flea-bitten, except their joints. This,
however, happens sometimes later, and some-
times sooner, according to the variety of colour
and constitution. Black horses are apt to
grow gray over their eyebrows, and very often
a

AGE OF ANIMALS.

AGE OF TREES.

over a great part of their faces ; and all horses,
when very old, sink more or less in their backs ;
and some horses thai are naturally long-
backed, grow so hollow with age, that it is
scarcely possible to fit them with a saddle.

The various progressive changes that take
place in the appearance of the teeth of horses
at different ages, from a few weeks old (marked
a in fig.) to^l, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, and 18
years, may be seen in the foregoing dental map,
constructed by Mr. Blaine {Encyc. of Rural
ISports, 273).

Age of Neat Cattle. The age of cows, oxen, and
bulls, is known by the teeth and horns. At the
end of about two years they shed their first
fore-teeth, which are replaced by others, larger,
but flot so white ; and before five years all the
incisive teeth are renewed. These teeth are
at first equal, long, and pretty white ; but as
the animals advance in years, they wear down,
become unequal and black. When three years
old, neat cattle also experience a considerable
change in the structure of their horns, after
which period these appendages, like the second
or permanent teeth, preserve the same charac-
ter. During the first year of the animal's age,
two small, smooth, pointed, and neatly formed
horns make their appearance attached to the
head by a kind of button. This conformation
continues during the first three years, after
which the button moves from the head, being
impelled by a homy cylinder. Thus the horns
continue growing as long as the animal lives,
as is indicated by the annual joints, which are
easily distinguished in the horn, and by which
the age of the creature may be easily known ;
counting three years for the point of the horn,
and one for each of the joints or rings. Dis-
honest dealers sometimes obliterate these rings
by shaving or filing the horns, in order to con-
ceal the age of the beast

Age of Sheep. — The age of these animals is
known by their having, in their second year,
two broad teeth ; in their third year, four broad
teeth ; in their fourth year, six broad teeth ;
and in their fifth year, eight broad teeth before.
After which, none can tell how old a sheep is
while their teeth remain, except by their being
worn down.

About the end of one year, rams, wethers,
and all young sheep, lose the two fore-teeth
of the lower jaw ; and they are known to want
the incisive teeth in the upper jaw. At
eighteen months, the two tdeth joining to the
former also fall out ; and at three years, being
all replaced, they are even and pretty white.
But as these animals advance in age, the teeth
become loose, blunt, and afterwards black.
The age of the ram, and all horned sheep, may
also be known by their horns, which show
themselves in their very first year, and often
at the birth, and continue to grow a ring annu-
ally to xYvi last period of their lives.

Age of Goats. — The age of these animals is
known by the same marks as those of sheep,
as, by their teeth, and the annular rings on
their horns.

^^'•go/P/on/s.— This, however diflScult to as-
certain, may be attempted in various ways, as
from their general appearances and growth.
The continuance of life is extremely different

in plants, and from this difference, they are
generally divided into annual, biennial, and
perennial.

The infancy of plants, like that of animals,
is marked by the characters of weakness and
tenderness ; in the youthful state they acquire
beauty and size, the vessels attract and convey
their juices ; the full growth is crowned with
the robust fibre, and full exercise of all is
functions ; the fruit therefore ripens ; but old
age advancing, the vessels begin gradually to
harden and lose their tone, they droop, the
juices move no longer with equal celerity as
in youth, the vital powers cease, and they die.

Age of Trees. — The age of some trees may be
determined from the number of ligneous annnli
or rings. In many sorts of treei> it is, how-
ever, very difficult to distinguish these, and in
others, utterly impossible. Some trees arrive
I to an astonishing age ; thus, the cedars of Le-
banon have existed for 2000 years. In Eng-
land, the oak is the most durable.

Many instances of the extreme old age of
trees exist in [England and elsewhere.] At
Ellerslie, three miles from Paisley, at the
birthplace of William Wallace, is an oak, in
which, according to the tradition of the neigh-
bourhood, that celebrated chieftain once shel-
tered himself with many of his followers. And
many others either till lately or still abound in
England; for instance, there was one at Lang-
ley Wood, near Downton (Dodsley, An. Reg.,
1758, p. 116), supposed to be of 1000 years'
growth ; then there is the oak of William
Rufus, in the new Forest ; the Fairlop oak of
Hainault Forest ; Fisher's oak on the road to
Tonbridge; Hern's oak in Windsor Forest:
Queen Elizabeth's oak at Heveningham, in
Suffolk ; the Whinfield oak, near Appleby, all
of great antiquity. (Phillip* s Fruits,- Withers
on Planting.)

At Ankerwyke, near Staines, is a yew tree,
that has certainly been growing there since
the time of King John ; and at Fountain's Ab-
bey, in Yorkshire, there are yew trees that are
probably some centuries older ; and the cele-
brated Spanish chestnut tree, growing in Lord
Ducie's park, at Tortworth, in Gloucestershire,
which in the reign of .John was called the
Great Chestnut of Tortworth, was certainly
growing there in the days of William of Nor-
mandy.

At Trons, in the Orisons, there existed in
1798, a lime tree which was a celebrated plant
in the year 1424, and which, when last mea-
sured, was 51 feet in circumference. The age
of this specimen could not have been less than
580 years.

In the year 1776 there existed in the palace
garden of Granada some famous cypresses,
which were thought to have been at least 800
or 900 years old.

Some of the trees of oriental countries, how-
ever, attain to still greater ages than any of
these : thus the Baobab trees of Africa, accord-
ing to Adanson, are 5150 years old; and De-
candolle considers the deciduous cypress trees
of Chapuitepec in Mexico to be still older.

It would seem, that, after a certain age, all
trees decrease in their rapidity of growth, a
fact of some importance to be known to plant-

AGENTS.

AGRICULTURE.

ers ; the oak, for instance, between its fortieth
and sixtieth years ; the elm after its fiftieth ;
the spruce after its fortieth ; the yew after its
sixtieth : of this rate of growth, Decandolle has
constructed an interesting table, showing the
rate of increase in diameter of certain trees,
such as the Oak, Larch, Elm, Spruce, Yew,
every 10 years from 1 to 150 years.

Mr. Waistell has constructed tables respect-
ing the growth of timber, showing every fourth
year, from 12 to 100, the progressive annual
increase in the growth of trees, and gradual
decrease in the rate per cent, per annum, that
the annual increase bears to the whole tree.

AGENTS. [In England.] Land agents, are
very commonly persons of the legal profes-
sion, little conversant with the ordinary details
of farming affairs. This is not always a de-
sirable state of things — it often leads to oppres-
sion, to discord, and to very bad farming.

An agent cannot bind his principal beyond
the extent of his limited authority {Fenn v. Har-
rison, 3 T. R. 575). For although a principal
is bound by all the acts of his general agent,
yet where he appoints an agent for a particu-
lar purpose, he is only bound to the extent of
the authority given.

" Agreements for a lease, made with an agent
who acts under a power of attorney, and a
lease executed by such agent in pursuance of
the agreement, shall bind the principal." {Ha-
milton V. Clnnricarde, 1 Bro. P. C. 341.)

AGISTMENT. A term seemingly from the
the old law French word giste, which signifies
a lying-place, and therefore, as applied to cat-
tle, supposes pasturing. Agistment accord-
ingly is the pasturing of cattle, the property
of another, on the payment of a certain sum
of money, or other valuable consideration ;
and the animals thus grazed are sometimes
called gistments. " If," says Blackstone, "a man
takes in a horse or other cattle to graze and
depasture in his grounds, which the law calls
agistment, he takes them upon an implied con-
tract to return them on demand to the owner.
{Cro. Car. 271.) But he cannot like an inn-
keeper retain them till payment." Agistment
also means the profit arising from this prac-
tice. The tithe of agistment is the tenth part
of the value for the keeping or depasturing
such cattle as are liable to pay it ; but it may
be avoided by cutting the grass for stall-feed-
ing.

AGREEMENT. A very considerable pro-
portion of the lands of England are held by
agreements between the landlord and the
tenant. See Leases.

These are best made in writing, although
not absolutely necessary for terms not exceed-
ing three years. {Crosby v. Wordswrrrth,
6 East, 602.) An agreement to make a lease
is, in equity, a good lease. {Hamilton v. Card-
ness, 2 Bro. P. C. 125.) But whether an instru-
ment shall amount to a present lease or only
as an agreement for a future lease, will depend
olSkthe intention of the parties, to be collected
fr»n the instrument itself. {Morgan v. Bissett,
3 Taunton, 65. Baxter v. Browne, 2 W. Black.
973.) [See Customs of Counties.]

AGRICULTOR (Lat. a husbandman). The
"Tord in our language is modern, but is getting
32

into common use. It is, however, more gene-
rally Avritten agriculturist, and is intended to
imply one who is skilled in the art of cultivat-
ing the ground. {Todd's Johnson.)

AGRICULTURE, HISTORY OF (Lat.
agricultura). The art of cultivating the ground;
tillage, husbandry, as distinct from pasture.
( Todd's Johnson.)

I shall, in the present article, limit myself to
a brief historical sketch of agriculture, which
became one of the sustaining arts of life as
soon as man was ordained to earn his bread
by the sweat of his brow. In the garden of
Eden, whose fertile soil and genial clime ap-
pear to have combined in maturing a continued
variety and unfailing succession of vegetable
sustenance, agricultural operations were un-
known ; for that which came spontaneously to
perfection required no assistance from human
ingenuity ; and where there is no deficiency
there can be no inducement to strive for im-
provement. That period of perfection was
but transitory ; and the Deity that had placed
man in the garden " to dress it and keep it,"
eventually drove him thence " to till th« earth
from whence he was taken." {Gen. ii. 15 ; iii.
23.)

From that time to the present, agriculture
has been an improving art ; and there is no
reason to doubt but that it will go on advanc-
ing as long as mankind continues to increase.

Man, in his greatest state of ignorance, is
always found dependent for subsistence upon
the produce of the chase ; but, as population
increases, recourse must be had to other
sources of food. And we find in the shepherd's
life of the early ages, the first step to agricul-
tural art, the domestication of animals, which
it was found to be more convenient to have
constantly at hand, rather than to have to seek
precariously at the very time they were re-
quired. As the increase of population still
went on, and the flocks and the herds had pro-
portionately to be enlarged, one favourite spot
would be found too small for the subsistence
of the whole ; and, as in the case of Abraham
and Lot, they would have to separate and find
pasturage in different districts. This separa-
tion into tribes could not proceed beyond a
certain extent ; and when the land was fully
occupied, recourse would by necessity be had
to means of increasing the produce of given
surfaces of soil instead of enlarging their ex-
tent. With Abraham and Isaac it is very
evident that wheat and the other fruits of the
earth were the rare and choice things of their
country ; but when such nations once learned,
as they might from the example of Egypt, the
resource such products were in periods of fa-
mine, arising from mortalities among their
cattle, they would soon pursue their interests
by cultivating them. This completed, the ac-
quirement of property in land for the space not
only long occupied, but upon which the occu-
pier had bestowed his labour, built his habita-
tion, and had enclosed from injury by vagrant
animals, would be acknowledged to be his
without any one stopping to inquire what right
he had to make the enclosure.

When once thus located, experience and
observation would soon teach the employment

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

of manures, irrigation, times of sowing, and l
other necessary operations ; and every gene- j
ration would be wiser in the art than that i
which preceded it. This especially has oc-
curred in these more northern climates, where
art and industry has to compensate for a defi-
ciency of natural advantages. "Enlarging
numbers," observes Mr. Sharon Turner, "only
magnify the effect; for mankind seem to
thrive and civilize in proportion as they mul-
tiply; and, by a recurrent action, to multiply
again in proportion as they civilize and pros-
per." In this manner improved modes of cul-
tivation, the introduction of new species, and
of more fruitful varieties of agricultural pro-
duce, have universally kept pace with an in-
creasing population. This resting upon a
basis of facts, vindicates the wisdom of Pro-
vidence, and refutes Mr. Malthus's superficial
theory of over-production. The agricultural
produce of England has gradually increased
from the insignificant amount that was its
value in the time of the Roman invasion, to
the enormous annual return of 200,000,000/. ;
and it is very certain that in this country, and
much more in other parts of the world, the
produce is a mere fraction of what the total
soil is capable of returning.

Agriculture is the art of obtaining from the
earth food for the sustenance of man and his
domestic animals ; and the perfection of the
art is to obtain the greatest possible produce
at the smallest possible expense. Upon the
importance of the art, it is needless, therefore,
to insist ; for by it every country is enabled to
support in comfort an abundant population.
On this its strength as a nation depends ; and
by it its independence is secured. An agricul-
tural country has within itself the necessaries
and comforts of life ; and, to defend these,
there will never be wanting a host of patriot
soldiers.

Of the pleasure attending the judicious cul-
tivation of the soil, we have the evidence of
facts. The villa farms sprinkled throughout
our happy land, the establishments of Holk-
ham, Woburn, &c., would never have been
formed if the occupation connected with them
was not delightful. We have an unexception-
able witness to the same fact in the late Mr.
Roscoe, the elegant, talented author of the
Lives of Lorenzo de Medici and of Leo the
Tenth. Mr. Roscoe was the son of an exten-
sive potato grower, near Liverpool. In the
cultivation of that and other farm produce, he
had been an active labourer; and he who thus
had enjoyed the delights that spring from lite-
rary pursuits, and from the cultivation of the
soil, has left this recorded opinion, "If I was
asked whom I consider to be the happiest of
the human race, I should answer, those who
cultivate the earth by their own hands."

We have but little information to guide us
as to the couatry in which man first cultivated
the soil ; nor of that in which he first settled
after the deluge. Thus much, however, is cer-
tain, that we have the earliest authentic ac-
count of the state of agriculture as it existed
among the Egyptians and their bond-servants,
the Israelites. From the former, probably, the
Greeks were descended. The Romans, at a

later period, were a colony from Greece ; and
from the Romans the other countries of Europe
derived their earliest marked improvement in
the arts.

Our brief history of the progress of agricul-
ture, then, will be divided into, 1. The agricul-
ture of the Egyptians and other eastern
nations ; 2. The agriculture of the Greeks ;
3. The agriculture of the Romans; 4. The
agriculture of the Britons, including a cursory
notice of its present state among the chief
nations of Europe.

I. The Agriculture of the Egyptians,
Israelites, and other earlt Easterx
Nations.

Every family of these primitive nations had
its appointed district for pasturage, if it pur-
sued a pastoral life ; or its allotted enclosure,
if it was occupied by tilling the earth. There
was no distinction in this respect between the
monarch and his people : each had a certain
space of land from which he and his family
were to derive their subsistence.

The Egj'ptians, as well as the Israelites,
were flock-masters. The latter were particu-
larly so; and, as Joseph's brethren said to
Pharaoh, "their trade was about cattle from
their youth." {Gen. xlvi. 34.) When, there-
fore, they came into Egypt, they desired the
*low-lying land of Goshen, as producing the
most perennial of pasture. {Gm, xlvii. 4.) It
is true that the same authority says, " Every
shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyp-
tians;" but this was because, about a century
before the arrival of Joseph among them, a
tribe of Cushite shepherds from Arabia had
conquered their nation, and held them in sla-
very ; till, after a sanguinary contest of thirty
years, they regained their liberty about twenty-
seven years before Joseph was promoted by
Pharaoh. That the Egyptians were flock-
masters is certain, from many parts of the
Scriptures. Thus, when Pharaoh gave per-
mission to the Israelites to dwell in Goshen,
he added, as he spoke to Joseph, " And if thou
knowest any men of activity among them, then
make them'rulers over my cattle" {Gen. xlvii.
6.) ; and when the murrain came into Egypt,
it was upon their horses, asses, camels, oxen,
and sheep. {Exod. ix. 3.)

The attention and care necessary to be paid
to their domestic animals were evidently well
known and attended to ; for when they pro
posed to settle in a land, their first thought
was to build "sheepfolds for their cattle."
{Numb, xxxii. 16.) They had stalls for their
oxen {Hab. iii. 17), and for all their beasts
Thus King Hezekiah is said to have made
"stalls for all manner of beasts, and cotes for
flocks; moreover, he provided him possessions
of flocks and herds in abundance" (2 Chron
xxxii. 28) ; and that this abundance exceeded
the possessions of the greatest of our modern
flock-masters, we may readily acknowledge,
when we read that " Mesha, king of Moab, was
a sheep-master, and rendered unto the king of
Israel 100,000 lambs, and 100,000 rams, with
the wool." (2 Kings, iii. 4.)

They prepared the provender for their
horses and asses of chaff, or cut straw and

33

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

barley. (Judges, xix. 21; 1 Kings, iv. 28.)
Our translation does not explicitly stale this,
but it is clear in the Hebrew original. (Dr.
Kennicoft^s xxivth Codex; Harrner's Observa-
tions,^!. 423.) It is also certain, from the He-
brew original, that they tied up calves and
bullocks for the purpose of fattening them
(Jerem. xlvi. 21 ; Amos, vi. 4, &c., Parkhurst's
Hebrew Lexicon, 673) ; and that they were ac-
quainted with the arts of the dairy. " Surely
the churning of milk," says Solomon, " bring-
eth forth butter" (Frov. xxx. 31") ; and Samuel
speaks of the " cheese of kine. (2 Sam. xxvii.
29.) The chief vegetable products cultivated
by these eastern nations were, wheat, barley,
beans, lentils, rye, the olive, and the vine.
(Exod. ix. 31; Levit. xix. 10; % Sam. xvii.
28, (fee.)

The scanty notices which we have of their
tillage, give us no reason to doubt that they
were skilful husbandmen. The name for till-
age (Obed) emphatically expresses their idea
of it ; for it literally means to serve the ground.
(Parkhurst, 508.) And that the cares and at-
tention necessary were well sustained, is evi-
denced by the fact, that David, for his extensive
estate, had an overseer for the storehouses in
the fields ; another over the tillage of the
ground ; a third over the vineyards ; a fourth
over the olive trees ; two to superintend his
herds; a seventh over his camels; an eighth'
to superintend his flocks; and a ninth to attend
similarly to the asses. (1 Chron. xxvii. 25 —
31.)

Of their ploughing, we know that they turned
up the soil in ridges, similarly to our own
practice ; for the Hebrew name of a husband-
man signifies a man who does so. (Parkhurst,
93.) That they ploughed with two beasts of the
same species attached abreast to the plough.
(Deut. xxii.lO.) That the yoke, or collar was fast-
ened to the neck of the animal ; and that the
plough, in its mode of drawing the furrows, re-
sembled our own ; for we read of their sharp-
ening the coulter and the ploughshare. (1 Sam.
xiii. 20, &c.) Ploughing was an operation
that they were aware might be beneficially
performed at all seasons ; for Solomon men-
tions it as a symptom of a sluggard, that he
will not plough in the winter (Prov. xx. 4); and
that too much care could not be devoted to it,
they expressed, by deriving their name for
ploughing from a Hebrew root, which signifies
silent thought and attention. (Parkhurst, 244.)

Their sowing was broadcast, from a basket
(Amos, xi. 13 ; Psalm cxxvi. 6) ; and they gave
the land a second superficial ploughing to
cover the seed. It is true that harrowing is
mentioned in our translation (Job, xxxix. 10) ;
but Schultens and other Hebraists agree that
harrowing was not practised by them. Rus-
sell, in remarking upon the mode of cultivation
now practised near Aleppo, says, " No harrow
is used, but the ground is ploughed a second
time after it is sown, to cover the grain."
(Oirkhurst, 720.)

TThe after-cultivation apparently was not
neglected ; they had hoes or mattocks, which
they employed for extirpating injurious plants.
"On all hills," says the prophet, "that shall

34

come thither the fear of briers and thorns."
(Isu. vii. 25.) In those hot climates a plentiful
supply of moisture was necessary for a health-
ful vegetation; and the simile of desolation,
employed by the same prophet, is "a garden
that hath no water." (Isu. i. 30.) In Egypt
they irrigated their lands ; and the water thus
supplied to them was raised by an hydraulic
machine, worked by men in the same manner
as the modern tread-wheel. To this practice
Moses alludes, when he reminds the Israelites
of their sowing their seed in Egypt, and water-
ing it with their feet, a practice still pursued
in Arabia. (Deut. xi. 10 ; Niebuhr, Voyage en
Arabie, i. 121.)

When the corn was ripe, it was cut with
either a sickle or a scythe (Jer. 1. 16; Joel, iii.
13), was bound into sheaves (Psalm cxxix. 7;
Detit. xxiv. 19, &c.), and was conveyed in
carts (Amns, ii. 13), either immediately to the
threshing-floor or to the barn. They never
formed it into stacks as we do. These pas-
sages in the Scriptures (Exod. xxii. 6 ; Judg.
XV. 5; Job, V. 26) refer exclusively to the
thraves or shocks in w^hich the sheaves are
reared as they are cut. (Harmer's Observ. iv.
145, &c.) The threshing-floors, as they are
at the present day, were evidently level plats
of ground in the open air. (Judg. vi. 37;
2 Sam. xxiv. 18 — 25, &c.) They were so
placed that the wind might, at the time of the
operation, remove the chief part of the chaff".
They, perhaps, had threshing-floors under
cover, to be used in inclement seasons ; for
Hosea (ii. 35), speaking of "the summer
threshing-floors," justifies such surmise. The
instruments and modes of threshing were va-
rious. They are all mentioned in these two
verses of the prophet ; " Fitches are not
threshed with a threshing instrument, neither
is a cart-wheel turned upon the cummin, but
the fitches are beaten out with a staff", and the
cummin with a rod. Bread-corn is bruised
because he will not ever be threshing it, nor
break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise
it wath his horsemen." (Isaiah, xxviii. 27, 28.)
When the seed was threshed by horses, they
were ridden by men ; and when by cattle, al-
though forbidden to be muzzled (Deut.xxv.4),
yet they were evidently taught to perform the
labour. (Hosea, x. 11.) The "instrument"
was a kind of sledge made of thick boards,
and furnished underneath with teeth of iron.
(Isaiah, xli. 15; Parkhurst, 242, 412.) The
revolving wheels of a cart, and the various
sized poles employed for the same purpose,
need no further comment. To complete the
dressing of the corn, it was passed through a
sieve (Amos, ix. 9), and thrown up against the
wind by means of a shovel. The fan was,
and is still, unknown to the eastern husband-
men ; and where that word is employed in our
translation of the Scriptures, the original
seems to intend either the wind or the shovel.
(Isaiah, xxx. 24; Jer. xv. 7; Parkhurst, 183,
689.)

Of their knowledge of manures we know
little. Wood was so scarce that they con-
sumed the dung of their animals for fuel.
(Parkhurst, 764.) Perhaps it was this defi-
ciency of carbonaceous matters for their lands

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

thai makes an atteniion to fallowing so strictly
enjoined. (Levit. xix. 23 ; xxv. 3; Hosea, x. 12,
&c.)

The landed estates were large, both of the
kings and of some of their subjects ; for we read
that Uzziah, king of Judah, " had much both in
the low country and in the plains ; husband-
men also, and vine-dressers in the moun-
tains and in Carmel, for he loved husbandry"
(2 Chron. xxvi. 10); that Elijah found Elisha
with twelve yoke of oxen at plough, himself
being with the twelfth yoke (1 Kings, xix. 19) ;
and that Job, the greatest man of the east, had
14,000 sheep, 6000 camels, 1000 yoke of oxen,
and 1000 she-asses. (Job, i. 3 ; xlii. 12.) In
the time of Isaiah, the accumulation of landed
property in the hands of a few proprietors was
so much on the increase, that a curse was ut-
tered against this engrossment. " Wo unto
them," says the prophet, " that join house to
house, that lay field to field, till there be no
place, that they may be placed alone in the
midst of the earth." {huiah, v. 8.)

II. Ths Aoricultxtrk ot tub Greeks.

1. Ancient implement from a tombstone at Athens.
8. The Greek plough. 3. The spade. 4 and 5. Hoes.

Revelation has taught us to ofier up our
prayers and thanksgivings for all benefits to
the one omni-beneficent Creator and provider
of the universe. The less enlightened ancients,
whose religion was mythological, equally con-
vinced with ourselves of the existence of some
divine first cause and providence, like us of-
fered up their votive petitions and hymns of
praise, though the objects of their worship
were as many as the benefits or the evils to
which man is subject.

Agriculture was too important and tt)o bene-
ficial an art not to demand, and the Greeks and
Romans were nations too polished and dis-
cerning not to afford to it, a very plentiful se-
ries of presiding deities. They attributed to
Ceres — as their progenitors, the Egyptians, did
to Isis — the invention of the arts of tilling the
soil. Ceres is said to have imparted these to
Triptolemus, of Eleusis, and to have sent him
as her missionary round the world to teach
mankind the best modes of ploughing, sowing,
and reaping. In gratitude for this, the Greeks,
about 135G years before the Christian era, es-
tablished, in honour of Ceres, the Eleusinian
mysteries, by far the most celebrated and en-
during of all their religious ceremonies ; for
they were not established at Rome till the close
of the fourth century. Superstition is a pro-
lific weakness ; and, consequently, by degrees,
every operation of agriculture, and every pe-
riod of the growth of crops, obtained its pre-
siding and tutelary deity. The goddess, Terra,
was the guardian of the soil ; Stercutius pre-

sided over the manures ; Volutia guarded the
crops whilst evolving their leaves ; Flora re-
ceived the still more watchful duty of shelter-
ing their blossom ; they passed to the guardian-
ship of Lacfantia when swelling with milky
juices; Rubigo protected them from blight;
and they successively became the care of Hos-
tilina, as they shot into ears; of Matura as
they ripened ; and of Tutelina when they were
reaped. Such creations of polytheism are fa-
bles ; but they are errors that should even now
give rise to feelings of gratification rather than
of contempt. They must please by their ele-
gance ; and much more when we reflect that it
is the concurrent testimony of anterior nations,
through thousands of years, that they detected
and acknowledged a Great First Cause.

Unlike the arts of luxury. Agriculture has
never been subject to any retrograde revolu-
tions ; being an occupation necessary for the
existence of mankind in any degree of com-
fort, it has always continued to receive their
first attention ; and no succeeding age has been
more imperfect, but in general more expert, in
the art than that which has preceded it. The
Greeks are not an exception to this rule ; for
their agriculture appears to have been much
the same in the earliest brief notices we have
of them, as it was with the nation of which
they were an offset. The early Grecians, like
all new nations, were divided into but two
classes; landed proprietors, and Helots, or
slaves; and the estates of the former were
little larger than were sufficient to supply their
respective households with necessaries. We
read of princes among them ; and as we dwell
upon the splendid details of the Trojan war,
associate with such titles, unreflectingly, all
the pageantry and luxury of modern potentates,
that are distinguished by similar titles. But
in this we are decidedly wrong; for there was
probably not a leader of the Greeks who did
not, like the father of Ulysses, assist with his
own hands in the farming operations. {Ho-
mer's Odyss. I. xxiv.) Hesiod is the earliest
writer who gives us any detail of the Grecian
agriculture. He appears to have been the
contemporary of Homer ; and, in that case, to
have flourished about nine centuries before
the Christian era. His practical statements,
however, are very meager ; we have, therefore,
preferred taking Xenophori's (Economics as our
text, and introducing the statements of other
authors, as they may occur, to supply deficien-
cies or to afford illustrations.

Xenophon died at the age of ninety, 359
years before the birth of Christ. The follow-
ing narrative of the Greek agriculture is from
his " Essay," if not otherwise specified.

In Xenophon's time the landed proprietor
no longer laboured upon his farm, but had a
steward as a general superintendant, and nu-
merous labourers, yet he always advises the
master to attend to his own affairs. •* My ser-
vant," he says, " leads my horse into the fields,
and I walk thither for the sake of exercise in
a purer air; and when arrived where my work-
men are planting trees, tilling the ground, and
the like, I observe how every thing is per-
I formed, and study whether any of these opera-
tions may be improved." After his ride, his

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

servant took his horse, and led him home,
"taking with him," he adds, "to my house,
such things as are wanted, and I walk home,
wash my hands, and dine off whatever is pre-
pared^ for me moderately." "No man," he
says, " can be a farmer, till he is taught by
experience ; observation and instruction may
do much, but practice teaches many particu-
lars which no master would ever have thought
to remark upon." " Before we commence the
cultivation of the soil," he observes, that, "we
should notice what crops flourish best upon it;
and we may even learn from the weeds it pro-
duces, what it will best support."

" Falliwinir, or frequent ploughing in spring
or summer," he observes, " is of great advan-
tage ;" and Hesiod advises the farmer ( Works
and Days, 50) always to be provided with a
spare plough, that no accident may interrupt
the operation. The same author directs the
ploughman to be very careful in his work.
" Let him," he says, " attend to his employment,
and trace the furrows carefully in straight
lines, not looking around him, having his mind
intent upon what he is doing." Ihid. 441 — 443.

Theophrastus evidently thought that the soil
could not be ploughed and stirred about too
much, or unseasonably; for the object is to
let the earth feel the cold of winter and the
sun of summer, to invert the soil, and render
it free; light, and clear of all weeds, so that it
can most easily afford nourishment. {Da Cau-
sis Plant, lib. iii. cap. 2, 6.)

Xenophon recommends green plants to be
ploughed in, and even crops to be raised for
the purpose ; " for such," he says, " enrich the
soil as much as dung." He also recommends
earth that has been long under water to be put
upon land to enrich it, upon a scientific prin-
ciple which we shall explain under Ibriga-
Tiojf. Theophrastus, who flourished in the
fourth century b. c, is still more particular upon
the subject of manures. He states his convic-
tion that a proper mixture of soils, as clay
with sand, and the contrary, would produce
crops as luxuriant as could be effected by the
agency of manures. He describes the pro-
perties that render dungs beneficial to vegeta-
tion, and dwells upon composts. {Hist, of
Plants, ii. cap. 8.) Xenophon recommends the
stubble at reaping time to be left long, if the
straw is abundant ; " and this, if burned, will
enrich the soil very much, or it may be cut and
mixed with dung." "The time of sowing,"
says Xenophon, "must be regulated by the
season ; and it is best to allow seed enough."

Weeds were carefully eradicated from among
their crops ; " for, besides the hindrance they
are to corn, or other profitable plants, they
keep the ground from receiving the benefit of a
free exposure to the sun and air." Homer
describes Laertes as hoeinar^ when found by his
son Ulysses. ( Odi/ss. xxiv. 226.)

Water-courses and ditches were made to drain
away " the wet which is apt to do great damage
tpcftn."

Hcraier describes the mode of threshing corn
by the trampling of oxen UHad, xx. lin. 495,
&c.) ; and to get the grain clear from the
straw, Xenophon observes, " the men who have
the care of the work take care to shake up the

straw as they see occasion, flinging into the
way of the cattle's fe^t such corn as they ob-
serve to remain in the straw." From Theo-
phrastus and Xenophon combined, we can also
very particularly make out that the .Greeks
separated the grain from the chaff by throwing
it with a shovel against the wind.

III. The Aobiculture of the Roxaits.

■i' 2

1, 2, 3, Ploughs used by the "Romans in different agea.
4. The yoke for fixing the cattle. 5. The reaping hook.
6. The scythe.

It is certain, that at a very early age Italy
received colonies from the Pelasgi and Arca-
dians ; and that, consequently, with them the
arts of Greece were introduced ; and we may
conclude that there was then a similarity in
the practice of agriculture in the two coun-
tries.

About 753 years before the nativity of Christ,
Romulus founded the city of Rome, whose in-
habitants were destined to be the conquerors
and the improvers of Europe. The Roman
eagle was triumphant in Egypt, Persia, Greece,
Carthage, and Macedon ; and the warriors who
bore it on to victory, in those and other coun-
tries, being all possessors of land of a larger
5r smaller extent, naturally introduced, upon
their return, any superior vegetable, or "im-
proved mode of culture, which they observed
in those highly civilized seats of their victories.

Trtius the arts of Rome arrived at a degree
of superiority that was the result of the accu-
mulated improvements of other nations ; and.

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

finally, when Rome became in turn the con-
quered, the victors became acquainted with
this accumulated knowledge, and diffused it
over the other parts of Europe.

Of the agriculture of the early Romans we
know but little ; but of its state during the
period of their greatest prosperity and improve-
ment, we fortunately have very full informa-
tion. Cato in the second, and Varro in the
^rst century before the Christian era, Virgil,
at the period of that event, Columella and
Pliny but few years subsequently, and Palla-
dius in the seco];xd or fourth century, each
wrote a work upon agriculture, which, with
the exception of that by Columella, have come
down to us entire.

From these various authorities we derive
full information ; and we are convinced that
many of our readers will be surprised at the
correct knowledge of the arts of cultivation
possessed by that great nation.

1. Size of the Riiman Farms. — "When Romu-
lus first partitioned the lands of the infant state
among his followers, he assigned to no one
more than he could cultivate. This was a
space of only two acres. ( Varro, i. 10 ; Pliny,
xvii. 1 1 .) After the kings were expelled, seven
acres were allotted to each citizen. (Pliny,
xviii. 3.) Cincinnatus, Curius Dentatus, Fa-
bricius, Regulus, and others, distinguished as
the most deserving of the Romans, had no
larger estates than this. Cincinnatus, accord-
ing to some authorities, possessed only four
acres. {Ibid.,- Columella^ i. 3, &c.) On these
limited spaces they dwelt, and cultivated them
with their own hands. It was from the plough
that Cincinnatus was summoned to be dictator
(Livy, iii. 26) ; and the Samnian ambassadors'
found Curius Dentatus cooking his own repast
of vegetables in an earthen vessel. (Plutarch,
in vita Cato. Cens.)

Some of the noblest families in Rome derived
their patronymic names from ancestors desig-
nated after some vegetable, in the cultivation
of which they excelled, as in the examples of
the Fabii, Pisones, Lentuli, Cicerones, and the
like. {Pliny, xviii. 1.) In those days, "when
they praised a good man, they called him an
agriculturist and a good husbandman : he was
thought to be very greatly honoured who was
thus praised." {Catn, in Prsef.) As the limits
of the empire extended, and its wealth increas-
ed, the estates of the Roman proprietors became
very greatly enlarged ; and, as we shall see
more particularly mentioned in our historical
notices of gardening, attained to a value of
80,000/. {Plutarch in vit. Marius et Luctillus.)
Such extensive proprietors let portions of their
estates to other citizens, who, if they paid for
them a certain rent, like our modern tenants,
were called Coloni {Columella, i. 7; Pliny,
Epist. X. 24) and Politores, or Parllarii, if they
shared the produce in stated proportions with
the proprietor. {Pliny, Epist. vii. 30, and ix.
37, &c.) Leases were occasionally granted,
w'hich appear to have been of longer duration
than five years. (Ibid. ix. 37.)

2. Distinction of Soils. — Soils were charac-
terized by six difierent qualities, and were
described as rich or poor, free or stiffj wet or
dry. ( Colum. ii. 2.)

j The best soil they thought had a blackish

colour, was glutinous when wet, and friable

, when dry ; exhaled an agreeable smell when

I ploughed, imbibed water readily, retaining a

! sufficiency, and discharging what was super-

! fluous ; not injurious to the plough irons by

causing a salt rust ; frequented by crows and

rooks at the time of ploughing; and, when at

rest, speedily covered with a rich turf. ( Virg.

Georg. ii. 203, 217, 238, 248 ; Pliny, xvii. 5.)

Vines required a light soil, and com a heavy,
deep, and rich one. {Virg. Georg. ii. 29; Cato,
vi.)

3. Manures. — ^The dung of animals was par-
ticularly esteemed by the Romans for enrich-
ing their soil. " Study," says Cato, " to have
a large dunghill." {Cato, v.) They assidu-
ously collected it and stored it in covered pits,
so as to check the escape of the drainage.
{Colum. i. 6; Pliny, xvii. 9, and xxiv. 19.)
They sowed pulverized pigeons' dung and the
like over their crops, and mixed it with the
surface soil by means of the sarcle or hoe.
{Colum. i. 16 ; Cato, xxxvi.) They were aware
of the benefit of mixing together earth of oppo-
site qualities {Ibid.), and of sowing lupines
and ploughing them in while green. ( Varro, i.
23.) They burnt the stuhble upon the ground,
and jeven collected shrubs and the like for the
similar purpose of enriching the soil with
their ashes. ( Virg. Georg. i. 84 ; Pliny, xvii.
6, 25.)

Pliny also mentions that lime was employed
as a fertilizer in Gaul, and marl in the same
country and Britain ; but we can only surmise
hence that they were also probably employed
by the Romans. {Pliny, xvii. 8, and xvii. 5.)

4. Draining. — The superfluous water of soils
was carried off by means both of open and
covered drains. {Colum. ii. 2, 8; Pliny, xvii.
c. ; Virg. Georg. i. 109.) Cato is very particu-
lar in his directions for making them. {Cato,
xliii. clx.)

5. Crops. — They cultivated wheat, spelt,
barley, oats, flax, beans, pease, lupines, kidney-
beans, lentils, tares, sesame, turnips, vines,
olives, willows, and the like. To cite the au-
thorities who mention each of these would be
needless, for they are noticed in all the Roman
writers upon agriculture. Of the relative im-
portance or proportion in which the crops
were profitable to the Romans, we have this
judgment of Cato : — "If you can buy 100 acres
of land in a very good situation, the vineyard
is the first object if it yields much wine ; in
the second place, a well-watered garden ; in
the third, a willow plantation ; in the fourth,
an olive ground ; in the fifth, a meadow ; in
the sixth, corn ground; in the seventh, an
underwood, a plantation yielding stout poles
for training the vine ; and in the ninth, a wood
where mast grows." {Cato, i.)

They made hay, and the process appears to
have been the same as in modern times. After f
being cut it was turned with forks, piled into
conical heaps, and finally into stacks or under
cover. But the mowing was imperfectly per-
formed ; for, as soon as the hay was removed
from the field, the mowers had to go over it
again. ( rarro ,• Colum. ii. 22.)

6. Implements.— The plough consisted of se-

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

veral parts : the beam to which the yoke of the
oxen was fastened ; the tail or handle termi-
nated in a cross bar, with which the ploughman
guided the instrument; it had a ploughshare,
the sjiare-beam to which it was fixed, and two
mould-boards, a coulter, and a plough-staiF for
cleaning the ploughshare. (Ovid. Pont. i. 8,
67 ; Virg. G. i. 170 ; P/my, xvii. 18, 19.) Some
of their ploughs had wheels, and some were
without coulters and earth-boards. Besides
this, they had spades, rakes, hoes, with plain
and with forked blades, harrows, mattocks,
and similar implements.

7. Operations. — Ploughing was usually per-
formed by two oxen, though three were some-
times employed. They were yoked abreast,
and trained when young to the employment.
(Cicero, in Verr. iii. 21 ; Col. vi. 2, 10 ; Plini/,
xviii. 18; Virg. G. iii. 163, &c.) They were
usually yoked by the neck, but sometimes by
the horns. (Pliny, viii. 45; Colum. ii. 2.)
There was but one man to a plough, which he
guided, and managed the oxen with a goad.
(Pliny, Epist. viii. 17.)

They sometimes ploughed in ridges, and
sometimes not. They did not take a circuit
when they came to the end of the field, as is
our practice, but returned close to the furrow.
They were very particular in drawing straight
and equal sized furrows. ( Pliny, xviii. 19,s.49.)

They seem to have ploughed three times al-
ways before they sowed ( Vurro, i. 29) ; and to
stiff soils even as many as nine ploughingswere
given. C Virg. G. i. 47 ; Pliny, xviii. 20 ; Pliny,
Epist. v. 6.) The furrows in the first plough-
ing were usually nine inches deep. When the
soil was only stirred about three inches, it M^as
called scarification. (Pliny, xviii. 17 — 19.)
They usually fallowed their land every other
year. (Virg. G. i. 71.)

Sowing was performed by hand, from a bas-
ket ; and that it might be performed regularly,
the hand moved with the steps. (Colum. ii. 9 ;
Pliny, xviii. 24.) The seed was either scat-
tered upon the land and covered by means of
rakes and harrows, or more commonly by sow-
ing it upon a plain surface, and covering by a
shallow ploughing, which caused it to come up
in rows, and facilitated the operation of hoeing,
(Pliny, xviii. 20.) They were particular as to
the time of sowing, the choice of seeds, and
the quantity sown. ( Varro, i. 44 ; Pliny, xviii.
24, s. 55 ; Virg. G. i. 193, &c.)

Weeding was performed by hoes, hooks, and
by hand.

In dry seasons the crops were watered.
(Virg. G. i. 106.) If they appeared too luxu-
riant they were fed off. {Ibid. 193.)

Reaping and mowing were the usual modes
of cutting down the corn crops, but the
ears were sometimes taken off by a toothed
machine, called b'ltilium, which seems to have
been a wheeled cart, pushed by oxen through
the corn, and catching the ears of corn between
a row of teeth fixed to it, upon the principle of
the'3|iodern daisy rake. In Gaul, the corn was
cutilown by a machine drawn by two horses.
{.Varro, i. 50; Virg. G. i. 317; Colum. ii. 21 ;
Pliny, xviii. 30.) They do not seem to have
ever bound their corn into sheaves. (Colum.

Threshing was performed by the trampling
of oxen and horses, by flails, and by means of
sledges drawn over the corn. (Pliny, xvii. 30 ;
Colum. i. 6 ; Virg. G. iii. 132 ; Tibullus, i. 5,
22 ; Vurro, i. 52.) The threshing-floor was
circular, placed near the house, on high
ground, and exposed on all sides to the winds.
it was highest in the centre, and paved with
stones, or more usually with clay, mixed with
the lees of the oil, and very carefully consoli-
dated. (Colum. i. 6; Varro, i. 2; Virg. G. i.
178 ; Cafo, xci. and cxxix.)

Dressing was performed by means of aseive
or van, and by a shovel, with which it was
thrown up and exposed to the wind. ( Varro,
i. 52 ; Colunt* ii. 21.) It was finally stowed in
granaries or in pits, where it would keep fifty
years. (Pliny, xviii. 30 ; Varro, i. 57.)

8. Animals. — Oxen, horses, asses, mules,
sheep, goats, swine, hens, pigeons, pea-fowls,
pheasants, geese, ducks, swans, guinea-fowls,
and bees, are mentioned by various authors as
products of the Roman farms. Directions for
breeding many of these are given in the third
and fourth books of the Georgics.

Such is an outline of the Roman agriculture ;
and in it our readers will doubtless find suffi-
cient evidence to warrant them in agreeing
with us, that it was but little different from that
pursued by the present farmers of England.
We are superior to them in our implements,
and consequently in the facility of performing
the operation of tillage ; we perhaps have su-
perior varieties of corn, but we most excel
them in our rotation of crops, and in the ma-
nagement of stock. We differ from them, also,
in not practising the superstitious rites and
sacrifices which accompanied almost all their
operations (see Cato, cxxxiv. c.) ; but of the
fundamental practices of agriculture, they were
as fully aware as ourselves. No modern wri-
ter could lay doAvn more correct and compre-
hensive axioms than Cato did in the following
words ; and whoever strictly obeys them will
never be ranked among the ignorant of the
art. " What is good tillage 1" says this oldest
of the Roman teachers of agriculture ; " to
plough. What is the second? to plough. The
third is to manure. The other part of tillage
is to sow plentifully, to choose your seed cau-
tiously, and to remove as many weeds as pos-
sible in the season." (Cato Ixi.)

Such is an epitome of their agricultural
knowledge ; a knowledge which has since in-
creased, and can only in future be added to by
attending to this advice of another of their
writers. " Nature," he observes, " has shown
to us two paths which lead to a knowledge of
agriculture — experience and imitation. Pre-
ceding husbandmen, by makmg experiments,
have established many maxims ; their poste-
rity generally imitate them ; but we ought not
only to imitate others, but make experiments,
not directed by chance, but by reason."
(Varro, i. 18.)

IV. The Aghiculturk of Exglaxd.

The historian of English agriculture has not
the least trace of authority from which he can
obtain information of its state beyond the pe-

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

riod when the Romans invaded this island, and
the annals of even that period are meager and
unsatisfactory.

When Cajsar arrived in England, about 55
B. c, he describes the Cantii, or inhabitants of
Kent, and the Belgoe, inhabiting the modern
counties of Somerset, Wilts, and Hants, as
much more advanced than the rest of the peo-
ple in the habits of civilized life. They culti-
vated the soil ; employed marl as manure ;
stored their corn unthreshed, and freed it from
the chaff" and bran only as their daily demands
required. The interior inhabitants lived chiefly
upon milk and flesh, being fed and clothed by
the produce of their herds. " The country,"
adds Caesar, " is well-peopled, and abounds in
buildings resembling these of the Gauls, and
they have a great abundance of cattle. They
are not allowed to eat either the hen, the goose,
or the hare, yet they take pleasure in breeding
them." (Caes. v. c. 10 ; Utrahoy iv. 305 ; Diodor.
Sic. V. 301 ; Plint/, xvii. 4.) Cicero, in one of
his letters, says, "There is not a scruple of
money in the island ; nor any hopes of booty>
but in slaves; (Lib. iv. Ep. 17) ; a description,
that the industry and intelligence of succeed-
ing ages has rendered singularly inapplicable.
The first steps in that improvement were owing
to the Romans themselves. Riitilius has ele-
gantly and correctly said, that Rome filled the
world with her legislative triumphs, and caused
all to live in one common union, blending dis-
cordant nations into one country, and, by im-
parting a companionship in her own acquire-
ments and laws, formed one great city of the
world.

Agricola was the chief instrument in impart-
ing to the Britons the improved arts and civi-
lization of the Romans. "To wean them from
their savage habits, Agricola held forth the
baits of pleasure, encouraging the natives, as
well by public assistance as by warm exhorta-
tions, to build temples, courts of justice, and
commodious dwelling-houses. He bestowed
encomiums on such as cheerfully obeyed ; the
slow and uncomplying were branded with re-
proach ; and thus a spirit of emulation difl'used
itself, operating like a sense of duty. To es-
tablish a plan of education, and give the sons
of the leading chiefs a tincture of letters, was
part of his policy. By way of encouragement
he praised their talents, and already saw them,
by the force of their natural genius, rising su-
perior to the attainments of the Gauls. The
consequence was, that they who had always
disdained the Roman language began to culti-
vate its ^eauiies. The Roman apparel was
seen without prejudice, and the toga became a
fashionable part of dress. By degrees, the
charms of vice gained admission to their
hearts ; baths, porticos, and elegant banquets
grew into vogue ; and the new mannprs, which
in fact served only to sweeten slavery, were by
the unsuspecting Britons called the arts of
polished humanity." {Tacitus, Agricola, xxi.)
Thus eloquently does Tacitus describe the dif- \
fusion of the Roman arts among the early na-
tives of England ; and that agriculture was
one of those in which they so rapidly improved,
is attested by the fact that in the fourth century
the Emperor Julian, having- erected here gra-

naries in which to store the tributary corn that
he exacted from the natives, at one time sent a
fleet of 600 large vessels to convey away the
store they contained. Julian himself particu-
larizes the transaction. " If," says Gibbon,
" we compute those vessels at only seventy
tons each, they were capable of exporting
120,000 quarters ; and the country which could
bear so large an exportation must have attained
&,n improved state of agriculture." {Dec. and
Fall of Rom. Emp. c. xix.)

Possessing this improved agriculture, Eng-
land was successively subdued by the Saxons,
the Danes, and the Normans ; but as these all
came to improve their fortunes, and to win the
comforts of life, agriculture continued to flou-
rish : her operations were interrupted, her pro-
ducts destroyed, in whichever direction swept
the tide of war; but no sooner was peace re-
stored than the inhabitants, though of varied
extraction, united their knowledge in the pur-
suit of this art, on which not only their com-
fort, but their existence chiefly depended. A
similar summary observation applies to all
succeeding ages ; and our agriculture has con-
tinued slowly to improve in spite of every ob-
stacle that has occasionally delayed, or that
has permanently retarded its advance.

1. Tenures — Size of Estates. — The native
Britons, it is very certain, appropriated but
small portions of the land for raising corn, or
other cultivated vegetables, and the rest of the
country was left entirely open, afllarding a
common pasturage for their cattle, and pan-
nage for their swine. Under the Roman
government, we have seen that the extent of
cultivated ground must have considerably in-
creased, yet the oldest writers agree, that by
far the greatest proportion of the country was
occupied by heaths, woods, and other unre-
claimed wastes.

When the Saxons established themselves in
the island, an almost total revolution in the
proprietorship of the lands must have occur-
red. The conquest was only accomplished
after a bloody struggle ; and what was won
by the sword was considered to possess an
equitable title, that the sword alone could dis-
turb. In those days it was considered that the
lands of a country all belonged to the king ;
and on this principle the Saxon monarchs
gave to their followers whatever districts they
pleased, as rewards for the assistance afforded
in the conquest, reserving to themselves cer-
tain portions, and imposing certain burdens
upon each estate granted. (Coke's Littleton, I.
58. 2 ; Blackstone's Conrim. 45, &c.) This was
only a continuance of that feudal system that
prevailed upon the Continent.

As this feudal system declined, and was
finally extinguished in the twelfth year of
Charles II., so proportionally did the landed
interest increase in prosperity. Freed from
the burden of furnishing a soldier and hi-
armour for every certain number of acre^,
and all restrictions as to lands changing hands
bemg removed, and the numerous impositions
being got rid off", with which the lords op-
pressed their sub-infeudatories, it soon became
a marketable species of property; and, as
money and merchandise increased, and the

39

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

proprietor lived less upon his estate, it soon
became the most eligible plan for both landlord
and tenant, that the whole rent should be paid
in money.

Of the size of these early farms we have no
precise information ; but, from the laws of
Ina we may perhaps conclude that a hide of
land, equal to about 100 or 120 acres, was the
customary size ; for, in speaking of the pro-
duce to be given to the lord for ten hides, the
law speaks of the smallest division of each
county of which it was particularly cognisant;
namely, of ten families, or a tithing, as they
were collectively called. Again, Bede ex-
pressly calls a hide of land fiunilin, and says
it was sufficient to support a family. It was
otherwise called maiisum, or manerium, and
was considered to be so much as one could
cultivate in a year.

War succeeded war, and chivalry and the
chase were the engrossing occupations of the
landed proprietors during the whole of the
middle ages; yet amid all these convulsions,
and all this neglect, agriculture continued to
obtain a similar degree of attention, and its
practitioners to occupy a similarly humble,
yet more independent station of life. Bishop
Latimer flourished in the first half of the six-
teenth century ; and his father was among ihe
most respectable yeomen of his time, yet his
farm evidently did not exceed 100 acres. "My
father," says Latimer, "was a yeoman, and
had no lands of his own ; he had only a farm
of three or four pounds by the year, at the
utmost; and hereupon he tilled as much as
kept half a dozen men. He had a walk for 100
sheep ; and my mother milked thirty kine,"
&c. {Latimer's Sermons, p. 30.) But that this
class of society was then not very refined, is
proved by Sir A. Fitzherbert, in his Bo(tk of
Husbandry, declaring, "It is the wife's occupa-
tion to winnow all manner of corn, to make
malt, to wash and wring, to make hay, to shear
corn, and in time of need to help her husband
to fill the muckwain, or dung-cart ; to drive
the plough, to load corn, hay, and such other ;
and to go or ride to the market ; to sell butter,
cheese, milk, eggs, chickens, capons, hens,
pigs, geese, and all manner of corn."

This race of farmers, and this extent of
farm, continued much the same till the closing
years ' of the eighteenth century. The wife,
indeed, had long previously ceased to partici-
pate in the above-mentioned drudgery, but she
still attended the dairy, and sold its products
at market, as her husband still participated in
the usual labours of his farm ; but in the latter
half of that century, and thence to the present
time, a diflTerent class of men have engaged in
the cultivation of the soil. The accumulation
of wealth from the vast increase and improve-
ment of manufactures and commerce, the
difl'usion ^ better information, and the in-
creased population, have all contributed to this
effect. Individuals engage in the pursuit
wh«i|e education and habits require a larger
inc^e for their indulgence than can be
afforded by the profits of a small farm ; and,
consequently, in districts having the most fer-
tile soils, farms of from 300 to 500 acres are
ver>' common ; whilst in less productive dis-
40

tricts they extend even to 1000 and 2000 acres.
With the present expenditure of rent, tithe,
taxes, rates, and labour, and the reduced
prices of agricultural produce, farms, even
of those extents, cannot yield a profit sufficient
to support the farmer of refined habits. And
if the present artificial system of corn laws is
removed, we do not see any possible result but
a return to smaller farms, and a more labour-
ing class of tenants; for it admits of perfect
demonstration, that small farms, having that
manual labour, and that careful tillage which
small plots obtain, return a more abundant
produce than those which are too large to be
so attentively cultivated.

Enclosure of Lan^. — It is a rule, founded
upon general observation, that the most en-
closed country is always the best cultivated ;
for, as Sir Anthony Fitzherbert observed, in
the reign of Henry VIII., live stock may be
better kept, and with less attendance, closes
be better alternately cropped, and the crops
better sheltered in inclement seasons, "if an
acre of land," he concludes, "be worth six-
pence an acre before it is enclosed."

We have seen, already, that hedges, ditches,
and other fences, marked the boundaries of
the early Saxon estates ; and these were cer-
tainly not adventitious distinctions, for they
are mentioned in most of the Saxon grants of
which we are aware, and are strictly regulated
and protected by law. If a tenant omitted to
keep his farm enclosed, both in winter and
summer, and to keep his gate closed, if any
damage arose from his hedge being broken
down, or his gate being open, he was declared
to be legally punishable. ( Wilkins, Leges Sax.
21.) If a freeman broke through another's
hedge he was fined 6*. (Ibid.)

As woollen manufactures improved, the de-
mand for broad cloths became excessive, not
only in England but in the continental na-
tions; and the consequent consumption of
wool was so large, and the price was so en-
hanced, that self-interest dictated to the landed
proprietors, even in the reign of Henry III.,
that the enclosure of their manorial wastes, on
which to feed sheep upon their own account,
or to let out as pasture farms, would be a
source of extensive emolument. The statutes
of 20 Hen. 3, 13 Edw. 1, and others, were con-
sequently passed for sanctioning and regu-
lating the practice. The demand for woollens
continued, and became so great, that rapidity
of manufacture was the chief consitleration.
" Yet as ill as they be made," says King Ed-
ward VI., in his private journal, " the Flemings
do at this time desire them wonderfully." The
consequences are depicted by the same genuine
authority. "The artificer will leave the town,
and for his mere pastime will live in the coun-
try ; yea,^ore than that, will be a justice of the
peace, and will scorn to have it denied him, so
lordly be they now-a-days ; for they are not con-
tent with 2000 sheep, but they must have 20,000,
or else they think themselves not well. They
must have twenty miles square their own land,
or full of their farms : four or five crafts to live
by is too little. Such hell-hounds be they."
(Edward the Sixth's Remains, p. 101.) The
rents of land were consequently enormously

AGRICULTURE.

raised, and the corn farmers were ruined.
" They everywhere," says Roger Aschara, " la-
bour, economize, and consume themselves
to satisfy their owners. Hence so many
families dispersed, so many houses ruined, so
many tables common to every one, taken
away. Hence the honour and strength of
England, the noble yeomanry, are broken up
and destroyed." (^*cAam's Epistles, 293 — 295.)
Bishops Story, Latimer, and others, raised
their voices in their behalf, and hurled their
•invectives from the pulpit upon those who op-
pressed them. "Let them," said Latimer, in a
sermon preached before the king, " let them
have sufficient to maintain them, and to find
them in necessaries. A plough land must
have sheep to dung their ground for bearing
corn ; they must have swine for their food, to
make their bacon of; their bacon is their veni-
son, it is their necessary food to feed on,
which they may not lack; they must have
other cattle, as horses to draw their plough,
and for carriage of things to the markets, and
kine for their milk and cheese, which they
must live upon, and pay their rents."

The short-sighted executive of that period
endeavoured to prevent these enclosures by a
prohibitory proclamation, as the legislature
had done by the statutes 4 Hen. 7, c. 16, 19.
There doubtless was great distress, and always
will be upon any sudden change in the direc-
tion of the national industry, and in none more
extensively than in the return from an agri-
cultural to a pastoral mode of life. But, as is
observed by one of the most impartial of our
historians, " every one has a legal and social
right of employing his property as he pleases ;
and how far he will make his use of it com-
patible with the comforts of others, must be
always ^ matter of his private consideration,
with which no one, without infringing the com-
mon freedom of all, can ever interfere. That
no national detriment resulted from this exten-
sive enclosure — no diminution of the riches,
food, and prosperity of the country at large, is
clear to every one who surveys the general
state and progress of England with a compre-
hensive impartiality." (Turner's History of
Edward the Sixth, «&c.) " The landlord," he
further observes, *' advanced his rent, but the
farmer also was demanding more for his pro-
duce."

The evil of converting arable to pasture
land cured itself. 'The increased growth of
wool in other countries, and the improvement
of their manufactures, by degrees caused the
production of it in England to diminish : and
as dearths of corn accrued, and the consequent
enormous increase of its value rendered its
growth more lucrative, pasture-land gradually
returned to the dominion of the plough.

Since that period enclosures have gone on
with various, but certainly undiminished, de-
grees of activity. More than 3000 enclosure
bills were passed in the reign of George III.
The land so enclosed was, and is, chiefly dedi-
cated to the growth of corn ; but since the field
culture of turnips was introduced in the seven-
teeth, of mangel wurzel in the nineteenth cen-
tury, and other improvements in agricultural
practice, every farm is enabled to combine
6

AGRICULTURE.

the advantages of the stock and tillage hus^
bandry.

Implements.— It is very certain that the state
of any art is intimately connected with that of
Its instruments. If these are imperfect it can-
not be much advanced ; and this is so univer-
sally the case, that agriculture, of course, is no
exception.

1. Norman plough, with the hatchet carried by the
ploughman for breaking the clods. 2. Sowing, as re-
presented by Strutt. 3. Reaping. 4. Threshing. 5. Whet-
ting. 6. Beating hemp.

We find, in the earliest of our national
records, that the plnifgh, the most important
implement of husbandmen, was then of a very
rude construction. In general form it rudely
resembled the plough now employed, but the
workmanship was singularly imperfect. This
is no matter of surprise ; for among the early-
inhabitants of this country there were no arti-
ficers. The ploughman was also the plough-
wright It was a law of the early Britons that
no one should guide a plough until he could
make one; and that the driver should make
the traces, by which it was drawn, of withs or
twisted willow, a circumstance which afibrds
an interpretation to many corrupt terms at
present used by farming men to distinguish
the parts of the cart harness. Thus the womb
withy has degenerated into wambtye or wanly t;
withen trees into whipping or Whipple trees ,- be-
sides which we have the tail withes, and some
others still uncorrupted. (Leges Walliae, 283
— 288.) We read, also, that Easterwin, Abbot
of Wearmouth, not only guided the plough and
winnowed the corn grown on the abbey lands,
but also with his hammer forged the instru-
ments of husbandry upon the anvil. (Bed^,
Hist. Abb. Wearmofh, 296.) Whether the early
British or Saxon ploughs had wheels is uncer-
tain, but those of the Normans certainly had
such appendages. Pliny says that wheels
were first applied to ploughs by the Gauls.
d3 41

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

The Britons were forbidden to plough with
any other animal than the ox ; and they attached
any requisite number of oxen to the plough.
The Normans had been accustomed, in their
light soils, to employ only one, or at most two. '
( Leges WifUlcse, 288 ; iWmffaucon's Monumens \
dc Monarchic Frangois I. Planche, 47 ; Giraldus
CambrenaiSjC. 17.)

The gigantic- and universal impulse that
seemed simultaneously to affect the human
mind in the sixteenth century, tended to the
improvement of sciences which could not be
benefitted without agriculture sharing in the
good. Metallurgy and its subservient arts, and
applied mathematics, were thus assistant to
improving the plough. It received the first
improvement among the Dutch and Flemings
in thS sixteenth century ; and still more so in
Scotland in the following one.

The common wooden swing-plough is the
state to which it was brought in the last-named
country, in the eighteenth century, and still is
known in many countries, as the improved
Scotch plough. The first author of the improved
form is differently stated. A man of the name
of Lummis has by one writer this credit as-
signed to him, though he learned the improve-
ment in Holland. He obtained a patent for his
form of construction ; but another ploughman,
named Pashley, living at Kirkleathem, pirated
his invention. The son of Lummis established
a manufactory at Rolherhara in Yorkshire,
whence it is sometimes called the Rotherham
plough ; but in Scotland it was known as the
Dutch or Patent Plough. On the other hand,
the Rotherham plough is said to have been
made at that town in 1720, or ten years before
Lummis's improvements. The grandmother
of the Earl Buchan, Lady Stewart of Goodtrees,
near Edinburgh, is also named as an improver.
She invented the Rutherglen plough, formerly
much employed in the west of Scotland. Mr.
Small, in 1784, and Mr. Bailey, in 1795, pub-
lished upon the proper mathematical form of
this implement. In the fourth volume of the
Transactions of the Highland Society, and in the
Quarterly Journal of Agriculture for February,
1829, there are also two valuable Essa)'-s upon
the same subject. In 1811 this plough came
very generally to be made of cast iron. {Amos's
Essay on Agricultural Machines, Survey of W.
Riding of Yorkshire, &c.)

Wheel ploughs have been commensurately
improved. The objects to be attended to in the
formation of a plough, and that is the best
which attains to them most effectually, are,
first, that it shall enter and pass through the
soil with the least possible resistance ; se-
condly, that the furrow-slice be accurately
turned over; and, thirdly, that the moving
power or team shall be placed in the most
beneficial line of draught.

Scarifiers and horse hoes are implements
which were unknown till within about a cen-
tury ago. Hoeing by manual labour had, in
^ry early ages, been partially practised ; for
tfe earliest writers, we have seen, recom-
mended particular attention to the cutting
down and destroying of weeds. But to Jethro
Tull, is indisputably due the honour of having
first demonstrated the importance of frequent
42

hoeing, not merely to extirpate weeds, but for
the purpose of pulverizing the soil, by which
process the gases and moisture of the atmos-
phere are enabled more freely to penetrate to
the roots of the crop. The works of Tull ap-
peared between the years 1731 and 1739.

Drills. — We noticed, when considering the
Roman agriculture, that the Romans endea-
voured to attain the advantages incident to
row-culture by ploughing in their seeds. A
rude machine is described in the Transactions
of the Board of Agriculture, as having been
used immemorialiy in India for sowing in
rows. The first drill for this purpose intro-
duced into Europe seems to have been the in-
vention of a German, who made it known to
the Spanish court in 1647. (Hurte's Essays mi
Husbandry.) It was first brought much into
notice in this country by Tull, in 1731 ; but the
practice did not come into any thing like ge-
neral adoption till the commencement of the
present century. There are now several im-
proved machines adapted to the sowing of
corn, beans, and turnips. See Drills.

Draining, as we have seen, was attended to
by the Romans, and it was unquestionably
practised in Britain during the middle ages ;
for where lands were too retentive of moisture,
or abounded in springs, the obvious remedy
was to remove it by drains. This, however,
and far simpler operations, are seldom per-
formed in the most correct mode without a
knowledge of the sciences connected with
their success. Draining was never correctly
understood till the scientific observations of
Dr. Anderson, and the practical details of Mr.
Elkington, about the year 1761, placed it upon
a more enlightened and correct system. The
important benefits that have arisen from the
adoption of this system are very extensive ;
and the acknowledgment of 1000/., voted to
Mr. Elkington, was a just testimony that the
landed interest appreciated the boon, and that
the benefiter of this country is duly estimated
by its legislature.

There are numerous kinds of drain ploughs.
The mole plough was invented by a Mr. Adam
Scott, and improved by a Mr. Lumley of
Gloucestershi^re daring the present century.

The past and the present century have also
given birth to machines totally unknown in
previous ages ; of these are rollers, machines
for haymaking, reaping, threshing, and dress-
ing; and if to these be added the immense im-
provement that has taken place in the torm
and quality of all other agricultural imple-
ments, the saving of labour, and the power to
pursue the necessary operations neatly and
well, will be found to be incalculably pro-
moted.

Crops. — It is probable that wheat was not
cultivated by the early Britons ; for the cli-
mate, owing to the immense preponderance of
woods and undrained soil, was so severe and
wet, that in winter they could attempt no agri-
cultural employments ; and even when Bede
wrote, early in the eighth century, the Anglo-
Saxons sowed their wheat in spring, {fiede'si
Works, p. 244.) The quantity cultivated in the
reign of Hear}' III. does not appear to have
exceeded the quantity necessary for the year's

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

consumption; for in a very wet, inclement
year, 1270, wheat sold for six pounds eight
shillings per quarter, which, calculating for
the difference of the value of money, was
equal to twenty-five pounds of our present cur-
rency. It continued an article of comparative
luxury till nearly the 17th century commenced ;
for in the household books of several noble
families it is mentioned that mimchetfi, and
other loaves of wheat flour, were served at the
master's table, but there is only notice taken
of coarser kinds for the servants. That the
cultivation of wheat was very partial in the
reign of Elizabeth is attested by Tusser, who,
writing at that period, says, —

"In SiiJolk agnin, whereas wheat never grew,
Good husbandry used, good wheat-land I knew."

As the climate has improved by the clearing
and drying of the surface of the country, so
proportionally, has the cultivation of wheat
extended.

It was probably owing to the fickle and in-
clement climate of England rendering the
successful completion of harvest a much rarer
and more hazardous event than now, that our
forefathers made on the occasion such marked
and joyous festivities. We do not know the
motive that actuated the farmer, but no dread
of an uncertain harvest could have made him
more prompt and vigorous, who, in 1289, cut
and stored 200 acres of corn in two days.
The account is given in "The History of Haw-
stead." About 250 reapers, thatchers, and
others, were employed during one day, and
more than 200'the next. The expenses of the
lord on this occasion are thus stated : — Nine-
teen reapers, hired for a day at their own
board, Ad. each ; eighty men one day, an3 kept
at the lady's board, Ad. each ; 140 men, hired
for one day, at 2d. each ; wages of the head
reaper, 6.«. 8</. ; of the brewer, 3*. 4^. ; of the
cook, 3*. Ad. ; thirty acres of oats, tied up by
the job, 1". 8(/. ; three acres of wheat, cut and
tied up by the job, Is. lie/.; five pair of
gloves," &c.

Barley is probably the grain which was
most cultivated by the early Britons. The re-
presentation of it occurs upon their coins.
{Camden^s Britannia^ by Gibson, Ixxxviii.) It
was not only the grain from which their pro-
genitors, the Cymri, made their bread, but
from which they made their favourite bever-
age, beer.

Oats being well-known and cultivated by the
Germans and other continental nations when
Pliny wrote, they were probably known also
to this island in the earliest ages. In all
periods, even to the present time, bread made
of oatmeal has been a very prominent part of
the food of the inhabitants of the northern parts
of Britain. "In Lancashire," says Gerarde,
in 1597, "it is their chiefest bread-corn, for
jamrocks, haver-cakes, thorffe-cakes, and those
which are called generally oaten-cakes ; and
for the most part they call the grain haver,
whereof they do likewise make drink for want
of barley." It is so hardy that it is admirably
calculated for a cold climate, and there is
scarcely any soil in which it will not be pro-
ductive. In southern climates it will not
flourish.

" Rye," says Gerarde, groweth very plenti-

; fully in the most parts of Germany and Polo-

I nia, as appeareth by the great quantity

brought into England in times of scarcity of

corn, as happened in the year 1596; and at

other times, when there was a general want of

bread-corn, by reasoii of the abundance of

I rain that fell the year before, whereby great

penury ensued, as well of cattle, and all other

victuals, as of all manner of grain. It groweth,

likewise, very well in most places of England,

especially towards the north."

Its hardiness probably rendered it a prin-
cipal grain with the early Britons; but as it is
a great impovcrisher of the soil upon which it
grows, and the grain makes very inferior
bread, it is now cultivated to a very^mall
extent.

Peas have been extensively cultivated in
England from a very early period ; but they
have been much less since the bean has be-
come a more general field crop, which it did
not till within the present century. Lentils
were brought to England about 1548. Gerarde
says he had heard they were cultivated as fod-
der near Waterford. Maize, or Indian corn,
was made known in England in 1562. It is
commonly cultivated in the south of France
as a field crop, and for the same purpose was
tried in England in 1828, at the recommenda-
tion of Mr. Cobbett, but it has not succeeded.
Tares, in 1566, according to Ray, were grown
as a seed crop, and given to horses, mixed
with oats and peas, though they were some-
times cut green as fodder. This is now their
chief use.

Potatoes were introduced from South Ame-
rica, by Sir Walter Raleigh, about 1586. Sir
Robert Southwell, President of the Royal Soci-
ety, informed the Fellows, in 1693, that his
father introduced them into Ireland, having
received them from Sir Walter. {MS. Journal
nf Royal Society.) It long continued to be
neglected by gardeners. In 1663, however,
attention was drawn to its extensive culture.
But notwithstanding the exertions of the Royal
Society to effect this purpose, potatoes did not
become a field crop till the early part of the
last century. They became so in Scotland
about 1730, a day-labourer of the name of
Prentice having the honour of first cultivating
them largely two years previously. Every
county of England now grows them exten-
sively, ancashire and Cheshire are particu-
larly celebrated for them. In the counties
round London, especially in Essex, about two
thousand acres are annually cultivated for
supplying the metropolis with this root.

Turnips and clover, though known in Eng-
land during time immemorial, were never
much cultivated in the field before the early
part of the seventeenth century, and we men-
tion them together, because their introduction
among the farmer's crops caused the greatest
improvement in the art that it ever received.
In 1684, it is observed as a modern discovery,
" sheep fatten very well on turnips, these proy-
i ing an excellent nourishment for them in
' hard winters, when fodder is scarce ; for they
j will not only eat the greens, but feed on the
I roots in the ground, scooping them out even

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTUTIE.

to the very skin." This is the first notice we
have of feeding off turnips ; and the same
authority adds, " ten acres sown with clover,
turnips, &c., will feed as many sheep as one
hundred acres would have done before."
(Houghfon's Collections on Hu.sbandrt/, &c., iv.
142 — 144.) Brown, Danaldson, and all other
writers upon agriculture, agree, that the intro-
duction of the improved mode of cultivating
these crops revolutionized the art of hus-
bandry. Previously, light soils could not be
cropped with advantage ; there was no rotation
that the judgment could approve. Tusser, in
the sixteenth century, in the following homely
lines, tells us that two corn crops were grown
consecutively and then a fallow; and many
authorities could be quoted to show that some
soils Vere fallowed on alternate years, so that
they afforded only one crop in two years.

" First rie and then barlie, the champion sales,
Or wheat before biirlie, be champion waies:
But drink before bread-corn, with Mi«hlle8ex men,
Then laie on more coinpas, and fallow agen."

But now, by the aid of green crops, a fallow
usually occurs but once in four years. " Clo-
ver and turnips," it has been observed, " are
the two main pillars of the best courses of
British husbandrjr; they have contributed
more to preserve and augment the fertility of
the soil for producing grain, to enlarge and
improve breeds of cattle and sheep, and to
afford a regular supply of butcher's meat all
the year, than any other crops." It was pre-
viously a difficult task to support live stock
through the winter and spring months ; and as
for feeding and preparing cattle and sheep for
market during these inclement seasons, the
practice was hardly thought of, and still more
rarely attempted.

Mangel wurzel has only been cultivated by
the farmer for a few years past Its chief ad-
vantage is, that as it will succeed upon tena-
cious soils which will not produce turnips, it
enables farms in which such soils predomi-
nate to support a larger quantity of live stock.
Its cultivation seems on the increase, its fat-
tening qualities being good, the produce heavy,
and liability to failure small. '

Hops, although indigenous to England, were
little attended to, and never employed in brew-
ing till the sixteenth century ; and then, when
they began to be more used, the citizens of
London petitioned parliament to prevent them
as a nuisance. " It is not many years since,"
says Walter Blith, writing in the year 1653,
" the famous city of London petitioned against
two nuisances, and these were Newcastle
coals, in regard of their stench, &c., and hops,
in regard they would spoil the taste of drink
and endanger the people." (English Improver
Improved, 3d ed. 240.)

There are many other crops occasionally
cultivated by the farmer which may be enu-
merated here, and most of them first exten-
sively cultivated within the last 150 years, but
\\iiich in this place will require no further
nttice — such as the artificial grasses, rape,
mustard, caraway, coriander, flax, hemp, buck-
wheat or brank, teasel, madder, saintfoin,
lucerne, cabbage, carrots, and others.

Gtnernl cultivation, — We have no informa-
44

tion as to whether the early inhabitants of
Britain varied their modes of ploughing with
the nature of their soih They sometimes
ploughed with two oxen, sometimes with more ;
some ploughmen, represented in very old pic-
tures, evidently drove the team as well as
guided the plough ; but it was usual for them
to have a driver. There is a very old Saxon
dialogue extant, in which a ploughman, in
stating his duties, says, " I go out at day-break,
urging the oxen to the field, and I yoke them
to the plough — the oxen being yoked, and the
share and coulter fastened on, I ought to
plough one entire field or more. I have a boy
to threaten the oxen with a goad, who is now
hoarse through cold and bawling. I ought,
also, to fill the bins of the oxen with hay, and
water them, and carry out their soil." {Tur-
ner^s Anglo-Saxons, ii. 546, ed. 5.) Repeated
ploughings and fallowings, to prepare the soil
for wheat, was the common practice ; for Giral-
dus Cambrensis, speaking of the Welsh, says,
with astonishment, "they ploughed their lands
only once a year, in March or April, in order to
sow them with oats ; but did not, like other
farmers, plough them twice in summer and
once in winter, to prepare them for wheat."
{Descript. Cambnas, c. viii.)

In a law tract, called Fleta, and written early
in the fourteenth century, are given several
agricultural directions, especially upon dress-
ing and ploughing fallows. In summer, the
ploughing is advised to be only so deep as. to
bury and kill the weeds ; and the manure not
to be applied till just before the last ploughing,
which is to be deep. (Fleta, lib. ii. c. 73.)

Sowing was anciently performed in all cases
by hand. In the famous antique tapestry of
Ba3'-eux, a man is represented sowing. The
seed is contained in a cloth fastened round his
neck, is supported at the other extremity by
his left arm, and he scatters the seed with his
right hand.

All agricultural writers, from the earliest
era to the present, have recommended the seed
to be soaked in some medicament or other
previously to sowing. Virgil recommends oil
and nitre for beans ; others direct the employ-
ment of urine ; and Heresbachius, who wrote
in 1570, mentions the juice of the houseleek.
" Sow your ridges," says the same author,
"with an equal hand, and all alike in every
place, letting your right foot, especially, and
your hand go tosMpl^r. Wheat, rye, barley,
oats, and other la^e seeds must be sown with
a full hand, but rape seeds only with three
fingers." (Googe's Heresbachius, 246.)

The tapestry of Bayeux, already mentioned,
represents a man harrowing ; one harrow only
being employed, and one horse. In the time
of Heresbachius, though harrowing was the
usual mode of covering the seed, yet he says,
" in some places it is done with a board tied
to the plough." Rakes seem to have been
employed by the Anglo-Saxons ; for the accu-
rate researches of Mr. Turner do not appear
to have discovered any mention of other im-
plements that were employed by them for the
purpose. (Hist. Anglo-Sax. ii. 544.)

We find no very early mention made of
hoeing by any English agricultural writer*

I

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

Though there is generally some directions for
"plucking up the naughty weeds." Heresba-
chius is the first that we have met with who
notices the advantage of loosening the surface
of the soil about growing crops. " Sometimes,"
he. says, "raking is needful, which, in the
spring, loosens the earth made clung by the
cold of winter, and letteth in the fresh warmth.
It is best to rake wheat, barley, and beans
twice. Moreover, they break asunder with a
roller the larger and stiffer clods." (Gnoge's
Heresbuchhis, [printed in 1578,] 256.) It was
not till the time of Tull, 1731, that the due im-
portance of this was appreciated.

Of the other operations of agriculture, as
reaping, mowing, stacking, and the like, there
seems no need of making mention: they were
performed much in the same way as now.
" Corn," says the author last quoted, " should
be cut before it is thorough hard ; experience
teacheth that if it be cut down in dfue time, the
seed will grow to fulness as it lieth in the
barn." (G' age's Heresbachius, A06.) According
to Henry, the practice with our ancestors was
for the women to thresh and the men to reap.
{Hrst. of Britain, vi. 173.)

Irrigation seems to have been practised in a
few places in Britain from the time of the Ro-
mans, there being meadows near Salisbury
which have been irrigated from time immemo-
rial. Lord Bacon mentions it as a practice
well understood in his time (1560 — 1626) ; and
at the same period, 1610, appeared a work by
Robert Vaughan, detailing the mode of "sum-
mer and winter drowning of meadows and
pastures, thereby to make those grounds more
fertile ten for one." It was not, however, till
the close of the last century that the attention
of agriculturists was much aroused to the sub-
ject. The writings of Boswell, Wright, West-
ern, and others, between the years 1780 and
1824, partially awakened the farmers to the
importance of the practice. The best exam-
ples of it are to be observed in Gloucestershire
and Wiltshire ; but it is now one of the prac-
tices of farming that is the most undeservedly
neglected. Mr. Welladvise was its great pro-
moter in Gloucestershire.

Live Stock. — Cattle and sheep were the chief
riches of the Britons when they became first
known to the Romans {Csesar, v. c. x.), and
they are still a great source of our agricultural
riches.

Sheep. — In a very eaiiy Anglo-Saxon MS. a
shepherd is represented as saying, " In the first
part of the morning I drive my sheep to their
pasture, and stand over them in heat and in
cold with dogs, lest the wolves destroy them.
I lead them back to their folds, and milk them
twice a day ; and I move their folds and make
cheese and butter." (Turner's Anirlu-Sax. ii.
546.) ^

This attention to sheep was attended with so
much success that they became an object of
acquirement by the continental nations ; and
in the reign of Edward IV. at the time a treaty
of peace was concluded with Spain (1466), a |
license Avas granted by that monarch " for cer-
tain Coteswold sheep to be transported to
Spain, as people report, which have there so
multiplied and increased, that it hath turned !

the commodity of England much to the Spanish
profit, and to the no small hinderance of the
gain which was beforetimes in England raised
of them." {HaWs Chronicle, 266. Holinshed,
668.) The sheep thus exported were probably
improved by attention and climate till they had
become that breed of Merinos which was re-
imported to this country early in the present
century. The statute 3 H. 6, c. 2, forbids the
exportation of sheep. The fears which old
chroniclers may have ignorantly entertained,
that the exporting of sheep would be injurious
to our native commerce, have in all succeed-
ing years been proved to be fallacious. The
demand for our wool was so large, and the
consequent increase of the breed of sheep was
so great, that an impolitic legislature in 1533
endeavoured to check it. The preamble of the
act states, that " divers of the king's subjects,
to whom God of his goodness hath disposed
great plenty and abundance of moveable sub-
stance, now of late, within few years, have
daily studied, invented, and practised ways
and means to accumulate into few hands, as
well great multitudes of farms as great plenty
of cattle, and in especial sheep, putting such
lands as they can get to pasture and not to
tillage, whereby they have not only pulled
down churches and towns, and enhanced the
old rates of the rents, and that no poor man is
able to meddle with it, but also have raised
the prices of all manner of corn, cattle, &c.,
almost double above the prices accustomed, to
the great injur}', &c., of his majesty's sub-
jects ; and as it is thought that the greatest
occasion of this accumulation is the profit that
Cometh of sheep, which now be come to a few
persons' hands of this realm, that some have
24,000, some 20,000, «&c., by which a good
sheep for victual, that was accustomed to be
sold for 2*. Ad., &c., is now sold for 65., &c. ;
which things thus used be principally to the
high displeasure of Almighty God, to the decay
of the hospitality of this realm, to the diminish-
ing of the king's people, and to the let of cloth-
making," &c. It then enacts, that no one shall
have more than 2000 sheep ; though, as a sub-
sequent section declares every hundred to con-
sist of six score, the limited number was 2400.
And it further enacts, that no man shall have
above two farms. (25 H. 8, c. 13.)

Harrison, who died in 1593, describes our
sheep as very excellent, " sith for sweetness
of flesh they pass all other. And so much are
our wools to be preferred before those of Milesia
and other places, that if Jason had known the
value of them that are bred and to be had in
Britain, he would never have gone to Colchis
to look for any there." {Description of England,
prefixed to Holinshed, 220.) Heresbach, who
was a contemporary, gives such a description
of the best form and qualities of sheep, that it
is evident that the excellence of the breed was
not the mere efl^ect of chance. {Googt's Heres-
bach. 1376.) From that period till the latter
half of the eighteenth century, we are not ac-
quainted with any efforts further to improve it.
This last-mentioned period was the era of the
improvements effected by Mr. Bakewell and
his pupils, the Messrs. Culley.

Bakewell was born in 1726, at Ditchley in

45

* AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

Leicestershire, and about the year 1755 com- 1
menced those experiments which finally effect- ■
ed a greater improvement in our sheep than !
was ever effected in any species of agricultu- \
ral produce by the exertions of one individual.
He travelled over England, Ireland, Holland,
and other places, for the purpose of examining
the various breeds of cattle, and by careful se-
lections, and judicious crosses, succeeded in
procuring a stock that obtained for the Ditch-
ley sheep a previously unheard of excellence.
Fortunately the English agriculturists appre-
ciated the importance of his success ; and it is
a fact that, in 1789, three of his rams, the pro-
duce of one birth, were let for the breeding
Season, for 1200 guineas, and the whole pro-
duce of his letting was at least 3000 guineas.
One of his rams obtained for Mr. Bakewell, in
one season, 800 guineas ; and when it is taken
into the calculation, that the same animal
served for his own flock, it produced for its
owner in that year 1200 guineas. Mr. Bake-
well died in 1795.

Messrs. Culley iniroduced these improve-
ments into Northumberland, and the other
northern counties of this island. When they
first settled in that district, the sheep kept there
were large, slow-feeding, long-woolled animals ;
and a breed between those and the Cheviot
sheep. These breeds rarely became fat before
they were three years old ; but the Leicesters
introduced by the Messrs. Culley were sold fat
at little more than a year old. They at first
met with much opposition ; but as it was soon
seen they were improvers, and not mere inno-
vators, the flocks have generally been made to
improve by their example. They became the
general patrons of improvement, and their
great attention to minutise, unremitting indus-
try, and superior cultivation, gave birth to a
spirit of emulation, and their own merits were
rewarded with a liberal success. For several
years they occupied farms to the amount of
about 8000/. per annum. They had pupils
with liberal premiums from all parts ; and
these again were the means of making known,
not only their enlightened husbandry, but the
encouraging illustration they afforded of in-
dustry, economy, and intelligence duly re-
warded.

Merino sheep were imported by George III.
in the years 1788 and 1791. This breed at-
tracted much attention in 1804, when his
majesty commenced his annual sales. Dr.
Parry, Lord Somerville, and others have
paid considerable attention to them; but the
climate of England has a considerable eflfect
in deteriorating their fleeces, and the flesh is
too "indiff'erent to permit them to be much en-
couraged in a country where mutton is so
considerable an article of food. (Hunt's Agri-
cuUural Memoirs ,• Genfs Magazine ,- Enc. Brit.)

Mr. EUman, of Sussex, during an enlight-
ened practice of more than fifty years has
brought the South Down variety of sheep to a
slate of the highest improvement. Perhaps
tl^ best description of the varieties of the
sheep reared in England has been written by
this gentleman for " Baxter's Agricultural Li-
brary."

Cattle, as we have already noticed, have al-
46

ways been a prominent production of Great
Britain. They were mentioned by Caesar,
Strabo, and other ancient writers. They have
ever since continued, more or less, particularly
to engage the attention of the husbandman, not
only for the dairy and the plough, but also as
a source of food. The breeding of cattle, how-
ever, had been so much neglected for the more
profitable pasturage of sheep, that in 1555,
an act of parliament was passed to remedy
the evil. The preamble states that, "For-
asmuch as of late years a great number of
persons in this realm have laid their lands,
farms, and pastures, to feeding of sheep, oxen,
runts, scrubs, steers, and heifers, &c., having no
regardor care to breed up youngbeasts or cattle,
whereby is grown great scarcity of cattle and
victual ;" and, therefore it is enacted that a
cow shall be kept wherever are sixty sheep,
and a calf reared where there are one hundred
and twenty, &c. (2 & 3 Phil. <^ Mary, c. 3.)
Many other legislative enactments occur in the
records of that and contiguous periods ; but
reason and interest are better promoters of im-
provement than acts of parliament. A due at-
tention to the breedingof cattle was first aroused
by Mr. Bakewell, who has just been mentioned
as an improver of sheep. He let bulls for 150
guineas during four months, and 5 guineas per
cow was no uncommon charge. Pedigrees
have been preserved of different animals with
as much care as those of race-horses. The
attention and care that have thus been paid to
their breeding have met with an appropriate
recompense. In no other country is there to
be found such breeds of cattle ; and that none
are so highly estimated, is proved by the prices
that have been given for individuals. {Mar-
shalfs Midland Counties, i. 334 ; Parkinson on
Live Stock, ii. 469.)

Horses. — That the ancient Britons had
horses with which they impelled their war
chariots, we know upon the authority of those
who had seen them — Cajsar, Strabo, and others.
In the epitome of Dion Cassius, by Xiphelin,
those horses are described as small and swift.
They appear not to have been usually employed
in the operations of agriculture ; and their em-
ployment was not considered desirable ; for in
the old Cambrian laws, oxen are exclusively
directed to be employed. (Leges Wallfcas, 288.)
Under the Saxons, and still more under the
Normans, who flourished here in an age that,
from its excelling in noble horsemanship, has
been distinguished as the ckivalric, the breed
of horses was undoubtedly improved. " Richard
De Rulos, Lord of Brunne and Deeping, was
much addicted to agriculture, and delighted in
breeding horses and cattle." (Jngulphus's
Chron. lib. i.)

In the year 1494, the exportation of horses
was so extensive, and the price of them so
much enhanced, that an act of parliament or-
dained that none should go out of the realm
without the king's license (2 /f. 8, c. 6 ; 32, c.
j 13 ; 33, c. 5) ; but these being evidently intend-
! ed for the improvement of war horses, " for the
I defence of the realm," would only collaterally
j benefit those employed by the husbandman. It
j was provided by the second of the acts just
\ quoted, tnai no stallion should be kept that did

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

not measure fifteen hands from the sole of the
hoof to the highest part of the wither; each
hand to be four standard inches. We find,
however, that at this period draught horses
were fine and powerful animals, for Harrison,
who lived at this era, and whose appendix to
Holinshed we have before quoted, after ex-
pressing his admiration of them, says, that five
or six of them would draw with ease three thou-
sand weight of the greatest tale for a long
journe3\ We must remember, loo, that in
those days the roads were totally different from
what they are at present. It is within the me-
mory of persons still living in the hundreds of
Essex, that no more than a load of wheat was
ever sent out in a Avagon, the roads there
being, until within less than a half a century,
exceedingly bad.

We have already noticed that in the tapestry
of Baycux a man is represented harrowing
with a horse. This tapestry was woven in
the year 1066, and this representation is the
first notice, of which we are aware, of the
horse being employed in agriculture. The
first attempt that historians notice, to improve
the breed of our husbandry horses, was in the
reign of King John. Tyrant and despot as he
was, yet his evil qualifications gave two bene-
fits to England. His tyranny gave birth to
Magna Charta; and his pride, rendering it
hateful to him to see foreigners surpass him
in the excellence of their horses, induced him
to import 100 stallions from Flanders ; and
from that era may be dated the improvement of
our draught horses. His object did not entirely
succeed ; for a century subsequently, in the
reign of Edward II., we find that horses were
still imported from Lombardy and Flanders.
We have already noticed some of the enact-
ments to improve the breed of horses, but
these shared the fate of most other compulsory
measures ; for when Elizabeth summoned her
forces to defend her realm, in the prospect of
a Spanish invasion, she could obtain no more
than 3000 cavalry.

Sir A. Fitzherbert, who wrote in the reign
of Henry VIII., says, in his Boktof Husbandry,
— " A husbande may not be without horses and
mares, and specially if he goe with a horse-
plough, he must have both ; his horses to
droive, and his mares to brj'nge colts to up-
holde his stocke, and yet at many times these
may droive well if they be well handled."
The roguery of horsedealers was an early sin ;
for one of the old Cambrian laws provides,
that the purchaser of a horse shall have three
nights to ascertain whether he is infected with
the daggers ,- three months to prove his lungs ,-
and twelve months to discover whether he is
infected with the glanders. For every blemish
not discovered before purchasing, if it was not
in the ears or tail, one third of the price was
to be returned. (Laws of Howell Dhu.) The
deceptions practised by the dealers in horses
is still proverbial ; and there does not appear
with their fraternity to have been any interme-
diate age of innocence ; for Sir A. Fitzherbert
says, "Thou grayser, that mayest fortune to
be of myne opinion or condytion to love
horses, and young coltes and foles to go among

thy cattle, take hede that thou be not beguiled
as I have been a hundred times and more. An-A
first, thou shalt knowe that a good horse has
fifty-four properties ; that is to say two of a
man, two of a badger, four of a lion, nine of
an oxe, nine of a hare, nine of a fox, nine of
an asse, and ten of a woman."

Since the days of Elizabeth, every variety
of horses has been gradually improving, in
England, and four kinds, the Suffolk Punch,
the Cleveland bays, the Clydesdale, and the
Lincolnshire or dray, are surpassed by no
country in the world. The numerous cart
stallions attending every market town during
the covering season, is an attestation that this
care is not on the decrease. It is stated, as a
further proof, that a few years since a Suffolk
cart-mare and her offspring sold at Woodbridgc
Lady-day fair for 1000/.

Pigs have been among the usual animal.-;
fostered by the farmer in times at least as
early as the Anglo-Saxons. In those days
they were evidently the most numerous of their
live stock ; scarcely an estate is mentioned
without its being slated that it afforded pa7i-
nage, or mast in its wood, for such a number
of swine. They were a very prominent por-
tion of their wealth ; and, indeed, a chief ne-
cessary, for they were in Avinter obliged to use
almost exclusively sailed meat, and the great
preponderance of woodland supported best
this kind of stock. (Turner's Anglo-Saxons,
iii. 22.) Heresbach is particularly earnest in
commending the pig; and after mentioning it
as abominable to the Jews, says, with a boast-
ful feeling that made him forget its impiety,
" I believe, verily, they never tasted the flitches
of Westphaly."

Enactments occur in our statute book, in
1225 and 1534, regulating the pannage of
swine. There are now a great many varieties
of pigs, every district of England varying in
the size and qualities of those it prefers. Some
attention has of late years been paid to im-
prove the stock, but in general they have been
too much neglected. We have not particu-
larized the progress of husbandry in Scotland,
because previously to the time of its union
with this country. Lord Karnes and Mr. Fletcher
agree that its agriculture was deplorable ; and
since then the improvement of the art in that
most generally enlightened part of the island
has, in many districts, outstripped, and, in
most, at least kept pace with that of England ;
and its future advance will probably surpass
that of England, because good education is
more completely diffused among its inhabi-
tants. ' -

Ireland is in general deplorably behind in
all the arts of life ; nor Avill this be obviated
until the effect of education and wealth is more
generally felt and appreciated by its generous
and hospitable, but far from wealthy inhabi-
tants.

Wales, for the most part, has an agriculture
as bad as that of Ireland ; and we cannot have
much hope of its 4mprovement, when Mr.
Adam Murray, in his evidence before the Com-
mittee of Agriculture in 1833, stated that the
Welsh have a great antipathy against us

M

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

Saxons, or Sassenachs ,- and that they take
every advantage of any Englishman that settles
among them.

^ V. CoXTINEKTAL AGniCULTURE.

We have now brought to a conclusioft our
sketch of the progress of agricuhure. The
limits of our work preclude us from giving
here more of the ample details that have come
under our notice in the research for the ma-
terials, of which we have given the abstract.
"We have not withheld our attention from the
husbandry of other nations, but have found
little concerning the history of their progress
in the art ; and the examination of their present
operations made it so apparent, that with the
exception of Flanders, they were all so much
behind in general practice, that the conviction
is forced upon us, that little instruction could
be obtamed from its detail. Several of them,
however, excel us in some particular points :
and in noticing these we shall avail ourselves of
the opportunity to enfore the importance of
extra attention to them upon our own agricul-
turists.

Flanders. — This country was certainly the
first of modern countries to improve the prac-
tice of agriculture. Its farmers were the first
tutors of England; and from the time of Sir
Richard Weston, who published an account of
their husbandry, in 1645, till that of the Rev.
T. Radcliff in 1819, the Flemish husbandmen
have continued models of neat and economi-
■cal farming. In this respect we fall short of
them. It is a leading principle with them to
make their farms closely resemble gardens.
Consequently, to effect this, they have small
farms, and devote their efforts to these three
grand points — the accumulation of manure —
the destruction of weeds — and the frequent and
deep pulverization of the soil. We recom-
mend for the perusal of our readers the work
(Tour in Flanders) published by Mr. Radcliff,
and the Flemish Husbandry of the Society for
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and we are
convinced that they will benefit by the time so
occupied. We do not expect that they will
induce them to try to cultivate a large surface
of land with the minute accuracy of a garden ;
but it might pursuade them to adopt that more
cleanly system of cultivation which is the only
one that is permanently profitable.

We shall only remark more particularly
upon the assiduous care the Flemish farmers
bestow upon the collection of manures.

They were the first among the moderns to
raise crops for the sake of ploughing them in
whilst growing ; and they continue it more ex-
tensively than any other nation. This prac-
tice, we may say, is entirely neglected by our
farmers ; but if they knew sufficient of che-
mistry to understand how much fertilizing ma-
terials such green crops impart to the soil, it
would be a practice more extensively adopted,
l^ery fragment of animal and vegetable mat-
teBis preserved by the Flemish farmers for
".M fertilizing of their lands ; and the ready
sale which all such decomposable substances
meet, is one cause of the broom and the bar-
row succeeding in keeping their town so scru-
48

pulously neat. Saw-dust, chips, and similar
refuse all tend to increase their composts ; and
on their barren lands trees are frequently
planted for the purpose of creating in time a
fertile soil by the agency of their falling
leaves.

Their dunghills are so constructed that all'
the drainage is collected in cisterns, with
which liquid is mixed the emptyings of privies,
pulverized rape cakes, and the like ; and this
most fertilizing compound is conveyed to their
fields by means of barrels fixed on wheels,
and is spread by means of a scoop, 2840 gal-"
Ions per acre being allowed for their flax crop.
(Johns, on Liq. Manure.)

The slovenly management of his dunghill
is one of the most general specimens of the
ignorance or carelessness of a farmer. He
allows the most soluble and valuable portions
to drain away; and treats with ridicule the
idea of carrying out manure in a liquid form.
As this arises from ignorance and "bigoted at-
tachment to old practice, it should excite our
pity more than our anger. Liquid manures,
notwithstanding stupidity and prejudice, are
amongst the best of fertilizers, and will, in a
coming age, be generally employed, since it is
a fallacy to argue that they cannot be employed
on a large scale ; for the comparative expense
of preparation and application is unquestiona-
bly smaller on a large scale than on a less.

Holland. — The husbandry of this country is
almost exclusively confined to the dairy and
to stall feeding. There are two points in their
practice in which other farmers would do well
to imitate them.

It is a common prejudice that a cow for the
dairy should never be fat. This is thus far
true, namely, that if a cow inclines to fatten'
easily, she does not yield so much milk as one
that generates fat less readily. But a good
dairy cow, that is, one that secretes milk
abundantly, will not fatten whilst in that con-
dition, and therefore the abstaining from giving
them nutritive food is an erroneous conclusion.
The Hollanders know that the contrary is the
correct practice, and once a day, or oftener,
they give their cows rape cake, and other nu-
tritious preparations. The ignorance of the
common English practice is evident from this
fact, that without one exception, other ani-
mals, when suckling, are always kept much
higher than at other periods.

The other point of their practice that merits
imitation is the cleanliness with which they
keep all their animals. It will excite a laugh
with some of our agricultural readers, when
we recommend not only the most scrupulous
daily cleaning and washing out of cow-sheds,
pig-styes, and the like, but that the animals
themselves should be cleaned. This, however,
is not a mere speculative precept, for the na-
tional example of Holland attests its utility.
We have known the beneficial effects of such
treatment upon the health of cows and pigs in
this country. But in the absence of all facts,
if the farmer would but allow his own common
sense to direct him ; if he would but reflect
that no animal will thrive that is not healthy;
that his horse becomes diseased if not kept
clean ; and that by no possibility can it be .

AGRICULTURE.

o!hcr«dsc but that fetid stenches, and encum-
bering filth must tend to breed disease, he
would not allow so baleful a neglect to con-
tinue. It is futile to urge that where stock is
large, the attendance to such treatment is im-
possible ; for if it is beneficial it will pay to
adopt it ; and no one should engage in a larger
concern than he can manage in the most bene-
ficial mode.

Germany. — The inhabitants of the different
districts of this extensive empire pay particu-
lar attention to the cultivation of timber trees.
The number of German books on the subject
is excessive.

It is a subject which has of late years been
gaining much attention also in England, and
planting will probably be still further extended
over many of the poorer soils that at present
will not pay whilst producing corn.

The careless and ignorant manner in which
the labourer is allowed to mutilate timber trees
that grow upon most farms, cannot be too se-
verely deprecated. To train trees correctly,
requires as much judgment as any operation
in which the gardener or forester is concerned.
Not an unnecessary wound should be inflicted
upon them ; for the process of healing each
wound not only deducts so much from the
growth of the tree, but is usually the intro-
ducer of decay. Yet the hedger, with no other
instrument than his bill, is generally allowed
an unguided use of so unfit and mutilating a
tool.

Lombardy. — In this, and most of the other
Italian states, all rivers, and in some, even all
springs, are considered to be the property of
the government, for they are the source of
a considerable revenue. Any one desiring a
canal from a river has to pay for it to the
government ; and he may cut it through an-
other person's ground without the latter having
the power to prevent it, upon paying the value
of the land. Such canals are considered as im-
proving the value of an estate, for they irrigate
not only their grass lands, but their corn, vines,
and other crops, numerous little channels
being cut for the purpose down the ridges.
The water from a river is purchased at a certain
price for so many hours' or days' run in the
year, through a sluice of a stated dimension.
Arthur Young mentions that the fee-simple of
an hour's run per week through a particular
sized sluice at Turin, sold in 1788, for 1500
livres. Watered lands usually let for one
third more than lands that are unwatered.

We have already noticed, and shall again
have to recur to the subject of irrigation; but
we could not but notice the above national evi-
dence in favour of what we know to be one of
the most beneficial practices neglected by our
agriculturists.

Tuscany. — Sismondi informs us that it is the
practice in this country, where he was himself
for five years a cultivator, to trench one-third
of the farm every year with the spade, bring-
ing the lower soil to the top. This mode of
culture bringing a new soil for the promotion
of vegetation, for it has been in a manner
lying two years fallow, is sanctioned by reason
a.s well as confirmed by practice. We are not
the advocates of a general system of spade
7

AGRICULTURE.

husbandr)-. There are objections to it that at
present are insuperable. But we do recom-
mend, and that from our own experience, its
partial adoption. There is no parish in Eng-
land in which many of the labourers are not
out of employ during a considerable portion of
the year. Perhaps the average of the poor's
rates were lOs. in the pound upon the farmers
rental ; and this might have been reduced
more than one half, if every farmer had em-
ployed one man in spade husbandry for every
thirty acres he cilltivated. Thus he would
have had some return for the money he ex-
pended ; and the saving^of horse labour, and
the benefit of the extra cultivation, would have
turned the balance in his favour, and he would
thus have got rid, in a great degree, of the
worst of all outlays — an outlay without a pos-
sibility of a return.

I have searched various statements of the
agriculture of the other European countries ;
but though I am gratified by the conviction
that they are all more or less improving, yet
in almost all their practices, except the culture
of the vine, they are very far behind England.
For that reason I leave them unnoticed, be-
cause there is no instruction to be extracted
from a detail of deficiencies that have already
been overcome. Upon a revision of the whole,
I may remark that agriculture, in common
with all other kinds of knowledge, is always
flourishing, in proportion to the freedom of the
people. Spain, subjugated by its despotic
monarchy and priesthood, has an agriculture
imperfect and degraded beyond that of any
other European nation. Flanders has always
had a liberal government, and its agriculture
improved before our own, and is its equal
now.

By freedom, I mean security of property and
person, unrestricted discussion of every virtu-
ous opinion, and an untainted distribution of
justice. With us, the era that introduced such
freedom into England was that of the Reform-
ation, confirmed and strengthened b)-^ the ex-
clusion of the Stuarts in 1688.

The introduction of the scholastic philoso-
phy, which revived that activity of mind
which the Grecian vanity had so much abused,
and the Romans, by their gross habits, had so
long paralysed ; the mathematical sciences
which the Grecians had imported from Alex-
andria and had forgotten; that natural and
experimental knowledge which neither the
Grecians nor Romans had ever much or per-
manently pursued ; the reformation of religion,
which removed from the mind that incubus
that forbad man to trust to his own reason, but
made it the bond-slave of interested ignorance ;
the invention of printing, which became the
mighty engine of difiusing accumulated know-
ledge ; were all events that preceded the seven-
teenth century, and rendered it an era splendid
by the general improvement which it afforded
in all the arts and sciences. These have justly
been represented as forming a circle, for they
are so united, so blended together, and so co-
assistant, that one cannot be improved without
the benefit being shared in some way by the
others.

Agriculture participated in the general pro-

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

gress ; and the impetus that was given to the
human mind, tutoring it to follow reason rather
than habit, was felt by the cultivators of the
soil. The eighteenth and present centuries
have been those in which the improvement
has been marked, and the instances of which
have already been noticed. The reason of
this is to be found in its having then very
generally engaged the attention of a more en-
lightened class of society. The noblemen, the
gentry, and even the monarch of England, be-
came practical agriculturists ; and under the
patronage of George IIL, the Duke of Bedford,
Lords Sheffield, Suffield, and Albemarle, Coke,
Western, and many others, it was sure to ob-
tain the benefit of all the improved knowledge
of the day. In 1723 was instituted the Society
of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture
in Scotland; in 1749, the Dublin Agricultural
Society; in 1777, the Bath and West of Eng-
land Society; in 1784, the Highland Society
of Scotland; in 1793, the London Board of
Agriculture, and the Royal Agricultural So-
ciety of England in 1838. The last chiefly
through the exertions of Mr. W. Shaw and
Mr. Handley, Lord Spencer and the Duke of
Richmond. This, although supported entirely
by voluntary subscriptions, promises to be of
the highest advantage to agriculture, and by its
excellent arrangementj, of which carefully
avoiding all political discussions is a promi-
nent feature, it now includes in its copious list
of members, men of all parties, who are united
not for the sake of indirectly forwarding party
objects, but for the improvement in all its im-
portant branches of practical agriculture.
The fate of the Board of Agriculture, which
expired about the year 1812, from the with-
drawal by government of the annual parlia-
mentary grant for its support, should operate
as a warning to all other agricultural societies ;
for this society failed, not from a want of
talent or of industry, but from its efforts being
paralysed, and its resources curtailed by its
being considered the society of a party, and
made the arena for the discussion and promul-
gation of political doctrines. From none of
these have arisen any splendid discoveries, for
such are not to be made in agriculture : there
can never arise, so far as we can foresee, any
Newton or Watt in this art ; but they have
effected and are accomplishing all that such
associations can be expected. They have oc-
casioned the collision of opinion, they have
stimulated the desire of improvement, and
they have promoted the general communica-
tion of its acquirements. The general im-
provements introduced into agriculture, under
the auspices of these valuable societies, have
been, amongst several others, 1. The general
introduction of green crops ; 2. The improve-
ment of agricultural machinery, such as the
drill, the thrashing-machine, the plough, &c.;

3. Better breeds of all kinds of live stock ;

4. Better and more numerous varieties of
se^s.

(^f the benefits conferred by other sciences
upon agriculture, by chemistry, botany, and
physiology. I shall hereafter have much to
say. They are branches of knowledge hitherto
too seldom combined with practical skill to
50

have yet accomplished much ; but of what
they are capable of achieving, an estimate
may be formed from the perusal of De Can-
dolie's Physiologic Vegetale. " It is certain,"
as the writer of this has elsewhere observed,
"that a cultivator of the soil should have a
knowledge of botany and of chemistry. With-
out the first he will be unable to understand
terms and observations that must occur in
every well-written work on his art; unable to
comprehend the nature and habits of the ob-
jects of his culture, or to render observations
which he makes intelligible to others or even
to himself. Chemistry is of as much, if not
greater, importance to him. The nature of
soils, of manures, of the food and functions of
plants, would all be unknown but from the
analyses which chemists have made. Science
can never supersede the dung-hill, the plough,
the spade, and the hoe ; but it can be one of
their best guides — can be a pilot even to the
most experienced." (Baxter's Agricultural Li-
brary, flO.)

Of the literature of agriculture, I have little
to say in this place. From the days of Hesiod
until the sixteenth century, the authors upon
this art were very few; but from that period to
the present, they have continued to increase ;
and its literature, if now collected, would form
a copious library.

There have been professorships of agricul-
ture for some time proposed at the Universities
of Oxford and Cambridge. There was one
appointed at Edinburgh in 1790, and the chair
is now (1841) filled by Mr. Low; another at
Oxford in 1840, of which Mr. Daubeny is the
present holder.

A prejudice too generally existed amongst
farmers against the agricultural knowledge
contained in books ; but now they are gene-
rally better educated, this prejudice will cease.
Ignorance is ahvays bigoted and obstinate;
and it i:s the same mental sterility which made
the m jealous of all new practices, that made
the Irish persist in fastening their horses to the
plough by their tails, until it was absolutely
prohibited by the government. The Irish said
in defence of their practice what some English
farmers say in defence of theirs, however erro-
neous, *' My grandfather did well enough this
way." Such foolish observations amount to
no more than this, "We will not try to im-
prove." This race of stagnant cultivators is
gradually disappearing; and those who are
succeeding them, we see reason to believe, are
more enlightened, and consequently more
ready to adopt improvements. We most
heartily rejoice at this ; and we hope to see
them more and more a class of reading men.
Practice must ever be their chief tutor, as in
all other arts; but likewise, as in all other
arts, that practice will always be the most cor-
rect in its details which is founded upon
scientific knowledge. (G. W. Johnson. Miller's
Gard. Did. by Orr Sf Co.)

[Agriculture ix the Ujtited States,

A glance into the agricultural history of the
United States has been given in the introduc-
tion to this work. It will not therefore be

AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE.

necessary to say much upon that topic here,
where the agricultural resourses of the Re-
public -vvill be mainly dwelt upon.

Notwithstanding the desolation to which a
scourging course of tillage has reduced so
many of the once rich acres in the Atlantic
states, the agricultural productions of the
countrj' are exceedingly abundant. Until very
recently, the value of these products has been
a subject for conjecture and approximate com-
putation. The act of Congress for taking the
Census of 1840, provided that the persons en-
gaged in enumerating the population, should
collect facts so as to show the amount of the
products of husbandry, as well as of every
other branch of industry pursued throughout
the country. A fund of authentic information
of the highest interest has been thus obtained,
exhibiting not only the aggregate value, but
the relative proportions the several products
of agriculture, commerce, thje forests, and the
manufactures, bear to each other.

As the agriculture of the country yields the
immediate means of subsistence, so does it
furnish the basis of commerce, and the various
branches of industry, all of which must prosper
or languish according to the good or bad suc-
cess attending rural affairs.

" Land and trade," says a quaint old English
writer, "are twins, and ever will wax and
wane together. It cannot be ill with trade l)ut
lands will fall, nor ill with lands, but trade will
feel it." (Sir Joseph Child.)

"In the pursuit of agriculture," says a sen-
sible writer in Hunt's Magazine, " we are, in
effect, advancing the other great interests of
the country, a fact which we are too apt to
forget in discussing any single interest with
ex-parte views. We will take the mere subject
of commerce, which is supposed to be inimi-
cal to the other interests of the nation, and
what a mighty spring is given to the internal
trade of the country by agricultural enterprise,
looking at the actual condition of the trans-
portation of agricultural products upon the
principal lines of commercial communication,
both at the east and west. How large a por-
tion of the freights is furnished by the agricul-
ture of the south to the ships which are con-
tinually plying from its ports to the inland
ports of our own territory, and to IhQ prominent
cotton^markets abroad. Of the vessels that are
daily taking in their cargoes in the harbours
of Charleston and New Orleans, and the inter-
vening ports, it is safe to say that the princi-
pal portion of those freights is derived from
the cotton, sugar, tobacco, and rice, as well as
the other agricultural staples of the surround-
ing territory. The same is the case with the
commerce of the Mississippi : and we find the
numerous steam ships and flat boats which
ply upon that river during the season of navi-
gation, are laden with the agricultural products
of the states that border its banks, or that are
sent down through the interior by the Ohio.
The commerce of the lakes is maintained, more-
over, in a great measure by the transportation
of the agricultural produce of the great states
of Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, lying upon their
borders, to the eastern markets : and the same
may be said of the canal and rail-road trans-

portation of the greater number of the states
as well as our coastwise trade. Furthermore,
if we examine the decks and holds of the ships
which are constantly setting sail from our
commercial towns both at the east and south,
we find that agriculture supplies the great
bulk of the cargoes which are exported abroad.
It is agriculture indeed which gives life-blood
to the trade and commerce of the country, and
is doubtless as important to the solid vigour of
commercial enterprise as nutritious food to the
health of the human body. Withdraw this re-
source from our commerce, and the veins and
arteries of the commercial system would sink
into a state of collapse, exhibiting the cadave-
rous and pallid hue of disease and starvation.
Of the amount of the several species of agri-
cultural products yielded by the country, we
are furnished with full data by the statistical
returns, which, although perhaps not entirely
accurate, present as complete a statement as
could, under the circumstances, have been fur-
nished. By a table compiled from these re-
turns, it appears that we have produced during
the year ending the 1st of June, 1840, the pro-
ducts, a statement of which we here subjoin,
with their amount."

Live Stock.

Horaes and mules . . -
Neat cattle - - - .

Sheep - - - _ .

Swine -----

Poultry of all kinds, estimated value

Cereal Grains.

No. of bushels of wheat
barley

oats
rye

buckwheat
Indian Corn

Furious Crops.

No. of pounds of wool

hops

wax

Bushels of potatoes

Tons of hay

Tons of beinp and flax

4.333,669
14,971,566
I &,3 11,374
26,301,293
^9,344,410

84,823,272
4,161,504

123,071,341
18,645,567
7,291,743

377,531,675

35,802,114

1,238,502

628,303

108,298,060

10,248,108

95,251

Tobacco, Cotton, Sugar, S^c.

Pounds of tobacco gathered

rice

— cotton gathered

silk cocoons

suear made

Cords of wood sold

Value of the produce of the dairy

orchard -

Oallons of wine made - - -
Value of home made or family goods

- 219,163,319

80,841,422

- 790,479,275

61,553

- 155,100,809

5,088,891

- «33,787,008

- #7,256,904

124,734

- #29,023,380

" Few would believe it, yet such is the truth,
that the Indian corn raised in Tennessee is
nearly three times the amount raised in Penn-
sylvania, and more than four times the quan-
tity produced in the great state of New York ;
and yet Tennessee, in the north, is hardly
I looked upon as an agricultural state. By the
table furnished below, it will be seen that more
' than two-thirds of the crop of Indian corn is
j raised in the slave-holding states — and of this
{ quantity but a very small portion is exported.
It is the great staple for the food of all classes
' — and for beast as well as man. In these states,
I it will be seen by the table, a comparatively
small amount of wheat is raised, though the

51

AGRICULTURE.

crops of oats are large. The great wheat-
growing states are Ohio, Pennsylvania, New
York and Virginia, as appears by the following
table, which has reference to the crops of 1839.
These are probably still the greatest in this
respect, though it is known they have been
greatly gained on the past two years by Illinois
and Michigan. The table, as it stands, is an
interesting one to all persons, but especially
so to farmers. It will be seen that Tennessee
is the banner state in corn ; Ohio in wheat,
and New York in oats ; while in the aggregate
of these three principal grains, Ohio is the
banner state of the Union — Pennsylvania
rating No. 5 in the list. New England stands
very low in the scale, in both corn and wheat,
and not very high up in oats. Massachusetts
and Connecticut are both below little Dela-
ware in their product of wheat and corn. The
following table shows the product of each
state in 1839, and the aggregate bushels of the
different kinds, excepting rice, buckwheat and
barley — their culture being not very extensive
— the entire yield of rice being but eighteen
and a half millions of bushels ; buckwheat
seven and a quarter millions, and barley four
and one-eighth millions.

Tennessee

Com.

Wheat

Oats.

Aggregate.

44,986,188

4,569,692

7,035,678

56,591,358

Kentucky

39,847,120

4,803,152

7,155,974

51,806,246

Virginia'

34,577,591110,109,716

13,451,062

58,187,369

Ohio

33,668,144!l6,571,661

14,393,103

64,630,908

Indiana

28,158,887

4,049,375

5,981,805

38,186,8671

N.Carolina

28,898,763

1,960,855

3,193,941

29,018,559

Illinois

22,684,211

3,335,393

4,988,008

30,957,612

Alabama

20,947,004

828,052

1,406,358

23,181,409

Georgia

20,905,122

1,801,830

1,610,030

24,316,982

Missouri

17,332,524

1,037,386

2,234,937

20,604,847

S.Carolina

14,722,805

968,354

1,486,208

17,177,367

Penna.

14,240,022113,213,077

20,641,819

48,094,918

Mississippi

13,161,237

196,626

668,624

14,026,487

New York

10,972,286

12,286,418

20,675,847

4.^,934,551

Maryland

8,233.086

3,345,783

3,534,211

15,113,070

Louisiana

5,952,912

60

107,353

6,060,325

Arkansas

4,846,632

105,878

189,558

5,142,068

N. Jersey

4,361,975

774,203

3,083..524

8,119,702

Michigan

2,277,039

2,157,108

2,114,051

6,578,198

Delaware

2,099,359

315,168

927,045

3,440,569

Mass.

1,809,192

157,923

1,319,680

3,286,795

Connect.

1,500,441

87,009

1,453,262

3,040,712

Iowa

1,406,241

154,693

206,385

1,777,3191

N. Hamp.

1,162,572

422,124

1,296,114

2,880,810!

Vermont

1,110,678

495,800

2,222,584

3,838,062,

Maine

950,528

848,161

1,076,409

2,875,098!

Florida

898,974

412

13,829

913,215

Rhode Is.

450,498

3,098

171,517

625,118

Wisconsin

379,359

212,116

406,514

997,989

Uis.ofCol.

39,485
377,531,875

219,859

156,072

415,416^

84,823,272,123,071,341

585,426,488'

" The above, it will be remembered, is the re-
turn for the year 1839. The crops of the pre-
sent year it is estimated have exceeded those
enumerated above, at least one-third. It is not
immoderate to set the yield of 1842 down at
800,000,000 bushels, the whole of which in
price would average about the average selling
price of corn, or forty cents per bushel ; which
gives the enormous aggregate of three hundred
tmd twenty millions of dollars, as the worth of
lh| present year's grain crops, exclusive of
f0, buckwheat, and barley — which, according
to the same calculation, is worth about sixteen
millions dollars more, giving a grand total of
three hundred and thirty-six millions ! ! This
is indeed a great country, and in nothing
greater than in its agricultural resources,
33

AGROSTIS.

' which are but partially enumerated above, and
which, too, have hardly begun to develope
themselves." — (Philadelphia Ledger.)

In the official reports made to the Secretary
of the Treasury of the value of certain manu-
factured products for that year, we find the
following items of intelligence.

Silk.

Nnmher of pounds reeled, thrown, or other

silk made ---_-._ 15,744
Value of the same - - . - _ - j^l 19,814
Number of males employed .... 246

females and children ... 521

Capital invested #274,374

Flax.

Value of manufactures of flax .
Number of persons employed -
Capital invested ....

*322,205

1,628

#208,087

Wool.

No. of fulling mills .
Woollen manufactories
Value of manufactured goods
No. of persons employed -
Capital invested

2,585

1,420

#20,696,999

21,342

#15,765,124

Cotton.

No. of cotton manufactories . - _ 1,240

Spindles 2,284,631

Dyeing and printing establishments - - 129

Value of manufactured articles - - #46,350,453

No. of persons employed - - . . 72,119

Capital invested #51,102,359

[AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, Consump-
tion OF. To one who examines statements of
the agricultural products of various kinds
every year yielded in such immense quantities,
it seems, at first glance, difficult to imagine
how these can ,all be consumed, before fresh
crops would glut the markets and do away, for
a time, with the labours and profits of the hus-
bandman. It is, however, only necessary for
one to inquire into the consumption of the pro-
ducts of the soil constantly going on in some
of the most populous countries and cities, to
give him courage to persevere in his produc-
tive efforts, even with renewed ardour. It has,
for example, been estimated that the daily con-
sumption of corn in England and Ireland, is,
1,238,096 bushels of wheat and barley ; besides
annually, 100,000 bags of rice, and 450,000,000
lbs. of sugar. The immediate products of the
grasses, which, consumed by animals, forms
the food of man, constitutes an amount almost
inconceivable. In London alone there is an-
nually consumed 155,000,000 lbs. of butcher's
meat. Of cheese, another production of grass,
11,500 tons are annually introduced into Lon-
don, from Cheshire, about 20,000 tons from
Warwickshire, besides that imported from
many other countries. Of butter, the annual
consumption is about 50,000,000 lbs. the pro-
duce of 300,000 cows ; and in London, between
9 and 10,000 cows are kept for the supply of
milk to the inhabitants, which produce annu-
ally about 30,000 millions of quarts. {John-
so7i's Lectures on Botany.)^

AGROSTIS. The bent grass. An extensive
genus of grasses, which, from the marshy soil
on which they flourish best, are of compara-
tively small value to the farmer.

Agrostis alba, or white bent, in England
flowers in the first week in August, and the

w.

AGROSTIS.

'ripe about the beginning of September.
This grass is late, unproductive, and contains
but little nutritive matter. Its creeping roots
greatly exhaust the soil ; in this variety they
are smaller than in the other varieties of
Agrostisy but equally ditficult to extirpate when
■once in possession of tenacious clays. This
property of the roots is the best character of
distinction for the purpose of the agriculturist,
as it may be found at any season or stage of
growth of the plant.

The Agrustis canina, var. mutica, Awnless
variety of brown bent; Trichodium caninum
muticum (Schrader), Creeping-stalked brown
bent, is the most common grass on deep bogs,
even where they are subject to be under water
for six months in the year. It is a diminutive
plant, very unlike the produce of such soils:
.the leaves seldom attain to more than two or
three inches in length. The smallness of the
produce, even when cultivated in the most
favourable circumstances, affords a sufficient
proof of its unworthiness to be regarded by
the farmer in any other light than that of a
weed which indicates a soil capable of being
improved, so as to produce the most valuable
grasses by irrigation. It differs but little from
the Agrostis nivea, except in the want of awns
and the length of the culms. The structure
varies almost imperceptibly in the Agrostis ca-
nina, Agrostis nivea, and in this species. The
like gradual shades of difference may be per-
ceived in the colour of the plants ; the canina
is of a brownish-green colour; this awnless
variety is of a pale green ; the nivea of a
greenish straw colour. The knots or bundles
of leaves attached to the decumbent shoots
show it to be connected with the Agrostis
eanina fascicularis. It flowers in England the
second and third weeks of July, and ripens
the seed about the middle of August.

Agrostis canina capillaris. Fine-panicled
brown bent. This variety is nearly akin to
the Agrostis canina fascicularis, bundle-leaved
bent; tufted bent. In old pastures, or light
soils, this bent may be readily distinguished
in Ihe autumn by its shoots, which are fur-
nished with leaves in tufts or bundles, that
generally run along on the surface of the rest
of the herbage, and is occasioned, apparently,
by the cattle, which eat the other herbage, and
leave the scattered shoots of the tufted-leaved
bent untouched. It is a very common grass
on poor, light, but moist soils, incumbent on
clay, that have long been under pasture. This
and the woolly soft grass in some parts of Eng-
land are termed winter fog. From the above
details it will appear to be the least valuable
of the bent grasses that have been mentioned.
The cultivation of a grass of this value is out
of the question ; the point of most importance
to be ascertained respecting it is, how to re-
move it from the soil, and to substitute more
valuable grasses in its place. I have wit-
nessed the beneficial effects of coal ashes, as a
top dressing, when spread on the pasture in
sufficient quantity. The ashes favour the
growth of the superior grasses, and the pasture
being in consequence closely cropped by the
cattle, which now find the pasture more pala-
table, the tufted bent disappears ; it will, how-

AGROSTIS.

ever, be found by no means destroyed, but
only checked in its growth. This grass
flowers in England the first and second weeks
of August, and ripens the seed in the end of
the same month.

Agrostis lobuta. Lobed bent ; sea-side bent.
The general appearance of this plant indicates
its inferior comparative value. It appears, ac-
cording to the information afforded by Mr.
Curtis, to be chiefly confined to the sea coasts.
It grows wild on a stiff wet, clayey loam, part
of the London blue clay, in the parish of Cud-
dington, near Epsom, Surrey. It does not ap-
pear to be of much value to the agriculturist,
although its nutritive powers are far from
being inconsiderable.

Agrostis rnexicana, the Mexican bent grass,
is, as its name implies, a native of South
America, and was introduced into England, by
Mr. Gilbert Alexander, in 1780. It delights
more in calcareous or clayey soils than in
those that are of a silicious sandy nature. It
perfects an abundance of seed, which when
sown produces plants that soon arrive at per-
fection. So far, therefore, it possesses the
requisite properties of a grass adapted for the
alternate husbandry ; but^ it is late in the pro-
duce of foliage in the spring, and that herbage
is not distinguished by any superior nutritive
powers. It is perfectly hardy. Being a native
of a warmer climate, its defects may possibly
be greatly lessened by being naturalized, and
by frequently raising it from seed successively
ripened in England. At present it does not
offer any strong reasons to recommend it fur-
ther to the notice of the agriculturist. It flow-
ers in the third week of August, and the seed
is ripe towards the end of September.

Agrostis nivea. Snowy bent ; straw-coloured
bent grass.

Agrostis palustris, or marsh bent. This is
considered only a variety of the Agrostis stoh-
nifera. This grass is properly a sub-aquatic :
it will grow on tenacious clays, but it seems
only to thrive in very moist soils, or in such
as are for the most part covered with water.
In moist woods it is more frequent than any
other of the creeping-stemmed bent grasses :
here the culms often attain to five feet in
height, when supported by bushes. The above
details show the inferior nature of this grass
compared to the larger, and even to the lesser
leaved varieties of the Agrostis stolonifera. It
cannot, therefore, as yet be considered in any
other light than a weed that chokes up drams
and underwoods.

Agrostis ramosissima. Lateral -branching
bent grass. This is nearly allied to the Agros-
tis mexicana, and is one of the latest flowering
grasses. It is remarkable for the number of
branches that issue from the joints of the
stem ; and the woody substance of the culms
makes it approach to the nature of a shrub.
It affords little herbage till the beginning of
summer, and flowers at so late a period of the
season (the first or second week in October),
that, the frost generally destroys the panicles
before the seed is perfected. The herbage is
killed by frost, but the roots suffer nothing
from its effects ; it is propagated by parting
and planting the roots early in the spring or
E 2 53

AGROSTIS.

AGROSTIS.

late in the autumn. It is neither very pro-
ductive nor nutritive.

Agrostis repms. Creeping-rooted bent ; white
Dent. The Agrostis nigra, or black couch
grass of Withering. Though a later growing
grass, it is less productive than the Agrostis alba.
It is subject to the rust, a peculiar disease
which dries up the extremities of the leaves
and gives it an unsightly appearance. Simple
ploughing will be found inetfectual to root out
this weed in clayey soils. It will be found
ultimately the cheapest and most expeditious
mode of extirpating it to follow the plough and
fork out the roots. Burning, under such cir-
cumstances of soil, would doubtless be highly
beneficial, but the roots of this couch grass
penetrate so deep that a considerable part of
them would escape ; and the least particle of
the root soon produces a plant. It flowers in
England the second week of August, and the
seed is ripe about the latter end of September.

Agrostis stolonifera aristuta. Awned-creeping
bent. This variety of creeping bent, which is
allied to the Agrostis Canina or awned var.
Agr. vulgaris of Dr. Smith, is greatly inferior
to the larger-leaved variety (Agrostis stolonifera
latifolia, or florin) ; for the weight of nutritive
matter per acre afforded by the latifolia is two-
thirds greater than that of the awned variety.
Cattle appear to eat this grass in common with
the rough-stalked meadow-grass and meadow
fox-tail grass. It flowers about a week later
than the florin, but the seed is ripe about the
same time.

Agrostis stolonifera angustifolia. Smaller-
leaved creeping bent. This is the most com-
mon variety of the creeping bent, on damp, te-
naceous, clayey soils, and in moist woods. It
stands next in value to the longer-leaved vari-
ety of creeping bent ; but appears from all the
observations that have been made on it, when
growing in natural pastures, to be entirely neg-
lected by cattle, while any of the superior
pasture grasses presented a sufliciency for a
bite. It flowers in the second and third weeks
of July, and ripens the seed about the end of
August.

Agrostis stolonifera (var. 1 latifolia). Longer-
leaved creeping bent ; florin. [See Plate 5, n.
Hay Grasses.]

The Rev. Dr. Wm. Richardson has intro-
duced this variety of the Agrostis stolonifera to
the agricultural world, under the name of Fi-
orin, and has shown its merits and properties,
deduced from his own experiments, in a vari-
ety of publications on the subject, to which the
reader is referred. It is greatly superior in
point of produce and nutritive powers to the
other varieties of Agrostis stolonifera.

On comparing the specimens of these differ-
ent varieties, their resemblance to each other
is so great, that they may be easily mistaken
for each other, without a close inspection, and
some knowledge of botany to assist it. This
•variety appears to be conflned to rich ancient
^sture land, as its natural place of growth,
aiid the other varieties to various soils and
situations ; and that when taken from these
different soils, and cultivated together under
the same circumstances, they retain their dis-
criminating characters. On damp, clayey
54

soils, the second variety (smaller-leaved, creep-
ing bent) is the most common. To moors and
bog soils, the third variety (awned creeping
bent grass) is chiefly or altogether confined.
To light sandy soils, particularly when more
or less shaded, the fourth variety (wood creep-
ing bent grass) is peculiar ; and the fifth vari-
ety (marsh creeping bent grass) is seldom
found but in the bottoms of ditches, or by the
I side of rivulets. The first variety being there-
I fore scarce, and the others very common, there
is little room for surprise at the contradictory
I results of experiments that have been made,
on one or other of these inferior varieties, by
gentlemen equally eminent for agricultural
knowledge under the conviction of their being
one and the same grass as recommended by
Dr. Richardson under the name of florin :
whereas, though they agree in the general ha-
bit of Dr. Richardson's variety, and indeed in
every respect except in the characters before
described, their inferiority in every agricultu-
ral merit is so great, as to justify the oppro-
brious epithets that have been bestowed upon
them, by those who, from the above causes have
differed from Dr. Richardson's statements of
the merits of the flrst variety of florin, and
prevented that justice being done to the disco-
very Avhich it may have deserved.

The above details will assist the farmer in
deciding on the comparative merits of this
grass as a constituent of a mixture of grasses
for permanent pasture ; from which it will
doubtless appear worthy of attention, but its
value not so great as has been supposed, if
its habits or manner of growth be impartially
taken into the account, when compared with
the produce and nutritive powers of the other
grasses. The chief advantage of this grass,
in permanent pasture, is its late growth. It
remains in a degree inactive, till other grasses
have attained to perfection, and when their
productive powers become exhausted, those of
florin and its varieties begin ; and it will be
found, on inspection, that the latest mouthful
of herbage, and sometimes the earliest, in those
pastures, is principally afforded by this grass.
There has been much prejudice existing
against the different species of Agrostis in gene-
ral ; but let the proprietor of a rich ancient
pasture divest a part of it of this grass entirely,
and the value of the plant will be demonstrated
in the comparative loss of late and early herb-
age. The cock's foot grass is superior to the
larger variety of the creeping bent, in the pro-
portion nearly of 11 to 9. The meadow fescue
is also superior to florin in nearly the like pro-
portion as cock's foot. The meadow fox-tail grass
is inferior to florin in the proportion nearly of
6 to 7. When cultivated separately, for the
purpose of green food or hay, florin requires to
be kept perfectly clear of weeds, its couchant
habit of growth affording great encouragement
for the health of upright growing plants —
under this circumstance, weeds. It flowers in
England about the second and third weeks of
July, and the seed is ripe about the second and
third weeks of August. The mode of convert-
ing florin into hay, during the winter months,
is amply detailed in Dr. Richardson's publica-
tions on Fiorin. Full information will there

AGROSTIS.

AGROSTIS.

be likewise found on the productive powers,
uses, modes of cultivation, &c., of this grass,
deduced from the Doctor's own experiments.

Agrontis strida. Itock bent; upright bent.
Trichodium rupestre (Schrader). This species
being inferior to the common bent in most
points, its value to the agriculturist can be but
little. The only property that renders it worthy
of notice is, the small degree in which it im-
poverishes the soil : when cultivated on a poor,
silicious, sandy soil, the produce, though some-
what inferior, continued for six years, without
diminishing in the yearly quantity, and without
any manure being applied ; a circumstance
which was not manifested in any other species
of grass.

Agrostis vulgaris canina. Awned fine bent.
(Brown bent, or Agrostis canina, Wither.
Arr. Smithes Engl. Fbra. Agrostis vulgaris
var. 0. Do. var. 1.) As this is a much less
common plant than the variety ot- Agrostis
vulgaris before described, and as it differs so
much from that variety in the properties which
constitute the farmer's distinguishing charac-
ters of grasses, the name canina is here added.
The vulgaris mnticu is more common to sandy
soils ; the v. canina to clayey soils. The weight
of nutritive matter in which the produce of
one acre of the awnless variety of Asjostis
vulgaris canina exceeds that of the awned va-
riety is 161.8. The comparative merits of the
Agrostis vulgaris exceed those of the Agmstis
vulgaris canina nearly as *2 to 1. The crop of
the awnless variety is greater than that of the
awned, but it is much less nutritive, being as
10 to 7; the spring and autumn produce is

likewise superior. Neither of these varieties
appears to be of much value to the farmer.
The rust attacks the culms and leaves of both
varieties, which gives the plants a dirty brown
appearance ; the Agrostis vulgaris is always
free from this disease. The brown bent
flowers in the second and third weeks of July,
and ripens the seed in the end of August.

Agrostis vulgaris mutica. Common bent; fine
bent grass. [See Plate 6, d, of Hay Grasses.]
This species has four varieties, according to
Dr. Schrader. The first is distinguished by
being awned (see Agrostis vulgaris canina, and
Trichodium caninum) ; the second by awnless
and diseased flowers (see Agrostis pumila of
Willd. Spec. Plant, i. p. 371) ; the third by its
diseased awned flowers ; the fourth, by having
the flowers viviparous, Agrostis sylvatica.

The common bent is one of the earliest of
the bent grasses ; in this respect it is superior
to every other of this family ; but inferior to
several of them in the quantity of produce it
affords, and the nutritive matter it consumes.
It is the most common grass on natural
sandy pastures ; and even on more tenaceous
soils, that are elevated and exposed, it is fre-
quent. It flowers from the thiid week of June
till the second week of July, and the seed is
ripe the beginning of August.

The following tabular arrangement shows
at a glance the proportional value of the seve-
ral varieties of Agrostis, in seed and in flower,
and their yield per acre of green and dry pro-
duce on various soils, and comparative quali-
ties of nutrition.

Green Pro-
duce per Acre.

Dry Produce
per Acre.

Produce per Acre
of Nutrive matter. |

Agrostis alba, in flower, -----

— rnnina, in flower - - - -

canina, when aeed ripe - - -

palustrig, ill flower . - - -

palus/rU, when *eed rip« - - -

repens, in flower, - . - -

atolonifera arutata, in flower

utolonifera ariitata, in December

utolunifera angustifvlia, when seed ripe

stoliintf era angustifoha, in December -

eaniita eapillarin, in flower - - -

eanina fasuttlarts, in flower

eaninu fasicularis, in seed _ - -

mezicana, in flower - - - -

• nirea, in flower - - -

■ nirea, when seed ripe

■ ramosiit^ifima, in flower
Mtolonifera latifoUa, in flower
stolunifera latifulia, seed ripe

• lobata, in flower

■ Inbata, seed ripe - - -

• ttricta, in flower
strieia, seed ripe

viiliraris mutica, in flower

vulgaris mutica, in seed

vulgaris canina

Clay
Bog

Clayey loam
Bog

Sandy loaia
Sandy

f Rich, black, silici- \

\ ous, sandy J

Sandy

Strong clayey loam
Peal

Silicious sand

Bog

Silicious sand

Sandy loam

8,167 8
5,415 0
6,135 10
10.209 6
13,612 8
6.125 10
8,848 0
10,209 6
16,3.35 0
17,015 0
4.764
2,7-22

4,083 12

6,125 10

4,764 6

2'*,586 4

117.696 4

19,057 8

6,806 4

6,125 10

9,528 12

7,496 14

10.209 6

9,528 12

6,125 10

3,471 3
1,497 6
2,603 5
4.534 3
5,445 0
2.679 15
Oi 4,210 12 0
0 4,594 3 b
7,350 12 0
8,507 8 0
1,310 3 0
680 10 0
1,429 5 0

19,057 8 0

6,670 2 0

2,603 6 4
1,310 3 4
11,4.34 0 0
7,742 1 12
8,575 14 0
3,403 2 0
2,679 15 6
4,764 6 0
2,713 15 14
4.594 3 8
4,764 6 0
2,603 6 4

lbs.

2,255 3 12

148 14 0

239 4 8

438 10 0

584 14 0

287 2 0

368 10 0

438 10 15

765 11 0

930 8

148 14

85 1

239 4

0
0
4
0

595 8 12

239 4 8
148 14
893 5
967 12
1,042 3
319 0

251
175
531 II
251 3
239 4

3

0

3

3 5

0 11

2 3

3 15
7 9

This family of grasses has been held in little
esteem by farmers, principally on account of
their lateness of flowering. (Sinclair's Hart.
Gram. ,- Umith's Eng. Hot.)

[Several of the species thus enumerated, as
existing in England, have found their way to
America, doubtless introduced mixed in grain
and grass seeds. They are, however, so dry
and wiry as to be esteemed of little or no

value to the farmer, Among these are, the
— A. vulgaris, which Pursh, the celebrated
botanist, says, is common in all grassy fields,
flowering in July. This is doubtless the
species which gives name to the genera, de-
rived from Agron, a Greek word signifying a
field. Dr. Darlington says it is the grass ex-
I tensively known in the Middle States as Herds
i or Red-tup, and sometimes in the Eastern States

55

AIR.

AIRA.

called Foul Meadow Grass. The last name
being evidently derived from the great difficulty
with which it is eradicated when it has once
obtained a footing. The grass called white-top,
appears to be a variety of Herds. There
see'ms to be considerable obscurity and confu-
sion in the descriptions given of this grass.
The common characteristics of the plant, as
seen in the meadows of Pennsylvania, Dr.
Darlington says, resemble those of the A. alba,
the White or Yellow Tops of the Eastern States.
It affords a tolerably good pasture for cattle,
and is valuable in swampy grounds, which its
roots tend to consolidate ; but it is not much
esteemed for hay, and is now seldom, if ever,
an object of special cultivation in the Middle
States. The Pennsylvania farmers a.re so op-
posed to having Herds grass rooted in their
fields and meadows that they reject clover and
every other grass seed in which the least
Herds appears. Among the species found in
the United States, are the following —

A. pungens, or VirginianAgrostis, frequenting
dry, sandy banks, and road-sides, flowering in
the southern part of Pennsylvania, in August.
This species differs much, in habit, from most
others.

A. cinna, common on rivers and islands be-
low tide-water, from Canada to the Carolinas,
flowering in June, «fcc.

A. jnncea, found in barren, sandy places,
from New Jersey to Florida ; flowering from
July to August.

-1. latertfulia, found in rich soil on the
edges of woods from New York to Florida,
especially in the western countries, where it
appears to be of more value. In the southern
parts of Pennsylvania it affords an indifferent
pasture in the latter part of summer, but is not
regarded as of much consequence, which may
indeed be said of most, if not all, of the Ame-
rican species of agrostis.

The late Judge Peters introduced the florin
into Philadelphia county, in 1812, by import-
ing a quantity of the strings or layers from
which it is always propagated in Ireland. For
some reason its cultivation has not been kept
up, and at present it is difficult to be found in
America. When once it has obtained a foot-
ing in a suitable soil, it is scarcely to be
eradicated, for which reason it is not adapted
to the alternate system of husbandry.]

AIR (Air, French, aer, Lat). The element
or thin medium in which terrestrial animals
move and breathe, and which surrounds the
earth to a considerable height. See Atmo-
sphere and Gases.

AIRA. A genus of grasses, of which there
are but few species capable of being cultivated
to advantage as field grasses.

Aira aquntica. Water hair-grass. This plant
is an aquatic, found naturally growing in the
mud of standing pools, or running waters in
England. It is, therefore, unfit for cultivation.
Mr. Curtis says, that it is the sweetest of the
Biatish grasses; but there are several species
w^ch contain more sugar, in proportion to the
otner ingredients which compose their nutri-
tive matter, as the Glyceria Jluitans, Elymus
arenarius, Poa nemorcUis var. angustifulia, Poa
aguatica.
66

Aira caespiiosa. Turfy hair-grass; hassock
grass. [See Plate 6. of Pasture Grasses, w.]
This grass is of a very innutritions nature ;
but even if it had greater nutritive powers, the
extreme coarseness of the foliage would render
it unfit for cultivation. It delights in moist
clayey soils, where the water stagnates ; but is
found in almost every kind of soil, from the
dry sandy heath to the bog. It forms dense
tufts in pastures very disagreeable to the sight,
which are termed hassocks, bull's faces, &c.,
by farmers. It is a most difficult plant to ex-
tirpate, when in considerable quantity. Some
persons, to get rid of it, dig up the tufts, and
fill up the holes with lime compost ; this, no
doubt, would answer the end, at least for a few
years, if all the roots were destroyed ; but this
is never the case: a circle of roots is left,
which, in one or two seasons, produce larger
hassocks than before ; and besides, when the
hassocks are numerous, the expense attending
this process is considerable. Others depend
on occasional mowings to keep the hassocks
under; but this is productive of little good,
particularly if the mowing of the tufts be de-
ferred till the autumn, which I believe is the
common practice. I have found no treatment
weaken or retard the growth of grass so much
as cutting it closely, before and after the first
tender shoots appear in the spring. But the
only effectual and most profitable mode of ex-
tirpating this grass is by first paring and burn-
ing the surface of the land, and by making
proper drains, to correct, as much as possible,
the tenacious nature of the soil ; in this case
surface-drains are as necessary as those
termed hollow. Sand should likewise be ap-
plied during the course of crops taken previous
to returning the land again to permanent pas-
ture, if such should be desirable, from its local
situation ; as that, for instance, of a park or
policy. This grass flowers about the third
week in July, and the seed is ripe towards the
end of August.

Aira cristata. Crested hair-grass. Poa cris-
tata. Crested meadow-grass. Host. ii. p. 54,
t. 75. This native grass was formerly ranked
by botanists under the genus Poa, but has
since been referred to that of Aira, to which it
is more closely allied. The produce of this
species, and the nutritive matter it affords, are
equal to those of the Festuca ovina at the time
the seed is ripe ; they equally delight in dry
soils, though the Aira cristata will thrive well
and remain permanent in soils of a moist and
clayey nature, which is different from the Fes-
tuca ovina. The greater bulk of the produce
of the Aira cristata, in proportion to its weight,
makes it of inferior value to the Festuca ovina.
In some parts of the country it grows on dry
pastures plentifully, where it appears to be but
sparingly eaten by cattle, particularly if the
pasture be not overstocked. Rye-grass {Lo-
lium perenne), sheep's fescue {Festuca ovina),
yellow oat-grass (Avena flavescens), crested
dog's tail {Cynosurus cristatus), meadow barley
(Hordeum prutense), flexuose hair-grass {Aira
Jlexuosa), are all preferred by cattle to the
crested hair-grass. The nutritive matter of
this grass differs but little in its composition
from those of the above : it approaches nearest

AIRING.

ALBURNUM.

to that of the Aira Jiexuosa, differing only in
having less bitter extractive matter and of
more tasteless mucilage ; but the soft hairy
foliage of the grass appears at once the cause
of this dislike in cattle to eat it. It flowers
about the first week in July, and the seed is
ripe about the beginning of August.

Aira Jiexuosa. Zig-zag hair-grass ; wavy
mountain hair-grass. The Aira Jiexuosa is
much more productive on its natural soil than
the Festuca ovina ,- but it requires a deeper soil
though not a richer. The Festuca ovina is
more common among heath, the Aira Jiexuosa
among furze, though both grasses frequently
grow intermixed on the same soil. To those
who attempt the improvement of such soils in

a secondary' manner only, this species of hair-
grass appears to be the best of those grasses
natural to the soils in question, and may form
a principal part of a mixture of seeds for that
purpose of improvement. The produce of
this grass on a heath soil is superior to that
on a clayey loam in the proportion of 2 to 1.
The proportional value in which the grass at
the time of flowering exceeds that of the latter-
math, is as 8 to 7. Flowers in the first week
of July. Seed ripens in August.

In England the proportionate value of the
different varieties of Aira as deduced from ex-
periments may be ascertained by reference to
the following classified table of results :

Soil.

Green Produce
per Aero.

Dry Produce
per Acre.

Produce per Acre

of Nutritive

Matter.

Mra aquaticcL, in flower

ctf.i-pitosa, seed ripe

criatata^ in dower

cristata, seed ripe

Jlezuosa, in flower

Jiexuosa, seed ripe

< Mud covered with 7

I water 5

Clay

Bandy loam

Heath on clay

lb«.
10,890 0 0

10,209 0 0
10,690 0 0

6,W)6 4 0
10,209 6 0

9,528 12 0

lb*.
3,267 0 0

3,318 0 0
4,900 8 0
3,403 2 0
3,318 0 12
3,573 4 8

lbs.

362 13 10
319 0 11
340 5 0
127 10 0
319 0 11
297 12 6

AIRING. In the management of horses,
implies the exercising them in the open air,
which is of the greatest advantage to them
when performed with moderation, and accord-
ing to the circumstances or state in which they
are in respect to their health and the nature
of their keep. By this means their legs are
prevented from swelling, their stomachs im-
proved, and their wind rendered more free and
perfect.

AIR VESSELS, of vegetables, are certain
horizontal vessels of large diameter, that pass
through the bark of trees to the alburnum, [or
white internal bark.] These horizontal vessels
Dr. Darwin supposes to contain air, enclosed
in a thin moist membrane, which may serve
the purpose of oxygenating the fluid in the ex-
tremities of some fine arteries of the embryo
buds, in the same manner as the air at the
broad end of the egg is believed to oxygenate
the fluids in the terminations of the placental
vessels of the embryo chicken.

ALBUMEN is the name given by chemists
to the impure glossy viscid liquid, which forms
the white of an egg. This white is composed
chiefly of albumen mixed with some mucus,
soda, and sulphur.

Albumen unites readily with water, and
when heated to 165° it coagulates into a white
solid mass ; but when mixed with ten times
its weight of water, it no longer is coagulated
by heat. It is composed, according to the
analysis of MM. Gay Lussac and Thenard, of

Carbon 52883

Oxygen --._.. 23872

Hydrogen 7540

Azote 15-705

{Rech. Phya. Chen. ii. 332.) 100000

Albumen (which is nearly identical in com-
position with the gluten of vegetables), is one
of the most important and common of all the
animal substances. It abounds in bones, mus-
8

(Sinclair s Hort. Gram. Wob.)

I cle, the membrane of shells, sponges, &c.;

I and, according to the experiments of Hatchett,

I cartilage, nails, horns, hair, &c., are almost

entirely composed of it. (Thomson, vol. iv.

p. 407.)

ALBURNUM. An integument composed
of a soft white substance, scarcely perceptible
in some sorts of trees, situated between the
liber and the wood. In the oak and elm it is
hard and very conspicuous. It is as it were
an imperfect wood, not having acquired that
state of consistence necessary to perfect wood ;
hence it may be compared to the cartilage in
animals, which at length becomes bone. This
state must necessarily be passed through be-
fore wood can be formed. The hardness of
this substance is in proportion to the vigour
of the plant or tree.

The vessels of the alburnum in their living
state possess the property of conveying the
sap-juice, which is propelled upwards in the
early spring, by the absorbent terminations
of the roots, as visible in decorticated oaks,
the branches of which expand their buds like
those of the birch and vine in the bleeding
season. That the vessels of the alburnum in
their living state occasionally act as capillary
syphons, through which the sap-juice is first
pushed upwards by the absorbent extremities
of the roots, and afterwards returns down-
wards, partly by its gravitation, in branches
bent below the horizon, appears from an ex-
periment of Dr. Walker ; and lastly, that the
vessels of the alburnum, after their vegetable
life is extinct, possess a power of capillary at-
traction of the sap-juice, or of permitting it to*
pass through them occasionally, appears from
the following experiment: — A branch of a
young apple-tree was so cankered, that the
bark for about an inch round it was totally
destroyed. To prevent the alburnum from
becoming too dry by exhalation, this decayed

ALCOHOL.

part was covered with thick white paint : in a
few days the painting was repeated, and this
three or four times, so as to produce a thick
coat of paint over the decayed part, or naked
alburnum, extending to the ascending and
descending lips of the wound; this was in
spring, and the branch blossomed and ripened
several apples.

ALCOHOL is the name first given by the
alchemists (it came originally from Arabia) to
the liquid obtained by the distillation of wine,
beer, and other fermented spirits. These seem
to have been known in the earliest ages :
Noah, who planted a vineyard, drank wine ;
and the heathen writers deemed the invention
worthy of being ascribed to their greatest
kings and heroes. Beer, there is little doubt,
was invented by the Egyptians. They cer-
tainly used it in the days of Herodotus. The
Germans drank it extensively when Tacitus
wrote. These were probably the purest varie-
ties of alcohol then generally made ; although
they were known in the dark ages, and it is
probable have been employed in the North of
Europe from a very remote period. The pro-
cess, however, of -separating the impure alco-
hol from these is very easy : upon subjecting
the wine or wash to a moderate heat, the spirit
arises, and is easily collected in a worm sur-
rounded by cool water. It is in this way that
gin is procured from the distillation of fer-
mented barley or other grain ; rum from mo-
lasses ; brandy from wine. It must not be
supposed, however, that the product of these
distillations is pure alcohol, for even the
strongest brandy contains between forty and
fifty per cent, of water. The first who pro-
cured alcohol in a state of tolerable purity is
supposed to have been Arnold of Villa Nova,
a celebrated alchemist of the fourteenth cen-
tury. When impure alcohol is concentrated
by repeated distillations, and by mixing it
with some salt, like the salt of tartar, that
has a strong attraction for water, it gradually
parts with a considerable portion of its water,
and becomes reduced in specific gravity
to about 0.820 ; that of commerce, however,
is rarely of less specific gravity than 0.8371.
At the greatest strength, however, at which it
has been observed, such as that of 0.792,
which M. Lowitz obtained by repeatedly dis-
tilling rectified spirits from potash, it possesses
the following properties: — it is transparent,
colourless, of a strong agreeable penetrating
taste, and produces when swallowed intoxica-
tion. It does not freeze, even by exposure to
the most intense cold ; it is very volatile, boil-
ing at 176° of Fahrenheit, and in a vacuum at
56°. It unites with water in all proportions,
and is entirely combustible, burning without
leaving any residuum. Alcohol, according to
the analysis of M. Saussure, is composed of

Hydrngen ------ 1370

A Carbon - - - - - -51-98

^ Oxygen 3432

<m«itp«on'» Chem. vol. ii. p. 39.) 100 00

• The following table will show the ordinary
proportion of alcohol per cent, by measure in
various fluids, according to the experiments
of Professor Brande.
«8

ALDER TREE.

Port --.-'--. 21-40

Ditto 25-83

Madeira ------- 1934

Ditto ------- 34-45

Sherry --.--_- 18-25

Ditto 19-83

Claret 12-91

Calcavella ------ 1810

Lisbon 18-94

Malaga 1726

Bucellas - - 18-49

Red Madeira ------ 1840

Malmsy Madeira ----- 1640

Marsala - - - - - - -25 87

Ditto - - 1726

Red Champagne - - - . - 11-30

White Champagne ----- 12-80

Burgundy ------ 14-53

Ditto 11-95

White Hermitage ----- 1743

Red Hermitage - - - - - 12 32

Hock 14-37

Ditto 8-88

Vin de Grave ------ 1280

Frontignac ------ 12-79

Coti-Roti ------ 12-32

Roussillon ------ 17-26

Cape Madeira ------ 1811

Cape Muschat ------ 1825

Constantia ------ 17-75

Tent ------- 13-30

Sheraz ------- 15-52

Syracuse ------- 15-28

Nice 14-63

Tokay 9-88

Raisin -----__ 2577

Grape - - - - - - - 18- II

Currant ------- 2055

Gooseberry - - - - - - 11-84

Elder 9-87

Cider - 987

Perry 9 87

Brown Stout - 680

Ale 8-88

Brandy 53-39

Rnm 53-fi8

Hollands or Gin ----- 51-60

The spirits distilled from different fermented
liquors, says Davy, differ in their flavour, for
peculiar odorous matters or oils rise in most
cases with the alcohol. The spirit from malt
usually has an empyreumatic taste, like that
of oil formed by the distillation of vegetable
substances. The best brandies seem to owe
their flavour to a peculiar oily matter, formed
probably by the action of tartaric acid upon
alcohol ; and rum derives its characteristic
taste from a principle in the sugar cane. The
cogniac brandies contain prussic acid. {Davy,
Chem. Phil. 135.)

ALCOVE (Span, ff/coia,- Dan. a/Arot'<?,- but
originally from the Arab, alkobba). A recess
in gardens or pleasure-grounds.

ALDER TREE {Alnns ^luHnosa, Gunner \
Betula Alnus, Linn.). The common Alder [of
England] appears generally as a shrub; but
if allowed to attain maturity it will grow to a
stately tree. The bark in old trees is blackish,
and full of clefts; on the young shoots it is
smooth, and of a purplish hue. The leaves
have a dark green colour, and roundish shape,
resembling those of the hazel, nicked on the
margin, smooth, and clammy to the touch.
The foot-stalk is about an inch long ; the leaf-
ribs on the under side have spongy balls at the
angles, as in the leaves of the lime tree. The
male catkins are cylindrical, appear in
autumn, and remain on the tree till spring.
The female catkins are of a short conical form,
like a small fir cone.

[In England] the alder is often planted as a
coppice-wood in wet and boggy places where
no other trees will thrive, and cut down every

ALDER TREE.

ALDER TREE.

tenth or twelfth year for poles. It may also '
be often used to advantage on swampy ground •
for fences, and may be conveniently trained to j
any desired height. The young trees may be j
planted to great advantage for securing the j
banks of water-courses from the torrents. We
certainly know of no tree so well adapted to
this purpose as the alder ; for, on account of
the numerous suckers which it constantly
sends up from the bottom, and the very fibrous
nature of their roots, the banks become in
time one mass of strongly interwoven roots.

Wherever it may be desirable to complete a
prospect by extending plantations over sterile
cold ground, water-galls, or boggy swamps, no
tree we know of is equal to the alder, even in
a picturesque point of view.

The generality of trees acquire picturesque
beauty by age. Some of the largest alders to
be seen in England are growing in the Bishop
of Durham's park at Bishop-Auckland, and
some very fine ones are to be found in his
Grace the Duke of Northumberland's grounds
atSion House. Mr. Beevor mentions an alder
in his garden, which, at four feet from the
ground, measured upwards of sixteen feet in
circumference.

Sir Thomas Dick Lauder says, "In very
many instances we have seen the alder put on
so much of the bold resolute character of the
oak, that it might have been mistaken for that
tree except for the intense depth of its green
colour.

The wood of the alder is used [in Europe]
for making charcoal and heating ovens, and is
valuable for piles, pumps, sluices, and in ge-
neral for all works underwater; "because,"
says Pliny, " it will endure for many years."
It is said to have been used under the Rialto
at Venice ; and we are told that the morasses
about Ravenna were piled with it in order to
lay foundations for building upon. In Flan-
ders and Holland it is raised in great quantities
for this purpose. It serves also many domestic
and rural uses, such as for cart-wheels, spin-
ning wheels, milk-vessels, bowls, spoons, and
other turnery ware, troughs, handles of tools,
clogs, pattens, and wooden heels. The roots
and knots furnish a beautiful veined wood for
cabinets. The Scottish Highlanders often
made chairs of it, which are very handsome,
and of the colour of mahogany.

Sir Thomas Dick Lauder tells us that the
old trees, which are full of knots, cut up into
planks, make verj' handsome tables. "We
have seen some of these," says the baronet,
"made from some enormous trees that grcAV
at Dalwick, on the property of Sir John Nas-
mj'th, in Peebleshire ; and no foreign wood we
have ever seen can match them for beauty."

The bark, though nearly superseded by log-
wood, is used by dyers, tanners, and leather-
dressers; and also by fishermen for dyeing
their nets. Both the bark and young shoots
dye yellow, and with a little copperas, a yel-
lowish grey, very useful in the demitints and
shadows of flesh colour in tapestry. The
shoots cut in March will dye a cinnamon
colour ; and a fine tawny, if they be dried and
powdered. The fresh wood yields a dye the
colour of rappee snuff. The catkins dye green,

and the bark is used as a basis for black. The
bark and leaves have been sometimes employed
in tanning leather, the whole tree being very
astringent.

The alder delights in a very moist soil,
where few other trees will thrive : —

"The Alder, owner of each waterish soil."

Fairfax's Tasso.

It is also an old opinion that it does not in-
jure grass, but rather nourishes its growth: —
" The Alder, whose fat shadow nourisheth ;
Each plant set neere to him long flourisheth."

fV. Browne.

Marshall is of a very different opinion. " In
low swampy situations," he says, " where the
ground cannot be drained but at too great an
expense, the alder may be planted with pro-
priety and advantage ; but wherever the soil is
or can be made pasturable, the alder should by
no means be allowed to gain a footing. Its
suckers and seedlings poison the herbage ; and
it is a fact well known to the observant hus-
bandman, that the roots of the alder have a
peculiar property of rendering the soil they
grow in more moist and rotten than it would
be if not occupied by this aqueous plant.
Plantations of alders should therefore be con-
fined to swampy, low, unpasturable places ;
except when they are made for the purpose of
ornament ; and in this case the native species
ought to give place to its more ornamental
varieties, of which Hanbury makes five,
namely, the log-leaved alder, the white alder,
the black alder, the hoary-leaved alder, and the
dwarf alder." ( On Planting, ii. 37.) The cut-
leaved is a pretty variety.

It is propagated by layers, cuttings, or
truncheons, about three feet in length. Such
truncheons are often employed for securing
the banks of rivers, either by planting them
very close, or crosswise. For general pur-
poses, however, we approve of raising the
young trees by layers.

The distance at which these trees should be
placed, if intended for a coppice, is 9, yard
square ; and at the expiration of seven years,
when they may be felled for poles, every other
stool may be taken away ; and if the small
lateral shoots be taken off'in the spring, it will
very much strengthen the upright poles, pro-
vided a few small shoots be left at certain dis-
tances upon the trunk, to detain the sap for the
increase of its bulk.

The alder may be raised from seeds sown in
beds in the same way as is usual for birch ;
but propagation by truncheons or layers is the
most speedy process for obtaining young
plants.

The best time for planting alder truncheons
is in February or March. They should be
about three feet in length, sharpened at one
end, and the ground loosened with an instru-
ment before they are thrust into it, lest by the
stiffness of the soil the bark should be torn offg.
which may prevent their growing. They should
be put into the earth about two feet, to prevent
their being blown out of the ground by strong
winds. After thev have made stout shoots, the
plantations should be cleared from all such
weeds as grow tall, otherwise they will over-
bear the young shoots; but when they have

59

ALDER TREE.

ALDERNEY COWS.

made good heads, they will keep down the
weeds, and will require no further care.

If they be raised by laying down the i
branches, it must be performed in October ; ,
and .by the October following, they will have i
taken root sufficiently to be transplanted out ; J
which must be done by digging a hole, and |
loosening the earth in the place where each
plant is to stand, planting the young trees at
least a foot and a half deep, cutting off the
top to about nine inches above the surface,
which will occasion them to shoot out many
branches. •

Mr. South, in the sixth volume of the Letters
and Papers of tJie Bath and West of England
Society, has stated, that, on planting a wagon-
load of truncheons in such situations as have
been described above, they all appeared to suc-
ceed by throwing out strong shoots the first
summer, but that the year following they all
died, not having struck a single root. Con-
cluding that this did not depend on any defect
in the soil, he planted it again with small-
rooted slips, taken from old stubs, few of
which failed, most of them having been since
repeatedly cut for brush- wood, poles, and other
purposes ; and of those planted single, he ob-
serves, one has formed a conical top of great
beauty, and that its bole is three feet seven
inches in circumference midway between the
branches and the ground. From this statement
it would seem, that the best mode of securing
the growth of those trees is the planting of
the rooted slips, which can be easily done, as
great quantities of young shoots are annually
thrown out from about the roots of this sort of
trees.

Where there are plantations, or much of this
sort of wood on a farm, Arthur Young advises
that it should be cut when the bark will peel,
and be immediately soaked in a pond for two
months, as by this means the wood is so much
hardened as to be greatly improved in its
quality.

[Among the species of alder found in the
United States Michaux describes only two
species, the Alnxis serrulaia, or Common Alder,
abounding in the Northern, Middle, andWestern
States on the borders of streams and especially
in places covered with stagnant water. Its ordi-
nary size is eight or ten feet in height, seldom
attaining more than two inches in the diameter
of its stem. It blooms in January, the sexes
being separate on the same stock. The barren
flowers resembling those of the birch. The
common alder is too small to be applicable to
any use in the arts, and from its inferiority of
size, it will probably one day give place to the
European Alder.

The Alnus Glauca, or Black Alder, is one of
the most beautiful species of the genus. It is
unknown in the Southern, rare in the Middle
States, and in the North-eastern States, where it
is more frequently found, much less multiplied
^an the common alder. It grows a third taller
fhtai the latter species, attaining sometimes
ei|flteen or twenty feet in height and eight
inches in diameter. Its leaves are similar in
shape, but a third larger. The bark of the trunk
and of the secondary branches is smooth,
glossy, and of a deep brown colour sprinkled
CO

with white. It is employed by hatters for dying
black. {North, American St/lva.)]

ALDERNEY COWS. This admired breed
of cows is in general fine-boned, but small and
ill-made, and of a light red or yellowish colour.
Cows of this breed are most frequently met
with in England about the seats of the opulent,
from their milk, though smaller in quantity,
being more rich in quality than that of most
other kinds, and yielding from the same mea-
sure a larger proportion of cream and butter,
which is of a beautiful yellow colour and fine
flavour. They are much inclined to fatten,
and their beef has a very fine grain, and is well
tasted, but rather more yellow or high-coloured
than that of other sorts.

Mr. Lawrence in his general treatise on
cattle, however, supposes, " that the cattle of
the islands on the French coast are collectively
known by the name of Alderney ;" and that
" these are a variety of, and smaller than, the
Norman ; light red, yellow, dun, and fawn-
coloured ; short, wild-horned, deer-necked, with
a general resemblance to that animal; thin,
hard, and small-boned; irregular, often very
awkwardly shaped." But he considers this de-
scription to refer chiefly to the cows. He
thinks " they are amongst the best milkers in
the world as to quality, and in that respect are
either before or immediately next to the long
horn, but that in weight of butter for inches
they are far superior to all. He has been as-
sured by a respectable friend, that " an Alder-
ney strayed cow during the three weeks she
was kept by the finder made nineteen pounds
of butter each week; and the fact was held so
extraordinary, as to be thought worth a memo-
randum in the parish books." And it is added,
that " the Norman and island cattle make fat
very quick, and for their bulk arrive at consi-
derable weight. The beef," in his opinion, " is
of the first class, very fine grained, in colour
yellow, or of a high colour, with a bluish cast
and elastic feel, which denotes the closest
grained, most savoury, and finest meat." Ii is
in his recollection, that, "some years since, a
heifer, bred between Alderney and Kentish
home-bred stock, and fattened on cabbages and
carrots, made one hundred and fifty stone,
dying uncommonly fat." On this ground he
supposes, that "this species is, in course, a
proper cross for the large and coarse-boned ;
but in that view he would prefer the real Nor-
mans from the Continent, as generally better
shaped than the islanders." He likewise
states, that "many persons near the metropolis,
and along the south and western coast, make
a trade of importing these cattle, which are
extremely convenient for private families, and
make a good figure in parks and lawns."

Mr. CuUey, however, remarks, that they are
a breed of cattle too delicate and tender to be
much attended to by the British farmer, and
not capable of bearing the cold of this island,
especially the northern parts of it.

By an experiment which is stated in the Re-
port for the County of Kent, made between a
large home-bred cow of eight years old and a
small Alderney of two years old, it appears
that the home-bred cow in seven days gave
thirty-five gallons of milk, which made ten

ALE.

three ounces of butter, and the
Alderney cow, in the same length of time, gave
only fourteen gallons of milk, but which made
six pounds and eight ounces of butter.

Very useful cattle may be bred by crossing
these cows with short-horned bulls. The late
Mr. Hunter also produced a very beautiful cow
from the Alderney by a buffalo, which is said,
in the Middlesex Report, to have kept plump
and fat, both in summer and winter, on much
less food than would be sufficient to support a
beast of the same size of the ordinary breed.

ALE (Sax. eale). A liquor obtained from
the infusion of malt and hops by fermentation.
Ale differs from beer chiefly by having a
smaller proportion of hops. There are differ-
ent sorts of ale brewed, such as strong ale,
table ale, pale ale, and brown ale. The pale
ale is matie from malt which has only been
slightly dried, and is generally considered as
of a more viscid quality than the brown ale,
which is produced from malt that has been
roasted, or very hard dried. {Miller.) See
Beeii and Brewibto. The fertility of the soil
in grain, and its being not proper for vines,
put the Egyptians upon drinlc ing ale, of which
they were the inventors. {Arbuthnot.)

A liquor made from fermented barley is
mentioned by Herodotus (1. ii. c. 77) ; the
earliest manufactured kind of intoxicating
liquid was probably, however, mead. Tacitus
notices the use of beer by the Germans. Pliny
describes it as common to all the nations of
the west It has long been a favourite bever-
age of the inhabitants of England. Our Saxon
and Danish forefathers drank beer to excess.
They regarded it as the drink allotted to those
admitted into the Hall of Odin. Ale is named
amongst the laws of King Ina; and it was
long the custom, when the Norman princes
were on the throne, to regulate its price by
statute; thus, in 1272, it was ordained that a
brewer should sell two gallons of ale in a city
for a penny, or three or four gallons for the
same price in the country.

Hops were apparently first used for beer in
Germany, and in the Dutch breweries about
the year 1400; but they were not used gene-
rally in England until about the year 1600.
Henry VIIL, in 1530, even forbade the brewers
to mix hops in their beer; and yet, according
to Beckmann {Hist, of Inv. vol. iv. p. 336),
plantations of hops had begun to be formed in
England, a. d. 1552 : The distinction between
ale and beer is thus stated by Dr. Thomson :
"Both are obtained by fermentation from the
malt of barley, but they differ from each other
in several particulars, ale is light-coloured,
brisk, and sweetish, or at least free from bit-
ter; while beer is dark-coloured, bitter, and
much less brisk. Porter is a species of beer,
and is what was formerly called strong beer.
The original difference between ale and beer
was owing to the malt, from which they were
prepared. Ale malt was dried at a very low
heat, and consequently was of a pale colour ;
while beer or porter malt was dried at a higher
temperature, and had in consequence acquired
a brown colour. This incipient charring had
developed a peculiar, and agreeable bitter'
taste, which was communicated to the beer |

ALEHOOF.

' along with the dark colour. This bitter taste
rendered beer more agreeable to the palate, and
, less injurious to the constitution than ale. It
j was manufactured in larger quantities, and
' soon became the common drink of the lower
ranks in England. When, during the wars of
the French Revolution, the price of malt was
very materially increased, the brewers found
out that a greater quantity of wort of a given
strength could be procured from pale malt,
than from brown malt ; the consequence was,
that pale malt was to a considerable extent
substituted for brown malt in the brewing of
porter and beer. The wort now, however,
was paler, and wanted that agreeable bitter
flavour which characterized porter. The por-
ter brewers endeavoured to remedy these de-
fects by several artificial additions, such as
burnt sugar, quassia, &c., and most of which
the chief London porter brewers have, I be-
lieve, long since discontinued." Brewers are
obliged, under the 6 Geo. 4, c. 81, to take out
an annual license, for which they pay, if brew-
ers of strong beer,

Barreli. L. ».

Of not exceeding . - - _ 20 0 10

Of exceeding 1,000 and not exceeding - 2,000 3 0

— 10.000 — 20,000 30 0

— 30,000 — 40,000 60 0
Exceeding 40,000 75 0

Considering the increase of population in
England, the consumption of beer has not
materially increased since 1787, as the follow-
ing table of the beer brewed in this country in
various years will show.

Tean •ndinc
6U> July.

1787
1797
1807
1817
1825

Strong Beer.

4,426,483
5,839,627
5,577,176
5,236,048
6,500,664

Barrels.

485,620

584,422

1,732,710

1,453,960

1,485,750

The number of barrels of beer exported
from England is considerable and increasing,
amounting in the years ending the

5th of January, 1826 to 53,013 barrels.

— 1828 — 59,471 —

— 1830 — 74,902 —
(M'Culloch's Diet, of Com.)

ALEHOOF {Hedera terrestris. From ale,
and hoopr, head). Ground-ivy, so called by
our Saxon ancestors, as being their chief in-
gredient in ale. This wild plant creeps upon
hedge banks, at the foot of trees, and in every
shady place, flowering in spring. It takes root
at every joint, like the strawberry runners,
and its leaves are roundish and notched at
their edc^es, becoming a purple colour as the
spring advances. Its flowers are blue, and its
roots fibrous. This plant has a peculiar and
strong smell ; and it is best gathered when in
flower. It is an excellent vulnerary or wound-
herb, applied outwardly, and taken inwardly.
An ointment made from alehoof, or ground-
ivy, is very healing to ulcers and fistula. The
decoction of the herb drank daily for a con-
tinuance is deemed useful for cleansing the
stomach, promoting the proper secretions, and
sweetening the blood. [The old writers are
full of commendations of the medical virtues
of ground-ivy, which are extolled for a great
F 61

ALEXANDER.

ALKALI.

variety of ailments and " griefs," operating as
a diuretic, and being excellent in disorders of
the lungs and breast.] It obtained its name of
Alehoof among the poor, who infuse it in ale
or beer, and drink it warm for all internal ail-
ments. (L. Johnson.)

ALEXANDER (Hipposelinum). This gar-
den vegetable has been superseded by celery,
yet it is an excellent vegetable, and grows
abundantly wild almost everywhere in Eng-
land. The seeds and root are hot and dry like
those of parsley, and preparations of them are
much in use as a popular medicine.

[Some wild species of Alexander are known
in the United Stares. (See F/or. Ces.)]

ALLMENT (Lat alimentum). That which
nourishes, nutriment or food.

Of alimentary roots, some are pulpy and
very nutritious, as turnips and carrots. These
have a fattening quality. (Arbuth. on Aliments.)
See Gases, Eabth, Wateh, &c.

The food of animals, whether of a solid or
liquid kind, should be adapted to their different
organs both in quantity and quality, in order
that they may exist in the most perfect state.
It is observed, that nature directs every animal,
instinctively, to choose such substances for food
as are best adapted to its health and support ;
but as some are withdrawn from their natural
condition for the convenience of man, and, in
their domesticated state, are fed on artificial
productions, not of their own choice, it be-
comes a matter of serious importance to the
owners of cattle, horses, &c., to make them-
selves acquainted with their nature and habits,
and also with the qualities of those substances
which are usually designed as food for them,
since there is no doubt but errors in the choice
of the latter must be a fruitful source of disease.
Besides, in the view of the grazier, some sorts
of food may be much more advantageous in
the quality of fattening animals than others —
a circumstance of vast importance. See
Food.

ALKALI. The word alkali comes from an
herb called by the Egyptians kali; by us glass-
wort. This herb they burnt to ashes, boiled
the ashes in water, and after having evaporat-
ed the water, there remained at the bottom a
white salt — this they called sal kali or alkali.
{Todd's Johnson.) The word is of Arabic ori-
gin ; according to Albertus Magnus it signifies
"the dregs of bitterness." (Thomson, vol. ii.
p. 49.)

The chief alkalies found in plants are potash
and soda ; ammonia, it is true, is produced by
the distillation of certain vegetables, but it is
a product of the distillation ; and again, mor-
phia is obtained from opium, quinia from the
Peruvian bark,^ &c. ; but these alkaline sub-
stances are but rarely met with by the cultivator,
and do not involve any very important facts of
vegetable chemistry.

Potash is found in all vegetables growing at
a distance from the sea ; that of commerce is
piT^ured by merely burning the vegetable,
washing the ashes in water, and evaporating
the solution of potash thus obtained to dryness.
In this manner the potash of commerce is
made. The proportion, however, of potash,
existing in plants varies very considerably, as
62

may be seen from the following table of the
quantities of ashes and potash obtained from
100 parts of various plants: —

Sallow - .

Aihe..

Potuh.

2-8

0-'->85

Elm . < .

2-36727

039

Oak - - -

1 35185

0 15343

Poplar

1 23476

007481

Hornbeam -

11283

0 1254

Beach

0-58432
0 34133

014572

Fir ...

Rue branches

3379

0-55

Common neltle -

10-67186

2 5033

Common thistle -

4 04265

0-53734

Fern - - .

4 00781

0-6259

Stalks of Turkey wheat

8-86

1-75

Wormwood -

_

9744

7-3

Fumitory

,

21-9

7-9

Trifolium pratense

.

0-078

Vetches

_

2-75

Beans, with their stalks

2-0

Thomson's Chem. iv. 189.

The potash thus obtained, however, must
not be regarded as a pure alkali, for it contains
almost always a small portion of various salts,
such as the sulphate of potash, muriate of pot-
ash, sulphate of lime, phosphate of lime, &c.

Soda abounds in marine plants generally to
a much greater extent than potash does in the
vegetables of inland districts ; the barilla of
Spain is extracted from the salsola sativa and
vermiculata, and some of these plants yield
nearly 20 per cent, of ashes, which contain
about 2 per cent, of soda.

The union of alkalies with acids forms the
class of bodies known as the alkaline salts.

[Plants, in their growth, derive certain ele-
ments for their subsistence from the atmos-
phere, namely, carbonic acid, water, and am-
monia, the decomposition of the last furnish-
ing their nitrogen. They, however, require other
materials for the perfection of certain organs
or parts appropriated to the performance of
special functions, such, for example, as the
perfection of the seed, which is destined to re-
new the plant. These elements are furnished
by the soil, and consist of salts or alkaline
substances, such as potash, soda, lime, alumine,
magnesia, metallic oxids, and phosphates. The
proportion of these contained in soils regulate,
in a great degree, their capacities for the pro-
duction of different plants.

Connected with agricultural philosophy, the
alkalies are subjects of the deepest interest.

The salts of potash and soda, and of the al-
kaline earths or minerals, lime, alumine, and
even magnesia, can be obtained, by burning
and certain chemical processes, from parts of
the structure of all plants. This shows the
great importance of alkalies, and alkaline sub-
stances, to the growth and welfare of every pro-
duct of the soil. It follows also that with every
crop removed, a portion of the potash, etc.,
must be removed from the land. To compen*
sate for such losses, ashes, farm-yard manure,
&c., supply alkalies to the soil, along with
other fertilizing substances. In rocky districts
of country natural sources exist from whence
the soil derives a regular supply of potash,
namely, the disintegration of granite, and de-
composition of its felspar and mica, both of
which contain this alkali.

-A few years

ALKALI.

»w years after gypsum was introduced I
into general use, farmers began to observe a i
diminution of their hay crops, and to condemn '
it as an exhauster of the soil. But this charge
against plaster was not well founded, at least
in the sense it was made.

The numerous instances given by Liebig,
of the importance of the alkalies and metallic
oxides on vegetation, show that their influence
has been too much overlooked. It has been
thought remarkable by some vegetable physi-
ologists, that those cereal grasses which
furnish food for man, should, as it were,
follow him wherever he goes. The reason is
to be found in the fact, that none of our grain
plants can produce perfect seeds, or seeds
yielding farina, without a greater supply of
phosphate of magnesia and ammonia than
can be found in regions where these salts,
resulting from organized vitality, are less
abundant. (Cultivator.)

Plants growing on a soil, containing a due
mixture of earthy ingredients, always select a
proportion of each, according to their several
capacities or wants. It is a fact of the highest
practical value to the agriculturist to know,
that where a soil which originally contained
all the elements essential to the production of a
crop, becomes exhausted of one alkaline or
earthy element, another may be substituted so
as to compensate for the privation. Where,
for example, there is a deficiency in a soil of
the alkaline earth — lime, the addition of potash,
soda or magnesia, all of which exist in the
ashes of wood and other vegetable substances,
may be resorted to for the purpose of making
it up. Thus, plants when growing in a soil
where there is no potash will make up the
deficiency by taking up soda, if this last alkali
be present.

Plants which grow on or near the sea-shore
assimilate or take up soda instead of potash.
Sea-salt consists almost entirely of soda, and
the sea is therefore to be regarded as the great
source of this alkali. It is, however, found in
England and many other countries in the form
of native rock salt, and also exists in most
soils combined with potash. The soda of com-
merce is usually obtained from the ashes of
plants growing on the sea coast, just as potash
is procured from the ashes of trees and other
vegetables growing inland. (See Sofia, Kelp,&,c.)

The sowing of the earth with salt has from
the earliest times been deemed an infallible
means of producing total barrenness, and the
excess of any salt in a soil is still known to
be destructive of fertility.

The perfect developement of a plant is, never-
theless, according to Liebig, dependent on the
presence of due proportions of the alkalies or
alkaline earths, since, when these substances
are totally wanting, its growth will be arrest-
ed, and when they are only deficient it must
be impeded. "Let us compare," says this emi-
nent chemist, " two kinds of trees, the wood of
which contains unequal quantities of alkaline
bases, and we shall find that one of these
grows luxuriantly in several soils, upon which
the others are scarcely able to vegetate. For
example, 10,000 parts of oak wood yield 250

ALKALL

parts of ashes, tne same quantity of fir-wood
only 83, of linden-wood 500, of rye 440, and
of the herb of the potato-plant 1500 parts.

"Firs and pines find a sufficient quantity of
alkalies in granitic and barren sandy soils, in
which oaks will not grow ; and wheat thrives
in soils favourable for the linden-tree, because
the bases, which are necessary to bring it to
complete maturity, exist there in sutlcient
quantity. The accuracy of these conclusions,
so highly important to agriculture and to the
cultivation of forests, can be proved by the
the most evident facts.

" All kinds of grasses, the Equisetacess, for
example, contain in the outer parts of their
leaves and stalk a large quantity of silicic acid
and potash, in the form of acid silicate of
potash. The proportion of this salt does not
vary perceptibly in the soil of corn-fields, be-
cause it is again conveyed to them as manure
in the form of putrefying straw. But this is
not the case in a meadow, and hence we never
find a luxuriant crop of grass on sandy and
calcareous soils which contain little potash,
evidently because one of the constituents in-
dispensable to the growth of the plants is
wanting. Soils formed from basalt, grau-
wacke, and porphyry are, cxteris paribus, the
best for meadow land, on account of the quan-
tity of potash which enters into their composi-
tion. The potash abstracted by the plants is
restored during the annual irrigation.* That
contained in Ihe soil itself is inexhaustible in
comparison with the quantity removed by
plants.

"But when we increase the crop of grass in
a meadow by means of gypsum, we remove a
greater quantity of potash with the hay than
can, under the same circumstances, be restored.
Hence it happens, that after the lapse of seve-
ral years, the crops of grass on the meadows
manured with gypsum diminish, owing to the
deficiency of potash. But if the meadow be
strewed from time to time with wood-ashes,
even with the lixiviated ashes which have
been used by soap-boilers, (in Germany much
soap is made from the ashes of wood,) then
the grass thrives as luxuriantly as before.
The ashes are only a means of restoring the
potash.

" A harvest of grain is obtained every thirty
or forty years from the soil of the Luneburg
heath, by strewing it with the ashes of the
heath-plants (Erica vulgaris) which grow on
it. These plants during the long period just
mentioned collect the potash and soda, which
are conveyed to them by rain-water ; and it is
by means of these alkalies, that oats, barley,
and rye, to which they are indispensable, are
enabled to grow on this sandy heath.

* A very high value is attached in Germany to the
cultivation of grass as winter provision for cattle, and
the greatest care is used in order to obtain the greatest
possible quantity. In the vicinity of Liegen (a town in
Nassau), from three to five perfect crops are obtained
from one meadow, and this is effected by covering the
fields with river-water, which is conducted over the
meadow in spring by numerous small canals. This is
found to be of such advantage, that supposing a meadow
not so treated to yield 1,000 lbs. of hay, then from one
thus watered 4,500 lbs. are produced. In respect to the
cultivation of meadows, the country around Liegen is
considered to be the best in all Germany.— Z..

63

ALKALI.

ALKALL

"The woodcutters in the vicinity of Heidel-
berg have the privilege of cultivating the soil
for their own use, after felling the trees used
for making tan. Before sowing the land thus
obtained, the branches, roots, and leaves are
in every case burned, and the ashes used as a
manure, which is found to be quite indispen-
sable for the growth of the grain. The soil
itself, upon which the oats grow in this dis-
trict, consists of sandstone ; and although the
trees find in it a quantity of alkaline earths
sufficient for their own sustenance, yet in its
ordinary condition it is incapable of producing
grain.

" The most decisive proof of the use of strong
manure was obtained at Bingen (a town on
the Rhine), where the produce and develope-
ment of vines were highly increased by ma-
nuring them with such substances as shavings
of horn, &c., but after some years the forma-
tion of the wood and leaves decreased to the
great loss of the possessor, to such a degree,
that he has long had cause to regret his de-
parture from the usual methods. By the ma-
nure employed by him, the vines had been too
much hastened in their growth; in two or
three years they had exhausted the potash in
the formation of their fruit, leaves, and wood,
so that none remained for the future crops, his
manure not having contained any potash.

"There are vineyards on the Rhine, the
plants of which are above a hundred years old,
and all of these have been cultivated by ma-
nuring them with cow-dung, a manure con-
taining a large proportion of potash, although
Very little nitrogen. All the potash, in fact,
which is contained in the food consumed by a
cow is again immediately discharged in its
excrements.

"The experience of a proprietor of land in
the vicinity of Gottingen offers a most remark-
able example of the incapability of a soil to
produce wheat or grasses in general, when it
fails in any one of the materials necessary to
their growth. In order to obtain potash, he
planted his whole land with wormwood, the
ashes of which are well known to contain a
large proportion of the carbonate of that alkali.
The consequence was, that he rendered his
'land quite incapable of bearing grain for many
years, in consequence of having entirely
deprived the soil of its potash.

"The leaves and small branches of trees
contain the most potash ; and the quantity of
them which is annually taken from the wood,
for the purpose of being employed as litter,
contain more of that alkali than all the old
wood which is cut down. The bark and foli-
age of oaks, for example, contain from 6 to
9-per cent of^this alkali; the needles of firs
and pines 8 per cent.

" With every 2650 lbs. of fir-wood, which
are yearly removed from an acre of forest,
only from 0-114 to 0-53 lbs. of alkalies are
»)ftracted from the soil, calculating the ashes
aVJD'83 per cent The moss, however, which
covers the ground, and of which the ashes are
known to contain so much alkali, continues
uninterrupted in its growth, and retains that
potash on the surface, which would otherwise
so easily penetrate with the rain through the
64

sandy soil. By its decay, an abundant provi-
sion of alkalies is supplied to the roots of the
trees, and a fresh supply is rendered unneces-
sar)\

" The supposition of alkalies, metallic oxides,
or inorganic matter in general, being produced
by plants, is entirely refuted by these well-
authenticated facts.

" It is thought very remarkable, that those
plants of the grass tribe, the seeds of which
furnish food for man, follow him like the do-
mestic animals. But saline plants seek the
sea-shore or saline springs, and the Chenopo-
dium* the dunghill fron]i similar causes. Sa-
line plants require common salt, and the plants
which grow only on dunghills, need ammonia
and nitrates, and they are attracted whither
these can be found, just as the dung-fly is to
animal excrements. So likewise none of our
corn-plants can bear perfect seeds, that is,
seeds yielding flour, without a large supply of
phosphate of magnesia and ammonia, sub-
stances which they require for their maturity.
And hence, these plants grow only in a soil
where these three constituents are found com-
bined, and no soil is richer in them, than those
where men and animals dwell together ; where
the urine and excrements of these are found
corn-plants appear, because their seeds cannot
attain maturity unless supplied with the con-
stituents of those matters.

"When we find sea-plants near our salt-
works, several hundred miles distant from the
sea, we know that their seeds have been car-
ried there in a very natural manner, namely,
by wind or birds, which have spread them
over the whole surface of the earth, although
they grow only in those places in which they
find the conditions essential to their life.

"The first colonists of Virginia found a
country, the soil of which was similar to that
mentioned above ; harvests of wheat and
tobacco were obtained for a century from one
and the same field without the aid of manure,
but now whole districts are converted into un-
fruitful pasture land, which without manure
produces neither wheat nor tobacco. From
every acre of this land, there were removed in
the space of one hundred years 1,200 lbs. of
alkalies in leaves, grain, and straw; it became
unfruitful, therefore, because it was deprived
of every particle of alkali, which had been
reduced to a soluble state, and because that
which was rendered soluble again in the
space of one year, was not sufficient to satisfy
the demands of the plants. Almost all the cul-
tivated land in Europe is in this condition;
fallow is the term applied to land left at rest
for further disintegration. It is the greatest
possible mistake to suppose that the temporary
diminution of fertility in a soil is owing to the
loss of humus; it is the mere consequence of
the exhaustion of the alkalies.

" Let us consider the condition of the country
around Naples, which is famed for its fruitful
corn-land ; the farms and villages are situated
from eighteen to twenty-four miles distant from
one another, and between them there are no

♦ Ckenopodium allmni, called in the United State*
Lamb's Quarter, a troublesome weed about gardens and
bouses.

JMW^ ALKALI.

ALKALL

roads, and consequently no transportation of
manure. Now corn has been cultivated on
this land for thousands of years, without any
part of that which is annually removed from
the soil being artificially restored to it. How
can any influence be ascribed to humus under
such circumstances, when it is not even known
whether humus was ever contained in the
soil 1

"The method of culture in that district com-
pletely explains the permanent fertilit3\ It
appears very bad in the eyes of our agricul-
turists, but there it is the best plan which could
be adopted. A field is cultivated once every
three years, and is in the intervals allowed to
serve as a sparing pasture fur cattle. The
soil experiences uo change in the two years
during which it there lies fallow, further than
that it is exposed to the influence of the wea-
ther, by which a fresh portion of the alkalies
contained in it are again set free or rendered
soluble. The animals fed on these fields yield
nothing to these soils which they lid not
formerly possess. The weeds upon which they
live spring from the soil, and that which they
return to it as excrements, must always be less
than that which they extract. The field, there-
fore, can have gained nothing from the mere
feeding of cattle upon them ; on the contrary,
the soil must have lost some of its constitu-
ents.

"Experience has shown in agriculture, that
wheat should not be cultivated after wheat on
the same soil, for it belongs with tobacco to
the plants which exhaust a soil. But if the
humus of a soil gives it the power of producing
corn, how happens it that wheat does not
thrive in many parts of Brazil, where the soils
are particularly rich in that substance, or in
our own climate, in soils formed of mouldered
wood ; that its stalk under these circumstances
attains no strength, and droops prematurely!
The cause is this, — that the strength of the
stalk is due to silicate of potash, and that the
corn requires phosphate of magnesia, neither
of which substances a soil of humus can
afford, since it does not contain them; the
plant may indeed, under such circumstances,
become an herb, but will not bear fruit.

" Again, how does it happen that wheat does
not flourish on a sandy soil, and that a calcare-
ous soil is also unsuitable for its growth,
unless it be mixed with a considerable quan-
tity of clay ? It is because these soils do not
contain alkalies in sufficient quantity, the
growth of wheat being arrested by this circum-
stance, even should all other substances be
presented in abundance.

"Trees, the leaves of which are renewed
annually, require for their leaves six to ten
times more alkalies than the fir-tree or pine,
and hence, when they are placed in soils in
which alkalies are contained in very small
quantity, do not attain maturity.* When we
see such trees growing on a sandy or calcare-

♦ One thousand parts of the dry leaves of oaks yielded
65 parts of ashes, of which W parts consisted of alkalies
soluble in water ; the same quantity of pine leaves rave
only 29 parts of ashes, which contained 46 parts of
soluble salts. (De Sautaure )

' ous soil, — the red-beech, the service-tree, and
the wild-cherry, for example, thriving luxuri-
i antly on limestone, we may be assured that
j alkalies are present in the soil, for they are
i necessary to their existence. Can we, "then,
[ regard it as remarkable, that such trees should
I thrive in America, on those spots on which
forests of pines which have grown and col-
lected alkalies for centuries, have been burnt,
and to which the alkalies are thus at once
restored; or that the Spartittm scnpnrmm,
Erysiiniiin iatlfnlium, Blitum capifatum, Senecio
viacnsus, plants remarkable for the quantity of
alkalies contained in their ashes, should grow
with the greatest luxuriance on the localities
of conflagrations.*

" Wheat will not grow on a soil which has
produced wormwood, and, vice versa, worm-
wood does not thrive where wheat has grown,
because they are mutually prejudicial by ap-
propriating the alkalies of the soil.

"One hundred parts of the stalks of wheat
yield 1.5-5 parts of ashes {H.Davy) ; the same
quantity of the dry stalks of barley, 8-54 parts
{Schradtr) ; and one hundred parts of the
stalks of oais, only 4'42; — the ashes of all
these are of the same composition.

" We have in these facts a clear proof of
what plants require for their growth. Upon
the same field, which will yield only one har-
vest of wheat, two crops of barley and three
of oats may be raised.

" All plants of the grass kind require silicate
of potash. Now this is conveyed to the soil,
or rendered soluble in it by the irrigation of
meadows. The eqttiselacepp., the reeds and
species of cane, for example, which contain
such large quantities of siliceous earth, or sili-
cate of potash, thrive luxuriantly in marshes,
in argillaceous soils, and in ditches, streamlets,
and other places, where the change of water
renews constantly the supply of dissolved
silica. The amount of silicate of potash re-
moved from a meadow, in the form of hay, is
very considerable. We need only call to mind
the melted vitreous mass found on a meadow
between Manheim and Heidelberg after a
thunder-storm. This mass was at first sup-
posed to be a meteor, but was found on exami-
nation (by Gmelin) to consist of silicate of
potash ; a flash of lightning had struck a
stack of hay, and nothing was found in its
place except the melted ashes of the hay.

" Potash is not the only substance necessary
for the existence of most plants, indeed it has
been already shown that the potash may be
replaced, in many cases by soda, magnesia,
or lime ; but other substances, besides alkalies,
are required to sustain the life of plants.

The soil in which plants grow furnishes
them with phosphoric acid, and they in turn
yield it to animals, to be used in the formation
of their bones, and of those constituents of the
brain which contain phosphorus. Much more

♦ After the great fire in London, la'rge quantities of the
Erysimum laf if olium were observed growing on the spots
where a fire had taken place. On a similar occasion, the
Blitum eapitatum was seen at Copenhagen, the Senecw
viseosus in Nassau, and the Spartium scoparium in Lan-
euedoc. After the burnings of forests of pines in North
America poplars grew on the same soil. (Franklin.)
tZ 65

ALKANET.

ALLOTMENT SYSTEM.

phosphorus is thus afforded to the body than it
requires, when tlesh, bread, fruit, and husks of
grain are used for food, and this excess in
them is eliminated in the urine and the solid
excrements. We may form an idea of the
quantity of phosphate of magnesia contained
in grain, when we consider that the concre-
tions in the ccecum of horses consist of phos-
phate of magnesia and ammonia, which must
have been obtained from the hay and oats con-
sumed as food. Twenty-nine of these stones
were taken after death from the rectum of a
horse belonging to a miller in Eberstadt, the
total weight of which amounted to 3 lbs. ; and
Dr. F. Simon has lately described a similar
concretion found in the horse of a carrier,
which weighed 1^ lb.

"It is evident that the seeds of corn could
not be formed without phosphate of magnesia,
which is one of their invariable constituents ;
the plant could not under such circumstances
reach maturity." {Or^ranic Chemistry.)']

ALKANET {Anchusa, Lat.). this plant
is a species of bugloss with a red root, brought
from th* southern parts of France, and used
in medicine. It grows wild in Kent and Corn-
wall, but in other counties only in gardens.
It flowers in summer, and its root becomes red
in Autumn. The root is astringent : the leaves
not so much so. [The puccoon {Bafschia
Canadensis) is called alkanet in the United
States. See Flor. Ces. p. 118, obs.]

ALLIUM. See Oniox, Garlic, Leek, Sha-
tOT, Chives, &c.

ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. This designation
has been applied in England to a plan for
bettering the condition of the poor, by allotting
to each family in a parish an extent of ground
for the purpose of cultivation with the spade.

Under the article Agricultuiie it is noticed,
that in England, during the feudal times, an
allotment system existed. Its object, however,
was different ; the lords of the soil, having an
interest in obtaining as many tenants as they
could, for their power was proportionate to
their number, portioned their estates into as
many small allotments as they could obtain
family tenants, receiving in return certain
days of military or other service.

When the feudal system was destroyed, the
lords let their lands in a similar manner, re-
ceiving as rent certain quantities of labour
from the tenant, or produce of the land he
rented; although, it not being now an object
to maintain the number of their tenants, but
rather to acquire an increased return of pro-
duce, and to obtain a prosperous tenantry, no
obstacle was thrown in the way of increasing
the size of farms. Land was left like any
other subject of investment, and a man ob-
tained as much as his means of cultivating
permitted, or as he found to be profitable.
These were powerful limitations, for money
was scarce, and the agriculturists were chiefly
te'ja.nts, labourers for hire being few.

KJi the fourteenth century occurred the great-
est revolution that ever happened to the agri-
culture of England. The increased demand
for wool in the Netherlands and at home, ren-
dered the breeding of sheep much more profit-
able than the growing of corn, and conse-

quently the arable lands were converted into
pastures. England had been very closely cul-
tivated, and the small or cotter farms were
extremely numerous. These were now gene-
rally exterminated, and the land proprietor be-
coming a great flock-master, converted them
all into one breadth of grazing land. " Your
sheep," says Sir Thomas More in his Utopia,
-'that were wont to be so meek and tame, and
ruch small eaters, are now become such great
devourers, and so wild, that they eat up and
swallow down the very men themselves." —
" One covetous and unsatiable cormorant, and
very plague of his native country, compasses
about and encloses many thousand acres of
ground together within one pale or hedge, the
husbandmen are thrust out of their own, or else,
either by covin and fraud, or by violent op-
pression, they are put beside it, or by wrongs
and injuries they be so wearied that they be
compelled to sell all; by one means or other,
either by hook or by crook, they must needs
depart away, poor, silly, wretched souls, men,
women, husbands, wives, fatherless children,
widows, woful mothers and their young babes,
and their whole household, small in substance
and much in number, as husbandry requireth
many hands. For one shepherd or herdsman
is enough to eat up that ground, to the occu-
pying whereof about husbandry many hands
were required."

Some few of the cotter farmers were reduced
to the grade of hired shepherds ; others became
artisans, a still smaller number retained a plot
of land, but a large portion (for even monastic
support was now abolished) became beggars,
who, as all records agree, infested England.
This gave birth to the poor laws, and the same
reign of Elizabeth was the era of an effcirt to
remedy the evils which had arisen from this
destruction of small farms.

It had been experienced that though the
tenants of those small farms had been poor,
yet none of them were paupers ; it was there-
fore thought that every mode of recurring to
such a system must be beneficial ; and in ac-
cordance with this opinion an act of parlia-
ment was passed, commanding that to every
cottage that should be erected, four acres of
ground should be allotted. This first sugges-
tion of the allotment system failed. The quan-
tity of ground allotted was too large, and from
its interfering with the just liberties of the
landed proprietors, this act was repealed in
the last century.

As the value of all farming produce in-
creased from various causes, the profits be-
coming commensurately large, cultivators re-
quired more extensive forms, consolidation
proceeded, and in 1709 the first enclosure act
passed ; and from that time to the present
the small occupiers have gradually further
diminished, as their right of commonage
and the like was taken away by the four thou-
sand enclosure bills that have since been
enacted.

When small farmers are deprived of their-
tenements, they become, if they continue agri-
culturists, farming labourers. It becomes a'
subject of very great political importance,
therefore, to ascertain how the character

ALLOTMENT SYSTEM.

ALLUVIUM.

and comfort of these, who are now by far I
the most numerous class in society, can be
best promoted. It would be here misplaced
to examine how the system of poor laws has
served in various ways to debase and depress
them ; our present object must be to consider
how the allotment system may be the best
made to promote contrary effects.

This system, we have noticed, suggested it-
self to the legislature in the reign of Elizabeth,
but it was of very limited operation.

On the Continent, a system of larger allots
ments was partially adopted in the year 1707,
in the Duchy of Cleves, but we are not aware
that the example was followed, till, after the
lapse of more than a century, the Dutch go-
vernment, in 1818, divided tracts of poor soil
at Frederick's Oord, and other places, into al-
lotments of seven acres. The government
provided overseers to notice the moral con-
duct and industry of the tenants; advanced
capital when needed, which was to be repaid ;
and an annual rent was to be returned. Manual
labour was exclusively adopted. The expense
of establishing each individual was 22/. 6.v. \d. ;
and the annual excess of produce over the
subsistence of the family, after deducting the
rent, twelve shillings per acre, was 8/. 25.
4rf. {M.de Kirdioff. Jacob on the Com Trade,
&c.)

About the year 1800, Dr. Law, Bishop of
Bath and Wells, commenced the allotment
system ; Sir H. Vavasour communicated to
the Board%f Agriculture, about the same pe-
riod, some experiments demonstrating the great
benefit of "the Flemish," or "field-gardening
husbandry;" and, in 1802, Charles Howard,
Esq. followed the example.

" On Pulley Common, in Shropshire," says
Sir W. Pulteney, " there is, at least there was,
a cottager's tenement of about 512 square
yards, somewhat more than one-ninth of an
acre. The spade and the hoe are the only
implements used, and those chiefly by his
wife, that he may follow his daily labour for
hire. The plot of land is divided into two
parcels, whereon she grows wheat and pota-
toes alternately. In the month of October,
when the potatoes are ripe, she takes off the
stalks of the plants, which she secures to pro-
duce manure by littering her pig. She then
goes over the whole with a rake, to collect the
weeds for the dunghill. She next sows the
wheat, and then takes up the potatoes with a
three-pronged fork ; and by this operation the
wheat seed is covered deep. She leaves it
quite rough, and the winter frost mellows the
earth ; and by its falling down in the spring it
adds vigour to the wheat plants. She has pur-
sued this alternate system of cropping for
several years without any diminution of pro-
duce. The potato crop only has manure. In
1804, a year very noted for mildew, she had
fifteen Winchester bushels of wheat from 272
square yards, being four times the general
averaging crop of the neighbouring farmers.
It is to be wished such instances of cottage
industry were more frequent; and more fre-
quent they would be, were proper means made
use of to invigorate the spirit of exertion in
the labouring class."

Since that period the patrons of the system
have been very numerous. The clergy have
been especially promoters of this system.

Where this system, well regulated, has been
tried, and the experience is now very exten-
sive, the results have been most happy. The
condition of the poor has been ameliorated; by
rendering them more independent, they have
become more contented and more careful ; bet-
ter as citizens, and better as individuals.

If the allotments much exceed a quarter of
an acre, or in any way approach to the nature
of cotter farms, a proportionate blow is made
at that employment of capital and talent in
agriculture which has raised it to its present
improved state.

"The advantages attending this system,"
says a clerical writer in the Christian Ob-
server for 1832, "besides the comfort of the
poor man, are the diminution of the poor's
rate, and the moral improvement of the la-
bourer. Since this plan has been in opera-
tion, the poor-rate has been steadily declining
from about 320/. to about 180/. per annum,
with the prospect of still further diminution.
When the farmer's work is scarce, the poor
man finds profitable employment on his patch
of ground, which if he had not to occupy him,
he would be sent to idle upon the roads at the
expense of the parish. The system has the
further and very important effect of improving
his character. When the labourer has his
little plot of ground, from which he feels he
shall not be ejected as long as he conducts
himself with propriety, he has an object on
which his heart is fixed ; he has something at
stake in society; he will not hang loose on the
community, ready to join those who would dis-
turb it ; so much so, that in the late riots, no
man in the parish showed any disposition to
join them."

From the year 1828 to the present time, nu-
merous pamphlets upon this subject have ap-
peared, and for farther information readers are
referred to those of Dr. Law, and of Messrs.
Scobell, Scrope, Banfill, Denson, Blackiston,
Withers, &c.

ALLOWANCES TO TENANTS. Such as
are agreed to be made to them on their quitting
farms, or under any other circumstances. See
Customs of Counties and Appraisement.

ALLUVIUM, or ALLUVION (from the La-
tin Ailuvio, " an inundation"), is a term which,
in the English language, has no very defined
meaning. Some authors use it to designate all
those rocks which have been formed by causes
now acting on the surface of the earth, includ-
ing those of volcanic origin ; while others, ad-
hering to the literal meaning of the original
term, confine its application to deposits, what-
ever be their character, that have resulted
from inundations. Neither of these definitions
convey the same meaning as is usually at-
tached to the word, the one including too
much, the other too little. The term has been
badly selected, but is used in its proper appli-
cation to designate all those deposits recently
formed, or now forming, by the agency of wa-
ter, whether from an uninterrupted and con-
stant stream, or from casual inundation.

All streams, lakes, rivers, seas, and the

67

ALLUVIUM.

ALLUVIUM.

ocean itself, hold a lar^e quantity of earthy-
matter in mechanical solution, which they de-
posit in their beds. The character of the sedi-
ment is governed by the nature of the rocks
over which the waters tlow; and the quantity
depends partly upon the constitution of the
rocks, and partly upon the power of the water.
If the rock be easily destroyed, and a large
body of water tlow over it with a considerable
velocity, the destructive etfect will be great,
and much worn materials {detritus) being
formed, the stream will have a thick and tur-
bid appearance. The same efiect is frequently
produced by the discharge of a number of tri-
butary streams into a river, all of which accu-
mulate a greater or less quantity of the earths
over which they tlow.

The distribution of water at the present
time, and I more particularly refer to rivers,
is very different from that of former periods.
The majority of the valleys through which
rivers are now flowing, have been produced
by the action of water, which, running from
higher lands, has not only scooped them out,
but has spread over them the worn material
which it accumulates in its passage. By the
operations which have since been going on,
the waters have been collected together in
comparatively narrow channels of consider-
able permanency. On this account, the influ-
ence of water that flows over the portions of the
earth inhabited by terrestrial animals is great-
ly restricted ; and the production of new beds
of rock or soil is rather an accidental than a
necessary consequence.

But, although the influence of water has
been thus confined, all lands, and especially
the surfaces of mountainous districts, are un-
dergoing change, and the superficial covering
of one district is conveyed to another. The
showers of heaven are constantly sweeping
away the soil and decomposed rocks of the
uplands into the valleys, over which they are
transported by streams and rivers, the larger
and heavier particles falling to the bottom, the
smaller being united with the water in mechani-
cal mixture. That portion of earthy matter
which is carried away from a district by the
running water, is, as far as the district itself
is concerned, the most valuable, being the
superficial covering or soil, and would be for
ever lost to that portion of the earth inhabited
by man, were it not arrested in its passage to
the ocean, by deposition in the bed of the
river, or on those lands which the waters may
happen to overflow.

It is well known to those who have visited
elevated districts, that many mountains are
already deprived of their soils, and are but the
skeletons of the earth, without covering or life.
By this action the valleys are in the process of
elevation, and the mountains of depression ;
and if we could conceive it to proceed without
limitation, we may imagine a time when all
the varieties of elevation and depression, which
noY give beauty to the surface, will be de-
strwed, and an entirely different condition of
the* distribution of land and water will be
established. But, at the same time, it cannot
be denied that these changes, as far as they
have hitherto proceeded, have been advanta-

geous to man, whatever might be their result
under the conditions to which we have alluded.
The mountainous regions are, from their ele-
vation, less suited to the progression of so-
ciety, so intimately connected with agricultu-
ral prosperity, than the plains. As we rise
above the level of the sea, the atmosphere be-
comes more rarified, and the cold more in-
tense, both of which are injurious to vegeta-
tion in general, and unsuited to promote the
comfort of animal life. The plains are, there-
fore, preferred by men when they congregate
together, and form societies. It cannot be
considered an unwise or unfit result, that the
lowlands should be enriched with alluvial
soils, produced by the destruction of the rocks
and natural soils of mountainous regions. It
is reported of Dioclesian, that he told his col-
league, Maximilian, he had more pleasure in
the cultivation of a few potherbs which, in the
gardens of Spalatro, grew in the soil that on
the top of Mount Hasmus had only produced
moss and dittany, than in all the honours the
Roman empire could confer. From the defini-
tion I have given of the word "alluvium," I
must include the gravels and sands that are of
recent formation among the alluvial deposits ;
but our attention is chiefly directed to the soils,
or those beds which are suited to sustain vege-
table life. It is true that the gravels may be
made available for the cultivation of some
plants, but the beds which are so used belong
rather to that class of rocks denominated dilu-
vial by geologists, than to the deposits of which
we are speaking.

If we trace the circumstances under which
alluvial soils are formed to their cause, we
shall find that they have their origin in the fall
of heavy rains, and the melting of snows, in
mountainous regions. The water, in its pas-
sage to the valleys, collects the superficial soil
and decomposed earthy material that lies in its
path, and transports them into the channels to-
wards which it flows. The streams that are
formed on the mountain slopes are generally
united together before they reach the plains,
and form impetuous torrents, overcoming all
obstacles, until their velocity is lost, when, in
their winding courses, they meet each other,
and form rivers.

Rivers, in every part of their course, are
subject to inundation; when, throwing their
waters over a considerable space, they deposit
the earthy materials they have accumulated.
If such inundations had not occurred, the ac-
cumulated worn materials (debris) would have
been deposited in the bed of the river, or car-
ried into the lake or sea where the waters
themselves are discharged. There are abun-
dant instances on record of the filling up of
rivers by the worn materials (detritus), which
have been carried into their courses; and any
river of our own country will afford a limited
example of this result. Many rivers and es-
tuaries, which a few years since were navi-
gable, have ceased to be so on account of the
large amount of alluvial matter deposited in
their beds ; and many of our towns, which
were once populous and wealthy, have on this
account become poor and almost deserted. If
we would see the effect of the transport of worn

ALLUVIUM.

materials into lakes, we cannot have a more
favourable opportunity than in Switzerland.
Many of the lakes of this sublime and majestic
country are rapidly filling from this cause ;
and in some of them water plants are seen
above the surface of the water. But when a
river suffers inundation, the earthy matier,
which is held in mechanical mixture, is ar-
rested, and deposited on the land that is over-
flowed, and a richly productive soil is formed.
One or two examples may illustrate these re-
marks.

The Ganges annually overflows its banks,
and deposits a rich alluvial soil over the
country it inundates. This magnificent river
was supposed to take its rise on the northern
side of the Himalaya mountains, until it was
proved, in 1819, by Lieutenant Webb, that all
the streams which unite to give its existence,
take their rise on the south side of the Hindoo
Coast, or Snowy Mountains. The melting of
the snows, and the heavy periodical rains aug-
ment the volume of the water, and by the end
of June, before the rainy season has com-
menced in the low country, the river has ge-
nerally risen fifteen feet; but after the rains in
Bengal it usually attains a height of thirty-two
feet above its ordinary level. By the end of
July all the low countries adjoining the Ganges
and the Burrampooter are overflowed, and no-
thing but houses and trees are seen for many
miles inward. The province of Bengal is
divided into two nearly equal parts by the
Ganges ; and as a large portion of the country
on the banks of the river is low, it is especially
exposed to inundation, from which circum-
stance it probably derives its name, such dis-
tricts being called heng. A deep bed of rich
soil is deposited during the period of the over-
flow, and the vegetable productions are of the
most varied and luxuriant character. Rice,
wheat, barley, tobacco, indigo, cotton, the mul-
berr)', and the poppy, are all cultivated with
success on the alluvial soils.

It is well known that Egypt has been from
time immemorial indebted to the overflow of
the Nile for a rich alluvial soil, as well as for
the means of irrigating the land. The an-
cients seem to have been altogether at a loss
to account for the periodical overflow of this
river ; and when we consider the appearances
before them, we are not surprised at the difli-
culties they experienced. They observed it in
a countr}' that was not moistened by a drop of
rain, and where it was unaided by a single
stream, and yet, at its stated period, it began
to lift its waters from their bed, and rising
higher and higher, overflowed its banks, and
spread itself like a sea over Lower Eg)'pt, re-
freshing the parched earth with moisture, and
aiding its productiveness with the formation
of a superficial covering of rich loam. The
philosophers speculated without success upon
its cause ; but while they were disputing as to
the origin of the phenomenon, year by year
the Nile rose, and left the evidence of its be-
neficial sway in the richness of the crops and
the luxuriance of the country. From the in-
vestigations that have now been made, we
know that the rise of the Nile is occasioned
by the rains which fall on the high mountains

ALLUVIUM.

in the interior and tropical regions, and not, as
many of the ancients supposed, from the Ete-
sian winds, which, blowing periodically from
the north, prevent the waters from reaching
the sea.

The great importance of rivers, as agents in
the production of alluvial soils, cannot be
more strongly proved by any positive evidence
than by a consideration of the state of Austra-
lia, a country remarkable for the fewness of
its rivers, and the general poverty of its soil.
Contrary to all precedents, the richest soils in
this land, excepting the alluvial, are found on
the summits of hills. The fires which so fre-
quently happen on the plains, the peculiar
character of the vegetation (chiefly consisting
of ever-greens), and the sparing distribution
of water, are the principal causes of the steri-
lity of this otherwise desirable country. There
are, however, spots which, covered with allu-
vial soil, can rival the richest and most culti-
vated districts of England; and the compari-
son of these with other lands impresses the
observer the more strongly with the great im-
portance of the natural provision for ihe resti-
tutitin of that portion of the earth inhabited by
man, by the deposition of new earthy matter
and a virgin soil. The alluvial flats of the
Nepean, the Hawksbury, and the Hunter
rivers, are spoken of by all writers as remark-
able for their fertility. The rich valley in
which the Lake Alexandrina is situated may
be noticed as another example of the influence
of alluvial soils. The country around this
lake appears to be one of the most beautiful
and fertile in Australia ; and a glance at the
map will immediately inform the inquirer of
the cause. It is so situated as to receive the
worn materials of the mountain chain that
ranges along the promontory of which Cape
Jervis is the southern point, and also to obtain
moisture at all times from the lake, and a re-
novating soil whenever it may overflow it's
banks.

Alluvial soils are produced by the discharge
of mountain streams ijjto valleys, as well as by
the overflow of rivers. We have already ex-
plained the manner in which they collect the
superficial covering of mountainous districts,
and being charged with earthy matter, bring it
into the plains. This may be deposited before
the streams are united together in an individual
channel as well as after, and should this be
done, the valley may be covered with alluvial
products. The formation of a river is a pro-
cess which requires time, and many changes
must happen before the flowing waters can
form for themselves a local habitation ; obsta-
cles must be removed, a bed must be scooped
out, and an outlet must be formed, in the per-
formance of which earthy matter must be ac-
cumulated, and extensive deposits be formed.

A third cause in the production of alluvial
deposits may be mentioned. The sea is mak-
j ing great inroads upon many of its shores,
carrying on a destructive war against the
! cliffs that vainly endeavour to oppose its force;
! while on the other hand it is in some instances
I receding from the shores against which it once
i beat ; and thus, as though to recompense man
1 for what it takes away, gives to him a portion

69

ALLUVIUM.

of its own territory. Those districts which are
thus added to the land are usually superposed
by a fine rich alluvial soil, as also are those
which have at a former period been covered
by the sea, and would be at the present day,
were it not for the ingenuity and works of man.

The districts in which are situated New Or-
leans in America, and Missolonghi in Greece,
are chiefly alluvial, and nearly the whole of
Holland has the same character, and can only
be described as a district of which man has
robbed the ocean. That part of the coast of
Germany which is bordered by the North Sea
is alluvial, and additions are constantly made
to the shores by the gradual depositions of
earthy matter upon the immense flats which
extend along them. The first sign of vegeta-
tion on these lands is the appearance of the
saltwort {Salicornia maritima), which is suc-
ceeded by the sea grass {Poa maritima), and
when the land is very rich, by the marsh star-
wort {Aster Tripolium). The land is after-
wards dyked, and used as pasture for sheep
and cattle ; so that the spot over which the sea
has perhaps for ages exercised an undisputed
control, is brought under the power of man in
a state most admirably adapted to suit his wants.

In Lincolnshire and other parts of the Eng-
lish coast, where the land is beneath the level
of high-water mark, unfruitful districts are
often restored to a state of fertility by the re-
moval of the artificial banks that prevent the
sea-water from flowing over it. In this
way the land is thrown open to the sea,
and as the tide rises, it is covered by water,
which, being overcharged with earthy matter,
deposits in two or three years a bed five or
six feet thick of rich soil, which may be
brought under cultivation by the exclusion of
the agent that was instrumental in its produc-
tion. (See Warping.)

But it may be asked, whence does the sea
obtain the earthy matter with which it abounds 1
Rivers discharge themselves into the ocean,
and it has been already stated that their waters
are charged, more or less, with the superficial
soil of mountainous countries, and the de-
stroyed materials of rocks. A part of this
may be arrested by occasional or periodical
inundations, and by deposition in the bed of
the river, but a large quantity must still be
carried into the ocean. It must also be re-
membered that the water which is conveyed
in a channel is constantly endeavouring so
to arrange its course as to suffer the least
possible resistance. In this attempt, it attacks
the banks that confine it, and widens its
course, precipitating much earthy matter into
the stream, to be removed by the flowing water.
It frequently happens, and especially after the
fall of heavy rains, that the water at the mouths
of rivers is thick and turbid from the quantity
of alluvial matter it holds in solution, and very
ijj^ny large rivers are rendered unsafe for na-
^^ation by the existence of large bars of sand
or clay at their outlet.

But the sea is not merely a passive recipi-
ent of the product of destructive causes, but
is itself a cause. Sea coasts are constantly
suffering depredation by the action of the
waves that beat upon them. Whether we look
?0

ALLUVIUM.

at the soft and almost unresisting rocks of the
eastern coast of England, or the hard primary
rocks of Devonshire, Cornwall, and the Shet-
land Isles, the same results will be observed.
During the stormy months of winter, when
the waves are tossed upon the coasts with an
almost uncontrolled violence, no rock is sufli-
riently hard to resist its energy, and when un-
ruffled by a passing breeze in the months of
summer, its inffuence upon the softer rocks is
hardly less destructive, though more insidious,
for it then attacks the base of the cliffs, and
removing the support of the superincumbent
mass, causes the precipitation of large portions
into the sea. By these two causes the sea is
provided with the materials for the formation
of alluvial soils. Some estimate may be
formed of the violence and extent of these
causes, by an examination of the present
state of the German Ocean, one fifth of which
is covered by banks that appear to have been
produced in the same way as the alluvial soils
on the northern coast of Germany.

Water, then, is a most powerful agent in the
destruction and production of rocks, and were
there no conservative principle, the changes
that are going on would be more extensive
than they are in the present day. The floods
to which some rivers are subject are so impe-
tuous that they frequently sweep away all op-
posing objects, and involve an entire district
in ruin. These effects, however, are much
more common in countries that are thinly
covered by vegetation than in those where it
is luxuriant, for it acts as a conservative agent,
increasing the power of the resistance, by
binding the soil more closely tc*gether. This,
therefore, will account for the diminished influ-
ence of floods upon lowlands, and for the fre-
quent deposition of rich and fertile alluvial
soils.

The composition of the alluvial soils that
have been brought under cultivation is exceed-
ingly various ; but they are generally re-
markable for their fertility, and are admirably
suited for pasture lands. "In general," says
Sir Humphry Davy, "the soils, the materials
of which are most various and heterogeneous,
are those called alluvial, or which have been
formed by the deposition of rivers ; many of
them are extremely fertile. I have examined
some productive alluvial soils, which have
been very different in their composition. A
specimen from the banks of the river Parret in
Somersetshire, Jlflforded me eighty parts of
finely divided matter, and one part of silicious
sand ; and an analysis of the former gave the
following result ;
Carbonate oflime - - - - - 360 parts.

Alumina _------ 25

Silica 20

Oxide of iron ------ 8

Vegetable, animal, and saline matter - - 19

" A rich soil from the neighbourhood of the
Avon, in the valley of Evesham, in the Wor-
cestershire, aiforded me three-fifths of fine sand
and two-fifths of impalpable matter. This last
consisted of —
Alumina -------41 parts-

Silica 42

Carbonate of lime ----- 4

Oxide of iron ------ 5

Vegetable, animal, and saline matter - 8

ALMOND.

ALMOND.

" A soil yielding excellent pasture, from fhe
valley of the Avon, near Salisbury, afforded
one eleventh of coarse silicious sand, and the
finely divided matter consisted of —

Alumina _ - - - -
Silica

Ci.rbonate of lime _ - -
Oiideofiron . - - - .
Vtgetable, aiiinml, and saline matter

7 parts.

- It

- 63

- 2

- 14."

Another striking cause of the fertility of al-
luvial soils will come more properly under Ir-
KiGATiox. — {Miller's Didiunary.)

ALMOND, Silver-leaved (Lat. Ami/gdalus ar-

fentea). A beautiful shrub originally from the
.evant. It grows from eight to ten feet high,
and blows rose-coloured flowers iu April. Its
leaves are covered on both sides with a sil-
very-coloured down, but they do not appear
till the flowers are gone. All the almond tribe
are hardy, and will bear any situation, if the
soil is tolerably good. Propagate by grafting
upon the bitter almond or a plum stock. The
double dwarf almoud, Lat. Ami/gdalus pumila,
is a smaller shrub, with pale, rose-coloured
double flowers, blowing in May, and again in
September. The common dwarf almond, Lat.
Amyt^dulus nana, grows only three feel high,
and is a native of Russia. It blows its pink
fl<>wers in March and April. Propagate by
seed, or grafting upon the bitter almond or
plum stocks. Trim away dead wood, but
prune seldom; they rarely require pruning.
(L. Johnson.)

ALMOND TREE (Amygdalus, Linnceus ;
amand, Fr.). Derived by Menage from amandala,
a word in low Latin ; by others from AUemand,
a German, supposing that almonds came to
France from Germany. But the Spanish have
almendra ,- and perhaps amand, amandula, and
this, are all referable to amygdalnin, as that is
to afjivyixxiiv. (Todd's Johnsofi.) More than one
species, and several varieties of this well
known genus are cultivated in England, chiefly
for the beauty of their early spring flowers.
The common almond tree (Amygdalus com-
munis, Linnoeus) is a native of northern Africa,
and so late as the time of Cato had not been
introduced into Italy, as he calls the fruit
Greek nuts (jiuces Graeae). It was introduced
into Britain about 1548. It will grow to the
height of twenty or thirty feet, dividing into a
head of numerous spreading branches. The
leaves very much resemble those of the peach,
but they proceed from buds both above and
below the flowers. There are also small glands
on the lower saw-toothing of the leaves. The
form of the flowers is not very different from
those of the peach, but they come out usually
in pairs, and vary more in their colour, from
the fine blush of the apple blossom to a snowy
whiteness. The chief obvious distinction is
in the fruit, which is flatter, with a leather-like
covering, instead of the rich pulp of the peach,
and the nectarine, and it also opens spontane-
ously when the kernel is ripe. The shell of
the almond is never so hard as a peach stone,
and is sometimes even tender and exceedingly
brittle. It is flatter, smoother, and the furrows
or holes are more superficial than those of the
peach stone.

Varieties of the common almond. — 1. The nuts

about an inch and a quarter long, with a hard
smooth shell ; the kernel not valuable. The
seedlings are used in France to bud peaches
upon.

2. Bitter : fruit of a large size.

3. Bitter: with a tender shell; fruit of a
large size.

4. Bitter : with a hard shell ; fruit of a large
size.

5. Sultan : fruit of a small size.

6. Grand Sultan : fruit of a small size.

7. Sweet : with a tender shell, or tender-
shelled Sultan ; fruit of a moderate size.

8. Sweet : with a half hard shell.

9. Sweet: with a hard shell.

10. Long-fruited: hard-shelled; fruit of a
large size.

11. Peach almond: fruit of a large size.

12. Brittle : fruit of a moderate size.

We are not certain whether the French va-
rieties, called, \. Aniande douce a co/jue dure;
2. Amande douce a cof/ue tendre ,- 3. Amande
des dames ; and 4. Aniande princesse, coincide
with any of the preceding.

The whole of the varieties generally pro-
duce a profusion of blossoms, which vary a
little in colour from a fine rose to a pale blush.
They closely resemble each other in foliage,
the principal distinction being in the fruit,
which diflers either as to its form, its size, or
its taste.

In the south of Europe, as in France, Spain,
Portugal, and Italy, the almond is cultivated
very extensively as a standard fruit tree, the
varieties there being very numerous. They
export the fruit to every quarter of the globe.
The kernel of the almond is the part used, and
when it is green, ripe, or dried, it furnishes a
most agreeable addition to the dessert. It is
also used to a very great extent in confection-
ary, perfumery, cookery, and medicine.

The general purpose of introducing the tree
into gardens and pleasure grounds in England
is for the great beauty of its blossoms, which
are not only handsome, but being produced iu
such profusion as they usually are at so early
a period of the spring season, before the foliage
appears, become extremely conspicuous and
highiiy ornamental ; a circumstance which
renders the tree a most desirable shrubby plant.

The common almond, and its varieties, blos-
som earlier than the dwarf kinds, from which
circumstance the blossoms of the latter are
very rarely damaged by spring frosts, but the
other kinds, when planted in situations shel-
tered from the east winds, are generally pre-
served from sustaining damage.

Propagation. — All the species and varieties
are propagated by seeds, budding, grafting,
layers, and occasionally they will produce
suckers, which may be successfully planted
out. When stocks for budding or grafting
upon are wanted, or new varieties desired,
these are obtained by sowing the fruit stones,
though they may be budded or grafted on
mussel-plum stocks.

The stones of the last season's produce
should be sown in October, upon a bed of light
rich soil, about three inches apart, and covered
four inches deep with fine soil. This is indis-
pensable ; for when the soil is left in lumps, the

71

ALMOND.

ALOPECURUS.

shoots are often forced into a crooked direc-
tion, and this causes the trunk to be de-
formed, and unfit to become a fine tree.
When the surface of the seed-bed has been
smoothed, a covering of rotten tanner's bark,
or feaf mould, to the depth of two inches,
must be laid upon it, which being light, pre-
vents the fruit-stones from being damaged
by any severity of winter. At the beginning
of May this covering of bark or leaves must
be raked clean off the bed. The stones might
be reserved till spring, and be sown at the end
of March, but the plants do not come so cer-
tainly as when sown in autumn. An addi-
tional advantage of an autumn sowing is, that
the plants come up about six weeks or two
months earlier than those sown in spring;
consequently the plants become vigorous and
well rooted the first year, and thereby not liable
to be thrown out of the ground by thaws suc-
ceeding frost in the following winter.

During summer, care must be taken to
pull up all weeds, when very young, for if
they be allowed to get strong before pulling
out, this operation is apt to injure the roots
of the almond plants.

"When almond stones have been sown in
spring, it will be necessary at the approach of
the succeeding winter to have the beds covered
with rotten tanner's bark, or leaf mould, scat-
tering it an inch deep, or more, amongst the
plants, a covering which will tend to prevent
the plants being injured or thrown out by frost.

In the second spring after the sowing, the
plants should be taken up, carefully preserving
all the fibrous roots, a care which, as they are
but sparingly produced, will be essentially ne-
cessary. The plants must be transplanted in
rows, at two feet apart, row from row, and a
foot and a half distant in the rows. Here they
may be trained to form standards, half stand-
ards, or dwarfs, and be regulated and prepared
either for wall training or shrubbery planta-
tions. For both purposes, attention will be
requisite during summer and winter, to thin
out the branches, reserving only a suitable
number for the future limbs of the tree, and
these so far apart that they may not, in any
future stage of growth, be liable to rub against
each other, which standard trees would be
liable to ; for if this be not avoided, gum
would be exuded at such injured parts, and
the speedy decay of the tree be the conse-
quence.

Almond plants intended for training against
walls should have some stakes fixed in the
form of a trelis, to which the branches should
be secured in a proper form, so that they may
be suited to the position of the wall on their
final removal. (Mil/er'.s Dclinnary.)

[In many parts of the Middle and Southern
United States, the climate admits the almond
tree to mature its fruit. The kind with a hard
and smooth shell will ripen in New Jersey and
The southern part of Pennsylvania, near Phila-
(It^hia. A communication published in the
15^ vol. of the American Farmer states that
the more tender and valuable soft-shell kind
have been brought to perfection at Cambden,
Kent County, Delaware, which is about eighty-
miles south of Philadelphia.]
72

ALOPECURUS. A genus of grasses of the
foxtail kind, of which there are several species,
some of which may be cultivated to advantage
in the field.

Alopecurus agresfis. Slender foxtail-grass.
(Alopecurus myosuroides. Curt. Lond.) One of
the most inferior species of this grass. The
herbage it produces is comparatively of no
value whatever. It appears to be left un-
touched by every description of cattle. The
seed is produced in considerable abundance,
and is eaten by the smaller birds, as well as
by pheasants and partridges. This annual
species of foxtail-grass is distinguished from
the perennial meadow foxtail {Alopecurus pra-
teusis) by the total want of woolly hairs on the
spike, so conspicuous in that of the A. pra-
tensis. The Rev. G. Swayne observes, that it
is a very troublesome weed in many places
among wheat, and execrated by farmers under
the name of black bent.

" I have always," says Mr. Sinclair, " found
it prevalent in poor soils, particularly such as
had been exhausted by avaricious cropping.
It is most difficult to extirpate when once in
possession of the soil ; for it sends forth flow-
ering culms during the whole summer and
autumn, till frost arrests it; so that it can bear
to be repeatedly cut down in one season, with-
out suffering essentially by the process. In-
deed, it will be found a vain and unprofitable
labour to attempt the removal of this grass by
any other means than the opposite to that
which gave it possession of the soil, which is
judicious cropping. To return land, in this
state, to grass, in the hope of overcoming this
unprofitable plant, will be found of little avail.
I have witnessed this practice, and the slender
foxtail, instead of disappearing in these in-
stances, re-appeared with the scanty herbage,
and in greater health and abundance. The
soil must first be got into good heart by very
moderate and judicious cropping, which in-
cludes the proper application of manure, a
skilful rotation of crops, and the most pointed
attention to the destruction of weeds ; which
last can only be effected, in this sense, by
adopting the drill or row culture for the crops
After this the land may be returned to grass
for several years with every prospect of suc-
cess. It flowers in the first week of July, and
successively till October.

Alopecurus arundinaceus. Reed-like foxtail-
grass. The substance of the culms and leaves
of this grass is coarser than that of the Ahrpe-
curus pratensis ; and the root is so powerfully
creeping as to render its introduction into
arable land a matter of great caution. The
produce and nutritive powers are very consi-
derable : it is an early grass, producing culms
at an early period of the spring, and continu-
ing to vegetate vigorously through the summer
and autumn. It cannot be recommended as a
constituent of permanent pasture ; but as a
grass to cultivate by itself, to a certain extent,
for green food, or for hay, it offers advantages
in the superior produce and nutritive powers
above stated. It grows stronger, and attains
to a greater height, than the A. Taunt I'niensis ,
but, owing to the roots spreading wide, being
large, and requiring a consequent greater sup-

ALOPECURUS.

ALOPECUHUS.

ply of nourishment from the soil, the produce
stands thinner and proves less weighty than
the crops afforded by that variety. It flowers
in April or early in May, and continues to pro-
duce flowering culms until the autumn.

Alopectirus bulbosus geniculutus. Bulbous-
rooted, knee-jointed, foxtail-grass. The pro-
duce and nutritive powers of this perennial
grass are so inconsiderable as to justify a con-
clusion that it is comparatively of no use to
the agriculturist. I have found it but seldom
in a wild state. It grows on a soil of a drier
nature than the fibrous-rooted variety, to be
spoken of hereafter. When raised from seed
on a moist soil, it still retains the bulbous root,
which goes the length to prove, that if it is not
a distinct species, it is at least a permanent
varieti/.

Alopecurus geniailatus. Knee-jointed, foxtail-
grass. There are two varieties of this species
of foxtail-grass : the present, which is b}' far
the more common, is distinguished from the
other by its fibrous root and greater size ; the
less common variety has a bulbous root. The
A. bulbosus may be distinguished from llie bul-
bous-rooted variety of the knee-jointed species,
by its upright culms, which want the knee-
jointed form so conspicuous in the culms of
the former. (Sm. Emrl. Flora.) It is a peren-
nial, and grows commonly in surface drains,
and at the entrance of cattle ponds, particu-
larly where the soil is clayey. It does not
appear to be eaten with much relish by either
cows, horses, or sheep. Its nutritive powers
are not considerable, and its sub-aquatic natural
place of growth excludes any recommendation
of it for cultivation. Flowers in the first
week of June, and during the summer. [This
species is designated b)' Professor Dewey as
the true foxtail-grass, which in Massachusetts
grows in wet, muddy bottoms, flowering in
July.]

Alopeairua pratensis. Meadow foxtail-grass.
[See Plate 5, of Pastvrk Grarsks, g.] This
grass is a native of Britain and most parts of
Europe, from Italy, through France, Germany,
Holland, to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and
Russia.

Under the best management, it does not at-
tain to its fullest productive powers from seed
till four years; hence it is inferior to the
cock's-foot grass for the purposes of ultimate
cropping, and to many other grasses besides.
The herbage, however, contains more nutritive
matter than that of the cock's-foot, though the
weight of grass produced in one season is con-
siderably less. It thrives well under irrigation,
keeping possession of the crowns of the ridges ;
and is strictly permanent. Sheep are very
fond of it ; when combined with white clover
only, the second season on a sandy loam, it is
sufficient for the support of five couple of ewes
and lambs per acre. As it only thrives in per-
fection on lands of an intermediate quality as
to moisture and dryness, and also being some-
what longer in attaining to its full productive
state than some other grasses, its merits have
been misunderstood in many instances ; and
in others, as in the alternate husbandry, it has
been, by some persons, set aside altogether.
10

In many rich natural pastures, it constitutes
the principal grass. Though not so well
j adapted, therefore, for the alternate husbandry,
it is one of the best grasses for permaueut pas-
I ture, and should never form a less proportion
' than one-eighth of any admixture of different
: grasses prepared for that purpose ; its merits
\ demand this, whether in respect to early
I growth, produce, nutritive qualities, or perma-
! nency. It has been observed by the Rev. Mr.
, Swayne, (in his Gramina P,iscua, a work
which contains much valuable information on
the subject of grasses), that nearly two-thirds
of the seed is constantly destroyed by insecfs :
! according to my experiments, this evil may be
almost entirely obviated by suffering the first
culms of the season to carry the seed. It ilowers
in April, May, and June, according as it may
have been depastured earlier or later. Seed
ripe in June and July, according to the season
of flowering. The meadow-foxtail constitutes
part of the produce of all the ricliest pastures
I have examined in Lincolnshire, Devonshire,
and in the vale of Aylesbury. In Mr. West-
car's celebrated pa<;tures at Creslew I found it
more prevaleiit than in those of Devonshire
and Lincolnshire.

Experiments tend to prove that there is
nearly three-tourths of produce greater from a
clayey loam th;ji from a silicious sandy soil,
and that the grass from the latter soil is of
comparatively less value in the proportion of
3 to 2. The culms produced on the sandy
soil are deficient in number, and in every re-
spect smaller than those from the clayey loam ;
which satisfactorily accounts for the difference
in the quantitv of nutritive matter afforded
by equal quantities of the grass. It is not the
strength and rankness of the grass that indi-
cates the fitness of the soil tVir its growth, but
the number and quality of the culms. The
proportionate value in which the grass of the
latter-math exceeds that of the flowering crop
is as 4 to 3 ; a difference which appears extra-
ordinary when the quantity of flowering culms
is considered. In the Antlioxanthum odoratam
the proportional difference is still greater, the
latter-math being to the flowering crop in nu-
triment nearly as 9 to 4. In the Poa trivialis
they are equal ; but in all the later-flowering
grasses that have culms resembling those of
the meadow-foxtail and sweet-scented vernal,
the greater proportional value is always, on the
contrary, found in the grass of the flowering
crop. Whatever the cause may be, it is evi-
dent that the loss sustained by taking these
grasses at the time of flowering is consider-
able. In ordinary cases, this seldom happens
in practice, because these grasses perfect their
seed about the season when hay-harvest gene-
rally commences, unless where the pasture has
been stocked till a late period in the spring,
which cannot, in this respect, be productive
of any ultimate advantage, but rather loss.
, The proportional value which the grass, at
the time the seed is ripe, bears to that at the
time of flowering is as 3 In 2. The superiority
j of the produce from a light loam over that
from a clayey soil is as 4 to 3.
i Alupecurus TaunUmensis Taunton's meadow
G 73

ALPACA.

ALPACA.

foxtail-grass. This holds a middle station be- 1 vera! species of Alopecurus, may easily be seen
tween the Alopecurus pratensis and Alopecurus | by a reference to the following analytical
arundinaceus. i classification (Sinclair's Hort. Gram.) : —

The produce and nutritive powers of the se- 1

Description of Grug.

Jllopecurus offveatis, in flower -
^. bulbnsus geniculatus, in flower
^. pratensis, in April,

, in flower,

, in flower i -

-, seed ripe

bandy loam

Clayey loam

Silicious sand
Clayey loam

Green Pro-
duce per Acre.

8,167 8
5,445 5
9,528 12

20,418 12
8,507 13

12,931 14

Dry Produce
per Acre.

3,164 14
1,089 0

6.125 10
2,552 5
5,819 5

Produce per Acre
of Mucrive matter.

223 5
85 1
483 14
478 9
132 14
454 10

ALPACA. A peculiar breed of Peruvian
sheep, for whose introduction into England
considerable efforts have been recently made.
A very excellent "Memoir" upon these inte-
resting animals has recently (1841) been pub-
lished by Mr. William Walton, from whose
work are gathered the following interesting
facts : — " When the Spanish adventurers under
Pizarro crossed the isthmus of Panama and
reached the shores of the Pacific, they bent
their steps towards Peru, and arriving there
found the inhabitants in possession of two do-
mestic animals, the beauty and utility of which
excited their admiration. They also ascer-
tained that two others, alike in species, al-
though varying in properties, existed in a wild
state. Struck with the analogy, and always
disposed to see objects of comparison with the
productions of their own land, the Spaniards
called this new breed of cattle Carneros de la
tierra, or country sheep, and in their use of
them imitated the natives. Acosta, one of
the earliest naturalists who embarked for the
New World, wrote an account of these inte-
resting animals, derived from personal obser-
vation ; and that account, which made its ap-
pearance in 1590, is perhaps the best ever
penned. He says {Historla Natural y Moral de
los Indius, lib. iv. c. 41), " There is nothing in
Peru more useful, or more valuable, than the
country sheep called llamas, and they are as
economical as they are profitable. From them
the natives obtain both food and clothing, as
we do in Europe from sheep, and besides use
them as beasts of burden. They require no
expense in either shoeing, packsaddles, bridles,
or even barley, serving their masters gratui-
tously, and being satisfied wiih herbage picked
up on the wastes. Thus did Providence pro-
vide the Peruvians with sheep and beasts of
burden united in the same animal, and on ac-
count of their poverty, seems to have wished
that they should enjoy this advantage, free
from expense, as pastures in the highlands are
abundant. These sheep are divided into two
kinds ; the one called paco bears a heavy fleece
of wool, while the.others have only a short coat,
and are better adapted for carrying burdens.
They have a long neck, similar to the camel,
and this they require ; for being tall and up-
i}ght, they stand in need of an elongated neck
t).' reach their food. The colours of both ani-
mals vary, some being entirely white, others
entirely black, and occasionally particoloured.
The meat is good, that of the fawn is best and
most delicate, although the Indians use it spa-
74

ringly, their principal object in rearing this
breed of cattle being to avail themselves of its
wool for clothing and of its services to carry
loads. The wool they were accustomed to
spin and weave into garments, one of their
kinds of cloth, called huasca, being coarse and
in more general use ; while the other, known
by the name of cumbi, was of a finer and more
delicate quality. Of the latter they still make
mantles, table-covers, quilts, and various arti-
cles of ornamental dress, which are durable,
and have a gloss upon them, as if partly made
of silk. Their mode of weaving is peculiar to
themselves, each side of the web being alike ;
nor in a whole piece is it possible to discover
an uneven thread or a knot. The Peruvian
incas, or emperors, kept experienced masters
to teach the art of making the cumbi, or superfine
cloth, the principal part of whom resided in
the district of Capachica, where they had pub-
lic establishments, and with tlie aid of plants
gave to it various colours, bright and lasting.
The men and women in the highlands were
mostly manufacturers, having looms in their,
own houses, which precluded the necessity of
going to market to purchase clothing."

"The Indians still possess large droves, con-
sisting of 400, or 1000 head each, which they
load, and with them perform journeys, travel-
ling like a string of mules and carrying wine,
coca, corn, chuno (a nutritive food made from
potatoes, first frozen, and afterwards reduced
to powder), quicksilver, and other articles of
merchandise, ajid more especially that which,
of all others, is the most valuable, viz., silver,
ingots of which they bear from Potosi to Arica,
a distance of seventy leagues, as they formerly
did to Arequipa, more than twice as far. Often
have I been astonished at seeing these droves
carrying 1000 or 2000 ingots, valued at more
than 300,000 ducats, journeying slowly on with
no other guard than a few Indians, who chiefly
served to load and unload, or, at most, two or
three Spaniards. They sleep in the open
country ; and though the journey is long, and
the protection afforded so extremely weak, no
pari of the silver is ever missing. The load
usually carried by each animal is from four to
six nrrobas, (each arroba has twenty-five lbs.) ;
and if the journey is long they do not travel
beyond three or four leagues per day. The
drivers have their known resting-places, where
they find pasture and water, and on arriving
there, unload, pitch their tents, light a fire and
dress their own food, while the bearers of their
burdens are turned out loose."

ALPACA.

ALPACA.

He further remarks that the flesh of these
animals was jerked and ma^e into cusharqui,
or, as the Spaniards call it, cecina, which kept
good for a considerable time, and was in very
general request. " Both species," he says,
" are accustomed to a cold climate, and thrive best
in the highlands. Often does it happen that
they are covered with snow and sparkling with
icicles, and yet healthy and contented." Speak-
ing of the vicunas, the same author observes
that they are wild and timid, inhabiting the
punas, or snowy cliffs, and are affected by
neither rain or snow. To this he adds that
they are gregarious, extremely fleet, and that
on meeting a traveller, or beast of the forest,
they fly away, collecting and driving their
young before them. He further affirms that
the vicuna wool is as soft as silk, made into
fine stuffs, and requires no dyeing; adding,
that many persons also considered it medici-
nally useful in cases of pains in the loins and
other parts of the body, in consequence of
which they had mattresses made of it.

Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, a native of Peru,
was the next Spaniard of note who described
the Cameros de la tierra, and subjoined are his
leading remarks: — "The domestic animals
which God was pleased to bestow on the In-
dians, congenial to their character and like
them in disposition, are so tractable that a
child may guide them, more particularly those
accustomed to bear burdens. Generally they
are called llamas, and the keeper llama-michec.
As a distinction, tlie larger kind is called hu-
anacH-llama, owing to its resembling the wild
one of that name, from which it only differs in
colour, the tame breeds being seen of all hues,
whereas the wild ones have only one, and that
is a light brown. The height of the domestic
breeds is that of a deer, and to no animal can
they be likened so justly as the camel, except-
ing that they are smaller and have no hunch
on the back. The skin was anciently steeped
in tallow, in order to prepare it, after which
the Indians used it for shoes, but the leather
not being tanned, they were obliged to go bare-
footed in rainy weather. Of it the Spaniards
now make bridles, girths, and cruppers for
saddles. The llama formerly served to bear
loads from Cusco to the mines of Potosi, in
droves of 800 or 1000, each animal carrying
three or four arrobas. The paco was chiefly
valued for its flesh, but more especially for its
wool, long, but excellent, of which the natives
made cloths, and gave to them beautiful and
never-fading colours."

The Peruvian sheep are peculiar to that
part of South America, bordering on the Pa-
cific, which extends from the equator beyond
the tropic of Capricorn, that long and enor-
mous range of mountains known as the Andes
Cordilleras. Along this massive pile every
imaginable degree of temperature may be
found in successive gradation. Below stretches
a narrow strip of land, washed by the sea,
where the heat is intense and it never rains,
but where, owing to heavy dews and filtration
from the mountains, vesretation is luxuriant
and an eternal spring reisjns. As one ascends,
the aspect of the country changes, and new
plants appear; but no sooner are the middle

summits gained, and the sun has lost his
power, than those cold and icy regions rise up,
one above the other, called by the natives
punas, which are again crowned with rocky
crests, broken by deep ravines and rugged
chasms, and presenting a wilderness of crags
and cliffs never trodden by the human footstep,
and never darkened, except by a passing
cloud, or the eagle's wing. In this land of mist
and snow, or rather in the hollows which sur-
round it, feed the guanaco and vicuna, at an
elevation of 12,000 or 14,000 feet above the
level of the sea ; while in the lower regions,
stretching immediately under the snowy belt,
and where the Indian fixes his abode at a"
height from 8,000 to 12,000 feet, may be seen
pasturing those flocks of llamas and alpacas
which constitute his delight, and at the same
time the principal part of his property.

Here, amidst broken and precipitous peaks,
on the parapets and projecting ledges, slightly
covered with earth, or in the valleys formed
by the mountain ridges, like the Pyrenean
chamois, the llama and alpaca pick up a pre-
carious subsistence from the mosses, lichens,
tender shrubs, and grassy plants which make
their apppearance as the snow recedes; or,
descending lower down, revel in the pajonaleg,
or, as thev are called in some parts of the
country, ichuales — natural meadows of the ichu
plant, the favourite haunts of the tame and
wild kinds. Thus the hand of man never pre-
pares food for either species — both readily find
it on their native mountains. Besides the ex-
tremes of cold, these animals have equally to
endure the severities of a damp atmosphere,
for while below it seldom rains, in the summer
months, when evaporation from the sea is
abundant, clouds collect, and being driven
over the lower valleys by strong winds from
the south and west, and condensed by the cold,
burst on the highlands, where the rain falls in
torrents, amidst the most awful thunder and
lightning.

However bleak and damp the situation, little
does it matter for an animal requiring neither
fold norjnanger, and living in wild and deso-
late places, where the tender is often obliged
to collect the dung of his flock to serve as fuel
for himself. Although delicate in appearance,
the alpaca is, perhaps, one of the hardiest ani-
mals of the creation. His abstinence has
already been noticed. Nature has provided
him with a thick skin and a warm fleece, and
as he never perspires, like the ordinary sheep,
he is not so susceptible of cold. There is,
therefore, no necessity to smear his coat with
tar and butter, as the farmers are obliged to
do with their flocks in Scotland, a process
which, besides being troublesome and expen-
sive, injures the wool, as it is no longer fit to
make into white goods, nor will it take light
and bright colours. In the severest winter the
alpaca asks no extra care, and his teeth being
well adapted to crop the rushes and coarse
grass with which our moors abound, he will
be satisfied with the refuse left upon them. In
a word, he would live where sheep must be in
danger of starving.

The importations of sheep's wool from Peru
into Liverpool, principally alpaca, have stead-

T5

ALPACA.

ALTITUDE.

ily advanced since the article became known i from the ordinary kinds arriving from Peru,
to the manufacturer, — the best proof of its | The total imports for the last five j^ears of all
worth. In 1835 they amounted to 8,000 bales ; j sheep's wool, distinguishinj? from Peru (includ-
in 1836, to 12,800; in 1837, to 17,500: in 1838, ing alpaca) and other parts, and also of red,
to 25,765 ; in 1839, to 34,543 ; and in 1840, to [ or vicuna avooI, together with raw and thrown
34,224 — more than quadrupled in six years. silks, and goat's hair or wool, and mohair

In the Custom House returns, it is to be re- ryarn, are here subjoined: —
gretted that alpaca wool is not distinguished I

Sheep's wool :

From Peru
Other parts

Total

Red Wool :

F'rom Peru
Other parts

Total

Raw silk
Thrown silk
Goat's hair or wool
Mohair yarn

1836.

1837.

1838.

1839.

1840.

lb..

953,974
63,284,677

Ibi.

I,9i4,i:r7

46,464,957

lbs.
2,303,794
50,289,846

lb..
2,145,106
55,228,349

lbs.
2,762.439
46,630,638

64,238,651

48,379,094

52,593,640

57,373,455

49,393,077

1,248

78

614

294

421

4,465
2,003

7,940
34,377

1,326

614

715

6,468

42,317

4,453,081

396,660

1,117,629

89.298

4,146,481

231,203

602,373

29,199

3,456,959

265,l.-^0

942,770

20,546

3,746,248

225,268

992,188

13,645

3,758,841

288,994

989.257

2,664

With regard to the number of these sheep
now in England, and their capability of being
naturalized, Mr. Walton adds, "Mr. Bennett,
of Farindon, had a pair of llamas sent to him
from Peru twenty years ago, and fed them as
sheep are usually fed, with hay and turnips in
the winter. From his own experience he
found that they are particularly hardy and
very long-lived. He increased his stock, and
has actually had six females at a time which
have had young ones. Of these very few have
died. The number of Peruvian sheep in the
kingdom at present (July 1841) [is short of
100, chiefly distributed in parks]. The exist-
ence of this number among us, supported by
their healthy appearance, as reported to me
from every quarter where I have been able to
institute inquiries, is a better proof of the ca-
pacity of Andes sheep to adapt themselves to
our climate, than any further arguments or
elucidations which I could adduce."

[The demand for alpaca wool in England,
which the table indicates is rapidly increasing,
certainly shows that it is well worthy the atten-
tion of North American farmers to make the ex-
periment of raising Peruvian sheep. At a late
meeting of the British Association for the Ad-
vancement of the Arts and Sciences, Mr. Daw-
son made a communication on the subject of
the introduction into England, of a species of
Auchenia, or Llama of South America, and
presented specimens of alpaca wool, in its na-
tural and manufactured states, resembling silk,
and without being dyed, as black as jet. Na-
turalists distinguish five species of the llama,
all of which afford wool. But the alpaca alone
has fine wool, from six to twelve inches long,
and the vicuna wool, like the fur of the beaver,
at the base of its coarser hair. It is capable
of the finest manufacture, and is especially
a.(^pted to such fabrics as the finest shawls.
Trie yarns spun in England are mostly sold in
F/ance for the shawl trade, at from $1.50 to
$3.50 per pound, according to quality, the price
of the wool in a natural state being about fifty
cents per pound. This wool is naturally free
from grease, in which respect it differs materi-
76

ally from that of common sheep, and the ani-
mal requires no washing before shearing. Mr.
Dawson remarked, that it was not certain
whether the alpaca could be made to thrive in
Great Britain. The last remark might raise a
doubt whether it could be raised to advantage
in the United States. Should it be proved that
the alpaca was not adapted to any part of
Great Britain, it would furnish no solid argu-
ment against their adaptation to the climate of
the United States, especially the Northern
States, and the mountainous districts every-
where. An interesting account of this animal
will be found in the third volume of the Ameri-
can Farmer.]

ALTERATIVE MEDICINES. In farriery,
are such medicines as possess a power of
changing the constitution, without any sensi-
ble increase or diminution of the natural
evacuations.

ALTERNATE HUSBANDRY. That sort
of management of farms, which has one part
in the state of grass or sward, while the other
is under the plough, so as to be capable of
being changed as there may be occasion, or as
the nature of the land may require. This sys-
tem of management is supposed to lessen the
expense of manure, and keep the land more
clean. (See Husbaxdrt.)

ALTITUDE (Lat. alitudo, from altus, high).
In vegetable physiology, altitude or elevation
of surface above the level of the sea is equiva-
lent to a receding, whether north or south,
from the line of the equator, 600 feet of altitude
being thought to be equal to a degree [of lati-
tude.] Hence it follows that all varieties of
climate, and consequently all varieties of
vegetable habitat, may exist even in the same
latitude, merely by means of variety in the
altitude of the spot. This was found by Tourne-
fort to be literally the fact, during his travels
in Asia. At the foot of Mount Ararat he met
with plants peculiar to Armenia ; above these
he met with plants which are found also in
France ; at a still greater height he found him-
self surrounded with such as grow in Sweden,
and at the summit, with such as vegetate in

ALTITUDE.

the polar regions. Baron Humboldt, in his
fersonul Narrative, gives us a similar account
of the several zones of vegetation existing in a
height of 3730 yards on the ascent of Mount
TenerilTe. The first zone is the region of vines,
extending from the shores of the ocean to a
iK'ijrht of from 400 to 600 yards, well culti-
\ ated, and producing date trees, plantains,
olives, vines, and wheat. The second zone is
the region of laurels, extending from about
bOO to 1800 yards, producing many plants with
showy flowers, and moss and grass beneath.
The third zone is the region of pines, com-
mencing at 1920 yards, and having a breadth
of 850 yards. The fourth zone is the region
lietarna, or broom, growing to a height of nine
or ten feet, and fed on by wild goats. The last
zone is the region of grasses, scantily covering
the heaps of lava, with cryptogamic plants in-
termixed, and the summit of the mountain
bare.

This accounts for the great variety of plants
which is often found in no great extent of
country; and it may be laid down as a botani-
cal axiom, that the more diversified the surface
of the country, the richer it will be in species,
at least in the same latitudes. It accounts,
also, for the want of correspondence between
plants of different countries, though placed in
the same latitudes ; because the mountains, or
ridges of mountains, which may be found in
the one and not in the other, will produce the
greatest possible difference in the character of
the genera and species. To this cause we
may ascribe the diversity that often actually
exists between plants growing in the same
country and in the same latitudes ; as between
those of the north-west and north-east coasts
of North America, as also of the south-west
and south-east coasts ; the former being more
mountainous, the latter more flat. Sometimes
the same sort of difference takes place between
the plants of an island and those of the neigh-
bouring continent ; that is, if the one is flat and
the other mountainous ; but if they are alike
in their geographical delineatior, they are
generally alike in their vegetable productions.

[Meteorologists generally compute, that .as
land rises above the level of the sea or tide-
water, the temperature of its climate grows
colder at the rate of 1° Fahrenheit, for every
300 feet or 100 yards of elevation. It has
however been found that the decline of tem-
perature on rising above the common level of
the sea, is less where large tracts of country
rise gradually than when the estimate is made
either by balloon ascension, or scaling the
sides of isolated and precipitous mountains.
A striking illustration of this is offered by the
ridges and valleys of the great Himmaleh
mountains of Southern Asia, where immense
tracts, which theory would consign to the
dreariness of perpetual congelation, are found
richly clothed in vegetation and abounding in
vegetable and animal life. At the village of
Zonching, 14,700 feet above the level of the
sea, in lat. 31° 36 N. Mr. Colebrook found
flocks of sheep browsing on verdant hills ; and
at the village of Pui, at about the same eleva-
tion, there are produced, according to Captain
Gerard, the most luxuriant crops of barley,

ALUMINA.

wheat, and turnips, whilst a little lower the
ground is covered with vineyards, groves of
apricots, and many aiomatic plants.

The eflects of gradual elevation in lessening
the fulling oft' of temperature, is manifested
upon a moderate scale in our own country.
The [annual] mean temperature of Eastpoil,
Me., for example, is 43°.95, whilst that of Fort
Snelling in the same latitude, but far in the
interior, with an elevation of some 600 or 800
feet above the sea, is 2°.88 higher, namely,
45°.83, instead of being two or three degrees
colder, to correspond with the law of eleva-
tion. (Amer. Med. Jmir. July, 1842.)]

ALUM (Lat. Alumen). The sulphate of
alumina and potash of the chemist, [or com-
mon alum], is composed, according to the ana-
lysis of Berzelius {Ann. de Chim. 82—258), of
Sulptiitricni-id ----- 34*23

Aliiiiiiiia 10S6

I', ta-h 981

Water 4500

99 90

In veterinary practice, alum in powder is
sometimes used externally for destroying
trifling excrescences, arresting bleeding, &c.
A little, very finely powdered, is occasionally
blown thrpugh a quill into the eye for the pur-
pose of removing specks of long standing.

Alum lotion is prepared by dissolving from
six to eight drachms of alum powder in two
pints of water. This forms an inexpensive
and tolerably efficacious application for mild
forms of grease, cracks in the heels of horses,
and for superficial sores of all kinds. It should
not be used till the surrounding inflammation
has been subdued by time or proper remedies.
In its weakest state, the alum lotion is service-
able in the cankered ear of dogs, and wounds
or ulcers of the mouth in any animal.

Alum ointment is composed of one drachm
of the powder to one ounce each of turpentine
and hog's lard, incorporated by heating. This
supplies the place of the lotion when the sores
are apt to become dry and hard. It is, how-
ever, very little used.

Burnt alum is made by boiling a solid piece
of the salt on an iron plate over a fire till it
becomes quite dry and white, taking care not
to make the heat so strong as to decompose it.
This, in powder, is sometimes used for specks
in the eye. {Miller's Dictionary.)

ALUMINA. The pure earth of clay, was so
named from having been obtained in a state
of the greatest purity from alum, in which
salt it exists combined with sulphuric acid,
and potash. This earth when pure has but
little taste, and no smell. The earthy smell
which clay emits when breathed upon, is
owing to the presence of oxide of iron. Its
specific gravity is 2-00. When heated it parts
with a portion of water, and its bulk is consi-
derably diminished. Hence most clay lands
are apt to crack, by their contraction in dry
weather. There is little doubt, from the expe-
riments of Davy, but that alumina is the oxide
of a metal, which has been denominated
aluminum, although he did not succeed in pro-
curing it in a separate state.

Of all the earths alumina is found in plants
in the smallest proportions, 32 ounces of the
o 2 77

ALVEARIUM.

AMERICAN BLIGHT.

seeds of wheat only contain 0-6 of a grain, and
those of the barley and the oat only about 4
grains. It has been found in the largest pro-
portions in the entire plant of Turkey wheat,
100. parts of which yield 7-11 parts; and the
same proportion of the sun-flower yielded 3'72
parts, and the fumitory 14 parts. Small as
these proportions usually arc, still there is no
reason to doubt but that these are absolutely
essential to the growth of the plant. It exists
in all cultivated soils in varying proportions,
and these are invariably smaller than those of
the other earths. ''

["It is known, that the aluminous minerals
are the most widely diffused on the surface of
the earth, and, as we have already mentioned,
all fertile soils, or soils capable of culture,
contain alumina as an invariable constituent.
There must, therefore, be something in alu-
minous earth which enables it to exercise an
influence on the life of plants, and to assist in
their developement. The property on which
this depends is that of its invariably containing
potash and soda.

" Alumina exercises only an indirect influ-
ence on vegetation, by its power of attracting
and retaining water and ammonia ; it is itself
very rarely found in the ashes of plants, but
silica is always present, having, in most places,
entered the plants by means of alkalies." {Lie-
^^•)] (^^^ Earths ; their use to vegetation.)
{Davy, EL Chem. Phil. ,- Thomson's System ,-
Professor Schiibler, Jour. Roy. Ag. Soc. vol. i.
p. 177; [Liebig's Organic Chem.])

ALVEARIUM. A term sometimes employed
to signify a bee-hive.

AMAUROSIS. In farriery, is a total blind-
ness, without any altered appearance in the
eye. [This irremediable affection proceeds
from a paralysis of the nerve of sight, or
optic nerve.]

AMBLE. In horsemanship, is a peculiar
kind of pace, in which both the horse's legs of
the same side move at the same time. In this
pace the horse's legs move nearer to the
ground than in the walk, and at the same time
are more extended : but what is most extraor-
dinary in it is, that the two legs of the same
side, for instance, the oflf hind and fore leg,
move at the same time ; and then the two near
legs, in making another step, move at once ;
the motion being performed in this alternate
manner, so that the sides of the animal are
alternately without support, or any equilibrium
between the one and the other, which must
necessarily prove very fatiguing to him, being
obliged to support himself in a forced oscilla-
tion, by the rapidity of a motion, in which his
ffeet are scarcely off the ground. For if in the
amble he lifted his feet as in the trot, or even
in a walk, the oscillation would be such, that
he could not avoid falling on his side.

Those who are skilled in horsemanship
observe, that horses which naturally amble,
never trot, and that they are considerably
nApker than others. Colts often move in this
manner, especially Avhen they exert them-
selves, and are not strong enough to trot or
gallop. Most good horses, which have been
over-worked, and on the decline, are also ob- ■
served voluntarily to amble, when forced to a |
78

motion swifter than a walk. The amble may,
therefore, be considered as a defective pace,
not being common, and natural only to a very
few horses, which, in general, are weaker than
others. Add to this, that such amblers as
seem the strongest are spoiled sooner than
those which trot or gallop.

AMEL-CORN. A diseased sort of grain,
[resembling spelt.]

AMELIORATING CROPS. In husbandry,
are such as are supposed to improve the lands
on which they are cultivated. Carrots, turnips,
artificial grasses, such as contain a large pro-
portion of nutritious materials, and many other
green vegetable products, especially if fed off,
[or ploughed in,] are considered as ameliorat-
ing ; but all kinds of crops, carried off the land,
are in some degree or other exhausters of the
ground ; and green crops, such as have been
just mentioned, are only less so than crops of
grain or other ripe vegetables. The improve-
ment of lands, therefore, by what are commonly
termed ameliorating crops, depends, in a great
measure, upon the culture which the ground
receives while they are growing, and the
returns which they make to it in the way of
manure, after being consumed by animals.

AMELIORATING SUBSTANCES. In agri-
culture, are such substances, as, when applied
to land, render it more fertile and productive.

AMERICAN BLIGHT. [A popular, but
very inappropriate name used in England to
designate the injurious effects upon apple trees
caused by a species of plant-louse or Aphis,
(the Eriosoma mali, of Leach, and the Aphis
lanigera, of lUiger.) Its American origin is
rendered doubtful from the fact that nursery-
men in the Middle States have never witnessed
the mischievous effects described as common
in Europe from this kind of blight.] A de-
tailed account of the insect is given in the
Journal of a Naturalist, which, with the correc-
tion of a few errors and oversights of the
author, we shall now follow.

Early in summer, and even in spring, about
March, a slight hoariness is observed upon the
branches of certain species of our orchard
fruit. As the season advances this hoariness
increases, and becomes cottony ; and toward
the middle or the end of summer, the upper
sides of some of the branches are invested with
a thick, downy substance, so long as at times
to be sensibly agitated by the air. Upon exa-
mining this substance, we find that it conceals
a multitude of small, wingless creatures, Avhich
are busily employed in pre)dng upon the limb
of the tree beneath. This they are Avell enabled
to do, by means of a beak terminating in a fine
bristle; this being insinuated through the bark,
and the sappy part of the wood, enables the
creature to extract, as with a syringe, the
sweet, vital liquor that circulates in the plant.

This terminating bristle is not observable
in every individual, from being usually, when
not in use, so closely concealed under the
breast of the animal, as to be invisible. In the
yxjunger insects it is often manifested by pro-
truding, like a fine termination, to the vent
(anus) ; but as their bodies become length-
ened, the bristle is not in this way observable.
The pulp wood {alburnum) being thus wound-

AMERICAN BLIGHT.

AMERICAN CRESS.

ed, rises up in excrescences and nodes all
over the branch, and deforms it; the limb,
deprived of its nutriment, grows sickly; the
leaves turn yellow, and the part perishes.
Branch after branch is thus assailed, until
ihey become leafless, and the tree dies.

Plant lice (^Aphides), in general, attack the
younger and softer parts of plants ; but this
insect seems easily to wound the harder bark
of the apple, and does not always make choice
of the most tender branch. They give a pre-
ference to certain sorts, but not always the
most rich fruits, as cider apples, and wildings,
are greatly infested by them ; and from some
unknown cause, other varieties seem to be
exempted from their depredations. The
Wheeler's nisset, and Crofton pippin, have
never been observed to be injured by them ;
and the insect is so fastidious in its selections,
that it will frequently attack the stock or the
graft, leaving the one or the other untouched,
should it consist of a kind not to its liking.
This insect is viviparous, or produces its
young alive, forming a cradle for them by dis-
charging from the extremities of its body a
quantity of long, cottony matter ; which, be-
coming interwoven and entangled, prevents the
young from falling to the earth, and completely
envelopes the parent and the offspring. In
this cottony substance, we observe, as soon as
the creature becomes animated in the spring,
and as long as it remains in vigour, many
round pellucid bodies, which at the first sight
look like eggs, only that they are larger than
we might suppose to be ejected by the animal.
They consist of a sweet glutinous fluid, and
are not the eggs but the discharges of the in-
sects. In the autumn, the winds and rains of
the season partly disperse these insects ; and
we observe them endeavouring to secrete
themselves in the crannies of any neighbour-
ing substance. Should the savoy cabbage be
near the trees whence they have been dis-
lodged, the cavities of the under sides of its
leaves are commonly favourite asylums for
them. Multitudes perish by these rough remo-
vals, but numbers yet remain ; and we may
find them in the nodes and crevices, on the
under sides of the branches, at any period of
the year, the long, cottony vesture being nearly
all removed ; but still they are enveloped in a
fine short downy clothing, to be seen by a mag-
nifier, proceeding apparently from every suture
or pore of their bodies, and protecting them in
their dormant state from the moisture and
frosts of our climate. This insect in a natural
state, usually awakens and commences its
labours very early in the month of March ; and
the hoariness on its body may be observed in-
creasing daily; but if an affected branch be
cut in the winter, and kept in water in a warm
room, these creatures will awaken speedily,
spin their cottony nests, and feed and discharge
as accustomed to do in a genial season. [For
further particulars relating to the habits of
these and other similar insects, see Aphis and !
Aphidians.] [

Remedies. — A considerable number of me- |
thods have been proposed for getting rid of the [
insect in question. White-washing, or wash- j
ing with lime-water, has been tri«d, but is not '

so eflficacious as the application of any gluti-
nous substance, which may cover the insects
and dry over them. Double size or glue,
liquefied by heat, and applied by means of a
brush, particularly in March, when the insects
begin to show more cottony than in winter, is
a very effectual remedy, if no crevice of a tree
is left unsized. This, however, may be dis-
solved by the rain, and therefore a varnish is
recommended by Mr. Knapp, as follows : " Melt
about three ounces of resin in an earthen pip-
kin, take it from the fire, and pour it into three
ounces of fish oil ; the ingredients perfectly
unite, and when cold, acquire the consistence
of honey. A slight degree of heat will liquefy
it, and in this state paint over every node or
infected part in your tree, using a common
painter's brush. This I prefer doing in spring,
or as soon as the hoariness appears. The sub-
stance soon sufficiently hardens, and forms a
varnish, which prevents any escape, and stifles
the individuals. After this first dressing, shotild
any cottony matter appear round the margin
of the varnish, a second application to these
parts will, I think, be found to effect a perfect
cure. The prevalence of this insect," adds
this author, " gives some of "our orchards here
the appearance of numerous white posts in an
extensive drying ground, being washed with
lime from root to branch; a practice, I appre-
hend, attended with little benefit. A few of
the creatures may be destroyed by accident ;
but as the animal does not retire to the earth,
but winters in the clefts of the boughs, far be-
yond the influence of this wash, it remains un-
injured, to commence its ravages again when
spring returns."

All oily or resinous substances, however,
being prejudicial to trees, Mr. George Lindley
recommends vinegar as a wash for young
trees ; and, as less expensive for old trees, a
sort of paint, composed of one gallon of quick-
lime, half a pound of flowers of sulphur, and a
quarter of a pound of lamp-black, mixed with
boiling water to the consistence of whitening
for white-washing, and laying it on rather
more than blood \varm with a brush. This
should be done in March, and again in August
when the winged insects spread from tree to
tree.

Mr. Couch, as a cheap and certain remedy,
recommends three quarters of an ounce of sul-
phuric acid [oil of vitriol], by measure, to be
mixed with seven ounces and a half of water.
It should be applied all over the bark by means
of rags, the only parts excepted being the pre-
sent year's shoots, which it would destroy.
This destroys moss and lichens, as well as in-
sects ; and if applied in showery weather, will
be washed into every crevice in which they
can harbour.

AMERICAN CRESS (Lepidium virgini-
eum). From xeric, a scale, on account of the
form of the seed-vessel. For the winter stand-
ing crops, a light dry soil, in an open but warm
situation, should be allotted to it, and for the
summer, a rather moister and shady border is
to be preferred. In neither instance is it re-
quired to be rich. It is propagated by seed,
which must be so-wm every six weeks from
March to Aiigust, for summer and autumn, but

AMERICAN GRASS.

AMMONIA.

oiily one sowing is necessary, either at the end
of August, or beginning of September, for a
supply during winter and spring. It may be
sown broadcast, but the most preferable mode
is ih drills nine inches apart. Water may be
given occasionally during dry weather, both
before and after the appearance of the plants.
If raised from broadcast sowings, the plants
are thinned to six inches apart ; if in drills,
only to three. In winter they require the
shelter of a little litter or other light covering ;
and to prevent them being injured by its pres-
sure, some twigs may be bent over the bed, or
some light bushy branches laid amongst them,
which will support it. The only cultivation
they require is to be kept clear of weeds.

In gathering, the outside leaves only should
be stripped off, which enables successional
crops to become rapidly fit for use. When the
plants begin to run, their centres must be cut
away, which causes them to shoot afresh. For
the production of seed, a few of the strongest
plants raised from the first spring sowing are
left ungathercd from. They flower in June or
July, and perfect their seed before the com-
mencement of autumn. ( G. W. Johnson's Kit-
chen Garden.)

[This plant in America is commonly called
wild pepper-grass. It is frequent in fields and
on roadsides in the Middle States.]

AMERICAN GRASS. A term sometimes
applied [in England] to a species of agrostis.

AMMONIA. The name given by chemists
to the volatile alkali, from its being first pre-
pared in the East from camels' dung near to a
temple dedicated to Jupiter Ammon. It is
known in commerce under the name of harts-
horn, sal volatile, &c., and is prepared by the
dr}'- or destructive distillation of animal sub-
stances. It is formed also most commonly
wherever animal substances undergo putre-
faction. It is composed of

Hydrogen
Azote or nitrogen

0125
1-75

Ammonia is usually produced in the state
of carbonate of ammonia, or united with car-
bonic acid gas, and in this state, or in fact in
combination with most other acids, it forms
salts, which possess peculiarly fertilizing pro-
perties. This alkali fulfils, there is little doubt,
a very important part in many organic ma-
nures. It is a very universally diffused sub-
stance, has been detected in rain-water and
even in snow, and there is little doubt but that
it exists, and prejudicially too, to the health of
the inhabitants, in the atmosphere of many
places crowded with animal life. {Liebig's
Organic Chem. 76, 77.) Wherever this alkali
is detected in a substance, such as it commonly
is, for instance, in urine, gas-water, &.c.,the most
excellent effects may be anticipated to vegeta-
tion by its use. Fresh urine contains phosphate
of ammonia, muriate of ammonia, and lactate of

famonia, and there is perhaps no fertilizer
ore powerful in its effects than this.
[One of the most important discoveries bear-
ing upon agriculture perhaps ever made, is
that just promulgated by Liebig, of the exist-
ence in the atmosphere of ammonia. Davy
and other chemists of the highest celebrity had
80

analyzed the air collected from the most sickly
locations where impurities might certainly be
expected to exist, but with their nicest tests
and best conducted experiments they failed to
detect any essential difierence in the composi-
tion of the insalubrious air taken from the
deadly coast of Africa, and that collected from
the most elevated and healthy parts of Europe.
The analyses of the air of the different places
all gave the same proportions of the gaseous
constituents, namely, oxygen, nitrogen, and
carbonic acid. It was evident, therefore, that if
other matters, in addition to the gases named
and watery vapour, existed in the air, some
other means must be found to demonstrate their
presence ; and happily, the genius of Liebig
devised a plan by which this has been effected
so far as the presence of ammonia is con-
cerned. He knew that ammonia had a strong
affinity for water, by Avhich it is promptly ab-
sorbed, and that although it could be diffused
through such a great bulk of air as to be
placed beyond the reach of chemical tests, it
might nevertheless be taken up by rain-water,
and washed down in sufficient quantity to be-
come apparent. Experiments made, in his
laboratory at Geissen, with the greatest care
and exactness, fully confirmed his views, and
placed the presence of ammonia in rain-water,
and consequently in the atmosphere, beyond a
doubt. It had hitherto escaped detection be-
cause no one thought of searching for it in the
same way. A single pound of rain-water con-
tains as much of the gas of ammonia, as is
diffused through 28,800 cubic feet of air,
namely, only one-fourth of a grain.

"All the rain-water employed in this inquiry,"
says Liebig, " was collected 600 paces south-
west of Geissen, whilst the wind was blowing
in the direction of the town. When several
hundred pounds of it were distilled in a copper
still, and the first two or three pounds evapo-
rated with the addition of a little muriatic acid,
a very distinct crystallization of sal-ammoniac
was obtained ; the crystals had always a brown
or yellow colour.

"Ammonia may likewise be always detected
in snow-water. Crystals of sal-ammoniac were
obtained by evaporating in a vessel with muri-
atic acid several pounds of snow, which were
gathered from the surface of the ground in
March, when the snow had a depth of ten
inches. Ammonia was set free from these
crystals by the addition of hydrate of lime.
The inferior layers of snow, which rested upon
the ground, contained a quantity decidedly
greater than those which formed the surface.

" It is worthy of observation, that the ammo-
nia contained in rain and snow-water pos-
sessed an offensive smell of perspiration and
animal excrements, — a fact which leaves no
doubt respecting its origin.

"Any one may satisfy himself of the presence
of ammonia in rain, by simply adding a little
sulphuric or muriatic acid to a quantity of rain-
water, and evaporating this nearly to dryness
in a clean porcelain basin. The ammonia
remains in the residue, in combination with
the acid employed ; and may be detected either
by the addition of a little chloride of platinum,
or more simply by a little powdered lime, which

AMMONIA.

AMMONIA.

separates the ammonia, and thus renders its
peculiar pungent smell sensible. The sensa-
tion which is perceived upon moistening the
hand with rain-water, so dilFei ent from that
produced by pure distilled water, and to which
the term softness is vulgarly applied, is also
due to the carbonate of ammonia contained in
the former. A small quantity of ammonia
water, added to what is commonly called hard
water, will give it the softness of rain or snow-
water.

" The ammonia which is removed from the
atmosphere by rain and other causes, is as
constantly replaced by the putrefaction of ani-
mal and vegetable matters. A certain portion
of that which falls with the rain evaporates
again with the water, but another portion is,
we suppose, taken up by the roots of plants,
and, entering into new combinations in the
different organs of assimilation, produces al-
bumen, gluten, quinine, morphia, cyanogen,
and a number of other compounds containing
nitrogen. The chemical characters of ammo-
nia render it capable of entering into such
combinations, and of undergoing numerous
transformations. We have now only to con-
sider whether it really is taken up in the form
of ammonia by the roots of plants, and in that
form applied by their organs to the production
of the azotized matters contained in them.
This question is susceptible of easy solution
by well-known facts.

♦'In the year 1834, I was engaged with Dr.
Wilbrand, professor of botany in the univer-
sity of Giessen, in an investigation respecting
the quantity of sugar contained in the different
varieties of maple trees, which grew upon
soils which were not manured. We obtained
crystallized sugars from all, by simply evapo-
rating their juices, without the addition of any
foreign substance ; and we unexpectedly made
the observation, that a great quantity of ammo-
nia was emitted from this juice, when mixed
with lime, and also from the sugar itself during
its refinement. The vessels, which hung upon
the trees in order to collect the juice, were
watched with greater attention, on account of
the suspicion that some evil-disposed persons
had introduced urine into them, but still a large
quantity of ammonia was again found in the
form of neutral salts. The juice had no colour,
and had no reaction on that of vegetables.
Similar observations were made upon the juice
of the birch-tree; the specimens subjected to
experiment were taken from a wood several
miles distant from any house, and yet the clari-
fied juice, evaporated with lime, emitted a
strong odour of ammonia.

" The products of the distillation of flowers,
herbs, and roots, with water, and all extracts
of plants made for medicinal purposes, contain
ammonia. The unripe, transparent, ajid gela-
tinous pulp of the almond and peach emit
much ammonia when treated with alkalies.
(Robiquet.) The juice of the fresh tobacco-
leaf contains ammoniacal salts. The water,
which exudes from a cut vine, when evapo-
rated with a few drops of muriatic acid, also
yields a gummy deliquescent mass, which
evolves much ammonia on the addition of
lime. Ammonia exists in every part of plants,
11

in the roots (as in beet-root), in the stem (of
the maple-tree), and in all blossoms and fruit
in an unripe condition.

"The juice of the maple and birch contain
both sugar and ammonia, and therefore afford
all the conditions necessary for the formation
of the azotized components of the branches,
blossoms, and leaves, as well as of those which
contain no azote or nitrogen. In proportion as
the developement of those parts advances, the
ammonia diminishes in quantity, and when
they are fully formed, the tree yields no more
juice.

" The employment of animal manure in the
cultivation of grain, and the vegetables which
serve for fodder to cattle, is the most convinc-
ing proof that the nitrogen of vegetables is
derived from ammonia. The quantity of gluten
in wheat, rye, and barley, is very different;
these kinds of grain also, even when ripe, con-
tain this compound of nitrogen in very differ-
ent proportions. Proust found French wheat
to contain 12-5 per cent, of gluten; Vogel
found that the Bavarian contained 24 percent.;
Dav}' obtained 19 per cent, from winter, and
24 from summer wheat; from Sicilian 21, and
from Barbary wheat 19 per cent. The meal
of Alsace wheat contains, according to Bous-
singault, 17-3 per cent, of gluten; that of
wheat grown in the " Jardin des Plantes" 26*7,
and that of winter wheal 3-33 per cent. Such
great differences must be owing to some cause,
and this we find in the different methods of
cultivation. An increase of animal manure
gives rise not only to an increase in the num-
ber of seeds, but also fo a most remarkable
difference in the proportion of the gluten which
they contain.

"Animal manure, as we shall afterwards
show, acts only by the formation of ammonia.
One hundred parts of wheat grown on a soil
manured with cowdung (a manure containing
the smallest quantity of nitrogen), afforded
only 11 '95 parts of gluten, and 64-34 parts of
amylin, or starch ; whilst the same quantity,
grown on a soil manured with human urine,
yielded the maximum of gluten, namely 35'1
per cent. Putrefied urine contains nitrogen in
the forms of carbonate, phosphate, and lactate
of ammonia, and in no other form than that of
ammoniacal salts.

" Putrid urine is employed in Flanders as a
manure with the best results. During the
putrefaction of urine, ammoniacal salts are
formed in large quantity, it may be said exclu-
sively ; for, under the influence of heat and
moisture, urea, the most prominent ingredient
of the urine, is converted into carbonate of am-
monia. The barren soil on the coast of Peru
is rendered fertile by means of a manure called
Guano, which is collected from several islands
on the South Sea. It is suflSicient to add a
small quantity of guano to a soil, which con-
sists only of sand and clay, in order to procure
the richest crops of maize. The soil itself
does not contain the smallest particle of or-
ganic matter, and the manure employed is
formed only of urate, phosphate, oxalate, and
carbonate of ammonia, together with a few
earthy salts. (Boussingault, Ann. de Chim. et
de Phys. t. Ixv. p. 319.)

81

AMMONIA.

AMMONIA.

" Ammonia, therefore, must have yielded the
nitrogen to these plants. Gluten is obtained
not only from corn, but also from grapes and
other plants ; but that extracted from the grapes
is called vegetable albumen, although it is
identical in composition and properties with
the ordinary gluten.

"It is ammonia which yields nitrogen to^the
vegetable albumen, the principal constituent
of plants ; and it must be ammonia which
forms the red and blue colouring matters of
flowers. Nitrogen is not presented to wild
plants in any other form capable of assimila-
tion. Ammonia by its transformation, fur-
nishes nitric acid to the tobacco plant, sun-
flower, Chenopodiiim, and Boraf^o officinalis.,
when they grow in a soil completely free from
nitre. Nitrates are necessary constituents of
these plants, which thrive only w^hen ammonia
is present in large quantity, and when they are
also subject to the influence of the direct rays
of the sun, an influence necessary to effect the
disengagement within their stem and leaves
of the oxygen, Avhich shall unite with the am-
monia to form nitric acid.

" The urine of men and of carnivorous ani-
mals contains a large quantity of nitrogen,
partly in the form of phosphates, partly as
urea. Urea is converted during putrefaction
into carbonate of ammonia, that is to say, it
takes the form of the very salt which occurs
in rain-water. Human urine is the most pow-
erful manure for all vegetables containing
nitrogen ; that of horses and horned cattle con-
tains less of this element, but infinitely more
than the solid excrements of these animals. In
addition to urea, the urine of herbivorous ani-
mals contains hippuric acid, which is decom-
posed during putrefaction into benzoic acid
and ammonia. The latter enters into the com-
position of the gluten, but the benzoic acid
often remains unchanged ; for example, in the
Anthoxanthum odoratum. The late Professor
Gorham obtained from Indian corn a substance
to which he gave the name Zeine, according to
whose analysis it contains no nitrogen; but
ammonia has since been obtained from it."

It has always been a popular opinion
among husbandinen, that snow contained some
fertilizing salts, as winter crops were gene-
rally observed to thrive best after being long
covered with snow. Common observation is
here fully sustained by science, since ammo-
nia, one of the greatest of fertilizers, may
always be detected in snow-water, the inferior
layers next the ground containing the largest
proportion.

The following interesting calculation is
given by Liebig. " If," says he, " a pound of
rain-water contain one-fourth of a grain of
ammonia, then a field of 40,000 square feet
must receive annually upwards of 80 pounds
of ammonia, or G5 pounds of nitrogen; for, by
the observations of Schiihler, which were for-
merly alluded to, about 700,000 pounds of rain
fall^ver this surface in four months, and con-
seq^ntly the annual fall must be 2,500,000
pounds. This is much more nitrogen than is
contained in the form of vegetable albumen
and gluten, in 2,650 pounds of wood, 2,800
pounds of hay, or 200 cwt. of beet-root, which
82

are the yearly produce of such a field, but it is
less than the straw, roots, and grain of corn
which might grow on the same surface would
contain."

As to the source from which the ammonia
difl'used in the atmosphere is derived, it is suf-
ficient to refer to the fact that ammonia is the
last product of the putrefaction of animal bo-
dies, all of which, whether large or infinitely
omall, yield their nitrogen to the atmosphere
in the form of ammonia. This cannot remain
long in the air, as every shower of rain must
absorb and convey it to the earth. " Hence also,
rain-water must, at all times, contain ammonia,
though not always in equal quantity. It must
be greater in summer than in spring or in
winter, because the intervals of time between
the showers are in summer greater ; and when
several wet days occur, the rain of the first
must contain more of it than that of the
second. The rain of a thunder-storm, after a
long protracted drought, ought for this reason
to contain the greatest quantity which is con-
veyed to the earth at one time."

Is it asked what direct proof exists that
ammonia acts' so favourably in promoting
vegetation? The answer is furnished in the
results of experiments made by Sir Humphry
Davy, in which the beaks of retorts containing
fermentmg manures were introdu(;pd into the
soil among the roots of grass, which was thus
made to grow more luxuriantly than that in
other places. The gases emanating from re-
torts containing similar manure were exa-
mined and found to consist chiefly of ammonia.
Sir Humphry considered such results as prov-
ing conclusively the advantage of applying
manures to soils in a recent and fermenting
state. (See Azote or Nitrogex.)

Dr. Liebig's discovery of the great fertilizer
ammonia in rain-water has led to a most sim-
ple and beautiful explanation of the manner in
which gypsum or plaster of Paris acts in pro-
moting the growth of plants, a matter which
has been a subject of great speculation and
controversy, but which would seem to be fully
settled at last.

"The evident influence of gypsum upon the
growth of grasses, — the striking fertility and
luxuriance of a meadow upon which it is
strewed, — depends only upon its fixing in the
soil the ammonia of the atmosphere, which
would otherwise be volatilized with the water
which evaporates. The carbonate of ammonia
contained in rain-water is decomposed by gyp-
sum, in precisely the same manner as in the
manufacture of sal-ammoniac. Soluble sul-
phate of ammonia and carbonate of lime are
formed ; and this salt of ammonia possessing
no volatility is consequently retained in the
soil. All the gypsum gradually disappears,
but its action upon the carbonate of ammonia
continues as long as a trace of it exists. The
action of gypsum as well as that of chloride
of lime (bleaching salts) really consists in
their giving a fixed condition to the nitrogen,
or ammonia which is brought into the soil, and
which is indispensable to the nutrition of
plants.

" Water is absolutely necessary to effect the
decomposition of the gypsum, on account of its'

AMYLACEOUS.

ANALYSIS.

difficult solubility (1 part of g)T)sum requires
400 parts of water for solution), and also to
assist in the absorption of the sulphate of am-
monia by the plants ; hence it happens, that
the influence of gypsum is not observable on
dry fields and meadows.

"The decomposition of gypsum by carbonate
of ammonia does not take place instantane-
ously ; on the contraiy, it proceeds very gradu-
ally, and this explains why the action of the
gypsum lasts for several years." {Or^. Chem.)]

AMYLACEOUS. A term applied to such
farinaceous seeds, grains, and roots, as contain
much of the fine flour from which starch is
made, and in which chiefly consists their nu-
tritive principle.

ANALYSIS (Gr. ivdxuTu). In a general sense,
signifies the resolution of compound bodies
into their original or constituent principles.

Analysis of Soils. — The means of ascertain-
ing the nature, properties, and proportions of
the different materials of which they are com-
posed. The chemical examination of the soil
affords perhaps more certain and more valua-
ble information to the farmer, for the improve-
ment of its fertility, than any other mode of
investigation. The apparatus and the experi-
ments, necessary for even the most accurate
experiments, are by no means so difficult as it
is often believed is the case. It is, in fact, a
very erroneous conclusion, that an extensive
or an expensive apparatus is necessary to
carry on even the most valuable chemical
researches. The laboratory of one of the most
celebrated chemical philosophers of his day,
that of Dalton of Manchester, contained appa-
rently but a poor collection of glass bottles, re-
torts, crucibles, fragments of wine-glasses, &c.

The following descriptions of the philoso-
phically-accurate mode adopted by Sir Hum-
phry Davy for the analysis of soils, [and of
the more easily repeated plans of the Rev. W.
Rham, of England, and Dr. Dana, of Massa-
chusetts, are given nearly in their own words.
The first is taken from his Elemenls of Aori-
euHurai Chtmistry, the second from the first
volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricul-
tural Society of England, p. 46, and the last
from Professor Hitchcock' a Report of the Geologi-
cal Survey of Massachusetts.] It may be well
to premise that four earths are almost always
the chief constituents of all cultivated soils,
viz., silica (flint), alumina (clay), carbonate
of lime (chalk), and carbonate of magnesia.
These are mixed together in an endless variety
of proportions, and are interspersed with ani-
mal and vegetable remains, salts, &c., to an
equally varying extent. It is to ascertain the
presence and the extent of these substances
that the analysis of soils is so necessary and
so valuable to the farmer.

" The instruments required for the analysis
of soils," said the illustrious Da\7-, " are few
and but little expensive. They are a balance
capable of containing a quarter of a pound of
common soil, and capable of turning when
loaded with a grain ; a set of weights from a
quarter of a pound troy to a grain ; a wire
sieve sufficiently coarse to admit a mustard-
seed through its apertures; an Argand lamp
and- stand ; some glass bottles ; Hessian cruci-

bles ; porcelain or queen's ware evaporating
basins; a Wedgevvood pestle and mortar;
some filters made of half a sheet of blotting-
paper, folded so as to contain a pint of liquid,
and greased at the edges ; a bone knife, and
an apparatus for collecting and measuring
aeriform fluids.

"The chemical substances or re-agents re-
quired for separating the constituent parts of
the soil are muriatic acid (spirit of salt), sul-
phuric acid (oil of vitriol), pure volatile
(ammonia), dissolved in water, solution of
prussiate of potash and iron, succinate of am-
monia, soap-lye, or solution of potassa, solu-
tions of carbonate of ammonia, of muriate of
ammonia, of neutral carbonate of potash, and
nitrate of ammonia.

" In cases when the general nature of the
soil of a field is to be ascertained, specimens
of it should be taken from diflferent places, two
or three inches below the surface, and exa-
mined as to the similarity of their properties. It
sometimes happens that upon plains the whole
of the upper stratum of the land is of the same
kind, and in this case one analysis will be suffi-
cient; but in valleys, and near the beds of
rivers, there are very great differences ; and it
now and then occurs that one part of a field is
calcareous, and another part silicious, and in
this case, and in analogous cases, the portions
different from each other should be separately
submitted to experiment."

Soils, when collected, if they cannot be im-
mediately examined, should be preserved in
phials quite filled with them, and closed with
ground glass stoppers. The quantity of soil
most convenient for a perfect analysis is from
two to four hundred grains. It should be col-
lected in dry weather, and exposed to the at-
mosphere till it becomes dry to the touch.

The specific gravity of a soil, or the relation
of its weight to that of water, may be ascer-
tained by introducing into a phial, which will
contain a known quantity of water, equal
quantities of water and of soil, and this
may be easily done by pouring in water till it
is half full, and then adding the soil till the
fluid rises to the mouth ; the difference between
the weight of the soil and that of the water
will give the result. Thus if the bottle con-
tains 400 grains of water, and gains 200
grains when half filled with water and half
with soil, the specific gravity of the soil will
be 2-, that is, will be twice as heavy as water;
and if it gained 165 grains, its specific gravity
would be 1825% water being lOOO*. It is of im-
portance that the specific gravity of a soil
should be known, as it affords an indication of
the quantity of animal and vegetable matter it
contains ; these substances being always most
abundant in the lighter soils.

The other physical properties of soils should
likewise be examined before the analysis is
made, as they denote to a certain extent their
composition, and serve as guides in directing
the experiments. Thus silicious soils are
generally rough to the touch, and scratch glass
when rubbed upon it ; ferruginous soils are of
a red or yellow colour, and calcareous soils are
soft.

1. Soils, though as dry as they can be made

83

ANALYSIS.

ANALYSIS.

by continued exposure to air, in all cases
contain a considerable quantity of water,
which adheres with great obstinacy to the
earths, and animal and vegetable matter, and
can only be driven off from them by a consi-
derable degree of heat. The first process
of analysis is to free the given weight of
soil from as much of this water as possible,
without, in other respects, affecting its compo-
sition, and this may be done by heating it for
ten or twelve minutes over an Argand lamp
in a basin of porcelain to a temperature equal
to 300° Fahrenheit ; and if a thermometer is
not used, the proper degree may be easily as-
certained by keeping a piece of wood in con-
tact with the bottom of the dish ; as long as
the colour of the M'ood remains unaltered the
heat is not too high, but when the wood begins
to be charred the process must be stopped. A
small quantity of water will perhaps remain in
the soil, even after this operation, but it always
affords useful comparative results; and if a
higher temperature were employed, the vege-
table or animal matter would undergo decom-
position, and, in consequence, the experiment
be wholly unsatisfactory. The loss of weight
in the process should be carefully noted, and
when in 400 grains of soil it reaches as high
as 50°, the soil may be considered as in the
greatest degree absorbent and retentive of
water, and will generally be found to contain
much vegetable or animal matter, or a large
proportion of aluminous earth. When the loss is
only from 20° to 10°, the land may be con-
sidered as only slightly absorbent and retentive,
and silicious earth probably forms the greatest
part of it.

2. None of the loose stones, gravel, or large
vegetable fibres should be divided from the
pure soil till after the water is drawn off; for
these bodies are often themselves highly ab-
sorbent and retentive, and in consequence in-
fluence the fertility of the land. The next
process, however, after that of heating, should
be their separation, which may be easily ac-
complished by the sieve, after the soil has
been gently bruised in a mortar. The weights
of the vegetable fibres or wood, and of the
gravel or stones, should be separately noted
down, and the nature of the last ascertained ;
if calcareous, they will effervesce with acids ;
if silicious, they will be sufficiently hard
to scratch glass ; and if of the common alumi-
nous class of stones, they will be soft, easily
cut with a knife, and incapable of effervescing
with acids.

3. The greater number of soils, besides
gravel and stones, contain larger or smaller
proportions of sand, of various degrees of
fineness ; and it is a necessary operation (the
next in the process of analysis) to detach them
from the parts in a state of more minute divi-
sion, such as clay, loam, marl, vegetable and
animal matter, and the matter soluble in water^
This may be effected in a way sufficiently ac-
cwate, by boiling the soil in three or four times
ity weight of water, and when the texture of
fte soil is broken down, and the water cool, by
agitating the parts together, and then suffering
them to rest. In this case, the coarse sand will
generally separate in a minute, and the finer in

64

two or three minutes, whilst the highly divided
earthy, animal, or vegetable matter will remain
in a state of mechanical suspension for a
much longer time; so that by pouring the
water from the bottom of the vessel, after one,
two, or three minutes, the sand will be princi-
pally separated from the other substances,
which, with the water containing them, must
be poured into a filter, and after the water has
passed through, collected, dried, and weighed.
The sand must likewise be weighed, and the
respective quantities noted down. The water
of lixiviation must be preserved, as it will be
found to contain the saline, and soluble ani-
mal or vegetable, if any exist in the soil.

4. By the process of washing and filtration,
the soil is separated into two portions, the most
important of which is generally the finely di-
vided matter. A minute analysis of the sand
is seldom if ever necessary, and its nature
may be detected in the same manner as that
of the stones or gravel. It is always either
silicious sand, or calcareous sand, or a mixture
of both. If it consist wholly of carbonate of
lime, it will be rapidly soluble in muriatic
acid, with effervescence ; but if it consist
partly of this substance, and partly of silicious
matter, the respective quantities may be ascer-
tained by weighing the residuum after the ac-
tion of the acid, which must be applied till the
mixture has acquired a sour taste, and has
ceased to effervesce. This residuum is the
silicious part ; it must be washed, dried, and
heated strongly in a crucible: the difference
between the weight of it, and the weight of the
whole indicates the proportion of calcareous
sand.

5. The finely divided matter of the soil is
usually very compound in its nature ; it some-
times contains all the four primitive earths or
soils, as well as animal and vegetable matter ;
and to ascertain the proportions of these with
tolerable accuracy is the most difficult part of
the subject.

The first process to be performed in this part
of the analysis, is the exposure of the fine
matter of the soil to the action of muriatic
acid. This substance should be poured upon
the earthy matter in an evaporating basin, in a
quantity equal to twice the weight of the earthy
matter, but diluted with double its volume of
water. The mixture should be often stirred and
suffered to remain for an hour or an hour and a
half before it is examined. If any carbonate
of lime, or of magnesia, exist in the soil, they
will have been dissolved in this time*by the
acid, which sometimes takes up likewise a
little oxide of iron, but very seldom any alu-
mina.

The fluid should be passed through a filter,
the solid matter collected, washed with rain-
water, dried at a moderate heat, and weighed.
Its loss will denote the quantity of solid matter
taken up. The washings must be added to
the solution, which, if not sour to the taste,
must be made so, by the addition of fresh acid,
when a little solution of prussiate of potassa
and iron must be mixed with the whole. If a
blue precipitate occurs, it denotes the presence
of oxide of iron, and the solution of the prus-
siate must be dropped in, till no farther effect

ANALYSIS.

ANALYSIS.

is produced. To ascertain its quantity, it
must be collected in the same manner as other
solid precipitates, and heated red ; the result
is oxide of iron, which may be mixed with a
little oxide of manganese.

Into the fluid freed from oxide of iron a
solution of neutralized carbonate of potash
must be poured till all effervescence ceases in
it, and till its taste and smell indicate a consi-
derable excess of alkaline salt. The precipi-
tate that falls down is carbonate of lime ; it
must be collected on the filter, and dried at a
heat below that of redness. The remaining
fluid must be boiled for a quarter of an hour,
when the magnesia, if any exist, will be pre-
cipitated from it, combined with carbonic
acid, and its quantity is to be ascertained in
the same manner as that of the carbonate of
lime. If any minute proportion of alumina
should, from peculiar circumstances, be dis-
solved by the acid, it will be found in the pre-
cipitate with the carbonate of lime ; and it
may be separated from it by boiling it for a
few minutes with soap-lye, suflicieni to cover
the solid matter: tliis substance dissolves alu-
mina, without acting upon carbonate of lime.

Should the finely divided matter be sutti-
cienily calcareous to effervesce very strongly
with acids, a very simple method may be
adopted for ascertaining the quantity of carbo-
nate of lime, and one suiiiciently accurate in
all common cases.

Carbonate of lime (chalk) in all its states
contains a determinate proportion of carbonic
acid, i, e. nearly 43 per cent. ; so that when the
quantity of this elastic fluid given out by
any soil during the solution of its calcareous
matter in an acid is known, either in weight or
measure, the quantity of carbonate of lime
may be easily discovered.

When the process by diminution of weight
is employed, two paits of the acid and one
part of the matter of the soil must be weighed
in two separate bottles, and very slowly mixed
together till the effervescence ceases. The
difference between the weight before and after
the experiment denotes the quantity of carbonic
acid lost: for every 4^ grains of which 10
grains of carbonate of lime must be estimated.

6. After the calcareous parts of the soil have
been acted upon by muriatic acid, the next
process is to ascertain the quantity of finely
divided insoluble animal and vegetable matter
that it contains. This may be done with suf-
ficient precision, by strongly igniting it in a
crucible over a common fire till no blackness
remains in the mass. It should be often stirred
with a metallic rod, so as to expose new sur-
faces continually to the air : the loss of weight
that it undergoes denotes the quantity of the
substance that it contains destructible by fire
and air.

It is not possible without very refined and
difficult experiments, to ascertain whether this
substance is wholly animal or vegetable mat-
ter, or a mixture of both. When the smell
emitted during the incineration is similar to
that of burnt feathers, it is a certain indication
of some substance, either animal, or analo-
gous to animal matter, and a copious blue
flame at the time of ignition almost always de-

notes a considerable proportion of vegetable
matter. In cases when it is necessary that the
experiment should be very quickly performed,
the destruction of the decomposible substances
may be assisted by the agency of nitrate of
ammonia, which at the time of ignition may
be thrown gradually upon the heated mass, in
the quantity of 20 grains for every 100 of
residual soil. It accelerates the dissipation of
the animal and vegetable matter, which it
causes to be converted into elastic fluids, and
it is itself, at the same time, decomposed and
losL

7. The substances remaining after the de-
struction of the vegetable and animal matter
are generally minute particles of earthy matter
containing usually alumina and silica, with
combined oxide of iron or of manganese. To
separate these from each other, the solid mat-
ter should be boiled for two or three hours
with sulphuric acid, diluted with four times
its weight of water ; the quantity of the acid
should be regulated by the quantity of solid
residuum to be acted on, allowing for every
100 grains two drachms, or 120 grains of
acid.

The substance remaining after the action of
the acid may be considered as silicious, and it
must be separated and its weight ascertained,
after washing and drying in the usual manner.
The aiumina, and tlie oxide of iron and man-
ganese, if any exist, are all dissolved by the
sulphuric acid : they may be separated by
succinate of ammonia added to excess, w^hich
throws down the oxide of iron, and by soap-lye,
which will dissolve the alumina, but not the
oxide of manganese : the weights of the ox-
ides ascertained after they have been heated to
redness will denote their quantities.

Should any magnesia and lime have escaped
solution in the muriatic acid, they will be found
in the sulphuric acid : this, however, is rarely
the case ; but the process for detecting them
and ascertaining their quantities is the same in
both instances. The method of analysis by
sulphuric acid is sufficiently precise for all
usual experiments ; but if very great accuracy
be an object, dry carbonate of potash must be
applied as the agent, and the residuum of the
incineration (6.) must be heated red for half
an hour, with four times its weight of this sub-
stance in a crucible of silver, or of well baked
porcelain. The mass obtained must be dis-
solved in muriatic acid, and the solution evapo-
rated till it is nearly solid ; distilled water must
then be added, by which the oxide of iron and
all the earths except silica will be dissolved
in combination as muriates. The silica after
the usual process of lixiviation must be heated
red : the other substances may be separated in
the same manner as from the muriatic and
sulphuric solutions. This process is the one
usually employed by chemical philosophers
for the analysis of stones.

8. If any saline matter, or soluble vegetable
or animal matter, is suspected in the soil, it
will be found in the water of lixiviation used
for separating the sand. This water must be
evaporated to dryness in a proper dish, at a
heat below its boiling point. If the solid matter
obtained is of a brown colour and inflamma-

H 85

Analysis.

ble, it may be considered as partly vegetable ex-
tract. If its smell when exposed to heat be like
that of burnt feathers, it contains animal or albu-
minous matter; if it be white, crystalline, and not
destructible by heat, it may be considered prin-
cipally as saline matter. The saline compound^
contained in soils are very various. The sul-
phuric acid combined with potash or sulphate
of potash is one of the most usual. Common
salt is also very often found in them ; likewise
phosphate of lime, which is insoluble in Avater,
but soluble in muriatic acid. Compounds of
the nitric, muriatic, sulphuric, and phosphoric
acids, with alkalies and earths, exist in some
soils. The salts of potash are distinguished
from those of soda b}'- their producing a pre-
cipitate in solutions of platina; those of lime
are characterized by the cloudiness they occa-
sion in solutions containing oxalic acid ; those
of magnesia by being rendered cloudy by so-
lutions of ammonia. Sulphuric acid is detected
in salts by the dense white precipitate it forms
in solutions of baryta ; muriatic acid, by the
cloudiness it communicates to solution of nitrate
of silver ; and when salts contain nitric acid,
they produce scintillations by being thrown
upon burning coals.

9. Should sulphate or phosphate of lime be
suspected in the entire soil, the detection of
them requires a particular process upon it.
A given weight of it, for instance, 400 grains,
must be heated red for half an hour in a cruci-
ble, mixed with one third of powdered char-
coal. The mixture must be boiled for a quarter
of an hour in a half pint of water, and the
fluid collected through the filtre and exposed
for some days to the atmosphere in an open
vessel. If any notable quantity of sulphate of
lime (gypsum) existed in the soil, a white pre-
cipitate will gradually form in the fluid, and
the weight of it will indicate the proportion.

Phosphate of lime, if any exist, may be
separated from the soil after the process for
gypsum. Muriatic acid must be digested upon
the soil in quantity more than suflicient to sa-
turate the soluble earths : the solution must
be evaporated, and water poured upon the
solid matter. This fluid will dissolve the com-
pounds of earths with the muriatic acid, and
leave . the phosphate of lime untouched. It
will not fall within the limits assigned to this
article to detail any processes for the detection
of substances which may be accidentally
mixed with the matters of soils. Other earths
and metallic oxides are now and then found in
them, but in quantities too minute to bear any
relation to fertility or barrenness, and the
search for them would make the analysis much
more complicated, without rendering it more
useful.

10. Where the examination of a soil is com-
pleted, the products should be numerically
arranged and their quantities added together,
and if they nearly equal the original quantity
of soil, the analysis may be considered as ac-
cur^. It must, however, be noticed that when
pholphate or sulphate of lime are discovered
by the independent process just described (9),
a correction must be made for the general pro-
cess, by subtracting a sum equal to their
weight from the quantity of carbonate of lime :

86

Analysis.

obtained by precipitation from the muriatic
acid. In arranging the products the form
should be in the order of the experiments by
which they were procured. Thus I obtained
from 400 grains of a good silicious sandy soil
from a hop garden near Tonbridge Kent, —

GraiiM.
Of water of absorption - - - _ . 19

Of loose stones and gravel, principally silicious 53
O. undecoinposed vegetable fibres - - - 14
Of tine silicious sand ------ 212

Of minutely divided matter, separated by agitation
and filtration, and consisting of Grains.

Carbonate of lime (chalk) - - 19
Carbonate of magnesia - - - 3
Matter destructible by heat, princi-
pally vegetable - - - - 15

Silica 21

Alumina ------ 13

Oxide of iron ----- 5

Soluble matter, principally common

salt and vegetable extract - - 3
Gypsuux ------ 2

— 81
Loss - - - - 21

400

The loss in this analysis is not more than
usually occurs, and it depends upon the im-
possibility of collecting the whole quantities
of the different precipitates, and upon the pre-
sence of more moisture than is accounted for
in the water of absorption, and which is lost
in the different processes.

When the experimenter is become acquaint-
ed with the use of the different instruments,
the properties of the re-agents, and the rela-
tions between the external and chemical quali-
ties of soils, he will seldom find it necessary to
perform, in any one case, all the processes
that have been described. When his soil, for
instance, contains no notable proportions of
calcareous matter, the action of the muriatic
acid (7.) may be omitted. In examining peat
soils, he will principally have to attend to the
operation by fire and air, and in the analysis
of chalks and loams, he will often be able to
omit the experiment by sulphuric acid (9.).

In the first trials that are made (adds Davy)
by persons unacquainted with chemistry, they
must not expect much precision of result; ma-
ny difliculties will be met with ; but, in over-
coming them, the most useful kind of practical
knowledge will be obtained ; and nothing is so
instructive in experimental science as the de-
tection of mistakes. The correct analyst
ought to be well grounded in general chemical
information; but perhaps there is no better
mode of gaining it than that of attempting
original investigations. In pursuing his ex-
periments, he will be continually obliged to
learn the properties of the substances he is
employing or acting upon ; and his theoretical
ideas will be more valuable in being connected
with practical operations, and acquired for the
purpose of discovery.

Such were the excellent rules for analysis
prescribed by Sir Humphry Davy. With the
still more simple directions of the Rev. W.
Rham, I shall conclude this paper.

A portion of the earth to be analysed may
be dried in the sun or near a fire until it feels
quite dry in the hand. It is then reduced to
poM'der by the fingers, or by rolling it on a
deal board with a wooden roller, so as to sepa-

ANALYSIS.

ANALYSIS.

rate the particles, but not to grind them : any I
small stones above the size of a pea must be j
taken out. If these form a considerable part
of the soil, their proportion must be ascertained
by weight; their nature and quality may be
aftei-wards examined : this being a very simple
operation, and obvious to the sight, need not
be described. Where the stones and pebbles
are evidently accidental, they may be over-
looked, as having little influence on the ferti-
lity : the dry earth, cleared from stones, should
be accurately weighed; and it is convenient to
take some determined quantity of grains, as
1000, 500, or 250, according to the accuracy
of the instruments at hand. This portion
should be put into a shallow earthen or metal
vessel, and heated over the fire, or a lamp, for
about ten minutes, stirring it with a chip of
dry wood ; the heat should not be so great as
to discolour the wood. It may then be allowed
to cool, and be weighed again ; the loss of
weight indicates the water which remained
uncombincd after the soil appeared quite dry.
This is the first thing to be noted. The power
of retaining water without any external appear-
ance of moisture is greatest in humus (a mo-
dern terra for very finely divided organic
matter), next in clay, both of which readily
absorb it from the atmosphere ; carbonate of
lime does so in a less degree, and silicious
sand least of all. This moistur^* occupies the
pores of the soil, and is very dilferent from the
water, which is combined with clay as a part
of its substance, and to which it owes its
ductility ; for when this last is expelled by a
great heat, the clay loses its quality, and ap-
proaches to the nature of sand. Pounded brick
will not bind with water, and porcelain reduced
to fine powder has all the properties of silicious
sand in the soil. The finer the division of the
particles of the soil, the greater will be its
power of absorbing and retaining water; but
in a soil where clay greatly predominates, the
lumps sometimes become so hard and baked
by the sun that the moisture cannot penetrate ;
and in this case the power of absorption is
much diminished. Hence loams m which
there is a good proportion of humus have a
greater power of absorption than the pure
earths. Taking all circumstances into consi-
deration, it will be found that the soils which
most readily absorb moisture are also the most
fertile, and therefore it is important to ascer-
tain their power of absorption. This can be
found by comparison. Equal portions of dif-
ferent soils, dried as before, are placed in the
opposite, scales of a good balance, and left ex-
posed for some time to a moist atmosphere ;
that which preponderates has the greatest
power of absorption ; the degree is measured
by the difference of the acquired weights.
Another important circumstance is the specific
gravity of a soil. The different earths have
very different specific gravities; and humus
being lighter than any mineral earth, the
lightness of the soil is a sure indication of its
richness, excepting where this lightness is
occasioned by an excess of undecomposed
vegetable matter, or peat. Humus, when
nearly pure, has specific gravity varying from
1-2 to 1-5; fine porcelain clay, 2; chalk, about

2-3; silicious sand from 2-5 to 2-7; mixed
soils have specific gravities varying according
to the proportions of their component parts.
Those in which clay, chalk, and humus abound,
and which are generally the most fertile, are
the lightest. The sandy soils are heavier, and
the more so if they contain oxides of iron, or
of other metals ; and it is well known that the
ferruginous sands are the most barren. The
common expression o( light y when applied to a
sandy soil, has no reference to its specific gra-
vity, but merely to the force required to plougb
it. No carrier would say that a loose sandy
road was a light one. The easiest and readiest
method of determining the specific gravity of
earth, or any substance which is of a loose
texture, is that described by Dr. Ure in his
Philosophy of Manufactures (p. 97), as employed
by him to ascertain the specific gravities of
cotton, wool, silk and flax. It is as follows : —
Take a narrow-necked phial, capable of hold-
ing four or five ounces of water; mark a line
round the middle of the neck with the point of
a diamond, or a file ; fill the phial up to the
mark with river or rain water, and poise it
with sand, or any other substance, in a scale ;
then put 1000 grains' weight in the same
scale with the phial, and pour out water till
the equilibrium is restored. In the vacant
space, which is evidently equal to the bulk of
1000 grains of water, introduce the soil till the
water rises to the mark in the neck ; then put
into the opposite scale grain weights sufficient
to restore the equilibrium. The number of
grains required for this purpose will denote
the specific gravity of the soil compared to
water as 1000. Suppose, for example, that
silicious sand, which is 2*7 times denser than
water, is poured into the vacant space, it will
require 2-700 grains to fill the space occupied
by the 1000 grains of water ; and thus we have
the specific gravity without any calculation.
If, instead of 1000 grains, we use only 500, or
250, the result will be the same, if we multiply
the grains in the other scale by 2 or 4.

We will give a few examples of soils, of
which the specific gravity has been carefully
detennined.

A rich garden soil, which contained, per
cent., — ,

CJay ....
Bilicinus sand
Calcarpoiig sand -
Carbonate of lime
Humus ...

had a specific gravity of 2-332.
A good loam, consisting of—

Clay

SilicinuB sand
Calcareous sand • -
Carbonale of lime -
Humus

52-4

36-5

1-8

20

7-3

512

427

0-4

23

3-4

had a specific gravity of 2-401.

A poorer soil, of which the component parts
were, —

Bilicious sand

. 640

Clay

- 323

Calcareous sand

. 1-2

Carbonate of lime -

- 1-2

Humus

- 18

had a specific gravity of 2-526.

These examples suffice to show that the spe-
cific gravity of a soil is some tolerable indica-

87

ANALYSIS.

ANALYSIS.

tion of its fertility. It cannot, however, be
entirely relied upon in the absence of other
proofs; for there may be many different mix-
tures of earths which will have the same spe-
cific gravity, although they may differ greatly
in their fertility ; but it will facilitate the
analysis, and often detect mistakes in the pro-
cess, if the result does not accord with the spe-
cific gravity found. We proceed now to the
analysis. The portion of soil which has been
deprived of all its water, as described above,
must be sifted through metallic sieves of dif-
ferent fineness ; the first is made of a perforated
tin plate, the holes of which are about one-
twentieth of an inch in diameter: whatever
does not go through this is put by. The re-
mainder is successively passed through two or
three more sieves, increasing in fineness to the
last ; which is of the finest wire-cloth, having
from 150 to 170 threads in an inch: whatever
passes through this is an impalpable powder.
Thus we have already a division of the soil,
according to the size of its particles': — 1, the
coarse grit left in the first sieve ; 2, the finer
grit in No. 2 ; 3, fine sand in No. 3 ; and 4, im-
palpable powder, which has passed through
the last sieve. To facilitate this part of the
operation, the sieves may be made so as to fit
into one another, like the filterers in a coffee-
biggin, the last fitting into a tin pot which will
hold about a pint of water ; a cover being
made to fit on the top sieve, the instrument is
complete. (See fig.) Thus, all
the sifting may be done at
once without any loss. Any
lumps which are not tho-

1 roughly pulverized must be
broken. The coarser sand
left in the sieve. No. 1, must

2 now be washed with pure
water, to detach any fine dust
adhering to it ; what runs

3 through may be used to wash
No. 2, in the same manner;
and then may pass through
No. 3 to the impalpable mat-
ter which passed through all

4 the sieves. A sufficient quan-
tity of water must be used to

rend^er the whole of this last nearly fluid.
There will then be three different portions of
the washed soil left in the sieves, and a por-
tion of impalpable matter diffused through the
water in the lower division of the instrument.
This last is the principal object of analysis,
and that to which Sir Humphry Davy usually
confined his attention, merely noticing the pro-
portion of coarser sand in the soil. It contains,
no doubt, the great principle of fertility and
nutrition ; and the effect of the coarser parts
may be considered as chiefly mechanical ; but
they may much affect the fertility of the finer
parts, and are of the greatest importance to
the soil in which they are blended : they con-
sequently deserve a more minute examination,
tq^'-hich we will return.

hi the mean time, our attention shall be di-
rected to the composition of the finer earth in
No. 4, which is mixed with water in a semi-
fluid state. This is well shaken, and suddenly
88

poured into a deep glass vessel, and allowed
to settle for a few minutes, when the heavier
earth, which is sand, will be deposited, and the
lighter may be poured off suspended in the
water. It requires some little practice to effect
this at once, but a few trials will soon enable
any one to do it. This operation may be re-
peated until all sand, of which the particles
are visible to the naked eye, is separated. The
earth and water decanted out of this last vessel
are now poured into a glass tube, eighteen
inches long, No. 1, the bore of which is less
than an inch ; one end is stopped with a cork
fitted into it, and the other has a small lip for
the convenience of pouring out the contents.
In a short time, there will be a further deposi-
tion of earth, which will be principally alu-
mina. What remains suspended in the water
over it is gently poured off into another similar
tube (No. 2) ; this will contain nearly the
whole of the humus, which will take some
hours to be deposited in the form of a fine
brown mud. The contents of the tube No. 1
may now have a little more water added to
them: after being well shaken, the tube may
be set upright, and left for half an hour to
settle : what remains suspended in the water
after this, must be added to the humus in the
tube No. 2. After some time, this will also be
deposited, and the clear water may be decanted
off. The mud which remains is put on filtering
paper in a glass funnel ; and when all the
water has drained from it, it is dried over the
fire, and weighed.

This is the most important portion of the
soil. The fine earths deposited in the tnbe
No. 1 will consist of very fine particles of
sand, clay, and perhaps carbonate of lime.
The sand will appear deposited in the bottom
of the tube. The clay may be easily diffused
in the water above it, by stirring it carefully
with a small rod, without reaching the sand. It
may then be decanted with the water into
another tube (No. 3), and allowed to settle.
This part of the operation may be carried to
much perfection by great care, and by examin-
ing the results occasionally with a small mi-
croscope; but for all common practical pur-
poses it is sufficient to separate the vegetable
earth from the mineral, and the particles of
sand from the finer. The contents of No. 1
having been collected, as well as those of
No. 3, are dried over the fire, and accurately
w^eighed. The same is done with the earth
which remains on the sieves. All the water
in which the earths have been diffused and
washed is collected and passed through filter-
ing paper, and then set over the fire in a com-
mon saucepan. It is boiled away gently, until
it is reduced to a small portion, which begins
to look turbid. The complete evaporation is
finished in an evaporating dish as slowly as
possible ; and the residue is the soluble matter
contained in the soil. It will be sufficient to
dry and weigh this, as its further analysis
would require more skill and chemical know-
ledge than we suppose in the operation. Salts
may be detected by the taste, or by the crystals
formed in the evaporation ; but unless there is
a decided saline taste, the whole may be consi-

ANALYSIS.

ANALYSIS.

dered as soluble humus, and the immediate
fertility of the soil depends greatly on the
quantity of it.

To recapitulate what has been obtained,
we shall have the coarse grit in sieve No. 1 ;
the sand in Nos. 2 and 3; the fine earth
separated in the tubes, Nos. 1 and 3; the
humus in tube No. 2, and on the filtering
paper, and on the soluble parts in the evapo-
rating dish. All these substances must be
well dried over the fire, as was done with the
soil at first, and each separated part accurate-
ly weighed: the sum of them ought to be
equal to the original portion of soii subjected
to analysis after the water was drawn otf ; but
there always is a loss, even with the most ex-
perienced analyser; this loss will be princi-
pally in the finer parts which are dissipated in
the operation. But the analysis is not yet
completed ; we have separated the sand, clay,
and humus, but there may be a portion of car-
bonate of lime in the form of sand, or of finely
divided earth mixed with the other earths. To
ascertain this, each portion, excepting the hu-
mus, is put into a separate cup, and a little
muriatic acid, diluted with four times its own
weight of water, is poured on it : if there is
any etfervescence, it shows the presence of
carbonate of lime ; diluted acid is then added
gradually, as long as the effervescence is re-
newed by the addition. When this ceases,
and the water continues to have an acid taste,
more pure water is added, and each portion
separately filtered, dried, and weighed. The
loss of weight in each of these gives the quan-
tities of carbonate of lime dissolved by the
muriatic acid, and which has passed with the
water in the form of muriate of lime. The
different weights being now collected, the re-
sult of the operations may be set down. There
may be many mineral substances in the soil,
which this mode of analysing will not detect ;
and some of these may materially affect the
fertility. In most cases there will be some-
thing to indicate the presence of metals. Iron
abounds in most soils : when the quantity is
considerable, it will be detected by pouring a
decoction of gall-nuts into the water which
has washed the earth ; it will immediately be-
come of a bluish dark colour. The other me-
tals are not of frequent occurrence. Sulphate
of lime or gypsum, and also magnesia, are
found in some soils; but the separation of
them can only be effected by those who are
well acquainted with chemistry: they fortu-
nately occur very seldom, and the places
where they are found are generally well
known. For all practical purposes it is suf-
ficient to ascertain the proportion of sand,
clays, carbonate of lime, and humus, which
any soil contains. Many soils which have
been highly manured, contain portions of un-
decomposed vegetable substances, and fibres
of roots : these will be found mixed with the
coarser earths separated by the sifting: not
being a part of the natural soil, they need not
be taken into the account ; but they may be
separated by washing the earths, as they are
much lighter, and will 'Come over in the first
decantations. They may be dried and weighed,
12

and the quantity set down in the result, if it is
desirable. Some very barren sands, contain-
ing very little argillaceous earth or humus,
may readily be known by the copious sandy
deposit which they rapidly malce when dif-
fused through water. Good natural loams are
not so easily judged of; but the preceding
mode of analysis will in general detect their
intrinsic value. When a soil contains peaty
matter, it is easily discovered by the irregular
black particles which are visible in it. Peat
differs from humus only in being in a different
state of decomposition, and containing a con-
siderable portion of tannin : when acted upon
by lime or alkalies, and brought into a state
of greater decomposition, it is not to be dis-
tinguished from humus in its qualities. The
only instrutnents absolutely required for the
foregoing atialysis are, in the first place, two
good balances, one capable of weighing a
pound and turning with a grain, and one
weighing two ounces and turning with the
tenth part of a grain. Next, the combination
of sieves which we have described, and which
may easily be made by any tinsmith. But any
sieves of the required fineness, whether of
metal, horse-hair, or silk, provided they be of
the proper texture, will answer the purpose
for a trial. Some earthen or glass jugs, and
two or three glass tubes, 18 inches long, open
at both ends, which may be obtained at any
glass-blower's or chemist's, a glass funnel,
and some filtering paper, will complete the
apparatus. The only chemical substance in-
dispensable to the analysis is some muriatic
acid, commonly called spirit of salt. A little
test-paper to detect acids in the water with
which the soil has been washed, and an infu-
sion of gall-nuts to ascertain the presence of
iron, may be useful. A small glass phial will
serve for the specific gravities. The whole
of these instruments and materials may be
procured for a very small sum. If the fore-
going process is carefully followed, any per-
son, however unaccustomed to chemical ope-
rations, will soon be enabled to satisfy him-
self as to the composition of any soil of which
he desires to know the comparative value. He
must not be disheartened by a few failures at
first However simple every operation mjiy
appear, it requires a little practice and much
patience, if we would come to a very accurate
result. Every portion must be dried to the
same degree before it is weighed : minute por-
tions which adhere to the vessels when dried
must be carefully collected by scraping and
brushing off with a feather : pieces of filtering-
paper and linen must be weighed before they
are used, that small portions of matter a,dher-
ing to them may be ascertained by the in-
crease of weight. By attending to these par-
ticulars, it is surprising how nearly the whole
original weight is accounted for in the sum-
ming up of the separate parts. If this mecha-
nical analysis should be thought lightly of by
experienced chemists, let them only carefully
analyse a portion of soil by this process, and
then another by any more perfect mode, and
compare the importance of the results as re-
gards practical agriculture. The object is to
h2 89

ANALYSIS.

ANALYSIS.

ascertain the productive powers of the soils ;
and for this purpose the separation of the dif-
ferent earths is sufficient, in the present im-
perfect slate of our knowledge of the mysteries
of vegetation. The process which we have
described, simple as it is, may yet be too te-
dious for the farmer who is desirous of speedily
comparing different soils ; and we will indicate
a still simpler method of ascertaining, nearly,
the composition of a soil, and a simple instru-
ment by which it may be done. Take a glass
tube, f ths of an inch in diameter, and three
feet long; fit a cork into one end and set it
upright; fill it half full of pure water; take
nearly as much water as has been poured into
the tube, and mix with it the portion of soil
which is to be examined, in quantity not more
than will occupy 6 inches of the tube ; pour
the mixture rapidly into the tube, and let it
stand in a corner of a room, or supported
upright in any Avay ; in half an hour it may
be examined. The earths will have been de-
posited according to the size and specific gra-
vity of their particles. The portion still sus-
pended in the water may be allowed to settle ;
and there will appear in the tube layers of
sand, clay, and humus, which may be mea-
sured by a scale, and thus the proportion
nearly ascertained. When a farmer is about
to hire a farm of which the quality is not well
known to him, he may be much assisted in his
judgment by this simple experiment, if he has
no time or opportunity for a more accurate
analysis. For the glass tube may be substituted
one of tin or zinc two feet in length, with a
piece of glas's tube a foot long joined to it by
means of a brass collar or ferule with a screw
cut in it, which is cemented to the glass, and
screws on the metal tube ; and thus the instru-
ment may be made more portable. When the
water has been poured off, and the earths
only remain, the cork may be taken out and
the contents pushed out on a plate, by means
of a rod and a plug which exactly fits the inter-
nal diameter of the tube. They may thus be
more particularly examined. The result of
various accurate analyses of soils shows that
the most fertile are composed of nearly equal
quantities of silicious and argillaceous earths
in various states of division, and a certain
proportion of calcareous earth, and of humus
in that state in which it attracts oxygen and
becomes soluble, giving out at the same time
some carbonic acid. No chemist has yet been
able to imitate the process of nature in the
formation of this substance ; and the circum-
stances which are most favourable to it are
not yet fully ascertained. Here is the proper
field for the application of science and accu-
rate chemical analysis. As an example of an
analysis will be useful to those who may ae-
sire to try the proposed method, we will add
one actually made under very unfavourable
circumstances, and without any apparatus ;
the only instrument at hand were scales and

t eights of tolerable accuracy, three glasses a
ot long, and IJ inch in diameter, belonging
to French lamps, a tin coflfee-strainer, a piece
of fine gauze, and a very fine cambric pocket-
handkerchief. A little muriatic acid was ob-
90

tained at the apothecary's. The soil to be
analyzed was taken from a piece of good
arable land on the south side of the slope of
the Jura mountains in Switzerland. Its spe-
cific gravity was taken as described before,
and found to be 2-358 nearly. 500 grains of
the dry soil were stirred in a pint of water,
and set by in a basin. To save time, 500
grains more of the same soil were weighed,
after- having been dried over the fire. It was
well pulverized with the fingers, and sifted
through the coffee-strainer, then through gauze,
and, lastly, through the cambric handkerchief.
Some portion was left behind at each sifting.
The two first portions were washed in the
strainer and the gauze. The residue was sand
of two diflferent degrees of fineness, which,
when dried, weighed, the coarser, 24 grains,
the next, 20 grains. The earth and water
which had passed through the strainer and
the gauze were now strained through the cam-
bric, and left some very fine sand behind,
which, dried, weighed, and added to what had
remained on the cambric, when sifted in a dry
state, weighed 180 grains. All that which had
gone through the cambric was mixed with
water in a jug and stirred about. The heavier
earth subsided, and the lighter was poured in
one of the lamp-glasses, which had a cork
fitted into it, and was placed upright. In
about two minutes there was a deposit, and
the lighter portion was poured into a similar
glass, where it was left some time to settle.
In this a slower deposition took place, and in
about a quarter of an hour the muddy water
was poured off" into the third glass. The three
glasses were placed upright, and left so till the
next day. In the first glass was some very
fine earth, apparently clay ; in the second the
same, but more muddy ; and in the third no-
thing but thin mud. The contents of No. 2
were divided between No. 1 and No. 3, by
pouring off" the muddy part into No. 3 after
some of the pure water had been poured oflT,
and the remaining earth into No. 1; they were
then left to settle. As much water as appeared
quite clear over the sediment was decanted off'.
The sediment was poured on a plate by taking
the cork out of the tube, which was cleaned
with a piece of fine linen, which had been
carefully dried and accurately weighed. The
plates were examined, and some of the lighter
part, which floated on the least agitation, was
poured from one plate to another, until it was
thought that all the humus had been separated.
Most of the water could now be ppured off" the
earths, by inclining the plates gently, without
any muddiness. It was, however, passed
through a piece of filtering-paper, which had
been previously dried and weighed. The
earth was slowly dried, by placing the plates
on the hearth before a good fire, until they
were quite dry, and so hot that they could not
be easily held in the hand. The deposit left
in the jug was poured on a plate, and a little
muddy part, which was observed, was poured
oflf with the water on another. This was again
transferred, and the finer added to that which
was in the second plate. Collecting now all
the separate portions, there were found

ANALYSIS.

Of coarse sand ------ 24

Finer sand ...--- 20

Verv fine sand .----- 180

Clay deposited in the jug, and first plate dried 240

Deposit in the second plate - - - 24

— on the filtering paper . - - 1^

— on tlje linen rag - - . - Oi

490

Leaving 10 grains to be accounted for.

Each portion, except the three last, was now
])ut into a cup, and diluted muriatic acid
})oured over them: an effervescence appeared
in ail of them, which continued on the addition
of diluted acid, and when the contents of the
cups were stirred with a piece of tobacco-pipe
They were left till the next day, when all effer-
vescence ceased, and the calcareous part
seemed entirely dissolved: pure water was
added to dissolve all the muriate of lime which
had been formed. After some lime, the clear
liquor Vas poured off, and the remainder was
.'trained through filtering-paper, and dried on
jilates before the fire. The earths were now
lound to weigh, respectively, 20, 17, 162, and
S2-5 grains, having lost 4, 3, 18, and 57-5
t:rains of calcareous earth dissolved by the
acid. The soil and water which had been put
by in a basin were now repeatedly stirred, and
])oured into a filter, and more water was passed
through the earth to wash out all the soluble
)natter: all the M'ater was boiled down and
• evaporated, and left two grains of a substance
which had the appearance of a gum with a
little lime in It. Thus the loss was reduced
10 eight grains, a very small quantity, consi-
dering the means used in analyzing the soil.
The corrected account, therefore, is as fol-
lows : —

ANALYSIS.

Specific gravity, 2358.

Grains.

(■Coarse
^ Finer -
(.Very fine -

-

20.
17 M99
162 5

-

I Coarse
^ Finer
(.Very fine -

_

^1

_

3V25

-

183

relay -

< Carb. of lime

(.Humus

-

182-5

-

57-5

_

26

Soluble matter

-

2

Loss

-

8

Silicious
sand.

Calcareous
sand.

Impalpable
earth.

Or, in round numbers, — 500

40 per cent. Sand. ■

36 — Clay.

17 — Calcareous earth.

5'5 — Vepeiable earth, or humus.

0*5 — Soluble matter.

From the composition of this soil, it is evi-
dent that it is a most excellent loam, capable
of producing with good tillage and regular
manuring every kind of grain, artificial
grasses, and roots commonly cultivated. The
field from which the soil was taken was
always considered to be of superior quality.
This simple rule will sufl[ice to enable any one
to analyze any soil of which he desires to know
the component parts, so far as they affect the
general fertility. To ascertain minute por-
tions of salts or metals, or any peculiar im-
pregnation of the waters, must be left to
practical chemists. To those who may be in-
clined to try the analysis of soils, it may be
interesting to compare the results of their own
experiments with some which have been ob-
tained with great care. Thaer in his very ex-
cellent work on Rational Husbandry, wxiiien in
German and translated into French, has given
a table in which different soils analyzed by
him are classed according to their compara-
tive fertility, which is expressed in numbers,
100 being the most fertile.

No.

Ctay.

Sud.

Carb. or
Linie.

74

10

4

81

6

4

79

10

4

40

22

36

14

49

10

20

67

3

1

58

36

3

56

30

12

60

38

10

48

50

«i

68

30

0.3

12

38

60

M O

13

33

65

' - » [

14

28

70

>.«

m

75

V o

16

16*

80

1>^J

Fioelv diTided

Orguiic MaU«r,

or HumiM.

11*

H

4

10
4
2
2
2
2
3
2
3
li
U

Comptrative
ValM.

1001
90j

Ricb alluTial soils.

C The value of this could not be fixed, as it was
\ grass land ; perhaps bog-earth

Good wheat and barley lands.

Barley land not fit for wheat.

Poor sand, fit only for oats or buckwheat.

The above table is the result of very patient
investigation, the natural fertility of each soil
being ascertained by its average produce with
common tillage and manuring.

[In describing his new method of analyzing
soils, Dr. Dana, the distinguished American
chemist, sets out by stating that geine consti-
tutes the basis of all the nourishing part of
vegetable manures. By the term geine, he
means all the decomposed organic matter of
'he soil, chiefly derived from decayed vegetable
matter. Animal substances, he says, produce
a similar compound containing azote or nitro-

gen. There may be undecomposed vegetable
fibres so minutely divided as to pass through
the sieve, but as one object of this operation
is to free the soil from vegetable fibre, the por-
tion will be quite inconsiderable, and can only
affect the amount of insoluble geine. When
so minutely divided, it will probably pass into
soluble geine in a season's cultivation. Geine,
or the vegetable nourishing matter of soils,
exists in two states, in one of which it is solu-
ble in water, &c., whilst in the insoluble state
it resists the solvent power of water. Soluble
geine he considers the immediate food of grow-

91

ANALYSIS.

ANALYSIS.

ing plants, whilst insoluble geine becomes
food after sufficient exposure to air and mois-
ture. Hence the reason and result of till-
age.

Rules of Analysis. — " 1. Sift the soil through
a fine sieve. Take the fine part ; bake it just
up to browning paper.

"2. Boil 100 grains of the baked soil, with
50 grains of pearl ashes, saleratus or carbonate
of soda, in four ounces of water, for half an
hour ; let it settle ; decant the clear ; wash the
grounds with four ounces boiling water ; throw
all on a weighed filter, previously dried at the
same temperature as was the soil, (1) ; wash
till colourless water returns. Mix all these
liquors. It is a brown-coloured solution of all
the soluble geine. All sulphates have been
converted into carbonates, and with any phos-
phates, are on the filter. Dry therefore that,
with its contents, at the same heat as before.
Weigh — the loss is soluble geine.

" 3. If you wish to examine the geine ; pre-
cipitate the alkaline solution with excess of
lime-water. The geate of lime will rapidly
subside, and if lime-water enough has been
added, the nitrous liquor will be colourless.
Collect the geate of lime on a filter ; wash with
a little acetic or very dilute muriatic acid, and
you have geine quite pure. Dry and weigh.

"4. Replace on a funnel the filter (2) and
its earthy contents ; wash with two drachms
muriatic acid, diluted with three times its bulk
of cold water. Wash till tasteless. The car-
bonate and phosphate of lime will be dissolved
with a little iron, which has resulted from the
decomposition of any salts of iron, beside a
little oxide of iron. The alumina will be
scarcely touched. We may estimate all as
salts of lime. Evaporate the muriatic solution
to dryness, weigh and dissolve in boiling
water. The insoluble will be phosphate of
lime. Weigh — the loss is the sulphate of
lime ; (I make no allowance here for the dif-
ference in atomic weights of the acids, as the
result is of no consequence in this analysis.)

"5. The earthy residuum, if of a grayish
white colour, contains no insoluble geine — test
it by burning a weighed small quantity on a
hot shovel — if the odour of burning peat is
given off, the presence of insoluble geine
is indicated. If so, calcine the earthy resi-
duum and its filter — the loss of weight will
give the insoluble geine ; that part M'hich air
and moisture, time and lime, will convert into
soluble vegetable food. Any error here will
be due to the loss of water in a hydrate, if one
be present, but these exist in too small quan-
tities in 'granitic sand' to affect the result.
The actual w^eight of the residuary mass is
* granitic sand.'

" The clay, mica, quartz, &c., are easily dis-
tinguished. If your soil is calcareous, which
may be easily tested by acids ; then before
proceeding to this analysis, boil 100 grains in
^ pint of water, filter and dry as before, the
Woss of weight is due to the sulphate of lime,
Tven the sulphate of iron may be so consider-
ed ; for the ultimate result in cultivation is to
convert this into sulphate of lime.

" Test the soil with muriatic acid, and having
thus removed the lime, proceed as before, to
92

determine the geine and insoluble vegetable
matter.

" In applying Dr. Dana's rules given in the
text, to the soils of Massachusetts, I found it
necessary to adopt some method of carrying
forward several processes together. I accord-
ingly made ten compartments upon a table,
each provided with apparatus for filtering and
precipitations, also ten numbered flasks, ten
evaporating dishes, and a piece of sheet-iron
pierced with ten holes, for receiving the same
number of crucibles. I provided, also, a sheet-
iron oven, with a tin bottom large enough to
admit ten filters, arranged in proper order, and
a hole in the top to admit a thermometer. The
sand bath was also made large enough for
receiving the ten flasks. In this manner I was
able to conduct ten processes with almost as
great facility as one could have been carried
forward in the usual way."

As before stated. Dr. Dana regards geine as
the basis of all the nourishing part of vegetable
manures. The relations of soils to heat and
moisture, he says, " depend chiefly on geine.
It is in fact, under its three states of ' vegetable
extract, geine, and carbonaceous mould,' the
principle which gives fertility to soils long
after the action of common manures has
ceased. In these three states it is essentially
the same. The experiments of Saussure have
long ago proved that air and moisture convert
insoluble into soluble geine. Of all the pro-
blems to be solved by agricultural chemistry,
none is of so great practical importance as the
determination of the quantity o? soluble and
insoluble geine in soils. This is a question of
much higher importance than the nature and
proportions of the earthy constituents and
soluble salts of soils. It lies at the foundation
of all successful cultivation. Its importance
has been not so much overlooked as under-
valued. Hence, on this point the least light
has been reflected from the labours of Davy
and Chaptal. It needs but a glance at an}'
analysis of soils, published in the books, to see
that fertility depends not on the proportion of
the earthy ingredients. Among the few facts,
best established in chemical agriculture, are
these : that a soil, whose earthy part is com-
posed wholly, or chiefl)'', of one earth ; or any
soil, with excess of salts, is always barren ;
and that plants grow equally well in all soils,
destitute of geine, up to the period of fructifica-
tion,— failing of geine, the fruit fails, the plants
die. Earths, and salts, and geine, constitute,
then, all that is essential; and soils will be
fertile, in proportion as the last is mixed with
the first. The earths are the plates, the salts
the seasoning, the geine the food of plants.
The salts can be varied but very little in their
proportions, without injury. The earths admit
of wide variety in their nature and proportions.
I would resolve all into 'granitic sand;' by
which I mean the finely divided, almost impal-
pable mixture of the detritus of granite, gneiss,
mica-slate, sienite, and argillite ; the last,
giving by analysis, a compound very similar
to the former. When we look at the analysis
of vegetables, we find these inorganic prin-
ciples constant constituents — silica, lime, mag-
nesia, oxide of iron, potash, soda, and sulphuric

ANALYSIS.

ANBURT.

and phosphoric acids. Hence, these will be
found constituents of all soils. The phosphates
have been overlooked from the known diffi-
culty of detecting phosphoric acid. Phosphate
of lime is so easily soluble when combined
with mucilage or gelatine, that it is among the
first principles of soils exhausted. Doubtless
the good effects, the lasting effects, of bone
manure, depend more on the phosphate of
lime, than on its animal portion. Though the
same plants growing in different soils are
found to yield variable quantities of the salts
and earthy compounds ; yet I believe, that ac-
curate analysis will show, that similar parts of
the same species, at the same age, always
contain the inorganic principles above named,
when grown in soils arising from the natural
decomposition of granite rocks. These inor-
ganic substances will be found not only in
Constant quantity, but always in definite pro-
portion to the vegetable portion of each plant.
The effect of cultivation may depend, there-
fore, much more on the introduction of salt?
ttian has been generally supposed. The salts
Introduce new breeds. So long as the salts
and earths exist in the soil, so long will they
form voltaic batteries with the rooLs of grow-
ing plants; by which, the * grantic sand' is
decomposed and the nascent earths, in this
•tate readily soluble, are taken up by the ab-
•orbents of the roots, always a living, never a
mechanical operation. Hence, so long as the
soil is granitic, using the term as above defined,
80 long is it as good as on the day of its depo-
sition ; salts^nd geine may vary, and must be
modified by cultivation. The universal diffu-
sion of granitic diluvium will always afford
enough of the earthy ingredients. The fertile
characterof soils, I presume, will not be found
dependent on any particular rock formation
to which it reposes. Modified they may be, to
a certain extent, by peculiar formations; but
all our grantic rocks afford, when decomposed,
all those inorganic principles which plants
demand. This is so true, that on this point
Ae farmer already knows all that chemistry
can teach him. Clay and sand, every one
knows: a soil too sandy, too clayey, may be
modified by mixture, but the best possible
mixture does not give fertility. That depends
dn salts and geine. If these views are correct,
the few properties of geine which I have men-
tioned, will lead us at once to a simple and
Accurate mode of analyzing soils, — a mode,
%hich determines at once the value of a soil,
lh)m its quantity of soluble and insoluble
fKgetable nutriment, — a mode, requiring no
•krray of apparatus, nor delicate experimental
•act,— one, which the country gentleman may
tepply with very great accuracy ; and, with a
little modification, perfectly within the reach
■" * any man who can drive a team or hold a
ough."]

ANALYSIS OF VEGETABLES. The pro-
cess or means by which such bodies are re-
solved into their constituent or elementary
principles. (See Chemistrt, or Ybobtabi.x
Chkmistrt.)

ANBURY. In farriery, a kind of wen, or
spongy soft tumour or wart, commonly full of
blood, growing on any part of an animal's

P

body. Substances of this kind may be re-
moved either by means of ligatures being
passed round their bases, or by the knife, and
the subsetiuent application of some caustic
material, in order to eliectually destroy the
parts from which they arise.

ANBURY, THE, AMBURY, HANBURY,
or CLUB-ROOT. The anbury, the correct
name, is evidently derived from the Saxon
word ambre, a wart, suffused with blood, to
which horses are subject. In Holderness, a
district of Yorkshire, this disease is known as
" fingers and toes," from its causing the top
root of the turnip to be divided into swollen
fibres, resembling those members of the human
body. On this, Mr. Spence, the entomologist,
wrote a very sensible pamphlet, entitled " Ob-
servations on the Diseases in Turnips, termed
in Holderness Fingers and Toes, Hull, 1812."
The deficiency of knowledge relative to the
diseases of plants is well illustrated by the
imperfect and inaccurate observations that
have been adventured upon this disease.
Where there is much difference of opinion
there is little real knowledge, and both these
are certainly the case in the instance before
us. Some cultivators assert that the disease
arises from a variableness and unfavourable
state of the seasons ; a second party of theorists
advance, that it is caused by insects ; and a
third, that it is owing to a too frequent growth
of the same crop upon the same site. Every
man having formed an opinion, usually clings
to it pertinaciously, and sets its estimate far
above its real value or correctness. "It is
with our opinions as our watches, none go just
alike, yet each believes his own." The chief
error appears to be in considering any of the
above enumerated causes as the exclusive
one ; for beyond doubt they each contribute,
either immediately or remotely, to induce or
exasperate the attacks of the anbury. [The
disease attacks the hollyhock, and other plants,
especially those belonging to the brassica or
cabbage family.] Cabbage-plants are fre-
quently infected with anbury in the seed-bed,
and this incipient infection appears in the form
of a gall or wart upon the stem, immediately
in the vicinity of the roots; if this wart is
opened it will be found to contain a small
white maggot, the larva of a small insect called
the weevil. If the gall and its tenant being
removed, the plant is placed again in the earth
where it is to remain unless it is again at-
tacked, the wound usually heals, and the
growth is little retarded. On the other hand,
if the gall is left undisturbed, the maggot con-
tinues to feed upon the alburnum, or young
woody part of the stem, until the period arrives
for its passing into the other insect form, pre-
viously to which it gnaws its way out through
the exterior bark. The disease is now almost
beyond the power of remedies, the gall, in-
creased in size, encircles the whole stem ; the
alburnum being so extensively destroyed, pre-
vents the sap ascending, consequently, in dry
weather, sufficient moisture is not supplied
from the roots, to counterbalance the transpi-
ration of the leaves, and the diseased plant is
very discernible among its healthy compa-
nions, by its pallid hue and flagging foliage.

93

ANBURY.

ANBURY.

The disease now makes rapid progress ; the
swelling continues to increase ; for the vessels
of the alburnum and the bark continue to
afford their juices faster than they can be con-
veyed away. Moisture and air are admitted to
the interior of the excrescence through the per-
foration made by the maggot; the wounded
vessels ulcerate, putrefaction supervenes, and
death concludes the stinted existence of the
miserable plant. The tumour usually attains
the size of a large hen's egg, has a rugged,
ichorous, and even mouldy surface, smelling
strong and offensively. The fibrous roots, be-
sides being generally thickened, are distorted
and monstrous, from swellings which appear
throughout their length, which apparently
arise from an effort of nature to form recep-
tacles for the sap, deprived as it is of its natural
spissation in the leaves. These swellings do
not seem to arise immediately from the attacks
of the weevil, for I have never observed them
containing its larva. Mr. Marshall very cor-
rectly describes the form which this disease
assumes when it attacks the turnip. It is a
large excrescence appearing below the bulb ;
growing to the size of both hands, and as soon
as the hard weather sets in, or it is, by its own
nature, brought to maturity, becoming putrid,
and smelling very offensively. On the last day
of August, when the bulbs of the turnips were
about the size of walnuts in the husk, the an-
buries were as big as a goose's egg. These
were irregular and uncouth in their form, with
excrescences resembling the races of ginger
hanging to them. On cutting them, their gene-
ral appearance is that of a hard turnip ; but on
examining them through a magnifier there are
veins, or string-like vessels, dispersed among
the pulp. The smell and taste somewhat
resemble those of turnips, but without their
mildness, having an austere and somewhat
disagreeable flavour resembling that of an old
stringy turnip. The tops of those much affected
turn yellow, and flag with the heat of the sun,
so that in the daytime they are obviously dis-
tinguishable from those which are healthy.
These distortions manifest themselves very
early in the turnip's growth, even before the
rough leaf is much developed. Observation
seems to have ascertained, that if the bulbs
have attained the size of a walnut unaffected,
they do not subsequently become diseased.
Mr. Spence has clearly shown, from established
facts, that the anbury does not arise from any
imperfection of the seed sown : for experience
demonstrates that, in the same field and crop,
the attacks are very partial ; and crops in two
adjoining fields, sown with seed from the same
growth, will one be diseased, and the other
healthy. Secondly, it does not arise from an
unfavourable time of sowing, or from dry, un-
propitious seasons, during their after-growth ;
for on this supposition we might expect that in
all turnip districts the disease would occasion-
ally make its appearance, in consequence of
variations in the period and mode of sowing,
or from following droughts; yet we know that,
i!(jmany parts of the country, it has never been
heard of. Thirdly, it does not arise from the
quality of the soil, for Sir Joseph Banks suffered
from its infecting thin stapled, sandy fields ;
94

whilst all Holderness, which is generally a
strong loamy soil, was found equally liable to
the disease. It is occasioned by the poisonous
wound inflicted by an insect in an early stage
of vegetation, or rather by its insinuating its
egg into the tender plant. The maggot found
in the turnip anbury, is the larva of a weevil
called Curculio pleurostigma by Marsham, and
Rhynchaenus sulcicollis by Gyllenhal. " I have
bred this species of weevil," says Mr. Kirby,
from the knob-like galls on turnips, called the
anbury, and I have little doubt that the same
insects, or a species allied to them, cause the
clubbing of the roots of cabb.iges." (A"tV6y and
Spencers Introduction to Entomohgy.) Marsham
describes the parent as a coleopterous insect,
of a dusky, black colour, with the breast spot-
ted with white, and the length of the body one
line and two-thirds.

A very full description of this insect is in
the Insecta Svecica descripia, of Gyllenhal, vol.
iii. p. 229, under the name of Rhynchxnus sul-
cicollis.

The general experience of farmers and
gardeners upon the subject, testifies that the
anbury of the turnip and cabbage usually at-
tacks these crops when grown for successive
years on the same soil. This is precisely
what might be expected ; for the parent insect
always deposits her eggs in those situations
where her progeny will find their appropriate
food ; and in the fragments of the roots, &c.,
of preceding crops, some of these embryo
ravagers are to be expected. That they never
attack the plants upon a fresh siie is not as-
serted ; Mr. Marshall's statement is evidence
to the contrary ; but it is advanced that the ob-
noxious weevil is most frequently to be ob-
served in soils where the turnip or cabbage
has recently and repeatedly been cultivated.
Another general result of experience is, that
the anbury is most frequently observed in dry
seasons. This is also what might be anticipated,
for insects that inhabit the earth just beneath
its surface are always restricted and checked
in their movements by its abounding in moist-
ure. Moreover, the plants actually affected by
the anbury are more able to contend against
the injury inflicted by the larva of the weevil
by the same copious supply. The develope-
ment of their parts, their growth is more rapid ;
consequently the maggot has not to extend his
ravages so extensively in search of food as in
drier seasons, when the stem is less juicy and
of a smaller growth. In wet periods, also, the
affected plants show less the extent of the in-
jury they have sustained, for their foliage does
not flag ; because their transpirations of watery
particles is less, and their supply of nutriment
from the soil is more free.

In considering the best modes of preventing
the occurrence of the disease, and of palliating
its attacks, it is apparent that any addition to
the soil that rentiers it disagreeable to the
weevil will prevent the visits of this insect.
The gardener has this in his power with but
little difficulty ; for he can keep the vicinity of
his cabbage, cauliflower, and brocoli plants
soaked with water. Mr. Smith, gardener lo
Mr. Bell, of Woolsington in Northumberland,
expresses his conviction, after several years'

ANBURY.

«5Ppericnce, that charcoal dust spread about
half an inch deep upon the surface, and just
mixed with it by the point of a spade, effectu-
ally prevents the occurrence of this disease.
(Trans, of Lon. Hort. Soc. vol. i. art. 2.) That
this would be the case we might have sur-
mised from analogy ; for charcoal dust is offen-
sive to many insects, and is one of the most
powerful preventives of putrefaction known.
Soot, I have reason to believe, from a slight
experience, is as effectual as charcoal dust.
Judging from theoretical reasons, we might
conclude that it would be more specific ; for in
addition to its being like charcoal, finely divid-
ed carbon, it contains ammonia, to which in-
sects have an antipathy. Mr. Drurey, a practi-
cal farmer at Erpingham, in Norfolk, consi-
dered marl a certain preventive of this disease.
He, and several other judicious farmers also,
thought that teathing, that is, giving sheep and
cattle their green food, turnips, &c., upon the
barley stubbles, intended for turnips as the
succeeding crop, will cause the anbury. {Mar-
shall' a Rural Economy of Norfolk, ii. 33, 35.) It
is very evident that it would mix fragments
with the soil that would be liable to contain
the eggs of the weevil. The marl, approved
by Mr. Drurey, is probably the calcareous
marl which occurs at Thorp Market, in the
hundred of North Erpingham ; but as there is
a slight doubt, owing to the deficiency of accu-
racy in the statement, it affords me an opportu-
nity to impress upon agriculturists in general,
the great importance of employing more cer-
tain terms #ian they usually do. What can
be more indefinite than the statement, that
marl is a certain preventive of the anbury ]
For the very first question suggested to the
reader's mind is. What marl is intended? Is it
a chalky marl, or a clay marl 1 is it a mixture
of chalk and clay, or of chalk and silicious
sand ? for all these varieties of marl are known
to agriculture. The want of a correct nomen-
clature is one of the drawbacks and deficiencies
ohecking the improving progress of agriculture.
Few farmers ever thought upon this point, and
still smaller is the number who duly appreciat-
ed its importance ; yet it is an incontrovertible
fact, that no art or science can advance rapidly
«ntil its technical terms are fixed, terse, ex-
pressive, and generally understood. Chemistry
attained a greater aid to its advancement by the
introduction of its new nomenclature by La-
voisier, than by any series of discoveries that
kave since been made on its rapid and brilliant
progress. If a sulphate, an acid, or a metal is
l^entioned, a chemist immediately has a defi-
nite idea of the nature and properties of the
flnbstance alluded to ; but if a loam or marl is
spoken of, would any two farmers agree in their
jiiea of what description of earthy compound
fvas intended ! To make it well understood, a
;^g detail must be added ; and nothing checks
4^ imparting of knowledge more, than the
HBTSon capable of imparting it being conscious
*^hAt he must define every term as he goes on,
and that even then it is doubtful, if he shall
•IHJceed in making himself intelligible. The
very name, anbury, usually applied to the
disease, which is the subject of this paper, is
another proof of the necessity of a reformed

ANBURY.

agricultural nomenclature ; for in Suffolk, the
same title is given to another disease which
merely affects the leaves of the turnip. Sir
Joseph Banks, Mr. Baker of Norfolk, and
others, agree that marl is the best preventive
of anbury. And another evidence of the effi-
cacy of applications to the soil is afforded by
a gentleman in Holderness, a Mr. Brigham,
who had a highly manured clayey ridge, which
he had levelled the year before, and this grew
turnips entirely free of the disease, whilst in
the natural rich loam of the field they were
much infected. Francis Constable, Esq., of
Burton Constable, had a field that had been in
grass twenty years : this he pared, burned and
sowed with turnips, obtaining a crop perfectly
free from the disease. Two white crops were
then taken, after which turnips were again
sown ; a considerable portion of the crop was
then infected with the disease. (Spencers Ob-
servations on the Disease of Turnips, termed in
Holderness Fingers and Toes.) I have myself
tried the efficacy of common salt in preventing
the occurrence of this disease : its tendency
to keep the soil moist, and to irritate the ani-
mal frame, certainly checks the inroads of the
weevil ; and its generally beneficial effects as
a manure enables the plants better to sustain
themselves under the weakening influence of
the disease ; but it is not a decisive preven-
tive.

With regard to the use of salt as a cure for
the disease, I am inclined to think, from the
results of experiments which I have instituted,
that unless the salt be applied very early, it
would be useless ; for the root soon becomes
so diseased as to be entirely past recovery.
(C W. Johnson's Essay on Salt, p. 136.)

I have a strong opinion that a sJight dress-
ing of the. surface soil with a little of the dry
hydro-sulphate of lime, that may now be ob-
tained so readily from the gas-works intro-
duced throughout England, would prevent the
occurrence of the disease, by driving the wee-
vils from the soil. It would probably as
effectually banish the turnip-fly or flea, if
sprinkled over the surface immediately after
the seed is sown. I entertain this opinion of
its efiicacy in preventing the occurrence of
the anbury, from an instance when it was ap-
plied to some broccoli, ignorantly grown upon
a bed where cabbages had as ignorantly been
endeavoured to be produced in successive
crops ; these had invariably failed from the
occurrence of the anbury, but the broccoli was
uninfected. The only cause for this escape
that I could trace was, that just previously to
planting, a little of the hydro-sulphuret of lime
had been dug in. This is a very fetid, power-
ful compound, and must be used with great
caution.

Where dry lime purifiers are employed at
gas-works, it may be obtained in the state of a
dry powder ; but where a liquid mixture of
lime and water is employed, the hydro-sulphu-
ret can only be had in the form of a thick
cream. Of the dry hydro-sulphuret I would
recommend eight bushels per acre to be
spread regularly by hand upon the surface,
after the turnip seed is sown, and before har-
rowing. If the liquid is employed, I would

ANDES GRASS.

ANDES GRASS.

recommend thirty gallons of it to be mixed
with a sufficient quantity of earth or ashes, to
enable it to be spread over an acre in a simi-
lar manner. For cabbages twelve bushels, or
foi;ty-five gallons per acre, would not, proba-
bly, be too much, spread upon the surface,
and turned in with the spade or last ploughing.
Although I specify the quantities as those I
calculate most correct, yet in all experiments
it is best to try various proportions ; three oi'
four bushels may be found sufficient ; perhaps
twelve, or even twenty, may not be too much..
Frequent hoeing has been recommended as a
preventive of this disease ; but I believe this
to be unsustained either by reason or practice.
(G. W, Johnson, Quar. Joum. Agric, vol. vii.
p. 308, et seq.)

[ANDES GRASS. The Holcus avenaceus of
some writers, and Avena elatior of others. Oat
Grass, and sometimes Tall Meadow Grass.
(Plate 5, ee.) A perennial cultivated grass,
flowering in the Middle States ir^ May, and
ripening its seeds in July. {Flor. Cestrica.)
Its name would imply that it came originally
from the mountains of South America, whereas
the English botanists treat of the Holcus avena-
ceus, or Avena elatior, as a native of Britain.
The Andes Grass Was introduced to the notice
of American farmers several years ago, when
its merits were perhaps too highly extolled,
which has contributed to its being now esti-
mated much below its real worth. Perhaps,
too, that those who have reported unfavour-
ably of the value of Andes Grass, have mis-
taken some other plant for it, a very common
occurrence, leading to great discrepancy of
opinion. This grass is certainly highly prized
by many persons in the Middle States, where,
especially in the state of Delaware, it is fre-
quently, though not very extensively, cultivat-
ed. It grows luxuriantly in soils of clay loam,
even of a very light description, affording very
early as well as late pasture. Even an open
spell in winter, with a few warm days, will
start this grass to vegetating so rapidly as to
furnish a good bite to cattle. The grass grows
very tall, and the hay, if left too late before
cutting, is coarse. It grows in tufts, is very-
durable, and extremely difficult to eradicate
from the soil when once well set. This last
circumstance perhaps constitutes the most
common objection to its introduction into
fields and meadows. It stands drought well,
and would probably be found a highly valu-
able grass for southern pastures. It certainly
deserves more attention than it now receives,
and is, we think, destined to be much more ex-
tensively cultivated as a permanent pasture
grass. Its durability renders it unfit for alter-
nate husbandry.

From Colman's Fourth Report of the Agri-
culture of Massachusetts the following pas-
sage is extracted.

" The tall meadow oat {Avena elatior) has
been cultivated in the county. This grass is not
\ familiar to our farmers, but the success which
^has attended its cultivation encourages its ex-
tension. A Virginia farmer of the highest
authority speaks of it, after fifteen years' ex-
perience, as a hardy plant, bearing drought
and frost, heat and cold, better than any other
96

! grass kno-v\Ti to him. A Pennsylvania farmer
I pronounces it of all other grasses the earliest,
I latest, and best for green fodder or hay. It
j blossoms about the middle of June, and is
preferred to all others by horned cattle. It
must be cut seasonably or it becomes hard
like straw. A Middlesex farmer, who has cul-
tivated it several years, and whose authority
is of the highest character, confirms the above
statements of its excellence both for grazing
and hay. He says, from its early flowering it
is adapted to be sown with red clover, and is
fit to be cut about the first of June. His own
account is as follows :

" ' In the spring he sowed with barley a field
of four acres, and put on 2^ bushels of oat-
grass seed, 5 lbs. of red clover, and 2 lbs. of
white clover seed, to the acre. The soil was
thin, and had been exhausted by long crop-
ping. On the 3d of June in the following year
it was cut, and gave two tons to the acre of
the finest and best hay, either for cattle or
horses, he ever had in his barn.'

"He thinks three bushels of seed should be
sown to the acre. It is well adapted for graz-
ing on poor and exhausted lands, as well as
on those of a richer quality. It is a fortnight
earlier than the common grasses, and through-
out the dryest weather exhibits a green ap-
pearance. From three-fourths of an acre, in
good condition, he obtained over 20 bushels
of well-cleaned seed.

" The late John Lowell, a man behind no
other in his intelligent, successful, and disin-
terested efforts to advance the ca«se of an im-
proved agriculture in Massachusetts and New
England generally, says that, 'under his cul-
tivation, it has proved a most valuable grass,
and fully sustained its high character. It is a
very early and tall grass, yielding a good bur-
den. It will start rapidly after cutting. It is
a perennial and enduring grass, and on his
first experiment it lasted seven years without
the necessity of renewal.*

" A farmer in Waltham objects to sowing the
tall meadow oats and the herdsgrass (Timothy)
together, as they do not ripen at the same time.
The tall meadow oats, when I visited him,
would be ready for the scythe in ten days, or
about the middle of June, while the herds-
grass, at the same time, had not begun to show
its head.

" ' This grass — Avena elatior, tall oat grass —
sends forth flower-straws during the whole
season ; the latter math contains nearly an
equal number with the flowering crop. It is
subject to the rust, but the disease does not
make its appearance till after the period of
flowering. It affects the whole plant, and at
the time the seed is ripe the leaves and straws
are withered and dry. This accounts for the
superior value of the latter math over the seed
crop, and points out the propriety of taking
the crop when the grass is in flower. The nu-
tritive matter afforded by this grass, when
made into hay, according to the table is very
small.' (Geo. Sinclair.)

" J. Buel speaks of his * field experiment*
with this grass not being so successful as he
expected — owing partly to the seed not vege-
tating well ; and partly, he supposed, to th«

ANETHUM.

ANIMALS.

soil (a light sandy loam^ not being sufficient-
ly strong and tenacious.

" Taylor, of Virginia, says that, * according
to his experience, it will not succeed in lands
originally wet, however well they are drained.'

"The opinion of the farmers generally in
this county is in favour of cutting herdsgrass
(Timothy) early rather than late ; perhaps for
the reason that the hay is then of a bright
green, and on this account commands in the
city market a higher price. If we can rely
upon chemical examination in determining
the nutritive properties of grasses, it will be
found that the grain in this respect, in cut-
ting herdsgrass when its seed is ripe over cut-
ting it when in flower, is as 86-1 to 37-2."]

ANETHUM. See Dill and Fexnel.

ANEURISM, In farriery, a throbbing tu-
mour, produced by the dilatation of the coats
of an artery in some part of the body of an
animal. Aneurisms in the limbs may be cured
by making an incision, exposing the artery,
and tying it above and below the tumour with
a proper ligature.

ANGELICA (Angelica Archangelica). This
plant was formerly blanched and eaten like
celery ; but at present its tender stalks are the
only part made use of, which are cut in May
for candying.

It grows in gardens, and also wild. It
flowers in July and August in England, and
the roots perish after the seed has ripened.
This plant grows as high as eight feet ; the
stalks robust, and divided into branches. The
flowers are small, and stand in large clusters
of a globular form. Two seeds follow each
flower.

It may be grown in any soil and exposure,
but flourishes best in moist situations ; conse-
quently the banks of ponds, ditches, &.C., are
usually allotted to it. It is propagated by
seed, which is to be sown soon after it is ripe,
about September, being almost useless if pre-
served until the spring, as at that season not
one in forty will be found to have preserved
its vegetative powers ; if, however, it be ne-
glected until that season, the earlier it is in-
serted the better. It may be sown either
broadcast moderately thin, or in drills a foot
asunder, and half an inch deep. When arrived
at a height of five or six inches, they must be
thinned, and those removed transplanted to a
distance of at least two feet and a half from
each other, either in a bed, or on the sides of
ditches, &c., as the leaves extend very wide.
Water in abundance must be given at the time
of removal, as well as until they are establish-
ed; but it is better to discontinue it during their
further growth, unless the application is regu-
lar and frequent. In the May or early June of
the second year they flower, when they must
be cut down, which causes them to sprout
again ; and if this is carefully attended to, they
will continue for three or four years, but if
permitted to run to seed, they perish soon after.
A little seed should be saved annually as a re-
source in case of any accidental destruction
of the crop. ( G. W. Johnson's Kitchen Garden.)

Angelica is fragrant when bruised, and every
part of it is medicinal. The bruised seeds are
the most powerful. They are cordial and su-
13

dorific. Three table-spoonfuls of the distilled
water is a remedy for flatulence and pains in
the stomach. A paste of the fresh root of an-
gelica, beaten up in vinegar used to be carried
by physicians in times of great contagion, to
apply to the nose. Some preferred holding a
dry piece in their mouths, to resist infection.
It has always been celebrated against pestilen-
tial and contagious diseases. The stalks of
the angelica candied are much esteemed in
winter desserts as a sweetmeat in England.
The Laplanders boil or bake the stalks till ex-
tremely tender, and eat them as a delicacy.
The seeds bruised are cordial, stomachic, and
sudorific. (L. Johnson.)

ANGINA. In farriery, a name sometimes
applied to the quinsy, or what in animals is
termed anticor.

ANGLE-BERRY. In farriery, a sort of fleshy
excrescence, to which cattle and some other
animals are subject under different circum-
stances ; and are supposed to proceed from a
rupture of the cutaneous vessels, which give
vent to a matter capable of forming a sarcoma^
or fleshy excrescence. They frequently appear
upon the belly and adjacent parts, hanging
down in a pendulous manner.

ANGORA GOAT. A particular species of
goat

ANIMAL. A creature that is endowed with
life, and commonly with spontaneous motion,
though in some cases without it. They are
distinguished in general from vegetables by
having motion, though this gives us no perfect
definition, as there are entire classes of ani-
mals which are fixed to a place, as the litho'
phytes and zoophytes, which are produced and
die upon the same spot ; and on the other hand,
certain vegetables have as much motion in
their leaves and flowers as certain animals.
However, by attending to the most general
characters, they may be defined to be bodies
endued with sensation and motion necessary
to preserve their life. They are all capable
of reproducing their like : some by the union
of the sexes, produce small living creatures;
others lay eggs, which require a due tempera-
ture to produce young ; some multiply without
conjunction of the sexes ; and others are re-
produced when cut in pieces like the roots of
plants. (See Botany ; also a series of articles
on the "History of British Animals," Quart.
Joum. Agric, vol. i. pp. 219 — 537, and vol. ii.
p. 637.)

ANIMALS, DANGEROUS. See NrisANci:.

ANIMALS, WILD, STEALING OF. In
England no larceny at common law (says Mr.
Archbold in his Crim. Law, p. 165) can be
committed of such animals, in which there is
no property either absolute or qualified ; as of
beasts that are ferse naturae, and unreclaimed,
such as deer, hares, and conies, in a forest,
chase, or warren ; fish, in an open river or
pond ; or wild fowls, rooks for instance (Han-
man V. Hockett, 2 B. & C. 934; 4 D. & R. 518),
at their natural liberty. {\Hale,b\\; Post.
366.) But if they are reclaimed or confined,
and may serve for food, it is otherwise ; for of
deer so enclosed in a park that they may be
taken at pleasure, fish in a trunk or net, and
pheasants or partridges in a mew, larceny may
I 97

ANIMALS.

ANIMAL MANURES.

be committed. (1 Hale, 511; 1 Haivk.c.ZZ,
s. 39.) Swans, it is said, if lawfully marked,
are the subject of larceny at common law, al-
thous^h at large in a public river (JDalt. Just.
c. 156); or whether marked or not if they
be in a private river or pond. {lb.) So,
all valuable domestic animals, as horses, and
all animals dnmitx naturve, which serve for food,
as swine, sheep, poultry, and the like, and the
product of any of them, as egs:s, milk from the
cow while at pasture {Foster, 99), wool pulled
from the sheep's back feloniously {R. v. Martin,
1 Leach, 171), and the flesh of such as are
ftrx naturap, may be the subject of larceny.
(1 Hu/e, 511.) JBut as to all other animals
which do not serve for food, such as dogs, fer-
rets though tame and saleable {R. v. Spearing,
R. & R. x'50), and other creatures kept for
whim and pleasure, stealing these does not
amount to larceny at common law. (1 Hale,
512.) But now, to course, hunt, snare, or carry
away, or kill or wound, or attempt to kill or
wound, any deer kept or being in the enclosed
part of any forest, chase, or purlieu, or in any
enclosed land wherein deer are usually kept, is
felony, punishable as simple larceny; and if
committed in the unenclosed part of any forest,
chase, or purlieu, the first offence is punishable
upon summary conviction by fine not exceed-
ing 50/., and the second after a previous con-
viction is felony, and punishable as simple lar-
ceny. (7 & 8 G. 4, c. 29, s. 27.) Summary
punishment may also be imposed by fine, not
exceeding 20/., upon any person who shall have
in his possession, or upon his premises, with
his knowledge, any deer, or the head, skin, or
other part thereof, or any snare or engine for
the taking of deer, without satisfactorily ac-
counting for such possession (7 & 8 G. 4, c.
29, s. 27) ; or who shall set or use any snare
or engine whatsoever for the purpose of taking
or killing deer in any part of any forest, chase,
or purlieu, whether enclosed or not, or in any
fence or bank dividing the same from any land
adjoining, or in any enclosed land where deer
are usually kept, or shall destroy any part of
the fence of any land where deer are then kept.
(7 & 8 G. 4, c. 29, s. 28.) To take or kill hares
or coneys in the night-time, in any warren or
ground lawfully used for the breeding or keep-
ing of the same is a misdemeanor; and to
take and kill them in any warren or ground in
the day-time, or at any time to set any snare
or engine for the taking of them, is punisha-
ble upon summary conviction by fine. (7 &
3 G. 4, c. 29, s. 30.) Stealing dogs, or any
beast or bird ordinarily kept in a state of con-
finement, not being the subject of larceny at
common law (7 & 8 G. 4, c. 29, s. 31) ; know-
ingly being in possession thereof, or of the
skin or plumage thereof (7 & 8 G. 4, c. 29,
s. 32); killing, wounding, or taking any dove-
house pigeon, under such circumstances as
shall not amount to larceny at common law
(see R. V. Brooke, 4 C. 6c P. 131 ; 7 & 8 G. 4,
c. 29, s. 33), is punishable upon summary con-
mction by fine, imprisonment, and whipping,
according to the nature of the offence. So, to
take or destroy any fish in any water which
shall run through, or be in any land adjoining
or belonging to the dweIling»house of any per-
98

f son, being the owner of such water, and having
I a right of fishery therein, is a misdemeanor;
; and to take aud destroy fish in any other water,
I being private property, or in which there shall
j be any private right of fishery ; and to destroy
I fish by angling, in the day-time, in either de-
I scription of water is punishable upon summa-
! ry conviction by fine, varying according to the
j nature of the offence. (7 & 8 G. 4, c. 29,' s. 34.)
' And, lastly, to steal any oyster or oyster brood
from any oyster bed, laying, or fishery, being
the property of another, and sufHciently marked
out or known as such, is larceny ; and to use
any dredge or any net, instrument or engine
whatsoever within the limits of such oyster
fishery for the purpose of taking oysters or
oyster brood, although none be taken, or to
drag upon the soil of any such fishery with
any net, instrument, or engine, is a misde-
meanor. (7 & 8 G. 4, c. 29, s. 36.)

ANIMAL CHEMISTRY. See Chkmistry.

ANIMAL MANURES. For the information
I have to furnish with regard to animal ma-
nures, I must refer the farmer to other heads
of this work, .such as Farm-yard Ma^jure,
Night-soil, Boxjes, Lia^'in Manure, Fish,
&c. A very elaborate paper by Dr. C. Spren-
gel, translated by Mr. Hudson, will be found
in the Journal of the Roy. Ag. i<oc. of Eng., vol.
i. p. 455, and to that I am indebted for most of
the general observations on animal manures
in this article. The excrements of animals
vary with the age of the animal, its food, &c.
That of young animals is poorer than that of
the aged, for the young and growing animal
requires, for its nourishment and increase in
size, a greater proportion of the phosphate of
lime, and other solid ingredients of its food,
than the more aged animal, because the excre-
ments or refuse matters of the vegetables con-
sumed are proportionately diminished in quan-
tity and in richness. The richer the food, too,
the better is the quality of the manure. That
from animals fed upon oil-cake is the richest;
then that from corn-fed animals ; then that
from green crops, hay ; and, lastly, that from
straw-yard cattle is decidedly the poorest.
Then again the water consumed by animals to
some extent influences the quantity of their
manure. In the water usually drank by an
ox, amounting daily to about 80 lbs., is often
found from half an ounce to an ounce of sa-
line matter. These consist of gypsum, com-
mon salt, carbonate of lime, and carbonate of
magnesia. " It may be always regarded," as
is observed by M. Sprengel, *'as an indication
that the excrements of animals contain many
powerfully manuring substances when they
pass quickly into the putrefactive state, and
develope a large quantity of the oflensive gases,
ammonia ; for in such cases they contain not
only much sulphur, phosphorus, and nitrogen,
but an abundance also of chlorine, soda, pot-
ash, lime, and magnesia, the whole of which
are so much the more important in vegetation,
as the soil manured with the excrements is
deficient in these particular substances."

The mode in which animal fertilizers ope-
rate, varies, however, according to their chemi-
cal composition. Some are enriching from
possessing peculiar saline substances, which

ANIMAL POISONS.

AJOU CABBAGE.

'j«re direct food for plants. Thus bones abound
' with phosphate of lime. Night-soil and urine
do the same. Farm-yard compost contains
all the essential ingredients of the farmer's
crops, and they all copiously yield, by their
decomposition, the gases of putrefaction,
* such as the carburetted hydrogen, and car-
bonic acid gas, as well as various easily
decomposible salts of ammonia; all of which
are found to be highly nourishing when
applied to the roots of the plants, or even to
tl\eir leaves. And, in fact, some of the most
powerful of the animal fertilizers, such as
train-oil, whale-blubber, &c., can yield the
plant nothing else : they do not contain either
saline or earthy matters. It is their gaseous
elements only, therefore, which, when applied
to the roots of vegetables, produces such a
rankness of growth, such a dark green, as the
farmer invariably finds to follow in moist sea-
sons from their use.

The quantity of animal manures employed
in England besides that produced by the
farmer's live stock, is annually increasing, and
it is a happy circumstance that it is so. Not
only are sprats and other cheap fi-^h hMn.ri.t ^p
in every direction, but all nori le,

and even the South Sea, is search ms;

refuse train oil, and greaves are, to a conside-
rable extent, also used, and there are several
manufactories in the metropolis for the prepa-
ration of manure powders of an animal de-
scription, such as the urate of the London Ma-
nure Company, and the disinfected night-soil
of M. Poittevin. These are both, especially
the first, powerful enrichers, and are admirably
adapted for application by the drill.

ANIMAL POISONS. Several animals are
furnished with liquid juices of a poisonous
nature, which, when injected into fresh wounds,
occasion the disease or death of the wounded
animal. Well known examples are furnished
by the sting of serpents, bees, scorpions, spi-
ders, &c. The poison of the viper is a yellow
liquid, which lodges in two small vesicles in
the animal's mouth. These communicate by a
tube with the crooked fangs which are hollow,
and terminate in a small cavity. When the ani-
mal bites, the vesicles are squeezed, and the
poison forced through the fangs into the
wound. This poisonous juice occasions the
fatal effects of the viper's bite. If the vesi-
cles be extracted, or the liquid prevented from
flowing into the wound, the bite is harmless.
It has a yellow colour, resembling gum, but no
taste ; and when applied to the tongue occa-
sions numbness. The poison of the viper,
and of serpents in general, is most hurtful
when mixed with the blood. Taken into the
stomach, it kills if the quantity be considera-
ble. Fontana has ascertained that its fatal ef-
fects are proportional to its quantity compared
with the quantity of the blood. Hence the
danger diminishes as the size of the animal
increases. Small birds and quadrupeds die
immediately when they are bitten by a viper ;
but to an adult the bite seldom proves fatal.
•'Sweet oil," says Mr. Beckford, "has long
been esteemed as a certain antidote to the bite
l^f a viper ; some should be applied to the part,
«|uad some taken inwardly ; but* the common

cheese-rennet, externally applied, is asserted to
be a more efficacious remedy than oil. Ammo-
nia, or spirits of hartshorn, has also been pro-
posed as an antidote. It was introduced in con-
sequence of the theory of Dr. Mead, that the
poison was of an acid nature. The numerous
trials of that medicine by Fontana robbed it
of all its celebrity ; but it has been lately re-
vived and recommended by Dr. Ramsayas a
certain cure for the bite of the rattlesnake."
{PhiL Mug. vol. xvii. p. 125.)

The venom of the bee and the wasp is also
a liquid contained in a small vesicle, forced
through the hollow tube of the sting into the
wound inflicted by that instrument. From the
experiments of Fontana we learn that it bears
a striking reseniblance to the poison of the
viper. That of the bee is much longer in
drying when exposed to the air than the venom
of the wasp. The sting of the bee should be
immediately extracted ; and the best applica-
tion is opium, and olive oil ; one drachm of
the former finely powdered, rubbed down with
an ounce of the latter, and applied to the part
affected by means of lint, which should be
frequently renewed. (See Bke.) The poison
of the scorpion resembles tliat of the viper.
But its taste is hot and acid, which is the case
also with the venom of the bee and the wasp.
No experiments upon which we can rely have
been made upon the poison of the spider
tribe. From the rapidity with which these
animals destroy their prey, and even one
another, we cannot doubt that their poison is
sufficiently virulent. (Mead and Fontana on
Poisons; Thunisons Chem. vol. i v. pp. 531 —
533.)

[Soft poultices of fresh flesh, bread and milk,
or in the absence o^ these, even mud, are excel-
lent applications to stings of insects and even
the bites of the most venomous snakes. The
vaunted specifics recommended in such cases
for internal use, are not to be compared in effi-
cacy with the timely application of a poultice of
the flesh of a chicken or other animal recently
killed. The flesh of the rattle-snake itself is in
some parts of America reckoned to possess spe-
cific virtues, and doubtless will answer nearly,
if not quite as well, as any other good soft and
moist poultice, which will seldom fail to effect
a cure when promptly applied and frequently
renewed. In this way the irritation and in-
flammation induced by the poison in the part
bitten is often arrested at once, and prevented
from extending to vital parts. These conclu-
sions are the results of experiments made with
the poison of the rattle-snake, in which the
most celebrated Indian and "other specifics
were used with little if any advantage.]

ANJOU CABBAGE. An excellent vege-
table both for the kitchen and the food of cattle.
The great Anjou cabbage, said the Marquis
de Turbilly, is one of the most useful legumin-
ous plants for country use. It will grow in
almost any soil, not excepting even the most
indifferent, provided it be sufficiently dunged.
The seeds of this cabbage are commonly sown
in June, in a quarter of good mould, in the
kitchen-garden, and watered from time to time
in case of drought. The plants will rise pretty
speedily, and should be thinned soon after,

99

ANNONA.

ANNOTTA.

■wherever they stand too thick. The next care
is to keep them free from weeds whilst they
continue, by hoeing the ground between them.
About the first of November (probably Sep-
tember or October would be better in this cli-
mate), they should be transplanted into the
field where they are to remain. They should
be planted there in trenches dug with a spade,
pretty deep; that is, they should be buried
almost up to the leaves. The distance between
them should be two feet or two feet and a half
every way, according to the soil. Particular
care should be taken never to plant them with
a dibble, as gardeners plant other sorts of cab-
bages. A layer of dung should be spread along
the bottom of the trench, and the roots of the
transplanted cabbages covered therewith. The
mould taken out should then be returned back
upon the dung ; and, as the trench will then
no longer hold il> all, there will remain a ridge
between each row of cabbages. Towards the
middle of the ensuing May, the ground should
be well stirred between the plants with a spade,
or some other proper instrument, and its whole
surface laid quite level. After this, nothing
more remains to be done, except pulling up
the weeds, from time to time, as they appear.

In the month of June, such of these cabbages
as are already large, and do not turn in their
leaves for cabbaging, but still continue green,
begin to be fit for use, and soon arrive at their
full perfection, which they retain till the next
spring, when they begin to run up, and after-
wards blossom. Their seeds ripen towards
the end of July, and what is intended for sow-
ing should then be gathered. In Anjou, when
these cabbages are entirely run up, they gene-
rally grow to the height of seven or eight feet ;
sometimes they reach to eight feet and a half,
or nine feet ; nay, some have even been seen
of a greater height. From the month of June,
when these cabbages begin to be fit for use,
their leaves are gathered from time to time,
and they shoot out again. They are large,
excellent food, and so tender that they are
dressed with a moment's boiling. They never
occasion any flatulencies or uneasiness in the
stomach ; and are also very good for cattle,
which eat them greedily. They likewise
greatly increase the milk of cows. Such are
the properties of this kind of cabbage, which
is greatly esteemed in the districts formerly
denominated Anjou, Poitou, Brittany, Le Maine,
and some other neighbouring provinces. In
the first, fanners were formerly bound by their
leases to plant early a certain number of these
cabbages, and to leave a certain number of
them standing when they quitted their farms.

ANNONA {Triloba). The North American
Papaw. This is the only sort which will grow
in the open air in England. [See Papaw.]

ANNOTTA, or ARNOTTA (Fr. rocou ;
Ger. orlean ; It. oriana). In rural economy,
anatto or amatto, for it is written in various
ways, is a colouring substance, or dye, ob-
tained from the skin or pulp of the kernel of
th^i^Bixa orellana of South America and the
Wfet Indies.

Of the preparation of this matter from the
red pulp which covers the seeds, Mr. Miller
ghres the following account : — The contents of
100

the fruit are taken out and thrown into a
wooden vessel, where as much hot water is
poured upon them as is necessary to suspend
the red powder or pulp, and this is gradually
washed off with the assistance of the hand, or
of a spatula, or spoon. When the seeds appear
quite naked, they are taken out, and the wash
is left to settle ; after which the water is gently
poured away, and the sediment put into shal-
low vessels to be dried by degrees in the shade.
After acquiring a due consistence, it is made
into balls or cakes, (which are known in com-
merce as the flag, or cake, and roll arnotta, and
comes chiefly from Cayenne,) and set to dry in
an airy place until it be perfectly firm. Some
persons first pound the contents of the fruit
with wooden pestles ; then, covering them
with water, leave them to steep six days.
This liquor being passed through a coarse
sieve, and afterwards through three finer ones,
it is again put into the vat or wooden vessel,
and left to ferment a week ; it is then boiled
until it be pretty thick, and when cool spread
out to dry, and afterwards made up into balls,
which are usually wrapped up in banana
leaves.

Arnotta, when of good quality, is of the co-
lour of fire, bright within, soft to the touch, and
capable of being dissolved in water. But the
substance commonly met with under this name
is a preparation made by the druggists, in
which madder is probably a principal ingre-
dient ; it is of a brick colour, and a hard com-
pact texture. Arnotta is much used in Glou-
cestershire, and other cheese counties, and in
the butter dairies. The method of using the
soft, or genuine sort, is simply by dissolving
such a quantity as is necessary in a small por-
tion of milk ; allowing such particles as will
not dissolve to settle to the bottom. The milk
thus coloured is then poured off, and mixed
with that which is to be made into cheese.
But when the hard preparation is used, pieces
of it are frequently under the necessity of being
rubbed against a hard, smooth, even-faced
pebble, or other stone, being previously wetted
with milk to forward the levigation, and to
collect the particles as they are loosened. For
this purpose, a dish of milk is generally placed
upon the cheese-ladder ; and, as the stone be-
comes loaded with levigated matter, the pieces
are dipped in the milk from time to time, until
the milk in the dish appear to be sufficiently
coloured. The stone and the " colouring"
being washed clean in the milk, it is stirred
briskly about in the dish ; and, having stood a
few minutes for the suspended particles of
colouring-matter to settle, is returned into the
cheese-cowl ; pouring it off gently, so as to
leave any sediment which may have fallen
down in the bottom of the dish. The grounds
are then rubbed with the finger on the bottom
of the dish, and fresh milk added, until all the
finer particles be suspended: and in this the
skill in colouring principally consists. If any
fragments have been broken off in the opera-
tion, they remain at the bottom of the dish :
hence the superiority of a hard closely-textured
material, which will not break off or crumble
in rubbing. The decoction of arnotta has a
■peculiar smelt and a disagreeable flavour. An

ANNUAL MEADOW-GRASS.

ANTHOXANTHUM ODOIL\TUM.

ounce of arnotta will colour about twenty
cheeses of 10 or 12 lbs. each. The rolls
usually weigh 2 or 3 oz. each. In Gloucester-
shire, it is usual to allow 1 oz. to a cwt. of
cheese; in Cheshire, 8 pennyweights to a
cheese of 60 lbs. By the Spanish Americans,
it is mixed with their chocolate. The average
annual import of arnotta [into England] in
the three years ending in 1831, was 128,528
lbs. (Comp. Farm. i M'Culloch'sCom.Dict..-
Gray's Supplement ; Loudon^ s Encyc. ,- Thom-
son's Chem.)

ANNUAL MEADOW-GRASS. See Poa
Ajtnua.

ANNUAL PLANTS. Such as are only of
one year's duration, or which come up in the
spring and die in the autumn. They are fre-
quently denominated simply annuals. Wheat,
oats, barley, beans, peas, &C., are of this kind.

ANNULAR, Having the form or resem-
blance of a ring. This appearance is observed
in the wood of some kinds of trees after they
have been cut down; and in the horns of
cattle and sheep, by which their ages may in
some measure be ascertained.

ANODYNE. In farriery, a term applied
to such medicines as ease pain and procure
sleep.

ANOREXY. In farriery, a term applied to
a want of appetite.

ANT. A sort of insect, extremely injurious
to pasture lands and gardens ; in the former
by throwing up hills, and in the latter by feed-
ing on the fruit, &c. The best methods of
keeping them from trees, are those of having
the earth round them constantly dug up, and
the application of saw-dust, coal-ashes, or
other matters of the same kind, about their
roots. The same purpose may be effected by
covering the bottom part of the trees with tar ;
but, as it is prejudicial to the trees, night-soil
may, perhaps, answer better; as it is found to
destroy them when spread upon or put into
their hills. A liquor, prepared by boiling rain-
water with black-soap and sulphur, has been
made use of for destroying those animals, it is
said, with considerable success. Where this
liquor is employed, care should be taken that
the ground where they inhabit be perfectly
saturated with iL

ANT-HILLS. The habitations of ants, con-
sisting of little eminences, composed of small
particles of sand or earth, lightly and artfully
laid together. These hills are very detrimental
to the farmer, depriving him of as much land
as the hills cover, which may often be com-
puted at a tenth part, or more, of his grass-
lands. And in some places, where negligence
has suffered them to multiply, almost half of it
has been rendered useless, the hills standing
as thick together as grass-cocks in a hay-field :
and what is very surprising is, that, by some,
this indolence is defended, by affirming, that
th^ area or superficies of their land is thereby
increased; whereas it is well known that very
little or no grass ever grows thereon; and,
therefore, if the surface be increased, the pro-
duce is proportionably decreased.

In order to remove the hills, and destroy the
insects, it has been a custom in some places,"
at the beginning of winter, and often when the

weather was not very cold, to dig up the ant-
hills three or four inches below the surface of
the ground, and then to cut them in pieces, and
scatter the fragments about. But this practice
only disseminates the ants, instead of destroy-
ing them, as they hide themselves among the
roots of the grass for a little time, and then col-
lect themselves together again upon any little
eminence, of which there are great numbers
ready for their purpose, such as the circular-
ridges round the hollows where the hills stood
before. It is, therefore, a much better method
to cut the hills entirely off, rather lower than
the surface of the land, and to let them lie
whole at a little distance, with their bottom up-
wards : by this means the ants, who continue
in their habitations until the rains, running
into their holes of communication, and stag-
nating in the hollows formed by the removal
of the hills and the frosts, which now readily
penetrate, will be destroyed. If a little soot is
sown on the places, it will contribute to the
intended effect. The hills, when rendered
mellow by the frosts, may be broken and dis-
persed about the land. By this method of
cutting off the hills, one other advantage is
gained: the land soon becomes even and tit
for mowing, and the little eminences being re-
moved, the insects are exposed to the rain,
which is destructive to them. In wet weather
these insects are apt to accumulate heaps of
sandy particles among the grass, called by
labourers sprout-hills, which quickly take off
the edge of the scythe. These hills which are
very light and compressible, may be removed
by frequent heavy rolling.

ANTHELMINTIC. In farriery, a term ap-
plied to such remedies as are supposed to
destroy or carry off the worms which lodge ia
the intestines of an animal.

ANTHOXANTHUM ODORATUM. The
sweet-scented vernal grass. [See Pasturb
GRAsgEH, Plate 6, a.] This grass constitutes a
part of the herbage of pastures on almost
every kind of soil, though it only attains to
perfection on those that are deep and moist.
The chief property that gives merit to this
grass is its early growth, though, in this re-
spect, it is inferior to several other species,
which are later in flowering. It thrives best
when combined with many different species,
and is therefore a true permanent pasture
grass. It does not appear to be particularly
liked by cattle, though eaten in pastures in
common with others. Mr. Grant, of Leighton,
laid down a field of considerable extent, one-half
of which was sown with this grass and white
clover, the other half with meadow foxtail and
red clover. The sheep would not touch the
sweet-scented vernal and white clover, but
kept constantly on the foxtail grass, though the
dwarfish nature of the sweet-scented vernal
had occasioned an unusual degree of luxuri-
ance of the white clover with which it was
combined. This would indicate that it is not,
when single, or when combined with but two or
three different species, very grateful to cattle.
The chemical examination of its nutritive
qualities shows, that it does not abound in sac-
charine matter, but chiefly in mucilage ; and
the insoluble extract is in a greater proportion
12 lOl

ANTICOR.

APHERNOUSLI.

than in many other grasses. Its merits, how-
ever, in respect to early growth, continuing to
vegetate and throw up flowering stalks till the
end of autumn, and its hardy and permanent
nature, sufficiently uphold its claim to a place
in the composition of all permanent pastures.
The superior nutritive qualities of its latter-
math, are a great recommendation for the pur-
pose of grazing, the stalks being of but little
utility, as they are generally left untouched by
the cattle, provided there is a sufficiency of
herbage. It is said to give to new-mown hay
that delightful smell which is peculiar to it ; if
it is not the sole cause of that pleasant smell,
it is certainly more powerful when combined
with the grasses which compose hay. About
the middle of April it comes into flower, and
the seed is ripe generally about the first or
second week of June. The fragrance of this,
and some other of the grasses, so abundant in
our English pastures, arises, it is said, from
the presence of benzoic acid. An essential
oil of an agreeable flavour may be extracted
from this grass, which is valued as a mild aro-
matic, and stimulant.

Sir H. Davy has shown that the nutritive
matter of the grass, at the time the seed is ripe,
consists of mucilage, or starch, 43, saccharine
matter, 4, and bitter extract and salt, 3=50.
The leaves, or first growth of the spring,
afforded me of mucilage, 40, saccharine mat-
ter, 1, bitter extractive, 9=60. The bitter ex-
tractive is here much greater in the leaves
than in the culms and leaves combined,
which is the case with all the grasses I have
made trial of, though in different propor-
tions.

The proportional value which the grass, at
the time the seed is ripe, bears to that at the
time of flowering, is as 13 to 4. The propor-
tional value which the grass of the latter-math
bears to that of the seed crop, is nearly as 13
to 9 ; and the proportional value or nourish-
ment contained in the autumn grass, exceeds
that of the first grass of the spring as 9 to 7.
The comparative produce of the herbage, at
different periods, may be seen by reference to
the following table: — {Sinclair's HorU Gram.
Woh.)

Description of Grass.

Anthoxanthum odoratum, on 1st Aptil

, in flower -

, seed ripe -

— , latter-math

Brown sandy loam

Green Produce
per Acre.

lbs.

3,488 0

7,827 3

6,125 10

6,806 4

Dry Produce
per Acre.

2,103 8 14
1,837 11 0

Produce per Acre

of Nutritive

Matter.

lbs.

95
122
311
239

6 0

4 12

1 1

4 8

ANTICOR. In farriery, a disease among
horses, arising from an inflammation in the
gullet and throat, or a kind of quinsy. The
swelling sometimes extends as far as the
sheath; and is attended with fever, great de-
pression, weakness, and a total loss of ap-
petite.

ANTIDOTE. See Poison, and Animai. and
Vegetable Poisons.

ANTIMONY, SULPHURET OF. In far-
riery, a mineral substance, of a shining, stri-
ated appearance, hard, brittle, and very heavy.
It is employed as a remedy in many diseases
of horses and other animals, and is said to
have been given to fattening cattle and hogs
with advantage. An ounce is the common
quantity for a full-grown animal, which may
be repeated according to circumstances. It is
composed according to Dr. J. Davy {Phil.
Trans. 1812, p. 231), of

Antimony
Sulphur

100
34-960

ANTISEPTIC SUBSTANCES. In agricul-
ture, are such substances as have a tendency
to resist the putrefaction and decay of animal
and vegetable matters.

ANTISPASMODICS. In farriery, are such
medicines as are suited to cure spasmodic af-
fections. Opium, assafoetida, and the essential
oils of many vegetables, are the most powerful
iwmedies of this kind.

^ANTLER (Fr. andouiller). Properly the
first branches of a stag's horns ; but, popularly
and generally, any of his branches, and so
used, by poetic license, in all our modern
authors.

102

AORTAL ARTERIES, of vegetables. The

large vessels destined to convey the elaborated
juice or blood of plants to the leaves and ex-
tremities, are so denominated by Dr. Darwin.

APERIENTS. In farriery, are such reme-
dies as are calculated to keep the bowels of
animals in a gentle open state.

APHERNOUSLI, or ARKENOUSLI. A
species of fir, pine, or pinaster, which grows
wild on the Alps.

The timber of this tree is frequently large,
and has many uses for internal work. The
branches resemble those of the spruce-fir : but
the cones are more round in the middle, being
of a purplish colour, shaded with black. The
bark of the trunk, or bole of the tree, is not
reddish like the bark of the pine, but of a
whitish cast like that of the fir. The husk, or
sort of shell, which encloses the kernels, is
easily cracked, and the kernels are covered
with a brown skin, which peels off"; they are
about as large as a common pea, triangular
like buckwheat, and white and soft as a
blanched almond; of an oily agreeable taste,
but leaving in the mouth that small degree of
asperity which is peculiar to wild fruits, and
is not unpleasant. These kernels sometimes
make a part in a Swiss dessert ; they supply
the place of mushroom-buttons in ragouts, and
are also recommended in consumptive cases.

Wainscoting, flooring, and other joiner's
work, may be made with the planks of apher-
nousli, which is a wood of a finer grain, and
more beautifully variegated than deal, and the
smell is more agreeable. The aphernousli is
a tree of a healthy, vigorous growth, and will
bear removing when it is young, even in dry

APHIDIANS.

APHIDES.

warm weather. From this tree is extracted
a white odoriferous resin. The wood also
makes excellent tiring in stoves, ovens, and
kilns.

[APHIDIANS. A group of minute insects,
which includes those commonly called plaul-
lice. Some of these insects have the power of
leaping, like the leaf-hoppers, from which, how-
ever, they ditfer. These hoppers are by no
means so prolific as other kinds of plant-lice,
since they produce only one brood during the
year. They live in groups, composed of about
a dozen individuals each, upon the stems and
leaves of plants, the juices of which they im-
bibe through their tubular beaks. The young
are often covered with a substance resembling
fine cotton arranged in tlakes. This is the case
with some which are found on the alder and
birch in the spring of the year.

Another tribe of aphidians called Thripn,
are very small and slender insects, exceed-
ingly active in their motions. They live on
leaves, flowers, buds, &c. Their punctures
appear to poison plants, and often occasion
deformities in the leaves and blossoms. The
peach tree sometimes suffers severely from
their attacks, as from those of the true plant-
lice; and they are found beneath the leaves, in
little hollows caused by their irritating punc-
tures. The same applications that are em-
ployed for the destruction of plant-lice may be
used with advantage upon plants infested with
Thripa. {Dr. Harris's Report on Destructive
Insect 0.)]

[APHIDES, or plant-lice, as they are com-
monly called, are found upon almost all parts
of plants, and there is scarcely a plant which
does not harbour one or two kinds peculiar to
itself. They are exceedingly prolific, and
Keaumur has proved that one individual, in
five generations, may become the progenitor
of nearly six thousand millions of descendants.
It often happens that the succulent extremi-
ties and stems of plants will, in an incredibly
short space of time, become completely coated
with a living mass of little lice. These arc
usually wingless, consisting of the young and
of the females only; for winged individuals
appear only at particular seasons, usually in
the autumn, but sometimes in the spring, and
iJ^re are small males and larger females.
After pairing, the latter lay their eggs upon or
near the leaf-buds of the plant upon which
they live, and, together with their males, soon
afterwards perish. The genus to which plant-
lice belong is called Aphio, from a Greek word
signifying to exhaust. They hatch out in the
spring and immediately begin to pump up sap
from the tender buds, stems, and leaves, in-
crease rapidly in size and quickly come to ma-
turity.

" Plant-lice seem to love society, and often
herd together in dense masses, each one re-
maining fixed to the plant by means of its long
tubular beak; and they rarely change their
places till they have exhausted the part first
attacked. The attitudes and manners of these
little creatures are exceedingly amusing.
When disturbed, like restive horses, they be-
gin to kick and sprawl in the most ludicrous
manner. They may be seen, at times, sus-

pended by their beaks alone, and throwing up
their legs as if in a high frolic, but too much
engaged in sucking to withdraw their beaks.
As they take in great quantities of sap, they
would soon become gorged if they did not get
rid of the superabundant fluid through the two
little tubes or pores at the extremity of their
bodies. When one of them gets running-over
full, it seems to communicate its uneasy sen-
sations, by a kind of animal magnetism, to the
whole flock, upon which they all, with one ac-
cord, jerk upwards their bodies, and eject a
shower of the honeyed fluid. The leaves and
bark of plants much infested by these insects,
are often completely sprinkled over with drops
of this sticky fluid, which, on drying, becomes
dark coloured, and greatly disfigures the foliage.
This appearance has been denominated honey-
dew ; but there is another somewhat similar
production observable on plants, after very dry
weather, which has received the same name,
and consists of an extravasation or oozing of
the sap from the leaves. We are often ap-
prized of the presence of plant-lice on plants
growing in the open air by the ants ascending
and descending the stems. By observing the
motions of the latter we soon ascertain that the
sweet fluid discharged by the lice is the occa-
sion of these visits. The stems swarm with
slim and hungry ants running upwards, and
others lazily descending with their bellies
swelled almost to bursting. When arrived in
the immediate vicinity of the plant-lice, they
greedily wipe up the sweet fluid which has dis-
tilled from them, and, when this fails, they
station themselves among the lice, and catch
the drops as they fall. The lice do not seem
in the least annoyed by the ants, but live on
the best possible terms with them ; and, on
the other hand, the ants, though unsparing
of other insects weaker than themselves,
upon which they frequently prey, treat the
plant-lice with the utmost gentleness, caress-
ing them with their antennae, and apparently
inviting them to give out the fluid by patting
their sides. Nor are the lice inattentive to
these solicitations, when in a state to gratify
the ants, for whose sake they not only seem to
shorten the periods of the discharge, but actu-
ally yield the fluid when thus pressed. A sin-
gle louse has been known to give it drop by
drop successively to a number of ants, that
were waiting anxiously to receive it. When
the plant-lice cast their skins, the ants in-
stantly remove the latter, nor will they allow
any dirt or rubbish to remain upon or about
them. They even protect them from their
enemies, and run about them in the hot sun-
j shine to drive away the little ichneumon flies
{ that are forever hovering near to deposit their
egsrs in the bodies of the lice."
j Plant-lice differ much in form, colour, length
; of tubes, «&c. The Rose-l/nise (Aphis Rnsfr)
I has a long tube. The cabbage-louse (Aphis
Brass{c3s) has also long honey-tubes, its body
being covered with a whitish mealy substance.
i This species is very abundant on the lower
! side of cabbage-leaves in the month of Au-
I gust. The largest species of plant-lice ob-
served by Dr. Harris, he found in clusters
I beneath the limbs of the pig-nut hickory. He

103

APHIDES.

APHIDES.

also found another large species living on the
under side of the branches of various kinds
of willows, and clustered together in great
numbers. This species, the Doctor thinks,
cannot be identical with the willow-louse de-
scribed by Linnoeus. When crushed, it com-
municates a stain of a reddish or deep orange
colour.

Some plant-lice live in the ground, and de-
rive their nourishment from the roots of
plants, which they often exhaust and destroy.
Indian corn crops frequently suffer severely
from their depredations, especially when the
soil is light and reduced. They are generally
of a white colour, and are closely clustered to-
gether on the roots. Dr. Harris, from whose
Report all the information upon this subject is
obtained, says that he never has been able to
ascertain whether these are of the same spe-
cies as the root-lice described by European
writers. It is stated by those great entomolo-
gists, Kirby and Spence, that ants bestow the
same care upon the root-lice as upon their
own offspring, defending them from the attacks
of other insects, bringing them in their mouths
to the surface of the ground to give them the
advantage of the sun, &c. The sweet fluid
which exudes from them whilst pumping in
the sap of the roots, forms the chief nourish-
ment of the ants and their young.

" The injuries occasioned by plant-lice are
much greater than would at first be expected
from the small size and extreme weakness of
the insects ; but these make up by their num-
bers what they want in strength individually,
and thus become formidable enemies to vege-
tation. By their punctures, and the quantity
of sap which they draw from the leaves, the
functions of these important organs are de-
ranged or interrupted, the food of the plant,
which is there elaborated to nourish the stem
and mature the fruit, is withdrawn, before it
can reach its proper destination, or is conta-
minated and left in a state unfitted to supply
the wants of vegetation. Plants are differently
affected by these insects. Some wither and
cease to grow, their leaves and stems put on
a sickly appearance, and soon die from ex-
haustion. Others, though not killed, are great-
ly impeded in their growth, and their tender
parts, which are attacked, become stunted,
curled, or warped. The punctures of these
lice seem to poison some plants, and affect
others in a most singular manner, producing
warts or swellings, which are sometimes solid
and sometimes hollow, and contain in their
interior a swarm of lice, the descendants of a
single individual, whose punctures were the
original cause of the tumour. I have seen
reddish tumours of this kind as big as a
pigeon's egg, growing upon leaves, to which
they were attached by a slender neck, and
containing thousands of small lice in their in-
terior. Naturalists call these tumours galls,
because they seem to be formed in the same
■«Tay as the oak-galls which are used in the
ivkking of ink. The lice which inhabit or pro-
duce them generally differ from the others, in
having shorter antennse, being without honey-
tubes, and in frequently being clothed with a
104

kind of white down, which, however, disappears
when the insect becomes winged.

" These downy plant-lice are now placed in
the genus Eriosoma, which means woolly body,
and the most destructive species belonging to
it was first described, under the name of Aphis
lani^era, by Mr. Hausmann, in the year 1801,
as infesting the apple-trees in Germany. It
seems that it had been noticed in England as
early as the year 1787, and has since acquired
there the name of American blight, from the
erroneous supposition that it had been import-
ed from this country. It was known, however,
to the French gardeners for a long time pre-
vious to both of the above dates, and, accord-
ing to Mr. Rennie, is found in the orchards
about Harfleur, in Normandy, and is very de-
structive to the apple-trees in the department
of Calvados. There is now good reason to
believe that the miscalled American blight is
not indigenous to this country, and that it has
been introduced here with fruit-trees from Eu-
rope. Some persons, indeed, have supposed
that it was not to be found here at all ; but the
late Mr. Buel has stated that it existed on his
apple-trees, and I have once or twice seen it
on apple-trees in Massachusetts, where, how-
ever, it still appears to be rare, and conse-
quently I have not been able to examine the
insects sufficiently myself. The best account
that I have seen of them is contained in
Knapp's 'Journal of a Naturalist,' from which,
and from Hausmann's description, the follow-
ing observations are chiefly extracted.

"The eggs of the woolly apple-tree louse are
so small as not to be distinguished without a
microscope, and are enveloped in a cotton-like
substance furnished by the body of the insect.
They are deposited in the crotches of the
branches and in the chinks of the bark at or
near the surface of the ground, especially if
there are suckers springing from the same
place. The young, when first hatched, are
covered with a very short and fine down, and
appear in the spring of the year like little
specks of mould on the trees. As the season
advances, and the insect increases in size, its
downy coat becomes more distinct, and grows
in length daily. This down is very easily re-
moved, adheres to the fingers when it is
touched, and seems to issue from all the pores
of the skin of the abdomen. When fully
grown, the insects of the first brood are one
tenth of an inch in length, and when the down
is rubbed off, the head, antennae, sucker, and
shins are found to be of a blackish colour, and
the abdomen honey-yellow. The young are
produced alive during the summer, are buried
in masses of the down, and derive their nou-
rishment from the sap of the bark and of the
alburnum or young wood immediately under
the bark. The adult insects never acquire
wings, at least such is the testimony both of
Hausmann and Knapp, and are destitute of
honey-tubes, but from time to time emit drops
of a sticky fluid from the extremity of the
j body. These insects, though destitute of wings,
I are conveyed from tree to tree by means of
I their long down, which is so plentiful and so
i light, as easily to be wafted by the winds of

H

i»

III

APHIDES.

autumn, and thus the evil will gradually spread :
throughout an extensive orchard. The nume-
rous punctures of these lice produce on the
tender shoots a cellular appearance, and wher-
ever a colony of them is established, warts or
excrescences arise on the bark ; the limbs thus
attacked become sickly, the leaves turn yellow
and drop off; and, as the infection spreads
from limb to limb, the whole tree becomes
diseased, and eventually perishes. In Glou-
cestershire, England, so many apple-trees were
destroyed by these lice in the year 1810, that
it was feared the making of cider must be
abandoned. In the north of England the apple-
trees are greatly injured, and some annually
destroyed by them; and in the year 1826 they
abounded there in such incredible luxuriance,
that many trees seemed, at a short distance, as
if they had been whitewashed.

" Mr. Knapp thinks that remedies can prove
efficacious in removing this evil only upon a
small scale, and that when the injury has
existed for some time, and extended its influ-
ence over the parts of a large tree, it will take
its course, and the tree will die. He says that
he has removed this blight from young trees,
and from recently attacked places in those
more advanced, by painting over every node
or infected part of the tree with a composition
consisting of three ounces of melted resin,
mixed with the same quantity of fish oil, which
is to be put on while warm with a painter's
brush. Sir Joseph Banks succeeded in. extir-
pating the insects from his own trees by re-
moving all the old and rugged bark, and scrub-
bing the trunk and branches with a hard brush.
The application of the spirits of tar, of spirits
of turpentine, of oil, urine, and of soft soap,
has been recommended. Mr. Buel found that
oil sufficed to drive the insects from the trunks
and branches, but that it could not be applied
to the roots, where, he stated, numbers of the
insects harboured. The following treatment,
I am inclined to think, will prove as success-
ful as any which has heretofore been recom-
mended. Scrape off all the rough bark of the
infected trees, and make them perfectly clean
and smooth early in the spring ; then rub the
trunk and limbs with a stiff brush wet with a
solution of potash, as hereafter recommended
for the destruction of bark-lice ; after which
remove the sods and earth around the bottom
of the trunk, and with the scraper, brush, and
alkaline liquor cleanse that part as far as the
roots can conveniently be uncovered- The
earth and sods should immediately be carried
away, fresh loam should be placed around the
roots, and all cracks and wounds should be
filled with grafting cement of clay or mortar.
Small limbs and extremities of branches, if
infected, and beyond reach of the applications,
should be cut off and burned."

Dr. Harris found in Massachusetts several
other species of Eriosoma or downy lice, in-
habiting various forest and ornamental trees,
some of which he thinks may have been in-
troduced from abroad.

Remedies. With regard to the best means
of destroying plant-lice, Dr. Harris recom-
mends as follows : " Solutions of soap, or a
14

APHIDES.

mixture of soap-suds and tobacco water, used
warm, and applied with a watering pot or with
a garden engine, may be employed for the de-
struction of these insects. It is said that hot
water may also be employed for the same pur-
pose with safety and success. The water,
tobacco-tea, or suds, should be thrown upon
the plants with considerable force, and if they
are of the cabbage or lettuce kind, or other
plants whose leaves are to be used as food,
they should subsequently be drenched tho-
roughly with pure water. Lice on the extre-
mities of branches may be killed by bending
over the branches and holding them for seve-
ral minutes in warm and strong soap-suds.
Lice multiply much faster, and are more inju-
rious to plants, in a dry than in a wet atmo-
sphere; hence in green houses, attention should
be paid to keep the air sufficiently moist ; and
the lice are readily killed by fumigations with
tobacco or with sulphur. To destroy subter-
ranean lice on the roots of plants, I have found
that watering with salt water was useful, if
the plants were hardy ; but tender herbaceous
plants cannot be treated in this way, but may
sometimes be revived, when suffering from
these hidden foes, by free and frequent water-
ing with soap-suds."

A solution of whale oil 8oap, in the propor-
tion of two pounds of soap to fifteen gallons
of water, is recommended as the best known
means of destroying plant-lice, and other in-
sects injurious to plants, flowers, and fruits.
It was first made known by Mr. Haggerston,
of Boston, who designed it originally for the
destruction of the rose-slug, and received a pre-
mium of $125 from the Massachusetts Horticul-
tural Society for his discovery. In preparing
the solution of soap, the weight required for use
is to be taken and dissolved in boiling water
in the proportion of a pound to a quart. Strain
this strong solution through a fine wire or hair
sieve, which takes out the dirt, and prevents
its stopping the valves of the engine, or rose
of the syringe. Then add cold water to bring
it to the proper strength, namely, about two
pounds of the soap to fifteen gallons of water,
and apply to the rose bush, or other plant, with
a hand engine or a syringe, using as much
force as practicable, saturating every part of
the foliage. What falls on the ground will not
be lost, but do much good in destroying worms
and enriching the soil. From its trilling cost,
it can be used with profusion, a hogshead of
136 gallons costing only about 45 cents. The
soap sells for about 6 or 7 cents per pound.
Early in the morning, or in the evening, is
the proper time for making the application.
Among other insects mentioned by Mr. Hag-
gerston as destroyed by the solution of whale
oil soap, are the Aphis, or plant-louse, which
goes by the name of the brown fly; an insect
not quick in motion, very abundant on, and
destructive to, the young shoots of the rose,
peach trees, and many other plants ; and the
black fly, a very troublesome and destructive
insect, that infests the young shoots of the
cherry and the snowball tree. " I have never,"
he says, "known any positive cure for this
insect until this time."

105

APIUM.

APPRAISEMENT.

" Two varieties of insects that are destruc-
tive to and very much disfigure evergreens,
the Balsam or Balm of Gilead fir in particular;
one an aphis, the other very much like the
rose-slug.

" The above insects are all destroyed by one
application, if properly applied to all parts of
the leaves ; the eggs of most insects continue
to hatch in rotation during their season ; to
keep the plants perfectly clean, it will be ne-
cessary to dress them two or three times."

As every plant has its insect destroyers, so
have these their created enemies to keep them
in check. If this was not so, the astonishing
fecundity of plant-lice would make them far
more formidable than at present. Indeed it is
difficult to say where the plague might end.
The destroyers of plant-lice described by Dr.
Harris are of three kinds. — The first are the
young or larvae of the hemispherical beetles
familiarly known by the name of lady-birds,
and scientifically by that of Coccinella. These
little beetles are generally yellow or red, with
black spots, or black, with white, red, or yellow
spots ; there are many kinds of them, and they
are very common and plentiful insects, gene-
rally diffused among plants, living upon plant-
lice, and thus performing a great service to
the husbandman and gardener.

The second kind of plant-lice destroyers are
the young of the golden-eyed lace-winged fly
(Chrisopa perla), a fly of a pale green colour,
with four wings resembling lace, and eyes of
the brilliancy of polished gold, as its generic
name implies. But, notwithstanding its bril-
liancy, it is extremely disgusting, from the
oflTensive odour it exhales. It makes great
havoc among the plant-lice.

The third and last enemy are the maggots
or young of various two-winged flies belonging
to the genus Syrphus, many of which flies are
black, with yellow bands on their bodies. The
eggs are laid and the destructive maggot
hatched immediately among the sluggish lice
which become its victims.

The more minute account given by Dr. Har-
ris, of the nature and habits of all these in-
sects, is extremely interesting. (See his Report
upon Destructive Insects submitted to the legis-
lature of Massachusetts in 1841.)]

APIUM. See Ceibry and Parslet.

APOPLEXY. In farriery, is a disease which
is often called the staggers, to which horses
and other animals are subject, and by which
they drop down suddenly, without sense or
motion, except a working of the flanks. (See
Sheep, Diseases of.)

APPETITE. Horses, more than most other
creatures, are subject to diseases of the sto-
mach, particularly to a want of appetite, and
a vitiated or voracious appetite.

Want of appetite is when a horse feeds poor-
ly, and is apt to mangle his hay, or leave it in
the rack, and at the same time gathers little
flesh, his dung being habitually soft, and of a
^le colour. This state of the stomach evi-
dl^ntly arises either from some error in respect
of diet and management, want of grass, or from
a relaxed constitution, in which the stomach
106

and bowels are more particularly affected with
debility. This M^eakness of the digestive or-
gans may be either accidental or constitution-
al ; and it may proceed from the use of food
administered in an improper state, such as too
much scalded bran, or hot meat of any kind,
which relaxes the tone of the stomach and
bowels, and ultimately produces a weak di-
gestion, and consequently a los^ of appetite.
The best method to strengthen and recover
horses in this state, is to give them gentle
exercise in the open air, especially in dry
weather; never to load their stomachs with
large feeds ; and to Jceep them as much as
possible to a dry diet,* indulging them now and
then with a handful of beans among their oats.
But where the disorder has been caused by
over-feeding with dry food, and the neglect of
proper evacuation and exercise, mashes, with
gentle saline purges, would seem to be the
most suitable remedies ; and where horses do
not gain strength under the above manage-
ment, a run at grass will most probably be
the readiest method of removing their com-
plaints.

APPLE. See Malus.

APPLES OF LOVE (Poma amoris ; to-
mato). These apples are juicy, and large fruit,
growing upon a Ioav plant in gardens. The
flowers are yellow and small ; when the fruit
ripens, it becomes red, containing soft juicy
pulp and seeds. Its juice is cooling to the
system, and is applied externally to remove
eruptions upon the skin. (L. Johnson.) See
Tomato.

[APPLE-TREE BLIGHT, and Apple-tree
lice. See Aphides and B light.]

[APPLE-TREE BORER. The larva of a kind
of beetle. See Borers.]

APPRAISEMENT. It is not only custom-
ary, but essential to the maintenance of the
good condition of a farm, that the outgoing
tenant should be induced to carry on the pro-
per course of husbandry up to the period of his
quitting the farm ; notwithstanding that much
of the labour and manure he bestows is for the
benefit of crops which a succeeding tenant will
reap. Hence the good practice has arisen, that
the outgoing tenant shall be allowed for these
matters, according to ^agreement, or, in its ab-
sence, by the custom of the district, which
varies considerabl)\ (See Custom of the

COUXTIES.)

The following real' appraisement of a farm
in Surrey, by Mr. Hewitt Davis, an eminent
appraiser of the Haymarket, London, will af-
ford the young farmer a complete view of the
matters usually included in such appraise-
ments. It is usual for these valuations to be
made by appraisers, one being appointed by
the outgoing, and the other by the incoming
tenants, who choose an umpire to decide in
case of difference.

[The document cannot fail to be acceptable
to the American farmer, since it communicates
so many interesting facts relating to the esti-
mates of putting in crops, the value of manures,
various workings, rent, rates, taxes, &c., in
England.]

■ APPRAISEMENT.

^^^B\« Appraisement of the Tenants Property on the Farm, County

I ^^H(/ of Surrey, made this 2yth September, 1841.

j ^^^K From , outgoing tenant.

^^^P To , incoming tenant.

I ^^^^ By , outgoing tenant's appraiser.

I I And , incoming tenant's appraiser.

■ Made according to the terms of the Lease, which says, " at leaving the Landlord or Incoming
Tenant shall pay for the Turnips, Leys, Seeds sown, and Crops in or on the Ground, Plough-
ings. Dressings, Half Dressings, Fallows, Half Fallows, and preparations of the Land for the
Manure and Underwoods, according to their growth, and all other Matters and Things accord-
ing to the Custom of the County."

The farm is principally a light tUrnip soil, and consists of—

Arable - - - - - - 227^ acres.

Grass 48 —

Wood 24 —

Hedges _10_ —

309i

And has been very highly cultivated on the Scotch Drill system.
DRESSING AND TILLAGES, viz..

i

LoDGX Field, 17 Acres. — Swedes.

Ploughed, 2 horses, three times

Ridging and splitting -

Ox harrowed, four times

Small harrowed, eight times -

Rolled twice - - -

Handpicking ...

Dung, 295 loads

Seed, 2 lb. per acre, per lb.

Drilling - - .

Scuffling twice

Hand-hoeing - . -

Handpicking, rent, rates, and taxes.

at 10.t.

- lis.

- U. 6d.

9d.
' Is.

- 6s.
Is.
Is.

- 2.f. 6^.

- Ss.

- 30s.

Lower Loam Pit, 12 Aches. — Preparing for Wheat.
Half dressing, 230 loads dung - - - at 3s.

Ploughed twice, 2 horses
Harrowed, Finlayson
Ox harrowed twice

10*.
3*.
U. 6d.

MiDSLX Loax Pit, 7J Acres. — Seeds.
One year's ley .... at 60*.

Upper Loam Pit, 10 Acres. — Seeds.
Two year's ley - - . , at 40*.

Lower BLiens, 7 Acres. — Pea Stubble.
Half dressing, 110 loads dung - - - at 3*.

North Bliohs, 8 Acres. — Wheat after Clover.

at 60*.

Clover ley
Ploughed, 3 horses
Harrowed small, four times
Seed, 16 bushels
Drilling

South Bliohs, 7^ Acres. — Wheat.

Composition earth and lime, 164 loads
Ploughed, 3 horses

Harrowed small, four times - - -

Seed, 15 bushels - - - -

Drilling - - . -

12*.

10*.
3*.

9(f.

at 3*.
- 12*.

9rf.

- 10*.

- 3*.

Carry forward,

*. d.

25 10
11 18

88 10

6 16
25 10

£ s. d.

24 0 0

4 16 0

1 4 0

8 0 0

1 4 0

177 15 0

50 2 0

22 10 0^

20 0 0

16 10 0

24 12
4 10
1 2
7 10
1 2

39 4 0

38 17 0

364 18 0
107

APPRAISEMENT.

Brought forward
Upper Blighs, 13 Acrks. — Tares,

Ploughed, 2 horses
Harrowed small, four times
Rolled, 2 horses
Seed, 26 bushels
Drilling

at 10^

9rf.

- l9. ^d.
' 12*.

- 3*.

East Bliohs, 5 Acres. — Turnips, after Tares fed off.

Tillages for the tares -

Ploughed twice, 3 horses

Harrowed, ox, twice -

Harrowed small, four times

Ridging and splitting

Rolled, 2 horses, twice

Dung, 85 loads

Seed, 2 lbs. per acres

Drilling

Scuffling three times

Hoed twice

Rent, rates, and taxes

Tew Acres, 10 Acres. — Clover.

One year's ley-

Ox House, 14 Acres. — Turnips.

Ploughed three times, 2 horses

Harrowed, ox, twice

Harrowed small, four times

Rolled small, twice

Ridging and splitting -

Dung, 220 loads

Seed, 28 lb. -

Drilling - . .

Scuffling twice

Hoed twice . - -

Rent, rates, and taxes

at 12s.

- Is. 6rf.

9rf.
. 14«.^

- Is. 6d.

- 65.

- Is.
' Is.

- 25. 6d.

• 85.

305.

at 605.

at 105.

- l5. ed.

9d.
9d.

- 145.

- 65.

- l5.

- l5.

- 25. 6d.

- 85.

- 305.

£ 8. d.

Stack Yard, 12 Acres. — Winter Beans.

Ploughed, 3 horses
Harrowed small, four times
Beans, 24 Bushels
Drilling

at 125.

- 55.

- 35.

9d.

West Field, 7 Acres.-

145 loads dung

•Clover Seeds.

Half dressiu]
Half fallow
Seed and sowing

East Starve Acre, 8 Acres

Tillages for the rye
Ploughed twice, 2 horses
Ridging and splitting -
Harrowing small, 4 times

Seed, 16 lbs.

Drilling

Scuffling three times -

Hoeing twice

About 1^ acre reploughed and resown

Hf^nt and taxes

108

at 35.

- 505.

- 165.

— Swedes after Rye, Sheep fed.

at 105.

- 145.

9d.

- 65.

- l5.

- l5.

- 25. 6rf.

Carry forward, - £

6 10
1 19

0 19
15 12

1 19

0 15
25 10

21 15

17 10

5 12

0 10

0

0 5

0

1 17

6

2 0

0

7 10

0

21 0 0

2 2 0

2 2 0
1 1 0
9 16 0

66 0 0

1 8 0

0 14 0

3 10 0
5 12 0

21 0 0

7 4 0

1 16 0

6 0 0

1 16 0

8 0 0
8 0 0
5 12 0
1 4 0
41 14
0 16

0 8
3 0
3 4

1 10
12 0

£ a. d.
364 18 0

26 19 6

54 7 6
30 0 0

134 5 0

16 16 0

44 17 0

85 8 0

757 11 0

APPRAISEMENT.

Brought forward
Wbst Starve Acrb, 7^ Acres. — Clover.

Half dressing, 125 loads dung

Half dressing fallow

Seeds - - - -

at

3*.
50s.
16s.

Sawd Pit, fs Acres.— iJyc.

Ploughed, 2 horses - - • - at 10*.

Harrowed small, four times - - - - !

Seed, 30 bushels - - - - - 5*.

Drilling, - - • • • - 3«.

Upper Kexxel Field, 10 Acma.-Seeds.
Half dressings, 165 loads dung - - at

Half dressing fallow - - - - -

Seeds mixed, and sowing r " * *

Lowxm KEiriTKL Fikx.d, 14 Acrxs. — Seeds.

Half dressings, 240 loads dung - - at

Half dressing fallow - - - - ' -

Seeds mixed, and sowing - - - -

Upper Poifn Fixld, U AcnM^-Seeds. ^,

Ley one year old - - • - jf^

Ashes, 1000 bushels - . - - -

Carting, &c., 50 loads . . . -

Lower Poito Field, 1 1 Acszs. — Bean Stubble
Nothing.

Middle CoMicoir, 7 Acres. — Potatoes.
Crop laid at 49 tons - - - -

3s.
50s.
1 6s.

3s.
50s.
1 6s.

60«.
Hd.
Is. 6d.

Manure.

In West Blighs, dung 162 loads
In yards, dung 100 loads
Ashes, 7 lumps

Straw.

Wheat, 32 loads
Oat, 58 loads
Bean, 14 loads
Pea, 41 loads

Hay.

Meadow, 18 loads
Rye grass, 14 loads -
Clover, 27 loads

at 50s.

at

28*.
24*.
20*.
24*.

at 80*.

- 85*.

- 90*.

N. B. By the term of the lease, the tenant has the right to
sell off the hay and straw, which is therefore put at a market
price.

Underwoods.

The Grove, 7 acres, 9 years* growth - at 10*.

The Lower Wood, 5 acres, 7 years* growth - 10*.

The Shaw, 2 acres, 6 years' growth - - 10*.

The Kennel Wood, 10 acres, 2 years* growth - 10*.

The standing stuff in hedge-rows, after allowing
for re-malang, all at

(Signed)
By
By

£ 8. d.

18 15 0

18 15 0

6 0 0

7 10 0

2 5 0

7 10 0

2 5 0

24 16 0

25 0 0
8 0 0

36 0 0
35 *0 0
11 4 0

42 0 0
6 4 2
3 16 0

40 10 0

20 0 0

3 10 0

44 16 0

69 12 0

14 0 0

49 4 0

72 0 0

59 10 0

121 10 0

31 10 0

10 0 0

6 0 0

10 0 0

for the outgoing tenant,
for the incoming tenant.

£ *. d.
757 11 0

43 10 0

19 10 0

67 15 0

82 4 0

60 19 2

0 0 0

122 10 0

64 0 0

177 12 0

263 0 0

57 10 0
16 0 0

£ 1702 1

lOd

APRICOT.

ARBOR VIT^.

APRICOT {Armeniaca vulgaris). Thn name
of the apricot has been thought to be derived
from apricus, open and exposed to the sun, or
from praecox, early ripe ; but there can be no
doubt that the word is a corruption of the Ara-
bia name of the fruit. In England, it is one
of the earliest wall-fruits, and held in the
highest estimation. The fruit, when gathered
young to thin the crop, makes an excellent
tart ; and when ripe, it is second to no fruit
for preserves or jam : it gives an excellent
flavour to ice, and makes a delicious liqueur :
of all the fruits used in pastry, none is more
beautiful or agreeable than the ripe apricot.
To prolong the enjoyment of this fruit in its
natural state, we should be careful to plant the
earliest variety in the warmest situation, as
the frost often injures the blossoms unless it is
protected by a glass shutter. The apricot, as
well as the plum, may be kept for our dessert
two or three weeks later, by gathering it when
half ripe, and placing it in an ice-house, a
dairy, or any cool place, where it slowly
ripens.

Apricots, if not too ripe, agreeably astringe
and strengthen the stomach ; but like all other
perfumed watery fruit, it loses its aromatic
and tempting flavour, becomes clammy, and
is less easy of digestion, when over-ripe : they
should therefore be gathered at least twenty-
four hours before they acquire the last degree
of maturity.

Of this excellent fruit, thirty-nine varieties
have been described in the Horticultural So-
ciety's catalogue. For a small garden, Mr.
Lindley recommends the following selection.

Breda
Brussels.
Hemskirke.
Large early.
Moorpark

Peach apricot.
Red masculine.
Roman.
Royal.
Turkey.

The Moorpark and Turkey have been recom-
mended where variety is not wanted, the for-
mer being fine, and a gobd bearer ; the latter
not a good bearer, but very fine. The apricot
requires a rich soil, rather lighter than the
apple and pear.

Budding is generally performed from the
middle of June to the end of July, on mussel
plum stocks two or three years old. The Breda,
peach apricot, royal, and a few, others are
those generally budded upon the mussel, *' and
although," says Mr. Lindley, " the Moorpark is,
for the most part, budded upon the common
plum, on which it takes freely, yet I am per-
suaded that if it were budded on the mussel,
the trees would be better, last longer in a state
of vigour, and produce their fruit superior
both in size and quality."

In planting out trees for training, young
plants, or those called maiden plants, should
be made choice of, being far preferable to those
which have been headed down, and stood two
years in the quarters of the nursery ; observ-
ing, in all cases, without exception, that the bud
sl^uld stand outwards, and the wounded part
w99F«' the stock has been headed down, in-
wards, or next the wall. The apricot in gene-
ral bears chiefly upon the young shoots of the
preceding year, and also upon small spurs
110

rising on the two or three year old fruit
branches. The pruning of wall-apricots com-
prehends both a summer and a winter course
of regulation. In May, the summer pruning
commences by the disbudding and removal of
the superfluous shoots, and shortening the
smaller shoots to half an inch, which will oc-
casion many of them to form natural spurs
for blossoms at the base. This should be
carefully done with a sharp thin-bladed knife.
Care must also be taken to select and train as
many of the best placed young shoots as may
be wanted to form the figure of the tree, pro-
ceeding thus from year to year, till it is com-
pletely furnished, both in its sides and middle,
for there ought not then to be a blank space in
any part within its extent.

For the winter pruning of apricots, every
shoot should be shortened according to its
strength, none being permitted to exceed 18
inches, while a few will require to be even less
than 6. By pruning thus short, and training
the branches thus, the trees will be kept in
vigour, the fruit will always attain its full size
under favourable circumstances, and its quality
will be good.

When the fruit is found to be too numerous
and growing in clusters, thinning must be re-
sorted -to in May and June, leaving the most
promising fruit singly, at three or four inches
distance ; or from about two to six on the re-
spective shoots, according to their strength. The
retained fruit should in all instances be situated
at the sides of their respective shoots, and no
fore-right fruit be suffered to remain ; for these
being exposed to the full power of the sun,
will perish before they can arrive at maturity.
The apricot is very liable to be attacked by
wasps and large flies, which should be kept
off' by a net. The other insects and diseases
of this tree are the same as in the peach tree ;
but it is not nearly so obnoxious to their at-
tacks, probably owing to the comparatively
hard nature of its bark and wood, and coria-
ceous leaves. . [The apricot is the earliest and
tenderest of American fruits, the blossoms
coming so early as to be commonly nipped
by frost. The. position of the trees should be
such as tends to retard flowering.] (Phillip's
Pom. Brit.; Lindky's Guide to the Orchard and
Kitchen Garden.)

ARBOR VITiE {Thuja). The generic
name of this tree is a corruption from Qua of
Theophrastus, or thya of Pliny, which were
derived from the verb thyo, I perfume ; as the
thya of the ancients gave out an aromatic
smoke when it Avas burnt. It is called arbor
vitae, or tree of life, because it keeps in full
leaf winter and summer ; and not in allusion
to the tree of life mentioned in the book of
Genesis. The first mention we have of it in
England is by Gerard, in his History of Plants,
which was published in 1597. He tells us that
it was then growing plentifully in his garden
at Holborn, where it flowered about May, but
it had not then ripened seed.

"The Thuja from China's fruitful lands,"

being of a brighter green and thicker verdure,
has nearly superseded the arbor vitae of Ca-
nada in our plantations. It is well adapted to

ARBUTUS.

screen private walks or low buildings, as it
gives out flat spreading branches near the
ground ; but it has a sombre appearance, un-
less associated with more cheerful foliage, or
ornamented by some gay climbing plant, as
the everlasting pea, the flaming nasturtium, or
our native bindweed.

The arbor vitoe, which we have borrowed
from the extremity of the east and of the west,
as a mere ornament to our pleasure-grounds,
forms an article of utility and profit to the in-
habitants of its native soil. It is reckoned the
most durable wood in Canada, where it is
known by the name of the white cedar. All
the posts which are driven into the ground,
and the palisades round the forts, are made of
this wood. The planks in the houses are made
of it; and the thin narrow pieces of wood
which form both the ribs and the bottom of the
bark boats commonly made use of there, are
taken from this wood, because it is pliant
enough for the purpose, when fresh, and also
because it is very light. The thuja wood is
reckoned one of the best for the use of lime-
kilns. Its branches are used all over Canada
for brooms, which leave their peculiar scent in
all the houses where they are used. The arbor
vitre affords [a popular remedy for rheumatic
and some other complaints among the Indians
and settlers of North America.]

The finest trees are always raised by seed,
but they are more easily propagated by layers
or cuttings. (Phil. Syl. Fin-.)

ARBUTUS. A genus of evergreen shrubs
which is characterized by its fniit being a
berry, containing many seeds. The only va-
riety necessary to be enumerated in these
pages is the Arbutus utiedo, or strawberry tree.

In Pliny's time, when Rome abounded in
wine and oil, they called the tree unedo, which
was an abridgment of unum edo, meaning,
" You will eat but one." It has the name of
strawberry-tree with us, because its berries so
nearly resemble in appearance that delicious
fruit. It is found growing spontaneously on
rocky limestone situations in the west of Ire-
land, particularly in the county of Kerry, near
the lake of KiUarney, where tlie peasants eat
the fruit. The arbutus is a native of the south
of Europe, Greece, Palestine, and many other
parts of Asia.

Horace celebrates the shade of this tree : —

" Nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
StratuB."

But Virgil describes its foliage as rather thin
(Eel, vii.), and recommends the twig as a
winter food for goats.

The arbutus tree succeeds best in a moist
soil, for when planted in dry ground it seldom
produces much fruit. It is therefore recom-
mended to place it in warm situations ; and if
the earth is not naturally moist, there should |
be plenty of loam and rotten neat's dung laid \
about its roots, and in dry springs it should be j
plentifully watered. I

The arbutus trees may be propagated by |
layers, but they are principally raised from
seed ; and they require to be kept in pots for |
several years before they are ready for the '
plantation. We meet with a variety of this I

ARROW-HEAD.

tree in our shrubberies with double blossoms,
and another with red flowers. Aiton enume-
rates five different species of the arbutus, and
there are several varieties of them in the Pari-
sian gardens not to be seen in our shrubberies.
The leaves of the arbutus are said to be use-
fully employed by tanners in preparing their
leather. (Fhillips's Si/lva Flonfeni.)

This beautiful evergreen grows to the height
of ten and fifteen feet. Its flowers, Avhich are
of a yellowish white or red colour bloom in
September, October, and November, and are
succeeded by the fruit, which remain ^ill the
flowers of the following year are full. blown,
thus giving the tree a beautiful appearance.

ARCHED. A term employed among horse-
men. A horse is said to have arched legs
when his knees are bent archwise. This only
relates to the fore-quarters, and the infirmity
sometimes happens to such horses as have
their legs spoiled in travelling.

ARGILLACEOUS. [Clayey.] Containing
clav.

ARM OF A HORSE. A term applied to the
upper part of the fore-leg.
ARNOTTO. See Axxotta.
AROMATIC. An epithet applied to such
plants, and other bodies, as yield a fragrant
odour, and have a warm spicy taste.

AROMATIC REED (ylcwTi^ca/amwa). The
common sweet-flag. A marshy perennial plant
of the easiest culture, flowering from June till
August, which grows among rushes in moist
ditches and watery places, about the banks of
rivers, but not very general. Root, thick,
rather spongy; leaves, erect, two or three feet
high, bright green, near an inch broad. It
rarely flowers unless it grows in water, but
when it does bloom, it puts forth a mass of
very numerous, thick-set, brownish green
flowers, which have no scent except when
bruised. Every part of the herbage is stimu-
lant, and very aromatic, but the roots are espe-
cially so. The dried root powdered is used by
the country people of Norfolk, [England,] for
curing the ague. It is affirmed to possess car-
minative and stomachic virtues, having a
warm, pungent, bitterish taste, and is fre-
quently used in preparing bitters, though it is
said to impart a nauseous flavour. It is the
Calamus aromaticus of the shops, and Linnoeus
says, the roots powdered might supply the
place of foreign spices. (Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p.
157; Paxion's Bot. Did.; Willich's Dom.
Encyc.)

ARPENT. The French name for an acre.
[The French arpent contains 51,691 square
English feet, or very nearly one acre and three-
quarters of a rood English measure.]

ARROW-GRASS (Triglochln). Perennial
marsh herbs, of which there are two kinds, the
marsh arrow-grass and the sea arrow-grass,
both perennials, flowering from May till Au-
gust. They grow in wet boggy meadows and
salt marshes, &c., abundantly, and are very
grateful to domestic cattle, the herbage con-
taining a large proportion of salt. (Eng. Flor.
vol. ii. p. 200.)

ARROW-HEAD (Sagi^pria sogittifolia,
from sagitta, an arrow; because of the resem-
blance of the leaves to the head of that weapon).

Ill

ARROW.ROOT.

ARTICHOKE.

[In England,] an indigenous, aquatic, perennial
herb, flowering in July or August. Root,
tuberous, nearly globular, with many long
fibres. It is industriously cultivated in China
for its esculent properties : its mealy nature
rei;idering it easily convertible into starch or
flour. It is much relished by most cattle.
Nothing is more variable than the breadth and
size of the floating leaves, which are dimi-
nished almost to nothing when deeply im-
mersed in the water, or exposed to a rapid
current. Hence has arisen the several varie-
ties mentioned by authors, but which the
slightest observation will discover to be eva-
nescent. This plant, especially the seed, was
formerly supposed to possess medicinal pro-
perties, which time and improved knowledge
have demonstrated to be imaginary. The
leaves, however, feel cooling when applied to
the skin ; hence they have been used and may
be serviceable as a dressing to inflamed sores.
(Eng. Flor. vol. iv. p. 144 ; Willich's Dom.
Encyc.)

[ARROW-ROOT. This nutricious flour,
which constitutes a very mild, light, agreeable
and easily digested article of diet, so much
resorted to for the sick and convalescent, and
also for children, is the fecula or starch most
commonly obtained, from the root of a plant
called Maranta arundinacea. It is a native of
South America, where, as well as in the West
Indies, it is extensively cultivated. It grows
also in Florida, in the southern parts of which
it is manufactured at the very low price of 6
to 8 cents per lb. The low price at which
arrow-root is sold at Key West and other parts
of Florida, allows of its being used for the
common purposes of starch, and also for the
preparation of niceties for the table, being in
fact often substituted for the ordinary bread-
stuffs. Though thus cultivated in the south,
still most of that used is imported from the
West Indies and Brazil, the best coming from
Bermuda. The mode generally pursued in
the West Indies for obtaining the fecula from
the root and subsequently preparing it, is as
follows : — The roots are dug up when a year
old, washed, and then beat into a pulp, which
is thrown into water, and agitated so as to
separate the starchy from the fibrous or stringy
portion. The fibres are removed by the hand,
and the starch remains suspended in the water,
to which it gives a milky colour. This milky
fluid is strained through coarse linen, and allow-
ed to stand that the fecula may subside, which
is afterwards washed with a fresh portion of
water and then dried in the sun. The powder
is a light white colour, ometimes having
small masses easily crushed. It is a pure
starch like that obtained from wheat, potatoes,
and several other vegetable substances, espe-
cially the plant called in the West Indies
Jatropa Manihot, which yields the substance
called Tapioca, used for similar purposes with
arrow-root.]

[ARROW-WOOD. A name given in the
U)ited States to a shrub (Viburnum) the
ya- ing and straight branches of which were,
according to Marshall, formerly used by the
aborgines for making arrows. The slender
stems, when the pith is removed, afford good
112

fuse-sticks for blasting rocks. Ten or twelve
species of Viburnum are enumerated in the
United States. (See Darlingtu7i's Flor. Cestrica.)]

ARSENIC. See Poisox.

ARTEMISIA. See Wormwoods.

ARTESIAN WELLS have been so named
from the opinion that they were first used in
Artois, in France. These wells have been
found extremely beneficial in the low lands of
Essex and Lincolnshire, and in some other
districts where good water is scarce, and that
of the surface of indifferent quality. Some
practical knowledge of geology is necessary in
order to fix with judgment upen the most
eligible spot for sinking these wells, or else
much labour and expense may be uselessly
applied. They are formed by boring with a
long auger and rod to such a depth into the
earth, that a spring is found of sufficient power
to rise to and run over the surface.

ARTICHOKE (Cynara). From cinere, slc-
cording to Columella, because the land for
artichokes should be manured with ashes.
[" A plant little cultivated in America, but
very well worthy of cultivation. In its look
it very much resembles a thistle of the big-
blossomed kind. It sends up a seed stalk,
and it blows, exactly like the thistle that we
see in the Arms of Scotland. It is, indeed, a
thistle upon a gigantic scale. The parts that
are eaten are, the lower end of the thick leaves
that envelope the seed, and the bottom out of
which those leaves immediately grow. The
whole of the head, before the bloom begins to
appear, is boiled, the pod leaves are pulled off"
by the eater, one or two at a time, and dipped
in butter, with a little pepper and salt, the
mealy part is stripped off" by the teeth, and the
rest of the leaf put aside, as we do the stem of
asparagus. The bottom, when all the leaves
are thus disposed of, is eaten with knife and
fork. The French, who make salads of almost
every garden vegetable, and of not a few of the
plants of the field, eat the artichoke in salad.
They gather the heads, when not much bigger
round than a dollar, and eat the lower ends of
the leaves above mentioned raw, dipping them
first in oil, vinegar, salt and pepper ; and, in
this way, they are very good. Artichokes are
propagated from seed, or from ofl!sets. If by
the former, sow the seed in rows a foot apart,
as soon as the frost is out of the ground. Thin
the plants to a foot apart in the row; and, in
the fall of the year, put out the plants in
clumps of four in rows, three feet apart, and
the rows six feet asunder. They will produce
their fruit the next year. When winter ap-
proaches, earth the roots well up ; and, before
the frost sets in, cover all well over with litter
from the yard or stable. Open at the breaking
up of the frost; dig all the ground well be-
tween the rows ; level the earth down from the
plants. You will find many young ones, or
offsets, growing out from the sides. Pull these
off; and, if you want a new plantation, put
them out, as you did the original plants. They
will bear, though later than the old ones, that
same year. As to sorts of this plant, there are
two, but they contain no difference of any con-
sequence: one has its head, or fruit pod,
round, and the other rather conical. As to the

ARTICHOKE.

ARTICHOKE.

quantity for a family, one row across one of
the plats will be sufficient." {^Cubbeifs Ame-
rican Gardener. )'\

Those plants produce the finest heads which
are planted in a soil abounding in moisture,
but in such they will not survive the winter.
Manure must be applied every spring, and the
best compost for them is a mixture of three
parts of well-putrefied dung, and one part of
fine coal-ashes. They should always have an
open exposure, and, above all, be free from the
influence of trees ; for, if beneath their shade
or drip, the plants spindle, and produce worth-
less heads. For planting, these must be slipped
off in March or early in April, when eight or
ten inches in height, with as much of their
fibrous roots pertaining as possible. Such of
them should be selected as are sound and not
woody. The brown, hard part, by which they
are attached to the parent stem, must be re-
moved ; and if that cuts crisp and tender, it is
evidence of the goodness of the plant ; if it is
tough and stringy, the plant is worthless.
Further, to prepare them for planting, the large
outside leaves are taken off so low, that the
heart appears above them. If they have been
some time separated from the stock, or if the
weather is dry, they are greatly itivigorated by
being set in water for three or four hours be-
fore they are planted.

They produce heads the same year, from
July to October, and will continue to do so
annually, if preserved in succeeding years,
from May until June or July ; consequently, it
is the practice, in order to obtain a supply
during the remainder of the summer and
autumn, to make an annual plantation in some
moist soil, as the plants are not required to
continue.

As often as a head is cut from the perma-
nent bed, the stem must be broken down close
to the root, to encourage the production of
suckers before the arrival of winter. In No-
vember or December they should receive their
winter's dressing. The old leaves being cut
away without injuring the centre or side
shoots, the ground must be dug over, and part
of the mould thrown into a moderate ridge
over each row, close about the plants, but
leaving the hearts clear. If this dressing is
neglected until severe frosts arrive, or even if
it is performed, each plan-t must be closed
round with long litter or pea haulm : it is, how-
ever, a very erroneous practice to apply stable-
dung immediately over the plants, previous to
earthing them up, as it in general induces
decay. Early in February all covering of this
description must be removed. In March, or as
soon as the shoots appear four or five inches
above the surface, the ridges thrown up in the
winter must be levelled, and all the earth re-
moved from about the stock to below the part
from whence the young shoots spring. All of
these but two, or at most three of the straightest
and most vigorous, must be removed, care
being taken to select from those which proceed
from the under part of the stock ; the strong
thick ones proceeding from its crown, having
hard woody ster»s, are productive of indifferent
heads. Those allowed to remain should be
carefully preserved from injury. Every other
15

sucker must be removed and every bud rubbed
off, otherwise more will be produced, to the
detriment of those purposely left. These must
be separated as far apart as possible without
injury, the tops of the pendulous leaves re-
moved, and the mould then returned, so as to
cover the crowns of the stocks about two
inches. Some gardeners recommend, as soon
as the ground is levelled, a crop of spinach to
be sown, which will be cleared off the ground
before the artichokes cover it ; but this mode
of raising or stealing a crop is always in some
degree injurious.

Although the artichoke, in a suitable soil, is
a perennial, yet after the fourth or fifth year
the heads become smaller and drier. The beds,
in consequence, are usually broken up after
the lapse of this period, and fresh ones formed
on another side.

If any of the spring-planted suckers should
not produce heads the same year, the leaves
may be tied together and covered with earth,
so as just to leave their tops visible, and, on
the arrival of frost, being covered with litter,
so as to preserve them, they will afibrd heads
either during the winter or very early in
spring.

As a vegetable, the artichoke is wholesome,
but not very nourishing; and as a medicine,
it is of little use. Sir John Hill, M. D., states
having known patients cured of jaundice, by
perseverance in this medicine alone, without
combining its virtues with any other plant;
but the statement of Sir J. Hill is of no value
in the present day. The flowers of the arti-
choke have the property of rennet in curdling
milk. The heads of the second crop of arti-
chokes, when dried, are excellent baked in
meat pies, with mushrooms, as they dress
them in France. (G. W. Johnsnn^s Kitchen Got'
den.)

ARTICHOKE, JERUSALEM (Helianthus
tuberosus, from 'Hx/oc, the sun, and a.vbo(,aJU)wer).
It flourishes most in a rich light soil, with an
open enclosure. Trees are particularly inimi-
cal to its growth. As it never ripens its seeds
in England, the only mode of propagation is
by planting the middle-sized tubers or cuttings
of the large ones, one or two eyes being pre-
served in each. These are best planted towards
the end of March, though it may be performed
as early as February, or even in October, and
continued as late as the beginning of April.

They are planted by the dibble, in rows,
three feet by two feet apart, and four inches
deep. They make their appearance above
ground about the i4g^Jle of May. The only
attention necessary ry' to keep them free from
weeds, and an occasional hoeing to loosen the
surface, a little of the earth being drawn up
about the stems. Some gardeners, at the close
of July or early in August, cut the stems off
about their middle, to admit more freely the
air and light; in other respects it may be
j beneficial to the tubers.

j The tubers may be taken up as wanted dui •
j ing September; and in October, or as soon as
I the stems have withered, entire for preserva-
tion in sand, for winter's use. They should be
, raised as unbroken as possible, for the small-
; est piece of a tuber will vegetate, and appear
ic2 113

ARTIFICIAL GRASSES.

ASH.

in the spring ; for which reason they are often
allotted some remote corner of the garden; but
their culinary merits certainly demand a more
favourable treatment. ( C. W. Johnson's Kitchen
Garden).

The Jerusalem Artichoke thrives well in the
United States on soft, moist, and it is said even
on peaty soils. This root is abundant in the
English and French markets, where it sells for
a little more than the price of Irish potatoes.
The fibres of the stems may be separated by
maceration similar to hemp, so as to be capa-
ble of being manufactured into cordage or
cloth, as is practised in some parts of Europe,
where the plant is an object of field culture,
especially on the poor and sandy soils. The
artichoke will yield, with similar culture, 30
per cent, more than the potato, and if the land
be poor, they will yield at least double the
quantity per acre that can be raised with the
potato, and the expense of culture is no more.
They are particularly adapted to tke climate
and soil of the Middle and Southern States,
and being hardy, can be left during the fall
and winter in the ground to be rooted up by
hogs, great numbers of which may be thus
fattened at little expense. Or they may be
taken up and given to all kind of stock, for
which purpose it is more requisite to steam
them than potatoes. One of the chief objec-
tions urged against their culture is, that not
being killed in winter by the frost, they grow
among the crops which succeed them. But
this is a comparatively trifling objection. The
Jerusalem artichoke certainly deserves more
attention from farmers than it now gets in the
United States.

ARTIFICIAL GRASSES. See Ghasses.

ARUM. Common Cuckow-pint, or Wake-
Robin (Aru?n maculatum). See Wake-Robin
and IxniAx Tunxip.

ARUNDO. A genus of grasses in which a
number of useful species was once compre-
hended ; but in consequence of the altered
views of botanists regarding the limits of ge-
nera, it is now confined to the Arundo donax,
and the species most nearly agreeing with it.
These are grasses of considerable size, some-
times acquiring a woody stem, and found only
in the warm parts of the world. The Arundo
is closely allied to the genus Saccharum, the last
of which includes the sugar-cane. {Penny
Cyclop.)

Arundo arenaria. Sea-reed, marram, starr,
or bent. (See Plate 7, o.) The nutritive mat-
ter of this grass affords a large portion of sac-
charine matter when compared with the pro-
duce in this respect of other grasses. The
Elymus arenarius, however, affords about one-
third more sugar than the present plant. The
quantity of nutritive matter afforded by the
Elymus arenarius is superior to that afforded
by the Arundo arenaria, in the proportion of 4
to 5. From experiments as to the produce, it
would appear that the A. arenaria is unworthy
of cultivation as food for cattle, out of the in-
Hiience of the salt spray. But from the habit
OT the plant in its natural place of growth, it is
of great utility, particularly when combined
with the Elymus arenarius, in binding the loose
sands of the sea-shore, and thereby raising a
114

natural barrier, the most lasting against the
encroachments of the ocean upon the land. So
far back as the reign of William III., the im-
portant value of the Elymus arenarius and
Arundo arenaria was so well appreciated as to
induce the Scottish parliament of that period
to pass an act for their preservation on the
sea-coasts of Scotland. And these provisions
were, by the British parliament in the reign of
George I., followed up by other enactments, ex-
tending the operation of the Scottish law to the
coasts of England, and in passing further penal-
ties for its inviolability, so that it was rendered
penal, not only for any individual, not even ex-
cepting the lord of the manor, to cut the bent, but
for any one to be in possession of any within
eight miles of the coast. This plant is likewise
applied to many economical purposes ; hats,
ropes, mats, &c., being manufactured from it.
{Sinclair's Hart. Gram. Wob.)

ASCARIDES. See Worms, Iittestiwai.

ASH {Frdxinus excelsior). This tree was
called by the Greeks ^s\/a, and by some fAthU.
The Latins, it is thought, named it Fraxinus,
quia facile frangitur, to express the fragile na-
ture of the wood, as the boughs of it are easily
broken. We are thought to have given the
name of ash to this tree, because the bark of
the trunk and branches is of the colour of
wood-ashes, whilst some learned etymologists
affirm that the word is derived from the Saxoft
ffire. Virgil tells us that the spears of the Ama-
zons were of this wood, and Homer celebrates
the mighty ashen spear of Achilles. Many of
the ancient writers highly extolled the ash. It
has been asserted that serpents have such an
antipathy to the ash, that they will not ap-
proach even within its morning or evening
shadows; and Pliny tells us (he says upon ex-
perience), that if a fire and serpent be sur-
rounded by ash boughs, the serpent will sooner
run into the fire than into the boughs. There
are many other superstitious notions attached
to the ash, which it would be foreign to our
purpose to notice.

There are several varieties of the ash,
among which are, 1. The weeping, which forms
a beautiful arbour when grafted upon a lofty
stem- it is said to have originated incidentally
in a field at Garntingay, Cambridgeshire: 2.
The entire leaved : 3. The curl-leaved, which
has a dark aspect : and, 4. The wasted.

A sh plantations have lately been formed in
many parts of the kingdom to a very consider-
able extent. The Romans used the ash-leaves
for fodder, which were esteemed better for cat-
tle than those of any other tree, the elm ex-
cepted: and they were also used for the same
purpose, before agriculture was so w^ll un-
derstood, and our fields clothed with artificial
grasses. In Queen Elizabeth's time, the in-
habitants of Colton and Hawkshead Fells re-
monstrated against the number of forges in
the country, because they consumed all the
loppings and croppings which were the sole
winter food for their cattle. In y?e north of
Lancashire the farmers still lop the tops of the
ash to feed their cattle in autumn, when the
grass is on the decline ; the cattle peeling off
the bark as food. The Rev. Mr. Gilpin tells
us, that in forests the keepers make the deer

ASH.

ASHES.

browse on summer evenings on the sprays of
ash, that they may not stray too far from the
walk. The branches are frequently given to
deer in time of frost. The ash-tree, in early
days, served both the soldier and the scholar.
It was also a principal material for forming
the peaceable implements of husbandry, as it
continues to be with us to this day, in the
shape of carts, wagons, teeth and spokes of
wheels, harrows, rollers, &c. The gardener
recognises it in his rake-stem, spade-tree, and
other tool handles. The hop-planter knows its
value for poles, the thatcher for spars, the
Guilder for ladders, the cooper for hoops, the
turner for his lathe, the shipwright for pulleys,
the mariner for oars and ship-blocks, the
fisherman for tanning his nets and drying his
herrings ; the wheelwright employs it usefully,
and the coach-maker profitably, whilst the ca-
binet-maker palms it off upon us as green
ebony. The ashes of this wood afford very
good potash, and the bark is used in tanning
calf-skins, and dyeing green, black, and blue.
The ash-keys were formerly gathered in the
green state, and pickled with salt and vinegar,
and served to table for sauce.

Were, we to transcribe all we have seen
written on the medicinal virtues of this plant,
it might naturally be asked how it happens
that we do not meet our ancestors upon earth,
who had in this tree a cure for every malady 1
The Arabian as well as the Greek and Roman
physicians, highly extol the medicinal proper-
ties of the seed which the Latins named lingua
avis, bird's tongue, which it resembles. Drs.
Taner, Robinson, and Bowles, are amongst the
later physicians who commend the good quali-
ties of this little seed. The common ash pro-
pagates itself plentifully by the seed, so that
abundance of young plants may be found in
the neighbourhood of ash-trees, provided cattle
are not suffered to graze on the land. It pro-
duces its leaves and keys in spring, and the
seeds ripen in September. The foliage changes
its colour in October. (Baxter's Lib. Ag. Kn.,-
Phillips's Syl. Flor.) [Michaux states that
eight species of ash are mentioned by botanists
as indigenous to Europe, whilst a much greater
number exist in the United States. Probably
more than thirty species can be found east of
the Mississippi. A striking resemblance runs
through the whole genus ; but it is the white ash
of America, the wood of which, by its strength
and elasticity, is adapted to so many useful
purposes, that bears the nearest resemblance
to the common ash of Europe.]

ASHES (Goth, atzgo, azgo, dust ; Sax. afca ;
Dutch and Germ, asche,- Su. Goth. aska).
" Ashes contain a very fertile salt, and are the
best manure for cold lands, if kept dry, that
the rains doth not wash away their salt."
{Mort.Husb.; TodcPs Johnson.)

The use of ashes may be traced to a very
early age. The Romans were well acquainted
with paring and burning. Cato recommends
the burning of the twigs and branches of trees,
and spreading them on the land. Palladius
says, that soils so treated would require no
other manure for five years. They also burnt
their stubbles, a practice common among the
Jews. The ancient Britons, according to Pliny,

used to burn their wheat-straw and stubble,
and spread the ashes over the soil. And Con-
radus Heresbachius, a German counsellor, in
his Treatise on Husbandry, published in 1570,
which was translated by Googe, tells us, p. 20,
that " in Lombardy, they like so well the use
of ashes, .as they esteem it farre aboue any
doung, thinking doung not meete to be used for
the unholsomnesse thereof."

It is the earthy and saline matters of the
burnt soils, and combustibles employed,
which constitute the substance of the ashes
employed in agriculture. Their use as a ma-
nure is very general in most parts of England,
although many errors are usually committed
in their application, and much erroneous rea-
soning wasted in accounting for their unsuc-
cessful application in some districts, or their
general success in others. Those usually em-
ployed for agricultural and horticultural pur-
poses in this country are, 1. The ashes of
coal ; 2. Ashes of wood; 3. Peat ashes ; 4. The
ashes from turf, as in paring and burning;
5. The ashes of burnt clay; 6. The ashes from
soap-boilers. I will remark upon these, in the
order in which I have enumerated them.

1. Coal Ashes* — The only analysis of coal
that I am acquainted with is that of earth-coal,
by M. Klaproth : he found it to be composed of—

Volatile matter

Charcoal

Lhne

Bulphate of lime

Oxide of iron -

Alumina

8and

i82-5

62 25

20 25

02 00-

0205

0100 ).=17-5

0005

1105,

100

The combustion of the coals dissipates al-
most all the gaseous matters, and much of the
charcoal ; and the ashes, therefore, will consist
almost entirely of the various earths, a small
portion of charcoal, and the saline matters of
which the sulphate of lime (gypsum) and lime
constitute about a fourth.

The presence of these last-named substances
gives to the coal-ash almost all its value as a
fertilizer, for these ashes are always most
beneficially applied to those crops which con-
tain sulphate of lime in sensible quantities,
such as to lucem, sainfoin, red-clover, &c. In
the garden, they are more often employed for
the purpose of forming walks, and to prevent
the ravages of garden-mice, than as a manure ;
or, when they are employed as an addition to
the soil, it is generally in considerable quanti-
ties, on stiff clay soils, with the intention, by
the mechanical operation of the cinders, of
rendering the soil more friable and permeable
by the gases of the atmosphere. As a top
dressing for lucem, red clover, sainfoin, and
other grasses, there is no application superior
to coal ashes. This fact was clearly proved
in some comparative experiments made by
Lord Albemarle, with a variety of manures,
as a top dressing for sainfoin. He found coal
ashes far superior in value to any other ferti-
lizer. As a manure for gardens, it is generally
employed in quantities much too large ; and
thence an idea has been entertained by many
gardeners, that coal ashes are inimical to
plants and trees. Mr. Loudon has given seve-
ral experiments of this description. In these,

115

ASHES.

ASHES.

one gardener imbedded his potted chrysan-
themums, by placing a "large handful" at
the bottom of each of his pots, and then was
surprised that other pots, not thus partly filled,
produced better plants. Another "horticultural
friend" states the case of a Scotch gardener,
who " coated over," for two successive years,
his garden with coal ashes ; and then our ex-
perimentalist, who was, doubtless, a persever-
ing character, finding that, with this over-dose
of cinders, the " fruit trees did not thrive so
well as he expected," actually took them up,
and placed them under a "substratum of ashes,
in order to lay them," as he said, " dry and
comfortable." The trees of course grew worse,
and were taken up. {Gard. Mag. vol. vi. p.
224.) It is to be lamented that such trials as
these are ever brought forward; they are
merely sources of erroneous conclusions, and
strong proofs of the ignorance of those who
have thus been wasting their master's time
and property.

Mr. Loudon has, in another place {Gard.
Mug. vol. ii. p. 406), given some experiments
of a very different character, which I shall
give in his correspondent's own words : — " I
sowed, on the 15th of May, 1826, three rows
of Swedish turnips. No. 1, was manured with
well-rotted dung from an old melon bed. No. 2,
with the tops of cabbages just come into bloom.
No. 3, with coal ashes. They vegetated about
the same time, but the row manured with the
cabbage-tops seemed to suffer most from the
drought ; the season being hot and dry, they
made little progress until the end of August,
and in November they were a middling, or
rather a bad crop. The row manured with
coal ashes had, all along, a more luxuriant
appearance than the other two. The rows
were 20 yards in length, 3 feet apart, and 15
inches from plant to plant in the row. I took
them up in February, and they weighed as fol-
lows :— No. 1, 78 lbs.; No. 2, 88 lbs. ; No. 3,
121 lbs. ; which is very much in favour of the
coal ashes." It may be remarked, that sulphate
of lime, which abounds in coal ashes, is found
in very sensible quantities in turnips. In the
garden, coal ashes are very useful when spread
over the surface, to prevent the depredations
of garden-mice ; they cannot burrow through
them ; and, in the case of early sown peas, it
will be found that the peas covered on the sur-
face of the ground, with coal ashes, say a
quarter, or half an inch in thickness, will be
three or four days earlier than those to which
the ashes have not been applied. This may
be attributed to the greater heat absorbed from
the sun by the black coal ashes.

W(<od Ashes. — The wood of various trees, &c.,
has been analyzed by M. Saussure, Jun. ; the
following was the result (Chem. Ree. Veg.) : —

Parts of
Ashes.
1000 parts of the dry wood of a young

oak, yielded - - - _ _ 2

\

1000 ditto of tlie bark of oak
1000 ditto of perfect oak wood
1000 ditto of poplar wood -
1000 ditto of poplar bark
1000 ditto of wood of hazel
1000 ditto bark of ditto
1000 ditto wood of mulberry
1000 ditto bark of ditto
1000 ditto wood of hornbeam
116

1000 ditto bark of ditto - - - - 134

1000 ditto wood of horse-chestnut - - 35

1000 ditto straw of wheat _ _ - 43

1000 ditto branches of the pine - - - 15

100 parts of these ashes were found to consist
of the following substances, in varying propor-
tions. I have arranged the results in a tabular
form, by which my readers will readily ascer-
tain the composition of the ashes procured by
the combustion of various woods, barks, &c.: —

1=^

1

il

Silica.

fl

So

Loss.

100 parts of ashes of

young oak dry wood,

contain . - - -

260

285

12-25

012

1-

•58

Bark of ditto, ditto -

70

4-5 ,63-25

02.')

1-75

22-75

Perfect oak wood, do.

38-6

4-5 132-

2-

2-25

20 63

Poplar wood, ditto -

16-75 27-

3-3

1-5

24-5

Poplar bark, ditto

6-

5-8 ,60-

4-

1-5

23-2

Wood of the hazel, do.

24-5

35-

8-

0-25

0-12

32-2

Bark, ditto, ditto - -

12-6

5-5

54-

0-25

1-75

26-^

Mulberry wood, ditto

21-

2-25

56-

012

025

20-3d

(Cut in November.)

Bark of ditto, ditto -

7-

8-5

45-

15-25

1-12

•:£13

Wood of hornbeam -

22-

23-

26-

0 12

225

26-63

Bark, ditto - -

4-5

4-5

59-

1-5

0-12

30-38

Wood of chestnut - -

9-5

—

—

—

Straw of wheat - -

22-5

6-2

1-

61-5

1-

j7-8

Branches of the pine -

15-

—

—

—

—

—

The soluble salts of these ashes are chiefly
carbonate and muriate of potash. The earthy
phosphates are the phosphates of lime and
magnesia (or the principal salt of bones) ; the
earthy carbonates are those of lime (chalk),
and magnesia ; silica is the pure earth of Jlint,-
and the oxides were those of iron and manga-
nese.

The cultivator will readily see, by the results
of these valuable investigations, the reason
why wood ashes are so much superior to those
from coal as a manure. The ashes from
wood, he will notice, contain a very consider-
able proportion of the phosphates of lime and
magnesia ; those from the hazel, containing 35
per cent., and those from the wood of young oak
25 per cent., essential vegetable ingredients, of
which the ashes from coal are entirely desti-
tute. The phosphate of lime, it will be re-
membered, is the chief fertilizing constituent
of bones, in which valuable manure it is inva-
riably present, in proportion varying from 37^
per cent, in the bones of the ox, to 35 per cent,
in those of the hare. Wood ashes also contain
a considerable proportion of carbonate of pot-
ash, a salt which is more or less present in all
vegetable substances, and for which, therefore,
it must be highly serviceable as a food. The
carbonate of potash, too, promotes the disso-
lution of dead vegetable substances, and it
also, from its attraction of moisture from the
atmosphere, must promote an increased sup-
ply to the soil. Wood ashes are often very
judiciously added to common manure, the
quality of which is much improved by the mix-
ture. The leaves of trees, when burnt, gene-
rally produce more ashes, or potashes as they
are called, (from being formerly produced by
burning vegetable substances in large open
pots), than the branches, and the stem of the
tree the least of all ; herbs produce four or
five times, and shrubs three or four times as
much as either. All vegetables produce more

rJ

ASHES.

ashes if burnt when green than when they are
previously dried. Davy {Lectures, p. 113) has
given a table of the quantity of potashes fur-
nished by the combustion of various common
vegetable substances, which I shall here insert,
as the cultivator will see by it that there is a
very remarkable difference in the quantity pro-
duced by equal weights of different trees and
plants.

Parts of

FblMhet.

poplar produced

-

- 7

beech —

_

- 12

oak —

.

- 15

elm —

-

. 39

vine —

.

- 65

thistle —

.

- 53

fern —

.

- 61

cow thistle —

.

- 196

beans —

.

- 200

vetches —

.

- 275

wormwood —

.

- 730*

fumitory —

-

-790

Peat Ashes. — Peat ashes are made in many
parts of England for the use of the farmer by
burning peat in large heaps, after it has been
sufficiently dried by the heat of the sun ; and
for grass lands and turnips they have been
found a very valuable manure. They are
usually applied as a top dressing. The com-
position of peat ashes more nearly resembles
that of coal ashes than those from wood or
vegetables — which is a result hardly to be ex-
pected, when we consider that the immense
beds of peat, or turf, as it is sometimes called,
which are dispersed over Britain, are evidently
composed of the remains of vegetable sub-
stances ; trunks of trees, leaves, fruits, stringy
fibres, the remains of water mosses, &c., and
this in some places to a depth of 15 yards.
Peat ashes were analyzed by Davy, with much
care : he came to the conclusion that they owe
most of their fertilizing properties to the pre-
sence of gypsum (or sulphate of lime). In
the Berkshire and Wiltshire peat ashes, he
discovered a considerable portion of it The
Newbury peat ashes he found to be composed
of from one-fourth to one-third gypsum, and in
the peat ashes of Stockbridge and Hampshire,
a still largpr proportion of the same substance.
The other constituents of peat ashes are cal-
careous, aluminous, and silicious earths, with
varying quantities of sulphate of potash, a
little common salt, and occasionally oxide of
iron, especially in the red varieties of peat
ashes.

" These peat ashes," said Davy, " are used
as a top dressing for cultivated grasses, particu-
larly sainfoin, clover, and rye-grass. I found
that they afforded considerable quantities of
gypsum, and probably this substance is inti-
mately combined as a necessary part of their
woody fibre ; if this be allowed, it is easy to
explain the reason why it operates in such
small quantities ; for the whole of a clover or
sainfoin crop on an acre, according to my esti-
mation, would afford, by incineration, only
three or four bushels of gypsum. In examin-
ing the soil in a field near Newbury, which was
taken from below a footpath, near the gate,
where gypsum could not have been artificially
furnished, I could not detect any of this sub-

* Hence potash was formerly called " salt of worm-
wood."

ASHES.

stance in it, and at the very time I collected
the soil, the peat ashes were applied to the
clover in the field. I have mentioned certain
peats, the ashes of which afford g}'psura : but
it must not be inferred from this, that all peats
agree with them. I have examined various
peat ashes from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and
the northern and western parts of England,
whith contained no quantity that could be
useful; and these ashes abound in silicious,
aluminous earths, and in oxide of iron. Lord
Charleville found in some Irish peat ashes,
sulphate of potash. Vitriolic matter is usually
found in peats ; and if the soil or substratum
is calcareous, the ultimate result is the produc-
tion of gypsum. In general, when a recent
potash emits a strong smell resembling that of
rotten eggs (sulphuretted hydrogen), when
acted upon bv vinegar, it will furnish gypsum."
(Agrie. C/iem. p. 336.)

In the valley of the Kennet, in Berkshire,
where the peat ashes are made in very consi-
derable quantities, and are used by the farmers
as a manure for both grass and turnips, they
are sold at three-pence per bushel, and are ap-
plied at the rate of 40 or 50 bushels an acre
broadcast. On most grass lands there is no
dressing equal to them ; and on some soils,
near to Hungerford, they produce the most
luxuriant crops of grass, in cases where the
effects of common farm-yard manure are
hardly perceptible.^ As a manure for turnips,
they answer best in wet seasons. In very dry
weather, the crops growing on the ashed land
are described by the farmers as putting on a
^* burned" appearance.

Peat ashes are extensively employed in
Flanders as a manure ; they are carefully pre-
served by the householders, who burn turf or
peat, and are sold to the farmers by the bushel,
in the same way that those of Newbury are in
England. Their use is chiefly confined to clo-
ver, for which purpose they are an excellent
top dressing. Mr. Radcliffe, in his Agriculture
of Flanders, has given an analysis of these
ashes, from which the farmer will see they owe
nearly all their fertilizing properties to the
presence of 12 per cent, of gypsum. 100 parts
are composed of —

Silicious earth ------ 32

Sulphate of lime .-..-- 12

Sulphate and muriate of soda - - . 6

Carbonate of lime ----- 40

Oxide of iron ----._ 3

Loss 7

100

Paring and bitmtng Ashes. — This is hardly
the place to enter into the often argued and
yet undecided question, as to the advantages
of paring and burning. It is prettj' universally
agreed, that the practice is highly injurious to
sandy soils, beneficial to clay lands, and still
more advantageous to those of a peaty descrip-
tion ; that is, to soils where there is an excess of
inert vegetable remains. The cultivator of the
j soil will see, by the results of the analysis by
j Davy of the ashes produced by the paring and
I burning of three dilferent descriptions of soil,
I the usual products of paring and burning. 200
' ~ 117

ASHES.

ASHES.

grains of the ashes from paring and burning a
chaJk soil in Kent, yielded that great chemist

80 grains of chalk,
11 — gypsum,
9 — charcoal,
15 — oxide of iron,

3 — saline matter, consisting of sulphate of
potash, muriate of magnesia, and ve-
getable alkali,
82 — alumina(clay), and silica (flint).

According to the estimate of Mr. Boys, who
has published a treatise upon paring and burn-
ing, it appears that on the chalk soils of Kent,
about 2660 bushels of ashes are usually pro-
duced by paring and burning an acre of ground,
and thai this quantity of ashes, which he cal-
culates will weigh 172,900 lbs., will contain

Chalk 69,160 lbs.

Gypsum 9,509

Oxide of iron 12,967

Saline matter ----- 2,594
Charcoal 7,781

The second specimen of ashes was from a
soil at Colerton, in Leicestershire, composed
of three-fourths sand, one-fourth clay, and
about 4 per cent, of chalk.

100 grains of the ashes yielded

6 grains charcoal,

3 — common salt, sulphate of potash, and a

trace of vegetable alkali,
9 — oxide of iron,
82 — sand, clay, and chalk.

100

The third variety of ashes was produced by
paring and burning a stiflf clay soil at Mount's
Bay, in Cornwall.

100 grains of these were found to contain

8 grains of charcoal,

2 — common salt, and other saline matters,

7 — oxide of iron,
2 — chalk,

81 — clay and sand.

100

Such are the ashes from paring and burning.
The cultivator of the soil will judge whether
any of these products are required by his land,
and whether all the good results of paring
and burning might not be generally obtained
by other means, without destroying that large
portion of the vegetable matters of the turf,
destroyed during combustion. In those cases,
however, where it is practicable to transfer the
ashes produced by paring and burning a chalk
soil to a clay, or, vice versa, the ashes of a clay
soil to a chalk, the result must, in general, be
highly and permanently beneficial to both.

The Ashes of burnt Clay. — The composition
of the ashes of burnt clay, although varying
according to the earthy proportions of the soil,
will be found pretty generally to accord with
the analysis of the ashes from the clay soil,
from Mount's Bay, given above under the head,
Paring and burning Ashps. Clay burning is
pmctised with decided success in many dis-
trflts of England, and, in every point of view,
is by far the most eligible mode of producing
ashes for manure ; for the soil of the field is
not thereby impoverished of its vegetable re-
mains, the "clay which is burnt being generally
118

procured from ditches, banks, hedgerows, &c.
The account of clay burning, given several
years since by General Vavasour, of Melbourne
Hall, in Yorkshire, is so practical and satisfac-
tory, that I cannot do better than quote his own
words: — "I would recommend to a beginner,
that the kiln should be made small, about
three yards wide, and six yards long in the in-
side ; as he becomes more skilful, they may
be made larger. The walls of the kiln are to
be made of sods, two feet thick at the bottom,
and one foot thick at the top, leaving two flues
on each side, and one at each end, about one
foot square ; these walls may be built at Jirst
four feet high. We then put in the wood, be-
ginning with the larger pieces at the bottom,
particularly near the flues, supported by sods
to keep them open, adding tops of firs, or any
brushwood, until the kiln is nearly filled. It
might be burnt with coal or peat, if more con-
venient. Cover the wood with a layer of clay
taken from some bank or ditch in the field, and
which has been digged sometime before to dry ;
it is not necessary that it should be very dry.
The fire is then to be lighted at the flue by
means of straw previously placed there. The
greatest care is required that the fire shall not
escape at the top ; but fresh clay constantly
thrown on, wherever it seems likely to burn
out, at the same time not overloading the kiln,
so as to put out the fire. As the quantity of
clay is increased, the walls should be raised,
keeping them a foot higher than the clay.
About six feet will be as high as can be conve-
niently burned. The chief art seems to be, to
procure a great mass of fire at first, and to let
the fire rise through the clay as you go, to let it
smoke in every part at the top, but not to bum
out. My men, who burnt by contract, w^tch
the kilns by night and day. I have applied the
ashes almost exclusively for wheat, upon a clay
soil, spreading them on a fallow after the last
ploughing, and harrowing them in with the
seed, at the rate of 30 tons per acre, on 80
acres. The longer the ashes remain upon the
land, before harrowing, the better, that the
lumps may fall, and mix with the soil. If the
walls are well made, one end may be taken
down, and, after the kiln is emptied, rebuilt for
3/ second burning ; if not likely to stand, they
may be entirely burned in a succeeding kiln.
If the weather should not be moist, the kilns
will burn for some weeks, as the clay will con-
tinue hot long after the wood is consumed."

Clay ashes have been used to a very con-
siderable extent by Mr. Hewitt Davis, of Spring
Park, near Croydon, on several of his farms,
and with the most decided success. This ex-
cellent farmer and land-agent has the clay dug
out in pits, that it may be more readily dried.
He burns in heaps ; and employs as fuel col-
lections of hedge-clippings, furze, &c. ; and
these he thinks it best not to use m too dry a
state, since one great object in clay-burning,
he is of opinion, is to produce a steady moul-
dering heat, not too fast. A fire, therefore,
should not be sufiered to flame. The fire in
the heaps usually works against the wind,
when those heaps are properly made. He ap-
plies about 150 bushels of the ashes per acre;
pays Id. to l^d. per bushel for burning; dress-

r

ASHES.

ing with them with great advantage all kinds
of soil, for turnips, &c.

Mr. Poppy, of Witnesham, in a pamphlet
published in 1830, after giving various direc-
tions for burning clay, adds: — "Salt (the only
inexhaustible universal manure, besides burnt
earth) does not increase the bulk of straw;
and although it may be, and is, beneficial to
com, it will not be very extensively used, be-
cause its benefit is not apparent to the eye :
bunit earth produces an abundance of straw.
1 have seen the corn so luxuriant on the sites
of the heaps, where due caution was not used
in laying a floor of earth under the fire, that it
was rotted on the ground, and destroyed the
clover plant. I have seen the beans on the
site of a burnt-earth heap even too luxuriant ;
and potatoes and mangel wurzel a double pro-
duce to the rest of the crop. There is no limit
to burning earth on stiff clay soils, because
the most sterile subsoil, brought up purposely by
the plough will, by the action of fire, be con-
verted into useful manure. If it is converted
into staple, it increases the depth of titheable
soil, and acts both physically and mechani-
cally." The Suffolk plan of clay-burning is
similar to that adopted in Yorkshire. " The
common mode of burning earth is to dig old
borders, surfaces of banks, &c. ; turn it over,
and, when dry, cart it to a heap, and bum ;
formerly much wood was used, but haulm,
straw, dry weeds, and a few bushes, whins, or
any thing of that kind, may be employed ; then
build a circular wall of turfs around it, cover
the heap slightly with turfs and earth, and set
fire to it in several places ; feeding with the
most inflammable materials at first, afterwards
clay or any earth will burn ; when all the earth
is on the heap, the walls may be pulled down
and thrown on, raising it by degrees as the fire
ascends, in the shape of a cone, till all is con-
sumed."

The expense of this kind of clay-burning is
thus estimated by Mr. Poppy : —

£ ». d.
Labour, digging, and burning 100 loads, at 9d.

per load 3 15 0

Filling, Is. 6rf. per score — "is. 6d. ; carting three

horses and two carts, 16a. - - - - 1 3 6

Filling and spreading after burning. ?d. per acre 0 15 0

Carting, and laying out over two acres - - 0 16 0

Total per 100 loads

£(> 9 t

Or 3/. As. 9d. per acre for 50 loads, or U. Ad.
per load.

Clay-burning, according to Mr. Poppy, is
certainly not a modern Suffolk improvement.
" I have constantly seen it practised for half
a century; and the oldest man I ever con-
versed with on the subject, spoke of it as com-
Inon as long as he could remember. I have a
workman on the farm who is, I think, upwards
of eighty years of age, and has always followed
the vocation of burning earth."

The Ashes from Soap Boilers. — Soap boilers'
ashes are a mixture of a peculiar description ;
they are principally the insoluble portion of
the barilla, potashes, or kelp, employed in
soap-making, mixed with cinders, lime, salt,
and other occasional additions ; and also with
muriate of potash, common salt, and other
saline matters.

ASHES.

The quantity of pearl and potashes import-
ed into the United Kingdom is very consider-
able; in 1837, it amounted to 147,329 cwts. ;
in 1838, to 127,101 cwts.: of barilla and alkali
in the same year were imported 102,135 cwts.
and 72,587 cwts. (^M'Culloch's Dictionary of
Commerce.)

The insoluble portion of barilla consists
principally of lime, charcoal, sand, and oxide
of iron. The insoluble portion of potash, or
ashes, as they are denominated by the trade,
will consist of a considerable portion of the
same ingredients, added to a var}-ing portion
of phosphate of lime. Much diiference of
opinion has subsisted among farmers with re-
gard to the advantages of soap-makers' ashes.
It has been recommended as very useful upon
strong, cold soils, on peat moss, and on cold,
wet pastures. The quantity recommended to
be applied per acre by Arthur Young, was 60
bushels for turnips ; to be harrowed in with
the seed. For wet grass lands, six loads per
acre. For wet arable soils, seven loads per
acre. He describes the immediate effects as
very great. For poor loamy land, ten loads
per acre: the effect very satisfactor)'. Dr. Co-
gan, who has written a paper on the use of
soap ashes, has given this letter of one of his
correspondents, whom he describes as a plain,
sensible farmer : — " My experience of soaper's
ashes is confined to the application of it as a
top dressing on pasture land. About twelve
years ago, I agreed with a soap boiler for 1500
tons of soapers' ashes. I used to apply about
twenty wagon loads per acre, and a single
bushing would let the whole in. I was laughed
at, and abused by every body for my folly :
these wiseacres alleging that my land would be
burned up for years, and totally ruined ; all
which I disregarded, and applied my soaper's
ashes every day in the year, reeking from the
vat, without any mixture whatever.

"I tried a small quantity (say six acres),
mixed up with earth ; but I found it was only
doing things by halves. My land never burned,
but, from the time of the application, became
of a dark green colour, bordering upon black,
and has given me more, but never less than
two tons per acre, ever since, upon being
hayned, forty-two days, viz. from May 31 to
July 11. The ground I so dressed was
twenty-four acres ; and I have had 120 sheep
-(hogs of the new Leicester breed), upon the
ground from last August to this day (March 2);
but I allowed them plenty of hay: and although
they were culled in August last, as the worst I
had out of 700 lambs, and selected for this
ground on purpose to push them, they are now
as good as the best I have."

As by far the most considerable portion of
soap ashes is lime and chalk, wherever lime
or calcareous matter is a fertilizer to the soil,
soap-makers' ashes will generally, if not in-
variably, succeed ; but they must be applied
in quantities nearly as large as if lime was
employed.

Such are the chief agricultural properties
of the various ashes hitherto employed in
agriculture. The research is, however, by no
means nearly exhausted, for these fertilizers
have showed the fate generally attendant upon

119

ASHES.

all agricultural or horticultural investigations :
they have been lauded as equally beneficial to
every description of soil, and in all situations ;
or they have been condemned, with equal
fo|ly, by the results of blundering trials — be-
gun in ignorance, continued without care, and
perhaps nearly forgotten in the hurry of a con-
clusion.

They furnish ingredients, such as the car-
bonate of lime, carbonate of potash, charcoal,
phosphate of lime,' sulphate of lime, &c.,
which, in limited quantities, enter into the
composition of all plants, as an absolute con-
stituent part ; and for these they must, accord-
ing to the natural deficiency of the soil in
these ingredients, be extremely useful. They
absorb moisture from the atmosphere, too, in
quantities much superior to what is generally
believed, and in this property the ashes of
burnt clay and coal ashes considerably ex-
ceed both chalk, lime, gypsum, and even
crushed rock salt, as will be seen by the re-
sult of the experiments given under the head

MAJfURES.

Sonie very valuable comparative experi-
ments on the influence of ashes upon the
growth of potatoes were made by the Rev. Ed-
mund Cartwright, of HoUenden House, in
Kent. ( Com. Board of Agric, vol. iv. p. 370.)
"The soil on which these experiments were
made was previously analyzed: 400 grains
gave —
"Silicioiis sand, of different degrees of

fineness - - . - - - - 280 grs.

Finely divided matter - - - - 104
Loss in water ------ 16

400

" The finely divided matter contained —

"Carbonate of lime ----- IS grs.
Oxide of iron <.---- 7
Loss by incineration (probably vegetable

decomposing matter) - - - - 17

Silex, alumina, &;c. - - - - 62

101

"It will appear," says Mr. Cartwright, "from
the above analysis, that these experiments
could not have been tried upon a soil better
adapted to give impartial results; for of its
component parts there is no ingredient (the
oxide of iron possibly excepted) of suflicient
activity to restrain or augment the peculiar
energies of the substances employed." The
beds were laid out and planted on the same
day, the 14th of April ; they were manured as
in the following table. These beds were each
forty yards in length, and one yard wide.
Every bed was planted with a single row of
potatoes, "and, that the general experiment
might be conducted with all possible accuracy,
each bed received the same number of sets."
The potatoes were taken up on the 21st of Sep-
tember, when the produce of the beds were as
follows : —

Potatoes in
Bushels.
Land without any manure produced, per
^ acre - - - - 157

^ with 60 bushels of wood-ashes - - 187

" 60 bushels of wood-ashes, salt 8

bushels - - - 217

peat 363 bushels - - - 159

peat ashes 368 bushels, salt 8

bushels . - - 185

peat 363 bushels, salt, 8 bushels - 171

120

ASPARAGUS. .

Another series of experiments was made by
Dr. Cartwright, upon a cold, wet, tenacious
clay, with burnt clay, wood-ashes, and soot; in
all of which the clay ashes had a decided supe-
riority of effect. The following table show's
the quantity of manure applied per acre, and
the produce of the land thus fertilized. {Trans.
Soc. Aris, vol. xxxvi.)

Per Acre.

Produce per Acie.

Swede*. 1 Poiatoe*.

Barley

Burnt clay. 400 bushels -
Wood ashes, 100 bushels

Soot 50

Soil simple ...

tona. cwls.
25 2
23 12
16 12i
10 4

bu«h.
480
456
432
340

qrs. lbs.
4 4
4 2
4 2
3 0

The operation of burning clay produces but
a slight chemical alteration in the composition
of the clay ; its tenacity is merely destroyed,
and a portion of soot and of carbonized animal
and vegetable remains are diffused through
the ashes; added to which, the ashes of the
wood employed for the burning, which usually
contain a quantity of phosphate of lime and
potash, are mixed up with the mass. {Johnson
on Fertilizers, 296 ; Brit. Farm. Mag., vol. i.
p. 58.)

ASPARAGUS (from the Greek ATTn^tyoi, a
young shoot before it expands). There are
only two varieties, the red-topped and the
green-topped; the first is principally culti-
vated. There are a few sub-varieties which
derive their names from the places of their
growth, and are only to be distinguished for
superior size or flavour, which they usually
lose on removal from their native place. The
soil best suited to this vegetable is a black,
fresh, sandy loam, made rich by the abundant
addition of manure ; it should be neither tena-
cious from the too great preponderance of
clay, nor too dry from a superabundance of
silica, but should be retentive of moisture
chiefly by reason of its richness. To raise
fine roots for hot-beds, they may be raised in a
much moister soil {Miller's Dictionary); but
for natural productions this will not answer, as
such plants are much shorter lived. The site
of the beds should be such as to enjoy the in-
fluence of the sun during the whole of the day,
as free as possible from the influence of trees
and shrubs, and, if choice is allowed, ranging
north and south. The subsoil should be dry,
or the bed kept so, by being founded on rubbish
or other material to serve as a drain. The
space of ground required to be planted with
this vegetable for the supply of a small family
is at least eight rods, if less, it will be incapa-
ble of affording one hundred heads at a time
(Marshall says six rods will afford this quan-
tity), so that part must be kept two or three
davs after it is cut, especially in ungenial sea-
sons, to allow time for the growth of more to
make a sufficient number for a dish. Sixteen
rods will, in general, afford two or three hun-
dred every day in the height of the season.
To raise plants the seed may be sown from the
middle of February to the beginning of April ;
the most usual time is about the middle of
March. The best mode is to insert them by
the dibble, five or six inches apart and an inch
below the surface, two seeds to be put in each

I

ASPARAGUS.

•hole ; or they may be sown in drills made the
same distance asunder, or broadcast. If dry
weather, the bed should be refreshed with mo-
derate, but frequent waterings, and if sown as
late as April, shade is required by means of a
little haulm during the meridian erf hot days,
until the seeds germinate. Care must be taken
to keep them free from weeds, though this
operation should never commence until the
plants are well above ground, which will be in
the course of three or four weeks from the
time of sowing. If two plants have arisen from
the same hole, the weakest must be removed
as soon as that point can be well determined.
Towards the end of October, as soon as the
stems are completely withered, they must be
cut down, and well-putrefied dung spread over
the bed to the depth of about two inches : this
serves not only to increase the vigour of the
plants in the following year, but to preserve
them during the winter from injury by the
frost. About March in the next year, ever)'
other plant must be taken up, and transplanted
into a bed, twelve inches apart, if it is intended
that they should attain another, or two years'
further growth, before being finally planted
out ; or they may be planted immediately into
the beds for production. It may be here re-
marked, that the plants may remain one or two
years in the seed-bed ; they will even succeed
after remaining three, but if they continue four
they generally fail: it is, however, nearly cer-
tain that they are best removed when one year
old, for the earlier a plant can possibly be re-
moved, the more easily does it accommodate
itself to the change, and less injury is it apt to
receive in the removal. Some gardeners sow
the seed in the beds where they are to remain
for production. This mode, too, has the sanc-
tion of Miller. The time for the final removal
is from the middle of February until the end
of March, if the soil is dry and the season
warm and forward; otherwise it is better to
wait until the commencement of April. The
plan which some persons have recommended,
to plant in autumn, is so erroneous, that, as
Miller emphatically says, the plants had better
be thrown away. Mr. D. Judd has mentioned
(Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond., vol. ii. p. 236) a very
determinate signal of the appropriate time for
planting, which is, when the plants are begin-
ning to grow : if moved earlier, and they have
to lie torpid for two or three months, many of
them die, or in general shoot up very weak.

Immediately that the buds begin to swell
they should be removed, and this may easily
be ascertained by occasionally opening the
ground down to the stool. A successful expe-
riment, tried by Mr. J. Smith, gardener to the
Earl of Kintore, would evince that one year
old asparagus plants may be removed even as
late as June. The stems of his plants, at the
time of removal in that month, were twelve or
fifteen inches high : they were removed and
treated with the greatest care, the earth being
gently pressed round the root, and water given
plentifully ; but although the experiment per-
fectly succeeded, for none of them died, and
although they surpassed in growth those left in
the seed-bed — so much so, that they might have
been cut from — yet still, for many reasons, we
16

ASPARAGUS.

are justified in considering that this must have
been tried under accidental or very favourable
circumstances of soil and season, and it re-
quires repeated experiments from different
counties before the practice is confirmed.
(Caled. Hort. Mem., vol. i. p. 71.) In forming
the beds for regular production, it is customary
to have them four or five feet wide. In the
first instance, they have three rows of plants,
in the latter four. The site of the bed being
marked out, the usual practice is to trench the
ground two spades deep, and then to cover it
with well-rotted manure from six to ten inches
deep; the large stones being sorted out and
care taken that the dung lies at least six inches
below the surface. To mix the manure with
the soil eflectually, Mr. D. Judd, before men-
tioned, trenches his ground two feet deep, three
times successively during the autumn or win-
ter, at intervals of a fortnight, and then lays it
in ridges until wanted, performing the work in
the absence of rain or snow: he justly ob-
serves, that the preparation of the soil is of
more consequence to be attended to than all
the after management. {Trans. Hort. Soc.
Lond.y vol. ii. p. 234.)

In France, however, where the beds are cele-
brated for the number of years they continue
in production, a pit is dug five feet in depth,
and the mould that is raised from it sifted,
care being taken to reject all stones, even as
small as a filbert ; the best part of the mould is
laid aside for making up the bed. The bed is
then formed as follows, beginning at the b^-
tom; six inches deep of common manure —
eight of turf, very free from stones — six of
manure — six of sifted earth — eight of turf —
six of very rotten dung — eight of best earth ;
finally, this last layer of mould is well incor-
porated with the adjoining one of dung. The
bed is then ready for the reception of the
plants. (Dr. M'Culhch, in the Caled. Hort.
Mem.) The plants being taken from the seed-
bed carefully with a narrow, prolonged dung-
fork, with as little injury to the roots as possi-
ble, they must be laid separate and even to-
gether, for the sake of convenience whilst
planting, the roots being apt to entangle, and
cause much trouble and injury in parting
them. They should be exposed as short a time
as possible to the air; and to this end it is ad-
visable to keep them until planted in a basket,
with a little sand, and covered with a piece of
mat. The mode of planting is to form drills
or narrow trenches, five or six inches deep
and a foot apart, cut out with the spade, the
line side of each drill being made perpendicu-
lar, and against this the plants are to be
placed, with their crowns one and a half or
two inches below the surface, and twelve
inches asunder: in France eighteen are al-
lowed. The roots must be spread out wide in
the form of a fan, a little earth being drawn
over each to retain it in its position whilst the
row is proceeded with. If t^e plants have be-
gun to shoot, it is the practice in France to
remove the sprouts, and with this precaution
the planting is successfully performed as late
as July, and if any of those die which were
first planted, they are replaced at that season.
This is a practice to be avoided as much as
L 12

ASPARAGUS.

ASPARAGUS.

possible, for it obviously must weaken the :
plants, and be particularly detrimental to such |
young plants. For the sake of convenience, j
one drill should be made at a time, and the '
plftnts inserted and covered completely before i
another is commenced; the two outside drills j
must be each'six inches from the side of the I
bed. When the planting is completed the bed
is to be lightly raked over, and its outline dis-
tinctly marked out. Care must be had never
to tread on the beds — they are formed narrow
to render that unnecessary — for every thing
tending to consolidate them is injurious, as,
from the length of time they have to continue
without a possibility of stirring them to any
considerable depth, they have a natural tend-
ency to have a closer texture than is beneficial
to vegetation. Water must be given occasion-
ally in dry weather until the plants are estab-
lished. The paths between the beds are to be
two and a half feet wide. Throughout the
year care must be taken to keep the beds clear
of weeds. In the latter end of October or com-
mencement of November the beds are to have
their winter dressing: the stalks must be cut
down and cleared away, and the weeds hoed
off into the paths, care being taken not to com-
mence whilst the stems are at all green, for if
they are cut down whilst in a vegetating state,
the roots are very prone to shoot again, and
consequently are proportionably weakened.
This habit might perhaps be taken advantage
of in assisting our forcing this esculent ; cut-
twig down the summer-produced stems of such
stools as are intended for the hotbed, a consi-
derable time before they lose their verdant co-
lour, would give them a natural tendency to
shoot again, and consequently assist the effect
of the artificial heat employed. It is generally
recommended not to add any manure until the
bed has been two or three years in production,
and then only to apply it every other year ; but
I consider it much more rational to manure
regularly every year from the time of forming
the bed, though in less quantity than if done
every other year. I put on about two inches
of well decayed hotbed. By this means a con-
tinued and regular supply of decomposing
matter is kept up, which is not so perfectly
effected by the usual mode ; and from the ex-
periments purposely instituted by Miller, we
learn, thaf on the richness of the ground and
warmth of the season the sweetness of aspara-
gus depends ; in proportion to the poverty of
the soil it acquires a strong flavour. The
dung needs merely to be laid reguterly over
the bed, and the weeds, as well as some ma-
nure, to be slightly pointed into the paths,
some of the mould from which must be spread
to the depth of two inches over the dung just
laid upon the beds. In France the asparagus
beds at this season are covered with six inches
depth of manure and four of sea sand if pro-
curable, otherwise, of river sand or fine earth.
No forking is required ; but the boundaries of
^he bed must be marked out distinctly, as they
■hould be kept, indeed, at all times. In the
end of March or early in April, before the
plants begin to sprout, the rows are to be
stirred between to a moderate depth with the
asparagus fork, running it slantingly two or
122

three inches beneath the surface, as the object
is merely to stir the surface and slightly mix
it with the dung. Great care must be taken
not in the least to disturb the plants. Some
gardeners recommend that the beds should
only be hoed again, so fearful are they of the
injury which may be done to the stools ; but
if it be done carefully as above directed, the
fork is the best implement to be employed, as
by more effectually loosening the soil, it is by
far the most beneficial in its effects upon the
plants. This course of cultivation is to be
continued annually, but with this judicious
modification, that earth be never taken from
the paths after the first year, but these merely
be covered with dung, and which is only to be
slightly dug in ; for every gardener must have
observed that the roots of the outer row extend
into the alleys, and are consequently destroyed
if they are dug over ; and rather than that
should take place, the beds should have no
winter covering, unless mould can be obtained
from some other source, as asparagus does not
generally suffer from frost, as is commonly
supposed. In May the beds are in full pro-
duction of young shoots, which, when from
two to five inches high, are fit for cutting, and
as long as the head continues compact and
firm. Care must be taken, in cutting, not to
injure those buds which are generally rising
from the same root, in various grades of suc-
cessional growth within the ground. The
knife ought to be narrow-pointed, the blade
about nine inches in length, and saw-edged :
the earth being carefully opened round the
shoot, to observe whether any others are
arising, the blade is to be gently slipped along
the stalk until it reaches its extremity, where
the cut is to be made in a slanting direction.
It almost always occurs that the same stool
produces a greater number of small heads
than large ones, but the latter only should be
cut ; for the oftener the former are removed,
the more numerously will they be reproduced,
and the stools will sooner become exhausted.
Great attention must be paid to the seed. For
the obtaining it, some'shoots should be marked
and left 'in early spring, for those which are
allowed to run up after the season of cutting
is over, are seldom forward enough to ripen
their seeds perfectly. In choosing the shoots
for this purpose, those only must be marked
which are the finest, roundest, and have the
closest heads ; those having quick opening
heads, or are small or flat, are never to be left.
More are to be selected than would be neces-
sary if each stem would assuredly be fruitful ;
but as some of them only bear male or unpro-
ductive blossoms, that contingency must be
allowed for. Each chosen shoot must be fas-
tened to a stake, which, by keeping it in its
natural position, enables the seed to ripen
more perfectly. The seed is usually ripe in
September, when it must be collected, and
left in a tuls for four or six weeks, for the pulp
and husk of the berr)-^ to decay, when it may
be well cleansed in water. The seeds sink to
the bottom, and the refuse floats and will pass
I away with the water as it is gently poured off.
I By two or three washings the seeds will be
j completely cleansed ; and when perfectly dried

ASPARAGUS.

ASPARAGUS.

"by exposure to the sun and air, may be stored
for use. Some gardeners keep them in the
pulp until the time of sowing, unless required
.to be sent to a distance.

To fm-ce Asparagus. — Such plants must be
inserted in hotbeds as^ are five or six years'
old, and appear of sufficient strength to pro-
duce vigorous shoots : when, however, any old
natural ground plantations are intended to be
broken up at the proper season, some of the
best plants may be selected to be plunged into
a hotbed or any spare corner of the stove
bark-beds. When more than ten years old,
they are scarcely worth employing. To plant
old stools for the main forcing crop, is, how-
ever, decidedly erroneous ; for, as Mr. Sabine
remarks, if plants are past production, and
unfit to remain in the garden, little can be ex-
pected from them when forced. The first
plantation for forcing should be made about
the latter end of September: the bed, if it
works favourably, will begin to produce in the
course of four or five weelf s, and will continue
to do so for about three ; each light producing
in that time 300 or 400 shoots, and affording a
gathering every two or three days. To have
a regular succession, therefore, a fresh bed
must be formed every three or four weeks, the
last crop to be planted in March or the early
part of April: this will continue in production
until the arrival of the natural ground crops.
The last-made beds will be in production a
fortnight sooner than those made about Christ-
mas.

The bed must be substantial, and propor-
tioned to the size and number of the lights,
and to the time of year — being constructed of
stable dung, or other material. The common
mode of making a hotbed is usually followed ;
but, as Mr. Sabine remarks, the general ap-
pearance of forced asparagus in December
and the two following months, gives a suffi-
cient indication of defective management The
usual mode he considers erroneous, inasmuch
as that the roots of the plants come in contact
with, or are over, a mass of fermenting matter;
and the mode of raising potatoes practfsed by
Mr. Hogg, which will be hereafter stated, first
suggested the plan for obviating this defect, and
it has been confirmed as correct by the suc-
cessful practice of Mr. Ross, gardener to E.
Ellice, Esq., of Brentford, who, by planting his
asparagus in the tan of his exhausted pine
pits, which consist of eighteen inches of
leaves, and over that the same depth of tan,
and applying hot dung, successively renewed,
round the sides, and thus keeping up a good
heat, produced in five weeks asparagus so
fine, and by admitting as much air as possible
during the day, of such good colour and so
strong, as nearly to equal the natural ground
crops. It is the best practice to plant the as-
paragus in mould laid upon the tan, which, or
some other porous matter, is indispensable for
the easy admission of the heat from the linings.
The bed must be topped with six or eight
inches of light rich earth. If a small family
is to be supplied, three or four lights will be

1 sufficient at a lime ; for a larger, six or eight
will not be too many. Several hundred plants

crowded as close as possible together; from
500 to 900 are capable of being inserted under
a three-light frame, according to their size.
In planting, a furrow being drawn the whole
length of the frame, against one side of it the
first row or course is to be placed, the crowns
upright, and a little earth drawn on to t^e
lower ends of the roots; then more plants
again' in the same manner, and so continued
throughout, it being carefully observed to keep
them all regularly about an inch below the
surface ; all round on the edge of the bed some
moist earth must be banked close to the out-
side roots.

If the bed is extensive, it will probably ac-
quire a violent heat ; the frames must there-
fore be continued oflT until it has become regu-
lar, otherwise the roots are liable to be de-
stroyed by being, as it is technically, termed,
scorched or steam-scalded. When the heat has
become regular the frames may be set on, and
more earth be applied by degrees over the
crowns of the plants, until it acquires a total
depth of five or six inches. The glasses must
be kept open an inch or two, as long and as
often as possible, without loo great a reduction
of temperature occurring, so as to admit air
freely ahd give vent to the vapours, for on this
depends the superiority in flavour and appear-
ance of the shoots. The heal must be kept up
by linings of hot dung, and by covering the
glasses every night with mats, &c. The tem-
perature at night should never be below 50°,
and in the day its maximum at 62°. In gather-
ing, for which the shoots are fit when from two
to five inches in height, the finger and thumb
must be thrust down into the earth, and the
stem broken off at the bottom. This excellent
vegetable possesses some diuretic properties.
Its juice contains a peculiar crystallizable
substance, which yras discovered by Vauquelin
and Robiquel, and named by them Asparagine.
It is hard, brittle, colourless, and in the form
of rhomboidal prisms : its taste is nauseous.
The decoction of the plant is sometimes used
on the Continent as a diuretic ; but it is rarely
or never prescribed in England. M. Dubois,
of Paris, has submitted asparagus berries to.
fermentation, and procured a spirit from them
by distillation, with which he makes an excel-
lent liqueur. {Diet, des Drogues ,- G. W. John-
son* s Kitchen Garden, %\\ Miller's Dictionary ;
Trans. Hort. Soc. Land. vol. ii. pp. 234, 263,
361 ; Dr. Maccttlloch, Caled. Hort. Mem. vol. i.)
ASPEN TREE (Populas Tremula). This is
a branch *f the poplar family, which derives
its Latin name from the incessant trembling
of its leaves. The English name is from the
German espe, which is the general name for
all poplars. The heart-shaped leaves adhere
to the twigs by a long and slender stalk, the
plane of which is at right angles to that of the
leaf, and consequently allows them a much
freer motion than other leaves that have their
planes parallel with their stalks. This, with
their cottony lining below, and their hairy
surface above, causes that perpetual motion
and quivering, even when we cannot perceive
by other means the least breath of air stirring
in the atmosphere. This trepidation is attended
of course with a rustling noise, on which ac-

123

ASPEN, AMERICAN.

ASS.

count country people often call it rattler. The
aspen tree may be planted so as to ornament,
large grounds, but its effect is lost when
crowded. When it meets the eye as a fore-
ground to plantations of firs, it has both a
pleasing and singular appearance, as its foliage
changes with the wind from a silver gray to
a^Dright green, for when the sight goes with
the wind, it catches only the under side of the
leaves which are covered with a pale floss ;
but when it meets the current of air, the tree
presents the upper surface of its foliage to the
y'lQw ; thus its tints are as changeable as its
nature is tremulous. Like its relative, the
poplar, this tree is of speedy growth, and will
thrive in any situation or soil, but worst in clay.
It is cultivated to the greatest advantage on
such as are inclined to be moist, without hav-
ing much stagnant surface water. In such
situations they sometimes grow to a conside-
rable size. It is accused of impoverishing the
land, and its leaves are charged with destroy-
ing the grass, whilst its numerous roots, which
spread near the surface, will not, it is said,
permit any thing else to grow. The wood is
extremely light, white, soft, and smooth, but it
is of little value as timber, being chiefly used
for making milk-pails, wooden shoes, clogs,
and pattens, &c. From its lightness it might,
however, probably be used to advantage for
the construction of common field-gates. The
bark is the favourite food of beavers, whilst
the leaves and the stalks form the nourishment
and birthplace of the tipula janiperina, a spe-
cies of long-legged fly. The aspen tree will
not bear lopping, like other species of the pop-
lar. ( Phillip's Sylva Florifera.)

[ASPEN, AMERICAN (Populus Tremu-
hi den). This species of poplar is common in
the northern and middle sections of the United
States, and Michaux thinks, still more common
in Lower Canada. The same author remarks,
that in the vicinity of New York and Phila-
delphia, where he observed it, it appeared to
prefer open lands of a middling quality. Its
ordinary height is about 30 feet, and its diame-
ter 5 or 6 inches. It blooms about the 20th of
April, 10 days or a fortnight before the birth
of the leaves. Of all the American poplars,
'this species has the most tremulous leaves,
the gentlest air being sufllcient to throw them
into great agitation.

The wood of the American aspen is light,
soft, and without either strength or durability.
The most useful purpose which the wood sub-
serves, is perhaps the furnishing of thin
lamintE, for the manufacture of women's hats,
light baskets, &c. The tree is considered very
inferior to several species of the same genus,
the Virginia poplar, for example, which is
three times as large, more rapid in its growth,
and of a more pleasing appearance.

The large American aspen (Populus grandi-
dentata), belongs rather to the Northern and
Middle, than to the Southern States. In the
ost northerly districts it is rather a rare tree, so
at a person may perhaps travel several days
ithout seeing one. For this reason, Michaux
thinks it has been confounded with the preced-
ing species, which is more multiplied. It sur-
passes the trembling aspen in height, on which
134

account it has received from Michaux its
name. It grows as favourably on uplands as
on the border of swamps, and attains a height
of about 40 feet, with 10 or 12 inches in di-
ameter. In the spring, the leaves are covered
with a thick white down. The wood is light,
soft, and unequal to that of the Virginia and
Lombardy poplars. It possesses few, if any
valuable qualities for the arts, and is only
valuable for its agreeable foliage, which enti-
tles it to a place in yards and ornamental gar-
dens. (Michaux's Am. Sylva.)]

ASS (Fr. Ane ; Ger. Esel,- It. Asino ,- Lai.
Asinus). A well-known and useful domestic
animal, whose services might be rendered even
still more useful for various purposes of hus-
bandry, if it were properly trained and taken
care of. Buffon has well observed, that the
ass is despised and neglected, only because we
possess a more noble and powerful animal in
the horse ; and that if the horse were unknown,
the care and attention which are lavished upon
him being transferred to his now neglected
and despised rival, would have increased th6
size, and developed the mental qualities of the
ass, to an extent which it would be difficult to
anticipate, but which Eastern travellers, who
have observed both animals in their native
climates, and among nations by whom they are
equally valued, and the good qualities of each
justly appreciated, assure us to be the fact.

Indeed the character and habits of these two
quadrupeds are directly opposed in almost
every respect. The horse is proud, fiery, and
impetuous, nice in his tastes, and delicate in
constitution; like a pampered menial, he is
subject to many diseases, and acquires artifi-
cial wants and habits which are unknown in
a state of nature.

The ass, on the contrary, is humble, patient,
and quiet, and bears correction with firmness.
He is extremely hardy, both with regard to the
quantity and quality of his food, contenting
himself with the most harsh and disagreeable
herbs, which other animals will scarcely touch.
In the choice of water he is, however, very
nice ; drinking only of that which is perfectly
clear, and at brooks with which he is ac-
quainted.

This animal is very serviceable to poor cot-
tagers, and those who are not able to buy or
keep horses ; especially where they live near
heaths or commons, the barrenest of which
will keep the ass, who is contented with any
kind of coarse herbage, such as dry leaves,
stalks, thistles, briers, chaff, and any sort of
straw. Animals of this sort requife very little
looking after, and sustain labour, hunger, and
thirst, beyond most others. They are seldom
or never sick ; and endure longer than most
other kinds of animals. They may be made
useful in husbandry to plough light lands, to
carry burdens, to draw in mills, to fetch water,
cut chaff, or any other similar purposes. They
are also very serviceable in many cases for
their milk, which is excellent for those who
have suffered from acute diseases, and are
much weakened ; and they might be of much
more advantage to the farmer, were they used,
as they are in foreign countries, for the pur
pose of breeding mules.

i

ASS.

ATMOSPHERE

le subjugation of the ass appears, from the
;ords of the Bible, to have preceded that of
horse ; and we infer from the same auiho-
r, that this subjugation took place prior to
lat of the dog.

The structural diiference between the horse
id the ass are trifling ; perhaps that on which
very diflerent tones emitted by the voice
)ends is one of the most striking. In all
ler essential points the organization of the
iorse and ass is the same ; and, with the ex-
ception of the lengthened ears of the ass, their
Ibrm, size, and proportions in a wild state, they
differ but little ; consequently, they possess
conditions more favourable to the multiplica-
jdon of species than those afforded by any
other nearly allied animals. The ass is, pro-
perly speaking, a mountain animal ; his hoofs
are long, and furnished with extremely sharp
rims, leaving a hollow in the centre, by which
means he is enabled to tread with more secu-
rity on the slippery and precipitous sides of
hills and precipices. The hoof of the horse,
on the contrary, is round and nearly flat under-
neath, and we accordingly find that he is most
serviceable in level countries ; and indeed ex-
perience has taught us that he is altogether
unfitted for crossing rocky and steep moun-
tains. As, however, the more diminutive size
of the ass rendered him comparatively less
important as a beast of burden, the ingenuity
of mankind early devised a means of remedy-
ing this defect, by crossing the horse and ass,
and thus procuring an intermediate animal,
uniting the size and strength of the one with
the patience, intelligence, and sure-fooiedness
of the other.

The varieties of the ass in countries favour-
able to their developement are great. In Guinea
the asses are large, and in shape even excel
the native horses. The asses of Arabia (says
Chardin) are perhaps the handsomest animals
in the world. Their coat is smooth and clean ;
they carry the head elevated, and have fine and
well formed legs, which they throw out grace-
fully in walking or galloping. In Persia, also,
they are finely formed, som^,being even stately,
and much used in draught and carrying bur-
dens, while others are more lightly propor-

I tioned, and used for the saddle by persons of
quality, frequently fetching the large sum of

j 400 livres ; and being taught a kind of easy
ambling pace are richly caparisoned, and used
only by the rich and luxurious nobles. With
us, on the contrary, the ass unfortunately ex-
hibits a stunted growth, and appears rather to
vegetate as a sickly exotic, than to riot in the
luxuriant enjoyment of life like the horse.

The diseases of the ass, as far as they are
known, bear a general resemblance to those
of the horse. As he is more exposed, however,
and left to live in a state more approaching to
that which nature intended, he has few dis-
eases. Those few, however, are less attended
to than they ought to be ; and it is for the ve-
terninary practitioner to extend to this useful
and patient animal the benefit of his art, in
commoti with those of other animals. The ass
is seldom or never troubled with vermin, pro-
bably from the hardness of its;skin. {Blaine's
Enei/c. Rum I Sports.)

ASTRINGENT {Astringo, Lat.). In farriery,
a term applied to such remedies as have the
property of ctmstringing or binding the parts.
ATMOSPHERE. The name given to the
elastic invisible fluid, which, to a considerable
height, surrounds our globe. It is composed
chiefly of two simple or undecomposed gases,
viz. : —

A7.ote, or nitrogen
Oxygen

7916
90 84

100-

It contains, also, about -p.^jTrth of its weight
of carbonic acid gas, or fixed air, a considera-
ble portion of aqueous vapour (which is always
the most considerable in amount in dry wea-
ther), and occasionally foreign substances,
called Aerolites. The average proportion in
which these exist in the atmosphere, are —

Air

Watery vapour

Carbonic acid gas

96-9
1-

100-

(Thomson's Chem. vol. iii. 181.) It fulfils a
very essential office with regard to the growth
of plants. (See Gases, their Use to Vege-

MONTHLT AtMOSPHEBICIL ObSERVATIOITS.

Jan.

Feb.

March.

April.

May.

Jane.

July. 1 Au?.

Sept

Oct. Not.

Dm.

Baromettr, avprage mean 7
height in inches S

29-921

30067

29 843

29-681

29-888

30036

29-87^ 29 891

29 931

29-774 29-776

29-693

1 Hiffhest -

-

30 770

30-820

.10770 30 540

30 380

30-460

30 300 30260

30-410

30 610 30-270

30-320

Lowest

-

28-890

29 170

28-870 29-200

29-160

29 600

29-390 29-350

29410

28-740 29 080

29-120

Thtrviovieter, average")

meiin temperature
depreeg

Hiehest -

"i

311

38-

43-9

499

54-

58-7

61-

616

57-8

48-9

429

39-3

J

sa-

53-

66-

74-

70-

90-

76-

82-

76-

68-

62-

55-

Lowest

.

il-

21-

24-

29-

33-

37-

42

41-

36-

27-

23-

17-

Rairt. mean quantity
inches

in)

1483

0-746

1-440

1-786

1-853

1-830

2-516J 1-453

2-193

2073 2-400

2-426

Evaporation of earth
iiiclies (mean)

in|

0-413

0-72

1-488

2-290

0286

3-760

3293

3-327

2 620

1-488' 0770

0-516

Winrf."? in days :

North ...

_

3*

H

n

2i

3

5

n

1

2

2

3

1

North-east -

_

4*

4f

4

n

4

6*

3

2J

H

3

n

East ...

_

li

2»

3

4i

2

2

H

2

3

H

• South-east -

.

ih

2}

2

31

4

4

4

3

3*

2

4

South - - -

_

11

^

2i

2*

1

1

H

2i

2t

3

2

South-west -

_

6\

5 9k

4

Pi

H

7

6

5*

6

^

West -

.

6i

6i 6J

5i

H

3

5

U

6

5

5

6

North-west -

- 1 4*

H H

H

3

5

5A 1 2 ( 6

6i

5

4

£2

British Almanac.
125

ATMOSPHERE.

ATMOSPHERE.

TATiojT.) The composition of the atmosphere
is always the same, although it has been ana-
lyzed when obtained from the most elevated
mountains, the lowest marshes, from crowded
cities, and the surface of the ocean, in all
winds, and in all states of the barometer.

The following table exhibits the atmosphe-
ric mean temperatures in various parts of the
United States and Territories, not only for the
whole year, but for each month. It is abridged
from Dr. Forry's Treatise upon the Climato-
logy of the United States. The mean tempe-
ratures of some other celebrated places in the
old world, are subjoined for the purpose of
comparison.

The mean temperatures of the various mili-
tary posts, are the results of 90 observations
for each month, and 1095 for each year. The
rule followed for computing the mean, was that
adopted by the regents of the University of
New York, viz.: — Take the lowest morning
temperature, the highest afternoon tempera-
ture, and the temperature an hour after sunset.
The mean of these observations for the day is

found, by adding together the first, twice the
second and third, and the first of the next day,
and dividing the same by six. To most common
observers this will appear rather an intricate
mode of attaining an object which is so con-
veniently, and, in general, so satisfactorily ac-
complished by the very simple process of
dividing the sum of the highest and lowest ob-
servations during the day. Strictly speaking,
the mean temperature of a day is equal to the
sum of the temperature observed by the ther-
mometer every hour or every minute, divided
by the number of hours or minutes in the day.
The hourly changes of atmospheric tempera-
ture have actually been observed for a con-
tinued year in some instances, among which
we may mention that at the Arsenal at Frank-
ford,, near Philadelphia, in the year 1835 — 6,
conducted under the superintendence of Capt.
Mordecai, of the United States army. The
tesults of these hourly observations are pub-
lished in the 19th volume of the Journal of the
Franklin Institute, New Series.

OBSERVATION.

Fort Vancouver, Oregon Territory, - - . •
Fort Brady, Gullet of Lake Superior, - • •
Hancock Barracks, Houlton, Maine, . - - .
Fort Snelling, at the confluence of the St. ,

Peter's and Mississippi, ;

Fort Sullivan, Eastport, Maine,

Fort Howard, Green Bay, Wisconsin, - • •

Fort Preble, Portland, Maine,

Fort Niagara, Youngslown, N. Y.

Fort Constitution, Portsmouth, N. H. • • •

Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien,

Council BluflFs, near the junction of the Platte ;

and Missouri, J

Fort Wolcott, Newport, R. I.

Fort Armstrong, Rock Island, Illinois, • - •

West Point, New York,

Fort Trumbull, New London, Conn., - - -
Fort Columbus, New York Harbour, - - - .

Fort Mifflin, near Philadelphia,

Washington City, D. C.

Fort Monroe, Old Point Comfort,

Fort Gibson, Arkansas,

Fort Johnston, Coast of North Carolina,

Augusta Arsenal, Georgia,

Fort Moultrie, Charleston Harbor, - -
Fort Jessup, near Sabine River, Louisiana,
Cantonment Clinch, near Pensacola, - -
Petite Coquille, near New Orleans, - -
Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida, • -
Fort King, Interior of East Florida, - -
Fort Brooke, Tampa Bay, Florida, - - •
Key West, or Thompson's Island, ...

Foreign Climatet, designed for the purpose
of eoi
Edinburgh, Scotland,
London, England, -
Environs of London,
Paris, France, - -
Nice, Italy, - - •
Montpelier, France,
Rome, Italy, - - -
Naples, Iialy> " • •
Madeira, Island of -
Cairo, Egypt, ■ -

45«'37i
46 39
46 10
44 53
44 44
44 40
43 38
43 15
43 4
43 3
41 45
41 30
41 28
41 22
41 22
40 42
39 51
38 53
38 28
37 2
35 47
34 ..
33 28
42
31 30
30 24
30 10
29 60
2

27 57
24 33

48 60
43 41
43 36
41 54
40 50
32 37
30 2

I22»37
84 43
67 50

67 4
87 . .
70 18
79 5
70 49
90 53

71 18
90 33

73 57

72 5

74 2

75 12

76 55
90 8
76 12
95 10

78 5
81 53

79 56
93 47
87 14
89 38

81 27

82 12
82 35
81 52

3012'
. . 5

2 20
7 20

3 58
12 29
14 20

42-95
44-92
46-67
51-69
47-21
45-52
51-02
50-61
51-64
52-47
55-—
53-—
55-28
56-.57
58-14

66-01
65-78
-03
.44
71-25
72-66
72-66
73-42
7609

MEAN TEMPERATURE OF EACH MONTH.

22-61
29-93
23 78
27-97
34-50
3008
33-54
3611
34-59
42-83
45-47
51-42
48-63
50 73
52-30
54 36
.55-98
60-73

47-31
50-39
48-81
51-50
59-48 45
57-60142
60- 70:47
61-40 46
64.56!. 59
72-12 58

43-— 44-—
19-80 27-37
14'35 26-39

18-66132-12

24 94
25-20
27-10
21-93
26-59

06
26-28
30-27
39-53
31-22
28-67
37-81
36-36
44-S5

25
5219
53-I6
46-24
54-09
55-98

12
64 97
65-28
65-78
72-15

1-50

31-19
33-41
34-39
34-60
32-48
37-43
37-94
37-47
39-30
42-77
39-61
38-69
45-96
47-76
50-67
53-51
60 52
5S-57
59-—
61-79
62-92
63-56
67-55
65-56
68-56
73-7)

39-60

42-64

41-51

43-50
)-— 51-45
i._ 47-_
1-45 52-05156-40
l-50i52-— 67-—
!50 61-06'62-50
)- 12; 64-58 77-90

46—

38-50
43-85
46-

39-

43-28

45-4-1

47-52

45

43-92

51-82

54

52-56

53-46

62

49-65

5713

54-49

5977

55-55

59-45

66 56

46-41 57-;
51

5I-57|61
51--: 59 22
49-89 61-27
52I6|63 46
55-73 66-88
59-69168 90
58-24167-83
61-28172
65-28:73-70
65-78 i73-3l
65-47 |74-92
66-81 75-20

45-84
48—
46-89
49-60
57—
53—

48-67

55-64

55-79

58- 10

63

60

64-50

66-50

63—

78-26

66--
65 90
6410

75-47

•55

68-38, 72-25
64 29 69-71
68-90i 74-60
62-80 67-89
6857'72-40
73-9877 38
;5-54'7I-45
3-59 77-92
7048 74-14
67 73-87
70 52 76-—
75-23 81-57
75-07 7851
6-58 79-04
75.78 79-65
78 66 81-49
78-98181-57

,82-17

78-86 81-99

80-95
81-50
i2-95
81-41
84-94
80-79
80-51

54-85
60 —
58-66
62-50

71-
6,5-
83-66

83-54
82-96
83-95

59-31
63-43
62-40
65-70

73-50
72-—
73-30
75-—

7198
'63 82
68 83
67-19
73-06
66-47
71-41
76 11

70-18
76-21
73-96
73-12
74-58
77-—
76-63
79-74
79-50
83-28
80-39
81-14
79-96
82 96
82 27
83-47
82 67
83-63
81-23
8106

61 —
56 25
51-58
59-41
57-28
57-61
9—
63-&5
59-09
61-50
65-24
63-68
63-67
87
68 02
66-72
73-35
-50
68-57
72-72

54— 43 — 43—
45-52 33-9l|22-2»
4rg4 32-b0 26-48
49 27 33-36 15-60
47-22 35-83127-35
47-51 34 29;21-—
49-28 38-45!3l-32
58-94 48-12
50-43 40-32
45-45 3306
53-65i38-50
64-45 43-39
64-58 39-82
53-11 43-64
•58-10 46-70

55-82 44-05

57 20 44.4037-16
57-17, 44-93;39-36
56-84 47-37 4207
63-78 '53-49 47-82

24-21

36-63 I
-63

30-B
38-10 i

43-95

65-95 1 54-12 46-20
-- 69-11 60-13 53-83
74-26 65-84 ,56-36152-49
76- 19 67-32 57-56' 52-81
68 29 [58-55; 53- 17
70-27 61 -13 58-07
72-12 K-09I6I-68
73-83 63-55'60-92
"2-8 1 6 1 -98' 59-26
75-23 69-06 64-42
76-76 73-23:70 08

48 37 '39-60 38-50
51-78 43-47 39-68
56-22 50-24 40 93 37 66
401.52-40 44-20'39-20
69-35,61 85 53-70-18-60

75— l7l — lei— 52—146--
74-02 1 69-50 63 60 58-80149 62
76 50172-50 65— ,54-50,50.50
73—171-50 67 50 62 70 60 50
85-82i79-16 72-32 62 96:61-34

For further information relative to weather,
and atmospheric conditions in general, see Ba-
rometer, Climate, Temperature, &c.

ATROPHY. In farriery, a morbid wasting
and emaciation, attended with a great loss of
strength in animals.

AUGER, BORING. An implement for bor-
^g into the soil. An auger of the above kind,
^hen made of a large size, and with different
pieces to fix on to each other, may be very
usefully applied to try the nature of the under
soil, the discovering springs, and drawing off
126

water from lands, &c. In order to accomplish
the first purpose, three augers will be neces-
sary ; the first of them about three feet long,
the second six, and the third ten. Their diame-
ters should be near an inch, and their bits
large, and capable of bringing up part of the
soil they pierce. An iron handle should be
fixed crossways to wring it into the earth, from
whence the instrument must be drawn up as
often as it has pierced a new depth of about six
inches, in order to cleanse the bit, and examine
the soil.

r

AUGER, DRAINING.

I

AUGER, DRAINING. An instrument em-
ployed for the purpose of boring into the bot- j
toms of drains or otlier places, in order to |
discover and let off water. It is nearly similar
to that made use of in searching for coal or
other subterraneous minerals. The auger,
shell, or wimble, as it is variously called, for
excavating the earth or strata through which
it passes, is generally from two and a half to
three and a half inches in diameter ; the hollow
part of it one foot four inches in length, and
constructed nearly in the shape of the wimble
used by carpenters, only the sides of the shell
come closer to one another. The rods are
made in separate pieces of four feet long each,
that screw into one another to any assignable
length, one after another as the depth of the
hole requires. The size above the auger is
about an inch square, unless at the joints,
where, for the sake of strength, they are a
quarter of an inch more.

There is also a chisel and punch, adapted
for screwing on, in going through hard gravel,
or other metallic substances, to accelerate the
passage of the auger, which could not other-
wise perforate such hard bodies. The punch
is often used, when the auger is not applied,
to prick or open the sand or gravel, and give
a more easy issue to the water. The chisel is
an inch and a half or two inches broad at the
point, and made very sharp for cutting stone;
and the punch an inch square, like the other
part of the rods, with the point sharpened also.

As it is remarked by Johnstone, in his ac-
count of Elkington's mode of draining, to judge
when to make use of the borer is a difficult
part of the business of draining. Many who
have not seen it made use of in draining, have
been led into a mistaken notion, both as to the
manner of using it and the purpose for which
it is applied. They think, that if by boring
indiscriminately through the ground to be
drained, water is found near enough the sur-
face to be reached by the depth of the drain,
the proper direction for it is along these holes
where water has been found ; and thus make
it the first implement that is used. The con-
trary, however, in practice, is the case, and the
auger is never used till after the drain is cut;
and then for the purpose of perforating any
retentive or impervious stratum, lying be-
tween the bottom of the drain and the reser-
voir or strata containing the spring. Thus it
greatly lessens the trouble and expense that
would otherwise be requisite in cutting the
trench to that depth to which, in many in-
stances, the level of the outlet will not admit.
The manner of using it is simply thus : — in
working it, two, or rather three men, are ne-

AVENA.

cessary. Two stand above, on each side of
the drain, who turn it round by means of the
wooden handles, and when the auger is full
they draw it out ; and the man in the bottom
of the trench clears out the earth, assists in
pulling it out, and directing it into the hole,
and who can also assist in turning with the
iron handle or key when the depth and length
of rods require additional force to perform the
operation. The workmen should be cautious
in boring not to go deeper at a time, without
drawing, than the exact length of the shell,
otherwise the earth, clay, or sand, through
which it is boring, after the shell is full, makes
it very difficult to pull out. For this purpose
the exact length of the shell should be regu-
larly marked on the rods, from the bottom up-
wards. Two flat boards, with a hole cut into
the side of one of them, and laid alongside of
one another over the drain, in the time, of
boring, are very useful for directing the reds
in going down perpendicularly, for keeping
them steady in boring, and for the men stand-
ing on when performing the operation.

AVENA. A genus of grasses; the oat-
grass. Some of the species may be cultivated
to advantage in suitable situations, intermixed
with a due proportion of other grasses.

AvenaJJaveseens. Golden oat, or yellow oat-
grass. This is one of those grasses which
never thrives when cultivated simply^by itself:
it requires to be combined with other grasses
to secure its continuance in the soil, and to
obtain its produce in, perfection. It thrives
best in England when combined with the Hor-
deum praiense (meadow barley), Cynosurus
crislatus (crested dog's-tail), and Anthoxantum
odoratum (sweet-scented vernal -grass). It
affects most a calcareous soil, and that which
is dry. It grows naturally, however, in al-
most every kind of meadow : it is always
present in the richest natural pastures in Eng-
land where its produce is not, however, very
great, nor its nutritive qualities considerable.
The nutritive matter it affords from its leaves,
(the properties of which are of more import-
ance to be known than those of the culms, for
a permanent pasture grass,) contains propor-
tionally more bitter extractive than what is con-
tained in the nutritive matters of the grasses
with which it is more generally combined in na-
tural pastures, and which have just now been
mentioned. This latter circumstance is the
chief claim it has to a place in the composition
of the produce of rich pasture land ; but more
particularly, if the land be elevated, and with-
out good shelter, this grass becomes more
valuable, as it thrives better under such cir-
cumstances than most other grasses, and sheep

DeacriptioD of Grai*.

jSvevaflaveseena, in flower

, in seed ripe

', latter-math

^. pralensia, in flower

, in seed, ripe -

A. pubeseens, in flower
, in seed, ripe

Soil.

Clayey loam
Sandy loam

Green Produce
per Acre.

8,167 8 0

12,251 4 0

4,083 12 0

6,806 4 0

9.528 12 0

15,654 6 0

6,806 4 0

Dry Prodnce

lbs.

2,858 10
4,900 8

1,871 11

2,858 10
5,870 6
1,361 4

Produce per Acre

of Nutritive

Matter.

478 9
430 11
79 12
239 4
148 14
366 14
212 II

(Stnckur's Hort. Gram. Wob.)
127

AVENA.

AVENUE.

eat it as readily as they do most others. The
seed is very small and light ; but it vegetates
freely if sown in the autumn, or not too early
in the spring. I have sown the seeds of this
grass in almost every month of the year, and
after making due allowance for the state of the
weather, the third week in May, and the first
week of August to September, were evidently
the best. It flowers in England in the first,
and often in the second week of July, and ri-
pens the seed in the beginning of August. The
value of the grass, at the time of flowering, is
to that at the time the seed is ripe, as 5 to 3.

The value of the grass, at the time of flower-
ing, exceeds that of the latter-math, as 3 to 1 ;
and the value of the grass at the time the seed
is ripe is to that of the latter-math, as 9 to 5.

Avena praiensis. Meadow oat-grass. This
species of oat-grass is much less common
than the Avejfia pubescens, or Avena Jlavescens.
It is found more frequent on chalky than on
any other kind of soils : I have also found it
in moist meadows as well as on dry heaths.
This property of thriving on soils of such
opposite natures is not common to the difier-
ent species of grass. When this grass was
planted in an irrigated meadow, the produce
did not appear to exceed that which it afford-
ed on a dry elevated soil, though it appeared
more healthy, by the superior green colour
of the foliage ; and it thus appears to thrive
under irrigation. The produce and nutri-
tive powers, however, seem to be inferior to
many other species of the secondary grasses.
The produce or value of the yellow oat is su-
perior to that of the meadow oat in the pro-
portion nearly of 7 to 3. The downy oat-grass
is also superior to the meadow oat-grass
in the quantity of nutritive matter it affords
from the crops of one season, in the proportion
nearly of 3 to 2. From these facts and obser-
vations it cannot justly be recommended for
cultivation in preference to either of the two
species with which it has now been compared.
Its nutritive matter contains a less proportion
of bitter extractive and saline matters than
any other of the oat-grasses that have been
submitted to experiment. It flowers in July,
and the seed is ripe in August.

Avena pubescens. Downy oat-grass. [See
Plate 6, b.] This grass has properties which
recommend it to the notice of the agriculturist,
being hardy, and a small impoverisher of the
soil ; the reproductive power is also consider-
able, though the foliage does not attain to a
great length if left growing. Like the Poa
pratends, it seldom or never sends forth any
flowering culms, after the first are cropped,
which is a property of some value for the pur-
pose of permanent pasture, or dry soils, which
are sooner impoverished by the growth of
plants than those that are moist. Among the
secondary grasses, therefore, I hardly know
one whose habits promise better for the pur-
pose now spoken of. The nutritive matter it
affords contains a greater proportion of the
■Ihtter extractive principle than the nutritive
ifatter of those grasses that affect a similar
soil, which lessens its merits in those respects
and must prevent its being employed in any
considerable quantity as a constituent of a
128

mixture of grasses for laying down such soils
to grass. In one part of Woburn Park, where
the soil is light and silicious, the downy oat
grows in considerable abundance. The downy
hairs which cover the surface of the leaves of
this grass when growing on poor, dry, or
chalky soils, almost disappear when cultivated
on richer soils. The crop at the time of flower-
ing is superior to that at the time the seed is
ripe, in the proportion nearly of 5 to 3. The
grass of the latter-^math, and that at the time
the seed is ripe, are of equal proportional va-
lue. It flowers in the second or third week
of June, and the seed is ripe about the begin-
ning or in the middle of July.

[Avena elaticr. See Andes Grass.

Avena sa/iva. Cultivated oats.

Avena sterilis. Animated oats, grown in
gardens as a curiosity.]

AVENS, COMMON, or HERB BENNET
(Geurn urbanum). An indigenous perennial
plant, which grows plentifully in woods and
about shady dry hedges, producing small bright
yellow flowers from May till August. The
stalks of this useful plant attain two feet high,
they are erect, round, finely, hairy branched at
the upper part, bearing several flowers. The
root consists of a root-stock and many stout
brown fibres, which are astringent, and in some
degree aromatic in spring. They are said to
impart an agreeable clove-like flavour when
infused in beer or wine. In medicine, the
powdered root of the common avens has been
employed with good effect in conjunction with
Peruvian bark, or quinine, in cases of ague
and intermittent fever, and it is also valuable
in long-standing cases of diarrhoea, and in the
last stage of dysentery. The dose is from
thirty to sixty grains. Sheep are extremely
fond of its herbage, which may likewise, when
young, be used for culinary purposes, and
especially in the form of salad. It is stated
(Trans, of Swed. Acad.) that if a portion of the
dried root be placed in a bag and hung in a
cask of beer, it will prevent the beer from
turning sour. There is a variety of this plant
called the great-flowered avens. (Eng. Flora,
vol. ii. p. 429 ; Willich's Dom. Ency.)

AVENS, WATER. A variety of the before-
named plant, which is common in moist mea-
dows and woods, especially in mountainous
countries, and is not rare in the north of Eng-
land, Scotland, Wales, nor even in Norfolk.
It has drooping flowers, which distinguish it
from the common avens. It is readily pro-
duced by transplanting the wild roots into a
dry gravelly soil, by which the flowers become
red, as well as double and proliferous, with
many strange changes of leaves into petals,
and the contrary. (Smith's Eng. Flora.)

AVENUE (Fr.). An alley or walk planted

on each side with trees. These kinds of walks

were formerly much more the fashion than

they are at present. When they are to be

made, the common elm answers wery well for

the purpose in most grounds, except such as

are very wet and shallow, and is preferred to

I most other trees, because it bears cutting,

I heading, or lopping in any manner. The rough

I Dutch elm is approved by some, because of its

I quick growth ; and it is a tree that will not

AVERAGES.

AZOTE.

II

I

only bear removing very well, but that is green
in the spring almost as soon as any plant what-
ever, and continues so equally long. It makes
an incomparable hedge, and is preferable to
all other trees for lofty espaliers. The lime is
very useful on account of its regular growth
and fine shade ; and the horse-chesnut is pro-
per for such places as are not too much ex-
posed to rough winds. , The common chesnut
does very well in a good soil, or on warm gra-
vels, as it rises to a considerable height when
planted somewhat close ; but, when it stands
single, it is rather inclined to spread than grow
tall. The beech naturally grows well with us
in its wild state, but it is less to be chosen for
avenues than others, because it does not bear
transplanting well. The abele may also be
employed for this use, as it is adapted to al-
most any soil, and is the quickest grower of
any forest tree. It seldonr fails in transplant-
ing, and succeeds very well in wet soils, in
whicii the others are apt to suffer. The oak is
but seldom used for avenues, because of its
slow growth.

The old method of planting avenues was by
regular rows of trees, a practice which has
been adhered to till lately ; but now, when they
are used, a much more ornamental way of
planting them is adopted, which is by setting
the trees in clumps or platoons, making the
opening much wider than before, and placing
the clumps of trees from one to three hundred
feet distant from each other. In these clumps
there should always be planted either seven or
nine trees ; but it must be observed that this
method is only proper to be practiced where
the avenue is of considerable length, as in short
walks such clumps will not appear so sightly
as single rows of trees. The avenues made
by clumps are the most suitable for large
parks. The trees in the clumps in such should
be planted thirty feet asunder ; and a trench
thrown up round each clump to prevent the
deer from coming to the trees and barking
them.

AVERAdES (Fr. aver.- Lat. averagiwn).
In the corn trade, is the average amount of the
prices at which the several kinds of corn are
sold in the chief corn markets of England, as
ascertained by the returns of certain inspec-
tors, according to the act of the 9 G. 4, c. 60.
(See CoHx Laws.)

AVERDUPOIS, or AVOIRDUPOIS
WEIGHT (Avoir du poid, Fr., Dr. Johnson
says, but he should have added, averia ponde-
m, Lat., literally goods of weight, goods sold
by weight ; aver in old French, and avoir in
modem, signifying goods, like the low Lat
averittm, avenim, avert). That kind of weight
commonly made use of for weighing most
kinds of large and coarse goods, as cheese,
butter, salt, hops, flesh, wool, &c. According
to it, sixteen drachms make an ounce, sixteen
ounces one pound, one hundred and twelve
pounds one hundred weight, and twenty hun-
dred weight one ton. It is most commonly
written avoirdupois.

AVIARY (Lat. avis, a bird). A place set
apart for the feeding and propagating birds.

AWNS (Goth, ahana,- Sw. agri)t The nee-
dle-like bristles which form the beards of
17

wheat, barley, and other grasses. The word
is in some parts of England pronounced ails
and lies.

AXIS (Lat., axel, Sw.), or axle-tree. The
strong piece of wood or iron which supports
the weight of wagons, carts, carriages, &c., and
round the extremities of which the wheels
turn.

AZALEA. American honey-suckle ; the
white-flowered (Lat. Azalea viscosa). A hardy
shrub growing three feet high, and blowing its
white flowers in June and July. Azalea niidi-
flitra, also a native of North America, grows
three feet high, with red flowers, blooming in
May and June ; and Azalea pontica, a native
of the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, bloom-
ing yellow flowers in May : it grows three feet
high. These hardy shrubs love shade and a
moist soil. Propagate by layers and suckers :
the seed does not ripen well in this climate.
Do not prune, only cut out the dead wood.
Remove the young well-rooted plants with a
good ball of earth in the autumn or early in
spring.

AZOREAN FENNEL {Anefhum azoricum,
or Finochio ; from etndov, on account of its run-
ning up straight). A plant kept in kitchen
gardens ; it is not in much esteem here, its
peculiar flavour being agreeable to few pa-
lates. In Italy, and some other countries, it is
served with a dressing like salads. «

AZOTE is as commonly known by the name
of nitrogen. The name of azote (derived from
the Greek <t, from, and ^ot, life), was given to
it by the French chemists, from animals being
unable to breathe it [in a state of purity.] This
gas, which constitutes 79' 16 parts per cent, of
the air we breathe, was discovered in 1772 by
Dr. Rutherford. Before his time there had been
much confusion with regard to the composi-
tion of the atmospheric and other gases; they
were chiefly regarded by the old chemists as
being all of the same kind, but mixed with
various unknown substances. When all the
oxygen is absorbed from a confined portion
of atmospheric air, the remainder is nearly
pure azote ; it is known only in the state of
gas. Azotic gas is invisible and elastic, and
has no smell ; its specific gravity is 0.969.
Animals cannot breathe it [in a pure state :]
when they are placed in a jar of it, they die
as rapidly as if immersed in water ; neither
will it support combustion. It unites with
oxygen in various proportions : thus,—

Pirtm Parto.

1-75 azote and 2 oxygen forms nitrous gas.

1-75 — 5 — nitric acid, or aquafortis,

1'75 — 4'178 — nitrous acid.

Azote, or nitrogen, abounds in animal sub-
stances, for it forms 1 6*998 per cent, of gela-
tine ; 15'705 per cent, of albumen (white of
egg), &c., and these are commonly present in
all animal substances. Azote unites also with
hydrogen gas, and forms the volatile alkali
ammonia, which is composed of —

Azote ------ 26 parts.

Hydrogen ----- 74

Now, as both these substances exist in ani-
mal matters, when such substances putrefy, or
are subjected to the destructive distillation,

129

AZOTE.

AZOTE.

they readily unite and form the volatile alkali
ammonia.

Azote exists also in gluten ; and wherever
this substance is present in vegetable matter,
there, in consequence, azote is to be found,
but otherwise it does not often enter into the
composition of vegetable substances. And yet
it is worthy of remark, that although azote can-
not be regarded as a direct food of plants, yet
most of those substances which contain it are
exceedingly grateful to them, such as ammo-
nia, saltpetre, animal matter, &c. ; and again,
vegetables certainly emit, and probably inhale,
this gas. Thus some plants of Vinca minor
being made to vegetate in a confined portion
of air for six days, and the composition of the
air being ascertained by M. Saussure {Rech.
Chim. p. 40), the following were the results in
cubic inches : —

Compoiition of atmosphere,
when put in. when taken out.

Azote - - 211-92 - - - 218.95
Oxygen - - 56-33 - . . 71-05
Carbonic acid - 21.75 - . - 0-00

The plants, therefore, had evidently in-
creased the proportion of azote and oxygen,
but had entirely exhausted the air of its car-
bonic acid gas.

Similar experiments made with the Mentha
aquatica, Cactus opuntia, Lythrum salacaria,
and the Pinus genevensis, afforded similar re-
sults.

Azote, therefore, evidently fulfils a more con-
siderable office in vegetable economy than we
are yet exactly aware of, and it is more than
probable that considerable discoveries are yet
to be made in the investigation of its uses to
vegetable life. See Gases, their use to vege-
tation. (Davy's Chem. Phil. p. 255 ; Thomson's
Chem.)

[The chief element contained in vegetable
substances resorted to for the support of ani-
mals, is azote or nitrogen. On the other hand
we see, in the vegetable kingdom, plants ap-
propriating carbon as the prime element of
their structure. The quantity of food which
animals take for their nourishment diminishes
or increases in the same proportion as it con-
tains more or less of the substances yield-
ing nitrogen. A horse may be kept alive by
feeding it with potatoes, which contain a very
small quantity of nitrogen ; but life thus sup-
ported is a gradual starvation ; the animal in-
creases neither in size nor strength, and sinks
under every exertion. The quantity of rice
which an East Indian eats astonishes the Eu-
ropean or American ; but the fact that rice
contains less nitrogen than any other grain, at
once explains the circumstance.

" We cannot suppose," says Liebig, " that
a plant would attain maturity, even in the rich-
est vegetable mould, without the presence of
matter containing nitrogen ; since we know
tiiat nitrogen exists in every part of the vege-
■ble structure. The first and most important
(^estion to be solved, therefore, is : How and
in what form does nature furnish nitrogen to
vegetable albumen, and gluten, to fruits and
seeds ?

130 '

" This question is susceptible of a very sim-
ple solution.

" Plants, as we know, grow perfectly well in
pure charcoal, if supplied at the same time
with rain-water. Rain-water can contain nitro-
gen only in two forms, either as dissolved at-
mospheric air, or as ammonia. Now, the nitro-
gen of the air cannot be made to enter into
combination with any element except oxygen,
even by employment of the most powerful
chemical means. We have not the slightest
reason for believing that the nitrogen of the
atmosphere takes part in the processes of as-
similation of plants and animals ; on the con-
trary, we know that many plants emit the nitro-
gen, which is absorbed by their roots, either in
the gaseous form, or in solution in water. But
there are, on the other hand, numerous facts,
showing that the formation in plants of sub-
stances containing nitrogen, such as gluten,
takes place in proportion to the quantity of
this element which is conveyed to their roots
in the state of ammonia, derived from the pu-
trefaction of animal matter.

"Ammonia is a compound gas, consisting
of one volume of nitrogen and three volumes
of hydrogen. It is produced during the de-
composition of many animal substances. It
is given off when sal-ammoniac and lime are
rubbed together. It was formerly called vola-
tile alkali.

"Ammonia, too, is capable of undergoing
such a multitude of transformations, when in
contact with other bodies, that in this respect
it is not inferior to water, which possesses the
same property in an eminent degree. It pos-
sesses properties which we do not find in any
other compound of nitrogen; when pure, it is
extremely soluble in water ; it forms soluble
compounds with all the acids ; and when in
contact with certain other substances, it com-
pletely resigns its character as an alkali, and
is capable of assuming the most various and
opposite forms."

With regard to the sources from which
vegetables draw those supplies of nitrogen, so
essential to their growth and developement,
Liebig makes the following observations : —

" Let us picture to ourselves the condition
of a well-cultured farm, so large as to be in-
dependent of assistance from other quarters.
On this extent of land there is a certain quan-
tity of nitrogen contained both in the corn and
fruit which it produces, and in the men and
animals which feed upon them, and also in
their excrements. We shall suppose this quan-
tity to be known. The land is cultivated with-
out the importation of any foreign substance
containing nitrogen. Now, the products of
this farm must be exchanged every year for
money, and other necessaries of life, for bodies
therefore which contain no nitrogen. A cer-
tain proportion of nitrogen is exported with
corn and cattle; and this exportation takes
place every year, without the smallest com-
pensation ; yet after a given number of years,
the quantity of nitrogen will be found to have
increased. Whence, we may ask, comes this
increase of nitrogen 1 The nitrogen in the
excrements cannot reproduce itself, and the

BACCIFEROUS.

BAKING.

•

earth cannot yield it. Plants, and consequent-
ly animals, must therefore derive their nitro-
gen from the atmosphere." ( Org. Che/n.)

B.

BACCIFEROUS (from bacca, a berry, and
fero, to bear). A term applied to trees bear-
ing berries.

BACK, the spine. The back of a horse
should be straight, in order that it may be
strong : when it is hollow, or what is termed
saddle-hacked, the animal is generally weak.

Back sore. A complaint which is very com-
mon to young horses when they first travel.
To prevent it, their backs should be cooled
every time they are baited, and now and then
washed with warm water, and wiped dry with
a linen cloth. The best cure for a sore back
is a lotion of 1 oz. of Goulard's extract (sugar
of lead and vinegar), 1 oz. of turpentine, 1 oz.
of spirit of wine, and 1 pint of vinegar.

Back sinews, sprain of the. This is often oc-
casioned by the horse being overweighted, and
then ridden far and fast, especially if his pas-
terns are long ; but it may occur from a false
step, or from the heels of the shoes being too
much lowered. Sprain of the back sinews is
detected by swelling and heal at the back of
the lower part of the leg ; puffiness along the
course of the sinews ; extreme tenderness, so
far as the swelling and heat extend ; and very
great lameness.

The first object is to abate the inflammation,
and this should be attempted by bleeding from
the plate vein ; by means of which blood is
drained from the inflamed part. Next, local
applications should be made to the back of
the leg, in the form of fomentations of water
sufficiently hot and frequently repeated. At
the same time, as much strain as possible
should be taken from the sinew, by putting a
high calkin on the heel of the shoe.

BACON. Probably from baktn, that is, dried
flesh. Dr. Johnson says, and Mr. Home Tooke
contends, that it is evidently the past participle
of the Saxon bacan, to bake or dry by heat.
(Di'r. of Pur. vol. ii. p. 71.) I may, however,
refer perhaps as strongly to the old French
bacon, which means dried flesh and pork. The
Welsh also have bacwn. The flesh of the hog
after it has been salted and dried, and it is
either smoked or kept without smoking, when
it is termed green bacon. ( Todd.)

Such hogs as have been kept till they are
full grown, and have then attained to a large
size, are for the most part converted to the
purpose of bacon. The seasons for killing
hogs for bacon are between October and
March, but it of course varies according to
custom and circumstances in peculiar districts.
The process of curing bacon is so well known
throughout the country, that it is scarcely ne-
cessary to add any thing on the subject; but
the following practical hints may not be with-
out their utility. In order to have good bacon,
the hair should be swealed off, not scalded, the
flesh will be more solid and firm. The best
method of doing this is to cover the hog thinly
with straw, and to set light to it in the direction
of the wind. As the straw is burnt oflf, it

should be renewed, taking care, however, not
to burn or parch the skin. After both sides
have been treated in this way, the hog is to be
scraped quite clean, but water must not be
used. After the hog has been properly cut up,
the inside, or flesh-side of each flitch is to be
well rubbed with salt, and placed above each
other in a tray, which should have a gutter
round its edge to drain off the brine. Once in
four or five days the salt should be changed,
and the flitches frequently moved, putting the
bottom one at top, and then again at the bot-
tom. Some persons, in curing bacon, add for
each hog half a pound of bay salt, and a
quarter of a pound of saltpetre, and one pound
of very coarse sugar or treacle. Very excel-
lent bacon may, however, be made with com-
mon salt alone, provided it be well rubbed in,
and changed sufficiently often. Six weeks, in
moderate weather, will be time sufficient for
the curing of a hog of twelve score. Smoking
the bacon is much better than merely drying
it. The flitches should, in the first place, be
rubbed over with bran or fine saw-dust (not
deal), and then hung up in a chimney out of
the rain, and not near enough to the fire to
melt. The smoke must be from wood, stubble,
or litter. If the fire is tolerably constant and
good, a month's smoking will be sufficient.
The flitches are afterward frequently preserved
in clear, dry wood ashes, or very dry sand.

The counties of England most celebrated for
bacon, are York, Hants, Berks, and Wilts.
Ireland produces great quantities, but it is
neither so clean fed, nor so well cured as the
English, and is much lower priced. Of the
Scotch counties, Dumfries, Wigtown, and
Kirkcudbright, are celebrated for the excel-
lence of their bacon and hams, of which they
now export large quantities, principally to the
Liverpool and London markets. The imports
of bacon and hams from Ireland have increas-
ed rapidly of late years. The average quan-
tity imported during the three years ending the
25th of March, 1800, only amounted to 41,948
cwt. ; whereas during the three years ending
with 1820, the average imports amounted to
204,380 cwt. ; and during the three years ending
with 1825, they had increased to 338,218 cwt.

In 1825 the trade between Ireland and Great
Britain was placed on the footing of a coasting
trade ; and bacon and hams are imported and
exported without any specific entry at the
Custom-house. We believe the imports of
bacon into Great Britain from Ireland amounts,
at present, to little less than 500,000 cwt. a
year. The quantity of bacon and hams ex-
ported from Ireland to foreign countries is
inconsiderable, not exceeding 1500 or 2000
cwt. a year. The duty on bacon and hams
being 28a. the cwt. is in effect prohibitory.
See Pnovisioxs Trade.

BAIT (Sax. tar an, German, baitzen). A feed
of oats, or any other material given to an ani-
mal employed in travelling or labour. These
should always be proportioned to the condition
of the animal, and the nature of his labour. It
also signifies any thing applied with the view
of catching an animal.

BAKING. The application of heat in the
preparation of bread. See Bbeab.

131

BAKING OF LAND.

BALSAM.

BAKING OF LAND. A term applied to
such kinds of land as are liable, from the large
proportions of clayey or other matter which
they contain, to become hard and crusty on the
surface. In order to prevent this, the best
practice is to lessen the tenacity of such soils
by the application of substances capable of
rendering them more open and friable, as
lime, and other calcareous materials, rich
earthy composts, sand, &c.

BALL. Whatever was round was called by
the ancients either bal, or bd, and likewise bol
and bill. In farriery, a well-known form of
medicine, for horses or other animals, which
may be passed at once into the stomach. They
should be made of a long oval shape, and
about the size of a small e^g, being best con-
veyed over the root of the tongue by the hand.
This method of administering medicines is
preferable in most cases to that of drenches.
I subjoin the recipes for a few of those balls
most commonly used by the farmer.

Mild Physic Ball.

Barbadoes aloes - - -

Powdered ginger - - -

Castile soap _ _ _

Oil of cloves _ _ _ -20 drops.

Syrup of buckthorn sufficient to form a bail.

Strong Physic Ball.

Barbadoes aloes
Ginger, powdered
Castile soap
Oil of cloves

8 drachms.

- 2

- 20 drops.
Syrup of buckthorn sufficient to form a ball.

Calomel Ball for a Riding Horse.

Calomel - _ _ _

Aloes, powdered - - -
Ginger, powdered - - -
Castile soap _ _ _

Oil of cloves - _ _

Syrup of buckthorn sufficient to make into a ball.

Calomel Ball for a Cart Horse.

Aloes, powdered - - -
Otherwise same as the last.

Diuretic Ball.

- 8 drachms.

Castile soap _ - >

Nitre, powdered - - -
Rosin, powdered - - -
Oil of juniper _ - -

Aniseed powder and treacle sufficient to make into
eight balls.

Cordial Ball.

- 4 ounces.
. 4

Cummin seed, powdered
Aniseed, powdered
Caraway seed, powdered
Liquorice powder

Ginger, powdered - - - 2

Honey sufficient to make into balls the size of a
hen's egg.

BALM, or BAUM (Melissa qfficinaUs. From
Gr. fAtKi, honey, on account of the bee being
supposed to collect it abundantly from their
flowers). Balm is used both as a medicinal
and culinary herb. The leaves are employed \
green, or dried.

%he soil best suited to its growth is any poor
friable one, but rather inclining to clayey than
silicious. Manure is never required. An
eastern aspect is best for it. It is propagated
by oifsets of the roots, and by slips of the
oung shoots. The first mode may be prac- !
132

tised any time during the spring and autumn,
but the latter only during May or June. If
offsets are employed, they may be planted at
once where they are to remain, at ten or twelve
inches ; but if by slips, they must be inserted
in a shady border, to be thence removed, in
September or October, to where they are to
remain. At every removal, water must be
given, if dry weather, and until they are esta-
blished. During the summer they require only
to be kept clear of weeds. In October the old
beds require to be dressed, their decayed leaves
and stalks cleared away, and the soil loosened
by the hoe or slight digging.

Old beds may be gathered from in July, for
drying, but their green leaves, from March to
September ; and those planted in the spring
will even afford a gathering in the autumn of
the same year. For drying, the stalks are cut
with their full clothing of leaves to the very
bottom, and the process completed gradually
in the shade. (G. W. Johnson's Kitchen Gar-
den.)

This very common and well-known plant in
our kitchen gardens is fragrant in smell, and
its root creeps and spreads rapidly and abund-
antly. It flowers in July, and is best taken as
an infusion when fresh, as it loses considerable
power when dried. Its medicinal qualities are
derived principally from the proportion of vola-
tile oil, resin, and bitter extractive, which it
contains. It is occasionally used in conse-
quence of its moderately stimulant powers, in
conjunction with more potent drugs, to produce
profuse perspiration. Mixed with honey and
vinegar, it forms a good gargle for an inflamed
sore throat.

BALSAM (Tmpatiens Balsamina). This fa-
vourite flower is a native of the East Indies
and Japan, where the natives, according to
Thunberg, use the juice prepared with alum
for dyeing their nails red. It is a tender an-
nual, rising from one to two feet high, with a
succulent branchy stem, serrated leaves, and
various coloured flowers. It blows from July
to October, and its flowers are single and
double, red, pink, white, or variegated. It
loves a good soil, and shelter from a hot sun.
It blooms very handsomely in a window. Sow
the seed early in March in a Hot bed. Put the
plants singly, and accustom them by degrees
to the open air. Place them in larger pots, or
put them out in the garden in May. They will
require no watering, after being well rooted.
Stir the earth round each plant frequently, and
do it gently, with a small trowel.

The varieties are infinite, but not so marked
or permanent as to have acquired names.
The seed from one plant will hardly produce two
alike.

This plant, which has been introduced
into almost every flower-garden in the coun-
try, is commonly called Lady's Slipper. Seve-
ral species of the genus are found in the
United States, and have been described by
Pursh, Nuttall, Darlington, and other botanists.
One of these, the Pale Jmpntiens, known by the
popular names of Yellow Balsam, Snap-weed,
and Touch-me-not, is frequent in Pennsylva-
nia, and other states, in moist, shaded grounds,
and along streams, where its gamboge yellow

BALSAM.

BARB.

flowers appear from July to September. The
most common species, however, is the Fulvous
or Tawny Impatiens, or Touch-me-not, the
flowers of which are of a deep orange colour,
with numerous reddish brown spots. The
tender and succulent stems of this plant af-
ford a domestic application to inflamed tu-
mours, being bruised in the form of a poultice.
It has sometimes been used for dying salmon-
red. {NuttalVs Genera, Darlington' a Flora Ces-
trica.) The popular name of this plant must
not lead to its being confounded with another,
also called Lady's Slipper, the Stemless Cypri-
pedium, a very different plant.

BALSAM TREE {Tucamahaccd). This tree
possesses considerable medicinal virtues. It
is known among us as the Tacamahac tree,
from its similitude to the real tree of that name,
which is a native of the East and of America.
The leaves of our balsam tree are long, of a
dusky green on the outside, and brown under-
neath. The buds of the tree in spring are very
fragrant, and a sticky substance surrounds
each bud, which adheres to the fingers on
touching them. (See Tacamahacca.)

BAN -DOG. A corruption of band-dog, a
large kind of fierce dog, which was formerly
kept chained up as a watch-dog.

BANDS. The cords by means of which
sheaves and trusses are tied. They are formed
of twisted straw or hay.

Bands, where the straw is tender, should be
made in the morning, that they may not crack ;
for the straw will not twist so well after the
sun is up. The turning of three or four of the
stubble or bottom ends of the straw to the ears
of the band sometimes tend greatly to add to
their strength and toughness.

The bands for the sheaves should not be
spread out, except in fair weather, because
they will grow sooner than any other part of
the corn if rain should come ; for they cannot
dry, on account of their lying undermost. But
though the bands may be made while the morn-
ing dew is upon them, the sheaves ought never
to be bound up wet ; for, if- they are, they will
grow mouldy.

BANE. The disease in sheep generally
termed the rot.

BANE BERRIES {Actsa), and BLACK
BANE BERRIES (.Herb ChrisUrpher). Pe-
rennial herbs, natives of cold countries, with
compound or lobed cut leaves and clustered
white flowers. The berries of the former
are black, red, or white, of the latter, purplish,
black, juicy, the size of currants, and have
fetid, nauseous, and dangerous qualities. In
England these herbs are found sometimes in
bushy, mountainous, limestone situations. —
(Smith's Engl. Flora.)

Several species of Acttpa, or Bane-berry are
found in the United States. Among those
mentioned by Dr. Darlington, as met with in
Chester county, Pennsylvania, are the Race-
mose Actoea, commonly called Black Snakeroot,
a perennial, common in rich woodlands, in
which the white flowers rising above most
other surrounding plants, are very conspicuous
in the month of June. The plant has an op-
pressive, disagreeable odour when bruised.
The root is somewhat mucilaginous and as-

tringent ; and is a very popular medicine for
man and beast. For the former, it is used in
infusion or decoction, chiefly as a remedy in
diseases of the breast. Many persons consider
it almost a panacea for a sick cow. Its virtues,
however, are probably overrated. Another
I species is the W/iite Adseu, or White Cohosh,
\ found in rocky woodlands, flowering in May,
and not so common as the former, -lis berries
! also differ from those of the Black Snakeroot,
I being oval, about a fourth of an inch in diame-
ter, milk white, or often tinged with purple
when fully ripe. (Flor. Cestrica.)

BANE-WORT. See DEAiiLt Nightshadk.
I BANGLE-EARS. An imperfection in the
ears of horses.

BANKS, of rivers and marshes, &c., (banc,
Sax.). In agriculture, are heaps or mounds of
earth piled up to keep the water of rivers,
lakes, or the sea, tVom overflowing the grounds
which are situated contiguous to them on the
inside. (See Embankments.)

The common law of England is very severe
against those who wantonly or maliciously in-
jure or destroy embankments.

The 7 & 8 G. 4, c. 30, s. 12, enacts that if
any person shall unlawfully and maliciously
break down or cut down any sea-bank, or sea-
wall ; or the bank or wall of any river, canal,
or marsh, whereby any lands shall be over-
flowed or damaged, or shall be in danger of
being so, or shall unlawfully and maliciously
throw down, level, or otherwise destroy any
lock, sluice, or flood-gate, or other work on any
navigable river or canal, every such offender
shall be guilty of felony ; and, being convicted
thereof, shall be liable, at the discretion of the
court, to be transported beyond the seas for
life, or for any term not less than seven years,
or to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding
four years ; and if a male, to be once, twice, or
thrice publicly or privately whipped (if the
court shall so think fit), in addition to such im-
prisonment.

For protecting embankments exposed to
water washing against them, a thick coat of
the joint grass, or, as it is likewise called, the
Bermuda grass, (Cynodon dactylon, PI. 7, k,)
is one of the best means that can be adopted.
It is of a remarkably creeping nature, and
grows very luxuriantly where no other grass
will live, as on the sea-coast, and on poor loose
soils. It is taken advantage of by the rice
planters of the Southern States, whose exten-
sive embankments are much e;cposed to the
washing of water against them, and which are
greatly protected from injury by the dense mat
of joint grass made to grow upon them. Its
extirpation is extremely difficult where it has
once got possession. Mr. Nuttall says there
is only one species (the C. dactylon) common
to Europe, North America, and the West India
Islands. (NuttalPs Genera.)

BANNOCK. The Scotch name for a small
loaf or cake.

BARB. A general name for horses import-
ed from Barbary. The barb, one of the most
celebrated of the African racers, is to be met
; with throughout Barbary, Morocco, Fez, Tri-
i poli, and Bornou. It seldom exceeds fourteen
! hands and a half in height. The countenance
M 133

BARBERRY.

BARBERRY.

of the barb is usually indicative of its spirit,
and the facial line, in direct contradiction to
that of the Arabian, is often slightly rounded;
the eyes are prominent ; the ears, though fre-
quently small and pointed, are occasionally ra-
ther long and drooping : the neck is of sufficient
length ; the crest is generally fine and not over-
laden with mane ; the shoulders are Hat and
oblique ; the withers prominent, and the chest
almost invariably deep ; the back is usually
straight ; the carcass moderately rounded only ;
the croup long, and the tail placed rather high ;
the arms and thighs being commonly muscu-
lar and strongly marked ; the knee and hock
are broad and low placed; the back sinews
singularly distinct and well-marked from the
knee downwards ; the pasterns rather long,
and the feet firm, and but moderately open.

The barb requires more excitement to call
out his powers than the Arabian ; but when
sufficiently stimulated, his qualities of speed
and endurance render him a powerful antago-
nist, while the superior strength of his fore-
hand enables him to carry the greater weight
of the two. The Godolphin barb, which was
imported from France into England, at the con-
clusion of the last century, about 25 years
after the Darley Arabian, was one of those
most worthy of note. The former appears to
have rivalled the latter in the importance of
his get. He was the sire of Lath, Cade, Ba-
braham, Regulus, Bajazet, Tarquin, Dormouse,
Sultan, Blank, Dismal, and many other horses
of racing note ; and without doubt, the Eng-
lish blood-breeds were more indebted to the
Darley Arabian and the Godolphin barb than
to all the other eastern horses which had pre-
viously entered the country. Among other
barbs of some notoriety introduced in the 18th
century, we may mention the Thoulouse, the
Curwen Bay, Old Greyhound, St. Victor's,
Tarran's Black, Button's Bay, Cole's Bay, and
Compton's Barb. {Blaine's Encyc. Rural Sports,
p. 243.)

BARBERRY, COMMON, or PIPPERIDGE
BUSH (Berberis vulgaris). In England an in-
digenous thorny shrub, bearing bunches of
pale yellow drooping flowers in May, which
are succeeded by oblong scarlet berries, ripen-
ing in September. The branches are flexible,
covered with alternate tufts of deciduous, egg-
shaped, pinnated leaves, finely fringed on the
edge. Sharp, three-cleft thorns rise at the
base of each leaf-bud. The barberry likes
any kind of soil, and makes good hedges. It
may be propagated by seed, or by ia)^ers,
which should remain two years before they
are removed. The gross shoots, if the shrub
stands singly, should be pruned away, and it
will fruit better. The berries are gratefully
acid, and the juice, when diluted with water,
may be used as lemonade in fevers. The
leaves, eaten in salad, are like sorrel. The
fruit, made into conserve, is good. It is also
excellent as a pickle and a preserve.

The common barberry bush is a native of
Ej^land; and notwithstanding the high state
of^ultivation that kingdom has now arrived
at, it is still to be found growing wild in many
parts of the northern counties. Gerarde says
in his time (1597), most of the hedges near
134

Colnbrook were nothing else but barberry-
bushes. It is now very properly introduced
into our gardens and shrubberies, being both
ornamental and useful ; but it should not be
planted near the house or principal walks, on
account of its offensive smell when in blossom.
The flowers are small, but beautiful ; and, on
their first appearance, have a perfume similar
to that of the cowslip, which changes to a pu-
trid and most disagreeable scent, particularly
towards the evening, and at the decay of the
flowers. Barberries are of an agreeable, cool-
ing, astringent taste, which creates appetite.
The fruit and leaves give an agreeable acid to
soup. The Egyptians were used to employ a
diluted juice of the berries in ardent and pesti-
lential fevers ; but it is merely an agreeable
acidulous diluent. The inner bark, with alum,
dyes a bright yellow, and in some countries is
used for colouring leather, dyeing silk and cot-
ton, and staining wood for cabinet and other
purposes. Cows, sheep, and goats are said to
feed on the leaves : but horses and swine re-
fuse them. A very singular circumstance has
been stated respecting the barberry shrub:
that grain sown near it becomes mildewed,
and proves abortive, the ears being in general
destitute of grain ; and that this influence is
sometimes extended to a distance of 300 or
400 yards across a field. This, if correct, is
a just cause for banishing it from the hedge-
rows of our arable fields, for which otherwise
its thorny branches would have made a desir-
able fence.

I will cite a few instances which have been
brought forward in proof of the injurious
effects of this plant upon standing corn. Mr.
Macro, a very respectable farmer at Barrow,
in Suffolk, planted a barberry bush in his gar-
den, on purpose to ascertain the Sisputed fact.
He set wheat round it three succeeding years,
and it was all so completely mildewed, that
the best ofUhe little grain it produced was
only about the size of thin rice, and that with-
out any flour. He adds, that some which he
set on the opposite side of his garden on one
of the 5''ears before mentioned, produced very
good grain, although the straw was a little
mildewed. From this observation, Mr. Phillips
was induced to try the experiment by sow-
ing clumps of canary seed in his shrubbery.
Those which were planted immediately under
the barberry-bush certainly produced no seed;
but other plants of this grass yielded seed, al-
though not at many yards' distance. The cele-
brated Duhamel and M. Boussonet, who have
paid such particular attention to agriculture,
assure us that there is no just reason for as-
cribing this baneful effect to the barberr}--
bush ; and Mr. G. W. Johnson is of the same
opinion. (See Mildew.) On the other hand,
we. have it affirmed to be most destructive and
injurious to all kinds of crops -of grain and-
pulse, as proved by various observations, ex-
periments, and testimonies, made inBranden-
burgh, Hanover, Prussia, and Germany. (See
Com. Board of Agr., vol. vii. pp. 18 — 126; and
the writer there says, towards the conclusion
of his article, "To those still inclined to re-
gard the barberry as innocent, notwithstanding
all the above proofs to the contrary, I would

BARILLA.

BARK.

only make the request that they no longer urge I consist chiefly of carbon, oxygen, and hydro

their opinion on abstract and general grounds
until they have collected the result of impar-
tial observation and careful experiment."

The Rev. Dr. Singer, in the Trans. Hi^h. Soc,
vol. vi. p. 340, in considering the barberry as
the cause of rust or mildew on corn crops,
says, when quoting the survey of Dumfries-
shire, " On one farm alone, that of Kirkbank,
the tenant lost about 100/. in his oat-crops
yearly ; and altogether the annual damage in
the county was considerably above 1000/. The
views of Sir Joseph Banks, and of some intel-
ligent practical farmers, relative to the evil
influence of the Berheris vulgaris, induced the
late Admiral Sir William Johnstone Hope to
give orders for the total extirpation of the
barberry bushes which grew intermixed with
thorns in his hedgerows; and since that was
done, and for above twenty years, no such dis-
temper has appeared in these fields. The same
thing has been done in some parts of Ayrshire,
and the like result has followed. These facts,"
adds Dr. Singer, "appear to indicate some con-
nection between the occurrence of rust or mil-
dew on growing corn and the neighbourhood
of barberry bushes." Phillips inquires (Pom.
Brit.), whether the blighting effects of this
shrub may not in some degree be accounted
for by its May-flowers alluring insects, which
breed on the branches, and then feed their
progeny on the nutritious juices of the sur
rounding blades of young corni
BARILLA. Sec Soda.
BARING Ronis of Trees. A practice former-
ly much adopted, but which later experience
has shown to be highly injurious and hurtful
to their growth.

BARK (Dan. barck; Dutch, berck; from the
Teutonic bergm, to cover). The rind or cover-
ing of the woody parts of a tree. The bark of
trees is composed of three distinct layers, of
which the outermost is called the epidermis,
the next the parenchyma, and the innermost, or
that in contact w-ith the wood, the cortical layers.
The epidermis is a thin, transparent, tough
membrane ; when rubbed oflf, it is gradually
reproduced, and in some trees it cracks and
decays, and a fresh epidermis is formed, push-
ing outwards the old : hence the reason why
so many aged trees have a rough surface.
The parenchyma is tender, succulent, and of
a dark green. The cortical layer, or liber, con-
sists of thin membranes encircling each other,
and these seem to increase with the age of the
plant. The liber, or inner bark, is known by
its whiteness, great flexibility, toughness, and
durability: the fibres in its structure are lig-
neous tubes. It is the part of the stem through
which the juices descend, and the organ in
which the generative sap from whence all the
other parts originate is received from the
leaves. The bark in its interstices contains
cells which are filled with juices of very vary-
ing qualities ; some, like that of the oak, re-
markable for their astringency; others, like
the cinnamon, abounding with an essential oil ;
others, as the Jesuits' bark, containing an al-
kali; some mucilaginous; many resinous. Se-
veral of these barks have been analysed by
various chemists: they have found them to

gen, with various saline and earthy substances.
iThom. Chem. vol. iv. p. 231.)

M. Saussure (Chem. Rtc. ^eg.) found in 100
parts of the ashes of the barks of various
trees the following substances : —

o.k.

Hazel.

Poplar.

Mul-
berry.

Horn-
beam.

Snlnble salts -
EHrthy phosphates
E:irt)iy carbonates
Silica -
Metallic oxides

3-
66-
1-5
2-

125
55

54-
0 25
1-75

6-
5-3
60-
4-
1-5

8-5
45-
1512

1 12

4-5
4-5
59
1-5
012

From this analysis the farmer will see that
the earthy and saline ingredients of the bark
of forest trees must be considerable fertilizers :
it is only to the slowness with which refuse
tanner's bark undergoes putrefaction that its
neglect by the cultivator must be attributed.
It might certainly, however, be mixed with
farm-yard compost with very considerable
advantage, as has been often done with saw-
dust and peat, in the manner so well described
by Mr. Dixon of Hathershew (Journ. of Roy.
Eng. Agr. Soc. vol. i. p. 135), see FAHM-YARn
Ma-'vure; and in its half putrefied or even fresh
state it produces on some grass lands very ex-
cellent effects as a top dressing; and in in-
stances where carriage is an object, even its
ashes would be found, from the quantity of
earthy carbonates and phosphates whJch they
contain, a very useful manure.

The different uses of barks in tanning and
dyeing are numerous and important. The
strength or fineness of their fibres is also of
consequence : thus, woody fibres are often so
tough as to form cordage, as exemplified in the
bark of the lime, the willow, and the cocoa-
nut; the liber of some trees, as for example
the lime and the paper mulberry, is manufac-
tured into mats ; and it is scarcely requisite to
refer to hemp and flax for spinning and weav-
ing. The bark of the papyrus, or flag of the
Nile, was first used for paper; that of the
mulberry is still employed in the cloth of Ota-
heite ; that of the powdered Swedish pines, a.s
bread for the poor peasants of Scandinavia.
In England, the bark of the oak is used for
affording tannic acid in the manufacture of
leather; but other barks, such as that of the
Spanish chestnut and the larch, are also em-
ployed. The following table of Davy will
show the relative value of different kinds of
bark to the tanner : it gives the quantity of
tannic acid aflforded by 480 lbs. of different
barks in that great chemist's own experiments.
(Led. p. 83.)

Average from the entire hark of-
Middle-sized oak, cut in spring -
cut in autumn

lbs.

Spanish chestnut . . - - -
Leicester willow (large size) - - -
Elm ------- -

Common willow (large) . - - -

Ash

Beech _------

Horse chestnut -------9

Sycamore - - - - - - - -11

Lombardy poplar -"-""" '□

Birch ,o

"a^el 4

Blackthorn l"

Coppice oak ._----- 32

Lirch, cut in autumn - - - - ■
While interior cortical layers of oak bark

72

135

BARKING.

BARKING.

The difference of seasons makes a consider-
able variation in the produce of tannic acid ;
it is the least in cold springs. The tannic acid
most abounds when the buds are opening, and
least in the winter; 4 or 5 lbs. of good oak
balk of average quality are required to form
1 lb. of leather. The consumption of oak bark
in Great Britain is about 40,000 tons, more
than one half of which is imported from the
Netherlands.

Cork is the outer bark of a species of oak,
which grows abundantly in the south of Eu-
rope. The average quantity imported annually
is about 44,.551 cwts.

The quantity of Quercitron bark, which is
the production of black oak (Quercus fiigra)f
is 22,625 cwts.

The quantity of Cinchona, or Peruvian bark,
is on an average about 300,000 lbs., but the
consumption does not exceed 45,000 lbs. : the
remainder is re-exported.

The bark of trees is best cleansed from the
parasitical mosses with which it is wont to be
infected, by being washed with lime-water or
a solution of common salt in water (4 oz. to a
gallon), applied by a plasterer's brush.

BARK-BEETLES, see Pink-tree Beetle,
or Weevil.

BARK-BOUND. A disease common to
some fruit and other trees, which is capable of
being cured by making a slit through the bark,
from the top of the tree to the bottom, in Fe-
bruary or March ; where the gaping is pretty
considerable, fill it up with cow-dung, or other
similar composition.

BARKING IRONS, are instruments for re-
moving the bark of oak and other trees. They
consist of a blade oi" knife for cutting the bark,
while yet on the trunk, across at regular dis-
tances, and of chisels or spatulee, of different
lengths and breadths for separating the bark
from the wood.

BARKING OF TREES, the operation of
stripping off the bark or rind. It is common
to perform the operation of oak-barking in the
spring months, when the bark, by the rising of
the sap, is easily separated from the wood.
This renders it necessary to fell the trees in
these months. The tool commonly made use
.of in most countries is made of bone or iron.
If of the former, the thigh or shinbone of an
ass is preferred, which is formed into a two-
handed instrument for the stem and larger
boughs, with a handle of wood fixed at the end.
The edge being once given by the grinding-
stone, or a rasp, it keeps itself sharp by wear.

In Europe, two descriptions of persons ^re
usually employed in this business, the hagmen
or cutters, and the barkers. The latter chiefly
consists of women and children. The cutters
should be provided with ripping-saws, widely
set, with sharp, light hatchets, and with short-
handled pruning-hooks. The barkers are pro-
vided with light, short-handled, ashen mallets,
the head being about eight inches long, three
inches diameter in the face, and the other end
blBht, somewhat wedge-shaped; with sharp
ashen wedges, somewhat spatula-shaped, and
which may either be r" iven by the mallet, or,
being formed with a kind of handle, may be
pushed with the hand ; and with a smooth-
136

j skinned whin, or other land-stone. The cut-
ters are divided into two parties ; hatchet-men,
; who sever the stem, and hook-men, who prune
I it of small twigs, and cut it into convenient
' lengths. Small branches and twigs are held by
one hand on the stone ; the bark is then strip-
ped off, and laid regularly aside, as in reaping
of corn, till a bundle of convenient size be
formed. The trunk and branches, as large as
the leg, &c. are laid along the ground ; the bark
is started, at the thick end, by thrusting or
driving in the wedge, which, being run along
the whole length, rips it open in an instant;
the wedge is applied on both sides of the in-
cision, in the manner of the knife in skinning
a sheep. A skilful barker will skin a tree or
branch as completely as a butcher in beast.
But the point most particularly to be observed
in this art is, to take off the bark in as long
shreds or strands as possible, for the con-
venience of carriage to, and drying it on, the
horses. These are formed of long branches ;
and pieces of a yard in length, sharpened at
one end, and having a knag at the other to re-
ceive and support the end of the former.

The horses or supports may stand within
four or five feet of each other, and are always
to be placed on a dry, elevated spot, that the
bark may have free air in dr}'ing. At the end
of each day's work, the bark is carried to, and
laid across, the horses, to the thickness ot
about six or eight inches. The large pieces
are set up on end, leaning against the horses,
or they are formed into small pyramidal stacks.
Due attention must be paid to turning the bark
once, or perhaps twice a day, according to the
state of the weather. Good hay weather is good
barking weather. Gentle showers are bene-
ficial ; but long continued rains are productive
of much evil ; nor is the bark the better for
being dried too fast. A careful hagman will
take pains to lay the strong pieces of the trunk
in such a manner as to shoot off the wet, in
contipued rains, from the smaller bark of the
extremities ; at the same time, preserving as
much as possible the colour of the inner bark,
and consequently the value of the whole, by
turning the natural surface outwards. For it
is chiefly by the high brown colour of the inner
rind, and by its astringent effect upon the pa-
late when tasted, that the tanner or merchant
judges of its value. These properties are lost,
if through neglect, or by the vicissitudes of the
weather, the inner bark be blanched or ren-
dered white.

After it becomes in a proper state, that is,
completely past fermentatipn, if it cannot con-
veniently be carried off the ground and housed,
it must be stacked. An experienced husband-
man who can stack hay can also stalk bark.
But it may be proper to warn him against
building his stalk too large, and to caution him
to thatch it well.

The method of drying bark in Yorkshire is
generally the common one of setting it in a
leaning posture against poles lying horizontally
on forked stakes. But in a wet season, or
when the ground is naturally moist, it is laid
across a line of top-wood, formed into a kind
of banklet, raising the bark about a foot from
the ground. By this practice no part of the

BARK-LICE.

BARK-LICE.

bark is suffered to touch the ground ; and it is,
perhaps, upon the whole, the best practice in
all seasons and situations.

BARK-LICE. The mischiefs effected
through these minute insects, to fruit and other
valuable trees, are far greater than is generally
supposed, and hence every farmer and gar-
dener must be interested in becoming inti-
mately acquainted with the nature and habits
of so formidable an enemy. For the following
exceedingly interesting account of bark-lice
commonly met with in the eastern states, we
are indebted to our eminent countryman. Dr.
Thadeus William Harris of Massachusetts,
who was employed by that extremely liberal
and enlightened state to write an account of
the " Insects Injurious to Vegetation,*^ and made
his report to the legislature in 184L His
treatise upon the subject forms a large octavo
volume of 460 pages.

" The celebrated scarlet in grain, which has
been employed in Asia and the South of Eu-
rope, from the earliest ages, as a colouring
material, was known to the Romans by the
name of Coccus, derived from a similar Greek
word, and was, for a long time, supposed to be
a vegetable production, or grain, as indeed its
name implies. At length it was ascertained
that this valuable dye was an insect, and others
agreeing with it in habits, and some also in
properties, having been discovered, Linnaeus
retained them all under the same name. Hence
in the genus Coccus are included not only the
Tfu)/a of the Phoenicians and Jews, the Kermes
of the Arabians, or the Coccus of the Greeks
and Romans, but the scarlet grain of Poland,
and the still more valuable Cochenille of
Mexico, together with various kinds of bark-
lice, agreeing with the former in habits and
structure^ These insects vary very much in
form ; some of them are oval and slightly con-
vex scales, and others have the shape of a
muscle ; some are quite convex, and either
formed like a boat turned bottom upwards, or
are kidney-shaped, or globular. They live
mostly on the bark of the stems of plants : some,
however, are habitually found upon leaves,
and some on roots. In the' early state, the
head is completely withdrawn beneath the
shell of the body and concealed, the beak or
sucker seems to .issue from the breast, and the
legs are very short and not visible from above.
The females undergo only a partial transforma-
tion, or rather scarcely any other change than
that of an increase in size, which, in some
species indeed, is enormous, compared with
tlie previous condition of the insect ; 'but the
males pass through a complete transformation
before arriving at the perfect or winged state.
In both sexes we find threadlike or tapering
antennoe, longer than the head, but much
shorter than those of plant-lice, and feet con-
sisting of only one joint, terminated by a single
claw. The mature female retains the beak or
sucker, but does not acquire wings ; the male
on the contrary has two wings, but the beak
disappears. In both there are two slender
threads at the extremity of the body, very short
in some females, usually quite long in the
.males, which moreover are provided with a
18

stylet at the tip of the abdomen, which is re-
curved beneath the body.
"The following account drawn up by me in

\ the year 1828, and published in the seventh
volume of the *New England Farmer,' p. 186,
187, contains a summary of nearly all that is
known respecting the history and habits of
these insects. Early in the spring the bark-
lice are fouhd apparently torpid, situated lon-
gitudinally in regard to the branch, the head
upwards, and sticking by their flattened infe-
rior surface closely to the bark. On attempt-
ing to remove them they are generally crushed,
and there issues from the body a dark co-
loured fluid. By pricking them with a pin,
they can be made to quit their hold, as I have
often seen in the common species. Coccus hes-
peridunt, infesting the myrtle. A little later the
body is more swelled, and, on carefully raising
it with a knife, numerous oblong eggs will be
discovered beneath it, and the insect appears
dried up and dead, and only its outer skin re-
mains, which forms a convex cover to its
future progeny. Under this protecting shield
the young are hatched, and, on the approacit
of warm weather, make their escape at the
lower end of the shield, which is either slightly
elevated or notched at this part. They then
move with considerable activity, and disperse
themselves over the young shoots or leaves.
The shape of the young Coccus is much like
that of its parent, but the body is of a paler
colour and more thin and flattened. Its six
short legs, and its slender beak are visible
under a magnifier. Some are covered with a
mealy powder, as the Coccus cacti, or cochenille
of commerce, and the Coccus adonicium, or
mealy bug of our green-houses. Others are
hairy or woolly; but most of them are naked
and dark-coloured. These young lice insert
their beaks into the bark or leaves, and draw
from the cellular substance the sap that nou-
rishes them. Reaumur observed the ground
quite moist under peach-trees infested with
bark-lice, which was caused by the dripping
of the sap from the numerous punctures made
by these insects. While they continue their
exhausting suction of sap, they increase in
size, and during this time are iii what is called
the larva state. When this is completed, the
insects will be found to be of different magni-
tudes, some much larger than the others, and
they then prepare for a change that is about to
ensue in their mode of life, by emitting from
the under-side of their bodies' numerous little
white downy threads, which are fastened, in a
radiated manner, around their bodies to the
bark, and serve to confine them securely in
their places. After becoming thus fixed they
remain apparently inanimate ; but under these
Jifeless scales the transformation of the insect
is conducted ; with this remarkable difference,

I that, in a fevi: days the large ones contrive to
break up and throw off, in four or five flakes,
their outer scaly coats, and reappear in a very
similar form to that which they before had;
the smaller ones, on^ the contrary, continue
under their outer skins, which serve instead
of cocoons, and from which they seem to
shrink and detach themselves, and then be-
m2 137

BARK-LICE.

BARK-LICE.

come perfect pupas, the rudiments of wings,
antennoB, feet, &c., being discoverable on rais-
ing the shells. If we follow the progress of
these small lice, which are to produce the
males, we shall see, in process of time, a pair
of threads and the tips of the wings protruding
beneath the shell at its lower elevated part,
•and through this little fissure the perfect in-
sect at length backs out. After the larger lice
have become fixed and have thrown off their
outer coats, they enter upon the pupa or
chrysalis state, which continues for a longer
or shorter period according to the species.
But when they have become mature, they do
not leave the skins or shells covering their
bodies, which continue flexible for a time.
These larger insects are the females, and are
destined to remain immovable, and never
change their place after they have once be-
come stationary. The male is exceedingly
small in comparison to the female, and is pro-
vided with only two wings, which are usually
very large, and lie flatly on the top of the
body. After the insects have paired, the body
of the female increases in size, or becomes
quite convex, for a time, and ever afterwards
remains without alteration; but serves to
shelter the eggs which are to give birth to her
future offspring. These eggs, when matured,
pass under the body of the mother, and the
latter by degrees shrink more and more till
nothing is left but the dry outer convex skin,
and the insect perishes on the spot. Some-
times the insect's body is not large enough to
cover all her eggs, in which case she beds
them in a considerable quantity of the down
that issues from the under or hinder part of
her body. There are several broods of some
species in the year ; of the bark-louse of the
apple-tree at least two are produced in one
season. It is probable that the insects of the
second or last brood pair in the autumn, after
which the males die, but the females survive
the winter, and lay their eggs in the following
spring.

" Young apple-trees, and the extremities of
the limbs of older trees are very much subject
to the attacks of a small species of bark-louse.
The limbs and smooth parts of the trunks are
sometimes completely covered with these in-
sects, and present a very singularly wrinkled
and rough appearance from the bodies which
are crowded closely together. In the winter
these insects are torpid, and apparently dead.
They measure about one-tenth of an inch in
length, are of an oblong oval shape, gradually
decreasing to a point at one end, and are of a
brownish colour very near to that of the bark
of the tree. These insects resemble in shape
one which was described by Reaumur in 1738,
who found it on the elm in France, and
Geoffrey named the insect Coccus arhnrum
linearis, while Gmelin called it conchiformis.
This, or one much like it, is very abundant
irpon apple-trees in England, as we learn from
Jr. Shaw and Mr. Kirby; and Mr. Rennie
smtes that he found it in great plenty on cur-
rant-bushes. It is highly probable that we have
received this insect from Europe, but it is
somewhat doubtful whether our apple-tree
bark-louse be identical with the species found
138

' by Reaumur on the elm ; and the doubt seems
to be justified by the difference in the trees and
in the habits of the insects, our species being

! gregarious, and that of the elm nearly solitary.

I It is true, that on some of our indigenous

j forest-trees bark-lice of nearly the same form

! and appearance have been observed ; but it is
by no means clear that they are of the same

[ species as those on the apple-tree. The first
account that we have of the occurrence of
bark-lice on apple-trees, in this country, is a
communication by Mr.Enoch Perley, of Bridge-
town, Maine, written in 1794, and published
among the early papers of the Massachusetts
Agricultural Society. These insects have now
become extremely common, and infest our nur-
series and young trees to a very great extent. In
the spring the eggs are readily to be seen on
raising the little muscle-shaped scales beneath
which they are concealed. These eggs are of a
white colour, and in shape nearly like those
of snakes. Every shell contains from thirty
to forty of them, imbedded in a small quantity
of whitish friable down. They begin to hatch
about the 25th of May, and finish about the
10th of June, according to Mr. Perley. The
young, on their first appearance, are nearly
white, very minute, and nearly oval in form.
In about ten days they become stationary, and
early in June throw out a quantity of bluish
white down, soon after which their transforma-
tions are completed, and the females become
fertile, and deposit their eggs. These, it seems,
are hatched in the course of the summer, and
the young come to their growth and provide
for a new brood before the ensuing winter.

"Among the natural means which are pro-
vided to check the increase of these bark-lice,
are birds, many of which, especially those of
the genera Parus and Regulus, containing the
chickadee and our wrens, devour great quan-
tities of these lice. I have also found that
these insects are preyed upon by internal
parasites, minute ichneumon flies, and the
holes (which are as small as if made with a
fine needle), through which these little insects
come forth, may be seen on the backs of a
great many of the lice which have been de-
stroyed by their intestine foes. The best ap-
plication for the destruction of the lice is a
wash made of two parts of soft soap and eight
of water, with which is to be mixed lime
enough to bring it to the consistence of thick
white-wash. This is to be put upon the trunks
and limbs of the trees with a brush, and as
high as practicable, so as to cover the whole
surface, and fill all the cracks in the bark.
The proper time for Avashing over the trees is
in the early part of June, when the insects are
young and tender. These insects may also be
killed by using in the same way a solution
of two pounds of potash in seven quarts of
water, or a pickle consisting of a quart of com-
mon salt in two gallons of water.

"There has been found on the apple and
pear tree another kind of bark-louse, which
differs from the foregoing in many important
particulars, and approaches nearest to a spe-

I cies inhabiting the aspen in Sweden, of which
a description has been given by Dalman in ihe

j ' Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sci-

I

ricvle 3.

VaiT-eties of Baarley, Oats^Buckwh-eat ajLd Millet

BARK-LICE.

ences of Stockholm,' for the year 1825, under
the name of Coccus cri/ptogumus. This species
is of the kind in which the body of the female
is not large enough to cover her eggs, for the
protection whereof another provision is made,
consisting, in this species, of a kind of mem-
branous shell, of the colour and consistence
almost of paper. In the autumn and through-
out the winter, these insects are seen in a dor-
mant state, and of two ditferent forms and
sizes on the bark of the trees. The larger
ones measure less than a tenth of an inch in
length, and have the form of a common oyster-
shell, being broad at the hinder extremity, but
tapering towards the other, which is surmount-
ed by a little oval brownish scale. The small
ones, which are not much more than half the
length of the others, are of a very long oval
shape, or almost four-sided with the ends
rounded; and one extremity is covered by a
minute oval dark-coloured scale. These little
shell-like bodies are clustered together in great
numbers, are of a white colour and membran-
ous texture, and serve as cocoons to shelter
the insects while they are undergoing their
transformations. The large ones are the pupa-
cases or cocoons of the female, beneath which
the eggs are laid ; and the small ones are the
cases of the males, and differ from those of the
females not only in size and shape, but also in
being of a purer white colour, and in having
an elevated ridge passing down the middle.
The minute oval dark-coloured scales on one
-of the ends of these white cases are the skins
of the lice while they were in the young or
larva state, and the white shells are probably
formed in the same way as the down which
exudes from the bodies of other bark-lice, but
which in these assumes a regular shape, vary-
ing according to the sex, and becoming mem-
branous after it is formed. Not having seen
these insects in a living state, I have not been
able to trace their progress, and must therefore
refer to Dalman's memoir above mentioned, '
for such particulars as tend to illustrate ihe {
remaining history of this species. The body |
of the female insect, which is covered and ,
concealed by "the outer case above described, |
is minute, of an oval form, wrinkled at the |
sides, flattened above, and of a reddish colour. |
By means of her beak, which is constantly |
thrust into the bark, she imbibes the sap, by I
which she is nourished ; she undergoes no |
change, and never emerges from her habita- 1
tion. The male becomes a chrysalis or pupa, 1
and about the middle of July completes its 1
transformations, makes its escape from its '
case, which it leaves at the hinder extremity, i
and the wings with which it is provided are \
reversed over its head during the operation, j
and are the last to be extricated. The perfect \
male is nearly as minute as a point, but a i
powerful magnifier shows its body to be divided I
into segments, and endued with all the im- i
portant parts and functions of a living animal. '
To the unassisted eye, says Dalman, it appears ;
only as a red atom, but it is furnished with a |
pair of long whitish wings, long antennse or :
horns, six legs with their respective joints, and
two bristles terminating the tail. This minute
insect perforates the middle of the case cover-

BARLEY.

ing the female, and thus celebrates its nuptials-
with its invisible partner. The latter subse-
quently deposits her eggs and dies. In due
time the young are hatched and leave the case,
under which they were fostered, by a little
crevice at its hinder part. These young lice,
which I have seen, are very small, of a pale
yellowish brown colour, and of an oval shape,
very -tlat, and appearing like minute scales.
They move about for a while, at length become
stationary, increase in size, and in due lime
the whitish shells are produced, and the in-
cluded insects pass from the larva to the pupa
state. The means for destroying these insects
are the same as those recommended for the
extermination of the previous species. (See
Aphis, Thrips, &c.)

"Many years ago, when on a visit from
home, I observed on a fine native grape-vine,
that was trained against the side of a house,
great numbers of reddish brown bark-lice, of a
globular form, and about half as large as a
small pea, arranged in lines on the stems. An
opportunity for further examination of this
species did not occur till the last summer,
when I was led to the discovery of a few of
these lice on my Isabella grape-vines, by see-
ing the ants ascending and descending the
stems. Upon careful search I discovered the
lice, which were nearly the colour of the bark
of the vine, partly imbedded in a little crevice
of the bark, and arranged one behind another
in a line. They drew great quantities of sap,
as was apparent by their exudations, by which
the ants were attracted. Further observations
were arrested by a fire which consumed the
house and the vines that were trained to it."
(Harrises Treatise on Insects.)

BARLEVT (Lat. hordeum). A species of
bread corn, which in Europe ranks next to
wheat in importance, and of which there are
several varieties. The generic name seems .
either hordeum, from horreo, on account of its
long awns, or, as it was anciently written,
fordeum, rather from ^i^/&», to feed or nourish,
whence ^^itt and forbeit, and, changing the b
into d, fordeum. ( VossUts.) The name is, how-
ever, derived by Junius from the Hebrew na.
The plant belongs to the natural order Gromi-
nex, or grasses. It readily accommodates
Itself to any climate, bearing the heat of the
torrid zone, and the cold of the frigid, and
ripening in both equally well. Of the genus
Hordeum, says Professor Low, the following
species may be enumerated as cultivated for
their seeds : —

1. Two-rowed barley {Hordeum distichum).
PI. 3, a

2. Two-rowed naked barley {H. Gymnodis-
iichum).

3. Two-rowed sprat, or ba,ttledore barley
{H. disticho-zeocriton). PI. 3, d.

4. Six-rowed winter barley {H. hexastichum).
PI. 3, b.

5. Six-rowed naked barley {H. Gymno-hexa-
stichum).

6. Six-rowed sprat, or battlebore barley {H.
hexasticho-zeocriton).

The two leading species of this grain in cul-
tivation are (No. 1.) the two-rowed, or common
barley, and (No. 4.) the six-rowed barley. The

139

BARLEY.

BARLEY.

t

minor varieties of two-rowed barley are nume-
rous, and are distinguished chiefly by the
quality of the grain, and by their habit of early
or later ripening; and some varieties are more
pi^oductive than others : effects apparently de-
pendent upon differences of climate and situ-
ation.

Barley is an annual plant, but like wheat it
may be sown in autumn, and then it acquires
the habit of later ripening, and is termed winter
barley.

Two-rowed naked barley is said to have
been introduced into England in the year 1768.
It is now little cultivated, and is by some as-
serted, though without any evidence, to merge
into the common species.

The next species, two-rowed sprat, or battle-
dore barley, is scarcely cultivated in England,
the shortness of the straw being regarded as
an objection ; but it is much esteemed in Ger-
many, where it is termed rice barley, owing to
its smelling like rice in boiling, when it is de-
corticated.

The fourth enumerated species is six-rowed
barley. When sown before winter, this species
acquires the habit of late-ripening, and is then
termed winter barley.

One of the kinds of six-rowed barley, and
the best known in this country, is here, bear,
or bigg. Bigg ripens its seeds in a shorter
period than the two-rowed barleys. It is culti-
vated viry generally in the north of Scotland,
in Denmark, Sweden, and other parts of Eu-
rope, and in the south of England for green
food in spring, and for this purpose is sown
early in the autumn. The number of its grains
is greater than in the two-rowed kinds, but
they do not weigh so heavy in proportion to
their bulk. It is hence regarded as an inferior
crop, and is only cultivated in the more elevated
parts of the country. It ripens very early when
sown in spring, thence the advantages which it
possesses in a late climate. {Low's Prac. Agr.
p. 240.)

The six-rowed naked barley is cultivated in
various parts of Europe, and is greatly es-
teemed for its fertility. In some parts of Ger-
many it is regarded as the most valuable kind
of barley, and by the French, on account of
its supposed productiveness, it has been termed
orge celeste. An excellent variety of this naked
barley has been produced by Mr. C. Alderman,
of Kintbury, in Berkshire, and M. Mazucco,
in a French paper, earnestly recommends the
more general cultivation of naked barley, as
he states that it weighs as much as the best
wheats, and its quality resembles them so much
that it may be used for the purpose of making
good bread, and also for pearl barley. In
mountainous countries, its produce is twenty-
four to one. ( Quart. Joum. of Agr. vol. iii. p.
373.) This and the other superior kinds of
barley deserve more attention than they have
yet received. Mr. Warren Hastings, (in an
article in the Com. to the Board of Agr. vol. vi.
p. 304), after twelve years' experience in the
cultivation of naked barley, very justly ob-
serves, " that it is of the greatest importance
10 promote the culture of this sort of grain."
" It is," he adds, " the corn that, next to rice,
gives the greatest weight of flour per acre, and j
140

it may be eaten with no other preparation than
that of boiling. It requires little or no dress-
ing when it is sent to the mill, having no husk,
and consequently produces no bran. It is
gathered into the barn, and may even be con-
sumed, when the seasons are favourable, in
about eighty or ninety days after being sown ;
and there is no species of grain better calcu-
lated for countries where the summer is short,
provided the vegetation be rapid."

The last of the species to be mentioned,
says Professor Low, is six-rowed sprat, or
battledore barley. This has been sometimes
termed six-rowed barley ; whereas the charac-
ter of six-rowed barley does not belong to it
alone. An examination of the plant will show
that it is the common battledore barley, with
all the florets entire. Much confusion has
arisen in the arrangement by agriculturists of
the cultivated barleys, and in an especial de-
gree, by their speaking of four-rowed and six-
rowed kinds. There is, however, no barley to
which the term four-rowed can be applied.
Barley is termed two-rowed, or six-rowed, ac-
cording to the number of its fertile florets. In,
two-rowed barley, one row of florets on each
of the two sides of the spike is fertile, and
consequently one row of seeds on each side is
perfected.

In six-rowed barley, three rows on each side
are perfected. In this sense only it is termed
six-rowed barley. But there is no species
known to us in which only two rows on each
side of the spike are fertile. Slightly examined,
indeed, six-rowed barleys frequently present
the appearance of four rows ; but this is in
appearance only, for such barleys have always
the three rows on each side perfect. In poor
soils and unfavourable situations, two of the
rows rim much into each other, and this has
perhaps given rise to the mistake ; but the
two rows which thus run into each other in
appearance are on the opposite sides of the ra-
chis. I have ventured, adds Professor Low
(from whose work the above preliminary ob-
servations are taken), to propose a new ar-
rangement of the cultivated barleys ; under
which it will be seen that the Hordtum vulgare
of some botanists is Hordeum hexasfichum, and
that of the Hordeum hexastichiim, of some iDota-
nists is Hordeum hexasticko-zeocriton. Particu-
lar varieties have been in great repute at differ-
ent times, when first introduced, and then seem
to have, on many soils, lost their superiority.
" Of this kind is the Moldavian barley, which
Avas much sought after some years ago ; and
lately, the ChecuUer barley, so called from the
gentleman who first brought it into notice, has
risen into great repute. It is said, that, having
observed an ear of barley in his field, greatly
superior to the rest, he carefully sowed the
seed, and cultivated it in his garden, till he had
a sufficient quantity to sow a field. It has
since been extremely multiplied and diffused
through the country. Some eminent maltsters
and brewers have declared, that it forms more
saccharine matter than any other sort; and
the trials hitherto made have convinced most
agriculturists that it is not only heavier in ilie
grain, but more productive. In 1832 Lord
Leicester, who was always foremost in all agri-

BARLEY.

BARLEY.

cultural experiments and improvements, sowed
a considerable portion of land with this barley,
and the result is said to have been perfectly
satisfactor}'. In 1833 two acres of Chevalier
barley were sown in the same field with some
of the best of the common barley. The soil
was poor, light sand, but in good order and
very clean. The produce of the whole was nearly
the same, 4 quarters per acre ; but the Cheva-
lier barley weighed 57 lbs, per bushel, while
the common barley weighed only 52. This
gives the farmer an advantage of ten per cent.
The sample was very fine, and the \<^ole that
the cultivator could spare was eagerly pur-
chased by his neighbours for seed at his own
price. It is long in the ear, and very plump,
and the plant tilkrs so much, that half a bushel
of seed may be saved per acre. This is proba-
bly owing to its grains being all perfect, and
vegetating rapidly. The straw, like that of the
other long-eared barleys, appears weak in pro-
portion to the ear ; it is said also to be harder,
and not so palatable to cattle. These are cir-
cumstances which experience alone can as-
certain. That hitherto it has a decided supe-
riority over the common sorts, no one who has
tried it fairly in well-prepared lands seems to
deny." {Penny Cyc.)

A new and seemingly very superior variety
has lately been introduced, called the Annat
barley. (See Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. v. p.
618.) It is the produce of three ears which
were picked by Mr. Gorrie in a field in Perth-
shire, in the harvest of 1830, since which pe-
riod it has been grown at Annat Gardens,
thence its name. In 1834, it was sown on a
ridge in the middle of a field, with common
barley on the one side and Chevalier barley on
the other. In bulk of straw it seemed to have
the advantage of both these kinds ; it was five
days earlier ripe than the former, and about a
fortnight before the latter, and it was also 2^
lbs. per bushel heavier than the Chevalier. At
a meeting of the Stoke Ferry Farmers' Club,
in February of the present year (1841), it was
stated by one of the members, that the Cheva-
lier was decidedly the best stock for good bar-
ley land ; but for very poor soils he preferred
the Moldavian ; though, probably even this was
surpassed by the stock usually known as the
old field barley. The Annat barley was allud-
ed to by one gentleman who had tried it last
season ; but not having thrashed it, he could
only say that from its appearance it augured
wed. He always adopted the drill system,
using wide, winged coulters, so as to disperse
the grain in the rows as much as possible, giv-
ing the field the appearance of having been
ploughed in. Very little difference of opinion
existed as to the superiority of the Chevalier
over any other variety, on the average of soils.
One member had grown 15 coombs an acre on
it; but he acknowledged it was on very excel-
lent land. A curious fact was elicited in con-
nection with this stock of barlej'; which was,
that however much the crop might be laid and
beaten down, either by storms or its own weight,
the grain did not receive that injur}' to which
any other sort under similar circumstances
would be liable. (Brit. Farm.Mag.\oL\.]p. 190.)

There can be no doubt of the general supe-
riority of the Chevalier as a malting barley.
Its introduction has occasioned a complete re-
volution in certain districts, where formerly no
such thing as malting barley was thought of.
It is one of the greatest improvements of mo-
dern times, and now commands a higher price
in the market than other barleys by two or
three shillings a quarter.

Barley is evidently a native of a warmer cli-
mate than Britain; for in this moist atmosphere
it is observed to degenerate, when either ne-
glected or on a poor soil. We have the best
authority for its having been cultivated in
Syria so long back as 3153 years; therefore
that part of the world may be fairly fixed as
its native soil. We find that the Romans ob-
tained barley from Egypt, and other parts of
Africa, and Spain. It was also grown in
France, as Columella calls one variety of bar-
ley Gnlaticum.

Barley, like all grains, is liable to diseases,
namely smut, the burnt ear, blight, and mil-
dew : for an account of which I must refer the
reader to these words. It is also apt to germi-
nate in the ear even before it is reaped, in wet
weather, giving the ear a singular appearance,
and rendering the grain, even when kiln-dried,
unfit for malting, and only of use to feed fowls
or pigs. The diseases of barley are not so nu-
merous or fatal as those of wheat. It is at-
tacked by the larvce of certain flies. The smut,
which attacks it in a partial degree, is gene-
rally the fungus uredo aegetum.

Barley is now extensively cultivated in most
European countries, in America, and in the
temperate districts of Asia and Africa. It may
also be raised between the tropics, but not at
a lower elevation than from 3000 to 4000 feet,
and then it is not worth cultivating. In Spain
and Sicily it produces two crops in the year.
Large quantities of barley have been for a
lengthened period raised in Great Britain. Re-
cently, however, its cultivation has been sup-
posed, though probably on no good grounds, to
be declining. In 1765, Mr. Charles Smith esti-
mated the number of barley consumers in
England and Wales at 739,000 ; and as a large
proportion of the population of Wales, West-
moreland, and Cumberland continue to subsist
chiefly on barley bread, I am inclined to think
that this estimate may not, at present, be very
wide of the mark. " Barley" (husked), says
Pliny, "was the most ancient food in old times,
as will appear by the ordinary custom of the
Athenians, according to the testimony of Me-
nander, as also by the surname given to the
sword fencers, who, from their allowance or
pension of barley, were called Hurdeani, bar-
ley men." (Book xviii. chap. 7). It was not
I until after the Romans had learned to cultivate
i wheat, and to make bread, that they gave bar-
! ley to their cattle. They made barley-meal
j into balls, which they put down the throats of
! their horses and asses, after the manner of Fat-
I tening fowls, which was said to make them
j strong and lusty.

' There are no means of ascertaining whether
barley was cultivated in Britain when the Ro-
mans discovered that country; but as Caesar

141

BARLEY.

BARLEY.

found corn growing on the coast of Kent, it is
probable that this species of grain had been
obtained from Gaul.

In the rotation of crops, barley may succeed
to summer fallow, to potatoes, turnips, or any
other green crop, and to any of the pulse crops.
It now generally follows turnips in England,
and is a very important crop in the rotation,
best adapted to light soils. The principal bar-
ley counties of England are Norfolk, Suffolk,
Cambridge, Bedford, Herts, Leicester, Notting-
ham, the upper parts of Hereford, Warwick,
and Salop. The produce varies according to
soil, preparation, season, &c., from about 25
to 60 or 70 bushels an acre. The usual crop
is from 28 to 36 or 38 bushels. The Winches-
ter bushel of good English barley generally
weighs about 50 lbs.; but the best Norfolk bar-
ley sometimes weighs 53 or 54 lbs. Its pro-
duce in flour is about 12 lbs. to 14 lbs. of the
grain.

Barley is said to contain 65 per cent, of nu-
tritive matter; wheat contains 78 per cent. A
bushel of barley weighing 50 lbs. will there-
fore contain about 32 lbs. of nutriment; while
a bushel of wheat weighing 60 lbs. contains
47 lbs. Good oats weighing 40 lbs. contain
about 24 lbs. of nutritive matter; so that the
comparative value of wheat, barley, and oats,
in feeding cattle, may be represented by 47,
32, and 24, the measure being the same. The
experiments on which this calculation is
founded were carefully made by Einhof, and
confirmed on a large scale by Thiier, at his
establishment at Mcigelin, the account of the
results being accurately kept.

Barley is a tender plant, and easily hurt in
any stage of its growth. It is more hazardous
than wheat, and is, generally speaking, raised
at a greater expense, so that its cultivation
should not be attempted except where the soil
and climate are favourable for its growth.
There is no grain perhaps more affected (says
Baxter, in his Lib. of Agr. Knowledge, p. 36,)
by soil and cultivation than barley, the same
species exhibiting opposite qualities, modified
by the nature of the soil from which it is pro-
duced ; these opposite productions of the same
individual will, if sown at the same period, on
the same land, and under the same course of
cultivation, exhibit corresponding differences,
which are manifested during the growth of the
crop, and subsequently in the quality of the
sample when in hand. Thus the finest sam-
ples, the growth of suitable and well-cultivated
lands, would, if sown on a poor and sterile
soil, become alike coarse in appearance, and
indifferent in quality. This fact, however im-
portant, has hitherto but little engaged the at-
tention of the farmer; and the spring or early
barley is therefore indiscriminately sown, as
being found more productive for the purpose
of malting than any of the afore-mentioned
varieties. The sprat, or battledore barley,
makes good malt; and being short and erect
^ the ear, and tapering in the stem, is, on
iirong lands, less liable to injury from falling,
and is consequently preferred by a few indi-
viduals. The common, or long-eared barley,
being long in the ear and weak in the straw,
is very liable to lodge early, whereby the grain
142

is rendered inferior in quality, and is, there-
fore, not extensively cultivated. Naked bar-
ley, or wheat barley, is so termed in conse-
quence of the grain separating readily from
the chaff when thrashed. It is a native of the
north, and will bear sowing early in the sea-
son ; it is not, however, in much estimation
in the south of England, and is seldom culti-
vated, although it makes strong malt, and is
excellent for fattening of hogs and cattle. Win-
ter barley, or square-eared barley, is grown to
a considerable extent in the north-western part
of England, and in Scotland. It is usually
sown for the feeding of sheep in the south of
England, and mixed with tares for the soiling
of cattle. As food for sheep, it is far more
productive than rye, as it admits of being fed
down every two or three days during summer;
and if intended for seed, it may previously be
fed off by sheep early in the season, without
injury to the crop.

The land that produces the best barley is
generally of a silicious, light, dry nature ; for
a good mellow preparation and free soil are
essential to the growth of malting barleys.
Cold, wet soils, which are peculiarly retentive
of water, are ill adapted to the growth of this
grain, both in reference to its weight and its
malting qualities. The whole matter of bar-
ley and its straw contains more silicious par-
ticles than that of any other grain cultivated
by the British farmer; and hence one reason
why a sandy soil is most congenial to the
growth of this plant. Barley is propagated by-
seed, sown either broadcast or in drills, the
quantity varying according to the quality of
the soil, cultivation, and time of sowing ; less
being required on rich mellow lands than on
poor soils ; early sowing, with good tillage, re-
quiring less seed than the late sowing with in-
different tillage. The quantity of seed gene-
rally varies from 2^ to 4 bushels the acre (or
sometimes more), when sown broadcast; but
when drilled, the quantity of seed need not ex-
ceed two bushels to the acre.

Barley is an early ripening grain. It may
be sown at a late period, but the sooner the
better. The more early that barley can be
sown, the produce in grain is the surer, though
the bulk of the straw will be less. The com-
mon sprat barleys may be sown from the
second week in March, if the weather prove
dry, until the 10th of May. The bigg, a variety
of the winter barley, will stand against the
wind, and may be sown either in the autumn
or the beginning of March. The bear, or
square barley, should be sown as early in the
autumn as the clearing of the harvest will
admit, and may be sown after wheat, barley,
oats, or any pulse crop, being a plant of sturdy
growth. In the choice of seed, great care

I should be taken that it is not of a reddish hue,
as in that case it is more than probable that a

1 great part of it will never vegetate ; the sample
should be of a pale, lively colour, and uniform.
Some farmers, not aware of its importance, are
in the habit of sowing thin corn; but unless
the land is quite adapted, from its nature and
cultivation, for the fullest encouragement of
the plant, it will in the end be found a "penny-

I wise and pound-foolish" speculation. In all

BARLEY.

BARLEY.

xases it will be well for the farmer to select
the finest samples and the plumpest grain ; for
in unfavourable seasons the crop from thin
grain is always delicate, and assumes an un-
kindly hue, whilst, on the contrary, plump seed
throws up strong, healthy stems, capable of
resisting the effects of inclement seasons, and,
in more congenial weather, pushing forth with
renewed vigour and redoubled strength. In
England, barley, for the most part, succeeds
best after turnips, tares, potatoes, carrots, man-
gel wurzel, or other green ameliorating crops ;
but does not succeed so well after wheat or
other white straw crops, nor after rape so well
as other green crops, except on the South
Downs of Sussex, and certain lands adjoining
the sea-coast, where both the quantity of grain
is greater, and the quality better, after wheat
(particularly wheat sown upon a clover ley),
and also after rape, than from any other course
of tillage. The lands require more or less
ploughing, according to the quality of the soil,
and the state in which it is found after the sea-
son for the working of it commences. On re-
tentive soils, as compact gravelly clay, if the
turnips have been fed off during wet weather,
the earth breaks up in large clods, and requires
to be reduced by the roller, and at least a se-
cond ploughing should be given before the
barley can be safely sown. On light soils of
the best quality one ploughing may be suffi-
cient ; but if the land is twice ploughed in the
spring, as soon as it is sufficiently dry for that
purpose, it will be found amply to repay both
the labour and expense. After the grass-seeds
are sown, the barley-land admits of no further
tillage. Should any larger weeds appear, they
may be pulled up by the hand; but it is the
evidence of bad husbandry if a spring-sown
barley crop requires weeding during the com-
paratively short period in which it is on the
ground. If weeding be necessary, it should be
attended to early, or the crop will be injured
by treading, and the roller should be used be-
fore the blade becomes spindled.

In the harvesting of barley more care is re-
quisite than in taking any other of the white
crops, even in the best of seasons ; and in bad
years it is often found very difficult to save it.
When the period of harvest arrives, barley
must be allowed to be sufficiently ripe, but not
become what is termed " dead ripe." It may
be cut either by the scythe or the sickle. Bar-
ley, says Professor Low, on account of the
softness of its stem, and the tendency of its
ears to vegetate, is more apt to be injured, and
even destroyed, by wet weather than any of
the other cereal grasses. For this reason the
safer course, in a humid climate like ours, is
to place it when cut down in sheaves and
shocks, and not to allow it, as is frequently
practised, to lie loose upon the ground. By
some farmers, however, it is suffered to lie in
the fields until the straw is quite dry, being
turned over early in the morning while the
dew is still upon it. This practice, they say,
is found to improve the colour of the skin, and
thereby render the grain of more value to the
maltster. It should never be carried unless
perfectly dry, otherwise it is in danger of being
heated in the mow, which reduces the value

very materially, for the undue action of the
heat destroys the spear, or germination of the
grain ; the malting process is consequently
very unequally performed, and as the duty has
to be paid upon the whole bin, maltsters will
scarcely purchase such samples, unless for
the purpose of grinding, and then always at
an inferior price. It will be prudent, there-
fore, not to carry barley until the heat of the
sun has evaporated the dew from it, when it
should be carried in a perfectly dry state the
remainder of the day, until the dew is again
deposited in the evening. It is a very common
practice to sow clover and other grass seeds
with this crop ; but great care must be taken
that they are thoroughly harvested, for other-
wise considerable fermentation will be created,
and the sample injured. It not unfrequently
occurs, that when it is supposed to be well
harvested, heat is soon found to subsist in the
mows, which should be daily examined, Ij
placing a long iron spit, that should be kept for
that purpose, deep into the mow ; when, if the
heat is found to increase, no delay should take
place, but the middle should be instantly cut
asunder, and taken out in proportion to the
size of the mow, when it will generally escape
without further injury. This operation, how-
ever, must not be deferred, as the injury sus-
tained rapidly increases. By heating in the
stalk, it quickly becomes discoloured and in-
jured. When barley is grown in large quan-
tities, it is usual to tread the mows with horses
or oxen, to get as much as possible into the
bams, in which case more guarded caution is
necessary than when thrown losely over the
floor.

This grain should never be thrashed by a
machine, as the injury done thereby is fre-
quently of a very serious nature; it bruises
the malting spear, which is as injurious to the
maltsters as if heated in the mow, and, there-
fore, should be guarded against. Care must
also be taken not to have too large heaps lying
together without frequent examination, as, un-
til it has undergone a proper fermentation in
the mow, it will be very apt to heat in the
heap ; in order to prevent which it requires to
be moved daily, or every other day, till cleaned
up from the chaff, which, from the fineness of
its texture, scarcely admits the introduction of
air, and consequently promotes fermentation.

The principal demand for barley in Great
Britain is for conversion into malt, to be used
in the manufacture of ale, porter, and British
spirits ; and though its consumption in this
way has not certainly increased proportionally
to the increase of wealth and population, still
there does not seem to be any grounds for sup-
posing that it has diminished.

But it is not only the most useful for making
into malt, it is the best food for promoting the
fattening of hogs, after they have been fed to a
certain extent with beans, peas, &c., from
I which it has been found that the meat is not
I only more tender, but increases in boiling;
whilst the meat of those fed on beans and
peas alone has not only been hard, but has not
yielded any increase. Barley is employed for
various other purposes. It is excellent for
fattening poultry. The flour is still used in

143

BARLEY.

BARLEY.

some parts for bread; but the bread, though
sufficiently nutritious, is dark and strong-
tasted. Barley, in its green state, especially
the Siberian winter-barley, makes excellent
spring food for milch cows, as is well known
to the cow-keepers about London ; it comes in
early, and greatly increases the milk. For
sheep it is more nourishing than rye, and is
earlier. When fed off quite close in April, it
will spring up again, and on good land pro-
duce a fair crop of grain in August ; but, in
general, it is ploughed up as soon as it is fed
off, and succeeded by spring tares or turnips.
It is also good food for horses, when given in
the spring of the year in small proportion with
oats, sparingly at first, and after being soaked
in water, and allowed to vegetate. It is in ge-
neral use in the south of Europe {Com. Board
of Agr. vol. vi. p. 298). Mixed with other
grain, in its ground state, it has been found an
excellent food for fattening bullocks. The
straw is employed partially for fodder, but
chiefly for litter. It is lighter than the straws of
oats and wheat, and less esteemed than either.
The awns are given to stock, either in their
natural state or boiled. Malt is the great pur-
pose, however, to which barley is applied in
this country. To understand the process of
malting, it may be necessary to observe, that,
in the germination of grasses and grains be-
fore the young plant is produced, the fecula
of the seed is changed by the heat and moist-
ure of the earth into sugar and mucilage.
Malting grain is only an artificial mode of
effecting this object. The grain is steeped in
cold water during a certain period ; the water
is then allowed to drain off, the grain is spread
out into a deep heap ; it gradually heats, the
rootlets begin to shoot out, afterwards the plu-
mula begins to grow ; and when this has grown
to a certain extent within the grain, the further
germination is checked by exposing the grain
on a kiln, heated by fire to such a degree as
extinguishes the vitality of the seed. At this
period it is found that tke starch is, in a great
measure, converted into saccharine matter,
and by subsequent fermentation, or distillation,
either beer or spirits is obtained. (See Fer-
iffENTATioif, Malting, and Brewing.) It is
only necessary to add here that malt requires
the best and heaviest barley, with its germinat-
ing powers entire.

Barley was formerly in general use in Eng-
land as bread corn : it is still, for this pur-
pose, much used on the Continent. It is gene-
rally used in the warmer climates as the food
for horses, for which purpose, in fact, it ap-
pears to answer equally as well as oats. In
this country, in some seasons, a considerable
saving may be made by using for this purpose
inferior barley. This was done in the season
of 1840 by Mr. Hewitt Davis, of Spring Park,
who sold his oats at the same price that he
gave for the barley. And to this end the farmer
should remember, that two parts of barley are

tlly equal, in feeding properties, to three parts
oats. In Germany they grind the barley,
and form it into cakes, with which they feed
their horses; and it is no unusual circum-
stance, in travelling in that country, to see the
144

driver take a slice of the loaf with which he
baits his horses.

Wine made from malt, when kept to a pro-
per age, has a good body, and a flavour nearly
as agreeable as the generality of Madeira
wines. The wort of malt is useful in scurvy,
but it is apt to increase the diarrhoea which
attends that disease. Barley was used by the
ancients for many medicinal purposes. Pot
barley, pearl barley, and French barley, are
only barley freed from the husk by a mill ; the
distinction between them being, that the pearl
barley is reduced to the size of small shot, all
but the very heart of the grain being ground
away. For a description of the mode of ma-
nufacture, I refer the reader to the Penny Cy-
clop. vol. iii. p. 466. Barley-water is a decoc-
tion of either of these, and is reputed soft and
lubricating; a very useful cooling drink or
gruel in many disorders, and is recommended
to be taken with nitre in fevers. Its use is of
great antiquity, as Hippocrates wrote a whole
book on the merits of gruel made of barley.
Barley-water is an admirable liquid to admi-
nister any medicine in, being pleasant, emol-.
lient, and cooling. The French or Scotch
barley is principally used to thicken broth
and soup.

The German chemist, Einhof, has analysed
ripe barley, and found 100 parts to consist of
70-05 parts of meal, 18-75 of husk, and 11-20
of water. The meal he found to contain 67-18
parts of starch, 5-21 of uncrystallizable sugar,
4-62 of gum, 3-52 of gluten, r-15 of albumen,
0-24 of superphosphate of lime, and 10-79 of
water and loss, in 100 parts. The husk con-
tains a bitter principle which is tasted in the
decoction of entire barley.

M. Saussure has carefully analysed the ashes
produced by burning barley and its straw, and
the result of his experiments is given in Re-
cherches Chem. stir la Veg., Paris, 1804.

The grain reduced to ashes, with its skin,
gave, out of 100 parts, 18 of ashes, which con-
tained : —

Potash - 18-

Phosphate of potash _ _ - - 92
Sulphate of potash - - - - TS

Muriate of potash ----- 025
Earthy phosphates ----- 32-5

Silica 35-5

Metallic oxides 0-25

LosB - 28

100-

1000 parts of the straw produced 42 of ashes,
containing ; —

Potash ------- 16"

Sulphate of potash ----- 35

Muriate of potash ----- 0*5

Earthy phosphates ----- 7'75

Earthy carbonates 12 5

Silica
Metallic oxides
Loss

These products no doubt vary in different
soils ; but the proportion of silica in the straw
and in the skin of barley is remarkable. This
barley grew on a chalky soil. In addition to
j these the cubic saltpetre, or nitrate of soda, is
usually found in minute proportions in barley.

BARLEY GRASSES.

The average price m England, per Win-
chester quarter of barley, according to M'Cul-
ioch, was in
I £ s. d. £ s. d.

■ ■_ 1771 - - 1 5 8 1815 - - 1 10 3
Ik 1775 . -16 0 1819 - - 2 6 8

■ H 1780 - - 0 17 0

■ H|. 1785 • - 1 4 0 Per Imp. Quar.

■ ■. 1790 - - 1 5 6 18<20 • - 1 13 10

■ ■T 1795 . . 1 17 8 1825 - - 3 0 1

■ ■^ 1800 - - 3 0 0 1830 - • 1 12 7

■ ■ 1805 - - 3 4 8 1835 - > 1 9 11

■ P 1810 - - 3 7 11 1840 - . 1 13 8

The account in imperial quarters of the fo-
reign barley and barley-meal entered for home
consumption every five years since 1815, was
(M'Culloch's Com. Diet.)—

I 1815 160-

1825

1830
1835

270679
52107
137 374

The annual average, from 1801 to 1825, of
barley imported into England, in Winchester
quarters, was from

Qr*.

Russia 7113

Sweden and Norway - - - - -981

Denmark 18 8i)8

» Prussia ------- 1871S

Germany 34 839

Netherlands 9 500

France and Southern Europe - - 1097

United States 31

British North America - - - - ST

Other countries 2 194

Ireland 33 331

For further particulars as to its consumption
and culture, see SmiWs Tracts on the Com
Trade, 2d edit. p. 182 ; Penni/ Cyclop., vol. iii.
p. 461; Brown on Rural Affairs, vol. ii. p. 42 ;
and Elements of Prac. Agr., by Prof. Low, p.
246, «fec. ; to which last-named valuable work
I have, in this and other articles, been under
very considerable obligation.

{Phillip's Cult. Veg.; M'Culloeh^s Com. Diet..-
Com. Board of Ag. vol. vi. ; Hitchin, in Baxter's
Ag. Lib. : Professor Low's El. of Ag. ,- Brande's
Diet, of Science.)

Barley, in the United States, is cultivated
almost exclusively for the breweries, the grain
being rarely given to cattle, and barle3'-bread
being unknown to native Americans.

BARLEY GRASSES. Some coarse kind
of grasses which are known under the several
names of meadow barley graiss (Plate 7, d),
wall barley grass, way-bennet, and mouse bar-
ley, and are of little use to the farmer. (See
HoRDEUM murinum, and H. pratense.)

BARLEY HUMMELLER. This is an in-
strument worked by the hand, which is em-
ployed when the threshing machine is not in
use, or performs its work imperfectly. It con-
sists of a set of parallel iron plates fixed to a
frame, and worked by the hand like a paver's
instrument. The barley to be hummelled is
laid upon the barn-floor, and by repeated
strokes of the hummeller, is freed from its
awns. Messrs. Grant, wheelwrights of Aber-
deenshire, have described this instrument very
fully, with some improvements, in Trans. High.
Soc. vol. iv. p. 334.

BARM. The foam or froth of beer or any
other liquor in a state of fermentation, which
is used as a leaven in the making of bread,
&c. (See Yeast.)

19

_>SARN OWL.

f BARX. A covered building, constructed for
the purpose of laying up grain, &c. Farms
should always be furnished with barns pro-
portioned to the quantity of grain they produce;
but since the practices of stacking and thrash-
ing by mills have become more general, there
is much less need of large barns. They should
have a dry situation, and be placed on the
north or north-east side of the farm yard, so
that the sun at noonday may shine on th"
thrashing-floor, and the lean-toos for stock in
the yard be thus open only to the south. Every
farm should have at least two thrashing-floors,
that diflerent kinds of grain may be thrashing
at the same time. Barns may either be con-
structed of timber, or be built of brick or stone,
whichever the country aflbrds in the greatest
plenty, but wooden barns are the best for the
corn ; and in either case there should be such
vent-holes or openings in their sides or walls as
to atford free admittance to the air, in order to
prevent the mouldiness that would otherwise
occur from the least dampness lodging in the
grain. The foundations, and for two feet out
of the ground, are best made of brick or stone,
on account of greater solidity, and the protec-
tion from vermin ; the whole may be roofed
with either thatch, slate (which is»lhe best of
all), or tiles, as can be most conveniently pro-
cured. They should have two large double
folding doors facing each other, one in each
side of the building, for the convenience of
carrying in or out wagon-loads ; and these
doors should be of the same breadth as the
thrashing-floor, to alford the more light and
air. Formerly, a much larger expenditure in
the number and size of these buildings was in-
curred than is now requisite, since the practice
of stacking has become general. It is found
that all grain is a better sample from stacks
than from barns ; vermin have less chance
of injuring it, indeed may be set at defiance,
and at harvest the corn may admit of being
carried two days sooner for stacking than for
housing.

BARNACLES. A name given to horse*
twitchers or brakes, a sort of instrument used
by farriers to put upon horses' noses, when
they will not stand quietly to be shod, bled, or
dressed.

BARN OWL (Strix ftnmmea). The white,
or screech owl, unlike some of the species, is
resident in England throughout the year,
and is so peculiar in the colour of its plumage,
and so generally diffused, that it is probably the
best known of all the British species of owls.
It inhabits churches, barns, old malting kilns,
or deserted ruins of any sort, and also holes in
decayed trees. If unmolested, the same haunts
are frequented either by parent birds or their
offspring, for many years in succession. As a
constant destroyer of rats and mice, and that
to a very considerable extent, the services per-
formed by barn owls for the agriculturists have
obtained for these birds toleration at least,
while by some they are, as they deserve to be,
strictly protected in return for benefits received.
Unless disturbed, these birds seldom leave their
retreat during the day ; and, if the place of
concealment he approached with caution, and
a view of the bird obtained, it will generally
N 145

BAROMETER.

BAROMETER.

be observed to have its eyes closed as if
asleep. About sunset, the pair of owls, par-
ticularly when they have young, issue forth in
quest of food, and may be observed flapping
gently along, searching lanes, hedgerows, or-
chards, and small enclosures near outbuildings.
"In this irregular country," says White of
Selborne, " we can stand on an eminence and
see them beat the fields over like a setting dog,
and often drop down in the grass or corn."
Besides rats and mice, they feed on shrews,
small birds, insects, &c., and have sometimes
been known to capture and eat fish. It is said
of this owl, that when satisfied, it will hide
the remainder of its meat like a dog. The
barn owl lays from three to five eggs, which
are oval and white, measuring one inch six
lines in length, and one inch three lines in
breadth. Young birds are found from July to
September, and occasionally as late as Decem-
ber. The young birds are easily tamed, and
live in harmony with other birds. The barn owl
is common in most, if not all the counties of
England, and, according to Mr. Thompson, it
is also the most common owl in Ireland. In
Scotland, it is less numerous. Over the tem-
perate part of the European continent, and in
North Ameiica, it is generally diffused. Its
form and colour are too common to need de-
scription. The whole length of the bird is
about fourteen inches. { YarreWs Brit. Birds,
vol. i.)

BAROMETER. The word is derived from
two Greek words, which signify the measurer
of weight. This, the most valuable instrument
for meteorological observations in the farmer's
possession, was invented about the middle of
the 17th century, by Torricelli, an Italian phi-
losopher. Some observations of Galileo had,
perhaps, led the M'-ay to the discovery ; the at-
tention of this great philosopher, according to
a well known story, having been drawn to the
fact that water would not rise higher than 32
feet in a tube exhausted of air, by some work-
men of the Duke of Florence, who had vainly
endeavoured to construct a comon lifting pump
to raise water a greater height. Galileo ex-
plained the phenomenon, by saying that nature
had a horror of a vacuum, but that this horror
had its limits. It was found by Torricelli, that
a column of water of about 32 feet exactly
balanced the weight of the atmosphere which
surrounds our earth, and that this was equal
to the weight of a column of mercury of about
28 inches. Now this column of mercury,
under various outward shapes, forms the ba-
rometer, or weather-glass, so useful to the far-
mer. For as the pressure of the atmosphere
commonly varies with approaching changes in
the weather, the consequent rise or fall of the
mercury merely marks its amount : one end of
the mercurial tube is hermetically sealed and is
void of air, so that the quicksilver rises or
falls in it unresisted ; but the other end of the
tube is open, and the atmosphere forces the
r^^trcury through this, by pressure on the sur-
face of the fluid mercury in the cistern. Thus,
the atmosphere operates by its varying pres-
sure. When, therefore, the quicksilver rises,
the atmospheric pressure is increasing ; when
it falls, the pressure is diminishing.
U6

The more dense the state of the atmosphere,
the higher the mercury will rise in the instru-
ment. It is a popular notion that the atmos-
pheric pressure must be greatest when the air
is thick and cloudy. The terra densiti/, when
applied to the condition of the atmosphere and
its relations with the barometer, means specific
weight, without reference to its clearness or
cloudiness. Vapour or moisture in the air al-
ways lessens its weight, and the more vapour,
whether this be invisible, or in the condensed
states constituting fogs and clouds, the less the
weight or density and pressure upon the ba-
rometer.

It is more from this rising and falling of the
barometer, observes Mr. Forster, than from its
height or lowness, that we are to infer fair or
foul weather. In very hot weather the falling
of the mercury indicates thunder: in winter,
the rising indicates frost ; and in frosty weather,
if the mercury fall three or four divisions,
there will follow a thaw; but in a continued
frost, if the mercury rises it will snow. When
foul weather happens soon after the falling of
the mercury, it will not continue ; and, on the
contrary, you may expect, if the weather be-
comes fair as soon as the mercury rises, that
it will be of short duration. In foul weather,
when the mercury rises much and high, and
so continues for two or three days before the
foul weather is quite over, then expect a con-
tinuance of fair weather to follow.

The words usually inscribed on the scale
plates of barometers, such as " Very Dry," " Set
Fair," " Fair," etc., etc., are extremely falla-
cious, and have tended to bring the instrument
into great discredit as a weather glass. We
may perhaps except " Stormy," for when the
lowest falls happen, they are always the pre-
cursors of very high winds and storms. The
words inscribed are, perhaps, better indica-
tions of the weather in England than on the
American side of the Atlantic. It must be
evident that when a barometer, with a scale
plate marked as usual, is carried to high
and mountainous positions, the mercurial co-
lumn falls, and has its relations with the words
on the scale plate entirely changed. The per-
son who wishes to make the barometer useful
in foretelling the changes of weather in the
United States must throw aside all dependence
upon inscriptions, with the exception mention-
ed, and study its fluctuations with reference
to the prevailing winds, dew-point, and other
conditions of the weather at the time. Rain or
snow is frequently preceded by a rise, instead
of a fall, of the mercurial column, and a fall
of the barometer often indicates the cessation
of rain.

The rise in the mercurial column generally
indicates a northerly wind. The highest con-
ditions of the barometer in the United States,
near the Atlantic, commonly precede north-
easterly storms of rain and snow. The very
highest elevations have been attended with
very cold weather and a light wind from the
north, followed by snow or rain within forty-
eight hours. A subsidence of the mercury ge-
nerally indicates wind from a southerly point,
and should this be so far round as to blow from
land, the fall of rain or snow will commonly

BARREL.

BARROWS.

;ase, for a while at least. When, during a
spell of weather, the wind has veered to
le south-easterly points, with a cessation of
[fain, the wind rising to east and north-east is

fenerally preceded or attended by a rise of the
arometer and a renewal of the rain. When
Ithe wind has been from the south and south-
1 Vest, with a moist condition of the atmosphere,
or high dew-point, a rise of the barometer in-
^cates that the wind is coming from a point
'north of west, and a clearing up shower about
to ensue.

The following tabular view is intended to
show the manner in which the mercurial
column of the barometer fluctuates at Phila-
delphia, a position in the United States, which

may be regarded rather central and removed'
from the extremes of more northerly and
southerly situations. The higher north^ the
greater the fluctuations of the barometer. The
observations were carefully made during the
year 1842, by Mr. Owen Evans, a member of
the Committee on Meteorology, of the Franklin
Institute of Pennsylvania. The graduation of
his barometer agrees with that of the standard
constructed for the Committee on Meteorology,
by which the instruments distributed to the va-
rious counties of Pennsylvania are regulated.
The elevation of the place of observation is
about 30 feet above high-water mark of the
Delaware. The means are corrected for tem-
perature to 42° Fahr.

Mean of Baromet«r for each month of
the year 1842, - . - -

Greatest height at the hours of obser-
vation, -. -

Lowest fulls at the hours of observa-
tion, ------

Jm. Feb. March April May

,30 W 30 00 3004 «9-i<5 SS 90

30-63 30 47IS0 51 30-42

III
•i«9-53 20 1*!»-S2S9 57

I I i i

3031

Jul

3992
30-41

•29-(JO,2j:0

July Aug.

ii9b 29-»i
30-30 30 37
29 78 29-75

Sept Oct No».
29 97|30-00 3001
30-22|30 34 30-43
29-63 29-66 29 37

Doc. ! Year,
29-99 29 98

3047
29 32

30 63
2912

Many are the natural indications of vegetables
which portend changes in the weather ; thus,
the Pimpernel, or Red Chickweed {AnagaUia
^rvensis), is styled the poor man's weather-
glass. This little plant blooms in June, in
stubble fields and gardens, and continues in
flower all the summer. When this plant is
^een in the morning with its little red flowers
yidely extended, we may generally expect a
fine day ; on the contrary, it is a sign of rain
Vhen its petals are closed. {The Fanner's Air
raanac.)

The following table has been . constructed
from a long series of observations made in
London ; they will apply, however, to a consi-
derable distance around the metropolis : —

January -

February -

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December -

29-921

30-(»67
29«43

29 8S1
29-898

30 020
29874
29-891
29-931
29774
29-776
29-693

36-1

38-
43-9
49-9
54-

587

61

61-6

57-8

4>>-9

429

39-3

MauqMatity
ot BAia is

0746
1-440

l-7!!«
1853
1830
2516
1-453
2-193
2073
2400
2426

BARREL. A cask or vessel for holding
liquids, particularly ale and beer. Formerly
the barrel of beer in London, contained only
32 ale gallons =- 32^ Imperial gallons. By a
statute of 1 W. «& M., the ale and beer barrels
were equalized for every part of England, ex-
cept London, and ordered to contain 34 gallons ;
but it was enacted by 43 Geo. 3, c. 69, that 36
gallons of beer should be taken to be a barrel ;
and by the 6 Geo. 3, c. 58, it is enacted, that
whenever any gallon measure is mentioned in
any excise law, it shall always be deemed and
taken to be a standard Imperial gallon. At
present, therefore, the barrel contains 36 Impe-
rial gallons. It may be worth while observing,
that the barrel or cask is exclusively the pro-

tl

dace of European ingenuity, and that no such
article is known to any nation of Asia, Africa,
or America, who have not derived it from Eu-
ropeans. The terra barrel was formerly used
to denote, in a rough way, other sorts of goods.
Thus, a barrel of salmon was 42 gallons ; a
barrel of soap, 256 pounds. In common lan-
guage, any hollow cylinder is called a barrel.'
Air and water-tight iron barrels coated with"
waterproof composition are now used in the
navy, and might be made useful to the farmer.
{Mcculloch's Com. Diet.f Brande'a Diet, of
Science.)

A measure for Indian corn, in Maryland, Vir-
ginia, and other Southern States, containing
10 bushels in the ear = to 3 flour barrels.

BARREN FLOWERS are those which
either have stamens and no pistil, or which
have neither stamens nor pistil. The latter
are the production of art.

BARREN SOILS, in general, owe their
sterility to the presence of too great a propor-
tion of particular earths — saline, or organic mat-
ters. No soil can be productive in which 19
parts out of 20 are composed of any one earth or
other substance. The improvement of such
soils constitutes the great art of all manuring
and tillage. Lands containing an excess of
calcareous matter may be improved by the ad-
dition of clay or sand. Sands may be dressed
with clay or marl, or vegetable matter. Where
organic matters are in excess, the earths may
be applied. Water must be removed by drain-
ing. (Davy's Lectures, p. 203.) See Soils.

BARROWS. The common term for tumuli, j
or huge mounds of earth which were raised in
former times over the bodies of heroes and
warriors : many of which exist to the present
day on the plains of Wilts and the downs of
Dorset, Surrey, Sussex, and other counties.
Barrow is also the name for a hog, and for any
kind of carriage moved or borne by the hand.
The most common barrows in use at present
are the wheel-barrow, which is employed for
the carriage of light loads, as of earth to short
distances, lime for building, manure from the

147

BARS.

BASS.

heaps for spreading, and the like. The hand-
barrow is, under certain circumstances, substi-
tuted for the wheel-barrow. The load-barrow
is used for carrying filled sacks to and from
the granary, &c.

BARS. In farriery, a term applied to those
portions of the crust or hoof of horses that are
reflected inwards, and which form the arches
that are situated between the heels and the
frog.

Bars of a Horse's Mouth. — The fleshy rows
that run across the upper part of the mouth,
and reach almost quite to the palate, very dis-
tinguishable in some young horses. They
form that part of the mouth on which the bit
should rest, and have its effect.

BAR-SHOE. A particular kind of shoe,
which is sometimes of necessity used to protect
a tender frog from injury, the hinder part of the
shoe being thickened and hollowed over the
frog ; but unless it is made exceedingly heavy,
it will soon be flattened down, and in the mean
time it will most injuriously press upon the
heels.

BARTER (S^psin. baratar ; Tr. barrater .- Ital.
barratare, which signify to cheat as well as to
barter : hence also our word barratry). The
exchanging one commodity for another, with-
out the payment of money. The term barter
seems to have been derived from the lan-
guages of southern Europe. This rude mode
of trade grows into desuetude as a country or
nation advances in commercial knowledge,
and progresses in civilization ; and even where
an actual exchange of commodities does take
place between merchants and traders, their
comparative value is expressed by certain
current moneys, and balanced accordingly, and
not by the proportionate value one article bears
to another. The exchange of a civilized peo-
ple amongst themselves, or with other coun-
tries, are principally carried on by bills of
exchange. The actual money payments in a
country, by no means represent the amount of
its commercial transactions. (Penny Cyclop.)

BARTH. A provincial term, which sig-
nifies a warm enclosed place or pasture for
calves, lambs, and other young animals.

BARTON, or BARKEN (Sax. bepe-tun, an
area). A term employed in some districts to
signify the yard of a farm-house. Blount de-
scribes this word as meaning the demesne
lands of a manor ; the manor-house itself, and
sometimes the out-houses. Most of our old
lexicographers explain it as an enclosed place,
or inner yard, where poultry is kept, or hus-
bandry used. Blount's is the provincialism of
the west of England ; the latter is still used in
other places.

BASIL, SWEET (Ocymum. Probably from
0^0* and /utva, on account of its lasting fra-
grance). A culinary aromatic exotic used in
salads and soups ; the peculiar flavour of
mock-turtle soups is chiefly derived from this
valuable pot-herb. There are two species com-
nxljnly cultivated, both annuals, and originally
coining from the East Indies. 1. The sweet-
scented or larger basil (O. hasilicum), and,
2. The dwarf-bush basil (O. minimum). They
thrive most in a rich light soil, entirely free
from an V overshadowing body; but they re-
148.

quire, especially for the earliest plants, a shel-
tered border. In wet earth, the seed always
rots.

BASIL, COMMON WILD (Chenopf,dium
vulgare). This is also slightly aromatic, and
is a perennial succulent herb, growing in
bushy places, about hedges, and by road sides,
on a gravelly or chalky soil. The herb rises
about a foot high on a wavy, light green, hairy
stem, with ovate leaves, an inch long, serrated,
and the ribs beneath armed with bristly hairs.
The whole of the flowers are also bristly, on
branched hairy stalks, both arising from the
axilla of the leaves and the top of the stem, of
a light purple colour. The flowers blow in
July and August. This plant flourishes abun-
dantly in gardens. It is well known among
kitchen herbs. Its very odour is fragrant and
refreshing.

BASIL -TAyme. Field Thyme {Thymus
acina). A leafy, small annual plant, much
branched and spreading, but scarcely nine
inches high, with acute, bluntly serrated
leaves, rough at the edges, and slightly aro-
matic. The flowers are in axillary whorls of a
bluish colour, variegated at the tip with white
and dark purple ; six on a whorl on simple
stalks. It grows luxuriantly in cultivated
fields, especially on a sandy, gravelly, or
chalky soil. {Smith's Eng. Flor.)

BASIL. The skin of a sheep tanned.

BASILISK. (Lat.) The name for a serpent.

BASIN, or BASON {Yr. bassin ,- It. bacino).

In agriculture, a natural or artificial hollow or

excavation in the ground, for the reception and

preservation of water. See Pond.

BASKETS {Basged, Welsh ; bascauda, Lat.
probably from bass, of which baskets were often
made). They are made principally of the in-
terwoven twigs of willow, osier, and birch, &c.,
but frequently also of grass, rushes, splinters
of wood, straw, &c. They are made to hold
all sorts of dry goods, and constructed of every
variety of quality and shape, from the small
fruit-pottle to the bushel basket. For market
baskets the osiers are used whole. Besides
the vast quantities made in England, some of
the finer kinds are imported under an ad valo-
rem duty of 20 per cent. In 1832 this duty pro-
duced 1044/. 75. 9c?., showing that the value of
the foreign baskets entered for home consump-
tion in the same year had been 5221/. 18s. 9c?.
The fishing basket, pannier, or creel for the
angler, should be made of wicker-work, with
two openings for a leather strap to pass
through, which strap should encircle one
shoulder and be buckled, so that it may be let
down or taken up as occasion may suit. There
are great varieties of these panniers ; some are
made of sufficient width to carry a fish of four
or five pounds at full length.

BASS. The material of which packing
mats are made. It consists of the bark of the
lime tree.

The American Bass wood, or American
Lime, or Linden {Tilia Americana), abounds
in the forests east of the Mississippi. It exists
in Canada, but is most common in the more
northern portions of the United States. It be-
comes less frequent towards the south, and in
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, is found

BASTARP ALKANET.

BAY OF A BARN.

II

y on ihe mountains. Michaux says he
found this species of lime tree most abundant
in the Genessee country, bordering on Lakes
Erie and Ontario, where it frequently consti-
tutes two-thirds, and sometimes the whole of
the forests. The sugar maple, the white elm,
and the white oak are the trees with which it
• most frequently associates. On newly cleared
land its stump and roots frequently sprout,
"causing no little trouble to the settler
. The presence of the lime tree indicates a
loose, deep, and fertile soil. It is sometimes
more than eighty feet high and four feet in
diameter. Its straight and even trunk, termi-
nating in an ample and tufted summit, forms
a beautiful tree.

The wood is white and soft. In the Northern
States, where the tulip poplar does not grow, it
is used for the pannels of carriage bodies and
the seats of Windsor chairs. It is, however,
apt to split, and is not considered equal to pop-
lar for such and other useful purposes. (Nfjrth
Amer. Sylva.) The American Lime tree or
Linden is extensively cultivated in Europe,
where its larger leaves easily distinguish it
from the European Lime or Linden, which
last bears such sweet blossoms, perfuming the
air like the mock orange. The European Lin-
den is so much the prey of insect borers and
caterpillars as to make its preservation ex-
tremely difficult, especially in cities. The
American Linden escapes much better.

BASTARD ALKANET (Corn Cromwell,
Lithospermum arvense). An annual weed com-
mon in waste grounds and corn-fields, espe-
cially among rye, flowering in May and June.
It may be easily known by its tapering root,
with a bright red bark, which communicates
its colour to oily substances, as well as to pa-
per, linen, and pale faces ; and it is therefore
occasionally used by the young girls in Sweden
to colour their cheeks. This colouring matter
is also used to tinge some ointments, especi-
ally lip-salves, of a red colour. From the root
usually rises a single stem, about a foot high,
rough, and generafly branched and spreading
at the top ; sometimes decumbent. The flowers
are small and white, surrounded with five long,
narrow, hairy leaves. Wildenow says, he has
seen a variety with blue flowers. {Sntith*8
Ens. Flor.)

BASTARD -TOADFLAX {Thesium lino-
phyllum). An English perennial wild plant,
with terminal clusters of whitish or yellowish
blossoms, many-flowered, erect, generally
branched or subdivided, flowering in July. Its
root is woody and yellowish, stems widely
spreading, angular, leafy, a span or more in
length ; leaves turned to one side, rough-edged,
light-green, an inch long at most Found in
high open chalky pastures. The only species
of this genus known in the United States is
the Thesium umbellatum. (See Darlington's
Flora CestricaJ)

BAT, or FLITTERMOUSE {Cheiroptera, a
hand and wing). A mammiferous animal
"W'hich has a body like a mouse, with wmgs
not feathered, but consisting of a membranous
skin extended. These wings of the bat, osteo-
logically considered, are hands ; the bony
•tretchers of the cutaneous membrane being

the digital phalanges, or fingers ; extrenjely
elongated; one digit or finger of each wing is
tipped with a small nail. Bats are widely
spread over the globe ; they are to be found in
the Old and New World, and in New Holland.
A tolerably temperate climate seems necessary
for them, and the greatest developement of the
form takes place in warm countries. Gene-
rally speaking, they remain in concealment
during the day in caverns, ruinous buildings,
hollow trees, and such hiding places, and flit
forth at twilight or sunset to take their prey.
They feed mostly on flies, insects, &c., but do
not refuse raw flesh, so that the notion that
bats go down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon
is no improbable story.

Bats are divided into two classes, the omni-
vorous or fruit-eating, and the insectivorous.
Those who are desirous of further investigating
the subject will find ample particulars under
the head " Cheiroptera" in the Penny Cyclo.
vol. vii. p. 19.

BATEABLE HERBAGE. Provincially.
such herbage as has the tendency of readily
fattening stock of different kinds.

BAT FOWLING. A particular manner of
bird-catching in the night, while they are at
roost under the eaves of barns, or upon trees
or hedges. The fowler lights torches or straw,
and beats the bushes, upon which the birds,
dazzled by the light, fly into the flames, and
are then knocked down with sticks, or caught
either with nets or by other means.

BATING. An abbreviation of abating.
From bate, to lessen any thing, to retrench, to
sink the price. Thus Locke says, " When the
landholder's rent falls, he must either bate the
labourer's wages, or not employ or not pay
him." It is also used synonymously with
barring, to except.

BATTEN (probably from the French batdn,
from its slender width). A name in common
use for a slip or scantling of wood from two to
four inches broad and one inch thick, the
length inconsiderable, but undefined. If above
seven inches wide, it is called deal.

It also signifies strong broad fencing rails.
It is stimetimes written baiton.

BAY (Lat. badius ; old Fr. baye^ bat, rouge
brun ; Ital. bato). The term for a colour in-
clining to a chestnut In reference to the horse
this colour has various shades, from the very
light bay, to the dark bay, which approaches
nearly to the brown ; but it is always more gay
and shining. There are also Coloured horses
that are called dappled bays. All bay horses
are commonly called brown. Bay horses have
black manes, which distinguish them from the
sorrel, that have red or white manes. There
are light bays, and gilded bays, which are
somewhat of a yellowish colour. The chestnut
bay is that which comes nearest to the colour
of the chestnut

The bay is one of the best colours of horses,
and horses of all the difierent shades of bays
are commonly good.

BAYARD. A provincial term for a bay
horse.

BAY OF A BARN. That part where the
mow is placed. Hence such barns as have
the thrashing-floor in the middle, and a space
v2 149

BAY-SALT.

BEAGLE.

for a mow on each side, are called barns of
two bays, &c.

BAY-SALT. The sah made naturally on
the sea-shore at St. Ubes and other bays, in the
natural hollows of the sea-shore which are
only overflowed at spring tides. The salt thus
made at a low temperature by the action of the
sun and wind is the strongest and best for but-
ter and other agricultural purposes. (Broum-
rigg on Salt ; Brande^a Diet, of Science.)

Bay-salt is in large, moderately white cubes.
St. Ubes' salt contains 960 parts of pure
chloride of sodium in 1000 parts; the remainder
consists of 28 parts of sulphate of lime and of
magnesia; 3 parts of chloride of magnesia, or
bittern ; and 9 of insoluble matter. It is con-
sequently very pure. Similar salt, but less
pure, is made at St. Martin and Oleven. (For
its dietetical uses and as a manure, see Salt,
Saltixg.)

BAY-TREE (Laurus nobilis). This plant,
the laurel of antiquity, is a native of classical
ground. We cannot ascertain at what exact
period the bay-tree was first cultivated in this
country ; but in all probability it was planted
by the Romans, and fell with their villas.
Chaucer, who wrote in the time of Edward IIL,
mentions it ; and Turner, our oldest writer on
plants, says, in 1564, " the bay-tre in England
is no great tre, but it thr)meth there many parts
better, and is lustier than in Germany." We
find that during the reign of Elizabeth it was
common to strew the floors of distinguished
persons in England with bay-leaves. And we
may conclude that it was rare in this country,
even so late as the beginning of the eighteenth
century, for Bradley says, in 1716, " they (bay-
trees) should be put in pots or cases, and
housed in the winter, that their beauty may be
preserved." He states, that " he has seen pyra-
mids and headed plants of bays introduced in
parterre work, but he cannot advise the doing
it, lest they should be injured by the weather."
There need be no such care taken now, for
they have become thoroughly hardy and accli-
mated. Bradley adds, the finest bay-trees he
liad ever seen, either abroad or in England,
were then in the royal gardens of Kensington,
and were of very great value.

The bay is a small tree, seldom exceeding
fifteen to twenty feet in height. The bark is
greenish, smooth, and aromatic : the leaves
lanceolate, sharp-pointed, wavy on the edge,
and leathery and smooth on both sides. The
flowers are four or six in a cluster, of a yel-
lowish white, glandular, and dotted. The fruit
is about the size of a large pea, black, and
succulent.

Observation instructs us to place this tree in
situations where it is sheltered from north and
north-east winds, which affect its beauty, and
often its growth. It thrives under the very
wings of larger trees, where it is diflScult to
make other shrubs prosper, and this is of im-
portance in our plantations. A warm, dry,
swdy, or gravelly soil is recommended for the
bft; but it thrives well on a rich loam. We
are told by Mortimer, that bay-trees, whose
branches are killed by the weather, or other
accident, if cut down to the ground, will send
up strong shoots, which we know by expert- \
150

' ence to be correct ; therefore, the roots should
I not be grubbed up too hastily. This tree should
never have a branch taken from it but in the
j spring. The directions for raising these trees
from seed are given in the same manner by all
writers on .the subject, from Pliny down to
Miller. It is, to gather the fruit when quite
ripe, which is not before January or February.
The berries are then to be preserved in dry
sand until the middle of March, when they
may be sown in a shady border of rich, loose,
undunged earth. The berries, should be drop-
ped in rows as French beans are planted, and
covered with fine, rich mould about an inch
thick. The young plants will require frequent
but moderate watering for the first two years.
The French nurserj'men raise them under
glass, or in an orangery. The bay-tree will
grow by cuttings, but these should be planted
in a moderate hot-bed, and kept moist and co-
vered from the heat of the sun during summer,
and from the frost in winter. April is the pro-
per time to plant cuttings, but layers may be
laid down either in March or August, which,
by the second spring, will make good plants.

The variegated bay is increased by budding
it on the common sort. Neither the broad nor
the narrow-leaved varieties are so hardy as
the common bay. The leaves and berries of
the bay-tree have an aromatic, bitter, astrin-
gent taste, and a fragrant smell : and are ac-
counted stomachic, carminative, and narcotic;
but they are not much used in medicine at the
present day, although old writers are very
voluminous in describing their virtues. (Phil-
lips's Syl. Flor.)

This well-known evergreen is always hand-
some in shrubberies, and grows well. It pre-
fers a northern aspect: indeed, we may almost
consider the bay-tree a native of England,
since gardens and shrubberies are now rarely
formed without their presence. The leaves
and berries are used as medicine ; the leaves
should be dried in the proper way, pounded,
and kept in glass bottles ; they are said to be
cordial and beneficial in nervous complaints,
and in paralysis : in large doses they prove
emetic. The green leaves applied to the part
allays the pain of the sting of bees. The ber-
ries of the bay-tree contain both volatile and
fixed oil, wax, resin, uncrj'stallizable sugar,
gums, starch, some salts, and a peculiar sub-
stance, which has been named laurin, and
bears some resemblance to camphor. The
dried berries are given in powder or infusion
in flatulent colic ; but they are of little value.

BEAGLE {Yr.bigle). A small well-propor-
tioned hound, slow but sure, having an excel-
lent nose and most enduring diligence ; form-
erly much in fashion for hunting the hare, but
now comparatively neglected, its place being
occupied, where hare-hunting is patronized, by
the harrier. There are still several varieties
of beagles, but formerly there appear to have
been many more, from the deep-flewed dimi-
nutive type of the old southern hound, to the
fleet and elegant fox-hound beagle, to which
we may add the pigmy breed called lap-dog
beagles. Beagles were formerly distinguished
into the rough and the smooth. The rough,
wire-haired, or terrier beagle, is now seldom

Jki

BEAM.

BEANS.

^fll^W^h, although it was a hardy, and alto- 1 name of Fabii from some of their ancestors

■ gether a vermin-loving breed, and very strongly having cultivated the bean called FaAa. The

■ fnrnnp<l.

I

formed. (Blaine's Encyclopatdia of Rural
Sporh.)

BEAM. The principal piece of timber
which supports a buildingr.

BEAM OF A PLOUGH. The upper prin-

meal of beans is the heaviest made from pulse,
and was called in Latin lumentum. This was
mingled with frumeniii corn, whole, and so
eaten by the ancients; but they sometimes
bruised it first; it was considered a strong

cipal timber into which the handles and all the j food, and was generally eaten with gruel or
other parts of the tail of the plough are fixed. ! pottage. Many superstitious customs and
It is most commonly made of ash wood, some- notions were in* olden times attached to this

what bent in its form, and of diflerent lengths
according to the nature of the plough. (See

PtOVRHS.)

BEAM-TREE. The Pt/rua aria of botanists.
The white beam-tree or wild pear-tree, is a de-
ciduous British tree of small growth inhabiting
the mountainous parts of the country, and re-

pulse. The ancients made use of beans in
gathering the votes of the people, and for
electing the magistrates. A white bean signi-
fied absolution, and a black one condemnation.
From this practice, no doubt, was derived the
plan of black-balling obnoxious persons. The
Roman husbandman had a religious ceremony

sembling a small apple-tree with berries like ! respecting this pulse, somewhat remarkable:
those of the mountain ash. Its leaves are j when they sowed corn of any kind, they took
strongly veined, in a plaited manner, and white care to bring some beans from the field for

underneath ; the wood is hard, compact, and
tongh, and is used for axle trees, naves of
wheels, and cogs of machinery. (^Brandt's
Did. Science.)

BEANS ( Vicia Fabn). A well-known vege-
table of the pulse species, largely cultivated
both in gardens and fields. Sax. bean ; vieia is
the Latin name for the tare or vetch ; derived,
according to Varro, a vicinrdu, because its ten-
drils entwine or bind round other plants. The
bean was called in Greek Ky^yuic; by the Fa-
lisci, a people of Etruria (now Tuscany), liaba,
whence the name Fuba seems to be taken.
Marti nius derives the word from ?rdt», to feed,
as if it were Paha,- Isidorus from *a>4», to eat.
Its cultivation is of much importance in niral
economy, inasmuch as it has gone far to super-
sede fallows on strong loams and clays. The
bean is a plant of considerable importance to

good luck's sake, superstitiously thinking that
by such means their corn would return home
again to them ; these beans were then called
Hefrinse or Heferina, The Romans carried
their superstition even further, for they thought
that beans mixed with goods ollcred for sale
at the ports would infallibly bring good luck to
the seller.

In some places bean meal is still mixed with
other meal in making coarse bread ; or the
beans are boiled into a mess with fat meat, in
which state they are very nutritious. Bean
meal given to oxen soon makes them fat;
mixed with water and given as a drink to
cows, it greatly increases their milk. A small
quantity of beans is generally mixed wiih new
wheat when ground to flour : the millers pre-
tend that soft wheat will not grind well with-
out beans, and they generally contrive that

the farmer, as affording him a valuable food for I there shall be no deficiency in the necessary
both horses and swine ; its varieties are nil- j proportion. Thus a quantity of beans is con-
merous, but as it is cultivated both for agricul- 1 verted into what is considered as wheaten
tural and horticultural purposes, it will be ne- ' flour.

cessary, in treating of its cultivation, to adopt | The bean came originally from the east, and
the following arrangement: — 1. Field beans ;| was cultivated in Egypt and Barbary in the
2. Garden beans. The English growth of beans j earliest ages of which we have any records,
has of late years diminished, a large portion \ It spread thence into Spain and Portugal, from
of the consumption of this country now com- I whence some of the best varieties have been
ingfrom abroad ; yet I am of opinion that beans ! introduced into this country. The proportion
or peas, according to the soil, should enter j of nutritive matter in beans, compared with
into the rotation of the crops of all English i other grain, is, according to Einhof, as fol-

lows

Wheat

Rye

Barley

Oats

Beans

Peaa

French beans 84

By weifht

74 per cent.
70 —
65 —
58 —
68 —

75 —

Or in a buihel.
about 47 lbs.

— 39

— 33

— 2.3

— 45

— 49

— 54

farms : for if drilled and well horse-hoed, it is
one of the finest preparations tor wheat. And
it may be well to observe, that the Russian or
winter bean may be successfully cultivated on
moist soils. j

The flowers of the bean emit a most agree- |
able perfume. Of all the pulse kind, this was I
held in the first rank in ancient times. We '
find the Athenians used beans sodden, in their I

feasts dedicated to Apollo; and the Romans 'of marsh beans {Vicia Faba), of
presented beans as an oblation in their solemn [ Starch
sacrifice called Fabaria. Pliny informs us {
that they oflered cakes made of bean meal j
unto certain gods and goddesses in these an- !

cient rites and ceremonies. Lempriere states , ^^^ ^^^m kidney beans {Phaeseolus vulgaris)
that bacon was added to the beans in the offer

The same chemist obtained from 3840 parts

1312

Albumen - - - - - - -31

Other matters, nutritive, irummy, starchy,
fibrous, analogous to animal matter - 1204

of

ings to Cama, not so much to gratify the pa-
late of the goddess, as to represent the simpli-
city of their ancestors. One of the most noble
and powerful families of Rome derived the

Starchy matters 1805

Albumen, and matter approaching to ani-
mal matter in its nature - - - - 851

Mucilage 799

{Davy, Ag. Chem., p. 132.)
151

BEANS.

BEANS.

Beans are best given broken, especially to
aged live stock. An excellent bean mill
constructed by the Messrs. Ransome of Ips-
wich, will break one quarter of beans in an
hour. It is also made with an extra roller and
plkte for malt ; and is sometimes constructed
so as to render it suitable for horse power.

Field Beans. — In England, the sorts usually
cultivated in the fields are, the tick bean, the
horse bean, and the small Dutch Heligoland,
or prolific bean. In some situations the ma-
zagon, longpod, and winter or Russian bean,
have produced good crops in the field: the
first three are, however, best suited for general
cultivation. The last, a new and useful va-
riety, has been more recently introduced, and
has lately come into very general cultivation
in various parts of the kingdom. It is planted
in autumn in the usual manner, and is supe-
rior to the common bean, inasmuch as it is
capable of resisting the severest frost, and is
ready for harvesting two months earlier.

There are several varieties of beans, which
differ but little in their appearance. Ex-
perience is the best guide in choosing the seed
which suits particular soils and situations.
The small, round, regular-shaped beans are
generally preferred, as obtaining the best prices
in the markets, especially in large towns where
there is a great consumption of beans by hard-
working horses.

All the varieties thrive best on strong clay
soils, heavy marls, and deep loams of a moist
description. In such soils the produce is
sometimes 30 to 60 bushels per acre, but an
average crop on moderate land is about half
that quantity. The Heligolands, and espe-
cially the Russian bean, have been found very
productive when grown upon hazel moulds,
and deep chalk soils intermixed with loam, as
they do not require so close a soil as the other
varieties. The last-named varieties seldom
succeed sufficiently to repay the grower, if at-
tempted to be raised on light lands; indeed,
sandy soils or late climates are ill adapted to
the successful cultivation of the bean. On
very rich land, beans have produced extraor-
dinary crops, by being sown broadcast and
very thick, the stems being brought up to a
great height in favourable seasons. A small
field of very rich land, in the county of Sussex,
was sown in the year 1832 with four bushels
of the small tick bean, which came up so
thick, that the proprietor thought of thinning
out the plants by hoeing; but he was advised
to see what the produce would be, and when
they were thrashed out, there were ten quar-
ters and one bushel of beans. He had the
ground accurately measured, and it was found
to be one acre and twenty-nine perches, which
makes the crop above sixty-eight bushels per \
acre. I

Beans are propagated by seed, which may
be sown broadcast, drilled, or dibbled; if sown i
broadcast, three or four bushels of seed per
acre will be required, which should be
ploughed or harrowed in ; if drilled, two and
af half or three bushels per acre will be suffi-
cient. Beans are tolerably hardy, and will
bear moderate dry frosts ; but they suffer much
from alternate frosts and thaws, which in this
152

I climate are so common in February. The end
of February or the beginning of March is,
I therefore, generally preferred for bean sowing.
When the season is remarkably mild, early
sowing is a great advantage. As a general
rule, spring beans may be sown from the mid-
dle of P'ebruary to the middle of March. There
are two modes of drilling beans. In one of
these the lands or ridges are divided by the
plough into ridgelets, or "one bout-stitches,"
at intervals of about twenty-seven inches.

If dung is applied to beans, the seed ought
to be deposited first, as it is found inconvenient
to run the drill machine afterwards. The dung
may then be drawn out from the carts in small
heaps, one row of heaps serving for three or
five ridgelets ; which is evenly spread and
equally divided among them. The ridgelets
are next split back or reversed, either by
means of the common plough, or one Avith two
mould-boards, which covers both the seed and
the manure in the most perfect manner. When
beans are sown by the other method in the
bottom of a common furrow, the dung must be
previously spread over the surface of the win-
ter or spring ploughing. Three ploughs then
start in succession, one immediately behind
the other, and a drill-harrow either follows the
third plough, or is attached to it, by which the
beans are sown in every third furrow, or at
from 24 to 27 inches asunder, according to the
breadth of the furrow-slice.

Another improved mode of sowing beans
when dung is applied at seed time, is to spread
the dung and plough it down with a strong fur-
row; after this, shallow furrows are drawn,
into which the seed is deposited by the drill
machine. Whichever of these modes of sow-
ing is followed, the whole field must be care-
fully laid dry, by means of channels formed
by the plough, and when necessary, by the
shovel ; for neither then nor at any former pe-
riod should water be allowed to stagnate on
the land. It is a common practice with many
farmers to mix and sow with beans a propor-
tionate part of peas, about one-fourth, which,
when growing, are called Polts, and are thus
cultivated both on the drill and broadcast sys-
tem. In either case the seed should be put
into the ground by the latter end of January,
or as soon after as the weather and state of the
land will permit. By this intermixture of peas
and beans, the straw or haulm is said to be
greatly improved. In some places the peas are
sown on the headlands, and the haulm is used
to tie the beans with ; but peas cling round
the bean-stalks and impede the setting of the
pods ; they also interfere with the hoeing and
weeding, so that the practice is not to be re-
commended. Peas require a lighter soil, and
are best sown separately, except when they are
sown broadcast, mixed with beans, in order to
be mown in a green state as fodder for cattle
or pigs. Sowing beans for this last-mentioned
purpose is not much practised in England, but
is found very useful on the Continent, espe-
cially in Flanders ; in this case they are mown
like tares, soon after the pods are formed. In
order to have a succession of this green food,
they should be sown at different times within
a week or a fortnight of each other. By this

BEANS.

BEANS.

I

-ineans a great deal of grass is saved, which
may be reserved for hay. The cattle fed in the
stables or yards thrive well on this food, and
;produce a quantity of rich manure, chiefly in
a liquid slate, which fills the tanks and reser-
voirs, which are indispensable appendages to
every farm-yard. By having winter tares
.when the turnips are consumed, peas and
ibeans after the first crop of clover, and sum-
mer tares to succeed them, cattle may be fed
in the stables all the year round with great ad-
vantage ; the land may be tilled at the best
season of the year and prepared for wheat, as
well as by a clear fallow, while the green crop
will fully repay all the expenses. Three
bushels of beans and two of peas, mixed to-
gether, are required per acre, when sown
broadcast or drilled in each furrow after the
plough. It is often advantageous to cut in a
green state those beans which were sown for
a general crop, when food for pigs is scarce.
They will go nearly as far in this way in feed-
ing store pigs, as the beans would have done
when ripe : and the ground is left in a much
better slate for the following crop. {Penny
Cyclop, vol. iv. p. 82.)

Many farmers have long and advantageously
adopted the practice of dibbling in their beans,
by which a great saving of seed is effected ;
neither are they required to be planted so early
as by the old system. Besides being more
evenly deposited in the soil, and properly co-
vered over, they are better preserved from
rooks, and other vermin that would destroy
them. Drilling, however, is still preferred by
most agriculturists, as being a less expensive
course. Both drilling and dibbling have each
great advantages over the broadcast system,
as by the latter method the land cannot be
kept clean.

Some parties recommend the topping of
beans just as the blossoms are set, and assert
that it not only improves the quality, but in-
creases the quantity, and causes them to ripen
sooner. They may be switched off with an old
scythe-blade, set in a wooden handle, with
which one man can easily top two acres a
day. Others object, and with much justice, to
this indiscriminate hacking and topping. The
reason for doing this in garden culture is, that
when a plant has borne pods a certain time,
it is most advantageous to remove it, and the
top blossoms, of course, never come to perfec-
tion. In the field this is not the case, there
being no succession of plants ; and, unless the
top blossoms are very late, or the black dol-
phin (aphis) begins to appear, which is shown
by the honey-dew on the upper shoots, no ad-
vantage is gained by topping the plants, and
the labour is thrown away. The bean crop is
generally harrowed to destroy annual weeds :
sometimes just before the plants make their
appearance, and sometimes after the beans
have got their first green leaves, and are fairly
above ground. After the beans have made
some growth, the horse-hoe is employed in the
intervals between the rows, and followed by
the hand-hoe, for the purpose of cutting down
such weeds as the horse-hoe cannot reach ; all
the weeds that grow among the beans should
be pulled up with the hands. The same ope-
20

rations are repeated as often as the condition
of the land in regard to cleanliness may re-
quire.

When the leaves of the beans begm to lose
their green colour, and the pods to turn black,
the crop should be reaped with the sickle, and
made into small sheaves, tied with straw-bands
or tarred twine, and set up in the field to dry.
But if the haulm is short, as that of the long-
pod and mazagan generally are, it is a more .
profitable course to pull them up by the roots,
and lay them in sheaves, the same as if cut, by
which means the lowest and earliest pods are
better preserved and harvested. Mr. J. C.
Curwen, M. P. (Com. to the Board of Agr., vol.
iv. p. 390) gives some details of the result of
experiments made in 1803 and 1804, of cutting
beans whilst in a perfectly green and fresh
state. Forty acres of beans were drilled in
February, 1804, and from May to the middle of
July the ploughs and harrows were constantly
at work in it. By the lOlh of August, the beans
had shot the black eye, which is the criterion
of seeds being perfectly formed. The weather
proving unfavourable, prevented their being
reaped immediately, but they were eventually
cut on the 20th of August, spread thinly, and
exposed two days to the sun previous to bind-
ing and removing to an open pasture, where
they remained three weeks, and were then
found perfectly dry and fit for stacking. Mr.
Curwen adds, as a strong proof of the benefit
resulting from these early cuttings, that he
was enabled, previous to drilling with wheat,
to give the ground two ploughings, harrow-
ings, &c., and in some parts three (the extreme
foulness of this piece of land requiring what in
few instances would be necessary) ; and to
cart and spread sixty loads of compost per
acre, and to complete the whole by the 20th of
September. Mr. John Sherif, of Haddington
(Com. Bo(ird of Agr., vol. iv. p. 172), also says

i of harvesting beans, "This crop should be cut

' down as soon as the eye has attained its
deepest dye, and instantly, if dry weather,
sheaved. The sheaves of any grain or pulse
ought not to exceed nine inches in diameter ;
and I think that sheaves from six to eight
inches would be far safbr in this variable cli-
mate. By cutting at this period of the state of
the crop, the bean-straw will be of triple value

j of what stands till the leaves fall off; the grain
too will be superior to that bleached by the

i weather for weeks, after the haulm and grain
of the first is secured in the rick. Shocks of
any crop of pulse or grain ought not to exceed
six sheaves of the above-mentioned size."

! The Rev. John Ramsay, of Ayrshire, and Mr.
John Boys, of Kent, also give the result of their

j observations on bean husbandry (Com. Board
of Agr., vol. vi. p. 141 — 146), which, though

: valuable, are of too confined and local a na-

1 ture for me to notice.

I The diseases to which beans are subject in
England, are the rust, or mildew, which is a
minute fungus that grows on the stems of
leaves, attributed to cold fogs and frequent
sudden transitions of weather, and the black
dolphin or fly, also called the collier, an insect
of the aphis tribe. For the mildew no remedy

; has yet been found. Whenever it has attacked

153

BEANS.

BEANS.

the plants, generally before the pods are filled,
the best method is to cut down the crop in its
green state ; and if it cannot be consumed in
the farm-yard, to plough it into the ground,
where it will decay rapidly, and be an excel-
lent manure for the succeeding crop of wheat.
If allowed to stand, the crop will not only be
unproductive, but the weeds will infest the
ground, and spoil the wheat crop by their
seeds and roots, which will remain in the soil.
Whenever the tops of the beans begin to be
moist and clammy to the feel, it is the fore-
runner of the aphis. They should then be im-
mediately cut off, and this, if done in time,
may save the crop from the ravages of the
insects ; but the most effectual way to prevent
any disease from attacking the plants in their
growth, is to have the ground in good heart,
and well tilled; to drill the beans at a suffi-
cient distance between the rows, to allow the
use of the horse-hoe, and thus to accelerate the
growth of the plants, and enable them to out-
grow the effect of incipient disease, which
seldom attacks any but weak plants. In the
year 1831, there were imported from abroad
23,388 qrs. of beans. The largest proportion
came from the following countries ; Denmark,
1299 qrs.; Prussia, 1157 qrs.; Germany, 7664
qrs. ; the Netherlands, 7070 qrs.; France, 1454
qrs.; Italy, 3691 qrs.; Malta, 1031 qrs. The
total quantity of pulse (for beans and peas are
included in the return) entered for home con-
sumption in 1834, was 102,080 qrs. ; in 1835,
94,540 qrs. {Appendix to Second Agr. Report
for 1836, p. 282.; Phillips's Cultivated Vege-
tables,- Penny Cyc. vol. iv. ; Baxter's Agr.
Lib.; Prof. Low's work on Agr. ,- Com. Board of
Agr., vols. iv. and vi. ; M'CuUocfCs Com. Did.)

Garden Beans. — The following varieties are
those principally cultivated: — Early mazagan,
a great bearer, and a good sort. Early Lisbon,
or Portugal bean, a small and sweet kind.
Common sword, and other long-pods, the
most abundant bearers, and consequently
more generally found in the cottager's garden
than any other sort. Small Spanish. Broad
Spanish. Toker, a good bearer, middling
large. White and black blossomed, good sorts,
and bear \vell ; middling size : the seed, when
old, is apt to degenerate if not saved with care.
Windsor, one of our best-tasted beans when
young ; but not a hardy kind. Green nonpa-
reil, smallish. Besides these, there are the
Munford, Dwarf-cluster, or Fan, and the Red
blossomed, varieties of little value. In some
places the Fan is, however, much grown. It
grows only from six to twelve inches high ;
the branches spread out like a fan, and the
pods are produced in clusters. The soil
should vary with the season. For the winter-
standing and early crops, a moderately rich
and dry soil is best adapted to them, since, if
too moist, the seed is apt to decay, &c., whilst
a moist aluminous one is best for the spring
and summer insertions. Although the bean
will succeed in much lighter soils than is ge-
nVally imagined, yet, if such are allotted to it
wUen thus late inserted, the produce is much
diminished. The situation cannot be too un-
incumbered, but still a protection from violent
winds is very beneficial, as no plant is more
154

liable to suffer if its leaves are much injured.
It is propagated by seed. For the first produc-
tion, in the following year, a small plantation
may be made at the close of October, or during
November, and a rather larger one in Decem-
ber. These should be inserted on a south
border, in a row, about a foot from the fence,
or in cross-rows. If intended for transplanting,
the seed may he sown likewise during these
months. Regular plantations may be continued
to be made from the beginning of January to
the end of June, once every three weeks.
Early in July and August the two last crops
must be inserted. The Windsor, which is the
principal variety then planted, should have a
south border allotted ; it comes into production
about Michaelmas.

The experiments of Bradley serve as a guide
in some respects, whereby to apportion the
extent of the plantations. He found that a rod
of ground, containing fourteen rows, in pairs,
at two feet distance, the plants in which are
six inches apart, or thirty-four in number, will
yield forty-seven quarts of broad beans.
Smaller varieties only from one-half to one-
third as many. {General Treat, on Husband,
and Garden., vol. iii. p. 16.) If the plants are
intended to be transplanted, which is only
practised for the early crops, the seed must be
sown thick, about an inch apart, in a bed of
light earth, in a sheltered situation, and of such
extent as can be covered with a frame. If
frames and hand-glasses are deficient, matting
or litter, kept from pressing on and injuring
the plants, by means of hooping, &c., are
sometimes employed. These, however, afford
such imperfect shelter, that there is scarce any
advantage superior to the mode of sowing at
once, where the plants are to remain, since the
intention of this practice is to keep them in
vigour, and to forward their growth, by secur-
ing them from ungenial weather. Care must
be taken that they are not weakened from a
deficiency of air or light; to guard against
this, the lights should be taken entirely off
every day that excessive wet or cold does not
imperatively forbid their removal. The usual
time for removing them into the open ground,
in a south border, is February ; if, however,
the season is inclement, they may be kept
under the frame until May ; but then a week
previous to their removal, Bradley informs us,
they ought to be cut down within two inches
of the ground. {Gen. Treat, on Husband, and
Garden.) When removed, as much earth as
possible should be retained round the roots of
plants ; and they must be set at similar dis-
tances as the main crops. No water is re-
quired, unless the season be veiy dry. When
sown to remain, the seed may be inserted in
rows, by a blunt dibble, or in drills, drawn by
the hoe, from two and a half to three feet
apart, from two to four inches apart in the
row, and two deep, the earliest crops and
shortest varieties being set at the smallest dis-
tances. These spaces may be considered as
large by some gardeners ; but the beans. Miller,
from experience, asserts, are more productive
than if set twice as close. Previous to sowing,
in summer, if dry weather, ihe seed should be
soaked for two or three hours in water, or if

BEAN, KTONEY.

BEAN. KIDNEY.

!

Bovm in drills, these must be well watered im- 1
mediately before the insertion. When advanced
.to a height of two inches, hoeing between, and
■Jldrawing earth about the stems of the plants
ay commence. This must be often repeated,
id even sooner begun to the early and late
*«rops, as it affords considerable protection from
Trost and wind. As soon as the various crops
■Jcome into blossom, two or three inches length
'bf each stem is broken off; this, by preventing
ts increase in height, causes more sap to be af-
Yorded to the blossom, consequently causing it to
'advance with more rapidity, and set more abun-
'dantly. Some gardeners recommend *the tops
to be taken off when the plants are young, not
'^more than six inches high, declaring it makes
them branch, and be more productive. This
may be ultimately the effect, but it is certainly
incorrect to state that it brings them into pro-
duction sooner: the effect in this respect is
much the contrary. The winter-standing crops
require, in the early stages of their growth, the
shelter of dry litter, prevented touching the
plants by small branches, &c. This is only
requisite during very severe weather ; it must
"be constantly removed in mild open days,
otherwise the plants will be spindled and
weakened. For the production of seed, plan-
tations of the several varieties should be made
'about the end of February, in a soil lighter
than that their produce is afterwards to be
grown upon. No two varieties should be grown
near each other ; and in order to preserve the
early ones as uncontaminated as possible,
those plants only which blossom and produce
their pods the first should be preserved. Water
ought to be given two or \hree times a week,
from the time of their blossoming until their
pods have done swelling. None of the pods
ought to be gathered for the table from them ;
the after-production of seed is never so fine,
and the plants raised from it are always defi-
cient in vigour. They are fit for harvesting
when the leaves have become blackish, which
occurs at the end of August or early in Sep-
tember. They must be thoroughly dried, being
reared against a hedge until they are so, before
the seed is thrashed out and stored ; and those
only should be preserved that are fine and per-
fect. Some gardeners even recommend the
pods from the lower part of the stem alone to
be selected. Seed beans will sometimes vege-
tate after being kept for eight or ten years, but
are seldom good for any thing when more than
two. The plants arising from seed of this age
are not so apt to be superluxuriant as from
that produced in the preceding year.

BEAN, KIDNEY {Phaseolus vulgaris, from
its pods resembling a species of ship, supposed
first to have been invented at Phaselis, a town
of Pamphylia). Of this vegetable there are two
species, the one being a dwarf bushy plant, the
other a lofty climbing one.

Of the Dwarfs there are twelve varieties : —

Early liver-coloured.
Early red-speckled.
Early white.
Early negro, or black.
Canterbury white.
Battersea white.

Black speckled.
Brown speckled.
Streaked or striped.
Large white.
Dun-coloured.
Tawny.

Of the Runners there are six varieties : —

Scarlet runner. Canterbury small white.

Large white. Small white.

Large white Dutch. Variable runner.

The soil for them may be any thing rather
than wet or tenacious, for in such the greater
part of the seed, in general, decays without
germinating; whilst those plants which are
produced are contracted in their produce and
continuance. A very lie^ht mellow loam, even
inclining to a sand, is the best for the earliest
sowings, and one scarcely less silicious,
though moister, is preferable for the late sum-
mer crops ; but for the later ones a recurrence
must be made to a soil as dry as for the early
insertions. In all cases the subsoil must be
open, as stagnant moisture is inevitably fatal
to the plants or seed. For the early and late
crops a sheltered border must always be allot-
ted, or in a single row about a foot from a
south fence, otherwise the situation cannot be
too open.

Dwarfs. — The sowing commences with the
year. They may be sown towards the end of
Januar}' in pots, and placed upon the flues of
the hot-house, or in rows in the mould of a hot-
bed, for production in March ; to be repeated
once every three weeks in similar situations
during February and March, for supplying the
table during April, May, and June. At the end
of March and April a small sowing may be
performed, if fine open weather, under a frame
without heat, for removal into a sheltered bor-
der early in May. During May, and thence
until the first week in August, sowings may
be made once every three weeks. In Septem-
ber, forcing recommences : at first merely un-
der frames without bottom heat, but in Octo-
ber, and thence to the close of the year, in hot-
beds, &c., as in January. Sowings, when a re-
moval is intended, should always be performed
in pots, the planis being less retarded, as the
roots are less injured, than when the seed is
inserted in patches or rows in the earth of the
bed. It is a good practice likewise to repeat
each sowing in the frames without heat after
the lapse of a week, as the first will often fail,
when a second, although after so short a lapse
of time, will perfectly succeed. In every in-
stance the seed is buried one and a half or two
inches deep. The rows of the main crops, if
of the smaller varieties, may be one and a
half, if of the larger, two feet apart, the seed
being inserted either in drills or by the dibble
four inches apart ; the plants, however, to be
thinned to twice that distance.

If any considerable vacancy occurs, it may
always be filled by plants which have been
carefully removed by the trowel from where
they stood too thick. A general remark, how-
ever, may be made, that the transplanted beans
are never so productive or continue so long in
bearing (although sometimes they are earlier)
as those left M'here raised. The rows of the
earlier crops are best ranged north and south.
The seed inserted during the hottest period of
summer, should be either soaked in water for
five or six hours, laid in damp mould for a day
or two, or the drills be well watered previous
to sowing. The only after-cultivation required

155

BEAN, KIDNEY.

BEARD-GRASS.

is the destruction of weeds, and earth to be
drawn up round the stems.

The pods of both species are always to be
gathered while young ; by thus doing, and care
being had not to injure the stems in detaching
them, the plants are rendered as prolific and
long-lived as possible.

Furcing. — The hotbed must be of moderate
size, and covered with earth eight or nine
inches thick. When the heat has become re-
gular, the seed may be inserted in drills a foot
apart, and the plants allowed to stand six
inches asunder in the rows. Some gardeners
erroneously sow thick in a hotbed, moulded
over about six or seven inches deep, and re-
move the plants, when two or three inches
high, to the above-mentioned distances in an-
other for producing, water and shade being
afforded until they have rooted. Air must be
admitted as freely as to the melon. The same
precautions are likewise necessary as to keep-
ing up the temperature, taking the chill off the
"water, &c., as for that plant. When the seed
begins to sprout, the mould should be kept re-
gularly moistened ; and when grown up, wa-
ter may be given moderately three times a
week. The temperature should never be less
than 60°, nor higher than 75°.

Some plants of the hotbed sowing at the end
of March, are often, after being gradually har-
dened, planted in a warm border ; this will at
most hasten the plants in production a fort-
night before those sown in the open ground in
May.

Those sown under frames in March for
transplanting into a border, when two or three
inches in height, must in like manner be har-
dened gradually for the exposure, by the plen-
tiful admission of air, and the total removal
of the glasses during fine days. If any are
raised in pots in the hot-house, they must in a
like manner be prepared for the removal, by
setting them outside in fine days, and there
watering them with colder water. If the sea-
son is too ungenial after all to remove them
even to a warm border, the plants are often
inserted in patches, to have the protection of
frames or hand-lights at night, or as the wea-
ther demands. It has been lately stated in a
provincial paper, that kidney-beans appear of
a perennial nature. In Somersetshire, they
have been observed to vegetate for several
years — the plants being in the vicinity of a
steam-engine, and so situated that the frost
could not penetrate to the roots. I have not
yet had an opportunity of putting this state-
ment to the test of experiment.

Runners. — As these are more tender, and the
seed is more apt to decay than those of the
Dwarfs, no open ground crop must be inserted
before the close of April, or early in May, to
be continued at intervals of four weeks
through June and July, which will ensure a
supply from the middle of this last month until
October. Some gardeners force them in a
s'^ilar manner to the Dwarfs : they certainly
rd^uire similar treatment; but they will en-
dure a higher temperature by a few degrees.
They are so prolific, and such permanent
bearers, that three open-ground sowings of a
156

size proportionate to the consumption will, in
almost every instance, be sufficient.

The runners are inserted in drills, either
singly, three feet apart, or in pairs, ten or
twelve inches asunder, and each pair four feet
distant from its neighbour. The seed is buried
two inches deep and four inches apart in the
rows, the plants being thinned to twice that
distance. If grown in single rows, a row of
poles must be set on the south side of each,
being fixed firmly in the ground ; they may be
kept together by having a light pole tied hori-
zontally along their tops, or a post fixed at
each end of a row, united by a cross-bar at
their tops ; a string may be passed from this
to each of the plants. If the rows are in pairs,
a row of poles must be placed on each side, so
fixed in the ground that their summits cross,
and are tied together. They are sometimes
sown in a single row down the sides of bor-
ders, or on each side of a walk, having ^le
support of a trellis-work, or made to climb poles
which are turned archwise over it.

As the plants advance to five or six inches
in height, they should have the earth drawn
about their stems. Weeds must be constantly
cleared away as they appear. When they
throw up their voluble stems, those that strag-
gle away should be brought back to the poles,
and twisted round them in a direction contrary
to that of the sun : nothing will induce them
to entwine in the contrary direction, or from
left to right.

For the production of seed, forty or fifty
plants of the Dwarf species will be sufficient
for a moderate-sized family, or thirty of the
Runner. They must be raised purposely in
May, or a like number from the crop in that
month may be left ungathered from; for the
first pods always produce the finest seeds, and
ripen more perfectly. In autumn, as soon as
the plants decay, they must be pulled, and,
when thoroughly dried, the seed beaten out
and stored. (G. W.Johnson's Kitchen Garden.)

BEAN-FLY. A beautiful bluish black fly,
generally found on bean flowers. It is some-
times called the collier. The aphides of beans
are invariably brought on by very dry weather;
they are most prevalent on the summits of the
plants. (See Beaxs.) The larvae of the lady-
bird, or lady-cow (Coccinella septempunctata),
as well as the perfect insects, devour the aphis
greedily, feeding almost entirely upon these in-
sects. Several of the English summer birds
also live upon them.

BEAR. A species of barley, called also
winter barley, square barley, and big. It is
sometimes written here. This grain is chiefly
cultivated in Scotland, the northern parts of
England, and Ireland. It yields a very large
return, but is not esteemed so good for malt-
ing as the common barley, for which reason it
is very little cultivated in the southern parts
of England.

BEAR-BIND. See Black Biwd-wekd.

BEARD (Sax. bean^). The same with the
awn of a plant.

BEARD-GRASS (Polypogon). There are
two sorts, the annual beard-grass (F. mmtspe-
liensis) and the perennial beard-grass (P. UUo-

BEAKDED OAT-GRASS.

BEECH.

I

rolts). They are found in moist pastures and
near the sea, in muddy salt-marshes, but are
not often met with.

BEARDED OAT-GRASS. See Witn Oats.

BEAR'S-FOOT. See Hellebore.

BEAST (Su. Goth, beest, Ger. bestie, Fr. beste,
Lat. bestia). A term generally applied to all
such quadrupeds, or four-footed animals, as are
made use of for food, or employed in labour;
but farmers apply the term more particularly
to neat cattle.

BED-STRAW, YELLOW, LADIES' {Ga-
lium vertitn). It is sometimes termed cheese-
renning and maid's hair, or petty muguet or
mitguort, and yellow goose-grass. A perennial
weed, flowering from June till October, more
common in the hedges and waysides than in
the body of pastures. Its slender stalks rise
to about a foot in height. The leaves come
out in whorls, eight or nine together. They
are long, narrow, and of a green colour. Two
little branches generally come out near the
top of the stalk, supporting a considerable
number of small golden yellow flowers, con-
sisting of one petal divided into four parts, and
succeeded by two large kidney-shaped seeds.
The flowers of this plant are said to coagulate
boiling milk, and the better sorts of Cheshire
cheese are sometimes prepared with them. A
kind of vinegar is stated to have been dis-
tilled from the flowering tops. The French
prescribe them in epileptic and hysteric cases;
but they are ot no value. Boiled in alum-
water, they tinge wood yellow. The roots dye
a fine red not inferior to madder, and are used
for this purpose in the island of Jura. Sheep
and goats eat the plant ; horses and swine re-
fuse it ; cows are not fond of it. Smith enu-
merates seventeen species of bed-straw : —
1. Cioss-wort bed-straw, or mugweed; 2, White
water bed-straw ; 3. Rough heath bed-straw ;
4. Smooth heath bed-straw ; 6. Rough marsh
bed-straw; 6. Upright bed-straw; 7. Gray
spreading bed-straw ; 8. Bearded bed straw ;
9. Warty-fruited bed-straw ; 10. Rough-fruited
corn bed-straw, or three-flowered goose-grass ;
IL Smooth-fruited corn bed-straw ; 12. Least
mountain bed-straw; 13. Yellow bed-straw;
14. Great hedge bed-straw ; 15. Wall bed-straw ;
16. Cross-leaved bed-straw; 17. Goose-grass,
or cleavers. (Hart. Gram. Wo6. p. 329; Smith't
Eiig. Flora, vol. i. pp. 199—210.)

Dr. Darlington, in his Flora Cestriea, enu-
merates twenty-one species of this plant found
in Chester county, Pennsylvania. Among
these are the wild madder (Galium tinctorium),
sometimes called Dyer's goose-grass, frequent
in low grounds. The roots of this and another
species of galium (boreale) are used by the
Indians in dying their porcupine quills, and
other ornaments, of a red colour. Wild liquo-
rice {Galium Circstzans), frequent in rich
woodlands and having a sweet taste. Common
cleavers, Robin-run-the-hedge, or Yellow goose-
grass (PI. 10, g), a troublesome weed.

BEECH (Fagus sylvatica, Sax. bece or boc).
The beech is one of the handsomest of our
native forest trees, and in stateliness and
grandeur of outline vies even with the oak.
Its silvery bark, contrasting with the sombre
trunks of other trees, renders its beauties

conspicuous in our woods ; while the grace-
fully spreading pendulous boughs, with their
glossy foliage, mark its elegance in the park
or paddock. There is only one species, the
diflference in the wood arising from the effects
of soil and situation. The beech is a native
of the greater part of the north of Europe and
America. The finest beeches in England are
said to grow in Hampshire. The tree is also
much grown in Wiltshire, Surrey, Sussex,
and Kent. The forest of St. Leonard's, near
Horsham, Sussex, abounds with noble beech
trees. The shade of the beech tree is very
injurious to most sorts of plants that grow
near it, but it is believed by the vulgar to be
very salubrious to human bodies. The wood
of this tree, which is hard, and rather hand-
some, Brande tells us (in his Diet, of Science^
p. 139), is brittle and perishable, and liable to
become worm-eaten. Phillips admits, that it
is subject to worms, when exposed to the air
without paint; but says, that the timber of
the^e trees, in point of actual utility, follows
next to the oak and the ash, and is little inferior
to the elm for water-pipes. It is used, he adds
{Hist, of Fruits, p. 60), by wheelwrights and
chairmakers, and also by turners for making
domestic wooden ware, such as bowls, shovels,
chums, cheese-vats, dressers, shelves for dai-
ries, &c. it being as white as deal, free from
all disagreeable smell, and without any incon-
venient softness. Bedsteads and other furni-
ture are often made with this timber ; and no
wood splits so fine, or holds so well together,
as beech, so that boxes, sword-sheaths, and a
variety of other things, are made from it. The
baskets called pottles, in which strawberries
or raspberries are usually sold in London, are
made from beech twigs and cuttings, and the
wood is also much in use for poles, stakes,
hoops, &c. Near large towns it is in great
demand for billet wood. It affords a large
quantity of potash and good charcoal. It is
manufactured into a great variety of tools, for
which its great hardness and uniform texture
render it superior to all other sorts of wood. It
is not much used in building, as it soon rots in
damp places, but it is useful for piles in places
which are constantly wet. The purple and
copper beeches seen in plantations are seed-
ling varieties of Fagus sylvatica. The beech-
tree thrives best and attains to a great size on
clayey loams incumbent on sand: silicious
sandy soils are also well adapted for its
growth, and it will prosper on chalky, stony,
and barren soils, where many other timber
trees will not prosper ; and it is found to resist
winds on the declivities of hills better than
most other trees. Where the soil is tolerably
good, beech will become fit to be felled in
about twenty-five years. The tree bears lop-
ping, and may, therefore, be trained to form
very lofty hedges.

The leaves of the beech, gathered in autumn
before they are much injured by the frost, are
said to make better mattresses than straw or
chaff, as they remain sweet and continue soft
for many years ; they are also profitably em-
ployed in forcing sea-kale, asparagus, &c. in
hot-beds. The beech is propagated by sowing
the nuts, or mast, which should be gathered
O 167

BEECH.

BEECH.

about the middle of September, when they are
ripe, and begin to fall, and spread out on a
mat in an airy place for a week to dry, when
they may be sown. It is, however, recom-
mended to keep them dry in sand until the
spring, as there is less danger of their being
then destroyed by field mice and other vermin.
These nuts do not require to be covered more
than an inch deep in mould, and it will be ob-
served that only a part of them germinates the
first year. Two or three bushels of seed are
sufficient for an acre, to be sown mixed with
sand, in the same manner as the ash.

The flow^ers of this tree come forth in May,
and its kernels ripen in September. The Ro-
mans used beech leaves and honey to restore
the growth of hair which had fallen off; but
the moderns have not found it efficacious.

The nuts or seed of this tree, termed beech
mast, are the food of hogs, and of various small
quadrupeds. They are often called buck-mast
in England, from the eagerness with which
deer feed on them.

An oil, nearly equal m flavour to the best
olive oil, with the advantage of keeping longer
without becoming rancid, may be obtained
from the nuts by pressure. It is very common
in Picardy, and other parts of France, where
the mast abounds ; in Silesia it is used by the
country people instead of butter. And in the
reign of George I. we find a petition was pre-
sented, praying letters patent for making but-
ter from beech nuts.

The cakes which remain from the pressure,
after the oil is made, are given to fatten swine,
oxen, or poultry. A bushel of mast is said to
produce a gallon of clean oil ; but the beech
tree seldom produces a full crop of mast
oftener than once in three years. This nut is
palatable to the taste, but when eaten in great
quantities occasions headache and giddiness ;
nevertheless, when dried and ground into meal,
it makes a wholesome bread. Like acorns,
the fruit of the beech was long the food of
mankind before the use of corn. Roasted, the
mast has been found a tolerable substitute for
coffee. {Phillips's Hist, of Fruits, p. 56;
M^Culhch'a Cum. Diet,; Baxter's Agr. Li-
brary,- Brandt's Diet, of Science.)

In North America, as in Europe, the beech
is one of the common trees of the forest. Two
distinct species are found in the Northern
States, which have been often treated by bota-
nists as varieties. Michaux, who makes this
distinction, calls one the white beech, (Fagus
sylvestris), and the other the red beech (Fagus
ferruginea), both the popular names being de-
rived from the colour of the wood. In the
Middle, Western, and Southern States the red
beech does not exist, or is very rare. A deep
moist soil and a cool atmosphere are necessary
to the utmost expansion of the white beech. In
the Middle States, east of the mountains, it is
insulated in the forests, whilst in the Northern
parts of Pennsylvania, the Genessee district
in'ONew York, and in the states of Kentucky
an* Tennessee, it composes large masses of
the primitive forests. The soils on which the
beech mostly abounds have generally a stra-
tum of clay or gravel, termed hard-pan, which
prevents any roots from descending. This
158

forces the trees to obtain their subsistence from
the upper soil, and the roots spread around the
trees to a distance sometimes of a hundred
feet or more, and so numerous withal as to be
greatly in the way of the settler when he first
clears his grounds. But he has the satisfaction
of knowing that they soon rot away and yield
to his plough. The white beech is more slen-
der and less branchy than the red beech ; but
its foliage is superb, the green being of the
most agreeable shade, and its general appear-
ance very beautiful. On the banks of the Ohio
and in some parts of Kentucky, where the oak
is too rare to furnish enough bark for tanning,
the deficiency is supplied by that of the white
beech. The leather made with this is white
and serviceable, though avowedly inferior to
what is prepared with the bark of the oak.

The red beech bears a greater resemblance
to that of Europe than the white species. It
equals the white beech in thickness, but not in
height, has a more massive and spreading
summit, and more tufted foliage. The leaves
are very similar, but those of the white beech
are not quite so thick and large, with rather
shorter teeth. To these differences must be
added a more important one in the wood. The
red beeeh 15 or 18 inches in diameter consists
of 3 or 4 inches of white wood and 13 or 14
inches of red wood or heart, the inverse of
which proportion is found in the white beech.
The w^ood of the red beech is stronger, tougher,
and more compact. In the state of Maine and
in the British Provinces where oaks are rare,
it is employed with the sugar maple and yel-
low birch for the low^er part of the frame of
vessels. As it is extremely liable to injury
from worms, and speedily decays when ex-
posed to alternate dryness and moisture, it is
rarely used in the construction of houses. In
the state of Maine the hickory is rare, and the
white oak does not exist, and when the yellow
birch and black ash cannot be procured in
sufficient abundance the red beech is selected
for hoops.

Experience has demonstrated the advantage
of felling the beech in the summer, whilst the
sap is in full circulation. Cut at this season
it is very durable, but felled in winter, it de-
cays in a few years. The logs are left several
months in the shade before they are hewn, care
being taken that they do not repose immedi-
ately upon the ground. After this they are
hewn and laid in water for three months,
which process, it is said, renders them inac-
cessible to worms.

The beech is very durable when preserved
from moisture, and incorruptible when con-
stantly in the water ; but the white or exterior
portion of the wood decays rapidly when ex-
posed to alternations of dryness and dampness.
The interior red wood, or heart, as it is usually
called, is very durable. In the northern por-
tion of the United States, the red beech consti-
tutes a large proportion of the fuel consumed,
and, as in Europe, the wood of the beech sub- '
serves a great variety of useful purposes. :'

The ashes of both species of beech yield a*
very large proportion of potash.

Michaux, who describes the process of ex-
tracting the oil, says that it equals one-sixth

BEEF.

BEER.

of the nuts used. The quality of the oil de-
pends upon the care with which it is made,
and upon the purity of the vessels in which it
is preserved. It should be twice drawn off
during the first three months, without disturb-
ing the dregs, and the third time at the end of
SIX months. It arrives at perfection only when
it becomes limpid, several months after its ex-
traction. It improves by age, lasts unimpaired
for ten years, and may be preserved longer
than any other oil.

The manner of making beech nut oil most
commonly pursued in the districts of the United
Slates where the tree abounds, is somewhat
different from that described in Michaux's
Sylva, Instead of resorting to the rather te-
dious process of gathering the nuts and press-
ing them through screw-presses, the farmers
turn out their hogs immediately after the first
frost, who secrete the oil under their skin. In a
favourable year they become perfect masses of
blubber. Unless they be fed, sometime before
killing, on Indian corn, the bacon has little
solid consistency, becomes liquid upon the
slighest application of heat, and keeps that
state, — resembling in this respect the lard
of hogs fed upon acorn mast. The nuts are
only plentiful about ever>' third or fourth year,
and every farmer keeps a number of half-
starved swine in the intervening period to take
advantage of the haypy event

BEEF (Fr. baeuf), is used either fresh or
salted. Beef is also sometimes used for the
name of an ox, bull, or cow, considered as fit
for food. Formerly it was usual for most
families, at least in England, to supply them-
selves with a stock of salt beef in October or
November, which served for their consumption
until the ensuing summer; but in consequence
of the universal establishment of markets
where fresh beef may be at all times obtained,
the practice is now nearly relinquished, and
the quantity of salted beef made use of as
compared with fresh beef is quite inconsider-
able. Large quantities of salted beef are,
however, prepared at Cork and other places
for exportation to the East and West Indies.
During the war large supplies were also re-
quired for victualling the navy. The vessels
engaged in the coasting trade, and in short
voyages, use only fresh provisions. The Eng-
lish have at all times been great consumers of
beef; and at this moment more beef is used in
London, as compared with the population, than
anywhere else in Europe.

BEELD, or BIELD (Sax. behirean; Icel.
boele, a dwelling"). A term provincially applied
in the north of England to any thing which
affords shelter, such as a clump or screen of
trees planted for the protection of live-stock.

BEER (Welsh, bir ; Germ, bier.- Sax. beaji ;
Goth, bar, barley). A liquor made from malt
and hops, which is distinguished from ale
either by being older or smaller. It may be
prepared from any of the farinaceous grains,
but barley is most commonly employed.

Beer is, properly speaking, the wine of bar-
ley. The meals of any of these grains being
extracted by a sufficient quantity of water, and
remaining at rest in a degree of heat requisite
for this fermentation, are changed into a vinous

liquor. But as these matters render the wate^
mucilaginous, fermentation proceeds slowly
and imperfectly. On the other hand, if the
quantity of farinaceous matter be so dimi-
nished that its extract or decoction may have
a convenient degree of fluidity, this liquor will
be impregnated with so small a quantity of
fermentable matter, that the beer or wine of
the grain will be weak, and have little taste.
These inconveniences are therefore remedied
by preliminary operations which the grain is
made to undergo. These preparations consist
in steeping it in cold water, that it may soak
and swell to a certain degree ; and in laying it
in a heap with a suitable degree of heat, by
means of which, and of the imbibed moisture,
a germination begins, which is to be stopped
by a quick drying, as soon as the bud shows
itself. To accelerate this drying, and to prevent
the farther vegetation of the grain, which would
impair its saccharine qualities, the grain is
slightly roasted, by means of a kiln, or making
it pass down an inclined canal sufficiently
heated. This germination, and this slight
roasting, change considerably the nature of the
mucilaginous fermentable matter of the grain,
and it becomes the malt of commerce. This
malt is then ground; and all its substance,
which is fermentable and soluble in water, is
extricated by means of hot water. This ex*
tract or infusion is evaporated by boiling in
cauldrons; and some plant of an agreeable
bitterness, such as hops, is added to heighten
the taste of the beer, and to render it capable
of being longer preserved. Lastly, this liquor
is put into casks, and fermented, assisted by
the addition of barm.

Beer is nutritious from the sugar and muci-
lage it contains, exhilarating from the spirit,
and strengthening and narcotic from the hops.
Mr. Brande obtained the following quantities
(•f alcohol from 100 parts of different beers : —
Burton ale, between 8 and 9; Edinburgh ale,
6 to 7 ; Dorchester ale, 5 to 6. The average
of strong ale being between 6 and 7 ; brown
stout, 6 to 7 ; London porter about 4 (average) ;
London brewers' small beer between 1 and 2.
(See Bhewiwo.) "The distinction between
ale and beer, or porter, has been," says Mr.
M'Culloch, "ably elucidated by Dr. Thomas
Thomson in his valuable article on brewing in
the supplement to the Eneyc. Brit"

" Both ale and beer are in Great Britain ob-
tained by fermentation from the malt of barley,
but they differ from each other in several par-
ticulars. Ale is light-coloured, brisk, and
sweetish, or at least free from bitter; while
beer is dark-coloured, bitter, and much less
brisk. What is called porter in England is a
species of beer; and the term 'porter,' at pre-
sent signifies what was formerly called strong
beer. The original difference between ale and
beer was owing to the malt from which they
were prepared ; ale malt was dried at a very
low heat, and consequently was of a pale co-
lour , while beer or porter malt was dried at a
higher temperature, and had of consequence
acquired a brown colour. This incipient
charring had developed a peculiar and agree-
able bitter taste, which was communicated to
the beer along with the dark colour. This bit-

159

BEES.

BEES.

ter taste rendered beer more agreeable to the
palate and less injurious to the constitution
than ale. It was consequently manufactured
in greater quantities, and soon became the
conjmon drink of the lower ranks in England.
When malt became high priced, in conse-
quence of the heavy taxes laid upon it, and the
great increase in the price of barley which
took place during the war of the French revo-
lution, the brewers found out that a greater
quantity of wort of a given strength could be
prepared from pale malt than from brown
malt. The consequence was, that a consider-
able proportion of pale malt was substituted
for brown malt in the brewing of porter and
beer. The wort, of course, was much paler
than before, and it wanted that agreeable bitter
flavour which characterized porter, and made
it so much relished by most palates. At the
same time various substitutes were tried to
supply the place of the agreeable bitter com-
municated to porter by the use of brown malt ;
quassia, cocculus indicus, and we believe even
opium, were employed in succession ; but none
of them was found to answer the purpose suffi-
ciently." The use of the articles other than
malt, referred to by Dr. Thomson, has been ex-
pressly forbidden under heavy penalties by
repeated acts of parliament. In England, the
classification of the different sorts of beer ac-
cording to their strength, originated in the
duties laid upon them ; and now that these du-
ties have been repealed, ale and beer may be
brewed of any degree of strength.

The duty on beer being repealed in 1830,
there are no later accounts of the quantity
brewed.

The number of barrels of strong beer
brewed in Scotland in the five years ending
1830, was 597,737; table beer, 1,283,490;
amount of duty paid thereon, 393,136/. {Pari.
Paper, No. 190, Sess. 1830.)

No account has been kept of the quantity
of beer brewed in Ireland since 1809, when it
amounted to 960,300 barrels. (Morewood on In-
toxicating Liquors, p. 353.) Perhaps it may
now amount to from 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 bar-
rels. Ale or beer exported to foreign parts is
allowed a drawback of 5s. the barrel of 36
gallons. Imperial measure. The number of
barrels of strong beer annually exported is,
from England, about 70,000 barrels ; Ireland,
15,000, and Scotland, 3,000. {M'Culloch's Com.
Diet.)

BEES (Sax. beo, Lat. apies). These indus-
trious and useful insects are worthy the atten-
tion of all classes, and will repay the utmost
care that can be taken in their management.

No farm or cottage garden is complete with-
out a row of these busy little colonies, with
their warm, neat straw roofs, and their own
particular, fragrant bed of thyme, in which
they especially delight. Select a sheltered part
of the garden, screened by a wall or hedge
from the cutting north and easterly winds ; let
th«m enjoy a southern sun, but do not place
thmi facing his early beams, because bees
must never be tempted to quit their hive in
the heavy morning dew, which clogs their
limbs and impedes their flight. Place them, if
possible, near a running stream, as they de-
160

j light in plenty of water ; but if none is within
their easy reach, place pans of fresh water
near the hives, in which mix a little common
salt ; and let bits of stick float on the surface,
to enable bees to drink safely, instead of slip-
ping down the smooth sides of the vessel, and
perish. Never place hives in a roofed stand :
it heats them, and induces the bees frequently
to form combs outside of their hives instead
of swarming. Let the space before the hives
be perfectly clear of bushes, trees, and every
impediment to their movement, that they may
wing their way easily to seek for food, and re-
turn without annoyance. Bees, returning
heavily laden and wearied, are unable to bear
up against any object, should they hit them
selves and fall. Let their passage to and from
their hives be clear ; but trees and bushes in
the vicinity of their residence are advisable,
as they present convenient spots for swartus
to settle which might otherwise go beyond
sight or reach. A swarm seldom goes far
from home, unless the garden is unprovided
with resting-places, to attract the queen, who
takes refuge in the nearest shelter. In the
month of November remove your hives upon
their stools, into a cool, dry, and shady room,
outhouse, or cellar, where they will be protect-
ed as well from the winter sun as from the
frosts. Warm days in winter often tempt bees
to quit their cells, and the chilling air numbs
and destroys them. Let them remain thus un-
til February or March, should the spring be
late and cold. Do not be satisfied with stop-
ping the mouth of the hive with clay; the bees
will soon make their way through it. Remove
them. Bees are very subject to a disease in the
spring, similar to dysentery. Before you place
the hives in their summer quarters, examine
the state of the bees by turning up the hive,
and noticing the smell proceeding from it. If
the bees are healthy, the odour will be that of
heated wax ; but if diseased, it will appear
like that of putrefaction. In this case, a small
quantity of port wine or brandy mixed with
their food will restore them. In the early
spring feed them, and do the same when the
flowers pass away in autumn, until they
are taken into the house ; then disturb them
no more. The proper food is beer and sugar,
in the proportion of one pound to a quart ; boil
it five minutes only. In May, bees begin to
swarm, if the weather is warm. New and dry
hives must be prepared without any doorway ;
the entrance must be cut in the stool. This is
recommended by "An Oxford Conservative
Bee Keeper."

Sticks across the inside of the hive are use-
less, and very inconvenient. Let the hive be
well washed with beer and sugar before you
shake the bees into it. After swarming, place
it upon a cloth with one side raised upon a
stone ; shade it with boughs, and let it alone
till quite dusk, then remove it to the stool
where it is to stand. The " Oxford Bee Keeper'*
advises food to be given to a swarm after hiv-
ing, for three or four days. Large hives are
best : they do not consume more food than
small ones ; this is a fact, and the same writer
mentions it. Smarts and casts are the second
and third swarms from a hive : they seldom

I live throusr

BEES.

I

live through the winter, and ought to be united
to each other, or to a weak hive. This is the
.plan recommended by several writers ; as
also returning a smart or cast to the parent
hive, if you have no hive weak enough to re-
quire an increase of numbers. In this last
case, Huish recommends the following plan :
Place the back of a chair parallel with the
entrance of the hive, over which spread a
sheet ; then holding the hive containing the
smart over it, give a few sharp knocks at the
top, and the bees will immediately fall down
on the cloth ; proceed then, either with your
finger or a stick, to guide a few of the bees to
the entrance of the parent hive, and they will
instantly crowd into it. The queen bee should
be caught and secured as they proceed ; if this
is not done, they kill her, but in a less merciful
way.

To form a junction of two weak hives, or a
swarm and a hive, Huish discovered the fol-
lowing method : Smoke each hive, as if for
taking, only with a less destructive fume,
which will be mentioned presently. Spread
all the bees of one hive upon a table, and
search carefully for the queen ; destroy her ;
sweep the bees of both hives together into one,
sprinkling them with some beer and sugar
mixed ; replace the hive. The fungus used
for smoking bees is that called frog's cheese,
found in damp meadows ; take the largest, and
put it into a bag ; squeeze it to half its size,
•then dry it in an oven or before the fire, but
-not by a very quick heat. Take a piece of
fthis dried fungus, the size of two eggs, and put
lit in a stick split at one end, and sharp at the
other, which is to be fixed into the bottom of an
empty hive turned upside down, to receive the
stupified bees as they fall.

To prevent swarming, the " Oxford Bee
Keeper" recommends this treatment : —

" You see in the following figure a wooden

bottom board, with the doorway a a cut in it.
It has another doorway, b 6, on the right side.
The ring is meant to show where a hive stands
on it. The other bottom board is just like it,
only the second doorway is on the left hand, so
as to fit exactly to the side entrance of the first
board, when pushed close together. As soon
as the bees begin to hangout, in May, push the
two boards close together. In the evening,
when they are all in, stop up the entrance a a,
and open the right hand one b b. Put an empty
hive on the new board, with a glass worked
into the back for observation. Each doorway
has a bit of tin laid over as much of it as juts
out beyond the hive. The bees must then find
their way out by the new doorway ; rub it with
a little honey, and they will soon take to it.
When the second hive is full, remove it thus :
•ih the heat of the day, when many bees are out,
slip a piece of tin or card between the two
•doorwavs, shut up the doorway c c, and open
21

BEES.

the old doorway a a. If the bees go on working
quietly all day, you will be sure that the queen
is in the old hive, and all is right. About half
an hour before dusk, open again the doorway
c c, and the bees, frightened by their long im-
prisonment, will hurry from one doorway to
another to join the queen. As soon as they are
gone, take away the full hive for yourself. If
the old hive is very uneasy all day, you may
be sure the queen is shut up in the new hive ;
if so, draw out the card or tin to join them
again, and wait till another day."

Never destroy a bee ; this is the first great
principle in their treatment. Bees only live
one year, therefore, by killing them in Septem-
ber, you destroy the young vigorous ones
ready to work the following spring : the year-
old bees die in August. When a hive is to be
taken, smoke the bees as directed for joining
hives ; replace them in a fresh hive, taking
care to ascertain that the queen is safe among
them, and feed them through the autumn and
spring; they will be ready to work with the
rest, and a hive is thus added to the general
stock. The queen is easily known from the
working bees, as the size is larger.

By fumigating the bees with tobacco smoke
while operating upon a hive, they are rendered
perfectly harmless. It is well to protect the
face, neck, and hands, to prevent alarm or the
chance of accident. When stung, extract the
sling, and apply Goulard water immediately,
or laudanum, or sweet oil. In February bees
first begin their labours. May is their busiest
month. In November their labours end, and
they remain torpid for the winter. For more
particular instructions, see Huish on Bees; T/ie
Conservative Bee Keeper* s Letter to Cottagers ;
Wildrnan'g Treatise on Bees ; The Honey Bee, by
Dr. Bevan; Penny Cyclo.; Quart. Joum. ofAgr,
vol. ii. p. 594; Baxter's Agr. Lib. pp. 46 — 53.

Several of these treatises have been repub-
lished in the United States, where, besides
separate works upon the subjects, the agricul-
tural periodicals and newspapers abound with
suggestions and instructions relative to the
management of bees, &c.

Loudon, in his lately published Encychpaedia
of Agriculture, says, that after all that has been
done in England, France, and Italy, the bee
is still more successfully managed and finer
honey produced in Poland, by persons who
never saw a work on the subject, or heard of
the mode of depriving bees of their honey
without taking their lives. Much as has been
written in France and England upon this sub-
ject, it is, he observes, still found the best
mode to destroy the bee in taking the honey, a
practice for which he thinks unanswerable
reasons are given by La Grenee, a French
apiarian, and which is allowed to be conclu-
sive as to profit even by Huish.

" Suffocation is performed when the season
of flowers begins to decline, and generally in
October. The smoke of paper, or rag soaked
or smeared with melted sulphur, is introduced
to the hive, by placing it in a hole in the
ground where a few shreds of these articles
are undergoing a smothering combustion ; or
the full hive may be placed on an empty one,
inverted as in partial deprivation, and the sul-
o 2 161

BEES.

BEES.

phurous smoke introduced by fumigating bel-
lows, &c. The bees will fall from the upper
to the lower hive in a few minutes, when they
may be removed and buried to prevent re-
suscitation. Such a death seems one of the
easiest, both to the insects themselves and to
human feelings. Indeed, the mere deprivation
of life, to animals not endowed with sentiment
or reflection, is reduced to the precise pain o''
the moment, without reference to the past or
the future ; and as each pulsationpof this pain
increases in effect on the one hand, so, on the
other, the susceptibility of feeling it diminishes.
Civilized man is the only animal to whom
death has terrors, and hence the origin of that
false humanity which condemns the killing of
bees in order to obtain their honey, but which
might, with as much justice, be applied
to the destruction of almost every other ani-
mal used in domestic economy, as fowls,
game, fish, cattle, &c." (Encvc. of Agriculture,
7614.)

As to the best situation for bees during
their working season, this must depend upon
circumstances of climate and locality. In
southerly latitudes and warm exposures, —
where the climate w^ill admit of the hives re-
maining upon the stands during winter, — it
may still be advisable to give some shelter,
and the principal object should be to ward
off the sun, the warmth from which invites
the bees to fly abroad at an unprofitable sea-
son, and makes them sensitive to the sudden
spells of cold experienced throughout the
United States. In summer, the extreme heat
of the sun should certainly be warded off by
sheds and suitable shades, although it is im-
proper to oblige the bees to pass through bar-
riers of boughs and bushes. The heat accu-
mulated by objects exposed to the direct rays
of the sun often increases to 130° or 140° of
Fahrenheit, a temperature which must be in-
jurious, not only to the bees themselves, but
to their honey and wax. Whitewashing the
hives and stands will tend much to prevent
the accumulation of heat. The hives may
front the east, south-east, or south-west, ac-
cording to circumstances.

In the northerly portions of the United
States, means are generally used to protect the
swarms in winter, by removal to some cool and
dry out-house or cellar. Some bury the hives
either partly or entirely under ground, as is
practised with many kinds of vegetables. The
place should be very dry, and the hives set
upon clean straw, without any bottom board
to rest on, one side being raised about two
inches by means of a stick or stone. An
empty space must be left around, three times
the size of the hive, covered over with bridging
and earth, six, eight, or ten inches in depth,
heaped up well so as to turn off water. They
may remain thus covered about three months.
, Whilst, some persons contend for the ne-
cessity of protecting bees against the extreme
Wold of American winters, others deem it not
only useless, but destructive to the health and
welfare of swarms to remove the hives from
their usual situations, however exposed these
may be. Among apiarians who disapprove of
the removal of hives in the winter, is Dr. J.
162

V. C. Smith, of Boston, who, in a neat little
duodecimo volume of about a hundred pages,
"On the Practicability of Cultivating the Ho-
ney Bee in Maritime Towns and Cities, as a
source of Domestic Economy and Profit,"
holds the following testimony : —

" During the season of rest, from the first of
October to the first or middle of April, the
quantity of honey consumed by such a hive
as has been spoken of, as worth keeping,
varies according to the average temperature
of the weather, from ten to twenty pounds. It
is better that the bees should have too much
than too little in store. They are very econo-
mical in the expenditure of food, and therefore
there is no risk in trusting them with well
stocked granaries. All hives should have the
weight marked on the back, which Avill enable
the manager to judge pretty accurately of the
quantity of honey and wax on hand. Taking
five pounds as the standard weight of the bees,
and a half pound of wax to every fifteen
pounds of honey, almost the exact quantity of
honey can thus be ascertained. My rule has
invariably been, to let the bees remain in win-
ter, wherever they have stood through the sum-
mer ; all attempts on my part to prepare them
for the inclemencies of approaching cold were
invariably anticipated, and seasonably attend-
ed to by the bees themselves.

" Feeling peculiar commiseration for a
swarm, two years since, whose bleak locality,
I feared, would be the certain destruction of the
hive before spring, they were placed in the lob-
by of an adjacent building for comfort. In the
month of March, discovering that thousands
of them were dead on the floor, and that the
bees were sickly, they were carried back to
their old stand in the open air, at the summit
of a high, exposed hill, where they were per-
fectly restored to health in about twelve days.
If they are housed in winter, the torpidity which
seems to be constitutionally requisite, both for
the future health of the bee, and the saving of
its honey, is obviated, and indisposition, in
consequence of constantly feeding, without ex-
ercise, is the invariable result. The colder
they are, the better : I am fully persuaded that
bees, in their hive, cannot be frozen to death.
Animation may be suspended several weeks
or months with impunity — vitality may merely
appertain to organized matter; but, when the
genial warmth of spring comes gently on, the
little spark of life is again rekindled into vigo-
rous flame.

"On the 21st of March, 1831, in company
with Mr. J. S. C. Greene, we examined a hive
of bees that had, probably, died for want of
proper ventilation. There were two thousand
two hundred bees. A common flint tumbler
contained one thousand, weighing six ounces
and a half. It was obvious they did not die
of starvation, as there was a good supply of
beautiful honey, which, together with the comb,
weighed twenty-two pounds. Allowing one
half pound of cell comb for holding every fif-
teen pounds of honey, the quantity was easily
ascertained. Taking this in connection with j
that which was taken from them in the autumn,
and at the same time admitting that five hun-
dred bees were lost by high autumnal winds, ■

BEES.

BEES.

II

trtorms, and early frosts, the whole colony con-
sisted, originally, of thirty-two hundred bees,
which, in eight weeks, or thereabouts, collect-
ed the wax, constructed the cells, and made
over one hundred pounds of honey, in a gar-
den on Pemberton's Hill, nearly in the centre
of Boston ! It should be remarked, that a bee
answering the general description of the queen,
as it relates to external appearance, was found
in a cluster of dead ones. Not a drone was
discovered, nor a young bee in any stage of
infancy."

It is probable that bees can preserve their
vitality in ordinary hives exposed to the most
intense cold, so long as they remain in the torpid
condition in which they are prepared for the
worsL But when roused from this condition
by the occurrence of a premature warm spell,
they are then rendered sensitive to the effects
of cold, and when this comes upon them sud-
denly and with severity, thej' perish under it.
The great object therefore appears to be, to
place the swarms during winter in some dry
situation where they may be kept at a cool and
equable temperature. A good dry and cool
cellar must answer all the purposes admira-
bly, and from such a situation it is easy to
remove them occasionally, in good mild wea-
ther, and give them an airing.

Loudon, who adopts the views of Howison
and Huish, says that the beat material and form
for hives is a straw thimble, or flower-pot,
placed in an inverted position. Hives made
of straw, as now in use, have a great advan-
tage over those made of wood and other mate-
rials, from the effectual defence they afford
against the extremes of heat in summer and
cold in winter. A full-sized straw hive will
hold three pecks ; a small-sized, from one and
a half to two pecks. (Encye. of Agric.)

The feeding of bees is generally deferred till
winter or spring; but this is a most erroneous
practice: hives should be examined in the
course of the month of September, or about
the time of killing the drones ; and if a large
hive does not weigh thirty pounds, it will be
necessary to allow it half a pound of honey,
or the same quantity of soft sugar made into
syrup, for every pound that is deficient of that
weight; and in like proportion to smaller hives.
This work must not be delayed, that time may
be given for the bees to make the deposit iia
their empty cells before they are rendered tor-
pid by the cold. Sugar simply dissolved in
water (which is a common practice"), and su-
gar boiled in water into a syrup, form com-
pounds very differently suited for the winter
store of bees. When the former is wanted for
their immediate nourishment, as in spring, it
will answer equally as a syrup ; but if to be
laid up as a store, the heat of the hive quickly
evaporating the water, leaves the sugar in dry
crystals, not to be acted upon by the trunks
of the bees. Hives may be killed with hunger
while some pounds' weight of sugar remain
in this state in their cells. The boiling of su-
gar into syrup forms a closer combination with
the water, by which it is prevented from flying
off, and a consistence resembling that of honey
retained. Howison has had frequent experi-
ence of hives, not containing a pound of honey,

preserved in perfect health through the winter
with sugar so prepared, when given in proper
time and in sutficient quantity.

In the article from Loudon, from which we
are now quoting, it is recommended to protect
hives from cold, by covering them with straw
or rushes, about the end of September, or
later, according to the climate and season.
This perhaps only applies to board hives, as
those made of thick rye-straw or rushes will
do without additional covering. "Well protect-
ed hives always prosper better the following
season than such as have not been covered.
In October, the aperture at which the bees
enter should generally be narrowed, so that
only one bee may pass at a time. Indeed, as
a very small portion of air is necessary for
bees in their torpid state, it were better during
severe frosts to be entirely shut up, as num-
bers of them are often lost from being enticed
to quit the hive by the sunshine of a winter
day. It will, however, be proper at limes to
remove, by a crooked wire or similar instru-
ment, the dead bees and other filth, which the
living at this season are unable to perform of
themselves. To hives whose stock of honey
was sutficient for their maintenance, or those
to which a proper quantity of sugar had been
given for that purpose, no further attention
will be necessary until the breeding season
arrives. This, in warm situations, generally
takes place about the beginning of May ; and
in cold, about a month after. The young bees,
for a short time previous to their leaving their
cells, and some after, require being fed with
the same regularity that young birds are by
their parents ; and if the store in the hive be
exhausted, and the weather such as not to ad-
mit of the working bees going abroad to col-
lect food in sufficient quantity for themselves
and their brood, the powerful principle of
alfection for their young compels them to part
with what is not enough for their support, at
the expense of their own lives. To prevent
such accidents, it is advisable, if during the
breeding season it rain for two successive
days, to feed all the bees indiscriminately, as
it would be difficult to ascertain those only
which require it.

The stoarming of bees generally commences
in June, in some seasons earlier, and in cold
climates or seasons later. The first swarming
is so long preceded by the appearance of
drones, and hanging out of working bees, that
if the time of their leaving the hive is not ob-
served, it must be owing to want of care. The
signs of the second are, however, more equi-
vocal, the most certain being that of the queen,
a day or two before swarming, at intervals of
a few minutes, giving out a sound a good deal
resembling that of a cricket It frequently
happens that the swarm will leave the old
hive, and return again several times, which is
always owing to the queen not having accom-
panied them, or from having dropped on the
ground, being too young to fly to a distance.
Gooseberry, currant, or other low bushes,
should be planted at a short distance from the
hives, for the bees to swarm upon, otherwise
they are apt to fly away ; by attending to this,
Howison has not lost a swarm by straying for

163

BEES.

BEES.

several years. When a hive yields more than
two swarms, these should uniformly be joined
to others that are weak, as, from the lateness
of the season, and deficiency in number, they
will otherwise perish. This junction is easily
formed, by inverting at night the hive in which
they are, and placing over it the one you in- j
tend them to enter. They soon ascend, and
apparently with no opposition from the former
possessors. Should the weather for some days
after swarming be unfavourable for the bees
going out, they must be fed with care until it
clears up, otherwise the young swarm will run
a great risk of dying.

The honey may be taken from hives of the
common construction by three modes, partial
deprivation, total deprivation, and suffocation.

Partial deprivation is performed about the
beginning of September. Having ascertained
the weight of the hive, and consequently the
quantity of honeycomb which is to be ex-
tracted, begin the operation as soon as evening
sets in, by inverting the full hive, and placing
an empty one over it; particular care must
be taken that the two hives are of the same dia-
meter, for if they differ in their dimensions it
"will no be possible to effect the driving of the
bees. The hives being placed on each other,
a sheet or large table-cloth must be tied round
them at their place of junction, in order to
prevent the bees from molesting the operator.
The hives being thus arranged, beat the sides
gently with a stick or the hand, but particular
caution must be used to beat it on those parts
to which the combs are attached and which
will be found parallel with the entrance of the
hive- The ascent of the bees into the upper
hive will be known by a loud humming noise ;
in a few minutes the whole community will
have ascended, and the hive with the bees in
it may be placed upon the pedestal from which
the full hive was removed. The hive from
which the bees have been driven must then
be taken into .the house, and the operation of
cutting out the honeycomb commenced. Hav-
ing extracted the requisite quantity of comb,
this opportunity must be embraced of inspect-
ing the hive, and of cleaning it of any noxious
matter. In cutting the combs, however, par-
ticular attention should be paid not to cut into
two or three combs at once, but having com-
menced the cutting of one, to pursue it to the
top of the hive ; and this caution is necessary
for two reasons. If you begin the cutting of
two or three combs at one time, were you to
abstract the whole of them you would perhaps
take too much ; and secondly, to stop in the
middle of a comb will be attended with very
pernicious consequences, as the honey would
drop from the cells which have been cut in
two, and then the bees, on being returned to
their native hive, might be drowned in their
own sweets. The bees also, in their return to
their natural domicile, being still under the
impression of fear, would not give so much
Attention to the honey which flows from the
fuvided cells ; and as it would fall on the board,
and from that on the ground, the bees belonging
to the other hives would immediately scent the
wasted treasure, and a general attack on the de-
privated hive might be the consequence. The
164

deprivation of the honeycomb being effected,
the hive may be returned to its former position,
and reversing the hive which contains the
bees, and placing the deprivated hive over it,
they may be left in that situation till morning,
when the bees will be found to have taken
possession of their native hive, and, if the
season proves fine, may replenish what they
have lost. (Huish*s Treatise on. Bees.)

Total deprivation is effected in the same
manner, but earlier in the season, immediately
after the first swarm ; and the bees, instead of
being returned to a remnant of honey in their
old hive, remain in the new empty one; which
they will sometimes, though rarely, fill with
comb. By this mode it is to be observed, very
little honey is obtained, the bees in June and
July being occupied chiefly in breeding, and
one, if not two, swarms are lost. {Loudon's
Encyc. of Agriculture.)

The mode of suffocation to be adopted by
those who prefer destroying bees in taking
honey, has already been given.

Particular attention should be paid to the
culture of such plants as supply the bees with
the best food and materials for making honey,
such as thyme, clover, broom, and mustard, &c.

As a good deal of difference of opinion exists
relative to the construction of hives and ma-
nagement of bees, we have endeavoured to
condense the views upon the subject enter-
tained by the most respectable authorities. It
is a great desideratum that honey be brought
to market without removal from the hive in
which it is originally deposited, which enables
the purchaser to keep it in fine condition for
any length of time. Few persons will pur-
chase the contents of a very large hive, when
honey in small boxes generally sells readily.
Hence one great advantage of having the hives
constructed in sections, which, being of the
same size, can always be fitted over or under
each other. According to the views of Mr.
Harasti, a skilful bee-cultivator, a good bee-
hive ought to possess the following properties :
First, it should be capable of enlargement or
contraction according to the size of the swarm.
Secondly, it should admit of being opened
without disturbing the bees, either for the pur-
pose of cleaning it from insects, increasing or
dividing the swarm, &c. Thirdly, it should
be so constructed, that the produce may be
removed without injury to the bees. Fourthly,

1^

BEES.

it should be internally clean, smooth and free
from cracks or flaws. All these proj)erties
seem best united in the section-hive, which is
constituted of two, three, four, or more square
boxes of similar size as to width, placed over
each other. Such hives are cheap, and so
simple that almost any one can construct
them. (See Fig. 1.)

The boxes A, B, C, D, may be made from
ten to fourteen inches square and about five
inches in depth, inside measure. Every bee-
keeper should have his boxes made of the
same size, so as to fit on to each other.
Every hive must have a common top-board,
a, which should project over the sides of the
hive. The top-board of each section should
have about sixteen holes bored through at equal
distances from each other, and not larger than
I or smaller than J of an inch. Or, instead of
such holes, chinks of proper size may be cut
through to allow the bees to pass up and down.
At the lower part of each box or section, in front,
there must be an aperture or little door, c,c,c,rf,
just high enough to let the bees pass, and about
an inch and a half wide. The lowermost aper-
ture, d, is to be left open at first, and when the
hive is filled the upper ones may be succes-
sively opened. By placing over the holes in the
top of the upper section, glass globes, jars,
tumblers, or boxes, the bees will rise into and
fill them with honey. These may be removed
at any time after being filled. The holes in
the tops of the hive which do not open into the
glasses or boxes should of course be plugged
up. These glass jars, &c. must be covered
over with a box so as to keep them in the dark.
Every box or section, on the side opposite the
little door, should have a narrow piece of glass
inserted, with a sliding shutter, by drawing
out which the condition of the hive can always
be inspected. To make the bees place their
combs in parallel lines, five or six sticks or bars
may be placed at the top of every section,
running from front to rear. The bees will at-
tach their combs to these
bars, and the intermediate
space will afford suffi-
i.^^^^^^^^^H cient light to see them
•o.^^^^^^^^^H work. The cover-

r^^^^^^^^^^H ing the glasses should
llt^^^^^^^^^H never be open
V^^^^^^^^^^l than just necessary

for purposes of inspec-
Fif. J. tion.

When one section is removed from the top,
a wire or long thin knife must be previously
run between this and the one immediately be-
low, so as to destroy the attachments. Then
remove the upper section, placing the top upon
the one below, which is now the highest divi-
sion of the hive. Another section is to be
placed beneath, lifting up the whole hive for
the purpose. Sometimes a second section has
to be put under during a good season. If the
swarm is not very large three or even two
boxes will be sufficient for its accommodation.
The boxes or sections may be secured upon
each other by buttons, b, b, or rabbits, and the
joints closed with cement

A good swarm of bees should weigh five or
SIX pounds, and one weighing eight pounds is

BEES.

considered large. The weight diminishes to
one pound. Such as are less than four pounds
weight should be strengthened by a small ad-
ditional swarm. The hives ought not to be too
large, as bees are apt to lose time in filling up
vacancies with wax instead of making honey.

Honey collected from flowers growing in
meadows, pasture lands, trees, and cultivated
crops, is almost as limpid as the purest oil, and
the wax nearly as white as snow. Honey
collected from buckwheat has a harsh taste.
When taken once in two years, it is considered
richer and more solid, and will keep better
than what is taken every year.

Some of the plants from which bees collect
their stores possess poisonous properties and
impart these to the honey. The late Dr. B. S.
Barton wrote an interesting and valuable pa-
per upon this subject, which is published in the
Transactions of the American Philosophical So-
eieti/, volume 5th. The plants which, in the
United States, most frequently, afford poi-
sonous honey, are the dwarf laurel {Kalmia
ans^ustifolia), and the great laurel (Kalmia lati-
folia),ihe mountain laurel {lihododendron maxi-
mtts)f wild honey-suckle (Azalia nudijiora),
Jamestown weed, and broad-leaved moorwort
of the south {Andromeda mariana). Most of
these plants are known to produce poisonous
honey, whilst a few of them are only suspi-
cious. Of the trees and shrubs resorted to by
bees, some furnish them with the farina or
flower-dust which yields the spring food
for their young, — some, the gummy or re-
sinous exudations or secretions from which
they derive the propolis or wax for sealing the
hives of fresh swarms, — whilst others yield
them honey in greater or less purity. The
willow is much resorted to by bees for all the
objects mentioned, furnishing the farina, the
propolis, and honey-dew (the last from their
aphides), in regular succession. When swarms
are in the vicinity of the American sweet gum
or styrax, they make their propolis from its
fragrant gum. At other times they resort to
the Athenian poplar. The sweet box myrtle
blooms very early in the spring, and its flowers
are always thickly beset by bees. The Eu-
ropean, or sweet-flowered linden or lime tree,
is likewise greatly resorted to by bees when
in bloom, and also various kinds of fruit trees,
especially the cherry and apple. The sweet
juice exuded by the hickory is eagerly sought
after by bees, but there is no American
forest tree which affords them such ample
supplies of the most limpid honey as the tulip
poplar of the Middle States. This stupendous
tree sometimes rises, in fertile bottom-lands,
above one hundred feet in height, having a
trunk five or six feet in diameter. Such a
tree, with every branch from the ground to the
summit covered with splendid tulips is a
magnificent sight, and a most valuable acqui-
sition when within reach of the apiary.

Among the very great variety of plans
which have been adopted by American inge-
nuity to improve the bee culture, there is one
which has acquired much celebrity from its
enabling the surplus honey to be taken with-
out destroying the bees, which most persons
prefer doing. The plan referred to, is that of

165

BEEa

BEES.

Mr. Luda, of Connecticut. By it the bees are
made to build their cells and deposit their ho-
ney in the chamber of a dwelling-house appro-
priated for the purpose, in neat little drawers,
frqm which it may be taken fresh by the
owner, without killing the bees. The hive has
the appearance of, and is in part, a mahogany
bureau or sideboard, with drawers above and
a closet below, with glass doors. This case or
bureau is designed to be placed in the cham-
ber of a house, or any other suitable building,
and connected with the open air or outside
of the house by a tube passing through the
wall. The bees work and deposit their honey
in drawers. When these or any of them are
full, or it is desired to obtain honey, one or
more of them may be taken out, the bees al-
lowed to escape into the other part of the hive,
and the honey taken away. The glass doors
allow the working of the bees to be observed ;
and it is said that the spaciousness, cleanli-
ness, and even the more regular temperature
of such habitations, render them the more in-
dustrious and successful.

A recent plan called the " Kentucky Bee-
house," has been highly commended for its
successful adaptation, convenience and cheap-
ness. One is described in the Farmer's Cabi-
net, for June, 1839, by Mr. F. C. Fisher.

"The building is twelve feet long, eight
wide, and seven feet high from the floor to the
plate or ceiling (the floor being eighteen inches
from the ground), and consists of four posts,
eleven feet six inches long, let in the ground
three feet, which is weather-boarded round,
and covered in so as to prevent the bees from
getting in the house, they being confined in six
boxes, three on either side of the house, placed
fifteen inches one above another.

"The draw-
ing (fig. 3) re-
presents a side
of the house,
viewed from
without. Nos.
1, 1, are copper
troughs run-
ning round the
post, halfway

r^ r-1 I— I

r"' r-i m

Fig. 3.

between the floor and ground, which are kept
filled with water to prevent ants and other
insects from getting in the house. Nos. 2, 3,
and 4 are tubes eight inches wide, and one-eighth
of an inch deep, to convey the bees through
the wall into the long boxes, and entering them
at the bottom, there being three to each long
box. The drawing (fig. 4) represents one
side of the house, viewed from the inside.
Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are

ryr\r\ r^ r^ r\ r\ r\

3

r^n nr\

r\n

a

r>r^r> ^

long boxes, eighteen
inches wide and
twelve deep, extend-
ing the whole length
of the house, with
r^rs\ eight holes, four
inches square, in
each box, upon which
IS set two gallon caps, with two half inch holes
in each, one near the top, the other about the
centre of the cap, in which the smoke of a
burning rag is blown to drive the bees from
166

^1 F^. ^

the cap into the long box. When they are afl
in the long box, — which can be known by strik-
ing the caps, — a knife or wire should be drawn
under the bottom of the cap to separate the
comb from the box. The cap of honey may
then be removed, and an empty one put in its
place. Nos. 4 and 5 are tubes three inches
square, to convey the bees from one box to
another, that one swarm of bees may do the
whole work, or if one or more swarms be put
in each box, that they may become as one, as
they will not permit more than one queen when
put together, by which they are prevented
from destroying themselves by fighting. A
house of this description, when the long boxes
are filled, will afford, at a moderate calcula-
tion, ninety-six gallons of honey in the comb
annually."

A hive under the very pompous name of
" Patent Fortified Transparent Royal Bee Pa-
lace," invented a few years since by Mr.
William Groves, of Cleaveland, Ohio, is said
to possess real merits, notwithstanding its un-
promising and ridiculous name. It is so con-
structed that the bees never swarm, and are
enabled to reject and roll off all offensive mat-
ters, besides defending themselves against
intruders. For the preservation of the bees it
is said to be preferable to any other hive, and
it admits of the convenient removal of honey
in any desirable quantity, at all times without
disturbing the bees, which are kept clean, well-
ventilated, and healthy.

A correspondent of the Farmer's Cabinet
residing in Western Pennsylvania furnishes
the following description of an improved hive,
which he says embraces more advantages than
any other he has ever seen. Among these are
the following : —

"\. It prevents the ravages of the miller, whose
worm is the bee's most fatal enemy. The
miller deposits its eggs in the bee dirt ; which
in the common hive is constantly accumulating
on the bottom. This difficulty is obviated by
the slanting bottom of the stand; the dirt fall-
ing on this rolls out at D, and the bottom is
kept clean.

"2. The cruel practice of destroying the bees is
entirely superseded by the use of this hive.
By blowing a small quantity of tobacco smoke
into the upper box, through a hole made for
that purpose, the bees will descend into the
box next below ; the upper box can be remov-
ed ; fifty or sixty pounds of honey, entirely free
from dead bees and dirt, can thus be taken
from a good hive ; and enough remain to win-
ter the bees without any risk of loss.

" 3. The swarming of the bees can be regulated
by the rise of this hive, and the new swarms
taken at the season of the year when they are
most valuable. The bees can be prevented
swarming again for the season, by additional
boxes as the young bees increase.

"4. This hive is cheap and requires but little
mechanical knowledge in its construction ; any
farmer with ordinary tools can make it from
the following description:" —

Fig. 5, A, is the stand of Mr. Groves's hive, the
legs of which are sixteen inches high, the stand
itself eighteen inches square. B represents
a three-cornered box, open on the top, will* a

r

BEEa

slanting bottom c, c; a space is to be left open
in the front of the hive the whole length at D,
to admit the bees and allow the dirt to slide
off the slanting bottom.

1

;-s

t"

i

-

D

/-

B A

\\yc

fi

L) L

Fig.h.

1, 2, and 3, are boxes or hives, nineteen
inches square, and seven inches high, with
slats nailed across, a sufficient distance from
each other to admit the free passage of the
bees ; bars are to be put across the hive to
support the comb. The top is to be secured by
a tight cover. The bees enter at D, and pass
up the slanting bottom of the stand into the
boxes above, and the boxes can be increased
by adding others, always placmg the additional
boxes nearest the stand."

Mr. T. Afllick, of Cincinnati, has recently
published an interesting pamphlet on bees and
their hives, entitled '• Bee-Breeding in the
West," which contains much useful informa-
tion. His plan for constructing and placing
hives seems to combine economy, simplicity,
and durability, with tlie great desideratum of
securing the bees against the moth.

The invention is called the Unblended hive,
and may be constructed by any farmer who
can handle a saw, a plane, and a hammer, by
pursuing the following directions. " The boxes
of which it is to be composed, must be formed
of well-seasoned boards, free from knots and
wind-shakes, one inch thick ; they may be ten,
eleven, or twelve inches square in the clear,
well-dressed on each side, and joined on the
edges, so as to fit close, without being tongued
or grooved. Before nailing together at the
sides, lay a strip of thick white-lead paint on
the edge, which will render the joint impervi-
ous to the ovipositor of the moth. In the top
of each box cut two semicircular holes, at the
front and back, one inch and a half in diame-
ter, the straight side being in a line with the
back and front of the box, so that the bees may
have a straight road in their way from one
story to the other; the top of the upper box
must have an extra cover fixed with screws,
that it may be easily removed in case of
need, so as to form a second box when requir-
ed : pour a little melted bees-wax over the in-

BEES.

' side of the top, which will enable the bees to
attach their comb more firmly. We will sup-
pose the boxes thus made, to be a cube of
; twelve inches inside measure ; in that case,
' the tunnel-stand will be made thus : — take a
piece of two-inch pine plank, free from knots
and shakes, twenty-six inches long and eight-
een inches broad; now, ten inches from one
end, and two inches from the other and from
each side, mark off a square of fourteen
inches ; from the outside of this square, the
board is dressed off with an even slope until
its thickness at the front edge is reduced to
half an inch, and at the other three edges, to
about an inch. The square is then to be re-
duced to twelve inches, in the centre of which
is bored an inch auger-hole, and to this hole
the inner square is gradually sloped to the
depth of an inch — thus securing the bees from
any possibility of wet lodging about their hive,
and affording them free ventilation. There
will then be a level, smooth strip, of one inch
in width, surrounding the square of twelve
inches, on which to set the box or hive. Two
inches from the front edge of the stand, com-
mence cutting a channel two inches in width,
and of such a depth as to carry it out on an
even slope half-way between the inner edge of
the hive and the ventilating hole in the centre ;
and over this, fit in a strip of wood as neatly
as possible, dressing it down even with the
slope of the stand, so as to leave a tunnel two
inches in width and a quarter of an inch deep.
Under the centre hole, and over the outlet of
the tunnel, hang small wire grates, the first to
prevent the entrance of other insects, and the
other to be thrown over to prevent the exit of
the bees, or fastened down to keep them at
home, in clear, sunshiny days in winter. For
feet to the stand, use four or five inch screws,
screwed in from below far enough to be firm ;
and the whole should have two coats of white
paint, sometime before it is wanted, that the
smell may be dissipated, as it is very offensive
to the bees." {Farmer's Cabinet.)

A great variety of patent and fancy hives
are from time to time vaunted for their very
superior qualities, but in general the simplest
construction answers best, and there is per-
haps no hive which combines so many advan-
tages as that composed of sections.

In most of the oldest settled parts of the
United States, the larva or maggot of the bee-
moth {PhaUenn cereana), a small gray miller,
commits great devastation among the swarms
of bees. In many places in New England, the
farmers have been induced to abandon the
bee-culture entirely on account of the destruc-
tion caused by the bee-moth. These lay their
eggs in the corners and other interior parts of
the hive, which they enter at night. In due
time these eggs are hatched out into maggots,
and growing into worms with strong mandibles,
they gnaw their way in any direction they
choose to go, making destructive tracks through
the honey-comb. After this destructive course,
the worm envelopes itself in a thick, soft case
or web, and there awaits the final change by
which it is converted into the perfect winged
miller. Numerous are the expedients resorted
to and recommended to obviate the destructioii

167

BEES.

BEE-MOTH.

produced through the moth. Some of the most
intelligent apiarians put their chief trust in the
strength of the swarms, and when these become
reduced and weak, unite them so as to enable
th^ bees to defend their hive against intruders.
Placing boxes for wrens near the apiary is
also strongly recommended, and with good
reason, since these little birds are very active
in catching all kinds of moths. To enable the
wren to get under the hive, it has been recom-
mended to raise these an inch or an inch and
a half above the stand, by means of small
blocks.

Another plan frequently adopted, and, it is
said, with much success, consists in placing,
early in the evening, a burning lamp in a pail,
near the hive-stand. Some fresh honey or
molasses and water may be spread upon the
bottom as a bait. A keg with only one head
is thought preferable to a pail for this purpose,
owing to the curvature of the staves, which
serves to prevent the insect from flying out so
readily, and before it has met its destruction
from the flame of the lamp. A small fire kept
up early in the evening near the apiary is also
frequently resorted to for attracting and de-
stroying the night-flying miller. Placing shal-
low vessels containing sweetened water, with
one gill of vinegar added for each pint, is said
to attract and drown the moths in great num-
bers. Shutting up the apertures for the exit
and entrance of the bees, early in the evening,
is also advised, as the moth intrudes itself in
the evening and night. But when this is done
the apertures must be opened again very early
in the morning. When millers are numerous,
each hive should be raised at least twice a
week, upon one side, and the worms sought
for and destroyed. In this operation a puflE" of
smoke under the hive keeps the bees quiet
during the search, which should be performed
with as little jarring or disturbance to the
swarm as possible.

A correspondent of the Farmer's Register
recommends, that as soon as the bees com-
mence working in the spring, the hives are to
be examined, and with a piece of hoop-
iron or other suitable implement, the stand
well scraped immediately under the hive,
especially around the inner edge of the box.
The whole secret of keeping oflT the moth con-
sists, he thinks, in keeping the hives free from
the web formed by the moth. After this ope-
ration, four small blocks of wood are to be
placed under each corner of the hive so as to
raise it not quite half an inch from the stand.
This will permit the hive and stand to be
cleaned without raising the box. This scraping
operation must be repeated every three or four
days, especially if there be any appearance of
web. In winter the blocks must be removed,
and the hive let down upon the stand as a se-
curity against mice, and other depredators
upon the honey. The person who recommends
this plan as a certain security against the
*Tivages of the worm, advises that an entrance
bj made for the bees, by cutting a perpendi-
cular slit, one-eighth of an inch wide and two
and a half inches long, situated about halfway
from the bottom. Just under this a small
snelf is to be placed as a resting-place for the
168

bees in going out and returning to the hive.
The bees soon get accustomed to this new
place of entrance. The plan has, it is said,
often proved an effectual security against the
worm, after every other remedy has failed.

Some persons have contrived drawers under
the hives into which the millers enter by night.
The drawers are slipped out every morning,
and the moths found in them destroyed.

In the western country and in the new set-
tlements of the Atlantic states, the bee-moth is
rarely met with.

Some interesting views relative to the ma-
nagement of bees and construction of apiaries,
by Henry ZoUickofier of Philadelphia, may be
found in the Farmer's Cabinet for the year
1843.

BEE-MOTH. The following interesting
details relative to the natural history of the bee-
moth or wax-moth, are from Dr. Harris's Trea-
tise on Destructive Insects. This pernicious
insect belongs to a group called Cambrians,
and was well known to the ancients, as it is
mentioned under the name of Tinea, in the
works of Virgil and Columella. "In the winged
state, the male and female diflfer so much in
size, colour, and in the form of their fore-wings,
that they were supposed, by Linnaeus and by
some other naturalists, to be diflTerent species,
and accordingly received two different names.
{Tortrix cereana, the male ; Tinea mellonella, the
female.) To avoid confusion, it will be best to
adopt the scientific name given to the bee-moth
by Fabricius, who called it Galleria cereana,
that is, the wax Galleria, because in its cater-
pillar state it eats beeswax. Doubtless it was
first brought to this country, with the common
hive-bee, from Europe, where it is very abun-
dant, and does much mischief in hives. Very
few of the Tineas exceed or even equal it in
size. In its perfect or adult state it is a winged
moth or miller, measuring, from the head to
the tip of the closed wings, from five-eighths
to three quarters of an inch in length, and its
wings expand from one inch and one-tenth to
one inch and four-tenths. The male is of a
dusty gray colour. The female is much larger
than the male, and much darker coloured.
There are two broods of these insects in the
course of a year. Some winged moths of the
first brood begin to appear towards the end of
April, or early in May ; those of the second
brood are most abundant in August ; but be-
tween these periods, and even later, others
come to perfection, and consequentl)'^ some of
them may be found during the greater part of
the summer. By day they remain quiet on the
sides or in the crevices of the bee-house ; but,
if disturbed at this time, they open their wings
a little, and spring or glide swiftly away, so
that it is very difficult to seize or to hold them.
In the evening they take wing, when the bees
are at rest, and hover around the hive, till,
having found the door, they go in and lay their
eggs. Those that are prevented by the crowd,
or by any other cause, from getting within the
hive, lay their eggs on the outside, or on the
stand, and the little worm-like caterpillars
hatched therefrom easily creep into the hive
through the cracks, or gnaw a passage for
! themselves under the edges of it. These cater-

r

inllars, at f

BEE-MOTH.

pillars, at first are not thicker than a thread. I
they have sixteen legs. Their bodies are soft
and tender, and of a yellowish white colour, i
sprinkled with a few little brownish dots, from j
each of which proceeds a short hair ; their
heads are brown and shelly, and there are two '
brown spots on the top of the first ring. Weak '
as they are, and unprovided with any natural
means of defence, destined, too, to dwell in the
midst of the populous hive, surrounded by
watchful and well-armed enemies, at whose
expense they live, they are taught how to
shield themselves against the vengeance of
the bees, and pass safely and unseen in every
direction through the waxen cells, which they
break down and destroy. Beeswax is their
only food, and they prefer the old to the new
comb, and are always found most numerous in
the upper part of the hive, where the oldest
honey-comb is lodged. It is not a little won-
derful, that these insects should be able to get
any nourishment from wax, a substance which
other animals cannot digest at all; but they
are created with an appetite for it, and with
such extraordinary powers of digestion that
they thrive well upon this kind of food. As
soon as they are hatched they begin to spin;
and each one makes for itself a tough silken
tube, wherein it can easily turn around and
move backwards and forwards at pleasure.
During the day they remain concealed in their
silken tubes ; but at night, when the bees can-
not see them, they come partly out, and devour
the wax within their reach. As they inciease in
size, they lengthen and enlarge their dwellings,
and cover them on the outside with a coaling of
grains of wax mixed with their own castings,
.which resemble gunpowder. Protected by this
•coating from the stings of the bees, they work
their way through the combs, gnaw them to
pieces, and fill the hive with their filthy webs ;
-till at last the discouraged bees, whose dili-
gence and skill are of no more use to them in
-contending with their unseen foes, than their
superior size and powerful weapons, are com-
pelled to abandon their perishing brood and
their wasted stores, and leave the desolated
hive to the sole possession of the miserable
spoilers. These caterpillars grow to the length
of an inch or a little more, and come to their
full size in about three weeks. They then spin
their cocoons, which are strong silken pods, of
an oblong oval shape, and about one inch in
length, and are often clustered together in great
numbers in the top of the hive. Some time
afterwards, the insects in these cocoons
change to chrysalids of a light brown colour,
rough on the back, and with an elevated dark
brown line upon it from one end to the othepi
When this transformation happens in the au-
tumn, the insects remain without further
change till the spring, and then burst open
their cocoons, and come forth with wings.
Those which become chrysalids in the early
part of summer are transformed to winged
moths fourteen days afterwards, and immedi-
ately pair, lay their eggs, and die.

Bees suffer most from the depredations of

these insects in hot and dry summers. Strong

and healthy swarms, provided with a constant

supply of food near home, more often escape

22

BEET. ;:r

than small and weak ones. When the moth-
worms have established themselves in a hive,
their presence is made known to us by the lit-
tle fragments of wax and the black grains
scattered by them over the floor."

BEESTING or BIESTING, written also,
BEESTNING (Flem. bie^t, biestmekk). The
first milk taken from cows after calving. It is
thick and yellow. This milk is commonly in
part taken away from the cow upon her first
calving, lest, when taken in too large a quan-
tity by the calf, it should prove purgative.

BEJET (LaU^e/a; Celt.Ae//, red; also said to be
so named from the Greek character beta, which
its seeds resemble when they begin to swell).
The sweet succulent root of Beta vuli^aris, a
chenopodiaceous plant of biennial duration.
It is used in the winter as a salad, for which
purpose the red and 3'ellow beets of Castelnau-
dari are the best ; for the food of cattle, that
which is named mangel worzel being most
used; and for the extraction of sugar, a white-
rooted variety with a purple crown is the most
esteemed. Sea beet (Seta maritimu) is a well
known and excellent substitute for spinach.
(Brande's Diet, of Science, p. 139.)

The genus beta comprehends several bien-
nial species. Miller enumerates five. 1. The
common white beet. 2. The common green
beet. 3. The common red beet. 4. The turnip-
rooted red beet. 5. The great red beet. 6. The
yellow beet. 7. The Swiss, or chard beet.
We have now nine varieties of this esculent,
which are described with considerable discrimi-
nation by Mr. Morgan, gardener to H. Browne,
Esq., Mimms Place, Herts. (Hurt. Trans.
vol. iii.) Of the red beet, Mr. Morgan enume-
rates seven varieties ; of these, the three fol-
lowing are generally chosen for cultivation :
1. The long-rooted, which should be sown in a
deep sandy soil. 2. The short or turnip-rooted,
better adapted to a shallow soil. 3. The green-
leaved, red-rooted, requiring a depth of soil
equal to that of the long-rooted There are
two distinct species of beet commonly cultivat-
ed, each containing several varieties ; the one
called Cicla or Hortensis, or white beet, produc-
ing succulent leaves only, the other the red
beet (^Beta vulgaris); distinguished by its large
fleshy roots.

The white beet is chiefly cultivated in gar-
dens as a culinary vegetable, and forms one
of the principal vegetables used by agricultu-
ral labourers, and small occupiers of land in
many parts of Germany, France, and Switzer-
land. A variety known by the name of Swiss
chard produces numerous large succulent
leaves, which have a very solid rib running
along the middle. The leafy part being
stripped off and boiled is useful as a substitute
for greens and spinach, and the rib and stalk
are dressed like asparagus or scorzenera ; they
have a pleasant, sweet taste, and are more
wholesome than the cabbage tribe. In a good
soil the produce is very abundant ; and if cul-
tivated on a large scale in the field, this species
would prove a valuable addition to the plants
raised for cattle. By cultivating it in rows,
and frequently hoeing and stirring the inter-
vals, it would be an excellent substitute for a
fallow on good light loams. All cattle are
P 169

BEET, WHITE.

BEET, WHITE.

fond of the leaves of this beet, which add much i
to the milk of cows, without giving it that bad
taste which is unavoidable when they are fed
with turnips or cabbages, and which is chiefly
o\ymg to the greater rapidity with which the
latter undergoes the putrefactive fermentation.
If sown in May, in drills two feet wide, and
thinned out to the distance of a foot from plant
to plant in the rows, they will produce an
abundance of leaves, which may be gathered
in August and September, and will grow again
rapidly, provided a bunch of the centre leaves
be left on each plant. They do not sensibly
exhaust the soil. These leaves when boiled
or steamed with bran, cut with chaff or refuse
grain, are an excellent food for pigs or bullocks
put up to fatten. (Penny Cych. vol. iv.p. 158.)

The white beet is an excellent root, and is
preferred by many to the larger and more com-
mcai intermediate varieties. It has lately been
in great repute in France and Belgium, and
indeed all over the continent of Europe, for
the manufacture of sugar. The process is
given in detail by Mr. Samuel Taylor in the
sixth vol. of the Gardener's Magazine; and
there are some able articles, entering exten-
sively into detail on the subject, in the Quart.
Jonrn. Agr. vol. i. p. 624, and vol. ii. pp. 892
and 907. (For an account of the common
field beet for cattle, see Maxgkl Wuhzel.)

BEET, WHITE (Beta cida). This is also
known as the chard, or carde. We have two
species in common cultivation, the green and
the white. They receive their names from the
colour of their footstalks ; but the variation is
considered by some as fugitive, and that both
are produced from seed obtained of the same
plant : but this the experience of Mr. Sinclair
denies. The French have three varieties of
the white — the white, the red, and the yellow —
which only differ from ours in having a larger
foliage, and thicker, fleshier stalks, but they
are less capable of enduring frost. They are
cultivated fxir their stalks, which are cooked as
asparagus. Mangel wurzel is sometimes
grown for the same purposes ; but as it is
much inferior, the notice that it may be thus
employed, is sufficient. Beets require a rich,
mouldy, deep soil ; it should, however, be re-
tentive of moisture, rather than light, without
being tenacious, or having its alluminous con-
stituent too much predominating. Its richness
should preferably arise from previous applica-
tion than from the addition of manure at the
time of sowing ; and to effect this, the compart-
ment intended for the growth of these vegeta-
bles is advantageously prepared as directed for
celery. On the soil depends the sweetness and
tenderness of the red and yellow beets, for
which they are estimated ; and it may be re-
marked, that on poor, light soils, or heavy ones,
the best sorts will taste earthy. Again, on some
soils the better varieties will not attain any
•useful size, or even a tolerable flavour, whilst
"in the same compartment inferior ones will at-

in a very good taste. The situation should
open, and as free from the influence of trees
as possible ; but it is of advantage to have
the bed shaded from the meridian sun in sum-
mer. I have always found it beneficial to dig
the ground two spades deep for these deep-
170

rooting vegetables, and to turn in the whole or
part of the manure intended to be applied, ac-
cording to the richness of the soil near the sur-
face, with the bottom split, so as to bury it ten
or twelve inches within the ground. Salt is a
beneficial application to this crop, one reason
for which undoubtedly is, their being natives
of the sea shore. Both species are propagat-
ed by seed, and may be sown from the close
of February until the beginning of April : it
being borne in mind that they must not be in-
serted until the severe frosts are over, which
inevitably destroys them when in a young stage
of growth. The best time for inserting the
main crop of the beet root for winter supply is
early in March ; at the beginning of July or
August, a successional crop of the white beet
may be sown for supply in the winter and fol-
lowing spring.

It is best sown in drills a foot asunder, and
an inch deep, or by dibble, at the same dis-
tance each way, and at a similar depth, two
or three seeds being put in each hole : it
may, however, be sown broadcast and well
raked in.

During the early stages of its growth, the
beds, which, for the convenience of cultivation,
should not be more than four feet wide, must
be looked over occasionally, and the largest
of the weeds cleared away by hand. In the
course of May, according to the advanced state
of their growth, the beds must be cleared
thoroughly of weeds, both by hand and small
hoeing ; the beet roots thinned to ten or twelve
inches apart, and the white beet to eight or ten.
The plants of this last species which are re-
moved may be transplanted into rows at a
similar distance, and will then often produce a
finer and more succulent foliage than those re-
maining in the seed bed. Moist weather is to
be preferred for performing this operation :
otherwise, the plants must be watered occa-
sionally until they take root: they must be fre-
quently hoed and kept clear of weeds through-
out the summer.

It is a great improvement to earth up the
stalks of the white beet in the same manner as
celery, when they are intended to be peeled,
and eaten as asparagus.

In October, the beet-root may be taken up
for use as wanted, but not entirely for preser-
vation during the winter until November or
the beginning of December, then to be buried
in sand in ahernate rows, under shelter ; or,
as some gardeners recommend, only part at
this season, and the remainder in February ;
by this means they may be kept in a perfect
state for use until May or June. If prevented
running to seed, they will produce leaves
during the succeeding year ; but as this second
year's production is never so fine or tender, an
annual sowing is usually made. For the pro-
duction of seed some roots must be left where
grown, giving them the protection of litter in
very severe weather, if unaccompanied with
snow; or if this is neglected, some of the finest
roots that have been stored in sand, and have
not had the leaves cut away close, may be
planted in February or March. Each species
and variety must be kept as far away from the
others as possible, and the plants set at least

T

BEETLE.

two feet from each other. They flower in Au-
gust, and ripen their seed at the close of Sep-
tember. Seed of the previous year is always
to be preferred for sowing, but it will suc-
ceed, if carefully preserved, when two years
old.

As a medicine, the seed of the beet is diure-
tic. The juice of beet-root snuffed up into the
nostrils promotes sneezing, and is beneficial
m headache and toothache.

BEETLE (Scarabaeideae ; Sax. by r el). The
generic name of a class of insects, of which
there are a great many species, all of them
having elytra or sheaths over their wings to
detend them from hard bodies, which they may
meet with in digging holes in the ground, or
gnawing rotten wood with their teeth, to make
themselves houses or nests. These insects are
extremely destructive to many sorts of crops.
The beetles most destructive to vegetables and
animals are the weevil beetle, the lumip-Jlea
bfetle, the wood-boring beetle, and some others,
which are described at length by Mr. J. Dun-
can in the Quart. Joum. of Agr. vol. ix. p. 394.

American beetles. — Passing over many groups
into which the extensive beetle family is divid-
ed, such as the ground-beetles, earth-borers,
and dung-beetles, which last, in all their states,
are found in excrement; the skin-beetles, which
inhabit dried animal substances, and the gigan-
tic Hercules-beetles, which live in rotten wood
or beneath old dung-heaps, we come to those
groups which require more particular notice
from their depredations upon plants, fruits, and
trees.

One of the most common, and at the same
time most beautiful of the tree beetles of the
United States, is the Woolly Areoda, sometimes
called the goldsmith (Areod/i lanigera), which
is thus described by Dr. Harris, in his highly
interesting and valuable "Treatise upon In-
sects injurious to Vegetation." —

"It is about nine-tenths of an inch in length,
broad oval in shape, of a lemon-yellow colour
above, glittering like burnished gold on the top
of the head and thorax; the under side of the
body is copper-coloured, and thickly covered
with whitish wool ; and the legs are brownish-
yellow, or brassy, shaded with green. These
fine beetles begin to appear in Massachusetts
about the middle of May, and continue gene-
rally till the twentieth of June. In the morning
and evening twilights they come forth from
their retreats, and fly about with a humming
and rustling sound among the branches of
trees, the tender leaves of which they devour.
Pear-trees are particularly subject to their at-
tacks, but the elm, hickory, poplar, oak, and
probably also other kinds of trees, are fre-
quented and injured by them. During the
middle of the day they remain at rest upon
the trees, clinging to the under-sides of the
leaves ; and endeavour to conceal themselves
by drawing two or three leaves together, and
holding them in this position with their long
unequal claws. In some seasons they occur
^in profusion, and then may be obtained in
•great quantities by shaking the young trees on
which they are lodged in the daytime, as they
do not attempt to fly when thus disturbed, but
fall at once to the ground. The larvse of these

BEETLE.

! insects are not known ; probably they live in
the ground upon the roots of plants."
i Another member of the Rutilian tribe, to
which the goldsmith belongs, is the Spotted
Pelidnota, a large beetle found on the cultivat-
ed and wild grape-vine, sometimes in great
abundance, in the summer months. "It is,"
says Dr. Harris, "of an oblong oval shape,
and about an inch long. The wing-covers are
tile-coloured, or dull brownish yellow, with
three distinct black dots on each ; the thorax is
darker, and slightly bronzed, with a black dot
on each side ; the body beneath, and the legs,
are of a deep bronzed green colour. These
beetles fly by day, but may also be seen at the
same time on the leaves of the grape, which
are their only food. They sometimes prove
very injurious to the vine. The only way to
destroy them is to pick them off by hand, and
crush them under foot. The larvas live in
rotten wood, slumps, and roots."

Among the tree-beetles, those commonly
called dors, chafers, May-bugs, and rose-bugs,
are the most interesting to the farmer and gar-
dener, on account of their extensive ravages,
both in the winged and larva states. Whilst
the powerful and horny jaws possessed by
most of these, are admirably fitted for cutting
and grinding the leaves of plants upon which
they subsist, their notched and double claws
support them securely on the foliage; and
their strong and jagged fore-legs, being formed
for digging in the ground, point out the place
of their transformations.

"The general habits and transformations of
the common cock-chafer of Europe have been
carefully observed, and will serve," says Dr.
Harris, " to exemplify those of the other in-
sects of this family, which, as far as they are
known, seem to be nearly the same. This in-
sect devours the leaves of trees and shrubs.
Its duration in the perfect state is very short,
each individual living only about a week, and
the species entirely disappearing in the course
of a month. After the sexes have paired, the
males perish, and the females enter the earth
to the depth of six inches or more, making
their way by means of the strong teeth which
arm the fore-legs ; here they deposit their
eggs, amounting, according to some writers,
to nearly one hundred, or, as others assert, to
two hundred from each female, which are
abandoned by the parent, who generally as-
cends again to the surface, and perishes in a
short time.

" From the eggs are hatched, in the space
I of fourteen days, little whitish grubs, each
I provided with six legs near the head, and a
I mouth furnished with strong jaws. When in
a state of rest, these grubs usually curl them-
selves in the shape of a crescent. They sub-
sist on the tender roots of various plants, com-
mitting ravages among these vegetable sub-
I stances, on some occasions of the most
deplorable kind, so as totally to disappoint the
best founded hopes of the husbandman. Dur-
ing the summer, they live under the thin coat
of vegetable mould near the surface, but, as
winter approaches, they descend below the
reach of frost, and remain torpid until the suc-
ceeding spring, at which time they change

171

BEETLE.

BEETLE.

their skins, and reascend to the surface for
food. At the close of their third summer, (or,
as some sa}--, of the fourth or fifth), they cease
eating, and penetrate about two feet deep into
the earth ; there, by its motions from side to
side, each grub forms an oval cavity, which is
lined by some glutinous substance thrown
from its mouth. In this cavity it is changed
to a pupa by casting off its skin. In this state
the legs, antennae, and wing-cases of the future
beetle are visible through the transparent skin
which envelopes them, but appear of a yellow-
ish white colour; and thus it remains until the
month of February, when the thin film which
encloses the body is rent, and three months
afterwards the perfected beetle digs its way to
the surface, from which it finally emerges dur-
ing the night."

Some account of the destruction occasion-
ally wrought by these insects may be found
under the head of Cock-chafeu.

In their winged state, many species of tree-
beetles act as conspicuous a part in injuring
trees as their grubs do in destroying herbage.
" During the month of May they come forth
from the ground, whence they have received
the name of May-bugs or May-beetles. They
pass the greater part of the day upon trees,
clinging to the under-sides of the leaves, in
a slate of repose. As soon as evening ap-
proaches, they begin to buzz about among the
branches, and continue on the wing till to-
wards midnight. In their droning flight they
move very irregularly, darting hither and thi-
ther Math an uncertain aim, hitting against ob-
jects in their way with a force that often causes
them to fall to the ground. They frequently
enter houses in the night, apparently attracted,
as well as dazzled and bewildered, by the
lights. Their vagaries, in which, without hav-
ing the power to harm, they seem to threaten
an attack, have caused them to be called dors,
that is, darers; while their seeming blindness
and stupidity have become proverbial in the
expressions 'blind as a beetle,' and 'beetle-
headed.' Besides the leaves of fruit-trees they
devour those of various forest-trees and shrubs,
with an avidity not much less than that of the lo-
cust, so that in certain seasons, and in particular
districts, they become an oppressive scourge,
and the source of much misery to the inhabit-
ants. Mouffet relates that, in the year 1574,
such a number of them fell into the river Severn,
as to stop the wheels of the water-mills ; and,
in the Philosophical Transactions, it is stated
that, in the year 1688, they filled the hedges
and trees of Galway in such infinite numbers
as to cling to each other like bees when
swarming ; and, when on the wing, darkened
the air, annoyed travellers, and produced a
sound like distant drums. In a short time the
leaves of all the trees, for some miles round,
were so totally consumed by them, that at mid-
summer the country wore the aspect of the
depth of winter."

.The animals and birds appointed to check
tJf^ ravages of these and other insects so de-
structive to vegetation, are different in differ-
ent countries. In Europe, according to the
great French naturalist Latreille, they are the
badger, weasel, martin, bats, rats, common
172

dung-hill fowl, and the goat-sucker, or night-
hawk. In the United States, various birds may
be always seen in the spring of the year fol-
lowing the plough, among which the black-
bird family is by far the most numerous.
These ought to meet with the utmost protec-
tion, and by no means to be stoned, shot at,
killed, and frightened away, as is too often
done by the idle and inconsiderate. The fol-
lowing view of the subject will serve to set
the subject in the important light it deserves.
In "Anderson's Recreations," it is stated that
"a cautious observer, having found a nest of
five young jays, remarked that each of these
birds, while yet very young, consumed at least
fifteen of these full-sized grubs in one day,
and of course would require many more of a
smaller size. Say that, on an average of sizes,
they consumed twenty a-piece, these for the
five make one hundred. Each of the parents
consume, say fifty; so that the pair and family
devour two hundred every day. This, in three
months, amounts to twenty thousand in one
season. But, as the grub continues in that
state four seasons, this single pair, with their
family alone, without reckoning their descend-
ants after the first year, would destroy eighty
thousand grubs. Let us suppose that the half,
namely forty thousand, are females, and it is
known that they usually lay about two hundred
eggs each ; it will appear that no less than
eight millions have been destroyed, or pre-
vented from being hatched, by the labours of a
single famil}'^ of jays. It is by reasoning in
this way that we learn to know of what im-
portance it is to attend to the economy of na-
ture, and to be cautious how we derange it by
our short-sighted and futile operations." Our
own country abounds with insect-eating beasts
and birds, and without doubt the more than
abundant Melolonthoe form a portion of their
nourishment. (Harris.)

The very numerous varieties of the beetle
family may be imagined from the fact taught
us by naturalists, that of the genus Melo-
lontha to which the beetles belong, more than
two hundred have been described. Several
of these found in the United States, produce
injuries in the perfect grub state which rival
those of the European cock-chafer. The May-
beetle, as it is generally called (Phyllopkaga
(juercina), is the most common species.

" It is of a chestnut-brown colour, smooth,
but finely punctured, that is, covered with little
impressed dots, as if pricked with the point
of a needle; each wing-case has two or three
slightlj'- elevated longitudinal lines ; the breast
is clothed with yellowish down. The knob of
its antennae contains only three leaf-like joints.
Its average length is nine-tenths of an inch. In
its perfect state it feeds on the leaves of trees,
particularly on those of the cherry-tree. It flies
with a humming noise in the night, from the
middle of May to the end of June, and fre-
quently enters houses, attracted by the light
In the course of the spring, these beetles are
often thrown from the earth by the spade and
I plough, in various states of maturity, somei*
I being soft and nearly white, their superabun-
dant juices not having evaporated, while others
i exhibit the true colour and texture of the per-

BEETLE.

msedt The grubs devour the roots of
grass and of other plants, and in many places
the turf may be turned up like a carpet in con-
sequence of the destruction of the roots. The
grub is a white worm with a brownish head,
and, when fully grown, is nearly as thick as
the little finger. It is eaten greedily by crows
and fowls. There is a grub, somewhat resem-
bling this, which is frequently found under old
manure heaps, and is commonly called muck-
worm. It differs, however, in some respects
from that of the May-beetle, or dor-bug, and is
transformed to a dung-beetle called Scarabseus
reliclus by Mr. Say. The beetles are devoured
by the skunk, whose beneficial foraging is de-
tected in our gardens by its abundant excre-
ment filled with the wing-cases of these insects.
A writer in the ' New York Evening Post,'
says that the beetles, which frequently commit
serious ravages on fruit-trees, may be effectu-
ally exterminated by shaking them from the
trees every evening. In this way two pailsful
of beetles were collected on the first experi-
ment; the number caught regularly decreased
until the fifth evening, when only two beetles
were to be found. The best time, however,
for shaking trees on which the May-beetles are
lodged is in the morning, when the insects do
not attempt to fly. They are most easily col-
lected in a cloth spread under the trees to re-
ceive them when they fall, after which they
should be thrown into boiling water to kill
them, and may then be given as food to swine."
(Harris.)

In some parts of Massachusetts the beetle
called the Georgian leaf-eater takes the place
of the quercina. It is extremely common in
some places in May and June. Its colour is a
bay-brown. The upper side is entirely covered
with very short yellowish gray hairs, and mea-
sures seven-tenths of an inch, or more, in
length. These beetles, with some others of
the same genus, are commonly found in Ame-
rican gardens, nurseries, orchards, and fields,
where they are more or less injurious depre-
dators. They also devour the leaves of various
forest-trees, such as the elm, maple, oak, &.c.
They are all nocturnal insects, never appear-
ing, except by accident, in the day, during
which they remain under shelter of the foliage
of trees and shrubs, or concealed in the grass.
(Harris.)

Of the American diurnal or day-flying
beetles, which belong to the Melolonthians, one
is described by Professor Gemar, which he
proposes to call coeUbs. It resembles the vine-
chafer of Europe in its habits, and is found in
the months of June and July on the cultivated
and wild grape-vines, the leaves of which it
devours. During the same period these chaf-
ers may be seen in still greater numbers on
various kinds of sumach, which they often
completely despoil of their leaves. They are
verv variable in colour. The head and thorax
of the male are greenish black, margined with
dull ochre or tile-red, and thickly punctured; the
wing-covers are clay-yellow, with punctured
furrows. The males are sometimes entirely
black, and they commonly measure nearly, and
the females rather more than seven-tenths of an
inch in length. Should these beetles increase

BEETLE.

[ in numbers. Dr. Harris thinks they will be
I found as diflicult to check and extirpate as the
destructive vine-chafers of Europe.
' An account of the natural history and habits
of the Rose-hug or chafer, which belongs to the
family of day-fliers, will be found under the
head Rose-buo.

Very few of the beetle tribes which usually
subsist upon flowers are injurious to vegeta-
tion. Some of them are said to eat leaves, but
the greater number live on the pollen and the
honey of flowers, or upon the sap which oozes
from the wounds of plants. The flower-beetles
belong chiefly to a group called Cetonians.
They are easily distinguished from other bee-
tles by their lower jaws, which are generally
soft on the inside, and are often provided
with a flat brush of hairs that serves to collect
the pollen and juices on which they subsist.
Most of the bright-coloured kinds are day-
fliers ; those of dark and plain tints are gene-
rally night-fliers. Some of them are of im-
mense size, and have been styled the princes
of the beetle tribes; such are the Incas of South
America, and the Goliah beetle of Guinea, the
latter being more than four inches long, two
inches broad, and thick and heavy in propor-
tion. (Harris.)

A family of beetles called the Lucanians,
includes the insects called stag-beetles, horn-
bugs, and flying-bulls, vulgar names derived
from the great size and peculiar form of their
upper jaws, which are sometimes curved like
the horns of cattle, and sometimes branched
like the antlers of a stag. "These beetles,"
says Dr. Harris, " fly abroad during the night,
and frequently enter houses at that time, some-
what to the alarm of the occupants ; but they
are not venomous, and never attempt to bite
without provocation. They pass the day on
the trunks of trees, and live upon the sap, for
procuring which the brushes of their jaws and
lip seem to be designed. They are said also
occasionally to bite and seize caterpillars and
other soft-bodied insects, for the purpose of
sucking out their juices. They lay their eggs
in crevices of the bark of trees, especially near
the roots, where they may sometimes be seen
thus employed. The larvae hatched from these
eggs resemble the grubs of the Scarabaeians
in colour and form, but they are smoother, or
not so much wrinkled. The grubs of the large
kinds are said to be six; years in coming to
their growth, living all this time in the trunks
and roots of trees, boring into the solid wood,
and reducing it to a substance resembling
very coarse sawdust; and the injury thus
caused by them is frequently very consider-
able. When they have arrived at their full
size, they enclose themselves in egg-shaped
pods, composed of gnaw^ed particles of wood
and bark, stuck together and lined with a kind
of glue; within these pods they are trans-
formed to pupae, of a yellowish-white colour,
having the body and all the limbs of the future
beetle encased in a whitish film, which being
thrown off in due time, the insects appear in
the beetle form, burst the walls of their prison,
crawl through the passages the larvae had
gnawed, and come forth on the outside of the
trees.

p2 173

BEETLE.

BEETLE.

"TTie largest of these beetles in the New
England States, was first described by Lin-
naeus under the name of Lucanus capreolus,
signifying the young roe-buck ; but here it is
called the horn-bug. Its colour is a deep ma-
hogany-brown ; the surface is smooth and po-
lished; the upper jaws of the male are long,
curved like a sickle, and furnished internally
beyond the middle with a little tooth ; those of
the female are much shorter, and also toothed;
the head of the male is broad and smooth, that
of the other sex narrower and rough with
punctures. The body of this beetle measures
from one inch to an inch and a quarter, ex-
clusive of the jaws. The time of its appear-
ance is in July and the beginning of August.
The grubs live in the trunks and roots of va-
rious kinds of trees, but particularly in those
of old apple-trees, willows, and oaks.

" Several other and smaller kinds of stag-
beetles are found in New England, but their
habits are much the same as those of the more
common horn-bug."

Another great tribe of beetles is described
by naturalists under the name of serricorn, or
saw'homed beetles, because the tips of the
joints of their anlennoe usually project more
or less on the inside, somewhat like the teeth
of a saw. The beetles belonging to the family
of Buprestians have antennae of this kind. The
popular name for these in England is burn-
cow, a very inappropriate appellation for a
perfectly harmless insect. The French call
them richards, on account of the rich and bril-
liant colours wherewith many of them are
adorned. These beetles are frequently seen
en the trunks and limbs of trees, basking in
the sun. They walk slowly, and at the ap-
proach of danger, fold up their legs and anten-
na and fall to the ground. Their flight is swift,
and attended with a whizzing noise. They
keep concealed in the night, and are in motion
only during the day. {Harris.)

The larvae of these saw-horned beetles, are
wood-eaters or borers, and orchards and forest
trees are more or less subject to their attacks,
especially after trees have passed the prime of
life. The transformations of these insects
take place in the trunks and limbs of trees.
The larvae that are known have a close resem-
blance to each other; a general idea of them
can be formed from a description of that which
attacks the pig-nut hickory. These grubs are
found under the bark and in the solid wood of
trees and sometimes in great numbers. They
frequently rest with the body bent side-wise, so
that the head and tail approach each other.
They appear to pass several years in this lar-
vae state, before they cast off" the pupa-coat
and cut out through the bark in the form of a
beetle.

" Some of these beetles are known to eat
leaves and flowers, and of this nature is pro-
bably the food of all of them. The injury they
may thus commit is not very apparent, and can-
not bear any comparison with the extensive
rar^'ages of their larvae. The solid trunks
and limbs of sound and vigorous trees are
often bored through in various directions
by these insects, which, during a long-con-
tinued life, derive their only nourishment from
174

the woody fragments they devour. Pines and
lirs seem particularly subject to their attacks,
but other forest-trees do not escape, and even
fruit-trees are frequently injured by these
borers. The means to be used for destroying
them are similar to those employed against
other borers, and will be explained in a subse-
quent part of this essay. It may not be amiss,
however, here to remark, that wood-peckers are
much more successful in discovering the re-
treats of these borers, and in dragging out the
defenceless culprits from their burrows, than
the most skilful gardener or nurseryman.

" Until within a few years the Buprestians
were all included in three or four genera. A
great number of kinds have now become
known, probably six hundred or more."

The largest of these beetles known to Dr.
Harris, is called the Virginian Bupestris, or
saw-horn beetle. It is of an oblong shape,
brassy, or copper-coloured ; sometimes almost
black, with hardly any metallic reflections. On
each wing-cover are two small square im-
pressed spots. It measures eight-tenths of an
inch to one inch or more in length. This beetle
appears in Massachusetts towards the end of
May, and through the month of June, on pine
trees and on fences. In the larvae slate, it
bores into the trunks of the difi'erent kinds of
pines, and is often times very injurious to these
trees. (Harris.)

The wild-cherry tree (Prunus serotina) and
also the garden cherry and peach trees, sufl'er
severely from the attacks of borers, which are
transformed to beetles 'called Buprestis divari-
cata, from the wing-covers parting a little at the
tips. These beetles are copper-coloured, some-
times brassy above, and thickly covered with
little punctures. They measure from seven to
nine-tenths of an inch.

Other species of American wood-eaters or
borers are described by Dr. Harris, among
which are those attacking the hickory, oak,
and white pine. When trees are found to be
very much infested by borers, and are going
to decay in consequence of their ravages, it
will be better to cut them down and burn them
immediately, rather than to sufler them to stand
until the borers have completed their transfor-
mations and made their escape. (Harris.)

The family of Spring-beetles, or Elaters, are
closely related to the Buprestians. They derive
their name from the well known faculty of
throwing themselves up with a jerk when laid
on their backs, the legs being too short to ena-
ble them to turn over by their assistance.

" The larvae or grubs of the Elaters," says Dr.
Harris, "live upon wood and roots, and are often
very injurious to vegetation. Some are confined
to old or decaying trees, others devour the roots
of herbaceous plants. In England they are
called wire-worms from their slenderness and
uncommon hardness. They are not to be con-
founded with the American wire-worm, a spe-
cies of Julus, which is not a true insect, but be-
longs to the class Myriapodu, a name derived
from the great number of feet with which most
of the animals included in it are furnished ;
whereas the English wire-worm has only six
feet. The European wire-worm is said to live,
in its feeding or larva state, not less than five

r

BEETLES.

years; during the greater part of which time it is
supported by devouring the roots of wheat, rye,
oats, and grass, annually causing a large dimi-
nution of the produce, and sometimes destroy-
ing whole crops. It is said to be particularly
injurious in gardens recently converted from
pasture lands. We have several grubs allied
to this destructive insect, which are quite com-
mon in land newly broken up ; but fortunately,
as yet, their ravages are inconsiderable. We
may expect these to increase in proportion as
we disturb them and deprive them of their
usual articles of food, while we continue also
to persecute and destroy their natural enemies,
the birds, and may then be obliged to resort to
the ingenious method adopted by European far-
mers and gardeners for alluring and capturing
these grubs. This method consists in strewing
sliced potatoes or turnips in rows through the
garden or field ; women and boys are employed
to examine the slices every morning, and col-
lect the insects which readily come to feed on
the bait. Some of these destructive insects,
which I have found in the ground among the
roots of plants, were long, slender, worm-like
grubs, closely resembling the common meal-
worm ; they were nearly cylindrical, with a
hard and smooth skin, of a buff or brownish
yellow colour, the head and tail only being a
little darker ; each of the first three rings was
provided with a pair of short legs : the hind-
most ring was longer than the preceding one,
was pointed at the end, and had a little pit on
each side of the extremity ; beneath this part
there was a short retractile wart, or prop-leg,
serving to support the extremity of the body,
and prevent it from trailing on the ground.
Other grubs of Elaters differ from the forego-
ing in being proportionally broader, not cylin-
drical, but somewhat flattened, with a deep
notch at the extremity of the last ring, the
sides of which are beset with little teeth.
Such grubs are mostly wood-eaters, devouring
the woody parts of roots, or living under the
bark and in the trunks of old trees.

" After their last transformation, Elaters or
spring-beetles make their appearance upon
trees and fences, and some are found on
flowers. They creep slowly, and generally
fall to the ground on being touched. They fly
both by day and night. Their food, in the
beetle state, appears to be chiefly derived from
flowers ; but some devour the tender leaves of
plants."

The largest of the American springing-
beetles is of a black colour, covered with a
whitish powder, and having a largQoval velvet-
black spot, like an eye, on each side of the
middle, from which the insect derives its name
of Oculatus, or eyed. This large beetle mea-
sures from one inch and a quarter to one inch
and three quarters in length. It undergoes its
transformations in the trunks of trees, and Dr.
Harris has found many in old apple trees.
These larvce or worms are reddish yellow
grubs. One of them found in April fully grown,
measured no less than two inches and a half
in length. Soon after this grub was found, it
cast its skin and became a pupa, and in due
time the latter was transformed to a beetle.
{Harris.) '-}

BELLADONA.

I Among the night-shining Elaters is the cele-
1 brated Cucurio, or fire-beetle, of the West In-
i dies, from whence it is often brought alive to
this country as a curiosity. It resembles con-
I siderably the insect just described, being an
j inch or more in length. It gives out, even by
' day, a strong light from two transparent eye-
like spots on the thorax, and from the seg-
ments of its body beneath. It feeds upon
the sugar-cane, and its grub is said to be
very injurious to this plant, by devouring Its
roots.

Dr. Harris states that above sixty different
kinds of spring-beetles are now known to in-
habit Massachusetts.

The utility of a knowledge of the natural
history of insects in the practical arts of life,
was perhaps never more strikingly and tri-
umphantly displayed than by the great Lin-
naeus himself, who, while giving to natural
science its language and its laws, neglected
no opportunity to point out its economical ad-
vantages. On one occasion, this great natu-
ralist was consulted by the King of Sweden,
upon the cause of the decay and destruction
of the ship-timber in the royal dock-yards, and,
having traced it to the depredations of insects,
and ascertained the history of the depredators,
by directing the timber to be sunk under water
during the season when these insects made
their appearance in the winged state, and were
busied in laying their eggs, he effectually se-
cured it from future attacks. The name of
these insects is Lymexyhn navale, or the naval
timber-destroyer, which Dr. Harris thinks
cannot be far removed from the tribe of spring-
beetles. The odd-looking, long, and slender
grubs of the Lymexylon, inhabit oaks, and
make long cylindrical burrows in the solid
wood. They are also found in some other
kinds of trees. Dr. Harris considers insects
of this family rather rare in New England, and
describes only two kinds of American timber-
borers. (See his Treatise.)

BEETLE. A large wooden instrument in
the form of a mallet, with one, two, or three
handles for as many persons, used in driving
piles, wedges, hedge-stakes, and in splitting
wood, &c.

BEETLE, CLODDING. A sort of imple-
ment made use of in reducing the clods of
tillage-lands, in clayey and other stiff tena-
cious soils, to a fine powdery condition. This
business may be much sooner performed, and
at less expense, by means of rollers construct-
ed for the purpose. (See Rollku.)

BEEVES. The plural of beef. A general
name employed by farmers for oxen or black
cattle.

BEGGAR'S LICE (Echinaspemum Virgini-
cum). An obnoxious weed found along the
borders of woods, bearing a small bluish-white
flower, frequent in pastures and along fence-
rows, the bur-like fruit or nuts of which are
furnished with hooked prickles, and often form
a matting in the fleeces of sheep, and the manes
and tails of horses. {Flor. Cestrica.)

BELLADONNA {Atropa belladonna). In bo-
tany, the Deadly Nightshade. It is an acro-
narcotic poison. This name, helladtmna (sig-
nifying Handsome Lady), according to Ray,

176

BELL-WETHER.

BENT-GRASS.

was given to it by the Italians, because the
Italian ladies make a cosmetic of the juice.

The belladonna, although perennial in re-
ference to the root, is annual in its herbage,
which is of quick growth, branching, and
shrub-like. The leaves are lateral, generally
two together, ovate, acute, entire, smooth, and
clammy. The flowers are solitary, stalked,
rising in the axillae of the leaves, bell-shaped,
and of a lurid purple colour. The fruit is a
shining, black, sweetish berry, seated in the
permanent calyx, about the size of a cherry.
The plant is poisonous, having a peculiar al-
kali, named atropia, which, in combination with
malic acid, is found in every part of the plant.
Its influence is chiefly exerted on the brain and
nervous system, causing delirium, movements
of the body resembling intoxication, confused
speech, uttered with pain, and other symptoms
of narcotic poisoning. Buchanan, the Scotish
historian, informs us, that the Scots under
Macbeth intoxicated the Danes under Sweno
by mixing their wine with the juice of the ber-
ries of belladonna during a truce, which en-
abled Macbeth readily to overcome them.
Shakspeare alludes to it in the interview be-
tween Macbeth and the witches, when the for-
mer says —

Or have we drank
Of the insane root which takes the reason prisoner 1
Macbeth, Act 1.

The beauty of the berries frequently entices
children to eat them; and, although not often
fatal, they cause very distressing effects to the
little sufferers. In such cases, the stomach
should be quickly emptied by an emetic, and
afterwards vegetable acids and decoction of
nut-galls should be given. Belladonna is an
excellent medicine; but it should not be en-
trusted to the ignorant.

BELL-WETHER. A sheep which leads the
flock, with a bell on his neck.

BELT. To belt, in some districts, signifies
to shear the buttocks and tails of sheep.

BELT. In planting, a strip or portion of
land planted with trees for the purpose of or-
nament, or warmth and shelter. Much advan-
tage may be derived in this way in improving
the climate of the district. (See Plaxtatiox.)

BEJVE PLANT {Sesamum orientale). The
bene or sesamum has been introduced into Ja-
maica and other West India islands, where it
is quite extensively cultivated in many places.
It is commonly called Fan^/o or oil-plant, from
the oil which it yields to pressure. The seeds
are frequently used in broths, and by some in-
troduced into cakes. Many of the Oriental na- j
tions look upon the seed as a hearty and
wholesome food, and express an oil from them, i
not unlike, or inferior to, the oil of almonds. I
Attempts have even been made to manufacture i
oil from it in England, but with little success. |

Sesamum orientale, or bene, is frequently '
cultivated in the eastern parts of the Mediter- |
ranean as a garden vegetable. The seeds have |
been introduced into the Carolinas, and other I
S^thern States, by the African negroes. The
seeds are used by the blacks for food ; they j
parch them over the fire, then mix them
with water, and then stew them up with other
■ ngredients. A kind of pudding is also made
176

of them, similar to such as are made of rice or
millet. The oil pressed from the seeds will
keep many years without acquiring any rancid
taste, but in two years becomes quite mild, so
that the warm taste of the oil when first drawn
is worn off, and it can be used for salads and
all the ordinary purposes of sweet oil. In Ja-
pan, China, and Cochin-China, where they have
no butler, they use the oil for frying fish, and
preparing other dishes ; as a varnish, and for
some medicinal purposes. Nine pounds of
seed are said to yield upwards of two pounds
of fine oil.

The sesamum is an annual plant. It grows
like cotton, from three to six feet high, bearing
numerous square pods about an inch and a
half long, filled with seeds about the size of
flaxseeds. In its growth it requires no sticks,
or other support. The product of seed is
about twelve or fifteen bushels per acre, and
the proportion of oil yielded to pressure has
been estimated as equal to one-half the mea-
sure of the seed, and some estimate the propor-
tion as far greater. The oil may be extracted
by bruising the seed and immersing them in
hot water, when the oil rises on the surface
and may be skimmed off. But the usual mode
of extraction is similar to that practised in the
expression of linseed oil. In the Southern
States many planters cultivate the bene
largely, sowing in drills about four feet apart,
in the month of April, and gathering the crop
of seed in September. The pods ripen suc-
cessively, and not all at one time. Bene has
been raised in Virginia, Maryland, and the
lower part of the peninsula between the Dela-
ware and Chesapeake Bays, just as far north
as cotton admits of cultivation. In higher lati-
tudes, even in the vicinity of Philadelphia, the
plant will grow, but seldom ripens its seed.
The leaves of the plant are in great repute as
a remedy in dysentery, and especially the
cholera infantum or summer complaint of
children. The freshly gathered leaves are
merely dipped into a tumbler of cold water,
which immediately becomes ropy, without
losing its transparency or acquiring any un-
pleasant taste, on which account it is readily
and even gratefully received by the little suf-
ferers, who are allowed to sip it in moderate
quantities instead of other drinks. Sesamum
is indeed a valuable plant, and should be cul-
tivated wherever it will grow, for its medicinal
and domestic uses, if not for its oil ; which
last, however, must, under proper management,
prove a profitable product of iTie soil.

BENT, or STARR. Names applied in Eng-
land to the common reed (the Arundo prag-
mites of Dr. Darlington, and the A. arenaria
of some other botanists). Sinclair calls the
upright sea lyme grass, starr, or bent. (See
Plate 7, 1.) One of the chief uses this coarse
grass is made to subserve in the United States,
as well as in European countries, is to protect
banks and sea-dykes exposed to the wash-
ings of waves and currents. See Aruxdo
Akbxaria.

BENT-GRASS. A species of Agrostis very
common in pasture grounds, the bent or creep-
ing stems of which are very difficult to eradi-
cate. (See AuBosTis.)

BENTS.

BIND-WEED.

BENTS. The withered stalks of grass
standing in a pasture after the seeds have
dropped. It also sometimes signifies a species
of rush {Juncus squarrogua), which grows on
moorland hills.

BERBEREN. A yellow bitter principle
contained in the alcoholic extract of the root
of the barberry tree.

BERBERRY {Berheris). See Baiiberrt.

BERE (Goth, bar; Sax. bene). The com-
mon name for a species of barley, which is
also frequently termed big, bear, and square
barley. Thus, in Huloet, an old writer, we
find " beer-corn, barley-bygge, or moncorne."

BERGAMOT (Fr. bergamotte). A species
of citron, the fruit of the Citrus bergamta (Ris-
so). This tree is cultivated in the south of
Europe. It is a moderate-sized tree with ob-
long, acute, or obtuse leaves, with a pale un-
derside, and supported on winged footstalks.
The flowers are small and white ; the fruit is
pyriform, of a pale yellow colour, and the rind
studded with oil vesicles ; the pulp is slightly
acidulous. The oil, which is procured from
the rind, is imported from the south of Europe,
under the name of oi7 or essence of bergamot. It
is of a pale greenish colour, lighter than water,
and used merely as an agreeable perfume. A
species of mint, having a highly agreeable
odour (Mentha odorata, Smith), is popularly
called bergamot in the United States.

BERRY (liaccu). A succulent pulpy fruit,
which contains one or more seeds, or granules,
imbedded in the juice.

BETHLEHEM, STAR OF {Ormthngalum).
Smith points out four varieties of this flower :
the yellow star of Bethlehem, O. luteum ,- the
common star of Bethlehem, 0. umbellatum,
(commonly called ten o'clock) ; the tall star of
Bethlehem, O. pyrenaicum .- and the drooping
star of Bethlehem, 0. nutans. The first is met
with sometimes, but not very frequently, in
grove pastures. The second is found in mea-
dows, pastures, and groves in various parts of
England. The last is found mostly in fields
and orchards, probably naturalized. All are
elegant spring flowers. The last is common
in country gardens, whence it may have
escaped into the fields. Yet the plant may as
well be a native of England as of Denmark,
Austria, or other parts of Europe and America,
where it is found in similar situations. One
of the species, commonly called ten o'clock
(Ornithogalum umbellatum), Dr. Darlington
says, is a foreigner that has escaped from gar-
dens, and has become a nuisance on many
farms in the Middle States. Although it rarely
perfects its seed, it propagates itself with great
rapidity by means of lateral bulbs. These
bulbs are extremely difficult to eradicate. (Flor.
Cestrica.) An American species of the star of
Bethlehem ( 0. vtrens) was found by Lindley
on the Delaware Bay. The sea-squill, so ex-
tensively used in medicine, belongs to this
bulbous-rooted family of plants. (Smith's Eng.
Flora, vol. ii. p. 141 — 145.)

BEVER (Ital. bevere.- old French, beivre).
To drink: a word now almost obsolete, but
from which we derive beverage. The provin-
cial term amongst labourers for the meal be-
tween dinner and tea. |
23

BIENNIAL (Lat. biennis). Any thing that
continues or endures two years. This term is
usually applied to plants which grow one year
and flower the next, after which they perish.
They only differ from annuals in requiring a
longer period to fruit in. Most biennials, if
sown early in the spring, will flower in the au-
tumn and then perish, thus actually becoming
annuals. (Brande's Diet, of Science,)

BIG. A tenn sometimes applied in Eng-
land to here or square barley.

BILBERRY, or BLEABERRY. See Whor-
tleberry.

BILL {Bille; Sax. tibile, a two-edged axe).
A kind of hatchet with a hooked point, and a
handle shorter or longer, according to the par-
ticular uses for which it is intended. It is
mostly employed by husbandmen for cutting
hedges and felling underwood; and Johnson
tells us it takes its name from its resemblance,
in form, to the beak of a bird of prey.

BILLET (Fr. bilot). A small log of wood
for the chimney.

BIN (Sax. binne). A small box or other con-
trivance in which grain of any kind is kept.
It is sometimes written binn. Bin also signi-
fies a sort of crib for containing straw or other
bulky fodder in farm-yards.

BIN, CORN-. A sort of convenient box or
chest fixed in the stable for the purpose of con-
taining grain or other provender for horses.
We have also hop-bins, wine-bins, &c.

BIND-WEED (Lat. convolvulus). A trouble-
some genus of weeds, of which there are in Eng-
land three species, the smaller, the great, and the
sea bind-weed. The climbing buckwheat (Poli/-
gonum convolvulus) is also known by the name
of black bind-weed. The first or smaller bind-
weed (C urvensis), frequently called gravel
bind-weed, is very common in hedges, fields,
and gardens, and upon dry banks and gravelly
ground in most districts, and is an almost un-
conquerable weed. Its presence is generally a
sign of gravel lying near the surface. Its
branching, creeping roots penetrate to a great
depth in the soil. The flowers are fragrant like
the heliotrope, but fainter, very beautiful, of
every shade of pink, with paler or yellowish
plaits, and stains of crimson in the lower part;
sometimes they are nearly white. They close
before rain. The second kind, or great bind-weed
( C. sepium), is also an equally troublesome and
injurious weed to the husbandman. It grows
luxuriantly in moist hedges, osier holts, and
thickets. In an open, clear spot of ground, when
the plants are kept constantly hoed down for
three or four months, it may sometimes be effect-
ually destroyed ; as when the stalks are broken
or cut, a milky juice exudes, by which the roots
are exhausted and decay. Every portion of
the root will grow. The roots of this species
are long, creeping extensively, and rather
fleshy; the stems twining, several feet long,
leafy, smooth, and slightly branched. Flowers
solitary, large, purely white for the most part,
occasionally of a uniform flesh or rose colour.
It is a perennial, flowering in July and August
in England, and a month earlier in Pennsylva-
nia, where it is occasionally found. It is so
injurious to crops that farmers should try all
means to get rid of it. The black bind-weed,

177

BIKCH.

BIRCH.

(Plate 10, d), called also climbing buck-wheat,
and bear-bind, is an annual, flowering in June
and September. Its root is small and tapering,
and the stem twines from left to right, round
every thing in its way to the height of five or
six feet. The flowers arc drooping, greenish
white, or reddish.

Several plants of the convolvulus family
are highly valuable for the food and medicines
they furnish. That most active purgative
scammony is obtained from C. scammonia, and
jalap from a species of Jpomoea. Occasionally
the purgative principle is so much diffused
among the foecula of the root, as to be almost
inappreciable, as is the case in the C. batatas,
or sweet potato of America. The root of the
great bind-weed is a strong purgative, fresh
gathered and boiled in a little warm liquid,
being near akin to the acrid and violent scam-
mony. The humbler classes boil it in beer or
ale, and find it a never-failing remedy. Among
delicate constitutions it should be taken with
caution, as its effects are very powerful. In
Northamptonshire it grows most abundantly.
A decoction of the roots also causes perspira-
tion.

BIRCH (Sax. birc ; Lat. bettila). The Eng-
lish word birch seems, however, to be derived
from the German birke, or the Dutch berk. All
the European languages are similar in the pro-
nunciation of the name of this tree. A very
hardy, ornamental, and, in some respects, a
useful tree, inhabiting the north of Europe,
Asia, and America. There are many species
of birch, but that best known, and most gene-
rally cultivated in this country, is the common
birch (Betula alba). The common birch is
valuable for its capability of resisting extremes
of both heat and cold: its timber is chiefly
employed for fire-wood. Its bark is extremely
durable : it consists of an accumulation often or
twelve skins, which are white and thin like pa-
per, the use of which it supplied to the ancients;
and as a proof of its imperishable nature, we
are told that the books which Numa composed,
about 700 years before Christ, which were
written on the bark of the birch tree, were
found in a perfect state of preservation in the
tomb of that great king, where they had re-
mained 400 years. Although this species is
not much valued for its timber, it is extremely
useful for many other purposes. Russia skins
are said to be tanned witb its bark, frojn which
the peculiar odour of sucb leather is derived;
and it is said to be useful in dyeing wool yel-
low, and fixing fugacious colours- The High-
landers weave it into ropes for tbeir well-
buckets. The poor people of Sweden were
formerly accustomed to grind the bark to
mingle with their bread corn- And in Den-
mark, Christopher III. received the unjust stu-
name of Berka Kanung (king of bark), because
in his reign there was such a scarcity, that
the peasants were obliged to mix the bark of
this tree with their flour. Cordage is obtained
f3pm it.by the Laplanders, .w^io also prepare a
•rrll dye from it; the young shoots' serve /to
nourish their cattle, and the leav<;s are said to
afford good fodder for hqrses, kine, sheep, and
• goats. The vernal sap of these trees is well
^ known to have a saccharin© quality, and from
178

it the forest housewife makes an agreeable and
wholesome wine. During the siege of Ham-
burgh, in 1814, by the Russians, almost all the
birch trees of the neighbourhood were de-
stroyed by the Bashkirs and other barbarian
soldiers in the Russian service, by being tap-
ped for their juice. Vinegar is obtained from
the fermented sap. The inhabitants of Fin-
land use the leaves for tea ; and both in Lap-
land and Greenland, strips of the young and
tender bark are used for food. From the tim-
ber are manufactured gates and rails, packing-
cases, hoops, yokes for cattle, turners' ware,
such as bowls, wooden spoons, wooden shoes
and clogs, and other articles in which light-
ness without much durability is sufficient.
Baskets, hurdles, and brooms are often made
of part of its shoots. The broom-makers are
constant customers for birch in all places in the
vicinity of London, or where it is near water-
carriage ; but in most other parts the hoop-
benders are the purchasers. The larger trees
are often bought by the turners. In some of
the northern parts of Europe, the wood of this
tree is likewise greatly used for making of
carriages and wheels, being hard and of long
duration. The most general and the most
profitable use to which birch at present can be
turned is, unquestionably, the manufacture of
small casks, as herring barrels, butter tubs,
&c. For the latter purpose it is admirably
suited, because it is stout, clean, and easily
wrought, and communicates no particular taste
or smell to the butter. The timber of the birch
was more used and more valued in former
times. It was not so strong as the ash for har-
rows and other farming implements, but it was
not so ready to split, and for roofing cottages
it is still held in estimation. In Russia, Po-
land, and other northern countries, the twigs
of this tree cover the dwellings of the peasant,
instead of tile or thatch. It afforded our an-
cestors arrows, bolts, and shafts, for their war
implements. The whole tree is adapted for
burning into charcoal of the best quality, and
suited for the manufacture of gunpowder.

The birch will grow in any soil, but best m
shady places. It may, therefore, in some situa-
tions, be turned to good account, since it will
grow to advantage upon land where other tim-
ber will not thrive. Miller says, it loves a dry
barren soil, where scarcely any thing else will
grow ; and will thrive on any sort of land, dry
or wet, gravelly^ sandy, rocky, or boggy, and
those barren, heathy lands which will scarcely
bear grass. It is said to attain sometimes the
height of seventy feet, with a diameter of two
feet ; in England it does not acquire such con-
siderable diroensious. The bifch is propagated
by seeds, which are easily ta:k«n from bearing
trees., by cutting the branches i^ August, before
they are (quite ripe- The seed may be thrashed
out like corn, as sooa as the braji^hes dry a
little ; they should be then kept in dry cool
sand until they are sown, either in th«; autumn
or sprip^ ^i^^grefit deal of nicety an4 atten-
tion'is'j required in rearing the birch from the
seed ;. they mii^t be sewn in the shade, and
covered very lightly w'it\i sml made as fine as
possible, and wateire^ .according to the wetness
or dryness of the sea^pn. The planting out

;JtJ

BIRCH. '^#->^<i^i;^

this tree is performed in the same manner
as in the ash. If planted for underwood, it
should be felled before March to prevent its
bleeding. The tree bears removing with
.safety, after it has attained the height of six
or seven feet ; and is ready to plash as hedges
in four years after planting. When old they
are transplanted with considerable difficulty.

The other European birches are the weep-
ing birch (Betula pendula), which is very com-
mon in different parts of Europe, along with
the last, in the properties of which it appears
to participate, and with which it is often im-
properly confounded. It differs from the com-
mon birch not only in its weeping habit, but
also in its young shoots being quite smooth,
bright chestnut brown when ripe, and then
covered with little white warts. The Betula
pontica of the nurseries is a slight variety, of
a less drooping habit.

The third species is the downy birch (Be-
tula pubescens), a smaller species than the first,
found in the bogs of Germany ; a variety of it
is called Betula urticifolia in gardens.

The fourth and last European species is the
dwarf birch (Bdula nana), a small bush found
in Lapland and the mountainous parts of other
northern countries. To the people of the south
this plant has no value, but to the Laplanders
it affords a large part of their fuel, and its
winged fruits are reported to be the favourite
food of the ptarmigan. The Asiatic species
are the Indian paper birch (B. Blicjputtra) \
tapering-leaved birch {B. acuminata) ; shining
birch (B. nltida) ; cylindrical spiked birch (B.
cylindrostachya). The principal American
birches are, L The poplar-leaved or white
American birch {B. populifolia). It is very
like the European B. pendula. 2. The red
birch (B. nigra). In this country it is gene-
rally called B. angulata, and by some B. rubra.
The Messrs. Loddiges, of Hackney, were the
first importers of this fine but little known
species. 3. The yellow birch • (B. excelaa).
4. The paper or canoe birch (fl. papi/raeea),
which is employed by the North American
Indians for a variety of useful purposes. 5.
The soft black or cherry birch (B. lenta).
None of the American birches produce timber
so valuable as this, whence one of its Ame-
rican names is mountain mahogany. Its wood
is hard, close-grained, and of a reddish brown ;
it is imported into England in considerable
quantities, under the name of American birch,
for forming the sides of dining tables, and for
similar purposes. It is rarely seen in Eng-
land, although it is perhajjs one of the best
suited to that climate. AH the species of
birches, except the common and weeping, are
multiplied by layers in the usual way.

The juice of the birch tree, produced from
punctures in the spring of the year, is diuretic.
The wine made from this sap is said to be
aperitive, and detersive. Old medical writers
tell us that the wood was esteemed the best to
burn in times of pestilence and contagious
distempers ; but, like many old medical saws,
that opinion is of no value. (Phillips's Si/l.
Flor. vol. i. p. 123 ; Pen. Syc. vol. iv. p. 348 ;
Baxter's Agr. Lib.)

BIRDS. A few of the feathered tribes may

BIRD-CHERRY.

j be regarded as mischievous depredators upo'fi
j the farmer and gardener, eating his fruit, as the
robin ; pulling up the corn when just sprouted,
or eating it from the ear when nearly matured,
as is so often done by the crow, the black-bird
or grakle. But if account be made of all the
services derived from birds in destroying those
insects which in their larva or worm state, or
their more perfect winged state, commit such
serious depredations upon orchards and fields,
it will be found that we owe the feathered fa-
mily a very large balance. Upon this subject
we must refer for further illustration to the
articles Beetle, Borers, Ai'his, and others
relating to destructive insects. That distin-
guished naturalist, Mr. Nuttall, has the follow- ^
ing beautiful tribute to birds in his interesting
Manual of the Omitholngy of the United States.

" In whatever way we view the feathered
tribes which surround us, we shall find much
both to amuse and instruct. We hearken
to their songs with renewed delight, as the
harbingers and associates of the season they
accompany. Their return, after a long ab-
sence, is hailed with gratitude to the Author
of all existence; and the cheerless solitude of
inanimate nature is, by their presence, attuned
to life and harmony. Nor do they alone ad-
minister to the amusements and luxury of life ;
faithful aids as well as messengers of the sea-
sons, they associate round our tenements, and
defend the various productions of the earth,
on which we rely for subsistence from the de-
structive depredations of myriads of insects,
which, but for timely riddance by unnumbered
birds would be followed by a general failure
and famine. Public economy and utility, then,
no less than humanity plead for the protection
of the feathered race, and the wanton destruc-
tion of birds, so useful, beautiful, and amusing,
if not treated as such by law, ought to be con-
sidered as a crime by every moral, feeling, and
reflecting mind."

BIRD-BOLT. A short arrow, having a ball
of wood at the end of it, and sometimes an
iron point, formerly used for shooting birds.

BIRD-CHERRY (Prunus padus). The ber-
ries are eagerly sought after by birds, and as
the leaf and fruit resemble that of the cherry
tree, hence the name of bird-cherry. In Scot-
land it is called hogberry. This aboriginal of
our English woods possesses beauties that
should oftener secure it a situation in the
shrubbery, and more frequently a place in or-
namental hedge-rows. The bird-cherry rises
from ten to fifteen feet in height, spreading to
a considerable distance its branches, which
are covered with a purplish bark. It flowers
in April and May, and the small black fruit,
which hangs in bunches, ripen in August.
Although the fruit is austere, and bitter to the
taste, it gives an agreeable flavour to brandy,
and many persons add it, for the same reason,
to their made wines. Birds soon devour the
fruit, which is nauseous and probably danger-
ous, though perhaps, like that of the cherry
laurel, not of so deadly a quality as the essen-
tial oil, or distilled water of the leaves, which
is highly dangerous from containing much
Prussic acid. The wood is hard and close-
grained, and is used for whip and knife handles.

179

BIRD'S-EYE.

BIRD'S-FOOT TREFOIL.

Linnaeus says, that kine, sheep, goats, and
swine eat the leaves, but that horses refuse
them. The scent of the leaves, when bruised,
resembles rue. The variety with red fruit,
commonly called the Cornish cherry, flowers
two" or three weeks earlier, and is therefore
not so desirable for the shrubbery. The bird-
cherry may be propagated by layers, which
should be performed in autumn, but the hand-
somest trees are raised from seed, which may
be sown at the same season. A wet soil is not
congenial to this tree. ^Phillips's Syl. Flor.
vol. i. p. 134; Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p.
354.)

BIRD'S EYE {Veronica chamaedrys). The
Germander Speedwell, or wild germander. A
troublesome weed in fields. It is found very
commonly in groves, meadows, pastures, and
hedges. It is a perennial, flowering in May
and June. Herbage light green. Flowers
numerous, transient, but very beautiful, bright
blue with dark streaks and a white centre ;
their outside pale and flesh coloured. The
flowers expand in fine weather only. Some
take this for the German "forget-me-not." It
vies in beauty with the true one, Myosotis pa-
lustris. {Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. i. p.' 23.) See

S P E E T) l?r E L Ii •

BIRD'S FOOT, COMMON {Omithopus per-
pusillus). A weed found most generally in
sandy or gravelly pastures. Root fibrous, an-
nual, though it is sometimes propagated by
subterraneous lateral knobs in the manner of
a potato, in which case the seeds are abortive.
The stems, often numerous, are procumbent,
from three to ten or twelve inches long.
Leaves alternate, of from five to ten or twelve
pair, of small uniform elliptical leaflets.
Flowers three or foifr in each little head or
tuft.

The species of bird's foot are curious on
account of their jointed pods, but not worth
culture as plants of ornament. 0. sativus is,
however, a most valuable agricultural plant.

BIRD'S-FOOT TREFOIL, or CLOVER
{Lotus). The common name of a genus of
plants that flourishes in a singular manner in the
most exposed and dry situations. On bowling-
greens and mown lawns it forms a fine green
close herbage, even in hot seasons ; and in
meadow and pasture grounds it is frequently
abundant. Its very strong deep tap root is the
cau^e of its resisting drought. Smith describes
four species : — 1. Common bird's-foot trefoil
(L. corniculatus), a perennial, flowering in the
second week of June, and ripening the seed
about the end of July, and successively to the
end of autumn ; common in open grassy pas-
tures. [PI. 9, g.] Some botanists have con-
sidered the following species (L. major) to be
a variety of the camiculatus, but the difference
between them is obvious at first sight; and
this diflerence remains permanent when the
plant is raised from seed, and cultivated on
diflferent soils. What renders a specific dis-
tinction here of most importance to the farmer,
iscAhe diflerence which exists between them in
an agricultural point of view. Heads de-
pressed, of few flowers, root branching, some-
wiiat woody ; the fibres beset with small gra-
nvijations ; stems several, spreading on the
18Q

ground in every direction, varying in length
from three to ten inches, simple or branched
Flower stalks erect or recumbent, five times
as long as the leaves, each bearing from two
to five bright yellow flowers, dark green when
dried, and they change to orange when verging
towards decay. This species is recommended
for cultivation, though under the erroneous
names of milk-vetch and Astragalus glycyphyl-
las, by the late Dr. Anderson, in his Agricultural
Essays, as being excellent for fodder as well as
for hay. Mr. Curtis and Mr. Wood also re-
commended it. Linnaeus says that cows,
goats, and horses eat it ; and that sheep and
swine are not fond of it. With regard to
sheep (says the late Mr. G. Sinclair, Hurt.
Gram. Wob. p. 310), as far as my observations
have extended, they eat it in common with the
herbage with which it is usually combined ;
the flowers, it is true, appeared always un-
touched, and in dry pastures little of the plant
is seen or presented to the cattle, except the
flowers, on account of its diminutive growth
in such situations. This, however, is nearly
the case with white or Dutch clover ; sheep
seldom touch the flowers while any foliage is
to be iound. Mr. Woodward informs us that
it makes extremely good hay in moist mea-
dows, where it grows to a greater height than
the trefoils, and seems to be of a quality equal,
if not superior, to most of them. Professor
Martyn observes, that, in common with several
other leguminous plants, it gives a substance
to hay, and perhaps renders it more palatable
and wholesome to cattle. The clovers contain
more bitter extractive and saline matter than
the proper natural grasses, and the bird's foot
trefoils contain more of these vegetable prin-
ciples than the clovers. In pastures and mea-
dows, therefore, where the clovers happen to
be in small quantities, a portion of the trefoil
{L. corniculatus) would doubtless be of advan-
tage ; but it appears to contain too much of
the bitter extractive and saline matters to be
cultivated by itself, or without a large inter-
mixture of other plants. It does not spring
early in the season, but continues to vegetate
late in the autumn. In irrigated meadows,
where the produce is generally more succulent
than in dry pastures, this plant cannot with
safety be recommended, at least in any con-
siderable quantity. It is more partial to dry
soils than the next species {L. mnjor) ; it at-
tains to a considerable height when growing
among shrubs, and seems to lose its prostrate
or trailing habit of growth entirely in such
situations. 2. The greater bird's-foot trefoil
(L. mnjor) flourishes in wet bushy places, osier
holts and hedges ; very difl>rent from the fore-
going species in general habit, and now techni-
cally distinguished by several clear and suffi-
cient characters. The stems are from one to
two or three feet high, upright, clothed more
or less with long loosely-spreading hairs.
Leaves fringed with similar hairs ; flowers
from six to twelve in each head, of a duller
orange than the former. The weight of green
food or hay is triple that of the foregoing spe-
cies, and its nutritive powers are very little in-
ferior, being only as 9 to 8. These two species
of bird's-foot trefoil may be compared to each

BIRD'S-FOOT TREFOIL.

BISCUIT.

r with respect to habits in the same man-
ner as the white clover and perennial red
clover; and were the latter unknown, there
appear to be no plants of the leguminous order,
'that, in point of habits, would so well supply
eir place as the common and greater bird's-
ot trefoil. They are, however, greatly in-
erior to the clovers. The white clover is
superior to the common bird's-foot trefoil in
the quantity of nutritive matter it affords, in
the proportion of 5 to 4. It is much less pro-
ductive of herbage, and is much more difficult
•of cultivation, the seed being afforded in much
smaller quantities. The produce of the greater
bird's-foot trefoil is superior to that of the
perennial red clover on tenacious or moist
soils, and on drier and on richer soils of the
first quality ; but the produce is inferior in the
proportion of nutritive matter it contains as 5
to 4. The nutritive matter is extremely bitter
to the taste. It does not appear to be eaten by
any cattle when in a green state, but when
made into hay, sheep, oxen, and deer, all eat it
without reluctance, and rather with desire. It
does not seem to perfect so much seed as the
former species, but this is abundantly remedied
in its propagation by the creeping or stoloni-
ferous roots which it spreads out in all direc-
tions. In moist clayey soils it would doubtless
be a most profitable substitute for red clover;
but the excess of bitter extractive and saline
matters it contains seems to forbid its adop-
tion without a considerable admixture of other
plants. It flowers about the third week of
June, and the seed is ripe about the end of the
following month. The following analysis will
show the comparative value of the two spe-
cies : —

latus eomieulattis
— major

Gran Prod.
per»cr«.

Dry Prod.
per.crtt

Nuirimcat
per icrc

io,'ao9 0 0

91,780 0 0

lb«.
3,190 0 0
8,149 8 0

358 4 0
680 10 0

3. Spreading bird's-foot trefoil (L.decumbens)
is, like the two preceding species, a perennial,
flowering in England in July. It is found in fields
and meadows. The flower-stalks are four or
five times the length of the leaves, smooth,
stout, and firm, each bearing an umbel of from
three to six bright yellow flowers. 4. Slender
bird's-foot trefoil (L. angustissimus) is an an-
nual flowering in May and June, found in
meadows towards the sea on the south and
western coasts of England. It is smaller, in
general, than any of the foregoing species. A
species of trifolium (T. ornithopodioides) also
bears the name of bird's-foot trefoil ; but Sir
J. Smith very justly observes (Engl. Flor. vol.
iii. p. 298), it can scarcely, without violence,
be retained in the genus TrifuUum ,- yet no
one has thought fit to make it a distinct one,
however plausible might be the reasons for
such a measure. It is an annual plant flower-
ing in June and July, found in barren, gravelly,
grassy pastures; root fibrous, stems several,
spreading flat on the ground, flowers two or
three, long, pale, reddish. {Smith's Eng. Flor.
vol. iii. pp. 298, 312; Sijiclair's Hori. Gram.
Wob.)

Two species of lotus, not referred to in the
preceding account, are a good deal cultivated

' in France, on light soils. These are the vil-
lous (L. villosus) and the cultivated lotus (Lotier
cultive, or Ltttus tetragonolobus, PI. 9, h). The
last is an annual sown in gardens.

BIRDLIME. This glutinous vegetable pro-
duct is procured either by boiling misletoe ber-
ries in water until they break, pounding them
\ in a mortar, and washing away the husky re-
I fuse with other portions of water ; or, which is
! the chief mode in which it is made (chiefly in
\ Scotland) for the purposes of bird-catching, &c.,
from the middle bark of the holly. The bark
' is stripped in June or Jul}', and boiled for six
or eight hours in water, until it becomes ten-
der ; the water is then separated from it, and it
is left to ferment for two or three weeks, until
it becomes a mucilage, which is pounded in a
mortar into a mass, and then thoroughly rubbed
by the hands in running water till all the
branny matters and other impurities are
washed away; the birdlime is then sufi'ered to
remain fermenting by itself in an earthen ves-
sel for some weeks. (The bird-catchers, when
they make their own, place the vessel in a
dunghill.) The bark of the wayfaring tree is
sometimes employed. The fragrant gum which
exudes from the Styrax, or American Sweet
Gum, a large tree, growing in the Middle and
Southern States, also makes a good birdlime,
being extremely tenacious. {Gray's Supple-
mmt, p. 226; Nich. Journ. b. xiii. p. 145; Thorn'
son, vol. iv. p. 119.)

BIRD'S NEST, YELLOW {Monotropa hypo-
pitys). A weed occasionally met with in poor
and gravelly soils. It is also found sometimes
about the roots of beeches and firs, in woods,
frequent in all the midland counties. Root
fibrous, much branched, and somewhat creep-
ing, growing among dead leaves, or in half de-
cayed vegetable mould. Stem solitary, five or
six inches high, flowers in a drooping cluster.
{Smith's Engl Flfir. vol. ii. p. 249.)

The species of this plant found in the Middle
Stales, are, that called the Indian Pipe (A/, uni-
Jlora), and the woolly monotropa, Pine-sap, or
False Beach-drops. Both these singular
plants are called parasitic. (See Flor. Centric.)
BIRD PEPPER. A species of small capsi-
cum, which affords the best Cayenne pepper.
See Capbicux.

BISCUIT (Lat. bis, twice; Fr. cuH, baked;
Ital. bisatto). A kind of hard dry bread cake.
Biscuits are more easily kept than other kinds
of bread, and as they contain no ferment, they
are better fitted than loaf bread for persons of
weak stomachs, and for the pap of infants, who
are under the misfortune of being brought up
by hand.

The best biscuits and the most wholesome,
are those prepared for the use of the navy.
They are of two kinds, captains' and seamen's
j biscuit. The latter are composed of wheaten
flour, from which the bran only has been taken ;
consequently they are more nutritive than the
finer sort. In the government bake-houses at
Weevil and Deptford, the biscuits are prefer^
ble to those baked by ordinary bakers, owii™||
to the extent of the operations, and the puri^P*
of the wheat-meal: 102 lbs. of perfectly dry-
biscuits are procured from 1 12 lbs. of meal.
BISHOPING. A cant term made use of
Q 181

BISON.

BISON.

among horse-jockeys, implying the practices
employed to conceal the age of an old horse,
or the ill properties of a bad one. See Agk
OF HonsKs.

BISON, AMERICAN (Bos Amfricnnu.'*).
This species of the ox kind is peculiar to the
temperate latitudes of North America, where
it is universally, though incorrectly called the
Buffalo, a name properly belonging to a differ-
ent species of the ox tribe common to Easterr
Asia. The bison was found by the first colo-
nists of the Carolinas, and other of the South-
ern and Middle States, from which parts of the
North American Continent they have long
been exterminated or frightened away. So
late as the year 1766, they were seen in a wild
state in Kentucky. At present none are to be
met with east of the Mississippi river, having
retired beyond this great stream, and concen-
trated in the praries of the Missouri and other
rivers of the far west. Here they often unite
in immense flocks, some of which, travellers
and hunters inform us, contain eight or ten
thousand. Generally speaking, the bison is
rather timid, flying from the hunter, except in
the rutting season, about the middle of June,
when the males become very fierce, and often
kill each other in their terrible combats.

The qualities of buffalo beef are highly ex-
tolled, and the hump upon the shoulders is re-
garded as a particularly choice morsel. The
tongues, which constitute a regular article of
trade, are exceedingly rich and tender. The
thick and rough hairy skins of the bison are
tanned by the Indians and trappers, and then
sold to be formed into buffalo robes and other
articles of comfort, so useful during the severe
winters of the United States.

The following highly interesting account of
the American Bison is taken from the Ameri-
can Farmer, (vol. vi. p. 260), under the head
of Bnffalo Oxen.

"The animal known by the name of the
Buffalo throughout the valleys of Missouri and
Mississippi differs materially from the buffa-
lo of the Old World. At first view, his red
fiery eyes, his shaggy mane, and long beard,
the long lustrous hair upon his shoulders and
fore-quarters, and the comparative nakedness
of his hind-quarters, strongly remind a specta-
tor of the lion.

" In the size of his head, in bulk, in stature,
and in fierceness, he resembles the buffalo of
Buffon ; but the humps or protuberance be-
tween his shoulders, the shape of his head, his
curled forehead, short thick arms, and long hind
legs, mark a much stronger affinity to the bison.

" He carries his head low like the buffalo,
and this circumstance, together with his short
muscular neck, broad chest, and short thick
arms, designate him as peculiarly qualified for
drawing : the whole weight of his body would
thus be applied in the most advantageous man-
ner to the weight drawn. The milk of the fe-
male is equal in quality to that of the cow, but
deficient in quantity. It has been supposed
3!lat the smallness of the udders is more re-
warkable in those that have the hump large,
and that the diminished size of the hump is
evidence of a more abundant secretion of
milk. The hump, when dressed, tastes like
182

the udder of a cow, and is deemed a delicacy
by the Indians. But there is one other particu-
lar which distinguishes the buffalo of the
New Wdrld from its eastern namesake more
distinctly than any variety of conformation
could do. The cow refuses to breed with the
buffalo of Europe ; and such is the fixed
aversion between these creatures, that they
always keep separate, although bred under
the same roof and feeding in the same pas-
ture. The American buffalo, on the contrary,
breeds freely with the domestic cattle, and
propagates a race that continues its kind.
Many of the landholders in Louisiana, like
the patriarchs of old, possess thousands of
cattle which graze at liberty in the unculti-
vated prairies. These herds cost their owners
little more than the trouble of marking them,
and the expense of salting once or twice in a
month, to prevent them from becoming wild.
By occupying the same pastures, they have be-
come so much intermixed with the buffalo,
that it is difficult to say to which race they are
most nearly allied.

" In procuring the cross, it is necessary to
observe one precaution. The domestic breed
must furnish the male, and the buffalo the
female. The wild bull and the cow can be
brought together without difficulty, and the im-
pregnation is perfect; but the pelvis of the
cow is not sufficiently capacious to allow the
passage of the buffalo's foetus with its hump.
The pelvis is the circular bone which connects
the spine with the thigh bones, and when the
foetus, from disease or any other cause, is too
large to pass through it, the female must neces-
sarily die in labour. This fact constitutes the
principal obstacle to the introduction of the
half breed in the old settlements. It would be
easy to catch and tame a single male of the
wild breed, and to obtain any number of im-
pregnations from him; but it is difficult to pro-
cure, and still more to confine a sufficient
number of wild females. The amazing strength
of the head and breast enables them to overset
the strongest fences by running against them ;
and unless they are caught very young, they
can never be effectually tamed. Nevertheless,
some enterprising farmers in this state and
Missouri are introducing the breed. Captain
Jenkins of Rutherford county, has one three
years old and one two years old of the half
blood, and several calves of the quarter blood, ^
all of which are large for their age, and pro- '
mise well. The advantages proposed by the
introduction of this breed are, that the oxen
thus raised will be stronger, less sluggish, more
hardy, and more easily kept, and (if it be
true that the buffalo goes twelve months with
young) they will probably last longer than the
common breed. In addition to these conside-
rations, the hides are larger and applicable to
a greater number of uses, and the leather is
thicker, softer, and more impervious to water.
The full grown buffalo on the Missouri are
said to be from sixteen to eighteen hands high,
and as the body is larger in proportion to the
height, than in the domestic cattle, they must
greatly exceed the finest of the imported breed
in strength and weight. In the neighbourhood
of the settlements, the hunter's dogs and

BISSLEVGS.

prairie flies conspire to prevent them from at- j
laining either full size or mature age." j

BISSLINGS. A provincial word, applied, j
like biestings, to the first milk of the newly
calved cow. See Bkesting.

BITTER rRINCIPLE. This term has been |
applied to certain products of the action of ni-
tric acid upon animal and vegetable matters
of an intensely bitter taste. (^Brandt's Did. of
Science.) The most important of the plants
cultivated with us for their bitter principle are
the hop, the common broom, mugwort, ground
ivy, marsh trefoil or buck-bean, and the gen-
tian family of plants. Quassia, the wood of a
tree, is also a very intense bitter, and is used
in medicine, and clandestinely in the brewing
of beer. The chief combinations of the bitter
principle used in medicine are narcotic, aro-
matic, astringent, acid, and purgative bitters.
(Lowes El. ofAfr. pp. 371—373.)

BITTERS. A spirituous liquor in which
bitter herbs or roots are steeped. An excessive
habit of taking bitters may finally prove detri-
mental to the stomach, by over-excitement, or
by inducing a kind of artificial demand for
food in greater quantity than is salutary to the
general health. Habitual drunkenness has
often been the sequel of the insiduous practice
of taking bitters.

BITTER-SWEET, or WOODY NIGHT-
SHADE (Sohnum dulcamam). This wild
plant loves moist places, therefore grows most
freely in hedges and thickets, near ditches,
rivers, and damp situations. It flowers m
June and July, and ripens its berries in August,
which are of a red colour, juicy, bitter, and
poisonous. Its flowers are an elegant purple,
with yellow threads in their middle, and the
berries are oval or oblong in shape. The
stalks are shrubby, and run, when supported,
to ten feet in length; of a bluish colour, and
when bruised or broken have an odour not
very fragrant or desirable, savouring of rotten
eggs. A decoction of its wood, and the young
shoots sliced, is a valuable medicine, but not
to be trifled with. (Eng. F/nr., vol. i. p. 317.)

BITTERWORT. The old English name for
the yellow gentian. See Gkstiax.

BIXA. See Axnotta.

BLACK. (Sax.) A common colour in horses.
Horses of this colour are most esteemed when
they are of a shining jet black, and well
marked, without having white on their legs.
The English black horses have generally more
white about them than the black horses of
other countries. Those that partake most of
the brown are said to be the strongest in con-
stitution ; for the English black cart horses are
found not to be so hardy as the bays or chest-
nuts. I

BLACKBERRY. See Buamble.

BLACKBIRD. This is a species of bird so
generally known, that but little need be said |
of its habits or its haunts. Numbers are bred I
in England every season, and those thus j
reared, it is believed, do not migrate. Its food I
varies considerably with the season. In spring ;
and early summer, larvoe of insects, worms,
and snails; as the season advances, fruit of ,
various sorts. When the enormous number
of insects and their larvce, with the abundance i

BLACKBIRD.

of snails and slugs, all injurious to vegetation,
be duly considered, it may fairly be doubted
whether the value of the fruit is not counter-
balanced by the services performed.

The American blackbird differs consider-
ably from the European. The species found
in the United States bear the names of the
great crow, the common crow, the cow, the
red-winged, and the rusty. The following in-
teresting details relative to birds which so often
occupy attention in rural life, are from Mr.
Nuttall's Manual of the Ornithology of the
United States. Treating of the great crow
blackbird, {The Quiscalia major oi' Bonaparte)
Mr. Nuttall says:

"This large and crow-like species, some-
times called the jackdaw, inhabits the southern
maritime parts of the Union only, particularly
the states of Georgia and Florida, where they
are seen as early as the close of January or
beginning of February, but do not begin to
pair before March, previously to which season
the sexes are seen in separate flocks. But
about the latter end of November, they quit
even the mild climate of Florida, generally,
and seek winter quarters probably in the "West
Indies, where they are known to be numerous,
as well as in Mexico, Louisiana, and Texas ;
but they do not ever extend their northern mi-
grations as far as the Middle States. Previous
to their departure, at the approach of winter,
they are seen to assemble in large flocks, and
every morning flights of them, at a great
height, are seen moving away to the south.

" Like most gregarious birds, they are of a
very sociable disposition, and are frequently
observed to mingle with the common crow-
blackbirds. They assemble in great numbers
among the sea islands, and neighbouring
marshes on the main land, where they feed at
low water, on the oyster-beds and sand-flats.
Like crows, they are omnivorous, their food
consisting of insects, small shell-fish, corn, and
small grain, so that by turns they may be
viewed as the friend or plunderer of the
planter.

"The note of this species is louder than that
of the common kind, according to Audubon,
resembling a loud shrill whistle, often accom-
panied by a cry like crick crick cree, and in the
breeding season changing almost into a warble.
They are only heard to sing in the spring, and
their concert, though inclining to sadness, is
not altogether disagreeable. Their nests are
built in company, on reeds and bushes, in the
neighbourhood of salt marshes and ponds ;
they lay about three to five eggs which are
whitish, blotched and lined nearly all over with
dusky olive. They begin to lay about the be-
ginning of April ; soon after which the males
leave their mates not only with the care of in-
cubation, but with the rearing of the young,
moving about in separate flocks, like the cow-
birds, without taking any interest in the fate of
their progeny.

"The general appearance of the male is
black, but the head and neck have bluish-pur-
ple reflections ; the rest presents shades of
steel-blue, excepting the back, rump, and mid-
dling wing coverts, which are glossed with
copper-green; the vent, inferior tail coverts,

183

BLACKBIRD.

BLACKBIRD.

and thighs are plain black. The tail, wedge- ;
shaped, is nearly eight inches in length, and
like that of the common species, is capable of !
assuming a boat-shaped appearance. Iris pale
yellow. The bill and feet black. The female
is of a light dusky brown, with some feeble
greenish reflections, and beneath of a dull
brownish white. The young, at first, resemble
the female, but have the irids brown, and
gradually acquire their appropriate plumage."

Of the Common Crow-Blackbird, (The Qtiis-
calis versicolor of Audubon), Mr. Nuttall says :
"This very common bird is an occasional or
constant resident in every part of America,
from Hudson's Bay and the Northern interior
to the great Antilles, within the tropic. In most
parts of this wide region they also breed, at
least from Nova Scotia to Louisiana, and pro-
bly farther south. In the states north of Vir-
ginia they begin to migrate from the beginning
of March to May, leaving those countries again
in numerous troops about the middle of No-
vember. Thus assembled, from the north and
west in increasing numbers, they wholly over-
run, at times, the warmer maritime regions,
where they assemble to pass the winter in the
company of their well known cousins the red-
winged troopials or blackbirds ; for both, im-
pelled by the same predatory appetite, and love
of comfortable winter quarters, are often thus
accidentally associated in the plundering and
gleaning of the plantations. The amazing
numbers in which the present species asso-
ciate are almost incredible. Wilson relates
that on the 20th of January, a few miles from
the banks of the Roanoke, in Virginia, he met
with one of those prodigious armies of black-
birds, which, as he approached, rose from the
surrounding fields with a noise like thunder,
and descending on the stretch of road before
him, covered it and the fences completely with
black : rising again, after a few evolutions,
they descended on the skirt of a leafless wood,
so thick as to give the whole forest, for a con-
siderable extent, the appearance of being
shrouded in mourning, the numbers amount-
ing probably to many hundreds of thousands.
Their notes and screams resembled the distant
sound of a mighty cataract, but strangely at-
tuned into a musical cadence, which rose and
fell with the fluctuation of the breeze, like the
magic harp of yEolus.

" Their depredations on the maize crop or In-
dian corn commence almost with the planting.
The infant blades no sooner appear than they
are hailed by the greedy blackbird as the sig-
nal for a feast ; and, without hesitation, they
descend on the fields, and regale themselves
with the sweet and sprouted seed, rejecting
and scattering the blades around as an evi-
dence of their mischief and audacity. Again,
about the beginning of August, while the grain
is in the milky state, their attacks are renewed
with the most destructive effect, as they now
assemble as it were in clouds, and pillage the
fields to such a degree that in some low and
ijieltered situations, in the vicinity of rivers,
vhere they delight to roam, one-fourth of the
crop is devoured by these vexatious visitors.
The gun, also, notwithstanding the havoc it
produces, has little more effect than to chase
184

them from one part of the field to the other.
In the Southern States, in winter, they hover
round the corn-cribs in swarms, and boldly
peck the hard grain from the cob through the
air-openings of the magazine. lu consequence
of these reiterated depredations they are de-
tested by the farmer as a pest to his industry ;
though, on their arrival, their food for a long
time consists wholly of those insects which are
calculated to do the most essential injury to
the crops. They, at this season, frequent
swamps and meadows, and familiarly follow-
ing the furrows of the plough, sweep up all the
grub-worms, and other noxious animals, as
soon as they appear, even scratching up the
loose soil, that nothing of this kind may escape
them. Up to the time of harvest, I have uni-
formly, on dissection, found their food to con-
sist of these larva?, caterpillars, moths, and
beetles, of which they devour such numbers,
that but for this providential econom)^ the
whole crop of grain, in many places, would
probably be destroyed by the time it began to
germinate. In winter they collect the mast of
the beech and oak for food, and may be seen
assembled in large bodies in the woods for this
purpose. In the spring season the blackbirds
roost in the cedars and pine trees, to which in
the evening they retire with friendly and mu-
tual chatter. On the tallest of these trees, as
well as in bushes, they generally build their
nests, which work, like all their movements, is
commonly performed in society, so that ten or
fifteen of them are often seen in the same tree,
and sometimes they have been known to thrust
their nests into the interstices of the fish-
hawk's eyry, as if for safety and protection.
Occasionally they breed in tall poplars near to
habitations, and, if not molested, continue to
resort to the same place for several years in
succession. They begin their breeding opera-
tions from the commencement of April to May.
The nest is composed outwardly of mud,
mixed with stalks and knotty roots of grass,
and lined with fine dry grass and horse-hair.
The eggs, usually five or six, are of a dull
green, like those of the crow, blotched and
spotted with dark olive, more particularly to-
wards the larger end. According to Audubon,
the same species in the Southern States nests
in the hollows of decayed trees, after the man-
ner of the woodpecker, lining the cavity with
grass and mud. They seldom produce more
than a single brood in the season. In the au-
tumn, and at the approach of winter, numerous
flocks after foraging through the day, return
from considerable distances to their general
roosts among the reeds. On approaching their
station, each detachment as it arrives, in strag-
gling groups like crows, sweeps round the
marsh in waving flight, forming circles;
amidst these bodies, the note of the old recon-
noitring leader may be heard, and no sooner
has he fixed upon the intended spot, than they
all descend and take their stations in an in-
stant. At this time they are also frequently
accompanied by the ferruginous species, with
which they associate in a friendly manner.

"The blackbird is easily tamed, sings in
confinement, and may be taught to articulate
some few words pretty distinctly. Among the

BLACKBIRD.

-▼iriety of its natural notes, the peculiarly
affected sibilation of the starlin": is heard in
the woUishee, wottttshee, and whistle, which
often accompanies this note. Their intestines
and stomach are frequently infested by long,
cylindric, tapering worms, which probably in-
crease sometimes in such numbers as to de-
-stroy the bird.

**The male is twelve inches long, and eight-
een in alar extent. The prevailing black
colour of the body is relieved by glossy reflec-
tions of steel blue, dark violet, and green ; the i
violet is most conspicuous on the head and
breast, and the green on the hind part of the
. neck. The back, rump, and whole lower parts,
with the exception of the breast, reflect a cu-
preous gloss. The wing-coverts, secondaries,
and coverts of the tail, are light violet, with
much of the red ; the rest of the wings and
rounded tail are black, with a steel-blue gloss.
Iris silvery. The fetnaU is rather less, but
very similar in colour, and glossy parti-
coloured reflections."

The Rusty Blackbird. "This species," says
Mr. Nuttall, " less frequent than the preceding,
is often associated with it, or with the red-
winged troopial or the cow-pen bird, and, ac-
cording to the season, they are found throughout
America, from Hudson's Bay to Florida and
westward to the Pacific ocean. Early in April,
according to Wilson, they pass hastily through
Pennsylvania, on their return to the north to
breed. In the month of March he observed
them on the banks of the Ohio, near Kentucky
river, during a snow-storm. They arrive in
the vicinity of Hudson's Bay about the begin-
ning of May, and feed much in the manner of
the common crow-blackbird on insects, which
they find on or near the ground. Dr. Richard-
son saw them in the winter as far as the lati-
tude of 53'', and in the summer they range to
the 68th parallel or to the extremity of the
wooded region. They sing in the pairing sea-
son, but become nearly silent while rearing
their young ; though when their brood release
them from care they again resume their lay,
and may occasionally be heard until the ap-
proach of winter. Their song is quite as
agreeable and musical as that of the starling,
and greatly surpasses that of any of the other
species. I have heard them singing until the
middle of October.

" They are said to build in trees and bushes,
at no great distance from the ground, making
a nest similar to the other species, and lay five
eggs, of a pale blue spotted with black. The
young and old, now assembling in large troops,
retire from the northern regions in September.
From the beginning of October to the middle
of November, they are seen in flocks through
the Eastern States. During their stay in this
vicinity, they assemble towards night to roost
in or round the reed marshes of Fresh Pond,
near Cambridge. Sometimes they select the
- willows by the water for their lodging, in pre-
ference to the reeds, which they give up to
their companions the crow-blackbirds. Early
in October they feed chiefly on grasshoppers
and berries, and at a later period pay a tran-
sient visit to the corn-field. They pass the
winter in the Southern States, and like their
24

BLACK GUM.

darker relatives, make familiar visits to the
barn-yard and corn-cribs. Wilson remarks,
that they are easily domesticated, and in a few
days become quite familiar, being reconciled
to any quarters while supplied with plenty of
food.

"The male is about nine inches in length,
and fourteen in alar extent; black, glossed
with dark green ; with the tail somewhat
rounded; iris silvery. The /ema/« is of about
the same size with the male, and the young of
the first season, of both sexes, are nearly of
the same colour."

BLACK CANKER. A disease in turnip
and other crops, produced by a species of ca-
terpillar. See Bonk Dust.

BLACK COUCH GRASS, or BLACK
TWITCH. Provincial names for the marsh
bent grass, or As:roatis alba. See Aghostis.

BLACK DOLPHIN. A term applied to a
small insect which is frequently very destruc-
tive to bean, turnip, and some other green
crops.

BLACK FLY. An insect of the beetle tribe,
very injurious to turnips in their early stage.
See Flt.

BLACK GUM (Ni/ssa sylmtica). This
North American tree is variously designated
in different parts of the United States by the
names of the Black gum, Yellow gum, and Sour
gum, the last of which appellation is doubtless
derived from the extremely acid taste of its
fruit. This consists of deep blue berries of an
oval shape. Each stem has twin-berries, and
each berry contains a very hard slightly con-
vex stone. The leaves are five or six inches
long, entire, of an elongated oval shape, with
downy stems. The river Schuylkill, in the vi-
cinity of Philadelphia, may be assumed as the
northern limit of the black gum, which is very
common in Delaware, Maryland, and other
Middle and Southern States, both east and west
of the Alleghany mountains. In Maryland,
Virginia, and the Western States, Michaux in-
forms us, it grows without any peculiar form
on high and level grounds, with the oaks and
walnuts. In the lower parts of the Carolinas
and Georgia, where it is found only in wet
places, with the small magnolia or white-bay,
the red-bay, the loblolly-bay, and the water-
oak, it has a pyramidal base resembling a
sugar-loaf.

The black gum frequently attains a height
of sixty or seventy feet, with a diameter of
eighteen or twenty inches, being larger in the
upper part of Virginia, in Kentucky and Ten-
nessee, than in the marshy grounds of the
maritime parts of the Southern states.

The bark of the trunk is whitish and similar
to that of the young white oak. The wood is
fine-grained but tender, and its fibres are in-
terwoven and collected in bundles ; an arrange-
ment characteristic of the genus. The albur-
num or sap part, as it is commonly designated,
of slocks growing upon dry and elevated lands
is yellow. This complexion is considered by
wheel-wrights as a proof of the superior
quality of the wood, and has probably given
the tree one of its popular names. It is ex-
tensively employed in Richmond, Baltimore,
i and Philadelphia, for the naves or hubs of
' «i a 186

BLACK GUM.

BLACK THORN.

coach and wagon wheels, as well as for hatters'
blocks, being so little liable to split ; a quality
which also causes it to be chosen by ship-
wrights for the cap, or piece which receives
the top-mast.

V Tupelo. — The black gum is often confounded
with another tree of the same genus, the Tupelo
or Nyssa aquatica, also called gum tree, sour
gum, and peperidge. The first of these appel-
lations, Michaux says, is most common, the
second is wholly misapplied, as no self-con-
densing fluid distils from the tree, and the
third which more appropriately belongs to the
common barberry-bush, is used only by the
descendents of the Dutch settlers in the neigh-
bourhood of New York. The tupelo extends
much higher north than the black gum, ap-
pearing in the lower part of New Hampshire
near the sea ; but it is most abundant in the
southern parts of New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania. It grows only in wet grounds.
In Delaware, where the black gum and tupelo
are found together, the former name is univer-
sally applied to both. In New Jersey it is con-
stantly seen on the borders of the swamps with
the sweet gum, the swamp white-oak, the
chestnut white-oak, and the white elm. It
rarely exceeds forty or forty-five feet in height,
and its limbs, which spring at five or six feet
from the ground, grow in a horizontal direc-
tion. The trunk is of a uniform size from its
base. While it is less than ten inches in diame-
ter the bark is not remarkable, but on full-
grown and vigorous stocks it is thick, deeply-
furrowed, and, unlike the bark of any other
tree, divided into hexagons, which are some-
times nearly regular.

The leaves are about half the length of those
of the black gum, viz.: three inches long, ob-
oval, smooth, alternate, and often united in
bunches at the extremity of the young lateral
shoots. The flowers are small and scarcely
apparent. The fruit, which is abundant, is,
like that of the black gum, of a deep blue co-
lour, about the size of a pea, and attached in
pairs. It is ripe towards the beginning of No-
vember, and remaining after the falling of the
leaf, it forms a part of the nourishment of the
robins and other birds in their autumnal mi-
gration to the south. The stone is flattened on
one side, a little convex on the other, and
striated lengthwise. Bruised in water the
berries yield an unctuous, greenish juice, of a
slightly bitter taste, which is not easily mingled
with the fluid.

The tupelo holds a middle place between
trees with soft and those with hard wood.
When perfectly seasoned, the sap part is of a
light reddish tint, and the heart, of a deep
brown. Of trees exceeding fifteen or eighteen
. inches in diameter more than half the trunk is
generally hollow.

The woody fibres which compose the body
of trees in general are closely united, and
usually ascend in a perpendicular direction.
By a caprice of nature, they sometimes pursue
"j^an undulating course, as in the red and sugar
maples, or, as in the last mentioned species,
form riplings so fine, that the curves are only
one, two, or three lines in diameter; or lastly,
they ascend spirally, as in the twisted elm
186

(Orme tortillard) following the same bent for
four or five feet. In these species, however,
the deviation is only accidental, and to be
sure of obtaining this form it must be perpe-
tuated by grafting or by transplanting young
stocks from the shade of the parent tree. The
genus which we are considering exhibits, on
the contrary, a constant peculiarity of organi-
zation ; the fibres are united in bundles, and
interwoven like a braided cord. Hence the
wood is extremely ditficult to split unless cut
into short billets ; a property which gives it a
decided superiority for certain uses. In New
York, New Jersey, and particularly at Phila-
delphia, the wood of the tupelo is almost ex-
clusively employed for the hubs of wheels. In
a very few places white oak is used for this
purpose, probably because the tupelo is of a
bad quality or cannot be readily obtained.
Michaux thinks that from its limited size and
strength, the tupelo can never be substituted
for the twisted elm, where very large naves or
hubs are required for wagons destined to sup-
port immense burdens. In France, he says,
the wheels of their heavy vehicles have naves
twenty inches in diameter at the insertion of
the spokes, with an axle-tree of three hundred
and fifty pounds weight, and are laden for dis-
tant transportation with nine thousand pounds.
If, to its own organization, the tupelo joined
the solidity of the elm, a more rapid vegetation
and the faculty of growing on dry and elevated
lands, and of expanding to three or four times
its present size, it would be the most precious
to the mechanical arts of all the forest-trees of
Europe and North America. In New Jersey
and Pennsylvania, many farmers prefer the
tulepo for the sideboards and bottom of carts,
as experience has proved its durability.
Wooden bowls are made of it, and also the
mortars in which Indian corn is beaten with
an iron pestle in the process of preparing ho-
miny. It burns slowly and throws out a good
heat, which makes it a favourite with those
who keep wood fires, especially for the back-
log, a purpose to which it is almost exclusively
devoted. {American Sylva.) See Tupelo.

BLACK LEGS. A provincial name given
in some places to a disease frequent among
calves and sheep. In Staffordshire it is called
the wood evil. It is a bloody gelatinous hu-
mour, settling in their legs, and often in the
neck between the skin and the flesh, making
them carry their necks awry.

BLACK MUZZLE. See Sheep, Diseasbs op.

BLACK OATS. A species of oats much
cultivated in some parts of England. The oats
of this habit have the corolla very dark, are
awned, and the seeds are small. They are
rather an inferior class of oats, but are hardy
and ripen early, and it is this property which
suits them for cultivation in cold and elevated
climates. {Prof. Low. Ele. Ag., p. 256.) See
Oats.

BLACK THORN, or SLOE (Pninns spi-
I nosa). This rigid bushy shrub is well known,
i growing commonly in hedges and thickets. It
i is frequently used in making fences, especially
I in exposed situations. But it is not reckoned
! so good for this purpose as the white thorn,
1 because it is apt to run more into the ground,

r

BLACK TWITCH.

fr-

IP

fn

and is not so certain of growing;; however,
when cut, the bushes are much the best, and
most lasting of any for dead hedges, or to
mend gaps ; cattle are not so apt to crop
fences of this kind as those of the white thorn.

The fruit is well known in the country, and

from its acid, astringent, and very austere Ha-

jvour, it is not eatable except when baked, or

»iled with a large proportion of sugar, and

en it is not good. The juice, when inspis-
ated over a slow fire, is a substitute for the
Egyptian acacia, or Indian catechu. In some
form or other this juice is used in adulterating
port wine. The leaves also are reckoned
among the adulterated substitutes for tea in
England. A water distilled from the blossoms
of the sloe is said to be used medicinally in
Switzerland and Germany.

The juice of sloes checks purgings when no
inflammation is present. (Smith'a Eng. Fior.
vol. ii. p. 357.)

What is commonly called the black thorn in
the United States is not the sloe or black haw,
(a species of viburnum), but the yellmv CrcJse-
gus of botanists, one of the species of thorn com-
monly used for hedges. (See Flor. Cestnca.)

BLACK TWITCH (A^oi'th aiba). A nox-
ious weed of the sub-aquatic marsh bent genus.
It chokes up drains and underwood, and flou-
rishes even in extremely dry situations, prov-
ing very injurious to many crops. It is also
known under the names of black couch and
black tvrack. See Marsh Bext Grass.

BLACK WALNUT. See Walnut.

BLACK WASH. A lotion composed of ca-
lomel and lime water.

BLACK WATER. See Shekp, Diseases of.

BLADE (Sax. biaet>, bie^; Fr. bled,- Low
Lat. bUidiis). The spire of grass before it
grows to seed ; the green shoots of corn which
rise from the seed. {Todd.)

BLADE-BONE. In farriery, the popular
name for the shoulder-blade {scapula), of an
animal.

BLAIN (Sax. blejene; Dutch, bleyne, from
the Icelandic blina, a pustule). In farrier>', in-
flammation of the tongue, a disease in cattle,
which frequently affects them in the spring of
the year or beginning of summer. The disease
(says Clater) is neither so frequent nor so
fatal in the horse as it is in cattle ; but it does
sometimes occur, and the nature of it is fre-
quently misunderstood. The horse will refuse
his food, hang his head, and a considerable
quantity of ropy fluid will be discharged from
the mouth. On examining the mouth, the
tongue will be found considerably enlarged,
and, running along the side of it, there will
be a reddish or darkish purple bladder, and
which sometimes protrudes between the teeth.
The neighbouring salivary glands are en-
larged, and the discharge of saliva is very
great, while the soreness of the swelled and
blistered part causes the horse obstinately to
resist every motion of the jaws. The cure is
very simple: the bladder must be deeply
lanced from end to end : there will not be any
great flow of blood. This will relieve or cure
the horse in twenty-four hours. If he can be
spared from his work, a dose of physic will
remove the stomach affection and any slight

BLEND-WATER.

degree of fever that may have existed. If the
disease is neglected, the swelling will at length
burst, and corroding ulcers will eat deeply into
the tongue, and prove very difficult to heal.
{Clater K Farriery^ p. 64.)

BLAST. A vegetable disease, the same as
blight. In farriery, it is also a vulgar name
for any circumscribed swelling or inflamraa
tion in the body of an animal. See Mildkw.

BLASTING OF STONES. The operation
of tearing asunder large stones or rocks which
are in the way of the plough, or other instru-
ment employed in breaking up ground, by
means of gunpowder. Logs of wood, the roots
of trees, and other obstructions, are removed
by the same agent. In stone quarries, blast-
ing is a necessary business. Perhaps one of
the greatest and most successful blasts ever
effected was at Craigleith quarry, Scotland, on
the 18th of October, 1834, when,' by 500 lbs. of
Sir Henry Bridge's double-strong blasting pow-
der, a mass of upwards of 20,000 tons of solid
rock was displaced. ( Quart, Joum. of Agr. vol.
vi. p. 463.)

BLAZE. A white mark or star in the face
of a horse.

BLEEDING (Sax. bletjan). An operation
frequently necessary in the disorders of differ-
ent kinds of cattle, particularly horses. Such
horses as stand much in the stable, aod are
full-fed, require bleeding more than thoso
which are in constant exercise ; but especially
when their eyes look heavy and dull, or red
and inflamed ; and when they look yellow, and
the horse is inflamed in his lips and the inside
of his mouth ; or when he seems hotter than
usual, and mangles his hay. These indica-
tions not only show that bleeding is required,
but likewise the lowering of the diet. The
spring is the common season for bleeding
horses ; but periodical bleeding, without its
necessity being indicated, should never be
practised. In summer, it is often necessary
to prevent fevers, always choosing the cool of
the morning for the operation, and keeping
them cool the remaining part of the day. Some
farriers bleed horses three or four times a year,
or even oftener, by way of prevention, taking
only a very small quantity at a time, as a pint
or a pint and a half. There is, however, this
inconvenience from frequent bleeding, that it
grows into a habit, which, in some cases, can-
not be easily broken off without hazard ; and
besides, horses become weak from frequent
bleeding.

BLEMISH. In farriery, any kind of imper-
fection in a horse or other animal.

In horses, they consist of broken knees, loss
of hair in the cutting places, mallenders and sal-
lenders, cracked heels, false quarters, splents,
or excrescences which do not occasion lame-
ness ; and wind-galls and bog-spavins, where
they prevail to any great degree.

In planting, the knots on the outside of trees,
and shakes internally, are termed blemishes.

BLENDINGS. A provincial word applied
to mixed crops, such as peas and beans when
grown together.

BLEND-WATER. In farriery, the name
of a distemper incident to neat or black cattle,
1 in which the liver is affected.

187

BLIGHT.

BLIGHT.

BLIGHT. The general name for various
injuries received bj', and diseases incident to,
corn, fruit-trees, plants, &c. The terms blight
and blast, are indiscriminately applied to plants
injured by fungi, insects, disease, frost, &c.
BUght originating in cold, which, congealing the
sap of the lender shoots and leaves of plants,
causes these to perish from the bursting of their
sap-vessels. Blight sometimes results from
causes the very opposite of this, namely during
the prevalence of very sultry, or very dry winds,
the effects of which are popularly termed Jire-
blights, and are similar to those which some-
times injure the vineyards of Italy, and the hop-
grounds of England. What is called in England
the white blight is supposed to originate from
want of nourishment. It is most commonly met
with in grain fields during very dry spells of
weather, especially on thin gravelly soils,
when the plants get into head or blossom pre-
maturely, and the head or seed-pod ripens
without filling.

The mildew, one of the greatest enemies that
the agriculturist has to contend with, is nothing
more than several species of parasitical fungi,
or very minute plants of the mushroom species,
which attack different kinds of plants, grain, &c.
It varies in its nature and appearance, accord-
ing to the pi ants attacked. (See PI. 2, /, m, n, &c.)

Blight originating in fungi, attacks the leaves
or stems both of herbaceous and woody plants,
such as the common barberry and buckthorn,
but more generally grasses, and particularly
our most useful grains, wheat, barley, and
oats. It always appears in the least ventilated
parts of a field and has generally been pre-
ceeded by cold, moist weather, which happen-
ing in the warm month of July, suddenly
chills and checks vegetation. It generally as-
sumes the appearance of a rusty-looking
powder that soils the finger when touched. In
March, 1807, some blades of wheat attacked
by this species of blight were examined by
Keith ; the appearance was that of a number
of rusty-looking spots or patches dispersed
over the surface of the leaf, exactly like that
of the seeds of dorsiferous ferns bursting
their indusium. Upon more minute inspec-
tion, these patches were found to consist of
thousands of small globules collected into
groups beneath the epidermis, which they
raised up in a sort of blister, and at last burst.
Some of the globules seemed as if embedded
even in the longitudinal vessels of the blade.
They were of a yellowish or rusty brown, and
somewhat transparent. But these groups of
globules have been ascertained by Sir J. Banks
to be patches of a minute fungus, the seeds of
which, as they float in the air, enter the pores
of the epidermis of the leaf, particularly if the
plant is sickly ; or they exist in the manure or
soil, and enter by the pores of the root (Sir
J. Banks on Blight.) This fungus has been
figured by Sowerby and by F. Bauer and Grew.
It is known among farmers by the name of red
rust, and chiefly affects the stalks and leaves.
•Rut there is another species of fungus known to
tt?2 European farmer by the name of red gum,
which attacks the ear only, and is extremely
prejudicial. In the aggregate it consists of
groups of minute globules interspersed with
188

' transparent fibres. The globules are filled

! with a fine powder, which explodes when they

I are put into water. It is very generally accom-

, panied with a maggot of a yellow colour, which

i preys also upon the grain, and increases the

' amount of injury. Grisenthwaite conjectures

that in many cases in which the blight and

I mildew attack corn crops, it may be for want

] of the peculiar food requisite for perfecting the

I grain ; it being known that the fruit or seeds

of many plants contain primitive principles

not found in the rest of the plant. Thus the

grain of wheat contains gluten and phosphate

of lime, and where these are wanting in the

soil, that is, in the manured earths in which

the plant grows, it will be unable to perfect its

fruit, which of consequence becomes more

liable to disease. {Netu Theory of Agr.)

Smut is a disease incidental to cultivated
corn, by which the farina of the grain, together
with its proper integuments and even part of
the husk, is converted into a black soot-like
powder. If the injured ear be struck with the
finger, the powder will be dispersed like a
cloud of black smoke ; and if a portion of the
powder be wetted by a drop of water and put
under the microscope, it will be found to con-
sist of millions of minute and transparent
globules, which seem to be composed of a clear
and glairy fluid encompassed by a thin and
skinny membrane. This disease does not
affect the whole body of the crop, but the
smutted ears are sometimes very numerously
dispersed throughout it. Some have attributed
it to the soil in which the grain is sown, and
others have attributed it to the seed itself, alleg-
ing that smutted seed will produce a smutted
crop; but in all this there seems to be a great
deal of doubt. Wildenow regards it as originat-
ing in a small fungus, which multiplies and
extends till it occupies the whole ear (Princip.
of Bot. p. 356) : but F. Bauer, of Kew, seems
to have ascertained it to be merely a morbid
swelling of the ear, and not at all connected
with the growth of a fungus. (Smith's Introd.
p. 282.) It is said to be prevented by steeping
the grain, before sowing, in a weak solution
of arsenic. But, besides the disease called
smut, there is also a disease analogous to it,
or a different stage of the same disease, known
to the farmer by the names of bags or smut
balls, in which the nucleus of the seed only
is converted into a black powder, whilst the
ovary, as well as the husk, remains sound.
The ear is not much altered in its external ap-
pearance, and the diseased grain contained in
it will even bear the operation of thrashing,
and consequently mingle with the bulk; but
it is always readily detected by the experienced
buyer, and fatal to the character of the sample.
It is said to be prevented as in the case of
smut. This disorder, so very fatal to the cha-
j racter of wheat from the injury it does to flour,
I is known in some of the United States by the
i very homely name of bust.
I Mildew is a thin and whitish coating with
; which the leaves of vegetables are sometimes
covered, occasioning their decay and death,
and injuring the health of the plant. It is fre-
quently found on the leaves of hops, hazlenut,
\ and ^the while and yellow dead-nettle. It is

BLIND, MOON-

BLOOD WORT.

Riund also on wheat in the shape of a glutinous
exudation, particularly when the days are hot
and the nights without dew. J. Robertson
{Hort. Trans, v. 178), considers it as a minute
fungus, of which different species attack differ-
rent plants. Sulphur he has found to be a
specific cure.

In cultivated crops mildew is said to be pre-
vented by manuring with soot; though by some
this is denied, and soot, by rendering the crop
more luxuriant, is said to be an encourager of
mildew, the richest part of a field being always
most infected by it. As it is least common in
airy situations, thinning and ventilation may
be considered as preventives. See Milokw.
{Loudon's Encyc. of Agricult.)

Mr. Haggerston, who obtained a premium
from the Massachusett's Horticultural Society
for the discovery of a mode of destroying the
rose-slug, says — that a weak solution of uihale-
oil soap, in the proportion of two pounds of soap
to about fifteen gallons of water, or weaker,
will check and entirely destroy the mildew on
the gooseberry, peach, grape vine, &c. &c.
For further particulars in regard to the appli-
cation of this remedy see Aphis, Rust, and
Smut.

BLIND, MOON-. In farriery, a disease in
the eyes of horses, which is commonly the
forerunner of cataract, and generally ends in
blindness.

BLINDNESS. A deprivation or want of
sight, originating from various causes ; a com-
plaint more frequent in horses than in neat-
cattle or sheep.

Blindness in horses may be discerned by the
walk or step being uncertain and unequal, so
that they dare not set down their feet boldly ;
but when they are mounted by an expert horse-
man, the fear of the spurs will frequently make
them go resolutely and freely, so that their
blindness can hardly be perceived. Another
mark by which horses that have lost their
sight may be known, is, that when they hear
anybody enter the stable, they prick up their
ears, and move them backwards and forwards
in a particular manner.

Blindness in sheep. A complaint that some-
times occurs in these animals, from their being
much exposed to either great dampness or long
continued snows.

BLIND NETTLE. A provincial term for
the w^ild hemp plant.

BLINDWORM. A term sometimes applied
to the slow-worm (Anguis fragilis). See Slow

WORH.

BLINKERS. Expansions of the sides of
the bridle of a horse, intended to prevent him
from seeing objects on either side, but at the
same time not to obstruct his vision in front.

BLISTERING (Dutch, 6/«ya/er). In farriery,
the operation of stimulating the surface of
some part of the body of an animal, by means
of acrid applications, so as to raise small ve-
sications upon it. It is frequently employed
for the purpose of removing local affections
of different kinds, such as hard indolent tu-
mours.

BLISTER FLY. The Cantharis, or Spa-
nish flv.

BLISTER LIQLID is composed of pow-

dered alkanet two ounces, and a gallon of spi-
rit of turpentine ; adding, on the fourth day, a
pound of powdered Spanish flies; and mace-
rating the whole for a month, when the clear
fluid will form a strong liquid blister. If so
powerful an external stimulant be not required,
, this liquid may be diluted with an equal part
j of spermaceti oil. {Clater's Farriery.)
\ BLISTER OINTMENT. One ounce of
powdered Spanish flies ; half an ounce of
powdered euphorbium; four ounces of lard.
One ounce of this well rubbed in is sutficient
to blister a horse's leg. That commonly sold
by farriers generally contains oil of vitriol
(sulphuric acid), to make it raise the blister
without the trouble of rubbing in the ointment;
and, in consequence, a blemish is produced.

BLOOD (Sax.blod; old French, 6/oerf). The
fluid which circulates in the bodies of all ani-
mals. Blood, when drawn from the body, and
allowed to rest, speedily separates into two
portions, viz. the fluid, or serum, and the solid
clot, crassaraentum, or cruor.

In quadrupeds, in general, the temperature
of the blood is higher than in man. In the
sheep, it ranges from 102° to 103°; in maa
it is 98° in a state of health. The equal
distribution of the blood in the animal system
is as essential to the health of quadrupeds as
of man. When it is irregularly circulated,
and more sent to any organ than it should
share, that part becomes oppressed, diseased
action is set up in it ; and if the organ be a
vital one, life is endangered or destroyed
through the violence of inflammation.

Blood is an excellent manure for fruit trees;
and, mixed with earth, forms a very rich com-
post. {Ann. of Phil. vol. ii. p. 202.)

BLOOD-ROOT. See Bloodwort.

BLOOD-SHOT. In farriery, a popular term
for that red appearance which the eye exhibits
when inflamed. The best treatment is to bathe
the eye with a lotion composed of one drachm
of white vitriol (sulphate of zinc) dissolved in
half a pint of water.

BLOOD-SPAVIN or BOG-SPAVIN. In
farriery, a swelling of the vein that runs along
the inside of the hock of the horse, forming a
little soft tumour in the hollow part, often at-
tended with weakness or lameness of the hock.
Clater {Farriery, p. 272) ^ays, a blister is the
proper application.

BLOODWORT {Sanguinaria canadensis).
A hardy American perennial, flowering in
April. It loves a shady situation and bog soil;
and may be propagated by parting the roots in
spring or autumn. The root of bloodwort
throws out a bright red juice, when pressed,
which the Indians paint themselves with. It
operates as an emetic and narcotic.

BLOODWORT {Rumex sanguineus). This
is a beautiful dock, growing wild in many
parts of England, but introduced lately into
gardens, for its fine deep-red appearance. It
grows from two to three feet high, and the
stalks are firm, stiflf, reddish, and branched.
The leaves are long and narrow, heart-shaped
at the base, and taper gradually towards their
point. Sometimes the leaves are a deep green,
only stained, or veined with red; sometimes
they are entirely a deep blood colour, which

189

BLOOM.

BLUE-BIRD.

gives them a beautiful appearance. The
flowers are in terminal clusters, small and
numerous. They blow in June and July, and
the seed ripens in August. The dried root,
either in powder or in decoction, is astringent;
and may be used in spitting of blood, and vio-
lent purgings.

BLOOM or BLOSSOM. A general name
for the flowers of plants, but more especially
of fruit-trees. The office of the blossom is
partly to afford protection, and partly to draw
or supply nourishment to the fertilizing organs
of the plant, for the perfecting of the embryo,
fruit, or seed.

Bloom is a term applied to the delicate
powder which coats the outer surface of such
smooth-skinned fruits as the grape and plum.
In gathering such fruits, care should always
be observed to prevent this bloom from being
removed by handling or otherwise, as it injures
the appearance.

BLOSSOM. A colour in horses, formed by
the intermixture of white hairs with sorrel and
bay ones.

BLO W-B ALL. A local name for the flower
of the dandelion.

BLOW-FLY. The large flesh-fly (Musca
camarid).

BLOW-MILK. The milk from which the
cream has been blown off".

BLOWN. In farriery, a diseased state of
the stomach and bowels of cattle, caused by
the sudden extrication of air in large quantities
from some of the grosser kinds of green food.
See HovEx.

BLOWS. A provincial term used to signify
the blossoms of beans, &c.

BLUBBER. See Fish.

BLUE-BELLS (^Scilla nutans). A common
name given to a bulbous-rooted plant of the
hyacinth kind, frequently met with in woods
and other places. Its bulb is globular, white,
and coated; its leaves linear, channelled,
shining, and drooping in their upper half; the
flowers form a cluster on an upright stalk,
drooping in the upper half; they are blue,
pendulous, nearly an inch long, and scented.
The bulb is acrid, but loses its acrimony in
drying, in which state it answers as a substi-
tute for gum-arabic in the art of dyeing, by
being simply dried and powdered.

BLUE-BIRD. Mr. Nuttall describes three
species of the blue-bird {Sialia), found in
America. That which is most familiarly
known in the United States (the Sylvia siulis
of Wilson), is an insectivorous bird, inhabiting
almost every section of the continent east of
the Rocky Mountains, from the forty-eighth de-
gree of latitude to the tropics. Although they
generally spend their winters in the Southern
States, they sometimes remain in well-protected
warm situations in the southern parts of Penn-
sylvania. They breed and pass the summer
from Labrador to Natchez. " In the Middle
and Northern States," says Mr. Nuttall, " the
return of the blue-bird to his old haunts round
barn and the orchard is hailed as the first

reeable presage of returning spring, and he

is no less a messenger of grateful tidings to

the farmer, than an agreeable, familiar, and

useful companion to all. Though sometimes

190

he makes a still earlier flitting visit, from the
3d to the middle of March, he comes hither as
a permanent resident, and is now accompanied
by his mate, who immediately visits the box in
the garden, or the hollow in the decayed
orchard-tree, which has served as the cradle
of preceding generations of his kindred. Af-
fection and jealousy, as in the contending and
related thrushes, have considerable influence
over the blue-bird. He seeks perpetually the
company of his mate, caresses and soothes her
with his amorous song, to which she faintly
replies ; and, like the faithful rook, seeks oc-
casion to show his gallantry by feeding her
with some favourite insect. If a rival makes
his appearance, the attack is instantaneous,
the intruder is driven with angry chattering
from the precincts he has chosen, and he now
returns to warble out his notes of triumph by
the side of his cherished consort. The busi-
ness of preparing and cleaning out the old nest
or box now commences ; and even in October,
before they bid farewell to their favourite
mansion, on fine days, influenced by the anti-
cipation of the season, they are often observed
to go in and out of the box as if examining
and planning out their future domicile. Little
pains, however, are requisite for the protection
of the hardy young ; and a substantial lining
of hay, and now and then a few feathers, is all
that is prepared for the brood beyond the
natural shelter of the chosen situation. As the
martin and house-wren seek out the favour
and convenience of the box, contests are not
unfrequent with the parties for exclusive pos-
session ; and the latter, in various clandestine
ways, exhibits his envy and hostility to the
favoured blue-bird. The eggs are five or six,
of a very pale blue, and without spots. As
they are very prolific, and constantly paired,
they often raise two and sometimes probably
three broods in the season ; the male taking
the youngest under his affectionate charge,
while the female is engaged in the act of incu-
bation.

"Their principal food consists of insects,
particularly beetles, and other shelly kinds ;
they are also fond of spiders and grasshoppers,
for which they often, in company with their
young, in autumn, descend to the earth, in open
pasture-fields or waste grounds. Like our
thrushes, they, early in spring, also collect the
common wire-worm, or lulus, for food, as well
as other kinds of insects, which they commonly
watch for, while perched on the fences or low
boughs of trees, and dart after them to the
ground as soon as perceived. They are not,
however, flycatchers, like the Sylvicolas and
Musdcapas,\i\x\.?ive rather industrious searchers
for subsistence, like the thrushes, whose habits
they wholly resemble in their mode of feeding.
In the autumn, they regale themselves on va-
rious kinds of berries, as those of the sour-
gum, wild-cherry, and others ; and later in the
season, as winter approaches, they frequent
the red cedars and several species of sumach
for their berries, eat persimmons in the Middle
States, and many other kinds of fruits, and
even seeds, the latter of which never enter into
the diet of the proper flycatchers. They have
also, occasionally, in a state of confinement,

BLUE-BOTTLE.

been reared and fed on soaked bread and ve-
getable diet, on which they thrive as well as
the robin." (Nuttall's Ornithology.)

The Western Blue-bird (Sialia occidentalis
of Townsend), is found along the Pacific coast
west of the Rocky Mountains. It possesses
many of the habits of the common kind, his
song being, however, described as more varied,
sweet, and tender than that of the common
blue-bird of the Atlantic states.

The Arctic Blue-bird (the Sialia ariica of
Audubon), is a beautiful species found in the
highest latitudes of the North Western portions
of the American continent. See Nuttalfs Orni-
thology of American Land BirdSy Audubon,
Wilson, &c.

BLUE-BOTTLE {Centaurta). This is a
large herbaceous genus, which contains seve-
ral species known as weeds ; that, however,
which is peculiar to corn-fields is the corn
blue-bottle (Centaurea cyanua). It grows
amongst corn, and its presence indicates care-
less farming. It is an annual, ripening its
seeds in autumn. It is also known by the
names of knapweed, matfellon, centaury, corn-
flower, and hurt-sickle. The expressed juice
of its blue flower, when mixed with cold alum-
water, may be used as a water colour for
painting, being a permanent colour. See
Centauht.

This pretty wild flower has been introduced
into our gardens for its elegance. The blue-
bottle grows a foo< high ; the stalk is firm and
white, and the leaves are narrow, and of a
whitish-green. The root is hard and fibrous.
A decoction of the flowers with galls and cop-
peras aflbrds a good writing ink. This plant
is sometimes known among the common peo-
ple by the name of " wound herb." Any reli-
ance on the styptic properties of the leaves
might prove dangerous by losing time, and a
consequent waste of blood, before proper as-
sistance can be procured in extensive wounds.
Small wounds can unite without its aid. An
infusion of the flowers is slightly diuretic.

BLUE-GRASS, wire-grass (Poa compressa,
compressed or flattened poa. Plate 7, A). A
very common perennial grass in the United
States, found in fields, pastures, &c. It aflTords
a good nutritious pasture for cattle, but is not
so much esteemed as the green meadow-grass,
(Poa pratensis). Its great tenacity of life
makes it sometimes very troublesome in the
tillage of certain crops. {Flor. Cacstrica.)

The famous Kentucky blue-grass, Dr. Dar-
lington says, is the Poa pratensis, smooth-
stalked meadow-grass ; green grass ; (Plate
5, h) decidedly the most valuable of all the
American pasture grasses. It comes in spon-
taneously, in all rich, calcareous soils.

The best time for sowing, says a writer in
the Western Farmer and Gardener, is as soon
as you can get ready after October; or any
time before the middle of March.

Old fields, on which the sun can exert full
power, produce blue grass in the greatest
abundance, and of the best quality. Animals
feeding thereon without grain, keep better and
become fatter than on any other treatment;
but even wood-lands will produce good grass.

If intended for old or permanent pasture, the

BLUE GRASS.

fields should be broken up in February or
March, and sown in oats. Then sow ten pound
of blue-grass seed, half a gallon of red clover-
seed, and if a little timothy or orchard-grass
be sprinkled on, so much the better. The
timothy or orchard-grass will give a quick
pasture, and afford protection to the blue-grass
until it gets a strong foot-hold, after which no
other grass can contend with it. The rains
will cover the seed sufiiciently to insure vege-
tation.

The following account of the blue grass is
from the Franklin Farmer.

" This grass, which constitutes the glory of
Kentucky pastures, is esteemed superior to all
others for grazing. It flourishes only on cal-
careous soils. Opinions and practice vary
here, as to the best time of sowing it — some
preferring September, for the same reasons,
chiefly, which relate to timothy or other
grasses, others preferring February or March,
to obviate the danger of the tender roots being
winter-killed. It is sown either on wood-land
or open ground — in the latter case most gene-
rally after a succession of exhausting crops in
old fields. If sown on woodland, the leaves,
brush, and trash must be raked off or burnt. It
is particularly important to burn the leaves,
else the seed may be blown away with them
by the wind, or if not blown away, the leaves
may prevent the seed reaching the earth and
thus defeat their germination. Many of those
who sow in winter, prefer casting the seed on
the snow, as it enables them to effect the ope-
ration with more neatness and uniformity. In
woodlands, the grass must not be grazed the
first year, or at all events till after the seeds
have matured. In open land, the practice has
been adopted by some, of mixing timothy and
clover with blue grass, in which case, half a
bushel of the latter seed to the acre is suffi-
cient. The advantage resulting from this is,
that it secures at once, a well-covered pasture
that will bear considerable grazing the first
year. The blue grass, in a few years, expels
the other grasses, and takes entire possession
of the field. On open ground, it is frequently
sown in March upon wheat, rye, or oats. If the
season is favourable, it may be sown in April ;
but should the weather prove dry, a great por-
tion of the seed will be lost. It is the practice,
we believe, of most graziers, to put upon a
given pasture as much stock as it will main-
tain, without shifting them during the season,
as, besides saving labour, it renders the cattle
more quiet and contented. Others, however,
fence off their pastures into separate divisions,
to undergo a regular succession of periodical
grazings. This plan secures a constant sup-
ply of fresh grass, very grateful to the animals,
and is believed to be more economical, as
much less is trampled and rejected by the
cattle. The number of animals to the acre
must depend upon their size and the quality
and quantity of grass. The grass on open
ground is much more abundant, sweet and
nutritious, than on woodland, and consequently
will maintain much more stock, perhaps nearly
twice as much ; while open woodland will
produce much more and better grass than that
which is deeply shaded. The best graziers

191

BLUE MILK.

BONES.

extirpate, as fast as possible, every tree not
valuable for timber or wanted for fuel, and
some even prune the branches of those which
are allowed to remain." (Farmer^ s Register.)

BLUE MILK. Milk that has been skim-
med, or had the cream taken off. In large
dairies it is chiefly used for feeding hogs.

BLUE STONE. The common name for
blue vitriol, or sulphate of copper.

BOAR (Sax. baji ; Dutch, beer). The male
of the swine-tribe of animals. See Hoo and

SWINK.

In horsemanship, a horse is said to boar when
he shoots out his nose level with his ears, and
tosses his nose in the wind.

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. A society
established in London in 1794, under the pa-
tronage of his Majesty, Geo. III., "For the
Encouragement of Agriculture, and Internal
Improvement," consisting of a president, and
thirty ordinary members, with proper officers
for conducting the business of the institution.
The plan and design of this highly useful
establishment, though previously suggested by
several writers on rural improvements, was
chiefly brought forward, and carried into exe-
cution by the unwearied efforts and persever-
ing industry of Sir John Sinclair, to whom the
nation is certainly under much obligation. It
was discontinued about the year 1812, in con-
" sequence of the withdrawal by government of
the annual parliamentary grant of 3000/. for its
support, chiefly owing to the society's inter-
ference with political themes, foreign to the
improvement of agriculture. A fall account
of the nature, origin, and plan, with the charter
of incorporation of this excellent institution,
may be seen in the first volume of the " Com-
munications" published by the Board, which
extended to seven vols. ; and these contain
some excellent papers on various important
matters connected with husbandry and agri-
culture in general.

BOG, and BOG GRASSES. See Peat
Soils.

BOG-BEAN. See Buck-beaw.
BOG-RUSH, BLACK (Sckcenus nigricans).
Is found on turfy bogs. Root scarcely creep-
ing, of very long, strong fibres, crowned with
black, shining, erect, folded sheaths, a few of
which bear very narrow, acute, upright leaves,
and embrace the bottom of the otherwise naked
stem, which is from eight to twelve inches
high. Head black. Anth. long, yellow. Stigm.
three, dark purple. Seed white and polished.
{Smith's Engl. Flor. vol. i. p. 50.)

Nuttall, in his Genera of North American
Plants, mentions three species of the bog-rush
or saw-grass. This remarkable grass, as he
calls it, was discovered in the West Indies by
Schwartz, and extends a considerable distance
northward beyond Wilmington, North Caro-
lina, often almost exclusively occupying con-
siderable ponds. The leaves are almost as
sharply serrated as those of a Bromelia, and
hence it is very properly called saw-grass. The

tenuine species of this genus are principally
j^nfined to Europe and Barbary.
BOG-SPAVIN. See Blood-Spaviw.
BOIL (Sax. bile). In farriery, an inflam-
matory suppurating tumour affecting cattle or
192

sheep. In order to cure this sort of tumour,
it will be necessary to bring it to a head by the
application of plasters composed of wheat-
flour and tar ; and when the boil feels soft
under the finger, to open it with a lancet, and
let out the matter or pus.

BOLE. A term signifying the body or trunk
of a tree, and sometimes the stalk or stem of
corn. This word is written and pronounced
in the north of England boll, and "boilings" is
the name for pollards, trees whose tops and
branches are lopped off".

BOLE, or BOLL (Lat. hoUa). In Scotland,
a common measure of grain, containing four
bushels. In the old measure of Scotland, for
oats and barley.

4 Ijppies

=

1 peck.

4 pecks

=

1 firlot.

4 firlots

—

1 boll.

16 bolls

=

1 chalder

The boll of oatmeal weighs 140 lbs. For
wheat, peas, and rye, three oat firlots make
one boll. {Brit. Hiisb. vol. ii. p. 500.)

BOLE OF SALT. A measure that contains
two bushels.

BOLETUS. A genus of mushroom, of which
several species have been subjected to che-
mical analysis, by the French chemists Bra-
connot.and La Grange. They yield bolitic
acid.

BOLSTERS. In horsemanship, those parts
of a great saddle which are raised on the bows
both before and behind, to rest the rider's thighs,
and keep him in a posture to withstand the
irregular motions of the horse.

BOLT and BOLTING. Terms provincially
applied to the trussing of straw.

BOLTER. A sort of framed sieve, having
its bottom made of linen stuff", hair, or wire,
according to circumstances. The bakers em-
ploy bolters that may be worked by the hand,
but millers have larger ones that move by the
machinery of the mill. It is sometimes called
boulter.

BOLTING, or BOULTING. The operation
of separating flour or meal of any kind from
the husks or bran, by means of a bolter.

BOLTING CLOTH. Linen or hair-cloth
made for the purpose of sifting meal or flour
through. They are made of diff'erent degrees
of fineness, and numbered accordingly; hence
we have cloths of No. 2, No. 3, &c.

BOLTING FOOD. This is a very common
vice in greedy horses, especially when they
feed out of the same manger. The only re-
medy is not to let them fast too long, and to
mix chaflT in their corn. The teeth of such
horses ought to be examined, to see whether
the bolting of the corn arises from any uneven-
ness of the grinders.

BOLTING MILL. A mill or machine hav-
ing much lateral or circular motion, by which
means the business of sifting meal or flour
can be performed with great facility and ex-
pedition. The framed sieve that moves within
it is termed a bolter.

BOLUS. See Bxtt.

BON ASUS. A kind of buff'alo, or wild bull.

BONES (Sax. ban; Su. Goth, iem,- Germ.
bdn). The more solid parts of the body of ani-
1 mals. When crushed, a valuable manure.

HONEY.

HONEY.

service to Europe similar to that conferred by
Parraentier, who placed the potato among the
number of plants indispensable to the purposes
of domestic economy. Many of the Russian
provinces possess only a very few plants rich
in honey ; or, rather, owing to the rigours of
the climate, the plants furnish honey during a
very short period. The Echium is therefore
the more valuable from the fact that it is so
little sensible to the effects of both heat and
cold, neither of which cause it to part with its
mellifluous qualities. Even after the setting
in of white frosts, which ordinarily commence
about the end of September or first of October,
it still continues to flower.

It is proper to observe that the plant which
has thus acquired such great celebrity bears
the same name with a common and very beau-
tiful English wild plant, belonging to the Bo-
rage family, and that, in his Flora Cestrica,
Dr. Darlington describes the common Echium
as a foreign weed, extremely troublesome in
some portions of the United States, though as
yet rare in Chester county, Pennsylvania. A
species called Violet Echium is cultivated in
some flower-gardens in the United States, but
no American species has yet been pointed out
by botanists. The French call the common
Echium Viperine, and Herbe aitx Viperes ; the
Germans, VVilde Ochsenzunge, and Der Natterkopf.
The popular names in the United States are
Blue Weed, Blue Devils, and Viper's Bus:loss. It is
highly probable that the plant so much prized
in Russia is a variety of Borage differing con-
siderably from the weed denounced by Dr. Dar-
lington. His caution, however, ought by no
means to be forgotten by persons who intro-
duce the Echium for the benefit of their bees,
as it is a biennial, furnished with a very thick
and hard tap-root, which must be very difficult
to get out of ground when it has once gained
possession. It should therefore be sown and
kept in places where it may be restrained
within bounds. It may be popularly described
as a plant with long and rather narrow leaves,
coming to a point, which leaves, with the stalks,
are covered with a profusion of hairs. It puts
out numerous spikes bearing one or two bell-
shaped flowers, of a purple-blue colour, having
five petals, which are pubescent or hairy. It
produces small, rough, and brownish oval-
shaped nuts, which are angular on the inner
side. (See Fig. 6, on the Plate representing
the Russian Bee-hive, etc.)

Description of the Russian Bee-hive.

Fig. 1 represents the hive in perspective,
supported upon a floor of brick or stone, car-
ried beyond the sides of the hive, so as to
secure a solid foundation. The usual size of
this hive is three feet six inches in height,
fourteen, twenty, and even as much as twenty-
two inches in width, and from twelve to sixteen
inches in depth. The box or case is made of
five boards, either nailed, or, what is better,
dovetailed together. The pieces represented
at a, a, a, are three doors of equal size, which
are fixed into mortices or grooves and fastened
by the pegs b, b. c, c, are two movable pieces,
an inch wide, upon which the movable doors

rM)<t.— The Ruuian sytlem of maoa^nt; bees and constrncfing hives, which will lubsequeDtly appear under the head of " Honey," is such a continoatioa
of the subject "Bea." that it is attached, for the present, to the third number of the Encyclopjeda of Agriculture, which contains alio a Plate representing

the Russian hi<It Ir.H hnn^ir.nlsnl 1

m tbe united States, the capacity to produce
honey seems only limited by the ravages of
that great pest, the bee-moth. Over this, how-
ever, it is to be hoped ingenuity will finally
^triumph, if it has not done so already. See

I^KBeks and Bee-moth.
^^UtuSBIAN StSTEM of MATfACINO BkES AND
^H^ CONSTRVCTING HiVKS.

^^ In Russia and other northern parts of Eu-
rope, honey and wax constitute great sources
of private wealth and general trade. A large
amount of this honey is obtained from trees in
the wild forests, which, when not hollowed by
nature, are scooped out by man for the accom-
modation of swarms, nails being driven into
the body, to prevent the bears from climbing
up and getting at the honey. This^ primitive
plan may be called the Forest sysie7n, to distin-
guish it from another, consisting of large as-
Bsemblages of hives, entitling it to the appella-
lion of the Camp system. These bee-camps are
often removed from place to place, according
to the abundance or scarcity of flowers. A
new system of managing bees has been lately
introduced into Russia, which has acquired
immense celebrity, not only in that country, but
in other parts of continental Europe, to the
northern portion of which it may perhaps be
more specially adapted. It is, however, at pre-
sent receiving great encouragement in France,
where the most active efforts are making to
promote its extension. Although we believe
that the most essential objects obtained by the
Russian mode are gained through some of the
almost innumerable contrivances worked out
by American ingenuity, still we think it proper
to make the citizens of the United States ac-
quainted with what is deemed of so much in-
dividual and national importance abroad.

The Russian system owes its origin and es-
tablishment to M. Prokopovitsh, an individual
who has devoted more than half his life to the
subject. His reputation as an apiarian is at
present so high as to have enabled him to esta-
blish an extensive school for teaching the art
of managing bees. His school and dwelling-
houses are situated in the midst of a vast gar-
den, in which are found no less than twenty-eight
hundred hives. The number of his pupils is
never under eighty, which come from all parts
of Russia, and remain two years. His terms
are very moderate.

In studying the nature and characteristics
of the queen, he made the discovery that she
always keeps upon the honeycomb, and never
creeps upon any part of the hive. This obser-
vation he has turned to advantage, so as to
make the bees assort and dispose their honey

I in whatever manner he desires it to be depo-
sited.
By discovering a plant pre-eminently rich
f in honey, he has rendered another service to
his country, not less important than that just
referred to. This is the Echium Vulgake,
called in Russia Ciniak. It has long been
known to abound in the materials of honey,
but had always been left in a wild state until
this intelligent Russian took it into regular
cvltivation for the use of his bees. In doing
this, says a French writer, he has rendered a

HONEY.

rest, d, small slats fastened into the sides of
the hive by mortices. These serve to prevent
the doors from touching the honeycomb. Each
range of frames has one of these slats.

e, e, e, are small frames in which the bees
work and deposit their honeycombs. These
frames are notched or scooped out circularly
upon the lower side, as well as upon both edges
of the front end, as represented in fig. 2. The
opening left by the hollow in the lowermos.
side serves for the bees to enter from beneath,
whilst the hollows on the two sides of the front
end of the frame admits the movements of the
bees to be observed. These frames are thin ;
their thickness, however, is not arbitrary, but
must be made to correspond to the size and
form which the bees give to their combs.
When placed side by side the frames must not
touch, but a small space is to be left between
to allow a little play, and prevent them from
wedging together and becoming tight in warm
weather, when the wood swells.

/,/,/, are three places of entrance for the
bees, furnished with slides. These are so ar-
ranged that the middle one comes exactly in
the middle of its compartment ; the upper one
is an inch higher than the upper slat ; whilst
the lower opening is an inch lower than the
lowermost slat.

h (fig. 3) is a grating to be used in autumn,
when it may be desired to separate the empty
parts from those filled with comb. This grating,
or adapter, remains in contact with the bees.
g (fig. 4) represents a small board, which is to
be placed on top of the grating.

Fig. 5 is a transverse section, in which may
be seen the places of entrance, /, the depth of
the frames, a, and at c, one of the combs.

The various kinds of hives, constructed in
sections or compartments, may be divided into
two classes, namely, — those in which the divi-
sions are made either horizontally or vertically.
The first are founded upon the well-known ne-
cessity for allowing space for the new combs ;
the second from the advantage derived from
separating the swarms artificially. To carry
out these plans, very complicated contrivances
have generally been employed, Avhilst the Rus-
sian hive effects every necessary object to be
gained from section or division hives.

The leading principle of the Russian hive,
which, it will be seen, is quite plain in con-
struction, and economical as to first cost, —
consists in its capacity to be reversed or turned
upside down, a very simple operation, which,
however, leads to the most important results in
the management of bees.

Reversing the hive not only allows of the
perfect renewal of the wax, but furnishes an
opportunity of inspecting every thing passing
within, by means of the movable doors, and
at the same time, of conducting all the opera-
tions at pleasure, thus uniting all the advan-
tages of the two systems of horizontal and ver-
tical section hives, such as the separation of
swarms, &c.

By means of the operation of reversing, the
bee-manager who introduces a swarm into the
Russian hive, will, during three years, be able
to withdraw each year one of the three divi-
sions alternately, or one-third of the whole

i HONEY.

mass of honey deposited ; at the end of the
period mentioned, he will have thus produced
a perfect renewal of the wax; that is to say, at
this time he will be obliged to reverse or turn
up the hive, the former bottom of which now
becomes the top.

The mode in which M. Prokopovitsh ma-
nages to make his bees assort their honey
themselves, is effected by means of a very
simple contrivance. Many others have de-
vised modes very similar to those adopted by
the Russian apiarian, but it is asserted that
their objects had not the same end, since they
only sought to obtain the virgin honey. No
one has before believed it practicable to pro-
cure honey of a uniform quality and which at
the same time is virgin honey. The idea
therefore originally belongs to M. Prokopo-
vitsh, who*, whilst pursuing his apiarian stu-
dies, had it suggested to him by a plan adopted
by Huber for the mere purpose of being able
to watch the habits of bees.

The process of working the Russian hive is
as follows : In autumn, after having taken the
upper portion of the crop, when the amount of
honey admits this to be done, the part of the
hive thus left empty is separated from the rest
of the comb, by introducing the grating h, and
placing upon it the board g. In this state the
hive is conveyed to some suitable place to pass
the winter. The following summer, at the ar-
rival of the season when the plant from which
honey is to be collected is in flower, the board
is removed, and the frames e placed upon the
grating. These frames, which are made ot
very thin stuff, have a length equal to the
depth of the hive. Their height is about half
that of their length, and their width or thick-
ness ought not to exceed an inch and a half.

Two sides of the frame, have, as already
described, two notches or hollows which re-
duce their width. One of these is the long
side which comes in contact with the grating,
affording passage to the bees, whilst the other
is the end near the door which admits the
movements of the bees to be inspected. Be-
fore these frames are arranged in their places,
a little dry wax is to be stuck along the mid-
dle of the upper side of the frame, (the side
which is not scooped out). This is for the
purpose of directing the bees where they must
place their combs.

By the arrangement described, the bees
finding above them a vacant space, commence
their work in it, and finding in the flowers in
bloom sufiicient material, fill the cases with
honey, and this they do with the more rapidity
from the circumstance of the queen's being
separated by a space not yet occupied by the
combs, and her inability to reach these to lay
her eggs in them. The cases in which the
honey is deposited are sealed up immediately,
the comb is observed to have reached the
lower part of the box, and before the queen
has had an opportunity of depositing in it any
eggs. The honey thus obtained is of remark-
able purity, and may be taken to market in the
same frames in which it was originally made.
These may even be packed up together in cases,
and transported in wagons to great distances^
without doing the least injury to the honey. At

I

BONES.

BONES.

The introduction of bones as a fertilizer is
perhaps one of the most important and suc-
cessful agricultural efforts of modern days,
and has been certainly one great means of
suificiently increasing the national production
of corn to keep pace with an annually enlarg-
ing population. It required, however, like all
other agricultural improvements, much perse-
verance and unshaken energy in the promoters
of this manure, to induce its general adoption;
many a long and stubborn argument had to
be answered; many hundred loads of the bone
refuse of Sheffield and Birmingham had to be
given away, before the cautious and suspi-
cious Yorkshire farmers could be generally
persuaded of the fallacy of the assertion, that
" there is no good in bones." To this tardy
conviction the erroneous mode of employing
them originally adopted mainly contributed, for
they were at first used without even roughly
breaking them, and, in consequence, they de-
composed so very slowly in the soil that the
farmer's patience was naturally exhausted : he
sought in vain for immediate and striking re-
sults.*

The introduction of machinery, however, by
enabling the cultivator to procure them in a
crushed state, did away with this objection,
for when crushed, they decompose with much
greater rapidity; and this has long since in-
duced a consumption of this manure more
than adequate to the national produce of
bones. It has been necessary, in consequence,
to search in other countries for a supply ; and
for the last fifteen years the quantity of bones
imported from abroad has been steadily in-
creasing. Thus the declared value of all the
bones imported into England —

£ 9. d.

In the year 1821 was - - 15,898 13 11

— 1824 — - - 43,»40 17 11

— 1827 — - - 77,956 6 8

— 1830 — - . 58,22.1 16 8

— 1833 — - - 97,900 6 4

— 1835 — - - 127,131 14 10

— 1838 — - - 171,806 0 0

— 1837 — - - 254,600 0 0

Into the port of Hull alone, in 1815, were im-
ported about 8000 tons ; this had increased to
17,500 tons in 1833, and to 25,700 tons in
1835. These came principally from the Ne-
therlands, Denmark, and the Baltic, but they
have been imported from much more distant
places, such as Buenos Ayres and the Medi-
terranean ; and I am confident that if the seal
fishermen of North America and other distant
stations were aware of the fact that the bones
of fish are nearly, if not quite, as valuable for
the farmer as those of other animals, they
would not suffer any falling off in the supply.
By the 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 56, a duty of one pound
per cent, on the declared value is payable on
all bones imported for farming or other pur-
poses.

The following table, extracted from one by
Richard Tottie, Esq., of Hull, will show to the

* It is said, in the Doncaster Agricultural Society's
Report upon the use of bones, ** Colonel St. Leger, then
residing at Warmsworih, was the first person who is
known to have used them, and his introduction of ihein
was in 1775; the early progress does not seem to have
been rapid, from the practice of laying them on almost
unbroken, and in very large quantities."
25

farmer from whence the great supply of fo-
reign bones is derived. This table contains
the imports during 1827, in which year the
following number of vessels entered the port
of Hull loaded with bones : —

Vessels.

Tons of Bonen.

From Russia ...

- 6 carrying 822

— Pru.ssia

- 9

1174

— Sweden and Norway

- 6

—

362

— Denmark

- 57

3778

— Hanseatic towns -

- 61

3760

— Netherlands

- 76

_

6110

— Mecklenberg-1

— Hanover > -

- 33

—

170a

— Oldenberg }

248

17,718

The import of bones into Hull has since been
regularly increasing: it was, according to a
letter with which Mr. Tottie favoured me, equal
to 23,900 tons in 1834, and to 25,700 in 1835.
It would certainly be well to look to other
quarters besides the Continent for a future
supply, since in some of the German states a
duty on their export has been recently im-
posed. So considerable, indeed, has the de-
mand become, that by many unprincipled deal-
ers several kinds of adulterations are used.
These, according to Mr. Halkett ( Quar. Juurru
of Agric. vol. ii. p. 181), are the lime that has
been used in tan-works to take off the wool
and hair, old plaster lime, soap boilers' waste,
saw-dust, rotten wood, oyster-shells, &c. The
best remedy for these frauds ^s f(a^,the farmer
to deal with only respectable crushers, and to
pay a fair price for the bones.

There is, perhaps, no manure of whose
powers the chemical explanation is more easy ;
for of the earthy and purely animal matters of
which bones are composed, there is not a sin-
gle particle which is not a direct constituent
or food of vegetables ; thus, if carbon, hydro-
gen, and oxygen, are found in the abounding
oil and cartilage of bones, they are equally
common, nay, ever present, in all vegetable
matters : and if carbonate and phosphate of
lime are almost equally common in plants,
they are still more universally present in all
bones.

The bones of animals do not vary much in
composition ; they all contain phosphate and
carbonate of lime, with a portion of cartilage
or animal matter, with other minor ingredients.
The bone of the ox has been analyzed by M.
Berzelius : he found that, by calcining these
bones, every 100 lbs. lost 38 lbs. in weight.
100 parts of these bones, before calcination,
consisted of —

Cartilage ------- 333

Phosphate of lime ----- 55-35

Fluate of lime (Derbyshire spar) - - 3.
Carbonate of lime (chalk) - - _ 385
Phosphate of magnesia - - - - 205

Soda, with a little common salt - - 2-45

100-

Bones, however, vary slightly in composi-
tion, according to the age and condition of
the animal, for MM. Fourcroy and Vauquelin
found some ox bones which they analysed, t«»
be composed of—

R 193

BONES.

BONES.

Ptrti.
Gelatine and oil - .... 51

Piiospiiale of lime - - . . . 37-7
Carbonate of lime ----- 10
Phosphate of magnesia - - - - 1-3

100-

, The enamel of teeth is the only portion of
bones hitherto analyzed, which is entirely des-
titute of cartilage. It is true that fossil bones
contain none ; but these have probably, in a
former state of the earth, been acted upon b}'^
fire; for Mr. Hatchett found in some bones
from Hythe in Kent, taken out of a Saxon
tomb, the same proportion of cartilage as in a
recent bone. Teeth have been analyzed by
Mr. Pepys : he found them to be composed of

Adults'. Children's.

Phosphate of lime - - - 64 62

Carbonate of lime - - - 6 a ^ ■

Cartilage 20 20

Loss ----- 10 12

100

100

M. Merat Guillot has furnished us with a
statement of the earthy constituents of 100
parts of the bones of different animals ; from
which the farmer will perceive that the com-
position of the bones of all animals is very
similar.

Bone..

Phosphate of

Cwbonafe of

Animal

Liine.

Lime.

Matter.

Calf

54

46

Horse

67-5

1-25

31-25

Sheep -

70

5

25

Elk

90

9

Hog

52

47

Hare

85

14

Pullet -

72

1-5

265

Pike

64

35

Carp

45

50

Teeth of the

1

Horse -

85-5

2-05

Ivory

64

1

•35 1

Lobster shells, egg shells, &c., are all com"
posed of the same ingredients as bone. The
poor of Dublin are often employed for the pur-
pose of pounding oyster shells for the use of
the cultivators of the soil ; and a similar plan
might, I should imagine, be very advanta-
geously adopted in some of the populous dis-
tricts of this country : for, although such shells
do not contain the same proportion of phos-
phate of lime as bone, yet they contain a suffi-
cient quantity to render them highly valuable
as fertilizing substances. 100 parts of lobster
shells yield —

Carbonate of lime (chalk)
Phosphate of lime
Cartilage - - -

1 00 parts of cray-fish shells contain-

Carbonate of lime
Phosphate of lime
Cartilage

100 parts of j^ens' egg-shells contain —

Carbonate of lime
Phosphate of lime
Animal matter -

Par's.
60
14

100

Parts.
60
12

100

Parts.

89-6
5-7
4-7

100-

194

There is yet another source from whence the
phosphate of lime might be obtained in large
quantities for the use of the farmer, viz., the
fossil bones or native phosphate of lime, which
is found in various districts of this country, in
very considerable quantities, and would only
require crushing or powdering to render it
nearly as useful to the farmer as the recent
bones. That the cartilage or oily matter of the
bone does not constitute the chief fertilizing
quality is shown by the fact, that the farmers
who use bone dust will as readily employ that
which has first been steamed, and all its fatty
portion extracted by the preparers of cart
grease, as they will the unused fresh bones.
It is acknowledged, says the Doncaster Agr.
Soc. in their Report, to be a prevalent opinion
amongst intelligent farmers, that manufactured
bones are equal, in their effects, to the raw
bones. Mr. Short, in the year 1812, "boned
twenty-four acres, at the rate of fifty bushels
an acre. On one part of the field he put Lon-
don bones, which had the oil stewed out of
them ; and another part was tilled with bones
collected from Nottingham, which were full of
marrow, and a third part with horses bones,
having much flesh upon them. He could not
see any difference in the turnips produced
from these : they all produced a good crop.
But the next crop was not so good where the
fleshy bones had been laid." And Mr. Horn*
castle adds, " A strong fermentation takes place
in the boiled bones ; when thrown in a heap
they become extremely offensive, and when
they obtain this bad smell, I consider they are
in a state to break up for manure." — And, says
Mr. Halkett, of New Scone, in Perthshire,
" After numerous trials between what we call
green bones with all the marrow and fat in
them, and dry ones free from it, I have always
found that the latter raised by far the best
crops. Therefore, I have arrived at the con-
clusion that the less animal fat in them the
better, and that the boiling of them before
crushing, instead of impairing them is a bene-
fit." (Quar. Journ. of Agric. vol. ii. p. 180.)

The mineral substance called the Apatite,
found in the Cornish tin mines, is nothing but
phosphate of lime; 100 pans being composed
of—

Phosphoric acid
Lime -

Parts.

4.')
55

100

The phosphate of lime is also found in ma-
ny parts of the north of England, in Hungary,
and, in immense beds, in Spanish Estrema-
dura, where it is said to be so common in many
places, that the peasants make their walls and
fences of it. • 100 parts of this substance,
called by mineralogists the phosphorite, con-
tain—

Parts.

Phosphoric acid and lime - - • - 93

Carbonate acid - ^ - - - - 1

Muriatic acid ------ 0'5

Fluoric acid ------ 25

Silica 2

Oxide of iron - - - " - - - 1

100*

II

BONES.

The horns of the deer are similar in compo-
sition to bones ; but those of black cattle are
totally different ; they approach nearer in com-
position to animal muscle, as may be seen by
the following analysis of Dr. John; 100 parts
of the horns of black cattle yielding this
chemist —

Parts.

Albumen -------90

Ditto with Gelatine ----- 8

Fat 1

Various salts, &c., &c. _ - - - 1

100

100 parts, however, of a fossil horn, ana-
lyzed by M. Braconnot, yielded —

Pirtk

Phosphate of lime ----- 69 a

Water 11

Gelatine ------- 4-6

Carbonate of lime ----- 4 5

Bitumen - - 44

Silica - 4

Phosphate of magnesia - - - - 1

Alumina ------- 0*7

Oxide of iron ------ 0-5

100-

The excrements of those birds and animals
which feed upon animal matters approach very
nearly to bone in chemical composition ; and
I have little doubt but that the dung of sea
birds might be profitably collected from some
of the rocky islands on our coasts. This is
actually done among the South Sea Islands by
the Peruvian farmers, and to such an extent,
that, according to M. Humboldt, fifty vessels,
each carrying from fifteen hundred to two
thousand cubic feet, are annually loaded with
this manure at the island of Chinche alone.
This manure is known in South America under
the name of Guano, and is too powerful to be
used in large quantities. It abounds in phos-
phate of lime. (A quantity, has recently been
imported into England : it contains 36 per cent,
of phosphate of lime.) Some of the dung of
sea-fowl collected on a rock on the coast of
Merionethshire, was tried at the request of Sir
Humphry Davy, at Nannau, by Sir Robert
Vaughan, and produced a very powerful,
though transient effect, on some grass land.
The very soil of some of the rocks, which
have been for so many ages tenanted by these
Mater-fowls, must be completely impregnated
"With the earthy matters of bones. See Guano.

All the constituent parts of bones are found
in vegetable substances. The cartilage of
bones is composed, according to the examina-
tions of Mr. Hatchett, of a substance nearly
identical in all its properties with solid albu-
men. Now, 100 parts of albumen are com-
posed of—

Carbon 52888

Oxygen 23 872

Hydrogen ------ 7-54

Azote ------- 15-705

100

" The primary sources from which the bones
of animals are derived, are the hay, straw, or
other substances which they take as food,
rfow if we admit that bones contain 55 per
cent, of tlie phosphates of lime and magnesia

BONES.

(Berzelius), and that hay contains as much of
them as wheat-straw, it will follow that 8 lbs.
of bones contain as much phosphate of lime
as 1000 lbs. of hay or wheat-straw, and 2 lbs.
of it as much as 1000 lbs. of the grain of wheat
or oats. These numbers express pretty exactly
the quantity of phosphates which a soil yields
annually on the growth of hay and corn. Now
the manure of an acre of land with 40 lbs. of
bone dust is sufficient to supply three crops of
wheat, clover, potatoes, turnips, &c., with
phosphates. But the form in which they are
restored to a soil does not appear to be a mat-
ter of indifference. For the more finely the
bones are reduced to powder, and the more in-
timately they are mixed with the soil, the more
easily are they assimilated." {Liebig's Organ,
Chem.)

It is perfectly needless to specify any vege-
table substances into which the three first of
these substances enter, for the vegetable world
is almost entirely composed of them, and oc-
casionally a portion of azote is also found in
vegetable substances, but the three first are
invariably present. The flour of wheat, the
poison of the deadly night-shade, the oxalic
acid of the wild sorrel, the narcotic milk of
the lettuce, the stinking odour of the garlic,
and the perfume of the violet, are, by the con-
trivance of their divine architect, only some of
the results of the mixture of carbon, oxygen,
and hydrogen.

But the chief constituent present in all
bones we have already seen is the phosphate
of lime ; and how absolutely necessary this
substance is for the healthy vegetation of
plants, will be apparent from the following ta-
ble, which contains the results of the exami-
nation by MM. Saussure, Vauquelin, and a few
other distinguished chemists, of the ashes or
solid contents of a number of vegetable sub-
stances : —

Parti.
100 parts of the ashes of the grain of the oat yielded

of phopphaie of lime - . . 393
straw of wiieat yielded of phosphates
of lime and magnesia - - -6-2

— seeds of wheat ----- 44-5

— bran .------ 465

— seeds of vetches - - - . 07-92

— fn\Aen roA (Solidago virgaurea) - 11"

— plants of turnsole (Hdianthus annua),

bearing ripe seeds - - - - 22*5

— chaff of barley ----- 775

— seeds of barley ----- 325

— seeds of oats ----- 24-

— leaves of oak - - - - - 34*

— wood of oak ----- 4-5

— bark of oak ----- 4-5

— leaves of poplar - - - - 13"

— wood of poplar - - - - 16-75

— leaves of hazel ----- 23-

— wood of hazel - - - . - - 35*

— bark of hazel ----- 5-5

— wood of mulberry - _ - - 2-25

— bark of mulberry - - . - - 8-5

— wood of hornbeam - - - - 23*

— bark of hornbeam - - - - 45

— seeds of peas ----- 17-5

— bulbs of garlic ----- 8-9

Phosphate of lime has also been found in
the marsh bean {Vtcia fahd), and in the pea-
pod or husk, by Einhof ; in rice, by Braconnot ;
in the Scotish fir, by Dr. John ; in the quin-
quina of St Domingo, by Fourcroy; in the
fuci, by Gaultier de Claubry, and in many
others; in short, as Dr. Thomson remarks

195

BONES.

(System of Chem. vol. iv. p. 319), "phosphate
of lime is a constant ingredient in plants."

The cultivator of the soil will not be incre-
dulous as to the power of vegetables to dissolve
and feed upon the hard substance of the
crushed bones of animals, when he is remind-
ed' that the ashes of the straw of wheat are
composed of 61^ per cent, of silica (flint), a
still harder substance than the hardest bone.
And this is not a solitary instance ; for the
same earth abounds in a still greater propor-
tion in the straw of other grain. Vauquelin
found 60J per cent, of it in the ashes of the
seeds of the oat ; and the Dutch rush contains
it in such abundance that it is employed by
the turner to polish wood and even brass.

To the mode and effect of applying bones
as a manure, either whole, broken, or in a
state of powder, the Doncaster x\gricultural
Association paid considerable attention, and
they have made a very valuable report of the
result of their inquiries, in which they say: —
" The returns received by the Association sa-
tisfactorily establish the great value of bones
as a manure. Our correspondents, with only
two exceptions, all concur in stating them to
be a highly valuable manure, and on light dry
soils superior to farm-yard dung and all other
manures. In copying the language of one of
them, in reference to dry sandy soils, we ex-
press the opinions repeated in a far greater
number — 'I consider bone tillage one of the
most useful manures which has ever been dis-
covered for the farmer's benefit. The light-
ness of carriage, its suitableness for the drill,
and its general fertilizing properties, render it
peculiarly valuable in those parts where dis-
tance from towns renders it impossible to pro-
cure manures of a heavier and more bulky
description.' For, as stated by another far-
mer, the carting of six, eight, or ten loads of
manure per acre is no trifling expense. The
use of bones diminishes labour at a season of
the year when time is of the first importance ;
for one wagon load, or 120 bushels of small
drill bone-dust is equal to forty or fifty loads
of fold manure. Upon very thin sand land its
value is not to be estimated; it not only is
found to benefit the particular crop to which
it is applied, but extends through the whole
course of crops." The report adds, that bones
have been found highly beneficial on the lime-
stone soils near Doncaster, on peaty soils, and
on light loams ; but that on the heavy soils and
on clay they produce no benefit. The late Mr.
George Sinclair, of New Cross, has given
(Trans. High. Soc. vol. i. p. 78), the analysis of
^ two soils on which bone manure produced
very opposite results. 400 parts of the soil on
which the bone manure had very beneficial
effects consisted of —

Parts.
SilJcious sand ------ 167

Calcareous sand ----- 43

Water of absorption ----- 99

Animal and vegetable matter - - - 24
Carbonate of lime ----- 25

Silica (flint) 23

Alumina (clay) ------ 9

^ Oxide of iron ------ 3

W Soluble vegetable and animal matter - 5
▼ Moifiture and loss ----- 2

400

196

BONES,

The soil on which the bone manure had no
such beneficial effect, contained, in 400 parts.

Parts.
Calcareous sand and gravel (nearly pure

carbonate of lime) ----- 217
Animal and vegetable matters - - - 17
Carbonate of lime ----- 39

Silica 85

Alumina -------20

Oxide of iron ------ 5

Soluble matter with gypsum - - - 4
Moisture or loss ----- 13

loo

The mode of applying them, adds the Don-
caster Report, is either by sowing broadcast or
by the drill ; either by themselves, or, what is
much better, previously mixed with earth and
fermented. Bones which have been thus fer-
mented are decidedly superior to those which
have not been so. Mr. Turner, of Tring,
adopted the practice of mixing with his bone-
dust an equal quantity of the dung of the
sheep, collected for the express purpose, at an
expense of 2^d. per bushel for labour. He
prepared the mixture in winter, by laying the
sheep-dung in heaps with the crushed bones,
and allowing them to ferment together for
some months. By this plan the two manures
are thoroughly incorporated, and he considers
that thirty-five bushels of the mixture are fully
equal in effect to twenty-five bushels of the
bones. (My Essay on Crushed Bones, p. 14.)
The quantity applied per acre is about twenty-
five bushels of bone-dust and forty bushels of
large broken bones. The dust is best for im-
mediate profit; the broken half-inch bones for
more continued improvement. Mr. Birks says,
" If I were to till for early profit, I would use
bones powdered as small as saw-dust ; if I
wished to keep my land in good heart, I would
use principally half-inch bones, and in break-
ing these I should prefer some remaining con-
siderably larger." The reason for this is very
obvious; the larger the pieces of bone, the
more gradually will a given bulk dissolve in
the soil.

Crushed bones are employed with decided
success for turnips. The ease with which they
are applied by the drill, the ample nourishment
they afford the young plants, on the very poor-
est soils, and the avidity with which the roots
of the turnip encircle and mat themselves
around the fragments of crushed bone, clearly
evinces how grateful the manure is to this
valuable crop. The evidence in its favour is
copious, and decisive of its merits. In a re-
cent report of the East Lothian Agricultural
Societ}% Mr. John Brodie, of Aimsfield Mains,
has given the result of his experiments upon
the comparative cost of crushed bones and
other commonly employed manure for tur-
nips, which is worthy of attention : —

£ s.
5 10

5 12
5 12

1st exp.— 20 cart loads of street dung, per Scotch
acre, at 5s. dd. per load . - - - -

2d exp.— half a ton of rape-dust, at llOs. 2 15

three quarters crushed bones, at 19s. 2 17

3d exp.— 16 loads of farm-yard dung at 7s. -

"The whole turnips," says Mr. Brodie,
"brairded beautifully, and from the first to
the time of lifting, it was impossible to decide
which was the weightiest crop. I therefore

BONES.

determined, in the last week in November, to
take up alternate rows of the whole, and weigh
each separately after the roots and tops were
taken off, and the result was found to be as
follows : —

CwL Ibfc

Ist exp.— The portion examined of a Scotch
acre, manured with the street dung, produced
of common globe turnip - - - - 301 92

2d exp.— The samequantity of ground manured
with the rape and bone-dust, produced - 301 99

3d exp.— Ditto with farm-yard dung - - 312 30

"Mr. Watson, of Keilor," says the Hon.
Capt. Ogilvy, of Airlie (Trans. High. S(ic. vol.
iv. p. 238), " introduced the use of bone ma-
nure in Strathmore. The great deficiency of
farm-yard dung in 1827 (consequent on the
almost failure of the crop of the previous
year), first induced me to try four acres of tur-
nip without other manure, sown with fifteen
bushels of bone-dust per acre ; it cost 3*. per
bushel, or 2/. 5*. per acre. The crop of turnips
on these four acres was, at least, equal to the
rest raised with farm-yard manure ; but as the
whole of the {urnips were pulled, and the land
received some dung before the succeeding
crop, much stress cannot be laid on the cir-
cumstance of the following white crop and
grass being good.

"Next year, 1828, eight acres were sown
with turnip, solely with hone-dust ; the soil a
light sandy loam; the subsoil gravel and sand,
coming in some places nearly to the surface,
which is very irregular, but in general has a
south exposure. This field had been broken
up with a crop of oats in 1827, after having
been depastured six years, principally by
sheep. The quantity of bone-dust applied was
twenty bushels per acre, and cost 2«. 6d. per
bushel, or 2/. 10*. per acre. The turnip crop
was so heavy, that, notwithstanding the very
light nature of the soil, it was judged advis-
able to pull one-third for the feeding cattle,
two drills pulled, ajid four left to be eaten on
the ground by sheep. The following year,
1829, these eight acres were sown with barley
and grass-seeds; and the produce was fifty-
seven bolls one bushel, or seven bolls one
bushel nearly per acre, of grain equal in qua-
lity to the best in the Dundee market, both in
weight and colour. Next year, a fair crop of
hay for that description of land was cut, about
150 stones an acre; and though I am now con-
vinced that the field should rather have been
depastured the first year, yet the pasture was
better than it had ever been known before for
the two following seasons, 1831 and 1832. It
is worthy of remark, as a proof of the efficacy
of the bone manure, that in a small angle of this
field, in which I had permitted a cottager to
plant potatoes, well dunged, and which, after
their removal, was included in one of the flak-
ings of sheep, and had (one might have sup-
posed) thereby had at least an equal advan-
tage with the adjacent bone-dust turnip land,
both the barley and grass crops were evidently
inferior, and this continued to be observable
until the field was again ploughed up. A very
bulky crop of oats has been reaped this season,
probably upwards of eight bolls per acre, but
no part of it is yet thrashed.

" Having detailed what may be considered a

BONES.

I fair experiment, during the whole rotation of
I the above eight acres, I may add, that turnip
i raised with bone manure and fed off with
I sheep, has now become a regular part of the
system on this farm. Fifteen, twenty, and last
year twenty-five acres were fed off, and invari-
ably with the same favourable results, with
the prospect of being able to adopt a five-shift
rotation, and to continue it without injury to
the land. Every person in the least acquainted
with the management of a farm, of which a
considerable portion consists of light, dry,
sandy loam, at a distance from town manure,
must be aware of the importance of this, from
knowing the expense at which such land was
formerly kept in a fair state of cultivation : in-
deed, the prices of corn, for some years past,
would not warrant the necessary outlay ; and
large tracts of land, capable of producing bar-
ley little inferior to that of Norfolk, must
speedily have been converted into sheep pas-
ture, but for the introduction of bone manure."
In the valuable experiments of Mr. Robert
Turner, of Tring, in Hertfordshire, the soil on
which they were made, hitherto a common,
producing only furze, is sandy, with a substra-
tum of clay, and then chalk. He began the
use of bone manure in 1831 on this land, and
has continued its employment for the last three
years on a very bold scale, and with unvaried
success. The quantity generally employed
was from twenty-four to thirty bushels per
acre, of the description of half-inch and dust,
and the bones were invariably applied to the
turnip crop. The bones were usually drilled
with the seed at a distance of eighteen inches,
and the turnips were always horse-hoed. The
year 1831 was a peculiarly good season for
this crop generally. The turnips manured
with bone-dust, like most others in the district,
were very luxuriant. About 2000 bushels of
bone manure were this year used by Mr. Tur-
ner. In 1832, the turnips were, in general, a
very bad plant, the fly committing general de-
vastation; many cultivators unsuccessfully
sowing four or five times. On the turnip land
of Mr. Turner, seventy-four acres were ma-
nured with bones, and of this breadth only the
last sown four acres were a failure, and there
was, in no instance, any necessity to repeat
the sowing. The turnips were a much better
crop than in 1831. In 1833, the turnips in the
neighbourhood of Tring were a very partial
crop. On the farm of Mr. Turner, about fifty
acres were manured with bones. The effect,
with the exception of the very last sown tur-
nips, was again most excellent, the crop being
very heavy, and that too on land now first culti-
vated. In 1835 and 1836, Mr. Turner conti-
nued the use of bones for his turnips, to the
same extent, and with equal success. These
experiments the cultivator will deem of the
very first importance. The soil was not ma-
nured with any other fertilizer except bones,
and in drilling, every now and then, for the
drill's breadth, the bones were omitted.

On the soil not boned, the failure of the tur-
nips was general and complete: they vege-
tated, it is true, and came up, but they were
wretchedly small, and of no use. The turnips
being fed off, and the sheep folded on the soil
»3 197

BONES.

BONES.

without any distinction between boned and un-
boned land, the comparative experiments upon
the succeeding crop were rendered uncertain.
The experience of two more years, Mr. Turner
informs me (1836-7), has confirmed all his
fortner experiments : he continues the use of
this valuable fertilizer, with the most satisfac-
tory results ; his plot of turnips drilled with
bones having been, in that dry season, most
excellent.

In no part of England is the use of bone
dust more extensive, and more absolutely es-
sential to the growth of turnips than in Lin-
colnshire. A brief account of its introduction
will be found in the following extract from a
letter with which 1 was favoured in the spring
of 1836, from Thomas Brailsford, Esq., of
Barkwith.

" The use of bones crushed small enough to
pass the drill, began in Lincolnshire about
twenty or twenty-five years ago, and may now
be considered as general over the greatest part
of the county, and universal over the great na-
tural divisions — the heath, and (the corn brash
and upper oolite) the cliff, and the wolds (the
chalk and green sand-stone measures of
geologists). The effect produced has been
wonderful : it has converted large tracts of
thin-skinned and weak lands into the most fer-
tile districts. The quantity now drilled varies
from twenty strikes of half- inch bone, with the
dmt in it, per acre ; and it is used almost ex-
clusively for turnips, experience having proved
that it is more profitably adapted to the culti-
vation of that crop than any other. It may be
right to add, that, in this county, it is consi-
dered that the feeding quality of turnips raised
from bones exceeds that produced by dung.
Last year," adds Mr. Brailsford, " I used sul-
phur with my crushed bones, mixing 7 lbs. of
the former with 100 lbs. of the latter: a few
days before I drilled them with the turnip seed,
a moderate fermentation took place, which
rendered the sulphur active, and produced a
pretty considerably smell of brimstone, and
had the effect of mosf effectually defending the
young turnip plants from the fly."

An opinion has been sometimes entertained,
that the black grub or caterpillar, which has
for the last two or three years been so de-
structive of the turnip crop, has been intro-
duced in the bones imported from abroad for
manure; and many equally idle and learned
papers have appeared to warn the farmer of
the dangers he was incurring by their use. A
more absurd supposition, perhaps, was never
entertained; for, saying nothing of the total
absence of every thing like proof of a single
black grub being discovered in an imported
bone, all the accurate experiments, and long
experience of those who have used bones, ren-
der the supposition laughable.

In the numerous experiments at which I
have assisted and witnessed, it has been al-
ways found that the black grub appeared
^qually numerous among the boned and un-
■)oned turnips : that in those portions of the
lield, or in the entire field, where bones were
drilled with the turnips, the grubs were not
more numerous than on those lands which
198

I V / \

were manured with common manure, or drilled
without any manure at all.

Again, the very habits of this black grub
betray the fact that he is not of animal origin ;
he lives, he feeds upon, he is composed of
vegetable matter. The farmer well .knows
that the grub or caterpillar which is bred on a
cabbage or turnip cannot sustain life, nay,
cannot eat animal matters ; it would perish if
placed on the most dainty bone. And on the
contrary, if a grub bred in a bone is placed,
however cautiously and skilfully, on a turnip
or cabbage, he dies of absolute starvation, for
vegetable matters are not food for him ; his
habits, his very nature, make him revolt from
the novel food presented to him.

And again, if he really be imported from
Belgium in the bones, he must be able to resist
a very considerable temperature; for it has
been clearly established, that the turnip fields
which have been manured with the refuse
boiled bones of the size and cart-grease makers
have been just as much covered with the black
caterpillars as those which havcbeen manured
with fresh bones. He can live, therefore, even
in boiling hot water: or, if he come in the
shape of caterpillar eggs, then the believers in
this absurd doctrine must be convinced that
caterpillar eggs can be hatched even after they
have been boiled for hours in a temperature
of 212°.

But grubs and black caterpillars are not the
first living substances which have been sup-
posed to have been imported in the foreign
bones. Thus, the Nottingham and Lincoln-
shire farmers, many years since, found that,
by the use of bones, the growth of white clover
was surprisingly encouraged ; and that, in fact,
wherever a load of crushed bones was spread,
in that place the clover sprung up as if by
magic. " They appeared," says his Grace the
Duke of Portland, in a letter with which he
honoured me in February 1836, "so much to
encourage the growth of white clover, that I
had almost formed the opinion that it was su-
perfluous to sow the seed." The honest farm-
ers of that fine district naturally had many a
puzzling learned cogitation upon this strange
yet regular appearance of the white clover,
wherever bones were applied; but then, they
recollected that the bones came from the very
land of fine white clover seed; and that the
seed must, therefore, as a natural consequence,
come hid in the bones. The Lancasterian and
Cheshire farmers, however, did not fall into
this mistake, since they found that the white
clover sprung up just as copiously after the
use of the boiled bones, as upon the lands ma-
nured with those in a fresh or green state.

The chemical explanation will occur to
every scientific farmer. The white clover
abounds in phosphate of lime ; it cannot, there-
fore, grow vigorously in soils which do not
contain it. Bones supply this necessary food,
or constituent ; and enable the white clover to
contend successfully in the turf with other and
coarser grasses, and finally extirpate them.
There are few soils in England which do not
contain the seeds of this plant; it has been
noticed to spring up in the most unlikely situ-

t

r

' m Breci

BONES.

ations, even in London, after a firt ; and for
precisely the same reason — the ashes of wood
abound in phosphate of lin\e. Bones have
been hitherto principally employed upon the
turnip crop, but there is another, the potato
plant, to which they seem admirably adapted ;
and of this opinion was Mr. Knight, the late
President of the Horticultural Society ; he ob-
served to me in a communication dated March
26, 1836, written with his usual anxious
solicitude to assist on every occasion in
any researches which tended to the improved
cultivation of the earth,— "I have one large
farm, upon which rises a sutficient quantity
of spring water to work a thrashing machine
and a bone mill, at all seasons ; and upon that
I have erected a machine for crushing bones,
which my tenant has used largely. The soil
is generally strong and argillaceous, but upon
this the bone manure operates well, and it is
applied by a drill to the turnip ground. My
tenant finds that it acts according to the quan-
tity of oleaginous matter which it contains ;
and I cannot help thinking, that taking away
that part must destroy to a very great extent
the operation of the manure during at le.ast
one year ; particularly if the bones be crushed
nearly to dust before boiling. I have tried
other animal substances, such as hair, feathers,
and the parings and dust of white leather, and
none of these have operated till they have had
some weeks to decompose. The white leather
parings, being almost entirely composed of
gelatine,! expect operate very soon, but I found
that turnips drilled in over a very sufficient
quantity of it did not begin to grow kindly till
September ; and I do not entertain a shadow
of a doubt but that if bones, after being crushed,
were mixed with four or five times their
weight of earth, their operation, as a manure,
immediately, would be greatly increased. It
could not, however, then be conveniently
drilled in with the seed, and that process,
whenever the soil is poor, is very important,
because by being placed close to the seedling
plant, that gets well nourished while young.
I cannot doubt but the bone manure must con-
tinue to operate as long as decomposition of
th« original substance continues, and under
this impression I am willing to find capital to
purchase it, upon the tenant's paying a fair
amount of increased rent. Much would, of
dourse, depend upon the bones being more or
less crushed ; but I cannot think that a good
manuring of bone-dust can, under any circum-
stances, be soon entirely expended. I have
seen bone-dust applied in considerable quanti-
ties in planting stone fruit trees, as peaches and
plums, with good effect, though such are al-
ways greatly injured or destroyed by the appli-
cation of stable-yard dung in the same way.
My tenant applies his bone manure wholly to
his turnips, and the stable-yard manure to the
wheat field, in opposition certainly to my opi-
nion ; as I think wheat crops yield best when
the soil is firm, and turnip crops best when it
is hollow, and he purposes to try the effect of
reversing the process. If the turnip plant is
capable of deriving nourishment from frag-
ments of bones, which have been boiled, after
being crushed, their roots must, I conceive,

BONES.

have a power of decomposing the substance
of the bone ; which appears very improbable,
though many plants appear to exercise such
power on silicious earth. 1 have somewhere
read an account ofexperiments, which appeared
to prove that the silex found in the epidermis
of the different species of Equisetura, grapes,
&c., is really dissolved and taken up from the
soil, and subsequently deposited in an organic
form ; but as the plants which were subjected
to experiment might, owing to having been
feeble and sickly, not have deposited any, or
the usual portion of silex, I am not satisfied
that the remaining half of flint, after its oxy-
gen has been driven off, is a simple substance.
The number of simple elements (admitting the
existence of matter) I suspect to be very
small ; such was the opinion of my late la-
mented friend. Sir H. Davy. I think it proba-
ble that quicklime, if applied to bones contain-
ing much oily matter, would operate power-
fully by reducing such oil to the state of soap,
readily soluble in water; but a part of the
ammonia might by this process be dissipated
and lost. Valuable as bone-dust certainly is
as a manure to the turnips, I doubt whether it
may not be employed with more advantage as
a manure for the potato ; and my tenant is in-
clined to think that the potato crop, though
wholly consumed upon the farm, will best re-
pay him. The bone manure, when employed
to nourish the potato plant, might be buried
in the soil two months before it would be ma-
terially wanted; and the crops of barley and
oats, upon all except light soils, are much bet-
ter after potatoes than after turnips, both being
carted off the ground. Early varieties which
do not blossom are the most valuable, as they
afford the most certain crops, and will be
quite ready to be taken up in August, after
which the ground may be well prepared for
wheat. Of such potatoes I have obtained a
jfroduce equivalent to 963^ bushels of 80 lbs.,
and 1248^ bushels of 60 lbs. But early pota-
toes vegetate again late in autumn, and they
then become much better food without being
steamed, than previously."

The way in which bone-dust is usually em-
ployed as a manure for potatoes is decidedly
wrong; it is used in much too fresh a state.
This error long deceived and perplexed the
turnip growers of the east of England, who
now invariably let the bone-dust ferment,
either by itself, or mixed with earth, for some
weeks before it is applied to the soil. And all
my experiments have concurred in their re-
sult with those of my neighbours in Essex,
that if the bones are mixed with five or six
times their bulk of earth, and are turned over
and mixed together some weeks before they are
spread on the potato ground, the more valuable
is the application. And this remark is not
confined to its use for potatoes ; oats and bar-
ley are proportionally benefitted by the pre-
vious fermentation and partial dissolution of
the bones in the mixed earth. The same ob-
servation must apply to Indian corn.

It is impossible, in any agricultural experi-
ment, to give very minute directions for the
farmer's guidance, since soil, climate, and situ-
ation, ^^s regards temperature and easy access

■ 7

I i

BONES.

BONES.

to the proposed fertilizer, must be of necessity-
taken into the agriculturist's consideration;
and these observations particularly apply to
those manures of a purely animal nature,
whose value I have been endeavouring to il-
lustrate. Thus, with regard to bones, the
quantity applied per acre must of necessity
vary with circumstances ; but, by many care-
fully conducted experiments, at some of which
I have personally assisted, it has been found
that the bones remain in the soil for a length
of time proportionate to the size of the pieces,
the dust producing the most immediate effect,
the larger description showing the longest ad-
vantage ; thus, on arable lands, the good ef-
fects of the half-inch or inch bones are obser-
vable for four or five years ; while, on pasture
land, the advantage derived from their appli-
cation is observable for eight or nine. But, as
practical experience is alone the substitute for
our want of general scientific knowledge
founded on experiments, the farmer should, in
experimenting upon all manures, for the sake
of correct information, apply them in varying
quantities per acre, and on no account omit to
leave, by way of comparison, a fair portion of
the field without any manure.

There is no delusion more common than that
a correct agricultural experiment is easily ac-
complished— that it may be taken up as a
mere amusement, carried on without care, and
concluded without any laborious attempts at
accuracy. Some experience in these delight-
ful pursuits, amongst some of the most talented
farmers of the east of England, has long con-
vinced me of the folly of such a conclusion,
and of the extreme care and caution necessary
for such valuable researches ; for, otherwise,
all kinds of errors are almost sure to arise. In
applying weight and measure, also, to the crop,
there is no need for the farmer to weigh and
measure large plots ; a square rod or two care-
fully examined, furnishes results nearly as ac-
curate and valuable as the examination of
acres.

The application of bones to grass land is
very common in Cheshire and Lancashire. I
have already noticed its effect in the produc-
tion of white clover, a phenomenon well known
to the farmers in the neighbourhood of Man-
chester, who are also fully aware of the amaz-
ingly increased produce of their grass lands
by the application of the refuse bones of the
size makers. The quantity which they em-
ploy is very large, varying from forty-five to
eighty bushels per acre. The result, however,
is fully commensurate with the outlay, for they
calculate that the produce of their grass fields
is nearly doubled by the application.

I cannot give a better account of its applica-
tion for grass than that very kindly communi-
cated to me in March, 1836, by Dr. Stanley, the
present Bishop of Norwich. " Bone-dust has
been used in Cheshire," said his lordship, " as
a manure, to a very considerable extent, for
the last seven years, but partially for a much
longer period. Formerly, it was laid on pas-
^re ground only, and in large quantities, and
m large pieces, which rendered it very ex-
pensive, and the advantage comparatively
slow ; but some pastures that were bone-dusted
200

twenty years ago now show, almost to a yard,
where this manure was applied. Bones are
now used on every description of soil in Eng-
land with the best results, provided the wet
sands are first effectually drained. Some
thousands of tons are annually consumed, and
the demand is daily increasing. The quantity
per statute acre varies ; but the average may
be, on pasture, from 30 to 40 cwt. of Man-
chester or calcined bones or 20 cwt. of raw or
ground bones, to the statute acre. For turnips,
from 20 to 30 cwt. of calcined bones. For
oats or barley (of this latter, however, the
quantity grown in Cheshire is very trifling),
with clover and grass seeds, 20 to 30 cwt. of
calcined bones, or one ton of raw or ground
bones. Pasture ground should be well scari-
fied or harrowed previous to sowing the bones,
and immediately afterward rolled with a heavy
roller. For turnips the bones should be
pounded, or ground very small, and drilled in
with the seed. With spring grain they should
be rolled in with clover and seeds. It should
be here remarked, that raw bones particularly
should be allowed to remain for some days in
heaps to ferment before they are applied.
They have been used for potatoes ; but expe-
rienced persons say they prefer dung. I am
also informed, though my informant states his
observations to be limited, that on old mea-
dows the result has not been found to be so
satisfactory as on pastures. On clover, bones
have a most extraordinary effect. On old pas-
tures that have been boned, although previous-
ly the clover was not to be seen, luxuriant
crops have soon shown themselves. The best
proof, indeed, of their beneficial effect, is the
fact, that the farmers, six years ago, in this
immediate neighbourhood, had so strong a.
prejudice against bones that it was with some
difficulty they were induced to use them, al-
though given byway of reduction of rent; but,
for the last three years, they have been most
anxious to obtain them, and are now quite
willing to be at half the expense. The rents
have latterly been well paid, and there is good
reason for believing that it is in a great mea-
sure owing to the advantage they are deriving
from the boned land. On some estates in the
county, the proprietors have boned a consider-
able quantity of the pasture land, the tenants
willingly agreeing to pay, as an increased rent,
from eight to ten per cent, on the cost of bones.
There is some difference of opinion as to the
most advantageous sorts of bones for use,
some preferring the dust to the ground bones.
The dust, or calcined bones, are 3/. per ton,
and the ground bones 7/. per ton. For turnips,
the dust is generally preferred, as being more
immediate in its effects. On a very poor peat
soil, about 35 cwt. of bone-dust was applied to
a statute acre for Swedish turnips. The crop
was a fair average one. The turnips were
carted off, and the ground sown with wheat,
which produced nearly twenty-five measures
(of 75 lbs. per measure) to the statute acre.
Oats succeeded with seed, principally red
clover, a most excellent crop of oats ensuing.
The clover, also, proved a very heavy full
crop, and was mown twice. No manure was
applied for this course, except the first set of

BONES.

BONES.

bones for the turnips. The remainder of the
field, of exactly the same description of soil,
was well manured with farm-yard dung, for
potatoes, mangel wurzel, and vetches, to be
used for soiling. This was then sown with
wheat; but, being first well set over with a
compost of lime and soil, the wheat plant on
this part during winter and spring looked much
better than the boned part of the field, but did
not prove so good a crop ; but the difference
in favour of the bones was not much. Oats
succeeded here, also, with seeds, but the oat
crop bid not prove half so productive any-
where as on the part boned; and the clover
was still more inferior, and mowed only once,
the second crop not being considered worth
mowing, while the part boned, alongside of it,
was as much as could be well mown."

There appears to be on many grass soils
some care requisite to ensure the greatest ad-
vantage from the application of the bones;
and this observation is not confined to any
particular district, since it is strongly alluded
to in the following extract from a letter of Mr.
William Lewis, of Trentham in StaffV)rdshire,
transmitted to me in September last, in an
obliging communication of his Grace the Duke
of Sutherland : —

"I have never," says this intelligent farmer,
"applied less than one ton of crushed bones
per acre for turnips drilled in, and have been
generally successful in growing that crop ; and
their good effects (I mean the bones) are most
conspicuously shown and felt on the grass
erop that follows the turnips, showing to an
inch how far the ground has been manured
with them. I have no genuine fertile land, it
being nearly all of a light, dry, sandy, hungry
nature ; but I have now excellent pastures for
sheep, which I greatly ascribe to the use of
bones ; for the pastures following barley which
have been manured with dung I find very in-
ferior to that manured with bones — (the differ-
ence in the barley crop not being perceivable)
— so much so, that I am upon the eve of break-
ing up some of my pasture fields which have
lain three years, and were intended for perma-
nent pasture ; for those manured at the same
time with bones are still looking beautiful,
with a close, fine, even bottom. I have also
applied bones to pastures, and they have gene-
rally improved the herbage and verdure very
greatly. The top-dressing with the bones I
would recommend to be done in moist weather,
when the ground is pretty well covered with
grass. I consider from one and a half to two
tons per acre to be a fair dressing. After sow-
ing them, the ground should be well brushed,
harrowed length and breadthways, then heavily
rolled, and all stock taken from the field for at
least ten days. I have seen bones applied to
bare pastures, with little or no covering, done
in hot, dry weather, showing no beneficial
effects whatever afterwards." There is no
doubt of the superior advantage of rolling the
bones into the soil ; for fresh, or green bones,
as they are called in Cheshire, when they are
exposed to the atmosphere for some time, lose
from one fifth to one fourth of their weight;
and even boiled bones, under similar circum-
stances, are reduced one third in weighu A
26

bushel of crushed green bones, of the three-
quarter of an inch size, weighs about 45 lbs. —
the same bulk of hone-dust 54 lbs. : 75 bushels
of crushed green bones weigh about one ton
and a half, the same bulk of boiled bones about
two tons. The average weight of the bones
of an ox is about 2 cwt., or about one fourth of
the carcase free from offal ; the bones of a sheep
about 21 lbs., supposing the carcase to average
84 lbs. So that, according to this calculation,
allowing twenty bushels of crushed bones to
manure an acre, the bones of five bullocks or
horses, or fifty sheep, are requisite to supply
the necessary dressing.

Liebig recommends the following method as
the one by which the benefits may be most
speedily derived from bone applications. "The
most easy and practical mode of effecting their
division is," he says, "to pour over the bones,
in a state of fine powder, half of their weight
of sulphuric acid diluted with three or four
parts of water, and after they have been di-
gested for some time, to add one hundred parts
of water, and sprinkle this mixture over the
field before the plough. In a few seconds, the
free acids unite with the bases contained in the
earth, and a neutral salt is formed in a very
fine state of division. Experiments instituted
on a soil formed from grauwacke, for the pur-
pose of ascertaining the action of manure thus
prepared, have distinctly shown that neither
corn, nor kitchen-garden plants, suffer injuri-
ous effects in consequence, but that on the
contrary they thrive with much more vi-
gour.

" In the manufactories of glue, many hun-
dred tons of a solution of phosphates in muri-
atic acid are yearly thrown away as being
useless. It would be important to examine
whether this solution might not be substituted
for the bones. The free acid would combine
with the alkalies in the soil, especially with
the lime, and a soluble salt would thus be pro-
duced, which is known to possess a favourable
actipn upon the growth of plants. This salt,
muriate of lime (or chloride of calcium) is
one of those compounds which attracts water
from the atmosphere with great avidity, and
might supply the place of gypsum in decom-
posing carbonate of ammonia, with the forma-
tion of sal-ammoniac and carbonate of lime.
A solution of bones in muriatic acid, placed
on land in autumn or in winter would, there-
fore, not only restore a necessary constituent
of the soil, and attract moisture to it, but would
also give it the power to retain all the ammo-
nia which fell upon it dissolved in the rain dur-
ing the period of six months." (Liebig'a Organ.
Ckem.)

In manuring the light lands, cultivated on
the four-course system, with bones and with
bones only, for a long series of years, I would
advise the farmer, whenever he finds any symp-
toms of his ground failing to produce clover
so well as it was once used to do, to add in
that case a dressing of gypsum, either with
the bones or with the grass seeds. The value
of this latter manure, which is amply suffi-
cient, when applied in quantities of not ex
ceeding 2 cwt. per acre, being in most situa-
tions trifling. There is every reason to believe^

201

BONES.

BONES.

that in those cases which have puzzled the
Nottinghamshire farmers, where the land,
after a long course of successful bone-dress-
mg, has at last refused to produce clover, that
the gradual exhaustion of the soil of the sul-
phate of lime, so essential to the growth of
clover, has been the sole cause of the failure ;
and that the following facts, published by his
Grace the Duke of Portland, in April, 1838 (to
whom I have on more than one occasion been
obliged for valuable agricultural information),
are readily to be explained in this way — the
farm-yard dung, with which a portion of the
overboned clover was dressed in these experi-
ments would return to that section of the field
a portion of the sulphate of lime, and hence
the superior product of clover on the soil to
which it was applied.

"In 1834, two fields of sand land adjacent
to Clumber Park, the one at right angles to the
other, each containing about twenty acres,
were sown with seeds among barley; when-
ever these fields had been sown with turnips,
for twenty years before 1825, they had always
been manured with bones ; in that year they
were largely so manured. The seeds sown
with barley in 1826 having been burnt up in
that dry summer, in 1828 the land in both
those fields was again broken up. In 1829 it
was again fallowed with turnips, and manured
with bones. In 1833 both these fields were
again sown with turnips, parts of each of
which were manured with bones, and the re-
mainder with farm-yard dung. {The Times
Newspaper, April, 1838.)

" In 1834, when the corn was cut, it was
found that the seeds had failed in each of these
fields where the bones had been applied, and
' that they were very good where they had been
manured with dung. In one of these fields the
failure exactly followed the line of the differ-
ence of the manures, with two exceptions, that
the seeds did not quite fail in two spots where
formerly there had been dung-heaps. In the
other field, the failure did not so exactly follow
the line of demarcation, but the exceptions
were very few. Generally speaking, the ma-
nured land is better than the honed land, but the
difference of quality is not great ; the crop of
barley. on the manured land had been at the
rate of five quarters per acre, on the other
four.

" Immediately after harvest, fresh seeds were
sown on the boned land ; they came up very
thick, but in six weeks died and disappeared.
During the winter the land was again fallowed,
and fresh seeds were again sown in the spring
of 1835. They cannot be said to have failed,
but they were a very inferior crop ; and not-
withstanding a manuring of farm-yard dung
applied as a top-dressing the following spring,
they have not yet recovered a parity with the
rest of the fields. In this case it seems im-
possible to attribute the failure of these seeds,
where they have failed, to any other cause
than the bones, which had certainly been ap-
▲ plied with unusual abundance ; and it is the
^ more surprising, that such a cause should have
produced such an effect; because, in the early
periods of the use of that manure, it appeared
lo be in no respect more advantageous than in
203

! its tendency to encourage the growth of the
j clovers. Of this tendency, the most remark-
able instances have been repeatedly seen on
very poor land, and none more so than one
I which occurred on a very poor piece of land
j prepared for a plantation by a crop of turnips,
! manured for with forty bushels per acre, on
j which, between the trees, a great deal of clover
has spontaneously sprung up. Previously to
this land having been broken up for turnips,
scarcely a plant of clover was to be seen.
Now, the fields on which the seeds have failed
had (as above stated) received, m.uch more
frequently than usual, complete dressings of
bones.

"If the preceding statement required any
confirmation, it has received it in 1837. In
this year a field, which had been turnips in
1836, had been laid down to grass. The north
side of this field is very inferior sand land, and
as, till lately, it was supposed that such land
would not pay for the expense of bones, they
had never been applied to it. For the first
time, in 1836, bones were used for the turnip
fallow. The south side of this field, which for
many years has always been manured with
bones, when in fallow for turnips, was divided
into four divisions ; the western side was ma-
nured with farm-yard dung ; that next to it with
bones ; the two eastern divisions were manured,
the one with rape dust, and the other with malt
culms. After harvest,' the seeds on the north
side appeared to be best; then those on the
western side of the field; then those on the
two eastern divisions, which were rather in-
ferior ; and those on that where the bones had
been applied were visibly the worst. The frost
has been so injurious to the seeds, that this
difference between the three eastern divisions
is not now so marked as it was before the
frost; but the superiority of the northern side
and the western division is very apparent."

Bone manure presents to the cottager, or
cultivator of small plots of poor ground, as
under the allotment system, a ready and cheap
mode of permanently improving the land. It
would be well, perhaps, in some instances, if
the managers, under this excellent plan, were
to apply the manure for the holder ; and that,
too, if they even thought it necessary to add,
in consequence, to the amount of the rent. For
ornamental plantations of trees there can be
no manure more advantageous than bones.
There is a considerable portion of phosphate
of lime in all timber trees, and there is no
manure of a mixed animal, earthy, and saline
nature which remains so long in the soil,
mixed with earth; and thus previously fer-.
mented bones are an excellent dressing for
vines, and have been used with decided advan-
tage. As a manure for the use of the con-
servatory and the flower-garden, there is no
fertilizer more useful than bone-dust; or, what
is a still more elegant application, the turnings
and chippings of the bone turners. Those of
Birmingham have long been employed by my
friend, Maund, of Bromsgrove, the able author
of The Botanic Garden. He finds that their usq
not only promotes the luxuriance of the plan
but the beauty of the flowers. The Sheffiel
florists are well aware of the value of boa

BONE SPAVIN.

BORECOLE.

turnings. It is hardly necessary to add more
authorities in favour of bone manure. The
reader may refer, however, to the experiments
of Captain Ogilvy, of Airlie Castle {Trans, of
H'txh. Soc. vol. iv. p. 238) ; of Mr. Watson, of
Keillor, Cupar-Angus (Quart. Jown. of Agr.
vol. vi. p. 41 — 43); and of Mr. Boswell, of
Kingcaussie (Trans, of High. Soc. vol. i. p. 73;
Comparative Trial of Bones, Farm-yard Ma-
nure, and Rape Cake) : to those of Mr. Billyse
on their use for the pastures of Cheshire
{Journ. of Roy. Agr. Sue. of Eng. vol. ii. p. 91.)
See also Johnson, On Fertilizers, p. 125. (flr//.
Farm. Mag. vol. vi. p. 308.) The bone mill is
described by Mr. Anderson, of Dundee (Trans,
of High. Soc. vol. i. p. 401), and again in the
Penny Cyclopsedia.

BONE SPAVIN (Fr. espavent ,- Ital. spava-
no), in horses, is a disease of the hock joint,
usually brought on by over-exertion, accele-
rated by bad shoeing. When this is forming,
there is commonly lameness, but this dimi-
nishes or ceases "when the bony matter, whose
deposit causes the spavin, is completely
Ibrmed, at least when the horse is warm with
«!xercise. It impedes his rising when down,
and in consequence spavined horses lie down
vilh reluctance. A spavined horse generally
does slow work well enough, and when used
jn the farm, his disease is commonly amelio-
lated or cured. Repeated blisters will either
entirely remove or ameliorate the symptoms.
It is only as a last resort that the hot iron
.should be used.

BOOK-KEEPING. As the merchant, the
manufacturer, and the tradesman all find it
necessary to keep a set of account books which
J hall show them the amount of capital em-
ployed, the debts owing to and by them, and
the profit or loss arising from their dlfierent
transactions, so to the farmer is this good
practice equally essential. The Dutch have a
proverb, that no one ever goes to ruin who
keeps a correct set of accounts. There is
great truth in this sagacious observation of the
plodding Dutchmen ; for by consulting correct
accounts the farmer will be either warned to
retrace his steps, or to persevere in the path
lie is pursuing. The time required for keep-
ing these books is always to be found of an
evening after the labours of the day are over.
The necessary books to give him this informa-
tion are, first, a cash book, in which shall be
entered on one side all the moneys received,
and from whom ; and on the other side, all
payments, and to whom made; secondly, a
journal, in which should be entered all deli-
veries, and articles received ; and, thirdly, a
stock book, in which should be every week
entered all addition to or substraction from the
stock of the farm ; fourthly, an invoice book,
to receive all bills of account; fifthly, a wages
book, to keep each labourer's time and wages ;
and, sixthly, a ledger, which should contain
every person's account with whom the farmer
has transactions. With these statements care-
fully kept, and an account and valuation of his
slock in trade made annually, as if he were
about to quit the farm, no farmer's aflTairs can
reasonably go wrong; for not only by good
booking is fraud prevented, and economy pro-

moted, bat by this means the farmer alwaya
knows his real position. I am supported in
these opinions by a very considerable farmer
and land-agent, Mr. Hewitt Davis, of Spring
Park, in Surrey.

BORAGE (Borago officinalis). Supposed to
be derived from coragu, or cor, the heart, and
ago, to give, alluding to the renovating power
of which it was supposed to be possessed.
This is a well-known plant in all gardens,
growing two feet high, with large leaves, and
bright blue flowers. The stalks are round,
juicy, and thick, and so hairy that they are
almost prickly to touch. The leaves are broad,
rough, wrinkled, and hairy. The flowers have
five bright blue petals or parts, with a black
centre ; they blow all through the summer, and
continue till late in autumn. They will begin
to flower about June, and when their seed is
perfectly ripe, the stalks must be gathered and
dried completely before it is rubbed out. (G.
W. Johnson's Kitch. Gard.) Borage was for-
merly considered cordial. The leaves and
flowers tied in a bundle, and warmed up in
beer, is a great remedy in England among the
poor. They consider them cordial, opening,
and cooling; and in 'many parts of England
they make borage one of their materials in
brewing. The whole plant, says Smith (Eng.
Flor. vol. i. p. 265), has an odour approaching
to cucumber and burnet, which gives a flavour
to a cool tankard ; but its supposed exhilarat-
ing qualities, which caused borage to be reck-
oned one of the four cordial flowers along
with alkanet, roses, and violets, may justly be
doubted. The flavour is nauseous in any
other beverage.

BORDER (Germ, and Fr. bord.- Sax. bopt)).
A term which signifies the portion of land next
the hedges in fields ; but in ploughed grounds
is mostly applied to the parts at the ends on
which the teams turn.

BORECOLE (Brassica oleracea fimbriata.) A
species of winter cabbage, of which the follow-
ing are the principal varieties commonly cul-
tivated in the garden; — I.Brussels borecole.

2. Green borecole (Brassica okracea seknina).

3. Purple borecole (B. o. luciniula). 4. Varie-
gated borecole. 6. German, or curled kale or
curlies. 6. Scotch or Siberan kale (B. o. sabeU
Ilea). 7. Chou de Milan. 8. Egyptian, or Rabi
kale. 9. Ragged Jack. 10. Jerusalem kale.
11. Buda, Russian, Prussian, or Manchester
kale. 12. Anjou kale. Like the other mem-
bers of the cabbage tribe, it is propagated by
seed. The first crop to be sown about the
close of March, or early in April ; the seed-
lings of which are fit for pricking out towards
the end of April, and for final planting at the
close of May, for production late in autumn
and at the commencement of winter ; the sow-
ing must be repeated about the middle of May,
for final planting during July, and lastly in Au-
gust, for use during winter and early spring.
If transplanting is adopted, their fitness for
pricking out is known when their leaves are
about two inches in breadth ; they must be set
six inches apart each way, and watered fre-
quently until established. In four or five weeks
they will be of sufficient growth for final re-
moval. When planted, they must be set iii

203

BORER.

BORERS.

rows two feet and a half apart each way; the [
last plantations may be six inches closer. '
They must be watered and weeded, as directed
for the other crops ; as they are of large
spreading growth, the earth can only be drawn
about their stems during their early growth,
rf, during stormy weather, any of those which
acquire a tall growth are blown down, they
must be supported in their erect posture by
stakes, when they will soon firmly re-establish
themselves. For the production of seed, suoh
plants of each variety as are of the finest
growth, and are true to the characteristics
primarily given, must be selected, and either
left where grown, or removed during open
weather in November, or before the close of
February, the earlier the better, into rows three
feet apart each way, and buried down to their
heads. The seed ripens about the beginning
of August. (C W. Johnson's Kitchen Garden.)
BORER. See Auger.
BORERS. The wood-eating worms called
borers, are grubs of various species of the
beetle tribe, several of which have been
already referred to. Some live altogether in
the trunks of trees, boring into the most solid
wood; others take up their residence in the
limbs. Some devour the wood, others the
pith ; some are found only in shrubs, some in
stems of herbaceous plants, and others confine
themselves to the roots. Certain kinds restrict
themselves to plants of one species, others live
indiscriminately upon several plants, provided
these belong to the same natural family ; for
the same borer is not known to inhabit plants
differing essentially from each other in their
natural characters. The beetles produced
from these worm-borers are of very many
kinds, nearly one hundred species having been
already found by Dr. Harris in Massachusetts,
belonging to the Capricorn family alone. This
family of beetles derive their name from their
long and tapering antennae, which are curved
like the horns of a goat. The head is short
and armed with powerful jaws. Most of this
family remain upon trees and shrubs during
the daytime, and fly abroad at night. Some,
however, fly by day, and may be found on
flowers feeding on the pollen and even the
blossoms. When annoyed or taken into the
hands, they make a squeaking sound by rub-
bing the joints of the thorax and abdomen
together. " The females are generally larger and
more robust than the males, and have rather
shorter antennae. Moreover they are provided
with a jointed tube at the end of the body, ca-
pable of being extended or drawn in like the
joints of a telescope, by means of which they
convey their eggs into the holes and chinks of
the bark of plants.

"The larvae hatched from these eggs are
long, whitish, fleshy grubs, with the trans-
verse incisions of the body very deeply marked,
80 that the rings are very convex or hunched
both above and below. The body tapers a
little behind, and is blunt-pointed. The head
-is much smaller than the first ring, slightly
■bent downwards, of a horny consistence, and
"is provided with short but very powerful jaws,
by means whereof the insect can bore, as with
a centre-bit, a cylindrical passage through the
204

most solid wood. Some of these borers have
six very small legs, namely, one pair under
each of the first three rings ; but most of them
want even these short and imperfect limbs,
and move through their burrows by the alter-
nate extension and contraction of their bodies,
on each or on most of the rings of which, both
above and below, there is an oval space co-
vered with little elevations, somewhat like the
teeth of a fine rasp ; and these little oval rasps,
which are designed to aid the grubs in their
motions, fully make up to them the want of
proper feet. Some of these borers always
keep one end of their burrows open, out of
which, from time to time, they cast their chips,
resembling coarse saw-dust ; others, as fast as
they proceed, fill up the passages behind them
with their castings, well known here by the
name of powder-post. These borers live from
one year to three, or perhaps more years
before they come to their growth. They un-
dergo their transformations at the furthest
extremity of their burrows, many of them pre-
viously gnawing a passage through the wood
to the inside of the bark, for their future
escape. The pupa is at first soft and whitish,
and it exhibits all the parts of the future beetle
under a filmy veil which inwraps every limb.
The wings and legs are folded upon the breast,
the long antennae are turned back against the
sides of the body, and then bent forwards be-
tween the legs. "When the beetle has thrown
off* its pupa-skin, it gnaws away the thin coat
of bark that covers the mouth of its burrow,
and comes out of its dark and confined retreat,
to breathe the fresh air, and to enjoy for the
first time the pleasure of sight, and the use of
the legs and wings with which it is provided.
(Harris's Treatise on Insects.)

One family of the Capricorn or goat-horned
beetles, derives its name of Prionidae from a
Greek word signifying saw. It is said that
some of these saw-beetles can saw off* large
limbs by seizing them between their jaws, and
flying or whirling sidewise round the enclosed
branch, till it is completely divided. One of
the largest species is the broad-necked prio-
nus. It is from one inch and a quarter, to an
inch and three-quarters in length, of an oval
form and pitchy black colour. The grubs of
this beetle, when fully grown, are as thick as a'
man's thumb. They live in the trunks and
roots of the balm of Gilead, Lombardy poplar,
and probably in other kinds of poplar.

In the second family of the Capricorn beetles,
called the Cerambycians, there is one which
inhabits the hickory, in its larva state forming
long galleries in the trunk of this tree in the
direction of the fibres of the wood.

" The ground beneath black and white oaks,"
says Dr. Harris, "is often observed to be
strewn with small branches, neatly severed
from these trees as if cut off" with a saw. Upon
splitting open the cut end of a branch, in the
autumn or winter after it has fallen, it will be
found to be perforated to the extent of six or
eight inches in the course of the pith, and a
slender grub, the author of the mischief, will
be discovered therein. In the spring this grub
is transformed to a pupa, and in June or July
it is changed to a beetle, and comes out of th«

BORERS.

branch. The history of this insect was first
made public by Professor Peck, who called it
the oak-pruner, or Stenoconts (Elaphidion)
putator. In its adult state it is a slender long-
horned beetle, of a dull brown colour, sprinkled
with gray spots, composed of very short close
hairs ; the antennae are longer than the body,
in the males, and equal to it in length in the
other sex, and the third and fourth joints are
tipped with a small spine or thorn ; the thorax
is barrel-shaped, and not spined at the sides ;
and the scutel is yellowish white. It varies in
length from four and a half to six-tenths of an
inch. It lays its eggs in July. Each e^^ is
placed close to the axilla or joint of a leaf-
stalk or of a small twig, near the extremity of
a branch. The grub hatched from it penetrates
at that spot to the pith, and then continues its
course towards the body of the tree, devouring
the pith, and thereby forming a cylindrical
burrow, several inches in length, in the centre
of the branch. Having reached its full size,
which it does towards the end of the summer,
it divides the branch at the lower end of its
burrow, by gnawing away the wood trans-
versely from within, leaving only the ring of
bark untouched. It then retires backwards,
stops up the end of its hole, near the trans-
verse section, with fibres of the wood, and
awaits the fall of the branch, which is usually
broken off and precipitated to the ground by
the autumnal winds. The leaves of the oak
are rarely shed before the branch falls, and
thus serve to break the shock. Branches of
five or six feet in length and an inch in diame-
ter are thus severed by these insects, a kind
of pruning that must be injurious to the trees,
and should be guarded against if possible. By
collecting the fallen branches in the autumn,
and burning them before the spring, we pre-
vent the developement of the beetles, while we
derive some benefit from the branches as fuel.
" It is somewhat remarkable that, while the
pine and fir tribes rarely suffer to any extent
from the depredations of caterpillars and other
leaf-eating insects, the resinous odour of these
trees, offensive as it is to such insects, does
not prevent many kinds of borers from bur-
rowing into and destroying their trunks. Se-
veral of the Capricorn-beetles, while in the
grub state, live only in pine and fir trees, or in
timber of these kinds of wood. They belong
chiefly to the genus Caliidium, a name of un-
known or obscure origin. The larvoe are of
moderate length, more flattened than the grubs
of the other Capricorn-beetles, have a very
broad and horny head, small but powerful
jaws, and are provided with six extremely
small legs. They undermine the bark, and
perforate the wood in various directions, often
doing immense injury to the trees, and to new
buildings, in the lumber composing which
■hey may happen to be concealed. Their bur-
rows are wide and not cylindrical, are very
winding, and are filled up with a kind of
compact sawdust as fast as the insects ad-
vance. The larva state is said to continue
two years, during which period the insects
cast their skins several times. The sides of
the body in the pupa are thin-edged, and finely
notched, and the tail is forked.

BORERS.

" One of the most common kinds of Calll'
dium found here is a flattish, rusty black
beetle, with some downy whitish spots across
the middle of the wing-covers ; the thorax is
nearly circular, is covered with fine whitish
down, and has two elevated polished black
points upon it; and the wing-covers are very
coarsely punctured. It measures from four-
tenths to three-quarters of an inch in length.
This insect is the Caliidium bajulus ,- the
second name, meaning a porter, was given to
it by Linnaeus on account of the whitish patch
which it bears on its back. It inhabits fir,
spruce, and hemlock wood and lumber, and
may often be seen on wooden buildings and
fences in July and August. We are informed
by Kirby and Spence that the gmbs sometimes
greatly injure the wood-work of houses in
London, piercing the rafters of the roofs in
every direction, and, when arrived at maturity,
even penetrating through sheets of lead which
covered the place of their exit. One piece of
lead, only eight inches long and four broad,
contained twelve oval holes made by these in-
sects, and fragments of the lead were found in
their stomachs. As this insect is now com-
mon in the maritime parts of the United States,
it was probably first brought to this country by
vessels from Europe." {Harris.)

The violet Caliidium, is of a Prussian blue
or violet colour, its length varying from four
to six-tenths of an inch. It is found in great
numbers on piles of pine wood, from the
middle of May to the first of June, and the
maggots and pupae are often met with in
splitting the wood. They live mostly just
under the bark, where their broad and winding
tracks may be traced by the hardened saw-
dust with which they are crammed. Just
before they are about to be transfonned, the
larva or worms bore into the solid wood to the
depth of several inches. In Maine and other
places they are said to be very injurious to the
sapling pines. Professor Peck supposed this
species of borer to have been introduced into
Europe in timber sent from this country, as
it is found in most parts of that continent
that have been much connected with North
America by navigation. It is somewhat sin-
gular that Europe and America should have
thus interchanged the porter and violet Cal-
iidium, which, by means of shipping, have
now become common to the two continents.
(Harris.)

Sugar Maple Borer. — The sugar-maple, one
of the most beautiful and noble trees of the
American forest, suffers much from the attacks
of a borer, the largest known species of Clytus,
by which it is sometimes entirely destroyed.
In order to check the devastations of these
borers they should be sought for in the spring,
when they may be readily detected by the saw-
dust thrown out of their burrows ; and, by a
judicious use of a knife and stiff" wire, they
may be cut out or destroyed before they have
gone deeply into the wood. (Harris.)

Locust-tree Borer. — The locust tree or acacia,
is also preyed upon by a borer of the Clytus
family, the larva of a painted beetle often seen
in abundance feeding by day upon the blos-
soms of the golden rod (Solidugo), in the month
S 205

BORERa

BORERS.

1

of September. If the trunks of the common
locust-tree are examined at this time, a still
j^reater number of those beetles will be found
upon them, and most often paired. This Ca-
pricorn-beetle has the form of the beautiful
maple Clytus. It is velvet-black, and orna-
Inented with transverse yellow bands. The
legs are rusty red, and the length of the insect
is from about half an inch to three quarters
of an inch. "In the month of September,"
says Dr. Harris, " these beetles gather on the
locust trees, where they may be seen glittering
in the sunbeams with their gorgeous livery
of black velvet and gold, coursing up and
down the trunks in pursuit of their mates, or
to drive away their rivals, and stopping every
now and then to salute those they meet with a
rapid bowing of the shoulders, accompanied
by a creaking sound, indicative of recognition
or defiance. Having paired, the female, at-
tended by her partner, creeps over the bark,
searching the crevices with her antennas, and
dropping therein her snow-white eggs, in clus-
ters of seven or eight together, and at intervals
of five or six minutes, till her whole stock is
safely stored. The eggs are soon hatched, and
the grubs immediately burrow into the bark,
devouring the soft inner substance that suffices
for their nourishment till the approach of win-
ter, during which they remain at rest in a tor-
pid state. In the spring they bore through the
sap-wood, more or less deeply into the trunk,
the general course of their winding and irregu-
lar passages being in an upward direction from
the place of their entrance. For a time they
cast their chips out of their holes as fast as
they are made, but after a while the passage
becomes clogged, and the burrow more or less
filled with the coarse and fibrous fragments of
wood, to get rid of which the grubs are often
obliged to open new holes through the bark.
The seat of their operations is known by the
oozing of the sap and the dropping of the saw-
dust from the holes. The bark around the part
attacked begins to swell, and in a few years
the trunks and limbs will become disfigured
and weakened by large porous tumours, caused
by the efforts of the trees to repair the injuries
they have suffered. According to the observa-
tions of General H. A. S. Dearborn, who has
given an excellent account {Mass. Agric. Repos.
and Journ. vol. vi. p. 272), of this insect, the
grubs attain their full size by the twentieth of
July, soon become pupae, and are changed to
beetles and leave the trees early in September.
Thus the existence of this species is limited to
one year.

"Whitewashing, and covering the trunks
of the trees with grafting composition, may
prevent the female from depositing her eggs
upon them; but this practice cannot be carried
to any great extent in plantations or large nur-
series of the trees. Perhaps it will be useful
to head down young trees to the ground, with
the view of destroying the grubs contained in
them, as well as to promote a more vigorous
growth. Much evil might be prevented by
employing children to collect the beetles while
in the act of providing for the continuation of
their kind. A common black bottle, contain-
ing a little water, would be a suitable vessel
206

to receive the beetles as fast as they were ga-
thered, and should be emptied into the fire in
order to destroy the insects. The gathering
should be begun as soon as the beetles first
appear, and should be continued as long as
any are found on the trees, and furthermore,
should be made a general business for several
years in succession. I have no doubt, should
this be done, that, by devoting one hour every
day to this object, we may, in the course of a
few years, rid ourselves of this destructive
insect."

In noticing the locust-borer, Mr. Coleman
states, that Allen C. Metcalf, of Lennox, Mas-
sachusetts, washed his locust trees with spirits
of turpentine, and in that way, as he believes,
compelled the borer to leave them, after they
had made severe ravages. The trees were
examined by Mr. Coleman, who found them
much perforated, but without any signs indi-
cating the presence of the worm. (See Mr.
Coleman's Second Report.)

The poplar tribe of trees, both in Europe and
America, are subject to the attacks of certain
kinds of borers, differing essentially from all
the foregoing when arrived at maturity. They
belong to the genus Saperda. The Itirgest kind
found in America is the Saperda ca/carata of
Say, so called because the tips of the wing-
covers end with a little -sharp point or spur. It
is covered all over with a short and close nap,
which gives it a fine blue-gray colour ; it is
finely punctured with brown ; there are four
ochre-yellow lines on the head, and three on
the top of the thorax. It is from one inch to
an inch and a quarter in length. The grubs
of this beetle, with those of the broad-necked
Prionus, already mentioned, have in some parts
of the United States, in the vicinity of Boston,
for instance, almost entirely destroyed the Lom-
bardy poplar. They also live in the trunk of
American poplars. These grubs are of a yel-
lowish-white colour, and, when fully grown,
measure nearly two inches in length. The
beetles proceeding from these may be found
on the trunks and branches of the various
kinds of poplars, in August and September;
they fly by night, and sometimes enter the
open windows of houses in the evening.

Apple-tree Borer. — "The borers of the apple
tree, says Dr. Harris, "have become noto-
rious, throughout the New England and Mid-
dle States, for their extensive ravages. They
are the larvae of a beetle called Saperda hivit-
tata by Mr. Say, the two-striped, or the brown
and white striped Saperda ; the upper side of
its body being marked with two longitudinal
white stripes between three of a light brown
colour, while the face, the antennae, the under-
side of the body, and the legs are white. This
beetle varies in length from a little more than
one-half to three-quarters of an inch. It comes
forth from the trunks of the trees, in its per-
fected slate, early in June, making its escape
in the night, during which time only it uses its
ample wings in going from tree to tree in
search of companions and food. In the day-
time it keeps at rest among the leaves of the
plants which it devours. The trees and shrubs
principally attacked by this borer are the
apple tree, the quince, mouptain ash, haw»

BORERS.

BOTANY.

thorn and other thorn bashes, the June-berry
or shad-bush, and other kinds of Amelanchhr
and Aronia. Our native thorns and Aronias
are its natural food; for I have discovered
the larvce in the stems of these shrubs, and
have repeatedly found the beetles upon them,
eatmg the leaves, in June and July. It is in
these months that the eggs are deposited, being
laid up(5n the bark near the root, during the
night. The larvas hatched therefrom are fleshy
whitish grubs."

The larva or grub state continues two or
three years, during which the borer will be
found to have penetrated eight or ten inches
jpwards in the trunk of the tree, its burrow, at
rhe end approaching to, and being covered
only by, the bark. Here its transformation
from larva to pupa takes place, and its final
change from pupa to beetle or winged insect,
which occurs about the first of June, soon
after which the beetle gnaws through the bark
that covers the end of its burrow, and leaves
its place of confinement in the night.

"Notwithstanding," says Dr. Harris, "the
I)ains that have been taken by some persons
to destroy and exterminate these pernicious
borers, they continue to reappear m our or-
( hards and nurseries every season. The rea-
jons of this are to be found in the habits of
the insects, and in individual carelessness.
Many orchards suffer deplorably from the want
( f proper attention ; the trees are permitted to
remain, year after year, without any pains be-
iig taken to destroy the numerous and various
iisects that infest them; old orchards, espe-
cially, are neglected, and not only the rugged
funks of the trees, but even a forest of un-
pruned suckers around them, are left to the
undisturbed possession and perpetual inherit-
ance of the Saperda. On the means that have
been used to destroy this borer, a few remarks
only need to be made ; for it is evident that
Ihey can be fully successful only when gene-
rally adopted. Killing it by a wire thrust into
the holes it has made, is one of the oldest,
safest, and most successful methods. Cutting
out the grub with a knife or gouge is the most
Bommon practice ; but it is feared that these
Is have sometimes been used without snffi-
:ient caution. A third method, which has
ore than once been suggested, consists in
'cring the holes with soft wood. If a little
phor be previously inserted, this practice
promises to be more effectual ; but experi-
ments are wanting to confirm its expediency."
The zealous and able naturalist who has
'urnished the foregoing information relative
0 insects which so frequently carry destruc-
ion among the forest, fruit, and ornamental
rees of the United States, has also described
Qany others of the beetle tribe which attack
rees and plants not yet named. Among these
nay be mentioned the borers which infest the
litch pine tree, and even the blackberry and
aspberry bushes ; together with various leaf-
)eetles which prey upon the foliage of fruit-
rees, the Imden-tree, potato, cucumber, and
)urnpkin vines, the leaves of turnips, horse-
adish, milk-weed, &c., most of which will be
eferred to in noticing the several trees and
dants named, together with the best means

known of destroying them or preventing their
ravages.

BORING. A practice sometimes employed
in order to ascertain the nature of the different
strata that lie beneath the soil; and also for
the purpose of discovering springs, and tap-
ping them, so as to draw off the water, that
injures the grounds below or in the neighbour-
hood. See DRAijriKe.

BOS. The generic name for quadrupeds
whose horns are in the form of a crescent. See
Catti.e.

BOSCAGE. A word borrowed from the
French, signifying a woody grove, or woodland.

BOTANY (from the Gr. y&Ta'm, an herb),
in the most confined sense of the terra, is the
science which teaches us the arrangement of
the members of the vegetable kingdom in a
certain order or system, by which we are
enabled to ascertain the name of any indivi-
dual plant with facility and precision. Such
arrangement is only to be considered as useful
in proportion as it facilitates the acquirement
of a knowledge of their economical and medi-
cinil qualities, which cannot be perfectly
ascertained without an acquaintance with
vegetable physiology, the parts of plants, their
functions, and uses. Botany, in its most com-
prehensive form, teaches us the names, ar-
rangement, parts, functions, qualities, and uses
of plants.

This science may be consulted by the agri-
culturist with considerable benefit. For in-
stance (and several other advantages will
readily suggest themselves to the intelligent
farmer), the plants growing wild on a soil ever
afford some tolerable indication of the nature
of the soil and its subsoil. Thus, the heath on
elevations indicates a dry soil ; the fern that it
is deep as well as dry. The deer hair (Scirpus
caespitosus) grows commonly over bogs, resting
on clay. In the lower situations the broom
(Spartium scnparium) tenants the deep light
gravels. The whin, coarser gravels upon a
clay subsoil. The rush (Juncus congljmeratua)
tells the negligent farmer that good land is ren-
dered useless for want of drainage. The com-
mon sprit (Juncus articulatxis), that the land is
not fertile. Sweet gale {Myrica Gale), that it
is still worse. The rag weed {Senecio jacobstd)
in arable land betrays an ill-cultivated loam.
The marsh marigold {Caltha palustris) or the
wild water-cress in water meadows, tells the
owner that the land is fully irrigated. The
common rattle {Rhinanthus christi), that a
meadow is exhausted. The pry (Carex dioiea),
that water is stagnating beneath its surface,
and these are only a few of the truths which
wild flowers teach the intelligent cultivator.
Botanists have, indeed, long been at work for
the farmer — a fact no one will be willing to
dispute who remembers that the sloe, the black-
berry, and the crab are nearly all the fruits
indigenous to England; and that hardljT a
grass, a flower, or a vegetable that is now cul-
tivated is a native of the island.

In 1825 and 1827, the Highland Society of
Scotland offered as a prize theme, " The indi-
cations to be formed regarding the nature and
qualities of soils and subsoils, according to
the plants growing upon them, having regard

207

BOTANY.

BOTANY.

to elevation, exposure, climate, «&c." And in I
the first volume of their transactions will be i
found several valuable essays on the subject, [
by Mr. Macgillivray, p. 81, Mr. Gorie, p. 113, j
Dr. Singer, p. 264, Mr. Hogg, p. 271, all ably
illustrating the value of the study of plants to |
t^e cultivator.

The definition of a plant to a superficial ob-
server may appear easy; but those who have
studied natural history are aware of the diffi-
culty of drawing a just line of distinction be-
tween the animal and the vegetable kingdoms.
It is easy to distinguish a horse, or even a
worm, from a rose-tree or a fungus; but to
distinguish a sensitive plant, &c., by descrip-
tive marks from many zoophytes, has hitherto
baffled the acutest botanists. Many plants, as
will be presently seen, are gifted with sponta-
neous motion ; whilst many animals, as the
corallines, are devoid of locomotion ; so that
neither of these qualities avails us in distin-
guishing the two kingdoms. In short, whilst
the zoophytes, most of which take root, grow
up into stems, and multiply by buds and slips,
must still be considered as animals, no one
can correctly define how plants difier from
them. It is, however, fortunate, that the stu-
dent is seldom placed in a situation where
these nice distinctions are to be made. Where
specimens are to be examined which admit of
the doubt whether they belong to the lower
classes of animals or to the vegetable tribes,
chemistry may be called to our aid ; if, when
burnt, they omit an ammoniacal smell resem-
bling that of feathers, similarly treated, we
need not hesitate to consider them as animal
products ; if that of burning wood, we may
consider them as fit objects for our botanical
researches.

A few facts will demonstrate that it is im-
possible to deny that vegetables possess some
degree of sensation. The Venus's fly-trap
(Dionaea muscipuld) has jointed appendages to
the leaves, which are furnished on their edges
Muth a row of strong prickles. Flies, attracted
by honey, which is secreted in glands on their
surface, venture to alight upon them; no
sooner do their legs touch these parts than the
sides of the leaves spring up, and locking their
rows of prickles together, squeeze the insects
to death. The well-known sensitive plant
(Mimosa sensiliva and pudica) shrink from the
slightest touch. Oxalis sensitiva and Smithia
hensitiva are similarly irritable ; as also are the
stamens of the flower of the barberry. One of
this tribe {Hedysarum gyrans) has a sponta-
neous motion — its leaves are frequently mov-
ing in various directions without order or
co-operation. When an insect inserts its pro-
boscis between the converging anthers of a
kind of dog's bane (Apocynum androsasmifn-
lium), they close with a power usually suffi-
cient to detain the intruder until his death. If
frotn these, and many other considerations
which we shall notice as we pursue our study,
we conclude that plants are endowed with a
certain degree of sensation, or at least of irri-

ttability, we can pursue that path of the science
no further. Such are the results of life ; what
constitutes the living principle no human eye
can discover.
208

We gaze on a rose as it waves in the pleni-
tude of its vigour, admire the tints of its petals,
the verdure of its foliage, the gracefulness of
its form, the delicacy of its fragrance. We
may come on the morrow, and it has been
blasted — those petals are scattered on the bor-
ders— those leaves are withered and sapless —
and scarcely a vestive of its loveliness remains.
Wherefore is this change 1 The same 'compo-
nents remain — the same food was ready for its
nourishment; but some invisible governing
principle — some unknown agent — has silently
departed, without one vacancy to point out
where it had resided, but a total ruin, to show
that it had pervaded the whole. Let a few
more hours pass away, when the air, and
moisture, and heat, external agents which
were subservient to its welfare, now concur in
completing its destruction — it is partly dissi-
patedin pestilential exhalations, partly reduced
to a few earthy and saline particles. Life,
whilst it continued, prevented this ruin ; but
still, like its Great Author, " no one hath seen
it at any time."

To explore our path satisfactorily, and that
one step may naturally explain the way to
the succeeding, we had better first consider
the most obvious parts of plants, and their
functions.

The root and Us uses. — A root usually consists
of two parts, the caudex or body, and the fibres
or radicula. The last only are essential for
the imbibing of nourishment, but the whole
serves to steady or fix the plant firmly in a
commodious situation and position. Roots are
annual, biennial, or perennial. The first be-
long to those plants whose term of existence
is confined to a portion of a year, as barley ;
the second to such as, being raised during one
year, survive its winter, and produce flowers
during a succeeding year, as wheat. Perennial
roots belong to such plants as live for several
years. All plants are considered as biennials
that are raised from seed one year, and flower
during another, whether that year is the next,
or whether the flowering is deferred during '
several, provided the flowers occur but once.
This is often the case with the tree mallow
( Lovaiera arborea), &c. Attention must be paid
to these circumstances, or we may often mis-
take the natural term of a plant's existence.
Mignionette (Reseda odorata), in our borders,
is an annual; but in the shelter of a room or
green-house, it may be made, by proper ma^
nagement, to blossom during several succes-
sive seasons. The nasturtium {Tropseolum\
naturally a shrubby perennial, is an annual in
our gardens.

Plants search for food by means of their
roots, and to obtain it have been known, by
their aid, to overturn walls by piercing their
foundations. A tree growing on the top of a
wall has been observed to extend its roots
down the sides, until they reached the earth at
its bottom. If a flower-pot, divided by a per-
pendicular section, be on one side filled with
common earth, and on the other with similar
earth mixed with a little potass, the roots of a
geranium or other plant, growing in it, will,
by degrees, all move into the alkaline portion.
It has also been proved that the root is gifted

i

BOTANY.

with the power of rejecting what is hurtful,
and selecting what is beneficial to its parent
plant, from any mixed solution of substances
not corrosive or poisonous.
Botanists distinguish seven kinds of roots.

1. The fibrous root {radix fibrosa), consist-
ing of fibres alone, either branched or undi-
vided, as that of the Poa annua, that species
of grass so troublesome in gravel walks, &c.

2. The creeping root (JR. repens). This
spreads and branches horizontally, throwing
out fibres in its course, as some kinds of mint
{Mentha), and the couch-grass, or twitch {Tri-
ticum repens).

3. Tapering root {R.fusiformis), as that of
the carrot, &c.

4. Abrupt root {R. praemoraa), appears in-
clined to be a tapering one, but, from some
natural decay or habit, becomes abrupt, or ap-
parently bitten ofl", as in the devil's-bit sca-
bious {Scabiosa succisa), and several of the
hawk-weeds.

5. Tuberous root {R. tuherosa), consists of
fleshy tubers connected by fibres, as in the po-
tato {Holanum tuberosum). It is the premature
formation of the tubers which prevents the
blooming of the Jerusalem artichoke, and some
of the early varieties of the potato. If the tu-
bers are removed as soon as they are formed,
the plants blossom.

6. Bulbous root {R. bulbusa), is solid, as in
the crocus ; tunicate, composed of concentric
layers, as in the Onion {Allium eepa)\ or
scaly, as in the lilies.

7. Jointed or granulated root {R. artieulata
or granulata), is a cluster of either little bulbs
or scales, connected by a common fibre, as in
the wood-sorrel {Oxalis acetosella), and white
saxifrage {Saxifraga granulata).

The roots of plants sometimes change their
form with the situation in which they grow.
Those of some grasses are bulbous in a dry
situation, and fibrous in a moist one. Thus
we see the care of Providence is manifested
even in providing for the welfare of a weed ;
bulbous roots being, as it were, reservoirs of
moisture, enable such plants to perfect their
seed in the driest season. Again, the fibrous
roots of grasses growing in sandy sterile places
are remarkably downy; by this means they re-
tain firmly their hold in so yielding a medium,
,and their absorbing surfaces are likewise in-
creased, not unnecessarily, where nourishment
is so scanty.

Seven kinds of stalks or stems are distin-
guished by botanists; — 1. A stem {caulis) is
confined to such as bear both leaves and
flowers, which is the case with the trunks of
all trees. It is either simple, as in the white
lily, or branched, as in most cases. In gene-
ral it grows upright, but sometimes it is more
or less recumbent. Some cling to other bodies
by fibres for support, as the ivy {Hedera helix) ;
or by tendrils, as the vine. Others twine round
such plants as come in their way. A remark-
able distinction is to be observed in twining
plants. Honeysuckles, &c., twine from left to
right ; whilst others, as the kidney-bean, twine
from right to left, nor can any art induce them
to alter their course. Some trail along the
ground; some are jointed, as in the samphire
27

BOTANY.

and Indian fig. They are of various forms,
round, three-sided, square^ &c. Their surfaces
are smooth, viscid, rough, bristly, hairy, &c.
Internally they are solid or hollow. Plants
without stems are termed acaules.

2. A culm or straw {culmus), is only a va-
riety of the caulis, but, being peculiar to the
grasses, rushes, and other plants nearly allied
to them, has been deemed worthy of a separate
name. It is without joints, as in the common
rushes ; jointed, as in wheat, &c. ; bent like a
knee, as in Ahpecurus geniculatus. It varies
in being hollow, solid, hairy, &c.

3. A stalk {scapus), springing from the root,
bears only flowers and fruit, as that of the
primrose {Primula vulgaris), and cowslip (P.
veris). In the first it is simple, in the latter
subdivided and many-flowered. It is some-
times scaly; in which case the scales are apt
to sport into leaves, and thus render it a proper
caulis. It greatly varies as to length, manner
of growth, &c.

4. A flower stalk {peduneulus), springing
from the stem, bears only fruit and flowers. A
partial flower stalk {pedicellis), is the ultimate
division of a general one, as in the cowslip be-
fore instanced. Flowers without stalks are
termed sessile, as the dodders, &c.

5. The leaf stalk {petiolus), signifies the
stalk of a leaf only. It is solitary or simple,
as in the lilac, and all other simple leaves. It
is common in the rose, &c. It is usually chan-
nelled on its upper side.

6. A frond (frotis), is now used only in de-
scribing the class Cryptogamia, and signifies a
leaf which produces both flowers and fruit, as
in the ferns, lichens, &c.

7. A stipe {stipes), is the stem of a frond.

It will be belter to defer the consideration
of the functions of roots and stems until we
take a connected view of the phenomena of
vegetable life.

Leaves are a very general, but not a uni-
versal part of the vegetable body; they are
wanting in the samphires, creeping cereus,
&c. Such plants arc called plantaeaphyllse
(leafless plants). The situations, forms, in-
sertions, and surfaces of leaves are of great
use in botanic descriptions; a few must at
present suffice : —

Folia radicaKa spring from the root, as in the

primrose.
Folia caulina and ramea spring respectively

from the stem or branch.
Folia bina tema, &c., leaves in pairs, or three

together, &c.
Folia verticillata, whorled, several opposite, or

growing in a circle round the stem.
Folia peltata, peltate, having the foot-stalk in

the centre, as the nasturtium.
Folia sessilia, sessile, having no foot-stalk.
Folia perfoliata, perfoliate, when the stem runs

through their centre.

Leaves are nearly circular, roundish, egg-
shaped or ovate, oblong, lanceolate, &c.; they
terminate abruptly, or are sharp, jagged, point-
ed, cirrhose {i. e. tipped with a tendril), &c.
Their margins are entire, spinous, toothed,
wavy, &c. Their surfaces are dotted, rugged,
I veiny, coloured {i. e. tinted with any colour
s 2 209

BOTANY.

BOTANY.

but green, white, or yellow ; in the two latter
cases they are termed variegated), &c. They
are tubular, awl-shaped, three-edged, ever-
green, &c. Compound leaves consist of two
or more leaflets, combined by a common foot-
stalk, as in the rose ; they are binate when
they consist of two leaflets ; ternate, of three,
&c. ; pinnate when several proceed sideways
or laterally from the common footstalk, as in
the rose. Leaves are sometimes twice and
thrice compounded.

The flower is the most essential, yet the most
transitory part of plants. By means of the
seed, which it is. the great agent in producing,
plants may be indefinitely multiplied and per-
petually renewed ; whereas all other modes of
propagation, by cuttings, grafts, &c., are but
extensions of an individual. Hence, though
many plants, from unfavourable modes of cul-
tivation, &c., are seldom known to blossom,
yet Providence has wisely ordained that no
plant is incapable of producing and perfecting
seed. As our systems of botany are founded
chiefly upon the flower, we will proceed to
consider it at large. A flower is divided into
seven parts: —

1. The calyx, or outer covering, resembling
leaves in texture ; is not present in many
flowers, as the tulip.

There are six kinds of calyx: — 1. The peri-
anth is close to, and forms part of, the flower,
as in the rose, and is, in fact, the only true
calyx. 2. The involucre is an appendage to
the one form of inflorescence, namely the um-
bel. It is remote from the corolla, as in all
the umbelliferous plants, carrot, &c. 3. The
spathe is a floral appendage which bursts lon-
gitudinally, being more or less remote from
thf flower, as in the snow-drop, narcissus, &c.
4. The glume, or husk, is the peculiar calyx or
chaff of the grasses, as in wheat, &c. 5. Pere-
chaetium, a scaly sheath, enclosing the fertile
flowers of some mosses. 6. Volva is the mem-
brane that covers the parts of fructification or
gills of the fungi, as in the common mush-
room; but it is also applied to the fleshy cover-
ing which encloses some fungi when young.

2. The corolla, or more delicate coloured
leaves or leaf, properly called petals, is situ-
ated within the calyx. This is absent in many
flowers. It comprehends both the petul and
the nectary. By petal is meant what are com-
monly called the coloured leaves of a flower.
By nectary is meant an appendage to the co-
rolla, supposed to be for the purpose of secret-
ing honey. The little cells, for example, at
the bottom of the flower of the crown imperial,
each full of a sweet liquid, are called necta-
ries, but they vary in form and situation in
different flowers. When a corolla is formed
of one petal, it is said to be monopetalous: It
may be bell-shaped, as in the Canterbury bell ;
frmnel-shaped, as in lungwort (Pulmonaria) ;
salver-shaped, as in the primrose ; wheel-shaped,
the same as the preceding, only with a short
tube, as in the borage ; ringent, like the mouth
of an animal, as in the dead nettle; personate,

^ke the mask of an animal, as in snap-dragon.
iJorollas of more than one petal are termed
polypetalous. It is cruciform, as in the wall-
flower ; rosaceouSf as in the rose ; papilionaceous,
310

as in the pea; incomplete, when some part,
found in kindred flowers, is wanting.

3. The stamen or stamens are essential for
the perfecting of the seed, and are only absent
in double flowers, in which they are changed
into petals. They vary in different species,
from a single one to several hundreds, and
surround the pistil or pistils, which occupy
the centre of the flower. A stamen usually
consists of two parts ; the filament, or slender
stem, which is sometimes absent, bearing
otherwise on its summit the anther, a cellular
organ of various forms in different species of
plants, being the part for holding the pollen.

4. The pistil or pistils are in the centre of
the flower, and usually fewer in number than
the stamens. They are sometimes situated in
flowers distinct from the stamen, and even on
different plants. No seed can be perfected
without the pistil, which consists of the ger-
men, or rudiment of the fruit and seed, and, of
course, is never absent. The style, or little
stem proceeding from the germ, which is not
essential, serving chiefly to elevate the stigvia —
this must always be present : it varies in form
and size, being either scarcely more than a
point, or forming an orbicular head, or being
variously lobed.

5. The seed-vessel is the germen enlarged, va-
rying in form, texture, and size in almost every
species. What old botanists called naked seeds
are seed-vessels or carpels containing only one
seed, and which do not open when ripe ; the
strawberry, wheat, maize, are examples. The
only naked seeds are those of the fir cones, and
the Cycadeee.

There are seven kinds of seed-vessels ; — 1.
A capsule is woody or membranous, containing
one or more cells, as in the poppy. 2. A pod
is long, dry, and solitary, formed of two valves,
divided by a linear partition into two cells, as
in the wall-flower. 3. A legume is solitary,
formed of two oblong valves without any par-
tition, consequently is one-celled, as the pea.
4. A drupe has a fleshy coat, closely enclosed
in a hard nut, as the cherry, peach, &c. 5. A
pome has a fleshy coat, enclosing a capsule, as
the apple, pear, &c. 6. A berry is fleshy, con-
taining itj seed or seeds within its pulp, with-
out valves, as the currant. A compound berry
is instanced in the blackberry, &c. 7. A cone
is a catkin hardened into a seed-vessel, as fn
the fir, birch, &c.

6. The seed. To the perfecting of this part
all the other parts of the fructification, and
even of the whole plant, are subservient; an-
nuals perish immediately after it is perfected,
and in our climate evenperennials begin todroop
as soon as it is ripe. A seed consists of seve-
ral parts: — 1. The embryo is the part the wel-
fare of which all the other parts unite in pro-
moting. It is the rudiment of the future plant.
It is very apparent in the bean, pea, &c., and
has the form of a heart in the walnut. It is
usually within the substance of the seed, as in
the above instance ; in the grasses, however,
it is on the outside.

Upon removing the skin of a pea or bean,
it divides easily into two parts ; these are the
cotyledons: this is the usual number. In the
pine tribe they are four ; in the grasses, &c.,

BOTANY.

BOTANY.

only one ; hence the last are called monocoty-
ledons. The cotyledons, when the seed has
sprouted, usually rise, in the course of germi-
nation, out of the ground, and perform the
functions of leaves for a while : this is never
the case in wheat, or any other of the mono-
cotyledons ; their seeds consist chiefly of the
albumen or white, which is either farinaceous,
horny, or fleshy, and remains in the ground
nourishing the embryo, until its leaves and
roots are sufficiently perfected for that pur-
pose. Athpugh the albumen is wanting in a
distinct form in several tribes, as those with
compound and cruciform flowers, &c., yet the
farinaceous matter lodged in the cotyledons is
evidently intended to supply the embryo with
nourishment during the first efforts of germina-
tion. Many plants have it distinct from the
cotyledons. VitelluSj the yolk, like the albu-
men, serves to nourish the embryo in the com-
mencement of germination. If the albumen,
as a distinct organ, is present also, the vitellus
is situated between it and the embryo.

Testa, the skin, envelopes all the preceding
parts, and gives them their form, being itself
of a permanent shape, whilst they are in a
liquid state. It is of various textures and sub-
stance; sometimes single, but usually lined
with a finer membrane. Hilum, or scar, marks
where the seed was connected with the seed-
vessel or receptacle. In describing the form
or external parts of a seed, it is always to be
considered as the base.

There are several occasional appendages to
seeds, which may as well be considered in this
place. The pellicle closely adheres to some
seeds, so as to conceal their actual skin. It
varies, being downy, membranous, and muci-
laginous, or not perceptible until moistened.
The tunic envelopes the seed more or less
loosely, being attached only at the base. The
ieed-down is the chafiy, bristly, or feathery
crown, originating from the partial calyx re-
maining attached to the summit of a seed,
somewhat resembling a parachute, which we
see bearing along the seed of the dandelion,
thistle, &c. A tail is the permanent style which
remains as an elongated, feathery termination
to some seeds, as clematis. A u-ing, a mem-
branous appendage, serving, as the seed-down,
to transport the seed it is attached to through
the air. It is solitary, except in some umbel-
liferous plants.

We may now proceed to the last division of
tihe flower, which is, 7thly, the receptacle. —
This is the common base or point of connec-
tion of the other parts. In compound flowers
i serves as a distinguishing mark, and there-
lore is of importance. In the daisy it is coni-
:ial ; in the chrysanthemum, convex ; carduus
has it hairy; chamomile, scaly; picris, naked;
onopordum, cellular.

A compound flower is formed by the union
of several sessile florets, or lesser flowers,
within a common calyx; each, however, must
possess five stamens, their filaments divided,
but their anthers united into a cylinder, [
through which passes the style of a solitary i
Distil, much longer than the stamens, and hav- ^
ng a stigma divided into two parts, which i

roll backwards. There are various forms, as
the thistle, daisy, sunflower, &c.

When the flowers are collected round a stem
in a complete ring, or merely on two of its
sides, it is denominated a whoi-l, as in the dead
nettle (Lamium). Flowers on their own stalks,
standing somewhat distant from each other on
a common one, or axis, are denominated a ra-
ceme, as a bunch of currants. When they are
placed together on one common axis, they
form a spike, as in lavender {Lavandula). If
flowers standing on a common stalk have, in
proportion as they stand on it lower down,
longer foot-stalks, so that the flowers all stand
nearly on a level, it is denominated a corymb,
as in Spircea opnlifolia, common in our gardens;
in the common cabbage, a corymb of flowers
becomes a raceme of fruit. Flowers on par-
tial stalks variously divided and inserted, col-
lected closely together and level at top, is a
fascicle, as in the Sweet William (Dianthus bar-
batus). Sessile flowers collected together in a
globular figure form a head or tuft, as in Statice
amteria* When several flowers on stalks of
nearly equal length spring from a common
centre on a general stalk, they form an umbel,
as in the parsley. This is either general or
partial; the latter is termed an umbellule.
When flowers on separate foot-stalks, spring-
ing from a common centre, have their foot-
stalks variously subdivided, it is termed a
cyme, as in the elder (Sambucus). Flowers
growing on partial foot-stalks without any or-
der, but loosely spread on a common one, form
a panicle, as in the oat (^vena). When the
flowers of a panicle grow closely together,
somewhat approaching an ovate form, as a
bunch of grapes, the lilac, &c., it is termed a
thyrsus, or bunch. When the flowers are all
barren and sessile upon a common axis, it
forms the amentum.

The exterior covering of plants is called the
epidermis or cuticle, answering the same purpose
as the scarf-skin or cuticle of animals, viz.
protecting the interior and more tender parts
from the injuries that might arise from exces-
sive heat, cold, &c. ; yet, being porous, it al-
lows the absorption and emission of moisture
and air, and the admission of light. It cannot
but have been observed how the epidermis
varies in diflferent plants ; how smooth it is
over the petals of most flowers — how downy
on the fruit of the peach — how rough on the
the oak — on the nettle, clothed with perforated
poisonous hairs. The cuticle peels oflf in some
plants, as in the cork tree. In some plants,
especially the Dutch rush (Equisetum hyemale),
it is so impregnated with silicious or flinty
matter as to serve as a polish for the cabinet-
maker, &c.

Immediately beneath the epidermis is the
cellular integument; this is usual 1> the seat of
colour, being red in the petals of the red rose,
blue in the common violet, &c. Leaves appear
to be little else than masses of cellular integu-
ment, enclosed in a case of epidermis, and tra-
versed by numerous sap-vessels. Next to the
cellular integument occurs the bark. In stems
and branches but one year old this consists but
of- one layer; in older ones there are to be

211

BOTANY.

BOTANY.

observed a layer for every year of age ; these,
however, are of little import to the plant, the
vital functions for the time being are carried
on in the layer immediately in contact with
the wood. This innermost ring is termed the
liber. The bark is very conspicuous in some
roots, as the parsnip, carrot, &c. ; the thick
outer ring, observable when these are cut
transversely, is the bark. The bark consists
of woody fibres, chiefly running longitudinally,
but beautifully interwoven. In one of the me-
zereon tribe, a native of Jamaica, and called
the lace bark, it may be separated into elegant
layers of lace-work. In the bark the peculiar
properties of the plant principally reside ; wit-
ness the resin in the pine, the fragrant oil of
the cinnamon, &c.

Next to the liber occurs the wood, which
forms the chief bulk of trees. A layer or more
of this occurs in all exogenous plants, for in
the portion of it which adjoins the liber, and
is named the alburnum, are the sap-vessels
which convey the fluid from the root to the
leaves, whence it descends into vessels situ-
ated in the liber, as we shall see hereafter. In
trees, a fresh layer of wood is deposited every
year adjoining the liber, from which it is
formed or deposited ; hence the age of a tree
may be known by counting the concentric
rings. In the middle of the wood occurs the
medulla or pith, commonly a porous, juicy, yel-
lowish or greenish substance; even the hollow
stems of the onion, &c., are lined with a film
of it. It seems to be an extra reservoir of
nourishment, required for the formation of the
leaves and more recent parts of plants ; at all
events, in old stems and branches it is usually
obliterated. Botanists are not determined as
to its uses.

When a seed is committed to the ground,
if moisture, air, and heat are not all present in
certain favourable proportions, it refuses to
germinate. (See Water, its uses to vegeta-
tion.) No seed will vegetate in dry earth, nor
in a temperature at or below the freezing
point; all require a free admission of air.
These circumstances being favourable, the
seed swells — the skin bursts — and the radicle,
or embryo root, makes its appearance, and
sinks into the earth. The cotyledons, if the
seed has more than one, by degrees develope
themselves, and rise above the surface, afford-
ing nourishment to the embryo stem, situated
between them, until the radicle has become
sutficiently a root to supply food for its growth;
when thus rendered useless, they decay.

Animal and vegetable matters rendered so-
luble in water by putrefaction, various salts
and earths, and water, are the chief nourish-
ment plants derive from the soil ; but it is also
certain that the roots absorb air, which in part
accounts for the benefit afforded to them by
loosening the soil about them, and for plant-
ing them near the surface. When a plant has
got its leaves developed, it possesses another
source of acauiring nourishment from the at-

fosphere. bee Gases, their use to vegetation.
The atmosphere, which to our eyes appears
a siniple uniform fluid, has been demonstrated
by chemists to be composed of three diflTerent
gases or airs, with which is constantly mixed
212

' the vapour of water. The gases are known as
oxygen, carbonic acid, and azote or nitrogen.
j Carbonic acid gas is carbon or charcoal com-
bined with oxygen. Water is composed of
hydrogen and oxygen gases. These facts, by
a little attention, will be easily remembered,
and render all that follows comprehensible.
The nourishment which is absorbed by the
roots being in a fluid state, proceeds along the
sap-vessels situated in the alburnum of the
wood, and spreads through the leaves, flowers,
&c. Here, and during its course up the stem,
by the varied absorption and decomposition of
water and carbonic acid, and the emission of
oxygen, the sap is converted into various sub-
stances, varying in every species of plants ;
gum is formed in the cherry, resin in the fir,
&c.; these arc deposited as the sap descends
through the vessels of the liber. From the sap
likewise is derived the nourishment from
whence is formed the wood, &c.; in fact, it is
the source of the growth of the parts. Our
knowledge of chemistry and vegetable physio-
logy is yet too imperfect to enable us to mark
the various shades of difference in the pro-
cesses of each plant with any degree of pre-
cision. We know that in the light all plants
absorb carbonic acid gas, and emit oxygen
whilst in the dark; on the contrary, they ab-
sorb the latter and give out the former by the
same surfaces; but we are utterly unable to
point out how the same organs secrete a poi-
son in the nightshade and a wholesome food
in the potato, which so closely resembles the
first in form. A few very simple experiments
will serve to fix the above facts upon our me-
mories. We may prove that the sap rises
through the alburnum, and descends through
the bark, by placing the cut end of a leafy
twig of the fig tree in an infusion of Brazil
wood; after some hours cut off" about half an
inch of the extremity, when a circle of red dots
will mark where the infusion ascended, and
an outer circle of white dots will show where
the juices descend.

That leaves throw off" moisture, or perspire,
is demonstrated by inverting a tumbler over two
or three leaves placed in the light; the inside
of the glass will soon be perceptibly covered
with dew.

That leaves throw off" gas from their sur-
faces is demonstrated by plunging one in a ves-
sel of water; air-bubbles will soon be perceived
to be emitted by and attached to it.

In due course of time the flowers of a plant
open ; the anthers of the stamens swell, burst,
and scatter a dust, termed pollen, secreted by
them, and which is caught immediately by the
moist stigmas of the pistils, or is carried Vt
them by the wind, or accidental contact of
some insect. This contact of the pollen with
the stigma is found to be absolutely necessary
before the seed can be perfected. This course
of vegetation is repeated for a series of years
in perennials, but the plant decays as soon as
the seed is perfected in annuals.

Botanists at present are acquainted with
nearly 100,000 species of plants; and the care
with which Providence has provided for the
well-being of plants is an earnest of their im-
portance. That they may never become ex-

BOTANY.

BOTS.

tinct,the number of their seeds is often immense :
Ray counted 32,000 in one poppy-head ! Where
the seeds are less numerous, their safety is se-
cured by the extra strength of the seed-vessel,
their nauseous, poisonous nature, and other
means. The various modes in which they are
spread over the face of the country is equal
evidence of a peculiar providential care. The
seed-down bears some Oirough the air to a dis-
tance ; some cling by their rough appendages
to the coats of animals ; others are borne by
neighbouring streams, or by the winds, to an
immense distance; cocoa-nuts float from the
tropics to the shores of Norway; African seeds
are blown over the southern coasts of Spain ;
birds, animals, and even the seed-vessels them-
selves, by an ejective power, all perform a part
in the office of dissemination. Then, again,
the various kinds of defence with which they
are endowed : cuticles, woolly, and thorny, and
flinty, to preserve an equable temperature and
to prevent injurious wounds. The buds which
contain the embryo of leaves to appear the
following year, how enveloped are they in
scales, and often coated with resin or gum !

Independent of any general arrangement,
plants are divided into species, genera, and
varieties.

By species is to be understood a plant which
by certain permanent signs can be distinguished
from all others; for instance, every one can
determine that the damask rose diflers from
every other ; and botanists, having shown by
what specific marks it may always be distin-
guished, have determined it to be a. species: but
there are many other roses which, though hav-
ing specific points of diflference, very closely
resemble the damask rose ; these, botanists
have therefore collected into one family, which
Ihey term a genus, under the general name of
Mosa. Rosa, then, is the generic or family
name; but, to distinguish the species, every
■©ne has a separate second or specific name : —
thus, the damask rose is Rosa centifolia ; the
dog rose, Rosa canina ; these second names are
therefore termed the specific names. By variety
is meant a plant varying in an established
species, but which cannot produce an exact
resemblance of itself by seed. Thus, all our
apples are varieties of one species, the crab
{Pyrus) ; and all plants raised from their seed
invariably differ from each other and their
parent The whole vegetable kingdom, then,
is divided into families, or genera, composed
of a greater or less number of species. In
botany the varieties are little noticed. These
genera are distributed by Linnaeus into classes,
in what, from him, is denominated the Linnaean
System of Botany.

These classes are twenty-four in number,
I founded on the number, situation, or propor-
tion of the stamens.

The plants of the twenty-four classes are
further arranged in subdivisions, denominated
orders. The orders of the first thirteen classes
are founded on the number of pistils the plants
belonging to them contain.

The orders of the 14th class are distinguished
by their seed-vessels.

The two orders of the 15th class are distin-
guished by the form of the seed-vessels.

The orders of the 16th, 17th, and 18th classes
are founded on the number of the stamens, that
is, on the characters of the first thirteen classes.

The orders of the 19th class (Syngenesia) are
marked by the nature of the florets.

The orders of the 20th, 2 1st, and 22d classes
are distinguished by the characters of some of
the classes that preceded them : that is, by the
number or proportion of the stamens, the union
of the anthers not being attended to.

The orders of the 23d class are distinguished
upon the principles of the two preceding classes.

The 24th class {Cryptogamia) is divided into
five orders : —

1. Ferns, 3. Liverworts,

2. Mosses, 4. Algae,

5. Mushrooms.

The natural system of M. Jtusieu. — Every per-
son must have observed, that plants in many
instances are arranged by nature in families ;
for instance, the grasses, liliaceous plants, the
umbelliferous plants, mosses, sea-weeds, ferns,
&c., are composed of individuals bearing a
very striking resemblance to each other in
their forms. The same resemblance holds in
their internal qualities, between such plants as
resemble one another in configuration. Thus
the grasses are all nutritious ; the liliaceous
plants in general poisonous ; umbelliferous
plants growing on high dry soils are generally
wholesome ; those of wet situations are gene-
rally poisonous. The importance of keeping
these families undivided in a botanical classi-
fication is evident; and if plants were univer-
sally separable into such distinct families as
those above mentioned, a natural system would
be easy and perfect. But plants are too diver-
sified ; they approach each other in such va-
rious shades, that it is certain a complete
natural system can never be perfected, or must
be too intricate for general use. Jussieu's sys-
tem, with all its merit, is open to both these
objections ; it is imperfect, were it only from
being founded upon the structure of the seed,
that part of plants which is, perhaps, more sel-
dom than any other capable of being observed
by the botanist.

There are fifteen classes and one hundred
orders. The classes have no particular names,
but are distinguished by numbers, with a short
statement of essential characters. The orders
are named after some principal genus in each.
There are some inaccuracies in the arrange-
ment ; many plants, considered by Jussieu as
monocotyledon ous, are now known to be with-
out any cotyledons.

At the end Jussieu places a large assemblage
of genera, consisting of plants, the construction
of whose seed is undetermined. This, of course,
is an imperfection, but not peculiar to Jussieu's
system. It must be the case with all systems
founded on nature, unless their contrivers
could have at once before them a specimen of
every species of plant that the various portions
of our globe produce. This system has been
greatly modified and improved by Decandolle,
Lindley, and others ; and it is now justly pre-
ferred to the artificial system of Linnaeus.
(G. W.Johnson; Dr. Lindley; G.Sinclair; Trans.
High. Soc. vol. i. p. 81.)

BOTS. In farriery, a kind of worms very
' 213

BOT-FLIES.

BOT-FLIES.

troublesome to horses. Bots are the larvae or
maggots of a species of gad-fly (the (Estrus
equi), which deposits its eggs on the legs, mane,
or those parts of the horse that the animal is
most apt to lick. The egg is immediately
hatched by the warmth and moisture of the
tongue, and the little worm conveyed into the
mouth, whence it crawls down the oesophagus
into the stomach. It adheres to the cuticular
coat of the stomach by means of little hooks,
with which its mouth is furnished ; and there
it remains from the summer of one year to the
spring of the next, nourished by the mucus of
the stomach, or the food which it contains.
Then having attained its full size as a maggot,
it loosens its hold, and is carried along the in-
testines with the other contents of the stomach,
and evacuated with the fseces. Before it drops,
it generally clings for a while to the verge of
the anus, and tickles and teases the horse to a
very great degree. Except they exist in most
unusual numbers, bots do neither good nor
harm during their residence in the stomach of
the horse. It is the habitation which nature
has assigned to them; and the safety of so
noble an animal as the horse would not have
been compromised for the sake of a maggot
and a fly. The best advice that can be given,
therefore, is to let them alone, or at most to be
content with picking them off when they appear
under the tail. There are two good reasons
for this. The first is, that there is not any me-
dicine that will expel them ; the strongest and
even the most dangerous purgative is insuffi-
cient. The second reason is, that if the bots
are let alone, they will, in due time, come all
away without our help or meddling. (Clater's
Farriery, p. 168 — 170.) Green food, however,
expels them readily, as does common salt in
the proportion of two to four ounces to a quart
of water. The most simple and efficient reme-
dy is a quart of milk, mixed well with a quar-
ter of a pound of honey or brown sugar, given
fasting. This is much better than aloes.

BOT-FLIES. The various insects, impro-
perly called bot-bees, are two-winged flies, be-
longing to the order Diptera and the family
CEstridos. Bot-flies do not seem to have any
mouth or proboscis ; for, although these parts
do really exist in them, the opening of the
mouth is extremely small, and the proboscis
is very short, and is entirely concealed in it,
so that these insects, while in the winged state,
do not appear able to take any nourishment.
The larvae or young of bot-flies live in various
parts of the bodies of animals. They are thick,
fleshy, whitish maggots, without feet, tapering
towards the head, which is generally armed
with two hooks, and the rings of the body are
surrounded with rows of smaller hooks or
prickles. When fully grown, they drop to the
ground and burrow in it a short distance.
After this, the skin of the maggot becomes a
hard and brownish shell, within which the in-
sect turns to a pupa, and finally to a fly, and
comes out by pushing a little piece like a lid

torn the small end of the shell.
More than twenty different kinds of bot-flies
are already known, and several of them are
found in the United States. Some of them have
been brought here with our domesticated ani-
214

mals from abroad, and have multiplied and
increased. Three of them attack the horse.
The large bot-fly of the horse (Gasterophilus
equi) has spotted wings. She lays her eggs
about his knees ; the small red-tailed species
(G. hcemorrhoidalis), on his lips; and the brown
farrier bot-fly (G. vetcrinus), under his throat,
according to Dr. Roland Green. By rubbing
and biting the parts where the eggs are laid,
the horse gets the maggots into his mouth, and
swallows them with his food. The insects
then fasten themselves in clusters to the inside
of his stomach, and live there till they are fully
grown. The following are stated to be the
symptoms shown by the horse when he is
much infested by these insects. He loses flesh,
coughs, eats sparingly, and bites his sides; at
length he has a discharge from his nose ; and
these symptoms are followed by a stiffness of his
legs and neck, staggering, difficulty in breath-
ing, convulsions, and death. No sure and safe
remedy has yet been found sufficient to remove
bots from the stomach of the horse. The pre-
ventive means are very simple, consisting only
in scraping off the eggs or nits of the fly every
day. Bracy Clark, Esq., who has published
some very interesting remarks on the bots of
horses and of other animals, maintains that
bots are rather beneficial than injurious to the
animals they infest. (Dr. Harris.)

If a piece of the maAv or stomach of a horse
that has died while affected with bots be
cut out, it may be held under the jet of the
strongest fountain or hydrant, without the
maggots or bots leaving go, or loosing their
hooks. Experiments have been made to de-
stroy them out of the body with spirits of tur-
pentine, alcohol, and a great many of the most
stimulating and acrimonious substances, in
liquid and other forms, all, however, with little
apparent effect upon an insect so very tena-
cious of life. The bot-maggot is even said to
live a considerable length of time in oil of vi-
triol and nitric acid or aquafortis. After such
results, the chance of destroying them in the
body must be small, through means which
would not destroy the horse. The following
ingenious method has, however, been pursued
with success. A full drench has been admi-
nistered, consisting of a mixture of milk sweet-
ened with molasses, followed soon after by an
active purgative drench. The milk and mo-
lasses tempt the bot-maggots to let go their
holds in order the better to partake of the milk,
in which condition they are worked off quickly
by the brisk operation of the medicine.

The maggots of the (Estrus bovis, or ox bot-
fly, live in large open boils, sometimes called
wornils or wurmals, that is, worm-holes, on
the backs of cattle. The fly is rather smaller
than the horse bot-fly, although it comes from
a much larger maggot. The sheep bot-fly
(Cephalemyia ovis) lays its eggs in the nostrils
j of sheep, and the maggots crawl from thence
into the hollows in the bones of the forehead.
Deer are also afflicted by bots peculiar to them.
{ Our native hare, or rabbit, as it is commonly
' called, sometimes has very large bots, which
live under the skin of his back. The fly
; ((Estrus bu^catus) is as big as our largest
. humble-bee, but is not hairy. It is of a reddish-

BOUND.

BOX-TREE.

black colour; the face and the sides of the
hind-body are covered with a bluish-white
bloom ; there are many small black dots on
the latter, and six or eight on the face. This
fly measures seven-eighths of an inch or more
in length, and its wings expand about three-
quarters of an inch. It is rarely seen; and
my only specimen was taken in the month of
July, many years ago.

At the very end of this order is to be placed
a remarkable group of insects, which seems
to connect the flies with the true ticks and spi-
ders. Some of these insects have wings ; but
others have neither wings nor poisers. Of
the winged kinds there is one (Hippobosca
equina) that nestles in the hair of the horse ;
others are bird-flies {Ornithomyia), and live in
the plumage of almost all kinds of birds. The
wingless kinds have sometimes been called
spider-flies, from their shape ; such are sheep-
ticks (Mellophagus ovis) and bat-ticks {Nycteri-
bia). These singular creatures are not pro-
duced from eggs, in the usual way among in-
sects, but are brought forth in the pupa state,
enclosed in the egg-shaped skin of the larva,
which is nearly as large as the body of the
parent insect. This egg-like body is soft and
white at first, but soon becomes hard and
brown. It is notched at one end, and out of
this notched part the enclosed insect makes its
way, when it arrives at maturity. (Dr. Harris.)

BOUND (Sax. bun©e, from binDan, to bind).
In veterinary medicine, a term of various ap-
plication. Any part of an animal that is em-
braced with an unnatural force is said to be
bound : thus horses are liable to be hoof-bound,
hide-bound, &c. Or the bowels may be con-
stricted so as not to part with the fceces, in
Which case the belly is said to be bound.

BOWEL DISEASES (Mod. Fr. boyaux ;
old Fr. boailles). The horse and other quadru-
peds are liable to various diseases aflecling
the bowels. Of inflammation of the bowels
there are two kinds ; that of the external and
that of the internal coat. The former is a very
frequent and fatal disease, and is recognised
by the farrier under the name of red colic. It is
frequently caused by the application of cold to
the belly of the horse, either by taking him
into the water, or washing him about the belly
with cold water, or suffering him to drink
plentifully of it when he is heated, or by expo-
sure to rain, over-exertion on a full stomach,
&c. From whatever cause it arises, it runs
its course with fearful rapidity, and sometimes
destroys the horse in less than twenty-four
hours. The symptoms should be carefully
studied. One of the earliest is the expression
of very acute pain. The animal paws, rolls,
struggles violently, lies upon his back, groans ;
his legs and mouth are cold, the flanks heave
violently, the horse shivers and sweats, &c.
The violence of the symptoms soon abates,
and the horse becomes weak, and scarcely
able to stand. Prompt and copious bleeding
should be at first resorted to, until fainting
nearly or quite succeeds ; and mild aperients
may be next administered. The whole of the
belly should be stimulated with the strong blis-
tering liquid, or wiih spirit of turpentine ; and
these appliances should be rubbed in as hardly

I and thoroughly as the tender state of the belly
' will allow. The horse should be kept quiet,
I warmly clothed, and his legs bandaged. In-
I flammation of the inna- coat of the bowels is
usually the consequence of physic, either of
I bad quality or given in an over-dose ; or the
j horse may have been ridden or driven far and
fast with nothing but green meat in his belly.
This disease can scarcely be confounded with
the foregoing. The horse does not roll so vio-
lently nor kick so desperately, nor is there any
heat nor much tenderness of the belly. At the
same time he is purged, instead of exhibiting
the obstinate costiveness which generally ac-
companies the former. Plenty of tolerably
thick gruel or starch should be forced down,
which will possibly sheathe the coats of the
stomach from the eflect either of some portion
of the physic or the acrimony of the secretion,
and the purging will gradually stop. If this
should have no eflect, bleeding, carefully
watched, and stopped when the pulse falters,
must be resorted to ; and thicker gruel and
astringent medicine must be administered.
As in the last species, warm clothing and
bandages about the legs will be of essential
service. {Clater't Farriery, p. 173— -178.)

BOWLDERS, or BOULDERS. A term in
geology, implying rounded masses of rock; it
is also provincially applied to a kind of round
stone, common in the soils of the midland dis-
tricts. In the north of England it is pronounced
sometimes bmvder or booder, and also boother.

BOWLDER-WALL. A wall generally on
the sea-coast, constructed of large pebbles or
bowlders of flint, which have been rounded by
the action of water.

BOW-LEGGED. In horsemanship, is a de-
fective conformation or posture of the fore-legs
of a horse.

BOWS OF A SADDLE are two pieces of
wood laid archwise to receive the upper part
of the horse's back, to give the saddle its due
form, and keep it steady.

BOX DRAIN. An underground drain, re-
gularly built, with upright sides, and a flat
stone or brick cover ; so that the close section
has the appearance of a square box. See
Drains and DRAiitiMO.

BOX TREE (Sax. box; It. basso; Fr. buis ;
Lat. Euxus senrpervirens). We consider the
English name of this plant to be a corruption
of the Latin word buxus, or from the Spanish
box, and that it gave the name to the wooden
cases made by the carpenter and turner, rather
than derived its own from these cases. The
box was formerly much more plentiful in
England than at present. Boxwel, in Glou-
cestershire, was named from this tree, and it
also gave the name of Boxhill to those delight-
ful downs near Dorking, in Surry, where this
shrub seems to have grown naturally, as it is
known to have abounded there long before the
time that the Earl of Arundel retired to that
spot, and, as it is stated, planted the box. In
1815 the box trees cut down on Boxhill pro-
duced upwards of 10,000/. This evergreen
bush, or small tree, is found all over Europe,
as well as upon the chalk hills of England ;
but it acquires its largest dimensions in the
south. The duty on box-wood is quite oppres-

^15

BOX.

BRAMBLE.

sive; being 57. a ton if brought from a foreign
country, and 1/. a ton if from a British pos-
session. It is from Turkey that the principal
part of the wood is imported into England;
whether or not all this is really furnished by
J^uxus sempervirens is not known. It is not im-
probable that Buxus balearica, a larger species,
too tender to thrive in this country, may fur-
nish a part, at least, of that which comes from
the Mediterranean. It is said, that the wood
of this species is coarser, and of a brighter yel-
low than that of the common species. At an
average of the three years ending with 1831,
the entries of box-wood for home consumption
amounted to 382 tons a year. In 1832, the
duty produced 1867Z. 17s. 4rf. Turkey box-
wood sells in the London market for from 71.
to 147. a ton, duty included. Box is a very
valuable wood. It is of a yellowish colour,
close-grained, very hard, and heavy ; it cuts
better than any other wood, is susceptible of a
very fine polish, and is very durable. In con-
sequence it is much used by turners and ma-
thematical and musical instrument makers. It
is too heavy for furniture. It is the only wood
used by the engravers of wood-cuts for books ;
and, provided due care be exercised, the num-
ber of impressions that may be taken from a
box-wood cut is very great. In France, box-
wood is extensively used for combs, knife
handles, and button moulds. The value of
the box-wood sent from Spain to Paris is. re-
ported to amount to 10,000 fr. a year.

Where box trees are required, they should
be raised from seed, which should be sown
soon after it is ripe, in a shady border of light
loam, or sand ; but it is generally propagated
by cuttings planted in the autumn, and kept
moist, until they have taken root. The box
plant is best known for its use in gardens as
hedgings to borders ; the kind so employed is
a dwarf variety. It is very useful, as it grows
freely under the drip and shade of trees.
Dwarf box is increased by parting the roots, or
planting the slips. The best time for trans-
planting this shrub is October; though it may
be removed almost at any time, except sum-
mer, if it be taken up with a good ball of
earth.

With respect to its medicinal properties,
box-wood has been substituted for guaiacum
as a sudorific in rheumatism ; but is now seldom
prescribed. Oil of box root is a popular reme-
dy for the toothache, when dropped on cotton,
and put into a carious tooth. {Phillips^ Sylv.
Flor, vol. i. p. 44 ; Brande's Did. of Science ;
M'Culloch's Corn. Diet.)

BOX of a Wheel. The aperture wherein the
axis turns.

BOX of a Plough. The cross-piece in the
head of the plough which supports the two
crow-staves.

BRACE. The general name for a couple,
or pair, of such animals as bucks, hounds,
partridges, &c. It is also applied to any thing
that serves to strengthen or support.
^ BRACKEN. It is written also broken, and
^sometimes pronounced breckin in the north of
England. The same with brake or fern. See
Ferx.

BRAIRD. In the agriculture and gardening
216

of Scotland, the term braird is applied to the
springing up of seeds, which, when they come
up well, are said to have a fine braird.

BRAKE. The name of a wooden instru-
ment for dressing hemp and flax, used to bruise
or break the bun or stem, &c. in order to
separate the cortical part or rind from it. It
is sometimes applied to a thicket, or the
place where fern grows ; and is another name
for the barnacles, or pincers, used by farriers.
Brake is also a sharp bit, or snaffle for horses.
A smith's brake is a machine in which horses
unwilling to be shod are confined during that
operation. Some species of large heavy har-
rows are frequently called brakes. See Hah-

HOW.

BRAMBLE, FLOWERING {Rubus odora*
tus). A hardy exotic shrub, five or six feet in
height, blowing apinkish violet-coloured flower
in June and August. It loves shade and moist-
ure, and is propagated by suckers. It is known
also as the flowering raspberry.

BRAMBLE or BRAMBLE-BERRY (Sax.
bpsembel, formerly written bremble ; Lat. i?i*-
bus). The bramble, or blackberry, the generic
name of a large family of shrubs which creep
along the hedge in every soil. The common
bramble (Rubus fruticosus) derives both its La-
tin and English common name from the colour
of its fruit at different stages of ripeness.
However generally the bramble is reprobated
as a troublesome weed, we must acknowledge
that, when either in fruit or flower, it forms a
principal among the numberless hedgerow
beauties, and is not without its utility in par-
ticular soils, especially in poor sandy lands,
where the growth of other hedges is slow, and
where, by reason of the looseness of the soil,
the ditch is no defence. When planted in
such situations, it will, by its quick growth,
soon entwine its thorny branches in the dead
hedge, and form an almost impervious fence
against the invasions of cattle, sheep, and
other trespassers. Brambles mixed with other
hedge plants will render them thicker and
stronger. The objections urged against the
more general adoption of bramble fences are,
that, by the yearly decay of a portion of the
shoots, they soon fill the hedge with dead wood,
which has not only an unsightly appearance,
but is also hurtful to the other plants; and
again it is said, that the leaves are so broad
and numerous as to smother every other plant,
by depriving it of both sun and air. When
brambles are in considerable abundance, as is
often the case in waste and other lands that
require to be brought into cultivation, they
should always be grubbed or hoed up ; and if
the land be afterwards ploughed with a good
furrow, the remaining roots will be torn up,
and the plants at length destroyed. This shrub,
which is only used by the chance passenger
occasionally plucking its fruit, possesses, how-
ever, several advantages which deserve our
attention. Its long branches can, in case of
need, be employed as cords ; and its fruit pro-
duces an excellent wine, the mode of making
which is as follows : — Five measures of the
ripe fruit, with one of honey and six of wine,
are taken and boiled; the froth is skimmed
off, the fire removed, and the mixture bei

1

BRAMBLE.

passed through a linen cloth, is left to ferment.
It is then boiled anew, and allowed to ferment
in a suitable cask. In Provence bramble-ber-
ries are used to give a deep colour to particu-
lar wines. {MlgemtForst und Jagd-Zeitung, Feb.
1828, p. 104.) The juice of the blackberry,
mixed with raisin wine before it has fermented,
will give it both the colour and flavour of
claret. ," The berries," says Pliny, " have a
desiccative and astringent virtue, and are a
most appropriate remedy for the gums and
inflammation of the tonsils." The flowers as
well as the berries of the bramble were igno-
rantly considered by the ancients as remedies
against the most dangerous serpents. They
are diuretic; and the juice pressed out of the
tendrils, or young shoots, and afterwards re-
duced to the consistency of honey by standing
in the sun, is, adds the above author, " a sin-
gularly efficacious medicine, taken inwardly
or applied outwardly, for all the diseases of
the mouth and eyes, as well as for the quincy,
&c." But Pliny has lost his celebrity as a
medical authority, if he ever had any ; and
modern blackberries have also lost their
virtue. Boerhaave affirms, that the roots taken
out of the earth in February or March, and
boiled with honey, are an excellent remedy
against the dropsy.

Syrup of blackberries, picked when only red,
is cooling and astringent in common purgings
or fluxes. The bruised leaves, stalks, and un-
ripe fruit, applied outwardly, are said to cure
ringworm.

Billington, in his work on Planting, says,
"To the poor in the vicinity of Newcastle it is
of great importance ; many of whom go a
great number of miles to gather blackberries
while they are in season, and carry them from
len to twenty miles, to Newcastle, Shields, and
Sunderland, where they sometimes sell them
as high as 3d. and 4d. per quart, for puddings,
tarts, preserves, or jellies, and even making of
wines." The fruit is, in particular, much
esteemed and sought after by the wives and
mothers of sailors, to send on board the ships,
as it is found to be very healthful to the men
to eat with their biscuits, as well as for pud-
dings, much more so than their common fare
of salt beef and pork. All through the season,
after the gooseberries are over (for apples,
plums, &c., are often scarce and dear), the
people are regaled with the fruit of the bram-
ble as the greatest domestic luxury, and would
probably lay in a store for future consumption
if sugar were cheaper. The leaves of the dwarf
crimson bramble (Rubiis arrticus) are often used
to adulterate tea. See Whortlebehrt.

Of the Rubus fniticosus, or common bramble,
we have (says Phillips) five varieties ; and as
one has been discovered in a hedge near Ox-
ford by Bobart which produces a white fruit,
it will be necessary to adopt the proper name
of bramble-berry for this fruit, to avoid the
contradictory appellation of white blackberry.
The variety with a double flower is now one
of the ornaments of the shrubbery ; the other
varieties are, one with variegated leaves, one
with cut leaves, and the bramble without
thorns. Smith, in his English Flora, describes
fourlfien species of bramble {Rubus); which
28

BRAMBLE.

include the raspberry, cloudberry, and dew-
berry. Several reputed varieties of the com-
mon bramble have also been observed in
Britain (says Smith, vol. ii. p. 400), differing
in the shape and pubescence of their leaflets,
not to mention other characters. These have
recently been proposed as species in a very
able work, with excellent plates partially co-
loured, by Dr. A. Weihe and Prof. Ch. G. Nees
ab Esenbeck of Bonn, under the title of Rubi
Germanica. Notwithstanding the colour of the
flowers, I cannot suppose the British R. fruti-
C0SU8 to differ from theirs. (Smt//i's Engl. Flora,
vol. ii.; Phillips's Hist, of Fruits, p. 63; Quar-
terly Journ. of Jgr. vol. i. p. 816; vol. iii. p.
182.)

The Rubus brier, or bramble genus, consists
of about fifty species, which are very widely
dispersed over the various continents, extending
from the arctic circle to the equatorial limits.
Mr.Nuttall enumerates twenty species as found
in America, among which are the following:
Rubus Idanis, indigenous, accordingto Pursh and
others, throughout Upper Canada and the north-
ern parts of the United States. Dr. Darlington
calls this the Antwerp raspberry, so advantage-
ously known from its large and finely flavoured
berries which are cultivated in most gardens.
He doubts its being a native of America.
There are several varieties of this species of
Rubus. The Rubus occidentalis, common black
raspberry, or thimble-berry, is common in the
Middle States and other portions of the Union,
growing along fence-rows, borders of woods,
&c. Rubus villosus, common brier, or black-
berry bush, is often a great nuisance on farms,
from the rapidity with which it spreads and
takes possession of neglected fields. R. Cunei-
folius, or wedge-leaved rubus or brier, bearing
an oval-shaped, small, and well-flavoured
blackberry, very common in New Jersey. R.
Trivialis, dewberry, or running brier. The
black, sweet, and succulent fruit of this
species of rubus is a very great favourite. It
is not, however, the same as the English dew-
berry, which is produced by the Rubus Ccesius.
In treating of the American dewberry, or run-
ning brier, Dr. Darlington says, "the plough-
boy is apt to get well acquainted with this
species, — by the long trailing stems, with their
recurved prickles, drawing across his naked
ankles!" R. odoratus, found on the banks of
the Wisahickon, near Philadelphia, abundant
in mountainous districts, always among
rocks.

The tall blackberry (R. Filhsus) is some-
times cultivated near Boston and other large
cities, for the sake of its fruit, and richly re-
pays the care bestowed upon it. Dr. Harris,
in his report to the Massachusetts legislature
upon destructive insects, says, that this plant
and its near relation, the raspberry, suffer from
borers that live in the pith of the stems, a fact
which does not appear to be generally known.
The beetle is a species o[ Saperda, and finishes
its transformations towards the end of July,
laying its eggs early in August, one by one, on
the stems of the blackberry and raspberry,
near a leaf or small twig. The grubs proceed-
ing from these eggs burrow directly into the
pith, which they consume as they proceed, so
T 217

BRAN.

that the stem for several inches is completely-
deprived of its pith, and consequently withers
and dies before the end of the summer. In
Europe, one of these slender saperdas attack
the hazle-nut bush, and another the pear tree
in a similar manner.

, The dewberry and blackberry are very plea-
sant fruits and make fine jelly. All the species
are readily propagated both by seed and layers,
and are wonderfully improved by culture.

There is a double white flowering bramble
(Rubus albo-pleno) which is a beautiful and or-
namental variety.

BRAN (Old Fr. hren; Ital. hrenna). The
thin skin or husks of corn, particularly wheat,
ground and separated from the meal by a sieve
or boulter. It is generally laxative ; owing to
the mechanical irritation it excites. An infu-
sion of it, under the name of bran tea, is fre-
quently used as a domestic remedy for coughs
and hoarseness. Infusions of bran also re-
move scurf and dandriff. Calico-printers em-
ploy bran and warm water with great success,
to remove colouring matter from those parts
of their goods that are not mordanted. Bran
is a useful ingredient, when well scalded, and
employed occasionally in moderate quantities,
in mashes for horses ; but the constant use of
it, whether raw or scalded, is prejudicial, as it
is apt to weaken the horse's bowels, and there-
by expose him to many disorders. It is also
highly useful in stall-feeding cattle, and for
sheep, when given as a dry food. According
to the analysis of M. Saussure, 100 parts of
the ashes of the bran of wheat contain {Chem.
Rec. Veg.),—

Parti.
Soluble salts ----- 4415
Earthy phosphates - - - - 46-5

Silica 0-5

Metallic oxides ----- 0*25
Loss ------- 86

BRAND-GOOSE, or BRENT-GOOSE. A

kind of wildfowl, less than a common goose,
having its breast and wings of a dark colour.
See Goose.

BRANK. A provincial name sometimes
applied to buckwheat, which see.

BRAWN. The flesh of the boar, after being
boned, rolled up, or collared, boiled, and pick-
led. Brawn is made of the flitches, and some
other parts, the oldest boars being chosen for
the purpose, it being a rule that the older the
boar the more horny the brawn.

The method of making it is generally as
follows : — The bones being taken out of the
flitches, or other parts, the flesh is sprinkled
with salt, and laid in a tray, that the blood may
drain off"; after which it is salted a little, and
rolled up as hard as possible. The length of
the collar of brawn should be as much as one
side of the boar will bear ; so that, when rolled
up, it may be nine or ten inches in diameter.
After being thus rolled up, it is boiled in a
copper or large kettle, till it is so tender that
you may almost run a stiff" straw through it;
when it is set by till thoroughly cold, and then
put into a pickle composed of water, salt, and
wheat-bran, in the proportion of two handfuls
I of each of the latter to every gallon of water ;
which, after being well boiled together, is
strained off" as clear as possible from the bran,
218

BREAD.

and when quite cold, the brawn put into it.
( Willich's I)om. Encycl.)

BREACHY, or BREECHY WOOL, is the
short coarse wool of a sheep, such as that
which comes from the breech of the animal.

BREAD (Sax. bjieo©; Ger. hrod). This
forms an important and principal article in the
food of most civilized nations, and consists of
a paste or dough formed of the flour or meal
of different sorts of grain, mixed with water,
with or without yeast or ferment, and baked.

Bread may be divided, in the first instance,
into leavened and unleavened bread. When stale
dough or yeast is added to the fresh dough of
flour and water to make it swell, it is said to
be leavened; when nothing of this sort is
added, the bread is said to be unleavened.
These may again be subdivided into various
kinds and qualities. The principal sorts in use
are white, wheaten, household, and brown bread,
which differ from each other in their degrees of
purity. In the first, all the bran is separated
from tjje flour ; in the second, only the coarser
parts of it ; and in the third scarcely any at all ;
so that fine bread is made only of flour ; wheaten
bread of flour, with a mixture of fine bran ; and
household bread of the whole substance of the
grain, without taking out scarcely any either of
the coarse bran or the fine flour. We have also
manchet or roll-bread, and French bread,
which are fine white breads made of the purest
flour; in roll-bread there is sometimes an ad-
dition of milk, and in French bread butler is
used. There is likewise ginger-bread, maslii!-
bread, made of wheat and rye, or sometimes
of wheat and barley; and other breads made
with various substitutes for flour, as oat-bread,
rye-bread, pea and bean-bread, &c.

The President de Goguet has endeavoured
{Origin of Laws, ^c, vol. i. pp. 95 — 105, Eng.
trans.) to trace the successive steps by which
it is probable men were led to discover the
art of making bread; but nothing positive is
known on the subject. It is certain, however,
from the statements in the sacred writings,
that the use of unleavened bread was common
in the days of Abraham (Gen. xvjii. 8); and
that leavened bread was used in the time of
Moses (Exod. xii. 15). The method of s:rind-
ing corn by hand-mills was practised in Egypt
and Greece from a very remote epoch ; but
for a lengthened period, the Romans had no
other method of making flour than by beating
roasted corn in mortars. The conquests olf
the Romans diffused, amongst many other use-
ful discoveries, a knowledge of the art of pre-
paring bread, as followed in Rome, through the
whole south of Europe.

The use of yeast in the raising of bread
seems, however, from a passage of Pliny (lib.
xviii. c. 7), to have been taken advantage of
by the Germans and Gauls before it was prac-
tised by the Romans ; the latter, like the Greeks,
having leavened their bread by intermixing
the fresh dough with that which had become
stale. The Roman custom seems to have su-
perseded that which was previously in use in
France and Spain; for the art of raising bread
by an admixture of yeast was not practised in
France in modern times till towards the end
of the seventeenth century.

BREAD.

For the formation of bread, a certain degree
of fermentation, not unlike vinous fermenta-
tion, is requisite, care being taken to avoid the
acetous fermentation, which renders the bread
sour, and, to most persons, disagreeable. This
fermentation is called ;ja/iary. If dough be left
to itself ij}. a moderately warm place (between
80° and 120°), a degree of fermentation comes
on, which, however, is sluggish, or, if rapid, is
apt to run into the acetous; so that, to effect
that kind of fermentation requisite for the pro-
duction of the best bread, a ferment is added,
which is either leaven, or dough in an already
fermenting state, which tends to accelerate the
process of the mass to which it is added, or
ijeast, the peculiar matter which collects in the
form of scum upon beer in the act of fermenta-
tion. See Yeast. Of these ferments, leaven
is slow and uncertain in its effects, and gives
a sour and often slightly putrid flavour to the
bread. Yeast is more effective, and, when
clean and good, it rapidly induces panary fer-
mentation ; but it is often bitter, and sometimes
has a peculiarly disagreeable smell and taste.
Uread well raised and baked differs from un-
fermented bread, not only in being spongy, less
( ompact, lighter, and of a more agreeable taste,
but also in being more easily miscible with
Airater, with which it does not form a viscous
laass; and this circumstance is of great im-
j'ortance to health. All, then, that is essential
t) make a loaf of bread, is dough to which a
certain quantity of yeast has been added. This
iiass, or sponge, in the language of the baker,
is put into any convenient mould or form, or
i: is merely shaped into one mass; and, after
leing kept for a short time in rather a warm
place, so that fermentation may have begun, it
is subjected to the process of baking in a pro-
per oven. Carbonic acid is generated, and the
viscidity or texture of the dough preventing
the immediate escape of that gas from the in-
numerable points where it forms, the whole
mass is puffed up by it, and a light porous
bread is the result. Along with the carbonic
acid alcohol is evolved, but the quantity is so
insignificant and the spirit so impure as not to
be worth notice; thence the attempts which
have been made to collect it upon a large scale
have entirely failed in an economical point of
view.

The general process of making household
bread is this: — To a peck of meal or flour is
to be added about three ounces of salt, half a
pint of yeast, and three quarts of water, cold
in summer, but warm in winter, and temperate
between the two: the whole being then well
Uineaded in a bowl or trough, and being set by
in a proper temperature, rises in about an hour,
according to the season. It is then moulded
into loaves, and put into the oven to be baked.
In placing the dough aside, it is proper to cover
it; this is termed setting the sponge, and it under-
goes a second kneading before it is baked.

For French bread, take half a bushel of fine
flour, ten eggs, a pound and a half of fresh
butter (the eggs and butter, however, are very
seldom used), and the same quantity of yeast
Jsed in making the finest rolls or manchet;
md, tempering the whole mass with new milk,
pretty hot, let it lie half an hour to rise ; which

BREAD.

done, make it into loaves or rolls, and wash
these over with an egg beaten with milk, tak-
ing care that the oven is not too hot.

Other flour, besides that of wheat, will, under
similar circumstances, undergo panary fer-
mentation ; but the result is a heavy, unpala-
table, and often indigestible bread; so that the
addition of a certain quantity of wheat flour is
almost always had recourse to. It is the gluten
in wheat which thus peculiarly fits it for the
manufacture of bread, chiefly in consequence
of the tough and elastic viscidity which it con-
fers upon the dough.

Wheat flour is composed chiefly of starch
and gluten ; the proportion of these and other
substances which it contains, according to
Vogel, are —

F»rfi.

Starch 68-0

Gluten 940

Gummy sujrar ----- 5*0
Vegetable albumen - - - - 1*5

Sir H. Davy states, that wheat sown in au-
tumn contains 77 per cent, of starch, and 19
of gluten ; while that sown in spring yields 70
of starch and 24 of gluten. The wheat of the
south of Europe contains a larger proportion
of gluten than that of the north ; and hence its
peculiar fitness for making macaroni and ver-
micelli. Oats yielded, according to Davy's
analysis, 59 of starch, 6 of gluten, and 2 of
saccharine matter; while the same quantity of
rye gave only 6-1 parts of starch, and half a
part of gluten.

Like all other farinaceous substances, bread
is very nourishing, on account of the gluten
which it contains ; but if eaten too freely, it is
productive of acidity, which deranges the in-
testines, and lays the foundation of dyspepsia.
Stale bread, in every respect, deserves the pre-
ference over that which is newly baked ; and
persons troubled with flatulency, cramp of the
stomach, or indigestion, should abstain from
new bread, and particularly from hot rolls.
Bread made from the best flour is necessarily
costly, but is more wholesome for those per-
sons who are liable to a relaxed state of the
bowels. Brown bread, on the contrary, is the
cheapest and most desirable for persons whose
habit of body is of the contrary nature : but
there is an intermediate kind made from flour,
in which the finer portion of the bran is retain-
ed, called locally " seconds," which is prefer-
able to either of the above. (Quar. Jour. Agr.
vol. ix. p. 585.) It is a prevailing idea that
yeast reproduces itself, just as seeds reproduce
similar seeds. But chemical investigation has
shown that such an opinion is not to be enter-
tained. See Yeast.

The species of bread in common use in a
country depends partly on^the taste of the in-
habitants, but more on the'sort of grain suita-
ble for its soil. The superiority of wheat to
all other farinaceous plants in the manufacture
of bread is so very great, that wherever it is
easily and successfully cultivated, wheaten
bread is used to the nearly total exclusion of
most others. Where, however, the soil or cli-
mate is less favourable to its growth, rye, oats,
&c., are used in its stead. A very great change
for the better has, in this respect, taken place
in Great Britain within the last century. It is

219

BREAD.

BREAD.

mentioned by Harrison, in his Description of
England (p. 168), that in the reign of Henry
VIII. the gentry had wheat sufficient for their
own tables, but that their households and poor
neighbours were usually obliged to content
themselves with rye, barley, and oats. It ap-
pears from the household-book of Sir Edward
Coke, that in 1596 rye bread and oatmeal
formed a considerable part of the diet of ser-
vants, even in great families, in the southern
counties. In 1626 barley bread was the u':ual
ordinary food of the great bulk of the people.
At the Revolution, the wheat produced in Eng-
land and Wales was estimated by Mr. King
and Dr. Davenant to amount to 1,750,000 quar-
ters. {DavenaiUh Works, vol. ii. p. 217.) Mr.
Charles Smith, the very well informed author
of the Tracts on the Corn Trade, originally pub-
lished in 1758, states that in his time wheat
had become much more generally the food of
the common people than it had been in 1689 ;
but he adds (2d edit. p. 182. Lond. 1766), that,
notwithstanding this increase, some very intel-
ligent inquirers were of opinion that even then
not more than half the people of England fed
on wheat. Mr. Smith's own estimate, which
is very carefully drawn up, is a little higher ;
fbr, taking the population of England and
Wales, in 1760, at 6,000,000, he supposes that
3,750,000 were consumers of wheat, 739,000
of barley, 888,000 of rye, and 623,000 of oat
bread. He further supposed that they indivi-
dually consumed — the first class, 1 qr. of wheat ;
the second, 1 qr. and 3 bushels of barley; the
third, 1 qr. and 1 bushel of rye ; and the fourth,
2 qrs. and 7 bushels of oats. About the mid-
dle of last century, hardly any wheat was used
in the northern counties of England. In Cum-
berland the principal families used only a
small quantity about Christmas. The crust of
the goose-pie, with which almost every table
in the county is then supplied, was, at the
period referred to, almost uniformly made of
barley meal. (Eden, On the Poor, vol. i. p. 564.)
Every one knows how inapplicable these
statements are to the condition of the people
of England at the present time. Wheaten
bread is now almost universally made use of
in towns and villages, and almost everywhere
in the country. Barley is no longer used ; oats
are employed for bread only in the northern
parts of the island; and the consumption of
rye bread is comparatively inconsiderable.
The produce of the wheat crops has been, at
the very least, trebled since 1760. And if to
this immense increase in the supply of wheat
we add the still more extraordinary increase
in the supply of butcher's meat (see Cattle),
the fact of a very signal improvement in the
condition of the population, in respect of food,
will be obvious. "When flour is converted
into bread, it is found, on weighing it when
taken from the oven, that it has increased from
28 to 34 per cent, in weight (3 lbs. of flour
make 3 lbs. 10 oz. of dough) ; but when it has
been kept thirty-six hours, that which had
gained 28 will lose about 4 per cent. There
are, however, several circumstances which
influence the quantity of bread obtained from
a given weight of flour, such as the season in
which the wheat was grown and the age of the
220

flour: the better the flour is, and the older,
within certain limits, the larger is the quantity
of the bread produced.

According to the assize acts, a sack of flour
weighing 280 lbs. is supposed capable of being
baked into 80 quartern loaves; one-fifth of the
loaf being supposed to consist of water and
salt, and four-fifths of flour. But the number
of loaves that may be made from a sack of
flour depends entirely on its goodness. Good
flour requires more water than bad flour.
Sometimes 82, 83, and even 86 loaves have
been made from a sack of flour, and sometimes
hardly 80 : 96 are generally made, at 4 lbs*
6 oz. before going into the oven, by the London
bakers.

It is well known that home-made bread and
baker's bread are very diflferent ; the former is
usually sweeter, lighter, and more retentive of
moisture, and will keep well for three weeks,
especially if a little rye meal is mixed with it;
the latter, if eaten soon after it has cooled, is
pleasant and spongy; but if kept more than
two or three days, it becomes harsh and unpa-
latable, and mouldy. Small quantities of
alum are invariably used by the London
bakers, with the view of whitening or bleach-
ing the bread; for it will be observed, that
whatever may be the quality of the flour which
is used, home-made bread is always of a com-
paratively dingy hue. By some respectable
bakers it was formerly in extensive use, and
might still be used, with perfect safety ; for in
so small a quantity as a quarter of a pound of
alum to 1 cwt. of flour, it could not be in the
least degree injurious. According to Mr. Ac-
cum {Onthe Adulteration of Food), the requisite
quantity of alum for this purpose depends
upon the quality of the flour. The mealman,
he says, makes diflferent sorts of flour from the
same kind of grain. The best flour is chiefly
used for biscuits and pastry, and the inferior
kinds for bread. In London, no fewer than
five kinds of wheaten flour are brought into
the market ; they are called fine flour, seconds,
middlings, coarse middlings, and twenty-
penny.

Beans and peas are also, according to the
same authority, frequently ground up with
London flour. The smallest quantity of alum
used is from three to four ounces to the sack
of flour of 240 lbs. Alum may easily be de-
tected in bread, by pouring boiling water on it,
pressing out the water, boiling it away to one-
third, allowing it to cool, filtering it through
paper, and adding to the clear liquor some
solution of muriate of lime (chloride of calcium).
If considerable muddiness now appear, it is
proof of adulteration, and none other can well
be suspected than alum. Another article oc-
casionally employed in bread and ginger-bread
making is carbonate of ammonia. As it is
wholly dissipated by the heat of the oven, none
remains in the baked loaf. It renders the
bread light, and perhaps neutralizes any acid
that may have been formed (exclusive of caiv
bonic acid) ; but it is too dear to be much
employed. To some kinds of biscuits it gives
a peculiar shortness, and a few of the most
celebrated manufacturers use it largely. A»
cording to Mr. E. Davy, bread, especially that

BREAD.

of indifferent flour, is materially improved by
the addition of a little carbonate of magnesia,
in the proportion of twenty to thirty grains to
the pound of flour; it requires to be very in-
timately mixed with the flour. Salt, which, in
small quantity, is absolutely necessary to the
flavour of the bread, is used by fraudulent
persons as an adulteration ; for a large portion
of it added to .dough imparts to it the quality
of absorbing and retaining a much greater
quantity of water than it otherwise would, thus
making the loaf heavier. The taste of such
bread is a sufficient index to its bad quality.
It is rough in its grain. (Domestic Economy,
rol. i.) A long list of other articles which
are said to be used in the adulteration of bread
might be given, but no advantage could result
from such a statement.

Making bread at home is an operation very
easy of acquirement; and, doubtless, most of
our farming friends are fortunate in possess-
ing worthy helpmates or experienced servants
who provide the families with this daily ne-
cessary. To such a practical method of per-
forming the art would be deemed needless;
but others of our readers, who may not have
considered the expediency of this bread, its
superior salubrity, its decided economy, and
the feasibility of its preparation, may be pleased
'o meet with its details. We may refer them,
:herefore, to the Quar. Journ. of Jgr. (vol. ix.
pp. 289 and 583), a work which is probably in
-he hands of the greater number of the British
farmers; or they may consult with advantage
my of the works cited at the end of this ar-
ticle, for our limits will not permit us to go
into the particulars. The writer there states,
that the addition of potatoes is whollv unne-
cessary, unless it be the intention of a house-
wife that her product shall resemble that of
the baker in insipidity and whiteness ; both
qualities will result from the use of that root,
which enters largely into the composition of
all bread that is purchased. Notwithstanding
the prejudice in favour of the use of potatoes,
it has been proved, by careful calculation, that
although even a third part of the flour be
'Exchanged for potatoes, so immense is the
iiuantity of water which they contain, that the
substitute would cause a loss rather than a
gain.

Substitute for wheat flour. — Various sub-
stances have been used for bread, instead of
wheat. In the year 1629-30, when there was a
dearth in England, bread was made in London
of turnips. And again in 1693, when corn
was very dear, a great quantity of turnip bread
was made in several parts of the kingdom,
but particularly in Essex. The process is, to
put the turnips into a kettle over a slow fire,
till they become soft ; they are then taken out,
squeezed, and drained as dry as possible, and
afterwards mashed and mixed with an equal
weight of flour, and kneaded with yeast, salt,
and a little warm water. A series of interest-
ing experiments were made some yt&rs ago
by the Board of Agriculture to determine
what were the best substitutes for wheaten
flour in the composition of different kinds of
bread. For this purpose, all the sorts of grain,
&c. commonly sold in the markets in London

BREAD.

j were procured, ground into meal, and baked
I in various proportions into bread ; such as
j wheat, rye, rice, barley, buckwheat, maize,
oats, peas, beans, and potatoes. Many of these
form the principal nourishment of mankind
in various countries. Buckwheat, made into
thin cakes, is the chief article of food in Bre-
tagne and parts of Normandy. Rice nourishes,
probably, more human beings in the East than
all other articles of food taken together ; and,
for its bulk, is supposed to be the most nutri-
tious of all the sorts of grain. Maize is a
principal article throughout the south of Eu-
rope, and is made into bread in Italy and in
America. Peas and beans have rarely, it is
believed, been used alone as bread; but, it is
suspected, they enter largely, though clandes-
tinely, into its composition in various districts.

To ascertain the respective qualities of all
these grains, and to discover their operation
on each other, in correcting by means of one
the defects of another, would be an inquiry
deserving great attention, but it has not yet
been experimentally investigated. With al-
most all the several kinds of grain enumerated,
experiments were made on seventy sorts of
bread. But as all these sorts were made at
once, by several bakers, in order to be ex-
amined at the same time, the execution, it is
observed, was by no means such as gave the
Board of Agriculture, who instituted the in-
quiry, satisfaction. One general result, how-
ever, was, that very few, if any, of the loaves
then exhibited, were too bad for human food
in times of scarcity ; and it may be observed,
that though at first a change may prove dis-
agreeable, yet the practice of a few days soon
reconciles the stomach to almost any species
of food, by which, at least in the same country,
other individuals can be supported. These
experiments were followed by others, which I
will explain under distinct^ heads.

Rice. — Of all the mixtures, none has made
bread equally good with rice, not ground, but
boiled quite soft, and then mixed with wheaten
flour. One-third nee and two-thirds wheat
make good bread; but one-fourth rice makes
a bread superior to any that can be eaten, better
even than all of wheat; and as the gain in
baking is more than of wheat alone (since rice
contains 85 per cent, of starch), there can be
no doubt of its nutritive quality. Rice bread
thus formed is sweetish to the taste, and very
agreeable ; but, as the proportion of gluten is
considerably less than in wheaten bread, it is
less nutritive. Excellent biscuits are formed
of the mixture.

Potatoes. — The experiments made with this
root were similar. It makes a pleasant pala-
table bread with wheat in the proportion of
one-third, but one-fourth still lighter and better.
Specimens of barley and potatoes, and also of
oats and the same root, made into bread, were
submitted to the Board, which promise well.
In some cases the potato was not boiled, bat
j merely grated down into a pulp and mixed
with wheaten flour, in which mode it made
excellent bread. It has been found by other
trials, that good bread may be made from
equal quantities of flour and potato meal,
which has been greatly the practice in those
T 2 221

BREAD.

BREAD.

>

countries most remarkable for the plentiful
culture of the potato.

Various experiments have been made to
combine the meal of wheat, barley, oat, bean,
and pea flour with vegetable substances, and
which have been found to produce very whole-
vsome and nutritive bread.

Using the potatoes after boiling, steaming, or
baking, and reducing them into a sort of pow-
der, seems, however, to be the most ready me-
thod of making them into bread.

Oats. — It appears, from some experiments
made by Dr. Richard Pearson of Birmingham,
that oats answer better mixed with potatoes
than has been commonly apprehended.

He found that three pints (dry measure) of
fine oatmeal, three pints of seconds flour, and
one quart of potato pulp kneaded into a dough,
with a proper quantity of yeast, salt, and milk
and water, made a bread of excellent quality.

Barley, — Mixed with an equal proportion of
wheat, or one-fourth potatoes and three-fourths
barley, barley bread is good. The following
method of making bread of wheat and barley
flour has been strongly recommended. To
four bushels of wheat ground to one sort of
flour, extracting only a very small quantity of
the coarser bran, add 3^ bushels of barley
flour. The oven should be hotter than when
bread is made of wheat alone ; and the loaves
should remain in the oven about two hours or
more. The offal of the barley is good food
for hogs. This bread appears to be improved
by being baked in half-gallon loaves.

Rye. — In several parts of the kingdom a
mixture of rye and wheat is reckoned an ex-
cellent species of bread. In Nottinghamshire
even opulent farmers consume one-third wheat,
one-third rye, and one-third barley ; but their
labourers do not relish it. As rye is well
known to be a wholesome and nutritious grain,
its consumption cannot be too strongly recom-
mended. The astringent quality of rice, mixed
with rye, corrects the laxative quality of the
latter, and makes it equally strong and nourish-
ing with the same weight of common wheaten
bread. The principal objection to rye is the
circumstance of the grain being sometimes
ergotted, which renders the bread unwhole-
some.

Indian Corn. — The flour of maize or Indian
corn, by itself, makes a heavy bread. The
right mode of manufacturing it is to boil the
flour to the consistency of paste, and then,
when mixed with wheat flour, it makes a most
excellent bread. If used by itself, it is said to
have at first a laxative effect, but that dimi-
nishes by use, and at any rate can easily be
corrected by a mixture either of barley or rice.
It is stated, on very respectable authority, as
the general opinion of the inhabitants of the
United States, but more particularly of the
people of Virginia, Maryland. Delaware, and
Kentucky, where Indian corn is raised in the i
largest quantity, and applied to the greatest
variety of uses, that rather more nutriment is
contained in a bushel of Indian corn than of
wheat. In the four states above-mentioned it
constitutes the almost entire food of the labour-
ing class of the people, and has supplanted the
use of wheaten bread.
222

There are several sorts of Indian corn in
America. The yellow flinty corn is reckoned
the sweetest and most nutritive. The white
ground corn of the southern states makes the
fairest, but considerably the weakest flour.
Of this last species there is one variety called
the flour-corn, which is scarce, but very valu-
able.

Buckwheat, — This is not kiln-dried, but dried
in the sun, being reaped in October, a month
remarkably dry and serene in America. The
husk is taken off by what is called running it
through the mill-stones. The farinaceous part
of the grain is then easily separated from the
husk by winnowing; and, being afterwards
ground fine, forms an agreeable and nutritive
aliment, and may be made into bread with
wheat flour or other substances.

Beans and peas. — When these are used as
bread, in some places the flour is steeped in
water to take off the harsh flavour, and after-
wards, when mixed with wheat flour, the taste
is hardly to be perceived. Specimens of very
good bread have been produced, mixed as fol-
lows : — 1 lb. bean flour, 1 lb. potatoes, and 4
lbs. of wheat flour. The flour or meal both of
beans and peas, by being boiled, previous to
its being mixed with wheaten flour, incorpo-
rates more easily with that article, and is pro-
bably much more wholesome than it otherwise
would be.

Bran may in times of scarcity be advan-
tageously employed in the making of common
household bread ; this is effected by previously
boiling the bran in water, and then adding the
whole decoction in the dough ; thus the bran
will be sufficiently softened and divested of its
dry hiisky quality, while the nutritive part,
which is supposed to contain an essential oil,
is duly prepared for food. It is asserted, that
the increase in the quantity of bread, by the
addition of one-fourth bran, or 14 lbs. 14 oz.
of bran to 66 lbs. of flour, is from 34 lbs. to
36 lbs. of bread beyond what is produced by
the common mode.

Dr. Davison considers that there are many
vegetables which would afford wholesome
nutriment either by boiling or drying and'
grinding them, or by both these processes.
Amongst these may be reckoned, perhaps, the
tops and bark of gooseberry trees, holly, haw-
thorn, and gorse. The inner bark of the elm
may be converted into a kind of gruel ; and
the roots of fern, and probably those of many
other plants, such .-^s some of the grasses, and
clovers, might yield nourishment, either by
i)oiling, baking, and separating the fibres from
the pulp, or by extracting the starch from
those which possess an acrid mucilage, such
as the white bryony. If, in these days of im-
proved chemical knowledge, a quartern loaf
of very good bread can be made out of a deal
board (see Quart. Rev. No. civ., quoted also in
Quart. Journ. of Agr, vol. v. p. 626), there is no
reason why many of our native herbs and
shrubs, which are now comparatively useless,
should not, as their various nutritive proper-
ties become better known, be turned to consi-
derable advantage in the production of a
greater or less proportion of cheap and whole
some food. There are many other substance

i

BREAD'ROOT.

BREEDING-PONDS.

which may be formed, by a proportionate ad-
mixture of wheaten flour, into palatable bread,
and adv'antageously employed in the manufac-
ture of this indispensable article of human
sustenance. {Brande's Did. of Science and Art;
M^Culhcli's Corn. Diet. ; Penny Cyc. vol. v. ;
Willirh's Domes. Encyc.)

BREAD -ROOT (Psoralea esculenta). A
shrubby or herbaceous perennial plant found
on the elevated plains of the Missouri. Its
roots are eaten both raw and boiled, the latter
being the most common way of cooking it
adopted by the Indians. By cultivation it is
made to produce abundant crops. The taste
of the root is rather insipid, its texture being
laminated, always tenacious, solid, but never
farinaceous, like the potato. It is somewhat
medicinal, operating as a diuretic.

Other species of Psoralea are also found on
the Missouri and tributaries, among which are
the P. canescens, and P. cuspidata, both of which
are described as having large, tuberous, and
ramified roots. The last species is known
among the Canadian boatmen by the name of
•♦ Pomme de Prairie," or meadow potato. The
P. lanceolata, or elliptica, grows in great quan-
lities together on the sandy banks of the Mis-
liouri, from the river Platte to the mountains,
ilowering in July and August. It sends up
shoots in every direction through the sand, in
^ehich soil it is exclusively met with. The
t lem is about a foot high and the leaves aro-
matic when bruised. The P. Ivpinelltu is
found from South Carolina to Florida, though
not in abundance. It is a very singular plant,
the leaves being so narrow as scarcely to be
('istinguished from the petiole, and two or three
inches long, extremely deciduous when dry.
The P. virgata is met with in West Florida.
With very few exceptions, says Nuttall, this
genus of plants producing esculent roots is
indigenous to North America and the Cape of
Good Hope.

BREAKING (Goth, brikan; Sax. bpecccBn).
In rural economy, the bringing of an animal
under subjection. The breaking of a colt is
commonly, especially for race-horses, com-
menced when he is much loo young ; for this,
ns for all other breeds of horses, too much
Cf.ution and gentleness can hardly be used.
(Darvill. On Training). Of dogs, spaniels
should begin to be broken in at five or six
months old. The water-spaniel, according to
old Markham, as soon as •' even when you first
weane him ;" and, according to Blaine (Encyc.
of Rural Sports), the education of a pointer or a
setter should commence at five or six months.

BREAKING UP. A term that is often ap-
plied to such lands as are ploughed from leys,
jor which are cut or pared for the purpose of
eing burned.

BREAST-PLATE. The strap of leather
hat runs from one side of the saddle to the
ther over the horse's breast, in order to keep
he saddle tight, and hinder it from sliding

ackwards.

BREASTS. Pact of the bows of a saddle.

BREED (Sax. bpaeoan). A sort or variety

f any kind of live-stock. The breeds of most

''"aestic animals are numerous, and distin-
hed by certain invariable marks or ap-

pearances peculiar to each, as in cattle, sheep,
horses, and swine. See these different heads.

BREEDER. In agriculture, a farmer wh(«
is much employed in breeding and rearing
animals of any of the domestic kinds.

BREEDING IN AND IN. The breeding
from close relations. "This plan," says Pro-
fessor Youatt (Cattle, p. 525), "has many,
advantages to a certain extent. It may be
pursued until the excellent form and quality
of the breed are developed and established. It
was the source whence sprung the fine cattle
and sheep of Bakewell, and the superior cattle
of Colling ; but disadvantages attend breeding
*in and in,' and to it must be traced the speedy
degeneracy, the absolute disappearance of the
new Leicester cattle, and in the hands of many
an agriculturist, the impairment of constitution
and decreased value of the new Leicester
sheep and the short-horned beasts. It has
therefore become a kind of principle with the
agriculturist to effect some change in his stock
every second or third year: and that change
is most conveniently effected by introducing a
new bull or ram. These should be as nearly
as possible of the same sort, coming from a
similar pasturage and climate, but possessing
no relationship, or at most a very distant one,
to the stock to which he is introduced." These
remarks apply to all descriptions of live-stock.
In cattle, as well as in the human species, de-
fects of organization and permanent derange-
ments of function obtain, and are handed
down when the relationship is close. In Spain
the deformed and feeble state of the aristocracy
arises from the alliances being confined to
the same class ; whilst in England, which can
boast the finest aristocracy in the world, the
higher classes are improved by constant alli-
ances being formed with the daughters of
inferior classes, where wealth has been accu-
mulated. See the heads, Cattle, Horse,
Shkkp, &c.

BREEDING-PONDS. Such ponds as are
employed for breeding fish. The qualities of
a pond, to make it profitable for breeding fish,
are very different from those which are suffi-
cient for the feeding of them ; inasmuch as
some particular ponds serve only for one of
these purposes, and others for the other ; and
scarcely ever the same pond is found to an-
swer for both. In general it is much more
rare to find a good breeding-pond than a good
feeding one. The indications of a good breed-
ing-pond are these, — a considerable quantity
of rushes and grass about its sides, with gra-
velly shoals, such as horse-ponds usually
have. The spawn of fish is prodigiously great
in quantity ; and where it succeeds, one fish is
able to produce some millions. Thus, in one
of these breeding-ponds, two or three melters
and as many spawners will, in a very little
time, stock the whole country. When these
ponds are not meant entirely for breeding, but
the owner wishes to have the fish grow to
some size in them, the method is to thin their
numbers ; for they would otherwise starve one
another. It may also be necessary to put in
other fish that will prey upon the young, and
thin them in the quickest manner. Eels and
perch are the most useful on this account, be-

^ — L-A-^i-^T^f^// /

223

BRITTLE HOOF.

BROCCOLI.

best. At an average of three years ending
with 1831, says Mr. M'Culloch, the entries for
home consumption in England amounted to
1,789,801 lbs. annually. They contain a con-
siderable quantity of gelatine, which may be
separated from them by boiling water.

BlilTTLE HOOF is an affection of the
horse's hoof, very common, especially in sum-
mer, in England, from bad stable management.
A mixture of one part of oil of tar and two of
common fish oil, well rubbed into the crust
and the hoof, will restore the natural pliancy
and toughness of the horn, and very much
contribute to the quickness of its growth.
(Youatt, On the Horse, p. 282.)

BRIZA MEDIA. See Plate 6, n. Common
quaking grass ; ladies' tresses : a perennial
grass, flowering in May and June. It is dis-
tinguished by the panicle of short spikelets,
tinged with purplish brown. The spikelets
are ovate, on very slender stems, which makes
the panicle tremulous. This grass, says Sin-
clair, is best fitted for poor soils ; its nutritive
powers are considerable, compared with other
.grasses tenanting a similar soil. It is eaten
by horses, cows, and sheep; and for poor
sandy and tenacious soils, where improvements
in other respects cannot be sufficiently effected,
to fit them for the productions of the superior
soils, the common quaking grass will be found
of value.

BRIZE LANDS. A provincial term for
lands which have remained long without til-
lage. Bnze is also a name for the gad-fly, used
commonly in the days of Shakspeare and Ben
Jonson. (Tr. and Cress.; Poetastci; iii. 1.)

BROAD-CAST SOWING. The primitive,
rapidly diminishing method of putting grain,
turnip, pulse, clover, grasses, &c., into the soil,
performed by means of the hand. This mode
of sowing seems better adapted to the stony
and more stiff kinds of land than that by ma-
chines ; as in such grounds they are liable to be
constantly put out of order, and to deposit the
seed unequally. In this way, however, the
seeds are scattered over the ground, and not
confined in regular rows, as is the case with
the drill husbandry, which is in vseveral ways
more advantageous to the farmer. This mode
. of sowing, perhaps from its being that mads
use of in the infancy of agriculture, has often
been called the old method.

In this method of sowing, the usual practice,
especially wj-here the ridges are equal in breadth,
and not of too great a width, as five or six
yards, is that of dispersing the seed regularly
over each land or ridge, in once walking over;
the seedsman, by different casts of the hand,
sowing one-half in going and the other in re-
turning. In doing this, it is the custom of some
seedsmen to fill the hand from the basket or
hopper which they carry along with them, as
they make one step forward, and disperse the
seed in the time of performing the next; while
others scatter the seed, or make their casts, a«
they are termed by farmers, in advancing each
stexL It is evident, therefore, that in accom-
pli^ng this business with regularity and ex-
actness, upon which much of the success of
the crop must depend, there is considerable
difficulty, and the proper knowledge and habit
226

of which can only be acquired by experience.
This, however, by long practice, is done with
surprising regularity and precision. The
broad-cast system not only requires inore seed,
but it renders the hoeing, so essential to the
most profitable growth of grain, much more
difficult. Machines have been invented for
distributing the seed brqad-cast, which th*ey
perform with perfect precision : these are more
especially useful for the grass seeds, and are
simple and economical ; a plate of one may be
seen in Professor Low's Prac. Ag. p. 108, and
another in British Husb. vol. ii. p. 14. These,
however, require some attention in their work-
ing, to prevent the clogging of the seed.

BROAD-WHEELED WAGON. A four-
wheeled carriage, in which the parts of the
wheels that act upon the road are of considera-
ble breadth. By the acts 3 G. 4, c. 126, s. 12,
and 4 & 5 W. 4, c. 81, wagons, wains, and
other four-wheeled carriages, whether on
springs or not, whose wheels have their fellies
of not less than four and a half inches at the
bottom or soles, are considered to be broad-
wheeled.

BROCCOLI {Brassica oleracea hotrytis). The
varieties of this cabbage are now numerous,
and are chiefly the fruits of the great attention
which has been paid to its cultivation of late
years. For an uninterrupted supply, scarce
any of these varieties can be dispensed with ;
but the purple and white are those most gene-
rally cultivated. With respect to their quality,
it has been remarked that they have less of
the peculiar alkalescent taste, and are more
palatable, in proportion as they approach a
pale or white colour. {Transact. Hart. Sac.
Land. vol. i. p. 116.)

1. Purple cape, or autumnal broccoli. 2.
Green cape, or autumnal broccoli. 3. Grange's
early cauliflower broccoli. 4. Green, close-
headed winter broccoli. 5. Early purple broc-
coli. 6. Early white broccoli. 7. Dwarf brown
close-headed broccoli. 8. Tall, large-heade;d
purple broccoli. 9. Cream-coloured, or Ports-
mouth broccoli. 10. Sulphur-coloured broc-
coli. 11. Spring white, or cauliflower broccoli.

12. Late dwarf close-headed purple broccoli.

13. Latest green, Siberian, or Spanish broccoli.
Broccoli is propagated by seed. As all of

the kinds are not generally at command, the
following times and varieties are specified as
being those employed in general practice, and
by which a supply nearly unfailing is accom-
plished. A first sowing may be made under a
frame at the close of January, and a second at
the end of February, or early in March, on an
eastern wall-border, of the purple cape and
early cauliflower varieties, for production at
the close of summer and during autumn ; the
seedlings from these sowings are respectively
fit for pricking out, if that practice is followed,
in March and early in April, and for final plant-
ing at the close of thft latter month and May.
In April, another cr«p of the same varieties
may be sown, for pricking out in May and
planting in June, to produce at the close pf
autumn and in early winter. During the mid-
dle of May, a fourth and larger crop than any
of the preceding, of the early purple and white
varieties, to be pricked out in June and planted

BROCCOLI.

BROCCOLI.

in July ; and, finally, the last open-ground crop
may be sown in June, to be pricked out in the
succeeding month, and planted in August and
September; the plants will follow from the
others in succession throughout winter and
spring. In a frame, however, they may be
sown, like the cauliflower, in the last days of
August, to remain until the following March,
to be then planted out for production in early
summer. By these repetitions, which, if for a
family, should be small, an almost continued
supply is afforded ; but in general, for domes-
tic use, especially if the establishment is small,
three sowings of moderate extent will be suf-
ficient ; the first in the second week of April,
the second in the third week in May, and the
third in the middle of August, in a frame.
Each variety should be sown separately, and
the sowing performed thin ; the beds not more
than three or four feet wide, for the convenience
of weeding, which must be performed as often
as weeds appear, as they are very inimical to
the growth of this vegetable. The seed must
not be buried more than half an inch, and the
beds be netted over to keep away the birds,
which, especially in showery weather, are very
destructive. The fitness of the plants for prick-
ing out is intimated by their having five or six
leaves, rather more than an inch in breadth ;
they are set four or five inches apart each way,
and water given every night until they have
taken root. They must have four or five
weeks' growth before they are again moved ;
or not until they have leaves nearly three
inches in breadth. When planted out, they
must be set on an average two feet asunder
each way, in summer a little wider, in winter
rather closer. Water to be given at the time
of planting, and occasionally afterwards, until
they are established ; during the droughts of
summer it may be given plentifully with the
greatest advantage. They must be hoed be-
tween frequently, and the mould drawn up
about their stems. To force forward the win-
ter standing varieties, it is a successful prac-
tice to take them up in November, and after
trimming off the outer leaves, to lay them on
their sides in a sloping position, in a bank or
terrace of light earth, so much space being left
between every two plants that their heads do
not come in contact To continue the supply
uninterrupted, even in the mid-winter of the
severest years, Mr. Maher recommends that
when the crop sown about the third week in
May has been planted out, the weaker plants
which remain should be left eight or ten days
to acquire strength, and then planted in pots
(sixteens) filled with very rich compost ; to be
shaded, and watered until struck. These are
to be plunged in the ground at similar distances
as the main crops, and about three inches be-
low the surface, so as to form a cup for retain-
ing water round each ; these cups are filled up
hy the necessary earthings, which must be
pressed firmly down, tjjjprevent the wind loos-
ening them. A few oPthe plants generally
flower early, and, to guard against the first
frosts, must have the leaves broken over them ;
but on the approach of settled frost in Decem-
ber and January, the pots must be taken up
and removed into a frame, shed, or any place

of shelter from the extreme severity of the
weather; but to have air when mild. {Tra.
Hort. Soc. i. vol. i. p. 118.)

To those crops which have to withstand the
winter in the open ground, salt is beneficially
applied, as it preserves them from heing frosted
in the neck, and also their roots from being
worm-eaten ; which may also be effected, Mr.
Mackay of Errol House, N. B., informs us, by
pouring soap-suds between the rows, which
application is also very beneficial to the plants,
(itfcm. Calcd. Hort. Soc. vol. i. p. 275.)

To preserve the winter standing crops from
destruction by severe weather, it is also a
practice, early in November, to take them up,
injuring the roots as little as possible, and to
lay them in a sloping direction in the soil, with
their heads to the north. A modification of
this plan, adopted by the distinguished presi-
dent of the Horticultural Society, is, however,
much preferable, as it obviates the defect of
few roots being produced, and consequently
diminutive heads. A small trench is made in
the first week of September, at the north end
of each row, in which the adjoining plant is
laid so low, that the centre of its stems at the
top is put level with the surface of the ground,
the root being scarcely disturbed ; it is then
immediately watered, and its roots covered
with more mould. Thus every plant is in
succession treated ; and by the beginning of
November, it is scarcely perceptible that they
have been thus treated, though it certainly
checks their growth. Before the arrival of
snow, a small hillock must be raised round
each plant, to support its leaves, and prevent
their being broken. (Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond.
vol. ii. p. 304.) If snow accompanies severe
frost, advantage should be taken of it, and the
plants be heaped over with it, which will
afford them an effectual protection.

For the production of seed, such plants of
each variety must be selected, in March or
April, as most perfectly agree with their pecu-
liar characteristics, and are not particularly
forward in advancing for seed. As the stems
run up, some gardeners recommend the leaves
to be taken away ; but this must be injurious.
Mr. Wood of Queensferry, North Britain, is
particularly careful that no foliage appears on
the surface of the flower ; he always lifts his
plants, and plants them in another bed, water-
ing abundantly; as this, from his long expe-
rience, he finds, prevents their degenerating,
or producing proud seed ; and when the head
begins to open, he cuts out its centre, and
leaves only four or five of the outside shoots
for bearing. The sulphur-coloured he always
finds the most difiicult to obtain seed from.
(Mem. Caled. Hort. Soc. vol. ii. p. 266.) As the
branches spread, four or six stakes should be
placed at equal distances round each plant,
and hooped with string, to support them and
prevent their breaking. When the pods begin
to form, water should be given repeatedly, and
occasionally some thrown over the whole
plant, which tends to prevent mildew. Before
the pods begin to change colour, those from
the extremity of every shoot must be taken
away; as these yield seed which produce
plants very apt to run to seed without heading,

227

BROKEN-KNEES.

BROOD MARES.

and by an early removal the others are bene-
fited. The branches are to be gathered as
soon as the pods upon them ripen. Varieties
must never be planted near each other, or they
•will reciprocally be contaminated. The seed
ripens in August or September ; and it is often
recommended to preserve it in the pod until
wanted; but the general practice is to beat it
out, and store it as soon as it is perfectly dry.
The plants raised in frames are managed as
directed for cauliflowers in the same situation.
(G. W. Johnson's Kitchen Garden.')

BROKEN-KNEES, in horses. The best
medical treatment, in slight cases, is to cleanse
them from dirt and gravel by a sponge and
warm water. In bad cases a veterinary sur-
geon is absolutely necessary, who will exa-
mine with his probe, and apply bandages, and
even, in need, the hot iron.

BROKEN -WIND, in horses, is, says Pro-
fessor Youatt, the rupture, dilatation, or run-
ning together of some of the air cells, — the
inspiration by one eflfort, and the expiration by
two ; and is thus easily distinguishable from
thick wind, in which the inspirations and the
expirations are equal in amount. In healthy
lungs, when the lungs are expanded, the air
will rush in easily enough, and one effort of
the muscles of expiration is sufficient for the
purpose of expelling it ; but when these cells
have run into each other, the cavity is so irre-
gular, and contains so many corners and blind
pouches, that it is exceedingly difl[icult to force
it out again, and two efforts are scarcely com-
petent fully to effect it. A dry husky cough
accompanies this disease, of a peculiar sound.
Broken wind is usually caused by smart exer-
cise on a full belly. We do not, therefore,
find broken-winded horses on the race-course ;
for, although every exertion of speed is re-
quired from them, their food lies in a small
compass ; the stomach is not distended, and
the lungs have room to play ; and care is taken
that their exertion shall be required when the
stomach is nearly empty. Carriage and coach
horses, from a similar cause, are not often
broken -winded. The majority of broken-
winded horses come from those for whose use
these pages are principally designed ; the far-
mer's horse is the broken-winded horse, from
being fed on bulky food ; and because, after
many hours' fasting, the horses are often suf-
fered to gorge themselves, and then, with the
stomach pressing upon the lungs, and almost
impeding ordinary respiration, they are put
again to work, and sometimes to that which
requires considerable exertion. But the pres-
sure of the distended stomach upon the lungs
is sufficient to do this, without exertion ; many
a horse goes to grass or the straw-yard sound,
and returns broken-winded. The cure of a
broken-winded horse no one has witnessed,
yet much may be done in the way of pallia-
tion ; the food should consist of much nutri-
ment in little compass ; the oats should be
increased, and the hay diminished; occasional
mashes will be found useful ; water should be
gi-j^ sparingly except at night, and the horse
shdiild never be exercised on a full stomach.
Carrots are excellent food for him. {The
Horse ; Lib. of Useful Know. p. 195.)
22S

BROMUS. The brome grasses; a genus of
which the chief species are as follow : —

Bromus arvensis, taper field brome grass, has
a spreading, drooping, compound panicle, with
lanceolate, sharp -pointed spikelets. Each
spikelet consists of eight imbricated, smooth
florets, with two close ribs at each side. The
leaves are hairy, and the whole plant about
three feet high. It is confined to rich pastures
and meadows ; while the next two, Bromus mul-
tiflorus and Bromus mollis, known by the leaves
being soft and downy, abound most on poor or
exhausted grass lands : they are all annuals.
The farmer considers them to be bad grasses ;
the field brome grass, however, affords an
early bite in the spring for sheep and lambs ;
it does not exhaust the soil ; the roots do not
extend to any depth ; its seeds, which it sheds,
readily and speedily take root and yield food ;
and it withstands the frost well : in England
it flowers on the second week in August. At
the time of flowering, the produce of its grass
grown on a sandy loam per acre is 23,821 lbs.;
of nutritive matter, 1488 lbs.

Bromus diandrus, upright annual orome
grass.

Bromus eredus, upright perennial brome
grass.

Bromus inermis, smooth awnless brome grass.

Bromus littoreus, sea-side brome grass.

Bromus mollis, soft brome grass.

Bromus multiflorus, many-flowered brome
grass (named from the spikelets containing
from ten to fifteen florets).

Bromus sterilis, barren brome grass. It grows
principally under hedges in the shade ; cattle
refuse it.

Bromus tectorum, nodding-panicled brome
grass.

These were all examined with much skill
by Sinclair, but he had evidently a poor opi-
nion of them as field grasses. (Jlort. Gram.
Wob.)

There are many other varieties of this family,
the respective merits of which are pointed out
by Sinclair in his Hort. Gram. Wob. That
which is perhaps most interesting to the Ame-
rican farmer is the Bromus secalinus, common-
ly called cheat, so frequently found growing
among the wheat or rye crops.

BRONCHITIS. A disease in horses. It is,
says Professor Youatt, a catarrh extending be-
yond the entrance of the lungs. Symptoms,
quicker and harder breathing than catarrh, pe-
culiar wheezing, coughing up mucus. Treat-
ment, moderate bleeding, chest blistering,
digitalis. Neglected bronchitis often leads to
thick wind. (On the Horse, p. 189.)

BROOD MARES. Mares generally com-
mence breeding at three or four years of age.
Some commence at two years, which is much
too early. A mare will, if only moderately
worked, continue to breed till nearly twenty.
She is in heat in the early part of the spring ;
averages about elevlfe months in foal ; but
this varies considerably; some have been
known to foal four or five weeks before this
time, others five or six later. In race-horses,
the colt's age is calculated the same, whether
he is born in January or May. It is desirable
that the mare should go to the horse as early

BROOKLIME.

BRYONY.

9,s possible. But in ordinary cases May is the
best month ; for then the mare foals at a period
when there is an abundance of her natural
food.

BROOKLIME (Myositis palustris). This
herb loves shallow streams and wet ditches,
like the water-cress, which it resembles in
taste. It flowers and seeds in June, July, and
August. Brooklime is known by its thick
stalk, roundish leaves, and its spikes of small
bright blue flowers. It grows about a foot in
height, and it strikes root at the lower joints,
and the roots are fibrous. The leaves are
broad, oblong, slightly indented, round at their
edges, and blunt at the point, to use an Irishism.
The flowers stand singly upon short foot-stalks,
one over another, forming a sort of loose spike.
Brooklime possesses slight medicinal virtues;
but it should be used fresh, as it loses its pro-
perties when dried. It is often eaten in salads,
which is a pleasant mode of administering it ;
but its flavour is in any form warm and
agreeable.

In many parts of the United States, the M.
palustris is called Forget-me-not, Marsh scor-
pion grass. In French it is the Oreille de souris.
In swampy places and spring heads, it remains
vigorously green through the winter. It flow-
ers from May to September. {Flor. Cestric.)

BROOM (the Spartium scoparium or Cyticus
icoparius of botanists). PI. 9, d. An evergreen-
"branched shrub, native of sandy soils through-
out Europe. The broom, with its gay yellow
flowers, blooming from April to June, its tough
stalks, and flat hairy pods, is well known on
all barren and waste grounds, growing abun-
dantly in dry gravelly thickets and fields, and is
often admitted into shrubberies, for its delicate
blooms and curious appearance. It is sown
extensively in England as a shelter for game.
Its branches, which are tough, are made up
into brooms, to which they have given their
name. The green stalks and tops of brooms
are medicinally employed. They have a bitter
nauseous taste, and a peculiar odour when
green. The green twigs, when burned, yield
a large quantity of carbonate of potash, and
several other salts. Broom tops, administered
in strong infusion, are emetic and purgative :
in smaller doses they are diuretic ; and as such
have been long employed to excite the action
of the kidneys in dropsy ; but its efficacy de-
pends on the nature of the dropsy, and its
cause. When inflammation is present, broom
tops do much harm ; and, therefore, like other
remedies, its use should not be intrusted to
non-professional persons. It may be useful
to know that its action is promoted by dilu-
tion.

BROOM-GRASS. The Jndropogon purpu-
rescens, A. furcatum, or forked spike-grass, and
the A. nutans, or beard-grass, are all known in
the Eastern States, where they flower in Au-
gust.

BROOM-RAPE {Orohanche major). This is
a parasitical plant which is found amongst
the red clover ; " meaning, perhaps," says Mr.
Main, " a robber of broom, from its being fre-
quently found on waste grounds growing on
the roots of the common broom, and in fields
on the roots of clover." In its first appearance

it resembles the roots of asparagus, just as
they break through the ground; the stems rise
from six to ten inches high, and without proper
leaves, having what are called bractes instead.
The flowers are arranged on the stem like
those of a hyacinth, but not so showy, being
of a dingy brown colour, succeeded by oblong
capsules of seeds. A straggling individual
plant is sometimes met with amongst ley-
wheat feeding on a clover plant, which has
escaped destruction by the plough and harrow
at wheat sowing ; but it never appears again
until the field is sown with clover. From a
note by Mr. Rham, quoting Von Aelbrock^s Agri-
culture of Flanders, p. 283, it would seem that the
minute seeds of the broom-rape, which can
hardly be observed with the naked eye, exude
a glutinous substance, by which they adhere
to the seeds of the clover, and (*^ith which they
are in consequence often sown. (Journ. Roy.
Eng. Ag. Soc. vol. i. p. 175.) Orobanche is a
powerful astringent, and might be advantage-
ously used in chronic diarrhoeas.

BROOM, SPANISH (Spartium junceum). PI.
9, e. A handsome shrub, with fragrant yellow
blossoms, which appear in July; Miller says,
that in cool seasons it will keep blowing until
September. It loves a sheltered situation. If
raised by seed, sow it as soon as it is ripe, in
a shady bed of common earth, kept free from
weeds. Plant out the seedlings the following
autumn. The white Spanish broom (Spartium
monospermum) is more tender ; therefore it should
be sheltered during the winter. It grows well
in shrubberies not exposed to a hot sun. Raised
from seed. Phillips recommends the Spanish
broom for shrubberies,from its longcontinuance
in bloom, from July to October; and he adds,
the common broom (S. scoparium) may as judi-
ciously be placed at the foot of towering trees,
where it will shine as gay in the gloom as a
cypress fire in a forest (Shrubbery, vol. i.
p. 151.)

BRYONY, BLACK (Tamus communis, Gr.
0^uo0, 1 grow rapidly). This is a wild native
plant, and climbs like the white bryony; but it
wreathes its stalk around the bushes, having
no tendrils. The stalk also runs fifteen feet
in length. The leaves are broad, shaped like
a triangle, smooth, polished, and of a black
green colour. The flowers and berries re-
semble the white bryony.

BRYONY, WHITE (Bryonia diaica). This

plant, with its tendrils and leaves, somewhat

resembles the vine, and clings like it around

the trees and bushes in its progress. It grows

in many parts of England under hedges and

thickets. The leaves are hairy and broad.

The flowers small, and of a greenish white

colour, blowing from May till August. The

berries are red, and full of seeds. The root

is large, rough, and white, and the stalks from

I ten to twelve feet in length. The root contains

a peculiar bitter principle, which has been

termed bryonin. The root is poisonous, being

both violently emetic and purgative, producing

symptoms resembling those of cholera. It is

sold by herbalists under the name of Mandrake

\ root. Many ignorant persons have been de-

I stroyed by the employment of bryony root, in

I diseases in which it is said to be useful in old

U 229

BUCK.

herbafs. Decoctions made with one pound of
the fresh root are purgatives for cattle. This
is a powerful medicine, and should be given
cautiously in small doses, even to cattle.

B^UCK. The male of the deer, hare, rab-
bit, &c.

BUCK-BEAN (Menyanthes trifoliata). This
is a beautiful wild flower, and deserving of
cultivation. It naturally inhabits turbaries,
and marshy places. In a garden it will live
for many years, if planted in a pot filled with
peat earth mixed with sphagnum or bog moss,
and plunged in a pan of water; or better still,
if planted out in rich soil, where it can be
supplied with water from a pond or tank. It
is not only a beautiful, but a valuable gift of
Providence, — for it possesses powerful eflTects
as a remedy against the fevers prevalent in
marshy districts. (Gardener^s Chronicle.) Wi-
thering, in speaking of this plant, says it is
possessed of powerful medicinal properties ;
an infusion of the leaves is extremely bitter,
and is prescribed in rheumatism and dropsies;
it may be used as a substitute for hops in
making beer, and is employed as a purgative
for calves. It is easily recognised, possessing
a very singular appearance. It grows a foot
high ; the leaf-stalks rise from the roots, and
upon each stalk stand three large oblong
leaves, somewhat resembling the garden bean
leaves. The stalks themselves are round,
thick, and smooth. The flowers are small,
white, with a delicate tinge of purple, and
hairy inside. They grow together, forming a
short, thick spike, and stand upon thick, round,
whitish, and naked stalks. The. root is long,
thick, and of a whitish colour. Buck-bean
leaves should be gathered before the flower-
stalks appear, and dried. Their powder, taken
in tea, or any liquid, is considered excellent
for rheumatism and ague.

BUCKEYE. Under this name, Michaux
describes two species of trees in the United
States, viz. the large buckeye or yellow pavia,
(Pavia lutea) ; and the Ohio buckeye or Ohio
horse-chestnut {Pavia ohioensis).

The yellotv pavia, or large American buckeye,
is first observed on the Alleghany Mountains in
Virginia, near the 39th degree of latitude. It
becomes more frequent in following the chain
towards the southwest, and is most profusely
multiplied in the mountainous districts of the
Carolinas and Georgia. It abounds, also, upon
the rivers that rise beyond the mountains and
flow through the wesiern part of Virginia, and
the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, to meet
the Ohio. It is much less common along the
streams which have their sources east of the
AUeghanies, and may therefore be considered
as a stranger to the Atlantic states, with the
exception of a tract thirty or forty miles wide
in the Southern States, as it were beneath the
shadow of the mountains. It is here called
big buckeye, to distinguish it from the Pavia
rubra, which does not exceed eight or ten feet
iu^eight, and which is called small buckeye.

Wlichaux states, that he had seen no situation
which appeared more favourable to the deve-
lopement of the big buckeye, than the declivi-
ties of the lofty mountains in North Carolina,
smd particularly of the Great Father Mountain,
230

BUCK HUNTING.

the Iron Mountain, and the Black Mountain,
where the soil is generally loose, deep, and
fertile. The coolness and humidity which reign
in these elevated regions, appear likewise to be
necessary to its utmost expansion ; it here
towers to the height of sixty or seventy feet,
with a diameter of three or four feet, and is
considered a certain proof of the richness of
the land.

The flowers of this tree are of a light,
agreeable yellow, and the numerous bunches,
contrasted with the fine dense foliage, lend it a
highly ornamental appearance. The fruit is
contained in a fleshy, oval capsule, the surface
of which, unlike that of the horse-chestnut of
Asia and Ohio, is smooth. Each capsule
contains two seeds or chestnuts, of unequal
size, flat upon one side and convex on the
other. They are larger and lighter-coloured
than those of the common horse-chestnut, and,
like them, are not eatable.

Of American trees, the large buckeye is one
of the earliest to cast its leaves, which begin
to fall near Philadelphia about the 15th of
August, and whilst the other horse-chestnuts
are still clothed with their finest verdure. Its
foliation and flowering are also tardy, which
is deemed an essential defect in a tree, the
greatest merit of which is its beauty. The
wood, from its softness and want of durability,
cannot be made to subserve any useful pur-
pose. In beauty, this species is reckoned in-
ferior to that magnificent tree, the

Ohio buckeye, or common American horse-
chestnut, which is not a native of any of the
Atlantic states, where, however, it is a favourite
ornamental tree. The ordinary stature of the
American horse-chestnut is ten or twelve feet,
but it sometimes equals thirty or thirty-five
feet in height, and twelve or fifteen inches in
diameter.

The foliage of this tree appears very early
in spring, being very quickly followed by its
flowers, which almost cover the tree in white
bunches, making a very brilliant appearance.
The fruit is of the same colour with that of
the foreign horse-chestnut and of the large
buckeye, and of about half the size: it is con-
tained in fleshy, prickly capsules, and is ripe
the beginning of autumn. Horse-chestnuts
are said to injure swine and other stock which
eat them.

The bark of the larger trees is blackish, and
endowed with a disagreeable odour and highly-
acrimonious properties. The wood is white,
soft, and wholly useless. The value of the
Ohio buckeye or American horse-chestnut
consists mainly in the beauty of its abundant,
precocious, and beautiful foliage and flowers,
qualities which bring it into great request as
an ornamental tree. (North Avier. Sylva.)

For some notice of the European or Asiatic
horse-chestnut, see Chestwitt, Horse.

BUCK-HEADING and BUCK-STALLING.
Provincialisms applied to the cutting hedge-
fences ofl', fence-height.

BUCKHORN. See Plantakx, Star of

THE EaHTH.

BUCK HUNTING. « In common parlance,'
says Mr. Blaine, "the hunting
deer, whether male or female,

of a fallow i
is said to be I

BUCKLE-HORNS.

BUCKWHEAT.

buck hunting." This, according to Mr. Cha-
fing, in the reign of James II., was formerly
practised after dinner; it was so fashionable,
and so generally delighted in at that period, that
even the judges on the circuit were accustomed
to partake in it. (Srott's Field Sports, p. 435.)

BUCKLE-HORNS. A provincial name for
short crooked horns turning inward in a hori-
zontal manner.

BUCKTHORN, COMMON (Rhamnus ca-
tharticus). A hardy indigenous prickly shrub,
common in hedge rows in England ; flowering
in May, and ripening its fruit in September.
The leaves have strong lateral nerves, are
ovate, toothed, with linear stipules; the flowers
are yellowish-green, and are succeeded by a
black Iferry, which is glossy, and the size of a
large pepper-corn, containing three or four
seeds, and a violet-red pulp. The bark is
glossy and dark-coloured. This shrub likes a
sheltered situation, and succeeds in any soil.
It is propagated by seed, layers, and grafts.
The juice of the unripe berries is a deep green
dye, if boiled with a little alum. The juice
contains a purgative principle, which enables
it to operate as a powerful cathartic; but its
action is accompanied with much griping and
thirst It was formerly often used as a domes-
tic purgative ; but the frequent violence of its
action has caused its disuse.

The Bhamnus or buckthorn genus of plants
is very numerous, ten species being found in
the United States, chiefly in the warmer parts.
The leaves of a species found in China, the
Bhamnus theezans, resemble those of the tea-
plant, and pass as a substitute for tea among
the indigent population of that country. The
buckthorn family of plants are all either very
small trees or shrubs with the smaller branches
often terminating in spines or thorns, qualities
which fit them for hedges, for which purpose
the common buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus)
is a favourite about Boston and other parts of
New England, where the English and Virginia
thorns will not stand the climate. The buck-
thorn, on the contrary-, will grow in almost
any climate and upon every variety of soil.

A species of rhamnus, called the broadUaved
olatentus, a native of the south of Europe, is
an ornamental evergreen, the blossoms of
which are greatly frequented by the honey-
bee. It is a rapid growing shrub, and useful
for thickening screens, clothing wails, &c.

The sea or common sallow thorn, the Hip-
;jop/?<? r/iofn«oiWcs of LinnaBus,is a very important
shrub, grounng wild on sandy shores, in vari-
ous parts of the British coast, where it some-
times attains the height oi" eight or ten feet.
Its bark is light brown, the wood white, the
small leaves of a sea-green colour, but silvery
white below. The leaves appear early in
spring; the yellow flowers in June and July;
the fine red berries late in autumn.

In situations contiguous to the sea-shore, or
the banks of rivulets, this shrub eminently
deserves to be cultivated, as it is well calcu-
lated to bind a sandy soil, and to prevent the
water from penetrating through banks and
fences. It may be raised from seeds, but more
expeditiously by planting layers, or propagat-
ing it from the very abundant spreading roots.

I On account of its thorny points, it affords ex-
cellent hedges, even on a sandy soil.

Although cows refuse the leaves of the sea-
buckthorn, yet they are browsed upon by goats,
sheep, and horses. The berries are strongly
acid, with an austere vinous flavour : in Lap-
land they are pickled and used as spice, but
the fishermen of the (xulph of Bothnia prepare
from them a rob, which, added to fresh fish,
imparts a very grateful flavour.

From the leaves of this shrub, M. Suckow
obtained an agreeable dark-brown dye for wool
and silk, first treated with vitriol of iron (cop-
peras): Dambourney succeeded in producing
a similar colour on cloth that had been pre-
viously steeped in a solution of bismuth.

BUCKWHEAT (Germ, buchweizen). The
name of a particular species of grain, of which^
for the sake of their seeds, there are two spe«'
cies cultivated in Europe : — 1. The common
buckwheat {Polygonum fagtijtyrum), PI. 3, g;
2. The Tartarian buckwheat (P. tatarinmi), h;
and another in China and Tartary (P. emargi-
natuw), i. A new kind of buckwheat, known
to the peasants of Germany by the name of
Wild Italian buckwheat, they prefer to the com-
mon buckwheat, because it is more productive,
hardier, and has whiter and more savoury meal.
This is described in the Lull, des Scien. Agr.,
.April, 183L (Quart. Journ. Jgr. vol. iii. p. 368.)
Its flower is said to be deeper-coloured, and
smaller.

Buckwheat is a plant known in almost every
part of the world. It has been supposed to
have been first known in Europe after the time
of the Crusades. The French, in fact, call it
ble Sarrazin. In China, Japan, and Russia, it-
forms a very considerable portion of the food
of the inhabitants; it is likewise generally'
eaten in Switzerland and the southern parts of
France, and in Flanders it is a considerable
branch of husbandry. Gerard speaks of it as
cultivated in England about the year 1597,
particularly in the counties of Lancashire and
Cheshire. It appears, however, to have made
small progress in this kingdom, and has re-
ceived less attention than it deserves. It thrives
well in almost any dry soil, even those of the
poorest kinds : and in most of the arable dis-
tricts it is sown on the inferior sorts of land;
as, M-hen cultivated on the richer kinds of soil,
it is found to run too much to straw. It is
well adapted to light sandy lands. The quan-
tity of seed sown varies from five to eight
pecks per acre. Buckwheat is an annual. It
has a strong, cylindrical, reddish, branching
stem, about two feet in height, with alternate
j ivy-shaped leaves ; the flowers, which are
I white, tinged with red, are in bunches at the
end of the branches, and are succeeded by
I black angular seeds. Its flowers are very at-
j tractive to bees. It begins flowering in July,
and is generally fit to mow about the beginning
! of October. If put together, says Mr. Main, a
i little green or damp, it does not much signify;
\ for, although ever so mouldy, the grain is never
damaged, and the more mouldy it is, the earlier
it can be thrashed. It is the easiest of all barn-
work for the thrasher. (Quart. Journ. Agr. vol.
vii. p. 180.)

1 In England, the proper time for sowing

831

...^^*^.. .^

BUCKWHEAT.

BUCKWHEAT.

buckwheat is in May, when there is no longer
any danger to be apprehended from the frosts ;
for so tender is this vegetable at its first ap-
pearance, as to be unable at an earlier period
to withstand the vernal cold. The slightest
frost in their infant state would infallibly cut
off the young shoots ; and as, from this circum-
stance, it must be sown at a season when dry
weather may be expected, the crop, on that
account, not unfrequently fails. The produce,
which varies with the seasons (and this is ra-
ther an uncertain crop), ranges from two to
four quarters per acre. It is commonly grown
in England in preserves, as food for pheasants
and partridges. It is an excellent food for
poultry; pigs thrive upon and are fond of it
(it is commonly given to them mixed with po-
tatoes); and when bruised, it is good food for
horses, two bushels being equal, for this pur-
pose, it is said, to three of oats (a bushel
weighs about forty-six pounds). Cows, when
fed with it, yield a large increase of milk.
Sheep, when fed upon the plant when in blos-
som, stagger and tumble about as if drunk. It
is sometimes made into hay, which is nutritive,
but tedious to make, and should be consumed
before the winter. It is often grown on poor
exhausted soils, and ploughed in when in
bloom; in this way it increases very materially
the fertility of the soil, and is a mode often
practised in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and in
Scotland. Mr. Ballingal has given an account
of his experiments with it upon a clay loam
recently limed; from the result of which he
warns his brother farmers that it is " needless
to attempt to grow it upon damp soils, or to
expect full crops upon lands exhausted by
over-cropping." (Trans. High. Soc. vol. ii.
p. 125.)

In reaping buckwheat, many farmers prefer
pulling it, as less likely to shed the seed. The
morning, or late in the evening, should be
chosen for this purpose, when the dew is upon
the plant. M.Vauquelin found 100 parts of its
straw to contain 29*5 of carbonate of potash,
3*8 of sulphate of potash, 17*5 carbonate of
lime, 13-5 carbonate of magnesia, 16-2 of silica,
10*5 earth of alum, and 9 of water.

Vast quantities of this grain, says Mr. Main,
are annually imported into England from Hol-
land and other northern countries, for the use
of the gin-distilleries, who also consume con-
siderable quantities of British growth, which,
not being kiln-dried, as most of the Dutch grain
is found to be, is more valued. The average
quantity of buckwheat imported into England
is about 10,000 quarters annually. It pays the
same duty as barley. (M'Culloch''s Com. Did.)
For illustrations of the varieties of buckwheat,
see PI. 3.

Buckwheat is extensively cultivated in the
United States, the species usually sown being
the Polygonum fagopyrum of botanists. The
grain affords a favourite article of food. It is
generally thought to be a severe crop upon
land, and for this reason is seldom sown on
highly improved ground. Rough and hilly
distXpts are considered peculiarly favourable
to till culture of buckwheat, which is admira-
bly adapted to subdue new or wild lands. Be-
sides the Climbing Buckwheat {Polygonum
232

scandens), found in the Middle States and else-
where, twining round bushes in moist thickets,
&c., eight or ten additional varieties are enu-
merated in the United States. {Flora Cestiica.)
Buckwheat comes to maturity so quickly,
that it is usual to sow it upon the same ground
from which wheat or other grain crops have
been taken. It flourishes best in a mellow, dry,
loose, sandy soil, but even on the poorest land,
so that it be not moist, it will produce a tole-
rable crop in from three to four months after
sowing. When intended for seed, it is best to
put in the crop early enough to allow the grain
to become perfectly matured before frost. For
this purpose June or the first of July is soon
enough in the Middle States. In the state of
New York, buckwheat is frequently scfwn in
August along with winter wheat, affording a
ripe crop in the fall, without injury to the
wheat, which grows along with and succeeds
it. When sown broad-cast, the usual manner,
a bushel of buckwheat is generally put upon
the acre. Half the quantity is said to answer
when put in with a proper drill machine.
When harvested, it is usual to mow it with the
scythe, and allow it to remain some time
before it is taken from the field. Being very
liable to heat, it is advisable to put it into
small stacks of about four to six loads each.
Larger stacks, or close housing, would subject
it to spoiling. The quantity of produce varies
greatly, according to circumstances of soil and
season. In the northern part of Pennsylvania
and still farther north, it is so often nipped
before maturity by autumnal frosts, as to be a
precarious crop. From thirty to forty-five
bushels per acre may be considered an average
yield in a favourable season, but sixty or eighty
bushels are not unfrequently produced. Its
■flowers bloom and fade successively for a long
time. It is thought that the crop would be
much more productive, if the same uniformity
in blowing and ripening existed that is observed
with other grains. The buckwheat flour most
preferred in the southern cities, where it com-
mands a higher price, is that which comes
from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It is
common, especially in New Jersey, to grind
up with the buckwheat a fifth or sixth part of
Indian corn, a peculiar kind of which, being
very soft and white, is raised for the purpose.
The form in which it is brought to the table is
almost universally that of flat cakes, made of
batter raised by means of yeast, or, what is still
preferable, and requires but a few minutes in
the preparation, adding a seidlitz powder to the
mixture of flour and water, which causes the
batter to rise at once, from the carbonic acid gas
disengaged. These cakes are soft and spongy,
and absorb a large quantity of butter, which is
always put on while they are very warm. Con-
sidering the large amount of butter used, they
cannot be regarded as economical food, except
where butter is very cheap. Persons troubled
with feeble digestion should never eat buck-
wheat prepared in this way. In Tuscany,
buckwheat is mixed with barley, ground, and
the flour made into bread, which possesses the
property of retaining its moisture much longer
than that of pure wheat; and, though of a
darker colour, it is thought to be equally nou-

BUD.

BUDDING.

rishing. In Germany, a very palatable grit,
or coarse-grained meal, is made of it, which
serves as an ingredient in pottage, puddings,
&c. In Brandenburg, not only ale and beer
are brewed from buckwheat mixed with malt,
but likewise a very excellent spirit, of a bluish
shade, is obtained by distillation, in flavour
resembling French brandy.

The seeds of buckwheat afford excellent
food for cattle, and are very fattening to poul-
try and hogs, though it is said to make them
liable to a scabby eruption. When cut in pro-
per season, that is to say, about the time of
flowering, when the stems and leaves are suc-
culent and tender, it affords an excellent pro-
vender for cattle, especially for milch cows,
which are very fond of it. Some intelligent
farmers have thought it, for the last purpose,
superior to timoihy hay.

One of the purposes to which buckwheat
has been applied, — and for which it appears,
from the rapidity and exuberance of its growth,
peculiarly adapted, — is the ploughing down to
add fertility to the land. This can be done
when the soil is too far exhausted to produce
clover for a similar purpose. "We cannot,"
says the editor of the Theatre of Agriculture,
*' too much recommend, after our old and con-
stant practice, the employment of this precious
plant as a manure. It is certainly the most
economical and convenient the farmer can
employ. A small quantity of seed, costing a
mere trifle, sows a large surface and gives a
great crop. When in flower, first roll, and
plough it in, and it is soon converted into ma-
nure." This crop is recommended by Mr.
Taylor, in the Maine Farmer, as an effectual
destroyer of that frequent pest of the field called
couch-grass, quick-grass, &c. For this purpose
it must be sown as early in the season as frost
will permit, and as soon as it gets into flower,
rolled down and turned under with the plough.
Another crop is then sown on top of the first,
and harrowed in ; and, if the season be not
unfavourable, it will ripen and afford a harvest
before frost sets in.

The fresh blossoms and succulent stems of
buckwheat have been applied in Europe to the
purposes of dyeing wool, &c. The infusion,
by the addition of preparations of bismuth and
tin, produces a beautiful brown colour. From
the dried flower-bundles different shades of
green are obtained. The Siberian species of
buckwheat, in particular, yields a fine yellow,
which, upon boiling the wool still longer in the
dye, changes into a golden tint, and at length
becomes a beautiful yellow.

BUD (Fr. bouton). The germ or first fruit
of a plant, which is the organized rudiment of
a branch or flower. Buds proceed from the
extremities of the young shoots, and also along
the branches, somecimes single, sometimes two
and two, either opposite or alternate, and some-
times collected in greater numbers. In gene-
ral, we may distinguish three kinds of buds;
the leaf-bud, the flower-bud, and mixed buds which
contain both in one covering. The first spe-
cies (foliferous buds) contains the rudiments of
several leaves, which are variously folded over
each other, and surrounded by scales. The
second species, or flower-bud (Jloriferous buds),
30

contains the nidiments of one or several flow-
ers, folded and covered in a similar manner.
The third sort, which is the most common of
j any, produces both flowers and leaves. A
leaf-bud is constructed thus : — in its centre it
j consists of a minute conical portion of soft,
succulent cellular tissue (the plumule or rudi-
ment of the new twig), and over this are ar-
ranged rudimentary leaves, in the form of
scales. These scales are closely applied to
each other; those on the outside are the largest
and thickest, and those in the interior are
smaller and more delicate. In cold countries,
the external scales are often covered with hair,
or a resinous varnish, or some other contri-
vance, which enables them to prevent the access
of frost to the young and tender centre which
they protect, for they are strictly hybernacula;
but in warm countries, where such a provision
is not required, they are green and smooth, and
much less numerous. The cellular centre of
a bud is the seat of its vitality ; the scales that
cover it are the parts towards the developement
of which its vital energies are first directed.
(Penny Cyclopadia, vol. v. p. 524.)

BUD. A term made use of in some districts
for a weaned calf of the first year ; probably
from the horns then beginning to bud or shoot
forth.

BUDDING, or grafting by germs, says Mr.
Loudon {Encyc. of Gard. p. 2050), consists, in
ligneous plants, in taking an eye or bud at-
tached to a portion of the bark of different sizes
and forms, and generally called a shield, and
transporting it to a place in another or a differ-
ent ligneous vegetable. In herbaceous vege-
tables the same operation may be performed,
but with less success. It may also be per-
formed with buds of two or three years' stand-
ing, and on trees of considerable size, but not
generally so. The object in view in budding
is almost always that of grafting, and depends
on the same principle, all the difference be-
tween a bud and a scion being, that a bud is a
shoot or scion in embryo; in other respects,
budding is conducted on the same principles
as grafting. In every case, the bud and the
stock must be botanically related. An apple
may be budded on a pear or thorn, but not
upon a plum or peach. Common budding is
performed from the beginning of July to the
middle of August.

It is indispensable that the bud to be inserted
should be fully formed, or ripe. After the in-
cision of the stock, great care must be taken
in raising the bark that the cambium be not
scraped or injured. The cambium is that soft
portion between the wood and the bark des-
tined to give support to the descending fibres
of the buds, which fibres subsequently become
embedded in it. In budding, therefore, the
bark must be very carefully lifted up, and not
forced from the wood with a bone or metal
blade as is too often done.

For propagating choice fruit, the operation
of budding possesses several advantages over
that of grafting. "It is," says Buel, "more
readily performed, with fewer implements,
less preparation, and with greater success ; it
does not injure the stock if unsuccessful, and
the operation may be twice or thrice repeated
v2 233

BUDDING.

BUDDING.

the same year, as the season for its perform-
ance is protracted, for some one or other of
the varieties, for some three months. Although
July and August constitute the ordinary season
for budding, the plum and the cherry may
oftenv be budded in the latter part of June, and
the peach, apricot, and nectarine as late as the
middle of Septeml3er. Youth may readily ac-
quire the art, by little practice, under the direc-
tions we are about to give ; and we know a
young lady who is an adept in it, and who
practises it annually as a pleasant recreation,
as well as a useful labour. We have often
been treated with delicious peaches produced
by the buds which she has inserted.

The first consideration is to provide stalks,
if this provision has not already been made.
Seeds may be collected the coming season in
almost every family. Those of stone fruit
may be mixed with earth, or deposited in a
hole in the garden, and in the autumn buried
superficially in the earth, to expose them to the
expanding influence of the frost ; and in the
spring those of the peach and plum that have
not burst the shell should be cracked, and
the whole sown in a well-prepared seed-bed.
The cherries may be sown immediately after
they are taken from the fruit, and the apple,
pear, and quince either in autumn or spring.
All the kinds will generally grow the first sea-
son. The same rule applies to plants as to
animals : the better condition they are kept in
while young, the more profitable they will be-
come at maturity. Thus two or three roods
of ground will suffice a farmer for a nursery
of choice fruit, from which he may replenish
his orchard and his garden at pleasure, and
readily appropriate to his use every new va-
riety which comes under his observation. No
one will regret the trifling labour and attention
which he has bestowed on a little plantation
of this kind, after he has begun to realize the
fruits of it. Ornamental shrubs and trees, to
embellish the grounds about his buildings,
may be added without cost and with trifling
labour.

A bud is an organized plant in embryo, with
roots, branches, and foliage, and, like a seed,
possesses individual vitality capable of deve-
lopement and the reproduction of its species.
The process of budding is the transferring this
embryo plant from its parent tree to another
tree, which must at least be of the same genus,
if not of the same species. The apricot and
nectarine may be, and generally are, budded
upon the peach ; the plum and the peach are
budded on each other, and the pear and apple
may be worked on the wild crab and haw-
thorn ; and the former is put on the quince to
produce dwarf trees. To render the transfer
or budding successful, three things are requi-
site : 1. That the bud be in a proper condition
to transfer; 2. That the stalk be in condition
to receive and nourish it; and, 3. That the
transfer be skilfully made. The bud ought to
be matured, i. e., of full growth, and yet not so
hdkd and firm as to cause injury in separating
itWrom its parent. The stock must peel
freely, as this is nedessary for the insertion
of the bud, and indicates the presence of
what is termed the cambium, which is the soft
234

partially-formed woody matter underlaying the
bark, and which ripens into indurated wood.
It is the source of nourishment to the bud, and
the bond of union between it and the stock.
The operator must therefore use caution that
he injures neither the bud, the bark, nor the
cambium, as these all exercise important offices
in effecting the union ; and he must withal
take care to apply his ligatures properly. It
will be seen, from these remarks, that both the
stock and the graft should be in a state of ac-
tive growth, and the more vigorous the better,
when the budding process is performed. It is
also preferable to bud when the weather is
cloudy, but not wet. Twigs for budding may
be preserved for many days with care. They
should be immediately divested of their leaves,
but not wholly of their leaf-stalks or petioles,
to prevent the exhaustion of moisture, and
may then be wrapped in fresh grass, wet cloths,
or with their butt ends preserved in moisture.

Fig. 2.

The only implement necessary is a budding-
knife (fig. 2), and the only preparation some
bass matting, or the inner bark of the bass-
wood or linden. Filaments torn from the husk
of Indian corn are also recommended.

Professor Thouin enumerates twenty spe-
cies or varieties of grafting, most of which are
only practised by amateurs and professional
gardeners. We shall describe only the com-
mon mode, which is in general practice in
nurseries. We take it from the Encyclopedia
of Gardening.

Shield-budding, or T budding, is thus per-
formed: Fix on a smooth part of the side of
the stock, rather from than towards the sun,
and of a height depending, as in grafting, on
whether dwarf, half, or whole standard trees
are desired; then, with the budding-knife,
make a horizontal cut across the rind, quite
through to the firm wood ; from the middle of
this transverse cut make a slit downward, per-
pendicularly^, an inch or more long, going also
quite through to the wood. This done, pro-
ceed with all expedition to take off a bud ;
holding the cutting or scion in one hand, with
the thickest end out^vard, and, with the knife
in the other hand, enter it about half an inch
or more below a bud, cutting nearly halfway
into the wood of the shoot, continuing it with
one clear slanting cut about half an inch or
more above the bud, so deep as to take a part
of the bud along with it, the whole about an
inch and a half long (a, fig. 1); then directly
with the thumb and finger, or point of the
knife, clip off" the woody part remaining to the
bud ; which done, observe whether the eye or
germ of the bud remain perfect; if not, and
a little hole appears in that part, it is impro-
per, or, as gardeners express it, the bud has
lost its root, and another must be prepared.
This done, placing the back part of the bud or
shield between your lips, expeditiously with
the flat haft of the knife separate the back of
the stock on each side of the perpendicular cut
clear to the wood (c), for the admission of the
bud, which directly slip down, close betweea

BUFFALO.

BUGLE, COMMON.

the wood and bark, to the bottom of the slit (t/).
The next operation is to cut off the top part of
the shield (6) even with the horizontal first-
made cut, in order to let it completely into its
place, and to join exactly the upper edge of the
shield with the transverse cut, that the de-
scending sap may immediately enter the back
of the shield, and protrude granulated matter
between it and the wood, so as to effect a
living union. The parts are now to be imme-
diately bound round with a ligament of fresh
bass(e), or other suitable substance, previ-
ously soaked in water to render it pliable and

a b c d e

11

Fig. I.

tough, beginning a little below the bottom of
the perpendicular slit, proceeding upward
closely round every part, except just round the
eye of the bud, and continue it a little above the
horizontal cut, not too tight, but just sufficient
to keep the whole close, and exclude the air,
sun, and wet.

Future Treatment. — In a fortnight, at far-
thest, after budding, such as have adhered
may be known by their fresh appearance
at the eye; and in three weeks all those
which have succeeded well will be firmly
united with the stocks, and the parts being
somewhat swelled in some species, the band-
age must be loosened, and a week or two
afterward finally removed. The shield and
bud now swell in common with the other parts
or the stock, and nothing more requires to be
done till spring, when, just before the rising
of the sap, they are to be headed down close
to the bud, by an oblique cut, terminating
about an eighth or quarter of an inch above
the shield. In some cases, however, as in
grafting, a few inches of the stalk is left for
the first season, and the )'oung shoot tied to it
for protection from the winds."

BUFFALO (from the Italian ; Lat. bubalis).
A term originally applied to a species of ante-
lope ; but afterwards transferred, in the age of
Martial, to different species of the ox. In mo-
dern zoology, the buffaloes, or the "bubaline
group" of the genus Bos, include those species
which have the bony core of the horn exca-
vated M'ith large cells or sinuses, communicat-
ing with the cavity of the nose; the horns are
flattened, and bend laterally with a backward
direction, and are consequently less applicable
for goring than in the bisons or taurine group
of oxen. The buffaloes are of large size, but
low in proportion to their bulk; they have no
hunch on the back, and only a small dewlap
on the breast; the hide is generally black, the
tail long and slender. The buffaloes occupy
the warm and tropical regions of the earth ;
they avoid hills, and prefer the coarse vegeta-
tion of the forest and swampy regions to those
of open plains ; they love to wallow and lie for
hours sunk deep ia water; they swim well,

and cross the broadest rivers without hesita-
tion. Their gait is heavy, and they run almost
always with the nose horizontal, being princi-
pally guided by the sense of smelling. They
herd together in small flocks, or live in pairs,
but are never strictly gregarious in a wild
state. The females bear calves two years fol-
lowing, but remain sterile the third ; they pro-
pagate at four and a half years old, and
discontinue after twelve. "The common buf-
falo (says Professor Low) has come to us, be-
yond a question, from Eastern Asia. He seems
to have been introduced into Italy about thfe
sixth century, and is now an important animal
in the rural economy of that country. He is
used by the Italians as food and as the beast
of labour, and may be said to form the riches
of the inhabitants in many parts of the country.
He is cultivated, too, in Greece and Hungary.
The milk of the female is good, but the flesh is
held in less esteem than that of the common
ox. The pace of the animal is sluggish ; but
from the low manner in which he carries his
head, throwing the weight of his great body for-
ward M'hen pulfing, he is well suited for heavy
draught. But this is not a property sufficiently
important to cause the introduction of the buf-
falo into the agriculture of northern Europe,
and he is not likely, therefore, to be carried
beyond the countries where he is now reared."
Buffalo hunting on elephants is one of the field
sports of the East; and this animal is also
hunted on foot with avidity by the Caffres at
the Cape of Good Hope, as well to get rid of a
dangerous foe as to furnish themselves with
food from his flesh and leather from his hide.
(Eraiide's Diet, of Science; FAaine's Encyc. of Rvf
ral Sports ; Elements of Practical Agriculture.)
For American Buffalo, see Bisoy.

BUFFALO BERRY TREE (Shepardia mag-
noifies). Silver-leaved Sheperdia. A very
beautiful tree, discovered by Mr. Nuttall in
Missouri. The tree is of upright growth and
thorny, the leaves small and of a delicate and
silvery appearance. The fertile and barren
flowers are produced on different trees. The
fruit consists of berries about the size and ap-
pearance 5f large currants, of a fine scarlet
colour, and very beautiful, enveloping the
branches in profuse clusters. It has a rich
taste, and is considered valuable for making
into tarts and preserves.

BUGLE, COMMON (Jjuga reptans). This
very pretty wild plant grows in woods, copses,
moist pastures, and shady places, flowering in
April, May, and June. It is a perennial ; has
blue flowers, upright leafy stalks, and glossy
leaves, of a deep purplish-green colour, oblong,
broad, blunt at the point, and slightly indented
round the edges, some growing immediately
from the root. The flower-stalks rise eight or
ten inches high, of a pale green — often pur-
plish— and have two leaves at each joint,
which joints are far apart from each other.
The joint leaves are as large as those growing
from the root. The scentless flowers are blue
and white, sometimes entirely white, growing
round the upper part of its stalk, forming a
kind of loose spike. The cups remain, when
the flower has fallen off, to hold its seeds
This plant is often denominated sicklewort, ami

235

BUGLE-HORN.

BURGLARY.

kerb carpenter. The roots (says Smith) are
slightly astringent; but the herb has little taste
or smell, and still less of any healing or vul-
nerary property. The white variety abounds in
the Isle of Wight ; and a flesh-coloured one has
someUmes been observed. In dry mountain-
ous situations the plant acquires a consider-
able degree of hairiness. The French, who
are great herbalists, affirm, that "with bugle
and sanicle, no one needs a surgeon."

Besides the common bugle. Smith, in his
English Flora, (vol. iii. p. 65 — 67), enumerates
three other species, the alpine bugle, pyrami-
dal bugle, and ground pine or yellow bugle
(^juga chamcepitys).

BUGLE-HORN (from bucula, a heifer). A
wind-instrument, much more commonly em-
ployed in the sports of the field formerly than
at present. It has been, however, in our days,
much improved for musical purposes by the
introduction of keys.

BUGLE -WEED (Virginian lycopus), a
creeping perennial found in the Middle States,
frequenting swamps and moist woodlands,
producing minute white flowers in June and
July. It constitutes a prominent article in the
materia medica of certain German empirics,
in the city of Lancaster, and other parts of
Pennsylvania, — who prescribe an infusion as
a certain remedy for a "dry liver," an infirmity
which, they allege, afflicts a large proportion
of those credulous persons who consult them.
{See Flor. Ceslrica.)

BULB (Lat. bulbus; Gr. MC«)- A bud
usually formed under ground, having very
fleshy scales, and capable of separating from
its parent plant. Occasionally it is produced
upon the stem, as in some lilies. It contains
the rudiments of the future plant, and partakes
of the character of the bud (which see). In
bulbous plants, as the tulip, onion, or lily,
what we generally call the root is in fact a
bulb or hybernaculum, or winter case, which
incloses and secures the embryo or future
shoot. At the lower part of this bulb may be
observed a fleshy disk, knob, or tubercle,
whence proceed a number of fibres or threads.
This knob, with the fibres attached to and
hanging from it, is, properly speaking, the true
root ; the upper part being only the cradle or
nursery of the future stem, which, being re-
placed a certain number of times, the bulb
perishes; but not till it has produced at its
sides a number of smaller bulbs or cloves for
perpetuating the species. In bulbous plants,
where the stalk and former leaves of the plant
are sunk below, into the bulb, the radicles or
small fibres that hang from the bulb are to be
considered as the root ; that is, the part which
furnishes nourishment to the plant : the several
rinds and shells whereof the bulb chiefly con-
sists successively perish, and shrink up into
so many dry skins, betwixt which, and in their
centre, are formed other leaves and shells, and
thus the bulb is perpetuated. There are' several
kinds of bulbs; namely, 1. The tunicated bulb
(fu^kis twnicatus), formed of thin membranous
laye^, as, for example, the miion : 2. The scaly
bulb (JB. squammosus), formed of fleshy abortive
leaves, not in layers, as in the lily. The cloves,
which are produced between the scales of
236

bulbs, are often, as it were, starved, when the
bulb throws up a vigorous flowering stem ;
thence, in order to propagate bulbs, the flower-
ing stem should be destroyed as soon as it
appears.

BULLACE TREE, WILD (Prunus in^titia).
A small tree, chiefly growing in hedges' and
plantations, with irregularly-spreading round
branches, for the most part tipped with a sharp
straight thorn. There are several varieties of
the black kind, differing in size and flavour,
some good even in a fresh state, and of more
or less excellence when dressed. (Swa</i'«
Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 356).

BULLEN. A provincial name applied to the
hempstalk when the bark is stripped from it.

BULRUSH {Scirpus lanistris). A peren-
nial found commonly in clear ditches, ponds,
and the borders of lakes and rivers ; flowers
in July and August. (Smithes Flora, vol. i.
p. 56.) From this plant the bottoms of chairs,
mats, &c. are made. The common bulrushes
of the English marshes, which bear masses
of brown flowers, are . the Typha lalifolia and
anguslifolia. See Rush.

BUNIAS. The oriental bunias (Bunias
orienialis, PI. 9, k) is a perennial plant, with
leaves, branches, and its general habit of
herbage, not unlike the wild chiccory. It is a
native of the Levant or eastern shores of the
Mediterranean, and has been cultivated by
way of experiment in the grass garden at
Woburn. It is less productive than chiccory,
bears mowing well, and affords the same nu-
triment, in proportion to its bulk, as red clover.
(Loudon^s Ency. of .^gr.)

BUR. The rough head of the burdock, &c.

BURDOCK (Arctium). There are two spe-
cies, the ji. lappa, common burdock or clot-
bur, and the .4. lardana, woolly-headed bur-
dock. This very cumbrous weed is removed
the first year of its growth by stubbing, like
other things comprehended by farmers under
the name of docks, and paid for accordingly to
the weeder. It is also very commonly found
in waste ground, by waysides, and among
rubbish. (Smith's Eng. Flora, vol. iii. p. 379.) It
grows a yard high, with large leaves of a tri-
angular shape, and of a whitish green colour.
The stalks are round, solid, and tough. The
florets are small and red, and they grow among
the prickles of those heads called burs, which
stick to the clothes of passers-by. The root
is long and thick, brown outside, and whitish
within. The plant is a biennial, and flowers
in July and August. The root in decoction is
a diuretic and sudorific; but it is of little va-
lue, except as a vehicle for more important
medicines in some aflfections of the skin. This
is a great remedy among village doctresses,
who sometimes apply the bruised leaves to the
soles of the feet in hysterics. Either the root
or seeds decocted, or infused, are equally use-
ful with the leaves. The root of the lesser
burdock, or xanthium (Bardana minor), has a
bitter and acrid flavour, and is useful in scro-
fulous disorders. A decoction of the root
should be persevered in for a considerable
length of time.

BURGLARY. The breaking in,to a dwell-
ing-house in the night with a felonious intent.

BURfiOT.

BURNING.

The 7 W. 4, & 1 Vict. c. 86, s. 2, enact, that
whosoever shall burglariously break and enter
into any dwelling-house, and shall assault with
intent to murder any person being therein, or
shall stab, cut, wound, beat, or strike any such
person, shall be guilty of felony, and being
convicted thereof shall suffer death. S. 3 en-
acts, that whosoever shall be convicted of the
crime of burglary shall be liable, at the dis-
cretion of the court, to be transported beyond
the seas for the term of the natural life of such
offender, or for any term not less than ten
years, or to be imprisoned for any term not
exceeding three years. S. 4 enacts, that, so
far as the same is essential to the offence of
burglary, the night shall be considered to
commence at nine of the clock in the evening
of each day, and to conclude at six of the
<;lock in the morning of the next succeeding
day. {JrrhbohPs Crim. Law.)

iBURGOT. A provincial word applied to
yeast. It is sometimes pronounced burgood.

BUR-MARIGOLD (HiHens). This is an
herbaceous, mostly annual, genus of plants,
flowering in August and September. It is met
with very frequently in watery places, and
about the sides of ditches and ponds. There
are two species, with one or two varieties in
each. In the three-lobed bur-marigold (B.
tripartita), the root is tapering with many
fibres; stem two or three feet high, erect,
solid, smooth, leafy, with opposite axillary
branches. Leaves dark green, strongly ser-
rated, in three deep segments, sometimes five.
Flower, terminal, solitary, of a brownish-yel-
low, somewhat drooping, devoid of beauty and
of fragrance. Seeds with two or three prickly
angles, and as many erect bristles ; likewise
prickly with reflexed hooks, by which they stick
like burs to any rough surface, and are said
sometimes to injure fish by getting into their
gills. The herb of this species gives a yellow
colour to woollen or linen. The nodding bur-
marigold (B. cernna) has a root with many
slout fibres, herb more erect and taller, with
less extended branches than the foregoing
species. Leaves undivided, pointed, and less
deeply serrated. Flowers drooping, though
their stalks are quite straight to the very sum-
mit; larger and handsomer than the last.
(Smith's Eng. Flora, vol. iii. p. 398.)

Among the species of bidens or bur-mari-
gold, found in the United States, are the follow-
ing : the chrysanthemum-like bidens, common-
ly called beggar-ticks, an annual; and the
bipinnate bidens, popularly called Spanish
needles. These and the other American spe-
cies of bidens or burweed are noted for mature
akenes adhering, by their barbed awns, to the
clothing of those who go among them in au-
tumn. They are rather troublesome weeds
along fence-rows, &c., and bloom and ripen
their seeds late in the season.

BURNET, COMMON {Pimpinella saxi-
fraga). There are three species of burnet;
namely, burnet saxifrage, dwarf burnet, and the
greater burnet. The common burnet plant
(Plate 9, a) was, a quarter of a century since,
much cultivated as a green crop, from its
being able to thrive on very poor, thin, and
sandy soils, but it has been gradually super-

seded by better grasses. Its growth is rather
slow. Cattle prefer it to clover and rye-grass,
but sheep do not. (.^nn. of Jgr. vol. i. p. 394.)
It is sown in spring-time, the same as other
grass seeds, and withstands severe weather.
It should be fed off Avhen young {Ibid. vol. ii.
p. 176) ; and then, says Arthur Young, "it is
one of the best grasses for sheep" {Ibid. p. 369),
who are at that stage of its growth exceed-
ingly fond of it. About 7 lbs. of seed suffice
for an acre {Ibid. vol. xvi. p. 355) ; and the
produce is six or seven bushels per acre, on
moderate land. {Ibid. vol. xx. p. 237.)

BURNET, SALAD, SMALL or UPLAND
{Poterium sanguisorba, from the Greek Trcrtipiov, a
cup, used in cool tankards). The stem, which
is angular, smooth, and leafy, rises one to two
feet high, furnished with glaucous-green,
smooth, pinnated leaves, with sharply cut
stipules, in pairs at the base of the footstalk.
The flowers are fertile and barren ; the latter
with crimson stamens resembling elegant silk
tassels. {Smith.) It delights in a dry, poor
soil, abounding in calcareous matter; any light
compartment that has an open exposure, there-
fore may be allotted to it, the only beneficial
addition that can be applied being bricklayers'
rubbish or fragments of chalk. A small bed
will be suflicient for the supply of a family. It
may be propagated either by seed, or by slips
and partings, or offsets of the roots. The
seed may be sown towards the close of Febni-
ary, in open weather, and thence until the close
of May; but the best time is in autumn, as
soon as it is ripe ; for if kept until the spring,
it will often fail entirely, or lie in the ground
until the same season of the following year,
without vegetating. It may be inserted in
drills, six inches apart, or broadcast ; in either
mode, thin, and not buried more than half an
inch. The plants must be kept thoroughly
clear of weeds throughout their growth.
When two or three inches high, they may be
thinned to six inches apart, and those removed
placed in rows at the same distance, in a poor,
shady border, water being given occasionally
until they have taken root, after which they
will require no further attention until the au-
tumn, when they must be removed to their
final station, in rows a foot apart. When of
established growth, the only attention requisite
is to cut down their stems occasionally in
summer, to promote the production of young
shoots, and in autumn to have the decayed
stems and shoots cleared away. If propagated
by partings, &c. of the roots, the best time for
practising it is in September and October. As
it grows freely from seed, this is not usually
practised. They are planted at once where
they are to remain, and only require occa-
sional watering until established. The other
parts of their cultivation are as for those
raised from seed. For the production of seed,
some of the plants must be left ungathered
from, and allowed to shoot up early in the
sunimer ; they flower in July, and ripen abun-
dance of seed in the autumn. The leaves
taste and smell like cucumbers, thence the
plant is used to flavour salads. {G. W. John'
sonh Kitchen Garden.)

BURNING. SeeAHsoK.

237

BURNING OF LIME.

BUSH-HARROW.

BURNING OF LIME. See Limk.

BURNS, in live stock, are best treated by a
lotion composed of lime-water and linseed-oil,
equal parts, applying it frequently ; this allays
the inflammation very rapidly.

BURNT CLAY. See Ashes.

BUR-REED (Sparganium). Smith (Eng.
Flora, vol. iv. p. 73) enumerates three species :
1. The branched bur-reed (S. ramosuvi) ; 2. The
unbranched upright bur-reed (S. simplex) ; 3.
The floating bur-reed (S, natans). They are
all creeping-rooted, aquatic, juicy, smooth, up-
right, or floating herbs, and found in pools and
ditches, and the margins of ponds and rivers :
common : the last named principally in muddy
fens, or slow rivers. The bur-reed is a peren-
nial, flowering in July and August ; the stems
of some of the species attain to the height
of three or four feet. The herbage of the
branched bur-reed serves for package along
with similar coarse grassy plants, and is softer
and more pliant than most of them, not cutting
the hand by any sharp edges, like carices or
fenis. The unripe burs are very astringent.
A strong decoction of the burs makes a wash
for old ulcers. Dr. Darlington describes an
American species of bur-reed, frequent in
ditches, sluggish streams, &c., in the Middle
States. (Floi\ Ces.)

BURROW (Teut. bergen, to cover). A pro-
vincial word, signifying a heap or hillock,
hence stone-burrows, peat-burrows, &c.

BUR -WEED (Xanthium strumarium). The
broad-leaved bur-weed is an annual plant,
flowering in August and September, found in
rich moist ground, or about dunghills in the
south of England ; but rare. It is herba-
ceous or somewhat shrubby, rather downy,
of a coarse habit, root fibrous; stem solitary,
erect, branched, leafy, two feet high, solid;
leaves on long stalks, heart-shaped, two or
three inches wide ; clusters of four or five fer-
tile green flowers, and one or two barren ones,
making no show. Old tradition reports that
the xanthium is good for scrofulous disorders,
as the specific name seems to indicate ; but it
is now out of use. The generic appellation
alludes to a quality of dyeing yellow, which
Dioscorides mentions. (Smith''s Eng. Flora, vol.
iv. p. 136.)

The scrofulous xanthium, clot -weed, or
cockle-bur is an obnoxious weed, found in the
United States about farm-yards, road-sides, ifcc.
It is an annual not much inclined to spread,
and therefore, by a little attention, could ge-
nerally be easily got rid ofl". The burs are a
great annoyance in the fleeces of sheep. (Flor.
Cestrica.)

BUSH (Teut. busch; Dan. busk). A thick
shrub, or a collection of shrubs or plants,
growing close together, so as to form a sort of
clump. It is also a provincial word, signify-
ing the box of the nave of a wheel.

BUSH-DRAINING. A term applied to a
kind of draining, which is done by putting in,
or filling the drains with bushes. See Draiit-

IKO.

4BUSHEL (Old Fr. buschel; low Lat. bussel-
Ms). A measure of capacity for dry goods, as
grain, fruit, pulse, and many other articles, con-
raining 4 pecks, 8 gallons, or 32 quarts, and is
238

the eighth of the English quarter. The name
seems to be derived from an old English word,
buss, signifying a box or vessel.

The bushel, by a statute made in the twelfth
year of Henry the Seventh, is to contain
2150*42 cubic inches, or 8 gallons of wheat;
the gallon of wheat to weigh 8 lbs. troy-
weight; the pound, 12 oz. troy-weight; the
ounce, 20 sterlings; and the sterling, 32 grains.
By 5 Geo. 4, c. 74, the imperial gallon is de-
clared the standard measure of capacity, and
is directed to be made such as to contain 10
lbs. avoirdupois of distilled water, weighed in
air at the temperature of 62° of Fahrenheit's
thermometer, the barometer standing at 30
inches, or to contain 277 cubic inches, and
274 thousandth parts of a cubic inch ; conse-
quently, the imperial bushel contains 80 lbs.
of distilled water, or 2218-192 cubic inches.
By the same act (§ 7), the bushel is declared
the standard measure of capacity for coals,
culm, lime, fish, potatoes, or fruit, and all other
goods or things commonly sold by heaped
measure, and is prescribed to contain 2815
cubic inches, to be made round with a plain
and even bottom, and being 18^1- inches in the
interior diameter by 8 in depth, and 19^ inches
from outside to outside ; the goods to be
heaped up in the form of cone, to a height
above the rim of the measure of at least three-
fourths of its depth.

Besides the standard or legal bushel, there are
in England several local bushels, of different
dimensions in different places. At Abingdon
and Andover, a bushel contains 9 gallons : at
Appleby and Penrith, a bushel of peas, rye,
and wheat, contains 16 gallons ; of barley,
big malt, mixed malt, and oats, 20 gallons. A
bushel contains, at Carlisle, 24 gallons : at
Chester, a bushel of wheat, rye, «fec., contains
32 gallons, and of oats 40; at Dorchester, a
bushel of malt and oats contains 10 gallons;
at Falmouth, the bushel of stricken coals is
16 gallons; of other things 20, and usually 21
gallons ; at Kingston-upon-Thames, the bushel
contains 8^ ; at Newbury, 9 ; at Wycomb and
Reading, 8J; at Stamford 16 gallons. The
contents of the bushel seems to have been
gradually increasing; the Winchester bushel,
used in England from the time of Henry
VIL to 1826, contained 2154-42 cubic inches.
The imperial bushel is therefore to the Win-
chester bushel as 2218-192 to 2154-42, or as 1
to '969447. Hence to convert Winchester
bushels into imperial, multiply by -969447.
To convert prices per Winchester bushel
into prices per imperial bushel, multiply by
1-0315157.

The heaped bushel was abolished by 4 & 5
Will. 4, c. 49, an act which took efl!ect from
the first of January, 1835. (Brande's Bid.
Science ; Penny Cyclopcedia y M'Culloch^s Com.
Die.)

BUSH-HARROW. An implement consti-
tuted of any sort of bushy branches, inter-
woven in a kind of frame, consisting of three
or more cross-bars, fixed into two end pieces
in such a manner as to be very rough and
brushy underneath. To the extremities of the
frame before are generally attached two wheels,
about twelve inches in diameter, upon which

BUSH-HAllROWING.

BUTTER.

it moves ; sometimes, however, wheels are not j
employed, but the whole rough surface is ap- |
plied to, and dragged on, the ground. See j
Harrow.

BUSH-HARROWING. The operation of
harrowing with an instrument of the kind just
described. It is chiefly necessary on grass-
lands, or such as have been long in pasture, for
the purpose of breaking down and reducing
the lumps and clods of the earth or manures
that may have been applied, and thereby ren-
dering them more capable of being washed
into the ground, or for removing the worm-
casts and mossy matter that may have formed
on the surface.

BUSH -VETCH (ricia sepium). A plant of
the vetch kind, which may probably be culti-
vated to advantage by the farmer, where lu-
cerne and other plants of a similar nature
cannot be grown. Its root is perennial, fibrous,
and branching ; the stalks many, some of them
shooting immediately upwards, others creep-
ing just under the surface of the ground, and
emerging, some near to, and others at a con-
siderable distance from, the parent-stock. The
small oval leaves are connected together by a
mid-rib, with a tendril at the extremity; the
flowers are in shape like those of the common
vetch, of a reddish-purple colour; the first that
blossom usually come in pairs, afterwards to
the number of four at a joint; the pods are
much shorter than those of the copimon vetch,
larger in proportion to their length, and flatter,
and are of a black colour when ripe ; the seeds
are smaller than those of the cultivated spe-
cies, some speckled, others of a clay colour.
It yields, from a brown sandy loam, 17,696 lbs.
per acre of grass, and of nutritive matter 976
lbs. It flowers in the middle of May, and
maintains its place when once in possession
of the soil, but appears unfit for clayey soils.
The seeds are sown in April or the beginning
of May. (Hort. Gram. Wob. p. 210.) Being a
perennial plant, Mr. Swayne deems it to be a
proper kind to intermix with grass seeds for
laying down lands intended for pasture ; and
that it is as justly entitled to this epithet as
any herbaceous plant whatever, having ob-
served a patch of it growing in one particular
spot of his orchard for fourteen or fifteen
years past It is not only a perennial, but an
evergreen : it shoots the earliest in the spring
of any plant eaten by cattle with which he is
acquainted; vegetates late in autumn, and
continues green through the winter, though the
weather be very severe : add to this, that cat-
tle are remarkably fond of iu The chief rea-
son that has hitherto prevented its cultivation
has been the very great difficulty of procuring
good seed in any quantity. The pods, he finds,
do not ripen altogether; but as soon almost
as they are ripe, they burst with great elasticity,
and scatter the seed around; and after the
seeds have been procured, scarce one-third
part of them will vegetate, owing, as he sup-
poses, to an internal defect, occasioned by cer-
tain insects making them the nests and food
for their young. It seems, also, that a crop of
this kind of vetch may be cut three or four
times, and in some cases even so early as the
"beginning of March — a circumstance of much

importance to farmers who have a large stock
of cattle. {Trans. Bath and West of England
Society, vol. iii.)

BUTT. A provincial term applied to such
ridges or portions of arable land as run out
short at the sides or other parts of fields ; also
to a vessel holding 126 gallons of wine, 108 of
beer; and to a measure of from 15 to 22 cwts.
of currants. To butt, from Dutch batten, to
strike. Butt-land is the place where, in days
of archery, the butts for practice were placed.
It is also applied provincially to a close-
bodied cart: hence a dung'butt, or wheel-
cart, gurry-butt, or sledge-cart, ox-btUt, horse*
butt, &c.

BUTTER (Ger. butter; Dut. boter). A well-
known article of domestic consumption, com-
monly procured by churning the milk of the
cow. It was not an article employed by the
early Greeks and Romans. " The ancient Ro-
mans," says Mr. Alton {Quart. Journ. Jgr. vol.
V. p. 357), "knew nothing of making butter
until they were taught by the Germans how to
make it, and it was not used by them as food,
but merely as oil." Herodotus says, that the
Scythians formed butter by agitating mare's
milk; and the poet Anaxandrides says, that the
Thracians ate butter, at which the Grecians
were surprised. When Julius Coesar invaded
England, he found that the inhabitants had
abundance of milk, from which they made
butter, but could not make cheese till they
were taught that art by their invaders. The
Arabs, it seems {BurckhardC s Travels in Nubia^
p. 441), are very large consumers of fresh
butter, and they are in the. habit of drinking
every morning a cupful of melted butter, or
ghee, as it is called in the East. In India, ghee
is made from the milk of the buffalo, and a
very considerable traffic is carried on with it.
It is usually conveyed in leather bottles or
duppers, holding from ten to forty gallons;
some are made of hide. The colour of butter
is yellow ; it possesses the property of an oil,
and mixes readily with other oily bodies; it
melts and becomes transparent at 96° Fahren-
heit, and if it is kept in this state for some time,
it assumes exactly the appearance of oil, loses
its peculiar flavour, and some curds and whey
separate from it Milk, in fact, is composed
of cream, curd, and whey. The cream and
the milk are merely united mechanically, and
when, therefore, the new milk is allowed to
rest, the cream, being the lighter of the two,
rises gradually to the top ; the curd separates
from the milk, too, with the assistance of a
very slight degree of acidity. Butter may be
made by the agitation of either cream or new
milk: fresh cream is not commonly used, be-
cause it requires four times the churning that
stale cream does. (Fourcroy, Ann. de Chem.
tom. vii. p. 169.) The contact of the atmo-
spheric air is not absolutely essential to the
production of butter from cream, although
the oxygen of the air is usually absorbed in
churning: according to Dr. Young, there is
an increase in the temperature during the ope-
ration of four degrees. Buttermilk is merely
milk deprived of its cream, in which it rapidly
becomes sour, and the curdy or cJmsy part is
separated from the whey or sej-um. Cream of

239

BUTTER.

the specific gravity 1.0244 was found by Ber-
zelius to contain —

Partt.
Butter -.----. 4-5
Cheese ---.-.. 3*5
Whey 92 0

^ Curd, which is easily separated from creamed
milk by rennet, has many of the properties of
coagulated albumen : it is composed, accord-
ing to the analysis of MM. Gay Lussac and
Thenard, of

Partf.
Carbon ------ 59-781

Oxygen ------ 11-409

Hydrogen ------ 7429

Azote 21-381

100-

Curd, adds Dr. Thomson (System of Chem.
vol. iv. p. 499), as is well known, is used in
making cheese, and the cheese is the better,
the more it contains of cream, or of that oily
matter which constitutes cream. It is well
known to cheese-makers, that the goodness of
it depends in a great measure on the manner
of separating the whey from the curd. If the
milk be much heated, the coagulum broken in
pieces, and the whey forcibly separated, as is
the practice in many parts of Scotland, the
cheese is scarcely good for any thing ; but the
whey is delicious, especially the last squeezed
out whey; and butter may be obtained from it
in considerable quantities. But if the whey is
not too much heated (100° is sufficient), if the
coagulum be allowed to remain unbroken, and
the whey be separated by very slow and gentle
pressure, the cheese is excellent, but the whey
is almost transparent and nearly colourless.
(Journal de Phys.)

When milk is deprived of its cream, it is
composed, according to M. Berzelius, of

Parts.
Water 928 75

Curd with a little cream - - - - 28-
Sugar of milk -__--- 35-

Muriate of potnsh (chloride of potassium) - 1-70
Phosphate of potash _ . - - - -25
Lactic acid and acetate of potash - - - 6*
Earthy phosphates - - - - - 30"

1000-
(Thomson, vol. iv. p. 501.)

From some valuable experiments on the
temperature at which butter may be best pro-
cured from cream, by Dr. John Barclay and
Mr. Allen, it appeared " that cream should not
be kept at a high temperature in the process
of churning. In the experiment when the tem-
perature was lowest, the quantity of butter
obtained was in the greatest proportion to the
quantity of cream used ; and as the tempera-
ture was raised, the proportional quantity of
butter diminished; while, in the last experi-
ment, when the mean temperature of the cream
had been raised to 70°, not only was the quan-
tity of butter diminished, but in quality it was
found to be very inferior, both with regard to
taste and appearance. That the lowest possi-
ble temperature should be sought in churning,
appears likewise from another result of these
experiments, the specific gravity of the churned
Vnilk having been found to diminish as the
temperature of the cream was increased; thus
showing, that at the lower temperature, the
butter, which is composed of the lighter parts
240

BUTTER.

of the cream, is more completely collected than
at the higher temperature, in which the churned
milk is of greater specific gravity." The con-
clusion to which they came therefore was, that
the most proper temperature at which to com-
mence the operation of churning butter is from
50° to 55°, and that at no time of the operatioa
ought it to exceed 65° ; while, on the contrary,
if at any time the cream should be under 50**
in temperature, the labour will be much in-
creased, without any proportional advantage
being obtained; and a temperature of a higher
degree than 65° will be injurious as well to the
quality as the quantity of the butter. (Trans.
High. Soc. vol. i. p. 194.) One of these experi-
ments it may be well to abridge: — 15 gallons
of cream at the temperature of 50° were
churned ; each gallon (equal to holding 8 lbs.
4 oz. of water) weighed 8 lbs. 4 oz. ; by churn-
ing for two hours, the temperature of the cream
rose to 56° ; at the end of the churning it was
60°. The butter obtained weighed 29^ lbs.
avoirdupois, or nearly 2 lbs. for each gallon
of cream: the butter was firm, rich, and plea-
sant. A gallon of the churned milk weighed
8 lbs. 9 oz.

Mr. J. Ballantyne found that the greatest
quantity of butler from a given quantity of
cream is obtained at 60°, and the best quality
at 55° in the churn just before the butter came;
when the heat exceeded 65°, no washing could
etach the milk from the butter without the aid
f salt; but when a quantity of salt was
wrought well into it, and the mass allowed to
stand for twenty-four hours, and then well
washed, the milk was separated. (Trans. High,
Soc. vol. i. p. 198.)

The method of making the best butter all
over the dairy district of Scotland, is thus de-
scribed by Mr. Alton (Quart. Jovm. Jgr. vol. v.
p. 351) : The milk, when drawn from the cow,
is placed from six to twelve hours in coolers,
the same as when set aside to cast up its cream ;
but this is merely to let the milk cool; and
whenever it is divested of its natural heat, the
whole meal of milk is emptied from the cool-
ers into a stand vat or tub sufficient to contain
the whole. If the vat is large, and a second
meal of milk has become cold before the for-
mer meal of milk has begun to acidify, the
second may be turned into the first. It is then
placed in a vat, covered over, and allowed to
remain undisturbed, till the milk has not only
acidified, but until it has been formed into a
coagulum (or tapper, in dairy language). It is
now ready to be churned ; and, provided the
lapper is not broken (which makes it ferment),
it may remain, without injury, unchumed for
some days.

Milk prepared in this way is churned in up-
right or plunge churns, of a size to suit the
magnitude of the dairy. Where only a few
cows are kept, the chums will hold about 100
quarts, from 200 to 240 quarts, and some still
more. These large churns are on some large
farms moved by machinery of various con-
structions, but in most dairy farms, chums of
200 quarts are wrought by hand-labour only.
After the clotted milk is put into the churn, a'
much hot water is poured amongst the milk as
to raise the temperature from 50° or 55°, which

BUTTER.

BUTTER.

is about the ordinary temperature of a good I
spring or milk-house. Experiments instituted
for the purpose have determined this as the
best temperature at which to commence the
operation of churning, and that at no time
during the operation ought it to exceed 65°. \
If the temperature be higher, it will be attended
with injury to the quality and quantity of the
butter. If lower than 50°, the butter will not
"come." After the butter has formed, warm
water may be gradually added, so as to raise
the temperature to 70° or 75°, one person agi-
tating while another throws in the water. The
temperature must be raised to or above 70°
before the butter can be separated from the
milk; and this cannot be accomplished in any
way so well as by pouring in boiling water
after it has begun to be churned. If the milk
is too cold, when churning it swells, has a pale
white colour, throws upon the surface many
air-bubbles, and emits a rattling noise; the
time of churning is from 2^ to 2| hours ; the
milk being of ordinary quality, 24 pints impe-
rial yield 24 ounces of buUer.

In the making of butter, care and cleanliness
are requisite. The cows should be milked in
the cool of the morning and evening; they
should be driven very gently, and if brought to
the milking-place some little lime previously,
it will be all the better. In some countries
they milk them in their pastures, a practice
commonly followed in mountainous districts,
and where they are distant from the dairy.
The teats of the cow should be washed often
with water, and the dairy floors (which are
best of brick) and all the dairy utensils cannot
be too frequently washed, not only because dirt
is exceedingly noxious to the production of
good butter, but from the coolness which it
produces in the dairy.

When the milk is brought into the dairy, it
is strained through a sieve, to remove any me-
chanically diffused matters, and then placed in
shallow pans and coolers, or leaden troughs.
Some are made of iron tinned, others of brass.
There is, however, an objection to leaden
troughs, for at the point of contact between the
air and the cream, the latter aids the oxidize-
ment of the lead; and carbonic acid being
attracted, a carbonate of lead {white lead) is
formed, and communicates a poisonous pro-
perty to the cream. Painters' colic has been
thus sometimes communicated to dairymaids.
Zinc, or iron tinned, is preferable to lead for
dairy vessels. The same objection applies to
brass as to lead. Metal ones are regarded as
the best, from their rapidity of cooling in sum-
mer, and from their being more easily warmed
in the winter; they are besides (and the same
remark applies to the milk pails, &c.) more
readily and completely cleaned than those of
wood or earthenware. The dairy should be
well ventilated by wire-gauze windows, and
protected by either trees or buildings from the
heat of the sun. In twelve hours the finest
portion of the cream has risen to the surface,
which, if then separated from the milk and
churned, produces a very delicate butler. It is
commonly left, however, for twenty-four hours,
and then skimmed off and deposited in an
earthen vessel. In the dairies of the usual
31

size, the cream collected is churned every two
days, and the formation of the butter is found
to be materially accelerated by the cream ac-
quiring a slight acidity; indeed, it has been
sometimes contended that, without the presence
of an acid, butter cannot be made. Lactic acid
indeed is always present in buttermilk; an
acid quality is even, in some cases, imparted
to it by the dairywomen, who add a small
quantity of vinegar or lemon-juice; this, how-
ever, does not improve the flavour of the but-
ter, and it injures it considerably for salting.
To efiect the separation of the butter from the
cream, a considerable degree of agitation is
necessar}', varying with the electrical state of
the atmosphere, and other circumstances. Of
the influence of electricity no one will doubt
who has witnessed the effect of a thunder-storm
on a dairy of milk. The agitation or churning
is produced by various-sized churns, the most
common shaped of which is the upright wooden
chum, with an upright plunger; others are
made of barrels, turning on an axle by means
of a common winch ; some are made like cra-
dles, and rock much in the same manner:
these are worked chiefly by hand. But it is
sometimes done by horse power, and very
commonly now in Cheshire by small portable
high-pressure steam-engines : these last might
easily be made to cut chaff", bruise corn for
stock, crush bones, and a variety of other use-
ful purposes.

In the course of a period varying from one
hour to several hours, according to circum-
stances, the butter begins to make its appear-
ance in small lumps or kernels, which are
gradually increased in number as the churn-
ing proceeds ; these are collected and placed
in a shallow wooden vessel, or washing-tub,
and when all the butter is "come" or extracted,
little else remains but the buttermilk. The
butter placed in the washing-tub is worked by
the hand into a mass, the buttermilk squeezed
out, and the butter washed in water, an opera-
tion which, when it is intended for keeping,
cannot be too carefully performed; and if the
person who works it has not a very cool hand,
it should be kept as cool as possible by fre-
quent ablutions in cold water. A large portion
of the butter made at a distance from large
towns is salted and put into casks or firkins,
which weigh about 56 lbs. ; about 3 or 4 lbs.
of salt are required for this purpose, which
should be of the finest and purest description,,
totally free from the bitter deliquescing salts
which commonly abound in that mc>de by
artificial heat from sea water. The casks also
should be made of clean wood, and before the
butter is placed in them they should be well
washed with hot brine. " If," says a writer in
the Penny Cydopcedia, "there is not a sufficient
quantity to fill the cask at once, the surface
is made smooth, some salt is put over it, and
a cloth is pressed close upon it to exclude the
air. When the remainder is added at the next
churning, the cloth is taken off", and the salt
which had been put on the surface is care-
fully removed with a spoon. The surface is
then made rough with a small wooden spade,
and left so, and the newly salted butter is
added, and incorporated completely. This
X 241

BUTTER.

BUTTER.

prevents a streak which would otherwise ap-
pear at the place where the two portions joined.
When the cask is full, some salt is put over it,
and the head is put on. If the butter is well
freed from all the buttermilk, and the salt
mi:jced with it quite dry, it will not shrink in
the cask, and it will keep its flavour for a long
time." Dr. Anderson recommended for pre-
serving butter a composition of salt 2 parts,
saltpetre 1 part, sugar 1 part; 1 oz. of this
mixture to 16 oz. of butter. It seems that
butter thus treated will keep sweet for a
lengthened period; but that for the first fort-
night it does not taste well.

In Devonshire the method of making butter
is peculiar to the county. The milk is placed
in tin or earthen pans, and twelve hours after
milking, these pans (each holding about eleven
or twelve quarts) are placed on an iron plate,
over a small furnace. The milk is not boiled,
but heated until a thick scum arises to the sur-
face ; if when a small portion of this is re-
moved bubbles appear, the milk is removed,
and suffered to cool. The thick part is then
taken off the surface, and this is the clouted
cream of Devonshire, which is known all over
England. By a gentle agitation this clouted
cream is speedily converted into butter.

In Holland they churn the cream and milk
together, after it has been kept sufficiently long
for a slight acidity to appear. They churn, it
seems, sometimes with a horse, sometimes by
a dog, or turnspit, working on a wheel ; a plan
which I think might be well adopted, in many
cases, in England, to the saving of the labour
of many a poor dairy-maid. In the large
dairies, however, about Dixmunde andFurnes,
the cream only is churned three times a week.
(Flemish Hush. p. 61.)

On an average, four gallons of milk pro-
duces a pound of butter, and a good cow
should produce six pounds of butter per week
in summer, and three pounds in winter. Of
English butter, that of Cambridge and Epping
is the most celebrated. But the consumption
in England is much greater than the farmers
can supply : very large quantities are in con-
sequence annually imported into England;
thus, in 1825, the import from Ireland amount-
ed to 422,883 cwts., and from foreign countries
159,332 cwts.; this last in 1835 was 134,346
cwts., of which 106,776 cwts. came from Hol-
land. (M'Culloch's Com. Did.; Trans. High.
Soc. ; Quart. Journ. -^gr.)

To prepare Butter for a warm climate. — When
butter is to be exposed to the heat of a warm
climate, it should be purified by melting before
it is salted and packed up. For this purpose
let it be put into a proper vessel, and this im-
mersed into another vessel containing water.
Let the water be heated until the butter is tho-
roughly melted. Let it continue in this state
for some time, when the impure parts will sub-
side, leaving at the top a perfectly pure trans-
parent oil. This, when it cools, will become
opaque, and assume colour nearly resembling

fat of the original butter, being only some-
hat paler, and of a firmer consistence. W^hen
this refined butter is become a little stiff, but
while it is still somewhat soft, the pure part
must be separated from the dregs, and be salted

and packed up in the same manner as other
butter ; it will continue sweet much longer in
hot climates, as it retains the salt better than
in its original state. It may also be preserved
sweet, without salt, by adding to it a certain
portion of fine honey, perhaps one ounce to a
pound of butler, and mixing them together*
thoroughly, so that they may be perfectly in-
corporated. A mixture of this sort has a sweet
pleasant taste, and will keep for years without
becoming rancid: there is no doubt, therefore,
but that butter might thus be preserved in long
voyages without spoiling.

As butter made in winter and even at othef
times is mostly pale or white, and at the same
time of a poorer quality than that made during
the summer months under the most favourable
circumstances, various articles have been
mixed with it in order to produce the rich yel-
low colour associated with excellence. Those
most commonly used are the juice of the car-
rot, or flowers of the marygold, carefully ex-
pressed and strained through a linen cloth, or a
small portion of arnotta. When the juices of
the carrot and marygold are used, a small
quantity (to be determined by experience) is to
be diluted with a little cream, and this mixture
is added to the rest of the cream when put into
the churn. The quantity of colouring matter
required is so small as not to impart any par-
ticular taste to the butter. When arnotta is
used instead of these vegetable juices a por-
tion about the size of a pea is sufiicient to co-
lour sufficiently 25 lbs. of butter. It must be
first mixed with a little water and put into the
cream at the commencement of churning.
The best Spanish arnotta should be used.

The butter most esteemed in London is that
of Epping and Cambridge ; the cows which
produce the former feed during summer in the
shrubby pastures of Epping forest, and the
leaves of the trees and numerous wild plants
which there abound are supposed to improve
the flavour of the butter. It is brought to mar-
ket in rolls from one to two feet long, weighing
a pound each. The Cambridgeshire butter is
produced from the milk of cows that feed one
part of the year on chalky uplands, and the
other in rich meadows or fens ; it is made up
into long rolls like the Epping butter, and
generally salted, not cured, before brought to
market. By washing it, and working the salt
out of it, the London cheesemongers often sell
it at a high price for fresh Epping butter.

The butter of the mountains of Wales ana
Scotland, and the moors, commons, and heaths
of England, is of excellent quality, when it is
properly managed ; and though not equal in
quantity, it often is confessedly superior to that
produced from the richest meadows. Bad but-
ter is more frequently the result of mismanage-
ment, want of cleanliness, and inattention, than
I of any other cause. Ireland would produce
I the finest butter in the empire, were it not lor
I the intolerably filthy state of their cows, and
I the want of cleanliness in their dairies.

In packing fresh butter, prepared for imme-

! diate use or sale, the leaves of cabbage, white

beet, or of the garden orache, are preferred in

I England. The bottom of the basket should be

bedded with a thick cloth, folded two or three

BUTTER AND EGGS.

BUTTERNUT.

times ; tnen a thin gauze dipped in cold water,
spread over it, on which the prints or rolls of
butter are to be placed, each with one or more
leaves beneath, and smaller ones over it. The
lowermost layer being adjusted, fold half of
the gauze cloth over it, put in another layer in
the same way, and then cover with the re-
mainder of the gaze. The butter should be put
into the basket, as well as taken from thence,
without being touched.

Whey butter, as its name implies, is butter
made from the whey which is taken from the
curd, after the milk is coagulated for the
manufacture of cheese. It is chiefly made in
those counties where cheese is manufactured,
and where it forms no inconsiderable part of
the profits of the dairy. In the county of Derby
more butter is said to be made from whey than
from the cream of milk, or from milk churned
altogether.

Whey is divided into two sorts, green and
white, the former escaping readily from the
curd, while the latter is freed from it by means
of pressure. "There are different methods of
extracting the whey. In some dairies the whole
whey, when taken from the cheese-tub, is put
into pails or other vessels, where it remains
for about twenty-four hours; when it is
creamed, and the whey is applied to the use
of calves and pigs, which are said to thrive as
well on it, after the cream has been taken from
it, as before. The cream, when skimmed off
the whey, is put into a brass pan and boiled,
and afterwards set in pans or jars, where it re-
mains till a sufficient quantity for a churning
be procured, which, in large dairies, happens
generally once, but sometimes twice, in the
week." In Ayrshire whey is given to horses.
(Loud, Encyc. of ^A^ndture.) See Dairt.

BUTTER and EGGS. See Toad-Flax.

BUTTER-CUP, butter-flower, or upright
meadow crow's foot {Ranunculus bulbosus,
Smith). (PI. 10, /.) A common perennial
weed, abounding in meadows and pastures,
and blooming in May. The whole plant is
extremely acrid, so as often to be employed by
country people to raise a blister. Bees are,
however, very fond of it; it is eaten by sheep
and goats; but horses, cows, and swine refuse
it; drying destroys its acrimony. The roots
are perennial, and bulbous ; the stem rises a
foot high, and bears its yellow flowers on the
ends of its branches.

Dr. Darlington says that some fifteen or
twenty species of ranunculus have been enu-
merated in the United States. (Flor. Cestrica.)

BUTTERFLY. The common English name,
says Brande {Diet, of Science), of an extensive
group of insects, as they appear in their last
and fully developed state, when they constitute
the most beautiful and elegant examples of
their class. These insects belong to the order
Lepidoptera^ and to the section Diurna of La-
treille, or the genus Papilio of Linnaeus. The
eggs of the butterfly are deposited on such
plants as afford the nutriment most appropriate
to the caterpillars, that are to be excluded
from them ; thus, the common white butterfly
{Pie7-is brassircB) and other species, oviposit
upon cabbages, and hence have been termed
braasicaria; the gaudy peacock butterfly lays

her eggs upon the nettle. The eggs are coated
with a glutinous secretion as they are excluded
from the parent, and thus they are provided
with the means of adhesion to the leaves or
stems of the plants selected. See Catek-

PILLARS.

BUTTERNUT {Jttglans cathartira vel Cine-
rea). A species of walnut growing in the
United States, in different parts of which it is
known by difl^erent names. In the New Eng-
land States it generally takes the name of oil-
nut; in some of the Middle States it is called
white walnut; but from New York to the Caro-
linas, and from Pennsylvania to Ohio, the most
common name is butternut. The region of
this tree is very extensive, as it is found from
Upper and even Lower Canada to the Flo-
ridas, and from the Atlantic to the Missouri.
Even in Vermont and other cold regions its
growth is so luxuriant that it attains a circum-
ference of eight or ten feet. Michaux mea-
sured some in New Jersey nearly opposite
New York, growing on the steep and elevated
banks of the Hudson, where the soil was cold
and unproductive, and found them, five feet
from the ground, ten or twelve feet in circum-
ference, and fifty feet high, with roots running
along the surface of the ground in a serpentine
direction, and with little variation in size, to
the distance of forty feet. The limbs gene-
rally branch off" at a small height above the
base, and spread themselves widely, which
gives the tree a striking appearance.

In the spring its vegetation is forward, and
its leaves unfold a fortnight earlier than those
of the hickory. The black walnut and butter-
nut, when young, resemble each other, in their
foliage, and in the rapidity of their growth ;
but when arrived at maturity, their forms are
so different as to be distinguishable at first
sight. Remarkable peculiarities are also found,
on examining their wood, especially when
seasoned. The black walnut is heavy, strong,
and of a dark-brown colour ; while the butter-
nut is light, of little strength, and of a reddish
hue. But they possess in common the great
advantage of lasting long, and of being se-
cure from the annoyance of worms. The
wood of the butternut is used for the sleepers
and posts of frame houses and bams, for post
and rail fences, troughs for cattle, &c. For
corn-shovels and wooden dishes, it is preferred
to the red-flowering maples, because it is lighter
and less liable to split; consequently hollow
ware and other articles made of it sell at
higher prices. In Vermont the wood is used
for the panels of coaches and chaises, being
well adapted for this purpose, not only from
its lightness, but because it is not liable to
split. It receives paint in a superior manner,
I its pores being very open, more so than those
I of poplar and bass-wood.
j The bark of the butternut possesses medi-
cinal properties of a cathartic nature which
have been highly recommended both by the
testimony of the regular faculty and popular
practice. An extract prepared from the bark
is prescribed by American physicians in doses
of from half a drachm to a drachm to adults.
In the revolutionary war when supplies of
foreign medicines were cut oflT, the extract of,

843

BUTTERWORT.

BUTTONWOOD.

butternut was considered an admirable sub-
stitute for jalap. At present it is but little
resorted to except in domestic practice in the
country, where many of the farmer's wives
make a preparation in the spring for the use
of themselves and their neighbours. They
usually boil the bark entire in water, till the
liquid is reduced, by evaporation, to a thick,
viscid substance, which is almost black.
This is a faulty process ; the exterior bark
should first be removed, for by continuing the
boiling, it soaks up nearly four-fifths of the
liquid, already charged with rich extractive
matter. In the country the bark is sometimes
employed for dyeing wool of a dark-brown
colour; but the bark of the black walnut is
preferable for this purpose.

If the trunk of the butternut is pierced in
the month which precedes the unfolding of the
leaves, a pretty copious discharge ensues of a
slightly sugary sap, from which, by evapora-
tion, sugar is obtained of a quality inferior to
that of the sugar maple. (^Michaux's American
Sylva.)

BUTTERWORT (Pinguicula vulgaris). A
perennial weed growing in moist soils, as bogs
and wet heaths. The viscid exudation of the
leaves, which are thick and glutinous, says
Smith (Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 29), is reputed to
be good for the sore teats of cows, whence the
Yorkshire name of this plant, sanicle. The
country people make it into a syrup as a pur-
gative, and boil it with their garden herbs in
broth as a remedy in colds. An ointment
made from butterwort is also used for chapped
hands, and to rub upon animals when bitten
by an adder or slow-worm.

Mr. Nuttall enumerates four species of this
plant found in the United States, all of which,
he says, grow nearly on a level with the ocean,
in moist pine-barrens. (^Genera of North Jim.
Plants.)

BUTTONWOOD, or SYCAMORE, the Pla-
tanus occidentalis, or western plane tree, of na-
turalists.

Among trees with deciduous leaves, none
in the temperate zones, either on the old or
new continent, equals the dimensions of the
planes. The species which grows in the West-
ern World is not less remarkable for its am-
plitude and for its magnificent appearance than
the plane of Asia, whose majestic form and
extraordinary size was so much celebrated by
the ancients.

In the Atlantic States this tree is commonly
known by the name of buttonwood, and some-
times, in Virginia, by that of water-beech.
, On the banks of the Ohio, and in the states of
Kentucky and Tennessee, it is most frequently
called sycamore, and by some persons plane-
tree. The French of Canada and of Upper
Louisiana give it the name of cotton tree.

The buttonwood is abundant and very vigor-
ous along the great rivers of Pennsylvania and
of Virginia; though in the more fertile val-
leys of the West, its vegetation is perhaps still
^re luxuriant, especially on the banks of the
^io and rivers emptying into it. The bottoms
watered by these rivers are covered with dark
forests, composed of trees of extraordinary
size. T^h^ soil is very deep, loose, of a brown

colour, and unctuous to the touch, formed ap-
parently of the slime deposited in the course
of ages by the annual overflowing of the rivers.
The fertility derived from this source is in-
creased by accumulations of decayed vegetable
matter furnished by leaves and the trees them-
selves. A degree of fertility is thus attained
by the vegetable mould without example in
Europe, and which is manifested ^by prodigies
of vegetation. In such situations the button-
wood is found to be the largest tree in the
United States, although in point of loftiness it
is exceeded by the tulip poplar, and still more
the white pine. Often, with a trunk of several
feet in diameter, the plane tree begins to branch
out at the height of sixty or seventy feet, near
the summits of surrounding trees; and often
the base divides itself into several trunks
equally vigorous and superior in diameter to
all other trees in the vicinity. "On a little
island in the Ohio, fifteen miles above the
mouth of the Muskingum, my father," says
Michaux, " measured a buttonwood which, at
five feet from the ground, was forty feet and
four inches in circumference, and consequently
more than thirteen feet in diameter. Twenty
years before. General Washington had mea-
sured the same tree, and found it to be of
nearly the same size." The same distinguished
naturalist mentions another tree which he and
his travelling companion had measured, and
found, at the height of four feet above the
ground, forty-seven feet in circumference
This tree, which grew on the right bank of the
Ohio, about thirty-six miles from Marietta, still
exhibited the appearance of vigorous vegeta-
tion, and began to shoot out its limbs twenty-
feet above the groimd. A buttonwood of equal
size is mentioned, as existing in Tennessee.
"The extraordinary dimensions of these trees
recalls," says Michaux, "the famous plane
tree of Lycia, spoken of by Pliny, the trunk
of which, hollowed by time, afforded a retreat
for the night to the Roman Consul Licinius
Mutianus, with eighteen of his followers. The
interior of this grotto was represented to be
seventy feet in circumference, and the summit
of the tree resembled a small forest."

The most striking resemblance, in the ma-
jesty of their form and in the enormous size
of their trunk, thus appears to exist between
the only two species of plane that have been
discovered. It is difficult to mark any differ-
ence in the colour and organization of their
wood. The American species is generally
thought, in Europe, to possess a richer foliage
and to afford a deeper shade than the Asiatic
plane. Its leaves are of a beautiful green,
alternate, from five to ten inches broad, less
deeply lobed, and formed with more open an-
gles than those of the plane of the Eastern
continent. In some places where this tree is
very abundant, it has been a source of alarm
to the neighbouring inhabitants, who believe
that the fine down from the leaves, floating in
the air, produces an irritation of the lungs and
predisposes to consumption. There appears
to be little if any foundation for such an ap-
prehension.

According to Michaux's observations, the
buttonwood does not venture towards the north-

BUXUS.

CABBAGE.

east, beyond Portland, in the latitude of 40° 30' ;
but farther west, in 73° of longitude, it is found
two degrees farther north, at the extremity of
Lake Champlain and at Montreal. Proceed-
ing from Boston and the shores of Lake
Champlain towards the west and the south-
west, the buttonwood is continually met with
over a vast tract, comprising the Atlantic and
Western States, and extending beyond the
Mississippi.

The wood of the plane tree speedily decays
when exposed to the atmosphere. Hence it is
only adapted for work that is sheltered from
the weather, and when thoroughly seasoned,
it may be usefully employed in the interior of
houses for joists, &c. Though never used in
the construction of large vessels, it has been
hollowed out into canoes, one of which, former-
ly on the river Wabash, made of a single tree,
was sixty-five feet long, and carried nine thou-
sand pounds. (Mirhaux's Am. Sylva.)

BUXUS. The boxwood, of which botanists
commonly enumerate three species : 1. The
arboresrens, with oval leaves. 2. The angusti-
folia, with narrow leaves. 3. The sufft-uticosa,
the species usually employed in the bordering
of flower-beds. The first two, when allowed
to grow in a natural manner, are deciduous
shrubs of fine appearance. All the species
are easily cultivated. The wood is extremely
hard and capable of being wrought with great
neatness by the turner. It is also used by the
engravers on wood to cut figures upon.

BYRE. A term made use of in some places
to signify a cow-house. It is commonly em-
ployed in the northern parts of England, and
in Scotland ; and they are differently denomi-
nated, according to the uses to which they are
applied : thus, there are feeding-byres, turnip-
byres, &c.

BYSLINS. A provincial word signifying
the first milk of a new-calved cow.

, CABBAGE (Fr. cabui; probably from cab,
old Fr.for head, top, or extremity. Ital.caftumo;
Dutch, kabuys. "But the form of the cabbage,
resembling a head, shows caput to be the ori-
ginal."— Todd's Johnson. Lat. brassica ; from
9rfa.9i-)Q>, a garden herb ; or perhaps from brachia,
from its numerous sprouts). A bienaial genus
of plants, of which there are a large number
of species and innumerable varieties. Many
are extensively cultivated in the vicinity of
London ; and several kmds are also grown by
the farmer for the purpose of feeding his cattle
and sheep. Our field and garden cabbages,
with their varieties, have originated from the
Brassica oleracea, or culinary cabbage, an indi-
genous sort of colewort growing principally
on cliffs near the sea-coast. It is found abun-
dantly at Dover. (Smith's English Flora, vol. iii.
p. 220.) The cabbage, says Mr. Amos (Comm.
ta Board of Jgrirulture, vol. iv. p. 178), is a most
invaluable plant, very productive, accessible
at all times, and is an infallible supply for
sheep-feeding during the spring months, espe-
cially for ewes in lamb. Beasts and sheep are

all exceedingly fond of cabbages. It may be
of some importance to the farmer to be in-
formed that among all the plants of the natural
order to which the cabbage belongs, not one
perhaps is possessed of any really deleterious
property. Among nearly one thousand spe-
cies (as Dr. Lindley observes), scattered over
the face of the world, all are harmless, and
many highly useful. The innumerable varie-
ties arise from difference of soil and cultiva-
tion ; and as all the cabbage tribe form hybrids,
new varieties are continually produced. This
is effected by the bees, when different sorts are
in flower. Hence, only one variety should be
in flower at the same time in any garden or
field, when we wish to keep the sort unadulte-
rated, particularly if some sorts have expanded
leaves, and others close heads. It is thus only
that the excellent small miniature cabbage,
which grows on the stem of the Brussels
sprout, can be kept in perfection. The differ-
ent sorts of cabbage most prized for the gar-
den are chiefly divided into the close-hearting
and the spreading. Of the first, the York and
the savoys are the most common ; of the latter,
the coleworis and Scotch kale. (Penny Cyclo.
vol. vi. p. 92.) Of the genus brassica, or cab-
bage, the species chiefly interesting to the
farmer, and the objects of cultivation, are,
1. Common turnip (B. Rapa) ; 2. Wild navew
{B. campestris); 3. Rape or cole (B. Napus);
4. Early cole (B.pracox); 5. Cabbage (B. ole-
racea). These species may be cultivated nearly
in the same manner, but they may produce
small fusiform roots when they are cultivated
for their leaves, or for their seeds, which yield
oils; or they may produce large esculent roots
when they are cultivated chiefly for their roots.
(Lotv's Elem. of Prac. Jgric. p. 290.) The dif-
ferent kinds of cabbage in cultivation may,
adds Professor Low (p. 307), be arranged in
different classes, according to their general
aspect and more popular characters : — 1. Those
which bear their leaves or stalks without their
being formed into a head. Some of these have
crisped leaves, and are a class of hardy pot-
herbs everywhere familiar in the culture of
the garden; others have smoothish leaves, with
long branched stems. These comprehend the
largest and most productive of all the cabbages,
— the Jersey cole, the thousand-headed cab-
bage, and others. 2. Those whose leaves are
formed into a large head. These comprehend
the larger cabbages cultivated in the fields.
The savoys of our gardens are allied to this
class. 3. Those whose roots become napiform,
as the kohl-rabe. 4. Those in which the stem
divides, and forms a corymbose head, as in
the cauliflower and broccoli.

The cabbages of the first class, with crisped
leaves, frequently termed greens, are very
hardy. They are cultivated pretty extensively
in some parts of the north of Europe ; but in
others they are chiefly regarded as potherbs,
and confined to the garden. The branched
kinds with smoothish leaves are the most pro-
ductive ; but at the same time they demand a
good soil and favourable climate. Their leaves
are stripped off as they are required for use ;
and as these are constantly supplied by fresh
leaves, the plants yield a succession of forage
' X 2 245

CABBAGE.

CABBAGE.

throughout a great part of the se^on, and they
remain growing for several )'ears.

There are different varieties of these larger
cabbages, which are more or less valued in
the places where they are cultivated. The
thousand-headed cabbage, chou a mille teles, is
remarked as possessing a greater number of
shoots ; the cow cabbage, Cesarian cole or
tree cabbage, as growing more to one stem,
and producing cream-coloured flowers ; the
Jersey cole, as being similar in its growth, and
producing yellow flowers. In the Netherlands,
and the Channel Islands, where the cultivation
of these plants is well understood, they are
sown in beds in autumn, and planted out in
succession from November till February.
About the month of April the farmers begin
with the first sown, to strip off their under
leaves for use. They give them to their cows,
hogs, geese, and other stock, cutting them in
.small pieces, and mixing them with bran and
other farinaceous substances. During the
summer they continue this process of strip-
ping off the leaves, the plant in the meantime
rising to the height of several feet. (Gard.
Mag. vol. V.) This plant requires a good soil
and plentiful manure, and is regarded as a
great exhauster of the soil. It perhaps yields
a larger proportion of nutriment within the
same period than any other forage plant. It
may be presumed that it is not well fitted for
general cultivation, and in England will only
succeed in favourable situations, as the south
of England and Ireland, and the beautiful little
islands where it is now cultivated. When fed
to milch cows, the decayed leaves should be
carefully removed, as when eaten they impart
an unpleasant taste to the milk.

The next class (continues Professor Low)
consists of those in which the root becomes
napiform. The principal variety is the kohl-
rabe or purple turnip cabbage (Brasska oleracea
var. caulo-rapa). This plant is cultivated in
Germany and the north of Europe. It is valued
as a resource for cattle in winter. While it
produces a -root like a turnip, it at the same
time sends forth stems bearing leaves like a
cabbage. It is not only hardy, but keeps better
in store than any plant of the cabbage kind.
It may be cultivated in the same manner as
the Swedish and yellow turnips ; but the expe-
riments that have been made with it in this
country lead to the inference that it is not
equal to those turnips for the purpose of feed-
ing. The cabbages of the last-mentioned class,
as the cauliflower and the broccoli, are entirely
limited to the garden. The kinds of the cab-
bage which are best suited for field-crops and
the support of cattle, are the York, or large
Scotch, the ox-head, the drum-head, the red-
veined, and the American, which commonly
produce heads of 10 to 20 lbs., and not unfre-
quently arrive to upwards of 30 lbs. weight.
The above and other names, however, are fre-
quently applied where there is no leal distinc-
Uon. The most productive of these are the
Aum-headed and American ; but the red-veined
OTd Scotch stand the winter best. They are
all known by their large leaves, which, as the
plant advances, collapse and form a dense
head. The large field cabbages are those

246

which are generally considered as the best
suited to farm culture, and are therefore those
most commonly planted; but the species
known as the sugar-loaf cabbage, and so called
from its pointed form, though rarely exceeding
from 5 to 7 lbs., may yet be in many cases
found more advantageous, for it can be grown
on land of more ordinary quality than the other
kinds ; it is hardier in constitution, more solid
and nutritive, and the inferiority of its weight
may be in a great degree made up by the
smallness of its size allowing of the plants
being set closer together. (Brit. Hush. vol. ii.
p. 255.) Of the different kinds, therefore, it
appears that the large field cabbage, whatever
name it may receive, is that which is best
suited for common field culture. This plant
impoverishes the soil very much. In collect-
ing the produce for consumption, the plants
(says the late Mr. Sinclair) should be drawa
up by the roots, and not merely cut over, as is
often practised to the detriment of the soil.
The different varieties above enumerated afford
about equal quantities of nutritive matter. The
nutritive matter of the cabbage is wholly solu-
ble in water ; that of the potato only partially
so, for a great proportion of the potato consists
of starch. According to Mr. Sinclair's experi-
ments—

Nutr.
Mailer,

7000 ers. or 1 lb. of the drum-head cab-
bage (B. oleracea capitata) contains 430

7000 grs. Early Y«irk cabbaee {B. vler.,
var.) 430

7000 grs. Wobiirn perennial kale (B. oler.
Jimbriata pereniiis) . . - . 438

7000 grs. Green curled kale(B.oZer.?)iri<ZJs) 440

Purple borecole, or kale (J5. uler. g

laciniata) - - - - - - 448 1120

7000 grs. bulb of turnip-rooted cabbage
(B. raj>a, var.) 400

7000 grs. leaves or tops of ditto - - 252

And upon an analysis of the respective ave-
rage nutritive qualities of each species of root,
cabbages were generally found superior to
common turnips, in the proportion of 107^ to
80, and inferior to Swedes in that of 107^ to
110. Carrots are more nutritive than cabbages,
in the proportion of 187 to 107^. (Hort. Gram.
Wob. p. 407, 408.) It is, however, the opinion
of an experienced farmer (Mr. Brown of Mar-
kle), that the culture of cabbage, taking into
consideration the greater consumption of ma-
nure, and the superior nature of the requisite
soil, does not afford advantages to be compared
with the scourge it occasions to the land.
{Brit. Husb. vol. ii. p. 258.)

It is no uncommon thing to raise single cab-
bages that weigh 40 lbs.: calculating the roots
upon an acre to average each 20 lbs., and one
to be planted on every square yard, the produce
would yield 43 tons. Althoiigh it frequently
averages 30 tons, few crops, except under very
favourable circumstances, would reach to that
extent. Cabbages are greatly esteemed by
those farmers who have land capable of grow-
ing them, from their forming a substitute for
turnips during frosty weather, and also afford-
ing an admirable change of food for cattle, by
I whom they are much relished; and they are
also found to be very nutritious for stall-feed-
ing, or for the dairy, when used with the addi-
tion of sound hay. Hogs prefer them to turnips.

Woody
Fibre,

932

880

320
360J

CABBAGE.

CABBAGE.

and they are excellent for rearing calves and j
toothless crones. An acre of good cabbages '
is therefore considered by many as worth two
of turnips, and is certainly equal to one and
a half.

Woburn perennial kale is a valuable variety
of the open-growing cabbage, which has been
recently introduced, and appears far superior
in amount of produce to either the green, pur-
ple, or borecole, and requires less manure. It
has also this advantage, that it continues highly
productive for many years, without further
trouble or expense. Propagated by planting,
in beginning of April, cuttings taken from the
stems and branches of old plants. The seed
is apt to produce spurious plants. For the
table it is not inferior to the best kinds of
greens or kale ; and for the farm and cottage
garden, its highly productive powers and
cheapness of culture promise to render this
plant highly valuable. Its perennial habit
places it out of the reach of the yearly acci-
dents of weather, bad seed, and depredations
•of insects, to which all other varieties sown
annually are subject. (Trans. Hort. Hoc. Lond.
vol. V. arL 40.)

The turnip-rooted or bulb-stalked cabbage (B.
olerarea, var.) is distinguished by its irregularly-
shaped root, and the swelling of the stalk in
upper part, which forms a kind o( round fleshy
head at the end of the stem on which the leaves
are produced. It is a native of Germany, and
was first introduced from thence by Sir Thomas
Tyrwhitt, under the name of kohl-rabe. (De-
candolle, in Trans. Hort. Soc. vol. v. art. 1.) The
produce is nearly the same as that of Swedish
turnips, and the soil that suits the one is equally
good for the other. Two pounds of the seed
will produce a sufficiency of plants for one
acre : 64 drs. of the bulb of kohl-rabe afford
10.5 grs. of nutritive matter. (Hoit.Gram.lVob.
p. 411.)

The turnip-rooted cabbage is a hybrid pro-
duction between the cabbage and turnip, which
both belong to the same genus; and the various
kinds which have becomedisseminated through-
out Europe are so confused in nomenclature,
that it has become difficult to state their pro-
perties with any great degree of precision, or
to draw any certain inferences to guide us in
their use. (Brit. Husb. vol. ii. p. 259.)

These species of brassica are but little cul-
tivated, and at most a very small quantity of
each is in request. The bulbs, for which they
are cultivated, must have their thick outer skin
removed, and in other respects treated as tur-
nips in preparing them for use. Qf the turnip
cabbage, which is so named on account of the
round fleshy protuberance that is formed at the
upper end of the stem, there are four varieties :
1. White turnip cabbage; 2. Purple turnip
cabbage ; 3. Fringed turnip cabbage ; 4. Dwarf
early turnip cabbage.

Of the turnip-rooted cabbage, which is dis-
tinguished from the above by its root having
the protuberance near the origin of the stem,
there are two varieties, the white and the red.
(Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond. vol. v. p. 18 — 24.) They
are propagated by seed, which may be sown
broadcast or in drills, at monthly intervals, in
small quantities, from the commencement of

April until the end of June. The best mode is
to sow thin, in drills two feet and a half apart,
and allow the plants to remain where sown,
the plants being thinned to a similar distance
apart; or, if sown broadcast, to allow them to
remain in the seed-bed until of sufficient size
to be removed into rows at similar distances
for production, rather than, as is the practice
of some gardeners, to transplant them, when
an inch or two in height, into a shady border,
in rows three inches apart each way, to be
thence removed as above stated.

"Water must be given every night after a re-
moval, until the plants are again established;
and afterwards in dry weather occasionally, as
may appear necessary.

Earth may be drawn up to the stem of the
turnip cabbage, as to other species of brassica;
but the bulb of the turnip-rooted must not be
covered with the mould. -

For directions to obtain seed, &c., see Broc-
coli, Tunxip, &c. (G. W. Johnson.)

The red cabbage differs from the common
cabbage in nothing but its colour, which is a
purplish or brownish red. The varieties are
three in number; the large, the dwarf, and the
Aberdeen red. It is chiefly used for pickling,
and the dwarf red is considered the best sort.
Cultivated precisely similar to the white cab-
bage. The cabbage is not nearly so exten-
sively cultivated in this country as it ought to
be. It is not only a valuable food for live
stock, rarely misses plant, and is come-at-able
in all weathers ; but it is exceedingly useful to
fill up the spaces on the ridges where the
Swedes and common turnips have missed
plant. 1000 parts of pabbage contain 73 parts
of nutritive matters. (F.rit.Husb. vol. ii. ; Bax-
ter's Jgr. Lib.; Sinclair's Hort. Gram. Wob.;
Low's El. Jgr.; Com. Board of Jgr., vol. iv.;
Quart. J. Jpr., vol. vii. p. 76.)

The cauliflower is considered the easiest to
be digested of all the various species of cab-
bage. It is not destitute of utility in a medici-
nal way; a decoction of red cabbage being
supposed capable of relieving acrimonious hu-
mours in some disorders of the breast, and also
in hoarseness. ( IVillich's Dom. Encyc.) A cab-
bage leaf placed on any fleshy part acts in
keeping open a blister; but it should be fre-
quently changed, as it speedily becomes cor-
rupt. The seed, bruised and boiled, is good in
broth.

Garden Cabbages. — For the seed-bed the soil
should be moist, mouldy, and not rich; but for
final production it should be afresh, moderately
rich, clayey loam, though very far removed
from heavy, as they delight in one that is fret;
and mouldy. Such crops as have to withstand
the winter may have a lighter compartment
allotted to them; the savoy, in particular, re-
quires this, though it may be as rich as for the
other crops, without any detriment: an extreme
of richness is, however, for all the crops to 1x5
avoided. The ground is advantageously dug
two spades deep, and should be well pulverized
by the operation. Stable manure is usually
employed in preparing the ground for this
genus ; but Mr. Wood, of Queen sferry, N. B.,
who has for the greater part of his life paid
particular attention to the cultivation of broc-

U7

CABBAGE.

CABBAGE.

coli, recommends the following compositions
in preference for that vegetable, and we are
justified in concluding that they would be
equally beneficial to all the other species. The
manure collected from the public roads, used
aJone, causes the plants to grow strong, but
with small heads. A mixture of road-rakings,
sea-weed, and horse-dung is better. A manur-
ing of the compartment on which they were
intended to be planted with sea-weed in a'l-
tumn, digging it up rough, repeating the appli-
cation in spring, and pointing the ground before
planting, produced the finest heads he had ever
seen; but the compost of all others most suita-
ble to them is one composed of the cleanings
of old ditches, tree leaves, and dung. (Mem.
Caled. Hort. Soc. vol. ii. p. 265.) The situation
must in every instance be free and open,
though, for the summer crops, it is advanta-
geous to have them shaded from the meridian
sun. They must never, however, be under the
drip of trees, or in confined situations ; for in
such they, and especially savoys, are most
subject to be infested with caterpillars, and to
grow weak and spindling. In planting cab-
bage, it should be observed whether the roots
of the plants are knotted or clubbed, as such
should be rejected, or the excrescence entirely
removed.

The numerous varieties of the cabbage, adds
Mr. G. W, Johnson, may be divided into three
classes, as most appropriate for sowing at an
equal number of periods of the year. It may
be here remarked, that, for family use, but few
should be planted of the early varieties, as
they soon cabbage, harden, and burst; on the
contrary, the large York, and others that are
mentioned in the middle class, though not far
behind the others in quick cabbaging, never
become hard, and continue long in a state fit
for the table.

For First Crops. — Early dwarf; York; early
dwarf sugar-loaf; early Battersea ; early im-
perial ; East Ham.

Midsummer Crops. — Large early York ; large
sugar-loaf; early Battersea; early imperial:
these mentioned again as being valuable for
successional crops also. Penton, this is valu-
able in late summer, when other varieties are
strongly tasted. Antwerp, Russian; to have
this in perfection, the seed must be had from
abroad, as it soon degenerates in this country.
Early London hollow. Musk is excellent at
any period, but is apt to perish in frosty
weather.

For Autumn, S^c. — Large hollow sugar-loaf;
large oblong hollow ; long-sided hollow, and
any of the preceding ; red Dutch for pickling.

The cabbage is propagated by seed, the sow-
ing of which commences with the year. To-
wards the end of January, on a warm border,
or under a frame, a small portion of the early
and red cabbages may be sown, to come first
in succession after those which were sown in
the August of the preceding year. A sowing
may be repeated after intervals of a month

uring February, and until the close of July

f the second or larger class, and from May to

July of the third class of varieties. In August

a full and last crop must be sown of the first

class, as well as of the second, both to plant

248

out in October, November, and December, as
to remain in the seed-beds for final removal in
the February and two succeeding months of
the next year : this sowing is best performed
during the first or second week of the month ;
if sown earlier, they are apt to run in the
spring ; and if later, will not attain sufficient
strength to survive the winter. By these va-
rious sowings, which, of course, must be small
ones for a private family, a constant supply is
afforded throughout the year. The seed is
inserted broadcast rather thin, and raked in
evenly about a quarter of an inch deep. The
bed is advantageously shaded with mats, and
occasionally watered until the plants are well
above ground ; and the waterings may after-
wards be beneficially repeated two or three
times a week until they are ready for removal,
if dry hot weather continues. The seedlings
arising from these various sowings, when of
about a month's growth, or when they have
got four or five leaves an inch or so in breadth,
are, by those who are advocates for transplant-
ing, pricked out in rows four or five inches
asunder each way; they must be shaded and
watered until completely established : those of
the August sowing that are pricked out are to
remain until the next spring, and those which
are left in the seed-bed are employed for plant-
ing in October and two following months.

When of six or eight weeks' growth, they are
of sufficient size for planting, which they are
to be in rows from one and a half to two and a
half feet asunder each way; the smaller early
kinds being planted the closest. The red cab-
bage, the principal plantation of which should
be made in March for pickling in September,
is benefited by having the distances enlarged
to three feet. They must be well watered at
the time of removal, and frequently afterwards,
until fully established, in proportion as dry
weather occurs. They must be frequently
hoed to keep under the weeds, as perhaps no
plant is more injured by them than the cab-
bage ; and as soon as their growth permits it,
the earth should be drawn round the stems of
the plants. To promote the cabbaging of the
plants, when requisite, it is useful to draw the
leaves together with a shred of bass-mat,
which forwards it about a fortnight. If any
plants advance to seed whilst very young, the
deficiencies should be immediately filled up.
The stems of the summer and autumn crops,
if left after the main head has been cut, will
produce numerous sprouts during those sea-
sons, and continue to do so throughout the
winter. For the production of seed in Octo-
ber, which is the preferable season, and from
thence until the close of February, some of
the finest and best cabbage plants must be
selected ; or in default of these, though not by
any means to be recommended, such of their
stalks as have the strongest sprouts. They
must have the large outer leaves removed, and
then be inserted up to their heads, in rows
three feet asunder each way. Each variety
must be planted as far from any other as pos-
sible, as indeed from every other species of
I brassica; and this precaution applies equally
to those which will be subsequently dwelt
I upon. The red cabbage especially must be

CABBAGE.

CALAMINT, COMMON.

kept distinct. Some plants of the early varie- 1
ties should be planted in sheltered situations,
as in severe winters thny are apt to run pre-
maturely.

Frame Seedlings.— The first sowing of the
year in a hotbed must be carefully attended to.
The heat must never exceed 55°, nor sink
more than two or three degrees beneath 50°,
which is the most favourable minimum ; other-
wise the plants will be weak and tender, or
checked and stunted. Air should be admitted
freely in the day, and the glasses covered, as
necessity requires, at night with matting; the
other offices of cultivation are the same as for
plants raised in the open ground.

Coleworts. — One of the Latin names for cab-
bage is cauUs, and from this is derived cale or
cole and colewort. Coleworts now merely
signify cabbages cut young, or previously to
their hearts becoming firm, the genuine cole-
wort or Dorsetshire cale being nearly extinct.
The varieties of cabbage principally employed
for the raising coleworts are the large York
and sugar-loaf, as they afl'ord the sweetest;
but the early York and East Ham are also em-
ployed, as also occasionally the Battersea, im-
perial, Antwerp, and early London hollow.
When large coleworts are in request, the great
spreading varieties should never be employed.

Sowings may be performed during the mid-
dle of June and .July, to be repeated at the end
of the latter month, for transplanting in August,
September, and October, for a continual sup-
ply in September until the close of March. A
fourth must be made the first week in August,
for succeeding the others in spring; but, if of
sufficient extent, these various plantations
may be made from the seed-beds of the cab-
bage crops made at these several periods, as
directed under that head ; as the chief object
in growing coleworts is to have a supply of
greens sooner than can be obtained from the
plantations of cabbages if left to form hearts.

The observations upon transplanting, and
the directions for cultivating cabbages, apply
without any modification to coleworts; but the
distance at which the plants may be set is
much less : if the rows are a foot apart, and
the plants seren or eight inches di'stant from
each other, an abundant space is allowed. As
mentioned for cabbages, the heading is greatly
forwarded by their leaves being drawn to-
gether so as to enclose the centre. They may
be cut when the leaves are five or six inches
in breadth. The most preferable mode of
taking them is to pull «p or cut every other
one ; these openings are beneficial to the re-
maining plants; and some, especially of the
August-raised plants, may be left, if required,
for cabbaging.

Colewort, or Dorsetshire cale, is now nearly
superseded by the new cabbages of modern
times. The wild coleworts grow in ditches
and moist places.

Savoy — ( Brassica olerarea sabauda). — The
savoy, which is one of the best and chief of
our vegetable supplies during the winter, de-
rives its name either from being an introduc-
tion from that part of Europe with which it
hears a similar name, or, otherwise, is a cor-
ruption from the French savourer. All its
32

varieties may be denominated hardy, being
generally rendered more sweet and tender by
frost, though not all equally capable of with-
standing the rigour of winter. There are three
varieties of savoy, — the yellow, the dwarf, and
the green : and of each of these there are like-
wise two sub-varieties, the round and the
oval-headed, the first of which is the most
permanent. Each variety has been described
by Mr. Morgan, gardener to H. Brown, Esq.,
of North Mimms. Like the other members
of this tribe, it is propagated by seeds ; the first
sowing to take place at the close of February,
the plants of which are ready for pricking out
in April, if that practice is adopted, and for
final planting at the end of May for use in
early autumn; this to be repeated about the
middle of March, the plants to be pricked out
in May for planting in June, to supply the table
in autumn and early winter; lastly, the main
crops must be sown in April and early May,
to prick out and plant after similar intervals
for production in winter and spring. The seed
is sown broadcast thinly, and raked in as men-
tioned for other species of brassica. The
plants are fit for pricking out when they have
four or five leaves about an inch in breadth ;
they must be set three or four inches asunder
each way, being both here and in the seed-bed
kept well cleared of weeds. When finally re-
moved, the plants of the first crops should be
set out two feet apart each way from one an-
other; but the winter standing crops are better
at two feet by eighteen inches. Both before
and after every removal they should be
watered abundantly, if the weather is at all
dry; and this application to be continued until
the plants are well established. The only
after-culture required is the keeping them
clear of weeds by frequent broad-hoeing and
the earth drawn up two or three times about
their stems. For the production of seed, such
plants must be selected of the several varieties
as are most true to their particular character-
istics, and as are not the first to run. These,
in open weather, from early in November to
the close of February, (the earlier, however,
the better,) may be taken up with as little injury
as possible to the roots, and the large under
leaves being removed, planted entirely up to
the head in rows two feet and a half each way,
each variety as far from the other as possible.
They flower in May or June, and ripen their
seed in July and August. (G. W. Johnson's
Kitchen Garden.^
I CABBAGE CATERPILLAR. This belongs
I to a genus of butterflies called the potherb
I pontia (Ponlia olerarea). See Caterpillati.
CABBAGE-CUTWORM. See Cutworm.
CABBAGE-LICE. See Aphis.
CABBAGE TREE {Chartutops palmetto). See
Palmetto.

CAG, or KEG. A vessel of the barrel kind,
containing four or five gallons.

CAIRN (Welsh cam). A heap of stones.

CAKE. See Oat Cake and Rape Cake.

I CALAMINT, COMMON {Thymus cala-

I minthn, Smith). This is a wild plant, growing

in England in hedges and dry places, flowering

from June till autumn. It is eight or ten inches

i high ; has roundish dark-green leaves, and

249

CALANDRE.

fl^AMELLIA

whitish flowers standing in whorls or little
clusters surrounding the stalks, which are
square and very much branched. Calamint
should be gathered and dried just as it is com-
ing into flower. This herb is grown in almost
every garden ; it is strong-scented, and of an
agreeable odour. Coles says it preserves meat
from taint.

Pennyroyal calamint (Mentha pulegiuniy Eng.
Flor. vol. iii. p. 87) is a medicinal herb, and
should be planted in every herbalist's garden.
It grows a foot high, with firm stalks, small
leaves of a light green colour, and hairy, and
small white purplish flowers. The pennyroyal
calamint is more erect than its elder sister, and
has a stronger but less pleasant smell. It
must be dried with care, and given in infusion.
It is a popular remedy for hysterics, and in
deficiency of the periodical change in females;
but the plant and its infusion is rarely ordered
by professional men. A water arising from
the distillation of the plant, to produce its vola-
tile oil, is used as a vehicle for more important
drugs ; and the oil dropped on sugar and rub-
bed up with water as an oleosaccharum is
sometimes employed as a carminative and an
antispasmodic, in doses of two to five drops.
There is, also, an officinal spirit of pennyroyal,
which is used for the same purposes as the oil.
This aromatic plant must not be confounded
with the common pennyroyal of the United
States. See Pennyhotal.

CALANDRE. A name given by French
writers to an insect of the scarabeeus or beetle
tribe, which frequently does great injury in
granaries. It has two antennas or horns, form-
ed of a great number of round joints, and
covered wdth a soft and short down ; from the
anterior part of the head there is thrust out
a trunk, which is so formed at the end that the
creature easily makes way with it through the
coat or skin that covers the grain, and gets at
the meal or farina on which it feeds ; the inside
of the grain is also the place where the female
deposits her eggs. See Cornweevii,.

CALCAREOUS MARL. A mineral ferti-
lizer, extensively used in many parts of Europe
and the United States. See Maiii,.

CALCAREOUS SOILS (from the Latin
calx) are soils which contain carbonate of
lime (chalk of limestone) in such a proportion
as to give it a determinate character. Calca-
reous sand is merely chalk or limestone di-
vided into pieces of the size of sand. This
variety abounds on the seashore in some parts
of the east of England, and is employed in
Devonshire and Cornwall to a very large ex-
tent as a manure, especially about Padstow
Harbour, from which bay many thousand tons
are annually carted by the Cornish farmers,
which they take free of toll, under a grant from
Richard Duke of Cornwall, another of the
45th of Henry III., a. n. 126L {Johnson on
Fertilizers,]). 17.) See Chalk; Earths, their
Uses to Vegetation; and Sorts,

tCALF, DISEASES OF (Sax. cealp, calp,-
atch, kalf). See Cattle. The most com-
on diseases of calves are —
1. Navel III. — The best treatment for this
dangerous disease is, 1st, to administer two or
three doses (each about a wine-glassful) of
250

castor oil (linseed oil does just as well, and
is much cheaper) ; and, 2dly, cordials, which
may be made of 2 drachms of caraway-seeds,
2 do. of coriander-seeds, 2 do. powdered gen-
tian ; bruise the seeds, and simmer them in
beer or gruel for a quarter of an hour; give
these once or twice a day.

2. Constipation of the Bowels. — For this doses
of castor oil (or linseed oil), of 2 or 3 oz., are
the best remedy.

3. DiarrhcEQ, or Scouring. — The farmer may
rely on the following mixture. Let him keep
it always by him; it will do for all sucking
animals : —

Prepared chalk

Canella bark, powdered

Laudanum

Water - - - .

4 ounces

1 —

1 pint.

Give two or three table-spoonfuls, according
to the size of the animal, two or three times a
day. A table-spoonful or two of powdered
chalk may be given daily or every other day,
to calves whilst sucking, mixed in a little warm
milk. It prevents the milk from turning acid,
and thus checks the tendency to diarrhcea or
looseness.

4. Hoose, or Catarrh. — Good nursing, bleed-
iri^, and then a dose of Epsom salts, with half
an ounce of ginger in it. (Youatt on Cattle,
p. 557.)

CALKERS. A name given to the prominent
or elevated part of the extremities of the shoes
of horses, which are forged thin, and turned
downwards for the purpose of preventing their
slipping. It is sometimes written calkins or

CALLUNA VULGARIS. The common
heath or ling. It abounds in peaty soils. (See
Peat Soils.) Its uses are considerable in
some districts for litter, and, when young, sheep
eat it. It is also shelter for grotise, and food
for bees. See Ling.

CALVING OF COWS. The treatment be-
fore calving is to keep the cow moderately
well, neither too fat nor too lean ; remember
that she commonly has the double duty of
giving milk and nourishing the foetus; dry
her some weeks before calving; let her bowels
be kept moderately open ; put her in a warm
sheltered place, or house her; rather reduce
her food; do not disturb her when in labour,
but be ready to assist her in case of need ; let
her have warm gruel ; avoid cold drinks. A
pint of sound good ale in a little gruel is an
excellent cordial drink.

CALYCANTHUS FLORIDUS, the sweet-
scented shrub, or, as it is also sometimes called,
Carolina allspice. See Sweet-scented Shrub.

CAM. A provincial term for a mound of
made earth.

CAMELLIA JAPONICA. A beautiful ever-
green greenhouse shrub ; but if carefully at-
tended to it will blow in the open air. It bears
single, double, and semi-double flowers, in Feb-
ruary and March ; and they are red, white,
blush-coloured, and various other tints. Plant
it under a south wall, in good rich garden
mould mixed with sand ; and shelter it during
winter with mats, or keep it in a large pot.
It cannot endure the broiling mid-day sun.
Propagate by cuttings, layers, and grafts;

CAMLET.

CAMOMILE.

and water the plants plentifully when in
flower.

CAMLET (Fr. cnmelot ,• Ital. ciambdotto ;
Span, cumlote ; from the Gr. )t:t_M»xa)T»). A
stuff or cloth made of wool, silk, and some-
times of hair combined, especially that of
goals and camels. The real oriental camlet
is made from that of the Angola goat. No
camlets are made in Europe of goat's hair
alone. France, Holland, Flanders, and Eng-
land are the chief places where this manufac-
ture is carried on. The best are made in
England, and those of Brussels stand next in
repute. It has been occasionally written came-
lot and cam'ulet.

GAMMAS. A new species of plant found
in the valley of the Columbia river. It has a
truncated root in the form of an onion, and
grows in moist rich land. It is prepared for
eating by first roasting, then pounding, after
which it is made into loaves like bread. It
has a liquorice taste, and is a food of great
importance among the Indians.

CAMMOCK (Sax). The name of a weed
infesting arable, especially chalky soils, gene-
rally known by the name of rest-harrow. See
Rest-Harrow.

CAMOMILE, CHAMOMILE, COMMON or
SWEET {jinlhcmis nobilis. From uif6«», on ac-
count of its abundance of flowers, or luxuri-
ance of growth. Fr. camomiUe; Lat. chnmo-
milla). A hardy perennial, growing on open
gravelly pastures or commons, in England,
flowering from June to September, and well
known for its use in medicine. Cattle do not
appear to touch any part of this plant. Most
of what is brought to the Loudon market is
cultivated about Mitcham, in Surrey. Every
part of the plant is intensely bitter, and grate-
fully aromatic, especially the flowers, whose
stomachic and tonic powers are justly cele-
brated. (Eng. Flora, vol. iii. p. 546.) In gar-
dens there are two varieties, — the common
single and the double-flowering. They require
a poor dry soil, otherwise they grow very
luxuriant, and become not only less capable
of withstanding severe winters, but also less
powerful in their medicinal qjialities. They
will grow in any situation almost, but the more
open the better. They are generally propa-
gated by parting the roots, and by offsets,
which may be planted from the close of Feb-
ruary until the end of May; the earlier, how-
ever, it is performed the better: this is the
most favourable season, but it may be prac-
tised in the autumn. They are also raised
from seed, the proper time of sowing which is
in any of the early spring months ; but as the
former mode is so easily practised and with
much less trouble, it is generally pursued;
though it is advisable after a lapse of several
years to raise fresh plants, the old ones often
declining in production after such lapse of
time. Being shrubby, with extending lateral
branches, they should not be planted nearer to
each other than eighteen inches, as that also
gives an opportunity to employ the hoe. Wa-
ter must be given moderately at the time of
planting, if dry weather, otherwise it is not at
all required. If raised from seed, they require
no further cultivation than to be kept free of

weeds in the seed-bed; and when three or four
inches high, to be thinned to about six inches
apart ; after which, they may remain thus
until the following spring, then be thinned and
remain, or be removed to the above-mentioned
distance apart. A very small bed will supply
the largest family. In July the flowers are
generally in perfection for gathering ; the pe-
riod for performing it, however, must be go-
verned by the aspect of the flowers themselves,
as the best time is when they are just opened.
Particular care must be taken to dry them
thoroughly before they are stored; otherwise
they will not keep. If seed is required, the
only attention necessary is to leave some of
the first opening flowers ungathered ; the seed
will ripen early in September, when the plant
may be cut, and the seed dried, and rubbed
out. (G. W. JohnsotCs Kitchen Garden.)

Camomile flowers, fresh or dried, are tonic.
They contain volatile oil, bitter extractive, tannic
acid, and pij>erina, a resinoid which was dis-
covered in them by Dr. A. T. Thomson, and
which, in conjunction with the volatile oil, ex-
plains their power of curing agues. The leaves
and flowers dried are also anodyne applied to
the bowels outwardly in fomentations. Camo-
mile tea if strong promotes vomiting. The
flowers of camomile distilled yield a fine blue
oil, like that from yarrow, which becomes yel-
low by time. It is used for cramps, &c. The
double flowers have not the same virtue which
the single ones possess. The infusion is a
useful stomachic in weakened slates of the
stomach, and as a general tonic. The strong
warm infusion is a useful emetic in low states
of the habit, and to promote the action of other
emetics. Combined with any astringent, ca-
momile is an antiperiodic and cures ague.

Smith (Engl. Flor. vol. iii. p. 457) enumerates
four other species. The sea camomile {.A. ma-
ritima) ; annual, met with on the sea-coast, but
rare ; flowers smell like tansy, the leaves like
mugwort. Corn camomile \jl. arvensis) ; an-
nual or biennial, in cultivated fields, as well as
waste ground, chiefly on a gravelly soil. The
herbage has little or no smell, but the flowers
are pleasantly scented. The stinking may-
weed, or camomile {A. cotula) ; an annual,
found in the same situation as the last. Every
part of the plant is fetid and acrid, blistering
ihe skin w hen much handled, which Dr. Hooker
justly attributes to the minute resinous dots
sprinkled over its surface. And the ox-eye
camomile {A. tinctoria), found sometimes in
stony mountainous places, growing on a bushy
stem eighteen inches high. The flowers afford
a fine yellow dye, for which, Linna?us says,
they are much used in Sweden. There are
several handsome exotic species nearly akin
to this.

CAMOMILE, WILD, or FEVER FEW
(Matricaria camomilla, PI. 10, w w). Found in
cultivated and waste ground, on dunghills, and
by roadsides ; very common about London.
Root annual, rather large and woody ; flower-
ing from May till August; stem a foot high;
flowers numerous, about the size of the com-
mon sweet camomile, and with some portion
of the same scent, of which the herbage, though
iaintly, partakes. The greatest part of the od

251

CAMPHOR TREE.

CANARY-GRASS.

of camomile found in the shops is procured
from this plant.

CAMPHOR TREE (Lanrus camphora).
Among the vegetable productions of the Old
Continent which possess a high degree of in-
terest for the United States, the camphor tree
holds an eminent place. It especially deserves
attention from the inhabitants of the Floridas,
of the lower part of the Carolinas, and of lower
Louisiana. Its multiplication in these climates
would be so easy, that after a few years it might
be abandoned to nature.

The camphor tree belongs to the same fa-
mily as the common sassafras of the United
States, though in its general character it is
most nearly related to the red bay, so com-
mon throughout the southern regions just re-
ferred to, both being evergreens of similar
height, and at a small distance looking so much
alike as to be easily mistaken for each other.

The camphor tree is a native of China, Ja-
pan, and some other parts of the East Indies,
where it often attains forty or fifty feet in height,
with a proportional diameter. The leaves are
two or three inches long, pointed at their ex-
tremities, about an inch broad, with long petioles
or stems. The young branches are green.
The flowers are small and whitish. The
leaves, bark, wood, and roots are all strongly
impregnated with the odour of camphor. The
roots especially yield this substance in great-
est quantity. They are cut to pieces, boiled
in water in large iron retorts, &c. (See Mi-
chaux's Sylva.)

Camphor may likewise be obtained from
certain plants or herbs of the class of labice,
such as lavender and mint, out not in sufficient
quantities to form an article of commerce.

CANADA ONION. See Osiois.

CANADA THISTLE (Carduus arveiisis).
This plant is widely spread in the northern
part of the state of New York, and has been
introduced into Pennsylvania and many other
parts of the Middle States, the seeds having
been sometimes mixed in timothy seed, and
sometimes entangled in the fleeces of sheep
driven from the North. The root of the Ca-
nada thistle is perennial, creeping and exceed-
ingly tenacious of life, which, with its prolific
character, for it springs up from the filaments
of the roots as well as from seed, makes it the
vilest pest in the form of a weed that has ever
invaded American farms. It is a foreigner.
The utmost vigilance will be required to pre-
vent its spread wherever it may be disco-
vered.

A great many devices have been resorted to
for the eradication and destruction of the Ca-
nada thistle. Some aim at the entire removal
of the root by means of extirpating machines,
contrived to cut ofi" and harrow up the roots.
Others rely upon mowing down the thistles
when they are in full bloom, as a most certain
method. Not content with simply cutting
down, some apply common salt to the stems

tor crowns of the roots which makes the de-
struction more sure. It is an admitted fact
that the life of trees and plants, when these are
not in the torpid state in which they are en-
abled to exist in winter, depends upon a func-
tion performed by their leaves. These are in

fact their lungs, deprived of the use of which
for a given time, during the season of their
growth, trees and plants inevitably die. Low
and frequent cutting down in summer about
the blooming period, will doubtless destroy
plants however tenacious of life they may
be, since the roots are as much indebted for
life to their leaves or lungs as the leaves are to
the roots. Neither can subsist long without
the aid of the other important members of the
system. The most usual methods, resorted to
in England, for the eradication of thistles,
couchgrass, and other weeds with creeping
and tenacious roots, will be found mentioned
under the head of Thistles. A highly inte-
resting article upon this subject, originally
published in that valuable agricultural periodi-
cal, The Genessee Farmer, and republished in
Ruffiti's Farm. Reg. vol. ii. p. 29, contains a
great deal of information relative to the ex-
termination of this pest of our plough fields. ,

CANARY-GRASS, CAT'S TAIL. See
Cat's Tail.

CANARY-GRASS (Phalaries canariensis—
PI. 4, a) is cultivated in a few parts of the south
of England, and chiefly in the Isle of Thanet.
The plant (says Prof. Low) is easily raised,
but it is of little economical importance ; it is
a native of the Canary Islands, but is found
frequently wild in cultivated and waste ground,
and has probably become naturalized. It is
an annual, with a stem from a foot to eighteen
inches high, and lively green leaves about half
an inch in width. In England it flowers from
June to August, and ripens its seed from Sep-
tember to October The seeds are sown in
February, in rows about a foot apart, four or
five gallons per acre. The reaping com mences
in September. The common yield is from
thirty to thirty-four bushels per acre. The
chaff is superior to that of every other culmi-
nous plant for horse food, and the straw, though
short, is also very nutritive. From Mr. Sin-
clair's experiments, it appears, that at the time
of flowering, the produce of this grass per
acre, from a rich clayey loam, on a tenacious
subsoil, was 54,450 lbs. ; which yielded in drj'
produce 17,696 lbs. 4 oz., nutritive matter
1,876 lbs. 2 oz. The herbage is but little nu-
tritive, and the plant cannot be recommended
for cultivation, but for the seeds only, which
are principally in demand in the neighbour-
hood of large towns, as food for small singing-
birds, particularly canaries, whence it derives
its name. The produce is generally from three
to five quarters an acre, and the actual price
is from 40s. to 42s. per quarter. The straw or
haulm is a most excellent fodder for horses.
(Hort. Gram. Wob. p. 399 ; Low's El. Prac. jSg.
p. 266 ; Brit. Hush. vol. ii. p. 329.)

The reed canary-grass {Ph. artmdinaceay
Smith's Engl. Flora, vol. i. p. 74) is very com-
mon in ditches, pools, and the margins of ri-
vers. At the time of flowering, the produce
from a black sandy loam incumbent on clay
was, —

lbs. oz.

Green produce per acre - - 27,2-25 0

Dry produce 12,251 4

Nutritive matter - - - . 1,701 9

On a Strong tenacious clay, the produce
was, —

CANCER IN CATTLE.

CANDLE.

Green produce per acre
Dry produce
Nulriiive matter

Ihf, ot.

34,031 0

17,015 8

2,126 15

From this, it appears to be much more pro-
ductive on a tenacious clay soil than on a
rich sandy loam ; the superior nutritive powers
which this grass possesses recommend it
therefore to the notice of occupiers of such
soils. The foliage cannot be considered
coarse, when compared with other grasses
which afford a produce equal in quantity.
Dry straw is a much coarser food than the hay
made from this grass, and the objection may
be met by reducing this hay to chaff. The
striped reed canary-grass has not yet been
found in a wild stale ; it is cultivated in gar-
dens for the beauty of its striped leaves : — the
common wild variety wants this distinguish-
ing feature, it grows to a greater height than
the striped-leaved variety, does not appear to
be eaten by cattle, but birds are fond of the
seeds. It comes into flower about the first and
second weeks of July, and ripens about the
middle of August. (Hart. Gram. Wob. p. 359.)
CANCER, IN CATTLE (Lat. ; Sax. can-
cei»e.) A virulent swelling or sore. Cancer
of the eye, or a perfect change of its mecha-
nism into a fleshy half-decomposed substance,
that ulcerates and wastes away, or from which
fungous growths spring that can never be
checked, is a disease of occasional occurrence
in cattle. The remedy should be extirpation
of the eye, if it were deemed worth while to
attempt iU (Lib. of Use/. Knotv., Cattle, p. 293.)
CANDLE (Lat. can'dela ; Sax. canoei ; Ital.
candelle ; Fr. chandelle ; Welsh, canwyll). A
taper or cylinder of tallow, wax, or spermaceti,
the wick of which is commonly of several
threads of cotton spun and twisted together.
Candles in England were subject for a length-
ened period to an excise duly of 3^^/. per lb.,
but this was repealed in 1831. Good tallow
candles ought to be made with equal parts of
sheep and ox tallow ; care being taken to avoid
any mixture of hog's lard, which occasions a
thick, black smoke, attended with a disagree-
able smell, and also causes the candle to run.
The farmer, if far from any town, may make
his own candles. The cotton for making the
wicks is sold, ready prepared, in balls. When
it is intended to be used for candles, a certain
wimber of pieces of it of equal length are to
be cut, and stripped through the hand to re-
move any knots or inequalities. They are
next to be affixed by one end to a rod about
three feet long, leaving about two inches be-
tween each wick. The whole is then to be
dipped into a vessel, large enough, and filled
with fluid tallow ; and this is to be repeated
three times for the first layer or coat. They
are then to be suspended in a rack over the
vessel to drain and solidify ; after which they
are to be dipped twice, and again hung up to
drain ; and so on, successively, until they ac-
quire the desired degree of thickness.

The first part of the process is the sorting
of the tallow. Mutton suet with a proportion
of ox-tallow is selected for mould candles, be-
cause it gives them gloss and consistence.
Coarser tallow is reserved for the dipped can-

dles. After being sorted, it is cut into small
pieces, preparatory to its being melted or r<?n-
dered ; and the sooner this is done after the fat
is taken from the carcase the better, because
the fibrous and fleshy matters mixed with it
promote its putrefaction. Tallow is too com-
monly melted by a naked fire applied to the
bottom of the vessel, whereas it should be done
either in a cold set pan, where the flame plays
only round the sides a little way above the bot-
tom, or in a steam-cased pan. After being
fused a considerable time, the membraneous
matters collect at the surface, constituting the
cracklings used sometimes for feeding dogs,
after the fat has been squeezed out of it by a
press. The liquid tallow is strained through
a sieve into another copper, where it is treated
with water at a boiling temperature in order
to wash it. After a while, when the foul water
has settled to the bottom, the purified tallow is
lifted out, by means of tinned iron buckets,
into tubs of a moderate size, where it con-
cretes, and is ready for use.

Wax Candles.— ^ext to tallow, the substance
most employed in the manufacture of candles
is wax. Wax candles are made either by the
hand or with a ladle. In the former case, the
wax, being kept soft in hot water, is applied
bit by bit to the wick, which is hung from a
hook in the wall ; in the latter, the wicks are
hung round an iron circle, placed immediately
over a large copper-tinned basin full of melted
wax, which is poured upon their tops, one after
another, by means of a large ladle. When the
candles have by either process acquired the
proper size, they are taken from the hooks,
and rolled upon a table, usually of walnut tree,
with a long square instrument of box, smooth
at the bottom.

In June, 1825, M. Gay Lussac obtained a
patent in England for making candles from
margaric and stearic acids, improperly called
stearine, by converting tallow into the above
fat acids by the following process : — Tallow
consists, by Chevreul's researches, of stearine,
a solid fat, and elaine, a liquid fat ; the former
being in much the larger proportion. When
tallow is treated with an alkaline body, such
as potash, soda, or lime, it is saponified : that
is, its stearine and elaine become respectively
stearic and elaic acids, and, as such, form
compounds with these bases. When by the
action of an acid, such as the sulphuric or
muriatic, these combinations are decomposed,
the fats reappear in the altered form of
stearic and elaic acids ; the former body being
harder than tallow, and of a texture somewhat
like spermaceti, the latter body being fluid,
like oil. "The decomposition of the soap
should be made," says the patentee, "in a
large quantity of water, kept well stirred dur-
ing the operation, and warmed by steam intro-
duced in any convenient way. When the
mixture has been allowed to stand, the acid of
the tallow or fat will rise to the surface, and
the water being drawn off will carry the alka-
line or saline matters with it ; but if the acids
of the tallow should retain any portion of the
salts, fresh water may be thrown upon it, and
the whole well agitated, until the acids have
become perfectly free from the alka'ine mat-
Y 253

CANDLE-BERRY MYRTLE.

CANKER.

ters ; and when allowed to cool, the acids will
be formed into a solid mass. This mass is
now to be submitted to considerable pressure
in such an apparatus as is employed in ex-
pressing oil from seeds; when the liquid acid
will run off in the form of a substance resem-
bling oil, leaving a solid matter, similar, in
every respect, to spermaceti, which is fit for
making candles.

The wick to be used in the manufacture of
these improved candles, and which forms one
of the features of this invention, is to be made
of cotton yarn, twisted rather hard, and laid in
the same manner as wire is sometimes coiled
round the bass strings of musical instruments.
For this purpose, straight rods or wires are to
be procured, of suitable lengths and diameters,
according to the intended size of the .candles
about to be made; and these wires, having
been covered with cotton coiled round them as
described, are to be inserted in the candle-
moulds as the common wicks are ; and when
the candle is made, and perfectly hard, the
wire is to be withdrawn, leaving a hollow
cylindrical aperture entirely through the mid-
dle of the candle. See Steauixe.

For the process of making mould candles,
which is even more simple than that for
dipping, see Ure's Dictionary of Arts, SfC, art.
Candle : where also may be found a drawing
and description of an ingenious machine for
making dipped candles, much used in Edin-
burgh.

Candles ought never to be used until several
weeks have elapsed after they are made; other-
wise they are apt to gutter and run. {M'Cul-
locJis Con}. Die. ; Willicli's Dom. Encyc.')

CANDLE-BERRY MYRTLE {Myrica gale).
A hardy shrub, native of Britain, which grows
to four feet high, and bears a small red blos-
som in May and June. It loves heath mould,
and is propagated by seed, or by dividing the
roots.

The species called candle-berry myrtle in the
United States, is the myrica cerifera of botanists.
It grows on the lands bordering on the sea and
bays of the Atlantic States, where the wax
which surrounds the clusters of berries is
often collected by the poor either for their own
use in mixing with tallow to make candles, or
to sell. The berries when gathered are put
into hot water, which melts the wax by which
each is enveloped, and which, rising to the top,
is skimmed off. It is of an olive-green colour
and fragrant odour. As a popular remedy in
dysentery it has acquired considerable repu-
tation.

Almost every region of the United States
produces varieties of the wax myrtle. Mi-
chaux considers them all as belonging to one
species, a conclusion which is warranted by
the great number of intermediate sizes and
forms of leaf, which may be observed between
the different extremes. Pursh, however, has
chosen to distinguish three species which bear
wax, and which he names cerifera after Lin-
nceus, Carolinicnsis from Willdenovv, and Penn-
sy%anica from Lamarck. The wax myrtle or
bayberry, as it is often called, which is com-
mon in IS^ew England, varies in height from
one to seven or eight feet. It is found in everv
254

kind of soil from the borders of swamps to the
tops of barren hills, and is very much ihflu-
enced in its size and appearance, by the place
in which it happens to grow.

The wax myrtle is found bearing fruit at
every size, from the height of one foot, to six
or eight. Ig Louisiana, it is said, to grow to
twelve feet. The top is much branched, and
covered with a grayish bark. Every young
part of the wax myrtle has a fragrant, balsamic
smell, which it communicates to the fingers
Xvhen rubbed by them.

Dr. J. F. Dana has published, in Silliman's
Journal, an account of some experiments made
to ascertain the proportion of wax, and of the
other parts which compose the enlire berry.
He found the wax to constitute nearly a third
of the whole, or thirty-two per cent ; the kernels
47-00, the black powder 15-00, with about 5-00
of. a resino-extractive matter.

The myrtle wax is useful for many of the
purposes for which bees wax and tallow are
employed, particularly for candles. It burns
with a clear flame, though less vivid than that
of common oil, and emits a considerable fra-
grance. It was former^ly much in demand as
an ingredient in a species of blacking ball, to
which it communicated a temporary lustre and
power of repelling water. It ha^ occasionally
been used in pharmacy in various composi-
tions intended for external use, and is mild or
stimulating according as it is more or less
pure and freed from the colouring matter.

In some parts of Europe plantations of this
shrub have been raised with a view to the profit
to be derived from the wax. In this country,
where the shrub abounds, the berries are often
neglected, their collection and the separation
of the w^ax being deemed too laborious to
compensate the trouble. The bark of the wax
myrtle considered medicinally is an acrid
stimulant and astringent. {Dr. Bigelow's Am.
Med. Botany.)

CANE. A provincial term used to signify
a hollow place, where water stands. It also
implies a wood of alder, or other aquatic trees,
in a moist boggy situation.

In the South-western States of America there
are extensive and almost impenetrable cane-
brakes, consisting of a rank growth of a sub-
aquatic species of cane or reed (./Irumh prag-
mites?). These cane-brakes resemble in many
respects the jungles of the East Indies.

CANINE MADNESS. See HrnnopHOBiA.

CANKER, OR ULCER (Lat. canker,- Sax.
cancejie, or cancpe). In the vegetable creation,
a disease to which our apple, pear, elm, and
other trees are subject.

"This disease," says Mr. G. W. Johnson, "is
accompanied by different symptoms, accord-
ing to the species of the tree which it infects.
In some of those whose true sap contains
a considerable quantity of free acid, as in
the genus Pyrus, it is rarely accompanied by
any dischai^e. To this dry form of the dis-
ease, it would be well to confine the term
canker, and to give it the scientific name of
j Gangi-cena sicca, or dry gangrene. In other
I trees,,\vhose sap is characterized by abounding
I in astringent or mucilaginous constituents, it
I is usually attended by a sanious discharge. In

CANKER.

CANKER.

such instances, it might be strictly desifrtiated
ulcer, or Gungreena saniosa. This disease has a
considerable resemblance to the tendency to
ossification, which appears in aged animals,
arising from their marked appetency to secrete
the calcareous saline compounds that chiefly
constitute their skeletons. The consequence
is an enlargement of the joints, and ossifica-
tion of the circulating vessels, and other parts ;
phenomena very analogous to those attending
the cankering of trees. As in animals, this
tendency is general throughout their system ;
but, as is observed by Mr. Knight, Mike the
mortifications in the limbs of elderly people,'
it may be determined, as to its point of attack,
by the irritability of that part of the system.
This disease commences with an enlargement
of the vessels of the bark of a branch, or of the
stem. This swelling invariably attends the
disease when it attacks the apple tree. In the
pear, the enlargement is less, yet is always
present. In the elm and oak sometimes no
swelling occurs, and in the peach I do not re-
member ;o have seen any; I have never ob-
served the disease in the cherry tree, nor any
of the pine tribe. The swelling is soon com-
municated to the wood ; which, if laid open to
view, on its first appearance, by the removal
of the bark, exhibits no marks of disease be-
yond the mere unnatural enlargement. In the
course of a few years, less in number in pro-
portion to the advanced age of the tree, and the
unfavourable circumstances under which it is
vegetating, the swelling is greatly increased in
size, and the alburnum has become extensively
dead : the superincumbent bark cracks, rises
in discoloured scales, and decays even more
rapidly than the wood beneath. If the caries
is upon a moderately sized branch, the decay
soon completely encircles it, extending through
the whole arburnum and bark. The circula-
tion of the sap being thus entirely prevented,
all the parts above the disease of necessity
perish. In the apple and pear, the disease is
accompanied by scarcely any discharge ; but
in the elm this is very abundant. The only
chemists who have examined these morbid
products are Sir H. Davy and Vauqiielin ; the
iormer's observations being confined to the
fact, that he often found carbonate of lime on
the edges of the canker in apple trees. {Elem.
ofjgr. Chcwistry, 2d edit. p. 264.)

Vauquelin has examined the sanies dis-
charged from the canker of an elm with much
more precision. He found this liquor nearly
as transparent as water, sometimes slightly
coloured, at other times a blackish-brown, but
always tasting acrid and saline. From it a
soft matter, insoluble in water, is deposited
upon the sides of the ulcer. The bark ever
which the transparent sanies flows attains the
appearance of chalk, becoming white, friable,
crystalline, alkaline, and effervescent with
acids. A magnifier exhibits the crystals in
the forms of rhomboids and four-sided prisms :
when the liquid is dark-coloured, the bark ap-
pears blackish, and seems as if coated with a
varnish. It sometimes is discharged in such
quantities as to hang from the bark like sta-
lactites. The matter of which these are com-
posed is alkaline, soluble in water, and with

acids eflfervesces. The analysis of this dark
slimy matter shows it to be compounded of
carbonate of potassa and ulmin, a product pe-
culiar to the elm. The white matter deposited
round the canker was composed of —

Vefretable matter -
Carbonate of potassa -
Carbonate of lime
Carbonate of magnesia

Parts.

60 5
34 2

5

0-3

1000

Although young trees are liable to this dis-
ease, yet their old age is the period of exist-
ence most obnoxious to its attacks. It must
be remembered, that that is not consequently
a young tree which is lately grafted. If the
tree from which the scion was taken is an old
variety, it is only a multiplication of an aged
individual. The scion may for a few years
exhibit signs of increased vigour, owing to the
extra stimulus of the more abundant supply of
healthy sap supplied by the stock; but the
vessels of the scion will, after the lapse of that
period, gradually become as decrepid as the
parent tree. The unanimous experience of
naturalists agrees in testifying that every or-
ganized creature has its limit of existence. In
plants it varies from the scanty period of a
few month.s to the long expanse of as many
centuries: but of all, the days are numbered;
and though the gardener's, like the physician's
skill, may retard the onward pace of death, he
will not be permanently delayed. In the last
periods of life they show every symptom that
accompanies organization in its old age — not
only a cessation of growth, but a decay of for-
mer developements, a languid circulation, and
diseased organs.

The canker, as already observed, attends es-
pecially the old age of some fruit trees, and of
these, the apple is most remarkably a suflicrer.
" I do not naean," says Mr. Knight, " to assert
that there ever was a time when an apple tree
did not canker on unfavourable soils, or that
highly cultivated varieties were not more ge-
nerally subject to the disease than others, where
the soil did not suit them; but I assert, from
my own experience and observation within the
last twenty years, that this disease becomes
progressively more fatal to each variety, as the
age of that variety beyond a certain period
increases; that all the varieties of the apple
which I have found in the catalogues of the
middle of the seventeenth century, are unpro-
ductive of fruit, and in a state of debility and
decay." {Some Doubts relative to the Efficacy
of Mr. Forsyth's Plaster, by T. A. Knight, Esq.
1802.)

Among the individuals particularly liable to
be infected, are those which have been marked
by an excessively vigorous growth in their
early years. I have in my garden a maiden
standard peach, which is now about sixteen
years old. The size and abundance of its
annual shoots, until within the last quarter of
its existence, were unnaturally large. It is
now grievously aflTected by canker. Trees
injudiciously pruned, or growing upon an un-
genial soil, are more frequently attacked than
those advancing under contrary circumstances.
The oldest trees are always the first attacked
I 255

CANKER.

CANKER.

of those similarly cultivated. The golden pip-
pin, the oldest existing variety of the apple, is
more frequently and seriously attacked than
any other. The soil has a very considerable
influence in inducing the disease. If the sub-
soil is a ferruginous gravel, or if it is not well
drained; if the soil is aluminous, and effective
means are not adopted to free it of superabun-
dant moisture, — the canker, under any one of
these circumstances, is almost certain to make
its appearance among the trees they sustain. If
an old worn-out orchard is replanted with fniit
trees, the canker is almost certain to appear
among them, however youns^anrd vigorous they
were when first plantCjjUHffow inducive of this
disease is a wet, retentive subsoil, if the roots
penetrate it, appears from the statement of Mr.
Watts, gardener to R. G. Russell, Esq., of Che-
quer's Court, in Buckinghamshire. A border
t)eneaih a south wall had a soil three feet and
a half in depth, apparently of the most fertile
staple ; twice remade under the direction of
the late Mr. Lee, of the Vineyard, Hammer-
smith. In this the trees, peaches and nectar-
ines, flourish for the next three or four years
after they are planted, but then are rapidly de-
stroyed by the canker and gum. The subsoil
is a stiff" sour clay, nearly approaching to a
brick earth ; and the disease occurs as soon as
it is reached by the roots of the trees. {Gar-
dener's Magazivc, vol. vi. p. 617.) Pruning has
a powerful influence in preventing the occur-
rence of canker. 1 remember a standard rus-
set apple tree, of not more than twenty years'
growth, with a redundancy of ill-arranged
branches, that was excessively attacked by this
disease. I had two of its three main branches
removed, and the laterals of that remaining
thinned carefully, all the infected parts, at the
same time, being removed. The result was a
total cure. The branches were annually regu-
lated, and for six years the disease never reap-
peared. At the end of that time the tree had
to be removed, as the ground it stood upon was
required for another purpose. John Williams,
Esq., of Pitmaston, from long experience con-
cludes that the golden pippin, and other apples,
may be preserved from this disease by pruning
away, every year, that part of each shoot which
is not perfectly ripened. By pursuing this
method for six years, he brought a dwarf golden
pippin tree to be as vigorous and free from
canker as any new variety. {Trans. London
Hort. Soc. vol. vi. art. 64.)

All these facts unite in assuring us that the
canker arises from the tree's weakness; from
a deficiency in its vital energy, and consequent
inability to imbibe and elaborate the nourish-
ment necessary to sustain its frame in vigour,
and much less to supply the healthy develope-
ment of new parts. It matters not whether its
energy is broken down by an unnatural rapidity
of growth, by a disproportioned excess of
branches over the mass of roots, by old age, or
by the disorganization of roots in an ungenial
soil ; they render the tree incapable of extract-
ing suflicient nourishment from the soil, con-
sequently incapable of developing sufficient
■oliage, and therefore unable to digest and ela-
borate even the scanty sap that is supplied to
ihem.

256

The reason of the sap becoming unnaturally
saline appears to be, that in proportion as the
vigour of any vegetable declines, it loses the
power of selecting by its roots the nourishment
congenial to its nature. M. Saussure found in
his experiments that the roots of plants grow-
ing in saline solutions absorbed the most of*
those salts, that were injurious to them, evi-
dently because the declining plant lost the sen-
sitiveness and energy necessary to select and
to reject. Thus, when plants of Polygonum
Persicaria and of Bidens cannabina were grown
in a solution containing sulphate of soda (Glau-
ber salt), acetate of lime^ and chloride of sodium
(common salt), they altogether rejected the
acetate of lime; but when grown in a solution
of sulphate of copper and acetate of lime, they im-
bibed the latter abundantly. Now, sulphate of
copper M. Saussure found to be the most dele-
terious to the plants of all the salts, in a solu-
tion of which he plunged their roots. Suppos-
ing the portion originally in solution to be 100,
the proportions of each absorbed \('ere as fol-
lows : —

I Chloride of sodit^ra - - - - 10

-^ Sulphate of 8oda .... 6

t Acetate of lime ----- 0

( Sulphate nf copper - - - - 34

1 Acetate of lime ----- 31

M. Saussure also found, that if the extremi-
ties of the roots were removed, the plants ab-
sorbed all solutions indiscriminately. (Saus-
sure^s Recherches Chimiques sur la Vegetation, 260.)
An ungenial soil would have a debilitatmg
influence upon the roots in a proportionate,
though less violent degree than the sulphate
of copper; and these, consequently, would
absorb soluble bodies more freely, and without
that discrimination so absolutely necessary for
a healthy vegetation ; so the other most essen-
tial organs of nutrition, the leaves of the weak-
ened plant, would promote and accelerate the
disease. These, reduced in number and size,
do not properly elaborate the sap ; and I have
always found that, under such circumstances,
these stunted organs exhale the aqueous parti-
cles of the sap very abundantly, whilst their
power of absorption is greatly reduced. The
sap, thus deficient in quantity and increased in
acridity, seems to corrode and aflect the vascu-
lar system of the tree in the manner already
described. These facts afford us most impor-
tant guides in attaining the desired objects, the
prevention and cure of the disease. If super-
luxuriance threatens its introduction, the best
remedy is for the cultivator to remove one of
the main roots of the tree, and for him to be
particularly careful not to add any fertile addi-
tion to the soil within their range. On the
contrary, it will be well, if the exuberant growth
shows its necessity, for the soil to be reduced
in fertility by the admixture of one less fertile,
or even of drift sand. If there is an excess of
branches, the saw and the pruning-knife must
be gradually applied. It must be only trees of
weak vital powers, such as the golden pippin,
that will bear the general cutting of the annual
shoots, as pursued by Mr. Williams. A new
vigorous variety would exhibit itself in the
following year in the production of new wood.
Having completely headed down, if the can-

CANKER.

CAPERS.

»r is generally prevalent, or duly thinned the
branches, entirely removed every small one
that is in the least degree diseased, and cut
away the decayed parts of the larger, so as not
to leave a single speck of the decayed wood, I
cover over the surface of each wound w^ith a
mixture, whilst in a melted stale, of equal parts
of tar and rosin, applying with a brush imme-
diately after the amputations have been per-
formed, taking care to select a fine dry day.
I prefer this to any composition with a basis
of cow-dung and clay, because the latter is
always more or less absorbent of moisture, and
is liable to injury by rain and frost, causing
alternations of moisture and dryness to the
wounds, that promote decay rather than their
healing, by the formation of new wood and
bark. The resinous plaster seldom or never
requires renewal. Mr. Forsyth, the arch-advo-
cate of alkaline plasters, finding they promoted
decay, if applied to the wounds of autumn-
pruned trees, reco'himends this important act
of cultivation to be postponed to the spring.
Such a procrastination, however, is always
liable to defer the pruning till bleeding is the
consequence. If a resinous plaster is employed,
it excludes the wet, and obviates the objection
to autumnal pruning. Mr. Forsyth's treatment
of the trunks and branches of the trees, namely,
scraping from them all the scaly, dry exuvia;
of the bark, is to be adopted in every instance :
he recommends them to be then brushed over
with a thin liquid compound of fresh cow-dung,
soapsuds, and urine. But I very much prefer
a brine of common salt: each acts as a gentle
stimulus, which is their chief source of benefit,
and the latter is more efficacious in destroying
insects, and does not, like the other, obstruct
the perspiratory vessels of the tree. The brine
is advantageously rubbed in with a scrubbing
or large painter's brush. Some persons recom-
mend a liquid wash, containing, as prominent
ingredients, quicklime and wood-ashes; which,
as the disease arises from an over-alkalescent
state of the sap, cannot but prove injurious
and aggravate the disease. Mr. Forsyth's
composition, used as a plaster for the wounds
made when cankered matter had been extract-
ed, was —

1 bushel of fresh cow-dung,
i bushel of lime rubbish,
i bushel of wood ashes,
jg bushel of finely-sifted sand.

Mr. Knight well observed of this quackery
(for which Forsyth was rewarded with a grant
of money), that "it afforded a much better
proof that he was paid for a discover}' than
that he made one." (G. W.Johnson; Quar.
Journ. ofjcrr. vol. viii. p. 470 ; J. Pearson, ibid.
vol. ii. p. 379; A. Drummond, On the Canker in
the Larch, ibid. p. 231-.)

Canker in horses is a separation of the horn
from the sensible part of the foot, and the
sprouting of fungous matter instead of it, and
occupying a portion of, or even the whole of
the sole and frog. (The Horse, p. 308, Lib. of
Useful Knowledge.) The whole secret of the
treatment of canker consists in the use of su-
perficial caustics or stimulants,— pressure as
33

firmly and as equably as it can be made, and
the careful avoidance of all greasy applica-
tions, and all moisture, either applied imme-
diately to the foot, or suffered to penetrate
to it through the dressing. (Clater's Farriery,
p. 324.)

CANKERED. A word sometimes used to
signify mildewed or blighted.

CANKERS. A local name in some parts
of England for caterpillars.

CANKER-WORM. The insects, called in
the Eastern States canker-worms, are caterpil-
lars with ten legs, the larvoe of a natural group
of moths called hyhernians. They belong to the
tribe of geometers, commonly called earth-mea-
surers, span-worms, and loopers. See Span-

WOR.MS.

CANTER. (Said to be an abbreviation of
Canterbury gallop, and derived from the pil-
grims riding to Canterbury on easy ambling
horses. — TodiPs Johnson.) A well-known pace
of the horse, which is not, generally, a natural
pace. When the horse is excited to move his
station from one place to another, he performs
it with a velocity proportionate to the exciting
cause. Thus, he changes from the walk to
the trot, and from the trot to the gallop, ac-
cording to his inclination. In each of these
changes he acquires an addition of speed ; but,
as the trot is equal in speed to the canter, he
seldom adopts the canter, but changes to the
gallop, wlien he wishes to accelerate his mo-
tion. The horse is taught to perform the canter
by shortening the gallop. The canter is to the
gallop very much what the walk is to the trot,
though probably a more artificial pace. The
exertion is much less, the spring less distant,
and the feet come to the ground in more regu-
lar succession: it is a- pace of ease, quite in-
consistent with any exertion of draught. (Lib.
Use. Know., The Horse, p. 413.) Some persons,
and among them Nimrod, do not consider this
pace injurious to horses. "A canter," he ob-
serves, "is much more easy, as well as safer
to the rider, than a trot: the horse having his
haunches more under him in the canter than
when he trots, is hereby more likely to recover
himself in case of making a mistake, which
the best is sometimes subject to. Fast trotting
also distresses a horse more than cantering,
because, in the one, he is going at the top of
his speed, and in the other much below it."
(Blaine's Ency. of Rural Sports, p. 297.)

CAPERS. The caper is a small prickly
shrub, cultivated in Spain, Italy, and the south-
j ern provinces of France. The flowers are
j large roses of a pretty appearance, but the
I flower-buds alone are the objects of this culti-
I vation.

j They are plucked before they open, and

I thrown into strong vinegar slightly salted,

1 where they are pickled. The crop of each

! day is added to the same vinegar tub, so that,

I in the course of the six months during which

1 the caper shrub flowers, the vessel gets filled,

j and is sold to persons who sort the capers (the

smallest being most valued) by means of cop-

: per sieves. This metal is attacked by the acid,

wherefrom the fruit acquires a green colour,

much admired by ignorant connoisseurs.

t2 257

CAPES.

CAPON.

The capers, as found in the French market,
are distinguished into five sorts; the nonpareille,
the capuciue, the capote, the second, and the third;
this being the decreasing order of their quality,
which depends upon the strength of the vine-
gaj- used in pickling them, as also the size and
colour of the buds.

The caper shrub grows in the driest situa-
tions, even upon walls, and does not disdain
any soil ; but it loves a hot and sheltered ex-
posure. It is multiplied by grafts made in
autumn, as also by slips of the roots taken off
in spring.

CAPES, or CAPPS, provincial words, ap-
plied to the ears of corn broken off, either
wholly or in part, in thrashing ; as well as to
the grain to which the chaff adheres.

CAPITAL (Lat. capitalis). The capital re-
quired by a farmer, to a great extent, varies
with the soil and country in which he is placed;
all practical observations in this place, there-
fore, can only be of a general nature. The
first and best direction, however, to a farmer
mu5t be, *' do not take more land than your
capital will enable you to farm well." For this
purpose, the observations of the author of the
British Husbandry, vol. i. p. 41, may very well
be introduced in this place. " Most farmers
are anxious for large occupations, and many
are thus betrayed into the error of renting a
greater quantity of ground than they have the
means of managing to advantage; some, in
the delusive hope of acquiring those means
by future savings ; others, from the vanity of
holding more land than their neighbours :
hence arises deficiency of slock, imperfect til-
lage, and scanty crops ; with all the consequent
train of rent in arrear, wages ill-paid, and debts
unsatisfied — distress, duns, and final ruin.
Whereas, he who is prudently content to com-
mence with only such a number of acres as
he has the power of cultivating with proper
effect, is certain of obtaining the full return
from the soil ; while, not being burdened with
more land than he can profitably employ, his
engagements are within his means, and thus,
while enjoying present ease of mind, he lays
the surest foundation for his future prosperity."
And, as it is well observed (Quart. Journ. of
Agr. vol. iii. p. 452), " Or if, to save appear-
ances, he borrows money to complete his ne-
cessary arrangements, his condition is not
improved ; because the interest he will have to
pay for the borrowed money will operate as an
additional yearly rent, and thus take from him
all the advantages which he was led to expect
he would enjoy under a moderate one." Un-
der the head Appuaisemknt will be found the
amount of the valuation of the crops, and other
things commonly paid by the incoming to the
outgoing tenant on a farm of 309 acres,
amounting to 1702Z. This, however, varies
considerably according to the Custom of
CouNTiKs, which see. To this must be added
the expenses incurred of stocking the farm for
the first year. Wages, seed, keep of family,
^nt, taxes, rates, &c. On a farm of 500 acres,
professor Low (Prac. Agr. p. 674) estimates
the capital required for the first year to be (in
Scotland) —
258

£ s. d.'

1. Implements - - - - - 470 4 4

2. Live stock - . _ _ . 1423 15 0

3. Peed 273 00

4. Manure - - - - - - 516 10 0

6. Labour, Slc. - - - - - .'i28 17 6

6. Mninieiiance of horses - - - 343 7 11

7. JBurdens - - - - - - 31 15 9

3488 8 6
Furniture of house - - - - 200 0 0
Family expenses, li years - - - 150 0 0

3838 8 6

From this he deducts for produce sold 7 „„. ,_ „

In ilnn time - - - - 5 ^^'^ '^ ^

Required net capital .... 284*2 10 9

or 5/. 13s. Sf^d. per acre. In this jcalculation,
he supposes that no rent is paid till the crop is
reaped. The estimate for the capital required
for a Scotch farm of 500 acres (allowing no-
thing for payments to outgoing tenant) is, ac-
cording to a statement in the Quart. Journ. of
Agr. vol. iii. p. 475, as follows : —

£ 8. d.

Value of implements for ftirm work - . 228 2 2

— do. live stock - - 43 19 4

— do. barn work - - 17 14 4

— Thrashing machine - - - - no 0 0

— Horses - - - - - -450 00

— Cattle 51 100

— Sheep - - - - - -420 00

— Other live stock ----- 700

— Grass seeds - - - - - 87 10 0

— Tares 680

— Peas ---.--. 400

— Turnips - - - - - . 12 15 0

— Potatoes ----.. 2 16 0

— Corn 215 63

— Labour - - - - - - 665 6 10

3041 17 11
Rent 500 acres, at 40*. ... lOOO 0 0

4041 17 )1
From which, however, deduct the value of
the following articles, derived from the
farm before the period of paying the se-
cond half year's rent, viz.
Profit on 20 fat cattle, 5/. each - - £100
Wintering 20 kyloes for 24 weeks, at 2s.

Qd. per week - - _ _ . 30
Sold 20 dinmots and gewmers at 25a.

each, and 20 draft ewes at 30s. each 130
Profit on turniping 120 hogs 24 weeks,

at M. per head per week - - - 36

Sold 14 pigs 14

Produce of 4 cows over what required

by family ------ 10

Wool sold 152

472 0 0

3569 17 11

At p. 658, of Low^s Prac. Agr. will be found a
catalogue of the various implements of a farm
of 500 acres, from a thrashing machine worth
100/. to a grease pot valued at Is. 6d., amount-
ing altogether to 474/. 4s. 4c?. And this in-
cludes hardly a single article that the young
farmer can well do without. As a general
rule on the chalks of Hampshire, they deem
5/. per acre to be a sufficient capital; but oa
some of the rich highly cultivated soils cf
Surrey, Kent, and Essex, 10/. per arable acre
is not too much. Grazing farms require less
in proportion than arable lands.

CAPON (Sax. capun ; Fr. chapon; Lat. ca/)o).
If cocks, when young, are emasculated, it has
a prodigious effect upon their condition, and a
similar effect may be produced upon young
hens by the abstraction of their egg-bags.
These operations have been practised upon

CAPON.

CAPON.

poultry from the earliest antiquity, for the pur-
pose of improving the flesh. In England, it is
chiefly practised in the great poultry-breeding
counties of Sussex, Essex, and Berks, but is
little known anywhere else. There are, in-
deed, persons who make a trade of it, and it is
best to employ one of those when they can be
had; but it is not uncommon for the poultry-
farmers' wives and daughters to acquire dex-
terity in performing the operation. This, in-
deed, seems to be no new thing, for Mascall,
in his minute but very quaint directions, uses
the feminine gender throughout. ''To cut
young cockrels," he says, " to make them ca-
pons, the time thereof best to cut and carve
them is soone after their dam has left them, or
when they cry or pule no more after her, as
when they begin to crowe and waxe bote to
tread the pullets. The common way of cutting
or carving is not to be dispraysed, and is most
knowne as this waye : they take them in the
morning, commonly in the wane of the moone,
and laye the cocke in her lappe, upon his back,
trussing up his legges by his sides. Then the
carver pluckes first awaye the feathers above
the vent, and lakes up the upper skin on the
point of a needle, and slits it over-thwart an
inche long, and then takes up the under thin
skinne nexte the guts, and slits that likewise.
Then the carver annoyntes her fore finger of
her right hande with oyle or butter, and puts it
gently to the raines- of the cock, on the left
side, and with her finger bringes forthe the
stone. Then she annoyntes the fore finger of
her left hande, and puts it into the stone on the
right side of the cocke, and with her finger
bringes it forthe. So done, she placeth the
guts, and sowes the skinne up again with a
threade, and then annoyntes that place with
some fresh butter, and lets him go."

The art of caponing fowls forms a part of
rural economy, and as the mode of operating
is very little understood in the United States,
we propose giving such ample and minute
instructions upon the subject, as, with the aid
of original drawings, will enable any one to
succeed who possesses common dexterity.

The chickens intended for capons should be
of the largest breed that can be obtained, and
in the United States there is not perhaps one
better suited in this respect than the celebrated
large Buck^s county breed, well known in the
Philadelphia market, where capons made from
these fowls have been sold weighing 25 lbs.
the pair. As in breeding with a special view
to making capons, male chickens alone are
required, those eggs should be selected to set
under hens which produce males, namely,
such as have the sharpest points. The altera-
tion of the chicken into a capon will, in about
a twelvemonth, nearly double the size of the
bird. Persons wishing to become expert in
the operation of making capons would do well
to imitate surgeons, who always try their hand
upon dead subjects before performing on the liv-
ing. It is, however, quite simple, and in France
and Italy is often allotted to mere children.

The Chinese mode of operating we think
preferable not only to the old one described by
Mascall, but to any other of which we have
ever heard.

Chickens intended for capons may be ope-
rated upon at any age, though when between
two and three months old is considered much
the best time. Old fowls seldom survive the
operation. Previous to cutting, the chickens
must be kept entirely from food, and even
water, for about thirty-six hours, as experi-
ments have determined this time to insure the
best chance of success by causing the bowels
to be empty and lessening the tendency to
Weeding. The fowl may be secured either in the
Chinese mode, — that is to say, lying on its left
side with its wings folded back till they meet,
and pressed under the foot of the operator,
whose other foot is placed upon the legs ;^-or,
it may be held by an assistant in a similar
position ; or, what adds greatly to the con-
venience of the operator, especially in reliev-
ing him from the necessity of stooping low,
the fowl may be confined by straps, &c. to a
table one of which, of a highly ingenious con-
struction, has been invented by a Philadelphian,
and will be subsequently described and de-
lineated. (See Figs. 2 and 3.)

The chicken being secured with its left side
downwards, wings clasped behind its back,
legs extended backwards, the upper one be-
ing drawn the furthest back (see fig. 3), the
head and neck left perfectly free, the feathers
are next to be plucked from its right side
near the hip joint, in a line between that
and the shoulder joint; the space uncovered
(a, fig. 3) may be a little over an inch square.
Having first drawn the skin of the part back-
ward, so that when left to itself after the ope-
ration, it will cover the wound in the flesh,
make an incision with the bevel-edged knife,
(fig. I. a,) between the last two ribs, commenc-
ing about an inch from the backbone, and ex-
tending obliquely downwards about an inch or
inch and a half, just going deep enough to
separate the ribs, and taking good care not to
wound the intestines. A pair of broad blunt
hooks (fig. 1, r, <•) attached to a piece of elastic
whalebone or ratan (h) about six inches long,
are then applied, one hook to each side of the
cut, and these being stretched apart by the
spring bow, keep the wound open wide enough
to give room for the operation. Then care-
fully cut open the skin covering the intestines,
which last, if not sufliciently drawn up in conse-
quence of the previous fasting, may be pushed
forwards or towards the breastbone, by means
of a flat instrument contrived for the purpose,
or, what answers equally well, the handle of a
teaspoon. When the testicles are exposed to
view, they will be found to be connected with
the back and sides by means of a thin skin
which passes over them. This tender cover-
ing must be seized with the pincers a, a, and
torn open with the assistance of the sharp-
edged hook h; after this, with the left hand,
introduce the curved spoon under the lower or
left testicle (which is generally a little nearer
the rump than the right one) : then take the
tube I, and with the right hand pass the loop w,
over the small hooked end of the spoon h, run-
ning it down under the spoon and included
testicle, so as to bring the loop to act upon the
part which fastens the testicle to the back.
Then by drawing the ends of the hair-loop

259

CAPON.

CAPON.

backwards and forwards, and at the same time
pushing the lower end of the tube towards the
rump of the chicken, the cord or fastening of
the testicle is sawn off. The same process is
to be followed with the uppermost or right
t^esticle, after which the separated testicles,
together with any blood in the bottom of the
wound are*to be scooped out with the crooked
spoon. When performed properly, little or no
blood of consequence is observed, neither does
the fowl seem to experience any pain, after the
first incision, but will eat if food be given to
it. To enable the operator to produce the
sawing movement, the hair or other ligature
used may be tied in a knot so as to allow the
index or fore finger of the operator's right
hand to pass through it. This finger being
then turned or rolled repeatedly from side to
side, communicates to the loop below the saw-
ing motion which contributes to cut off the
testicle. The reason for cutting off the lower-
most testicle first, is to prevent the blood which
may issue, from covering the remaining one,
and rendering it difficult to be seen. After
this operation which, if skilfully performed,
occupies very [ew minutes, the hooks are to
be taken out, the skin drawn over the wound,
and this covered with the feathers plucked off
at the commencement of the operation.- The
chicken is then released, and as soon as let go
will take grain or other food eagerly, and in a
day or two be restored to its usual health. A
person well skilled may operate on fifty
chickens without killing more than one or two.

In some fowls the fore part of the thigh
covers the last two ribs ; in which case care
must be taken to draw the fleshy part of the
thigh well back, to prevent its being cut, as this
might lame the fowl or even cause its death.

For ligatures nothing answers so well as
that commonly employed by the Chinese,
namely, the fibre of the cocoanut husk. This
is rough, and makes a loop which saws off and
separates the testicle very readily. The next
best substance for this purpose is horse-hair.
Experiments with fine wire, silk, silk-gut, &c.
show that these are all inferior to cocoanut
fibre and horse-hair.

Sometimes a portion of the testicle adheres
and is left behind, in which case the fowls will
not prove capons, as will soon be evident, and
may be killed for use as soon as the head be-
gins to grow large and get red, and they show
a disposition to chase the hens. The real
capon will make itself known by the head
remaining small, the comb and gills losing
their bright redness and appearing withered;
the feathers of the neck and tail will also
grow longer. They should be kept to the age
of fifteen or eighteen months, which will bring
them in the spring and summer, when poultry
is scarce and bears a high price. But they
should not be killed near moultins time, as
all poultry then is very inferior. The opera-
tion fails principally in consequence of the
bursting of the skin which encloses the soft

atter of the testicle, some of which remains
n the bird.

Fowls of five or six months are less liable
to have the testicles burst in the operation than
260 4

younger ones, but they are also more apt to
bleed to death than those of from two to four
months old. As the large vessel that supplies
the entrails with blood passes in the neighbour-
hood of the testicles; there is danger that a
young beginner may pierce this with the
pointed instrument in taking off the skin of
the laiver testicle, in which case the chicken
would die instantly. There are one or two
smaller vessels to be avoided, which is very
easy, as they are not difficult to be seen. If
properly managed, no blood ever appears
until a testicle is taken off: so that should any
appear before that, the operator will know that
he has done something wrong.

If a chicken die during the operation by
bleeding, it is of course as proper for use as
if bled to death by having its throat cut. They
very seldom, die after the operation unless they
have received some internal injury, or the flesh
of the thigh has been cut through, from not
being drawn back from off the last two ribs,
where the incision is made ; all of which acci-
dents may be liable to occur with young prac-
titioners.

Where the testicles are found very large, the
silver tube may be too small for the opera-
tion ; in this case a larger one made of small
bamboo or elder, about fths of an inch in dia-
meter, may be substituted, with a strong cocoa-
nut string or ligature. But for chickens of
small and medium sizes, the silver tube, with
a horse-hair in it, will answer perfectly well.

When a chicken has been cut, it is neces-
sary, before letting it run, to put a permanent
mark upon it; otherwise it would be impossi-
ble to distinguish it at first from others not ope-
rated on. Cutting off the outside or the insidei
toe of the left foot, will enable one to distin-
guish them at a distance. Another mode is to
cut off the comb, then shave off the spurs
close to the leg, and stick them upon the bleed-
ing head, where they will grow and become
ornamental in the shape of a pair of horns.
This last mode is perhaps the best, but it is
not so simple and ready as the first. Which-
ever plan is adopted, the fowl should be marked
before performing the operation.

It is very common, after the operation, and
whilst the wound is healing, for the side to puff
out with a windy swelling. This may be re-
lieved by making a small incision or puncture
in the skin, which will let the wind escape.

Those fowls make the finest capons which
are hatched early in the spring ; as they can
be cut before the hot weather comes, which is
a great advantage.

The operator should not be discouraged with
the first difficulties; for with practice they will
disappear; every year's experience will render
one more expert, until the cutting of a dozen
fowls before breakfast will be a small matter.

It may be well to give a warning against
becoming dissatisfied with the instruments. A
raw hand, when he meets with difficulties, is
apt to think the tools are in fault, and sets about
to improve them and invent others; but it may
be only himself that lacks skill, which practice
alone can give. Those who have devoted
much time and attention to the subject say

CAPON.

that they have found the old Chinese instru-
ments, a drawing of which is given in fig. 1,
preferable to all others.

In addition to these instruments, a regular
Chinese set contains a flat kind of spatula
something like the upper part of a spoon
handle. This is about four inches long and

half an inch wide, and slightly curved at each I sizes.

CAPON.

end in opposite directions. It is for the pur-
pose of pushing the intestines out of the way,
an office very well performed by the handle of
a teaspoon.

Fig. 1 represents the instruments used in
making capons, according to the Chinese me-
thod, reduced only about one-fourth their actual

a, a knife, the eilu.^ -i vsim.i rpsen.l>l«'s lliat of n chisel with a hevel or elantine edge, half an incli in the
preatesi width ; the other end or handle consists of two forcep blades terminating at a, a, in slender points, and
forming spring forceps. The whole length from the cutting edge to the end of the pliers is about six inches.

c, c, two broad blunt hooks of silver or other metal, each half an inch in width and one and a half in length.

b, an elastic bow, six inches long, made of whalebOne or ratan. about the thickness of a large quill, and split hori-
zontally into two ((ieces. To the ends of this bow the broad iiooks are attached by strong cords about half an inch
long. At the end d, the cord embraces only the lower half of the split bow, whilst both pieces are included in
the string, at the end e.

f, is a small ring which encircles both portions of the bow. When the hooks are first put in and only half the
etreneth of the bi)w is required to act upon them, this ring is slipped lo the end e. But if the whole strength of
the bow is needed to force the hooks apart and stretch the wound open, the ring is passed towards the end rf.
Thus, by means of the split bow and sliding ring, the strain upon the hooks can be increased or slackened at
pleasure.

i. a tube of silver or other metal three or four inches long, made square at the upper, and flattened at the
lower end A:, to the width of three-tenths of an inch; this tube is for the purpose of passing the fibre or hair
li<:ature ot, forming fhe loop «.

^. a narrow curved spoon, the slender handle of which tapers off and has a steel point fitted into it, furnished
at the e.xtremity with a very small hook, A; the inner edge of this hook is sometimes sharpened.

The oj)erati>ig table contrived in Philadelphia,
and before referred to, is represented in the
following cut, fig. 2.

This table may be about 2^ feet long by 1^
feet wide, and 2^ feet high. At two of its cor-
ners it can have a raised moulding about ^ an
inch high, extending along the sides six or nine
inches, for the purpose of placing the instru-
ments at one corner and at the other some of
the feathers under a stone, to keep them from
being blown away. On one side there is a
slit c passing through the table, about 1| inch
long by i an inch wide, running diagonally;
being about three inches from the end and 6^
from the side. Through this slit the padded
band or soft list, d, d, for confining the wings,
passes below to be attached to the lever e.
This lever has a 4 or 5 lb. weight hung to it,
and works on a screw or pin, by which it is
attached to the leg. When not in use the lever
rests on a pin or ledge in the other leg. On
being led down, the attached band clasps the
wings of the chicken lying on the table, with
greater or less force as the weight is drawn to
or from the end of the lever. The next thing
to be described is the levei;:, A, upon the table,

261

CAPON.

CARAWAY.

the object of which is to hold down the legs as
these are extended backwards. This lever is
padded beneath, and is furnished with a hinge
at i, which admits of being raised at the end A;;
it projects beyond the edge of the table, and
has also a 5 lb. weight suspended by the string
l^ which increases or diminishes the pressure
by being moved to or from the table. Through
one portion of the hinge an iron screw, w,
passes beneath the table where the end is se-^
cured by a nut. This screw or pin allows the
lever to move sidewise, whilst the hinge ad-
mits of its being raised or let down. A range
pf holes, about ^ of an inch wide, are made
through the table to receive the pin of the
lever, as this has to be placed nearer to or
further from the slit r, according to the size of
the chicken. The first hole is about eleven
inches from the nearest end; the second, four-
teen inches; the third, seventeen inches. The
last is adapted to very large cocks or even
turkeys.

In fig 3, the position of the fowl when se-
cured, lying upon its left side upon the tablp,
is represented,' d being the wing-band, h the
lever placed over the legs, and a the place
inrhere the incision is made.

The table is a refinement in the art of ca-
poning which we believe is altogether new,
notwithstanding the thousands of years which
have elapsed since the operation has been
habitually practised. The difficulty of making
a subject, apparently simple, well understood
by persons to whom it is entirely new, is, we
think, a sufficient apology for the length of the
details given.

In France and other countries, besides fur-
nishing a luxurious food, capons are made
useful in taking care of broods of young
chickens, ducklings, turkeys, and pheasants,
■which they are said to do much better than
hens, owing to their larger size and thicker
coats of feathers. The moment the chickens
are hatched they are taken from the hens and
given to a capon, who rears them with all the
care of a parent, often having a small bell
attached to his neck, the tinkling of which
erves the purpose of keeping the brood about

im, similar to the clucking and maternal
sounds of the mother. Should he show a dis-
position to treat the young chickens roughly
263

at first, he may be confined alone for a day or
two in a dark place, after which if they be put
with him he will be pleased with their com-
pany and continue to take care of them. The
hen is cooped, and well fed until she regains
the flesh and strength lost whilst setting, and
then turned out to lay again. In this way the
poulterer is enabled to raise a large number
of chickens from a few hens. The capon
generally brings double or treble the price of
common poultry.

CAPILLARY VESSELS OF VEGETA-
BLES. The fine hair-like vessels that assist
in the absorption and circulation of the juices
of plants.

CAPSICUM. (Supposed either from xajrT*,
mordeo, to bite ; or from capsa, a chest.) Cap-
sioMn annuum. Of this there are five varieties.
1. Long-podded. 2. Heart-shaped. 3. Short-
podded. 4. Angular-podded. 6. Round short-
podded. Of the Capsicum cerasiforme there are
three varieties. 1. Cherry-shaped. 2. Bell-
shaped, or Ox-heart. 3. Yellow-podded. The
soil best suited for them is a riich, moist,
mouldy loam, rather inclining to lightness than
tenacity. When completely ripe, the pods are
cut and hung up in the sun, or in a warm room,
until completely dry, in which slate they are
kept until the seed is wanted for sowing. (G.
W. Johnson's Kitchen Garden.)

The capsicum loses some of its aromatic
odour by drying, its taste, both recent and dry^
is hot and acrid, depending on a fixed acrid oil,
not volatile and distinct from that oil which
gives the odour to the fresh pod. Capsicum is
used as a condiment in cookery; it is more
excitant than pepper; but its eiSects are less
permanent.

CARAWAY, or CARRAWAY (Fr. and It.
carvi; Lat. carum carui). A naturalized bien-
nial plant, with a taper root like a parsnip,
but much smaller ; stem about two feet high,
growing wild in meadows and pastures. This
plant is extensively cultivated in several parts
of Essex and some other counties, for the sake
of its seeds, which are in daily use as a grate-
ful and wholesome aromatic, and are largely
consumed in confectionary and medicinal pre-
parations; but its root was formerly much
esteemed when boiled, and it is not easy to
account for its falling into disuse. The seeds,
which are grayish-brown, and ribbed, are too
well known to need description. They should
be chosen large, new, of a good colour, not
dusty, and of a strong agreeable smell. Cara-
way is sometimes sowed with coriander and
teasel, and harvested the second year. The
produce of this seed has often been very great;
even as much as 20 cwt. per acre, which api
ways finds a market in London. On account
of their aromatic smell and warm pungent
taste, the seeds of caraway may be classed
among the first stomachics and carminatives
of our climate. To persons afliicted with fla-
tulency, and liable to colic, if administered in
proper quantities, they generally afford con-
siderable relief. Their virtue depends on a
volatile oil, which is procured in a separate
state, by distillation with water. The water
retains some of the oil, and is used as a vehi-
cle for other medicines.

CARBON.

CARBONIC ACID.

Caraway delights in a deep, rich, moist
loam. The ground for this, as well as other
deep-rooting plants, is advantageously dug
two spades deep. An open situation is most
suitable to it; but in extensive orchards,
where the trees are far apart, it may be grown
with success. It is propagated by seed, which
may be sown in March or April, either broad-
cast and raked in, or in drills six inches apart ;
in either case being performed thin, and buried
about half an inch deep. When well distin-
guishable, the plants must be thinned to six
inches apart, and carefully hoed. The hoeing
must be several times repeated in the early
stages of their growth, to extirpate the weeds,
which at a later period cannot be conveniently
got at. The plants flower in June, and ripen
their seed at the close of summer. (G. W.
Johnson^s Kitch. Gard. ; English Flora, vol. ii.
p. 86 ; M'Culloch's Cam. JXct. ,• Willich't Dom.
Encyc. ; Brande's Diet. Science.)

CARBON (Fr. carbone ,- Lat. carbo). A
hitherto undecompounded combustible body,
which enters into the composition, in some
form or other, of all vegetable substances. In
a perfectly pure state, carbon constitutes dia-
mond. Carbonaceous substances are usually
more or less compounded, containing hydrogen,
or sometimes oxygen, and azote, along with
earthy and metallic matters. Carbon, tolerably
pure, abounds in the mineral kingdom ; and,
in a combined state, it forms a main consti-
tuent of vegetable and animal bodies. Anthra-
cite is a mineral charcoal, differing from
common pit-coal in containing no bitumen,
and therefore burning without flame or smoke.
Coke is the carbonaceous mass which remains
after pit-coal has been exposed to ignition for
some time out of contact of air; its volatile
parts having been dissipated by the heat. It
is a spongy substance, of an iron-black colour,
a somewhat metallic lustre, and does not easily
burn unless several pieces are kindled toge-
ther. With a good draught, however, it pro-
duces a most intense heat. It is readily
obtained in the form of charcoal by heating
wood (and any kind of wood will answer the
purpose) red-hot, covered with sand, in a cru-
cible. The covering with sand is added to
prevent the wood undergoing combustion by
coming in contact with the atmosphere. In
this state when reduced to powder, charcoal
constitutes an excellent manure for most soils,
either when applied by itself, or mixed with
decomposing animal and vegetable substances.
In such cases it absorbs a considerable volume
of the gases which such substances constantly
emit Thus, reckoning the bulk of the char-
coal to be 1, it absorbs of

Volome*.
Ammoniacal gas ------ 90

Sulphuretted hydrogen - - - - 55

Carbonic acid gas ----- 35

When burnt, charcoal unites with the oxygen
of the atmosphere, and forms, in the state of
carbonic acid gas, a very important portion
of the gases required by all plants for their
healthy vegetation. (See Gases, their Use
TO Vegetatiox.) Carbon constitutes about
42-47 per cent, in sugar, 41-906 per cent, in
gum, 43-55 per cent, in wheat starch, 52-58 per 1
cent, in the wood of the oak, and 51-45 in that !

of the beech ; 46-83 in pure acetic acid or vine-
gar, 36-167 in tartaric acid, and 41-369 in the
citric. In the state of carbonic acid gas, and
in various organic matters, it is found in all
cultivated soils, in all waters, and in the atmo-
sphere ; and in each situation, as will be more
particularly described under the head Gases,
it is absorbed by and becomes the food of
plants.

CARBONATES. A peculiar class of salts
formed by the combination of carbonic acid
gas with various earths, alkalies, and metallic
oxides. The composition of those most com-
monly met with by the farmer is as follows : —

Acid. BaM.
Carbonate of lime, ehalk, lime-
stone. Sec. - - - - 662 33-8
Carbonate of magnesia - - 68-75 3125
Bicarbonate of potash - - - 46-19 53-81
Carbonate of so.la - - - 4014 59 86
Carbonate of ammonia - - 56-41 43 59

CARBONIC ACID GAS. A peculiar gas,
the same as that emitted by fermenting beer,
or other liquors ; it is inhaled by, and its car-
bon is the food of plants. It is composed of
carbon 72-73, oxygen 27-27. See Gases, tueib
Use to Vegetation,

It is important to know, that carbonic acid
gas is poisonous, if breathed. If, for example,
a person descends into a tun where fermented
liquor occupies the bottom, and an atmosphere
of carbonic acid gas floating over it ; as soon
as his mouth is immersed in it, he is suffo-
cated in the same manner as if his mouth and
nostrils were closed. He dies from the defect
of atmospheric air in the lungs, and the circu-
lation of black blood through the brain. This
is the manner also in which death occurs
when persons descend into old wells and cel-
lars that have been long closed. When the
gas is diluted with air, as for instance, when a
person dies by burning charcoal in a chafing-
dish in a bed-room, he is not suffocated ; but
he dies from the sedative influence of the di-
luted carbonic acid, which is breathed, on the
nervous system. When such accidents hap-
pen, persons should not venture to bring out
the bodies, until a quantity of pure lime mixed
with water to the thickness of milk, has been
thrown into the tun, well, or cellar ; or in the
event of death from burning charcoal, until a
current of air has been sent through the apart-
ment. The bodies should be laid on their
backs, with the heads moderately elevated;
cold water dashed on the chest, and frictions
employed over the whole body ; and the aid of
a medical practitioner quickly procured.

This is the heaviest of all gases, its
weight, compared with the common air of
the atmosphere, being about one-half greater.
This is the reason why it always subsides
to the bottom of apartments, wells, sinks, &c.,
where it may have been formed, or gained
access. Its weight even admits of its being
poured from one vessel to another. Hence
it was at first called aSrial acid. From its
existing copiously, in a solid state, in lime-
stones and the mild alkalis, it was styled
fixed air by its proper discoverer. Dr. Black.
About one volume of it exists in one thou-
sand volumes of common atmospheric ajr,
which may be made manifest by the crust cf

263

CARBONIC ACID.

CARDOON.

carbonate it occasions upon the surface of
lime-water. Carbonic acid gas is found accu-
mulated in many caverns of volcanic. districts,
and particularly in the grotto del cani at Pau-
biiippo, near Puzzuoli ; being disengaged in
suph circumstances by the action of subterra-
nean fire, and, possibly, of certain acids, upon
the limestone strata. It often issues from
fountains in copious currents, as at Franzens-
brunn, near Eger, in Polterbrunnen ; near Trier ;
and Byrreshorn. This acid gas occurs also
frequently in mines and wells, being called
choke damp, from its suffocating quality. Its
presence may, at all times, be detected, by
letting down a lighted candle, suspended from
a string, into the places suspected of contain-
ing this mephitic air. It exists, in consider-
able quantities, in the water of every pump-
well, and gives it a fresh and pleasant taste.
Water, exposed some time to the air, loses
these aerial particles, and becomes vapid.
Many springs are highly impregnated with
carbonic acid gas, and form a sparkling beve-
rage ; such as the Sellcrswasser, from Selters,
upon the Lahn, in the grand duchy of Nassau ;
of which no less than two millions and a half
of bottles are sold every year. The amount
in Saratoga water is very great. A prodigious
quantity of a similar water is also artificially
prepared under the name of aerated or soda
water. *•

Carbonic acid occurs in nature, combined
with many salifiable bases ; as in the carbo-
nates of soda, baryta, strontia, magnesia ; the
oxides of iron, manganese, zinc, copper, lead,
&c. From these substances it may be sepa-
rated, generally speaking, by strong ignition,
or more readily, by the superior affinity of mu-
riatic, sulphuric, or nitric acid, for the earth
or metallic oxyde. It is formed whenever ve-
getable or animal substances are burned with
free access of air, from the union of their car-
bonaceous principle with atmospheric oxygen.
It is also formed in all cases of the spontane-
ous decomposition of organic substances, par-
ticularly in the process of fermentation ; and
constitutes the pungent, no,xious, heavy gas
thrown off, in vast volumes, from beer vats.
See Distillation and Fkumkxtation. Car-
bonic acid is also generated in the breathing
of animals; from 4 to 5 per cent., in volume,
of the inhaled oxygen being converted, at each
expiration, into this gas, which contaminates
the air of crowded apartments, and renders
ventilation essential to health, and even to life;
witness the horrible' catastrophe of the Black-
hole at Calcutta.

Carbonic acid gas is destitute of colour, has
a sourish, suffocating smell, an acidulous pun-
gent taste, imparts to moist, but not dry, litmus
paper, a transient reddish tint, and weighs per
100 cubic inches, 46^ grains ; and per cubic
foot, 803^ grains ; a little more than 3| oz.,
avoirdupois. A cubic foot of air weighs
about two-thirds of that quantity, or 527 grains.
It may be condensed into the liquid state by a

fessure of 40 atmospheres, and this liquid
ay be then solidified by its own sudden
spontaneous evaporation. If the air contain
more than 15 per cent, in bulk of this gas, it
becomes unfit/or respiration and combustion,
264

animal life and candles being speedily extin-
guished by it.

Before a person ventures into a deep well,
or vault containing fermenting materials, he
should introduce a lighted candle into the"
space, and observe how it burns. Carbonic
acid being so much denser than common air,
may be drawn out of cellars or fermenting
tubs, by a pump furnished with a leather hose,
which reaches to the bottom. Quicklime,
mixed with water, may be used also to purify
the air of a sunk apartment, by its affinity for,
or power of, absorbing this aerial acid. ( Ure^s
Diet, of Arts, ^f.)

CARBURETTED HYDROGEN. A com-
pound of carbon and hydrogen gases, of which
there are several species ; such as oil gas, coal
gas, olefiant gas, oil of lemons, otto of roses, oil or
spirits of turpentine, petroleum, naphtha, naphtha-
line, oil of wine, caoutchoucine, and caoutchouc or
Indian rubber. ( lire's Diet, of Arts, 6fc.)

CARDINAL, SCARLET (Lobelia cardinalis).
An herbaceous hardy plant, a native of Virgi-
nia. It blows its scarlet flowers in July, and
again in October. It loves bog earth and
shade, and the root should be parted every
spring. Ripen the flower intended for seed
under a glass hung over it, for it rarely ripens
in this climate without assistance. This
superb wild flower is worth a place in every
garden. It continues blooming a long time.
Five or six species are known in the United
States.

CARDOON, or CHARDON (Span, cardo,
an artichoke ; Lat. Cynara cardunculus). A
kind of wild artichoke, which is principally
confined to garden culture, as it has not yet
been employed as an article of food for any
sort of live stock.

The stalks of the inner leaves, when ren-
dered tender by blanching, are used in stews,
soups, and salads. A light rich soil is most
suitable to this vegetable, dug deep and well
pulverized. The situation must be open, and
free from trees, for, like the artichoke, it is im-
patient of confinement. It is propagated by
seed, which may be sown at the close of
March ; but, for the main crop, not until the
early part of April ; those plants raised from
earlier sowings being apt to run at the close
of autumn : for a late crop, a sowing may be
performed in June. The best practice is to
sow in patches of three or four rows, four feet
apart each way, to be thinned finally to one in
each place, the weakest being removed. The
seedlings are nearly a month in appearing.
If, however, they are raised in a seed-bed, they
will be ready for transplanting in about eight
or ten weeks from the time of sowing, and
must be set at similar distances as are speci-
fied above. The plants of the first sowing are
generally three weeks before they make their
appearance ; those from the later ones, about
two. If, after a lapse of these times, they do
not appear, it should be ascertained if the seed
is decayed, and in that case the sowing may
be renewed. The seed must be sown rather
thin, and dovered with about half an inch
depth of mould. When about a month old,
the seedlings, if too crowded, must be thinned
to four inches apart ; and those removed may

CAREX.

■ )>e placed oat at a similar distance, if there is
any deficiency of plants. When of the age
sufficient for their removal, they must be taken
up carefully, and the long straggling leaves
removed. The bed for their reception must
be dug well and laid out in trenches as for
celery, or a hollow sunk for each plant ; but
as they are liable to suffer from excessive wet,
the best mode is to plant on the surface, and
form the necessary earthing in the form of a
tumulus. Water must be applied abundantly
at the time of planting as well as subsequently,
until they are established ; and also in August,
if dry weather occurs, regularly every other
night, as this is found to prevent their running
to seed. The only other necessary point to be
attended to is, that they may be kept free from
weeds during every stage of their growth.
When advanced to about eighteen inches in
height, which, according to the time of sow-
ing, will be in August, and thence to October,
the leaves must be closed together by encir-
clihg them with a hay-band, and earth placed
rouhd each plant, a dry day being selected for
performing it. As they continue to grow,
fresh bands and earth must be constantly ap-
plied, until they are blanched to the height of
two feet, or about two-thirds of their stems.
They will be fit for use in eight or ten weeks
after the earthing first commences. Care must
be had in earthing them up, to prevent the
earth falling in between the leaves, which is
liable to induce decay. The surface of the
soil should likewise be beaten smooth, to
throw off the rain. In severe weather their
tops should be covered with litter, it being re-
moved as invariably in mild weather : by this
treatment, they may be preserved in a service-
able state throughout the winter. For the pro-
duction of seed, which in England seldom
comes to maturity except in dry seasons, a few
plants should be set in a sheltered situation,
of the April sowing; of course not earthed up,
but allowed the shelter of mats or litter in
frosty weather. In the spring, the ground ma}'
be dug round them to destroy weeds, as well
as to encourage the growth of the roots. The
flowers make their appearance about the be-
ginning of July, and the seed is ripe in Sep-
tember. (G. IV. Johnson's Kitchen Garden.)

CAREX. A vast genus of grasses com-
prehending more than two hundred species,
nearly all of which are indigenous to America.
It includes sedges, and a vast variety of grasses
found in salt-water marshes. See Sedgk.

CARLICK. A provincial term applied in
some places to charlock.

CARNATION, or CLOVE PINK (Lat.
carnes; Dianthus caryophyllus). A beautiful and
odoriferous perennial, blowing in July and Au-
gust, and cultivated in beds or in pots. The
wild D. caryophyllus is the origin of our fine
garden carnations. (Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. ii.
p. 287.) There are three distinct varieties ;
the flake, the bizarre, and the picotee. The
flake has two colours only, with large stripes ;
the bizarre is variegated with irregular stripes
and spots, of not less than three colours; and
the picotee has a white ground, spotted with
every variety of scarlet, red, purple, and pink.
They love a light, rich earth mixed with sea-
34

CARRIAGE.

sand, and never bloom very handsomely with-
out a proportion of the latter. Carnations are
propagated by layers, pipings, and from seed,
which produce new sorts. There is an im-
mense collection of fine prize carnations, well
known to the public, too lengthy to insert here ;
but they are easily procured at a reasonable
price. If you raise flowers from seed, sow it
in pots of light earth in April ; cover the seed
very lightly with mould filtered through the
fingers; shade the seedlings from the sun, and
prick them out when each seedling has six
leaves. Pot or plant for blowing in autumn.
They will not blow well if moved in the spring.
Carnations must be sheltered from excessive
rains and hard frosts, and they should be placed
in warm sunny borders.

CARNATION GRASS. In agriculture, a
term applied to some grasses, as the hair grass
(.4ira), probably from their having this kind
of colour in their flowers. Any coarse species
of carex is so named in the north of England
and Scotland.

CAROB (Ceraloria caroubier). A tree cul-
tivated extensively in the south of Europe, the
pods produced by which contain a sweet, eat-
able faecula. The tree attains a medium size,
and the flowers, which are of a deep purple
colour, are disposed in clusters. The fruit-
pods are a foot long, contain a reddish pulp,
of an agreeable sweet taste when dry; and are
supposed to be "the husks (KvariA) that the
swine did eat," (Luke xv. 16). They are used
as food for man and horse. The carob tree is
raised from seeds.

CARPET (Dmch, karpet ; It?}, carpetta). A
covering for floors, &c., manufactured of wool,
or other materials, worked with the needle or
by the loom. Carpets are generally composed
of linen and worsted, but the Kidderminster or
Scotch carpets are entirely fabricated of wool.
Persian and Turkish carpets are the most es-
teemed. In England carpets are principally
manufactured at Kidderminster, Wilton, Ciren-
cester, Worcester, Axminster, &c.; and in
Scotland at Kilmarnock. Those made at Ax-
minster are believed to be very little, if any
thing, inferior to those of Persia and Turkey.
(M'CnUoch's Com. Diet.; Willich's Dom. Encyc;
Brande's Diet, of Science.)

CARRIAGE (Fr. cariage). A general name
applied to carts, wagons, and other vehicles,
employed in conveying passengers, goods,
merchandise, &c., from one place to another,
and which are usually constructed with two or
four wheels. Wheel-carriages first came into
use about 1381; they were called ivhirlicotes,
and were little better than litters or cots (cotes)
placed upon wheels.

Carriage, in irrigation, is a conduit made of
timber or brick : if the latter, an arch is turned
over the stream that runs under it, and the
sides bricked up ; if the former, which it com-
monly is, it is constructed with a bottom and
two sides, as wide and as high as the main it
lies in. It must be made very strong, close,
and well-jointed. Its use is to convey the
water in one main over another which runs at
right angles with it ; its depth and breadth are
of the same dimensions with the main it be-
longs to ; its length is in proportion to the
Z ' 265

CARRIAGE DRAIN.

CARROT.

breadth of the main it crosses. It is the most
expensive conveyance belonging to the irrigat-
ing of land.

CARRIAGE DRAIN. See Drains.

CARROT (Fr. carole). A well-known an-
ni^al or biennial root, common alike to the
field and the garden. The wild carrot, from
whence all those now commonly cultivated
came, is a native of England, found chiefly on
chalky hills. The kinds now preferred for
field culture are the long red, the Altringham,
and the orange. It is a crop which, for the
heavier description of soils, is becoming more
and more cultivated in this country; for its
produce is not only large, but it can be grown
on lands not suited to turnip culture ; for
although the soils best adapted to it are deep
sandy loams, yet it can be grown successfully
on sands and peats. The carrot delights, how-
ever, in a deep soil, and thus land intended for
it can hardly be ploughed too deep. It is usual
to trench plough or subsoil for it ; and in Hol-
land they are even at the pains to deepen with
the spade the furrows made by the plough. It
may be sown, like the turnip, on ridges, by the
drill or otherwise, or broadcast. The seed
should be of the previous season's growth ; if
mixed a fortnight before sowing with two
bushels of sand or mould, kept wetted and
turned over once or twice, they will grow all
the better (Com. to Board of Jlgr. vol. vii. p. 70 —
299) ; and it keeps the seed from clinging to-
gether. {Jour, of Roy. Agr. Soc. of Eng. p. 40.)
The quantity proper to be sown per acre (April
is the best period) is two pounds by the drill,
and about five when sown broadcast. The
plants should be hoed out like turnips, and dug
up in October for storing; but they may be
left in the ground if preferred, and dug up as
they are wanted. They may be stored either
in a building covered with straw or haulm, or
in pits piled in heaps four feet deep. {Erit.
Husb. vol. ii. p. 287.) The common produce is
from 280 to 450 bushels per acre— 9000 lbs.
(Com. Board of Agr. vol. vi. p. 141.) .It is ad-
mirable food for all kinds of stock. {Low. Agr.
p. 326.) Either the tops mown off green, which
is said not to injure the roots (Com. Board of
Agi-.Yol. V. p. 211), or the roots, for horses,
half a bushel a day, sliced in chaff, is admira-
ble food. (Youatt on the Horse, p. 358, 392, 213;
Brit. Husb. vol. i. p. 125.) 1000 parts of the
carrot contain 98 of nutritive matter. (Davy^s
Led.) It should be well manured with either
farm-yard dung (20 cubic yards per acre) ; or
pigeons' dung is excellent (Quar. Jour, of Agr.
vol. V. p. 144) ; or a mixture of salt, 6^ bushels,
and soot 6^, trenched in (S'mdair ; Johnson on
Salt, 31, 146 ; Rev. E. Cartwright, Com. Board of
Agr. vol. iv. p. 376) ; or sea-weed trenched in
fresh as collected from the shore (Quar. Jour,
of Agr. vol. vii. p. 268) ; or turf trenched in
deep (Com. Board of Agr. vol. iv. p. 191); or
street sweepings, mixed with one-third of pigs'
dung and 20 hogshead of liquid manure. (Flem.
Husb. 40.) The white or Belgian carrot has
-Aeen recently tried as a field crop with consi-
derable success ; Sir C. Burrell having grown
of this variety in 1840, "on a very indifferent
■field," 1000 bushels per acre (Brit. Farm. Mag.
vol. iv. p. 464) ; Lord Ducie, 26 tons 3 cwt. ;
266

and from 20 to 32 tons by Mr. Harris ; and in
Jersey 38 tons per acre. It is described in the
Report of the Yoxford Farmers^ Club as well
adapted for strong or mixed soil lands, as keep-
ing well,, and as excellent food for horses.
(Journ. of Royal Agr. Soc. vol. ii. p. 42.)

CARROT, THE GARDEN (Daucus carota-
as some imagine from Jcuu, though its taste is
far from being pungent. Perhaps from J'*<n/f,
on account of the thickness of its root). There
are a considerable number of varieties of the
carrot, which are divided by horticulturists
into two families: those with a regular fusi-
form root, which are named long carrots; and
those having one that is nearly cylindrical,
abruptly terminating, but continuing with a
long slender tap-root, which are denominated
hoj-n carrots. The first are employed for the
main crops ; the second, on account of their
superior delicate flavour, and are advantage-
ously grown for early use. They are likewise
commonly recommended for shallow soils.
Horn carrots, — early red horn, common early
horn, long horn : this last is the best for the
summer crop. Long carrots, — white, yellow,
long yellow, long red, Chertsey or Surrey, su-
perb green-topped or Altringham : the last two
are the best for main crops. Carrots should
have a warm, light, sandy, fertile soil, dug full
two spades deep, as they require to be deeper
than any other culinary vegetable. With the
bottom spit it is a good practice to turn in a
little well-decayed manure ; but no general ap-
plication of it to the surface should be allowed
in the year they are sown. A spot should be
allotted them which has been made rich for
the growth of crops in the previous year, or
else purposely prepared by manuring and
trenching in the preceding autumn. The fresh
application of manure is liable to cause their
growing forked, and to expend themselves in
fibres, as well as to be worm-eaten. If, how-
ever, the want of manure must be obviated at
the time of sowing, it should be used in a
highly putrescent state, and but in small quan-
tities, finely divided and well mixed with the
soil. If the soil is at all binding, it should be
well pulverized by digging very small pits at a
tinrie, &c. Mr. Smith of Keith Hall, N. B., re-
commends pigeons' dung as the best manure
for this crop : it not only prevents the maggot,
but causes them to grow finer. He applies it
in the same proportion as is usually done of
stable manure. (Mem. Caled. Hort. Soc. vol. i. p.
129.) Carrots are propagated by seed. The
first sowing for the production of plants to
draw whilst young should take place in a mo-
derate hotbed during January, and in a warm
border at the conclusion of February or early
in March. At the close of the last month, or
more preferably in the early part of April, the
main crop must be inserted ; though, to avoid
the maggot, it is even recommended not to do
so until its close. In May and July the sowing
may be repeated for production in autumn ;
and lastly, in August, to stand through the
winter, and produce in early spring. For sow-
ing, a calm day should be taken advantage of;
and, previous to commencing, the seeds should
be separated by rubbing them between the
hands, with the admixture of a little sand;

CARROT.

CARROT.

otherwise, by reason of their adhering by the
hairs that surround their edges, they are clot-
ted together, and cannot be sown regular. The
surface of the bed should likewise be laid
smooth ; otherwise, in raking it, the seed will
be drawn together in similar heaps. To avoid
this, before raking, it may be gently trod in.
The seed should be sown thin, and the beds
not more than four feet wide, for the conve-
nience of after-cultivation. The larger weeds
must be continually removed by hand; and
when the plants are seven or eight weeks old,
or when they have got four leaves two or three
inches long, they should be thinned ; those in-
tended for drawing young to four or five inches
apart, and those to attain their full growth to
eight or ten ; at the same time, the ground must
be small-hoed, which operation should be re-
gularly performed every three or four weeks,
until the growth of the plants becomes an ef-
fectual hinderance to the growth of the weeds.
The crop to stand through the winter should,
in frosty weather, be sheltered with a covering
of litter, as, if frost occurs with much severity,
it often destroys them. The hotbed for the first
sowing of the year must be moderate, and
earthed about sixteen inches deep ; two or
three linings of hot dung, as the heat decreases,
will be sufficient to bring them to a state fit for
use. These are the first in production, but are
closely followed by those that have withstood
the winter. The temperature must never ex-
ceed 70°, or fall lower than 65° : if it rises
higher, it is a certain cause of weakness ; if
lower, it checks the advance of the root. They
need not be thinned to more than three inches
apart.

At the close of October, or early in Novem-
ber, as soon as the leaves change colour, the
main crop may be dug up, and laid in alternate
layers, with sand, in a dry outhouse ; previous
to doing which, the tops, and any adhering
earth, must be removed. A dry day should
always be chosen for taking them up.

For the production of seed, it is by much the
best practice to leave some where raised. If,
however, this is impracticable, some of the
finest and most perfect roots should be select-
ed, and their tops not cut so close as those for
storing ; these likewise must be placed in sand
until February or March, though some gar-
deners recommended October or November,
then to be planted out two feet asunder in a
stiff" loamy soil. Those left where grown, or
those planted at the close of autumn, must,
during frosts, have the protection of litter ; it
being invariably removed, however, during
mild weather. As the seed ripens in August,
which is known by its turning brown, about
the end of August each umbel should be cut;
for if it is waited for until the whole plant de-
cays, much of the seed is often lost during
stormy weather. It must be thoroughly dried
by exposure to the sun and air, before it is
rubbed out for storing. For sowing, the seed
should always be of the previous year's growth;
if it is more than two years old, it will not ve-
getate at all. (G. W. Johnson's Kitchen Garden.)
The boiled carrot forms a good poultice in foul
and cancerous ulcers.

Carrots, are much cultivated in many parts
of the United States, where many farmers pre-
fer them over every other vegetable for fatten-
ing swine, cattle, and even as feed for horses.
To fatten swine they should be given boiled, to
store-hogs, raw.

The following remarks upon the culture and
use of carrots in New England, are extracted
from Mr. Colman's Second Report on the Agri-
culture of Massachusetts.

" Jno. Merrill, of South Lee, has been a very
successful cultivator of carrots. He states the
yield on two acres at 600 bushels to the acre;
and the cost of cultivation, exclusive of manure
and rent of land, at twentj-'-five dollars per
acre ; or a little more than four cents per
bushel. For feeding horses, he says, he should
prefer one hundred bushels of carrots and one
hundred bushels of oats to two hundred bushels
of oats. He applied them in a raw state to the
feeding of his team horses, and horses in pre-
paration for market; and they were kept by
them in high health and spirits. Oats followed
his carrot crop on the same ground with great
success. The experience of J. C. Curwen,
Eng., in the use of carrots for horses, corres-
ponds with that of Mr. Merrill. The authority
of Curwen is unquestionable ; and he was in
the habit of employing constantly as many as
eighty horses on his farm and in his extensive
coal mines.

" • I cannot omit,* he says, ' stating the great
profit of carrots. I have found by the experi-
ence of the last two years, that where eight
pounds of oat-feeding was allowed to draft
horses, four pounds might be taken away and
supplied by an equal weight of carrots ; and
the health, spirit, and ability of the horses to do
their work be perfectlv as good as with the
whole quantity of oats. With the drill hus-
bandry and proper attention, very good crops
of carrots may be obtained upon soils not
generally supposed suitable to their growth.'

"He adds in another place. 'The profits
and advantages of carrots are in my opinion
greater than any other crop. This admirable
root has, upon repeated and very extensive
trials for the last three years, been found to
answer most perfectly as a part substitute for
oats. Where ten pounds of oats are given per
day, four pounds may be taken away; and
their place supplied by five pounds of carrots.
This has been practised in the feeding of eighty
horses for the last three years, with the most
complete success, and the health and condition
of the horses allowed to be improved by the
exchange. An acre of carrots supplies a quan-
tity of food for working horses equal to sixteen
j or twenty acres' of oats.'

! " My own experience of the value of carrots,
i which has not been small, fully confirms these
\ statements. I have obtained at the rate of
; more than a thousand bushels to the acre on.
I three quarters of an acre ; but on several acres
my crop has usually averaged 600 bushels to
the acre.

j Smith of Middlefield, Hampshire coun-

' ty, from three-fourths of an acre obtained 900
bushels.

1 "Charles Knowlton of Ashfield, Franklin

267

CARROT.

CART

county, this year obtained 90 bushels on twelve
rods of ground. This was at the rate of 1200
bushels to the acie.

"D. Moore, of Concord, Middlesex county,
from six rods of land, obtained this year 56
busl^els ; or at the rate of 1493 bushels to the
acre.

"According to Josiah Quincy's experience in
Quincy, Plymouth county, charging labour at
one dollar per day his carrots cost him eleven
cents per bushel. David and Stephen Little,
in Newbury, Essex county, in 1813, obtained,
961 bushels to the acre, at an expense of
$79.50 every expense included, excepting rent
of land. This was at a rate less than nine
cents to a bushel."

Mr. Colman subjoins, in an Appendix, an
account of an experiment made in feeding
swine, illustrating the value of this vegetable,
upon the authority of Arthur Young.

"The great objection to the cultivation of
carrots lies in the difficulty of keeping them
while growing free from weeds. If sown
without any preparation, the seed is a long
lime in germinating; and a plentiful crop of
weeds is liable to get possession of the land
before the carrots make their appearance.
There is another difficulty. The carrot seed
from its minuteness is liable to be sown too
thickly. To obviate in a degree these objec-
tions, let the ground be ploughed deeply, well
manured, and put in fine tilth ; and let the first
and perhaps the second crop of weeds be
ploughed in. After this let the land be thrown
into ridges two feet apart, and the seed sown
on top of the ridges either in a single line, or
the ridges be made so wide as to receive two
rows of carrots, eight inches or one foot apart.
In the mean time the seed should be freely
mixed with fine sand*; and the sand kept so
moist that the seed shall germinate. As soon
as it is sprouted it should be sown. This may
be so arranged that the sowing shall take place
about the first of June. They will then have
the start of the weeds. The mixture with sand
will prevent their being sown too thickly. After
the first thinning and weeding is over, if done
with care, the battle may be considered as won.
Afterwards let them be cultivated with a
plough or cultivator and kept clean. When
the time of digging arrives, the Avork will be
greatly facilitated by passing a plough directly
along the side of the carrots ; and they are
easily thrown out by the hand."

CARROT, WILD (Daiicus carota, PI. 10, o).
This common plant is abundant in pastures,
and about hedges, in a gravelly soil. Ii is
a biennial plant, flowering in June and July.
Its root is small, slender, aromatic, and sweet-
ish. It grows two feet high, branched, erect,
leafy; the stalks are firm and striated; the
leaves are divided into fine and numerous par-
titions, of a pale-green colour, being also hairy.
The flowers are in large umbels, with large,
pinnatifid involucres, and undivided involu-
cels, small and white, except the central flower,
\rf3ich is red ; and they are succeeded by rough
s^ds. This is one of those plants in which
we are able to perceive design. The seeds
require to be protected, to produce which all
the flower-stalks become incurvated, making
268

the umbel hollow, or giving it the aspect of a
cup or nest. The seed is medicinally used; it
is a powerful diuretic. An infusion of the
seeds in white wine is very restorative in hys-
terical disorders.

The wild carrot is found in pastures, road-
sides, &c. in Pennsylvania and the Middle
States. Although much esteemed in Europe
as a food for milch-cows, it is regarded as ra-
ther a nuisance by the farmers in the United
States, and requires great exertion to destroy
and keep under when once introduced into
fields. {Flor. Cest.)

CARRUCAGE (from caruca, an old name
for the plough). In husbandr}', denotes the
ploughing of ground, either ordinary, as for
grain, hemp, flax; or, extraordinary, as for
woad, dyer's weed, rapeseed, &c.

CARRUSATE. A term that anciently de-
noted the quantity of arable land capable of
being tilled in one year with one plough.

CARRYING. A term used in horsemanship
A horse is said to carry low, when, having na-
turally an ill-shaped neck, he lowers his head
too much. This fault may be remedied by a
proper bridle. A horse is said to carry well,
when his neck is raised or arched, and he holds
his head high and firm, without constraint.
Carrying in the mnd,is applied to horses which
frequently toss their noses as high as their
ears, and do not carry their heads hand-
somely.

CARSE. A provincial term applied to such
lands as lie in the hollows near large rivers or
estuaries of the sea, and have a deep rich soil.
The carse of Gowrie, in Scotland, yields the
heaviest crops of grain north of the Tweed.
Such lands are either of the deep clayey loamy
kind, or alluvial soils in a state of aration.

CART. A vehicle constructed with two or
more wheels, and drawn by one or more horses.
Half a century since. Lord Robert Seymour
advocated the cause of the single-horse cart:
he observed, that the advantages of single-horse
carts are universally admitted, wherever they
have been attentively compared with carriages
of any other description. By his own observa-
tion he was led to think that a horse when he
acts singly, will do half as much more work
as when he acts in conjunction with another;
that is to say, that two horses will, separately,
do as much work as three conjunctively; this
arises, he believes, in the first place, from the
single horse being so near the load he draws ;
and, in the next place, from the point or line
of draught being so much below his breast —
it being usual to make the wheels of single-
horse carts ver-y low. A horse harnessed sin-
gly has nothing but his load to contend with;
whereas, when he draws in conjunction with
another, he is generally embarrassed by some
difference of rate, the horse behind or before
him being quicker or slower than himself; he
is likewise frequently inconvenienced by the
greater or lesser height of his neighbour :
these considerations gave, he conceived, a de-
cided advantage to the sort of cart he recom-
mended. If any other is wanted, that of the
very great ease with w^hich a low cart is filled
may be added ; as a man may load it with the
help of a long-handled shovel or fork, by means

CART.

CAST.

of his hands only : whereas, in order to fill a
higher cart, not only the man's back, but his
arms and whole person must be exerted. To
the use of single horses in draught he has
heard no objection, unless it be the supposed
necessity of additional drivers created by it :
the fact, however, is, that it has no such effect;
for horses once in the habit of going singly,
will follow each other as uniformly and as
steadily as they do when harnessed together ;
and accordingly we see, says he, on the most
frequented roads in Ireland, men conducting
three, four, or five single-horse carts each,
without any inconvenience to the passengers:
such, likewise, is the case in England, in
which lime and coal are generally carried.

broad or narrow wheels, but the former are
preferable for farmwork.

CARTER. An inferior sort of farm servant,
who has the care of driving and foddering the
team. He should always be chosen as steady,
regular, sober, and trustworthy as possible, and
be perfectly gentle and humane in his disposi-
tion. It is of great importance to the farmer
to have a carter with these qualifications ; for
otherwise his horses may be ill-treated, ne-
glected, overworked, or overfed, and much
fodder wasted. (Brit. Husb.vol. i. p. 170.) Le-
onard Mascal, nearly two centuries since, told
the carter of his day to " have patience in mo-
derate useing of his horses; and at all other
times he ought to bear a love alwayes to his

{Young s Anv. of Agr. vol. xxvii. p. 337.) And ; cattel, that his cattel may love him, not fearin

he might likewise have added, the single-horse
carts in some of the northern counties, where
one man manages two or three, and sometimes
more.

The subject of carts has recently engaged
the attention of the Royal Agricultural Society
of England. Mr. Baker of Gloucestershire,
says, in their Journ. vol. i. p. 429, " My land is
on a stiff clay ; my carts are on six-inch wheels,
and made to hold half the quantity that my
neighbours carry in theirs. My land is hilly;
my carts generally go with one horse; but up
hill, when loaded, another is put on before,
which comes down the hill with the next re-
turning cart. Thus, on a level ground, with
two carts, and two or perhaps With three horses,
I take out the same quantity of dung that my
neighbours carry in their carts with never less
than three horses, and sometimes with four."
And in the Journ. of the Roy. Agr. Soc. of Eng.
vol. ii. p. 73, is a very good article by Mr. Han-
nam of Burcott, illustrated by engravings of the
one-horse cart, and of a new one of his own
construction. "The counties of Cumberland
and Westmoreland," he observes, **have uni-
versally and immemorially used the one-horse-
cart. They have no other carriage for any
kind of agricultural produce, and never is the
addition of another horse on any occasion
seen." The practice, apparently originating
in economy, has long since spread into Dum-
friesshire ; and, according to Mr. Wilkie of
Uddingston, it is all but universal at the present
moment throughout the west of Scotland.
**My dung-carts," he adds, "are taken from the
improved Cumberland cart, which measures
60 inches long X 47^ inches wide X 17 inches
deep = 1 cubic yard =21 bushels; and it tilts
with a spring key-stick, which adjusts itself
as the horse moves forward; the wheels are
about 4 feet 6 inches high, and are set so far
apart as to conveniently span two 27-inch
ridges; it weighs 8 cwt." There are a variety
of carts peculiar to different counties, most of
which are described, and drawings given, in
IWit. Husb. vol. i. p. 159; from the heavy one-
horse cart of the vicinity of London, to the
light simple Irish or Yarmouth car, as well as
the improved car first introduced into Leices-
tershire by Bakewell.

The carts of Pennsylvania are perhaps un-
surpassed in the United States for neatness
and strength. Either one, two, or three horses
are used, as circumstances may require, and

him too much ; let him never use to beat them
with the stock of his whip, but whip them with
the lash, and use them to the sound thereof,
and yet not often for dulling of them."

CARTHAMUS, or SAFFLOWER (Chartha-
mtis tinctorius), an annual plant cultivated in
Spain, Egypt, and the Levant, for its flower,
which is used in dyeing silks, &c., and in
making rouge. See Saffron.

CART LODGE. A small outhouse for
sheltering carts from the weather. Farmers
should be very careful to place their carts, &c.
under proper shelter, when out of use, as they
will last much longer by this means than if
left exposed in the yard to the effects of the
weather ; for, as they are thus sometimes wet,
and sometimes dry, they soon rot, and become
unfit for use. The dust and dirt should also
be constantly washed off before they are laid
up. There are some excellent observations on
the necessity of care in the preservation of
agricultural implements by Mr. Crosskill of
Beverley. (Journ. of Roy. Agr. Soc. vol. ii. p.
150.) He advises that the implements should
all be placed under the care of one workman
on the farm, who should be encouraged to feel
a pride in showing his master's implements in
fine order.

CARY'S CATTLE GAUGE. An instru-
ment made in the form and on the principle of
a slider rule, for ascertaining the weight of
live cattle, which is indicated in stones of 8 lbs.
and 14 lbs. (See Brit. Husb. vol. ii. foot note
at p. 393.)

CASINGS. A provincial term, signifying
dried cow's dung, which is used in several
parts of England for fuel.

CASK. A vessel of capacity, for holding
different sorts of liquids, or other matters.
See Bauhel.

CASSAVA. See Tapioca.

CAST. A term applied to a swarm or flight
of bees (see Bees); and to poultry when they
lose their feathers or moult. It is also used to
denote the changing of the hair and hoofs of
horses. Horses cast or shed their hair at least
once a year. Every spring they cast the win-
ter coat, and gain a summer one ; and some-
times in the end of autumn they put on their
winter hair, in case they have been ill-fed,
curried, or clothed, or kept in a cold stable.
Occasionally they cast their hoofs: when this
happens, let them be turned out into a pas-
ture.

z 2 269

CASTING.

CAT.

CASTING. The operation of Ihrovnn^ a |
horse down, which should be performed with |
great care on straw. Take a long rope, double ]
it, and cast a knot a yard from the bow ; put
the bow about his neck, and the double rope
betwixt his fore legs, about his hinder pasterns,
and under his fetlocks : when you have done
this, slip the ends of the rope underneath the
bow of his neck, and draw them quick, and
they will overthrow him ; then make the ends
fast, and hold down his head.

CASTING A COLT. A term which implies
a mare's proving abortive.

CASTO'R OIL. The well known medi-
cinal oil obtained from the seeds or beans
of the Palma Chyisti, a plant indigenous to
the West Indies. The cultivation of the Pal-
ma Christi and the manufacture of castor oil
is extensively carried on in some parts of the
United States, and continues on the increase.
A single firm at St. Louis has worked up 18,500
bushels of beans in four months, producing
17,750 gallons of oil, and it is stated that 800
barrels have been sold at $50 the barrel. This
oil may be prepared for burning, machinery,
soap, &.c^ and is also convertible into stearin.
It is more soluble in alcohol than lard-oil.

CASTRATION. In farriery, a term signify-
ing, in regard to animals, the operation of geld-
ing in males, and spaying in females. The
operation may be performed at any age, but, in
general, the earlier the better. For cattle, be-
tween two and eight months ; for sheep, before
they are twenty-one days old ; in horses, be-
tween four and twelve months.

CAT (Felis catus, L.). A genus of animals
comprising twenty-one species, and belonging
to the same class as the lion and the tiger.
Though originally a variety of the wild cat, one
of the most ferocious brutes, this animal is
now domesticated. The former inhabits hollow
trees, especially the oaks of large forests, and
in winter retreats to the deserted holes of foxes
and badgers. Its skin is an excellent fur, but
by no means compensates the damage done by
wild cats to game and poultry.

The domestic cat, when suffered to retire to
thickets, easily returns to a wild state. Its
colour is uncommonly diversified ; but the most
beautiful varieties are the reddish Spanish cat,
and that of Angora, with long silken hair. A
tame cat generally attains the age of about
twelve years ; the female breeds in the first
year, though it grows till eighteen months old ;
she usually produces from four to six blind
kittens, after a gestation of fifty-five days ; and
carefully conceals them, apprehensive of the
unnatural voracity of the male. It is further
remarkable, that the female also has been ob-
serv^ed to devour her offspring, when it hap-
pened to be deformed or monstrous.

The flesh of animals or fish is the most
agreeable food to cats; for they partake of
vegetable aliment only from necessity. As
they chew with difficulty, frequent drink is in-
dispensably requisite to the preservation of
tleir health. There are, however, some plants
of which they are excessively fond, and when
indulged with them, present a variety of whim-
sical gesticulations ; of this nature is the vale-
270

rian root, and the herb called nep, or catmint,
the Nepefa cataria, L.; on the contrary, they
shun other vegetables as their mortal enemies,
for instance, the common rue, or Rutn graveo-
lens, L. Any substance rubbed with the leaves
of this plant is said to be perfectly secure from
their depredations : for the communication of
this useful fact in domestic life we are indebt-
ed to C. P. Funke, a German naturalist.

Cats enjoy a warm temperature and a soft
couch; moisture and filth, as well as water and
cold, are equally repugnant to their nature;
hence they are continually cleaning themselves
with their paws and tongue. Another pecu-
liarity is the purring of these animals, when
they are cajoled or flattered, by passing the
hand over their backs ; this singular noise is
performed by means of two elastic membranes
in the larynx, or the upper part of the wind-pipe.
Their hair is so electric that the expanded skin
of a cat makes an excellent cushion for the
glass cylinder or globe of an electrifying ma-
chine.

The flesh of cats is eaten by several nations,
but the substance of the brain is said to be poi-
sonous. From the intestines of these animals
are manufactured-the celebrated Roman chords
for covering the violin.

They are manufactured out of the guts of rab-
bits and sheep also ; they are cleaned, soakel
in water, stretched by a machine, and dried.
The name catgut comes from the circumstance
of cats being used as food in many parts of
Italy, and their guts applied to the making of
strings. {WilUch's Dom. Encyc)

Several species of the cat kind are foimd wild
in America. Dr. Harlan, in his "Fauna Ame-
ricana," describes the following :

1. The Cougar of BufFon, the Pouma of some
travellers, vulgarly called the Jlmerican Lion.
This is of a deep yellow colour, without a mane
or a tuft at the end of the tail. Its total length is
about three feet six inches, including the tail,
which is over two feet long. The body is long
and slender, head small, legs strong and short,
tail long and trailing, colour grayish about the
eyes, hairs within the ears white slightly tinged
with yellow. This animal inhabits both Ame-
rican continents, from Paraguay and Brazil to
Canada. Dr. Harlan thinks the Pennsylvania
Cougar, Panther or Wild-cat a variety of the
Pouma. The ferocity of these animals is fami-
liarly known, and the pioneers often suffer
from their depredations upon pigs, sheep,
calves, and even colts.

2. The Jaguar, or South American panther, is
also met with in the southwestern portions of
the United States, and has occasionally been
found east of the Mississippi. It is much
larger than the North American panther, being
four and a half feet long, including the tail,
the length of which is two feet two inches.
Their proportions are thick and clumsy. The
hairs are short, strong, compact, silky. The
fur yellowish, and covered with spots either
entirely black, or yellow encircled with black.
Like all wild cats they rove by night, and re-
tire into thick swamps by day.

3. The Spotted Mountain Cat, the Felis parda-
lis of Linnaeus, and Ocelet of Buflbn, inhabits

CATALPA.

CATCH-WEED.

Mexico and the southwestern parts of the
United States, though it has not been found
east of the Mississippi. Its general colour is
gray, marked with large fawn-coloured spots,
bordered with black, forming oblique bands on
the flanks. It is about two feet long from the
end of the snout to the origin of the tail, which
measures about two feet.

4. The Canadian Lynx, or Felis Canadensis of
Buffon, inhabits the Canadas, Labrador, &c.
Its tail is very short, and black on the posterior
half. The ears are terminated by a small tuft
of hairs. The colour of the body is grayish,
with yellowish or pale brown points below,
and some black lines on the head. Total
length two feet three inches, the included tail
being only three or four inches long.

5. Another species of wild cat, called by na-
turalists Fehs rufa, or Red Cat, the Chat-cervier
of furriers, is found in the forests of New York,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio. This is rather smaller
than the common lynx, the head and back be-
ing of a deep red, with small spots of blackish
brown, throat whitish, breast and belly of a
clear reddish white.

6. Another lynx of large size, found on the
northwestern coast by Lewis and Clarke, has
been called by naturalists Felis fasciata. TJiis
Dr. Harlan thinks is probably the 5ame as that
described by Mr. Nuitall in his Travels in Ar-
kansas. Its tail is very short, while, with the
point black. The ears are furnished with pen-
cils of hair, and black externally. The fur
is very thick, of a brownish-red colour, with
stripes and points above.

7. The common American Motmtain Cat or
Catamount (Felis mantana), has been also
named the Mountain Lynx and Mississippi Lynx.
It is found in the Alleghany mountains, from
New York to Florida. The tail is very short,
and in colour gray. The ears are destitute of
pencils of hair, and externally blackish, with
whitish or yellow spots within. Length three
or four feet including the tail.

8. Another species has been found on the
borders of the Yellow Stone river, in size about
one half larger than the domestic cat, the tail
being only two inches long. It is the Lytix
aureus or Golden Lynx of Rafinesque, so named
from its clear, brilliant yellow colour. It is
spotted with black and white. The ears are
without pencils.

CATALPA (Bignonia catalpa). A shrub
growing in England thirty or forty feet high ;
its beautiful pendulous flowers bloom in Au-
gust. It has a peculiarly large bright green
leaf; loves heat, and does not blow in wet
summers. It is tolerably hardy; easily raised
from layers or seed.

The catalpa is an American tree which Mi-
chaux says begins to be found in the Atlantic
States, on the banks of the Savannah river,
near Augusta, Georgia, and west of the Alle-
ghanies, on the banks of the Cumberland, be-
tween the 35th and 36th degrees of latitude.
Further south it becomes still more common,
and abounds near the borders of all the rivers
which empty into the Mississippi, or which
water West Florida. Michaux expresses sur-
prise that this tree should not have been
naturally distributed in the lower part of the

Carolinas and Georgia, and in East Florida,
w^hich lie so near the country of its primitive
growth. This is the more strange from the
fact that the catalpa manifests a great tend-
ency to spread itself abroad by means of its
winged seeds, and has in so many instances
left the vicinity of dwellings where it was
planted as a shade tree and mixed with the
natives of the forest. It may, fur example, le
seen along the banks of the Schuylkill, and
many other places, growing wild.

In the South it frequently exceeds fifty feet
in height, with a diameter of eighteen to twenty-
four inches. Its ample heart-shaped leaves,
clusters of rich and beautiful flowers, long
bean-shaped seed-pods, and wide spreading
summit, give a strong character to this tree,
which differs from all others in the fewness
of its branches.

That the catalpa is a tree of rapid growth
is proved by the distance of the annual con-
centrical circles. Its wood is of a grayish
white colour, of a fine texture, very light, and
very brilliant when polished. It resembles the
butternut wood, with the exception that the
butternut wood is of a reddish hue, and is less
durable when exposed to the weather. Posts
of the catitipa perfectly seasoned have been
proved to be very lasting. In the spring, if a
bit of the cellular integument of the bark be
removed, a very offensive odour is exhaled.
The honey collected from the flowers of this
tree is somewhat poisonous, its effects, though
less alarming, being similar to those produced
by eating that collected by bees from the yellow
jasmine {Geselminum nitiduni).

In the Southern States the catalpa is called
Catawba tree, after the name of the Indian
tribe that formerly inhabited a large part of
'the country from which the tree was first pro-
cured. The French of Upper Louisiana call
it Bois Shavanon, from the Shavanon or Shaw-
nee nation which once existed-in West Ten-
nessee, watered by the Cumberland river. (M-
chattx.)

The rapid growth of the catalpa in almost
every situation in tvhich it can be placed in
the Middle States, and the adaptation of its
wood to posts and other useful purposes, make
it deserving the attention of the farmer wher-
ever other kinds of wood are scarce, especially
the kinds suitable for fences.

CATARACT. In farriery, a disease in the
eyes of horses, in which the crystalline humour
is rendered opaque, and the vision impeded or
destroyed. The only certain method of cure
in these complaints is to remove the lens by
means of extracting or couching. By the first
mentioned operation, an incision is made into
the eye, and the opaque lens taken out ; by the
second, it is depressed by the point of a couch-
ing needle thrust into the eye, and, being car
ried to the lower part of the chamber of the
eye or vitreous humour, it is left there to be
absorbed. The first operation is the more
effective, but the more hazardous of the two,
owing to the inflammation which succeeds.
The second is tedious and sometimes fails, but
it is free from the risk of inflammation.

CATCH-WEED, CLEAVERS, or GOOSE-
GRASS (Galium JpaHtie, Eng. Flor. vol. i. p.

271

CATCH-WORK.

CATERPILLAR.

21). PI. 10, h. A weed growing in hedges and
by roadsides. See Hauiff.

CATCH-WORK. A term employed in irri-
gation for the works for throwing the water
over such lands as lie on the declivities of hills.

CATCH-WORK MEADOW. That sort of
meadow which is formed by turning the water
of a spring or small rivulet along the side of a
hill or declivity, so as to water the lands be-
tween the cut or main carriage and the original
water-course, which in this case becomes the
inain drain. See Ihriration.

CATERPILLAR. The name given to the
larva state of butterflies and moths.

The natural history of insects so universally
destructive as caterpillars, which in voracity
are only inferior to locusts, cannot fail to inte-
rest all, whether residents of town or country;
and it is evident that persons acquainted with
the precise nature and habits of destructive
insects, their times and seasons of multiplica-
tion and transformation, must be enabled to
devise the' most eflfectual means of protecticm
against their ravages. Thanks to the intelli-
gent policy and liberal patronage of the Legis-
lature of Massachusetts, the most exact and
valuable information upon this branch of the
history of destructive insects has been placed
before the public, through the labours of the
distinguished American entomologist. Doctor
Harris.

Caterpillars are the larvse or young of moths
and butterflies, of which. Dr. Harris says, 500
species are already known tx) him as natives of
Massachusetts ; and he thinks there may be as
many more yet undiscovered in the limits of
that state. As each female usually lays from 200
to 500 eggs, 1000 different kinds of butterflies
and moths will produce, on an average, 300,000
caterpillars. If one-half of this number, when
arrived at maturity, are females, they will give
45,000,000 of caterpillars in the second, and
6,750,000,000 in the third generation. These
data, whilst they suffice to show that the actual
number of these insects existing at any one
time is far beyond the limits of numerical cal-
culation, explain their formidable capacity to
destroy vegetation. Whilst most caterpillars
feed upon the leaves of plants, some devour
the solid wood of trees, some live only in the
pith of plants, and some confine themselves to
grains and seeds. Certain species attack wool-
lens, furs, and other animal substances ; for
even leather, meat, wax, flour, and lard aflTord
nourishment to particular kinds of caterpillars.
"Some species herd together in great numbers,
and pass the early period of their existence in
society; and of these there are kinds which
unite in their labours, and construct tents serv-
ing as a common habitation, in which they live,
or to which they retire occasionally for shelter.
Others pass their lives in solitude, either ex-
posed to the light and air, or sheltered in leaves
folded over their bodies, or form for themselves
silken sheaths, which are either fixed or porta-
ble. Some make their abodes in the stems of
plants, or mine in the pulpy substances of
"eaves; and others conceal themselves in the
ground, from which they issue only when in
search of food.

"Caterpillars usually change their skins
272

about four times before they come to their
growth. At length they leave off" eating entirely,
and prepare for their first transformation. Most
of them, at this period, spin around their bodies
a sort of shroud or cocoon, into which some
interweave the hairs of their own bodies, and
some employ, in the same way, leaves, bits of
wood, or even grains of earth. Other caterpil-
lars suspend themselves, in various ways, by
silken threads, without enclosing their bodies
in cocoons; and, again, there are others which
merely enter the earth to undergo their trans-
formations.

"When the caterpillar has thus prepared it-
self for the approaching change, by repeated
exertions and struggles it bursts open the skin
on the top of its back, withdraws the forepart
of its body, and works the skin backwards till
the hinder extremity is extricated. It then no
longer appears in the caterpillar form, but has
become a pupa or chrysalis, shorter than the
caterpillar, and, at first sight, apparently with-
out a head or limbs. On close examination,
however, there may be found traces of a head,
tongue, antennae,wings, and legs, closely pressed
to the body, to which these parts are cemented
by a kind of varnisn. Some chrysalids are
angular, or furnished with little protuberances;
but most of them are smooth, rounded at one
end, and tapering at the other extremity. While
in the pupa state, these insects take no food,
and remain perfectly at rest, or only move the
hinder extremity of the body when touched.
After a while, however, the chrysalis begins to
swell and contract, till the skin is rent over the
back, and from the fissure there issues the
head, antennae, and body of a butterfly or moth.
When it first emerges from its pupa skin, the
insect is soft, moist, and weak, and its wings are
small and shrivelled ; soon, however, the wings
stretch out to their full dimensions, the super-
fluous moisture of the body passes off", and the
limbs acquire their proper firmness and elas-
ticity.

"The conversion of a caterpillar to a moth or
butterfly is a transformation of the most com-
plete kind. The form of the body is altered,
some of the legs disappear, the others and the
antennas become much longer than before, and
four wings are acquired. Moreover, the mouth
and digestive organs undergo a total change ;
for the insect, after its final transformation, is
no longer fitted to subsist upon the same gross
aliment as it did in the caterpillar state : its
powerful jaws have disappeared, and instead
thereof we find a slender tongue, by means of
which liquid nourishment is conveyed to the
mouth .of the insect, and its stomach becomes
capable of digesting only water and the honeyed
juice of flowers.

"Ceasing to increase in size, and destined to
live but a short time after their final transfor-
mation, butterflies and moths spend this brief
period of their existence in flitting from flower
to flower and regaling themselves wuth their
sweets, or in slaking their thirst with dew or
with the water left standing in puddles after
showers, in pairing with their mates, and in
laying their eggs; after which they die a natu-
ral death, or fall a prey to their numerous
enemies.

CATERPILLAR.

"These insects belong to an order dalled Lf.-
pinopTEttA, which means scaly wings; for the
mealy powder with which their wings are co-
vered, when seen under a powerful microscope,
is found to consist of little scales, lapping over
each other like the scales of fishes, and im-
planted into the skin of the wings by short
stems. The body of these insects is also more
or less covered with the same kind of scales,
together with hair or down in some species.
The tongue consists of two tubular threads
placed side by side, and thus forming an in-
strument for suction, which, when not in use,
is rolled up spirally beneath the head, and is
more or less covered and concealed on each
side by a little scaly or hairy jointed feeler.
The shoulders or wing-joints of the fore-wings
are covered on each side by a small triangular
piece, forming a kind of epaulette, or shoulder-
cover; and between the head and the thorax is
a narrow piece, clothed with scales or hairs
sloping backwards, which may be called the
collar. The wings have a few branching veins,
generally forming one or two large meshes
on the middle. The legs are six in number,
though only four are used in walking by some
butterflies, in which the first pair are very
short, and are folded like a tippet on the breast;
and the feet are five-jointed, and are terminated,
each, by a pair of claws.

"It would be difficult, and indeed impossible,
to arrange the Lepidopterous insects according
to their forms, appearance, and habits, in the
caterpillar state, because the caterpillars of
many of them are as yet unknown ; and there-
fore it is found expedient to classify them
mostly according to the characters furnished
by them in the winged state.

"We may first divide the Lepidoptera into
three great sections, called butterflies, hawk-
moths, and moths, corresponding to the genera
Papilio, Sphinx, and Phaleena of Linnseus.

"The butterflies (Papiliones) have threadlike
antenna?, which are knobbed at the end; the
fore-wings in some, and all the wings in the
greater number, are elevated perpendicularly
and turned back to back, when at rest ; they
have generally two little spurs on the hind-legs,
and they fly by day only. Their caterpillars,
when about to transform, suspend themselves
by the tail, and are not enclosed in cocoons.

" The hawk-moths (Sphinges) generally have
the antennae thickened in the middle and taper-
ing at each end, and most often hooked at the
tip; the wings are narrow in proportion to
their length, and are confined together by a
bristle or bunch of stiff" hairs on the shoulder
of each hind-wing, which is retained by a cor-
responding hook on the under side of each
fore-wing. All the wings, when at rest, are
more or less inclined like a roof, the upper
ones covering the lower wings: there are two
pairs of spurs on the hind-legs. A few fly by
day, but the greater number in the morning
and evening twilight.

"In the moths {Phalcencp) the antennae are
neither knobbed at the end nor thickened in
the middle, but taper from the base to the ex-
tremity, and are either naked, like a bristle, or
are feathered on each side. The wings are
confined together by bristles and hooks, the
35

CATERPILLAR.

first pair covering the hind-wings, and are
more or less sloping when at rest; and there
are two pairs of spurs to the hind-legs. These
insects fly mostly by night."

Among American destructive caterpillars de-
scribed by Dr. Harris, are the larvae of those
butterflies called Asterias, seen in great abun-
dance upon certain flowers in the month of
July — particularly on the sweet-scented phlox.
These flies, which are of a black colour with a
double row of yellow dots on the back, lay
their eggs, in this and the following month, on
various umbellate plants, placing them singly
on the diflerent parts of the leaves and stems.
The fly is large, its wings expanding from
three and a half to four inches. The hinder
wings are tailed, and have seven blue spots,
with an eye-like spot of an orange colour near
their hinder angle. The caterpillars of this
tribe. Dr. Harris has found on various garden
vegetables and plants, such as the carrot,parsley,
celery, anise, dill, caraway, and fennel; also
upon nightshade, hemlock, and other plants of
the same poisonous family, which, he observes,
constituted the appropriate food for these in-
sects, before the exotics just named became
abundant and furnished them in greater varie-
ty and profusion.

"Their injury to these cultivated plants,"
says the doctor, " is by no means inconsider-
able; they not only eat the leaves, but are
particularly fond of the blossoms and young
seeds. I have taken twent)- caterpillars on one
plant of parsley which was going to seed. The
eggs, laid in July and August, are hatched
soon afterwards, and the caterpillars come to
their growth towards the end of September, or
the beginning of October; they then suspend
themselves, become chrysalids, in which state
they remain during the winter, and are not
transformed to butterflies till the last of May
or the beginning of June in the following
year."

"I know of no method so effectual for de-
stroying these caterpillars as gathering them
by hand and crushing them. An expert per-
son will readily detect them by their ravages
on the plants which they inhabit ; and a few
minutes devoted, every day or two, to a care-
ful search in the garden, during the season of
their depredations, will sutfice to remove them
entirely.

" In Europe there are several kinds of cater-
pillars which live exclusively on the crucife-
rous or oleraceous plants, such as the cabbage,
broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radish, turnip, and
mustard, and oftentimes do considerable injury
to them. The prevailing colour of these cater-
pillars is green, and that of the butterflies pro-
duced from them, white. They belong to a
genus called Pontia; in which the hind-wings
arfe not scolloped nor tailed, but are rounded
and entire on the edges, and are grooved on
the inner edge to receive the abdomen."

In the northern and western portions of
Massachusetts, there is a white butterfly, the
wings of which expand about two inches. This
in all its states agrees with the character of
the European insect. It is the potherb pontia
{Pontia oleracea), a white butterfly, described
by Dr. Harris in the New England Farmer in

273

CATERPILLAR.

1829 (page 402). "About the last of May
and beginning of June, it is" he says, "seen
fluttering over cabbage, radish, and turnip
beds, and patches of mustard, for the purpose
of depositing its eggs. These are fastened to
the undersides of the leaves, and but seldom
^ more than three or four are left upon one leaf.
The eggs are yellowish, nearly pear-shaped,
longitudinally ribbed, and are one fifteenth of
an inch in length. They are hatched in a
week or ten days after they are laid, and the
caterpillars produced from them attain their
full size when three weeks old, and then mea-
sure about, one inch and a half in length.
Being of a pale green colour, they are not
readily distinguished from the ribs of the
leaves beneath which they live. They do not
devour the leaf at its edge, but begin indiscri-
minately upon any part of its under-side,
through which they eat irregular holes. When
they have completed the feeding stage, they
quit the plants, and retire beneath palings, or
the edges of stones, or into the interstices of
walls, where they spin a little tuft of silk, entan-
gle the horns of their hindmost feet in it, and then
proceed to form a loop to sustain the forepart
of the body in a horizontal or vertical position."
The next day after attaching itself it casts
off its caterpillar skin and becomes a chrysalis,
sometimes of a pale green, and sometimes of a
white colour, regularly and finely dotted with
black. The chrysalis state lasts eleven days,
at the expiration of which comes out the white-
winged butterfly. The chrysalids produced
from an autumnal brood of these insects sur-
vive the Avinter, and the butterflies from them
make their appearance in May or June. "In
gardens or fields infested by the caterpillars,
boards, placed horizontally an inch or two
above the surface of the soil, will be resorted
to by them when they are about to change to
chrysalids, and here it will be easy to find, col-
lect, and destroy them, either in the caterpillar
or chrysalis state. The butterflies also may
easily be taken by a large and deep bag-net of
muslin, attached to a handle of five or six feet
in length ; for they fly low and lazily, especially
when busy in laying their eggs. In Europe
the caterpillars of the white butterflies are
eaten by the larger titmouse (Parus major), and
probably our own titmouse or chickadee, with
other insect-eating birds, will be found equally
useful, if properly protected.

" We have several kinds of small six-footed
butterflies, some of which are found, during
the greater part of summer in the fields and
around the edges of woods, flying low and fre-
quently alighting, and oftentimes collected to-
gether in little swarms on the flowers of the
clover, mint, and other sweet-scented plants."
The heads of the common hop are frequently
eaten by the small green and downy caterpil-
lars of a ver}"- pretty little dusky brown butter-
fly, to which Dr. Harris has given the name
of Hop-vine Thecla (Theda humili).

The caterpillars of many of the four-footed

butterflies are spiny, or have their backs armed

I with numerous projecting points, beset all

f around with small siiff hairs, and sometimes

long, hard, and sharp prickles disposed in

bunches.

274

CATERPILLAR.

The poplar, the willow, and the elm are in-
fested with caterpillars in great numbers, pro-
duced by a butterfly called the Antiopa, the
wings of which are purplish brown above,
with a buff-yellow margin, near the inner side
of which there is a row of pale blue spots.
The wings of this Antiopa butterfly expand
from three to three and a half inches. It comes
out from its winter retreats with the first
warmth of spring, and may be seen, even in
Massachusetts, sporting in warm and sheltered
spots at the beginning of March, at which time
its wings look ragged and faded. Wilson, the
ornithologist, in his beautiful lines upon the

well known American harbinger of spring

the blue bird — alludes to its coming:

"When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing."

The caterpillars of the Antiopa butterfly are
black, minutely dotted with white, with a row
of eight dark, brick-red spots on the top of the
back. When fully grown they measure an
inch and three quarters in length, and appear
very formidable with their thorny armature,
doubtless intended to defend them from their
enemies. It was formerly supposed that they
were venomous, and capable of inflicting dan-
gerous wounds, and poplar trees about dwell-
ings have frequently been cut down from fear
of these worms. "This alarm was unfounded;
for although," says Dr. Harris, " there are some
caterpillars that have the power of inflicting
venomous wounds with their spines and hairs,
this is not the case with those of the Antiopa
butterfly. The only injury which can be laid
to their charge, is that of despoiling of their
foliage some of our most ornamental trees, and
this is enough to induce us to take all proper
measures for exterminating the insects, short
of destroying the trees that they infest. I have
sometimes seen them in such profusion on the
Avillow and elm, that the limbs bent under their
weight; and the long leafless branches which
they had stripped and deserted gave sufficient
proof of the voracity of these caterpillars.
The chrysalis is of a dark brown colour, with
large taw^ny spots around the tubercles on the
back. The butterflies come forth in eleven or
twelve days after the insects have entered upon
the chrysalis state, and this occurs in the be-
ginning of July. A second brood of caterpil-
lars is produced in August, and they pass
through all their changes before winter."

There is a species of caterpillar which
comes from a butterfly called the Semicolon
(Vanessa interrogationis). It lives on the Ame-
rican^elm and lime trees, and also on the hop-
vine; and on this last they sometimes so
abound as to destroy its produce. In the latter
part of August the hop-vine caterpillars attain
their full growth, and suspend themselves be-
neath the leaves and stems of the plant, and
change into chrysalids. " This fact," says l>r.
Harris, " affords a favourable opportunity for
destroying the insects in this their stationary
and helpless stage, at some loss, however, of
the produce of the vines, which, when the in--
sects have become chrysalids, should be cut'
down, stripped of the fruit that is sufficiently
ripened, and then burnt. There is probabljr
an early brood of caterpillars in June or July ]

CATERPILLAR.

CATERPILLAR.

but I have not seen any on the hop-vine before
August, the former are therefore confined to
the elm and other plants in all probability.
The caterpillar is brownish, variegated with
pale yellow, or pale yellow variegated with
brown, with a yellowish line on each side of
the body ; the head is rust-red, with two blackish
branched spines on the top ; and the spines of the
body are pale yellow or brownish and tipped
with black. The chrysalis is ashen brown,
with the head deeply notched, and surmounted
by two conical ears, a long and thin nose-like
prominence on the thorax, and eight silvery
spots on the back. The chrysalis state usually
lasts from eleven to fourteen days ; but the
later broods are more tardy in their transfor-
mations, the butterfly sometimes not appear-
ing in less than twenty-six days after the change
to the chrysalis. Great numbers of the chrysa-
lids are annually destroyed by little maggots
vithin them, which, in due time are transformed
to tiny four-winged flies {Pteromalus vanessee),
which make their escape by eating little holes
through the sides of the chrysalis. They are
ever on the watch to lay their eggs on the
caterpillars of this butterfly, and are so small
as easily to avoid being wounded by the branch-
ing spines of their victims."

The semicolon butterfly which produces this
caterpillar expands its wings from two and a
half to two and three-quarter inches, and even
more. The colour of the wings is orange-taw-
ny on the upper sides, with black spots in the
middle. The under sides of the wings in
some are rust-red, in others reddish white,
with a pale gold-coloured semicolon on the
middle of the hinder part, which last gives its
specific name.

Another species of caterpillar living upon
the hop, also proceeds from a butterfly having
wings of an orange-tawny colour on the upper
side ; the hinder wings having a silvery comma
in the middle of the under side. The wings
expand from 2^ to 2J inches. This comma
butterfly, as it is called {Vanessa comma), re-
sembles the white comma of Europe, for which
it has probably been mistaken. In habits, &c.
the American comma resembles the preced-
ing species.

Among American caterpillars, which attract
the particular notice ot the farmer, are several
appertaining to the family of insects called
hawk-moths, or sphinges, the latter name having
been applied by Linnaeus, from a fancied re-
semblance that some of the caterpillars, when
at rest, have to the Egyptian sphynx. The
attitude of these caterpillars is indeed remark-
able. Supporting themselves by their four or
six hind legs, they elevate the fore part of the
body, and remain immovably fixed in this
posture for hours together. In the winged
state, the true sphi7iges are known by the name
of humming-bird moths, from the sound they
make in flying, and hawk-moths from their
habit of hovering in the air while taking their
food. They may be seen during the morning
and evening twilight, flying with great swift-
ness from flower to flower. Their tongues,
when uncoiled, are, for the most part, exces-
sively long, and with them they extract the
honey from the blossoms of the honeysuckle

and other tubular flowers, while on the wing.
There are other sphinges which fly during the
daytime only, and in the brightest sunshine.
Then it is that the large clear-winged scsice
make their appearance among the flowers, the
fragrant phlox being their special favourite.
From the size and form of these last, their fan-
like tails, brilliant colours, and mode of taking
their food whilst poised above the blossoms
upon rapidly vibrating wings, they might readi-
ly be mistaken for humming-birds. (Harris.)

Among the caterpillars of the sphinges, is
that commonly called the potato-worm, a large
green caterpillar, with a kind of thorn upon
the tail, and oblique whitish stripes on the sides
of the body. "This insect, which devours the
leaves of the potato, often to the great injury
of the plant, grows to the thickness of the fore-
finger, and the length of three inches or more.
It attains its full size from the middle of Au-
gust to the first of September, then crawls down
the stem of the plant and buries itself in the
ground. Here, in a few days, it throws ofl" its
caterpillar-skin, and becomes a chrysalis, of a
bright brown colour, with a long and slender
tongue-case, bent over from the head, so as to
touch the breast only at the end, and somewhat
resembling the handle of a pitcher. It re-
mains in the ground through the winter, below
the reach of frost, and in the following sum-
mer the chrysalis-skin bursts open, a large moth
crawls out of it, comes to the surface of the
ground, and mounting upon some neighbouring
plant, wails till the approach of evening in-
vites it to expand its untried wings and fly in
search of food. This large insect has gene-
rally been confounded with the Carolina
sphinx {Sphinx Carolina of Linnaeus), which
it closely resembles. It measures across the
wings about five inches ; is of a gray colour,
variegated with blackish lines and bands ; and
on each side of the body there are five round,
orange-coloured spots encircled with black.
Hence it is called by English entomologists
Sphinx quinqucmandatus, the five-spotted sphinx,
lis tongue can be unrolled to the length of five
or six inches, but, when not in use, is coiled
like a watch-spring, and is almost entirely
concealed, between two large and thick feelers,
under the head.

"Among the numerous insects that infest our
noble elms the largest is a kind of sphinx,
which, from the four short horns on the fore-
part of the back, I have named Ceratomia
quadricornis, or four-homed ceratomia* On some
trees these sphinges exist in great numbers,
and their ravages then become very obvious ;
while a few, though capable of doing consider-
able injury, may escape notice among the thick
foliage which constitutes their food, or will
only be betrayed by the copious and regularly
formed pellets of excrement beneath the trees.
They are very abundant during the months of
July and August on the large elms which sur-
round the northern and eastern sides of the
common in Boston ; and towards the end of
August, when they descend from the trees for
the purpose of going into the ground, they may
often be seen crawling in the mall in consider-
able numbers. These caterpillars, at this period
of their existenc«, are about three inches and

275

CATERPILLAR.

CATERPILLAR.

a half in length, are of a pale green colour,
with seven oblique white lines on each side
of the body, and a row of little notches, like
saw-teeth, on the back." {Han-is.)

The grape-vine suffers from the ravages of
a sphinx caterpillar, which, not content with
eating the leaves alone, in their progress from
leaf to leaf, down the stem, stops at every
cluster of food, nips off the stalks of the half-
grown grapes, and allows these to fall to the
ground untasted. I have, says Dr. Harris,
gathered under a single vine above a quart of
unripe grapes thus detached during one night
by these caterpillars. They are naked and
fleshy, and generally of a pale-green colour,
(sometimes, however, brown), with a row of
orange-coloured spots on the top of the back,
six or seven oblique darker green or brown
lines on each side, and a short spine or horn
on the hinder extremity. It is found on the
vine and also upon the creeper in July and
August. When fully grown it descends to the
ground, conceals itself under fallen leaves,
which it draws together by a few threads so as
to form a kind of cocoon, or covers itself with
grains of earth and rubbish in the same way,
and under this imperfect cover changes to a
pupa or chrysalis, to reappear in the winged
state in the month of July of the following
5'^ear. See Grape-vine Cateiipillar.

Among this section of insects, naturalists
have placed a group, many of which in the
winged state bear a resemblance to bees,
hornets, wasps, with their narrow winces.
They fly only in the daytime, and frequently
light to bask in the sunshine. Their habits, in
the caterpillar state, are entirely different from
those of the sphinges ; the latter living ex-
posed upon plants the leaves of which they
devour, while the caterpillars of the cpgereaiis,
as they are called, conceal themselves within
the stems or roots of plants, and derive their
nourishment from the wood and pitch. (Har-
ris.)

The ash tree suffers very much from the
attacks of borers of this kind, which perforate
the bark and sap-wood of the trunk from the
roots upwards, and are also found in all the
branches of any considerable size. The trees
thus infested soon show symptoms of disease,
in the death of the branches near the summit ;
and then the insects become numerous, the
trees no longer increase in size and height,
and premature decay and death ensue. These
borers assume the chrysalis form in the month
of June, and the chrysalids may be seen pro-
jecting half way from the round h(^les in the
bark of the tree in this and the following month,
during which time their final transformation
is eflfected, and they burst open and escape
from the shells of the chrysalis in the winged
or moth state.

"During the month of August, the squash
and other cucurbitaceous vines are frequently
found to die suddenly down to the root. The
cause of this premature death is a little borer,
■^ich begins its operations near the ground,
jjp-forates the stem, and devours the interior.
It afterwards enters the soil, forms a cocoon
of a gummy substance covered with particles
of earth, changes to a chrysalis, and comes
276

1 forth the next summer a winged insect. This
' is conspicuous for its orange-coloured body,
spotted with black, and its hind legs fringed
I with long orange-coloured and black hairs.
The hind wings only are transparent, and the
fore wings expand from one inch to one inch
and a half. It deposits its eggs on the vines
close to the roots, and may be seen flying
about the plants from the tenth of July till the
middle of August. This insect, which may be
called the squash-vine aegeria, was first de-
scribed by me in the year 1828, under the
name of jEgeria cururbitcp, the trivial name in-
dicating the tribe of plants on which the cater-
pillar fbeds. See New England Farmer, vol.
viii. p. 33; Dr. Harris's Discourse before the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in 1832, p.
26 ; and Silliman's Journal, vol. xxxvi. p. 310."
(Hnn-is.)

The pernicious borer, which, during many
years past has proved so very destructive to
the peach trees throughout the United States,
belongs to this group of the sphinx family. See
Peach Tuee Woum and Boher.

In Europe there is a species of ^gma which
has long been known to inhabit, the stems of
the currant-bush. There is an American in-
sect, resembling this, found in the cultivated
currant-bush, with which it may have been in-
troduced from Europe. See Cuhrant-bvsh
Borer.

Several caterpillars belonging to the family
of tiger-moths are very destructive to vegeta-
tion, as, for example, the salt-tnarsh caterpillar^
the yellow bear caterpillar of our gardens, and
the fall web-caterpillar. These well-known in-
sects are covered with coarse hairs, spreading
out on all sides like the bristles of a bottle-
brush. They creep very fast, and when han-
dled roll themselves almost into a ball. When
about to transform, they creep into the chinks
of walls and fences, or hide themselves under
stones, logs, or fallen leaves, where they en-
close themselves in rough oval cocoons, made
of hairs, plucked from their own bodies, inter-
woven with a few. silken threads.

The caterpillars of the jirge, a species of
tiger-moth, sometimes make great devastation
among the young Indian corn in the Southern
and Middle States. Their ordinary food con-
sists of the leaves of the plantain and other
herbaceous plants. It appears in Massachu-
setts, sometimes in large swarms, in the month
of October. When fully grown they measure
about an inch and a half in length. Their co-
lour is a dark greenish-gray, although they
appear almost black from the multitude of
black spots with which they are dotted. They
have three longitudinal stripes of fleshy white
on the back, and a row of kidney-shaped spots
of the same colour on each side of the body.
The warts are dark gray, each one producing
1 a thin cluster of spreading blackish hairs. The
moth into which this caterpillar is finally con-
j verted, has flesh-coloured wings which expand
! about from 1| to 2 inches.
i Of all the hairy caterpillars frequenting
I American gardens, there are none so common
; and troublesome as that which Dr.'Harris calls
the Yellow Fear. " Like most of its genus," he
observes, " it is a very general feeder, devour-

CATERPILLAR.

CATERPILLAR.

ing almost al! kinds of herbaceous plants, with
equal relish, from the broad-leaved plantain at
the door-side, the peas, beans, and even the
flowers of the garden, and the corn and coarse
grasses of the fields, to the leaves of the vine,
the currant, and the gooseberry, which it does
not refuse when pressed by hunger. This
kind of caterpillar varies very much in its
colours ; it is perhaps most often of a pale
yellow or straw colour, with a black line along
each side of the body, and a transverse line of
the same colour between each of the segments
or rings, and is covered with long pale yellow
hairs. Others are often seen of a rusty or brown-
ish yellow colour, with the same black lines on
the sides and between the rings, and they are
clothed with foxy red or light brown hairs.
The head and ends of the feet are ochre-yellow,
and the under side of the body is blackish in
all the varieties. They are to be found of dif-
ferent ages and sizes from the first of June till
October. When fully grown they are about
two inches long, and then creep into some con-
venient place of shelter, make their cocoons,
in which they remain in the chrysalis state
during the winter, and are changed to moths in
the months of May or June following. Some
of the first broods of these caterpillars appear
to come to their growth early in summer, and
are transformed to moths by the end of July or
the beginning of August, at which time I have
repeatedly taken them in the winged state ; but
the greater part pass through their last change
in June. The moth is familiarly known by the
name of the white miller, and is often seen
about houses. Its scientific name is ^niia Vir-
gmica, and, as it nearly resembles the insects
commonly called ermine-moths in England,
we may give to it the name of the Virginia
ermine-moth. It is white, with a black point
on the middle of the fore-wings, and two black
dots on the hind-wings, one on the middle and
the other near the posterior angle, much more
ilistinct on the under than on the upper side;
there is a row of black dots on the top of the
back, another on each side, and between these
a longitudinal deep yellow stripe ; the hips and
thighs of the fore-legs are also ochre-yellow.
It expands from one inch and a half to two
inches. Having been much troubled with the
voracious yellow bears in the little patch, (I
cannot call it a garden,) where a few beans,
and other vegetables, together with some
flowers, were cultivated, I required my children
to pick ofl" the caterpillars from day to day and
crush them, and taught them not to spare 'the
pretty white millers,* which they frequently
found on the fences, or on the plants, laying
their golden yellow eggs, telling them that,
with every female which thev should kill, the
eggs, from which hundreds 'of yellow bears
would have hatched, would be destroved. In
some parts of France, and in Belgium, the
people are required bv law to echenilUr, or un-
caterpiUar, their gardens and orchards, and are
punished by fine if they neglect the duty.
Although we have not yet become so prudent
and public spirited as to enact similar regula-
tions, we might find it for our advantage to
oflfer a bounty for the destruction of caterpil-
lars ; and though we should pay for them by

] the quart, as we do for berries, we should be
gainers in the end; while the children, whose
idle hours were occupied in the picking of
them, would find this a profitable employment."
{Harris.)

" The salt-marsh caterpillar, an insect by far
too well known on our sea-board, and now
getting to be common in the interior of the
state, whither it has probably been introduced,
while under the chrysalis form, with the salt
hay annually carried from the coast by our in-
land farmers, closely resembles the yellow
bear in some of its varieties. The history of
this insect," says Dr. Harris, "forms the subject
of a communication made by me to the 'Agri-
cultural Society of Massachusetts,' in the year
1823, and printed in the seventh volume of the
•Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and
Journal,' with figures representing. the insect
in its different stages. At various times and
intervals since the beginning of the present
century, and probably before it also, the salt
marshes about Boston have been overrun and
laid waste by swarms of caterpillars. These
appear towards the end of June, and grow
rapidly from that time till the first of August.
During this month they come to their full size,
and begin to run, as the phrase is, or retreat
from the marshes, and disperse through the
adjacent uplands, often committing very exten-
sive ravages in their progress. Corn-fields,
gardens, and even the rank weeds by the way-
side afford them temporary nourishment while
wandering in search of a place of security
from the tide and weather. They conceal
themselves in walls, under stones, in hay-
stacks and mows, in wood-piles, and in any
other places in their way, which will aflford
them the proper degree of shelter during the
winter. Here they make their coarse hairy
cocoons, and change to chrysalids, in which
form they remain till the following summer,
and are transformed to moths in the month of
June. In those cases where, from any cause,
the caterpillars, when arrived al maturity, have
been unable to leave the marshes, they conceal
themselves beneath the stubble, and there
make their cocoons. Such, for the most part,
is the course and duration of the lives of these
insects in Massachusetts ; but in the Middle
and Southern States, two broods are brought
10 perfection annually; and even here some
of them run through their course sooner, and
produce a second brood of caterpillars in the
same season ; for I have obtained the moths
between the 15th and 20th of May, and again
between the 1st and the 10th of August. Those
which were disclosed in May passed the winter
in the chrysalis form, while the moths which
appeared in August must have been produced
from caterpillars that had come to their growth,
and gone through all their transformations
during the same summer. This, however, in
Massachusetts, is not a common occurrence ;
for by far the greater part of these insects ap-
pear at one time, and require a year to com-
plete their several changes. The full-grown ca-

j terpillar measures one inch and three-quarters
or more in length. It is clothed with long

I hairs, which are sometimes black and some-

! times brown on the back and forepart of the
2 A 277

CATERPILLAR.

CATERPILLAR.

body, and of a lighter brown colour on the !
sides. The hairs, Hke those of the other '
Arctias, grow in spreading clusters from warts, |
which are of a yellowish colour in this species. [
The body, when stripped of the hairs, is yel- '
low, shaded at the sides with black, and there
is k blackish line extending along the top of the
back. The breathing-holes are white, and very
distinct even through the hairs. These cater-
pillars, when feeding on the marshes, are
sometimes overtaken by the tide, and when
escape becomes impossible, they roll them-
selves up in a circular form, as is common
with others of the tribe, and abandon them-
selves to their fate. The hairs on their bodies
seem to have a repelling power, and prevent
the water from wetting their skins, so that they
float on the surface, and are often carried by
the waves to distant places, where they are
thrown on shore, and left in wiurows with the
wash of the sea. After a little time most of
them recover from their half-drowned condi-
tion, and begin their depredations anew. In
this way these insects seem to have spread
from the places where they first appeared to
others at a considerable distance. Although
these insects do not seem ever entirely to have
disappeared from places where they have once
established themselves, they do not prevail
every year in the same overwhelming swarms;
but their numbers are increased or lessened at
irregular periods, from causes which are not
well understood. These caterpillars are pro-
duced from eggs, which are laid by the moths
on the grass of the marshes about the middle
of June, and are hatched in seven or eight days
afterwards, and the number of eggs deposited
by a single female is, on an average, about
eight hundred. The moths themselves vary in
colour. In the males, the thorax and upper
side of the fore-wings are generally white, the
latter spotted with black ; the hind-wings and
abdomen, except the tail, deep ochre-yellow,
the former with a few black spots near the
hind margin, and the abdomen with a row of
six black spots on the top of the back, two
rows on the sides, and one on the belly ; the
under-side of all the wings and the thighs are
deep yellow. It expands from one inch and
seven-eighths to two inches and a quarter. The
female differs from the male either in having
the hind wings white, instead of ochre-yellow,
or in having all the wings ashen gray with the
usual black spots. It expands two inches and
three-eighths or more. Sometimes, though
rarely, male moths occur with the fore-wings
ash-coloured or dusky. Professor Peck called
this moth pseuderminea, that is, false ermine,
and this name was adopted by me in my com-
munication to the 'Agricultural Society.'"
{Harris.)

In order to lessen the ravages of the salt-
marsh caterpillars, and to secure a fair crop
of hay when these insects abound. Dr. Harris
recommends that " the marshes should be
mowed early in July, at which time the cater-
pillars are small and feeble, and being unable I
■> wander far, will die before the crop is ga- j
mered in. In defence of early mowing, it may |
•be said that it is the only way by which the j
grass mav be saved in those meadows where j
2?S

the caterpillars have multiplied to any extent ;
and, if the practice is followed generally, and
continued during several years in succession,
it will do much towards exterminating these
destructive insects. By the practice of late
mowing, where the caterpillars abound, a
great loss in the crop will be sustained, im-
mense numbers of caterpillars and grasshop-
pers will be left to grow to maturity and
disperse upon the uplands, by which means
the evil will go on increasing from year to
year ; or they will be brought in with the hay
to perish in our barns and stacks, where there
dead bodies will prove offensive to the cattle,
and occasion a waste of fodder. To get rid
of *the old fog' or stubble, which becomes
much thicker and longer in consequence of
early mowing, the marshes should be burnt
over in March. The roots of the grass will
not be injured by burning the stubble, on the
contrary, they will be fertilized by the ashes;
while great numbers of young grasshoppers,
cocoons of caterpillars, and various kinds of
destructiye insects, with their eggs, concealed
in the stubble, will be destroyed by the fire.
In the province of New Brunswick, the bene-
fit arising from burning the stubble has long
been proved; and this practice is getting into
favour in New England.

" The caterpillars of all the foregoing Arc-
tians (or harnessed moths) live almost entirely
upon herbaceous plants ; those which follow
(with one exception only), devour the leaves
of trees. Of the latter, the most common and
destructive are the little caterpillars known by
the name of fall web-worms, whose large webs,
sometimes extending over entire branches
with their leaves, may be seen on our native
elms, and also on apple and other fruit trees,
in the latter part of summer. The eggs, from
Avhich these caterpillars proceed, are laid by
the parent moth in a cluster upon a leaf near
the extremity of a branch ; they are hatched
from the last of June till the middle of August,
some broods being early and others late, and
the young caterpillars immediately begin to
provide a shelter for themselves, by covering
the upper side qf the leaf with a web, which is
the result of the united labours of the whole
brood. They feed in company beneath this
web, devouring only the upper skin and pulpy
portion of the leaf, leaving the veins and lower
skin of the leaf untouched. As they increase
in size, they enlarge their web, carr}'ing it
over the next loAver leaves, all the upper and
pulpy parts of which are eaten in the same
way, and thus they continue to work down-
wards, till finally the web covers a large por-
tion of the branch, with its dry, brown, and
filmy foliage, reduced to this unseemly condi-
tion by these little spoilers. These caterpil-
lars, when fully grown, measure rather more
than one inch in length ; their bodies are more
slender than those of the other Arctians, and
are very thinly clothed with hairs of a grayish
colour, intermingled with a few which are
black. The general colour of the body is
greenish yellow dotted with black ; there is a
broad blackish stripe along the top of the
back, and a bright yellow stripe on each side.
The warts, from which the thin bundles of

!

CATERPILLAR.

CATERPILLAR.

spreading, silky hairs proceed, are black on
the back, and rust-yellow or orange on the
sides. The head and feet are black. I have
not observed the exact length of time required
by these insects to come to maturity ; but to-
wards the end of August and during the month
of September they leave the trees, disperse,
and wander about, eating such plants as hap-
pen to lie in their course, till they have found
suitable places of shelter and concealment,
where they make their thin and almost trans-
parent cocoons, composed of a slight web of
silk intermingled with a few hairs. They re-
main in the cocoons in the chrysalis state
through the winter, and are transformed to
moths in the months of June and July. These
moths are white, and without spots ; the fore-
thighs are tawny-yellow, and the feet blackish.
Their wings expand from one inch and a
quarter to one inch and three-eighths.

" During the months of July and August,
there may be found on apple trees and rose-
bushes, and sometimes on other trees and
shrubs, little slender caterpillars of a bright
yellow colour, sparingly clothed with long and
fine yellow hairs on the sides of the body, and
having four short and thick brush-like yellow-
ish tufts on the back, that is on the fourth and
three following rings, two long black plumes or
pencils extending forwards from the first ring,
and a single plume on the top of the eleventh
ring. The head, and the two little retractile
warts on the ninth and tenth rings are coral
red ; there is a narrow black or brownish
stripe along the top of the back, and a wider
dusky stripe on each side of the body. These
pretty caterpillars do not ordinarily herd to-
gether, but sometimes our apple trees are
much infested by them, as was the case in the
•summer of 1828. When they have done eat-
ing, they spin their cocoons on the leaves, or
on the branches or trunks of the trees, or on
fences in the vicinity. The chrj-salis is not
only beset with little hairs or down, but has
three oval clusters of branny scales on the
back. In about eleven days after the change
to the chrysalis is effected, the last transforma-
tion follows, and the insects come forth in the
adult state, the females wingless, and the
males with large ashen-gray wings, crossed
by wavy darker bands on the upper pair, on
which, moreover, is a small black spot near
the tip, and a minute white crescent near the
outer hind angle. The body of the male is
small and slender, with a row of little tufts
along the back, and the wings expand one
inch and three-eighths. The females are of a
lighter gray colour than the males, their bodies
are very thick, and of an oblong oval shape,
and, though seemingly wingless, upon close
examination two little scales, or stinted wing-
lets, can be discovered on each shoulder.
These females lay their eggs upon the top of
their cocoons, and cover them with a large
quantity of frothy matter, which on drying be-
comes white and brittle. Different broods of
these insects appear at various times in the
course of the summer, but the greater number
come to maturity and lay their esrgs in the lat-
ter part of August, and the beginning of Sep-
tember ; and these eggs are not hatched till
279

the following summer. The name of this
moth is Orgyia* leucostigma, the white-marked
Orgyia or tussock-moth. It is to the eggs of
this insect that the late Mr. B. H. Ives, of Sa-
lem, alludes, in an article on 'insects which
infest trees and plants,' published in Hovey's
'Gardener's Magazine.' Mr. Ives states, that
on passing through an apple orchard in Feb-
ruar)% he 'perceived nearly all the trees
speckled with occasional dead leaves, adher-
ing so firmly to the branches as to require
considerable force to dislodge them. Each
leaf covered a small patch of from one to two
hundred eggs, united together, as well as to
the leaf, by a gummy and silken fibre, peculiar
to the moth.' In March, he 'visited the same
orchard, and, as an experiment, cleared three
trees, from which he took twenty-one bunches
of eggs. The remainder of the trees he left
untouched until the tenth of May, when he
found the caterpillars were hatched from the
egg^ and had commenced their slow but sure
ravages. He watched them from time to
time, until many branches had been spoiled
of their leaves, and in the autumn were en-
tirely destitute of fruit ; while the three trees,
which had been stripped of the eggs, were
flush with foliage, each limb without exception
ripening its fruit.' These pertinent remarks
point out the nature and extent of the evil, and
suggest the proper remedy to be used against
the ravages of these insects."

In the New England States there is found a
tussock or vaporer moth, seemingly the same
as the Oreyia antiqua, the antique or rusty va-
porer-moth of Europe, from whence, possibly
its eggs may have been brought with imported
fruit trees, for a description of which, and
other tussock moths, see Dr. Harris's treatise,
and also Mr. Abbott's work on the insects of
Georgia. Also communications by Miss Dix
to Silliman's Journal, vol. xix. p. 62.

"To this group of hairy caterpillars belong
those which swarm in the unpruned nurseries
and neglected orchards of the slovenly and im-
provident husbandman, and hang their many-
coated webs upon the wild cherry trees that
are suffered to spring up unchecked by the
way-side, and encroach upon the borders of
our pastures and fields. The eggs from which
they are hatched are placed around the ends of
the branches, forming a wide kind of ring or
bracelet, consisting of three or four hundred
eggs, in the form of short cylinders, standing on
their ends close together, and covered with a
thick coat of brownish water-proof varnish.
The caterpillars come forth with the unfolding
of the leaves of the apple and cherry tree, dur-
ing the latter part of April or the beginning of
May. The first signs of their activity appear
in the formation of a little angular web or tent,
somewhat resembling a spider's web, stretched
between the forks of the branches a little be-

* This name Ib derived from a word which i^ignifies to
stretch out the hands, and it is applied to this kind of
moth on account of its resting with the fore-legs ex-
tended. The Germans call these moths streckfilssige
Spinnrr, the French pattes (tevdues, and the English va-
porer-moths, the latter probably because the males are
seen flying about ostentatiously, or vaporing, by day,
when most other moths keep concealed.

CATERPILLAR.

CATERPILLAR.

low the cluster of eggs. Under the shelter of
these tents, in making which they all work to-
gether, the caterpillars remain concealed at all
times when not engaged in eating. In crawl-
ing from twig to twig and from leaf to leaf,
they spin from their mouths a slender silken
thread, which is a clue to conduct them back
to their tents ; and as they go forth and return
in files, one after another, their pathways in
time become well carpeted with silk, which
serves to render their footing secure during
their frequent and periodical journeys in va-
rious directions to and from their common
habitation. As they increase in age and size
they enlarge their tent, surrounding it from
time to time with new layers or webs, till at
length it acquires a diameter of eight or ten
inches. They come out together at certain
stated hours to eat, and all retire at once when
their regular meals are finished; during bad
weather, however, they fast, and do not venture
from their shelter. These caterpillars are of a
kind called lackeys in England, and livrees in
France, from the party-coloured livery in
which they appear. When fully grown they
measure about two inches in length. Their
heads are black ; extending along the top of
the back from one end to the other is a whitish
line, on each side of which, on a yellow ground,
are numerous short and fine crinkled black lines,
that lower down become mingled together, and
form a broad longitudinal black stripe, or rather
a row of long black spots, one on each ring, in
the middle of each of which is a small blue
spot; below this is a narrow wavy yellow line,
and lower still the sides are variegated with
fine intermingled black and yellow lines, which
are lost at last in the general dusky colour of
the under side of the body; on the top of the
eleventh ring is a small blackish and hairy
wart, and the whole body is very sparingly
clothed with short and soft hairs, rather thicker
and longer upon the sides than elsewhere. The
foregoing description will serve to show that
these insects are not the same as either the
Neustria or the camp lackey caterpillars of
Europe, for which they have been mistaken.
From the first to the middle of June they begin
to leave the trees upon which they have hither-
to lived in company, separate from each other,
wander about a while, and finally get into some
crevice or other place of shelter and make their
cocoons. These are of a regular long oval
form, composed of a thin and very loosely
woven web of silk, the meshes of which are
filled with a thin paste, that on drying is
changed to a yellow powder, like flour of sul-
phur in appearance. Some of the caterpillars,
either from weakness or some other cause, do
not leave their nests with the rest of the swarm,
but make their cocoons there, and when the
webs are opened these cocoons may be seen
intermixed with a mass of blackish grains,
like gunpowder, excreted by the caterpillars
during their stay. From fourteen to seventeen
days after the insect has made its cocoon and
changed to a chrysalis, it bursts its chrysalis
skin, forces its way through the wet and soft-
Aed end of its cocoon, and appears in the
mnged or miller form. Many of them, how-
ever, are unable to finish their transformations
280

by reason of weakness, especially those re-
maining in the webs. Most of these will be
found to have been preyed upun by little mag-
gots living upon the fat wiihin their bodies,
and finally changing to small four-winged ich-
neumon wasps, which in due time pierce a hole
in the cocoons of their victims, and escape into
the air.

"The moth of our American lackey-cater-
pillar is of a rusty or reddish brown colour,
more or less mingled with gray on the middle
and base of the fore-wings, which, besides, are
crossed by two oblique, straight, dirty while
lines. It expands from one inch and a quarter
to one inch and a half or a little more.

"The moths appear in great numbers in July,
flying about and often entering houses by night.
At this time they lay their eggs, selecting the
wild cherry in preference to all other trees for
this purpose, and next to these apple trees, the
extensive introduction and great increase of
which in this country aflbrd an abundant and
tempting supply of food to the caterpillars in
the place of the native cherry trees that for-
merly, it would seem, sufficed for their nourish-
ment. These insects, because they are the
most common and most abundant in all parts
of our country, and have obtained such noto-
riety that in common language they are almost
exclusively known among us by the name of
the caierpillars, are the worst enemies of the or-
chard. Where proper attention has not been
paid to the destruction of them, they prevail to
such an extent as almost entirely to strip the
apple and cherry trees of their foliage, by their
attacks continued during the seven weeks of
their life in the caterpillar form. The trees, in
those orchards and gardens where they have
been sufiered to breed for a succession of years,
become prematurely old in consequence of the
eflx)rts they are obliged to make to repair, at an
unseasonable time, the loss of their foliage, and
are rendered unfruitful, and consequently un-
profitable. But this is not all; these perni-
cious insects spread in every direction from
the trees of the careless and indolent to those
of their more careful and industrious neigh-
bours, whose labours are thereby greatly in-
creased, and have to be followed up year after
year without any prospect of permanent relief.

" Many methods and receipts for the destruc-
tion of these insects have been published and
recommended, but have failed to exterminate
them, and indeed have done but little to lessen
their numbers. Mr. Lowel has justly said that
' the great difficulty is the neglect to do any
thing, till after the caterpillars have covered
the trees with their nests. Then the labours
of the sluggard commence, and one tree, let
his receipt be ever so perfect and powerful,
will cost him as much lime and labour as ten
trees would have required three weeks sooner.*
The means to be employed may be stated under
three heads. The first is, the collection and
destruction of the eggs. These should be
sought for in the winter and early part of the
spring, when there are no leaves on the trees.
They are easily discovered at this time, and
may be removed with the thumb-nail and fore-
finger. Nurseries and the lower limbs of large
trees may thus be entirely cleared of eggs dur-

CATERPILLAR.

CAT'S-TAIL.

ing a few visits made at the proper season.
If a liberal bounty for the collection of the
eggs were to be offered, and continued for the
space of ten years, these destructive caterpil-
lars would be nearly exterminated at the end
of that time. Under the second head are to be
mentioned the most approved plans for destroy-
ing the caterpillars after they are hatched, and
have begun to make their nests or tents. It is
well known that the caterpillars come out to feed
twice during the day time, namely, in the fore-
noon and afternoon, and that they rarely leave
their nests before nine in the morning, and re-
turn to them again at noon. During the early
part of the season„while the nests are small,
and the caterpillars young and tender, and at
those hours when the insects are gathered toge-
ther within their common habitation, they may
be effectually destroyed by crushing them by
hand in the nests. A brush, somewhat
like a bottle-brush, fixed to a long handle, as
recommended by the late Colonel Pickering, or,
for the want thereof, a dried mullein head and
its stalk fastened to a pole, will be useful to re-
move the nests, with the caterpillars contained
therein, from those branches which are loo
high to be reached by hand. Instead of the
brush, we may use, with nearly equal success,
a small mop or sponge, dipped as often as ne-
cessary into a pailful of refuse soap-suds, ley,
strong white-wash, or cheap oil. The mop
should be thrust into the nest and turned round
a little, so as to wet the caterpillars with the
liquid, which will kill everyone that it touches.
These means, to be effectual, should be era-
ployed during the proper hours, that is, early
in the morning, at mid-day, or at night, and as
soon in the spring as the caterpillars begin to
make their nests ; and they should be repeated
as often, at least, as once a week, till the insects
leave the trees. Early attention and perseve-
rance in the use of these remedies will, in
time, save the farmer hundreds of dollars, and
abundance of mortification and disappoint-
ment, besides rewarding him with the grateful
sight of the verdant' foliage, snowy blossoms,
and rich fruits of his orchard in their proper
seasons. Under the third head, I beg leave to
urge the people of this commonwealth to de-
clare war against these caterpillars, a war of
extermination, to be waged annually during
the month of May and the beginning of June.
Let every able-bodied citizen, who is the owner
6f an apple or cherry tree, cultivated or wild,
within our border, appear on duty, and open
the campaign on the first washing-day in May,
armed and equipped with brush and pail, as
above directed, and give battle to the common
enemy; and let every housewife be careful to
reserve for use a plentiful supply of ammuni-
tion, strong waste soap-suds, after every week-
ly wash, till the liveried host shall have de-
camped from their quarters, and retreated for
the season. If every man is prompt to his
duty, I venture to predict that the enemy will
be completely conquered in less time than it
will take to exterminate the Indians in Florida.
"Another caterpillar, whose habits are simi-
lar to those of the preceding, is now and then
met with, in Massachusetts, upon oak and wal-
nut trees, and more rarely still upon apple trees.
36

According to Mr. Abbot, *it is sometimes so
plentiful in Virginia as to strip the oak-trees
bare.' It may be called Clisiocampa sylvaiica,
the tent-caterpillar of the forest. With us it
comes to its full size from the tenth to the
twentieth of June, and then measures about
two inches in length." (HatTis.)

Those who wish to become more intimately
acquainted with the natural history of the cater-
pillar tribe against which such incessant war
is waged both in country and town, wherever a
tree or a plant is found, will meet with abim-
dant information in Dr. Harris's Treatise upon
Insects destructive to vegetation.

Some others of the caterpillar tribe will be
found noticed under the several heads of Case-

HEAREKS, or BaSKET-WORMS, CuRRANT-BUSH

Borer, Cut wo rmCateupillar, Leaf-hollers,
Appletree and NuRSEur Caterpillars, Oak
AjTD Walnut Caterpillars, Hop-vine and
Grape-vise Caterpillars, Locust Tree
and other caterpillars infesting hickory and
elm trees, &c.,TuRPENTiNE Morn, infesting the
fir and pine, caterpillars living upon rceils,flagSj
and other aquatic plants, SpKsvronyi», Loopers,
or Geometers, among which are the insects
commonly called canker worms; Grease-moth
Caterpillars, «&c.

CATKIN. A name given to such amenta-
ceous flowers as consist of a great number of
chaffy scales and flowers, dispersed along a
slender thread-like axis or rachis, hanging
downward, in the form of a rope or cat's tail.
It is the male flower of the trees which pro-
duce them, as the birch, beech, pine, fir, poplar,
walnut, hazel, &c. They drop as soon as the
pollen is shed.

CATMINT, or NEP (Nepeta cataria, Smith,,
vol. iii. p. 70). This is a common plant, grow-
ing in borders of fields and in moist places,
flowering in June and July. It grows a yard
high, with broad whitish leaves, and white
flowers, not unlike mint. The plant has a
strong and rather unsavoury smell. It is easi-
ly recognised by its hoary, square, and erect
stalks ; its leaves slightly indented on the
edges, of a whitish-green on their outside, and
almost perfect white underneath ; and its flowers
growing in spiked clusters around the stalk at
certain distances. Cats are exceedingly fond
of rolling upon this plant, and they chew it
eagerly. This has obtained for it the familiar
name of catmint.

CAT'S-FOOT. A term sometimes provin-
cially applied to ground-ivy.

CAT'S-MILK. A common name for the
plant wartwort, which see.

CAT'S-TAIL, or TIMOTHY GRASS
(Phlcum pratense, PI. 5, k). This grass flou-
rishes best in moist deep loams. Perennial,
native of Britain. At the time of flowering,
in the end of June, Sinclair found the produce
per acre was, from a clayey loam, 40,837 lbs. ;
of nutritive matter 1595 lbs. This is a great
American grass, and is called timothy from Mr.
Timothy Hanson, who first introduced its seeds
into Maryland. Seeds ripe in July. It pro-
duces an abundance of early feed, but its pro-
duct of aftermath is poor. See Grasses.

Timothy is undoubtedly one of the most
valuable grasses known to American farmers
2 A 2 281

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

Mixed in the field with red clover, it affords
excellent hay. The seed is usually sown in
the autumn, among and immediately after
wheat, and rye, though it succeeds very well
when sown in the spring at the same time
clover is sown. The clover dies out after the
second year, leaving the ground in possession
of the timothy, which requires a good soil and
is considered an exhausting crop to land.

Tlie smaller Meadow CaCs-tail (Phleum minus).
Indigenous to England, on tenacious soils.

The Bulbous-Jointed Cat*s-tail Grass (Phleum
nodosum). Perejinial; native of Britain, but
rare ; found on a clayey soil at Woburn. Flow-
ers in beginning of July. Seeds ripe at the
end of the same month.

Purple-stalked Cal^s-tail Grass (Phleum boeh-
meri). Indigenous and perennial ; grows best
on a sandy loam. Flowers in July.

In the New England States timothy, or P.
pratense, is called herd^s grass, a name applied
in the Middle States exclusively to the jjgrostis
vulgaris or red-top, a kind of grass so very un-
popular among Pennsylvania farmers, that in
selecting clover and other grass seeds, they
reject all samples containing herd's grass.

CATTLE. Under this head I propose to
include the ox tribe, Bovidce, of the class Mam-
malia, having teats or mammtB: these are of the
order Ruminantia, or ruminating, or cud-chew-
ing animals. Of this tribe there are eight spe-
cies : — 1. Bos urus or Miroch, the ancient bison ;
2. B. bison, the bison, or American buffalo; 3.
B. moschatus, or musk ox ; 4. B. frontalis, or
gayal ; 5. B. grunniens, or grunting ox ; 6. B.
caffer, or buffalo of southern Africa; 7. B. bu-
bulus, or common buffalo ; 8. B. taurus, or com-
mon domestic ox. That the ox has been do-
mesticated, and in the service of man from a
very remote period, is quite certain. We learn
from Gen. (iv. 20.) that cattle were kept by the
early descendants of Adam. Preserved by
Noah from the flood waters, the original breed
of our present oxen must have been in the
neighbourhood of Mount Ararat ; and from
thence, dispersing over the face of the globe,
altering by climate, by food, and by cultivation,
originated the various breeds of modern ages.
That the value of the ox tribe has been in all
ages and climates highly appreciated, we have
abundant evidence. The natives of Egypt,
India, and of Hindostan seem alike to have
placed the cow amongst their deities; and,
judging by her usefulness to all classes, no
animal could perhaps have been selected whose
value to mankind is greater. Of the old race
of British cattle, some remains of which are
yet to be found in Chillingham Park, in North-
umberland, in a state of tolerable purity, and
in one or two other places in Great Britain,
improved by judicious or accidental crossings,
came most of our modern breeds. George
CuUey, in his valuable work on cattle, de-
scribes these aboriginals as being of a creamy
white, with black muzzles, white horns with
black tips bending upwards. The cows weigh-
ing from twenty-five to thirty-five stone. They
h^e for a week or ten days their calves, in
sAie sequestered place ; and these, when they
are disturbed, put their heads to the ground,
and lie close like a hare. Their wildness pre-
282

vents the introduction of them into any situ-
ation not surrounded by stone walls ; and the
mode in which they were wont to be killed by
the keepers was by a rifle ball. See also two
excellent papers by Dr. Knox on the wild ox
of Scotland (^Quart. Journ. of Agr. Vol. ix. p.
367) ; and on the ox tribe, in connection with
the white cattle of the Hamilton and Chilling-
ham breeds, by the Rev. Dr. Patrick {Ibid.
p. 514).

In nearly all parts of the earth cattle are
employed for their labour, for their milk, and
for food. In southern Africa they are as much
the associates of the Caffres as the horse is of
the Arab. They share his toils, and assist him
in tending his herds ; they are even trained to
battle, in which they become fierce and cou-
rageous. In central Africa the proudest ebony
beauties are to be seen on their backs. They
have drawn the plough in all ages ; in Spain
they still trample out the corn ; in India raise
the water from the deepest wells to irrigate the
thirsty soils of Bengal. When Cossar invaded
England they constituted the chief riches of
its inhabitants {Ccesar, lib. v. c. 10); and they
yet form no inconsiderable item in the estimate
of that country's abounding riches. Accord-
ing to the estimate of Mr. Youatt, to whom in
this and other articles on live stock I am so
much indebted {On Cattle, p. 9), it would seem
that 1,600,000 head of cattle are consigned to
the butcher every year in the United King-
dom, and the value of the entire national stock
of all kinds of cattle, sheep, and pigs, he is of
opinion, amounts to nearly 120,000,000/. ster
ling. An excellent paper on the origin and
natural history of the domestic ox and its allied
species, by Professor Wilson {Quart. Journ. of
Jgr. vol. ii. p. 177), may be consulted with
advantage b)^ those who wish for more infor-
mation on this head.

The breeds of cattle in England are remark-
able for their numerous varieties, caused by
the almost endless crossings of one breed with
another, often producing varieties of the most
mongrel description, and which are rather dif-
ficult to describe. I will in this place touch
upon the principal varieties; and in these we
should, in looking for the chief points of excel-
lence, regard, as Mr. Youatt well observes,
"wide and deep girth about the heart and
lungs ; and not only about these, but above the
whole of the ribs must we have both depth and
roundness ; the hooped as well as the deep
barrel is essential. The beast should also be
ribbed home; there should be little space be-
tween the ribs and the hips. This is indispen-
sable in the fattening ox, but a largeness and
drooping of the belly is excusable in the cow.
It leaves room for the udder, and if it is also
accompanied by swelling milk-veins, it gene-
rally indicates her value in the dairy. This
roundness and depth of the barrel, however, is
most advantageous in proportion as it is found
behind the point of the elbow, more than be-
tween the shoulders and legs; or low down
between the legs, than upwards towards the
withers; for it diminishes the heaviness before,
and the comparative bulk of the coarser parts
of the animal, which is always a very great
consideration.

r

CATTLE.

'The loins should be wide, for these are the
prime parts ; they should seem to extend far
along the back ; and although the belly should
not hang down, the flanks should be round and
deep, the hips large, without being ragged,
round rather than wide, and present, when
handled, plenty of muscle and fat; the thighs
full and long, and, when viewed from behind,
close together ; the legs short, for there is al-
most an inseparable connection between length
of leg and lightness of carcass, and shortness
of leg and propensity to fatten. The bones of
the legs and of the frame generally should be
small, but not too small ; small enough for the
well-known accompaniment, a propensity to
fatten ; small enough to please the consumer,
but not so small as to indicate delicacy of con-
stitution and liability to disease. Finally, the
hide, the most important thing of all, should be
thin, but not so thin as to indicate that the ani-
mal can endure no hardships, movable, mellow,
but not loo loose, and particularly well covered
with fine and soft hair."

On the points by which live stock are judged,
some very excellent papers have appeared in
the FJin. Quart. Jmim. nf Jgr., by Mr. James
Dickson, cattle-dealer of Edinburgh. He very
truly observes (vol. v. p. 159), that, "were an
ox of fine symmetry and high condition placed
before a person not a judge of live stock, his
opinion of its excellences would be derived
from a very limited view, and consequently
from only a few of its qualities. He might
observe and admire the beautiful outline of its
figure, for that would strike the most casual
observer. He might be pleased with the tint
of its colours, the plumpness of its body, and
the smoothness and glossiness of its skin. He
might be even delighted with the gentle and
complacent expression of its countenance; —
all these properties he might judge of by the
eye alone. On touching the animal with the
hand, he could feel the softness of its body,
occasioned by the fatness of the flesh. But no
man not a judge could rightly criticise the pro-
perties of an ox farther. He could not possibly
discover without tuition those properties which
had chiefly conduced to produce the high con-
dition in which he saw the ox. He would
hardly believe that a judge can ascertain merely
by the eye, from its general aspect, whether the
ox were in good or bad health; from the colour
of its skin, whether it were of a pure or cross
breed; from the expression of its countenance,
whether it were a quiet feeder ; and from the
nature of its flesh, whether it had arrived at
maturity. The discoveries made by the hand
of a judge might even stagger his belief. He
could scarcely conceive that the hand can feel
a hidden property. The touch, which of all
tests is the most surely indicative of fine qua-
lity of flesh and of disposition to fatten, can
find whether that flesh is of the most valuable
kind; and it can foretell the probable abundance
of fat in the interior of the carcass. In short,
a judge alone can discriminate between the
relative values of the different points, or appre-
ciate the aggregate value of all the points of
an ox. These 'points* are the parts of an ox
by which it is judged." The first point to be
ascertained in examining an ox, is the purity

CATTLE.

of its breed, whatever that breed may be ; for
that will give the degree of the disjjosition to
fatten of the individuals of that breed. The
purity of the breed may be ascertained from
several marks : the colour or colours of the
skin of a pure breed of cattle, whatever those
colours are, are always definite. The colour
of the bald skin on the nose and round the eyes,
in a pure breed, is always definite, and without
spots. This last is an essential point. When
horns exist, they should be smooth, small, ta-
pering, and sharp-pointed, long or short, ac-
cording to the breed, and of a white colour
throughout in some breeds, and tipped with
black in others. The shape of the horn is a
less essential point than tlie colour. Applying
these remarks on the diflerent breeds in Scot-
land, as illustrations of the point which we
have been considering, we have the definite
colours of white and red in the short-horns.
The colour is either entirely white or entirely
red, or the one or the other predominates in
their mixture. The skin on the nose and
around the eyes is uniformly of a rich cream
colour. The Ayrshire breed, in its purity, is
also distinguished by the red and white colour
of the skin, but always mixed, and the mixture
consists of spots of greater or smaller size not
blended together. The colour of the skin on
the nose and around the eye is not definite, but
generally black or cream-coloured. In other
points, these two celebrated breeds dilfer from
one another more than in the characters which
I have just described. In the West Highland,
Angus, and Galloway breeds, the colour of the
skin of the nose and around the eyes is indica-
tive of the pure blood of black-coloured cattle,
but a cream-coloured nose may frequently be
observed amongst the other colours of skin.
The characters above given will certainly
apply to the purity of the blood in the short-
horn and Ayrshire breeds, if not to the West
Highlanders.

"The second point to be ascertained in an ox
is the form of its carcass, k is found that the
nearer the section of the carcass of a fat ox,
taken lonsritudinally vertical, transversely ver-
tical, and horizontally, approaches to the figure
of a parallelogram, the greater-quantity of flesh
will it carry within the same measurement.
That the carcass may fill up the parallelogram
as well as its rounded form is capable of filling
up a right-angled figure, it should possess the
following configuration: — The back should be
straight from the top of the shoulder to the tail.
The tail should fall perpendicularly from the
line of the back. The buttocks and twist should
be well filled out. The brisket should project
to a line dropped from the middle of the neck.
The belly should be straight longitudinally, and
round laterally, and filled at the flanks. The
ribs should be round, and should project ho-
rizontally, and at right angles to the back.
The hooks should be wide and flat ; and the
rump, from the tail to the hooks, should also
be filled and well filled. The quarter from the
itch-bone to the hook should be long. The loin
bones should be long, broad, and flat, and well
filled ; but the space betwixt the hooks and the
short ribs should be rather short and well
arched over, with a thickness of beef between

283

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

the hooks. A long hollow from the hooks to
the short ribs indicates a weak constitution and
an indifferent thriven From the loin to the
shoulder-blade should be nearly of one breadth,
and from thence it should taper a little to the
front of the shoulder. The neck-vein should
be well filled forward to complete the line from
thfe neck to the brisket. The covering on the
shoulder-blade should be as full out as the but-
tocks. The middle ribs should be well filled,
to complete the line from the shoulders to the
buttocks along the projection of the outside of
the ribs ; these constitute all the points which
are essential to a. fat ox.

" The first of the points in judging of a lean
ox, is the nature of the bone. A round thick
bone indicates both a slow feeder and an in-
ferior description of flesh. A flat bone, when
seen on a side view, and narrow when viewed
cither from behind or before the animal, indi-
cates the opposite properties of a round bone.
The whole bones in the carcass should bear a
small proportion in bulk and weight to the
flesh, the bones being only required as a sup-
port to the flesh. The texture of the bone
should be small-grained and hard. The bones
of the head should be fine and clean, and only
covered with skin and muscle, and not with
lumps of fat and flesh, which always give a
heavy-headed, dull appearance to an ox. The
fore-arm and hock should also be clean and
full of muscle, to endure travelling. Large
joints indicate bad feeders. The neck of an
ox should be, contrary to that of the sheep,
small from the back of the head to the middle
of the neck. A full, clear, and prominent eye
is a.nothev point to be considered, biscause it is
a nice indication of good breeding. It is al-
ways attendant on fine bone : the expression
of the eye is an excellent index of many pro-
perties in the ox. A dull, heavy eye clearly
indicates a slow feeder. A rolling eye, show-
ing much white, is expressive of a restless
capricious disposition, which is incompatible
with quiet feeding. A calm, complacent ex-
pression of eye and face is strongly indicative
of a sweet and patient disposition, and of
course kindly feeling. The eye is frequently
a faithful index of the state of health. A cheer-
ful clear eye accompanies good health : a con-
stantly dull one proves the probable existence
of some internal lingering disease; the dull-
ness of eye, however, arising from internal
disease is quite different in character from a
natural or constitutional phlegmatic dullness.

" The state of the skin is the next point to be
ascertained ; the skin affords what is techni-
cally and emphatically called the touch — a cri-
terion second to none in judging of the feeding
properties of an ox. The touch may be good
or bad, fine or harsh, or, as it is often termed',
hard or mellow. A thick, firm skin, which is
generally covered with a thick-set, hard, short
hair, always touches hard, and indicates a bad
feeder. A thin, meager, papery skin, covered
with thin, silky hair, being the opposite of the
one just described, does not, however, afford a
)od touch. Such skin is indicative of weak-

5s of constitution, though of good feeding
properties. A perfect touch will be found with ■
a thick, loose skin, floating, as it were, on '
284

a layer of soft fat, yielding to the least press-
ure, and springing back to the finger like a
piece of soft, thick, chamois leather, and cover-
ed with thick, glossy, soft hair. It is not un-
like a bed of fine soft moss, and hence such a
skin is not unfrequently styled 'mossy.' A
knowledge of touch can only be acquired by
long practice ; but after having acquired it, it
is of itself a suflicient means of judging of the
feeding quality of an ox, because, when present,
the properties of symmetrical form, fine bone,
sweet disposition, and purity of blood are the
general accompaniments. These are the es-
sential points in judging lean cattle, but there
are other and important considerations in form-
ing a thorough judgment of the ox. The head
should be small, and set on the neck as if easi-
ly carried by the animal ; this shows the ani-
mal to advantage in the market. The face long
from the eyes to • the point of the nose. The
skull broad across the eyes, contracted a little
above them, but tapering considerably below
them to the nose. The muzzle fine and small ;
the nostrils capacious ; the ears large, a little
erect, and transparent; the neck short and light.
A droop of the neck from the top of the shoul-
der to the head indicates a weakness of consti-
tution, arising frequently from breeding too
near akin. The legs below the knees should
be rather short than long, and clean made;
stand where they apparently bear the weight
of the body most easily, and wide asunder.
The tail rather thick than otherwise, as that
indicates a strong spine, and a good weigher.
It should be provided with a large tuft of long
hair. The position of the/<?s/i is important ; that
part called the spare rib in Edinburgh, and the
fore and middle ribs in London, the loins and
the rump, or hook-bone, are of the finest qua-
lity, and are generally used for roasts and
steaks ; consequently the ox which carries the
largest quantity of beef on these points is the
most valuable. Flesh of fine quality is actu-
ally of a finer texture than coarse flesh. The
other desirable objects in a fat ox are a full
twist, lining the division between the hams
called * the closing' M'iih a thick layer of fat,
a thick flank, and a full neck bend; these
generally indicate internal tallow. The last
points generally covered with fat are the
point of the shoulder-joint and the top of the
shoulder: if these parts are, therefore, felt to
be well covered, the other and better parts of
the animal may be considered ripe. It is pro-
per, in judging of the weight of a fat ox, to
view his gait while walking towards you,
which will, if the ox has been well fed, be ac-
companied with a heavy rolling tread on the
ground. In this way a judge can at once come
very near to its weight." (Quart. Journ. of Agr.
vol. V. p. 167.) At the end of this paper will
be found-an account of the mode of ascertain-
ing the weight of stock by admeasurement.

When we survey the frame of a short horn
ox, adds Mr. Dickson {Ibid. vol. vi. p. 267), we
have a straight, level back from behind the
horns to the top of the tail, full buttocks, and
a projecting brisket; we have, in short, the
rectangular figure, as represented in a side
view by fig. 1. We have also the level loin
across the hook bones, and the level top of the

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

shoulder across the ox, and perpendicu-
lar lines doAvn the hind and fore-legs
on both sides, these constituting the
square form when the ox is viewed
before and behind, as represented in
figures 3 and 3; and we have straight
parallel lines from the sides of the
shoulders, along the outmost points of
the ribs, to the sides of the hind quar-
ters ; and we have these lines connect-
ed at their ends by others of shorter
and equal length, across the end of the
rump and the top of the shoulder, thus
constituting the rectangular form of the
ox when viewed from above down upon
the back, as represented by fig. 4 ; the
form of the short ox and heifer, in per-
fect accordance with the diagrams of
the rule. Farther, I should be inclined
to assert, though I have not directed
my attention sufficiently to the fact to
be able to prove the assertion from ex-
amples, that the carcass of a full fed,
symmetrical, short-horn ox, included
within the rectangle, is in length dou-
ble its depth, and in depth equal to its
breadth ; hence figures 2 and 3 are
squares, and figures 1 and 4 each two
similar squares, placed in juxtaposi-
tion. The form of the short-horn breed
is perfect according to this rule.

The cow goes with calf about forty
weeks, and is often capable of breed-
ing when only a year old ; but she
should not be allowed to do so until
she is above two years old. When
the calves are intended for veal, Janu-
ary, February, and March are the best
months for calving. On the question
of breeding live stock in general, and
upon the difficult question of the com-
parative influence of the male and fe-
male parents in impressing their off-
spring, a theme propounded by the Highland
Society, there are some excellent papers by
Mr. Boswell, Mr. Christian, and Mr. Mill (High.
Sor. Trans, vol. i. p. 17), by the Rev. Henry Ber-
ry (Brit. Farm. Mag. vol. i.), and by Mr. Knight
(Trans. Roy. Soc. 1809), in which they all seem
to uphold the superior influence of the male ;
and on the selection of the male animal in
breeding there is a paper by Lord Spencer
(Jouru. Roy. .^gr. Soc. vol. i. p. 22); another on
the gestation of cows (Ibid. 165); and on the
means of calculating the number of calves
which will probably be produced by a herd of
cows, by the same noble lord (Ibid. vol. ii. p.
112); and on the detection of pregnancy in the
horse and cow by Professor Youatt (Ibid p.
170) ; on a method of obtaining a greater num-
ber of one sex at the option of the owner in the
breeding of livestock (Quart. Journ. of ./Isr. vol.
i. p. 63); on the rearing of calves, in which the
writer recommends that skimmed milk should
have a piece of red-hot iron plunged into it, not
only to warm it, but to' give an astringent qua-
lity (C(ym. Board ufjgr.voh iv. p. 382); on the
mode of fattening th&m in Strathaven there is
an account by Mr. Alton in the Quart. Journ. of
Jgr. p. 249 ;• and of the mode of fattening them
near London by Mr. Main (Ibid. vol. v. p. 608).

"Every cow is made to suckle her own calf
three limes a day for the first three or four
days, and afterwards twice a day, and, in need,
her bag is emptied by another calf. If a calf
goes on thriving and well, it will be what is
esteemed in England prime veal in about ten
weeks, and weigh from 17 to 20 stones of 8 lbs.
each."

The North Devon.— 0( this breed the bull
should have yellow horns, placed neither too
low nor too high, nor be too thick, but grow-
ing gradually less towards the points ; the eye
clear, prominent, and bright; the forehead
small, flat, and indented; the muzzle fine; the
cheek small; the nose of a clear yellow, the
nostril high and open ; the neck thick, and the
hair about the head curled. The head of the
ox is smaller, otherwise he does not differ ma-
terially from the shape of the bull; his action
is free, and he is quicker in his movements
than any of our oxen; but his legs are appa-
rently placed too much under his chest for
speed, yet he possesses this property in an
eminent degree; his legs are straight; the fore-
arm is large and strong ; the bones of the leg,
especially below the knee, very small ; the tail
is set on high, on a level with the back, rarely
much elevated, never depressed, is long and

285

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

taper, with a bunch of hair at the end; the
skin is very elastic, mellow, and rather thin ;
some have smooth hair, which should be fine
and glossy; some curly, and these are rather
the most hardy and fatten the best ; red is the
most favourite colour; many, however, are
brown, and others are approaching to chest-
i\ut. Those of a yellow colour are reported to
be subject to the steat (diarrhoea.) The draw-
ing, Plate 12, fig. 3, is taken from Low's splen-
did work upon British animals. It represents a
young Devon bull, two years and nine months
old, of a deep red colour.

The Devon cow is much smaller than the
bull; she has a full, round, clear eye, the
countenance cheerful, the muzzle orange or
yellow, the jaws free from thickness, and the
throat from dewlap. On all soils, except the
very heavy, the Devon ox is very superior at
the plough, for its quickness of action, docility,
good temper, stoutness, and honesty. It is
always worked in yokes. Four Devon oxen
are considered equal in their work to three
horses : they are commonly worked from two
years old until they are four, five, or six, and
then in ten or twelve months, on grass and
hay, they are fit for market; neither corn,
cake, nor turnips are needed for them during
the first winter. They fatten faster and with
less food than most others ; their flesh is ex-
cellent. Some comparative experiments be-
tween the Devon and other cattle were made
by the Duke of Bedford, of which the following
table gives the result : they were fed from No-
vember 16, 1797, until December 10, 1798.

1. Hereford -

2. —

3. Devon

4. —

5. Bussex

6. Leicester -

Firet
Weight.

Gained.

Consumed

Oil
Cake.

Turnips.

Hay.

cwt. qrs. lbs

17 0 1

18 1 0
14 1 7

14 2 4
16 2 0

15 2 14

24 3

41 5
4.5 4
64 6
45 4
40 2

Ib6.

423
438
442
432
434

lbs.
2700
2712
2668
2056
26.55
2652'

lbs.
487
432
295
442
392
400

There is much difierence of opinion with re-
gard to the fitness of Devon cows for the dairy,
it being pretty generally asserted that their
acknowledged grazing qualities render them
unfit for the dairy, that their milk is rich, but
deficient in quantity ; but there are many very
superior judges who prefer them even for
the dairy. Of the calves, those "which are
dropped about Michaelmas time are preferred
to those which are calved in January or Feb-
ruary. They allow the calf to suck three
times a day for a week ; then new warm milk
is given it for three weeks longer ; then it has
warm scalded milk mixed with a small portion
of finely divided linseed cake, and its meals
are gradually lessened, and at four months
old it is entirely weaned. (Youatt On Cattle,
p. 7—25.)

The Hereford.— The oxen of Herefordshire
are much "larger than the Devon, and of a
darker red, some are dark yellow, and a few
brindled; they generally have white faces,
Mllies, and throats. They have thicker hides
ms.n those of Devonshire, and they are more
hardy, and shorter in the carcase and leg ; are

higher, heavier, and broader in the chine;
have more fat, and are rounder and wider
across the hips ; the thigh is more muscular,
the shoulders larger, (ibid. p. 31.) Marshall
long since described them pretty correctly as
follows : — " The countenance pleasant, cheer-
ful, open ; the forehead broad ; eye full and
lively; horns bright, taper, and spreading;
head small ; chap lean ; neck long and taper-
ing ; chest deep ; bosom broad, and projecting
forward; shoulder-bone thin, flat, no way pro-
tuberant in bone, but full and mellow in flesh ;
chest full ; loin broad ; hips standing wide,
and level with the spine ; quarters long and
wide at the neck ; rump even with the general
level of the back, not drooping nor standing
high and sharp above the quarters ; tail slen-
der, and neatly haired; barrel round and
roomy, the carcase throughout deep and well
spread ; ribs broad, standing close and flat on
the outer surface, forming a smooth even bar-
rel, the hindmost large and of full length;
round bone small, snug, not prominent; thigh
clean, and regularly tapering; legs upright
and short ; bone below the knee and hough,
small; feet of middle size; cod and twist
round and full ; flank large ; flesh everywhere
mellow, soft, yielding pleasantly to the touch,
especially on the chine, the shoulder, and the
ribs ; hide mellow, supple, of a middle thick-
ness, and loose ; coat neatly haired, bright,
and silky ; colour of a middle red with a bald
face, characteristic of the true Herefordshire
breed."

"They fatten," says Mr. Youatt, "to a much
greater weight than the Devons, and run from
fifty to seventy score ; a tolerable cow will
average from thirty-five to fifty score ; a cow
belonging to the Duke of Bedford weighed
more than seventy ; an ox of Mr. Westcar's
exceeded one hundred and ten score. The
Hereford ox fattens speedily at an early age.
They are not now much used for husbandry,
although their form adapts them for the hea-
vier work, and they have all the honesty and
docility of the Devon ox, and greater strength,
if not his activity.

" The Hereford cows are worse milkers than
those of Devon, but then they will grow fat
where a Devon would starve. The beef is
sometimes objected to from the largeness of
the bone, and the coarseness of some of the
inferior pieces, but the best sorts are generally
excellent. Mr. Youatt gives an account of an
experiment in feeding, made in the winter of
1828-9, between the Herefords, and the im-
proved short-horns, which, although by no
means decisive of the merits of either breed,
yet is worthy of notice by the grazier.

"Three Herefords and three short-horns
were put together into a straw yard, December
2d, 1827, and each had, in the open yard, a
bushel of turnips per day, besides straw, until
May 2, 1828 ; they then were weighed, and
sent to grass : — ^

No.

No. cwts. qn. Ita.

I.Hereford 8 3 0
2 — 7 3 0

3. — 7 0 0

When taken
weighed —

cwls. qrs. lbs.

1. Short-horn 9 2 0

2. — 8 2 0

3. — 9 0 0

from grass, November 5, they

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

No.

1. Hereford
2 —
3. —

cwU. qn. lbs
11 3 0
10 2 0
10 3 0

No. cwt». qr». Ibft,

1. Short-horn 12 3 14

2. — 12 2 0

3. — 12 3 0

From this lime till the 25th March, 1829, they
consumed —

f

The Herefords -
The Short-horns

'i\ey then weighed —

Noa cwts. qn. lbs.

I.Hereford 13 0 14

2. — 12 0 0

3. — 12 0 0

Swedish Turnips.

- 46,6.i5

- 59,430

Hay.

lbs.

5,065
6,779

No. cwts. qrs. lbs.

1. Short-horn 14 2 0

2. — 14 1 14

3. — 14 2 14

making a difference in favour of the short-
horns of 3 cwt.s. 3 qrs. 14 lbs.; but then they
nsumed more turnips by 12,775 lbs., and
ore hay by 1,714 lbs. When they were sold
at Smithfield on the 30th of March, the short-
horns realized 97/., and the Herefords 96/."
(On Cattle, p. 34.)

The Susi^cx. — One of the best descriptions,
says Mr. Youatt, that we have of the Sussex
ox is given by that excellent agriculturist, Mr.
Ellman. He speaks of the Sussex ox as hav-
ing a small and well-turned head; and so it
has, compared with many other breeds, and
even with the Hereford, but evidently coarser
than that of the Devon, the horns pushing for-
wards a little, and then turning upwards, thin,
tapering, and long, not so as to confound the
breed with the lung-horng, and yet in some
cases a little approaching to them. The eye
is full, large, and mild in the ox, but with
some degree of unquietness in the cow. The
throat clean ; and the neck, compared with
either the long or short-horns, long and thin,
yet evidently coarser than that of the Devon.
The shoulder is the principal defect. There
is more wideness and roundness on the with-
ers ; it is a straighter line from the summit of
tlie withers towards the back ; there is no pro-
jecting point of the shoulder when the animal
is looked at from behind, but the whole of the
fore-quarter is thickly covered with flesh, giving
too much weight to the coarser and less profit-
able parts ; but then the fore-legs are wider
apart, straighter, and more perpendicular than
in the Devon, and are placed more under the
body than seeming to be attached to the sides.
The fore-arm is large and muscular; the legs,
though coarser than those of the Devon, are
small and fine downwards, particularly below
the fetlock. The barrel is round and deep.
In the back, no rising spinal processes are to
be seen, but rather a central depression ; and
the line of the back, if broken, is only done so
by a lump of fat rising between the hips ; the
belly and flank are capacious ; there is room
before for the heart and lungs, and there is
room behind in the capacious belly for the full
exercise of its functions ; yet the beast is well
ribbed home ; the space between the last rib
and the hip-bone is often very small, and there
is no hanging heaviness of the belly or flank.
The loins of the Sussex ox are wide ; the hip-
bone does not rise high, nor is it ragged ex-
ternally; but it is large and spread out, and
the space between the hips is well filled up.
The tail fine, and thin, is set on lower than in
the Devon, yet the rump is nearly as straight.
The hind-quarters are cleanly made, and if the

thighs appear to be straight without, there is
plenty of fulne^ within. The Sussex ox has
all the activity of the Devon, and the strength
of the Hereford, the propensity to fatten, and
the beautiful fine-grained flesh of both. It pos-
sesses as many of the good qualities of both as
can be combined in one frame. By crossing
them with the Herefords, a heavier animal,
but not fattening so profitably, or working so
kindl)% is produced. When the Sussex has
been crossed with the Devon, a lighter breed
has resulted, but not gaining in activity, while
it is materially deteriorated in its grazing pro-
perties. The colour of the Sussex ox is a deep
chestnut-red, or blood bay. The black, or
black and white, generally indicate some
strain in the breed, as a cross from the Welsh.
The hide of the true Sussex ox is soft and mel-
low, the coat short and sleek. The Sussex o^
does much of the farming labour of the Weald
of Sussex. From ten to twelve of these are
usually kept on a farm of 150 to 200 acres*
These are fed with grass and. straw till they
begin to work, and then they have cut hay
mixed with straw. There are, however, two
breeds : the coarser Sussex is always slow ;
the lighter, or true Sussex is as light and fast
as most cart-horses ; of their speed proof was
given by a Sussex ox which ran four miles
against time, over the Lewes race-course, in
sixteen minutes. Many farmers, if they have
ten oxen at work, sell five or six every year,
and break in an equal number to succeed
them ; the beasts will thus be broken in at
three years old, and fatted at five or six.
They are commonly taken from work when
spring seed-lime is over, and turned into the
meadows, and thus prepared for winter stall-
feeding. These are gradually accustomed to
being constantly tied up. Some farmers, Mr.
Ellman amongst the rest, are of opinion that
there is a saving of one-fourth the food by
stall-feeding, but many other farmers maintain
that the cattle fatten faster when only confined
to the yard. They average at Smithfield
about one hundred and twenty stones ; but
they occasionally attain to much greater
weights; one of Mr. Ellraan's weighed two
hundred and fourteen stones. '^

The Sussex cow is not a favourite with the
generality of farmers. She does not answer
for the dairy, for her milk, although of very
good quality, is far inferior in quantity to
either the. Holderness or the Sufiblk cow.
They are, moreover, wliat their countenance
indicates, of an unquiet temper, and are com-
monly restless and dissatisfied, especially if
not bred on the farm on which they are kept.
They are, therefore, chiefly kept as breeders ;
are generally in fair condition, even while
milking ; and no cows, except the Devon or
Hereford, will thrive so fast after being dried ;
they fatten even faster than the ox. Nearly
all the calves are reared, adds Mr. Youatt — the
males for work, and the females for breeding
or early fattening. By the best breeders, the
bull is changed every two years. (On Cattle,
p. 40.) The Hereford and Sussex cattle have
so many points in common that in Loudon's
Encyclopcpdia of Agriculture, both breeds are
illustrated by one figure.

> 287

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

The Welch. — The cattle of Wales are princi-
pally of the middle-horns, ancW>tunted ia their
growth from the poverty of their pastures. Of
these there are several varieties. The Pem-
brokeshire are chiefly black, with white horns;
are shorter legged than most other Welch cat-
tle; are larger than those of Montgomery, and
have round and deep carcasses; h^ve a lively
look and good eyes ; though short and rough,
not thick; have not large bones, ancj. possess,
perhaps, as much as possible, the opposite
qualities of being very fair milkers, with a pf-o-
pensity to fatten. The meat is equal to the
Scotch. They will thrive, says Mr. Youatt,
where others starve, and they rapidly outstrip
most others when they have plenty of good
pasture. The Pembroke cow has been called the
poor man's cow. The Pembroke ox is a speedy
and an honest worker, and when taken from
hard work fattens speedily. Many are brought
to London, and rarely disappoint the butcher.

The Glamorganshire breed were patronised
by George IIL, and were held in great estima-
tion. They were, however, allowed to degene-
rate during the period of the late war, and have
not since, in spite of the exertions of Mr. David
of Radyr, been entirely restored. The counties
of Carmarthen, Cardigan, Brecon, and espe-
cially Radnor, also produce many excellent
black cattle, which have been materially im-
proved of late by the introduction of other
breeds, especially by crossing with the Here-
fords. Of North Wales, the cattle are rather
more approaching to the long-horns than those
of the south. In the counties of Anglesea, Car-
narvon, and Merioneth, the chief attention of
the farmer is directed to the rearing of stock.
In Denbigh, Flint, and Montgomery, the dairy
is chiefly regarded. The cattle of Anglesea,
says Mr. Youatt, are small and black, with
moderate bone, deep chest, rather heavy
shoulders, enormous dewlap, round barrel, high
and spreading haunches, flat face, horns long,
almost invariably turning upwards; the hair
coarse ; the hide mellow ; hardy, easy to rear,
and well disp'osed to fatten when transplanted
to better pastures than those of their native
island. Attempts have been made, with little
success, to improve the breed by crossing them
with others ; but it is difficult to find any other
sufficiently hardy to withstand the climate and
the privations of Mona. Many yearlings are
brought from the island, and very few are kept
in the island after they are three years old.
They were formerly not castrated till they were
a year old ; this gave them a peculiar bull-like
appearance. This operation, however, is now
practised earlier. There is still with them,
however, adds Mr. Youatt, a striking contrast
with the mild intelligence of the Devon and
the quiet submission of the Hereford. The
Anglesea cows are not kept for the dairy to a
greater extent than for home consumption.
The cheese is negligently made, and, in con-
sequence, poor and worthless. The cattle of
the other Welch counties, bred amongst the
rocks of Carnarvon, arid the hills of Merioneth,
Montgomery, and Denbigh, have little dislin-

lishing features from other Welch cattle.

ley are small, hardy, and rapidly fatten, when
288

' transferred to richer pastures. The beef they
produce is excellent. {Ibid. p. .58.)
I The Scotch. — Of this valuable and improving
race of cattle there are several varieties, all of
; which are thus classed by Mr. Youatt, and are
! to be considered as belonging to the middle-
j horns. Of these the chief varieties are,
j 1. The West Highlanders, which, whether
I we regard those found in the Hebrides or in
the county of Argyle, seem to retain most of the
aboriginal character. They have remained
unchanged, or improved only by selection, for
many generations, or, indeed, from the earliest
accounts that we possess of Scottish cattle.

2. The North Highlanders are a smaller,
coarser, and in every way inferior race, and
owe the greater part of what is valuatle about
Ihem to crosses from the western breed.

3. The northeastern cattle were derived
from, and bear a strong resemblance, to the
West Highlander, but are of considerably
larger size.

4. The Fife breed are almost as valuable for
the dairy as for the grazier, and yield to few in
activity and docility.

5. The Ayrshire breed are second to none as
milkers ; many of the varied mingled breeds
of the Lowlands are valuable.

6. The Galloways, which, scarcely a century
ago were middle-horned, and with difficulty
distinguished from the West Highlanders, are
now a polled breed, increased in size, with
more striking resemblance to their kindred the
Devons ; with all their aptitude to fetten, and
with a hardness of constitution which those
of Devon never possessed.

The West Highlanders, or kyloes, as they
are called (supposed to be from a corruption
of a Gaelic word pronounced kael, signilying
Highlands), are bred in great abundance in,
and exported from, the Hebrides. The true
bull of this breed is described by Mr. M'Neil
of Islay as black ; the head not large, the ears
thin, the muzzle fine, and rather turned up;
broad in the face; eyes prominent; counte-
nance calm and placid ; the horns should taper
to a point, neither drooping too much nor
rising too high, of a waxy colour, widely set at
the root; the neck fine, particularly where it
joins the head, and rising with a gentle curve
from the shoulder ; the breast wide, and pro-
jecting well before the legs; the shoulders
broad at the top, and the chine so full as to
leave but little hollow behind them ; thp girth
behind the shoulder deep ; the back straight,
wide, and flat ; the ribs broad, the space be-
tween them and the ribs small; the belly not
sinking low in the middle, yet, in the whole,
not forming the round and barrel-like carcass
which some have described ; the thigh tapering
to the hock-joint; the bones larger in propor-
tion to the size than in the breeds of the south-
ern districts ; the tail set on a level with the
back; the legs short and straight; the whole
carcass covered with a long thick coat of hair,
and plenty of hair also about the face and
horns, and that hair not curly. They are
hardy, easily fed ; the proportion of their oflal
is not greater than in the most approved larger
breeds ; they lay their fat and flesh equally on

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

the best parts, and when fat, the beef is fine in
the grain, and so well mixed or marbled that it
commands a superior price in every market.
About 30,000 of these are annually sent from
the Hebrides to the main land. {On Cattle, p. 67.)
In the Hebrides, the dairy is only attended to
so far as to serve the family with milk, butter,
and cheese. The milk of the Western High-
land cow is small in quantity, but excellent in
quality; she does not yield, however, more
than one-third of that of the Ayrshire. The
oxen of the Hebrides are never worked. (Ibid.
p. 71.)

The Argyleshire breed are larger than those
of the Hebrides, and are bred according to
what the soil and the food will best support.
The Highlander, however (says the gentleman
. whom I have in this article quoted so often),
" must be reared for the grazier alone ; every
attention to increase his weight, in order to
make him capable of agricultural labour,
every effort to qualify him for the dairy, will
not only lessen his hardiness of constitution
and propensity to fatten, but will fail in ren-
dering him valuable for the purpose at which
the farmer aims. The character of the High-
lander must still be, that he will pay better for
his quantity of food than any other breed, and
will fatten where any other breed will scarcely
live.^' (Ibid. p. 79.)

Of the North Highland cattle, those of the
Shetland islands are the smallest; dwarfish,
ill-shaped, and covered with hair ; they some-
times are not more than 35 or 40 lbs. to the
quarter. When they are taken to the north of
Scotland, they thrive and fatten on very poor
food with great rapidity; but when brought
further to the south, the change is too great for
them ; they languish and sicken. The Shet-
land calf suffers privations from her birth ; it
is, in fact, killed often as soon as it is born. It
is never allowed to suck its mother, but, if
reared, is fed at first with milk, and afterwards
with bland, a wretched kind of buttermilk; and
when it grows up it has nothing to subsist upon
but moss, heath, and sea-weed. The cows are
housed at night, and, in the absence of straw,
are littered with heath and the dust of peat.
Their milk, which is exceedingly rich, is very
small in quantity.

In the northerly counties of Scotland, there
is nothing very peculiar in the breed of their
cattle. The introduction of sheep, and of bet-
ter modes of cultivating the soil, have gone far
to diminish the stocks of poor, ill-fed, and
worse managed breeding herds of this once
desolate extremity of the island. These im-
provements, however, were long opposed by
the husbandmen and the tenders of cattle as
bold innovations, which were, at all events, to
be opposed. Mobs, therefore, collected ; the
sheep were driven away ; fences destroyed; the
new farmers intimidated : the laws alone sup-
ported these national improvements to a suc-
cessful issue.

The county of Aberdeen breeds more cattle
than any other in Scotland. Its stock has been
estimated at 112,000, and its annual sale of
both fat and lean cattle is equal to more than
20,000. These vary in character with the soil
and elevation: amongst the hills, they arc
37

chiefly of the Highland breed; in the plains, a
better description has been produced, by breed-
ing from these by bulls from Fifeshire. The
horns of these, says Mr. Youatt, do not taper
so finely, nor stand so much upwards, as in
the West Highlanders ; and they are also
whiter; the hair is shorter and thinner; the
ribs cannot be said to be flat, but the chest is
deeper in proportion to the circumference, and
the buttocks and thighs are likewise thinner.
The colour is usually black, but sometimes
brindled ; they are heavier in carcass ; they
give a larger quantity of milk, but they do not
attain maturity so early as the West High-
landers, nor is their flesh quite so beautifully
marbled ; yet, at a proper age, they fatten as
readily as the others, not only on good pasture,
but on that which is somewhat inferior. They
are rarely used for husbandry work, or, at
most, for only one year. They are sent to grass
at four years old for six months, after which
they will weigh from 5 to 6 cwt. "The breed,"
adds Mr. Youatt, '* has progressively improved,
and this by judicious selections from the native
stock : it has increased in size, and become
nearly double its weight, without losing its
propensity to fatten, and without growing above
its keep." There is also in this great agricul-
tural county an excellent br^ed of poll cattle;
they are not so handsome, yet larger than the
horned cattle; the quality of their meat is also
said not to be so good. The calves are reared
in Aberdeenshire much in the ordinary way.
They are commonly fed with milk warm from
the cow, and they are even sometimes reared
partly on oil-cakes.

In Fifeshire the breed of cattle are of a very
superior description. "They are generally,"
says Dr. Thompson, "of a black colour; the
horns small and white, generally pretty erect,
or, at least, turned up at the points, and bend-
ing rather forward ; the bone small in propor-
tion to the carcass ; the limbs clean but short,
and the skin soft; wide between the extreme
points of the hock-bones ; the ribs narrow and
wide set, having a greater curvature than in
other kinds, which gives the body a thick round
form; they fatten quickly, and fill up well at
all the choice points ; are hardy, fleet, and tra-
vel well ; are docile, and excellent for work."
Whatever may be the explanation of the fact,
it is certain that, at the present day, the Fife-
shire breed of cattle is peculiarly her own.
That they were centuries since improved by a
cross with the then small cattle of England, is
pretty certain ; but whether English cattle
formed part of the dowry of Margaret, the
daughter of Henry VII. of England, when she
married .lames IV. of Scotland, or whether
English cattle were sent as a present to Scot-
land by James II. of England, is almost mere
matter of conjecture ; but, be that as it may,
" the Fifeshire farmers," says Mr. Youatt, in
his valuable work on cattle, "are convinced
that their cattle cannot be further improved
as a whole by any foreign cross, and they con-
fine themselves to a judicious selection from
their own." The pure Durhams have been
established in some parts of Fife, but not al-
wa)'s without difficulty.
Ayrshire has a peculiarly fine breed of dairy
2B 289

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

cattle, which is thus described by Mr. Aiton, in
his excellent treatise (p. 26) on the dairy.breed
of cows : — " The most approved shapes in the
dairy breed are, small head, rather long, and
narrow at the muzzle ; eye small, but smart
and lively ; the horns small, clear, crooked, and
their roots at considerable distance from each
other ; neck long and slender, tapering towards
the head, with no loose skin below ; shoulders
thin ; fore-quarters light ; hind-quarters large ;
back straight, broad behind ; the joints rather
loose and open ; carcass deep, and pelvis ca-
pacious and wide over the hips, with round
fleshy buttocks ; tail long and small ; legs
small and short, with firm joints ; udder capa-
cious, broad, and square, stretching forward,
and neither fleshy, low hung, nor loose ; the
milk-veins are large and prominent; teats short,
all pointing outwards, and at considerable dis-
tance from each other, skin thin and loose ;
hair soft and woolly ; the head, bones, horns,
and all parts of least value, small ; and the
general figure compact and well proportioned.
See PI. 12, fig. 2. (Youalt, On Cattle,^. 127.)

"The qualities of a cow," adds Mr. Aiton in
another place, " are of great importance.
Tameness and docility of temper greatly en-
hance the value of a milch cow. Some degree
of hardiness, a sound constitution, health, and
a moderate degree of spirits, are qualities to be
wished for in a dairy cow, and what those of
Ayrshire generally possess. The most valua-
ble qualities which a dairy cow can possess
are that she yields much milk, and that of an
oily, butyraceous and caseous nature ; and that
after she has yielded very large quantities of
milk for several years, she shall be as valuable
for beef as any other breed of cows known ;
her fat shall be much more mixed through the
whole flesh, and she shall fatten faster than
any other." And again, " the best Scotch dairy
cows yield 1000 gallons of milk in one year;
and in general, from 3| to 4 gallons of their
milk will yield 1^ lbs. of butter, and about 27^
gallons will produce li^ stone imperial of full
milk cheese."

Lanarkshire is noted for its calves, whose
veal is highly esteemed in the markets of Glas-
gow and Edinburgh. These, according to Mr.
Aiton (Survey of Ayrshire, p. 441), are fed on
milk from a dish, not suckled. This is often
given to them sparingly at first, to improve
their appetite and relish for their food ; but it
is gradually increased till the calf has a full
supply. Other farmers allow them as much
a» they please from the first. For the first
week or two a calf consumes about half a
good cow's milk ; at a month old the whole of
a cow's milk; and at two months old the
greater part of that of two cows. Those which
are reared for stock have commonly the first
drawn milk; those which are fattening, the last
drawn from two or three cows. When the
calves are costive, they have a little bacon or
mutton broth given them ; if they purge, a little
rennet in their milk cures the complaint. Tiiey
are used to have, also, a lump of chalk in their
^"ibs.

Jt The Galloway polled cattle are a peculiarly
fine and valuable breed. They are described
by Mr. Youatt, on the authority of the author
290

of the Survey of Galloway, as straight and broad
in the back, and nearly level from the head to
the tail— round in the ribs, and also between
the shoulders and the ribs, and the ribs and the
loins — broad in ihe loins, without any large pro-
jecting hook-bones — long in the quarters and
deep inJhe chest, but not broad in the ribs, and
twist. There is much less space between the
hook or hip-bones and the ribs than in must
other breeds. ' They are shon in the leg and
moderately fine in the shank-bone. The happy
medium seems to be preserved in the leg, se-
curing hardihood and a disposition to fatten.
With the same cleanness and shortness of
shank, there is no breed so large and muscular
above the knee, while there is more room for
the deep, broad, and capacious chest. They are
clean, not fine and slender, but well propor-
tioned in the neck and chaps ; a thin and deli-
cate neck would not correspond with the broad
shoulders, deep chest, and close, compact form
of the breed. The neck of the Galloway bull
is thick even to a fault. The Galloway has a
loose, mellow skin, of medium thickness, with
long, soft, silky hair. The skin, which is thin-
ner than the Leicester, is not so fine as the
improved Durham: it handles soft and kindly.
Their colour is commonly black, but there are
several varieties ; the dark-coloured are pre-
ferred, from their being considered to indicate
hardness of constitution. 30,000 of these are
estimated to be sent yearly out of Gallowaj to
the south. (Youatt, On Cattle, p. 158.) The
Galloway breeders prefer allowing the calves
to suck the cow;.they consider they thrive ma-
terially better than those fed from the pail, and
that fewer die of stomach complaints. An-
other valuable breed of polled cows is bred in
Angus, which much resemble in appearance
those of Galloway ; they are, however, rather
larger and longer in the leg, flatter sided, and
with thinner shoulders.

In Norfolk and Suffolk a polled breed of
cows prevails, which are almost all descended
from the Galloway cattle, " whose general
form," says Mr. Youatt (p. 172), "they retain,
with some of, but not all their excellences;
they have been enlarged, but not improved, by
a better climate and soil. They are commonly
of a red or black colour, with a peculiar golden
circle around the eye. They are taller than
the Galloways, but thinner in the chine, flatter
in the ribs, and longer in the legs ; rather better
milkers ; of greater weight when fattened ;
though not fattening so kindly, and the meat is
not quite equal in quality."

The Sufflilk dun cow, which is also of Gal-
loway descent, is celebrated as a milker, and,
there is little doubt, is not inferior to any other
breed in the quantity of milk which she yields ;
this is from six to eight gallons per day. The
butter produced, however, is not in proportion
to the milk. It is calculated that a Suffolk cow
produces annually about 1^ cvvt. of butter.

The Sufl"olk duns derive the last part of their
name from their usual pale yellow colour.
Many, however, are red, or red and white.
They are invariably without horns, and small in
size, seldom weighing over 700 lbs. when fat-
tened. The male and female are nearly of the
same height, and seldom exceed 4^ to 4^ feet

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

They are rather rough about the head, with
large ears. Their bodies are long and legs
short, hip-bones high, and generally deficient
in the points of the finer breeds. Still many
of the cows fatten well, and produce beef of
superior quality. In proportion to their size,
the Suffolk dim cows yield a great abundance
of milk ; and as a dairy stock, there are very
few breeds that are preferable.

Irish Cattle. — Of the Irish cattle there are
two breeds, the middle and the long-horns.
The middle-horns are the original breed, and
tenant the forests and most mountainous dis-
tricts. " They are," says Mr. Youatt, " small,
light, active, and wild; the head commonly
small ; the horns short but fine, rather upright,
and frequently, after projecting forward, turn-
ing backward ; somewhat deficient in hind-
quarters ; high-boned, and wide over the hips,
yet the bone not commonly heavy; the hair
coarse and long, black or brindled, with white
faces. Some are finer in the bone and in the
neck, with a good eye and sharp muzzle, and
great activity ; are hardy, live upon very scanty
fare, and fatten with great rapidity when re-
moved to a better soil : they are good milkers.
The Kerry cows are excellent in this respect.
These last, however, are wild and remarkable
leapers. They live, however, upon very little
food, and have often been denominated the
poor man's cow."

The other breed is of a larger size. It has
much of the blood of the old Lancashire or
Craven breed, or true long-horn. Their horns
first turn outwards, then curve, and turn in-
wards. Of each of these kinds, an immense
number of both lean and fat stock are annually
exported to 'England; in 1825 it amounted to
63,524.

The long-horns. — The long-horns of England
came originally from Craven in Yorkshire, and
derived their name from a length of horn,
which often extended to an unbecoming degree.
Bakewell, Culley, and other great breeders im-
proved upon, and have long since destroyed,
the chief traces of the old, long-bodied, coarse,
large boned breed. It is needless, therefore, to
follow this breed through the various counties
in which it once predominated, for it has long
been rapidly disappearing, and has almost
everywhere given place to better kinds.

The improved breed of Leicestershire, is
said to have been formed by Webster of Cau-
ley, near Coventry, in Warwickshire. Bake-
well, of Dishley, in Leicestershire, afterwards
got the lead as a breeder, by selecting from
Cauley's stock ; and the stocks of several other
leminent breeders have been traced to the same
mrce. •

The Lancashire breed of long-horned cattle
I(P1. 12, k), is distinguished from others by the
Mckness and firm texture of their hides, the
igth and closeness of their hair, the large
se of their hoofs, and their coarse, leathery,
thick necks. They are likewise deeper in their
fore quarters, and lighter in their hind quarters
than most other breeds; narrower in their
shape, less in point of weight than the short-
horns, though better weighers in proportion to
their size ; and though they give considerably
less milk, it is said to yield more cream in pro-

portion to its quantity. They are more varied
in colour than any other breeds ; but, whatever
the colour may be, they have in general a
white streak along their back, which the breed-
ers term finched, and mostly a white spot on the
inside of the hough. {Culley, p. 53.) "In a ge-
neral view," says Loudon, " this race, notwith-
standing the singular efforts that have been
made towards its improvement, remains -with
little alteration ; for, except in Leicestershire,
none of the subvarieties (which differ a little
in almost every one of those counties where
the long-horns prevail) have undergone any
radical change or any obvious improvement."
(Loudon's Enryc. of Agr. p. 1015.)

The short-horns. — Of this noble breed of cattle,
which seems to be annually increasing in fa-
vour with the dairyman and the grazier, we
are mainly indebted to the description of the
late Rev. Henry Berry. Durham and York-
shire have for ages been celebrated for a breed
of these possessing extraordinary value as
milkers, " in which quality," says Mr. Youatt,
"taken as a breed, they have never been
equalled. The cattle so distinguished were
always, as now, very different from the im-
proved race. They were generally of large
size, thin skinned, sleek haired, bad handlers,
rather delicate in constitution, coarse in the
offal, and strikingly defective in the substance
of girth in the fore-quarters. As milkers they
were most excellent, but when put to fatten, as
the foregoing description will indicate, were
found slow feeders, producing an inferior
quality of meat, not marbled or mixed as to fat
and lean ; the latter sometimes of a very dark
hue. Such, too, are the unimproved short-horns
of the present day."

About the year 1750, in the valley of the
Tees, commenced that spirit of improvement
in the breeders of the old short-horns, which
has ended in the improved modern breed.
These efforts, begun by Sir William Quintin,
and carried on by Mr. Milbank of Barming-
ham, were nearly completed by Mr. Charles
Colling. The success of this gentleman was,
from the first, considerable. He produced, by
judicious selections and crossings, the cele-
brated bull Hubback, from whom are descend-
ed the best short-horns of our day. Of this
breed was the celebrated Durham ox, which
was long shown in a travelling van at country
fairs, and which, when slaughtered in April,
1807, at eleven years of age, weighed 187
stone ; and the Spottiswoode ox, probably the
largest ever exhibited. In June, 1802, he
measured — height of shoulder, 6 feet 10 inches;
girth behind the shoulder, 10 feet 2 inches ;
breadth across the hooks, 3 feet 1 inch ; com-
puted weight, 320 stones of 14 lbs. (Quart.
Journ. of Agr. vol. vi. p. 271.)

Besides Mr. Colling, his brother Mr. Robert
Colling, Mr. Charge, and Mr. Mason were
hardly second to him in skill and success as
breeders of the short-horns.

With the pure improved short-homs, crossed
with a red polled Galloway cow, was produced
a variety of this breed, which was long named
" the alloy," but for which at Mr. C. Collings's
sale, October 11,1810, some most extraordinary
prices were obtained : thus a cow called

291

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

Lady, 14 years old, sold for - - 206

Countess, her daughter, 9 ycara - 400

Laura, ditto 4 years - 210

Major, her son, 3 years - 200

George, ditto, a calf _ - _ 130

In short, at this sale, forty-eight lots produced
7115/. 17.S., Comet, a six year old bull, selling
for 1000 guineas. (See Coluko, Robert and
Charles.)

The colours of the improved short-horns are
red or white, or a mixture of both ; " no pure im-
proved short-horns" adds Mr. Youatt, " are
found of any other colour but those above
named." That the matured short-horns are an
admirable grazier's breed of cattle is undoubt-
ed: they are not, however, to be disregarded
as milkers; but they are inferior, from their
fattening qualities, to many others as workers.

" In iis points," says Mr. James Dickson
(Quart. Jmirn. of Jgr. vol. vi. p. 269), for quan-
tity and well laid on beef, the short-horn ox is
quite full in every valuable part; such as
along the back, including the fore-ribs, the
sirloin and rump, in the runners, flanks, but-
tocks, and twist, and in the neck and brisket as
inferior parts. In regard to quality of beef, the
fat bears a due and even preponderating pro-
portion to the lean, the fibres of which are fine
and well mixed, and even marbled with fat,
and abundantly juicy. The fine, thin, clear
bone of the legs and head, with the soft mellow
touch of the skin, and the benign aspect of the
eye, indicate, in a remarkable degree, the dispo-
sition to fatten ; while the uniform colours ot
the skin, red or white, or both, commixed in
various degrees, bare, cream-coloured skin on
the nose and around the eyes, and fine, taper-
ing, white, or light-coloured horns mark dis-
tinctly the purity of the blood; these points
apply equally to the bull, the cow, and the
heifer. The external appearance of the short-
horned breed," adds Mr. Dickson, " is irresist-
ably attractive. The exquisitely symmetrical
form of the body in every position, bedecked
with a skin of the richest hues of red, and the
richest white approaching to cream, or both
colours, so arranged or commixed as to form a
beautiful fleck or delicate roan, and possessed
of the mellowest touch ; supported on clean
small limbs, showing, like those of the race-
horse and the greyhound, the union of strength
with fineness ; and ornamented with a small,
lengthy, tapering head, neatly set on a broad,
/irm, deep neck, and furnished with a small
miizzle, wide nostrils, prominent, 'mildly beam-
ing' eyes, thin, large biney ears set near the
crown of the head and protected in front with
semicircularly bent, white, or brownish co-
loured, short (hence the name), smooth pointed
horns ; all these parts combine to form a sym-
metrical harmony, which has never been sur-
passed in beauty and sweetness by any other
species of the domesticated ox."

An excellent paper by Mr. Dickson on cross-
ing the short-horns with other cattle, may be
consulted with advantage by the breeder in
the Edin. Quart. Jonrn. of Agr. vol. vii. p. 495,
A^ on crossing in general, Ibid. p. 247. }

fin the first plate a representation is given
of short-horned cows ; in Plate 12, fig. 1, is a I
drawing of a short-horned bull, which may re- !
292

present the breeds variously termed, Dutch,
Holdej-ness, Teeswater, Yorkshire, Durham,
Northumberland, «ScC. The Teeswater breed,
a variety of short-horns established on the
banks of the Tees, at the head of the vale of
York, is at present in the highest estimation,
and is alleged to be the true Yorkshire short-
horned breed. Bulls and cows from this stock,
purchased at most extraordinary prices, are
spread over all the north of England and the
border counties of Scotland. The bone, head,
and neck of these cattle are fine; the hide is
very thin ; the chine full ; the line broad ; the
carcass throughout large and well fashioned;
and the flesh and fattening quality equal, or
perhaps superior, to those of any other large
breed. The short-horns give a greater quan-
tity of milk than any other cattle ; a cow
usually yielded 24 quarts of milk per day,
making 3 firkins of butter during the grass
season. (CuUey, p. 48.)

The Yorkshire cow. — With Mr. Youatt's ac-
count of the Yorkshire cow (and this article
is, in fact, hardly any thing else but an abridg-
ment of his excellent work "On Cattle" in the
Library of Useful Knowledge) we shall conclude.
The Yorkshire cow is that generally found in the
great dairies in the vicinity of London, and in
these the character of the Holderness and the
Durham unite. "A milch cow good for the
pail as long as she is wanted, and then quickly
got into marketable condition, should have a
long and rather small head; a large-headed
cow will seldom fatten or yield much milk.
The eye should be bright, yet with a peculiar
placidness and quietness of expression ; the
chaps thin, and the horns small. The neck
may be thin towards the head ; but it must
soon begin to thicken, and especially when it
approaches the shoulder. The dewlap should
be small ; the breast, if not so wide as in some
that have an unusual disposition to fatten, yet
should be very far from being narrow, and it
should project before the legs ; the chine to a
certain degree fleshy, and even inclining to
fulness; the girth behind the shoulder should
be deeper than is usually found in the short-
horn ; the ribs should be spread out wide, so
as to give as globular a form as possible to the
carcass, and each should project farther than
the preceding one, to the very loins. She
should be well formed across the hips, and on
the rump, and with greater length there than
the milker generally possesses, or if a little too
short not heavy. If she stands a little long on
the legs, it must not be too long. The thighs
somewhat thin, with a slight tendency to crook-
edness or being sickle-hammed behind ; the
tail thick at the upper part, but tapering below;
and she should have a mellow hide, and but
little coarse hair. Common consent has given
to her large milk-veins. A large milk-vein
certainly indicates a strongly developed vas-
cular system, one favourable to secretion gene-
rally, and to that of the milk amongst the rest.
The udder should rather incline to be large in
proportion to the size of the animal, but not
too large ; its skin thin and free from lumps in
every part of it ; the teats of a moderate size.
The quantity of milk given by some of these
cows is very great ; it is by no means uncom-

/^late /^.

:a*

^

y;

I, Short Homed Bull. Z.Ayrshiie Cow. 3.Jlev„„ H,

ill PVT* (\\.\

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

mon for them in the beginning of the summer
to yield thirty quarts a day. There are rare
instances of the cow yielding thirty-six quarts;
the average is about twenty-two to twenty-four
quarts. The milk, however, is not so rich in
its produce of butter as that of the long-horns,
the Scotch, or the Devons." (For the Alderney
cow, see ALnF.nxET.)

" The quantity of cattle annually sold in Smith-
field is very great: it was (according to M'Cul-
loch*s Did. of Commerce) in —

most corner of the blade-bone of the shoulder,
in a straight line to the hindmost point of the
rump. (See engraving below.)

Table for Admeasurement of Cattle.

Yea-.

Catt'e.

She«p

\l\i^

.

76,210

514,700

1742

.

79.fiOl

503,260

17V2

.

73,709

61 -MOO

176-2

.

102.831

772,160

1772

_

89,5<)3

fiOy.540

17S-2

_

101,176

728,970 '

171)2

-

107,348

760,859

i 1802

.

126.389

743,470

' lSI-2

.

133,854

953,6.30

18-22

_

1 1-2.013

1.340, 1 HO

1832

-

160,221

1,364,160

Failed calves-

_

1S2-2

-

-

21,255

1832

-

-

19,522

The quantity

nf cattle in various European

countries has been

estimated

to be as follows:

Great Britain .... 5,100.000

KiisBia ..... I9,ur»U,0(H)

N.iiherlnndd - . . . 2,5J)0,000

Denmark 1,607.000

Austria 9,912,500

France 6,661,900

Spam 2,500,000

Porlngal - . - . _ 6.50,000

Italy 3,.5()O.0OO

United States of America in 1810 14,971,5o6

Live and dead weight of cattle. — Salesmen
commonly calculate that the dead weight is
one-half of what the animal weighs when alive;
but the butcher knows that the produce is
greater: it often approaches to three-fifths;
and by an extensive stock bailifi"of the late Mr.
Cur wen, it was found that the dead weight
amounted to fit\y-five per cent, of the live. But
the amount ditfers strangely, as may be seen
bv the following statement of Mr. Ferguson of
Woodhill. (Bra. Husb. vol. ii. p. 392.)

Lite
WeigbL

Dead
Weight

Tallow.

— ^^-.

^^— — .—

■!. lb*.

tt. \h>.

•t. i:.*.

An Aherdeenghirn nx -

132 11

R4 S

16 5

A Bhort-horned ox

132 0

1 90 1

14 0

A short-homed heifer -

120 4

77 9

15 8

A short-horned steur -

120 5

1 67 7

14 12

In ascertaining the weight by admeasure-
ment, the girth is taken by passing a cord just
behind the shoulder-blade and under the fore-
legs: this gives tlie circumference, and the
length is taken along the back from the fore-

Girth.

1 Length.

Weight.

Girth.

Length.

Weght 1

//. m

/». m.

i *'-

Ibt.

ft. in.

ft. in.

*t.

lU.

4 3

3 0

12

6 6

4 6

45

3 3

t 13

4 9

47

10

15

5 0

50

4 1

16

5 3

52

11 1

' 17

5 6

55

4 6

14

5 9

57

u

i 15

6 0

60

,.

16

6 3

63

18

6 9

4 6

48

n

19

4 9

51

20

5 0

54

4 9

17

5 3

56

13

18

5 6

59

20

5 9

62

21

6 0

65

22

6 3

67

11

24

7 0

4 9

55

25

5 0

58

5 0

19

5 3

61

20

5 6

64

•

22

5 9

67

23

6 0

69

13

25

6 3

72

12

26

13

6 6

75

11

28

7 3

4 9

59

30

5 0

62

5 3

21

5 3

65

«

5 B

68

11

94

5 9

71

13

S6

6 0

75

S7

13

6 3

78

29

6 e

81

1

31

7 6

5 0

68

13

32

5 3

70

5 6

25

5 6

73

27

5 9

77

28

6 0

80

30

6 3

83

32

6 6

87

34

6 9

90

36

7 9

5 0

71

37

11

5 3

75

5 9

29

5 6

78

31

5 9

82

33

6 0

85

21

35

6 3

89

37

6 6

92

13

5 0

39

6 9

96

5 3

41

7 0

100

43

8 0

5 3

80

0 0

38

5 6

83

11

38

5 9

87

4 0

40

10

6 0

01

42

12

6 3

95

45

6 6

99

47

6 9

102

12

49

7 0

106

51

8 3

5 6

89

0 3

41

11

5 9

93

44

6 0

97

4«

6 3

101

48

11

6 6

105

91

6 9

109

53

7 0

113

8-

55

11

7 3

117

8

6 ?t

58

2

{M'DermenCs Farmer $ Assistant.)

2b2

293

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

The breeds of cattle which stock the farms
of the United States are all derived from Eu-
rope, and, with few exceptions, from Great
Britain. The highest breeds at the present
day are comparatively of recent origin, since
the great improvements commenced by Bake-
well only date about the period of the American
Revolution. The old importations niade by the
primitive settlers must consequently have been
from comparatively inferior grades. In some
sections of the Union, and more particularly in
New England, the primitive stock is thought
to have undergone considerable improvement,
whilst in many parts of the Middle, and espe-
cially of the Southern States, a greater or less
depreciation has ensued. The prevailing stock
in the Eastern States is believed to be derived
from the North Devons, most of the excellent
marks and qualities of which they possess.
Hence they are very highly esteemed, and have
been frequently called the "American Devons."
The most valuable working oxen are chiefly
of this breed, which also contributes so largely
to the best displays of beef found in the mar-
kets of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
The prevailing colour of the New England
cattle is a deep red. Sometimes, however,
they are dark-brown, or brindle, or nearly
black. Their horns are moderately long,
smooth, and slender. The oxen are remarka-
ble for their docility, strength, quickness, and
powers of endurance. The cows are fair milk-
ers, and both kinds are hardy and fatten readily.
By means of this fine domestic stock, and the
importations still so extensively made of selec-
tions from the short-horned, and other of the
finest European breeds, the cattle, not only of
New England, but of other sections, are rapidly
improving, especially in the Middle and West-
ern States.

The graziers of Kentucky and other parts
of the West have heretofore generally shown
the greatest preference to the short-horned
breed, which, with various crosses, is now per-
haps the predominant stock of the country.
Since Durhams have become so common, the
extravagantly high prices they once brought
are no longer maintained; and, indeed, the
farmers now not only think of changing the
breed, but have actually commenced doing so.
They have been led to this chiefly for the rea-
son, that the short-horned cattle, which take on
fat so readily when well fed, and become so
heavy, are unable to retain their fat and flesh
on being driven some 1000 or 1200 miles to
the Eastern markets, where they generally
arrive in such a meager condition as to bring
only the price of lean stock. The Western
graziers, therefore, wish to adopt some breed
which will be able to carry their beef along with
them. The English Herefords have been sought
after, and as much as §500 paid for an imported
cow. Captain Barclay, a gentleman owning a
large estate in Scotland, called Ury, and who
has recently made a tour through the United
States, says that he thinks our Western farm-
ers will find themselves mistaken in this selec-
ti|n from the British breeds, and that they
\^uld derive more advantage by importing
Angus or Aberdeenshire Dodclies, which are
kindred breeds of v/ell-formed, moderate-sized,
294

active animals; or, perhaps still better, the
small and peculiarly symmetrical West High-
land cow; and to cross them wiih a short-horn
or Durham bull. The West Highlander, he
says, possesses all the points of a good feeder;
and being hardy, and active as a deer, would
sufler little from being driven even 1000 miles.
In its native glens it may feed to 20 or 25 stones,
Amsterdam ;* but the heifers, on being trans-
planted to a rich and sheltered pasture, attain
to nearly double that weight. This he says he
has demonstrated by introducing a herd of forty
West Highland heifers on his farm at Ury,
where they were crossed with short-horned
bulls, and the experiment, on repeated trials,
has been attended with great success ; for while
the mothers, by removal to better pasture, have
greatly increased in size, the cross has produced
strong and handsome animals, kindly feeders,
rising to a great weight, and bringing high
prices. It is a great desideratum for the gra-
ziers of Kentucky and other parts of the West,
where pastures of the richest kind abound,
could they find some active breed which would
be able to perform the long journeys to the
Eastern markets, and carry their beef with
them. /

A very general impression now exists in the
United States in favour of breeding a cross
from the best short-horned bulls with the finest
native cows.

Mr. Colman, in his Reports upon the agricul-
tural interests of Massachusetts, recently made
to the legislature of that state, has collected a
fund of valuable information in relation to
American neat cattle, showing their distin-
guishing characteristics for dairy and other
purposes, together with the improvements made
and still making by the introduction of select
cattle from Europe, and the results of feeding
in various ways. Several books and periodi-
cals published in the United States, and devoted
to agriculture, are rich in details relating to
American and Edropean ne.-jt stock. But,
instead of culling from these, we prefer draw-
ing upon Mr. Colman's Report to the Legisla-
ture of Massachusetts, as we regard it a high
source of authentic information, and calculated
to be the more highly useful from the exactness
of the details. We regret that our limits will
not admit of some particular notice of nume-
rous mammoth beasts which have been raised
and fattened in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and
elsewhere. Particular accounts of these, with
the modes of management and feeding, are
duly recorded in more or less of the periodicals.

Stall-fed animals. — It appears that the stall-
feeders in Massachusetts usually select cattle
brought from Vermont, New Hampshire, and
New York, choosing such as are small-boned,
neat, and thrifty. Rather than keep these on
hand a long time, they generally find it most
advantageous 1o "turn them soon," and after
thus disposing of their fat stock early in the
season, many purchase an additional supply
pretty far advanced for the market, and finish
these so as to be ready to send them off in the
spring. In the hilly districts, where Indian

* The Amsterdam stone is only about 10 lbs. of £ng-
lisli troy weight.

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

corn is not raised to any considerable extent,
the cattle are generally fed upon hay and
potatoes, whilst in the river valleys Indian
meal is generally and most advantageously
substituted for potatoes. When potatoes are
chiefly depended upon in stall-feeding, a
bushel of these well washed, are usually given
in a day to each head, at two or more times,
along with as much good hay as the animal
can consume, but no water is allowed. Many
farmers think that a yoke of oxen put up in
good condition, may be well fatted or finished
off for market with one hundred bushels of po-
tatoes, in addition to the hay they will con-
sume. Cattle fed upon potatoes will, it is said,
in general prove as well, that is, have as much
tallow, as those fed in any way, and the beef
of such cattle is thought by many to have a
peculiar juiciness or sweetness. In driving
to market, however, the cattle fed upon pota-
toes will fall away more than those fed upon
hay and corn ; and when they come into mar-
ket by no means appear as well. Several
farmers are in the practice of boiling or
steaming the potatoes which they give to their
cattle, and profess to find a great advantage in
it. The experiments which have come within
my own knowledge have not yet satisfied me
that the advantages are a compensation for
the labour and expense incurred by such
operation.

"The articles usually employed in fattening
cattle are hay and Indian meal, or corn and
rye meal mixed, or pease and oats, or oats and
corn ground together. Besides this, many
farmers are in the practice of giving their
stall-fed cattle occasionally certain quantities
of potatoes. An excellent farmer, of fifty
years experience in the fatting of cattle, is of
opinion that potatoes are good feed for fatting
cattle in the fall and spring, when the weather
is warm ; but that they do no good in cold
weather unless they are cooked. I rely much
upon his judgment and experience. The value
of potatoes is differently estimated by different
individuals; some considering five bushels,
others rating four bushels, as equivalent to one
bushel cf corn.

" In the feeding of cattle for market a great
deal of practical skill is required, and constant
observation of their condition, otherwise they
may be surfeited and their appetite destroyed ;
or their digestive powers be overtasked and
the feed fail of its object.

"A farmer in Charlemont, of large experience
in the fatting of stock, considers the common
English or flat turnip of little value for fatten-
ing stock. The cattle fed upon them appear
healthy and in fine condition, but yield very
little tallow. A pair of cattle fatted by him
and much admired by the butchers, which
weighed eighteen hundred pounds when
dressed, had only thirty pounds tallow each.

" I presume the experiment has never been
fairly tried, of the value of turnips for fattening
stock. This is likely to have been only a soli-
tary instance ; besides this, we want to know
in the case, how many turnips were given ;
under what circumstances they were given;
and with what other feed accompanied.
'•The same farmer is of opinion, that oil-meal

for fattening cattle is of great value. He is
quite content to pay twenty to twenty-three
dollars per ton, the current price for it in his
town. A farmer in Conway concurs in this
opinion; and believes that for a beneficial
change a farmer can well afiord to buy oil-
meal with corn at bushel for bushel. The
price here rises sometimes to thirty dollars
per ton. The weight of oil-meal is about forty-
five pounds to the bushel."

In England and Scotland, turnips are freely
given to growing and fattening cattle, though
more sparingly to milch cows, in consequence
of the flavour they impart to milk and butter.*

Mr. Colman furnishes the results of expe-
rience gained by many persons who have
been long in the practice of stall-feeding. A
few of these we shall notice.

" A. R. has twenty head of cattle in the stall.
They are of good size and calculated to aver-
age over eleven hundred pounds each, when
dressed in Brighton.

**He has tried a variety and a mixture of feed,
such as oats, broom-corn seed, &c., but he pre-
fers Indian meal to every other feed. He dis-
approves of excessive feeding ; and thinks it a
great error to give tot) much. He deems four
quarts with hay ordinarily enough ; and ten
quarts a day suflicient for any animal. He
feeds twice a day with great regularity. His
present cattle have never received over eight
quarts per day each ; and at first putting up a
much less quantity. ^He deems it best to re-
duce their feed of prcn'ender a few days before
starting for market. He buys his cattle for
feeding in the fall ; and his present stock
averaged in the cost seventy-five dollars per
pair.

" S. W. is of opinion that one bushel of com
one year old for feeding any kind of stock, is
equal to one bushel and one peck of new corn,
or com before it becomes perfectly sound and
dry.

" T. C. has in stall, 27th February, five pairs
of oxen, which were purchased in Brighton, in
June last. When purchased, they were thin
in flesh and were immediately put into good
pasture. The cost was as follows :

Two pairs cost 60 dollars per yoke

One pair cobi 46 50 " " -

" 47 00 " " -

" " 45 00 " " -

- 120 00

- 46 50

- 47 00

- 45 00

" These cattle were put into a good pasture
until the 20th of November, when they were
brought to the stall. From that time until the
20th December, they were fed with hay only.
From that time until the first of January, they
received six quarts of provender each, daily.
From the first of January, they received each

* Turnips, though used extensively as an auxiliary in
feeding cattle and other stock in Europe, and especially
in Great Britain, do not seem to answer so well in the
United Stales, unless perhaps it may be in some portions
of New Eni^land. The general complaint against them
in the Middle States, is that they do not appear to pos-
sess sfutficient nourishing and fattening qualities. Hence
the sugar beet, ruta baga, nianeel-wnrtzel, and carrot
are greatly preferred, all of which roots may be given
with very great advantage to stock, as auTiliaries.
Testimonials of their value when thus em|>loyed are
numerous and conclusive. For information relative to
the feeding of cattle on turnips, see Stephens's "JBooft
of the Farm."

295

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

eight quarts daily. This provender consists
of one-half oil-meal, one quarter oats and one
quarter corn; the two last ground together
and the whole intermixed when given to the
cattle.

" The oil-meal in this case cost forty dollars
Rer ton. It weighs about forty-five pounds to
a bushel. If ground very fine, it will not
weigh more than thirty-eight or forty pounds
to the bushel. It is best, therefore, to buy it
by weight. This farmer is of opinion that h's
oxen, if now killed, would return him one
thousand pounds of beef each.

" Meal made from the seed of broom-corn,"
Mr. Colman says, "is occasionally used, mixed
with other provender, but for neat cattle it is not
approved by the best farmers. Flaxseed jelly,
that is, half a pint or a pint of flaxseed formed
into a jelly by boiling, as an allowance for a
stall-fed animal per day, has been used for fat-
tening cattle by some farmers with remarkable
success. It does not supersede the use of meal,
but is best mixed with it. It is believed that
no article, according to cost, can be used with
more advantage than this for this object ; and
that none is known, which is more nutritious.
This jelly, which I have myself used with great
advantage, is prepared as follows : ' to seven
parts of water let one part of linseed be put for
forty-eight hours ; then boil it slowly for two
hours, gently stirring the whole lest it should
burn. Afterwards it ought to be cooled in
tubs ; and mixed with meal, bran, or cut chaff,
in the proportion of one Ibushel of hay to the
jelly produced by one quart of linseed well
mashed together. This quantity given daily
with other food will forward cattle rapidly, but
it must be increased when they are intended
to be completely fattened.' "

The quantity of Indian corn meal required
to fatten cattle, usually varies a little. One
experienced feeder gives it as the result of his
observation that a yoke of good cattle, to be
well stall-fed, will take from twenty to twenty-
five bushels of meal, besides the usual allow-
ance of hay.

Some farmers have ground their corn for
fattening cattle on the cob. In such cases it i»
suggested that the miller has it in his power to
take advantage by drawing his measure of toll
from the lowermost portion of the grist to
which the corn usually settles. There can be
little doubt that corn cobs will serve the pur-
pose of coarse hay for distension, etc., since
cattle are often quickly fattened upon nubbins
or the smaller ears of corn. They will thus
often be found a useful auxiliary.

The Massachusetts stall-feeders consulted
by Mr. Colman are almost universally agreed
upon one point — namely, that a mixture of
provender is best. While Indian meal is to be
considered as the basis, certain proportions of
rye, or oats, or pease and oats, are always
deemed best to be mixed with it. An excel-
lent farmer, whose fat cattle do him much
credit, is of opinion that the meal given should ;
always be scalded. Oxen from four to six ^
j^ars old are generally selected for fattening, ;
i^ugh some prefer young stock of from three
to five years old. With regard to the particu-
lar breeds preferred, Mr. Colman says that the
296

small-boned, medium-sized animals, of good
length, strongly marked with the Devon blood,
are those which are chosen. In considering
the capacities of cattle for fattening, a wide
chest has been regarded as an unerring sign
of a good and quick feeder. Bearing upon this
point. Dr. Jennen, the great benefactor of man-
kind, made an observation, the truth of which
appears to have been fully confirmed by fur-
ther examination — namely, that no animal
whose chest was narrow could easily be made
fat. This observation applies not only to neat
cattle, but to sheep, goats, and hares. It even
holds good in the human species. The experi-
enced farmer is seldom at a loss to distinguish
the most thrifty cattle, in respect to which there
are great differences among individuals of the
same breed. To the assistance of the eye is
added the sense of touch by the operation tech-
nically called handling, the mode of conducting
which, according to the most approved English
authorities, has been already detailed. In re-
ference to the several breeds of cattle and their
distinguishing qualities, Mr. Colman makes the
following remarks as the result of his observa-
tions and inquiries : —

"The pastures in New England are short,
and the winters long and severe, and therefore
ill-adapted to a race of large size, of tender
habits, and requiring extraordinary keeping
and the most particular care to maintain their
condition. The most celebrated breeds in Eng-
land are the improved Durham short-horn, the
Hereford, the Ayrshire, and the North Devon.
Of these different races, highly improved ani-
mals of each sex, for the purposes of breeding,
have been introduced into the country and into
the state ; and each race has found strong ad-
vocates, who have preferred it to every other.
For dairy purposes, as far as my own limited ex-
perience and observation go, I have no doubt that
the Ayrs^hire, or a first cross with the improved
Durham and the Devon, are to be preferred.
For early maturity and size as beef animals,
the improved Durham short-horn appears to me
to take the lead. But they are tender, and re-
quire extraordinary keeping and care to main-
tain their good qualities. They seem better adapt-
ed to the rich prairies and feeding grounds of
the Western States than to our scanty pastures.
The Hereford, of which some remarkably
beautiful animals have been imported into Al-
bany, have warm advocates both here and
abroad, and come in strong competition with the
improved Durhams. Those of the Herefords,
which I have had the pleasure of seeing,
seemed to me considerably larger than the
Devons, but smaller than the Durhams. These
were choice specimens, and were remarkably
thrifty and beautiful animals, clean about the
limbs, not so straight on the back and square
behind as the Durhams, but exhibiting upon
the whole admirable constitution and symme-
try. Having had no farther personal observa-
tion or experience with this breed of animals,
I will not venture to speak of them with any
confidence. Of their particular qualifications
for the dairy I know nothing. For our pur-
poses as working oxen and for stall-feeding,
the North Devon cattle are most generally ap-
proved. This undoubtedly is the prevalent

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

stock of the country, though diversified and
contaminated by various mixtures. No pains
have been taken, by systematic efforts, by judi-
cious selection, and by perseverance in endea-
vours to combine the best qualities and to era-
dicate or remedy defects, in order to form, from
what we call our native stock, a distinct
and valuable breed. Indeed, where the im-
proved blood has been introduced, it has been
suffered, after a short time, to run out through
neglect, or to become degenerate by poor keep-
ing."

As regards the capacity for thrift in the differ-
ent breeds, Mr. Colman thinks that the perfec-
tion of any animal depends essentially upon his
good keeping from his birth ; and that severity
or hard fare, or negligence while in a growing
state, do an injury to the constitution, and so
stint the growth, that no after keeping can ever
repair it. The animal constitution always suf-
fers essentially by reverses. It is said that a
sheep is never fat but once. Perhaps this as-
sertion is to be received with some qualifica-
tion, but still it must be admitted as a difficult
task to raise an animal from a low condition.
"The farmers prejudice very greatly their own
interest in suffering their milch cows to come
out in the spring in low condition. During the
time they are dry, they think it enough to give
them the coarsest fodder, and that in limited
quantities; this, too, at a time of pregnancy,
when they require the kindest treatment and
the most nourishing food. The calf itself un-
der this treatment of the cow is small and
feeble. He finds comparatively insufficient
support from his exhausted dam ; and the re-
turn which the cow makes in milk during the
summer is much less than it would be, if she
came into the spring in good health and flesh.
It requires the whole summer to recover what
she has lost. The animal constitution cannot
be trifled with in this way.

"It is so with all live-stock, and especially
with young animals at the period of their most
rapid growth. They should not be prematurely
forced ; but, on the other hand, they should not
be stinted or checked. It is a very important
question, whether it is more profitable to fatten
young animals than older ones. I have given
the different opinions of different farmers on
this subject. In England, it seems an almost
universal opinion, that the sooner an animal
can be made fit for the market the better, and
their fatted animals, especially of the im-
proved breeds, are slaughtered at two and three
years old. They are often brought to market
at even an earlier age than this ; but it is con-
sidered, and with reason, that the meat of such
animals is not so good as when they have at-
tained a full growth. It is natural to suppose
that the animal can only be in perfection when
he has ceased to grow, and if killed before that
period, there would seem to be a loss of that
enlargement of size and weight, separate from
an increase of fatness, to which he might at-
tain. While an animal is growing and well
fed at the same time, there is ^evidently a
double. gain ; and if he increases one pound a
day by his extra feed, he may be supposed to
increase another pound by his ordinary growth.
After this period, however, it may be advisable
38

to send him to market as soon as he can be
put into condition. Farmers often make great
mistakes in keeping their cattle too long.
There is a reasonable calculation to be made
in respect to the markets, which are generally
higher in the spring than in the autumn ; but
the advance in price does not always meet the
increased expense of keeping. It is import-
ant, as a general rule, that the animal should
go to market as soon as the gain which he
makes ceases to pay the expense of his keeping.

"It has been made a question, whether
heifers are not more profitable than steers.
They are as thrifty, and, in general, pay as well
for their keeping. It is the practice of some
farmers, to allow them to come in with calves
at two years old ; if at that time they promise
well as cows, a good market can almost always
be found for them ; but, if otherwise, after
suckling the calf three months or more, they
are turned out to be fatted for beef, and are
either sold immediately at the close of the pas-
turing season, or otherwise, after being stall-
fed for a short time. Their meat, if well ied,
is always highly esteemed. This proves, in
general, a good operation. In England, heifers
designed for the stall are very frequently
spayed, by which their thrift is greatly assisted.

"This is often done in Kentucky and some
other of the Western Stales ; but I have never
known more than one instance of its being
practised in New England, I do not feel au-
thorized, therefore, to pronounce upon its ad-
vantages.

" It is sometimes asked, whether oxen are
injured in their growth from being worked. If
their strength is prematurely and too severely
taxed, or if ihey are subjected to severe usiige,
undoubtedly it must prove injurious; but, if
otherwise, if reasonably worked and carefully
and kindly attended, there is no doubt that
their health and growth are promoted by it.
It is often matter of inquiry, whether fatting
cattle should be kept in close stalls, or be suf^
fered to lie out-doors. The experience of all
the farmers whom I have consulted, who have
made any trial, is conclusive in this case, in
favour of the superior thrift of animals kept
constantly in the barn, or turned out otily for
watering and immediately put up again, over
those which are kept in open sheds, or tied up
for feeding only, and at other times allowed
to lie in the yard. No exact experiments have
been made in this country in relation to this
subject; but experiments made abroad lead to
the conclusion, that cattle thrive best in a high
and equable temperature, so warm as to keep
them constantly in a state of active perspira-
tion, and that their thrift is much hindered by
an exposure to severe alternations of heat and
cold. It is certain, that in order to thrift, cattle
cannot be made too comfortable ; their man-
gers should be kept clean ; their stalls be well
littered ; and the cattle protected from currents
of air blowing through crevices or holes in the
floors or the sides of the stables, which prove
often much more uncomfortable than an open
exposure."

As at present conducted in Massachusetts,
and at the present prices of provender and
beef, Mr. Colman thinks the business of fat-

297

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

tening cattle for market any thing but profita-
ble, and that if extensively and exclusively
carried on by individuals, the result must
generally be embarrasment and ruin. "From
the best observation which I have been able to
make, I have," he says, " found very few in-
stances in which a pair of cattle or a single
ox kept for any length of time in the stall have
ever made compensation for the produce which
they or he consume, even at prices consider-
ably below the current prices in the market.
There are occasional and accidental excep-
tions, but they are very seldom to be met
with." In the estimates presented to Mr. Col-
man, Indian corn-meal is reckoned at from
60 to 75 cts. per bushel, potatoes 25 cts. per
bushel, a mixture of peas and oats at 50 cts.
per bushel, and hay at $10 per ton.

"It has been supposed that farmers by going
extensively into the Qultivation of esculent
roots, such as carrots, ruta-baga, parsnips, or
mangel-wurtzel, could fatten cattle to much
more advantage, or rather at much less ex-
pense than on hay or corn. This deserves
great consideration. On this subject we want
light, and that which springs from actual and
intelligent experience. My belief is, that for
the fatting of cattle, where the coarse fodder is
well saved, few* crops are more profitable to the
farmer than a crop of Indian corn at the rate
of seventy bushels to the acre. Next to corn,
potatoes at the rate of four hundred bushels
to the acre would-be a profitable crop. In
number of bushels to the acre, there is no
doubt that more can be produced and at a less
expense of cultivation and harvesting of
common turnips, of ruta-baga, and of mangel-
wurtzel, than of potatoes. But it is believed
that more nutritive matter can be obtained
from one hundred bushels of potatoes than
from two hundred of common turnips. Ruta-
baga and mangel-wurtzel have undoubtedly a
great superiority over the common white tur-
nip, but these are much inferior to the best and
most farinaceous potatoes. Hay is without
question one of the best articles which can be
given to fattening animals; but where an
abundance of meal or of esculent vegetables
is given, the nature of the long feed to be given
them seems of much less importance. Rye,
wheat, or oat straw, in such case, is found to
be given with an almost equal advantage as
the best hay. Many of the best beasts in
England are fatted upon straw and turnips.
In England, it is considered as doing well, if
an acre of turnips will fatten an ox for market.
An experienced farmer here is of opinion, that
one hun-dred bushels of potatoes with a small
amount of hay will fatten an ox. Another
says, that he allows twenty-five bushels of
corn to fatten an ox, and but little hay will be
required.

"It is curious to compare the gain of fattening
cattle with the actual cost of keeping. Two
pounds live weight per day in an ox are con-
sidered a large gain. The largest gain men-
tioned in this report is a little more than three
Mounds per day. At seven dollars per hundred,
^s would be equal to twenty-seven cents. To
make this, we suppose the animal to receive
one peck of Indian meal, which, at 66| cents
298

per bushel, would be 16-J cents, and 28 lbs. of
hay, which, at 8 dollars per 2000 lbs., would
be 11 cents and 2 mills, or both about 28 cents.
Or suppose him to gain only 2 lbs. per day,
which would be 14 cents; and his daily al-
lowance of meal be reduced to 4 quarts, and
hay the same as before, the daily cost of keep-
ing would be about 20 cents ; in which case,
if. we place the manure as an offset for the
attendance, interest, and commissions on sale,
&c., there will be a loss of about six cents per
day. I believe the result is often much worse
than this ; and it is much to be regretted that
farmers are not willing to look these facts in
the face. I do not mean to deny that there are
instances of success in this department of
husbandry, instances in which the farmer is
well paid for his trouble and attendance, and
receives a full compensation for the feed sup-
plied to them ; but these instances are compa-
ratively rare, and so much matter of contin-
gency, that even the most skilful farmers cannot
always rely upon their best judgment. The
farmer always feels satisfied, if he can, as he
terms it, double his money; that is, if he re-
ceives for his cattle in the market twice as
much as they cost him when he first put them
into the stall. This is sometimes done. It is
seldom exceeded; and fatteners often fall
short of it."

At Mr. Colman's request, a careful farmer
made experiments for the purpose of ascertain-
ing the actual quantity of hay ordinarily con-
sumed by a fatting ox. In conducting these,
the hay was first weighed, and then the weight
of the leavings deducted. Five oxen consumed
150 lbs. hay per day. Two of these oxen had
at the same time 20 quarts of provender — half
Indian corn and half broom-seed meal ^ two of
them 24 quarts of the some provender per day;
and one of them eight quarts per day. Upon a
second experiment with the same cattle, fed as
just stated, the consumption of hay by each
ox averaged 25 lbs. per day.

It is stated in the Complete Grazier, that an
unworked ox for several days together consumed
33 lbs. of haj^ per day. In the New York Me-
moirs of Agriculture, it is stated that an ox will
eat every twenty-four hours 14 lbs. of hay, half
a bushel of potatoes, and 8 quarts of Indian
meal. It hence appears that the capacities
of cattle for the consumption of food vary
according to circumstances of size, age, con-
dition, &c. Many farmers who engage in
fattening cattle only expect to get paid in the
operation for their grain, without taking into
account the hay consumed. They, however,
derive the great advantage of consuming their
crops upon the ground, and reserving ihe ma-
nure to keep up the productiveness of the soil.
The farmer who annually sells off the produce
of his land in the form of grain, hay, &c., soon
finds the necessity of making a considerable
outlay for manure, to compensate for certain
and often rapid deterioration. It is freely ad-
mitted that with respect to hay, straw, and all
kinds of whatis-called " long feed," it is always
better to consume the produce on the farm,
even at a nominal loss of twenty-five per cent.,
than to carry it off any distance to market ;
that is to say, a farmer had best feed his hay

^^^^^ CATTLE.

Tft home, although it may net him only $6 per
ton in fattening his cattle, than carry it even
a short distance to market and obtain $8 for
it. Such estimates would seem to indicate
that the value of articles consumed in fattening
stock ought not to be valued so high as the
current market prices.

If the hay consumed on the farm nets the
farmer $5 per ton, and the average product is
two tons, it will pay a remunerating profit,
allowing the land to be valued at {$75 and even
much higher, per acre.

Gaiji of stall-fed cattle. — Colman gives some
interesting estimates showing the actual gain
per day in stall-fed cattle, a matter generally
left to conjecture.

"Example 1. — A pair of cattle owned by S. C.
weighed

Ocl. 16, 2305 IbB. and 2110 lbs, together- - 441.*) lbs.
Jan. 17, 2135 " 2185 " - - 4fi20 "

The gain, therefore, in 3 months and 1 day, was 205 "

" The same cattle weighed on the following
March 11th,

One 2500 and one 2345 lbs., tognther - - 4935 lbs.
The gain, then, in this 1 month and 23 days, "

was .__-_-- 315 ••
The whole gain in 4 mo>. 23 days, being - 520 "

The gain during 146 days was at the rate of
3-56 lbs. per day.

" These cattle had, besides hay, a small al-
lowance of meal, and ran in a good pasture
through the summer. They were put up to be
stall-fed early in the autumn, and were soon
brought to receive together one bushel of meal
per day, even measure; one-third pease and
oats, two-thirds corn, with a liberal allowance
of hay.

" Example 2. — A pair of oxen belonging to
R. D. weighed

Nov. 8, 1995 lh«. and I9S5 lbs., tozether - - 3980 lbs.
Mar. 12, ensuing, 2250 lbs. and 2255 lbs., to-
gether 4503 "

"The whole gain in 124 days, was 525 lbs.
or at the rate of 4-33 lbs. per day.

" Example 6. — One pair of cattle fed by R. D.
weighed in the first part of Nov. 3765 lbs.
Dec. 15, 4220 lbs. Jan. 15, 4410 lbs. ThQ
gain in one month was 190 lbs. March 7,
weighed 4730 lbs. The gain from the com-
mencement was 965 lbs.; from Dec. 15 to
March 7, was 510 lbs.

"The average gain of the above, from Dec.
15 to March 7, 81 days, being 510 lbs. is 6-29
Ib.s. per day. The gain from Dec. 15 to Jan.
15, 30 days', being 190 lbs. is 6-33 lbs. per day.
"These cattle were old, and at the time of
being purchased appeared to have been hardly
driven and poorly fed."

Loss of weight in drwins^.—The loss of cattle
in driving to market is generally estimated at
from 50 to 100 lbs. dead weight, in a distance
of some seventy-five or eighty miles. Cattle
fatted upon potatoes lose more than others
during the journey, which is ascribed to the
difficulty of getting them to eat upon the road.
The drover usually receives from the farmer
a commission of two dollars a head for driving
and selling the cattle, with no allowance for
feeding. He is therefore but little interested

CATTLE.

in the fare or treatment they are to receive on
the way.

The respectable and responsible oflScer em-
ployed to take an account of all the cattle and
other stock brought to the Brighton market,
note the average prices, and report weekly
these and other interesting particulars, states
that the ordinary allowance for shrinkage, in
cattle driven to market, is from thirty to thirty-
five per cent. Some which have come a long
distance, or are very fat or hollow from want
of food, will not shrink more than twenty-five
per cent.; while others thin of flesh, or full of
food, will shrink forty per cent. In sheep, the
wethers usually .-shrink fifty per cent, and some-
times more. It depends veiy much upon the
state of the animal at the time of weighing.
Oxen fresh from the pasture at night have
frequently been weighed and reweighed on the
following morning at nine o'clock, and found
to have shrunk 80 or 100 lbs. each.

Live and dead weight of cattle. — In England,
the diflerence between the dead and live weight
is calculated at eleven-twentieths; this, how-
ever, only includes the four quarters ; the fifth
quarter, as it is there termed, being the hide,
loose tallow, and ofllal, goes to the butcher as
his perquisite. In New England, five quarters
are also made, the hide and tallow being
weighed, and the amount of it and the meat
returned to the owner. That is to say, the
cattle brought to market by the farmer or
drover, being sold, the purchaser turns them
over to a slaughtering establishment to be
killed and dressed, for which he pays what
amounts in money and perquisites to about two
dollars per head. The meat is then sold to the
retailing butchers. The heart and liver are
valued at 50 cents, excepting in the barrelling
season ; the tongue is considered worth 42 cents ;
the tripe 50 cents ; the head, which has on it a
large piece of the neck, being of late years cut
off at the second joint from the crown, furnish-
ing some good meat for cooking, and when
boiled given to swine with great advantage,
and also the feet, from which oil and glue are
obtained, valued at 40 cts., go among the offal,
and of course are lost to the farmer or drover.
Some cunning butchers are said to have a way
by which, after cutting through the shoulders,
in splitting down the chine they turn the edge
of the axe outwards, thus leaving a large por-
tion of the neck attached to the head, a perqui-
site of the slaughterer. With respect to the
value of the hide at different seasons, a skilful
farmer informed Mr. Colman that the hide of
an ox, which, if the animal was killed in De-
cember,'might weigh 100 lbs., would not weigh
more than 85 lbs. if kept till June, such is the
loss from shedding the hair, and perhaps from
the thinning of the hide itself.

The offal or perquisites of the slaughterer
consist of the entrails, feet, head, a strip from
: the foreskin, and the blood. The tongue,
I cheeks, and heart of the bullock go to the
I butcher. The slaughterer sells the feet and
j head to the tallow-chandler and soap-boiler,
j who extract the tallow and oil ; the claws go
to the comb-maker, the bones and pith of the
, horns to the bone-mill for manure or for the

299

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

purpose of making animal charcoal, and the
blood to the sugar-refiners.

In New York only four quarters are made
by the slaughterer, and the hide and tallow are
not weighed or reckoned in the price : facts
which are to be remembered in making com-
parisons of prices in the different markets.

The following are some examples of live and
dead weights of New England cattle, killed at
home and after having been driven from the
Connecticut river to Brighton, the Boston beef
market, a distance of 75 or 80 miles.

"Example 1. — One ox, live weight in market
2393 lbs.; quarters weighed 418 lbs., 415 lbs.,
•324 lbs., 331 lbs.; hide, 150 lbs.; tallow, 173
lbs. = 1811. Difference 582 lbs.

"Example 2. — Two oxen of A. S., killed at
home, weighed as follows :

Live— One 1979 lbs. - - Killed— HOO lbs.
" 1910 " - - " 1341 "

About 29-4 lbs. loss on a hundred of the live
weight.

"Example 3. — An ox owned by A. S., con-
veyed to Brighton on a sled, weighed at home
about 2630 lbs.-; the precise number of pounds
not recollected. On being slaughtered, his
weight was as follows : quarters, 480 lbs., 479
lbs., 374 lbs., 383 lbs.; hide, 154 lbs.; tallow,
250 lbs. Total, 2120 lbs. Loss, 510 lbs.

" Example 4. — Ox belonging to R. D. ; when
he left Connecticut river weighed 2435 lbs.
Weight at Brighton when dressed, 1588 lbs.
Loss of weight, 867 lbs. This is a little more
than one-third, and is a remarkable result.

"Example 5. — An ox weighing on Connecti-
cut river 2250 lbs. weighed in market 1472 lbs.
Loss, 778 lbs.

"Example 6. — An ox weighing as above
2255 lbs., weighed in market 1487 lbs. Loss
768 lbs.

" Example 7.— A fat bull of D. S., killed at
home, weighed alive 1495 lbs.; dead 1051 lbs.
Loss, 444 lbs.

"Examph 8.— A fat heifer of E. W., killed at
home, weighed alive 1120 lbs.; dead, 832 lbs.
Loss, 288 lbs.

"Example 9. — An ox belonging to S. C.
weighed on Connecticut river, alive, 2590 lbs.;
at Brighton, dressed, as follows : quarters, 394
lbs., 350 lbs., 362 lbs., 358 lbs.; hide, 120 lbs.;
tallow, 207 lbs. Total, 1791 lbs. Difference
between live and dead weights, 799 lbs.

"Example 10. — An ox belonging to S. C.
weighed as above 2345 lbs.; at Brighton,
dressed, as follows: quarters, 352 lbs., 310
lbs., 364 lbs., 308 lbs.; hide, 115 lbs.; tallow,
217 lbs. Total, 1666 lbs. Difference between
live and dead weights, 679 lbs."

Pasturage. — The cost of pasturage is difficult
to estimate, since the qualities of soil and faci-
lities afforded differ so much in different sec-
tions of country, and even in the same neigh-
bourhood. In Conway, situated a little west
of the Connecticut river, the pasturage is ex-
cellent; that is to say, 30 acres will keep
twelve cattle, consisting of cows and oxen, the
year round. Oxen from four to six years of
^e are taken to be pastured at from 50 to 67
^nts per week ; farrow cows at 25 cents per
week ; steers at two years old at 75 cents per
300

week each. Sheep are pastured at 3 cents each
per week, and lambs at 1^ cents.

In Buckland, in the same county, cows are
pastured at 25 cents per week, including salt.
Pasturing of an average quality will feed eight
cows upon 30 acres. A yoke of oxen require
half as much again as two cows. In Hawly
two acres of pasturage are considered suffi-
cient for a cow.

In the fattening of cattle, universal experi-
ence, Mr. Colman remarks, shows the import-
ance of a scrupulous punctuality as to the
times of feeding. Under ihe influence of that
mighty despot, habit, which reigns throughout
the animal creation, these animals measure
time with great exactness ; and if at the cus-
tomary hour the feed is not ready for them,
they become restless, uneasy, and fretful, dis-
positions exceedingly unfriendly to all cases
of thrift. During the time of feeding they
should have little given to them at once, that
their food may not become loathsome by being
frequently tossed over and blown upon.

In regard to the native stock of New Eng-
land, in which various bloods and breeds are
intermingled, Mr. Colman remarks that " many
of them are indeed miserable in appearance,
in shape, in condition, and every other quality.
This comes in gerferal from neglect and indif-
ference, because we kill or sell to the butcher
our best calves, and commonly leave what we
do attempt to raise *to shift for themselves.'
Yet at the same time without presumption, I
think. New England may challenge the world
to produce finer teams of oxen, by fifties and
hundreds of pairs, than are to be found at our
cattle-shows. Let any intelligent judge of stock
go into Worcester county, Mass.; into New
Haven and Hartford counties, in Connecticut;
or especially to Saccarappa, in Maine, where
ox teams are constantly employed in carting
lumber to Portland, and if he will find any su-
perior oxen for labour and condition than are
to be found there, he would do a signal favour
to the agricultural public in letting us know
where we may look for them. I have seen
none. I believe we should search the world
over in vain to find any.

" Our native cows are of every variety, but
there are several parts of the state where,
though it cannot be said that any scientific or
systematic improvement has been undertaken,
yet by a long-continued selection from the best,
whole families or breeds are to be found dis-
tinguished for their excellent properties as
dairy stock. The list of native cows which I
have given shows conclusively that we have
those which, for the quantity of milk they give,
are scarcely inferior to any, and for the amount
of butter and cheese which they produce are
surpassed by none. The numbers referred to
prove that they are not rare.

" Whether any thing would be gained by
substituting the improved short-horns for our
j present stock is, to say the least, questionable.
I The short-horns are great consumers. Though
! animals do not always consume in proportion
1 to their size, yet this must be considered as a
I general rule. They require most particular
■ attention and liberal feeding to bring them to

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

maturity, though we admit that they arrive at
maturity early. Many of the short-horned pre-
mium young animals which have been exhi-
bited at our cattle-shows have had the benefit
of two wet-nurses for six months. Most of our
native calves are put off with two teats, and at
eight or ten weeks old are turned adrift into
the pasture to live or die as they please. Our
own stock has never had fair play; and if
treated in the same manner as the best short-
horned stock, they would not perhaps fall so far
behind them as might be supposed. Our pas-
tures are in general short, and our winters lo^.
A smaller race of cattle, therefore, and a more
hardy stock would seem belter adapted to our
condition.

"The London milk establishments are main-
ly supplied with the short-horns, because, it is
said, they give more milk, and, after becoming
dry, take on flesh sooner than other races, and
are therefore more easily disposed of to the
butcher. The size of these animals would na-
turally indicate a larger yield of milk, and, at
the same time, a greater consumption of food.
But the yield of milk is put down at an ave-
rage of nine quarts daily. These are presumed
to be wine quarts, and deducting one-fitth, it
does not much exceed the yield of somtf milk
establishments among us. Besides, in the Lon-
don dairies, cows are not suflered to become
with calf.

"One of the most extraordinary short-horn
cows known in England, it is said, produced
373 pounds of butter in 32 weeks! 17 pounds
being the largest quantity made in any one
week. This is quoted as quite remarkable;
but this, as far as it goes, does not equal the
Cakes, the Nourse, the Adams, or the Spring-
field cow. One of the best-informed and most
ardent advocates for the short-horns, the late
Henry Berry, remarks: — 'That their milk does
not contain the same proportionate quantity of
butter as that from the long-horns, the Scotch
cattle, or the Devons, is probably true ; but we
have reason to believe that the difference has
been much exaggerated, and is more than com-
pensated by the additional quantity of milk.'

"The quantity of cheese made in a year
from a cow in the celebrated cheese district
of Wiltshire, England, is thus staled: — 'The
quantity of cheese that is made from each cow
in this district, is greater than is common in
any other cheese-making countrj', sometimes
as much as 4^ cwt. or 5 cwt. per cow, seldom
lower than 3 cwt. Perhaps 3^ cwt. is a fair
average in a good cheese-making year on
every cow that calves in proper time.' In the
famous district of Cheshire, in England, the
average amount of cheese to a cow is stated
at 2^ cwt. The old breed of Irish cattle, much
valued for the dairy, will produce from 84 to
112 lbs. of butter per year; a very good cow
will yield 1^ cwt., that is, 168 lbs. net. Of the
Ayrshire cows, kept in the highest condition
for giving milk, it is stated that the yearly ave-
rage in milk may be 650 gallons or 2600 quarts,
(wine measure, I presume, is intended), and 90
gallons will make 24 lbs. of butter, or 15 quarts
(wine measure) to a pound. In another case
it is said ' that a well-fed cow of a good breed
will produce on an average 180 lbs. of butler

in the season, though the common calculation
is 150 lbs. In the Epping district, where there
is an indiscriminate mixture of Devon, Suffolk,
Leicester, Holderness, and Scotch, the calcula-
tion in a well managed dairy amounts to 212
lbs. per year to a cow. In one case in Sussex,
upon an actual trial, the cows produced only
136 lbs. per season.'

"As far, then, as we can depend on these
accounts, our own native cattle for dairy stock
will not suffer by comparison with the best
English stock of any of those races most dis-
tinguished for their milking properties. Our
own Cheshire cheese dairies certainly yield
the palm to none.

"The cross of the Durham short-horns with
the Devon has produced in many cases an ex-
cellent stock. But, if of no other value to the
country, their introduction will prove an im-
mense benefit by showing our farmers what
can be done in improving the size, form, and
condition of their own stocks, by a most care-
ful selection from the very best, by persevering
attempts to amend defects and engraft goc^
properties in the animal constitution, and by
constant care and good keeping.

"It cannot be denied that a vast proportion
of our cows are wretched in their form, health,
and condition. There is no reason, on the
other hand, to doubt that by breeding only from
the best on both sides, and by a liberal mode
of keeping, we may produce a dairy stock and
a stock for labour as well adapted to our pas-
tures, climate, and husbandry as can be found.
Perhaps I should be authorized to add for beef
also, that is, producing as many pounds accord-
ing to the expense of their keep. The average
weight of bullocks slaughtered at Smithfield,
the great cattle market of England, is 656 lbs.
At Brighton, in this county, the average weight
of oxen is 875 lbs., and of steers 600 lbs. each.
The last is thought by some persons to be
overrated. The weight used at Brighton is net
weight; 1 cwt. being now reckoned at 100 lbs.
avoirdupois.

" The great cattle fair Qf the state, and indeed
of New England, is held at the beautiful village
of Brighton, about six miles from Boston, on
the Monday of every week. Here capacious
pens are erected for the reception of such live-
stock as may be brought in, and the drovers
and butchers assemble fitom all directions. The
business of selling and buying is principally
got through with on Monday, though cattle and
other stock, when prices are not satisfactory to
the seller, are frequently kept over, for a week
or fortnight, for a better market. With the ex-
ception of a small fair at Danvers, in Essex
county, held occasionally in the fall, I know
of no other cattle fair in New England. Cattle,
sheep, and swine are brought here from the
interior of the state, from Maine, New Hamp-
shire, Vermont, — from New York, and some-
times from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and
Kentucky.

" I ascertained some time since at the Bull's
! Head Market, in New York, that the expense
j of a drove of cattle, consisting of one hundred
! head, from the vicinity of Lexington^ Kentucky,
; to that place, including the expenses of one
; night and a day in New York, was 1,300 dollars,
2 C 301

CATTLE.

CATTLE.

or 13 dollars per head. This was at a season
when the drovers could avail themselves of
pasturage. The price of corn is not recollect-
ed. They came in in good condition.

"Store hogs or shoats, driven moderately in
the mild season and well fed on the road, will
gain in flesh, it is said by some, almost suffi-
ciently to pay the expenses of their drift."

The number of cattle of all descriptions
brought to Brighton frequently exceeds 8,000
head on a market day. Many of these, and the
proportion increases, instead of being slaugn-
tered, are sold on the hoof. The mathematical
rules and tables, so much in use in England
for determining the live weight of animals, are
seldom resorted to in the United States, al-
though they arc said to give very exact results.
A diagram and table have been given in the
preceding part of this article, to show the mode
and facilitate the process of making estimates
of live weight.

By the revised statutes of Massachusetts it
is declared that "All beef cattle, except bulls,
sold in market by weight, shall, when slaugh-
tered, be prepared for weighing in the follow-
ing manner: — the legs shall be taken off at the
knee and gambrel joint, the skin shall be taken
from all other parts of the animal, the head
shall be taken off at the second joint of the
neck, the entrails taken out, and all the fat of
, the same be taken off and weighed as rough
tallow ; and every other part of the animal, in-
cluding the hide and rough tallow (the udder
of cows excepted), shall be weighed.

"All beef shall be weighed upon the first
week-day succeeding that on which it may be
slaughtered," &c.

Rearing Calves. — As so many different opi-
nions are entertained upon the subject of rear-
ing calves, some of the views derived from
high sources of intelligence will be stated.

In Pennsylvania, heifers intended for milch
cows are generally put to the bull at fifteen to
eighteen months of age, in preference to leaving
them run to a greater age. Mr. Isaac W. Ro-
berts, of Montgomery county, has been very suc-
cessful in raising and fattening cattle, chiefly of
the Durham breed. It is his practice to take
the calves of this fine breed, and, when two or
three weeks old, put them with common native-
bred cows. He weans at three or four months
old, when the calf is %ble to thrive well on
grass alone, and the native cow, going dry, is
soon fit for the butcher, at a price that will
nearly, if not quite, pay for her first cost and a
fair allowance for pasturage. He thinks that
calves thus raised and entering the winter in
good condition, being properly housed and fed
during cold and inclement weather, gain nearly
a year on such as are prematurely weaned or
fed on skimmed milk. He entirely disapproves
of letting calves run three or four months with
valuable cows intended for breeding, and espe-
cially where milching properties are to be re-
tained.

"With all those who desire to possess an im-
proved and select stock, it is deemed highly
important that they should raise their own
^alves ; and this is rendered the more import-
ant from the high prices usually to be obtained
for calves of the best breeds. Mr. Colman
803

gives the following information upon this sub-
ject, derived from his observations in Massa-
chusetts. "A farmer of my acquaintance in
the interior raises all his calves from a large
stock of cows. His cows are known to be of
prime quality. His heifers are allowed to come
in at two years old, and are then sold with
their first calf generally for thirty-five dollars,
which he deems a fair compensation for the
expense of raising. His calves are raised
mainly upon skim-milk and whey, until they
can support themselves on hay and grass. His
st#rs pay a proportional profit when sold at
three to four years old.

" Thqi English authorities say, that upon two
cows cq|ving at different times, seven calves
may be fattened for the butcher in the course
of the year. More than this may be done if
the calves are to be reared for stock, and if
some little addition of meal or vegetables is
added to their feed.

" Mr. Jaques remarks, on the subject of rais-
ing calves, that *he generally lets them take a
portion of milk from the cows for about three
months, and prefers keeping them in the stall
until they are about a year old, thinking that
he gets better forms, rounder barrels, straighter
backs* greater broadness on the loin and hips,
by this management. Calves turned to grass at
two and three months old become pot-bellied,
their backs bent, acquire a narrowness in the
loins, and seldom get over the defect entirely.'
"I believe that it is decidedly better to raise
them in the 'stall or yard the first season, as
their feed is much more uniform, and their
growth not interrupted by sudden changes.
They soon learn to eat ha)'; and carrots or po-
tatoes cut fine for them will be found highly
beneficial. In all cases the calf should be
taken from the cow as soon after his birth as
the cow's udder is brought into good condition
and her milk fit for use, and then should be fed
by hand. 'In my opinion,' says a highly in-
telligent farmer of Stockbridge, 'calves raised
for other purposes than veal should be early
weaned from the dam, and nursed at least one
year upon food adapted to give firmness and
expansion of muscle, rather than to fatten
them.' The observation of another farmer, a
plain man, but one of the most observing and
practical farmers in the state, is deserving of
attention. 'One of the most important points,'
says he, ' in the feeding of the calf, is to feed
him well when the grass first fails in the fall
by frost. If suffered to fall off then, he does not
i recover, and suffers more by scanty food than
i other animals.' "

I 'There are many able papers on subjects re-
j lating to cattle dispersed in the best agricul-
1 tural periodicals, which the breeder may wish
I to refer to, such as " On Stall-feeding Cows in
I Summer," by Mr. Collett of Christiana in Nor-
j way (Com. Board of Agr. vol. vi. p. 60 ; "On
I Soiling," by Mr. Curwen {Ihid. p. 49) ; " On
i their Treatment in Winter," (Quart. Journ. of
j.^^r. vol. ii. p. 228; "On Fattening Cattle on
j different Kinds of Food," by Mr. Brodie, (Ibid.
vol. viii. p. 327) ; "On Feeding Cattle on Su-
gar," by Mr. Ellis, (Com. Board of Jgr. vol. vii.
p. 327) ; and " On Potatoes," by"Sir C. Burrell
(Ibid. p. 323) ; " On House and Yard-feeding

CATTLE, DISEASES OF.

^Bilch Cows for the Supply of Milk," by Mr.
Harley, (Quart. Jcmrn. Jgr. vol. i. p. 170) ; see
also "The Harleian Dairy System" by the
same gentleman, and " On a celebrated Yard-
fed Cow," the property of Mr. Cramp of
Lewes, (Com. Board of Jgr. vol. vii. p. 53). It
will, perhaps, surprise an English farmer to
learn to what coarse unnatural kind of food
use will accustom animals. The cows of
Shetland live upon the coarsest moss and sea-
weed ; those of still more northerly regions on
even animal food. In Lapland and Iceland,
according to Mr. De Broke, the cattle are uni-
formly fed on fsh. "The English farmer's
surprise," says Mr. Broke, "will not be les-
sened when he learns that the anij^als not
only devour this kind of food with the greatest
eagerness, but thrive and do well upon it; it
seems that fish heads and bones are boiled to-
gether with some hay into a kind of soup, and
poured into the mangers of the poor beasts."
(Quart. Journ. of Jgr. vol X. p. 299.) There
is a paper " On Live-Stock and Crossing," by
Mr. Ferguson, (Ibid. vol. i. p. 33) ; " On the
Comparative Advantages of Feeding Stock
with Mangel-Wurzel, Turnips, and Potatoes,"
by Mr. Howden, (Trans. High. Soc. vol. iii.
p. 268) ; and "On Raw and Prepared Food," by
Messrs. Walker, Howden, Boswell, and Walk-
er, (Ibid. vol. iv. p. 2^3) ; and again by Mr.
Walker, (Ilrid. vol. v. p. 52) ; and " On different
Descriptions of Food," by Mr. Siephenson.
(Ibid. vol. vi. p. 61.) On the disease called the
" Muir-ill," by Mr. M'Farlane, (Ibid. vol. iv.
p. 388) ; on the disease called "The Tail-slip,"
by Mr. Dick, (Quarterly Journal of Jgriculture,
vol. iii. p. 308) ; "On Calculi," (Ibid. p. 642) ;
"On Diseases of the Udder," (Ibid. p. 871);
"On the Navel-ill," by Mr. Sitwell, (Com.
Foard of .^gr. vol. vi. p. 401) ; "On acclimating
Cattle, by Dr. Smith of Kentucky, (Ibid. vol. ii.
p. 93 ; On determining the Weight of Cattle by
Admeasurement, (Quart. Joitm. of Jgr. vol. v.
p. 612) ; and Mr. Ferguson "On the value of
Live-Stock with relation to the Weight of Of-
fal, (IL-id. vol. ii. p. 207) ; "On their External
Conformation," by Mr. Sparrow, (Veterinarian
for 1839 ; Farmer's Mog. vol. iii. p. 95, n. 5 ;
Baron Malthus ; M'CuUocKs Did. Com. ; Youatt
on Cattle ; Quart. JoMrn. of Jgr. ; Farmer's Mag. ;
Trans, of Highland Soc. ; Lowe's Illustrations of
the Breeds of Domestic Jnimals.)

CATTLE, REMEDIES FOR DISEASES
OF.

Jbortion. See Abohtiok.

Black-water is the concluding and commonly
fatal stage of redwater. See Redwatih.

Cleansing drink. — 1 oz. of bayberry powdered,
1 oz. of brimstone powdered, > oz. of cummin-
seed powdered, 1 oz. of diapente. Boil these
together for ten minutes ; give when cold in a
gruel.

Colic. — The best remedy is 1 pint of linseed
oil mixed with ^ oz. of laudanum.

J cordial is easily made by 1 oz. of caraway
seeds, 1 oz. of aniseeds, i oz. of ginger pow-
dered, 2 oz. of fenugreek seeds. Boil these in
a pint and a half of beer for ten minutes, and
administer when cold.

Diarrlura. — Give ^ oz. of powdered catechu,

CATTLE SHEDS

; and 1 0 grs. of powdered opium, in a little gruel

See DiAHRHCEA.

I Dysentery. — The same as for diarrhoBa.

Fever. — Bleed; and then if the bowels are
j constipated, give ^ lb. of Epsom salts in three
pints of water daily, in gruel. >

' Hoove or Hoven. — Use the elastic tube ; as a
prevention, let them be well supplied wi*Jx
common salt, and restrained from rapid feed-
ing when first feeding upon rank grass or clo-
ver. See Hoove.

Mange. — ^ lb. of black brimstone* 'J pint of
turpentine, 1 pint of train oil. Mix them to-
gether, and rub the mixture well in over the
affected parts.

Milk fever, or Garget. — 2 oz. of brimstone,
1 oz. of diapente, 1 oz. of cummin-seed pow-
dered, 1 oz. of powdered nitre. Give this daily
in a little gru^l, .and well rub the udder with a
little goose-grease. See Gakobt.

Murrain. — ^ lb. of salts, 2 oz. of bruised co-^
riander-seed, 1 oz. of gentian powder. Give
these in a little water. See Mcrraiv.

Poisons swallowed by oxen are commonly
the yew, the water dropwort, and the common
and the water hemlock. 1^ pint of linseed oil
is the best remedy.

Purge, in poisoning — either 1 lb. of salts in a
quart of water or gruel, or a pint to a pint and
a half of linseed oil.

Redwater. — Bleed, says Youatt, first, and then
give a dose of 1 lb. of Epsom salts, and ^ lb.
doses repeated every eight hours until the
bowels are 'acted upon. In Hampshire they
give 4 oz. bole armeniac and 2 oz. of spirits
of turpentine in a pint of gruel.

Sprains. — Embrocation : 8 oz. of sweet oil,
4 oz. spirits of hartshorn, ^ oz. oil of thyme.

Sting of the adder, or slowivorm. — Apply im-
mediately to the part strong spirits of harts-
horn ; for sting of bees apply chalk or
whitening mixed with vinegar. See Biter and
Bees.

Worms. — Bots; give J lb. of Epsom salts
with 2 oz. of coriander-seed bruised in a quart
of water. See Both.

Yellows. — 2 oz. of diapente, 2 oz. of cummin-
seed powdered, 2 oz. of fenugreek powdered.
Boil these for ten minutes in a quart of water,
and give daily in a little gruel. See Yellows.

CATTLE SHEDS. The cow-house should
be a capacious, well-lighted, and well-venti-
lated building, in which the cows or oxen can
be kept dry, clean, and moderately warm ; a
temperature of about 60° is perhaps the best.
It is a mistaken idea that cattle suffer materi-
ally by dry cold. It is the wet and the damp
walls, yard, and driving rains, and fogs of
winter, that are so injurious to them. , In this
respect the Dutch farmers are very particular.
They have their cows regularly groomed, and
the walks behind them sprinkled with sand.
A clean and dry bed, a portion of a trough to
give them water, and another portion for their
oil cake, or mangel, or turnips, and a rack for
their dry food, will all be necessary comforts.
These, with regular feeding, a lump of rock-
salt in the manger, and occasional variations
if possible in the food, are the chief points to
be attended to in the stall management of cat-

303

CAtJF.

CAULIFLOWER.

tie. (Brit Huih. vol. i. p. 202 ; vol. ii. p. 399 ;
Harleian Dairy System, p. 14.)

CAUF. A chest with holes in the top to
keep fish alive in the water.

CAUKER. or CALKERS. A term employed
in farriery to signify bending or turning up of
the heels of the shoes of horses, and intended
to prevent the animal slipping. This method,
though once general, is now commonly limited
to the outside heel of the shoes of the hind
feet.

CAULIFEROUS (From cauHs, a stalk, ard
fero, to bear). A term applied to such plants
as are furnished with a stalk which bear
shoots, as the cauliflower, cabbage, &c.

CAULIFLOWER (From Lat. caulis; Bras-
sica oleracea botrytis). A species of brassica, of
which there are two varieties; — the early,
which is smallest and most fit for growth under
lights, for the Avinter-standing crop; and the
large, for the open ground plantations. Cauli-
flower is propagated by seed; the first sowing
to take place at the close of January or early
in February, in a slight hot-bed, or warm bor-
der, in either situation to have the protection
of a frame. The plants are fit to be pricked
out in March in similar situations, and for
final removal into the open ground during
April and May; and some to be placed under
hand-glasses for more immediately succeeding
the winter-standing crop. At the beginning of
March and April another sowing is to be per-
formed in a sheltered border, the seedlings of
which may be pricked out in May, and planted
finally in June for protection at the end of
summer. Again, another sowing may be done
in the last week of May ; for pricking out, in
June ; and for final planting, the end of July ;
to produce during October and November, and
in favourable seasons until Christmas. The
seed of these sowings must be inserted broad-
cast, and covered half an inch thick with fine
mould. The seedlings are of sufficient size for
pricking out when they have four or five
leaves, about an inch in breadth ; they must be
set three or four inches apart each way. Water
must be given moderately, both in the seed-bed
and at the tjme of removal, if the weather is at
all dry. When finally set out, they must be
planted in rows two inches and a half apart
each way. The mould must be frequently
loosened by the hoe, and drawn up about their
stems. In dry weather during summer, a cup-
like hollow should be formed round each plant,
and filled twice a week with water ; but as soon
as the flower makes its appearance, it must be
applied every other day. As the head appears
exposed, it is advantageous to break some of
the leaves, and turn them over it as a shelter
from the sun : this preserves then from becom-
ing of a 5'ellow hue, as well as retards their
advancing to seed.

Winter-standing a-oj). — The seed for this crop
must be sown in the third week of August, in
a warm border or an old hot-bed, with the pro-
tection of a frame or hand-glass. That the
cauliflower, though the most tender of the
brassica tribe, is not so impatient of cold as
slmie gardeners are led to imjigine, is demon-
seated by the fact, that the imperfect covering
of mats will almost always preserve the plants
304

uninjured through the winter ; and the practice
of Mr. Bull, of Rossie Priory, North Britain,
proves that it is scarcely more so than the
broccoli. He sows in the last week of August,
transplants in the middle or end of November,
and often does not even afford the plants the
protection of a south wall, and no description
of covering. Plants thus raised are healthier,
and produce finer heads than those which
have additional shelter, though they are not so
forward, neither are they subject to be black-
shanked. {Mem. Caled. Hort. Soc. vol. iii. p. 192.)

The seed-bed, if not one that has grown cu-
cumbers, &c., must be well manured with dung
from a cucumber bed, or, as is sometimes re-
commended, a basis five or six inches thick of
dung in a perfectly decayed state must be
formed, firmly trodden down, and covered with
a similar thickness of light rich mould: in this
the seed is to be sown and buried a quarter
of an inch deep, and, during the meridian of
hot days, shaded with matting. Moderate
waterings must be given, as may seem neces-
sary. I'he plants appear in about a week, and
the shading and Avatering must in like manner
be afl!brded.

The plants are fit for pricking out at the
close of September, when their leaves are
rather more than an inch wide. They should
be placed in a similar soil and situation to that
from which they were removed. Towards the
end of October, or first week in November,
they must be removed, and planted in patches
of from three to six together, these clusters
being in rows three feet apart each way are to
be sheltered with hand-glasses until the spring.
At the end of February, if an open season, or
not until March if otherwise, part of the plants
may be removed from under the hand-glasses,
two strong ones being left under each glass,
and set out in the open ground; the soil and
sheltered situation being as nearly similar to
that from which they are taken as possible.
Some, also, may be planted out from the
frames ; but from either situation these re-
movals must be concluded by the middle of
April. Care must be taken to remove the
plants with as much earth as possible retained
to their roots, and they are to be planted at a
similar distance as was recommended for the
other open-ground crops.

Those continued under the glasses must
have air admitted as freely as possible, and
other precautions adopted that were recom-
mended during their winter growth. Earth
should be drawn carefully about their stems,
without any being allowed to fall into their
hearts. When they fill the glasses, these last
are easily raised by a circular mound, four or
five inches high, thrown up round them. la
mild weather, hot sunny days, and during ge-
nial showers, the glasses may be taken com-
pletely oflT, but replaced at night. The plants
being thus hardened by degrees, and when all
danger of frost is past, about the end of April
or early, in May the glasses may be entirely
removed. The leaves are to be broken down
over the heads, as before directed. For the
production of seed, some plants of the winter-
standing crop which have fine and firm heads
must be selected, as these will produce the

CAUSTIC.

CELERY.

best seed, though not in such quantity as those
of a looser texture. For the necessary treat-
ment, see Bkoccoli. The seed ripens in Sep-
tember, and the branches should be gathered
as soon as this occurs, and not allowed to re-
main until the whole is fit tor collecting. The
seed remains, it carefully preserved, in a good
state for use until it is three or four years old.
(G. W. Johnsoti's Kitchen Gard.)

CAUSTIC. In farriery, a substance which,
by its powerful operation, destroys the texture
of the part to which it is applied. Corrosive
sublimate is the best caustic ; but that requires
skilful hands, for it is a dangerous remedy ex-
cept iu the hands of the veterinarian. Mix one
drachm of powdered verdigris with one ounce
of basilicon ointment; apply this upon a piece
of tow: or a drachm of blue stone (sulphate of
copper), dissolved in one ounce of water may
be used ; or lunar caustic in a quill may be
rubbed on to the diseased part.

CAUTERY, or CAUTING-IRON (Old Fr.
cautere). In farriery, a name given to a searing-
iron, which is made white holy and used to de-
stroy fungous llesh, &c.

CAVESSON, or CAVEZON (Fr.). In
horsemanship, a term applied to an apparatus
resembling the musrol, which is used in the
breaking of horses. From its formation, it
binds and pinches the nose, and regulates the
action of the animal to which it is applied.

CAZZONS. A provincial word used to sig-
nify the dried dung of cattle for fuel.

CEDARS. See Ctphess.

CEDARS OF LEBANON (Mies cedru$).
This sovereign of the forest appears to have
been indigenous to Mount Lebanon : but at
what period it was first introduced into Eng-
land is not known. This noble tree is now so
well naturalized in England, that the seeds not
only ripen, but propagate themselves without
care or trouble. One of the cedars at Chiswick
measures 13 feet 4 inches in circumference,
and is 80 feet high ; but the largest now re-
maining on Lebanon is 9 feet in diameter, or
27 in circumference. Cedar wood is known
to be very durable; the ancients believed it to
be imperishable. But according to Mr. Drum-
mond Hay's observations at Tangier, the in-
destructible cedar wood is the timber of the
Sandarac tree (Thuja arliculata).

CEDAR, RED (Jnniperus Virginiana). This
North American tree belonging to the junipers,
is the most common species of its genus in the
United States, and the only one which attains
a size adaptinsr it to the useful arts. Next to
that found in Bermuda, it is the largest of the
junipers hitherto discovered. It is found along
the lands bordering the Atlantic, from Maine
to the extreme South, and even passing round
Cape Florida, shows itself beyond St. Bernard's
Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. In retiring from
the shore, it becomes gradually less common
and less vigorous, and in Virginia and the
more Southern States it is rare above tide-
water. Farther inland, it is seen only in the
form of a shrub in open, dry, sandy places. In
the most favourable situations along the
southern sea shore, it attains a height of 40 or
45 feet, with a diameter of 12 or 13 inches.

The leaves are evergreen, numerously sub-
39

divided, and when bruised diifuse a resinous,
aromatic odour. The seeds are small ovate
berries, bluish when ripe, and coated with a
whitish exudation. They arrive at pefection
in the beginning of the fall, and are greedily
devoured by cedar birds, robins, &c. If sown
immediately, the greater part of them will come
up the following spring; but they will not
shoot before the second year if they are kept
for several months.

The wood is odorous, compact, fine-grained
and very light, though heavier and stronger
than that of the white cedar and cypress. To
ihese qualities it unites the still more precious
character of durability, and is consequently
highly esteemed for such purposes as require
it in an eminent degree. But as it is procured
with diflJculty, and is every day becoming more
scarce, it is reserved exclusively for the most
important uses. The name of Red Cedar is
only applicable to the perfect wood, which is
of a bright lint; the sap is perfectly white. The
nearer the red cedar grows to the sea and the
farther southward, the belter is its wood. The
chief supply now comes from East Florida.
(Mirhnux.) See Ctprkss, and Fih.

CELANDINE, COMMOx\ (Chelidanium ma-
Jus). Celandine is a wild plant with large
leaves and bright yellow flowers, growing in
shady places, waste and u milled lands, and
thickets, &c., especially on a chalky soil, and
flowering frorn April through the summer. It
grows two feet high, and the stalks are round
and green. The leaves are large, long, and
deeply divided at the edges, and of a yellowish
green, standing two at each joint. The flowers
are small ; several together upon long foot-
stalks. Every part is brittle, and if you crush
the stalk or leaves an orange-coloured acrid
juice is expressed, which is medicinal.

There are two species of celandine, or horned
po])py, found in the United States. The greater,
or common celandine, (C. viajus), has an ac-
rimonious juice of a safl'ron colour, which is
a popular remedy for warty excrescences, as
well as for ring-worms, tetter, the itch. &c.

The sea celandine, (C. plaucvm), or yelloiO'
horned pojtpy, flourishes in the sandy soil along
the sea and bay shores where it is quite orna-
mental. Its juice is said to be poisonous.

CELERY (Jpiwn gruvcolens). This is the
wild original of cultivated celery. The name
probably proceeded from apex, a tuft or crest,
which its umbels form). This class of plants
flourish best in a moist soil, friable, and rather
inclining to lightness ; it must be rich, and
that rather from prior application than the im-
mediate addition of manure ; celery and cele-
riac, howevw, appear benefited even by its
abundant application at the time of sowing
and planting. The parsleys, likewise, prefer
their soil to incline rather to dryness. For all
it must be deep, and all equally refuse to thrive
on a strong clayey soil. The situation they
thrive the most in is one that is as open and as
free from the influence of trees as possible.
The common parsley is the one that bears best
a confined or shady compartment.

There are six varieties of celery in general
cultivation: — the gigantic, the dwarf-curled, the
common upright, red-stalked upright, giant hol-
2 c 2 305

CELERY.

CELERY.

low upright, and the solid-stalked (red and j
whitg). The red is reared chiefly for soups,
the white being much more delicate in flavour.
It is propagated by seed. The first sowing |
should be performed either in a hotbed or on a
warm, light border, towards the end of Febru-
ary; some gardeners even insert it as early as
the middle of January. The border is by many ]
gardeners considered the best situation, inas-
much as the plants are more hardy, and with
proper care come forward with scarcely any
difierence as to time. This is to be repeated
in March; but the principal sowings must take
place in April and May, and the last one in
June. As the produce of the early sowings
will not continue long in a state fit for use,
from their leaf-stalks becoming piped or hol-
low, they must be proportionably small ; they
must ail be inserted broadcast, and the seed
scattered thinly. The seed-beds of the early
sowings should be light and dry, with the full
enjoyment of the sun throughout the day, but
for the three last in a moist situation ; and it
is advantageous for them to have a free ex-
posure to the morning sun only, yet free from
the drip of trees; so advantageous is it to have
the plants of these sowings as luxuriant as pos-
sible in their first stage of growth, that to afford
them as regular and unstinted a supply of nou-
rishment as possible, the mould of the seed-bed
is often formed artificially. Mr. Walker, gar-
dener to J. Walker, Esq., of Longford, Scotland,
recommends it to be formed of black loamy
soil and old hotbed dung in equal parts. (Mem.
Caled. Hart. Soc. vol. ii. p. 295.) The plants
from these several sowings will in general be
ready for pricking out in four or six weeks
from the time of insertion, and for final plant-
ing after a further continued growth of two
months. A more determinate datum for judg-
ing the appropriate time for performing these
operations is the size of the plants, they being
fit for the first removal when three or four
inches in height, and for the second when
seven or eight. From the above enumerated
sowings, monthly plantings may be succession-
ally made from the commencement of June un-
til September closes ; but for the supply of a
family, a sowing at the close of February for
production during the same year, and another
about the middle of May, to yield a produce in
the winter and the following spring, will in
general be amply sufficient.

They are usually planted out finally in
trenches, from twelve to eighteen inches wide,
and at least four feet apart. To cut the tiench
straight and with firm sides, the spade should
be thrust down all along the line which marks
the boundary on each side, previous to digging
out the earth : the top spit of mould through-
out the length must be turned alternately on
either side, for this is required in the after cul-
tivation for earthing up the plants. Some well
putrefied dung, two or three inches thick, must
be then spread along the bottom and dug in,
care being taken that its surface is not more
than four inches below the regular surface of

te soil. Mr. Walker here recommends the
,me unsparing application of manure; he
forms the soil in his trenches of three parts
dung and one part fresh, strong soil. (Mem.
306

Calcil. Hort. Soc. vol. ii. p. 296.) By this abun-
dant application of manure his celery un-
doubtedly obtains a fine growth, being often
4^ feet long, and averaging 6 lbs. weight ; but
at the same time it is to be remarked, that
many soils will grow it equally fine without
such immoderate application.

Celery, as before mentioned, delights in a
soil abounding in fertilizing matter; the mode
adopted to effect this, as practised by Mr. Judd,
gardener to C. Campbell, Esq., of Edmonton, is
one which with equal advantage may be adopt-
ed for any crop requiring a very rich soil ; he
prepares his ground in the winter preceding
the time of planting, or as long before as con-
venient, by manuring and trenching it two
spades deep, performing this last operation
twice, that the dung may be better incorporated
with the soil, and then leaves it as rough as
possible until the time arrives for forming the
trenches, at the bottom of which he also turns
in some manure. (Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond. vol.
iii. p. 46.) As celery is very apt to decay in
winter on account of excessive moisture, it
would undoubtedly be a good practice, after
preparing the ground as just detailed, to plant
in rows five or six feet apart on the surface,
taking the mould required for earthing them
up from this allotted space.

Before planting, the long straggling leaves
are to be cut away, and any side offsets re-
moved ; biit if the plants are older or larger in
growth than before mentioned, the tops of the
leaves may be generally removed, which serves
to check their running to seed, which they are
otherwise apt to do. After this preparation,
they may be planted, a single row in each
trench, about eighteen inches apart. Mr. Judd
says that he finds the plants much injured in.
their future growth if, during any of their re-
movals, their roots become at all dry; there-
fore, when taking them either from the seed-
bed or for final planting, he lays them, as he
draws them from the ground, in a garden pan
containing a little water. (Ibid. p. 45.) Plant-
ing is best performed in the evening, and water
should be given plenteously at the time, as well
as every other day subsequently until they are
well established. Earthing them up must com-
mence when they are about a foot high, and
may be continued until the plants are fit for
use, or are one foot and a half high and, up-
wards. In performing it one person must hold
the bases of the plants together, whilst a second
regularly follows and throws in the soil, other-
wise the mould separating the leaves breaks
them and induces decay, and ofttimes destroys
them by injuring the heart. (Ibid. p. 47.)

The earthing is best performed gradually, a
few inches being added once a week, and a dry
day always selected to perform it in. In very
severe weather the winter standing crops should
be covered with straw or other litter, care being
taken always to remove it in mild days. 'On
the arrival of frost a quantity may be taken up
and buried in sand under shelter. As celery
will not continue in perfection except in winter
more than three or four weeks after bleaching,
it is advisable for family use only to make
small plantations of the*early crops at a time.
To raise seed, some plants must be left where

CELERY.

CHAFF-ENGINES.

grown ; or in February or March some may be
carefully taken up, and, after the outside leaves
are cut off and ail laterals removed, planted in
a moist soil a foot apart. Those which are
most solid and of a middling size are to be se-
lected. When they branch for seed they must
be each attached to a stake, to preserve them
from being broken by the violence of winds.
The flower appears in June, and when the seed
is swelling in July, if dry weather occurs, they
should be watered every other night. In Au-
gust the seed will be ripe, and when perfectly
dry, may be rubbed out and stored. A variety
of celery with a roundish root {Apium rapace-
nm), is sometimes cultivated in gardens. (G.
W. Johnson's Kitch. Gard. ; Brit. Husb. vol. ii. p.
575 ; Willirh's Dom. Enryc.)

CELERY, WILD, or SMALLAGE PARS-
LEY {Apium graveolens). This is a biennial,
found in ditches and marshy ground, especially
towards the sea ; root tap-shaped, herb smooth
and shining. Flowers numerous, small, green-
ish white. The seeds and whole plant in its
native ditches are acrid and dangerous, with a
peculiar strong taste and smell ; but by culture
it becomes the mild and grateful garden cele-
ry, for which and its name we are indebted to
the Italians, and which has now supplanted
our native Alexanders {Smyrnium olusatrum).
(Smith's Eng. Flora, vol. ii. p. 75.)

CELL (Lat. rella). In botany, the hollow
part of a capsule in which the seeds are lodged,
and also the part of the anthers which contains
the pollen.

CELLS. The small divisions in honey-
combs, which have been observed to be al-
ways regular hexagons. They also denote the
hollow places between the partitions in the
pods, husks, and other seed-vessels of plants.

CENTAURY (Sabbalia angularis). An an-
nual and biennial, of which there are seven or
eight additional .species found in the United
States. Centaury is commonly found in bar-
ren fields, is intensely bitter, and deservedly a
popular tonic.

CENTAURY, COMMON (Erytkraa centau-
rium). From erythros, red, alluding to the pink
colour of the flowers. The species of this ge-
nus are prettj', but not easy of cultivation ; the
herbaceous species require an open, loamy
soil, and may be increased by divisions. The
annuals and biennials require sowing in the
open border in autumn, or they will not come
up. (Paxton's Bat. Diet.) In England there are
three native species of centaury, viz. the broad
leaved tufted (£./a/i/o/ia), the dwarf tufted (£.
littoralis), and the common centaury, to the last
of which the following observations more es-
pecially apply. The two first-named varieties
are found mostly in sandy ground near the sea
shore. (Smith's Eng. Flora, vol. i. p. 320.) This
pretty plant (E. centaurium), grows in sunny,
dry places, and in gravelly pastures ; its roots
are to be taken up in autumn, when out of
flower. It is about eight or ten inches high.
The leaves are radicle, or grow in a cluster
from the root, and are about an inch long; the
stalks divide towards the top into several
branches, and the flowers, which are of a
bright pink, are long and slender, and stand in
a cluster. The leaves growing upon the stalk

are oblong, broad, and acute at the point. Com-
mon centaury has all the medicinal properties
which distinguish the family (the Gentianaceee)y
to which it belongs. Its bitter is agreeable ;
and it might be advantageously used as a sto-
machic instead of gentian root. The dose of
the plant in powder is from a scruple to a
drachm.

CENTIPEDE -(Lat. centum, a hundred, and
pes, foot). The name of the myriapodous
insects belonging to the genus Scolopendra of
Linnaeus. They are wingless ; and the largest
species possess, when full grown, more than
fifty, and less than two hundred pairs of feet;
they are sometimes called /orfy-iegs. (Brande's
Dirt, of Science.)

CERATE (derived from rwa, wax.) Cerates
are ointments of rather stiff consistence; sim^
pie cerate is made by melting together sweet oil
and beeswax, or hog's lard and beeswax, or
all three together. The oil or lard employed*
should always be fresh, as nothing irritates or
prevents the healing of wounds more than
rancid applications.

CERES. The Roman Pagan goddess of
corn and harvests ; the Isis of the Egyptians.
The festivals to her honour were denominated,
at Rome, the Cerealia or Cerealion, hence the
term Cerealian grass; and Sicily, long cele-
brated for its corn, was supposed to be her
favourite retreat.

CEREAL, relating to com or grain. Cereal
plants are the various kinds of grain. Cereal
grasses are all those raised to supply bread-
stuffs, such as wheat, rye, Indian corn, &c.

CERINE. A substance which forms from
seventy to eighty per cent, of beeswax. It
may be obtained by digesting wax, for some
time, in spirits of wine, at a boiling tempera-
ture, after which the cerine is decanted with
the liquor, from which it is cleared by evapo-
ration. It is white, analogous to wax, and
melts at 134° Fahrenheit.

CHACK. A term used in horsemanship
when a horse beats upon the hand, and does not
hold his head steady, but tosses up his nose,
and shakes it all of a sudden, to avoid the sub-
jection of the bridle. In order to fix and secure
his head, it is only necessary to put under his
nose-band a small flat ligature of iron, bent
archwise, which serves as a martingale.

CHAFF (Sajc.ceap; Dutch,A:fl/). The husks
of corn which are separated by thrashing and
winnowing. It likewise implies hay, straw,
(fee. cut small, for the purpose of being given
to horses and other cattle.

CHAFF-ENGINES. That chaff has been
employed as provender for live-stock from a
very early period, we have abundant evidence.
Cato (lib. 54) recommends it for oxen ; and
two centuries since, Hartlib recommended its
use, mixed with cut oats and peas. The mode
of preparing the chaff, however, from hay and
straw by the knife, was a later improvement,
and the first machines were rude and incom-
plete.

We are not aware (says Mr. J. A. Ran some
of Ipswich, to whom I am indebted for this and
other valuable articles on the implements of
agriculture) of any attempt to improve upon
the plan of pressing the hay in a trough, and

307

CHAFF-ENGINES.

CHAFF-ENGINES.

by hand bringing it by small portions to the
front edge, where it was severed by a long
knife attached to the end of a lever, till in
1794-5 the Rev. J. Cooke of Holborn, London,
and W. Naylor of Langstock, respectively ob-
tained patents for machines for expediting the

' process.

In the year 1797 we find Robert Salmon, of
Woburn, whose inventive talent and practical
experience added many and various original
ideas and improvements to the then limited
knowledge of agricultural mechanics, con-
structed a chaff-engine, which, although cum-
brous in its appearance, was effective in its

, operation, and furnished the original idea,
which was subsequently improved upon; first,
by Rowntree, and afterwards by Thos. Pass-
more of Doncaster; the latter of whom, in
1804, patented the machine known as the Don-
caster engine, upon the plan of which, for
many years, most of the engines in the mid-
land and eastern counties were made; and
even at the present time, few of the machines
iir general use are found more effective. A
reward of thirty guineas was conferred on
Salmon by the Society for the Encouragement
of Arts, &c. for this improved machine.

Passmore's machine Avas a simplification
and improvement on Salmon's straw-cutter.

In 1800 and 1801, W. Lester of Paddington
patented a straw-cutter, which, with some alte-
rations, is much used at the present day, and
is known as the " Lester engine." It is a very
simple machine, having but one knife, placed
on a fly-wheel; the fly-wheel turns on a cranked
spindle, which communicates motion to a rat-
chet-wheel fixed at the end of one of the feed-
ing-rollers by means of a small hook or catch,
which is capable of being so adjusted as to lift
one, two, three, or four teeth at each revolution,
and by this is regulated the length of the straw
projected in front of the face-plate, and which
is severed by the knife. On the roller was
fixed a revolving cloth or endless web, which
passed over another roller at the hinder end of
the box ; a heavy block was used to compress
the straw. In th^ more modern engines the
rolling-cloth is entirely dispensed with, as the
purpose for w^hich it was intended is effected
by the introduction of an upper feeding-roller,
to which motion is communicated by a pair of
cog-wheels, one of which is attached to the
lower feeding-roller before described; the heavy
block is substituted by a pressing-piece, which
receives its motion from the cranked spindle,
alternately presses down the straw previous to
the cut, and rises afterwards to allow the straw
free passage. The improved machine is made
of different sizes, and the larger are frequently
used with horse-power.

This is the best modern chaff-engine; it will
adjust and vary the work to the following
lengths of cut : — i inch, ^ inch, and | inch.

Bushels nf fodder
per hour.

At i inch it will cut from 18 to 20

• ^ * — 40 to 50

f i — 50 to 60

Another chaff-cutter is made on the same
principle, but a size smaller, which
308

Bushel! of fodder
per hour.

at i inch will cut from 10 to 12
i . — 30 to 40

I — 40 to 50

A still smaller engine can also be had, cut-
ting ^ inch lengths only, suited to gentlemen's
stables and small establishments, made entirely
of metal, and adapted for hot climates. This
will cut from 15 to 20 bushels of fodder per
hour.

Passing by several, which in the course of
the next fifteen years were introduced, but
M'hich, however ingenious, were too compli-
cated and cumbrous for general use, in 1818
we Tmd a simple invention was patented by
Thomas Heppenstall, of Doncaster. It con-
sisted in the application of a worm to turn two
wheels, which in their revolution meet each
other. These wheels are attached to two feed-
ing-rollers, which convey the straw forwards
to the knives. Two of these knives are placed
on a fly-wheel, which is fixed upon the same
spindle as the worm. This is the simplest
form of chaff-engine, and, with a slight altera-
tion, substituting wheels with the cogs on the
face instead of on the outer edge, is the com-
mon form for the small engines now in use.

Two patents have also, within the last year
or two, been taken out for considerable im-
provements on this machine, one by Lord
Ducie in connection with Messrs. Clyburn and
Budding, two engineers residing at Uley.

The only remaining machine we have to
bring before the notice of our readers, is one
for which a patent was obtained a few months
ago by Mr. Charles May, engineer of Ipswich,
a partner in the house of Ransome. We saw
this among the machines exhibited at the Royal
Agricultural Society's meeting at Cambridge,
where it appeared to perform its work admira-
bly. It is intended to be used by horse-power,
and is so contrived that cog-wheels of different
diameters may be placed on the spindle to
which motion is first communicated; these,
working in different movable wheels upon an-
other spindle, will regulate the speed of the
feeding-rollers, so as to vary the length of the
chaff to be cut, from three-eighths of an inch
to three inches. Its capabilities are estimated
to cut 8 cwt. of straw per hour in half-inch
lengths.

A chaff-cutter is indispensable on a large
farm establishment. This implement, as has
been shown, is either constructed with a good
deal of expensive machinery, or of very simple
mechanism ; it may be made up at the cost of
only IZ. or 1/. 5s.

Patent straw-cutters in great variety are to
be found in the United States. They are per-
haps in most general use in the Eastern States,
for which reason we extract the opinions of
their respective merits held by an Eastern au-
thority of high repute, Mr. T. G. Fessenden,
editor of that valuable periodical, the New Eng-
land Farmer. In his very instructive little
volume, "The Complete Farmer," Mr. Fessen-
den makes the following remarks : —

"There is not only much saving and gain in
cutting fodder when hay is low, but the animal
is kept in better health, more particularly old

CHAFF ENGINES.

CHAFF-ENGINES.

horses, and such as may have been injured in
their wind.

"It is a fact that horses will live and continue
serviceable much longer when fed on cut fod-
der. The machine invented and manufactured
by Willis, known as ' Willis's Improved Straw
and Hay-Cutter,' is the most durable and best
operating machine that has come to our know-
ledge ; and, what is worthy of notice, they re-
quire but one person to work them, which is not
the case with many other machines ; in this re-
spect there is a great saving in cutting feed, and
likewise the fodder may be cut of any length
required: the knives, being placed in front of
the machine, can be at all times examined
and put in good order. The feeding-rollers
are so constructed, that while the machine is
in the act of cutting, the rollers cease to
feed, which renders the cutting operation very
easy. When properly constructed, this ma-
chine works free and easy, and is not liable to
get out of order. It will cut from ihirty-hve to
forty bushels per hour. Price thirty-five dollars.

'* Easlman'it Straiv-Cutier,\\ilh improved side-
gearing and cylindrical knives. This machine
is well calculated for large and extensive esta-
blishments. Price, fifty to sixty dollars.

" The Common Dutch Hand Cutling-Mafhine is
one of those implements in common use, and
known to every practical farmer; and is con-
sidered as good a machine for a small esta-
blishment as any in use. It will cut from ten
to twenty bushels per hour.

^^Saffordts Improved and Common Straw-Cutter
with side-gearing. Well approved, and is in
very general use.

" Green's Patent Straw-Cutter, one of the most
approved machines now in use for cutting fod-
der : very simple in its construction, and not
liable to get out ©f order ; does the work with
great ease and despatch."

" Gnen's Patent Straw, Hay, and Stalk-Ctttter,"
says another excellent authority, " is very sim-
ple in its construction, and being made and
put together very strong, is not liable to get
out of order. By the application of a mecha-
nical principle not before applied to any imple-
ment for this purpose, the machine will cut
easily two bushels per minute, requiring only
the straigth of a boy to work it. The knives
require less sharpening than those of any other
straw-cutter, owing to the peculiar manner in
which they cut."

The Albany Cultivator states, on the author-
ity of an intelligent and worthy farmer, that
two active men will, with this machine, by the
application of manual power alone, civtfive tons
of hay per day! The machine called No. 2,
which cuts three-fourths of an
now sold for thirty-three dollars.

The saving eflfected by the use of straw-cut-
ters often amounts to 50 per cent. The profits
and advantages accruing from cutting proven-
der, especially when this happens to be a high
price, is strikingly demonstrated by the follow-
ing statement

Mr. Benjamin Hale's account of the savings made
by the use of Slraw-Cuiters, employed to cut hay
and straw as fodder for horses.

Mr. Hale is proprietor of a line of stages

running between Newburyport and Boston.

He says,

The whole amount of hay purchased

from April 1 to Oct. 1, 1816 (six

months), and used at the stage Tons. ciot. qrs. lis.

stahle, was 32 4 0 10

At twenty-five dollars per ton (the

lowest [irice at which hay waa

purchased in 1816,) $800 00

From Oct. 1, 1816, to April 1, 1817,

whole amount of hay and straw

purchased for and consumed by

the same number of horses, viz.
7'. eist. qrs. lbs. Cost.
Sitraw 16 13 3 10 $160 23
Hay 13 14 1 00 350 00

$•510 23
Deduct on hand April 1, 1817, by esti-
mation, four tons more than there
was Oct. 1, 1816, at twenty-five
dollars per ton, 100 #410 23

Saving by the use of the straw-cut-
ter, foiirmunihs out of the last six
months, or the ditlVrence in ex-
pense in feeding with cut fodder
and that which is uncut #389 77

Whole amount of hay used for the
horses of the Halrui stage, twenty- -
fiv.- in number, from April 1 to Oct. T. cwt. qrs. lbs.
1, ISI6, viz. 22 0 0 0

At thirty dollars per ton (the lowest
price in Saleui), 9^^ ^

Whole amount consumed by the
same number of horses from Oct.
1, 1816, to April 1, 1817,

T. cwt. qrs. lbs. Cost.

Straw 15 13 0 0 . #1?'7 80

Hay 2 15 0 0 81 00

Saving in using chopped fodder five
months,

Total saving in using the straw-cut-
ter nine months, viz. at Newbury-
port four months

At dalem five months

Total,

#391 20

391 20
#789 97

The members of the board of trustees of the
Massachusetts Agricultural Society, to whom the
above account was communicated by Mr. Hale,
were informed by that gentleman that he used
no more grain from Oct., 181G, to April, 1817,
than was used from April, 1816, to Oct., 1816.

At a late exhibition of the Philadelphia Agri-
cultural Society, a premium was awarded for
a new chalF or straw-cutter, invented by Mr.
C. T. Bolts, editor of the "Southern Planter,"
published at Richmond, Va. The improve-
ment upon other machines for a similar pur-
pose consists chiefly in shortening the knives,
which are not wider than a common carpen-
ter's plane-iron, and like them can be easily
ground and set. It is a self-feeder, the operator
having nothing else to do but turn the crank.
The inventor remarks, that many straw-cutters
at present in use are sufficiently effective whilst
in order, but from the difficulty of bringing
them within the power of common manage-
ment, they have generally been abandoned for
the imperfect cutters made by the common
blacksmiths of the country. The inventor
therefore applied himself to the construction
of an implement which, if less rapid in execu-
tion, would be more durable, and within the
control of the simplest capacity. These are
the strongest testimonials in favour of the ex-
cellence of Mr. Botts's straw-cutter, the cost
of which varies from §25 for the smallest to
$30 for the largest size.

An extensive farmer residing near Phila-

309

CHALDRON.

delphia, who enjoys a high reputation for his
agricultural management, and especially for
his success in feeding cattle, has returned to
the common old cutting-knife and box, so long
used by the German farmers in Pennsylvania,
an improvement of which is certainly a very
efficient implement. He says that he has ex-
pended much money for what were pronounced
the best patent straw-cutters, and finds it to his
advantage to lay them aside and return to the
old and simple machine, which costs but five
or six dollars. He had not seen the machine
invented by Mr. Botts.

CHALDRON. An English measure, contain-
ing 36 bushels, or 12 sacks of 3 bushels each.

CHALK (Sax. cealc; Welsh, calck; Celtic,
cal or kal). The carbonate of lime, or lime
united with carbonic acid. See Lijie. Car-
bonate of lime exists abundantly in various
parts of the earth's surface in the state of
chalk, limestone, and marble ; and in smaller
masses, as the arragonite, &c., of which be-
tween one and two hundred varieties (all car-
bonate of lime) are kn,own to mineralogists.
For the purposes of agriculture they may be
all classed under one head. Common chalk
has a dull white colour, is soft, adhesive when
applied to the tongue, stains the fingers, and
thence is in common use for marking. In Eu-
ropean agriculture chalk is perhaps the most
extensively employed of the limestone species ;
it varies slightly in composition, containing
usually some silica (flint), alumina (clay), and
some red oxide of iron, and the remainder car-
bonate of lime, 100 parts of which contain,

Parts.

Carbonic acid ------ 45

Lime -- 55

100 parts of common limestone are com-
posed, according to MM. Thenard and Biot, of

Parts.

Carbonate of lime - - - - 9505

Water 163

Silica 112

Alumina ------ 1*

Oxide of iron - . . - - '75

100

These carbonates, when burnt, form lime,
for the heat drives ofi" the carbonic acid. By
exposure to the air the lime absorbs carbonic
acid gas, and again becomes converted into
carbonate of lime. A knowledge of these facts
is of considerable value to the farmer even on
the score of carriage, independent of the greater
value of lime as a manure ; for in some cases
the object of the needless weight of M^ater and
carbonic acid in chalk is very material, as will
be readily seen by the following analysis of the
chalk of Kent, which is the variety largely em-
ployed in the county of Essex, although it has
to be brought by sea nearly 70 miles, and then
often carted several miles. I found by careful
experiment 100 parts of chalk from Kent, in the
state in which it was carted on the land in De-
cember, contained, besides some oxide of iron
and silica, —

Parts.

t Water 24-
Carbonic acid . _ . - - 34 2
Lime 41-8

100
310

CHALK.

So that, when the farmer carts 41 tons of fresh
lime, he conveys as much real manure to his
soil as if he carried 100 tons of chalk. This
must be assuredly a question of the highest
importance to those farmers who have to carry
the earth a considerable distance, especially if
they can procure lime at a reasonable rate ;
which, in the large quantities required for agri-
cultural purposes, must in most situations be
the case.

Carbonate of lime is found in almost all
vegetables ; it is an essential food of plants.
The cultivator will see, by the results of the
experiments which I shall give under the head
Lime, that the quantity of carbonate of lime
contained in the cultivated grasses is very con-
siderable, and still more so in trees ; and that,
as might be expected, the proportion increases
with the quantity of this substance found in the
soil. To the planter this fact offers an unan-
swerable reason in favour of the addition of
chalk, marl, or limestone to all poor soils in-
tended for plantations, in the manner long suc-
cessfully practised on the black heathy sands
of Norfolk by Mr. Withers of Holt, and which
he has shown to be equally advantageous to
trees, whether planted for ornamental or profit-
able purposes.

There is no fact more necessary to be un-
derstood by the agriculturist, than that no land
can be productive which does not contain a
fair proportion of carbonate of lime. It is,
perhaps, even in excess much less prejudicial
to any cultivated soil than either silica or alu-
mina. But, on the other hand, no soil can be
productive if it contain more than nineteen
parts in twenty of chalk. The earth of the fine
sandy hop gardens near Tonbridge, in. Kent,
contain about five per cent, of chalk. The good
turnip soils near Holkham, in Norfolk, are
seven-eighths sand and the remaining eighth
is composed of

Futt.

Carbonate of lime or chalk - - - 63

Silica (flint) 15

Alumina (clay) ----- 11

Oxide of iron ------ 3

Vegetable and saline matter - - - 5

Water, 3

100

The soil at Sheffield Place, in Sussex, which
is so admirably adapted for the growth of the
oak, contains three per cent, of chlilk. The
fine wheat soils of West Drayton, in Middle-
sex, contain more than ten per cent. That of
Bagshot Heath contains less than one per cent.
The richest soils on the banks of the Parret, in
Somersetshire, contain more than seventy per
cent. Those of the valley of Evesham about
six per cent. A specimen of a good soil from
Tiviotdale, examined by Davy, was composed
of five-sixths sand and the remainder of the
following substances {Lectures, 202) : —

Parts.

Clay 41

Silica (flint) - 42

Chalk --------4

Oxide of iron ------ 5

Vegetable, animal, and saline matter - - 8

A soil yielding excellent pasture, from the
banks of the Wiltshire Avon, near Salisbury,
yielded the same chemist one-eleventh of its

CHALK.

weight of siliceous sand. The remainder was
composed of

Parh.

Chalk 63

Silica (flint) 14

^Vegetable, animal, and Baline matter - - 14

Alumina (clay) ------ 7

Oxide of iron ------ 2

Many soils also contain a small proportion
of carbonate of magnesia ; but it very rarely
amounts to a sufficient quantity to be worth
estimating in the mode of analysis I shall pre-
sently give.

It is difficult to say in what form the carbo-
nate of lime enters the system of plants, as it
is an insoluble compound : unless we can sup-
pose that it attracts an excess of carbonic acid
from the air, becoming a bicarbonate, in which
state it is soluble in water. But whatever
may the cause of its being taken up by plants,
its influence on soils is undoubted.

The mode of applying chalk as a manure. In
the county of Essex, where chalking is prac-
tised to a very large extent, the chalk is
brought in sailing barges from the Kentish
shore of the Thames, at an expense of about
two shillings per ton, and afterwards carted for
some miles into the country. It is applied in
quantities which vary from ten to thirty tons
per acre, according to the description of the
soil ; the poor light soils requiring a larger
addition of chalk than the richer lands. It is
usually applied without any preparation ; the
larger lumps of chalk are not even broken, and
the chalk being once ploughed in, the action
of the frost, the plough, and the harrow, in
time sufficiently pulverizes it. It is often
mixed in smaller proportions with common
farm-yard manure, ditch scrapings, pond mud,
&c., and suffered to remain some time before
it is carried into the field. An equally excel-
lent plan is followed by some of the best Essex
farmers, who spread quantities of chalk over
head lands, banks, &c., which require lower-
ing, and then fallow those portions of land,
ploughing them often, and letting the chalked
earth remain as long as possible, incorporating
before they carry and spread the mixed chalk
and earth on to the field ; by this means the
eifects of a few loads of chalk are diffused over
a field. It is a plan admirably adapted for
those situations where chalk is very expen-
sive.

The good effects of chalk are more perma-
nent than immediate ; for, although a good
dressing with chalk will remain in the soil for
from ten to twenty years, yet, on some soils,
one or even tico years will elapse before the far-
mer perceives a decided improvement. There
is hardly any manure that answers better for
grass than chalk, especially on light, sandy
soils. If, however, the soil already contains
an abundance of chalk, its addition to that
land cannot constitute a manure. The culti-
vator can easily fq^;m a rough estimate of the
quantity of chalk in a soil, by taking a quantity
of it from three inches beneath the surface,
well drying it in an oven, and adding to, say
400 grains, 800 grains of muriatic acid ; the
mixture, which weighs 1200 grains, will, if it
contains chalk, effervesce ; and the carbonic
acid of the chalk being expelled, will, of

CHARCOAL.

course, lessen the weight of the mixture.
When the effervescence has entirely ceased,
weigh the mass ; every 4^ grains deficient the
experimenter may consider to indicate the pre-
sence of 10 grains of chalk in the soil. The
agriculturist will then be able to judge, by
comparing the quantity of chalk existing in
the examined soils with that in other lands, the
analyses of which I have given, whether his
land requires the addition of chalk. In the
United Slates chalk is nowhere found, and the
lime applied to agricultural purposes, except
it be in the form of gypsum or plaster of Paris,
is obtained from burning limestone, raiirble,
shells, either recent or fossil — and lastly from
bones and calcareous deposits called marl.
(C. W. Johnson's work On Ferlilizersy p. 256 ;
Brit. Fann. Mag. vol. iii. p. 129.)

CHAMPIGNONS {Jgarinis orcades). A
species of mushroom, growing wild in Eng-
land, having a much" higher flavour than the
common mushroom, but tough and leathery
and consequently very indigestible. They are
chiefly used for making catsup, or in the form
of powder to flavour sauces, &c., for all which
purposes they are admirable.

CHAR. A species of lake trout found in
Windermere; in length never exceeding fif-
teen or sixteen inches spotted like a trout,
with very few bones. (^Walton, p. 173.) It is
also found in Loch Tay, in Scotland.

CHARBON. The little black spot or mark
remaining after the large spot in the cavity of
the comer tooth of a horse is gone.

CHARCOAL (From chark, to burn, and was
formerly written charke coal). The remaining
portion of wood after it has been heated to red-
ness fur some time, which dissipates all the
hydrogen and oxj'gen of which, with carbon,
it is composed. (See Cahbox.) Charcoal-
burning is a regular trade, followed in some
of the woody districts by persons who do
hardly any thing else.

For making gunpowder-charcoal, the lighter
woods, such as the willow, dogwood, and alder
answer best; and in their carbonization care
should be taken to let the vapours freely
escape, especially towards the end of the ope-
ration, for when they are re-absorbed, they
greatly impair the combustibility of the char-
coal.

By the common process of the forests, about
18 per cent, of the weight of the wood is ob-
tained ; by the process of Foucauld about 24
percent, are obtained,with20of crude pyrolig-
neous acid of 10 degrees Baume.

The charcoal of some woods contains silica,
and is therefore useful for polishing metals.
Being a bad conductor of heat, charcoal is em-
ployed sometimes in powder to encase small
furnaces and steam-pipes. It is not affected
by water ; and hence the extremities of char-
red stakes driven into moist grounds are not
liable to decomposition. In like manner casks
when charred inside preserve water much
better than common casks, because they fur-
nish no soluble matter for fermentation or for
food to animalcules.

Lowitz discovered that wood charcoal re-
moves offensive smells from animal and
vegetable substzinces, and counteracts their

311

CHARCOAL.

CHARCOAL.

putrefaction. He found the odour of succinic
and benzoic acids, of bugs, of empyreumatic
oils, of infusions of valerian, essence of
wormwood, spirits distilled from bad grain,
and sulphureous substances were all absorb-
able by freshly calcined charcoal properly
applied. A very ingenious filter has been
constructed for purifying water, by passing it
through strata of charcoal of different fineness.

When charcoal is burned, one-third of the
heat is discharged by radiation, and two-thirds
by conduction.

The following table of the quantity of char-
coal yielded by different woods was published
by Mr. Mushet, as the result of experiments
carefully made upon the small scale. He says,
the woods before being charred were tho-
roughly dried, and pieces of each kind were
selected as nearly alike in every respect as
possible. One hundred parts of each sort
were taken, and they produced as under : —

Lignum Vitse afforded 260 of charcoal of a grayish co-
lour, resembling coke.

Mahogany - - 254 tinged with brown, spongy
and porous.

Laburnum - - 245 velvet black, compact, very
hard.

Chestnut - - 232 glossy black, compact, firm.

Oak _ _ _ 226 black, close, very firVn.

Walnut - - - 20 6 dull black, close," firm.

Holly _ _ - 19 9 dull black, loose and bulky.

Beech - - - 19-9 dull black, spongy, firm.

Sycamors - - 197 fine black, bulky, moderately
firm.

Elm _ . . 195 fine black, moderately firm.

Norway Pine - - 192 shining black, bulky, very
soft.

Sallow or willow - 184 velvet black, bulky, loose,
and soft.

Ash - - - 17-9 shining black, spongy, firm.

Birch . - _ 17-4 velvet black, bulky,'firm.

Scotisb Pine - - 164 tinged with brown, mode-
rately firm.

Messrs. Allen and Pepys, from 100 parts of
the following woods, obtained the quantities
of charcoal as under : —

Beech

- 15-00

Oak -

_

- 17-40

Mahogany

- 15-75

Fir -

-

- 18-17

Lignum Vitae

- 17-25

Box -

-

- 20-25

It is observable that the quantities obtained
by Messrs. Allen and Pepys are in general less
than those given by Mr. Mushet, which may
be owing to Mr. Mushet not having applied
sufficient heat, or operated long enough, to dis-
sipate the aqueous matter of the gaseous pro-
ducts.

To those persons who buy charcoal by
weight, it is important to purchase it as soon
after it is made as possible, as it quickly ab-
sorbs a considerable portion of water from the
atmosphere. Different woods, however, differ
in this respect. Messrs. Allen and Pepys
found, that by a week's exposure to the air, the
charcoal of

Lignum Vitae gained -

Fir - - - -

Box -

Beech - . -

Oak

9-6 per cent.

- 13-0 ditto.

- 140 ditto.

- 16-3 ditto.

- 16-5 ditto.
Mahogany 18 0 ditto.

The following is a tabular view of the vo-
lumes of the different gases which were ab-
orbed in the course of twenty-four hours, by
ne volume of charcoal, in the experiments of
M.Theodore de Saussure, which were conduct-
ed in a way likely to produce correct results.
312

Each portion of charcoal was heated afresh to
a red heat, and allowed to cool under mercury.
When taken from the mercury, it was instantly
plunged into the vessel of gas:

Ammoniacal gas - 90 i Bicarbureted hydrogen 85 00

Muriatic acid gas - 85 ] Carbonic oxyde .- 9-42

Sulphurous acid - 65 I Oxyeen gas - - 9 25

Sulphureled hydrogen 55 i Nitrogen - - - 7-.'''0

Nitrous oxyde - 40 1 Carbureted hydrogen 500

Carbonic acid gas - 35 i Hydrogen gas - - 1-T5

(L/re's Diet, of Arts.)

In England charcoal is prepared in two dif-
ferent ways. In one, billets of wood are formed
into a heap, which is covered with turf, and a
few small openings only left for the admission
of the air requisite to maintain it in a state of
low combustion after it is lighted. When the
whole heap is on fire, the holes are stopped ;
and, after the mass has cooled, the residue is
charcoal. In the other mode the wood is
distilled in iron cylinders, in which case the
products are pyroligneous acids, and empy-
reumatic oil; and what remains in the retort
is charcoal. The quantity of the distilled pro-
ducts, as well as of the charcoal, depends on
the kind of wood employed. 100 parts of dried
oak yields, of

ParU.

Pyroligneous acid ----- 43-

Carbonate of potassa - - - - 45

Empyreumatic oil - - - - - 9 06

Charcoal 262

The charcoal thus procured is lighter than
common charcoal. Charcoal should be black,
sonorous, brittle, and retain the texture of the
wood. It has a powerful attraction for water,
gases, and odorous and colouring principles.
it is a powerful antiseptic, and well adapted
for preserving animal substances from putre-
faction. In fine powder it is much used as a
tooth-powder, for which purpose, however, it
is exceptionable, since, being insoluble, it gets
between the teeth and gums and thus leads to
their separation and much mischief.

Ivory, or bone black, is animal charcoal,
prepared in the same manner as the second
kind of vegetable charcoal. It has a remarka-
ble property of abstracting colour from many
vegetable solutions, on which account it is
much used by sugar refiners.

" Plants," says Liebig, "thrive in powdered
charcoal, and may be brought to blossom and
bear fruit, if exposed to the influence of the
rain and the atmosphere ; the charcoal may
be previously heated to redness. Charcoal
is the most unchangeable substance known ;
it may be kept for centuries without change,
and is therefore not subject to decomposition.
The only substances which it can yield to
plants are some salts which it contains,
amongst which is silicate of potash. It .is
known, however, to possess the power of -
condensing gases within its pores, and parti-
cularly carbonic acid. And it is by virtue of
this power that the roots of plants are supplied
in charcoal exactly as in humus, with an at- ;
mosphere of carbonic acid and air, which is ,
renewed as quickly as it is abstracted.

" In charcoal powder, which had been used
for this purpose by Lukas for several years,
Buchner found a brown substance soluble in
alkalies. This substance was evidently due

CHARD.

CHEESE.

to the secretions from the roots of the plants
which grew in it.

« A plant placed in a closed vessel in which
the air, and therefore the carbonic acid, cannot
be renewed, dies exactly as it would do in the
vacuum of an air-pump, or in an atmosphere
of nitrogen or carbonic acid, even though its
roots be fixed in the richest mould.

"Plants do not, however, attain maturity,
under ordinary circumstances, in charcoal
powder, when they are moistened with pure
distilled water instead of rain or river water.
Rain water must, therefore, contain within it
one of the essentials of vegetable life; and it
will be shown, that this is the presence of a
compound containing nitrogen, the exclusion ,
of which entirely deprives humus and char-
coal of their influence upon vegetation." (Lic-
big*s Organic Chemistry.)

"Dr. Webster, editor of the American edi-
tion of Liebig's Organic Chemistry, observes :
' A few years since, I had an opportunity of ob-
serving a striking instance of the effect of car-
bonic acid- upon vegetation in the volcanic
island of St. Michael (Azores). The gas is-
sued from a fissure in the base of a hill of tra-
chyte and tuffa from which a level field of
some acres extended. This field, at the time
of my visit, was in part covered with Indian
corn. The. corn at the distance of ten or fif-
teen yards from the fissure, was nearly full
grown, and of the usual height, but the height
regularly diminished until within five or six
feet of the hill, where it attained but a few
inches. This effect was owing to the great
specific gravity of the carbonic acid, and its
spreading upon the ground, but as the distance
increased, and it became more and more min-
gled with atmospheric air, it had produced less
and less effect."

CHARD. See Beet.

CHARLOCK (Sax. cepiice ). PI. 10 g. A
troublesome weed, which abounds in most ara-
ble soils, and is very difficult to expel. In Eng-
land it is frequently called chadlork, catlork, cor-
lock, corn-kale, and white-rape. There are four dif-
erent species of plants,says Sinclair, confounded
under the name of charlock, viz. Sinapis arven-
m, or common wild mustard ; yellow blossom,
in May ; annual. S. nigra, black, or Durham
mustard ; blossom, pale yellow, in June ; an-
nual. Raphamis raphanistntm, wild radish ;
straw-yellow blossom, in June and July ; an-
nual. Brassicn napus, ^\'ild navew (this last is
the least common) ; yellow blossom, in May ;
biennial.

The seeds derived from the hard pods of
the variety of the yellow-flowered charlock,
called wild mustard, are collected in England
and sold under the name of Durham Mustard.
They furnish by expression an excellent oil,
which it has been thought might be rendered
profitable. In Germany 30 lbs. of pure lamp-
oil has been obtained from 100 lbs. of seed.

Charlock has been introduced from Europe,
and has become quite extensively naturalized in
several parts of the United States. Being an
annual plant it is very difficult to get rid of,
and when once in possession of a spot will
long bid defiance to all attempts made for its
total extirpation. It infests clayey grounds,
40

such as are particularly well adapted to the
culture of wheat and other most valuable
grains. Its seeds contain a preservative oil,
which, with their great firmness enables them
to remain sound under ground for an almost
unlimited period. Those only which are
brought by tillage within a certain distance of
the surface, sprout and grow, whilst the deeper
covered remain for the production of another
crop when brought up by the plough sufla-
ciently near the surface. The only practicable
mode of eradicating this and other pests of an-
nual growth, is to prevent the plants from coming
to seed, by cuttii;ig down when in blossom. The
greatest care should be taken to inspect seed-
grain before sowing, and see that no seeds of
charlock or other troublesome weeds are in
the samples. The leaves, flowers, long, round
and irregular seed-pods and odour of the root
are very similar to those of the common
radish. Farm stock generally are fond of the
plant, and especially sheep, which, when it is
possible to turn upon the field sufficiently
early, will keep it from growing up to seed.

In Ireland and the northern parts of Europe,
as well as in some parts of America, young
charlock is boiled for greens in the same man-
ner as cabbage-sprouts, &c. The flowers are
much frequented by bees. (Weeds of Jlgricul-
ture, p. 45 ; Smith's Flora, vol. iii. p. 321-6.)

CHARRING OF POSTS. The reducing
that part of the surface of posts which is to be
put into the ground to the state of charcoal.
This method is highly useful where the parts
are to be placed in wet situations, or to stand
between wet and dry. This was a practice
common to the ancients.

CHEAT AND CHESS. See Dahxel.

CHEDDER CHEESE. A kind of cheese so
named from its being made at Chedder, a vil-
lage near the Mendip-hills in Somersetshire,
famous for its pastures. The richness and
fine flavour of Chedder cheese is supposed to
be derived chiefly from a species of Agrostis
upon which the cows feed.

CHEESE (Lat. caseiis; Sax. cere). A well-
known kind of food, prepared from milk by
coagulation, and separated from the serum or
whey, by means of pressure, after which it is
dried for use. See Butter. Cheese has been
made from a very ancient period ; it is men-
tioned by Job, and also by Homer. According
to Strabo, our British ancestors did not under-
stand how to make cheese, a deficiency with
which their descendants cannot now well be
charged*

Good cheese, says Dr. Thomson, melts at a
moderate heat ; but bad cheese, when heated,
dries, curls, and exhibits all the phenomena of
burning horn. From this it is evident that
good cheese contains aquantity of the peculiar
oil of cream ; hence its flavour and smejl.
Proust found in cheese a peculiar acid, which
he called the caseic. (^System of Chem. vol. iv. p.
499.)

The best season for making cheese is during
those months when the cows can be fed on the
pastures ; that is, from the beginning of May
till towards the end of September, or, in favour-
able seasons, the middle of October. In Eng-
land, on many of the large dairy farms, in se-
2D 313

CHEESE.

CHEESE.

veral districts, cheese is frequently made
throughout the year ; but that made during the
winter months is considerably inferior in qua-
lity, and much longer in becoming fit for sale,
or for use, than that which is made within the
periods which have been just mentioned. In
Gloucestershire, the season of making thin
cheese is from April to November; but the
principal one for making thick is during the
months of May, June, and the beginning of
July. If made late in the summer, the cheese
does not acquire a sufficient degree of firmness
to be marketable in the ensuing spring.

The nulking in Cheshire, during the summer
season is at six o'clock, both morning and
evening ; and in winter, at daylight in the
morning, and immediately before dark in the
evening. But in other districts, as Wilts, Suf-
folk, &c., the people are frequently employed
in milking by four o'clock in the morning in
summer ; and the business in a dairy of forty
or fifty cows is nearly completed. before the
usual period at which it commences in Che-
shire.

The colouring of cheese has been so long
common in the cheese districts, that it is pro-
bable that cheese of the best quality would be
in a great measure unsaleable if it did not pos-
sess the requisite colour. The degree of colour
is regulated chiefly by the name under which
it is intended the cheese should be sold, as Glou-
cester, Cheshire, &c. The objectof the introduc-
tion of this practice was no doubt to convey an
idea of richness which the cheese did not really
possess. This is the more evident, as it is
universally allowed that the poorest cheese
always requires the greatest quantity of dye to
bring it to the proper degree of colour. The
material which is employed for this purpose is
the Spanish annotta. (See Annotta.) The
weight of a guinea and a half of it is consi-
dered in Cheshire sufilcient for a cheese of 60
lbs. ; and in Gloucestershire an ounce is the
common allowance to 1 cwt.

In regard to the rennet, it may be observed,
that milk may be coagulated, or curdled, by
the application of any sort of acid ; but the
substance which is most commonly used is the
maws or stomachs of young calves prepared
for the purpose. These are most generally de-
nominated rennets ; but they are also often pro-
vincially called veils, and in Scotland yearnings.
See Rennet.

In Cheshire, after the rennet is added to the
milk, and as soon as the curd is firm enough
to discharge its whey, the dairy woman plunges
her hands to the bottom of the vessel, and,
with a wooden dish, stirs the curd and whey;
then lets go the dish, and by her hand agitates
the whole, carefully breaking every part of the
curd; and, at intervals, stirring it hard to the
bottom with the dish, so that no curd remains
unbroken larger than a hazel-nut. This is
done to prevent what is called slip-curd, or
lumps of curd, which, by retaining the whey,
do not press uniformly with the other curd, but
in a few days, if it happens to be situated
^towards the rind of the cheese, turns livid and
"jelly-like, and soon becomes faulty and rotten.
In a few minutes the curd subsides. The
dairy-woman then takes her dish, and lades off
314

the whey into a milk-lead to stand for cream,
to be churned for whey-butter. This is a prac-
tice peculiar to the cheese counties. In Nor-
folk the whey, even from new milk, passes
from the cheese-vessels immediately to the hog-
tub. Having laded off all the whey she can,
she spreads a straining cloth, and strains the
whey through it, returning the curd retained in
the cloth into the cheese-tub. When she has got
all the whey she can by pressing the curd with
her hand and the lading-dish, she takes a knife
and cuts it into square pieces of about two or
three inches. This lets out more of the whey,
and makes the curd more handy to be taken
up in order to be broken into the vats.

Having made choice of a vat or vats pro-
portioned to the quantity of curd, so that the
cheese when fully pressed shall exactly fill the
vat, she spreads a cheese-cloth loosely over
the mouth of the vat, into which she rebreaks
the curd, carefully squeezing every part of it
in her hands ; and having filled the vat heaped
up, and rounded above its top, she folds over
it the cloth and places it in the press, on the
construction and power of which much de-
pends.

When the vat is properly placed in the press,
the ordinary degree of pressure is applied,
which is more or less, according to the sizes
of the cheeses usually made. At all large
dairies, there are two or three presses, all va-
rying in respect to weight or pressure. There
are various kinds of cheese-presses ; one
made entirely of iron by the Shotts Foundry
Company is described in the Trans. High. Sac.
vol. iv. p. 52. As soon as the vat is placed in
the press, and the weight applied, skewers are j
thrust in through the holes in the side of the
vat; this is done repeatedly during the first
day when the vat is in the press. From the
time the vat is first placed in the press till it is
again taken out does not, in ordinary cases,
exceed two or three hours. When taken out,
the cheese is put into a vessel with hot whey,
with a view of hardening its coat or skin,
where it stands for an hour or two ; it is then
removed, wiped dry, and after having remain-
ed some time to cool, is covered with a clean
cloth ; and the vat being wiped dry, and the
cheese replaced, it is again put into the press.
In the evening, supposing the cheese to have
been made in the morning, which is the usual
time, it is again taken out of the vat; and an-
other dry cloth being applied, it is turned and
replaced ; what was formerly the upper becom-
ing now the under side. In this manner it is
taken out, wrapped in clean cloths, and turned
in the vat twice a day for two days, when it is
finally removed.

The salting is the next operation. The
cheese, on being for the last time taken out of
the vat, is carried to the salting-house, and
placed in the vat in a tub filled to a consider-
able depth with brine, in which it stands for
several days, being regularly turned once at
least every day. The vat is then removed from
the brine-tub; and the cheese being taken out,
is placed on the salting-bench, where it stands
for eight or ten days, salt being carefully rub-
bed over the whole every day during the period.
When the cheese is of a large size, it is com-

CHEESE.

CHEESE.

monly surrounded with a wooden hoop or fillet |
of cloth to prevent renting. After it is sup- 1
posed to be sufficiently salted, it is washed in j
warm water or whey, and when well dried with '
a cloth, is placed on what is called the drying-
bench, where it remains a like period before it
is removed to the keeping-house or cheese-
chamber.

The last part of the business is the manage-
ment in the cheese-room. In Gloucestershire the
young cheeses are turned every day, or every
two or three days, according to the state of the
weather, or the fancy or judgment of the dairy-
woman. If the air be cold and dry, the win-
dows and door are kept shut as much as may
be ; if close and moist, as much fresh air as
possible is admitted. Having remained about
ten days in the dairy (more or less, according
to the space of time between the washings),
the cheeses are cleaned ; that is, washed and
scraped.

The produce of a dairy of cows, where the
milk is converted into cheese, is very various-
ly stated by different writers. In some districts
2^ cwts. from each cow, whether a good or a
bad milker, if at all in milk, is considered a
good return. In others, the average runs as
high as 3 cwt. ; and in the county of Wilts in
particular, from 3^ to 4 cwts. is the usual
quantity. From accurate calculations made
by Mr. Marshall, and these several limes re-
peated, he found that in Gloucestershire about
15 gallons of milk were requisite for making
little more than 11 lbs. of two-meal cheese, and
that one gallon of new milk produced a pound
of curd. It is the general opinion of dairy
fanners that the produce from two and a half
to three and a half acres is necessary to main-
tain a cow all the year round. Taking, there-
fore, the medium of the three averages of
cheese above mentioned (amounting to 355 lbs.
from each cow), the quantity of cheese by the
acre is 1 18 lbs. Every calculation of this kind
must, however, be extremely vague and un-
certain. See Dairy.

In the making of Parmesan cheese, we are
informed by Mr. Price, in the Papers of the Bath
">"i W. Engl. Society (vol. vii.), that the method
to put, at ten o'clock in the morning, five
■tits and a half of milk, each brent about
rty-eight quarts, into a large copper, which
rns on a crane over a slow wood fire, made
"about two feet below the surface of the ground ;
the milk is stirred from time to time, and about
eleven o'clock, when just lukewarm, or con-
siderably under a blood-heat, a ball of rennet,
as big as a large walnut, is squeezed through
a cloth into the milk, which is kept stirred.
By the help of the crane the copper is turned
from over the fire, and left till a few minutes
past twelve; at which time the rennet has
sufficiently operated. It is now stirred up, and
left for a short lime. Part of the whey is then
taken out, and the copper again turned over a
fire sufficiently brisk to give a strongish heat,
but below that of boiling. A quarter of an
ounce of saffron is now put into the milk to
give it a little colour ; and it is well stirred
from time to time. The dairy-man frequently
feels the curd. When the small, and, as it
were, granulated parts, feel rather firm, which

is in about an hour and a half, the copper is
taken from the fire, and the curd left to fall to
the bottom. Part of the whey is taken out, and
the curd brought up in a coarse cloth, hanging
together in a tough state. It is then put into
a hoop, and about a half hundred weight laid
upon it for about an hour; after which the cloth
is taken off, and the cheese placed on a shelf
in the same hoop. At the end of two, or from
that to three days, it is sprinkled all over with
salt ; the same is repeated every second day
for about forty or forty-five days, after which
no further attention is required. While salt-
ing, they generally place two cheeses one upon
another; in which stale they are said to take
the salt better than singly. The country be-
tween Cremona and Lodi, says Mr. Evans,
comprises the richest part of the Milanese.
The irrigation, too, is brought to the highest
degree of perfeciion ; the grass is cut four
limes a year as fodder for the cows, from whose
milk is made the well-known Parmesan cheese.
The cows, which are kept in the stall nearly
all the year round, are fed during summer oa
two of these crops of grass or clover, which
are cut green; and in the winter on the other
two, which are hayed. The milk of at least
fifty cows is required for the manufacture of
one Parmesan cheese. Hence, as one farm
rarely affords pasture for such i number, it is
usual for the farmers or metayers of a district
to club together. (Quart. Joum. of Agr. vol. v.
p. 622.)

Cream cheese is made in various places ; but
that which is generally known by the name of
Stilton is made in Leicestershire, in the follow-
ing manner, according to the Agricultural Re-
port of that county : — The night's cream is put
into the morning's new milk with the rennet;
but when the curd is come it is not broken, as
is done with other cheeses, but is taken out
with a soildish altogether, and placed in a
sieve to drain gradually ; and, as it drains, it
is pressed, till it becomes firm and dry; being
then placed in a wooden hoop, and afterwards
kept dry on boards, it is turned frequently,
with cloth binders round it, which are tightened
as occasion requires. Cream cheese of good
quality is likewise made, in some districts, by
adding the cream of one meal's milk to the
milk which is immediately taken from the
cow. This, after being made and pressed
gently two or three times, and carefully turned
for a day or two, is fit for use.

Since the late reduction of duties in England
upon provisions introduced from abroad, cheese
has been among the articles extensively ship-
ped from the United States to that countr3%
where the complaint against American cheese
is, that it is generally insufliciently pressed, a
fault which gives it, when cut, a porous or
honeycomb appearance. Its flavour is also
rendered unpleasant by the too free use of
rrennet. The removal of these defects would
very much enhance the value of American
cheese both at home and abroad. Neverthe-
less, cheese of excellent qualities as to richness,
flavour, and other requisites, is made in the
northern portions of the Middle and Western
States and throughout New England. See
Daibt.

16

CHEESE.

CHEESE.

Pine Apple Cheese. — E. Perkins, of Herkimer
county, New York, a fine dairy district, gives
the following description of the mode of mak-
ing those cheeses moulded in the pine-apple
form. These weigh from 7 to 8 lbs., and are
chiefly made in the small dairy establishments.
»The cheese-making process, until fit for the
press, is pretty much like that usually pursued
in making common cheeses. Some add a little
more salt. The pressing is performed in wooden
blocks, griped together, and, after this process,
the cheeses are suspended in nets, till so har-
dened as to stand on a trencher made for the
purpose, where they remain till fit for market.
This kind of cheese is chiefly made under
contract. If the purchaser finds the pressers,
nets, and trenchers, the price is from 7 to 7^
cents per lb. When the maker finds every
thing he gets about 8 or 9 cents per lb. In the
preparation of pine-apple cheese, more al-
lowance is made for shrinkage than in the
manufacture of common cheese. {Farmer's
Insti^uctoi:)

AU new cheeses require to be well dried to
fit them for the market, and when taken out
of the moulds must be laid upon a shelf and
turned every day for some time. This opera-
tion was formerly done by hand, which proved
very laborious. But contrivances have been
invented by which the work can now be done
very quickly and without the least exertion of
strength. Some of these will be found men-
tioned under the head Daiht.

After the cheeses have passed through the
different processes, and the drying is com-
pleted, they are to be deposited in the cheese
or store-room. This should be dry and airy,
and the hard and soft cheeses ought not to be
kept in the same room. In some of the best
dairy districts in the United States, it is thought
best not to darken the cheese rooms, or attempt
to keep out the flies, but in hot, sultry weather,
the doors and windows are opened to admit
the air freely. Cool dry air blowing directly
upon the cheeses, is apt to crack them. These
cracks are to be filled up with pepper, either
black or cayenne. To mature cheese fast, the
room should be kept warm in the fall and
spring.

We learn from the Transactions of the High-
land Agricultural Society in Scotland, that the
flavour of an old cheese may be communicated
to a new one of whatever species, by the in-
sertion of some portions of the old into the
new cheese. Small pieces are to be extracted
with a sample-scoop from each cheese, and
those taken from the old are to be inserted into
the new, and those from the new put into the
old. After this interchange, the new one, if
kept well excluded from the air, will, in a few
weeks, become thoroughly impregnated with
the mould, and have a flavour hardly to be
distinguished from the old one. The cheese
selected must be dry, and the blue mould
should be free from any portion of a more de-
cayed appearance.

A great variety of cheeses are made in
^Switzerland, the most celebrated of which are
the Schabzieger, (or sap-sago as we commonly
call it.) and" the Gruyeru Of the quantity of
cheeses exported from Switzerland, we have
316

no information that can be relied upon ; but it
is computed that 30,000 cwt. of Gruyere cheese
alone, fit for exportation, is annually made;
and that, from the middle of July to October,
300 horses, weekly, are employed in transport-
ing Swiss cheese over Mount Grias. {For.
Rev. and Cont. Misc.)

" The Schahzicger cheese is made by the moun-
taineers of the canton of Glarus alone; and, in
its greatest perfection, in the valley of Kloen.
It is readily distinguished by its marbled ap-
pearance and aromatic flavour, both produced
by the bruised leaves of the melilot. The
dairy is built near a stream of water; the ves-
sels containing the milk are placed on gravel
or stone in the dairy, and the water conducted
into it in such a manner as to reach their
brim. The milk is exposed to the tempera-
ture of about six degrees of Reaumur (forty-six
degrees of Fahrenheit), for five or six days,
and in that time the cream is completely
formed. After this it is drained off", the case-
ous particles are separated, by the addition
of some sour milk, and not by rennet. The
curd thus obtained is pressed strongly in bags,
on which stones are laid; when sufficiently
pressed and dried, it is ground to powder in
autumn, salted, and mixed with either the
pressed flowers, powdered and sifted, or the
seeds of the melilot trefoil (Melilotus officinalis^
PI. 10,/). The practice of mixing the flowers
or the seeds of plants with cheese was com-
mon among the Romans, who used those of
the thyme for that purpose. The entire sepa-
ration of the cream or unctuous portion of the
milk is indispensable in the manufacture of
Schabzieger. The unprepared curd never sells
for more than three halfpence a pound
whereas, prepared as Schabzieger, it sells for
sixpence or seven-pence. {For. Rev. and ConL
Misc.)

" The Gruyere cheese of Sivitzerland is so namei
after a valley, where the best of that kind is
made. Its merit depends chiefly on the herb-
age of the mountain pastures, and partly on
the custom of mixing the flowers of bruised
seeds of Melilotus officindli^whh the curd, befor-^
it is pressed. The mountain pastures aK
rented at so much per cow's feed from the 15th
of May to the 18th of October; and the cows
are hired from the peasants, at so much, for
the same period. On the precise day both
land and cows return to their owners^ It is
estimated that 15,000 cows are so grazed, and
30,000 cwt. of cheese made fit for exportation,
besides what is reserved for home use.

" Ewe-niilk cheese of Switzerland. One measure
of ewe's milk is added to three measures of
cow's milk ; little rennet i§ used, and no acid.
The best Swiss cheese of this kind is made by
the Bergaraese sheep-masters, on Mount Splu
gen." (For. Rev. and Cont. Misc.)

Sage Cheese, an humble imitation of the Swi
green cheese much relished in some parts oi
the United Slates. " To make this cheese, tato
the tops of young red sage, and having pressi
the juice from them by beating in a mon
do the same with the leaves of spinach,
then mix the two juices together. After pui
ting the rennet to the milk, pour in some of th:
juice, regulating the quantity by the degree

CHEESE CLOTHS.

CHEESE-PRESS.

colour and taste it is intended to give the
cheese. As the curd appears, break it gentl}',
and in an equal manner, then emptying it into
the cheese vat, let it be a little pressed, in order
to make it eat mellow. Having stood for about
seven hours, salt and turn it daily for four or
five weeks, then it will be fit for the table.
The spinach besides improving the flavour,
and correcting the bitterness of the sage, will
give it a much more pleasing colour than can
be obtained from sage alone."

Cmtm Cheese. — Excellent cream cheeses are
supplied to the Philadelphia market by the
neighbouring Pennsylvania farmers. They
are round, generally from six to ten inches in
diameter, and about one inch thick. The mode
of preparing cream cheese is as follows. Ex-
pose cream to the air and it will be found to
grow thick gradually, so that in three or four
days the vessel containing it may be turned
upside down without loss. In eight or ten
days more, its surface will becofne coated over
with a kind of mucus and a woolly moss or
byssi. After this, it no longerretains the flavour
of cream, but of a ver}* fat cheese. This rich
dainty differs from butter in containing both
curd, and scrum or whey, together with the
oily matter; whereas in butler the oil is ob-
tained separate from the whey and card or
cheesy matter.

Another mode of making cream cheese is
the following, given by the late Judge Cooper,
whose endorsement makes it worthy of the
highest credit. "Take of the top or surface
cream that has been collected for three or four
days in the cream-croak so as to be slightly
acid, one pint: on each of two common plates
lay a drj' napkin four-doubled : put half a pint
of cream on each napkin. Next day have
ready another plate covered with a folded wet
napkin, turn the two cheeses one on top of the
other upon the wet napkin, cover them over
with the ends of this wet napkin, and change
it every day for a week till the cheese is ripe.
It mast not be done in a cellar or damp place,
but in a room, otherwise it will mould."

In Lincolnshire, England, as well as in the
neighbourhoods of Bath and York, rich and
excellent cream cheeses are made. These,
like all such kind of soft and rich cheeses, are
used when but a few days old, to be eaten with
radishes, salad, &c.

For the mode of preparing the celebrated
Stilton rream cheese see p. 3 1 5.

There are papers, by Mr. P. Miller, "On
making cheese resembling that of Gloucester
and Wiltshire" (Trans. High. Sor. vol. iii. p.
228); and "In Imitation of Double Glouces-
ter," by Mr. Bell (Ihid. vol. i. p. 155) ; and " On
communicating the Flavour of old to new
Cheese by Inocujation," by Mr. Robinson (Ibid.
p. 232). "On making Cheese from Potatoes
in Thuringia." (Farmer^s Mag. vol. viii.
p. Uz.)

CHEESE CLOTHS are large towels to put
inside the chessel or vat, while the cheese is
pressing. They are of home manufacture, and
should be of strong and open texture : every
time they are used for this purpose, they should
be wrung out of boiling water, and dried in the
sun, or before the fire.

I CHEESE COLOURING. See Axvotta.

CHEESE-FLY and MAGGOT (Piophila ca-
«ei). The small white larvse found in old
I and putrescent cheese, produce a small two-
I winged fly, about two lines in length, which
has a greenish-black, smooth, and shining
body. It is fully described in the Quart. Journ.
of Agr. vol. xii. p. 125.

Dr. Harris describes the cheese-maggots
found in Massachusetts as the young of a fly
(Piophila rasei) not more than three-twentieths
of an inch long, of a shining black colour, with
the middle and hinder legs mostly yellowish,
and the wings tranapsrent like glass. See his
Rejiort, &c.

CHEESE-KNIFE. A large sort of knife,
or spatula, made use of in dairies for the pur-
pose of cutting or breaking down the curd
whilst in the cheese-tub.

CHEESE-LEP. The bag in which dairy-
women keep the rennet for making cheese.

CHEESE-MITES. This is the Aca^tis siro,
an almost microscopic apterous insect, fur-
nished with eight legs, on the four first of
which, between two claws, is a vesicle with a
long neck, to which the insect can give every
kind of inflexion. "When it sets its foot
down, it inlarges and inflates ; and when it
lifts it up, it contracts it, so that the vesicle
almost entirely disappears." (De Geer, quoted
by Kirby, vol. xxxiv. p. 321.) It is not pos-
sible to say how this insect gets into cheeses.
The brown powder, so valued by epicures, ia
which the mites live, is their excrement.

CHEESE-PRESS. A press employed m
cheese dairies, to force the whey from the curd
when in the cheese vat.

Cheese presses are of diflerent fonns. The
most simple and primitive press is merely a
long beam, one end of which is placed in a
hole of the wall, and frequently it is fixed to a
bolt, or in the trunk of a tree. The sinker forms
the fulcrum, a weight consisting of two or three
undressed stones being placed on the other end
of the lever. A second kind is formed by a
large square stone, suspended by a screw be-
tween the side posts of a timber frame. The
chessel is placed underneath it, and the stone
is lowered upon the sinker by turning the
screw to the left h%nd. The cheese vat is re-
moved at pleasure by turning the screw to the
right hand, which elevates the stone. To pre-
serve the screw, a small block of timber is
placed underneath the stone during the period
that cheese-making is suspended.

Another kind of press consists of a limber
frame formed of two perpendicular side posts
and a cross top with a parallel beam, which is
suspended from the top by two screws. The
cheese vat is placed upon the beam, which is
lifted up when the screws are turned to the
right hand; and the sinker of the chessel or vat
being pressed against the cross top, squeezes
or stanes the cheese. When the chessel re-
quires to be removed, the screws are turned to
the left hand.

But more complicated presses, and therefore
in many instances more convenient, can be
adopted. The most complete, eflfective, and
approved press consists of a frame of cast iron
with a perpendicular piston, flat below to cover
2d 2 317

CHEESE RENNET.

CHEMISTRY.

the sinker of the chessel. The piston is raised
or depressed by a small pinion attached to a
ratchet wheel and malleable iron lever, three
feet in length. The lever is, grooved in seve-
ral places on the upper side to hold the ring of
the weight for increasing or diminishing the
jpower, in proportion to its distance from the
ratchet wheel. The Weight of this press is
about two stone, cost II. 4s. pressure 20 tons.
{Martin Doyle's Pract. Husb. ; Prof. Lowe's Elem.
of Agr.) See Dairt.

CHEESE RENNET, or YELLOW BED-
STRAW {Galium verum), is a perennial plant,
common in waste places and the borders of
fields, flowering in July and August. The
stem, which is woody and much branched,
rises eighteen inches, and sends off, in the
same plane, narrow, deep green, deflexed
leaves, rough with minute points, each tipped
with a hair. The flowers are golden yellow, in
dense tufted panicles, and smell strongly of
honey in the evening and before rain. The
flowers of this weed were formerly used in
Cheshire for curdling milk. (Paxton's Bot. Did.;
Smith's Eng. Fhr. vol. i. p. 208.)

CHELIDONIUM. From cheledon, a swallow;
it being said to flower at the arrival and wither
at the departure of the. swallows. See Celas-

BIITE.

CHELONE (Chelone harbata. From chehme,
a tortoise ; to the back of which the helmet of
the flowers is fancifully compared). Known
in Pennsylvania and other Middle States by the
names of Shell-flower, and Snake-head. This
plant is a native of North America, and a
hardy perennial ; blowing beautiful red flowers
in July and August. It loves shade and mois-
ture, and grows three feet high. The white
chelone is hardy, and likes any soil. The
downy chelone blows a flower which is yellow
inside, and light purple outside. It is propa-
gated by seed, and by separating the roots in
autumn. It belongs to a hardy herbaceous
genus, that ought to have a place in every col-
lection : the species succeed well in a mixture
of peat and loam. {Paxton's Bot. Diet.)

CHEMISTRY. The importance of this
science to the agriculturist no intelligent mo-
dern farmer will doubt. Its triumphs in the
cause of the cultivator have been far too many
for him to hesitate in acknowledging the obli-
gation. I have, in this work, under the heads
Eahths, Analysis o:p Soils, Gases, Water,
Salts, Organic Chemistry, &c., endeavoured,
to the best of my power, to illustrate some of
the many chemical facts on which the success-
ful practice of agriculture depends ; and to
these I must refer the farmer. Most of the
substances belonging to our globe, says Davy,
{Chem. Philosophy, p. 1), are constantly under-
going alterations in sensible qualities, and one
variety of matter becomes, as it were, trans-
muted into another. Such changes, whether
natural or artificial, whether slowly or rapidly
performed, are called chemical ; thus, the gra-
dual and almost imperceptible decay of the
leaves and branches of a fallen tree exposed to
the atmosphere, and the rapid combustion of
[wood in our fires, are both chemical operations.
The object of chemical philosophy is to ascer-
tain the causes of all phenomena of this kind,
318

and to discover the laws by which they are
governed. . The ends of this branch of know-
ledge are the applications of natural substances
to new'uses, for increasing the comforts and
enjoyments of man ; and the demonstration of
the order, harmony, and intelligent design of
the system of the earth. The foundations of
chemical philosophy are observation, experi-
ment, and analogy. By observation, facts are
distinctly and minutely impressed on the mind.
By analogy, similar facts are collected. By
experiment, new facts are discovered; and, in
the progression of knowledge, observation,
guided by analogy, leads to experiment; and
analogy, confirmed by experiment, becomes
scientific truth. To give an instance, — who-
ever will consider with attention the slender
green vegetable filaments (Conferva rivularis)
which in the summer exist in almost all
streams, lakes, or pools, under the diflereut
circumstances of shade and sunshine, will dis-
cover globules of air upon the filaments ex-
posed under water to the sun, but no air on the
filaments that are shaded. He will find that
the efi'ect is owing ,to the presence of light.
This is an observation; but it gives no informa-
tion respecting the nature of the air. Let a
wine-glass filled with water be inverted over
the conferva thus acted upon by the light. The
air-bubbles, as they rise, will collect in the
upper part of the glass ; and, when the glass is
filled with air, it may be closed with the hand,
placed in its usual position, and an inflamed
taper introduced into it: the taper will bum
with more brilliancy than in the atmosphere.
This is an experiment. If the phenomena are
reasoned upon, and the question is put, whether I
all vegetables of this kind, in fresh or in salt |
water, do not produce such air under like cir-
cumstances, the inquirer is guided by analogy;
and, when this is determined to be the case by)
new trials, a general scientific truth is esta-
blished,— that all confervoB in the sunshine
produce a species of air (oxygen gas) which
supports flame in a superior degree : a fact
which has been shown to be the case by vari-
ous minute investigations.

By such researches the chemist ascertains
the composition and uses of the various other
gases, and also of the earths, metals, and salts, ol
which the materials of the earth we inhabit are
composed ; delightful inquiries, which will well
repay the cultivator in more ways than one for
the labour he may bestow upon them. They
will speedily teach him that nothing in this
world of ours is ever lost or destroyed ; that the
decaying materials of his most noisome ma-
nures speedily again make their appearance in
new forms, and in salubrious and fragrant
plants ; that the expired breath of himself and!
his live-stock is the inhaled food of all vegeta-ft)
tion ; and that vegetables purify the very airj
which animals have vitiated. And again, thej
correct rotation of crops, the use of permanei
or earthy additions to the soil, (which see), the'
fattening of live-stock, the origin of diseases,
are a few only of the facts connected with the
cultivation of the soil which the chemist's
operations illustrate. "The nature of soils'*
(as it is remarked by Mr. G. W. Johnson), "of
manures, of the food and functions of plants,

CHEMISTRY.

CHERRY TREE.

would all be unknown but from the analyses
which chemists have made." We know that
every plant has a particular temperature in
which it thrives best, a particular modification
of food, a particular degree of moisture, a par-
ticular intensity of light ; and those particulari-
ties vary at different periods of their growth.
It is certain that plants are subject, like all
other organized bodies, to various influences.
Acids are injurious to some, alkalies to others;
the excess of some of their constituents, and
the deficiency of others, insure disease to the
plants to which such irregularities occur. Dis-
ease is accompanied by decay more or less
extensive and rapid; and if these cannot be

tion of the seed or fruit. It shows which of
these elements are absorbed from the gases of
the atmosphere, and what saline and other
materials are furnished by the soil. The seed
itself, like the egg, contains the first supply of
nourishment for the roots of the infant germ
of the plant. To assist its first growth before
it rises above ground, the humus of the soil
supplies carbonic acid, and the looser the soil
the more of this essential food for the young
plant can be retained. "When it rises above
the surface, and its stems and leaves are fully
developed, its main, and, according to Liebig
and others, — its entire dependence for nourish-
ment, is upon the atmosphere. Chemistry

checked by salutary applications and treat- 1 points out the different gases which plants ab-

ment, death ultimately ensues. Now, if it was
possible for any science or sciences to teach
the cultivator of plants how to provide for
them all the favourable contingencies, all the
appropriate necessaries above alluded to, and
to protect them from all those which are
noxioijs to them, the art of cultivation would
be far advanced to perfection. Such sciences
are botany and chemistry. It is not assefted
that they can, at present, do all that is desired
of them, — all of which they are capable; but
they can do much. As evidence of what can
be effected by a combination of chemical and
practical knowledge in the cultivation of the
soil, we may quote the example of Lavoisier.
He cultivated 240 acres in La Vendee, actuated
by the beneficent desire of demonstrating to his
countrymen the importance of sustaining the
art of cultivation on scientific principles. In
nine years his produce was doubled, and his
crops afibrded one-third more than those of or-
dinary cultivators. It is unnecessary to dwell
upon the importance of such improvements.
Science can never supersede the use of the
dunghill, the plough, the spade, and the hoe;
but it can be one of their best guides, — it can
be a pMot even to the most experienced. (Bax-
ter's Lit), of Agr.; Gnrd. Mag. vols. iii. and iv. ;
Davy's Chan. Phil.; Leiliig's Organic Chemistry.)

So many important facts bearing upon agri-
cultural subjects have been discovered of late
years through chemical experiments and re-
searches, as to render it imperative upon every
well-instructed farmer to make" himself ac-
quainted with them. It has long been known
to common obsei-vers, that certain crops will
grow in some situations and not in others, and
that after having flourished in a place for a
considerable period, crops will decline in
quality and quantity, and finally cease to com-
pensate for the expenses of seed and tillage.
That certain kinds of manure are most benefi-
cial to some soils and plants, whilst another
produces the best effects upon others. But the
causes operating in the production of such
effects have not been understood, and hence,
^reat waste of means and labour have resulted
'" experiments often useless, for want of that
chemical knowledge through which the precise
defects of the soil could be detected and the
deficiencies directly supplied.

Agricultural chemistry points out the re-
spective elements entering into the formation

sorb from the atmosphere or the soil in the
progress of their growth. It also shows that
plants have other constituents, such as potash,
soda, lime, magnesia, &c., without which, in
due quantities, they cannot come to perfection^
The proportions of these, though often very
minute, are all important. The chemical pro-
cesses described for analyzing soils, will show
what elements for the growth of plants are
present and what are wanting. Knowing this,
the object of the skilful farmer will be to sup-
ply the deficiencies, in a way the most accept-
able to plants. Some crops may be repeated
on the same soil more frequently than others, be-
cause some consume more of the alkalies than
others. One hundred parts of the stalks of wheat
yield IS-.'i parts of ashes. The same quantity of
barley, 8-54 parts ; and of oats, only 4*42 parts.
Thus, as the demands of each of these plants
for the alkaline elements of their growth is
different, one may be raised on ground which
has ceased to produce the others ; and this is
what is daily witnessed, — land, refusing to
yield wheat, and yet affording good crops of
barley and oats ; — and when ceasing to yield
compensating crops of wheat and barley, stiU
affording excellent crops of oats, the proportion
of alkali required by which is so comparatively
small compared with the demands of the
wheat-crop. How readily, then, may a good
soil for oats be rendered productive in wheat
by the simple addition of some alkaline dress-
ing, all the other requisites of fertility having
been before present. Chemistry teaches that
the salts and other organic constituents re-
moved from soils in the crops, is returned in
the dung of animals fed upon such crops. It
teaches the precise proportions of these, and
explains the well-known facts, — that the ex-
crements of some animals, such as man, are
more fertilizing than those of others ; that those
of men living upon animal food are stronger
than those of men confined to vegetable food.
All these matters may be found explained
under the different heads of Animal MaymreSy
Ammcynia, Nitrogen, &c. Men of science en-
gaged in these useful subjects of investigation,
are every day unfolding new and important
facts, and what at one time was regarded as
inscrutable mystery becomes so well under-
stood as to be comprehended by a child.

CHERRY TREE {Prunus Cerasus). It de-
rives its name from Cerasus, a city of Pontus,

of plants, and even those required at each stage I whence the tree was broufht by Lucullus,
|| of the-'r growth from germination to the perfec- 1 about half a century before the Christian era.
'' 319

CHERRY, WILD.

CHERRY-LAUREL.

It soon after spread into most parts of Europe,
and is supposed to have been carried* to Bri-
tain about a century after it came to Rome.
The cherry is pretty generally cultivated
throughout the kingdom, as an agreeable
summer fruit. The varieties are very nume-
rous. The Horticultural Society's Catalogue
embraces 246 ; but the following list is recom-
mended by Mawe, as containing the best varie-
ties for general cultivation, the whole being
arranged in the order in which they ripen in
England: — June: Early May, May Duke,
Knight's Early Black, and Late Duke. July :
Archduke, Black Tartarian, White Tartarian,
Black Eagle, Kentish, Bigarreau, Holmon's
Duke, Elton, Herefordshire Heart, Bleeding
Heart, Carnation, and Waterloo. August : Har-
rison's Heart, Black Heart, Waterloo, Cou-
ronne, Lukeward, Black Geen, Small Black,
Small Red Wild, White Swiss, Lundie Geen,
Transparent Geen, Cluster, Yellow Spanish.
September: Florence, Amber Heart, Flemish
Heart, Red Heart, White Heart. October:
Morello or Milan. For small gardens, either
as wall trees, espaliers, or standards, the fol-
lowing varieties are recommended : — The May
Duke, Morello, Archduke, Black Heart, White
Heart, Bigarreau, Harrison's Heart, and Ken-
tish Cherries. Miller considers the common
Red or Kentish, the Duke, and the Lukeward
as the best trees for an orchard ; they are plen-
tiful bearers. This tree prefers a light dry
sandy loam, with a free exposure. The wood
of the cherry tree is close, takes a fine polish,
and is not liable to split. It is used in the
manufacture of chairs, musical instruments
&c., and stained to imitate mahogany. The
principal supplies of cherries for the London
market are brought from the cherry orchards
in Kent and Herts. The wild cherry tree is
found frequently in the woods and hedges of
England, and has round branches with a po-
lished ash-coloured bark. The. leaves, in all
the varieties are simply folded fiat while
young, by which cherries differ from the Bul-
lace tribe. (P/u7. Hist. Fruits, p. 76 ; Willich's
Domestic Encyclopccdia ; M^Culloch^s Commercial
Dictionary; Baxter's Library of Agriculture;
Smithes Eng. Flora, vol. ii. p. 354; American
Orchardist^s Companion; Kenrick^s New American
Orchardist, &c.)

CHERRY, WILD. Several kinds of wild
cherry are found in the United States, and Mi-
chaux describes the following species.

Red Cherry Tree (Cerasus borealis). Red
cherry. Small cherry; common only in the
Northern States, (including the highlands in the
northern parts of Pennsylvania), in Canada,
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia. The tree at-
tains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, with
a diameter of five or six inches. Flowers are
collected in small white bunches, and the fruit,
which is of a bright red colour, considerable
size, and intensely acid taste, ripens in the
month of July. The wood is fine grained and
of a redish hue, but its inferior size limits its
use in the mechanical arts. This species of
(ffcprry tree offers the same remarkable pecu-
liarity with the ^canoe birch of reproducing
itself, as it were, spontaneously in cleared
grounds, and in such forests as have been
320

burnt, which is observable in spots where fire
has been kindled by travellers. Of all the na-
tive species of North America, Michaux thinks
the red cherry tree bears the greatest analogy
to the cultivated cherry tree of Europe, and
hence the most proper for receiving grafts,
though it has been found dilticult to make the
grafts succeed.

Wdd Cherry (Cerams Virginiana). This is
one of the largest productions of the American
forests. Its wood is of an excellent quality
and elegant appearance, and is usefully em-
ployed in the arts. In Maine, where the winter
is long and intense, it hardly exceeds thirty
or forty feet in height, and eight to twelve
inches in diameter; in the southern and mari-
time parts of the Carolinas and of Georgia,
where the soil is arid and sandy, it is rarely
seen, and even when found on the banks of
rivers its growth is stinted. A milder climate
and more fertile soil favour its growth, and it
abounds in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all the
Atlantic States, and also in Westera New
York, and Illinois, uniting with the overcup
white oak, black walnut, honey locust, red elm,
and coffee tree of the forests covering the fertile
regions of the West. On the banks of the Ohio
Michaux measured trees twelve to sixteen feet
in circumference, and from eighty to one hun-
dred feet in height, with undivided trunks of
uniform size to the height of twenty-five or
thirty feet.

The flowers of the wild cherry are white and
collected in spikes. The fruit is about the size
of a pea and nearly black, at maturity, soon
after which, notwithstanding its abundance
and bitterness, it is devoured by birds. It is
employed either alone or mixed with cultivated
cherries, — generally the morillos or mazzards
— in making a domestic cordial called cherry
bounce, which consists of an infusion of the
cherries in rum or brandy with a certain quan-
tity of sugar. It is a faint imitation of the
Kirschenvasser of the Germans, and Marasquin
of the Venetians, both of which liqueurs or cor-
dials are prepared by distillation, from wild
cherries found in the north and south of Europe.

The wood of this tree is highly valuable,
being compact, fine-grained and brilliant, and
not liable to warp when perfectly seasoned.
When chosen near the ramification of the
trunk it rivals mahogany in the beauty of its
curls. The bark of the wild cherry tree in-
fused in cold water and drank to the extent of
half a pint or a pint a day is a popular and
useful tonic.

Wild Orange Tree (Cerasus Caroliniana). This
beautiful species of cherry tree is found in the
Bahama Islands, to which, with the islands on
the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Flo-
rida it appears to be nearly confined. The
fruit is small, oval, and nearly black, the
greenish pulp which covers the soft stone not
being eatable. The wild orange, as it is there
called, is one of the most beautiful productions
of the Southern States on.the sea-board, where
it is a favourite ornamental and shade tree.
The flowers are more frequented by bees than
those of any other southern tree.

CHERRY TREE BORER. See Bobers.

CHERRY-LAUREL {Cerasus lauro-cerasm).

CHERRY TREE WEEVIL.

CHESTNUT.

This shrub is an exotic, although it is now
naturalized to this climate, and was brought to
Europe from Trebisonde, in 1576. It is an
evergreen, with smooth bark, and short-stalked,
oblong, lanceolate, remotely serrated, coriace-
ous, shining leaves, with two or four glands at
their base. The flower is white, with round
spreading petals, and the fruit a small, black
drupe or cherry. The leaves of the cherry-
laurel have long been employed both in medi-
cine and in confectionary, on account of the
agreeable odour and flavour of the bitter
almond which they possess. They lose their
odour after they are dried, but retain their
flavour.

CHERRY TREE WEEVIL. See Plum
Tree Weevil and Curculio.

CHERVIL, GARDEN (Chcerophyllum sati-
vum). This herb grows in gardens, and
sometimes wild in waste ground ; perhaps the
outcast of gardens. The flowers are white,
and bitter-tasted; the seeds are smooth, fur-
rowed, and large ; altogether the plant resem-
bles parsley, only the leaves are paler and
more divided. The roots are given in decoc-
tion. Chervil is slightly diuretic ; the cutters
of simples distil a water from its leaves, which
they consider excellent in colics. Il is much
used in France for salads ; and is mentioned
as a potherb by Gerarde. The parsley-leaved
chervil (Scandix cerifolium) and fern-leaved
chervil (S. odorata), are still cultivated by the
Dutch for soups, salads, &c.; but in this coun-
try they are not often found in the kitchen gar-
den. Seed may be said to be the only means
of propagation, and the only sowing of this
that can be depended upon must be performed
in early autumn, immediately after it is ripe ;
for if kept until the following spring, it will
seldom germinate ; or if this first grade of
vegetation takes place, the seedlings are gene-
rally weak, and die away during the hot
weather.

The seed may be sown in drills eight inches
apart, or broadcast ; in either mode being
only just covered. The plants are to be thin-
ned to eight inches asunder, and to remain
where they are raised. The only after-culti-
vation required by them is the keeping them
clear of weeds.

CHESSEL. The mould or vat in which the
cheese is formed. It is made of thick staves,
generally of white or American oak, bound
with two strong iron hoops to withstand the
necessary pressure. Thft chessel is perforated
with many small holes in the bottom and sides
to let the whey drain out of the curd.

CHEST. The breast; or that part of an
animal's body which contains the heart ~and
the lungs.

CHEST-FOUNDER. In farriery, a disease
incident to horses, which proceeds from in-
flammation about the chest and ribs.

CHESTNUT, or CHESNUT (Fa^s-casta-
nea). The species cultivated in England are
the common or sweet chestnut, of which there
are two kinds, the Spanish (Cos. vesca) and the
American {C as. Americana); — and the horse
chestnut, which belongs to a distinct genus.
The true chestnut tree flourishes on poor gra-
velly or sandy soils, and will thrive in any but
41

moist oT" marshy situations. It has been much
questioned whether the chestnut is indigenous
or exotic. It was at one time very common in
England, and a great many chestnuts have
been planted within the last thirty years. It is
long-lived, grows to an immense size, and is
very ornamental. The wood is hard and com-
pact; when young, it is tough and flexible;
but when old it is brittle and often shaky.
When divested of its sap wood, this timber
will stand in situations exposed to wet and dry
longer than oak ; and for gate-posts it ranks in
durability next after the acacia, the yew, and
probably it lasts longer than the larch. The
nuts form an article for our dessert. In some
parts of the continent they are frequently used
as a substitute for bread, and form a large pro-
portion of the food of the inhabitants. In Eng-
land, during the three years ending with 1831,
the entries of foreign chestnuts for home con-
sumption averaged 20,948 bushels a year, and
they pay a duty of 2s. per bushel.

The fruit is used either boiled, roasted, or in
a raw state. Phillips informs us that in the
south of France, in Italy, and Savoy, they are
made into puddings, cakes, and bread. And
"chestnuts stewed with cream make a much
admired dish ; they make excellent soup ; and
stewed and served with salt fish they are much
admired." We are also further informed that
there is now at Fortsworth, in Gloucestershire,
a great chestnut tree, fifty-two feet round,
which in 1150 was so remarkable that it was
called The great chestnut of Fortsworth. And
Marsham states that this tree is 1100 years old.
Lastly, the timber of this tree is almost incor-
ruptible, and more durable than oak. Its dura-
bility is commensurate with the long life of the
tree. Corsica, it is said, exports annually of
this fruit to the amount of 100,000 crowns.
The American chestnut differs very little from
that of Europe. The fruit is smaller, but
equally good. Its growth is very rapid. The
bark for tanning is superior to oak.

The chestnut is raised from the seeds,
planted in autumn ; the second year, they are
transplanted, and fine varieties are extended
by grafting. A sandy or gravelly loam, with
a dry subsoil, best suits them.

The Spanish or Portuguese chestnut suc-
ceeds well in the United States, and produces
fruit in about seven years from the seed. Its
growth is more rapid than that of the native kind.
The fruit is more than four times larger, and
brings a much higher price in the market. It
may be budded on the common chestnut, but
is apt to overgrow the stock. The large Spa-
nish chestnut deserves to be extensively propa-
gated.

Michaux, in his North American Sylva, vol.
iii., gives the following directions for the cul-
ture of the chestnut :

" After the ground has been carefully loos-
ened with the plough and harrow, lines are
drawn six feet apart, in which holes about a
foot in depth and diameter are formed, at the
distances of four feet. A chestnut is placed in
each corner of the hole, and covered with about
three inches of earth. As the soil has been
thoroughly subdued, the nuts will spring and
strike root with facility. Early in the second

321

CHESTNUT, HOUSE.

CHICK PEA.

year, three of the young plants are removed !
from each hole, and only the most thriving is '
left. 'J'he third or fourth year, when the
branches begin to interfere with each other,
every second tree is suppressed. To insure
its subcess, the plantation should be begun in
March or April, with nuts that have been kept
in the cellar during the winter, in sand or ve-
getable mould, and that have already began to
germinate."

Mr. Hopkins of Cayuga county, made some
experiments in planting chestnuts. In his first
attempt, he kept the nuts till the setting in of
winter, or December, when he planted them
four feet apart every way, and not one of them
grew. The next year he procured a quantity
of nuts as soon as gathered, planted them im-
mediately, and covered them superficially with
leaves and light earth, at the same distance as
before. Most of them came up and grew well.
There can be no doubt, where the ground is
so situated as to be free from the attacks of
squirrels, mice, &c., that immediate planting
after the nuts are gathered is the best mode,
otherwise the plan of Michaux may be pre-
ferred. The best soil is a clay loam. (Tred-
goWs Princip. of Carpentry; M^CuUocKs Com.
Diet. ; WUlidCs Dom. Ency. ; Phillip's Hist, of
Fruits, p. 84.)

CHESTNUT, HORSE (JEsculus hippocasta-
num). This ornamental tree, now so common
throughout Europe, is a native of Asia. The
first plant is said to have been brought into
Europe by the celebrated botanist Clusius in a
portmanteau. It is too well known to require
description. The wood is soft and of little
value. The fruit contains much nutritive mat-
ter, but it is combined with a nauseous bitter
extractive, which renders it unfit for the food
of man ; but horses, kine, goats, and sheep
are fond of it. The bark of the tree contains
an astringent, bitter principle, which operates
as a tonic. It has cured agues, and some au-
thors affirm that it might be a substitute for
the Peruvian bark; but trials and experience
have not justified their opinion. Given in a
decoction, made with an ounce of the bark to
a pint of water, it may be advantageously
taken, to strengthen the habit weakened by
previous disease. See Buckeye.
CHEVIOT SHEEP. See Sheep.
CHEWING-BALL. In farriery, the name
of a medicine in the form of balls adapted to
restore lost appetite in horses.

CHEWING THE CUD. The operation of
leisurely re-chewing or masticating the food in
ruminating animals, as the cow, sheep, &c. :
by this means the food is more effectually
broken down, and mixed with the saliva. If a
ruminant animal ceases to chew the cud, im-
mediate illness may be expected, as the diges-
tive organs cannot act without this natural
process. See an excellent article " On Rumi-
nation, or Chewing the Cud," in the Quart.
Journ. of Jgr., p. 344. Rumination, in certain
gmminiverous animals, has plainly for one
o^ct a renewed and repeated introduction of
oxygen, for a more minute mechanical division
of the food only shortens the time required for
solution. (Liebig's Animal Ckemis!ry.)

CHICCORY, or SUCCORY iCichorium inty-
322

bus). An English perennial weed, the wild
endive, common on the borders of coni-fields
and poor gravelly soils; extensively cultivated
in Belgium, Holland, and Germany. The cul-
tivated variety was much brought into notice
by the late Arthur Young, as a forage plant.
He brought the seed from France in 1788, and
grew it extensively on his own farm ; and re-
ports {Annuls of Agr. xxxix.), "The quantity
of seed required to sow one acre is 13 lbs.
The root runs deep into the ground, and is
white, fleshy, and yields a milky juice. On
the Continent, the dried root is roasted and
used instead of coffee, and it is now allowed
by the excise to be mixed with coffee. The
root contains a strong bitter, which may be
extracted by infusion; it is also used in the
brewing of beer to save hops." Mr. Gorrie
{Quart. Journ. of Agr. N. S. vol. iv. p. 206)
says, "No plant cultivated in this country will
bring the cow-feeder nearly an equal return
with the chiccory." It should be added, how-
ever, that the leaves give a bad tas^te to the
milk of the cows which eat them. {JSrit. Hush,
vol. iii. art. " Flem. Husb." p. 42.) And Von
Thiler, in his Principles of Agriculture (2d ed.
vol. iv. p. 322), asserts that it is extremely dif-
ficult to eradicate from the land, and has been
found to materially impoverish the soil.

Wild succory, or chiccory is becoming ex-
tensively naturalized in many parts of the
United States. The species called Endive^
(C. endiva), especially the variety called CHspc^'
with very narrow and ragged leaves, is much
cultivated in the vicinity of Philadelphia as an
early salad. There are no native species of
chiccory in the United States. {Flor. Cest.)

When cultivated for soiling or feeding
horses and cattle in the farm-yard, for which
purpose it is admirably adapted, its rapid and
luxuriant growth admits of its being cut three
or four times a year.

When the roots are used as a substitute for
coffee, they should be first cleaned, then put
into an oven after the bread has been taken
out, and allowed to remain until cool. Should
once baking be not sufficient, the process is to
be repeated, after which, mix with one-half of
coffee.

The fresh root of chiccory, when sliced and
pressed, yields a juice which is slightly tonic ;
and has been used in chronic affections of the
stomach, connected with torpid liver. See
ExDivE. {Sinclair's Hort. Gram. Wob. p. 412;
M'Culloch's Com. Diet.; IVillich's Dom. Encye. ;
Brit. Husb. vol. ii. p. 303.)

CHICK, or CHICKEN. See Poultrt.
CHICK PEA {Ciecr arietinum). PI. 7, t.
A plant too delicate for field culture in Eng-
land ; but in the south of France it is grown
for the same purpose as vetches in England.
The seeds are used in Germany and some
other parts of Europe as a substitute for coffee,
and the plant is sometimes called the cofPee-pea.
It is called by the Spaniards, who cultivate "it
largely, Garbanza. It is likewise a great fa-
vourite with the French, who call it Poisrhiche.
It grows well in several of the Middle States,
where it might doubtless be made a valuable
crop, as it maintains a high price in European
markets.

CHICKWEED.

CHINCAPIN.

I

In every part of America and the West In- !
dian islands settled by Sparniards, they have j
always made the culture of the garbanza a 1
primary object, and it is somewhat singular .
that it has not become better known and ap- |
predated in the United States, in most parts of \
which it grows well. Trials made with it in 1
the vicinity of Dover, Delaware, have proved !
very successful. The Spanish pea or garbanza, !
is perhaps the most delicious vegetable of its
class ever placed upon the table, possessing, I
when served up in the manner of green peas, [
ihe flavour of these, mixed with that of green
corn, or, as others think, something between
the marrow fat pea and Lima bean. They do
not yield so abundantly as the common pea,
but both in a green and dry state are much su-
perior in flavour and richness. A meal made
of the dried garbanzas is much used in Paris
and other parts of Europe for thickening soup,
which it renders extremely fine. In Provence
and other parts of southern Europe, the chick
pea is a great favourite when roasted or
parched, like ground or pea nuts, and hawked
about the streets. In Paris, the dried garbanzas
retail for about twenty-four cents per pound.
They grow best in a rich sandy loam, and may
be cultivated in rows, much alter the manner
of the common pea. Not being a trailing vine,
they require no sticking, the plants growing
only about eighteen or twenty inches high, and
branching out so as very much to resemble a
small locust tree or bunch of rue. The pods
are very short and round, containing only two,
three, or four peas each, somewhat larger than
common pulse. Being very tender, they will
not, perhaps, bear to be planted at the same
time with common peas. In Spain, where the
chick pea is very abundant and in general use,
two kinds are distinguished by the names of
garbanzos and garbanzas, the last being the
largest, most delicate, and tender. Those raised
in Spain are considered superior to such as
are the product of the soutli of France. The
pellicle which covers them seems to be almost
entirely removed by the process of cooking.
After being dried they require soaking in cold
water during the night previous to the day
they are used. They do not seem to be the
prey of any insect, and will keep sound and
sweet for years. It is the gram of India. (Pax-
ton*8 Bot. Diet.; Low's Agr. p. 286.)

CHICKWEED. A low, creeping weed, of
which there are several varieties. The com-
mon chickweed, or stitch-wort (Slellaria media),
has an annual, small, tapering root ; flowering
from March to December. Small birds and
poultry eat the seeds, and whole herb; whence
its name. Swine are extremely fond of it ; and
it is eaten by cows and horses ; but is not re-
lished by sheep, and is refused by goats. The
herb may be boiled for the table like spinach :
it is reported to be nutritive. This foreigner
is extensively naturalized in the United States.
It is a hardy little plant, and when the winters
are mild in the Middle States, may be found in
flower in every month of the year. (Flor. Ces-
trica.) The field chickweed {Cerastium arvense)
is a perennial, from four inches to a foot in
length, found in fields and on banks and hil-
locks, on a gravelly or chalky soil. In this

order there are seven other species of mouse-
ear chickweed, viz., two kinds of broad-leaved
(C. viilgatuiii and C. latifolium) ; the narrow-
leaved (Cr/srossum) ; the little mouse-ear (C.
scmi'dccandum) ; the four-cleft (C tctrandum) ;.
the alpine (C alpinum) ; and the water (C.
aquatiatm). These call for no observation.
The berry-bearing sort, which grows with
smooth erect stalks, and the stamens longer
than the petals, is the wild lychnis, or white
behen, and is a very rambling weed, natural to
most parts of England, frequently called spat-
tling-poppy. Its roots are perennial, and strike
so deep into the earth that they are not easily
destroyed by the plough ; for which reason,
bunches of this plant are too common among
corn, in land which has not been perfectly well
tilled. Summer-fallowing, and carefully har-
rowing out the roots, which should then be
burnt, is the best and most effectual remedy.

The common chickweed grows in almost
every situation, in damp or even boggy woods,
and on the driest gravel-walks in gardens. In
its wild state, this plant frequently exceeds
half a yard in height; and varies so much from
the garden chickweed, that if a person were
acquainted only with the latter, he would with
difliculty recognise it in the woods. Its small
vihite flowers, and pale green leaves spreading
in all directions, sufficiently point it out to our
notice. It may be considered as a natural
barometer; for if the flowers are closed, it is a
certain sign of rain, while, during dry weather,
they are regularly open from nine o'clock in
the morning till noon. The plant boiled in
vinegar and salt is said to cleanse breakings-
out or eruptions of the hands and legs. (Smith's
Eng. Fior. vol. ii. p. 301 ; Sinclair's Weeds, p.
52 ; Willich's Dom. Enryc.)

CHILIAN CLOVER. This plant, which is
called Spanish clover, and in South America,
Alfalfa, is identical with luzerne. Two com-
munications upon the subject, by a person who
had spent some time in Chili, may be found in
the 14th volume of the Americaii Farmer^
pages 108 and 153.

CHINCAPIN, or CHINQUEPIN {Castanea
pumila). The limits of this American tree,
which bears a very small kind of round and
pointed chestnut, is bounded northward by the
river Delaware, on which it is found to the
distance of nearly 100 miles from Cape May.
It is very common in Delaware and Maryland,
still more so in the lower part of Virginia and
other southern and Southwestern States both
east and west of the Mississippi. It abounds
most where the common chestnut is wanting.
Though in its northern limits, this dwarf
chestnut seldom rises higher than from six to
ten feet; much further south it often grows to
the height of thirty or forty feet, with a diame-
ter of twelve or fifteen inches. The leaves,
flower, and fruit-bur, resemble those of the
common chestnut in miniature, being about
half the size. The wood of the chincapin is
finer-grained, more compact, heavier, and even
more durable than that of the chestnut, and is
admirably adapted for fence-posts, lasting in
the ground more than forty years. But the
tree rarely attains a size adapting it to such a
useful purpose in agriculture.

323

CHINCH BUG.

CHIVES.

A species of the chincapin (Castanca alni-
folia), remarkable for its dwarf growth, is
found in the Carolinas and Floridas. Mr.
Nuttall, who met with it in the vicinity of
Charle^ston, S. C, says it grows in small
patches in sandy pine barrens, has creeping
roots, and seldom exceeds a fool in height.
The nut is larger than that of the other species
of chincapins. (See NuttaWs Supplement to
Michaux.)

CHINCH BUG. A name, which, from some
resemblance to the bed-bug, especially in the
disgusting smell, has been popularly applied
to an insect often of late years occasioning
wide-spread destruction in the wheat, Indian
corn, and other grain fields of the South and
Southwestern States. Not being able to find
any scientific description of this insect and its
habits, we shall of course be compelled to cull
the best information we can collect from the
most intelligent correspondents of agricultural
periodicals, &c.

In the 7th volume of Ruflin's Farmer's Re-
gister, there are several communications rela-
tive to the chinch bug, some of which draw a
most deplorable picture of its ravages in the
old counties of Virginia, where they not only
often destroy the corn, wheat, and other grain-
crops, but lay waste the pastures. They a*e
described as small and black, with white
wings ; in their form, close and compact, and
about the size of a bed-bug. They creep on
the ground, seldom using their wings, and ap-
pear to be hardy. Whatever crop they get
into, they generally stick about the plants near
the ground, although they may sometimes be
seen scattered all over stalks of Indian c(»rn,
the blades, and even down into the bud. W^hen
they attack wheat, oats, &c.,they cluster around
the stalk in incredible numbers, and seem to
suck out its substance, so that it soon withers
and falls to the ground. When they take to
the Indian corn, the stalk and leaves sometimes
become perfectly black with them, for two feet
from the ground, leaving not a spot of green to
be seen, except about five or six inches of the
tips of the blades, the bugs hanging to the
lower portions like bees when swarming.
" We are," says one of Dr. Ruffin's corres-
pondents, " harvesting our wheat crop, in
which they got rather too late to destroy it en-
tirely, but on many farms have seriously in-
jured it, many places in the fields being quite
destroyed. On following after the scythes, you
rnay see millions of the bugs, of all sizes and
colours, red, black, and gray, running in the
greatest consternation in every possible direc-
'ion, seeking shelter under the sheaves of
wheat, and bunches of grass, which may hap-
pen to be near. But all those on the borders
of the field, and indeed on every part of it, very
oon quit the dry and hard stubble for the more
tender and juicy corn or oats, whichsoever
may be nearest at hand ; and now commences
their havoc and dreadful devastation. We see
Unhealthy, dark-green, luxuriant oat, which a
ii^ days before looked so beautiful and rich,
torn pale, wither and die, almost at their very
touch. It would seem exaggeration and almost
incredible to state how very prolific this de-
vouring insect is, their increase being so pro-
324

digiously great as to appear to be the work of
magic.

" In one day and night they had been known
to advance fifteen or twenty yards deep in a
field, destroying as they proceed. Unless some
kind dispensation of Providence delivers us
from this ruthless enemy to the farming in-
terest, it is impossible to say to what extent
their ravages will, and may extend, in the
course of a year or two. To us farmers, who
are dependent on the productions of the earth,
for our every thing, it is truly awful. And if
their increase in future is commensurate with
the past, it must be but a short time before this
section of country will be laid waste by this
dreadful depredator, and its inhabitants re-
duced to want and misery. Every attempt
hitherto made to arrest their progress, or de-
stroy them, has proved abortive. Some have
attempted to drive them from their corn by
pouring boiling water over them ; a remedy,
for the corn, as bad as the disease. Others
try to stop their ingress to the corn-fields by
digging ditches around the fields ; but with no
avail, as they are furnished with wings in a
short time after they are hatched, and of course
can easily fly over the ditches. Would it not
be advisable always to sow clover, or some
other tender grass, with all small grain, to in-
duce the bug to remain in the field after the
grain is taken away long enough to enable the
corn crop to get size and age, so as not to be
seriously injured by them 1 I have observed
that the older the plant, the much less liable it
is to be either injured or attacked." (Farmer's
Register.)

Among the remedies proposed against this
destructive insect, are the following : — Burn-
ing up the leaves and rubbish of any woods in
the vicinity of grain fields, so as to kill the in-
sects in their winter retreats; also the stalks
of corn, &c., where they are often found. It is
said that they are natives of the forest, and
that where these are occasionally burnt they
never become troublesome. Digging ditches
so as to intercept the progress of the bugs, fill-
ing the excavations with straw in which the
insects generally halt a little while, during
which time the straw is to be burnt so as to
carry destruction to the enemy. This opera-
tion is to be repeated during the day. Burning
them up, com and all, has been attended with
advantage in preventing further destruction,
and also put an end to the further multiplica-
tion of the swarm.

CHINE. In horsemanship, the back-bone,
or ridge of the back. In pork, that part of the
back which contains the back-bone.

CHISLEY LAND. Soil between sandy and
clayey, containing a large admixture of small
pebbles or gravel.

CHIVES or CIVES (Mlium schcsnopramm).

This plant is a perennial, flowering in May and

June. It is easily propagated by offsets of the

roots. The time for making plantations is

j January or February : however, March is the

' month to be preferred to either ; but if pre-

j viously neglected, it may be performed as late

i as June. It is also planted in the autumn.

I They are to be inserted by the dibble, eight or

I ten inches apart, and eight or ten offsets iu '

CHLORTOE OF LIME.

CHOCOLATE.

each hole. The only cultivation required is to
keep them free from weeds. By autumn they
multiply into large-sized bunches ; and if re-
quired may be taken up as soon as the leaves
decay, and be stored, after the necessary
precautions, as a substitute for the onion :
the leaves, which are fit for use as long as they
remain green, must, when required, be cut
down close to the ground, when they will
speedily be succeeded by others. (G. W. John-
ion's Kitvh. Garden.)

CHLORIDE OF LIME. This substance is
a compound of lime in its slacked state, or as
a hydrate and chlorine. The combination is
loose, and the chlorine is exposed to the air,
affording the colour of that gas. It dissolves
only partially in water; and the solution when
exposed to the air, evolves chlorine, whilst the
freed lime attracts carbonic acid, and forms an
insoluble carbonate of lime, which collects in
the bottom of the vessel. The use of the
chloride of lime, or bleaching-powder, has
been recently proposed again as a manure ;
and I am much inclined to believe that on hot
sandy soils, if used in proper proportions, it
would be productive of very good results ; for
it not only, when applied with the seed, stimu-
lates its germination, but also by gradually
giving out a portion of its chlorine, and being
converted into carbonate of lime, it produces
much good. It is only in this way that chloride
of lime can be useful to vegetation, unless, as
an experiment of Mr. Fincham's suggests, its
odour may be found to keep off the attacks of
the fly ; for chloride of lime is certainly not a
food, nor constituent part of vegetation.

It is important not to confound chloride of
lime with chloride of calcium, which is a com-
pound of chlorine and the metallic basis of
lime. The latter salt is a perfect chemical
compound; but the former is an imperfect
combination of chlorine and lime ; and, as the
lime has a greater aflinity for carbonic acid
than for chlorine, it attracts the former and
evolves the latter when it is exposed to the air.
Davy investigated the fertilizing, or rather
stimulating properties of chlorine, but he made
no experiment on its compounds : what he did
he did well; yet in this instance he stopped
short at the very threshold of the investigation.
But he shall tell his own story: — "There are
several chemical menstrua," says this great
chemist, " which render the process of germi-
nation more rapid, when the seeds have been
steeped in them. As in these cases the seed
leaves are quickly produced, and more speedily
perform their functions, I proposed it as a sub-
ject of experiment, to examine whether such
menstrua might not be useful in raising the
turnip more speedily to that state in which it
would be secure from the fly ; but the result
proved that the practice was inadmissible ; for
seeds so treated, though they germinated much
quicker, did not produce healthy plants, and
often died soon after sprouting. I steeped
radish seeds, in September, 1807, for twelve
hours in a solution of chlorine, and similar
seeds in very diluted nitric acid, and in very
diluted sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), in weak
solution of ox-sulphate of iron (green vitriol),
and some in common water. The seeds in so-

lutions of chlorine and ox-sulphate of iron
threw out the germ in two days, those in nitric
acid in three days, in sulphuric acid in five,
and those in water in five. But in every case
of premature germination, though the plume
was very vigorous for a short time, yet it be-
came at the end of a fortnight weak and sickly,
and at that period less vigorous in its growth
than the sprouts which had been naturally de-
veloped, so that there can be scarcely any
useful application of these experiments. Too
rapid growth and premature decay seem in-
variably connected in organized structures,
and it is only by following the slow operations
of natural causes that we are capable of
making improvements." {Asx- Chetn. p. 217.)

Chloride of lime is prepared in large quan-
tities for the service of the bleachers in most
of the manufacturing districts. It is composed,
according to the analysis of Dr. Marcel, of

P»rU.

Chlorine - - - -
Liaie - - - - -

63 23
36-77

100

Dr. Ingenhouz, in a paper published by the
Board of Agriculture in 1816, remarks, in al-
luding to some experiments he had tried at
Hertford in company with the Baron Dimsdale
with various salts, — " Be it sufficient to say
here, that of all the neutral salts we tried, the
glauber salt did seem to be one of the best in
promoting vegetation; and the steeping the
seeds in water, impregnated with oxygenated
marine salt (which is now employed in bleach-
ing linen in an expeditious way), had a par-
ticularly beneficial effect in producing vigorous
and early plants. We were somewhat as-
tonished that those seeds, viz: of wheat, rye,
barley, and oats, which had been steeped in
the above mentioned oxygenated muriatic
liquid, even during forty-eight hours, did thrive
admirably well; whereas, the same seeds
steeped during so long a time, in some of the
other medicated liquids, were much hurt, or
had lost their vegetative power. The same
oxygenated liquid poured upon the ground had
also a beneficial effect." These experiments
of Ingenhouz were made, it appears, in 1795.
See Salts, their uses to vegetation. Leibig
regards chloride of lime as a fertilizing salt,
its virtues being similar to that of plaster of
Paris, both of which, he says, fix the ammonia
which is brought into the soil in rain water,
which ammonia is indispensable for the nou-
rishment of plants. A few table-spoonfuls of
chloride of lime or bleaching salts, sprinkled
occasionally in privies and other places where
it may be required, corrects offensive odours.
(BnY." Far?n. Mag. vol. ii. p. 258 ; " On Ferti- •
lizers," p. 366.)

CHOCOLATE is an alimentary preparation
of very dncient use in Mexico, from which
country it was introduced into Europe by the
Spaniards in the year 1520, and by them long
kept a secret from the rest of the world. Lin-
noeus was so fond of it, that he gave the spe-
cific name, theohroma, food of the gods, to the
cacao tree which produced it. The cacao-
beans lie in a fruit somewhat like a cucumber,
about five inches long and three and a half
2E 325

CHOCOLATE.

CHRYSALIS.

thick, which contains from 20 to 30 beans, ar-
ranged in five regular rows with partitions
between, and which are surrounded with a
rose-coJoured -spongy substance, like that of
wate^r-melons. There are fruits, however, so |
large as to contain from 40 to 50 beans. Those
grown in the West India islands, Berbice and
Demarara, are much smaller, and have only
from 6 to 15; their developement being less
perfect than in South America. After the ma-
turation of the fruit, when their green colour
has changed to a dark-yellow, they are plucked,
opened, their beans cleared of the marrowy
substance, and spread out to dry in the air.
Like almonds, they are covered with a thin
skin or husk. In the West Indies they are imme-
diately packed up for the market when they are
dried; but in the Caraccas they are subjected
to a species of slight fermentalion, by putting
them into tubs or chests, covering them with
boards or stones, and turning them over every
morning, to equalize the operation. They emit
a good deal of moisture, lose the natural bit-
terness and acrimony of their taste by this
process, as well as some of their weight. In-
stead of wooden tubs, pits or trenches dug in
the ground are sometimes had recourse to for
curing the beads; an operation called earthwg
(ten-cr). They are lastly exposed to the sun,
and dried. The latter kind are reckoned the
best ; being larger, rougher, of a darker brown
colour, and, when roasted, throw off their husk
readily, and split into several irregular frag-
ments ; they have an agreeable, mild,, bitterish
taste, without acrimony. The Guinea and
West India sorts are smaller, flatter, smoother-
skinned, lighter-coloured, more sharp and
bitter to the taste. They answer best for the
extraction of the butter of cacao, but afford a
less aromatic and agreeable chocolate. Ac-
cording to Lampadius, the kernels of the West
India cacao beans contain, in 100 parts, besides
water, 53-1 of fat or oil, 16-7 of an albuminous
brown matter, which contains all the aroma of
the bean, 10-91 of starch, 7| of gum or muci-
lage, 0-9 of lignine, and 2-01 of a reddish dye-
stuff somewhat akin to the pigment of cochi-
neal. The husks form twelve per cent, of the
weight of the beans; they contain no fat, but,
besides lignine, or woody fibre, which consti-
tutes half their weight, they yield a light-brown
mucilaginous extract by boiling in water. The
fatty matter is of the consistence of tallow,
white, of a mild, agreeable taste, called butter
of cacao, and not apt to turn rancid by keeping.
It melts only at 122° Fahr., and should, there-
fore, make tolerable candles. It is soluble in
boiling alcohol, but precipitates in the cold.
It is obtained by exposing the beans to strong
pressure in canvass bags, after they have been
steamed or soaked in boiling water for some
time. From five to six ounces of butter may
be thus obtained from a pound of cacao. It
has a reddish tinge when first expressed, but
it becomes white by boiling with water.
^"The beans, being freed from all spoiled and
n«)uldy portions, are to be gently roasted over
a fire in an iron cylinder, with holes in its
ends for allowing the vapors to escape; the
apparatus being similar to a coffee-roaster.
When the aroma begins to be well developed,
326

the roasting is known' to be finished; and the
beans must be turned out, cooled, and freed by
fanning and sifting from their husks. The
kernels are then to be converted into a paste,
by trituration in a mortar heated to 130° Fah.
The chocolate paste has usually in France a
little vanilla incorporated with it, and a con-
siderable quantity of sugar, which varies from
one-third of its weight to equal parts. For a
pound and a half of cacao, one pod of vanilla
is suflicient. Chocolate paste improves in its
flavour by keeping, and should therefore be
made in large quantities at a time. But the
roasted beans soon lose their aroma, if exposed
to the air.

"Chocolate is flavoured with cinnamon and
cloves, in several countries, instead of the
more expensive vanilla. In roasting the beans,
the heat should be at first very slow, to give
time to the humidity to escape; a quick fire
hardens the surface, and injures the process.
In putting the paste into the tin plate, or other
moulds, it must be well shaken down, to in-
sure its filling up all the cavities, and giving
the sharp and polished impression so much
admired by connoisseurs. Chocolate is some-
times adulterated with starch ; in which case
it will form a pasty consistenced mass when
treated with boiling water. The harder the
slab upon which the beans are triturated, the
better; and hence porphyry is far preferable
to marble. The grinding rollers of the mill
should be made of iron, and kept very clean."
{lire's Diet, of Jrts, &c.)

A substance called theobromin has been re-
cently obtained from chocolate by a European
chemist. It contains thirty-five per cent, of
nitrogen, a larger proportion than that con-
tained in caffeine.

CHOKE-DAMP, a common term applied to
a kind of foul air, often met with in wells, pits,
mines, &c. It consists of carbonic acid gass,
with or without a mixture of nitrogen. It is a
source of great danger to persons descending
into wells and pits. See Carbonic acih Gass.

CHOLIC, or COLIC. See Horses, Cattle,
Sheep, Diseases of.

CHOPPER, HAY. See Chaff-enoines. A
new and very efiicient straw-cutter under the
title of the " Canadian Straw and Hay-chop-
per," is figured and described in the Trans.
High. Soc. vol. vi. p. 336. One person driving
the machine can, it is said, cut with ease 5 cwt.
of hav or straw in an hour.

C H O U G HNr RED LEGGED CROW
(Fregilus grandus). The plumage of this Bri-
tish bird is uniformly black, glossed with blue;
beak, legs, and toes, vermilion red; claws, black.

CHRONIC COUGH. In horses, this is a
frequent consequence of chest diseases. In a
few instances this seems to be connected with
worms ; and if the coat is unthrifty, the flanks
tucked up, and there is mucus around the anus,
it will be proper to put the connexion between
the worms and the cough to the test ; other-
wise a sedative medicine may suffice to allay
the irritation. (Clafer's Far. p. 123.)

CHRYSALIS. Many worms or larvae, after
they hSve attained their full growth, leave off
eating entirely and remain at rest in a death-
like sleep. This is called the pupa state, from

CHURN.

CIDER.

\

a fancied resemblance to the manner in which
the Roman children were trussed in bandages.
The pupae from caterpillars are most common-
ly called chrysalids and aurelia. Grubs, after
their transformation, are often called nymphs.
Having passed through its change, the insect
merges from its chrysalis, or pupa, perforates
the shell and silken envelope, and makes its
appearance in a winged form, which is its last
or perfect state.

" In every species there may be distinguished
two sides; the one of which is the back, and
the other the belly of the animal. On the an-
terior part of the latter there may always be
observed certain little elevations running in
ridges : the other side, or the back, in most of
the chrysalises, is smooth, and of a rounded
figure: but some have ridges on the anterior
part and sides of this part, usually terminating
in a point and making an angular appearance.
From this difference is drawn the first general
distinction of these bodies, by which they are
divided into two classes ; the round and the
angular. The first, French naturalists call
feves ; the chrysalis of the silk-worm being of
this description, and so named. This division
is extremely convenient to classification, the
phalancp or moths being almost universally pro-
duced by the rounded chrysalises, and the papi-
lios, day-flies, from the angular. Among the
latter, are some whose colours are as worthy
of observation as the forms of others. Many
of them appear superbly clothed in gold.
These species obtained the names of chrysalis
and aurelia; derived, the one from a Greek, the
other from a Latin word, signifying gold."
(Domestic Ency.')

CHURN (cejinan ; Goth, kcma ; Dutch, kemen.
Our old authors wrote it cherne, and kern is yet
a local word, and generally used north of the
Tweed). A vessel in which cream is coagu-
lated by long and violent agitation. There are
many different kinds of churns, but those most
generally used are the upright or Dutch plunge
churn and the barrel-churn. In large dairies
churns are frequently turned by means of a
horse ; this is particularly the case in Flan-
ders, where churns are used which will make
forty or fifty pounds of butter at a time. In
the large dairies of Cheshire they are now often
driven by small high pressure steam-engines.
On such farms as have thrashing-mills, churns
might be very conveniently attached to and
wrought by them. An improved butter-churn
by Mr. C. Harley of Fenchurch-street, and an-
other by Mr. W. Bowler, to which the Society
for the improvement of the Arts, &c., awarded
a prize of thirty guineas, are described in Wil-
lirh's Domestic Encyc. Chums should admit the
air; and hence it has been argued that the
common churn, which allows this most con-
veniently, is, after all, the best.

CIBOULE, or WELSH ONION. See Oxrox.

CICADA. See Grasshopper and Locusts.

CIDER, or CYDER (Fr. cidre ; Ger. zider ;
Ital. cidro; Russ. sidor ; Span, sidra). A sharp
and vinous beverage made by fermenting the
juice of apples.

Cider, or the fermented juice of the apple,
constitutes the principal vinous beverage of the

citizens of New England, of the Middle Stales,
and of the older states of the West. Good cider
is deemed a pleasant, wholesome liquor, during
the heats of summer ; and Mr. Knight has as-
serted, and also eminent medical men, that
strong, astringent ciders have been found to
produce nearly the same effect in cases of pu-
trid fever as Port wine.

The unfermented juice of the apple consists
of water and a peculiar acid called the malic
acid, combined with the saccharine principle.
Where a just proportion of the latter is want-
ing, the liquor will be poor and watery, with-
out body, very difficult to preserve and manage.
In the process of fermentation, the saccharine
principle is in part converted to alcohol.
Where the proportion of the saccharine prin-
ciple is wanting, the deficiency must be sup-
plied, either by the addition of a saccharine
substance before fermentation, or by the addi-
tion of alcohol after fermentation ; for every
one must know that all good wine or cider
contains it, elaborated by fermentation, either
in the cask or in the reservoirs at the distillery.
The best and the cheapest kind is the neutral
spirit — a highly rectified and tasteless spirit,
obtained from New England rum. Some, how-
ever, object to any addition of either sugar or
alcohol to supply deficiencies, forgetful that
these substances are the very elements of
which all wine, cider, and vinous liquors are
composed.

The strength of the cider depends on the
specific gravity of the juice on expression:
this may be easily ascertained by weighing,
or by the hydrometer.

According to the experiments of Major Ad-
lum, of Georgetown, District of Columbia, it
appeared that when two pounds of sugar were
dissolved in a gallon of rain water, the bulk
occupied by 1000 grains of rain water weighed
1087 grains. From this it would appear that
the juice produced by the best known apple
contains about two pounds of sugar in a gal-
lon. Mr. Marshall has assf rted that a gentle-
man, Mr. Bellamy, of Herefordshire, England,
has by skill "produced cider from an apple
called Hagloe Crab, which, for richness, fla-
vour, and price on the spot, exceeds, perhaps,
every other liquor which nature or art has pro-
duced. He has been offered sixty guineas for
a hogshead of 110 gallons of this liquor."
Newark, in New Jersey, is reputed one of the
most famous places in America for its cider.
The cider apple most celebrated there is the
Harrison apple, a native fruit; and cider made
from this fruit, when fined and fit for bottling,
frequently brings $10 per barrel, according to
Mr. Coxe. This and the Hughs' Virginia Crab
are the two most celebrated cider apples of
America. Old trees, growing in dry soils, pro-
duce, it is said, the best cider. A good cider
apple is saccharine and astringent.

To make good cider, the first requisite is
suitable fruit; it is equally necessary that the
fruit should be not merely mellow, but thorough-
ly mature, rotten apples being excluded; and
ripe, if possible, at the suitable period, or about
the first of November, or from the first to the
middle, after the excessive heat of the season

327

CIDER.

CIDER.

is past, and while sufficient warmth yet re-j
mains to enable the fermentation to progress
slowly, as it ought.

The fruit should be gathered by hand, or
shaken from the tree in dry weather, when it
is at^ perfect maturity ; and the ground should
be covered with coarse cloths or Russia mats
beneath, to prevent bruising, and consequent
rottenness, before the grinding commences.
Unripe fruit should be laid in large masses,
protected from dews and rain, to siveat and
hurry on its maturity, when the suitable time
for making approaches. The earlier fruits
should be laid in thin layers on stagings, to
preserve them to the suitable period for mak-
ing, protected alike from rain and dews, and
where they may be benefited by currents of
cool, dry air.

Each variety should be • kept separate, that
th^^e ripening at the same period may be
g^^tjund together.

In grinding, the most perfect machinery
should be used to reduce the whole fruit, skin,
and seeds to a fine pulp. This should, if pos-
sible, be performed in cool weather. The late
Joseph Cooper, of New Jersey, has observed
emphatically, that " the longer a cheese lies after
being ground, before pressing, the better for the
cider, provided it escapes fermentation until the
pressing is completed;" and he further observes,
" that a sour apple, after being bruised on one
side, becomes rich and sweet after it has
changed to a brown colour, while it yet re-
tains its acid taste on the opposite side."
When the pomace united to the juice is thus
sufiered for a time to remain, it undergoes a
chemical change ; the saccharine principle is
developed; it will be found rich and sweet;
sugar is in this case produced by the prolonged
union of the bruised pulp and juice, which
could never have been formed in that quantity
had they been sooner separated.

Mr. Jonathan Rice, of Marlborough, who
made the premium cider so much admired at
Concord, Massachusetts, appears so sensible
of the important effects of mature or fully ripe
fruit, that, provided this is the case, he is
willing even to forego the disadvantage of
having a portion of them quite rotten. Let
me observe, that this rottenness must be the
effect, in part, of bruises by improper modes
of gathering, or by improper mixtures of ripe
and unripe fruit. He always chooses cool
weather for the operation of grinding; and, in-
stead of suffering the pomace to remain but
twenty-four or forty-eight hours at most before
pressing, as others have directed, he suffers it
lo remain from a week to ten days, provided the
weather will admit, stirring the mass daily till
it is put to the press. See his communication
in vol. vii. p. 123, N. E. Farmer.

The first fermentation in cider is termed the
vinous ; in this the sugar is decomposed, and
loses its sweetness, and is converted into alco-
hol; if the fermentation goes on too rapidly,
the cider is injured ; a portion of alcohol passes
ofcwith the carbonic acid.

T'he design of frequent rackings is princi-
pally to restrain the fermentation ; but it seems
to be generally acknowledged that it weakens
the liquor. It is not generally practised, al-
328

though the finest cider is often produced by
this mode.

Various other modes are adopted with the
view of restraining fermentation, one of which
is the following. After a few gallons of cider
are poured into the hogshead into which the
cider is to be placed when racked off, a rag six
inches long, previously dipped in melted brim-
stone, is attached by a wire to a very long,
tapering bung; on the match being lighted the
bung is loosely inserted; after this is con-
sumed, the cask is rolled or tumbled till the
liquor has imbibed the gas, and then filled *"
with the liquid. This checks the fermentation.
Yet the French writers assure us that the effect
of much sulphuring must necessarily render
such liquors unwholesome.

Black oxide of manganese has a similar
effect; the crude oxide is rendered friable by
being repeatedly heated red hot, and as often
suddenly cooled by immersion in cold water.
When finely pulverised, it is exposed for a
while to the atmosphere, till it has imbibed
again the oxygen which had been expelled by
fire. An ounce of powder is deemed sufficient
for a barrel. If the cider is desired to be very
sweet, it must be added before fermentation,
otherwise not till afterwards. Mr. Knight, from
his long experience and observation in a coun-
try (Herefordshire, England) famous for its
cider, has lately, in a letter to the Hon. John
Lowell, stated that the acetous fermentation \
generally takes place during the progress of
the vinous, and that the liquor from the com-
mencement is imbibing oxygen at its surface.
He highly recommends that new charcoal, in a
finely pulverized state, be added to the liquor
as it comes from the press,in the proportion of
eight pounds to the hogshead, to be intimately
incorporated; "this makes the liquor at first
as black as ink, but it finally becomes remark-
ably fine."

Dr. Darwin has recommended that the liquor,
as soon as the pulp has risen, should be placed
in a cool situation, in casks of remarkable
strength, and the liquor closely confined from
the beginning. The experiment has been tried
with good success ; the fermentation goes on
slowly, and an excellent cider is generally the
result.

A handful of well-powdered clay to a barrel
is said to check the fermentation. This is
stated by Dr. Mease. And with the view of
preventing the escape of the carbonic acid, and
to prevent the liquid from imbibing oxygen
from the atmosphere, a pint of olive oil has
been recommended to each hogshead. The
excellent cider exhibited by Mr. Rice was pre-
pared by adding two gallons of New England
rum to each barrel when first made. In Feb-
ruary or March it was racked off in clear wea-
ther, and two quarts more of New England
rum added to each barrel. Cider well ferment-
ed may be frozen down to any requisite degree
of strength. In freezing, the watery parts are
separated and freeze first, and the stronger
parts are drawn off from the centre. — I finish
by adding the following general rules ; they
will answer for all general purposes ; they are
the conclusions from what is previously stated:
1. Gather the fruit according to the foregoing

CIDER.

rules; let it be thoroughly ripe when ground,
which should be about the middle of Novem-
ber. 2. Let the pomace remain from two to
four days, according to the state of the wea-
ther, stirring it every day till it is put to the
press. 3. If the liquor is deficient in the sac-
charine principle, the defect may be remedied
in the beginning by the addition of saccharine
substances or alcohol. 4. Let the liquor be
immediately placed in a cool cellar, in remark-
ably strong, tight, sweet casks ; after the pulp has
all overflown, confine the liquor down by driv-
ing the bung hard and by sealing; a vent must
be left, and the spile carefully drawn at times,
but only when absolutely necessary to prevent
the cask from bursting. The charcoal, as re-
commended by Mr. Knight, deserves trial.

Fresh and sweet pomace directly from the
press, and boiled or steamed and mixed with
a small portion of meal, is a valuable article
of food, or for fattening horses, cattle, and
swine.

Sour casks are purified by pouring in a
small quantity of hot water, and adding un-
slacked lime; bung up the cask, and continue
shaking it till the lime is slacked. Soda and
chloride of lime are good for purifying. When
casks are emptied to be laid by, let them be
thoroughly rinsed with water and drained, then
pour into each a pint of cheap alcohol, shake
the cask and bung it tight, and it will remain
sweet for years. Musty casks should be con-
demned to other uses. Cider should not be
bottled till perfectly fine, otherwise it may burst
the bottles. The bottles should be strong, and
filled to the bottom of the neck. After standing
an hour, they should be corked with velvet
corks. The lower end of the cork is held for
an instant in hot water, and it is then instantly
after driven down with a mallet. The bottles
must be either sealed or laid on their sides in
boxes, or in the bottom of a cellar, and covered
with layers of sand.

Most of the above information relative to
cider-making is derived from the American Or-
chardist, by W. Ken rick, of Boston, Massachu-
setts, whose list of apple and other nursery
trees comprehends almost every kind desirable
for any purpose.

The reader will find very explicit instruc-
tions for the manufacture of cider in the Penny
Cyclop, vol. vii. p. 161; in the Lib. of Useful
Knoit. ; Brit. Ilusb. vol. ii. p. 364 ; Low's Pract.
Agr. p. 379 ; Croker, On the Art of Making and
Managing Cyder; in the Quart. Journ. of Agr.
vol. viii. p. 332, by Mr. Towers ; and in Bax-
ter's Agr. Lib. p. 135, by Andrew Crosse, Esq.,
of SomerseL The following instructions for
making cider are by a Devonshire lady.

Gather the fruit when ripe; let it remain in
a heap till the apples begin to get damp, then
grind them in a mill (similar to a malt mill);
take the pulp and put it into a large press like
a cheese-press, only on a much larger scale
place a layer of reed in the bottom of the vat
and a layer of pulp alternately until the vat is
full. The vat is square, and the ends of the
reed must be allowed to turn over every layer
of pulp, so as to keep it from being pressed
out at the sides : the layers of pulp must be
five or six inches thick. When you have
42

CINQUE-FOIL.

finished making your cheese, press it as hard
as you can, and let it remain three or four
hours; then cut down the corners of it, and
lay them on the top with reed as before ; then
press it again, and allow it to remain for an-
other tliree or four hours. Repeat this process
as long as necessary, or until the cheese is
quite dry. It takes seven bags of apples for
one hogshead of cider, and the vat ought to be
large enough to make from three to four hogs-
heads at a time. The best sort of apple to
make mild cider is the hard bitter-sweet. Any
sort of sour apple will do to make the harsh
cider. The liquor must be strained through a
fine sieve into a large vessel, and allowed to
ferment for three or four days, taking off the
scum as it rises; then rack it, and put it into
casks stopped down quite close. Before the
cider is put into the cask, a match made of new
linen and attached to a wire is lighted and put
into the cask, and the bung is put in to keep the
wire from falling into it. After a few minutes
the match is removed, and the cider poured
into the cask while yet full of the smoke.

A person would require three or four years*
experience before he would be qualified to
superintend the making of sweet or made
cider. Much depends on the year, or rather
on the ripening of the apples ; it should be the
second, not the first falling; and the "green
bitter-sweet" and the " pocket apple" are the
best for making iL After pounding, isinglass
and brimstone are used to sweeten and fine it,
and many other ingredients. (A. M. K.)

The sweet cider, above described, is distinct
from the other two kinds of cider (the harsh
and mild). Cider, according to Brande, con-
tains about 9-87 parts per cent, of alcohol. It
is a wholesome beverage for those who use
much bodily exercise. (Willich^s Dom. Ency.;
M'Culloch's Com. Diet.)

CINQUE-FOIL, COMMON CREEPING, or
FIVE FINGERED GRASS {Potenlilla rep-
tans). This creeping plant is common about
waysides, and in meadows and pastures in
England, where it is a perennial, flowering in
June. Its stalks^ are round, smooth, and red,
lying upon the ground, and taking root at the
joints. The leaves stand five in number on
each foot-stalk, long and narrow in form, and
indented at the edges. The flowers are large,
of a bright yellow colour, standing upon long
foot-stalks. The root is long and large, cover-
ed with a brown rind. Smith {Eng. Flora, vol.
ii. p. 423) describes this and ten other species
of cinque-foil, all belonging to the same genus.
The root is the medicinal part, and once was
an officinal plant ; but is now discarded : dig
it up in April, take off the outer bark or rind,
and dry it. The powdered bark of the root is
astringent.

There are a dozen or more species ofcinqtie-
foil in the United States, among which is that
usually called the barren strawberry (Poten-
tilla Pennsylvanica). It is a small, perennial,
creeping plant, very frequent on road-sides,
fence-rows, and banks, having thick, branch-
ing, fibrous roots. The petals of the flowers
are bright-yellow, the first flowers often ap-
pearing when the stems are very short, but
others appear afterwards on runners, which
2 E 2 329

CINQUE-FOIL.

CLIMATE.

runners resemble those of the strawberry.
This common kind of cinque-foil in the Middle
and Northern States is frequent in worn-out
and neglected fields, and, where abundant, indi-
cates thriftless farming. The Latin name of
the genus is derived from potens, powerful;
in reference to the supposed medical virtues
of the cinque-foil family. Another species,
commonly called five-fingers (Potentilla sim-
plex), is also a very common, yellow flowered
perennial, along the borders of woods, &c.

CINQUE-FOIL, PURPLE MARSH (Coma-
rium palustre). A perennial, found in spong}--,
muddy bogs and ditches. Root, creeping ex-
tensively, with many long fibres. Stems, round,
reddish, a foot or more in height. Flowers,
several, without scent, but handsome, an inch
broad, all over of a dark purplish blood colour,
as well as the fruit. They appear in June.
(Smith's Eng. Flora, vol. ii. p. 433.)

CITRIC ACIDS. Acids contained in le-
mons and some other kinds of fruit. See
Acins, Vegetable.

CLARY, or SAGE (Salvia). Smith (Eng.
Flora, vol. i. p. 34) describes two kinds, the
meadow clary (S. pratensis), and wild English
clary (S. verbcnncd). The first is very uncom-
mon, but sometimes met with in dry meadows
and about hedges ; grows three feet high, erect;
not very aromatic; leaves, dark-green ; flowers,
large and handsome, of a fine purplish blue.
The second species is more common on gra-
velly or chalky soils, a foot or eighteen inches
high ; leaves, grayish-green ; flowers, small,
violet-blue. Seeds, black, smooth; blows from
June to October. This, plant is of great vir-
tue, and is kept in gardens on account of its
excellent flavour. The whole herb is medi-
cinal, and is equally good, freshly gathered,
or dried. It is cordial and astringent in its
quality. .

CLASPERS. The threads or tendrils of
creeping plants.

CLASS, an appellation used to denote the
most general divisions of which any thing is
susceptible. Thus in the Linnsean system of
natural history, the animal kingdom is divided
into six great classes, of mammalia, or ani-
mals which suckle their young; aves, or birds;
pisces, or fishes ; inseda, or insects ; vermes, or
worms.

In botany, the term class implies the primary
division of plants into large groups, each of
which is to be subdivided by a regular down-
ward progression, into orders, genera, and spe-
cies, with occasional intermediate subdivisions,
constituting varieties, &c., all being subordi-
nate to the division which stands immediately
above them. Each class is divided into orders,
each order into genera, each genus into species,
and each genus and species sometimes into
subgenera or subspecies. The term family is
sometimes used instead of genus, and objects
are often arranged in families, which again are
distinguished into varieties.

CLAYING OF LAND. See Mixture of

^ CLAY4CILN. A stove for burning clay.
There are two modes commonly employed,
one by kibis partly constructed of masonry,
and the other of sods ; in both of which the
330

earth is piled upon them, instead of being
placed under cover, as in a lime-kiln in Suf-
folk, where it is called clod-burning. (Brit. Husb.
vol. i. p. 369, 375.) See Ashes.

CLEANING. A term applied to the secun-
dines of the cow, ewe, &c.

CLEARING. A term applied, in thrashing
corn, to a heap large enough to be winnowed.
Clearing of land is the means of removing trees
and other obstacles and impediments to its
cultivation.

CLEAVERS, or GOOSE-GRASS. See
Hahtff.

CLEDGY. A term applied to such sorts of
land as are stift", stubborn, hard, and tenacious,
or mixed with clay.

CLEFTS. In farriery, a disease in the
heels of horses. See Cracks in Hef.ls.

CLEMATIS, VIRGIN'S BOWER (Clematis
viticella). A hardy climber, suited to trellis-
work, and propagated by layers. It blows a
bluish purple flower in July and August.
Multiply by parting its roots, and from seed.
It flourishes in any soil.

Clematis vitalba. Comnaon Traveller's Joy :
in England an indigenous shrub, found in
hedges, chiefly on calcareous soils. It is a
climber, using the footstalks of the leaves as
supports. The leaves consist of five leaflets,
stalked and heart-shaped; the flowers are
white, and have the odour of the almond or
peach blossom. Nine or ten species of clema-
tis have been found in the United States.

CLEVVY and CLEVIS, provincial words,
applied to the draft-iron of a plough.

CLICKLING. An unpleasant noise known
also by the term " overreach," which arises
from the toe of the hind foot of a horse knock-
ing against the shoe of the fore foot. If the
animal is young, the action of the horse may
be materially improved; otherwise nothing
can be done.

CLIMATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
The temperature of the atmosphere constitutes
the principal element of climate. If the tem-
peratures of places depended solely upon the
position of the earth in relation to the sun,
then would every place receiving the rays at
a similar angle be similarly heated, and places
in the same latitude in every part of the globe
would have similar climates, so far as heat
was concerned. It would therefore be very
easy to classify climates according to relative
distances from the equator or proximity to the
poles. But observations made in different
parts of the world show that in similar latitudes
climates differ greatly, as is exemplified on the
two sides of the northern Atlantic, where the
mean temperatures of places on or near the
ocean are found to differ in some cases ten de-
grees of Fahrenheit, the climate of the European
coast being that much warmer, in its annual
mean temperature, than the American in the
same latitude. When, instead of mean tempe-
ratures, extremes of heat and cold are com-
pared, the difference is still more striking.

Now, in explaining the rationale of this
well known fact, we are compelled to refer to
a grand natural phenomenon, which we shall
designate the great atmospheric circulation.
This commences in the tropical region where

CLIMATE.

CLIMATE.

the accumulated heat of the sun rarefies the
air, which, ascending into the higher regions
of the atmosphere, flows off towards the north
and south. To compensate for the loss by this
successive flowing oflf of the heated and rare-
fied portion, and maintain that equilibrium
which the barometer informs us always sub-
sists in the atmosphere throughout the globe,
lower currents of heavier air sweep into the
tropical regions from the northward and south-
ward. These last have been denominated the
polar currents, whilst ihe uppermost are de-
signated as the tropical currents; and these,
it is well known, do not flow directly north or
south, but slantwise, a fact which is ascribed
to the influence exerted by the motion of the
globe upon its axis, and the diflTerent velocities
existing atdifierent parts of its surface. Owing,
therefore, to the combined agencies of solar
heat and diurnal rotation, the lower winds in
the equatorial region have a slanting direction
from the eastward, constituting the trade winds,
which blow the year round between the tropics,
except where changed into monsoons by the
interposition of some influences by which a
change is wrought in their direction during
six months of the year. "Whilst the winds
within the tropics thus blow interminabl)' from
the eastward, those without the tropical limits
have a prevailing direction from the west.
Here then we find the solution of the problem,
that in extra-tropical latitudes all countries
situated to the eastward of seas or other great
bodies of water have milder climates than
those occupying the eastern portions of con-
tinents. Large bodies of water never become
so cold in winter or so warm in summer as the
earth. Hence, whenever the predominant
•winds sweep from the sea, they carry^ with
them the temperature of the water to a greater
or less distance inland, and thus obviate ex-
tremes. When, however, the prevailing winds
pass over large tracts of country, they must
necessarily bear with them the greater or less
•degrees of cold induced by congelation, and
still more through radiation, whilst in summer
they will convey the accumulated heat ab-
^eorbed by the earth. This view enables ns to
i^understand why the proximity of the Gulf
Itreara, — that mighty lake of warm water, as
lajor Reynell calls it, not inferior in size to
le Mediterranean, — does not shed upon the
Ihores of the United States a larger portion of
Its high temperature, the greatest proportion
fof the warmth communicated by it to the
atmosphere being actually wafted to the distant
shores of Europe.

The celebrated Humboldt, who has devoted
so much attention to the investigation of cli-
mate, and especially to the laws and agencies
concerned in the distribution of heat over the
surface of the globe, has formed a system of
lines of equal temperature encircling the globe,
and passing through places having the same
mean temperature, either throughout the year
or during particular seasons. Those passing
through places having similar annual means
are called isothermal lines. As, however, it is
frequently found that where the annual tem-
peratures agree there is a great diff'erence in
the means of particular seasons, other lines

have been drawn to show this, such as pass
through places having equal summer tempera-
! tures being called isotheral, and those represent-
ing equal winter means isorheimal lines.
. These lines, which from their generally
; crooked forms are also called curves, demon-
J strate to the eye in a striking manner the well
i known fact, that the distribution of temperature
on both sides of the equator is by no means in
' exact conformity to latitude or distance from
i the equinoctial line. Let us, for example, take
I Humboldt's isothermal line drawn through
i different points around the globe, having a
, mean annual temperature of 65°'40 Fahr.,
I and we shall find it in the eastern part of North
i America passing near Philadelphia, in latitude
I 39° 56'; in the eastern part of Asia, near Pekin,
in the same latitude with Philadelphia ; whilst
on the western side of Europe it runs near
Bourdeaux, in latitude 4.5° 46'; and on the
western coast of North America, it is found at
Cape Foulweather, a little south of the mouth
of the Columbia river, latitude 44° 40'. Be-
tween the western part of Europe and the
eastern portion of North America, the follow-
ing differences in the mean temperature are
found in similar latitudes, the increase in
latitude being attended by a very great increase
in the difference of the means :

lAtitad*.

50°
60»

Maan tomn.
COMt N. .

»l°-50
37° -94
23°-72

Mean l*mp. W.
coast o( Europe.

70°-52

63°)4

50° -90

40°-60

3° 60
8°-64
12<>-96
16° -88

Now all the great varieties in the lines of
equal temperature are mainly dependent upon
the operation of those extensive natural move-
ments which we have styled the great atmos-
pheric circulation.

The climate of the United States is distin-
guished by its extremes of heat and cold. It
might be naturally expected that the greatest
heat would b? registered at the most souther-
ly, and the severest cold at the most northern
posts. But the exact instrumental observations
now furnished prove this not to be the case,
especially in the vicinity of the sea, where it
would seem the proximity of water tends to
moderate the heat of summer in the south, and
the cold of winter in the north. It is in some
of the western regions, remote from the ocean
and inland seas, those, for example, in which
forts Snelling, Gibson, and Council Bluffs, are
situated, that the mercury rises highest and
sinks the lowest. On the 15th of August, 1834,
at Fort Gibson, two thermometers observed by
Dr. Wright of the army, rose in the shade,
carefully excluded from reflected or radiated
heat, the one to 116°, and the other to 117°
Fahrenheit.

It is a law applicable to all parts of the
world, wherever no inland lakes or seas exist,
to interpose a modifying influence, — that on
leaving the coast and going into the interior,
the difference between the mean temperature
of summer and winter increases, the climates
being more subject to extremes of heat and
cold. To show that no exception to this law
is furnished in the United States, we may ad-
duce the instance of Fort Sullivan, Eastport,

3tt

CLIMATE.

CLIMATE.

Me., on the ocean in latitude 44° 44', where
the winter mean temperature is 17°-45 Fah-
renheit above that of Fort Snelling in Iowa, j
the latitude being the same. The climate of |
Fort Snelling, Dr. Forr}' informs us, is the
most excessive among all the military posts in
the United States, resembling that of Moscow in
Russia, as regards the extremes of the seasons,
notwithstanding the latter is 11° further north.
But at Moscow the mean temperature both
of winter and summer is lower, — that of winter
being as 10°-78 to 15°-95, and that of summer
as 97°-10 to 72°'75. That the influence of
the lakes in modifying the climate in their
vicinities is not less than that of the ocean, is
demonstrated by a comparison of the summer
and winter means of posts situated near them
in about the same latitude. The difference
between the mean temperature of summer and
winter at Fort Preble, on the Atlantic, is 41°-03,
and of Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario, 41°-73.
At the excessive post, Fort Crawford, Wis-
consin, a few minutes further south than the
two places first mentioned, the difference
amounts to 50°-89. Again, a comparison of
the difference between the winter and summer
means of some other posts situated in the
same latitude shows the following results, by
which the increase in extremes on going west
is strikingly demonstrated. The difference
between the mean temperature of summer and
winter at Fort Wolcott, Newport, Rhode Island,
is 36°-55; at West Point, New York, 40°-75;
Fort Armstrong, Illinois, *49°'05; and at Coun-
cil Bluffs, near the junction of the rivers Platte
and Missouri, 51°*35. The highest, lowest,
and annual range of the thermometer at three
of the posts just mentioned is as follows : —

Aximal
Highest Lowest, ranee.

Fort Wolcott, Newport, R. I. 85° 2° 83°

Fort Armstrong, Illinois - 96° 10° 106°

Council Bluffs . . - 104° 16° 120°

Although the mean temperature of winter on
the sea-coast is 6° higher, and of summer 8°-71
lower than in places situated on the same pa-
rallel in the interior, beyond the influence of
the lakes, the means of spring are 4°'13, and
of autumn 0°'40 higher in the interior situa-
tions. This is the result of a comparison made
in the latitude of about 43°.

How strongly are all these views of the east-
ern climate of the United States contrasted with
the equable temperature found in the Pacific
region. At Fort Vancouver, for example, situ-
ated on the Columbia river, about seventy-five
miles above its mouth, the difference between
the winter and summer means is only 23°*67,
although a degree farther north than Fort Snel-
ling, five degrees more northerly than New
York, and nearly on the same parallel with
Montreal. During a year passed at Fort Van-
couver, the lowest fall of the thermometer was
to 17°. On nine days only was the tempera-
ture below the freezing point in the month of
January, so that ploughing is carried on whilst
the vegetables of the preceding season are still
^anding in the gardens untouched by frost.
And why does not New York, situated directly
on the Atlantic Ocean, derive as much warmth
from this magazine of heat as Fort Vancouver
does from the more distant Pacific ] Simply
i832

because the predominant westerly winds sweep
upon one place the chilling blasts of extensive
districts of land, cooled to congelation, or co-
vered with snow, whilst over the other they
waft the genial warmth of the sea. For simi-
lar reasons the ameliorations of climate expe-
rienced in the vicinity of the interior lakes
must always be felt most to the eastward.

The classification of climates distinguished
by Dr. Forry in the United States and territo-
ries, is founded upon a general division into
Northern, Middle, and Southern regions ; the
first being characterized by the predominance
of a low mean temperature, the Southern' by a
high temperature, and the Middle vibrating to
both extremes. Each of these general divisions
is subdivided into classes or systems sufficiently
marked.

The Northern System has three classes, the
first embracing the coast of New England,
extending as far south as the harbour of New
York; the second including the districts in the
proximity of the northern lakes ; the third,
portions of country alike remote from the ocean
and inland seas.

The Middle division has two classes, the
first embracing the Atlantic coast from Dela-
ware Bay to Savannah; the second, interior
stations.

The Southern division has also two classes,
the first including those parts in which the
military posts on the Lower Mississippi are
situated, and the second the peninsula of East
Florida.

It is the Northern region which presents at
the same time the greatest diversity of physical
character and the most strongly marked varia-
tions in climate. East of the great lakes, the
several mountain ranges seldom exceed the
height of 2500 feet above the level of the sea —
the table-lands, upon which the ridges rest, ris-
ing, perhaps, on an average, to half the height
named. We have already adverted to the fact,
that on the coast of New England ihe influence
of the ocean is manifested in moderating ex-
tremes of temperature. Advancing into the
interior, the extreme range of the thermometer
increases, and the seasons are violently con-
trasted, until getting within the influence of the
lakes, when a climate like that of the sea-board
is found. That the lakes have this capacity to
modify the climate in their vicinity will be evi-
dent to any one who considers that they occupy
not less than 94,000 square miles, having a
depth varying from 20 to 500 feet. Beyond the
modifying agency of these inland seas, tempe-
ratures still more excessive are exhibited, a
comparative view of which, including exact
estimates for the sea-coast and regions of and
beyond the great lakes, has been already given.

When the climates on the sea-coast and in-
terior country remote from the lakes are com-
pared in relation to the proportion of fair and
cloudy weather, rain and snow, the following
results appear. During the year, the propor-
tion of fair days on the sea-coast, compared
with those of the interior, are as 202 to 240 :
cloudy days, 108 to 77; rainy days, 45 to 31;
snowy, 9 to 16.

Comparing the climate of the lakes with that
of the same region beyond their influence, the

CLIMATE.

contrast is yet more striking, the prevailing
weather of the former being cloudy, and the
latter fair ; thus, during the year, the propor-
tion of days is,

Cloudy. Bain. Snow.

139 63 45

73 46 29

Fair.

Lakes - - - H7

Remote from lakes - 216

The relative proportion of rainy and cloudy
days during the year is, therefore, in the former
locality 247, and in the latter 148, giving the
far west about 100 more sunshiny days out of
the annual sura of 365.
Thus much for the Northern division.
In considering the climate of the Middle di-
vision of the United Slates, Dr. Forry thinks
himself justified by the results of the meteoro-
logical observations in his possession, in dis-
tinguishing two classes, designated as uniform
and excessive climes, the first being slightly
under the influence of the Atlantic Ocean,
whilst the .southwestern stations show the
powerful influence of the Gulf of Mexico.

In proceeding south, the seasons, as a gene-
ral rule, appear more uniform, the annual mean
temperature increasing as a matter of course.
Some of the eastern posts in this middle divi-
sion present such great contrasts between their
summer and winter temperatures, as almost to
place them in the list of excessive climes. The
modifying influence of the adjacent ocean and
bays are, however, still apparent, since, farther
westward on the same parallels, greater ex-
tremes are common.

"The region of Pennsylvania, as though it
were the battle-ground on which Boreas and
Auster struggle for mastery, experiences, in-
deed, the extremes of heat and cold. But, pro-
ceeding south along the Atlantic Plain, climate
soon undergoes a striking modification, of
which the Potomac forms the line of demarca-
tion. Here the domain of snow tenninates.
Beyond this point, the sledge is no more seen
in the farmer's barnyard. The table-lands of
Kentucky and Tennessee, on the other hand,
carry, several degrees farther south, a mild
and temperate clime. Although very few ther-
mometrical observations have been made upon
the table-land lying in the centre of the middle
division, or upon the ridges which crest this
long plateau, thus rendering it impracticable
to determine' fully the interesting question of
their influence upon temperature; yet we are
enabled to supply this deficiency, in some mea-
sure, by observations made upon the differences
in vegetable geography. Thus, in Virginia, as
the limits of the state extend quite across the
Apalachian chains, four natural divisions are
presented ; viz., 1. The Atlantic Plain, or tide-
water region, below the falls of the rivers;
2. The Middle region, between the falls and
the Blue Ridge ; 3. The Great Valley, between
the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains ; '
and, 4. The Trans-Alleghany region, west of |
that chain. In each of these, the phenomena '
of vegetation are modified in accordance with i
the climatic features. On the Atlantic Plain, :
tobacco is the principal staple ; in the Great \
Valley, it is cultivated only in the southern
portion ; and beyond the Alleghany, its culture
IS unknown. In the first only is cotton culti-
vated, and in its southern part quite extensive- I

CLIMATE.

ly. In North Carolina, the Atlantic Plain ex-
tends sixty or seventy miles from the coast,
whilst the Middle region, corresponding to that
described in Virginia, gradually merges into
the^mountainous regions farther west. As
these table-lands are elevated from 1000 to
1200 feet above the sea, upon which rise many
high crests, one of which (Black Mountain) is
the highest summit of the Alleghany system,
the diversity of climate on the same parallels
causes a corresponding diflference in the vege-
table productions. Whilst the lowlands yield
cotton, rice, and indigo, the western high coun-
try produces wheat, hemp, tobacco, and Indian
corn. In South Carolina, three strongly-marked
regions are also presented ; but as the tempe-
rature increases, as a general law, in propor-
tion as we approach the equator, cotton is
cultivated throughout the state generally. Geor-
gia, Alabama, and Mississippi, like the Caroli-
nas, are divided into three well-defined belts,
exhibiting similar diversities in vegetable geo-
graphy. Cotton and rice, more especially the
former, are the great agricultural staples; and
on the Atlantic Plain of these three states, as
well as its continuation into Florida and Lou-
isiana (which last two will be more particularly
adverted to in the southern division), sugar
may be advantageously cultivated. In North
Carolina and Virginia, the Atlantic Plain form.s,
as it were, a chaos of land and water, consist-
ing of vast swamps, traversed by sluggish
streams, expanding frequently into broad ba-
sins with argillaceous bottoms. Throughout
its whole extent, as already remarked, it is
characterized by similar features, besides being
furrowed with deep ravines, in which the
streams wind their devious way. The hot and
sultry atmosphere of these lowlands, in which
malarial diseases in every form are dominant,
contrasts strongly with the mild and salubrious
climate of the mountain regions.

"It may not be amiss, as illustrative of the
comparative temperature of the Atlantic Plain
and the adjacent mountain region, to present
here a few therraometrical data, however limit-
ed in extent, noted during the summers of 1839
and 1840, at Flat Rock, Buncombe county,.
North Carolina.

rUcnofObwrntion.

Mean Teuiperatore.

July.

Auc

Sept

Oct

Fort Monroe, coast of

VirjfiniJi-
Flat Rock, Buncombe,

N. C. - - -
Charleston, S. C.

37° 00'

35° 30'
32° 45'

80°

69°
81°

70°

70°
81°

72°

62°

77°

64°

61°
710

" Flat Rock is about 250 miles from the At-
lantic, and is elevated perhaps 2500 feet above
the level of the ocean, whilst the latitude given
is also a mere approximation derived from
general knowledge. The observations made
at Charleston embrace the same years as those
at Flat Rock, but the data at Fort Monroe com-
prise the years 1828, 1829, and 1830. It is thus
seen that the difference of temperature at Flat
Rock and the other two points, taking an ave-
rage of the latter, is in July 11°, August 10°,
September 13°, and October 6°. As regards
the monthly range of the thermometer, little
difference is presented." (Forry.)

333

CLIMATE.

CLIMATE.

Along the Atlantic coast of the United States,
the mean temperature of the year diminishes
in a very unequal ratio. Between Charleston
and Philadelphia, the difference of means is
10^° Fahr., or in the proportion of about 15°
of temperature to 1° of latitude. Between
Philadelphia and Eastport, Maine, the difference
in means is much greater, namely, r2°.33
Fahr. being in the increased proportion of
nearly 2°-5 of mean temperature per degree o^
latitude. Again, between Charleston, S. C,
and New York harbour, the difference of means
is 12°-78, or 1°'59 per degree of latitude. Be-
tween New York harbour and Eastport, Maine,
the difference is 11°, or about 2|° Fahr. per
degree of latitude. The average proportion
between Charleston, S. C, and Eastport, Maine,
is equal to about 2° of temperature for each
degree of latitude.

In approaching south, the extremes of win-
ter and summer grow less, and the seasons
glide more imperceptibly into each other. At
Fort Snelling, situated in the excessive climate
of the west, in latitude 44°*53, the difference
between the summer and winter means is, as
has been before stated, no less than 56°-60 ; at
Eastport, Maine, 39°-15, at West Point, N. Y.,
40°-75, at Charleston, S. C, 30°-34, at- St. Au-
gustine, Florida, 20°, whilst at Key West, it is
only ll°-34.

" There is," says Dr. Forry, " little difference
between the thermometrical phenomena pre-
sented at Key West and the Havana. In the
West India islands, the mean annual tempera-
ture near the sea is only about 80°. At Bar-
badoes, the mean temperature of the seasons
is — winter, 76°, spring 79°, summer 81°, and
autumn 80°. The temperature is remarkably
uniform ; for the mean annual range of the
thermometer, even in the most excessive of the
islands, is only 13°, and in some it is not more
than 4°. Contrast this with Hancock Bar-
racks, Maine, which gives an average annual
range of 118°, Fort Snelling, Iowa, 119°, and
Fort Howard, Wisconsin, 123°!

" The peculiar character of the climate of
East Florida, as distinguished from that of our
more northern latitudes, consists less in the
mean annual temperature than in the manner
of its distribution among the seasons. At Fort
Snelling, for example, the mean temperature
of winter is .15°-95, and of summer 72°-75,
whilst at Fort Brooke, Tampa Bay, the former
is 64°-76, and the latter 84°-25, and at Key
West, 70°-05, and 81°'39. Thus though the
■winter at Fort Snelling is 54°*10 colder than at
Key West, yet the mean temperature of sum-
mer at the latter is only 8°'64 higher. In like
manner, although the mean annual tempera-
ture of Petite Coquille, Louisiana, is nearly 2°
lower, that of Augusta arsenal, Georgia, nearly
8°, and that of Fort Gibson, Arkansas, upwards
of 10° lower than that of Fort Brooke ; yet at
all, the mean summer temperature is higher.
Between Fort Snelling on the one hand, and
Fort Brooke and Key West on the other, the
"fcplative distribution of temperature stands
mus: — Difference between the mean tempera- 1
ture of summer and winter at the former 66°-60, 1
ftnd at the two latter 16°'49 and ll°-34; dif- j
ference between the mean temperature of the
334 '

warmest and coldest month, 61°-86 compared
with 18°-66 and 14°-66 ; difference between the
mean temperature of winter and spring, 30°-83
to 8°-35 and 5°-99 ; and the mean difference of
successive months, 10°-29 to 3°-09 and 2°-44;'

A comparison' in regard to equality and
mildness of climate drawn between the sea-
sons of Florida and those of the most favoured
places on the European continent, those of
Italy and southern France, results generally in
favour of the Florida Peninsula. At Key West
the annual range of the thermometer is but 37°.
See table of monthly mean temperatures, under
the head of Atmospherk.

CLIMATE, CHANGES OF. The question
has been much debated, whether the tempera-
ture of the crust of the earth or of the incum-
bent atmosphere has undergone any perceptible
chano^s since the earliest records, either from
the efforts of man in clearing away forests,
draining marshes, cultivating the ground, or
other causes. La Place has demonstrated very
satisfactorily, that since the days of Hipparchus,
an astronomer of the Alexandrian school, who
flourished about 2000 years ago, the earth can-
not have become a single degree of heat warmer
or colder, as otherwise the sidereal day must
have become either lengthened or shortened,
which is not the case.

As to the question of changes in atmospheric
temperature affecting the seasons, M. Arago
thinks that sufficient proofs exist to justify the
conclusion that in Europe, at least, a sensible
elevation of the annual mean temperature has
resulted from the conquests of agriculture.
The thermometer is comparatively a modern
instrument, invented by Galileo in 1590, bui
still left so imperfect, that it was not till 1700
that Fahrenheit succeeded in improving and
rendering it a correct and perfect instrument.
It is evident that the want of exact instrumental
observations prior to the commencement of
agricultural improvements must render it ex-
tremely difficult to determine with any preci-
sion, what changes may have been effected
through these in the mean temperatures of the
year or particular seasons. Hence, notwith-
standing the expression of his belief in the
changes of atmospheric temperature, M. Arago
looks to America for the necessary data by
which the point must be definitely settled.

"Ancient France," he remarks, "contrasted
with what France now is, presented an incom-
parably greater extent of forests ; mountains
almost entirely covered with wood, lakes and
ponds, and morasses, without number ; rivers
without any artificial embankment to prevent
their overflow, and immense districts, which
the hands of the husbandman had never
touched. Accordingly, the clearing away of
the vast forests, and the opening of extensive
glades in those that remain ; the nearly com-
plete removal of all stagnant waters, and the
cultivation of extensive plains, which thus are
made to resemble the stcpes of Asia and Ame-
rica— these are among the principal modifica-
tions to which the fair face of France has been
subjected, in an interval of some hundreds of
years. But there is another country which is
undergoing these same modifications at the
present day. They are there progressing

\

CLIMATE.

Tinder the observation of an enlightened popu-
lation ; they are advancing with astonishing
rapidity ; and they ought, in some degree, sud-
denly to produce the meteorological alterations
which many ages have scarcely rendered ap-
parent in our old continent. This country is
North America. Let us see, then, how clear-
ing the country affects the climate there. The
results may evidently be applied to the ancient
condition of our own countries, and we shall
find that we may thus dispense with a priori
considerations which, in a subject so compli-
cated, would probably have misled us."

There is great force in the following remarks
of Dr. Forry, and the facts adduced in their
support: —

" Dense forests and all growing vegetables
doubtless tend considerably to diminish the
temperature of summer, by affording evapora-
tion from the surface of their leaves, and pre-
venting the calorific rays from reaching the
ground. It is a fact equally well known that
snow lies longer in forests than on plains, be-
cause, in the former locality, it is less exposed
to the action of the sun ; and hence, the win-
ters, in former years, may have been lomger
and more uniform. As the clearing away of
the forest causes the waters to evaporate and
the soil to become dry, some increase in the
mean summer temperature, diametrically con-
trary to the opinion of Jefferson and others,
necessarily follows. It is remarked by Um-
freville that, at Hudson's Bay, the ground in
open places thaws to the depth of four feet, and
in the woods to the depth only of two. More-
over, it has been determined by thermometrical
experiments that the temperature of the forest,
at the depth of twelve inches below the surface
of the earth, is, compared with an adjacent
open field, at least 10° lower, during the sum-
mer months; whilst no difference is observable
during the season of winter.

" It may, therefore, be assumed, that although
cultivation of the soil may not be productive
of a sensible change in the mean annual tem-
perature, yet such a modification in the distri-
bution of heat among the seasons may be
induced as will greatly influence vegetation."

Bearing upon this point. Dr. Forrj' furnishes
a table exhibiting a comparative view of the
atmospheric temperature at Philadelphia, at
intervals of about a quarter of a century, (from
1771 to 1821,) which shows a successive de-
crease in the mean of winter, and an increase in
the means of spring, summer, autumn, and
whole year. Some allowance must be made in
these estimates for the effects of increase in the
size of the city, and the additional shelter in
winter, and opportunity of accumulating heat
in summer thus afforded. All jowns are ob-
served to grow warmer as they extend their
limits. When, therefore, we find a decline in
the mean temperature of winter, notwithstand-
ing the extension of the city limits, we must
infer that it can arise from no other cause than
a general diminution in the winter temperature
throughout the country.

Any changes in the climate of the United
States as yet perceived, are very far from
justifying the sanguine calculations indulged
in a few years ago by a writer on the climate

CLIMATE.

and vegetation of the fortieth degree of North
latitude, who, in concluding his essay, says:

"But there will doubtless be an amelioration
in this particular," (severity of cold,) " when
Canada and the United States shall become
thickly peopled and generally cultivated. In
this latitude, then, like the same parallels in
Europe at present, snow and ice will become
rare phenomena, and the orange, the olive,
and other vegetables of the same class, now
strangers to the soil, will become objects of the
labour and solicitude of the agriculturist."

Had this writer extended his inquiries a
little further, he might have found that the
region of Oregon, lying west of the Rocky
Mountains, though as yet in a primitive state
of nature, has a climate even milder than that
of highly cultivated Europe in similar lati-
tudes. And again, China, situated precisely
under the same conditions as the United States
in regard to the sea, though long since sub-
jected to the highest state of agricultural im-
provement, possesses a winter climate as
rigorous, and some assert even more so, than
that of the United States in similar latitudes.
See table of mean temperature under the head
AxMospHEnE, paae 126.

CLIMATE, INFLUENCE OF, ON THE
FRUITFULNESS OF PLANTS. The fol-
lowing observations upon a topic of natural
history of great interest to the agriculturist,
are quoted from the same sensible and elo-
quent American writer, to whom reference has
been made under the headof the Acclimating
Principle of Plants.

"The cultivated plants yield the greatest
products near the northernmost limit in which
they will grow.

" I have been forcibly impressed with this fact,
from observing the productions of the various
plants, which are cultivated for food and cloth-
ing in the United States. The following instances
will go far to establish the principle, viz. : —

"The cotton, which is a tropical plant, yields
the best staple and surest product in the tem-
perate latitudes. The southern parts of the
United States have taken the cotton market
from the East and West Indies, both as regards
quantity and quality. This is partly owing to
the prevalence of insects within the tropics,
but principally to the forcing nature of a verti-
cal sun. Such a degree of heat developes the
plant too rapidly — runs it into wood and foli-
age, which become injuriously luxuriant; the
consequence is, there are but few seed pods,
and these covered with a thin harsh coat of
wool. The cotton wool, like the fur of animals,
is, perhaps, designed for protection ; and will
be thick and fine in proportion as the climate
is warm or cool. Another reason is to be
found in the providence of the Deity, who aims
to preserve races rather than individuals, and
multiplies the seeds and eyes of plants, exactly
as there is danger of their being destroyed by
the severity of the climate, or other causes.
When, therefore, the cares and labours of man
counteract the destructive tendency of the cli-
mate and guaranty their preservation, they
are, of course, more available and abundant.

"The lint plants, flax, hemp, &c., are culti-
vated through a great extent of latitude , but

335

CLIMATE.

CLIMATE.

their bark, in the southern climates, is harsh
and brittle. A warm climate forces these
plants so rapidly into maturity, that the lint
does not acquire either consistency or tenacity.
We must go far north in Europe, even to the
Bakic, to find these plants in perfection, and
their products very merchantable. Ireland is
rather an exception as to latitude ; but the in-
fluence of the sun is so effectually counteracted
there by moisture and exposure to the sea air,
that it is always cool : hence, the flax and po-
tato arrive at such perfection in that region.

"It holds equally true in the farinaceous
plants. Rice is a tropical plant ; yet Carolina
and Georgia grow the finest i** the world ;
heavier grained, better filled, and more" mer-
chantable, than any imported into Europe from
the Indies. The inhabitants of the East Indies
derive their subsistence almost exclusively
from rice ; they must be supposed, therefore,
to cultivate it with all skill and care, and the
best contrivances for irrigation. Such is, how-
ever, the forcing nature of their climate, that
the plant grows too rapidly, and dries away
before the grain be properly filled. Indian
corn, or maize, if not a tropical plant, was ori-
ginally found near the tropics ; and although it
now occupies a wide range, it produces the
heaviest crops near the northern limit of its
range. In the West Indies it rises thirty feet
in height ; but with all that gigantic size, it
produces only a few grains on the bottom of a
spongy cob, and is counted on only as rough
provender. In the southern part of the United
States, it reaches a height of fifteen feet, and
will produce thirty bushels to the acre ; in the
rich lands of Kentucky and the Middle States
it produces fifty or sixty bushels to the acre ;
but in New York and New England, agricul-
tural societies have actually awarded pre-
miums for one hundred and fifty bushels to the
acre, collected from stalks only seven feet
high. The heats of a southern sun develope
the juices of this plant too quickly. They run
into culm and blade, to the neglect of the seed,
and dry away before fructification becomes
complete.

"Wheat is a more certain crop in New
York, the northern part of Pennsylvania, and
Ohio, and in the Baltic regions of Europe, than
in the south either of Europe or America. In
the north, snows accumulate, and not only
protect it from the winter colds, but from the
weevil, Hessian fly, and other insects that in-
vade it ; and in the spring it is not forced too
rapidly into head, without time to mature fully,
and concoct its farina.

"A cold climate also aids the manufacturing
of flour, preserving it from acidity, and ena-
bles us to keep it long, either for a good mar-
ket, or to meet scarcities and emergencies.
Oats grow in almost every country ; but it is in
northern regions only, or very moist or ele-
vated tracts, that they fill with farina suitable
for human sustenance. Rye, barley, buck-
wheat, millet, and other culmiferous plants,
^ight be adduced to illustrate the above prin-
<nple; for all their habits require a more
northern latitude than is necessary to their
mere growth.

i. " The grasses are proverbially in perfection
336

only in northern and cool regions, although
they. will grow everywhere. It is in the north
alone that we raise animals from" meadows,
and are enabled to keep them fat, and in good
condition, from hay and grags alone, without
grain. It is there the grasses acquire a succu-
lence and consistency enough, not only to ma-
ture animals, but to make the richest butter
and cheese, that contribute so much to the
tables of the luxurious. The grasses which
do, often, in the south, grow large enough, are
without richness and nutriment ; in hay, they
have no substance; and when green, are too
washy to fatten animals ; the consequence is,
most animals in those latitudes browse from
necessity, and are poor, and without size or
beauty. It is the same hot sun which forces
them to a rapid fructification, before they have
had time to concoct their juices. The sugar-
cane produces, perhaps, better where it never
seeds, than in the tropics ; for the juices will
never ripen so as to granulate, until checked
by frost or fructification. In the tropics, the
cane grows twenty months before the juices
ripen ; and then the culm has contracted a
woody, fibrous quality, to such a degree as to
resist the pressure of the mills, and yields but
little juice, and that to an increased eflbrt. In
Louisiana we succeed well with the sugar
culture ; because, while the culm is succulent
and tender, a white frost checks the growth,
ripens the juices, and in five months gives us
a culm, tender, full of juice, easy to press, and
yielding much grain of sugar. When Louisi-
ana, therefore, acquires all the necessary skill,
she will most probably grow this article
cheaper than the West Indies.

"Tobacco is a southern plant, but there it is
always light and chaffy ; and, although often
well-flavoured, it never gains that strong
narcotic quality which is its only peculiar
property, unless you grow it as far north as
Virginia. In the south, th& heat unfolds its
bud or gem too soon, forces into full expansion
the leaf, and drives it to seed before the narco-
tic quality can be properly elaborated. We
may assert a general rule applicable to all
annual plants, that neither the root, nor the
leaf, acquires any further size or substance
after fructification.

"The tuberose, bulbous, and other roots,
cultivated for human and animal subsistence,
are similarly affected by climate, and manifest
habits in corroboration of the above principle.
The Irish potato, although from or near the
tropics, will not come to perfection but in
northern or cool countries, or in moist, insular
situations, as Ireland. It is in such climates
alone, that its roots acquire a farinaceous con-
sistence, and have size, flavour, and nutriment
enough to support, in the eminent way in
which they are susceptible, animal life. In
the south, a forcing sun brings the potato to
fructification before the roots have .had time to
attain their proper size, or ripen into the pro-
per qualities for nourishment. In Ireland the
j plant grows slow, through a long and cool
season, giving time for its juices to be elabo-
rated and properly digested ; hence that fine
j farina and flavour which characterizes them.
: The sweet potato produces larger, better fla-

Hrrourec

^™^ "where

CLIMATE.

II Z

■r k

k

oured, and more numerous roots in Carolina,
■where it never flowers, than in the West Indies.
In the latter place this plant runs wild, covers
the whole face of the earth with its vines, and
is so taken up in making foliage, that the root
becomes neglected, and is small and woody. —
In order to have the onion in perfection, it
must grow through two years, swelling all the
time its bulbs. In the south, however, it seeds
in one year, and before it h^s made much bulb.
Beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips, radishes, and
other roots, are equally affected by a hot sun,
and scarcely worth cultivating far to the south.
They all fructify before they have formed per-
fect roots, and make foliage at the expense of
their bulbs ; hence they will always be articles
of commerce ; the south will have to depend
upon the north for them.

" The salad plants are in like manner af-
fected by climate, and give further proofs of
our assumption. Cabbages, lettuces, endive,
cellery, spinage, plants whose leaves only are
eat, to protect their germs from cold (through
a kind of instinct), wrap them ug in leaves,
which form heads, and render many of their
other parts lender and crisp for use. These
leaves, thus protected, are not only tender, but
more nutritious, because their growth has been
slow and their juices well digested. In the
south, a relaxing sun lays open the very buds
of such plants, gives a toughness and thinness
to the leaves, and they are too unsubstantial
for animal support, because of such quick and
rapid developement.

"The delicious and pulpy fruits are, in a
still more striking way, illustrative of our prin-
ciple. The peach, nectarine, plum, apple,
cherry, currant, gooseberry, apricot, and many
other such families, are not in perfection in
the south. It is in Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Maryland, Jersey, and in the north of Europe,
that we enjoy them, although, originally, they
came from places near the tropics. The peach
of the Carolina? is full of larvae, gum, and
nots, and too stringy and forced to be juicy
and flavoured. The apple of the south is too
acerb to be either eaten or presen'ed. The
plums, apricots, cherries, currants, goose-
berries, &c., will not even mature until we go
far north. All the trees which bear these de-
licious fruits will grow luxuriantly in the south,
make much foliage and wood, with but little
pulp, and that unsavoury. The kernel in the
one-seeded fruit seems to be the first object of
nature in southern climes: that becomes
strong, oily, and enlarged ; and one of the
peach family has so entirely neglected the
pulp, that it has only a husky matter around
the kernel, as the almond. The changeable-
ness of the weather in the south, in the spring
season, throws plants off their guard ; the
frosts attendant on those changes destroy the
young fruit; and it is only one year in three
that the crop hits at all. The desiccated or
dried state of these fruits enables us to enjoy
them through the year; but in the south their
acidity carries them into fermentation or de-
composition before they can be divested of
their aqueous parts. The climate of the south
is equally against converting them into cider,
or any other fermented liquor, because the
43

CLIMATE.

heat forces their compressed juice so rapidly
into an active fermentation, that it cannot
easily be checked until it passes into vinegar.
For the same reason distillation goes on badly
in hot climates, and cannot be checked long
enough at the proper point to give much alco-
hol: and whether we aim to enjoy the delicious
freshness of these fruits themselves, sip the
nectarin of their juices, refresh ourselves with
their fermented beverage, stimulate our hearts
with their brandies and cordials, or feast
through the winter upon the dried or preserved
stores of their fruits, we are continually
balked by the severity of a southern climate,
and for such enjoyment must look to the north.

"The melons are always affected by too
great a degree of heat, even though their vines
flourish so much in southern latitudes. The
forcing sun hurries them on to maturity before
they have attained much size, or acquired that
rich saccharine and aromatic flavour for which
they are so much esteemed. The cantelope-
meloh will rot, or have its sides baked by a hot
sun, before it is fully formed ; and the water-
melon is always woody, dry, and devoid of its
peculiar sweetness and richness in the south.
Vines have been known to run one hundred
feet, and bear no melon. It is in Philadelphia,
and its neighbourhood, and in similar latitudes,
that the markets are loaded with delicious me-
lons of all sorts, whose flavour so much refresh
and delight us. It is there, near their northern
limit, that we cultivate them with such uniform
success.

"The orange, strictly a tropical plant, is
more juicy, large, and delicious, at St. Augus-
tine (Florida), than at Havana ; and fruiterers,
in order to recommend an orange, will say that
it is from some place out of the tropics. In
the West Indies, the pulp of the orange is
spungj', badly filled with juice, and has too
much of a forced flavour to be pleasant. The
hot-house forcers of Europe, or at Rome, an-
ciently at first produced bad fruit ; too dry, too
small, and without flavour ; because they over-
acted. They have lately found out that fact,
and now the productions of the hot-houses of
London, Paris, &c., astonish and delight us
with the quantity and excellence of the fruit.
They have found out that gradual and uniform
heat is the desideratum ; countervailing the
cold, rather than imparting much heat. Fruit
thus produced is pronounced better than any
grown in the natural way, however perfect the
climate.

" The juices of the grape are best matured for
wine near the northern limit of their growth. On
the Rhine, in Hungary, the sides of the Alps,
and in other elevated or northern situations, the
wine is strongest, richest, and most esteemed.
The French wines rank before the Spanish
and Italian ; and in no southern country of
Europe or Africa, except Madeira, where ele-
vation makes the difference, is the wine in
much repute. The grapes of France are more
delicious for the table than those of Spain or
Madeira. In the southern part of the United
States, the excess of »heat and moisture blights
the grape to such an extent that all attempts
have failed in its cultivation. The grape-vine,
however, whether wild or cultivated, grows
2F 337

CLIMATURE.

CLOTTED CREAM.

there very luxuriantly. The vinous fermenta-
tion can also be best conducted in a climate
comparatively cool ; and all the pressing, fer-
menting, and distillation of the juice of this
delicate fruit can be safer and more profitably
managed in a mild region.

."The olive, and other oleaginous plants,
yield more fruit, of a richer flavour, and can
be better pressed, and the oil preserved, in a
mild climate. In France the tree is healthier,
and the fruit and oil better than in Spain or
Italy ; and the Barbary States are known to
import their oil from France and Italy.

"Many other plants might be named, whose
habits would equally support our position. It
is presumed, however, that enough have been
cited to call the attention of philosophy to this
curious subject, and enable us to give proper
attention to it, in all the practical operations
of agricultural pursuit. Much time and ex-
pense might be saved, and profits realized, if
this were more generally understood.

"We have already observed, that the heat
of the sun in southern climes forces plants to
a false maturity, runs them on too rapidly to
fructification, and renders dry and woody the
culms, stalks, and leaves of the plants, where
these parts are used. Hence the chaffiness of
the leaf, the dryness of the ciilm, the lightness
of the grain, and the unsavoury, spongy quality
of the pulp of the plants in those latitudes.
Hence the difficulty of fermenting their juices,
distilling their essences, and preserving for
use the fruit, juice, or blades of such plants.
The prevalence of insects is another bar to the
productiveness of southern plants : swarms
of them invade and strip the leaves, bore the
fruit, and lead to blight and decomposition ;
and just in proportion as the labours of man
have rendered plants succulent, and their
fruits and seeds sweet and pleasant, do these
insects multiply on them, devour their crops,
and defeat the objects of husbandry.

"The labour of man too is more conserva-
tive in northern climates, because his arm is
better nerved for exercise, his health and
spirits more buoyant; and instead of saying,
* Go and work,' he says, 'Come and work;'
treads with a cheerful heart upon his own soil,
and assists in the cultivation, collection, and
preservation of his own productions. It is in
temperate climates that man can be most fami-
liar with nature ; it is there he has the best
opportunities of observing the guarantees
which nature has for the preservation of her
animals and plants against the devastation of
the elements ; he sees an occasional apparent
neglect of individuals, but a constant parental
care of races. In every thing he sees the wis-
dom and benevolence of God."

CLIMATURE. A word sometimes employ-
ed in much the same way as climate. It is a
term made use of by some agricultural writers.

CLOG SHOES. The country name for
wooden shoes.

^CLOTBUR. See CoMMox BunnocK.
"clothing. In horsemanship, the prac-
tice of covering the animals with cloths, with
the view of keeping them healthy, and giving
a fine coat.

CLOTTED or CLOUTED CREAM. Under
338

the head of Bctteh, the process of making this
preparation is described; but as the subject is
one of particular interest to the American
dairy, the following more detailed account is
inserted, taken from the Library of Useful K»oir-
le(fge,'2d vol. of British Husbandry. The dairy-
maids of the western counties of England think
that clouted cream furnishes one-fourth more
cream from the same quantity of milk than
can be obtained in any other way. The process
is simply this. " The milk while warm from
the cow is strained into either large shallow
brass pans, well tinned, or earthen ones, holding
from two to five gallons, in which should be a
small quantity of cold water. This is thought
to prevent the milk from burning, and to cause
the cream to be more completely separated and
thrown to the top.

" The morning meal of milk stands till about
the middle of the day; the evening meal until
the next morning. The pans are now steadily
carried to, and placed over a clear, slow fire;
if of charcoal, or over a stove, the cream is
not so apt to get an earthy or smoky taste as
when the milk is scalded over a turf or wood
fire. The heat should be so managed as not
to suffer the milk to boil, or, as they provin-
cially term it, 'to heave;' as that would injure
the cream. The criterion of its being suffi-
ciently scalded is a very nice point ; the earthen
pan, having its bottom much smaller than the
top allows this poiYit to be more easily ascer-
tained; because when the milk is sufficiently
scalded, the pan throws up the form of its bot-
tom on the surface of the cream.

"The brass pan, if almost as big at the bot-
tom as at the top, gives no criterion to judge
by, but the appearance and texture of the sur-
face of the cream, the wrinkles upon which
become smaller and the texture somewhat
leathery. In summer, it must be observed, the
process of scalding ought to be quicker than
in the winter, as in very hot weather, if the
milk should be kept over too slow a fire, it
would be apt to run or curdle.

"This process being finished, the pans are
carefully returned to the dairy; and should it
be the summer season, they are placed in the
coolest situation; if on stone floors or slate
benches, the better; but should it be the winter
season, the heat should rather be retained, by
putting a slight covering over the pans, as
cooling too suddenly causes the cream to be
thin, and consequently yield less butter: the
mode of making which is this : The cream
should, in hot weather, be made into butter the
next day ; but in winter it is thought better to
let the cream remain one day longer on the
milk. The cream, being collected from the
pans, is put into wooden bowls, which should
be first rinsed with scalding, then with cold
water. It is now briskly stirred round one
way, Vith a nicely cleaned hand, which must
have also been washed in hot smd then in cold
water, for these alternate warm and cold ablu-
tions of bowl and hand are not only for the
sake of cleanliness, but to prevent the butter
from sticking to either.

"The cream being thus agitated, quickly i
assumes the consistence of butter, the milky^
part now readily separates, and being poure

t

CLOUT.

off, the butter is washed and pressed in several
cold waters ; a little salt is added to season it ;
and then it is well beaten on a wooden trencher
until the milky and watery parts are separated,
when it is finally formed into prints for the
markets." {Surv'. of Cormoall, p. 141.)

"If the quantity of cream be considerable,
the cream will be an inch or more thick upon
the surface, and it is then divided into squares
and taken off. The remaining milk, however,
contains little besides the watery particles in
its original composition." (Complete Grazier,
sixth edition, p. 137.)

CLOUT. An iron plate put on the axletree
of a cart or other carriage.

CLOVER. One of the most valuable spe-
cies of the artificial grasses, of which there are
several varieties, all too well known to need a
particular description. 1. White clover, white
trefoil, or Dutch clover (Trifolium repens), grow-
ing on almost all soils and situations. PI. 8, a.
2. Perennial red clover {T. pratense perenne) b;
is found wild near Wainfleet, and in other rich
natural English pastures. 3. Marl clover, cow
grass (T.meditim), c; when in flower it yielded
Sinclair per acre, from a rich black loam,
20,418 lbs.; of nutritive matter, 717 lbs. 4.
Long-rooted clover (T. marrohizum,) k; a rich
clayey loam yielded of this grass when flower-
ing, 74,868 lbs. ; of nutritive matter, 2,924 lbs.
5. Crimson clover (T.incflrHaium),/. G.Egyp-
tian clover (T. alexandrinvm) ; see Quart. Joum.
of Jgr. vol. ii. p. 729. These grasses contain
the phosphate and sulphate of lime ; hence peat,
wood ashes, and gypsum (see these heads)
are found to be excellent dressings for this
crop, and have in many cases succeeded in
renovating rlcvtr-sirk lands.

The creeping white clover is a perennial
common to Europe and America, growing in
the United States spontaneously in pastures,
meadows, and upon woodlands, to the height
of from 4 to 12 inches. The soil is so full of
the seeds that the plant springs up wherever
and whenever circumstances are favourable
to its germination ; and hence, when the season
is good, it often furnishes a fine fall pasture
after other grasses have almost disappeared.
Though rarely cultivated in the United States,
it is esteemed an excellent pasture at least in
the Middle and Northern Slates, where it is
sometimes sown with timothy and other grass
for a regular hay crop. Mr. Eliott speaks un-
favourably of it in the South. There is rather
more difficulty in saving the seed of white clo-
ver than of the common red, and hence the
seed of the former sells for at least double the
price of the latter.

The yellow or shamrock clover (Trifolium
procumbetis), Plate 10, d, is an annual, not very
common in the United States, but found in the
Middle States in dry, sandy soils, blooming its
yellow flowers from May to August. The stem
is from 3 to 8 inches long, sometimes trailing,
at others nearly erect. It is a foreigner, and
is gradually extending itself.

The common red clover is extensively culti-
vated in the United States, sometimes alone,
sometimes with other grasses. With tiinothy
it makes hay of a very superior kind, especially
for neat cattle. The seed is usually sown with

CLOVER.

winter wheat or other grain crops, late in Feb-
niary or early in March, whilst the ground is
still subject to freezing and thawing, and the
seed can thus gain admission into the soil. Or
it may be sown with the oat or other spring or
summer crop, in which case, having the ad-
vantage of being harrowed in, it can generally
be sown with even greater success than when
put with a 'crop of winter grain. Too little
seed is generally applied, and the best quantity
is from 10 to 12 or 14 lbs. per acre. The bushel
weighs about 60 to 64 lbs., very nearly the
same weight with good wheat.

Clover is frequently turned under in the fall
to enrich the ground preparatory to a crop of
wheat, or in the ensuing spring for the benefit
of the Indian corn. Some persons think the
best time lor turning down clover is in the
rankest and most succulent stage of its growth,
whilst others maintain that it is best to leave
it to the period of its decline, when its extract-
ive matter is most abundant. This last plan
is undoubtedly the best in most if not all cases,
and this opinion is founded upon the results of
actual experiments. Being a biennial plant,
clover of course leaves the field after the se-
cond year, unless allowed to seed itself. When
timothy has been sown with it, this perennial
grass then obtains exclusive possession of the
field, where it is generally allowed to remain
two or more years longer, affording the richest
of all kinds of hay for horses, although for neat
cattle the mixture of red clover and timothy is
generally preferred.

Clover hay, when fed unmixed to horses,
often produces a cough. This can always be
removed by substituting timothy for a few
weeks, after which the feed may consist of
half clover and half timothy, with little or no
danger of producing cough. Experience has
shown that when the clover hay is fed from
large troughs or gangers instead of racks
above the head, horses escape the cough.
Many of the most careful farmers in Pennsyl-
vania have entirely excluded racks from their
bams and stables, and substituted mangers or
large troughs.

Clover, by which is understood the common
red clover (trifolium pratense), is of immense
importance in the improved system of Ameri-
can husbandry, taking the place of almost
every other kind of a«ieliorating crop. Its tap
roots penetrate and loosen the soil, whilst the
leaves and stems produce abundance of nutri-
tious food for the farm stock ; and both roots
and stems, when turned under by the plough,
are extremely enriching to the soil. The first
year's growth of clover is sometimes mown
for hay and sometimes pastured, whilst the
second qi^ops are devoted to hay and furnish-
ing seed.. When the second crop is pastured
in spring, the stock must not be turned on be-
fore the ground has become so firm that hoofs
will not sink into the sod, nor until the growth
is such as to enable the cattle to thrive. The
pasturage may be continued from the middle
of April or first of May for about six weeks,
when the cattle are to be withdrawn, and the
second crop allowed to go to seed for saving.
Some farmers think that the closer the first
growth of the second season is cut or cropped

CLOVER.

CLOVER.

the better. By many, mowing the first crop is
considered preferable to grazing it, since the
scythe takes off weeds which cattle would
leave.

In the humid climate of England it is often
difficult to cure the clover properly after it is
cuf. But in the United States the greater dry-
ness of the atmosphere renders it much more
easy to save the crop, and consequently the
practice of mixing it, layer upon layer, with
diy wheat straw, &c., may generally be dis-
pensed with. In saving clover, the object to
be obtained is to cure the hay in the cheapest
and best manner.

" The common practice of spreading clover
.hay from the swath," says Buel, " causes the
leaves and blossoms to dry and crumble before
the haulm or stems are suificiently cured. Thus
either the finer parts of the hay are lost, or the
crop is housed with so much moisture as to
cause it to heat, and often to spoil. Clover
should only be spread when it has become wet
with rain in the swath, and should be gathered
again before the leaves dry and crumble. Both
these evils may be avoided, and labour saved
withal, by curing the grass wholly in swath
and cock. After experiencing the serious dis-
advantages of the old method, I adopted the
one I am about to recommend, and have pur-
sued it satisfactorily ten or a dozen years. My
practice has been to leave the cloyer to wilt in
the swath, and, when partially dried, either to
turn the swaths or to make grass-cocks the
same day, so as to secure the dried portions
from the dew. That which is not put into
cocks the first day is thus secured the second
day, or as soon as it has become partially
dried. These grass-cocks are permitted to
stand one, two, or three days, according as the
"weather is, and as the curing process has pro-
gressed, when they are opened at nine or ten
o'clock on a fair day, the hay again turned
over between eleven and three, and, soon after
turning, gathered for the cart. Thus cured, the
hay is perfectly bright and sweet, and hardly a
blossom or leaf is M'asted. Some care is required
in making the cocks. The grass is collected
with forks and placed on dry ground between
the swaths, in as small a compass as conve-
nient at the base, say two or three feet in dia-
meter, and rising in a cone to the height of
four or five feet.

" The advantages of this mode of curing clo-
ver are,

" 1. The labour of spreading from the swath
is saved.

" 2. The labour of the hand-rake is abridged,
or may be wholly dispensed with, if the horse-
rake is used to glean the field when the hay is
taken off, the forks sufficing to collect it tole-
rably clean in the cocking process.

"3. It prevents, in a great measure, injury
from dew and rain ; for these cocks, if rightly
constructed (not by rolling), will sustain a rain
of some days — that is, they have done this with
^e — without heating or becoming more than
Truperficially wet.

"4. Clover hay made in this way may al-
most invariably be housed in good condition ;
and if rain falls after the grass is mown, the
quality of the hay is infinitely superior in
340

j cocks to what it would be under the old pro-
cess of curing." (Cultivator.)

Many prefer mowing the Clover before it
gets very ripe, as then so much of the seed
would not be shaken off during the processes
of curing, removing, &c. As the hay of the
seed-crop is seldom considered of much value
except for litter and manure, it is frequently
left long in the field to become thoroughly dry,
so as to insure it against heating in the mow
or stack, as this would be far more injurious
to the seed than exposure to weather.

Besides mowing the seed crop in the usual
manner for hay, several other methods have
been devised. The one most commonly re-
sorted to in Pennsylvania is the employment
of a scythe and cradle to cut off the heads,
which are caught by a kind of bag attached
to the lower fingers, the rest being removed.
Or the upper fingers being removed, the lower
ones may be placed sufficiently close ^o catch
the heads. ^

Among other contrivances which have been
devised for gathering the heads in the field,
one originally described by Mr. L'Homidieu,
and since modified, is simple, cheap, and has
been found very effectual. A description of
the original "machine, illustrated with a cut,
may be found in the fifth volume of the Culti-
vator. It consists of an open box about four
feet square at the bottom, and three feet high
on the sides. To the fore part, which is open,
fingers are fixed at the bottom, somewhat like
those of a wheat cradle (or large points may
be substituted resembling saw-teeth or a comb);
these fingers or jagged points are about thir-
teen inches long, and so' arranged as to catch
and tear off between them the heads from the
clover stems, which are thrown back into the
box as the horse advances. This box is fixed
on an axletree provided with low wheels six-
teen inches in diameter. Two shafts, each
four feet four inches long, are attached to the
axletree between the wheels and sides of the,
box. At the back part of the box, which is
closed, there are two handles three feet long
and twenty inches apart, resembling those of
the wheelbarrow. The machine may be com-
pared to a scraper, supposing this placed on
low wheels, and to have high sides. The
driver, by means of the handles, raises or
lowecs the fore part of the box, the notched
bottom or fingers of which catch and tear off
the clover heads. As often as the box gets
filled with these it is emptied, and the horse
moves on as before.

This machine has been advantageously mo-
dified, especially by Mr. James L. Bowman, of
Brownsville, Pennsylvania, who, finding the
wheels of the original contrivance too high,
substituted runners of three-inch scantling.
These runners, he says, ought to be about two
inches deeper behind than before, so as to ele-
vate that part of the box, and give the teeth a
depression towards the ground. The teeth
ought to be left flat on the top, and the edges
made sharp; underneath they should be bevelled
dovetail fashion. Though wood will answer
for these, it would be an improvement to have
them made of iron, shaped like dirk blades.
Mr. Bowman also thinks the box should be

CLOVER,

CLUB MOSS.

made larger than that described, say six feet
wide and five deep, as one of such a size can
easily be drawn by a single horse, and would
do more work. With the machine as modified
by him, Mr. B. says the clover heads may be
gathered cleaner and in half the time that
would have been required to mow and save
the hay. He sums up the advantages of em-
ploying the machine as follows: — "1st. The
stalks are all left on the ground to benefit the
land. 2d. The heads are immediately taken
to the barn, ready for the hulling machine,
without the delay and labour of separating the
heads from the stalks by flails or tramping.
3d. A man with a horse can strip double the
quantity in a day that he could cut. 4th. The
seed is better, inasmuch as the heads are taken
to the barn and secured from the weather, the
dampness of which frequently causes them to
sprout when exposed to the usual rotting pro-
cess, as it is termed. For the use of this ma-
chine the clover ought to be permitted to get
fuMy ri}>e, and if the spaces between the teeth
become clogged, they can quickly be freed by
a sharp spade or shovel, which the operator
has with him in shovelling the heads to the
back of the box."

In getting the seed from the heads, it has
been common to employ the flail, and to clear
it from the husk and chaflf recourse has been
had to a clover-mill, worked either by water,
steam, or horse-power. A clover-mill adapted
to horse-power, with the advantage of being
portable, has been patented by Rittenhouse &
Co., and is much used in the Northern and
Eastern States, where the average product of
seed per acre is four or five bushels. The
cost of the mill is about $60.

The old method of thrashing out clover seed by
the flail or by the tramping of horses has been ge-
nerally regarded as very tedious and disagreea-
ble, so much so, indeed, as to have discouraged
most farmers from attempting to gather the seed
at all. Those who were within the vicinity of
clover-mills conveyed the seed in the hull to
them to have it separated and cleaned. This
was costly and troublesome, and the refuse
was lost to the farmer. Of latter time the in-
troduction of thrashing machines has obviated
all difficulty of this kind, and farmers can now
thrash out their clover seed with nearly the
same expedition th.at they thrash their grain.
The dried clover stalks and heads are put
through the machine in the same manner as
wheat ; a proper sifter separates the stems from
the heads, when, by introducing an additional
set of teeth into the machine to work closer,
the heads or chafi" are again put through the
machine, by which process the seed is shelled
from the hull with great expedition and very
effectually, when it is cleaned by the fan in the
usual manner. Many of the thrashing ma-
chines now in use have been constructed with
the additional set of teeth for this purpose, and
if they were all thus supplied, it would be a
means of encouraging the cultivation of clo-
ver for seed on a much more extended scale,
cheapen the article, and promote the sowing
of it more extensively and thicker than is often
done, by which fewer bald places would be
seen in the fields, and the stalks would not be

so gross and succulent, and the hay and pas-
ture would be sweeter and better and in greater
abundance than when it stands thin on the
ground. (Sinclair's Hort. Gram.; Quart. Journ.
of Agr. vol. xi. p. 249 ; "On turning the second
crop of Clover;" Com. to Board of Agr. vol. iv.
p. 197 ; Davy.)

CLOVER, BOKARA. See Mkllilotus Alba.
CLOVER BOX. A contrivance for sowing
clover seed, of very simple construction, easily
made and at trifling expense, was invented by
the late Mr. Bordley, of Marj'land. It is called
the Clover box, and in some sections of the
country it is in general use. It not only scat-
ters the seed over the ground with entire cer-
tainty and equality, but makes a much less
quantity answer than is usually required in the
old process of sowing broadcast. It is stated
that, " by the use of this box, one bushel has
seeded fifteen acres, the clover well set, the
plants in sufllicient numbers, and the whole
field evenly seeded.

"The box is eight or ten feet in length, about
four inches in breadth, divided into partitions
of six inches long. In the bottom of each
partition is an opening of about three inches
square, in which is inserted a piece of tin,
parchment, or stiff paper, perforated with a
number of holes of sufficient size for the clo-
ver seed to pass freely through.

"The seed is placed in each partition. To
the box is affixed a strap, which is passed over
the shoulders of the sower, and, carrying the
box before him, he walks over the field, agitat-
ing the box by his hand if it requires more
movement than it receives from his walk. In
this manner the seed is equally distributed over
all the ground.

"A very thin piece of board may be hooked
at the bottom of the box, to prevent the seed
dropping out before the sowing commences.
The box may be made of light cedar, and not
weigh more than six or eight pounds without
the seed." See Jni. Fanner, vol. ii. p. 60.

CLOVER, STONE (Tnfnliumarvense), Welsh
clover, Rabbit-foot. This is frequent in Penn-
sylvania and other Middle States, on sandy,
barren fields. Though supposed to be a native
of America, it is found on both sides of the
Atlantic. It is a worthless plant, and indicative
of careless farming. (Flor. Cestrir.)

CLUB GRASS (Corynephorus). An unin-
teresting species of grass, requiring only to be
sown in common soil. The last articulation
of the jointed beard is club-shaped, whence its
name.

CLUB MOSS (Lyropodium, from x:/jto? a
wolf, and tto-jc a foot, because of the resem-
blance of the roots). This moss grows abun-
dantly on mountainous heaths or stony moors;
some of the species, which are numerous, reach
to a foot high, in watery, healthy, mountainous
situations. The seeds are often highly inflam-
mable, like powdered sulphur. The hardy
species of club moss require to be cultivated
in peat soil, in a moist situation ; some of them
succeed in pots of water. They are readily in-
creased by suckers.

The planed or flatted lycopodiura grows in
the United States, in woods and thickets. It is
the well-known trailing vaHety so often col-
2 F 2 341 .

CLUB RUSH.

COCHINEAL.

lected as an ornamental evergreen, to be hung '
in festoons around churches, ball-rooms, mir-
rors, picture-frames, &c. (Flora Cestrica.)

CLUB RUSH. See Rush.

CLUMP (Ger.klump). A number of shrubs
or trees growing together. j

CLUSTER-GRAPE. The small black or :
currant grape. See Vistk.

CLUSTER-SOWING. That method of sow- 1
ing grain, in which a number of corns are
placed together.

CLYSTER. SeeGLTSTER.
. COAGULATION (Lat. coagulatio). A term
signifying that chemical change which takes
place when a fluid, or some part of it, is ren-
dered more or less solid.

COAGULUM. A term applied to the curdled
concretion formed by the mixture of two
liquors. It sometimes also means rennet.

COB. A kind of wicker basket, made so as
to be carried on the arm. Hence a seed-cob,
or seed-lip, is a basket for sowing from. Cob
was formerly the name for a spider, hence we
have cobweb. Cob is also applied provincially
in England to a round sort of stone, to a mud
wall, and sometimes to a particular kind of
horse. In the United States it is the common
name given to that portion of the ear of In-
dian corn to which the grains are attached.
When burned, corn-cobs yield a large propor-
tion of potash.

COBBLE. A provincial term for a round
sort of stone found in the fields. It also signi-
fies a small kind of fishing-boat.

COBBLE-TREES. A sort of double swingle-
trees, whippins, or splinter-bars.

COCCIFEROUS PLANTS (from *ox«o?,
and fero to bear). Such plants or trees as af-
ford nutrition to, and a habitation for, the insect
called a coccus.

COCCUS. A genus of insects frequenting
certain plants. Naturalists enumerate more
than twenty species. Among these are the
cochineal insect of the tropical parts of Ame-
rica, and the scarlet-grain of Poland (Coccus
polonicus) which thrives only in cold climates.
This last is sometimes called the Cochineal of
the North, and is collected in great abundance
for the use of dyers, from the roots of the
polygommi cocciferum. It is much inferior to the
American cochineal.

Some interesting information relative to in-
sects of the Coccus family may be found under
the head of Bark-Lice.

COCCULUS INDICUS, or INDIAN BERRY,
is the fruit of the Menispermum cocculus, a large
tree, which grows upon the coasts of Malabar,
Ceylon, &c. The fruit is blackish, and of the
size of a large pea. It owes its narcotic and
poisonous qualities to the vegeto-alkaline che-
mical principle called picroloxia, of which it
contains about one-fiftieth part of its weight.
It is sometimes thrown into waters to intoxi-
cate or kill fishes ; and it is said to have been
employed to increase the inebriating qualities
of ale or beer. Its use for this purpose is pro-
■ibited by act of Parliament, under a penalty
of 200/. upon the brewer, and 500/. upon the
seller of the drug.

COCHINEAL. An American insect greatly
valued on account of its' use in dying crimson,
342

scarlet, &c., and preparing carmine. When
first discovered it was taken to Europe as a
seed, but was proved by the observations of
Lewenhoeck to be an insect, being the female
of that species of shield-louse, or coccus, disco-
vered in Mexico, so long ago as 1518. It is
brought to us from Mexico, where the animal
lives upon the cactus opuntia or nopal. Two
sorts of cochineal are gathered — the wild, from
the woods, called by the Spanish name grann
silvestra: and the cultivated, or the grana fina,
termed also mesteque, from the name of a Mexi-
can province. The first is smaller, and co-
vered with a cottony down, which increases its
bulk with a matter useless in dyeing ; it yields,
therefore, in equal weight, much less colour,
and is of inferior price to that of the fine cochi-
neal. But these disadvantages are compen-
sated in some measure to the growers by its
being reared more easily and less expensively;
partly by the effect of its down, which enables
it better to resist rains and storms.
. The wild cochineal, when it is bred upon
the field nopal, loses in part the tenacity and
quantity of its cotton, and acquires a size
double of what it has on the wild opnntias. It
may, therefore, be hoped that it will be im-
proved by persevering care in the rearing of
it, when it will approach more and more to fine
cochineaL

The fine cochineal, when well dried and well
preserved, should have a gray colour, border-
ing on purple. The gray is owing to the pow-
der, which naturally covers it, and of which a
little adheres ; as also to a waxy fat The
purple shade arises from the colour extracted
by the water in which they were killed. It is
wrinkled with parallel furrows across its back,
which are intersected in the middle by a longi-
tudinal one ; hence, when viewed by a magni-
fier, or even a sharp naked eye, especially after
being swollen by soaking for a little in water,
it is easily distinguished from the factitious,
smooth, glistening, black grains, of no value;
called East India cochineal, with which it is
often shamefully adulterated bj certain London
merchants. The genuine cochineal has the
shape of an e^^, bisected through its long axis,
or of a tortoise, being rounded like a shield
upon the back, flat upon the belly, and without
wings.

These female insects are gathered ofl!' the
leaves of the nopal plant, after it has ripened
its fruit, a few only being left for brood, and
are killed, either by a momentary immersion
in boiling water, by drying upon heated plates,
or in ovens. The last become of an ash-gray
colour, constituting the silver cochineal, or
jaspeada ; the second are blackish, called negra,
and are most esteemed, being probably driest;
the first are reddish brown, and reckoned in-
ferior to the other two. The drj' cochineal
being sifted, the dust, with the imperfect insects
and fragments which pass through, are sold
under the name of gmm/fo.

Cochineal keeps for a long time in a dry
place. Hellot says that he has tried some 130
years old, which produced the same effect as
new cochineal.

Much adulteration is practised in England
upon cochineal. In the republics of Mexico*

COCK.

COFFEE.

MGfuatimala and other parts of Central America,
where the temperature of the climate through-
out ten months of the year seldom falls so low
as 50° Fahr., the circumstances are peculiarly
favourable to the culture of the cochineal in-
sect. A large amount of the capital of the
country is invested in the necessary plantations
and fixttires.

The true cochineal insect has been found in
South Carolina by the late Dr. Garden, and
Mr. Raphael Peale of Philadelphia also identi-
fied it on the island of Little St. Simons, coast
of Georgia. The Cartas cyuntia grows abun-
dantly on all the calcareous islands near the
Southern coast. Still it is not very probable
that cochineal will soon become an object of
culture in the extreme Southern States, as it is
an employment of a very tedious and fatiguing
nature, exacting more attention than the ma-
nagement of the silkworm, which last bids fair
to be a far more profitable resource.

COCK (Sax. coec; Fr. coq). A name applied
to the male of chickens and other birds.

COCKCHAFFER {Melolontha vulgaris). One
of the common names for a species of European
tree beetle, whose food consists almost entirely
of leaves. They come rather late in the vernal
season, about May 20th, but occasionally ap-
pear at uncertain intervals in amazing swarms.
White says, they abound only once in three
years. They are also known by the provincial
names of May-bug, dor, and dummador. Cock-
chafters are sometimes used as baits in angling.
The larva or grub of the common cockchafTer
is one of the great ravagers of the English
meadows and grass lands. It remains in the
grub state for four years. "It undermines,"
says Kirby, " the richest meadows, and so
loosens the turf, that it will roll up as if cut
with a turfing spade. These grubs did so much
injury seventy years ago to a poor farmer near
Norwich, that the court of that city, out of
compassion, allowed him 25/., and the man and
his servant gathered eighty bushels of the
beetles. The damage done by them in 1785
was so great in France, that the government
offered a reward for the best mode of eradicat-
ing them." The rooks are great friends to the
farmer in destroying this grub, to procure
which they follow the plough. {Kirby and
Spenre^s Introd. to Entomology, vol. i. p. 180.)

COCK-FIGHTING. A very old and barba-
rous common pastime and amusement, which
is happily growing into disuse in civilized
England and America, and becoming super-
seded bv more manly and noble sports.

COCKLE, CORN, or CORN CAMPION
(Sax. coccel ; Lat. Agrostemma githago). PI. 10, a,
A well-known troublesome annual weed, of
rather an ornamental appearance, growing in
grain-fields in summer, bearing purplish red
flowers. It stands two feet and a half high, the
stalk firm, hairy, slender, and round, with one
large flower upon each top. The leaves stand
two at a joint, long, narrow, and of a bright
green colour. The flowers, which are of a
violet-purple colour, stand in a cup composed
of linear hairy sepals, which are longer than
the corolla. The seeds, which are numerous,
are black and rough, and nearly as big as

small wheat kernels ; they are filled with white
flour, and very heavy. The miller's objection
to these seeds is, that their black husks break
so fine as to pass the boulters, and render the
flour specky; also because the seed is bulky,
and if there be much in the sample, it detracts
considerably from the produce in flour. Being
easily distinguished, this weed should be era-
dicated from the field by the hand before
flowering. (Smitli's Eng. Flora, vol. ii. p. 325 ;
Sinclair's Weeds, p. 9 ; Elements of Agriculture,
441 ; Willich's Dom. Encyc.)

COCK'S-FOOT GRASS (Dactylis glonierata).
PI. 5, b. Commonly called Orchard Grass in the
Middle and Northern States. A species of
grass, which, from the experiments of Sinclair,
appears to become by cultivation superior to
rye grass and some others as a pasture grass,
if kept closely cropped by cattle or the scythe;
and also when made into hay. Oxen, horses,
and sheep eat it readily. It flowers from June
till August, and perfects its seed in July. The
produce of herbage per acre, at the time of
flowering, is 27,905 lbs., which afibrds of hay
11,859 lbs., and the proportion of nutritive
matter is 1089 lbs. The produce is something
less when the seed is ripe, and it loses about
one-half its weight in drying. See Hat Grasses.
(Sinclair's Hart. Gram. p. 136; Smith's Eng.
Flora, vol. i. p. 134.)

COCK-SPUR. A common name in Eng-
land for the Virginian hawthorn ; a species of
medlar. See Hawthohn.

COCOON. The fibrous web round a chry-
salis.

COD. A term used sometimes for pod.

CODLIN. A well-known kind of baking
apple. See Malus.

COFFEE. The seed of a tree of the family
rubiacea. There are several species of the genus,
but the only one cultivated is the Coffcta Arabica^
a native of Upper Ethiopia and A rabia Felix. It
rises to the height of fifteen or twenty feet Its
trunk sends forth opposite branches in pairs
above and at right angles toeachother; the leaves
resemble those of the common laurel, although
not so dry and thick. From the angle of the
leaf-stalks small groups of white flowers issue,
which are like those of the Spanish jasmine.
These flowers fade very soon, and are replaced
by a kind of fruit not unlike a cherry, which
contains a yellow, glairy fluid, enveloping two
small seeds or berries convex upon one side,
flat and furrowed upon the other, in the direc-
tion of the long axis. These seeds are of a
homy or cartilaginous nature ; they are glued
together, each being surrounded with a pecu-
liar coriaceous membrane. They constitute
the coffee of commerce.

It was not till towards the end of the fifteenth
century that the coffee tree began to be culti-
vated in Arabia. Historians usually ascribe
the discovery of the use of coffee as a beverage
to the superior of a monastery there, who, de-
sirous of preventing the monks from sleeping
at their noctural services, made them drink the
infusion of coffee upon the reports of shepherds,
who pretended that their flocks were more
lively after browsing on the fruit of that plant.
The use of coffee was soon rapidly spread, but

343

COFFEE.

COFFEE.

it encountered much opposition on the part of
the Turkish government, and became the occa-
sion of public assemblies. Under the reign
of Amuralh III. the mufti procured a law to
shut all the coffee-houses, and this act of sup-
pression was renewed under the minority of
Mahomet IV. It was not till 1554, under Soly-
man the Great, that the drinking of coffee was
accredited in Constantinople ; and a century
elapsed before it was known in London and
Paris. Solyman Aga introduced its use into
the latter city in 1669, and in 1672 an Armenian
established the first cafi at the fair of St. Ger-
main.

The use of coffee became general among
the English sooner than it did with the French.
The first mention of coffee on the English sta-
tute books is in 1660, when a duty of 4rf. is laid
upon every gallon of coffee bought or sold.
Ray informs us that in 1688 London might
rival Cairo in the number of coffee-houses.

When coffee became somewhat of a neces-
sary of life, from the influence of habit among
the people, all the European powers who had
colonies between the topics, projected to form
plantations of coffee trees in them. The Dutch
were the first who transported the coffee plant
from Moka to Batavia, and from Batavia to
Amsterdam. In 1714, the magistrates of that
city sent a root to Louis XIV., which he caused
to be planted in the Jardin du Roi. This be-
came the parent stock of all the French coffee
plantations in Martinique.

The most extensive culture of coffee is still
in Arabia Felix, and principally in the king-
dom of Yemen, towards the cantons of Aden
and Moka. Although these countries are very
hot in the plains, they possess mountains where
the air is mild. The coffee is generally grown
half way up on their slopes. When cultivated
on the lower grounds, it is always surrounded
by large trees, which shelter it from the torrid
sun, and prevent its fruit from withering be-
fore their maturity. The harvest is gathered
at three periods; the most considerable occurs
in May, when the reapers begin by spreading
cloths under the trees, then shaking the
branches strongly, so as to make the fruit drop,
which they collect, and expose upon mats to
dry. They then pass over the dried berries
a very heavy roller, to break the envelopes,
which are afterwards winnowed away with a
fan. The interior bean is again dried before
being laid up in store.

In Demarara, Berbice, and some of the Eng-
lish West India islands, where much good coffee
is now raised^ a different mode of treating the
pulpy fruit and curing the beans is adopted.
See Ure't Did. of the Artt, &c.

The most highly esteemed cdSee is that of
Moka. It has a smaller and a rounder bean;
a more agreeable taste and smell than any
other. Its colour is yellow. Next to it in
European reputation are the Martinique and
Bourbon coffees : the former is larger than the j
.^|abian,and more oblong; it is rounded at the j
€W8 ; its colour is greenish, and it preserves |
suttiost always a silver gray pellicle, which '
comes off in the roasting. The Bourbon coffee
approaches nearest to the Moka, from which i
344

it originally sprung. The Saint Domingo
coffee has its two extremities pointed, and is
much less esteemed than the preceding.

The coffee tree flourishes in hilly districts,
where its root can be kept dry, while its leaves
are refreshed with frequent showers. R<x-.ky
ground, with rich decomposed mould in the
fissures, agrees best with it Though it would
grow, as we have said, to the height of fifieeu
or twenty feet, yet it is usually kept down by
pruning to that of five feet, for increasing the
production of the fruit, as. well as for the con-
venience of cropping. It begins to yield fruit
the third year, but is not in full bearing till the
fifth, does not thrive beyond the twenty-fifth,
and is useless in general at the thirtieth. In
the coffee husbandry, the plants should be
placed eight feet apart, as the trees throw out
extensive horizontal branches, and in holes ten
or twelve feet deep, to secure a constant supply
of moisture.

Coffee has been analyzed by a great many
chemists, with considerable diversity of re-
sults. The best analysis perhaps is that of
Schrader. He found that the raw beans dis-
tilled with water in a retort communicated to
it their flavour and rendered it turbid, whence
they seem to contain some volatile oil. On
reboiling the beans, filtering and evaporating
the liquor to a syrup, adding a little alcohol
till no more matter was precipitated, and then
evaporating to dryness, he obtained 17-58 per
cent of a yellowish-brown transparent extract,
which constitutes the characteristic part of
coffee, though it is not in that state the pure
proximate principle called cafeine. Its most
remarkable reaction is its producing, with both
the protoxyde and the peroxyde salts of iron, a
fine grass-green colour, while a dark-gieen
precipitate falls, which redissolves when an
acid is poured into the liquor. It produces on
the solution of the salts of copper scarcely any
effect, till an alkali be added, when a very
beautiful green colour is produced, which may
be employed in painting. Coffee beans con-
tain also a resin, and a fatty substance some-
what like suet According to Robiquet, ether
extracts from coffee beans nearly ten per cent
of resin and fat, but he probably exaggerates
the amount The peculiar substance cafeine
contained in the above extract is crystallizable.
It is remarkable in regard to composition, that
ailer urea and the uric acid, and theobromin
from chocolate, it is among organic products
the richest in azote. It was discovered and de-
scribed in 1820 by Runge. It does not possess
alkaline properties. Pfeff obtained only ninety
grains of cafeine from six pounds of coffee
beans. There is also an acid in raw coffee, to
which the name of cafeic acid has been given.
When distilled to dryness and decomposed,
it ha« the smell of roasted coffee.

Coffee undergoes important changes in the
process of roasting. When it is roasted to a
yellowish-brown, 'it loses, according to Cadet,
12| per cent of its weight, and is in this state
difficult to grind. When roasted to a chestnut
brown, it loses 18 per cent, and when it be-
comes entirely black, though not at all carbo-
nized, it has lost 23 per cent. Schrader has

COFFEE.

COFFEE.

analyzed roasted coffee comparatively with
raw coffee, and he found in the first 12^ per
cent, of an extract of coffee, soluble in water
and alcohol, which possesses nearly the pro-
perties of the extract of the raw coffee, although
it has a deeper brown colour, and softens more
readily in the air. He found also 10*4 of a
blackish-brown gum ; 6*7 of an oxygenated
extract, or rather apotheme, soluble in alcohol,
insoluble in water; 2 of a fatty substance and
resin ; 69 of burnt vegetable fibre, insolublg.
On distilling roasted coffee with water, Schra-
der obtained a product which contained the
aromatic principle of coffee; it reddened litmus
paper, and exhaled a strong and agreeable
odour of roasted coffee. If we roast coffee in
a retort, the first portions of the aromatic prin-
ciple of coffee condense into a yellow liquid
in the receiver ; and these may be added to the
coffee roasted in the common way, from which
this matter has been expelled and dissipated
in the air.

Of late years much ingenuity has been ex-*
pended in contriving various forms of appa-
ratus for making infusions of coffee for the
table. I have tried most of them, and find,
after all, none so good as a caffetiere a la lielloy,
the coffee big^n, with the perforated tinplate
strainer, especially when the filtered liquor is
kept simmering in a close vessel, set over a
lamp or steam pan. The useful and agreeable
matter in coffee is very soluble : it comes off
with the first waters of infusion, and needs no
boiling.

To roast coffee richly, we should keep in
view the proper objects of this process, which
are to develope its aroma, and destroy its tough-
ness, so that it may be readily ground to pow-
der. Too much heat destroys those principles
which we should wish to preserve, and substi-
tutes new ones which have nothing in common
with the first, but add a disagreeable empyreu-
matic taste and smell. If, on the other hand,
the rawness or greenness is not removed by
an adequate heat, it masks the flavour of the
bean, and injures the beverage made with it.
When well roasted in the sheet-iron cylinders
set to revolve over a«fire, it should have a uni-
form chocolate colour, a point readily hit by
experienced roasters, who now manage the
business very well for the principal coffee-
dealers both of London and Paris, so far as
my judgment can determine. The develope-
ment of the proper aroma is a criterion by
which coffee-roasters frequently regulate their
operations. When it loses more than 20 per
cent, of its weight, coffee is sure to be in-
jured. It should never be ground till immedi-
ately before infusion. ( Ure'$ Diet, of ArU and
Manvf.)

Coffee may be cultivated in the peninsula
of Florida. A climate the temperature of which
seldom falls below 55°, and where the soil is
on gentle declivities, afford the most favourable
circumstances. The trees may be set five or
six feet asunder; they begin to yield good crops
at three years of age, and the average produce
of a tree is two and a half pounds.

The consumption of coffee is very great in
Mohammedan countries, and especially in Tur-
44

key, where their religion forbids the use of
wine and spirituous liquors. In the United
States, its consumption is already very ^reat
and is rapidly increasing ; being not less than
15,000 tons annually.

In Paris, the best coffee in the world is made
by the following process. This is the cele-
brated liquor there called cafe au lait. The
coffee is generally roasted in a rotary cylinder,
over a small furnace of charcoal, and usually
in the open air, until it becomes of a brown
cinnamon colour; it is then turned into a
wooden tray, and stirred till nearly cool. The
pot in which coffee is usually made, is com-
pound, and formed of two parts, of equal di-
mensions ; the lower pot being made of the
usual form ; the spout being kept covered and
closed during the process, by a small cap,
thimble formed. The upper pot is nicely fitted
to the top of the lower pot, of which it forms a
lid ; it is pierced at the bottom with very fine
holes, and thus forms a fine strainer; in the
bottom of this pot, and on this strainer, the
fresh and finely ground coffee is placed, and
the top of this pot is closed by the insertion o^
a shallow tin cup, full of larger holes, which
serves for a coarser strainer ; and through this,
cither boiling water, or, most commonly, a
strong infusion of boiling coffee, is poured,
which has been formed by boiling the grounds
of tha«former day, which had still retained a
large portion of their original strength ; thence
the whole fluid slowly and gradually descends
to the lower pot. Thus a very strong, clear,
and black infusion is prepared, which, on
being brought to the table, is reduced by the
addition of at least an equal quantity or more
of boiling milk ; sugar being added to suit the
taste. Nothing can be more fragrant and de-
licious than coffee thus made.

In the Eastern countries of the old world and
in Europe generally, at present, coffee is always
taken in small cups as a cordial and restora-
tive,— and not swilled in large vessels as a
beverage at meals, as is so frequently done in
the United Slates, especially by the interior
population. The French mode of prep.aring
coffee for use having been given, we will sub-
join a description of the process pursued in
Arabia, as related by Mr. Buckingham, who
had ample opportunities of learning it from
personal observation.

"It is found that the only certain mode of
retaining the pure flavour of the coffee, is to
roast, pound, and boil it, all in quick succes-
sion, the roasted berries soon losing their fla-
vour if laid by for a day, and the pounded coffee
becoming insipid, even in a few hours. The
Arabs of the desert, who are from necessity
economical in the use of this article, follow the
same process, even if they require only two
cups of the liquid, roasting a handful of berries
on an iron plate, pounding them in a pestle
and mortar while warm, and the instant the
water boils, which it will generally do by the
time the other preparations are completed, so
that no time is lost, putting the pounded pow-
der into it, and suffering it to boil, stirring it at
the same time for about a minute or two, when
it is poured out to drink. As the beverage is

345

COFFEE TREE.

taken without sugar or milk, the slightest dif-
ference in the flavour is perceptible ; and long
experience having shown this to be the best
way of preserving it in perfection, it is per-
haps worth mentioning in detail, particularly
as the use of this article has become so
general."

COFFEE TREE (Gymrwdadus Canadensis).
This native North American tree is found as
high northward as Upper Canada beyond Mon-
treal, and on the southern shores of Lakes Erie
and Ontario. It is, however, much less abun-
dant in these climes than in the states of Ken-
tucky and Tennessee, and in the tract watered
by the Ohio and Illinois risers, between the
35th and 40th degrees of latitude.

By the French of Canada this tree is called
Chicot; by those of the Illinois Gros Fevier,
whilst the inhabitants of the Western States
call it Coffee Tree.

The presence of this tree, is an evidence of
the richest lands, on which it habitually grows
in company with the black walnut, red elm,
poplar, blue ash, honey locust, and hackberry.
These trees it equals in height, but not in bulk;
for a coffee tree fifty or sixty feet high does not
generally exceed twelve or fifteen inches in
diameter. "In summer," says Michaux, "this
tree when fully grown has a fine appearance :
its straight trunk is often destitute of branches
for thirty feet, and supports a summit rf^)t very
widely spread, but of a regular shape and of
tufted foliage ; such at least is its form in pri-
mitive forests, where it is confined by the trees
which grow around it. In the winter when its
leaves are fallen, the fewness of its branches
and the size of the terminal ones, which are
very large in comparison with those of other
trees, give it a peculiar appearance, somewhat
resembling a dead tree, which it retains in the
spring long after other trees are clothed in
foliage. This is probably the reason of its
being called Chicot, stump tree, by the French
Canadians. To this peculiar character is
added another of the epidermis, which is ex-
tremely rough, and which detaches itself in
small, hard, transverse strips, rolled backward
at the ends, and projecting sufficiently to ren-
der the tree distinguishable at first sight. I
have also remarked that the live bark is very
bitter, so that a morsel no bigger than a grain
of maize chewed for some time produces a
violent irritation of the throat."

The foliage of the coffee tree bears some
resemblance to that of the black walnut. The
flowers are white, and the fruit consists of
large bean-like crooked pods, of a reddish
brown colour, and of a pulpy consistency
within. They contain several large, gray
seeds, which are extremely hard. The French
in Upper Louisiana call them Gourgane^.

"The name of the coffee tree was give» by
the early emigrants to Kentucky and Tennes-
see, who hoped to find in its seeds a substitute
for coffee : but the small number of persons

tirho made the experiment abandoned it, as
oon as it became easy to obtain from the sea-
ports the coffee of the West Indies.

" The wood of the coffee tree is very com-
pact and of a rosy hue. The fineness and
346

COINS, FOREIGN.

closeness of its grain fit for cabinet-making,
and its strength renders it proper for building.
Like the locust, it has the valuable property of
rapidly converting its sap into perfect wood,
so that a trunk six inches in diameter has only
six lines of sap, and may be employed almost
entire. These qualities recommend it for pro-
pagation in the forests of the north and of the
centre of Europe.

" The coffee tree was sent to France more
than fifty years since. It thrives in the envi-
rons of Paris, where there are trees that ex- i
ceed forty feet in height ; but it does not yield
fruit, and is multiplied only by shoots obtained
by digging trenches round the old trees. The
divided roots produce shoots three or four feet
long, the first year. The young trees are
sought, on account of their beautiful foliage,
for the embellishment of parks and pictu-
resque gardens."

A communication from Mr. M. D. Hardin,
of Franklin county, Kentucky, published in
the American Farmer (vol. 2), makes us ac-
quainted with some interesting facts relative to
the sensible properties of the fruit of the coffee
tree, and its effects when eaten.

The subjoined preparation of the nut of the
native coffee bean tree, or pea locust tree,
"has," says Mr. Hardin, "been found to de-
stroy flies more certainly than any preparation
I ever saw. It is now used by many in this
neighbourhood. I never heard of it until this
season. T'here is no danger to children or any
animal from the preparation. I have been fa-
miliar with the nut for more than thirty years ;
it grew in my father's yard, and is in abun-
dance in my wood pastures. I have several
times eaten the kernel of the nut raw, but
never of many at a time — when roasted many
are fond of them, and I have eaten a good many
that way, I have never myself seen them used
for coffee, but have heard of their being so
used as a matter of curiosity not of choice or
economy. The cattle eat the pods including the
nuts in the winter, as they do the wild honey
locust pods ; but the nut . owing to its hard
shell does not digest, but passes off whole. I
have known children eaf the green glutinous
matter within the pod, as they would that of
the wild honey locust, but it brings on sickness
and puking. The nut itself is so well under-
stood to be harmless and eatable, that the cof-
fee-mill has been most usually made use of to
prepare the nut for the flies.

" For destroying flies. — Take the nuts of the
native pea locust or coffee-nut tree, crack them
and taice out the kernel raw ; reduce them to
meal or powder (a coffee-mill or moriar are
commonly used), put this into as much sweet
milk as would make it into a paste. To this
add some sugar to make the flies more readily
eat it, put it into a plate or other vessel, and
set it where vou want to destroy the flies."

COFFIN-BONE. In farriery, that bone
which lies encircled within a horse's hoof as
in a coffin.

COINS, FOREIGN. The following tables
will show the values and weights of various
foreign coins in federal money of the United
States ;

COLCHICUM.

COLLING.

Table of various Foreign Coins, with their Value
in Money of the United States. jUso, the Value
of Gold Coins per pennyweight.

Value per dwt. Value by tale.

Oold. c m. D. c D. c
British sovereign, or pound

sterling . - - - 946 483 to 486

French twenty-franc piece - »2-9 3 84 to 3-85i

German len-lhaler piece - 7-84 to 7'97

Doubloon of Spanish America 88-7 to 90' 15-39 to 15'62

The value by tale depends upon the age, reign, section
of country, and other (jualifying circumstances, so that
it cannot be precisely expressed in so small a compass.

Val. by Ule.

Silver. c. m.

Dofiar of Mexico and South America, about - - 100 0

French five-franc piece ------ 930

Prussiiin thaler ----- CSS to 69 3

English shilling (since 1816) 217

Milrels of Poriugiil, about - - - - -1120

Rupee of British India ------ 44-5

Bpauish-American quarter-dollar, unworn - - 25 0
Do. do. worn by circulation 235

By the Mint Laws passed by Congress in
1837, the eagle is to weigh 258 troy grains, the
half and quarter in proportion; the dollar 412^
grains, the parts in proportion. The relative
value, therefore, of silver to gold, is 15*9984 to 1,
or nearly 16 of silver for 1 of gold. In making
this comparison, both the silver and gold are
to be of the fineness of nine-tenths.

The coinage of silver in the United States,
from 1826 to 1833, was nineteen and a half
millions; that from 1834 to 1841 was twenty
millions.

COLCHICUM (Colchicum atUumnale). Com-
mon meadow saffron. A bulb throwing up a
reddish purple flower without leaves in 6ep-
temher and October: grows three or four
inches high : found in moist rich meadows,
but not common. It may be propagated from
offsets in July. Every part of the plant con-
tains an alkaline principle named Colchicia,
which is a most violent purgative as well as
narcotic. This active matter is extracted by
wine, spirits of wine, and vinegar. A tincture
of the bulb or of the seeds of colchicum, in the
dose of twenty to thirty drops twice a day, hjis
been found very useful in gout and rheuma-
tism. It has been too commonly taken without
medical advice, and, much mischief has re-
sulted. In an overdose Qolchicum is a virulent
poison. (^Smith*s Eng. Flora, vol. ii. p. 202.)

COLD (Sax. colt); Dan. kaald). ^e Ca-
tarrh, and Diseases op Cattle, Horses, &c.

COLE, or COLESEED (Celt, caal ; Welsh,
cawl ; Lat. Brassica napus). A variety of the
cabbage genus, much cultivated in the east of
England; it is sown from the middle of July
to the end of August, either for autumn sheep-
feed, or for seed (which is very rich in oil) for
the following summer. The ashes of the burnt
straw of coleseed are excellent dressing for
clover. (Brit. Husb. vol. ii. p. 312.) See Colza
and Rape.

COLEWORT. See Cabbage.

COLIN, THE VIRGINIAN PARTRIDGE
(Ortyx Virginiana). This bird has been intro-
duced into England from the United States,
and is a species of partridge. It lives on the
borcfers of woods, among brushwood, or on the
thick grassy plains. (YdrreWs Brit. Birds, vol.
ii. p. 448.)

COLLAR (Span, collar; Lat. collare). That

part of the harness of a horse or other animal
that goes round his neck and rests on the
shoulders. For horses, they are mostly made
of canvass, &c. stuffed with hair, tow, or straw,
and covered with leather.

COLLEY, or COLLY. A kind of dog much
prized by the Scotish drovers. See Doo, Shep-

HERn's.

COLLEY SHEEP. A name for sheep that
have black faces and legs. The wool of these
I sheep is generally very harsh, havitfg hairs
mixed with it.

COLLING, ROBERT and CHARLES. Two
celebrated farmers of the county of Durham,
who, by their skill> enterprise, and public spirit,
not only secured for themselves the plaudits
of after generations of farmers, but did honour
to their country by the improvement which they
effected in the Durham breed of short-horns,
perhaps the most celebrated of all our modern
breeds of cattle. It is not in ray power to give
any details with regard to their private history;
their public efforts is all in which my readers
will feel interested. The following account
of the sale of their stock, and the enormous
amount which it produced, will afford a much
better view of their success as breeders than
any eulogium of mine.

Charles Colling, of Kettou, near Darlington,
made a, very ample fortune. The prices he
obtairfed for his stock could hardly indeed have
failed to have produced such a result : thus at
his sale of improved short-horns, Oct. 11, 1810,
the following were some of the prices obtain
ed:—

Cowi.

Cherry

Peeress

Countess

Celina

Lady

Lilly * -

Bull*.

Comet

Mnj<ir

I'etrarch

Alfred

Duke

Bull calve* oitder one year olJ.

YounfT Favourite
Geersii - - -
Sir Dimple
Cecil - - -

170
400

410

Heifen. At^t,

Phajbe - - 3

Young Duchess - 2

Young Countess - 2

Lucy - - - 2

Charlotte - - 1

Heifer ralve* under om year old.

Lucilla - - - -

Calista - - - -

White Rose - - -

Guinea*.
1000
200
365

no

105
Guinea t.
140
130
90
170

Guinea*.
105
183
306
133
133

Guinea*.

106
50
75

Altogether it appears that —

17 cows sold for
11 bulls " ■

7 bull calves "
7 heifers "

5 heifer calves

47 lots

L. I.
2802 9
2361 9
687 15
942 18
321 6

7115 17

Robert Colling's stock was sold at Barmpton,
near Darlington, September 29, 1818, when il
produced for —

347

COLT.

COLZA.

Gaineas.
34 COWS -_--._ 4141

17 heifers ------ 1287

6 bulls --.-._ 1343

4 bull calves ----- 713

61 head of cattle ----- 7484

One 2 year old cow sold for - - - 331

One 4 " " - - - 300

One 5 " '« - . - 370

One 1 " bull calf - - - 270

One 4 " bull - _ - - 621

{Youatt on Cattle, p. 231—233.)

Charles Colling, after his retirement from
business, resided at Croft, in the North Riding
of Yorkshire, where he died January 16, 1836,
aged 85. Robert Colling died in his 70th
year, at Barmpton, near Darlington, March 7,
1820.

COLT (Sax. coir). A term applied to young
horses. See Hobses. •

COLT-EVIL. In farriery, a distemper to
which young horses are subject, consisting of
a swelling in the sheath.

COLTS-FOOT, COMMON. (Tussilago far-
fara). PI. 10, /. This is an herb of peculiar
growth, very common in England on chalky or
marly soil, in moist situations. It is mostly
found in fields that are over-cropped or ex-
hausted, and often severely exercises the pa-
tience of the farmer. It may be eradicated by
ploughing up the soil, carrying the plant away
when rooted out, and laying the fields down to
grass. The flowers rise in spring on stalks
six or eight inches high, round, large, and yel-
low, like the dandelion; their stalks being
thick, fleshy, scaly, and red coloured. Each
stalk supports one flower. When the flowers
have decayed, then the leaves appear on erect
furrowed footstalks, broad and cordate, lobed
and toothed, resembling the form of a horse's
foot, whence the name. They are green above,
and white and downy underneath. The leaves
are used medicinally, and they dry well. A
decoction of the leaves and roots, or a syrup
of the juice, is useful in coughs, whence the
generic name. The ancients inhaled the
smoke for the relief of coughs.

There are two species of the colts-foot, butter-
bur, or Tussilago genus in the United Slates.
See NuttalVs Genera. The plant known in
Pennsylvania and some other Middle States
by the name of colts-foot is not of the same
genus, but an Asarum. See Gingeh, Wild.

COLZA. Though comparatively but little
cultivated in England, and hardly known in
the United States, colza is an article of im-
mense importance in French and Flemish hus-
bandry. It belongs to the cabbage family, and
is cultivated for its oily seed, which are crushed
and pressed for their oil, similar to flax-seed.
The oil is used to burn in lamps, and for a
great variety of useful purposes. The cake
left after pressing the seeds, like that of rape,
is an article regularly in the markets of Eng-
land, France, Germany, &c., being purchased
bv farmers, who use it, either alone or mixed
>Jlth other substances, as food for cattle, or
to make into manure for various crops. In
France, Germany, and the Netherlands, the
cake is very often thrown into their urine-cis-
terns, where it soon becomes a very valuable ma-
848

terial for manure. The haulm, or stems, after
the seeds are thrashed off", is frequently burned
for the ashes, which are considered of treble
the value of other ashes employed as manure.
Two species of colza are cultivated in
France ; the one a biennial, sown in summer
or autumn, standing out all winter, and matur-
ing its growth and seed the following summer.
This is called winter colza, and is the Brassica
campestris of botanists. The other species, or
rather variety, is a spring crop, maturing its
seeds the same year, and is the Brassica arven-
sis of naturalists. Neither of these must be
confounded with rape, which the French term
navette, and which is the Brassica napus, being
the species most cultivated for similar purposes
in England. Whether the winter colza will
resist the intense cold of the winters in the
more northern states may be doubtful ; but
should it not, the spring colza (B. arvensis) will
doubtless succeed in any part of the United
Slates not favourable to the winter species. As
the plant may become of consequence to the
American agriculturist, we subjoin, from Dom-
basle's Farmer's Calendar, a description of the
French modes of managing the colza crops.

It is generally considered indispensable that
the ground on which colza, is sown should be
rich, light, new, well manured, and prepared
by much working. " Nevertheless," says Dom-
basle, "many years' experience has taught me
that, by pursuing a good system of culture,
very satisfactory crops may be procured from
light and gravelly soils. The plant is not
afraid of a slightly clayey soil, which, in fact,
is the one best adapted to it, provided this be
very light in its texture. It is indispensable
that the ground, of whatever nature its soil
may be, shall be perfectly well drained during
the winter, as frosts are fatal to colza in soils
which retain water."

There are three methods of sowing colza : —
1. Broad-cast; 2. In rows or drills; 3. In beds
for transplantation. The last method can only
be pursued where labour — and especially fe
male labour — is extremely cheap. The sowing
in rows is done by the use of drills, the lines
being placed about eighteen inches apart. This
method admits of hand-hoeing, and even the
use of the cultivator, to destroy weeds or
loosen the soil. When sown broad-cast, about
14 lbs. of seed are required for one hectare
(equal to about 2^ acres). Much less is re-
quired where sown by drills, when the seeds
are dropped about an inch apart in the direc-
tion of the rows. The sowing broad-cast or in
rows generally takes place from the middle of
July to the middle of August. When the plants
' are picked from beds to be planted out, this is
done in September or early in October, so
that they may have time before winter to form
good roots. They are placed in holes dibbled
I by means of a planter with points from 9 to 12
j inches apart, and so formed that a man makes
i two rows at a time, whilst a second person
j puts the plants in the holes, pressing the earth
i well around them with his feet. Sometimes
I rows are run with the plough, and two or three
; women are employed after each plough, in dis-
tributing plants along the open furrow, whichj
\ is covered up by the plough in returning.

COLZA.

When this is skilfully performed, the planta-
tion may be effected with great regularity. In
soils of moderate fertility, the plants need not
be more than 9 inches apart in every direction.
When Jhe ground is very rich, they may stand
about 12 inches apart; and when planted with
the plough, every other furrow is left vacant,
and the plants placed 9 or 10 inches apart.

In moderately fertile soils, the product of the
colza is generally equal to, and sometimes a
little greater than that of wheat. Thus, in soils
which produce 20 bushefls of wheat to the acre,
20 or 25 bushels of colza are obtained, and the
product of rape has been nearly equal. But in
more fertile soils the colza, when it has been
well managed, far surpasses the product of
wheat on the same soil, it being not unusual
to obtain 28 or 30 bushels to the acre, on
ground that will not yield more than 18 or 20
bushels of wheat. Sometimes, by very careful
cultivation, and on ground of a very deep soil,
especially when this is newly broken up, as
much as 40 bushels of colza can be got from
an acre, a larger product than could be expect-
ed from rape.

The chaff of colza and rape form very good
food fur woolly animals during winter. When
given to horned cattle, it should be in the form
of slop, made by mixing it in boiling water.
Sheep eat the straw or stems very freely, when
well kept and not too coarse.

When planted in rows, a hoeing or harrow-
ing, by means of the cultivator, is generally
given in the month of March. About the be-
)?inning of July, and sometimes even at the end
of June, the navette, or rape, and winter colza
arrive at maturity, the rape almost always 8
or 10 days the earliest. As the seeds of these
plants shatter off very easily, it is necessary
that, in harvesting, they should be cut before
they become completely ripe. The most pro-
per time is when the seed-pods begin to turn
yellow and become transparent, and when the
seeds are of a dark-brown, though still tender.
Though the grains of all the pods may yet be
green, the greatest number will ripen in the
stack or mow. Sometimes, when the crop has
become very ripe, to prevent the loss of the
seed, it should only be cut in the evening or
morning, whilst it is covered with dew, or dur-
ing a bright moonlight night. Twenty-four
hours after reaping, or sometimes immediately
after, if the plants are quite ripe, the colza is
put into cocks, the sheaves being carried to an
elevated part of the field, and placed in cocks,
the height of which must be double that of the
stock of colza. In laying them down, the first
sheaves are placed on the outside, and the next
towards the centre. The cock gradually dimi-
nishes in diameter, till raised to the height of
five or six feet. When the cock is two or three
feet high, the stalks or stems have an inclina-
tion on the outside downwards. This increases
successively to the top. which is thus made to
form a perfect cone. To keep out the rain, the
top may be tied with a band of straw, willow
twig, or branch of 'any other pliant wood. The
cocks remain in this state until all the grains
are matured. This generally requires from 8
to 12 days. If carefully put up, the cocks will
be sufficiently protected against bad weather,

COLZA.

except in case of powerful and continued rains,
which would occasion still more damage to the
crop in any other situation. The colza may
also be put into large stacks, like those of
wheat and other grain, very soon after it has
been cut, and remain in this situation for a
month or two. This is, in fact, the safest way
of keeping the colza. But this method is more
expensive than that of cocking, as it requires
to be wagoned to the stack. The fermentation
which always lakes place in the cocks is very
favourable to the grain, giving it a fine colour,
and contributing qualities which are very de-
sirable. The grain will only be injured, if it is
heaped up whilst it is yet green or wet.

When the crop is small, it may be taken at
once into a barn and thrashed off. In its trans-
portation the seed is very apt to be shaken off,
on which account it is necessarj'to carry them
to the- wagons in cloths, and the wagon itself
should be lined with some coarse and cheap
stuff.

Large crops of colza or rape are generally
thrashed in the field by the feet of horses, the
place being covered with strong hempen cloth,
stretched upon a spot from which all stones,
&c., are carefully removed. If the colza has
been put up in cocks, we carry the whole cock
in a linen cU>th eight feet square, which four
men suspend to two long poles of light wood,
eleven fee^^n length, attached to the two sides
of the linen. After spreading the cloth along
the side of the cock, two other poles, of the
same length as those described, are passed
under the cock, which is thus raised up altoge-
ther and placed upon the cloth, to be carried
to the thrashing-floor. When this is sufficiently
filled with colza, spread evenly about two feet
in thickness, and first beaten down by the feet
of the workman who arranges it, three unshod
horses are put upon the floor, or three two-year-
old colls. These are trotted circularly around
a jTian who occupies the centre, and who holds
them by a rein. After they have been round
several times, the colza is turned with hay-
forks, and the horses brought on again. In
this way the thrashing is done very quickly.
If a very large crop, two thrashing-floors should
be made, so that when one bed is preparing,
another maybe thrashing and emptying. After,
being thrashed, the seeds maybe housed, either
in the chaff or partially screened through rid-
dles. When put into granaries, the colza
should be spread in small beds, and turned
frequently for some time, being subject to
heating, by which much of their value is lost.
It should only be completely cleaned when
perfectly dry, or when it is desirable to sell, as.
it keeps so much better when mixed with more
or less chaff. It is scarcely necessary to ob-
serve that colza may be thrashed by means of
the common thrashing machines used for grain.

Spring Colza. — In clayey and new soils, the
spring colza is generally more productive
than the rape, yet it is always a very uncertain
crop, like those of all oily grains which are
sown in the spring. It is one of the most pro-
fitable plants that can be grown in the soils
of newly-drained ponds and meadows. Some
persons, however, have obtained abundant
crops from ground adapted to the growth of
2G 349

COLTS-FOOT.

CORD-WOOD.

wheat, but this has been in particularly favour-
able seasons.

The spring colza should not be sown as late
as the rape, as its growth is much slower. "In
one -very favourable year," says Dombasle,
"when I had sown colza on the 2d of June, it
did not arrive at maturity soon enough to admit
of being harvested."

After the soil has been well prepared by two
or three ploughings, the seed may be sown
broad-cast, at the rale of 7 or 8 lbs. per acre
on very light ground, covering it with the har-
row. Some sow the colza in drills eighteen
inches apart, and till between the rows with a
horse-hoe. But, in general, cultivation, which
is so beneficial to winter colza and rape, pro-
duces but a poor effect on a crop which occu-
pies the soil so short a time.

-COMFREY, COMMON (Symphytum offici-
nale). This wild plant grows by the sides of
ditches and in moist places to a height of three
feet. The leaves are a deep green colour,
pointed, long, and rough to the touch. The
stalk is green, thick, and upright, and winged
at the bases of the leaves. The flowers are
sometimes white, and often reddish in colour.
The root is thick, black externally, and white
within. It is full of a slimy juice when crushed
or broken. The root is the part used medici-
nally. It contains much mucilage, and may
be used as a demulcent. Conserve of comfrey
is the best way of preserving it through the
year. The tuberous-rooted comfrey (S. tubero-
sum) is an herb of much humbler stature than
the last-named root; knobbed and branched;
externally whitish ; flowers fewer, drooping,
yellowish-white, tinged with green. (Smith''s
Eng. Flora, vol. i. p. 263.) The prickly com-
frey (S. asperrimum) is a hardy perennial of
gigantic growth, introduced from Caucasus as
an ornamental plant, in 18L1, by Messrs. Lod-
diges, of Hackney. (See Curtis' s Bot. Mag. No.
929.) The attention of the agriculturist has
recently been directed to the cultivation of
comfrey as green food for cattle, by Mr. Grant,
of Lewisham, who speaks highly of its merits.
{Baxter's As^r. Lib.)

COMPOSITION FOR TREES. See Can-
ker.

COMPOST (Fr.; Lat. compositum). That
sort of manure which is formed by the union
or mixture of one or more different ingredients
with dung, or other similar matter. An excel-
lent essay, by Mr. James Dixon, on making
compost heaps from liquids and other sub-
stances, written on the evidence of many years'
experience, was awarded a premium of 10/. in
July, 1839, by the Royal Agr. Soc. of England,
and is published in their Quart. Journ. vol. i.
p. 135. See also Fahm-yard Manure.

CONDITION (Fr. and Lat.). In horseman-
ship, a term supposed to imply a horse's being
in a state of strength and power, so much above
the purpose he is destined to, that he displays
it in his figure and appearance: this, according
to Taplin, signifies "fine in coat, firm in flesh,
Mfeh in spirits, and fresh upon his legs."

"CONIFEROUS PLANTS AND TREES.
Such plants and trees as bear cones ; as the
fir, pine, cedar, &c.

CONSERVATORY (Lat.). A glazed struc-
350

ture, in which exotic trees and shrubs are
grown in a bed or floor of soil. It is distin-
guished from an orangery by its having a
glazed roof, while that of the latter is opaque,
and from a green-house by the plants being set
in the fine soil, instead of in pots placed on
shelves. The largest conservatory in the world
at the present time (close of 1841), is that
erected in Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, for palms
and other tropical plants, which covers above
an acre of ground, and is sixty feet high.
{Brandc^s Diet, of Science and Art.)

CONTRACTION OF THE HOOF.. In far-
riery,is a distorted state of the horny substance
of the hoof in cattle, producing all the mis-
chiefs of unnatural and irregular pressure on
the soft parts contained in it, and consequently
a degree of lameness which can only be cured
by removing the cause. Contraction of the
hoof rarely happens, however, except to those
animals whose hoofs, for the convenience of
labour, are shod.

CONVERTIBLE HUSBANDRY, or mixed
husbandry, a term implying frequent change in
the same field from tillage crops to grass, and
from grass back to tillage crops ; an alterna;
tion of wheat, rye, &c., with root and grass
crops.

COOP, or COUP (Icel.^jt>pa/ Dat. hiype).
A provincial name for a tumbrel or cart, en-
closed with boards to carry dung, sand, grains,
&c. It is also a pen or enclosure where lambs,
&c., are shut up to be fed or fattened; and a
kind of cage in which poultry are enclosed for
the same purpose.

COPPICE, or COPSE (supposed from the
Fr. coupcr ; or Nor. copper, to cut off"). Low
woods cut at stated times for poles, fuel, &c.
A place overrun with brushwood. Its wood is
called coppice-wood.

CORDGRASS (Spartina stricta. From spar-
tine, a rope made of broom). A genus of pe-
rennial maritime grasses found in muddy salt
marshes on the sea coast, of which this is the
only native variety. They are very easy of
culture, and increased by divisions and seeds.
Roots, creeping, with strong fibres ; whole
plant, hard, tough, and rigid; stems ten to
twenty inches high, several together ; leaves,
numerous, striated, of a dull green colour and
smooth. (Eng. Flora, vol. i. p. 135 ; PaxtmCs
Bot. Diet.)

Spartina juncea. — According to the experi-
ments of Sinclair, this grass is very late in the
production of foliage, and inferior in nutritive
qualities to most other kinds of grass. It, how-
ever, yields well as a single crop, the produce
from a rich, silicious, sandy soil; at the time
of flowering, being 33,350 lbs., which aff^orded
of nutritive matter 1433 lbs. It has been tried
for the purpose of forming into flax ; and Sin-
clair tells us, the results were favourable, inas-
much as the clear fibre was equal in strength
and softness to that of flax, but it was deficient
in length. The only advantage that appears
would result from this plant affording flax is,
that it could be produced on a soil unfit for the
growth of flax or the production of corn. It
flowers the second week in August, and the
seed is ripe by the middle of September. (Hort.
Gram. Wob. p. 373.) Three or four species of

w

CORD-WOOD.

Wll

Spartina are found in the United States, chiefly
confined to the salt water districts along the
sea coast.

CORD-WOOD. Small pieces of wood bro-
ken up for fuel. It also signifies top-wood,
roots, &c., cut up and set in cords ; so deno-
minated from its being formerly measured
with a cord. A statute cord of wood should
^)e ei2:ht feet long, four feet high, and four

et broad.

COREOPSIS, EAR-LEAVED, (Coreopsis mi-

ilata). A hardy perennial, a native of North

merica. It grows three or four feet high, and
its yellow flowers bloom in August. The Co-
reopm deljihinifoiia is also a native of North
America, growing about eighteen inches high,
with yellow flowers. Blooms from July to
October. Divide the roots, and plant it in open
situalinns.

CORIANDER, {CorianHnim satintm. From
jtc^/c, a bug; the fresh leaves, when bruised,
emitting an odour very similar to that of this
vermin). Coriander thrives best in a mode-
rately rich but sandy loam: excessive moisture
is equally inimical to it as the want of a regu-
lar supply. It must have an open and rather
sheltered situation. It is propagated by seed,
which, if it is required early, must be sown
during Februar}', in a warm border or mode-
rate hotbed, in either situation with the protec-
tion of a frame. This may be repeated at the
close of March. Afterwards small crops may
be successionally inserted every month io an
open bed or border until September, in which
tnonth, and October, if required for winter's
supply, final crops must be sown under a
frame, as in February. The summer sowings
should always be of small extent, as the plants
at that season are very apt to run.

The sowings are generally performed in
drills eight inches apart, and half an inch
deep ; the plants to remain where sown. The
only cultivation required is to thin them to four
inches' distance and to have them kept clear
of weeds throughout their growth. For the
production of seed, some plants of the early
spring sowings must be left ungathered from,
at about eight inches apart each way; they
will perfect their seed in early autumn, being
in flower during June. (G. W. Johiwrn's
Kitchen Garden.)

CORK OAK (Quernis suber). The tree pro-
ducing the thick, light, and soft bark, out of
which corks are made, is a species of oak
found'' in the southern parts of Europe, in
Spain, France, And Italy. Both public and
private interest, says Michaux, requires the in-
habitants of the southern coast of the United
States, and especially of the neighbouring
islands, to introduce and rear the cork oak, in
places unfit for the culture of cotton. It should
also, he thinks, be introduced into West Ten-
nessee, and with the more reason as the vine
is there cultivated successfully. It will grow
wherever the live oak is found.

In size this oak seldom grows higher than
forty feet, with a diameter of three feet. Its
leaves are evergreen, but *e greater part of
them fall and are renewed in the spring. The
acorns are large and oval, of a sweetish taste,
and p^t'tIv devoured by swine. The wood is

CORN, BROOM-.

hard, compact and heavy, but not so durable as
that of some other kinds of oak. The bark be-
gins to be taken ofi" at the age of twent)'-five
years, the first grow th being of little value. It
is not, however, till the tree is forty-five or fifty
years old, that the bark possesses all the quali-
ties requisite for good corks, and from that pe-
riod it is collected ever}' eight or ten years.
The length of time which thus elapses between
planting and reaping compensation renders it
very improbable that the cork oak will ever
be extensively introduced by individual enter-
prise, into those parts of the United States
where it would thrive. Nothing short of go-
vernment patronage could effect the object re-
commended by Michaux. The consumption
of corks is exceedingly great; in France alone
it amounts annually to 125 or 150,000,000.

CORN. A term which in Europe is applied
alike to wheat, barley, and the other small
grains, whilst in the United States it is used
almost exclusively to designate Indian corn or
maize.

CORN BINDWEED. See Bindweed.

CORN, BROOM-. The following account of
the broom-corn, its culture and uses, is the
substance of a communication made by Mr.
William Allen of Northampton, Massachusetts,
to Mr. H. L. Ellsworth, Commissioner of Pa-
tents.

Of the genus iorghum (broom-grass) there
are four or five species. Sorghum sarcharatum
is the broom-corn, abundantly cultivated in
this country, both fur the seed and for its large
panicles, which are made into the brooms.
The whole plant is saccharine. Attempts have
been made in France to extract sugar from it,
but with little success.

The other species are the following: Sorg-
hum dora (or holcus dora), common Indian
millet, a native of the East Indies, but culti-
vated in the south of Europe; S./m-o/or, or two-
coloured Indian millet; S. caffmrvm, caffres
Indian millet, and S. nigrum, coal-black Indian
millet.

Of the sorghum sarcharatum (or holcus snccha-
ratus), broom-corn there are several varieties
raised in Hampshire county, Massachusetts,
in the valley of the Connecticut river, princi-
pally in the broad meadows of Northampton,
Hadley, and Hatfield. The pine tree kind is
regarded as the poorest kind, or the least advan-
tageous for cultivation ; yet, as it is the earliest
i (being three weeks earlier than the large kind),
I in a short season, when its seed will ripen,
j while the seeds of the other kind fail to ripen,
: this may prove the most profitable crop. The
i North river crop is ordinarily the best crop; it
! is ten days earlier than the large kind, and
yields about 720 lbs. of the brush per acre —
the brush meaning the dried panicles, cleaned
of the seed, with eight or twelve, inches of the
stalk. The New Jersey, or large kind, yields
a thousand or eleven hundred pounds of brush
i per acre. The stalks and seed are large. In
good seasons, this is the most profitable crop.
But in the present season (1842), owing to an
early frost (about September 23), much of the
seed of this kind will fail to ripen. There is
also the shirley, or black brush. Soil rich,
alluvial lands are best adapted for the broom-

351

CORN, BROOM-.

CORN, BROOM-.

corn, more especially if warmly situated, pro- 1
tected by hills, and well manured.

Method of planting. — The broom-corn is
planted in rows, about 2^ or 3 feet apart, so
that a horse may pass between them with a
plough, or cultivator, or harrow. The hills in
each row are from 18 inches to 2 feet apart,
or farther, according to the quality of the soil.
The quantity of seed to be planted is estimated
very differently by different farmers — some say
that half a peck is enough per acre, while others
plant half a bushel, and some a bushel, in or-
der to make it sure that the land shall be well
stocked. The rule with some is to cast a tea-
spoonful, or 30 or 40 seeds, in a hill ; the ma-
nure at the time of planting should be put into
the hill, and old manure or compost is preferred,
as being most free from worms.

Cultivation. — The broom-corn should be
ploughed and hoed three times— the last time
when about three feet high, though some hoe
it when it is- six feet high, and when they are
concealed by it as they are toiling in the field.
The number of stalks in a hill should be from
seven to ten. If there are only five or six stalks,
they will be larger and coarser; if there are
about eight,. the brush will be finer and more
valuable. In the first hoeing, the supernume-
rary stalks should be pulled up.

Harvesting. — As the frost kills the seed, the
broom-corn is harvested at the commencement
of the first frost. The long stalks are bent
down at 2 or 2^ feet from the ground; and by
laying those of two rows across each other
obliquely, a kind of table is made by every two
rows, with a passage between each table, for
the convenience of harvesting. After drying
for a few days, the brush is cut, leaving of the
stalks from 6 to 12 inches. The longer it is
cut, of course, the more it will weigh ; and, if
the purchaser does not object, the benefit will
accrue to the farmer. However, the dry stalk
weighs but little ; if its weight is excessive, the
purchaser sometimes requires a deduction
from the weight. As it is cut, it is spread on
the tables, Still farther to dry. As it is carried
into the barn, some bind it in sheaves ; and
this is a great convenience for the further ope-
ration of extracting the seed. Others throw
the brush into the cart or wagon, unbound.

Scraping. — The process of extracting the
seed is called "scraping the brush." Two iron
horizontal scrapers are prepared — onemovable,
to be elevated a little, so that a handful of
brush may be introduced between them. The
upper scraper is then pressed
down with one hand, and the
brush drawn through with the
other, the seed being scraped
off. This is the old method. A
newly invented scraper is su-
perseding the old one. It is an
upright instrument, of elastic
wood or steel, inserted in a
"bench of a convenient height
^r the operator.
' The form is as follows :

fl is a piece of wood or steel,

immovable ; b and c are pieces

which are elastic, movable to

the right and left at the top, but

352

fastened to the central piece below. The de-
gree of elasticity may be regulated by wedges
irr the planks rf and / — wedges in the hole
through which the pieces pass.

A quantity of brush is taken in the hand, and
brought down upon the top of this instrument.
As it is forced down, and drawn towards the
body, it separates the elastic sticks from the cen-
tral piece, but their elasticity presses suflicient-
jy on the brush, so that the seed is scraped off. '

The advantage of this scraper is, that both
hands may be applied to the brush, instead of
only one hand, as in the other kind, and the
elastic power of nature is substituted/or the
pressure of one of the hands. The instru-
ment also seems to double the scraping
surface. The instrument was invented at
Hartford. I have been told it has not been
patented.

The following plan may therefore be useful.
The operator stands at the end A.

The lower plank may rest on the bam floor,
or have short legs. The upper oblique has a
hole, through which the scraper ppsses, and
down which the seed may fall. Each side of'
the instrument, a wedge may be inserted, to
regulate its elasticity, or by some other con-
trivance this object may be secured. In scrap-
ing, the panicles must first be laid evenly
together, and the stalks taken in the hand. If
this is not done in the field, and bundles not
formed, then must it be done with considerable
labour at the time of scraping in the barn.

Product. — A common crop is 700 to 800 lbs.
per acre. Th^re have been raised 1000 and
1100 lbs. per acre, with 80 ,to 100 bushels of
seed. The large kind grows eleven feet high.

Value of the crop. — About the year 1836 or
1837, the brush sold for 12^ cents a pound;
and one farmer in Northampton sold his crop
standing, unharvested, at $100 per acre. Since
then, the price has been decreasing. This year
it has been 4 and 5 cents. At 6 cents, the
farmer, for 800 lbs., gets $48 an acre, besides
60 or 70 bushels of seed, worth a third of a
dollar a bushel — so that he receives $70 or up-
wards from an acre.

Good farmers regard the seed alone as equal
to a crop of oats from the same land. Some
land owners have rented their land for broom-
corn, at $25 per acre, they putting on five or
six loads of manure.

One farmer, who, a few years ago, cultivated
50 acres in broom-com, must have had an al-
most unequalled income for a New England
farmer.

Quantity. — In Northampton, probably 200
acres are raised ; in Hatfield, 300 ; in Hadley,
400; in other tow-ns, Whateley, Deerfield,
Greenfield, Easthampton, Southampton, South-
Hadley, Springfield, and Longmeadow, perhaps
300 or 400 acres more ; in all, in the valley of<|| |

CORN CALE.

CORN LAWS.

the Connecticut, 1200 or 1300 acres ; the pro-
duct, in brush and seed, worth $1,000,000.

Manufacture of brooms. — Individuals tie up
brooms with wire or twine. The expense is
greater for materials and labour when wire is
used.

The turned broom handles cost, as delivered,
only one dollar a hundred — one cent each. The
expense of other materials and labour in making
a broom is 6 cents, or on the whole about? cents.
In a good broom a pound and a half of brush
is employed, which at the present price of 5
cents, would be 7^ cents, so that a broom made
with wire costs now about 14^ cents. A ma-
nufacturer recently went to Boston, and could
get an offer of only 12 cents, or $12 per hun-
dred, for his brooms ; at which rate he could
not afford to sell them and chose to retain them.
Brooms are made with brush weighing | of a
pound, 1 pound, U pound, and 1^ pound. The
brush is whitened by the manufacturer. It is
placed in a large tight box, and bleached by the
fumes of sulphur; but this process is said to
weaken the brush. Who would think of whiten-
ing broom brush, for beauty 1 Thus it is that
fashion descends into the vale of life, and to the
humblest of concerns. Why should not the
housemaid wield a beautiful broom, with white
brush and variously interlaced wire, and po-
lished and variously coloured handle T

Miscellaneous. — A few remarks will be added,
some of which were omitted in their proper
places. If the stalks are cut before the seed
is ripe, they are better, stronger, more durable,
than if cut after the seed is ripe. In this case,
the farmer would lose the value of the seed.
He of course will not submit to this loss, un-
less it is made up to him by the increased
price of the brush.

The seed is used for feeding horses, cattle,
and swine. It is ground and mixed with In-
dian meal, and is regarded as excellent food —
it weighs forty pounds a bushel.

Mr. Shipman of Hadley is the greatest ma-
nufacturer of brooms in the valley of the Con-
necticut. If he employs, on an average, ten
hands, and each hand makes 25 brooms per
day, the number made in a year would be
78.000. It is said he has made 100,000.

The brush, when it is put in the barn, should
be placed on a scaffold, so as to be exposed to
a circulation of the air, that it may dry and
not mould. For all the purposes of use, a
broom made with twine is equal to one made
with wire ; and a man can make several more
of them in a day.

Mr. Shipman uses 300 or 400 lbs. of large
twine, at 20 to 30 cents a pound, and 2,000 lbs.
of small twine, at 31 cents. Perhaps he ma-
nufactures only ^ part of the brooms manu-
factured in Hadley.

At the price of 20 cents, the price of brooms
a few years ago, the broom manufacture of
Hadley would thus amount to $160,000.

It is probable that the extended cultivation
of the broom-corn will reduce the profits on
this product to the average profits of good
farming. •

CORN CALE. A provincial name for char-
lock.

CORN-CROWFOOT {Rantmculus arveruis).
4.3

A weed very common among corn. Root
fibrous. It has an upright stalk ; the leaves are
of a pale, shining green, and cat into long, nar-
row, acute segments. The lemon-coloured
flowers are much smaller and paler than those
of the crowfoot which is found in pasture-
grounds, and the seed-vessels are very remark-
able, being covered all over with prickles. It
is very acrid and dangerous to cattle, though
they are said to eat it greedily. M. Brugnon,
who has given a particular account of its quali-
ties, relates, that three ounces of the juice killed
a dog in four minutes. {Smith's Eng. Flor. vol.
iii. p. 53.) See Crowfoot.

CORN-CUTTING MACHINES. Machines
for cutting wheat and other grains by horse
power, of which none have hitherto been pro-
duced in England whose merits have insured
their adoption by the farmer. Of the several
English patents obtained, that called Smith's
Reaping Machine, is perhaps the most approved.
For a minute description of this, with drawings,
see Encyc. Britannica, vol. 2, part 1. See Mow-
iiro AMI Reapiivg Macmixk.

CORNEL TREE. See Doowood.

CORNET. In farriery, a name sometimes
given to the instrument used in venesection,
called a fleam.

CORN, INDIAN. See Maize.

CORN LAWS. The regulation of the sup-
ply, and consequently, the value of corn in
different countries in Europe, has been an ob-
ject of legislation from a very remote period ;
a public interference, varying, however, in de-
gree, from that of protective taxation, to that
which was intended to be prohibitory. Of the
first kind are the modern En^ish corn laws;
of the last are the present local regulations of
Paris, by which bread is sold always at the
same price, both in bountiful seasons or in
those of scarcity. It would occupy too much
space to follow these, generally necessary in-
terferences with the sale of corn, which have
occurred from the days of the Athenians (who
depended upon Thrace for their daily bread), or
from the popular broils about bread, which
were long a source of disorder to Rome, even
in its splendour. In England, there are traces
of a corn law nearly six centuries since. By
the statute Judicium Pilhrie, 51 Hen. 3 (1266),
it is directed that the municipal authorities of
certain towns should inquire of the price of
com. By the 34 Ed. 3, c. 20 (1360), the ex-
portation of corn was prohibited; but in 1436,
by the 15 H. 6, c. 2, it was allowed. In 1463,
however, by the 3 Ed. 4, c. 2, the necessity
(which was declared in the preamble) arose
of preventing "the labourers and occupiers of
land from being grievously endamaged by
bringing corn out of other lands when com
of the growing of this realm is at a low price."
It then declares that wheat shall not be import-
ed, unless wheat be sold at the place of import
for 6s. 8d. per quarter. In 1532, by the 25 H
8, c. 2, it was enacted that the exportation of
corn should cease, and the price be regulated
by the lords of the council, the preamble of the
bill very sensibly remarking, that "dearth,
scarcity, good and cheap and plenty of, &c.,
victuals necessary for man's sustenance hap-
peneih, riseth, and chanceth of so many and
2 o 2 353

CORN LAWS.

divers occasions, that it is very hard and diffi-
cult to put any certain prices to any such
things." In 1534 (1 P. & M. c. 5), corn was
again allowed to be exported when the price
of wheat did not exceed 6s. 8d. per quarter.
This standard was increased to 10s. by the 5
Eliz. c. 5 (1562) ; and in 1571 (13 Eliz. c. 13),
the exportation was directed to be regulated
from average prices by the lords of the council.
In 1807, the bounty upon the exportation of
grain finally ceased.

AccorcUng to the English Corn Law Act,
existing in 1842, corn inspectors are appointed
in 287 towns, to transmit returns to the Board
of Trade, who compute the average weekly
price of each description of grain, and the ag-
gregate average price for the previous six
week5?, and transmit a certified copy to the
collectors of customs at the different out-ports.
The aggregate average regulates the duty on
importation according to the following scale: —

If imported from any Foreign Country.

>F*ea«.— Whenever the average price of wheat, made iip
and published in the manner required by law, shall be
for every quarter £ s. d.

Under 5Is. the duty shall be for every quarter 10 0

■ -525. 0 19 0

55s. 0 18 0

56s.
67s.
58s.
59s.

51j

52s.

55s.

66s.

67s.

68s.

69s.

6Is.
62s.
63s.
64s.
65s.
66s.

71s.
72s.

and under 52s. - - - - - 0 19

0 18
0 17
0 16
0 15
0 14
0 13
0 12
0 II
0 10
0 9

— 61s.

— 62s.

— 63s.

65s.
66s.

70s.
71s.

— 73s.
73s. and upwards

BarZey.— Whenever the average price of barley, made
up and published in the manner required by law, shall
be for every quarter

Under 26s. the duly shall be for every quarter
26s. and under 27s. - - - _

27s.

30s.

30s.

—

3Is.

31s.

—

32s.

32*.

33s.

33s.

34s.

34s.

—

35s.

35s.

—

36s.

£

0 11
0 10
0 9

36s. — 37s. - - - - - 0 2
37s. and upwards - - - - - 0 1

Oats. — Whenever the average price of oats, made up

and published in the manner required by law, shall be

for every quarter £ a. d.

Under 19s. the duty shall be for every quarter 0

I9s. and under 20s. -0

20s. — 23s. - - - - -*0

23s. — 24s. 0

24s. — 25s. 0

25s. — 26,9. 0

26s. — 27s. - ----- 0

27s. and upwards - - - - - 0

Rye, Pease, and JSeans.— Whenever the average price of
rye, or of pease, or of beans, made up and published in
the manner required by law, shall be for every quar-

Under 30s. the duty shall be for every quarter
30s. and under 33s. - - _ - .

3.3s.
34s.
35s.
36s.
37s.

34s.
35s.

iVs. —

37s.
38s.
39s.
40s.
4Is.
42s.

42s. and upwards
354

£ s.

0 11

0 10

0 9

0 8

0

0

0

0

0

0

CORN LAWS.

Wheat Meal and Flour.— Tor every barrel, being 196 lb ,
a duly eciual m auiount to the duly payable on 384 gal-
lons of wheal. *

Oatmeal.-Tor every quantity of I8Ii lbs., a duty equal
\u amount to the duty payable on a quarter of oats.

Maize or Indian Corn, Buckwheat, Bear or Bi<rg.—Tnt
every quarter, a duty equal in amount to the duty
payable on a quarter of barley.

See Wheat.

An Account showing the total Quantities of Wheat
and Wheat Flour imparted from Foreign Coun-
tries and from British Colonies.

Foreign.

L.

fO

0

0 6
0 10
0 13
0 16
0 18

1 0 per quarter

1
1

1
1
I
1
1
1
I

1 10
I II
1 12
I 13
1 14
1 15
I 16
1 17

Quantities entered for Home
ConsumpiioD in Ihel'oiled KiiiK-
dom from the pausineof the Act
9 Geo. 4. c. 60, (15th July, 1828),
to the 5th January, 1H41.

Wheat.

8 —

8 —

8 —

8 —

8 —

8 —

8 —

18

0

8

2

8

3

8

4

8

5

8

6

8

7

8

8

8

9

8

10

8

Admitted at an ad valorem
duty, being damaged -

Admitted duty free, being
damaged - - .

Admitted duty free, for
seed - - - .

qrs.

3,907,98!

2,788,277

1,994,102

783,280

548,348

298.677

76,200

377,667

107,005

13,664

138,775

37,329

27,153

4,724

1,882

134,275

61,649

13,955

1,496

432

908

385

154

326

314

154

151

3

7

4

16

62

10

7

3

2

8

2,629

71

Wheat Floor.

Total

When the rate
of duty on
wheat was

- - 11,322,085
British Colonial.

129,858
393,407

cwtg.

1,276,731

83.5*406

518,897

238,592

466.432

213,707

44,788

96,538

5,861

5,940

56,5.^0

2,070

1,5.55

654

690

1,377

lOI

756

87

63

511

164

24

42

24

72

51

3
7
13
33
155
17
2
36
56

350

7 0 6 per qr.
j"5 0 —

Total

3,768,335

426,809
596,996

523,265

1,023,805

The average price of wheat in Great Britain in
the year 1840 was - - - . per qr. 66 4

Average price of wheat at Rotterdam - - 49 11
'* " at Odessa - - - 24 9

" " at Dantsic - - - 39 6

Total number of quarters of wheat and wheat
flour imported and entered for home con-
sumption qrs. 2,401,366

Total number of quarters of colonial wheat
and wheat flour imported - _ . . 148,720

Total number of quarters of foreign wheat and
wheat flour imported - . - . -2,284,482

Total nun)ber of queers of wheat and wheat
flour imported ---._. 2,433,202

Grain, if the produce of, and imported from
any British possessions in North America, or

CORN LAWS.

CORN MOTH.

elsewhere out of Europe, are charged the fol-
lowing rates of duty : —

Wheat. — Whenever the average price, made according to
law, shall be

Under 55s. for every s. d. I s. d.

quarter, the duty | 56«. and under 57s. 3 0

per qt. shall be 5 0 57s. and under 58s. 2 0

5s. and under 56«. 4 0 | 58s. and upwards, 1 0

BoWfy.— Whenever the average price of barley, made
up according to law, Rhall be

Under 28s. per quar- s. d. I s. d.

ter, the duly per qt. I 29s. and under 30s. I 6

shall be 2 6 I 30s. and under 31s. 1 0

28s. and under 29s. 2 0 I 31s. and upwards, 0 6

Oats. — Whenever the average price of oats, made up
according to law, shall be

Under 2'i». for every s. d. I s. d.

quarter, the duty 22s. and under 23s. 1 6

per qt. shall be 2 0 | 23s. and upwards, 0 6

Rye, Peas, and Beans.— Whenever the average price of
these articles shall be.

Under 30s. for every s. d. s. d.

quarter, the duty 32s. and under 33s. 1 6

per qt. ahull be 3 0 33s. and under 34s. 1 0

30s. and under 31s. 2 6 34s. and upwards, 0 6

31s. and under 32s. 2 0

Wheat-meal and Flour. — For every barrel, being 196 lbs.

a duty equal to that payable on 38^ gallons of wheat.
Oatmeal.— ISli lbs. pays a duty equal to that charged on

a quarter of oats.
Maize or Indian Com, Buckwheat, Bear or Biggr, pay

a duty equal per quarter to thai charged per qr. on a

quarter of barley.

AyEHAes Paicss of Whbat from 1670.

The Mean of two half-yearly Prices ( Winchester
measure), from the Register kept in the Soaks of
Eton College.

Tew.

(.

Tears.

(.

d.

T«r^

«. d.

1670 -

37

1704

- 41

2

1738

- 31 6

1671 -

37

1705

- 26

8

1739

- 33 2

1672 -

37

1706

- 23

1

1740

- 48 10

1673 -

41

1707

- 25

2

1741

• 41 9

1674 -

61

1708

- 36

8

1742

- 28 5

1675 -

52

1709

- 69

1743

. 22 0

1676 -

33

1710

- 69

1744

- 22 0

1677 -

37

1711

- 48

1745

:UI

1678 -

52

1712

- 41

1746

1679 -

48

1713

■ 45

1747

- 30 11

1680 -

40

1714

. 44

1748

- 32 10

1681 -

41

1715

- 38

1749

- 32 10

1682 -

39

1716

- 42

8

1750

- 28 10

1683 -

35

1717

. 40

5

1751

- 34 2

1654 -

39

1718

- 34

8

1752

- 40 8

1685 -

41

1719

- 30 11

1753

■ 39 8

1686 -

30

1720

- 32 10

1754

- 30 9

1687 -

31

1721

- 33

4

1755

- 29 11

1688 -

23

1722

- 32

0

1756

■ 40 1

1689 -

26

8

1723

- 30

9

1757

■ 53 4

1690 -

30

9

1724

. 32 10

1758

- 44 5

1691 -

29 11

1725 - 43

1

J759

- 35 3

1692 -

41

9

1726 - 40 10

1760

- 32 5

1693 -

60

1

1727 - 37

4

1761

- 26 9

1694 -

56 10

1728 .

48

3

1762

- 34 8

1695 -

47

1

1729 .

42

2

1763

- 36 1

1696 -

56

0

1730 - 32

5

1764

- 41 5

1697 -

53

4

1731 -

29

4

1765

- 48 0

1698 -

60

8

1732 -

23

8

1766

. 43 1

1699 -

56

0

1733 .

25

2

1767

- 57 4

1700 -

35

6

1734 -

33

5

1766

- 53 9

1701 -

31

8

1735 -

38

2

1769

- 40 7

1702 -

26

0

1736 - 35 10

1770

■ 43 6

1703 -

32

0

1737 - 33

5

(Parliamentary Paper, No. 100.— Session 1826.)

The Overage Prices as published by the Receiver of
Com Returns from 1771 to 1840.

Winchester

'

Measure.

Tea™. f.

d.

Teaw.

». d.

Te*r«.

1. d.

1771 - 47

2

1779 -

33 8

1787 - 41 2

1772 - 50

8

1780 -

35 8

1788 - 45 0

1773 - 51

0

1781 -

47 iJ*

1789 - 51 2

1774 - 52

8

1782 -

1790 - 53 2

1775 - 48

4

1783 -

52 8

1791

■ 47 2

1776 - 38

2

1784 -

48 10

1792

■ 41 9

1777 - 45

6

1785 -

41 10

1793

■ 47 10

1778 - 42

0

- 1786 -

38 10

1794

■ 50 8

Tmw.

*. A.

Tean.

t. d.

Imperial
Measure.

1793

- 72 11

1811

• 92 5

1796

- 76 3

1812

- 122 8

Tears.

s. d.

1797

- 52 2

1813

- 106 6

1827

_

56 9

1798

- 50 4

1814

- 72 1

1828

_

60 5

1799

- 66 U

1815

- 63 8

1829

,

66 3

1800

- 110 5

1816

- 76 2

1830

.

64 3

1801

- 115 11

1817

- 94 0

1831

_

66 4

1802

- 67 9

1818

- 83 8

1832

_

58 8

1803

- 57 1

1819

- 72 3

1833

.

52 11

1804

- 60 5

1820

- 65 10

1834

_

46 2

1805

- 87 1

1821

- 54 5

1835

_

39 4

1806

- 76 9

1822

- 43 3

1836

.

48 6

1807

- 73 1

1823

- 51 9

1837

_

55 10

1808

- 78 11

1824

- 62 0

1838

.

64 7

1809

- 94 5

1825

- 66 .6

18a9

.

70 8

1810

- 103 3

1826

- 56 11

1840

-

66 4

(Thornton on the Corn Laws ; Pari. Papers; St a-

tutes at large.)

By an act of Congress, approved in August,
1842, the duties payable on grain, &c., imported
into the United States, are as follows : —

On wheat, 25 cents per bushel ; barley, 20
cents; rye, 15 cents; oats, 10 -cents ; Indian
corn or maize, 10 cents ; wheat flour, 70 cents
per 112 lbs.; Indian meal, 25 cents per 112
lbs.; starch, 2 cents per. lb.; pearl, or hulled
barley, 2 cents per lb.; (potatoes, 10 cents per
bushel.)

CORN MARYGOLD (Chrysanthemum sege-
tum). In Scotland, this is called yellow gowatis,
quills, gools; in Kent, England, yellow bottle; in
fi orfoiky budland ; midland counties, goW«,g-ou/rfa,
or gowls; north of England, gowlans, goldens,
gules. Linnaeus says there is a law in Denmark
which obliges the farmers to extirpate this
weed. He recommends ihe land to be manured
in autumn, summer-fallowed, and harrowed in
about five days after sowing. Martyn says it
can only be eradicated by hand before the
seeds ripen. It is abundant in grain and turnip
fields, with its blue-green leaves, and broad,
brilliant, yellow flowers. The stalks are
round, slifi; and branched, growing two feet
high. The leaves stand irregularly, and they
are deeply indented at the sides, besides being
long and very broad, smallest at their base, and
growing broader as they advance to the end.
The root is tapering and fibrous. (Smith's Eng.
Flor. vol. iii. p. 450.) See Ox-Ete Daist.

CORN MOTH (TiWagrrtnc/Za). Among the
insects most injurious in their attacks on grain,
when laid up in magazines, is the larva of this
small moth (the mottled woollen moth of Ha-
worth), the caterpillar of which is also called
in England the white corn uform. The perfect
moth measures, from the head to the tips of the
wings, sir or seven lines. The insect appears
in that country as a moth in May, June, and
July. It frequents granaries and other build-
ings where grain is stored, sits at rest "in the
day-time, and only flies about at night. It is in
the summer months, from May to August, and
sometimes in September, that the larvae devour
the difierent sorts of grain ; and they attack rye,
oats, and barley, with the same zest as wheat.
From September to May the larva is sought
for in vain in the corn-heaps; it has retired
into the cracks and fissures of the floor and
walls, and moreover has concealed itself in its
cocoon. It does not reappear till April or May,
and then in a very difierent form ; namely, as
a moth, which flutters about the heaps of store-
corn, and deposits upon them the invisible
germ of future destruction. After a. few days

355

CORN MOTH.

CORN MOTH.

have elapsed, small whitish worm maggots, or
more properly speaking larvae, proceed from
the eggs, and immediately penetrate into the
grain, carefully closing up the opening with
their white roundish excrement, which they
glue together by a fine web.

"The European grain-moth {Tinea granella),
in its perfected state, is," says Dr. Harris, "a
winged insect, between three and four-tenths
of an inch long from the head to the tip of its
wings, and expands six-tenths of an inch. It
has a whitish tuft On its forehead ; its long and
narrow wings cover its back like a sloping
roof, are a little turned up behind, and are
edged with a wide fringe. Its fore-wings are
glossy like satin, and are marbled with white
or gray, light brown, and dark brown or
blackish spots, and there is always one dark
square spot near the middle of the outer eA^e.
Its hind wings are blackish. Some of these
winged moths appear in May, others in July
and August, at which times they lay their
eggs ; for there are two broods of them in the
course of the year. The young from the first
laid eggs come to their growth and finish their
transformations in six weeks or two months ;
the others live through the winter, and turn to
winged moths in the following spring. The
young moth-worms do not burrow into the
grain, as has been asserted by some writers,
who seem to have confounded them with the
Angoumois grain-worms ; but, as soon as they
are hatched, they begin to gnaw the grain and
cover themselves with the fraginents, which
they line with a silken web. As they increase
in size they fasten together several grains
with their webs, so as to make a larger cavity,
wherein they live. After a while, becoming
uneasy, in their confined habitations, they
come out, and wander over the grain, spinning
their threads as they go, till they have found a
suitable place wherein to make their cocoons.
Thus, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, all of which
they attack, will be found full of lumps of
grains cemented together by these corn-worms,
as they are sometimes called ; and when they
are very numerous, the whole surface of the
grain in the bin will be covered with a thick
crust of web^ and of adhering grains. These
destructive corn-worms are really soft and
naked caterpillars, of a cylindrical shape,
tapering a little at each end, and are provided
with sixteen legs, the first three pairs of which
are conical and jointed, and the others fleshy
and wart-like. When fully grown, they mea-
sure four or five-tenths of an inch in length,
and are of a light ochre or bulf colour, with a
reddish head. When about six weeks old they
leave the grain, and get into cracks, or around
the sides of corn-bins, and each one then makes
itself a little oval pod or cocoon, about as large
as a grain of wheat. The insects of the first
brood, as before said, come out of their co-
coons, in the winged form, in July and August,
and lay their eggs for another brood: the
others remain unchanged in their cocoons,
through the winter, and take the chrysalis form
in, March or April following. Three weeks
aft^wards, the shining brown chrysalis forces
itself part way out of the cocoon, by the help
356

of some little sharp points on its tail, and bursts
open at the other end, so as to allow the moth
therein confined to come forth.

"The foregoing account will probably enable
the readers of this essay to determine whether
these destructive insects are found in our own
country. From various statements, deficient
however in exactness, that have appeared in
some of our agricultural journals, I am led to
think that this corn-moth,or an insect exactly like
it in its habits, prevails in all parts of the coun-
try, and that it has generally been mistaken for
the grain-weevil, which it far surpasses in its de-
vastations. Many years ago I remember to
have seen oats and shelled corn (maize) af-
fected in the way above described, and have
observed seed-corn, hanging in the ears, to
have been attacked by insects of this kind, the
empty chrysalids of which remained sticking
between the kernels ; but, for some time past,
no opportunity for further investigation has
ofifered itself.

" There is another grain-moth, which, at va-
rious times, has been found to be more destruc-
tive in granaries, in some provinces of France,
than the preceding kind. It is the Angoumois
moth (Anacampsis? cerealella). The winged
moths of this group have only two visible
feelers, and these are generally long, slender,
and curved over their heads. Their narrow
wings most often overlap each other, and
cover their backs horizontally when shut. The
Angoumois grain moth probably belongs to the
modern genus Anacampsls, a word derived from
the Greek, and signifying recurved, in allusion
to the direction of the feelers of the moths. In
the year 1769, Colonel Landon Carter, of Sa-
bine Hall, Virginia, communicated to the Ame-
rican Philosophical Society at Philadelphia,
some interesting * observations concerning the
fly-weevil that destroys wheat.' These were
printed in the first volume of the 'Transactions*
of the Society, and were followed by some re-
marks on the subject by ' the Committee of
Husbandry.' It is highly probable that this
fly-weevil is no other than the destructive An-
goumois grain-moth ; for Colonel Carter's ac-
count of it, though deficient in some particu-
lars, agrees essentially with what has been
published respecting the European insect. Mr.
E. C. Herrick has recently sent to me, from
New Haven, Connecticut, some wheat, that has
been eaten by moths precisely in the same way
as grain is attacked by the Angoumois grain-
moth; and a gentleman to whom this moth-
eaten wheat was shown, informed me that he
had seen grain thus affected in Maine. Unfor-
tunately the insects contained in this wheat
were dead when received, having perished in
the chrysalis state ; had they lived to finish
their transformations, I have good reason to
think that they would have proved to be identi-
cal with the Angoumois moths. The following
particulars respecting the latter are chiefly
gathered from Reaumur's * Memoires,' and from
a work by Duhamel du Monceau and Tillet,
who were commissioned by the Academy of
Sciences of Paris, in the year 1760, to inquire
into the nature of the insect, on account of its
ravages in Angoumois, a part of France where

CORN MOTH.

CORN SALAD.

I

it had long been known, and had multiplied to
an alarming extent. The Angoumois moth, or
Anacampsis cerealella, in its perfected state, is a
four-winged insect, about three-eighths of an
inch long, when its wings are shut. It has a
pair of tapering curved feelers, turned over its
head. Its upper wings are narrow, of a light
brown colour, without spots, and have the
lustre of satin ; they cover the body horizon-
tally above, but droop a little at the sides. The
lower wings and the rest of the body are ash-
coloured. This moth lays its eggs, which
vary in number from sixty to ninety, in clus-
ters, on the ears of wheat, rye, and barley, most
often while these plants are growing in the
field, and the ears are young and tender; some-
times also on stored grain in the autumn.
Hence it appears that they breed twice a year;
the insects from the eggs laid in the early part
of summer, coming to perfection and providing
for another brood of moth-worms in the autumn.
The little worm-like caterpillars, as soon as
they are hatched, disperse, and each one se-
lects a single grain, into which it burrows im-
mediately at the most tender part, and remains
concealed therein after the grain is harvested.
It devours the mealy substance within the hull;
.and this destruction goes on so secretly, that it
can only be detected by the softness of the
grain or the loss of its weight. When fully
grown this caterpillar is not more than one-
fifth of an inch long. It is of a white colour,
with a brownish head; and it has six small
jointed legs, and ten extremely small wart-like
proplegs. Duhamel has represented it as
having two little horns just behind the head,
and two short bristles at the end of its tapering
body. Having eaten out the heart of the grain,
which is just enough for all its wants, it spins
a silken web or curtain lo divide the hollow,
lengthwise, into two unequal parts, the smaller
containing the rejected fragments of its food,
and the larger cavity serving instead of a co-
coon, wherein the insect undergoes its trans-
formations. Before taming to a chrysalis it
gnaws a small hole nearly or quite through the
hull, and sometimes also through the chafly
covering of the grain, through which it can
make its escape easily when it becomes a
winged moth. The insects of the first, or sum-
mer brood, come to maturity in about three
weeks, remain but a short time in the chrysalis
state, and turn to winged moths in the autumn,
and at this time may be found, in the evening,
in great numbers, laying their eggs on the
grain stored in barns and granaries. The
inoth-worms of the second brood remain in the
grain through the winter, and do not change to
winged insects till the following summer, when
they conie out, fly into the fields in the night,
and lay their eggs on the young ears of the
growing grain. When damaged grain is sown,
it comes up very thin; the infected kernels
never sprout, but the insects lodged in them
remain alive, finish their transformations in the
field, and in due time come out of the ground
in the winged form.

" It has been proved by etperience that the
ravages of the two kinds of grain-moths, whose
history has been now given, can be efiectually

checked by drying the damaged grain in an
oven or kiln ; and that a heat of one hundred
and sixty-seven degrees, by Fahrenheit's ther-
mometer, continued during twelve hours, will
kill the insects in all their forms. Indeed, the
heat may be reduced to one hundred and four
degrees, with the same effect, but the grain
must then be exposed to it for the space of two
days. The other means, that have been em-
ployed for the preservation of grain from these
destructive moths, it is unnecessary to de-
scribe ; they are probably \¥ell known to most
of our farmers and millers, and are rarely so
eflfectual as the process above mentioned."
(^Harris's Treatise an Insects.)

From these considerations, the means which
the agriculturist must employ to secure his
grain from so dangerous an enemy, are clearly
deducible. First of all, the lofts, before the
corn is placed in them, must be carefully ex-
amined, and the cocoons, if any are discover-
ed, got rid of. Sprinkling the floor with a
mixture of strong while wine vinegar and salt,
before laying up the corn, is strongly to be re-
commended. Sweeping the floor and walls
thoroughly should not be neglected ; and the
dust should be removed immediately, in order
that the larvae may not find their way back into
the corn-heaps. Common salt will also purify
the infested grain. One of the surest remedies ,
appears to be a free ventilation, by means of
an artificial degree of cold, as the larvoe can
only live in a temperature of .55° to 60° of Fahr.
Bats and spiders are the principal natural ene-
mies of the corn-moth, and some small birds
also feed on them. See Graix Wkkvil. (Trea-
tise on Insects, ^r., by J. and M. Loudon.)

CORN POPPY {Papaver rhmis). PI. 10, s.
Indifl^erently called red-poppy, corn rose, cop-
rose, head-wark, red-weed, red-mailkes, &c. A
troublesome weed in corn fields. Annual,
flowering from June to July. Beautiful varie-
ties of this species, with semi-double flowers,
variegated with rose-colour and white, are
easily cultivated for ornament, but liable to de-
generate in luxuriance. {Smith's Etig. Flcn: vol.
iii. p. 11 ; Sinclair's Weeds, p. 46.) See Poppt,
Field.

CORN SALAD, or LAMB'S LETTUCE
(Fedia o/i/ona. Smith ; Valeriana locusta, hm).
A well-known annual weed in corn fields and
light cultivated ground, which probably took
its common English name from the circum-
stance of the plants appearing ia flower about
the time that lambs are dropped. There is a
second species (F. dent at a), oval fruited corn
salad. The common variety is cultivated for
winter and spring salads, and for this purpose
has been long known. The first dish formerly
brought to table was a red herring set in a corn
salad. The plant will flourish in any soil that
is not particularly heavy. It is propagated by
seed, sown in February and the two following
months, and once a month during the summer;
but it is not so palatable during this season.
Lastly, during August and early in September,
the plants from which will be fit for use in
early spring, or during the winter if mild. The
seed may be sown in drills six inches apart, or
broadcast, and raked in. Keep them free from

357

CORN WEEVIL.

COTTAGES.

•vreeds by frequent hoeings, previously thinned
to four inches asunder. They should always
be eaten quite young. In summer, the whole
plant may be cut, as it scon advances to seed
at this season; but in spring and winter the
outer leaves only should be gathered. For the
production of seed some of the spring-raised
phants must be left ungathered. They flower
in June, and perfect their seed during the two
following months. (G. W.^inson's Kitch.Gard.;
Smithes Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 44 ; Sinclair's Weeds,
p. 54.)

CORN WEEVIL (Calandra fp-anaria, Clair-
ville ; Curculio granaria, Linn.). This is an-
other extremely injurious insect to grain. See
Gkaix Weevil.

CORNS, IN HORSES' FEET. This dis-
ease is produced by some hard substance press-
ing on the sole at the quarters, as from shoes
left on till the heels become buried in the hoof;
the fibrous substance which lies between the
sensible foot and the absolute horny hoof be-
comes inflamed by the pressure, and the infla-
mation produces a hardness of the spot, simi-
lar, if I may so express it, to a knot in a piece
of soft timber. Palliate the evil as well as you
can, by keeping the hoof constantly pared away
between the corn and the ground, but do not
wound in your vain endeavours to cut it out;
avoid the hot irons, &c.; let a bit of sponge be
softly put in, merely to keep out gravel and
keep the spot moist; and when the season ar-
rives, turn the horse out without any shoes,
into a soft marshy place, where his feet must
be in a constant moist state for three months
at least: by that time the hoof wiil be altogether
renewed, the diseased part will have grown out,
and if there is no new injury, there will be no
new corns. (E. Maunsell. See also. Lib. Use.
Know. The Horse, p. 305.

CORONET-BONE. The second of the con-
solidated phalanges of the horse's foot.

COSSART, or COSSET (It. cas^iccio, from
casa, the house). A lamb left by the death of
its dam before it is capable of providing for
itself; or a lamb taken from a ewe that brings
more than one. The term is also applied to a
colt, calf, &c. and Fometimes written cot-lamb.

COSTIVENESS. In farriery, a complaint
to which horses are often subject, occasioned
sometimes by violent or hard exercise, espe-
cially in hot weather; and at other times by
standing long at hard meat without grass or
other cleansing diet, and with very little ex-
ercise.

COTTAGES. These for labourers are com-
monly constructed merely with a regard to
economy ; the comfort and health of their fu-
ture tenants being too often disregarded. Such
cottages should never consist of less than two
bedrooms, and a kitchen, and outhouse. They
•will be found to be considerably more healthy
with wooden floors, raised above the level of
the surrounding ground. They should be well
furnished with windows, and the ceilings of
the rooms of a fair height, eight or nine feet
will not be too much to allow; they should
have as good gardens as possible. The plans
fdktheir formation, and the materials of which
they are composed, must vary with the locality.
358

Mr. Gillespie has given one for a cottage with
a roof without wood, which he asserts could be
built in Scotland for 30/. (Com. Board of Agr.
vol. iv. p. 469.) There is also an essay by
Mr. Smith, on cottages for the labouring classes,
which . may be consulted with advantage
(Trans. High. Soc. vol. iv. p. 205), and on cot-
tage windows (Quart. Jovrn. of Agr. p. 116),
and also on cottage premiums, and on the cot-
tages built on the estate of Lord Roseberry.
(Trans. High. Soc. vol. vi. p. 527.)

By the erection of small, comfortable cot-
tages on poor waste lands, and the allotment
to each of a few acres of land, a field is opened
for the rapid recovery by the spade of barren
lands, and the profitable employment of the
landowner's capital, too little understood. By
merely deepening and mixing the soil, the cot-
tager can bring into cultivation lands, which
seem to defy all the powers of even the subsoil
plough.

The following information relative to the
best modes of building cheap cottages is from
a report made to Congress by Henry L. Ells-
worth, see pp. 55 — 57.

"After selecting a suitable spotof ground, as
near the place of building as practicable, let a
circle of ten feet or more be described. Let the
loam be removed, and the clay dug up one foot
thick, or, if clay is not found on the spot, let it
be carted in to that depth. Any ordinary clay
will answer. Tread this clay over with cattle,
and add some straw cut six or eight inches long.
After the clay is well tempered with working it
with the cattle, the material is duly prepared
for the making of brick. A mould is then
formed of plank, of the size of the brick de-
sired. In England, they are usually made
eighteen inches long, one foot wide, and nine
inches thick. I have found the more conve-
nient size to be one foot long, seven inches
wide, and five inches thick. The mould should
have a bottom. The clay is then placed in the
moulds in the same manner that brick moulds
are ordinarily filled. A wire or piece of iron
hoop will answer very well for striking off the
top. One man will mould about as fast as an-
other can carry away, two moulds being used
by him. The bricks are placed upon the level
ground, where they are suffered to dry two days,
turning them up edgewise the second day, and
then packed up in a pile, protected from the
rain, and left to dry ten or twelve days, during
which time the foundation of the building can
be prepared. If a cellar is desired, this must
be formed of stone or brick, one foot above the
surface of the ground. For cheap buildings
on the prairie, wood sills, twelve or fourteen
inches wide, may be laid on piles or stones.
This will form a good superstructure. Where
lime and small stones abound, grout made of
those materials (lime and stones) will answer
very well.

" In all cases, however, before commencing
the w^alls for the first story, it is very desirable,
as well in this case as in walls of brick, fo lay
a single course of slate; this will intercept the
dampness so often rising in the walls of brick
houses. The wall is laid by placing the brick
lengthwise, thus making the wall one foot thick.

COTTAGES.

COTTAGES.

Ordinary clay, such as is used for clay mortar,
will suffice, though a weak mortar of sand and
lime, when these articles are cheap, is recom-
mended as affording a more adhesive material
for the plaster. The wall may safely be car-
ried up one story, or two or three stories ; the
division walls maybe seven inches, just the
width of the brick. The door and window
frames being inserted as the wall proceeds, the
building is soon raised. The roof may be
shingles or thatch. In either case, it should pro-
ject over the sides of the house, and also over the ttvo
ends, at least ttvo feet, to guard the u-alls from verti-
cal rains. The exterior wall is plastered with
good lime mortar, and then with a second coat
pebble-dashed. The inside is plastered without
dashing. The floor may be laid with oak
boards, slit, five or six inches wide, and laid
down without jointing or planing, if they are
rubbed over with a rough stone after the rooms
are finished. Doors of a cheap and neat ap-
pearance may be made by taking two single
boards of the length or width of the doors ;
placing these vertically, they will fill the space.
Put a wide batten on the bottom and a narrow
one on the top, with strips on the side, ^nd a
strip in the middle. This door will be a batten
door, but presenting two long panels on one
side and a smooth surface on the other. If a
porch or verandah is wanted, it may be roofed
with boards laid with light joints and covered
with a thick paper dipped in tar, and then add-
ing a good coat, after sprinkling it with sand
from a sand-box or other dish with small holes.

" Houses built in this way are dry, warm in
winter, and cool in summer, and furnish no re-
treat for vermin. Such houses can be made
by common labourers, if a little carpenter's work
is excepted, in a very short time, with a small
outlay for materials, exclusive of floors, win-
dows, doors, and roof.

" The question will naturally arise, will the
wall stand against the rain and frost 1 I answer,
they have stood well in Europe, and the Hon.
Mr. Poinsett remarked to me that he had seen
them in South America^after having been erect-
ed three hundred years. Whoever has noticed
the rapid absorption of water by a brick that has
been burned, will not wonder why brick walls
are damp. The burning makes the brick po-
rous, while the unbumt brick is less absorbent ;
but it is not proposed to present the unburnt
brick to the weather. Whoever has erected a
building with merchantable brick will at once
perceive the large number of soft and yellow
brick, partially burned, that it contains — brick
that would soon yield to the mouldering influ-
ence of frost and storms. Such brick are,
however, placed within, beyond the reach of
rain, and always kept dry. A good cabin is
made by a single room twenty feet square. A
better one is eighteen feet wide and twenty-fo\ir
feet long, cutting ofi* eight feet on one end for
two small rooms, eight by nine each.

"How easily could asettler erect such acabin
on the Western prairie, where clay is usually
found about fifteen inches below the surface,
and where stone and lime are often both very
cheap. The article of brick for chimneys is
found to be quite an item of expense in wood-
houses. In these mud houses no brick are

needed, except for the top of the chimneys, the
oven, and casing of the fireplace — though this
last might be well dispensed with. A cement,
to put around the chimneys, or to fill any other
crack, is easily made by a mixture of one part
of sand, two of ashes, and three of clay. This
soon hardens, and will resist the weather. A
little lard or oil may be added, to make the
composition still harder.

" Such a cottage will be as cheap as a fog
cabin, less expensive than pjne buildings, and
durable for centuries. I have tried the experi-
ment in this ciiy by erecting a building eighteen
by fifty-four feet, two stories high, adopting the
difierent suggestions now made. Although
many doubted the success of the undertaking,
all now admit it has been very successful, and
presents a convenient and comfortable build-
ing, that appears well to public view, and offers
a residence combining as many advantages as
a stone, bri«k, or wood house presents. I will
add what Loudon says in his most excellent
work, the Encyclopedia of Agriculture, pp. 74
and 75 :

"* The great art in building an economical
cottage is to employ the kind of materials and
labour which are cheapest in the given locality.
In almost every part of the world the cheapest
article of which the walls can be made will be
found to be the earth on which the cottage
stands, and to make good walls from the earth
is the principal art of the rustic or primitive
builder. Soils, with reference to building, may
be divided into two classes : clays, loams, and
all such soils as can neither be called gravels
nor sands, and sands and gravels. The former,
whether they are stiff" or free, rich or poor,
mixed with stones, or free from stones, may
be formed into walls in one of these modes,
viz., in the pise manner, by lumps moulded in
boxes, and by compressed blocks. Sandy and
gravelly soils may be always made into excel-
lent walls, by forming a frame of boards, leav-
ing a space between the boards of the intended
thickness of the wall, and filling this with
gravel mixed with lime mortar, or, if this
cannot be got, with mortar made of clay and
straw.

" ' In all cases, when walls, either of this
class or the former, are built, the foundations
should be of stone or brick, and they should be
carried up at least a foot above the upper sur-
face of the platform.

" ' We shall here commence by giving one
of the simplest modes of construction, from a
work of a very excellent and highly estimable
individual, Mr. Denson, of Waterbeach, Cam-
bridgeshire, the author of the Peasant's Voice,
who built his own cottage in the manner de-
scribed below :

" 'Mode of building the mud walls of cottages in
Cambridgeshire. — After a labourer has dug a
sufficient quantity of clay for his purpose, he
works it up with straw ; he is then provided
with a frame eighteen inches in length, six
deep, and from nine to twelve inches in diame-
ter. In this frame he forms his lumps, in the
same manner that a brickmaker forms his
bricks ; they are then packed up to dry by the
weather ; that done, they are fit for the use, as
a substitute for bricks. On laying the founda-

359

COTTAGE-CHEESE.

COW-BANE, SPOTTED.

tion of a cottage, a few layers of brick are ne-
cessary, to prevent the lumps from contracting
a damp from the earth. The fireplace is lined
and the oven is built with bricks. I have
known cottagers, where they could get the
grant of a piece of ground to build on for them-
selves, erect a cottage of this description at a
cost from £15 to £30. I examined one that
was nearly completed, of a superior order: it
contained two good lower rooms and a cham-
ber, and was neatly thatched with straw. It is
a warm, firm, and comfortable building, far su-
perior to the one I live in ; and my opinion is,
that it will last for centuries. The lumps are
laid with mortar, they are then plastered, and
on the outside once roughcast, which is done
by throwing a mixture of water, lime, and
small stones, against the walls, before the
plaster is dry, which gives them a very hand-
some appearance. The cottage I examined,
cost £33, and took nearly one thousand lumps
to complete it. A labourer will make that
number in two days. The roofs of cottages
of this description are precisely the same as
when built with bricks or with a wooden frame.
Cow-house sheds, garden walls, and partition
fence, are formed with the same materials ; but
in all cases the tops are covered with straw,
which the thatchers perform in a very neat
manner.' " (Denson's Peasant's Voice, p. 31.)

COTTAGE-CHEESE. See Whey Butteh.

COTTON-GRASS {Erioph(ymm. Ital. co-
tone; Fr. colon). A perennial native genus of
grasses, comprising seven species, which have
no particular merit to warrant their recom-
mendation for the purpose of the agriculturist ;
their productive and nutritive powers being
very inferior. Sinclair gives us the result of
his experiments on two sorts, the common long-
leaved cotton-grass {E. angusti folium), and the
hare's-tail, or sheathed cotton-grass (E. vagi-
natuni.)

COTTON PLANT. See Gosstpium.

COTTON TREE (Populus argentea). See
Poplar.

COTTON-WOOD {Populus Canadensis). See
Poplar.

COTTON,*WILD {Asclepias Syriaca), popu-
larly called silk-^iveed and swallmv-wort. An Ame-
rican plant growing in low grounds and on
road-sides, to the height of three or four feet.
(Flora CestHca.)

COTYLEDON. The seed leaf. See Botaxt.

COUCH, or CREEPING WHEAT GRASS
(Triticum repcns, PI. 10, i.) Named from the
French coucher, to lie down. Sometimes called
dog-grass and knot-grass. Until of late years,
when botanical science has afforded us better
information,' it was generally supposed that
all couch or twitch was the roots of one spe-
cies of grass. But many persons observed that
some of these roots, on wet soils, were black
and much smaller, and they had locally ob-
tained the name of black tuntch. This, on soils
where it prevails, is much worse than the other,
because it is wiry and small, and not so easily
discharged from the soil ; it is also more brittle,
and by harrowing breaks short. This is the
A^stis repens. There are two other grasses
which have strong creeping roots, and are in-
difierently called couch : these are the creep-
360

mg-rooted soft grass (Holcus mollis), and the
smooth-stalked meadow grass (Poa pratmsis).
There is but one way of destroying couch, and
that is by ploughing up the soil and pulverizing
it. (Sinclair's Weeds, p. 27.) See Agrostis Re-
pens. Couch or quitch grass, or creeping triti-
cum, is a troublesome perennial, fortunately but
little known in the United States. Dr. Darling-
ton has only been able to find it in one place,
the Weston school farm, in Chester county,
Pennsylvania. (See Flora Cestrica.)

COUGH (Goth, kueff, a catarrh ; kof, sufib-
cation ; Dutch, ktich). in farriery, a convulsive
motion of the lungs, being an effort of nature
to throw up some offending matter from
the air tubes. This is best treated, in mild
cases, by cold bran mashes with linseed. But
coughs arise from so many different causes
that it is impossible to prescribe any general
remedy.

COULTER OF A PLOUGH. See Plough.

COUNTER. In horsemanship, the breast
of a horse, or that part of his fore-hand which
lies between the shoulders and under the
neck.

COUPLES. A term applied to ewes and
lambs. Couple is also a chain or tie that
holds dogs together.

COUPLINGS, or CUPLINGS. Thongs of
untanned leather, or other material, which are
used to connect the handle or handstaff and
swiple of a flail.

COVER, or COVERT (Fr. cauvrir). A terra
applied to a place sheltered, not open or ex-
posed. In sportsman's phrase, the cover is the
chosen resort of the fox for kennelling; and
such as lie high and dry are seldom without
one or more, particularly if the underwood be
thick and plenty. Artificial covers are often
formed of broom and gorse, intermixed.
(Blaine's Rural Sports, p. 452.)

COVEY (Fr. couvee, from the Lat cubo).
Provincially applied to a cover of furze, &c.,
for game. It is also applied to an old bird
with her young ones, but is generally used to
designate a number of partridges or other
game.

COW (Sax. cu; Dutch, koe ; Pers. gow).
See Cattle.

COW-BANE, WATER, oi^ WATER HEM-
LOCK (Cicuta virosa). A perennial, fetid, poi-
sonous aquatic herb, found in ditches, and
about the margins of rivers, not very common.
Root tuberous, hollow. Stems two or three
feet high, hollow, leafy, branched, furrowed.
Leaves bright green, tapering at each end,
from one to two inches long. Umbels large,
bearing purplish flowers ; fruit roundish,
smooth. This is a fatal plant to cattle, if
they happen to meet with it before it rises out
of the water, in which state only they will eat
the young leaves. (Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 62).

COW-BANE, SPOTTED (Ciciita maculata).
Water hemlock, a perennial root frequently
found in low grounds and the margins of
streams in Pennsylvania and other Middle
States. The mature fruit of this plant is
highly aromatic, — the odour something be-
tween that of aniseed and the kernels of the
black walnut. The roof is an active poison;
and numerous lives have been lost, for want

COW-CLAGS.

CRAB TREE.

; of sufficient botanical knowledge to distinguish

V Ihe plant from the oxmorhiza or sweet cicely.

The herb is also destructive to cattle, when

eaten by them. There is one other species in

the United States. {Flor. Cestric.)

COW-CLAGS. A provincial name for the
clotted lumps of dirt that hang to the buttocks
of cattle and other animals.

COW-HERD. A person whose office it is
to attend upon the herds of cows in places
where they run in common fields.

COW-HOUSE. See Cattle Shed.

CO WISH. A new species of plant, called
biscuit-root, found growing on dry land in the
valley of the Columbia river. Its size is about
that of a walnut, though sometimes larger. Its
taste resembles that of the sweet potato, and it
is prepared for food by the same process as
the cammas, in which state it forms a tolerable
substitute for bread.

COW-KEEPING. The business of keeping
cows for the advantage of the milk, by dispos-
ing of it in large towns. The principal cow-
keepers of the British metropolis have their
establishments in the suburbs, where they are
connected with pasture fields, in which their
animals are turned out a portion of every day
throughout the year, when practicable. The
cows are fed in the house with grains, mangel-
wurzel, hay, tares, &c., and as the animals get
air and exercise, the milk may be considered
wholesome. But there are other cow-keepers
in the metropolis, who confine their cows in
back houses, and even dark cellars, and while
they feed them with rich food, give them no
exercise ; hence, the milk of such cows can-
not be considered wholesome. (Harleian
Dairy System ; Frit. Husb.) See Cattle.

COW PARSNIP, or HOG WEED (Hera-
cleum sphondylium). A biennial pasture weed,
which in England is found in hedges, the bor-
ders of fields, and rather moist meadows, very
common. Root tap-shaped, whitish, aromatic,
sweetish, and rather mucilaginous. Stem four
to six feet high, erect, branched, leafy, fur-
rowed, and hollow. The leaves proceed from
a large membrane or sheath. The flowers,
which grow in large umbels, are either white
or reddish ; the fruit is abundant, and light

thrown. The whole plant is wholesome and
nourishing food for cattle, and is gathered in
Sussex for fattening hogs, hence its name of
hog-weed. It is also frequently known by the
name of wild parsnip, meadow parsnip, and
madrep. (Sinclair's Weeds, p. 65 ; Eng. Flora,
vol. ii. p. 102.)

The only ascertained species of this genus
found in the United States is the Heracleum la-
natam, or woolly cow parsnip, a perennial root,
the stem of which sometimes grows six or
eight feet high. It is frequent in low grounds
in Pennsylvania, See Flcrr. Cest.

COW PEA. A kind of pea much culti-
vated in the Southern States as a field crop,
and substitute for clover. See Peas.

COW-POX. In farriery, is a disease afl^ect-
ing the teats of cows. This disease appears
in the form of small bluish vesicles surrounded
by inflammation, elevated at the edge and de-
pressed in the centre, and containing a limpid
fluid. By the use of the virus of this disease,
46

has originated the present excellent system of
vaccination.

COWSLIP, AMERIC AN (Dodecatheon
Meadia). A hardy perennial from South Ame-
rica, loving shade and moisture. It blows in
April and May. Propagated by seed aod off-
sets. Sow the seed in pots in autumn. Plant
out the following autumn.

COWSLIP, THE COMMON, or PAIGLE
(Primula veris). A native English perennial
weed, growing in mealows and pastures,
chiefly on a clay or chalky soil. It produces
sweet-scented yellow flowers, which appear in
April, and are used for making cowslip wine
or balsamic tea. Its roots have a fine odour,
similar to that of anise, and give additional
strength to ale or beer, when immersed in the
cask. The leaves and flowers are excellent
food for silk-worms, and are eaten eagerly by
cattle. The leaves are also used as a pot-
herb, and in salads.

The flowers, leaves, and roots are all medi-
cinal portions of the cowslip, and are made
into tea, wine, and conserve. It is anodyne in
its quality, and the ancient writers upon herbs
speak highly of its efiects; but their opinions
have lost their value by time. (Eng. Flora,
vol. i. p. 271 ; milich's Dom. Encyc.)

COWSLIP OF JERUSALEM, or LUNG-
WORT PULMONARIA (Pulmonana offici-
nalis). This plant is perennial and flowers in
May. It grows eight or ten inches high, with
long, broad, hairy leaves, of a deep green,
spotted on the upper side with white spots.
The stalks are slender and hairy, with small
leaves upon them. The flowers are reddish
in the bud but blue when blown, small, grow-
ing in clusters at the top of its stalk. The
root is fibrous. The leaves have been used
medicinally, from the idea that they resemble
the lungs, and therefore must be useful in dis-
ease of those organs. They are inert, and
consequently useless. Several species of
lungwort are found indigenous to the United
States.

COW-TIE. A provincial term applied to a
short thick hair rope, with a wooden nut at
one end and an eye in the other, being used
for tying the hind legs of the cows while
milking.

COW- WHEAT (Melampyrum pratense), PI.
7, q. A plant cultivated in Flanders for feeding
stock.

There are some species of this plant found
in the United States. One has been called by
botanists American melampyrum. This is found
in dry, hilly woodlands, and on mica-slate hills,
where it flowers in June and July. A narrow-
leaved variety is abundant in the pines of New
Jersey. (Flora Cestrica.)

CRAB TREE, or WILD APPLE TREE
(Pyrus malus). There are in England several
varieties among the wild crabs, some of which
are of excellent flavour when baked with plenty
of sugar, even surpassing cultivated apples.
(Eng. Flora, vol. ii. p. 362.) Crab apples and
sloes are the only fruits naturally belonging to
the soil, and both are medicinal. The ex-
pressed juice of any of them, called verjuice,
kept by good housewives in the country, being
excellent as an astringent gai'gle in sore throats,
2H 361

CRAB APPLE.

CRANBERRY.

and in thrush and ulceration of the mouth and
gums. It is sometimes mixed with beer-yeast,
and applied outwardly, in inflammations, bad
legs, burns, sprains, and scalds ; but cold water
and rest are better.

CRAB APPLE (Malus coronaria). This
species of wild apple tree is found in North
America, and at the time Michaux wrote his
Sylva Americana, he says its nature had not
been modified by cultivation. The wild apple
tree of Europe, in a long series of years, has
yielded a great number of species and varie-
ties of fruit, which, in France alone, amount
to nearly three hundred. Except the district
of Maine, the state of Vermont, and the upper
part of New Hampshire, the crab apple is
found, on both sides of the mountains, through-
out the United States: but it appears to be
most multiplied in the Middle States, and espe-
cially in the back parts of Pennsylvania and
of Virginia. It abounds, above all, in the
Glades, which is the name given to a tract 15
or 18 miles wide, on the summit of the Alle-
ghanies, along the road from Philadelphia to
Pittsburgh.

The ordinary height of the crab apple tree
is 15 or 18 feet, with a diameter of 5 or 6
inches ; but it is sometimes found 25 or 30 feet
high, and 12 or 15 inches in diameter. The
two stocks which I found by measurement to
be of this size, stood in a field which had long
been under cultivation, and this circumstance
may have contributed to their extraordinary
growth. They were insulated trees that in ap-
pearance exactly resembled the common apple
tree. I have universally remarked that the
crab apple grows most favourably in cool and
moist places, and on fertile soils.

The leaves of this tree are oval, smooth on
the upper surface, and, when fully developed,
very distinctly toothed : some of them are im-
perfectly three-lobed. While young, they have
a bitter and slightly aromatic taste, which
leads to the belief that, with the addition of
sugar, they would make an agreeable tea. Like
the common apple tree, this species blooms
very early in the spring. Its flowers are white
mingled with rose colour, and are collected in
corymbs ; they produce a beautiful efiect, and
diffuse a delicious odour, by which, in the
glades where the tree is abundant, the air is
perfumed to a great distance. The apples,
which are suspended by short peduncles, are
small, green, intensely acid, and very odorife-
rous. Some farmers make cider of them,
which is said to be excellent : they make very
fine sweet-meats also, by the addition of a large
quantity of sugar.

No attempts have been made in the United
States to improve the fruit of the crab apple
tree, nor any experiments of uniting it, by
grafting, with the species imported from Eu-
rope. These species succeed so perfectly, and
furnish such excellent new varieties, that much
time would be spent upon the crab apple, with-
out bringing it to as high a state of improve-
ment. Perhaps it might be cultivated with ad-
vantage for cider; but, aside from its utility in
thi^way, it must be regarded only as a tree
hignly agreeable for the beauty of its flowers
and for the sweetness of its perfume.

CRAB-GRASS (Eleusim Indica). Dog's-tail
grass, Wire grass. The grass described under
these several names in the Flora Cesirica,
makes a line carpeting in yards, lanes, and
foot-paths, flowering in the Middle States in
August. Cattle and hogs are very fond of it,
and it is recommended as making excellent
hay.

Another species of grass which in some
places goes under the name of Crab-grass, is
the Digitaria sanguinalis, or Finger-grass (see
plate 7, /). This is a very troublesome an-
nual in gardens and cultivated grounds, being
very diflicult to keep in subjection in the latter
part of summer. (Flor. Cestrica.)

CRACKS IN HEELS OF HORSES. In
farriery, little clefts which are said to be
sometimes constitutional, but more frequently
owing to the want of cleanliness and proper
attention.

CRADLE. A frame consisting of long fin-
gers arranged above a scythe, for the purpose
of receiving the grain when harvesting. The
scythe and cradle is comparatively a modem
invention, by the aid of which a hand can cut
five or six times as much grain as could be
harvested in the same time with a sickle.

CRANBERRY {Vaccinium oxyroccus). See
Whortleberrt.

The species of Cranberry most commonly
found in the United States is the Oxyroccus ma-
crocarpvs. It is an indigenous, low trailing
vine, growing wild in bogs and meadows, bear-
ing a beautiful red berry of an exceedingly
sour, though agreeable taste, much used in do-
mestic economy for tarts and sweet-meals.
The cranberry, says Mr. Kenrick, of Boston,
is a plant of easy culture ; and with but little
expense, not a doubt exists that meadows which
are now barren wastes, or yield nothing but
coarse herbage, might be converted into pro-
fitable cranberry fields. According to Loudon,
Sir Joseph Banks, who obtained this plant
from America, raised, in 1831, on a square
of 18 feet each way, 3^ Winchester bushels,
which is at the rate of 460 bushels to th6
acre. Any meadow will answer. Captain
Henry Hall, of Barnstable, has cultivated the
cranberry 20 years. They grow well on sandy
bogs after draining; if the bogs are covered
with brush, it is removed, but it is not neces-
sary to remove the rushes, as the strong roots
of the cranberry soon overpower them. It
would be well if, previous to planting, the land
could be ploughed; but, Capt. Hall usually
spreads on beach sand, and digs holes four feet
asunder each way, the same distance as for
corn; the holes are, however, deeper. Into
these holes, sods of cranb*-ry roots are planted,
and in the space of three years the whole ground
is covered. The planting is usually performed
in autumn. Mr. F. A. Hayden, of Lincoln,
Mass., is stated to have gathered from his farm,
in 1830, 400 bushels of cranberries, which
brought him, in Boston market, $400. "*

An acre of cranberries in full bearing will
produce over 200 bushels; and the fruit gene-
rally sells in the markets of Boston for $1-50
per bushel, and much higher than in former
years. Although a moist soil is best suited to
the plant, yet, with a suitable mixture of bog

CRANE'S BILL.

CRESS, INDIAN.

earth, or mud, it will flourish, producing abun-
dant crops, even in any dry soil. There is
said to be a variety of cranberry in Russia of
a superior size.

Cranberries abound in vast quantities in the
moist prairies in Michigan and some of the
Western States. By means of a newly invented
rake, very simple in its construction and not
expensive, 40 bushels may be gathered by one
man in a day; and a cargo of 1500 bushels
has been sent to one of the Atlantic States,
from the northern part of Indiana, in a flat-
boat, at one time. The price which this pro-
duct often commands in the markets of the
cities along the Atlantic varies from $1 50
even up to $'2 50 or $3 50 per bushel. They
can be gathered at the west at an expense of
not more than 50 cents per bushel. The duty
on them in England is not more than 2 cents
per gallon by direct trade.

The cranberry tree, or shrub, commonly
called the HIghbush Cranberry (Viburnum oxy-
coccum), is also indigenous to North America,
and among other places in which it is found,
are some of the western counties of New
York. The blossoms are white, disposed in
cymes, forming a flat surface from a common
centre, and very beautiful. Its fruit is a berry
about the size of the common cranberry, of a
bright red colour, and very austere taste.
They are valuable for pies, tarts, preserves, &c.
The tree is propagated by seeds, layers, and
suckers. (Kenrick's Am. Orchardist.)

It may, with great ease, be transferred from
its native forest to the yard or garden, flourish-
ing in every kind of soil, whether wet, dry,
sand, or clay. The shrub so much resembles
the snow-ball as to be distinguished from it
with difficult}'. The fruit is but little if any
inferior in flavour to that of the swamp cran-
berry, from which it differs in having a small
pit or stone. For some purposes it is even
preferable to the common cranberry. It grows
in clusters which will remain on the bush all
winter.

In the valley of the Columbia river, a new
species of bush-cranberry has been discovered,
called Pombina.

CRANE'S BILL (Geranium). A genus of
plants comprising a large number of species,
of which, according to Smith (Eni^. Flor. vol. ii.
p. 221), only thirteen are indigenous. The
blue meadow crane's bill (G. pratense) is found
in rich, rather moist pastures, and thickets, es-
pecially in the hilly parts of England. It is a
perennial, flowering in June and July ; flowers,
of a fine blue, often irregularly striped or
blotched with white, sometimes entirely white.
The species of crane's bill called Herb Robert
(G. Robertianum,) possesses most medicinal
virtues, and is found under hedges and in un- !
cultivated places, flowering all through the
summer. The stalks, and indeed the whole
plant, is often quite red, as are the flowers, and
the fruit is long and slendeY, resembling a
crane's bill, after which it is named. The
leaves are large, divided into many parts, and
stand in pairs at every joint of their long-footed
stalks. It is a very powerful astringent, and
may be given in any fprm, decocted fresh, or

powdered when dry. Several indigenous spe-
cies are found in the United States.

CRAP. A local name in some places for
darnel, and in others for buckwheat.
CRAPULA. See Hovex.
CREAM. A thick, unctuous, yellowish co-
loured substance which collects on the surface
of milk, when this is allowed to stand some
time at rest. See Butter.

CREAM GAUGE, or GLASS. A graduated
glass tube to ascertain the produce of cream.
In a tube containing ten inches' depth of milk,
every tenth of an inch will of course indicate
one per cent, of cream. It may be used for
many purposes, such as to ascertain the state
of the animal's health, regular and quiet feed-
ing, &c. (Qiiort. Journ. Agr. vol. ii. p. 245.)

CREAM-SLICE. A sort of wooden knife,
twelve or fourteen inches in length.

CREOSOTE. A term derived from Greek
words signifying "flesh preserver." It is the
most important of the five new chemical pro-
ducts obtained from wood-tar, by Dr. Reichen-
bach. The other four, are Parafflnej^Evpioney Pi-
ramar, and Pittacal, none of which have, as yet,
been ajpplied to any use in the arts. Creosote
may be prepared either from tar or from crude
pyroligneous acid. Its flesh-preserving quality
is rendered of little use, from the difficulty of
removing the rank flavour which it imparts.
CRESS. See Americax Cress.
CRESS, BITTER WINTER (Barbarea vul-
garis). See Winter Cress.

CRESS, INDIAN, or MAJOR NASTURTI-
UM (Tropaolum majus, diminutive of tropteum^
a trophy; and T.minug). The major nasturti-
um being the most productive, as well of flow-
ers and leaves as of fruit, is the one that is
usually cultivated in the kitchen garden; the
fruit being used in pickling, and the flowers
and leaves in salads and for garnishing. They
will flourish in almost any soil, but the one in
which they are most productive, is a light fresh
loam. In a strong rich soil, the plants are
luxuriant, but they aflT:>rd fewer berries, and
those of inferior flavour. They like an open
situation. Sow from the beginning of March
to the middle of May ; the earlier, however, the
better. The seed may be inserted in a drill,
two inches deep, along its bottom, in a single
row, with a space of two or three inches be-'
tween every two, or they may be dibbled in at
a similar distance and depth. The minor is
likewise often sown in patches. The major
should be inserted beneath a vacant paling,
wall, or hedge, to which its stems may be
trained, or in an open compartment with sticks
inserted on each side. The runners at first
require a little attention to enable them to climb,
but they soon are capable of doing so unassist-
ed. The minor either may trail along the
ground, or be supported with short sticks. If
water is not afforded during dry weather, they
will not shoot so vigorously or be so produc-
tive. They flower from June until the close
of October. The fruit for pickling must be
gathered when of full size, and whilst green
and fleshy, during August. For the production
of seed, some plants should be left ungathered,
as the first produced are not only the finest in

363

CRESS.

CRICKET.

general, but are often the only ones that ripen.
They should be gathered as they ripen, which
they do from the close of August to the begin-
ning of October. They must on no account
be stored until perfectly dry and hard. The
finest and soundest seed of the previous year's
production should alone be sown ; if it is older,
the plants are seldom vigorous. (G. W. John-
son's Kilchen Garden).

CRESS, WALL, or ROCK CRESS {Arabia).
A genus of plants of very different habit from
the last, of which the species are numerous,
and chiefly natives of the northern hemisphere.
There are six species described by Smith (Eng.
Flor. vol. iii. p. 209), but the wall cress (Jra-
bis thaliana) is preferred. All the species
have a pungent flavour. The plants are adapt-
ed for ornamenting rock work, and are propa-
gated from seeds or cuttings. The wild sorts
are found frequent on old walls, stony banks
or rocks, dry sandy ground, and cottage roofs.

CRESS, WATER (Nasturtivm). There are
several native species of water cress, which
may be included in the following summary.
Creeping yellow cress, annual yellow cress,
amphibious yellow cress, or great water radish,
and common water cress. They are branching
herbs, almost invariably smooth, throwing out
numerous radicles, and either altogether aqua-
tic or at least growing in wet ground. (Eng.
Flor. vol. iii. p. 191 — 5). Water cress {N.
officinale) was seldom admitted as an object
'of cultivation, and then never to any extent,
until Mr. Bradbury, of West Hyde, Herts, un-
dertook its cultivation for the London market.
Mr. Bradbury considers that there are three
varieties, — the green-leaved, which is easiest
cultivated ; small brown-leaved, which is the
hardiest ; and the large brown-leaved, which is
the best, having most leaf in proportion to the
stalk, and is the only one that can well be culti-
vated in deep waters. (Trans. Hort. Sac. Land.
vol. iv. p. 538.) The plants thrive best in a
moderately swift stream, about an inch and a
half deep, over a gravelly or chalky bottom,
and the nearer its source the better: when there
is choice, such situations, therefore, should be
exclusively planted. If mud is the natural
bottom, it should be removed, and gravel sub-
stituted. The plants are to be set in rows,
which is most conducive to their health and
good flavour, inasmuch as that they are regu-
larly exposed to the current of water, of which,
if there is not a constant stream, they never
thrive. In shallow water, as above mentioned,
the rows may be made only eighteen inches
apart, but in deeper currents from five to seven
feet are sometimes necessary. The beds must
be cleared and re-planted twice a year, for in
the mud and weeds which quickly collect, the
plants not only will not grow freely, but it is
difl[icult to separate them in gathering: it is
likewise rendered imperative by the heads be-
coming small fVom frequent cutting. The
times for planting and renewal are in succes-
sional insertions during May and June, the
plants from which will come into production
in August; and again from September to No-
vember, those in the last month being ready in
the^pring. In renewing the plantations, the
bed of the stream, commencing towards its
364

head, being cleared of mud and rubbish, from
the mass of plants taken out the youngest and
best rooted must be selected. These are re-
turned into the stream, and retained in their
proper order, by a stone placed on each. After
the plants have been cut about three times,
they begin to stock, and then the oftener they
are cut the better. In summer they must be
cut very close. The situation being favour-
able, they will yield a supply once in a week.
In winter the water should be kept four or five
inches deep ; this is easily effected, by leaving
the plants with larger heads, which impedes
the current. The shoots ought always to be
cut off"; breaking greatly injures the plants.
(Trans. Hort. Land. Soc. vol. iv. p. 537—42.)

CRIB. In England sometimes applied to a
rack for hay or straw for cattle, and sometimes
to a manger for corn or chaff"; also to a small
enclosure in a cow-house or shed for calves or
sheep. In the United States it is commonly
used to designate the building or apartment in
which Indian corn is stored in the ear.

CRIB-BITING. A vice to which some
horses are subject; consisting in their catch-
ing hold of the manger, and it is said sucking
in the air. It generally proceeds from a de-
ranged state of the stomach, but it is sometimes
brought on by uneasiness occasioned by dis-
eases of the teeth, or by roughness in the per-
son who currycombs them. (Brande.) There
are several straps or muzzles in use to prevent
crib-biting, one of the best being that invented
by Mr. Stewart. (Blaine's Encyc. p. 318, 319.)

CRICK. In farriery, is when a horse can-
not turn his neck any way, and when thus af-
fected he cannot take his meat from the ground
without great pain.

CRICKET. The common or hearth cricket
(Gryllina). This insect in England frequents
kitchens and bakers' ovens, on account of the
warmth of those places. An easy method of
destroying them is to place phials half full of
beer or any other liquid near their holes, and
they will crawl into them, and can then be
easily taken. A hedgehog soon clears a kitchen.

There are, as yet, no house-crickets in the
United States, where the species inhabiting
gardens and fields enter dwellings only by ac-
cident. The American crickets belong to a
group of insects (Achetadte) which naturalists
have placed in the same class as the grasshop-
pers and locusts. They are distinguished by
having wing-covers horizontal, and furnished
M'ith a narrow, deflexed outer border; antennae
long and tapering ; feet with not more than
three joints, and two tapering downy bristles
at the end of the body, between which, in most
of the females, is a long spear-pointed piercer.

"There may be sometimes seen," says Dr.
Harris, "in moist and soft ground, particiilarly
around ponds, little ridges or hills of loose,
fresh earth, smaller than those which are
formed by moles. They cover little burrows,
that usually terminate beneath a stone or clod
of turf. These burrows are made and inhabit-
ed by mole-crickets, which are among the most
extraordinary of the cricket kind. The com-
mon mole-cricket of this country is, when fully
grown, about one inch and a quarter in length,
of a light bay or fawn colour, and covered with

CRICKET.

CRICKET.

a very short and velvet-like down. The wing-
covers are not half the length of the abdomen,
and the wings are also short, their tips, when
folded, extending only about one-eighth of an
inch beyond the wing-cavers. The fore-legs
are admirably adapted foi^ digging, being very
short, broad, and strong; and the shanks, which
are excessively broad, flat, and three-sided,
have the lower side divided by deep notches
into four finger-like projections, that give to
this part very much the appearance and the
power of the hand of a mole. From this simi-
larity in structure, and from its burrowing
habits, the insect receives its scientific name
of GryUotalpa, derived from Gryllus, the ancient
name of the cricket, and Talpa, a mole ; and
our common species has the additional name
of brevipeiinis, or short-winged, to distinguish it
from the European species, which has much
longer wings. Mole-crickeis avoid the light of
day, and are active chiefly during the night.
They live on the tender roots of plants, and in
Europe, where they infest moist gardens and
meadows, they often do great injury by burrow-
ing under the turf, and cutting ofi" the roots of
the grass, and by undermining and destroying,
in this way, sometimes whole beds of cabbages,
beans, and flowers. In the West Indies, ex-
tensive ravages have been committed in the
plantations of the sugar-cane by another spe-
cies, GryUotalpa didadyla, which has only two
finger-like projections on the shin. The mole-
"^ cricket of Europe lays from two to three hun-
dred eggs, and the young do not come to matu-
rity till the third year; circumstances both
contributing greatly to increase the ravages of
these insects. It is observed that, in proportion
as cultivation is extended, destructive insects
multiply, and their depredations become more
serious. We may, therefore, in process of
time, find mole-crickets in this country quite
as much a pest as they are in Europe, although
their depredations have hitherto been limited
to so small an extent as not to have attracted
much notice. Should it hereafter become ne-
cessary to employ means for checking them,
poisoning might be tried, such as placing, in
the vicinity of their burrows, grated carrots or
potatoes mixed with arsenic. It is well known
that swine will eat almost all kinds of insects,
and that they are very sagacious in rooting
them out of the ground. They might, therefore,
be emph)yed with advantage to destroy these
and other noxious insects, if other means
should fail.

"Crickets are, in great measure, nocturnal
and solitary insects, concealing themselves by
day, and coming from their retreats to seek
their food and their mates by night. There are
some species, however, which differ greatly
from the others in their social habits. These
are not unfrequently seen during the day-time
in great numbers, in paths and by the road-side;
but the other kinds rarely expose themselves
to the light of day, and their music is heard
only at night. With crickets, as with grass-
hoppers, locusts, and harvest-flies, the males
only are musical ; for the females are not pro-
vided with the instruments from which the
sounds emitted by these different insects are
produced. In the male cricket these make a

part of the wing-covers, the horizontal and
overlapping portion of which, near the thorax
is convex, and marked with large, strong, and
irregularly curved veins. When the cricket
shrills (we cannot say sings, for he has no
vocal organs), he raises the wing-covers a little,
and shuffles them together lengthwise, so that
the projecting veins of one are made to grate
against those of the other. The English name
cricket, and the French cri-cri, are evidently
derived from the creaking sounds of these in-
sects. Mr. White, of Selborne, says that 'the
shrilling of the field-cricket, though sharp and
stridulous,yet marvellously delights some hear-
ers, filling their minds with a train of summer ^
ideasof every thing that is rural, verdurous, and v *
joyous ;' sentiments in which few persons, if
any, in America will participate; for with us
the creaking of crickets does not begin till
summer is gone, and the continued and mono-
tonous sounds, which they keep up luring the
whole night, so long as autumn lasts, are both
wearisome and sad. Where crickets abound,
they do great injury to vegetation, eating the
most tender parts of plants, and even devour-
ing fruits and roots, whenever they can get
them. Melons, squashes, and even potatoes
are often eaten by them, and the quantity of '
grass that they destroy must be great, from the
immense numbers of these insects which are
sometimes seen in our meadows and fields.
They may be poisoned in the same way as
mole-crickets. Crickets are not entirely con-*
fined to a vegetable diet; they devour other
insects whenever they meet with and can over-
power them. They deposit their eggs, which
are numerous, in the ground, making holes for
their reception with their long, spear-pointed
piercers. The eggs are laid in the autumn,
and do not appear to be hatched till the ensu-
ing summer. The old insects, for the most
part, die on the approach of cold weather ; but
a few survive the winter, by sheltering them-
selves under stones, or in holes secure from
the access of water.

" The scientific name of the genus that in-
cludes the cricket is Acheta, and our common
species is the Acheta abbreviata, so named from
the shortness of its wings, which do not extend
beyond the wing-covers. It is about three-
quarters of an inch in length, of a black co-
lour, with a brownish tinge at the base of the
wing-covers, and a pale line on each side above
the deflexed border. The pale line is most dis-
tinct in the female, and is oftentimes entirely
wanting in the male.

" We have another species with very short
or abortive wings ; it is entirely of a black co-
lour, and measures six-tenths of an inch in
length from the head to the end of the body. It
may be called Acheta nigra, the black cricket.

" A third species, diflTering from these two in
being entirely destitute of wings, and in having
the wing-covers proportionally much shorter,
and the last joint of the feelers (palpi) almost
twice the length of the preceding joint, is fur-
thermore distinguished from them by its greatly
inferior size, and its different colouring. It
measures from three to above four-tenths of an
inch in length, and varies in colour from dusky
brown to rusty black, the wing-covers and hind-
2 H 2 365

CRICKET.

CROW.

most thighs being always somewhat lighter. In
the brownish-coloured varieties, three longitu-
dinal black lines are distinctly visible on the
top of the head, and a black line on each side
of the thorax, which is continued along the
sides of the wing-covers to their tips. This
black line on the wing-covers is never want-
ing, even in the darkest vai;ieties. The hind-
most thighs have on the outside three rows of
short oblique black lines, presenting somewhat
of a twilled appearance. This is one of the
social species, which, associated together in
great swarms, and feeding in common, fre-
quent our meadows and roadsides, and, so
far from avoiding the light of day, seem to
be quite as fond of it as others are of darkness.
It may be called Acheta vitiala, the striped
cricket.

"These kinds of crickets live upon the
ground, and among the grass and low herbage;
Dut there is another kind which inhabits the
stems and branches of shrubs and trees, con-
cealing itself during the daytime among the
leaves or in the flowers of these plants. The
males begin to be heard about the middle of
August, and do not leave us until after the
middle of September. Their shrilling is ex-
cessively loud, and is produced, like that. of
other crickets, by the rubbing of one wing-
cover against the other. These insects have
been separated from the other crickets under
the generical name of (Ecanthus, a word which
means inhabiting flowers. They may be called
climbing crickets, from their habit of mounting
upon plants, and dwelling among the leaves
and flowers. According to M. Salvi, the female
makes several perforations in the tender stems
of plants, and in each perforation thrusts two
eggs quite to the pith. The eggs are hatched
about midsummer, and the young immediately
issue from their nests and conceal themselves
among the thickest foliage of the plant. When
arrived at maturity, the males begin their noc-
turnal serenade at the approach of twilight,
and continue it, with little or no intermission,
till the dawn of day. Should one of these little
musicians get admission to the chamber, his
incessant and loud shrilling will effectually
banish sleep. Of three species which inhabit
the United States, one only is found in Massa-
chusetts. It is the (Ecanthus niveus, or white
climbing cricket. The male is ivory-white,
with the upper side of the first joint of the an-
tennae, and the head between the eyes, of an
ochre-yellow colour ; there is a minute black
dot on the under-sides of the first and second
joints of the antennae ; and, in some indivi-
duals, the extremities of the feet and the under-
sides of the hindmost thighs are ochre-yellow.
The body is about half an inch long, exclusive
of the wing-covers. The female is usually
rather longer, but the wing-covers are much
narrower than those of the male, and there is
a great diversity of colouring in this sex ; the
body being sometimes afmost white, or pale
greenish yellow, or dusky, and blackish be-
neath. There are three dusky stripes on the
head and thorax, and the legs, antennce, and
pie];xer are more or less dusky or blackish.
The^wing-covers and wings are yellowish
white, sometimes with a -tinge of green, and
366

the wings are rather longer than the covers." ^
{Harris on Destructive Insects.)

CROCUS. A well-known bulbous plant, of '
which there are many varieties, all handsome.
Plant in clumps; move them once in three
years, to separate the off'sets ; they like a good
light soil. Plant them two inches deep in the
ground. Smith (Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 46, and vol. *
iv. p. 262), describes four species of native 1
English crocuses, viz., the saffron crocus, pur- f
pie spring crocus, naked flowering crocus, and
net-rooted crocus. See Saffron.

CRONES. A provincial word applied to
the different descriptions of old ewes.

CROOK. A provincial term applied to a
hookj as a yat-crook means a gate-hook.

CROOM. A provincial term applied to an
implement with crooked or hooked prongs.
There are muck-crooms, turnip-crooms, &c.
It is sometimes written Crome.

CROP. The produce or quantity of grain,
roots, or grass, &c. grown on a piece of land
at one time ; hence we have grain, root, and
green crops. There is an able paper in the
Quart. Journ. of Jgr. vol. i. p. 55, by Mr. Henry
Stephens, on the causes of destruction to crops,
which may be consulted with advantage by the
farmer. For course of crops, see Rotation of
Crops. '

CROPPING. An operation performed with
a pair of shears, on the ears of horses, dogs, or
other animals.

CROSS-FURROW. The grip or furrow
which receives the superfluous rain-water
from the outer furrows, and conveys it from
the land into a ditch or other outlet The ope-
ration of making these cross-furrows is some-
times performed by the spade, and at others by
the plough.

CROTCH. A country term for a hook.

CROW, THE CARRION (Corvus corone).
The carrion crow, like the raven which it so
much resembles, is a denizen of nearly every
part of the world. Crows are even found in
New Holland and the Phillipine islands of the
Pacific Ocean. They are comparatively rare
in northern latitudes, where the raven most
abounds. The crow is exceedingly mischiev-
ous in his depredations about farms and dwell-
ings, where he sucks eggs, carries off chickens
and other young broods. But the most serious
mischief of which the crow is guilty in the
United States, is that of pillaging the fields of
Indian corn. He commences at the planting
time, by rooting out the grain as soon as the
sprout shows above the ground, and in autumn,
when the crop ripens, flocks, sometimes suffi-
cient to blacken the fields, do extensive da-
mage.

" The crow," says Nuttall, " like many other
birds, becomes injurious and formidable only
in the gregarious season, at other times they
live so scattered, and are so shy and cautious,
that they are but seldom seen. But their ar-
mies, like all other and terrific assemblies, have
the power, in limited districts, of doing very
sensible mischief to the agricultural interests
of the community; and, in consequence, the
poor crow, notwithstanding his obvious ser-
vices in the destruction of vast hosts of insects
and their larvae, is proscribed as a felon in all

CROW.

CROW.

civilized countries, and, with the wolves,
panthers, and foxes, a price is put upon his
head. In consequence, various means of en-
snaring the outlaw have been had recourse
to. Of the gun he is extremely cautious, and
suspects its appearance at the first glance, per-
ceiving with ready sagacity the wily manner
of the fowler. So fearful and suspicious are
they of human artifices, that a mere line
stretched round a field is often found sutlicient
to deter these wily birds from a visit to the
corn-field. Against poison he is not so guard-
ed, and sometimes corn steeped in hellebore is
given him, which creates giddiness and death.
According to Buffon, pieces of paper in the
form of a hollow cone, smeared inside with
bird-lime, and containing bits of raw meat,
have been employed. In attempting to gain
the bait, the dupe becomes instantly hood-
winked, and, as the safest course out of the
way of danger, the crow flies directly upwards
to a great height, but becoming fatigued with
the exertion, he generally descends pretty near
to the place from which he started, and is then
easily taken.

"Another curious method, related by the
same author, is that of pinning a live crow to
the ground by the wings, stretched out on his
back, and retained in this posture by two sharp,
forked sticks. In this situation, his loud cries
attract other crows, who come -sweeping down
to the prostrate prisoner, and are grappled in
his claws. In this way each successive prisoner
may be made the innocent means of capturing
his companion. The reeds in which they roost,
when dry enough, are sometimes set on fire
also to procure their destruction ; and, to add
to the fatality produced by the flames, gunners
are also stationed r'ound to destroy those that
attempt to escape by flight. In severe winters
they suflfer occasionally from famine and cold,
and fall sometimes dead in the fields. Accord-
ing to Wilson, in one of these severe seasons,
more than six hundred crows were shot on the
carcass of a dead horse, which was placed at
a proper shooting distance from a stable. The
premiums obtained for these, and the price
procured for the quills, produced to the farmer
nearly the value of the horse when living,
besides affording feathers sufficient to fill a bed !

" The crow is easily raised and domesticated,
and soon learns to distinguish the diflTcrent
members of the family with which he is asso-
ciated. He screams at the approach of a
stranger; learns to open the door by alighting
on the latch ; attends regularly at meal times ;
is very noisy and loquacious; imitates the
sound of various words which he hear»; is
very thievish, given to hiding curiosities in
holes and crevices, and is very fond of carry-
ing off* pieces of metal, com, bread, and food
of all kinds ; he is also particularly attached
to the society of his master, and recollects him
sometimes after a long absence.

"It is commonly believed and asserted in
some parts of this country, that the crows en-
gage at times in general combat; but it has
never been ascertained whether this hostility
arises from civil discord, or the opposition of
two different species, contesting for some ex-
clusive privilege of subsisling-ground. It is

well known that rooks often contend with each
other, and drive away, by every persecuting
means, individuals who arrive among them
from any other rookery.

"The crow is much smaller than the raven,
and is of a deep black with violet reflections.
The bill and feet are also black. The iris
hazel. (The European bird is twenty inches,
or nearly, and has the feathers of the neck
narrow and distinct.)"

Soaking seed-corn for 24 or 48 hours in a
strong solution of glauber's salts, is said to
effectually prevent crows, black-birds, and
squirrels from pulling up the grain.

Wilson was the first ornithologist who dis-
covered an American species differing from
the common crow, and which he called the
fish crow {corvus 08sifras;iis). It is met with
along the coast of the Southern States and as
high up as New Jersey. It keeps apart from the
common species, from which, however, it dif-
fers but slightly in appearance, being about
16 inches in length whilst the common crow
measures about 18^ inches. Instead of as-
sembling to roost among the reeds at night, it
retires, toward evening, from the shores which
afford it a subsistence, and perches in the
neighbouring woods. Its notes, probably va-
rious, are at times hoarse and guttural, at
others weaker and higher. They pass most part
of their time near rivers, hovering over the
stream to catch up dead and perhaps living
fish, or other animal matters which float with-
in their reach ; at these they dive with con-
siderable celerity, and seizing them in their
claws, convey them to an adjoining tree, and
devour the fruits of their predatory industry
at leisure. They also snatch up water lizards
in the same manner, and feed upon small crabs;
at times they are seen even contending with the
gulls for their prey. It is amusing to see with
what steady watchfulness they hover over the
water in search of their precarious food, having,
in fact, all the trails of the gull ; but they subsist
more on accidental supplies than by any re-
gular system of fishing. On land they have
sometimes all the familiarity of the magpie,
hopping upon the backs of cattle, in whose
company they, no doubt, occasionally meet
with a supply of insects when other sources
fail. They are also regular in their attendance
on the fishermen in New Jersey, for the pur-
pose of gleaning up the refuse of the fish.
They are less shy and suspicious than the
common crow, and, showing no inclination for
plundering the corn-fields, are rather friends
than enemies to the farmer. They appear
near Philadelphia, from the middle of March
to the beginning of June, during the season
of the shad and herring fishery.

They breed in New Jersey in tall trees, hav-
ing nests and eggs very similar to those of the
preceding species, and rear a brood of four or
five young, with whom they are seen in com-
pany in the month of July.

This species bears some resemblance to the
rook in general appearance, and by the bare

I space near the bill, but it is smaller, longer

j tailed, and wholly diflferent in its habits and

' mode of living.

I The Hooded Crow {Carvus cornix) resembles

367

CROW-FOOT.

CUCUMBER.

the carrion crow in appearance ; but is only a
constant resident of the northern parts of Eng-
land and the western islands of Scotland; it is
more destructive to the farmers' lambs, &c.
than the carrion crow. Its colour is black.
Length, twenty inches. (^Yarrelfs Brit. Birds,
vol. ii. p. 79—83.)

^ CROW-FOOT, or Crane's Bill. The spe-
cies usually known by this name in England,
is the Runwiculus acris of botanists. This, with
ail its varieties, are poisonous. The common
medicinal crow-foot is the medicinal plan*,
which, however, is only used externally, the
application of the recent leaves or root pro-
ducing a blister. The most poisonous variety
is that called spear-wood. The plant known
in the United States by the name of crow-foot,
or spotted crane's-bill, is the spotted geranium
(Geranium niaculatum), a perennial tuberous
root, found along fence-rows, in meadows,
woodlands, &c., fl(*vering in May and June.
The root is astringent and has been found use-
ful in diarrhoea, hosmorrhages, &c. See Flo7-a
Cestrica.

CROW NET. A net made of double thread
or fine packthread, principally used for catch-
ing wildfowl in the winter season ; but which
may also be employed on newly sown corn-
fields for catching pigeons, crows, and other
birds ; and, even in stubble-fields, if the stubble
conceals the net from the birds.

CROWN IMPERIAL {Fritillaria imperia-
lis). Native of Persia, with a large, scaly,
bulbous, or orange-coloured, disagreeably
smelling root. Blows pendent red flowers in
April and May. There are three varieties, the
red-flowered, the red striped-flowered with
striped leaves, and the yellow-flowered ; that
blowing a yellow flower is the handsomest.
Propagate by offsets every third year, taking
up the bulbs in July for that purpose. It loves
a sandy loam, and is averse to manure or wet.
See Fertillaht.

CRUCIFORM-PLANTS (Cruciferce), a class
comprehending such garden vegetables as the
cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, sea-kale, turnip,
radish, mustard, and in fact almost every culi-
nary article, except spinach. The class de-
rives its name from the flowers having four
petals or flower-leaves, disposed in the form
of a cross, as exemplified in the wall-flower.
It is remarked by botanists, that not a single
species included in this group is poisonous.
Even that great pest among weeds, charlock,
or wild radish, which belongs to the cruciform
class, affords when young most excellent and
wholesome greens.

CRUPPER. A term applied to the rump of
a horse ; also to a roll of leather put under a
horse's tail, and drawn up by a strap to the
buckle behind the saddle.

CRUSHERS FOR GRAIN, are evidently
coming fast into use ; the saving of food, by
giving the grain in a broken state, being cer-
tainly very considerable. It is a practice at
least as old as the days of Samuel Hartlib,
who mentions it with approbation in his " Le-
gacie." Machines for cracking and crushing
Indian corn by hand for feed, are quite com-
iSon in the United States.

CUCKOO PINT. See Ahum.
368

CUCKOO SPIT. Applied to a kind of
frothy substance frequently found on plants,
containing insects. See Fhogiioppkhs.

CUCUMBER (Cun(7ms sativus. From tuxva
or cr/xwcf. Varro says, "Cucumeres dicuntur a
curvore, ut curvimere dicti"). The following
are the chief varieties : — 1. Early short green
prickly; 2. early long green prickly; 3. most
lon'g green prickly; 4. early green cluster; 5.
white Dutch prickly; 6. long smooth green
Turkey ; 7. large smooth green Roman ; 8.
Flanegan's; 9. Russian; 10. white Turkey;
11. Nepal; 12. fluted (from China); 13. the
snake.

The early short prickly is about four inches
long, and is often preferred for the first crop, as
being a very plentiful bearer, quick in coming
into production, and the hardiest of all the va-
rieties. The early long prickly is about seven
inches long; it is a hardy, abundantly bearing
variety, but not quick in coming into produc-
tion. It is generally grown for main crops.
The longest prickly is about nine or ten inches
in length; it is a hardy, good bearer. There is
a white sub-variety. The early green cluster
is a very early bearer. Its fruit is about six
inches long. It is chiefly characterized by its
fruit growing in clusters. The whole plant
grows compact, and is well suited for hand-
glass crops. The white Dutch prickly is about
six inches long; it has an agreeable flavour,
though differing from most of the others. It
comes quickly into bearing.

The other varieties are slow in coming into
production, and are chiefly remarkable for their
great size. The Nepal often weighs twelve
pounds, being occasionally eight inches in dia-
meter and seventeen in length. It is a native
of Calcutta. The snake cucumber is very small
in diameter, but attains the length, it is said,
of several feet.

A fresh loam, rather inclining to lightness
than tenacity, as the top-spit of a pastute, is
perhaps as fine a soil as can be employed for
the cucumber. It will succeed in any open
soil of the garden for the hand-glass and natu-
ral ground crops.

The out-door culture of cucumbers practised
throughout the United States is so familiarly
known as to require no particular description.
In the neighbourhood of large cities the large
demand for cucumbers causes these to be in-
cluded among the articles of field-culture, and
this is done to great profit by the Long Island
and New Jersey truck farmers, for the supply
of the New York and Philadelphia markets. It
is a great object to get the produce into market
as early as possible, as only a few days advan-
tage makes a great difference in the value of
this, in common with most other articles sup-
plied by gardeners, fruiterers, and truckmen.
Thomas G. Bergen, an intelligent and experi-
enced gardener on Long Island, communicated
to the editor of the Cultivator the following ac-
count of his method of raising cucumbers, to-
gether with his estimate of the produce and
profits of the crop.

" Cucumbers will grow on any good soil, but
to have them early we require a rich sandy
one, of a dark colour; yellow and light-coloured
ones being later. The field, if possible, re-

i

CUCUMBER.

quires to be protected from the south and north-
west winds, and be situated near the bay or
river, where there is always less danger from
late frosts. The south winds, with us, in May
and June, retard vegetation more than any other,
in consequence of their being chilly and cool,
which qualities they receive from the ocean.

"Ground intended for cucumbers we prefer
ploughing in August or the beginning of Sep-
tember of the preceding year, and sowing with
rye ; the pasture which this produces pays for
the labour, and among its advantages are, the
prevention of weeds going to seed and troubling
us in the spring; the soil not blowing about in
winter, especially on the knolls ; neither is 'it
so liable to blow when ploughed in the spring,
in consequence of the roots of the plants, and
the sustenance afforded to the crop by the de-
cay of the rye. Previous to ploughing for the
crop, there should be spread about seven two-
horse loads of street or horse manure to the
acre ; but if the soil is poor, more will be ne-
cessary, and the ploughing should take place
immediately after the spreading. The ground
is then harrowed over two or three times until
it is mellow, furrowed shallow, with a plough,
into hills four and a half feet asunder, manured
with half a shovelful in a hill, which is flat-
tened down with a hoe and covered about an
inch thick with fine soil. Short hog manure,
carted out of the pen the preceding fall, and
cut over early in the spring once or twice, and
made fine, is preferred for the hills; but this
not being generally sufficiently abundant, we
procure the manure of cows which have been
fed on distillers' slops, mixed with that of
horses, so as to make it sufficiently firm to
handle with a fork, from New York in the fall,
which we mix with the hog manure. The ma-
nure should be cool, for fermentation in the
hills is injurious to the plants.

"The sooner the seed is planted after plough-
ing the better; the lime of planting depends
upon the forwardness of the season, and it is
generally commenced when single apricot blos-
soms are open, but some seasons earlier. About
a week is occupied in putting in the first seed,
and nearly the same period in planting over
the first and second times. The casualties to
which the seeds and plants are subject induces
us to continue putting in seed almost everyday
for this space of time, so as to make certain
work. It sometimes happens, when the wea-
ther has been unfavourable, that every hill in
some fields is planted over the third, and even
.^single hills the fourth time. I prefer spreading
the first seed in the south half of the hills, the
first planting over in the northwest, and the
second in the northeast quarters ; if it becomes
necessary to plant over the third time, I put the
seed in the south half, where the first seed by
that time is rotten. If this plan is properly
followed, the different plantings will not inter-
fere with each other. We generally put in
from thirty to forty seeds each time, and cover
them with fine soil from three-quarters to an
inch deep. Sprouting the seed previous to
planting does not succeed well early in the
season, but does sometimes when the weather
is favourable in the latter part. Cucumber
seed is the tenderest of the vine kind, for if,
47

CUCUMBER.

after planting at the usual depth, wet weather
should follow, it is almost certain to rot; if dry,
it dries out; if, when favourable to their vege-
tating, and the plants have advanced so as to
be breaking ground, a storm should occur, they
generally perish; a northeaster of three or four
days' continuance destroys the plants when
young, and in some instances when more than
a week old ; if up too early, a late frost is apt
to sweep them clean. Seed to vegetate re-
quires to be near the surface of the wet soil,
not buried deep into it; our ignorance of
the weather which unll follow after planting,
causes most of our errors ; when planted in a
heavy soil, it is less liable to rot and dry out
than in a sandy one, but the fruit is later. If
it happens that there are more plants in a hill
than we require, we find it an easy matter to
eradicate them with the hoe and fingers, but it
is not so easy to place them in the hills when
deficient.

When the first rough leaves of the plants
are about the size of a twenty-five cent piece,
a cultivator is run through the rows both ways,
and they receive the first hoeing; the plants arc
also thinned out, so as not to cro.wd each other.
In hoeing, the soil between the plants should not
be disturbed ; large weeds (if any) must be pull-
ed out; and fine soil drawn around the plants up
to the seed leaves, so as to cover small weeds.
The hill must be made flat and not concave.
We are careful not to hoe while the plants are
very young, for if a storm should occur shortly
after the operation has been performed, the
hills soak in too much water, which is inju-
rious. Ten or twelve days after the first hoe-
ing, the plants (if good) are thinned to six or
eight in a hill, leaving the largest ones, and if
possible three or four inches apart. -About
eighteen days aftetJhe first hoeing, or about
the time when single blossoms open, we run a
one-horse plough twice through a row each
way (if the ground is hard, three times),
throwing the furrow from the hills, and then
commence the second hoeing, which is per-
formed in the same manner as the first, care
being taken not to earth up higher than the
seed leaves, and to scrape out the crust be-
tween the plants, if the ground is hard or co-
vered with weeds ; they are also, if the plants
are fair, thinned down to five in a hill.

" When the vines extend so that single ones
meet each other between the hills, to prevent
injury they are carefully laid aside by hand, or
with a short stick, and the cultivator for the
last time is run once through a row each way.
They then receive the third and last hoeing, the
ground being loosened and drawn up around
the hills with the hoe, and broken between the
plants with the fingers. It is customary to
leave five plants in a hill, standing from four
to five inches apart, but some reduce them to
four ; have tried no experiment to test which
is the best.

" Cucumber vines will yield fruit about eight
weeks, and the fields are picked over at least
every second and sometimes every day. In
picking, a light stick with a cross-piece framed
to it so as to resemble the letter T, is made use
of to push the leaves aside and more readily
1 to discover the fruit.

369

CUCUMBER.

CUCUMBER.

" We are acquainted wilh the system of ro-
tation of crops, and it has been practised
among our farmers for years, but cucumbers,
as well as some other vegetables, do not seem
to require it. I have a piece of about half an
acre on which I have cultivated them for the
last ten successive years, ploughing in the
usual quantity of street manure every second
year, and they have flourished as well as on the
adjoining ground, which has been similarly
manured, and on which the crops have been
changed.

'♦The following is the quantity planted, pro-
duce, and amount of sales, for the last four
years, viz.

Year.

Hills r'^nted.

Cucumbers sold.

Am't received.

1835

6.000

104,965

#823 84

1836

6,tM)0

99,670

820 96

1837

7,370

130,735

532 00

1838

7,110

118,600

734 87i

" During each of these years large quantities
of cullings, and, when unsaleable, good ones,
were fed to the hogs and cattle, of which no
account was kept." (Cultivator, v.)

CUCUMBER, INSECTS ATTACKING. In
the United States the vine of the cucumber is
preyed upon at all ages, but more especially
when very yoiing and tender, by various in-
sects, which make it necessary to replant fre-
quently, and very often entirely destroy the
hopes of the gardener and truckman. Among
the most destructive of these is the beetle ge-
nerally known by the names : of striped bug,
cucumber bug, and striped Galcruca. It is of a
light yellow colour above, with a black head,
and a broad black stripe on each wing-cover.
Its length is rather more than one-fifth of an
inch. It belongs to the extensive tribe of leaf-
eating beetles, called by naturalists Chrysome-
Hans, a word applied to designate golden bee-
tles, many of which are of the most brilliant
colours, with the finest metallic lustres.

Dr. Harris informs us that the striped cu-
cumber bug in early spring devours the ten-
der leaves of various plants, before the cucum-
ber, squash, and melon vines are out of the
ground. As soon, however, as the leaves of
these come up and begin to expand, they are
attacked by the bug ; and, as several broods
are produced in the course of the summer, it
may be found at various times on these plants,
till the latter are destroyed by frost. " Great
numbers of these little beetles may be obtained
in the autumn from the flowers of squash and
pumpkin vines, the pollen and germs of which
they are very fond of. They get into the blos-
soms as soon as the latter are opened, and are
often caught there by the twisting and closing
of the top of the flower, and when they want
to make their escape, they are obliged to gnaw
a hole through the side of their temporary pri-
son. The females lay their eggs in the ground,
and the larvjs probably feed on the roots of
plants, but they have hitherto escaped my re-
searches.

"Various means have been suggested and
tried to prevent the ravages of these striped
cucumber beetles, which have become noto-
rious throughout the country for their attacks
updn the leaves of the cucumber and squash.
Dr. B. S. Barton, of Philadelphia, recommend-
ed sprinkling the vines with a mixture of to-
370

bacco and red pepper, which he stated to be
attended with great benefit. Watering the vines
with a solution of one ounce of Glauber's ?alts
in a quart of water, or with tobacco water, an
infusion of elder, of walnut leaves, or of hops,
has been highly recommended. Mr. Gourgas,
of Weston, has found no application so useful
as ground plaster of Paris ; and a writer in the
'American Farmer' extols the use of charcoal
dust. Deane recommended sifting powdered
soot upon the plants when they are wet with
the morning dew, and others have advised sul-
phur and Scotch snuff to be applied in the same
way. As these insects fly by night as well as
by day, and are attracted by lights, lighted
splinters of pine knots or oif staves of tar-
barrels, stuck into the ground during the night
around the plants, have been found useful in
destroying these beetles. The most effectual
preservative both against these insects and the
equally destructive black flea-beetles which in-
fest the vines in the spring, consists in cover-
ing the young vines with millinet stretched
over small wooden frames. Mr. Levi Bartlett,
of Warner, N. H., has described a method for
making these frames expeditiously and econo-
mically, and his directions may be found in
the second volume of the New England Farmer^
p. 305, and in Fessenden's New American Gar-
dener, sixth edition, p. 91." (Harris.) .

A correspondent of the Cultivator says that
a thin layer of tow spread over cucumber and ♦
melon plants when they first appear will save
them from the striped yellow bug. To this the
editor appends the following observationj —
" Our remedy for the bug, and for the worm in
the garden, is to put a coop with a hen and
good brood of chickens there, and these intrud-
ers, and most others of the insect depredators,
will soon become scarce." The thin layer of
tow doubtless suggested the millinet frame pro-
tectors just referred to.

Mr. Bergen, whose mode of cultivating cu-
cumbers has been given, makes the following
observations in relation to the insect enemies
of the plant: —

" The insects which trouble and destroy the
plants are the black worm and striped bugs ;
the first is apt to be numerous in ground which
was occupied the preceding year with red clo-
ver; they cut off the plants at or above the sur-
face in the night, and are generally hunted out
early in the morning, when their burrowing is
fresh and they lie near the surface, until the
ground is cleared of them : the striped bug or
yellow fly eats the plants in the day time, and
is sometimes very destructive on land where a
crust is formed on the surface, which, being
raised up by the young plants, affords them a
harbour. The best remedy is, with the fingers
to catch and destroy them in the morning when
the dew is on them and they are chilled, which
prevents their flying and escaping as freely as
when the sun has warmed them. Sandy land,
having no crust to shelter these pests, is gene-
rally exempt from their depredations."

The cucumber flea-beetle referred to, is a
little, black, jumping insect, well known from
the injury done by it in the spring, not only to
the young plants of the cucumber, but to those
of the cabbage, turnip, ruta baga, mustard,

CUCUMBER.

CUCUMBER TREE.

radish, cress, potato, and some others of tne
cruciferous family. It is closely allied to the
turnip-fly or more properly the turnip flea-
beetle, \vhich lays waste the turnip fields in
Europe, devouring the seed-leaves of the
plants as soon as they appear above ground,
and continuing their ravages upon new crops
throughout the summer. It is stated in Young's
Annals of jlgriculfure (vol. vii.), that the loss in
Devonshire, England, in one season, from the
destruction of the turnip crops by this little
insect, was eslitaated at £100,000 sterling.
These turnip flies belong to a family of beetles
to which naturalists have applied the name
haltica, derived from a word signifying to leap.
In the American cucumber flea-beetle, the
surface of the body is smooth, generally po-
lished, and often prellily or brilliantly coloured.
See Flea-Bektle8.

" The flea-beetles," says Dr. Harris, " con-
ceal themselves during the winter, in dry
places, under stones, in tufts of withered grass,
and in chinks of walls. They lay their eggs
in the spring, upon the leaves of the plants
upon which they feed. The larvae, or young,
of the smaller kinds burrow into the leaves,
and eat the soft pulpy substance under the
skin, forming therein little winding passages,
in which they finally complete their trans-
formations. Hence the plants suflTer as much
from the depredations of the larvae, as from
those of the beetles, a fact that has too often
been overlooked. The larvae of the larger
kinds are said to live exposed upon the surface
of the leaves which they devour, till they have
come to their growth, and to go into the ground,
where they are changed to pupae, and soon
afterwards to beetles. The mining larvae, the
only kinds which are known to me from per-
sonal examination, are little slender grubs,
tapering towards each end, and provided with
six legs. They arrive at maturity, turn to
pupae, and then to beetles in a few weeks.
Hence there is a constant succession of these
insects, in their various states, throughout the
summer. The history of the greater part of
our halticas or flea-beetles is still unknown;
I shall, therefore, only add, to the foregoing
general remarks, descriptions of two or three
common species, and suggest such remedies
as seem to be useful in protecting plants from
their ravages.

"The most destructive species in this vicinity
(Boston) is that which attacks the cucumber
plant as soon as the latter appears above the
ground, eating the seed-leaves, and thereby de-
stroying the plants immediately. Supposing this
to be an undescribed insect, I formerly named
it Haltica cucumeris, the cucumber flea-beetle;
but Mr. Say subsequently informed me that it
was the pubescens of Illiger, so named because
it is very slightly pubescent or downy. It is only
one-sixteenth of an inch long, of a black colour,
with clay-yellow antennae and legs, except the
hindmost thighs, which are brown. The upper
side of the body is covered with punctures,
which are arranged in rows on the wing-cases ;
and there is a deep transverse furrow across
the hinder part of the thorax.

"The wavy-striped flea-beetle, Haltica strio-
lata, may be seen in great abundance on the

horse-radish, various kindy of cresses, and on
the mustard, and turnip, early in May, and in-
deed at other times throughout the summer.
It is very injurious to young plants, destroying
their seed-leaves as soon as the latter expand.
Should it multiply to any extent, it may, in
lime, become as great a pest as the European
turnip flea-beetle, which it closely resembles
in its appearance, and in all its habits. Though
rather larger than the cucumber flea-beetle,
and of a longer oval shape, it is considerably
less than one-tenth of an inch in length. It is
of a polished black colour, with a broad wavy
bufi'-coloured stripe on each wing-cover, and
the knees and feet are reddish-yellow. Spe-
cimens are sometimes found having two bufi*-
yellow spots on each wing-cover instead of
the wavy stripes.

" In England, where the ravages of the tur-
nip flea-beetle have attracted great attention,
and have caused many and various experi-
ments to be tried with a view of checking them,
it is thought that 'the careful and systematic
use of lime will obviate, in a great degree, the
danger which has been experienced,' from this
insect. From this and other statjcments in
favour of the use of lime, there is good reason
to hope that it will effectually protect plants
from the various kinds of flea-beetles, if dusted
over them, when wet with dew, in proper season.
Watering plants with alkaline solutions, it is
said, will kill the insects without injuring the
plants. The solution may be made by dissolv-
ing one pound of hard soap in twelve gallons
of the soap suds left after washing. This
mixture should be applied twice a day with a
water pot. Kollar very highly recommends
watering or wetting the leaves of plants with
an infusion or tea of wormwood, which pre-
vents the flea-beetles from touching them.
Perhaps a decoction of walnut leaves might
be equally serviceable. Great numbers of the
beetles may be caught by the skilful use of a
deep bag-net of muslin, which should be swept
over the plants infested by the beetles, after
which the latter may be easily destroyed.
This net cannot be used with safety to catch
the insects on very young plants, on account
of the risk of bruising or breaking their tender
leaves." (Harris.)

Dr. Harris says, that several years ago he
observed cucumber vines much infested by
some minute jumping insects, rather less than
one-tenth of an inch long, of a broad oval
shape, and black colour, without wing-covers
or wings, but furnished with short, thick hinder
thighs. They injured the vines very much
by eating holes into or puncturing the leaves,
and were expelled by dusting the plants with
flower of sulphur. These cucumber-skippers
were so soft and tender, and withal so agile,
that it was difficult to catch without crushing
them. Consequently he was unable to examine
them thoroughly, and failed to preserve spe-
cimens of them.

Since the time referred to they have escaped
the doctor's observation. He, however, thinks
they were very different from the little flea-
beetles just described as belonging to the haltica
family.

CUCUMBER TREE. There are three spe-

371

ClICUMBER TREE.

CUDWEED.

cies of the magnolia, natives of tlie United
States, which go under this name, from the re-
semblance of their cones to the green fruit of
the cucumber. One of these, the Magnolia
acuminata, is a tree of considerable size, some-
times exceeding eighty feet in height and three
or four feet in diameter. The trunk is per-
fectly straight, of a uniform size, and often
destitute of branches for two-thirds of its
length. The tree is one of the most splendid
ornaments of the American forests. The leaves
are six or seven inches long and three or four
broad, upon old trees, and often twice the
size upon saplings. Their form is oval, entire,
and very sharp pointed, from which last cha-
racteristic the tree derives its specific name of
acuminata. They fall off in autumn. The
flowers are five or six inches in diameter,
bluish, and sometimes white with a tint of
yellow. They have a feeble odour, and being
large and numerous, give a fine effect in the
midst of the elegant foliage. It makes a superb
ornamental tree in lawns, &c.

The cones or fruit are about three inches
long, and one inch in diameter, nearly cylin-
drical in shape, and often a little longer at the
extremity than at the base. When green, they
very much resemble a young cucumber. They
have cells, each of which contains one rose-
coloured seed, which, before it escapes, remains
suspended on the outside by a filament, like
those of the great and small magnolias. Most
of the inhabitants of the country bordering on
the Alleghanies gather the cones about mid-
summer, when half ripe, and steep them in
whisky; a glass or two of this liquor, which
is extremely bitter, they habitually take in the
morning, under the alleged excuse of preserv-
ing them against autumnal fevers.

The most northern point at which Michaux
observed the cucumber tree, was on the Nia-
gara river, in the latitude of 43°. It abounds
along the whole mountainous tract of the Alle-
ghanies, to their termination in Georgia, a
distance of 900 miles. It is, however, rarely
met with at a greater distance than 40 or 50
miles from the mountains, either eastward or
westward. Michaux concludes that it is a
stranger to all the Atlantic parts of the United
States, to the distance of 100, 150, and 200
miles from the sea, the nature of the soil and
extreme heat of the climate being utterly un-
congenial to its growth. It may, however, be
jbund in a highly flourishing condition at the
seats of the Messieurs Dupont, on the banks
of the Brandywine, and would doubtless grow
.anywhere in the vicinity of Philadelphia, es-
pecially on the banks of the Schuylkill, and
perhaps still further north.
• Another species of magnolia, which, in its
general appearance and in the form of its
fruit, very nearly resembles the preceding, has
been confounded with it by the inhabitants of
the regions in which it grows. Michaux calls
it the heart-leaved cucumber tree {Magnolia
cordata). He found it on the banks of the Sa-
vannah river in Upper Georgia, and also on
tl;e streams in the back parts of South Caro-
lina, approaching within twelve miles of Au-
gusta. It grows to the height of forty or fifty
feet, with a diameter of twelve or fifteen inches.
372

The bark is rough and deeply furrowed like
that of the sweet gum and young white oak.

The flowers, which appear in April, are
yellow, and nearly four inches in diameter.
The succeeding cones are about three inches
long and one inch thick, and with the seeds,
resemble those of other magnolias. The beauty
of its yellow flowers form an agreeable con-
trast with its luxuriant foliage, and, together
with its capacity to resist intense cold, recom-
mend it highly as an ornamental tree in north-
erly situations.

The long-leaved cucumber tree, {Magnolia auri-
culata) is also remarkable for the beauty of its
foliage and for the size of its flowers, which
possess an agreeable odour. Michaux states
that it appears form his observations to be
confined to that tract of the Alleghany Moun-
tains which traverse the Southern States, at
the distance of nearly 300 miles from the sea.
Besides the popular name already given, it is
also called Indian physic.

The growth of this is far below that of the
first named tree, nor does it even attain the
size of the heart-leaved species. Its limbs are
widely spread and sparingly branched, which,
when the tree is stripped of its leaves, give it
a peculiar effect. The leaves are eight or nine
inches long, and much larger on the youngest
trees. They are broader at the top than to-
wards the bottom, or base, which is divided into
rounded lobes, resembling the ears of some
animals, whence the tree derives its specific
name of auticulata. The flowers are three or
four inches in diameter, of a fine, white colour,
of an agreeable odour, and situated at the
extremity of the young shoots, which are of a
purplish-red, dotted with white. The cones
are oval, three or four inches long, and, like
those of the umbrella tree, another species of
magnolia, of a beautiful rose colour when ripe.
Each cell contains one or two red seeds. The
bark has an agreeable aromatic odour, and is
infused in spirits as a popular remedy in rheu-
matic affections. Inasmuch as the virtues as-
cribed to this spirituous preparation are very
doubtful, and the practice of using it fraught
with great danger, not only from misapplica-
tion at improper stages of disease, but from its
tendency to form a vicious taste for ardent
drinks, it had best be dispensed with, and other
better and less mischievous remedies resorted
to. The tree flourishes in Europe, where it is
a popular ornamental tree. {Michaux.)

CUD. In cattle, the food in the first sto-
mach, which is to be chewed over again and
passed into the second to be digested. See
Chkwino the Cun.

CUDWEED, or EVERLASTING. A shrub-
by or herbaceous plant belonging to a genus
{Gnaphaliuni) containing one hundred and
twenty species, most of which are indigenous
to the Cape of Good Hope. There are a few
species in Europe, India, and in South as well as
North America. The generic name is derived
from a Greek word signifying soft down, or
wool, with which the plants are clothed. The
species known in the Middle States are the
Purple Gnaphalium, a biennial growing in dry,
open woodlands, &c., to the height of six,
twelve, or fifteen inches, producing dingy pur-

CULLEY.

CULTIVATOR.

plish flowers in July and August. The Miry,
or Marsh G naplialium, or Marsh Cudweed, with
an annual root, and stem four to six or eight
inches high, bearing flowers in dense clusters,
of a yellowish-tawny; growing in low grounds,
dried-up pods, &c. German Gnaphalivm, or
Cotnman Cudweed, an annual root, producing a
.stem six to nine inches high : growing on dry
hills, old fields, &c., bearing flowers of a pale
tawny, or straw-colour. Many-headed Gnapha-
lium, called Life Everlasting, with an annual
root, and stem one to two feet high, growing in
old fields and pastures, flowering in August
and September, the blossoms being slender
and of a yellowish colour. An infusion of
this plant has enjoyed much reputation as a
popular remedy for dysentery. Pearly Gna-
phalium (G. margariticum), a very handsome
species, with a perennial root, stem one to two
feet high, and beautiful white flowers. Dioicotu
Chiaph'tlium, commonly called Mouse-ear Cud-
weed, with a perennial root, stem two or three
to six inches high. The White Plantain^ or
Plant aiti-head Cudweed, is a variety of this last
species. ( See Flor. Cestric.)

CULLEY. The name of a distinguished
family of farmers, to whom the agriculture of
England is under very considerable obliga-
tions. Two brothers of the family, Matthew
and George CuUey, were seated originally on
their paternal property of Denton, at Gains-
ford, near Darlington (now, 1841, in the pos-
session of Mr. Matthew Culley), whence they
migrated in June, 1767, to Fenlon, in Glendale,
county of Northumberland; and "on the 4th
of August in that year, on my road to a fair at
Kelso," says Mr. George Culley, in a letter to
Arthur Young (Jnn. of Jgr. vol. xx. p. 162),
"I first saw a field of drilled turnips." "They
carried with them into Glendale," says Mr.
John Grey (Journ. of Roy. jlgr. Soc. vol. ii. p.
152), "superior knowledge and intelligence,
which they at once brought to bear in their ex-
tensive undertakings with unremitting applica-
tion and perseverance. That they were suc-
cessful in their efibrts is an undoubted fact.
Thus on the farm of Wark, near Coldstream,
which they entered in May, 1786, the crop was
valued to them from the preceding tenant, and
was estimated at 15 bushels per acre for oats,
and 9 for wheat. But the crop on the same
farm, after being in their occupation for fifteen
years, was estimated at 84 bushels per acre for
oats, 62 for wheat, and 72 for barley. (Ibid. p.
158.) The rent of this farm of 1200 acres in
1786 was 800/.; in 1812 it was 3200/. Matthew
Culley died in 1805, in the 73d year of his age,
and George in 1814, aged 79, both in Glendale.
The CuUeys were the warm friends and cor-
respondents of the celebrated Bakewell, of
Dishley, from whose flock they introduced the
breed of Leicester sheep, which is still a f>re-
yailing kind in Northumberland ; and this breed
is still preserved in a state of purity by the pre-
sent owner of Denton, Mr. Matthew Culley, to
whom I am indebted for several of the facts of
this memoir. The attention which they paid
to the improvement of their breed of live-stock
was unremitting, and with a success which was
equal to their labours. They had the public
spirit, too, not to conceal the improvements

which they eflected: they published one or two
valuable works, and were not unfrequently con-
tributors to the agricultural periodicals of the
day. Thus in the jinn, of Agr. vol. xiv. p. 180,'
there is a letter from Mr. George Culley in
praise of the Dishley breed of sheep ; and at
p. 470, on the wool, sheep, and corn of North-
umberland ; again on sheep, in vol. xvii. p. 347,
and vol. xix. p. 147; on turnips, vol. xx. p. 167.

In 1786, George Culley published a useful
practical little book (Observations on Live Stock),
which was reprinted in 1795. Arthur Young
describes its author C-'^'t'*. of Agr. vol. xxiii. p.
519), as "a man of the most extensive prac-
tice, arid the deepest knowledge of his art."
He also published, in conjunction with Mr.
Baile}', the agricultural reports of Northumber-
land, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, 1797 —
1805.

CULM. Among botanists, signifies straw or
haulm ; defined by Linnaeus to be the proper
stem of grasses, scitamineous plants, and the
like, which elevates the leaves, flower, and
fruit. This sort of stem is tubular or hollow,
and has frequently knots or joints, distributed
at certain distances through its whole length.

CULMIFEROUS PLANTS. Such as pro-
duce culms, or have a smooth jointed stalk,
and their seeds enveloped in chafiy husks,
grass-like.

Culmiferous crops include wheat, barley,
oats, rye, Indian corn, tobacco, cotton, &c., all
of which have stems mostly jointed. They are
all regarded as robbers and exhausters of the
soil, some in a far greater degree than others.
If cut green, or when in blossom, they are far
less so than when allowed to mature their
seeds.

CULTIVATOR. A name given to imple-
ments of the horse-hoc kind, invented for stir-
ring the earth. The implements called culti-
vators are very extensively used in the United
Slates, being found particularly serviceable in
running between the rows of Indian corn, su-
gar beets, and other root crops planted in drills
or rows. They stir up and loosen the earth,
and at the same time keep it free from weeds
and grass. Their operation is somewhat be-
tween those of the plough and the harrow, and
as they do not penetrate very deep, they
leave below the manure and vegetable matter
of the sod turned under by the plough, and
at the same time do no injury to the roots of the
plants under culture, unless these are too far ad-
vanced in their growth. The cultivator should
generally be run through a crop twice at a dress-
ing, and if the soil be stifl'or grassy, it may be
passed oftener or renewed at short intervals.
The implements most preferred in the United
States bear a strong resemblance to the horse-
hoes of Europe. They are made with teeth of
different forms, best adapted to the various pur-
poses, of skimming the surface and destroying
weeds, or for doing this and also breaking up
and pulverizing the earth. The best kind of
cultivators are those which are constructed
so as to admit of being made wide or narrow,
according to the width of the rows. They per-
form so much of the labour for which the hoe
and the plough were once resorted to, as to have
greatly lessened the expenses of tillage in the
2 1 373

CULTOR.

CURCULIO.

Indian corn crop, to say nothing of their great
importance in the culture of root crops. Among
implements of this kind in high repute in the
United States, is Bement's Improved Cultiva-
tor and Horse-hoe, which not only admits of
being widened and contracted at pleasure, but
is so constructed as to be easily adapted to soils
of different textures, being furnished with
teeth or shares of various forms, suited to
the nature of the soil to be operated on. An
excellent cultivator, not protected by patent, is
in general use among the Pennsylvania fai-
mers near Philadelphia, where it can be pro-
cured at the agricultural implement stores for
about $5. See Guuhber and Scaiiifier.

CULTOR or COULTER. The strong sharp-
ened bar of iron that is fixed in ploughs, for
the purpose of cutting open the earth before
the share. See Plough.

CUMIN SEED. The seed or fruit of the
Cuminum cyminum, which is imported from
Sicily and Malta. It has been occasionally
grown in England, but as it does not produce
its seeds until the second year, and requires a
rich, and consequently high-rented soil, the
double rent adds heavily to its culture. (Brit.
Husb. vol. ii. p. 328.) Cumin is a plant of lit-
tle beauty, and in a garden merely requires to
be sown in any open border to succeed.

CURCULIO {CurculionidcE). A name applied
by naturalists to designate a family of beetles,
distinguished from other insects of the same
tribe by their shortness and thickness, and
from each other by the length and direction of
their snouts. The corn-weevil, so destructive
to grain in the stack and garners, belongs to
this family, together with the larv35 or maggots
found so often in chestnuts, acorns, hickory-
nuts, and filberts ; as well as unripe plums,
apricots, peaches, and cherries.

The destruction of fruit occasioned annually
by these species which bore into fruits and oc-
casion them to fall from the tree before ripen-
ing, is so great as to make it a matter of great
importance to acquire the most accurate know-
ledge in regard to the appearance and habits
of these insects, as the only means by which
their effects can be counteracted. Often in
gardens and orchards, trees loaded with young
plums lose th^ whole of their fruit from the
depredations of grubs, which have been ascer-
tained by naturalists to be the larvjE or young
of a small beetle of the weevil tribe, called the'
Nenuphar, or plum-weevil, and still more com-
monly in the United States, the curculio. Dr.
Harris states that he has found the beetles in
Massachusetts as early as the 30th of March,
and as late as the 10th of June, and at various
intermediate times, according to the advanced
or retarded state of vegetation in the early part
of the season. He has frequently caught them
flying in the middle of the day.

" They are from three-twentieths to one-fifth
of an inch long, exclusive of the curved snout,
which is rather longer than the thorax, and is
bent under the breast, between the forelegs,
when at rest. Their colour is a dark brown,
variegated with spots of white, oohre-yellow,
and black. The thorax is uneven ; the wing-
covers have several short ridges upon them,
those on the middle of the back forming two
374

considerable humps, of a black colour, behind
which there is a wide band of ochre-yellow
and white. Each of the thighs has two little
teeth on the under side. They begin to sting
the plums as soon as the fruit is set, and, as
some say, continue their operations till the first
of August. After making a suitable puncture
with their snouts, they lay one egg in each
plum thus stung, and go over the fruit on the
tree in this way till their store is exhausted ; so
that where these beetles abound, not a plum
will escape being punctured. The irritation
arising from these punctures, and from the
gnawings of the grubs after they are hatched,
causes the young fruit to become gummy,
diseased, and finally to drop before it is ripe.
Meanwhile the grub comes to its growth, and,
immediately after the fruit falls, burrows into
the ground. This may occur at various times
between the middle of June and of August; and,
in the space of a little more than three weeks
afterwards, the insect completes its transforma-
tions, and comes out of the ground in the beetle
form. The history of the insect thus far, is the
result of Dr. Harris's own observations ; the
remainder rests on the testimony of other per-
sons.

"In an account of the plum-weevil, by Dr.
James Tilton of Wilmington, Delaware, pub-
lished in Mease's ' Domestic Encyclopedia,'
under the article Fruit, and since republished
in the * Georgical Papers for 1809,' of the
Massachusetts Agricultural Society, and in
other works, it is stated, that peaches, necta-
rines, apples, pears, quinces, and cherries, are
also attacked by this insect, and that it remains
in the earth in the form of a grub, during the
winter, ready to be matured as a beetle, as the
spring advances. These statements," says Dr.
Harris, " I have not yet been able to confirm.
It seems, however, to have been fully ascer-
tained by Professor Peck, Mr. Say, and others,
in whose accuracy full confidence may be
placed, that this same weevil attacks all our
common stone-fruits, such as plums, peaches,
nectarines, apricots, and cherries; Dr. Burnett
has recently assured me that he has seen this
beetle puncturing apples ; and it is not at all
improbable that the transformations of some
of the grubs may be retarded till the winter is
passed, analogous cases being of frequent oc-
currence. Those that are sometimes found in
apples must not be mistaken for the more com-
mon apple-worms, which are not the larvte of
a weevil. The Rev. F. V. Melsheimer remarks
in his Catalogue, that this insect lives under
the bark of the peach tree. Professor Peck
raised the same beetle from a grub found in the
warty excrescence of a cherry tree, and from
this circumstance named it Rhynrhmms cerasi,
the cherry-weevil. The plum, still more than
the cherry tree, is subject to a disease of the
small limbs, which shows itself in the form of
large irregular warts, of a black colour, as if
charred. Grubs, apparently the same as those
that are found in plums, have often been de-
tected in these warts, which are now generally
supposed to be produced by the punctures of
the beetles, and the residence of the grubs.
Professor Peck says that ' the seat of the dis-
ease is in the bark. The sap is diverted from

CURCULIO.

CURCULIO.

its regular course, and is absorbed entirely by
the bark, which is very much increased in
thickness ; the cuticle bursts, the swelling be-
comes irregular, and is formed into black
lumps, with a cracked, uneven, granulated sur-
face. The wood, besides being deprived of its
nutriment, is very much compressed, and the
branch above the tumour pefishes.' The
grubs found by Professor Peck in the tumours
of the cherry-tree, went into the ground on the
sixth of July, and on the thirtieth of the same
month, or twenty-four days from their leaving
the bark, the perfect insects began to rise, and
were soon ready to deposit their eggs in healthy
branches. (See Professor Peck's account of
Insects which affect Oak and Cherry trees, with
a plate ; in the " Massachusetts* Agricultural Re-
pository and Journal, vol. V. p. 312.) (Harris.)

In order to account for the occurrence of
these insects both in the fruit and in the
branches of the trees. Dr. Harris ventures the
following explanation, although it rests only
upon conjecture. The final transformation of
the grubs, living in the fruit, appears to take
place at various times during the latter part
of summer and the beginning of autumn, when
the weevil, finding no young fruit, is probably
obliged to lay its eggs in the small branches.
The larvae or grubs from these eggs live in the
branches during the winter, and are not per-
fected till near the last of the following June.
Should the fall of the fruit occur late in the
autumn, the developement of the beetles will be
retarded till the next spring; and this I suppose
to be the origin of the brood which stings the
fruit. These suggestions seem to receive some
confirmation from the known habits of the cop-
per-coloured plum-weevils of Europe, which,
" in default of plums, make use of the soft
spring shoots of the plum and apricot trees."
(KoUar's Treatise, p. 238.)

" It has been noticed, that trees situated in
lanes and extensive yards, where numerous
cattle are confined, generally escape the attacks
of the curculio. This is supposed to be in part
owing to the ground being trodden so hard as
to render it difficult for the worm to enter the
earth, and to the annoyance and fright to which
this timid insect is subjected, by the cattle rub-
bing against the trees. The insects, according
to Dr. Tilton, in such cases of fright, roll them-
selves into a little ball, and fall to the ground,
where they become liable either to be trodden
to death, or devoured by the farm-yard poultry
as a delicious morsel. Poultry of all species
have been recommended as very useful, from
the multitudes of insects they devour, they
being particularly fond of the beetle tribe.

"A case is mentioned by Dr. Tilton (see
Dom. Encyc), of Colonel T. Forest, of German-
town, who, having a fine plum tree near his
pump, tied a rope from the tree to his pump
handle, so that the tree was gently agitated
every time there was occasion to pump water.
The consequence was, that the fruit on this tree
was preserved in the greatest perfection.

" Hogs are stated to be extremely useful in
orchards, by devouring at once the fallen fruit
and the insect which it contains. And provided
the hogs are sufficiently numerous to devour
every fallen fruit, they will shortly exterminate

the insects from the orchard in which they are
permitted to roam.

"Paving the ground is said to be a most effect-
ual mode of preserving fruit from the attacks
of the curculio. By preventing its descent into
the earth, it finds no winter habitation. The
ground should first be well manured, and the
whole surface well paved with the common
stones which so often encumber the fields. The
trees, in this case, may be set very close. The
excess of rain being carried off by the pave-
ment, and their luxuriance being thus re-
strained, such trees must not only produce
great crops, but from the effect of the sun on
the naked pavement, the fruit must be of the
finest quality.

"Another and ingenious mode of destroying
the curculio has lately been devised by Dr.
Joel Burnet, of Southboro', Massachusetts,
and in the single instance only, in which he
has tried the experiment, it has proved com-
pletely successful. There stood in his garden
a young plum tree of the prince's imperial
gage, which was filled with blossoms every
year, but bore no fruit. Early in spring, a hen,
with an early brood of chickens, was placed in
a coop beneath the tree. Thus were all the
curculiones destroyed in the interval, soon after
they arose from the earth, and before they had
recovered strength sufficient to take to their
wings or ascend the tree. This plum tree, in
that year, bore, in consequence, a very large
crop of fruit. He observed that the curculio
often ascended by aid of its wings." (Kenrick's
American Orchardist.)

The wings of the curculio, plum, or cherry-
weevil are so small as to assist it in climbing,
but not to enable it to fly to a distance. This
explains the reason why trees standing so near
each other as almost to interlace their branches
will some escape, whilst others lose all their
fruit.

Col. Forest's remedy may be partially applied
by shaking the trees suddenly and briskly so
as to produce a jar that will extend among the
branches.. This may be done morning and
evening, and as much oftener as convenient,
during the time when the weevils or beetles are
engaged in stinging the fruit. Those which
fall may be gathered in a sheet and thrown into
the fire. All the fallen wormy plums should
be immediately gathered and given to hogs, or,
when this is not convenient, boiled or steamed,
so as to kill the enclosed grubs. Diseased ex-
crescences should be cutout and burned ever>'
year before the last of June. The moose-plum
tree (Prunus Americana), Dr. Harris says,
seems to escape the attacks of insects, since
no warts are found upon it, even when growing
in the immediate vicinity of diseased foreign
trees. It would, therefore, he thinks, afford the
best stocks for budding or engrafting upon. It
can easily be raised from the stone, and grows
rapidly, but does not attain a great size. This
might secure the body of the tree, but it is evi-
dent that the branches, being of different wood,
must be exposed to the attacks of the weevil.
See Mat Beetles, p. 173." (The 18th vol. of
the "Neio England Farmer" contains a paper
upon this insect, by Dr. Burnett, which may
be read with advantage.)

375

CURD.

CUSTOMS OF COUNTIES.

CURD. The coagulum of milk, from which
cheese is made. See Cheese.

When milk sours, free acetic acid is formed,
and by its action the coagulation of the caseous
part of the milk takes place ; rennet causes
the same effect in milk which is not sour, which
probably depends on the gastric fluid in the
rennet. Curd is a white, insipid, inodorous
substance, insoluble in water, but soluble in
alkalies. By alcohol it is converted into a
substance like spermaceti, which gives out a
very fetid odour.

When dry curd procured from sour milk is
well washed, and then mixed with its own bulk
of alcohol, and the soluble matter filtered and
separated from the insoluble, and thickened
by gentle evaporation, it becomes viscid, and
forms an excellent cement for glass and china.

CURING BEEF and PORK. See Salting.
A report of the committee for the premium
offered for curing beef and pork, appears in the
Trans. High. Soc. vol. v. p. 56.

CURRANT. The fruit of two species of
Ribes, viz., R. rubrum, which furnishes the
common red and white currants, and R. ni-
grum, which produces the black currant.
There are five or six species of this indige-
nous plant.' The rock currant (R. petrceum),
the acid mountain currant (i?. spicatum), and
the tasteless mountain currant (iJ. alpinum),
all grow wild in woods in the north of Eng-
land ; and the common red and black currants
are also found wild in many parts of the coun-
try, but their fruit is insipid. The pale currant
is a variety between the red and white.

The white, black, and red currant ripen
their berries very early in July, in which
month currant jelly should be made. All the
currants may, by being matted, be preserved
till the middle of winter, and on north walls
and shaded situations sometimes hang, and
are good till the end of November. They
will thrive on almost any soil ; but their fruit
is more savoury when produced in a dry and
open ground. They are very easily propa-
gated by planting slips or cuttings at any time
from September to March. After standing
about two years, they will be fit to be removed
to those places where they are intended to
remain.

The currant, one of the most wholesome and
grateful of fruits, has medicinal properties.
Red currants are very cooling in fevers. They
quench thirst, and create appetite. When the
fruit is not to be had fresh, red currant jelly,
mixed in water, is equally refreshing. Black
currants are useful in sorethroats. {Brande's
Diet. ; Phillip's Fruits ,• Willich's Dom. Encyc. ;
Eng. Flor., vol. i. p. 330.)

In addition to the varieties of gooseberries
(Rihes uv<R crispa) and currants met with in
gardens, seventeen or eighteen additional spe-
cies are found in the United States. A black
currant resembling those in gardens grows

supposed to be derived from the Saxon cusce-
ate, from, cusc, chaste, in allusion to the conju-
gal fidelity of this bird.

CUSTOMS OF COUNTIES. With regard
to the usual relation of landlord and tenant in
England, these vary considerably. But in
cases where there is a written agreement, no
inquiry can be made as to the custom of the
county {Liebenrood v. Vines, 1 Mer. 15) ; and
when an express stipulation is made, the cus
tom of the county is excluded entirely. {Ro
berts V. Parker, 1 C. ,& M. 808.) The follow
ing epitome of usages in a few counties, chiefly
abridged from the work of Kennedy and
Grainger on the Tenancy of Land, must, of
course, be regarded as having only a very
general application.

Bedford. — The tenant commonly enters, in
this county, at Michaelmas, some at Lady-day.
Leases seven years. Rents paid half-yearly.
Tenant generally restricted from breaking up
pastures, or selling hay and straw, quilting at
Michaelmas, is at liberty to plough and sow
wheat, if at Lady-day ; then may sow spring-
grain till day of quitting ; but in either case has
the option to do it himself or let his successor
do it. When the outgoer sows, they are va-
lued to the incomer so as to include all labour;
has barn allowed him, but cannot carry away
straw. Incomer takes all dung found on pre-
mises free of charge ; but pays for grass-seeds,
and that of the labour, and for fallow-plough-
ing, or spring-ploughing, which his predeces-
sor, quitting at Lady-day, had not time to sow;
but with respect to any fallow, either for wheat
or turnips, when the outgoer takes the crop,
there is no demand made upon the incoming
tenant.

Berks. — Farms commonly lease for 7 or 14
years from Michaelmas, entering to plough
fallows at Lady-day : from which time the
incomer has part of the house allowed him,
and room for one team ; the outgoer retains
the rest of the premises till May-day or Mid-
summer. The rents are commonly paid half-
yearly, and in general there is no restraint
upon the tenant's cultivation, except that he
covenants to leave a stated number of acres
for fallow. Usually he has power of selling
hay and wheat straw, although in other por-
tions of the county only to exchange it for
dung. Wheat straw he must leave to his suc-
cessor as well as the hay. Incomer has to
pay for clover or other grass-seeds, the seed,
and labour, and hay-crop, at a feeding-out
price.

Carmarthen. — Farms were here formerly let
upon leases for three lives ; but terms of 14
years are now more common. The entry
is made upon both house and land at Michael-
mas. The tenant is under no restriction, cul-
tivates as he pleases, and sells hay, straw, and
dung.

Cheshire. — Farms let upon leases, but many

wild in Pennsylvania, whilst a red species i only by the year, and this is a much more

on a trailing vine is found in the northern \ common practice than formerly. Tenant

counties. See Gooseberrt. j takes from Candlemas, but only gets posses-

CURRANT-BUSH BORER. An insect ca- \ sion of the house at May-day. The tenant is

terpillar belonging to the genus JEgeria, See commonly restrained from having more than

Caterpillars. : a given proportion of land, usually one-third,

CUSHAT. A local name for the ring-dove, ! under plough. This portion, however, he may

376

CUSTOMS OF TJOUNTIES.

CUSTOMS OF COUNTIES.

i

till in his own way ; sometimes may dispose
of his hay and straw, sometimes not. Outgoer
ceases to work on the farm at Candlemas ;
but cuts the wheat crop at harvest; if the
wheal was after a fallow he takes two-thirds
of the crop, otherwise only one-half, and he
houses his own portion. He is commonly not
paid for grass-seeds, but where the custom va-
ries, he cuts the clover or grass, and takes
half the hay ; the incomer taking the remain-
der, and paying the rent: he has no valuation
to pay of any kind. The dung he does not
pay for.

Cornwall. — Leases generally from 14 to 21
years. The outgoing tenant leaves the dung
for the incoming tenant.

A tenant is bound not to exceed two white
crops without manure, using one hundred and
one bushels of lime per acre for the first crop.
When the land is sown with grass-seeds.it
must remain down for three years, and, except
in water meadows, he can only cut his grass
once in the season, unless he dresses it with
manure. He may sell hay, but the straw of
wheat only ; he is obliged also to feed a cer-
tain number of acres of grass, and whatever
manure he makes must be left by the outgoing
tenant free of charge.

Cumberland. — Tenants enter at Lady-day into
the farm, but not into the house till May-day.
Leases commonly for three, seven, or nine
years. The tenant commonly bound to plough
the land in such proportions that a certain
part may remain in grass for three years. Is
prohibited from having two white crops in
succession, and must leave as much land
sown with grass-seeds as he found on the
farm. Cannot sell hay or straw, and must ap-
ply not less than sixty bushels of lime per
acre for his wheat or turnips after a fallow.
The outgoer retains possession of the house
and premises for cattle till May-day. Is paid
for whatever crops he leaves which he him-
self paid for when he took the farm. Leaves
all the straw and manure for the incomer's
benefit.

Derby. — Tenants chiefly yearly tenants from
Lady-day. The land almost entirely pastu-
rage. The tenant is usually restricted from
breaking these up without permission, even if
he lays down arable land in lieu of it. He
cannot sell either hay or straw. The outgoing
tenant is not paid for either manure or straw;
he always sows the wheat, but is not paid for
any fallows or ploughings which may have
been done at his expense to promote the
growth of it; he receives, however, two-thirds
of the wheat if a fallow crop, or one-half if a
brush crop, and for the seed crops he is allowed
for seed and labour.

Devon. — In the west, entry at Michaelmas ;
in the east at Lady-day, with privilege of entry
on the land at Midsummer to prepare for
wheat. The tenant usually restrained from
taking more than two white crops for a fallow,
or sowing two wheat crops successively, with-
out a fallow or green crop between them.
Must use a certain quantity of lime per acre
for his barley or wheat crop, and leave the
same quantity of land for wheat at the expira-
tion of his lease that he found on taking pos-
48

session. He has the liberty of selling hay
and wheat straw, and at the end of his lease
the hay also. A Lady-day holder receives
from his successor the value of the wheat
upon the ground, and the young clovers or
other grass seeds by valuation. A Michael-
mas tenant can only receive the value of the
seeds ; but in either case he freely leaves ail
the dung for his successor.

Essex. — The farmer in Essex commonly
holds by leases of 7 or 14 years ; entry at
Michaelmas both of house and land. He
usually covenants to farm on the four-shift
system, dressing and fallowing after every
third crop, and never to take two white crops
in succession : on pasture land, however, he
is commonly unrestrained. He may carry
also hay or straw, but for every load of either
he is bound to bring back a load of dung, and
near London two loads are required for every
load of straw, and one for every load of hay.

The outgoing tenant sows the Michaelmas
crop, and is paid by valuation for one year's
improvement, which includes the labour, the
seed, and the manure he has laid out upon the
ground from the preceding Michaelmas. He
is allowed for the seeds, for ploughing, harrow-
ing, and rolling, which a summer fallow has
undergone, for the manure laid on, and for the
carting of it, and for all the unspread dung, or
other manure on the farm. The outgoer has
the use of the barns for his crop. The in-
comer claims the straw and chaff on condition
of his thrashing the corn, and carrying it to
market. The incomer has the Michaelmas
crops, the hay, turnips, and young seeds valued
to him, with all the seed, labour, and manure
bestowed upon them.

Hertford. — Leases 7 or 14 years from Lady-
day. Mode of cultivation varies ; sometimes
two crops and a fallow, in others, the four-
course system. The tenant may sell hay and
wheat straw, but no other straw. The out-
going tenant takes an offgoing crop of both
spring and Michaelmas crops, and pays for
the ground they stand upon till harvest. He
must use, however, the last year's straw upon
the premises, and he leaves all the dung for
the incoming tenant.

Kent. — Much of the land of Kent, as in other
counties, is held by the year, but a larger por-
tion is rented under leases of 7 to 14 years ;
the tenant entering at Michaelmas.*

The farmer is usually restrained from sell-
ing hay or straw; or, if he is allowed to dispose
of them, it is on condition of his bringing on to
the farm a certain quantity of dung. He is
usually not much restricted in his mode of
cultivation. He is commonly prevented from
having more than two white crops to a fallow.
The outgoing tenant thrashes his last crop,
and sells the straw to the incomer ; and if he
is obliged to feed the hay upon the premises,
this is commonly valued also at a feeding out
price. He is paid also for the labour bestowed
upon the summer fallows, which he has the
privilege of sowing up to the time of his quit-
ting the farm ; he h also paid for the seed and
labour both for the turnips and the grasses;
for the whole of the manure, and labour of
carting and spreading the manure of the last
2 I 2 377

CUSTOMS OF COUNTIES.

CUSTOiMS OF COUNTIES.

year, and for half of the preceding. These,
with the hop-poles, make the payments required
of an incoming tenant rather heavy.

Leicester is chiefly farmed by yearly tenants,
who enter at Lady-day, and occasionally at
Michaelmas. They are not allowed to break
up their pastures or sell either hay or straw.
Sometimes they engage to lay an annual amount
of lime on the land.

The outgoing tenant is paid for all clear fal-
lows, for which he is allowed three ploughings ;
but if he has taken a green crop, he is allowed
nothing. For his wheat crop — if it has been
sown on a clear fallow, for instance — he is
allowed for seed and labour, and for the plough-
ings, but otherwise only for seed and labour.
He is allowed for his seed crop, labour, and
seed; but nothing for a turnip fallow, either
fed or pulled: if he leaves at Michaelmas,
however, he is allowed for his turnips one
year's rent. The incomer cannot enter to
plough without permission till Ladj'-day.

Lincoln. — Farms commonly held by lease of
from 7 to 14 years from Lady-day.

The tenant is usually restrained from selling
either hay or straw, or from taking more than
two white crops to a fallow. These restric-
tions, however, do not apply to the fen land.

The outgoing tenant has commonly the right
of sowing spring-grain until Lady-day, and of
taking an off-going crop, both of wheat and
other corn, all of which, however, he must
thrash on the premises. But a very common
way is for the outgoer to be paid for all his
crops, the value of seed and labour, and also
for the manure. The crops are valued at har-
vest-time, and the price is set according to the
average of three market-days, taken once a
month, between harvest-time and the ensuing
Lady-day.

Norfolk. — Farmers hold chiefly by leases of
7 or 14 years, some for 21, and they enter at
Michaelmas. They generally covenant to farm
on the four-course system, are often restrained
from sowing above a certain number of tares
and oats. This crop being considered to be
much more impoverishing to the land than
barley, he is not allowed to sell either hay or
straw. The outgoing tenant either thrashes
his harvest himself, or he agrees with his suc-
cessor, who carries out the grain and keeps the
straw and chaff; the incomer pays for the
growing crops on the ground, but not for the
labour; thus, if the turnip crop fails, he re-
ceives nothing for the labour.

The incomer sows the wheat crop, but he
cannot enter the farm before Michaelmas-day;
to do this without leave, he has to pay for the
hay on the farm ; but he takes the dung free.

Nottingham is cultivated chiefly by yearly
tenants, who enteu at Lady-day. They are
commonly not allowed to sell either hay or i
straw, not to take more than three crops to a |
fallow, and never two white ones in succes-
sion. When the incomer enters at Michael- !
mas, the outgoer is paid by valuation, either
upon wheat or turnips, for all the seed and
labour he has bestowed upon that crop, and for ;
all the ploughing he has done before the time
he quits ; for all artificial manure, such as ;
bones, &c., if for the first crop, then the full '
378

tillage ; if the second, only half a tillage, and
so on ; but for dung in or on the land he is
allowed nothing; but if he enters at Lady-day,
then he is paid for both, for seed and for labour.

Salop. — Farms are generally held by yearly
tenants, who enter at Lady-day; but on to the
meadow land, in some places, at Candlemas,
that he may water or manure. He is restrained
from selling hay or straw, but not to any parti-
cular mode of cultivation. When he quits, he
is allowed for any lime he may have brought
on to the land within the last two years ; the
whole value for that of the last year, half the
value for that of the preceding: he receives
two-thirds of the value of the wheat crop, the
value of the seed crops, but nothing for either
fallows or dung. He cannot plough for fallows
or spring crops without the authority of the
incomer, who cannot enter himself to plough
without leave before Lady-day.

Somerset. — Farmers have usually leases of 8
or 12 years from Lady-day, the outgoer retain-
ing the wheat crop, thrashing it on the premi-
ses, and leaving the straw, chaff, and dung for
the incomer; and for this purpose he commonly
holds on till the Midsummer twelvemonth after
he quits possession. A tenant cannot sell
either hay or straw, or take more than two
white crops and a green one without a fallow.
He is restrained from breaking up pastures,
and he very commonly consents to spend an-
nually a certain sum in lime or some other
kind of manure. The incoming tenant sows
the spring corn, but he cannot enter before
Lady-day without leave from the outgoer.

Stafford. — The farmers in this county usually
hold from year to year. The tenant is com-
monly restrained from selling either hay or
straw, and there are very few restrictions of
any kind as to the mode of cultivation. The
outgoing tenant is usually paid for all the dung
he leaves upon the farm, and for all clear sum-
mer fallows, but nothing for bastard fallows,
even if the seeds or turnips are fed off. For
all the wheat on a clean fallow, sown previous-
ly to his notice to quit, he receives two-thirds
of the crop; if a bru^ crop, only one-half; but
for all he sows after notice, only the value of
the seed and labour. The incomer cannot
enter to plough before Lady-day: he pays for
both the dung and straw left on the farm.

Westmoreland. — Leases in this county are
commonly granted for 7, 9, 11, or 21 years
from Lady-day. The house, and one field,
however, is usually retained till May-day: he
has the privilege, however, of going upon the
land at old Candlemas to plough for his fallow
and spring crop.

The tenant is commonly restricted from
having more than two white crops before he
sows the land with seed, and that between the
two white crops he is to have either a green
one or a fallow. He is to manure his meadow
ground once in three years, and leave the farm
in the same working plight as he found it. The
outgoer retains the house and one field till
May-day, paying rent and taxes, however, for
what he thus holds ; with this exception, he is
bound to free the land by the 6th of April. In
the south of this county, the outgoer receives
for the wheat crop on the ground, two-thirds if

CUT.

fallowed for, and one-half after a bastard fal-
low. He pays for this, however, no rent after
the 6th of April. He may plough for barley
and take half the crop, but not for any other
spring crop.

Yorkshire. — In this great county, the customs
vary with the Riding. In the W. R. the entry
is Old Candlemas, or New Year's day. In the
N. R. it is Lady-day : may go on to the land at
Candlemas, and into the house at May-day.
In the E. R. the entry is at Lady-day. In all
three Ridings a yearly tenancy is the most
common.

In the N. R. the outgoing tenant sows his
■wheat, and has an offgoing crop, which he
may either thrash himself, or sell to his suc-
cessor or to a stranger; but he cannot carry
away straw, but has barn and yard room to
consume it on the premises until the following
May-day twelvemonth.

The outgoer, however, cannot in the last
year of his tenancy sow more than one-third
of his arable land ; but that third he may sow
at whatever time and in whatever way he may
think proper ; for all the ground that he sows
he pays a corn standage, that is, rent, till har-
vest time : if he sows more than his propor-
tion, the incomer takes the crop, and the mea-
surement is very nicely calculated. The in-
comer enters at Candlemas to plough for his
spring crop and fallows : he takes the young
seeds. In the upper part of the West Riding,
the customs between the incomer and outgoer
are the same as in the north ; but below Aber-
ford the customs are quite different, being, as
the people say, " good ones to come out with,
but bad ones to enter upon." For there the
outgoer sows the wheat crop, which the in-
comer is obliged to pay for, together with the
grass-seeds, and to pay for the tillage and half
tillage of those crops and on the turnips, and
for all the manure laid upon the lands, or about
the premises; the incomer who enters at Can-
dlemas has two and a half 3'ear*s manure, and
one and a half year's tillage to pay for. In the
East Riding, the outgoer sows the wheat crop
and the spring corn, until Lady-day, and takes
what he sows as an offgoing crop alon^ with
the wheat, paying no rent after Lady-day: he
must thrash them, however, on the premises,
and leave the manure. An incomer has here
only to pay for seeds. (Kennedy and Grainger
on Tenancy of Land.) See Appraisement.

CUT. In farriery, a hurt or clean wound
made with any sharp-cutting instrument. The
way of treating such an accident is to bring
the two incised surfaces together, and bind
them up, if possible, with a little lint or tow, ;
without any balsams or spirituous applications
being used.

CUT-WORM. In almost every section of
the United States, great complaints are annu- j
ally made of green crops destroyed or injured,
more or less, by what is popularly termed the |
cut-worm. The young Indian corn is an espe-
cial sufferer; but several other plants having!
tender stems, such as beans and cabbages, are |
liable to be cut off near the ground, or just be- 1
neath the surface, when beginning to grow. ]
As all such mischief is ascribed to the rut-worjyi,
it jaxight be inferred that an insect thus spoken i

CUT-WORM.

of in the singular number would be well
known. And yet the opinions upon the sub-
ject of its identity, or how many species there
may exist, are various and conflicting. After
a toilsome search through many of the American
agricultural publications. Dr. Harris says he
became convinced that these insects and their
history are not yet well known to some of the
very persons who have suffered from their de-
predations. Various cut- worms, or more pro-
perly subterranean caterpillars, wire-worms, or
Juliy grub-worms or the young of May-beetles,
and even spindle or bud-worms, or the young
of a species of moth called corn Gorlyna, are
often confounded together or mistaken for each
other; sometimes their names are interchanged,
and sometimes the same name is given to each
and all of these different animals. Hence, the
remedies that are successful in some instances
are entirely useless in others. " The name of
cut-worm," says Dr. Harris, "seems originally
to have been given tocertain caterpillars thatlive
in the ground about the roots of plants, but come
up in the night, and cut off and devour the
tender stems and lower leaves of young cab-
bages, beans, com, and other herbaceous
plants. These subterranean caterpillars are
finally transformed to moths belonging to a
group which may be called agrotidians (Jgro-
tidida), {rom a word signifying rustic, or per-
taining to the fields. Some of these rustic
moths fly by day, and may be found in the
fields, especially in the autumn, sucking the
honey of flowers; others are on the wing only
at night, and during the day lie concealed in
chinks of walls and other dark places. Their
wings are nearly horizontal when closed, the
upper pair completely covering the lower
wings, and often overlapping a little on their
inner edges, thus favouring these insects in
their attempts to obtain shelter and conceal-
ment. The thorax is slightly convex, but
smooth or not crested. The antennce of the
males are generally beset with two rows of
short points, like fine teeth, on the under-side,
nearly to the tips. The fore-legs are often
quite spiny. Most of these moths come forth
in July and August, and soon afterwards lay
their eggs in the ground, in ploujrhed fields,
gardens, and meadows. In Europe it is found
that the eggs are hatched early in the autumn,
at which time the little subterranean caterpil
lars live chiefly on the roots and tender sprouts
of herbaceous plants. On the approach of
winter they descend deeper into the ground,
and, curling themselves up, remain in a torpid
state till the following spring, when they ascend
towards the surface, and renew their devasta-
tions. The cate'fpillars of the Agrotidians are
smooth, shining, naked, and dark-coloured,
with longitudinal pale and blackish stripes,
and a few black dots on each ring ; some of
them also have a shining, horny, black spot on
the top of the first ring. They are of a cylin-
drical form, tapering a little at each end, rather
thick in proportion to their length, and are pro-
vided with sixteen legs. They are changed to
chrysalids in the ground, without previously
making silken cocoons. The most destructive
kinds in Europe are the caterpillars of the com
rustic or winter dart-moth {Agrotis segetum), the

379

CUT-WORM.

CUT-WORM.

wheat dart-moth (^Agrotis tritici), the eagle-moth
(Jgrotis aquiliyia), and the turf rustic or antler-
moth (Char<Eas graminis). The first two attack
both the roots and leaves of winter wheat ; the
second also destroys buckwheat; and it is
stated that sixty bushels of mould, taken from
a field where they prevailed, contained twenty-
three bushels of the caterpillars ; those of the
eagle-moth occasionally prove very destructive
in vineyards ; and the caterpillars of the
antler-moth are notorious for their devastations
in meadows, and particularly in mountain
pastures.

" The habits of our Cut-worms appear to be
exactly the same as those of the European
Agrotidians. It is chiefly during the months
of June and July that they are found to be most
destructive. Whole corn-fields are sometimes
laid waste by them. Cabbage-plants, till they
are grown to a considerable size, are very apt
to be cut off and destroyed by them. Potato-
vines, beans, beets, and various other culinary
plants suffer in the same way. The products
of our flower-gardens are not spared; asters,
balsams, pinks, and many other kinds of
flowers are often shorn of their leaves and of
their central buds, by these concealed spoilers.
Several years ago I procured a considerable
number of cut-worms in the months of June
and July. Some of them were dug up among
cabbage-plants, some from potato-hills, and
others from the corn-fields and the flower-gar-
den. Though varying in length from one inch
and a quarter to two inches, they were fully
grown, and buried themselves immediately in
the earth with which they were supplied.
They were all thick, greasy-looking caterpil-
lars, of a dark ashen gray colour ; but I
neglected at first to examine them carefully iu
order to see if they were marked exactly alike.
Some of the last found were observed to have
one or two blackish stripes on each side of the
body, and a pale stripe on the back, with four
little black dots on each ring. The head was
also blackish. They were soon changed to
chrysalids, of a shining mahogany-brown co-
lour ; and between the 20th of July and the
15th of August they came out of the ground in
the moth state. Much to my surprise, how-
ever, these cut-worms produced five diflferent
species of moths ; and, when it was too late, I
regretted that they had not been more carefully
examined, and compared together before their
transformation."

The largest of these moths expanded its
wings more than two inches, and bore a close
resemblance to one called in Europe the dark
sword rustic {Agrotis snffusa). Dr. Harris
named the American moth fhe lance rustic,
(Agrolis telifera), and gives the following de-
scription of it.

"The fore-wings are light brown, shaded with
dark brown along the outer thick edge, and in
the middle also in the female ; these wings are
divided into three nearly equal parts by two
transverse bands, each composed of two wavy
dark brown lines; in the middle space are
^ituated the two ordinary spots, together with a
third oval spot, which touches the anterior
band ; these spots are encircled with dark
brown, and the kidney-spot bears a dark brown

lance-shaped mark on its hinder part; the
hindmost third of the wing is crossed by a
broad pale band, and is ornamented by a nar-
row wavy or festooned line, and several small
blackish spots near the margin. The hind-
wings are pearly white, and semi-transparent,
shaded behind, and veined with dusky brown.
The thorax is brown or gray-brown, with the
edge of the collar blackish. The abdomen is
gray. The wings expand two inches or more."
{Harris's Treatise on Insects.)

Two other species resemble the one just de-
scribed, and are counterparts of European
species. The fourth is the smallest of the five,
expanding its wings an inch and a quarter.
The fore-wings are dark ash-coloured, exhibit-
ing very faint traces of the transverse wavy
lines or bands more or less distinctly visible
on the other species. The two ordinary spots
are large and pale, and alterna,te, with a trian-
gular and a square deep black spot. The hind-
wings are brownish-gray in the middle, and
blackish behind. Dr. Harris calls this last the
checkered rustic {Agrotis tesselata).

The fifth species answered very well to the
description of the American cabbage cut-worm,
described by Mr. J. P. Brace, in the first vo-
lume of Silliman's "American Journal of Sci-
ence," and somewhat resembles Dr.Boisduval's
figures of a European moth called Agrotis Mens.
The fore-wings are of a dark ashen colour,
with a lustre like satin ; they are crossed by
four narrow, wavy whitish bands, edged on
each side with black. There is a transverse
row of white dots, followed by a row of black,
arrow-shaped spots, between the third and
fourth bands, and three white dots on the outer
edge near the tip ; the ordinary spots are
edged with black and white. The hind-wings
are light brownish-gray, almost of a dirty
white in the middle. The head and thorax are
chinchilli-gray, and the abdomen is coloured
like the hind-wings. The wings expand from
one inch and five-eighths to one inch and
three-quarters. This kind of moth is very
common between the 10th of July and the mid-
dle of August. Like all the foregoing species,
it flies only at night. According to Mr. Brace,
this moth lays its eggs in the beginning of
autumn, at the roots of trees, and near the
ground ; the eggs are hatched early in May ;
the cut-worms continue their depredations
about four weeks, then cast their skin and be-
come pupae or chrysalids in the earth, a few
inches below the surface of the ground; the
pupa state lasts four weeks, and the moth
comes out about the middle of July ; it con-
ceals itself in the crevices of buildings and
beneath the bark of trees, and is never seen
during the day; about sunset it leaves its
hiding-place, is constantly on the wing, is very
troublesome about the candles in houses, flies
rapidly, and is not easily taken. From what
is known respecting the history of the other
kinds of Agrotis, and from the size that the
cabbage cut-worms are found to have attained
in May, I am led to infer that they must gene-
rally be hatched in the previous autumn, and
that, after feeding awhile on such food as they
can find immediately under the surface of the
soil, they descend deeper into the ground and

CUT-WORM.

CUT-WORM.

remain curled up, in little cavities which each
one makes for itself in the earth, till the follow-
ing spring."

Such are the descriptions given by the natu-
ralists of the cut-worms and their moths found
in the Eastern States. We wish it was in our
power to furnish as much accurate information
upon the subject of the cut-worms found in the
other portions of the United States, provided
any essential differences exist. The deficiency,
so far as a portion of the Middle States is in-
terested, has been supplied in a great measure
through the researches of Dr. F. E. Melsheimer,
of York county, Pennsylvania, who, in a
communication made to Dr. Harris, gives the
following information.

"There are several species of A^otis, the
larvae of which are injurious to culinary plants;
but the chief culprit with us is the same as
that which is destructive to young maize.
The corn cut-worms make their appearance in
great numbers at irregular periods, and confine
themselves in their devastations to no particu-
lar vegetables, all that are succulent being
relished by these indiscriminate devourers;
but, if their choice is not limited, they prefer
maize plants, when not more than a few inches
above the earth, early-sown buckwheat, young
pumpkin-plants, young beans, cabbage-plants,
and many other field and garden vegetables."
" When first disclosed from the eggs they sub-
sist on the various grasses. They descend in
tne ground on the approach of severe frosts,
and reappear in the spring about half-grown.
They seek their food in the night or in cloudy
breather, and retire before sunrise into the
ground, or beneath stones or any substance
which can shelter them from the rays of the
sun ; here they remain coiled up during the
day, except while devouring the food which
they generally drag into their places of con-
cealment. Their transformation to pupce oc-
curs at different periods, sometimes earlier
sometimes later, according to the forwardness
of the season, but usually not much later than
the middle of July." "The moths, as well as the
larvce, vary much in the depth of their colour,
from a pale ash to a deep or obscure brown.
The ordinary spots of the upper wings of the
moth are always connected by a blackish line;
"where the colour is of the deepest shade these
«pots are scarcely visible, but when the colour
is lighter they are very obvious." This moth,
Dr. Harris informs us, is very abundant in the
■New England States, from the middle of June
.till the middle or end of August. The fore-
wings are generally of a dark ash-colour, with
only a very faint trace of the double transverse
wavy bands that are found in most species of
Jsroiis. These expand one inch and three-
quarters. When shut they overlap and cover
the back so flatly and closely as to allow the
moth to creep into very narrow chinks and cre-
vices. During the day they lie hidden under
the bark of trees, in the chinks of fences, and
even under the loose clapboards of buildings.
When the blinds of houses are opened in the
morning, a little swarm of these insects which,
on the arrival of day, had crept behind them
for concealment, is sometimes exposed, and
suddenly roused from their beginning slumbers.

This kind of moth. Dr. Harris says, has the
form and general appearance of some species
of the genus PorophUa. He has named it the
clandestine owlet 'Vioth.

The fact of the identity established by na-
turalists between this moth as found in New
England and Pennsylvania, affords strong
reason to infer that the same species of cut-
worms are to be met with over most, if not all,
portions of the United States.

Having thus described these insects under
their various forms of destructive larvce or ca-
terpillars, winged moths into which these are
converted, and mentioned their times and sea-
sons of coming, going, and changing, so far at
least as naturalists have traced these out, — we
shall proceed to notice the remedies which
have been tried and proposed to destroy them,
or prevent their ravages.

Among the various means resorted to for the
protection of Indian corn and other plants, is
the soaking of the seed in copperas or other
poisonous solution previous to planting or
sowing. Rolling the seed in quick-lime, or
unleached ashes, has also been recommended.
Any one of these remedies may have some ef-
fect in protecting the seed against wire-worm$
(luli) which only attack the grain or its root,
but cannot answer against cut-worms which
do not eat the seed or root, but prey upon the
sprouts and young stalks.* They may, how-
ever, as Dr. Harris observes, be of some bene-
fit by stimulating the young plant and pro-
moting its more raj)id growth, by which it will
be sooner placed beyond danger from the at-
tacks of cut-worms. Fall-ploughing of sward-
lands, which are intended to be sown with
wheat or planted with corn the following year,
will turn up and expose the insects to the in-
clemency of the winter, whereby many of them
will be killed. Some will be destroyed at the
time by birds. This remedy, however, may be
objectionable in stiff clay soils, which would
become very much packed or baked during
the winter.

Among other remedies, one proposed by Mr.
Park Shee of Delaware county, Pennsylvania,
is said lo be a simple and expeditious mode of
destroying cut-worms. A pair of old wheels
are to be fitted with projections like the cogs
of a spur-wheel in a mill, which must be so
formed as to make holes in the earth during
the turning of the wheel, four inches deep.
The smooth track which the wheels make on
the soft ground, induces the worm in its noc-
turnal wanderings, to follow on till it tumbles
into the pit. It cannot climb out, and is de-
stroyed by the hot sun.

The only effectual remedy at present known.
Dr. Harris thinks, consists in turning a suffi-
cient force into the fields infested, to scratch
up and destroy the worms by hand. This
may require several days, but will generally be
successful in securing the crop, when replant-
ing is performed at the same time. Estimates
of the cost of labour and time thus expended.

* In regard lo wire-worms, care must be taken not to
confound the American insects with those bearing a
similar name in England. See Spring-Beetles, under
the head of Beetle, p. 174.

381

CUT-WORM.

show that the farmer is a great gainer by the
outlay.

Mr. Deane once prevented the depredations
of cut-worms in his garden by manuring the
soil with sea-mud. The plants generally es-
caped, although every one was cut off in a
spot of ground contiguous. He acknowledges,
hpwever, that the most effectual remedy, even
in field culture, is to go round every morning
and open the earth at the foot of the plant,
where, if present, the worm will be found at
the root, within four inches of the surfacp.
Mr. Preston of Stockport, Pennsylvania, pro-
tected his cabbage-plants by wrapping a hickory
or walnut leaf around the stem between the
root and leaves before planting. A piece of
rag would answer equally well ; but care must
be taken to remove any such bandage when
the plant has attained a size to resist the at-
tacks of worms. Paper has been successfully
used for this purpose by Mr. Fiske of Massa-
chusetts.

Salt is known to be highly obnoxious to
naked worms and caterpillars. Some farmers
have found great protection from the depreda-
tions of these by mixing salt with the manure
put upon the ground as mentioned by Mr.
Colman in his " Third Report," where, how-
ever, no definite proportion is stated. Some
Pennsylvania farmers place the greatest reli-
ance in a mixture of equal parts of salt, ashes,
and plaster of Paris, about a gill of which mix-
ture is applied on each corn hill. The experi-
ment has been tried on alternate rows which
were exempt from the attacks of worms, whilst
the rows to which no application was made
suflered greatly. The plaster might probably
be dispensed with.

Dr. Harris describes another naked caterpil-
lar which is often found to be injurious to cab-
bages, cauliflowers, spinach, beets, and other
garden vegetables with succulent leaves. It
does not conceal itself in the ground, but lives
exposed on the leaves of the plants which it
devours. It is of a light yellow colour, with
three, broad, longitudinal, yellow stripes, one
on each side, and the third on the top of the
back ; and the head and feet are tawny. Dr.
Melsheimer calls it the zebra-caterpillar, on
account of its stripes. It comes to its full size
in Massachusetts in September, and then mea-
sures about two inches in length. Early in Oc-
tober it leaves off eating, goes into the ground,
changes to a shining brown chrysalis, and is
transformed to a moth about the first of June.
It is probable that there are two broods of this
kind of caterpillar every summer, in some, if
not all, parts of this country ; for Dr. Mel-
sheimer says that it appears in Pennsylvania in
June, goes into the ground and is changed to a
chrysalis towards the end of June or the be-
ginning of July, and comes forth in the moth
state near the end of August The moth may
be called Mamestra picta, the painted Mamestra,
in allusion both to the beautiful tints of the ca-
terpillar, and to the softly blended shades of
dark and light brown with which the fore-
wings of the moth are coloured. It is of a
hght brown colour, shaded with purple brown ;
the ordinary spots on the fore-wings, with a
third oval spot behind the round one, are edged

CYPERUS.

with gray ; and there is a transverse zigzag
gray line, forming a distinct W in the middle,,
near the outer hind margin. The hind-wings
are white, and faintly edged with brown around
the tip. It is evident that this insect cannot be
included in either of the foregoing groups of
the owlet-moths. It belongs to a distinct fa-
mily, which may be called Mamestrudce, or
Mamestrians. The caterpillars in this group
are generally distinguished by their bright co-
lours ; they live more or less exposed on the
leaves of plants, and transform in the ground.
The moths fly by night only; most of them
have the thorax slightly crested; and they are
easily known by the zigzag line, near the outer
hind margin of the fore-wings, forming a W or
M in the middle.

As the caterpillar of the painted Mamestra
does not seek concealment, it may easily be
found, and destroyed by hand." {Harris.)
See Grubs, Wire-Worms, Spindle or Bud
Worms.

CUTTING. When a horse cuts or wounds
one leg with the opposite foot. The best re-
medy is to put on the cutting foot a shoe of
even thickness from heel to toe, not projecting
in the slightest degree beyond the crusp, and
the crusp itself to be rasped a little at the
quarters. This shoe should only have one nail
on the inside, and that almost close to the
toe. {Lib. Useful Know., The Horse, pp. 252,
341.)

CYDER. See Cider.

CYNOSURUS. The dog's tail grass, from
Kvm, a dog, and ovp*, a tail. There are three
commonly known varieties of this grass in
England, and two in the United States. One
of which was found by Mr. Nuttall in the plains
of Missouri. Very little value is attached to
this grass by the American farmer.

Cynosurus cristatus. Crested dog's tail grass.
PI. 6,/. This is an excellent sheep grass. Sin-
clair found the produce per acre, from a brown
loam with manure, at the time of flowering, to
be 6125 lbs., containing nutritive matter 406
lbs. He says of it, " In all the most celebrated
pastures, which I have examined, it constituted
a very considerable portion of the produce."

Cynosurus crucceformis. Linear-spiked dog's
tail grass, flourishes best on a rich deep loam;
next best on a clayey loam ; in which soil
Sinclair obtained of this grass, when in flower,
6806 lbs. per acre, containing nutritive matter
365 lbs.

Cynosurus echinatus. Rough dog's tail grass.
It is a scarce, and an inferior grass. When in
bloom, it yielded Sinclair per acre from a
sandy loam 5445 lbs., containing of nutritive
matter 191 lbs. (Paxtan's Bot. Did.; Sinclair's
Hort. Gram. Wob.)

CYPERUS (Cyprus-grass). This is a natu-
ral order, embracing some of the sedge tribe
somewhat allied to grasses. The stems are
either solid or filled with a spongy pith-like
substance, generally without joints, or nodes,
tapering, cylindric, or angular (often triangu-
lar), and the sheaths of the leaves which em-
brace the stem are not slit, but entire. The
roots of some species of cyperusses possess
an aromatic odour, especially those of the C.
longus. A few others produce tubers said to

CYPERUS-GRASS, MILLET.

CYPRESSES.

be esculent. From the integuments of the C. '
papyrus of Egypt, the ancients first obtained a
convenient substitute for skins to write upon,
and the paper since invented still retains the
name of paper, derived from Papyrus. j

Although the genus Cyperus appears to be
widely dispersed over the world, North Ame-
rica and the West Indies possess far the larg-
est proportion. About twenty-five or thirty
species are found in th^ United States. (Nut-
talVs Generit.)

CYPERUS-GRASS, MILLET (Scirpics syl-
vaticm). The wood clubrush. See Scirpus.

CYPERUS, SWEET, or ENGLISH GA-
LINGALE (Cyperus longtis). This is a wild
perennial plant, growing, but not common, in
marshes and moist places, two or three feet
high. Its stalk is green and leafless, except
two or three small leaves at the top from
which Ihe tufts of flowers rise. The root
leaves are a foot long, narrow, grassy, and
bright green. The flowers are brown. The
root is long, moderately creeping, highly aro-
matic, and astringent There is a smaller
species, the brown cyperus (C. ftiscus), which
is an annual, and grows much smaller, not
reaching to above six inches high ; root of
many simple fibres. {Smithes Eng. Flor. vol. i.
p. 53.)

CYPRESS TREE (Cvpressus sempervirens).
A hardy shrub, native of the Levant; growing
from fifteen to twenty feet high, which throws
out yellow blossoms in May. Its wood is red,
very hard, and sweet-scented. It likes a good
soil. It is the symbol of sorrow all over
Europe, in the East, and even in China. Its
wood, from being sonorous, is used for harps,
violins, and other musical instruments.
Worms never attack it. {Phillip's Shrub, vol.
i. p. 188; M'Cullochh Com. Diet.)

CY PRESSES. The researches of botanists,
says MichauX, have made us acquainted with
only seven species of cypresses, of which two
are indigenous to the United States, namely,
the Cypressus disticha, called, in the Southern
and Middle States, BalJ Cypress, Black Cypress,
and White Cypress, the last popular names
being applied in the Carolinas. The second
species of American cedar is called by bota-
nists, Ciipressus thyoides, and popularly the
White Cedar. Both are highly important trees,
for the many useful purposes to which their
wood is applied.

Michaux says of the black or bald C)rpress,
that the banks of Indian river in the southern
part of the state of Delaware may be assumed
as iis northern limit. In proceeding south-
ward from this point it becomes constantly
more abundant in swamps; but in Maryland
and Virginia is confined to the vicinity of the
sea, where the winter is milder. Beyond Nor-
folk, Its limits correspond exactly with those
of the Pine Barrens, and in the Carolinas and
Geor'j:ia it occupies a great part of the swamps
which border the rivers after they have passed
from among the mountains and entered the
low lands.

The Mississippi from its mouth to the river
Arkansas, a distance of more than six hun-
dred miles, following the windings, is bordered
bv marshes, which, at the annual overflowing

of this mighty stream, form a vast expanse of
waters. In Louisiana, those parts of the
marshes where the cypress grows almost
alone are called Cypriercs, cypress swamps,
and they sometimes occupy thousands of
acres.

In the deep, miry soil of the swamps in the
Southern States, the bald cypress attains its
utmost developement, rising sometimes to the
height of one hundred and twenty feet, with a
circumference of twent}'-five and even forty
feet, at the conical base, which, at the surface
of the earth, is always three or four times as
large as the continued diameter of the trunk.
On this account, in felling them the negroes
are obliged to raise themselves upon scaffolds
five or six feet above the ground. The base is
generally hollow for three-quarters of its bulk.
The summit is not pyramidal like that of
spruces, but is widely spread and even depress-
ed or drooping upon old trees. The foliage
is open, light, and of a fresh and agreeable
tint, the leaflets being small and fine. In au-
tumn they change from a light green to a dull
red, and are shed soon after. Boiled during
three hours in water, they afford a fine, durable
cinnamon colour. To bunches of very minute
flowers, succeed cones about the size of the
thumb, roundish and uneven on the surface,
filled with irregular seeds containing cylindri-
cal kernels. The seeds retain their productive
virtue for two years.

The stocks which grow in places where for
half the year they are surrounded with three
or four feel of water, have the bark lighter
coloured than trees not so much exposed to
water. Hence they are called White Cypresses,
whilst those less exposed to water, and having
browner bark, and heavier, more resinous, and
darker wood, are named Black Cypresses. When
destined to be employed in the arts, both kinds
should be felled in winter, and kept a sufilicienl
length of lime for the wood to become' perfectly •
dry. The wood of the cypress is far more
durable than that of the pine, and is especially
useful for making shingles to cover buildings
of all kinds. Cedar rails for post and rail-
fences are also in great demand in every por-
tion of the Middle States where the oak and
chestnut trees have become scarce. A large
trade in cedar shingles is carried on between
the southern parts of Norfolk, Wilmington, &c.,
with the West Indies.

It would be unavailing, says Michaux, to re-
commend the preservation and multiplication
of the cypress in the maritime districts of the
Carolinas and Georgia, though for an extent
of more than nine hundred miles they have
neither stone nor slate for building; it becomes
.daily more profitable for the increasing popu-
"latiOn to convert the marshes into rice-grounds,
which afford a sure subsistence to the inhabit-*
ants and swell the mass of exported produce.
Instead of wood, the houses will be constructed
of brick, which is already beginning to be
done, and covered with slate imported from the
Northern States or from Europe. It is highly
probable that in less than two centuries, the
cypress will disappear from the Southern
[ States.

The While Cedar (Cypressus thyoides) is one
' 383

DACTYLIS.

of the most interesting trees in the United
States for the varied utility of its wood. It
grows only in wet grounds. In New Jersey,
Maryland, and Virginia, it nearly fills the ex-
tensive marshes which lie adjacent to the salt
meadows, and are exposed in high tides to be
overflown by the sea. Farther south, it is
mingled with the cypress, by which it is at
length entirely supplanted. The white cedar
is not to be mistaken for the white cypress, a
variety of the bald cypress. In lower Jersey
and Maryland, the swamps in which the whi;e
cedar grows, are only accessible during the
dryest periods of summer, and whilst frozen
in winter. The trees stand so thick in these
swamps that the light can hardly petietrate the
foliage. The white cedar grows seventy or
eighty feet high, and rarely more than three
feet in diameter, unless perhaps in the Great
Dismal Swamp, near Norfolk, where it flou-
rishes in company with the bald or black cy-
press. When the white cedars are close and
compressed, the straight and perpendicular
trunks are free from branches to the height of
fifty or sixty feet. They are observed to choose
the centre of the swamps, and the cypresses
the outside.

The foliage is evergreen, each leaf consisting
of a little branch numerously subdivided, and
the flowers, which are scarcely visible, produce
very small rough cones of a greenish tint,
which changes to bluish towards the fall,
when they open to release the fine seeds.

The wood is light, soft, fine-grained, and
easily worked. When perfectly seasoned and
exposed some time to the light, it is of a rosy
hue. It preserves its aromatic odour for a
very long time, when kept dry, and resists the
destructive tendencies of alternate moisture
and dryness Icmger than any other wood, for
which quality shingles made of it are prefer-
red in Baltimore and Philadelphia to those of
the bald cypress. In the first named city they
are generally called juniper shingles. They
will last on a roof for thirty or thirty-five
years. The great domestic consumption and
exportation has raised the price of cypress
shingles from four and five dollars per thousand
in 1808, to thirty or forty dollars per thousand
in 1842. Swamps producing white cedar, so
useful for fence timber and other important
purposes, constitute a valuable species of pro-
perty. {Michaux.)

D

DACTYLIS. A genus of grasses which,
with one exception, are of but little value for
cultivation. See Cock's-foot Grass.

DAIRY. The place where milk is kept, and
butter and cheese prepared and preserved.
The proper construction and management of
a dairy are questions of considerable import-
ance to the farmer. It should be situated, if
possible, on a dry porous soil. The room
should be made of brick or stone, with a floor
of the same materials, for the sake of its being
more readily and frequently washed with cold
p»ater, not only on the score of cleanliness, but
that the temperature of the place may in sum-
384

DAIRY.

mer be kept down to the most advantageous
degree. And to this end, the dairy is com-
monly placed on the northern side of the
house, where it may be readily shaded from
the sun by other more elevated buildings, or
by trees. A temperature between 50° and 60°
is the best, and the less occasion there is to
reduce the temperature of the dairy by wash-
ing the floor with cold water the better, since,
amongst other disadvantages, the damp air
thus produced is not so advantageous as a dry
atmosphere for the retention of sweetness
in milk and cream, and, therefore, the dairy-
house in England is generally covered with
thatch, and can hardly be too well ventilated.
It should be far removed from stagnant ponds
and offensive drains; and furnished with wire
gauze windows, by which insects are readily
excluded without impairing the necessary ven-
tilation. Adjoining to it should be placed a
wash-house, furnished with a chimney, a large
copper kettle to heat the water, or in cheese
dairies the milk. This is commonly supported
by a crane.

The wash-house should have an outer door,
near to which the dairy utensils maybe set on
benches, to be dried by the sun and air. In
Holland the dairy rooms are kept with the
greatest order, neatness, and comfort; so much
so, that the farmer's family often take their
meals in them. On the economy of the dairy
the following excellent direction, abridged from
those drawn up by the Agriculturar Society of
Aberdeenshire, may be studied by the farmer
with advantage. They refer chiefly to salted
butter : —

1. The milk-house or dairy should have no in-
ternal communication with any other building.
It must be kept free from smoke, well aired,
and clean, and no potatoes, fish, onions,
cheese, or any thing likely to impart a strong
or bad smell, should be kept therein ; in short,
nothing but the dairy utensils, which must
also be kept sweet and clean. 2. The milk,
when brought in from the cows, should be
strained through a fine hair scarce or drainer,
and when cool put into sweet, well-sea s()ned
oaken kegs, keelers, or milk pans, the latter to
be preferred. A tin skimmer with holes in it
is the best for taking off" the cream, which
should always be churned while the cream is
fresh. 3. The churn, whether plunge or barrel,
should be made of the best well-seasoned white
oak, and as cleanliness is of the first import-
ance, great attention should be paid to the
washing, drying, and airing of the churns im-
mediately after use, otherwise they are sure to
contract a sour and unwholesome smell, which
must injure the quality of the butter. 4. The
butter immediately after being churned should be
thrown into fresh spring water, where it should
remain one hour at least, that it may growfrm.
5. The butter should be immediately salted. 6. It
is a very injurious practice to keep a mak-
ing of butter uncured till the next churning,
for the purpose of mixing the two together. It
invariably injures the flavour of the whole, and
renders it of too soft a quality ever afterwards
to get firm. 7. The milk of new-calved cows
should never be set for butter, until at least
four days after calving, as a small quantity of

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

biestmilk butter will injure a whole firkin.
The practice of scalding cream in cold wea-
ther should also be avoided, as cream thus
treated will never make good butter. 8. Great
care should be taken not to steep the firkins, or
other dairy vessels, in boggy or unwholesome
water ; only the purest spring or clear running
water should be used. 9. Old butter should
never be mixed with new.

Lime-tree yields perhaps the best wood for
butter firkins ; and the St. Ubes' Bay or ma-
rine sweet salt, free from bittern, is the best
salt to use for dairy purposes : this should be
kept in a dry, clean cask, in a place where
smoke (which is apt to impart a bad flavour
to it) cannot reach it. The management and
construction of the dairy of necessity varies
with the articles for which it is chiefly intend-
ed to be devoted, as Buttbr, Chebse, Milk :
see these heads.

In the United States one of the most cele-
brated dairy districts is that of Western Re-
serve, in Ohio, peopled generally by settlers
from New England. It is computed that this
fine grazing country sells, annually, cheese to
the amount of a million and a half of dollars,
besides large quantities of butler, and a great
amount of beef and pork.

There is reason to believe that the exporta-
tion of butter and cheese from the United
States to other countries will annually in-
crease, and especially to England, where a
gi-eat reduction of duties on these and other
articles of the provision trade has recently
taken place. From the objections made to
American butter and cheese sent abroad, it
seems highly desirable that more pains should
be taken at home to improve their qualities,
which can only be done by paying more at-
tention to their manufacture. There is no dis-
guising the fact, says a late writer in the Cul-
tivator, " that immense quantities of butter find
their way to market in a condition which ren-
ders it unfit for any thing but grease. Hot
weather, or the shortest voyage, renders it in-
tolerably rancid. Now, butter made in Holland
may be carried to any distance, and in any cli-
mate, without suffering material deterioration,
and hence it is in such demand for exportation.
Vast quantities annually find their way to Great
Britain for domestic consumption and other-
wise, and the high prices demonstrate the esti-
mation in which it is held. There are no finer
pastures in the world than in the United States,
particularly those north of the Ohio, and if pro-
per attention and skill were given to the pro-
ducts of the dairy, those products might be un-
rivalled. There is a considerable amount of
excellent butter made in the country, but it is
used for domestic consumption, and the pro-
portion of the first rate article bears but a slight
comparison with the whole. There is less dif-
ference in the cheeses of this country and the
European ones than there is in the butter, and
consequently less difference in the prices. But
in both butter and cheese, so far as the great
mass of these products are concerned, there is I
room for a decided improvement, and we doubt
not our dairy women would consult their own
interest, as well as the credit of the country, in
49

giving more care to the production of superior
articles ; but to the extract.

" At a public sale of Ainerican butter at Liver-
pool, it brought, the best sorts, 84s., seconds 73
to 74s. per cwt., duty paid, while inferior sold
only at 43 to 44s. in bond, of which the parcel
chiefly consisted. The quantity arrived at the
London market shows the same results, the
principal part being sold for greasy purposes.
The American makers of butter are very far
behind the Irish, English, or Dutch ; from the
first operation to the last, all seems to be done
without system or care. The same materials
would, if managed by experienced hands, bring
in this market 25 or 30s. more money. There
is evidently no proper attention paid to the
making, salting, putting down, or packing. A
correspondent of one of our commercial papers
says, — 'The best American butter imported in-
to England this year has sold not higher thaa
95«., while the best from the continent has
brought 110 to 115s. per cwt.; this latter will
keep for years.' " (London Commercial Journal
for March, 1841.)

As a large portion of the United States is
favoured with all the advantages requisite for
dairy purposes, such as good pastures, excel-
lent cows, fine spring-houses or facilities for
making them, there is no apparent reason why
good butter and cheese should not be produced
in the greatest abundance. Among other in-
structions for improving the manufacture of
butter, given in a recent volume of the Cw/Hvo-
tor, the following merit particular attention : —

"Every thing connected with the making of
butter should be perfectly sweet and clean. No
smoke, dust, or disagreeable smells should ever
exist in the milk-house or dairy. Every thing
of this kind has its eflfect on the cream, and
leaves its taint on the butter. The milk should
be skimmed, and the cream churned at the pro-
per time and the proper temperature. The but-
termilk should be promptly separated ; and in
salting, none but salt of the finest, purest kind
is admissible. Next to leaving milk or whey
in the butter to putrefy, the use of bad salt has
the most influence in making this article M'^orth-
less. Many recommend washing butler in clear
cold water to free it from the milk, and this
mode is practised in some of the best butter
districts of Europe or the United States. If the
milk is thoroughly separated, however, the par-
ticular method is of very little consequence ;
and perhaps a machine for working the butter-
milk out, such as has been figured in the Cul-
tivator, or some similar contrivance, will be
found as effectual as any thing. But butter, if
made ever so perfectly, will not keep well un-
less it is also packed well. Total exclusion
from the air seems necessary, and when this
is combined with a low temperature, butter can
be kept for an indefinite period of time. It is
the adventitious circumstances only that make
poor butter, for, as it is a pure animal oil, if
freed from those things that have a tendency to
spoil it, it would keep as long and with as little
trouble as tallow or lard. It is the diflficulty
of freeing butter from the substances connect-
ed with it, that have a constant tendency to
putreiaction, that renders the packing of butter
2K 385

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

of so much consequence to its preservation. (
Stone jars we have found superior to any thing
else for packing butter. They are sweet, cool,
impervious to air, and, from their shape, leave
but a small surface to be exposed or covered
with brine. The butter, whether packed in jars
or firkins, must be beat solid, and the vessel,
whatever it may be, should be filled at once.
The difficulty attending firkins is, that all wood
contains more or less acid, and this, decom-
posing the salt, imparts an unpleasant taste
and flavour to the butter in the cask. This if
partly remedied by filling the firkin with strong
brine, and allowing them to stand a few days
before using; but the cause is never entirely re-
moved. Experiments made in Scotland proved
that the wood of the linden or basswood con-
tained the least acid, and this is supported by
the fact that, in the Tyrolese salt-works, where
water is brought to the point of saturation by
percolating through bundles of twigs or fagots,
those of the basswood are always preferred to
any other. In this country firkins of heart-ash
are preferred, and perhaps are as good as any
that can be used. We have known a firkin of
butter, properly headed, thrown into a well
where the water was of the temperature of
about 50° to 55°, and when taken out, after a
submersion of a year, was as sweet as when
put in. Perhaps, where circumstances admit,
butter might be advantageously kept in this
way in vats filled with running spring water
of the proper temperature. Jars or firkins,
when filled with butter, should have some pure
strong brine poured on the top of the butter,
and kept there for the purpose of excluding the
air until the article is wanted for use. Instead
of the brine some use salt, and others prefer a
linen cloth saturated in brine for this purpose.
But whatever is used, the top of the jar or fir-
kin should be carefully covered with a board,
or what is much better, a clean, flat stone.
They should stand on flat stones, in a cool
place in the cellar, and may be occasionally
looked to, to see that the surface is properly
secured, and the air excluded."

Some of the defects of American cheese
have been referred to under the head of
Cheese. A very common one arises from its
being too often sent to market in a very green
state, frequently when but three weeks old.
The best English cheeses, we are told, are not
considered as ripe and marketable until two
years old. "A great improvement," says Mr.
Colman, "is thought by some to have been
made in capping the cheeses, as it is termed ;
that is, as soon as they are taken from the
press, covering them completely with cotton
cloth, sewed over them tightly ; or else drawn
round the sides of the cheese and over the
edges, leaving the centre partially exposed.
"Where the cheeses are covered entirely, the
cloth itself is completely covered and saturated
with the usual unguent of whey-butter and
some simple and harmless colouring matter.
The eflfect is to preserve the cheese against the
attacks of flies, and to render the daily turning
of the cheeses not indispensably necessary, be-
sides preventing their spreading and cracking.
It is said by some persons that the cheese does

not cure so perfectly in this way as when ex-
posed, and that the sale is not so ready. Such
contradictory statements are made in this case,
however, by those who have tried, and those
who refuse to try it, that I cannot decide on its
expediency. It impressed me favourably.

" I have much pleasure in saying that many
of the Berkshire dairies are most exemplary
in respect to neatness ; and in this matter pre-
sent beautiful models of domestic management.
There are exceptions, however, to this com-
mendation. In some instances there is any
thing but neatness. The sink and the pig-
stye, with all their offensive exhalations, on
account of what is called convenience, which
is only an apology in such cases for gross lazi-
ness, are in much too intimate proximity with
the dairy-room ; and there are cases — I shall
not venture to say whether I saw them or only
heard of them — where, if the pigs should per-
chance mistake their own apartment and go
into the next door, they would never suspect
their error, unless they were ordered out. Ad-
monition, however, seems lost upou such per-
sons. Slovenliness and slutlishness are incor-
rigible vices; and the fate of such persons
seems, as it were, in despair of reformation,
irrevocably pronounced.

"Wilbur's semi revolving slide cheese shelves
is an admirable contrivance to save labour in
the cheese-dairy. By it two men can easily
turn twenty-four heavy cheeses in a minute,
and are enabled to rub them without their be-
ing- lifted from the shelves. The model con-
sists of an upright frame, suspended by an axis
passing through its horizontal centre ; and into
which slide eight pair of shelves, the distance
of which may be graduated to the size of the
cheeses. The cheeses are placed alternately
above and below the axis. Slats are fixed upon
the back of the frame to prevent the cheeses
falling out when the frame revolves. The
frame is made stationary by a pin, and when
this is withdrawn, it is made to revolve half
round upon its axis, which turns the cheeses.
The shelves over them, and upon which the
cheeses have lain the preceding day, may then
be withdrawn, and left to dry till the next day,
when they may be returned, the turning pro-
cess repeated, and the other shelves cleaned
and dried in turn. The improvement is a valu-
able one in large dairies. Henry Wilbur, of
Richfield, Otsego Co., N. Y., is the inventor.

" The saving in labour and risk of the cheese
is great, and the expense of fitting up a new
room on this plan would not greatly exceed
t\iat in common use, as the room may be much
smaller. One rack with six shelves, six feet
long, twenty-four inches wide, set eleven inches
apart, will hold eighteen cheeses weighing from
100 to 140 lbs. each, suspended by a wooden
shaft two inches square, resting on two rails
extending the whole length of the room, three
and a half feet high, or if only a single rack,
on two posts ; each rack requires about four
feet on the length of the rails to turn well, —
and its cost will not exceed six dollars, includ-
ing the materials of which it is made. On
this system the cheese dries much faster, as it
is turned on the dry side of the shelf every day,

J

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

and has a sound and dry rind. He has one set |
of extra shelves, which are slipped in close j
above the cheeses before turned, on which |
shelf the cheeses lay when turned over; the j
others are then liberated for another rack, and .
so on through the room. By the aid of these 1
six extra shelves, the cheeses in turning need
not fall but a trifle, if any."

The qualities of the butter generally produced
by the New England dairies are even more
defective than those of the cheese. These de-
fects are chiefly owing to causes easily reme-
died,— by observing perfect ventilation and
cleanliness in the milk-room and all its uten-
sils, taking the cream from the milk whilst this
is still fresh, and churning soon after the skim-
ming. The working is a matter of primary
importance, and is too often but half done.
The operation should be continued till every
trace of the buttermilk is removed, since, if
any of this be left, the butter will quickly ac-
quire a rancid or otherwise unpleasant flavour.
The salting also is of much consequence. In
general. too much salt is added, and that not
always of the very best kind for the purpose.
Much salt destroys the delicacy of fine butter.
The additions of saltpetre and sugar, often made
in New England dairies, is sanctioned by the
practice in Scotland and other countries. See
Butter; The noted richness and superior fla-
vour of much of the Pennsylvania butter, found
in the Philadelphia market, is chiefly to be as-
cribed to the fine sweet and clean spring-houses
so common in that section of the United States,
together with good old pasture fields, and great
attention to working. This last, when well
done, renders very little salt necessary, and
hence the fine and delicate flavour of the butter
can be perceived. The processes followed in
the dairy districts in England are well worth
the attention of persons interested in this sub-
ject. Some of these are referred to under the
heads of Butter and Cheese.

Mr. Colman, in his able Reports upon the
Agriculture of Massachusetts, has furnished
some highly interesting details in regard to
dairy affairs in the Eastern States. Treating
of the interests of Berkshire county, the dairy
products of many farms in which is not sur-
passed by any accounts of other parts of our
country, or of foreign countries, which he had
been able to obtain, he observes : " The dairy
business has always been a great business.
For a time it gave way to the raising of fine
wool, when the prices of that staple were high.
Since the abatement of the demand for wool,
with that caprice for which mankind always
have been, and there is reason to think always
will be remarkable, many farmers have sacri-
ficed their flocks ; and are now giving their
exclusive attention to the dairy husbandry.
These changes, in matters so important as the
dairy or the sheep husbandry, involving as they
do a considerable investment of capital, and
many expensive fixtures, cannot be suddenly
or frequently made without risk of serious loss
and disadvantage."

Mr. Colman gives the following statements
in relation to dairy products, expenses, net
profits, &c.

A fanner residing about twenty-five miles

from the Hudson, who with a stock of eighteen
cows, turned his attention to making butter
for the New York market, to which it was sent
every week, sold in one year 2400 lbs. of but-
ter, at 23 cts. per lb. "With the refuse milk he
fed seventeen spring pigs until October, when
their average weight was 177 lbs. each. Half
of this pork, say 88 lbs. was to be credited to
the cow. Reckoning the pork at $10 per 100
lbs. (a much higher price, however, than it
will now bear), the account would stand thus:

Cow, Cr-

1331b8. of buuer,at23ct8. ^30 59

Pork 8 00.

38 59
Cow, Dr.
Wintering f 12 00

Pasturing - - - - - -500;

Salt as

lulereat on ^25, at 10 per cent., risks in- •

eluded 2 50 19 75

Annual profits of a cow .... ^18 84
This calculation is made without including
any extra feed for the cow, and upon the sup-
position that the butter and milk used by the
family pays for the attendance. The profit
here allowed, Mr. Colman thinks, less than
that actually derived. He mentions another
dairy, in which nine cows yielded 1540 lbs. of
butter per annum, and 300 lbs. of cheese ; and
a third, where twenty cows produced — of butter,
500 lbs. ; and of new milk cheese, 4000 lbs.

In the neighbourhood where these dairies are
found, two acres of land are deemed sulficient
for pasturing a cow or fattening a steer.
Twenty head of cattle, made up of cows and
three year old steers, were fattened upon thirty
acres of land.

In the town or township of Otis, twenty cows
gave 5000 lbs. of new-milk cheese, besides ave-
raging 25 lbs. of butter each, for the family,
which also used 600 lbs. of cheese. The credit
and debtor account in this dairy may be reck-
oned thus : —

Cow, Cr.
280 lbs. cheese, ut 8 cts. per lb. - - - - #22 40
25 lbs. butler, at 20 cts. - - - - - 5 00

Calf 4 00

Pork, 26 lbs. at 6 cts. 1 56

33 96
Cow, Dr.

Wintering #12 00

Pasturing 5 00

Interest nn cost of cow, #15, at 10 per cent,

including risks - - - - 1 50
Labour and attendance - - - . - 2 16 20 66

Balance in favour of cow

#12 24

In Sandisfield, the average yield of a cow
in ordinary seasons is rated at 250 lbs. of
cheese, with common keeping. By extra keep-
ing, the quantity is increased to 350 or 400 lbs.
The quantity of butter in addition to the new
milk cheese, is supposed to be 40 or 50 lbs.
each cow. The amount of cheese made in
this township, in 1837, was estimated by com-
petent authority, at 300,000 lbs. The popula-
tion is 1493.

"Another farmer in the same neighbourhood,
with a dairy of fifteen cows, states the average
product of a cow, if she raises her calf, at 250
lbs. ; if otherwise, 300 lbs. ; and 25 lbs. butter,
also, from each cow. Four hogs may be kept to
twenty cows. In this way, weighing 100 lbs. in

387

DAIRY.

the spring, they will weigh 300 lbs. in the fall.
140 lbs. of pork is to be credited to five cows.

" The cost of wintering a cow here, is rated at
$10 ; pasturage, §4. A good dairy woman will
take charge of thirty cows, with assistance in
milking and in handling cheese. Her wages
will be $1 50 per week, with board.

'\ In Tyringham, the average yield of a cow
is reckoned at — new milk cheese, 283 lbs.,
and butter at the same time, 57 lbs. A dairy
of twenty-eight cows gave 7912 lbs. new milk
cheese, and 1600 lbs. butter. A large amount
of pork was fattened on this farm ; but it is
difficult to say what portion of it is to be
credited to the dairy.

" In Sheffield, the average product of twenty-
eight cows was 394 lbs. new milk cheese, and
60 lbs. of butler each.

" The product of a cow is thus stated by this
excellent manager :

Cow, Cr.
400 lbs. new milk cheese at Sets. ... $32 00

Calf, (killed at 3 days old) 1 00

50 lbs. butter, at 16^ 8 33

Whey and butter-milk make 100 lbs. pork - - 8 00

$49 33
Supra, Dr.
Winter keeping - - _ - -$13 00
One acre of land costing ^50 will pasture

the cow -3 50

Salt 25 cts., 3 bs. of bran $3 - - - 3 25
Int. on the value of cow at $25, 10 per ct. 2 50
Labour of milking, making butter, cheese, &c. 4 00 25 25

Balance in favour of cow - - - - §24 08

"The quantity of land estimated for pastu-
rage in this case seems small. It must be small
for a general rule ; another farmer in the same
town assured me that he kept one yoke of oxen
all the season, and one horse half the season,
on two and a half acres of land, which he
showed me. The land had been greatly bene-
fitted by plaster.

" In New Marlboro', the yield of a cow is
estimated at 300 lbs. new milk cheese ; four
hogs are kept to 20 cows ; two tons of hay are
deemed requisite for a cow; value of hay sold
$10 ; but if the farmer can realize $6 per ton
for it used on the place, he deems it better than
to sell it. Eight to ten acres of land here, with
the use of plaster, is deemed sufficient for the
pasturage of four cows.

" In Great Barrington, nine cows produced
1900 lbs. new milk cheese, and 800 lbs. butter.
In another" case from eight cows were sold — of
butter, 200 lbs., of new milk cheese, 1225 lbs.
In another case 5 cows, through the season, and
an additional cow half the season, from 1st of
June to 10th Nov., produced 651 lbs. butter —
and 200 lbs. new milk cheese. In this case the
weekly returns were given. The same farmer
says, that his cows will average one pound of
butter per day through the season. He states
his cow account thus :

Cow, Cr.
200 lbs. butter at 20 cts. - - - - -$40 00
Calf raised 2 00

Buttermilk, and skim milk for pork, equal to all

the care

$42 00
Supra, Dr.
Wintering, 2 tons of hay - - - -$16 00
Pasturing", 25 cts. per week, 26 weeks - 6 50
Int. on cost of cow, $20, at 10 per ct. - 2 00 24 50

Profits of a cow - - "* - - $17 00

388

DAIRY.

" In Alford, the actual yield of a cow was as
follows : Butler, 240 lbs. sold. Cheese, 100
lbs. sold, besides using what milk and butter
were required by two persons. She had her
own skimmed milk, but no meal or grain. She
consumed, as ascertained, two tons of hay, and
her pasturage was 25 cents per week."

The following estimates apply to the town-
ship of Cheshire, which is devoted almost ex-
clusively to the dairy husbandry, and celebrated
for the excellence and abundance of its pro-
duce.

"A farmer with twenty-five cows, states their
average yield at 300 lbs. cheese, and 20 lbs.
butter to a cow. He says likewise that 1500
lbs. pork are to be credited to his cows.

" The average cost or value of his cows is
$30 each ; wintering $14 ; pasturing 26 weeks
$6 25 ; he raises some calves upon whey. It
requires the whey of two or three cows to raise
a calf. IJis hogs at 18 mos. average 350 lbs.;
they run in a pasture and have the refuse of
the dairy until about six weeks before it is in-
tended to kill them, when they are shut up and
fed with corn and meal.

"The dairy of another farmer consists of 20
cows. The year before last they yielded 400
lbs. new milk cheese; the last year 400 lbs.
each, besides an ample supply of butter for
the family. He calculates upon the proportion
of one hog to four cows ; with the above cows
he made 1200 lbs. of pork, 600 lbs. of which he
credits to the cows ; he deems three acres ne-
cessary for the pasturage of a cow. His cows
during the spring have an allowance of rye-
meal and whey.

" In another case the produce of 23 cows
was 12,000 lbs. new milk cheese and 500 lbs.
butter.

"In another case 30 cows made 14,000 lbs.
new milk cheese ; and 500 lbs. butter. In this
case some calves were raised; but most of
them were killed at four days old. Throughout
the county of Berkshire this mode of dealing
with the calves is termed 'deaconing' them.
What is the particular propriety of this pro-
vincialism, I am unable to determine; and
whether it had its origin in any superstition
among the aborigines or the first settlers of the
county, I shall leave to the antiquaries to as-
certain. It is a peculiarity, and prevails no
where else.

" The practice, with this farmer, is to give
boiled corn in the ear to his cows ; perhaps a
dozen ears to a cow per day. When it is con-
veniently had, he gives a mess of rye-meal to
each cow, at the rate of two quarts per day, for
three weeks in the spring. He is anxious to
let his cows go to the grass as soon as the
ground is bare. He thinks cows are liable to
suffer from excessive feeding in the barn.

The wintering of a cow requires U tons of hay $14 00
Pasturing, 20 cts. per week for 26 weeks - 5 SO

" In 40 days of the best of the season on this
farm, 30 cows produced 4000 lbs. butter. The
land required for the pasturage of a cow is
considered to be three acres.

" From thirty cows, an average of 425 lbs.
of cheese has been produced to each cow, and
ten lbs. ol butter ; or 300 the whole.

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

"On one farm, where 18 cows were kept,
11,385 lbs. new milk cheese were mg-tle in a
season, which gives the extraordinary average
of 632^ lbs. to a cow. 200 lbs. of butter were
made the same season from the same cows.
One of these cows produced 1000 lbs. new milk
cheese.

"During the first part of the season, for two
months, two quarts of rye-meal were given to
each cow. Half of this quantity of meal was
given them for one month during the last of the
season ; and the greater part of the time they
had their whey. 1000 lbs. pork were made on
the farm ; and half of this was credited to the
cows.

" The same individual, when on another farm
in South Adams, with 21 cows, made 626 lbs.
new milk cheese to a cow, in a season. 1700
lbs. of pork were raised in connection -with the
dairy. Half the pork was considered as due
to the cows.

"The process of making cheese began the
25th April, and ended the 1st December. As
soon as the cows calved, the cows received
3 qts. of meal per day each — principally rye,
with some Indian ; and each had some whey,
though not half what was yielded was given to
them. Three or four of the cows received
meal all the summer. He commenced feeding
again with meal on the 25th July, and continued
to give them two quarts of meal until the 25th
August. On the 25th August, he began feeding
the cows with corn-stalks until 10th September.
Then the cows had the after feed of the fields ;
and from the 1st October, these cows had half
a load of pumpkins per day. In November,
fed every cow fully with meal ; two and three
quarts per day until 1st December. After that,
the cows had nothing but hay until spring.
From the same cows, at the same time, butter
enough was made, and milk enough used, for
a family of six persons. The cheese sold in
New York for §10 dollars per 100 lbs.

"These products are certainly remarkable,
and show what may be done by attention, skill,
and good treatment of the animals under our
care. The pasturage in Cheshire is of an ex-
cellent description. The soil is generally of
a rich gravelly loam resting upon limestone,
and abounding in vegetable mould. It is like-
wise sensitive to the application of plaster,
which is very commonly used."

The same excellent authority who has fur-
nished the foregoing details, enables us to pre-
sent the following views of farmers in those
sections of Massachusetts most celebrated for
dairy products in regard to dairy stock.

"The farmers are unanimous in their pre-
ference of the common native stock of the
countr}', in which the Devon blood predomi-
nates, to any foreign stock with which they are
acquainted. They are in general as decided
in their preference of small, over large-sized
cows. They are not, however, raisers of stock ;
and buy their. cows wherever they can find
them, according to their best judgment. The
remarkable produce, if so it be considered, is
to be attributed to extraordinary^ good manage-
ment and keeping; and on this account, de-
serves the more attention, as showing what
may be done.

"The dairy stock in England which seems
to have the preference over all others, is the
Ayrshire. The origin of this stock is not well
ascertained ; but though it has some of the
qualities of the improved Durham, is a race
distinct from that. Great pains have been
taken and great expenses incurred, in order to
introduce this fine Ayrshire race of cows into
our state, by the Massachusetts Agricultural
Society, and by an intelligent and public-spi-
rited friend to agricultural improvement in
Waterstown. I regret that I am not able to
obtain such returns as would enable me to
speak confidently of the merits or defects of
this stock, so far as these cases go ; — but I am
safe in saying, that some slight disappoint-
ment has been experienced. It is probable,
from the celebrity which they had obtained
abroad, too much was expected from them here.
Extravagant statements have been made re-
specting their produce in Scotland. One of the
advocates for this stock, and a man upon whose
authority great reliance is placed, has under-
taken to calculate precisely the number of
quarts of milk given, and the number of pounds
of cheese made from what is staled to be in
money the average produce of an Ayrshire
cow. This is certainly rather a loose way of
reaching the result. Entire reliance cannot
be placed upon it. This, another distinguish-
ed Scotch farmer and dairyman admits ; and
says that 'those statements are far too high
and not well founded.'

" He refers to a farmer, on whose exactness
he entirely relies ; whom he pronounces a
man of superior intelligence and accuracy;
and who has devoted himself to dairy hus-
bandry ; and, further, whose stock were par-
ticularly select, and 'who had every inducement
to keep them in the highest condition requisite
for giving the largest product in milk.' The
farmer referred to, states, that at the best of
the season the average milk from each cow is
9 Scots pints (4^ gallons), and in a year, 1300
Scots pints or 650 gallons. A Scots pint is
two quarts. Now, allowing these cows to be
in milk 320 days, the average yield of a cow
would be 8J of a quart per day. But if we
understand this to be wine measure, which is
the usual standard of measurement in Eng-
land, and compare it with our customary
admeasurement of milk in Massachusetts,
which is always beer measure, we must deduct
one-fifth ; and then the average product of an
Ayrshire cow, compared with ours, is 6^ quarts
per day for 320 days. Such a yield is often
surpassed by cows of our native stock. I
have before me the case of a cow of native
stock among us, who, in 268 days, yielded
2923 beer quarts of milk ; and of another, that
produced 3975 beer quarts of milk in ten
months. I can produce, within my own know-
ledge, a list of nearly fifty cows of native
stock, almost as productive as these. I do
not mean to undervalue the imported stock.
Far from it, I deem the introduction of the
Ayrshire stock and the improved Durham
short-horn, a great benefaction to the countr}\
Their tendency to fatten, their early maturity,
their beautiful proportions, highly commend
them to our good will and our interests. As
2 K 2 389

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

yet, we have not had, by any means, a suffi- 1
ciently fair trial of their dairy properties so as
10 determine fully, either for or against them ; '
and it has been found here, in repeated in-
stances, as it has proved abroad, that a cow,
from a cross of an improved Durham, with
the Devon, has given a valuable animal for
the dairy. But among the great advantages
which is to result from the introduction of this
improved and beautiful stock, is this : to give
our farmers a knowledge of what can be done
by skill, intelligence, care, selection, and per-
severance in the art of breeding animals for
any purpose ; in obviating defects of form,
constitution, and habit ; and in perpetuating
and transmitting excellent and desirable pro-
perties. In the Ayrshire stock, and in the
improved short-horns, the most shrewd and
persevering efforts have been exerted, and the
highest practical skill and philosophy have
been taxed to carry this race to as great a de-
gree of perfection as any thing of the kind can
be ; and the success has been decisive and
wonderful. Excepting in one instance, to
which I shall hereafter refer at large, perhaps
there cannot be found in the whole of New
England, a single instance of any enlightened,
determined, and systematic attempt to form a
race of animals of particular and desirable
properties. It is most important that this
should be attempted in different parts of our
country, with what are called our native. stock,
which have become, in various ways, so crossed
and mixed up, that there is in truth no par-
ticular race among them. A large portion of
them are as ungainly, unthrifty, and unpro-
ductive as can well be represented or imagined.
Yet there are among them so many extraordi-
nary animals, — extraordinary for their produce
in milk, butter, and cheese, — that a few years
of careful and intelligent selection from the
materials already to our hand, and a strict
observance of those philosophical principles
of breeding which are well ascertained and
understood, would undoubtedly give us a breed
of animals, a stock or race of animals, greatly
superior to that which now exists among us.
This has been attempted in one instance by
a highly intelligent breeder; and he is now
able to show three generations of animals
of as extraordinary character for the creamy
or butyraceous quality of their milk as has
ever been known. Two quarts of what is
called the strippings, the last part drawn off
of the milk of one of these cows, having re-
peatedly produced one pound of butter; and
the cream, as it came from the pans, as I have
seen myself, becoming by churning converted
into butter of the finest description in less than
one minute by the watch ; and this process
repeated at pleasure.

"Let us now compare the amount of cheese
made by the English dairies, with some in this
county of which I have given here an ac-
count.

"An Ayrshire cow, it is said by the English
authorities, will yield 257 lbs. of butter per
annum, or about 5 lbs. per week, all the year
round, besides raising the calf; or of new milk
cheese, about 514 lbs. These returns are cer-
tainly large ; but they rest upon a calculation
390

of the quantity of milk which the cow is sup-
posed to yield, rather than upon any account
of an actual yield. None at least is given.
This, therefore, is not so satisfactory as it
would be, if it were a precisely ascertained
result. One of the best authorities says, that
in England, 'a well-fed cow of a. good breed
will produce, upon an average, 180 lbs. of
butter in the season. The common calculation
is indeed 150 lbs.; but this is made upon
mixed stock, which affords no certain data.
In the Epping district, where there is an indis-
criminate mixture of Devon, Suffolk, Leicester,
Holderness, and Scotch, the calculation, in a
well-managed dairy amounts to 212 lbs.; that
is, 6 lbs. per week during 26 weeks, and 4 lbs.
per week, during 14 weeks. The average pro-
duct of cheese in the best dairies, where the
whole milk and cream are used, cannot be
estimated at more than 4 cwt. — that is, 448 lbs.
On deep grazing soils, that carry a heavy stock,
a well-managed cow is reckoned to make from
360 lbs. to 600 lbs. In Somersetshire, the
average is 4^ cwt., or 540 lbs. ; in Essex not so
high, and in the midland counties something
more than 3 cwt.* It will be seen, in looking
back upon the dairy returns in some parts of
this countrj^, that they are inferior to these, not
frequently passing beyond 250 or 300 lbs. of
new milk cheese. On the other hand, the re-
turns of some of the dairies in Cheshire show
an actual amount of annual produce of more
than 500 lbs. to a cow, and in some cases 627
and 632 lbs. It may be said that this is owing
to the fine pasturage which is to be found in
Cheshire and its vicinity ; to the particular care
which is taken of the cows ; and the system
of high feeding adopted. But it shows con-
clusively that the cows are capable of being
brought to this productive yield; and the feed
and management are matters which can be
adopted anywhere.

"A farmer in Sandisfield has a dairy of
24 cows ; and they produce a cheese per
day, weighing about 100 lbs. Supposing that
it requires a gallon of milk to produce one
pound of cheese, this would give 400 quarts
of milk per day, or at the rate of 16^ of a quart
to a cow. These cows are all of native stock;
most of them raised by himself. His average
product of new milk cheese to a cow in a
season, is between 500 and 600 lbs. Last
year the actual yield was 598 lbs. to a cow.
Of his 24 cows last year, two were heifers of
two years old, just come in. Four years since
he was the o^vne^ of a cow, whose milk in the
best season amounted by actual weight to 70
lbs. per day. During the time of her greatest
yield, she was fed with four pails of cheese
whey, and some rye-meal. She was of native
stock. This farmer has a heifer from her,
which gives, as he supposes, 60 lbs. of milk
per day. He gives an opinion, Avhich from his
successful experience certainly deserves at-
tention; that heifers which 'come in' with
their first calf at two years old, do better than
when their coming in is delayed until three
years old. Their milking properties are in
this way improved. Probably he is right in
this matter ; but the general experience of the
best farmers recommends that, if a heifer

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comes in at two years old, she should not be
allowed to have another calf, under at least
eighteen months from this time."

In regard to the improvements in neat cattle
made and still making in New England, Mr.
Colman furnishes the following results, obtain-
ed at Ten Hills Stock Farm, near Boston, under
the enterprising efforts of Samuel Jaques, than
whom, he thinks, no man, perhaps, in New
England or the whole country, has more prac-
tical skill or better judgment in relation to this
kind of live-stock, his experience having been
long, and marked by critical observation. The
following extract contains Mr. Jaques's own
account of his enterprise and success, as com-
municated to Mr. Colman :

" It has," Mr. J. observes, " been my object
to effect such an improvement in milch cows
as should produce the greatest quantity of rich
milk, affording the largest quantity of butler.
There is a greater difference in pecuniary
profit between a good or a poor cow than
among any other domestic animals. In some
yards there may be found those which will
not produce more than three pounds per week,
and others that would make nine, and all on
the same keep. As we sometimes hear of cows
which have produced seventeen pounds of but-
ter per week, and even more, it occurred to
me to inquire why a breed or race could not
be formed with the same valuable properties.
This I have attempted, and have carried it to
the third generation; and I am confident of
success. I have a cow whose milk has pro-
duced nine pounds of the best butter in three
days, and this on grass feed only. This I call
my Cream-Pot breed. I have bred my cream-
pots with red or mahogany-coloured hair, yel-
low noses, with mahogany-coloured teats, yel-
low skin, silky and elastic to the touch. I have
obtained the breed by the cross of a Durham
short-horned bull on a selected native cow with
certain extraordinary points and properties,
anxious to retain as much of the form of the
Durham as to insure capacious udders, and
with the valuable property of affording rich
milk. Though an admirer of the Durham
short-horns, I have not found them producing
so rich milk nor making so much yellow butter
as I could wish. The Durham race are round
and straight in the barrel, full in the twist, and
inclining to be thick in the thigh. I have
wished for some improvement in the form of
the bag. But I would premise, that whatever
I may say in respect to breeding animals, I
only desire to express my own private notions,
without a wish to dictate to any one from the
experience I have had, which I am sensible is
very limited. Generally, cows which I have
examined, giving the largest amount of the
richest milk, have had capacious bags, full be-
hind, extending far up into the twist, and also
well formed; hanging moderately deep when
full in milk, and after the milk is drawn, quite
the reverse ; for I would avoid a fleshy bag.
My cream-pot breed are full in the body, drop
deep in the flank, are not quite so straight in
the belly, nor as full in the twist, nor as thick
in the thigh; but in other respects I wish them
to approach the Durham as near as may be.
My cream-pot breed excel particularly in afibrd-

' ing a great quantity of rich cream, and that

j cream capable of being formed into butter in

I a short time, and with little labour, leaving a

I small proportion of buttermilk. Their cream

produces more than eighty per cent, of pure

butter; and it is not infrequent to form the

cream into butter in one minute. It has been

done in forty seconds.

" I have a heifer designated as Betty Cream-
Pot, one of the third generation, which pro-
duced her first calf at two and a half years
old. Mr. Brown, my foreman, made the fol-
lowing experiment upon her milk, without
my knowledge at the time. After milking,
he took two quarts of her milk out of the
pail, and, having strained it into a pan, al-
lowed it to stand twenty-four hours. Having
then skimmed the cream into a bowl, he
churned it with a table-spoon, and in one mi-
nute, by the clock, he formed the butter. It
was then pressed and worked in the usual way,
and amounted to half a pound of pure butler.
After this, the following practice was pursued,
for eight or ten weeks in succession. At each
of four successive milkings, two quarts of the
strippings were strained into a pan, making
eight quarts in the whole. All was mixed to-
gether in the same pan, and then churned. The
average time of churning did not exceed ten
minutes; in some instances the butter was
formed in five minutes. Afler being properly
worked over, it was weighed, and never fell
short of two pounds. The remainder of her
milk was for family use, and, when set for
cream, produced the usual quantity. These
experiments were made on grass feed only.
She did not give a large mess ; only about
twelve quarts per day. I have forty cows and
heifers, ten bulls and bull-calves of different
grades of this cream-pot breed, all bred and
raised by myself. I keep my bulls, selected as
breeders, until I have proof of the quality of
their offspring. My old cream-pot bull is ten
years old. My Don Cream-Pot, from which I
am now breeding with some of my caws and
heifers, is three years old."

"It will be seen," says Mr. Colman, "that
Mr. Jaques speaks with all the enthusiasm of
an amateur. I cannot endorse, certainly to
their full extent, all his doctrines respecting
the power of breeding, at pleasure, any animals
of any desired shape or colour, and of forming
them as a statuary would mould his plaster;
but the approaches which a scientific and ex-
perienced breeder can make to such a power
as this are very considerable, as all the im-
proved races of animals show, whether among
neat cattle, horses, sheep, or swine.

" The dam of this stock was a noble-sized
cow, raised in Groton, Mass.; but the owner
there knew nothing particularly of her origin.
She was sold to a gentleman by the name of
Haskins, residing in Dorchester, about five
miles from Boston ; and her cream was of such
extraordinary richness, that it would become
separated into butter by the motion of the car-
riage in bringing it into the city.
•" Mr. Jaques is entitled to great credit for his
care and judicious selection in continuing and
improving the stock. I have repeatedly seen
i the cream from these cows, and its yellowness

391

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

and consistency are remarkable ; and in com-
pany with several genilemen of the legislature,
I saw a portion of it converted into butter with
a spoon in one rtiinute. The colour of Mr.
Jaques's stock is a deep red, a favourite colour
in New England. They are well formed, and
thrifty upon common feed ; and, if they conti-
nue to display the extraordinary properties by
which they are now distinguished, they promise
to prove themselves, for dairy purposes, the
most valuable race of animals ever known
among us, and as remarkable as any of which
we have any information. They have now
reached the third generation, and maintain
their high character.

"From six cows taken promiscuously in a
dairy of improved short-horn stock, in England,
with a view to test the quality of the milk, it
was found that they gave in the following pro-
portion of butter to one quart of milk :

No. 1, 3 oz. 6 dwta. No. 4, I oz. 10 dwts.

2, 1 " 6 " 5, 1 " 14 »

3, 1 " 12 " 6, 1 " 6 •'

" These measures, it will be perceived, are
given in troy weight, of which it requires 175
lbs. to make 144 lbs. avoirdupois. It is not
stated whether the quart was wine or beer
measure, and it is therefore difficult to adjust
the proportions. A variety of circumstances,
likewise, would affect, in some degree, the
result; as, whether the milk was taken at the
beginning or the last part of the milking ; and
how long the cows had been in milk from the
time of calving; and what was the kind of feed
given them at the time of the experiment. Still,
I have quoted the result, as, under any circum-
stances, showing by comparison the extraordi-
nary product of the cream-pot breed."

Mr. Coiman has added to his report of the
dairy produce of the county of Cheshire, a
table showing the number of cows kept on 45
farms in 1838, with their produce, the amount
sold, and prices obtained. The whole number
of cows was 913; the amount of new-milk
cheese sold, 300,000 lbs.; skim-milk cheese,
11,050; cheese used, 7,500 lbs.; butter sold,
19,050 lbs. The average price for the new-
milk cheese was 7^ cts. ; of skim-milk cheese,
3 cts., and of butter, 17 cts. per pound.

In the dairy establishments about Boston,
good hay, and corn-fodder are the general feed,
with sometimes carrots, ruta-baga, and mangel-
wurtzel. The ruta-baga, and all the turnip
family, .are apt to impart a turnip taste to the
milk, which is very generally disliked. Mr.
Coiman was informed by a very careful milk-
man that no objection of this sort is found
against ruta-baga, if they be given to the cows
directly after, and not just before being milked.
Before the next milking comes, the disagree-
able odour is entirely got rid of. The best
milkmen prefer good clover hay for cows in
milk to any other. "Potatoes and mangel-
wurtzel," says Mr. Coiman, "increase the
quantity without improving the quality of the
milk. Carrots, parsnips, and sugar-beets im-
prove the quality. — A milk farm, well situated
and with a good custom, is a profitable hus-
bandry where the milk brings 5 cents in sum-
mer and 6} cents in winter. A good deal of
milk is sold by the farmers to the milkmen for
392

3 cents per quart, of the profits of which man-
agement to the farmer I have strong doubts.
If we suppose that it requires 10 quarts of
milk to make one pound of butter, this at 3
cents per quart would be 30 cents. Suppose
the milk to be made into butter, there is a
pound of butter worth 25 cents, and, if of su-
perior quality, 33; there are the skim-milk and
butter-milk remaining, worth certainly for
young pigs 1^ cent per quart — say 9 quarts,
13 cents ; and there is the manure made by
the swine kept, which is of considerable value.

" The amount of milk furniihed by a herd
of cows through the year is very differently
estimated by different persons. Rare indivi-
dual cows may be occasionally met with,
giving ten, and perhaps, in some remarkable?
case, even eleven quarts of milk per day
through the year — that is, 365 times 11 quarts,
or more than 4000 quarts per annum ; but such
cases are very few in number. In Curwen's
dairy of 28 cows, kept and fed with great care
for 220 days, the average was eight wine
quarts per day, or a little more than six beer
quarts. In the Harleian dairy, where a hun-
dred cows were kept, it is said that twelve wine
quarts were about the daily average ; but the
statement, in the form in which it is made, is
very imperfect and doubtful. Twelve wine
quarts would a little exceed nine beer quarts.
Nothing could surpass the pains used in the ,
selection of these cows, the care taken of them,
and the abundance with which they were fed.
If the statement were positive, I should regard
it differently ; but as it seems to be rather mat-
ter of conjecture than of proof, I place little
dependence upon it. In a private letter to a
respected friend from the celebrated Fellen-
berg, it is stated that, at that institution, the
cows, which are considered amongst the best
milch cows in the world, average through the
year about six quarts per day. But here again
we are left at a loss to know, whether the year
includes only the season while they are in
milk, or 365 days. These are foreign state-
ments. I wish I had those from among our-
selves, on which entire reliance can be placed.
Men in these cases are so in the habit of deal-
ing in conjecture instead of facts, that it is ex-
ceedingly difficult to arrive at the truth. I have
been so often deceived in these matters that I
place little confidence in any thing which is
not matter of actual measurement and positive
verification. The most intelligent and careful
milkmen whom I have consulted are of opi-
nion, that their cows average about six quarts
per day for 365 days, and go dry in that time
from two to three months. A very careful
milkman, who may be entirely relied on, from,
20 cows produced 11,131^ gallons of milk in
a year. This was at the rate of 6^ quarts per
day for 365 days, or 7^ quarts per day for 300
days. These cows were native stock, ex-
tremely well selected and well fed. Succes-
sive trials on this same farm give about the
same result.

" On a milk establishment in Medford, under
excellent management for many years, with
twenty cows in summer and more than thirty
in winter, the average product for 365 days is
from five to six quarts to a cow per day. The

DAIRY.

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cows are fed in winter upon clover hay, an
allowance of a peck and a half each of succu-
lent vegetables, and some Indian or oil-meal
cake. The summer feed is not stated, but
great advantage has been derived from green
Indian corn fodder. Oil-meal cake is not con-
sidered of equal advantage with Indian. It is
deemed too dear if more than $25 per ton.
Carrots are preferred to all other vegetables
when the quality of the milk and the condition
of the animal are regarded. Since the use of
the most powerful hydrostatic presses in ex-
tracting the oil from the flax-seed, the cake is
by no means so valuable as formerly, and the
price should be proportional.

" In the case of a milk establishment in the
vicinity of Salem, on an average of thirty -five
cows in milk, the product in one year was
17,171 gallons of milk, beer measure ; in an-
other year, it was 17,530 gallons. In the first
case it would be about 5^ quarts to a cow ; in
the latter, 5^ to a cow per day through the
year."

Several enterprising individuals have im-
ported some of the very finest bulls and cows,
of the Ayrshire breed, generally reputed the
most celebrated dairy stock in England. In
regard to the qualities of these and their pro-
geny, Mr. Colman remarks that they are said
to yield large quantities of milk and produce
large amounts of butter and cheese ; besides
keeping themselves in good condition, and
being easily made ready for the butcher. The
cows are eminently beautiful. In size, how-
ever, and symmetry, they are decidedly inferior
to the improved Durham short-horns ; but
there is good reason to think them a hardier
race of animals.

Of the improved Durham short-horn race,
we have, Mr. Colman remarks, had some of
the best animals ever brought into the United
States, and their blood has been considerably
diffused throughout the countr}'. In point of
size according to their age, in respect to sym-
metry and perfection of form, these animals
are, in my opinion, not surpassed, indeed not
equalled by any others. "The Herefords," he
says, "are extremely beautiful; in neatness
and fineness of form perhaps superior to the
improved short-horns. The Devons likewise,
though considerably smaller in size, yield, in
compactness of shape, in quickness of move-
ment and muscular strength, and in softness
of hair and beauty of colouring, to do other
race known among us. They are the preva-
lent race of our country ; and in an extraordi-
nary instance, when I had the singular
pleasure of seeing three hundred yoke of
these cattle — that is, all more or less of this
breed — in one team, in Connecticut, I could
not resist the conclusion that a finer team, of
the same number of cattle, could not be found
in the whole country. Yet I am ready to admit
that I have seen some few yokes of oxen of
mixed blood, of the improved Durham, as fine
in appearance, and in reputation as good ani-
mals for work, as any that I have met with ;
and some individual animals of the improved
Durham short-horns, both pure and half-blood,
bulls, oxen, and cows, when all points have
been considered, have surpassed any thing

which I have seen. They have approached as
nearly to what I imagine the perfection of
form in this race of animals as is to be looked
for. With good keeping, they come early to
maturity, and attain a large weight. The but-
! chers, however, whom I have consulted, give
it as their opinion that they do not tallow so
well, in proportion to their size, as our own
smaller cattle. In my observation, no animals
degenerate sooner under neglect and poor
keeping ; and they require extraordinary feed
and the most careful attendance to keep up
their character and condition.

" So much sensibility exists in reference to
this subject, the dairy properties of the im-
proved short-horns, and so much of private
interest and speculation is now mingling itself
in the judgments which are formed or the
opinions given in the case, that, if it is not
difticu'lt to speak with calmness and sobriety,
it may be unreasonable to expect to be heard
with candour and impartiality."

With this jvidicious remark, Mr. Colman
proceeds to give well authenticated reports
made of the milking exploits of the short-horns
and their crosses, followed by the most cele-
brated performances of native cows, in yield-
ing milk, butter, and cheese.

From the numerous examples recorded of
superior dairy qualities exhibited in native
cows, we cannot omit the following: —

" The Oakes cow, in Dan vers, Mass., produced
in 1813, 180 lbs. of butter; in 1814, 300 lbs.;
in 1815, over 400 lbs.; in 1816, 484^ lbs.
During this time, one quart of the milk was
reserved daily for family use, and she suckled
four calves for four weeks each, in the course
of those years. She produced in one week 19^^
lbs. butter; and an average of more than 16
lbs. of butter per week, for three months in
succession. The largest amount of milk given
by her in one day, was 44^ lbs. She wa?
allowed 30 to 35 bushels of Indian meal per
year, and all her own skimmed milk and most
of the buttermilk. At one time, the owner
gave her potatoes, which increased her milk,
but not her butter. In the autumn, he gave
her about six bushels of carrots.

"A cow owned by Thomas Hodges, in North
Adams, produced last year 425 lbs. of butter;
400 lbs. of this amount were made in nine
months. Her feed consisted of one quart of
r>'e-meal, and half a peck of potatoes per day ;
and very good pasturing.

" Cow of Ralph Haskins, Dorchester, Mass.,
1827. Eighteen quarts per day — average 14
to 15 quarts. Before grass feed in April, the
cream of two days made 2^ lbs. butter, and
was made from 2^*^ quarts of cream. Two
or three minutes in churning. This was the
mother of Mr. Jaques's famous Cream-pot
breed.

" Cow of H. G. Newcomb, Greenfield, Mass.,
1830, from March 27th to May 25th, made
100 lbs. of butter, and reserved 160 quarts
milk. In 14 days, made 29j\ lbs. butter.

" Cow of Shelburn, Vt.,has yielded 26 quarts,
beer measure, in a day ; and at two milkings
in 24 hours, produced 3 Jbs. 14 oz. of butter.
This cow was raised in Vermont. Some per-
sons, from her great product, call her English;

393

DAIRY.

but the admixture of blood is very small if any ;
and if any, it is not known, whether Durham,
or Ayrshire, or what. There is nothing but
her colour, which indicates any difference from
our best formed native stock. She has some
progeny by an Ayrshire bull, which are very
promising.

^ "CowofS.Henshaw, Springfield. 17|lbs.of
butter per week, and in one case, 21 lbs. of ex-
cellent butter. In 4^ days, that is 4 days and
one milking, she produced 14 lbs. 3 oz. of but-
ter, at the rate of 22^ lbs. per week.

Cow of O. Morris, Springfield. "The summer
after she was seven years old, the quantity of
butter made from her between the first day of
April and the first of September, five months,
was 206 lbs. During the time, we used milk
and cream in the family freely. Some weeks
•wje have made 14 lbs., exclusive of milk and
cream used for family purposes. I have often
weighed her milk in the month of June, and
she has frequently yielded 31. lbs. at one milk-
ing at night. We have been particular to have
her milked in the summer at five o'clock in the
morning and at seven o'clock in the evening,
and always by the same person. I think much
of regularity in the times of milking ; and that
one person only should be permitted to milk
the same cow the same season. My cow has
always had a good milker, and her milk has
been rapidly drawn. Her food in the winter is
good hay, and in addition thereto from 2 to 4
quarts of rye-bran at noon. I feed and give
her water three times each day. In the sum-
mer, besides the pasture, she has 4 quarts of
rye-bran at night. From the experience I have
had with this cow, I feel quite sure that many
cows which have been considered as quite or-
dinary, might, by kind and regular treatment,
good and regular feeding and proper care in
milking, have ranked among the first-rate."

For their dairy products these examples of
native New England cows are certainly admir-
able. They do not, however, equal those re-
ported of many Durhams in our country,
among which may be mentioned the Belina of
Mr. John Hare Powell of Pennsylvania, an im-
proved Durham, which yielded repeatedly 26
quarts of milk in 24 hours, and produced in
three days 8 lbs. 13 oz. of butter; or at the rate
of 20^ lbs. per week; the feed consisted of
slop composed of Indian meal, with clover and
orchard-grass. One quart of the cream pro-
duced 1 lb. 5 J oz. of butter. In one instance
two minutes, arid in another only three se-
conds were required to convert the cream into
butter.

The celebrated Blossom, also an improved
Durham short-horn cow, owned by Mr. Canby,
in Delaware, gave 253^ quarts per week, being
an average of 36 quarts per day ; from which
were made 17^ lbs. of well-worked butter.

The famous Durham cow Dairy Maid, be-
longing to Mr. James Gowen of Germantown
near Philadelphia, yielded 83^ quarts of milk
per day.

Neither do any of these distinguished milch
cows equal in dairy qualities the celebrated
Cramp cow, owned in Lewes, England, which
still bears the palm both abroad and at home.
She was "of the Sussex breed, and came of a
394

DAIRY.

celebrated stock. Her performances recorded
were as follows : —

"From the first day of May, 1805, the day she
calved, to the second day of April, 1806, a
space of forty-eight weeks and one day, her
milk produced 540 lbs. of butter. The largest
amount made in any one week, was 15 lbs.
From May to June, she gave 20 quarts per
day. From 20th June, to 10th September,
18^ quarts. In forty-seven weeks, she pro-
duced 4,921 quarts of milk.

"In the next year, from 19th day of April,

1806, the day she calved, to the 27th February,

1807, forty-five weeks, she produced 450 lbs. of
butter. The largest amount per week was 12
lbs. The quantity of milk for the time was 4,137
quarts. During this year, she was sick and
under a farrier's care three weeks after calv-
ing. She went dry seventeen days only.

"In the third year, from the 6th of April, 1807
the day she calved, up to the 4th April, 1808
fifty-one weeks and four days, she produce(3
675 lbs. of butler. The largest amount made
in a week was 18 lbs. The quantity of mill^
given in that time was 5,782 quarts. In the
fourth year, from the 22d April, 1808, the daj
she calved, to the 13th February, 1809, forty-
two weeks and three days, she produced 46€
lbs. of butter. The quantity of milk given iu
the time was 4,219 quarts. In the fifth year
from April 3d, 1809, to May 8th, fifty-sever
weeks, her produce in butter was 594 lbs. The
amount of milk given in the time was 5,36i
quarts. The largest quantity of butter in anj
week was 17 lbs. This is the most extraordi
nary cow of which we have any record
Though it has been presented to the publie
before, yet the account may not be accessible
to all ; and I deem it useful to state the mode
of her treatment.

"In the summer season, she was fed on clo
ver, lucerne, rye-grass and carrots, three oi
four times a day; and at noon, about four gal-
lons of grains and two of bran, mixed together
always observing to give her no more feee:
than she eats up clean. In the winter season
she was fed with hay, grains, and bran, mixec
as before stated, feeding her often, viz., five
or six times a day, as was seen proper, ancj
giving her food when milking; keeping the
manger clean, where she is fed with grains:
not to let it get sour; wash her udder at milk-
ing three times with cold water, winter and
summer; never tied up ; lies in or out the bam
as she likes ; particularly careful to milk hei
regularly and clean. Milch cows are often
spoiled for want of patience at the latter end
of milking them."

With regard to the merits of the Durham
breed, about which such a variety of opinions
have been entertained, Mr. Colman expresses
himself as follows : —

" The beauty of the improved Durham short-
horns and their perfection of form are admira-
ble. They come with good keeping early to
maturity. They have a tendency to keep them-
selves in good condition ; and, with extraordi-
nary feeding and care, they arrive at a large
size, and some individuals, all points consider-
ed, have surpassed any thing within my know-
ledge. The Claremont ox, a half-blood Dur-

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

ham, whose pedigree is not known, which was
sent from this country to England for exhibi-
tion three years since, was pronounced by
competent judges the finest animal of the kind
ever seen there. His live weight was reported
as not far from 3700 lbs. The Greenland ox
was nearly as heavy, and singularly beautiful.
A native ox exhibited in Boston, in 1840, did
not differ much from these in size, fulness, and
weight ; but compared with them in appear-
ance, he was misshapen and deformed. The
Durham cows, in general, especially the se-
lected ones, which have been imported on ac-
count of these qualities, are large milkers ; but
their milk seems generally inferior as to rich-
ness or butyraceous properties. The milking
properties of Mr. Whitney's stock, at New
Haven, are very remarkable. The Durham
cows are large animals, and should be expected
to secrete largely of milk ; but many of them,
however, are inferior as milkers; and, upon as
calm and impartial a view of the subject as I
can take, from my own personal observation, I
cannot pronounce them, as a race, distinguish-
ed and preferable to all others for their dairy
Qualities. I have come to this conclusion with
very strong prejudices in their favour; and as
I measure my words in this case, I wish to be
judged only by what I say. Whenever a short-
horn cow proves an inferior milker, the enthu-
siastic advocates of the race are pleased to tell
us that it is because she has no pedigree, and
is not a herd-book animal ; but admitting that
her genealogy is somewhat mixed, it is singu-
lar that the virtues of th6 blood should not
show themselves to a degree, and that the im-
purity or defect should always predominate. It
is certain, however, that many mixed bloods
have in every respect excelled many of the
pure bloods."

Such are the respective merits of the short-
horned and common breeds for dAiry purposes,
according to the experience of one who has
had extensive opportunities for observation,
and who is to be regarded as a candid and im-
partial witness. We think, however, that the
most just view of the subject is presented in
the following extract from the Edinburgh Quar-
terly Journal of Jgriculture, and vre are pleased
to find this opinion sustained by no less an
authority than the late Judge Buel, who has
endorsed the sensible views of the European
writer, by imbodying them in his Farmer's
Inst ruder.

"It has been frequently asserted that short-
horned cows are bad milkers ; indeed, that no
kind of cattle are so deficient in milk. Those
who say so do not know the still greater defi-
ciencies of the Herefords, a species of cattle
quite unknown in Scotland. The highest bred
stocks of the Messrs. Collins, Mr. Mason, and
Mr. Robertson, yielded little milk. Indeed, Mr.
Robertson's could not supply milk sufl[icient
for their own calves, at least not in the quan-
tity which it was desired by him they should
receive. Cows were kept for the purpose of
supplying the deficiency of milk of the high-
bred cows. But this deficiency of milk did
not altogether proceed from the circumstance
o'C the cpws being of the short-horned breed;
because those eminent breeders devoted their

whole attention to the developement of flesh,
and not at all to the developement of milk.
Had the flesh been neglected as much as the
milk, and the property of giving milk as much
cherished as the developement of flesh, their
short-horned cows would have been deep
milkers. As it is, the generality of short-horned
cows are not bad milkers. Indeed, it is not
to be doubted that where the general secreting
powers of the animal system have been in-
creased, as it has been in that of the short-horns,
the power of secreting milk will be increased
with the power of secreting flesh and fat; all
that seems requisite is to encourage the power
of that secretion which for the time is most
wanted. I have no doubt that it is completely
in the power of the breeders of short-horns to
make them good milkers. It would be to de-
sire an impossibility, to desire the full develope-
ment of flesh, fat, and milk at the same time;
but there is no absurdity in desiring a large
secretion of flesh and fat at one time, and a
large secretion of milk at another, from the
same cow. Accordingly, this is the very cha-
racter which has been acquired by short-horned
cows. They will yield from six to sixteen quarts
a day throughout the season ; and they are so
constant milkers that they seldom remain dry
above six weeks or two months before the time
of calving.

"But the practice of the owners of public
dairies in towns, were there no other proof,
would prove the milking powers of short-horn
cows. They prefer them as the greatest and
most steady milkers; and it is now difficult to
see cows of any breeds but short-horns or
crosses with them in these dairies. In London,
Edinburgh, and Liverpool, fine short-horn cows
may be seen at the public dairies. They are
bought by the milkmen whenever they come
of age, that is, five or six years old. They give
milk till they attain the age of eight or nine,
and are then fed off" fat for the butcher. These
cows- can be fed off* fat. This property, and
that of milking, prove clearly that short-horns
possess both in a remarkable degree. They
do not, it is true, possess both in an eminent
degree at the same time ; but they exhibit either
property separately when it is desired. They
thus give a return in flesh for part of their
original high price, while they remunerate
their owners in the mean time with an abund-
ance of milk for their food."

Dairies in Holland, — Holland has long been
celebrated for its fine dairies, and the Highland
Society of Scotland, considering that the Scotch
dairies might derive some advantages from
an acquaintance with the management of those
of Holland, offered a premium for the best
report upon that subject, founded upon perso-
nal observation. The premium was in 1833
awarded to John Mitchell, whose report, filled '
with interesting facts and details, is published
in the Transactions of the Highland Society for
that year. In the quotation formerly made
from the London Commercial Journal, the
superior qualities and higher market value of
Dutch butter were referred to. Some idea of
the dairy produce of Holland may be gained
by considering, that in addition to the home
consumption of a populous country, and the

895

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

vast quantities sent to other parts of Europe,
to the West and East Indies, and other parts
of the world, England imported in 1830 no less
than 116,233 cwt. of Dutch butter, and 167,913
cwt. of Dutch cheese.

The pastures in Holland, as is generally-
known, have been reclaimed from the ocean,
the waters of which are kept off by artificial
embankments. The lands, of course, lie very
low and flat, and as the water in the numerous
canals is always near the top, the soil must be.
moist. The ground is seldom broken up with
the plough, but is kept in good condition by
top dressings, consisting chiefly of the solid,
and especially the liquid manures collected in
the cow-houses, mixed with the scrapings of
the small canals. The first year after such
dressing the land is generally nu)wn for hay.

The Hollanders make careful selections of
their cows for the dairy, the price of good ones
being usually from $40 to $45. "They are
generally fattened and turned off" to the butcher,
at eight years old, and bulls at four or five.
The cows are turned to pasture in March or
April, and are at first covered with a very thick
cloth of tow, covering the upper half of the
body from the shoulders to the tail, to prevent
diseases from cold. They are pastured about
thirty weeks. Hay is their common food in
winter, though rape-cake and brewer's grains
are sometimes added. The byers or cow-
houses are generally lofty, airy, paved with
large square bricks, and kept perfectly clean.
The roof is about ten feet high. There are no
racks or mangers, but the food placed in gut-
ters, always clean, near their heads. Gutters
in the rear serve to carry off' the urine and
dung, and these gutters are also kept clean.

" Process of manufacture. — The cows are al-
ways milked by the men, and the butter and
cheese made by the women, generally of the
family. Ninety cows are managed by nine
men and two women. There is generally one
man required to ten cows ; while two women
are considered enough for any dairy. The
farmer reckons that he can make 100 guilders,
about $40, per annum, by each cow.

" Butter. — There are three distinct kinds of
butter made in Holland ; grass butter, made
when the cows are at grass ; whey butter, from
the whey of sweet milk cheese ; and hay btUter,
made in winter. ^

" Grass butter. — The cows being carefully
milked to the last drop, the pitchers containing
the milk are put into the koelbak. When the
cream has been gathered and is soured, and if
there is a sufficient quantity from the number
of cows, they churn every twenty-four hours,
the churn being half filled with the soured
cream. A little boiled warm water is added
in winter, to give the whole the proper degree
of heat, and in very warm weather the milk is
first cooled in the koelbak or cooler. In small
dairies the milk is sometimes churned, when
soured, without separating the cream. The
butter, immediately after being taken out of
the churn, is put into a shallow tub, called a
vloot, and carefully washed with pure cold
water. It is then worked with a slight sprink-
ling of fine salt, whether for immediate use or
the barrel. When the cows have been three
396

I weeks at grass, the butter is delicious, is made
j in fanciful shapes of lambs, stuck with the
j flowers of the polyanthus, pyramids, &c., and
sells as high as 44 stivers, 60 to 70 cents, the
17 oz. or Dutch pound. If intended for bar-
relling, the butter is worked up twice or thrice
a day, with soft, fine salt, for three days, in a
flat tub, there being about two pounds of this
salt allowed for fourteen pounds of butter; the
butter is then hard packed by thin layers into
casks, which casks are previously carefully
seasoned and cleaned. They are always of
oak, well smoothed inside. Before being used,
they are allowed to stand three or four days,
filled with sour whey, and thereafter carefully
washed out and dried. Each cow, after being
some time at grass, yields about one Dutch
pound (17i oz.) of butter per day.

" We beg our dairy-women," says Judge
Buel, "to mark two points in the preceding
process. 1. No salt is used but what is incorpo-
rated with and dissolved in the butter, and which is
necessary to give it flavour ; and, 2. 2'he butter
intended for keeping is worked from six to ten
times, to incorporate the salt, and to separate
from it every particle of liquid, which, if left in
it, would induce rancidity.

" Hay butter undergoes a like process.

" Whey butter. — The whey is allowed to stand
three days or a week, -after being separated
from the curd, when the cream is skimmed off",
or the whey itself put into the churn, and the
butter is formed in about an hour. By this
process, in winter, one pound of butter is ob-
tained from each cow in a week, and in sum-
mer one pound and a half. The relative prices
are generally, grass butter 8^ stivers, hay but-
ter 7, and whey butter 6.

Cheese. — There are four kinds of staple cheese
made in Holland ; the Edam and Gouda, both
made from unskimmed milk ; and two kinds,
Kanter cheese, made from milk once or twice
skimmed.

" Edam cheese. — The process of manufacture
of the Edam cheese is as follows :

" The milk being yearned as soon as taken
from the cow, when coagulated, the hand or a
wooden bowl is passed gently two or three
times through the curds, which are then al-
lowed to stand a few minutes. The bowl or
finger is again passed through them, and
they stand a few minutes. The whey is
then taken oflf with the wooden bowl, and the
curd is then put into a wooden form (of the
proper size and shape of the cheese to be
made). This form is cut out of the solid wood
by a turner, and has one hole in the bottom.
If the cheese is of the small size (about 4 lbs.),
it remains in this form about ten or twelve
days ; if the large sized, it remains about four-
teen days. It is turned daily, the upper part
during this time being kept sprinkled with
about two ounces of purified salt of the large
crystals. It is then removed into a second box
or form of the same size, with four holes in
the bottom, and put undef a press of about
50 lbs. weight, where it remains from two to
three hours if of the small size, and from four
to six if of the large size. It is then taken
out, and put on a dry, airy shelf in the cheese
apartment, and daily turned over for about four

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

weeks, when they are generally fit to be taken
to market.

"Alkmaar, in North Holland, is the great
market for Edam cheese. It is not uncommon
to see 800 farmers at the market, and 470,000
cheeses for sale on one day. The price there
averages about 30s. per cwt. ($6 66). (Culti-
vator.)

" Gmida cheese. — This kind of cheese is also
made from the milk immediately on its being
taken from the cow. After gradually taking
off the principal part of the whey, a little warm
water is put upon the curd, which is left stand-
ing for a quarter of an hour. By increasing
the heat and quantity of water, the cheese is
made hard and more durable. All the whey
and water is then taken off, and the curd is
gradtially packed hard into a form cut out by
the turner, flatter and broader than the form
for the Edam cheese. A wooden cover is
placed over it, and the press, with a weight of
about 8 lbs., put upon it. It is here frequently
turned, and altogether remains under the press
about twenty-four hours. The cheese is then
carried to a cool cellar, put into a tub contain-
ing pickle, the liquid covering the lower half
of it. The water for the pickle is boiled, and
about three or four handfuls of salt melted in
about thirty imperial pints of water. The
cheese is not put in until the water is quite
cold. After remaining twenty-four hours, or,
at most, two days, in the pickle-tub, where it is
turned every six hours, the cheese, after being
rubbed over with salt, is placed upon a board
slightly hollowed, having a small channel in
the centre, to conduct the whey which runs off
into a tub placed at one end. This board is
called the zouttank, upon which several cheeses
are placed at a time. About two or three
ounces of the large crystallized salt is placed
upon the upper side of the cheese, which is
frequently turned, the side uppermost being
always sprinkled with salt. It remains on the
zouttank about eight or ten days, according to
the warmness of the weather; the cheese is
then washed with hot water, rubbed dry, and
laid upon planks, and turned daily,. until per-
fectly dry and hard.

" The cheese-house is generally shut during
the day, but must be open in the evening and
early in the morning.

" Gouda is the principal market for this kind
of cheese, where it sells at about 35«. per cwt.

"Each cow at grass in Holland is calculated
to give about three or four pounds sweet milk
cheese per day.

" We omit the method of making the Kanter
cheese, which is similar to our skim-milk cheese,
and of the cheese utensils.

" The milk-houses are generally between the
dwelling and cow-house, in a square ipart-
rnent, in a corner of which is the cooler; it is
airy, roomy, and paved with square bricks, the
upper part serving for churning, making cheese,
&c. ; and descending a few steps, into a sort
of cellar, is the milk-room, having two or four
windows, which are opened or shut according
to circumstances.

" The cheese-houses are also generally cel-
lars, kept clean and well ventilated.

" The Dutch are remarkably particular as to

the quantity and quality of their salt, of which
there are three kinds manufactured ; and it is
this, our reporter thinks, which is the principal
cause of the sweet and delicious flavour of
their butter, which, although well-flavoured,
hardly tastes of salt, or, rather, of that acrid
quality which is perceptible in the butter of
Great Britain.

" CleauUness governs in all the Dutch dairies.
Every dwelling-house is a model and a pattern.
They seem to vie with each other on this point.
The cow-house is pure and clean, not a par-
ticle of filth being to be seen in it; the cows,
says Mr. M., are as clean as if they were in a
dining-room ; the milk and cheese-houses, and,
in short, every part of the house, are free from
dust and dirt of any kind. The whole apart-
ments, even the byre (stalls) and hay-house,
are generally under one roof; and the cleanly
system and the admirable arrangement give
that comfort and pleasure which are too often
wanted in other conntries." See BueVs Far-
mers' Instrncter.

The Journal of the English Agriaultural So-
ciety contains an article on the rural aflairs
of some parts of Holland, in which an excel-
lent account is given of the Holstein mode of
making the butter which is so very famous.
The Holstein dairies are very extensive, vary-
ing from 100 to 400 cows, and provided with
buildings and everj' necessary accommodation
on a corresponding scale. Whenever practi-
cable, the milk room or cellar is made to face
the north, and sufficiently capacious to hold
the proceeds of at least four milkings. The
brick or tile floors have already been described.
Numerous windows or air passages are pre-
pared so as to secure the most perfect ventila-
tion ; they are furnished with glass sashes and
shutters, and within have gauze curtains to ex-
clude insects.

When, as is sometimes the case, both cheese
and butter are made at the same dairy, the
apartment for cheese is always kept separate
from that devoted to butter-making, from the
vicinity of which last every thing is carefully-
kept away which by any possibility could exer-
cise a sinister influence on the very suscepti-
ble substances of milk and butter, which suffer
to a degree those unaccustomed to observe it
little suspect from an impure atmosphere. The
dairy is managed by women, of whom there is
the superintendent, or head dairy woman ; and
one dairy maid to every eighteen cows. There
is besides the owner or overseer, and one or
more men who attend to the feeding of the
swine. There are others whose business is to
attend to the cows, see that they are properly
fed,and every thing in its proper place and keep-
ing. The overseer sees that the cows are fully
milked, as on this the quantity and excellence
of the cream is greatly depending. It has been
ascertained by carefully repeated experiments
that the first drawn milk contains five, the se-
cond eight, and the fifth seventeen per cent, of
cream.

The business of the head dairy woman is
arduous, and demands a full acquaintance with
the various processes. "She must not only
thoroughly understand, but accurately observe
the precise time when the milk should be
2 L 397

DAIRY.

DAIRY.

creamed ; the degree of acidity it must attain
in the ci"eam barrels ; its temperature, whether
requiring the addition of warm water or cold
to the churn ; as well as the all-important ope-
rations of kneading, beating, salting, and pack-
ing the butter." The milking commences at
four in the morning (the milkers rising at
three), in the field, and the milk is conveyed
to the dairy by a one horse wagon, from hooks
on which large vessels are suspended. To pre-
vent the milk from flying over the brim of
these vessels in moving the wagon, thin pieces
of wood, of nearly the size of the vessel, float
on the milk, and this practice is adopted when
pails are carried by the hand.

The eflTect which vessels made of different
materials has on the promoting or retarding
the acidity of milk, has received much atten-
tion in Holland, and the vessels most generally
preferred on all accounts are shallow wooden
heelers, holding about eight quarts. In some few
instances glass vessels are used, and some of
the reports speak of them highly. It has been
found that cream, to make first rate butter,
must be removed from the milk before the
latter gets at all sour, and that the cream will
not fully rise under thirty-six hours ; to pre-
vent souring before that time, especially in
sultry weather or during thunder storms, re-
quires particular attention to temperature.

A cellar temperature of from 60 to 62 de-
grees gives the best and the most cream, the
rising being completed in thirty-six hours ; a
greater degree of warmth hastens the process,
but lessens the quantity of the butter; a lower
temperature preserves the milk forty-eight or
sixty hours, but imparts an unpleasant flavour
to the cream and butter. The commencement
of souring in milk is marked by a slight
wrinkling of the cream, and a slightly acid
taste. . When this appears, whether the milk
has stood a longer or a shorter time, skimming
commences. As fast as it is collected, it is
poured through a hair sieve kept for this pur-
pose alone, into large barrels of 240 quarts
each, in which it remains till the necessary
sourness is attained, which in summer usually
takes twenty-four hours, and in winter thirty-
six or forty-eight hours. During this advance
to acidity, the cream is frequently stirred, to
prevent its coagulating or becoming cheesy,
and when fit for churning, the skill of the dairy
woman is required to determine the proper
temperature to make good butter. In warm
weather the churn is rinsed with the coldest
water, and if necessary cold spring water is
added to the cream, but if the cellar is properly
made, this is rarely necessary. In cold weather
the churn is washed in warm water, and is
sometimes applied to the cream itself. The
churning being completed, the butter is imme-
diately carried to the butter cellar, where, in a
large tray or trough made of beech or oak
highly polished, and provided with a plug at
the lower extremity to let off the milk, the but-
ter is slightly worked and salted with the purest
salt, moulded with a ladle into a mass at the
upper end of the trough, and left for some
hours to drain. In the evening it is thoroughly
kneaded and beat, the dairymaid lifting a piece
of three or four pounds, and slapping it against
398

the trough with great force to beat out the milky
particles. After the whole mass has thus, piece
by piece, been freed from the buttermilk, it is
again spread out, and receives its full salting
(in aU about IJ ounce of salt to a pound of
butter), which is worked with the utmost care
equally through the whole, and is then mould-
ed into a compact mass. Butter in Holstein is
seldom washed, though in some other parts of
Holland it is practised with the greatest suc-
cess. When enough is made to fill a cask, the
several churnings are once more kneaded and
beat thoroughly together, a very little fresh salt
is added, and it is then packed in the barrel,
which is mad6 of red beech wood, water tight,
and previously well washed with water and
salt. The cask must be filled at a single pack-
ing, each layer pounded down, and care being
taken that no interstice is left between the but-
ter and the sides of the cask. This packing
of a cask at a time gives the butter of large
dairies the advantage over small ones, as it
must be left longer exposed to air before the
quantity requisite to fill the barrel is obtained.

"The qualities of first rate butter are consi-
dered to be, 1st, a fine yellow colour, neither
pale nor orange tinted ; 2d, a close, waxy tex-
ture, in which extremely minute and perfectly
transparent beads of brine are perceptible ; but
if these drops be either large, or in the slight-
est degree tinged with colour, it indicates an
imperfect working of the butter; while an en-
tirely dry, tallowy appearance is equally dis-
approved ; 3d, a fresh, fragrant perfume, and a
sweet, kernelly taste; 4th, good butter will,
above all, be distinguished by keeping for a
considerable time, without acquiring an old or
rancid flavour.

" The quantity of food which can be afforded
to the cows during winter is determined at the
beginning of the season, when the harvest re-
turns are known ; and in plentiful years the
calculation is, that each cow should be allowed
three sacks of grain (generally oats, at 140
pounds the sack), 3,000 pounds of straw, in-
cluding bedding or litter for the stable, and
1,800 pounds of hay of good quality; Avhile for
every 100 pounds of hay deducted she must
receive 25 pounds of grain more, and vice versa."

During the winter the requisite colour is
given to the butter by some colouring mate-
rial ; and the best for this purpose is found to
be a mixture of annatto and turmeric, in the
proportion of five ounces of the latter to one
pound of the former.

The average quantity of milk from the Hol-
stein cows is about 2500 quarts per annum ;
much depending on the food and care ; and it
is calculated that every 100 pounds of milk
will give 3^ pounds of butter, 6 pounds of
fresh cheese, 14 pounds of buttermilk, and 76|
pounds whey, where cheese is made. Fifteen
quarts of milk are considered a fair average
for a pound of butter, though sometimes a cow
gives milk so rich that 12 quarts make a pound.
" On the whole, it is considered a fair return
from the Holstein dairies when the produce
amounts to 100 pounds of butter and 150
pounds of cheese per annum to each cow."
(Bnel.)

The farmer will find a good article on the

DAISY.

DANGEROUS ANIMALS.

dairy in Professor Low's Breeds of British Ani-
mals,— a beautifully illustrated work, which
should be patronised by all the Farmer's Clubs,
as well as by those agriculturists to whom its
price is not an object. The following authori-
ties may also be consulted with advantage:
«*0n the Meadows and Dairies of Holland."
(Trans. His^h. Soe. vol. i. p. 202) ; " Reports up-
on Dairy Management," {Ildd.) p. 341 ; vol. ii.
p. 254; vol. iv. p. 406); Mr. Aiton "On the
Making of Butter and Cheese in the Dairy Dis-
trict of Scotland," (Quart. Journ. of jjgr. vol. v.
p. 350, and Cmn. to Board of Jgr. vol. iv. pp.
21 1-337) ; also the article " Dairy" in vol. viii.
of the Penny Cyr. in Baxter^s Lib. of .Agr. Knotc,
and in vol. iii. of British Husbandry, Lib. of Use.
Know.)

DAISY, COMMON, or DAY'S EYE (Bellis
pereunis). These large white garrAy-looking
flowers are so universal in English pastures
and meadows, that description is almost need-
less. They flower all the year, principally dot-
ting the meadows early in May; in March they
begin to be common, and after Midsummer to
be less numerous. The root is slender, and
the plant flowers from March to September.
Double as well as proliferous daisies are com-
mon in gardens, and the proliferous variety is
now and then found wild. Domestic cattle
scarcely touch this plant. Notwithstanding
its beauty and its celebration by poets, the
daisy is thought a blemish or intruder in neat
grass-plats, and can be overcome by perpetual
stubbing only. (-t'ng. Flon^ vol. iii. p. 448.)
The most common daisies in the United States
are that called Flea-bane, and by botanists Eri-
gcnm strigiosus, and the Horse-weed or Butter-
weed (Erigeron Canadensis). This last has an
annual root, the stem growing from six inches
to five or six feet in height, very hair)' and
much branched above. The flowers are white,
and disposed in rays. In the Middle States it
is a common weed in fields and on roadsides,
flowering in August and September.

The daisy called Flea-bane has a biennial
root, as some botanists believe, and is common
in pastures and upland meadows, flowering in
June and August.' The flower consists of white
rays. It is a very common and worthless weed,
especially in the first crop of upland meadows
after a course of grain crops. (Flor. Cest.)

Another species of daisy called the Handsome
Erigeron (E. pulchellus), is common on the bor-
ders of woods and thickets, where it flowers in
the Middle States in May and June. Its root is
perennial, and the whole plant is somewhat
hoary. The rays composing the flowers, which
are large, are of a pale bluish purple.

Some ten or twelve additional species of eri-
geron have been found in the United States.
(Flor. Cest. ; NuttaWs Genera.)

DAISY, MOON, or MIDSUMMER DAISY
(Chrysanthemum leiicanthemum). The Ox-eye
Daisy, or while-flowered chrysanthevivm (PI. 10, w),
is a vile weed introduced into the United States
from Europe. In many parts of the country it
is s])read wide and far, constituting a serious
nuisance.

DAM. The mother of any young domestic
animal. Also a mole or bank to confine water.
See Embaxkmext.

1 DAMSON. A small, useful, black plum,
I brought originally from Damascus, whence the
name.

DANDELION, COMMON (Leontodon taraxa-
cum). A corruption of the French name dent
de Icon, or lion's tooth. An indigenous, peren-
nial plant, growing in meadows and pastures,
on roadsides, ditch banks, and indeed every-
where. Root tap-shaped, very milky, exter-
nally black, difficult of extirpation ; leaves nu-
merous, spreading, of a bright shining green,
quite smooth, and they may be called lion-
toothed ; flowers one and a half inches wide,
of a uniform yellow colour, which blow from
April to August, and have the remarkable pro-
perty of expanding early in the morning in fine
weather only, and closing in the evening. (Eng.
Flora, vol. iii. p. 349.) It is a valuable medi-
cine, is aperient, powerfully diuretic, and alte-
rative in its qualities, and, if persevered in, is
excellent in liver complaints; it must be taken
in decoction, or in the form of extract. Its de-
obstruent influence in torpid conditions of the
liver is striking; but its use must be persisted
in for a considerable length of time. It should
now and then be omitted for a few days, as it
is apt to derange the stomach.

By culture, and especially by blanching, this
herb, though, like the garden lettuce and en-
dive, originally full of bitter milk, becomes
sufficiently mild to be eaten in a salad, nor is
its bitterness of a disagreeable kind. In France
the roots and leaves are eaten with bread and
butter. The marsh dandelion (L. palustris), is
a distinct species, smaller in size than the fore-
going, and naturally a bog plant, growing in
low boggy meadows. Dandelion is relishecl by
goats, and especially by hogs', who devour it
eagerly; but sheep and cows dislike it, and
horses totallv refuse it. (Willirh^s Dom. Encyr.)

DANDELION HAWKBIT (Jpargia tarax-
act). See Hawkbit.

DANDRIFF. A species of scurf which is
brushed out in grooming the horse, and con-
sists of scales or portions of the cuticle, or
scarf skin, detached in its gradual change or
renewal.

DANE-WORT, or DWARF ELDER WALL-
WORT (Sambunis ebuhis). The green leaves of
this European plant have a narcotic smell, and
are said to expel mice from granaries ; nor will
moles come where these leaves or those of the
common elder are laid. Cattle will not eat the
foliage. Its berries impart a violet colour, and
their juice, mixed with vinegar, dyes raw linen,

as well as morocco leather, of an azure blue.
(Eng. Flora, vol. ii. p. 108 ; Willich's Encyr.)
This perennial plant is frequently mistaken for
the common elder. It grows four or five feet
high, and dies away every autumn to the
ground. The stalks are green and round, very
like the shoots of common elder; but having
no woody part about the plant, they rise green
from the ground. The leaves are longer than
common elder leaves, and they are serrated
round their edges. The flowers are small and
white, succeeded by black berries, which the
birds rarely sufl^er to ripen. It loves untilled
ground, hedgeways, &c., flowering in summer,
and ripening its berries in autumn.

DANGEROUS ANIMALS. See NnsASCE.

399

BANNOCKS.

DARNEL.

DANNOCKS. A provincial name for hedg-
ing-gloves.

DAPPLE. A term sometimes used to sig-
nify marked with various colours.

DARGUE. A local word signifying the quan-
tity of peat turf one man can cut and two men
wheel in a day.

DARNEL (Bromus secalinus). Smooth rye
brome-grass. (Bramus mollis, PI. 7, b.) Soft
brome-grass. Both these grasses pass in Eng-
land under the common name of darnel. Pro-
fessor Martyn supposes the annual bearded
rye-grass (Lolium temulentum, PI. 7, c), to be
the darnel of the Romans (Virg. Georg. i. 153).
Mr. Holdich, of the Farmer's Journal (Essay on
Weeds), observes that he never found this grass
among corn crops. Sinclair (Hart. Gram. p. 32),
says, " I have found the Bromus mollis and Jllo-
pecunis agrestis, with the Bromus secalinus to be
the most prevalent v/eeds (of the annual grass
kind) in corn fields ;" these, therefore, may be
considered the darnel of the British farmer.
In the Essay of Mr. Pitt, he treats of darnel as
a plant which he had often seen in wheat
crops, and perfectly well knew. Dr. Wither-
ing, in his Botany, also mentions this darnel
(Lolium temulentum), as "common in corn-fields,
mostly among barley and flax;" and that it is a
very troublesome weed among wheat, in Nor-
folk and Suffolk. The doctor also describes
another species of Lolium (L. arvense), as being
much like the other, only it is smooth, and calls
it while darnel. (PI. 7, d.) He observes that
it is common in many parts and places, and
" very injurious to a crop of wheat," for which
he quotes Mr. Pitt's authority. Mr. Pitt, indeed,
names his darnel white darnel, but immediately
calls it L. temulentum. Both these are annuals,
and flower in July and August. Now it seems
never to have occurred to writers on this sub-
ject, that, when they were in any difficulty about
agricultural weeds, they should have recourse
to the characters of the seeds of the plants. It
is quite impossible that any grass seed should
be darnel, either ancient or modern, unless the
seeds are heavy enough to resist the operation
of dressing, and to remain in the wheat in part,
in spite of all efforts to get rid of them. The
ancients had wind and sieves, and they no
doubt exerted themselves as much as possible
to rid their wheat of such seeds as those of the
L. temulentum, while such deleterious effects are
ascribed to them if baked in bread, &c. Whe-
ther these plants be common in corn fields in
any part of England, or whether, if they be,
their seeds are heavy enough to remain in sam-
ples of wheat and barley, must here be left un-
decided. I can only say that, in all my expe-
rience, and as far as I have ever seen or heard
from practical authority, I know of no darnel
in England but the Bromus secalinus, and, less
generally, the Bromus mollis. (Eng. Flora,vo\. i.
p. 151-3; Hort. Gram. Wob.; Sinclair's Weeds,
p. 4.)

DARNEL (Lolium). There are in England
three species of darnel enumerated by Smith
(Eng. Flora,vo\.i.Tp. 173). The perennial darnel
(L. perenne), common in meadows, pastures,
and waste ground, and well known to the far-
mer by the name of rye-grass or ray-grass. It
yields an early crop of hay upon high or sandy
400

lands, and makes a fine turf, which, however,
is said not to be lasting except upon a rich
soil. Much valuable information concerning
its cultivation and merits is collected by Pro-
fessor Hooker in his continuation of the Flora
Londinensis. The result seems to be, that the
grass is best suited to the light land of Norfolk,
where it first obtained its reputation. See Rte
Grass. 2. The bearded darnel (L. temulentum),
the seeds of which are of very evil report for
causing intoxication in men, beasts, and birds,
and bringing on fatal convulsions. Haller
speaks of them as communicating these pro-
perties to beer. 3. Short-awned annual darnel
(L. arvense), rather smaller and smoother than
the preceding, of which it is probably but a
variety. (Eng. Flora, vol. i. p. 172-5.)

It would appear that different countries
attached the name of darnel to different
plants. Thus, in England darnel is referred
to under the head of Rye-Grass, or Lolium,
and also described as a species of Bromus.
In some parts of continental Europe it appears
the seeds of darnel have the reputation of
causing intoxication in men, beasts, and birds,
the effects being sometimes so violent as to
produce convulsions. In Scotland the name
of Sleepies, is applied to darnel, from the seeds
causing narcotic effects. In England and
America these effects have never been known
to arise from eating flour made from wheat
containing cheat. It is evident that the enemy
of the grain crops called darnel, chess, and
cheat is not the same plant in all countries,
probably for the reason that different species
of grasses somewhat resembling each other
in external characters may be more favoured
by circumstances of soil and climate and ex-
posure in some places than in others. Cheat
or chess is evidently a more hardy plant in re-
sisting the effects of frost than wheat or rye,
which often die in situations exposed to cold
or other unfavourable influences, leaving the
darnel, which, from some resemblance in the
plant before heading, is thus supposed to be
degenerated wheat, barley, or rye. When,
however, the soil is rich and the other circum-
stances favourable to the growth of wheat and
other winter grains, these spread first over the
ground and keep down the cheat or chess, or
brome and rye-grasses, at least until after
harvest. Not only does the idea prevail that
wheat and other cereal grains degenerate to
darnel, but also to spelt, well known to be a
peculiar and very inferior species of wheat, of
hardy growth, and much cultivated in some
parts of Europe, especially in mountainous
districts. Thus, we find that to believe the
evidence of common observation, wheat de-
generates into spelt in some countries, and in
others into a species of bromus, fescue, or that
species of rye-grass (the lolium temulentum)
which is endowed with intoxicating qualities,
all being designated as the wheat enemy, darnel.
Nothing analogous to such metamorphosis can
be found in nature, neither can it be fairly
believed that such degeneration is possible,
until some one makes a crucial experiment.
It belongs to the credulous to afford the de-
monstration. For more particular information
in regard to cheat or chess in the United

DARTARS.

DECIDUOUS.

States, see Dr. Darlington's Flora Cestrica, un-
der the head of Bronius secalinus, Eye brotnus,
Cheat or Chess.

DARTARS. In farriery, a sort of scab or
ulceration taking place on the chin, to which
Iambs are subject.

DAUBING. A word meaning provincially
plastering with clay.

DAUBY. A word applied to land when wet,
signifying clammy or sticky.

DA VYING. A provincial word applied to
the getting of marl out of the face of the cliffs
on the sea-coasts, when it is drawn up by a
wince.

DEADLY NIGHTSHADE. See Bella-
donna and Nightshade.

DEAD-NETTLE (Lamium). A genus of
perennial or annual European herbs, of which
twenty species are described. Among which,
are the white dead-nettle (Z. album) and red
dead-nettle (Z. purpureum) to which medicinal
properties are ascribed. The herbage of the
former is scarcely eaten by cattle, and has a
slightly fetid scent. The flowers abound with
honey. Low says (Frac. Jlgr. p. 446) it is
sometimes common in corn-fields, and having
a strong, creeping, perennial root, it should be
carefully extirpated.

DEAD-TOPS. A disease incident to young
trees, which may be cured by cutting off the
withered parts close to the nearest sound twig
or shoot, and claying them over, in the same
manner as practised in grafting.

DEAF. A provincial word signifying blast-
ed or barren, as a deaf ear of grain, a deaf-nut,
&c. or such as have no grain or kernel. In
such cases it is probable that the pollen has
been scattered, and never communicated the
fertilizing principle to the seed, which resem-
bles in this respect an addle egg.

DEAL (Sax. ©eian, to divide; Ger. dielen;
Dulch, deelen ; Dan. daeler). The small thick-
ness into which a piece of timber of any sort
is cut up ; but in England the term is now im-
properly restricted in its signification to the
wood of the fir tree, cut up into thicknesses in
the countries whence deals are imported.

DEATH-WATCH {jlfiobium tessellatum ;
Tervies pulsalorium, Lin.). The popular name
in England for a small insect that harbours
chiefly in old wood. It is produced from a
very minute white egg, hatched in March; in
the perfect state these insects are about fyths
of an inch in length, and of a dark brown, spot-
ted colour. They make a ticking noise,
which is an expression of mutual affection
between the male and female, but which has
and is still superstitiously imagined by some
to be an omen of death. See Fenny Cyclo.
vol. nriii.

DEBRIS (Fr. debree). In geology, any worn
materials, such as fragments of rocks, ruins, or
rubbish.

DECAY. All vegetable as well as animal
substances undergo two processes of decompo-
sition after death. One of these is named
fir mentation, the other decay, putrefaction, or
eretnacausis. The decay of woody fibre (the
principal constituent of all plants) is accom-
panied by a phenomenon of a peculiar kind.
This substance, in contact with air or oxygen
51

gas, converts the latter into an equal volume
of carbonic acid, and its decay ceases upon
the disappearance of the oxygen. If the car-
bonic acid is removed, and oxygen replaced,
its decay recommences, that is, it again con-
verts oxygen into carbonic acid. Woody fibre
consists of carbon and the elements of water;
and if we judge only from the products formed
during its decomposition, and from those form-
ed by pure charcoal, burned at a high tempe-
rature, we might conclude that the causes were
the same in both : the decay of woody fibre
proceeds, therefore, as if no hydrogen or
oxygen entered into its composition.

A very long time is required for the comple-
tion of this process of combustion, and the
presence of water is necessary for its main-
tenance : alkalies promote it, but acids retard
it ; all antiseptic substances, such as sulphur-
ous acid, the mercurial salts, empyreumatic
oils, &c., cause its complete cessation.

Woody fibre, in a state of decay, is the sub-
stance called Jiiinius.

The property of woody fibre to convert sur-
rounding oxygen gas into carbonic acid di-
minishes in proportion as its decay advances,
and at last a certain quantity of a brown coaly-
looking substance remains, in which this pro-
perty is entirely wanting. This substance is
called mould ; it is the product of the complete
decay of woody fibre. Mould constitutes the
principal part of all the strata' of brown coal
and peat.

Eremacausis (from jJ^ftt* flow, and *«i/«f,
combustion) is the act of gradual combination
of the combustible elements of a body with the
oxygen of the air ; a slow combustion or oxida-
tion.

The conversion of wood into humus, the
formation of acetic acid out of alcohol, nitri-
fication, and numerous other processes, are of
this nature. Vegetable juices of every kind,
parts of animal and vegetable substances,
moist sawdust, blood, &c., cannot be exposed
to the air, without sufferin'^ immediately a pro-
gressive change of colour and properties,
during which oxygen is absorbed. These
changes do not take place when water is
excluded, or when the substances are exposed
to the temperature of 32°, and different bodies
require different degrees of heat, in order to
effect the absorption of oxygen, and, conse-
quently, their eremacausis. The property of
suffering this change is possessed in the high-
est degree by substances which contain ni-
trogen. {Liebig, Org. Chem. Fart 2d.)

In the Appendix to the Third Report of the
Agriculture of Massachusetts, 1840, Dr. S. L.
Dana adduces the following example, to show
that even with the presence of moisture, vege-
table matter will not decay, if air is excluded.
A piece of a white birch tree was taken from
a depth of twenty-five feet below the surface,
in Lowell. "It must have been inhumed there
i probably before the creation of man, yet this
i most perishable of all wood is nearly as sound
! as if cut from the forest last fall." See Ni-
! trification.

DECIDUOUS (Lat. decido, I fall off). In
zoology, a term applied to parts which have
I but a temporary existence, and are shed during
2 L 2 401

DECOMPOSITION.

DEER.

the. lifetime of the animals, as certain kinds of
hair, horns, and teeth. In botany, it is applied
to such trees and plants as shed their leaves in '
the autumn, in contradistinction to evergreens.
Thus the oak, the elm, the beech, «&c., are
called deciduous trees.

DECOMPOSITION (Lat. decompositus). The
reduction or dissolution of any mixed body to
the separate parts of which it is composed. It
is of great importance to be assured, that, in
every process of decomposition, whether by
heat, air, or putrefaction, nothing is lost, no-
thing is ultimately destroyed ; the components
of the decomposed substance form new com-
pounds. Decomposition is therefore not, in
strict language, a destructive process ; but
merely a change of affinities, and a transform-
ation of old into new compounds.

DEER (Sax. Tseop ; Swed. diur ; Lat. cervus).
The general name of animals of the stag kind,
of which there are several species. These
may be primarily divided into two groups ; of
which one includes those with antlers more or
less flattened, the others those with rounded
antlers. The elk is the most characteristic
species of the first group. The reindeer
differs from the rest of the genus in the pre-
sence of antlers in both sexes, and in the great
developement of the brow-antlers. The third
species of deer, referable to the flat-horned
group, is the English park, the fallow-deer
(^Cervus dama, Lin.). The period of gestation
in the fallow-doe is eight months. We have
in England two varieties of the fallow-deer,
which are said to be of foreign origin ; the
beautiful spotted kind, and the deep brown sort.
These have multiplied exceedingly in many
parts of the kingdom, which is now become
famous for venison of superior fatness and fla-
vour" to that of any other country in the world.
The spotted deer of the Dama species must not
be confounded with the spotted deer brought
from India, which is a distinct species, namely
the Cervus (^xis) maculatus, and never changes its
spots, whereas the spotted fallow-deer becomes
a uniform brown in winter. This species has
been domesticated in England, and propagates
freely in parks. It is smaller and more elegant
in form than the fallow-deer, and furnishes as
good venison. Of the species of deer of which
the beam of the antler gives a rounded form in
section, the red deer (C. elaplms) and the roe-
buck (C. capreolus) are indigenous species.
The male red deer, in the language of "</ie
noble art of venerie" is called a " hart," and the
female a "hind." She goes with young about
a week longer than the fallow-doe; and brings
forth in May a single fawn, rarely two. The
young of both sexes are at first styled "calves."
In the common stag, or red deer, the shedding
of the horns takes place about the end of Feb-
ruary, or during March. The fallow-deer
sheds his horns from about the middle of April
to the first weeks of May. The roe-buck is
the smallest species of European deer; the
male is monogamous^ and the female brings
forth two fawns. They are not confined to the
Scotish mountains, being still found in some
of the rugged woods of Westmoreland and
Cumberland. The roe-bupk in its native wilds
does not keep in herds in its perambulations ;
403

but it only congregates in low coverts. The
food of the roe-buck in the Highlands of Scot-
land is the Ihibus snxatilis, or roe-buck-berry ;
but in winter they browse on the tender twigs
of the birch and the fir. The flesh of the roe-
buck is tender and delicate, when the animal
has been hunted. The horns are used for
handles of knives, and other instruments.
Three varieties of the genus Cervus are pro-
fessed objects of the chase ; the stag, the fal-
low-deer, and the roe-buck ; each of which
have long been followed with great ardour,
according to the tastes of diflTerent sportsmen,
and their means of gratifying them : the roe-
buck is, however, becoming scarce.

The following notice of the several kinds of
deer found in the United States, is chiefly con-
densed from Dr. Harlan's *' Fauna Jlniencana.^*

1. The Moose (Cervus aires), is by some called
elk. It is the largest species of the deer kind,
and is distinguished from all others by having
broad and flattened horns, and a hairy tuft and
protuberance under the throat. In size, these
animals are sometimes larger than a common
sized horse. The upper lip is square, very broad,
deeply furrowed, and hangs over the mouth.

The length of the moose, measured from the
tip of the nose to the base of the tail is 6 feet
10 inches: height of fore-part 5 feet 2 inches;
behind 5 feet 4 inches: horns 3 feet 1 inch
long; breadth between these at their summits,
3 feet 10 inches : those on the male sometimes
weigh 60 lbs. They consist of a simple and
flattened expansion furnished with numerous
prongs on the -external border. The tail is ex-
ceedingly short. The neck is short, and the
female has no horns. Both sexes have a tuft
of long hair, like a beard, beneath the throat,
the male having a protuberance in the same
place. The general colour is fawn-brown on
the top of the head, the back, and rump ; and a
deeper brown beneath the lower jaw, neck, &c.
The under part of the tail is whitish. The
young animal is of a reddish brown colour
without spots.

Moose live in small troops, in swampy
places. Their gait, which is commonly a trot,
is much less active than that of other deer.
They live upon the buds of trees, moss, and
some kinds of plants. In eating from the
ground they are compelled, from the shortness
of their necks, either to kneel or separate their
fore-legs. They rut about the end of August
and all the month of September. The females
bring, forth from the middle of May to the mid-
dle of June, generally two and sometimes three
and occasionally only one at a time. The old
moose shed their horns annually, in January
and February, and the young in April. They
live 15 or 20 years. This species of deer is
met with at present only m the more northern
parts of the United States, and beyond the
great lakes.

2. The Rein-deer (Cervus tarandus), has a total
length of 5 feet 6 inches ; the horns are 2 feet
10 inches long, and 2 feet 2 inches apart at
their summits. Their size is about that of the
.common deer, the legs being thicker in pro-
portion, and the hoofs shorter and thicker, the

i neck is very short. The colour varies accord-
I ing to the seasons aind age of the animal. The

DEER.

DENMARK.

adult is of a deep brown in the spring, passing,
as the season advances, to a grayish-brown,
and grayishiwhite, and during the warmest
portion of the summer, is almost white.

The Rein-deer is the only animal of the deer
genus which has been subjugated by man.
The Laplanders have large troops of them.
The greater part of the males are castrated
and harnessed to sledges. The females fur-
nish milk, the flesh food, the skins clothing,
cordage, &c.

In America, however, the Rein-deer has
never been domesticated for use. The male
adults and sterile females lose their horns in
winter, and the new ones are not perfectly
hard and matured till August They carry
their young 33 weeks, at the end of which
time, generally in the month of May, they
bring forth. They abound in the norlhern re-
gions, but are not found in the United Stales
south of the state of Maine.

3. The Elk (Cervus Canadensis) called also
the Canadian or American stag, inhabits Cana-
da, Missouri, and other western states. The
head of this species very much resembles that
of the common deer. Its height at the withers
is 4 feet ; length of its branched horns 3 feet
to 3 feet 10 inches ; length of the tail only 2
inches. A black spot or mark descends from
the corner of the mouth on each side of the
lower jaw. The prevailing colour of the body
above the flanks is a clear bloody-red. The
female has no horns, and its colours are less
strong. The elks associate in families. The
females bring forth in the month of July. A
fine specimen preserved in the Philadelphia
museum, 13 years old, measures from the tip of
the nose to the base of the tail 7 feet 7 inches.

4. The Virginian Deer (Cervus Virginianm),
is the common deer found throughout the
United States wherever extensive forests re-
main. It is met with as high north as Canada,
and passing southwards through the Isthmus,
is even seen on the river Oronoco, in South
America. Its total length is 5 feet 5 inches ;
the horns, measured following the curvatures,
are 1 foot 10 inches long; these are provided
with antlers or branches ; the tail is 10 inches
in length ; the weight of the animal ranges
from 90 to 120 lbs. Its form is light, and its
motions quick and exceedingly graceful. The
colour of the young animal is of a deep brown,
with small white spots ; the adults in summer
are of a beautiful brown or fawn colour, whilst
the belly, insides of the thighs, and lower part
of the tail are white. They take their winter
coat in October ; their summer dress in March
and April ; their horns fall ofl" in February ;
they carry their young nine months, and bring
forth in July or August. Towards autumn the
fawn loses its spots, and the hair becomes
grayish, a state to which the hunters apply the
phrase in the gray. The coat is shed in the
latter part of May and beginning of June, and
is then substituted by the reddish coat ; in this
state the animal is said to be in the red. To-
wards the last of August, the old bucks begin
to change to the dark bluish colour ; the doe
commences this change a week or two later;
in this state they are said to be in the blue ; this
coat gradually lengthens until it comes to the

gray. The skin is said to be toughest in the
red, thickest in the blm, and thinnest iu the
gray; the blue skin is most valuable. The
horns are cast in January; they lose the velvet
the last of September, and beginning of October.

This species displays great enmity towards
the rattlesnake, which enemy they attack and
destroy with singular dexterity and courage ;
when the deer discover one of these reptiles,
they leap into the air to a great distance above
if, and descend with their four feet brought to-
gether, forming a solid square, and light on the
snake with their whole weight, when they im-
mediately bound away; they return and repeat
the same manceuvresuntil their enemy is com-
pletely destroyed. •

In Pennsylvania, by act of Assembly, the
killing of deer is restricted to the period be-
tween the 1st of August and the 1st of January,
and similar enactments exist in other states.
Deer are very timorous animals, and the
hunter must be intimately acquainted with
their habits and haunts. To approach them,
even with the rifle, he exercises an instinct,
which he has patiently cultivated, but little
inferior to his dog. During or after a shower
is chosen as the most favourable season for
deer-stalking; both as a time when the deer
will be more readily met with on the ridges,
and that the noise made by the steps of the
hunter may be drowned in the droppings from
the trees. Their fondness for salt is also often
employed for their destruction. A rotten log
is salted, and when the hunter perceives that
it is much frequented, he conceals himself
within rifle-shot near it; or if it bears the
marks of being recently visited, with a keen
and tutored eye, he traces them to their lair.
In October, November, and December the ve-
nison is best, if the weather has been mild ; but
after the country has been covered for some
time with snow, it generally acquires an un-
pleasant taste, from theirbrowsing upon the lau-
rels (rhododenrons and kalmias) of the swamps.

5. Great eared Deer (the Cervus macrotis of
Say), and by others called the Black Tailed
Deer, and Mule Deer, inhabits the most remote
northwestern territories of the United States.
(Fauna Jlmer. ; also Long's Expedition to the
Rocky Mountains, vol. 2.)

6. The sixth species of the American deer,
having become extinct is now only met with
in a fossil state. Part of a skeleton having
been sent by President Jefferson to the late
Professor Wistar, the bones are described by
the latter in the Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society, vol. i., new series. It pos-
sessed many of the characters of the elk
(Cervus Canadensis). The bones of this fossil
elk have hitherto been discovered only in the
morass near the falls of Ohio, called Big-bone-
lick, in company with the bones of the masto-
don, &c. (Harlan^s Fauna Americana.)

DEER-NECK, in horsemanship, signifies a
thin ill-formed neck.

DENMARK. The agriculture of Denmark,
especially of the duchies of Sleswic, Holstein,
and Lauenberg, has been described by Mr.
Carr. A large portion of this extensive dis-
trict is alluvial soil, of a very fertile descrip-
tion, composed of —

403

DENSHIRING.

Parts.

Silicioup earth ----- 0 »60

Clay --.-.-. 0040

Oxide of iron ------ 0 030

Chalk 0 0<)2

Gypsum - - - --- - - 0 009

Organic matters ----- 0014

Loss^ - ----- 0045

1000

The size of the farms varies between 50 and
200 acres, a portion of which is commonly left
for eight or ten years in pasture. The mea-
dows in the marshes are not uncommonly let
for two guineas per acre. The usual rotation
of crops commonly followed is, after grass,
oats, fallow, winter barley, rape for seed,
wheat, oats, beans, oats. The Danes plough
deep, with four heavy horses; crops usually
heavy, often returning as much per English
acre, according to Mr. Carr, as —

lb*.
Rape seed - _ - - 20 sacks of 200
Wheat - - - - 12 to 14 — 220
Winter barley - - 25 to 30 — 200
Oats - - - - 30 to 36 — 160

This, however, seems an enormous produce.
Their horses, sheep, and cattle are large, but
coarse. Jutland is the greatest breeding dis-
trict, the cows commonly yield from thirty to
forty quarts of milk per diem. Their imple-
ments of husbandry are poor. The wheel
ploughs, with wooden mould-boards, are drawn
by two horses. The harrows, with the excep-
tion of the brake, have generally wooden teeth.
The rotation on arable lands, is fallow dunged,
rape seed, wheat or rye, barley, oats. In re-
ference to seed*!, red clover is sown in the pro-
portion of 8 lbs., timothy or rye-grass 6 lbs.
per acre. Clover is made into hay; and then
pastured for four years. There are three dis-
tinct breeds of cattle in these duchies. 1. The
native cow, middle sized with not very long
legs, fine head and horns, moderately thick
neck, colour usually red or brown : these give
most milk in proportion to their food. 2. The
marsh cows, of a larger size, larger boned, co-
lour red, requiring luxuriant pasturage, giving,
when in full milk, twenty-four to thirt)'-two
quarts per day, but their butter is smaller in
quantity and of inferior quality to the others.
' 3. The Jutland cow, of fine bone, rather long
body, colour gray or dun, more valued for its
fattening than its milking qualities. (Journ.
of Roy. As:r. Soc. vol. ii. p. 371.)
' DENSHIRING or DEVONSHIRING. A
verm formerly used for the operation of paring
and burning.

DEVIL'S-BIT SCABIOUS (Scabiosasucdsa).
This perennial weed, delighting in moist pas-
tures, woods, and hedgeways, grows a foot
high, with slender stalks and dark purplish-
blue flowers, often milk white, resembling the
garden scabious. It is also frequently seen in
grain-fields. The stalks are round, firm, and
upright, divided into several branches, and
^ having two small leaves at each joint. The
leaves which grow from the root are four
inches long, dark green, harsh, and somewhat
hairy. The root is blackish, tapering, the end
appearing bitten off. It was called "Devii's-
bit," from the idea among the superstitious of
the olden time that the devil had endeavoured
404

DEW.

to seize upon a plant so useful in its properties
to mankind, but could not effect his purpose.
He only bit off a piece of the root in the strug-
gle, and carried with it all the virtue of the
plant. (Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 194.)

The plant known by this name in the Middle
States, is the Helonias dioica of Pursh, the
Veratrum luteum of Muhlenburg, commonly
called Blazing Star. It has a perennial root,
and is frequent in woodlands and meadows,
where it flowers in May and June. The root
of this plant is bitter, and a tonic of some
value. {Flor. Cestric.)

DEW (Sax. t>eap; Dutch daaw; Germ, thau,
moisture). The deposition of water from the
atmosphere during the night upon the ground,
leaves of trees, and plants, blades of grass and
other objects on or near the surface of the
earth. The phenomena of dew have been
considered by all writers on Meteorology, from
Aristotle downwards ; but they were first suc-
cessfully investigated by the late Dr. Wells,
who gave the true theory of the meteor in an
admirable essay on the subject, first published
in 1814. Dew does not fall from the atmo-
sphere like rain, but forms in very different
quantities on diflferent substances ; thus, on
metals, it is sparingly deposited; on glass it
forms abundantly, as it does also on straw,
grass, cloth, paper, and other similar substances.
Animal substances are among those which ac-
quire dew in the greatest quantity. The tem-
perature of grass covered with dew is always
lower than that of the surrounding air. On
calm and very clear nights (the period when
dew is deposited most abundantly). Dr. Wells
very frequently found the grass seven, eight, or
nine degrees, and on one occasion, fourteen
degrees, colder than the air about four feet
above the ground. In England dew proba-
bly begins to appear upon grass, in places
shaded from the sun, during clear and calm
weather, soon after the heat of the atmosphere
has declined; that is, three or four hours after
midday.

Very erroneous notions in regard to the man-
ner in which dew is formed or deposited, have
existed until a very recent period. This im-
portant agent in the promotion of vegetable life
has been supposed by some to rise from the
ground, whilst the phrase " falling dew," com-
mon in all languages, would seem to imply an
almost universal belief that dew falls from the
air, similar to the finest rain or mist. These
general impressions have, however, been de-
monstrated to be incorrect, by the experiments
of Dr. Wells ; whose explanation of the causes
operating in the production of dew is as simple
as it is satisfactory. When substances not
perfectly transparent, are exposed to the sun,
they gain more or less heat; but when the sun
goes down they part with their heat and become
cold. The surrounding air, however, with its
invisible vapour or moisture, being transparent,
does not radiate or shoot off" its heat, and hence
remains comparatively warmer than bodies not
transparent. Hence grass, leaves, wood, or
stone, by growing cold in the absence of the
sun, have moisture to settle on them precisely for
the same reason that it iiideposited on the outside
of a pitcher or glass containing very cold water.

DEW.

DEW.

The dew, therefore, is a deposit from that por-
tion of vapour which enters into the composi-
tion of common air, and which is swept in
contact with objects at or near the surface of
the earth, like breath thrown upon the blade
of a knife or other polished surface. When
the sky is clear, as in starry and moonlight
nights, then do grass, leaves, and other objects,
throw off their heat most rapidly ahd become
cooler than the air immediately above them, and
the colder they get the more dew is condensed
upon them. Different substances part with
their heat more or less rapidly, and this ex-
plains the cause why different proportions of
dew are observed on objects similarly exposed
to the atmosphere. A gravel walk will have
little or no dew upon it, whilst the grass on
each side will be reeking wet: because the
grass not only radiates its heat more rapidly
than the walk, but does not derive warmth
from below to compensate for the loss. Be-
sides, the moisture falling upon the gravel
walk is absorbed more rapidly than the dew de-
posited upon plants.

The temperature at which dew begins to
form is called the dew-point, and may be ascer-
tained very accurately. Thus, by laying a
thermometer on the grass in the evening, as the
herbage parts with the warmth collected
through the day, and gets colder, the moment
little globules or particles of dew are observed
on the grass, the degree at which the mercury
in the thermometer stands shows the dew-point
or temperature at which the watery vapour
condenses. It has been observed already,
that grass possesses a faQulty of radiating or
parting with its heat very rapidly, on which
account it quickly becomes considerably colder
than the air immediately above. If, when a
thermometer is placed upon the herbage, an-
other is suspended in the air two or three feet
above, this last will not fall so low by many de-
grees, the difference being sometimes as great
as 10 or 15 degrees of Fahrenheit.

In making this experiment, the instniment
suspended in theairmustofcoursehave its bulb
covered from the sky by means of a piece of
tin-foil, or other non-radiating substance, to pre-
vent its heat from passing off, in which case
the instrument would itself radiate, and thus
represent its own temperature and not that of
the surrounding air. It may be often observed
that in the morning, whilst the grass is reeking
wet with dew, a polished substance,, lying upon
it, such as the blade of a knife, will have little
or no moisture on its surface. This shows that
polished surfaces part with heat and become
cooled down to the deic-yoint very slowly. The
most dew will of course always be found on
substances which have the power of cooling
most rapidly, and few objects do this so readily
as grass and the leaves of plants and trees.

The degree of cold necessary to be acquired
by grass and other objects, before they can
have dew deposited on them, can always be
ascertained beforehand. Thus, take a thin
tumbler of cut-glass, having polished sides ;
fill this about half full of pump or ice-water.
Plunge into it the bulb of a thermometer, and
the moment a film of dew or misty cloud is
seen to form on the polished outside surface,

note the degree at which the thermometer
stands, and this will be the deic-point. Should
pump-water not be sufficiently cool to produce
a cloudiness on the polished surface of the
glass, some ice may be added; or common salt
and nitre, sal ammoniac, or some other sub-
stance employed in the production of artificial
cold. The temperature at which atmospheric
vapour condenses to form dew is generally
several degrees below the temperature of the
atmosphere. But this is only the case during
clear weather, since, when there is a fog, or a
rain, the deu^-point will be found to correspond
with the temperature of the air; showing that
any cause which contributes to bring down the
atmospheric temperature to the dew-point, will
directly promote the condensation of its vapour
or moisture into mist, cloud, rain, snow, or hail.
The many relations which the deti'-point, or de-
gree at which vapour condenses, holds with
atmospheric phenomena, may be understood
from this. And let it be borne in mind that
the deio-point is almost continually rising or
falling, like the temperature of the atmosphere,
being usually, in clear weather, some four, six,
eight, or ten degrees lower than common air, as
indicated by the thermometer.

The very simple means just described, by
which the dew-point can be ascertained, ap-
proximately, with the aid of a tumbler and
thermometer, is by no means the only mode
practised for the purpose. On the contrary, it
is the most primitive plan, and one requiring
great skill and judgment to ensure tolerable
accuracy. Mr. Daniells, a learned meteorolo-
gist, of London, several years since invented
a contrivance called a Hygrometer, for deter-
mining the dew-point, which is rather compli-
cated and too costly for general use. It will,
we think, be entirely superseded by an instru-
ment very recently invented by Prof. A. D.
Bache, of Philadelphia, of which the following
general description may furnish some idea.

One of the forms of this instrument consists
of a square bar of highly polished steel, about
half an inch in depth and breadth, and ten inches
long, one end of which fits into a case attached
to a box of tinned iron or copper. This box is to
contain cold water, ice, or a freezing mixture,
according to the season or rather to the tempera-
ture of deposition, or dew-point. The end of
the bar which fits into the case has its tempera-
ture brought below the dew-point, while the
other end is at the temperature of the air; one
of the sections of the bar is, therefore, at the
dew-point. Between this section and the box
vapour is deposited on the side of the bar, and
beyond it, in the highly burnished surface of the
steel, appears in strong contrast, the line of
junction being very well defined. To ascer-
tain the temperature of the line where the de-
posit of dew commences, cylindrical holes are
made perpendicularly downwards in the bar,
at intervals of about half an inch apart,
throughout the whole length, large enough to
admit the bulb of a very small thermometer,
and deep enough to carry the bulb entirely
i into the substance of the bar. If the line
of deposition is opposite the middle of one
of these holes, the thermometer then gives
the dew-point ; if between two of them, the

405

DEW-BERRY.

DIBBLE.

temperature at each hole is taken, by the same
thermometer, or by two thermometers, and the
proportional part of the difference correspond-
ing to the distance of the dew-point line from
the lower thermometer is added to the tempera-
ture observed by it. Care should be taken in
making this observation to let the temperature
of the different parts of the bar become sta-
tionary before attempting to register them. In
another form of the instrument, an iron or
copper trough containing mercury is substi-
tuted for the bar; one side of the trough, which
is best made square in its section, is of polished
steel or gilded. The trough is attached to a tin
vessel, as in the other instrument. When the
surface is cooled down so as to obtain the line
of deposit on the face of the trough, the bulb
of a small thermometer, which may be moved
along in the mercury within, is brought oppo-
site to the line. The temperature which it de-
notes is, of course, the dew-point. See Atmo-
SPHKUE and Htgromkter.

DEW-BERRY. The fruit of the blue bram-
ble (Ihtbtts ccemis), so termed from the resem-
blance of the glaucous bloom, or waxy secre-
tion upon the black shining berries, to dew.
(Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 409.) See Bramble.

DEWLAP (from lapping or licking the
dew). A term applied to the membranous
fleshy substance that hangs down from the
throats of neat cattle.

DEY. An old English word for milk, now
obsolete, but from whence we derive dairy.

DIARRHCEA. See Diseases of Sheep, Cat-
TLE, and Horses.

DIASTASE. When cold water is poured
upon barley newly malted and crushed, is per-
mitted to remain over it for a quarter of an
hour, is then poured off, filtered, evaporated to
a small bulk over boiling water, again filtered
if necessary, and then mixed with much alco-
hol, a white tasteless powder falls to the bot-
tom, to which the name of diastase has been
given.

If unmalted barley be so treated, no diastase
is obtained. This substance, therefore, is
formed during the process of malting.

If wheat, or barley, or potatoes, which by
steeping in water yield no diastase, be made to
germinate or sprout, and be afterwards bruised
and treated as above, diastase will be obtained.
It is therefore produced during germination. (/. F.
W. Johnston's Lectures.)

Diastase, like sulphuric acid, possesses the
property of transforming starch entirely, first
into gum, and then into grape-sugar. One
part of diastase will convert into sugar 2000
parts of starch. Seeds which have germinated
always contain much more diastase than is
necessary for the conversion of their starch into
sugar. This excess of diastase Liebig thinks
can by no means be regarded as accidental.
One of the functions for which diastase ap-
pears to be created in the living seed to sub-
serve, is to contribute to the wants of the
young plant. "The starch in the seed," says
Johnston, " is the food of the future germ, pre-
pared and ready to minister to its wants when-
ever heat and moisture concur in awakening
it to life. But starch is itself insoluble in
water, and could not, therefore, accompany the
.406

fluid sap when it begins to move and circulate.
For this reason diastase is formed at the point
where the germ first issues from the mass of'
food. There it transforms the starch, and ren-
ders it soluble, so that the young vessels can
take it up and convey it to the point of growth.
When the starch is exhausted, its functions
cease. It is then itself transformed and carried
into the general circulation. Or when, as in
the potato, much more starch is present than
is in many cases requisite, its function ceases
long before the whole of the starch disappears.
Its presence is necessary only until the leaves
and roots are fully formed, when the plant is
enabled to provide for itself, and becomes in-
dependent of the starch of the seed. When
this period arrives, therefore, the production of
diastase is no longer perceived.

"This I have said is one of the purposes
which appears to be served by diastase in the
vegetable economy. That it is the only one
we have no reason to believe. There may be
others quite as interesting which we do not as
yet understand. This is rendered more pro-
bable by the fact that the diastase contained in
one pound of malted barley is capable of con-
verting into sugar five pounds of starch.
(Liebig.) It is the diastase in malt which dis-
solves the starch of the barley in the process
of brewing, but as the diastase contained in
malt is sufticient to dissolve so large a quan-
tity of starch, it is obviously a waste of labour
to malt the whole of the barley employed. One
of malt to three of barley would probably be
sufficient in most cases to obtain a wort con-
taining the whole of the starch in solution.
Advantage is taken of this property in the
manufacture of the white beer of Louvain, and
of other places in Flanders, and in Germany,
where the light colour is secured by adding a
large quantity of flour to a decoction of a small
quantity of barley. And though at the tempera-
ture at which the seed germinates, more of this
substance may be necessary to transform the
same weight of starch than is required in our
hands, when aided by artificial heat, — yet as
we never in the ordinary course of nature find
any thing superfluous or going to waste, there
is reason to believe that the diastase may be
intended also to contribute directly to the nou-
rishment and growth of the plant. As it con-
tains nitrogen, it must be derived from the
gluten or vegetable albumen of the seed ; and
as a young plant of wheat, when already
many inches from the ground, contains nc
more nitrogen than was originally present in
the seed itself (Boussingault), this diastase
may only be the result of one of those trans-
formations of which gluten is susceptible, and
by which it is rendered soluble, and capable
of aiding in the production of those parts of
the substance of the growing plant into whicli
nitrogen enters as a necessary constituent."
(/. jF. W. Johnston's Lectures.)

DIBBLE (from dipfel, Dutch, a sharp point).
An instrument or conical stick to make holes
in the ground for setting grain, plants, &c.
"The subject of drilling by mjichinery," say
the Messrs. Ransome of Ipswich, "naturally
suggests the consideration ol^whether the ope-
ration of dibbling may not be similarly accom-

DIBBLING.

plished. Many ingenious contrivances have
from time to time been projected for this pur-
pose, and several patents have also been ob-
tained, but we are not aware of any that have
been successfully and advantageously used.

DIBBLING is a mode of sowing grain, es-
pecially wheat, much practised in some parts
of England. It is found to answer the best
on the clover leys of the lighter descriptions
of land. It is performed by a man walking
backwards with an iron dibble into each hand,
with which he makes the holes, on the furrow
slice, into which the seed is dropped by child-
, j| ren, who place one or two seeds into each hole.
»• J By this mode there is a very considerable
' saving of seed, the quantity employed of wheat
being usually from three to five pecks. The
wheat plant obtains a more solid soil, and con-
siderable additional employment is afforded to
the labourer and his family. It is, however,
a rather tedious process, and is not adapted to
the stiffer descriptions of soil, for on these the
dibble forms little cups, in which the rain is
apt to lodge to the destruction of the seed
grain. A good dibbler with three active at-
tendants will plant about half an acre per day.
The expense for labour is commonly about 7».
to 9s. per acre for wheat.

Dibbling was first pretty extensively intro-
duced into the east of England about the
commencement of the present century. It is
spoken of as a novel practice iu 1805, by Mr.
Curtis of Lynn (Cam. Board of Jgr. vol. iv. p.
158), and by Mr. Pung of Sudbury, and Mr.
Jones of Wellington, in Somersetshire {Ibid.
159); they had previously to this time made
some rude attempts to employ the dibble near
Yarmouth, in Norfolk, for, in 1784, Mr. Oxley
describes the farmers of that district dibbling
six, seven, and eight pecks per acre, in two
rows on each furrow, by three or four droppers
to one dibbler, at an expense of half a guinea
per acre. (Young's Annals of Agr. vol. iii. p.
220.)

»In Norfolk, and the neighbouring counties,
•. broad-casting is now almost unknown. Mr. J.
Barton, of East Leigh, Hampshire, says, 1836
{Hints to Schoolmasters, p. 2), I brought a man
from Norfolk, twelve months ago, for the pur-
pose of instructing, my labourers in dibbling,
and he brought with him the implements,
which are made in the following manner. The
body of the dibble is a core of hard steel,
round which is soft iron, so as always to wear
itself sharp ; at the upper end is a handle.

The instrument is three feet long, all iron
excepting the handle ; it weighs six pounds ; a
man walks with one in each hand backwards,
and makes from 3000 to 3050 holes in a day,
giving a slight twist with the wrist at the mo-
ment of plunging the iron into the ground,
which makes a hole that does not again fill
up by the crumbling in of the earth. The
ground should be even, then the rows are
dibbled, the holes four inches apart, so that
four of them can be covered at once by the
foot ; the rows are about four and a half inches
apart ; the holes are filled by a rake, or har-
row with a few bushes woven into it. I pay
nine shillings per acre of 160 rods for the
work, out of which the dibbler pays the child-

DIGITARIA.

ren who drop the wheat; three grains should
be dibbled in each hole, which will take about
one bushel and a half per acre. The Norfolk
farmers say the yield by dibbling exceeds that
by broad-casting by four bushels per acre.

Dibbling costs in Hertfordshire only 6s., and
in Norfolk and Suffolk from 7s. to 10s. per
acre, according to the distance of the holes,
but where they are thickest, and three or four
grains placed in each hole, it does not use
more than two bushels of seed per acre.

A writer in the Mark Lane Express says,
drilling wheat is the most generally practised
in the eastern part of the county of Suffolk,
and dibbling wheat has been upon the decline
for the last twenty years ; I believe, because it
is more trouble to attend to dibblers than to
drilling; but I was in the habit of dibbling
wheat when I took business for myself in 1807,
and I continue the practice to the present day,
for the following reasons: — 1st, It encourages
the poor man and his family, by increasing his
wages, and gives employment to his children
which they would not have if wheat was
drilled. 2dly, It shows the children, when
young, that Providence has ordained them to'
gel their bread by the sweat of their brow;
and I grow upon the four-course shift 100 acres
of wheat every year. For wheat I pay for
dibbling 7s. per acre, which is done by seven
men that have the largest families : those men
earn 5/. each in five weeks, generally, but if
the weather be fine in less time. Another and
3d reason why I prefer dibbling is, that the
men and children tread the land with their
feet, which makes the land firmer and better
for the crop. 4thly, It is better to clean the
land, because you can ohly hoe between the
rows of the drilled wheat, when you can hoe
all round the dibbled plant. 6thly, The seed
goes farther into the ground from dibbling than
drilling, the small end piercing deeper than it
appears, while the drill appears deeper than it
really is, the coulter of the drill raising mould
on each side, so that when harrowed the corn
is not so deep as when dibbled. 6thly, There
is always more under-corn, that is, small ears,
from the drill than from the dibble, and dib-
bling takes less seed. Six pecks is about the
quantity of seed it takes, unless it be very
early in the season. I am a great advocate for
dibbling, for the above reasons ; I have tried
both on the same field, and generally found the
dibbled wheat the most productive; and it
stands up belter against the wind and rain:—

Thus dibbling saves half the 3 bushels usually
broiid-cast -------- IJ

And the gain in the crop being - - - - '4

Makes .-..-... bk

Worth at SOg. per quarter ----- 55»,
And aAer paying per acre for dibbling - - -7a.

Leaves, per acre - - - . - - - 48

And even at 58. gives a gain over broad-cast wheat of
upwards of 20a.

DICK, DIKE, or DYKE. A provincial word
applied to the mound or back of a ditch, and
dick-hole is the excavation or ditch itself. In
Scotland it means a stone wall. See Ditch.

DIGGING. See Spadb Husbaxdrt.

DIGITARIA SANGUINALIS. PI. 7,/. Slen-

407

DILL.

DISTEMPER.

der spiked finger-grass, or cock's-foot finger-
grass. See Finger-ghass and Crab Grass.

DILL (Jnethum graveolens, from uy»6cv, on ac-
count of its running up straight). A plant
kept in kitchen gardens in England. It flowers
and seeds in August; the stalk is round, hol-
low, dnd upright, three feet high, and divided
into many branches. The flowers are yellow
and small, and stand in umbels on the top of
its branches ; the root is long. Its leaves and
umbels are used in pickling, and the former
in soups and sauces. It is a hardy plant, and
if grown merely for domestic use may be cul-
tivated in any open compartment: but if for
seed, a sheltered situation, and a soil rather
dry than damp, is to be allotted for it. It is
propagated by seed, which i§ best sown imme-
diately it is ripci for if kept out of the ground
until the spring, it is often incapable of germi-
nating, or if plants are produced they usually
decay without perfecting their seed; if neglect-
ed until the spring, it may be sown from the
close of February until the commencement of
May : the earlier, however, the better. Dill
may be sown in drills a foot apart, or broad-
cast, very thin and raked in. The plants are
to remain where sown, as they will not bear
removing. When of three or four weeks'
growth they must be thinned to about ten
inches apart; for if not allowed room, they
spindle, their leaves decay, no lateral branches
are thrown out, and their seed is not good.
To prevent these bad eflfects, in every stage of
growth, they require to be kept clear of weeds.
The leaves are fit for gathering as wanted, and
the umbels about July and August. In Sep-
tember their- seed ripens, when the umbels
must be immediately cut and spread on a
cloth to dry, as the seed is very apt to scatter.
A volatile oil and a distilled water are -pro-
•cured from the seeds. Both are used as car-
minatives; the water is a good vehicle for
powders prescribed for children. (G. W.
JohnsoH^s KiU-h. Garden.) The kindred species
called sweet fennel (Jnethum fauiculum) is by
far the most esteemed. See FcifirEL.

.Dill. A name sometimes given to the two-
seeded tare, a species of large vetch.

DINDLES. A provincial word applied to
the common and corn sow-thistles, as well as
to the taller hawk-weed.

DINGLE (from the Sax. Den, or t)in, a hol-
low). A small clough or valley between two
steep hills.

DISEASES OF CATTLE. See Sheep,
Horses, and Cattle.

DISHLEY BREED. This name, applied to
certain well-known breeds of cattle, and espe-,
cially sheep, is derived from the title of the
paternal estate of the celebrated Robert Bake-
well. The Dishley,- is, therefore, synonymous
with the Bakewell breed.

The name of this celebrated original im-
prover of stock is too intimately associated
with the history of a great agricultural interest,
to be passed over without some particular no-
tice.

Robert B^ewell was born about the year
1725, on his paternal estate at Dishley, in Lei-
cestershire, and died th(fre, October 1st, 1795.
Thoug'i it does not appear that he eoniributed
408

any thing to literature, even on the subjects to
which he devoted his life, yet his efforts, par-
ticularly to improve the breed of sheep, justly
procured for him a widely extended reputation.
The cross breed which he introduced is well
known as the Dishley, or new Leicestershire
breed. He is to be distinguished from a Mr.
Robert Bakewell, who, in 1808, published
Observations on Wool, with notes, by Lord So-
merville. (Penny Cyclop. ; Gent. Mag. vol. Ixv.
p. 969.) Of his cattle, Arthur Young remark-
ed, in 1783 (and Young was no flatterer), when
speaking of another excellent farmer — "His
cattle are of Bakewell's breed, which ijs giving
them sufiicient praise." (Ann. vol. ii. p. 156.)
And in the same volume, p. 379, when noticing
his breed of sheep, he says, " I have not a
doubt that it is, without any exception, the
first in the world." To attain this excellence
Bakewell devoted himself, travelling in search
of stock to breed from, not only over England,
but into Ireland and Holland. In 1787 his
fame enabled him to reap some reward for
these labours ; for in that year he let three
rams for 1250/., and was offered 1050Z. for
twenty ewes. The principles which guided
him in the breeding of stock are given, in Ann.
of Agr., vol. vi. p. 466, by Arthur Young, who
twice visited him at Dishley. He kept con-
stantly in view, in all his exertions, these ob-
jects— the most meat from the least food — the
least offal, and the size of the best joints. He
thought, it seems, that the pale-coloured beasts
yielded finer meat than the dark ones : he was
one of the first who generally introduced the
practice of feeling stock under examination;
not but what it was a practice partially adopt-
ed, even in the days of old Holinshed. Young
describes, vol. viii. p. 473, the Dishley sheep,
and Bakewell's neat cattle at p. 486, which
were, perhaps, the finest of his day ; and then
his great heavy black cart horses, speaking of
them as " by far the finest I have seen of that^
breed." Bakewell did much, too, in the con-
struction of water-meadows (Ibid. p. 490), and
it is evident from his various observations re-
ported by Young, that he was an enlightened
and successful agriculturist, as Well as breeder.
The Dishley sheep have long been celebrated
for their aptness to fatten, their quietude, and
the smallness of their bones — they will long
hand down the name of Bakewell as one of the
farmer's best benefactors. Bakewell made no
secret of his modes of improving stock, and
rarely, if ever, entered into controversies with
rival breeders. He wrote nothing himself, and
the first scientific work on the subject was
written by George Culle)'-, in 1792, who formed
himself on Bakewell's model. The examples
of opulent and spirited proprietors have since
continued to spread the improvements com-
menced by Bakewell, and followed up by CuUey,
Collins, Kline, and others too numerous to
mention.

DISTEMPER is frequently used in the same
sense as disease, but is particularly applied to
cattle. In racing stables it is the distinguish-
ing names for epidemic catarrh or influenza
in horses. Bleeding in the early stage is re-
commended, and it is important that the bowels .
should be evacuated, and sedative medicines

DITCH.

DOG.

given. (The Horse, p. 189.) In dogs distemper
is one of the most fatal diseases ; a little emetic
powder (3 grains of tartar emetic and 1 grain
of opium) is recommended to be given (Clater's
Far. p. 392), followed by a dose once a day of
4, 5, or 6 grains of Turpith's mineral.

DITCH (Sax. t.ic). A trench cut in the
ground, usually round the fences of a Held.
Trenches of this kind are formed differently in
various localities, but they should always be
made so as to keep the water in them as pur«
as possible.

DIURETICS. In farriery, such remedies as
have the power of forcing urine, that is, of
stimulating the kidneys to a moderate degree,
so as to augment their secreting power. Nitre,
iodide of potassium, turpentine, cubebs, and
juniper are diuretics. See Ball.

DOCK (Runiex). A large genus of peren-
nial plants, of which ten are natives of Eng-
land. The bloody-veined dock (/?. sanguineus)
has already been described under the head
Bloodwort. The curled dock (R. m?pi«), a
very troublesome and unprotitable weed,
abounds in waste grounds, pastures, and by
road-:s1des ; root tapering, yellowish stem, two
or three feet high, somewhat zigzag; leaves
smooth, of a lightish green ; clusters of nume-
rous rather crowded tufts or whorls of drooping
pale green flowers. The sharp dock (li.acutus)
is also not uncommon in low meadows and
watery places. Root blackish and rather slen-
der. The broad-leaved dock {R. oblusifolvus) is
a rank and very troublesome weed, common
everywhere, which can only be conquered by
stubbing up the root. Mowipg is to little pur-
pose ; stems a yard high ; root black ; many
headed; yellowish within. The other docks
are the golden dock {R. maritinms), the yellow
marsh dock (R. palustris), and the great water
dock (R. Hydrolapathum). {Eng. Fbr. vol. ii. p.
190.) All these docks are purgatives, and
may be used instead of rhubarb. A decoction
made with an ounce of the root of Rumex obtu-
sifolius and a quart of water, reduced by boil-
ing to a pint, then strained and sweetened, is a
valuable remedy in that peculiar cutaneous
affection called fish-skin disease (Ichthyosus).

Dock. A term signifying to trim the but-
tocks, &c. of sheep.

DOCKING. In farriery, the art of catting
off the tails of horses ; and for a description
of which see The Horse (Lib. Use. Know., p. 327).

DODDED SHEEP. SucJh as are without
horns.

DODDER (Cuscuta Evropaa). PI. 10, e. The
name of a species of bird-wee(?, which is not
very commonly met with. This curious plant
is unlike all others in appearance, having no
leaves. The thread-shaped, red, or purple
stalks, twining about other plants, headed with
small reddish flowers, are easily to be recog-
nised ; they grow upon heaths and commons,
intersecting the furze and nettles, and twisting
themselves round every thing they can meet
with. The common people, who^speak truly,
but not in courtly terms, call it devil's-guts and
hell-weed, because it does great damage among
their tares and flax. The lesser dodder (C. epi-
thymum) is of a similar habit, but smaller thaii
the preceding.

52

This is the curious creeping plant or vine
which was formerly so frequent and injurious
to flax-crops in the United States, often en-
tangling and spoiling whole lots of it ; but since
the culture of flax has so much diminished,
dodder has become rare.

The American Cusriila, Dodder, or Love-Vine, is
also a singular parasite, which seizes upon any
herbaceous plant which may be within its
reach ; but it is most commonly found in lo-
calities where the snap-weed, spearmint, and
false-nettle occur. Its, thread-like naked stems
have some resemblance to brass, or copper-
wire, and twine constantly against the apparent
course of the sun, — or ivesi, south, east. (Flor.
Cestrica.)

DOE. In ♦the technical language of the
hunter, the female of the buck or fallow deer.
The female of the red deer is called a hind.

DOG (Lat. Canis). An extensive genus of
animals, consisting of more than thirty species,
of which that most generally known is the do-
mestic dog (C. familiai-is). The arrangement
of M. Curler classes the dogs of the present
day into three groups, dogs properly so called,
wolves, and jackals. It will be sufficient for our
present purpose to speak of the dogs under
three heads: 1. Farm dogs; 2, Hunting dogs;
3. Shooting dogs. The first includes the shep-
herd's dog, the mastiff, and the bull-dog. The
second, the terrier, the hound, the harrier, the
beagle, and the greyhound. The third class
includes the pointer, the setter, and the spaniel.
All these will be found noticed under their se-
parate heads. That ingenious naturalist Mr.
James Wilson has entered into the question of
the origin of our domestic breed of dogs.
(Quart. Journ. of Jgr. vol. vii. p. 539—681.)
Col. Hamilton Smith has also taken up the
natural history of dogs. (Nattiralist's Lib. vols.
XXV. xxvi. See a notice in the Quart. Journ,
of Jgr. vol. ii. p. 511.) All zoologists agree
that there is no trace of the dog to be found in
its primitive state of nature, although wild dogs
exist in India and America. The great affinity
to the wolf, and the period of gestation being
the same, have led some to believe that the
wolf is the original dog. The two animals will
breed together; the young of both are bom
blind, and at the expiration of the same time,
namely, 10 or 12 days, the puppies of both ac-
quire the power of vision. But one fact ren-
ders this supposition at least doubtful, — none
of the wild dogs, living in a state of nature,
have ever returned to the true form of the wolf.
The minute examination of this question, how-
ever, would be out of place in this publication.
In all the varieties of the dog, the following
circumstances in his economy are constant:
he is born with his eyes closed, he opens them
on the 10th or 12th day ; his teeth commence
changing in the fourth month ; and his full
growth is attained at the expiration of the se-
cond year. The period of gestation is 63 days,
and from 6 to 12 pups are produced at a birth.
The dog is old at 15 years, and seldom lives
beyond 20 ; his vigilance and bark are univer-
sally known. The dog is liable to so many
diseases, that to treat of them here would be
impossible. Among the principal are the dis-
temper, rabies, canker in the ear, the mange,
2M 409

DOG BRAMBLE.

DOGWOOD.

diseases of the eyes, fits, diarrhaea, &c., all of
which are treated of under their several heads.

In England, the shepherd's dog (C. fam. do-
vicsticus, Lin.) offers the example of one of the
purest races of this domesticated animal, and
that which, in its straight ears, its hair and
tail,' approaches nearest to the original stock.
The sagacity of this variety in the peculiar
department in which his services are rendered
to man is well known, and has been illustrated j
by a hundred interesting anecdotes. It is a ,
curious fact, that the brain of the shepherd's i
dog is larger than that of any other of the race;
but how far this is connected with his sagacity
we shall not pretend to aifirm. Notwithstand-
ing the great variations in size met with in the
pasture or shepherd's dog, in different coun-
tries of the globe (for he is probably the most
extensively diffused of the race), yet he every-
where preserves some personal characteristics,
which mark his adherence to the original type
in a greater degree than in any other breed
over which man has so arbitrarily exercised
his dominion. One of these characteristics is
his quantity of covering, which is invariably
great, particularly about the neck. The large
drover's dog, which attends the beast-markets,
is larger, and usually of a stronger build than
the sheep-dog. The sagacious colly of Scot-
land is a dog deservedly prized, though much
smaller than either the English sheep-dog or
the drover's cattle-dog. -The ears are never
wholly pendent in any of the 'race ; but in the
British varieties, and many others also, they
are half-erected, or half -pricked, as it is called.
The prevailing colour is very generally gray,
more or less dark; the tail is bushy, somewhat
pendent, and recurved; visage more or less
pointed.

DOG BRx\MBLE {Ribes cynoshati). One of
a valuable genus of plants, which contains the
gooseberry and the currant : some of the spe-
cies are well suited for ornamenting shrubbe-
ries. They will grow in any soil, propagated
by cuttings planted in autumn, or early in
spring.

DOG-BRIER and DOG-ROSE {Rosa canina).
The wild brier bearing the hip or hep.

DOG-DAYS, or CANICULAR DAYS. The
name given- to certain days of the year, during
which the heat is usually the greatest. They
are reckoned about forty, and are set down in
the almanacs as beginning on the 3d July, and
ending on the 11th August. In the time of the
ancient astronomers, the remarkable star Si-
rius, called also canicular, or the dog-star, rose
heliacally, that is, just before the sun, about
the beginning of July; and the sultry heat
which usually prevails at that season, with all
its disagreeable effects, among which the ten-
dency of dogs to become rabid is not one of
the least disagreeable, were ascribed to the
malignant rage of this star. Owing to the pre-
cession of the equinoxes, the heliacal rising of
Sirius now takes place later in the year, and
in a cooler season ; so that the dog-days have
not now that relation to the particular position
of the dog-star, from which they obtained their
name.

DOG -FENNEL. One of the provincial
names of the weed corn-camomile.
410

DOG-FLY (Cynomia, Lin.). A genus of
insects Common in woods and among bushes,
that is particularly troublesome to dogs, fasten-
ing upon their head and ears. They sting very
severely, and always raise a blister in the part
they touch.

DOG POISON, FOOL'S PARSLEY (JEilni'
sa cynapium). PI. '10, q. An umbelliferous
plant, frequently found in gardens. It is easily
distinguished from the other umbellifera by
the partial umbels, consisting of three narrow,
long, linear leaflets, which hang down. The
leaves have short sheathing footstalks, are
doubly pinnate, with decurrent, pinnatifid leaf-
lets. It has been eaten for parsley, and has
proved fatal. » The stem and leaves are poi-
sonous, and contain a peculiar alkali, called
cynapia.

DOG'S-BANE (Cynanchum monspeliarum). A
perennial, native of Montpelier, which loves
warmth and a good soil. Blows pale pink
flowers in July and August. Cover the roots
in frosts. Propagate by suckers.

A plant under the sanie popular name is
described by Dr. Darlington, as found in
Chester county, Pennsylvania. (Flor. Cest.)

DOG'S CABBAGE (Thelygomim cyrwbrumbe),
A common garden soil suils this species ; pro-i
pagate by seeds.

DOG'S GRASS. See Couch.

DOG'S TAIL GRASS. See Ctxostjrus.

DOG'S TONGUE (Cynoglossum). See
Hound's-tonoue.

DOG'S TOOTH GRASS, CREEPING (Cy-
nodon dactylon). PI. 7, k. This grass was
identified by A. R. Lambert, Esq. {Trans. Linn,
Soc. vol. vi.) as the celebrated hallowed doob-
grass of the Hindoos. In the East Indies thi^
grass grows luxuriantly, and is highly valued
as food for horses, &c. ; in England, however,
it scarcely begins to vegetate till the month of
June, and experiments made by Sinclair and
others show that its produce and nutritive
powers here are not sufficiently great to hold
out any hope that its valuable properties in th^
East Indies can be made available in the
climate and soil of Britain. The doob-grass
flowers in September, and the seed is ripe
about the end of October, and sometimes in
November. The plants, natives of the English
coasts, flower about a month earlier than the
above. It is found on the sandy shores of
Cornwall abundantly, and was first noticed by
Mr. Newton, in the time of Ray. {Hort. Gram.
Web. p. 290 ; Eng. Flor. vol. i." p. 94.)

DOG-WHEAT. See Couch.

DOGWOOD, A name applied to two differ-
ent plants: in England to any of the shrubby
species of Cornus; in the West Indies to the
Piscidia erythrina. The former are of little
interest, except as ornamental shrubs ; the
latter is a powerful narcotic, the real value of
which in medicine has still to be determined.

There are two indigenous species of cornel
or dogwood; the C. sanguinea, a bush of four
or five feet high, with smooth branches of a
dark red when full grown; fruit dark purple,
very bitter, like every other part of the plant;
found common in hedges and thickets, espe-
cially on a chalk or limestone soil : and the
dwarf cornel (C. sitecica), growing in moist

DOGWOOD.

DOLPHIN-FLY.

alpine pastures, on the herbaceous stem four
to six inches high. (Evg. Flora, vol. i. p. 221;)
The English names of this shrub, says Phil-
lips (5(//. Flora, vo\. i. p. 183), are scarcely less
numerous than the tints of its leaves. It is
often called female cornel, to distinguish it
from Cornus niascula, and hound's berry tree,
dogberry, &c. (because, says Parkinson, the
frUit is not even fit for the dogs), and hence
ihe name of dogwood.

The Cornelian cherry (Cornus masntla) is a
native of Austria, growing from fifteen to
twenty feet high. See Coiineliax CHEnnr.

The American dogwood {Cornus Florida) is
a small North American tree, the botanical
name of which is derived from the horny
toughness of its close-grained and firm wood.
It is a very common undergrowth in woods,
composed of deciduous trees. Very early in
the spring, before the trees by which ihey are
overtopped put out their leaves, the dogwood
expands its beautiful white blossoms, and in
such profusion as sometimes, at a distance, to
resemble a snow-bank. The wood of this
small tree is highly prized for a variety of
useful purposes, among which is the making
of cogs for mill-\yheels. The bark is an ex-
cellent tonic, thought by some almost equal to
Peruvian bark in its efficacy in curing inter-
mittent fevers. A preparation called rnrnine
has been extracted from it, very much resem-
bling iinmivc. The unfolding of the blossoms
of the dogwood is the signal to the American
farmers to plant Indian corn.

"Among the eight species of dogwood which
have been observed in North America, this
alone is entitled by its size to be classed with
the forest trees. It is the most interesting, too,
for the value of its wood, the properties of its
bark, and the beauty of its flowers. In the
United States at large, it is known by the name
of dogwood, and in Connecticut it is also
called box wood.

"The dogwood is first seen in Massachusetts
between the 42° and 43° of latitude, and in
proceeding, southward; it is met with uninter-
ruptedly throughout the Eastern and Western
States, and the two Floridas, to the banks of the
Mississippi. Over this vast extent of country
it is one of the most common trees, and it
abounds particularly in New Jersey, Pennsyl-
vania, Maryland, and Virginia, wherever the
soil is moist, gravelly, and somewhat uneven ;
farther south, in the Carolinas, Georgia, and
the Floridas, it is found only on the borders of
swamps, and never in the pine barrens, where
the soil is too dry and sandy to sustain its
vegetation. In the most fertile districts of
Kentucky and West Tennessee it does not
appear in the forests, except where the soil is
gravelly and of a middling quality.

"The dogwood sometimes reaches thirty or
I thirty-five feet in height, and nine or ten inches
in diameter; but it does not generally exceed
the height of eighteen or twenty feet, and the
diameter of four or five inches. The trunk is

I strong, and is covered with a blackish bark,
chapped into many small portions, which are
often in the shape of squares more or less
exact. The branches are proportionally less

I larly disposed nearly in the form of crosses.
1 The young twigs are observed to incline up-
I wards in a semicircular direction.

" The leaves are opposite, about three inches -

I in length, oval, of a dark green above, and

! whitish beneath: the upper surface is ven,^

j distinctly sulcated. Towards the close of

summer they are often marked with black

spots, and at the approach of winter they

change to a dull red.

" In New York and New Jersey the flowers
are fully blown about the lOlh or 15th of May,
while the leaves are only beginning to unfold
themselves. The flowers are small, yellowish,
and collected in bunches, which are surround-
ed with a very large involucre composed of
four white floral leaves, sometimes inclining
to violet. This fine involucre constitutes all
the beauty of the flowers, which are very nu-
merous, and which, in their season, robe the.
tree in white, like a full blown apple tree, and
render it one of the fairest ornaments of the
American forests.

"The seeds, of a vivid, glossy red, and of an
oval shape, are always united. They remain
upon the trees till the first frosts, when, not-
withstanding their bitterness, they are devour-
ed by the Robin, Turdus migratoriug, which,
about this period, arrives from the northern
regions.

"The wood is hard, compact, heavy, and
fine-grained, and is susceptible of a brilliant
polish. The sap is perfectly white, and the
heart is of a chocolate colour. This tree is
not large enough for works which require
pieces of considerable volume : it is used for
the handles of light tools, such as mallets,
small vices, &c. In the country, some farmers
select it for harrow teeth, for the hames of
horses' collars, and also for lining the runners
of sledges; but to whatever purpose it is ap-
plied, being liable to split, it should never be
wrought till it is perfectly seasoned. The
shoots, when three or four years old, are found
proper for the light hoops of small, portable
casifs ; but the consumption in this way is in-
considerable. In the Middle States, the cogs
of mill-wheels are made of dogwood, and its
divergent branches are taken for the yokes
which are put upon the necks of swine, to
prevent their breaking into cultivated enclo-
sures. Such are the profitable uses of this
tree; it affords also excellent fuel, but it is too
small to be brought into the markets of the
cities." {Michaux's North Amer. Sylva.)

DOLPHIN-FLY. The name in England of
an insect of the aphis tribe, very destructive to
beans. (See Beaxs.) It is sometimes called
the collier. The destruction which this insect
causes is not wonderful when we reflect on,
the astonishing fecundity of all the aphides
family. The sexual intercourse of one original
pair serves for all the generations which pro-
ceed from the female in the succeeding year;
and Reaumur informs us, that, in five genera-
tions, one aphis may be the progenitor of
5.904,900,000 descendants : in one year there
may be twenty generations. At one season
they are viviparous, at others oviparous. The
dolphin-fly or collier is of a black colour: it
begins its depredations at the top of the bean,

411

DOOB-GRASS.

DRAINING.

and continues multiplying downwards. The
only method of preserving the crop is to top
the plants, and to burn the tops.

DOOB-GRASS. See Dog's Tooth Grass.

DOSS (a corruption of toss). A provincial
•word signifying to strike with the horn or gore
slightly, as cattle frequently do each other.

DOVE. A species of pigeon, of which the
principal varieiies are the ring-dove or wood
pigeon, the stock-dove, the rock-dove, and the
turtle-dove. See Pigeon.

DOVE-COTE. A structure usually erected
of wood for the accommodation and rearing
of tame pigeons ; the only essential difference
between which and a common poultry house
is, that the entrance for the birds must be
raised to a considerable height from the ground,
because pigeons fly higher in the atmosphere
than most other birds.

The utmost cleanliness ought to prevail in
pigeon houses, hence the holes should be care-
fully examined before the breeding season
arrives. They should be frequently well
washed out, and the dung and other impurities
removed ; but this should be done early in the
day, when the birds are out, so that they may
not be disturbed. Some old dove-cotes are
circular buildings, of considerable size, with
ranges of square holes formed in the anterior
wall, in which the birds make their nests.
From this feature in old dove-cotes, the term
pigeon-holes in desks is arrived. These dove-
cotes are entered by a door below; and by
means of a ladder the young pigeons are easily
taken from the nests. Many dove-cotes of this
kind exist in Scotland. {Branded Diet, of
Snence, &c. ; WilUchh Dam. Encyc.)

DOWNS (Sax. ^un ; Erse, dune, a hill). In
European agricultural parlance, large, open,
elevated, unenclosed tracts of land, generally
reserved for grazing purposes.

DOWNY LIME TREE (Tilia puhescens). A
tree belonging to the southern United States.
See LixDEy, and Limk Tree.

DOWNY OAT GRASS. See Ave?ta.

DRAG. An implement of the harrow kind
used in breaking down and reducing land into
a fine state. Also an iron catch to fix on the
wheels of heavily laden carts or carriages
when descending steep hills or declivities.

DRAGON-FLY. A common name for the
Neuropterous insects belonging to the genus
Agrion or Lobellula.

DRAINING. The very first care of the
farmer, that on which the success of his future
crops almost entirely depends, is the removal
of unnecessary supplies of water — whether
arising from the tenacity of the surface retain-
ing too much water, or from springs exuding
to the surface. For it is evident that as dif-
ferent crops require very varying quantities,
so the cultivator must adapt the moisture of
the soil to the crops he purposes to produce ; —
the supply which is necessary, for instance,
for the profitable growth of the rice plant
would destroy the meadow grasses of Eng-
land : — and again the damp soils, of which
many of the richest meadows of England are
formed, would be much too moist for the cereal
crops. The nature of the climate, the soil, and
the subsoil must all be taken into account.
* 412

The plants growing on sandy soils, of course,
will bear a much larger proportion of water
than those vegetating on clay soils : — and thus
the very soil which, in the dry eastern side of
England, grows excellent crops of corn, would,
in the western counties, where twice the
amount of rain falls, on an average, than in
the east, be found materially to injure the
plants. (See Water, its Uses to Vegetation.)
Placed as the farmer is under such a variety
of circumstances, cultivating lands of all kinds,
it is useless, in this article, to attempt to assist
him with more than general directions.

The water carried off the soil by artificial
drainage is either by boring, by open or by
under-ground drainage, or by both. Boring
was first recommended by Elkington. It is
chiefly adapted for low situations, surrounded
by high lands, and merely consists in boring
with an auger, or digging a well in the land
intended to be drained, until a spring of water
is pierced, whose head is lower than that of the
surface of the field; and hence it follows that
when the water is suffered to drain into the
hole made by the auger, or the well, it of ne-
cessity drains from the land out of the bottom
of the well, as fast as it flows into it at the top.
This plan might be profitably employed to a
much greater extent than at present. When
combined with surface draining, it saves, by
shortening the water channels, a considerable
portion of the expense.

In open surface drains, the nature of the
soil, its declinations, and its chemical compo-
sition can alone guide the farmer. In either
case too much care can hardly be bestowed
upon it; it is a question that the legislature
has deemed to be of even national importance;
for by the 3 & 4 Vict. c. 55, landowners pos-
sessing only limited interests in estates are
empowered to raise money, by way of mort-
gage, on such property, to be employed for the
purposes of improving them by drainage; and
the government has promoted the use of drain
tiles by exempting them from duty. I shall
confine my observations, therefore, chiefly to
the formation of under-drains. These common-
ly vary in depth from 2^ to 4 feet; and, in peat
soils, on account of the very material settling
which takes place, as they are brought into
cultivation, from this to 6 or 7 feet. The first
operation necessary upon a field intended to
be drained, is the examination of the strata,
or veins of earth of which it is composed;
and this is commonly effected with the boring
auger, or by digging small pits, or open drains,
as by this means the oozings or weepings will
speedily display themselves, and indicate pretty
correctly the source whence the superabun-
dant water proceeds. This being ascertained
the direction of the under-drains will be the
more easily decided. If the soil is of such
description that the subsoil plough can be use
with advantage, then the top of the stones
bricks, or tiles by which the drain is formed
and preserved, should not be less than 2^ feet
from the surface of the soil. In the formation
of these drains the workman always com
mences on the lowest extremity; by this means
besides other advantages, the water, as he ar-
rives at it, drains away from him, and shows

1- J

DRAINING.

DRAINING.

him, by its escape, that he is preserving a
proper fall. When the drain is cut to the
requisite depth, he proceeds to fill it up with
the materials through which the drainage wa-
ters are to flow, to within such a distance only
as is out of the reach of the plough ; and then
the earth is shovelled back again over the
drainage materials. The description of these
materials, of necessity, varies with the nature
of the country and its produce; in Essex,
brushwood and straw are chiefly employed;
in the northern parts of the island, stones,
broken lime, or sandstone are used. Bricks
and tiles are resorted to in districts where
cheaper materials are not to be procured; and
these are made in a variety of forms ; and re-
cently one or two valuable improvements have
taken place in the construction of them by
machinery; so that, by those of the Marquis
of Tweeddale and Mr. Beart, draining tiles are
now made at a very reduced price. Upon tile-
making, in general, there is a good paper by
Mr. Wiggins, Jmirn. Roy. Agr. Sor. vol. i. p. 315.
The tiles of the Marquis of Tweeddale are
described Trans. High. Sac. vol. vi. p. 50, and
Joum. Roy. Jgr. Soc. vol. ii. p. 148 ; and those
of Mr. Beart, with engravings of his machine,
in the Joum. of the Roy. Eng.Jgr. Soc. vol. ii. p.
93 ; by which it seems that in Huntingdonshire
the cost of the tiles made by his apparatus is
about 15s. per 1000: this varies, of course,
with the price of coals, of which variation Mr.
Pusey has constructed the following table.

Price of coals

Making the tileaat Ihe proprielnr-*

ptr lOoO.

|«r ton.
t. d.

yard, per 1(M>

1.

*.

6 0

11

18

9 6

12

19

13 0

13

20

Ifi 6

14

21

20 0

15

22 1

23 tf

16

23 1

27 0

17

24 1

30 6

18

25 1

These are commonly used with the flat or
sole tiles, which cost, in Huntingdonshire, from
8s. to 10s. per 1000. The clay best adapted
for tiles is that which contains a small pro-
portion of sand, or sand may be mixed
with the clay. The an-
nexed cut gives the shape
of the Tweeddale patent
drain tile. It is common-
ly made 3 inches deep, 3^
_._ wide, and about 12 in

SFw" length.

The subject of under-draining is, compara-
tively, so little understood in the United States,
and its importance so great, that we are in-
duced to subjoin the following additional
information, chiefly condensed from that ex-
cellent work " The Book of the Farm, by H. Ste^
phois," now publishing in Edinburgh.

The dir^iensions of tile-draim, depends entirely
I on the way these are to be constructed. If the

I bottoiT^ be hard and no soles are to be placed
Ii under the tiles, the drain may be cut narrower;

II and if nothing else but tile and sole are to be
H put into them before the earth is returned,
■ they may be shallower. In regard to the em-
^^p.ovment of sohs where the drain has a clay

sertions that they are always necessary. What-
ever may be the nature of the earthy bottom
to be occupied by the tiles, these should always
have soles, or something equivalent, to protect
the earth from the destructive effects of water.

Where soles are employed their tvidtk must deter-
mine the mdth of the bottom of the drain. As yet
no regular width has been agreed upon gene-
rally, though it would be a matter of some im-
portance to have this done. The breadth of
soles made in the neighbourhood of Kilmar-
nock, at the tile-kilns belonging to the Duke of
Portland in Ayrshire, as well as those made by
Mr. Boyle, tile-maker in Ayr, is 7 inches ; and
this breadth is made to answer tiles varying
from 4 to 3 inches in width, inside measure.
For a 4-inch tile, a narrower width than 7
inches would not answer; as the tile is | of
an inch thick, only | of an inch is left beyond
each side of the tile when placed on the sole,
which is as little space as it can stand on secure-
ly. For the smaller sized tile of 3 inches, the
width IS ample; but still, it is no disadvantage
to a tile to have plenty of room on a sole, as
its position can. easily be fixed by wedging in
stones on each side against the walls of the
drain, when stones are used above the tiles ;
or it leaves suflicient room for a lapping of
turf over, and wedging of earth on each side
of, the top of the tile. In the case of a 5-inch-
wide drain at bottom, the smallest size of tile,
2 J inches wide inside, must be used, as only |.
of an inch would be left on each side of that
width of tile.

Soles are usually made flat, but Mr. Boyle
makes them curved; not because they are bet-
ter suited for the purpose, but merely because
they are more easily dried in the sheds ; but a
curved sole is objectionable, as it is more diffi-
cult to form a smooth bed for it to lie upon,
and it is more apt to break when it happens
not to be firmly laid upon its bed than a flat
sole.

As to tiles, their perfect form is thus well de-
scribed by Mr. Boyle: "All tiles should be a
fourth higher than wide; the top rather quickly
turned, and the sides nearly perpendicular.
Tiles which are made to spread out at the
lower edge and flat on the top, are weak, and
bad for conveying water. Some people prefer
tiles with flanges instead of soles; but if
placed, even in a drain with a considerably
hard bottom, the mouldering of the subsoil by
the currents of air and water causes them to
sink and get deranged." Tiles should be
smooth on the surface, heavy, firm, and ring
like cast-iron when struck with the knuckle.
They should be so strong when set, as to allow
a man not only to stand, but to leap upon them
without breaking. The introduction of ma-
chinery in the manufacture of drain-tiles, by
compressing the clay, and working it tho-
roughly in a pug-mill to prepare it for being
compressed, has greatly tended to increase the
strength of tiles. I have seen drain-tiles so
rough, spongy, crooked, and thin, as to be shi-
vered to pieces by a night's frost when laid
down beside the drain. The use of machinery
has caused a great deal more clay to be put into
them, and their greater substance has been the
1 cause of improvement in the construction of
2m 2 413

DRAINING.

DRAINING.

kilns, in which they are now burned to a uni- ]
form texture, as well as some avoidance of
breakage in the manufacture, by all which, of
course, their cost is lessened. An under-burnt
as well as an over-burnt tile is bad, the former
being spongy and absorbing water, and ulti-
mately falling down ; and the latter is so brit-
tle as to break when accidentally struck
against any object.

The length of drain-tiles varies in different
parts of the country. Mr. Boyle's are 13
inches ; the Duke of Portland's, in Ayrshire,
and Mr. Beart's Godmanchesier, Hertfordshire,
12 inches ; and those from the Marquis of
Tweeddale's machine, 14 inches, when burnt.
If the price is the same per 1000, of course the
14-inch tile is cheaper than the 12-inch ; but
otherwise, the 12-inch is the handiest article
in the manufacture, as being less apt to waste
in handling, and twist when in the kiln ; and
their number is much more easily calculated

in any given length of drain. The following
table shows the number of tiles required for
an imperial acre, of the different lengths made,
and placed at the stated distances : ,

Drains at 12 in. 13 in. 14 in. 15 in.

12 feet apart require 3630 3351 3111 2<104 per acre.

15 — 2904 2081 2489 2323 —

18 — 2420 223 1 2074 1936 —

21 — '^074 1914 1777 1659 —

24 — 1815 1675 1536 1452 —

27 — 1613 1480 1383 1291 —

30 — 1452 1340 1245 1162 —

33 — 13-20 1218 1131 \0^Q —

36 — 1210 1117 1037 968 —

The numbers of each length of tile required at
intermediate distances can easily be calculated
from these data.

A representation of what *Mr. Stephens con-
siders the best formed drain-tile, and the man-
ner of setting this on the soles, is given in a
cut, where a, and 6, are two 12-inch tiles, of
the most correct shape, placed upon the sole-
tiles, c.

The length of the tiles and soles being equal,
their joinings are made in the middle of the
soles, and this course is to be continued
throughout. It is the practice of some tile-
drainers, Mr. Stephens observes, to put a ^
inch sole under every joining of 2 tiles, leaving
the intermediate space of the bottom without
any sole, imagining that this will insure suffi-
cient steadiness to tiles on what they call hard
clay, whilst only half the number of soles are
used. But this he pronounces a precarious
practice.

In making the side-joinings of the tiles it has
been usual to break a piece of the corner of I
or 2 main-drain tiles, where side-drains are led
into them. In breaking off the corners, there
is a risk of breaking the entire tile. Another
plan is to set 2 main-drain tiles so far asunder
as the inside width of a common-drain-tile, and
the opening on the other side of the tiles, if
not occupied in the same manner by the tiles
of another drain, is filled up with pieces of
broken tiles or stones, or any other hard
substance. This is perhaps a better plan than
running the risk of breaking a number of tiles,
and, after all, failing in making the opening
suitable for the reception of the adjoining
drain tiles. Both plans, however, Mr. Ste-
phens pronounces very objectionable, and
never to be resorted to where tiles, formed for
the purpose of receiving others in their sides
can be procured. Main-drain tiles of this de-
scription are inade with openings on purpose
to receive the shouldered end of the smaller
sized side-drain tiles- To answer a similar
purpose in particular situations where such
tiles cannot be conveniently joined, main and
furrow or side-drain tiles are made of ^ and }
lengths, which may be so arranged in regard
to one another's position, as to conjoin the
openings of both at the same place.

The junction of a common tile with a main-
drain one is represented in the following cut,
414

in which b represents the common tile, and a,
the opening in the main-drain tile.

Mr. Stephens says there should be always a
decided fall from the outlet, whether it be af-
fected by natural or artificial means. The
open ditch into which the main-drain issues
should be scoured deep enough for the pur-
pose, even for a considerable distance ; and it
will moreover be necessary to see every year
that the outlet is kept open ; and the ditch
scoured as often as necessary for the purpose.

It is, says Mr. Stephens, a frequent charge
of neglect against farmers, that they allow
open ditches almost to fill up before they are
again scoured out, and a not un frequent ex-
cuse for the neglect is, that scouring of ditches
to any extent incur considerable labour and
expense. No doubt they do, and no wonder,
since so much work has to be done, when it i;s
done. Were the ditches scoured but when
they actually required it, nay every year, if
that is found necessary for the welfare of
stock, fences, or drains, so little expense would
be incurred at one time,, as to remove every
complaint against the labour as a burden; but
much better, in every case where it can be
done, to incur the expense at once of convert-
ing an open ditch into a covered drain, than
grudge the expense of keeping it in a proper
state.

Should the fall from the mouth of the main-

DRAINING.

DRAINING.

drain to a river be too small, and there be risk,
at times, of the overflowings of the river send-
ing back-water into the drain, the drain should
be carried down as far by the side of the river
as will secure a sufficient fall for the outlet.
Rather be at the expanse of carryinsf the drain
under a mill-course or rivulet than permit back-
water toenter it

A spirit level
(see cut) has been
found a very con-
venient instru-
ment for ascer-
taining such a
point, and gene-
rally for taking
levels in fields. It
is furnished with
eye-sights a b, and
when in use is
placed into a
framing of brass,
which operates as
a spring to adjust
it to the level po-
sition rf, by the
action of the large
headed brass
screw c. A stud
is affixed to the
framing, and

pushed firmly
into a gimblet-
hole in the top
of the short rod
e, which is pushed
or driven into the
ground at the spot from whence the level
is desired to be ascertained. It need scarce-
ly be mentioned that the height of the eye-
sight from the ground is to be deducted
from the height of observation, and which
quantity is easily obtained by having the rod
marked off in inches and feet; but it may be
mentioned that this instrument should be used
in all cases of draining on level ground, even
where one is confident that he knows the fall
of the ground, for the eye' is a very deceitful
monitor for informing you of the levelness of
ground. Such a spirit level, well finished,
costs in England, 15 shillings, (about $4). Its
whole length is 8 inches, depth IJ inches,
width or breadth, 1 inch. It is so light as to
admit of being carried in the pocket, whilst its
rod may be used as a staff or cane.

The cuititie: of the main-drain should be en-
tirely finished before the tiles are laid in it; and
immediately af\ei- it is finished, it should be
measured with the drain-guage, to ascertain
whether it contains the specified dimensions
and fall. This drain-guage is an excellent sub-
stitute for the tape-line or foot-rule, which are
both inconvenient for the purpose of measur-
ing the dimensions of a drain. This simple
instrument consists of a rod divided into feet
and inches, with two arms fixed cross-wise, the
length of which is to correspond with the re-
quired width of the drain. When this rod is put
down to ascertain the depth, it is afterwards
turned partially round, whil»4 its end rests on
the bottom of the drain, until the ends of its arms

touch the earth on both sides. If the arms can-
not come round square to the sides of the drain,
the drain is narrower than intended ; and if
they cannot touch both sides, it is wider than
necessary. When made larger than intended,
a greater expense may be incurred in filling up
with stones, &c.

The person intrusted with the laying of the
soles and tiles into drains, should be one who
has been long accustomed to that kind of work,
or otherwise a good workman, possessing judg-
ment and common sense. He should remain
constantly at the bottom of the drain and have
a boy or other assistant to hand him the tiles
and tools. After laying three soles in length,
he must examine to see if they are straight in
the face, and neither rise nor fall more than the
fall in the drain. As a safe guide to him, where
the fall is not decidedly cognisable by the
senses, a mason's plumb-level will be found a
convenient instrument. After three soles are
thus placed, two tiles are set upon them, being
so placed that their joinings shall meet on the
intermediate spaces between the joinings of the
soles.

The tiles for small drains are usually made,
according to Mr. Stephens, about 3 inches
wide and 5 inches high, inside measurement,
which may be considered a large tile in places
where those of 2} inches wide by 3^ inches
high are used. The soles for small drains are
made of different breadths, varying from 5 to 7
inches. They usually shrink about one-eighth
in the kiln.

Several ingenious and efficient machines
have been invented in Great Britain, which
have greatly facilitated the manufacture of
drain tiles and soles, and reduced their cost to
the very moderate prices stated in the esti-
mates presented. In the 12th volume of the
Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland
Agricultural Society, descriptions of some of
these will be found, illustrated with drawings.
That invented by the Marquis of Tvveeddale,
and for which a gold medal was awarded him,
will make 12,000 tiles in a day of ten hours,
it being understood that the clay is previously
prepared and milled, a8 in the common way,
when three or even four men can only produce
1500 tiles in the same lime. The machine re-
quires a power only equal to one horse, and the
assistance of one man and two boys, one of
these to feed in the clay and two to remove the
tiles to the shelves.

The Essays, in the same volurne, of Mr.
Boyle and Mr. Taylor, upon the manufacture
of draining tiles are well worth the attention
of persons particularly interested in the sub-
ject, as they not only treat of the minutiae
of the operations, but are illustrated with
very numerous figures of the implements,
mode of placing the tiles in the furnace,
&c., &c.

Much capital has been wasted in the erection
of tile-works, by those who have not at first
known the best modes of proceeding, and em-
ployed men to manage them who knew little
about the processes. Like most other kinds
of business, tile-making and baking require a
regular apprenticeship, in order to succeed
properly. As the machine of Mr. Beart has

415

DRAINING.

DRAINING.

been highly approved of in Scotland, and seems
so simple in its construction and mode of ma-
nagement, we think it perhaps better adapted
to common purposes than the more formidable
contrivance of the Marquis of Tweeddale. A
description and cut of the instrument, by which
3000^ tiles can be made in a day, with an ex-
planation of the mode in which it is managed,
will also be found in the 12th volume of the
work to which we have just referred.

Mr. Stephens thinks that the very best me-
thod of draining land, is by the union of stones
and tiles in the same drain. The width of the
bottom of the drain covered with the sole, may
be 7 inches ; width at the top 12 inches ; total
depth 2i feet, consisting of the drain-tile and
covering of stones, packed with the hand
above and on each side, extending 12 inches
above the sole, leaving 18 inches to be filled in
with turf and earth. Such a drain, when properly
constructed, is pronounced the ne plus ultra of
the art. But it is seldom done, either for
want of the necessary supply of stones of the
proper size, or the additional expense in-
curred.

Judge Buel was among the first who em-
ployed tiles in draining in the United States,
being, he says, led to it by necessity, having no
stone. He has laid some 10,000 feet of tiles, at
an expense of about $15 per 1000 feet, and
found them to answer an excellent purpose.
Dr. J. J. Spencer, of Moorestown, New Jersey,
has also drained a piece of low ground by
means of tiles, and can now drive carts, plough
and raise heavy crops of Indian corn, &c.,
where before there was a useless, unsightly,
and unhealthy morass.

In general, under-drains may be dug no
broader than is just necessary to afford room
to work in, the sides being left straight or per-
pendicular. The ditch should be commenced
at the lowest end or outlet, and opened up to
higher ground. Where stones are employed
either as a conduit at the bottom, or to form the
drain of themselves, they should be broken to
so small a size, that moles or ground-mice can-
not penetrate among them, as they are very
much inclined to do, opening holes through
which the surface water enters, mixed with
clay and earth, by which the interstices of the
drain will be ultimately choked up. Judge
Buel recommends the stone to be broken so
as not to exceed 4 inch pieces. The expense
of doing this, he says, will not be more than
25 or 30 cts. the cubic yard.

The use of draining tiles is evidently on the
increase, and every improvement which is
made in them naturally extends their field of
usefulness ; they are by far the most perma-
nent and effective of all the materials used

-^EZ

for draining land. Of drain

/. I r-, ing bricks there are various

/ j \ shapes ; the annexed figures

/ I 4 represent a few of the most

fl [_ -T^ common, and the mode of

placing them.
In fig. 1 and la, 84 bricks are required for
every eight yards. In fig. 2, 55 bricks are re-
quired for every eight yards. In fig. 3, 110
bricks are required for every eight yards. Figs.
416

4 and 5 have been found very useful in the j
drainage of peat-bogs or quicksands. They

are all, however, for most purposes inferior to
the. draining tile.

In the formation of drains, a shovel taper-
ing to a point, and scoops of a peculiar shape,
are commonly used. These are represented

in the figures 6, 7, 8. The old-fashioned way
of forming a drain is depicted in figures 9 and

10; in these the bottom of the drain was filled
up partially with brushwood, stones, long ropes
of twisted straw, others of ling or heath, which
are much more tough and permanent. The
expense of digging and filling in any of the
above drains (exclusive of the brushwood or
other materials) varies from 4s. 6d. to 5s. 6c/.
per score rods (120 yards local measure). The
expense per acre will be, according to Mr. S.
Taylor (.Brit. Farm. Mag. vol. ii. p. 359),

£ s. d.

If the drains are 8 yards dimant 1 13 9

— — 7 — — 117 6

_ _6— — 200

_ _5i__ 250

_ _5__ 289

_ _4_— 2 176

DRAINING.

DRAINING.

In many situations, where a spring is to be
reached, it is very de-
sirable to form a well
by the side of the drain,
according to the annexed
outline. {Trans. High.
Soc. vol. i. p. 223.) A
very common modern
mode of construclin?

the drain is according to ihe form
in flg. 12. Loose mould or gravel
is placed at the top to the depth of
1 foot. Sod, straw, heath, or rushes
4 inches; and thien land stones I
foot 8 inches thick surround the
draining tiles.
The drain tiles, bricks, or other materials,
are covered with any porous material that the
locality affords. Stones, gravel, scoria, refuse
of the foundries, ashes, peat, moss, sods, brush-
wood, straw, heath, ling, rushes, broken chalk,.
&c. (Trans. High. Soc. vol. vi. p. 89.) There
are three very valuable papers on tile draining
in this volume by Mr. Carmichael (p. 81), Mr.
Stirling (p. 100), Mr. Wilson (p. 112); and on
drainage, by Mr. Black {Ibid. vol. i. p. 214);
by Mr. Adam (p. 375), who considers the best
sloped tile to be one similar to that of the
Marquis of Tweeddale's; by Mr. Dudgeon
{Ibid. vol. ii. p. 71) ; by Mr. Macleord of Lock-
more {Ibid, p.- 103) ; on draining clay soils by
Mr. Carmichael {Ibid. vol. iii. p. 34) ; on un-
derground draining {Quart. Journ. Agr. vol. v.
p. 232); on making drain tiles of peal {Ibid.
vol. vii. p. 246) as a source of profitable out-
lay for capital {Ibid. vol. viii. p. 318, 540) ; on
draining, and on the mole plough, by Mr. Aiton
{Ibid. vol. ix. p. 388) ; on plug or clay draining,
by Mr. Evans {Ibid. vol. iv. p. 501, and vol. ii.
•p. 68) ; on substituting tubes made of larch-
wood for drain tiles in certain localities, by
Mr. Scott {Trans. High. Soc. vol. xiii. p. 431, and
Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 99). He estimates that these
square tubes, having a clear waterway of 2
inches by 2^, made by the proprietor, having
his own wood and sawmill, to be, for work-
manship, about one penny per rood of 18 feet:
they are pierced with auger holes in every
part, and made in the following shapes, being
fastened together with wooden pegs.

A

\

Mr. Wilson calculates the average expense
with stones per rood to be 7s. 8d. {Quart. Journ.
Jgr. vol. i. p. 242.) Mr. Yule at per rood of
21 feet, 2 feet 9 inches deep with 3 inch tiles,
at Is. O^d. ; with 4 inches, 4^ to 5 feet deep,
1». 2^d. ; with 6 inch tiles, the same depth, Is.
b^d. {Ibid. p. 397.)

The expense of tile draining has been thus \

estimated by Mr. Carmichael {Trans. High. Soc. '

vol. vi. p. 98) at per imperial acre ; tiles being j

2a. 6rf. per 100, and soles Is. 6d. per 100. |

53

Otr AN Aluminous Clay.

-a

. "3

•s

Ii

i^

h

1 •

Ii

a

Ji

.<

H

Si

in.

in.

20

968

2500

1250

22

W58

2500

1250

24

969

2500

2500

20

806

2080

1040

22

806

2080

1040

24

806

2080

890

20

691

1780

890

22

691

1780

1780

24

691

1780

£ s. d.
6 7 II

6 9 4i

7 13 7i
5-4 8

5 6 6i

6 7 10
4 9 8

4 11 3^

5 8 11}

On a mixed Clay.

15

18

5

968

2500

... 1

15

20

968

2500

15

22

.968

25(K)

. . .

15

24

998

2500

1250

18

18

806

2080

18

20

806

2080

. . .

18

22

806

2080

18

24

806

2080

1040

18

20

f *

On Alum Clay.

806 44 4-5*1 . . . 1

18

94

5

806

434.5

. . .

18

«7

5

800

434-6

.• . . •

5 14

4

5 18 10

6 1

8

7 6 10

4 15

6

4- 19

1

5 1

6

6 4

S

S 11

llf

5 17

7*

6 3

u

With regard to the cost of thorough draining
in Scotland, Mr. Stephens gives the following
details, drawn from actual experiments : —

Opening drains 33 inches deep and 7 inches wide at bot-
tom, at 5i<i- per T»i>A or rod of 6 yards.
Preparing stones, 4 inches in diameter, at 4J. per rood.
Carriage of stones, at 4|(/. per rood.
Unloading carts and moving screen-barrow, }d. per rood.
Filling in earth, id. per rood.
Extra expense in the main drains about 10s. per acre.

Another statement for drains of rather smaller
size, viz. :-:-

28 inches deep,.7 inches wide at bottom, allowi id. per

rood of 6 yards for opening.
Preparing Atone, at 2^//. per rood.
Carriage of stones, at i}d. per rood.
Unloading carts and moving screen-barrow, at 2|</. per

ro,->d.
Filling in earth, at lid. per rood.
Extra expense in the main drains, IO5. per acre.

In computing the cost in Scotland of the lar
hour in draining with stones, the hire of the
horse is put down at 3s. 4rf., the man's wages
Is. 8d., and that of the driver lOd. per day.
Taking into consideration the necessary num-
ber of drains required, the first estimate makes
the cost, supposing each imperial acre to con-
tain 70 roods of drains of 6 yards each, £4, 12s.
6^d.; the second estimate £3, 8s. 4rf. per acre.

Mr. Stirling estimates the expense of drain-
ing per imperial acre {Trans. High. Soc. vol. vi.
p. Ill), to be,—

Dittaoce

Number of

With broken

With broken

With Til«

between

chain*

Slnaes

Stonef

and

(be Onins.

per Acre.

screened.

riddled.

Solrt.

feet.

£ s. d.

£ s. d.

£ 8. d.

14

4714

7 18 4

8 2 5t

9 13 5i

16

41-25

6 18 6i

7 2 U

8 9 3i

18

.36 66

6 3 1

6 6 3

7 10 6

20

33-

5 10 10

5 13 8^

6 15 5i

Brushwood and Straw Draining. — When tiles,
stones, and other materials best adapted to the
constructionofdrains cannot be procured, brush,
straw, or even sod, has been employed to fill

* Carts of stones.

f Stone drains.
417

DRAINING.

DRESSING.

the bottom of under-drains. When brushwood
is used, the trench may. be dug from eighteen
to twenty-four inches wide, and three or four
feel deep. Saplings from two to six inches
thick at the butt may be cut into lengths of
four or five feet, and, commencing at the upper
end of the ditch, placed diagonally or slantwise,
the butts down and towards the outlet. When
this is done the trench is apparently full. The
brush is then all brought within the edges of
the ditch, well trodden down, and the earth
thrown in. Bundles of fagots are sometimes
employed to lay at the bottom o( the trench,
and at other times large straw ropes. When
the ground is marshy, coarse hay or straw
should be put upon the bottom of the trench
before laying the brush, and also upon the top
of the brush after this is stamped down.

Wedg0 Draining is another method sometimes
resorted to. The general mode of performing
this is to form a narrow trench with a long,
narrow shovel. The spit being taken out as
deep as the shovel can go, a scoop is employed
to clear out the mud and loose earth at the bot-
tom. Then another shovel corresponding with
the first is used, and a second spit is taken out,
and then a narrower shovel still to clear the
whole out, thus forming a trench with a ledge.
A piece of sod, with the grass-side below, is
then forced down, and, resting upon the ledge,
a space is thus left for the water below. Some-
times the ledge- is dispensed with, and the sod
is merely formed into a wedge, narrowed to-
wards the grassy side, and thi§, when the little
trench is cleared out, is pressed into it and
povered with earth ; and, as it does not reach
the narrow bottom, a channel remains below
through which' -the water percolates. It is evi-
dent that where such under-drains can be con-
structed the bottom must be hard. This and
the brush and straw drains are formed at com-
paratively little expense, and for a while ope-
rate very efficiently in conveying off" the super-
fluous water. Still, as the materials are more
or less perishable, and, moreover, liable to be-
come closed up, they are an indifferent substi-
tute for stone, and yet more so for the proper
draining tile.

On the heavy clay soils, the drainage is some-
times effected by a drain or mole plough, which
on some soils answers very well at a moderate
expense. In this the plough draws a long tu-
bular orifice in the clay by a heavy sharp-
pointed rod instead of a share, which on some
adhesive soils remains open, provided the fall
for the water is sufficient, for years. It is,
however, liable to too many casualties for ge-
neral introduction. It is commonly worked,
either with a windlass or otherwise, by 18 or
20 horses drawing from strong whippletrees.
(Brit. Hush. vol. i. p. 455.)

An excellent and improved imitation of the
mole plough system is sometimes practised on
heavy clay lands. A stout piece' of rope or
cable, four or five yards long, is laid at the bot-
tom of the newly cut drain (one of the narrow
wedge-formed drains); to the ends of this piece
of rope is fastened a cross or T-headed piece
of wood, by means. of which it is drawn along
the bottom of the drain after the clay and other
materials have been fdled over it; an arch or
418

opening is thus left, similar to that formed by
the mole plough ; the expense in this case is
merely that of digging and filling up the drain.
{Brit. Farm. Mag. vol. ii. p. 367.)

In spite, however, of open and underground
drainage, and of all that these and the boring
system can effect, there are yet many thousands
of acres in the east of England that, without
the aid of the pump a-nd the steam-engine,
would still be covered with water. These were
recommended many years since for this pur-
pose by Mr. Savory, of Downham. (Com. Board
of Agr. vol. iv. p. 52.) The gigantic powers of
these great engines will be readily seen from
the report of Mr. Glynn (Brit. Farm. Mag. vol.
iii. p. 289.) Deeping Fen, near Spalding, con-
taining 25,000 acres, is effectually drained by
two steam-engines of 60 and 80 horse power.
Littleport Fen, near Ely, of about 28,000 acres,
is drained by two engines of 30 and 80 horse
power. By this last engine, on July 18th, 1830,
in a trial of eight hours, by the combustion of
only 87 bushels of coals, 51,230 tons of water
were raised. Before the introduction of steam-
engines, windmills were employed to a consi-
derable extent. They were maintained, it is
true, at a less expense, but the certain powers
of the steam-engine have induced its general
adoption. The carriage drain is an open, ca-
pacious drain, used very commonly in irriga-
tion, and is usually made of wood, for the pur-
pose of carrying the flood waters across ditches,
hollow drains, &c.

DRAIN ING-PLOUGHS. Such ploughs as
are contrived for the purpose of cutting drains,
in order to carry off the water from wet soils.
See Plourhs.

DRANK, or DRAUK. A very common name
in many parts of Enfla^nd for darnel ; but is
properly only the provincial name for the scaly
brome-grass, cheat, or chess.

DRENCH. In farriery, a large drink or
draught of any liquid remedy given to an ani-
mal, usually by means of a horn properly cut
for the purpose. A very able paper on drench-
ing horses, by Mr. John Stewart, veterinary sur-
geon, appears in the Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol.
X. p. 626, which may be consulted with advan-
tage. A drink is not so portable as a ball ; it
is more troublesome to give, and a portion of
it is usually wasted. (The Horse, p. 392.) Mr.
Stewart strenuously urges the following propo-
sitions : 1. That draughts, particularly when
pungent or disagreeable, are dangerous. 2.
That by no care can the danger be altogether
avoided. 3. That no draught should be given
unless the horse be in danger of dying without
it. 4. That the safest way of administering
draughts is to give them when the horse is
lying. 5. That a draught is seldom or never
absolutely necessary but in diseases which
make the horse lie. 6. That a bottle is a better
drenching instrument than a horn.

DRESSING. Any sort of manure applied to
land for the purpose of its improvement. Top-
dressing is that sort of. fertilizer which is spread
over or applied upon the surface of the land,
either when the crop is upon the ground or
not.

DRILL. A small track or longitudinal open-
ing in the form of a slight furrow, made in

DRILL-HUSBANDRY.

DRILL-MACHINES.

tillage lands for the purpose of receiving any-
kind of seeds.

DRILL-HUSBANDRY. The practice of sow-
ing or planting grain and other seeds or roots
with a machine, in regular rows or drills, in
place of scattering them by the hand, by which
means they are dropped at more equal dis-
tances, and -lodged at better depths, than can
be done in the latter way. " Of our modern
improvements," says Dr. Fothergill (Com, Board
o/Jlgr, vol. iv. p. 156), "the introduction of drill-
husbandry has been generally allowed to be the
most important." Horse-hoeing is intimately
connected with it, and for the most part forms
part of the same system.

DRILLING. The act of putting different
kinds of crops into the ground in the drill-
method. Mr. Bramston gives the result of an
experiment on the comparative advantages of
narrow and wide drilling. (Joum. of Roy. Eng.
jSgr. Soc. vol. i. p. 294.)

DRILL-MACHINES. Implements for dis-
tributing seed and manure easily, and at regu-
lar distances. A rude kind of drill has been
used in agriculture from a very remote period.
The cultivators of China, Japan, Arabia, and
the Carnatic, have drilled and dibbled jn their
seed from time immemorial. (The Chinese
drill, or drill-plough, is noticed Q^art. Journ. of
Agr. vol. i. p. 675.) After the Hindoos have
thus deposited their seed, they use a kind of
subsoil plough. Which passes under and loosens
the soil to the depth of about eight inches three
drills' breadth at a time. {Cam, Board of Agr.
vi. 355). Gabriel Platte, in 1638-1653, de-
scribes a rude dibbling machine formed of iron
pins, "made to play up and down like Virginal
jacks ;" and John Worlidge, in his Husbandry,
published in 1669, not only advocated the use
of the seed drill, but of the manure drill. Eve-
lyn, in the same year {Trans. Roy. Soc. vol. v,
p. 1056), mentions with much commendation
a drill-plough which had been invented in Ger-
many, whence it had found its way into Spain,
and had been noticed by the Earl of Sandwich,
the English ambassador, who forwarded it to
England as the invention of a Don Leucatilla.
Jethro Tull at a later period (1730-40), devoted
all his energies to promote the introduction of
this machine, more especially as it admitted
the use of the horse-hoe. The united advan-
tages of these excited in him the highest en-
thusiasm. But it was not until the drill had
been gradually improved by the labour of suc-
ceeding mechanists, that this invaluable ma-
chine, principally through the exertions of Lord
Leicester and others, became generally used in
England. Thence it appears that the method
of sowing com and other seeds by machines in
England is not (as is well remarked by Mr. J.
A. Ransome, the eminent agricultural machine-
maker of Ipswich, to whom I am indebted for
almost the whole of this article), a modern
idea, though the machines have been so much
improved within the last century as to make
them bear but little resemblance to those for-
merly in use.

Passing by those of more ancient date, we
come to the inventions of Jethro Tull, for the
purpose of carrying out his system of drill-

husbandrj', about 1733. His- first invention
was a drill-plough to sow wheat and turnip
seed in drills, three rows at a time. There
were two boxes for the seed, and these, with
the coulters, were placed one set behind the
other, so that two sorts of seed might be sown
at the same time. A harrow to cover in the
seed was attached behind.

Jethro Tull also invented a turnip-drill some-
what similar to the other in general arrange-
ment, but of lighter construction. The feed-
ing spout was so arranged as to carry one
half of the seed backwards after the earth had
fallen into the channel ; a harrow was pinned
to the beam; and by this arrangement one half
of the seed would spring up sooner than the
other, and so part of it escape the turnip fly.
When desirable to turn the machine, the har-
row was to be lifted and the feeding would
stop. The manner of delivering the seeds to
the funnels in both the above drills was by
notched barrels, and Tull was the first wlw used
cavities in the surfaces of solid cylinders for the
feeding. Nothing material in the history of the
drill occurred afterwards till 1782, and but little
progress appears to have been made to that
period in drill-husbandry.

About this tim€ Sir .lohn Anstruther, near
Edinburgh, presented the model of an improved
drill-plough of his own invention to the Bath
and West of England Society, having had one
in use for eight years previous without its get-
ting out of order. It was a double drill-plough
of simple construction, by which two furrows
could be sown at a time, the horse walking
between them, and by this means the injury
usually done by the horse's feet to the fine
ground was avoided. Within the next ten
years twelve patents were taken out for drill-
machines, two of which were for depositing
manure with the seed ; but the most approved
appear to have been those invented by James
Cooke, a clergyman of Heaton Norris, in Lan-
cashire; and the general principles of these
machines, from their simplicity, have been
adopted in the construction of some of the most
approved of the present day.

For a cut of Cooke's grain-drill, see PL 14,
fig. 1.

The seed-box of Cooke's drill, is of a pecu-
liar shape, the hinder part extending lower
than the fore part. It is divided by partitions,
and so supported by adjustable bearings as to
preserve a regular delivery of the seed whilst
the machine is passing over uneven ground.
The feeding cylinder is made to "revolve by a
tooth-wheel, which is fixed on each end of the
main axle, and gears with other toothed wheels
on each end of the cylinder; the surface of the
cylinder is furnished with a series of cups
which revolve therewith, and are of various
sizes, according to the different seeds. These
deposit the seed regularly in funnels, the lower
ends of which lead immediately behind the
coulters, which are connected by a beam, so as
to be kept in an even line, and are capable of
being held out of working when desired by a
hook and link in the centre. The seed, as it is
deposited, is covered in by a harrow fixed be-
hind. The carriage wheels are larger in size

419

DRILL-MACHINES.

DRILL-MACHEVES.

than usual, by which means the machine is
more easily drawn over uneven ground ; and
the labour of working is reduced.

" Of corn drills,^^ says Loudon, " Cooke's im-
proved drill and horse-hoe, though not the most
fashionable, is one of the most useful imple-
ments pf this kind on light dry soils, on even
surfaces, and in dry climates. It has been
much used in Norfolk and Suffolk, and many
other parts of England. The advantage of this
machine are said to consist, — 1. In the wheels
being so large that the machine can travel on
any road without trouble or danger of break-
ing ; also from the farm to the field, &c., with-
out taking to pieces. 2. In the coulter-beam (a),
with all the coulters moving with great ease,
on the principle of the pentagraph, to the right
or left, so as to counteract the irregularity of
the horses' draught, by which means the drills
may be made straight ; and, where lands or
ridges are made four and a half, or nine and a
half feet wide, the horse may always go in the
furrow, without setting a foot on the land,
either in drilling or horse-hoeing. 3. In the
seed supplying itself regularly, without any
attention, from the upper to the lower boxes, as
it is distributed. 4. In lifting the pin on the
coulter-beam to a hook on the axis of the
wheels, by which means the coulters are kept
out of the ground, at the end of the land, with-
out the least labour or fatigue to the person
who attends the machine. 5. In going up or
down steep hills, in the seed-box being elevated
or depressed accordingly, so as to render the
distribution of the seed regular ; and the seed
being covered by a lid, and thus screened from
wind or rain. The same machine is easily
transformed into a cultivator, horse-hoe, scari-
fier, or grubber, all which operations it per-
form^ exceedingly well ; and by substituting a
corn-rake, stubble-rake, or quitch-rake, for the
beam of coulters, or hoes (o), it will rake corn-
stubbles, or clean lands of root weeds. When
com is to be sown in rows, and the intervals
hoed or stirred, we scarcely know a machine
superior to this one ; and from being long in
a course of manufacture, few can be made so
cheap. But these advantages, though consi-
derable in the process of drilling, are nothing,
when compared with those which arise from
the use of the horse-hoe ; with which from 8
to 10 acres of land may be hoed in one day,
with one man, a boy, and one horse, at a tri-
fling expense, in a style far superior to, and
more effectual than, any hand-hoeing whatever;
also at times and seasons when it is impossible
for the hand-hoe to be used at all. PI. 14, fig. 2.

" The Norfolk drill, or improved lever drill, is
a corn drill on a larger scale than Cooke's, as
it sows a breadth of nine feet at once : it is
chiefly used in the light soils of Norfolk and
Suffolk as being more expeditious than Cooke's,
but it also costs about double the sum.

"Morion's improved grain drill-machine is de-
cidedly the simplest and best of corn drills. In
this machine three hoppers are included in
one box, the seed escaping out of all the three
by the revolution of three seed cylinders upon
one axle ; and drills of different breadths are
produced simply by the shifting of a nut, that
fixes a screw moving in a groove in the under-
420

frame, by which the distance between the two
outside conductors and the central one (which
is fixed) can be varied from 9 to 10 or 11
inches ; and that the two small wheels may
always be at the same distances respectively
as the conductors, there are two washers (hol-
low cylinders), an inch in breadth, on the axle-
arms of each, which may be transferred either
to the outside or inside of the wheels, so as to
make their distances from the outside con-
ductors 9, 10, or 11 inches respectively also.
The small wheels may be raised or depressed,
so as to alter the depth at which the seed shall
be deposited, by the action of a wedge, which
retains the upright part of the axle in any one
of a number of notches, which are made simi-
larly in both, and which are caught by an iron
plate on the upper side of the arms which carry
the axles. This machine may be still farther
improved by increasing the number of con-
ductors to five instead of three ; the latter
number giving too light work to the horses."
(Highland Sac. Trans, vol. vii.)

About the year 1790, Henry Baldwin of
Mendham, near Harleston in Norfolk, a farmer,
aided by an ingenious workman named Samuel
Wells, then in his employment, improved upon
the drill known as Cooke's drill, which by this
time was in use in several parts of Norfolk.
The improvement consisted — first, in making
a sliding axletree, by which the carriage wheel
could be extended at pleasure to the width of
the " stetches" or lands, and by which means
another box with cups and more coulters could
be used. Thus a drill containing 14 coulters
could be enlarged to one of 18 or 20. Second,
in making self-regulating levers, to which the
coulters were attached; this was done by hang-
ing each coulter on a distinct lever, placed at
right angles with the cross bar of the framing,
upon which each lever was made to swing by
an ordinary hinge joint, and had a movable
weight at its opposite end, to press the coulter
into the soil. By the levers being thus con-
trived to work independently of each other,
they accommodated themselves to the irregu-
larity of the surface of the land, and the impe-
diments which they might meet, without dis-
turbing the whole. The above were two very
important improvements ; and they are both in
use in England, to this day.

Suffolk Com and Manure Drill. — Following
the improvements just referred to, are those by
James Smyth of Peasenhall, and his brother
Jonathan Smyth of Swefling, who have been
engaged in the manufacture upwards of 40
years. A brief summary of which is as fol-
lows : — 1. A mode of adjusting the coulters to
distances apart from each other, from four and
a half inches and upwards. 2. An improved
manure-box and cups, for the delivery of ma-
nure with the grain. 3. A plan to drill in ma-
nure and grain, and sow small seeds at the
same time. 4. The swing steerage, by which
means the man attending the drill can move
the coulters to the right or to the left hand, so
as to keep the straight and parallel lines for
sowing the seeds. 5. Various improvements
in gearing and driving the wheels, barrel, &c.
An engraving taken from one of Smyth's most
perfect j^rain and manure drills is given in

/^/afc /4:

DRILL-MACHINES.

DRILL-MACHINES.

Plate 14, fig. 3, by the description we have
given of Cooke's and of the subsequent im-
provements by Baldwin, Wells, and Smyth, the
plan will be fully understood.

The Suffolk grain and manure drill may also
be arranged for sowing turnips and manure at
the same time. In such cases the corn-box
has to be exchanged for a double one, in one
part of which runs a spindle with brushes,
where the turnip-seed is contained. There are
small copper slides, with different numbers,
from one to six holes pierced in them, through
which the seed is delivered as required. The
other part of the box contains the manure,
which is thrown into the funnels, and these are
so arranged that it drops into the earth just
before the seed.

Morton's improved grain drill, is spoken of
in the Highland Soriety^s Traiisactwtig, (vol.
vii.) as decidedly the simplest and best of grain
drills. A description and cut of this machine
which drills 3 rows, is given in Loud, Encyc,
of Jgr., p. 409.

Hornsljy's Patent Drop Drill is intended for
dropping seed with manure at intervals, but
the construction of it is very different from the
Suffolk. In this, the manner of regulating the
delivery is by having a coulter of a peculiar
form inside, in which a circular box revolves
on an axle which passes through one side
thereof. This box is divided into compart-
ments closed by small doors, which are kept
shut by a spring to each ; the compartments in
the box are supplied through a series of fun-
nels, the end of the lower one entering one
side of the box below the centre.

On the machine being moved forwards, this
box revolves by means of appropriate cog-
wheels ; and as each spring arrives at the
ground, the door to which it is attached opens,
and the contents of that compartment are depo-
sited, to be again replaced, when it arrives at
the part of its rotation at the end of the funnel,
and so on successively.

Grounseirs Patent Drop Drill.— This drill is
for the purpose of depositing corn, grain, pulse,
and manure at intervals, the distances of which
may be regulated at pleasure. (PI. 14, fig. 4.)

To effect the purposes above mentioned, a
circular iron ring is fixed about midway be-
tween the nave and rim of the drill carriage-
wheel. In this there is a number of holes to
carry a series of studs, which may be varied
according to circumstances; and as these
studs come in succession, when the wheel
turns they open valves for the delivery of the
seed and manure, which close again immedi-
ately the stud has passed. A further improve-
ment is by the adoption of projecting arms or
shovels, to draw the manure and grain to the
funnels, instead of taking the same up in cups
in the way adopted in other drills.

The Messrs. Ransome give the following
sketch of the chief modern improvements made
in the drill, which have greatly added to its
. usefulness, without having increased its cost

The drills usually made by the best makers
in England, are of several kinds ; but their de-
scription may be briefly comprehended under
three or four heads.

1. The Common Lever Drill. This invaluable

machine, which is the one in the most general
use, is adapted for drilling grain, on either level
grounds or ridges, and on all descriptions of
soil. These are, as we have stated in our pre-
vious description, furnished with independent
levers, by which the coulters are each readily
and separately made to avoid any rocks or ir-
regularities of the ground, and a " press steel-
yard," to force the coulters, in case of need,
into hard ground, with a varying degree of
pressure, according to the texture of the soil.

These coulters can now be set so as to drill
the corn at any width, from 4 inches to a
greater distance ; they also, if required, readily
allow of the intr^uction of the horse-hoe ;
and from being placed, by another excellent
improvement, in double rows, they admit, when
at work, of large stones, &c., passing between
them, of a size that was not possible under the
old plan of placing the coulters in one line.
These are also, in the most complete drills,
furnished with a "swing steerage," by which
the drill-man keeps the rows at exact or even
distances from those which have been previ-
ously drilled in the centre of the ridge, or out
of the furrows, &c. The " corn-barrel " of this
drill is made to deliver from two pecks to 6 or
7 bushels or strikes per acre of any kind of
grain ; and they have an additional barrel for
drilling turnips and mangel-wurzel, &c. And
again, these barrels, by a peculiarly simple, yet
excellent "regulator," are kept on unequal,
hilly ground, on the same level; so that the
grain is evenly delivered, in whatever situation
the drill may be placed.

A " seed engine" is also sometimes added to
this drill, by which the grass-seeds and clover
are sown at the same time as the grain, and
each kind of seed, if required, separately ; by
which plan any quantity pey acre of the seeds
may be much more evenly distributed, than by
mixing them up together. For these seeds,
being of different sizes and weights, are in the
ordinar)' seed engines very apt to separate in
the boxes; and thus the brushes too often
deliver them in unequal proportions.

The weight of these drills necessarily varies
with the number of coulters ; they are usually
from about 3 to 10 cwts., and are drawn, accord-
ing to circumstances, by either one, two, or three
horses ; and have, if required, slip axletrees,
with which, by merely adding to the number
of the coulters, &c., the drill is adapted to any
breadth of land.

2. The next description of drill to which I
shall allude, is The Manure Drill. This drill is
formed very readily, by merely adding to the
common corn drill, an operation which any
husbandman can perform, " a manure box."
It is a simple yet accurately working appara-
tus for delivering the manure, which, in the
best drills, it does with great evenness, and in
quantities varying as " the slip " is placed, from
6 to 8 bushels per acre. In the best drills, also,
a very important improvement has been made
within the last few years, which consists in the
use of separate coulters for manure and
seed. The manure is now deposited according
to the mode preferred by the cultivator, not
only from 2 to 3 inches deeper in the ground
than the seed, but from 10 to 12 inches in ad-
2N 421

DRILL-MACHINES.

DRILL-MACHINES.

vance of it, so as to give the soil time to cover
the manure before the next couhers deposit the
seed ; — whereas, on the old plan of depositing
the seed and the fertilizer together down one
pipe, an evil was liable to arise when it was
used with some of the more powerful artificial
manures ; the seed and the manure were too
clos« together, and the manure was not always
dropped in what is commonly its biest position,
v/nder the seed.

3. The third variety of drill which I shall no-
tice, is The Northumberland Frame Manure and
Turnip Ridging Drill. This excellent drill is
furnished with pressing rollers (one to each
coulter), which form the l|nd into ridges — and
precede the coulters. These deliver in separate
coulters, 1st, the manure; and 2dly, the seed;
and the drill is provided with a second roller,
which follows the coulters and closes the rows.
This machine drills two rows at a time —
weighs only about 1 cwt.^-and one man and
a horse can easily drill from 8 to 10 acres per
day.

Besides these three most commonly used
drills, there are several others — such as the
Two Coulter Seed and Manure Lever Drill ;
this has a swing steerage, to which we have be-
fore alluded, and a slip axletree to vary the
distances of the ridges — (for this valuable im-
plement a prize was awarded to Mr. Garret at
the Cambridge meeting). To this a set of hoes
is occasionally attached, furnished with inde-
pendent levers either for ridge-work or other-
wise.

There are in England many other varieties
of drills, but they involve no particularly use-
ful principles, if we except the drop drills, the
chief object of which is to save the quantity
of manure. In these the seed or corn is mixed,
and deposited with the* manure.

From this brief enumeration the farmer will
see that the modern drill-makers have not ne-
glected their duty, in the adoption of every im-
provement calculated to simplify and render
more serviceable the common and the manure
drill ; and I am highly gratified to be able to
add, that there is now every prospect of their
skill and enterprise being rewarded by the cul-
tivators of our country ; for I find, from an
eminent maker, that the demand for manure
drills has within the last two years been greater
than ever was remembered before.

The chief advantages of the use of the drill,
are the regular deposition of the seed at a
uniform regulated depth, from which arises a
considerable saving of seed (at least one-third)
— and the facility afforded in cleaning the land
either by the hand or horse-hoe. The import-
ance of these results is, happily for our coun-
try, rapidly becoming generally understood :'
and the result of experiments which I witnessed
to a considerable extent, upon some of the poor-
est gravelly soils of Surrey, by Mr. Hewitt Da-
vis -and others, convince me that, by the use
of this machine, combined with careful hoeing
and weeding the crops, a saving even of half
the usual quantity of seed now used by the
drill may be eifected. And again, 1 cannot too
often urge upon the farmer of the upland soils,
far away from supplies of manure, the use of
the manure drill, and those fertilizers expressly
432

prepared for its use ; since by these one ton of
manure is sufficient for three acres. And let
the farmer remember, that it is not only the
first cost of all manures which makes them
expensive, but the comparative labour saved
in their application, which must also be taken
into the account when the cultivator is esti-
mating their value. And further, let him re-
member that the best and richest farm compost
is likely to convey to his fields a multitude of
weeds, the cost of whose removal too rarely
forms a portion of such comparative esti-
mates.

The patents which have been taken out in
England, during the last half century, for drill
ploughs and improvements in sowing machines
form a long list.

The advantages derived from using drill
machines for sowing wheat and the other small
grains have been summed up by Mr. Binns, at
a meeting of an English agricultural society,
as follows : —

1. The seed is delivered with regularity.

2. It is deposited at proper depth.

3. The weeds, during the growth of plants,
. are destroyed with great facility.

4. The plants cultivated receive the undi-
vided benefit of the soil and manure, and have
not to maintain a constant struggle with
weeds.

5. The land by the process of hoeing, is un-
dergoing preparations for another crop.

6. The necessity of summer fallowing is
avoided.

7. By admission of the sun and air between
the rows, a stronger and healthier plant is pro-
duced, and of course a heavier crop.

8. By stirring the soil it is more susceptible
of benefit from the atmosphere, imbibing more
oxygen, and being both warmed and enriched
by the sun.

9. The roots shoot freely in pulverized soil.

10. By drilling, the farmer is enabled to have
heavier crops of beans and wheat on light
land.

11. Clover and grass-seeds answer incom-
parably better in the pulverization produced
by hoeing, independent of the clearness from
weeds.

12. The drills give facility for depositing
smaller portions of manure with greater effect.

"These advantages," says the editor of the
Cultivator, " are all self-evident to a good far-
mer ; and it might have been added, as a thir-
teenth advantage, that drilling economizes seed,
though Mr. Binns rejects it, on the ground that,
if the plants are thin, they throw out side-
shoots, which produce imperfect grain, and ri-
pen unequally. In drill husbandry, Mr. Binns
affirms, fifty-six bushels of wheat per acre
have been raised on the light soils of Norfolk."

It is believed by some that the plan of sow-
ing wheat by drill machines is a refinement in
agriculture which cannot be profitably adopted
in the United States, where the price of grain
is of late years much lower than in England.
The introduction of the practice will perhaps
be slow, but there cannot, we think, be a doubt
of its final general adoption in all the best cul-
tivated wheat-growing districts. The first ex-
pense of the machine is doubtless the princi-

DRILL-MACHINES.

DRILL-MACHINES.

pal obstacle to their general introduction, as to
import a good one costs between |150 and
$200.

An admirable drill for sowing wheat has
been invented and patented by Moses Pennock
and son Samuel, of Kennett Square, Chester
county, Pennsylvania. (See Plate 14, fig. 5.)
It has been used for several years in the south-
em parts of Pennsylvania and adjoining spates,
and the greatest satisfaction has been expressed
for its performance.

Pennock's drill is capable of sowing 8 acres
of wheat, or planting 15 acres of Indian corn,
per day. The wheat is placed in boxes, con-
necting with sowing tubes which penetrate
into the ground, scattering it in rows 9 inches
apart, and covering about an average depth
of 2^ inches. If one or more of the tubes
comes in contact with a stone, root, or other
obstacle beneath the surface, a small chain to
which it is attached breaks a wooden peg, and
thus saves the machine from any serious
injury, the detention being only a few seconds
when pegs are kept ou hand. The prepara-
tion of the ground is similar to that adopted in
the broad-cast method. The machine is drawn
with great ease by one horse, and requires but
one attendant, in sowing wheat. For every
bushel sown by hand in the ordinary way, the
drill saves from 8 to 12 quarts. The machine
is easily managed and not liable to get out of
order. Besides covering the wheat much more
effectually than can be done by the harrow, it
raises ridges about 3 inches high on each side
of the tubes. These ridges crumble down by
the action of the frost and rains, and thus
cover the young plants and prevent them from
being thrown out during the freezing and thaw-
ing of the ground and killed, as so commonly
occurs in the winters of the United States.
Samuel Pennock, the junior inventor, has for
several years been using the drill extensively
in putting in cro|>«. His usual charge, for
the use of a machine, including the horse and
his own services, is $4 per day, or 50 cents
per acre. When wheat sells for ^1,25 or $1,50
per bushel, the seed saved will pay all the
expense of drilling, (especially when the
farmer owns the drill), the crop being placed
in a far better condition than can be effected
by the broad-cast method, as will be evident
from a consideration of the various advan-
tages enumerated, and these constitute the
chief profit.

When the machine is used for planting
Indian com, (for which purpose it is singu-
larly well adapted), some of the levers are
thrown out of gear, leaving the remainder so
arranged as to strike out two rows, 4^ feet apart,
in which the corn is dropped at regular dis-
tances and covered with about 3^ inches of
earth, or less if desired. It may be afterwards
thinned, but must of course be always tilled
in one direction. The ground is flushed and
harrowed, after which rows 9 feet apart are
run with a plough and one horse, in which
rows the horse drawing the drill walks in going
and retuming. In this way about 15 acres of
Indian corn may be planted in a day, and thus
a considerable saving of labour is effected by
the owner of a drill, since to plant the same

number of acres by hand, in the usual way,
would require 5 hands equal to fifteen days
work, with the addition of a second plough to
run out furrows, and two droppers. Although
Pennock's drill costs $100, it seems evident
that the saving of labour in planting the corn
crop will more than pay the interest and wear
and tear of the machine, leaving none of these
charges to be placed against the wheat crop.
Persons who have watched the progress of
corn crops planted by the drill, and compared
the results with those of crops planted by hand,
say, that under ordinary circumstances, a gain
of 5 bushels per acre may be fairly credited to
the drilled corn. Some even go so far as to
say that drilling has added one-fourth to the
crop. The deep covering is regarded, where
the soil is perfectly dry, and of a light texture,
as a very great advantage. The corn will at
first appear backward, but is soon observed to
catch up and outstrip that which has l^een co-
vered more superficially. It is also placed
more out of the reach of birds, and escapes
injury from the cut-tcomt, and heart-ivomi, or,
as it is also called, bud^corm. The cut-worm
usually commits its depredations by night,
taking off the plants at, or very near, the sur-
face of the ground, whilst by day it cuts a
little below the surface. Now, when corn is
deeply covered it admits of being topped, with-
out being entirely killed, and suffers little fur-
ther injury than retardation.

Pennock's drill, besides sowing beans, peas,
and all kinds of round seeds, including ruta-
baga,, is, like Cooke's English drill, capable of
being adapted to the purposes of a horse-hoe,
cultivator, extirpator, and harrow, by the ad-
justment of hoes, harrow-teeth, &c. Besides
the approbation bestowed on Pennock's drill
by individual farmers, for some of whom they
have sown as much as 100 acres a season,
several public institutions have awarded pre-
miums to the inventors, among which we may
mention the Philadelphia Agricultural Society,
Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania, and Ame-
rican Institute of New York.

It would be a desideratum in the United
States to have drills like those used in England,
adapted to sowing seeds and sprinkling with
them at the same time some of the concen-
trated manures, such as bone-dust, poudrette,
&c. But this again, like every other addition,
must increase the cost, already so great an
obstacle.

As yet the drill system in the United States
has been principally confined to sowing tur-
nips and beets, and sometimes Indian corn.
The results with many who have had good im-
plements and known how to use them, has
been a conviction of their utility and economy,
especially where the root culture has been ex-
tensively carried on. One-rowed drills are
almost the only kind to be met with in the
warehouses where agricultural implements are
kept for sale.

Drill-barrows are implements furnished with
handles, similar to those of a wheel-barrow,
and designed to be propelled by hand. Among
these Willis's Latest Improved Seed-sower is said
to be the best, as it puts the seed into the
ground with regularity and in the best manner.

423

DRILL-ROLLER.

DRY ROT,

It opens the furrow, .drops the seed, covers \
and rolls them- down. It will sow almost
any kind of garden seeds, such as. beets, ruta-
baga, mangel-wurtzel, carrots,, turnips, pars-
nips, onions, &c., and costs $14.

Buckminster^s Seed-planter is of .simple con-
.slructioD, and has been found to answer well
for planting corn, sugar-beet, &c. It deposits
the seed either in drill-rows or hills, as may be
desired. When the ground is properly pre-
pared, a man, with one horse, it is said, can
furrow out, drop, cover, and press down the
seed on an acre of .ground in one hour, or
10 acres in a day. The seed is covered by
falling into the furrow of the soil, wjiich is
finelypulverized by a row of cultivator teeth.
The machine will bury the seed 3 inches deep,
if desired — one inch being the general rule for
Indian corn, and only one-fourth of an inch

fr turnips. By simply turning .a screw one
ay or the other the depth is regulated.

JiemenCs Improved Turnip Drill, which is a
modification of the English Northumberland
Drill, enjoys a good reputation. It sows beets,
peas, and, generally, all kinds of round or oval-
shaped seeds.

Merchants Drill Barroto, is said to perform
well, and is recommended by its simplicity of
construction and cheapness. . By multiplying
the wheels, or rather by uniting' several ma-
chines, it may be adapted to horse power, and
thus applied to field culture for sugar-beets,
ruta-bagas, &c., and, even, it is said, for wheat
and other small grains.

DRILL-ROLLER. A roller so contrived as
to form regular small incisions or drillsin the
ground at proper djepths for the seed. It is
merely a common cylinder roller, generally of
iron, about seven feet long, arouYid which are
put cutting-wheels of cast iron, each of which
generally weighs about a ton. The cutting
wheels, being movable, may be fixed a-t any
distance, by meansof washers.

DROPSY. In farriery, a dise£tse incident to
horses, and sometimes called water-farcy. See
Horses axd Shebp, Diseases of.

DRpPWORT, WATER (GEnanthe). Smith
{Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 68), describes five species
in England. The common water-dropwort ;
the parsley Water-dropwort ; sulphur-wort wa-
ter-dropwort; the fine-leaved water-dropwort;
and the hemlock water-dropwort. They are
aquatic herbs, perennials, and biennials ; fetid,
and often poisonous ; found in ditches, ponds,
and other watery places. The first three spe-
cies are not reckoned poisonous ; but the last
(CEnanthe crocata), is perhaps, in its fresh state,
the most virulent of British plants. Brood
mares, according to Sir Thomas Frankland,
sometimes eat the root, and are poisoned by
^t. The root consists of many fleshy knobs,
resembling parsnips externally, {ibounding
with an orange-coloured, fetid, and very poi-
sonous juice, such as exudes less plentifully
from all parts of the herb when wounded. The
stem is from two to five feet high, much branch-
ed, somewhat forked, and hollow. The leaves
are of a dark shining green, and doubly
pinnate. The flowers are white, or tinged
with purple, very numerous and crowded.

Two or three species of cowbane are*enu-

42-1:

merated in the United States, where the plant
is believed to be an active poison, particularly
to horned cattle, when eaten by them ; for which
reason it should be "eradicated from all pas-
tures where it is discovered. (Darlinglons
Flor. Ces.)

DROSOMETER (from the Greek). An in-
strument constructed for measuring the quan-
tity of dew that collects on the surface of a body
exposed to the open air during the night. Tlte
first instrument for this purpose was proposed
by Weidler. It consisted of a bent balance
which marked in grains the preponderance
which a piece of glass of certain dimensions,
laid horizontally in one of the scales had ac-
quired from the settling and adhesion of the
globules of moisture. A simpler and more
convenient drosometer would be formed on
the principle of the rain guage ; and in order
to facilitate the descent of the dew down the
sides of the funneV into the tube, a coat of
deliqueate- salt of tartar may be spread over
the shallow surface. Dr. Wells, in making
his celebrated experiments on dew, exposed a
small quantity of wool to the open sky, and the
difference in its weight when laid down and
taken up showed the quantity of moisture it
liad imbibed in the interval. (Brande's Diet,
of Science.)

DROUGHT. The eflfect of long-continued
dry weather, or the want of rain : when appli-
ed to animals, it signifies thirst, or want of
drink.

DRUDGE. An implement of the rake or
harrow kind, peculiar to West Devonshire: It
is a sort of long heavy wooden-toothed rake,
the teeth being broad, and placed with the
wide or flat side forenlost. It is drawn by
horses or oxen, and made use of, in paring and
burning. operations, to collect the broken parts
or fragments of the sward which have been
loosened by the operation of the plough and
harrow.

DRY ROT. The name of a disease which
attacks wood, rendering it pulverulent by de-
stroying the cohesion of its parts. It fre-
quently depends on fungous plants, which are
nourished upon the sap in the wood, and by
taking that away destroy the cohesive property
of the woody particles. The fungi most de-
structive are the Merulius lacrymans, the Poly-
porus destructor, and several species of Sporo-
trichium. .The production of these fungi is
favoured by whatever causes the sap remain-
ing in the wood to ferment; as, for example,
defect of ventilation. In the old cathedrals
and other public edifices, the dry rot never ap-
peared, because care was taken to ventilate the
beams. It occurs among the timbers of ships,
where it sometimes commits the most serious
damage and in damp ill-ventilated houses; Mr.
Batson, in the Trans, of Soc. for Encour. of Arts^
recommended charring as a preventative.
Some excellent advice is also given on this
subject in a paper by Mr. Hart, "On the Cause
of Dry Rot in the Larch and other Trees"
{Trans. High. Soc. vol. iv. p. 395). The process
which has been patented by Mr. Kyan, namely,
j steeping the wood for a week or two in a strong

solution of corrosive sublimate, which coagu-
lates the albumen of the wo8d, and destroys the

DUCK.

DUCK.

fungus, appears to be the best preventative at
present known. Sir W. Burnet has recently
invented another process. for rendering wood,
cordage, and all descriptions of woollen, free
from the effects of dry rot, which has lately
been tested and found very efficacious by go-
vernment. I understand the active matter in
Sir William Burnet's solution is sulphate of
copper. ( WillidCs Dom. Ency.)

.DUCK (Dutch Ducker, to dip; i.at. anas).
There are many varieties of ducks described
by naturalists, but only two are to be found in
our farm-yards; namely, the common duck
and the Muscovy duck. The common duck is
a useful and economical bird, requiring little
care. It is perfectly independent, if there is
only a pond or mud hole to dabble in ; for
moisture is its element, and it cannot thrive
without it. One drake is sutficient for eight or
ten ducks. Duck hovels should be kept very
clean anjd warm, with a row of boxes inside
to induce the duck to lay her eggs in them ;
otherwise in the laymg season she drops her
egg in the- water, or on the bare ground, or
seeks by-places, where, the eye of the vigilant
housewife cannot penetrate. For this reason,
it is better not to let them out very early in the
morning during the laying months, which are
March, April, and May. Their hovel should
be 'well secured from the entrance of foxes,
polecats, weasels, &c., and it should be de-
fended from wind and weather. Ducks " feed
themselves" a great part of the year, as they
are gross eaters; loving every sort of garbage,
such as offal, earthworms, caterpillars, sweep-
ings of barns, residue of breweries, slugs, toads,
spiders, and insects. In this particular, they
are admirable gardeners, effecting more in one
night than two gardeners could perform in a
week towards clearing a garden of slugs, snails,
and caterpillars. The waters which ducks
frequent should contain no leeches. If a pond
has any leeches in it, put in a few tench, which
will soon devour them. The herb henbane
should also be carefully rooted up from the
neighbourhood of ducks and poultry in gene-
ral, from its poisonous qualities. A duck lays
from 50 to 60 eggs between the months of
March and May, which are as nourishing in
their quality as hen's eggs. The duck is not
naturally inclined to sit, but let her always sit
upon her own eggs if possible. It is observed
that they do not like sitting upon strange eggs,
and that they even suffer pain by it. Let her
nest be remote and quiet from alarms. While
the duck is sitting, her food should be placed
near her, and doled out sparingly. They sit
closer if not fed too profusely. The food
should be very moist. The young ducklings
are hatched in a month, and then the mother
shouldbe put in a coop for some time, or she
will carry her brood immediately to the water,
and tire them ; besides which, many perish
with cold. They should be allowed to get
strong first. Many housewives prefer setting
duck eggs under hens and hen turkeys, in or-
der to prevent this; but if the duck is secured,
the end is answered. Let the ducklings have
dishes of water near the coop to dabble in,
and feed them when out of the egg-shell with
- 64 • ••

bread crumbled in milk, for a few days. Nettle-
leaves boiled tender and chopped very small,
made into a paste with barley meal, is also a
warm, wholesome food. When the duck-
lings gain strength, give them plenty of raw
potherbs well chopped, mixed with soaked
bran, barley, mashed potatoes, mashed acorns,
or fish, if near the coast. Ducklings intended
for the table should not be allowed to swim
about much ; it keeps them lean. Early ducks
are valuable. They should be confined to their
hovel or to a coop during the process of fat-
tening, and fed there for one month upon oats
and water in clean troughs. It is of no use
giving them musty oats: they will no more
fatten upon musty oats than we can thrive
upon musty bread. Do not try to fatten them
either upon garbage. It gives the flesh a bad
taste. Boiled rice is a nice delicate variety
of food. The fine, white Aylesbury breed are ^
the most profitable and the handsomest duck.
They are also the earliest in laying and setting.

I will give a recipe for salting ducks, as they
are done in Brittany : it is economical and
excellent food. Two days after the weli-fatted
ducks are killed, cut them open at the inferior
part, and draw away the thighs, wings, and
tlesh of the stomach and rump. Put the
whole, with the neck and lip of the rump in a
tub of salt, with a little nitre and a few bay
leaves mixed in it, to give the flesh a fine red
6olour. Cover it up in the salt a fortnight;
then cut the fowl in four quarters, lard it with
cloves, and put it into a pot or pots, with some
spice.

Duck feathers are very profitable, and,
mixed with those of the goose, make good
pillows, &c. The feathers should be plucked
in May and September, while the duck is yet
warm after death. Dry the feathers in bags in
the oven after the bread has been withdrawn,
and repeat the process several times. See
Feathers.

DUCK, THE MUSCOVY (Jnas Moschata),
a native of South America, is a gaudy-looking
large bird, often introduced into our farm-
yards, but not much approved ; more for show
than use. Their flesh is not so good to eat as
that of the common duck, and the drake is
very tyrannical in attacking the poultry, and
causing an uproar in the peaceful homestead,
besides spoiling a superior bt:eed.

DUCK, THE WILD (Jnas boschas, Linn.),
is rather less in size than the tame duck, but
differs little in plumage ; it weighs usually
about 2^ lbs., but has been known to reach 3|.
In-shore shooting of wild ducks is considered
to be legitimate sporting about the middle of
August, when the flappers, or young ducks,
have begun to take wing. The last Game A'ct
in England has a clause to prevent wild-fpwl
being killed from the last day of March to the
1st of October, and this applies equally to
shooting and taking them in decoys. The wild
ducks pair in the spring, build theif nest
among rushes near the water, and lay from 10
to 16 eggs. ( Willich's Dom. Ency.) For descrip-
tions of the numerous species of the wild
duck found in the United States, see NuttaU's
Ornithology of Water Birds.

2s 2 425

DUCK'S FOOT.

EAR.

DUCK'S FOOT (Podophyllvm; Ehndged
from anapodofphyllum, a word signifying a duck's
foot, as the leaves bear some resemblance to
it). This plant requires a moist, shady situa-
tion, and to be grown in peat soil ; increased
by division at the root. (Paxton^s Bot. Did.)

DUCKWEED (Lemna). A genus of minute,
herbaceous, floating plants, consisting of four
species, all of which are natives of England,
and grow abundantly in ponds, ditches, and
stagnant waters. They are in flower from
June to August. Duckweed is a small green
herb, consisting of little roundish leaf-like
disks. It is not, perhaps, generally known that
duckweed, if allowed to spread itself over
ponds and stews, in which fish are preserved,
will ultimately destroy them, by its forming a
compact mat upon the surface, thereby prevent-
ing the fish, when they rise to the surface of
the water for air, from breathing. It should
on this account be abstracted diligently with a
rake, or some such implement, an^d kept under
before it attains an ascendency, which it will
do in a very short time if not seasonably with-
drawn. The quantities of fish that perish
under the influence of this weed are incal-
culable. Ducks feed upon the "lemna" with
surprising avidity, and thence it derives its
name (duck's meat or duckweed). Ducks, by
dabbling and grovelling in foul pools, where it
predominates, and its adhering to their feathers,
are in the habit of introducing it into other
waters, where it never appeared before. (Eng.
Flora, vol. i. p. 31 ; Willich's Dom. Ency.)

DUN (Sax. •oun). A colour partaking of
brown and black, frequent in horses.

DUNES (Ang.-Sax. loiv hills). Hills of
movable sand, which are met with- along the
sea coast in various parts of Great Britain,
Ireland, and the Continent. (Brande's Did. of
Science.)

DUNG and DUNGHILL. See Faux-takd
Dung and Cojtpost.

DURHAM CATTLE. See Cattle.

DUST BRAND. One of the local names
for the smut in wheat.

DUTCH ASHES. See Ashes.

DUTCH ELM (Ulmus suberosa). See Elm.

DWARF BAY. See MezekeoxV.

DWARF ROSE .BAY. See MouNTAiif

LAtJREL.

DWARF BERRIES. See Nightshape.

DWARF OAK. A shrub, sometimes em-
ployed for making live fences. It grows very
fast, and becomes thick by cutting very ra-
pidly.

DYKE (Sax. *ic; Erse, dyk). A sort of wall
or mound formed of earth or turfs. In Scot-
land it is applied to any wall round a field.
See Ditch.

DYNAMOMETER (Gr. fumfAic, power, and
fAiT^cv, measure). An instrument for measur-
ing power of any kind, as the strength of men
and animals, the force of machinery, &c.
Some interesting results relating to the average
strength of men at diflTerent ages, and of dif-
ferent weights and sizes, have been produced
by M. Quetelet of Brussels, from numerous
experiments with Regnier's dynamometer, one
of the most convenient that is made.

It consists of two flat plates of steel of a
436

curved form, increasing in thickness towards
the ends, which unite into solid cylindrical
loops ; the curved sides of the plates being
placed opposite to each other, and the whole
forming an entire elliptic spring. On the ap-
plication of this instrument as a link in the
line of draught, the oval becomes lengthened
in proportion to the degree of force acting on
the loops in opposite directions, and the curved
sides approach more nearly towards each
other accordingly. The degree of approxima-
tion in the plates is shown on the scale, in
divisions corresponding to half and whole hun-
dred weights, by means of a cross rod secured
to one plate acting on a crank attached to the
opposite one, thus communicating its effect to
the lever index, which, moving over the divi-
sions of the scale, marks the varying degree
of force exerted each moment by the draught
to which the instrument is subjected.

Messrs. Cottam and Hallen, engineers and
agricultural implement makers, of Winsley
street, Oxford street, London, have recently
patented an improved dynamometer, contrived
with the intention of obviating the continual
vibration of the indicator of the dynamometer
formerly in use, which was caused (with refer-
ence, to the plough) by the obstructions met
with in the soil through which it was passing.
These vibrations were so incessant^ that the
indicator could scarcely be discerned during
the experiment. The improvement consists in
the attachment of a small brass pump filled
with oil, the piston of which has one or two
small apertures. There being no outlet from
the pump, it is evident that when any shock
occurs, caused by a stone, root, &c., the oil
having to pass from one side of the piston to
the other, the suddenness is greatly diminished
by the resistance, producing a corresponding
eflfect upon the pointer, w^ich, as these shocks
are rapid, vibrates nearer the actual draught
of the machine ; which is the object in view,
and not the measurement of any impediment,
but a mean result of the whole. Mr. Pusey, in
his "Experimental Inquiry on Draught in
Ploughing" (Journ. Roy. En^. .Sgr. Soc. vol. i. p.
219), speaks very favourably of this draught-
gnage, and remarks (^Ihid. p. 222) : " Such is
the goodness of Mr. Cottam's new draught-
guage, that we scarcely ever, I believe, differed
by more than a quarter of a hundred weight,
and often agreed to an eighth, or one stone."

DYSENTERY (Fr. dysenterie). See Sheep,
Diseases of.

E

EAR (Sax. eajie; Lat. auris). The organ of 1
hearing in animals. In ahorse, the ears should .
be small, narrow, straight, and the substance J
of them thin and delicate. They should be \
placed on the very top of the head ; and their
points> when stiled or pricked up, should be
nearer together than their roots. When a
horse carries his ears pointed forwards, he is ^
said to have a bold or brisk ear. In travelling,
it is considered an advantage when the horse
keeps them firm. The exterior ears of the
horse are merely organs for collecting sound;

K\R MARK.

EARTHS.

consequently, he has a complete power over
the muscles attached to them, and can turn
them in every direction. It is probable that
the organ of hearing is the safeguard of the
horse in his natural state. He is ill adapted for
combat ; his swiftness of foot and his acute-
ness of hearing are therefore requisites to him
of the utmost importance.
• EAR MARK. A mark on the ear by which
shepherds know their ^heep. Cattle, hogs, and
other animals are sometimes marked in the
same way, by notching, clipping, or slitting
the ear.

EARNEST (Sax. eopnerr; Yr.arrhes; Dan.
ernitz peiige). In commercial law, the sum ad-
vanced by the buyer of goods in order to bind
the seller to the terms of the agreement. As to
what amounts to sufficient earnest, Blackstone
lays it down, that " if any part of the price is
paid down, if it is but a penny, or any portion
of the goods is delivered by way of earnest, it
is binding." To constitute earnest, the thing
must be given as a token of ratification of the
contract, and it should be expressly stated so
by the giver. (Chitty's Corn. Law, vol. iii. p. 289 ;
M'CuUoch's Com. Dirt.)

EARS of Corn (Sax. ashhep.). The spike
or head containing the seeds of wheat, &c.

In the United States the term ear as applied
to grain, refers almost exclusively to that of
Indian corn.

EARTH (Sax. eapTs.). This word was an-
ciently employed to signify one of the four
elements of which all matter was supposed to
be formed ; namely air, fire, tvater, and earth. In
the present period, the word in common lan-
guage has two meanings ; it implies either the
globe we tenant, or the soil on which plants
vegetate. In this work it has reference to the
latter. The soil, as well as the rocks, &c., of
which our planet is formed, is composed of a
variety of substances, such as lime, silica,
alumina, magnesia, &c., to which chemists
long since gave the name of earths ; and
although by the researches of Sir H. Davy and
others, these earths have been shown to be, in
reality, metallic oxides — that is, metals urrited
with oxygen — yet the term earth is so well and
so extensively known, that I should, even if
• this was intended to be a chemical dictionary,
retain it. The following is the composition of
the four earths most commonly met with by
the farmer in his land, or in the crops which it
supports : —

Lime: a compound of a peculiar metal called

Pirti.
Calcium ----._ 71-42,
Oi^gen -.___. 28-58

JOO

Alumina (clay) : a compound of,
Aluminum --.-._ 56895
Oxygen _ 43105

» 100

Silica, which is by modern chemists classed
with the acids, is a compound of a metal called

Magnesia : a compound of the metal

Magnesium
Oxygen

Silicon
Oxygen

Parts.

49-888
50 112

100

In this place, however, our business is with
the earths only so far as their uses to vegeta-
tion are concerned.

EARTHS, their Use to Vegetation. In the in-
vestigation of the use of the earths to vegeta-
tion, not only as regards their position as
necessary portions of all cultivated soils, but
as forming the essential constituents of most
vegetable substances, several very important,
circumstances will present themselves to the
notice of the cultivator. The order and the
regularity with which these earths are found in
plants is most remarkable ; the harmony, too,
with which the various chemical ingredients
are arranged, the uniform manner in which
they are absorbed by the roots of the plant and
distributed in its juices, cannot escape our at-
tention, nor fail to excite our gratitude for the
benevolence and the wisdom displayed in the
contrivance. Thus we shall find, as we pro-
ceed in our researches (to give only a single
instance), that the earth silica (flint) abounds
in the straw of the wheat plant, where its pre-
sence helps to impart the requisite degree of
strength and hardness to the stem ; but scarce-
ly a chemical trace of this earth is discoverable
in the flour of the seeds of the same plant, for
there its presence in our food would be worse
than useless.

Let not, however, the reader, when he is
considering the discoveries of vegetable che-
mistry, feel surprised that more has not been
accomplished by the chemical philosopher in
that important branch of science. There are
many reasons why thc^ discoveries in this
branch of chemistry have been gradual, and
only by slow degrees : he may be assured that
the difficulties M'hich attend the chemist when
he is investigating the properties of organic
matter, are more than usually numerous ; for
the living plant, in many instances, seems en-
dowed with powers that appear even to neu-
Cralize the efl^ects of chemical attraction and
repulsion : thus the earths and alkalies, to give
one instance only, are often foundin juxtapo-
sition with uncombined vegetable acids. The
roots of mos't plants, also, are endowed with a
remarkable capacity of absorption ; not only
do they absorb water, the gases of the atmo-
sphere and those formed by putrefaction, but
they take up earths, alkalies, and saline sub-
stances ; and, besides doing this with a regu-
larity which is almost unvaried, they exei^cise
a power of absorbing certain saline bodies
when dissolved with others in water, and of
leaving the others in solution, which shows
them to be endowed with properties of a very
remarkable nature. Some curious experiments
were long since made by M. Saussure on this
interesting question. " When various salts
were dissolved at once in the same solutions,"
says Dr. Thomson, "and plants made to vege-
tate in them, it was found that different propor-
tions of the salts were absorbed. The foUow-

427

EARTHS.

EARTHS.

ing table exhibits the results of these trials,
supposing the original weight of each salt to
have been 100. Each solution contained one
hundredth part of its weight of each salt —

J S Glauber salt
' ( Common salt

r Glauber salt
2, < Common salt

CAcetate of lime)

ProportioDi
absorbed.

- 117

- 220

- 60

- 100

- 00

On examining the plants the salts absorbed
were found in them unaltered." (Chemistry,
vol. iv. p. 325.) In these experiments the cul-
tivator will observe that the plants (which were
Spotted Persicaria (Polygonum Persicaria) and
the Bur-marigold (Bidens Unpurtita), with their
roots attached) absorbed the common salt with
avidity, but that they rejected entirely the ace-
tate of lime. The earths are, in all probability,
always imbibed by the plant in a state of solu-
tion ; we know, in fact, that both lime and
silica are, to a certain extent, soluble in water,
and alumina is also very probably absorbed as
a component of some of the soluble salts which
contain this earth.

The part which the earth fulfils in the sup-
port of plants early attracted the attention of
philosophers. The earthy ashes produced by
the combustion of vegetable substances must
have very soon indicated to mankind the real
truth of the case, that there were certain solid
substances found in vegetables which they
could only derive from the earth they tenanted.
That the soil furnished its earthy matter to the
plant was, therefore, the natural conclusion of
some of the Greek philosophers ; and although
their observations in this way were commonly
very loose, and always general, yet when they
decided, which they did with all gravity, that
earth, air, fire, and water composed every thing
on the'earth, the vegetable world was of course
included in the list ; they still, however, thought
that the chief use of the earth to plants con-
sisted in keeping them upright, and furnishing
them with a sufiicient supply of moisture.

When the ancient naturalists came to the
conclusion that the whole earth was composed
of four elements, they founded their decision
upon certain rude observations ; but they did
not stop there, they proceeded to confuse thend-
selves by various incomprehensible or delu-
sive phrases, such as more modern observers
have too often imitated. Fire they regarded as
the active principle of the universe, the source
of both animal and vegetable life, the cause
of renovation and decay. Earth they consi-
dered as the principle of fixity, of hardness,
and of solidity. These rude, though sagacious
observations, the early chemists, and then the
alchemists, strongly confirmed by the mode in
which they analyzed vegetable substances.
They had only one mode of effecting this, that
of subjecting them in a retort to dry or de-
structive distillation. By this mode the results
are almost always the same ; first the water
of the plant comes over ; then a volume of
carburetted hydrogen and carbonic acid gases
is driven off; and finally a quantity of earthy
matters, mixed with various salts and potash \
remains at the bottom of the retort. We need '
hardly feel surprised, therefore, that after such I
438

an analysis, the chemists of old readily agreed
with the naturalists that earth, air, and water,
alone formed the vegetable world.

Evelyn, in 1674, wrote a work upon earth,
in which he lauded its powers with much en-
thusiasm. " What shall I say," he exclaims,
" Quid Divinum 1 the original of all fecundity ;
nor can I say less, since there was nor sacri-
fice nor discourse without it." And in another
place he says (for Evelyn was exceedingly
credulous), " Whatever then it be, which the
earth contributes, or whether it contains uni-
versally a seminal virtue, so specified by the
air, influences, and the genius of the climate,
as to make that a cinnamon tree in Ceylon
which is but a bay in England, is past my skill
to determine ; but it is to be observed with no
little wonder, what M. Bernier in his history of
the empire of the Mogul affirms to, as of a
mountain there, which being on one side of it
intolerably hot produces Indian plants, and on
the other as intemperately cold, European and
vulgar plants." There is much valuable mat-
ter, however, in The Terra of Evelyn, whose
modesty enhanced his great merits. Thus, in
conclusion, he told his Fellows of the Royal
Society, to whom his valuable essay was ad-
dressed, that it was merely " a dull discourse
of earth, mould, and soil."

Fitzherbert, the earliest English writer upon
agriculture (1532), did not pay any attention
to earths, beyond the usual necessary routine
of the farm; he confined himself entirely to
practical details : not a trace of any thing like
scientific inquiry is to be found in his Soke of
Husbandrye. John Worlidge, who published
his System of Agriculture in 1669, thought it ne-
cessary, as he professed to " unveil the mystery
of agriculture," to give the cultivator an expla-
natory chapter on the food of plants, in what
he called "a plain and familiar method," and
this he did in the true jargon of the alchemists;
for the age of "the transmuters" was not yet
over when Worlidge wrote. He gave, there-
fore, the husbandmen of those days a disserta-
tion upon "the universal spirit, or spirit of
mercury, the universal sulphur, and the uni-
versal salt;" but still, after all, he thought that
the earth was the true food of plants, and that
all the operations of the husbandman only
tended to enable the roots of the plant to take
up more earthy matter, and he devotes a chap-
ter of his book to the " Soyls and Manures
taken from the Earth." But his ideas, like those
of the alchemists, were usually a mixture .of
common sense and absurdity, too closely united
to be always readily distinguishable by the
good sense of the cultivator.

Jethro Tull, who wrote between 1730 and
1740, considered earth to be the sole food of |
plants. "Too much nitre," he tells us (p. 13,
of his valuable Book on Husbandry), "cor-
rodes a plant, too much water drowns it, too
much air dries the roots of it, too much heat
burns it ; but too much earth a plant can never
have, unless it be therein wholly buried: too
much earth or too fine can never possibly be *
given to their roots, for they never receive so
much of it as to surfeit the plant." And again,
he tells us in another place, "That which nou-
rishes and augments a plant is the true food

\

i

EARTHS.

of it. Every plant is earth, and the growth and
true increase of a plant is the addition of more
earth." And in his chapter on the " Pasture of
Plants," Tull told his readers with great gravity,
that " this pasturage is the inner or internal
superficies of the earth ; or, which is the same
thing, it is the superficies of the pores, cavi-
ties, or interstices of the divided parts of the
earth, which are of two sorts, natural and arti-
ficial. The mouths or lacteals of roots take
their pabulum, being fine particles of earth,
from the superficies of the pores or cavities,
wherein their roots are included."

Tull wrote with all the enthusiasm of genius,
and carried his admiration of the powers of the
earth to support vegetation much too far ; he
was deceived, in fact, by the effects of his finely
pulverizing system of tillage, and did not suffi-
ciently attend to the fact, that there are many
other substances in the commonly cultivated
soils of the farmer besides the earths, and that
so far from their being always the chief con-
stituents of the soil, ihey very often form the
smallest portion of even a highly productive
field.

That the four earths of which all cultivated
soils are composed are all the necessary food
or constituents of vegetables, has, long since
Tull wrote, been decided by the accurate in-
vestigations of the chemist. Of these, lime,
either as a carbonate, or an acetate, or a sul-
phate, is by far the most generally present in
plants; indeed, in one form or another, it is
rarely absent from them. The presence of
suica (Hint) is almost equally general. Mag-
nesia is less usually present, or, at least, it ex-
ists in smaller proportions ; and the same re-
mark applies to alumina (clay).

The quantity of the earths which is present
in various vegetables is, therefore, a primary
question for the cultivator's guidance. This
will be seen from the following tables : —

null.
1000 parts of (he oak contain of the earths 1 030

— beech — 0 4S3

— fir — 0.003

— Turkey wheat (Indian corn) 7110

— sunflower — 3720

— vine branches — 2-850

— box - 2 674

»— willow — 2-515

— elm — 1960

— aspen — 1 I4tt

— fern — 3221

— wormwood — 2444

— fumitory — . 14 000

The proportions of the earths contained in
the commonly cultivated crops of the farmer
have been ascertained by M. Schraeder : this
able chemist obtained from thirty-two ounces
of the seeds of wheat (Trilicum hybernuni), of
rye (Serale eereale), barley (Horcleum vulture),
oats {Avena sativa), and of rye-straw the fol-
lowing results : —

Silica - - .
Carbonate oflime

" of magnesia
Alumina -
Oxide of manganese
Oxide of iron

WbMt

Rre.

B,rky.

132
126
134
06
50
2-5

156
13-4
142
1-4
32
09

667
248
253
42
67
38

144 02 152 0
33-75 46-2
3309 282
4-05 32
6 95 6-8
4-05 24

47-3 43 7 1 131-5

227-8 1 238-8

{Gehlen, Journ. vol. iii. p. 525.) '

EARTHS.

The earth silica or flint abounds in almost
every description of vegetable matter, espe-
cially in the grasses and Eqniselum (horse-tail).
In the Dutch rush it is so plentiful that that
plant is used by the turner to polish wood, bone,
and even brass. It forms so considerable a
portion of the ashes of wheat-straw, that when
these are exposed to the action of the blow-
pipe, it unites with the potash found also in the
straw, and forms an opaque glass. Davy found
it most copiously in the epidermis or outer
bark of the plants he examined.

Parte.

100 parts of the epidermis of bonnet-cane contain

of silica 90-0

100 partHof the epidermis of bamboo-cane contain

of silica 71"4

100 parts of the epidermis of common reed contain

of silica 48-1

100 parts of the epidermis of stalks of wheat con-
tain of silica - - - - - - - 6-5^

In the joints of the bamboo a concrete sub-
stance is found, which Fourcroy and Vauque-
lin examined, and ascertained that it consists
of 70 parts of silica, and 30 parts of potassa.
This substance, which is named tabasheer, can
only be furnished by the soil. {GehUn, vol. ii.
p. 112.)

This earth, according to M.Saussure, consti-
tutes 3 per cent, of the ashes of the leaves of
oak gathered in May, 14-5 per cent, of those
gathered, in September, and 2 per cent, ot' the
wood. In the ashes obtained by burning the
wood of the poplar, it exists in the proportion
of 3-3 per cent.; of the hazel, 0*25 percent.;
of the mulberry, 0*12 percent.; of the horn-
beam, 0'13 per cent.; 0*5 per cent, in peas (Pt-
sum sativum); 61*5 in the straw of wheat; 0-25
in the seeds ; 57-0 per cent, in the chaff of bap-
ley ; 35-5 in its seeds ; and in the oat plant 60
pec cent.

Lime is, if possible, still more generally
present in all plants than silica. "The salsola
soda," says Dr. Thomson, " is the only plant in
which we know for certain it does not exist."
(i^yst. of Chtm. vol. iv. p. 190.) It is, however,
united with carbonic acid as cafbonate of lime;
or it exists as the base of some other salt,
such as in oxalate of lime, or in sulphate of
lime (gypsum). It was found in the ashes re-
maining after the combustion of oak wood, at
the rate of 32 per cent., by M. Saussure. In
that of the poplar at the rate of 27 per cent.
He discovered also 8 per cent, in those from
the wood of the hazel ; 56 in those of the mul-
berry wood ; 26 in the hornbeam ; 14 in the
ripe plant of peas ; 1 per cent, in the straw of
the wheat, but not any in its seeds ; 12 in the
chaff of barley, but none in either its flour or
its bran ; neither did he find any in the oat
plant; but then, in the ashes of the leaves of
the fir (Pinus abies), raised on a limestone hill,
he found 43-5 per cent.

Alumina, as I have elsewhere observed, is
found in most vegetables, but in much smaller
proportion than either silica or carbonate of
lime, and the same remark applies to magne-
sia. M. Schra?der found, as we have before
seen, in 2 lbs. weight of the seeds of wheat
only y^yihs of a grain of alumina, in rye 1^
grains, in barley 4y2^ grains, in oats 4^ grains,
and in rye-straw S^^,, grains. In 12 ounces of
wormwood there are about 5 grains of alu-

429

EARTHS.

mina. This earth, however, necessarily exists
in all fertile soils as the food of plants ; for
although the proportions in which it is found
are rather small, yet still there is no reason to
believe that its presence is not essential to the
healthy growth of the plant. M. Saussure
found the ashes of the Pinus abies, growing on
a granitic and on a calcareous soil, to contain
nearly the same quantity of alumina (15 per
cent, on the calcareous and 16 per cent, on the
granitic), although these soils differed widely
in the proportion of the alumina they contained ;
for 100 parts of each wood were composed of;

The Granitic Soil. Parts.

Silica 75-25

Alumina - - - • - _ - - 13-25

Lime 174

Iron and manganese .... g-uo

9924
The Calcareous Soil.

Carbonate of lime - - - . 98-000

Alumina - - - - - - - - 0-625

. .Oxide of iron ---.._ 0625
Petroleum ------ 0025

99-275

(Thomson'' s Chem. vol. iv. p. 317.)

Such are the earths which constitute . all
cultivated soils, and such is the necessary pro-
portion in which they form the constituent
elements of some of the plants which they sup-
port. In the soils of the cultivator, however,
they exist in an endless variety of proportions :
thus, I found 68-5 per cent, of silica in the
gravelly soils of Great Totham, in Essex, and
62 in those of Kintbury, in Berkshire. Davy
discovered about .50 per cent, in the soil of the
Endsleigh Pastures in Devonshire, .54 in that
near Sheffield Place in Sussex, 15 in the turnip
soils of Holkham in Norfolk, 32 in the finely
divided matters of the wheat soils of West
Drayton, and about 97 per cent, in the soil of
Bagshot Heath. Mr. George Sinclair found
about 66 per cent in the grass garden of Wo-
burn Abbey.

Of alumina, or pure earth of clay, the pro-
portions are equally varying. I ascertained
the presence of 4-5 per cent, of this earth in a
gravelly soil of Thurstable in Essex, and 8*5 in
one at Kintbury in Berkshire. Mr. G. Sinclair
found 14 per cent, in the soil of the grass gar-
den at Woburn Abbey. Davy detected 8-5 per
cent, in that at Endsleigh, 6*25 in one at Croft
Church in Lincolnshire, 7 in that in Sheffield
Place, 11 in that of Holkham, 29 in a field at
West Drayton, and about 1 per cent, in the soil
of Bagshot Heath.

Of carbonate of lime, the presence is just
as varying in amount as that of the other
earths. I found 18 per cent in a soil at To-
tham, and 19 per cent in a soil at Kintbury;
Sinclair, 2 per cent in the soil of the Woburn
Abbey grass garden. Davy discovered 8 per
cent in that from Croft Church, 3 per cent in
that of Sheffield Place, 63 per cent in the finely
divided matters of the soil from Holkham,
and about 1 per cent only in the soil from
Bagshot

The farmer, however, must not conclude, that
by merely mixing the pure earths, silica, lime,
and alumina together in the most fertile pro- 1
430

EARTHS.

portion, a soil can be formed on which plants
will flourish, for such is a very erroneous con-
clusion. All attempts which have been made
to make plants flourish in the pure earths have
failed utterly when they have been watered
with pure water ; yet a totally difl^erent result
I have invariably experienced when I have
employed an impure solution or liquid manure.
My trials have been entirely supported by
.those of M. Giobert, who having formed of the
four earths, silica, alumina, lime, and magne-
sia, a soil in the most fertile proportion, in vain
essayed to make the plants flourish in it when
watered with pure water only; but every diffi-
culty was removed when he moistened it with
the water from a dunghill, for they then grew
most luxuriantly; and M. Lampadius still fur-
ther demonstrated the necessity for, and the
powers of such an addition to the soil ; for he
formed plots composed only of a single earth —
namely, pure lime, pure alumina, or pure
silica — and planted in each diflferent vegeta-
bles, watering them with the liquid drainings
from a dunghill, and he found that plants on
all of them flourished equally well. The solu-
ble matters of a soil ever constitute, in fact, its
most fertilizing portion ; and if by any artificial
means the richest mould is deprived of these,
as by repeated washings in cold or boiling
water, the residuum or remaining solid matter
is rendered nearly sterile. This fact, first ac-
curately demonstrated by M. Saussure, I have
since confirmed by a variety of experiments.
Neither must the cultivator imagine that these
carefully considered conclusions, the results
of often-repeated laborious experiments, are
erroneous, because transparent water, appa-
rently pure, when viewed in water-glasses, or
in irrigation, promotes the growth of bulbs,
grass, &c., since the very purest spring water,
even rain water, contains foreign substances;
and when only chemically pure water is em-
ployed to water plants, they cannot be made
to flourish. I have fruitlessly varied the at-
tempt in several ways. All the experiments of
Dr. Thomson were equally unsuccessful, the
plants vegetating only for a certain time, and
never perfecting their seeds. Similar experi-
ments were made by Hassenfratz, Saussure,
and others, with the same unfavourable result.
Duhamel found that an oak, which he had
raised from an acorn in common M^ater, made
less and less progress every year. The florist
is well aware that bulbous roots, such as those
of hyacinths, tulips, <Stc., which are made to
grow in water, unless they are planted in the
earth every other year, at first refuse to flower,
and finally they cease even to vegetate. More-
over, it has been unanswerably shown by
many very accurate experiments, at the repe-
tition of which I have personally assisted, that
the quantity of nourishment or solid matters
absorbed by the roots of plants is always in
proportion to the impurity of the water with t
which they are nourished ; thus some common
garden beans were made to vegetate under
three difl!erent circumstances; the first were
grown in distilled water, the second were
placed in sand and watered with rain water, the
third were sown in garden mould. The plants
thus produced, when accurately analyzed,

EARTHS.

EARTHS.

were found to yield the following proportion
of ashes —

1. Those fed by distilled water

2. Those fed by rain-waier

3. Those grown in the soil -

Parts.

- 3-9

- 7-5

- 12 0

The mode in which the earths are absorbed
by the roots of the plant is, it is almost certain,
by means of their solution in water, for both
carbonate of lime and silica are, in small pro-
portions, soluble in water ; they exist together
in many springs ; and they were both found in
the water of the Clyde by Dr. Thomson, in that
of the Thames by Dr. Bostock, and in the
springs of Upsula, celebrated for their purity,
by Bergman, Alumina, as far as we know, is
not soluble in water, but then it exists in very
small proportions in plants; and the soluble
salts of which it is the base may serve to yield
this earth to vegetables: the earth itself is so-
luble in ammonia.

The way in which soils are gradually formed
by the action of the atmosphere upon the hard
primitive rocks has been well explained by
Davy, and is a natural process which cannot
but be interesting to the farmer. I merely
slightly alter his words in the following account
of this important natural phenomenon. It is
not difficult to comprehend the manner in which
this change is effected, and rocks converted
into soils, by referring to the instance of soft
granite or porcelain granite. This substance
is composed of three ingredients, quartz, feld-
spar, and mica- The quartz is almost pure
silicious earth in a crystalline form. The
feldspar and mica are very compound sub-
stances ;* both contain silica, alumina, and
oxide of iron : in the feldspar there is usually
lime and potash ; in the mica, lime -and mag-
nesia.

When a granitic rock of this kind has been
long exposed to the action of the atmosphere,
the lime and the potash contained in its consti-
tuent parts are acted upon by water or carbonic
acid; and the iron, which is almost always in
its least oxidized state, tends to combine with
more oxygen ; the consequence is, that the
'feldspar decomposes, and likewise the mica,
but the first the most rapidly. The feldspar,
which is, as it were, the cement of the stone,
forms a fine clay; the mica, partially decom-
posed, mixes with it as sand, and the undecom-
posed, quartz appears as' gravel, or sand of
different degrees of fineness. As soon as the
smallest layer of earth is thus formed on the

surface of a rock, the seeds of lichens, mosses,
and other imperfect vegetables, which are con-
stantly floating in the atmosphere, and which
have made it their resting-place, begin to vege-
tate ; their death, decomposition, and decay
afford a certain quantity of organic matter,
which mixes with the earthy materials of the
rock. In this improved soil, more .perfect
plants are capable of subsisting; these in their
turn absorb nourishment from water and from
the atmosphere, and as these, too, decay, afford
more new materials to those already provided;
and the decomposition of the rock still conti-
nues. At length, by such slow and almost
imperceptible processes, a soil is formed ia
which even forest trees can fix their roots, and
which is fitted to reward the labours of the cul-
tivator.

Where successive generations of vegetables
have grown upon a soil, unless they have been
carried off by man or consumed by animals,
the vegetable matter increases to such an ex-
tent that the soil approaches to peat in its
nature. Poor and hungry soils are commonly
produced by the decomposition of the granite
and sandstone rocks : such soils usually remain
for ages with only a thin covering of vegetation.
The soils produced by the same gradual means
on the limestones, chalks, and basalts, are often
clothed by nature with the perennial grasses,
and afford, when ploughed up, a rich bed of
vegetation for every species of cultivated crop.

The quantity of moisture which a soil, or the
earths of which it is chiefly composed, contain,
influences to a very material extent its fertility.
This not only differs in different seasons, but
this power varies very considerably indeed in
soils, according to their chemical composition.
This was experimentally decided by Professor
Schubler, of the University of Tubingen, in his
"Agronomy, or Principles of Agricultural Che-
mistry," for a translation of which the English
farmer is indebted to Mr. Hudson, the present
excellent Secretary to the Royal Agricultural
Society of England, — a translation of which
I have largely availed ftiyself in this paper.
(Journ. of Roy. Ag. Sac. vol. i. p. 1 77.) M. Schu-
bler found that a cubic foot of different soils,
when thoroughly saturated with water and
when completely dried, weighed as follows : —

♦ Common felspar is composed of—

Silica 62-83

Alumina ...... 1703

Lime -..-... 300
Oxide of iron ..... 1-00

Potash -.-_.. 1300
Loss --.-... 3-50

100-

Common mica is composed of—

.Silica ---.._ 4700

Alumina ---___ 2000

Oxide of iron - - - . . 15-50
Oxide of manganese - . . 175

Potash ----.. 14-50
Loss --..-._ 1-25

100-

Weight of a cubic

Kind of Earth.

Gravity.

foot, in Ibn.

Dry.

Wet.

Calcareous sand - - -

2-722

113-6

141-3

Silicious sand - . -

2-653

1113

136 1

Gypsum powder - - -

2-331

91-9

1276

Sandy clay ....

2601

97-8

129-7

Loamy clay - - . .

2-581 .

88-5

1241

Stiff clay or brick earth

2-560

80-3

119-6

Pure gray clay - . -

2553

75-2

115-8

Pipe clay - -

2-440

47-9

1021

Fine carbonate of lime (chalk)

2-468

53-7

103-5

Garden mould ...

2-332

68-7

102-7

Arable soil ....

2-401

84'5

1191

Fine slaty marl ...

2631

1120

140-3

The» result of these trials will be useful to
the farmer in explaining to him the reason
why, on account of their requiring more or less
moisture, certain crops flourish best on parti-
cular soils ; and even in the carriage of the
earths he will perceive that their weight in the
wet or dry state is much greater thaa some
persons suppose.

431

EARTHS.

EARTHS.

The next important inquiry instituted by the
same excellent chemist, was the relative degree
of tenacity with which different soils retain the
moisture when exposed under similar circum-
stances to the action of the atmosphere ; and
he found that they parted with their moisture
according to the following rate: —

KiDd of Earth.

Evaporation tnm 100 parts of
ab«orl>ed wafer in foor hours.

SilicJous sand - - -
Calcareous sand - - -
Gypsum powder - - -
Sandy clay - - - -
Loamy clay - - - -
Stiff clay or brick earth
Pure pray clay - - -
Fine lime - - - -
Garden mould _ . -
Arable soil - - - -
Slaty mrtrl - - - -

Parta.
88-4
75 9
71'7
620
45-7
34-9
31-9
280
243
320
680

In these experiments the soils were spread
out to dry very thinly over a plate of metal ;
but in the following comparative trials (to ren-
der the results in all respects more similar to
those which the cultivator would experience),
the soil was exposed to the atmosphere in
masses of an inch in depth : —

Kind of Earth.

Water evaporated in
four days.

Calcareous sand . - -
LiKht garden, mould . - -
Gypsum powder _ . -
Very light turf soil - - -

Slaty marl

Arable soil- - - - -
Fine magnesia - - - -
Black turf soil not so light
White fine clay - - - -
Gray fine clay - - - -

Grains
146
143
136
132
131
131
129
128
123
123

The amount of the relative contraction of
different soils, when they are deprived of their
moisture, is another equally important question
to the farmer to be ascertained. "Many of
them," says M. Schubler, " become contracted
into a narrower spac^ in drying, and in conse-
quence of this circumstance cracks and fissures
frequently occur in land, and have an injurious
effect on the vegetation, as the finer roots, which
often ramify horizontally, and not unfrequently
supply to the plants the greater part of their
means of nourishment, are, by such contrac-
tions, either laid bare of soil or torn asunder.
In order to subject soils to comparative expe-
riments on this point, the following plan may
be adopted. We either form of the earths, in
their wet state, large cubic pieces of equal
size, being at least ten-twelfths of an inch in
height, breadth, and length, or we let such
earths be fitted and dried one after another in
an accurately worked cubic inch ; after some
time, wh«n the weight of these cubes of earth
ceases lo change by further drying, we measure
the dimensions of the cube by means of a nile
on which the tenths of lines can be distin-
guished, and may thus calculate easily the
volume of the earth, and consequently ascer-
tain the diminution in bulk which has been
caused by the drying. The experiments which
I made with the following earths exhibited on
this point the subjoined differences: —
432

Kind of Earth.

1000 parts diminished
in volume by

Silicfotis sand - - - -
Calcareous earth - ' -
Fine lime - - - - -
Sandy clay _ - - -
Loamy clay . - - _
Stiff clay or brick earth
Gray pure clay - - - -
Carbonate of magnesia
Garden mould . - - -

Arable soil

Slaty marl - - -

Parts,
no change,
no chang'e.
50
60
89
114
183
154
149
120
35

Such is the effect upon various soils of de-
priving them of their moisture. In these che-
mical investigations the farmer will see how
entirely they confirm his own observations.
The heavy clay soils, he well knows, are the
most contracted by exposure to the heats of
summer; the sands the least affected of any.

A still more important property of soils,
their attraction for the aqueous vapour of the
atmosphere, is next to be considered — a pro-
perty the importance of which to the cultiva-
tor. Sir H. Davy long since saw in its true
light, and his observations" cannot be too often
quoted, since they well illustrate and enforce,
amongst other things, the truth of the great
Tullian system of agriculture : of the advan-
tages of finely dividing the soil, of the subsoil
plough, and of the horse-hoe husbandry. "The
power of the soil to absorb water by cohesive
attraction," said this great chemist, "depends
in a great measure on the state of division of
its parts; the more divided they are, the great-
er is their absorbent power. The different
constituent parts of soiU likewise appear to
act, even by cohesive attraction, with different
degrees of energy : thus vegetable substances
seem to be more absorbent than animal sub-
stances, animal substances more so than com-
pounds of alumina and silica, and compounds
of alumina and silicia more absorbent than
carbonates of lime and magnesia; these dif-
ferences may, however, possibly depend upon
the differences in their state of division, and
upon the surface exposed. The power of soils
to absorb water from air is much connected
with fertility ; when this power is great, the
plant is supplied with moisture in dry seasons;
and the effect of evaporation in the day is
counteracted by the absorption of aqueous
vapour from the atmosphere by the exterior
parts of the soil during the night. The stiff
clays, approaching to pipe-clay in their nature,
which take up the greatest quantity of water
when it is poured upon them in a fluid form,
are not the soils which absorb most moisture
from the atmosphere in dry weather; they
cake, and present only a small surface to the
air, and the vegetation on them is generally
burnt up almost as readily as on sands. The
soils that are most efficient in supplying the
plant with water by atmospheric absorption
are those in which there is a due mixture of
sand, finely divided clay, and carbonate of
lime, with some animal or vegetable matter;
and which are so loose and light as to be
freely permeable to the atmosphere. With
respect to this quality, carbonate of lime and
animal and vegetable matter are of great use

EARTHS.

EARTHS.

in soils ; they give absorbent power to the soil
without giving it tenacity: sand, which also
destroys tenacity, on the contrary, gives little
absorbent power. I have compared the ab-
sorbent powers of many soils with respect to
atmospheric moisture, and I have always found
it greatest in the most fertile soils ; so that it
affords one method of judging of the produc-
tiveness of land. 1000 parts of a celebrated
soil from Ormiston, in East Lothian, which
contained more than half its weight of finely
divided matter, of which eleven parts were
carbonate of lime, and nine parts vegetable
matter, when dried at 212° gained in an hour,
by exposure to air saturated with moisture at
a temperature of 62°, 18 parts; 1000 parts of
a very fertile soil from the banks of the river
Parret, in Somersetshire, under the same cir-
cumstances, gained 16 grains ; 1000 parts of a
soil from Mersea, in Essex, worth forty-five
shillings an acre, gained 13 grains; 1000 grains
of a fine sand from Essex, worth twenty-three
shillings an acre, gained 11 grains ; 1000 of a
coarse sand, worth fifteen shillings an acre,
gained only 8 grains; 1000 of the soil of Bag-
shot Heath gained only 3 grains."

In my own experiments upon the absorbent
powers of various earths, I extended the ex-
amination to various organic and saline fer-
tilizers. The result of these may be seen in
the following table : —

PMtib

1000 parts of horse dung dried in a temperature of
100 degrees, absorbed, by exposure for three
hours to air saturated with moisture and of the
temperature of 63 degrees - - - - -

1000 parts of cow dung, under the same circum-
stances, absorbed ....--

1000 parts pig dung _----.

1000 — sheep dung ------

1000 — pigeon's dung - _ - - -
1000 — of a rich alluvial soil, worth two guineas
per acre (rent), -------14

The following were dried at 212 degrees: —
1000 parts fresh tanner's bark - - - - 115
1000 — putrf fied tanner's bark - - - - 143
1000 — refuse marine suit sold as manure - 49^
1000 — soot ------- 3fi

1000 — burnt clay 29

1000 — coal ashes ------ 14

1000 — lime 11

1000 — sediment from saltpans - - - 10

1000 — crushed rock salt 10

1000 — gypsum ------.»

1000 — chalk - - 4

(Johnson on FertiKzer$, p. 41.)

Davy's experiments and my own are con-
firmed by those of M. Schubler, who varied his
observations at intervals of three days; his
results were as follows : —

145

130
120
81
50

1000 sni

iisona>uthce,nrSOiqt)are |

Kind of Earth.

ochca, abiorbed Id

Uhoun.

24bourt

48houn.

72 boon.

Silicious sand

'T-

•o

^

^

Calcareous sand -

2

3

3

3

Gypsum powder -

1

Sandy clay - _ .

21

26

2S

28

Loamy clay - - .

25

30

31

35

Stiffclay - - .

30

36

40

41

Gray pure clay

37

42

48

49

Fine lime - - .

2B

31

35

33

Fine mngnesia

C9

76

80

82

Gardfin mould

33

45

50

52

Arable soil . - -

16

22 23

23

Slaty marl - - -

24

29 32

83

Another property possessed by all cultivated

soils, that of absorbing the gases of the atmo- i

55

sphere and of putrefiiction, is a power equally
worthy of the consideration of the farmer. It
was long since shown, in some experimental
researches of Mr. Hill, that when oxygen gas
is supplied to the roots of plants, their growth
and vigour are very considerably increased.
Some years since, also, Alexander Von Hum-
boldt announced that the earths possess the
property of absorbing this gas from the atmo-
sphere {Gilbert's Jn. of Phil. vol. i. p. 512); and
although the fact was doubted at the time, yet
later researches have shown that moist earth
has the property assigned to it by Humboldt,
and the amount absorbed by various earths has
since been ascertained by, and will be seen in
the following table of M. Schubler : —

In the wet state ab-

aorbed inWdayibr
1000 jra.na of rartb

Abwrbed

KJDd of Earth.

inih«

from 15 cubic inchM

diyttet^

of atmospheric air,
containin? 21 per
ceuLofoiygen.

Silicious sand - - -

0

^lo^

Calcareous sand

0

035

Gypsnm powder

0

017

Sandy clay - . _

0

0-59

Loamy clay - - -

0

070

Stiffclay or brick earth' -

0

086

Gray pure clay -

0

0-97

Fine lime - - - -

0

0-69

Magnesia - - - .

0

108

Garden mould - - -

0

1 10

Arable soil - - -

0

103

Slaty marl ...

0

070

This attractive power of the earths and
of the plants for the aqueous vapour and the
oxygen gas of the atmosphere are, as I have
on more than one occasion contended, two of
the most important facts to be kept in mind by
the farmer, with regard to the deepening and
pulverization of his soils. The power of ab-
sorbing moisture is a power which all plants
possess in a certain measure, but some in such
a perfect degree as to depend entirely upon it
for all the moisture they need. The aloe, the
agave, and many of the native plants of the
East, nearly support themselves in the same
way; the lichens and some of the mosses of
this country also do the same. The quantity
of water consumed by plants, when in a state
of healthy vegetation, is in fact so great that,
if it was not for the gentle steady supply thus
imperceptibly furnished to the soil by the at-
mosphere, vegetation would speedily cease, or
only be supported by incessant rains. Thu.s
Dr. Hales ascertained that a cabbage transmits
into the atmosphere, by insensible vapour,
about half its weight of water daily; and that
a sunflower, three feet in height, transpired in
the same period nearly two pounds' weight.
(Veg. Stat. vol. i. pp. 5—15.) Dr. Woodward
found that a sprig of mint, weighing 27 grains,
in seventy-seven days emitted 2543 grains of
water. A sprig of spearmint, weighing 27
grains, emitted in the same time 2558 grains;
a sprig of common nightshade, weighing 49
grains, evolved 3708 grains, and a Lathy rus of
98 grains emitted 2501 grains. (Phil. Trans.
1699, p. 193.) «The power of soils to absorb
moisture," says Davy, "ough't to be much
greater in warm or dry countries than in cold
or moist ones, and the quantity of clay or vege-
table or animal matter greater. Soils, also, ou
2 0 433

EARTHS.

EARTHS.

declivities ought to be more absorbent than in '
plains, or in the bottom of valleys. Their pro- '
ductiveness, likewise, is influenced by the na-
ture of the subsoil, or the stratum on which
they rest. When soils are immediately situ-
ated upon a bed of rock or stone, they are
much sooner rendered dry by evaporation than
where the subsoil is of clay or marl ; and a
prime cause of the great fertility of land in the
moist climate of Ireland is the proximity of
the rocky strata to the soil. A clayey subsoil
will sometimes be of material advantage to a
sandy soil; and, in this case, it will retain
moisture in such a manner as to be capable
of supplying that lost by the earth above, in
consequence of evaporation or the consump-
tion of plants." (Davy's Lectures, p. 186.)

It has been shown by the experiments of M.
Saussure, with some sprigs of peppermint, that
when supported by pure water only, and allow-
ed to vegetate for some time in the light, they
nearly doubled the portion of carbon which
they originally contained. (Recherches but la
Veg. 51.) This they could have procured only
from the atmosphere; and, under these circum-
stances, there is now little doubt of the cor-
rectness of the conclusion of M. Berthollet, that
plants, by means of their roots and leaves,
have the power of decomposing the water as
well as the carbonic acid of the atmosphere,
and furnishing, with these elements, new com-
binations. How essential a free access of the
atmosphere is to the roots of plants was long
since shown by M. Saussure, who found that
oxygen gas is absorbed by the roots of plants
as well as lay their leaves, and that it is at the
roots united with carbon, and transmitted to
the leaves to be decomposed. Even the branches
absorb oxygen ; in its absence flowers will not
even expand. (Thomson's Chcm. vol. iv. p. 353.)
It has been proved that their vegetation is
jgreatly increased by nourishing them with
water impregnated with oxygen gas ; hence,
too, the superiority of rain-water. Some re-
markable experiments were made by Mr. Hill,
demonstrative of the great benefits plants de-
rive from oxygen gas being applied to their
roots : hyacinths, melons, Indian corn, &c.,
were the subjects of the experiments. The
first were greatly improved in beauty, the se-
cond in flavour, the last in size, and all in vi-
gour. This, too, is another use of increasing
the moisture of the soil, by deep and complete
ploughings, for M. Humboldt and M. Schubler
have clearly shown that a dry soil is quite in-
capable of absorbing oxygen gas. Thus, it
must be evident to the most listless observer,
that the more deeply and finely a soil is pul-
verized, and its earths rendered permeable, the
greater will be the absorption by them of both
oxygen and watery vapour from the surround-
ing atmosphere.

It is perhaps needless to prove that the roots
of commonly cultivated plants will penetrate,
under favourable circumstances, much greater
depths into the soil in search of moisture than
they can, from the resistance of the case-hard-
ened subsoil, commonly attain. Thus, the
roots of the wheat plant, in loose deep soils
have been found to descend to a depth of two
or three feet, or even more: and it is evident
43^

that if plants are principally sustained in dry
weather by the atmospheric aqueous vapour
absorbed by the soil, that then that supply of
water must be necessarily increased, by enabl-
ing the atmospheric vapour and gases, as well
as the roots of plants, to attain to a greater •
depth ; for the earth, &c., of the interior of a
well pulverized soil, be it remembered, con-
tiniies steadily to absorb this essential food of
vegetables, even when the surface of the earth
is drying in the sun.

By facilitating the admission of air to the
soil another advantage is obtained, that of in-
creasing its temperature. The earths are na-
turally bad conductors of heat, especially down-
wards : thus, it is a well-known fact, that at the
siege of Gibraltar, the red hot balls employed
by the garrison were readily carried from the
furnaces to the batteries in wooden barrows,
whose bottoms were merely covered with earth.
Davy proved the superior rapidity with which
a loose black soil was heated, compared with
a chalky soil, by placing equal portions of each
in the sunshine ; the first was heated in an
hour from 65° to 88°, while the chalk was only
heated 69°. This trial, however, must not be
regarded as absolutely conclusive, since the
surface of the black soils naturally increases
more rapidly in temperature' when exposed to
the direct rays of the sun than those of a
lighter colour. A free access of the air to the
soil also adds to their fertility, by promoting
the decomposition of the excretory matters of
plants and other organic substances of the soil.

In the truth of these conclusions and labori-
ous experimental researches of the chemist,
does not the practical testimony of the ablest
cultivators of all ages and in all countries con-
cur 1 Thus, in enforcing the advantages of
rendering the soil more completely permeable
by the atmosphere, nearly two thousand years
since, Cato asked the Italian farmers, "What
is good tillage 1" To plough. "What is the
second?" To plough. The third is to ma-
nure. Cato, however, mistook the cause of the
benefit, for he says, "He who stirs his olive
ground oftenest and deepest will plough up the
very slender roots ; if he ploughs ill, the roots
will become thicker, and the strength of the
olive" will go to the root." (Lib. 61.) Virgil,
when giving an erroneous explanation of the
advantages of paring and burning, says, "The
heat opens more ways and hidden vents for the
air, through which the dews penetrate to the
embryo plant." (Georg. i. 90, 91.)

And at this very period do not the best of
England's agriculturists find the greatest ad-
vantage from stirring the ground between their
rows of drilled turnips, which only operates so
-beneficially to the plants, by promoting the
access of the air to their roots ; and that, loo,
on soils where a weed is hardly to
not one great object of fallowing to
pulverizing and deepening the soil
result] Did not Jethro Tull labour long, and
sometimes too sanguinely, in illustrating the
same position ? And does he not support
almost all the observations of the chemist, as
to the attraction of the earth for the gasses and
aqueous vapour of the atmosphere, when he
says — " I have had the experience of a multi-

and that, loo, .

be seen 1 Is |

0 produce by I

oil the same /

inr long-, and *

EARTHS.

EARTHS.

tnde of instances, which confirms it so far that
I am in no doubt that any soil (be it rich or
poor) can ever be made too fine by tillage.
For it is without dispute, that one cubical foot
of this minute powder may have more internal
superficies than a thousand cubical feet of the
same or any other earth tilled in the common
manner: and I believe no two arable earths in
the world do exceed one another in their natu-
ral riches twenty times; that is, one cubical
foot of the richest is not able to produce an
equal quantity of vegetables, cceterU paribus, to
twenty cubical feet of the poorest; therefore, it
is not strange that the poorest, when by pul-
verizing it has obtained one hundred times the
internal superficies of the rich untilled land,
should exceed it in fertility; or, if a foot of the
poorest was made to have twenty times the su-
perficies of such rich land, the poorest might
produce an equal quantity of vegetables with
the rich. Besides, there is another extraor-
dinary advantage when a soil has a larger in-
ternal superficies in a very little compass, for
then the roots of the plants in it are better sup-
plied with nourishment, being nearer to them —
on all sides within reach — than they can be
where the soil is less fine, as in common til-
lage, and the roots in the one must extend much
farther than in the other: to reach an equal
quantity of nourishment they must range, per-
haps, above twenty times more space, to col-
lect the same quantity of food. But, in this
fine soil, the weak and tender roots have free
passage to the utmost of their extent, and have
also an easy, due, and equal pressure every-
where, as in water." (TuWs Neiv Husbandry,
p. 43.) The farmer, too, is aware that when
the inert substratum of most cultivated soils
is first brought to the surface, it is entirely
barren, and that yet, by mere exposure to
the atmosphere, it becomes readily produc-
tive.

The comparative rapidity with which soils
absorb heat by exposure to the rays of the sun
is also a question of much importance. M.
Scfhubler found that when the temperature of
the upper surface of the earth was 77° in the
shade, earth, &c., exposed to the sun in ves-
sels four inches square and half an inch deep,
from eleven till three o'clock, attained the sub-
joined temperature : —

Kind of Earth.

Silicious sand, bright yellowUh-

^gray

Calcareous sand, whitish-gray
Gypsum bright white-gray -
Sandy clay, yellowish - - .
Loamy clay, yellowish -
Stiff clay or brick earth, yellowisb-

„gray

Fine bluish-gray clay -
Lime, white - - _ - .
Magnesia, pure white -
Garden mould, blackish-gray
Arable soil, gray - . . _
Slaty marl, brownish-red -

Wet

DfT.

991

113 0

99-3

iiai

973

110 5

98-8

111-4

991

1121

99-3

1123

99-5

113-0

961

109-4

95-2

108-6

99-5

113-5

97-7

111-7

101-8

115 3

As difierent soils absorb heat with varying
rapidity, so they retain it with more or less
tenacity, as displayed in the following table
by Professor Schubler :—

r~—

Kind of Earth.

Period required by 30 cubic
inches of earlli to cool
down from U4^o to 70Ao,
in a surrouudiug tenijie-
ratureofei^o.

Hours.

Minutes.

Calcareous sand - - .
Silicious sand - - - -
Gypsum powder ...
Sandy clay - - _ .
Loamy clay - - . -
Stiff clay or brick earth -
Gray pure clay - . -
Fine lime- - - - .
Fine magnesia - - - -
Garden mould - - - -
Arable soil - - _ _
Slaty marl - - _ _

8
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
2
2
3

30
20
34
41
30
24
19
10
20
16
27
26

From these experiments, the farmer will
perceive that the popular ideas, with regard to
the quality of soils when they are denominated
hot and cold, are nearly accurate. He will see
that sandy soils absorb the heat of the sun
faster than any others, but then their ra^e of
cooling is equally great ; — more rapid in their
transitions from heat to cold than any others,
the crops which they produce are commonly
thin; and to these rapid transitions we may
assign one reason for the poverty of the pro-
duce. The clays, on the contrary, which im-
bibe the sun's rays more slowly, retain their
heat much longer.

There are several other properties of the
earths with which it is highly desirable that
the cultivator should be acquainted: thus, the
resistance which soils offer to the plough or the
spade, in their wet and dry state, is a question
on several accounts highly interesting to the
farmer. This property of the soil has also
been examined by Professor Schubler, and the
result of his experiments will be found in the
following table : —

bid>7

•Ut«.

In wet Kate.

Adhet-|on to agri.

Kiod of Ewtb.

rinno«i^

thai of

on a lurfjce of one

d.,^..

•quare foot with

Iron.

Wood.

lb..

lbs.

Silicioaa sand -

0-0

88

4-3

Calcareous sand -

00

4-1

4-4

Fine lime ...

5-0

143

15-6

Gypsum powder

7-8

10-7

118

Sandy clay . . -

57-3

7-9

8-9

Loamy clay - . -

68-8

106

11-4

Stiff clay or brick earth -

83-3

172

18-9

Gray pure clay

1000

270

292

Garden mould

7-6

6-4

7-5

Arable soil ...

33-0

5-8

6-4

Slaty marl ...

230

49

5-5

From these laborious researches of the che-
mical philosopher the intelligent farmer may
derive many new and important conclusions
witlj regard to the improved cultivation of the
earth. They may serve to explain to him one
great reason why fallowing and pulverizing
the soil, either by machinery or by the mixture
of chalk or sand with the heavier clay soils,
promotes so decidedly, or so permanently, their
fertility. And, again, the advocate for all old
customs and obsolete modes of tillage may
hence, among other things, learn tohy it is that
deep ploughing, either by the common or by

435

EARTH-BOARD.

EARTH-WORMS.

the subsoil plough, produces such beneficial I
results; how the gases and aqueous vapour of
the air are hence rendered more serviceable to
the roots of his crops ; and how it is that this
free passage of these elastic fluids, first caused
by the action of the plough, is preserved and
facilitated by that of the common or the horse-
hoe.. Such researches, too, into the important i
properties with which the Creator has endowed '
the soil will be serviceable to the cultivator in |
even an indirect manner. These investigations '
will, assuredly, suggest to him the very reason-
able conclusion, that there may be yet other
chemical properties hidden in the land, which
will serve to awaken the curiosity, and reward
the labours of future scientific cultivators for
many succeeding generations. (Brit. Farm.
Mag. voh V. p. 1.) See Mixtuiik of Soils,
AkaT-tsis of Soils, Absoiipton, Chalk, Hu-
mus, &c.

EARTH-BOARD. That part of a plough
which turns over the earth. It is generally
termed the mould-board. See Plough.

EARTH-BUILDINGS. BuUdings formed
by rammed or compressed earth or clay. This
kind of building is supposed to have been
known at a very early period, and is still much
in use in the southern parts of France. Not
only the walls of the houses, but garden walls
are formed in the same manner, and of the
same materials in many parts of Normandy.
In some instances, boards are placed between
the layers of clay, and form a kind of frame-
work, which increases the strength of the wall.

Clay cottages are not uncommon in some
parts of England ; but they are not constructed
in the above-mentioned manner.

EARTH, EATING OF. Stall-fed cattle, and
horses which have not the opportunity of
plucking up the roots of grass, evince a great
partiality jfor earth. It is seldom that a cow
will pass a newly-raised mole-hill without
muzzling into it, and devouring a considerable
portion of it. This is particularly the case
when there is any degree of indigestion, and it
probably acts as a sort of gentle purgative. It
is stated by Mr. Youatt (On Cattle) that the
celebrated Kinton ox always had a basket of
earth standing near him, of which he ate a
considerable quantity. When decomposition
commenced, and the acescent principle began
to be developed, and the animal felt uneasiness
on that account, he had recourse to the mould;
and the acid uniting itself to the earth, the un-
easy feeling was relieved. It is also probable
that a purgative neutral salt was manufactured
in the paunch, but this would depend on the
nature of the earth. The absorbent or alkaline
earth taken up with the roots of grass by sheep,
also neutralizes the acids of the stomach. (Lib.
of Use. Know. " Sheep," p. 3 ; « Cattle," p. 104
— 317.) It is usual to allow sucking calves to
have access to chalk. In the stomachs of al-
most all young animals, man not excepted,
there is a tendency to form superabundant acid,
which, if not corrected, impairs digestion, and
interferes with the assimilative function, that
which converts the chyle into the animal tissue
or substance of the body. The importance,
therefore, of correcting this, by the administra-
tion of absorbed earths, is obvious.
436

It might become amatter of curious inquiry,
how far this desire of earth in cattle has affi-
nity to that of the human stomach, which leads
the Otomacs, a South American tribe, to eat
clay. It is an unctuous clay, containing an
oxide of iron ; and during some months, when
provisions are scarce, an Otomac devours
about three-quarters of a pound of clay daily,
and he does not suffer nor become lean upon
it. The negroes on the coast of Guinea, and
the natives of Java, and of some of the other
'slands of the Indian Archipelago, are also
earth-eaters ; and in this and many European
countries, pregnant women, and young girls in
a state of disease connected with the uterine
function, also evince a strong inclination to eaf
earth.

Among quadrupeds, earth-eating is not con-
fined to the horse and ox tribes; for, when
pressed for food, wolves in the north-east of
Europe, reindeer and kids in Siberia, all eat
clay. It is probable that the earth operates as a
mechanical stimulus to the stomach, and abates
the sensation of hunger, which always attends
certain diseased conditions of the stomach. But,
whatever may be the cause, this instinctive
longing for earth in horses, cows, and oxen
should not be overlooked, and the animals should
be supplied with it when they are stall-fed.

EARTH-NUT (Bunium flexuosum). The
common earth-nut, kipper, or pig-nut, for it is
known by all these names, is a perennial plant
growing in sandy or gravelly meadows, pas-
tures, orchards, and woods ; flowering in May
or June. The root is eatable, nearly globular,
black, internally white, aromatic, sweet, and
mucilaginous, with some acrimony. The stem
is a foot high or more, striated, with long, nar-
row, acute leaves ; the radicle leaves are twice
or thrice pinnatifid. The flowers are in um-
bels; they are pure white. The roots are
at present searched for only by hogs, who de-
vour them with avidity; but as they are little
inferior to chestnuts, they might form an agree-
able addition to winter desserts, eaten either
raw, boiled, or roasted. (Willich's Dom. Enryc)

EARTH-WORMS (Lumbrims.Unn.). Well-
known molluscous animals, which are common
in all parts of the country, at little depths be-
neath the surface of the earth. White, in his
Nat. Hist, of Selborne, speaking of their effects
on the soil in promoting vegetation, says,
" The most insignificant insects and reptiles
are of much more consequence, and have much
more influence in the economy of nature, than
the incurious are aware of; and are mighty in
their effect from their minuteness, which ren-
ders them less an object of attention, and
from their numbers and fecundity; earth-
worms, though in appearance a small and des-
picable link in the chain of nature, yet, if lost,
would make a lamentable chasm. For, to say
nothing of half the birds and some quadru-
peds which are entirely supported by them,
worms seem to be equal promoters of vegeta-
tion, which would proceed but lamely without
them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the
soil, and rendering it pervious to the rain and
the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and
stalks of leaves and twigs into it; and most of
all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of

EARTHY MANURES.

EDDER,

lumps of earth, called worm-casts, which being
their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and
grass. Worms probably provide new soil for
hills and slopes, where the rain washes the
earth away, and they affect slopes probably to
avoid being flooded. Gardeners and farmers
express their detestation of worms : the former,
because they render their walks unsightly, and
make them much work; and the latter, because,
as they think, worms eat their green corn. But
they would find that the earth without worms
would soon become cold, hard-bound, and void
of fermentation, and consequently sterile ; and
besides, in favour of worms it should be hinted
that green corn, plants, and flowers are not so
much injured by them as by many species of
Coleoptera (scarabs) and Tipulce {long-legs) in
their larvae or grub state, and by unnoticed
myriads of small shell-less snails, called slugs,
which silently and imperceptibly make amaz-
ing havoc in the field and garden. Worms
work most in the sprijjg, and are out every
mild night in the winter: they are very pro-
lific." (Quart. Journ. of Jgr. vol. ii. p. 145.)
Worms are readily destroyed by the applica-
tion of common salt, sown broadcast at the
rate of five or six bushels per acre ; or on grass
plats, by the application of lime-water, or ra-
ther milk of lime, which is readily made by
stirring for ten minutes a pound of hot lime in
four or five pailsful of water. But, for the
reasons already given, they should not be de-
stroyed. Earth-worms are viviparous, their
eggs are hatched in the body, and the young
are expelled alive. They generally come out
of the earth during the night in June to copulate.
EARTHY MANURES. These are the most
universal of all fertilizers. In England they
are chiefly limited to three, viz. chalk and lime,
clay or alumina, sand or silex. In the United
States, where no chalk is found, its place is well
supplied by lime and calcareous marls, which
last, in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and
Virginia, are used to the greatest advantage
by farmers. Then again the green sand or
silicate of potash, found in the states men-
tioned, proves, in many situations, a powerful
mineral fertilizer. With these may be classed
the coal, or other ashes produced by the com-
bustion of peat, turf, and other vegetable sub-
stances, the composition of which is usually
similar to that of the soils on which the com-
bustible matter is produced. Ashes from chalk
soils usually abound in carbonate of lime and
gypsum, which is produced in the chalk by the
gradual decomposition of the iron pyrites
which most chalk contains ; while those from
claylandsasgenerallyabound with alumina and
sand. Those which are brought from the sea-
shore almost always contain a considerable
quantity of soda, and some common salt. There
are no researches more likely to amply repay
the cultivator than the investigation of the
composition of his soils. All the difference
between a fertile soil and the poorest cultivated
land consists in the presence of the indispen-
sable constituents of a soil in proportions that
are more or less profitable. The addition of
the desired substance, whether organic or in-
organic, constitutes the fertilizing ingredient.
Davy long since remarked that "Fertility

seems to depend upon the state of division and
mixture of the earthy materials and the vege-
table matter. In ascertaining the composition
of fertile soils, with a view to their improve-
ment, any particular ingredient which is the
cause of their unproductiveness should be par-
ticularly attended to ; if possible, they should
be compared with fertile soils in the same
neighbourhood, and in similar situations, as
the difference of composition may, in many
cases, indicate the most proper methods of im-
provement." (Jgricultural Chemistry, p. 203.)
Thus, either peat, or chalk, or clay is an excel-
lent permanent addition to sandy soils. Chalk
and sand improve the texture and productive-
ness of clays. To peat, the earths are all more
or less permanent fertilizers ; lime removes the
excess of sulphate of iron (green vitriol) ;
chalk is equally efficacious in what the farmer
calls acid or sour soils. This class of manures
differs from the organic and saline, in this
highly important yet seldom sufficiently re-
membered quality, that as they are more fre-
quently employed in larger quantities than
either of the other two, so their beneficial in-
fluence on the soil far exceeds in duration all
others.

EARWIG (Forfkula auricularis, Linn.). A
well-known insect, which is common in damp
places, and often found in numbers under
stones, and beneath the bark of trees. They
do much damage in gardens, by preying upon
the fruit. The English common name, and
also the French pierce-oreille, relate to a habit
absurdly attributed to these insects, of pene-
trating the ears. (Brande's Diet, of Art.)

It is a curious fact that the earwig sits upon
her eggs like a hen ; and when the young are
hatched, they creep under the mother, like a
brood of clvickens under a hen. De Geer,
who has observed the habits of this insect,
says, the parent will sit over them for hours.
She usually carries them about on her back,
until they are able to provide for themselves.
One of the species of forficula, namely, F.
minor, has wings, and flies in groups.

They are very injurious to flowers, eating
holes in the blossoms, and otherwise disfigur-
ing them, particularly the dahlia: and Mouffet
says that "ox hoofs, hog's hoofs, or old cats
things are used as traps for them by the Eng-
lish women, who hate them exceedingly, be-
cause of clove-gilliflowers that they eat and
spoyl." It is common with English gardeners
to hang up, among the flowers and fruit-trees
subject to their attacks, pieces of hollow reeds,
lobster claws, and the like, which offer en-
ticing places of retreat for these insects on the
approach of daylight, and by means thereof
great numbers of them are obtained in the
morning. The little creeping animal, with
numerous legs, commonly, but erroneously,
called earwig in America, is not an insect;
but of the true earwig we have several spe-
cies, though they are by no means common,
and certainly never appear in such numbers'
as to prove seriously injurious to vegetation.
(Harris's Treat, of Insects.)

EDDER. A small straight shoot of asb,
hazle, oak, or any other kind of flexible wood,
ured for binding the tops of hedges.

2 o 2 437

EFT.

EGLANTINE.

EFT, NEWT, or EVET (Salamandra). A
small kind of lizard, that chiefly lives in the
water. As the newt is an amphibious animal,
it requires to ascend frequently to the surface
of the water, to take fresh air into its lungs.

EGGS (Fr. astifs; Germ, ei; Lat. mm). The
ova of birds and oviparous animals. The
shell of the egg is lined throughout with a
thin but tough membrane, called /je/Zicwia ovi;
which, dividing at or near the obtuse end,
forms a small bag — the air follicule. This
membrane weighs about 2-35 grains in an eg^
of 1000 grains in weight. It contains what is
called the albumen or white, and the vitellus or
yellow. The white consists of two distinct
parts, one of which is a delicate membrane
forming a series of cells, which enclose the
other, or fluid part. It has the well-known
property of being coagulated by heat. It con-
sists of 12 parts of albumen, 2-7 of mucus, 0-3
of salts, and 85 of water, in a hundred parts.
The yolk consists of oil, suspended in water
by means of albumen, and held in a membra-
nous sac — the yolk-bag, each end of which is
twisted, to form what is called the chalazce, in-
tended to preserve the yolk in such a position
that the cicatrimla, or rudi mental embryo, shall
always be uppermost. The yolk consists of
28-75 of yellow oil and crystallizable fat, with
traces of sulphur; 17-47 of albumen, contain-
ing phosphorus, and 53-8 of water. The re-
lative weights of these parts, in an egg weigh-
ing 1000 grains, are, 106-9 shell and membrane,
604-2 albumen, and 288-9 yolk. The egg loses
2 or 3 per cent, of its weight when boiled in
water. The white is more easily digested than
the yolk ; and both are more digestible in the
soft than in the hard state. The changes
which the hen's egg undergoes during incuba-
tion have been described by Sir E. Home {Phil.
Trans. 1822, p. 339), and illustrated by a beau-
tiful series of plates, after drawings by Bauer.
The same volume also contains a valuable
paper, by Dr. Prout, on this subject, but chiefly
treating of the chemical changes of the egg
during that process. The egg does not receive
its outer coat, or pellicule, until it arrives at
that part of the oviduct which is called the
uterus; and not its shell until it has passed
through one half of the uterus. Eggs are
sometimes expelled without shells, and are
called oon-eggs. The specific gravity of new-
laid eggs at first rather exceeds that of water,
varying from 1-08 to 1-09 ; but they soon be-
come lighter, and swim on water, in conse-
quence of evaporation through the pores of
the shell. The mean weight of a hen's egg is
about 875 grains.

Hen's eggs are decidedly wholesome ; and,
when new laid, are an agreeable and nourish-
ing food. Vast quantities of eggs are brought
from the country to London, and other great
towns. It is stated in the Quart. Journ. of jigr.
vol. iii. p. 1077, that, about 15 years ago, the
number of eggs exported from Berwick-upon-
Tweed to London amounted to 30,000^. worth
a year.

The trade in eggs is of great value and im-
portance. It appears from official statements,
that the eggs imported into England from
France amounted to 60,000,000 a year; and
43S

presuming them to cost, on an average, 4c?. per
dozen, it follows that the English pay the
French above 83,000/. a year for eggs ; and
supposing that the freight, importer's and re-
tailer's profit, duty (10(/. per 120), &c. raise
their price to the consumer to lOd. per dozen,
their total cost will be 213,000/. The number
of eggs imported into England from various
parts of the Continent, for the year ending
January 5, 1839, was 83,745,723; and the
gross amount of duty received for the same
was 29,111/. The Netherlands and the Chan-
nel islands furnish a large quantity of the eggs
consumed in England. {M'Culloch's Com. Divt.')
See Fowls.

A new method of preserving eggs, by pack-
ing them in salt with the small end downwards,
and by which they have been kept perfectly
good for eight or nine months, Avill, it is be-
lieved, enable the inhabitants of portions of
our country where these abound to make them
profitable. Thousands of bushels may be sent
off* to the Atlantic markets. Great quantities
are used in France ; and as the duty on them
in England is so low, (not 2 cents per dozen,)
they might bear exportation. They have been
gathered and sold at the West 'as low as 90
cents per bushel ; which, as a bushel contains
45 dozen, is but 2 cents per dozen. {Ellsworth* s
Report, 1843.)

EGG-PLANT {Solanvm melongena). This is.
a tender annual, a native of Africa. It loves
a light rich soil, and blows violet flowers in
June and July, which are succeeded by fruit,
shaped and coloured like an egg. The plant
is propagated by seed. In French and Italian
cookery it is used in soups, and for the same
purposes as the love-apple.

Two varieties of this annual plant are com-
monly met with in the United States ; one of
these bears a very large purple oval-shaped
fruit, which is highly relished as a delicious and
rich tasted vegetable. It is cooked by frying
transverse sections or slices, and in other forms
and ways. In size and shape the fruit resembles
an ostrich egg, though it frequently attains a
size many times larger, even to that of a small
water-melon. The second variety is white,
and the shape bears a striking resemblance to
the eggs of the domestic fowl. To raise them
in the Middle and Northern States, the seed
must be sown in a hot-bed in March, and
transplanted into the open air as soon as there
is no danger from frost, placing them about
two feet apart. A pretty high degree of heat,
blended with a good supply of moisture, are
required to make the seeds germinate and
bring forward the young plants.

The insane egg-plant {Solatium ivsanium).
Mad-apple, or purple egg-plant, called by the
French Avbergive rouge, is occasionally culti-
vated in the United States as a culinary vege-
table. The whole plant is coated with a downy
nap. The flowers are purplish and pubescent,
and the berries very large, ovoid-oblong, mostly
of a dark purple colour when mature, and
sometimes pale-green. {Flora Cestrica.)

EGLANTINE {Bosa rvbiginosa ; Fr. eglantin).
The old English name of the sweelbrier rose.
The odour which is so agreeable, is exhaled
from reddish, viscid glands, which cover the,

ELATERS.

ELECTRICITY.

under surface of the leaflets. This odour en- j
ables it to be readily recognised from all our
other wild roses, except the small-flowered
sweetbrier (Rosa micrantha), which some be-
lieve to be only a variety of R. rubiginosa. The
term eglantine is improperly applied by Milton
to the honeysuckle.

ELATERS. See Bietle, Sprixg-beetle.

ELBOWS. A term applied to the shoulder-
points of cattle.

ELDER (Sambiicus nigra). It appears (says
Phillips) that we have taken the word elder
from holder, the Dutch name of this tree. The ^
common elder tree is a native of England, and j
is found also in most parts of Europe, as it
will grow on any soil, and in situations where
few other trees would thrive. The stem is
much and oppositely branched ; the branches
being covered with a smooth, gray bark, and
having a large spongy pith ; the leaves con-
sist of two pair of leaflets, with an odd one.
The flowers are in cymes ; the berries globular,
.deep purple. It may be observed, that our un-
certain summer is established by the time the
elder is in full flower, and entirely passed
when its berries are ripe. .\n infusion of the
leaves proves fatal to the various insects
which thrive on blighted or delicate plants, nor
do many of this tribe, in the caterpillar state,
feed upon them. Cattle scarcely touch them,
and the mole is driven away by their scent;
but sheep eat the leaves greedily, and it is said
to be a cure for the rot. The Rev. Mr. Farqu-
harson, in an able paper in the Trans. High. Soc.
vol. iv. p. 336, advocates the cultivation of the
elder for hedges, from its rapidity of growth,
hardihood, and cheapness. The only objection
appears to be, that it does not thicken and
close up its branches, so as to form an imper-
vious fence, like the white thorn. M. Wehrle
of Vienna has found, by a series of experi-
ments, that the berries of the elder tree produce
a much greater quantity of spirit than the best
wheat. The spirit is obtained by pressing the
berries, the juice of which is treated in the
same way as the must of the grape, and after-
wards distilled. If the results obtained by M.
Wehrle are confirmed, it will be an additional
motive for cultivating a plant which possesses
many other useful qualities. (Quart. Journ. Agr.
vol. iii. p. 183.) An odorous water is pre-
pared by distilling the flowers ; it is used as a
perfume. The inspissated juice of the berries
is laxative and diuretic ; and, mixed with wa-
ter, forms a cooling beverage in fevers. The
inner bark is purgative and emetic.

A correspondent of the New England Farmer
says that the expressed juice of elder leaves
will kill skippers in cheese, bacon, «&c.; and
strong decoctions of the leaves or roots are
fatal to insects, which depredate on plants in
gardens and fields. Dr. Willich observes, that
the leaves of the elder are eaten by sheep, to
which they are of great service when diseased
with the rot ; for if placed in a situation where
they can easily reach the bark and young
shoots, they will speedily cure themselves. Dr.
Elliott observes in his Essay on Field Husbandry,
that elder bushes are stubborn and hard to sub-
due, yet I know by experience, that mowing
them five times a year will kill them. (iV. E.

Farmer.) Some persons have found a very
effectual plan for destroying elders by taking a
pole or staff" and beating them down whilst in
full blossom.

The species of elder most common in the Uni-
ted States, is called by botanists, Sambuais Cana-
densis. It is often a great nuisance along fence
rows and hedges, where its straight stems at-
tain a height of 5, 8, or 10 feet, being filled
with a large pith. The flowers bloom in July
and August, the peduncles spreading out so as
to display the blossoms somewhat like an um-
brella. The berries are very abundant, small,
juicy, and dark purple, or nearly bUck when
fully ripe. The long roots are very tenacious
of life, and verj' much disposed to spread from
lateral joints. The inner bark is a popular
ingredient in making ointments for sores. An
infusion of the bruised leaves is often used to
expel insects from young cucumber and other
vines. The ripe berries, according to M. Coz-
zens, aflford a delicate re-agent, or chemical
test, for detecting acids and alkalies. There is
one other species in the United States, called
Sambitcus pubens, which is found on the moun-
tains in the north-eastern part of Pennsylva-
nia. In this the flowers do not spread out like
those of the common elder of the Middle States,
but are crowded together so as to form dense
ovoid heads or panicles. The berries are a
scarlet red.

ELDER, BOX. In some parts of the United
Stales, the name of box elder is popularly ap-
plied to the ash-leaved maple (Jeer negundo).
See Maple.

ELDER, THE WATER (Viburnum opulus).
Commonly called Snow-ball. See Guelder Rose.

ELECAMPANE (IntUa Helenium). Called
by the French Auride. This is a plant with a
perennial root and annual stem, which has
been naturalized in the United States, where,
in the old settled parts, it is frequent about
houses, road-sides, &c., flowering in July and
August. The stem or stalk is downy, and
grows to the height of 3 to 6 feet, branching
near the top. The leaves are long and large,
with much down on the under surface. The
flowers are large, and of a golden yellow. The
roots, which constitute the medicinal part of the
plant, should be dug up in autumn and in the
second year of their growth, as when older they
are apt to be stringy and woody. The dried root
has a' very peculiar and agreeable aromatic
odour, slightly camphorous. The taste at first
is glutinous and somewhat similar to that of
rancid soap; upon chewing, it becomes warm,
aromatic, and bitter. A peculiar principle,
resembling starch, has been discovered in
elecampane, by that distinguished German
chemist. Rose, of Berlin, who named it alantin;
but the term inulin is most generally adopted.
It has been found in the roots of several other
plants. In its medical properties elecampane
is tonic and gently stimulant, &c. By the an-
cients it was much employed, especially in
complaints peculiar to females. In the United
States, its use is mostly confined to diseases of
the lungs. It has also been extolled for its
virtues when applied externally for the cure
of itch, tetter, and other diseases of the skin.

ELECTRICITY. The application of this

439

ELM.

ELM.

science to the cultivation of the earth has
hitherto not been very practically useful. Its
operations — the very nature of electricity — are
as yet much too little understood for the culti-
vator to derive instruction from its study.
'•Electrical changes," said Davy (Elements of
jUgr. Chem. p. 41), "are constantly taking place
in .nature on the surface of the earth, and in the
atmosphere : but as yet the effects of this
power in vegetation have not been correctly
estimated. It has been shown, by experiments
made by means of the voltaic battery (the in-
strument in which electricity is evolved by the
mutual action of zinc, copper, and water), that
compound bodies in general are capable of
being decomposed by electrical powers ; and it
is probable, that the various electrical pheno-
mena occurring in our system must influence
both the germination of seeds and the growth
of plants. I found that corn sprouted much
more rapidly in water positively electrified by
the voltaic instrument, than in water nega-
tively electrified ; and experiments made upon
the atmosphere show that clouds are usually
negative ; and as when a cloud is in one state
of electricity, the surface of the earth beneath
is brought into the opposite state, it is probable
that, in common cases, the surface of the earth
is positive. Different opinions are entertained
amongst scientific men respecting the nature
of electricity : by some, the phenomena are
conceived to depend upon a single subtile fluid,
in excess in the bodies said to be positively
electrified, in deficiency in the bodies said to
he negatively electrified ; a second class sup-
pose the effects to be produced by two different
fluids, called by them vitreous and resinous; and
a third set regard them as affections, or mo-
tions of matter, and merely an exhibition of
attractive powers, similar to those which pro-
duce chemical combination and decomposition,
but usually exerting their action on masses."

ELEVATION, ATMOSPHERIC. The
height of land above the sea or common level,
exerts a very great influence upon the growth
of plants. One of the main causes operating un-
der such circumstances to diminish the size of
plants. Professor Dobereiner believes to be the
diminution of atmospheric pressure,' Experi-
ments have been made in order to prove this
by placing seeds of barley in vessels, contain-
ing soil, water, and air, under different degrees
of atmospheric pressure ; and the result has
been, that, where the pressure was greatest,
the vigour of the plants was also greatest. See
Altitude.

ELM {JJlmus). A genus of forest trees,
common in Great Britain, of which there are
several varieties. The characters of the genus
are flowers, bisexual ; calyx, bell-shaped, four
to five toothed, coloured persistent ; stamens,
three to six ; stigmas, two , fruit, sub-globular,
with a broad membranous margin. Sir James
E. Smith (Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 19), describes
five species of native elm : — viz. 1. The roni-
nion small-leaved elm {U. canipestris'), which is
found chiefly in the southern parts of England.
The wood is hard and tough, particularly dura-
ble in wet situations, and is greatly preferred
in Norfolk (where it is the most common spe-
cies) to any other, and sells for nearly double
440

the price, serving more especially for the
naves of wheels. In other parts of England,
and particularly about London, the wood of the
common elm is used for coffins. 2. The com-
man cork-barked elm (U. suberosa), which is
taller and more spreading than the foregoing.
The bark when a year old is covered with very
fine dense cork in deep fissures ; whence the
name. It is far inferior to the former in value.
There are various cultivated varieties raised
from seed. 3. The Dutch cork-barked elm (U.
major)', a doubtful native. The branches
spread widely in a drooping manner, and the
bark is rugged, much more corky than even
the foregoing. Miller says this elm was
brought from Holland in King William's reign,
and being recommended for its quick growth,
was a fashionable tree for hedges in gardens,
but afterwards fell into disuse. He adds, that
" the wood is good for nothing, so its use is
almost banished in this country." 4. The
broad-leaved Scotch elm, or wych hazel (U.mon-
tana). It is sometimes called the Hertfordshire
elm, being very frequent and luxuriant in that
county. The large hop-like fruit is abundant,
and very conspicuous in May or June ; and
the seeds appear to be usually perfected. This
is one of the most general species of elm
throughout Europe. It is a large spreading
tree, of quicker growth than the common
small-leaved elm, and the wood is consequently
far inferior in hardness and compactness, and
more liable to split. The branches are in
some individuals quite pendulous, like the
weeping willow. The bark is smooth, and
downy in a young state. 5. The smooth-leaved,
or wych elm (U. glabra). A tall, elegant tree,
with spreading, rather drooping, smooth, black-
ish branches, and smaller leaves than any of
the preceding, except the first.

The elm (says Brande) is valued for the ra-
pidity of its growth, its hardness, and its capa-
bility of thriving in poor soil unfit for tillage.
Tredgold (Princip. of Carp.), however, says the
elm is of slow growth. The elms of England
are scarcely less remarked for their age, bulk,
and beauty than the British oaks. The colour
of the heart-wood of elm is generally darker
than that of oak, and of a redder brown. The
sap wood is of a yellowish or brownish white,
with pores inclined to red. It has a peculiar
odour, is in general porous and cross-grained —
sometimes coarse-grained, and has no large
septa. It twists and warps much in drying,
and also shrinks considerably both in length
and breadth. It is difficult to work, but not
liable to split, and bears the driving of bolts
and nails better than any other timber. What
is known in Europe as the twisted elm (Orme
tortillard), is not a distinct species but only a
variety of the European elm. The twisted
form of the fibres is secured by culture, the
young stalks being properly grafted and plant-
ed separately from the parent tree. In Scot-
land, chairs and other articles of household
furniture are frequently made of elm wood;
but in England, where the wood is inferior,
besides the purposes already specified, it is
chiefly in demand for the manufacture of casks,
mill-wheels, pumps, water-pipes, axletrees, &c.
It is appropriated to these purposes because of

ELM.

ELM.

its great durability in water, which also occa-
sions its extensive use as piles and planking
for wet foundations. A second-rate charcoal
is made from this wood ; and rails and gates
of elm, thin sawed, Evelyn tells us in his Sylva,
are not so apt to rive as oak. Elm is said to
bear transplanting better than any other large
tree. It is propagated by seed, layers, or
suckers, and by grafting and budding. Suck-
ers, however, generally disfigure those trees
raised from layers or suckers. As the value
of this timber consists more in the length and
bulk of the shaft than in the irregular growth
of its branches, it is the business of the planter
to train them up tall and straight, and not to
suffer them to branch till within a few feet of
the top. The leaves of the elm are eagerly
eaten by cattle, sheep, and hogs. The inner
bark of the elm is nearly as valuable a medi-
cinal agent as the much-vaunted sarsaparilla.
The decoction of it forms an excellent vehicle
for minute doses of corrosive sublimate in
some obstinate skin diseases ; and in combi-
nation with vinegar or muriatic acid, it is a
useful gargle in inflamed throats.

Se\^eral species of the Ulmus family are
found in the United States. Among these the
while or weeping elm (Ulmus jlmericana), is
met with over a very extensive tract of the
continent. Michaux says that his father no-
ticed it as high north as latitude 48° 20', near
the entrance of the river Mistassin into Lake
St. John, and that he had himself observed it
from NoVa Scotia to the extremity of Georgia,
a distance of at least 1200 miles. It abounds
in all the Western states. The district of coun-
try in which it seems to flourish best is com-
prised between the 42d and 46ih degrees of
latitude, in Western New York, the Eastern
Stales, and adjoining British provinces. It de-
lights in low and humid soils, and is frequently
met with on the borders of swamps and fertile
bottoms, associated with the while maple and
buttonwood. On the banks of rivers its base
is frequently overflowed by freshets, and its
diameter often increases to four feeu But it
is where the primitive forests, in which it
has been once insulated, have been cleared
away, that the American elm when left appears
in its greatest majesty, towering to the height
of 80 or 100 feel, with a trunk 4 or 5 feet in
diameter, regularly shaped, naked, and insen-
sibly diminishing to the height of 60 or 70 feet,
where it divides into two or three primary
limbs. These limbs do not part so suddenly
as those of most other trees, but approach and-
cross each other, interlacing and bending their
flexible branches so as to form regular arches
of the Gothic character, floating lightly in the
air. Michaux mentions a singularity in this
tree he had found in no other, namely, that
two small limbs, 4 or 5 feet long, grow in a
reversed position near the first fork, and de-
scend along the trunk.

The American white elm diflTers essentially
from the red elm and the European elm in its
flowers and seeds. The flowers appear before
the leaves, and are very small and of a purple
colour. The seeds are contained in a flat,
oval, fringed capsule, being mature from the
I5th of May to the 1st of June.
56

The buttonwood astonishes the eye by the
size of its trunk and the amplitude of its head ;
but the white elm has a more majestic appear-
ance, owing to its greater height, and the dis-
position of its principal limbs. When grow-
ing alone, the limbs generally branch off at 8,
10, or 12 feet from the ground.

"The trunk of this elm is covered with a
white, tender bark, very deeply furrowed. The
wood, like that of the common European elm,
is of a dark brown, and, cut transversely or
obliquely to the longitudinal fibres, it exhibits
the same numerous and fine undulaticms; but
it splits more easily, and has less compactness,
hardness, and strength. This opinion was given
me by several English wheel-wrighls establish-
ed in the United Stales, and I have since proved
its correctness by a comparison of the two spe-
cies. The while elm is used, however, at New
York and farther north, for ihe naves of coach-
wheels, because it is diflicult to procure tho
black gum, which at Philadelphia is preferred
for this purpose. It is not admitted into the
construction of houses or of vessels, except
occasionally in the district of Maine for keels,
for which it is adapted only by its size. Irs
bark is said to be easily detached during eight
months of the year; soaked in water and sup-
pled by pounding, it is used in the Northern
Slates for the bottoms of common chairs.

"Such are the few and unimportant uses of
the white elm in the United States; it is far in-
ferior to ihe European elm, which is a tree of
very extensive utility, and it deserves attention
in the old world only as the most magnificent
vegetable of the temperate zone." {Muluxux.)

The Red or Tawny elm (Ulmus rubra), called
also the slippery elm. — " Except ihe maritime
districts of the Carolinas and Georgia, this spe-
cies of elm is found in all parts of the United
Stales and of Canada. It bears ihe names of
red elm, slippery elm, and moose elm, of which
the first is the most common ; the French of
Canada and Upper Louisiana call it Orme gras.

"The red elm, though not rare, is less com-
mon than the oaks, the maples, the sweet gum,
and the sassafras ; it is also less multiplied
than the while elm, and the two species are
rarely found together, as the red elm requires
a substantial soil, free from moisture, and even
delights in elevated and open situations, such
as the steep banks of rivers, particularly of the
Hudson and the Susquehanna. In Ohio, Ken-
tucky, and Tennessee it is more multiplied
than east of the mountains, and with the
hickories, the wild cherry tree, the red mul-
berry, the sweet locust, the coffee tree, and
some other species, it constitutes the growth
upon the richest lands of an uneven surface.

"This tree is 50 or 60 feet high, and 15 or
20 inches in diameter. In the winter it is distin-
guished from the white elm by its buds, which
are larger and rounder, and which, a fortnight
before their developement, are covered with a
russet down.

"The flowers are aggregated at the extre-
mity of the young shoots. The scales which
surround the bunches of flowers are downy like
the buds. The flowers and seeds differ from
those of the preceding species; the calyx is
downy and sessile, and the stamina are short

441

ELM.

ELYMUS.

and of a pale rose colour; the seeds are larger,
destitute of fringe, round, and very similar to
those of the European elm ; they are ripe to-
wards the end of May. The leaves are oval-
acuminate, doubly denticulated, and larger,
thicker, and rougher than those of the white
elm.

*'The bark upon the trunk is brown; the
heart is coarser-grained and less compact than
thai of the white elm, and of a dull red tinge.
I have remarked that the wood, even in branches
of one or two inches in diameter, consists
principally of perfect wood. This species is
stronger, more durable when exposed to the
weather, and of a better quality than the white
elm; hence in the Western States it is em-
ployed with greater advantage in the construc-
tion of houses, and sometimes of boats on the
banks of the Ohio. It is the best wood of the
United States for blocks, and its scarceness in
the Atlantic Stales is the only cause of its
limited consumption in the ports. It makes
excellent rails, which are of long duration, and
are formed with little labour, as the trunk di-
vides itself easily and regularly; this is pro-
bably the reason that it is never employed for
the naves of wheels.

"The red elm bears a strong likeness to a
species or a variety in Europe known by the
name of Dutch elm. The leaves and the bark
of the branches, macerated in water, yield, like
those of the Dutch elm, a thick and abundant
mucilage, which is used for a refreshing drink
in colds, and for emollient plasters in place of
the marsh-mallow root, which does not grow
in the United States.

"Though the red elm is superior to the
white elm, it is not equal to our European
species, and its culture cannot be generally
recommended.

" Observation. In the district of Maine and
on the banks of Lake Champlain I have found
another elm, which I judged to be a distinct
species. Its leaves were oval-acuminate, rough,
and deeply toothed, but I have not seen its
flowers or its seeds. The length of its young
shoots announced a vigorous vegetation. It
is confounded in use with the white elm, to
which it is perhaps superior ; it is found in the
nurseries of France, and probably it came ori-
ginally from Canada." {Michaux.)

The red elm of the United States bears so
strong a resemblance to the Dutch elm, both in
foliage and fruit, that it is not always easy to
tell them apart. The species of elm known in
the South by the Indian name of Wahoo, is the
Ulmus alata of Michaux. It is a stranger to
the Northern and Middle Stales, and to the
mountainous regions of the Alleghanies; being
found almost exclusively in the lower part of
Virginia, in the maritime districts of the South-
ern States, in West Tennessee, and in some
parts of Kentucky. It prefers the banks of
rivers and great swamps, and attains a middle
size, commonly not rising higher than 30 feet,
with a diameter of 9 or 10 inches. The branches
of the wahoo are furnished throughout their
whole length, on two opposite sides, with a
fungous appendage or ridge, two or three lines
wide, from which the specific name, alata,
winged, is derived. The wood is fine-grained,
443

more compact, heavier and stronger than that
of the American white elm. The heart is of a
dull red, approaching to chocolate-colour, and
always bears a large proportion to the sap. In
those parts of the country where it grows, it is
employed for coach-wheels, and is even pre-
ferred for this purpose to the black gum, as
being more hard and tough.

Another American species of elm has been
discovered by Mr. Nuttall, who calls it the
Opaque-leaved elm. He found it in Arkansas,
on the plains of the Red river, 1100 miles
above its mouth, where it forms a majestic
forest tree. It is distinguished for the small-
ness and thickness of its oblique and usually
blunt leaves, which, with their short stalks, are
only about an inch in length by half an inch in
breadth, and very numerous. The taste of the
plant is astringent, and it is not mucilaginous.

Mr. Nuttall considers this remarkable tree
to be nearly allied to the Chinese elm {Ulmus
Chinensis). Of the uses and quality of its wood
he does not speak. The density of shade pro-
duced by it, so crowded with rigid leaves, and
the peculiarity of its appearance, he says, en-
title it to a place in the nurseries of the curi-
ous, as he thinks it quite hardy enough for all
temperate climates. To this species, he re-
marks, Virgil's epithet,

"Ffficundffi frondibus ulmi,"

might be more justly applied than to any other.
{NuttalVs Sup. to Michaux.)

An American species called Thomas's elm
(Ulmus racemosa), which has hitherto been con-
founded with other elms, is, according to Pro-
fessor Torrey, abundant in the western part of
the State of New York, and probably of the
Western States generally. Mr. Thomas, its
discoverer, found it in Cayuga county, New
York, and the adjacent country. G. B. Emer-
son, Esq., says that specimens have also been
obtained from Vermont, collected by Dr. Rob-
bins, so that it is probably both a northern and
western species.

The lowermost stout branches, according to
Mr. Thomas, produce corky excrescences like
the Wahoo elm. For a further description,
see Eaton^s North Amcr. Botany ; SillimarCs Jour-
nal, vol. xix. p. 170, with a plate ; NuttalVs Sup-
plement, p. 37.

ELYMUS. The lyme grass. A genus of
large, rigid, or coarse grasses, mostly peren-
nial, growing frequently on the sea-coast.
Smith {Eng. Flora, vol. i. p. 177), describes
three native species: — 1. Upright sea lyme
grass (JB. arenarius). 2. Pendulous sea lyme
grass (E. geniculatus). 3. Wood lyme grass
(E. Europceus). The last is found in woods,
thickets, and hedges, on a chalky soil ; herb-
age of a grassy green ; stem erect, two feet
high, and striated. As Sinclair has treated
copiously of the proportional value of the dif-
ferent native and foreign species of Elymus.
shall follow his classification.

Elymus arenarius (Germ. Sand-haargras, PL
7, o). Upright sea lyme grass, starr, or bent
named from its upright, close spike. Its stalk
is not winged, and the leaves are spinous,
pointed. The calyx is lanceolate, the length
of the spikelets. The nutritive matter aflx)rded

t

ELYMUS.

ELYMUS.

by this lyme grass is remarkable for the large ;
quantity of saccharine matter which it con-
tains, amounting to more than one-third of its
weight; this grass may, therefore, be consider-
ed as the sugar-cane of Britain. The saccha-
rine matter must render the hay made from
this grass very nutritious, particularly when
cut into chaff, and mixed with com or common
hay. Its natural soil (if soil it can be called)
is the sands of the sea-coast. This grass, when
combined with the Arnndo arenaria, seems ad-
mirably adapted by nature for the purpose of
forming a barrier to the encroachment of the
sea. The culms are very deficient, both on its
natural soil and when cultivated. A greater
proportion of saccharine matter is afforded by
the culms of this grass than by the leaves. It
flowers about the third week in July.

Elynms geniculattis. Knee-jointed or pendu-
lous lyme grass. The stem is winged, and the
spikes bent directly downwards. At the time
of flowering, the produce from a sandy loam is
20,418 lbs. per acre. The foliage is tough and
coarse, and the quantity of nutritive matter it
affords is not considerable. The Elymus are-
narius is nearly allied to this species in its
general habit; but differs specifically in the
spikelets being pubescent, more compact, and
the spike perfectly upright. The leaves are
broader, the culms taller and stronger, and the
root is more powerfully creeping. This spe-
cies is greatly superior to the above in produce
and nutritive properties, but neither appear to
have jnerits sufficient to recommend it for cul-
tivation; for even though both were early in
the produce of fine foliage, and grew rapidly
after being cut, their strong creeping roots,
which exhaust the soil very much, would pre-
clude their introduction on the farm. This
species flowers in the second week in July,
and the seed is perfected in about three weeks.
Elymus hystrix. Rough lyme grass. At the
time of flowering, the produce from a rich, sili-
cious, sandy loam was 27,225 lbs., of which
half the weight is lost in drying. The nutritive
matter afforded by the produce of an acre is
only 1063 lbs. The harsh, broad, thin, light-
green leaves of this species, and of those of the
E. striatiis and E. sihirinis, indicate that they
are naturally inhabitants of woods, or wet,
shady places. Grasses of this description are
generally (indeed in every instance that has
come under my observation) deficient in nu-
tritive matter, and contain an excess of bitter
extractive. Cattle appear to dislike these
grasses. Oxen eat the Philadelphian lyme
grass when it is offered to them, but they re-
fuse the striated, Siberian, and rough lyme
grasses. From the above details, there is no
authority for recommending the rough lyme
grass to the notice of the agriculturist. It
flowers in the second week in July, and ripens
the seed in about a month.

Elymus Philadelphicus. Philadelphian lyme
grass. At the time of flowering, the green pro-
duce per acre from a clayey loam and reten-
tive subsoil is 30,628 lbs., dry produce 15,314
lbs., nutritive matter, 2033 lbs.; so that it is a
very productive grass, and contains a consi-
derable quantity of nutritive matter. With re-
spect to foliage, it is rather early in the spring.

From the large size it attains, the produce is
rank and proportionably coarse, and is unfit
for pasture. It appears that for soiling, or hay
to be used in the form of chaff, this and some
other of the gigantic grasses would be profit-
able plants on soils unfit for the production of
the superior pasture grasses, or of corn. A
comparison of the quantity of nutritive matter
contained in hay of the best quality with that
made from this grass, will show nearly their
comparative value. One pound of hay com-
posed of the best natural grasses contains of
nutritive matter 57 drs.; one pound of hay of
the E. Philadelphicus 34 drs. With regard to
nutritive powers, therefore, five tons of the hay
of this grass are scarcely equal to three tons
of that of the superior grasses. But the soil
that will produce this grass and others of the
same class at the rate of six tons per acre,
would not produce one-fifth the quantity of the
superior grasses ; consequently the adoption of
the tall fescue and Philadelphian lyme grasses
on soils of this description for the uses now
described, might be found a profitable measure.
This grass flowers in the first and second weeks
of July, and successively till the end of sum-
mer. The seed ripens in about three weeks
after the lime of flowering.

Elymus Siberirus. Siberian lyme grass. At
the time of flowering, the produce per acre
from a rich sandy soil is 16,335 lbs., dry pro-
duce 5,717 lbs., nutritive matter 574 lbs. The
produce of this grass is very coarse, and the
weight of the crop, therefore, though consider-
able, is comparatively of no value. It is a
native of Siberia, and withstands the effects of
the severest continued frost, but not sudden
changes from frost to fine weather. It requires
to be sown every year, and treated as an an-
nual. It comes into flower the second season,
about the second or third week in June, and
continues to emit flowering culms till autumn.
A light, rich, silicious soil appears to be best
adapted to its growth.

Elymus strioius. Striated lyme grass. At the
time of flowering, the green produce per acre
of this grass from a clayey loam is 20,418 lbs.,
dry produce 8,933 lbs., nutritive matter 1276
lbs. From these details, therefore, this species
is inferior in nutritive powers to the Philadel-
phian lyme grass in the proportion of 17 to 16.
It is also much later in the production of
foliage in the spring, and does not come into
flower till after that species has nearly per-
fected its seed. It cannot, therefore, be recom-
mended for the purposes of the agriculturist.
Flowers about the latter end of July, and ripens
the seed in August. {Hort. Gram. Wob. p. 365—
371.)

About eight American species of the lyme
grass have been enumerated by botanists, found
along streams or on the sea-shore, where, as in
Europe, they often prove extremely useful in
resisting the encroachment of the water.

The Virginian lyme grass is sometimes called
wild rj'e, although its spikes, like those of the
Canadian lyme grass, more resemble at a little
distance the heads of barley. It is a perennial,
found along the banks of the Brandywine and
. in other parts of the Middle States, where it
I attains a height of three or four feet.

443

EMBANKMENT.

ENDIVE.

The Canadian lyme grass is also a peren-
nial, growing to a similar height with the spe-
cies just mentioned, found in similar localities,
and resembling it in most other respects, ex-
cept in having its flowerets and their receptacle
clothed with stitfish hairs. The variety glau-
cifolius of Torrey is generally a taller plant,
•with longer spikes, the awns long and some-
what curved, and the whole plant covered with
a greenish-white or silvery appearance. It is
found on the Schuylkill, near Black Rock.

The villous or hairy lyme grass is a species
also found on the banks of the Brandywine.

The species called Porcupine lyme grass
(JE. hysli~ix), is remarkable for its expanded,
bristly spike, somewhat resembling an apothe-
cary's bottle-washer. It is a perennial, fre-
quently found in the southern parts of Penn-
sylvania and other Middle States, in rich,
moist, and rocky woodlands, where it flowers
in July and ripens its seed in August. (See
Flor. Cestric.)

EMBANKMENT. A large mound of bank
of earth; thrown up for the purpose of protect-
ing or reclaiming lands from being injured or
inundated by the water of the sea, rivers, or
lakes. Mr. P. Howard narrates in the Com. to
the Board of Agr. vol. vi. p. 148, the methods in
use for embankments abroad.

In Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire,
and other places in England, many hundred
thousands of acres have been taken in by em-
banking. In Holland, the whole country has
in a great measure been gained in this way.
Near Chester, the River Dee Company have
also reclaimed some thousands of acres from
the sea, which are now divided into several
beautiful farms. Mr. A. W. Maddocks, of Car-
narvon, enclosed 1080 acres from the sea, by
an embankment of two miles in extent. {Ibid.
vol. vi. p. 159.) Lord Boringdon also reclaim-
ed a large tract of land from the sea by em-
banking. {Ibid. p. 252.) Mr. D. Sheriff; of In-
verness-shire, likewise describes {Ibid. vol. vii.
p. 59), the plan he pursued in taking in from
the sea 100 acres of valuable carse land. In
the Lib. of Useful Knmv., "Brit. Husb." vol. i. p.
447-449, will be found some excellent observa-
tions on the embankment of rivers, and the cost
of an operation of the kind. In the Quart. Journ.
of Agr.YoX. viii. p. 377, will also be found some
interesting details on the same subject.

There are many other parts of the United
Kingdom in which capital might be advan-
tageously employed for the same purpose. It
is a question of even national importance, and,
as in the proposed embankment of the Wash,*
may be carried in some districts to a much
greater extent than is commonly supposed. It
is an improvement which must be ^o much
varied, according to the situation in which
the farmer is placed, that it would be impos-
sible, in this work, to go into engineering
details; for, as Mr. Blackie remarks {Trans,
of High. Sac. vol. ii. p. 745,) " It would be an
Herculean task to attempt to lay down rules,
or give directions for raising the requisite
structures in every situation. So many local
impediments occur, so many unlooked-for ob-
stacles must be surmounted, and there are
always so many circumstances to be attended
444

to and provided for, that much must ever de-
pend on the ingenuity and ability of the direc-
tor." See also Rev. G. Hamilton, Mr. Sidney,
and Mr.Macleod. (/6irf.p.97 — 103); Johnstone
on Draining and Embanking, and Stephens on
IrHgation.

EMBROCATION {Gv.»^^ix'»)' In farriery,
it is a liquid application, usually prepared of
volatile and spirituous ingredients, chiefly used
by friction to relieve pains, numbness, &c.

EMOLIENTS (Lat. emolUens). In farriery,
such remedies as relax and diminish the hard-
ness and rigidity of the parts to which they
are applied.

ENCHANTER'S NIGHTSHADE (Cirr^a).
Of this perennial herbaceous genus of plants
there are two indigenous species, the common
enchanter's nightshade (C. lutetiana), and the
mountain enchanter's nightshade (C. alpina).
The former grows in moist, shady places, hedge-
bottoms, church-yards, orchards, &c.: the root
is tenaciously creeping ; the stem 18 or 20
inches high ; round and branching: the leaves,
of a darkish dull green, waved, with short
teeth, one rib, and many veins ; the flowers are
in clusters, many, small, and scentless, white
or reddish, with a brownish-green calyx ; the
fruit is a bur, clothed with hooked bristles.
Two species of this plant are known in the
United States. The one commonly found in
moist, rich wood-lands in Pennsylvania and
other Middle States, varies somewhat, Dr. Dar-
lington says, from the circseaof Europe. {Flor.
Cest. and Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 15.) ,

ENDIVE {Cichorium endivia). This plant is
too well known to require description. There
are three varieties. The green-curled is the
only one cultivated for the main crops. When
the larger seedlings have been transplanted,
the smaller ones which remain may be cleared
of weeds, and have a gentle watering; by
which treatment, in 12 or 14 days they will
have attained a sufficient size to afford a se-
cond successional crop; and by a repetition
of this management, in general, a third. The
plants are generally fit for transplanting when
of a month's growth in the seed bed ; but a
more certain criterion is, that when 6 or 6
inches high, they are of the most favourable
size. They must be set in rows 12 or 15 inches
apart each way; the Batavian requires the
greatest space. Some gardeners recommend
them to be set in trenches or drills, 3 or 4
inches deep; this mode is not detrimental in
summer and dry weather; but in winter, when
every precaution is to be adopted for the pre-
vention of decay, it is always injurious. About
three months elapse between the time of sow-
ing and the fitness of the plants for blanching.
This operation, if conducted properly, will be
completed in from ten to fourteen days in sum-
mer or in three or four weeks in winter. In
hot weather, the blanching is completed in half
the time that is required if the season is cold.
To blanch the plants, it is the most common
practice to tie the leaves together; to place
tiles or pieces of board upon them ; or to cover
them with garden pots ; whilst some recom-
mend the leaves to be tied together, and then
to be covered up to their tips with mould,
making it rise to an apex, so as to throw off

i

ENGRAFTING.

ENTOMOLOGY.

excessive rains. All these methods succeed
in dry seasons, but in wet ones the plants
treated according to any of these plans are
very apt to decay. The one which succeeds
best in all seasons, is to fold the leaves round
the heart as much as possible in their natural
position, and being tied together with a shred
of bass mat, covered up entirely with coal
ashes in the form of a cone, the surface being
rendered firm and smooth with the trowel.
Sand will do ; but ashes are equally unreten-
tive of moisture, whilst they are much superior
in absorbing heat, which is so beneficial in the
hastening of the process. If the simple mode
of drawing the leaves together is adopted to
effect this etiolation, they must be tied very
close ; and in a week after the first tying, a
second ligature must be passed round the
middle of the plant, to prevent the heart-leaves
bursting out. A dry afternoon, when the plants
are entirely free from moisture, should be se-
lected, whichever mode is adopted for this
concluding operation. For the production of
seed, the finest and soundest plants should be
selected of the last plantation, and which must
agree with the characteristics of the respective
varieties. For a small family, three or four
plants of each variety will produce sufficient.
These should be taken in March, and planted
beneath a south fence, about a foot from it, and
18 inches apart. As the flower-stems advance,
they should be fastened to stakes ; or if they
are placed beneath palings, the supporting
string can be nailed to them. They must be
kept clear of weeds. In July the seed will
begin to ripen ; and here it must be observed,
that each lateral branch is to be gathered as
the seed upon it ripens; for if none are gather-
ed until the whole plant is changing colour, the
first ripened and best seed will have scattered
and be lost, so wide is the difference of time
between the several branches of the same
plant ripening their seed. Each branch must
be laid, as it is cut, upon a cloth in the sun,
and when pertectly dry, the seed beaten out,
cleansed, and stored. Endive seed will vege-
tate after being kept five or six years.
ENGRAFTING. See GiiArTiNo.
ENTOMOLOGY. A term signifying the
knowledge of insects. The importance of
such knowledge to those interested in agricul-
ture or rural affairs, must be obvious to every
one who reflects upon the advantages derived
from the useful labours of some insects, and
the devastations committed by others. The
first step in proof of the utility of this science,
might be to show that insects do a great deal
of harm. Besides wire-worms and other in-
sects which eat the seed in the ground, and
weevils which destroy the contents of the gra-
naries, flies torment the domestic animal whilst
alive and blow their flesh when dead. Cater-
pillars eat cabbages, and moths riddle holes in
cloth. Clover-seed is destroyed by a small
weevil (Jpion flavi-fenwratum) ; Dutch clover
by the Jpion flavipes ; peas in the pod by the
small beetle (Bruchus granariiis). The turnip-
fly is properly a beetle— a little jumping beetle
(H'dtica nemoruni).

The problem of course is, how to destroy this
legion of enemies. Now to do this with the

greatest effect, we must w^atch them through
all their changes. There may probably be
many persons ignorant that most insects pass
through four stages of existence (of which the
silkworm atfords a familiar instance) : — 1. The
e^g\ 2. The caterpillar; 3. The chrysalis; and,
4. The butterfly or imago. It is in the second
stage that insects generally do the most mis-
chief. In the eg^ and the chrysalis they do
none; and in the imago, some do and some do
not. Though we are all familiar with the in-
sect in the shape in which its ravages compel
our attention, we are frequently unconscious
of its identity under other shapes. We look
on the cockchaffer, without suspecting that its
issue is the grub which eats the roots of the
grass. But however desirable a knowledge
of entomology may be, no single individual
could acquire it all for himself. He would
need the eyes of Argus, the patience of Job,
and the years of Methuselah. The diligence
and sagacity of men who have passed their
lives in this study have at length accumulated
a body of facts of the highest value ; being
printed, they have become the property of
everybody who will take the trouble to read,
(hem; and thus a school-boy may learn in a
few months facts which the Labours of his
whole life might have been vainly exerted in
seeking.

Messrs. Kirby and Spence in Europe, and
Dr. Harris in America, are the great authori-
ties upon this subject, and from their books
most of the facts stated in this encyclopaedia
have been taken. They themselves suggest a
similar application to practice of the truths
of their favourite science. "With respect to
noxious caterpillars in general," say they,
"farmers and gardeners are not usually aware
that the best mode of preventing their attacks
is to destroy the female fly before she has laid
her eggs ; to do which, the moth proceeding
from each must be first ascertained ; but if
their research were carried still farther, so as
to enable them to distinguish the pupa, and
discover its haunts (and it would not be diffi-
cult to detect that of the greatest pest of our
gardens, the cabbage butterfly), the work might
be still more effectually accomplished."

The process of destroying noxious insects by
attacking them in their early stages is not new.
P. Musgrave collected the chrysalids in the
sprin?, soas to become acquainted with them,
and then employed people to catch and kill the
moths and butterflies. If you catch 200 in a
day, you destroy 10,000 eggs, which would give
120,000 in a fortnight. Might not boys and
girls be well employed in doing this 1 They
have all the organ of destructiveness.

In short, it is abundantly evident, that if we
knew them in all their changes, and know
where they are concealed in autumn, winter,
and spring, we might exterminate those multi-
tudes which are now as the sands which are
upon the sea-shore. And if not all the know-
ledge required be yet in our possession, a great
deal is, and might be easily imparted to the
young farmer, if we could catch him in his
chrysalis state; and what little is still wanting
would soon be accumulated when we had set
so many keen and interested eyes to obser^.
2P 446

EPIDEMIC.

ERYNGO.

a fly could scarcely move but they would be
watching him. (Farmer^s Register.)

EPIDEMIC (Or. IttI and cf»>'.f ; Fr. epidemique).
In farriery, a term applied to such fevers, or
other distempers of cattle, as attack great num-
bers at certain seasons, or any time, if many
sufler in the same manner. The term is fre-
quently confounded with infectious, which is
perfectly distinct, and implies a disease com-
municated, not from the atmosphere, but from
one individual to another. Horses are liable
to epidemic fevers, and to several distempers
of that kind, such as the epidemical catarrh or
influenza, strangles, staggers, &c.

EPIDERMIS (Gr. ivi and SiffAct, the true skin).
In botany, the exterior cellular coating of the
bark, leaf, or stem of plants and trees. It is
composed of cells compacted together into a
stratum, varying in thickness in different spe-
cies, and is often readily separable by gentle
violence. It is believed to be intended by
nature as a protection of the subjacent parts
from the drying effects of the atmosphere.
{Brande's Did. of Science.)

EPILEPSY (Gr. e^r/A^'O- A disease which
occurs in various animals. See Sheep, Dis-
eases OF.

EREMACAUSIS (from «§«;«<, slow, and ««ua-ic,
combustion). A term applied in organic che-
mistry to denote one of the changes which
vegetable and other organic matters undergo
after death.

The conversion of wood into humus, the
formation of acetic acid out of alcohol, nitrifi-
cation, and numerous other processes, are of
this nature. Vegetable juices of every kind,
parts of animal and vegetable substances, moist
sawdust blood, &c., cannot be exposed to the
air, without suffering immediately a progress-
ive change of colour and properties, during
which oxygen is absorbed. These changes do
not take place when water is excluded, or when
the substances are exposed to the temperature
of 32° ; and different bodies require different
degrees of heat, in order to eflfect the absorption
of oxygen, and, consequently, their eremacau-
sis. The property of sufl^ering this change is
possessed in the highest degree by substances
which contain nitrogen.

The decay of woody fibre (the principal con-
stituent in all plants) is accompanied by a
phenomenon of a peculiar kind. This sub
stance, in contact with air or oxygen gas, con-
verts the latter into an equal volume of carbonic
acid, and its decay ceases upon the disappear-
ance of the oxygen. If the carbonic acid is
removed, and oxygen replaced, its decay re-
commences, that is, it again converts oxygen
into carbonic acid. Woody fibre consists of
carbon and the elements of water ; and if we
judge only from the products formed during
its decomposition, and from tlk)se formed by
pure charcoal, burned at a high temperature,
we might conclude that the causes were the
same in both : the decay of woody fibre pro-
ceeds, therefore, as if no hydrogen or oxygen
entered into its composition.

In the Appendix to the Third Report of the

Agriculture of Massachusetts, 1840, Dr. S. L. Dana

adduces the following example, to show that

even a moist plant will not decay, if air is ex-

446

eluded. A piece of a white birch tree was
taken from a depth of twenty-five feet below
the surface, in Lowell. "It must have been
inhumed there probably before the creation of
man, yet this most perishable of all wood is
nearly as sound as if cut from the forest last
fall."

A very long time is required for the comple-
tion of this process of combustion, and the pre-
sence of water is necessary for its maintenance :
alkalies promote it, but acids retard it ; all an-
tiseptic substances, such as sulphurous acid,
the mercurial salts, empyreumatic oils, &c.,
cause its complete cessation.

Woody fibre, in a state of decay, is the sub-
stance called humus.

The property of woody fibre to convert sur-
rounding oxygen. gas into carbonic acid dimi-
nishes in proportion as its decay advances,
and at last a certain quantity of a brown coaly-
looking substance remains, in which this pro-
perty is entirely wanting. This substance is
called mould ; it is the product of the complete
decay of woody fibre. Mould constitutes the
principal part of all the strata of brown coal
and peat. {Liebig^s Organic Chemistry.)

The eremacausis or putrefaction of sub-
stances containing nitrogen, is the process
technically called nitrification.

ERGOT (Spermasdia clavus). A parasitic
fungus, which most frequently appears upon
the ears of rye, but sometimes upon other
plants of the gramineous order. It most com-
monly appears in hot, damp summers. It is
known to be present by the change which the
affected grains assume ; but these seldom ex-
ceed five or six in an ear. The grain length-
ens to more than double its natural size, be-
comes angled, of a deep purplish-brown colour,
and curved at its apex, where the ergot is seat-
ed. The surface, when viewed through a mag-
nifying glass, appears studded with transparent,
shining, white, angular dots ; and when sliced
and viewed in water under the microscope, it
is seen to consist of white, flocculent threads,
bearing globular sporules. The ergotted grains
have a heavy, unpleasant odour, and an acrid,
nauseous taste, leaving a slight sensation of
heat in the palate. Ergotted rye is poisonous
both to man and other animals. When, in bad
seasons, it has prevailed, and has been ground
into flour with the rye, and baked in bread, it
has caused many fatal depopulating epidemics
in the north of Europe. On quadrupeds its use
is followed by emaciation, palsy of the hind-
legs, and extreme debility; mules in South
America lose their hoofs and hair when fed on
ergotted maize; and hens who have ergotted
rye mixed with their food, lay eggs without
shells, owing to its excitement of the oviduct.
It is employed as a medicine in difficult partu-
rition, but it ought not to be administered with-
out the greatest caution and discretion. (Edin.
Med. and Surg. Journ. vol. liii.) See Mildew.

ERICA VULGARIS. The common heath,
ling, or heather. See Heath.

ERIOPHORUM. The genus of cotton grass-
es, which see.

ERYNGO (Eryngium). A genus of plants
consisting of eleven species, two of which are
perennials, natives of England, viz., 1. The sea

ESCULENT.

EVAPORATION.

holly, or sea erj^ngo (£. maritimum), which
grows on the sandy sea-shore, where it strikes
its long creeping roots eighteen or twenty feet
deep into the soil ; the radical leaves are more
or less sheathing, stiff, spinous, three-lobed ; it
blows a bright blue flower in July or August.
Stem a foot high; root whitish, of a pungent
aromatic flavour, with a mixture of mucilage ;
herb smooth, glaucous, with an elegant blue
tint. The roots, reckoned stimulating and re-
storative, are either sold candied or adminis-
tered in decoctions variously prepared.

2. The field eryngo (£. campeslre) grows on
waste ground chiefly near the sea, and is not
so common as the last. It is more bushy and
slender, and of a paler glaucous green than the
foregoing; radical leaves larger; flowers white
or purplish. The leaves of both are somewhat
sweet, and of a pungent flavour.

Mr.Nutiall notices five species of the eryngo
or sea-holly, as found in the United States :
1. E. Virginianum ; 2. E. virgatum ; 3. E. fccti-
dum; 4. E. uquaticum. His general description
of the foregoing is, — Stem rather low ; leaves
sword-shaped, distinctly margined with setose
spines; setae frequently in pairs, &c.; flowers
greenish-white. 5. E. gracile, without spines.
Thys last was found in Florida by Dr. Baldwyn.
Many other species are submarine; some exist
in inland depressions, and a considerable num-
ber grow in arid wastes. (Nuttairs Genera.)

ESCULENT (Lat. esadenttif). A term ap-
plied to edible roots and plants, as carrots,
turnips, cabbages, &c.

ESPALIERS (Fr. espalier), in horticulture,
are trees trained by lattice-work or other sup-
ports on the borders of beds, or as hedges to
enclose plots of ground. They may serve to
defend in a great measure many tender plants
from the inclemencies of wind and weather.
The trees chiefly planted for espaliers are
apples, pears, and plums. The principal ob-
jects aimed at, however, in espaliers, are to
expose the foliage and fruit of the olants or
trees more perfectly to the light and sun, to
prevent the branches from being blown about
by the winds, and to economize space by con-
fining them within definite limits. {^Loudon's
Sub. Gard. p. 232.)

ESPARCET. A local name for Sainfoin,
which see.

ESTATE (JPr.estat), in common parlance, is
applied to the landed property held by indivi-
duals ; and a man is said to be of good or of
small estate, according to the magnitude of his
landed property. Estates vary exceedingly in
size and value, in most parts of England. The
largest estate in the kingdom may be worth
100,000/., or upwards, a year ; and there are
estates of most inferior degrees of magnitude,
down to the annual value of 40s. In some
counties the property is more, and in others it
is less subdivided.

EUDIOMETER. The name of any appara-
tiis Or contrivance by which the purity of the
air can be tested. It implies a measure of purity,
and is chiefly employed to determine the pro-
portion of oxygen which the air may contain.

EVAPORATION is the process by which
substances in the fluid or other form are con-
verted into vapour and steam. Ice, camphor,

carbonate of ammonia, and many other so-
lids evaporate readily in the open air. The
evaporation of water is, however, the most in-
teresting consideration in its relations to agri-
culture, as will be more particularly shown
when treating of the evaporating qualities of
soils, &c.

Water, when expanded into vapour, is high-
ly elastic, and spreads itself by a force of its
own. The amount of vapour existing at any
time in a given place is determined by the
degree of heat present. According, therefore,
to the temperature of the water from which
the vapour emanates, will be the ekistic force
and density of the vapour, prgvided the proces'.^
be carried on in an open vessel.

The pressure of the air and of other vapours
upon the surface of water in an open vessel,
doco not prevent evaporation of the liquid; it
merely retards its progress. Experience shows
that the space filled with an elastic fluid, as air
or other gaseous body, is capable of receiving
as much aqueous vapour as if it were vacuous,
only the repletion of that space with the vapour
proceeds more slowly in the former predica-
ment than in the latter, but in both cases it
arrives eventually at the same pitch. Dr. Dal-
ton has very ingeniously proved, that the par-
ticles of aeriform bodies present no permanent
obstacle to the introduction of a gaseous atmo-
sphere of another kind among them, but merely
obstruct its diffusion momentarily, as if by
a species of friction. Hence, exhalation at
atmospheric temperatures is promoted by -the
mechanical diffusion of the vapours through
the air with ventilating fans or chimney
draughts ; though, under brisk ebullition, the
force of the steam readily overcomes that me-
chanical obstruction.

The atmosphere has seldom as much watery
vapour as it is capable of .holding, and there-
fore the process of evaporation is almost always
going on wherever there is a source of mois-
ture present. Under certain circumstances,
however, evaporation is checked and even
suspended. Suppose the temperature of the
water to be midway between freezing and boil-
ing, viz., 122° Fahrenheit; also, that the air in
contact with it be of the same temperature, but
filled with moisture, so that its interstitial spaces
are full of vapour of corresponding elasticity
with that given off by the water ; it is certain
that, under such circumstances, no fresh for-
mation of vapour could take place. The air
would then be said to be saturated, as it is at
times when clothes hung out at common tem-
peratures remain without drying, and the
grass, leaves, and grain remain soaked in
moisture. But the moment a portion of vapour
escapes, or is drawn off by condensation into
dew, cloud, rain, &c., an equivalent portion of
vapour will immediately be enabled to rise,
and the process of exhalation or evaporation
recommences. The water exhaled at low tem-
peratures, that is to say, below the boiling point,
is commonly called vapour. When the tem-
perature of fresh water in an open vessel, at or
near the common level of the sea or tide-water,
rises to 212° Fahrenheit, the water begins to
boil and evaporate with exceeding rapidity,
producing what is commonly termed sieain.

447

EVAPORATION.

EXUVI^.

In such case the evaporation takes place, not
only from the surface, but from every point in
the interior of the vessel. This indicates that
the evaporating force of the water gained from
the increase of heat has become greater than
the pressure of the atmosphere, which is suffi-
cient to sustain a column of mercury thirty
inches high in the barometer. If the pressure
of the atmosphere be removed by the air-pump,
the turbulent evaporation or boiling of water
will take place at a much lower temperature
than 212°, even down to the freezing point.
But under the common pressure of the atmo-
sphere, and below the temperature at which
water boils, evaporation goes on quietly and
slowly. In deep mines, which descend below
the level of the sea, water requires a greater
heat than 212° to make it boil. But on high
mountains, or districts rising far above the
level of the sea, the pressure of the air is less-
ened, and boiling takes place, as in the air-
pump, at lower degrees.

The vapours exhaled from a liquid iat any
temperature contain more heat than the fluid
from which they sprung; and they cease to
form whenever the supply of heat into the
liquid is stopped. Nevertheless, a thermome-
ter held in the steam proceeding from hot water
rises no higher than when placed in the water
itself. The additional heat, therefore, contained
by the vapour, is in a latent or concealed state,
and does not become sensible to the thermome-
ter until the vapour condenses. Any quantity
of water requires, for its conversion into vapour
or steam, five and a half times as much heat
as is sufficient to heat it from the freezing point
of 32° to the boiling point of 212°. The quan-
tity of heat absorbed by one volume of water
in its conversion into steam, is about 1000°
Fahrenheit; it would be adequate to heat 1000
volumes of water one degree of the same scale ;
or to raise one volume of boiling water, con-
fined in a non-conducting vessel, to 1180°.
Were the vessel, charged with water so heated,
opened, it would be instantaneously emptied
by vaporization, since the whole caloric equi-
valent to its constitution as steam is present.
When, upon the other hand, steam is condensed
by contact with cold substances, so much heat
is set free as is capable of heating five and a
half times its weight of water, from 32° to 212°
Fahrenheit. If the supply of heat to a copper
be uniform, five hours and a half will be re-
quired to drive oflTits water in steam, provided
one hour was taken in heating the water from
the freezing to the boiling point, under the at-
mospherical pressure.

It thus appears that evaporation is a cooling
process, because the water is obliged to lake
up an additional supply of heat to expand and
keep it in a state of invisible vapour. It is
equally plain, that when vapour is condensed
into mist, cloud, dew, rain, snow, and ice, it
must give out that extra supply of heat required
to convert it into vapour. Hence, in summer
and mild weather, evaporation is a cooling
process, whilst in winter the condensation of
vapour and congelation of water must tend to
prevent more excessive cold, by throwing out
latent heat into the atmosphere. The 1000
degrees of heat absorbed by watery vapour on
448

its expansion into vapour, must of necessity
be set free on its condensation and conversion
into water.

EVERLASTING-PEA, BROAD-LEAVED
(Lathyrtis latifolius). A perennial plant of the
vetch kind, which grows naturally in some
places ; is e«asily cultivated, and annually
yields a great burden of excellent provender,
and might be cultivated to advantage as a
green food for cattle, on any of the more strong
sorts of soil. See Vetch and Vetchunr.

EVERLASTING, PEARLY (Gnaphalium
margaritaceum). One of the names of the
American cudweed. See Cudwkf.d.

EVERY-YEAR'S-LAND. Such lands as
have been cropped with a brown and white
crop, or pulse and grain in alternation, for a
length of time, without any intervening fallow.
There are extensive common fields in Glou-
cestershire and other parts of England, which
have been conducted under this management
for perhaps centuries past.

EXOTICS (Gr. t^i^tKi?, foreign). In gar-
dening, a name given to plants which are not
natives, but have been introduced from some
other country.

EXTRACTS (Fr. Extraits\ Ger. Extraden).
The older apothecaries used this term to de-
signate the product of the evaporation of any
vegetable juice, infusion, or decoction; whe-
ther the latter two were made with water,
alcohol, or ether; whence arose the distinc-
tion of aqueous, alcoholic, and ethereous ex-
tracts.

Fourcroy made many researches upon these
preparations, and supposed that they had all a
common basis, which be called the extractive
principle. But Chevreul and other chemists
have since proved that this pretended principle
is a heterogeneous and very variable com-
pound. By the term extract, therefore, is now
meant merely the whole of the soluble matters
obtained from vegetables, reduced by careful
evaporation to either a pasty or solid consist-
ence. The watery extracts, which are those
most commonly made, are as various as the
vegetables which yield them ; some containing
chiefly sugar or gum in great abundance, and
are therefore innocent or inert; while others
contain very energetic impregnations. The
conduct of the evaporating heat is the capital
point in the preparation of extracts. They
should be always prepared, if possible, from
the juice of the fresh plant, by subjecting its
leaves or other succulent part, to the action of
a powerful screw or hydraulic press ; and the
evaporation should be effected by the warmth
of a water-bath, heated not beyond 100° or 120°
Fahr. Steam heat may perhaps be applied
advantageously in some cases, where it is not
likely to decompose any of the principles of
the plant. But by far the best process for
making extracts is in vacuo, upon the princi-
ples involved in the process of evaporation.

For exceedingly delicate purposes, the con-
centration may be performed in the cold, by
placing saucers filled with the expressed juice
over a basin containing sulphuric acid, putting
a glass receiver over them and exhausting
its air.

EXUVI^ (Lat.). The cast-off parts or co-

EYE.

FAIR.

yering of animals, and also the shells and other
marine productions met with in the bowels of
the earth, having been deposited there for a
vast length of time. The lobster casts his shell,
the toad and snake shed their skin periodically,
leeches and fishes seem to cast off exuvial
layers of mucus only ; but in most reptiles the
epidermis is periodically moulted, either entire
or in large coherent masses. The periodi-
cally moulted feathers of birds, and hairs of
various species of mammalia, may also be re-
garded as exuviae. Substances of these kinds,
where they can be procured in sufficient quan-
tities, are highly valuable as manures, and
capable of extensive application, especially on
all the clay soils.

EYE (Sax. eas; Ice. eiza). In the manage-
ment of fruit-trees, implies the germ, small
bud, or shoot inserted into a tree.
. EYE-BRIGHT {Euphrasia officinalis). An
elegant plant, indigenous to England, very com-
mon in mountainous pastures and dry heaths,
varying in height from one to six inches. It
flowers from July to September; its stalk is
square and hard ; the leaves of a bright green,
flat, broad, and indented at the edges. The
flowers are small and white, streaked and
spotted with dark colours. On the mountains
of Scotland there is a more slender variety,
with smaller but more richly tinted blossoms;
on the Alps a dwarf, large-flowered, more pur-
pled variety is common. It must be gathered
about September, when it has done flowering.
The distilled water is spoken of by the old
herbalists as a fine eye-water to strengthen
and improve the sight. This reputation gave
it the name of eye-bright, but, like many other
ancient opinions respecting the virtues of
plants, the value of the reputation is worn out.
The eye-bright will not grow in gardens ; it
ioves to hide itself in grass or heath, and will
not thrive unless it be surrounded by plants
that are taller than itself. It is eaten by cattle
and sheep, but refused by hogs. (Eng. Floruy
vol. iii. p. 122.)

Two herbs are known in the United States
by this popular name. One is the Hypericum-
leaved Euphorbia (Euphorbia hypericifolia), a
milky annual plant common in pastures and
on road-sides. The juice applied to the eye
causes severe smarting. The severe saliva-
tion to which grazing horses are subject is
said to be caused by their eating this species
of Euphorbia.

The other plant also sometimes called eye-
bright, is the Indian tobacco, or Lobelia ivflata, a
biennial found abundantly in pastures, or road-
sides, &c., flowering in July and August, and ri-
pening its seeds in August and October. This
plant is possessed of highly acrimonious pro-
perties, and is an active emetic, cathartic, and
narcotic. These properties render it capable
iif doing much harm or good according to the
judgment and discrimination with which it is
employed in different diseases and the proper
stages. Without such attention, and in the
» hands of ignorant professed quacks and rash
pretenders, the indiscriminate use of this po-
tent herb has been fraught with serious injury
to the constitution, and not unfrequently with
death more or less speedy.
57

EYE OF THE HORSE. The eye of the
horse appears to be naturally more disposed
to disease than that of any other animal. The
diseases of the eye, although few in number,
are frequent in their appearance, obstinate,
and generally baffle all the skill of the vete-
rinarian. The following are the principal:
common inflammation, specific ophthalmia or
moon blindness, cataract, and gutto, serena or
amaurosis. For the last there is no cure. — Moon
blindness, as it is termed, is brought on in a
great measure by close confinement in dark,
heated, and unwholesome stables. No specific
remedies can be given for these diseases. (The
Horse, p. 113; Lib. Use. Know.^ See Buwdness
and Catabact.

FACTOR (LaU factor ; Fr.factetir). In mer-
cantile law, an agent who is intrusted with the
property of others, which he is commissioned
to dispose of. In Scotland the word factor is
used synonymously with steward in England,
signifying one who has the overlooking or
management of an estate or a farm for another
person.

FAGOT (Welsh fa god ; Fr. fagot). A
bundle of small cut wood tied together closely
for fuel or other purposes. They are made up
from the cuttings or thinnings of coppices or
hedges ; and, in many districts, are sold to the
bakers.

FAIR (OldFr.^re; Lat./mVp or /orum). A
public place where merchants, traders, and
other persons assemble from remote parts on
some fixed day in the year to buy and sell
commodities, and to partake of the diversions
usually to be met with on such occasions. See
Market. Fairs and markets are very closely
allied. A fair, as the term is now generally
understood, is only a greater species of market
recurring at more distant intervals. Both are
appropriated to the sale of one or more kinds
of goods, the hiring of servants or labourers,
Sec; but fairs are in most cases attended by a
greater concourse of people, for whose amuse-
ment various exhibitions are got up.

Fairs originated in England in monkish
days, when proud bishops and mitred abbots
were not unwilling to increase their revenues
by the tolls which they were empowered by
royal charter to levy on the crowds who com-
monly attended the festivals of their patron
saints. Spreading rumours with an intent to
increase the price at fairs or markets is in
England an offence at common law. (Rex v.
Waddington, 1 East, 143.)

Various statutes have been passed to regu-
late fairs.— By the 2 & 3 P. and M. c. 7, the
owner or keeper of every fair must appoint a
certain open place for the sale of horses, and
must, under a penalty of 40 shillings, appoint

I some one to attend to take toll, from 10 a. m.

' till sunset ; must keep a book, and enter there-
in the marks, price, colour, &c., seller's and
buyer's name and residence, or forfeit 40 shil-
lings.— By the 31 Eliz. c. 12, if the parties are

I strangers to the book-keeper, they must pro-

1 cure a person to vouch for them; his fee for
2 p2 449

FAIRY RINGS.

FALLOW.

entering in the book, where there is no toll, is
one penny, for giving a certificate two-pence.

A list of the fairs and markets of the United
Kingdom will be found in several almanacs,
particularly that entitled The Faryuer's Jilmanar,
by .Johnson and Shaw. (M'Culbcli's Com. Bid.

&.C.)

FAIRY RINGS. Whoever has passed over
our down lands in search of the vegetable
treasures of creation, or in pursuit of the ra-
tional employments of a country life, cannot
fail to have noticed, says the Rev. G. Smith,
the circles of verdant grass, and correspondent
circles of fungi, most abundant upon turfy
hills, and known under the name of fairy rings.
The various superstitions and poetical fancies
connected with these phenomena need not be
detailed. These circles have been accounted
for by various theories, of which no one, how-
ever, is alone sufficient to embrace all the facts.
The recent discovery of the habitual rejection
by the roots of any substance injurious to the
growth of vegetables, has made it evident in
what manner a race of plants may occupy one
spot, until they can no longer exist on it, in
consequence of the excretions their roots have
deposited, rendering the land altogether de-
structive to them ; while, on the other hand,
the change thus effected in the soil may render
it more nutritious and desirable for some other
race of plants, than before any such change
had taken place. This theory, based upon a
series of familiar facts, explains the necessity
for a rotation of crops. The fungi, it is ascer-
tained, soon render the land on which they
grow unfit to support themselves; but they
enrich the soil for other plants, especially for
the grasses, which grow up in rank luxuriance
in the space left bare by the extinction of the
fungi. The circumstance of the plants taking
a circular form, may perhaps arise from a
single fungus first throwing its seed all around
it, and as a single crop of fungi is sufficient to
exhaust the soil, the grass springs up in the
space it has occupied, and the second year's
crop of fungi appears in a small ring round the
original centre. The rings go on extending in
circumference year after year, until something
occurs in the soil or its products to check their
progress, or the species wears out or becomes
dormant for a season. A similar mode of
growth takes place in some of the crustaceous
lichens. The rings have been observed to be
frequent on hill-sides, and then almost always
with the lower part of the circle open. They
sometimes contain a small circle within the
larger one, but not always in the centre. With-
in such circle the herbage is very luxuriant
and rank, consisting of the Anthoxanfhum odo-
ratum, and the common daisy ; without the
circle there is not any very apparent change
in the vegetation; but on the circumference.
Thymus serpyllum, T. monolropa, Carex rcciirva,
and Hiernrium pilosella, have all been observed.
(The Wild Garland, by S. Waring.)

FALLOW. Such land as has been re-
peatedly ploughed over, and exposed to the
influence of the atmosphere, for the purpose
of rendering it friable, clearing it from weeds ;
leaving it to rest after the tillage before it is
again soAvn.
450

Fallows have different names given to them,
and are of different kinds, according to the
purposes for which they are intended, and the
manner in which they are made. Thus, a
linked fallow is that in which the ground is
ploughed and harrowed at suitable intervals
for several successive times, according to the
kind of crop that is ultimately to be grown, but
without being sown till it has remained in fal-
low for some length of time. A green fallow
is that where the land has been rendered mel-
low and clear from weeds by means of some
kind of green crop, such as turnips, peas, tares,
potatoes, &c. In this mode of fallowing, no
time is lost by the land being left idle, or in an
unproductive state. Fallows are also some-
times distinguished by the season of the year
in which the business is chiefly or wholly per-
formed, hence we have summer and winter fal-
lows; and likewise from their being in some
cases only done in a partial manner, we have
bustard faWows. Fallows are also named after
particular crops, as wheat, turnip, and potato
fallows.

"The chemical theory of fallowing," ob-
serves Sir H. Davy (Elem. of Jlgr. Chcm.p.'23),
"is very simple; fallowing affords no new
source of riches to the soil, it merely tends
to produce an accumulation of decomposing
matter, which, in the common course of crops,
would be employed as it is formed ; and it is
scarcely possible to imagine a single instance
of a cultivated soil, which can be supposed to
remain fallow for a year with advantage to the
farmer; the only case where this practice is
beneficial seems to be in the destruction of
weeds, and for cleansing foul soils." It has
been indeed recently contended by Liebig in
his Organic Chemistry, that during a fallow, a
quantity of ammonia is collected from the at-
mosphere, potash disengaged from its combi-
nations, and other chemical effects produced,
which it is hardly necessary to examine at
much length. He says (Organic Chem. p. 156),
"The fallow time is that period of culture,
during which land is exposed to a progressive
disintegration by means of the influence of the
atmosphere, for the purpose of rendering a
certain quantity of alkalies capable of being
appropriated by plants. Now it is evident,
that the careful tilling of fallow land must in-
crease and accelerate this disintegration. For
the purpose of agriculture, it is quite indiffer-
rent whether the land is covered with weeds,
or with a plant which does not abstract the
potash enclosed in it. Now many plants of
the family of the Leguminosce are remarkable
on account of the small quantity of alkalies
or salts in general which they contain; the
Vicia faba, for example, contains no free alka-
lies, and not one per cent, of the phosphates
of lime and magnesia. The beiin of the Pha-
seoliis vulgaris contains only traces of salts.
The stem of the Medicago saliva contains only
0-83 per cent., that of the Ervam lens only 0-57
per cent, of phosphate of lime, with albumen.
Buckwheat drie.l in the sun yields only 0'681 •
per cent, of ashes, of which 0-09 parts are
soluble salts. These plants belong to those
which are termed fallow crops, and the cause
J why they do not exercise any injurious in-

FAN.

FARM.

fluence on corn which is cultivated immedi-
ately after them is, that they do not extract the
alkalies of the soil, and only a very small
quantity of phosphates."

FAN, FANNER. See Wii^jtowixg Machiji e.

FAR (Sax. Feop). In horsemanship, a term
used to denote a horse's right side; thus the
far foot, far shoulder, &c. is the right foot,
right shoulder, &c.

FARCY. In farriery, a disease of the ab-
sorbents affecting the skin and its blood-vessels,
by which, when inveterate, their coats inflame
and are so thickened that they become like so
many cords. Farcy is intimately connected
with glanders, and they will frequently run
into each other. The treatment varies with
the form it assumes. In the button, or bud
farcy, in which indolent boils appear, a mild
dose of physic should be first administered.
The buds should then be carefully examined,
and, if any of them have broken, the budding
iron, of a dull red heat, should be applied to
them, and the buds all opened as soon as they
appear to contain matter, and afterwards
washed with a lotion composed of a drachm
of corrosive sublimate, dissolved in an ounce
of rectified spirit. Daily exercise and green
food are also essential to the animal's recovery.

FARCY, WATER. See Dhopst.

FARDING-BAG. The first stomach of a
cow, or any other ruminant animal. It is a
mere receptacle for receiving and retaining
the green food, until the animal has time to
repose and chew the cud.

FARINA (Lat./ar, corn, of which it is made).
Meal or flour obtained by grinding and sifting
wheat and other seeds, or by pulverizing and
preparing edible roots, &c.; hence the term
farinaceous food.

FARM. A portion of ground cultivated for
the purpose of profit. There are different
kinds of farms. Where the principal part of
the land is under the plough, they are termed
arable farms; but where the fattening of cattle
or other live-stock is more immediately the
object, they are distinguished by the title of
grazing farms ; where the chief intention is
the obtaining different animal products, such
as milk, butter, and cheese, they are denomi-
nated dairy farms; and where the two systems
of arable and grass management can be com-
bined, they are called convertible farms. As
manure must be had in order to render farms
of any kind productive, the last may probably,
in general, be considered as the most advan-
tageous. Besides these, in districts where hay
is the principal produce, there are hay or grass
farms, and there are also what are denominated
breeding or cattle farms.

The old writers on husbandry, who lived in
warm countries, where the heat and moisture
of the air had sensible and frequently very
dangerous effects on the health of the inhabit-
ants, were very particular in their directions
for the choice of farms or estates, and of the
spots whereon houses should be built, so as to
avoid the inconveniences arising from the
climate, or from the quality or situation of the
ground. The Romans had generally pleasure
as well as profit in view, when they bought
and stocked a farm ; and therefore they laid it

down as a rule, that no degree of fertility
should tempt a man to purchase in an unhealthy
country, nor the pleasantest situations in a
barren one. " Buy not too hastily," said Cato,
" but view again and again the purchase you
intend to make ; for, if it be a good one, the
oftener you see it the better it will please you.
Examine how the neighbouring inhabitants
fare. Let the country it lies in be a good one ;
the ways to and from it good ; and the air tem-
perate. Let your land, if you can choose your
situation, be at the foot of a hill, facing the
south, in a healthy place where a sutficiency
of labourers, of cattle, and of water may be
had. Let it be near a flourishing town, the
sea, or a navigable river ; or bordering upon a
good and well-frequented road. Let the build-
ings upon your ground be strong and sub-
stantial. Do not rashly condemn the methods
of others. It is best to purchase from a good
husbandman and a good improver."

Besides the healthfulness of the situation,
three other things should be particularly at-
tended to in the choice of a farm or estate ;
these are, the air, the water, and the soil. The
air should be pure and temperate, the water
wholesome and easily come at, and the soil
fertile; and the farm should be at a reasonable
distance from good markets, both for the sale
of the produce and the purchase of manure.
See F-iiix Buildixos.

The ancients were particularly attentive to
the quality of their water, and to the ease of
coming at it. They advised bringing into the
farm-houses the water of such springs as never
dried up; or, if there was no such spring
within the farm, to bring running water as near
to it as possible ; or to dig for well-water, not
of a bitter or brackish taste. If neither of
these was to be found, they directed large
cisterns to be provided for men, and ponds for
collecting and retaining rain-water for cattle.
They esteemed that running water to be best
for drinking which had its source in a hill;
spring or well-water from a rising ground was
deemed the next best ; well-water in the bottom
of a valley was held to be suspicious ; and
marshy or fenny water, which creeps slowly
on, was by them rightly regarded as the worst
of all.

The nature of the soil of a farm may be as-
certained either by analysis (see Analysis),
by observation of the weeds which flourish
upon it (see Botaxt and Weeds), and of the
trees growing in the hedge rows (see Planta-
tions). In England the elm and the oak are
commonly tenants of good soils ; the birch,
the holly, and the ash indicate those which are
poor. And again, the productiveness of a soil
maybe estimated from the degree of its attrac-
tion for the insensible moisture of the atmo-
sphere ; by the substratum on which it rests
(see Geoloot); and by its inclination. There
are many other circumstances, also, which the
farmer in search of a farm should regard,
most of which he will find treated of in this
work under the heads Appraisement, Aokee-
MENT, Customs of Counties, Capital re-
quired. Rain, Lease, &c. Let him also closely
examine the state of the buildings, the mode
in which the farm has been cultivated, and the

451

FARM ACCOUNTS.

FARM BUILDINGS.

course of cropping which the out-gomg tenant
has followed. This last inquiry is one very
material point to be carefully and accurately
ascertained.

The number of farms in the United Kingdom
is estimated to be about 2,000,000, and the
property annually derived from agriculture at
215,817,624/.

There are in —

h

Ui C'lllivated
wastes
capable of
improve-
ment.

1!

Total.

Eiipland
Wales
dciillaiid
Drit sli
iaIes

Total

25,632,000
.S, 117,000
5,265,000

383,690

3,454.000

530,000

5,950,000

166,000

3,256,400
1,105,000
8,523,930

569,469

32,342,400
4,752,000
19,441,944

1,119,159

46,922,970

14,600,000

15,871,463

77,394,433

In England and Wales it is calculated that
there are

3,250

1,250
3,200,
1,200,

(,PqC acres employed m \ ^u^^.
'"'"t thecullivationof; ^"^"•

barley and rye.

2,100,

47,

18,

17.300.

1,200,

1,300.
5,029,

,000
000
.000
,000

,000
,000
,000
000
000

000
000

- - - oats, benns, and peas.

- - - clover, rye, grass, &c.

- - - roots and cabbages by
the plough.

- - - fallows.

- - - hop grounds.

- - - pleasure grounds.

- - - depastured by cattle.

- - - hedge rows, copses, and
woods.

- - - waysandwater-courses.

- - - common andwaste lands.

FARM ACCOUNTS. The necessity and
utility of correct and detailed particulars of all
matters concerning the farm, have already been
spoken of under the head Book-keepixg. Let
any farmer make the experiment, and he will
find it both interesting and useful, to know
from year to year the actual products of his
farm. Let every thing, therefore, which can
be measured and weighed, be so tested; and
let that which cannot be brought to an exact
standard be estimated, as if he himself were
about to sell or to purchase it. Let him like-
wise, as near as possible, measure the ground
which he plants, the quantity of seed which he
uses, and the manure which he applies. The
Icibour of doing this is nothing compared with
the satisfaction of having done it, and the
benefits which must arrive from it. Conjec-
ture, in these cases, is perfectly wild and un-
certain— varying often, with diff*erent indivi-
duals, almost 100 per cent. Exactness enables
a man to form conclusions which may most
essentially, and in innumerable ways, avail to
his advantage. It is that alone which can give
any value to his experience; it is that which
will make his experience the sure basis of
improvement ; it will put it in his power to
give safe counsel to his friends; and it is the
only ground on which he can securely place
confidence in himself.

FARM BUILDINGS. In the construction
of farm buildings, the first thing to be regarded
is the convenience of their situation; and to this
end must be considered the best shelter, feeding
and watering of live-stock ; the carriage of the
crop, and of manure, and the preservation of
the produce. To combine all these advan-
452

tages together is rarely attainable ; the object
with the practical farmer is to obtain as many
of them as possible. The improved economi-
cal cortstruction of farm buildings some years
since engaged the attention of the Highland
Society in Scotland, and from their report
(Trans, vol. ii. p. 365), the reader who wishes
for working plans will derive abundant infor-
mation. The committee say, very justly, "one
of the most common errors in these designs is
the crowding the buildings together, under the
idea of giving them greater compactness, and
the not sufficiently extending the shelter sheds
for the feeding of cattle. This is a fault so
universal that it is only on the larger class of
breeding and feeding farms in the border coun-
ties of England and Scotland that experience
has taught builders fully to avoid it. In giving
designs of the outhouses of a farm, little more
can be done than to give general useful ex-
amples. Although a certain similarity must
exist in the form and arrangement of the parts
of all such building.s, yet these must be modi-
fied according to the circumstances of the farm
itself, the nature of the goil, the situation with
regard to markets, and the particular kind of
management to be pursued. No one rule that
can be given is of general application, and the
judgment of the architect must be shown, in
adapting the size, form, and arrangements of
the buildings to the nature of the farm, and the
wants of the occupier. While every suitable
accommodation should be afforded to the te-
nant, it is the province of the architect to take
care that the heavy cost of such buildings be
not unnecessarily enhanced, either by erecting
buildings that are useless, or by giving unne-
cessary dimensions to such as are requisite.
It may be particularly remarked that the giving
unnecessary breadth to the buildings adds
materially to the expense, by increasing the
dimensions of the timbers, and adding to the
size of the roofs. At the same time care must
be taken that in the cow-houses and stables
the animals shall not be cramped from the
want of necessary room. In general, it may
be said that the most convenient arrangement
of the outhouses of a farm is in the form of a
rectangle, the side to the south being open, and
the farm-house being placed at some conve-
nient distance in front of it. And again, the
most approved mode of keeping and feeding
the larger and finer kinds of cattle is in small
sheds with open yards attached, each capable
of holding two animals. It is recommended
that the water-course from the stables, cow-
houses, and yards should be carried off by
causewayed open channels to a pond or tank
near to the buildings. This mode of convey-
ing away and receiving the urine is conceived
to be better in ordinary cases than sewers be-
low ground, which, even when executed in the
best manner, will be subject to be choked up
from want of necessary attention to cleaning ;
and such sewers become nurseries for rats,
notwithstanding every precaution that can be
taken. Should the situation of the buildings
incline to the north, conduits can be made
through the north range below the floors, at
proper places, for discharging the liquids.
"For watering cattle, if a stream cannot be

FARMER.

FARMS, OLD AND NEW.

obtained, there are few situations where water '
cannot be got by sinking a well ; the best way :
is to raise it into a cistern, which may be |
placed in any of the shelter yards, and from i
this be conveyed by pipes to the different yards,
furnished with proper cisterns and ball-cocks.
The passages and entrances to the buildings
should be wide ; the gates hung on wooden
posts or hewn stone pillars.

FARMER (Sax. peonmep, Fr. fermier). A
person whose business or employment is the
cultivation of land, the breeding, rearing, and
feeding of different sorts of live-stock, and the
management of the various products which
are aflurded by them ; hence those engaged in
this way may be further distinguished into
arable, grazing, dairy, hay, and other kinds of
farmers, according to the modes in which their
farms are cultivated or employed.

The farmers of Great Britain, who are ge-
nerally men of superior intelligence to those of
Flanders or other parts of Europe, may be ar-
ranged into the following classes : 1. The great
proprietors and country gentlemen. 2. Yeo-
men and farmers, properly so called. 3. Pos-
sessors of small farms. 4. Cottagers, includ-
ing different descriptions of people, who culti-
vate small farms, and a few acres adjoining to
towns and villages.

FARM-HOUSE. The dwelling occupied by
a farmer. The principal objects to be attended
to in erecting a farm-house are, convenience
and a salubrious situation. Besides the gene-
ral salubrity of the spot where dwellings are
to be erected, the air, water, and soil also re-
quire to be particularly attended to : the first
should be pure and temperate ; the second
wholesome and easily obtained. The most
healthy and convenient site on the farm ought
to be selected for building the house ; easy ac-
cess and central situation being taken into con-
sideration. An abundant supply of water for
domestic purposes, and for live-stock, is indis-
pensable. The water, however, should not be
stagnant. Ponds in the immediate vicinity of
a house are not essentially injurious, unless
they become dry in summer, or towards au-
tumn ; for at the period between the drying up
and the complete dryness of ponds, or stag-
nant pools, the decomposition of animal and
vegetable matter which is then proceeding
evolves miasmata that generate disease. A
dry gravelly soil, through which the rain can
freely percolate, is to be preferred. The degree
of dampness of a locality may be always pretty
correctly estimated by observing the quantity
of moss and lichens upon the trees; and the
weeds being those that grow in marshy situa-
tions.

FARMING. The business or management
of a farm, comprehending the whole circum-
stances and conduct of it.

It is a practice that demands constant care
and attention, as well as much activity and
judgment, to conduct it in a proper and advan-
tageous manner. It requires an intimate and
practical knowledge of all the arts of cultiva-
tion and management, as well as of the nature
and value of every kind of live-stock; and
Hill further, a perfect acquaintance with the

arious modes of buying and selling, and the

constant state of different markets and fairs.
In addition to all these, there are several other
minutiae of much consequence to the success
of the farmer, which will be treated of under
their respective heads.

Farming, once regarded as a profession easy
to be understood and successfully followed only
by the empiric, has long since been viewed in
a different, in a wiser manner. It has been
justly said that no pursuit requires more talent,
perseverance, and more careful observation,
than the cultivation of the earth ; that so far
from its being an empirical business, it is, in
fact, one that several other sciences illustrate
and assist — one, whose professors cannot too
often examine the practice of other cultivators ;
and hence, since it has been found that the la-
bours of the chemist, the botanist, the mecha-
nist, and the geologist, are all available in the
service of the farmer, it has followed as a na-
tural consequence, that the farmers of our age
have become a more scientific, more educated,
and a far more enlightened class than those of
anv previous generations.

FARMS, OLD AND NEW. Whether it is
more profitable in the United States, to lay out
money in the purchase and improvement of
exhausted farms, or in the clearing and im-
provement of new land, is a question which
requires more mature consideration than has
been generally given to il. Calculations em-
bracing the several expenses required in the
two operations would seem to show, that the
intelligent farmer, versed in the various pro-
cesses of producing manure and taking ad-
vantage of green fallow crops, will lay out his
means most profitably in restoring worn-out
land to fertility; provided he does not commit
the common error of endeavouring to improve
more land than his resources will enable him
to do justice by.

On the other hand, the man of more limited
means, who cannot buy an old farm or get one
on a sufficiently long lease, may, by going west,
purchase land at $1*25 per acre, or 200 acres
for $250, which will be already in the highest
state of fertility, but seriously encumbered
with heavy timber or other natural besetment.
This he clears and brings under cultivation
little by little, working, perhaps, a certain por-
tion of his time for others, in order to obtain sub-
sistence previous to the coming in of his crops.
Every acre cleared may cost him some 15 or
20 dollars, which, however, adds the same
amount to the value of the farm, whilst every
bushel of grain and every addition to his stock
is so much gained. It jnay be several years
before the pioneer will accumulate much pro-
perty. Still, however, the prospect of an ulti-
mate independence thus held out to the poor
and industrious settler, is a good one.

He who has the advantage of sufficient
means to enable him to purchase exhausted
lands at from 5 to 10, 20, and even 30 or 40
dollars per acre, may, by a judicious applica-
tion of lime, marl, plaster, and other mineral
fertilizers, aided by green fallow crops ploughed
under to form a mould, soon resuscitate a farm
and render it again highly productive and
valuable. The following facts will demonstrate
the practicability of what is here asserted. More

453

FARMS, OLD AND NEW.

FARM-YARD MANURE.

instances could be produced, but this, being on '
unquestionable authority, is ample for present
illustration.

Mr. George W. Cummins, of Smyrna, Dela-
ware, purchased a farm near that place, con-
taining about 200 acres. The land had been
under cultivation for half a century or more,
and its soil so completely exhausted as not to
be capable of compensating for the labour and
seed expended upon crops. It had, neverthe-
less, been rented, up to the time of purchase,
and one of the conditions was the payment,
annually, of two-fifths of the Indian corn
crop. From a thirty acre field, the rent paid
the last year was only about 30 bushels ! Clo-
ver refused to grow upon this land, and wheat
would not yield much more than the seed sown.
The soil was a sandy loam. The first step
taken by Mr. Cummins for the restoration of
this land to fertility, was, to sow one bushel of
ground plaster per acre, flush it up in the
spring, and spread upon it 70 bushels of slaked
lime per acre. Oats were then sown at ihe
rate of 2 or 3 bushels to the acre, and in July,
when nearly fit for harvest, the straw being
partly yellow and partly green, they were
ploughed under, an ox-chain having been rigged
in front of the coulter, so as to turn them down
before the plough. Previous to this ploughing,
li bushel more of ground plaster of Paris was
sprinkled upon the ground. A second crop of
oats sprung up in a thick mat from those
ploughed ujider, and about the first of October,
thes« were turned down by the plough like the
first growth. Wheat was now sown, about Ij
bushel to the acre, and harrowed in, followed
by clover early in the spring. The crop of
wheat averaged about 8 bushels to the acre,
and this, it will be observed, without a shovel-
full of stable or other kind of animal manure.
The clover had a bushel of ground plaster
sprinkled upon it in the spring, and yielded
the second season of its growth, about a ton
per acre at the first mowing. Thus, land from
which the vegetable mould had been entirely
exhausted was, in a comparatively short time,
and without the assistance of barn-yard or any
other kind of animal manure, brought into a
condition to yield compensating crops of wheat,
corn, and vigorous clover. By the assistance
of the ordinary quantity of barn-yard manure,
the produce of wheat would average about 25
bushels, and of Indian corn 40 or 50 bushels
per acre. The ground was very light and easy
to work, and Mr. Cummins estimated the ac-
tual expenses incurred per acre in this improv-
ing: course, as follows: —

First ploughing - - - - - -|S0 50

70 bushels linie, slaked, at 12 eta. - - 8 50

2^ bushels oats, sown. 31^ cts. - - - 0 8|a

Sowing and harrowing do. - - - 0 37^

Various pla^ster api)licaiions - - - 0 67^

Second ploughing under of oats - -100

H bushels whpat sown - - - - 1 50

Harrowing and sowing do. - - - 0 37J

Total expenses per acre - - - $13 73f

Thus the whole expenses incurred prepara-
tory to the wheat and clover crops, amounted
to §13-73;} ; and as the wheat raised was about
8 bushels, and sold for $1-50, and the clover
mown about 1 ton per acre, worth about 8 or
454

10 dollars the ton, the expenses were abun-
dantly repaid by the first crops, and the land left
in good heart for future profitable tillage.

When farms are situated near towns, ani-
mal manures can generally be obtained at fair
prices, and hence the usual productiveness ex-
hibited by lots and fields in the proximity of
towns. But with large farms situated at too
great distances from such places to admit of
the transportation of stable manure or street
dirt at fair prices, the farmers are left to the
fertilizing substances at hand, or to the pur-
chase of concentrated manure that will bear
the cost of transportation, such as lime, ashes,
soot, plaster, crushed bones, poudrette prepared
from night soil, &c., the salts of nitre, soda, am-
monia, etc. Those who live near enough to
marl-beds to admit of the hauling of such heavy
substances at a fair cost, are indeed fortunate.
Then there are the manures or composts pre-
pared from peat or bog-weed, by the addition
of ashes, the salts of potash, soda, &c., the me-
rits of all which can now be readily ascertained
from results of actual experiments, reported in
numerous recent publications, upon agricul-
tural matters, and especially in that highly
valuable little treatise by Dr. Dana, " The
Muck Manual.'"

FARM YARD. The area or court in which
the farm buildings are situated, and which ge-
nerally adjoins the farm-house. It is the place
where cattle are foddered, dung prepared, and
several other necessary operations belonging
to the farm performed.

FARM-YARD MANURE. Of all fertilizers
the most universal and most valuable to the
cultivator, and yet the most generally misma-
naged, is farm-yard manure, which has been
often well described as the farmer's sheet an-
chor. From this fertilizer, man must have
derived some benefits, even before he was
compelled, by the increase of population, to
cultivate and manure his land. It is the earliest
mentioned of all manures ; although, at first,
the only notice we meet with of dung and
dunghills, describes them as employed in Pa-
lestine for fuel ; and, to this day, in the barren
deserts of the East, that of the camel, after
being dried in the sun, is the only combustible
article the natives possess. (Ezc/dt^,iv. 12, 15;
Niebuhr's Voyage, i. 121.) This manure is no-
ticed by the earliest agricultural writers. M.
P. Cato tells us, in his fourth chapter, to 'study
to have a large dunghill ; keep your Cf mpoSt
carefully ; when you carry it out, scattei it and
pulverize it: carry it out in the autumn. Lay
dung round the roots of your olives in autumn."
And in his 29th chapter, "Divide your manure;
carry half of it to the field where you sow your
provender: and if there are olive trees, put
some dung to their roots." And in c. 37, he
advises the use of pigeons' dung for gardens,
meadows, and corn land, as well as amurca,
which is the dregs of oil ; and recommends tht;
farmer to preserve carefully the dung of all ^
descriptions of animals. These directions
were given 150 years b. c. ; after a lapse of
nearly 2000 years, the direction to the farmer
must still be the same ; little can be added to
the advice of Cato, when he said, "Study to
have a large dunghill." Virgil is still more

FARM-YARD MANURE.

FARM-YARD MANURE.

particular; in his description of fertilizers, he
mentions with common manure, ashes {Georg.
1. i. V. 80). Pumice-stone and shells (1. ii. v.
346—350, and 350—358). Varro (c. 38, 1. i.)
mentions many kinds of animal manure, and
is particularly minute in his enumeration of
the dung of birds, and includes even that of
blackbirds and thrushes kept in aviaries. Co-
lumella (1. ii. c. 5) advises the cultivator not
to carry out to the field more dung than the
labourers can cover with the soil the same
day, as the exposure to the sun does it consi-
derable injury ; and he enumerates (1. ii. c. 15),
as well-known fertilizers, night-soil the excre-
ments of birds and sheep, urine (especially for
apple-trees and vines), dregs of oil, the excre-
ments of cattle, of the ass, the goat, of pigs ;
ashes, chopped stalks of the lupine leaves, of
trees, brambles, &c., and mud from sewers or
ditches.

Of the early inhabitants of Britain, Pliny
tells us (b. xvii. c. 6, 7, 8), that they highly
valued the use of marl for particular soils, but
on other lands they never employed it. We
are told that they grew com, and lived in
houses thatched with straw, which would ne-
cessarily require an attention to fertilizers.
They had also, according to Stral>o {Geogra-
phy, p. 306), gardens, which could not have
been cultivated, neither could their apple
orchards have flourished, without manure.
The Roman invasion taught the original inha-
bitants better modes of using fertilizing mate-
rials ; but their Saxon successors, in all pro-
bability, knew less of agriculture than the
natives. War and fighting was their profes-
sion ; they held the husbandman in much con-
tempt. The confusion attendant upon British,
Saxon, and Danish inroads, still farther retard-
ed, in England, the progress of agriculture,
which never prospers in a poor disturbed
count rj'. The very laws made in those days
for its encouragement show to what a low ebb
the art of cultivating the land was then re-
duced. Thus it was provided, that if any one
laid dung upon a field, the law allowed him, if
the owner of it consented, to use it for one
year; and if the quantity of manure conveyed
was in considerable quantities, so as to render
it necessary to employ a cart, he was then en-
titled to use the land for three years ; and if
any person, with the consent of the owner of
the soil, folded his cattle on it for the space of a
year, he was then entitled to cultivate it for
four years for his own benefit. {Leges Wallicp,
p. 298.) All these laws were evidently for the
purpose of encouraging the better manuring
of the land ; but the necessity of such an in-
ducement betrays the poverty of the farmers
of those days, and the insutficiency of their
live-stock. In the middle ages little was done
for agriculture. The monks, after the intro-
duction of Christianity, were the most learned
and skilful in the best modes of applying ma-
nures. They early excelled in their gardens.
The population of England in those days, how-
ever, was too limited to require the cultivation
of inferior soils.

In 1570, Conrad Heresbach, a learned Ger-
man, published his four books of husbandry,
which were translated by Googe: he there

mentions the several descriptions of manure
employed in his days. His book is a strange
mixture of good sense and superstition. He
speaks of the dung of poultry and pigeons with
much approbation ; but reprobates the use of
that of geese and ducks. Human fceces, he
says, when mixed with rubbish, is good; but,
by itself, is too hot. Urine he commends
highly for apple trees and vines. Of the dung
of animals, he mentions that of the ass as first
in order for fertilizing effects ; then that of
sheep, goats, oxen, horses ; lastly, swine, "very
hurtful to come, but used in some places for
gardens." Green manure was used in his
days. " Where they have no store of cattle,
they used to mend their ground with straw,
fern, and the stalks of lupines, and the branches,
laid together in some ditch. Hereunto you may
cast ashes, the filih of sinks and privies, &c."
And again he says, " The weeds growing about
willow trees and fern, &c., you may gather and
lay under your sheep." He speaks of the
practice of placing turfs and heath clods in
heaps, with dung; much in the same way as
Lord Meadowbank has advised with peat. He
also advises the placing of the same turf-par-
ings in sheep-folds. " This is also to be noted,"
says our author, " that the doung that hath lyen
a yeere is best for come, for it both is of suffi-
cient strength and breedeth less weedes ; but,
upon meadowe and pasture you must laye the
newest, because it brings most grasse, in Feb-
ruarie, the raoone increasing, for that is the
best time to cause increase of grasse." When,
however, the manure is applied for corn lands,
" looke that the winde be westerly, and the
moone in the wane."

The manure commonly furnished by the
farm-yard is compounded of a mixture of ani-
maj and vegetable substances, of the putrefy-
ing straw of various descriptions of grain,
mixed with the excrements and urine of cattle,
horses, and swine. The mixture forms no new
substance, neither does the putrefaction which
ensues add to the bulk of the dung; on the
contrary, it causes a considerable loss of
weight. Neither is the manure produced equal
to the amount of food the stock consume. " If,"
says Dr. Sprengel " we weigh the dry food
given the cattle to eat, and also dry and weigh
the resulting excrements, we shall find the
weight of the latter considerably less than that
of the former. Block, who has lately made a
great number of experiments on this circum-
stance, found that 100 lbs. of rye-straw yielded
only 43 lbs. of dried excrement (liquid and
solid), while 100 lbs. of hay gave 44 lbs. Food
which contains many watery parts furnished,
as may be naturally supposed, a still smaller
proportion. Thus, for instance, 100 lbs. of po-
tatoes gave only 14 lbs. ; 100 lbs. of mangel-
wurzel, 6 lbs.; and 100 lbs. of green clover, 9j
lbs. of excrement." {Transl. by Mr. Hudson,
Jour. Roy. A^. Soc. vol.vi. p. 460.)

It will assist us very materially in our exa-
minations of various modes of preparing and
applying manure, if we first examine its che-
mical composition ; and for that purpose I will
give the analysis of straw and the faeces and
urine of animals.

1000 parts of dry wheat straw being burnt,

455

FARM-YARD MANURE.

FARM-YARD MANURE.

yielded M. Saussure 48 parts of ashes ; the
same quantity of the dry straw of barley yielded
42 parts of ashes. The portion dissipated by
the fire would be principally carbon (char-
coal), carburetted hydrogen gas, and water:
100 parts of these ashes are composed of —

' Part*.

Various soluble salts, principally carbon-
ate and sulphate of potash - - -2250
Phosphate of lime (earthy salt of bones) - 6'2
Chalk (carbonate of lime) - - - 1

Silica (flint) 6150

Metallic oxide (principally Iron) - - 1
Loss ------- -7'8

♦ 100

The straw of barley contains the same in-
gredients, only in rather different proportions.

The fresh urine of the cow has been ana-
lyzed by Mr. Brande ; he found in 100 parts
the following ingredients : —

Parts.

Water 65

Phosphate of lime ------ 3

Muriate of potash, muriate of magnesia - 15
Sulphate of potash _ - _ - _ 6

Carhoiiate of potash, carbonate of ammonia 4

Urea 4

Loss 3

The urine of cattle, after it had been putre-
fying for a month, was analyzed by Dr. Spren-
gel, and found to contain the following ingre-
dients : —

Parts by
• Weight.

Water - • 95-442

Urea, and resinous matter - - - 1*
Mucus ------- '04

Benzoic acid ~| Combined with C - - -25
Lactic acid 1 potash, soda,] -

UUtt, J - - i»

Acetic acid f and ammonia, ) - - -001
ilts L

Carbonic acid J forming salts
Ammonia partly uncombined -
Potash - - -
Soda - - -

Sulphuric acid -
Phosphoric acid
Chlorine - - -
Lime - - -

Magnesia - - -
Sulphuretted hydrogen
Silica - - -
Oxide of iron -

- -165

- -487

- -664

- -554

- -338

- -272

- -002

- -022

- -001

- -005

- -001
Sediment (phosphate and carbonate of

lime,and magnesia, alumina, &c.) - "18

100-000

(Jour. Roy. Jigr. Soc. vol. vi. p. 467.)

According to Block, 100 lbs. of chopped rye
straw, given as fodder to horses, yield 42 lbs. ;
100 lbs. of hay, 45 lbs.; 100 lbs. of oats, 51
lbs.; 100 lbs. of rye, 53 lbs. of dried excre-
ments (fluid and solid). The solid excrements
of horses fed on hay, oats, and straw, contain,
according to the analysis of M. Zierl, in 1000
parts —

^ Part*.

Water - ----- 698

Picromel and salts ----- 20

Bilious and extractive matter - - - 17

Green matter, albumen, mucus, &c. - - 63

Vegetable fibre, and remains of food - 202

1000

These, when burnt, yielded to the same
chemist 60 parts by weight of ashes, which
were composed of —

Parts.

Carbonate, sulphate, and muriate of soda 5
Carbonate and phosphate of lime - - 9
Silica 46

1000 parts of the urine of the horse contain,
according to the analysis of MM. Fourcroy and
Vauquelin {ThomsotCs Chem. vol. iv. p. 348), —

P»rl».

Carbonate of lime (chalk) - - - - 11

Carbonate of soda ----- 9

Benzoate of soda - - - - - 21

Muriate of potash ----- 9

Urea 7

Water and mucilage ----- 940

1000

The faeces of cattle fed principally on turnips
have been analyzed by M. Einhof. 100 parts
evaporated to dryness yielded 28^ parts of
solid matter; the 71| parts lost in drying
would consist principally of water and some
ammoniacal salts. In half a pound, or 3840
grains, he found 45 grains of sand ; and by dif-
fusing it through water he obtained about 600
grains of a yellow fibrous matter, resembling
that of plants, mixed with a very considerable
quantity of slimy matter. By evaporating the
faeces to dryness, and then burning them, he
obtained an ash which contained, besides the
sand, the following substances :-

Lime - - - - -

Phosphate of lime - - -
Magnesia - - - - -

Iron ------

Alumina, with some manganese

Silica

Muriate and sulphate of potash

The ingredients of which the urine and
faeces of cattle are composed, will, of course,
differ slightly in different animals of the same
kind, and according to the different food upon
which they are fed; but this difference will not
in any case be found very material.

The excrements of the sheep have been ex-
amined by Block ; according to him, every 100
lbs. of rye-straw given as fodder to sheep yield
40 lbs. of excrements (fluid and solid) ; from
100 lbs. of hay, 42 lbs.; from 100 lbs. of pota-
toes, 13 lbs.; from 100 lbs. of green clover, 8^
lbs.; and from 100 lbs. of oats, 49 lbs. of dry
excrement. The solid excrements of sheep
fed on hay were examined by Zierl : 1000 parts
by weight, being burnt, yielded 96 parts of
ashes, which were found to consist of —

Parts.

Carbonate, sulphate, and muriate of soda 16
Carbonate and phosphate of lime - - 20
Silica 60

Part*.

- 12

- 12-5

- 2

- 5 I

- 14 /

- 52

- 12

100 parts of the urine of sheep kept at grass
contained —

96

Water - . -

Urea, albumen, &c. - - - - 2-8

Salts of potash, soda, lime, magnesia, &c.

(Jour. Ren. JIgr. Soc. vol. i. p. 4S9.)
456

60

100-0
{Joxirn. Roy. Agr. Soc. vol. 1. p. 482.)

The urine of the pig has been examined by
Dr. Sprengel {ibid. p. 492) ; he found in 100
parts of that of the animal fed on corn offal —

P»r'«.

Water 9*i6

Urea, mucus, albumen, &c. - - - 6 64
Common isalt, muriate of potash, gypsum,
chalk, aud glauber salt - - - 1-76

10000

Such are the principal constituents of the
manure from a farm-yard; but of these, most

FARM-YARD MANURE.

FARM-YARD MANURE.

of the soluble salts are usually washed away
by the rain, or are sulfered to draia away into
ditches, whilst a considerable quantity of the
salts of ammonia and some of the carbon are
commonly lost by being either over-heated, or
by being allowed to remain too long in a putre-
fying state.

Farm-yard manure has a very considerable
attraction for the moisture of the atmosphere ;
some experiments to ascertain its extent are
given under the head Manure.

There have been many arguments and much
difference of opinion among cultivators, with
regard to the advantages of employing dung in
a fresh or in a putrid state ; and, as is too often
the case, both parties have pun into extremes,
the one side contending for the propriety of
employing it quite fresh from the farm-yard,
the other contending that it cannot well be too
rotten. The mode employed by Lord Leicester
is the medium between these equally erroneous
extremes. He found that the employment of
the fresh dung certainly made ihe dung go
much farther ; but then a muliilude of the seeds
of various weeds were carried on to the land
along with the manure. He has, therefore,
since used his compost when only in a half
putrefied state (called short dung by farmers) ;
and hence the seeds are destroyed by the
effects of the putrefaction, and the dung still
extends much farther than if suffered to re-
main until quite putrefied.

Putrefaction cannot go on without the pre-
sence of moisture. Where water is entirely
absent there can be no putrefaction ; and
hence many farmers have adopted the practice
of pumping the drainage of their farm-yards
over their dung-heaps ; others invariably place
them in low damp situations. This liquid por-
tion cannot be too highly valued by the culti-
vator. The soil where a dunghill has lain in
a field is always distinguished by a rank luxu-
riance in the succeeding crop, even if the
earth beneath, to the depth of six inches, is
removed and spread with the dunghill.

The controversy, too, which once so keenly
existed, as to the state of fermentation in which'
dung should be used on the land, has now
pretty well subsided. There is no doubt but
that it cannot be applied more advantageously
than in as fresh a state as possible, consistent
with the attainment of a tolerably clean hus-
bandry, and the destruction of the seeds of
weeds, grubs, &c., which are always more or
less present in farm-yard dung. These are
the only evils to be apprehended from the de-
sirable employment of this manure ,in the
freshest state ; for otherwise the loss' of its
most valuable constituents commences as
soon as ever fermentation begins. This was
long since demonstrated by Davy, whose ex-
periments I have often seen repeated and
varied. He says, "I filled a large retort,
capable of containing three pints of water,
with some hot fermenting manure, consisting
principally of the litter and dung of cattle; I
adapted a small receiver to the retort, and con-
nected the whole with a mercurial pneumatic
apparatus, so as to collect the condensible and
elastic fluids which might arise from the dung.
The receiver soon became lined with dew, and
58

drops began, in a few hours, to trickle down
the sides of it. Elastic fluid likewise was
generated; in three days thirty-five cubical
inches had been formed, which, when analyzed,
were found to contain twenty-one cubical
inches of carbonic acid; the remainder was
hydrocarbonate, mixed with some azote, pro-
bably no more than existed in the common air
in the receiver. The fluid matter collected in
the receiver at the same time amounted to
nearly half an ounce. It had a saline taste,
and a disagreeable smell, and contained some
acetate and carbonate of ammonia. Finding
such products given off from fermenting litter,
I introduced the beak of another retort, filled
with similar dung very hot at the time, in the
soil amongst the roots of some grass in the
border of a garden ; in less than a week a very
distinct effect was produced on the grass:
upon the spot exposed to the influence of the
matter disengaged in fermentation it grew with
much more luxuriance than the grass in any
other part of the garden." (Lectures, p. 204.)

Nothing,, indeed, appears at first sight so
simple as the manufacture and collection of
farm-yard dung; and yet there are endless
sources of error into which the cultivator is
sure to fall, if he is not ever vigilant in their
management. The late Mr. Francis Blakie,
in his valuable tract upon the management of
farm-yard manure, dwells upon several of
these; he particularly condemns the practice
"of keeping the dung arising from different
descriptions of animals in separate heaps or
departments, and applying them to the land
without intermixture. It is customary," he
adds, "to keep the fattening neat cattle in
yards by themselves ; and the manure thus
produced is of good quality, Because the ex-
crement of such cattle is richer than that of
lean ones. Fattening cattle are fed with oil-
cake, corn, Swedish turnips, or some other
rich food ; and the refuse and waste of such
food thrown about the yard increases the value
of the manure : it also attracts the pigs to the
yard. These rout the straw and dung about, in
searchofgrainsofcorn, bits of Swedish turnips,
and other food: by which means the manure in
the yard becomes more intimately mixed, and
is proportionally increased in value. The feed-
ing-troughs and cribs in the yard should, for
obvious reasons, be shifted frequently."

"The horse dung," continues Blakie, "is
usually thrown out at the stable doors, and
there accumulates in large heaps. It is some-
times spread a little about, but more generally
not at all, unless where necessary for the con-
venience of ingress and egress, or perhaps to
allow the water to drain away from the stable
door. Horse dung, lying in such heaps, very
soon ferments, and heats to an excess ; the
centre of the heap is charred or burned to a
dry white substance, provincially termed Jire-
fanged. Dung in this state loses from 50 to 75
per cent, of its value. The diligent and atten-
tive farmer will guard against such profligate
waste of property, by never allowing the dung
to accumulate in any considerable quantity at
the stable doors. The dung from the feeding
hog-sties should also be carted and spread
about the store cattle-vard, in the same manner
2'Q 457

FARM-YARD MANURE.

FARM-y-ARD MANURE.

as the horse dung. (^Blakie on Farm-yard Dtmg,
p. 6.) There is no doubt of the superior ferti-
lizing effects of horse-dung. In an experiment
with beans, in which six acres were manured
with horse-dung, and nine with that from a
cow-yard, the six yielded more beans than the
nine. (Jgr. Ihp. of Essex, vol. ii. p. 280.) The
same observation was made in Lincolnshire.
XSincluir's Jgr. p. 214.) The heat produced by
the fermentation of the dung of different ani-
mals has been made the subject of repeated
experiment. When the temperature of the air
was 40°, that of

Common farm-yard dung was - - - - 70"
A mixture uf lime, duiii;, and earth - - -55°
— swine and fowls' dung- - -85°

{Farmer^ Magazine, vol. x. iv. p. 160.)

The cultivator will readily allow the advan-
tages of the plan thus recommended by Mr.
Blakie ; and the student must see from the fol-
lowing experiments, that the dung of different
animals vary very much in their fertilizing
powers.

The subjoined table contains the results of
the experiments made with three different ma-
nures on the growth of potatoes, by Mr. Oliver,
of Mid-Lothian ; the cow and horse-dung were
recently made; the potatoes were of the de-
scription called Pinkeyes, and forty loads of
about eighteen cwt. per acre were employed
of each manure. (Ency.Metrop. vol. vi. p. 61.)

Distance

Kind of

Produce

S?'

.

Cost of i Price of |

between

Manures

•se

per Acre.

pro-

Manure

Rows.

used.

per acre.

=*^

duction

pr Cart.

B. F. P I_

L. >. d.

~ir

Cow

42 0 0 0

8

16 16 0

25 8

6

4 0

12)

Horse

47 0 0 0

8

18 17 6

23 8

0

3 0

Street

42 0 0 0

8

16 16 0

24 8

0 3 6 1

Clow

60 0 0 0

8

24 0 0

24 8

0

4 0

isj

Horse

51 2 8 0

8

23 0 0

22 8

0

3 0

Street

45 0 0 0

8

18 0 0

23 8

0

3 6

Cow

60 1 0 0

8

24 2 0

22 0

0

3 0

24J

Horse

61 0 3 0

8

24 9 G

24 0

0

4 0

Street

39 0 0 0

8

15 12 0

23 0

0

3 6

Cow

66 22 0

8

26 13 0

23 13

0

4 0

30^

Horse

66 2 2 Oi 8

26 13 6

21 13

0

3 0

Street

46 3 2 0 8

18 15 0

22 13

0

3 6

Cow

63 0 3 0 8

25 5 6

23 10

0

4 0

36^

Horse

67 2 2 il 8

27 0 7^

21 10

Oj 3 0

Street

47 0 0 0

. 8

18 16 0

22 10

0 3 6

Malcolm (see Biit. Husb. vol. i. p. 260) has
given an estimate of the number of cubic yards
or tons of farm-yard compost necessary for
various soils per acre, which is as follows : —

On strong Land.

Loams.

Gravels.

Chalks.

Sands.

For Wheat 30

20 to 25

25

20

20

Barley 25

20

22

16

18

Turnips 30

20

25

20

20

Clover 15 to 20

15

20

16

16

Sainfoin —

—

—

20

—

Pasture 15 to 20

15

16

16

16

Some experiments of Mr. Wright, made upon
plots of ground of equal size, indicate the num-
ber of stems of barley produced by various fer-
tilizers : each plot was dibbled with 60 corns
of barley. {Jgr. Mag. vol. i. p. 328.)

No.

Items.

1. No manure

159

2. Manured with 5 tons of cow-dung per acre

167

3. —

— horse do. —

226

4. —

— pig do. —

233

5. —

— sheep do. —

244

6. —

80 bush, coal ashes —

233

7. —

— wood do. —

211

8. —

— goose-dung —

185

9. —

— hen do. —

303

10. —

— duck do. —

282

With regard to the form of dung-yards, there
is some little difference of opinion. "Some
theorists," says Blakie, " recommend the yards
to be made so concave, as almost to amount to
a trc//-shape, giving, as a reason in support of
their opinion, that the virtues of dung can only
be preserved by being saturated in urine, or
some other moisture. Others, again, assert
that dung-yards should be formed convex, and
assign as their reason, that farm-yard dung
should be kept dry. Practical experience
points out that a medium between those two
extremes is the best ; and a yard a little hol-
lowed is the most common shape.

I will here introduce the description recom-
mended by Mr. Blakie, of the best mode of
forming dung-heaps or pies in turnip-fields, so
as to prevent, as much as possible, the waste
of gaseous matters, during the fermentation of
the manure. " When," said this intelligent
agricuhurist, " it is found necessary to empty
the dung-yards early in the season, I recom-
mend that preparation should be made, in the
usual way, for the reception of the dung-heaps
in the intended turnip-fields, by collecting large
heaps of clay marl, or such oth^r materials.
The bottoms for the heaps should not, however,
be laid above six or eight inches thick of the
earthy material, and a good quantity of it should
be placed in rows on each side of the bottoms
marked out; the dung should then be drawn
out of the yards, and placed upon the bottoms,
but not in the usual way of throwing it up
loosely, to cause fermentation ; on the contrary,
by drawing the carts with their loads upon the
heaps, for the purpose of compressing the dung,
and thereby retarding fermentation. One or
two men should remain constantly at the heaps,
while the teams are at work, on purpose to
spread and level the dung regularly, so as to
render the ascent easy for the succeeding teams,
as they come with their loads. If the dung has
not been previously mixed in the yards, it
should be so in drawing to the heaps, by taking,
up a few loads from one yard, and then a few
from another, alternately ; and even from the
same yard, the loads of dung should be taken
from different parts alternately; for the dung
is not of equal quality, nor made with the same
regularity, in all parts of the yard.

" The coal-ashes, road-scrapings, and all
other collections of manure about the farm-
house, should also be carried to these dung-
heaps; and when the heaps are raised as high
as convenient for the horses to draAv up, seve-
ral loads should be shot up at the ends of the
heaps, for the purpose of making them up to
the square of the centre. The whole heaps
should then be completely covered with the
marl and clay, or soil previously collected in
rows by the sides of the heaps, so as effectually
to enclose the dung-heaps in crusts, and they
are thenceforth denominated pes. In these, the
dung will be preserved in a very perfect state,
with little or no fermentation, and without loss
by exhalation or evaporation. The pies, within
ten days pr a fortnight of the time the compost
is wanted for the turnip ground, should be
turned carefully over, and the crust, top, bottom,
and sides intimately mixed up with the dung.
When the turning is completed, with the natu-

458

FARM- YARD MANURE.

ral soil around the heaps, .i<2:ain coat the heaps
all over; the pies will then undergo a gentle
fermentation ; the earth, intermixed with and
covering the dung, will absorb the juices and
gaseous matters produced, and the compost
come out in a fine state of preparation for
using on the turnip lands. When the dung is
taken out of the yards late in the spring, or
only a short time before it is required for the
turnip ground, the preparation should be some-
what different, because of the compost heaps
having less time to incorporate. Thus the
dung should not be carted upon the heaps to
compress them, and prevent fermentation, as
in winter. On the contrary, the dung should
be thrown up lightly with the fork upon the
bottoms, and the side-heaps of earth mixed in-
timately along with the dung. Turf turned up
for a year preceding on wastes by the sides of
roads makes excellent pie-meat."

The temperature of the dung-heap is a pretty
sure criterion of the state of its fermentation.
If a thermometer, plunged into it, does not rise
above 100°, there is little danger of loo much
gaseous matter being lost. If the temperature
is higher, means should be taken to check the
fermentation ; and the same overheating may
be regarded as going on, if, when a piece of
paper moistened with muriatic acid is held
over a dunghill, dense fumes appear, for then
ammonia is disengaging. (Davy, p. 307.) With
skilful management, and under ordinary cir-
cumstances, one ton of dry straw is found to
produce three tons of manure ; so that, as the
commim weight of straw per acre is about one
ton and a half, the straw grown upon that ex-
tent of land should yield about four tons and a
half of compost. The quantity of manure pro-
duced by stock necessarily varies with the
quantity and quality of the food upon which
the animals are fed. In an experiment made
at the Cavalry Depot, at Maidstone, a horse
consumed in a week —

Lht.
OiU8 70

Il.'y «4

Slmw -.--.. -56

210

He drank, within this time, 27 gallons of water.
The weight of the dung and litter produced
was 327^ lbs.

In another experiment, on a large-sized York-
shire milch cow, she consumed in 24 hours —

Lbs.
Brewers' prains - - - - - 81
Uaw potatoes - - - - - 30

Meadow hay - - - - - 15

And during this period she drank two pailfuls
of water. The urine was allowed to escape.
She had no litter of any kind. The weight of
the solid dung she produced was 45 lbs. When
fed, on another day, with

- 170

Raw potatoes
Hay

28
198

she produced, under the same circumstances,
7.3 lbs. of solid manure. {British Husbandry,
vol. i. p. 255.) Taking, therefore, the average

TARM-YARD MANURE.

produce to be equal to 60 lbs. per day, it follows
that a cow will make about 9 tons of solid
dung in the course of the year.

The quality of farm-yard compost naturally
varies with the food of the animals by which
it is made: that from the cattle of the straw-
yard is decidedly the poorest ; that from those
fed on oil-cake, corn, or Swedes, the richest.
Of stable-dung, that from corn-fed horses is
most powerful — from those subsisting on straw
and hay, the poorest ; the difference between
the fertilizing effects of the richest and the in-
ferior farm-yard dung is much greater than is
commonly believed — in many instances the
disparity exceeds one-half; thus, that produced
by cattle fed upon oil-cake is fully equal in
value to double the quantity fed upon turnips.
My friend, Mr. Hewitt Davis, of Spring Park,
near Croydon, an excellent scientific practical
farmer, had occasion to notice this in an ex-
periment which commenced in 1834. In that
year, on half of a field of turnips fed off with
sheep, he gave them oil-cake ; on the other
half they fed only on the turnips. The succ^d-
ing crops were all distinguished by their supe-
riority on the half of the field where the sheep
had oil-cake; and in 1833, when the field had
again a crop of turnips, the half of the field, on
which four years previously the sheep were
fed with oil-cake, had by far a better crop of
turnips than that which had been manured in
common with the rest of the field and fed off in
the ordinary manner. And as the food con-
sumed so materially influences the quality of
the manure, it follows, as a natural conse-
quence, that that made in summer by the clo-
ver, grass, and tare-fed stock is much superior
to that produced during the winter months by
the store-fed cattle of the straw-yard, which is
usually still further impoverished by the rains
and snows. Hence, too, the superior richness
of the manure of fatting swine to those of pigs
in a lean state, and the far superior strength
of night soil to any manure produced from
merely vegetable food. Chemical examina-
tiorjs are hardly necessar}' to prove these facts.
Every farmer who has had stall-fed cattle will
testify to their truth— every cultivator will
readily acknowledge the superiority of "town-
made," that is, corn-produced stable-dung, to
that from horses fed only on hay and straw,
and that night-soil is far superior in "strength"
to either. The relative quantities employed by
the cultivator betray the same fact; for on the
soils where he applies 20 loads of good farm-
yard compost per acre, he spreads not half that
quantity of night-soil. Mr. Dixon, whose ob-
servations I have quoted at some length in this
paper, deems "six tons of night-soil in com-
post with peat amply sufficient for an acre."
I Mr. H. Davis is of the same opinion. It is not,
j as the farmer is well aware, the mere straw of
; the farm-yard manure which influences its fer-
I tilizing quality, but the excrements with which
I that straw is mixed. Thus other substances,
I when thoroughly saturated with the stercora-
J ceous matters of cattle, are found to be just as
' fertilizing as straw: sawdust, peat, tanners' bark,
or turf, are as serviceable in this respect as
the best straw. Arthur Young found this to be
the case when turf was employed mixed with

459

FARM-YARD MANURE.

PARM-YARD MANURE.

urine. {Annals of Agric. vol. ix. p. 652. — Ihid.
vol. iii. p. 67 — 69.) Lord Meadowbank, Mr.
Dixon, and others have successfully employed
peat in a similar way (English Agric. Soc. Jonrn.
vol. i. p. 138), and the latter agriculturist often
makes his excellent compost heaps of merely
peat and urine. The liquid or soluble portion
of farm-yard manure constitutes, in fact, its
tichest portion. Of the powerful effect pro-
duced by the urine of cattle, and other liquid
fertilizers, I shall have hereafter occasion to
speak, when treating on liquid manure.

It is usual for the farmer, although not so
common a practice as is desirable, to increase
the bulk, if not the quality, of his dung-heaps,
by adding to them various other substances ;
thus, as to enlarging them, by adding to that
of the farm-yard, peat-moss, the late Lord Mea-
dowbank made many experiments with suc-
cess ; and his directions are of a very simple
and easily followed description. "Let the peat-
moss," he says, "be thrown out of the pit for
some weeks or months, in order to lose its re-
dundant moisture. By this means it is render-
ed the lighter to carry, and less compact and
heavy when made up with fresh dung for fer-
mentation ; and, accordingly, less dung is re-
quired for this purpose than if the preparation
is made with peat taken recently from the pit;
the peat taken from near the surface or at a
considerable depth answers equally Avell. Take
the peat-moss to a dry spot convenient for con-
structing a dunghill, to serve the field to be
manured; lay the cart-loads of it in two rows,
and of the dung in a row between them. The
dung thus lies nearly on an area of the future
compost dunghill, and the rows of peat should
be near enough each other that workmen, in
making up the compost, may be able to throw
them together by the spade. In making up, let
the workmen begin at one end, and at the ex-
tremity of the row of dung (which should not
extend quite so far at that end as the rows of
peat on each side of it do), let them lay a bottom
of peat six inches deep and fifteen feet wide,
if the ground admits of it ; then throw forward
and lay on about ten inches of dung above the
bottom of peat, then add from the side rows
about six inches of peat, then four or five of
dung, and then six more of peat ; then another
thin layer of dung, and then cover it over with
peat at the end where it was begun, and at the
two sides. The compost should not be raised
above four feet or four feet and a half high,
otherwise it is apt to press too heavily on the
under parts, and check the fermentation ; when
a beginning is thus made, the workmen will
proceed working backwards, and adding to the
column of compost, as they are furnished with
the three rows of materials directed to be laid
down for them. They must take care not to
tread on the compost, or render it too compact;
and, of consequence, in proportion as the peat
is wet, it should be made up in lumps, and not
much broken. In mild weather, 7 cart-loads
of common farm dung, tolerably fresh made, is
sufficient for 21 cart-loads of peat-moss ; but,
in cold weather, a larger proportion of dung is
desirable. To every 28 cart-loads of the com-
post when made up, it is of use to throw on
above it a cart-load of ashes, either made from
460

coal, peat, or wood ; or, if these cannot be had,
half the quantity of slaked lime may be used,
the more finely powdered the better:' but these
additions are nowise essential to the general
success of the compost. The dung to be used
should either have been recently made or kept
fresh by compression, as by the treading oi
cattle or swine, or by carts passing over it ;
and if there is little or no litter in it, a smaller
quantity will serve, provided any spongy vege-
table matter is added at making up the com-
post, as fresh weeds, the rubbish of a stack-
yard, potato-shaves, sawings of timber, &c.;
and as some sorts of dung, even when fresh,
are much more advanced in decomposition
than others, it is material to attend to this ; for
a much less proportion of such dung as is less
advanced will serve for the compost, provided
care is taken to keep the mass sufficiently open,
either by a mixture of the above-mentioned sub-
stances, or, if these are wanting, by adding the
peat piecemeal; that is, first making it up in
the usual proportion of three to one of dung,
and then adding, after a time, an equal quantity
more or less of moss. The dung of this quality
of greatest quantity is shamble dung, with
which, under the above precautions, six times
the quantity of peat, or more, maybe prepared.
The same holds as to pigeons' dung and other
fowl dung, and, to a certain extent, also, as to
that which is collected from towns, and made
by animals that feed on grains, refuse of dis-
tilleries, &c.

" The compost, after it is made up, gets into
a general heat sooner or later, according to the
weather and the condition of the dung : in sum-
mer, in ten days or sooner; in winter, not per-
haps for many weeks, if the cold is severe. It
always, however, has been found to come on
at last; and in summer it sometimes rises so
high as to be mischievous, by consuming the
materials (Fire-Fanging). In that season a
stick should be kept in it in different parts, to
pull out and feel now and then ; for, if it ap-
proaches to blood heat, it should either be
watered or turned over, and, on such an occa-
sion, advantage may be taken to mix it with a
little fresh moss. The heat subsides after a
time, and with great variety, according to the
weather, the dung, and the perfection of the
making up of the compost, which then should
be allowed to remain untouched till within
three weeks of using, when it should be turned
over upside down, and outside in, and all lumps
broken ; then it comes into a second heat, but
soon cools, and should be taken out for use.
In this state the whole, except bits of the old
decayed wood, appears a black, free mass, and
spreads like garden mould. Use it weight for
weight as farm-yard dung, and it will be found
in a course of cropping fully equal to stand the
comparison." After a long-continued observa-
tion and successful use of peat, Mr. H. Davis
is of opinion that peat, in common with most
organic manures, has a strong tendency to rise
to the surface of all cultivated soils, thus fol-
lowing a rule directly opposite to those of
earthy fertilizers, which certainly descend into
the land. {Young's Annals, vol. xli. p. 547.)

Compost, if made up before January, has
hitherto been in good order for the spring-

FARM-YARD MANURE.

FARM-YARD MANURE.

crops ; but this may not happen in a long frost.
In summer, it is ready in eight or ten weeks ;
and, if there is an anxiety to have it sooner
prepared, the addition of ashes, or of a little
lime rubbish of old buildings, or of lime slack-
ened with foul water, applied to the dung used
in making up, will quicken the process con-
siderably. "Peat prepared with lime alone
has not been found to answer as good manure;
in one instance, viz. on a bit of fallow sown
with wheat, it was manifestly pernicious."
(Efhtiburgh Enryr. vol. i. p. 279.) The opinion
of Lord Meadowbank in favour of the use of
peat or sawdust as a mixture with farm-yard
compost, has been recently confirmed by Mr.
Dixon, of Hathershaw, in Lancashire, who, in
his Prize Essay, thus describes the result of
his long experience {Journ. of the English jSgric.
Society, vol. i. p. 135): —

"My farm is a strong, retentive soil, on a
substratum of ferruginous clay. My object
was to improve its texture at the least cost.
For this purpose we carted great quantities of
fine sawdust and peat-earth, or bog; we had so
far to go for the latter, that two horses would
fetch little more than three tons in one day ;
one horse would fetch three cart-loads of saw-
dust in the same time. Having brought great
quantities of both peat and sawdust into my
farm-yard, I laid out, for the bottom of a com-
post heap, a space of considerable dimensions,
and about three feet in depth ; three-fourths of
this bottom was peat, the rest sawdust; on this
we conveyed, daily, the dung from the cattle-
sheds; the urine, also, is conducted through
channels to wells for its reception (one on each
side of the compost heap); common water is
entirely prevented from mixing with it. Every
second day the urine so collected is thrown
over the whole mass wiih a scoop, and at the
same lime we regulate the accumulated dung.
This being continued for a week, another layer,
nine inches or a foot thick, of peat and saw-
dust (and frequently peat without sawdust) is
wheeled on the accumulated heap. These
mailers are continuously added to each other
during winter; and, in addition, once in every
week, never less than 25 cwt., more frequently
50 cwt., of night-soil and urine : the latter are
always laid next above the peat or bog earth,
as we think it accelerates their decomposition.
It is, perhaps, proper here to state, that the
peal is dug and exposed to the alternations of
the weather for several months before it is
brought to the heap for admixture: by this it
loses much of its moisture. Some years* ex-
perience has convinced me of the impropriety
of using recently dug peat: used in the man-
ner I recommend, it is superior and more con-
venient on every account; very much lighter
to cart to the farm-yard, or any other situation
where it is wanted; and so convinced am I of
its utility in composts for every description of
soil, except that of its own character, that wher-
ever it can be laid down on a farm at less than
4 shillings per ton, I should recommend every
agriculturist and horticulturist that can com-
mand it, even at the cost here stated, to give it
a fair trial. So attractive and retentive of mois-
ture is peat, that, if liberally applied to an arid,
sandy soil, that soil does not burn in a dry

season, and it so much improves the texttiM
and increases the produce of an obdurate clay
soil, if in other respects rightly cultivated, that
actual experience alone can fairly determine
its value.

" For the conveyance of night-soil and urine,
we have the largest and strongest casks, such
as oils are imported in ; the top of which is
provided with a funnel to put the matters
through, and the casks are fixed on wheels like
those of a common dung-cart. For the conve-
nience of emptying this carriage, the compost
heaps are always lower at one end ; the high^
est is where we discharge the contents, in order
that they may, in some degree, spread them-
selves over the whole accumulation. The situ-
ation on which the wheels of these carriages
stand while being disch.arged, is raised consi-
derably; this we find convenient, as the com-
post heap may be sloped six or seven feet high;
low compost heaps, in my opinion, should be
avoided. The plan here recommended I have
carried on for some time. I find no difficulty
in manuring my farm over once in two years ;
by this repetition I keep up the fertility of my
land, and it never requires more than a mode-
rate application of manure.

"I am fully aware that there are many locap
lities where neither peat nor night-soil can be
readily obtained; but it is worth a farmer's
while to go even more than 20 miles for the
latter substance, provided he can have it with-
out deterioration: the original cost is often
trifling. On a farm where turnips or mangel
are cultivated to some extent, the system here
recommended will be almost incalculably ad-
vantageous. A single horse is sufficient for
one carriage; mine hold upwards of a ton
each; six tons of this manure in compost with
peal, or, if that is not convenient, any other
matters, such as ditch scourings, or high head-
lands which have been properly prepared and
laid dry in a heap for some time, would be am-
ply sufficient for an acre of turnips or mangel.
This manure is by far the most invigorating
of any I have ever yet tried ; bones in any
state will bear no comparison to it for any
crop; but it must be remembered that I write
Qn the supposition that it has not been reduced
in strength before it is brought.

"Convenience frequently suggests that com-
post heaps should be raised on different parts
of a farm ; but, unless in particular instances,
it is well to have them in the yard. In the
farm-yard, all the urine from the catlle-stall.s
may be employed with the greatest economy ;
and. be it remarked, that the urine from ani-
mals, in given weights, is more powerful than
their solid excrements. How important, then,
must it not be to the farmer lo make the most
extensive and the most careful use of this
liquid! It is sometimes carted on the land,
but that practice will not bear a comparison
with making it into composts in the manner
here recommended. Great waste is often made
in putrescent manures after they are carted on
the land ; instead of being immediately covered
or incorporated with the soil, we not unfre-
quently see them exposed for days together in
the hot rays of a scorching sun, or to the inju-
rious influences of a dry wind. I have before
2 a 2 461

FARM-YARD MANURE.

FARM-YARD MANURE.

stated that compost heaps should, on many
considerations, be raised in the farm-yard ;
still, circumstances are frequently such that it
is more proper to make them at some distance
in the fields. If a headland becomes too high
by frequent ploughings or working of the land,
in that case it should be ploughed at the time
^when clover or mixed grass-seeds are sown
with a white crop ; for instance, barley or oats,
and clover for the year following: a headland
might then be ploughed, and a number of cart-
loads of some manure heaped from one end to
the other. Immediately after this it should be
trenched with the spade (or what is sometimes
called digging), and ridged high, in order that
an action may take place between the soil and
the manure; by this means the mass would
soon be in a condition for turning over, and
any ditch scourings, or other matters which
had not in the first instance been used, might
now be added to the mixture. The heap should
then be allowed to remain closed for a few
weeks, then turned over again ; at this turning,
in all probability, the mass would be much re-
duced; and if so, raise the ridge of compost
well on both sides ; but, instead of its top be-
ing pointed, make a trench or cavity on the top
from one end of the heap to the other. This
cavity should be made tolerably retentive of
moisture, which may be effected by treading
with the feet; carriages of night-soil, or urine
from the cattle-stalls, may then be emptied into
the trench, and the bulk of the heap would de-
termine how many were required. This being
done, a little earth should be thrown into the
trench, and the heap allowed to remain in that
state until the middle or latter end of autumn ;
it will then be ready for another turning; but
at this time care must be taken to have the
heap well made up at the sides, and pointed at
the top ; in this situation rain will be thrown
off", and the compost preserved dry until winter
presents some favourable opportunity for lay-
ing it on the young clover, wheat, or any other
crop which may require it.

"In the year 1826," adds Mr. Dixon, "my
attention was first directed to raising compost
heaps from urine. This I now do frequently,
without the help of any dung from the cattle-
stalls. The same occasion called my mind to
another matter, well worthy every farmer's at-
tention. I allude to the great superiority of the
manure raised in summer soiling, to that pro-
duced in the stalls during winter."

"The strength and consequent value of all
cattle-dung," says Mr. Burke, in a note upon
this paper, "will of course depend upon the
nature of their food ; if soiled, during the sum-
mer, upon clovers, tares, sainfoin, &c., there
can be no doubt that the manure will have a
proportionately greater effect upon the land,
than if the beasts be kept in the straw-yard ;
and if stall-fed, either in winter or in summer,
for the purpose of fatting, it will be still better.
Thus, it was found, on comparing the effects
of dung voided by animals fed chiefly on oil- ,
cake with that of store-stock, 12 loads of the
former exceeded in superiority of product 24
of the latter." (See The Complete Grazier, 6th
edit. p. 103.)

I verily believe the difference is 50 per cent.,
462

unless stock are fed, in a great measure, during
winter, with artificial food. In an arrange-
ment for making compost heaps from urine, I
would recommend a receptacle to be made at
the back of the cattle-stalls, just outside the
building : this should hold about 20 cart-loads
of mould, or any other matters to be employed ;
if its situation were a little lower than the cat-
tle-sheds, all the urine would pass into il, and
remain there until the mass is completely sa-
turated, which will be sufficient ; when the
earthy matters are covered over, the compost
may then be thrown out, and the proceeding
again renewed. In order to show part of the
benefits of this practice, I beg here to observe,
that the most foul or weedy mould may be
used ; the action of the urine, if not reduced by
water, is so powerful, that wire-worms, the
black slug, many other destroying insects, and
all vegetables, weeds, &c., when in contact
with the urine for a time, are killed. The
situation for raising this compost should be
protected from the weather by a covering,
similar to a cart-shed ; indeed, the deteriorating
influences of rain, sun, and arid winds, on all
putrescent manures or compost, are so serious,
that, in my humble judgment, it would be
worth while to have places under cover where
these are usually laid down. The ordinary
method of conveying manures on land, admits
of much improvement.

On the black hungry gravels of Spring Park,
near Croydon in Surrey, peat has been long
and skilfully applied, with the best success, by
Mr. Hewitt Davis. The peat on his farm is
found resting in considerable masses on a sili-
cious stratum ; he uses it both mixed with his
farm-yard compost, and also with lime; in the
first case, he has the peat previously dried; in
the latter, the operation of the lime, absorbing
the moisture of the peat as it slakes, renders
drying unnecessary; he finds the lime and peat
an admirable top-dressing for young clover.
To the compost of the farm-yard he adds about
an equal bulk of peat: he also burns a consi-
derable quantity of peat, and with the ashes
top-dresses his turnips with decided advantage;
it not only promotes the growth of the crop, but
he thinks that the smell of the ashes is very
noxious to the turnip fly. There is no doubt
but that peat, when saturated with urine, and
in a state of gradual decomposition, is nourish-
ing to plants. Mr. Davis has noticed that when
the land is manured with the peat and farm-
yard compost, the roots of the turnips and tares
will encircle the lumps of peat, just as is the
case when crushed bones are employed. 1 am
not aware of any farm of similar extent (500
acres), where peat has been more skilfully and
successfully applied than at Spring Park, under
the management of this able agriculturist.
Peat, which has thus been so successfully em-
ployed as a manure in compost, is composed
principally of the inert, long accumulating ve-
getable remains of either wood, moss, or heath ;
it abounds also with earthy and saline matters ;
those of Berkshire and Wiltshire contain from
one-fourth to one-third of their weight of gyp-
sum ; their earthy matters are always analog-
ous to the stratum of earth on which it reposes ;
where that is chalk, the peat abounds with

FARM-YARD MANURE.

FARM-YARD MANURE.

calcareous earth and gypsum, and but little
alumina or silica. "Different specimens of
peat, that I have burnt," says Davy, "from the
granitic and schistose soils of different parts
of these islands, have always given ashes
principally silicious and aluminous; and a
specimen of peat from the county of Antrim
gave ashes which afforded very nearly the
same constituents as the great basaltic stratum
of the county." (Chemistry, p. 192.) In those
instances, where the farmer finds such excel-
lent results from dressing young clover with a
mixture of peat and compost, as noticed by
Mr. Dixon, with the Lancashire peat, it may
be reasonably concluded to contain gypsum;
(Jowft. Eng. Jgr. Soc. vol. i. p. 138) ; and, if it
requires the addition of a portion of lime,
before it is found to promote very decidedly
the growth of clover, it then is very likely to
be saturated with sulphate of iron.

The too general neglect of peat as a mixture
with farm-yard dung is not owing to its being
a very modern discovery, for it was publicly
recommended in England nearly half a cen-
tury since. "In Sweden, as in other countries,"
says the Baron de Schulz, when writing to Sir
John Sinclair in 1796, " farmers have endea-
voured to increase the quantity of manure by
mixtures of all kinds of vegetables and soils,
and by collecting urine in cow-houses well
adapted for that purpose ; they likewise, in
some parts of the country, lay below their cat-
tle soil from the shores of the lakes, leaves,
moss, saw-dust, chopped alder, and pitch fir,
brushwood, reeds, and straw. They often now
place their dunghills on a slope instead of the
former hollow, and by means <>f pumps, water
them with urine and dung-water. Many farm-
ers, however, still prefer the fresh dung to that
which is fermented, and which they suppose
has lost in the process a great part of its vege-
tating power." (Com. Board of Jgr. b. i. p. 326.)

On the sea-shore, it is usual for the farmers
to mix sea-weed with their dung ; in Essex
they mix it with chalk ; in Suffolk, with a pe-
culiar red shelly sand or marl ; and ift the west
of England, with the calcareous sand of the
sea-shore ; a practice which is thus described
by Edward Bennet: —

" The quantity of sand which a barge usu-
ally contains is about 90 horse teams of 2^ cwl.
each ; the price varies according to the distance
it is carried up the rivers Notter and Tamar,
from 18.<t. to 25s., and 3s. drinking money, or
three gallons of cider. It is dragged for in
Plymouth sound in three to six fathom water.
In summer the barges frequently run on the
sand bank in Whitsand Bay at two hours be- '
fore low water; when the tide leaves them, 1
they load, waiting for the flood to bring them I
off". For arable land, the sand, is thought to be I
best mixed with old earth, or manure collected '
in roads ; but for pasture it is best mixed with
stable muck ; the proportion is two teams of
muck to one of sand ; a barge load thus mixed
is thought to be good manure for an acre."
(Annah of Agr. vol. xii. p. 35.)

Farm-yard dung is usually employed in all
experiments upon manures, as the basis upon
which comparative results are most usually
obtained ; and it is not often that any substance

can be found to exceed it in fertilizing eff*ects.
It was compared with salt, lime, and oil-cake,
by Mr. George Sinclair, most of whose elabd-
rate experiments are given under the head
Salt. In my own experiments with potatoes
in a light gravelly soil, I found that when the
soil simply produced 120 bushels per acre,
that manured with 20 tons of stable dung it
yielded 219 bushels; and with 20 bushels of
salt only 192^ bushels. {My Essay on Suit, p.
84). In those of my brother, Mr. George John-
son, where 20 tons per acre of stable dung
produced 23 tons of carrots, 20 bushels of salt
applied to a similar space produced 18 tons
(Ibid. p. 146); and, with the same proportions,
when the salted soil produced 4^ tons of red
beet- root, the spit manure yielded 6^ tons.
(Ilnd. p. 149.) In those of the Rev. E. Cart-
wright upon potatoes, when the soil simply
produced 157 bushels per acre, the same quan-
tity of land when dressed with

363 bushels of fresh dung, yielded 192 bushels.

30 — soni _ 192 _

eo — wood ashes — 187 —

60 — mall dust — 18i —

363 — decayed leaves — 175 —

363 — peat — 159 —

363 — saw-dnst — 155 —
(Coin. Board of Agr. vol. Iv. p. 370.)

Some valuable experiments on farm-yard
dung, compared in various proportions with
other manures, applied to potatoes and oats,
were made by Arthur Young, of which the fol-
lowing was the result : —

"In the last week in March, 1787," he says,
"the white champion potato was planted in
beds, each containing a square perch of a good
sandy loam, on a wet clay marie bottom, the
sets being planted one foot apart.

Qumnli'y per Acre

Produce in Rusheli

<>r Mauure.

per Acre.

Soil simple -

.

180

Farm-yard dung -

16 cubic yards

240

—

21 —

200

—

32 —

2S0

32 —

400

—

42 -

360

53 —

400

Soot -

160 bushels

360

Wood ashes- -

160 -

210

"At the same time, and on the same ground,
12 square perches were planted with the same
potatoes, and manured as described in the fol-
lowing table, which also gives their respective
products.

Per Acre.

Produce in Bush-
eU per Acre.

Soil simple -

.

280

Dung -

32 cubic yards

400

Wood a shea -

40 bushels

400

Slaked lime -

ICO —

380

Rotten 9lraw.*vith

some little ani-

mal manure

32 cubic yards

400

Urine and soap-

water in equal

moieties -

1440 gallons

240

Barley straw

Htons

300

Potash - - -

340 lbs.

3S0

Dung - - -
Sail - - -

32 cubic yards
160 \bs.

1

400

Dung -

32 on hie yards

}

480

Lime -

IfiO bnsheU

Dune ...

32 cubic vnrds

}

520

Urine - - -

480 gallons

463

FARM-YARD MANURE.

FARRIER.

"The great product," adds Young, "which
attends the addition of urine to dung, affords a
very important lesson; which is, to manage
dunghills in such a manner as to save, if pos-
sible, every drop ; this is a point too much
neglected, and, indeed, by most common farm-
ers very little attended to." {Annals of Agr. vol.
;x. p. 652.)

A rood of a poor blue pebbly gravel, which
yielded turnips in 1770, in June, 1771, was
marked in spaces for manures, each of two
square perches, by Arthur Young, and sown
with oats.

2 Square Perches

Per Acre.

Produce of Oats
per Acre.

Manure.

Cubic Yards.

Bushels.

Fecks.

Soil simple - - -

_

30

2i

Farm-yard compost

80

40

2i

— ■ _ -

40

51

1

— _ _ -

20

45

0

— _ . -

20

46

1

Bones - - - -

25

63

50

57

0

Slaked lime - - -

200 bush.

38

If

Chalk - - - -

80

31

1

— _ _ _ _

160

25

21

— _ _ _ _

240

27

2

Turf mixed with train oil

801
80|

33

i

Chalk and urine -

80

37

2

Chalk - - - -
Turfalone - - -

80)
80 J

33

i

Farm -yard earth from

under dung-

80

35

0

Red hungry gravel

240

29

n

—

320

31

" I observe," adds Young, " that dung in ge-
neral much exceeds all the manures but bones,
the superiority of which is very remarkable.
(His following remarks show how little was
then known of bones as manure.) It is a ma-
nure not uncommon in this neighbourhood;
all are brought from London, where are people
who make it their business to collect them and
break them in small pieces for those who boil
them for the grease : this operation, one would
suppose, would leave them of not much value,
but the contrary is the fact. When I found, by
this and other trials, that their effect was so
very great, I bought all I could get; the price
10s. 6c?. a wagon-load, at London 96 bushels,
which by the time they were on the farm (for I
generally went on purpose for them) amounted
from 25s. to 30s. a load. Five-and-twenty cart
loads in this trial being superior to 60, was
owing to the latter quantity being too great a
dressing. For this miserable soil, which with
a summer fallow yielded but 30 bushels, to
produce 63 by a moderate manuring of bones,
shows their amazing effect.

"The advantage of using fresh long dung,"
adds Arthur Young, "appears very strong ; nor
can any thing be clearer than the benefit of re-
taining the drainings of the dunghill. The
lime without mixture appears to more advan-
tage than it has generally done with me ; but
even here, in the profitable view, it has done
nothing." (Jnn. of Agr. vol. iii. p. 67 — 77.)

The turf composts have nothing decisive in
their effect. The urine appears to have the
superiority. A portion of the same soil was
planted \vi\h potatoes: the following table gives
the result : —
464

Per Acre.

Frodjice per Acre.

B'Mhels.

Soil simple - - -

.

135

i cubic yard farm-yard

compost - - -

33*

168f

i ditto ...

77*

371^

1 ditto - - -

lOli

27Si

i ditto ...

135

37ii-

Ji ditto

mk

345i

li ditto - . .

202i

4'22

1* ditto

236i

405

2 ditto

270

432

i ditto, saturated with

yard drainings -

33f

270

J diuo . - - .

lOli loads

} 354i

1 bushel slaked lime -

135 bush.

2 bushels lime

270 ditto.

253i

tt cubic yard long fresh

stable dung

67i

405

As manures are often applied in cubic yards,
it might be well for the farmer to know the
respective M'eight of various measures of ma-
nures. {Farmer's Mag. vol. xiv. p. 102).

A cubic yard of garden mould

— water - - - - - 15

— compost of dung, with weeds

and lime, whicli had been
once turned over in 9 mos. 14

— new dung - - - - fl

— leaves and sea-weed - - 9

cwt. qrj. \bt.
- 19 3 25

0' 7

There have been many excellent suggestions
for the improvement of farm-yard manure. The
late Mr. Blakie published an excellent essay,
of which I have largely availed myself. Mr.
Kirk, of Preston Mains {Quart. Journ. of Agr.
vol. viii. p. 483), has suggested that the straw
produced by different soils should be kept se-
parate, and, when made into manure, applied
to different soils. Mr. Pearson has very pro-
perly {Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. ix. p. 299), con-
demned the careless way in which farm-yard
manure is often flooded with the rain water
from buildings, &c. Mr. Baker is an advocate
for using farm-yard manure in its freshest
state. {Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. vii. p. 584, and
ix. p. 597.) Mr. W. Sim has reported several
comparative experiments at Drummond, in
Ross-shire, with barley. The soil a good deep
loam on a gravelly subsoil ; the previous crop,
peas. {Journ. Royal Agr. Soc. vol. i. p. 419.)

Kind of

Quantify per
Scotch Acre,

Produce of

Gvaio per

Acre.

Weight

straw per
Acre, in

Manure.

equal to t 1-4
English.

B';^h.

stont^ of
I6lt».

qrs. bis. ps.

)b».

it. lbs.

Farm-yard

manure -

18 double Ids.

8 11

53

226 8

Rape dust -

10 cwt.

7 3 0

5li

2o2 8

Bone dust -

10 bushels

7 5 2

53

211 14

Nitrate of

soda

140 lbs.

7 5 0

52i

213 0

Saltpetre -

140 lbs.

6_2^0

JIL

166 0

A treatise recently published at Lowell, Mas-
sachusetts, by Dr. S. L. Dana, under the title
of "Muck Manual," contains much highly in-
teresting matter relative to the preparation and
qualities of farm-yard and other kinds of ma-
nures.

FARRIER (Fr. ferrier; Lat. ferrarius). A
person who forges horses' shoes. As the errors
committed by ignorance in this art were the
cause of many diseases in the feet of horses,
it naturally followed that farriers were resorted
to for the cure of them. Hence the whole of
the diseases of these animals came by degrees

i

ARRIERY.

FELLING TIMBER.

to be treated by farriers, who are, however,
now superseded in England by a more en-
lightened class of veterinary practitioners.

FARRIERY. The art of preventing, curing,
or alleviating the disorders to which horses
and cattle are subject. The practice of this
useful profession in England was, until within
the last half century, almost entirely confined
to a class of men who were utterly ignorant
of the anatomy and physiology of the horse,
&c., and the general principles of the art of
healing. Their prescriptions were as absurd
as the reasons they assigned for administering
Iheir boluses and drenches. But the establish-
ment of a veterinary college, and a better edu-
cated class of persons having taken up the
profession, has created a new era in veterinary
science.

FARROW. A sow is said to farrow when
she brings forth pigs; and the pigs brought forth
are called a litter or farrow.

FARTHING-BOUND. A provincial term
for a stoppage or obstruction in the intestines
of the cow.

FARTHING-DALE. The fourth part of an
acre of land, now generally called a rood. It
is sometimes written /arrfing-rfa/c.

FAT (TenUvet,- Ice. feits ; Sax. aer). An
unctuous, solid substance, or, more properly,
a concrete oil, deposited in little membranous
cells in various parts of animal bodies. It is
generally white or yellowish', with little taste
or smell, and varies in consistency according
to the relative quantities of stearine and oleine
which it contains. Goats' fat, besides these
principles, contains also hircine, to which it
owes its peculiar smell. Different kinds of fat
liquefy at different temperatures. Lard is softer
than tallow, melts at 97°; but the fat extracted
from meat by boiling requires a heat of 127°.
The ultimate elements of animal fat are the
same as those of vegetable oils. Acccfrding
to the analysis of Chevreul, 100 parts of hu-
man fat are composed of 79-0 carbon, 11*4 hy-
drogen, and 9*6 oxygen. Hog's lard and mut-
ton suet are very similarly constituted. Fat is
insoluble in water, alcohol, and ether. The
strong acids dissolve, and gradually decompose
it. With the alkalies it combines and forms
soap ; hard with soda, and soft with potassa.
Fat serves to defend the muscles and bones
against cold, to temper the acids of aliments,
and to invigorate and support the whole frame.

FAT-HEN. A provincial name for the wild
spinach (Clieacpodiutn album), commonly called
in the United States Lamb's-quarter, and some-
times Goose-foot.

FATHOM (Sax. Faersem). A measure of
length containing six feet or two yards ; chiefly
used for measuring the length of cordage and
the depth of water and mines.

FEATHER-GRASS (Stipa pennata). This
is a doubtful native; it is found sometimes on
dry, mountainous rocks. It is a perennial,
flowering in June. The root is fibrous; stems
a foot high, covered with dense tufts of long,
narrow, acute, dark green, roughish leaves;
sheaths striated and very long; stipules ob-
long, obtuse; flowers in panicles, simple, erect,
six to seven flowers ; awns nearly a foot long.
At the time of flowering, the produce per acre
59

from a heath soil was 9528 lbs., dry produce
3454 lbs., nutritive matter 409 lbs. This pro-
duce was taken from a heath soil that had been
planted with the grass, for the wild seed does
not vegetate ; but it may be propagated to any
extent by parting the roots. Its agricultural
merits appear to be so inconsiderable as to
rank it among the inferior grasses. The beau-
tiful feather-like awns which terminate the
larger valves of the blossom, and adhere to the
seed, serving as a sail to waft it from rock to
rock, have procured it a place in the flower-
gardens of the curious, and serve to distinguish
it from all other grasses. The feathered awns
are sometimes worn by ladies instead of fea-
thers, which they resemble. The seed is ripe
about the middle of September.

Nuttall describes several American species
of feather-grass, which abound in some of the
warmer portions of the United Slates and Ter-
ritories. One species, the Juncea, grows very
commonly on the grassy plains of the Missouri,
as well as the Stipa Vtrginica, both being very
troublesome when in seed, adhering by the
sharp stipe to every thing which comes in their
way. Not a single species is useful in agri-
culture. In Barbary and Upper Louisiana they
appear in many places the prevailing herbage,
communicating to the desert plains the colour-
ing of harvest, called payjonal by the Ameri-
can Spaniards. (NuttaWs Genera.)

FEATHERS (Sax. j:^t>ep; Germ, fedem). A
general name applied to the exterior covering
or plumage of birds, and by which they are
enabled to fly. Feathers vary in form, size,
and function in different parts of the bird, and
have accordingly received distinct names in
ornithological science. The quill part consists
of coagulated albumen. Great quantities of
goose and other'feathers are annually imported
into England from the north of Europe, which,
however, are insufficient for the demand ; hence
poulterers dispose of vast numbers of the fea-
thers of other domestic poultry, all of which
are much inferior to those of geese. The fea-
thers, after they are plucked, are generally dried
in an oven. Notwithstanding every apparent
caution, the feathers will frequently be found
to be tainted, either from carelessness in pluck-
ing, or by neglecting to attend to them after-
wards. In this case, the only method to ren-
der them sweet is to boil them a few momenta
in stout calico or canvass bags in a copper,
and afterwards dry them in the open air. In
about a fortnight, if the weather be fine, they
will become perfectly sweet and ready for use

FEBRIFUGE (Fr.) In farriery, such medi-
cines as are beneficial in cases of fever. See
Fever.

FEED (Sax. peTsan). The quantity of oats
or grain given to a horse or other animal at
one time. It also signifies to fatten animals, as
cattle or sheep. -

FELL. The skin or hide of an animal.

FELLING TIMBER. The act of cutting
down trees for the purposes of timber. This
term is only used in respect to full-grown
trees, and is never applied to young trees nor
to bushes, underwood, or hedges. Much has
been written respecting the proper season for
felling trees ; some arguing in favour of mid-
465

FELLMONGER'S POAKE.

FEN LANDS.

winter, and others in favour of midsummer.
The question principally turns upon the quan-
tity, and the value of the soft or outer wood in
the trunk of the tree to be felled, known by
foresters and carpenters as the sap-wood. As
this sap, or outer wood is the only portion of
the trunk in which the sap or juices of the tree
flow, it is evident that if no value be set upon
it^ the tree may be cut down at any season ;
because the truly valuable part of the trunk,
the mature timber, is impermeable to the sap
in its ascent through the soft wood, and is
therefore in the same state at every season of
the year. On the other hand, where much
value is attached to the soft or outer wood,
where this outer v.-ood is to be made as valua-
ble as possible, or where, as in the case of
comparatively young trees, the greater part of
the trunk consists of sap-wood, felling ought
to take place when there is least sap in the
course of ascending. This season is without
doubt mid-winter, which, all other circum-
stances being equal, is unquestionably the best
season for felling timber ; the next best being
midsummer, when the sap is chiefly confined
to the young shoots, the circumference of the
soft wood and the bark. The worst time for
felling timber is the spring, just before the de-
velopement of the buds, when the tree is fullest
of sap, and receiving constantly fresh supplies
from the root; and in autumn, immediately
before the fall of the leaf, when there is a su-
perabundance of sap, from its being as it were
thrown out of employment by the falling of the
leaf. In general, all the softwoods, such as the
elm, lime, poplars, willows, &c., should be
felled during winter: hardwoods, like the oak,
beech, ash, &c., when the trunks are of large
size, and valued chiefly for their heart wood,
may be felled at any time. When the bark,
however, is to be taken into consideration, as
in the oak, the tree should be felled in spring,
as then the bark contains four times the
quantity of astringent matter to that felled in
winter. See Timber and Woods. (Brande^s
Diet, of Srienre.)

FELLMONGER'S POAKE AND CLIP-
PINGS. Poake is the waste arising from the
preparation of skins, and is compounded of
various proportions of lime, oil, and hair. It
is commonly used as a manure, in the state of
compost with earthy substances, and some-
times, when it is thought expedient to increase
the powers of farm manure, also with stable
dung. The clippings are the parings and
scrapings of the skins. When ploughed in
upon a summer fallow for wheat, these clip-
pings have been found highly serviceable to
deep loamy land, and to strong soils which are
not too wet, for they not only produce a full
clean grain, with a bright straw, but the bulk
of the crop is also greatly increased. Care
should, however, be taken to cover them well
with the soil, for if left near the surface, the
putrid effluvia, which they soon emit, attract
the crows in swarms, and great quantities are
thus lost out of the ground. From thirty to
forty bushels per acre is the usual quantity
applied; the price varies in different places
from 4d. to 9d. per bushel, heaped loose. {BHL
Husb. vol. i. p. 423, 424.)
466

FELLY. A provincial word meaning to
break up a fallow. It also signifies a part of a
wheel.

FELON, or FETLOW. In farriery, a term
for a sort of inflammation in animals similar
to that of whitlow in the human subject.

FELT. A kind of stuff" formed of fur or
wool alone, or of a mixture of these articles
with camel's hair, which are blended into a
compact texture used principally in the manu-
facture of hats. Hare and rabbit's fur, wool
and beaver, are the chief materials used ; they
are mixed in proper proportions and tossed
about by the strokes of a vibrating string or
bow, till they become duly matted together.
Felt strongly compressed is now used as cloth.
It has one advantage over woven cloth, it does
not become threadbare by use.

FEN. The name of a distemper to which
hops are subject. It consists of a quick grow-
ing mould, or moss, which spreads itself with
much rapidity, and occasions great injury.

FENCE. In rural economy, is any kind of
erection made for the purpose of enclosing
ground ; as a hedge, wall, ditch, bank, paling,
&c., or any continuous line of obstacle inter-
posed between one portion of the surface of
land and another, for the purpose of separation
or exclusion. The kind of obstacle or material
differs according to the animals which are to be
separated, excluded, or confined, and the nature
of the soil and situation. In the early state of
husbandry, fences were little known or wanted,
except in particular places, as near houses or
yards. The introduction of fences into agri-
culture was about as great an improvement in
the progress of that art, as that of the principle
of the division of labour into the art of manu-
facture. The subject of fences is one of high
interest to the farmer, an immense amount of
whose capital is annually expended chiefly for
the purpose of preventing the depredations of
stock belonging to other persons. Many valu-
able observations on this topic will be found in
various American agricultural periodicals.

FEN LANDS, or FENS. Boggy or marshy
lands, the subsoil of which is constantly in a
state of saturation with water, and the surface
liable to be overflown by rivers or streams
during spring or autumn. The soil of these
lands is generally black, light, and rich to the
depth of two or three feet ; and as the surface
water readily filtrates through this soil, to the
subsoil, fen lands generally produce, when pro-
perly drained and cultivated, bulky crops of
grass and' corn. As they have very seldom
any natural outlet for their drainage, this is
usually performed by machinery ; and when
this is the case fen lands are more productive.
(See DRAiTfiNo and Warping.) The principal
fens in England are those of Lincolnshire,
Cambridgeshire, and the adjoining counties, a
very full account of which will be found in
M'Culloch's Geogr. Did., art. "Bedford Level."
(See also Eril. Hvsb. vol. i. p. 466—469. " On
the Course of Cropping in the Fens," vol. ii. p.
107.) Fens generally abound with saline
plants, which are very nourishing to cattle.
See Irrigation.

FENNEIi, COMMON {Meum fccniculum.
Smith). This is a well-known biennial plant,

FENNEL.

FERMENTATION.

cultivated in our kitchen gardens as a garnish.
It is likewise used as a domestic medicine.
The taste and aromatic qualities of the garden
fennel are well known. The sweet and warm
seeds are a common carminative for infants.

FENNEL, SWEET (Fa:nimlum duke). This
species of fennel is an annual plant, a native
of Italy and Portugal, where it is cultivated as
a pot-herb, as well as for the seeds and the oils
which these afford. It is a smaller plant than
the common fennel. The stem is somewhat
compressed at the base. The fruit is much
longer than that of the common fennel, being
nearly five lines long, less compressed, some-
what curved and paler, with a greenish tinge.
The turions are also sweeter and less aromatic,
and the fruit {seed) has a more agreeable odour
and flavour.

The fruit is imported, and affords the oil of
fennel and the fennel water of the druggists.
Both are useful in flatulent colic ; and the latter
is a pleasant vehicle for administering other
medicines to children.

FENUGREEK {Trigonella, Fanumgrcecum).
Fenugreek is a species of trefoil sometimes
cultivated in fields for its seed ; but it yields a
very uncertain crop, owing to the variable na-
ture of the weather in England. The stem is
a foot high, erect, with round branched stalks,
trifoliate leaves, toothed ; the flowers small and
white ; the fruit a sessile, straight, erect, some
curved, acuminate, flat pod ; containing a num-
ber of yellowish seeds having a strong, disa-
greeable smell, and an unctuous, farinaceous,
and somewhat bitter taste. These seeds are
very emollient, and useful in cataplasms and
fomentations.

FENUGREEK, RUSSIAN (Trigonella ru-
thcnica). A hardy perennial native of Siberia,
blowing yellow papilionaceous blossoms in
July and August. It loves a strong loamy soil,
and an open situation. It is propagated either
by parting the roots in spring, or from seed.

FERMENT (Lat. /errfo, I boil). Any sub-
stance employed to raise or produce fermenta-
tion when mixed with or applied to another.
Ferments are therefore either such substances
as are naturally present in the vegetable juice,
as in the grape and apple : or are added, as in
the manufacture of beer and bread, where
yeast anS leaven constitute the ferment. Fer-
mentation is met with in fermenting liquors of
diflferent kinds, as wine and beer, and the froth
or head thrown up by them, and its principles
are contained in the newly expressed saccha-
rine juices of various summer fruits.

Ferments are of an albuminous and glutinous
character; and the presence of nitrogen seems
essential in their composition.

FERMENTATION. When certain vegeta-
ble substances are dissolved in water and sub-
jected to a temperature of 65° to 85°, they un-
dergo a series of changes which terminate in
the production of alcohol or spirit; these
changes constitute the phenomena of vinous
fermentation. Sugar and some ferment are es-
sential to the process, and during the forma-
tion of the alcohol the sugar disappears, and
carbonic acid is more or less abundantly
evolved. The simplest case of fermentation is
that of mv^t, or of the expressed juice of the

grape, which, when exposed either in close or
open vessels to a temperature of about 70°,
soon begins to give off carbonic acid, and to
become turbid and frothy; after a time a scum
collects upon the surface, and a sediment is de-
posited ; the liquor which had grown warm
gradually cools and clears, loses its sweet taste,
and is converted into wine. The chief compo-
nent parts of must are water, sugar, mucilage,
gluten, and tartar (bitartrate of potassa). Dur-
ing the fermentation carbonic acid escapes, the
sugar disappears, and with it the greater part
of the mucilage : the gluten chiefly forms the
scum and a portion of the sediment ; and the
tartar originally in solution is thrown down in
the form of a coloured deposit. Sugar and
water alone will not ferment ; the ingredient
requisite to the commencenient of the change
is the gluten, which absorbs in the first in-
stance a little oxygen from the air, becomes in-
soluble, and induces the subsequent changes.
The reason why grapes never ferment till the
juice is expressed, seems to depend upon the
exclusion of air by the husk or membranes.
In beer the alcohol is derived from the sugar
in the malt. When wine is exposed to air and
a due temperature, a second fermentation en-
sues, which is called the acetous fernientatioriy
and which terminates in the production of
vinegar. During this process oxygen is ab-
sorbed, and more or less carbonic acid is
evolved ; but the apparent cause of the forma-
tion of vinegar is the abstraction of hydrogen,
from the alcohol, so as to leave the remaining
elements in such proportions as to constitute
acetic acid. Thus alcohol is theoretically con-
stituted of charcoal, water and hydrogen, and
acetic acid of water and charcoal only ; the
ox}'gen of the air, therefore, converts the hy-
drogen of the alcohol into water, and so effects
the change into vinegar. See Alcohol and
Brewing. {Brande^s Dirt, of Science, ^c.)

To illustrate these facts let us suppose that
the following substances are put together to
undergo fermentation : — 300 parts sugar, 600
parts water, 60 yeast ; — the products will be
771-5 parts of weak spirit, of which 171*5 is
alcohol of spec. grav. 0-822 ; 94*6 carbonic
acid, which flies ofi'and carries with it 41*9 of
water, 12 nauseous residue, and 40 residual
yeast.

Or it may be illustrated in reference to the
formation of the alcohol and the carbonic acid,
which are the only real products of vinous fer-
mentation, by the changes which take place in
the chemical components of the sugar. If we
take 162 parts of sugar, and 18 of water, re-
garding any yeast employed as merely the
means of commencing the fermentation, the
product should be 92 of alcohol and 88 of car-
bonic acid —

162 parts of sugar consist of
18 parts of water consist of

Ingredients - - - -

92 parts of alcohol consist of
88 parts of carbonic acid con-
sist of _ _ . -

Products i - - -

CarboD.

Hydrogen.

Oxygen.

72

10
2

80
16

72

12

96

48
24

12

32
64

72

12

96

467

FERMENTED LIQUORS.

FERN.

Thus we see that the 72 parts of carbon of
the sugar is divided between the alcohol and
the carbonic acid ; that the whole of the hydro-
gen both of the sugar and the water enter into
the composition of the alcohol, and only 32
parts of the ogygen of the sugar, and none of
that of the water. Fermentation, therefore,
effects merely a change in the distribution of
the components of the bodies subjected to its
action ; the yeast or ferment being the agent
which effects these changes without itself en-
tering into the products resulting from them.
The yeast, if added, remains as residual matter,
but where no yeast is required, that substance
is one of the products of the process.

But this is only that species of fermentation
which is denominated vinous. If the fermen-
tation proceeds beyond the point which has
been described, such changes, as already
stated, take place ; and vinegar or acetic acid
is generated, and the process is then termed
acetous fermentation. A third kind of fermen-
tation also follows in most vegetable matters,
namely, the putrefactive, in which there is a
large production of gases, and vegetable mould
or humus. In general parlance, however, the
term f e7-7ne7it at ion invplies either the vinous or
the acetous fermentation.

FERMENTED LIQUORS are those liquors
obtained by the process described in the pre-
ceding article. See also Bekii, Cider, Wixe,
Alcohol, &c. All liquors which have under-
gone the vinous fermentation are considered as
great antidotes to putrefaction ; for it has been
remarked that since the custom of brewing and
distilling liquors has prevailed in Europe,
many of those cutaneous and putrid diseases
with which our forefathers were afflicted have
been less frequent and severe than they for-
merly were. The total abstinence from fer-
mented liquors by the Turks is further assigned
as one of the chief causes why they are more
liable to the plague and other contagious dis-
eases, than those nations among whom beer or
wine is the common beverage. {WilUclUs Dom.
Encyc.) This opinion, however, is purely hy-
pothetical.

FERN. An acotyledonous or flowerless
class of weeds, of which there are many spe-
cies in Great Britain. They grow chiefly in
mountainous tracts of natural pasture. Fern
is extremely difticult to eradicate, as the roots
in deep soils have been found at the depth of
seven or eight feet. But however troublesome
this plant may prove to the industrious hus-
bandman, it is not altogether useless. It forms
a good litter for cattle, and may be used as
thatch ; for though inferior to many other ma-
terials, it will last ten or twelve years. It
forms a good manure for potatoes, when dug
into the soil ; and serves for fuel, where it is
plentiful, for brewing, baking, heating ovens,
burninsT lime, &c. The ashes, which the
plant affords in great abundance, yield potash ;
and the poor in some districts mix the ashes
with water and form lye balls for scouring
linen, which are a useful and cheap substitute
for soap. In Norway, the dried leaves are in-
fused in hot water, and thus afford a whole-
some and relishing food for all domestic cattle,

which eat them eagerly, and manage to thrive
and grow fat upon them.

In a botanical point of view, it would be im-
possible and useless to describe all the species
of ferns in this work ; we shall therefore notice
particularly those only which are applicable
to other uses than thatching, or the production
of alkali from their ashes, or constituting ma-
nure, as they may all be employed for these
purposes.

1. Male Shield Fern (Jspidiumfili^-^nas) is a
perennial, growing in woods, dry ditches, and
on shady banks. Its roots are tufted, large,
scaly ; its fronds or herbage are several from
one root, three feet high, doubly pinnate, erect;
the midribs scaly, and the leaflets obtuse, ser-
rated, partly confluent; the masses of seminal
capsules near the midrib, and not occupying
more than the half of each leaflet ; and the
capsular cover orbicular.

The root is nauseous, and was at one time
much used as a remedy for tape worm ; it
indeed was the principal ingredient in the
celebrated remedy of Madame Nouffer, who
received 18,000 francs from Louis XVL for
her secret : but since the introduction of the
oil of turpentine, as a remedy for tape worm,
fern root has ceased to be employed.

2. Maidenhair {Miantum capillus veneris) is
a perennial found on moist rocks and old walls
near the sea. It is an elegant fern ; the roots
are blackish, shaggy, creeping; the fronds
from 6 to 12 inches high, doubly compound;
the leaflets alternate on capillary stalks, wedge-
shaped, lobed, deep green, smooth, and each
segment terminated in a roundish, flat scale,
with the cover transversely oblong.

This fern as well as another species of the
same genus, A. pedatum, is employed for mak-
ing the well-known syrup called ra;n//ai>c, which
is, when diluted with water, a pleasant beve-
rage in fever.

3. Fir Club Moss (Lycopodium selugo). A
perennial, common on the Derbyshire and
Yorkshire hills, and in the Highlands of Scot-
land. The root is fibrous; the stem 5 to 10
inches high, once or twice forked, and level at
the top. The leaves uniform, crowded in eight
rows, lanceolate, obtuse, entire, slightly spread-
ing; capsules on the uppermost shoots, kidney-
shaped. See Club Moss.

The Highlanders use this fern instead of
alum to fix colours in dyeing. The root is a
powerful emetic and purgative; but its action
is attended with giddiness and convulsions,
consequently it is dangerous.

4. Greater Rough Horsetail (Equisetum hye-
male). A perennial, found in boggy woods.
The root is black and variously branched ; the
stem 2 to 3 feet high, erect, naked, rough,
branching at the top, embraced by tight whitish
sheaths, black at the top and bottom; and the
teeth deciduous. The fruit is in a terminal cat-
kin, and abounds with whitish powdery seeds.

This fern is well known for its use as a
polisher, owing to the flinty particles (silex)
deposited in the furrows of the cuticle. It is
usually imported from Holland, and is there-
fore called Dutch rushes. {Willich's Dom. En-
cyc. , Low^s Prac. J-gr.)

FERN.

FESTUCA.

FERN SWEET (Comptonia asphnifoUa) is
commonly found in Pennsylvania and other
Middle States, where it is most abundant on
dry slaty hills; but rare elsewhere. The
bruised leaves emit a strong resinous, aromatic
odour; and the plant is reputed medicinal.
The infusion is a popular remedy in dysentery.
This is the only known species of the genus
Comptonia. {Flor. Cestrica.)

FERRET {Mustela furo, Linn.). A useful
animal, which came originally from Africa,
whence it was introduced into Spain, and sub-
sequently into England. It has red, fiery eyes;
the colour of its whole body is of a pale yel-
low ; and its length from the nose to the end
of the tail is about 19 inches. The female is
rather smaller in size, and produces, twice
annually, from five to eight or nine young
ones, after a gestation of six weeks. Ferrets
are principally employed for the purpose of
hunting rabbits, to which they are mortal ene-
mies, and of destroying vermin in corn stacks
and outbuildings. These animals are always
kept confined in a box or cask, and fed upon
bread, milk, &c.

FERRUGINOUS SOILS. Soils which con-
tain a large proportion of iron.

FESCUE GRASSES. See Festcca.

FESTUCA. A very extensive genus of
grasses, of which the meadow fescue (Fes-
tuca pratensis) and the hard or smooth fescue
(Festuca duriuscula, vel glabra) are those of
the greatest use in permanent pasture. Com-
bined with cock's-foot or orchard grass, and
some other of the natural grasses, these two
species of festuca will be found well adapted
for the alternate husbandry, and secure the
most productive and nutritive pasture in alter-
nation with grain crops. Sir J. E. Smith, in
his Eng. Bat., observes, " that in this genus it
is hard to say what may, or what may not, be
a species ;" and with his usual force and
clearness he reduces the J'', glauca, F. glabra,
F. cambrica, F. duriiisculaj and F. rubra of Hud-
son, Lightfoot, Withering, Winch, and Stilling-
fleet, &.C. into one species. All these grasses
vary much from change of soil and situation ;
the flowers are particularly apt to varj' in
number as well as in the length of their awns.
There is one character, however (says Sin-
clair), which I have never found to change
under any variety of culture, which is the
creeping root; and this is also an agricultural
distinction which is never to be lost sight of, as
it always produces a specific efiiect upon the
soil, very distinct indeed from that of the
fibrous-rooted kinds. It will be sufficient,
therefore, for the purposes of the agriculturist,
to consider these grasses as two distinct spe-
cies, the fibrous-rooted and the creeping-rooted,
noting at the same time their varieties from
other parts of the plant. Following the expe-
riments instituted by Sinclair, in his valuable
work on the grasses, I shall proceed to notice,
seriatim, the different species of festuca, and
point out their relative properties.

Festuca alopecuris. — Foxtail-like fescue grass.
Root annual. Although sometimes classed as
a Bromus, this grass is evidently a Festuca.
From the amount of produce and nutritive
powers afforded by this annual fescue, it will

be found much inferior to the soft brome-grass
(Bromus mollis), many flowered brome-grass
B. multiflorus), and other of the annual indige-
nous grasses, and it does not therefore appear
suitable for agricultural purposes.

Festuca bromoides. — Barren fescue grass. A
pale, smooth, slender, insignificant grass of
short duration, at least after it has flowered.

Festuca calamaria. — Reed fescue grass. This
species, which is too large and coarse to pos-
sess any agricultural merits, is found in moun-
tainous woods in Scotland, Ireland, and the
north-west part of England. There is a smaller
variety, with much narrower leaves sometimes
met with in Scotland.

Festuca Cambrica. — Welsh fescue. This con-
stant variety off', rubra (see SmUh^s Engl. Flora,
vol. i. p. 142) is readily distinguished from the
F. ovina, and the varieties of J*', rubra and J''.
duriuscula, by the pale green colour of the
panicle and culms. Experiments tend to prove
that this grass is greatly inferior to the F. duri-
uscula in the quantity and nutrient qualities of
its produce.

Festuca dumetorum. — Pubescent wood-fescue
grass. Root perennial, slightly creeping. This
grass, which appears to belong to the inferior
kinds, is a native of woods, where the soil is
dry and sandy.

Festuca duriuscula. — Hard fescue. PI. 6, fig. g.
Panicle unilateral, oblong, much spreading
when in flower ; florets longer than their awns ;
stem round, upper leaves flat, root fibrous,
perennial ; scarcely creeping, though sometimes
throwing out short lateral shoots. Stem 1^ or
2 feet high, erect, leafy, striated, smooth. The
hard fescue early attains to maturity; the culms
are succulent and nutritious; it grows quickly
after being cropped, and springs pretty early.
From the above details, although very defi-
cient in the weight of produce, it appears to
be one of the chief oil the fine or dwarf-grow-
ing grasses. This grass is most prevalent on
light rich soils; but it is also continually found
in the richest natural pastures where the soil
is retentive of moisture, and is never absent
from irrigated meadows that have been pro-
perly formed. It attains to the greatest perfec-
tion when combined with the F. pratensis and
Poa trivialis. From its property of withstand-
ing drought in rich natural pastures better than
many other grasses, added to the merits above-
mentioned, this grass is entitled to a place in
the compositi<)n of the best pastures, but not
in any very large proportion on account of its
inferior productive powers.

When cultivated on a poor silicious soil, or
on a thin heath soil, the culms become very
fine and slender, and promise to be valuable
for the manufacture of straw hats. This grass
flowers about the middle of June, and the seed
is ripe late in July.

Festuca elatior, var. fertilis. Fertile-seeded
tall fescue grass. This is a coarse but nu-
tritious grass, forming sometimes a consider-
able proportion of the crop of marsh land
hay. Root somewhat creeping, with downy
fibres penetrating deeply into the mud or clay.
Stem about 4 feet high, reedy, striated, smooth,
and leafy. Panicle a foot or more in length,
repeatedly compound, spreading widely. This
2R 469

FESTUCA.

FESTUCA.

grass differs from the common variety of tall
fescue in having the panicle somewhat droop-
ing; spikelets six-flowered, more ovate and
flat; the larger husks of the calyx often un-
covered, and the awn is fixed on the apex more
in the manner of a bromus than of a fescue.
Leaves smoother, and of a less dark-green
colour. For damp soils, that cannot conve-
niently be thoroughly drained, this would be a
most valuable plant, either to be cut for soil-
ing, or made into hay, and reduced to chaff as
it might be w^anled. This grass (which is
nearly allied to the common Jf''. elatior next to
be described) perfects an abundance of seed
(though not entirely free from diseased por-
tions), and is therefore not liable to the objec-
tion which takes so much from the value of
that variety. It is equally early in the produce
of foliage, and the nutritive properties are
about the same. It flowers early in July, and
the seed is ripe in the first week in August.

A species is described under the name of
floating fescue (Festuca fiuitans) in Loudmi^s
Ency. ofAgr. and there said to be found in rich
swamps, especially in Cambridgeshire, Eng-
land, where it is thought to give the peculiar
flavour to Cheddar and Cottenham cheese. It
is also found in the ditches and ponds in most
parts of England. PI. 5, /.

Festuca elatior, var. stenlis. — PI. 5, e. Barren-
seeded tall fescue. This species greatly re-
sembles the F. pratensis, but is larger in every
respect, and flowers eight or ten days later.
This is a grass admirably adapted for tena-
cious clay soils, and might be cultivated with
advantage by the farmer combined with some
of the other highly productive grasses, in such
moist spots of the soil as are peculiarly suited
to the growth of this species, although less
fitted for the growth of proper pasture grasses.
It is nutritive and very productive, and one of
the first grasses in the production of foliage
early in spring. The produce, like that of all
grasses which yield a great weight of crop,
may be considered coarse when compared
with the F. pratensis and Mopcciiris pratensis;
but this objection may be overcome by reduc-
ing the hay to chaff, and mixing it with clover-
hay. The nutritive matter contains but little
bitter extractive or saline matter, while the
clover contains an excess. In England it
flowers in the second week in July ; the seed
is universally affected with the disease termed
clavus, and consequently unfertile; it can only,
therefore, be propagated by parting and plant-
ing the roots.

Festuca gigantea. — Tall fescue grass. This
species is confined to woods in its natural state;
but it continues in the soil, and appears to
thrive equally well when cultivated in open
situations. It is a coarse grass, and but little
nutritive, although greatly superior to the
spiked and wood fescue grasses.

Festuca glabra, var. — Smooth fescue. PI. 6, /t.
Panicle branched, upright, compact; spikelets
spear-shaped, 4-6-flowered, smooth, awned;
root fibrous ; perennial. This grass is nearly
allied to the F. duriusada and F. rubra. Ac-
cording to Sir J. Smith, it is a variety of the
last-named. From the trials made with this
grass, it seems to be inferior both in produce
470

and nutritive matter to the F. duriuscula, but is
superior in regard to early produce, and the
herbage is uncommonly fine and succulent.
These merits, however, appear hardly suflti-
cient to compensate for the deficiency of pro-
duce. If it be compared with some of the
early grasses, Anthoxantum adoratum, for in-
stance, it will be found superior in nutritive
matter in the proportion of about one-third.
While this grass cannot be recommended in
preference to the J^. duriuscula, yet, among the
fine-leaved fescues, it will be found the best
substitute for that species when wanting.

Festuca glauca. — Glaucus fescue grass. This
is a native of alpine situations, but thrives
better when cultivated on lower ground than
most other species having the same origin.
Although its merits do "not appear sufficiently
great to entitle it to a prominent place among
the superior grasses for light soils, yet its
hardy and nutritive nature, and property of
forming a thick turf, prevent it from being
altogether rejected as of no value. It flowers
in the second week of June, and the seed is
ripe about the first week of July.

Festuca loliacea. Darnel-like fescue grass.
PI. 5, /. Spike two-ranked, drooping; florets
cylindrical, awnless, pointed with fine slight
ribs at the top. Root fibrous, perennial. At a
casual glance this grass bears a near resem-
blance to the Lolium perenne (rye-grass), and
affects the same kind of soil; but, on a more
minute inspection, the calyx or outer husk so
conspicuous in the spikelets of the rye-grass,
in this grass will be found almost wanting.
Another mark of difference is, that in the rye-
grass the spikelets are arranged so as to stand
facing the spike-stalk; while in the darnel-like
fescue they stand with their back towards
it. This grass possesses all the valuable pro-
perties of rye-grass, and few of its defects.
Its produce is larger; it springs earlier and im-
proves by age, which is not the case with com-
mon rye-grass. It would, doubtless, be the best
substitute for that species in alternate cropping;
but, unfortunately, it does not perfect a suffi-
ciency of seed, the flowers generally proving
abortive, which renders its propagation incon-
venient and expensive. In rich meadows this
grass is very common, particularly where the
land is periodically overflown.

Festuca myurus. Wall-fescue, Capon's tail-
grass. Panicle drooping, elongated, rather
close ; florets tapering, shorter than their awns,
rough at the top ; leaves awl-shaped ; stem
leafy to the very summit. It is, perhaps, the
" trembling rye-grass" of poets. Root annual.
The flowers have only one stamen, which dis-
tinguishes it from all other species of fescue.
This grass has great affinity to the barren fes-
cue (F. bromoides), but the whole plant is larger
and stouter, the stem clothed with leaves to the
top, and the panicle four times as long. The
inner valve of the blossom is fringed towards
the top; the awns are longer than those of the
F. bromoides. This grass is found on walls,
and dry, barren, sandy places. As soon as the
seeds are ripe, they fall out of the husks, and
vegetate quickly after, without any covering of
earth. , The plants are of the finest green co-
lour, and retain their verdure during the winter.

FESTUCA.

FESTUCA.

This circumstance seems to have led to the
supposition that it was a biennial grass. The
seeds being numerous, the young plants form
a most beautiful dark green turf, surpassing,
in this respect, every other grass. But this
property declines with the spring, when the
growth of other grasses becomes general ; and
before the time of flowering it is invariably
attacked with the rust, which renders its pro-
duce of small value, even were it afforded in
a quantity sufficient to induce its cultivation.
It flowers in the first week of July, and the seed
is ripe about the last day of that month. Birds
appear to be very fond of the seed.

Festura wina. Sheep's fescue-grass. (Pi.
6, k.) Panicle small, erect, unilateral, rather
close; florets four or five, nearly cylindrical,
pointed or awned, smooth at the base and at
the edges of the inner valve ; stem from 6 to
12 inches high, erect, slender, rather rigid,
smooth, leafy below, square in the upper part;
leaves very numerous, composing dense tufts,
folded, bristle-shaped ; stipulae verj' short and
obtuse; root fibrous, perennial. The awns ap-
pear to be an uncertain character in this grass,
as it is frequently awnless, and there are varie-
ties of it having awns. All the varieties, how-
ever, may be distinguished at first sight from
the F. duriuscula, glauca, rubra, &c., to which it
is nearest allied, by the compact though simple
appearance of the panicle, which more dis-
tinctly faces one way.

Linnaeus affirms that sheep have no relish
for hills and heaths that are destitute of this
grass. Emelin, in his Flo^a Siberica, also in-
forms us that the Tartars select places for pas-
turage during the summer where this grass is
in the greatest plenty, because it afifords a most
wholesome food for all sorts of cattle, but chiefly
sheep. Dr. Anderson, in his Agrindtural Essays,
affirms that it is capable of affording an im-
mense quantity of hay. Mr. Curtis, however,
in his Practical Observations on British Grasses,
very justly combats this opinion, and asserts
that it is more fitted for forming grass-plats;
but even for this purpose it will only succeed
on soils which are nearly as dry and light as
that on which it is spontaneously produced.
From trials which have been made, the sheep's
fescue does not appear to possess the nutritive
powers usually ascribed to it. It has, however,
the advantage of a fine and succulent foliage,
and may, on that account, be better adapted
to the masticating organs of sheep than the
larger grasses, whose nutritive powers are
greater. Hence it may be of some value as a
pasture for sheep in situations where it grows
naturally. In England it flowers in the third
week of June, and ripens the seed about the
last day of July.

Festuca oviyia hordeiformis. Long-awned
sheep's fescue-grass. (Pi. 6, i.) Panicle com-
pact; branches subdivided, upright. Spikelets
crowded, 6-10-flowered. Root-leaves thread-
shaped, stem-leaves very long. Root fibrous,
perennial. This grass is much superior to the
F. ovina, of which it is considered a variety. It
flowers earlier than any of the other fescues,
and appears to possess sufficient merit to en-
title it to a place in the composition of the best
pastures, particularly as a substitute for the F.

duriuscula, on soils of a drier or sandy nature.
Its nutritive qualities are nearly the same as
those of the F. duriuscula, but it is superior to
that species, and to most others, in the produce
of early herbage in the spring ; and the herb-
age is very fine, tender, and succulent. The
culms are well adapted for the manufacture
of the finest straw plait, being very distant in
the joints, and of an equal thickness through-
out. In England this grass flowers in the last
week of May, and the seed is ripe in June.

Festuca pinnata. Spiked heath fescue-grass.
This grass grows chiefly in dry, hilly wood-
lands, particularly where the soil is calcareous.
It cannot as yet be considered in any other light
than a noxious weed ; for, though the weight
of the produce is considerable, it is neither
early, nor nutritive, nor relished by cattle.
This, and the F. sylvatica, which is also an in-
habitant of woods where the soil is silicious,
may be considered the least useful of the Bri-
tish grasses. It flowers about the third week
of July, and ripens the seed late in August.

Festuca pratensis. (PI. 5, d, rf.) The meadow
or fertile fescue-grass. Panicle nearly up-
right, branched, spreading, turned to one side;
spikelets linear, compressed; florets numerous,
cylindrical, obscurely ribbed; nectary four-
cleft ; root fibrous, perennial.

Dr. Withering makes this grass a variety of
the F. elatior; but it is more justly made a dis-
tinct species by Sir J. E. Smith. It difl!ers from
the F. elatior in being only half as high, the
leaves only half as broad, and the panicle
shorter, and containing only half the number
of flowers. The panicle is but once branched,
droops but slightly, and leans to one side when
in flower, and the flowers grow all one way.
In the elatior the panicle branches both ways,
it droops much at first, and the flowers grow
more loosely; the spikelets are rounder, ovate,
and pointed, while in the pratensis they are
somewhat linear, flat, and obtuse.

The F. pratensis is eaten by horses, cattle,
and sheep, which are all very partial to it. In
point of early produce in the spring, this grass
stands next to the meadow fox-tail (Mopecurus
pratensis), and is superior in this respect to the
cock's-foot.

The meadow fescue constitutes a very con-
siderable portion of the herbage of all rich
natural pastures and irrigated meadows; it
makes excellent hay, and though a large plant,
yet the herbage is succulent and tender, and
much relished by cattle, as it does not form
rank tufts like the larger grasses. Although
essential for permanent pasture, yet this grass
is not by itself very well adapted for the alter-
nate husbandry, but should be combined with
cock's-foot, rye-grass, and rough-stalked mea-
dow-grass. The F. pratensis is not so abun-
dant in the deep alluvial soils of Lincoln as in
the clay districts. In the vale of Aylesbury it
constitutes a considerable portion of the most
valuable and fattening pastures of that riph
grazing district. Mr. Taunton's experience of
this grass, grown on a stifle, clayey soil, proved
that a copious crop of seed-stalks may be ob-
tained the second year from sowing. In Eng-
land it flowers in June, and ripens the seed
late in July or early in the following month.

471

FESTUCA.

FEVERFEW.

Festuca rubra. Creeping or purple fescue-
grass. There are iwo varieties of this species ;
one with narrow bristle-shaped root-leaves, and
the other with broader leaves. It hu,s much
affinity to the F, durmsmla, from which it is
however distinguished by the leaves, which are
broader and longer, and the branches of the
panicle are also longer.

, The creeping fescue has no sufficient merit
over those species it resembles in habit to
compensate for the impoverishing effects of its
roots to the soil.

Festuca sylvatica. Slender wood fescue-grajs,
or the wood brome-grass of some botanists.
The general appearance of this grass promises
but little to reward the labours of the experi-
mentalist.

Festuca uniglumis. Single -husked fescue-
grass, found on the sandy sea-coast, chiefly of
Sussex ; it possesses no agricultural merits,
and Sinclair does not even notice it.

Festuca vivipara. Viviparous fescue-grass.
The roots, leaves, and general habit nearly
agree with the F. ovina, of which most botanists
have esteemed this a variety. This grass forms
a curious exception to the general law of na-
ture in the propagation of plants by their seed.
It has every part of a flower, except the two
most essential ones, for its propagation, namely
stamens and pistils. Yet from this imperfect
flower it produces perfect plants. The rudi-
ment of the future plant originates in the upper
floret of each spikelet, and in its first stage ap-
pears like a minute globule of water, scarcely
visible to the naked eye ; but after the spike is
developed, it gradually assumes an oblong
figure, becomes pointed, and at last puts forth a
single leaf, after the manner of perfect seed of
grasses ; other leaves succeed to this, till the
weight of these (now a perfect plant of grass,
except the root) forces it to fall from the spike
to the ground, or bends down the spike, where
it soon strikes root. This grass continues vi-
viparous on all soils. Many other grasses are vi-
viparous, as Mopecurus pratensis, Cynosurus cris-
tatus, Poa alpina, Plileum pratevse, Anthoxanthxim
odoratum, &c. ; but in these the seed is first
perfected, and merely vegetates in the husk
from accidental circumstances, such as grow-
ing in shaded places, and from long continu-
ance of moist warm weather.

This grass, which is natural to alpine situa-
tions, can only be propagated by parting the
roots, or by planting the young plants formed
in the ear. But from the trials that have been
made of it, it appears to have no excellence
that can recommend it to the notice of the
agriculturist.

The species found in the United States, are,
1. F. lenella, little, or slender fescue, frequent
on dry sterile banks, and the borders of woods,
a slender, wiry little plant of little or no value
to the farmer, and generally confined to poor
soils. 2. jP. elatior, or Fall fescue, a perennial,
found frequently in swampy meadows and low
grounds, flowering like the former in June and
July. According to Dr. Darlington, this species,
which he supposes to come from Europe, is a
larger plant than the slender fescue, to which
it is nearly allied, but not so valuable. 3.
Meadow fescue, a much more valuable grass,
472

according to Dr. Darlington, than the JP. elatior^
to which it is so closely allied that it may be
doubted whether it is more than a variety. It
is a naturalized foreigner that has found its
way into all the best meadows and pastures of
the Middle and many other States of the Union.
4. Nodding fescue (F. nutans) found in moist
woodlands. It is not a grass of much valuC;
being rather solitary in its habits, and chiefly
confined to woodlands. Eight or nine addi-
tional species of fescue have been described itt
the United States. (See Darlington's Flor. Ces-
trica ; NuttaWs Genera.)

FETLOCK. In horsemanship, the part of
the leg where the tuft of hair grows behind
the pastern joint of horses : those of low size
have scarcely any tuft. In working horses,
which have them large with much hair, care
should be taken to keep them clean, in order
to prevent the grease. The fetlock-joint is a
very complicated one, and from the stress
which is laid on it, and its being the principal
seat of motion below the knee, it is particularly
subject to injury. An affection of this part
should be well fomented and immediately
blistered. (I'he Horse, p. 252; Clater's Far.
p. 258.)

FETTER. A term applied to the chain used
for confining the legs of animals.

FEVERFEW (Pyrethrum ; from pyr, fire,
the roots being hot to the taste). Of this in-
teresting European genus of plants, the Matri-
caria of Linnreus, three species only are in-
digenous to England.

1. The common feverfew (P. parthenium),
a biennial which grows in waste grounds,
hedges, and walls, flowering in June or July.
Root tapering, small, and white ; stem erect,
branched, leafy, round, many flowered, about
two feet high ; leaves stalked, of a hoary
green, pinnatifid. Flowers numerous, like
daisies, white or yellowish, in a corymbose
panicle, sometimes compound, on long naked
stalks, erect, about half an inch broad. The
whole plant has a strong disagreeable smell,
a bitter taste, and yields a volatile oil by dis-
tillation. It was formerly reckoned tonic,
stimulating, and anti-hysterical, and the oil
is still regarded as such. It contains much
tannic acid ; and in Germany it has been
usefully employed in tanning and currying
leather.

2. The corn feverfew, or scentless May
weed (P. inodorum), is very common in culti-
vated fields, and by waysides, on gravelly soils.
Root tapering, rather large, annual, flowering
in August or September. Herb nearly desti-
tute of the peculiar agreeable or disagreeable
odours of its tribe. Stem branched, spreading,
leafy, angular, smooth. Leaves sessile, pin-
nate. Flowers as in the last. The seeds
crowned with a membrane, the best diagnostic
character of the species.

3. The sea feverfew (P.maritinum), a peren-
nial, flowering in July or August, is found on
the sea coast in sandy or stony ground. The
thick, v'oody, long-enduring root runs deep
into the ground, producing a number of hollow
stems, spreading circularly on the ground, of-
ten tinged with purple. Leaves crowded, ses-
sile, doubly pinnate, of a dark shining green*

FIAR.

FIG.

croT^m of the seeds lobed ; stem diffuse. Flow-
ers not quite so broad as those of P. inodorum.
The whole herb is slightly aromatic.

The common wild chamomile {Matricaria
chamomilla, PI. 10, tc, tv), was formerly classed
as a feverfew. The greenhouse kinds of
feverfew grow in any rich light soil, and
young cuttings root readily when planted under
a glass. Any common soil suits the hardy
kinds, which are increased by divisions or
seeds. It possesses the properties of the real
chamomile in a marked degree, and might be
substituted for it as a medicinal agent. (Eng.
Flor. vol. iii. p. 451.)

FIAR. A word of Gothic origin, applied, in
the northern parts of Great Britain, to certain
averaged returns of the prices of grain for the
current year in the different counties, which
are fixed by the sheriffs respectively, with the
assistance of juries, in the month of February.
When the jury has been called, evidence of
the prices of the different grains raised in the
county must be laid before them : and the
averages struck by the jury and sanctioned
by the judge are termed fiurs of the year in
which they are struck, and regulate the prices
of all grain stipulated to be sold at the fiar
prices. These fiars also regulate (where
no price has been otherwise agreed upon)
the contract price upon delivery for grain
grown in the county. Having the prices of
grain, &c., ascertained in each county has
greatly facilitated the introduction into Scot-
land of the practice of letting land for corn
rents, convertible at the prices of the day.
In England, where there are no such au-
thentic local returns, there is great difficulty in
converting corn rents into money rents, as
reference can only be made to the prices of
some particular market, which would be too
limited a criterion, or to the kingdom at large,
which, on the other hand, would be too exten-
sive. (BelCs Law Did.)

FIELD (Sax. pel© ; Germ, feid; Dutch. veld).
A portion of land enclosed by a fence, or ren-
dered distinct by some line of separation, and
set apart either for tillage or pasture. In for-
mer times, and until within the last two cen-
turies, almost all the land cultivated with the
plough throughout Europe was unenclosed ;
and the term "field" was then applied, in Bri-
tain at least, to the lands under culture by the
plough. Subsequently, when farmers enclosed
and subdivided a portion of the lands near the
farm-yard, these portions were called fields,
and the more distant portion which remained
open was called open field, or common field,
while grass lands unenclosed were called
commons. In the present improved state of
agriculture, every farm is divided into fields,
either simply by lines of demarcation, which
are sufficient when no animals are to be grazed
on the farm, or by lines of separation which
will act as fences, such as walls, hedges,
ditches, &c., where cattle are to be grazed.
Each field on a farm is always known by a

I particular distinguishing name. Without some
regular fixed division of arable lands, it would
be next to impossible to conduct a rotation or
succession of crops. It is interesting to ob-
serve that, as agriculture in a rude state had
60

no fences, so this is also beginning to be the
case in agriculture in its most refined form ;
because it is found much more advantageous,
both for the production of butcher's meat and
manure, to consume the grass and herbage
grown on farm-lands in farm-yards, with the
single exception of that portion which is eaten
by sheep ; and these are now often merely con-
fined to successive portions of grass and other
green crop lands by light netting or hurdles,
scarcely visible at a short distance. (See
FotnixR. By thus getting rid, to a more con-
siderable extent, of fences of every description,
from a tenth to a fifth will be added to the con-
tents of the greater number of corn-farms ; and
a very considerable first cost and annual ex-
pense will be saved in planting hedges or
building walls, and in keeping them in repair
afterwards. (J'rande's Diet, of Scieiwe, ffc.)

FIELDVOLE {Jrvicola agrestis). A name
of the short-tailed field mouse or meadow
mouse; a species which subsists exclusively
on vegetable productions; and being, like the
rest of the rat tribe, extremely prolific, multi-
plies occasionally to such a degree, even in
England, as to become the most injurious of
wild quadrupeds. "After having followed the
labours of the reaper, and taken their share of
the harvest," the fieldvoles, says Mr. Bell, "at-
tack the newly-sown fields, burrowing beneath
the surface, and robbing the husbandman of
his next year's crop, and at length, retreating
to the woods and plantations, commit such
devastations on the young trees as would
scarcely be credible, were not the evidence
too certain to be doubled. In the years 1813
and 1814, these ravages were so great in the
New Forest and the Forest of Dean, as to
create considerable alarm, lest the whole of
the young trees in those extensive woods
should be destroyed by them." A timely and
assiduous attention to restraining the increase
of this pernicious species, by the aid of terriers,
ferrets, and traps, is imperative on those who
have the charge of young plantations ; but
when the numbers of the fieldvole have sur-
passed the usual bounds, then it is recom-
mended to dig holes about a foot in depth, and
the same in diameter, taking care to make
them much wider at the bottom than at the
top, so that the animal once in cannot easily
get out again. In holes of this kind, Mr. Jesse
states that at least thirty thousand fieldvoles
were caught in the course of three or four
months in Dean Forest plantations ; that num-
ber having been counted out and paid for by
the proper officers of the forest. (Brande's Did.
of Sf-ienre.)

FIG (Ficus). The genus to which the com-
mon fig tree belongs is of considerable extent;
and its species are among the most noble ob-
jects belonging to the vegetable kingdom. In
tropical countries the trees which yield caout-
chouc (India rubber) of the finest quality be-
long to this species, particularly F. elastica.
The celebrated ban-yan tree {F. religiosa) of
India is a kind of fig tree. It is remarkable
that the common fig tree (F. carica), although
it produces so agreeable a fruit, is in some
measure poisonous, particularly the milky
juice which exudes from the leaves and the
2 K 2 473

FIGWORT.

FINGER GRASS.

branches when wounded, and which is acrid to
the taste. The fruit of the fig tree is of a dif- ;
ferent nature from the orange, apple, and other I
fleshy seed vessels ; being a hollow receptacle, !
containing a multitude of minute flowers ; the j
ripe fruit of which is the seed, as it is wrongly |
called, that is imbedded in the pulp. The fig
is a nativ^e of Asia and Barbary, and also in-
habits the south of Europe ; according to the
"Hortus Kewensis, it was first planted in this
country in 1548. The varieties in fig coun-
tries are almost as numerous as those of the
grape. Those held most in esteem in England
are the brown chestnut-coloured Ischia, the
black Genoa fig, the small white early fig, the
large white Genoa fig, the black Ischia, brown
and black small Italian figs, the Malta fig, the
Murrey or brown Naples fig, the green Ischia,
the JJadonna, the Brunswick or Hanover fig,
tlie common blue or purple fig, the long brown
Naples fig, the small brown Ischia fig, the yel-
low Ischia fig, and the Gentile fig. According
to Forsyth, the figs proper for a small garden
are the large white Genoa, the early white, the
Murrey fig, the small brown Ischia, and the
black ischia. Figs may be propagated from
seed, cuttings, layers, suckers, roots, and by in-
grafting ; the most generally approved method
is by layers or cuttings, which come into bear-
ing the first or second year. Standard fig trees
require protection during winter, and should
be covered with matting, reed, pease-haulm,
straw, or any other light covering.

The only orchards of standard fig trees in
England are at Tarring and Sompton, near
Worthing : the produce is great, and the figs
of a very superior quality. The fig has been
analyzed by Bley, and found to contain the fol-
lowing substances, 62-5 of sugar, 0-9 fatty mat-
ter, 0-4 extractive with chloride of calcium, 5-2
gum with phosphoric acid, 150*0 woody fibre
and seeds (nchenia). Figs are nutritive and
laxativ^e. The oldest cataplasm on record was
composed of figs. In the illness of Hezekiah,
Isaiah said, " Take a lump of figs ; and they
took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered."
(2 Kings, chap, xx.; Loudon^ s Ency. ofGard.;
Brande's Diet, of Science.) The cultivation of
the fig has been too much neglected in the
United States. In the Middle and more North-
ern States they require protection in winter.
With a good soil and plenty of water in the
summer the yield of this wholesome fruit is
great.

FIGWORT (Scrophularia). There are, in
England, four kinds of indigenous figwort, all
perennial; the species found in the United
States is called S. Marylandica, Maryland S. or
Carpenter's Square : it is perennial, frequent in
fence rows, woodlands, &c. The root bruised
into the form of a poultice, is a popular appli-
cation to boils and other inflammatory gather-
ings. One or two varieties of this plant are
also met with. {Flor. Cestrica.)

FILBERT, or FILBERD {Corylus avellana,
so named from Abella or Avella, a town of
Campania, where the best were cultivated.
Pliny, b. xv. c. 22). In England the best known
varieties of the filbert are the white, the red,
and the frizzled. The white is the kind most
commonly grown. In the neighbourhood of
474

Kent many hundred acres are planted with fil-
berts, for which the county is celebrated, and
whence the London market is principally sup-
plied. When quite ripe, filberts will keep for
several years in a dry room ; and if the air is
excluded, or the nuts placed in an air-light jar,
they will keep good and retain their flavour for
an indefinite period.

In a late number of that excellent Journal,
the Boston Magazine of Horticulture, &cc., there
is a paper by Mr. Downing, of Newburgh, N.
Y., on the cultivation of this nut. From the
great quantities annually imported, there can
be little doubt a ready market would be found
for the product of a filbert garden or orchard,
and the ease and certainty with which they
may be grown, should recommend them to fa-
vour.

Mr. Downing recommends a soil naturally
dry rather than moist, but a dry gravelly loam
or sandy loani is preferable. They will suc-
ceed, however, in any good soil. The kinds
preferred by Mr. Downing for cultivation in
this country, are the Cosford, Frizzled, and .
Northampton prolific. There are other varie-
ties, but these have been well tested, and will
abundantly repay the grower. The cultivation
of such nuts is a great object in some parts of
England, and the average crop is considered
about 800 lbs. per acre, though at times, when
the soil and season is favourable, more than
three times that quantity have been gathered.

There are two species of the filbert found in
the United States. One of these (the Corylus
Jmericana) is very commonly found in the
Middle States, growing wild along the borders
of thickets, fence rows, &c., flowering in March
and April. It grows to the height of 4 to 6
feet, and the nuts, which it bears very abun-
dantly, are pleasantly flavoured, though con-
siderably smaller than the European hazelnuts.

FILLER, or THILLER. A term provincially
applied to the horse which is fastened immedi-
ately to the cart, and which supports the shafts.
It is most commonly written thiller.

FILLY. A young mare, or female of the
horse kind.

FILMY-FERN, TUNBRIDGE (Hymen ophyl-
lum Tunbridgense : from hymen, a membrane,
and phyllon, a leaf; alluding to the leaves).
The genus to which this species belongs ranks
among the most elegant of the ferns ; it is a
native of wet mossy rocks or trunks of trees,
most plentiful in tropical countries. This spe-
cies is the only one of European growth, and
flourishes amongst moss in watery shady
places, in the rocky or mountainous parts of
Great Britain, and grows in most parts of Eu-
rope from Norway to Italy.

FIN. A term applied to the sharp or cut-
ting plate, fixed upon a sock or coulter of a
plough. It is also a provincial name for the
troublesome weed called Rest-harrow.

FINCHED, or FINCHBACKED. A term
signifying streaked with white in cattle.

FINGER GRASS, COCK'S-FOOT {Digitaria
sanguinalis, from digitus, a finger ; the head is
divided so as fancifully to resemble fingers).
PI. 7,/. This must not be confounded with
the Dactylis glomerata, cock's-foot or orchard
grass.

FINGERS AND TOES.

PIRES.

It is an uninteresting native wild grass, tound
in sand}'- cultivated fields, in England, but not
common ; like all other plants it is variable in
its places of growth. Leaves broad, pointed,
striated, wavy at the edges, besprinkled, like
their long swelling sheaths, with little warts,
many of which bear bristly hairs. Flowers in
pairs, dark purplish, erect.

FINGERS AND TOES. The common name
for a disease in turnips. See Anbuiit.

FIORIN GRASS. A name under which a
variety of the longer leaved creeping bent
(Jgrostis vulgaris, or stolonifera, var. latifolia)
was introduced about 27 years ago by Dr.
Richardson, of Clonfeale, in the county of Ty-
rone, Ireland. (PI. 5, J?.) That gentleman la-
boured with great zeal, by his writings and
practice on a large scale, to prove the superi-
ority of this grass over every other for meadow
purposes. One of his modes of propagating
florin was to plant the stoles of the grass,
which are as vivacious as those of couch grass,
on fallow ground, and thus create a meadow;
but his favourite and most expeditious system
was to encourage its spontaneous growth on
alluvial and Hat peaty ground. Unquestiona-
bly Dr. Richardson did exhibit extraordinary
crops of florin on the level surface of denuded
and cut-out bog land of little value, and for
several years mowed enormous crops. Fiorin,
being one of the indigenous grasses of Ireland,
especially on peaty soil, is seen abundantly on
the black shallow bogs which have been
drained in any degree, and particularly on the
margins of pools and ditches. Cows relish it
much if it be not soured by stagnant water, and
3'ield milk abundantly when fed upon it.
However, though it has produced from six to
ten tons per acre when top dressed and pre-
served from the poaching of cattle, the attempt
to keep any land under the occupation of this
grass for meadows, to the exclusion of all
others, has been totally abandoned. Two great
objections to fiorin are, the difficulties of mow-
ing it, as it lies flat and entangled, and of
saving it at the very late season when it is ripe,
for the scythe. Some writers very erroneously
describe the jlgrostis alba as florin ; and add,
"it sometimes passes under the name of black
couch grass." I am surprised that any person
of experience should mistake fiorin for black
couch grass (though the Woburn reports make
a similar remark), to which it scarcely bears
any resemblance, and from which in some re-
spects it is essentially different. Fiorin is a
soft silky-like grass, with a very narrow or
linear leaf, and, although rough on both sides,
yet not creeping, throwing out roots with its
joints under the surface: it is very easily
pulled out, and has not those knotted and viva-
cious roots which characterize black couch.
The varieties may sometimes be mistaken for
one another, but the different species have al-
ways some broad distinguishing marks of dif-
ference. As it is of great importance to the
farmer to be able to distinguish fiorin from the
other species of bent grass, which are unpro-
fitable and pernicious weeds, I will here point
out a few distinguishing characteristics. In
fiorin the body of the seed is covered with the
husks of the blossom, which do not open : it is

I cylindrical, but tapers to a point at each end.
The seed of the clayey couch grass (j^. alba)
. is very slender and smooth, one half the size
; only of the fiorin, and more slender than the
Jl. vulgaris. The seed of the j1. canina is fur-
nished with a jointed awn of a brown colour,
which readily distinguishes it from the other
species. There is an awnless variety of the
A. canina which is distinguished by being
shorter and more plump than the fiorin of the
clay couch bent. The seed Qi X\\e Jl. fasimlaris
is not one-third of the size of that of the fiorin,
more rounded at the bottom, and of a light
straw colour. The A. palustris has seed about
one-fifth shorter than that of the fiorin, of a
lighter brown colour, and more plump and
rounded. The variety of fiorin called arestata
has an awn which distinguishes it at once from
the seed of the more valuable variety. The
distinguishing characters of the diiferent spe-
cies of agrostis are well set forth in the late
Mr. G. Sinclair's valuable work on grasses ; but
it would rather tend to perplex than inform
were I to attempt any further notice, which
must necessarily be a mere abridgment. See
Agrostis. (Hort. Gram. IVob.)

FIRE-BLAST. A term of very doubtful
meaning, like the word blight, but generally
implying an accident to which hops are very
liabl^: it usually occurs in the month of July,
and Sometimes scorches up whole plantations
from c^e end of the ground to the other, when
a hot gieam of sunshine has come immediately
after a shower of rain ; while at others it only
afl^ects them partially, or in a particular por-
tion of the plant. When the lower leaves
of hops are shrivelled up and unhealthy, they
are said to be fire-blasted. This is stated to
arise from the want of sufficient nourishment
in the root, the whole supply of the sap juice
being required to complete the growth of the
hops on the top of the pole, but little can re-
turn to the lower leaves : this is particularly
observable when the hops are ripening, oq
those hills which have too long a pole put to
Ihem. {Bii\ Ilusb. vol. ii. p. 354; The Hop
Farmer, p. 89.)

In the United States, the term flre-blast is
generally used to designate that- destruction so
often witnessed in the branches of the apple,
and especially the pear tree. For the discovery
of the cause and remedy for this blast or
blight, agricultural and horticultural societies
have offered the highest premiums, which as
yet have never been awarded.

FIRES. Sax. pyn. In England, the legisla-
ture has wisely afforded very considerable fa-
cilities to the insurance of farming stock.
"The Farmer's Insurance Institution" insures
it at Is. 9ct. per cent., without the average clause;
thus easily repaired are the ravages of the in-
cendiary, of accidental flres, and lightning.

Causes of Fire. Mr. J. Murray has recently
published a letter in a Liverpool paper on the
frequency, causes, and prevention of fire, which
contains many facts well worthy of attentive con-
sideration. Among other observations, he says :
"There is far too little attention paid to the
locomotive engine on our railroads. The
ignited coals that fall below are often blown to
considerable distances, carried into the adjoin-

475

FIRES.

FIR TREE.

ing fields, and raay, in contact with farming ]
stock, prove a serious evil; and I have wit-
nessed brushwood and tufts of grass consumed
by this means. A green taper, coloured as it
is by means of oxide of copper, when blown
out, acts on an aphlogistic principle, and may
continue to the end of the coil in an ignited
though flameless state, and, in contact with
^combustible materials, may prove seriously
destructive. It has set a mahogany table on
fire — providentially discovered in time. Damp
rags, en masse, may spontaneously take fire,
and have consumed the premises. Linseed
and other oils, but especially that of linseed,
have been the fruitful sources of conflagration
in cotton factories and the warehouses of the
merchants. Nets dipped in oil, and cast over
the rafters in an outer shed, set them on fire;
and a bale of cotton wool burst into a flame
from linseed oil being poured upon it. Even
animal matters, such as woollen, under such
circumstances, come within the precincts of
danger, I find that strong red fuming nitrous
acid will set fire to straw ; and an accident of
this kind once occurred to myself. The vapour
t)f sulphuric ether, instead of being volatile,
and ascending, as is generally supposed, falls
to the ground like water ; and accidents in the
laboratory and shop of the druggist, from igno-
rance of this fact, are^y no means unfrequent.
I am personally acquainted with three distinct
cases, wherein the premises were set on fire
originating in this source. Specks or bull's
eyes in window glass may, on the principle of
burning lens, ignite inflammable substances
brought within the limits of their focus ; hence
the curtains used in some factories may be
easily ignited: thus, too, a water-bottle left in
a window may in sunshine be the means of
setting premises on fire, especially in a house
shut up during the absence of the family ; and
I have seen a silk curtain consumed to tinder
by the concentrated rays of the sun, in passing
through the show-bottle in the druggist's win-
dow. Spirits of turpentine will inflame if
poured out in the hot sunbeam ; and I am in-
formed by the distillers of tar and turpentine
that the head of the still cannot be safely re-
moved for 30 hours after the fire has been ex-
tinguished, as an explosion might be otherwise
anticipated. Lucifers, or Congreve matches,
are one of the fruitful sources of fires. Those
that are called Dutch, containing phosphorus,
and having a very foetid phosphoric smell, are
exceedingly dangerous : they may ignite spon-
taneously at the temperature of summer heat ;
and it may now suffice to say that a recent
conflagration has been traced to this cause.
The cigar and the pipe are pre-eminent sources
of modern conflagration; and I have no doubt
that of the seat of the Marquis of Londonderry,
and the late one of York Minster, are entirely
attributable to the pipe or cigar used by the
workmen engaged in repairs. It is not gene-
rally known that tobacco contains nitre, and
that, like "touch-wood," it may continue ignited
for hours. Fires occurring from this cause
are, I apprehend, too notorious to need specific
detail. It is clear that the end of a cigar drop-
ped among wood shavings might be fanned
into a flame by a current of air; and tossed
476

from the top of the coach into an adjoining field,
and carried by the breeze into a farmer's stack-
yard, hay-ricks and wheat stacks may even
burst into a flame. I believe many a cigar
smoker is an unintentional incendiary."

Fires in farm yards, also, may originate from,
quick lime left in a cart under a shed, and
moisture getting to it. Heat sufficient to cause
combustion is developed. The spontaneous
combustion of haystacks from the dampness
of the hay, is a danger to which the negligent
farmer is often exposed. In our present state
of chemical knowledge it is idle to attempt to
follow this phenomenon through its course, or
explain the reasons for the heat produced in
fermentation. As water must be present in
fermentation, it is probable that it is decom-
posed, and it is commonly said that the flame
produced is the result of intense chemical
action ; but, as Dr. Thomson remarks (System
of Chem. vol. iv. p. 364), "All the phenomena
of fermentation lay for many years concealed
in complete darkness, and no chemist was
bold enough to hazard an attempt even to ex-
plain them. They were employed, however,
and without hesitation too, in the explanation
of other phenomena; as if giving to one pro-
cess the name of another of which we are
equally ignorant, could, in reality, add any
thing to our knowledge."

FIRE-WEED (Hieracium-leaved Senedo). An
American plant with an annual root, growing
in moist grounds, and remarkable for its preva-
lence in recent clearings, especially in and
around spots where brushwood has been
burned, from whence it derives its popular
name. The stem grows 2, 4 or 5 feet high,
stout, succulent and tender when young, more
or less hairy, sometimes nearly smooth. Flowers
whitish. (Flor. Cestrica.) See Alkali.

FIRING. In farriery, an operation perform-
ed on difl^erent parts of the horse, but which is
growing into disuse. It is principally resorted
to in bad cases of sprains. In firing about the
sinews and nervous parts, great care should
be taken not to go too deep, for if the fire once
touches the sinew the horse will go lame for
life. Firing is sometimes resorted to in cattle,
in order to remove bony tumours about the
region of the eye, which incommode or obstruct
the vision. In general, this operation is per-
formed in a manner calculated to excite great
pain to the horse. When the iron is white hot,
and is rapidly applied, the life of the part is
instantly extinguished, and all sensation being
destroyed, no pain, except when the iron is ap-
proaching the part, is experienced; but much
pain follows the application of an imperfectly
heated iron.

FIRKIN. A measure of capacity in Eng-
land, being the fourth part of a barrel, or con-
taining 9 ale gallons, or 7^ imperial gallons •
that is, 2538 cubic inches.

FIR, SCOTCH. See Fixes.

FIR TREE (L&t Mies; Sax. pnnh; Welsh,
fyrr; fir-wood). "The fir, the pine, and the
larch," says Mr. Baxter, " constitute a perfectly
natural genus or family, and, next to the oak,
are the most valuable of our timber trees ; but,
independently of their value in this respect,
their beautiful foliage and magnificent appear

FIR TREE.

FIR TREE.

ance have at all times rendered them objects
of admiration and attention. They constitute
the greater part of the natural order Coniferee.
The term fir is often indiscriminately applied
both to the fir and the pine, or Jlhies and Pinus,
and hence we frequently hear the Scotch pine
improperly called the Scotch fir, by those who
are unacquainted with botanical nomenclature.
The most obvious and ready character of dis-
tinction between the different genera jibies and
Pinus is to be found in the natural arrangement
of the leaves. The firs (jlbies), have the leaves
solitary, or issuing from one scale or sheath on
the bark of the branches, over which they are
scattered." The catkins of male flowers are
also solitary, not racemose; the scales of the
cone are imbricated, and thin at the apex, and
are all turned to one side. They are further
distinguished from the pine by their more py-
ramidal form. The spruces have also the
leaves growing singly round the branches, and
all spreading equally.

The larches have the leaves growing in clus-
ters, which are deciduous.

The cedars and pines have from two to five
leaves issuing from one sheath at their base,
growing also in little bundles or tufts, but they
are evergreen. Of these four natural tribes,
into which the firs resolve themselves, the
silver fir may be taken as the representative of
the first, the Norway s]>ruce of the second, the
Larch of the third, and the Cedar of Lebanon of
the fourth. As all the others are noticed under
their separate heads, we have only to confine
our attention in this place to the firs. One pro-
perty is common to all the species of this
genus, that of affording resinous matter, either
from the wood, bark, or cones.

The silver fir (Jl.picea, or pectinata) is grown
in England for ornament generally. The
name of silver fir is derived from the colour of
its leaves on the under side, which are shorter,
broader, and set much thicker on the spray
than those of other firs and pines, and have a
beautiful silvery appearance when the under
side is viewed, or when the wind turns the
branches from the eye ; whilst the upper sur-
face is of the brightest and handsomest green
of all the species of fir. It is a fine majestic
tree, and the most beautiful, but at the same
time the most delicate, of the fir tribe usually
cultivated in Britain. This tree is very rapid
in its growth, and soon attains to a great size ;
but the timber is not so valuable as that of the
pine and the spruce fir. It yields, however,
Burgiindy pitch (whence its name of picea)
and Strasburgh turpentine; and it is much
used on the Continent both for carpentry and
ship-building. The silver fir likes a deep soft
soil, and a sheltered situation. From its ex-
treme tendency to lose its leader it does not
appear to be well suited for exposed grounds.
Some of the finest trees in Englnnd are in the
vale of Mitcham, between Dorking and Guild-
ford, where the soil is nothing more than a deep
soft sand lying on chalk. The well-known
disease of the larch, commonly called Ameri-
can blight (see this head), or plant lice, proves
latal to the silver fir. Col. Miller says he has
cured the disease with a wash of lime-water;
but recommends, in advanced stages of the

disease, free and early pruning. This doctrine
may startle many wood growers ; but the Colo-
nel, in proof of the soundness of his opinion,
adds, that he has adopted it successfully for
many years. No large branch should, how-
ever, be removed when the tree is near matu-
rity. The Swedes and Norwegians prune their
trees freely, and hence the reason why they
produce such a large quantity of sound tim-
ber, and are so free from knots. A weak solu-
tion of spirits of turpentine and tobacco liquor
appears to be a useful wash for the disease.

2. The balm of Gilead fir (^. balsaniea).
This is also a delicate ornamental tree, but it
rarely attains to any considerable size. This
species and the silver fir are often confounded,
but may be distinguished thus: "the leaves of
the silver fir are arranged nearly on opposite
sides of the branch, comb-like. The under
sides of the leaves have a white line running
lengthwise on each side of the mid-rib, which
gives them a silvery hue. The leaves of the
balm of Gilead fir are shorter, blunter, and
stand nearly upright in double rows, on the
upper side of the branches ; while in the silver
fir they are flattened and irregularly single-
rowed." The balm of Gilead fir is so called
because the clear transparent turpentine which
is obtained from the wounds of this tree is
very similar to the true ^Im of Gilead of the
shops, which is the production of the Balsama-
dendron Gileadense. It commonly passes under
the name of Canadian balsam. The wood of
this tree is of a pale yellow colour, and but
slightly resinous ; its principal use is to split
up into staves for fish barrels, for which the
wood of some of the other species is much
preferable.

3. The Norway or spruce fir (J. excelsa^
when standing singly, with its regular pyra-
midal figure, and its long drooping branches
reaching to the ground, forms a beautiful ob-
ject ; but it does not thrive well generally in
exposed situations. It grows best in moist
and springy places, and likes a deep soil. The
spruce is readily known by its leaves of one
uniform dull green colour, spread equally
round the branches, and by its long pendant
cones. All these firs may be raised from seed,
which can be separated from the cones by a
moderate heat before a fire, care being taken
not to destroy the vegetative power. Or tho
separation may be facilitated by steeping the
cones a few hours in warm water. The seed
ripens in December, and the cones should be
preserved till April, which is the proper period
for sowing. The seeds must be only covered
about half an inch deep. The soil be tole-
rably rich. The seedlings must be transplanted
the second year; for if left longer it will be
completely spoiled. For the Scotch pine or
fir I must refer the reader to the head Pines
(Pinus) ; and other information on the subject
of firs will also be found under the head Larch.
It may, however, be well to enumerate the
principal other firs: anything like a descrip-
tion in this place would be needless.

1. Firs. The Siberian silver fir (J. Siberica).
The great Californian fir {A. grandis). The
large-bracted fir (A. nobilis). The double bal-
sam fir (A. Frazeri). Webb's fir (A. Webbiana).

477

FIR TREE.

FIR TREE.

The hemlock spruce fir {A. Canadensis). The
deciduous silver fir (J. Brunoniana). The sa-
cred Mexican fir (jl. religiosa). The hairy fir
(j1. hirtdla). The Indian silver fir {A. Smithi-
ana),
0 2. Spruces. The oriental fir {A. orientalis).
The white spruce fir (A, alba). The black or
red, spruce fir (A. nigra). The Douglas fir
^A. Douglassii). The Men^'es fir (A. Memiesii).

3. Lahches. The common larch fir (»^. Zona:).
The red larch fir (A.microcarpa). The black
larch fir (A. pendula).

4. Cedars. The cedar of Lebanon fir (A.
cedrus). The sacred Indian fir (A. deodara).
See Cedar of Lebanox.

Michaux enumerates 14 species of pines
and spruces including firs, as found in difier-
ent portions of the United States and Canada.
His methodical arrangement of these is as
follows : —

Two-leaved Pines with smooth Cones.
Red (Norway) pine, or Pinus rubra. Com-
mon in Canada and the Northern Sections of
the United States, but not seen in Pennsylvania
south of Wilkesbarre. It is called in the state
of Maine Scrub'pine. This species is found
farther northward than any other pine, being
seen in the environs of Hudson's Bay. Yellotv
pine (Pinus niitis). This species abounds in
the Middle States. In the south it is called
Spruce pine, and Short-leaved pine.

Two-leaved Pines with thorny Cones.
Jerhey pine (Pinus Inops). This species is
not confined to the southern portion of New
Jersey, but is seen in Maryland, Virginia, and
others of the Southern and Western States.
Table mountain pine (P.pungens). Found only
on the Table mountain in North Carolina.

Three-leaved Pines with smooth Cones or very small
Thorns.
Long-leaved pine (Pinus australis). This tree
so extremely valuable for its timber, tar, and
other resinous products, is known in the coun-
tries where it grows, and the places to which
it is exported, by different names. In the
Southern States, where it abounds, it is called
Yellow pine, Pitch pine, and Brown pine. In Eng-
land and the West Indies, Georgia pitch pine.
Pitch pine (P. rigida), is found throughout the
United States except the region west of the
AUeghanies. It abounds on those mountains
as they traverse Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Loblolly Pine (P. Tceda). This is common in
lower Virginia and more Southern States.

Five-leaved Pines.

White pine (P. strobus). One of the most in-
teresting of American pines. It is diffused
over a great extent of country in the Northern
and Eastern States, being the loftiest and most
majestic production of the American forest.
Its wood is most valuable for building and
other purposes.

Spruces.

These have very short leaves disposed singly
round the branches. The American species
are, black or double spruce (Abies nigra), common
in the Northern States and British provinces;
also in the northeastern parts of Pennsylvania,
478

and Black Mountain of South Carolina, and
sometimes in the White Cedar Swamps in
New Jersey near Philadelphia and New York.
In the northern sea-ports the spars of ships
are mostly of black spruce. It is largely ex-
ported to Europe. White, or single spruce (J.
alba). Common in the same northern regions
of the Stales. Pond pine (P. serotina), com-
mon to the maritime parts of the Southern
States.

Spruces vriih lateral Leaves.

Hemlock spruce (Abies Canadensis), natural to
the coldest regions of the United Stales and
British Provinces. It is always larger and
taller than the black spruce. American silver
fir (Abies balsamifera), or Balm of Gilead;
common in the slate of Maine and the British
Provinces.

FISH (Lat. Pisces; Germ. Fische ; Du. Vis-
cher ; Dan. and Swed. Fisk). A term used in
natural history to denote every variety of ani-
mal inhabiting seas, lakes, rivers, ponds, &c.
that cannot exist for any considerable time out
of the water. The most natural and popular
division of this subject is into fresh and sali-
water fish.

According to Linnaeus, there are about 400
species of fish with which naturalists are ac-
quainted, but those yet unknown are supposed
to be still numerous, and many species will
probably remain forever undiscovered. The
anatomy and physiology of fish offer a wide
field of study for the inquiring mind. Their
extraordinary fecundity is truly astonishing.
Fish in general are less nourishing than other
animal food, but are not difficult of digestion,
when in a fresh state, to a healthy stomach.
To a dyspeptic stomach, however, fish is apt to
prove irritating. Except in London and a few
sea-port towns, the consumption of fish in
England is not great. See Bheedixg Poxds.

FISH, AS A Manure. The fish which are
usually employed as manures in England are
sprats, pilchards, herrings, sticklebacks, and
whale blubber. These are very rich fertili-
zers ; the fleshy or muscular portions abound-
ing in oil. The scales are composed of coagu-
lated albumen and phosphate of lime ; their
bones are full of oil, and the solid portion is
composed of phosphate of lime and carbonate
of lime, in different proportions.

Sprats. — In the English counties of Essex,
Kent, and Suffolk, the use of this manure is
very general, although the practice is not of
very long standing. The quantity applied per
acre varies from 25 to 45 bushels, the poor
gravelly soils requiring more than the loamy
lands. They are spread by hand, from seed
baskets, and on winter fallows intended for
oats, on which, especially if the summer is
not too dry, it produces most luxuriant crops,
of a peculiar dark-green colour, yielding 10 or
11 quarters per acre, and that on land of a
very second-rate description. The effect of the
application, however, remains only for one .
crop. They produce an equally good result if/
mixed with earth, and suffered to remain and-
dissolve, for some time, in the heap, before
they are carted on the land. In this way they
answer exceedingly well for turnips. Thef

FISH.

FISH.

are usually obtainable at the rate of from 6rf.
to 6ff. per bushel.

The extent to which this manure is used
may be judged by that of the Stow-boat fishery,
which is solely devoted to catching these fish.
Upon this fishery the committee of the House
of Commons of the session of 1833 reported:
— "This fishery, which prevails principally
upon the Kentish, Norfolk, and Essex coasts,
have been proved to yourcommittee to occasion
very extensive injury to the span and brood
of fish. The nets used in it are of a very fine
description, so small as not to let a pen pass
through, and they enclose not only sprats, but
the span and young brood of all other kinds
of fish ; and as these nets are frequently drawn
along the ground, and in shallow waters, during
the breeding season, and in the winter months
before the young fish are gone into deep wa-
ters, an immense destruction of the spawn and
breed of fish is the inevitable consequence;
whilst, from the almost unlimited demand for
this species of manure for land, and there be-
ing a ready sale for all that can be procured,
this branch of fishing has greatly increased;
and there are at present from 400 to 500 boats
engaged in Slow-boating on the Kentish coast
only, which remain upon the fishing grounds
frequently for a week together, not for the
purpose of catching sprats or any other fish to
be sold as food in the market, but until they
have obtained full cargoes of dead fish for the
purpose of manuring the land."

The Farmers of Essex and Sufl'olk purchase
these fish by thousands of bushels at a time,
and carry them in wagons 10 or 15 miles into
the inland districts.

Pilcharih are extensively employed in Corn-
wall and Devonshire, both in the fresh and in
the salted slate. The pilchard is a small fish
not l|irger than a herring; it visits part of the
coastof Cornwall and Devon in large shoals,
during the months of August and September,
and again in November or December. The
refuse fish, which are those principally used
by the cultivator, are usually mixed with earth,
sea-sand, sea-weed, or some other substance, to
prevent them from causing too rank a growth.
The eflecis of these pilchards, according to
Sir H. Davy, are apparent for several years.
The pilchard is a very oily fish, and may be
had in almost inexhaustible quantities. Be-
tween 8000 and 9000 persons, at sea and on
shore, are employed in this fishery, and about
30,000 hogsheads are annually exported eitlier
to the West Indies or the Mediterranean.

The herring. — The employment of this value-
able fish for the purpose of manuring the
ground is limited to those districts near the
sea to which the shoals of herrings are regu-
larly visiters; and even there, their use is
confined to those seasons in which there is an
annual glut, as occasionally happens on the
coasts of Scotland and the eastern side of
England. They are a very oily fish, and pro-
duce the same rank luxuriance of growth as
sprats or pilchards. Arthur Young has given
us an account of an experiment, in which some
wheat, manured with these fish, grew so luxu- !
rianily, that it was entirely laid before the I
period of harvest- Very numerous or accurate I

I comparative experiments with this fish can
j hardly be expected, for its use must necessarily
' be confined to peculiar districts ; and when
obtained, it is generally ploughed in with con-
I siderable expedition, or dug into earth heaps,
i which is a mode found to answer exlremeh'
I well. And it has been found, in the case of
: spoiled red herrings, that their application is
extremely advantageous to the hop plantations.
I (Essay on Salt, p. 101.)

Stirkhbacks. — The use of the stickleback is
principally confined to the neighbourhood of
the Fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridge, in
which it breeds with great rapidity, and in
shallow waters they are caught at certain sea-
sons entirely as an article for manure. They
are used in much the same proportions, either
by themselves or mixed with earth, &c., as
sprats, and are not more durable in their good
efiects.

The Fat or Blubber of the Whale.— WhTile
blubber was employed by the late Lord So-
merville, at his farm at Fairmile, in Surrey, as
a manure, and produced the richest crops. It
was mixed with the sandy earth, and sufl!ered
to dissolve in the heap. It cost at the wharf in
London 20 shillings, and, with the expenses of
carriage, about 2/. per ton. It answered equally
well upon arable and pasture lands, producing
most luxuriant crops ; and its good effects were
visible for two or three years. Its general high
price, however, rarely admits of its employ-
ment by the farmer

Whale blubber is composed principally of
train oil and other animal matters ; but the oil
is by far the largest portion of the blubber;
and to the presence of this fish oil, which does
not appear to differ materially in composition
from whatever fish it is obtained, must be at-
tributed the chief fertilizing value of all fish.
Train oil has been anak|ged by Dr. Thomson.
He found in 100 pa.nir^hemistnj, vol. iv. p.
433),—

Carbon
Hydrogen
Oxygen •

88-87
16 10
1503

100-

tai

spermaceti oil, according to Dr. Ure, con-
dlMaoo parts,—

^^ Parffc

Carbon - - - -'' - - - 78-
Hydrojfen - - - -.- - -118
Oxygen -.--_.. io-3

100.

Fish oils, therefore, are composed of exactly
the same materials that constitute almost all
vegetable substances, diflTering only in the pro-
portions; for sugar, starch, gluten, gum, &c.
&c., are all composed of these three substances
— carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen ; blubbei^.
therefore, may be regarded as the most con-
densed manure that it is possible to apply to a
soil : it contains little, if any, water, and every
portion of it is food for plants. The same re-
mark will apply to the dregs of train oil, &c.,
which are sometimes applied, mixed with
earth, to the same purpose ; but it is seldom
that these substances can be procured, in any
quantity, at a sufficiently reasonable rate.

479

FISH.

It is evident, from the experience of all who
have tried blubber, that it is best used when
previously mixed with from 10 to 20 times its
weight of earth, and turned over once or twice
during three or four months. In its uncombined
tate it is evidently too powerful. When mixed
ith mould, it speedily undergoes a strong fer-
mentation, and the mass becomes of the most
friable and fertilizing description. 'J'rain oil
has also been employed with the most decided
success ; it has been used united with screened
earth, and produced the most luxuriant of
crops. In an experiment made by Mr. Mason,
of Chilton, which is described by Lord Spen-
cer, in a communication furnished to the Don-
caster Agricultural Society, 40 gallons of un-
refined train oil, which cost 8^rf. per gallon,
were mixed with 120 bushels of screened earth
about a month before it was applied to one acre
of a tenacious soil, sown with turnips ; and on
an adjoining acre of similar land were applied
40 bushels of bones, broken small, and mixed
with 80 bushels of burnt earth ; the crop pro-
duced was as follows : —

Produce of turnips per acre,
tons. cwt ^t.

Oil, 40 paUons
Screened earth, 120bu8hel3
Bnnes, 40 bushels
Burnt earth, 80 bushels

: 1

21 18 6

And in The Mark Lane Express of February 8,
1841, Mr. W. Sharp, of Scarthing Moor, in Not-
tinghamshire, thus describes his experiments
with fish oil, mixed with bone dust: — "I will
give you my experiment with oil. The soil is
a poor gravel, — the farm in the parish of Ed-
winstow, and enclosed off the old Forest, near
to Thorseby Park.

"My attention was drawn to the use of oil in
consequence of the serious expense (31. to 4Z.
per acre) I was obliged to go to in bones and
rape dust, for I never uge yard manure for tur-
nips, as the soil is so poor, I cannot get wheat
without manure ; I therefore save it all for my
wheat. My first trial was in 1839, on 2 acres,
in a 9-acre field, and nearly in the middle of it.
I give you the cost of one acre, —

5 strikes nf half inch bones, the dtist in (2s. 7i(f.

per strike), per acre - - - - -0 13
3 gallons of train-oil, at 2a. 6d. per gallon - 0 7
10 strikes of coal ashes - - - - - 0 0

rr

Remainder of the field as below, —

£ *. d.
16 strikes of bones, as above, at 2«. lid. per

strike 220

5 hundred of rape-dust, at 6«. 9d. per hundred .1 13 9

'3 15 0

- 1 0 7t

With oil -

Balance in favour of oil

2 15 U

"The oil turnips were as good as the re-
riiainder of the field ; and all as fine as I could
wish, for the land. The barley as good, — and
the clover is now excellent. My next trial in
1840, on 9 acres, —

11 strikes of half inch bones, dust in, at 2«. 6d.
per strike, per acre - - - - -
3 gallons of train-oil, at 2s. 6d. per gallon

£ 8. d.

7 6
7 6

1 15 0

480

FISH.

" 1 1 acres, dressed as below, is a trial against
oil,—

16 strikes of bones, at 2s. M. per strike, per

acre I 17 6

5 hundred of rape-dust, at 6«. 9d. per hundred 1 13 9

16 strikes of pigeon manure, at la, 6<Z. per strike 1 4 0

4 15 3
With oil - - - - 1 15 0

Balance in favour of oil - 3 0 3

"I think the 9 acres with oil rather the best
field, and the turnips are decidedly better. The
rape-dust I sow broadcast on the surface; it is
then drawn in its proper place by ridging; 1
then drill my bones on the ridges 22 inches
a.part, — Ihe turnips were white tops. I do not
like the ashes mixed with the oil; it makes it
dirty and bad to drill; the 11 strikes of bones
carefully mixed will absorb the oil, so as to
drill excellent. I let them lie about two days
after mixing. I know your readers will say,
how is barley grown after so light a dressing?
I answer — with my feeding sheep I use oil-
cake, and Willi my store sheep malt-coombs,
and the straw in the yard is all consumed —
with oil-cake I take my seeds up for wheat.

"Some farmers may possibly doubt the cor-
rectness of my assertion, that all the principal
vegetable substances are composed of precise-
ly the same ingredients as oil and other purely
animal matters ; and as it is of the first im-
portance that the cultivator should clearly un-
derstand the reason why the decomposition of
animal matters furnishes such admirable" food
for vegetation, I must beg of him to compare
the analysis of the oils which I have already
stated, with that of the following common vege-
table substances, as ascertained by the most
careful analysis. I will merely give that of
three substances: — sugar, 100 parts of -which
are composed, according to M. Berzelius, of —

Parts.
Oxvjren - - - - - - - 51 47

Carbon - - - , - - - 4148
Hydrogen ._..-_ 705

10000
(jJnn. o/PAiZ. vol. V. p. 262.) -:

In 100 parts of starch from wheat flour are
found —

Parts.
Oxvpen --....- 49-68

Carbon ------. 4335

Hydrogen ---.._ 6-77

100 00
(ff«y Lttasae, Reek. vli. p. 291.)

■^he wood of oak is composed of—

Parts.

0.xyjfpn - - - - - - - 41-78

Carbon ---._-. 5253
Hydrogen - - - - - -5 69

100-00
(Ibid. vol. ii. p. 294.)

"All oily and other animal substances, there-
fore, as they decompose in the soil, are slowly
converted into those gaseous substances which
are the food or breath of vegetable life, such as
carbonic acid gas (fixed air) or carburetted
hydrogen (the gas employed for illumination),
and which are absorbed either by the roots or
the leaves of the plant as they are formed.
There is little or no waste in these, for when
the decomposition of the oils and fibrous mat-

FISH.

FIXTURES.

ters offish is finished, there is very little or no
earthy or solid matter remaining useless in the
soil. In this, again, the experience of the far-
mer substantiates the chemist's doctrines, for
he uniformly tells us, in answer to our in-
quiries, that the fish only last for one crop."

In the east of England, the farmers of those
soils conveniently situated for water carriage,
employ to avery considerable extent, as manure,
several kinds offish besides sprats, such as five-
fingers, cockles, muscles, &c., and this use is
only limited by the supply, or what is com-
monly a more iraportan,t impediment, the diffi-
culty of transporting them any distance while
sufficiently fresh. When once the fish begin
to putrefy, their fertilizing properties rapidly
diminish ; the oil from the fermenting sprats I
have seen dripping from the wagons as they
travelled along : thus they speedily lose in
weight, and become intolerably obnoxious to
the district through which they pass ; several
convictions have, indeed, taken place among
my neighbours in Essex, for carrying putrefy-
ing fish through towns and populous villages.

This is hardly a matter of astonishment,
since the farmer, who has to convey a freight
of several hundred bushel of sprats, perhaps
ten or twelve miles, has often much too little
time allowed him for that purpose. The fish,
perhaps, arrive stale. It is a load detained by
contrary winds, or prevented by circumstances
from reaching another destination? the farmer
has to be informed of their arrival ; he cannot
despatch his teams as speedily as the nature
of the case requires, the fish become offensive,
and his ardour for the improvement of his land
is checked by a magistrate's summons and a
conviction for a nuisance. These are the rea-
sons which retard the use of these kinds of fish
as a manure, but cannot entirely prevent their
being employed. Their use is still, in spite
of all impediments, annually increasing, espe-
cially in the neighbourhood of those places to
which the fishing smacks find a ready access.

By the general formation of railroads, the
culivator, even of the inland soils of England,
will have all these valuable sources of im-
provement offered for his service — fertilizers
of even national interest, since they are drawn
from an inexhaustible source, aflx)rd employ-
ment to a branch of industry invaluable in a
maritime point of view, as a nursery for sea-
men, and have, moreover, this great and para-
mount advantage, that they add to the perma-
nent riches of the laud, and are not, as is the
case with other fertilizers, drawn from one dis-
trict of the state to enrich another. There need
be no fear of the supply not keeping pace with
the demand, for the ocean is inexhaustibly
tenanted with fish. As fresh agricultural mar-
kets arise and are furnished by the railways,
fresh sources of supply will be discovered,
other coasts explored, and increased fisheries
established. (Johnson on Fertilizers, p. 113.)

On Long Island and those parts of the New
England States bordering upon the sound, or
the sea, fish are very extensively and profitably
used as manure. In the Chesapeake and tribu-
- taries, where herring fisheries abound, these
fish are also often appropriated to the same
purpose.

61

FISTULA (Lat.). A long sinous ulcer, often
communicating with a larger cavity, and hav-
ing a small external opening.

All animals are liable to fistulas, but the
horse more particularly so ; they attack the
withers and the poll. They are produced by
blows, by bruises from the saddle, and what-
ever causes inflammation ; also by the pre-
sence of extraneous substances.

In curing this disease, it is requisite, in the
first instance, to ascertain the direction the fi,s-
tula pursues, and whether it materially inter-
feres with any of the larger blood-vessels, so
as to render a full incision into the parts a
matter of too much hazard to be attempted.
When secure from any danger of this nature,
the most effectual practice is, to lay the fistula,
or fistulas, when more than one, so thoroughly
open as to have a complete view of their inter-
nal surfaces. It is not, however, necessary ia
the simple sinus, where the matter is in a
healthy state, and requires only a sufficient
passage ; but in cases where the discharge, by
having been long detained, indurates and cor-
rodes the contiguous parts ; as the means fully
adequate to remove the former avail little in
the radical cure of the latter, a more severe
practice of course becomes necessary.

When the fistular cavities have been fully
laid open by the knife, they should be dressed
with powerful caustic compositions, until the
unsound parts slough away, and the wound
presents a healthy appearance. Cleanliness,
with more mild applications, should now be
had recourse to, taking care that the wound be
not closed before the cavities are properly and
uniformly healed.

FIVE-FINGER. See CiwauK-roiL.

FIXTURES. In Law, a term generally ap-
plied to all articles of a personal nature affixed
to land. This annexation must be by the arti-
cle being let into, or united with the land, or
with some substance previously connected
therewith. Thus a barn built on a frame not
let into the earth, is not a fixture; a brewer's
stills set in brickwork resting on a foundation,
are fixtures, and the application of the same
principle gives in every case the true rule to
judge whether a thing be a fixture or not. What-
ever is thus fixed becomes by law parcel of the
freehold or realty. It is, therefore, on general
principles, not removable ; but there are exr
ceptions to this rule established by custom.
( Brande^s Diet, of Science.)

The English common law with regard to
fixtures or any thing affixed to the freehold, is
by no means so clear and defined as is desira-
ble ; and what is granted in favour of trade, to
the removal of fixtures erected for the purpose
of manufacture, does not extend to the erec-
tions made by tenants for agricultural purposes.
The agreement made between the farmer and
his landlord should therefore always contain a ^
covenant by whichihis power should be clearly
defined. The celebrated judgment of Lord
EUenborough in Eltvcs v. Mawe, 3 East, 38, con-
tains such an epitome of the law of fixtures,
that I shall insert at length the opening portion
of it:—

"This was an action upon the case in the
nature of waste by a landlord, the reversioner
2S 4S1

FLAG.

FLANDERS.

in fee against his late tenant, who had held un-
der a term for twenty-one years a farm, con-
sisting of a messuage and lands, outhouses
and barns, &c., and who at the case reserved,
slated that during the term, and about fifteen
years before its expiration, he erected at his
own expense a bensthouse, carpenter's shop, a
fuel house, a cart-house, a pump-house, and a
fold-yard. The buildings were of brick and
mortar, and tiled, and the foundations of them
were about afoot and a half deep in the ground.
The carpenter's shop was closed in, and the
other buildings were open to the front, and
supported by brick pillars. The fold-yard wall
was of brick and mortar, and its foundation was in
the ground. The tenant previous to the expira-
tion of his lease, pulled down the erections,
dug up the foundations, and carried away the
materials, leaving the premises in the same state as
when he entered upon them. The case further
stated these erections were necessary and conve-
nient for the operation of the farm ; and the ques-
tion for the opinion of the court was whether
the tenant had a right to take away those erec-
tions? Upon a full consideration, we are all
of opinion that he had not a right to take away
those erections."

Without any special agreement, a tenant
cannot remove a border of box planted by
himself; neither can ordinary tenants remove
fruit trees, though planted by themselves, but
nurserymen may. If the freehold is sold with-
out any stipulation about the fixtures, they pass
with the land. Neither can the fixtures be
taken in execution by the sheriff. Ranges and
ovens are fixtures. But a pump erected by a
tenant, and so fixed as to be removable without
injury to the freehold, may be taken away by
him at the expiration of his term, as being an
article of domestic use or convenience. A
conservatory on a brick foundation, affixed to
and communicating with rooms in a dwelling-
house by windows and doors cannot be re-
moved by the tenant, even if he erected them.

FLAG, THE WATER; or FLEUR-DE-LIS.
See Irts.

FLAG, THE SWEET. See Aromatic Reed
{Calamus aromaticus).

FLAG. A term sometimes applied to the
turf, or surface of the ground, which is pared
off for burning. It also signifies a large flat
paving stone, and the furrow-slice of ley lands,
when under the plough. See Paring and

BURNINO.

FLAIL (Lat. flagellum). A wooden imple-
ment for thrashing corn by hand. It anciently
was truly a whip, and sometimes had two or
more lashes : the modern flail consists of the
handle or handstaff, which the labourer holds
in his hand, and uses as a lever, to raise up
and bring down the swiple, or part which strikes
the corn, and beats out the grain and chaff" from
the straw. The swiple is joined to the hand-staff
by the caplins or couplings, which are thongs
of untanned leather, and sometimes the skins
of eels or of other fish. These thongs are
passed through holes in the ends of the handle
and swiple, and made fast by being sewed to-
gether. The whip-flail was in use among the
Romans, though the prevailing mode of sepa-
rating corn from straw among the nations of
482

antiquity was by treading it out with cattle in
the open air. (See Agriculture.) In the
colder parts of Europe, this could never have
been generally the case, for obvious reasons ;
and hence the flail was the universal thrashing
implement till the introduction of the thrashing
machine, which is now taking the place of th$
flail in all countries where capitalists engage in i
farming. See Thrashing Machine. i

FLANDERS, the Agriculture of. The *
mode of tillage adopted by the cultivators of
Flanders has long and beneficially engaged
the attention of the British farmer; who, what
ever may be his superiority to the Fleming in
most respects, yet in some particular instances
has learnt, and in others (such as in the careful
husbanding and preparation of manure, the
succession of crops, the deepening of the soil,
&c., ) may still profitably imitate the practices
of the small industrious cultivators of Flan-
ders. The best report of the modern agricul-
ture of the Flemish farmers is that drawn up
for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, by the Rev. W. Rham, from which,
and from his paper in the Journ. of Roy. Agr.
Soc. of Eng. vol. ii. the chief facts of this arti-
cle are obtained. The climate of Flanders
pretty closely resembles that of Kent and Es-
sex in England : it is, however, rather warmer
in summer, and the snow lies longer in winter.
The soil is various ; there are extensive dis-
tricts of sand which are brought into cultiva-
tion by dressing them with mud. In propor-
tion to the quantity of the mud, which is a very
fine clay, a portion of decayed shells and or-
ganic matter, the soil is more or less fertile;
and when the mud enters into it in considera-
ble proportion, it forms a rich compact loam.
In many places there are alternate narrow
strata of sand and loam, which, being mixed
together, form a very productive soil. A small
portion of carbonate of lime produced from the
decomposition of sea shells, is found in the mud
when it is analyzed; but there is no chalk, nor
marl, in any portion of this coast.

The industry of the tenants of these sands is
proverbial. The poor sandy heaths which
have been converted into productive farms,
evince their indefatigable industry and perse-
verance. The sand in the Campine can be
compared to nothing but the sands on the sea-
shore, which they probably were originally. It
is highly interesting to follow step by step, the
progress of improvement. Here you see a ]
cottage and rude cow-shed, erected on a spot 1
of the most unpromising aspect. The loose ^
white sand, blown into irregular mounds, ir jr
merely kept together by the roots of the heath ; f
a small spot only is levelled, and surrounded ,
by a ditch. Part of this is covered with youn^
broom; another part is covered with potatoes;
and perhaps a small patch of diminutive clover
may show itself; but there is a heap of dung
and compost forming. The urine of the cow
is collected in a small tank, or, perhaps, in a
cask sunk in the earth ; and this is the nucleus
from which, in a few years, a little farm will ,
spread around.

Of their use oVAquid manure, I shall hereafter,
under that head, have occasion to speak. Their
implements of husbandry are much inferior

FLANDERS.

FLANDERS.

to the English. They employ, however, the '
spade to a much greater extent than is done in
England ; thus it is a common practice with
them to deepen the trenches between the lands
with the spade, and spread the earth over the
surface of the ground ; by this means the land
Is gradually completely trenched, and the im-
mediate good effect by keeping the soil of the
field dry is very considerable.

Their rotation of crops on sandy soils is
commonly, 1. Flax and carrots ; 2. Rye and
turnips ; 3. Rye and turnips ; 4. Potatoes, peas,
and carrots; 5. Oats and rye; 6. Clover; 7.
Rye, or barley and turnips ; 8. Turnips, oats,
and potatoes ; 9. Flax and carrots ; 10. Rye
and turnips.

In a stiff loam near Alost, the following rota-
tion is adopted : 1. Potatoes, with 20 tons of
dung per acre ; 2. Wheat, with 3^ tons and 60
barrels of urine ; 3. Flax, with 12 tons of dung,
60 barrels of urine, and 5 cwt. of rape-cake ; 4.
Clover, with 20 bushels of wood-ashes ; 5. Rye,
with 8 tons of dung, and 50 barrels of urine.
6. Oats, with 50 barrels of urine; 7. Buck-
wheat without manure.

They grow large quantities of hemp and
tobacco ; and are large exporters of seeds of
all kinds. With such exhausting crops, there-
fore, an attention to the careful saving of all
kinds of manure is absolutely essential to the
preservation of the fertility of the soil ; and no
cultivators are more particular in this respect
than those of Flanders.

They keep large quantities of cattle. ** A
beast for every three acres of land is a com-
mon proportion ; and in very small occupa-
tions, where much spade husbandry is used,
the proportion is still greater. These are
maintained on turnips, potatoes, carrots, &c.,
which are chopped together in a tub, with
beans, rye, or buckwheat meal, and mixed
with boiling water (which they call brassin),
about two pails full are given each cow.

"The horses of Flanders have been long
noted for their bulk. Flanders mares were at
one time in request for the heavy town car-
riages of the nobility and men of fortune in
England and on the continent. Since the im-
provement in the roads, and in the paving of
streets, activity has been preferred to strength,
and the English carriage horses now partake
more of the breed of hunters, and are more
nearly allied to full blood. The Flanders
horses are probably the same at this time as
they were a century ago ; but compared with
the present breeds of coach and cart-horses in
England they are inferior. They are in gene-
ral large in the carcass, and pretty clean in the
leg; patient and enduring, if not too much
hurried. They are steady in the collar, and
good at a dead pull, in consequence of their
weight ; but they are very heavy in the fore-
hand, inclined to get fat, and deficient in activity.
They fall off in the rump, and the hips stand
out too much from the ribs. The worst point
in most of them is the setting on of the tail,
which is low, and pointing downwards. These
are the general characters of the real Flemish
horse. A more useftil kind of horse, although
not so sleek, is found in the provinces of Bra-
bant and Namur, where they draw heavy loads

of stones and coal over bad roads. The feet
of the Flemish horses are generally flat, de-
noting the moist pastures in which they are
fed when young, or the dung of the stables in
which they have stood : for many of them have
never been turned out loose, and have been
reared and fed in the stable as the cows are.
This will account for the want of vigour and
muscle, as well as for the propensity to get fat.
The food of the farmer's horses is not calcu-
lated to produce hard flesh : green clover in
summer, and roots with cut straw in winter,
are the chief provender."

Of the spade-husbandry of Flanders, the fol-
lowing description is given by the author whom
I have already quoted so freely: —

"The husbandry of the whole of the north-
eastern part of East Flanders, where the soil is
a good sandy loam, may be considered as a
mixed cultivation, partly by the plough, and
partly by the spade. Without the spade, it
would be impossible to give that finish to the
land, after it is sown, which makes it appear
so like a garden, and which is the chief cause
of the more certain vegetation of the seed.
There is great saving of seed by this practice,
as may be seen by comparing the quantity
usually sown in Flanders with that which is
required in other countries, where the spade is
more sparingly used. In large farms in Eng-
land, the spade is only used to dig out water-
furrows, and to turn heaps of earth, which are
made into composts with different kinds of
manure. But in Flanders, where the land is
usually laid in stitches of about six or seven
feet wide, the intervals are always dug out with
the spade, and the earth spread evenly (sifted,
as they call it) over the seed which has been
harrowed in. The earth may not be of a fer-
tile nature below the immediate surface ; some-
times it is only a poor sand, or a hard till ; but
this is no reason why it should not be dug out.
If it is very light and poor, a good soaking with
urine, a few days before it is dug out, will im-
part sufficient fertility to it. If it is very stiff,
the clods must be broken as small as possible
in the digging, as is done when stiff ground is
trenched in gardens ; and what is left unbroken
on the surface, and not pulverized by passing
the traineau (a kind of heavy broad wooden
sledge, made of beams of wood and boards)
over it, will inevitably be reduced to a powder
by the frost in winter. Thus the land is not
only perfectly drained, but the seed, being co-
vered by an inch or more of earth, is placed
out of the reach of birds, without danger of
being buried too deep. The soil from the bot-
tom of the trench contains few seeds of weeds,
and the root-weeds are necessarily cleaned out
in the spreading. This earth, spread over the
surface of the land, keeps it clean, by burying
the smaller seeds, which the harrows may have
brought to the surface, and preventing their
vegetating. It is for this reason that the roller,
or the traineau, is made to press the surface, or
that, in very light soils, men and women tread
it regularly with their feet, as gardeners do
after they have sown their beds. The trench,
which is thus dug, is a foot wide, or, more pro-
perly, one-sixth part of the width of the stitch,
or bed; and the depth is from a foot to 18

483

FLAX.

inches, according to the soil. Thus, a layer
of earth, about two inches d*»ep, at least, is
thrown over the seed, which has been sown on
a surface made even by the small harrows, or
the bush-harrow. These two inches gradually
incorporate with the soil below ; and thus, at
every such operation, the soil is deepened so
much.

The trenches are so arranged, that every
year a fresh portion of the ground is dug out,
and in six years the whole land will have been
dug to the depth of at least one foot. In the
next course, the trench is dug a few inches
deeper, which brings up a little of the subsoil;
and, after four or five such courses of trench-
ing, the whole soil comes to be of a uniform
quality to the depth of 18 or 20 inches ; a most
important circumstance to the growth of flax,
potatoes, and carrots, all of which are very
profitable crops to the farmer, and the last two
indispensable to the maintenance of the la-
bourers and the cattle. In the Waes country,
they proceed differently, for they have a soil
which, by repeated trenchings, has long been
uniform in quality to the required depth. There
they regularly trench one-sixth part of the land
every year, and plant it with potatoes, or sow
carrots in it.

"From this outline of Flemish husbandry,"
concludes Mr. Rham, " the general principles
which pervade the whole system are easily
discovered. The garden has evidently been
the model for the operations of the farm. The
spade has originally been the chief instrument
of cultivation ; and when a greater extent of
farms necessarily introduced the plough, the
favourite spade was not entirely laid aside. A
Flemish farm of 40 or 50 acres must still be
looked upon as an enlarged garden ; and if a
comparison is instituted with the cultivation
of land in England, we can only compare the
Flemish husbandry, as far as tillage is con-
cerned, with those large unenclosed gardens
which are found in the neighbourhood of Lon-
don, where the common vegetables are raised
which supply the markets ; where green crops
are cut early for horses and cows kept in Lon-
don ; and where the soil is continually enriched
by the manure which is brought every time a
cart returns from having carried out the pro-
duce. In these grounds, the system is similar
to the Flemish — deep digging, or trenching,
abundant manuring, and a rapid succession of
crops." (Flemish Husb. ; Journ. of Roy. Agr. Soc.
of Eng. vol. ii. p. 43.)

FLAX (Lat. Limim, from the Celtic word
llin, a thread ; whance the Greek linon, the Ital.
and Span, lino, and Fr. lin). An extensive
genus of plants, of which more than 70 species
are enumerated. by botanists. It belongs to the
natural order Linacecp. The plants are distin-
guished by the tenacity of their fibres, the mu-
cilage of their seeds, and, geiierally, by the
beauty of their flowers.

• Four species only are indigenous to England,
of which the common flax (Z. usitatissimiim) to
be next noticed, is the most important and use-
ful. As ornamental plants, they are well worth
cultivating in every collection. The green-
house and frame kinds grow best in a mixture
of loam and peats ; the hardy shrubby kinds
484

FLAX, COMMON.

do well in any light soil. The hardy herba-
ceous species are well suited for ornamenting
flower-borders; but the dwarf kinds do best on
rock-work, or in pots, that they may be pro-
tected by a frame in frosty or very wet wea-
ther; they may be increased by divisions of
the root, by cuttings, or by seeds. The annual""
and biennial species should be sown in the
open ground in April. — 1. Common flax (X.
usitatissimum) is an annual, rising one to
two feet high, with a smooth, slender, upright
stem, branched near the top, narrow lanceolate
leaves, rather glaucous, blowing in July a
corymbose panicle of pale purplish-blue flow-
ers. The testa or skin of the seed abounds
with mucilage ; the cotyledons with oil, easily
procured by pressure. The mucilage extracted
by hot water is demulcent, the oil a mild laxa-
tive. The use of linseed oil in the arts is very
extensive. 2. Perennial blue flax (L.perenne),

3. Narrow-leaved pale flax (L. angusti folium),

4. Purging flax (i. catharticum). The first and
fourth species are mentioned further in detail
in articles which follow. The others require
little notice ; they are found growing in sandy
or chalky soils, and are perennial, flowering in
June or July.

FLAX, BASTARD TOAD. See Bastard
Toad-flax.

FLAX, COMMON (Sax. pieax or piex, Ger.
flachs ; Dutch, vlasch). The fibre of the Linum
usitatissimum, which, after undergoing the pro-
cess of washing, beating, and other operations,
is spun into thread, and woven into linen tex-
tures, lace, &c. The seed is also crushed for
oil ; and the refuse husk, after the oil is ex-
pressed, is made into oilcake for cattle. The
fibres of the bark of this important plant have
been applied to the manufacture of thread and
cloth in this and other countries from the re-
motest periods. " Flax," says Professor Low,
"being a native plant, is sufficiently hardy to
endure the climate of this and other northern
countries. It has, indeed, a wide range of tem-
perature, being cultivated, and for the like
purposes, from Egypt almost to the polar cir-
cle." The wild flax grows in corn-fields, and
gravelly or sandy pastures ; but, when culti-
vated, it thrives most luxuriantly in deep rich
mould, but particularly in untilled alluvial soils.

Its roots sink very deep when it has room ;
and it is generally said that the roots of good
flax should strike into the soil to a depth equal
to -half the length, at least, of the stem above
ground. A porous subsoil, or one that is well
drained, is therefore essential. In Flanders,
flax may be considered as a staple commodity,
and a great portion of the population of that
country is employed in preparing large quan-
tities for exportation ; the cultivation and pre-
paring of it, is, therefore, most perfectly under-
stood, and the Dutch flax is always well dressed,
and of the finest quality. The premiums given
by the legislature of England to force the
cultivation of flax have had very little effect, it
being one of the most exhausting crops when
allowed to ripen its seed; and its culture being
found to be much less profitable than com.
The native growth of flax being quite insuffi-
cient to the demand for home consumption, &c.,
England has long been in the habit of import-

FLAX, COMMON.

FLAX, PURGING.

ing a large proportion of her supplies. The
principal countries from whence these are ob-
tained are Russia, the Netherlands, Prussia,
and France, with small quantities from Ame-
rica, Italy, New South Wales, &c. The duty
in England is at present Id. per cwt.
. In Ireland, flax usually follows potatoes. In
Scotland, land that has been several years in
pasture, and from which one crop of grain has
been taken, is preferred. In Flanders, the crops
which immediately precede flax, in light soils,
are barley or rye, with turnips after them the
same year. All these crops are more highly
manured than usual, and before the flax-seed
is sown, peat ashes, at the rate of 30 bushels
per acre, are spread and harrowed in, and a
few days afterwards 10 hogsheads of strong
liquid manure is poured regularly over the
land, and left for a week or 10 days to soak
thoroughly into the soil. The seed is then
sown very abundantly ; cloudy or showery
weather is the time chosen ; the quantity
varies, but the general proportion is 160 lbs.
to the acre. It is lightly covered in by a bush-
harrow, drawn over the land, for if the seed
were buried more than half an inch deep it
would prevent its vegetating. The choice of
seed requires great care and circumspection:
good fresh seed should be of a bright colour,
with a sweet taste, and it will feel smooth,
slippery, and plump, and, on being broken,
should appear of a greenish yellow colour, and
should sink in water. Genuine seed will
average 18 lbs. per peck, but good Riga seed
is somewhat lighter. Hand weeding should be
attended to when the stems are from two to
three inches above the surface, for when the
flax is higher, it is liable to be injured by the
weeders. The proper time for pulling flax,
when not intended for seed, is when about two-
thirds of the stalk is observed to turn yellow,
and to lose the leaves. If intended for seed,
the flax should not be pulled until the capsule :
have acquired a brown colour, and the points
have become firm, and so sharp as to fix them-
selves in the hand when pressed, and when
nearly all the leaves and foliage have withered
and fallen from the stem.

When flax is raised both for the seed and
stalk, it is submitted to an operation called
rippling, which consists in separating the seed
from the stalk, by passing the flax through a
kind of comb, before it is steeped in water.
The iron teeth of these combs are placed so
close together that the heads cannot pass
through, and are consequently pulled off". An-
other practice is to beat out the seed in the
field with a piece of wood, or a heavier stick
than that of the common flail, and then to sift
the seed into a large sheet. In preparing flax
for the manufacturer, the first operation it un-
dergoes is that of steeping it in water, to loosen
the bark and separate it from the stalk ; for this
purpose it is tied into small bundles, and then
placed in a pond or reservoir of soft water.
The sheaves are slightly covered with straw,
fern, rushes, or coarse herbage (kept down by
stones or heavy bodies), to prevent the flax
from being discoloured by the sun. In the
course of seven or eight days the rind will be
sufficiently loosened, and the flax must be

taken out of the water and spread out to dry.
Phillips says there is an act of parliament in
force, which forbids the steeping of flax in
rivers, or any waters where cattle are accus-
tomed to drink, as it is found to communicate
a poison destructive to the cattle which drink
of it, and to the fish which live in such waters.
The odour it exhales is most disagreeable, and
has often been productive of fever. Another
but far more tedious process, resorted to for
separating the bark from the stalk, is called
dew retting, and consists in spreading the flax
upon grass lands, and exposing it to the con-
stant action of rain and dew. Hot water and
soft soap are said to decorticate the stalk in a
few hours. Grassing or bleaching the flax on
old grass ground is the next operation, and is in-
tended to rectify any defect in the steeping.
The last process is that of bruising and scutch-
ing, previous to which it should be mode-
rately dried. The woody part of the stem was
formerly beaten or bruised with a hand mallet;
but this operation is now more effectually per-
formed by machinery. Flax-mills, with suita-
ble wheels and rollers, now greatly facilitate
the processes of bruising and scutching. Mr.
James Dumo (then British consul at Munich)
gives an interesting account in the sixth volume
of the Com. to Board ofAgr. p. 75, of "the mode
of cultivating flax and hemp in Russia, Prussia,
and Poland ;" and Mr. Robert Somerville, of
Haddington, has also a very excellent paper in
the same volume (p. 84), urging very strenu-
ously the necessity for a more general home
cultivation of those essential articles, hemp
and flax, and suggesting improvements in the
processes of dressing, &c., many of which
have since been carried out. {Brit. Husb. vol.
iii. p. 42; Quart. Joum. Agr. vol. iv. p. 159;
M'CuUoch's Com. Diet.)

In the United States flax, which was once
considered a crop so indispensable among the
crQps of our farmers, is now but little cul-
tivated; its linty product being superseded by
the cotton of the South. It is a crop which in-
volves a good deal of troublesome labour, and,
without being profitable, is generally believed
to be injurious to the soil ; an opinion as old
as the time of Virgil, — who says "Urit enim
'Li^i campum seges, urit avenae." — Georg. 1, 71.
The seeds, besides yielding a most valuable
oil, afford one of the best mucilaginous drinks
for coughs, and dysenteric affections. Two or
three other species are enumerated in the
United States. {Fhr. Cestrica.)

FLAX, PURGING. Mill mountain. Dwarf
wild flax (Linum catharticum). This is a pretty
herb, seldom more than eight or ten inches
high, growing in the English parks, warrens,
and dry hilly pastures. The stalk is slender
and delicate, round, firm, and divided into
small branches. The leaves are small, obtuse,
bright green, and standing two at each joint.
The tremulous flowers are small and white,
pendulous before expansion, and not unlike
chickweed. The root is small and tapering.
This plant is bitter and cathartic. Dr. Wither-
ing found two drams or more in a dose, of the
dried herb, useful in obstinate rheumatism. It
is purgative in doses of three scruples. The
country people boil it in their ale or beer for
2 8 2 485

FLAX-SEED.

FLEECE.

the cure of rheumatism ; but it is not so use-
ful as a dose of colchicum.

FLAX-SEED. See Linsekd.

FLAX, WILD (i. Virpnianum). A plant
growing one to two feet high, often with three
or four slender and angular stems from the
same root, bearing pale yellow flowers, is often
found in the old fields and open woodlands of
the Middle States. Authors generally describe
the root of the American wild flax as annual,
but Muhlenburg, Bigelow, and Darlington
think it perennial. (Flor. Ceslrica.)

FLEA (Pulex). The flea tribe (Pulicida:)
was placed among the bugs (or Heniiptera) by
Fabricius. These very annoying insects are
destitute of wings, have a mouth fitted for suc-
tion, and are provided with several lancet-like
pieces for making punctures. They undergo
a complete transformation; their larvae are
worm-like and without feet; and their pupae
have the legs free. The flea may almost be
considered as a wingless kind cf fly. Its pro-
boscis seems to be intermediate in its forma-
tion between that of flies and bugs ; its antennae
are concealed in holes in the sides of its head,
like those of certain water-bugs, which they
somewhat resemble in shape ; whilst the trans-
formations of the flea are not very much unlike
thoso of the flies, whose maggots cast oflf their
skins on becoming pupae. (Hanis.)

Want of cleanliness contributes greatly to
the multiplication of fleas, and hence the pro-
priety of the frequent removal of straw and
rubbish from about houses and yards, and re-
course to sweeping of floors, especially when
carpeted. Various devices are adopted for the
purpose of expelling fleas. Frequent sprinkling
of a room with a simple decoction of worm-
wood, or sassafras, will soon extirpate the
whole breed of these troublesome vermin ; and
the best remedy to expel them from bed-clothes,
is a bag filled with dry moss, the odour of which
is to them extremely offensive. Others cover
the floors of the rooms where fleas abound
with the leaves of the alder tree, while the dew
is on the foliage, to which these insects fondly
adhere, and thus may be easily destroyed. Fu-
migation with the leaves of pennyroyal, or the
fresh gathered foliage of that plant, sewed up
in a bag, and laid in the bed, are also remedies
pointed out for the expulsion of fleas. Sprinkle
with camphorated whisky or other ardent
spirits.

Dogs and cats may be eflfectually secured
from the persecutions of these vermin, by oc-
casionally anointing their skin with sweet oil.
The fleas and lice of poultry are destroyed
by a decoction of sassafras wood. (Domestic
Enryr.)

FLEABANE (Erigeron, from er, spring;
and geron, an old man ; the plants become old
in the beginning of the season). This exten-
sive genus comprehends many exceedingly
handsome species, varying from a few inches
to tv/o feet or more high, and producing a
great and copious display of blossom ; they
will grow in almost any soil, and are increased
with facility from either seeds or divisions.
The fleabaae has lost its reputation both for
banishing fleas and insects by its smell, and
answering other superstitious incantations, for
486

which it was celebrated in former times. There
are four indigenous species. The Canada
fleabane (£. Canadensis), and blue fleabane (E,
acris), which are diuretic. The alpine flea-
bane (E. alpinus), and pale-rayed mbuntain
fleabane (E. uniflorus.) The first is annual,
the second biennial, the third and fourth
perennial.

Several species are found in the United
States, among which are the E. Canadensis,
called Horse-'weed, and Butter-weed, an annual
common in fields and road-sides in the Middle
States, where it flowers in August and seeds in
September and October. E, strigosus, called
Fleabane and Daisy, Avery common and worth-
less weed in the Middle States, where it fre-
quents the pastures, flowering in June and
July, and maturing its seed in September. It
is particularly injurious to the first crop of up-
land meadows, after a course of grain crops.
E. Philadelphicus. E. Pulchellus, or Handsome
Erigeron. E. Heterophyllus or various -leaved
Erigeron, together with some eight or ten addi-
tional species. See Daisy. (Flor. Cestrica.)

FLEABANE, COMMON (Inula dysenterica).
This plant is very abundant in clear ditches
and in watery places about road-sides. It is a
perennial, with a creeping root ; herb more or
less woolly or cottony, glutinous, with a pecu-
liar acid aromatic scent, somewhat like the
flavour of peaches. The stem is 12 or 18
inches high, branched and leafy, corymbose at
the summit, with many bright yellow flowers.
Linnaeus records, on the authority of General
Keith, that the use of this plant cured the Rus-
sian army of dysentery ; — hence the specific
name. Its medical properties, however, are
simply diuretic. The small fleabane (I.pulica-
ria), is an annual, and is said to banish insects
by its smell. It grows on moist sandy spots,
especially where water has stagnated during
winter. There is another species, the sam-
phire-leaved fleabane, which grows on the sea-
coast, in a muddy soil. (Eng. Flor. vol. iii. p.
440—443.)

FLEABANE, GREAT. Ploughman's Spike-
nard. See Spikenard.

FLEA-BEETLE (Haltica). Several of these
have been described among the insects de-
structive to the cucumber. Some others
known in the United States and described by
Dr. Harris, will be referred to under different
heads. See Tukxip Fly, Vine Beetle, &c.

FLEAM. In farriery, an instrument used
for letting blood in horses or other animals.

FLEA- WORT (Plantago). A genus, the
greater number of the species of which are
mere weeds, of the easiest culture and propa-
gation. See Plantaik.

FLECKED. A provincial term used to sig-
nify pied, as cattle.

FLEECE. The woolly covering shorn from

off the body of the sheep. Mr. James Dickson

I of Edinburgh contributed a very able prize

j essay to the Highland Society (Trans, vol. vi.

p. 205), "on the treatment of sheep, with a

view to the improvement of the fleece." The

earliest and rudest method of obtaining the

fleece was to drive the flocks hastily through

a narrow passage, when by their pressure

i against each other the greater part of the fleece

FLEMISH HUSBANDRY.

was loosened, or completely detached. To this
succeeded another more inhuman mode. The
sheep was caught, and the fleece pulled from
its back. This barbarous practice prevailed
to a very recent date in the Orkney Islands.
In England the average value of the fleece in
1315 was 6d. (7s. 6d. of the present money),
being nearly half as much as the value of the
carcass. (The Sheep, Lib. of Use. Know. p. 33,
205.) See Hair, Sheep-Sheaiiino, and Woot.

FLEMISH HUSBANDRY. See Flaxdebs,
Agriculture of.

FLESH. Muscular flesh, which is too well
known to need any particular description, is
composed of a number of white or red fibres,
compounded of still smaller fibres. It is united
in ordinary cases with a variety of substances,
such as blood, fat, ligament, sinew, and nerves.
It has been analysed by M. Berzelius who
found in it —

Ftrto.

Fibrin vessels and nerves - - - - - 15-8

Cellular matter ------- 19

Muriate and lactate of soda - - - - 1-80

Albumen and colouring matter of the blood - 3*20

Phosphate of soda ------ 0-90

Extract - 015

Albumen holding in solution phosphate of lime - 0*08

Water and loss - - - - - - - 7717

100

The chief nutriment afforded by animal
food is derived from muscle or flesh. That of
adult animals is more nutritive than that of
young animals ; hence beef and mutton are
better adapted to support the frame than veal
or lamb. The latter yield most gelatin; but
the popular idea of the nutritive property of
animal jellies is erroneous.

FLIES. "A host of flies," says Harris,
" forming nearly one-third of the whole num-
ber of species in the order Diptera, will be
found to have a short and soft proboscis, end-
ing with large fleshy lips, enclosing only two
bristles, and capable of being drawn up within
the cavity of the mouth. Their antennae are
generally short, hang down over the face, and
end with a large oval joint, bearing a little
bristle. Their larvae, or young, are fleshy,
whitish maggots, which never cast their skins,
but when the pupa-state comes on, shorten,
take the oblong oval form of an egg, and be-
come brown, dry, and hard on the outside.
This immense tribe includes the various kinds
of flesh-flies, blow-flies, house-flies, dung-flies,
flower-flies, fruit-flies, two-winged gall-flies,
cheese-flies, and many others, for which we
have no common names, but all composing
the tribe of Muscans, or MuscaJte. Some of
these flies do not strictly conform to the fore-
going characters of the tribe, in all respects ;
but the exceptions are few in number, and the
most remarkable of them will be noticed in the
following pages.

" Many flies of this tribe are parasitic in their
larvae state, their young living and undergoing
their transformations within the. bodies of
other insects, particularly in caterpillars, which
they thereby destroy. These flies belong chiefly
to the family of Tachinada, a name applied
to them on account of the swiftness of their
flig'.t. In form they somewhat resemble
house-flies; like them they have very large

FLIES.

winglets, and their wings spread apart when
they are at rest. They are easily distinguish-
ed, however, by the stiff hairs wherewith they
are more or less covered, and by the bristles
on their antennae, which are not usually
feathered. A large fly of this kind, the Tachitia
vivida of my * Catalogue,' is often seen on
fences, and on plants, and sometimes in houses,
towards the end of June and during the month
of July. Its large, oval hind-body is of a clear
light-red colour, with two or three black spots
in a row, on the top of it, and a thick row
of black bristles across each ring. The face
is grayish white, like satin, and the eyes
are copper-coloured. The thorax is gray, with
brownish lines upon it. The antennae, pro-
boscis, and legs are light red. Its body is short
and thick, and is about half an inch long, and
its wings expand rather more than nine-tenths
of an inch."

Viviparous Flesh-flies. — "Most insects are
hatched from eggs which are laid by the mother
on the substances that are to serve for the food
of her young. Some flesh-flies produce their
young alive, or already hatched, and drop them
on the dead and putrefying animal matter,
which they are obliged to consume and remove
in the shortest possible time. An exception
from the usual course among insects appears
therefore to have been made in favour of these
viviparous flesh-flies, to enable their young
promptly to perform their appointed tasks.
These insects produce an immense number of
young, as many as 20,000 having been ob-
served by Reaumur in a single fly. Our largest
viviparous American flesh-fly is the Sarcophaga
Georgina of Wiedemann. It appears towards
the end of June, and continues till the middle
of August, or perhaps later. Its face is silvery
white, and there is an oblong square black spot
between the eyes, which are copper-coloured.
The thorax is light gray, with seven black stripes
upon it. The hind-body is nearly conical, has
the lustre of satin, and is checkered with square
spots of black and white, shifting or inter-
changing their colours according to the light
wherein they are seen. The legs are black,
and the hindmost pair are very hairy in the
males. The female is about half an inch long ;
and the male is rather smaller. In the Sarco-
phagans, or flesh-eaters, as the name implies,
the bristles on the antennae are feathered."

Stable-fly. — "The flies that abound in Ameri-
can stables in August and September, and some-
times enter houses on the approach of rain,
might be mistaken for house-flies, were it not for
the severity of their bites, which are often felt
through our clothing, and are generally followed
by blood. Upon examination they will be found
to difler essentially from house-flies in their
proboscis, which is very long and slender, and
projects horizontally beyond the head. The
bristles on their antennae are feathered above.
Cattle sufier sorely from the piercing bites of
these flies, and horses are sometimes so much
tormented and enraged by them as to become
entirely ungovernable in harness. The name
of this kind of fly is Stomoxys calcitrans; the
first word signifying sharp-mouthed, and the
second kicking, given to the fly from the effect
it produces on horses. It lays its eggs in

487

FLINT.

dung, where its young are hatched, and pass
through their transformations. The larvae and
pupse do not differ much in appearance from
those of common house-flies."

Meat-flies. — "It is found all summer about
sUughter-houses, butchers' stalls, and pantries,
which it frequents for the purpose of laying its
eggs on meat. The eggs are commonly called
fly-blows ; they hatch in .two or three hours
after they are laid, and the maggots produced
from them come to their growth in three or
four days, after which they creep away into
some dark crevice, or burrow in the ground,
if they can get at it, turn to egg-shaped pupae,
and come out as flies, in a few days more; or
they remain unchanged through the winter, if
they have been hatched late in the summer.
A smaller fly, of a brilliant blue-green colour,
with black legs, also lays its eggs on meat, but
more often on dead animals in the fields. It
seems hardly to differ from the Musca (Lucilia)
CcEsar of Europe. The house-fly of this coun-
try has been supposed to be the same as the
European Musca domestica ; but I cannot satisfy
myself on this point for the want of specimens
from Europe. It is possible that our sharp-
biting stable-flies, the meat-flies, and the house-
fly, may really be distinct species from those
which are found in Europe."

House-fly. — The American house-fly is the
Musca harpyia,OT harpy-fly of Dr. Harris's Cata-
logue. It begins to appear in houses in July, be-
comes exceedingly abundant in September, and
does not disappear till killed by cold weather. It
is probable that, like the domestic fly of Europe,
it lays its eggs in dung, in which its larvae live,
and pass through their changes of form. The
Americans are accused of carelessness in re-
gard to flies, and apparently with some reason.
But, if these filthy, dung-bred creatures swarm
in some houses, covering every article of food
by day, and absolutely blackening the walls by
night, in others comparatively few are found;
for the tidy house-keeper takes care not to
leave food of any kind standing about, unco-
vered, to entice them in, and makes a business
of driving out the intruders at least once a
day. If a plateful of strong green tea, well
sweetened, be placed in an outer apartment
accessible to flies, they will taste of it, and be
killed thereby, as surely as by the most ap-
proved fly-poison. In the first volume of The
Transactions of the Entomological Society of Lon-
don, Mr. Spence gives an account of a mode
of excluding flies from apartments, which has
been tried with complete success in England.
It consists of netting, made of fine worsted or
thread, in large meshes, or of threads alone,
half of an inch or more apart, stretched across
the windows. It appears that the flies will not
attempt to pass through the meshes, or between
the threads, into a room which is lighted only
on one side ; but if there are windows on
another side of the room, they will then fly
through; such windows should therefore be
darkened with shutters or thick curtains.
(Harris.)

FLINT. Common lints are nearly pure
silica, which is composW of a metal (silicium)
and oxygen gas; it is tasteless, insoluble in
water, or fluoric acid, and dissolvable only by

FLOUR.

means of potash. Flints usually occur in
irregular nodules in chalk. They abound
considerably in some sorts of soils. Sand is
commonly chiefly composed of flint. A spe-
cimen of flint analyzed by M. Klaproth con-
tained

Parts.

Silica 98

Alumina - - _ - _ o*25

Oxide of iron - - - . 0'25

Water 1-50

100

Flint, when exposed to intense heat, becomes
opaque, and forms a kind of porcelain. This
was well illustrated in the fire in the Tower of
London, in 1841. The flints of the muskets
were all thus changed. See Earths.

FLOAT. A raft of timber bound together
to be conveyed by water. It also signifies j
locally to turn water upon meadow land for ^
improving it; and likewise to pare off the sur-
face or sward.

FLOATING OF MEADOWS. See Irhi-

GATIOX.

FLOUR (Span, flor ; It. fiore ; Fr. fleur de
farnie). The meal of wheat corn or other grain,
separated from the husk or bran, and finally
ground and sifted. There are in England three
qualities of flour, denominated ^rsi, seconds, and
thirds, of which the first is the purest. (See
Bread.) The proportion of flour which a
bushel of grain affords greatly varies. A
bushel of Essex wheat, Winchester measure-,
weighs upon an average about 60 lbs., which,
when ground, will yield (exclusive of the loss
incurred by the grinding and drying) 45^ lbs.
of the flour called seconds, which alone is used
for baking throughout the greater part of Eng-
land, and affords the most wholesome, though
not the whitest bread. Besides the seconds,
such a bushel of wheat yields 13 lbs. of pollard
and bran ; the total loss in grinding seldom
exceeds one pound and a half.

The corn of the different species of grain
produces, when ripe, nearly the following
quantities of meal or household flour and bread
per bushel: viz.

Wheat if weighing 60 lbs., of flour 48 lbs. of bread 64 Iba.
Kye — 54 —42—56

Barley — 48 — 37f — 50

Oats — 40 —22^ — 30

The flour of wheat which is cut before it is
quite ripe is whiter than that which is allowed
to come to maturity, and bears a higher price in
the markets. The grain which is intended for
the miller should, therefore, be reaped before
it has reached its utmost growth; but that
which is meant for seed should be allowed to
stand until the last moment at which it can be
cut with safety. The corn is ground into
meal of various degrees of fineness, and a
bushel of 60 lbs. generally yields, when dressed,
about the following quantities, viz.

Fine flour
Household flour
Pollards -
Bran

- 25|lbs.

- 22L

A bushel of wheat, therefore, averages 48 lbs.
of both kinds of flour of the sort called " se-
conds," and a sack of marketable flour should
by law weigh 280 lbs. These products must,

FLOWER DE LUCE.

PLY IN TURNIPS.

however, vary according to the quality of the
grain ; some will produce more or less bran,
as the hijsk may be more or less thick ; and
the bakers admit they can make two or three
more quartern loaves than the usual quantity
from one sack of flour, when it is the genuine
produce of good wheat. Thus it was found
upon a comparative trial between English and
Scotch wheat, of apparently equal quality, that
there was a diflerence in favour of the former
of no less than 13 lbs. of bread upon 2^ cwts.
of flour. (Willich*s Dom. Ency.; Bnt. Husb.
vol. ii.pp. 137, 155.)

FLOWER DE LUCE, or LIS. FLAG. See
Iris.

FLOWERING ASH (Scopoli). All the spe-
cies of the genus scopoli are ornamental and
useful ; they are easily cultivated, and may be
raised from seeds, like the common ash, or
they may be increased by budding or grafting
on the common ash.

FLOWERING RUSH, COMMON (Butomm
umbellatiis). This beautiful aquatic plant is in
England a native of ponds, ditches, and the
margins of rivers on a gravelly soil. It flowers
in July and August. The leaves are narrow,
acute, nearly a yard long. The stalk is still
taller, round, and very smooth, and bears a large
bracteated umbel of handsome rose-coloured
flowers, each about an inch broad, without
scent. This rush may be increased with little
difliculty. The leaves of this plant are said to
cause the mouths of cattle to bleed that crop
it; hence the name, from bous, ox, and temno, to
cut. It was some years since much celebrated
in Russia as a remedy for hydrophobia ; but
like all specifics, its fame was destroyed by
excess of praise. It has no influence in curing
that disease.

FLOWERS. The most beautiful parts of
plants and trees, which contain the organs of
fructification. (See Botant.) From their
frequent utility as medicinal drugs, as well as
their external beauty, the cultivation of flowers
in our gardens becomes an object of some im-
portance. Flowers are many of them excel-
lent indicators of the approaching weather by
expansion or closing, and other motions. It is
an established fact, that flowers as well as
fruits grow larger in the shade, and ripen and
decay soonest when exposed to the sun. The
immediate cause of the various colours pre-
sented by some flowers, such as poppies, has
not hitherto been distinctly ascertained. Co-
louring matter is contained in almost every
flower and root of vegetables, and may be
extracted by a very simple process. Flowers
which are to be used or preserved for medi-
cinal purposes should, with a few exceptions,
be gathered in full bloom, and dried as speed-
ily as possible. The rose, Rosa Gallica, is
gathered before it is fully blown. In drying
flowers, the calyces, claws, &c. should be pre-
viously taken ofi": when the flowers are very
small, the calyx is left, or even the whole
flowering spike, as in the greatest portion of
the labiate flowers. In some instances, as in
the baulislines, or pomegranate flower, the active
matter resides chiefly in the calyx. Compound
flowers with pappous seeds, as colt's-foot, ought
to be dried very high, and before they are en-
62

tirely open, otherwise the slight moisture that
remains would develope the pappus, and form
a kind of cottony nap, which would be very
hurtful in infusions, by leaving irritating par-
ticles in the throat. Flowers of little or no
smell may be dried in a heat of 75 to 100°
Fahr. The succulent petals of the liliaceous
plants, whose odour is very fugacious, cannot
well be dried, as their mucilaginous substance
rots and grows blaclc. Several sorts of flower-
ing tops, as those of lesser centaury, worm-
wood, melilot, water germander, &c., are tied
in small parcels, and hung up, or else exposed
to the sun, wrapped in paper cornets, that they
may not be discoloured. After some time, blue
flowers, as those of violets, bugloss, or borage,
grow yellow, and even become entirely disco-
loured, especially if they are kept in glass
vessels that admit the light: if, however, they
are dipped for a moment in boiling water,
and slightly pressed before they are put into
the drying stove, the blue colour is rendered
permanent. {Gray's Sup. to Pharmacop.) It
is probable that varieties in the colours
of single flowers raised from seeds may be
generally obtained by sowing those which
already possess diff*erent shades contiguous to
others of the same species ; or by bending the
flowers of one colour, and shaking the anther-
dust over those of another. The origin of
double flowers is believed to result from the
luxuriant growth of the plant, in consequence
of excessive nourishment, moisture, and
warmth ; they arise from the increase of some
parts of the flower, and the consequent exclu-
sion of others : thus the stamens are often
converted into petals. Botanists very pro-
perly term such multiplied flowers vegetable
monsters, because they possess no stamens or
pistils, and therefore cannot produce seeds.
There subsists (says Dr. Darwin) a curious
analogy between these vegetable monsters and
those of the animal world ; for a duplicature
of limbs frequently attend the latter, as chickens
and turkeys with four legs and four wings,
and calves with two heads, &c. The science
of floriculture, or the culture, propagation, and
general management of plants, divides itself
into five sections, viz. 1. Stove plants; 2.
Greenhouse plants ; 3. Hardy trees and shrubs ;
4. Hardy herbaceous plants; 5. Annuals and
biennials.

FLUKE WORM (Distoma hepaticum ; Fas-
ciola hepatica, Linn.). A small flat entozoon or
worm, about an inch long, which infests the
ducts of the liver and gall-bladder of different
animals, especially sheep. In those that have
died of the rot, it is generally found fixed by
two points, one at one extremity, and the other
about the middle of the abdomen of the worm;
it bears some resemblance to the seed of the
common gourd, and thence is often called the
gourd-icorm. See Sheep, Diseases of.

FliY IN SHEEP. See Sheep, Diseases of.
FLY IN TURNIPS (Mtica nemorum). A
species of flea-beetle, which in England attacks
the turnip crop in the cotyledon, or seed leaf,
as soon as it appears : it is sometimes called
the black jack, and sometimes the flea, or
black fly. All the species are among the
smallest insects; several are scarcely a line

489

FLY IN TURNIPS.

FLY IN WHEAT.

long : the length of the largest is hardly two
lines, and one in breadth. The greatest num-
ber are shining green, with a brown or yel-
lowish hue. Early in spring they are seen
sitting on walls in great numbers ; in winter
tfiey live under leaves, stems of plants, and in
chinks in walls : during summer they are the
most dangerous enemies of various vegetables,
particularly the cabbage tribe. They also
attack different sorts of the root genus Brassica,
such as the turnip, &c., as well as the radish,
the common cress, and the water cress. Be-
sides these sorts of vegetables, they also prey
upon flax, tobacco, hops, seedling clover, and
sainfoin, but more especially the summer and
winter turnips, which are left for seed, and
often entirely spoil the future harvest during
the flowering season, when the weather is
warm and dry. The turnip beetle belongs to
the order Coieopteua, from its wings with
which it flies being folded beneath two horny
cases. It is included in the family Chrtso-
MELii)^, or golden beetles, for certain scientific
reasons, in conformity with its structure, and
is one of about 100 species forming the gentis
AtTicA, sometimes written Haltica.

The striped turnip beetle is named in the Eng-
lish catalogues Mtica nemorum. The former
word, derived from the Greek, alludes to the
leaping powers of the genus, and the latter
signifying that this species inhabits woods and
groves, which were more especially its haunts
before turnip cultivation became general. See
Cucumber Insects.

The remedies recommended are numerous,
among which, hoeing and rolling may harass
and kill many of the beetles ; and as this pro-
cess promotes the more rapid grow^th of the
plants, it must be attended with no slight ad-
vantages. From the dislike the fly has to
repeated wet, frequent watering the turnips
would evidently be very beneficial, particularly
with brine (not strong enough to injure the
plants) or liquid manure, which would stimu-
late the growth most effectually ; and many of
the beetles would necessarily be forcibly brush-
ed off, and get set fast in the earth, and die.
Sulphuric solutions sprinkled by machinery
would also have a powerful effect. Nitrate of
soda has been tried in a few instances on crops
of Swedish turnips with very beneficial results.
A net (called after its inventor the Paul net)
dragged over the field has been usefully em-
ployed ; and a board newly painted with white
paint, or tarred, drawn over the turnips, will
catch multitudes of the beetles ; for, on being
disturbed, they leap against it, and cannot re-
lease themselves.

The rapid growth of the plant appears to be
the best security against the ravages of the
insect ; and to insure this, plenty of seed should
be sown, all of the same year's growth. Deep
ploughing will be found advantageous when
the chrysalides are in the soil. Drilling is far
superior to broadcast sowing, and in Scotland
is believed to keep away the beetles. Early
sowing is attended with disadvantages ; for
the same warmth and sunshine that make the
seed vegetate will also bring the hungry
swanns of beetles from their winter quarters.

In England, where the ravages of the flea-
490

beetle have attracted so much attention, it is
thought that the careful and systematic use of
lime will obviate, in a great degree, the danger
which has been experienced from this insect.
As soon as the plants appear above ground
they are to be dusted with quicklime, and this
is to be repeated as often as rain or wind beats
it oft' and the fly reappears. Watering plants
with alkaline solutions, it is said, will kill the
insects without injuring the plants. To make
the solution, 1 lb. of hard soap may be dissolved
in 12 gallons of soap-suds left after washing
clothes. This may be sprinkled twice a day
by means of a watering pot. The solution of
whale oil soap as recommended for the destruc-
tion of Aphides or plant-lice, would doubtless
answer an excellent purpose in destroying the
turnip fly.

The turnip saw-fly {Athalia spinarum), is a
less common depredator, but in England is oc-
casionally found in company with the former.
A very minute account of it is given by Mr.
Duncan. (Quart. Journ. of Jgr. vol. vii. p. 558.)
It receives its name from the use and appear-
ance of the instrument with which it deposits
its eggs. This is placed at the extremity of the
abdomen of the female, on the under side, and
is so constructed that it combines the proper-
ties of a saw and auger. (Kollar on Insects inju-
rious to Farmers, Miss Loudon's Transl. ; Doncas-
ter Report; Mr. Curtis on Insects affecting the
Turnip Crop ; Pract. Husbandry ; Harris on De-
structive Insects.)

FLY IN WHEAT (Tipula tritici, Kirby;
Cecidomyia tritici, Latr.). See PI. 2, i. In Eng-
land when the wheat is in blossom, it is some-
times attacked by this small beautiful fly, with
an orange-coloured body and white wings,
which lays its eggs in the middle of the blos-
som, by means of a long retractile ovipositor.
When the eggs are hatched, the larvae, which
are very small, from 10 to 14 being sometimes
found in one grain, prevent the fructification
of the grains, probably by eating the pollen,
and thus frequently destroy some part of the
harvest. Mr. Shirreff {Quart. Journ. of Agr.
vol. iii. p. 501) says the fly generally appears
when the wheat plant comes into ear. In 1829
and 1830, flies were first seen by him on the
21st.of June, and, in 1831, on the 10th of the
same month. The larvae, after a period, fall to
the ground, and burrow in the earth, where
they remain till the following summer. Ac-
cording to Mr. Gorrie {Mag. Nat. Hist., Sept.,
1829, p. 324), all the larvae have quitted the
ears of wheat and descended to the earth by
the 1st of August; going into the ground to
about the depth of half an inch, where it is pro-
bable that they pass the winter in the pupa state.

The extraordinary smallness of this insect,
both in its larva and perfect state, with the
circumstance that the destruction of the wheat
takes place when it is in blossom, and that not
all the ears on one and the same field are at-
tacked, allows of but little that can be effected
by human aid against this enemy of grain. The
safest and almost only certain means of dimi-
nishing such an evil for the succeeding year,
consists in not sowing wheat again on the same
field, nor in its neighbourhood ; for, in all pro-
bability, the pupse lie in the earth, and will

FLY IN WHEAT.

PLY IN WHEAT.

only become flies next year at the season when
the corn is in blossom. Fortunately, nature
has in this case provided another still smaller
parasitic insect, allied to the family of Ichneu-
mons, to keep the midge also within its pro-
per bounds. Mr. Kirby, who first made us ac-
quainted with the natural history of this insect,
calls the parasite Ichneumon Tipvlce. It is a spe-
cies of the genus Platygaster of Latreille, be-
longing to the family Prodotrvpidoe.

Mr. Gorrie states that, from the experiments
which he made in the season 1831, the variety
of wheat cultivated under the name of Cone
wheat (Tritictim turgidum, PI. 2,rf), is not liable
to the attacks of the fly. (Quart. Joum. of Agr-
vol. iii. p. 639.) Mr. Shirreff {Ibid. p. 305), also
considers the Polish wheat (T. Polonicum, PI. 2,
e), to be in a measure secure from its attacks.

The ravages committed by the wheat-fly in
Scotland are sometimes very extensive. It is
stated by Mr. Shirrefi", that throughout the whole
of East Lothian, during the years 1827, 1828,
1829, and 1830, the fly injured the wheat crop
to the amount of 30 per cent. Should the fly
abound in this proportion throughout the king-
dom in successive years, the loss to the com-
munity would be incalculable. Mr. Gorrie
seems to think that the wheat-fly maggot might
be so buried as not to be able to work their
way up through the superincumbent soil ; if,
in ploughing in the wheat stubble, a scarifier
or skimmer were fixed upon the beam before
the coulter, so constructed as to lay about an
inch of the surface in the bottom of the furrow.
There is Miother kind of fly or midge (Tipula
cerealis, SaOTer), which is particularly injurious
to spelt (a kind of dwarf wheat) and barley.
(Kollar on Insects injurious to Je,r\cuUure. Quart.
Joum. of Agr. vol. ii. p. 3; Westwood on Wheat
Flies, in Gard. Mag. vol. xiii. p. 289.)

An insect resembling the European wheat-
fly in its habits, and known, in its maggot
form, by the name of " the grain-worm," has
been observed for several years in the north-
ern and eastern parts of the United Slates
and in Canada. (See PI. 2, i, ichere the maggot
and fly ore represented as highly magnified.) " It
seems," says Dr. Harris, " to have been mis-
taken by some for the grain-weevil, the Angou-
mois grain-moth, and the Hessian fly, and its
history has been so confounded with that of
another insect, also called the grain-worm in
some parts of the country, that it is difficult to
ascertain the amount of injury done by either
of them alone. The wheat-fly is said to have
been first seen in America about the year 1828,
in the northern part of Vermont, and on the
borders of Lower Canada. From these places
its ravages have gradually extended in various
directions from year to year. A considerable
part of Upper Canada, of New York, New
Hampshire, and of Massachusetts has been
visited by it; and, in 1834, it appeared in
Maine, which it has traversed, in an easterly
course, at the rate of 20 or 30 miles a year.
The country over which it has spread has con-
tinued to suffer more or less from its alarming
depredations, the loss by which has been found
to vary from about one-tenth part to nearly the
whole of the annual crop of wheat; nor has
the insect entirely disappeared in any place

till it has been starved out by a change of agri-
culture, or by the substitution of late-sown
spring wheat for the other varieties of grain.
Many communications on this destructive in-
sect have appeared in the Genesee Farmer and
in the Cultivator, some of them written by the
late Judge Buel, by whom, as well as by the
editors of the Yankee Farmer, rewards were
offered for the discovery of the means to pre-
vent its ravages. Premiums have also been
proposed for the same end by the Kennebec
County Agricultural Society, in Maine, which
were followed by the publication in the Maine
Farmer of three "Essays on the Grain- Worm,"
presented to that Society. These essays were
reprinted in the 17th volume of the New Eng-
land Farmer, wherein, as well as in some other
volumes of the same work, several other arti-
cles on this insect may be found.

"The American wheat-insect, in its winged
form, has not yet fallen under my notice. It is
stated by Judge Buel, Mrs. Gage, and others,
to agree exactly with the description of the
European wheat-fly (Cecidomyia tritici), being
a very small, orange-coloured gnat, with long,
slender legs, and two transparent wings, which
reflect the tints of the rainbow. Immense
swarms of these orange-coloured gnats infest
fields of grain towards the last of June. While
the sun shines they conceal themselves among
the leaves and weeds near the ground. They
take wing during the morning and evening twi-
light, and also in cloudy weather, when they
lay their eggs in the opening flowers of the
grain. New swarms continue to come forth
in succession, till the end of July; but Mr.
Buel says that the principal deposit of eggs is
made in the first half of July, when late sown
winter-wheat and early sown spring-wheat are
in the blossom or milk. The flies are not con-
fined to wheat alone, but deposit in barley, rye,
and oats, when these plants are in flower at the
time of their appearance. The eggs hatch in
about eight days after they are laid, when the
little yellow maggots or grain-worms may be
found within the chaffy scales of the grain.
Being hatched at various times during a period
of four or five weeks, they do not all arrive at
maturity together. Mrs. Gage informs me that
they appear to come to their growth in 12 or
14 days. Specimens of these maggots which
she has sent to me were found to agree, in
every respect, with the descriptions and figures
of those of the European wheat-fly. They do
not exceed one-eighth of an inch in length, and
are not provided with feet. From 2 to 15 or
20 have been found within the husk of a single
grain, and sometimes in every husk in the ear.
After a shower of rain they have been seen in
such countless numbers on the beards of the
wheat, as to give a yellow colour to the whole
field. These insects prey on the grain in the
milky state, and their ravages cease when the
grain becomes hard. They do not burrow
within the kernels, but live on the pollen and
on the soft matter of the grain, which they pro-
bably extract from the base of the germs. It
appears, from various statements, that very
early and very late wheat escape with compa-
ratively little injury; the amount of which, in
, other cases, depends upon the condition of the

49X

mmm

FLY IN WHEAT.

grain at the time when the maggots are hatched.
When the maggots begin their depredations
soon after the blossoming of the grain, they do
the greatest injury, for the kernels never fill
out at all. Pinched or partly filled kernels are
the consequence of their attacks when the
grain is more advanced. The hulls of the im-
poverished kernels will always be found split
open on the convex side, so as to expose the
embryo. This is caused by the drying and
shrinking of the hull, after a portion of the con-
tents thereof has been sucked out by the mag-
gots. Towards the end of July and in the be-
ginning of August the full-grown maggots leave
off eating, and become sluggish and torpid, pre-
paratory to moulting their skins. This process,
which has been alluded to by Judge Buel and
some other writers, has been carefully observed
by Mrs. Gage, who has sent to me the maggots
before and after moulting, together with some
of their cast skins. Within two or three days
after moulting, the maggots either drop of their
own accord, or are shaken out of the ears by
the wind, and fall to the ground. They do not
let themselves down by threads, for they are
not able to spin. Nearly all of them disappear
before the middle of August, and they are very
rarely found in the grain at the time of harvest.
" Several cases of the efficacy of fumigation
in preventing the depredations of these insects
are recorded in our agricultural papers. For
this purpose brimstone has been used, in the
proportion of one pound to every bushel of
seed sown. Strips of woollen cloth, dipped in
melted brimstone, and fastened to sticks in
different parts of the field, and particularly on
the windward side, are set on fire, for several
evenings in succession, at the time when the
grain is in blossom; the smoke and fumes thus
penetrate the standing grain, and prove very
offensive or destructive to the flies, which are
laying their eggs. A thick smoke from heaps
of burning weeds, sprinkled with brimstone,
around the sides of the field, has also been re-
commended. Lime or ashes, strown over the
grain when in blossom, has, in some cases, ap-
peared to protect the crop; and the Rev. Henr}'
Colman, the Commissioner for the Agricultu-
ral Survey of Massachusetts, says that this
preventive, if not infallible, may be relied on
with strong confidence. For every acre of
grain, from one peck to a bushel of newly
slaked lime or of good wood ashes will be re-
quired ; and this should be scattered over the
plants when they are wet with dew or rain.
Two or three applications of it have some-
times been found necessary. Whether it be
possible to destroy the maggots after they have
left the grain, and have betaken themselves to
their winter quarters, just below the surface
of the ground, remains to be proved. Some
persons have advised burning the stubble, and
ploughing up the ground, soon after the grain
is harvested, in order to kill the maggots, or to
bury them so deeply that they could not make
their escapfe after they were transformed to
flies. Perhaps thoroughly liming the soil be-
fore it is ploughed may contribute to the de-
struction of the insects. It is slated that our
crops may be saved from injury by sowing
early in the autumn or late in the spring. By
492

FLY IN WHEAT.

the first, it is supposed that the grain will be-
come hard before many of the flies make their
appearance; and by the latter, the plants do
not come into blossom until the flies have dis-
appeared. In those parts of New England
where these insects have done the greatest in-
jury, the cultivation of fall-sown or winter
grain has been given up ; and this, for some
years to come, will be found the safest course.
The proper time for sowing in the spring will
vary with the latitude and elevation of the
place, and the forwardness of the season.
From numerous observations made in this
part of the country, it appears that grain sown
after the 15th or 20th of May generally escapes
the ravages of these destructive insects. Late
sowing has almost entirely banished the wheat-
flies from those parts of Vermont where they
first appeared ; and there is good reason to ex-
pect that these depredators will be completely
starved out and exterminated, when the means
above recommended have been generally adopt-
ed and persevered in for several years in suc-
cession.

" Mrs. Gage has discovered another perni-
cious insect in the ears of growing wheat. It
seems to agree with the accounts of the Thrips
cerealium, which sometimes infests wheat in
Europe to a great extent. This insect belongs
to the order Hemiptera. In its larva state it
is smaller than the wheat maggot, is orange-
coloured, and is provided with six legs, two
antennae, and a short beak, and is very nimble
in its motions. It is supposed to suck out the
juices of the seed, thus causing the latter to
shrink, and become what the En^sh farmers
call pungled. This little pest may probably
be destroyed by giving the grain a thorough
coating of slaked lime.

" Our agricultural papers contain some ac-
counts of an insect or insects much larger than
the maggots of the wheat-fly, growing to the
length of three-eighths of an inch or more, and
devouring the grain in the ear, and after it is
harvested. The insects to which I allude have
received the names of wheat-worms, gray
worms, and brown weevils ; and, although
these different names may possibly refer to
two or more distinct species, I am inclined to
think that all of them are intended for only one
kind of insect. Sometimes this has also been
called the grain-worm; whereby it becomes
somewhat difficult to separate the accounts of
its history and depredations from those of the
Cecidopjyia, or wheat-insect, described in the
foregoing pages. It may, however, very safely
be asserted that the wheat-worm of the western
part of New York and of the northern part of
Pennsylvania is entirely distinct from the
maggots of our wheat-fly, and that it does not
belong to the same order of insects. From
the description of it, published in the sixth
volume of the Cultivator, by Mr. Willis Gaylord,
! this depredator appears to be a caterpillar, or
i span-worm, being provided with twelve feet,
I six of which are situated near each extremity
; of its body. Like other span-worms, or Geo-
! meters, it has the power of spinning and sus-
pending itself by a thread. Mr. Gaylord says
that it is of a yellowish-brown or butternut
, colour ; that it not only feeds on the kernel in

FLY IN WHEAT.

PLY IN WHEAT.

the milky state, but also devours the germi-
nating end of the ripened grain, without, how-
ever, burying itself within the hull; and that
it is found in great numbers, in the chaff, when
the grain is thrashed. He says, moreover, that
it has been known for years in the western
part of New York ; and that it is not so much
the new appearance of this insect, as its in-
crease, which has caused the present alarm
respecting it. The transformations and the
appearance of this insect in its perfected state
have not yet been described. Mr. Nathaniel
Sill, of Warren, Pennsylvania, has given a
somewhat different description of it. On
thrashing his winter-wheat, immediately after
harvest, he found among the screenings a vast
army of this new enemy. He says that it was
a caterpillar, about three-eighths of an inch in
length, when fully grown, and apparently of a
straw-colour; but, when seen through a mag-
nifier, was found to be striped lengthwise with
orange and cream colour. Its head was dark
brown. It was provided with legs, could sus-
pend itself by a thread, and resembled a cater-
pillar in all its motions. This insect ought not
to be confounded with the smaller worms
found by Mr. Sill in the upper joints of the
stems of the wheat, and within the kernels,
until their identity has been proved by further
observations. It appears highly probable that
Mr. Gaylord's and Mr. Sill's wheat-caterpillars
are the same, notwithstanding the difference in
their colour. Insects, of the same size as these
caterpillars, and of a brownish colour, have
been found in various parts of Maine, where
they have done much injury to the grain.
Unlike the maggots of the wheat-fly, with
which they have been confounded, they remain
depredating upon the ears of the grain until
after the time of harvest. Immense numbers
of them have been seen upon barn-floors,
where the grain has been thrashed, but they
soon crawl away, and conceal themselves in
crevices, where they probably undergo their
transformations. These wheat- worms, or
wheat-caterpillars, as they ought to be called,
if the foregoing accounts really refer to the
same kind of insect, are supposed by some
persons to be identical with the clover-worms,
which have been found in clover, in various
parts of the country, and have often been seen
spinning down from lofts and mows where
clover has been stowed away."

Flies Destructive to Barlet. Several
communications respecting a disease of bar-
ley-straw, produced by the punctures of in-
sects, were published in Fessenden's New
England Fanner, in 1829 and 1830 (vol. 8th).
In one of these, from the Hon. J. Merrill,
of Newburyport, it is staled that the barley
in that vicinity yields not much more than
the seed sown. Most of the stalks were found
to have a number of small worms within
them, near to the second joint, and haH become
hardened in the part attacked. During several
years previous to this date the crops of barley
in various parts of Essex and Middlesex coun-
ties, had been more or less injured in the same
way, so as in some places to induce farmers to
abandon the culture. It was supposed that the
insects had been imported from Bremen, or i

some other port in the north of Europe. The
maggots were found to be transformed into
small flies, which were thought by some to be
the same as Hessian flies. In the summer of
1831, myriads of these flies were found alive
in straw beds in Gloucester, the straw having
been taken from the fields the year before.
Complaints were made that the insects in these
straw beds stung those that slept upon them.
But Dr. Harris thinks that the stings must
have come, not from the grain-fly itself, but
from parasites, vast numbers of which, closely
resembling the Eurytoma Destructor, have been
found to come out of the diseased straw.

When the barley is about 8 or 10 inches
high, the effects of the disease in it begin to be
visible by a sudden check in the growth of the
plants, and the yellow colour of their lower
leaves. If the butts of the straw are now ex-
amined, they will be found to be irregularly
swollen, and discoloured, between the second
and third joints, and, instead of being hollow,
are rendered solid, hard, and brittle, so that the
stem above the diseased part is impoverished,
and seldom produces any grain. Suckers,
however, shoot out below, and afterwards yield
a partial crop, seldom exceeding one-half the
usual quantity of grain. "It is evident," says
Mr. Gourgas, "that the soundness of the grain,
raised in a blighted field, is not affected thereby
in the slightest degree; the seed (eggs) to per-
petuate the disease from year to year is lodged
in the straw, which, when hatched, are the
worms" before mentioned. Dr. Andrew Ni-
chols, of Danvers states, that these worms are
about one-tenth of an inch in length, and of a
yellow or straw colour; and that in the month
of November, they appeared to have passed to
the chrysalis state. They live through the
winter unchanged in the straw, many of them
in the stubble in the field, while others are car-
ried away when the grain is harvested. When
the barley is thrashed, numerous small pieces
of diseased straw, too hard to be broken by the
flail, will be found among the grain. Some of
these may be separated by the winnowing ma-
chine, but many others are too large and heavy
to be winnowed out, and remain with the grain,
from which they can only be removed by the
slow process of picking them out by hand.

Dr. Harris, who examined portions of the
diseased barley-straw, states that he found each
piece to contain several small, whitish mag-
gots, each maggot imbedded in the thickened
and solid substance of the stem, a little longi-
tudinal hollow, of the shape of its own body ;
and its presence was known by an oblong
swelling upon the surface. In some pieces of
straw the swellings were so numerous as
greatly to disfigure the stem, the circulation in
which must have been very much checked if
not destroyed. Early in the following spring,
these maggots entered the pupae or chrysalis
state, and on the 15th of June the perfected
insects began to make their escape through
minute perforations in the straw, which they
gnawed for this purpose. Seven of these little
holes were counted in a piece of straw only
half an inch in length. The insects continued
to release themselves from their confinement
till the 5th of July, after which no more were
2T 493

FLY, HESSIAN.

FLY, HESSIAN.

seen. Much to his surprise they proved to be
minute, four-winged Ichneumon-flies, which
are parasitical, or prey, in the larva state, on
the bodies of other insects. He had hoped to
have obtained the true culprits, the cause of
the disease, supposing that the latter were al-
lied to the Hessian fly; but these little insects,
while in the larva state, had destroyed them
all, and, having finished their appointed task,
and undergone their transformations, now
made their escape from the straw in the
winged form. The scientific name, given to
this newly discovered parasite, was Eurytoma
Hordei, so called from Hordeum, the Latin
name for barley. It is very much like the
parasite (Eurytoma destructor) of the Hessian
fly, described by Mr. Say, but is rather larger,
of a jet black colour, except the legs, which
are blackish, with pale yellow joints. The head
and thorax are somewhat rough, and slightly
hairy ; the hind-body is smooth and polished.
The female is thirteen-hundredths of an inch
long; the male is rather smaller. It often
moves by little leaps, but the hindmost thighs
are not thickened. This minute insect is to
be reckoned among our friends, being ap-
pointed, by an all-wise and provident Creator,
to check the increase of the destructive fly
that attacks our barley. Though disappointed
in my attempts to obtain the latter, in its per-
fected state, I hail with pleasure the appear-
ance of its mortal enemy. " Although," says
Dr. Harris, " the barley-fly has not yet been
seen by me, there does not exist the smallest
doubt in my mind that it is a two-winged gnat,
like the Hessian fly and wheat-fly. Any one,
who will compare the history of the latter two
with what is known of the barley insect, will
arrive at the same conclusion. Both the Hes-
sian fly and the barley insect attack the culms
or straw of grain, which they injure to a great
extent; and both have a similar four-winged
parasite appropriated to them. It is probable
that the barley-fly is a species of Ceddomyia,
distinct from the Hessian and the wheat-flies."

We have reason to believe, that the maggots
of the barley-fly remain in the straw during
the winter, and that they take the winged form
in the spring, in season to lay their eggs on
the young barley. It is therefore important to
prevent them from completing their transform-
ations. This may be done by burning the
stubble, which contains many of the insects,
in the autumn ; by destroying in the same way,
all the straw and refuse which is unfit for fod-
der; and by keeping the grain in close vessels
over one year, whereby the insects, which are
disclosed from the small heavy pieces of straw
remaining unwinnowed from the grain, will
perish without an opportunity to escape.

FLY, HESSIAN. One of the most formida-
ble enemies of the wheat crop in the United
States, is the far-famed Hessian fly, a small
gnat or midge, which naturalists have placed in
the family of gall-gnats (Cecidomyiadee). The
insects of this family are very numerous, and
most of them in the maggot state live in galls,
or unnatural enlargements of the stems, leaves,
and buds of plants, caused by the punctures
of the winged insects in laying their eggs.
The following account of the Hessian fly, the
404

dread of farmers wherever wheat is cultivated
in North America, is chiefly taken from Har-
ris's Report on Destructive Insects, and Her-
rick's valuable paper upon this insect, pub-
lished in Silliman's American Journal of Science,
vol. 42. The brief history of the habits and
transformations of the Hessian fly will be
found to agree essentially with the excellent
observations on this insect, written in 1797,
by Dr. Isaac Chapman, and published in the
Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting
Agriculture.

"The head and thorax of this fly are black.
The hind-body is tawny, and covered with fine
grayish hairs. The wings are blackish, but
are more or less tinged with yellow at the base,
where also they are very narrow : they are
fringed with short hairs, and are rounded at
the end. The body measures about one-
tenth of an inch in length, and the wings
expand one-quarter of an inch, or more.
Two broods or generations are brought to
maturity in the course of a year, and the flies
appear in the spring and autumn, but rather
earlier in the Southern and Middle States than
in New England. The transformations of
some in each brood appear to be retarded be-
yond the usual time, as is found to be the case
with many other insects ; so that the life of
these individuals, from the egg to the Avinged
state, extends to a year or more in length,
whereby the continuation of the species in
after years is made more sure. It has fre-
quently been asserted that the flies lay their
eggs on the grain in the ear ; but whether this
be true or not, it is certain that they do lay their
eggs on the young plants, and long before the
grain is ripe ; for many persons have witnessed
and testified to this fact. In the New England
States, winter wheat, as it is called, is usually
sown about the 1st of September. Towards
the end of this month, and in October, when
the grain has sprouted, and begins to show a
leaf or two, the flies appear in the fields, and,
having paired, begin to lay their eggs, in which
business they are occupied for several weeks.
The followinginte resting account of the manner
in which this is done, was written by Mr. Ed-
ward Tilghman, of Queen Ann county, Mary-
land, and was published in the eighth volume
of the Cultivator, in May, 1841. * By the se-
cond week of October, the first sown wheat
being well up, and having generally put forth
its second and third blades, I resorted to my
field in a fine warm forenoon, to endeavour to
satisfy myself, by ocular demonstration, whe-
ther the fly did deposit the egg on the blades of
the growing plant Selecting a favourable
spot to make my observation, I placed myself
in a reclining position in a furrow, and had
been on the watch but a minute or two, be-
fore I discovered a number of small black
flies alighting and sitting on the wheat plants
around me, and presently one settled on the
ridged surface of a blade of a plant completely
within my reach and distinct observation. She
immediately began depositing her eggs in the
longitudinal cavity between the little ridges of
the blade. I could distinctly see the eggs eject-
ed from a kind of tube or sting. After she
bad deposited eight or ten eggs, I easily caught

/

FLY, HESSIAN.

FLY, HESSIAN.

her upon the blade, and wrapped her up in a I
piece of paper. I then proceeded to take up ;
the plant with as much as I conveniently could
of the circumjacent earth, and wrapped it all
securely in a piece of paper. After that I
continued my observations on the flies, caught
several similarly occupied, and could see the
eggs uniformly placed in the longitudinal cavi-
ties of the blades of the wheat ; their appear-
ance being that of minute reddish specks. My
own mind being thus completely and fully
satisfied as to the mode in which the egg was
deposited, I proceeded directly to my dwelling,
and put the plant with the eggs upon it in a
large glass tumbler, adding a little water to the
earth, and secured the vessel by covering it
with paper, so that no insect could get access
to the interior. The paper was sufficiently
perforated with pin-holes for the admission of
air. The tumbler with its contents was daily
watched by myself to discover the hatching of
the eggs. About the middle of the fifteenth
day from the deposit of the eggs, I was so for-
tunate as to discover a very small maggot or
worm, of a reddish cast, making its way with
considerable activity down the blade, and saw
it till it disappeared between the blade and
stem of the plant. This I have no doubt, was
the produce of one of the eggs, and would, I
presume, have hatched much sooner, had the
plant remained in the field. It was my inten-
tion to have carried on the experiment, by en-
deavouring to hatch out the insect from the
flax-seed state into the perfect fly again ; but
being called from home, the plant was suffered
to perish. The fly that I caught on the blade of
the wheat, as above stated,! enclosed in a letter
to Mr. John S. Skinner, the editor of the Ameri-
can Farmer, of Baltimore, who pronounced it
to be a genuine Hessian fly, and identical in
appearance with others recently received from
Virginia.'

" Dr. Chapman agrees with the writer, in
saying that the Hessian fly lays her eggs in
the small creases of the young leaves of the
wheat. Mr. Havens, in an article on this in-
sect, which will again be referred to, states,
that the fly lays her eggs on the leaves. In the
fortieth number of The Connecticut Fanner's
Gazette, Mr. Herrick says, *I have repeatedly,
both in autumn and spring, seen the Hessian
fly in the act of depositing eggs on wheat, and
have always found that she selects for this pur-
pose the leaves of the young plant. The eggs
are laid in various numbers on the upper sur-
face of the strap-shaped portion (or blade) of
the leaf.' His remarks in Professor Silliman's
Journal are to the same effect. Other authori-
ties on this point might be mentioned; but the
foregoing are sufficient, in my opinion, to
establish the fact, that the Hessian fly lays her
eggs on the leaves of wheat soon after the
plants are up. * The number on a single leaf,'
says Mr. Herrick, ' is often twenty or thirty,
and sometimes much greater. In these cases
many of the larvae must perish. The egg is
about a fiftieth of an inch long, and four-thou-
sandth of an inch in diameter, cylindrical,
translucent, and of a pale red colour.' Mr.
Tilghman v as correct in supposing that the
eggs would hatch in less than fifteen days,

under favourable circumstances ; for, if the
weather be warm, they commonly hatch in four
days after they are laid. The maggots, when
they first come out of the shells, are of a pale
red colour. Forthwith they crawl down the
leaf, and work their way between it and the
main stalk, passing downwards till they come
to a joint, just above which they remain, a
little below the surface of the ground, with the
head towards the root of the plant. Having
thus fixed themselves upon the stalk, they be-
come stationary, and never move from the
place till their transformations are completed.
They do not eat the stalk, neither do they pene-
trate within it, as some persons have supposed,
but they lie lengthwise upon its surface,
covered by the lower part of the leaves, and
are nourished wholly by the sap, which they
appear to take by suction. They soon lose
their reddish colour, turn pale, and will be
found to be clouded with whitish spots ; and
through their transparent skins a greenish
stripe may be seen in the middle of their
bodies. As they increase in size, and grow
plump and firm, they become imbedded in the
side of the stem, by the pressure of their bodies
upon the growing plant. One maggot thus
placed seldom destroys a plant ; but when two
or three are fixed in this manner around the
stem, they weaken and impoverish the plant,
and cause it to fall down, or to wither and die.
They usually come to their full size in five or
six weeks, and then measure about three-twen-
tieths of an inch in length. Their skin now
gradually hardens, becomes brownish, and
soon changes to a bright chestnut colour. This
change usually happens about the first of De-
cember, when the insect may be said to enter
on the pupa state, for after this time it takes no
more nourishment. Mr. Herrick informs me,
that the brown and leathery skin, within which
the maggot has changed to a pupa or chrysalis,
is long, egg-shaped, smooth, and marked with
eleven transverse lines, and measures one-
eighth of an inch in length. In this form it
has been commonly likened to a flax-seed. It
appears, then, from the remarks of Dr. Chap-
man, Mr. Herrick, and other careful observers,
that the maggots of the Hessian fly do not cast
off their skins in order to become pupae, where-
in they differ from the larvae of most other
gnats, and agree with those of common flies ;
neither do they spin cocoons, as some of the
Cecidomyians are supposed to do. Mr. Her-
rick, in one of his letters, observes, that ' the
pupa gradually cleaves from the dried skin of
the larva, and, in the course of two or three
weeks, is wholly detached' from it. Still en-
closed within this skin, which thus becomes
a kind of cocoon or shell for the pupa, it
remains throughout the winter, safely lodged
in its bed on the side of the stem, near the
root of the plant, and protected from the cold
by the dead leaves. Towards the end of April
and in the forepart of May, or as soon as the
weather becomes warm enough in the spring,
the insects are transformed into flies. They
make their escape from their winter-quarters
by breaking through one end of their shells
and the remains of the leaves around them.
" Very soon after the flies come forth in the

d95

FLY, HESSIAN.

PLY, HESSL\N.

spring, they are prepared to lay their eggs on
the leaves of the wheat sown in the autumn
before, and also on the spring-sown wheat, that
begins, at this time, to appear above the surface
of the ground. They continue to come forth
and lay their eggs for the space of three weeks,
after which they entirely disappear from the
fields. The maggots hatched from these eggs
pass along the stems of the wheal, nearly t >
the roots, become stationary, and turn to pupse
in June and July. In this state they are found
at the time of harvest, and when the grain is
gathered, they remain in the stubble in the
fields. To this, however, as Mr. Haven re-
marks, there are some exceptions ; for a few
of the insects do not pass so far down the side
of the stems as to be out of the way of the
sickle when the grain is reaped, and conse-
quently will be gathered and carried away with
the straw. Most of them are transformed to
flies in the autumn, but others remain un-
changed in the stubble or straw till the next
spring. Hereby, says Mr. Havens, 'it appears
evident, that they may be removed from their
natural situation in the field, and be kept alive
long enough to be carried across the Atlantic;
from which circumstance it is possible that
they might have been imported' in straw from
a foreign country. In the winged state, these
flies, or more properly gnats, are very active,
and, though very small and seemingly feeble,
are able to fly to a considerable distance in
search of fields of young grain. Their
principal migrations take place in August and
September in the Middle States, where they
undergo their final transformations earlier than
in New England. There, too, they sometinies
take wing in immense swarms, and, being
probably aided by the wind, are not stopped in
their course either by mountains or rivers. On
their first appearance in Pennsylvania, they
were seen to pass the Delaware like a cloud.
Being attracted by light, they have been known,
during the wheat harvest, to enter houses in
the evening in such numbers as seriously to
annoy the inhabitants.

"The old discussion, concerning the place
where the Hessian fly lays her eggs, has lately
been revived, in consequence of a communica-
tion made by Miss Margaretta H. Morris, of
Germantown, Pennsylvania, to ' The American
Philosophical Society,* of Philadelphia. The
following remarks upon it are extracted from
a report made to the same society, and pub-
lished in their Proceedings for November and
December, 1840. 'Miss Morris believes she
has established that the ovum (e^g) of this
destructive insect is deposited in the seed of
the wheat, and not in the stalk or culm. She
has watched the progress of the animal since
June, 1836, and has satisfied herself that she
has frequently seen the larva within the seed.
She has also detected the larva, at various
stages of its progress, from the seed to between
the body of the stalk and the sheath of the
leaves. According to her observations, the
recently hatched larva penetrates to the centre
of the straw, where it may be found of a pale
greenish-white, semi-transparent appearance,
in form somewhat resembling a silk-worm.
From one to six of these have been found at
496

various heights from the seed to the third joint."
Miss Morris's communication has not yet been
published in full; but, from the foregoing re-
port, we are led to infer that the egg, being
sown with the grain, is hatched in the ground,
and that the maggot afterwards mounts from
the seed through the middle of the stem, and
having reached a proper height, escapes from
the hollow of the straw to the outside, where it
takes the pupa or flax-seed stale. The fact
that the Hessian fly does ordinarily lay her
eggs on the young leaves of wheat, barley, and
rye, both in the spring and in the autumn, is
too well authenticated to admit of any doubt.
If, therefore, the observaticns of Miss Morris
are found to be equally correct, they will serve
to show, still more than the foregoing history,
how variable and extraordinary is the economy
of this insect, and how great are ihe resources
wherewith it is provided for the continuation
of its kind." (Harris.)

Dr. B. H. Coates of Philadelphia, whose at-
tention has been recently drawn to the Hessian
and other flies destructive to wheat crops,
states that a number of examinations made in
the vicinity of Philadelphia during the summer
of 1841, showed the presence of a pale yellow
larva in the hollow of the straw of wheat,
which he considered as proved to be the same
with that which is ultimately converted into
the Cecidomyia Destructor of Say, and the
Hessian fly of our cultivators. In many in-
stances, "communicated to him by Miss Mor-
ris," referable, perhaps, to a peculiarity in the
season, the animal went through all its stages
before escaping from the cavity ; " thus afl^ord-
ing," says Dr. Coates, "irrefragable evidences
of the identity of the species." In no case
known to Dr. C. had any thing resembling a
caterpillar or maggot, or any thing apparently
capable of locomotion, been found under the
sheath of the leaf: the body observed was
always immovable and fixed in a depression of
the straw. {Proceedings of the Am. Phil. Soc.)

"Various means have been recommended
for preventing or lessening the ravages of the
Hessian fly; but they have hitherto failed,
either because they have not been adapted to
the end in view, or because they have not
been universally adopted; and it appears
doubtful whether any of them will ever en-
tirely exterminate the insect. It is stated in
the before-mentioned report to * the Philoso-
phical Society,' that Miss Morris advises ob-
taining ' fresh seed from localities in which
the fly has not made its appearance,' and that
' by this means the crop of the following year will
be uninjured; but in order to avoid the intro-
duction of straggling insects of the kind from
adjacent fields, it is requisite that a whole neigh-
bourhood should persevere in this precaution
for two or more years in succession.' " (Harris.)
It seems to be generally admitted that the
variety of wheat called Mediterranean, intro-
duced a few years since into the United States,
where it is now extensively cultivated, resists
the attacks of the Hessian fly. Hence it may
be sown very early in the fall, long before if
would be safe to sow the common varieties,
by which another great advantage is gained,
in its escaping the rust and mildew so apt to

/

FOAL.

FOG.

affect crops which are backward in the time
of ripening.

FOAL (Su. Goth. /o/e; Sax. poia). The
young of the horse kind ; the male being term-
ed a colt foal, and the female a filly. The foal
and its mother should always be well fed, and
two feeds of corn, at least, be added to the
green food which they get, when turned out
after their work at night. The growing colt
should continue to have liberal nourishment ;
bruised oats and bran should form a consider-
able part of his daily provender. In five or
six months, according to the growth of the foal,
it may be weaned. It should then be housed
for three weeks or a month, or turned into
some distant rick-yard. The process of break-
ing in should commence from the very pefiod
of weaning ; and the foal should be daily
handled, partially dressed, accustomed to the
halter, led about, and even tied up ; for on this
much of the tractability, good temper, and
value of the horse will depend. After the se-
cond winter, the work of breaking in may com-
mence in good earnest.

Management of Foalt after Weaning. — The
principal object with most breeders is to have
their stock large and powerful at an early age.
It is really wonderful what may be done to-
wards effecting this by means of good food
judiciously supplied, proper shelter, and liberty
of range in favourable weather. It is natural
to suppose, when a foal is first taken from its
dam, that it will, in some degree, fall away in
condition and lose flesh ; the nutritive proper-
ties of its "mother's milk" cannot be taken
from it without affecting ils yet tender constitu-
tion. To guard against this, every attention
must be directed to the quality as well as quan-
tity of food which is presented to it ; that which
contains most nourishment must be provided,
find although the bulk of hay which a foal con-
sumes is very trifling, it should be of the best
quality. For foals, when they are first weaned,
linseed gruel should be their constant beverage,
and, indeed, it cannot be too highly recom-
mended for all horses. A liberal allowance of
oats is likewise necessary ; foals, if in health,
will eat at least two quarterns per day ; and, as
they increase in age, this allowance may be
augmented. The seeds which are left from the
linseed-gruel, should be given with the corn. I
have frequently recommended the practice of
bruising the oats, and must certainly repeat it,
even in opposition to the arguments of some
persons who are averse to it. Bran mashes
may be given at least once a week, and in
some instances more frequently. Carrots will
likewise be found a very proper food for young
stock, and should be given once or twice a
day. Too long a continuance of the same
food cloys the appetite. Boiled barley is found
to be very nutritious food, and most horses are
very fond of it. As an alterative, it may be
given with great advantage, if foals do not
consume their corn with their usual appetite.
It requires to be well boiled for two or three
hours in a small quantity of water, frequently
replenishing it that the grain may not burn,
and constantly stirring it that every grain may i
undergo an equal process ; it may be consider- '
ed sufficiently boiled when all the corns have {
63

burst, and, when given, should have a little
bran or finely-cut hay mixed with it. About
ten days or a fortnight after they are weaned,
each foal should have a gentle dose of physic
— one drachm to a drachm and a half of aloes,
with a drachm of Castile soap, and the same
quantity of ginger, will generally be found suf-
ficient.

FOALING. A term applied to the act of
parturition, or bringing forth young in the
mare. Good feeding and moderate exercise
are found to be the best preventives against
slinking, which is most prevalent when half
the time of pregnancy has elapsed. See Ahor-
Tiox. If a mare has been regularly exercised,
and apparently in health while she was in
foal, little danger will attend the act of parturi-
tion. If there be false presentations of the
foetus, or difficulty in producing it, it will be
better to have recourse to a well-informed
veterinary practitioner, rather than injure the
mother by the violent and injurious attempts
which are often made to relieve the animal.
As soon as the mare has foaled, she should be
turned into some well sheltered pasture, with
a hovel or shed to run into when she pleases ;
and as, supposing she has foaled in April, the
grass is scanty, she should have a cou|)le of
feeds of corn daily. The mare may be put to
moderate work a month after foaling.

FODDER (Germ. fuller; Sax. fotjcop; from
poeoan, to eat; Irish, foder, straw; Icel. fodrj.
In agriculture, the ordinary food given to cat-
tle, which consists of the stems and leaves of
plants, such as clover, hay, chopped straw,
dried blades and tops of Indian corn, &c.; the
culmiferous stems of the grasses, the haulm
of legumes, potatoes, &c. Grain, beans, tur-
nips, and other articles which present nourish-
ment in a more concentrated form, are not
included under the term fodder, but are rather
known as solid food. See Food.

FOG (Dan. fog). In meteorology, a dense
vapour near the surface of the land or water.
Fogs in general are the consequence of the
nocturnal cooling of the atmosphere. The air,
by its rapid cooling, becomes surcharged with
moisture; a part of which being condensed in
the form of a cloud, gives rise to the ordinary
fog. During the day the heat of the sun gene-
rally disperses the fog, because the quaritity of
moisture which the air is capable of holding
becomes considerable in proportion as its tem-
perature is increased. In calm weather the
surfaces of rivers, lakes, &c., are frequently
covered with fog. The reason is this. During
the night the air is colder than the water ; the
strata of air in contact with the water are con-
sequently heated, and become saturated with
moisture. The mixture of the vapour with the
air, together with its elevation of temperature,
renders the air specifically lighter. It rises in
consequence, and mixing with the cold air in
the superior strata, is cooled, and has its mois-
ture condensed. The cloud or fog resulting
from this precipitation can only rise to a small
height, because the uniformity of temperature
is soon restored. Hence it is easy to see how
winds, or a great agitation of the water, pre-
vent the formation of fogs over the surface of
water. In the equinoctial regions, fogs some-
2 T 2 497

FOGGAGE.

FOOD.

times continue during a considerable part of
the year. In the Polar seas thick fogs often
prevail, even during the warmest months ; and
they are so dense that objects frequently can-
not be distinguished at the distance of a few
yards. {Branded Did. of Science.)

FOGGAGE (Low Lat. fogagiun^). Coarse
or rank grass not eaten down in the summer
or autumn. The practice of fogging grass-
lands for the winter support of stock has been
found highly useful.

FOGGE. A common word in the north, that
properly signifies the grass which immediately
springs after the hay-crop has been taken, but
it is sometimes used for the long grass remain-
ing in the pastures till winter. (See After-
GiiAss.) It is also used for moss, in some parts
of Scotland : thus a fog-house means a house
built or lined with moss.

FOGGING. A peculiar practice in the ma-
nagement of grass-lands, confined chiefly to the
district of South Wales. It consists in keep-
ing the whole growth of grass in upland mea-
dows free from either scythe or stock, and eat-
ing it in the following winter. Arthur Young
states, that many years ago, he knew a Snflblk
clergyman, who was in the regular habit of
this singular practice, and spoke of it as a
most profitable one. He has, he says, tried it
thrice, and with success ; and he finds that it
thickens the herbage greatly, and yields far
more valuable winter and spring food than
any person would expect, who never tried it.
But it should be practised only on dry or toler-
ably dry land.

FOLD (Sax. pealrse). A temporary pen or
enclosure for keeping cattle or other agricultu-
ral animals together, either for the purpose of
confinement during the night, or jointly for
protection and feeding. Sometimes, also, sheep
are folded for the purpose of manuring. Sheep-
folds are of two kinds ; either houses or sheds
set apart for that purpose adjoining to the farm-
yard, or movable folds formed by hurdles, &c.
On the Continent, sheep are principally folded
in sheds, &c., the floors of which are strewed
•with straw, sand, or clean dry earth, by which
an additional quantity of manure is obtained.
The temporary fence or barrier of which mova-
ble folds are constructed, is most commonly
wooden hurdles; but sometimes, when the fold
is only to contain ewes and lambs, netting
stretched between posts is made use of, there
being a strong rope fixed to the lower parts of
the post, close to the ground, to which the under
edge of the netting is attached, while its upper
edge is fastened to a rope stretched along the
tops of the same post. Netting is by far the
cheapest and neatest substance for barriers for
folds. (See Hurdles.) Mr. Children has
recently advocated a system of shed-feeding
(Jour. Roy. Jgr. Soc. vol. i. p. 40) ; and there is
little doubt that sheep, in common with all live
stock, suffer more from the eflects of wet and
cold, when feeding in exposed situations, than
is commonly supposed.

FOLDING. The practice of confining sheep
and other animals upon land, by means of hur-
dles, &c., for the purpose of feeding on and
manuring it. The practice of folding sheep on
naked fallows, with a view to manuring them,
498

is still common in several parts of England;
but the more improved sheep farmers consider
that it deteriorates the wool and impedes the
fattening of the sheep, by keeping them for the
greater part of every night wholly without food.
Others, however, assert that folding is not inju-
rious to sheep, if they are kept in a good pas-
ture during the day, and not folded too early in
the evening, or kept in the fold too long in the
morning. In some large arable land farms in
Hampshire and other counties, folding is still
considered necessary, and large flocks of breed-
ing ewes are kept specially for that purpose.
Sheep are occasionally penned or folded on
young wheat, but more commonly on turnips,
a certain portion being enclosed, suflScient for
th^ to eat off" in one or two days.

FOLD-YARD. The yard where cattle of
difl^erent sorts are confined and fed during the
winter season. Yards of this nature should be
properly fitted up with convenient sheds and
racks for the animals to eat their fodder from,
and have suitable divisions for containing dif-
ferent denominations of cattle, or other live
stock. See Farm-Yard.

FOOD (Sax. }-ot>). All substances suscepti-
ble of digestion and assimilation may come
under the denomination of food. Animals
require, for their support and developement,
atoms or elements highly organized. The food
of all animals, under all circumstances, con-
sists of portions of organized matter. Vegeta-
bles, on the contrary, require for their support
elements derived from the complete destruction
of organized substances, whether animal or
vegetable, through the processes of putrefac-
tion and decay. The proximate principles of
organic bodies, on which their nutritive powers
depend, are comparatively few. Although the
articles employed in different countries for the
support of animal life are almost infinitely
various, their sustaining powers may be re-
ferred to certain substances capable of being
separated and identified by chemical analyses
and tests. Amongst the proximate elements
of vegetable food, gluten and its modifications,
starch, gum, sugar, and lignin or woody fibre,
are by far the most important; and amongst
those of animal food, fibrin, albumen, gelatin,
and their modifications, together with fats and
oils, which are common to both kingdoms of
nature. To illustrate the actual simplicity of
our food, as compared with its apparent multi-
fariousness and complexity, it may suffice to
state that wheat, and almost all the esculent
grains, consist principally of starch and gluten ;
that the same ingredients are found in many
fruits and roots ; that sugar, gum, or a relation
of gum, which is called vegetable jelly, together
with minute traces of aromatic principles which
give flavour, and more or less abundance of
water and of vegetable acids, are the chief
component parts of apples, peaches, currants,
&c., and all pulpous and juicy fruits; a very
few also contain oil. Then, as regards animal
food, the muscular fibres of various animals
closely resemble each other in composition and
nutritive power: in some cases texture merely,
and in others minute additions of foreign mat-
ters, confer upon them their relative digestibi-
lities and their different aspects and flavours.

POOD.

FOOD.

Albumen or fibrin and gelatin, small propor-
tions of saline bodies, and a large quantity of
water, are found in them all.

It often happens that the truly nutritious
part of food is so combined with or protected
by indigestible matters as to escape the solvent
powers of the stomach, unless previously pre-
pared and modified by various chemical and
mechanical agents. Indurated woody fibre, for
instance, or lignin, as chemists call it, will often
resist the joint action of the stomach and bow-
els, and pass through the alimentarj' canal with
scarcely any alteration. The husks of many
seeds and fruits are composed almost exclu-
sively of this material. This is the case with
the kernels of the apple, pear, &c. ; the seeds
of the currant, gooseberry, melon, and so on ;
the skin or husk of peas, beans, &c., and of
wheat, barley, and oats ; so that unless the
woody part is either broken down by the teeth
or previously removed, the food which it enve-
lopes is protected in some degree from the sol-
vent action of the secretions of the stomach.
This is a wise and curious provision in nature,
for birds in this way become the carriers of
seeds, which pass through them not only un-
digested, but even retaining their vegetative
powers ; and in this way uninhabited and ste-
rile portions of the globe may gradually become
clothed with verdure, and shrubs, and trees;
hence the advantage derived from bruising the
com given to live-stock. Bones are highly
nutritive, but, unless broken into very small I
fragments by the masticatory powers of the j
animals which eat them, they loo would elude i
digestion. I

There is another important point in the his-
torj' of food, which is, its ultimate composition.
Four elements only are principally concerned
in the production of the food of animals ; these
are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Among vegetable substances, gluten (including
vegetable albumen) is the only one which
abounds in nitrogen ; gum, sugar, starch, and
the rest, are constituted of carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen only. There are two very singular
points in reference to the chemical history of
food: the one is, that no animal can subsist for
any length of time upon food which is destitute
of nitrogen ; and the other, that a certain mix-
ture of different food is absolutely essential.
Habit, as is well known, will do much in ac-
customing the stomach to particular descrip-
tions of food : many persons live exclusively,
or almost so, on vegetables, others on animal
matters, and particular kinds of diet are forced
on the inhabitants of many regions of the globe ;
but as far as we are concerned, a due mixture
of vegetable and animal matter is not only most
palatable, but most conducive to health. No-
thing is fit for food which has not already un-
dergone organization ; and water, though an
essential part of the food of all animals, is ob-
viously not in itself nutritious, though it per-
forms the extremely important function of dis-
solving nutritive matter, so as to render it con-
veyable by the lacteals and other absorbents
into the blood.

The subjoined table will serve to show the
comparative value of the principal cereal and
other grasses, legumes, roots, &c. (Davy, Elem.
Ag. Ckem, 160.)

I. Table of the Q^ant^tie8 of Soluble or Nutritive Matters afforded by 1000 Parts of different
Vegetable Substances examined in their green state.

Vageiable

Middlesex wheat, average crop
Spring wheat . . _ -

Mildewed wheat of 1806
Blighted wheat of 1804 -
Thick-skinned Sicilian wheat (1810)
Thin-skinned Sicilian wheat (1810)
Wheat from Poland - . -
North American Wheat
Norfolk barley - _ . -
Oats, from Scotland - - -
Rye, from Yorkshire . - -
Common bean ....

Dry peas

Potatoes - - _ _ _
Linseed cake - - . . .
Red beet - - . _ .

White beet - - - _ _
Parsnips - - - _ -

Carrots ---__-
Cabbage - - - _ _

Swedish turnip »» _ _ _
Common turnip - - _ .
Broad-leaved clover _ - _
Long-rooied clover - - -
White clover _ _ - _

Sainfoin - - _ . _

Lucerne --->_.
Meadow fox-tail grass or timothy
Perennial rye-grass - . _
Fertile meadow-grass - - _
Roughish meadow-grass
Crested dog's-tail grass
Spiked fescue-grass _ - _
Sweet-scented soft grass
Vernal grass - . - - .
Fiorin ......

Whole QittB-

tity of Solubl*

or Nutriiife

Matter.

955
940
210
650
955
961
950
955
990
743
792
570
574
260 to 200
151
148
136

99

98

73

64

42

39

39

32

39

78

MuciUfe, or
Starch.

765
700
178
520
725
722
750
730
790
641
645
426
501
200 to 155
123

14

13
9
3

41
9
7

31

30

29

Matter, or

Sugar.

22

20 to 15

11

121

119

90

95

24

51

34

3

4

1

2

3
4
6
5
3
2
4
4
5

Gluten, or Al-

190
240

32
].?0
236
239
206
225

66

87
109
103

35
)to30

17

14
4

Extract, or
matter render
iwuluble during

evaporation.

499

FOOD.

FOOD.

The following table represents the relative
proportion of solid digestible matter contained
in 1000 parts of the different articles of food
which are enumerated. Upon an average, the
nutritive matter in a pound of meat is not more
than four ounces. This, however, applies only
to raw meat ; for, when dressed, a considerable
portion of its constituent water is dissipated.

II. Table shcnmng the average Quantity of Nutritive
Matter in 1000 parts of several varieties of Anv-
mal Food.

Bones -

- 510

Veal

250

Mutton -

- 290

Pork

210

Beef -

- 260

Blood

215

Chicken

- 270

Cod and sole -

210

Brain -

- 200

White of egg -

140

Haddor.k

- 180

Milk - -

72

A very interesting report on the nutritive
properties of food was recently presented to
the French Minister of the Interior, by MM.
Percy and Vauquelin, two members of the In-
stitute. The result of their experiments is as
follows : —

In bread, every 100 lbs. weight is found to
contain 80 lbs. of nutritious matter. Butchers'
meat, averaging the various sorts, contain only
85 lbs. in 100. French beans (in the grain),
92 lbs. in 100; broad beans, 89 ; peas, 93; len-
tilles, 94 in 100. Greens and turnips, which
are the most aqueous of all vegetables used
for domestic purposes, furnish only 8 lbs. of
solid nutritious substance in 100. Carrots, 14
lbs.; and what is very remarkable, as being in
opposition to the hitherto acknowledged theory,
100 lbs. of potatoes only yield 25 lbs. of sub-
stance valuable as nutritious. 1 lb. of good
bread is equal to 2^ lbs. or 3 lbs. of the best
potatoes ; and 75 lbs. of bread and 30 of meat
are equal to 300 lbs. of potatoes ; or, to go more
into detail, | of a lb. of bread and 5 oz. of meat
are equal to 3 lbs. of potatoes. 1 lb. of pota-
toes is equal to 4 lbs. of cabbage and 3 lbs. of
turnips ; but 1 lb. of rice, broad beans, or French
beans (in grain), is equal to 3 lbs. of potatoes.

In the esculent roots, such as carrots, &c.,
but especially turnips, sugar is the leading nu-
tritive matter; and the common fruits contain
sugar, gum, albuminous matter, and acids, to-
gether with a highly attenuated form of woody
fibre or lignin, which in that state is probably
* digestible. The comparative nutritive proper-
ties of the most common fruits will be seen by
a reference to the annexed table.

ni. Table showing the average Quantity of Nutri-
tive Matter in 1000 Parts of several varieties of
Vegetable Food.

Morels - - 896 Peaches - - 200

Almonds - 650 Gooseberries - 190

Tamarinds - .140 Apples - - 170

Plums - - 290

Grapes - - 270

Apricots - 200

Cherries - 250

Pears - - ICO
Strawberries - 100
Melon - - 30

On fattening Animals. — There is a very great
difference in the quantity of food which ani-
mals require, and in the time which they can
pass without it. In general, those animals
which are the most active require most, and
those which are most indolent require least
food. The cause of this is pretty obvious ; the
bodies of animals do not remain stationary,
they are constantly wasting, and the waste is
500

proportioned to the activity of the animal;
hence the body must receive, from time to time,
new supplies in place of what has been carried
off. The use of food answers this purpose.
Almost all the inferior animals have narticular
substances on which they feed exclusively.
Some are herbivorous, some are granivorous,
and others, again, are carnivorous.

From various experiments we have the fol-
lowing result: —

A horse will consume as much food, besides
corn, as -------8 sheep.

A cow -...-.-.12 —

A fattening ox .---_- 10 —

A three year old heifer ... - - 8 —

A two year old heifer - - - . . 6 —

A one year old heifer - - - - - 4 —

A calf 2 —

There are some rules which may be advan-
tageously adopted in feeding animals, which,
however obvious they may be, are too often
neglected. 1. Food should be so prepared that
its nutritive properties may be all made avail-
able to the use of the animal ; and not only so,
but appropriated with the least possible expendi-
ture of muscular energy. The ox that is obliged
to wander over an acre to get the food he
should find in two or three square rods — the
horse that is two or three hours eating the
coarse food he should swallow in fifteen mi-
nutes if the grain were ground or the hay cut
as it should be — the sheep- that spends hours
in making its way into a turnip, when, if it
were sliced, it would eat it in as many mi-
nutes— the pig that eats raw potatoes or whole
corn, when either cooked could be eaten in one
quarter of the time, may indeed fatten, but
much less rapidly than if their food were given
them in a proper manner. All food should be
given in such a state to fattening animals, that
as little time as possible, on the part of the ani-
mal, shall be required in eating.

2. P'rom the time the fattening process com-
mences, until the animal is slaughtered, he
should never be without food. Health and ap-
petite are best promoted by change of diet
rather than by limiting the quantity. The ani-
mal that is stuffed and starved by turns may have
streaked meat, but it will be made too slowly
for the pleasure or the profit of the good farmer.

3. The food should be given regularly. This
is one of the most essential points in feeding
animals. If given irregularly, the animal will
consume his food, but he soon acquires a rest-
less disposition, is disturbed at every appear-
ance of his feeder, and is never in that quiet
state so necessary to take on fat. It is surpris-
ing how readily any animal acquires habits of
regularity in feeding, and how soon the influ-
ence of this is felt in the improvement of his
condition. When at the regular hour the pig
has had his pudding, or the sheep his turnips,
they compose themselves to rest, their digestion
is not unseasonably disturbed, or their quiet

I broken by unwonted invitation to eat.

4. The animal should not be needlessly in-
truded upon during the hours of eating. All

I animals fatten much faster in the dark than in
i the light, a fact onjy to be accounted for by
their greater quiet. Some of those creatures
that are the most irritable and impatient of re-
straint while feeding, such as turkeys and

FOOD OF PLANTS.

FORCING PITS.

geese, are found lo take on fat rapidly when
confined in dark rooms, and only fed at stated
hours by hand. There is no surer proof that
a pig is doing well than to see him eat his meal
quickly and then retire to his bed till the hour
of feeding returns. Animals, while fattening,
should never be alarmed, never rapidly driven,
never be fed at unseasonable hours, and, above
all things, never be allowed to want for food.

The following table will show the ultimate
composition of those proximate principles
which have been already adverted to as con-
stituting the nutritive parts of food.

IV. Table sfumring the ultimate elementary compo-
sition of 1000 parts of the following proximate
principles of Animal and Vegetable Food.

Albumen -

c^

Hydrofen.

Oiygra-

Nitrogen.

516

76~

258

150

Uelaiin

483

80

276

161

Fai - - -

780

122

98

Cnrdofmilk -

609

73

116

203

8iigar of tiiilk

454

61

485

Gluten

557

78

220

145

Starch

438

62

500

Gum - - -

419

68

513

Sugar ...

444

62

494

Lignin

500

^ 56

444

I

See also the heads Cattlb, Foddsr, Sheep,
Swine, Horses, &c. (Brande's Diet, of Science ;
Davy's Ag. Chem.)

FOOD OF PLANTS. See Earths, Gases,
Salts, Water, and Manures, their vses to
Vecetatiox. Plants absorb their nutriment
from the air and from the soil ; they become the
food of the gramniverous tribes, and from these
man derives the great bulk of his animal sus-
tenance.

FOOL'S PARSLEY. Common Lesser Hem-
lock (^thtisa cynopium). PI. 10, q. A n umbel-
liferous plant, common in gardens, waste
grounds, and cultivated fields, and so called
from its resembling parsley enough in appear-
ance to deceive ignorant persons. It is an an-
nual weed, with a tapering whitish root ; stem
round, often purplish, a foot high; flowers
pearl white ; the herbage of a dark livid green,
and fetid. The plant is poisonous, acting like
hemlock upon the human system, and is easily
known by the involucels having each three
linear leaflets, which are placed next the cir-
cumference of the umbel. It is eaten by cattle
and sheep, but is pernicious to the latter.

FOOL'S STONES {Orchis morio). See
Twatblade.

FOOT (Sax. For. Germ, fuss; Dutch /«/f).
A linear measure, which, since the term is em-
ployed in almost all languages, has doubtless
been derived from the length of the human
foot. Though tlje denomination is the same,
the measure itself varies considerably in dif-
ferent European countries. In all of them,
however, it is divided, like the English foot,
into 12 equal parts, or inches. See Weights
and Measures.

Foot is also the lower part of the limbs of an
animal, which afford support, and enable it to
move with ease and convenience from place
to place. An excellent article on the anatomy
and diseases of the foot 'of the horse, by Mr.
Dick, will be found in the second volume of
the Quart. Journ. ofAgr. p. 214. The best and

most natural form of the foot of the horse is
that where the bottom approaches to a circle :
it is most complicated in its structure, and lia-
ble to a variety of diseases. See the heads
Canker, Corns, Cracks, Shoeing, and Dis-
eases ov THE Horse.

FOOT-ROT. See Sheep, Diseases of.
FOOT-TRENCHES. A term signifying
small superficial drains, about a foot wide.

FORCING. In horticulture, the art of ac-
celerating the growth of plants so as to obtain
fruit, vegetables, or flowers at seasons when
they are not produced naturally in the open
air. The practice appears to be as old as the
time of the Romans. In England forcing seems
to have been practised from a very early pe-
riod. At the present time forcing is carried
on in Britain, and in analogous climates
throughout Europe and North America, chiefly
under glass roofs. Structures for forcing are
known, as frames, pits, and houses, ail of
which have glass roofs: but there are also
structures for forcing without glass roofs, such
as cellars and sheds for growing mushrooms
in the winter season ; and also sea-kale, rhu-
barb, blanched succory, and such other stalks
or leaves of plants as are eaten in a blanched
state, and consequently do not require much
light.

FORCING PITS. Instead of forming hot-
beds with open sides, pits of brick-work and
other materials are very generally constructed
for containing the fermenting mass of dung
necessary for forcing.

Mr. Flanagan, gardener to Sir T. Hare, of
Stow Hall, Norfolk, and Mr. West, who holds
the same situation under the Marquis of J^orth-
ampton, at Castle Ashby, have each proposed
plans of pits, of which that of the first horti-
culturist is the least expensive; that of the
latter more economical in other respects, not
only as preventing the waste of heat, but the
best mode of applying it. It may be laid down
as a fundamental principle that, in applying
heat, it should always be brought to the bottom
of the body to be heated.

Mr. Flanagan only allows the heat of fer-
menting dung to be employed, the steam being
prevented entering the frame. One advantage
arising from this he states to be, that fresh-
made dung may be employed, and, conse-
quently, the loss sustained by any preparation
is prevented. If, however, it be a fact that the
steam of dung is rather beneficial than other-
wise, fresh fermenting dung can be used, with-
out any detriment that I am aware of, in other
pits of which we have plans. Mr. F. describes
his pit as follows : — It is 4 feet deep within ;
the lowest 10 inches of solid brick-work sunk
in the earth; the remainder is a flue, 3 inches
wide in the clear, carried entirely round the
pit ; the inner wall of which, forming the sides
of the pit, is 4-inch work, well bedded in mor-
tar, and pointed, to prevent the steam penetra-
ting; the outer wall of the flue is also 4-inch,
but open-work, to admit the steam and that of
dung-coatings into the flue, the top of which is
rendered tight by a covering of tiles, &c. The
frame rests on the external wall of the flue.
The cavity of the pit, which is kept dry by
means of drains, is 9 feet 2 inches long, 2 feet

501

FOREHAND.

FOWL.

8 inches wide, and 4 feet deep. It is filled ]
with broken bricks, to within 18 inches of the
lop ; then a foot of short cold dung, 6 inches of
very rotten dung, trod down so as to admit half
an inch depth of coal ashes, for preventing the
intrusion of any worms that may be in the
dung, complete the structure. (G. W. John-
son's Kitchen Garden.)

FOREHAND. In horsemanship, that part
of the animal which is before the rider.

FOREST (Germ, forst ; Fr. font ,• Ital. for-
esta). Strictly an extensive surface covered
naturally by trees and undergrowth, as op-
posed to a plantation which has been made by
art, but indiscriminately used for any very ex-
tensive tract covered with trees. The utility
of timber plantations to a commercial nation
is very great, as, by the quantity of timber they
afford, a considerable expense may be saved
which must otherwise be incurred by the im-
portation of materials for ship-building. (See
Plantatiox.) In former times the greater
part of every country in the temperate parts of
Europe was undoubtedly covered with forests;
and these, by harbouring and nourishing wild
animals of every description, particularly wild
swine, afforded a principal part of the food of
man. With civilization, however, they grad-
ually disappear before the increase of pasture
or arable land. In every country a large por-
tion of the forests belonged to the government,
and formed a main source of its revenue.
This is still the case in France and Germany,
and, till lately, it was also the case to a certain
extent in Britain. Hence extensive tracts in
England still bear the name of forest, though
they are now in a state of cultivation, and in a
great measure without trees.

The royal forests of Britain occupy about
125,000 acres of land. There are 32,768 acres
of forest land enclosed and planted, principally
with oak, and with other trees where the soil
is not adapted to oak. There are 6211 acres
of other freehold land belonging to the crown,
which are also appropriated to the growth of
timber, making in all 38,979 acres, the whole
of which have been enclosed and planted with-
in the last twenty years.

For an account of the existing forests of
England, see "Statistics of the British Em-
pire." {Brit. Hmb. vol. iii. article "Planta-
tions,"« pp. 83, 85 ; Brande's Diet, of Science.)

FOSSE. A large ditch or moat; also a
waterfall.

FOWL. Cock and hen (Phasianus gallus).
Fowls were originally natives of Persia and
India. They are most valuable to the farmer
as yielding profit in eggs, broods, and feathers.
The varieties of the common fowl in England
are very numerous, and are distinguished
from one another by their size, colour, and
fecundity. Fowls should be kept very clean
and dry in the hen-house, and particular care
must be taken to furnish them with clean,
sweet water; foul water produces that fatal
disorder among chickens called roup, or gapes,
which is known by the chick gasping for
breath, and dying in a few hours. No remedy j
has yet been discovered for this disorder ; ;
therefore care and cleanliness should prevent
\t. Foul water, and a scarcity of water, are j
602

also causes of the pip in hens, and originate
all their diseases. Poultry of all sorts should
have clean, sweet houses to retire into during
the night, and in seasons of wet. Warmth is
necessary to the comfort and well-doing of
poultry. If hens are kept with care, and have
clean, quiet places to deposit themselves in,
they will lay regularly, and repay all trouble.
One cock is sufficient for ten hens. He should
be chosen with care. A good cock should be
well-sized, carrying his head high ; he should
have a quick, animated look, a strong shrill
voice, the comb of a fine red, broad breast,
strong wings, legs thick, and his bill thick and
short. {Main's Domestic Poultry, p. 230.) The
vigour of the cock lasts three years ; he must
then be superseded, and a fine spirited youth-
ful successor installed in his room. A cock is
at full age at three months old. Three sorts
of hen are useful. The covimmi hen, whose
proper signs should be in having a large head,
blueish feet, sharp eyes, and pendant comb.
The tufted hen, for eating, as she does not lay
much, therefore fattens well; and the large
white Dorking breed, which always fetches a
higher price in the market. The Dorking
fowls are distinguished by having five claws
on each foot. Equal to the Dorking in esti-
mation (says Professor Xow) are the Poland
fowls. Their colour is black, their heads flat,
and surmounted with a crown of feathers.
They are a very useful variety; prolific of
eggs, but less inclined to sit than those of any
other breed. All others are kept more for
show than for use. The bantam is a little In-
dian breed, very delicate to eat, but, from the
smallness of its size, not of any economical
importance.

The Chitagong, or Malay fowl, is the largest
breed that has yet been brought to ^England,
but the flesh is regarded as inferior to that of
the Dorking and Poland. Fowls should not be
allowed to wander much : they lay better and
more regularly when confined to their own
yard. Their food should be given with great
regularity at sun-rise and sun-set, and they
should be fed under cover during rain or high
winds. During harvest their portion of food
is always diminished. All sorts of pot-herbs,
boiled, in the washings of dishes, mixed with
bran, and then drained, is excellent; the paste
warmed up as required, while sweet. Well
boiled mealy potatoes, buckwheat, barley,
whole or ground, refuse of fruit, bread, ofllal
from the kitchen, &c., is taken greedily. Let
all their food be fresh of its kind.

The laying time in England begins about
February. A hen gives notice of her intention
by being busy and restless, and talking to her-
self fov some time, and her comb becomes very
red. Her cackling soon gives notice that the
deed is done. Let her have a dark, quiet box
to lay in. The moulting season begins in au-
tumn, when the hen ceases to lay for some
time : the whole feathered tribe are then droop-
ing and dull, till the new feathers have replaced
the old ones. A hen is old at four years of
age: for three years she is valuable, and in
her fourth year she must make way for younger
birds. A hen sits three weeks ; her disposition
to sit is soon discovered, by her placing her-

FOWL.

FOWL.

self upon any eggs she can find, and remain-
ing thereon instead of roosting. She should be
placed upon fresh eggs, unless allowed to sit
as nature directs upon her own natural num^
ber, which rarely exceeds eighteen ; but if one
egg alone is allowed to remain in the nest she
will continue to lay many more before she
wishes to sit. If the brood is hatched irregu-
larly, the firstlings should be kept in flannel
near a fire all day, till the others come forth,
but they should be returned to the mother at
night. The hen and her brood should be kept
warm, and be cooped out of doors only in dry,
fine weather. They should be fed for some
days on bread crumbs, with some finely chop-
ped leeks, and be carefully supplied with clear,
clean water daily. Boiled barley, and boiled
rice, &c. succeeds, till in about three weeks
they are sufficiently strong to be turned into
the poultry-yard. When the young chickens
get their head feathers, they are out of danger
of all infantine disorders. Nothing is so re-
quisite for all poultry as warmth, cleanliness,
and good water. Fowls fattened for the table
should be put into coops for a fortnight or three
weeks, and fed upon good barley-meal, moist-
ened with milk or water, and lard. Give it
four or five times per day, sufficiently moist to
require no drink with the food.

Eggs are preserved any length of time, by
greasing them well over with butter or lard,
when warm from the nest. It keeps out the
air. Fresh laid eggs are easily known by
holding them up to the light of a candle. If
the inside appears transparent and fluid, and
the yolk in the centre, it is a fresh egg. If
it looks turbid, it is a stale one. If, also, an
egg held up against a candle shows a small
vacancy at the top of it within, it will produce
a male bird : if the little vacancy is observed
at the side of the egg, it will prove a female.
(Main's Dotn. Poultry, p. 253.) See Eggs. Every
poultry-yard should have a bed of ashes de-
posited in a corner: the fowls delight in a
dunghill and an ash-hole ; the former produces
seeds and insects, and the latter calcareous
matter, and destroys their vermin by its sharp-
ness, as they revel in its rough particles. See
Capo IT.

There is a communication in the Farmer's
Cabinet, (vol. ii. p. 95,) upon keeping hens, and
the profits from eggs, from a poulterer in Eaton,
Massachusetts, which contains much useful
information. On the 1st of January, says the
writer, I had ten hens and one cock. In the
spring three of the hens were suffered to set,
which left seven to experiment with. The
three which set raised 24 chickens, which
were sold for 12^ cents each, when about the
size of quails. The sooner, he observes, you
sell chickens the better, since they do not
bring prices corresponding with their increase
in size. The seven hens which did not set,
laid 100 dozen of eggs. During half the time
in winter the fowls were fed upon boiled pota-
toes and bran or meal mixed together with
warm water, and as the place where they were
kept was well sheltered, none were lost by the
dough freezing in their craws or crops. For
the remainder of the time oats were given
them, which the writer considers better for

fowls than Indian corn, having tried both. The
oats were first allowed to soak in warm water
for three or four hours, till well swelled, after
which they were given to the fowls. Treated
in this way he considers one bushel of oats
will go as far as a bushel and a half of corn.
Hens, &c. should never be allowed to roost in
stables or kept near cattle, as they communi-
cate their vermin to these, which worries and
prevents them from growing fat.

FOWL, GUINEA, or Pintado (Numida
meleagris). These birds are very wild and
restless in their nature, owing to their native
habits. They are shy, and love to make their
nests in dark, obscure places, far from home ;
for which reason their eggs are generally
placed under a common hen to be hatched
and fostered. They give no notice of laying
or setting. A brood of Guinea fowls is an
excellent guard. They love roosting in the
trees; and at night, if any footstep disturb
them, their loud cries are sure to give notice
to the farmer that a trespass is committing.
The Guinea fowl is delicate eating, and is in
fine season about Lent. The young chickens
must be treated in the same manner and with
the same food as young turkeys, and they must
be kept warm and dry. In fatting, they should
be shut up in a house for a fortnight, and fed
four or five times a day with sweet barley-meal,
moistened with milk and good lard. They pine
if confined any length of time. The great
drawbacks to the rearing of Guinea fowls are
the vigilance required to watch for their nest,
and the harsh screaming of their cry.

FOWL, PEA (Phusianus Jo). Native of
India, tender in infancy, but soon inured to
our climate, as they become older. From
their native wild habits, they love to lay their
eggs in woods or coppices far from home. As
the hen covers her eggs over with dead leaves
after laying them, and generally deposits them
under a bush, without the ceremony of making
a nest, she must be closely watched, and each
day her fresh egg should be withdrawn, and
an egg cut in chalk substituted, and covered
over again with the leaves. The eggs should
be placed under a common hen for safety, both
on account of the fox, and because the pea-hea
would lead the young ones to ramble as soon
as they had escaped from the shell. The best
food for pea-chicks is barley-meal made into
a paste, and mixed with sweet curd, and finely
chopped, hard-boiled eggs. They are also ex-
ceedingly fond of the large horse ant and its
eggs, which in England are found in woods,
deposited in little hillocks of small leaves and
twigs. All the tribes of wild birds, such as
pea-fowl, turkeys, pheasants, &c. love ants : it
is their natural food. Two or three handfuls
of their eggs twice a day, makes a good variety
with their usual food. Keep the young pea-
fowls well housed while under the mother's
care : when they grow up, they prefer roosting
in trees or on buildings. If a pea-hen is al-
lowed to brood her own chickens, she should
be kept under a coop for three weeks at least,
to prevent her rambling. Pea-fowl will feed
well on any kind of corn. They are exceed-
ingly destructive in a garden. Our ancestors
considered them very delicate eating.

503

^mmmm

wm

FOWL'S DUNG.

FOWL'S DUNG. See Guaxo and Piobon*s
Dung.

FOX- EVIL. A disease in which the hair
falls off.

FOXGLOVE, COMMON (Digitalis purpu-
rea). A very handsome biennial plant, blow-
ing purplish-crimson, or occasionally white
flowers, from June to September. In England
it is found wild in pastures and about hedges
or banks, on a gravelly, sandy, or chalky soil.
In gardens it is easily propagated by seed.

The lesser yellow foxglove (Z>. parviflora)
is a native of Italy, and perennial : grows
three feet high, blooming yellow flowers in
June and July. It may be propagated from
seed.

The large yellow foxglove (D. amhigua), with
larger flowers, is also a perennial, growing
three feet high.

The medicinal qualities of the foxglove are
diuretic, powerfully emetic, and narcotic ; and,
under proper management it is a most useful
medicine. The leaves are inert in the first
year of the growth of the plant. They are
sometimes used externally as cataplasms for
resolving scrofulous tumours. As every part
of the foxglove is poisonous, children ought to
be warned against chewing it. No person not
qualified to practise medicine should venture
to prescribe foxglove.

FOX-TAIL GRASS (SetaHa glauca). A
common American grass, with a bristly head,
found in. cultivated grounds, old stubble-fields,
orchards, &c., flowering in July. Its root is
annual, and the stem grows 2 or 3 feet high.
When mature it has a tawny, or orange
colour.

Another species of fox-tail is popularly called
green fox-tail, or butter-grass (Setaria viridis).
Its general resemblance to the species first-
named, render it liable to be passed by as a
green variety of that plant.

A species of Setaria (S. verficillata), com-
monly found about gardens and cultivated lots
in the Middle States, has teeth on the bristles,
which cause the spikes to adhere to objects
with which they come in contact.

Another species called German Setaria, millet
or Bengal grass, is occasionally foiind in fal-
low fields. Dr. Muhlenburg supposed this an-
nual plant might be a variety of the green
fox-tail, to which Dr. Darlington thinks it cer-
tainly allied. Some years ago, the Bengal
grass was introduced into the Middle States as
an object of culture, and, for a time, excited
much interest among farmers. It was soon
found, however, not to be as valuable as the
usual summer crop, of which it occupied the
place, and its cultivation is now pretty much
abandoned. The seed is sown in the early part
of May.

Several other species of this genus are
found in the United States, of which one called
the Italian Setaria is met with along the river
Delaware, distinguished by its very large
spikes. The others are southern plants. None
of them, except the German setaria, possess
any value to the agriculturist. {Flor, Cestric.)
See Alopecurus.

FRANCE, THE AGRICULTURE OF.—

Although the \wo kingdoms of Britain and i

504

FRANCE, AGRICULTURE OF.

France, are such near neighbours, and enjoy
a soil so similar, yet the agriculture of each
differs very materially. The chief features in
the farming system of France which strike an
Englishman are the almost total absence of
hedges, and the smallness of the farms or
plots ; the minute divisions of landed property
having been long encouraged by the laws of
France in every possible way. The end has
been attained ; considerable comfort has been
diffused amidst the mass of the people, but
with injurious results to agriculture. For in a
country where the farms generally do not com-
prise more than from 15 to 20 acres, all the
common evils of a land of small holdings are
naturally felt. The capital required for them
being limited, the competition to obtain them
is naturally considerable; the charge for the
labour to cultivate them is also great; the live-
stock kept on them inferior ; the rotation of
crops bad, and agricultural improvements of
all kinds but slowly adopted. The government
of France, it is true, in the absence of large
landed proprietors, and opulent, enterprising,
and scientific farmers, does all it can, by ex-
pensive state agricultural institutions, to sup-
ply their place ; but these are not attended with
the general advantages which are derived in
other countries from the exertions of private
individuals. Of these small farms, Mr. Deni-
son has given the following graphic descrip-
tion (Jour. Roy. Agr. Soc. vol. i. p. 263): — "In
comparison with the English system of enclo-
sures, France may be called one vast open
field; you may travel from Calais to Paris,
from Paris to the German frontier, to the Alps,
to the Pyrenees, and scarcely see a hedge or
a partition fence of any sort. This vast open
field (unlike the open districts of England,
where the operations of farming are generally
conducted on the largest scale) is cut up into
the smallest conceivable plots of every variety
of produce. As far as the eye can reach, over
vast plains bounded by sloping hills, you see
the surface varied by every description of
crop ; none, perhaps, above an acre or two in
size, the larger portion not more than the
fourth or the eighth of an acre. Here a vine-
yard 100 yards by 20; there a strip of wheat,
lucerne, barley, oats, potatoes, clover, and
vetches. Few roads intersect this extensive
garden, which, from the nature of the cultiva-
tion, must be traversed every day in all direc-
tions by the proprietors and cultivatoi j of the
various lots. The residences of these proprie-
tors are almost invariably congregated into
villages or towns, and lie, therefore, for the
most part, wide of their respective allotments."
The advocates of such a general system of
cultivation will hence see that this mode of
tillage is attended with sundry insuperable dis-
advantages. The public agricultural establish-
ments maintained entirely by the French
government are — 1. Sheep farms; 2. Model
farms ; 3. Veterinary schools ; 4. Haras, or
studs. And it assists, by its patronage and
with funds — 1. Public lectures; 2. Agricultu-
ral societies ; 3. Local associations ; 4. De-
partmental model farms.

There are three public sheep farms; viz., at
Rambouillet, Perpignan, and lia Hayevaux.

FRANCE, AGRICULTURE OP.

FRANCE, AGRICULTURE OF.

At these, sheep are bred, and experiments in
crossing tried. The chief breeds are the me-
rino, the naz, a race with small frames and fine
wool, and the English long-woolled sheep.

Of the model farms, Grignon, founded in
1829, and containing 1100 acres of land of dif-
ferent qualities, is the chief. It consists of
arable, pasture, meadow, water meadow, and
wood. Pupils are taken here, who pay in the
house from 30/. to 60/. per annum, or, if they
only attend the courses of instruction, from 8/.
to 20/.: the shortest course occupies two years ;
and after attending this period, and passing a
public examination, the pupil may receive a
diploma, taking rank as a sort of master of
arts of Grignon.

The chief veterinary schools are at Alfort,
near Paris, Toulouse, and Lyons. The three
chief haras, or breeding studs, are at Dupin in
Normandy (English blood horses), at Rozieres
(a mixed breed called the "race ducale"), and
at Pompadour (Arab and Persian). These
contain together about 1300 horses. Of tho-
rough-bred stock, in 1840, they had 167 stal-
lions, 98 mares, and 121 colts and fillies ; for
the use of the departments 870 stallions are
kept at different stations. These are allowed
the following amount of forage at threfe dif-
ferent stations : —

Abbeville -
AnKers
Aurillac -

Oat..

*

Hay.

ar»w.

Pinti.
16
14
14

lb*. 01.
6 11
11 0
11 0

Ibt. ot
17 10
13 4
15 7

These various public objects cost the govern-
ment 119,452/.; viz., sheep farms, 20,303/.;
veterinary schools, 11,263/.; haras, or studs,
70,526/. ; other items of expense, 32,000/. ; de-
partment of government, 3,360/.

Sir Charles Lemon has given the result of
the returns of the agricultural survey of 21 out
of the 84 departments of France, comprehend-
ing the whole of the north-eastern portion of
the kingdom, or the whole or the greater pan
of the old provinces of Flanders, Artois, Picar-
die. Isle de France, Champagne, Lorraine, and
Alsace, equal to a surface of 31,720,000 acres,
or about the area of all England, (/oar. of Roy.
Agr. Soc. vol. i. p. 415.)

The following table shows the number of
English acres tilled with each sort of grain,
the produce, and the seed sown, in the 21 de-
partments before all'aded to :—

Wheat -
Barley -
0:.ta . .
Meteil (mixture
of wheat and
rye) - -
Rye - - -
Potatoes -

Aem.

Pntdiice in
Bushel..

AlDOUDt of
Seed u>wo.

3,913.789
1,115,916
3,129,359

630,321

1,124,909

645,233

59,075,391
17,5.32,875
54,179,336

9,526.777
13.332,935
93,649,112

9,4.58,471
2,734,799
8,298,751

1.494,236

2,675.389
10,748.567 j

Total grown

- 19,205,914 quarters

- 3,082,702 —

The average produce per acre of the 21 de-
partments, is as follows :^.
64

Average

HUhest

Lowe«t

Product pr.

Ucfjart-

Dffjart-

Acre in

inenul

nientil

Bu4hel%

Average.

Average.

Wheat -

15

23 .

10-5

2-6

Barley -

17

35

8

2-6

Oats

m

44^

11

2-8

Meteil -

m

22i

8

25

Rye - -

13

20i

8

2-6

Potatoes

127

257

67

In these departments were contained —

Cattle -
Sheep -
Pigs and goats
Horses
Mules and asses

- 2.628,924

- 6,761,107

- 1,399,5<»9

- 974.918

- 99,660

The food of the small French Farmers*
especially in Normandy, is very poor. " Many
(says a writer in the Quart. Jour, of Jgr. vol.
xii. p. 2), like the common labourers, live upon
a few apples or pears, and a bit of bread, with-
out the formality of sitting down to a table,
and are content with a drink of their own
home-made miserable cider." The breed of
sheep is very inferior. Although many of the
sheep are kept in flocks, yet there is little or
no free range for them ; they are usually kept
in small lots of three or four, or half-a-dozen,
and generally tied together by the legs. The
average price of mutton is 3^d. per pound. Of
the cattle, the Alderney blood seems to pre-
dominate. Bullocks are worked to a consi-
derable extent, both in the plough and in the
wagon. "Some centuries ago, Normandy
was the source whence our Henries, and Ed-
wards, and the flower of European chivalry,
obtained their chargers ; which were then a
breed of large, powerful, active horses, able to
bear the weight of an armed knight, with sufli-
cient spfeed for the purposes of war. That
breed has long since degenerated into an active
and hardy horse, but totally devoid of those
qualifications as to size and general appear-
ance which we should think essential in a
charger even for a common soldier ; they sel-
dom attain 15 hands in height, and are very
short-necked; they are rather large in the
head, have good forelegs, but are frequently
imperfect in the hind ones, being too long from
the hock to the hoof, and they are often diseased
in those limbs from curb or spavine, and defi-
cient in width and muscle in the thigh. They
have generally, however, good shoulders, back,
and loins, many of them possessing very use-
ful and short actions in the trot ; and consi-
dered generally as a breed, they are able to go
faster, and do more work than their appear-
ance at first indicates: they are commonly
worked at two years of age." With regard to
the rotation of crops, there is little worthy of
observation. In Normandy, a very common
rotation is a three-shift of wheat, barley, clover,
wheat; inothers,afour-shiftof potatoes, barley,
clover, wheat. Their agricultural implements
are few and defective. Dombasle's plousfh, mo-
delled from that of Small's English plough, is
the favourite plough in France ; it has com-
monly, however, wheels added. The spade is
employed to a considerable extent in the field
culture of this great country, and the greatest
portion of the country partakes of the nature
of garden husbandry. The consumption of
2 U 505

FRANCE, AGRICULTURE OF.

FROG OF A HORSE.

vegetables of all kinds is much greater in
France than in England; and the same remark
applies to bread, the price of which, in Paris,
is regulated by the public authorities.

*The care which is taken in France, by the
government, to husband every particle of or-
ganic manure, is well worthy of the conside-
ration of the public authorities in England, for
nowhere is there a greater waste of the richest
fertilizing matters than from the large cities
and towns of England ; a great and public loss,
to which Dr. Granoitte, in his report to the
Thames Improvement Company, thus alludes :
" In no part of France, Wurtemberg, Bavaria,
Bohemia, Prussia, Saxony, the Confederated
States of Germany, Holland, and Belgium, is
there a city in which, as in London, the gene-
ral mass of filth, of every description, created
by a vast population, is first allowed to enter
the river which may happen to traverse that
city, and is then returned, diluted with the
water of that river, to the houses of the inhabi-
tants, to be used either for domestic or culinary
purposes : although, by avoiding the latter dis-
gusting alternative, foreign cities are less free
from unpleasant smells than London is. In this
respect it may be truly said, that foreigners smell
the filth of their cities, but do not swallow it;
whereas the Londoner swallows it, but seldom
smells it.

" In no large city of that part of Europe
which I have recently visited, possessing a
river, is any portion of the contents of closets
and cesspools suffered to find its way, or to be
emptied into it ; except at Amsterdam, Ant-
werp, Brussels, Stultgard, and Leipzig ; and
even there, only in a partial manner. In Paris
the Seine is contaminated by one large drain
only, conveying the urine from the large reser-
voirs of night-soil at Montfaucon, and by two
smaller ones proceeding from cesspools. To
convey generally, or to empty, even partially,
any such matter into the river, is a practice
against which the laws have provided by heavy
fines and incarceration ; and such is the pre-
sent feeling of all the governments on that
subject, even in the great cities I have just
enumerated as exceptions, that the authorities
are seriously engaged in devising means for
preventing, in future, every possible infraction
of those laws ; not because it is desirable to
preserve pure the water of such rivers (since
no domestic use is made of it), but on account
of the loss of a material, deemed most valua-
ble, which such infractions must necessarily
entail.

" In Paris extensive improvements in regard
to drainage are now in progress, at the conclu-
sion of which, that capital will have subterra-
neous drains and sewers in as complete a state
as those of London, and something better.
More than two-fifths of that city are now so
drained. When this great undertaking was in
agitation, it was suggested that all the latrines,
public as well as private, should, as in London,
communicate, by proper drains with the great
sewers, which are intended to be emptied into
the Seine. As the project of supplying pure
water, direct to the houses, is simultaneously

to be carried into effect, and as the water for

that purpose is to be derived from other
506

sources than the river, there could have been
no objection on that score, to the adoption
of so general and so complete a drainage.
But when scientific men, agriculturists, and
political economists were consulted, it was
agreed that, by adopting the London system, the
city would lose a revenue of nearly 800,000
francs, and agriculture the means of producing
four times as much. The government, there-
fore, came to the resolution of not suffering any
portion of the contents of the latrines to enter
the common sewers ; but, alive to the great im-
portance of saving them, enacted a police
regulation, strictly enjoining that every house
should have its cesspool (whether new or old,
and within a given time) made water-tight, in
order that none of those contents should be
wasted. In consequence of this regulation,
all cesspools must be emptied once in four
years."

FRANKLINIA (Gordonia pubescens). This
species of Gordonia, appears to be restricted
.by nature, within very narrow bounds, having
hitherto, says Michaux, been found only on the
banks of the Altamaha, in the state of Georgia.
It was discovered there in 1770, by John Bar-
tram, who gave it its specific name. In height it
rarely exceeds 30 feet, with a diameter of 6
or 8 inches. It blooms in Carolina about
the beginning of July, and a month later near
Philadelphia. The flowers are more than an
inch in diameter, whit#, and of an agreeable
odour. They have a slight resemblance to
those of the dogwood {Cornus Florida). Like
those of the Loblolly bay (Gordonia lasyanthus),
they open in succession during two or three
months, and begin to appear when the tree is
only 3 or 4 feet high. The fruit is in the form
of round, ligneous capsules, which, when ripe,
open at the summit in four seams to release
the small angular seeds.

Although the Franklinia is found 2 or 3 de-
grees farther south than the Loblolly bay, it
appears to be far less sensible to cold, and
stands the climate well near Philadelphia, and
will perhaps resist the winters higher north.
(Michaux.)

FRENCH BEANS. See Bkans.

FRENCH CLOVER. See Lucerse.

FREE-MARTIN. A name given by breed-
ers to a twin cow calf born with a bull calf,
which generally proves an hermaphrodite, and
therefore barren ; but in some cases, there not
being this admixture of the organs of different
sexes, or those of the female prevailing, she is
capable of breeding. (Yuuatt on Cattle, p. 539.)

FRINGE-TREE (Chionanlhus Virginica), a
beautiful, small, American tree, abounding ia
the Southern States, and as high up as the vi-
cinity of Dover, in the state of Delaware. It
has been even met with on the banks of the
Brandywine. The specific name is derived
from its snow-white flowers, which are pendu-
lous and fringe-like. There is another variety
in the United States (the mari'Ama of Pursh),
which Lindley considers a distinct species.
(^Flor. Cestrica.)

FROG OF A HORSE. In farriery, is a tri-
angular portion of horn projecting from the
' sole almost on a level with the crust, and de-
fending a soft and elastic substance called the

FROG-HOPPERS.

FROST.

sensible frog. The sensible frog occupies the
whole of the back part of the foot, above the
horny frog and between the cartilages. See
Shokixg.

FROG-HOPPERS. The familiar name ap-
plied to singular insects {Cercopididce), which
pass their whole lives on plants, upon the
stems of which the eggs are deposited in au-
tumn. "The followingsummer they are hatched,
and the yoi^ng immediately perforate the bark
with their beaks, and begin to imbibe the sap.
They take in such quantities of this, that it
oozes out of their bodies continually, in the
form of little bubbles, which soon completely
cover up the insects. They thus remain en-
tirely buried and concealed in large masses
of foam, until they have completed their final
transformation, on which account the names
of cuckoo-spittle, frog-spittle, and frog-hoppers
have been applied to them. We have," says
Dr. Harris, "several species of these frog-hop-
pers in Massachusetts, and the spittle, with
which they are sheltered from the sun and air,
may be seen in great abundance, during the
summer, on the stems of our alders and wil-
lows. In the perfect stale they are not thus
protected, but are found on the plants, in the
latter part of summer, fully grown and prepar-
ing to lay their eggs. In this stale they pos-
sess the power of leaping in a still more re-
markable degree than the tree-hoppers; and,
for this purpose, the tips of their hind shanks
are surrounded M'ith little spines, and the first
two joints of their feet have a similar coronet
of spines at their extremities. Their thorax
narrows a little behind, and projects somewhat
between the bases of the wing-covers ; their
bodies are rather short, and their wing-covers
are almost horizontal and quite broad across
the middle, which, with the shortness of their
legs, gives them a squat appearance."

FROGS (/Ja«a, Linn.). A genus of amphi-
bious reptiles, consisting of 17 species, but two
only require to be here noticed: —

1. The Common Frog (/?. tempoiaria), which
is too well known to need description. Some
of its properties are very singular, particularly
its powers of leaping and swimming. Its body
is naked, and without any tail ; the fore limbs
are very lightly made, while the hind legs and
thighs are remarkably long, and furnished with
strong muscles. As soon as the spawn is vi-
vified, the future frog becomes a tadpole, in
which state it is wholly a water animal, breath-
ing by bronchia or gills, like fish ; but as soon
as it is changed into a frog, and attains its
proper shape, it acquires lungs, by which it
breathes, and then immediately migrates to the
shore.

2. The Gibbous, Green, or Edible frog (R.
esculentu), which differs from the former spe-
cies only in having a high protuberance in the
middle of the back, which forms an acute
angle. Its colours likewise are more vivid,
and its marks more distinct, the ground colour
being a pale or yellowish green, marked with
rows of black spots from the head to the rump.
The flesh of the hind thighs is used as a re-
storative food. The flesh of the Surinam frog
(iJ. paradoxa) is also used as food. Frogs are
recommended by Walton as bait for pike, but

frogs retaliate by feeding on the spawn and
young fry of fish in ponds and rivers.

Of the utility of frogs, in destroying insects
injurious to gardens and farms, the following
view presented in a French periodical, is highly
favourable to those much despised animals.

" Gardeners wage the same war against frogs
as with moles and all other insects mischievous
to their crops. But they are wrong in including
frogs in the general proscription, since they
not only do them no injury, but render them,
on the contrary, important services ; for they
are carnivorous as well as herbivorous, and
greatly prefer insects to vegetable food. They
are particularly fond of snails, and swallow
them even with their shells on, when they are
not too large. If you open a frog, you will find
his stomach full of insects hurtful to agricul-
ture, and especially snails. The shells they
digest, or rather dissolve in their stomachs, in
the same way that dogs do bones, and turkeys
the shells of nuts." {American Farmer.)

FROND. A combination of stem and leaf
in one organ, as in ferns, MarchmUia, and such
like plants.

FROST. In meteorolog}' is the cause of the
congelation of water or the vapours of the at-
mosphere. Water begins to freeze when the
temperature of the air is such that Fahrenheit's
thermometer stands at 32°. At this tempera^
lure ice begins to appear, unless some circum-
stance, for example, the agitation of the water,
prevents its formation. As the cold increases
the frost becomes more intense, and liquids
which resist the degree of cold required to con-
geal water at length pass into the solid state.
When water remains at complete rest it may
be cooled down to 28° Fahrenheit without
freezing; but the moment it is agitated, the
thermometer rises to 32° and the water freezes.
In this case the insensible heat of the water is
retained when the fluid is at rest. No experi-
ments have hitherto ascertained to what depth
frost will extend, either in earth or water, but
its effects will of course vary according to the
degree of coldness in the air, the longer or
shorter duration of the frost, the texture of the
earth, the nature of the fluids with which the
ground is impregnated, &c. In England the
frost rarely extends in the ground below 18
inches from the surface. Frost is peculiarly
destructive to vegetation. During severe frost
almost all vegetables fall into a state of decay,
and even a moderate degree of frost is suffi-
cient to destroy many of the more tender kinds.
The injury which vegetables sustain from frost
is greatest when it is preceded by a thaw or
copious rains ; for the plants are then turgid
with moisture, which, expanding in bulk as it
passes into the solid state, produces the rup-
ture of the vegetable fibres. Therefore it is
that a sharp, north wind, or any thing which
dries the sap or juices of vegetables previous
to frost, tends to their preservation. The great
power of frost on vegetables is well known.
Trees are sometimes destroyed by it as if by
fire, and split with a noise resembling the ex-
plosion of artiller}', since the juices of the tree
expand with great force, as they are converted
into ice. In winter, however, trees generally
have neither leaves nor fliowers, and their buds

607

FROST.

FRUIT.

are so hard as to withstand the effects of con-
gelation; but hard frosts late in spring are
often very injurious, as the buds are then ap-
pearing. Fruits are in like manner destroyed
by frost. Their watery portion being changed
into crystals of ice, occupying a greater space
than the fluid from which they were produced,
burst the small vessels in which they are
formed ; hence the fruit is deprived of its fla-
vour, and when thawed putrefies.

The hoar-frost or white frost, which appears
in the mornings chiefly in autumn and spring,
is merely frozen dew. It is generally the con-
sequence of a sudden clearing up of the wea-
ther after rain, when a considerable degree of
cold is produced by the rapid evaporation. In
northerly climates, it usually happens that
after a fall of rain the wind shifts into a north-
ern quarter, and the atmosphere suddenly clears
up. When this takes place during the night, or
early in the morning, a strong radiation of heat
from the earth commences, the cooling effect
of which is increased by the copious evapora-
tion from the wet surfaces of the plants and
the grass. The influence of evaporation on
the phenomenon is obvious from this, that the
moisture which appears in the form of dew be-
fore sunrise, is often changed into rime, or hoar-
frost, on the appearance of that luminary. The
reason is, that as the atmosphere begins to be
warmed by the sun's rays, the evaporation is
accelerated, and consequently the cold at the
wet surface of the ground augmented ; hence,
we see one reason why frosty nights are so
much more prejudicial to the tender shoots of
plants when they are succeeded by very bright
mornings. Hence, also, hoar-frost is found
on grass or plants, when the thermometer,
placed a few feet above the ground, indicates
a temperature three or four degrees above the
freezing point.

In late autumnal frost, the effect of evapora-
tion by the heat of the sun is often exemplified
on the stems of potatoes. If a hoar-frost be
immediately succeeded by the influence of the
sun, the dew liquefies, and by the process of
evaporation the stalks lose their vitality; for
although plants, as well as animals, have an
inherent power of resisting cold, yet it is in the
former only to a very limited degree. If the
hoar-frost be brushed oflT (and this can easily
be done by two men moving along the beds or
drills with a rope between them, very early in
the morning, before the evaporation takes
place), the stalks will sustain no injury. The
destructive power of evaporation appears to
be proportioned to the degree of humidity in
the body on which it acts.

The following is recommended as a simple
and easy method of securing fruit trees from
the effects of frost : —

If a thick rope be intermixed among the
branches of a fruit tree in blossom, the end of
which is directed downwards so as to terminate
in a pail of water, should a slight frost take
place during the night, it will not in the small-
est degree affect the tree, while the surface of
the pail which receives the rope will be cover-
ed with thin ice ; though the water placed in
another pail by the side of it, by way of expe-
riment, may not, from the slightness of the
508

frost, have any ice on it at all. In this case
the rope aids the evaporation of the water, and
thereby cools it down to the freezing point.
Frost is merely the effect of cold, which, itself,
is a negative quality ; namely, the absence of
heat. As evaporation carries off" heat and re-
duces temperature, whatever aids this is fa-
vourable to freezing. (Quart. Jotirn. of Agr. vol.
viii. p. 421.) Early hoar-frost may, it is said,
be rendered harmless in its effects by pouring
fresh spring water on the trees and vines thus
covered before the sun rises. Various other
projects have been proposed at different times
to avert the disastrous effects of the morning
frosts on vegetation in spring; but, unfortu-
nately, it is only on a very limited scale that
any means can be adopted for the purpose.
Whatever prevents the formation of dew will
protect plants ; hence a covering of net or thin
gauze will often preserve the blossoms of wall-
fruit. But the most effectual means is to check
the radiation, by screening the plant from the
chilling aspect of the clear sky. See Dew.
Every farmer knows that frost in winter is
serviceable to the soil, by breaking down and
pulverizing land, and that a failure of crops
frequently takes place after a winter of ex-
treme mildness. The principle is this : — in the
process of congelation, the water, as it freezes,
expands, and, therefore, necessarily separates
the particles of earth in which it is held: frost
thus operates better than any instrument of
human construction, for its action reaches to
the minutest particles, and thus renders them
friable. In dry earth it has little or no effect
in this way, but is beneficial in destroying
grubs and insects. On sand it makes no im-
pression. On ploughed clay-land frost has the
most beneficial effect. Therefore, where the
soil is close, stiflT, or of an obstinate clayey na-
ture, it should be turned up in ridges in the
autumn or at the beginning of winter, which
tends greatly to separate its particles, and ren-
der it more fine and mellow.

Hard winters seldom injure winter grain in
any respect, especially where the land has been
thoroughly drained, and is covered much with
snow. By leaving the earth in a loose and
finely divided state, frost adapts it better for the
extension of the roots as the warmth of spring
approaches, and thereby enables them to pro-
duce strong plants. (Brande's Did. of Science.)

FRUIT (Fr. fruit; It. frutta ; Spa.n. fruta;
IjZX. frudum). In botany, comprehends many
kinds of what are commonly called seeds ; as
those of corn, buckwheat, caraway, parsley,
«&c., as well as the succulent inflorescence of
the pine-apple, which is a mass of ovaria and
envelopes in a consolidated condition. But in
horticulture the term fruit is restricted to the
pulpy and juicy seeds of trees and shrubs, &c.,
as the apple, the peach, the currant, &c.

The fruits of vegetables are equally various
with the seeds. They almost all contain an
acid ; and this acid is usually either the tar-
taric, the oxalic, the citric, or the malic, or a
mixture of two or more of them. Hardly any
other, except, perhaps, the acetic, has hiiherio
been found in fruits. They usually contain
likewise a portion of saccharine gummy mat-
ter, sometimes starch; and the fleshy fruits

FRUIT-MAGGOTS.

FRUIT-MOTH.

contain also a fibrous matter, not yet accu-
rately examined. The colouring matters of
fruits, especially the red, dissolve freely both
in water and alcohol, but very speedily decay
when exposed dry to the action of the sun
and weather. Hence Ihey cannot be used as
dyes.

The diseases of fruit-trees are various, and
for these the reader is referred to the different
heads of Blight, Canker, Milpew, &c. As
the culture and propagation of the different
fruits are also treated of in separate articles,
it will suffice in this place to enumerate a few
of the principal works which maybe consulted
with advantage for fuller details than the limits
of this work will enable me to give; among
these are PInllips's Hist, of Fruitu; Rogers's
Fruit Cult,; Hoare on the Vine; jibercrombie^Ts
Fruit Gard. ; Lindley's Guide to the Orchard and
Kitchen Gard. ; Loudon's Encyc. of Gard. £fC. ;
Bliss's Fruit Grower's Instructor.

Several American works have been pub-
lished of great value, upon the culture of fruit-
trees, &c.: among these are included Coxe on
Fruit-trees; Thatcher's American Orchardist ;
Hovey's Magaz. of Horticulture, ffc. ; Kenrick's
Am^ Orchardist ; Fessenden's Am. Farmer and
Gardener; Hoffey's Orchardist's Companion, the
last a splendid original work with plates.

FRUIT MAGGOTS. The little white mag-
gots often found in our ripe whortleberries,
raspberries, cherries, and other fruits, are the
young of small two-winged flies, some of
which family deposit their eggs in the stems,
buds, and leaves of plants, thereby producing
large tumors or galls wherein their young re-
side. The larvae of those laying their eggs in
fruit, live upon the pulp. The family of insects
has received the name of Ortalidians, from a
word signifying to shake or flap the wings,
these being kept in motion all the time. Some
of them are in the habit of suddenly raising
their wings perpendicularly above their backs,
and running along a few steps with them spread
like the tail of a peacock. Their powers of
flight are feeble, and they are rarely found
sporting on flowers in the sunshine, but gene-
rally prefer shady and damp places. The
wings of the ortalidians are often beautifully
variegated, striped or spotted, with shades of
brown or black. (Harrix.)

FRUIT-MOTH, or CODLING-MOTH. The
insect, the eggs of which produce the well-
known apple-worm, which has been brought
from Europe to America, and naturalized
wherever the apple tree has been introduced.
This mischievous creature has sometimes
been mistaken for the plum-weevil (see Cur-
rulio), but it may, says Dr. Harris, be easily
distinguished from it by its shape, habits, and
transformations. The plum-weevil is, how-
ever, sometimes found in apples; but the
apple-worm has never yet been found in
plums, so far as Dr. Harris has been able to
learn. The apple-worm is not a grub, but a
true caterpillar, the product of a moth, and not
of a beetle, as grubs are. An anonymous
writer in the Entomological Magazine of London,
has well remarked of this moth (Carpocapsn
pomonella), that "it is the most beautiful of the
tribe to which it belongs ; yet, from its habits

not being known, it is seldom seen in the moth
state ; and the apple-grower knows no more
than the man in the moon to what cause he is
indebted for his basketfuls of worm-eaten
windfalls in the stillest weather."

A good account of the apple-worm and its
transformations, by Joseph Tufts, Esq., of
j Charleston, Massachusetts, was published in
; the Massachusetts Agr. Rep. and Journ., vol. v.,
j and some remarks by Mr. Burrelle, of Quincy,
I Massachusetts, may be found in the New Eng-
land Farmer^ vol. xviii. At various times be-
tween the middle of June and first of July, the
apple-worm moths may be found in New Eng-
land. "They are sometimes seen in houses
in the evening, trying to get through the win-
dows into the open air, having been brought in
with fruit while they were in the caterpillar
state. Their fore-wings, when seen at a dis-
tance, have somewhat the appearance of brown
watered silk; when closely examined they will
be found to be crossed by numerous gray and
brown lines, scalloped like the plumage of a
bird ; and near the hind angle there is a large,
oval, dark brown spot, the edges of which are
of a bright copper colour. The head and
thorax are brown, mingled with gray ; and the
hind-wings and abdomen are light yellowish
brown, with the lustre of satin. Its wings ex-
pand three-quarters of an inch. This insect
is readily distinguished from other moths by
the large, oval, brown spot, edged with copper
colour, on the hinder margin of each of the
fore-wings. During the latter part of June and
the month of July, these fruit-moths fly about
apple trees every evening, and lay thc'r eggs
on the young fruit. They do not puncture the
apples, but they drop their eggs, one by one, in
the eye or hollow at the blossom end of the
fruit, where the skin is most tender. They
seem also to seek for early fruit rather than
for the late kinds, which we find are not so apt
to be wormy as the thin-skinned summer
apples. The eggs begin to hatch in a few
days after they are laid, and the little apple-
worms or caterpillars produced from them im-
mediately burrow into the apples, making their
way gradually from the eye towards the core.
Commonly only one worm will be found in the
same apple ; and it is so small at first, that its
presence can only be detected by the brownish
powder it throws out in eating its way through
the eye. The body of the young insect is of a
whitish colour; its head is heart-shaped and
black; the top of the first ring or collar and
of the last ring is also black ; and there are
eight little blackish dots or warts, arranged in
pairs, on each of the other rings. As it grows
older its body becomes flesh-coloured ; its
head, the collar, and the top of the last ring,
turn brown, and the dots are no longer to be
seen. In the course of three weeks, or a little
more, it comes to its full size, and meanwhile
has burrowed to the core and through the apple
I in various directions. To get rid of the refuse
i fragments of its food, it gnaws a round hole
I through the side of the apple, and thrusts them
I out of the opening. Through this hole also the
I insect makes its escape after the apple falls to
the ground ; and the falling of the fruit is well
I known to be hastened by the injury it has
2 u 3 509

FRUIT-WEEVIL.

received within, which generally causes it to
ripen before its time.

" Soon after the half-grown apples drop, and
sometimes while they are still hanging, the
worms leave them and creep into chinks in
the bark of the trees or into other sheltered
places, which they hollow out with their teeth
to suit their shape. Here each one spins for
itself a cocoon or silken case, as thin, delicat j,
and white as tissue paper. Some of the apple-
worms, probably the earliest, are said by Kollar
to change to chrysalids immediately after their
cocoons are made, and in a few days more
turn to moths, come out, and lay their eggs for
a second generation of the worms ; and hence
much fruit will be found to be worm-eaten in
the autumn. Most of the insects, however,
remain in their cocoons through the winter,
and are not changed to moths till the following
summer. The chrysalis is of a bright maho-
gany-brown colour, and has, as usual, across
each of the rings of its hind-body, two rows
of prickles, by the help of which it forces its
way through the cocoon before the moth
comes forth.

" As the apple- worms instinctively leave the
fruit soon after it falls from the trees, it will
be proper to gather up all wind-fallen apples
daily, and make such immediate use of them
as will be sure to kill the insects, before they
have time to escape. Mr. Burrelle says that if
any old cloth is wound around or hung in the
crotches of the trees, the apple-worms will
conceal themselves therein ; and by this means
thousands of them may be obtained and de-
stroyed, from the time when they first begin to
leave the apples, until the fruit is gathered.
By carefully scraping off the loose and rugged
bark of the trees, in the spring, many chrysa-
lids will be destroyed ; and it has been said
that the moths, when they are about laying
their eggs, may be smothered or driven away,
by the smoke of weeds burned under the trees.
The worms, often found in summer pears, ap-
pear to be the same as those that affect apples,
and are to be kept in check by the same
means." (Harris.)

FRUIT- WEEVIL. See Curcuiio; Plum-
weevil.

FUEL (Norm. Tr.fuayle). Any combusti-
ble substance which is used for the production
of heat constitutes a species of fuel ; but the
term is more properly limited to coal, coke,
charcoal, wood, and a few other substances.

In England, coal, from its abundance and
cheapness, is the commonly employed fuel ;
but where wood is abundant, or where its
value is little more than that of felling it, it is
used either in its original state, or in the form
of charcoal. It is essential to good and profit-
able fuel that it should be free from moisture ;
for unless it be dry, much of the heat which it
generates is consumed in converting its moist-
ure into vapour; hence the superior value of
old, dense, and dry wood, to that which is por-
ous and damp. A pound of dry wood will, for
instance, heat 35 pounds of water from 32®
to 212°, and a pound of the same wood in a
moist or fresh state will not heat more than 25
pounds from the same to the same tempera-
ture; the value, therefore, of different woods
510

FUMITORY.

for fuel is nearly inversely as their moisture,
and this may be roughly ascertained by finding
how much a given weight of their shavings
loses by drying them at 212".

The following table exhibits at one view the
power of various species of wood in producing
heat.

The number indicates the quantity of timber
in pounds, required to raise the temperature
of a cubic foot of water from 52° to 212°.

lbs

Oak chips ------. 4-20

Elm ------__ 3-5-2

Fir ------- - 3 52

Ash -..--.-_ 350
Uornbeam ------- 337

Cherry tree ------- 3-20

Beech -------- 316

Lime tree ------- 310 j-

. Poplar 3 10 ,

Maple -------- 3-00

Service tree ------ 300

The value of turf and peat, as fuel, is liable
to much variation, and depends partly upon
their density, and partly upon their freedom
from earthy impurities. A pound of turf will
heat about 26 pounds of water from 32° to 212°,
and a pound of dense peat about 30 lbs. : bv
compressing and drying peat its value as a
fuel is greatly increased. Dr. M'Culloch has
divided peat into five classes : — mountain peat,
marsh peat, lake peat, forest peat, and marine
peat; the names implying the locality of theii
production. Of these the mountain peat, from
its loose, spongy texture, is the least produc-
tive of heat, although it soonest inflames. The
reader is referred to an excellent essay "on
economizing Fuel and Lighting," &c. by the
Rev. P. Bell, in the Trans, of High. Soc. vol. iv.
p. 149. See Charcoal and Peat. (Brande's
Diet, of Science ; Willich^s Dom. Encyc.)

FULLER'S THISTLE (Dipsacus fullonum).
A name sometimes applied to a plant used by
the makers of cloth. See Teasel.

FULLER'S EARTH. A native sapona-
ceous mineral of the aluminous kind, found in
many parts, but the best comes from the south
of England and Saxony. It is much used by
fullers in cleaning and scouring their cloth,
from its property of absorbing grease. It is
of a very soft, unctuous nature, falls to pieces
in water, and appears to be capable of pro-
moting the growth of plants in a high degree ;
consequently may be used with advantage as
manure, on some of the lighter sorts of land.
Its constituents, according to Klaproth, are as
follows ; —

Spedmen from Specimen from

Reigate, Surrey. ^imptcb, in
Sileti^.

Silica - - - . 530 485

Alumina - . - - 10*0 15'5

Lime - - - . 0*5 —

Magnesia - - - - 1-25 1-5

Oxide of iron - . - 975 7'0

Ck)mmon salt - - - 0-1 —

Water - - - - 24- 255

Loss 1-4 20

100- 100^

FUMITORY (Fumaria, from fumus, smoke,
alluding to the disagreeable smell of the plant,
Our English word fumitory is derived from the
French name of the genus Fumetcn-e). There
are six indigenous species of fumitory, amoPg
which are : —

4

FUNDUNGI.

FUNGI.

Common fumitory (F. nfficinalis), an annual,
very common in cultivated ground and about
hedges ; root tapering, herb glaucous, stem
much branched, leaves mostly alternate, twice
or thrice pinnate. Flowers in clusters, rose-
coloured or pale red. The leaves are succu-
lent, saline, and bitter. The plant is eaten by
cows and sheep; goats dislike it, except the
young shoots, and horses totally refuse it.

Ramping fumitory (F, capreolata). This
species is much like the common fumitory, but
larger in every part; the leaves less glaucous;
their tendrils twisting round other plants, by
which the branching stem climbs to the height
of 3 or 4 feet. The flowers are on the whole
paler, and the plant also less common.

This species and the while climbing fumi-
tory are the only ones worthy of extensive
culture. They do best sown under a hedge, to
"which they will attach themselves and make
a beautiful appearance. The common fumi-
tory is the only species found in the United
State?, where it has been naturalized to some
extent, being not unfrequently cultivated in
gardens. (Em;. Flor. vol. iii. p. 252—257;
Faxfon's Tot. Diet.)

FUNDI, or FUNDUNGI. An African
grain produced by a plant of Lilliputian
growth, which is described by Mr. Clarke, in
the proceedings of the London Linnaean So-
ciety. This grain is represented as about the
size of mignonette-seed, and is cultivated in
the village of Kissy and in the neighbourhood
of Waterloo by industrious individuals of the
Soosoo, Foulah, Bassa, and Joloflf nations, by
whom it is called ♦* hungry rice." The ground
is cleared for its reception by burning down
the copse-wood and hoeing between the roots
and stumps. It is sown in the months of May
and June, the ground being slightly opened
and again lightly drawn together over the seed
with a hoe. In August, when it shoots up, it
is carefully weeded. It ripens in September,
growing to the height of about 18 inches, and
its stems, which are very slender, are then bent
to the earth by the mere weight of the grain.
They are reaped with hooked knives. The
patch of land is then either suffered to lie fal-
low, or planted with yams or cassada in rota-
tion. Manure is said to be unnecessary or
even injurious, the plant delighting in light soils,
and being raised even in rocky situations,
which are most frequent in and about Kissy.
"When cut down it is tied up in small sheaves
and placed in a dry situation within the hut,
for if allowed to remain on the ground or to
become wet the grains become agglutinated to
their coverings. The grain is trodden out with
the feet, and is then parched or dried in the
sun to allow of the more easy removal of the
chaff in the process of pounding, which is
performed in wooden mortars. It is after-
wards winnowed with a kind of cane fanner
on mats.

In preparing this delicious grain for food,
Mr. Clarke states that it is first thrown into
boiling water, in which it is assiduously stirred
for a few minutes. The water is then poured
off, and the natives add to it palm oil, butter, or
milk ; but the Europeans and negroes con-
nected with the colony stew it with fowl, fish,

mutton, adding a small piece of salt pork for
the sake of flavour, and the dish thus prepared
is stated to resemble kous-kous. The grain is
also made into 'a pudding with the usual con-
diments, and eaten either hot or cold with milk;
the Scotch residents sometimes dress it as
milk-porridge. Mr. Clarke is of opinion that
if the fundi grain were raised for exportation
to Europe, it might prove a valuable addition
to the list of light farinaceous articles of food
in use among the delicate or convalescent.

Specimens of the grass have been examined
by Mr. Kippist, Librarian to the Linna»an So-
ciety. It is a slender grass with digitate
spikes, which has much of the habit of DigiUi-
ria, but which, on account of the absence of
the small outer glume existing in that genus,
must be referred to Paspalum. Mr. Kippist
regards it as an undescribed species, and dis-
tinguishes it by the name of Pcespalum exile.
(Proceedings of Lin. Soc.)

FUNGI (Lat.). A large natural tribe of plants
of a very low organization, consisting chiefly
of cellular tissue, sometimes intermixed with
flocculent matter, and very rarely furnished
wilh spiral vessels. They form, as it were, a
link between the animal and vegetable king-
doms. They inhabit dead and decaying organic
bodies, and are also a common pest to living
plants, upon which they are parasites, and prey
in the same manner as vermin and intestinal
worms upon animals. A vast number of spe-
cies are described by writers upon fungi, and
they are often of great importance to man,
either for their use or their mischievous qua-
lities. The common mushroom {Agaricus cam-
pestris), the truffle (Tuber cibarium), and morel
(Morchella esrulenta), (see these heads) are
delicacies well known at table. Not less than
thirty-three species of fungi are eaten in Rus-
sia. Ergot, one of the tribe, is valuable in ob-
stetric practice as a uterine stimulant; very
many of the species are dangerous poisons.
Blight, mildew, rust, &c. (see these articles),
are diseases caused by the ravages of micro-
scopic fungi; and, finally the destructive ef-
fects of dry-rot are owing to the attacks o( Me-
ntlius lachrymanSf and many other species.
The best general work on Fungi is Fries* s
Systema Micologiciim. Numerous species are
figured in the works of Greville, Bulliard,
Sowerby, Corda,and Nees von Esenbeck. (See
Fairt Rixgb.) Dr. Christison gives the fol-
lowing general directions for distinguishing
the esculent from the poisonous varieties. "It
appears that most fungi which have a warty
cap, more especially fragments of membrane
adhering to their upper surface, are poisonous.
Heavy fungi, which have an unpleasant odour,
especially if they emerge from a vulva or bag,
are also generally hurtful. Those which grow
in woods and shady places are rarely esculent,
but most are unwholesome; and if they are
moist on the surface they should be avoided.
All those which grow in tufts or clusters from
the trunks or stumps of trees ought likewise to
be shunned. A sure test of a poisonous fungus
is an astringent styptic taste, and perhaps also
a disagreeable, but certainly a pungent odour.
Those, the substance of which becomes blue
soon after being cut, are invariably poisonous.

511

FUNGUS.

FURZE.

Agarics, of an orange or rose-red colour, and
boleti, which are coriaceous or corky in tex-
ture, or which have a membranous collar
round the stem, are also unsafe. These rules
for knowing deleterious fungi seem to rest on
fact and experience ; but they will not enable
the collector to recognise every poisonous spe-
cies." The general rules laid down for dis-
tinguishing wholesome fungi are not so well
founded, but the most simple and easy mode
of testing the quality of field fungi is to intro-
duce a silver spoon or piece of coin of that
metal, or an onion, into the vessel in which
mushrooms are seething: if on taking either
of them out, they assume a bluish black, or
dark discoloured appearance, there are cer-
tainly some dangerous fungi among them ; if,
on the other hand, the metal or onion, on being
withdrawn from the liquor, wears its natural
appearance, the fungi may be considered
wholesome and innoxious. The symptoms in-
dicating poisoning by fungi are nausea, vomit-
ing, purging, and colic, in general accompa-
nied with great depression of the pulse, cold
extremities, clammy sweats, stupor, delirium,
convulsions, sometimes paralysis. In such
cases immediate means should be taken to
clear the stomach, and a medical practitioner
sent for, as the subsequent treatment must vary
according to the symptoms in each individual
instance. (Christison on Poisons ; Brande^s Did.
of Science.)

FUNGtFS. In farriery, a spongy excres-
cence which arises in wounds and ulcers,
commonly known by the name of proud flesh.
It may be destroyed and removed by caustic
applications, such as nitrate of silver, or sul-
phate of copper, blue vitriol, and the use of
tight bandages.

FURLONG (Sax. yujilans). An English
measure of length containing forty poles, the
eighth part of a mile.

FURMENTY, or FRUMENTY (from fru-
menttm}, corn). A kind of country pottage pre-
pared of wheat, which is first wetted, and
beaten to deprive it of its husks, and after-
wards boiled. When boiled up with milk,
sugar, and a little spice, it forms a wholesome
and agreeable food. This preparation was
well known to the Roman farmers. Cato, the
earliest of the agricultural writers whose
works have escaped to us, gives (lib. Ixxxvi.)
the modern mode of making it under the name
of wheat frumenty.

FURRIER'S REFUSE, or CLIPPINGS;
are sometimes applied as a fertilizer to^light
chalks and gravelly soils, either ploughed in
or laid upon the surface, in the proportion of
twenty-four to thirty bushels to the acre. They
are usually sold by the quarter, which com-
monly contains as much as two five-bushel
sacks will hold when closely pressed. The
price is said to be about 14s. to 16s. per quar-
ter. (Brit. Husb. vol. i. p. 426.)

FURROW (Sax. punh ; Dan. fur; Lat. fo-
nts). In agriculture, a term not very properly
defined, as it has three or four distinct signifi-
cations ; viz. 1. The soil turned up by the
plough; 2. The trench left by this operation;
3. The interval between two ridges; and 4.
The cross drain which receives the rain water
612

; collected by these intervals. Dr. Johnson adds
n fifth; but he obviously mistakes furrow for
drill. According to Mr. Marshall there are
three ideas which lay claim to the word fur-
row. 1. The trench made by the plough, which
may be called a ;>/oMg/i/MrraM;; 2. The collate-
ral drains, or an inter-furrow ; and 3. The
transverse drains, or the cross-furrow. See
Ploughiko and Furrow, Water.

FURROW-SLICE. The narrow slice or
slip of earth turned up by the plough. By the
Scotch writers on husbandry, it is mostly
termed fvr-slice.

FURROW, WATER.. That kind of deep,
open furrow which is made by the plough in
tillage-lands, for the purpose of drawing off and
draining them, in order to favour the healthy
growth of the crops. Furrows of this kind
should always be drawn in such directions as
will the most readily take off the water, and be
kept open during the winter months, especially
on the wheat-grounds. The making of these
furrow-drains should be performed immediate-
ly after the ploughing and sowing have been
finished; and this is particularly necessary on
all the more stiff and retentive kinds of soil.

FURZE, COMMON; GORSE, or WHIN
(Ulex Europceus). PI. 9, c. This hardy ever-
green shrub is indigenous to most parts of
Great Britain, and grows abundantly on sandy
or gravelly heaths and commons ; and when
viewed in the light of a weed it is one of the
most determined growers, and most difficult to
get rid of that the agriculturist can meet with.
The stem of the furze varies from 2 to 5 feet
high; but in Cornwall and Durham it some-
times grows to the height of 8 or 9 feet. It bears
innumerable dense, roughish, green, furrowed
or ribbed branches, spinous at the ends, and
beset with large, compound, striated, permanent
thorns. The leaves are few, scattered, small,
awl-shaped, deciduous. Flowers large, soli-
tary or in pairs, of a bright golden yellow, with
a very peculiar oppressive scent. One of our
poets has well described the beautiful appear-
ance of this shrub in blossom —

"And what more noble than the vernal furze.
With jiolilen baskets hunK? Approach it not.
For every blossom has a troop of swords
Drawn to defend it."

The legumes are downy, bursting elastically
in dry, hot weather, with a crackling noise, and
scattering their seeds extensively. The wood
of furze is very hard. Furze is chiefly used for
fences, as food for cattle, and for fuel. Its
preference for sterile soil has caused it to be
extensively employed for fences in such land,
and as a cover for game, and shelter for young
plantations. With common care furze fences
last for a very long period, but they require
peculiar management to prevent the roots be-
coming exposed. Sowing in three tiers on a
bank is perhaps the best mode, as it allows of
one tier to be kept low by the shears or bill,
the second of higher growth, and the last to at-
tain its natural stature.

There are generally two objections advanced
against the adoption of whin-fences. The first
is, that the wall or mound required for raising
the whin is of such dimensions as to occasion
a great waste of ground; and the second is.

FURZE.

GAD-FLY.

i

that the whins have a great tendency to spread
over and injure the adjoining grounds. But
with a slight, well trimmed wall-fence of furze
these objections may easily be obviated.

The formation and management of whin-
fences have been treated of by a number of
agricultural and botanical writers, as Lord
Karnes, Dr. Anderson, Marshall, Billington in
his work On Planting, Dickson in his Modern
Husb., and others ; there is also an essay on
this subject in the Trans, of the High. Sac. vol.
v. p. 466, by Mr. W. Bell, and it is noticed in
a number of the County Reports.

Furze has long been known as a plant highly
nutritious as food for horses, sheep, and cattle,
and has only been neglected from the supposed
difficulty of converting it into a state fit to be
comfortably eaten by domestic animals ; the
process of cutting, gathering, and bruising the
young shoots, when taken from the old stunted
bushes, being both laborious and expensive.
These difficulties are, however, comparatively
easily overcome when gorse is allowed the
privilege of a cultivated spot, and the most
worthless part of the farm is good enough for
it to vegetate upon.

Respecting the merits of furze as a fodder, a
good deal has been written, as by Duhamel in
France, Evelyn in England, and Dr. Anderson
in Scotland ; and it is now extensively culti-
vated for this purpose by Mr. Attwood of Bir-
mingham, who has devoted an hundred acres
to French furze; (U. provincialis, which is near-
ly allied to the common furze). These are
regularly mown with a scythe for a corres-
ponding number of milch cows, and bruised in
a mill : mixed with chopped straw or hay, this
constitutes the entire food of his cows. Bruised
furze is also an excellent substitute for hay for
horses, and it is even asserted that they prefer
it to corn; but they should at the same time
have oats and beans to counteract the relaxing
properties of the gorse. Dr. Anderson says
that when properly bruised, cattle are very
fond of it, and increase in fatness as fast as on
turnips. Cows yield as much milk as when
fed on grass, without any bad taste, and the
butter made on such food is very superior.
The small holder bruises the furze for his soli-
tary cow or pair of horses, in a trough, with a
wooden pounder, furnished at the lower end
with a sharp piece of iron. The farmer on a
large scale should have a mill worked by
horses or by water-power. In 1802 and 1803,
the Duke of Richmond fed his deer, sheep, and
horses extensively on whins. In the Peninsu-
lar war the forage consumed by the horses of
the British army was principally furze. Mr.
F. Tytler, in an account of experiments which
he made on feeding horses, between the years
1812 and 1815 (Trans. High. Soc. vol. v.),
states, that one of the chief kinds of food he
used was furze. But the principal use of furze
is for the purpose of fuel. In many parts of
Great Britain it forms the main dependence
for the supply of fagots for the poor man's
hearth and the baker's oven. The common
furze generally attains its full size in 4 years,
and it ought not to be cut more frequently. An
acre of land sown with the French furze will
yield between* 4 and 5000 fagots, which are
05

chiefly consumed in the heating of ovens. The
fresh and dried flowers of this plant afford in
dyeing a fine yellow colour. The medicinal
qualities of furze are attenuant, diuretic, de-
termining to the skin, and occasioning nausea.
Furze may be propagated by seed sown from
February to May. Young plants or even slips
planted in Spring or October will grow readily.
It should be cut the year after sowing, begin-
ning in September or October; it will grow
again until Christmas, and be fit for use till
March. Besides the common furze there are
two other species :

1. The dwarf whin or furze (U. nanus) which
is less common than the preceding, and only
grows to half the size. It blossoms chiefly in
autumn, has the leaves or spines shorter and
closer, and the branches decumbent, the flow-
ering ones more cylindrical and elongated;
and the flowers are paler. These points of
structure distinguish this species from the
others at first sight. Its value is estimated in
comparison to that of the common, as two to
one inferior.

2. The French or Provence furze (U. pro-
vincialis), is a native of the South of Europe.
It closely resembles the common furze. In
Devonshire the common furze, and in some
other parts the dwarf furze, are frequently
called French furze. (Phillips's Syl. Flor. vol.
i. p. 247 ; Brit. Hush. vol. iii., On Planting, p.
100 ; Eng. Flora, vol. iii. p. 265; Quart. Journ,
o/Jgr. vol. ii. p. 731, vol. viii. p. 591 ; Willich'M
Dom. Encyc.)

G.

GAD-FLY, or BREEZE (CEstrus equi et
bovis, Lin.). Insects with spotted wings and a
yellow breast, which have a long proboscis,
with a sharp dart. These flies are particularly
troublesome to cattle by their sting or dart.
The horse-bot (CEstrus equi) deposits its eggs
on such parts of the horse as the animal can
reach with his tongue. They are thus licked
up, and introduced into the stomach ; are there
hatched and form bots. Another more torment-
ing fly of the same genus is the fundament-bot
(Q£. hamorrhoidalis), which lays its eggs on the
lips of the horse, causing so much irritation to
the animal, as to induce him to gallop and seek
refuge in the water. In Sweden, the grooms
are accustomed to clean the mouths and
throats of the horses daily with a peculiar kind
of brush, which prevents the larvae of this in-
sect getting into the stomach of the animaL
The ox-warble (CE. bovis) deposits its eggs on
the back of oxen, causing great torture to the
animal, and much agitation to the herd, if
many are attacked at once. The ovipositor
of the insect pierces the skin on the back of
the ox, and there drops the eggs. At the sea-
son when the gad-fly infests them, the harness
should be so managed as to allow the animals
to be easily let loose. The ovipositor of the
(E. bovis is furnished with teeth, and acts like
an augur or gimlet; and when this comes in
contact with a nerve of sensation, the oxen
seem to be driven almost to a state of mad-
ness ; the tail is stretched out, and they gallop
about the pasture, lowing and seeking for

513

GALLIC ACID.

water, into which they instinctively enter.
Hence Virgil, describing this, says : —

"The universal herds in terror fly;
Their lowings shalte the woods and shal<e the sky."

Humboldt mentions a species of (Estrus which
is found in the low regions of the torrid zone,
and has been named (Estrus hominis, from its
attacking man, and depositing its eggs in his
skin, causing there painful tumours. {La Geog.
des Plantes, p. 186.)

Of the large Gad-flies, or Horse-flies found in
America, one of the most common is of a black
colour, having its back covered with a whitish
dust or bloom, like a plum. The eyes are very
large, and almost meet on the top of the head ;
they are of a shining purple-black or bronzed
black colour, with a narrow, deep black band
across the middle, and a broad band of the
same hue on the lower part. The body of this
fly is seven-eighths of an inch or more in
length, and the wings expand nearly two
inches. The Tabanus ductus, of Fabricius, or
orange-belted horse-fly, is not so common, and
is rather smaller. It is also black, except the
first three rings of the hind-body, which are
orange-coloured. The most common of our
smaller horse-flies is the Tabanus lincola, so
named by Fabricius, because it has a whitish
line along the top of the hind-body. Besides
these flies, we have several more kinds of Ta-
banus, some of which do not appear to have
been described. These blood-thirsty insects
begin to appear towards the end of June, and
continue through the summer, sorely torment-
ing both horses and cattle with their sharp
bites. Their proboscis, though not usually
yer>' long, is armed with six stiff, and exceed-
ingly sharp needles, wherewith they easily
pierce through the toughest hide. It is stated
that they will not touch a horse whose back
has been well washed with a strong decoction
of walnut leaves. The e3^es of these flies are
very beautiful, and vary in their colours and
markings in the different species.

The golden-eyed forest flies are also distin-
guished for the brilliancy of their spotted eyes,
and for their clouded or banded wings. They
are much smaller than the horse-flies, but re-
semble them in their habits. Some of them
are entirely black (Chrysops ferrugatus, Fabri-
cius), others are striped with black and yellow
{Chrysops vittatus, Wiedemann). They fre-
quent woods and thickets, in July and August.
{Harris.)

GALLIC ACID. An acid obtained from
galls and several other vegetable astringents,
chiefly from the bark. The following table
will serve to show the proportions of this acid
in diflferent plants : —

Part*.

Willow trunk -------9

Oak, cut in winter^

Willow (boughs) I

Plum tree |

Cherry tree ^ - - - each 8

Sallow

Mountain ash

Poplar J

ie^U } - - - ««'^-'

Sycamore ---.---6

Birch ") „„_. .

Eldtr I ■ ■ ■ ^*'*' *

But although the above-named barks yield
514

GALLOP.

the quantities of gallic acid mentioned, yet it
is uncertain whether they actually contain any
ready formed. Gallic acid is procured by ex-
posing the. decoctions of galls, or of any astrin-
gent bark, to the air, until it becomes mouldy,
and the tannic acid attracts the oxygen of the
air, and is converted into the gallic acid. In
this state the acid forms in crystals, mixed
with crystals of another acid, the ellagic, which
are easily separated from it, being insoluble in
water.

Pure gallic acid has a weak, sour, astringent
taste. It is soluble in 100 parts of cold water,
and forms an ink with solution of green vitriol
(sulphate of iron). It is distinguished from
tannic acid, which is ready formed in astrin-
gent barks, by not precipitating solution of
glue. It is a powerful astringent, and may be
administered in doses of two or three grains in
internal bleedings.

GALLINACEOUS FOWLS. One of the
two divisions of domestic poultry reared in
Europe, comprehending, among others, the
common cock and hen, the turkey, the guinea-
fowl, the peacock, and the pigeon.

GALL FLIES. See Fruit Marrots.

GALL NUTS {Yv.galUs;lUgaUc). Excres-
cences produced by the Cynips, or Diplolepsis
gallcB tinctoricB, a small insect which deposits its
eggs in the tender shoots of the Quercus infccto-
ria, a species of oak abundant in Asia Minor,
&c. When the maggot is hatched, it feeds on
the morbid excrescence formed by the irrita-
tion of the deposited ovum on the surrounding
parts, and ultimately, when perfected as the
fly, it eats its way out of the nidus thus formed.
Good gall nuts are of a bluish-green hue,
heavy, and break with a flinty fracture. When
they are white, light, with a hole in one side,
they are useless. Gall nuts are employed in
dyeing, and in medicine.

GALLON. An English measure of capacity,
containing 4 quarts. By act of parliament the
imperial gallon is to contain 10 lbs. avoirdu-
pois of distilled water weighed at the tempe-
rature of 62° of Fahrenheit, and the barometer
standing at 30 inches. This is equivalent to
277-274 cubic inches. The old English gallon,
wine measure, contained 231 cubic inches,
and held 8 lbs. avoirdupois of pure water; ale
and beer measure, 282 cubic inches, and held
10 lbs. 3^ oz. avoirdupois of M'ater; and the
gallon for corn, meal, &c., 272 cubic inches,
containing 9 lbs. 13 oz. of pure water. Hence
the English imperial gallon is about ]• larger
than the old wine gallon, and about j^g less than
the old ale gallon. See Weights ajjd Mea-
sures.

GALLOP. In horsemanship, a well-known
pace to which horses are trained, and of which
many kinds are enumerated, but two only are
worthy of regard, namely the hand gallop and
the full gallop. And these distinctions are
founded on the different degrees of velocity in
which the animal is impelled, rather than on
any peculiarity in the pace itself. In the gal-
lop, the horse leads with one fore-leg some-
what advanced, but not so much beyond the
other, as happens in the canter; and, when he
is urged to his utmost speed, his legs are al-
most equally placed. The ffeetest horses

GALLOWAY.

GARDENING.

when galloping, carry their bodies perfectly in
a horizontal posture, and the fewer curves or
successive arches are described, the more
rapid of course is their progress.

In galloping, the fore-legs are thrown for-
ward nearly simultaneously, and the hind-legs
brought up quickly and nearly together; it is,
in fact, a succession of leaps, by far the greatest
interval of time elapsing while the legs are ex-
tended after the leap is taken. The canter is
to the gallop very much what the walk is to the
trot, though probably a more artificial pace.
The exertion is much less, the spring less
distant, and the feet come to the ground in
more regular succession. {The Horse, p. 413.)

GALLOWAY. The usual name for a poney
or saddle-horse, between 13 or 14 hands in
height. The original galloways are a pure
breed of small, elegant horses from the south
of Scotland, said to be of Spanish extraction.
See HoRSK.

GALLOWAYS. See Cattlb.

GALLOWS OF A PLOUGH. A part of the
plough-head, so named by farmers, from its
resemblance to the common gallows. It con-
sists of three pieces of timber, of which one is
placed transversely over the heads of the other
two. See Plouoh.

GALLS. In farriery, a term signifying an
abrasion or rubbing off of the skin by the har-
ness, saddle, &c. The little tumours resulting
from the pressure of the saddle are called war-
bles, and when they ulcerate they frequently be-
come sit-fasts. For saddle galls there is no
better application than strong salt and water,
mixed with a fourth part of tincture of myrrh.
The saddle and the collar, when they are found
to rub or gall, should be padded or chambered.
A mixture of white-lead moistened with milk is
stated (Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. ix. p. 299), to
be an excellent liniment for galled backs in the
early stages of the wound. It is a common
American remedy. "For the information of
other travellers, we may mention," says Mr.
Keating, " that, alter having tried many appli-
cations to the backs of horses when galled, we
have found none that have succeeded so well
as white-lead moistened with milk. When milk
is not to be procured, oil may be substituted.
Whenever the application was made in the
early stage of the wound, we have found it to
be very effectual ; and it is likewise a conve-
nient one, as two ounces of white-lead sufficed
for the whole of our party for more than a
month." {Expedition to St. Peter's River, p. 190.)

GALLS. In agriculture, a term signifying
vacant or bare places in a crop.

GAM A GRASS {Tripsacum dadyloides). Fin-
ger-like Tripsacura, called also Sessame grass
and Rough-seeded gama grass. (See PI. 7, n.)
This stout and very remarkable grass has a
perennial root. The culm rises to the height
of 4, 5, or 6 feet, is somewhat compressed,
channelled on one side, smooth, solid with pith,
furnished with nodes or knots, smooth, slightly
raised, with a dark-brown contracted ring. The
leaves are large, often measuring 3 feet, and
an inch to an inch and a half wide, smooth be-
neath, roughish on the upper surface, serrulate
or finely jagged on the edges. Flower a dark
purple ; seed ovoid and smooth.

I « A few years ago," says Dr. Darlington, in
his Flora Cestrica, "this grass was much ex-
tolled by some writers in the West, as an arti-
cle of fodder for stock. The leaves and young
plant may probably answer very well where
better cannot be had ; but any one who will
examine the coarse culms of the mature plant
may soon satisfy himself that it can never su-
persede the good hay of this region (the Middle
States), nor be as valuable in any respect as
common Indian corn fodder." It is the only
species of the genus Tripsacum which is indi-
genous in the United Stales, the T. monostachyon
of some authors being only a variety. It has
been found in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

From some communications in American
periodicals, the gama grass appears to be par-
ticularly well adapted to Southern culture. It
is exceedingly productive, being said to admit
of at least six cuttings in a season, and to fur-
nish a large quantity of palatable and nutri-
cious food for cattle and horses. It is a hardy
perennial plant, and its duration, according to
a Spanish proverb, coeval with the "age of
a man and a mule." {Silk Culturist.) The
modes of culture are by planting the seeds and
transplanting the roots. Mr. Beekman, of Kin-
derhook, N. Y., gives the following directions :
" Sow in drills 18 inches apart, and cover about
2 inches deep. In a month it will come up like
oats, and when about 8 inches high and two
suckers appear, one on each side, then trans-
plant about 3 by 2 feet. The second year in
Georgia the first cutting may be made in May,
and once every month to 1st October, say six
cuttings. The blades will be 3 feet or upwards
— each forming a large bunch, which may be
annually divided into from 40 to 50 plants."

The variety of gama grass so much vaunted
in the Southern and Western States is said to.
be a hermaphrodite plant from the island of
Jamaica, where it is extensively cultivated as
a forage grass.

GARDENING. There is not in the arts and
sciences one link of their circle so suitable for
the occupation of man in a state of innocence,
as that which embraces the cultivation of
plants ; and it is an instance of the beneficent
providence of the Deity, that he assigned a gar-
den as the dwelling of our first-created parents.
It is no consequence of the fall of Adam that
plants require cultivation : he was placed in
Paradise to till and to keep it. Then the weed
had not sprung up to render the tillage toil-
some; fruit trees which God had "planted"
were the chief objects of care, and it was aa
employment without much labour, combining
the preservation of health with amusement,
pure without insipidity, constant without same-
ness. From that period gardens have never
ceased to engage the attention of man ; and
even now that their labours are manifold, they
still afford the " purest of human pleasures."

To be an efficient cultivator of plants, a
knowledge of botany is requisite. Whilst that
science remained the chaos of unarranged
facts, and ill-classified individuals, which it
was until the master-mind of Linnseus reduced
its confusion and discord to harmony in 1737,
it required for its acquisition the devotion of a
life. Such acquisition the new system of classi-

616

GARDENING.

GARDENING.

fication rendered comparatively easy in a few
months. That gardeners availed themselves
of the advantage needs no further instance
than Philip Miller, in whom the perfect bota-
nist and horticulturist were combined, and who
was a correspondent of the chief men of sci-
ence then living.

For the working with full effect of the spirit
of the immortal Swede, our own Ray had pre-
pared the arena. Indefatigable, enthusiastic in
his pursuits, of clear and comprehensive mind,
he gave an impetus to botany and its correla-
tive arts, more effectual to their advancement
than they had received during ages of years
preceding. For 50 years he most successfully
laboured to clear the path of this science and
to increase her stores. Nor does he enjoy his
fame only among his countrymen ; it is alforded
to him by all Europe. Haller says, he was the
improver and elevator of botany into a science,
and dates from his life a new era in its history.
In little more than 20 years, Ray recorded an
increase in the English Flora of 550 species.
His Catalogus Plantarum Anglice, in 1670, con-
tains 1050 species: his Synopsis, in 1696, de-
scribes more than 1600 species. A phalanx
of botanists were then contemporaries which
previous ages never equalled, nor succeeding
ones surpassed. Ray, Tournefort, Plumier,
Plukenet, Commelin, Rivinus, Bobart, Petivir,
Sherard, Boccone, Linnoeus, may be said to
have lived in the same age.

I will not pass unnoticed, as being of this
period, Abraham Cowley, the well-known poet,
physician, and author of The Four Books of
Plants. Although he deserves little praise as a
botanist or as a gardener, he merits notice as
assisting in their advancement, by winning to
them and encouraging the attention of the
literary. Of the influence which botanists
possess over the forwarding the interests of
horticulture, I shall quote but one more in-
stance. Sir Arthur Rawdon was so gratified
■with the magnificent collection of West Indian
plants possessed by Sir Hans Sloane, that he
despatched a skilful gardener, James Harlow,
to Jamaica, who brought thence a vessel nearly
freighted with vegetating and dried plants, the
first of which Sir Arthur Rawdon cultivated in
his own garden at Moira in Ireland, or distri-
buted amongst his friends, and some of the
continental gardens. His taste for exotic plants
was probably much encouraged by his intimacy
with Dr. William Sherard, who, being one of
the most munificent patrons and cultivators of
exotic botany during that " golden age" of the
science, appeared, as Hasselquist observed,
" the regent of the botanic garden" at his house
at Sedekio, near Smyrna, where he was British
consul : for here he cultivated a very rich
garden, and collected the most extensive herba-
rium that was ever formed by the exertions of
an individual. It contained 12,000 species.
His younger brother, Dr. James Sherard, also
cultivated at Eltham, in Kent, one of the richest
gardens England ever possessed. {Pultney*s
Sketches of Pot. vol. ii. p. 150.)

But it was not only in the collecting and ar-
ranging of plants that botany was adding fresh
stores and zest to gardening. Previous to this
period little was known of the structure of
51G

plants, and the uses of their several parts.
Grew, Malpighi, Linnceus, Hales, Bonnet, Du
Hamel, Hedwig, Spallanzani, &c., cleared away,
in a great measure, the ignorance which en-
veloped vegetable physiology. Previous to
their days the male bearing plants of dioecious
plants, as spinach, and the male flowers of cu-
cumbers, &c., were recommended to be re-
moved as useless ; they taught the importance
of checking the return of the sap ; the mode of
raising varieties : in short, all the phenomena
of vegetable life, which throw so much light
upon the practice of the gardener, were first
noted and explained by the labours of these
philosophers. Another class of philosophers
who contributed a gigantic aid to the advance
of horticulture, were those chemists who espe-
cially devoted themselves to the vegetable
world. Such men were Ingenhouz, Van Hel-
mont, Priestley, Sennebier, Schraeder, Saus-
sure, &c. To them we are indebted for the
most luminous researches into the food of
plants, the influence of air, of heat, of light, and
of soils. Previous to their researches the im-
mense importance of the leaves of plants was
unknown. Cultivators were unaware that by
removing one of them they were proportionably
removing the means of breathing and of nou-
rishment from the parent plant ; and mankind
in general were ignorant that it is by the gas
which plants throw off" that the animal creation
is alone enabled to breathe.

The scientific institutions of previous years,
which had merely existed, were now in a state
of vigorous exertion. The Botanic Garden at
Chelsea was especially distinguished under its
curator Philip Miller. This garden, as pre-
viously stated, was founded in 1673, though the
inscription over the gateway is dated 1686,
until which year it was not effectually ar-
ranged. It was strengthened and rendered
permanent by Sir Hans Sloane, in 1721. He,
having purchased the manor, gave the site,
which is a freehold of four acres, to the com-
pany, on condition that they should pay 5/. per
annum for it, and that the demonstrator of the
company, in their name, should deliver annu-
ally 50 new species of plants to the Royal So-
ciety, until the number amounted to 2,000.
This presentation of plants commenced in
1722, and continued until 1773, at which time
they had presented 2550 species.

If old botanical institutions improved, so also
new ones were formed. The Kew Gardens
Avere commenced in 1760, by the Princess
Dowager of Wales, mother of George III. The
exotic department was established chiefly
through the influence of the Marquis of Bute, a
great patron of gardening. It was placed under
the care of Mr. W. Aiton, and it has since be-
come one of the most celebrated botanical in-
stitutions in the world.

The Cambridge Botanical Garden was also
founded in 1763, by Dr. Walker, vice-master
of Trinity College. He gave the site, com-
prising nearly five acres, in trust to the chan-
cellor, masters, and scholars of the university,
for the purpose of establishing the garden.
Thomas Martyn, the titular professor of botany,
was appointed reader on plants, and Charles,
son of the celebrated Philip Miller (who had

GARDENING.

GARDENING.

aided Dr. Walker in selecting the ground), was 1
made first curator. (^LoxtdorCs Encyc. of Gard.
pp. 86, 1071, edit. 5.)

Previous to this period, the number of exotics
cultivated in England probably did not exceed
1000 species; during this century above .5000
new ones were introduced. Some tolerably
correct idea may be formed of the improve-
ment arising to horticulture, from this spirit
of research after plants, by a knowledge that
in the first edition of Miller^ s Dictionary, in
1724, but 12 evergreens are mentioned. The
Christmas flower and aconite were rare, and
only to be purchased at Mr. Fairchild's nur-
sery at Hoxton. Only seven species of gera-
nium were then known. In the preface to the
eighth edition of the Dictionary, in 17Q8, the
number of plants cultivated in England are
staled to be more than double those which
were known in 1731. The publication of the
seventh edition of that work, in 1759, was of
the greatest benefit to horticulture. In it was
adopted the classical system of Linnaeus. It
gave a final blow to the invidious line of dis-
tinction which had existed between the gar-
dener and the botanist, and completed the
erection of the art of the former into a science,
which it had been long customary to esteem as
little more than a superior pursuit for a rustic.
From being merely practised by servants, it
became more extensively the study and the de-
light of many of the most scientific and noble
individuals of England. Miller improved the
cultivation of the vine and the fig, and was
otherwise distinguished for his improvement
of the practice, as he had been of the science,
of gardening. Having thus decisively gained
the attention of men of science, the rapid pro-
gress of horticulture from this era is no longer
astonishing. The botanist applied his re-
searches to the increase of the inhabitants of
the garden, and the better explanation of their
habits. The vegetable physiologist adapted
his discoveries to practical purposes, by point-
ing out the organs and functions which are of
primary importance; and the chemist, by his
analysis, discovered their constituents, and was
consequently enabled to point out improve-
ments which practice could only have stum-
bled on by chance, and perhaps during a lapse
of ages.

The general introduction of forcing houses
likewise gave to our science a new feature.
Green-houses, we have seen, were in use in the
17th century; but no regular structures, roofed
with glass, and artificially heated, existed until
the early part of the succeeding one. Though
a pine-apple had been presented by his gar-
dener to Charles II., it is certain that they were
only successfully cultivated here about 1723,
by Mr. Henry Talende, gardener to Sir Matthew
Decker at Richmond ; Mr. Loudon gives the
date as 1719. Mr. Bradley says, that Mr.
Talende having at length succeeded in ripen-
ing them, and rendered their culture " easy and
intelligible," he hopes bananas may flourish for
the future in many of our English gardens.
(Bradley's Gen. Treatise on Hmb. and Gard.)
That forcing was rare, and but of late introduc-
tion, is further proved by Mr. Lawrence, who,

in 1718, observes, that he had heard that the
Duke of Rutland, at Belvoir Castle in Lincoln-
shire, hastened his grapes by having fires
burning from Lady-day to Michaelmas behind
his sloped walls, a report to which he evidently
does not give implicit credence, but which " it
is easy to conceive." {LauTence's Fi-vit Gard.
Cal. p. 22.) That such, however, was the fact,
is confirmed by Switzer, who further adds, in
1724, that they were covered with glass. The
walls were erected, he says, at the suggestion
of Mr. Facio, whom we have before mentioned.
The walls failing in their anticipated effect
were covered with glass, and thus led to the
first erection of a regular forcing structure of
which we have any account. (Sicitzcr's Practi-
cal Fruit Garden, p. 318.) Lady Wortley Mon-
tagu, in 1716, mentions having partaken of
pine-apples at the table of the elector of Hano-
ver; and speaks of them as being a thing she
had never seen before, which, as her ladyship
moved in the highest English circles, she must,
had they been introduced to table here.

Mr. Fowler, gardener to Sir N. Gould at
Stoke Newington, was the first to raise cucum-
bers in autumn, for I'ruiting about Christmas.
He presented the king, George I., with a brace
of full-grown ones on new year's day, 1721.
(Bradley's General Treatise on Hmb. and Gard,
vol. ii. p. 61.)

Even as late as the commencement of the
century we are tracing, every garden vegetable,
in a greater or less degree, was obtained from
Holland. The purveyors of the royal family
sent thither for fruits and pot-herbs ; and the
seedsmen obtained from thence all their seeds.
But in 1727, Switzer boasts of the improve-
ments made in his art. Cucumbers, that 25
years before were never seen at table until the
close of May, were then always ready in the
first days of March, or earlier if tried for. Me-
lons were improved both in quality and earli-
ness. " The first, owing to the correspondence
that our nobility and gentry have abroad, now
equalling, if not excelling, the French and
Dutch in their curious collections of seed; but
the second is owing to the industry and skill
of our kitchen gardeners." Melons were now
cut at the end of April, which before were rare
in the middle of June. The season of the cau-
liflower being in perfection was prolonged
from three or four, to six or seven months.
Kidney-beans were now forced. The season
of peas and beans was extended to a period
from April until December, which previously
only lasted two or three months, &c. (Preface
to Switzer's Pract. Fruit Gard.)

The early part of this century witnessed the
labours of Professor Bradley, who was one of
the first to treat of gardening and agriculture
as sciences. Although deficient in discoveries,
his works are not destitute of information de-
rived from contemporary gardeners and other
writers. He wrote luminously on the buds of
trees, on bulbs, and especially on the mode of
obtaining variegated plants and double flowers.
He must be looked upon as a benefactor of
horticulture, for he at least made himself ac-
quainted with the discoveries of others, and,
recording them in his widely-circulated works,
2X 517

GARDENING.

GARDENING.

he spread such increased knowledge, and dif-
fused over the whole such philosophic views,
as the science of the age afforded.

Some of our most celebrated nurserymen
flourished during this century. Fairchild, Gor-
don, Lee, and Gray introduced many plants
during its first half. Hibbert of Chalfont, and
Thornton of Clapham, deserve particular men-
tion for their encouragement of exotic botany.
The garden and hothouse of the latter were
among the best stocked about London.

We have seen under what favourable auspi-
ces and with what great improvements garden-
ing was on the advance at the close of the 18th
century ; but the present century was ushered
in with even greater promise of success, for
the light of science was still more powerfully
concentrated upon its practice, and began to
be felt and appreciated. This especially ap-
plies to the labours of the chemist and physi-
ologist. Such combination of horticultural art
and science was especially promoted by the
institution of the Horticultural Societies of
London and Edinburgh. The first of these
societies began to be formed in 1804, the latter
in 1809. Nothing can more conspicuously
display the high estimation in which garden-
ing is held, nothing can afford a greater gua-
rantee for its improvement, than the lists of
the fellows of the above societies. In them are
enrolled the names of the most talented, the
most noble, and the most wealthy individuals
of the United Kingdom.

The increase of the inhabitants of our plea-
sure grounds within the last few years places
the taste and patronage which are bestowed on
gardening in a very conspicuous point of view.
Of stove plants we now cultivate about 1800
species and varieties. Of green-house plants,
nearly 3000. Of hardy trees and shrubs,
nearly 4000. Of hardy perennial flowers,
nearly 3000. Of biennial and annual flowers
together, about 800. To particularize the dif-
ferent genera of these would exceed the limits
I have prescribed to this article. I have not
included the varieties of florist's flowers in the
above general list. They are more than pro-
portionably numerous. Of hyacinths we have
about 300 varieties, Avhereas in 1629 Parkinson
mentions but 50. The passion for this flower,
however, has much abated ; for Miller, in the
early part of the last century, says the Dutch
gardeners had 2000 sorts. Of tulips, we have
nearly 700 varieties. 'J'he cultivation of this
flower has also declined of late years. It was
at its height both in England and in Hol-
land towards the middle of the 17th century.
In Holland nearly 600/. was agreed to be given
for a single root. Of the ranunculus we have
nearly 500 varieties. Of the anemone, about
200. Of dahlias, between 200 and .300 ; nar-
cissi, 200; auriculas, more than 400; pinks,
300; carnations, about 350. Of roses, in-
cluded in the list we have given of hardy trees ,
and shrubs, there are more than 1450. An-
other instance of the progress made in increas-
ing the number of our cultivated plants is
furnished by the genus Erica. But five kinds
of heath were described by Miller, as known j
in England about 60 years since ; we now cul- ,
tivate nearly 350. I

518

Mr. Loudon makes the number of plants
cultivated bv gardeners at present amount to
13,140. Of "these 1400 are natives of Great
Britain; 47 were exotics introduced previous
to and during the reign of Henry VIII.; 7 dur-
ing that of Edward VL; 533 during that of
Elizabeth. In that of James I., 20. Charles I.,
331. During the usurpation, 95. Charles II.,
152. James II., 44. William and Mary, 298.
Anne, 230. George I., 182. George II., 1770.
George III., 6756. During the first 16 years of
this century, on an average, 156 plants were
annually introduced. The ardour of research
is not the least abated now.

The style in which grounds in England are
now usually laid out may be characterized in
one sentence. Convenience is endeavoured to
be rendered as attractive as possible, by com-
bining it with the beautiful and appropriate.
The convenience of the inmates of the mansion
is studied by having the kitchen and fruit gar-
dens near the house, fully extensive enough to
supply all their wants, and kept in the appro-
priate beauty of order and neatness ; without
any extravagant attempt at ornament by the
mingling of useless trees, or planting its cab-
bages, &c., in waving lines. In the flovrer
garden which immediately adjoins the house,
dry walks — shady ones for summer, and shel-
tered, sun-gladdened ones for the more intem-
perate seasons — are conveniently constructed.
Their accompanying borders and parterres,
are in forms, such as are most graceful, whilst
their inhabitants, distinguished for their fra-
grance, are distributed in grateful abundance ;
and those noted for their elegant shapes and
beautiful tints are grouped and blended as the
taste of the painter and the harmony of colours
dictate. The lawn from these glides insensibly
into the more distant ground occupied by the
shrubberies and the park. Here the genius of
the place dictates the arrangement of the levels
and of the masses of trees and water. Com-
mon sense is followed in planting such trees
only as are suited to the soil. A knowledge
of the tints of their foliage guides the landscape
gardener in associating them, and aids the
laws of perspective in lengthening his distant
sweeps. If gentle undulations mark the sur-
face, he leads water among their subdued diver-
sities, and blends his trees in softened groups,
so as to form light glades to harmonize with
the other parts. If high and broken ground
has to be adorned, the designer mingles water-
falls with broader masses of darker foliaged
trees, and acquires the beauty peculiar to the
abrupt and the grand, as in the former he
aimed at that which is secured by softer
features.

He is no philosopher who neglects a certain
present good for fear that in some fiiture period
it may be abused ; but in the encouragement
of gardening, whilst an immediate good is ob-
tained, there is no fear of its perversion in
after days. Its diffusion amon^ the poorer
classes is an earnest or means of more impor-
tant benefits, even than the present increase of
their comfort. The labourer who possesses
and delights in the garden appended to his cot-
tage is generally among the most decent of his
class; he is seldom a frequenter of the ale-

GARGET.

GARIilC.

house ; and there are few among them so
senseless as not readily to engage in its culti-
vation when convinced of the comforts and
gain derivable from it. Gardening is a pursuit
adapted alike to the gay and the recluse, the
man of pleasure and the lover of science. To
both it offers employment such as may suit
their taste ; all that can please by fragrance,
by flavour, or by beauty ; all that science may
illustrate ; employment for the chemist, the
botanist, the physiologist, and the .meteorolo-
gist. There is no taste so perverse as that
from it the garden can win no attention, or to
which it can afford no pleasure. -He who
greatly benefited or promoted the happiness of
mankind in the days of paganism was invoked
after death and worshipped as a deity : in these
days we should be as grateful as they were
without being as extravagant in its demonstra-
tion ; and if so, we should indeed highly esti-
mate those who have been the improvers of
our horticulture; for, as Socrates says, "it is
the source of health, strength, plenty, riches,
and honest pleasures." "It is the purest of
human pleasures," says Lord Verulam. It is
amid its scenes and pursuits that "life flows
pure, the heart more calmly beats." (G. W.
Johnsoii's History of Gardening.)

GARGET. In farriery, a disease in the ud-
ders of cows, arising from inflammation of the
lymphatic glands. It is also a distemper inci-
dent to hogs ; and which is known by their
hanging down their heads, and carrying them
on one side, moist eyes, staggering, and loss of
appetite.

In order to remove the disease in cows,
where the inflammation is great, the cow
should be bled, a dose of physic administered,
the udder well fomented, and the milk drawn
gently but completely off, at least twice a day.
(Youatt on Cattle, p. 553.) When the disease
happens to hogs, they may also be bled, and
should have warm, stimulating cordial drinks.

GARLIC (JUium, from the Celt.; all, hot or
burning). Under this name Sir J. Smith,
(Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 133) enumerates seven
native species; viz.: —

1. The great rounded-headed garlic, (./?. am-
peloprasum). A rare plant, found occasionally
in open hilly places. The stem is two or three
feet high, and the herbage somewhat similar
to that of the leek ; the white globose bulbs or
cloves increase rapidly in a garden, by lateral
offsets, till they compose a mass as big as a
man's head, resembling a bunch of grapes.
The scent of the whole plant is strong, and of
the most disagreeable kind.

2. The sand garlic {A. arenarium), found in
mountainous woods and fields in the north, on
a sandy soil; stem two or three feet high,
bulbs small, ovate, with many purplish ofl-
sets.

3. The mountain garlic (A. carinatum)
which is nearly related to the next following
species, though differing in the flatter form of
its leaves.

4. The streaked field or wild garlic (J, olera-
ceuvi) found in pastures, meadows, corn fields,
and their borders — producing whitish, green
blossoms in July. The whole plant has an
unpleasant scent of garlic, and is a very

j troublesome weed, difficult of extirpation,
I though not of common occurrence. It is eaten
j by cattle, sheep, and hogs, and the tender
I leaves, boiled in soups, or fried with other
herbs, form a wholesome article of food.

5. The crow garlic {A. vineale) which grows
in dry pastures, corn fields, and waste ground
among ruins, especially on a chalky or gravelly
soil. The stem is slender, about two feet high,
bulb small, ovate, white, flowers small, pale
rose-coloured.

This species of garlic has generally been
considered perennial, but Dr. Darlington re-
gards the common garlic of our American
fields as biennial, propagated every year by
new lateral bulbs, the old ones, after once
sending up a stem and flowering, dying away.
This species is a foreigner which has been
extensively naturalized in the United States,
constituting in many places a great nuisance,
not only by imparting a disgusting flavour to
milk, butter, cheese, &c., but seriously injuring
flour, and rendering its manufacture difficult.
Farmers are however able to subdue it by a
judicious rotation of crops. The oat and other
spring crops, are highly instrumental in the
destruction of garlic.

The species called meadow garlic (Allium
Canadense), is found in the Middle States, being
frequent on the banks of the Brandy wine, in
which last mentioned locality the three-berried
or three-seeded garlic, is also met with. The
bulbs of this last are of an oblong oval shape,
pointed, and rather large. The leaves are 5 to
8 inches long, and 1^ to 3 inches wide, taper-
ing to the base. This species, says Dr.
Darlington, differs remarkably from all other
alliums found in the United States, and has
much resemblance to the A. ursinum, of Eu-
rope. The large leaves die, and disappear,
early in the season — before the flowers are de-
veloped. The bulbs emit a fetid, disagreeable
odour, whilst drying. Three or four additional
species of garlic are found in the United States.
(Flor. Cegtrica.)

6. The broad-leaved garlic or ramsons (A.
ursinum), which grows in moist woods, hedges,
and meadows, and produces large white
flowers, that blow in the month of May and
June. Every part of the plant, when trodden
upon, or otherwise bruised, exhales the strong
odour of its genus. This species is eaten by
cows; but if they feed on it ever so sparingly,
it communicates its nauseous flavour to the
milk and butter to such a degree as to render
those articles offensive during the spring. It
should therefore be carefully eradicated as an
intolerable nuisance from all pastures. It af-
fords an excellent remedy for driving away
rats and moles, and it is said the plant will not
suffer any other vegetable to thrive near it.

7. Chive garlic (A. schanoprasum), which is
rare, but sometimes found in meadows and
pastures, and was formerly in great request as
an ingredient in salads, but has been latterly
neglected.

The cultivated varieties are — Common gar-
lic (A. sativum), which is a hardy plant, and
though generally known in the United States
by the name of English garlic, it is a native of
i Sicily, capable of growing in almost any soil.

619

GARNER.

GASES.

It is generally propagated by the cloves ob-
tained by parting the root, but may be raised
from the bulbs produced on the stems. The
planting may be performed any time in Feb-
ruary, March, and early in April, but the mid-
dle of the second is the usual time of insertion.
A single clove to be placed in each one of
holes made 6 inches apart and 1^ deep, in
straight lines, 6 inches distant from each other,
care being taken to set the root end down-
wards; to do this with the greatest facility, it
is the best practice to thrust the finger and
thumb, holding a clove between them, to the
requisite depth, without any previous hole be-
ing made.

The only cultivation required is to keep
them clean of weeds, and in June the leaves to
be tied in knots, to prevent their running to
seed, which would greatly diminish the size of
the bulbs. A few roots may be taken up as
required in June and July, but the whole must
not be lifted until the leaves wither, which oc-
curs at the close of July, or in the course of
August. It is usual to leave a part of the stalk
attached, by which they are tied into bun-
dles, being previously well dried by exposure
to the sun and air, for keeping during the
winter.

Rochambole, or, as it is sometimes called
Spanish garlic (jl. scorodoprasum), has its bulbs
or cloves growing in a cluster, forming a kind
of compound root. The stem bears many
bulbs at its summit, which, as well as those of
the root, are often preferred in cooking to gar-
lic, being of much milder flavour. It is best
propagated by the root bulbs ; those of the
stem being slower in production. The plan-
tation may be made either in February, March,
or early part of April, as well as throughout
the autumn. They may be inserted either in
drills or by the dibble, in rows 6 inches apart
each way, and usually 2 inches within the
ground, though this, as well as the preceding
variety, would thrive better if grown on the
surface. A very small bed is sufficient for the
supply of the largest family. See Shalot and
Leek.

Besides the above, there are large numbers
of diflerent foreign species, most of which are
pretty : they increase abundantly from offsets.
The onion, leek, garlic, shalot, chives, &c., all
agree in their stimulant, diuretic, and expecto-
rant effects, differing in degree of activity.
See Omon.

GARNER. A term used provincially to sig-
nify a granary, or repository for corn; also a
binn or a mill. Spc Gni.jfAHT.

GAS, AMMONIACAL. See Salike Scb-
STAScKs; their uses to vegetation.

GASES, their uses to vegetation. It is not, I
think, necessary, in drawing the cultivator's
attention to the uses of that great portion of the
food of plants which they imbibe in the state
of gas, or of aqueous vapour, to enlarge upon
the importance of the question, since that is a
truth which, as illustrating the value of certain
modes of cultivation, I hope to render intelli-
gible in the following paper, as I examine in
succession the advantages of the gases and
vapour of the atmosphere, as well as those
emitted during putrefaction, to the commonly
520

cultivated crops of the farmer. And even if
the accomplished farmer shall dissent from
some or all of my conclusions, he will yet
readily admit that all such observations, with
regard to the habits and food of plants, and
their ready absorption by the soil, cannot be
too generally understood and acted upon by
the cultivators of the soil.

That the atmospheric air exerts an exten-
sive and very important influence upon vege-
tation, is a fact which has been well known
from the earliest days of agriculture. Too
many circumstances combine to render this
truth apparent to the very meanest cultivator
for it long to escape observation. The supe-
rior luxuriance of the boiders of all growing
crops, from those of the field to the outer cir-
cle of timber in a wood, naturally pointed out
that something was gained by these, of which
the inner sheltered portions were partially de-
prived. And that this something was the air
of the atmosphere, appears to have been the
conclusion of the early Italian cultivators who,
on all occasions, were attentive to let their
crops enjoy as much of the breeze as possible ;
an object which they endeavoured to attain, not
only by an attentive consideration of the natu-
ral and acquired habits of the plants in trans-
planting them, but also by increasing the ac-
cess of air to their roots by deep and regular
periodical stirrings of the soil around them.
Thus Cato, the earliest of their agricultural
writers, whose works remain to us, when in-
structing the Roman farmers as to the best
mode of cultivating the vine and the olive, ad-
vised them, if they wished their vines and
olive-trees to grow luxuriantly, to stir the
trenches around them once a month, until they
were three years old; and he adds, "bestow
the same care upon other trees :" (lib. xliii.)
And Virgil, when commending the very doubt-
ful plan of paring and burning lands, alludes
to the same well-known advantage of a free
and copious supply of air to the roots of plants,
when he says, " the heat opens more ways and
hidden rents for the air, through which the
dews penetrate to the embryo plants." {Georg.
i. 90, 91.) They, in fact, considered, in com-
mon with the Greek philosophers, that air Avas
one of the four elements of which all sub-
stances were composed; but then, as in those
days, the air of the atmosphere was considered
to be a simple body, we need not search in the
works of the early agricultural writers for any
evidence of very definite ideas of the mode of
its action. That the air they breathed was
highly serviceable to plants of all kinds was
the extent of their infx)rmation; they had no
knowledge of the existence of three distinct
gases in the atmosphere. That was a dis-
covery reserved for modern ages — for the days
of Priestley, and the dawn of pneumatic chem-
istry in England. When, therefore, the early
cultivators made the observation, that the free
supply of air to the leaves and roots of plants
materially promoted their growth, they did
what tao many modern agriculturists have
since done, merely noticed the effect, without
making any very accurate inquiries as to the
cause of the benefit; they were too often con-
tent, in fact, with merely substituting words as

1

GASES.

GASES.

an explanation of facts. It is probable that
the early Greek and Italian philosophers were
farther led to this knowledge of the advantages
of air to vegetation, from noticing the power
which some eastern plants possess, such as the
Flos etris and others, of entirely supporting
themselves upon the nourishment they derive
from the atmosphere, even when suspended by
a string from the ceiling of a room, — many
parasitical plants subsist upon hardly any
thing else ; thus, some of the mosses of this
country cling to life, and even grow well, in
situations where hardly any thing except air
and moisture can nourish them: some of the
aloe tribe do the same.

Carbonic acid gas. — When, however, later
ages had acquired the knowledge that it was
only a portion of the air that maintained vege-
table and animal life, or supported combus-
tion, new views opened upon the chemical
philosopher. It became then a question of
considerable interest to ascertain which por-
tion of the atmosphere it was that the plant ab-
sorbed; and it was speedily ascertained by
Dr. Priestley and other chemists, that the por-
tion of the atmosphere which the leaves of all
plants absorb in the light is the carbonic acid
gas or fixed air — a gas composed of 27-27 parts
carbon, and 72-73 parts oxygen, — and that this
carbonic acid gas is always contained in the
atmosphere, in the proportion of about one part
in 500. The question thus became one of some
interest to ascertain, whether a larger volume
of carbonic acid gas would promote, in a still
greater degree, the growth of plants, such as in
an impure, confined portion of air spoiled by the
breathing of animals, or exhausted of its oxy-
gen gas or vital air by combustion, since both
these varieties of air contain a very consider-
ably increased proportion of carbonic acid gas.
Many very accurate experiments speedily de-
monstrated that such foul air materially in-
creased the luxuriance of vegetables confined
in them, and that plants possessed also the
power of restoring to such exhausted air the
portion of oxygen which either fire or the
breathing of animals had removed: thus, a
confined portion of air, in which a mouse had
died in ten minutes for want of air, having had
a sprig of mint introduced into it for some
houl-s, was then found to be so replenished
with vital air, that a second mouse being placed
in it lived as long as the former mouse ; and,
by similar treatments, a lighted taper being
merely substituted for the mouse, the same ef-
fect was produced — the exhausted air was
again replenished with oxygen gas.

These facts naturally opened new views. It
then became an interesting object to ascertain
the proportion of the carbonic acid gas in the
atmospheric air, which possessed the maxi-
mum advantage to vegetation ; and it was
found that, in pure carbonic acid gas, plants
would not vegetate at all, or in air containing
75 per cent, of it, but that, when the proportion
present in common air was reduced to 50 per
cent., then the plants confined in it slowly vege-
tated, and that they grew more freely when the
proportion was 25 per cent.; still better when
it was 12^ per cent; and that when it wias re-
duced to only 9 per cent., then they flourished
66

much better than in common atmospheric air.
It was remarked, however, that the increased
presence of carbonic acid gas was only bene-
ficial to plants when they were vegetating in
the light, but that, when this was excluded, the
carbonic acid gas was rather prejudicial to
their growth than otherwise; that, in fact, all
plants, though they absorb it in the light, yet in
the dark emit this gas. It was ascertained,
however, that the presence of it in their atmo-
sphere was absolutely essential to all plants
vegetating in the light; that they grew when
it was present, and that all vegetation was
stopped by its withdrawal.

These results naturally led to the additional
inquiry, Whether the presence of carbonic acid
gas in water produced the same results on
plants, since it was well known that, when
plants were immersed in water and exposed to
the sun's rays, they emitted bubbles of oxygen
gas, by decomposing the carbonic acid gas, and
setting its oxygen free. Various kinds of water
were tried, containing different proportions of
carbonic acid gas; and the beneficial result
upon vegetation was found to be exactly pro-
portionate to the quantity of carbonic acid gas
which they contained. In pump-water, they
yielded the most oxygen ; from river water a
smaller quantity; but from boiled water little
or none. Now, by boiling, all the gases are
driven out of water, and this is the reason why
such water is flat and insipid. And yet it was
found that when the boiled water was again
impregnated with carbonic acid gas, those
plants confined in it emitted as much oxygen
gas as they did before it was boiled ; and,
finally, that when the plants had exhausted the
water of carbonic acid gas, then they ceased
to emit oxygen.

The quantity of carbonic acid gas which is
emitted by plants varies in different species.
Thus, M. Saussure found that the purple loose-
strife (Ly thrum saliraria) absorbed in 12 hours
7 or 8 times its bulk ; while the Cactus opuntia,
in common with other fleshy-leaved plants, did
not absorb above one-fifth of that amount. In
these experiments, however, the atmosphere in
which the plants were confined contained 7^
per cent, of this gas ; so that when they are
vegetating in the open atmosphere, in which
the proportion of this gas does not exceed one
part in 1000, the quantity absorbed is consider-
ably less.

This absorption of the carbonic acid gas, the
cultivator should clearly understand, influences
in a great degree the composition of the plant.
All those vegetable, carbonaceous, nutritious
substances which are found in plants, such as
gum and sugar, are increased in quantity by
its copious supply; for when this gas is no
longer secreted by the plant, its health becomes
languid, and its compositon more watery. Thus
a Byssus vegetating in the dark (when carbonic
acid gas is emitted by plants), was analyzed by
M. Chaptal, and found to contain only l-89th
of its weight of carbonaceous matter; but when,
after it had been allowed to vegetate for 30 days
in the light, it was again examined, it was found
to contain l-24th of its weight of carbonaceous
matter. Similar results were obtained by M.
Sennebier, who found that when plants were
2x3 521

GASES.

GASES.

made to vegetate in the dark, they contained
much less oil than those vegetating in the
light, — their resinous matter being then as 2 to
5^ compared with those vegetating in the light.
The}-- had even less earthy matters by one half;
but then they had exactly double the quan-
tity of water that the light-growing plants pos-
se^sed.

Such, then, are the results of the free access
of the carbonic acid gas of the atmosphere to
the leaves of plants, — it promotes their growth,
increases their vigour, and enriches their se-
cretions. The application of the same gas to
Iheir roots, although it has not been examined
wiih the same care as its action upon their
leaves, is yet evidently attended with the high-
est advantage. Thus, this gas is one of the
constant products of putrefaction, wherever
this is going on; as over stagnant drains,
dung-heaps, and other putrefying matters :
there vegetation is sure to be rankly luxuriant,
and that, too, in situations where the roots of
the plants are far removed from immediate
contact with the decomposing organic matters.
This may be easily shown by the repetition of
a very simple experiment, which was first made
by Davy. This great chemist filled a glass re-
tort, capable of containing three pints, with the
hot, fermenting dung and litter of cattle, and
examined the elastic fluids which were gene-
rated. In 35 cubic inches which were thus pro-
duced in 3 days, he found 21 of carbonic acid
gas, the remainder being chiefly nitrogen; and
after thus ascertaining the composition of these
gases, he introduced the beak of another re-
tort, filled in a similar manner, in the soil un-
der the roots of some grass growing in the
border of a garden. In less than a week, a
very remarkable effect was produced on the
grass exposed to the action of these gaseous
matters of putrefaction ; their colour became
deeper, and their growth was much more luxu-
riant than the grass in any other part of the
garden. And hence, too, is derived one of the
chief advantages of applying organic matters
to the soil, and that in as immediate contact
with the crop as possible, just as is effected
when manures are added to the soil by the
drill ; for the roots or leaves of the plants are,
by the adoption of this plan, immediately in
contact with the evolved carbonic acid, and
other gases of putrefaction ; they are thus rea-
dily absorbed as they are generated, and no-
thing is lost by escaping into the atmosphere.
The gas, in fact, is instantly yet gradually
transmuted from the putrefying products of the
farm-yard into the flour of the wheat or the
nutritive matters of the grasses. And there is
yet another chemical reason why the manure-
drill or any other machine should be adopted
by the farmer to bring, as closely as possible,
every plant into immediate contact with the
decomposing manure he applies to his soil;
and that is, the superior readiness with which,
in all cases of decomposition, the disengaged
substance enters into new combinations at the
very instant of its disengagement than it does
after it has been completely formed. Thus, to
give an instance, during the putrefactive fer-
mentation of vegetable substance, a quantity
of nitrogen is disengaged; and if this takes
523

place under certain favourable circumstances
— such as the presence of calcareous matters,
potash, and a dry, warm temperature at the
moment it is formed — the nitrogen combines
with oxygen, forms nitric acid, which unites
with the potash, and thus nitrate of potash, or
saltpetre, is formed ; but if the nitrogen is once
fairly disengaged, almost every endeavour of
the chemist has failed in making it unite with
oxygen so as to form the acid of saltpetre.

In every way, therefore, in which the. ques-
tion of applying manures in immediate contact
with the roots of plants can be viewed, the
more advisable does the adoption of the prac-
tice appear.

The important services of the carbonic acid
gas of the atmosphere to vegetation have been
illustrated in various ways by more than one
able chemist. That given by Professor J. F.
Johnston, in his able Lectures on Agricultural
Chemistry, p. 218, is perhaps the most recent
and the most practical. He observes, "If we
were to examine the soil of a field on which
we are about to raise a crop of corn, and should
find it to contain a certain per centage, say 10
per cent, of vegetable matter (or 5 per cent, of
carbon), and after the crop is raised and reaped
should, on a second examination, find it to con-
tain exactly the same weight of carbon as be-
fore, we could not resist the conviction ihat,
with the exception of what was originally in
the seed, the plant, during its growth, had
drawn from the air all the carbon it contained.
The soil having lost none, the air must have
yielded the whole supply. Such was the prin-
ciple on which Boussingault's experiments
were conducted. He determined the per cent-
age of carbon in the soil before the experiment
was begun ; the weight added in the form of
manure ; the quantity contained in the series
of crops raised during an entire rotation or
course of cropping, until, in the mode of cul-
ture adopted, it was usual to add manure again ;
and, lastl}', the proportion of carbon remaining
in the soil. By this method he obtained the
following results, in pounds per English acre:
— From a course of, 1. Potatoes or red beet,
with manure; 2. Wheat; 3. Clover; 4. Wheat;
5. Oats. Carbon in the manure, &c., 2513 lbs.;
carbon in the crops, 7544 lbs. ; difference, or
carbon derived from the air, 5031 lbs."

The result of this course indicates that the
land, remaining in equal condition at the end
of the four years as it was at the beginning,
the crops collected during these years contain-
ed three times the quantity of carbon present
in the manure, and therefore the plants, during
their growth, must, on the whole, have derived
two-thirds of their carbon from the air.

Oxygen. — Oxygen gas, or vital air, which con-
stitutes 21 per cent, of the bulk of the air we
breathe, is absolutely essential to the growth
of plants. If this is withdrawn from the atmo-
sphere, they will no longer vegetate, — their
leaves can no longer perform their functions.
But this use of oxygen by the leaves of vege-
tables is confined to the night ; it is only in the
dark that they absorb it. During this absorp-
tion the leaves of some plants, such as the
Cactus opuntia, and the houseleek (Sempervivum
tectorujn), do not emit any portion of carbonic

GASES.

acid gas; but the common oak (Quercus robur),
the yellow stone crop {Sedum rejiexum), and the
great majority of plants, emit a considerable
portion, not equal, however, in amount to the
oxygen gas which has been imbibed; and this
absorbed oxygen enters, there is little doubt,
into immediate combination with other sub-
stances, and forms vegetable matters in other
shapes. A variety of experiments have, in
fact, been made to ascertain this. Thus, the
leaves of plants which have but recently ab-
sorbed a portion of oxygen gas have been ex-
posed in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump.
Other leaves have been submitted to the great-
est heat they could bear without undergoing
combustion, but in neither case was any oxy-
gen gas extricated from them. And it has
been noted that those plants which absorb the
greatest proportion of oxygen during the night
are precisely those which evolve the most con-
siderable quantity of carbonic acid gas during
the day.

Plants of different kinds vary very much in
the quantity of oxygen which they absorb.
Fleshy-leaved plants, which emit little or no
carbonic acid gas, absorb very little oxygen;
and these plants, it may be remarked (says
Dr. Thomson), can vegetate in elevated situa-
tions, where the air is very rarefied. Next in
order come the evergreen trees, which, al-
though they absorb more oxygen than the
fleshy-leaved plants, yet require much less than
those which lose their leaves during winter.
Those plants which flourish in marshy ground
likewise absorb but little oxygen. M. Saussure
tried a great number of experiments on this
subject, with a variety of plants of different
kinds. The following are some of his results:
in every case the weight of the leaves is sup-
posed to be equal to 1-00, and the bulk of oxy-
gen is expressed in the table. (Recherchcs, p.
99.)

,„ Quantity of Oxygen

Leavt$ of Evergreens. atMorfacd.

Priiiiiis laiiro-cerasuB - - -May 330
Vinca minor (lesfipr periwinkle) -June 1'50
Pinua ahit'd (the fir) - - - - St^pt. 3-IH)
Juniperiia ^Sal>illa .... June 2*00

Leaves of Trees tekiek lose tkem in If'inter.
Quercus rnhur (the nak) ... May S.V)
Populus alba (ttie abele) ... May 6-20

— ... Sept. 4 36

AmygilaluB Persica .... June 6-(>0

— — - - . . fiepx. 420
Rosa centifulia - ... -June 540

/.eaves of Herbaceous Plants.

finlanum tuberosum (the potato) - Sept. 250

Bra«$aica uleracea (the cabbape) ) a^^, o.An

— — young leaves / " ^®P*- ^ ^"

— —old leaves - - Sept. 2 00
Vicia faba (vetch), before flowering - 3 TO

— in flower ... - 2 00

— after flowering - - 160
Brassica rapa (the turnip), in flower 125
Avena sutiva (the oat) ... June 270
Triticum wstlvum .... May 500
Pisum sniivnni (the pea) ... May 372
Ruta graveolens .... Aug. 200

Leaven of .Aquatic Plants.
Alisma planta^o
Polygonum pfirnicaria
Lythrtim salicaria
Carex acuta - - _
Ranunculus reptans.

- Aujj. 0-70
. Sept. 2 00
. May 2 .^0
. May 2-25

- Sept. 1 50

Leaves of the Fleshy Plants.

CHCttie opuntia - ... . Aue. TOO

Aeave Amerirana . . . _ Aug. 0 80

S-nipervivum tectorum - - -July 100

Supelia variegata .... July £-b3

GASES.

Saussure continued his researches upon the
uses of oxygen gas to vegetation. He found
that it was essential to many of its functions,
that it was absorbed not only by the leaves, but
by the roots of plants, — that it then combined
with carbon, and the carbonic acid gas thus
formed was thence transmitted to the leaves to
be decomposed : the very stems and branches
of plants absorb it, and its presence is essen-
tial to the expansion of flowers ; in its absence,
seeds will not germinate, and hence the reason
why they will not vegetate when placed beyond
a certain depth in the soil. The quantity of
oxygen gas consumed during their germina-
tion, by equal weights of different seeds, varies
considerably. "Wheat and barley consume
less oxygen than pease, and pease less than
common broad and kidney-beans — the latter
consuming yAnth part of their weight, while
wheat and barley,during their germination, only
absorb from yyjrryth to 2 Art^^ ^^eir weight of
oxygen gas. Recent experiments have shown
also, that the more water is impregnated with
oxygen gas, the more excellent are its effects
when employed for the purpose of watering
plants ; and hence one of the causes of the su-
periority of rain-water, every 100 cubic inches
of which contain 3-5 of oxygen gas. Some
recent experiments were made by Mr. Hill,
which clearly demonstrated these facts. Hya-
cinths, melons, Indian corn, and other plants,
were watered for some time with water im-
pregnated with oxygen gas; the first grew with
additional beauty and luxuriance, the melons
were improved in flavour, the Indian corn
increased in bulk, so as " to equal in size most
of those imported from North America," and
all of them grew more vigorously.

The uses, therefore, of oxygen gas to plants
are many and important, and accord with the
conclusions which naturally suggest them-
.selves from the results of the analysis of vege-
table substances, from whence oxygen is never
absent; it must be, therefore, one of the neces-
sary supporters of vegetable life.

Nifrogen. — This is the last atmospheric gas
which exerts its influence upon vegetation, and
enters in small proportions into the composi-
tion of plants. Entering in the large propor-
tion of 79 per cent, into the composition of
the atmosphere, it is yet supposed to exert but
a slight influence upon vegetation. It is found in
much smaller proportions in plants than either
oxygen gas or carbonic acid gas, although re-
cent researches have shown that it is much
more commonly present in vegetable sub-
stances than was once supposed; and as I
have elsewhere observed (Johnson on Fertilizers,
p. 338), that it exerts a more sensible influence
upon their growth than is commonly believed,
is very certain, and that the proportion of it
present in them varies with the different states
of their growth, has been clearly shown by the
experiments of Mr. Robert Rigg, who found in
100 parts of

Parti of nitrogea.
The flour of wheat unripe - - - .2*9
The same nearly ripe - . - . - 2-3
Leaves of wheat unripe . - - -3*3
— — nearly ripe - - - 2-1

Btem of wheat unripe - - . - .3*5
— — nearly ripe . . - - 1*3

Chaff of wheat unripe 18

523

GASES.

GASES.

Parts of nifroften. i

Chaff of wheat nearly ripe - - - 1-3 j

Common grass, not growing freely - - 4-4

— — growing freely - - -.5-6

Turnip, when attacked by the fly - 8 0

Cabbage, not attaciced by insects - - 8"l

— partly eaten by insects - - 57

^The insects themselves - _ _ _ 140

Red clover stems - - - - ^25

Leaf of do. - - - - - - -4-2

Flower of do. -.--._- 36

Potato itself ------ 2 9

— stem ------ 31

— ■ leaves - - - • - - 8-5

— apple - - . - - - 3-9

— corolla ------ 3-9

— pistils 4-6

It is also well worthy of the farmer's atten-
tion, that Mr. Rigg found that when barley was
made to vegetate in the shade, the increase in
the quantity of its nitrogen was nearly 50 per
cent., but when vegetating exposed to the direct
rays of the sun, the increase was only 30 per
cent.; and he also made the observation, that the
more rapidly the plants vegetate, the more ni-
trogen they are found to contain. It is also
well known to the cultivator, that plants grow-
ing in the shade have usually a deep green |
colour, vegetating with much luxuriance, and
that certain animal manures applied to plants
produce similar results in a remarkable degree,
such as gelatin, oils, urine, blood, fish, ammo-
nia, &c. Now these fertilizers all contain
nitrogen, and which gas must be evolved in
some shape or other during their decomposi-
tion in the soil; — gelatin, containing 16-998
per cent., albumen, 1.5-705, the fibrin of blood
19-934, urea 46-66 per cent.; and although ni-
trogen usually exists in plants in very small
proportions, yet I am entirely disposed to agree
with Mr. Rigg in his conclusion, that more at-
tention should be paid than has hitherto been
done, in the examination of vegetable sub-
stances, "to those products, which, though so
minute in quantity as to be with difficulty de-
tected in our balances, have nevertheless been
wisely assigned to discharge the most import-
ant functions." (Phil. Trans. 1838, p. 406.)

Such, then, are the essential and highly im-
portant uses of the three gases of the atmo-
sphere, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbonic acid,
to all vegetation ; an attentive consideration of
which will explain to the farmer the cause of
many of the phenomena he daily witnesses,
and suggest to him an unanswerable argument
for the adoption of .those modes of cultivating
his land, the results of careful and scientific
investigations, which such chemical researches
suggest and render intelligible.

Thus, the absolute necessity for all crops re-
ceiving a regular supply of carbonic acid gas,
will explain to him why his crops always
yield an inferior produce when they are sur-
rounded by thick plantations of timber trees ;
and why the portion of all kinds of plantations
growing on the side of the field the most ex-
posed to the winds is almost always of the
most luxuriant growth ; it will explain to him
the reason why many skilful farmers drill their
corn so that the most prevalent winds may,
with the more facility, circulate alo7ig the rows,
instead of across them; and why all farmers
find that their crops prosper better in mode-
rately windy weather thanin calms ; since in
all these instances, and in many other well
624

known popular observations of the same kind,
the copious supply of the carbonic acid and
oxygen gases of the atmosphere is naturally
impeded by thick plantations of other vegeta-
ble substances, and promoted by the winds.

The consumption of oxygen gas by the roots
of plants, and their increase of growth and
vigour when their usually impeded supply is
increased, is equally fraught with instruction
to the cultivator ; for it serves to explain the
reason why stirring the soil around the roots
of trees, according to the fashion of the early
vine and olive cultivators of Italy, or merely
disturbing the rows of cabbages and turnips,
as practised by the best English farmers, is
attended with decided advantage, since it suf-
fers the air to have more free access to their
roots. It renders apparent, too, one of the
chief reasons why mere subsoil-ploughing
adds so materially to the luxuriant produce of
even the poorest cultivated lands, since, as the
soil is deepened and pulverized, the atmosphere
more freely and more copiously penetrates to
the roots of the vegetation it supports. The
same facts explain the advantages of deep-
ploughing, of sub-turf ploughing, and of trench-
ing ; why the indolent farmer in vain tries to
render productive his shallow-ploughed lands ;
and why, when the industrious cottager en-
closes his garden from the barren waste, too
poor to sufficiently manure it, he yet renders it
productive of excellent crops, by merely
trenching it to the depth of 18 or 20 inches.

And it is vain for the cultivator to urge that
this benefit is not to be mainly attributed to the
freer circulation in the soil of the gases and
watery vapour of the atmosphere, but that it
is owing to the mixture of the surface-soil with
the substratum. For such a conclusion is not
only opposed by the fact, that many soils do not
differ in composition from the substratum on
which they rest, and yet are materially bene-
fitted by trenching or subsoiling, but is contra-
dicted by many agricultural facts with which
every cultivator is familiar ; and if any other
answer were requisite, that would be amply
supplied by the recent experiments of Sir Ed-
ward Stracey, with his new subturf plough,
which merely passes under the turf at a depth
of ten inches, and disturbs and loosens very
effectually the soil ; but when the plough has
passed under, every thing resumes its former
position, although every portion has been tho-
roughly agitated, and rendered more permeable
to the atmosphere. The soil is neither displaced
nor mixed, and yet this mere loosening is pro-
ductive of the highest advantage, the produce
of grass is extensively and permanently im-
proved. Sir Edward Stracey, after describing
the increased produce of the grass as being
very remarkable,tells us that there are no marks
left by which it can be known that the land has
been so ploughed, except from the lines of the
coulter, at the distance of about fourteen
inches from one another. In about three
months fiom the time of ploughing, these lines
are totally obliterated, and yet the quantity of
aftermath, and the thickness of the bottom,
have been the subject of admiration of all his
'' neighbours. {Jour. Eng. Agn. Soc, vol. i. p.
, 253.)

M

GASES.

GASES.

And then, with regard to the carbonic acid
and the carbu retted and sulphuretted hydrogen
gases evolved during the putrefaction of ani-
mal and vegetable manures, the discoveries of
the chemist are equally instructive and con-
firmatory of the observations of the intelligent
farmer. The one finds that these gases, so
grateful to the farmer's crops, are the most co-
piously emitted in the early stages of putrefac-
tion ; that these gradually decrease in volume
as the fermentation proceeds ; and finally, when
the mass is reduced to the stale of vegetable
mould, cease altogether. Now, the farmer is
well aware that the manure of the farm-yard,
in common with all organic decomposing fer-
tilizers, is by far the most advantageously ap-
plied, and produces the most permanent good
efiect when it is used in the freshest state that
is at ail compatible with the destruction of the
seeds of weeds, with which such collections
usually abound. He is aware, that in all situa-
tions where the gases of putrefaction are emit-
ted, such as near to stables, marsh-ditches,
covered drains, &c., that there vegetation of
all kinds indicates by its rank luxuriance that
some unusual supply of nutriment is afforded;
the gardener in his best arranged hot-beds no-
tices that the gases which ascend from his piles
of litter through the earth (which earth is not
in immediate contact with the dung) produce
the same effects long after all the loarmth of
putrefaction has subsided. The growth of some
of his plants is in this way stimulated, he says,
in an extraordinary manner. These facts and
observations are entirely confirmed by those
of the chemist. He notices that all the gases
of putrefaction are precisely those which are
the most nourishing to the growth of plants ;
that air which has been spoiled by the presence
of the gases evolved in putrefaction, or by the
breathing of animals, is exactly thM which is
the most grateful to vegetation ; and that where
these gases are applied to the roots of plants
in the most skilful manner, so as to insure a
regular, steady supply, that then the plant is
enabled to vegetate in a most vigorous and
unusual manner. Thus, when green manures,
such as sea-weed, buckwheat, leaves of trees,
fern, &c., the most slowly decomposing of all
vegetable manures, are applied to the roots of
plants, the effects, according to chemical expe-
riments, are excellent; and, as I have else-
where observed, the farmer assures us that
they are so. He tells us that all green manures
cannot be employed in too fresh a slate ; that
the best corn is grown where the richest lurf
has preceded it ; and that where the roots,
stalks, and other remains of a good crop of red
clover have been ploughed in, that there an
excellent crop of wheat may be expected ; and
that when buckwheat is ploughed into the soil,
this is most advantageously done when the
crop is coming into flower. The chemist
again explain^ this without any difficulty. Davy
and other chemists have shown that when the
flower is beginning to appear, then the plant
contains the largest quantity of easily soluble
and decomposable matters; and that when
these green plants are in this state buried in
the soil, their fermentation is checked and gra-
dual, so that their soluble or elastic matters

are readily absorbed by the succeeding crop,
and every portion of it becomes subservient to
the demands of other planis. No cultivator,
perhaps, ever examined this question more
accurately, or tried his experiments with more
neatness, than the late excellent President of
the London Horticultural Society, the lamented
Knight of Downton ; and these were the more
valuable, from being instituted to ascertain the
state of decomposition in which decaying ve-
getable substances could be employed most
! advantageously to afford food to living plants.
This he clearly proved, however erroneous
were his explanations of his own observations
and discoveries. One of his experiments with
a seedling plum tree was very remarkable. He
placed it in a garden-pot, having previously-
filled the bottom of it with a mixture of the li\*-
ing leaves and roots of various grasses, covered
over with a stratum of mould. The plant ap-
peared above the surface of the ground in April,
and, during its growth in the summer, was
three limes removed to larger pots in the green-
house, in every case the bottom of them being
filled as at first with living grasses, covered
over with a layer of mould ; and by the end of
October its roots occupied a space of about
one-third of a square foot, it having then at-
tained the extraordinary height of nine feet
seven inches. This experiment was varied by
Mr. Knight in several ways : he drilled turnip-
seed over rows manured with green fern leaves,
and compared the produce with other rows of
turnips by their side, manured with rich vege-
table mould; and in all cases those which
grew over the gradually fermenting green fern
not only grew more rapidly than those treated in
any other manner, but they were distinguished
from all others in the same field by their deep
green colour. Now, when the gases of putre-
faction are mixed with the roots of all growing
crops, this is exactly the effect produced. The
most foul, stinking water, even when transpa-
rent, is ever the most grateful to plants ; that
from stagnant ditches, which has always a pe- ^
culiar taste from the carbu retted hydrogen it
contains, is excellent. Every gardener prefers
that from ponds, however clear; the purer
water from wells, he tells you, is very inferior,
ii is too cold ; but then he confesses that even
warming it does not render it equal to that from
stagnant places in its effects upon his plants ;
so that, in whichever way the experiment is
made, there is no doubt of the value of these
gases to the cultivator's crops, and he will rea-
dily therefore agree with Knight in the conclu-
sion, that any given quantity of vegetable mat-
ter can generally be employed in its recent and
organized state with much more advantage
than where it has been decomposed, " and no
inconsiderable portion of its component parts
have been dissipated and lost during the pro-
gress of the putrefactive fermentation." {Trans.
Hort. Soc. vol. i. p. 248.)

Aqueous Jttmospheric Vapour. — The last sub-
stance ever present in the atmosphere in con-
siderable proportions, and which bears a very-
important relation to the prosperity of the
farmer's crop, is the aqueous vapour, without
whose unvaried presence no commonly cultir.
vated plant could flourish, and few exist at all.

525

GASES.

GASES.

Providence, therefore, has ordained that this
should be ever ready to meet the demands of
vegetable life, and that its quantity should vary
with the temperature, increase with the warmth
when its pressure is most needed by the plant,
and diminish in proportion as the air becomes
cooler. Thus, at a temperature of 50°, suppos-
ing it to have a free communication with water,
the atmosphere contains about l-75th of its
weight of vapour; but when its temperature is
increased to 100°, then its proportion of water
is increased to l-21st of its weight: and this
beautiful arrangement is the more important,
as Davy well observed, in the economy of na-
ture, because, in very intense heats, and when
the soil is dry, the life of plants is mainly,
if not entirely, preserved by this absorbent
power of their leaves and the earth in which
they grow ; and, happily, this watery vapour is
most abundant in the atmosphere when it is
most needed for the purposes of life : when
other sources of its supply are cut off, this is
most copious. The amount, however, of the
atmospheric vapour varies with the kind of
wind. Those which have passed over warm
seas contain more than those which have tra-
versed extensive dry countries ; that which
crosses the hot, dry sands of Asia and northern
Africa is so dry that it scorches, as it were, all
the adjoining countries. It is the cause of the
sirocco of Malta being so noxious, and why the
English farmer finds that an easterly wind, in
England the driest of all winds, is the least
propitious to vegetation. He well knows, on
the other hand, that the westerly or south-west-
ern breezes, the most watery of all winds in
Britain, which come to his fields surcharged
with all the vapours of the Atlantic, are pre-
cisely those which bring with them luxuriance
to his crops, and clothe his woods with ver-
dure.

The cultivator will derive many advantages
from a careful investigation of the support
yielded by the vapour of the atmosphere to his
plants. He will perceive that its unvaried pre-
sence affords an additional reason why the air
should be allowed to circulate freely through
the well-pulverized and loosened soil, to the
roots of all growing crops ; and let him, above
all, avoid the very common erroneous conclu-
sion, that the atmosphere is ever dry, that it
no longer contains watery vapour ; for the real
fact is, he will find the very opposite to the
common vulgar conclusion. The chemist's
laborious investigations have clearly demon-
strated, that though the watery vapour varies
in amount, yet it is never absent from the at-
mosphere, but that it happily always the more
abounds where the cultivator's crops need its
assistance most; it is then the most able to
furnish the roots of his grain crops with all the
moisture they require ; and if it is unable to
penetrate to them, the fault is not in the wise
economy of nature, but in the carelessness of
the cultivator, who is either too inattentive to
see the advantages which he might thus freely
derive, or too indolent to loosen the case-hard-
ened soil, which prevents the entrance of the
requisite supply of moisture. One of the causes
of the unproductiveness of cold, clayey, adhe-
sive soils, as Davy well remarked, is, that the
526

seed is coated with matter impermeable to air. I
The farmer can convince himself of these facts I
by the simplest of all experiments. Let him |
merely use his rake or his hoe on a portion of |
a bed of wheat, of turnips, or lettuces, or any
other kind of crop, and let him, in the driest
weather, merely keep this portion of soil loose
by this gentle stirring, and he will find that,
instead of prejudicing his crop by Icttinsr out the
moisture, as is often ignorantly supposed, some-
thing is evidently let into the soil ; for the por-
tion thus tilled will be soon visibly increased
in luxuriance by the mere manual labour thus
bestowed; and in this experiment, which I
have often tried, I am supposing that both the
portions of the ground are equally free from
weeds ; that in every other respect the treat-
ment of both the tilled and undisturbed portions
of the experimental plot is exactly the same.
To a very great extent, some of the best of the
English farmers have long found out these
facts, and have acted upon the discovery. The
horse-hoe of the east and south of England, in
the driest days of summer, may be seen at work
in the large sandy turnip-fields of Norfolk and
Suffolk, with unvaried regularity, not for the
mere destruction of weeds, for these are not
the abounding tenants of such skilful farmers*
lands, but for the chief and highly beneficial
purpose of increasing the circulation of the
gases and vapour of the air. "The longer I
keep stirring the soil between my turnip drills,"
said Lord Leicester to me, some years since,
" in dry weather, the better the turnips grow."

The same uniform presence of aqueous va-
pour which marks the atmosphere in all times
and seasons, in a still more remarkable degree
distinguishes its constituent gases, for these
never vary in amount in any times, or seasons,
or countries. The atmospheric air has been
analyzed, when obtained from the lowest val-
leys, and the tops of the highest mountains, in
crowded cities, and in the open country, but its
composition was always found to be the same,
viz., nearly 21 per cent, of oxygen, and 79 of
nitrogen, and from 1 part in 500 to 1 part in
800 of carbonic acid gas.

Such, then, are the principal matters con-
tained in the atmosphere, or added to it by pu-
trefaction, which influence the progress of
vegetation. That there are other matters oc-
casionally present in the air, which are in all
probability grateful to vegetation, is very cer-
tain; our very senses tell us that there are
clouds of smoke, which is a mixture of carbu-
retted and sulphuretted hydrogen, soot, and
vapour, hourly hovering over all large towns
and cities, and which huge mass the winds
disperse over the country. Of these the soot,
and finely divided earthy matters with \-'hich
it is combined, are very speedily deposited
is one reason why the lands near to populous
places are very commonly rich and fertile.
Ammonia has been detected in rain-water.
That other substances also exist in the air in
minute, yet active proportions, is very certain,
though they are too subtle to allow the chemist
to detect them : thus, to such finely divided
matters the physician attributes the progress
of contagion — the chemical philosopher the
aroma of flowers, and of many other sul^-

.001,

lich i

; it /

Inns '

GAS-WORKS.

GAS-WORKS.

stances. Certain diseases follow the course !
of particular winds ; and the stones or fire-
balls, and similar substances, which have in
all a^es been seen to fall from the atmosphere,
completely baffle the scientific conjectures of
the meteorologist. With such speculations,
however, the cultivator need not disturb him-
self: resting contented with the knowledge he
possesses of the invaluable and essential
powers of the known gases and vapour of the
atmosphere to assist and sustain the growth of
his crops, and adopting in consequence those
improved modes of cultivation which that
knowledge suggests, he will patiently await the
time when the future discoveries of science
shall still farther enlarge his sphere of useful-
ness, by enabling him to draw forth those
latent powers of production which, there is
every reason to believe, yet remain hidden in
the soil. (Quart. Journ. of Jigr. vol. ii. p. 32.)

Some curious experiments upon the gases
hurtful to vegetation were made by M. Macaire.
Some plants of euphorbium, mercury, ground-
sel, cabbage, and sowihistle, with their roots,
were placed in the morning in a large vase
into which chloride of lime had been intro-
duced. The roots were then separately soaked,
and the quantity of chlorine disengaged was by
no means sufficient to destroy the vegetable
tissue. At night the plants had not suffered,
and the smell of the chlorine was unchanged.
The same plants placed in the same vase with-
out any addition of chlorine, were found quite
faded the next morning, with the exception of
the cabbage. The odour of the chlorine had
entirely ceased, and had been succeeded by a
disagreeable acid smell. The experiment being
several times repeated, by rendering the extri-
cation of chlorine more considerable, produced
the same result, and the plants supported an
atmosphere strongly impregnated with chlorine
by day, while a much weaker dose always de-
stroyed them during the night. Similar results
were obtained when the vapour of nitric acid
was employed, nitrous acid gas, sulphuretted
hydrogen, and muriatic acid gas ^ and, as a
general conclusion, M. Macaire was of opi-
nion, from these trials, " that many of the gases
are hurtful to vegetation ; but that they act on
them only during the absence of light." (Quart.
Journ. of Agr. vol. v. p. 301.)

GASlWORKS, the Refuse Matters of as Fer-
tilizers. It is only within these few years that
the attention of the farmer has been attracted
to the various matters produced by the gas-
works now so common in all pans of England.
This attention, however, is confined at present
to only particular localities : while in one dis-
trict it is zealously used, and bought up with
avidity, in others it appears to be totally ne-
glected. In the vale of Kennet the farmers
clear away from the gas-works all the refuse
matters they can obtain, even at advanced
prices. Those of the valley of the Itchin, in
Hampshire, find it, in small proportions, an
excellent dressing for grass.

The refuse matters which are produced
during the distillation of pit-coal in the gas-
works, consist of three substances ; the ammo-
niacal liquor, the hydro-sulphuret of lime,
formed by passing the gas through lime to de-

prive it of its sulphuretted hydrogen, and the
coal-tar; these substances are worthy of the
cultivator's attention, for they are all fertili-
zers of considerable value. Let us examine
them in the order iu which I have enumerated
them.

1. The ammoniaral liquor obtained from gas-
works is an impure solution of the carbonate
and acetate of ammonia; and these salts, there
is little doubt, not only act as stimulants to
plants, but both the acids and the ammonia,
when decomposed, furnish direct food to, or
constitute parts of, vegetables. Carbonate of
ammonia has been detected in the stinking
goose-fool (Chenopodium olidum), by MM. Che-
valier and Lassaigne, and it probably exists in
other plants which are distinguished for their
powerful disagreeable odour. If the plants do
not contain ammonia, or its salts, it is the am-
monia either in the soil or the air which
affords them the nitrogen which enters into
their composition. (Annals of Phil. vol. xii. p.
231.) Hydrochlorale of aniaaonia has beea
found in wood by M. Chevreui. (Jinn, de Chi7iu
68, p. 284.)

There are many testimonials in favour of the
use, as fertilizers, of the salts of ammonia,
either in their pure slate, or as found in an im-
pure combination with soot, or in the liquor of
gas-works. "Soot," said Davy, "owes part of
its efficacy to the ammoniacal salt it contains.
The liquor produced by the distillation of coal
contains carbonate and acetate of ammonia,
and is said to be a very good manure. In
1808, 1 observed that the growth of wheat in a
field at Roehampton was greatly assisted by a
very weak solution of acetate of ammonia."
(Lectures, p. 342.) The experiments of Mr.
Robertson with soot clearly show the fertilizing
effects of the soluble portion of it, which is
principally the salts of ammonia. He mixed
together, in order to form a liquid manure, six
quarts of soot in a hogshead of water. "Aspa-
ragus, peas, and a variety of other vegetables,"
says this intelligent horticulturist, "I have
manured with this mixture with as much effect
as if I had used solid dung ; but to plants in
pots, particularly pines, I have found it ad-
mirably adapted ; when watered with it they
assume a dark, healthy green, and grow strong
and luxuriant," (Gard. Mag. vol. ii. p. 18.)
Care must be taken in using this, and all other
liquid fertilizers, not to make the solution too
strong ; it is an error into which all cultivators
are apt to fall in their early experiments.
Davy was not an exception; from making his
liquids too concentrated, he obtained results
which widely diff'ered from his later experi-
ments. (Lectures, p. 170.) There is no doubt
but that the salts of ammonia, and all the com-
pound manures Avhich contain them, have a
considerable forcing or stimulating effect upon
vegetation. In the experiments of Dr. Belcher,
upon the common garden cress, by watering
them with a solution of phosphate of ammonia,
the plants were 15 days forwarder than other
plants growing under similar circumstances,
but watered with plain water; and he also de-
scribes the experiment of a Mr. Gregory, who,
by watering one-half of a grass field with urine
(which abounds with the salt of ammonia),

527

GAS-WORKS.

GAS-WORKS.

nearly doubled his crop of hay. (C(wi. to Board
of Jlg7: vol. iv. p. 416.)

"It is probable," says Mr. Handley, "that
the ammoniacal liquor which abounds in gas-
works, and which, when formerly allowed to
ruh waste into the Thames, was said to destroy
the fish and prejudice the quality of the river
water for human consumption, and which is
Still thrown away throughout the country, ex-
cept at a few works where they manufacture
sal ammoniac, will, ere long, be extensively
used as a manure, either through the interven-
tion of the water-cart, or for the process of sa-
turating and decomposing soil or vegetable
matter. A very satisfactory illustration, on a
small scale, has recently been submitted by
Mr. Pain. He put into a vessel some leaves
of trees, saw-dust, chopped straw, and bran, to
which he applied ammonia, and closed it up.
In about three weeks the whole was reduced to
a slimy mass : he then stirred it, and added a
little more ammonia; and when submitted to
the English Agricultural Society, it was re-
duced to a black mass of vegetable mould,
strongly impregnated with volatile salts, and
in comminuted particles similar to surface
peat mould. When applied in its liquid form
to grass, like salt, it apparently destroys the
plant; but the spot is distinguished by in-
creased verdure the succeeding year." {Eng.
Agr. Sac. Journ. vol. i. p. 46.)

Mr. Paynter, of Boskenna, in Cornwall, has
given the result of an experiment made with
the water in which street gas had been cleansed,
on a piece of barley land. A quarter of an
acre was taken in the middle of a field of ra-
ther close soil, in a granite district. The land
was of average quality ; the gas-water was dis-
tributed over the quarter acre by a contrivance
resembling that of a common watering cart,
and at the rate of 400 gallons to the acre ; about
a week before seed time, the rest of the field
was manured in the usual way. The difier-
ence both in colour and vigour of the barley plant
was so strikingly in favour of the part manured
by the gas-water, that persons passing within
view of the field almost invariably came to
inquire about the cause. The yield also was
superior, as well as the after-pasture, the field
having been laid down with the barley." {Ibid.
p. 45.)

The refuse Lime of Gas-Works. — This powder
is produced by passing the gas through dry
lime, in which operation the earth combines
with a quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen,
from which the coal gas needs purifying, and
is partly converted into hydro-sulphuret of
lime : in the state that the powder is usually
vended by the gas manufacturers, it contains a
considerable portion of uncombined lime. The
hydro-sulphuret of lime has a bitter and acid
taste ; it is soluble in water, and has the pecu-
liarly disasrreeable smell of sulphuretted hy-
drogen. When mixed with or spread upon the
soil, it gradually decomposes, a portion of hy-
drogen separates from it, and it is converted
into sulphuret of lime, which, by absorbing
oxygen from the atmosphere, finally becomes
sulphate of lime. There is no reason, there-
fore, to doubt the fertilizing properties of this
jnanure ; but it is too powerful in its efiects
52S

] upon vegetation, to be used in the large pro- J
portions in which it has been sometimes em- I
ployed ; and it should not, for these reanons, "
be added to the soil immediately in contact
with the seed. It is generally to be obtained .
at a very moderate rate, and by its gradual I
conversion to sulphate of lime (gypsum), it |
must be a very excellent addition to those soils
which are described by the farmer as having
become " tired of clover."

" In many parts of the country," says Mr.
Handley, "where gas-works are established,
the refuse has become an object of interest to
the agriculturist, as containing many of the
essentials of the most effective manures.
The refuse lime which was formerly an incon-
venience to the manufacturers, and was carted
away as valueless rubbish, is now contracted
for by the neighbouring farmers (in an in-
stance within my own knowledge at 7s. 6d. per
chaldron), and applied either in compost, or in
a direct form, to the land, M'here, in addition to
the usual operation of lime, it is said to furnish
a protection against many of the noxious grubs
and insects." (Ibid.)

Gas Tar. — This substance being produced in
smaller quantities, and employed very com-
monly as a paint, has not been used as a ma-
nure to any extent; but wherever it can be
obtained (as I am aware it ever can in some
places, almost for the expense of carriage), it
is an article every way worthy of the farmer's
notice. It is composed entirely of substances
which enter into the composition of all plants,
is gradually decomposed in the soil, is powers
ful in its effects, and still more so from its con-
taining a considerable portion of the carbo-
nate and acetate of ammonia ; hence it is best
applied mixed with earth, so as to be easily
and evenly spread over the ground. These
facts will explain some of the phenomena wit-
nessed in the recent experiments of Mr. Bow-
ley with gas refuse, at Sidington, Gloucester-
shire. He says (Farm. Mag. vol. ix. p. 197),
"I have long used the refuse of the gas-house
as a manure ; my usual practice is to form out
my compost-heap with long dung about three
feet deep, pour the coal tar regularly over it,
then put another layer of dung or turf, throw
up the lime on the top, allow it to remain in
this state two or three months before it is
turned. The lime should not be under the tar
in the first instance, as the tar will find its way
through the dung, and unite with the lime into
a hard cement, in which state, even if, with
considerable labour, it is broken into small par-
ticles, I believe it to be of little service on the
land.

"After pursuing the above system for some
time, I resolved to try some experiments with
each in its unsophisticated state. I accordingly
commenced with the tar, which I had poured
out of a watering-pot, in a small stream, regu-
larly over about half an acre in a field of rye-
grass ; this was done in February, 1838. Soon
afterwards, the seeds presented the rather sin-
gular appearance of having been burnt in
stripes with a hot iron, for the tar had com-
pletely destroyed all it touched, and I was told
I had poisoned the land, and it would never re-
cover itself; however, in June, I noticed that the

GATES.

GELATIN.

grass between the streams of tar looked more
luxuriant, and the sheep fed on it in preference
to the other parts of the field. In the autumn
ihe whole was ploughed, and sown with wheat,
which looked much more flourishing on the
half-acre dressed with tar than anywhere else ;
the difference was so conspicuous from the
first, that the most casual observer could not
pass without remarking it; and at the present
time (August, 1839), there is a heavy crop on
it ready for the sickle, while the rest of the field
is light, and will not be ripe for a week or ten
days. I put some tar in the same way on a
piece of land, a month before it was ploughed
for spring vetches ; the vetches were sown two
weeks after the plough, and many of them
were destroyed ; but the crop of wheat which
succeeded was benefited equally with the one
in the other experiment. I have tried the lime
with great advantage, putting from 12 to 15
cart-loads to the acre, but I find it is better to
remain a time before it is ploughed in. All
these experiments were tried on a cold, sandy
clay, worth about 10*. per acre." In these ex-
periments, the quantity applied per acre was too
large, and the manure in a slate much too power-
ful. It was only where it had become diffused
through the soil by time, that its fertilizing
powers were apparent.

Coal tar is much improved in effect, when
employed as a coating for palings, by mixing
it with a small portion, say one-fortieth of its
weight, of grease ; this is easily united by
heating the tar.

GATES. Good gates are no less essential
to the respectable appearance of a farm than
they are necessary for the convenience of an
occupier. There are few outgoings that cost
so much and are so little thought of, as the re-
pairing and renewing gates upon enclosed
farms. The most common defects are,

1st. Not sufficient height, so that horses and
large cattle, when pushing against the gate,
break it, however strong it is, as the back
thereof comes in contact with that part of the
chest of a horse where the collar goes, and
without inconvenience he leans his weight
against the opposing bar, which, if a few
inches higher presses against his neck and
windpipe, and he makes no impression upon it.

2d. They are generally hinge-bound, so that
in attempting to lift up the head, which is often
required to be done, the ledges and braces are
either pulled from the back head or broken
therein; the person lifting the head having a
nine-feet leverage, which enables him to do
this mischief.

3d. The places of contact between the brace
and the uprights and the ledges are broad, and
it being impossible to keep those places of con-
tact dry, the parts become prematurely de-
cayed.

The two great objects to be combined in a
gate are strength and lightness. In the Culti-
vator and some other American agricultural
periodicals, many useful observations, with
drawings of gales, may be found.

Much has been written on the subject in

England : see Quar. Joum. Agr. vol. i. p. 727 ;

and the Trans, of the High. Sor. vol. ii. p. 260,

where a self-acting gate, suited for the en-

67

trances to parks or the approaches to mariSion
houses, is figured and described. There is also
a useful essay " On the Construction of Gates
for the common purposes of a Farm, the
causes of their Decay, and the manner of im-
proving them," in the Commun. to Board of Agr.
vol. vii. p. 144 : see also Loudon^ $ Encyc. ofAg'
ricidture.

Among the excellent observations upon the
subject of farm gates, to be met with in the
agricultural periodicals of the United States,
we would particularly refer to a paper in the
Cultivator, (vol. ii. p. 132,) headed Parker's
Farm Gate, giving the most minute directions
for constructing, accompanied with drawings
of the gate and its several parts. See also
Cultivator y vol. vii. p. 124, for the plan and
drawing of a cheap gate, which never sags ;
and more especially the same valuable pe-
riodical, vol. viii. p. 53, for Mr. Bennet's Com-
munication on Ornamental Gates, accompanied
with descriptions and drawings.

GATHERING. Provincially, rolling corn-
swaths into cocks or bundles. Also a popular
name for Abscess, which see.

GAVELKIND. An ancient custom or te-
nure annexed to all land in the county of Kent
(not especially exempted), and some other
parts of England, and which extensively pre-
vails in Ireland, by which the land of the father
is equally divided at his death among all his
sons, or the land of the brother among all his
brethren if he have no issue of his own. Te-
nure in gavelkind is considered by Blackstone
to have been in the nature of free socage. In
most places the gavelkind tenant had the
power of devising by will before the statute
of wills. The same custom seems to have
been prevalent in Wales, where all gavelkind
lands were made descendible to the heir at
common law by the slat. 34 & 35 H. 8, c. 36.
In Kent the lands have for the most part been
disgavelled, or deprived of their customary
descendible quality by particular statutes ; but
lands in Kent are presumed to be gavelkind
unless the contrary be shown. Mr. Ross, in
his Survey of Londonderry, gives an interesting
account of this custom and its pernicious
effects. This notion of the equal and unalien-
able right of all the children to the inheritance
of their father's property, whether land or
goods, which is so general in Ireland, is one
great obstacle to improvement. However just
and reasonable the opinion may be in theory,
it is ruinous in practice. In spite of every
argument (says Mr. Ross) the smaller Irish
landholders continue to divide their farms
among their children, and these divide on until
division is no longer practicable ; and, in the
course of two or three generations the most
thriving family must necessarily go to ruin.

GEERS. A country phrase for the harness
of draught or team ho-rses.

GELATIN. In chemistry the name given

to an abundant proximate principle in animals.

It is confined to the solid parts of the body,

, such as tendons, ligaments, cartilages, and

! bones, and exists nearly pure in the skin ; but

J it is not contained in any healthy animal fluid.

' Its leading character is the formation of a

1 tremulous jelly, when its solution in boiling

2 Y 529

GELDING.

water cools ; and it may be repeatedly liquefied
and again gelatinized by the alternate applica-
tion of heat and cold. Isinglass, glue, and
size are various forms of gelatin, the first be-
ing this substance in a very pure state, obtained
by washing and drying the swimming bladder
of the sturgeon {Acipenser huso) and some other
fish. Its most distinctive chemical character
is the formation of a dense white precipitate
when its solution in warm water is poured into
an infusion of galls, or that of any other as-
tringent vegetable; the substance formed in
such cases is a tannate of gelatin, by the
union of the tanic acid with the gelatin. Ge-
latin is semi-transparent and colourless when
pure. Its consistency and hardness vary con-
siderably. The best kinds are very hard, brittle,
and break with a glassy fracture. Its taste is
insipid, and it has no odour. A solution of
one part of gelatin in 5000 of water is ren-
dered slightly turbid by the addition of a strong
infusion of galls. Gelatin, as an article of
food, is not so nutritious as is generally sup-
posed.

The ultimate components of gelatin are —

Parti,
Carbon --___-_ 47-8
Hydrogen ------- 7-9

Nitrogen ------- 169

Oxygen ------- 274

100-

100 lbs. of bones yield about 25 or 27 lbs.
of gelatin. It is used for making carpenter's
glue, as the fat in the bones gives it a bad
taste, and renders it unfit for soup. See Glue.
{Brandc's Diet, of Science.)

GELDING. In farriery, a castrated animal ;
and also the act of castrating. In performing
this operation, attention should be paid to the
age, and also the season of the year. The most
proper seasons are either the early spring
months, or those of the autumn.

GENTIAN (Gentiana). This, in England, is
an extremely beautiful genus of plants; the
roots of which form one of the principal bit-
ters of European growth. The stems and
roots of most of the species, especially the
autumnal gentian (G. cware/Za), the field gen-
tian (G. campestris), and some of the foreign
species are tonic, stomachic, and febrifuge.
That which is principally used in medicine is
the root of the great yellow gentian (G. lutea),
which is imported from Germany. The gene-
ric name was given to them after Gentius,
King of lUyria, who is reported to have first
experienced the virtues of the plant. The
species of gentian, indigenous to England, ac-
cording to Sir J. E. Smith, are six in number.

1. The Marsh Gentian or Calathian violet
(G. pneumonanthe). A perennial herb, found
on moist, turfy heaths, blooming in August and
September.

2. The Dwarf Gentian (G. acaulis). A pe-
rennial, but very doubtful native, found on
mountains. The stems generally very short,
rising from the centre of tufts of leaves, single-
flowered. The flower, which blows in June
or July, is large, often two inches long, ex-
quisitely beautiful, of a rich blue in the limb,
paler in the tube, which is dotted internally
with black. Root fleshy and branching.

530

GEOLOGY.

3. The Spring Gentian (G. verna). A peren-
nial, growing in barren, mountainous situations,
but rare, flowering in April.

4. Small Alpine Gentian (G. nivalis). An
annual found on the loftiest mountains of Scot-
land.

5. The Autumnal Gentian (G. amarella). An
annual plant, growing frequent in limestone
and chalky pastures, flowering in August and
September.

6. The Field Gentian (G. campestris). An
annual, flowering in September or October,
growing on elevated pastures, or upon green
hills towards the sea-coast, where the soil is
chalky or gravelly. The roots are very bitter
and tonic. It is sometimes known as yellow
centaury and blue gentian.

Most of the herbaceous kinds of gentian
grow well in a rich, light soil, but some re-
quire to be growil in peat; indeed, all will
grow much stronger in it. Several of the
species should be grown in pots, placed among
alpine plants, and protected in winter. Some
of them may be increased by divisions. The
annual and biennial kinds may be sown in a
dry, sandy situation in the open border ; but
they must bfe sown as soon as the seeds are
ripe, because, if left till spring before they are
sown, they will not, very probably, come up
till the second year.

The species of gentian best known in the
United States, are : — 1. The one called Soap-
wort (G. saponaria), a handsome plant, fre-
quently found in Pennsylvania and other
Middle States, along the margins of swampy
rivulets and in low grounds. It flowers in
September, and ripens its seed in November.
The root, as in all the genus, is bitter and tonic.
2. Yellowish-white Gentian (G. ochrolcuca),
found in fields and woodlands in the Middle
and Southern States, but not so common as the
former kind. 3. Haired, or Fringed Gentian
(G.crinita), frequent in hilly, open woodlands
and old fields in Pennsylvania, where it is one
of the most beautiful autumnal flowering
plants in the months of September and Oc-
tober. Its flowers are often destroyed by frost.
Though generally described as a biennial, Pro-
fessor Eaton considers it a perennial. Dr.
Darlington thinks it an annual.

Seven or eight additional species of gentian
are enumerated in the United States. (Flora
Cestrica.)

GEOLOGY (>«, the earth; \oyo(, a dis-
course). The use of this science to the culti-
vator is considerable. The farmer is, in fact,
obliged to vary his modes of tillage with the
different strata which' he tenants, and hence he
is often following in practice the very rules,
and observing the laws which the science of
geology would prescribe, without being aware
of the scientific reasons by which his labours
are guided. It is a science he will find closely
connected with the best modes of cultivating
the soil, the drainage of land, the mixture of
earths, and other agricultural improvements.
From geological observations, the farmer
learns the process by which the soils he culti-
vates were originally formed, their connexion
with the substratum, and the readiest mode of
improving their constituents; thus, as it is

GEOLOGY.

GEOLOGY.

■well observed by Mr. Morton, in his valuable j
little work on Soils, p. 3. " If we can show an
identity of the materials which form the soil
with those of the subsoil upon which it rests,
we shall obtain a key to a more correct and
satisfactory classification of soils than at pre-
sent exists; their nature and properties, the
kind of crops which they are best calcalated to
produce, and the materials necessary for their
permanent improvement will also be more evi-
dent." That such scientific observances of
the order of nature cannot but be attended
with benefit, is a remark which we cannot too
often make to the farmer: it was an observa-
tion which Davy long since made, (Lectures, p.
204); he told the farmers of his day, that " the
best natural soils are those of which the ma-
terials have been derived from different strata
which have been minutely divided by air and
water, and are intimately blended together;
and in improving soils artificially, the farmer
cannot do better than imitate the processes of
nature ; — the materials necesary for the pur-
pose are seldom far distant — coarse sand is
often found immediately on chalk, and beds of
sand and gravel are common below clay. The
labour of improving the texture or constitution
of the soil is repaid by a great permanent ad-
vantage— less manure is required, and its fer-
tility insured, and capital laid out in this way
secures forever the productiveness, and con-
sequently the value, of the land ;" and again.
Dr. Paris, when addressing the Pen with Agri-
cultural Society, remarked, " The composition
and arrangement of the different rocks of which
a country consists, is always an object of im-
portant interest to the liberal and well-informed
farmer, for it will generally be found more or
less connected with its agricultural economy,
and is frequently capable of explaining pecu-
liarities and anomalies which are otherwise
quite unintelligible. At the same time a know-
ledge of them will suggest the best method of
improving a soil by exhibiting the nature of
its texture and constitution, and the various
causes of its sterility." That geological sur-
veys of even particular estates have been at-
tended with considerable benefit, we have the
valuable testimony, amongst many others, of
Sir J. V. Johnstone, who says (Joum. of Eng.
Jgric. Soc. vol. i. p. 273), "The geological sur-
vey and map of my estate has not only ex-
plained the reason of the discrepancy between
the soil and productiveness of neighbouring
fields — a matter of great interest, and tending
to develope the true conditions of vegetable
life — but the following positive practical re-
sults have been also derived from it : — 1st, The
knowledge of applying lime to advantage over
. the property ; 2d, Laying down fields to advan-
tage to grass, and where and how to plant
. wheat; 3d, What trees to plant upon each
stratum ; and as, he very correctly adds, "Cer-
tain soils are so obviously connected with their
bases, that we need scarcely ask how geology
and agriculture are mixed together;" and to
use Dr. Smith's own words, " The strata suc-
ceed each other in a certain order, and being
delineated, a knowledge of the strata becomes
the natural and safe foundation of improve-
ment; and if agricultural chemistry be ever

successfully applied to the practical purposes
of agriculture, it must be by proceeding with
the chemical analysis of soils along the range
of each stratum." (Farmer's Mmanac.)

And it is quite true, as Mr. Macgillivray re-
marks (Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, vol. iii.
p. 209), that "an experienced agriculturist
may judge correctly of the general capabilities
of a district from a superficial inspection, and
may perceive its adaptation to the cultivation
of certain plants, or to the rearing of certain
species of animals, in consequence of a single
glance of his eye ; but how much more precise
will be the estimate of him who examines the
slopes of the declivities ; the depth and quality
of the soil ; the nature of the subsoil ; the dis-
tribution of rills, pools, and springs ; the kind
and disposition of the mineral strata; the ex-
istence of limestone beds ; the elevation above
the level of the sea ; the exposure to particular
winds ; the prevalent atmospheric currents ;
the frequency of rains and frosts ; and all the
other physical phenomena which influence a
country. Even the nature of the rock itself, in-
dependently of other circumstances, discloses
the capabilities of the soil, in a degree which
could scarcely bf* imagined by one totally un-
acquainted with the influence which it pos-
sesses."

As my observations on geology in this work
will be chiefly confined to its connexion with
practical agriculture, I shall not detain the
farmer with any of the valuable geological re-
searches which extend far beneath the earth's
surface. Indeed, as Professor Brande remarks
in his Outline of Geology, p. 32, when speaking
of geology, " Its first and leading object is to
become practically acquainted with the pre-
sent state of the earth's external structure, for,
excepting of its crust or rind, we know nothing;
and all that has been suggested either by theory
or experiment, relating to its internal composi-
tion, its density, and the constitution of the en-
tire mass, is mere surmise and guess-work —
deductions hastily drawn from superficial ob-
servation or unwarranted inferences from im-
perfect researches." To the student who
wishes to make himself practically master of
the science, I commend the lectures of Pro-
fessor Brande, as well as the Outlines of the
Geology of England and Wales, by Conybeare
and Phillips. To the practical, intelligent
farmer, the work On Soils, by Mr. John Morton,
will also be very valuable. To this excellent
little book I gratefully acknowledge my obliga-
tions in this and many other articles.

The best popular description, perhaps, of
the position in which the various strata of the
earth are placed, is that long since given by
Mitchell. " This very ingenious writer," says
Brande (Otitlines, ip. 13), "describes the gene-
ral appearance of the strata, points out their
analogies and differences, adverts to their in-
clination and disturbance in mountainous dis-
tricts, and to their horizontality in flat coun-
tries ; and having explained with much minute
and practical perspicuity the arrangement of
the strata in England, he exemplifies its uni-
versal application to the general structure of
the globe, and ingeniously represents it in the
following manner : — ' Let a number of leaves

631

GEOLOGY.

GEOLOGY.

of paper,' he says, * of several different colours, I
be pasted one on another, then binding them
up together into a ridge in the middle, con-
ceive them to be reduced again to a level sur-
face by a plane so passing through them ls to
cutoff all the part that had been raised; let
the middle now be again raised a little, and
this would be a good general representation of
most, if not all, large tracts of mountainous
countries, together with the parts adjacent ,
throughout the whole world. From this for-
mation of the earth, it will follow that we
ought to meet with the same kinds of earths,
stones, and minerals, appearing on the surface
in long narrow slips, and lying parallel to the
greatest rise of any large ridge of mountains,
and so, in fact, we find them.* " (P/n7. Trans.
1760.)

And this system of layers or strata not only
marks the arrangement of the great masses of
■which our earth is composed, but it is that of
the very rocks themselves. It is to us attended
with many advantages, such as the formation
of springs, — the constitution of soils, — which
last is that alluded to by Dr. Paris, On the Soils
of Corntvall. "The phenomenon of stratifica-
tion, which is so well characterized in clay
slate, I have often regarded as a wise provision
of nature to facilitate its decomposition, and to
admit the descent of the roots of trees : and
this idea is further strengthened when we dis-
cover that this structure is almost entirely con-
fined to secondary rocks, whose situation and
nature render them capable of cultivation :
they are all, for instance, resolved into gently
undulating hills, and by farther decomposition
they form rich and fertile soils. Primitive
formations, on the contrary, which possess no
such structure, disintegrate into rugged piles,
whose declivities are too steep to admit the ac-
cumulations of soil, and cannot, therefore, ever
constitute the habitable parts of the globe;
and, as far as our geological knowledge will
allow us to generalize, it would appear that
primitive rocks are accumulated towards the
poles, whereas the great mass of secondary
formations is found to occupy the middle and
southern latitudes, principally between the 20th
and 55th degrees, which constitute a portion of
the globe eminently calculated for the abode of
man, and the animals which are subservient
to his wants and comforts."

The farmer must not imagine, as he pursues
' his researches in this very interesting science,
that he will find a great variety of earthy sub-
stances in the different, often-varying strata of
the earth ; "for," as Mr. Brande says very
truly, " siliceous, calcareous, and argillaceous
substances, either pure, or nearly so, or in a
state of mixture, or loosely and indefinitely
blended, rather than in strict chemical combi-
nation, constitute a very large relative propor-
tion of those rocky masses, or scattered or
comminuted substances, which form, or have
formed, the most exterior constituents of our
planet, and of these, considered in the abstract,
the chemical aAd mineralogical history is soon
told." Of that brief history, however, it will
be well for the farmer to have a general know-
ledge. Davy, who saw very clearly the im-
portance of the science to oractical agricul-
532

ture, described them with a view to assist the
farmer in his tillage operations.

The formation of a soil from the different
strata by natural causes is also well described
by the same great chemist. "It is easy," he
says, " to form an idea of the manner in which
rocks are converted into soils by referring to
the instance of soft granite or porcelain granite.
This substance consists of three ingredients,
quartz, feldspar, and mica. The quartz is
almost pure siliceous earth, in a crystalline
form. The feldspar and mica are compound
substances : both contain silica, alumina, and
oxide of iron ; in the feldspar there is usually
lime and potassa ; in the mica, lime and mag-
nesia.

" When a granitic rock of this kind has been
long exposed to the influence of air and water,
the lime and the potassa contained in its con-
stituent parts are acted upon by water or car-
bonic acid ; and the oxide of iron, which is
almost always in its least oxidized state, tends
to combine with more oxygen ; the conse-
quence is, the feldspar decomposes, and like-
wise the mica, but the first the more rapidly.
The feldspar, which is, as it were, the cement
of the stone, forms a fine clay. The mica
partially decomposes, mixes with it as sand,
and the undecomposed quartz appear as gravel
or sand of different degrees of fineness.

" As soon as the smallest layer of earth is
formed on the surface of a rock, the seed of
lichens, mosses, and other imperfect vege-
tables which are constantly floating in the
atmosphere, and which have made it their
resting-place, begin to vegetate. Their death,
decomposition, and decay, afford a certain
quantity of organizable matter, which mixes
with the earthy materials of the rock ; in this
improved soil more perfect plants are capable
of subsisting ; these, in their turn, absorb
nourishment from water and the atmosphere,
and, after perishing, afford new materials to
those already provided. The decomposition
of the rock still continues, and, at length, by
such slow and gradual processes, a soil is
formed in which even forest trees can fix their
roots, and which is fitted to reward the labour
of the cultivator." {Ibid. p. 189.)

That the geological formation of the soil
influences to a considerable degree its rela-
tions to a fertilizing supply of moisture, was
thus noticed by Dr. "aris when addressing a
Cornish Agricultural Society: — "There is a
popular adage well known to all the members
of this society, that *the land of Cornwall will
bear a shower every week-day, and two upon
a Sunday,' — the fact is, that the shallowness
of the soil, and the nature of its rocky substra-
tum, render a constant supply of moisture
indispensable ; and here we cannot avoid ad-
miring the beautiful contrivance of nature in
connecting the wants and necessities of the
different parts of the creation with the power
and means of supplying them ; thus, in rocky
countries like Cornwall, where the soil is ne-
cessarily greedy of moisture, the very cause
which creates this want is of itself capable'
of supplying it; for the rocks elevated above
the surface solicit a tribute from every passing
shower, while in alluvial and champaign

GEOLOGY.

countries, where the soil is deep and rich, and
consequently requires less moisture, the clouds
float undisturbed over the plains, and the coun-
try frequently enjoys that long and uninter-
rupted series of dry weather which is so con-
genial to it. As a general rule it may be stated,
that to obtain the greatest fertility the propor-
tion of siliceous sand in a soil ought to increase
in proportion to the quantity of rain that falls,
or rather perhaps to the frequency of its re-
currence ; for one of the effects of silex is to
diminish in the soil its power of absorbing
moisture; we accordingly find that in the rainy
climate of Turin the most prolific soil has from
77 to 80 per cent, of siliceous earth, and from
9 to 14 of calcareous, whereas, in the neigh-
bourhood of Paris, where there is much less
rain, the silex bears only the proportion of
from 26 to 50 per cent, in the most fertile parts ;
and I have found some of the most productive
corn lands in the parish of Sl Burian to con-
lain as much as 70 per cent, of that earth."
See Earths, their Use to Vegetatiox.

It will, perhaps, considerably assist the cul-
tivator in his examination of the different
geological formations to which he may have
to direct his attention, if we examine the che-
mical composition of a few of the stones and
other substances of which rocks are chiefly
formed.

Common clay is merely a mixtufe of alumina
with silica, in endless proportions. The alu-
mina is in the form of a very impalpable
powder ; but the silica, says Dr. Thomson, is
almost always in small grains, large enough
to be distinguished by the eye. Clay, therefore,
exhibits the characters of alumina, and not of
silica, even when this last ingredient predomi-
nates. Besides alumina and silica, clay often
contains carbonate of lime (chalk), carbonate
of magnesia, carbonate of barj'ta, oxide of iron,
&c. (Chem. vol. iii. p. 341.)

Loam may be regarded as a very impure
potter's clay united with iron, ochre, and mica.

Common Mica. — This stone is composed, ac-
cording to the analysis of M. Klaproth, of —

Farts.
Silica 47-

Alumina ------- 40-

Oxide of iron ------ 15*5

Oxide of manganese ----- 1-75

Potash 14 5

Loss -- 1-25

lOO-

Common feldspar, according to M. Vauque-
lin, is composed of —

Silica ....-.- 62 83

Alumina ....-.- 1703
Lime --..-. --3*
Oxide of iron -.-_.- i-
Potash ---..-- 13-
Loss ------_- 315

100-

The decomposing feldspar of Cornwall is
composed, according to Mr. Wedgwood, of—

Pirti.
Alumina -------60

Silex --------20

Moisture and loss - - - . . - 20

100

GEOLOGY.

Brande found in a specimen of pale flesh-
coloured feldspar from the Alps —

Parts.

Silex 68-

Alumina ------- 20-

Potash ----... 8-30

Lime -------- 2-

Oxide of iron ------ 0-50

Loss -------- 1-20

100-

Common hornblende was found by M. Klap-
roth to contain —

Parts.
Silica- ------- 42-

Altiinina ------- 12-

Lime - - - - - - - -11'

Magnesia ------- 225

Oxide of iron ------ 30-

Oxide of manganese - - - - - 0 25

Water 075

Loss 1-75

100-

Common serpentine contains, according to
M. Vauquelin —

Silica 44-

Magnesia ------- 44"

Altiinina -------S'

Oxide of chromium ----- a*

Oxide of iron ------ 7-3

Oxide of manganese ----- 15

1008

Another specimen, examined by Dr. John,
was found to contain —

P»rft.
Silica- ------- 31-50

Magnpsia ------- 4725

Alumina ------- 3-

Lime -------- 0-50

Iron -------- 5-50

Oxide of manganese - - - . - 1-50
Water 10-50

99-75

Chalk contains —

Fftrth
Lime -------- 58*5

Carbonic acid - - - - - - 43*

Water --5

100-

Common compact limestone contains —

Parts.

Lime -------- 53-

Carbonic acid ------ 42-5

Water ------- 1-63

Silica ------- 1 12

Alumina ------- r

Oxide of iron ------ 0-75

100-

Magnesian limestone, from Sunderland, con-
tains, according to Dr. Thomson {System of
Chem. vol. iii. p. 396)—

Parti.

Carbonate of lime ----- 56 8

Carbonate of magnesia - - - - 4084

Oxide of iron ------ 036

Clay, water, &c. ----- 2-

100-

Quartz^ according to the analysis of M.
Bucholz, is composed of —

Parts.

Silica ------- 97-75

Alumina -----._ 0-50

Water ------- 1-

Loss -------- 0-75

100- -
2 T 2 533

GEOLOGY.

GEOLOGY.

Porcelain earth was analyzed by Mr. Rose
(Jameson's Min. vol. i. p. 298) : he found in it — j

Parte.

Silica -------- 52-

Alumina - - - - - - - 47*

,Oxide of iron ------ 0-33

Loss , - - 0-67

100-

Potter's clay, according to M. Vauquelin,
contains —

Part*.

Silica 43-5

Alumina ------- 33 2

Lin»€ --------3-5

Oxide of iron ------ 1*

Water- ------- IB-
Loss 0-8

100-
Clay $late is composed of —

Farti.

Silica 48-6

Alumina ------- 23-5

Magnesia ------- 1-6

Peroxide of iron ----- 11-3

Oxide of manganese - - - - - 05

Potash ------- 4-7

Carbon ------- 03

Sulphur ------- 01

Water and volatile matter - - - 7 6
Loss 1-8

100-

Basalt is composed, according to Mr. Ken-
nedy (Edin. Trans, vol. v. p. 89), of—

Partt.

Silica 48

Alumina -------16

Lime --------9

Soda --------4

Oxide of iron ------ 16

Muriatic acid ------ 1

Water --------5

Loss -------- 1

100

Chlorite earth is composed of —

Partfc

Silica -------- 50-

Alumina - - - -.- - -26-

Lime 15

Oxide of iron ------ 5-

Poush - ^ 17 5

100-

Ch/ps^im, of which there are several varieties,
is composed of—

Sulphate of lime
Water

P»rt».
79-32

100-

The cultivator, therefore, must take it as an
axiom in his geological observations, that the
earthy composition of the surface soil almost
always partakes of the nature of the rock or
subsoil on which it immediately rests, and from
which, in fact, it has been generally thus
formed, in the progress of time, by various
external agencies.

Alluvial soils, perhaps, are the most exten-
sive exceptions to this remark, for they are
formed commonly of the materials of different
strata, brought from various distances by the
flood waters, and mingled together, often in
very confused, yet most commonly in very
fertile p'-oportions. (See Alluvium.) Of this
description of soil there are in England many
534

valuable tracts, such as that extending from
Lynn, through Lincolnshire to the Humber,
and thence to Bridlington. Both sides of the
valley of the Thames, about Sandwich in Kent,
Romsey Marsh, between Bristol and Bridge-
water, and Liverpool and Lancaster, and on
the banks of the rivers Forth and Tay in Scot-
land. "This kind of soil," says Mr. Morton,
" is always fertile, free in its nature, and easily
cultivated; is fitted for the production of every
variety of crop, which it brings to the highest
perfection, and produces in the greatest abund-
ance. This formation is perfectly dry. About
one-half of all the alluvial accumulations may
be in tillage, and the remaining half in mea-
dow and pasture land." (On Sails, p. 10.)

Diluvium is the geological name for those
masses of soil, composed of sand, gravel, &c.,
which are found in many places, covering
some of the older formations. It is of various
composition : when it is found resting on the
tertiary and chalk formations, it is usually
composed of red clay and rounded flints. In ■
Dorsetshire the diluvium is commonly com-
posed of a mixture of sand and gravelly flints.
"Most of this soil," says Mr. Morton, "is in
arable culture, and produces turnips, barley,
oats, wheat, clover; and, when under proper
management, it becomes a useful soil. The
tenacious clay gravel is expensive in the culti-
vation, as it is most difficult to work, except
between wet and dry. The greatest improve-
ment which has been made in this soil is by
the application of chalk." The larger portion
of Suffolk and Norfolk is composed of a dilu-
vium sand, resting on chalk or marl. This
district is very level : it extends from Sudbury
to Bungay and Cromer, from Southwold to
Shelford, and from Swaffham to Yarmouth.
Resting as it does on a calcareous substratum,
the excellent cultivators of this district have
gradually and permanently improved the soil
by bringing the chalk or marl to the surface,
and spreading it over the land at the rate of
about 100 cubic yards per acre ; in this way
mere rabbit warrens of blowing sands have
been improved so as to yield excellent crops
of corn, and rentals have been in this way
raised from a few pence to 20s. per acre.

Peat Soils. — These abound in many portions
of the United Kiiigdom. Their best mode of
improvement is, usually, by mixing them with
the earths. See Peat Soils.

The Chalk Formation. — This formation, very j

common in England, but which does not exist
in the limits of the United States, is divided
by geologists into two divisions, the upper and
the lower chalk : the upper abounds in flints,
which are absent from the lower formation.
Chalk is chiefly carbonate of lime, with some
small portions of alumina, iron, and silica. "The
water which comes from below the lower
chalk," says Mr. Morton, " is pure and limpid,
and delicious to drink. It contains carbonate
of lime, and is of the best quality for watering
meadows ; hence the best water meadows are
in the chalk valleys." The soil of the chalk
formation is composed of chalk and flint in
various proportions. These soils are materi-
ally improved by a mixture with those of the
green sandstone formation, and by enclosing

GEOLOGY.

GEORGIA BARK.

into much smaller fields than those into which
they are at present generally divided.

Green Smid Formation. — This formation is
found under the chalk. It is formed of a va-
riety of beds : the upper beds near the chalk
have a green or grayish colour, the lower beds,
which are commonly much thicker, vary in
colour, from yellow to brown and red. It is
composed of silicious sand, mixed with mica
and chlorite. "The means of permanently
improving this soil," says Mr. Morton, " after
it is drained and enclosed (if for pasture), are
so immediately within the reach of the farmer,
that he can at little comparative expense im-
prove its texture, and permanently increase its
productiveness, by chalk or chalk marl, on the
one hand, and the oak or clunch clay, on the
other; but even without the application of
these substances, deep or double ploughing or
trenching has the effect of deepening the soil,
and increasing its capability. When mixed
with the chalk marl above it, it has the power
of receiving and transmitting moisture more
freely, and is neither so easily injured by wet
weather, nor by excessive droughts, as other
soils are." (On Soils, p. 43.)

Gault has commonly a bluish or gray aspect,
and its geological position is in the centre of
the green sand formation : the two greatest de-
posits of it, in England, are in the Vale of While
Horse, in Berkshire, and in the counties of
Cambridge and Huntingdon. Itis foundat South
Marston, in Wiltshire, at Wantage, Thame,
through Bedfordshire to Caxton and St. Ives.

Before the year 1807, although mineralogy
had received some attention in the United
States, little or nothing had been done towards
ascertaining its geological features. At that
time William Maclure commenced the task,
and single-handed, made a progress which re-
flects the highest credit upon his memory, for
he developed the leading characteristics of the
rock formations, in doing which, he crossed the
Alleghany mountains in fifty places. The
state geological surveys which have been car-
ried on for several years past, and are still
prosecuted, seem to be enterprises peculiarly
American, having preceded those regularly
undertaken in any other country. The annual
reports of these surveys have dwelt much upon
economical geology, and placed an immense
mass of minute and accurate information be-
fore the public, which cannot fail to be profita-
ble to agriculture and other useful objects.
North Carolina has the honour of having first
directed a survey of her territory, a duty per-
formed by Prof Olmsted, whose reports were
made in 1824, 1825; since then, South Carolina
has been geologically explored byProf.Vanux-
um. These two Southern States were succeed-
ed by Massachusetts, the last report of which, by
Prof. Hitchcock, was made in 1837. Tennessee
has been explored by Prof. Troost; Maryland
by Prof. Ducaiel; New Jersey and Pennsylvania
by Prof. H. D. Rogers ; Delaware by Prof. J. C.
Booth ; New York by Profs. Vanuxiim, Mather,
Emmons, and Mr. James Hall; Virginia by
Prof. William B. Rogers ; Maine, Rhode Island,
and New Hampshire.by Dr. Charles T.Jackson;
Connecticut by Dr. J. G. Percival and Prof. C.
U. Shepard ; Ohio by Prof. Mather, assisted by

Dr. S. P. Hildreth, and Profs. Locke, Briggs,
and Fostor; Michigan by Mr. D. Houghton; Indi-
anna by Dr. D. D. Owen ; and Georgia by Mr.
J. R. Cotting. It thus appears that within the
last 16 or 17 years, surveys have been com-
menced, and most of them completed, in 19
states and two territories of the Union, em-
bracing an area of nearly 700,000 square miles,
and that for some years past not less than 25
principal geologists, and 40 assistant geolo-
gists, have been almost constantly engaged
under the patronage of the state governments,
in the examination of the various parts of the
Union. The British provinces of New Bruns-
wick and Nova Scotia have also been geologi-
cally examined by Dr. Gessner, whilst the ex-
ploration of Canada has been commenced un-
der the superintendance of Mr. Logan. Much
of the materiel thus amassed cannot fail to be
of high interest in an agricultural point of
view, as pointing the situation and exact value
of soils, and the invaluable beds of mineral
fertilizers, in the form of lime, marl, green
sand or silicate of potash, &c., &c.

From such facts as these the farmer will
readily perceive that the science of geology is
not without its material and extensive value to
the tiller of the earth. It enables him at least
to* cultivate his soils on solid data, to avoid the
adoption of idle and fruitless modes of cultiva-
tion, to pursue that which the situation of the
strata he tenants determines to be the best. It
is no reason for the neglect of its assistance
that other sciences can perhaps do more for
the farmer; and even the objection, though
very common, amounts, in fact, to an admis-
sion that geology is a science capable of ren-
dering services to agriculture. (Brande's Led.
on Geology ; Morton on Soils ; Davy's Elem. ^g,
Chem. ; Paris on the Soils of Cornwall; J. F.
Johnston* s Lee. Chem. and Geol.; Prof. H. D. Ro-
ger's Geological Surveys of Pennsylvania and New
Jersey ; Prof. C. J. Booth's Survey of Delaware ;
Professor Jackson's Survey of Massachusetts j;
Geological Survey of New York ; Dr. Rufln's
Survey of North Carolina, 8fC., ^c.)

GEOMETERS. A species of caterpillar.
See Span-wobms.

GEORGL\ BARK (Pinckneya pubens). "This
tree," says Michaux, the younger, " still more
interesting by the properties of its bark, than
by the elegance of ifs flowers and of its foliage,
is indigenous to the most southern parts of the
United States : probably it grows also in the
two Floridas and in Lower Louisiana. My
father found it for the first time in 1791 on the
banks of the St. Mary. He carried seeds and
young plants to Charleston, and planted them
in a garden which he possessed near that city.
Though intrusted to an ungrateful soil, they
succeeded so well, that in 1807 1 found several
of them 25 feet high, and 7 or 8 inches in dia-
meter; which proves that the vegetation of
this tree does not require a very warm climate,
nor a very substantial soil.

" With a great affinity to the cinchona which
yields the Peruvian bark, my father discerned
in the Georgia bark sufficient differences, to
distinguish it as a new genus. In testimony of
his gratitude and respect, he consecrated it to
Charles Coles worth Pinckney, an enlightened

535

GEORGIA PITCH PINE.

GERMANY.

patron of the arts and sciences, from whom
my father and myself, during our residence in
South Carolina, received multiplied proofs of
benevolence and esteem.

"The Georgia bark is a low tree, dividing
itself into numerous branches, and rarely ex-
ceeding the height of 25 feet, and the diameter
of 5 or 6 inches at the base. A cool and shady
exposure appears the most favourable to its
growth. Its leaves are opposite, 4 or 5 inches
long, of a light green colour, and downy un-
derneath, as are also the shoots to which they
are attached. The flowers, which are white
with longitudinal rose-coloured stripes, are
pretty large, and are collected in beautiful
panicles at the extremity of the branches.
Each flower is accompanied by a floral leaf,
bordered with rose-colour near the upper edge.
The capsules are round, compressed in the
middle, and stored with a great number of
small winged seeds.

" The wood of the Georgia bark is soft, and
unfit for use in the arts ; but its inner bark is
extremely bitter, and appears to partake of the
febrifuge virtues of the cinchona, for the inha-
bitants of the southern parts of Georgia employ
it successfully in the intermitting fevers which,
during the latter part of summer and autumn,
prevail in the Southern States. A handful o*f
the bark is boiled in a quart of water till the
liquid is reduced one-half, and the infusion is
administered to the sick. From the properties
of its bark the pinckneya has taken the name of
Georgia bark. The tree which produces it so
nearly resembles the Peruvian vegetable, that
some botanists have included them in the same
genus."

GEORGIA PITCH PINE, or long-leaved
pine. See Fin.

GERANIUM. From a Greek word signify-
ing a crane, the beaked fruit bearing some
resemblance to a crane's bill. The varieties
of this genus of beautiful plants cultivated
are very numerous, but all are tender. The
common scarlet geranium is the hardiest shrub,
and the handsomest. It looks beautiful plant-
ed in lawns and gardens, and grows extremely
bushy and handsome in a fine light soil. Cut-
tings strike so readily, that the old shrub may
die every fall, and be renewed every summer
from the frame. The best plants come from
seeds sown in July : the seedlings must be
kept warm, but not forced. The scarlet gera-
nium thrives well through the winter, if placed
in the house,free from damp and stagnant air. It
is very ornamental during summer and autumn.

Sweet's GeraniacecR, and other works on the
subject, may be consulted with advantage by
those desirous of further information as to the
best varieties of geranium, &c.

The species of geranium family tnost fre-
quently found growing wild in the United States
are, 1st. The maculatum, or spotted geranium,
known by the common names, crou-'fuot and
spotted crane's bill. It is perennial, and frequents
fence-rows, woodlands, and meadows, flower-
ing in May and June in Pennsylvania. The I
root is astringent, and has been found service- 1
able in the treatment of dysentery, diarrhoea, |
and hemorrhage. 2. Carolinian Gentian, not so |
common as the former. Three or four addi- 1
536

tional species are enumerated in the United
States. (Darlington's Flor. Cestrica.)

GERMANDER {^Teuaium). Of this genus
of perennial plants there are three wild species
common to England. 1. The wood german-
der, or wood sage (T. scorodoma), which is
found growing very profusely in heathy, bushy
places and woods, on a sandy soil, and flowers
in the month of July. The root is creeping;
the stem reaches to two feet high, is leafy,
hairy, acutely quadrangular. The leaves are
deep green, wrinkled, hairy, copiously ser-
rated; the flowers are pale yellow, in clusters,
terminal, and axillary ; corolla pale yellow,
middle lobe concave and hairy. The whole
plant is glutinous, and has a bitter taste, with
an agreeable aromatic scent, much resembling
that of hops, for which it is said to be no bad
substitute in making beer. It is used in the
island of Jersey in brewing. »

2. The water germander (T. scordium) is
less common, and grows in low, wet meadows
and damp marshy situations, and produces
purplish flowers in July and August. The
herb is downy;, the leaves are very bitter, and
somewhat pungent, with a strong garlic-like
odour. The root is creeping ; the stem recum-
bent, branching, with obtuse, horny, scarcely
serrated sessile leaves, an inch long. Flowers
two, from axilla of each leaf. Corolla pale
dull purple; middle lobe flattish, with two
spots. It is eaten by sheep and goats, but re-
fused by horses, hogs, and cows, though the
latter will eat it when impelled by hunger;
but it spoils the flavour of their milk.

3. The common wall germander (T. chamce-
drys) is found on the borders of cornfields that
are remote from houses, or old ruined build-
ings and stony banks : it produces crimson or
reddish purple flowers, which blow in the
month of June or July. Root creeping; stems
erect, bushy, leafy, hairy; angles rounded;
leaves dark green, tapering, fringed, entire at
the base. Flowers have the central lobe
rounded, a little concave ; the lateral lobes and
the tube hairy. The whole herb is very bitter,
with a weak aromatic flavour, and was for-
merly used to remove obstructed secretions, to
promote expectoration, perspiration, &c. (Eng.
Flor. vol. iii. p. 69.) In the United States there
is a species of germander called, in the Middle
States, Wood Sage (T. Canadensis). The root
is perennial, and it frequents fence rows and
low shaded grounds. One other species of this
plant has been found on the Rocky Mountains.
(Flor. Cestrira.)

GERMANY. The agriculture of a district
so extensive as that of Germany, naturally
varies with the nature of the climate and the
degree of knowledge possessed by the inhabi-
tants of the numerous and extensive provinces
of which the empire is composed. In the
Mecklenburgs, or that portion of Germany
bounded by the Baltic on the north, according
to Mr. J. S. Carr, " from north to south there is
a ridge of elevated sandy land (the same
which may be traced from the Bannat in Hun-
gary to Jutland in Denmark) varying from 10
to 20 miles in breadth, affording miserable
crops of corn and worse pasture; but the soil
improves on both sides towards the Elbe and

GERMANY.

GERMINATION.

the Baltic, where fine districts of rich loams
and clays are manaja:ed with considerable
plodding industry." The farms in northern
Germany vary in size from 50 to 60 acres, cul-
tivated by peasants, to 300 and even 2000 in
the hands of the farmers and proprietors.
The number of cows kept by the farmers are
often 300 and 400, and they are sensibly alive
to the advantages of sheltering stock in win-
ter. Their sheep-houses are commonly large
enough to hold 5000 head. They usually har-
vest all their corn in barns. Their agricul-
tural implements are defective : for instance,
They use generally, instead of a plough, an in-
strument called a haken, which is exactly
similar to one used by the Roman farmers.
Their harrows have commonly wooden teeth,
and are worked with five horses, in a very
bungling manner. They often break up their
pastures with this clumsy instrument in sum-
mer, expose it to the frosts of the following
winter, spread over it their dung, and in the
following July sow broadcast rape seed. This
they dress with 100 lbs. of gypsum dust per
acre, in the following spring, and in July the
seed is ripe, which is then trodden out by
horses on large canvass sheets in the field.
" The oil of this seed, when putrefied, is without
smell, gives a brilliant, clear-burning flame,
and is universally used all over Germany, in
the saloon and the cottage." If this crop es-
capes the manifold contingencies of slugs,
caterpillars, turnip fly, and beetles, it is a very
remunerative one, worth from 10/. to 20/. per
acre. The improved rotations now commonly
followed in Germany are, 1. Fallow, well
dunged. 2. Rape. 3. Wheat. 4. Barley. 5. Peas
(with light dunging). 6. Rye. 7. Oats, sown
down with rye or Timothy grass, and red
clover, " which, as well as the peas, is gyp-
sumed with great effect before the dew has left
the plant of a May morning." The clover,
after being twice mown, is left 2 years longer
for pasture. Marl, at the rate of 1G4 cubic
feet per acre, is much used, and is the begin-
ning, in many places, of all improvements.
The haken is worked by oxen. The merino
breed of sheep is now extensively cultivated
in the Mecklenburghs and in Saxony. There
is little else to be noticed in their live-stock.
The farm servants are commonly lodged and
fed in the house, and are paid from 51. to 6/.
per annum. The married labourers have a
free house and firing, the keep of a cow, and
about one rood of garden, and twice as much
potato land. The average rent of wheat and
barley lands is about 18«. per acre. Manures
of all kinds are preserved with much care;
and they show a wisdom in the collection of
night-soil and that of the sewerage of their
towns, which it would be well to imitate in
England. These manures are extensively
used for their vineyards in several parts of
Germany. The following account of them is
taken from a paper by Dr. Granville :

"In most of the cities of the second order,
and the smaller capitals, night-soil is a source
of profit, first to the householder, next to a mid-
dleman, and thirdly to the farmer, who is the
last purchaser, and employs it. In all the
towns of the Grand Duchy of Baden, of the
68

kingdom of Wiirtemburg, of Bavaria (except
Munich and Wurtzburg), of the province of
Salzburg, of Bohemia (except Prague), of Sax-
ony (except Dresden), in some of the minor
cities of Prussia, in all the confederated prin-
cipalities, in all the cities on both banks of the
Rhine, particularly Strasburg, Mayence, Co-
blentz, Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Nimeguen,
&c., the householder disposes of the contents
of his cesspool for a certain sum of money,
besides getting the operation of emptying it
performed gratuitously. By comparing the
returns of the different prices paid in those
cities for the commodity in question, one year
with another, and equalizing them by an ave-
rage price, founded on positive data, which I
possess, the inhabitants appear to be benefited
to the amount of 4 francs a head yearly, and
the middle-man to at least 40 per cent, more
on the sum he pays to the original seller. I
will cite Strasburg as an example, since most
of the other cities of the same extent (on the
Rhine, and in many parts of Germany), and a
few cities even larger, presented the strongest
analogy to the case I have selected. At Stras-
burg a company of middlemen engage to empty
the cesspools, of which every house has at
least two (built air and water tight), once a
year for nothing, and pays, moreover, 6 francs
per charette, containing 96 baquets, of the capa-
city of 4 gallons each. This quantity the
company sells afterwards to the farmers for
ten francs. (The capacity of the charette being
to that of a ton, as 28,772 ounces are to 35,840,
it follows that the price of a ton at Strasburg
would be 10«.) Now, as there are 14,000 houses
in Strasburg, 10,000 of which have cesspools,
affording the soil in question (which is always
semi-liquid), supposing the latter to be emptied
only once a year, and to furnish each 3 char-
ettes only, at six francs, we have 10,000 x 6 x 3
— 180,000 francs, which the company pays
yearly to the inhabitants of a town having a
population of 70,000 souls. But as the com-
pany resells to the farmer the said soil for ma-
nuring purposes, at ten francs per charette, it
follows that this article of traffic produces
yearly at Strasburg 300,000 francs, or just
about 4J francs for each inhabitant. The
average sum, therefore, for each inhabitant of
a city, where the mixed contents of cesspools
are sold for their benefit, which I have as-
sumed may be adopted with safety, as founded
on fact. (Jotim. Roy. Agr. Soc, vol. i. p. 124 —
371 ; Rej). Thames Improv. 17.)

GERMEN (Lat.a6ttrf). In botany, the organ
commonly called the ovarium.

GERMINATION (Lat. germen). The pro-
cess by which a plant is produced from a seed.
It is, in truth, the springing into life of a new
individual. The phenomena of germination
are best observed in dicotyledonous seeds;
such, for instance, as the bean, pea, lupin, &c.
These seeds consist of two lobes or cotyledons,
enveloped in a common membrane; when this
is removed a small projecting body is seen,
which is that part of the germ which subse-
quently becomes the root, and is termed the ra-
dicle ; the other portion of the germ is seen on
carefully separating the cotyledons, and is term-
ed the plumula ; it afterwards forms the stem

537

GERMINATION.

GESTATION.

and leaves. When the ripe seed is removed
from the parent plant it gradually dries, and
may be kept often for an indefinite period,
without undergoing any change; but if placed
under circumstances favourable to its germina-
tion, it soon begins to grow : these requisite
circumstances are a due temperature, mois-
ture, and the presence of air. The most fa-
vourable temperature is between 60" and 80°;
at the freezing point none of the most perfect
seeds vegetate, and at temperatures above 100°
the young germ is usually injured. No seed
will grow without moisture : water is at first
absorbed by the pores of the external cover-
ing, and decomposed; the seed gradually
swells, its membranes burst, and the germ ex-
pands. The root is at first most rapidly de-
veloped, the materials for its growth being
derived from the cotyledons ; and when it
shoots out its fibres or rootlets, these absorb
nourishment from the soil, and the plumula is
developed, rising upwards in a contrary direc-
tion to the root, and expanding into stem and
leaves. For this growth the presence of air is
requisite ; if it be carefully excluded, though
there be heat and moisture, yet the seed will
not vegetate. Hence it is that seeds buried
very deep in the earth or in a stiff clay, remain
inert; but on admission of air, by turning up
the soil, begin to vegetate. From experiments
which have been made upon the germination
of seeds in confined atmospheres, it appears
that the oxygen set free by the decomposition
of water, combines with a portion of the car-
bon of the seed, and carries it oflf in the form
of carbonic acid, and that the consequence of
this is the conversion of part of the albumen
and starch of the cotyledons into gum and
sugar ; so that most seeds, as we see in the
conversion of barley into malt, become sweet
during germination. Light is injurious to the
growth of the seed. It is, therefore, obvious
that the different requisites for germination are
attained by placing a seed under the surface
of the soil, where, warmed by the sun's rays,
and moistened by the humidity of the atmo-
sphere, it is excluded from light, but the air has
access to it.

Oxygen is an essential agent in the process
of germination, and without it seed will not
germinate, a fact which has been demonstrated
by placing seeds in vacuo, and in nitrogen, hy-
drogen, and carbonic acid. But, as in animal
life, too much oxygen is hurtful : it abstracts
the carbon too rapidly, overstimulates, and
causes feebleness of growth to the infant plant.

When the young plant is perfected, the coty-
ledons, if not converted into leaves, rot away,
and the process of nutrition is carried on by
the root and leaves : the principal nourishment
is taken up from the soil by the root, and chiefly
by its small and extreme fibres ; so that when
these are injured or torn, as by careless trans-
plantation, the plant or tree generally dies.
The matters absorbed, consisting of water
holding small portions of saline substances,
and of organic matter in solution, become the
sap of the plant ; and this is propelled upwards
in the vessels of the stem, or of the outer layer
of the wood, into the leaves ; here it is exposed
to the agency of air and of light; moisture,
538

and occasionally carbonic acid, is transpired.
But the leaves also at times absorb moisture,
and during the influence of light they decom-
pose the carbonic acid, and retaining the car-
bon, evolve oxygen ; the sap thus becomes
modified in its composition, and the charac-
teristic proximate principles of the vegetable
are formed. These return in appropriate ves-
sels from the leaves chiefly to the inner bark,
where we accordingly find the accumulation
of the peculiar product of the plant; they also
enable it annually to form a new layer of wood.
Hence it is that the transverse section of the
wood exhibits as many distinct zones as the
tree is years old. We are ignorant of the
causes of this ascent of the sap ; but that it
does follow the cause which has been stated is
proved by the operation which gardeners call
ringing, and which they sometimes resort to, to
make a barren branch bear flowers and fruit.
It consists in cutting out and removing a cir-
cular ring of bark, so as to prevent the return
of the sap by the descending vessels, which at
first ooze copiously, but afterwards the wound
heals, and the juices are accumulated in all
parts above the extirpated ring, producing
tumefaction in the limb, and often inducing a
crop of flowers and fruit, or causing those to
appear earlier than on the uncut branches.

If a tree be wounded so as to cut into the
central portions of the wood, or the outer layer
of new wood, the flow of ascending sap is
then seen to take place upon the lower section,
where the vessels are that carry it up to the
leaves; and the flow of descending proper
juice is principally confined to the upper sec-
tion of the inner bark, from which, after a
time, new bark is produced, and the parts are
again united. To return to the process of
germination, every part of the seed is not es-
sential, nor the whole of the parts. Kidney
beans will germinate with only one cotyledon:
and oaks, also, germinate in the same state ;
gourds have been robbed of the radicle and
also the plumule, as they shoot forth, and yet
germination has proceeded ; but the plants
produced in all these cases were small, deli-
cate, and never come to perfection.

GESTATION. The gestatory term in quad-
rupeds is much regulated by their bulk. In
the elephant it is about 20 months, in the camel
between 11 and 12, in the mare and ass the
same. According to the observations of M.
Teissier of Paris, in 582 mares, which copu-
lated but once, the shortest period was 287
days, and the longest 419; making the extra-
ordinary difference of 32 days, and of 89 days
beyond the usual term of 11 months. The cow
usually brings forth in about nine months, and
the sheep in five. Swine usually farrow be-
tween the 120th and 140th day, being liable to
variations, influenced apparently by their size
and their particular breeds. In the bitch, on
the contrary, be she as diminutive as a kitten,
or as large as the boarhound, pupping occurs
on or about the 63d day. The cat produces:
either on the 55th or 56th day. The true]
causes which abridge or prolong more or less
the period of gestation in the females of quad-
rupeds, and of the incubation of birds, are
yet unknown to us. Many persons are- also

GINGER

GESTATION.

unacquainted with the proper age for repro- be interesting to find in the

duction, the duration of the power of repro-
duction, and other conditions even of the do-
mesticated animals. It cannot, therefore, but

results of observations made

by the best ancient and modern naturalists.

( Oeconomische neukundige Verhandl.)

Kindi of Aoimali.

Mare - - - - -

Stallion - . . .

Cnw - - _ - -
Bull ...

Ewe - - . - -

Tup - - - - -

Sow - . . . .

Boar - - . - -

She Goat - . . -

He-Goal - - - -

She-Asa - - - .

Hh-Ass - . - .

8lie Buffalo ...

Bilrh

«"g

She-Cat - . - .

He-Cat - - - -

Doe-Rahhit - . .

Buck-Rabbit - . -

Cock - - - . -

Turkey, silting") Hen C

on the eggs > Duck <

of the 3 Turkey (.

Hen, sittinK on 1 Duck i

the egjja of the 3 Hen (.

Diick - - - - -

Goose . - - .

Pigeon - - -

Proper A^e for
Reproduction.

4 years

5 —
3 —

3 —

a —

9 —

1 —

8 —

2 —

4 —

5 —

2 —

2 —

1 —

1 —
6 inontha

6 —

6 —

Period of the
Power of Re-
production.

Tears.

10 to 12

12 to 15

10

5

6

7

6

tf

6

5
10 to 12
12 to 15

8 to 9

8 to 9
5 tn 0

9 tn 10
5 to 6
5 to 6
5 to 6

3 to 5

Number of Fe-

nudn for one

Male.

20 to 30
30 to 40
40 to 50
6 tn To
20 to 40

5 to 6

30
12 lo 15

The most Ft-
vounble Seaion
tur CopuUtion.

May
July
Nov.
March
Nov.
May

Feb.

Nov.

Period of Gestation and Incubation.

240

146

109

150

365

281
55

48

Davs.

347

154

115

156

380

308
60

50

Longest
Period.

Days.
419

321

161

143

163

391

335

63

66
35

Some of these results do not altogether co-
incide with the results of observations in Eng-
land, where, for example, July, the season of
copulation for the cow, is considered too late.
That period would produce late calves in the
following year. November is stated to be the
best season for the ewe ; for the black-faced
ewe it is, but for the Leicester, and, in many
situations, lor the Cheviot ewe, it is a month too
late. The duration of the power of reproduc-
tion accords with our experience as respects
the mare and stallion; but 13 years of age for
the cow, and 8 for the bull, is too young a
period for old age in them, fine animals of both
sexes, of a valuable breed, having been kept
in a useful state to a much greater age. I
have seen a short-horn bull in use at 13 years,
and a cow of the same breed bearing calves
at 18; but if the ages of 8 and 13 respectively
refer to the usual time bulls and cows are kept
for use, the statement is not far from the truth.

From some carefully collected and very exten-
sive notes made by Lord Spencer on the periods
of gestation of 764 cows, it resulted that the
shortest period of gestation when a live calf
was produced was 220 days, and the longest
313 days, but he was not able to rear any calf
produced at an earlier perind than 242 days.
From the result of his experiments it appears
that 314 cows calved before the 284th day, and
310 calved after the 285th ; so that the probable
period of gestation ought to be considered 284
or 285 days. The experiments of M. Teissier
on the gestation of cows, are recorded lo have
given the following results: —

21 caUed between the 240th and 270th day, the i
644 — — 2Tmh «n.l 2P9th

10 — — 299thand3iil.t

I being 2504
303

In most cases, therefore, between nine and
ten months may be assumed as the usual pe-

riod; though, with a bull-calf, the cow has
been generally observed to go about 41 weeks,
and a few days less with a female. Any calf
produced at an earlier period than 260 days
must be considered decidedly premature, and
any period of gestation exceeding 300 days
must also be considered irregular; but in this
latter case, the health of the produce is not
affected. I will conclude this article with the
remarks of Mr. C. Hilliard, of Northampton,
who states that the period of gestation of a
cow is 284 days, or, as it is said, 9 calendar
months and 9 days ; the ewe 20 weeks ; the
sow 16 weeks; the mare 11 months. The
well-bred cattle of the present time appear to
me to bring forth twins more frequently than
the cattle did 50 years ago. The males of all
animals, hares excepted, are larger than the
females. Castrated male cattle become larger
beasts than entire males. {Blaine's Ency. pp.
205, 281 ; Quart. Journ. of Jgr. vol. x. p. 287.)

GILL. A small valley, connected with a
stream and some woodiness. Also a rivulet, or
small brook. It is likewise a provincial name
in some districts for a pair of timber wheels.

GILTS. A provincial term applied to young
female pigs, whether open or spayed.

GINGER, WILD (.^sarum,.^sarabaccayliidiaji
ginger). This genus of herbaceous plants are
small and unobtrusive. Botanists enumerate
three species as found in the United States. That
called Canada snake root (ji. Canadense), very
closely resembles the European asarabacca,
and is met with in old woods from Canada to
the Carolinas. It has only two round, flat, and
kidnej'-shaped leaves with naked stalks, which,
on plucking the plant are found connected
below, with an obscure flower in their fork,
buried under the decayed leaves. It flowers
from May to July. The root is creeping,

53»

GINSENG.

.cshy, somewhat jointed, and has an agreeable
aromatic taste, intermediate between that of
ginger and the Virginia snake root. Hence
its popular names. As a warm stimulant and
diap|ioretic it is much praised, being given in
the form of tea or powder ; and as a substitute
for ginger, in common domestic use, I know
of no indigenous article, says Dr. Bigelow,
which promises so fairly as this. It does not
possess the very active emetic, cathartic, and
sternutatory powers of the European asarum.
The other American species are the A. Virgi-
■nicum, and Jl. arifolium.

GINSENG (Panax quinquefolium, five-leaved
panax). This American plant, which has
great commercial importance, has a perennial
root, which sends up annually a smooth, round
stem, about a foot in height, dividing at the
summit into three leafstalks, each of which
supports a compound leaf, consisting of five,
or more rarely of three or seven petiolate,
oblong, obovate, acuminate, serrate leaflets.
The flowers are small, greenish, and arranged
in a simple umbel, supported by a peduncle,
which rises from the top of the stem in the
centre of the petioles. The fruit consists of
kidney-shaped, scarlet berries, crowned with the
styles and calyx, and containing two, and some-
times three seeds. The root is fleshy, somewhat
spindle-shaped, from 1 to 3 inches long, about
as thick as the little finger, and terminated by
several slender fibres. Frequently there are
two portions, sometimes three or more, con-
nected at their upper extremity, and bearing a
supposed though very remote resemblance to
the human figure, from which circumstance it
is said that the Chinese name g^inscHg originated.
When dried, the root is yellowish white, and
wrinkled externally, and within consists of a
hard, hornlike substance, surrounded by a
whitish, softer, cortical portion. It has a feeble
odour, and a sweet, slightly aromatic taste,
somewhat analogous to that of liquorice root.
It has not been accurately analyzed, but is said
to be rich in gum and starch.

The plant grows in the hilly regions of the
Northern, Middle, and Western States, and
prefers the shelter of thick, shady woods.
It is a native also of Chinese Tartary. The
root is the part employed. This is collected
in considerable quantities in Ohio and West-
ern Virginia, and brought to Philadelphia
and other cities on the sea-board for the
purpose of exportation to China, where it
is highly valued. While supplied exclusively
from their own native sources, which furnish-
ed the root only in small quantities, the Chinese
entertained the most extravagant notions of
its virtues, considering it as a remedy for all
diseases, and as possessing almost miraculous
powers in preserving health, invigorating the
system, and prolonging life. It is said to have
been worth its weight in gold at Pekin ; and
the first shipments made from North America
to Canton, after the discovery of the root in this
country, were attended with enormous profits.
But the subsequent abundance of supply has
greatly diminished its value, and though it still
occasionally forms a part of the investments
for Canton, it has become an object of less
importance than formerly.
540

GLASSWORT, JOINTED.

j The following statement shows the value

I of the ginseng exported Irom the United States
for seven years ending the 30th September,
1841: viz. 1834, $70,202; 1835,|94,970; 1836,
$211,405; 1837,$109,.368; 1838, $36,622 ; 1839,
$118, 904 ; 1840, $22,728; 1841, $437,245.

Medical Properties and Uses. — The extraordi-
nary medical virtues formerly ascribed to
ginseng, had no other existence than in the
imaginations of the Chinese. It is little more
than a demulcent; and in this country is not
employed as a medicine. Some persons, how-
ever, are in the habit of chewing it, having
acquired a relish for its taste ; and it is chiefly
to supply the wants of these that it is kept in
the shops. (C7. S. Dispensatory.)

There is another species of ginseng indige-
nous to the lower part of Pennsylvania and
other sections of the United States, called the
dwarf ginseng, or three-leaved panax (P. trifo-
liuni). This has also a perennial root, a glo-
bose tuber about half an inch in diameter,
rather deep in the ground. The stem grows 4
to 6 inches high, slender, minutely grooved,
smooth, mostly of a tawny purple colour, di-
vided at the summit into three petioles of half
an inch to an inch long. Leaflets, generally
three, but not unfrequently five, unequal,half an
inch to two inches long, and i to •§ of an inch
wide, lance-oblong shape, rather acute. The
flower is white and has five petals. The plant
frequents shaded grounds, along rivulets, where
it blooms in April. (Flora Cestrica.)

Professor Hooker describes a third species
of ginseng (P. horridum), which is large,
shrubby and prickly. This grows west of the
Rocky Mountains.

GIPSEY-WORT, or WATER HORE-
HOUND (Lycopus Europceus). An herbaceous
perennial plant, growing on the banks of clear
ditches, pools, and rivers, on a sandy or gra-
velly soil, flowering in July or August. The
root is creeping, stem two feet high, leaves
numerous, oblong, acute, deeply serrated, often
deeply pinnatifid. Flowers white, with purple
dots. See Bugle Weed.

GLANDERS. A disease in horses, attended
with a copious discharge of mucus from the
nose. It is needless to endeavour to describe
the various attempts which have been made to
cure this almost invariably fatal disorder. But
the farmer must avoid a common error of con-
founding ulceration of the membrane of the
nose with glanders, for the symptoms are very
similar. Blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) in
thin gruel (one drachm doses) has been given
in recent cases with occasional success. The
nostrils may be washed with a solution of
chloride of lime. The farmer will do well, as
soon as he finds a horse attacked with this
disease, to place him by himself, give him
green food, and thoroughly whitewash the
stable from which he is taken, for it is a most
contagious disease.

GLASSWORT, JOINTED (Salicornia; from
sal, salt, and cortiu, a horn). Of this genus of
plants there are, in England, four indigenous
species, which are found very common in salt
marshes and muddy sea-shores that are fre-

I quently overflowed by the tide.

1 1. The common jointed glasswort, sea-grass,

GLOW-WORM.

GNATS.

or marsh samphire (»S. herbacea), is an annual
plant, with a small fibrous root, a bushy, green
stem a foot high, with opposite branches ;
woody centre very tough. Flowers on nu-
merous short-jointed spikes. The whole plant
has a saline taste, abounding in salt juices, and
is therefore devoured with avidity by all kinds
of cattle ; and it is a very wholesome food,
especially for sheep. It is often pickled, as a
substitute for the very different strongly aro-
matic rock samphire {Crithmum maritimum), to
which it is for this purpose very little inferior.

Several other species of glass-wort are enu-
merated, three of which Mr. Nuttall gives as
American, which, like the European, affords
soda when burned, and are preserved in vine-
gar as a pickle.

Soda is yielded in large quantities by the
ashes of the different species of Salirornia; and
is in great request for manufacturing soap and
glass: the best is imported from Spain, under
the name of Barilla (seeSonx). These plants
will grow in any common soil, and are readily
increased by divisions. Being natives of the
sea-shore, the plants will thrive better if a little
salt be occasionally sprinkled on the surface
of the soil. ( IVillich's D</m. Enry.)

GLOW-WORM (Lampyris nodilura). This
insect is remarkable for the light it emits dur-
ing the night. This luminous appearance de-
pends upon a phosphorescent fluid found at
the lower extremity of the insect; which, by
unfolding or contracting itself, it can withdraw
at pleasure ; a power of consequence to the in-
sect, as it is thus secured from the attacks of
nocturnal birds. The light arises from a sac,
which is diaphanous, and contains a secreted
fluid consisting of albumen and phosphorus.
Glow-worms are sometimes called St. John's
worms, from appearing first as a common oc-
currence about the Feast of St. John the Bap-
tist. The glow-worm is the perfect female of
a winged beetle ; the males fly about chiefly in
autumn, and frequent the grassy plantations of
juniper trees.

GLUE (Lat. gluten), is prepared from the
chippings of hides, hoofs, &c. The refuse
matter of the glue-makers, according to Mr.
Miles, is an excellent manure for turnips.

GLUTEN (Lat.). The viscid elastic sub-
stance which remains when wheat flour is
wrapt in a coarse cloth, and washed under a
stream of water, so as to carry off" the starch
and soluble matters. Gluten, when pure, is
inodorous, insipid, tenacious, adhesive, and
elastic. It is insoluble in water, but soluble in
hot alcohol. It is also soluble in a dilute so-
lution of potash. When kept moist and warm,
it ferments. Gluten exists in grains, and oc-
casionally in other parts of vegetables ; but it
is a characteristic ingredient in wheat, giving
wheat flour its particular toughness and tena-
city, which particularly fits it for the manufac-
ture of bread, and for viscid pastes, such as
macaroni and vermicelli. There is generally
more gluten in the wheat of warm climates
than of cold; hence the excellence of that
grown in the south of Europe for the manu-
factures just mentioned. Gluten seems also
j to constitute the essential part of yeast. Its
uses as a varnish, a ground for paint, Sec,

pointed out by Cadet, likewise deserve atten-
tion. Gluten was discovered in 1742 by Bec-
caria, an Italian philosopher, to whom we are
indebted for the first analysis of wheat flour.
The number of plants containing gluten is
very considerable. Proust fecund it in acorns,
chestnuts, rice, barley, rye, peas and beans,
and in apples and quinces. He found it also
in the leaves of the cabbage, cress, hemlock,
borage, saff'ron, &c., and in the sedums ; in the
berries of the elder, the grape, &c.; in the pe-
tals of the rose, &c. Gluten has been shown
to resemble albumen so closely that they can
hardly be considered as distinct principles.
Gluten contains nitrogen, and has, conse-
quently, been called the vegeto-animal princi-
ple, on this account. It yields ammonia, when
subjected to destructive distillation ; and the
vegetables which contain it give out a pecu-
liarly disagreeable odour during their putre-
faction. M. Magendie, after feeding animals
upon different kinds of food, states that gela-
tine, fibrin, albumen, when taken singly, do not
possess the power of nourishing animals for
any length of time; they always die. The
reverse is the case, however, with gluten, upon
which animals thrive well and long.

GNATS (Culex, Linn.). A genus of insects
comprising several species, which are well
known by the severe punctures they inflict.
The gnat most common in Europe is the C.
pipiens, so named from the sound which it
emits in its flight. The sting consists of 5
pieces and a sheath ; some of the pieces are
simple lancets ; others are barbed, and act
both as piercers and as siphons, to extract the
blood from the wounds which they make.
Gnats deposit their eggs, to the number of 200
by each female, on stagnant waters, where
they are hatched into small grubs in the course
of 2 or 3 days. On the sides are 4 small fins,
by the aid of which the insect swims about,
and swiftly dives to the bottom. The larva re-
tains its form a fortnight or 3 weeks, when it
is converted into the chrj'salis, in which state
it continues 3 or 4 days, floating on the surface
of the water, till it assumes the for^ of the
gnat. The most efficacious remedies for their
sting are olive oil, unsalted butter, or fresh
hog's lard, timely rubbed in. Gnats have
occasionally appeared in such numbers as
to form a cloud, almost darkening the air,
as was the case in August, 1766, near Oxford.
Spencer describes a similar flight of them in
Ireland —

" As when a swarme of gnats at eventide.
Out of the fennes of Allan doe arise,
Th«»ir mnnnuring small trumpets sownden wide.
Whiles in the air their clustering army flies,
That as a cloud doth seem to dim the skies."

Faery ^ueene.

The mosquito of tropical climates is a spe-
cies of the same genus as the gnat ; and the
latter is not less troublesome in some of our
marshy districts than the mosquito in the West
Indies. In the marsh land of Norfolk, the bet-
ter classes are forced to have gauze curtains to
keep them off" during the night.

The species of gnat best known in America

is a small, black fly, which swarms during the

month of June, and is especially annoying to

travellers, and the first inhabitants of new set-

2 Z 541

GOATS.

GOLD FISH.

tlements. Every bite made by these fierce little
insects draws blood, and is generally followed
by considerable irritation, and even inflamma-
tion» " These little tormentors," says Dr. Har*
ris, " are of a black colour ; their wings are trans-
parent ; and their legs are short, with a broad,
whitish ring around them. The length of their
body rarely exceeds one-tenth of an inch. They
begin to appear in May, and continue about
6 weeks, after which they are no more seen.
They are followed, however, by swarms of
midges, or sand-flies (SimuHum «oaywm), called
no-see-'em, by the Indians of Maine, on ac-
count of their minuteness. So small are they,
that they Would hardly be perceived, were it
not for their wings, which are of a whitish
colour, mottled with black. Towards evening
these winged atoms come forth, and creep
under the clothes of the inhabitants, and by
their bites produce an intolerable irritation,
and a momentary smarting compared to that
caused by sparks of fire. They do not draw
blood, and no swelling follows their attacks.
They are the most troublesome during the
months of July and August." (See Mosauixo.)

GOATS (Capra). There are three species
of this genus enumerated by naturalists. 1.
The wild goat (C. cpgagrus) ; 2. The ibex (C
ibex) ; 3. The Caucasian ibex (C. Caucasia) : of
these, the first is believed to be the original of
the many varieties of the domestic goat.

The goat appears (says Prof. Low) to form
the connecting link between the sheep on the
one hand, and the antelope tribes on the other.
Being the natural inhabitant of mountainous
regions, it is, therefore, in wild, rocky countries
that the goat is chiefly reared. Goats are
stronger, more nimble, and less timid than
sheep, and are more easily supported than any
other animals, for there are few herbs which
they do not relish : they will browse on heaths,
shrubs, and plants, which are rejected by other
animals ; Jind it is well known they can eat
with safety herbs (such as the hemlock, hen-
bane, &c.) which would prove destructive to
sheep and other animals. Goats are more
hardy, and not liable to so many diseases as
sheep. The goat is not well adapted to a
country of enclosures, because it feeds upon
the twigs of hedges, and escapes over the bar-
riers intended to confine it. But where there
are no young trees to be injured, they may
browse at large on the mountain brakes with-
out expense ; and in winter, when housed, they
are easily supported on whins or furze, cab-
bage leaves, potato-peelings, and such worth-
less food.

Goats emit at all times a strong and disa-
greeable odour, named hircine, which, however,
is not without its use, for if one of these ani-
mals be kept in a stable, it is affirmed that it
will be an effectual preventative of the staggers,
a nervous disorder which is often very fatal to
horses. In Great Britain the cultivation of
the goat is limited and partial. It is chiefly
confined to the mountainous parts of Wales,
the Highlands of Scotland, and to the little
farms of the poorer peasants of Ireland, whose
scanty possessions will not support a cow.
The great objection there to the rearing of the
goat, is the want of demand for its flesh, which
642

is hard, and almost indigestible. Even the kid,
whose flesh is known to be very delicate and
nourishing, is held in no estimation : hence all
the other properties of the goat are insufficient
to render it an object of profitable production.
But the goat, although it never can be so valu-
able there as in the dry and rocky countries of
the south of Europe, does not deserve that entire
neglect with which it is treated. It arrives )
early at maturity, and is very prolific, bearing
two and sometimes three kids at a birth. The
period of gestation is five months. The female
bears for six or seven years ; the male should
not be kept longer than five. In Portugal and
some other countries the goat is used as a
beast of draught for light burdens. The hair
of the goat may be shorn, as it is of some value,
making good linsey; that of the Welch he-
goat is in great request for making white wigs.
Ropes are sometimes made from goats' hair,
and are said to last much longer, when used in
the water, than those made of hemp. Candles
are manufactured from their fat, which, in
whiteness and quality, are stated to be supe-
rior to those of wax ; their horns afllbrd excel-
lent handles for knives and forks; and the
skin, especially that of the kid, is in demand
for gloves and other purposes. Goats' milk is
sweet, nutritive, and medicinal, and less apt to
curdle on the stomach than that of the cow : it
forms an excellent substitute for that of asses.
When yielding milk the goat will give, for
several months, at the average of two quarts
per day. Mr. Pringle of Kent, in his Essay
"on Cottage Management" (Gar J. Mag. vol.5),
informs us that two milch goats are equivalent
to one small Shetland cow. Cheese prepared
from goats' milk is much esteemed in moun-
tainous countries after it has been kept a proper
age. (ioic's Pract. Agr. and Breeds of Bom.
Animals; Willick's Dom. Encyc.)

GOAT'S-BEARD (Tragopogon). Of this
common pasture-weed there are two species.
1. The yellow goat's-beard (T. pratensis), a
biennial, growing in grassy pastures and mear
dows, on a loamy or clayey damp soil. The
root is tapering, flowering in June ; the whole
herb very smooth, abounding with milky juice,
rather bitter, but not acrid. Stems several,
round, leafy, often purplish, 1^ to 2 feet high.
Leaves long and taper pointed, often flaccid,
or curling at the extremity. Flowers large, 2
inches wide, bright yellow, opening very early
in the morning, and closing before noon, ex-
cept in very cloudy weather. The roots and
young shoots have been eaten as pot-herbs.

2. The purple goat's-beard (T. porrifolius)^
also biennial, grows in most meadows, near :
great rivers ; herb smooth, 3 or 4 feet high, 'i
glaucous. The dull purple flowers, like the
preceding species, close at midday ; thence it
is called in the country Go-to-bed-at-noon. —
(Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. iii. p. 337.)

GOAT-WEED (Capraria biflora). An unin-
teresting species of plants, of easy culture.
The leaves of this genus are liked by goats ;
hence the common and generic names.

GOGGLES. See Sheep, Diseases of.

GOLD and SILVER FISH. These beauti-
ful creatures were first introduced into Eng-
land from China about the close of the 17th

t

GOLDEN CLUB.

GOOSE.

century. The first are of an orange colour,
with very shining scales, and finely variegated
with black and dark brown. The silver fish
are of the colour of silver tissue, with scarlet
fins, with which colour they are curiously
marked in several parts of the body. These
fish are usually kept in ponds, basins, and
small reservoirs of water, to which they are a
very great ornament. It is also a very com-
mon practice to keep them in large globular
glass vessels, frequently changing the water,
and feeding them with bread and gentles. The
gold fish is now abundant in the river Schuyl-
kill, near Philadelphia, into which they first
made their way in consequence of the over-
flowing of a fish-pond in Pratt's garden, where
considerable numbers were kept.

GOLDEN CLUB, called also Never-Wet,
and Floating Arum (Orontium aquuticum). A
plant not unfrequent in pools along the fresh
water streams of the United Slates. It has a
perennial root, leaves enlarging, finally to 8,
10, or 12 inches long, and 3 to 5 inches wide,
a little succulent, veiy smooth, of a deep green
and velvety appearance on the upper surface,
paler and somewhat glaucous beneath. Flow-
ers vellow.

GOLDEN OAT GRASS. See Avexa.

GOLDEN-ROD (Solidago, from tolidare, to
unite, on account of the supposed vulnerary
qualities of the plants). This is an extensive
genus of coarse flowering plants suitable for
the back of flower borders. Any common soil
suits them, and they are readily increased by
division of the roots. The common golden-
rod, or wound-wort (S. virgaurea) is a native
of Britain, growing in woods, hedges, heaths,
and copses ; and on mountains at every degree
of elevation. It is perennial, and flowers from
July to September. It is a very variable plant
in magnitude, number, and size of flowers, and
serrature of the leaves : nor do these varieties
altogether depend on situation, except that in
alpine specimens the flowers are larger and
fewer. The root is woody, with long, stout,
simple fibres ; the stem usually from one to
three feet high, never quite straight, purple
below, most downy in the upper part, where it
terminates in a leafy cluster, either simple or
compound, of bright yellow flowers. When
bruised, the whole herb smells like wild car-
rot. Its qualities are diuretic, astringent, and
perhaps tonic ; and it has been recommended
as a vulnerary both externally and internally,
but it is now never used in medicine. It may,
with greater advantage, be employed as a dye-
ing drug, for both the leaves and flowers im-
part a beautiful yellow colour, which, accord-
ing to Bechstein, is even superior to that
obtained from woad. The Canada golden-rod
(S. Canadensis) is frequently used for this pur-
pose. (Eng. Flora, vo!. iii. p. 438.)

Solidago is exclusively a North American
genus of plants, with the exception of 5 or 6
species in Europe, and 2 found near Canton,
in China. About 50 species of golden-rod have
been enumerated by botanists in the United
States, some of which are, however, regarded as
mere varieties. (NidtaWs Genera.— Fhr. Cest.)

GOLDEN-SAXIFRAGE {Chrysosplenium,
from chrysos, gold, and sj/len, the spleen, in

reference to the deep yellow colour of the flow-
ers, and the supposed medicinal virtues of the
plant). This is a curious and rather pretty
genus. It requires a moist situation, and may
be increased by dividing the roots. The na-
tive species in England are found in the great-
est perfection upon the shady banks of small
rivulets. They are two in number, both peren-
nials, flowering in May. The alternate-leaved
golden-saxifrage {Ch. alternifolium) has the root
fibrous and creeping ; stems angular, decum-
bent, branched at the top only; leaves alter-
nate, reniform, rough on both sides the notches,
but the under disk pale and polished; radical
leaves on long stalks, those of the summit
crowded and sessile ; flowers in a corymb,
deep yellow. The opposite-leaved golden-
saxifrage (Ch. oppositifolium) resembles the
preceding, but is paler; the leaves smaller and
the flowers of a pale lemon yellow. (See Saxi-
frage.

GOLD OF PLEASURE (Camelina sativa,
wild flax). This is rather a dwarf plant, grow-
ing from 1 to 2 feet high, which is found in
cultivated fields, chiefly among flax, with whose
seeds it is often introduced from abroad ; but
it does not long propagate itself with us spon-
taneously. It is an annual, blowing small,
pale-yellow flowers in June. It is cultivated
in some parts of Europe for the sake of the
oil, which is obtained from the seeds. The
species of the genus to which it belongs have
but little beauty, and require to be sown in the
open border. See Wild Flax.

GOOSE. A well-known large, web-footed
bird, belonging to the order natatores, or swim-
mers. These are remarkable for their powers
of swimming and diving; they are commonly
called water-fowl, and, as an order, have fre-
quently been designated palmipedes, in reference
to their webbed feet. From the geographical
position, extent, and varied character of the
British islands, the species of this order are
very numerous, comprehending nearly one-
third of the whole number of our British birds.
The first family of this order, the anatiday is
also extensive ; including the geese, swans,
ducks, and mergansers. The first three por-
tions were formerly considered as belonging to
but one genus, anas; and hence the family
name, anatidce. Modern systematic authors
have found it more convenient, as well as de-
sirable, to divide them into smaller groups,
which are known to be distinct in their cha-
racter and habits. Many of the species are
of great interest and value. The present arti-
cle will, however, be restricted to some account
of tame geese.

Two varieties of the domestic goose are in-
digenous to Great Britain, the gray and white
goose, and the pure white, which is of a larger
size. The first is our most plentiful breed : the
second are bad breeders, seldom producing
more than three goslings at a brood, and that
j only every alternate year. There is, also, the
Chinese breed, which is naturalized among us,
I valuable for their early breeding, and quick
I fattening. The Chinese goose lays about the
I end of November, if the weather is not severe,
j and produces her «;osIings in January. These
goslings, if kept dry and warm, are fit for the

543

GOOSEBERRY.

GOOSEBERRY.

table in April and May. This goose is, how-
ever smaller, less delicate eating, and more
noisy than the common gray goose. The
common goose begins to lay towards Candle-
mas, and after laying from 9 to 11 eggs, she
sits 30 days, and then brings out her little flock.
If, however, she show a wish to sit when she
has only laid two or three eggs, she must be
driven from the nest, or be shut up for a day
or two. She will then take to lay again. One
gander and five geese are the regular stock to
begin with: they will produce 50 goslings in a
season. Geese are grazing birds : they love a
common, but horses do not like their company
in a field, as they object to feed after them.
The herb called goose-grass they are immode-
rately fond of, and it is plentiful always under
hedges during the gosling season. Water is
important to geese, but they succeed in situa-
tions where there is no pond : a large, shallow
pan filled with water, sufliciently capacious to
admit of their washing in it, has often an-
swered the purpose ; but a pool is most desir-
able. The goose-hovel should be low, well
thatched, and not facing into the farm-yard, i
otherwise pigs will get through the goose-
aperture. It should have a door, also, for the
poultry-woman to enter. The nests should be
composed of straw, lined with hay, and the
birds should be fed near their home, to allure
them to it. If some of the goslings are hatch-
ed before the others, they should be removed
from the mother, kept warm in flannel before
the fire, and returned to her when the whole
brood are hatched. Thin barley meal and
water is excellent food for goslings, with chop-
ped goose-grass ; they soon learn to eat oats,
and feed themselves. Mow down hemlock, if
any grows near the poultry-yard : it is perni-
cious in its effects upon poultry. Fatten geese
in small parties, as they love society. They
should be cooped a month, fed plentifully with
sweet oats and clean pure water in a narrow
wooden trough. An experiment has lately
been tried of feeding geese with turnips, cut
up very fine, and put into a trough with water.
The effect was, that six geese, weighing only
nine pounds each when shut up, actually
weighed 20 pounds each, after about three
weeks' feeding with this food alone. Half-
grown ctr green geese are delicate eating in
June and July; but they need not be cooped,
they must only be well fed. Goose feathers are
valuable, and their dung is employed as a
manure by agriculturists.

GOOSEBERRY (lUies grossularia). The
gooseberry is indigenous to Great Britain,
some other European countries of cool tem-
perature, and also to the mountains of North
America. The varieties of this fruit are too
numerous to notice. By some botanists they
are referred to two species, Ribes grossularia,
the rough gooseberry, and R. uva-crispa, the
smooth gooseberrj' ; but others consider the
latter as being merely a variety of the former,
which is more correct, as it has been proved
by successive reproductions that the rough
will sometimes become smooth and the smooth
rough. The gooseberry ripens in the extreme
norihe.rn parts of Britain, if near the level of
the sea ; and at an altitude of about 900 feet,
.'S44

in the centre of the island, it acquires great
perfection of flavour. In the southern coun-
ties, if the season be warm, it cannot bear full
exposure to the vertical rays of the sun : in
such circumstances evaporation takes place
from the surface faster than the subjacent
tissues can supply the loss, the superficial
cells get emptied, and the fruit dies.

In England the gooseberry is esteemed one
of their most valuable fruits. In spring it fur-
nishes the earliest as well as the best fruit for
tarts and sauces : and can be preserved green
as well as ripe for winter use. When ripe it
makes an excellent jam, a delicious sweetmeat,
a luscious wine, and is a favourite dessert.

The following selection is recommended for
small English gardens: Reels — Old rough red,
Melling's crown bob, Farmer's roaring lion,
Knight's Marquis of Stafford, Champagne and
Capper's top sawyer: one of the best of the
red gooseberries is the Scotch ironmonger: it
is hairy, and thin-skinned. Yellows. — Hard-
castle's gunner, Hills's golden gourd. Prophet's \
rockwood, Hamlet's kilton, Dixon's golden
yellow, Gordon's viper. Greens. — Edward's
jolly tar, Massey's heart of oak, Nixon's green
myrtle, early green hairy, Parkinson's laurel,
Wainwright's ocean. Whites. — Coleworth's
white lion, Moore's white bear, Crompton's
Shebaqueen, Saunders's Cheshire lass,Welling-
ton's glory, Woodward's whitesmith. Smooth
skins become tough in cooking, and should
not be selected for that purpose.

The gooseberry can be raised from cuttings,
from suckers, or from seeds : the former is
generally resorted to as being the most expe-
ditious ; and seed ,is only sown to raise new
varieties. Cuttings may be planted in the fall,
or as early in the spring as the weather will
permit.

The gooseberry is, comparatively, but little
cultivated in the United States, though there is
no doubt that in several districts of the Middle
and Eastern States it could be brought to as
great perfection as in England. It is a native
of the soil : and loves to climb the sides of our
mountain ridges, and if planted in places that
somewhat resemble its native habitats, it would
no doubt repay our care. It ought to have an
airy situation, a rich soil, and a dry subsoil is
essential, or it becomes infected with mildew.
If it has no natural shade, during a few hours
in the middle of the day, it must be shaded
from the extreme heat of the sun. The berries
acquire their finest flavour when brought to
maturity gradually, under a low temperature.
In pruning, instead of the lateral young shoots
being cut close in, immediately above the first
bud at their base, as recommended in colder
climates, two buds should be left, to produce
leaves to shade the fruit in summer. The /
vigorous-growing varieties ought to be prefer-
red for planting.

GoosEBEnuT Catehpillati. For the de-
struction of these insects fumigations of va-
rious kinds ; dusting with quick lime, and
other methods have been resorted to, but they
do not always answer the purpose. Wetting
them by means of a proper syringe, with fresh
lime-water, whilst the sun is shining strongly,
is said to be a very effectual remedy. The

GOOSEFOOT.

GOSSYPIUM.

roots of the plant are not made wet by this
operation which promotes the growth of the
bushes and helps their bearing properties.
Tobacco liquor is also often found a good ap-
plication for the destruction of caterpillars, and
also the solution of whale oil soap, as recom-
mended for the destruction of bark-lice and
ophidians. This last remedy is also said to be
completely effectual in removing the mould,
rust, or mildew to which the gooseberry-bush is
so very subject, an affection which would seem
to be capable of propagation with the plants.
Mr. S. R. Gummere, of Burlington, New Jersey,
an intelligent botanist, and successful horti-
culturist, states that the russet mould to which
the gooseberry-bush is subject, may be pre-
vented by carefully removing the buds from
that portion of the cutting which, in planting,
is inserted into the ground.

Seventeen or eighteen species of gooseberry,
says Dr. Darlington, are enumerated as natives
of the United States. Of these the Missouri
currant (Ribes aureum) is much cultivated, and
greatly admired for the beauty and spring fra-
grance of its flowers.

GOOSEFOOT (Chenopodium). An extensive
genus of plants, of which 13 species are enu-
merated by Sir J. E. Smith, as natives of Britain,
viz. 1. Mercury goosefoot (C bonus Henricus),
growing in waste ground and by road sides fre-
quent, and occasionally in pastures. The root is
branchy and fleshy ; the herb dark green, nearly
smooth ; stem a foot high, term inating in a com-
pound crowded cluster, or spike, of numerous
green flowers; their stalks sometimes unctuous
and mealy. This, our only perennial chenopo-
dium, may be eaten, when young, like spinach,
and is cultivated for the table in some parts of
Lincolnshire. It is insipid and mucilaginous,
rather mawkish, and soon becomes tough and
fibrous. Neither goats nor sheep relish this
plant, which is also refused by cattle and hogs.
2. The upright goosefoot (C. urbicum), and 3.,
The red goosefoot, also occur commonly on
waste ground; the former sometimes on dung-
hills, and the latter in low, muddy situations.
In exposed situations the whole herb of C. ru-
brnm assumes a red colour. This species and
its allies are said to be poisonous to swine ;

4. The many spiked goosefoot (C botryoiden) ;

5. The nettle-leaved goosefoot, 6. The maple-
leaved goosefoot, call for no observation. The
whole plant of the two last species is fetid;

7. While goosefoot. or common wild orache
(C. album), is found in cultivated as well as
waste ground everywhere. The herb is mealy,
with a silvery unctuous pubescence, which,
by age, becomes dry and chaffy. The young
plant is reported to be eatable when boiled,
and is known by the name of fat-hen in some
parts of Norfolk. It is eaten by cattle, sheep,
and hogs, which last devour it with avidity;

8. The fig-leaved goosefoot (C./Jri/b/mm), flou-
rishes rat^st on dunghills, especially about
Loudon; 9. The oak-leaved goosefoot (C.
glnuatm), varies in height from 2 inches to 2
feet, and grows for the most part on a sandy
soil; 10. Standing goosefoot (C. oliditm). This
species is found very commonly among sand
or rubbish near the sea. The whole herb is
of a dull grayish-green, covered with a greasy

69

mealiness, which, when touched, exhales a
strong, permanent, nauseous odour, like stale
salt fish. It is, nevertheless, eaten by cattle,
horses, goats, and sheep, but refused by swine;
11. The round-leaved, or all-seed goosefoot, or
upright blite {C. polyspermum) ; 12. The sharp
entire-leaved goosefoot (C acutifoliutn'), a.re two
other species, which are less common. The
former is a curious plant, whose numerous
black shining seeds might perhaps be advan-
tageously employed in fattening poultry ; 13.
The sea goosefoot, small glasswort, or sea
blite (C. maritimum) : this species abounds on
the sea-shore, and grows also in sandy as well
as muddy places, flowering in July and August.
Stem thick and juicy, leaves smooth, about an
inch long, salt to the taste, of a light bright
green. Dr. Withering mentions this as an ex-
cellent pot-herb. In Siberia and Astracan the
inhabitants obtain from this plant their potash,
which probably partakes more of the nature
of soda. The alkaline salt contained in this
herb renders it serviceable in making glass,
though it is inferior to some kinds of salsola
found in the south of Europe.

Ten or twelve species of goosefoot have
been found in America, six of which Dr. Dar-
lington has detected in Pennsylvania. Most,
if not all, are supposed to be foreigners. They
are a homely family, generally regarded as
weeds. Those best known are the C, album
or lamb's quarter, used sometimes as spring
greens ; and the C. anthelminticum, or worm-
seed, a plant having a strong, disagreeable
odour, and yielding the well-known warm-seed
oil, a valuable and powerful vermifuge.

GOOSE-GRASS (Galium Irijidum). Three-
cleft galium ; also known by the common
name of ladies bed-straw. This native Ame-
rican plant is met with in moist, low grounds
and thickets, where its small, white flowers
appear in July. Its root is perennial, the stem
rising 1, 2, or 3 feet long, and much branched.
Professor Hooker thinks this may be distinct
from the G. trifidum of Europe, which, he says,
is a more slender plant than ours. (Flor. C«-
trica.) See Hariff.

GOOSE-GRASS, DYER'S. See Maddeh,
WiLn.

GOSSYPIUM. The generic name of cotton.
This plant, which administers so greatly to the
wants of man, and to the wealth of countries
producing it abundantly, has been known and
employed by the Asiatics and Egyptians in the
fabrication of clothing, from the earliest dates
of antiquity that have reached us. By the
Greeks and Romans, however, it does not
appear to have been in use. Pliny informs
us that in Upper Egypt, on the borders of Ara-
bia, grew a shrub called gossijnon or zylon, the
fruit-pod of which enclosed a sort of soft wool,
of which the garments of the Egyptian priests
i were manufactured. Goz, which, in the Arabic,
j implies a silky substance, is doubtless the root
! of the word designating the genus of the plant.
I There are several species of the cotton plant
1 cultivated in diflferent parts of the world, which
j may be resolved into the following: 1. The
I common Green-seed Cotton of the United States,
the Gossypium herbaceum of botanists, — fig. 1.
This has a smooth stem, leaves with five lobes,
2 z 2 545

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

which are round, mucronate, and serrate. It
grows from two to five or six feet high, bearing
yellow flowers on the end of its numerous
branches, which flowers are succeeded by
roundish capsules or bolls, full of seed and
cotton. 2. The Tree Coiton (C arboreum) has a
high perennial stalk, with branches six or eight
feet long, five-lobed, palmate leaves, and yellow
flowers, succeeded by oval pods. 3. Vim-leaved
Cotton (G. vitifolium), fig. 3, with lower leaves
five-lobed and palmated, the upper leaves three-
lobed. 4. Hairy Cotton (G. hirsutum), with the
uppermost leaves undivided and heart-shaped,
the lower three five-lobed, the stems and branch-
es hairy, the flowers yellow, succeeded by oval
pods. 5. Spotted-barked Cotton (G. religiosum),
fig. 4, with the upper leaves three-lobed and
lower five-lobed, and branches spotted with
black. 6. Barbadoes Cotton (^G.Barbadense),fig. 2,
branching 4 or 5 feet high, with yellow flowers
and oval pods, the upper leaves three-lobed
and lower five-lobed, with smoothish stems.

The cotton blossom, though described as
yellow, is very often only slightly so, and that
while just blowing, appearing almost white
when in full bloom. When wilting, the blos-
soms appear reddish ; and the whole process
of efflorescence continues but two or three
days, when they fall off".

In those portions of southern Europe where
cotton is produced, Naples, Sicily, Malta, and
especially the Levant, the Green-seed or com-
mon cotton is the only one cultivated for the
wants of commerce. The hairy cotton is some-
times raised in the West Indies, although the
Barbadoes is the species most commonly cul-
tivated. In the East Indies and in China, the
546

common and tree cotton are cultivated, together
with some other species or varieties, especially
that which produces the nankeen-coloured
down. This last has been successfully intro-
duced into the United States, where it is now
raised in sufficient quantity to manufacture the
yellow cotton cloth called nankiu, which was,
till lately, all imported from China.

The seeds of the common cotton are eaten
in the Levant, where they are esteemed whole-
some and nourishing. All the species afford a
valuable oil from the seeds, which, besides
being eaten, is used for burning, and many
other purposes connected with the useful arts.

Nicot first made known the tobacco plant,
and Sir Walter Raleigh has the credit of intro-
ducing the potato into Europe. Two monks,
in the reign of Justinian, brought the eggs of
the silk-worm from China to Europe, concealed
in the hollow of a bamboo. But of the indivi-
vidual who first introduced the seeds of the
cotton plant into America, history is silent.
He was, perhaps, one of that class of which
examples are daily met with, who take pleasure
in seeking out objects either curious or useful,
and dispensing their acquisitions to others.
The cotton is a pretty plant, bearing a beauti-
ful flower, and was therefore, perhaps, first de-
dicated to the parterre of the American garden,
where it appears to have long remained, de-
voted to ornament, and of little further use.
Authentic information shows that in 1736, and
probably earlier, it was an object of horticulture
in Talbot county, on the eastern shore of Ma-
ryland ; and although it may have been raised
in squares and patches in neighbouring pro-
vinces, no particular attention was bestowed
upon it as a profitable crop, till some time after
the date mentioned. In 1754 a small quantity
of cotton was exported to Europe from South
Carolina, the warmer climate of which and the
neighbouring provinces, was found more fa-
vourable to the crop than the peninsula between
the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, where its
culture was first attempted. (Jm. Farmer, vol.
ii.) It was not, however, until the Revolution
caused the supplies of foreign materials for
clothing to be cut off", that necessity drove the
American planters to raise cotton extensively
for home use; and so general did this culture
soon become, when urged by this necessity,
that the cotton region was made to extend as
high north as the lower counties of the state
of Delaware. At the close of the Revolution,
great financial distress prevailed throughout
the States, which had achieved their freedom
at the expense of immense pecuniary sacrifices.
Many were the plans suggested by individuals
and public bodies, called upon to consider the
ways and means adapted to relieve the embar-
rassments of the times. The subject came up
before the celebrated Convention of Annapo-
lis, in 1786. The late President Madison, a
member of that body from Virginia, who had
given much attention to the subject of the cot-
ton culture, here expressed it as his decided
opinion, that, from the results of the garden
culture in Talbot county, and numerous other
similar proofs furnished in Virginia, there was
no reason to doubt that the United States
would one day become " a great cotton-producing

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

1. ""

L

country.''^ The agitation of the subject was
commenced in the public prints of Philadel-
phia, and the promising capacities of soil and
climate were discussed in essays and discourses
read in and about the year 1787, before the
societies which were led to the consideration
of this and other matters calculated to advance
the interests of the country. The most early
and decided proof of the practicability of rais-
ing cotton crops to advantage in the United
States, was first received in a letter from Mr.
Leake of Georgia, addressed to General Tho-
mas Proctor of Philadelphia. When it is esti-
mated that the cotton brought to Philadelphia
about the year 1787, and some time after, sold
for home consumption at two shillings sterling,
or four-ninths of a dollar, the inducements to
raise it may be readily imagined. Congress
being at length convinced that the States could
produce sufficient cotton for domestic use, in
the first reformed tariff bill laid a duty of three
cents per pound on that brought from other
countries. American cotton began to be an
important article of export in 1798 and 1799.
It was, however, soon discovered that more
could be raised than could be picked or cleared
from seed by hand, the only mode of accom-
plishing this object then known, and the one
•which had been practised by the Egyptians
and Eastern people for thousands of years.
Eli Whitney, a native of Massachusetts who
emigrated to the south, invented a mill to
gin, pick, or separate cotton from the seed,
and this with such facility as to perform in
one day the labour of three thousand pair of
hands. To work or attend this mill, impelled
by water-power, requires only three persons.
Thus, by the aid of machinery, the capacity to
prepare cotton for market was made equal and
even superior to the immense productive capa-
cities of the climate and soil of the Southern
States. These two facts, (says a writer in the
American Farmer, vol. ii.). First, the capability
of the southern country to produce cotton, and.
Secondly, the invention of the %o<tter sato-gin,
have effected the greatest and most enriching
change in the agriculture of the United States,
ever experienced by any people, ancient or
modern. And to this view must be added the
results of inventions, principally in England,
but many in America, of those labour-saving
machines and processes to pick, rove, spin,
double, twist, wind, weave, dye, print, bleach,
dress, &c., all within a comparatively few
years.

Such are the considerations which are
calculated to inspire correct views of the im-
portance and extension of the cotton crop of
the United States, the immense exportable pro-
duce of which has so much favoured every
branch of domestic industry in other parts of
the country, for those States situated too far
northward to admit of the advantageous culture
of cotton, by which the attention of the south-
ern planter is almost exclusively engrossed,
supply him with bread-stuffs, meat, horses,
mules, and most other important appliances
of life. The necessities of the Revolution, and
subsequent financial embarrassments of the
country, led to the developement of the cotton
culture in the United States ; whilst the last war,

by cutting off the customary supplies of British
and other foreign fabrics, taught the Americans
to manufacture for themselves, and thus opened
to the producing States a home market for their
exuberant cotton crops.

The progressive developement of the cotton
culture in the United States is shown in the
following statement of the crops for different
periods ; viz. —

In ISOO, about -

-

.

- 35,ft00,000 lbs

1810, —

-

-

- 85,000,000

18-20, —

.

.

- 160.000,000

1C*3«>, —

.

_

- 350,000,000

1810, —

-

-

- 790,479,257

It is estimated that good lands yield, on an
average, from 250 to 300 lbs. of clean cotton
per acre, and inferior lands from 125 to 150 lbs.;
and that the capital invested in the cotton cul-
ture in the Union is about $800,000,000. The
annual value of the crop is about $80,000,000,
and of the exports $03,000,000.

The cotton exports of the year 1840 were
as follows :—

To Great Britain
To France -
North of Eiirnp«
To other porta -

"

-

- 1,216,791 balea.

- 447,4fl5

- 103,231

- 78,515

Toul -

-

- 1,876,003

The total exports of 1841,
— 1840,

were

1,313,277 balea.
1,876,603

562,726

The amounts exported to various countries
in 1841, were as follows : —

To Oreat Britain - - . . 858,742 balea.

To France 348.776

To ports in north of Europe - - 56,279
To all other porta .... 49,480

Total

1,313,277

We subjoin, also, the ports from which the
article has been sent, with the portion from
each.

In 1841, from New Orleans and
Miaaisfippi - . . . 656,816 bales.

From Alabama - - - . 2I6,2.'59
Flnritln - - - - 32,'2*»7
Georgia - . . _ 35,596
Norih and South Carolina - 162,275
Virginia ... - 4,723
Baltimore - - - - 217
Philadelphia . - - 1,934
New York - - - . 149,569
Huston .... 3,602

Total

1,313,277

We annex an account of the home consump-
tion.

Quantity consumed by, and stock
remaining in the hands of United
States manufacturers, Sept. 30,

1841 297,288 bales.

Do. Sept. 30, 1840 ... 295,193

Do. do. 1839 ... 276,018

The cotton produced and gathered in the
United States is stated, in the returns accompa-
nying the census taken in 1840, at 790,479,257
lbs., which product exceeds two-thirds of the
annual cotton crop of the whole world, this
being estimated at 1,000,000,000 lbs. Of the
whole amount raised in the United States, South
Carolina furnishes about l-13th. Every year,
however, opens new lands in the West to the

547

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

cotton culture, where congeniality of soil and
climate to this commodit)' increases the pro-
duct per acre, far beyond the average in the
old cotton States. This consequently reduces
the value far below those prices which former-
ly poured so much wealth into the Southern
States. These newly cleared lands yield, on
an average, 2500 lbs. of cotton per hand, whilst
the lands in the Carolinas yield but 1200 lbs.
per hand. As the expenses on a labourer are
about the same in either place, this home com-
petition must be almost ruinous to the old cot-
ton States, to say nothing of that which is
threatened abroad in India, South America, and
Egypt. In a recent speech in Congress, Mr.
Dixou H. Lewis declared that cotton, divested
of government embarrassments, might be raised
in Alabama for three cents a pound. (Southern
i?cz;(ew for April, 1S43.)

There were formerly three species of cotton
commonly cultivated in the United States : 1.
The Green Seed (G. Iicrbareum), popularly and
commercially called Upland Cotton ; 2. The
Black Seed, producing a fine, soft, long, and
strong cotton, of a good staple. This, from its
flourishing in the lower country, and especially
the islands on the coast of South Carolina and
Georgia, has been called the Sea Island cotton.
It is regarded as a variety of the Arboreum or
Tree Cotton, and on new alluvial soils, in warm
situations, is found to live 4 or 5 years, and
attain a height of 18 feet, assuming the charac-
ter of trees rather than shrubs. But when the
cotton grows so large, it yields no adequate re-
turn to the cultivator. The seed of Sea Island
cotton was originally obtained from the Ba-
hama Islands about the year 1785, being the
kind known in the West Indies as the Anguilla
cotton.

Of late years, in addition to the Nankin or
yellow cotton, two species or varieties of up-
land cotton have been introduced, which, in
some places, have almost superseded the com-
mon green seed kind ; these are the Mexican
and Petit-Gulf, both of which agree in most of
their botanical characteristics with the Hirsute
or hairy cotton, especially in the rough stem
and petiole. The Petit-Gulf kind is exceed-
ingly productive, and differs from the Mexican
chiefly in this characteristic, and in maturing
earlier, a great desideratum with the planter,
since it allows him a longer time to gather the
crop. Some think the Petit-Gulf a mere variety
of the Mexican, improved by its transportation
to the banks of the Mississippi, where the soil
and climate are peculiarly favourable to its
developement. The planters of the upland I
sections have to purchase their Petit-Gulf seed
from the neighbourhood of Rodney, where it
now costs only 25 cents per bushel. The 4th
year after removal from this locality, it has
so degenerated as to be no more productive !
than the common green-seed kind, or better in '
quality.

It has been remarked, that in most if not all
the species or varieties of cotton cultivated in '
the United States, especially the herbaceous
and hairy kinds, the close, short fur imme-
diately enveloping the seed, somewhat anala-
gous to the fur on an animal, has a tendency
to increase in quantity. Ti>is, though it tends

to render the separation of the long wool more
difficult, has no other disadvantage.

The introduction of the plough, of the horse-
hoe, cultivator, and other contrivances for
saving labour and improving the culture, have
been of great service to the cotton as well as
to the corn-planter. By the practice of drill-
ing in rows set wide apart, the same fields may
be cultivated frequently without such rapid
exhaustion as would attend a different course.
The land is thus tilled sometimes three suc-
cessive years without rest, the drills being run
at first 4^ feet apart, the position of the drill-
rows being changed every year, so that the
cotton does not occupy the same place two
successive years. At the end of the 3d year
the 3 drill-rows will be 1^ feet distant frora
each other, and thus the growing crop is an-
nually furnished with fresh soil.

The following account of the cotton culture,
as conducted in the Southern States, is abridged
from a highly interesting essay upon the sub-
ject by Mr. Thomas Spaulding, of Sapelo Island,
Georgia :

"It was soon noticed by cotton growers," says
Mr. Spaulding, "that soil and situation had
more than common influence, as well upon the
quality as upon the quantity of cotton produced
upon any given portion of land. Certain soils
and situations retained in the cotton its ori-
ginal appearance, an intenseness of yellow in
its blossom, a fruit full and sound, a seed
quite black, and free from fur or down ; while
upon other soils and upon other situations the
plant, the flower, and fruit was putting on other
appearances. The plants, as if anxious to ad-
just themselves to a new temperature, took on
a more coarse configuration of limbs and stem,
a thicker branch, a rougher, larger, and more
scalloped leaf, a more cone-like pod, a seed
covered either in whole or at its points with
the close down or fur that has already been
described. At first the most careful cultiva-
tors were anxious by selection to keep the seed
as much as possible resembling the seed first
introduced ; that is, black and free from down,
and the more so as it was most easily sepa-
rated from the cotton by the machines em-
ployed, and was considered most productive ;
but in process of time the varieties that stole
up among the original stock was found to pro-
duce a finer and more uniform and longer
wool. The current of selection has now,
therefore, directed itself another way, and
these hybrids, for I believe them to be so,
although the germs of these changes may have
lingered for ages in the original seed without
developing themselves, have taken on three
distinct appearances in seed ; neither in blos-
som or plant differing to the eye from each
other, although greatly difl^ering from the pa-
rent stock, as being coarser and rougher in
their form and leaf, with blossoms of a lighter
yellow; having bolls larger and more cone-
like in their shape. The finer cottons of the
sea islands are obtained from these three va-
rieties of seed ; one with little or no down upon
it, but with a long beak or point, to a seed
longer than the original; a seed with down
upon the two ends, but still with the pointed
beak; and, thirdly, a long seed with a sharp

/

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

Tieak.but completely covered with a soft, close,
fine fur or down inseparably connected with
the shell of the seed. These new varieties
which produce the cotton now most in request,
are later in perfecting their fruit, and have,
consequently, increased the uncertainty of the
most uncertain and doubtful crop to which
perhaps human care was ever directed.

"There is a long string of islands extending
from Georgetown, in South Carolina, to St.
Mary's, in Georgia, that is, from 32° 30' to
30° north, a distance of about 200 miles.
These islands were covered with live oak and
oth^r evergreens of a southern climate. They
had been the abode of the red men of the
West, but rather when the natives were fish-
ermen than hunters ; and the vast accumula-
tion of oyster, and clam, and other shells, min-
gled with the remains of the bones and pottery
of their old inhabitants, fill every stranger with
astonishment at the multitudes which their re-
mains would bespeak, or the long time that
must have been required to introduce such ac-
cumulated masses. These decaying shells
seem to have intermingled with the original
sandy soils of these islands, and digesting the
vegetable matter that fell from trees and other
sources, formed with them a light and fertile
loam. These islands at an earlier period of
colonial story, had been employed in growing
indigo. It was upon two of these islands, sur-
rounded by the salt waters of the sea, and sepa-
rated from the continent by several miles of
grassy, but salt meadows, that the cultivation
of the sea island cotton commenced.

" If Frederick the Great never forgot him that
introduced a better description of rye into Prus-
sia, and if Swift is right in saying he merits a
great name who will make two blades of grass
grow where one had grown before, why should
we deny to the dead what may be their due ?
The first cultivators of the sea island cotton
in Georgia were Josiah Tattnall and Nicholas
Turnbull, on Skideway island, near Savannah ;
James Spaulding and Alexander Bisset, upon
St. Simon's island, at the mouth of the Alta-
maha; and Richard Leake upon Jekyl island,
adjacent to St. Simon's. For many years after
the introduction of the Anguilla cotton, it was
confined to the warm highland of these islands,
bathed by the saline atmosphere, and sur-
rounded by the salt water of the sea. Gra-
dualljs however, the cotton culture was ex-
tended into lower grounds, and beyond the
limits of the islands to the adjacent shores of
the continent, into soils containing a mixture
of clay, and lastly into coarse clays deposited
by the great rivers where they met the tides of
the sea. In all these soils the cotton plant
grows well. In all these soils fine cottons are
produced. The only essential property that is
required is a saline atmosphere ; with it any
soil in Georgia or Carolina may produce fine
cotton ; without it no soil will produce fine '
cotton.

"It is within this district of countrj-, from
Georgetown, in South Carolina, to Sl Mary's,
in Georgia, and extending not more than 15
miles from the sea, to which the sea island
cotton is still confined. Whenever it has been
carried either south, or north, or west beyond

these limits, a certain decline in quality has
followed its removal. Many changes have
taken place in the manner of cultivating the
sea island cotton since the first introduction.
When first introduced, the seed was deposited
either in hills raised a little above the common
surface, at five feet distant each way, or in
holes at the same distance apart, and the in-
termediate spaces were dug up, pulverized, and
kept free of grass or weeds by the hand hoe or
by ploughing. But it was soon found that this
distant planting, with a few seeds only, left a
great portion of the field unoccupied by plants,
and, consequently, unproductive; for, as it has
already been said, the cotton plant is one of
the tenderest productions of vegetable life.
The growers of cotton found it, therefore,
necessary to increase the quantity of seed, to
insure a sufficient number of plants, and to
bring them nearer together. Fortunately for
the cotton culture, Tull's book upon husbandry
had been more read in the Southern Colonies
than in England; and his ridge husbandry was
adopted for sea island cotton, and is particu-
larly adapted to it, I may say necessary to its
successful culture.

"The present process (and it has been the
same for 25 years past) is to make up the field
into ridges occupying 5 feel of space each, and
extending in straight lines across the entire
field. If the land is at all low, or subject in
any degree to water, these ridges are inter-
sected at 105 feet from each other by ditches
which receiye the Avater that may collect in
the hollow spaces upon which the cotton plant
is growing. These hollow spaces represent
the water furrow in wheat cultivation, and
serve the same purpose, that is, in directing
the redundant water that falls, into the drains
that take it oflTthe fields.

" A field is well prepared to receive the cot-
ton seed when drains- intersect it at regular
distances of 105 feet ; when the surface of the
land is thrown up into ridges of 5 feet, rising
about 10 inches above the intervals, the crown
of the ridge flat, broad, and regular. A trench
is then made along the middle of the ridge
from 2 to 4 inches, dependent upon the time
of planting, which extends from the 1st of
March to the 1st of May. Upon this subject,
as upon all others in which men are concerned,
wisdom is found between the extremes, and ex-
perienced growers of cotton generally prefer
planting from the 1st to the 15th of April. When
cotton is planted early in March, before the
sun has warmed the soil to any great depth, it
is necessary to deposit the seed in drills not
more than two inches deep, or there will not
be warmth enough to vegetate the seed. Later
in the season, when the power of the sun has
increased, it is necessary, in seeking for that
moisture which is as requisite for vegetation
as heat itself, to sink deeper into the soil, and
the drills which are then made to receive the
cotton seed are required to be 4 inches deep.
From the many accidents to which this feeble
plant is subject in its first growth, experience
has taught the Georgia cultivator that it is ne-
cessary to place many more seeds in the ground
than can grow there ; and it is usual, there-
fore, to sow at least 1 bushel of cotton seed to

549

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

the English acre. The persons employed in
planting the cotton are generally divided into
gangs of three. One of these opens the
drill along the top of the ridge; the most in-
telligent of them carefully drops the seed into
the trench, while the third follows in his, or
more often in her steps, and with a hand-hoe
returns the soil while yet moist into the trench
from whence it was taken. For myself, I pre-
fer performing this operation with the foot; it
is less troublesome to the labourer than carry-
ing and using the hoe. It keeps the mind in-
tent upon one operation rather than two.
Walking along erect, the feet are alternately
employed to return the soil into the trench
upon the cotton seed ; and the whole weight
of the person brought to bear upon the foot that
has just performed the operation, presses the
yielding and crumbling soil into close contact
with the seed. This pressure of the foot after
sowing, is like the roller in English husbandry,
and is as beneficial to cotton as the roller is
known to be to wheat or other grain. But
after all this care you are never sure that
from your first sowing a sufficient number of
plants will stand. One night's frost, which
sometimes comes as late as April, will destroy
the whole field, and drive you back upon your
labours ; one day of a strong, dry, northeast
wind will tear, blight, and destroy your whole
field ; and upon the best and richest soils,
when both these evils are passed over, there
is another ensuing, equally destructive. The
cock-chaffer or cut-worm is to be apprehended
during all the month of April, and as the cot-
ton comes through the ground, and remains for
several days, like the pea or other pulse, with
but two radical leaves, every one of the plants
that are cut by the worm, either above or be-
low the ground, are destroyed; so that it is not
unfrequent that whole fields have to be re-
planted in the month of May, about which
time the worms pass into their winged state.
At the close of the month of May, when appre-
hension from these accidents have passed
away, a new labor begins. The numerous
plants which crowd the ground begin to injure
each other, and must be removed. Prudent
persons divide their removal into three opera-
tions, gradually adjusting the number to the
increased growth of the plants, which are at
length left in the drills, at from 6 inches to 24
inches apart from each other, depending upon
the fertility of the soil and the expected growth
of the plant, which rises in altitude, from 3 feet
to 8 feet high. And here it may be well to ob-
serve, that the cotton plant is a leguminous
plant (a green plant), a plant that sends its
roots down into the ground, and draws much
of its nourishment, by its broad leaves, from
the atmosphere. This increased distance in
the drill, therefore, is rather to al'ow space for
the plant to extend itself at its inclination,
than from a desire to add nourishment to its
roots, for at last the whole field should be
shaded from the sun when the plants are fully
grown, and the number should be adapted to
that end.

"But at every one of these thinnings, as they
are called, or drawing of the plants, the field is
cleared with the hand-hoe from all weeds and
550

I grass, and new soil brought up around the re-
j maining plants to support them, now bending
to every wind, from their tall but feeble struc-
ture. This course of thinning, when it is ne-
! cessary, and the weeding, and grassing, and
drawing up, which is always necessary, con-
tinues until about the 20th of July, by which
time the operation has been repeated from 3 to
6 several times, dependent upon the soil and
season. About the 20th of July we may ex-
pect our summer rains should commence.
These rains are not tropical, but they approach
to tropical in their violence. Up to thai time
no climate can be more temperate than the
climate of the sea-coasts of Georgia and Caro-
lina. Volney, from report, supposed it the best
in the United States, and the writer of this paper
believes it is so. The atmosphere is elastic,
the winds that blow every day from the sea are
cool and refreshing; they bring health and
healing upon their wings ; they drive the va-
pours which have been gathered upon the wa-
ters, or that have arisen from the marshes
which margin the shores, over the woods of
the interior. But the time has noM' come
when evil spirits should prevail. These va-
pours have been collecting dark and ponderous
clouds upon our western hills; the equilibrium
of our atmosphere is destroyed. Whether it
is that the adjacent seas have become heated
by the mass of warm water which the gulf
stream brings along the coast, or that the
same general cause which operates with such
great power within the tropics, operates in part
here, I know not; but from the 20th of July to
the 1st of August, the wands change from
southeast to southwest, and bring clouds
charged with lightning and rain, in such
masses as to deluge our fields. From the time
this change takes place all labour in the cotton
field should cease ; for the plants with broad,
succulent leaves, and tall and slender stem,
heavy naturally in its growth, and feeble in its
structure, can illy bear up against beating
rains and strong winds, and requires all the
support that the original ridge in which it was
planted, and the repeated dressings up which
have been directed, can give it. And hence
arises the necessity of the ridge husbandry of
the sea island cotton in Georgia and Carolina,
and the importance of the repeated gathering
or dressing up of the soil to the plants, which
has been described. The month of August 15
a month of doubt and anxiety M'ith the cotton
grower. Too much rain makes the plant cast
off its fruit, its blossoms, and even its leaves.
The full moon in the month of August, too, is
the lime when the caterpillar is expected. Thi?
worm proceeds from a small brown butterfly,
greatly resembling the candle moth. This,
moth or butterfly deposits its eggs upon the
leaf of the cotton plant always a night or two
before the full or change of the moon. They
hatch in a few hours after they are deposited,
then so small as scarcely to be visible to the
naked eye. Like the silk worm, they appear
to linger in their first stages, doing no great in-
jury during their first 9 or 10 days. But a few
days before they have completed their growth,
they become voracious in the extreme, and like
the visitations of the locusts in the East, destroy

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

whole fields in a few days. We have seen
400 acres of cotton that looked promising and
well to-day, and that 4 days afterwards had not
a green leaf, and scarcely a small pod remain-
ing upon it. These destructive visitations,
judging from the past, may be expected once
in about 7 years. When cotton fields have
escaped injury from rains, from wind, or
worms, they offer as beautiful a spectacle to
the observer as the cultivation of any plant
can present. One wide and waving field of
green leaves, covered from the 1st day of July
lo the 1st day of September with blossoms of 3
colours, and with a multitude of pods of ever>'
growth. The blossom, on the first day of its
coming out, is of a fine, yellow colour, and it
sustains that colour during the day. It changes
under the influence of the night air to a crim-
son or red hue ; and again, on the third day, it
becomes of a rich chocolate brown, .and falling
to the ground leaves a pod already of half an
inch in diameter. The time which intervenes
from the blossoming to the perfection of the
fruit, greatly varies, depending upon the sea-.
son. We have marked hundreds of blossoms
which ripened and perfected their cotton in 21
days from the day of blossoming ; and again
we have frequently seen them require six
weeks to arrive at the same end, which is,
however, a bad omen as to ultimate results.

"The cotton pods begin to open about the
1st of August. From this time to the 1st of
December the whole attention of the cultivator
is directed to the picking in of the cotton as
the pods daily open. During this autumnal
season in Georgia and Carolina, upon the sea-
coast, the winds are violent and the rains
heavy; so that the operation is tedious, al-
though not laborious ; and during this time the
persons employed may be expected to gather
from the field 25 pounds per day, when the
weather admits of gathering or picking cotton
as it is called. When every thing is favour-
able, the persons employed should bring in 50
pounds daily of cotton in the seed; but as the
gathering is continued so long as they bring in
10 pounds, 25 pounds may be considered the
full average of labour so directed. There are
few subjects upon which there is more contra-
riety of opinion than upon the real amount of
product given by the soil in any cultivation;
agriculturist as I am, loving my profession as I
do, seeking information to enlighten my la-
bours as I have done, I know no book upon
which I can lay my hand which would give
me correctly the real mean result of labour or
of land employed upon any one object through-
out a whole extended district. The Abbe Ray-
nal kindly tells us how many coffee plants and
how many cotton plants grew upon the French
part of the island of St. Domingo; and yet
there was not one planter in St. Domingo who
could really have told how many cotton plants or
how may coffee plants grew upon any one arpent
of his own field. Taking, however, the best
means my long experience would give, I should
say that a labourer cultivates, in sea island
cotton, 4 English acres, and that these 4 acres
yield, as the result of his labour, 500 weight of
clean cotton, or cotton separated from the
seed, which consists of 400 weight of white

cotton and 100 weight of coloured or stained
cotton ; and that these 500 pounds of clean
cotton have, for the last 15 years, averaged to
the grower 20 cents per pound for his white
cotton, and 10 cents per pound for his stained
cotton, yielding in American money, conse-
quently, $90 to the labourer — a small remunera-
tion, certainly, to the cultivator, and not calcu-
lated to excite jealousy or hostility in any other
persons engaged in any other pursuit.

"Preparing sea island cotton foi- market.—
The process of preparing the cotton for
market commences as soon as it is generally
gathered in from the field, and is tedious and
troublesome in a high degree. The cotton,
when gathered from the plant, is put into a
bag, containing about half a bushel, which
hangs upon the person engaged in the opera-
tion, suspended from the neck or waist as they
may prefer, and when it is desired by them
they deposit the contents of the bag in a large
light basket, which contains the amount of
each one's gathering in the day. At the ap-
proach of night, the cotton gathered in the day
is brought home and weighed and deposited in
a common house, from whence the next morn-
ing, if the weather is good, it is carried out
and spread upon drying floors made of 2-inch
American pine. These floors are of course
proportioned to the quantity of cotton expected
to be placed upon them at any one lime, but
may be estimated at 20 by 40 feet of floor to
every 100 acres of cotton cultivated, and in
that ratio of quantities upon these floors. If it
has been gathered from the fields in good wea-
ther, the cotton is allowed to remain but one
day to take ofl" the dew of the morning or the
damp of the night air; but if gathered in wet
weather, it may require two or even three days'
exposure upon the drying floors, which are
raised upon posts three feet from the ground,
as well to preserve the wood of which they are
made, as to admit a more free circulation of air.
It is, however, known that strong, cold winds
or very bright suns, if continued too long, have
an injurious effect upon the fibre of the cotton;
and this extreme exposure to either wind or
rain is, therefore, carefully avoided, and the
cotton left no longer upon the drying floors
than is necessary to preserve it from heating
in the house. Before it is put up finally in
the house, it is usual, and quite proper to pass it
through what is called a ' Whipper,' to shake
off any sand or broken leaves, or any other ex-
traneous matter that may have attached itself
to the cotton either in the field or in the gather-
ing. The cotton having been gathered, dried
upon the floors, and whipped, is ready for the
next operation, or ginning.

"The whipper, which is a very necessary
instrument in the well-preparing of cotton, is
made of wood, is a long barrel composed of
slats or reeds (or it would be better made of
wire) 6 or 8 feet in length, and 2 feet in dia-
meter, with one end closed and the other open,
and is supported at the two ends by feet of dif-
ferent lengths, so that the barrel, in its hori-
zontal position, declines about 1 foot at the
lower end ; a hopper containing about a bushel
rests upon the upper side of the barrel, at the
upper enclosed end of it. This hopper lets the

551

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GOSSYPIUM.

cotton that is to be cleaned fall into the barrel,
through which runs in its whole length a shaft,
which is turned by the hand by a crank attach-
ed to the shaft at one end. This shaft is inter-
sected by rods which reach to within an inch
of ^he barrel. The cotton, as it falls from the
hopper, is whirled round by these rods until it
escapes at the lower end of the barrel, by
"which time any sand or dirt, or leaves, or other
matter attached to the cotton, has escaped
through the spaces intentionally left between
the slats or reeds, which constitute the external
rim of this barrel or whipper. This whipping
was formerly performed as well upon the cot-
ton in the seed, as after it was separated from
the seed; but the second operation of the
whipper has lately been discontinued under a
belief that it produced a stringy appearance in
the cotton wool.

" The whipping of cotton at its first gathering,
and while attached to the seed, is really bene-
ficial, and should never be omitted. When
these operations are completed, the harvest
may be considered as closed, and the prepara-
tion of the cotton for market really begins.
Many machines have been designed, and many
forms of the same machine adopted, for sepa-
rating the seed from the sea island cotton, but
all of them at last resolve themselves into two
wooden rollers turning by opposite move-
ments upon each other. The rollers are from
half an inch to an inch in diameter, and re-
, volve from 100 times to 500 times in a minute.
The whole resolving itself into this simple
rule, that the smaller the rollers, and the slower
they revolve, the cleaner will be the cotton
separated from the seed, because, if the rollers
are an inch in diameter, and, above all, if they
revolve with a high velocity, they will take in
soft seeds, small seeds, and false seeds, or
motes as they are called, and in crushing them
in their passage through the rollers, will stain
and injure the cotton in its appearance.

" Much money has been spent tipon costly
machines, propelled by horses, by water, or by
wind, first in the Bahama Islands, and for many
years in Georgia, and Carolina, but at last
most of the growers of sea island cotton have
returned to their first and most simple machine,
lo wit, two wooden rollers, kept together by a
wooden frame and a square shaft, upon which
is fixed a wooden or iron fly wheel from 2 to 3
feet in dimeter. The iron cranks which turn
the rollers are connected by strips of wood,
with a treadle worked by the foot ; this treadle
runs under the machine, and is connected at
the farther end of the floor of the house by
sockets, within which it revolves ; the man
stands, therefore, in the front of the rollers,
with a board between him and the rollers, upon
which he holds a lar^ge handful of seed of cot-
ton, which he presents from time to time to the
rollers that are kept in motion by the pressure
of the foot upon the treadle ; this labour, from
habit, becomes easy, as the feet are often
changed in the operation. The task expected
from the labourer with the machine (which
costs, when new and complete, 10 American
dollars) is from 25 to 30 pounds per day.
Women, from their careful attention in keep-
ing the rollers, while they revolve upon each
552

other, well supplied with seed cotton, were un-
questionably the best ginners, as they are call-
ed from the term gin, applied to the machine ;
but in process of time it began to be believed
that the continued motion of the feet produced
a relaxed system in women, which was likely
to lead in the end to abortion or miscarriage :
men have, consequently, been substituted for
this work, one which being within doors, and
exercising both hands and feet without very
much labour, is preferred by them to any other
in the winter. What is a little surprising, this
simple machine, the foot gin, which we re-
ceived from the West Indies, is mentioned, if I
mistake not, in the remains of * NearchusV
voyage down the Indus in Alexander's expe-
dition, as gleaned and translated by Dr. Vin-
cent or Major Rennell, in his map of Hindostan,
as there employed for separating the seed from
the wool, which the Greeks, for the first time,
saw growing upon trees and shrubs. Could
Asia Minor, could Greece and Egypt have been
acquainted with the cotton plant up to that
time 1 The inquiry is a little curious, nor is it
uninteresting, but can better far be made by
one who lives surrounded by much of the
wreck of past knowledge, by many of the me-
morials of past time, than by him who is living
in solitude, under the shadow of his oaks, on
the shores of the Altamaha. To prepare the
cotton for this ginning, or separation from the
seed, when taken from the house where it was
put from the field, it is carefully looked over
and separated, or sorted, as it is called, the
yellow cotton, the motes, any hard cotten, that
may have passed through the whipper, is sepa-
rated from the white ; this is a work of care
and attention, and the future appearance of the
cotton much depends upon the manner in
which the work is done. Women are employed
in this operation, sealed upon benches with
tables before them ; the seed cotton is spread
in small parcels, taken out of one basket, ex-
amined and turned over to another, into which
the person puts the entire of her day's labour.
The quantity required to be thus examined and
cleaned in the day by each one is from 60 to
100 pounds, according to the care bestowed
upon the cotton by the grower; after this sort-
ing it is exposed lightly and shortly to the sun,
that it may take off" any dampness the cotton
may have acquired in the house ; it is then
passed from this drying immediately to the
gin, or machine that separates the seed from
the wool ; after going through the gin, and be-
ing separated from the seed, it is again turned
over to the women, who are generally in a
large room, well lighted with glass windows.
They sit with small tables before them, made
either with open slats, reeds, or wire, when any
crushed seeds, and cotton burnt or blackened
by the former machine, or motes that have
escaped the former searches, are removed;
a«d to have this work well done, 30 pounds is
all that is required per day from each woman.
After this third operation it is considered ready
to be bagged for market.

"The bags in which sea island cotton is
shipped are almost exclusively Scotch, are
made of hemp, 42 inches wide in the web, and
should weigh 1^ pounds to the yard; these

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GOSSYPIUM.

bags each required from 4J to 4^ yards, and
then are made to receive 300 pounds of cotton.
Two men are generally employed at a time in
packing, and usually pack two bags in a day,
in the manner following. The room into
which the cotton has finally passed, after being
prepared for the bag, is reserved expressly for
that purpose, and is kept as clean in floor and
walls as possible ; adjoining to it is a small
apartment under the same cover, with a round
hole made in the floor just large enough to con-
tain the bag when full of cotton ; the open end
of the empty bag is strongly sewed with twine,
round a strong hoop, which, extending beyond
the hole, suspends the bag vertically from it ;
one of the men then gets into the bag, and with
a heavy wooden or iron pestle he presses the
cotton gradually with his feet, and finally beats
it down with the pestle until the requisite
quantity is pressed down into the bag. The
bags were formerly made wet before they began
to fill them, under the belief that it kept the
cotton down in the bag, when pressed there,
better than when dry, but this is an idle and
often an injurious practice, and should be al-
ways avoided. We will now look back and
collect the quantities of labour that is or should
be applied to every bale of 300 pounds of sea
island cotton in preparing it for market. It re-
quires 1000 pounds of aeed cotton to produce
300 pounds of clean white cotton wool; 15
persons will be required to sort and prepare
this 1000 pounds for the gin or machine; taking
all weather 25 pounds is the mean quantity
received from each gin per day ; this gives 12
days' labour to each bag for ginning, and 10
women mote these 300 pounds of cotton in the
day, making for sorting 15, for ginning 12, for
moting 10, for packing 1, in all 38. But be-
sides these 38 that must be good and steady
persons, there are usually two inferior persons,
young or old, to place the cotton which is about
to be ginned upon the drying floor, or to re-
move and pass it about in any change of wea-
ther, thus requiring to every bag of sea island
cotton well put up the labour of 40 persons I
day. The bag costs for bagging, for twine,
and trouble in making, not less than $1 25 of
American money ; this, with 75 cents for
freight, is to be subtracted from the value of
cotton, as there is never any return made for
the bag by the purchaser.

" The quantity of sea island cotton has not
materially increased within these last 10 years,
nor is it likely that it will increase. The par-
ticular soils and climate that have heretofore
produced it, and to which it probably owes its
quality, are confined to the limits first stated,
that is, from Georgetown, in South Carolina, to
St. Mary's, in Georgia. By looking at a map
of the United States, it will be seen that the
long string of islands that bound our southern
shore, and separate the Atlantic Ocean from
the continent, end at these points ; but what is
more, the tides that probably assisted to cast up
I these islands, have changed their climate.
I The tides along the shores of North Carolina
I -and Virginia, are much less than in Georgia,
I and they rise still less in Florida and the
■ Gulf of Mexico, that bounds the new acquired
^ . 70

provinces of the American Union to the
southwest.

" Whether it is that the cultivation of the
sea island cotton has afforded fewer induce-
ments than other subjects of cultivation, certain
it is that the number of those engaged in it, even
[ within these limited districts, have not greatly
increased, and it is the successors of the first
; cultivators that are still engaged upon this ob-
' ject. They are generally an educated people,
j and a stationary one, less anxious after change
than their countrymen are supposed to be ;
' and although severely smitten in war by Eng-
land, and, in peace, by the National Tarifl!",
they have still clung, with some degree of
fondness, to the places whereat they were
bom, and to the seas iu which they were bred.
" Short Staple Cotton. — The short staple cot-
tons, of every part of the United States, are de-
rived from the first and second varieties of cot-
ton which were found in the United States, from
Virginia to Georgia, at the close of the Ameri-
can revolutionary war, cultivated in small
quantities by the poorer classes of the white
population of the country, to be mixed, in their
domestic manufactories, with their own wool.
The cotton for this purpose was separated from
the seed by the old and the young with their fin-
gers, sitting around their evening fire, and
was spun by the hand wheel, to serve as a
warp, to be filled with the wool of their own
sheep.

" As soon as the attention of the Southern
States was called to the profitable cultivation
of cotton, by a few persons along the shores
of Georgia and Carolina, the cultivation began
to be extended into the interior. The small
quantity of cotton that had been grown for do-
mestic uses, was exchanged for larger quanti-
ties, to be prepared for sale. But the great
ditficulty to be overcome in the progress to ex-
tension, was to find out any instrument by
which the cotton wool could be separated from
the seed.

"By this time various machines had been
introduced for ginning the sea island cotton,
but all of them ended at last in two rollers re-
volving upon each other, either longer or
shorter, and moving with, some more, some
less, velocity. Those rollers were but badly
adapted to the hairy cotton, or second variety,
which soon began to obtain the preference in
the interior of Georgia and South Carolina,
over the first or smooth-leaved variety, and
merited to obtain that preference, as giving
when separated from its downy seed, a finer
and stronger, although shorter fibre, and as
perfecting its fruit sooner, but which it was
almost impossible to separate with the rollers,
because the down or fur upon the seed retained
the seed hanging upon the roller, and denied
admission to the rollers of the fresh cotton in
j the seed that was offered. Many plans were
! suggested, many substitutes for the rollers de-
signed. All succeeded in part, but still they
went on slow. Something was desired to
do much in a short time ; something that was
strong enough to travel about without being
j broken to pieces, and light enough to move
I with its moving master. At last such a thing
3 A 553

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

was found in Miller and Whitney's gin, pro-
bably not the best machine that could have
been designed, but so operative to its end, so
efficient to its purpose, that it took possession
of the whole ground. From thence forward no
other machine was sought for, and Miller and
Whitnej^'s gin is employed to separate the cot-
ton seed from Virginia to Louisiana, save
where the roller gin is used, and its use is now
altogether confined to the sea island cotton,
wh'jse superior value is supposed to warrant
the great increase of labour necessary in that
mode of ginning. Miller and Whitney's gin
was designed by Mr. Whitney, and executed
at the plantation of Mr. Miller, 16 miles above
Savannah, about the year 1795, and it seems
to be derived from two machines already used
upon cotton, a kind of cylindrical whipper, and
the circular cards, before that time introduced
in manufacturing cotton, a wooden shaft or
roller enclosed within a wooden box. This
roller or shaft has at every inch of its length a
steel blade or saw about a foot in diameter ;
above these saws is a box containing the cot-
ton in the seed. The box has the bottom of
metal slits, through which the saws pass about
an inch, and pulling off the cotton, but some-
times cutting the fibres as it passes. This re-
volving of the saws carries the cotton in the
box gradually round, until the seeds contained
in the box are freed of the w'ool attached to
them, when it is emptied of the seed and re-
filled with fresh cotton : it too often leaves
some of the fibre behind it, which diminishes
the quantity as well as injures the quality, so
much so that the estimated difference of the
products in these two modes of ginning are,
with rollers, 300 pounds to the 1000, and 250
pounds to the 1000 with Miller and Whitney's
gin. This gin having at last given a cheap
and expeditious mode of taking the wool from
the hairy American cotton (for a gin that cost
10 pounds sterling will clean a bale a day with
a single horse acting upon the gin, with a band
wheel which any man can make for himself),
the cultivation of this description of cotton
diverged in all directions around Georgia as
the common centre ; it went north into the two
Carolinas; it went west into the hill country
of all the Southern States ; it was found capable
of adjusting itself to the soil and climate of the
interior country, which the Anguilla cotton had
not been adapted to; still the fibre of the hairy
or short staple cotton is better near the sea
than in the interior. Above all, it is found to
be most productive in alluvial soils that are a
little touched with salt, as are some of the dis-
tricts of Louisiana, where the rivers rising in
the Rocky Mountains draw some of their wa-
ters through the salt and arid plains which
separate the waters of the Arkansas from the
w^aters of Red River, where these two varieties
of cotton, and a cotton that is possibly a hybrid
between them, have arrived at the greatest per-
fection. It was there that soils which are
deeply tinged with red, and heavily seasoned
with salt, which all the tributary streams of
Red River, flowing in from the north, bring
with them, give forth the most abundant crops
of the best quality of these descriptions of cot-
ton. Directing mvself by the inforination
654

I received from one or two friends who have
I property there, I should say, with reasonable
diligence and attention to the object, 1000
pounds of seed cotton, or about 250 pounds of
cotton wool may be expected to the English
acre, while the average products of the hill
lands, from the Mississippi to North Carolina,
should not be taken at more than 500 pounds
of seed cotton, or half the quantity; nor do I
believe there is any material difference upon
the great scale of products through this wide
extent of country, judging for myself from per-
sonal observation, for I have passed through
all these districts, yet scarcely a year passes
without the newspapers announcing some
new-discovered land of promise within these
wide limits, themselves misled by some single
or partial result, or stimulated on by land
speculators, a curse of no common character
to a new country. But in whatever cause
originating, the evil is the same. These ru-
mours fail among a people already heated
with a desire of change — a people quite sensi-
ble to present evils, but not reflective enough
to hold in remembrance that every wave of the
hand without necessity, and every momentary
evolvement of time without usefulness, is a
waste of power and waste of time irreclaim-
able to humanity. The system of agriculture
through all those districts is essentially the
same. You find the Virginian upon Red
River ; you find the North Carolina man, the
South Carolina man, and the man from Geor-
gia, alongside of him ; any improvements, any
increased quantity of product, by any new
course of cultivation, spreads like the fire of
the American prairie, a spark has carried it,
and enkindled it, far in advance of the mass
of flame that rolls after it. Any substantial
improvement, therefore, that is made in Vir-
ginia or Georgia, from this extension of mind,
from this intermingling of men, is as likely to
be reflected back upon the intermediate coun-
try from Red River as to reach it from its first
source. The system of cultivation is, there-
fore, the same ; the moment the cultivation of
cotton spread into the interior country, from
the shores of Georgia and South Caro/ina, the
hand-hoe was exchanged for the plough. The
latter instrument had been employed at all
times and in all cultures in the hill country of
the Southern States ; in no agricultural coun^
try were oxen or horses cheaper, in no agri-
cultural country were soils freer for the
ploughshare, but it was not adapted to the sea-
coast, because the land is so little above the
waters that ebb and flow, that many drains, in-
convenient to the ploughman, are required to
carry off the surface waters. The trees, too, of
necessity, send their roots along the surface,
rather than vertically in quest of moisture, and
many of them, like the live oak, are scarcely
destructible by time. They, too, obstruct his
course ; but, above all, the plant under culti-
vation sends its roots around in quest rather
of nourishment than down in quest of moisture,
and must not be too readily dealt with. These
various causes have, finally, after long expe-
rience, fixed the hoe husbandry upon the sea-
coast, and carried the plough husbandry into
ths hills. The short staple cotton is, therefore.

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

as exclusively cultivated by the plough, as the
sea island cotton is exclusively cultivated by
the hoe. The manner of treating the plant is
really the same ; the hoe dressing the land
more neatly and garden-like, the plough break-
ing up the land more radically, and extending
far more widely its operation for the quantity
of force employed. The consequence has
been, that while 4 English acres is the quan-
tity cultivated upon the sea-coast of Georgia
and Carolina with the hand-hoe, 8 acres is
about the quantity cultivated of short staple
cotton, in the interior, with the plough. It is
the ridge husbandry in both instances that is
now pursued ; more neatly executed, in the
first instance, by the hoe, and more roughly by
the plough in the second, but still the same.
The month of April is the best time of plant-
ing either variety. The distance between the
ridges is most generally 5 feet, the plants left
in the drills varying from 6 to 24 inches, de-
pendent, as before stated, upon the expected
growth of the plants. Two other circum-
stances contributed to aid the cultivation of
short staple, extrinsic of soil or real products.
The winds of autumn are far more violent
upon the sea-coast of Georgia and Carolina,
than in the interior country, and the capsules
that contain the sea island cotton expand more
than those that contain the short staple, so that
the first has to be gathered much more fre-
quently from the fields than the last, or it falls
to the ground and is lost. The consequence
is, the general gathering to the labourer per
day is more than twice the quantity of short
staple than of sea island, for it is allowed to
hang upon the plants until they are white with
the open cotton, so that there is only 2, and
at best 3, gatherings of the one, to 10 or 12
scanty gleanings of the other. This one cir-
cumstance, more than any other, gives to the
grower of short staple cotton the power of
something more than duplicating the quantity
of cotton wool produced by the same quantity
of labour expended.

"Cottons of various kinds grow well, and
perfect their fruit, from the southern borders
of Virginia to the southwestern streams of the
Mississippi, a space of 1200 miles, and from
the sea for 200 miles into the interior; through
this wide space of country, in every soil,
whether of clay, or loam, or even sand, the cot-
ton plant will grow, and produce its seed and
■wool, its accompaniment, provided the waters
are kept well drained from the surface of the
land. The quantity of products will of course
depend upon the soils, whatever they may be,
containing these ingredients, which constitute
fertility in all countries, which neither experi-
ment or the philosophy of chemistry has yet
been able fully to discover or define. The
mean quantity given of 100 pounds of sea
island cotton wool to the English acre, and of
125 pounds of short staple cotton to the same
quantity of land, we believe not materially
wrong, but the quantity of labour to bring forth
these results are very different. The sea island
cotton is cultivated neatly by the hoe, the short
staple more roughly by the plough ; still it is,
or should be, the ridge husbandry in both in-
stances. The plants are left to stand in drills

upon the ridge, at distances from each other,
graduated as before stated, to the expected
growth of the plants from 6 inches to 2 feet
from each other, and bearing, without injury,
to stand much nearer than at first sight may
be imagined, for the cotton plant does not oc-
cupy much space with its roots, sending them
down into the ground, and not over the surface,
like white or grain crops, and drawing like all
large-leaved green crops, much of its nourish-
ment from the atmosphere. It is not an ex-
hauster of soil, shading and protecting it from
the sun, and soon, by its decay or by its com-
bustion, returning almost as much as it has
taken away ; but from the density of its shade,
and the size and swell of its roots, it soon
makes the soil too loose to sustain the plant,
and the continued culture of the same soil,
brings on a disease in the plant greatly resem-
bling the blight in wheat, and leaving a pro-
pensity in the seeds of cotton to extend the
evil, like the propensity in blighted wheat to
extend and multiply ; nor have I ever doubted
that in both instances the evil had originated
in insect depredations, for although Sir Joseph
Banks discovered a fungous attaching itself to
blighted wheat, I still believe that the micro-
scope discovered in that minute parasitic
plant the eflfects of injury previously received
from something that lived and moved and had
animal being. Fire, therefore, I have always
believed, and have always acted upon that be-
lief, is the best security against this increasing
and extending evil; all the weeds and grass
that are on the land should be burnt upon the
surface of the land, leaving no vegetable mat-
ter to conceal and protect the germ, and by
fermentation to give heat and life to it; it is
the neglect of this course which I think has
been the cause that this evil, under various
names, rot, and rust, and blight, has spread so
widely as it has done within a few years.

"There is no plant that requires the inter-
changeable husbandry more than the cotton
plant, and there is no country where that hus-
bandry is more essential than in the Southern
States. The cotton requires continued clean-
ing during the droughts of spring and the
heats of midsummer; these cleanings, together
with the shade and rapid growth of the plant,
break up the soil, and leave it to be carried
away by the first violent autumnal rains. The
best remedy is to give to the fields of cotton in-
termediate crops of grain ; as good a series as
can well be adopted is cotton, rye, and wheat
(where the soil is fit for it), pasture, and again
cotton. A more extended rotation might be
adopted, but as all root crops should be avoid-
ed in series with cotton, this simple tri-annual
course, with manure applied during the grain
year, to as great extent as may be convenient,
will keep the field without material decay.
When cotton was first introduced, the growers
were misled as to the necessity of this change,
by observing that the cotton plant, upon new
lands, grew large, and gave little fruit, and
that it improved for the second and third year
in productiveness, they unfortunately pushed
the culture too far, until possibly to this cause
many of the diseases that have afliicted it in
its growth may be attributed.

655

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

"In a preceding part of this article, the pro-
bable mean results for these last 15 years, in
growing sea island cotton, has been taken at
^90, or about 20/. sterling to the labourer;
and taking, as we have already done in this
letter, the medium crop of short staple at 125
pounds to the English acre, and 8 acres of this
cotton, as cultivated by the plough, it will give
1000 pounds of short staple cotton wool to each
labourer employed upon it, M'hich for the last
7 years may have given to the grower a mean
return of 10 cents to the pound, or 100 dollars
for the year's work. There are exceptions,
unquestionably, to these estimates ; a few men
have received much higher prices for their sea
island cotton, and a few men have raised much
larger quantities of both descriptions of cotton
to the acre than are given, but exceptions can
never serve as a guide, in conclusions, as to
either the wealth or productiveness of a whole
country."

Mr. Croom, of Middle Florida, thinks Mr.
Spaulding has made the limits within which
the sea island cotton may be cultivated too
narrow. He states that " it has been raised in
Middle Florida since its lirst settlement about
the year 1822 ; and the crops made here have
been annually sold in the Charleston market,
at prices a little exceeding, generally, those of
the * Mains and Sanlees,' though not quite
equalling good • sea islands.' Moreover, it is
produced from the coast to the distance of 30
miles inland, but, at the same time, it is not
denied that the presence of sea air is beneficial
to this cfop. If I have not been misinformed,
this cotton is also produced by the planters on
the St. John's, in East Florida, and was for-
merly produced in the Bahamas, until the
ravages of the caterpillar compelled its aban-
donment. I think it may be doubted whether
Mr. Spaulding is correct in the opinion that
this cotton becomes less fine when carried
soutk of the St. Mary's. It is probably a native
of a tropical climate, and, therefore, most pro-
bably would not be less fine when produced in
the West Indies. I have heard that some of
this cotton produced at Cape Sable has com-
manded 50 cents per pound in the Charleston
market, without unusual care in its growth
and preparation.

" In limiting the range of the short staple cot-
tons to 200 miles of the sea-coast, Mr. Spaul-
ding appears to have overlooked North Ala-
bama and West Tennessee. In receding from
the sea-coast, however, two causes are con-
stantly operating against the growth of cotton ;
a higher latitude and a greater elevation, both
tending to produce a colder climate. To these
causes may probably be added a third, the loss
of sea air. Other things being equal, the cot-
ton planter, therefore, should prefer the neigh-
bourhood of the sea-coast."

To Mr. Spaulding's highly interesting ac-
count of the cotton culture we shall add some
further details of a miscellaneous character.
The quantify of seed sown is usually from
1 to 2 bushels per acre. This is scattered in
the rows drawn upon the cotton beds, and
very lightly covered. It sprouts and comes
up in a very few days. If injured from too
early planting, it seldom recovers from the
556

efl^ects, and matures late. When worms or lice
attack the young plants, it is advisable to stop
thinning the plants, and replant as quickly as
possible. The crop is a precarious one. In
favourable seasons more cotton is sometimes
raised than can be picked, whilst in others
there is such a falling off in the product as to
leave many hands unemployed, or but par-
tially so. Much wet weather occurring in the
spring may lead to serious injury of the young
plants, and in the latter part of the season the
same kind of weather may cause the bowls to
shed or fall off too soon, and thus spoil the
cotton. The kind called Petit-Gulf, now so
highly prized by planters in Mississippi and
some other states, is not only of finer quality,
but more productive and easily gathered, a
hand picking 20 lbs. per day more than of the
ordinary upland kind. But it sheds its bowls
much sooner, and does not admit of picking
more than half the usual time of the common
green seed species, which last is often gathered
during 4 months of the year. Hence the plant-
ers in some places put in only a part of the crop
of Petit-Gulf, reserving another portion of the
common kind for later gathering.

The distance between the rows is usually
regulated by the strength of the soil and capa-
city for producing vigorous plants. It has
been recommended as a good rule to place the
rows on land capable of producing from 10 to
15. bushels of Indian corn per acre, about 4 feet
apart; from 15 to 25 bushels per acre, 5 feet;
from 30 to 50 bushels, 6 feet; 50 to 70 bushels,
7 and 8 feet. It is important to be in readiness
to plant as quickly as possible after frosts have
ceased, one week in the first part of the season
being considered worth a fortnight in the latter
part. As soon as the fourth leaf makes its ap-
pearance, the thinning by hand commences,
when the plants, if to be cultivated in drills,
are allowed to stand two and two, from 9 inches
apart in light land, to 2^ and even 3 feet where
the ground is strong. When the earth is dry,
it may be ploughed, and the dirt drawn up to
the cotton so as to cover and smother the
young grass. When wet, the grass and earth
are drawn away from the cotton very gently,
after which the ground is ploughed and drawn
up again as soon as sufficiently dry to permit.
This plan of ploughing and hoeing is followed
up until the cotton becomes so large as to be
injured by the passage of the plough, after
which the earth is chopped over with the hoe
until the crop is made, of which a judgment
may be formed by its beginning to open freely
at the bottom. Ten hands are considered
enough to cultivate 100 acres of cotton with
ease ; but if a good crop, it would require at
least 20 hands to pick it out.

The advantages derived from substituting
the plough to the hoe, so generally used in the
low lands of the old cotton states, are strikingly
exhibited in the following communication from
a Georgia planter to the editor of the Farmer's
Ilegistcr. We shall only give extracts from the ■
article, which may be found in the 6ih vol. p.
269.

"An emigrant from your own state, and the
vicinity of your city, formerly engaged in the
culture of the long-staple cotton on the main

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lands, conversant with the modes of culture
prevalent there, and now engaged in growing
the short cotton upon the plans adopted through-
out the whole western country, my experience
has enabled me to detect some of the errors
formerly practised by myself, and my neigh-
bours in Carolina. My attention has been
called to this subject by the perusal of an arti-
cle in one of your late numbers, signed 'An
Observer,' giving an account of the crop of E.
Trost, Esq., in St. Andrew's parish. Mr. Frost,
it appears, planted, according to the low-coun-
try system, four acres of cotton to the hand,
and each hand made 4,000 pounds seed cotton.
This the writer considers an extraordinary
production — and, for that region of country, so
it is. It may safely be predicted that it will not
soon be equalled by Mr. Frost, or any of his
neighbours. With hands till lately accustomed
to the same manner of working, I planted last
year ID acres of cotton and 10 of corn to the
hand. I never had a cleaner crop, and though
the season was excessively wet, my negroes
never performed their tasks with greater ease.
The cotton crop, seriously injured by the worm,
yielded 800 lbs. to the acre, and 8,000 lbs. to
the hand. Mr. Frost's land exceeded mine in
productiveness, yet my crop doubled his. His
is considered so extraordinary, that it is held
up as an argument against emigration — mine
was an ordinary crop, nearly doubled by many
of my neighbours. But the question to be
solved is, how is the difference in the results
obtained 1

" It is unquestionably true that the soil and
climate of the west is better adapted to the
growth of cotton, — that here a plant of the
same size, and on a soil of equal strength, will
send forth and retain a greater number of pods,
than upon the sea-board. It is equally true
that the grass will grow as rapidly and as plen-
tifully in the one place as in the other. The
difference in the soil and climate has not, how-
ever, as much influence as is generally ima-
gined by residents on the sea-board. Would
they adopt the same management, pursue the
same modes of culture, which, somewhat modi-
fied, they unquestionably can, there can be no
doubt that, though they could not obtain the
success of the western planter, yet they would
make some approximation toward it."

With regard to the management by which
so large a product was obtained, the judicious
use of the plough was considered as the chief
agent. By it the beds were prepared for plant-
ing, the trenches or drills made, and the seed
covered. By it the most part of the grass was
destroyed, and the plant furnished with the
earth requisite for its support and sustenance.
By it the use of the hoe was in a great measure
superseded. " It may," says the writer, " inte-
rest some of your readers who groan under
the pressure of their crops of 8 acres of corn
and cotton to the hand, and whose fears are
alarmed lest the grass should overrun them,
to learn how, by the use of the plough, 20
acres to the hand can be planted, and the
same crop secured. I will, therefore, give
you in detail the arrangement of the crop
on our plantation last year. There were, be-
sides the regular crop, 75 acres of oats, pota-

toes, and slips, enough for the use of the planta-
tion, and about 15 acres of wheat. The planta-
tion worked 30 hands — 15 at the plough, the
rest with the hoe. In March, 300 acres were
planted with corn, on land previously well
ploughed and checked. In the first week of
April, 300 acres of cotton were planted. The
land was prepared by throwing together w^ith
a turning-plough, in the alleys of old cotton-
fields, four furrows. Thus bedded, the drills
were opened with a small scutter, or bull-
tongue plough, in which the seed was sown ;
they were covered by a board fastened on the
plough-stock, in the place of the mould. The
drilling, planting, and covering occupied four
days and a half. There was an excellent stand,
and no replanting necessary. The ploughs and
hoes then went into the corn-field. These were
well ploughed and hoed by the time the cotton
was out of the ground and required work. The
cotton was four times ploughed, and as often
hoed, and when laid by in July, a hat would
have held all the grass that could have been
found. The corn was twice more ploughed,
and once hoed. The grass was constantly kept
down by the ploughs. The daily task of a hoer
was 100 rows of cotton 100 yards long. The
first and second hoeings, when the cotton had
to be chopped out and reduced to a stand,
proved good, though not severe tasks ; the other
hoeings were light, and the workers were often
out of the field by 12 o'clock. The crop was
well worked, and with ease, by low-country
hands, who would think it the worst calamity
that could befall them to be compelled to re-
turn to the place of their nativity. The mules
and horses were in as good, if not better, con-
dition than when the ploughing commenced."

Picking. — The bowls of cotton mature and
open about the last of August and beginning
of September, when the picking commences.
This is performed by hands, male and female,
who are provided with osnaburg bags hung
over the neck and shoulders, into which the
cotton is placed as fast as picked. These, when
filled, are emptied into large osnaburg sheets,
placed in convenient spots. These sheets are
carried home in the afternoon. The pickers
are cautioned to guard as much as possible
against a small leaf, which, when dry, often
intermixes with the cotton, and never can be
got rid of, thus injuring the sale. The general
average in what is called a good opening is
from 45 to 50 lbs. per day to each hand. The
freshly picked cotton is first dried upon scaf-
folds made about 4 feet wide, so as to admit
of reaching far enough to turn it over with
ease whilst drying. A cotton-house is at hand
to receive the cotton in case of rain. After
being perfectly dried, the short-staple or upland
cotton is ginned and prepared for market.

There are several kinds of gins used for
cleaning the cotton of its abundant seeds, such
as the Barrel gin, Eves^s gin, and Whitney's gin.
The last is that depended upon for ginning the
green seed, upland, or short-staple cotton ; the
long-staple or sea island has still to be pre-
pared for market by hand, involving tedious
and expensive operations. Whitney's saw gin^
for separatign the seed from upland or short-
staple cotton, is a mill worked by oxen or
3 A 2 557

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GOSSYPIUM.

water. "The teeih in the circular iron plates
serrated, about three-fourths of an inch apart,
fixed to a cylinder, draw the cotton wool from
the seeds, through the openings of iron straps,
out of the bin and hopper in which the cotton
is placed. These openings are too narrow to
suffer the seed to pass. The cotton is brushed
off" the saws by counter-moving brushes on an-
other cylinder. By an ox gin, 6 to 900 lbs. are
cleansed in a day. After ginning, the cotton
is picked of all remaining broken seeds and
trash, and packed in bags of 250 to 300 lbs."

Varieties of Cotton. — Besides the Mexican and
Petit-Gulf, some other kinds have recently ob-
tained great celebrity in the United States. One
is called by some the twin, by others the Ald-
ridge cotton, the first name being derived from
the peculiar manner in which the branches
shoot out from the stalk, the second from its
supposed first introducer. There seems to be
some doubt as to the origin of this cotton. The
advantages claimed for it are, 1st, its being
better able to stand the effects of drought ; 2d,
not casting the squares however severe this
may be; 3d, admitting of very close planting
in consequence of the great shortness of its
branches ; 4th, the rapidity of growth and pro-
ductiveness superior to what is observed in
common kinds. The advantages of maturing
early, and thus allowing a longer time for pick-
ing, is, as before observed, a great desideratum
to the planter. The superior merits of this
new variety of cotton caused great competition
for its seed, which at one time sold for $5 per
quart, and even 50 cents the single seed.

A communication in the 7th volume of the
Farmer's Begister (p. 252), makes the following
statement in relation to this variety, which,
from a resemblance in its stalk to a member
of the Hibiscus family, has been called Okra
cotton.

" A Mr. Terry, of Autauga county, Alabama,
some years ago bought some Petit-Gulf seed.
A single stalk was observed in a field without
limbs, and having great numbers of bolls ad-
hering immediately to the stalk, or in clusters
on very short limbs. The cotton had all been
picked out except a single lock with nine seeds.
From these seeds this variety has been propa-
gated. The seed sold, in 1837, at 50 cents a
piece. Last fall I bought at $160 a bushel.
The cotton examined by me exhibited a dis-
tinct variety. It had rarely any limbs longer
than one joint, sometimes two; the bolls were
two, three, and as much as seven in a cluster.
I had one limb about 4 inches long, with 7
good bolls opened on it. The stems of all of the
bolls shooting from one place, at the top of the
short limb. The cotton was exceedingly fine,
being, I think, 2 to 4 cents a pound better ; be-
ing in colour and staple the finest and softest
short-staple I have ever seen. It opens earlier.
The field I examined was planted the 20th
April. A very intelligent gentleman, living in
the neighbourhood, told me he planted similar
land on the 1st of April, and that the new cotton
was open two weeks earlier than his. It grows
in good land quite tall, say 6 or 8 feel ; and in
this, I fear, will be the greatest objection to it,
as it may fall when heavily fruited towards the
top ; but perhaps this may be avoided by top-
558

ping. Its advantage to an Alabama planter,
if it succeeds in rich prairie lands, will be its
early opening, by which the worm will be
avoided, a terrible enemy, which has eaten
up full one-third of my crops for five 5^ears.
The appearance of the stalk is more like
okra than any other — the leaf being a cotton
leaf."

Another writer in the same periodical,
speaking of the two new kinds of cotton, says,
"There are two distinct varieties of twin. or
okra cotton. The one called okra was disco-
vered in Alabama, in first year's Petit-Gulf
seed. It grows up generally in one tall stalk,
sometimes as high as 8 or 9 feet, with very
short limbs, which are seldom more than 6 or
8 inches long, and having its bolls in clusters
of 2 to 7 or more. I have seen 10 blossoms or
forms in one bunch. Sometimes 1, 2, or 3
long limbs put out near the ground, turn up-
wards, and grow parallel to the main stem,
bearing fruit as it does."

"The other new variety of cotton is said
to have been discovered in Chester District.
It is now somewhat like the Alabama okra,
without being the same. It is about a half-
way plant between the okra and Petit-Gulf. I
have never seen it taller than 4 or 5 feet. Its
limbs are longer than the okra, and not as long
as those of the Petit-Gulf. Both kinds have
twin bolls, but the bolls and blossoms are more
numerous in the okra. Two bolls on the same
stem are frequent in both; but it is only on the
okra that I have seen 3 blossoms within the
same calyx, or 4, 5, or more bolls in one clus-
ter. There is also a clearly defined difference
in the Chester twin, a darker, green, and more
naked seed. No person who has once seen the
two plants growing, or the two kinds of seed,
will ever mistake the one for the other.

" I am not prepared to say that the Chester
kind is not a good cotton. I know too little of
it. The staple is good; I have seen some stalks
in gardens very well filled with bolls.

" To the Alabama okra there is one objec-
tion, which I think can be easily obviated. It
grows too tall, and is liable to fall down. The
remedy is to top it at 4^ or 4 feet. The stalk
grows stronger, the bolls fill up larger, and the
product is increased by it. As it will bear great
crowding on the land, the yield will be greater
than from Petit-Gulf. It is, in fact, an im-
proved Petit-Gulf seed."

Okra cotton is also called by some Alvarado
cotton. With regard to its productiveness some
idea may be gained from the following adver-
tisement in the Columbia papers, offering for
sale the seed of this cotton.

" Dr. J. H. Taylor, from little more than i of
the stand he ought to have had, gathered up-
wards of 1,200 lbs. per acre. The following is
an extract of a letter from Dr. Taylor: 'You
must observe I had not more than ^^ of a stand,
and planted, too, at 5 feet instead of 3, and yet
I will make about 1,200 lbs. per acre. I believe
it capable, on the same land, of yielding 5,000
lbs., planted at 5 feet in double rows. If I live
another year, I will try 100 acres in that way.'
Mr. F. M. Gilmer, of Montgomery, Alabama,
from as bad a stand, gathered 1,400 lbs. to the
acre. Mr. C. T. Billingslea, of Bibb county,

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Alabama, from i of an acre gathered 1,060 lbs., |
and expected 200 lbs. more. Mr. Aldridge, i
who first cultivated this cotton, it is said raised |
3,000 lbs. per acre this year, and refused
$30,000 for his crop of 30 acres. Dr. J. H. |
Taylor, from 22,000 lbs. of seed cotton, ginned {
13 bales of 600 lbs. average, or 36 lbs. of clean j
to 100 of seed cotton. Jesse P. Taylor, well i
known here, weighed 425 lbs. of Petit-Gulf and
the same of okra in the seed, and ginned each;
the result was 124 lbs. of ginned Petit-Gulf, or
29 lbs. to the 100, and of okra 156 lbs., or 36^
to each 100 lbs. of seed colton. The staple is
decidedly finer."

The price of the seed here offered for sale is
{^100 per bushel, §20 per gallon, and $5 per
quart; which are slated to be the Alabama
prices.

Defects in Cotton as prepared for the Manufac-
turer.— The cotton manufacturers in England
having met with certam defects in the sea-island
or long-staple cotton, which they thought might
be remedied by proper attention in the primary
manipulation, have recently addressed a com-
munication on the subject to Messrs. Browns
and Welsman, extensive cotton importers in
Liverpool, to be forwarded by them to the
planters in the United States. From this we
extract portions which indicate the defects
complained of, as well as the qualities most
desired by the manufacturer, to all which it
may be the interest of the producers to give
attention, especially since the competition
which has sprung up in other parts of the
world. The Manchester manufacturers say,

"We have often, in conversation with you,
expressed our regret that the growers of fine
sea islands, in so many instances, injured their
cotton by stringing and matting it in the getting
up; and in hope of drawing their attention to
the subject through the medium of j'our house,
we beg to trouble you with the following ob-
servations.

"Fme cotton yam is esteemed in proportion
as the thread is uniform in substance, free
from lumps, and strong. The latter has been
decidedly improved by the introduction of the
select seed colton; but the levelness of the
thread has been impaired nather than other-
wise, and this arises from the multitude of
small white specks, or nitters, with which the
staple of the finer and softer kinds of sea-
islands, and the select cotton seed particularly
abounds.

"In examining these nitters through a mi-
croscope, we find them in general composed
of kinds of fibres, presenting an appearance
much resembling the misletoe plant in this
country, and for some time we feared they
were excrescences peculiar to the fine fibre,
and inseparable from it; but the two recent
samples of beautifully fine select seed cotton,
sent us by you, are so free from this defect,
that we have now a strong impression they are
chiefly produced by an overhandling in the get-
ting up; at least we can multiply such nitters
here, by mismanagement in the cleaning pro-
cess ; and we have no doubt the same effect is
produced in America. We would, therefore,
strongly urge the planter's attention to this
point; for in all cotton goods, such as gauze,

muslins, and laces, it takes immensely from
their value and beauty, and limits the use of
the finer yarns, which are chiefly used for
these articles. As an instance of this, we may
state, that one of our customers intbrins us he
frequently pays from 9r/. to Is. per yard, upon
his finest muslins, for picking out the niiters
one by one with a needle, after the goods are
woven — an expense which is equal to from
10s. to 30«. upon each pound weight of muslin.
Our experience has proved that the softer and
more silky the staple, the more easily it is nit-
tered; and, as the spinners possess no means
by which nitters can be removed from the cot-
ton when once formed, the only means of re-
medying the evil is to prevent their formation.

"To this point, therefore, the attention of the
grower should be strongly directed. Ml unnc'
cessary handling, tchipping, tossing, oi- shaking of
the cotton ought to be avoided. It should be as
well cleaned as possible, but yet free from
ttringinest, and the fibres be left in the loose
and disentangled state they appear when just
separated from the seed. If this were attended
to, it would materially improve the appearance
of fine yarn, and remove the never-ceasing
complaints of the fine muslin manufacturers,
and, we are persuaded, tend to increase the
consumption of fine cotton goods."

The committee to whom this letter was re-
ferred reported: — "That the matter to which
their notice had been directed is one of deep
importance to the grower of that valuable
staple production. If, in consequence of his
neglect or want of skill, a pound of mus-
lin, which would otherwise command its full
price, is depreciated from 10 to 30 shillings,
duty and interest obviously impel him to the
providing of a remedy at once prompt and
efficient.

"Through the politeness of Messrs. Browns
and Welsman, three samples of cotton, being
specimens forwarded from Manchester, were
received from Messrs. Gourdin, Matthiessen
& Co. These samples are endorsed as fol-
lows:— 'No. 1, illy got up and nittered;' * No.
2, illy got up and partially open;' 'No. 3, well
got up.' In examining the 'nitters' in No. 1,
through a microscope that magnified one thou-
sand limes, they were discovered to be, in ge-
neral, of a globular form, and to consist of fila-
ments of cotton, with interstices of various dia-
meters, readily reducible in size by pulling the
long threads attached to the mass. This, how-
ever, could not always be done, as the knot of
fibres constituting the nitter was in many in-
stances too strongly formed. The committee
next proceeded to the examination of samples
of seed cotton. In about a pound, personally
gathered by one of them, from fully matured
pods, produced from healthy plants, no nitters
were observed. In the same quantity picked
from diseased stalks, which bore defertive fruit,
several were seen. These were subjected to
the test of the microscope, and precisely the
appearance that characterized those taken from
the ginned cotton in No. 1 was exhibited. Re-
peated inspections since have produced no
marked variation in the general results. The
committee, therefore, with confidence deduce
the inference, that preparation, except perhaps

.559

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GOSSYPIUM.

in the isolated instance hereafter to be noticed, \
is not the cause of the nitter. In confirmation
of the opinion, putting aside the conclusive
facts adduced, the different processes through
■which the cotton passes, whilst in the hands
of the jilanter, need only to be briefly adverted
to. After the stained is separated from the
while, the latter is thrown, in small parcels,
into a whipper, in order to extract the dirt and
to throw ofi' the short and weak fibres, which,
if allowed to remain, would detract very mate-
rially from the value of the crop. This ma-
chine, constructed of wood, with round wooden
teeth, is turned by the hand. Unless the door
of the whipper be closed, which is never done,
the egress of the cotton is quickly effected.
After this operation the cotton is ginned, and
then taken to the moting-house, where, on a
frame of wood-work, it is gently shaken and
partially opened by the hand. When clean, it
is received by the packer, who, with a wooden
instrument, compresses it into a bag, weighing,
when finished, from .300 to 400 lbs. In these
various but necessary modes of treatment, in
not one of which any violence is used, the com-
mittee feel persuaded that the staple sustains
no injury whatever. It is well known that
every description of cotton, except the finest
qualities of sea island, before it is converted
into fabrics, is subjected to numerous opera-
tions, all of which are performed by machinery.
From the willow, which, by its revolving spikes,
tears open the matted masses, succeeded by
the scutching machine, in which the cotton is
beaten by metallic blades, revolving on an axis
at the speed of from 4000 to 7000 revolutions
in a minute, other machines with iron fingers,
teeth, and wheels, follow, so that it may almost
be said that, without the aid of human hands,
the vegetable wool 'is opened, cleaned, spread,
carded, drawn, roved, spun, wound, warped,
dressed, and woven.'

"Now, although it is represented that the
superior qualities of black-seed cotton are not
thus wrongly treated, yet, as they are ' opened
and cleaned by being placed upon cords
stretched on a wooden frame, and then beaten
by women with smooth switches,' the commit-
tee are at no loss to perceive how the com-
plaints of the manufacturers by their own act
may be increased. This last mode of cleans-
ing the raw material was very generally pur-
sued by the planter a few years ago. Were he
now to resume that ready method of preparing
his crop for market, he is satisfied that, whilst
his lime and labour would be saved, the fabri-
cation of fine goods would be likely to incur an
additional expense of no ordinary magnitude.
By using switches, it is nearly certain that the
weak fibres are broken into minute parts, and,
with the naturally short and rotten, intermix
and become entangled. Although, therefore,
the imperfection of the staple, which is the
special subject of this report, is undeniably
common to the cotton plant under peculiar cir-
cumstances, the committee incline to the opi-
nion that that imperfection can be created by
artificial means, and, from experiments insti-
tuted by them, is engendered by the diflferent
processes through which the cotton goes in its
conversion into cloth, as already particularly
560

described. That the nitter, however, is occa-
sionally formed through the want of foresight
on the part of the planter, when his crop, from
adverse seasons or other causes, is defective
in texture, is highly probable. The filaments
of unripe cotton are transparent, cylindrical
tubes. When ripe, even before the capsule
bursts, the tubes collapse in the middle, form-
ing semi-tubes on each side, which give to the
iibre, says Mr. Baines, in his able treatise on
the cotton manufacture of Great Britain, when
viewed in certain lights, the appearance of a
flat riband, with a hem or border at each edge.

"The twisted and cork-screw form of the
filament of cotton distinguishes it from all other
vegetable fibres, and is characteristic of the
fully ripe and mature pod. This form and
character the fibres retain ever after, and, in
that respect, undergo no change through the
operations of spinning, weaving, bleaching,
printing, and dyeing, nor in all the subsequent
domestic operations of washing, &c. &c., till
the stufl^is worn to rags, and then even the vio-
lent process of reducing those rags to pulp for
the purpose of making paper effects no change
in the structure of these fibres. From the dif-
ference between the elementary fibres of cotton
and flax, the latter being transparent tubes,
cylindrical, and articulated or jointed like a
cane, it has been incontestably proved that the
mummy cloth of Egypt was linen.

"Unripe cotton is finer than that which has
attained its full age, but is deficient in the
other essential attributes of a perfect staple,
strength and length. Some of the filaments,
indeed, are not the eighth of an inch long, and
until several days after the opening of the cap-
sule are found doubled or curled, full of watery
and oleaginous particles ; the cotton is wet to
the touch, and is of a brown hue. In this state,
unless dried in the sun, it becomes more or
less mouldy; the superfluous oil from the seed,
which ought to have escaped, is diflfused
through the mass; the colour soon changes;
heat is generated; and the staple, originally
strong, is quickly perceived to be materially
aflfected. Hence it is not surprising that in
immature cotton, distinguished, as it is known
to be, for its delicacy of texture, variableness
in length, and want of pliability, when subject-
ed to the mildest mode of treatment to free it
from extraneous matter, the threads should
cross and mix with each other, thus forming
artificial nitters. Within a few years, the ac-
tion of the sun, with a view to the dessication
of the wool, has been sedulously avoided by
perhaps a majority of our planters. The daily
gatherings are spread in houses, or under scaf-
folds erected for the purpose, and thus the dry-
ing process, if a few exposures in that way is
worthy of this appellation, is conducted. That
the practice is radically wrong, for the reasons
already assigned, the committee firmly believe.
Damp cotton, also, can neither be ginned nor
cleaned but with difficulty; this of itself is a
serious objection, to which may be added the
indubitable fact that, from its too unctuous
properties, the floating dust of the atmosphere
tends to its discoloration.

" From these observations it will appear thai
nitters are either natural or artificial, and that

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both are primarily to be traced to a defective
staple, arising from diseased plants ; that the
artificial nilter may be generated even by the
common method of preparation, unless the cot-
ton be judiciously dried; and that the means
to which the manufacturer is obliged to resort
are evidently calculated to bring about the
same results.

"Of these samples, Nos. 1 and 2, which are
'illy got up,' are lumpy and stringy, of a deep
j-ellow tinge, and weak and uneven in fibre.
The cottons from which these are taken, it is
likely, were never dried; it is still more pro-
bable that they were the produce of a scanty
harvest. No. 3 is of natural colour, open, and
in texture strong and long. It is necessary
here to remark, that the stringy appearance of
cotton is not always, or even mainly, the fault
of the planter. It arises principally from the
same cause to which the nitter is referable:
the imperfectness of the staple, or the imma-
turity of the fruit. This wa:j especially true
the last year.

"To two considerations, pertinent to the
matter under review, it may be proper to ad-
vert. In every field, no matter under what
sinister circumstances the crop has grown,
there are small sections in which the plants
come to perfection and bear healthy fruit.
From these the cotton that is picked is marked
perhaps by every characteristic of the best
staple, yet, almost from necessity, it is thrown
into the general bulk. Again, in harvest sea-
son the labourer cannot stop to examine, if he
had the ability to know, the variant qualities
of the cotton he is engaged in gathering, but
promiscuously the bad, the fair, and the good
are blended. This is unavoidable. Subse-
quently the stained is separated from the white,
but the weak and strong continue together; a
part only of the most deficient of the former
being afterwards detached by the whipper.

" On the immediate topic of inquiry, the com-
mittee ask leave to conclude with the follow-
ing suggestions : —

*' 1. The necessity of drying cotton in the
sun for 3 or 4 hours, as its dampness may
seem to indicate.

" 2. Select seed for planting, not with a view
to superiority of staple, but the production of
sound cotton. For that purpose, choose from
healthy stalks those pods that are fully blown.

" 3. The first pickings should be set apart,
and not mixed with the general crop. The fibre
is weak and shoru The same course ought to
be pursued with cottons gathered after a storm
or much rain.

"4. Cotton ought to be thoroughly cleansed
before it is carried to the gin. If it be well
done the after-labour will be trifling, and the
fault of over-handling avoided, too much
pressure on the roller gives to the cotton a
matted appearance; if the pressure is unequal,
it will be stringy.

"Before closing this report, the committee
would offer a few reflections, not irrelevant,
they trust, to the occasion. For many years I
the sea island crop has scarcely repaid the toil '
and perseverance incurred in its production. '
From highly unpropiiious seasons, the ravages '
of worms, and the cultivation of a plant pecu- '
71

liarly delicate and unfruitful, it may in verity
be said that it is annually a subject of congra-
tulation with the planter if his necessary ex-
penditures do not exceed his profits. Except
1826, when the exportation was about 6,000,000
lbs., from 1833 to 1835 inclusive the produc-
tion was less by from 1 to 7,000,000 than at
any former period since 1821.

Number of pounds of sea island cotton exported in
18'21 - 11,314,066 1829 - 12,833,307

1822 - 11,250,634 1830 - 8,147,165

1823 - 12.136,688 1831 - 8,311,762

1824 - 9,525.722 1832 - 8,743,373

1825 - 9,655,278 1833

1826

5,972,852

1834

8,085,935

1827

15,140,798

1835 -

7,755,736

1828

> 11,288,419

" From these facts, added to the wonderful
machinery which enables a workman now to
perform the work required of 2 or 300 men 60
years ago, the increase of population in those
countries where the finest goods are used, and
the decrease in the rates of duties in Great Bri*
tain, it was reasonable to infer that an aug-
mentation of price, in some measure propor-
tional to the diminished production, would have
taken place. From 1821 to 1829 inclusive,
when the average export was 11,016,418 lbs.,
the average price in Liverpool was 19rf. From
1830 to 1835 (excluding 1833, the export of
which year is unknown to the committee),
when the average export was reduced to
8,208,194 lbs., the average price was as low
as Hid.

1830, lU to 20d. 16d.

1831, 9i 18 13}

1832, 9J 18 13*

1833, lot 22 m

1834, 13t 26 191

1835, 14 33 24t

1836, 14 36 25

1837, 12 40 26

1821, 12t to 30d. 21id.

1822, 10 28 19

1823, 11 21 m

1824, lU 27 19^

1825, 15 49 38t

1826, 10 30 20

1827, 9) 20 14i

1828, 10 22 16

1829, 9 21 15
2». lid. per cwt. In 1821 the duty waB 6 per cent, ad val,

"The table from which the above (to 1833)
is taken, was published in 1833, by Messrs.
George Holt & Co., of Liverpool. It exhibits
the extreme prices of cotton and wool in that
place from 1806 to 1835 inclusive. The state-
ment of prices from 1834 to 1836 inclusive, is
extracted from a Liverpool circular, published
in January last. The difference between the
extreme prices has been assumed as the me-
dium price. What the average price really
was cannot with certainty be stated.

"The long staple is generally used for the
twist or warp, and the short staple for the weft.
In this way, the black seed is made to partici-
pate in the changes which, no matter from what
cause, mark the market value of the green seed.
This, perhaps, is the strongest reason why
a more decided inequality in price between
the fine and superfine qualities of long staple
cotton ought to exist, to which may be added
the variety of uses to which the former, alone
or mixed, is applicable. From these conside-
rations it is apparent that, in relation to those
two descriptions of vegetable wool, the one is
really worth from two to three-fold more than
the other, instead of from 30 to 50 per cent,
which continues to be paid.

"One pound of cotton usually makes 8 yards
of coarse muslin, and is then increased in value
from the raw cotton eight-fold. But, if spun ia

561

GOSSYPIUM.

GOSSYPIUM.

the finest yarn, it is worlh 5 guineas, and in
1780, if woven into muslin and tamboured, was
worth 15/. It may now be converted into a
piece of lace worth 100 guineas. — Report of the
Secretary of the Treasury, 1836.
"The finest quality of sea island cotton, re-

marks Mr. Baines, in ordinary states of the
market, is worth three times as much as the
common quality of the same class. The va-
rieties in quality in most of the other denomi-
nations is from 20 to 25 per cent., and in none
of them IS more than 50 per cent.

The following Table, taken from the Liverpool Price Current, under date of December 9, 1842, is sub-
joined, as showing the comparative prices of cotton from different comitiies, and the sections of the
globe where the staple is cultivated.

5,740
4,440 J
7,220
70 [

230
l,18n|

470

10

3,400

100

23,150

Sales of the week.

Sea Island - - -

Stained - - - -
Bowed, Georgia

Mobile - - - -
Alabama and Tennessee

New Orleans - - -
Pernambuco and Parubia
Aravuti and Ceara -
fiahia and Mario -

Maranhain - - -
Saw-ginned do.

Egyptian - - -

Peruvian - - -

Lapuayra _ - -
Common West India

Carthagena - - -

Sural - - - -

Madras - - - -

Ordinitryto middllDB*

Fair to good fair.

d. A

d.

d.

6} to 9

,\ to

13

4 to 5i^

6 to

6*

4 to 4t

5i to

5*

4 to 5

61 to

5i

3} to 5|

4t to

4 to 6

61 to

5*

6} to 6|

7 to

7^1-

6i to 4i

6tto

6*

6 to 6i
Si to 5^

6i to

6*

6 to

6,^

5 to 5i

5ito

H

6i to 6i

6f to

7

4* to 6

5i to

5*

4i to 4*

5i to

5*

4i to 5

6ito

5i

3J to 31

4 to

tl

H to 3t

4 to

3i to 2k

3i to

4

Good to fair.

rf. d.

n to 21

7 to 8
5| to 6

a to 6i

6 to 7

7f to 71

61 to —

H to —

8 to 9
6 to 6i

6 to —

4i to 4i

4i to 4i

4i to 4^

Diseases and Accidents to tohich Cotton is sub-
ject.— The cotton crop is not only rendered very
uncertain from the effects of the weather, but
frequently suffers the most serious injury from
the depredations of insects. The most fatal
enemy of the cotton crop in Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, is a disease
called the rot, which has been thus described
by Mr. Troup, in the 1st volume of the Ameri-
can Farmer. " The first indication is seen in a
small circular spot on the outside of the bowl,
exhibiting a darker green than the circumjacent
parts, as if a globule of water had dropped
upon it and been absorbed. Many of these are
frequently seen at the same time on the same
bowl. They spread themselves sometimes
faster, sometimes slower, as if influenced
either by the state of the atmosphere, or con-
dition of the plant ; changing colour as they
progress, until they assume a dark brown ap-
proaching to black, and until the whole exterior
is affected in like manner, or until it receives
from some cause a sudden check, and then
this appearance is only partial. In the first
case, the disease has penetrated to the centre
of the fruit, the fermentation is complete and
universal, and is seen in a frothy white liquid,
thrown out on the surface. Putrefaction fol-
lows, and the destruction of the seed and im-
mature wool being finished, nothing is left but
the rind or exterior coating of the bowl, which,
exhausted of its juices, hardens and turns
black, and thus terminates the process. In the
other case (that of suddenly checked disease),
the interior of the bowl, in some instances,
remains unhurt ; in others, is only partially in-
jured, and in this last case, the pods remaining
unhurt, mature and expand. This, however,
rarely happens, as the disease is AvonderfuUy
capricious, going and coming unaccountably;
attacking at one time with more, at another
with less violence : so that the fruit which es-
capes entire destruction on the first attack,
562 I

may fall a victim to the second. Nor is this
capriciousness justly attributable to changes
in the atmosphere; its origin even does not
seem to have any connection with weather.
The year 1817, when rot first appeared, was
one of remarkable wet. The year 1818, one
of remarkable drought. The rot in 1818 was
both more general and more destructive than
that of 1817. In 1819, which has been as the
plarMers say, a seasonable year, there is more
rot discoverable than at the same time of any
preceding year, and there is every probability
that it will be both more general and more de-
structive. In the same season too, according
to my observation, it is in no degree influenced
by it — for instance, this year it showed itself
in my neighbourhood in the most alarming
manner for the first time, when the corn and
cotton had begun to suffer from a dry spell of
two or three weeks. I have known it to stop
for a considerable time in very wet weather,
and to recommence its progress after the rains
had ceased. It is earlier in its appearance
this year than before, and I believe earlier the
last year than the preceding. This disease
attacking at different times with diflerent de-
grees of violence, I will not hazard the asser-
tion that its cause is uniformly distinguished
by the same appearances. The first indication
in very many cases is a dark brown or black
spot on the bowl ; in others, the whole exterior
of the bowl seems to have passed at the same
lime from the green to the dark brown, and is
saturated with moisture, and whilst it is evi-
dently suffering the process of fermentation,
will open and deliver the wool uninjured. It is
the same disease, exhibiting different features
as it rages with greater or less degree of acri-
mony. It attacks the bowl in every stage from
the first formation to that stage of its perfection
which immediately precedes developement.

" It has visited all varieties of soil and treated
ail alike. I do not mean that every plantation,

/

GOSSYPIUM.

GRAFTING.

or that every district of country, shared, in
equal degree, the evils of this visitation. Some
have escaped with more or less injury ; but I
am inclined to think that these who have es-
caped with least, will have their turn. The
mode of cultivation makes no difference. There
are two modes, the close and the thick-set. The
last has become fashionable of late ; but I have
seen the isolated plant and the one environed
by the branches and overshadowed by the top
of its neighbours, equally afflicted.

" I think you will conclude from the forego-
ing statement that rain or sunshine, hill or dale
soil, whatever the predominant earth, cultiva-
tion whatever the mode, stop not its march.
We recur, therefore, to the existing controversy.
Is insect or constitutional disorder of the plant
the cause of roti If insect, would they not be
seen in great numbers and where their ravages
are greatest 1 I have examined fields most in-
jured by rot, and could never make any disco-
very of them ; besides, the year of drought is
the year of insect — the rot made its appear-
ance in a year of wet — since that, it seems not
to have been affected by either wet or drought."

There are some who think that the rot in
cotton is neither a constitutional disease of
the plant nor the result of destructive insects
attacking the pod, but that the true cause is a
fungus production or parasite, simitar to that
which produces the mildew, rust, and blight in
wheat. As yet no remedy for this evil has
been found deserving confidence, unless it be
the substitution of the Petit-Gulf variety, which
is confidently asserted to answer the purpose,
by a correspondent of the Farmer's Register,
who had given a two years' trial with perfect
success. (Vol.ii. p. 548.) He believes the rot
— which, he says, is most prevalent in rainy
seasons, and in humid slates of the atmo-
sphere— is the result of insect depredation, and
thinks the new kind of cotton not agreeable to
the insect.

The upland cotton is sometimes very much
injured by a disease called the rust, and also
suffers from the depredations of a greenish
caterpillar which eats into the bowl and causes
great destruction. The Mexican cotton was
introduced mainly with the hope of its resist-
ing the ravages of the caterpillar. The cotton
whilst young is also apt to be infested with
plant lice {jlphidians). The remedies adopted
against these are of the most opposite kinds,
namely, allowing the grass to grow for the
purpose of inviting the ihsects from the cotton,
or working and cleaning the ground with extra
attention.

The cotton planters of Upper Mississippi do
not suffer much from the rot, the caterpillar,
or the rust, the greatest enemies of their crops
being the louse, snails and slugs, and a disease
of the stem of the plant commonly known by
the homely name of sore-shin. This comes on
when the plants are small and only have the
third leaf, and is supposed to be the effect of
wet weather and heavy, packing rains. In
Louisiana the planters complain of their losses
from the rot, rust, boll-worm, army-worm, and
rains. Such are some of the difficulties, in
addition to those commonly met with from
mtmospheric agencies, against which the cotton

crop in the United States has to contend, and
by which it is rendered exceedingly precarious.

GOURD (Lagenaria vulgaris, calabash). The
gourd family flourish well in the United Slates
in the open air, and the several varieties make
up a large amount of the produce of the gar-
dens and farms. The large bottle gourds are
extremely useful among the country people by
whom they are used as dippers. Some of them
are so large as to hold nearly a gallon. They
are light and with good usage may last for
months and even for several years. If, after a
few gourds have set, the ends are pinched off
the vines, the gourds will grow larger and
better. Some kinds of gourds are cultivated
for their beauty. The fruit of the bi-coloured
variety is small and very pretty, deep green on
one side and yellow on the other. There are
several other varieties, distinguished by the
shape and appearance of the fruit. It is be-
lieved, says Dr. Darlington, that there are no
native species of gourd in the United States,
though the plant is said to have been cultivated
by the aborigines, from time immemorial.
(Flora Cestrira.)

GRAFTING. In horticulture, the operation
of affixing one portion of a plant to another in
such a manner as that a vital union may take
place between them. Grafting has been prac-
tised from the most remote antiquity ; but its
origin and invention are differently related by
naturalists. Grafting may be performed both
with herbaceous and ligneous plants; but, in
practice, it is chiefly confined to the latter, and
more especially to the propagation of esteemed
varieties of fruit trees. A grafted plant con-
sists of two parts ; the stock or stem, which is
a rooted plant fixed in the ground, and the
scion, sometimes, but erroneously, termed the
graft, which is a detached portion of another
plant to be affixed to it. The operation of
grafting can only be performed within certain
physiological limits ; but what these are, science
has not yet absolutely determined. In general,
all the species of one genus may be grafted on
another reciprocally ; but this is not univers-
ally the case, because the apple cannot be
grafted on the pear, at least not for any useful
purpose. In general, it may be presumed that
all the species of a natural order, or at least of
a tribe, may be grafted on one another; but
this does not hold good universally. The re-
verse of this doctrine, however, viz. that the
species belonging to different natural orders
cannot be grafted one on another, holds almost
universally true ; and, therefore, a safe practi-
cal conclusion is, that in choosing a slock, the
nearer in affinity the species to which that
stock belongs is to the scion, the more certain
will be the success.

Grafting is one of the most important opera-
tions in horticulture, as affording the most
eligible means of multiplying and perpetuating
all our best varieties of fruit trees, and many
kinds of trees and shrubs not so conveniently
propagated by other means. Varieties of fruits
are originally procured by selection from plants
raised from seed, but they can only be perpe-
tuated by some mode which continues the in-
dividual; and though this may be done by
cuttings and layers, yet by far the most eligible

563

GRAFTING.

GRAIN.

mode is by grafting, as it produces stronger !
plants in a shorter time than any other me-
thods. Grafting is performed in a great many
diff'^'-cnt ways; but the most eligible for ordi- ■
nary* purposes is what is commonly called
splice-grafting, whip-grafting, or tongue-graft-
ing. In executing this mode, both the scion
and the stock are pared down in a slanting
direction ; afterwards applied together, and
made fast with strands of bass matting, in the
same manner as two pieces of rod are spliced
together to form a whiphandle. To insure
success, it is essentially necessary that the al-
burnum, or inner bark of the scion, should
coincide accurately with the inner bark of the
stock ; because the vital union is effected by
the sap of the stock rising up through the soft
wood of the scion. After the scion is tied to
the stock, the graft is said to be made ; and it
only remains to cover the part tied with a mass
of tempered clay, or any convenient composi-
tion that will exclude the air. Some of the
other modes practised are termed cleft, or slit-
grafting, crown-grafting, cheek-grafting, side-
grafting, and grafting by approach, or in-
arching.

The season for performing the operation is,
for all deciduous trees and shrubs, the spring,
immediately before the movement of the sap.
The spring is also the most favourable period
for evergreens : but the sap in this class of
plants being more in motion during winter
than that of deciduous plants, grafting, if
thought necessary, might be performed at that
season.

Grafting Timber Trees. — The oak, ash, horn-
beam, and hazel, may be grafted, but there is a
little difficulty in grafting some of the hard-
wood trees. On the oak may be worked its
striped-leaved variety of pcdunculata, and the
varieties of sessiliflora. The lucombe, and
other oaks of that kind, require to have the
Turkey oak for a stock ; and the evergreen, or
Ilex oaks, must have their own species. The
common ash will take with the ornus, and any
of the hardy varieties of true ashes, such as
the Chinese and entire-leaved. The hornbeam
may be used as a stock for Carpinus orientalis,
and the cut-leaved sort ; but the scions must be
from two years old wood. The purple-leaved
hazel may be grafted on the hazel stocks.

Grafting by approach, or inarching, is a mode
of grafting, in which, to make sure of success,
the scion is not separated from the parent
plant till it has become united with the stock.
Inarching is chiefly practised with oranges,
myrtles, jasmines, walnuts, firs, &c., which
do not flourish by the common mode of graft-
ing.

Grafting herbaceous plants differs in nothing
from grafting such as are of a woody nature,
excepting that this operation is performed when
both stock and scion are in a state of vigorous
growth. The only useful purpose to which
this mode has been hitherto applied is, that of
grafting the finer kinds of dahlias on tubers of
the more common -and vigorous-growing sorts.
In the Paris gardens, the tomato is sometimes
grafted on the potato, the cauliflower on the
borocole, and one gourd on another, as matter
of curiosity.
564

Grafting the herbaceous shoots of woody plants
is scarcely known among English gardeners;
but it has been extensively employed by French
nurserymen, and even in some of the royal
forests of France. The scions are formed of
the points of growing shoots ; and the stocks
are also the points of growing shoots, cut or
broken over an inch or two below the point,
where the shoot is as brittle as asparagus.
The operation is performed in the clef* manner;
that is, by cutting the lower end of the scion
in the form of a wedge, and inserting it in a
cleft or slit made down the middle of the stock.
The finer kinds of azaleas, pines, and firs, are
propagated in this way in the French nurse-
ries ; and thousands of Pinus larix have been
so grafted on Pinus sylvestris in the forest of
Fontainebleau. At Hopetoun House, near
Edinburgh, this mode of grafting has been
successfully practised with Abies Smithiana,
the stock being the common spruce fir.
{Branded Diet, of Science.)

GRAIN (French graine ; Ital. gran; Norv.
grion, corn). The general name of all kinds
of corn. See Wheat, Maize, Oats, Baklet,
Corn-Laws, &c. It means, in another sense,
the seed of any fruit, the direction of the fibres
of wood, &c.; the form of the surface, with
regard to roughness or smoothness ; or a mi-
nute particle. In this article 1 have only to
insert those facts with regard to grain that
could not be well included under other heads.
It has been calculated that the total consump-
tion of wheat and other grain in the United
Kingdom is, in a year — of Avheat 12,000,000
quarters, and of other grain 40,000,000 quar-
ters, equal to 52,000,000 quarters, or per day
154,762 quarters. (Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol.
iii. p. 1063). Of this about 25,000,000 bushels
of barley are consumed in malt by the brew-
eries and distilleries.

Dr. Colquhoun has calculated that the an-
nual consumption of grain in England by each
person is as follows : —

Species of grain
Wheal -
Barley

Oat8 - - -
Rye
Beans and Peas

Average of
each person.

1 quarter.

it

The second Fiar Prices of Grain per imperial
Quarter for the County of Haddington from
1647 (at Inte)-vals of Ten Years) to 1829.

Tear.

Wheat.

Barley.

Oats.

L.

1.

d.

L.

i.

d.

L.

(. d.

1647

13

4i

0

16

Oi

0

13 Oi

le-io

4

8*

13

Of

1

12 2i

1660

10

Oi

0

15

2y

0

1670

18

lOi

0

11

6i:

0

9 1*

1680

0

Oi

0

11

5i

0

8 1

1690

8

B}

0

18

m

0

12 9f

1700

10

0^

0

19

9i

0

12 2A

1710

5

8i

0

17

2

0

12 11

1720

2

sf

0

15

2i

0

10 91

1730

4

4*

0

11

6t

0

10 6i

1740

0

Of

I

2

lOf

0

18 3i

1750

5

lOi

0

13

2

0

11 lOi

1760

4

Oi

0

11

n

0

9 10

1770

12

Oi

0

18

%

0

15 61

1780

18

Oi

0

19

0

15 n

1790

2

5

6i

1

3

7

0

19 61

1800

6

6

4i

3

4

6

2

8 lU

1810

4

1

U

2

1

n

1

8 10

1820

3

1

5^

1

8

10

1

3 6

GRAINS.

GRAIN-WEEVIL.

Average Price of Grain per Quarter in England
and Wales, for Twenty Years, ending 1840.

Tew.

Wbeaf.

lUrtey.

O^u

Beans.

P^ 1

(.

«.

t.

d

t.

d.

t.

d.

1621

56

26

19

6

30

11

32

9

ls2a

44

SI

18

2

24

6

26

5

1823

53

31

22

11

33

1

35

0

1824

64

36

24

10

40

10

40

8

1825

68

40

25

8

42

10

45

5

1626

58

34

26

9

44

3

47

8

1827

56

36

27

4

47

7

47

7

1828

60

32

10

2^2

6

38

4

40

6

1829

66

32

6

22

9

36

8

36

8

1S30

64

32

24

5

36

1

39

2

1831

66

38

25

4

39

10

41

11

1832

58

33

20

5

36

5

37

0

18-J3

52

27

18

5

35

1

37

0

1834

46

29

20

11

36

7

33

0

1835

39

29

11

22

0

30

0

30

3

1836

48

33

23

1

38

4

37

3

18:^

55

10

30

23

1

38

7

37

9

1838

61

31

22

5

37

4

36

8

1839

70

39

26

6

41

3

41

1

1810

66

38

3

25

9

43

6

42

5

GRAINS. The amount of the different
grains produced in the United Slates, collect-
ively, and also for each of the states, has been
given under the head of Aoriccltural Pro-
ducts. Tabular statements under the various
heads will show the prices of grain in the
United States for a series of years. See Whbat,
Corn, 0\ts, &c.

GRAINS, BREWERS', are very extensively
used in the feeding of live-stock. They con-
sist chiefly of the husk, and other insoluble
matters of the corn employed in the operation
of brewing. When speaking of the large dai-
ries of the metropolis, Mr. Youatt remarks,
" The principal food of the cows in all these
is grains ; and as the brewing seasons are
chiefly in autumn and spring, a stock of grain
is generally laid in at those seasons for the
rest of the year. The grains are laid up
in pits lined with brick-work, set in cement,
from ten to twenty feet deep, and of any con-
venient size. They are firmly trodden down,
and covered with a layer of moist earth, eight
or nine inches thick, to keep out the rain and
frost in winter, and the heat in summer. A
cow consumes about a bushel of these grains
daily, the cost of which is from fourpence to
fivepence, exclusive of carriage and preserva-
tion. The grains are, if possible, Jhrown into
the pit while warm and in a state of fermenta-
tion, and they soon turn sour ; but they are not
liked the worse by cattle on that account: and
the air being perfectly excluded, the fermenta-
tion cannot run on to putrefaction. The dairy-
men say that the slow and slight degree offer-
mentation which goes on tends to the greater
deyeloperaent of the saccharine and nutritive
principle, and they will have as large a stock
on hand as they can afford, and not open the
pits till they are compelled. It is not uncom-
mon for two years to pass before a pit of grains
is touched : and it is said that some have lain
nine years, and been perfectly good at the ex-
piration of that period. The grains from a
large ale brewery are the most nourishing;
those from the porter brewers, not so good ;
and those from the little ale brewers hardly
worth having. It is found by the distillers that
rough clover chaff*, mixed with grains and
wash, will fatten to any extent" {On Cattle, \

pp. 255—264.) Grains fresh from the mash-
tub, either alone or mixed with oats or chaff*,
or both, may be occasionally given to horses of
slow work : they would, however, afford very
insufficient nourishment for horses of quicker
or harder work. Grains, in common with most
vegetable substances, are an excellent dressing
for grass lands, an application which is thus
described in a recent communication to the
editor of the Mark Lane Express, by Mr. W. H.
Buckland of Glamorganshire.

"Havingobservedihe remarkable luxuriance
of the grass on a small portion of land upon
which some brewers' grains had been scattered,
was induced to manure several meadows with
grains mixed with stable-dung, and a few acres
with grains only. The crop of hay is an ex-
traordinary one off' the land manured with
grains and stable-dung together, but from the
land manured with grains alone, the crop is prO'
digious. On one part of a steep declivity,
where the ordinary produce has been about 10
or 12 cwt. of hay to the acre, and the quality
very coarse, a good sprinkling of grains was
strewed, leaving the other part of the same
ground untouched. Where the grains were
spread, there is more than two tons of hay to
the acre, and the grass is of the finest quality ;
where no grains were applied, the crop is as
usual, both as to quantity and quality.

"In addition to the abundance of the crop is
the advantage of its earliness. On the 29th of
May I mowed a field manured with grains.
The grass was over-ripe, and might have been
cut a week sooner. The neighbouring fields,
not so manured, were full three weeks later.
This is a matter of no little importance in this
part of the country, where the weather is gene-
rally dry about the end of May and beginning
of June, when there is no grass fit to cut ; and
almost invariably wet about the end of June
and beginning of July, when all the farmers
are busy hay-making."

GRAIN, STANDARD WEIGHTS OF. In
England the standard and common weights of
the most important grains, are as follows : —

Coniinnn Weight.

SlandaH Weirht

Of Wheal -

from 58 to 64 lbs.

60lb8.

Rye - -

— 49 — 56

56

Barley

- 48-56

48

Oats - -

— 30 — 42

32

Indian corn

— 54 — 62

56

The same standard weights are established
in New York, and to a greater or less extent in
other states. It is observed that the weights
of the diflferent kinds of grain increase in pro-
ceeding from the Southern towards the North-
ern and Eastern States.

The grain of each species produces when
ripe, nearly the following quantities of meal,
or household flour, and bread, per bushel,
namely —

Wheat, if weighing

Rye

Barley — —

Oats >

(British Husbandry.)

GRAIN-WEEVILS and MOTHS. In Eu-
rope, stored grain is often subject to serious in-
jury from the depredations of two little insects,
and attacked in the same way, and apparently
3B 665

lb*.

lb*. lb.

60

yields of flour 48 bread 64

54

42 — 56

48

37i — 50

40

22i — 30

GRADf-WEEVIL

GRAIN-WEEVn*

IB its perfecied staler is,* sajs Dr. Harris, * a
vinged insect, bctwmi Aree and foar-tenths of
an inck lo^ Ihm the head to the tip of its
viBgs, aad cxpuidB si^4eBtlis of am iach. It
lias a wkiti^ toft <Mi ilslbreiiead;ilskMasa]id
■anw wiags cater its back like a sloping
loof; are a little tnnied np behind, and are
e^ed with a vide frii^e. Its fore-vii^ are
glossy like saiin, and are Baibled viih vhite
or grar, light brown, and dark bfown,or black*
idi ^pols,and there is always me dark, sqnare
^poC near the middle of the outer edge. Its
hind-wii^!s are blackish. Some of these winged
Bodis appear in M aj, odiers in Jnlj and Ai»-
gvst, ai which tanes Aej lay their eggsribr
ihere are two broods of diOB in the course of
the year. The yoong finm die first laid c^ggs
come to their grow^ and finnA dieir transfor-
■atioBs in ax weeks or two nMMiAs ; tike oAers
live throi^ dw winter, and torn to winged
Bodis in tte fiiOowing spring. The yoong
aoth-worms do not borrow into the grain,as has
heen asserted by sook writers, wte seem to
haTc confonnded Aem with the Angoranois
grain-worms ;bn^ as soon astheyarehalehed,
ttey begin lo goaw the grain and cover tibem-
sdres wtfh die fragments, which diey line widi
As they increase in size they
together several grains widi their wirin,
so as to make a larger cavi^, wherein they
lire. AAer a while, becomi]^ nneasy in their
confined habiiatioK, dwy come ont and wander
over the grain, ^pinning dieir dneads as they
go, tin diey hare Iband a soitahie place where-
in to make Aeir cocoons. Thns, wheat, rye,
barley and oais, aO of which dwy attack, will
he fbond fan of hnnps of grain cemented to-
gedier by diese com-wonss, as they are some-
times eahed; and when tber are very nnme-
roos the whole surface of the grain in the Inn
will be corered with a thick crost of webs and
of adhering grains. These destructive corn-
worms are realty soA and naked caterpil-
lan, of a cylindrical shape, tapering a Ultle at
each end, and are provided wkh sixteen legs,
Ae first three pair of which are conical and
jointed, and the odiers fleshy and wart-Ilke.
When fnlly grown, they measare foor or fire-
tenths of an inch in length, and are of a light
ochre or baff coloar, widi a reddish had.
When aboot six weeks old they leare the grain
and get into cracks, or aroiuid the sides of
corn-bins, and each one dten makes its^ a
little oral pod, or cocoon, abont as large as a
grain <rf'wfaeaL The insects of the first brood,
as before said, come oat of their cocoons, in
tihe winged form, in Jnly and Au^rast, and lay
dietr eggs for another brood: the others remain
mchanged in ibe;r cocoons tfaroogh the winter,
and take the chrysalis form in March or April
fioDowing. Three weeks afterwards, the shining
brown chrysalis forces itself part way ont of
die cocoon, by the help of some litde sharp
points Ml its tail, and bnrsts open at die other
ead, so as to allow the moth therein confined to
forth.
'The iMe^^aimg accovnt, drawn frmn Earo>
win probably enable readers

to determine whedier these destmctire in-
sects are found in the United States. From
rarions statements, deficient, howerer, in ex-
actness, diat have appeared in some of oar
agricnltnral jonmals, I am led to think that
this corn-moth, or an insect exactly like it
in its habits, prerails in all parts of the
conntry, and that it has generally been mis-
taken for the grain-weexil, which it far sur-
passes in its devastations. Many years ago I
remember to have seen oats and shel!ed com
(maixe) afiected in the way above described,
and have observed seed-corn, banging in the
ears, lo hare been attacked by insects of this
kind, the empty chrrsalids of which remained
sticking between the kernels ; bat, for some
time past, no opportunity for farther investiga-
tion has ofiered itselfl" See Conx-Mom.

The most pernicioos of what naturalists call
snool-beedes {Rkfmekophmimms), are die insects
properly called grain-weevils. These insects,
says Harris, must not be confounded with the
.«till more destructive larvae of the com-moth
(Tmm t^rmmeOd), which also auacks stored
grain, imm- with the orange-coloored maggots of
the wlieat-dy {Cmdomnfia Tritici), wiuch are
fimnd in the heads of growing wheat.

Although the grain-weevils are not actually
injurious to vegetation, yet as the name pro-
perty belonging to them has often been misap-
plied in the United States, thereby creating
no little confusion, some remarks upon them
may tend to prevent future mistakes.

"The true grain-weevil or wheafc-weevil of
Europe, the CaUmdrm {Sitofldbu) gramarioy or
Curcmlio granmrims of Lmnxus, in its perfected
state is a slender beetle of a pitchy r^ colour,
alMvt(me«ighth of an inch kmg^ with a slender
snoot digfady bent downwards, a coarscfy pimc-
tnred and very long thorax, constituting almost
one-half the length of the whole body, and wing-
covers that are farrowed, and do not entirely
cover the dp of the abdomen. This little in-
sect, both in the beetle and grub state, devours
stored wheat and other grains, and often com-
mits much havoc in granaries and brew-houses.
Its powers of multiplication are very great, for
it is stated that a single pair of these destroyers
may produce above six thousand descendants
in one year. The female deposits her eggs
upon the wheat after it is housed, and the
yoong ^vbs hatched therefrom immediately
burrow into the wheat, each individnal occu-
pying alone a single grain, the substance of
which it devours, so as often to leave nothing
but the hull; and this destruction goes ou
widiin, while no external appearance leads to
its discovery, and the loss of weight is the only
evidence of the mischief that 1^ been done
to the grain. In due time the grubs undergo
their transformatioos, and come out of the
hulls, in the beetle state, to lay their eggs for
another brood. These insects are efiectoally
destroyed by kiln-drying the ndieat ; and grain,
diat is kept cool, well ventilated, and is
qmentfy moved, is said to be exempt from
tack.

<* Anodier grain-weevil, hardly differing from
dbe fiir&joiog except in its colour, which is
black, is found in New York. It is the C ^v
in iSkafkOms) ramaUfmmduta of 8ch5i.v.-r.

GRANARY.

GRAPE-VINE CATERPILLAR.

Whether wheat and other fn"ain suffers to any
extent in this country, from either of these
weevils,! have not been able to ascertain, as the
accounts given of the ravages of the insects
supposed to be weevils are rarely accompanied
by any description of them in their different
states.

"Rice is attacked by an insect closely resem-
bling the wheat-weevil, from which, however,
it is distinguished, by having two large red
spots on each wing cover; it is also somewhat
smaller, measuring only about one-tenth of an
inch in length, exclusive of the snout. This
beetle, the Calandra (^Sitophilus) Oryza, or rice-
weevil, is not entirely confined to rice, but
depredates upon maize or Indian corn also. I
have seen stored Southern corn swarming with
them ; and, should they multiply and extend in
this section of the country, they will become a
source of serious injury to one of the most valu-
able of our staple productions. It is said that this
weevil lays its eggs on the rice in the fields, as
soon as the grain begins to swell. If this in-
deed be true, we have very little to fear from it
here, our Indian corn being so well protected by
the husks that it would probably escape from
any injury, if attacked. On the contrary, if the
insect multiply in stored grain, then our utmost
care will be necessary to prevent them from
infesting our own garners. The parent beetle
bores a hole into the grain, and drops therjein a
single egg, going from one grain to another till
all her eggs are laid. She then dies, leaving,
however, the rice well seeded for a future har-
vest of weevil-grubs. In due time the eggs
are hatched, the grubs live securely and un-
seen in the centre of the rice, devouring a con-
siderable portion of the substance, and when
fully grown they gnaw a little hole through the
end of the grain, artfully stopping it up again
with particles of rice-flour, and then arechanged
to pupce. This usually occurs during the winter;
and in the following spring the insects are
transformed to beetles, and come out of the
grain. By winnowing and sifting the rice in
the spring, the beetles can be separated, and
should then be gathered immediately and de-
stroved." (Harris.) See Corx-Motb.

GRANARY. A place where com is stored.
These have of necessity been constructed in
all ages of the world, and of different mate-
rials, according to the facilities afforded for
their construction by the neighbourhood in
which they are placed ; in England they are
commonly, for farming purposes, made of
wood or brick. In Sicily the public granaries
are in some places hollowed out of the solid
rock. According to a modem authority (Brit.
Hush. vol. i. p. 94), " The best situation for a
granary is over the thrashing-floor. It may be
easily secured from vermin; and requiring
only six feet in height, it will not interfere ma-
terially with the bays of the barn, especially if
they be loaded through the gables. A trap-door
in the floor, with a rope and pulley, raises and
lowers the load in the most easy manner, be-
sides securing it more effectually from depre-
dators ; and strong wired windows at each end
ventilate it sufficiently. The most general
mode, however, of forming granaries, is to
erect them of timber, and place them upon pil-

lars of stone or wood." It has been suggested
that com kept in granaries would be effectually
protected from the ravages of the weevil, by
mixing with it a small quantity of common
salt. See Corx-Moth, Weevil, and Corn.

GRAPE-VINE. See Vine.

GRAPE-VINE CATERPILLAR. Every
person, says Dr. Harris, who has paid any
attention to the cultivation of the grape-vine in
this country, must have observed upon it, be-
sides the large sphynx caterpillars that devour
its leaves, a small blue caterpillar transversely
banded with deep orange across the middle of
each ring, the bands being dotted with black,
with the head and feet also orange, the top of
the eleventh ring somewhat bulging, and the
forepart of the body hunched up when the
creature is at rest. These caterpillars begin to
appear about the middle of July, and others are
hatched afterwards, as late, perhaps, as the
middle of August. When not eating, they
generally rest upon the under-sides of the
leaves, and, though many may be found on one
vine, they do not associate with each other.
They live on the common creeper as well as
on the grape-vine. They eat all parts of the
leaves, even to the midrib and stalks. When
fully grown, and at rest, they measure an inch
and a quarter, but stretch out, in creeping, to
the length of an inch and a half or more.
Towards the end of August they begin to dis-
appear, and no more will be found on the vines
after September. They creep down the vines
in the night, and go into the ground, burying
themselves three or four inches deep, and turn
to chrysalids without making cocoons. The
chrysalis is dark-brown, and rough, with ele-
vated points. The moths begin to come out of
the ground as soon as the 25th of June,
and others continue to appear till the 20th
of July. Though of small size, they are very
beautiful, and far surpass all ouiers of the fa-
mily in delicacy of colouring and design. The
name of this moth is Ewhyas p-ata, the first
word signifying beautiful wood nymph, and the
sec<md agreeable or pleasing. The antennae are
rather long, almost thread-like, tapering to the
end, and not feathered in either sex. The fore-
wings are pure white, with a broad stripe along
the front edge, extending from the shoulder a
little beyond the middle of the edge, and a
broad band around the outer hind margin, of a
deep purple-brown colour ; the band is edged
internally with olive-green, and marked towards
the edge with a slender wavy white line ; near
the middle of the wing, and touching the brown
stripe, are two brown spots, one of them round
and the other kidney-shaped ; and on the mid-
dle of the inner margin there is a large tri-
I angular olive-coloured spot ; the under-side of
[ the same wing is yellow, and near the middle
there are a round and a kidney-shaped black
I spot The hind-wings are yellow above and
beneath ; on the upper-side with a broad pur-
I pie-brown hind border on which there is a
j wavy white line, and on the under-side with
j only a central black doL The head is black.
] Along the middle of the thorax there is a broad
crest-like stripe of black and pearl-coloured
' glittering scales. The shoulder-covers are
i white. The upper side of the abdomen is yel-

667

GRASS.

GRASS.

low, with a row ot black spots on the top, and
another on each side ; the under-side of the
body, and the large muff-like tufts on the fore-
legs, are white ; and the other legs are black.
This moth rests with its wings closed like a
steep roof over its back, and its fore-legs
stretched forward like a Cerura. It expands
from one inch and a half to one inch and three
quarters.

Eudryas unio, of Hiibner, the pearl Eudryas,
as its name implies, is a somewhat smaller
moth, closely resembling the preceding, from
which it differs in having the stripe and band
on its fore-wings of a brighter purple-brown
colour, the round and kidney-shaped spots con-
tiguous to the former also brown, the olive-
coloured edging of the band wavy, with a pow-
dered blue spot between it and the triangular
olive-coloured spot on the inner margin, and a
distinct brown spot on the inner hind angle of
the posterior wings ; all the wings bene.ath are
broadly bordered behind with light. brown, and
the spots upon them are also light brown. It ex-
pands from one inch and three-eighths to one
inch and a half. This species has been taken
in Massachusetts, but it is rare, and the cater-
pillar is unknown to me. (Harris.)

GRASS (Goth, gras ; Icel. graes, from gro, to
germinate, to sprout). The common herbage
of the field on which cattle feed.

The grasses, it has been often and well said,
" are nature's care." There is, perhaps, no
class of the vegetable world so little under-
stood as this. " Grass," says Professor Mar-
tyn, "vulgarly forms one single idea, and a
husbandman, when he is looking over his en-
closure, does not dream that there are upwards
of 300 species of grass, of which 30 or 40 may
be at present under his eye. They have
scarcely had a name besides the general one
till within these 20 years; and the few par-
ticular names which have been given them
are far from having obtained general use, so
that we may fairly assert that the knowledge
of this most common and useful tribe of plants
is yet in its infancy." (Letters on Botany, xiii.)
It is certain, however, that since Professor
Martyn wrote, much has been done to add to
our knowledge of the grasses. These grow in
all parts of the world promiscuously, and with-
out cultivation, affording both directly and in-
directly the means of subsistence to man.
Europeans live chiefly upon wheat, rye, and
barley, to which list their American de-
scendants have added maize or Indian corn.
"The cultivation of the earth," says Professor
Johnson, " preceded the improvement of the in-
tellect, and was the herald of civilization. It
is remarkable that we have no direct criterion
of the origin of many of those grasses met with
everywhere in cultivation, as none of them are,
to any extent, found wild. Some travellers
have thought that barley was indigenous to
Tartary, rye to Creta, and wheat to Asia, but
these might have been diffused from some cul-
tivated some years previously. Corn is not
only the support of man, but the grasses are
the subsistence of the animals which form his
nutriment. The nutritive quality of grasses is
principally owing to the sugar which they con-
tain, and of which some English grasses con- i
568

tain large quantities, but the sugar cane is the
only grass that is exclusively cultivated for ob-
taining this article for commerce. The grasses
are applied to a vast variety of important me-
chanical purposes; they are found in every
part of the world, from the Poles to the E<iua-
tor; on the land, as well as floating on the
water, and are the universal food of animals."
I The botanist has shown that there are more
than 130 distinct native species and varie-
ties of grass in Great Britain, all possessing
distinct properties, and varying in their de-
grees of value to the farmer, from the most
worthless, to those on which his successful
farming chiefly depends. The researches, too,
commenced by the late Duke of Bedford, and
carried on during a series of years in the grass
garden at Woburn,have added very materially
to our stock of knowledge concerning these
plants ; for, instituted with a public object, and
under the careful and skilful management of
one of my earliest correspondents, the late Mr.
George Sinclair, the results were given by him
to the public in the Hortus Grumineus Wobur'
nensis, a valuable and elaborate work, to which
I am chiefly indebted for the matter of this and
other articles upon the grasses. The manner
in which these celebrated experiments of the
Duke of Bedford were conducted, is thus de-
scribed :

"Spots of ground, each containing 4 square
feet, in the garden at Woburn Abbey, were en-
closed by boards in such a manner that there
was no lateral communication between the
earth included by the boards, and that of the
garden. The soil was removed in these en-
closures, and new soils supplied; or mixtures
of soils were made in them, to furnish as far as
possible to the different grasses those soils
which seem most favourable to their growth, a
few varieties being adopted for the purpose of
ascertaining the effect of different soils on the
same plant. The grasses were either planted
or sown, and their produce cut and collected,
and dried at the proper seasons, in summer
and autumn, by Sinclair, his Grace's gardener-^
For the purpose of determining, as far as possi-
ble the nutritive powers of the different species,
equal weights of the dry grasses or vegetable
substances were -acted upon by hot water till
all their soluble pans were dissolved ; the solu-
tion was then evaporated to dryness by a gen-
tle heat in a proper stove, and the matter ob-
tained carefully weighed. This part of the
process was likewise conducted with much
address and intelligence by Sinclair, by whom
the various details and calculations were fur-
nished. The dry extracts supposed to contain
the nutritive matter of the grasses, were sent
to me for chemical examination. The compo-
sition of some of them is stated minutely; but
it will be found, from the general conclusions,
that the mode of determining the nutritive
power of the grasses, by the quantity of matter
they contain soluble in water, is sufficiently ac-
curate for all the purposes of agricultural in-
vestigation." (-^gr. Chcm. upp.)

In regard to the description of soils — 1st. By
loam, is meant any of the earths combined
with decayed animal or vegetable maiier. 2d.
Clayey loam, when the greatest proportion is

GRASS.

GRASS.

clay. 3d. Sandy loam, when the greatest pro-
portion is sand. 4th. Brown loam, when the
greatest proportion consists of decayed vege-
table matter. 5th. Rich black loam, when sand,
clay, animal, and vegetable matters are com-
bined in unequal proportions, the clay, greatly
divided, being in the least proportion, and the
sand and vegetable matter in the greatest.
The terms light sandy soil, light brown
loam, &c., are varieties of the above, as ex-
pressed.

The systematical arrangement of grasses is
a difficult and unsatisfactory task, and has oc-
cupied the attention of many botanists. The
most recent work upon the subject is Knntk's
jlgrostographia, published at Berlin in 1836.

In choosing the mixture of grass seeds most
valuable for the farmer's soil, many considera-
tions must be taken into calculation ; not only
the nature of the soil, and the supply of water
to which its habits are best adapted, but also
the objects which the farmer has in view.
Thus, the meadow foxtail (Mopecurus prateit-
fis), although an early, nutritive, and produc-
tive grass, requires more than two years to
arrive at perfection; it is, therefore, better
adapted for permanent pasture than for the
alternative husbandry. And then, again, the
meadow cat' s-tail or timothy (Phleumpratense),
although remarkable for j^roducing the most
nutritious culms of all the grasses, and that,
too, in a considerable bulk, yields aftermath
of very little value. Valuable, there/ore, as it
is for hay, it is of little consideration for feed-
ing purposes if sown by itself; it must, there-
fore, be combined with other grasses. So the
cock's-foot or orchard grass (Dadylis glonie-
rata), which soon arrives at perfection, and
yields early and late a profusion of leaves,
which are highly nutritive, has culms or stalks
of little value; it is a grass, therefore, most
profitable for feeding purposes. "Under these
different relations, therefore," says Mr. G. Sin-
clair, "a grass should be considered, before
it is absolutely rejected, or indiscriminately
recommended."

The knowledge of the relative nutritive mat-
ters contained in different grasses, will also
not only be a highly important object of re-
search, as connected with 'their feeding pro-
perties, but as throwing considerable light on
the powers of the different grasses to exhaust
or impoverish the soil, a question which I
shall examine more at length under the head
"Rotation of Crops." A more intimate and
extensive knowledge, with regard to the com-
position of plants, may be derived from even
an examination of their external appearance
than many persons would deem possible. The
following are some of the general results of
the observations of Sinclair:

1. Grasses which have culms with swollen

joints, leaves thick and succulent, and flowers

with downy husks, contain greater proportions

of sugar and mucilage than those of a less

succulent nature.

I 2. When this structure is of a light glaucous

[ colour, the sugar is generally in excess.

I 3. Grasses which have clums with small

I joints ; flowers pointed, collected into a spike

1 or spike-like panicle ; leaves thin, flat, rough,

L

and of a light green colour, contain a greater
proportion of extractive matter than others.

4. Grasses which have culms furnished
with numerous joints; leaves smooth and suc-
culent; flowers in a spike or close panicle;
florets blunt and large, contain most gluten and
mucilage.

5. When this structure is of a glaucous
colour, and the florets woolly, sugar is in the
next proportion to mucilage.

6. Grasses which have their flowers in a
panicle, florets pointed or awned, points of the
culm smooth ^nd succulent, contain most mu-
cilage and extractive.

7. Grasses with flowers in a panicle ; florets
thinly scattered, pointed, or furnished with
long awns ; culms lofty, with leaves flat and
rough, contain a greater proportion of saline
matter and bitter extractive.

8. Grasses with strong, creeping roots, culms
few, leaves flat and rough, flower in a spike,
contain a greater proportion of bitter extract
with mucilage. (Hort. Gram. Wob. p. 42.)

In the first part of April 1920 grains of the
leaves of the following grasses, &c. afford, ac-
cording to Mr. G. Sinclair, the following pro-
portions of nutritive matter :

Meadow rnxtaiUgranfl, (PI. 5,/)
Tall oat-like soft-grasg, (PI. 5, ec)
8weel-8cented vernal, (W. 6, a)
Round-panicled cock's-foot, (PI. 5, b) - 80

Perennial rye-grass, (PI. 5, o) - - - 70
Tall fescue, (PI. 5, e) - - - - - 94

Me;idow fescue, (PI. 5, dd) - - - - 96

Crestpddog's-lail, (PI. 6,/) - - - 88

Woolly soft-Krass ----- 80

Creeping soft grass, (PI. 5, c) - - - 90
Meadow cat's-tail, (PI. 5, fc) - - - 80
Fertile meadow-grass - - - - 70

Nerved meadow-grass - - - - 76

Smooth awiiless brome-grass, (PI. 7, b) - 84
Wood meadow-grass ----- 68

Smooth fescue. (PI. 6. A) - - - - 70

Long-awned sheep's fescue, (PI, 6, k) - 103
Darnel-like fescue (PI. 5,/) - - -110
Creeping bent, or florin (PI. 5, n) - - A1
Wood florin ------ 69

Yellow vetchling ----- 40

Roug '-stalked meadow-grass, (PI. 5, i) - 80
Broad-leaved red clover, (PI. 8, 6) - - 80
While, or Dutch clover, (PI. 8, o) - - 64
Common quaking grass, (PI. 6, n) - - 54
Greater bird's-foot trefoil, (PI. 9, A) - - 60
Long-rooted clover, (PI. 8, A) - - - 76

Lucern, (PI. 8, A) 90

Bunias -------100

Burnet, (PI. 9, a) 100

Cuw parsnp ...... 90

{Ibid. p. 239.)
It may not be uninteresting to the cultivator
to learn of what these nutritive matters con-
sist; the following is the result of Mr. Sin-
clair's examinations:

Gn.
96
130
53

Bitter Ex-

100 ^niiM of the Nutri-
tive Matter of tbe

Mucilage,
Staich.

Sacch.

Matter, or

Sugar.

Gluten.

tractive

and
Saline
Matters.

Meadow foxUil

consists of -

64

8

-

28

Meadow fescue

59

20

_

20

Rye-grass

65

7

-

28

Meadow cat's-

tail

74

10

—

16

Cock's-foot

59

11

-

30

Meadow -oat

80

10

-

10

White clover (in

flower) -

77

2

7

14

Red clover (do.)

79

8

5

8

Tares

68

25

-

7

Fiorin (Jlgrostis

stolonifera

55

5

-

40

3b 2

569

GRASS.

3000 grains of the Green
Herbage of

Wnodv. or

iDdiKcstible

fibre.

W«er.

Nutritive
Matter.

Tares consist of -
White clover
Cwcit's-foot >?rni88 -
Meadow-fescue -

657
470
1135
1260

2250
2430
1740
1590

193
100
125
150

{Sinclair's Hort. Oram. IVob. p. 240, 241.)

The chemical composition of the grasses va-
ries materially in the progress of their growth,
a fact well worthy of the farmer's serious
attention in more ways than one. "I found,"
says Davy, " in all the trials I maile, the largest
quantity of truly nutritive matter when the
seed was ripe, and least bitter extract and sa-
line matter ; most extract and saline matter in
the autumnal crop, and most saccharine mat-
ter in proportion to the other ingredients in the
crop cut at the time of flowering. I shall give
one instance :

" 100 parts of the soluble matter obtained
from the round panicled cock's-foot grass
{Dactylis glomeratd), cut in flower, afibrded, of

Fartv

Snear --------18

MucilHge -------67

Extract, saline matters, tta. ... 15

100

"100 parts of the soluble matter from the seed
crop, afforded, of

Parti.
Sugar --------9

Mucilage -------85

Extract, &;c. ------ 6

100

" 100 parts of soluble matter from the after-
math crop gave, of

Sugar -
Mucilage
Extract

Parte.
11
59

100'

{Elm. of Agr. Chem. 477.)

The seeds of the Grasses. — The ripening of the
seeds of the essential grasses (says Sinclair),
takes place at three different periods of the
season, or, if they are classed according to the
time about which each species ripens its seed,
they will form three divisions or groups ; the
first, consisting of the earliest species, perfect
their seed about the end of June — such as the
sweet-scented vernal-grass and the narrow-
leaved meadow-grass : the second consisting
of the sheep's-fescne grass, and others, about
the end of July; and the third, such as the flo-
rin grass, and others, about the first or second
week in September, as may be seen from the
following

Table of the average periods at which different spe-
cies of Grasses ripen their seed, drawn up by the
late Mr. G. Sinclair, from the details often years*
practical observation and experiment, (jlllow-
ance must be made for difference of climate be-
tween England and America.)

PI. 6, c.

Annual meadow-grass iPoa annua)
from April 10 to frosts.

June

Sweet-scented vernal grass iAnthotanthum
odoratum), PI. 6, a 10 to 20

Soft annual broine-grass (Bromvs mollis),

PI. 7, & 12 — 20

570

GRASS.

June

Silver-hair, hair-grass (Aira caryophylla) - 15 to 20

Bitter vernal grass (Anthuxantlium amarum) - 15 — 20

Sheathed cotton-grass (.Eriophurum vafrinatim) 18 — 20

Narrow-leaved cotton-grass (E. avgustifolium) 20 — 30

One-flowered melic-grass {Melica uniftora) - 18 — 24

Spring Miillet-grass (Milium vernale) - - 18 — 25

Alpine meadow-grass (Poa alpina) PI. 6,1 - 18 — 24
Narrow-leaved meadow-grass (JP. angustifo-

«tf)Pl. 6, e 18 — 24

Blue meadow-grass (Ses/erta csru/ea) - - 18 — 24
Meadow foxtail-grass {Alopeeurus pratensis)

PI. 5, ^ 30

Sweet-scented soft-grass (abortive generally)

(Holcvs odoratus repevs) - - - - 20

Barlev-like fescue iFestuca ovina hordeiformis)
PI. 6, i - - - - - - Jun«20to July 20

July

Small-flowered oat-grass (Arena parrifiora) - 4 to 10

Loiig-flowered {Browns lovgijlurus) - - 4 — 13
Olancous fescue (Fcsfttco^/aj/ca) - - -4 — 24

Mwuviwunn {Festuca pavnimica) - - - 4 — 17

Hard wheat-grass (yrificMmnorrfws) - - 4 — 17

Smooth meadow-grass {Poa pratensis) Pi. 5, A 10 — 17
Woolly soft-grass (//u/c«s iana<?/s) - -12 — 24

Creeping soft-graps (Hulcus mollis) PI. 5, c - 14 — 28
Field or mi'adow brome-grass (Bromus arven-

sis) PI. 7, o - - 7

Jointed fox-tail (./fZopecur7t»^enicw/a<«») - - 7 — 26

Btilbnua meadow -gtasn (Poa bulbosus) - - 11

Yellow oat-grass {Avena pubescens) PI. 6, 6 - 15 — 25

Blue meadow-grass (/'oa c<ert(/ea) - _ - 16

Nodding panicled bent-grass (Bromus tectorum) 16

Crested dog's-tail ( Cynosurus cristatus) PI. 6, / 16 — 30

Horn of plenty (Cwrnucopia CHCM/ZotM/M) - - 16
Round-headed cock's-foot grass (Daclylisglo-

merata) V\. b. b 19 — 30

Glaucous cock's-foot grass (/).^/awce«ce»»») - 20

Striped cock's-foot grass (D. variegata) - 20

Striped American variety (D. Americana var.) 22

Wi>oi\ fescue (Festtica dumf I arum) - - - 19 — 3

Perennial rye-grass (Lolium percnne) P1.5, o 15

Russell-grass (Lolium Russellianum) - - 20

Reflexed meadow-grass (Poa rf/sra/js) - - 16

Rigid meadow-grass (P. rigidu) - - - 16
Rough -stalked meadow-grass (P. Trivialis)

PI. 5, i 16

Smofith-leaved fescue-grass (Festuca glabra

var.) PI. 6, A - 12

Creeping fescue-grass (FesrwcarKtro) - - 12 — 25

Common quaking grass (Briia media) PI. 6, « 12 — 20

Melilot clover (Trifolium Melilotus ojjicinalia) - 14

Upright brome-grass ( Bromus trectus) - - 20

Bush vetch (Ficia sepiM?«) - - - - 24 — 20

Sheep's fescue-grass (Festuca ovina) PI. 6, A - 28

Early hair-grass (AimprcBcoz) - - - 27

Water hHir-grasB (A. aquatica) - - - 26

Crested hair-grass (A. cristata) - - - 29

Gigantic brome-grass (Bro«i«»^i^an/ewa) - 24

Slender oat -grass (./Srena/ra^j-i/tfl) - . - 24

Eastern oat-grass (A. oricntalis) - - - 25 — 30

Meadow oat-grass (A. pratensis) - - - 24

Two-rowed br()me-gras8 (Bromus diataehyos) 30

Wall brome-grass (B. diandrus) - - - 21

Tongue-formed brome-grass (B. ligusfievs) - 30

Large-panitled brome-grat>s (Bromus viuzimus) 21

Flat-spiked brotne-graps (B. vnioloides) - - 21

Wood millet-grass (Jl/i7jMmf/M»«w;) - - 21

Brome-likc fescue-grass (Festuca frron/oi(Zes) - 21

Hard fescue-grass (F. duriuscula) PI. 6. g - 30

Crested hrorne-grass (firowws crj.s7a<w.v) - - 30

Slender fescue-grass (Ffs<MCOA'raci7i.«) - - 30

Slender sheep's-fescue (F. ovina tenuis) - - 30

Meadow fescue -grass (F. prittensif) PI. b,dd 30

Slender-leaved fescue (F. tenvifolia) - - 30

Viviparous fescue (F. vivipara) - - - 30

Sand canary-grass (Phalaris urenaria) - - 30

Ciliated melic-grass (Melica cilialu) - - 27 — 31

Nerved meadow-grass (Poa nervata) - - 30

Rye-grass-like fescue (Fesiura loliacea), PI. 5,/ 21
Lesser meadow cat's-tail (Phleum pratense mi-
nus) --------25

lAnear-ep'iked (Cynosurus eruccBformis) - - 21

Meadow cat's-tail (Phleum pratense) PI. 5, A - 25

Wood meadow-grass (Poa vemoralis) - - 30
Bulbous-jointed cat's-tail grass (Phleum nodo-
sum --------30

Fertile meadow-grass (Poa fertilis) - - 30

Larger bird's-foot trefoil (Aotj««/ojor) - - 30

Smaller bird's-foot trefoil (L. minor) - - 30

Capon's-iail fescue (Festuca Myurtis) - - 29

Sea-green meadow-grass (Puaca:sia) - - 27

Way-bonnet, wall-barlpy (Hordemnmurinum) 30

Thonin's vetch (riciVi T/ioj/Jnii) - - - 30

Welsh fescue.grass (Festuca Cambrica) PI. 7, e 20 — 30
Upright vetch (^iciasfricta) - - - -20 — 30

GRASS.

GRASS.

AogHt

Crested hair-grass {Jira crisiata) - - - 2

Giant lyme-grass (Klymus iriyunteus) - - 2

l)e.cmn\>fut meadow -STA8S {Poa decumbens) - 3

Spell wheat-grass (TriiicHtu speliu) . - 3

Slender wheat-grass ('r/i'icu?»i tenwe) - - 4

Bearded wheat-grass (Trincum caninnm) - 4

Awnless wheat -grass {Tniicum caninuiu vat.) 4

Common bent-grass (.Ai^ruaiis vulgaris) - - 4 ^

U|)ri)iht mat-grass {Kardus strtcia) - - - 5 '

Small spurious tare (Ernuvi Krcilia) - _ 4

Broad -It-aved oat-grass (^cena planiculmia) - 6

Hairy tare (£r»um /tir«Mt«Mi) - - - - 6

Four-seeded tare (Ervum letrasptrmum) - - 6

Glaucous meadow-grass {Pou iflauca) - - 6

Prnnuiiibenl meadow-grass (Pou proci/mfcen*) - 6
Long-rouied clover (Trtfulium macrurhizutH) PI.

8,k 6

Wood bfliit-grasB {.^irroBiis sylra'iciis) - - 6

Tall fertile fescue -grass {Fe.-tura daiior feriilin) 6
Miiny-Howering bronie-graas (Brumua muUifio-

rus) 5

Philadelphlan lyme-grass {Elymus Pkiladelpki-

CIS) - - - ' - - -6 to 20

Sordid vetch (r»c/a«or«fi<irt) - - - -6 — 20

Slend^'r-leaved veith {Vicia ifnuifulia) - - 6
Beiirdless lull oat-grass (Holcus avenaeeus muti-

cus) _-.---. -7

Red brome-prass (Bromus rubeiia) - - - 9
Bauhin's uiflic-grass (J/r/tca i^uiiAini) - - 0

rnxtai\-\\k*! (facuH iFtstueaalopccuroidei) - 10 — 23

Iledgeliog lyme-grass (Elymua hystrtx) - - 10

Barren hrome-grass (i?/-o«n(« »(*n/w) - - 10

Jointed lyine-grass (£/f/tMu«jreiiicuia(M«) - 10

Golden oat {Avena fiaviscens) - - - - 20

V\\\e.-\m\\\\:.W.A (Arundo Calamagroati*) - - 21 — 30

Meadow harley-gruss (I/ordeum pratrnae) PI. 5, d 21

Narrow -leaved brome (Bromua unguatifuliua) 21

Slender rye-grass (Lolium tevue) - - - 21
Spear-panicled bruine-gra»s {Bromva lanceola'

tus) «4

BiinfoitHOitobryeku Mtiva) V\. S, g - - 24

Winged hronie-grass (Bromtt»piniiatii«) - - 28 — 5

Brown bent-grass (^»To«tw cawido) - - 29 — 30

Bundled -leaved bent (^. vulgaris fateieutaria) 29

Couch grass {Triticum rcpena) • - - SO

Wood vetch (f^iciu «y/vatica) - - - - 30

!>cpt.

Til fled vetch (F^iciaer<Kco) - - - -4 — 12
Foxtail oat-i.'rass {Actmi aloper.uroides) - - 5 — 12
Awnless brown bent (Jlgro.-tia canina var. wit-

tica --.-----5

Coiirh bent-grass (^o-ro»/w a/hO - - - 8 — 15
Fiorin grHss (./J. atuluuifera) PI. 5, » - - 8

And many others. (>c«ober.

Common reed-grass (Anindo pkra<tvtiiea) - 10 — 15
American cnck's-fooi (/-(ttc/^/w eynusuroidea) JO
Stiff w heat-grass (TViticum rii'iduw) - - 12—13
And five or six others. {Sinelair'a Hort. Oram. Wob. p.

35.)

Of these grasses those regarded in England
as the chief and most useful species and varie-
ties are comprehended in the following list : —

Agrostis canina
AL'rostis slohtnifera.
AlnpKCiiriis pratensis.
AnthoxHiiihiiin odnrutum.
AvHiia fliivescens.
Avetia pratensis.
Briza media.
Brnmus arvensis.
Cow -grass, or perennial

red clover.
Cynosurus cristatus.
Dactylis glomerata.
Festuca cambrica.
Festuca durlu^cula.
Fesiuca tiuitans.
Festuca glabra.
Festuca heierophylla.
Festuca hordeiformis.
Ffstuca ovina.
Festuca pratensis.

Festuca rubra.

Festuca sylvaiica.

Festuca ti-nuifolia.

Ilolciis avenaceua.

Ifolcus lanatus.

Ilordeum pratensis

Lolium perenne.

Phleuui prateusis.

Poa annua.

Poa cteriilea.

Poa fertilis.

Poa nenioralis.

Poa nervaia.

Poa pratensis.

Poa trivialis.

Red suckling.

Rib-grass.

Trefoil.

White or Dutch clover.

Yarrow.

From some experiments, given in the Trans.
High. Sor. vol. ii. p. 250, by Messrs. Lawson &
Co., it would seem that the raising of the seeds
of the artificial grasses is attended with con-
siderable ]»rofit.

The late Mr. Blakie suggested a very excel-
lent plak for saving the seeds of down grasses,

or of those grasses M'hich are peculiarly adapt-
ed for elevated dry soils (Farm. J(nirn. March
17, 1823), viz. to fence oft a sufficient portion
of these pastures, choosing such portions as
have the best kind of grasses, and to mow these
enclosures for seed in succession, at three, lour,
or more different periods of the season. "By
these means," said Mr. G. Sinclair, "the seeds
of the early, midsummer, and late vegetating
grasses will be obtained, and which could not,
it is evident, be obtained by one mowing in one
season. This is," he adds, "a highly valuable
mode of obtaining the seeds of those grasses
adapted for downs ; which, to cultivate sepa-
rately for the seed, would be a fruitless under-
taking. Fence the selected turf well, and early
in the season, and prepare for mowing by pick-
ing the stones or rubbish from the surface, and
by rolling. As the seeds ripen, employ a care-
ful bird-watcher. Mow in dry, favourable wea-
ther. If the swaths are heavy, they should be
turned with great caution, so as not to shake
out the ripe seeds. As soon as the mowing is
dry, the seed should be immediately thrashed
out on a close woven cloth in the field, and on
a dry day; and when a certain portion of the
later grasses ripen their seed, another mowing
should be effected, and so on, until all the
grasses in the enclosure have perfected their
seed." {Hort. Gram. Wob. p. 39, 40.) " As every
different soil," continues Sinclair, in another
portion of his invaluable work, "produces
grasses peculiar to itself, and as no other kinds
can be established or cultivated upon it with-
out first changing its nature to resemble that
which produced the kind of grasses we wish
to introduce; it becomes a point of the first
importance in making experiments on different
species of this numerous family of plants, and
in stating results, to determine with sufficient
accuracy the nature of the soil or different soils
employed. The basis of every improvement in
the cultivation of grasses is to sow the seeds
of thofe species only which are adapted to the
soil, or to change the nature of unsuitable soils
to that which is fitted for the growth of grasses
most desirable to be cultivated; and, unless
this important point is in the first place at-
tended to, disappointment rather than success
may be expected to follow the labours of the
farmer."

1. Of the grasses of rich natural pastures. —
Every farmer is aware that peculiar grasses
are the productive tenants of his rich natural
pastures, and that if these are ploughed up, and
a course of grain crops taken from the soil, a
considerable period elapses before the turf with
which it was formerly covered can be restored.
George Sinclair carefully noted this fact, and
examined, not altogether unsuccessfully, its
cause. He observed that "the different grasses
and other plants which compose the produce
of the richest natural pastures are in number
26, and that from the spring to the end of au-
tumn there is not a month that does not con-
stitute the particular season of luxuriance of
one or more of these grasses ; hence proceeds
the constant supply of rich, succulent herbage
throughout the whole of the season, a circum-
stance which but seldom or never happens in
artificial pastures, where the herbage consists

571

GRASS.

of two or three plants only. The plants which
usually tenant the best natural pastures are
the meadow fox-tail, round cock's-foot, meadow
fescue, meadow cat's-tail, sweet-scented vernal
grass, tall oat-like soft-grass, creeping vetch,
rye-grass, field brome-grass, annual meadow
or Suffolk grass, meadow oat-grass : these yield
the principal grass in the spring, and a chief
portion of that of the summer. Then, again,
we find the yellow oat-grass, meadow barley,
crested dog's-tail, hard fescue, rough-stalked
meadow-grass, smooth-stalked meadow-grass,
woolly soft-grass, perennial red clover, white
or Dutch clover, yellow vetch or meadow la-
thyrus, and the smooth fescue, which yield the
principal portion of the summer and autumn
produce. Lastly, we find the yarrow, creeping
bent or fiorin, marsh bent-grass, and creeping
wheat-grass or couch, vegetating most vigo-
rously in the autumn. Besides these," conti-
nues Sinclair, "in the richest natural pastures
are invariably found the butter-cups (^Ranuncu-
lus acris), rib-grass or ribwort plantain {Planta-
go lanceolata), and sorrel dock {Rumex acetosa)"
Of these, however, except in cases of necessity,
live-stock will only eat the rib-grass.

To examine the nature of the change pro-
duced on rich pasture land by a course of grain
crops, Mr. Sinclair made the following valuable
experiments : —

" A space of 2 square yards of rich ancient
pasture land was dug to the depth of 8 inches ;
400 grains of this soil, freed from moisture and
the green vegetable fibres, contained —

Gv.
Calcareous and silicious sand - - - 102
Decomposing vegetable mailer and parti-
cles of roots ------ 55

Carbonate of lime (chalk) - - - 160

Silica (flint) 50

Alumina (clay) ------ 25

Oxide of iron _-_-_- 4
Soluble vegetable matter, and sulphate of

lime (gypsum) ----- 4

400

"This soil was then cropped for 5 seasons
alternately with 1, oats; 2, potatoes; 3, wheat;
4, carrots ; 5, wheat. It was then examined, to
ascertain what change it had undergone by
bearing these crops. It appeared to consist of

Gn.

Calcareous and silicious sand - - - 100

Decomposing vegetable matter - - - 48

Carbonate of lime (chalk) - - - - 159

Silica (flint) ------ 57

Alumina (clay) ------ 26

Oxide of iron ------ 5

Soluble vegetable and saline matter - - 3

398
Loss ^

400

"Thus, the earthy portion of the soil had
undergone but little change, but it had sus-
tained a very considerable diminution of its de-
composing vegetable and animal matters, par-
ticularly when it is considered that the turf
also was incorporated with the soil. Manure
was now for the first time applied, and, with
the wheal stubble, dug in to the depth of 6
inches. The surface was then made fine with
a rake, and sown with a mixture of the follow-
ing grass seeds, at the rate of 5 bushels to the
acre: — Meadow fescue, meadow fox-tail, round
672

GRASS.

cock's-foot, tall oat-like soft-grass, creeping
vetch, rye-grass, meadow cat's-tail, crested
dog's-tail, yellow oat, meadow oat, hard fescue,
smooth-stalked meadow-grass, fertile meadow-
grass, nerved meadow-grass, cow clover (Tri-
folium medium), Dutch or white clover, and
fiorin, marsh-bent. These were sown on the
28th of August, 1813. They all vegetated be-
fore the first week of October except the creep-
ing vetch (Vicia sepium), which did not germi-
nate till the autumn of 1814. Before the frost
set in they had a top-dressing with a compost
of rotten dung, lime, and vegetable mould, laid
on in a fine and dry state, and rolled, and again
rolled in February. The plants sprang earlier
than those of the old pasture (a circumstance
common to young plants in general). In the
first week of July the produce was cut and
weighed: it amounted to one-eighth more than
the produce of the ground in its original stale.
The aftermath, however, of the seedling grasses
weighed one-fifth less than that of the natural
pasture. But in 1815, upon cutting and weigh-
ing the grass in the first weeks of June and
August, and again in the middle of September,
the total weight of these three crops exceeded
that of the old turf exactly in the proportion of
9 to 8." (Hort. Gram. Wob. p. 131.)

2. The grasses which are the natural tenants of
dry sandy and elevated soils. — These, according
to Sinclair, are the sheep's fescue, viviparous
fescue, purple fescue, pubescent fescue, glau-
cous fescue, wall fescue, wall barley, fine bent,
brown bent, lobed bent, rock bent, snowy bent,
purple bent, tufted-leaved bent, waved hair-
grass, feather-grass, slender foxtail, hairy oat-
grass, blue melic grass, upright mat-grass,
blood-coloured panic-grass, green panic-grass,
barren brome-grass, crested brome-grass, up-
right annual brome-grass, nodding brome-grass,
Alpine meadow-grass, Alpine foxtail-grass,
blue moor-grass, crested hair-grass, panicled
cat's-tail grass, reflexed meadow-grass, flat-
stalked meadow-grass, meadow-barley, bird's-
foot clover, larger bird's-foot clover, trefoil or
nonsuch, sainfoin, soft brome-grass, creepmg
soft-grass, and white or Dutch clover. (Ibid.
p. 256.)

" When these sandy upland soils are im-
proved by the application of clay or marl, they
are then capable of supporting a very superior
description of grasses to these, and the follow-
ing varieties," says Sinclair, "should be sown,
for experience will prove that, under such cir-
cumstances, they are the best for that purpose."
(Ibid. p. 337.)

Barley-like sheep's-fescue - - - 3 pecks.

Cock's font grass - - - - - 3 —

Crested doe's-tail grass - - - 1 —

Yellow oal-grass - - - - - 2 —

Rye-grass ------l —

Flat-stalked meadow-grass - - - 1 —

Various-leaved fescue - - - - H —

Hard fescue - - - - - -2 —

Lesser bird's-fool trefoil - - - 1 lb.

White clover - - - - - 3 —

3. The grasses of bogs, or other very moist soils.—
These are commonly of the most worthless
description to the cultivator : they are chieflv
the marsh bent, awnless brown bent, awned
creeping-bent, smaller-leaved creeping-bent,
creeping-rooted bent, white bent, flote fescue,
tall fescue, turfy hair-grass, knee-jointed fox-

GRASS.

GRASS.

tail-grass, water hair-grass, water meadow-
grass, long-leaved cotton-grass, and sheathed
cotton-grass. (Hort. Wob. p. 340.)

4. The grasses of tcater meadows. — "All the
superior perennial grasses," observes Sinclair,
"thrive under irrigation when the meadow is
properly formed ; the following species of
grass I have invariably found to constitute the
produce of the best water meadows : — Meadow
foxtail, round-panicled cock's-foot, field brome-
grass, meadow fescue : these occupied the
crowns and sides of the ridges. The furrows
were stocked with the creeping bent, marsh
bent, hard fescue, lesser variety of meadow
cat's-tail, woolly soft grass, rough-stalked mea-
dow-grass, meadow fescue. A small admix-
ture of other species were thinly scattered over
every part of the ridge ; these were meadow
barley, yellow or golden oat, crested dog's-tail,
rye-grass, sweet-scented vernal-grass, tufted
vetch, with a larger proportion of the tall
oat-like soft-grass. The soil of the water
meadows which produced the above grasses
was either a deep active peal incumbent on
a silicious sand, or a sandy loam, on a
chalky or gravelly subsoil. In some irrigated
meadows, where the ridges were formed
nearly flat, and the soil consisted of a sandy
loam on a retentive clayey subsoil, the follow-
ing grasses constituted the chief produce : —
Crested dog's-tail, creeping-rooted soft-grass,
rye-grass, meadow barley, tall oat-like soft-
grass, sweet-scented vernal, and soft brome-
grass." (Ibid. p. 383.)

The grasses best adapted for the alternate
husbandry also attracted the attention of George
Sinclair; but he saw the difficulty of laying
down any systematic rules which should be
adapted for all soils and situations, and the
demands for animal food : he hardly, therefore,
made any very practical general observations.
He gives us, however, among other valuable
statements, the following little table of the rela-
tive value of three of the crops he had ex-
amined on similar soil :

Broad-leaved red clover

Liicern

Produce.

r herbage

■{hay

Cnut

Sainfoin

Jtritive matter
trass . . .
hay - - .
rritive matter
r herbage
-{ hay -
(.nutritive matter

Cgras
-J hay
Cnini

Mere.

49,005

12,251

1.901

70,785

88,314

I.ft59

8,848

3,539

345

5. The grasses best adapted for pasture during
the winter. — In the fourth volume of the Trans,
of the High Sor. p. 31, is an essay on this sub-
ject by the late Mr. George Sinclair. The fol-
lowing are the grasses he recommends as being
productive of the most considerable quantity
of winter's grass; and the proportion of seeds
which he advises to be sown to produce such
a pasture —

Cock's-foot (Dactylis glomerata) - - - 4 pecks.
Meadow fescne (.Festuca pratenxis) . . 3 _

Tall fertile meadow-grass (Festwaelatiorvar.

fertilis), only in very h-avy soils constantly

depastured with cattle.
Meadow cat's-tail, or true timothy grass {Phle-

um pratfji-^e major) - - . . | __

Broad-leaved bent, or fiorin ^Agrostia slolo'

nifera) ----...\

Tall oat-like aofY -grass (/fo/ci<9are7iac«i(«) . 2 —

Woolly soft-jrrass {JMcua lanatns), only \n
cases of considerable elevation and poverty
of soil.

Pacey's perennial rye-grass (Lolium perenne) 3 pecks.

Burnet (Poterium Savgui'^orba') - - - 2 —

Co<v-gra88, or perennial red clover (Trifulium
pratense pertnne) - - - - - 6 lbs.

White clover [Trifolium repena) - - - 8 —

The quantity of the grass seeds employed
per acre, for permanent ordinary pasture ne-
cessarily varies with the nature of the soil. A
practical English farmer gives the following
as an excellent mixture. (Mark Lane Exp.
April 6, 1841.)

On Light

On Heavy

Soils.

Soib.

lbs.

llw.

Clover, red - . - -

5

— white - - - .

6

— red, perennial (cow -grass)

4

Rye-grass, perennial - - -

4

- Italian - - -

4

Meadow foxtail ...

3

Cock's-foot ....

5

Fescue, meadow ...

3

— hard ... -

1

Ronsrh-stalked meadnw-grass -

S

Hmooth-stalked meailow-Krass -

1

Wood meadow-grass (Hudson's

Bay grass) . - - -

4

Sweet-scented vernal-grass -

3

Timothy grass ....

4

38

47

6. Transplantation or inonilntion of turf. — This
plan, which is one in certain situations, offer-
ing considerable advantages, is described in
the Brit. Husb. vol. ii. p. 523, and by G. Sinclair,
Hort. Gram. H^o6. p. 415. The mode of returning
tillage land to permanent pasture, called trans-
planting, was originally invented by Mr. Whit-
worth, of Acre House, Lincolnshire, and it
was first practised to any extent by Mr. .lohn
Bloomfield, of Warham, Norfolk. In laying
down land to permanent pasture by this mode,
it is essential that the soil should be free from
the seeds and roots of weeds, and made per-
fectly clean by a summer fallow. The autumn
is the best time for transplanting turf, and that
as soon as the autumn rains have sufficiently
moistened the turf to fit it for paring off" clean :
the roots of the grasses thus get established
before the commencement of warm weather in
the spring. It is also essential that the turf
should be selected or taken from the very best
pasture, for otherwise weeds and inferior
grasses will be propagated. If the field from
which the turf is to be taken to make the new
pasture, is intended to be broken up for a
course of tillage crops, then the whole of the
turf may be taken off and employed in form-
ing the new pasture to the required extent.
But should the field be required to remain in
permanent pasture, a portion only of the
turf must be taken from the field, and a suffi-
ciency of the sward, or grass-plant, left stand-
ing for that purpose. In the first of these
cases, Mr. Blakie directs a paring-plough to be
used ; but if that cannot be conveniently ob-
tained, a common plough, with the coulter and
share made very sharp, will answer the pur-
pose : a wheel plough is preferable, adds Sin-
clair, to a swing plough for paring turfs, be-
cause it goes steadier, and cuts the turf more
regularly. The turf should be cut about 2^

573

GRASS.

GRASS.

inches thick, and 7, 8, or 9 inches wide, ac- '
cording to the nature of the turf-gage of the
plough, and the width of the wing of the share :
it is sometimes cross cut into short lengths,
previous to the operation of paring ; but this j
can' only be effected when the turf is moist
and free from stones. The cross cutting is i
done by a scarifier, with cimeter tines, the
convex edges made very sharp, and faced to
the work, and the implement heavily weighted,
so as to press the tines a proper depth into the
turf: but it is best in large flags. The turf is
then carried in broad-wheeled carts to the field,
at the rate of 50 cart-loads to an acre, placed
in heaps, and then chopped into small pieces
of about 3 inches square ; the ground is then
levelled with a scarifier, and the turf spread
"with shovels over the field ; the pieces of turf
are then placed or planted by women and
children, and pressed into the soil by the foot
or a wooden rammer. One acre of turf di-
vided into pieces will plant 9 acres — each
piece of turf standing 9 inches apart The
expense per acre of this mode of converting
arable land into pasture is as follows : say

A. R.
1 2

Extent of prass land clean paired of -
Extent of arable land transplanted with the
above --1I0 15

Expense. £ s. d.

To ploughing or pairing 1 a. 2 r. 18 p., at 10s.

per acre - - - - - - -0 16 11

To carriage of 600 loads of tiifl, fifty days'

work for one horse, at 3s. per day - - 7 10 0
To boys driving carts - - - - -0 19 8
To scarifying II acres or 15 poles of ground

when covered with tuft cut in pieces, at

2s. 6d. per acre - - - - - -17 8|^

To labourers, at 30s. per acre - - - 1 12 9J

Or 2^ 9s. 2Jd, per acre.

27 6 4

A plan of improving old worn-out pasture
lands (by dibbling peas and vetches, with a
mixture of 18 pounds of Dutch clover, and 2
bushels per acre of Bay grass) is described by
Mr. Salter, Com. to Board of Jgr. vol. vi. p. 357.
On the advantages of deep ploughing, fallow-
ing, and liming land intended to be again laid
down to permanent pasture, with an experi-
ment on 17 acres at Jedburgh, there is a paper
by Mr. Bell, Quart. Joiirn. ofjgr. vol. i. p. 570,
and another by Mr. Sinclair (ibid. p. 65). To
this gentleman's excellent work (Hort. Gram.
Wob.), I would especially commend my rea-
ders, as it abounds with information on the
grasses. There is also a paper on the eco-
nomical improvement of grass lands in Scot-
land (Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. vii. p. 547) ; and
in all improvements of this kind, the use of the
sub-turf plough should not be forgotten by the
farmer. See InaiGATioif.

In addition to the original article in the
English edition, we deem the subject of grasses
so important, and the knowledge of the subject
so limited in the United States, that we subjoin
the following information derived from the
best British authorities.

English writers have divided hay grasses,
according to their duration, into two classes —
the temporary and permanent.

The tall hay grasses of temporary duration,
regarded as most valuable, are —

The Annual or Perennial Rye-Grass (Lolium
574

annua or perenne), see Plate of Tall Hay
Grasses, PI. 5, a ; Cock's-foot or Orchard Grass
(Dacfylis glomerata), b ; and Woolly Soft-Grass
(Holms lanatus), r.

Where a crop of hay is desired within the
year, it is necessary to resort to such grasses
as are annuals in the strict sense of the word;
and none (says Loudon) can be belter for this
purpose than the common oat (Avena sativa),
cut and made into hay when it comes into
flower. Next in order may be mentioned the
other cereal grasses, and the annual varieties
of Bromus ; the latter, however, are very
coarse grasses, though prolific in culm.

The biennial rye-grass, a variety of the pe-
rennial Lolium, is almost universally sown
in England, either with or without clover,
among grain crops, with a view to one crop of
hay in the succeeding season. It attains a
greater height, and produces a longer, broader
spike of flowers than the perennial rye-grass,
and the produce in hay is considered greater
than that of any other annual grass, equally
palatable to cattle. It prefers a rich, loamy
soil, but will grow on any surface whatever,
except undecayed rock or bog. The perennial
rye-grass, which will be more fully described
hereafter, differs from the biennial variety in
being of somewhat smaller growth, and in con-
tinuing in the ground for several years; accord-
ing to the circumstances of soil and culture.

The Cock's-foot Grass, or, as it is generally
called, in the United States, Orchard-Grass,
from its thriving well in moist shady places, and
especially orchards (PI. 5, b), is an imperfect
perennial, and grows naturally on dry, sandy
soils. This grass may be recognised by its
coarse appearance, both of the leaf and spike,
and also by its whitish green hue. It grows
freely in most situations, is very hardy and
productive, but rough, harsh, and coarse, and
much improved by cultivation in open grounds.
Hence its name of rough cock's-foot.

This grass is rather early in its growth, and
in many excellent old pastures it constitutes
one of the plants always found in the turf. It
vegetates much during the winter in England,
and when sown at the rate of 2 bushels an acre
with red clover, it has speedily formed a very
good sward. As a single plant to sow with
clover for hay, it is altogether unsuitable. On
good lands it shoots up strong, coarse stalks,
too tall and few in number, and unfit for fod-
der ; and the hassocky tufted roots do not yield
at that season a quantity of leaves to be cut
for hay. But on inferior soils that are used
for pasturage for two or three, or more years,
in remote or high situations, it forms one of the
most valuable of grasses, shoots early, and af-
fords, from its tufted growth, an early bite for
sheep, and produces an abundance of sounds
healthy seed, which is easily gathered. The
general complaint of running up to coarse
stalks may be remedied by early and close
grazing, and when sown on poor lands along
with other perennials, it will produce the ear-
liest feed, and the most abundant herbage
during the season. It is much relished by ^U
kinds of live-stock, and especially sheep, the
quantity of which that can in England be kept
upon it summer and winter is quite surprising,

I'la^e J.

Tall Hay Grasses.

cc

^ I 171

Ilay Grasses a-dapted to par ticLilar soils & situatio

ns.

GRASS.

GRASS.

the land meanwhile becoming richer in ttro or
three years from the sheep manure. Alter mid-
summer, however, sheep prefer the rye-grass.
Sinclair, it is stated, considers "no grass so
well suited for all purposes as cock's-foot." i
(Code of JgriciiUnre.)

It is observed, by high authority, " that if one |
species only is thought preferable to another |
in the alternate husbandry, that species is the j
cock's-foot, from its more numerous merits.
But a certain supply of the most nutricious
herbage throughout the season will be in vain
looked for from any one species of grass, and
can only be found where nature has provided it
in a combination of many." {Hort. Gram. Wob.,
2d ed. p. 414.)

The Woolly So/l Grass (PI. 5, c), is an imper-
fect perennial, and rather a late flowering
grass, of a short, unsubstantial appearance,
and found chiefly in poor, dry soils. It is,
however, a very common grass on all soils,
from the richest to the poorest. It aflfords
abundance of seed, light, and easily dispersed
by the wind. According to Sinclair, of Wo-
burn, it appears to be generally disliked by all
sorts of cattle. It answers, however, for sheep
pasture. Being left a,lmost untouched by cat-
tle, it appears the most productive part of the
herbage, which leads to a false conception of
its produce. The hay made from it is gene-
rally disliked by cattle. The Woburn experi-
ments lead to the conclusion that the Holms
mollis, or couch grass, is a better plant for hay
than the species here noticed, but that is a
more durable perennial, and therefore belongs
to another class of grasses.

Tall Hat Grassks of permanent duration. —
"No permanent grass," says Loudon, "has
been found equal to the rye-grass for the pur-
poses of convertible husbandry, but others
have been selected, which are considered su-
perior for hay meadows. The principal of
these are the fescue, fox-tail, and meadow-
grass." (Enqfr. of Jgr.)

Of the various species of fescue grass, there
are three held in the highest estimation in
England as meadow hay-grasses, viz.:

The Meadow or Fertile Fesnte Grass (Festuca
pratensis, PI. 5, dd). This is found in rich mea-
dows and pastures, and is highly grateful to
all kinds of stock. In England it is more in
demand for laying down meadows than any
other species, except the rye-grass. The loss
sustained by leaving the crop of this grass till
the seed be ripe is very great, since by the Wo-
burn experiments it appears that the value of
this grass, at the time the seed is ripe, is, to
that at the time of flowering, as 6 to 18. It
may be observed, that there is a great differ-
ence between straws or leaves that have been
dried after they were cut in a succulent state,
and those which are dried by nature while
growing. The former retain all their nutritive
powers, but the latter, if completely dry, very
little, if any.-

The Tall or Infertile Fescue Grass (Festuca ela-
tior, PI. 5, e). This, in appearance, differs but
little from the meadow fescue, except in being
larger in every respect. The produce, how-
ever, is nearly three times greater; the nutri-
tive properties being llso greater, in the pro-

portion of 6 to 8. This grass takes its name in
England from its seeds being infertile when
cultivated, it being produced by parting the
roots and planting them out.

The Spiked Fescue Grass, or Darnel Fescue
Grass (Festuca loliacea, PI. 5,/). resembles the
rye-grass in appearance, and the tall fescue in
the infertility of its seeds. "It is," says Lou-
don, "considered superior to rye-grass either
for hay or permanent pasture, and improves
in proportion to its age, which is the reverse
of what takes place with the rye-grass."

The Meadow Fox-tail Grass (Alopecurus pra-
tensis, PI. 5, g), is found in most English mea-
dows, and where the soil is neither very moist
nor very dry, but in good heart, is very produc-
tive. It also does well on water meadows.
Sheep and horses seem to relish it better than
oxen. In the Woburn experiments, the result
gave nearly three-fourths of produce greater
from a clayey loam than from a sandy soil,
the grass from the latter being comparatively
of less value in the proportion of 4 to 6.

Of the Meadow Grasses, there are two species
most esteemed in England and Scotland as hay
plants, the smooth-stalked and roughish, which
compose the greater part of some of the most
celebrated meadows, especially those near
Edinburgh.

The Great or Smooth-stalked Meadow Grass —
the Spear-grass of America (Poa praiensisj
PI. 5, h), is distinguished by its height, smooth
stem, and creeping roots. According to Sole,
it is the best of all the grasses. Its foliage be-
gins to shoot and put on a fine verdure early
in the spring, but not so soon as some other
grasses. Every animal that eats grass is fond
of it; while it makes the best hay, and affords
the richest pasture. It abounds in some of the
best meadows in Great Britain, and has the
valuable property of abiding in the same land,
M'hile most other grasses are continually
changing. According to some, it delights in
rather a dry than a moist soil and situation, on
which account it keeps its verdure better in dry
seasons, but it thrives most luxuriantly in rich
meadows. A loss of more than one-fourth of
the value of the whole crop is sustained if it is
not cut till the seed be ripe, the straws being
then dry, and the root-leaves in a decaying and
sickly state. Those of the laltermath, on the
contrary, are luxuriant and healthy. This
species sends forth flower-stalks but once in a
season, and those being the most valuable part
of the plant for the purpose of hay, it will,
from this circumstance, and the superior value
of the grass of the lattermath, compared to that
of the seed-crop, appear well adapted for per-
manent pasture. It was of this grass that the
American prize bonnet, in imitation of Leg-
horn, was manufactured by Miss Woodhouse.

The roughish meadou'-grass (Poa triviulis. Pi.
.•S, i), delights in moist, rich, and sheltered situ-
ations, where it grows 2 feet high, and is very
productive. By the Woburn experiments it ap-
pears that the proportional value in which the
grass of the seed crop exceeds that at the time
of flowering is as 8 to 11. The proportional
value by which the grass of the lattermath ex-
ceeds that of the flowering crop is as 8 to 12,
and that of the seed crop as 1 1 to 12. Here,

575

GRASS.

GRASS.

then, is a satisfactory proof of the superior va-
lue of the crop at the time the seed is ripe, and
of the consequent loss sustained by taking it
whpn in flower ; the produce of each crop be-
ing nearly equal. The deficiency of hay in the
flowering crop in proportion to that of the seed
crop is very striking. Its superior produce, the
highly nutritive powers which the grass seems
to possess, and the season in which it arrives
at perfection, are merits which distinguish it
as one of the most valuable of those grasses
Avhich aflfect moist, rich soils, and sheltered
situations. But on dry, exposed situations, it
is altogether inconsiderable ; it yearly dimi-
nishes, and ultimately dies ofl", not unfrequently
in the space of four or five years. {LoudorCs En-
cyclop, of Agriculture.)

The above constitute six of the best British
grasses for either dry or watered meadows.
The seeds of the two sorts of meadow-grass
are apt to stick together, and when sown with
clover and other kinds ojf seeds, require to be
carefully mixed before sowing. The tall and
spiked fescue grasses, having a number of
barren flowers, are not prolific in seeds, and
are therefore seldom to be got at the seed-
stores, though they may occasionally be had
there gathered from plants in a wild state.

As hay grasses, adapted for particular soils and
situations, the cai's-tail or timothy, floating fes-
cue, and florin grass have been recommended
by British agriculturists, though not with per-
fect unanimity.

The CaVs-tail or Thnothy grass (Phleum pra-
tense, PL 5, k), is said to be a native of Eng-
land, although, from its still partial use there,
and its universal culture in all the grazing dis-
tricts of the United States, its valuable proper-
ties were here first properly appreciated, as a
hay grass taking precedence of all others. It
is said to have acquired its name of timothy
from its first introducer into Maryland, Ti-
mothy Hanson. It is a favourite grass in
Sweden, and is destined to become so in Eng-
land, although some of the highest British
authorities upon rural matters. Withering,
Swaine, Curtis, and others, have disapproved
of its culture, as having no properties in which
it is not greatly surpassed by the meadow fox-
tail. Probably some mistakes have been made
by the authorities who have treated upon the
subject, who have thus referred to difierent
grasses. This is rendered more probable from
the fact that the English Flora enumerates six
species of cat's-tail, but one of which seems to
have any particular claims to the attention of
the farmer. The Woburn experiments present
timothy as one of the most valuable grasses for
hay. In England, according to Donaldson, it
has very undeservedly sunk in estimation, as
being harsh, late, and yielding little aftermath,
and from possessing no quality in which it is
supposed not to be excelled by the foxtail
grass. This last observation must have pro-
ceeded from a very limited experience, for in
general purposes, and in a variety of soils and
of climate, it far exceeds the foxtail, and also
in yielding readily an abundance of sound,
healthy seed, while many of the seeds of the
foxtail are abortive, and the plant is very shy
of growth, and confined to the best cultivation.
576

At the time of flowering, timothy grass pro-
duced on one acre 40,837 lbs., when ripe it
yielded the same weight, but the quantity of
nutritive matter was more than doubled; the
lattermath yielded 9528 lbs., and the same
quantity of nutritive matter as at the time of
flowering: 1920 grains of. leaves gave 80 grains
of nutritive matter, and 100 grains of nutritive
matter gave 74 of mucilage or starch, 10 of
saccharine matter or sugar, and 16 of bitter
extractive or saline matter. The ripe crop ex-
ceeds the flowering in value as 14 to .5, which
circumstance gives great value to the plant for
the purpose of hay. If these statements of com-
parative produce and value be admitted as an
authority, it will be seen that cat's-tail exceeds
the foxtail grass in every respect except in the
produce of the lattermath: an advantage that is
much over-balanced by the greater produce and
the ready growth of the timothy grass. It thrives
much on peaty lands, and in humid climates,
and on all damp soils, and on those that pos-
sess a degree of loamy softness in their com-
position ; and is unfit for hot sands, gravels,
and chalks, and for hard, sterile clays. With
that exception, experience on a great va-
riety of soils and for a long period of time
places this grass next to ray grass for general
utility. It grows readily and abundantly, yields
much seed and of good quality. On very good
lands, it has a tendency to produce height of
stems in place of number, and the leaves are
soon blanched and yellowed with rain in mak-
ing into hay; but the other grasses have a simi-
lar tendency, and they are all inferior to ray
grass in producing a crop of the greatest num-
ber of stems of an equal height. The time of
flowering is little if any later than the cock's-
foot, fescue, or ray-grass, and for one crop of
hay, or for two and three years' pasture, and
for permanent purposes, the meadow cat's-tail
must form a very considerable part of the
mixture. The comparative merits of this
grass will, from the above particulars, appear
to be very great ; to which may be added, the
abundance of fine foliage that it produces early
in the spring. In this respect it is only in-
ferior to the narrow-leaved meadow-grass {Poa
angustifolia), and Poa fertilis. The value of the
straws at the time the seed is ripe exceeds that
of the grass at the time of flowering in the pro-
portion of 28 to 10, a circumstance which raises
it above many others; for, from this property,
its valuable early foliage may be pastured to
an advanced period of the season without in-
jury to the crop of hay, a treatment which, in
grasses that send forth their flowering straws
early in the season, would cause a loss of nearly
one half in the value of the crop ; and this pro-
perty of the straws makes the plant peculiarly
desirable for hay. Timothy is. doubtless a very
exhausting crop, and some persons think it en-
tirely too costly a provender for horses in com-
mon use, and only to be given to racers, &c.
Cock's-foot and rye-grass afford a much cheaper
hay, and are not such great exhausters of the
soil. It seems certain that for horses no kind
of hay is equal to timothy. Mixed with clover
it also makes an admirable hay, fit for both
horses and cattle. (Spe PI. 5, of Tall Hay-
grasses, a.)

JPZate 6

a

Eaily Pastxire Grasses.

Pasture Grasses adapted to

particTxlax soils aiLd siraatlons.

i

Tlccie P'

■■'^

Glasses, etc. found in Fields and Meadows.

GRASS.

GRASS.

The common Ray or Rye-grass (Lolium pe-
renne), is said to be the first of the grasses cul-
tivated in England, and even in Europe. Ac-
cording to Donaldson, the latest English writer
upon grasses, it is still regarded as not far re-
moved from being first in point of general
utility. One of the species of Lolium, the tcmu-
lenttim, or bearded annual darnel, is sometimes
mistaken for what is known in the United States
by the names of Cheat or Chess, so often found
among wheat and barley crops. See Darxel.
The varieties of the Lolium perenne are very
numerous, and several improvements have
been effected in England on the original plant,
known under the names of Pacey's, Stickney's,
and Russell's Ray-grasses, Pacey's and Rus-
sell's being considered the best. For more
than a century and a half this grass has con-
tinued in high repute in England, both for the
purpose of a single crop and for pastures, asxd
now constitutes a part of all kinds of the im-
proved mixtures. The modern objection to
ray-grass is the shooting up to stems and
culms, and the want of foliage, together with
a deficiency of aftermath. " But," says Do-
naldson, "the first only happens in upland
situations and on poor soils, where any other
plant would have the same tendency; for on
good soils ray-grass grows large, leafy, and
succulent, and in many cases it affords as
good lattermath as most others, and forms,
when sown with clover, a very useful sward
for several years. No plant is liable to greater
variation from soil and situation, and hence
may have arisen the many discordant opinions
of its value ; and from being sown singly with
clovers it has been more exposed to observa-
tion than any other grasses which are usually
sown in mixtures, and seldom tried singly for
one crop or for a longer duration. It has ac-
cordingly been much subjected to fancies and
conjectures, which are about equally divided
for and against the use of it, the former being
yet the most numerous. Coarseness is inferred
from the benty stalks standing uncropped ;
these might be kept under by early and close
grazing, and other grasses are equally objec-
tionable on that point; and it produces stems
during the whole season, while some grasses
produce only one, and it is not yet known if
the leaves or stalks of plants contain most nu-
triment. So far as our knowledge extends,
after all the investigations and best experience
upon the subject, ray-grass forms the plant of
all others the best suited for general purposes.
For a crop of hay along with clovers, no other
grass will afford an equal quantity and quality
of produce on all the different variety of soils
on which they are sown. It yields very readily,
and with much less comparative trouble, an
abundance of sound, healthy seed, and of cer-
tain growth ; it rises early in the spring, and is
much relished by all kinds of stock; the hay
is good and fetches a high price, and it is used
with much advantage when sown in autumn
along with other plants as spring feed for
sheep." (Donaldson, on Manures, Grasses, ^c.)

After all the experiments that have been

made on the other grasses, none, says Loudon, |

have been found to equal the perennial rye- '

grass for a course of mowing and pasturing

73

for two, three, or seven years. It is sown in
Italy, and especially in Lombardy, and also in
France and Germany, along with clover, for
the same purposes as in England; and, as Von
Thaer has remarked, though some have tried
other species, both in these countries and in
England, they have in the end returned to the
rye-grass. When intended as a pasture grass,
if stocked hard, and when for hay, if mown
early, the objections to it are removed. (^Code
of Agriculture.')

The Floating Fesnie-grass (Festuca fluitans,
PI. 5, /) is found in England in ditches, ponds,
and swamps, and in most parts of the country,
especially in Cambridgeshire, where it is said
to give the peculiar flavour to Cottenham and
Cheddar cheese.

It is greedily devoured by all kinds of stock,
not excepting hogs and ducks, and geese
eagerly devour the seeds, which are small,
but very sweet and nourishing. They are col-
lected in many parts of Germany and Poland
under the name of manna-seeds (schwaden),
and are esteemed a delicacy in soups and
gruels. When ground to meal, they make
bread very little inferior to that from wheat.
Fish feed upon the seeds, and trout are said to
thrive greatly in streams where this grass
grows abundantly. Curtis justly remarks, that
the flote fescue will not flourish except in land
that is constantly under water, or converted
into a bog or swamp. (Loudon^s Ency. of Agr.)

The Water Meadoiv-grass (Poa aquatica, PI. 5,
w), is one of the largest of English grasses.
It is found chiefly in marshes, but will grow
on strong clays, and yield, as the Woburn ex-
periments prove, a prodigious produce. In the
fens of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, &c., im-
mense tracts, that used to be overflowed and
to produce useless aquatic plants, and which,
though drained by mills, still retain much
moisture, are covered with this grass, which
not only affords rich pasturage in summer, but
forms the chief part of the winter fodder. It
has a powerfully creeping root, and bears fre-
quent mowing well, sometimes being cut three
times in one season. It grows not only in very
moist ground, but in the water itself, and with
cat-tail, bur-weed, &c., soon fills up ditches,
and occasions them to require frequent cleans-
ing. In this respect it is a formidable plant,
even in slow rivers. In the Isle of Ely they
cleanse these by an instrument called a bear,
which is an iron roller, with a number of
pieces of iron, like small spades, fixed to it.
This is drawn up and down the river by horses
walking along the banks, and tears up the
plants by the roots, which float and are carried
down the stream.

The /Jon » grass (Agrostis stolonifei-a, PI. 5, n),
is in JEngland a very common grass, both
in wet and dry, rich and poor situations. Few
plants, however, appear to be more under the
influence of local circumstances than this
grass. On dry soils it is worthless, but on rich
and moist soils, if we may attach confidence
to the accounts given of its produce in Ireland,
it is the most valuable of all herbage plants.
(See Aghostis.) Though florin will, in Eng-
land and Ireland, ripen its seeds on a dry soil,
and these seeds being very small, a few pounds
3C " 577

GRASS.

GRASS.

would suffice for an acre, yet it is generally
propagated by stolones, or root-shoots. The
ground being previously prepared by plough-
ing, harrowing, and laying into ridges, the
shoots are deposited, touching each other at the
ends, in drill rows an inch or two deep and
about 6 or 9 inches apart. In 6 months, if the
planting be performed early in spring, the
whole surface will be covered with thick ver-
dure, affording, by autumn, a heavy crop.

With regard to the last described grasses,
Mr. Loudon gives it as his opinion, that neither
fiorin, timothy, or floating fescue, is ever likely
to be cultivated in Britain, though, he observes,
the two latter may succeed well on the bogs
and moist, rich soilsof Ireland, where, to second
the influence of the soil, there is a moist warm
climate. In regard to the merits of timothy,
the reports of several high authorities, one of
which (Donaldson) we have just quoted, seem
to lead to a very different conclusion. The
observation may be strictly applicable to fiorin
and floating fescue, both in England and Ame-
rica, although there may be some localities in
the United States into which one or other of
these may be advantageously introduced.

Pasture Grasses. — In regard to grasses for
pasturage, the following selection is given by
Loudon, as best adapted to three main pur-
poses; namely: —

For early pasture on all soils, the sweet ver-
nal grass {Anthoxanthum odoratum), the sweet-
scented soft-grass (Holcus odoratus), the downy
oat-grass (jivena pubescens), and the annual
meadow-grass (Poa annua).

For late pasture on all soils, the different spe-
cies of Agrostis and Phleum.

For pasture on poor or secondary soils, the crest-
ed dog's-tail (Cynosiirus cristatus), hard and
sheep's fescue (F. duriuscula and avina), Poa
compressa, cristata, and angustifolia.

The grasses which, according to Loudon,
afford most nutritive matter, in early spring,
are the foxtail grass and the vernal grass.

The sweet-scented vernal grass (see PI. 6, a), is
common in almost all English pastures, and is
that which gives the fragrance to natural or
meadow hay. It is chiefly valuable as an early
grass ; for, though it is eaten by stock, it does
not appear to be much relished by them. It is
said to thrive best in lands that are deep and
moist, and even in peat bogs. Donaldson
places it in the lower order of the better
grasses. See Anthoxa::?thu>i Oporatux.

The dovmy oat-grass (see PI. 6, 6), according
to the Woburn experiments, possesses several
good qualities which recommend it to particu-
lar notice, as being hardy, early, and more
productive than many others which aflfect simi-
lar soils and situations.

The annual meadoio-grass (Poa annua, PI. 6, c),
is the most cominon of all grasses, being the
first herbage with which nature covers the
earth. The root is annual, and it is almost the
only grass that will grow in towns, or near
works where the smoke of coal abounds.
Though an annual grass, it is found in most
meadows and pastures perpetually flowering,
and affording an early sweet herbage, relished
by all stock, and of as great importance to birds
578

as wheat is to man. It hardly requires to be
sown, as it springs up everywhere of itself.
However, it may not be amiss to sow a few
pounds of it per acre, whenever perpetual pas-
ture (not hay) is the object.

The fine bent (Agrostis vulgaris, see PI. 6, rf),
is one of the most common grasses, and one
of the earliest. See Agrostis Vulgaris.

The narrotv-leaved meadouf-grass (Poa angusti-
folia, see PI. 6, e), though it flowers late, is re-
markable for the early growth of its leaves,
which, according to the Woburn experiments,
attain to the length of more than 12 inches
before the middle of April, and are soft and
succulent; in May, however, when the flower-
stalks make their appearance, it is subject to
the disease termed rust, which affects the whole
plant, in consequence of which the produce of
the crop is deficient at the time the seeds are
ripe. (See Poa Axrustifolia.) This grass is
evidently most valuable for permanent pas-
ture, for which, in consequence of its superior,
rapid, and early growth, and the disease begin-
ning at the straws, nature seems to have de-
signed it. The grasses which approach near-
est to this in respect to early produce of leaves,
are, the fertile meadoio-grass, rough cocWs-foot,
timothy, meadow foxtail, avena elatior, and bromus
littoreus, all grasses of a coarser kind.

Late Pasture Grasses. — Of these the principal
are timothy, and the various kinds of bent or
agrostis. The grasses which are propagated
by stolones, like fiorin, and others of the same
species, supply pasture throughout the year,
the concrete sap laid up in the joints of their
roots, rendering them good food even in
winter.

Of Pasture grasses for inferior soils, one of the
most durable is the dog's-tail grass (Cynosurus
cristatus, see PI. 6,/), in England, a very com-
mon grass on dry, clayey or firm surfaces. In the
United States it is either little known, or slightly
estimated. The foliage is small and rather
late in the spring. The wiry stems are refused
by cattle, and become very unsightly, and from
the smallness of produce, and the dense lufts
formed at the roots, it is unfit for alternate hus-
bandry. But for pastures, and for all perma-
nent purposes, if the land be of a dry and hard
nature, and inferior in quality, and if sheep are
to be fed upon it, this grass must form, accord-
ing to Donaldson, a principal part of the mix-
ture of seeds sown for that purpose. It is not
at all adapted to low swampy situations, but
on poor, dry clays, and gravelly soils, it often
covers the ground and aflfords a bite where
every other grass had nearly failed.

The hard fescue grass (Festuca duriuscula, see
PI. 6, g), is one of the best of the dwarf sorts
of grasses, grateful to all kinds of cattle. It is,
in England, present in most good meadows and
pastures, and with the sheep's-fescue is the best
for lawns.

The smooth fescue (F. glabra, see PI. 6 h),
and long-awned sheep's-fescue (F.hordeiformis,
PI. 6, i), greatly resemble the hard fescue, and
may be considered equally desirable as pas-
ture and lawn grasses.

The sheep's fescue (F. ovina, PI. 6, k), is one
of the principal pasture grasses for inferior

GRASSHOPPER.

GRAVEL.

soils and upland situations, peculiarly adapted
for hilly sheep pastures. It is a low dwarf
grass, relished by all kinds of cattle.

The Alpine meadow-grass {Poa alpina, see
PI. 6, I), turfy hair-grass (Mra crespitosa, PI.
6, m), common quaking-grass {Eriza media, PI.
6, m), are all dwarf mountain grasses, well
adapted forhillv parks or lawns.

GRASSHOPPER (Grylliday The destruc-
tive insects, popularly known in the United
States by the name of grasshoppers, but which,
in our version of the Bible, and in other works
in the English 'anguage, are called locusts,
have, from a period of very high antiquity,
attracted the attention of mankind by their ex-
tensive and lamentable ravages. It should be
remarked, observes Dr. Harris, that in America
the name of locust is very improperly given to
the cicada of the ancients, or the harvest-fly of
English writers. The name of locust will here
be restricted to certain kinds of grasshoppers ;
while the popularly named locust, which, ac-
cording to common belief, appears only once
in 17 years, must drop this name and take the
more correct one of cicada or harvest-fly. The
very frequent misapplication of names, by
persons unacquainted with natural history, is
one of the greatest obstacles to the progress
of science, and shows how necessary it is that
things should be called by their right names,
if the observations communicated respecting
them are to be of any service. Every intelli-
gent farmer is capable of becoming a good
observer, and of making valuable discoveries
in natural history ; but if he be ignorant of the
proper names of the objects examined, or if
he give to them names, which previously have
been applied by other persons to entirely dif-
ferent objects, he will fail to make the result
of his observations intelligible and useful to
the community.

The insects which Dr. Harris calls locusts, to-
gether with other grasshoppers, earwigs, crick-
ets, spectres or walking-sticks, and walking-
leaves, soothsayers, cockroaches, &c., belong
to an order called Orthoptera, literally straight-
.wings; for their wings, when not in use, are
folded lengthwise in narrow plaits like a fan,
and are laid straight along the top or sides of
the back. They are also covered by a pair of
thicker wing-like members, which, in the
locusts and grasshoppers, are long and nar-
row, and lie lengthwise on the sides of the
body, sloping outwards on each side like the
roof of a house ; in the cockroaches, these
upper wings or wing-covers are broader,
almost oval, and lie horizontally on the top of
the back, overlapping on -their inner edges;
and in the crickets, the wing-covers, when
closed, are placed like those of cockroaches,
but have a narrow outer border, which is
folded perpendicularly downwards so as to
cover the sides of the body also.

"The young grasshopper comes from the
egg a wingless insect, and consequently unable
to move from place to place, in any other way
than by the use of its legs ; as it grows larger
it is soon obliged to cast off its skin, and, after
one or two moultings, its body not only in-
creases in size, but becomes proportionally

longer than before, while little stump-like wings
begin to make their appearance on the top of
the back. After this, the grasshopper con-
tinues to eat voraciously, grows larger and
larger, and hops about without any aid from
its short and motionless wings, repeatedly casts
off its outgrown skin, appearing each time
with still longer wings, and more perfectly
formed limbs, till at length it ceases to grow,
and, shedding its skin for the last time, it
comes forth a perfectly formed and matured
grasshopper, with the power of spreading its
ample wings, and of using them in flight.'*
(Harris.) See LocrsTS.

GRATTEN. A terra provincially applied
to arable lands in a commonable state. But it
is used in Cornwall to imply the mowing of
grass the first year after the land has been
manured with sea-sand ; and this operation
thev call "mowing in gratten."

GRAUWACKE. A German miner's term,
implying gray rock; adopted in geology to
designate some of the lowest secondary strata,
which form the chief part of the transition rocks
of several geologists. See Geoloot.

GRAVEL. A term applied to a well-known
material, consisting of small stones, which
vary in size from that of a pea to that of a
walnut, or something larger. It is often inter-
mixed with other substances, such as sand,'
clay, loam, flints, iron ores, &c., from each of
which it derives a distinctive appellation. See

GXOLOGT.

The best kinds of manure for this sort of
land are • marl, or any stiff clay, cow-dung,
chalk, mud, and composts formed of rotten
straw from the dung-hill.

"Gravels," says Professor Low, in his re-
marks on soils (El. of AgX' p* 8), "like sands,
have all the gradations of quality from fertility
to barrenness. The loose soils of this nature,
in which the undecomposed material is great,
and the intervening soil silicious, are held to
be the worst of their kind. These are, in
some places, termed hungry gravels, not only
to denote their poverty, but their tendency to
devour, as it were, manure, without any cor-
responding nourishment to themselves.

"The rich gravels will produce all the cul-
tivated kinds of grain. Their loose texture
renders them less suited than the clays to the
growth of wheat and beans; but they are ad-
mirably'adapted to the growth of barley and
oats. They are quick in their powers of pro-
ducing vegetation ; and from this quality, they
are, in some places, termed sharp or quick
soils.

" Gravels, like sands, are suited to the cul-
ture of the different kinds of plants raised for
the sake of their roots and tubers ; and they
are in so peculiar a degree suited to the growth
of turnips, that in some parts they receive the
distinguishing appellation of turnip soils."

Gravel, if mixed with stiff loam, makes ex-
cellent and durable gravel walks for gardens,
&c. The kind generally preferred for this
purpose, is the red gravel. Previous to laying
it down, a solid substratum of lime, rubbish,
large flints, or broken earthen pots, or any other
hard substance, should be formed to the depth

579

GRAVES.

GREASE.

of 16 or 18 inches, in order to keep the path '
dry, and prevent weeds from shooting through
to the surface. The permanent or earthy ma-
nures, adapted to the gravels, are marl, clay,
and c^ialk. See Mixture of Soils.

GRAVES, or GREAVES. The waste and
refuse of tallow-chandlers after the candles
have been made, which is sometimes used as a
manure. It consists of the sediment of melted
tallow, and is composed of the membranous,
vascular, nervous, and muscular matters
blended with the fat, and which, not being fusi-
ble, are easily separated from it by straining;
the graves are made up into hard cakes, and
are chiefly used as a coarse food for large
house-dogs.

GRAZIER. A person engaged in the art or
business of pasturing or feeding and fattening
diflferent kinds of live-stock on grass-land. In
order to be capable of managing this business
to the greatest advantage, he should have a
perfect knowledge of the nature and value of
all kinds of live-stock, as well as of the land
on which they are to be fed, and of properly
suiting them to each other. Upon these being
well understood and attended to, his success
must depend. According to Mr. Hillyard, a
practical grazier, and the well-known president
of the Northampton Farming and Grazing So-
ciety, " the knowledge requisite to carry on
grazing to the most advantage is not easily
obtained. A man should know how beasts
ought to be formed; should have a quick eye
for selecting those with a frame that is likely
to produce weight ; and a hand that should feel
the known indication of the probability of soon
becoming fat."

The business of grazing is more general in
some of the counties of England than in others ;
it is for the most part carried on in Somerset-
shire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and the
midland counties. It is a system of husbandry
that can only be profitably practised in districts
where the extent of pasture is considerable, or
the value of the produce of grass-land small
in comparison with that of animals.

It is well observed, by an author of the last
century, that the stocking of land with proper
cattle is one of the nicest parts of the science
of farming. Where nature is left to herself,
she always produces animals suitable to her
vegetation, from the smallest sheep on the
Welsh mountains to the largest sort in the
Lincolnshire marshes; from the little hardy
bullock in the northern Highlands to the noble
ox in the rich pastures of Somersetshire. But
good husbandry admits of our increasing the
value of the one in proportion to that of the
other. Land improved enables us to keep a
better sort of stock. The true wisdom of the
occupier is best shown in preserving a due
equilibrium between this improvement of his
land and stock. They go hand in hand, and
if he neglect the one he cannot avail himself
of the other. It should, therefore, be first con-
sidered what kind of cattle or other stock will
answer the purpose best, on the particular
description of land upon which they are to be
grazed.

In stocking (be ground, as the proportion of
cattle must depend upon the nature of the soil,
5S0

it will perhaps be generally found that, local
habit, as being usually the result of experience,
is the surest guide. In the opinion, however,
of the most intelligent graziers, in stocking
enclosures, the cattle should be divided in the
following manner : — Supposing our fields, each
containing a nearly equal quantity of land, one
of them should be kept entirely free from stock
until the grass is got up to its full growth, when
the prime or fatting cattle should be put into it,
that they may get the best of the food ; the se-
cond best should then follow ; and after them
either the working or store stock, with lean
sheep to eat the pastures close down ; thus
making the whole of the stock feed over the
four enclosures in this succession : —

No. 1. Clear of stock, and reserved for the
fattening beasts.

No. 2. For the fattening beasts until sent to
No. 1.

No. 3. For the second best cattle, until for-
warded successively to Nos. 2 and 1.

No. 4. For stores and sheep to follow the
other cattle ; then to be shut up until the grass
is again ready, as at No. 1, for the fattening
beasts.

By this expedient the fattening cattle will
cull the choicest parts of the grass, and will
advance rapidly toward a state of maturity, for
they should always have a full bite of short
and sweet grass ; and with such cattle, the
greatest care should be taken not to overstock
the enclosures. It is also advisable to divide
the fattening enclosure by hurdles, so as to
confine the beasts within one half of it at a
time, and to allow them the other half at the
other, so that they may continually have fresh
pasture.

Shade and pure water are essentially neces-
sary; and where there are no trees, rubbing-
posts should be set up to prevent the cattle
from making that use of the gates and fences.
In marsh land, which is chiefly divided by
dykes, this, indeed, should never be neglected,
as it is materially conducive to their comfort.
(Comp. Grazier, 6th edit. p. 74 ; Brit. Husb. vol. i.
p. 482, vol. ii. p. 368 ; Hillyard! s Farm, and Graz.
p. 117.)

GREASE. In farriery, a disease incident to
horses or other cattle, consisting of a swelling
and inflammation of the legs.

It is sometimes confined to the neighbour-
hood of the fetlocks ; at other times spreading
considerably further up the legs, and secreting
an oily matter, to which the disease is probably
indebted for its name.

It is brought on by sudden changes from a
cold to a hot temperature ; such as removing
horses from grass into hot stables ; from hastily
substituting a generous after an impoverishing
diet ; from the negligence of grooms in leaving
the heels wet and full of sand ; and from con-
stitutional debility.

The farmer's horse is not so subject to grease
as many others, because he is not usually ex-
posed so much to sudden and extreme changes
of temperature, and the heels particularly are
not thus exposed. In many instances he lives
almost entirely out of doors, or, if he is stableid,
the stables of the small farmers are not always
air-tight. The wind finds its way through many

GREASE.

a cranny, instead of entering at the door alone,
and blowing upon the heels. On the first ap-
pearance of grease, the heels should be well
washed with soap and water, and an ointment
of sugar of lead and lard applied. In the more
advanced stage, when cracks begin to appear,
if they are but slight, a lotion of blue vitriol
(sulphate of copper), alum, and water will suf-
fice to dry and close them up ; but if they are
deep, with an ichorous discharge, and the lame-
ness considerable, it will be necessary to poul-
tice the heel with linseed meal, or carrots boiled
soft and mashed. When the inflammation and
pain have subsided, the cracks may be dressed
with an ointment composed of — resin, 1 part,
lard, 3 parts, melted together, and 1 part of ca-
lamine afterwards added. (The Horse, p. 277.)

GREASE, for wheels and machinery. M. D'Ar-
cet, the celebrated French chemist and Master
of the Mint, recommends the following as the
best grease for wheels and machinery; viz., 80
parts of grease and 20 parts of plumbago (black
lead), reduced to vety fine powder, and most
intimately and completely mixed together. A
very small quantity suffices, (/our/i. des Con.
Usuelles et. Prat. vol. ii. p. 237.)

GREEN CROPS. Crops, in England, which
are consumed on the farm in their unripe slate.
(See Cabbages, Tares, Tckjtips, Carrots,
Rotation of Crops, &c.) One of the many
great improvements in modern farming, has
been the general introduction of green crops, a
practice which I think will yet be materially
extended; and to this end, for the heavy land
farmers, the use of the white or Belgian carrot
promises to be very serviceable. Green crops
are either fed off, soiled, or ploughed in for
manure. (See Greex Manures.) When fed
off, the fertilizing effects of the sheep pastured
upon them are very materially promoted by the
addition to their food of oil-cake or of corn,
and, as a condiment, common salt See Clover.

GREEN FALLOW. Such land as is ren-
dered clean by means of green crops, without
having recourse to naked fallowing. It is a
great improvement in modern farming. See

FALLOWIXrj.

GREEN FOOD. Such food as is made use
of in its green, succulent state, in the feeding
and support of different sorts of live-stock.
This kind of food has lately been much more
extensively employed than formerly; but its
advantages are not, probably, yet so fully un-
derstood by farmers in general as they ought.
A few trials will, however, show their import-
ance and great utility, when properly made.
See SoTLixG.

GREEN GRASS (Poa viridis, Poa annua).
A native of the United States, and especially
of the Middle and Northern States, where it
grows in all meadows and rich soils.— PZ. 6. e.

Dr. Muhlenburg says it is not described by
Linnaeus, though nearly allied to his poa an^s-
tifolia. It mSy be easily known by the follow-
ing description : " Culm (or haulm) erect and
round (columnar), panicle diffuse, spicules
five-flowered and hairy at their base." Cattle
are very fond of this grass, if cut when the
blossom opens. It produces less than the
Avena elatior, or tall meadow-oats, but horses
prefer it. It continues green until even

GREEN MANURES.

after frost, and when all other herbage is
destroyed; and, if manured, will continue for-
ever. The fine grazing-farm of Mr. William
West, of Upper Darby, Delaware county, Pa.,
consists entirely of this grass. Mr. West finds
it necessary to sow clover thinly on the green
grass sod every three or four years, to correct
a slight tendency which green grass has to
bind the soil. When the green grass appears
upon meadows made by banking out rivers,
care must be taken to secure a supply of water;
otherwise, according to Mr. J. Cooper, the ends
of the seeds will become affected with a black
spear, about one-fourth or one-half an inch in
length, similar to the smut on rye, and cause a
loss of the hoofs of cattle that eat the grass.
(Deane's N. E. Fanner.)

GREEN-HOUSE. In gardening, a house
with a roof and one or more sides of glass, for
the purpose of containing plants in pots which
are too tender to endure the open air the greater
part of the year. The green-house, being a
structure of luxury, ought to be for the most
part situated near the house, in order to be en-
joyed by the family in inclement weather; and,
if possible, it should be connected with the
flower-garden, as being of the same character,
with reference to use. Its length and breadth
may be varied at pleasure, but its height should
never be less than that of the loftiest apartment
of the house to which it belongs. The best
aspect is to the south or south-east ; but any
aspect may be chosen, provided the roof is en-
tirely of glass, and abundant heat is supplied
by art. Of late years, green-house roofs have
been made of either cast iron or of zinc, and
sometimes in the form of a dome. Both metals
are preferable to wood. In green-houses fac-
ing to the north, however, the more tender
plants will not thrive so well in winter : more
artificial heat will be required at that season;
and the plants should be chiefly evergreens,
and other plants that come into flower in the
summer season, and grow or flower but little
during winter. In most green-houses the plants
are kept in pots or boxes, and set on stages or
shelves, in order that they may be near the
roof, so as to receive the direct influence of the
rays of light, immediately on their passing
through the glass. An orangery differs from
a green-house in having an opaque roof, and in
being chiefly devoted to plants which produce
their shoots and flowers in the summer season
in the open air; and they are set in the orangery
merely to preserve them through the winter.
Such a structure might with more propriety be
termed a conservatory; but custom in the pre-
sent day has applied this term to structures
having glass roofs, in which the plants are not
kept in pots, but planted in the free soil, and
in which a part of them are encouraged to
grow and flower in the winter months. There
are some interesting papers on the subject of
green-house plants by Mr. Towers, author of
the Domestic Gardener's Manual, in the Quart.
Journ. of jlgr. vol. v. p. 65, vol. vi. p. 48%
(Brande's Diet, of Science and Art.) See Coir-
servatort and Oraxgert.

GREEN MANURES. The use of green
manures early attracted the attention of the
cultivator. Xenophon recommended green
3 c 2 581

GREEN MANURES.

GREEN MANURES.

plants to be ploughed into the soil, and even
that crops should be raised for that purpose;
for these, he says, " enrich the soil as much as
dung." And the lupin is named as an excel-
lent manure by very early agricultural writers.
The white lupin is even now grown in Italy for
the purpose of being ploughed into the soil, an
operation generally performed in October.

The white lupin, which is extensively em-
ployed for this purpose in Tuscany, is the
leguminous annual plant, well known in our
gardens, growing in sandy and loamy soil to
the height of two or three feet, with a stem of
equal strength with the bean, and having some-
what similar blossoms and pods ; but the pro-
duce is so bitter, that it is unfit for the nourish-
ment of either man or beast. It arrives to a
considerable size in the month of October,
when it is ploughed into the soil. It abounds
with gluten, to which, in fact, its fertilizing
effects have been chiefly attributed.

Green manures, although in some measure
rendered subservient to the enriching of the
soil, as soon as man began to till the earth, and
dig in the weeds of his land and the remnants
of former crops, have never been systematically
employed by the farmer. He has ever been
more desirous of employing, as food for his
stock, the vegetable produce of his land, than
to bury it in the earth to promote the future
productiveness of the soil. Yet, whenever
green succulent substances, such as weeds,
river collections, sea-weed, &c., have been
used, the result has always been most satisfac-
tory. The putrefaction of the vegetables, and
the gases in that case emitted, appear to be on
all occasions highly invigorating and nourish-
ing to the succeeding crop. During this ope-
ration, the presence of water is essentially
necessary, and is most probably decomposed.
The gases produced vary in different plants:
those which contain gluten emit ammonia ;
onions, and a few others, evolve phosphorus ;
hydrogen, carbonic acid gas, and carburetted
hydrogen gas, with various vegetable matters,
are almost always abundantly formed. All
these gases, when mixed with the soil, are very
nourishing to the plants growing upon it. The
observations of the farmer assure us that they
are so. He tells us that all green manures
cannot be employed in too fresh a stale ; that
the best corn is grown where the richest turf
has preceded it; and that where there is a good
produce of red clover, there will assuredly fol-
low an excellent crop of wheat: he finds also,
that when he ploughs in his crop of buckwheat
to enrich his land, that this is most advanta-
geously done when the plant is coming into
flower. The chemical explanation of these
practical observations is not difficult. "All
green succulent plants," says Davy, " contain
saccharine or mucilaginous matter, with woody
fibre, and readily ferment ; they cannot, there-
fore, if intended for manure, be used too soon
after their death. When green crops are to be
employed for enriching a soil, they should be
ploughed in, if it be possible, when in flower,
or at the time the flower is beginning to appear;
for it is at this period that they contain the j
largest quantity of easily soluble substances, j
and that their leaves are most active in forming !
582

nutritive matter. Green crops, pond weeds,
the parings of hedges or ditches, or any kind
of fresh vegetable matter, require no prepara-
tion to fit them for manure. The decomposi-
tion slowly proceeds beneath the soil, the solu-
ble matters are gradually dissolved, and the
slight fermentation that goes on, checked by
the want of a free communication of air, tends
:o render the woody fibre soluble without occa-
sioning the rapid dissipation of elastic matter.
When old pastures are broken up and made
arable, not only has the soil been enriched by
the death and slow decay of the plants which
have left soluble matters in the soil, but the
roots and leaves of the grasses living at the
time, and occupying so large a part of the sur-
face, afford saccharine, mucilaginous, and ex-
tractive matters, which become immediately
the food of the crop, and the gradual decompo-
sition affords a supply for successive years."
{Jgr. Chem. p. 280.) Nothing will aid the
practical farmer so much in understanding the
value of green manure, as a knowledge of the
constituent elements of plants. Woody fibre,
starch, sugar, gum, are compounds of carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen ; the fixed and the vola-
tile oils, wax and resin, are constituted of car-
bon, with the elements of water, and an excess
of hydrogen ; vegetable albumen and gluten
contain nitrogen as an element; and it is never
altogether absent in plants, either in their solid
or fluid contents. Now, reflecting upon these
facts, it follows that the developement of a plant
requires the presence of substances containing
carbon and nitrogen, and capable of yielding
these elements to the growing organism ; se-
condly, of water and its elements ; and, lastly,
of iron, lime, and other inorganic matters es-
sential to vegetable life. (Liedig's Organic Chem.)
It is always refreshing to find the sagacious
conclusions of the philosopher supported by
the practical farmer's observations. "In Oc-
tober, 1819," said the late Dr. Browne, of Gorl-
stone, in Suffolk, in a letter which he sent to
me, " a violent gale of wind drove to this part
of the coast an unprecedented quantity of sea-
weeds. These were eagerly scrambled for;
and, from my greater vicinity to the beach, I
collected twenty-seven cart-loads, each as much
as four horses could draw; and although other
persons deposited their collections in their
farm-yards, to rot among their other manure,
yet I spread mine, fresh and wet, upon little
more than an acre of bean stubble, instantly
ploughed it in, and dibbled wheat upon it. On
the 6th of October I then salted the adjoining
land with three bushels per acre, manured it
with fifteen loads of farm-yard dung per acre,
and dibbled it with wheat on the 15th of No-
vember. The result was, that the sea-weeded
portion gave three times the produce of any
equal part of the field." (C. W. Johnson's
Essay on Salt, p. 48.)

No one more perseveringly advocated the
employment of green manures than the late
Mr. Knight. In his paper on the question, he
supported his views by some ingenious expe-
riments, and used every argument that could
fairly be employed in their favour. " Writers
upon agriculture," he observed, " both in an-
cient and modern times, have dwelt much upoa

GREEN MANURES.

GREEN MANURES,

the advantages of collecting large quantities
of vegetable matter to form manures; whilst
scarcely any thing has been written upon the
state of decomposition in which decaying
vegetable substances can be employed most
advantageously to afford food to living plants.
Both the farmer and gardener, till lately,
thought that such manures ought not to be de-
posited in the soil until putrefaction had nearly
destroyed all organic texture, and this opinion
is, perhaps, still entertained by the majority of
gardeners; it is, however, wholly unfounded.
Carnivorous animals, it is well known, receive
most nutriment from the flesh of other ani-
mals when they obtain it most nearly in the
state in which it exists as part of a living
body; and the experiments I shall proceed to
state, afford evidence of considerable weight
that many vegetable substances are best cal-
culated to reassume an organic living state
when they are least changed and decomposed
by putrefaction." The allusion to carnivorous
animals is misplaced ; as green food must be
soluble, and in a decomposing state, before it
can be taken up by plants ; but this does not
weaken the argument in favour of its utility.
"I had," continues Mr. Knight, " been engaged
in the year 1810 in some experiments, from
which I hoped to obtain new varieties of the
plum, but only one of the blossoms upon
which I had operated escaped the severity of
the frost in the spring. The seed which this
afforded having been preserved in mould dur-
ing the winter, was in March placed in a small
garden pot, which was nearly filled with the
living leaves and roots of grasses mixed with
a small quantity of earth, and this was suffi-
ciently covered with a layer of mould which
contained the roots only of grasses, to prevent,
in a great measure, the growth of the plants
which wece buried. The pot, which contained
about one-sixteenth of a square foot of mould
and living vegetable matter, was placed under
glass, but without artificial heat, and the plant
appeared above the soil in the end of April.
It was, three times during the summer, re-
moved into a larger pot, and each time sup-
plied with the same matter to feed upon, and
in the end of October its roots occupied about
the space of one-third of a square foot. Its
height above the surface of the mould being
then 9 feet 7 inches. In the beginning of June
a small piece of ground was planted with po-
tatoes of an early variety, and in some rows
green fern, and in others nettles, were em-
ployed instead of other manure ; and, subse-
quently, as the early potatoes were taken up
for use, their tops were buried in rows in the
same manner, and potatoes of the preceding
year were placed upon them, and buried in the
usual way. The days being then long, the
ground warm, and the decomposing green
leaves and stems affording an abundant mois-
ture, the plants acquired their full growth in
an unusually short time, and afforded an abun-
dant produce, and the remaining part of the
summer proved more than sufficient to mature
potatoes of any early variety. The market
gardener may probably employ the tops of his
early potatoes and other green vegetable sub-
stances in this way with much advantage.

"In the preceding experiments the plum
stone was placed to vegetate in the turf of the
alluvial soil of a meadow, and the potatoes
grew in ground in which, though not rich, was
not poor, and therefore some objections may
be made to the conclusions I am disposed to
draw in favour of recent vegetable substances
as manures. The following experiment is, I
think, decisive. I received from a neighbour-
ing farmer a field, naturally barren, and so
much exhausted by ill management, that the
two preceding crops had not returned a quan-
tity of corn equal to that which had been sown
upon it. An adjoining plantation afforded me
a large quantity of fern, which I proposed to
employ as a manure for a crop of turnips;
this was cut between the 10th and 20th of
June, but as the small cotyledons of the turnip
seed afford little to feed the young plant, and
as the soil, owing to its extreme poverty, could
not afford much nutriment, I thought it neces-
sary to place the fern a few days in a heap to
ferment sufficiently to destroy life in it, and to
produce an exudation of its juices, and it was
then committed in rows to the soil, and the
turnip-seed deposited with a drilling machine
over it.

"Some adjoining rows were manured with
the black vegetable mould obtained from the
site o'f an old wood pile, mixed with the slen-
der branches of trees in every stage of decom-
position ; the quantity placed in each row ap-
pearing to me to exceed more than four times
the amount the vegetable mould, if equally
decomposed, would have yielded. The crop
succeeded in both cases, but the plants upon
the green fern grew with more rapidity than
the others, and even than those which had
been manured with the produce of my fold and
stable-yard, and were distinguishable in the
autumn from the plants in every other part of
the field by the deeper shade of their foliage.
I had made, in preceding years, many similar
experiments with small trees (particularly
those of the mulberry when bearing fruit in
pots) with similar results ; but I think it un-
necessary to trespass on the time of the society
by stating these experiments, and conceiving
those I have stated to be sufficient to show
that any given quantity of vegetable matter
can generally be employed in its recent and
organized state with much more advantage
than when it has been decomposed, and no in-
considerable part of its component parts have
been dissipated and lost during the progress
of the putrefactive fermentation." (Trans,
Hort. Soc. vol. i. p. 248.)

In an article upon this subject, M. Knoles,
of Secheim, writes thus : " My vineyard has
been manured for eight years on the branches
cut from the vines, without receiving any
other manure, and yet more beautiful and
richly-laden vines could scarcely be pointed
out. The branches are pruned from the vine
in August, whilst still fresh and moist, and
are traced into the soil after being cut into
small pieces. At the end of four weeks not
the smallest trace of them can be found."

When green vegetable substances are bu-
ried in the soil, they first lose their green
colour, speedily wither, and then putrefaction

583

GREEN MANURES.

soon commences. It is requisite, however, for
this purpose, that moisture should be present,
and that the temperature of the soil should not
be less than about 45°. If the atmosphere has
access to the vegetable matter, the putrefaction
proceeds with more rapidity, but its presence
is not essential. Putrefaction cannot, how-
ever, proceed if water is absent, and hence it
has been concluded that water is decomposed
during the process. The smell which proceeds
from the gases emitted varies according to the
vegetable substance which is putrefying. Thus,
as I have before remarked, those which con-
tain gluten emit ammonia; others, such as the
onion, evolve phosphuretted hydrogen. Almost
all emit carbonic acid gas and hydrogen gas,
which, combined with various vegetable mat-
ters, are commonly produced in very copious
volumes. When wood decomposes, a portion
of oxygen is absorbed from the atmosphere,
carbonic acid gas is emitted, and the whole
mass is gradually reduced to a dark vegetable
mould. This black substance is an excellent
fertilizer; plants grow in it with great luxu-
riance. The soils of some of the famed newly-
enclosed American lands owe all their fertility
to the abundance of this vegetable mould
which they contain. These are the American
soils from which we are told 20 successive
good crops of wheat have been obtained.
There are some lands in the Hundreds of Es-
sex, in Kent, and other places, whose luxuriant,
unfailing produce is hardly credible ; alternate
crops of wheat and beans have been obtained
from them from time immemorial. (Johnson
on Fertilizers, p. 168.) Vegetable mould, as ob-
tained from the trunks of oak trees, has been
examined by MM. Saussure and Einhoff; by
distilling it they obtained from 200 grains
{Rec. sur la Veg. p. 162) —

Cubic inches.
Carburetted hydrogen ----- 124
Carbonic acid gas ------ 34

Graini.

Water containing acetate of ammonia - 63

Empyreumalic oil ----- lo

Charcoal ---____ 51

Ashes 8

By the effects of cultivation, exposure to the
action of the atmosphere, and the roots of
plants, this mould becomes gradually exhaust-
ed in the soil, and the land is of course sensi-
bly impoverished. On this mould the alkalies
operate very powerfully, almost entirely dis-
solving it, and hence one great use of soda and
potash as fertilizers.

It is also a continued source of carbonic
acid, which it emits slowly ; hence it might be
asserted, that in a good fertile soil there is an
atmosphere of carbonic acid, which is the most
nutritive food of the young plants raised in it ;
for when a plant is fully matured, and is fitted
to obtain most of its nourishment from the air,
the carbonic acid of the soil is no longer re-
quired. It is on that account that vegetable
mould is so fertile ; not by being itself assimi-
lated into the substance of the plant, but by
furnishing a slow but lasting supply of car-
bonic acid.

With regard to the best time to turn under
clover, buckwheat, and other green crops, for
the purpose of enriching the ground, we have
684

GREEN MANURES.

seen in the preceding observations that Davy
and others have decided in favour of the period
of full vigour, or when the plants may be in
blossom. It seems, however, that the results of
many well-conducted experiments and repeat-
ed observations lead to a different conclusion,
namely, that it is best to allow the green crop to
decay more or less before ploughing it in. In
the course of his agricultural survey of Massa-
chusetts, Mr. Colman found the opinion of some
most successful farmers to be in favour of allow-
ing the crop to mature and perish, before it was
subjected to the plough as a manure for the
soil. As the opinion of such men was at vari-
ance with the commonly received one, Mr. Col-
man addressed a letter to the well-known che-
mist, Dr. Dana, requesting his views on the
matter, as a question for chemical investiga-
tion. Dr. Dana's reply is contained in the
report of the commissioner.

The essential element of fertility in a soil, he
says, has been called humus, geine, vegetable
extract, mould, as well as several other names,
all meaning a brownish-black, powdery mass,
the result of putrefactive decay, and the remains
of decomposed organic matter. This substance
combines with the alkaline, earthy, or metallic
bases of the plant or the soil, and constitutes
the means of growth or nutrition in the new
vegetable. Without it, there seems to be no
power in the earths of producing vegetation ;
and if in too great excess, as it sometimes ap-
pears to be in very pure manures, it is destruc-
tive or unpropitious to all growth. In the
question now at issue, the inquiry, of course,
was, which furnishes to the soil the greatest
quantity of geine or humus, the green or the
dried plant. Dr. Dana decides in favour of
the latter.

Fermentation appears to be the great agent
in the decomposition of organic matter; and
Dr. Dana's survey of the several kinds, such
as vinous, acetous, and destructive fermenta-
tion, seems to have a direct bearing on the for-
mation of the elements of fertility. The juices
only that contain sugar or starch, converti-
ble first into gum and then into sugar, by the
action of azolized vegetable principles, espe-
cially gluten, are capable of the vinous fermen-
tation. The conditions necessary to this fer-
mentation are moisture, air, and a temperature
not below 50°, nor above 86°.

"If," says Dr. D.," we plough in green plants,
we put them in a temperature favourable to the
commencement of vinous fermentation ; we
bury them full of sap, the requisite moisture
for vinous fermentation. The sugar and starch
of the plant, fermented by its gluten and albu-
men, are converted into gases and alcohol; the
former are lost in air, and the last washes
away or is changed to vinegar. All that re-
mains for the farmer is the altered gluten and
albumen, which soon putrefy and form geine.
All the starch and sugar of the plant are thus
lost."

In his remarks on destructive fermentation,
Dr. Dana has the following observations ;

"Doubtless, all green plants ploughed in un-
dergo, to a greater or less extent, destructive
fermentation, which succeeds the vinous and
acid fermentations, perhaps caused by the ra-

GREEN MANURES.

GREEN MANURES.

pidity of these processes. Hence, in addition
to the sugar, gum, and starch of the plant, we
lose a large portion of its other substances, by
turning it in green. The products of this rapid
fermentation have been but little studied. Happy
the farmer who never witnesses the process !
He should never induce it, and may generally
prevent its extension when once begun. It is
a dead loss to him ; but in all the other cases
of putrefaction, the products are valuable."

Will not the remark made above by Dr. D.,
that the alcohol formed during the vinous fer-
mentation washes away or is converted into
vinegar, account for the fact of what some far-
mers complain of, as souring the sail in turning
in heavy Crops of green clover] We have
heard some very successful farmers and wheat-
growers assert that their experience in turning
in the clover crop before it had reached matu-
rity, or while abounding in sap, had been so
unfavourable, that they had relinquished the
practice, and chose either to feed it off with
sheep, or let it decay on the ground.

Still, no one can doubt but that excellent
effects are produced by turning in green crops,
particularly such as buckwheat, of which three
or four can be ploughed in in a year; thus
evidently giving more geine than where the
ripened product is turned under. The danger
of the practice appears to arise from ploughing
in the green crop in that condition, and under
such circumstances, that the vinous fermenta-
tion and acetous one are so rapid as to convert
the valuable products into vinegar, and thus
seriously injure the land; or when the destruc-
tive fermentation converts the plant into sub-
stances unfit for the food or nutrition of vege-
tables. (Cultivator.)

During the growth of plants, substances con-
taining a large proportion of carbon are ex-
creted or thrown out by the roots, and absorbed
by the soil. These substances were either in
excess, or unfitted for the nutrition of the
growing plants. They constituted, therefore,
excrementitious matters, through which the
soil received again, with usury, the carbon
which it had first yielded to the young plants
as food, in the form of carbonic acid.

"The soluble matter thus acquired," says
Liebig, "by the soil is still capable of decay
and putrefaction, and by undergoing these pro-
cesses furnishes renewed sources of nutrition
to another generation of plants ; it becomes
humus. The cultivated soil is thus placed in a
situation exactly analogous to that of forests
and meadows ; for the leaves of trees which
fall in the forest in autumn, and the old roots
of grass in the meadow, are likewise converted
into humus by the same influence : a soil re-
ceives more carbon in this form than its de-
caying humus had^ost as carbonic acid.

"Plants do not exhaust the carbon of a soil
in the normal or regular condition of their
growth ; on the contrary, they add to its quan-
tity. But if it is true that plants give back
more carbon to a soil than they take from it, it
is evident that their growth must depend upon
the reception of nourishment from the atmo-
sphere in the form of carbonic acid.

"Humus does not nourish plants by being
taken up and assimilated in its unaltered state,
74

but by presenting a slow and lasting source of
carbonic acid, which is absorbed by the roots,
and is the principal nutriment of young plants
at a time when, being destitute of leaves, they
are unable to extract food from the atmo-
sphere."

The supply of humus usually effected by
turning under clover, rye, buckwheat, &c., is
accomplished, as Liebig informs us, with much
greater certainty when the fields are planted
with sainfoin or lucern, a plan now universally
adopted in Bingen and its vicinity, the Palati-
nate, and other parts of Germany, where the
fields, thus treated, receive manure only once
every nine years. In the first year after the land
has been manured, turnips are sown upon it ;
in the next followingyears barley, with sainfoin
or lucern; in the 7th year, potatoes ; in the 8th,
wheat; in the 9th, barley ; on the 10th year it Ls
again manured, and the same rotation ensues.
Sainfoin and lucern are remarkable for the
ramification of their roots and the strong de-
velopement of their leaves, as well as for re-
quiring but a comparatively small quantity of
inorganic matter.

"An immediate consequence of the produc-
tion of the green principle of the leaves, and
of their remaining component parts, as well as
those of the stem, is," says Liebig, "the equally
abundant excretion of organic matters into the
soil from the roots.

"The favourable influence which this exer-
cises on the land, by furnishing it with matter
capable of being converted into humus, lasts
for several years, but barren spots gradually
appear after the lapse of some time. Now it
is evident that, after from 6 to 7 years, the
ground must become so impregnated with ex-
crements that every fibre of the root will be
surrounded with them. As they remain for
some time in a soluble condition, the plants
must absorb part of them and suffer injurious
effects in consequence, because they are not
capable of assimilation. When such a field is
observed for several years, it is seen that the
barren spots are again covered with vegeta-
tion (the same plants being always supposed
to be grown), while new spots become bare
and apparently unfruitful, and so on alter-
nately. The causes which produce this alter-
nate barrenness and fertility in the different
parts of the land are evident. The excrements
upon the barren spots receiving no new addi-
tion, and being subjected to the influence of air
and moisture, they pass into putrefaction, and
their injurious influence ceases. The plants
now find those substances which formerly pre-
vented their growth removed, and in their
place meet with humus, that is, vegetable mat-
ter in the act of decay.

"We can scarcely suppose a better means
of producing humus than by the growth of
plants, the leaves of which are food for ani-
mals ; for they prepare the soil for plants of
every other kind, but particularly for those to
which, as to rape and flax, the presence of
humus is the most essential condition of
growth.

"The reasons why this interchange of crop
is so advantageous — the principles which regu-
late this part of agriculture, are, therefore, the

585

GREEN SAND.

GREEN SAND.

artificial production of humus, and the cultiva-
tion of different kinds of plants upon the same
field in such an order of succession, that each
shall extract only certain components of the
soil, while it leaves behind or restores those
which a second or third species of plant may
require for its growth and perfect develope-
ment.

"Now, although the quantity of humus in a
soil may be increased to a certain degree by
an artificial cultivation, still, in spite of this,
there cannot be the smallest doubt that a soil
must gradually lose those of its constituents
which are removed in the seeds, roots, and
leaves of the plants raised upon it. The fer-
tility of a soil cannot remain unimpaired, un-
less we replace it in all those substances of
which it has been thus deprived. (Org. Chenu)

GREEN SAND. This mineral fertilizer,
which, in some portions of the United States, has
been of such immense service as a manure, and
especially in restoring worn-out soils to produc-
tiveness, is found in great abundance in certain
portions of the Atlantic States. The stratum
in which it abounds as the principal ingredient
commences in Monmouth county, New Jersey,
at the base of the Highlands of Nevesink, and
along the shore of the Atlantic from a little
north of Long Branch to Shark Inlet. Ranging
south westward, it passes in a wide belt through
Monmouth, and gradually contracting, runs
parallel with the Delaware river, at a distance
of a few miles, to Salem. It is prolonged across
the state of Delaware, in a narrow strip, to the
edge of Maryland, where it disappears under
the overlapping tertiary formations. The mi-
neral shows itself again on the Potomac and
through the tide-water region of Virginia, but
in a different stratum, in which it forms a less
proportion than in the so-called "green marl"
of New Jersey and Delaware.

The green sand or " marl" of New Jersey, is
the second stratum in the ascending order of
the five which compose the upper secondary
or cretaceous group of that state. Strictly
^peaking, says Professor H. D. Rogers, it com-
prises several subordinate beds, all belonging,
however, to two principal varieties. In the
first of these, the green, granular mineral is the
predominant and characteristic ingredient. The
second consists, on the other hand, of a dark-
blue clay, mingled with more or less silicious
sand. This latter material constitutes the usual
floor upon which the true green sand deposit
rests. In New Jersey, between Long Branch
and Deal, the marl stratum has been penetrated
thirty feet. The upper two feet consist of a
green clay, seemingly derived from the disin-
tegration of the green grains, intermixed with
a large proportion of yellowish-white clay. The
main marl-bed, having a thickness of about
twenty-six feet, contains several subordinate
layers; but all contain a large share of the
green grains. Beneath the whole there is a
grayish -yellow clay, in which the grains
abound; they are remarkably large, and are
associated with numerous casts of shells.

"When," says Professor Rogers, "we behold

a luxuriant harvest, gathered from fields in

which the original soil is a kind least of all

congenial to vegetation ; when we find that all

586

this fertility, contrasting so strikingly with the
barrenness around it, proceeds from a few
granules of a substance sparsely distributed
through the enormous and counteracting ex-
cess of sea-beach sand, more arid than the soil
to which it is applied, are we not led to look
with admiration on the potent properties of
this curiously constituted mineral "? The de-
velopements of geology are full of instances
like this, showing in how many unlooked-for
ways the mineral world may be made subser-
vient to the good of mankind.

" This striking proof of the fertilizing power
of the marl ought to encourage those districts
not directly within the tract, where some of the
strata possess the green granules in a sensible
proportion. It expands most materially the
limits of the territory where marling may be
attempted, and points us to many beds as fer-
tilizing, which otherwise would be deemed
wholly inefficacious.

"There can be no doubt that the agriculture
of our seaboard states is destined to derive es-
sential benefit from the remarkably wide dis-
tribution of this green granular mineral under
various geological relationships, besides those
in which it presents itself in New Jersey.

"Thus the tertiary shell-marls of Delaware,
Maryland, and Virginia, and, I might add, of
other states still farther south, contain not un-
frequently as high a per centage of the green
sand as does the sea-beach sand upon the coast
of Monmouth county, New Jersey ; and I may
mention that my brother. Professor William B.
Rogers, of the University of Virginia, charged
with the geological survey of that state, has
already done important service to the agricul-
ture of some districts, by discovering and call-
ing attention to the existence of the green sand
in the tertiary strata of Virginia."

" Composition of the green sand. — The predomi-
nant and often the sole ingredient in this bed,
is a peculiar mineral, occurring always in the
form of small, dark granules, about the size of
grains of gunpowder. Their form is roundish,
and they are often composed of two or three
smaller ones united together; a distinctive fea-
ture, by which they may at once be recognised
from other dark kinds of sand. Though they
contain on the average nearly fifty per cent, of
silica, they are not gritty, but may be readily
bruised between the teeth, or upon the nail ;
and some varieties, when moistened, admit of
being kneaded into a half-plastic mass, like
impure clay. The prevailing colour of the
grains is a deep green, though sometimes the
tint is as light as that of verditer. It is often
of a dull greenish-blue, and not unfrequently
of a dark chocolate colour.

"Along the eastern side of the marl tract in
Monmouth, Burlington, and Gloucester, the
stratum comprises very generally two varieties
of the green sand, distinct as to colour, and
holding generally the same relative position to
each other. The uppermost layer, where it
appears (for it is not always present), is of a
light and glowing green, having very nearly
the hue of the green paint called verdiler: while
the lower one is the common dark variety, of
a dull bluish-green, or sometimes of a dull blue
colour from adhering clay.

GREEN SAND.

GREEN SAND.

"In some instances, particularly where the'
material constitutes the soil, the granules pos- '
sess a brownish colour, the consequence evi- j
dentl}' of the protoxide of iron which they con- [
tain having undergone upon the surface a
change to the condition of the peroxide. The
dull colour so usual to the surfaces of these
grains, when contrasted with the brighter green
within the mass, would appear manifestly to
proceed from the same cause. Some shade of
green may be pronounced to be the colour es-
sential to this mineral, as all the deviations
from this tint are attributable either to oxida-
tion or to a thin coating of clay, which fre-
quently encrusts each grain, and from which
the deposit is rarely altogether free. Wheo a
mass of the green sand or 'marl' is washed,
especially with water to which a small quantity
of an acid has been added, we invariably find
the granules assuming a bright green surface.
This colour is also produced in all cases when
we mash or bruise a grain, no matter what
may be its colour externally. By crushing the
grains upon a sheet of white paper, we have
an easy and unerring test in the colour of the
streak, by which to recognise this material
from all other varieties of sand.

"Though the green granular mineral here
described constitutes the essential and distinc-
tive ingredient in the green sand stratum, it
rarely exists unassociated with several extra-
neous substances, particularly clay and white
silicious sand. These constitute sometimes as
large a proportion as fifty per cent, of the bed,
causing much variety in its external aspect,
and influencing materially its properties as an
agricultural agent; the sand, which is generally
white or semi-transparent quartz, existing usu-
ally in relatively small amount, the clayey
matter being ordinarily the most abundant.
This latter is of several tints, but is commonly
of a light gray or lead colour. It is also occa-
sionally chocolate coloured, brown, and even
nearly white. Coating frequently the surfaces
of the green grains, it conceals their true colour,
imparting its own hue to the entire mass. As
it is somewhat adherent when moist, it gives to
the stratum where it is abundant the character
of a partially plastic clay. Besides the white
sand and this clayey material, we often find a
minute quantityof finely divided mica mingled
with the green sand." {Report of Geological
Survey of New Jersey.)

Professor Rogers gives several analyses of
specimens of green sand obtained from pits in
various parts of the region where this mineral
abounds near the surface of the ground. In
some of the beds the green sand is mixed with
proportions of clay and common quartzose
sand, while in others, although ten per cent, of
clay may be present, no common sand is per-
ceptible. Besides the clay and common sand
usually present with the green sand in the ge-
neral mass, there occur occasionally several
other substances, "which, though comparative-
ly minute in quantity, are," observes Professor
Rogers, " possessed of active properties. Some
of these materials are probably deleterious,
while others are undoubtedly beneficial in their
action upon vegetation. The substances re-
ferred "to are carbonate of lime, sulphate of iron

(copperas), sulphate of alumina, sulphate of
lime, and sulphate of magnesia; also phosphate
of iron.

" They appear to be derived, mainly, at least,
from constituents in the clay, and only very
partially, if at all, from elements in the greea
sand itself.

"The carbonate of lime, in most instances,
we can trace to fossil shells and other organic
remains, imbedded in the stratum. The sul-
phate of iron obviously proceeds from the
action of the atmosphere and moisture on the
sulphuretof iron,so abundant in the clay; and
the sulphate of alumina from the union of a
portion of the sulphuric acid thus developed
with the argillaceous earth of the clay; while
the sulphates of lime and magnesia may result,
either from the combination of the same acid
with some of the lime and magnesia, sometimes
present in a minute share in the green mineral,
or, more probably, from its reaction on the car-
bonates of lime and magnesia, existing, like
the sulphuret of iron, in an insulated state
The phosphate of iron is no doubt derived from
phosphoric acid, traceable to the animal re-
mains, acting on oxide of iron.

"Several of these substances develope them-
selves upon the mass of the marl after il has
been dug and exposed to the atmosphere, in the
form of a white efflorescence, encrusting alike
the clayey matter and the granules of green
sand with a delicate crystallization, resembling
a light frost. Collected and carefully examined
and analyzed, this efflorescence will be found
almost invariably to consist, when it is of a
pure white, of either the sulphate of magnesia
or sulphate of lime (gypsum), the latter predo-
minating; and sometimes these two occur
united. In some instances, we recognise it to
contain the sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salts)
in sufficient quantity to be distinguishable by
its taste. A yellowish tint and an astringent
flavour are apparent when it consists chiefly
of the sulphates of alumina and iron. The
carbonate of lime more generally shows itself,
not in the shape of an etflorescence on the sur-
face, like the others, but dispersed in minute
granules throughout the body of the marL
Many of these calcareous granules are grains
of dolomite, analogous in composition to the
magnesian variety of the limestone, which
overlies the green sand; whence, probably, the
true source of the sulphate of magnesia above
referred to. When the traces of shells are
very numerous in the bed, and their conversion,
into the sulphate of lime has happened on the
large scale, the gypsum forms a conspicuous
part of a soft, white, clayey matter, derived
from the shells and interspersed among the
green grains. The mixed mass of carbonate
and sulphate of lime is then usually in a yel-
lowish-white, chalky condition. Sometimes we
may detect the gypsum in the marl in the
shape of small regular crystals of transparent
selenite, at times so minute as only to be de-
; tected by the magnifier.

I "Various fossil shells, and other marine or-
ganic remains, amounting to considerably more
I than one hundred species, are scattered through
the green sand. These collections of fossils
' would seem to be most abundant in those parts

587

GREEN SAND.

GREEN SAND.

of the stratum which consist largely of the
green sand.

"7'he water, percolating through the overly-
ing sands, and also through the pervious green
sknd itself, has effected, and is daily effecting,
important changes in the condition of the shells
and other fossils ; sometimes replacing their
carbonate of lime with oxide of iron, sometimes
removing it altogether, and leaving a mere
mould, forming either an inner or an outer
cast, and sometimes obliterating nearly every
trace of their former presence.

"The total thickness of the green sand for-
mation, estimating it from the bottom of the
lowermost layers abounding in the green gra-
nular mineral to the overlying yellow ferrugi-
nous sands, or the limestone bed, when this is
present, may be stated approximately at about
one hundred feet. The only place in the whole
district where it is practicable to ascertain,
with any approach to accuracy, either the depth
of the formation, or the relative situation and
numberof the separate beds which it comprises,
is along the shore of Sandy Hook bay, in the
cliffs of the Nevesink highlands. This, the
only coast section of the strata, is still an im-
perfect one ; large masses of the upper beds,
fallen from above, covering the lower deposits
near the water-side.

"Owing to the large amount of water which
it usually contains, the green sand is rarely
penetrated in the numerous diggings which are
made in it for the marl, to a greater depth than
about twenty feet, the pits becoming at that
limit too wet to be prosecuted deeper.

"In one or two instances, wells have been
sunk through the stratum, and the depth of the
green sand ascertained to be about thirty feet,
as already mentioned.

"Specific Gravity. — The specific gravity of the
green granular mineral, carefully freed from
all extraneous adhering matter, is, according
to several experiments cautiously made, about
2-65. Three different specimens, taken from
remote localities, gave for the two lowest each
2-63 ; for the highest, 2-70.

" The hardness of this mineral varies mate-
rially, being dependent somewhat upon the
time elapsed after it has been dug: it is softest
when moist and recently uncovered. Freshly
extracted, its hardness often does not exceed
that of talc ; but when long uncovered and dry,
it nearly equals that of gypsum.

"It would appear by experiment to be en-
tirely insoluble in water, both cold and boiling;
but it dissolves with tolerable facility in any
of the stronger acids, though different speci-
mens vary materially in this respect."

The experience of farmers, continued through
nearly half a century, had amply tested the
utility of green sand as an active fertilizer
when spread upon the ground. Various were
the views maintained in regard to its active
principles, and much speculation was, as usual,
indulged upon the subject. The demonstra-
tion, made first by Mr. Henry Seybert, of Phi-
ladelphia, that the green sand of New Jersey
contained a considerable amount of potash,
seemed to afford a very satisfactory clue by
which its mysterious effects might be traced j
out. I

588

Chemical composition of Green Sand. From a
number of analysis of specimens of this mine-
ral, selected with the greatest care by Professor
Rogers, and ascertained to be entirely free
from extraneous matter, it would seem that it
is not quite uniform in its composition, but ex-
hibits slight variations in the proportions of
its principal constituents. The following re-
sults will serve to display the prevailing
chemical nature of green sand, and the mode-
rate variation of the several ingredients:

Green Sand of Squankum.
Description. — Colour, a dark olive-green;
granules of a medium size ; it composes .58'36
per cent, of the marl of the upper part of the
bed, and 72-36 per cent, of the lower.
Composition. — In 100 parts :

Silica 51 00

Alumina - - . - _ 650

. Protoxide of iron - - - 21-55

Potash ----- 10-50

Lime - - - - - - a trace.

Magnesia - - - - - 108

Water - - . . . 9.OO

99.63
Greensand of Freehold, Monmouth County.
Description. — Colour of the granules, rich
green; size, small; composes 70 per cent, of
the upper part of the bed, and 50 per cent, of
the lower.

Composition. — In 100 parts :

Silica 50-00

Alumina ----- 700

Protoxide of iron - - - 22 00
Potash - - - - - 11-00

Lime ------ 100

Magnesia - - - - - a trace.

Water . - . . _ 900

Green Sand of the Marl of Poke Hill, near PlattS'
burg, Burlington County.
Description. — Colour of the granules, a rich
dark olive-green; their size, rather above the
medium ; composes 98 per cent, of the marl.
Composition. — In 100 parts:

Silica ------ 5075

Alumina ----- 6-50

Protoxide of iron - - - 2214
Potash - - . - - - 12-96
Water 750

Comparing the details of the several analy-
ses furnished by Professor Rogers, we perceive
that the green sand, even when of the greatest
purity, is not absolutely constant, either in the
nature of the ingredients which enter into its
composition, or in their relative proportions.
The per centage of the silica varies from 47'5
to 51*5; that of the alumina from 6 to 9*35;
that of the protoxide of iron from 20-86 to
24-74; that of the potash from 9-96 to 12-96;
and that of the water from 5-5 to 9-5. We
find, moreover, that, in some instances, be-
sides these elements, lime enters into the con- i
stitution of the green sand, in other cases mag- 1
nesia; while, occasionally, both occur. The '
amount of these earths is, however, always in-
considerable.

It appears that the mean proportion of the
silica is approximately 49-5 per cent.; that of
the alumina 7-3; of the protoxide of iron 22-8;
of the potash 11'5; and of the water 7-9 per

GREEN SAND.

cent.; while the lime, when present, seldom
exceeds one-half per cent., and the magnesia
is rarely more than a mere trace.

A comparison of the green sand of New
Jersey with that of France, shows no essential
difference in their chemical nature.

Green Sand of Havre, in France.
Composition. — In iDO parts :

Silica 50

Alumina ------ 7

Protoxide of iron - - - - 21

Potaab ...... 10

Water 11

LusM ------ 1

KM)

The late lamented chemist. Dr. Edward Tur-
ner, of London, also examined, with great care,
the chemical constitution of the green sand of
Kent, in England.

His experiments gave, in the 100 parts ;

Jiilica 48-5

Alumina ----- 170

Prr.Kixide of iron - - - -2*2 0

PiitHsh ------ a trace.

MnsiiK^ia ----- 3'8

Water 70

983
The absence of potash in the green granules
of the English green sand, and the large pro-
portion of magnesia, are facts not a little re-
markable.

Eronomiml relations of the Green Sam! forma-
tion.— Abundant evidence might be adduced to
I)rove that the true fertilizing principle in marl
is not lime, but potash. The analyses which
have been made give us, in several cases, no
lime at all; and where a small proportion of
lime is present in the green granular mineral,
it is in a combined stale, chemically united
with the other ingredients, and not traceable to
the organic remains which are in many of
these instances not present in the stratum.
Besides, the quantity of shelly matter, even
where the shells are plentiful, is so dispropor-
tionately small, and the matter of the shells
often so firm and unsusceptible of that easy
disintegration necessary to form a calcareous
marl adapted to act speedily upon the crop,
that the striking effects witnessed from the
marl can in nowise be attributed to the trivial
amount of lime which the shells may occasion-
ally furnish to the land. Nevertheless, as
some feebly beneficial effects may possibly
arise from this source, it may be of service to
the agriculturist in choosing between different
fossiliferous marls, to attend to the nature of
the particular fossils, and the state of more or
less decomposition or change in which they
are to be found.

Selection of Green Sand. — For judging of the
quality of a marl by observation, says Professor
Rogers, " some familiarity with the multiform
aspects which it assumes is indispensable. The
leading rule, however, is to bear in mind that the
fertilizing efficacy of the compound resides in
the minute, round, greenish grains which com-
pose most, or sometimes all of it; and that it
seems, moreover, to be dependent upon the pro-
portion in these green grains of those powerful
alkaline stimulants to vegetation, potash and
li ne, but especially potash. The first thing, then.

GREEN SANDj^

is to approximate to the relative quantity of the
green grains in the whole mass, and this may
be effected with a greater or less degree of ac-
curacy in several ways. The simplest and
readiest method is to employ a small pocket
magnifying glass, and to become familiar with
the dark green grains, so as to distinguish
them at once from other dark varieties of sand
which sometimes occur associated with them.
A little practice will very soon enable one to
use the glass expertly, and to arrive at a pretty
true estimate of the probable percentage of the
green granules. But as these granules cannot
sometimes be distinguished from the grains of
ordinary white flinty sand, or from other kinds,
in consequence of the particles being all alike
coated M-ith a thin film of the dark cementing
clay, it will be useful to adopt some method of
bringing out, under the magnifier, their differ-
ent characteristics of colour and form. Let
the mass be washed in a large glass tumbler,
and repeatedly agitated with the water, until as
much of the clay as possible has been detach-
ed from the grains. After pouring off the tur-
bid water by repealed rinsings, and permitting
it to settle until clear, vre may estimate the
comparative quantity of clay in different marls
by the relative amount of sediment which sub-
sides. If we wish to be more accurate, we
can weigh out a given quantity of the marl,
then pursue the above plan, and decant the
clear water from the clay, and after thoroughly
drj'ing the clay, weigh it to ascertain its
amount. Having got away most of the clay, we
should spread out the granular matter upon a
sheet of paper and dry it, when there will be
no further difficulty in distinguishing, by their
colour and lustre, the foreign impurities from
the grains of true marl, and also of estimating
the relative abundance of each. When the marl
to be ejfamined contains much clay, I would re-
commend the experiments to be made upon a
regularly weighed quantity, weighing both the
clayey and the granular portions. A delicate
apothecary's balance will commonly be found
accurate enough. Another more expeditious,
though less accurate method, is merely to dry
the marl, spread it extremely thin upon a sheet
of white paper, and then hold it near a win-
dow, or in the fight, to examine it carefully by
the magnifier. The flinty sand, though stained
with clay, may then be clearly discerned in
consequence of its transparency ; whereas,
when we inspect a solid lump, cill the particles
upon the surface are nearly alike dark.

" A useful suggestion is, to place a portion of
the marl upon a hot shovel, or on the top of a
stove, when all the granules will change from
their ordinary green tint to a light red or brick
colour, while the other materials of the mass
sustain little alteration. This will often render
obvious to the naked eye the proportion of the
green grains.

" When there is a yellowish or whitish in-
crustation upon the marl after the moist sur-
face has remained for some time exposed to
the weather, it is indicative of the existence of
a portion of either copperas or sulphate of alu-
mina, the hurtful nature of which has already
been explained.

"An astringent inky taste will very often de-
3D ^89

GREEN SAND.

tect the presence of these noxious substances
at times when no such efflorescence shows it-
self. If the quantity be too small to betray
them distinctly to the palate, and we are still
in doubt as to their presence, other more
rigorous tests are within our reach ; and as
these astringent matters are so unquestionably
pernicious in their action, it is of importance
to have the means of determining in what pro-
portion they abound in different marls. This
can be effected with precision only by a sys-
tematic chemical analysis, but their existence
can be made to appear by the following simple
tests. Put a small portion of the marl in a
flask or other thin glass vessel ; pour upon it
some pure water, and heat it moderately ; after
causing the water to dissolve in this way as
much as possible, remove the heat, and let it
settle ; then decant the clear fluid into some
glass vessel, such as a wine-glass. If there is
any copperas present, it will be evident upon
adding to the fluid a little lime water, which
will produce a milky turbidness that after a
little while will become stained of a yellowish-
brown colour. The milkiness is owing to the
formation of gypsum, and the brown colour to
oxide of iron from the copperas. Or, in lieu
of this, add a solution of oak bark, and, if cop-
peras be present, we shall have a dark inky
colour at once produced.

"A good marl will, upon being squeezed in
the hand, fall asunder again, rather than bake
into a tough doughy mass ; and upon being
left in heaps to dry, will assume a light gray-
ish-green colour, and be extremely crumbly.
It seems to be a very general characteristic of
the better class of marls, that they throw out a
white efflorescence or crust upon those grains
which are most exposed to the air ; hence the
very light colour externally which some
heaps of marl possess. This crust I have
already shown to consist usually of the sul-
phate of lime (gypsum), sulphate of magnesia,
and carbonate of lime. A drop or two of
strong vinegar, or any strong acid, will pro-
duce an effervescence or frothing, if it be the
carbonate of lime; and should nothing of this
kind take place, we may set it down to be
gypsum. Of course, from the minuteness of
the quantity of the white coating, much care
and accuracy of observation are demanded in
doing this, in order to avoid erroneous con-
clusions.

"Marls deemed equally good with the kind
showing the efflorescence, very frequently
occur, exhibiting none of the white incrus-
tation.

" It does not seem that any general rule can
be given for distinguishing the fertilizing pro-
perties of a marl by its mere colour, as it must
appear from what has been said, that the pe-
culiar shade of colour is frequently owing to
the colour of the intermingled clay. When
the mass, however, is comparatively free from
clay or common sand, and consists of little
else than the green sand, observations go to
show that the rather dark green variety is
more potent in its effects than the very light
green which sometimes overlies it.

"The presence or absence of shells I look
upon to be a point of but little moment, for I
590

GREEN SAND.

find that several of the most active marls in
the region show no traces of fossils. The
whole amount of carbonate of lime in the
shape of fossils, and in that of the occasional
white incrustation upon the grains, can in very
few instances amount to 1 per cent.; while,
as analysis shows, the lime chemically com-
bined with the other ingredients in the green
grains, is sometimes 1 per cent., and the pot-
ash nearly 13 per cent."

Professor Hitchcock, in his Elementary
Geology, has given the following tabular view
of the analysis of specimens of green sand
from different countries :

French

MamchQ-

NewJerroy

creen »nd,
by M. Ber-

English Mnd.hy

sells sand.

sand, by

Prof. Turner.

ty Dr. L. S.

Professor H.

Ihier.

Uana.

D. Rogers.

Silica

600

48-5

66-700

49-27

Protoxide of

iron

210

220

20100

24 67

Alumina -

70

170

13-520

7-71

Water -

110

7-0

7000

5-91

Potassa -

10-9

traces.

-

9-99

Lime

-

-

1-624

6-08

Magnesia -

-

3-8

1-176

Manganese

-

traces, loss.

0080

Application and effects of Green Sand. — The
resemblance in composition of green sand to
glass, each being composed mainly of silex
and potash, is striking. The investigations of
Liebig demonstrated the indispensable impor-
tance to the groAvth of many plants, and espe-
cially to wheat, of silex and potash in that
state of commixture called by chemists sili-
cate of potash. He even went so far as to de-
clare an opinion that one of the best of ma-
nures that could be applied to the wheat crop
would be a solution of glass. In making this
admirable induction, he was, apparently, una-
ware of the fact that a natural kind of glass, or
silicate of potash, under the form of green
sand, had been long spread over the American
fields with the most striking advantages to the
growth of wheat and other crops.

The effects of green sand applied as a ma-
nure, are strongly set forth in the following
extracts from Professor H. D. Rogers's Report
of his Geological Survey of New Jersey:

"Mr. Woolley manured a piece of land in the
proportion of 200 loads of good stable manure
to the acre, applying upon an adjacent tract of
the same soil his marl in the ratio of about 20
loads per acre. The crops, which were timo-
thy and clover, were much heavier upon the
section which had received the marl ; and
there was this additional fact greatly in favour
of the fossil manure over the putrescent one,
that the soil was also entirely free from weeds,
while the stable manure had rendered its own
crop very foul.

"This green sand stratum at Poplar Swamp
seems to be almost entirely free from any sul-
phate of iron or other astringent material, and
as a consequence the crops seem not to be
scorched by an extra dose, however lavishly
applied.

"There can be no doubt that 20 loads of
marl per acre must be regarded as an unne-
cessarily bountiful dressing; but computing
the relative cost of the two manures, when
employed in the ratio above stated, Ave find a

GREEN SAND.

GREEN SAND,

considerable disparity in favour of the green
sand. Placing the home value of farm-)'-ard
manure at 100 cents for each two-horse load,
and that of the marl at 25 cents per load, we
have the expense of manuring one acre $200;
of marling the same $5.

"This being an experiment, an extravagantly
large dressing of manure was employed, but
not exceeding the usual average application
more than the 20 loads of marl surpassed what
was necessary.

"Experience has already shown that land
once amply marled retains its fertility with
little diminution for at least 10 or 12 years, if
care be had not to crop it too severely ; while
with all practicable precaution the stable ma-
nure must be renewed at least three times in
that interval to maintain in the soil a corres-
ponding degree of vigour.

"At the Squankum pits, which are very ex-
tensive, the marl is sold at the rate of 37^
cents the load, the purchasers having to dig it.
It is transported by wagons to a distance, in
some directions, of 20 miles, and retailed, when
hauled that far, at the rate of 10, or even 12^
.cents per bushel, being very profitably spread
upon the soil in the small proportion of 25 or
even 20 bushels to the acre."

This is certainly a strong proof of the high
estimation in which green sand is held as a
manure by the prudent and thrifty farmers of
New Jersey.

Professor Booth, in the report of his geolo-
ical survey of the state of Delaware, has
given much highly interesting information in
regard to green sand. In all essential particu-
lars, the marl-beds found in Newcastle county
resemble those of New Jersey described by
Professor Rogers.

"Practically speaking," says Prof. Booth,
"there are two principal kinds of green sand,
that containing lime as an essential ingredient,
and that consisting chiefly of green particles.
The former contains variable quantities of
carbonate of lime, the highest limit yet ob-
served being twenty-five per cent The ave-
rage composition of the latter, in its natural
stale and selected, may be thus expressed :

Uwelected,

Selected.

Silica -

_

5S

50

Potassa -

_

10

Protoxide of iron

_

I 22

22^

lumina

_

5

7

Water - -

-

8

10*

100 100

The first is either cretaceous, containing finely
divided carbonate of lime not formed by com-
minuted shells, and occurring on the canal; or
decomposed calcareous, on the western limit
of the state, from which the calcareous matter
has been wholly or partially removed, although
abounding in casts of shells ; or shellv green
sand, on the southern line of St. George's hun-
dred, in which there is no fine calcareous mat-
ter but that of comminuted shells. The second
contains mere traces of lime, and consists of
green sand particles, with variable quantities
of clay and common sand, and is either bluish-
green, and of the finest quality, as found on
Drawyer's and Silver Run; or yellowish-green,
containing white silicious sand, as on Draw-

yer's and the Appoquinimink; or black-co-
loured, decomposed externally, rarely internal-
ly, and containing both white sand and argil-
laceous matter, from Silver Run to Scott's Run;
or dark-coloured, and containing pyrites, as
from the south-west corner of St. George's
hundred, and along the ridge to the Deep-cut ;
or, lastly, the blue micaceous sand of the Deep-
cut, rarely containing particles of green sand,
although abounding with casts and impressions
of shells characteristic of the green sand for-
mation. We have seen that the yellow sand
is the principal member of the series, both
over and underlying the green sand; that it is
characterized by its uniformity of grain and
colour, and, rising to the surface, constitutes
the chief and most valuable soil of the region.
We farther observe that the green sand stratum
is undulating, and varies in its depth, the ave-
rage thickness being 21 feet, from which we
may form a rough estimate of the amount con-
tained in the whole district. It is 7 miles long,
and nearly 6J broad, and therefore embraces
about 44 square miles. Deducting from this
one-quarter for the place where it fines out,
and for streams, ravines, &c., we have 33
square miles underlaid by green sand. There
are then 102,220,800 square yards, which mul-
tiplied by 7 yards, the average thickness, gives
715,545,600 cubic yards of green sand in Dela-
ware. Supposing, then, that the 1-1 00th part of
it is accessible, we have more than 7,000,000
cubic yards which may be made available. In
a majority of cases, the flowing of water into
the pits presents a source of inconvenience
that may be remedied without great diflficulty,
and with a trifling expense, compared with the
value of the material."

Upon the subject of the fertilizing properties
of green sand. Professor Booth makes the fol-
lowing highly interesting observations :

"When it is decomposed by the ordinary
processes of the laboratory, only a small quan-
tity of silica and all the other constituents being
dissolved, we may regard the oxide of iron,
potassa, and alumina as performing the prin-
cipal functions, assisted by the presence of
water. The useful action of potash or of ashes
in the soil has been long acknowledged, and
hence, as soon as it was known that the green
sand contained potassa, its utility was imme-
diately referred to that alkali; latterly, how-
ever, the opinion has gained ground that the
protoxide of iron plays an important part by
acting with the organic matter in the soil, in a
manner resembling the saponification of oil by
potash.

"The addition of much unleached ashes to a
soil determines the formation of salts of potas-
sa, which, being very soluble, are taken up in
excess by growing plants, and produce such
luxuriant vegetation as to cause it, technically
speaking, to bum up. The same operation
would probably occur with protoxide of iron,
were its salts not soon converted into more in-
soluble humate and crenate of the peroxide.

"It might be objected by many that green
sand being decomposed with diflSculty by the
powerful acids of the laboratory, there is little
probability that it can be resolved into its con-
stituents by the feeble action of humic or at-

591

GREEN SAND.

GREEN SAND.

mospheric agents. Independently, however,
of the proof of its decomposition by its induc-
ing increased fertility, and of the mode by
which nature, operating with feeble agents
during a lengthened period of time, produces
great results, it may be shown that it is more
readily decomposed than is generally admitted.
William M. Uhler, in conjunction with the
author of this memoir, has lately been engaged
in making a series of experiments on this sub-
ject, which, although incomplete, nevertheless
afford sufficient grounds for drawing a few
conclusions. Dilute acetic acid decomposed
green sand after the lapse of a week or more ;
oxalic acid produced the same result in a few
days, and in the course of two weeks nearly
all the green sand had disappeared, and the
yellow oxalate of iron precipitated. But the
most surprising effects were produced by the
action of carbonic acid, one of the feeblest
known to the chemist, the use of which for this
purpose was first proposed by Mr. Charles Ro-
berts, of Philadelphia. By a well-charged so-
lution of this acid a large portion of the sand
was decomposed in a few days, and a weak
solution induced the same effects in the course
of a few weeks. Although few experiments
were made to determine quantitatively the re-
lative amounts of the constituents taken up by
the acids, yet the qualitative tests were suffi-
cient to show that all the ingredients were se-
parated from each other, and that the green
sand might be analyzed even by the feeble
operation of carbonic acid.

"As the present state of our knowledge of
these subjects is limited when compared with
that advanced stage which we firmly believe
chemistry will produce in process of time, it
would be presumption to make unhesitating
assertions relative to the modus operandi of
organic and inorganic manures; we may, ne-
vertheless, and indeed we ought to draw such
inferences as are consistent with our present
knowledge of facts. The potassa of the green
sand appears to act on organic matter in the
soil by catalysis forming soluble salts of po-
tassa; the protoxide of iron acts in a similar
manner, but is itself changed to a less soluble
compound; and the alumina probably has a
similar action, proportional to its feeble affini-
ty. To the question that, since potassa acts in
this manner, why does not a large quantity of
green sand produce excessive luxuriance? it
may be answered, that it does where the quan-
tity is very large, but that its action is modified
and extenuated by the difficulty with which the
marl is decomposed, and by the presence of
other bases besides potassa. When green sand
is decomposed by nature or in the laboratory,
a small quantity of silica is taken up, and even
this substance, by forming a salt with crenic
acid, may assist in increasing fertility, as it is
an essential constituent of plants.

" There are two points touching the theory
of the operation of green sand, w^hich remain
to be noticed, the first of which is, that when
its decomposition has commenced, it advances
in an increasing ratio ; and the second, that
the constituents of green sand in their nascent
state, that is, at the moment of their disengage-
ment from the compound, act with much
ft8

I greater energy. Thus it would appear, then,
that all the constituents of the marl exercise
an influence in promoting vegetation; and this
action must take place in proportion to their
respective affmities, potassa being the most
powerful, followed by lime, magnesia, protox-
ide of iron, alumina, and silica; that the first
four assist in the generation of organic acids,
with which they and a small portion of alumina
and silica combine to form salts of different
degrees, but generally of difficult solubility,
which nourish and invigorate nascent vegeta-
tion ; that by the presence of a large portion
of bases which will form salts of difficult solu-
bility, a more prolonged and healthy action is
insured.

" The above remarks relative to the mode
of operation of marl, apply equally to the seve-
ral varieties, as far as relates to the content of
green grains, but the calcareous species owe
their action partly to lime, in proportion as its
carbonate exists in the marl. When phosphate
of iron occurs in quantity, some notice must
be taken of its probable influence, for in regard
to it, we can only reason from theory, since it
has never been applied directly to land, with
the view of ascertaining its effects on vegeta-
tion. It appears from the analyses of Berlhier,
that both phosphate of lime and of iron exist
in appreciable quantity in the ashes of plants;
for, in the composition of oak ashes, he divides
the 7 per cent, of phosphoric acid between
lime and iron in such a manner as to form
nearly 14 per cent, of phosphate of lime, and
\ per cent, of phosphate of iron ; and in other
cases he gives the amount of the salt of iron
as high as 9 per cent.; and we believe from
experience that the utility of bone manure is
largely due to its phosphate of lime ; and hence
we may infer that the marl alluded to may be
serviceable, or even very valuable, from its
phosphate of iron ; and that if it were mingled
with a little lime, where it is wanting in the
marl, the atmospheric and humic agents, if the
expression be allowed, will cause such a trans-
mutation of the constituents as to bring both
phosphates to exert their influence in advanc-
ing the growth of plants. It would appear un-
necessary to add lime, when there is already a
small quantity in the marl, were it not that
there is still another substance mentioned as
occurring chiefly in the marl of the dividing
ridge and deep cut. This substance is the
sulphuret of iron, the presence of which is
shown by the large amount of white efflores-
cence with which it becomes coated after ex-
posure to the air, precisely similar to those pits
where it is observed in pieces of considerable
size. After the marl has been exposed to the
air for a short time, a whitish efflorescence
forms on its surface, which has a strong styp- ^
tic taste, and is the sulphate of iron, formed f
from the sulphuret ; but the snow-white efflo- ^
rescence is chiefly sulphate of lime, or plaster.
Now, the latter marl contains- lime, and the
former does not; and hence this operation of
nature in the formation of plaster from sulphu-
ret of iron points out to us the manner of at-
taining the same result, viz., by mixing with
marl which exhibits an efflorescence after ex-
posure to the air, a quantity of lime sufficient

GREEN SAND.

GREYHOUND.

to convert all the sulphuret of iron into sul- j
phate of lime ; for if this be not done, the sul- 1
phate of iron, or copperas, will be formed, i
which is known to be prejudicial to vegetation. [
The quantity required for this purpose will 1
vary with the amount of sulphuret of iron:]
where the efflorescence is light, one oushel of
lime to 100 of marl will be amply sufficient;
and where it is abundant, it may be necessary
to use two, three, or four to the 100 of marl.
If the green sand contain already a portion of
lime, a smaller quantity will be required. The
best method of applying it will be to remove
the marl from the pit to any convenient adjoin-
ing spot, to form a stratum not more than two
feet thick, and, after it has been exposed to the
air for two weeks or a month, to cover it over
with slaked lime. After exposure to one or
two rains, it may then be most thoroughly mixed
by passing a plough through it, or digging it
down with the spade.

"In what manner and in what quantity
should the green sand be applied 1 All varie-
ties of the marl are more or less compact, when
freshly extracted from the pit, and if applied
in such a state, would be unequally distributed
over the soil; and hence the first precaution is
to suffer it to be exposed to the air for a few
days, according to its compactness or tenacity,
in order that it may crumble to powder, if pos-
sible: for the finer the pulverization, as shown
of lime, the greater will be the immediate be-
nefit. There is another advantage attending
this delay, that we may then observe the efflo-
rescence, and obviate its ill effects by lime.
Indeed, in a majority of cases, the addition of
lime in small quantity will prove serviceable,
since it is generally wanting in the pure green
varieties, and yet it is an important requisite
in the fixed constituents of vegetables. The
most economical method of applying the marl
as above proposed, will be to cart it from the
pits immediately into the fields to which it is
to be applied, to throw it into heaps at conve-
nient distances for spreading, and then to put
a small quantity of lime on each heap, which
should remain exposed to the air for a longer
time. In regard to the quantity to be applied,
a variety of opinions exist ; and hence from
60 to 1000 bushels per acre have been tried,
with and without success. A little attention
to the theory of its operation will enable us to
approximatf to the true proportion. Its strong
bases appear to act on the organic matter in
the soil, and to combine with it; hence it would
be useless to apply a large quantity to a poor
and light soil, for which 60 to 100 bushels
would suffice; but a clayey soil would be ren-
dered looser by it; and as there is usually
more organic matter present in such a case,
from 100 to 200 may be employed with advan-
tage. Where the land is already of good qua-
lity, from 200 to 500 may be used, according
to its richness and tenacity. Many persons
believe that because one kind of marl is infe-
rior to another, a much larger quantity will be
required ; but the truth is, that the differences,
although important, are less so than is gene-
rally believed, and should not lead to the em-
ployment of quantities greater than have just
been enumerated. Notwithstanding the effects
75

of marl will be shown to be striking on ordinar
ry, and even on very poor land, yet it is essen-
tial that the soil should contain a fair propor-
tion of organic matter, in order to reap the
highest benefit from it. Hence the failure of
some experiments made with the green sand;
for. although it stands superior to lime in re-
quiring the presence or addition of less organic
manure, still the views offered to explain its
mode of action show the necessity of some or-
ganic materials on which to operate, and this
conclusion is strengthened by experience.

"The difficulty of overcoming prejudice is
clearly exemplified in the progressive employ-
ment of green sand in Delaware. One of the
first experiments made with it in St. George's
hundred may probably be dated as far back as
the year 1826, when a small quantity was
drawn out from the site of the canal. One
spot of ground where this was applied was
observed in 1837 on the farm of James Wilson,
eleven years after its application; and although
that soil had received no other assistance, a
luxuriant growth of corn clearly pointed out
the limit to which it had been spread."

The cost of the green sand marl at the pits,
where these beds lie near the surface, is com-
paratively trifling, so that it can be raised and
hauled to the distance of a mile or two for
three cents per bushel, and yield a small pro-
fit. Its weight is very great, owing principally
to the large proportion of iron contained. Re-
ference to its specific gravity (2-63 — 2-70), as
determined by Professor Rogers, shows it to be
nearly three times heavier than the same bulk
of a measure of water, a bushel weighing from
110 to 120 lbs. This, of course, causes its
transportation to be expensive, except where
facilities for water carriage are at hand. For
fields worn out by long culture, the green
sand is generally found of immediate and per-
tnanent advantage. Under such circumstances
every successive crop having removed from
the soil a portion of the potash which existed
in abundance in the first years of its culture, the
absence of this essential agent of fertility has
been supplied by the green sand. Where ashes
have been formerly applied freely, it is need-
less to expect much apparent benefit, and the
same may be said where the soil is already
duly supplied with potash from the decompo-
sition of feldspar, or mica, all of which contain
proportions of potash which they contribute to
the soil. Hence the source of frequent failures
in deriving advantage from the application of
green sand.

GREYHOUND. This is one of the principal
coursing agents, being a dog remarkable for
his swiftness, strength, and sagacity, in pursu-
ing game.

There are several varieties, such as the Ita-
lian, the Oriental, and the Highland greyhound ;
the last of which is now become exceedingly
scarce. A good greyhound ought to have a
long and rather large body, a neat pointed
head, sparkling eyes, a long mouth, with sharp
teeth, small ears, formed of a thin cartilage ; a
broad and strong chest; his fore legs straight
and short, his hind legs long and limber ; broad
shoulders, round ribs, muscular buttocks, but
not fat, and a long tail, strong and full of ci
3 D 2 593

GRIP.

GROUND-NUT.

news. (Treatise on Greyhounds.) As it is out
of our province, in a work of this nature, to
treat at large of coursing and its agents, we
must refer the sportsman who wishes for de-
tailed information on the points of a good grey-
hound, and on breeding, feeding, «fec., to that
excellent manual of reference for all matters
relating to the chase, Blaine^s Enn/dopcedia of
Rural Sports, a very learned and carefully ar-
ranged work, digested and compiled by a mas-
ter hand.

GRIP. A small gutter, or ditch, cut across
a field, to drain it. When cut for draining, it
is mostly called a water or draining furrow.

A good method of draining meadow or sward-
land, by grips, is that of cutting out the pieces
in a somewliat wedge-like form, taking off the
bottom part, and then replacing them, by which
means, a hollow is left below, for permitting
the water to flow off.

Grip is also provincially used to signify the
hollow or cavity behind the cattle, in cow-
houses or cattle-sheds, into which the dung
and urine is discharged. These cavities should
always be sunk about 8, 10, or 12 inches below
the surface on which the cattle stand.

GRIPES, or COLIC. We have found that,
in the absence of a veterinary surgeon in this
dangerous complaint, the following is the best
remedy for a horse : — 1^ pint of linseed oil,
1^ ounce of laudanum, given in a little warm
gruel. Some persons assist the operation of
the above with a glyster composed of ^ lb.
of epsom salts, ^ lb. of treacle, dissolved in
three quarts of warm water. See Cattle, and
Sheep, Diseases of.

GRIT. Hard sandstone, employed for mill-
stones and grindstones, pavement, &,c.

GRITS. See Ghoats.

GROATS. In agriculture, are the small
grains formed from oats after having the husks
or shells taken off the grain. When crushed,
they are called Embden groats. Gruel made
from groats is a mild, little nutritive, easily
digested food, well adapted for cases of fever
and inflammation. An ounce of groats should
make a quart of gruel ; the mixture should be
constantly stirred during the boiling ; and when
cold, the clear liquor poured off from the sedi-
ment. Sugar or lemon juice fBg,y be added
if circumstances admit of such additions.

GROMWELL; GRAY MILLET (Litlwaper-
mum, from lithos a stone, and sperma a seed.
The little nuts or seeds being extremely hard,
and having a surface as smooth as a polished
pebble). Of this herbaceous perennial plant
there are four indigenous species in England.

1. The common gromwell (L. officinale), gro-
mill, gray-mill, or gray millet, for it has various
local names, which grows in dry, gravelly, or
chalky soils, and frequently amongst rubbish
and ruins, blowing pale buff flowers, in May
and June. The root is tapering, strong, and
whitish. The whole herb rough with minute,
close, callous bristles. The stem is annual,
nearly two feet high, branched and leafy. The
leaves are sessile, alternate, grayish-green,ovate
or lanceolate. The seeds are gray, with a kind
of porcelain polish, and a stony hardness ;
whence they have been falsely reported to con-
tain calcareous earths, effervescing with acids.
594

These seeds afford excellent flour, which might
in times of scarcity be converted into bread.

2. Corn gromwell. See Bastard Alkanet.

3. Creeping or purple gromwell (L. purpura
cceruleum). A rare plant, found occasionally
in thickets on a chalky soil.

4. Sea gromwell (Z,. maritimum), growing in
many parts of the coasts of Scotland and the
aorih of England on the sea-shore among sand
or loose stones. The whole herb is remarkable
for its beautiful glaucous hue. (JSng. Flor,
vol. i. p. 254.)

The field lithospermum, or stoneweed, a worth-
less plant, is the only species described by Dr.
Darlington, as found in Pennsylvania. There
are five or six additional species in the United
States. (Flora Ccstrica.)

GROOM (Flem. grom, a boy). A name now
usually applied to servants who are employed
about horses. The chief requisites in a groom
are, a mild disposition, and a fondness for the
animals of which he has the care. Great atten-
tion is also necessary to the feeding, dressing,
littering, and keeping horses clean. These
different operations should be daily executed
with regularity and exactness. The stable, as
well as the various articles that belong to it,
should also always be kept clean and in per-
fect order.

GROUND CHERRY (Physealis viscosa),
clammy viscosa. The specific name of this
American plant is derived from the Greek word
Physa, a bladder or bag, in allusion to its in-
flated calyx, or seed-pod. It is found in fields,
fence-rows, &c., where, in the Middle States, it
flowers in July. The root is annual, the stem
growing 12 to 18 inches high, with spreading
branches. Leaves 2 to 4 inches long, and 2 to 3
inches wide, roundish ovate or obtuse. Flower
greenish-yellow, with purplish-brown spots at
the base. The berry succeeding the flower is
roundish, viscid, enclosed in the inflated calyx,
and of a greenish-yellow colour, and when fully
mature, orange. The flower stems are very
hairy. The ripe berries of one of the more hairy
varieties of the ground cherry (P.Pennsylvanica)^
are orange-coloured, more succulent than some
others, and rather palatable. (Flora Cestrica.)

GROUND IVY. See Alehoof.

GROUND-NUT (Apios tuberosa. From apios
a pear, in allusion to its pear-shaped tubers)
sometimes called wild bean. An American
plant, growing in the Middle States, having
a perennial root, producing oval tubers half
an inch or more in diameter at the base of
the stem. The stem is from 4 to 8 feet
long, slender, striate, slightly hairy, sparingly
branched, and climbing. The flower blooms
in August, is of a dingy purple with tinges of
green, rather handsome and pleasantly fra-
grant. The tubers on the roots are esculent
and nutricious, and the plant has been con-
sidered an object worthy of culture. It is the
only species of the genus. (Flora Cestrica.)

Another plant producing a ground nut is the
Arachis hypogcea. This is an annual plant, with
long, trailing stalks. A native of Mexico, but
now cultivated in the West Indies for its nuts,
which are oblong, and grow beneath the sur-
face. These are used by the negroes as food.
But in France they are now cultivated for the

/

GROUNDSEL.

abundance of the oil they produce. This is
said to be equally as valuable, for the table and
other purposes, as the oil of olives, and supe-
rior to that for burning. A bushel of the nuts
produces by cold expression a gallon of oil ;
but more may be produced by heat, but of a
qualitv inferior. {Jim. Orchardist.)

GROUNDSEL, or RAGWORT (Senecio).
An extensive genus of plants, many of the
species of which are very ornamental. Of this
genus Sir John Smith includes ten species as
indigenous to England, four only of which,
however, come properly under the head ground-
sel. The remainder are referred to under the
name of Ragwort, by which name they are
generally known.

Common groundsel, or Simson (S. vulgaris),
grows almost everywhere in cultivated or waste
grounds, in rubbish, dry banks, the tops of
walls, &c.; it flowers almost all the year. It
is too well known to need description. Cage
birds (particularly goldfinches and linnets) are
fed with the young buds, seeds, and leaves,
which are cooling, and have a saltish herba-
ceous flavour. Cows do not relish this plant;
it is, however, eaten by goats and swine, but
refused by horses and sheep. A weak infusion
of groundsel is in England a coinmon purge;
a strong infusion or juice is used as an emetic,
and sometimes given to horses to free them
from bots. All the groundsels are annual.

Fifteen or sixteen species of senecio are
found in the United States, of which Dr. Dar-
lington met with four in Pennsylvania. These
are: — 1. The golden; 2. The obovate, which
in New York is called squaw-weed, and de-
nounced as poisonous to sheep. 3. Balsamita-
like, common groundsel. 4. Fireweed, or hie-
racium-leaved. This plant is remarkable for
its prevalence in newly cleared grounds, espe-
cially around spots where brushwood has been
burned; whence it derives its name of fire-weed.

GRUB. aThe common name for worms or
maggots, hatched from the eggs of beetles.
Under the name of gentles, grubs are a prin-
cipal bait to the angler for many kinds of fish.
The grub produces the beetle, and is by some
called the rook-worm, because rooks are par-
ticularly fond of it. Land newly brought into
cultivation is generally most subject to the
grub. The best way of destroying it is by
good and frequent ploughings, and the applica-
tions of lime in pretty large proportions in its
caustic or most active state, or common salt.
Irrigation is also very beneficial, as tending to
destroy grubs. See Bkrtles and Lxsects.

GRUBBER, or CULTIVATOR. See Har-
row and ScAniFiER.

GUANO. The name of a manure recently
imported for the first time into England, which
has long been extensively emploved by the
cultivators of Peru to fertilize their sterile
sandy places— lands, on which occasionally
there is a total absence of rain for many
months. This manure is the excrements of
sea-birds, and, like>that produced by all animals
feeding on animal food, is of a very powerful
description. It exists, according to M. Hum-
boldt, in the greatest abundance in some of the
small rocky islands of the Pacific Ocean, as i
at Chinche, Ilo, Iza, and Arica. Even when |

GUANO.

' Humboldt wrote, some 20 years since, 50 ves-
; sels were annually loaded with the guano at
j Chinche alone, each trader carrying from 1500
I to 2000 cubic feet. The guano is found on the
surface of these islands, in strata of several
feet in thickness, and is, in fact, the putrefying
excrements of innumerable sea-fowl that re-
j main on them during the breeding season. It
j is used by the farmers of Peru chiefly as a
manure for the maize or Indian corn, and it is
I said sometimes in the small proportion of
about 1 cwt. per acre. "The date of the dis-
covery of the guano and of its introduction
as a mantire," says Mr. Winterfeldt, " is un-
known, although no doubt exists of its great
antiquity. In many parts of America, where
the soil is volcanic or sandy, no produce would
be obtained without the guano. It has been
calculated that from 12,000 to 14,000 cwts. are
annually sold in the port of MoUendo for the
use of the country round the city of Arequipa.
In the province of Taracapa and in the valleys
of Tambo and Victor the consumption should
be something more, as wheat, all kinds of fruit,
trees and plants, with the single exception of
the sugarcane, are manured with the gnano;
which is not the case with the district of Are-
quipa, where maize and the potato alone re-
quire it. In the district of Arequipa 3 cwts.
of guano is spread over an extent of 5000
square yards (about an English acre); but in
Taracapa and the valleys of Tambo and Victor,
5 cwts. are required. The land thus manured
in Arequipa produces 45 for 1 of potatoes, and
35 for 1 of maize, where wheat manured with
horse dung produces only 18."

There are, it seems, three varieties of guano,
which bear on the coast of Peru difl!erent
prices. "The white guano is considered the
most valuable, as being fresher and purer. It
is found on nearly all the islands along the
coast. The red and dark gray are worth 2«. 3d.
the cwt. ; a higher price is given for the white
on account of its greater scarcity ; it is sold at
the port of MoUendo at 3a. 6d. per cwt., and at
times, as during the war, it has obtained as
high a price as 12».

It appears, in the state in which it has been
lately introduced into England, to be a fine
brown or ^j||irn-coloured powder, emitting a
strong marine smell: it blackens when heated,
and gives off" strong ammoniacal fumes. When
nitric acid is mixed with it, uric or lithic acid
is produced. It has been analyzed by various
chemists. In 1806, an analysis of a very ela-
borate description was published by MM. Four-
croy and Vauquelin ; they found in it a fourth
of its weight of uric acid, partly saturated with
ammonia and partly with potash. Some phos-
phate of lime and ammonia, and small quanti-
ties of sulphate and muriate of potash, a little
fatty matter, and a portion of sand. It has been
more recently analyzed by Mr. Hennell of Apo-
thecaries' Hall, who found in guano —

„ Parfn.

Bone earth -----... 305

Sulphates and muriates 3

Uric or lithic acid -------15

Carbonate of ammonia - - - - - - 3

Matters volatile at 212°, consisting chiefly of water

and carbonate of ammonia - - - - 12

Other organic matters --_--- 365

100
595

GUANO.

GUANO.

It has also been analyzed by Mr. Brett of
Liverpool, who found in 100 parts —

Parts.
Earthy insoluble salts, chiefly phosphate of lime 292
Soluble salts, Axed alkaline, sulphate, and mu-
riate --------- 2-5

Organic matter _-->-__ 68-3
The organic matter consists of—

Lithicacid --- 161

Ammonia -------- 87

Other organic matter and moiature - . - 43*5

♦68-3

The composition of guano varies, however,
considerably. According to the analyses of MM.
Voelckel and Klaproth, the varieties which
they examined contained —

Voelckel. Klaproth.
Parts. Arts.

Urate of ammonia - - - - 9 16

Oxalate of ammonia - - - - 106 0 0

Oxalate of lime - - - - - 7 12 75

Phosphate of ammonia - - - 6 00

— ammonia, and magnesia 2 6 0 0

Sulphate of potass - - - - 5'5 0 0

— soda - - - - 3-3 0-0
Chloride of sodium (common salt) - 00 0 5

— ammonia - - - - 42 0 0
Phosphate of lime - _ . - 14 3 10
Clay and sand ----- 4*7 32
Undetermined organic substances, of

which about 12 per cent, is soluble
in water, a small quantity of soluble
salt of iron, water - - - - 32-53 2875

In a few words, it may be regarded as a com-
pound of urate of ammonia and other salts.
There is no doubt but that it is a very power-
ful manure ; the very composition of its salts
would indicate this fact. Thus, uric or lithic
acid, which is a fine white powder, nearly in-
soluble in water (1720 pans of water only dis-
solving 1 part of uric acid), is composed, ac-
cording to Dr. Prout (Thomson's Chem. vol. ii.p.
187), of—

Parts.
Hydrogen - - - - - 0125

Carbon 2 250

Nitrogen or azote _ . - i 750
Oxygen 1500

5 6-25

Urate of ammonia and urate of potash are
fine white powders, also very insoluble in
■water: of the phosphate of lime, of the guano,
the earthy salt, and most valuable portions of
bodies, it is unnecessary to comment; I have,
in my work "On the Fertilizers, p. 136," en-
deavoured to show how essentially valuable
this salt is to all the farmer's commonly culti-
vated crops. The use of the dung of birds is
not a modern improvement, for that of poultry
has been adopted as a manure from a very
early period. M. P. Cato, the earliest of the
agricultural writers, in his work, (lib. Ixxxvi.)
commends the use of pigeons' dung for mea-
dows, corn-lands, or gardens. And John Wor-
lidge, in 1669, was warm in the praise of the
dung of fowls. " Pigeons' or hens' dung," he
says (Myst. of j3gr. 71), "is incomparable : one
load is worth ten loads of other dung, and is
therefore usually sown on wheat or barley that
lieth far off and is not easy to be helped." And
he says, in another place, " A flock of wild
geese had pitched upon a parcel of green
wheat, and had eaten it up clean, and sat there-

* For thp.<!e I am indebted to Mr. M'Donald, of St. Mil-
dred's Court, London, a considerable importer of the
guano.

596

on, and dunged it several nights ; that the owner
despaired of having any crop that year; but the
contrary happened, for he had a far richer
stock of wheat there than any of his neighbours
had."

In some experiments made by Mr. Skirving
of Walton, near Liverpool, in 1841, the guano
was tried at the rate of two or three cwts. per
acre, as a manure for Swedish turnips and
Italian rye-grass, with very considerable suc-
cess; it appeared to be equally, or rather more,
efficacious than 20 cubic yards per acre of
farm-yard manure.

The most elaborate set of experiments upon
the guano with which I am acquainted were
made, in 1810, for potatoes and mangel-wurzel,
at the island of St. Helena, by the late General
Beatson ; and they are the more valuable from
being comparative. The soil on which these
experiments were made was rather stiff, being
composed of blackish mould, intermixed with
friable fat clay. The following table gives the
results of every experiment: 35 loads of horse-
dung litter per acre were used, 35 of hogs'
dung litter, and 35 bushels per acre of the
guano.

1. With potato seed the size of walnuts,
planted whole —

Six inches deep.

Bushels.
Guano ------ 554

Horse dung ----- 583

Pigs' dung ----- 447

Soil simple ----- 395

Three inches deep.

Guano ------ 531

Horse dung ----- 479

Pigs' dung ----- 414

Soil simple ----- 311

2. Large potatoes cut in pieces.

Six inches deep.

Guano ------ 589

Horse dung ----- 531

Pigs' dung - - - _, 466

Soil simple - - _ _ 408

Thi-ee inches deep.

Guano ------ 557

Horse dung ----- 511

Pigs' dung ----- 375

Soil simple ----- 414

3. From middle eye of potato seed scooped
out.

Six inches deep.

Bushel*.
Guano ------ 576

Horse dung ----- 563

Pigs' dung ----- 485

Soil simple ----- 337

Three inches deep.

Guano ------ 453

Horse dung - - - - - 382

Pigs' dung 485

Soil simple ----- 343

4. With small potatoes planted whole.

Six inches deep.

Bushels,

Guano 628

Horse dung ----- 583
Pigs' dung ----- 544
Soil simple ----- 570

Three inches deep.

Guano ------ 557

Horse dung ----- 414

Pigs' dung ----- 440

Soil simple 440

GUANO.

The total comparative produce in lbs. of
potatoes from these manures was therefore —

Ouano, or sea-fowl dung, at 35 bushels per acre - 639

Horse dung, 35 cart lf)ad8 per acre _ . _ 626

Hogs' dung, 35 cart loads per acre - - - 534

Soil simple _------- 446

With mangel-wurzel the produce per acre
on a similar soil was as follows : —

Leaves. Roots,
loos. ton*.

Soil simple 38 m

Hogs's dung and ashes, 360 bushels per

acre 131 66J

Guano, 35 bushels per acre - - - 153|^ 77}

The guano, or sea-fowl dung, adds General
Beatson, which is found in considerable quan-
tities upon Egg Island, was first recommended
to my notice by Sir Joseph Banks, President
of the Royal Society. " It furnishes," says he,
"the loading of an immense number of ves-
sels that are constantly employed in bringing
it from small islands to the main land on the
western coast of South America, where it is
sold and distributed for the purpose of ma-
nure, for which it answers in a degree infi-
nitely superior to any other article we have
the knowledge of. A handful is considered as
sufficient for several square yards of land, the
produce of which is exuberant in consequence
of the force of this application."

The accuracy of this valuable communica-
tion has been most amply confirmed by my
experiments in the culture of potatoes, as well
as upon grass lands. Thirty-five bushels of
the guano, or 3 cart-loads per acre appear to
me equivalent in effect to 70 loads of good rot-
ten dung. I should imagine that abundance
of this most valuable manure might be had
from many of the rocks and islands on the
coast of Scotland. The effect of the guano
upon grass lands is comparatively greater than
in the potato experiment. From what cause
this proceeds it may be difficult to explain ;
but as Dr. Priestley found, by experiment, that
vegetables throve best when they were made
to grow in air made putrid by the decomposi-
tion of animal and vegetable substances, it
may be inferred that the very strong effluvia
which issue frojn the sea-fowl dung or guano,
together with its being readily washed among
the roots of vegetables by the first falls of rain,
are circumstances that may possibly render its
effects as a top-dressing greatly superior to
those it produces when it is mixed with the
• soil. On the 29th of July, 1808, I marked out
a space on the lawn in front of Plantation
House, which measured I rod in breadth and
12 rods in length; this was divided into 12
equal parts, or square rods, and numbered
progressively from 1 to 12. The guano was
reduced to a powder and sifted, and upon No.
I 1 a quart of this powder was evenly strewed

I by the hand; this is at the rate of 5 Winches-

i ter bushels per acre, because 160 square rods,
1 or an acre, would have required that number
tt of quarts, or exactly 5 bushels. In the same
^ manner No. 2 had 2 quarts. No. 3, 3 quarts,
H and so on to No. 12, which had 12 quarts, or
H at the rate of 60 bushels per acre. From the
H 29th of July there were daily drizzling rains
^^ until the 5th of August, when the efiect of this

GUANO.

following day the whole extent of the 12 rods
became highly verdant, and exhibited such a
contrast to the unmanured part of the lawn,
that it had the appearance of having been
newly turfed with a finer kind of sod. The
eflfect gradually increased, and in the first
week of October, that is, in a little more than
two months, the higher numbers, from 6 to 12,
having from 30 to 60 bushels per acre, excited
the surprise of every person who saw them,
being covered with the most. exuberant grass
that can be imagined, and having more the re-
semblance of a crop of young wheat very
thickly sown, than of any grass I ever beheld.
This is more remarkable, as at that time the co-
pious rains which fell in August and the spring
season had made no visible effect on the adjoin-
ing part of the lawn. It was from a frequent
and careful inspection of the above experi-
ments that I have estimated 35 bushels of gu-
ano per acre to be equivalent in effect upon
grass lands to seventy loads of well-rotted
dung. I have been informed that guano is
sold at Lima, and at other towns on the coast
of Peru, for a dollar a bag of 50 pounds weight,
and that it is much in use there for manuring
fruit trees and gardens. It is certainly one of
the most powerful of manures, and therefore it
is necessary to be cautious in using it. I have
observed, when too much is laid on grass,
that it burns and destroys it. I would, there-
fore, recommend to those who may try it on
fruit trees, to begin with not more than three-
quarters of a pint to each tree, and to trench it
about a foot deep all round the roots. If the
first application be found insufficient, a second
or third may be given at intervals of two or
three months ; or a better mode, perhaps, of
determining the quantity of guano proper for
each fruit tree, would be to select about a
dozen trees of the same kind and size, and to
vary the quantities by an easy progression,
from three-quarters of a pint to one or two
quarts, or more, to each tree. (Com. Board of
Jgr., vol. vii. p. 225—240.

The price at present of guano in England
is 25». per cwt., or £12 per ton. As it costs
only about 3«. per cwt. at the South American
ports, near which it is obtained, it should be
imported and sold at a lower price.

In any case, says J. F. W. Johnston, it seems
improbable that guano can continue to be im-
ported into England for any length of time.
It is absolutely necessary to the cultivation of
the land in Peru, — and it is also diminishing
in quantity, — the first settled government, there-
fore, which is formed in that country, must
prohibit the further exportation of a substance
so important to the national interests. It is a
matter not unworthy of the attention of che-
mists, therefore, to consider whether a mixture
similar to the guano, and of equal efficacy,
cannot be formed by art — not only at a cost so
reasonable as at once to make the farmer
independent of the importer, but also in such
abundance as at the same time to place so
valuable a manure within the reach of all.

Several attempts have been made to manu-
facture an artificial guano, and the results have
shown considerable success.

The following mixture contains the various

597

GUANO.

GUINEA GRASS.

ingredients found in guano in nearl)' the ave-
rage proportions ; and Mr. Johnston believes
it is likely to be at least as efficacious as the
natural guano, for all the crops to which the
latter has hitherto been applied.

£, 8. d.
315 lbs. (7 bushels) of bone dust, at 2^. 9d. per

bushel 0 19 0

100 lbs. of sulphate of ammonia, coutaining 35
lbs. of ammonia at 20s. a cwt. - - - 0 18 0

5 lbs. pearl ash 010

100 Ihs. of common salt 020

11 lbs. of dry sulphate of soda - - -010

631 lbs. of artificial guano cost - - -210

The quantity here indicated may be inti-
mately mixed with 100 lbs. of chalk, and will
be fully equal in efficacy, I believe, to 4 cwt.
of guano, now selling at £5.

Sulphate of ammonia is now manufactured
largely at Glasgow, and may be had for less
than 20.«. a cwt.

In England the guano is entirely a new fer-
tilizer. About 20 casks were imported in
1840 by Mr. Myers, of Liverpool ; and in the
year 1841 one or two more cargoes arrived
from the Pacific. The enterprise which has
thus led him to bring so many thousands of
miles this long-employed manure of South
America, is certainly highly to the credit of an
English merchant. That it promises well to
agriculture, no one will doubt who attends
carefully to its chemical composition ; and it
is more than probable that by avoiding the
application of it in quantities too small, and
by the use of the drill, a valuable fertilizer
will be added to the manures already in the
farmer's possession. But I would warn my
agricultural friends not to be led away by idle
assertions respecting its powers, such as
that a single cwt. is sufficient for an acre of
ground ; from 2 to 4 cwt. is the smallest quan-
tity that should be applied by the drill. Let
them bcAvare, too, of adulterations ; the price
has already tempted the small dealers to mix
it with other substances. Forty thousand tons
were imported into England during the year
1842.

From some recent notices of it in the Far-
mers^ Magazine for December, 1841, 1 find that
Mr. Smith, of Gunton Park, Norfolk, applied
200 pounds to an acre, and on the same field,
on an equal space of land, 15 bushels of bone
dust. Both were drilled into the ground with
seed wheat. The bone dust gave 4^ quarters
of wheat, the guano 6 quarters 2 bushels 1^
pecks.

Mr. Love, of Shoreham, Sevenoaks, observes,
"I mixed 14 pounds, in the first instance, with
2 bushels of ashes, and although the weather
was very dry, I could perceive a marked dif-
ference in the growth of the plants a few days
after they made their appearance. Encouraged
by my success, I then mixed 28 pounds with 15
bushels of ashes, and applied for turnips by
sowing broadcast on the land, and harrowing
it in lightly. As we had frequent showers at
the time, the seed soon vegetated, and the
plants grew away from these manured -with
dung and mould. In each case I applied it at
the rate of 2 cwt. to the acre."

Mr. John Crane Nott, of Hollow, Worcester-
shire, remarks, " I applied it to my hop-grounds,
598

and, in order to give it a fair trial, I put about
a pint to every alternate hill in each row. The
effect was most extraordinary ; those hills on
which the guano was applied were most luxu-
riant, while the adjoining ones, not so manured,
were sickly and weak.

GUELDER-ROSE, COMMON or WATER
ELDER (Viburnvm ojmlus). A hardy, beauti-
ful, and well-known shrub, almost a tree in
some soils, blowing its large round white flow-
ers, like snowballs, in June and July, whence
it is frequently called the "snowball tree." It
is commonly planted in shrubberies, along
with the lilac and laburnum, grouping ele-
gantly with the various^ purple hues of the
former, and the " golden" chain of the latter ;
but they are all mere summer beauties. The
guelder-rose thrives in every kind of soil, but
of course it prefers a good strong one. It may
be propagated by layers or suckers.

The Mealy Guelder-rose, or Way-faring
Tree (V. Lanlana), grows wild in woods and
hedges, on a chalky or limestone soil, and
sometimes to the height of 18 or 20 feet; the
branches have leaves with foot-stalks and
flower-stalks clothed with a starry, mealy pu-
bescence. The compressed berries are in an
early state red on the outer side, yellow on the
inner, finally black, with a little mealy astrin-
gent pulp. The berries attract birds. The
leaves turn of a dark red in autumn. This
shrub is scarcely worth cultivating for orna-
ment, nor is it of any particular use except
that the bark of the root serves to make bird-
lime ; but that of holly is much better. The
young branches and rind of the trunk may be
employed for bands and cords, being very sup-
ple and pliant. {Smith's Eng. Fhr. vol. ii.
p. 107.)

GUINEA-CORN (Holcus sorghum,! Ann.), an
exotic vegetable, growing on the coast of
Africa; its stalks are large, compact, gene-
rally attaining the height of 7 or 8 feet, and
producing abundance of grain. It may be
easily raised in sheltered situations, especially
in exhausted hot-beds and other loose soils,
where its seeds should be sown early in the
spring, as the large flowery tops appear in
June. In Tuscany, Syria, and Palestine, the
flour made of this grain is mixed with other
meal, and converted into bread; which, how-
ever, is generally brown, tough, and heavy.
Hence the former is better calculated for milk
porridge, that is equally wholesome and nutri-
tive. The juice exuding from the stalks of the
Guinea-corn is so agreeably luscious, that it
affords excellent sugar, by a process similar to
that adopted with the sugar-cane; the seeds
furnish nourishing food to poultry and pigeons,
as well as for horses and hogs. (Dom.Encyc.)

GUINEA FOWL. See Fowts.

GUINEA GRASS. A valuable species of
herbage, thus denominated, as it was first dis-
covered on the coast of Guinea, whence it was
brought to Jamaica. In point of real utility,
this plant ranks, in Jamaica, next the sugar-
cane ; for the breeding farms throughout the
island were originally established, and are still
supported, chiefly by means of the Guinea
grass, which bestows verdure and fertility on
lands that would otherwise not deserve to be

GUINEA PIG.

HACKMATACK.

cultivated. About ten years since, it was also I
introduced into the East Indies, where it is now j
successfully cultivated, and grows to the height j
of seven feet : it admits of bein": frequently |
cut, and makes excellent. hay. Cattle eat it,
both in a fresh and dry state, with great avi-
dity: hence the culture of this valuable herb-
age has been strongly recommended to the
farmers of Cornwall and Devonshire.

The following remarks on the culture of this
grass are by the late H. Lawrence, of South
Carolina.

"In the last spring, I procured from Jamaica
three-half pints of Guinea grass seed, which I
planted in the drills of one-fourth part of an
acre of very indifferent land; the seed sprung
up and soon covered the ground with grass
four feet high and upwards. Being desirous
of saving as much seed as possible, I cut one
bundle of grass for horses : they ate it all with
great avidity.

♦' In August I took one of the grass roots and
divided it into 28 parts, which were immediately
replanted : every part took root, and the whole
are now grov/ing very finely and seeding. I
am of opinion this grass will make the best
pasture we can wish for. From former expe-
rience I have reason to believe the Guinea
grass is perennial. It is easily managed, re-
quires but one good hoeing, after which it will
takes care of itself.

"I am informed a gentleman near Kingston,
in Jamaica, makes upwards of 1000/. sterling
per annum by Guinea grass hay." {Domestic
Encyclopedia.)

GUINEA PIG {Covia cobaya). This curious
little animal is not a native of Guinea, but of
Brazil, whence it has been imported into Eu-
rope. It is about seven inches in length, and
its white body is variegated with irregular
black and orange-coloured spots. In their
wild state these animals multiply prodigiously,
and would become innumerable, if they were
capable of sustaining cold and moisture. The
female breeds at two months old, and brings
forth 10, 12, or 14 young ones, several limes in
the course of the year, after a gestation of three
weeks. Guinea pigs feed on all kinds of herbs,
but are particularly fond of parsley, as also
of apples and other fruits.

GULLION. A provincial name for gripes
in horses. See Gripes.

GUM, BLACK. See Black gux.

GYPSUM. See Plaster of Paris.

H.

HACK, or HACKNEY. In horsemanship,
a general term for a road horse, which does not
always convey any sense of inferiority, or re-
fer to horses let out for hire. It is, however,
often used in that sense.

HACKBERRY. The banks of the Delaware
above Philadelphia mav be considered as the
north-eastern limit of the hackberry. East of
the mountains it is restricted within narrow
boundaries, and it is a stranger to the lower
part of Virginia, and to the more Southern
States : I have found it abundant, says Michaux,
only on the banks of the Susquehanna and of

the Potomac, particularly on the Susquehanna
near Columbia and Harrisburg. It is profusely
multiplied, on the contrary, in the western
country in all the valleys that stretch along the
rivers, and wherever the soil is fertile, through-
out Kentucky and Tennessee. On the Ohio,
from Pittsburgh to Mariettji, it is called hoop-
ash, and in Kentucky, hackberry ; a name
whose origin I am unable to trace.

This is one of the finest trees that compose
the dusky forests on this part of the Ohio. It
associates with the buttonwood, black walnut,
butternut, basswood, black sugar-maple, elm,
and sweet locust, which it equals in stature
but not in bulk, being sometimes more than
80 feet high, with a disproportionate diameter
of 18 or 20 inches.

The hackberry is easily distinguished by the
form of its trunk, which is straight and undi-
vided to a great height, and by its bark, which
is grayish, unbroken, and covered with aspe-
rities unequally distributed over its surface.
Its leaves are larger than those of any other
species of nettle tree, being 6 inches long and
3 or 4 inches broad. They are oval-acuminate,
denticulated, cordiform at the base, of a thick,
substantial texture, and of a rude surface.
The flowers are small, white, and often united
in pairs on a common peduncle. The fruit is
round, about as large as a pea, and black at its
maturity. The wood is fine-grained and com-
pact, but not heavy, and when freshly exposed
it is perfectly while : sawn in a direction pa-
rallel or oblique to its concentrical circles, it
exhibits the fine undulations that are observed
in the elm and the locust. On laying open the
sap of this tree in the spring, I have remarked,
without being able to account for the pheno-
menon, that it changes in a few minutes from
pure white to green. On the Ohio and in
Kentucky, where the best opportunity is af-
forded of appreciating this wood, it is little
esteemed on account of its weakness and its
speedy decay when exposed to the weather. It
is rejected by wheelwrights, but is sometimes
employed in building for the covering which
supports the shingles. As it is elastic and
easily divided, it is used for the bottom of com-
mon chairs, and by the Indians for baskets.
On the banks of the Ohio it is frequently
taken for the rails of rural fence, and is
wrought with the greatest ease, as it is straight-
grained and free from knots : it is said also to
afford excellent charcoal.

The hackberry is certainly one of the most
beautiful trees of its genus, and one of the
most remarkable for height and for majesty
of form. In rich soils, the luxuriance of its
vegetation is shown by sprouts 6, 8, and 10
feet in length, garnished on each side with
large, substantial leaves. In France it is
principally esteemed for the rapidity of its
growth. (./5m. Sylva.)

HACKLE. A board set with sharp iron
spikes for combing or pulling out hemp and
flax. Also the name of an artificial fly used
by anglers.

■ HACKMATACK, or American larch (LaHx
Americana). The European and American
larches, says Michaux, are more strictly confined
than any other resinous trees to the northern

599

HACKMATACK.

HAIR.

zone of the two continents, and they are the first
to disappear in approaching a milder sky. The
American species is most abundant in the
Stales of Vermont, New Hampshire, and
Maihe ; but thoujaih «he* soil is well adapted to
its growth and the winter is long and severe,
it does not form the* hundredth part of the re-
sinous growth, which consists principally of
the black spruce, the hemlock spruce, and the
red cedar. According to my father's observa-
tions in his journey to Hudson's Bay, it is only
beyond the St. Lawrence, particularly near
lake St. John and the great and the little lake
Mistassin, that it begins to abound and to form
masses of woods, some of which are several
miles in extent. I have been informed that it
is profusely multiplied in Newfoundland, in
nearly the same latitude. New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania, and the coldest and gloomiest ex-
posures in the mountainous tracts of Virginia,
are the limits of its appearance towards the
south: but it is rare in these states, and in
Lower Jersey, in the vicinity of New York, it
is seen only in the swamps of white cedar,
with which it is scantily mingled. The nu-
merous descendants of the Dutch in New
Jersey call it tamarack.

I have remarked that in the States of Ver-
mont and Maine the larch grows only in low
and moist places, and never on uplands, as
about Hudson's Bay and in Newfoundland ;
hence we may conclude that the climate of the
northern extremity of the United States is too
mild for its constitution.

The American larch, like that of Europe,
is a magnificent vegetable, with a straight,
slender trunk 80 or 100 feet in height, and 2
or 3 feet in diameter. Its numerous branches,
except near the summit, are horizontal or de-
clining. The bark is smooth and polished on
the trunk and longer limbs, and nigged on the
smaller branches. The leaves are flexible,
shorter than those of the European species,
and collected in bunches: they are shed in the
fall and renewed in the spring. The flowers,
like those of the pines, are separate upon the
same tree : the male aments, which appear
before the leaves, are small, oblong, and scaly,
with two yellow anthers under each scale ; the
female flowers are also disposed in aments,
and are composed of floral leaves covering
two ovaries, which in process of time become
small erect scaly cones 3 or 4 lines long. At
the base of each scale lie two minute winged
seeds. On some stocks the cones are violet-
coloured in the spring instead of green ; but
this is an accidental variation, for the trees are
in no other respect peculiar.

The wood of the American larch is superior
to any species of pine or spruce, and unites
all the properties which distinguish the Eu-
ropean species, being exceedingly strong and
singularly durable. In Canada it is considered
as among the most valuable timber, and has
no fault except its weight. In the State of
Maine it is more esteemed than any other re-
sinous wood for the knees of vessels, and is
always used for this purpose when proper
pieces can be procured. Turpentine is never
extracted from it in America, as is done from
the native species in Europe.
600

The larch is justly appreciated in the United
States, but it is little employed, because it is
rare and may be replaced by several resinous
trees which are cheaper and more abundant.

Sir A. B. Lambert, in his splendid work
upon the pines, describes two species of the
American larch, the first of which is evidently
the tree we have been considering; the second
he denominates Larix min'ocarpa, and charac-
terizes it by smaller fruit and drooping branches.
My father doubtless considered it as a variety,
and has omitted to mention it: as I have
never visited the northern parts of America, I
cannot decide the question.

The cones of the European larch are twice
as large as those of the American species, but
the two trees are so analogous that a separate
description is unnecessary. (Jim. Sylva.)

HAIR (Germ, haare). The characteristic
covering of the mammiferous class of animals.
It consists of slender, more or less elongated,
horny filaments, secreted by a matrix, consist-
ing of a conical gland or bulb, and a capsule,
which is situated in the meshwork of the corium
or true skin. The hairs pass out through ca-
nals in the corium, which are lined by a thin
layer of cuticle adherent to the base of the hair:
the straightness or curl of the hair depends on
the form of the canal through which it passes.
The hair is formed in an elongated sheath or
sack, to the bottom of which the bulb or soft
part of the hair is fixed. The structure of
hairs differs : thus, in the bris»tle of the hog
there is an internal cellular part, and an ex-
ternal or cortical fibrous part; and this is also
the structure of the hair of the roe deer. The
hair of the bat is knotted, and that of the mouse
is mottled with black and white. Hair is usu-
ally distinguished into various kinds, according
to its size and appearance. The strongest and
stiffest of all is called bristle: of this kind is
the hair on the backs of hogs. When remark
ably fine, soft, and pliable, it is called wool,
and the finest of all is known by the name of
down. Spines, bristles, fur, and wool (see those
heads) are therefore all modifications of hair,
having the same chemical composition, mode
of formation, and general structure.

In the spine of the porcupine, the bulb secretes
a fluted pith, and the capsule invests it with a
horny sheath, the transparency of which allows
the ridges of the central part to be seen. In
the spine-like whiskers of the walrus, as well
as the bristles of the hog, the twofold structure
of the hair is very conspicuous ; but in the
finer kind of hair, as of the human head and
beard, the central pith can only be demon-
strated in fine transverse sections, viewed with
a microscope. Some kinds of hair, as of the
human head, the mane and tail of the horse,
are perennial, and grow continuously by a
persisting activity of the formative capsule
and pulp : other kinds, as the ordinary hair of
the horse, cow, and deer, are annual, and the
coat is shed at particular seasons. In the deer
the horns are shed contemporaneously with
i the deciduous hair.

Many quadrupeds, especially those of cold
climates, have two kinds of hair: a long and
coarse kind, forming their visible external
covering; and a shorter, finer, and more

HAIR GRASS.

HAM.

abundant kind, which lies close to the skin,
and called " fur." With respect to structure,
Eberle has proved that the sheath of the hair
is vascular, and the substance of the hair is
[formed by the secretion of horny matter on
'the surface of the vascular pulp.

The organization of the hair is such as to
allow of its undergoing certain changes when
once formed, according to the state of health
and general condition of the rest of the frame,
and even to be affected by loss of colour in
consequence of violent mental emotions in the
human subject. Some of the lower animals,
* as the Alpine hare, are subject to periodical
changes of colour of their fur, by which it is
made to harmonize with the prevailing hue of
the ground which they habitually traverse. The
chemical properties of hair were first pointed
out by Mr. Hatcheit, in his paper in the Phil.
Trans, for 1800. It chiefly consists of an in-
durated albumen, and when boiled with water,
it yields a portion of gelatin. Soft flexible
hair, which easily loses its curl, is that which
is most gelatinous. Vauquelin discovered two
kinds of oil in hair: the one colourless, in all
hair; the other coloured, and imparting the
peculiar tint to hair. Black hair also contains
iron and sulphur. The following is his analy-
sis : — 1. An animal matter, constituting the
greatest parL 2. A white solid oil,^mall in
quantity. 3. A grayish-green oil, more abun-
dant. 4. Iron ; state unknown. 5. Oxide of
manganese. 6. Phosphate of lime. 7. Car-
bonate of lime, very scanty. 8. Silica. 9.
Sulphur. Leuwenhoeck {Phil. Tmns.) and
Hooke (Micrographia, p. 156) have published
their microscopical observations on hair.

Human hair makes a very considerable
article in commerce, for wigs, &c. The hair
of horses is extensively used in the manufac-
ture of chairs, sofas, saddles, &c. ; while the
hair or wool of beavers, hares, and rabbits, &c.,
is much employed in the manufacture of hats,
&c. The refuse hair of different animals, par-
ticularly the short hair from hides, and that of
hogs, when it can be procured in sufficient
quantity, will be found useful as a fertilizer; a
fact that might readily be imagined when it is
known that its chemical properties closely ap-
proximate to those of horn.

HAIR GRASS. See Aira.
' HALESIA. The name of two beautiful spe-
cies of shrub, or small trees, natives of North
Carolina and other Southern States. They are
known by the familiar names of silver-bell and
snow-drop tree, and are highly ornamental,
producing very early, whilst the tree is com-
pletely leafless, a profusion of snow-white
hanging blossoms, having a pleasant odour and
very much frequented by humming-birds, bees,
and other insects. The flowers are disposed
in bunches all along the branches, each bud
producing from 4 to 8 or 9. The flowering
continues during two or three weeks, and the
blossoms are succeeded by pretty large winged
juiceless drupes, hanging likewise in bunches.
The tree is propagated by cuttings or suckers
from the roots, and appear to stand the severe
winters of more Northerly States, very well. A
Halesia, with several distinct trunks from the
original root, is now flourishing at the seat of
76

J. Cowperthwait, Esq., near Bristol, Pennsyl-
vania. It is quite an old tree, and has attained
the height of 35 or 40 feet. There are two
species of halesia, one called flower-winged
(H. tetraptera), and the other the two-winged
(H. dipt era). The leaves of the latter are six
times the size of the former, and the fruit has
two large wings and two minute ones.

HAM (Dutch, hammen: Fr. jambon). In
commerce denotes the thigh of a hog or bear
salted and dried, so as to preserve it in a state
possessing a pungent and agreeable flavour.
York, Hants, Wilts, and Cumberland in Eng-
land, and Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland,
are the counties most famous for producing
fine hams. Those of Ireland are comparatively
coarse, and without flavour. See Bacox. The
haras of Portugal, Westphalia, and Virginia
are exquisitely flavoured, and are in high esti-
mation. The method of curing hams In the
most celebrated districts, is to rub them very
hard with bay or other salt ; then leave them
on a stone bench, in order that the brine may
discharge itself. In a few days the rubbing
process is repeated; about half an ounce of
saltpetre (nitrate of potassa) being added to
each ham. When they have continued about
a week longer on the bench, or in the salting-
tub, among the brine, they are commonly hung
up to dr}' in the sides of large open chimneys ;
some have them exposed to the smoke of wood,
peats, coals, or other sorts of fuel, while others
carefully avoid having them smoked. And
when not sold sooner, they are continued in
these situations till the approach of warm wea-
ther, when they are packed up in casks with
straw, or the seeds of oatmeal, and consigned
for sale. Hams lose about 20 per cent, of their
weight in drying.

Hams may be cured in order to resemble, in
taste, those of Westphalia, by the following
process : — Cover a young ham of pork with dry
salt; let it be for 24 hours to draw off the blood;
then wipe it perfectly dry, and take one pound
of brown sugar, a quarter of a pound of salt-
petre, half a pint of bay salt, and three pints
of salt ; incorporate these ingredients in an
iron pan over the fire, and stir them continu-
ally till they acquire a moderate degree of heat.
In this pickle the ham must be suffered to re-
main for three weeks, frequently turning it,
when it should be suspended in a chimney for
drying by means of smoke from no other but a
wood fire. The smoke from oak saw-dust or
shavings is the best for imparting a fine fla-
vour. This smoke contains imperfectly formed
pyroligneous acid, which is the agent that com-
municates the flavour to the Westphalia hams.
In Dumfriesshire the pickle for hams is some-
times made with one-half ale, which renders
the hams shorter, and adds greatly to the rich-
ness of their flavour. The imports of bacon
and hams into England, have been kept low by
the heavy duty of 28s. exacted on each cwt.
But the duty having been recently greatly re-
duced, a large amount of hams cured in Ame-
rica will be sent to the English market. In
1842, the duty on foreign hams imported into
England was reduced to 14s. the cwt., or just
half of what it had been for many years. On
those imported from British colonies the duty
3£ 6»1

HAMES.

HARROW.

is only 3s. 5d. per cwt. Although dried hams
pay a duty of 14s., those shipped in pickle pass
the English Custom House at the pork duty of
8s. per cwt. As a set off, however, against the
6s. saved in duty, it must be observed that pork
cured in pickle is of inferior quality to that
cured in dry salt, and will not bring an equal
price. It is also shipped in that form at an in-
creased cost of packages and freight, and pays
a duty on a greater weight than when dried.
See SwTXE.

HAMES. The iron or wooden harness by
which draught-horses are attached to the carts,
&c.

HAND. The measure of the fist when
clenched; it is equal to four inches. The
height of horses is computed in this way. A
horse 15 hands high stands five feet at the
shoulders.

HARE (Lepus timidus). The hare is natu-
rally a timid animal, and extremely swift in
motion when pursued by dogs. Hares are
dispersed over almost every climate, and con-
sequently the varieties are extremely numerous ;
and the sizes, forms, and habits, adapted to the
physical wants of the family, greatly multiplies
their diversities. Although hunted in all coun-
tries, being prolific in the extreme, their spe-
cies does not apparently diminish in number.
They begin to breed in the first year, and the
female generally produces four or five leverets,
after a gestation of about 31 or 32 days ; and
she is supposed to breed four or five times in
the year. Unlike dogs, the eyes of these ani-
mals are open at their birth ; and after being
suckled for about three weeks, they are aban-
doned to their fate. Hares in a state of nature
are believed to live from 9 to 12 years. The
hare is known to have been a favourite object
of the chace more than 2000 years ago.

Two or three species of the hare genus are
natives of the United States. The common
American rabbit, found all over the country,
is the Lepus Jlmericnnvs and Lepus Hudsonius
of naturalists. It is smaller than the English
hare, and even less than the European rabbit.
In dry places it often burrows in the earth, and
is very prolific, bringing forth 3 or 4 times a
year from 5 to 10 at a time. It carries its
young about 6 weeks. In the domestic state
the male rabbit will often destroy the young.

A second American species is the Varying
Hare, the Lepus Viririaniamis or Lepus varia-
bilis of naturalists. This inhabits the Southern
and Middle States, and most probably as far
north as New England. Its colour is grayish-
brown in summer, and white in winter; the
orbits of the eyes are at all times surrounded
by a reddish fawn-colour; tail very short. The
largest of this species are about 18 inches,
total length, and weigh from 7 to 8 lbs. These
animals never burrow, but frequent meadows,
&c., near the base of mountains, and when
pursued retreat into hollow trees. They bring
forth several times a year, 3 or 4 at a birth,
after a gestation of about 30 days.

In the extreme northerly parts of the conti-
nent, Captains Parr)% Sabine, and other tra-
vellers, describe another American species
under the name of Lepus glacidlis, which is
somewhat larger than the varying rabbit, being
603

2 feet 4 inches from the end of the nose to the
arms, the average weight being 8 lbs. The ears
are longer in proportion than those of the com-
mon hare, and especially those of the varying
rabbit. The fur is exceedingly thick and
woolly, of the purest white in the spring and
autumn, excepting a tuft of long black hair at
the tip of the ears, which is reddish-brown at
the base. The whiskers are also black at the
base for one-half their length. In the summer
the back and sides become a little grayish, the
fur beneath still remaining white. The lepus
glacialis, or hare of the icy regions, inhabits
the Arctic circle, Greenland (where it remains
entirely white even in summer). The food
consists chiefly of tender herbs gathered from
ravines. (Fauna Americana.)

HARIFF, Goose-Grass, Cliders, Cleavers, or
Catchweed (Galium aparine). PI. 10, A. This
is an annual plant, with a fibrous root, growing
in hedges almost everywhere. It is found wild
even in Nepal. The flowers are small, pale,
and buff'-coloured, few together, on lateral
leafy stalks, and blowing from May to August.
The root is fibrous. The stem branched, brit-
tle, supporting itself upon other plants; often
three or four feet long ; the four angles beset
with hooked prickles, which are also abundant
on the edges and keels of the leaves, by all
which tl»e herb sticks to the hands and clothes
of those who touch it, as well as to the coats
of animals, as do likewise the seeds. The
fruit is a double globe, beset with minute, short
hooks. The expressed juice of the herb is
reckoned anti-scorbutic ; but this is doubtful,
as well as some imaginary virtues in cancer
which' have been attributed to it. The roasted
seeds are said to be no bad substitute for cofllee,
to which they are botanically related.

Three-flowered goose-grass is one of the
names of the rough-fruited common bed straw.
(G. frirnrve).

HARRIERS. A breed of dogs kept princi-
pally for hunting the hare. There are three
prominent varieties of the harrier, — the old
southern hound, the modern harrier, and the
beagle. Subordinate divisions occur, and a
cross breed is used in hunting the otter. The
modern harrier is little more than a dwarf fox-
hound. The size and form of the harrier, like
those of the fox-hound, should be adapted to
the nature of the country hunted over. Some
sportsmen have a penchant for packs of under-
sized harriers; and a gentleman of the name
of Harding used to hunt the open grounds
about Dorchester with about 17 couple, which
were not more than 16 or 17 inches high.
(Elaine's J^vral Spnrts, p. 404.)

HARROW. For the chief portion of the
following article, I am indebted to the Messrs.
Ransome, the celebrated agricultural imple-
ment makers of Ipswich ; than whom no per-
sons can be belter acquainted with Jhe con-
struction and uses of diflferent machines and
implements for agricultural purposes. This
instrument succeeds to the plough in the natu-
ral order of description, and in the uses to
which it is applicable. Its purpose is to pul-
verize the ground which has been moved by
the plough, to disengage from it the weeds and
roots which it may contain, .^r to cover the

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HARROWS, EXTIRPATOHS and SIARIHEBS.

HARROW.

HARROW.

seeds of the cultivated plants, when sown.
The form of the plou?:h has been very different
in different ages and countries, and there is
little resemblance between the rude machines
of the ancients and some of those which are
now employed; but the harrow seems to have
been nearly of the same form from the earliest
times to which we are able to trace it on sculp-
tures, medals, and other remains of antiquity.
It is a much more simple machine than the
plough, and may even be held to be imperfect
in any form in which it can be made ; yet it is
an instrument of great utility in tillage, and no
other has yet been devised to supersede its use,
or to equal it, for many of the purposes to which
it is applicable. (Q^art. Joum. of Jgr. vol. i. p.
503.)

There were various stages in the gradual
introduction of the modern harrow. The first
implement used by men, for the purpose of
covering seed, is generally the branch of a
tree; to these soon succeed more desirable
substances, such as beams of wood ; and then,
again, two or more beams are fastened toge-
ther: spikes, or teeth, are a much later im-
provement. Even now, in India (and there
the natives but rarely alter their modes of cul-
ture or their implements), an instrument is
used which is intended to produce the combined
effects of the roller and the harrow. This, ac-
cording to Mr. G. W. Johnson, "is nothing
more in form than an English ladder made of
bamboo, about 18 feet long, drawn by four
bullocks and guided by two men, who, to in-
crease its power, stand upon it, as they direct
and urge on the cattle : again and again has it
to pass over the same surface, and thus it
causes a great waste of time and labour."

Important as is the operation of harrowing,
and second only to that of ploughing, it has
often appeared to us that these implements
have scarcely obtained the attention which is
their due. We here speak less with reference
to the improvements which have been carried
into effect, than to the selection which appears
generally to have been made. The operation
is in many neighbourhoods so performed as to
exhibit a prominent defect, either in the ma-
nagement of the farm, or in the construction
of the implement: perhaps the blame may be
fairly shared. It is admitted by all acquainted
with the subject, that harrowing, especially on
heavy soils, is the most laborious operation on
the farm, — not so much, perhaps, on account
of the quantum of power requisite for the
draught (though this is sometimes considera-
ble), as for the speed with which the operation
is, or ousrht to be, accompanied ; and yet it is
frequently left to the charge of mere boys, and
sometimes performed by the worst horses on
the farm. If we examine a field, one-half of
which has been harrowed by weak, inefficient
horses, and whose pace was consequently
sluggish, the other half by an adequate strength
and swiftness of animal power, we shall find
the former will be rough and unfinished; the
latter comparatively firm and level, and com-
pleted in what would be called a husbandry-
like manner. Scarcely any thing in farming is
more unsightly than the wavy, serpentine traces
of inefllicient harrowing. The generality of

harrows appear to us too heavy and clumsy to
admit of that despatch without which the work
cannot be well done; and though it is evident
that different soils demand different imple-
ments, of proportionate weight and power, yet,
for the most part, harrows have been rather
over than under-weighted, particularly when
employed after a drill, or to bury seeds of any
kind. Harrowing has been so long regarded
as an operation which must be attended with
considerable horse-labour, that our attention
has been turned to the inquiry, whether this
labour might not be greatly reduced by lighten-
ing the harrows. Many, we think, would be
surprised at the amount of reduction of which
seed-harrows, at least, are capable, and where
land is clear, to see how effective a gang of
very light small-toothed harrows may be made.
Having noticed the perfect manner in which
seed-corn is covered by a common rake with
wooden teeth, in some parts of Norfolk, a friend
of ours constructed a gang of harrows on the
following plan, and he states that they proved
the most popular and useful implement of the
kind on the farm. PI. 15, fig. 1.

The frames are of ash, and as light as pos-
sible, the teeth (of iron) being but three inches
long, exclusive of the part which enters the
wood-work. They screw into the balks in the
manner shown in PI. 15, fig. 4.

It will be observed that the above four har--
rows are amply sufficient to cover a twelve-
furrow stetch or ridge of 108 inches, but three
will be wide enough for a three-furrow stetch
of 90 inches, exclusive of a small portion of
the furrows. If for some purposes the teeth be
found too thick, every other tooth may be taken
out ; but for general purposes this will hardly
be necessary. The two horses require, on this
plan, to be kept quite level ; for if one is suf-
fered to go in advance of the other, a diagonal
line is produced, by which the teeth will be
made to follow each other, instead of cutting
fresh ground. We are aware that, by the usual
construction of harrows, a diagonal line of
draught is required, in order to throw the teeth
into a proper working position; but we are
strongly inclined to the opinion, that the due
execution of the implement ought to depend on
its construction, and not on any particular
mode of working it. Besides, the system of
keeping one horse in advance of his partner is
bad in principle ; it is an unequal division of
labour, the fore-horse being compelled to do
more than his share of the work, which, under
any circumstances, is always heavy enough.
We have stated that the above set of harrows
are of wood. Their extraordinary lightness
renders this necessary; but, for general pur-
poses, we prefer those made of iron, the weight
of which can be increased to any reasonable
degree without adding much to their substance.
This is important in working tenacious clays,
which, by adhering to the clumsy wooden
balks, considerably increase the labour, and at
the same time impede the proper execution.

In an experiment made between a pair of
wooden harrows and a pair of iron ones, con-
structed on the same plan, having the same
number, and precisely the same disposition of
the teeth and balks, although the iron were

603

HARROW.

HARVESTING.

found to be 20 lbs. lighter than the wooden
ones, yet they worked decidedly better and
steadier than the latter; in fact they cut into
the land, while the wooden ones rode, or rather
dknced, on the surface.

We will now take up the consideration of
the length and position of harrow-teeth. The
common plan is to set them springing a little
forward, and gradually increasing in lengtn
from the fore to the hind row. We think there
is no advantage in this, but the contrary ; for,
if the action of harrows so constructed be
carefully examined, it will be found the reverse
of what it ought to be, — the hind part will be
thrown up, and the fore-teeth, short as they
are, will have to do all the work. In some ex-
periments made with harrows, the fallacy of
the idea, that an inequality in the length of the
teeth was essential to the proper working of
harrows, was made evident. For this purpose,
a harrow was constructed on the old-fashioned
plan of unequal and springing teeth in front;
the whole of the teeth pointing backwards in-
stead of forwards. Nothing could work better:
there were no chucks and snatches, but all
went on smoothly and steadily. We do not,
from this circumstance, recommend harrows
to be so constructed, but we have no doubt that
each harrow should have all its teeth of equal
length, and should stand perpendicularly from
the balk.

Armstrong's Harraivs. — These instruments
differ from others in the form of their balks or
framing, which are of iron, and of a zigzag
shape, so arranged that the tooth or tine shall
be fixed at each angle, in such manner that
the lines formed by them shall be equidistant
over the breadth of the land they are intended
to cover. They can be adapted either for heavy
or light work.

We now proceed to give a brief description
of some other implements intended for the
same operation, but of a more elaborate cha-
racter.

BiddelVs Extirpating Harrow. — This is a new
implement, somewhat on the principle of Bid-
dell's scarifier, and invented by Arthur Biddell
of Playford. It is intended for breaking up
land when it is too hard for the heaviest har-
rows, and for bringing winter fallows into a
state of fine tillage. In working summer lands,
by the shape of its teeth, it is calculated to
bring to the surface all grass and rubbish ; it
will also be found generally useful for accom-
plishing fine tillage. The tines may be either
used with points or with steel hoes ; and with
the latter the skimming, or, as it is frequently
called, the "broad-share" process, may be quick-
ly accomplished. The weight is not found to
be a disadvantage, but the contrary ; and, be-
ing borne on high wheels, it does not require
so much horse-labour as might be supposed.
It is at present but in limited operation, though
highly valued by those who have made use
of it. Fig. 3, PI. 15, is a sketch of this har-
row obtained from one in use.

The Berwickshire harrow is, says a writer in
the Quart. Journ. of Jtgr., the most perfect im-
plement of the kind in general use. It consists
of two parts joined together by iron rods, hav-
ing hasps and hooks. PI. 15, fig. 2. Each part

eo4

consists of four bars of wood, technically term-
ed bulls, and connected together by an equal
number of cross bars of smaller dimensions
mortised through them. The former of these
bars may be 2^ inches in width by 3 inches in
depth, and the latter 2 inches in width by 1 inch
in depth. The longer bars are inclined at a
certain angle to the smaller, so as to form the
figure of a rhomboid, and they have inserted
into them the teeth at equal distances from
each other. This inclination of the longer bars
is made to be such, that perpendiculars from
each of the teeth, falling upon a line drawn at
right angles to the line of the harrow's motion,
shall divide the space between each bar into
equal parts; so that the various teeth, when
the instrument is moved forward, shall equally
indent the surface of the ground over which
thev pass. (Quart. Journ. Agr.)

HARVEST (Germ, herhst.) In agriculture,
the period at which any crop is reaped. The
term is more commonly applied to the crops
of corn or hay.

HARVEST FLIES, Cicadians. See Lo-
custs.

HARVEST-HOME. A sort of feast given
by the farmer, after harvest, to the labourers
and others that have assisted in cutting and
securing the crops. The term is sometimes
also applied to the song made use of on the
occasion.

HARVESTING. The operation of pulling,
cutting, rooting up, or gathering field crops, and
drying or otherwise preparing thrm for being
stored up for winter use. The first harvest
which occurs in Britain and similar climates
is that of the forage grasses, or other plants
made into hay; the next is the harvest of
cereal grasses, or of corn crops ; and the third,
the potato harvest, or harvest of root crops,
such as potatoes, carrots, turnips, mangel-wur-
zel, &c.

There is also the harvest of occasional crops,
such as that of rape-seed, turnip-seed, dyer's-
woad, hemp, flax, and various other articles.
The commencement of harvest is necessarily
regulated by the state of the weather, and
varies in diflerent seasons, even when the
weather is favourable, from the middle of July
to the end of August; while, in some years,
and in exposed situations, it is still later. It
is, therefore, an object of importance to the
farmer to ascertain the exact time when it may
be begun, for he must employ extra hands to
perform the work; and as it only lasts during
a comparatively short period, they receive high
wages, and are maintained at a heavy cost. It
is also attended with the most anxious solici-
tude, for it is a business which cannot be for a
moment neglected; and the man who wishes
to get it rightly managed, must superintend it,
without intermission, from the dawn of the day
until its final close. He should previously get
rid of all other work, and make every prepara-
tion for the due performance of this ; the barns
should be thoroughly swept out, both roof,
walls, and floors; the stack-frames repaired,
and every tool should be in complete condi-
tion. The straw-bands should be in readiness
for tying the sheaves, as well as the ropes for
securing the stacks ; and arrangements should

HARVEST-MOON.

HAWKBIT.

be made in the house for the regular supply
of whatever is to be furnished to the labourers,
so that every unnecessary delay may be avoid-
ed. The strictest order should also be main*
tained ; but the work will never be well per-
formed unless it be conducted with perfect
good temper. Fortunately, the crops do not
usually ripen at the same precise period; that
of rye being the earliest, and wheat about a
fortnight later; some of the early species of
oats and barley come in between the rye and
wheat; but barley more generally comes after-
wards, followed by some of the later kinds of
oats. Grain, if not reaped until the straw is
wholly yellow, will be more than ripe, as the
ear generally, except in late seasons, ripens
before the entire of the straw; and it is observ-
able that the first reaped usually affords the
heaviest and fairest sample.

The indications of ripeness in wheat are few
and simple. When the straw exhibits a bright
golden colour from the bottom of the stem
nearly to the ear, or when the ear bes:ins to
bend gentl)', the grain may be cut. But — as
the whole crop will not be equally ripe at the
same time — if, on walking through the field
and selecting the greenest heads, the kernels
can be separated from the chaff when rubbed
through the hands, it is a sure sign that the
grain is then out of its milky state, and may
be reaped with safety; for although the straw
may be green to some distance downwards
from the ear, yet if it be quite yellow from the
bottom upwards, the grain then wants no fur-
ther nourishment from the earth, and, if pro-
perly harvested, it will not shrink. These
tokens will be found to sufficiently indicate the
ripeness of wheat, barley, and oats ; but that
of rye arises from the siraw losing some of its
golden hue, and becoming paler.

The usual practice in England is to cut
down all grain before it is quite ripe, and to
leave it in shocks, or, in the case of barley, on
the ledge, until ihe grain is perfectly matured
and hardened; and the same practice prevails
in Scotland. Experience, however, has occa-
sioned a remarkable distinction in the mode
of harvesting barley in the two portions of
Great Britain just mentioned. In England,
barley is usually cut with the scythe, treated
like hay in the saving, and put loose into the
rick or mow. In Scotland, it is cut, as in Ire-
land, generally with the reaping-hook, and,
when sufficiently dry, bound up and stacked.
The cause of this different treatment is the
difference of climate. See Bablet, Reifixc,
Wheat, &c.

HARVEST-MOON. That lunation about
harvest-time when the moon at full rises near-
ly at the same hour for several nights.

HASEL, HAZEL, or STOCK NUT (Cory-
lus avellana). This small, bushy tree is com-
mon everywhere in our hedges and copses,
and also grows wild in most "parts of Europe.
The leaves are two inches wide, doubly ser-
rated, light green, downy, especially beneath.
The catkins are barren, clustered, or panicled,
grayish, long, and pendulous, opening in the
early spring before the leaves appear, and, in-
deed, formed during the preceding autumn.
The ovate scaly buds, containing the fertile

flowers, become conspicuous at the same time
by their tufts of crimson stigmas. The nuts,
two or three from each bud, are sessile, round-
ish-ovate, half covered by the jagged outer
calyx of their respective flowers, greatly en-
larged, and permanent. The wood of the hazel-
tree is used in England for making hoops for
casks, hurdles, crates, springles to fasten down
thatch, fishing-rods, &c. It is also reported to
make excellent charcoal for drawing, of the
preparation of which, and of the whole history
of this plant. Dr. Hooker gives a full account,
annexed to an admirable figure. It was for-
merly much used for making gunpowder. (Eng.
Flor'yo]. iv. p. 157.) See Filbert.

In the country where yeast is scarce, they
twist the slender branches of hazel together,
and steep them in ale yeast during its fermenta-
tion ; they are then hung up to dry, and at the
next brewing are put into the wort instead of
yeast. The chips of this wood are used to fine
wines. (Phillips's Fruits.)

HATCHING. See Incubatiox.

HAULM. A name given to the stalks of
beans and pease. When well harvested, these
form a very hearty species of fodder. The
stalk of the beans is indeed tough and some-
what woody, and is therefore commonly thrown
out as farm-yard litter; but the coving chaff is
very good manger-meat ; and even the stalk,
if bruised and cut, and then steamed, would be
found useful in a farm-stable.

Pea haulm is very generally given as rack-
meat to cart-horses instead of hay, for which
purpose it is well adapted, being succulent and
nutritious, and nearly as much relished as hay;
although it may not go quite so far, yet there
is great saving in its use. But both these and
all other kinds of straw haulm should be given
as fresh as possible from the flail, for they
grow brittle, and lose a portion of whatever
sap they possess, by exposure to the air; if
long kept they grow musty, and in that state
neither are wholesome nor will be eaten by
horses. Pea haulm should be given cau-
tiously, as it is flatulent, and apt to occasion
colic ; it is also said to be productive of bols ;
but that, if true, is not so peculiar a property
as to prevent its use. Sheep are extremely
fond of haulm; so much so, indeed, that it is
by no means uncommon for farmers who keep
large flocks to grow pease chiefly with a view
to it as winter food in pinching seasons ; the
seed being in that case generally sown broad-
cast, both to preserve the succulence of the
haulm, and to save the trouble of the drill
culture. {Brit. Husb. vol. i. p. 13.3; vol. ii.jpp.
219, 463.) See Pease and Beaits. ^

HAVER. A name given to oats (particu-
larly to wild oats) ini|Some parts of Britain;
hence haver meal is meal made from oats by
grinding and sifting through a proper sieve for
the purpose. In some parts of Scotland a thick
oat cake is used, and called a haver meal ban'
nock.

HAW, BLACK; SLOE. Plum-leaved Vi-
burnum. A shrub frequent in Pennsylvania,
along fence-rows and in thickets, flowering in
May, ripening its sweetish and esculent fruit in
October. See Hawthohk.

HAWKBIT {Jpargia). A genus of herba-
3 E 2 605

HAWKWEED.

HAY.

Ceous plants of easy culture. The indigenous
species found in Britain are four.

The autumnal hawkbit {A. autumnalis) is a
very common and troublesome weed in all
meadows and pastures. It varies very much
in luxuriance, and is often found thriving in
extremely poor land newly turned up. The
root is abrupt, with very long, simple, lateral
fibres. Leaves several, almost entirely radi-
cal, lanceolate, deeply and unequally toothed
or pinnatifid. The stalks are several, ascend-
ing or spreading, branched, from 6 to 18 inches
high. Each stalk is hollow internally, contain-
ing a loose, white, cottony tuft. The flowers
are bright yellow, not large, often reddish un-
derneath. As these are all perennial weeds
and encumber the ground, they should be root-
ed up in spring. (Eng. Flor. vol. iii. p. 350.)

HAWKWEED (Hieranim, from hierax, a
hawk, being supposed to sharpen the sight of
birds of prey). A very numerous perennial
genus, generally inhabiting mountainous or
woody situations. They are, for the most part,
pretty flowering plants, with yellow blossoms,
but a great number are mere weeds. The
herbage, in general, is milky, and more or less
bitter ; but these qualities are, in some in-
stances, hardly perceptible. The dwarf her-
baceous kinds are remarkably adapted for rock
work, or the front of flower borders, the taller
kinds at the back ; they may be increased by
seeds, or divisions. The annual species need
only be sown in the open border.

Sir J. E. Smith describes no less than eight-
een distinct indigenous species, which it would
carry me too far into detail to particularize.

Ten or twelve species of hieracium have
been found by botanists in the United States,
and 14 in the British provinces. One called
the veined hieracium, or hawkweed (H. veno-
suni), is a frequent plant in clearings and
woodlands in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
other Middle States, where it flowers in May
and June. It has a perennial root, and stem
1 to 2 feet high. A few years since, this plant
was announced as a certain antidote against
the poison of the rattlesnake. But its specific
virtues need to be further tested before they
can be regarded as fully proven. A great
many specifics and antidotes are vaunted by
credulous, or designing persons, for the poison
of reptiles as well as the bite of a mad dog,
and persons who have taken them and escaped
any serious mischief, have led others to believe
in the virtues of the remedies when the pa-
tients would have recovered without. In this
way the most inert and inefficient prescriptions
often get the credit of what properly belongs
to the agency of common homely appliances,
or the wonderful restora^ve powers with which
a kind Providence has endowed both man and
beast.

HAWTHORN, WHITETHORN, or MAY
(Mespilus oxyacantha). A common small tree,
or shrub, but beautiful in its appearance, and
fragrant in odour. The hawthorn grows al-
most everywhere in thickets, copses, hedges,
and high open fields. The wood is very hard,
with a smooth, blackish bark, and, like the
whitebeam hawthorn (Pyrus aria), is converted
into axle trees and handles of tools. The
606

branches have lateral, sharp, awl-shaped
thorns. The leaves are alternate, deciduous,
on longish, slender stalks; smooth, deep-green,
veiny, an inch or two long, tapering at the base,
or wedge-shaped, and more or less deeply three-
lobed, with crescent-shaped stipules. The
flowers are corymbose, terminal, white, occa-
sionally pink or almost scarlet. The fruit
(called haws) is mealy, insipid, dark red, occa-
sionally yellow, furrowed externally, and very
hard. Birds are fed with the fruit all the win-
ter long ; but the haws may be more usefully
employed in fattening hogs. In Kamschatka
they are eaten by the peasants, and fermented
into wine. The common hawthorn blows ia
May, and can be propagated from seed, which
must be kept in sand through the winter, and
sown in spring. The young plants will be fit
to place out in two years. There are several
varieties of this species, among others the
celebrated Glastonbury thorn, which blossoms
sometimes as early as Christmas. The double
blossomed hawthorn is one of the greatest or-
naments of our pleasure-grounds, whether it
be kept as a shrub, or trained as a tree.

The yellow-berried hawthorn, which was
originally brought from Virginia, has a double
recommendation to the shrubbery, for its buds
are of a fine yellow in the spring, and its fruit,
which is of the colour of pure gold, hang on
the branches nearly the whole of the winter,
giving great variety to the plantation. Ever-
greens should never be planted without a few
of these shrubs being intermixed to enliven
them in the winter months. The hawthorn is
peculiarly adapted for small lawns or paddocks,
where larger trees cannot be admitted. When
standing singly, the hawthorn often reaches to
the height of 25 or 30 feet, with a trunk from
4 to 8 feet in circumference.

In husbandry, these shrubs are called quick-
sets; and when kept well cut, they form hedges,
scarcely less impregnable than those composed
of holly. The clipping of hedges and trim-
ming of trees is certainly advantageous to the
farmer, although it adds nothing to the beauty
of rural scenery. Hawthorn hedges appear to
have come into use, in England, about the time
of Charles II. ; as Evelyn observes in his Sylva,
"I have been told of a gentleman who has
considerably improved his revenue, by sowing
haws only and raising nurseries of quicksets,
which he sells by the hundred, far and near.
This is a commendable industry, and any neg-
lected corner of ground will fit this plantation."
See Thoun.

HAY (Germ, hett, Du. havi). Any kind of
grass cut and dried as fodder for cattle. Hay
constitutes the chief dependence of the farmer
and others as winter food for their horses and
cattle. The sale of hay within the bills of
mortality, and 30 miles round the cities of
London and Westminster, is regulated by the
act 36 Geo. 3, c. 88. It enacts, that all hay
shall be sold by the load of 36 trusses, each
truss weighing 56 lbs., except new hay, which
is to weigh 60 lbs. till the 4th of September,
and afterwards 56 lbs. only ; so that till the 4th
of September, a load of hay weighs exactly a
ton, but thereafter only 18 cwt. There are
three public markets in the metropolis for the

HAY.

HAYMAKING.

sale of hay and straw, Whilechapel, Smiihfield,
and the Haymarket.

When horses are fed on hay, it is a matter
of dispute whether the light and apparently
acrid grass of uplands, or that of more fertile
natural meadow ground, or the rich produce
of the artificial grasses, is to be preferred.
This must, however, depend on the quantity of
corn with which they are supplied. When
that is abundantly furnished, there can be no
doubt that the former will be found belter for
their general health, and especially for their
wind; but as farm-horses are usually limited
in their consumption of grain, and ihe slowness
of their movements renders the clearness of
their wind a matter of comparatively little
moment, the other kinds will be found the best
adapted to support their strength. In gentle-
men's stables no other than meadow hay is
generally admitted; and it is in all respects the
best. But farmers find more profitable uses
for it in the feeding of fatting-slock and cows ;
and clover, either alone or with rye-grass,
sainfoin, or tare hay, though coarser, answers
every necessary purpose for farm-horses, more
especially when cut into chaff, and used along
with straw. Sainfoin is commonly esteemed
the first, and clover the next, in quality ; but
tare hay, if well made, is very hearty food.
Old hay, as having longer undergone that slow
process of fermentation by which the sugar
that it contains is developed, is far more nutri-
tive and wholesome than new hay. Mow burnt
hay is more injurious to horses than to any
other of the domestic animals, and is a fruitful
source of disease.

It is an excellent plan, especially when hay
nas been exposed to continued wet weather, to
add to it a portion of common salt. It not only
induces live-stock to consume it with avidity,
but it prevents mouldiness or mow burning;
it is usual to put about half a bushel of salt to
every load of hay: it may be spread by hand,
or through a sieve. Mr. Woods, of Ingatestone,
in Essex, has employed it for thirty years; his
plain, unvarnished statement need not be sup-
ported by any other. He says, " I use about a
quarter of a peck at each laying, thinly spread,
which I find is about four bushels to a stack of
twenty loads. I am fully satisfied that double
the quantity would be much better. In a par-
ticularly wet season, a few years since, I used
twelve bushels to a stack of forty loads, the
whole of which was consumed by my own
horses, and I never had them in better condi-
tion. I am so fully convinced of the benefit of
salt to hay, that while it is allowed duty free, I
■shall use it in all seasons." (Johnson on Salt,
p. 100.) The avidity with which animals con-
sume salted hay is not so generally known as
it ought to be ; I will give, therefore, a fact re-
lated to me a short time since by Mr. Law, of
Reading. Mr. Green, of Wargrave, in Berk-
shire, had, in the season of 1824, a parcel of
sour rushy hay from a meadow on the banks
of the Thames, which both he and his men de-
spaired of rendering of the least value; it was,
therefore, stacked by itself, and well salted : the
quantity supplied was large, but Mr. Law did
not know the exact proportion. When the
period arrived that his sheep wanted a supply

of hay, Mr. Green directed his shepherd to use
the salted inferior hay first; and, to his sur-
prise, the sheep consumed it with the greatest
avidity. The stack being finished, the shep-
herd was directed to supply them now with the
best hay he could find of other stacks of fine
meadow hay. He came, however, the next
morning to his master, and made the following
remark: "We, sir, must have made a great
mistake, and forgotten which stack we salted,
for our sheep will not eat the hay which we
think the best."

As the hay grasses do not thrive in the
Southern U. Slates, the principal supply of this
provender is sent pressed in bales or packages
from the Eastern, Middle, and Western States.
In those states where hay constitutes a prin-
cipal product of the farms. New York stands
first and Pennsylvania second. In his observa-
tions, relative to the hay crop of 1842, Mr.
Ellsworth observes, "Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan, and Missouri, though devoting com-
paratively little attention to its production, yet
seem to be making some advance in the same;
and accordingly there has been some increase
the past year, though doubtless not a very ma-
terial one. Some damage was experienced
from the invasion of the army worm, but not
enough to lessen the crop to any great amount.
Though reliance is still placed on the prairie
hay, yet there is a gradual improvement with
respect to the introduction and cultivation of
the tame grasses. The low price of grain in
New Orleans will no doubt lessen the demand
for pressed hay, which has heretofore been a
considerable article of export from the states
bordering on the Ohio river and its branches.
The whole number of tons of hay raised in the
United States in 1842, is estimated to have
been 14.053,35.5."

HAYMAKING. The operation of cutting^
down, drying, and preparing grasses and other
forage plants for being stacked for winter use.
The plants are mown down at the time when
they are supposed to contain, diffused through-
out the whole plant, a maximum of nutritious
juices; viz., when they are in full flower. Too
often this period is exceeded, and the nutritive
property of the plant suffers ; for it is a well-
known fact that the saccharine juices of a plant
disappear in the progress of the ripening of the
seed. Dry weather, and, if possible, that in
which sunshine prevails, is chosen for this
operation ; and the mown material is spread
out, and turned over two or three times in the
course of the same day in which it is cut. In
the evening it is put into small heaps. In the
morning of the second day these heaps kte
spread out, and turned over two or three times ;
and in the evening they are formed into heaps,
somewhat larger than they w^ere the day before.
If the weather has been remarkably warm and
dr}', these heaps, in the course of the third day,
are carted away and made into a stack; but if
the weather has been indifferent, the process
of opening out the heaps and exposing them
to the sun is repeated on the third day, and
stack-making is not commenced till the fourth.
The grand object in making hay is to preserve
the colour and natural juices of the herbage,
which is best done by continually turning it,

GOT

HAYMAKING.

HAYMAKING.

so as never to expose the same surface for any
length of time to the direct influence of the sun.
In stacking hay, the object is to preserve the
green colour, and at the same time induce a
sli-ght degree of fermentation, which has the
effect of rendering the fibres of the plants,
which compose the hay, more tender, and
changing a part of the parenchymous matter
into sugar, on the same principle as is effected
by malting barley. This sweet taste renders
the hay more palatable to horses. The best
general directions for haymaking will be found
in the following extract from Middleton^s Jgri-
adtural Survey of Middlesex, although the various
kinds of hay, and different soils and situations
with which the farmer is connected, are so
very numerous, that such directions can, of
necessity, have only a very general applica-
tion.

Mr. Middleton observes, when speaking, be
it remembered, of haymaking in Middlesex,
"In order that the subject maybe more clearly
understood, I shall relate the particular opera-
tions of each day, during the whole process,
from the moment in which the mower first
applies his scythe, to that in which the hay is
secured, either in the barn or in the stack.

"First Day. — All the grass mown before nine
o'clock in the morning is tedded (or spread),
and great care taken to shake and strew it
evenly over all the ground. Soon afterwards
it is turned, with the same degree of care and
attention; and if, from the number of hands,
they are able to turn the whole again, they do
so, or at least as much of it as they can, till
twelve or one o'clock, at which time they dine.
The first thing to be done after dinner is, to
rake it into what are called single windrows;
that is, they all rake in such a manner, as that
each person makes a row, which rows are
three or four feet apart; and the last operation
of this day is to put it into grass-cocks.

*^ Second Day. — The business of this day com-
mences with tedding all the grass that was
mown the first day after nine o'clock, and all
that was mown this day before nine o'clock.
Next, the grass-cocks are to be well shaken
out into staddles (or separate plats) of five or
six yards diameter. If the crop should be so
thin and light as to leave the spaces between
these staddles rather large, such spaces must
be immediately raked clean, and the rakings
mixed with the other hay, in order to its all
drying of a uniform colour. The next business
is to turn the staddles, and, after that, to turn
the grass that was tedded in the first part of
the morning, once or twice, in the manner de-
scribed for the first day. This should all be
done before twelve or one o'clock, so that the
whole may lie to dry while the workpeople are
at dinner. After dinner, the first thing to be
done is, to rake the staddles into double wind-
rows; in doing which, every two persons rake
the hay in opposite directions, or towards each
other, and by that means form a row between
them of double the size of a single windrow.
Each of these double windrows are about six
or eight feet distant from each other. Next, to
rake the grass into single windrows ; then the
double windrows are put into bastard-cocks ;
and, lastly, the single windrows are put into
608

' grass-cocks. This completes the work of the
second day.

: " IViird Day. — The grass mown and not spread
on the second day, and also that mown in the
early part of this day, is first to be tedded in
the morning ; and then the grass-cocks are to
be spread into staddles, as before, and the bas-
tard-cocks into staddles of less extent. These
lesser staddles, though last spread, are first
turned, then those which were in grass-cocks ;
and, next, the grass is turned once or twice
before twelve or one o'clock, when the people
go to dinner as usual. If the weather has
proved sunny and fine, the hay which was last
night in bastard-cocks will this afternoon be
in proper state to be carried. It seldom hap-
pens, in dry weather, but that it may be carried
on the third day. But if the weather should,
on the contrary, have been cool and cloudy, no
part of it, probably, will be fit to carry. In that
case, the first thing set about after dinner is, to
rake that which was in grass-cocks last night
into double windrows ; then the grass which
was this morning spread from the swarths into
single windrows. After this, the hay which
was last night in bastard-cocks is made up into
full-sized cocks, and care taken to rake the hay
up clean, and also to put the rakings upon the
top of each cock. Next, the double windrows
are put into bastard-cocks, and the single wind-
rows into grass-cocks, as on the preceding days.

"Fourth Day. — On this day the great cocks,
just mentioned, are usually carried before din-
ner. The other operations of the day are such,
and in the same order, as before described, and
are continued daily until the hay-harvest is
completed.

"In the course of hay-making, the grass
should, as much as possible, be protected, both
night and day, against rain and dew, by cock-
ing. Care should also be taken to proportion
the number of hay-makers to that of the
mowers, so that there may not be more grass
in hand, at one time, than can be managed ac-
cording to the foregoing process. This propor-
tion is about 20 hay-makers (of which number
12 may be women) to four mowers : the latter
are sometimes taken half a day, to assist the
former. But in hot, windy, or very dry wea-
ther, a greater proportion of hay-makers will
be required than when the weather is cloudy
and cool.

" It is particularly necessary to guard against
spreading more hay than the number of hands
can get into cock the same day, or before rain.
In showery and uncertain weather, the grass
may sometimes be suffered to lie three, four, or
even five days in swath. But, before it has
lain long enough to become yellow (which, if
suffered to lie long, would be the case), par-
ticular care should be taken to turn the swaths
with the heads of the rakes. In this state it
will cure so much in about two days, as only
to require being tedded a few hours, when the /
weather is fine, previous to its being put to-
gether and carried. In this manner, hay may
be made and stacked at a small expense, and
of a good colour ; but the tops and bottoms of
the grass are insufficiently separated by it."

HAY-RAKE, or HAY-SWEEP. An imple-
ment contrived for the purpose of collecting

HAY-KNIFE.

HEDGE.

and conveying hay to the stack in an easy and
expeditious manner after it has been put into
rows. See Rakes.

HAY-KNIFE. A sharp instrument employed
for cutting hay out of the stack.

HAY-RICK. Mr. Chambers (Com. to Board
of Jgr. vol. vii. p. 374) describes an improved
hay-rick which admits very freely the cool air
to check the fermentation. A channel or gut-
ter, a foot wide and deep, is cut through ground
marked out for the rick, and two across, which
is 13 yards by 9. Two chimneys are in-
troduced, like the common hay funnels, only
these go full home to the earth, which being
drawn up as the rick is forming, and the chan-
nels previously covered with fagots, except
where the chimneys are placed, leave them
open at all points ; and let the wind blow from
what quarter it may, the current is uninter-
rupted.

HAZEL. See Hasel.

HEAD-LAND. A term applied to the lands
or ridges in fields, on which the plough turns
in cultivating them. As much soil is con-
tinually accumulating on them, by means of
the frequent ploughing of the field, it is a com-
mon plan to form them into composts with
lime or other manures.

HEAT. In horsemanship, a term used on
the turf, to denote a certain distance which a
horse runs on the course. A race may con-
sist of one or more heats, and " the best of three
heats" are common at most race.s ; but there is
never more than one heat for a race at New-
market. See Temperature.

HEATH. In a general sense the term heath
is applied to waste land in which the prevail-
ing plants consist of one or more of the com-
mon species of heath.

HEATH, HEATHER, or LING (Calluna
and Erica). A very large and varied genus
of plants, of which the following species are
indigenous to Great Britain : —

1. Common heath (Calluna vulgaris, Sa.]. The
Erica communis of Linnoeus). This plant co-
vers many hundreds of acres in the Highlands
of Scotland, in Ireland, and in similar climates
on the contijient. It attains in many places
the height of three or four feet; and is much
used for thatching houses, making besoms, and
for a variety of other purposes. The tender
tops form a substitute for mattrasses in High-
land cottages ; and they are also eaten green
and in a dried state by horses, cattle, and sheep,
in countries where the grasses and clover do
not begin to grow till late in the spring. The
tender tops also furnish food for grouse.

2. Cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix). In
this shrub the roots are creeping, stems erect,
from four to sit or eight inches high. Leaves
crowded, spreading four in a whorl, revolute,
downy, glaucous beneath. Flowers remark-
able for their delicate wax-like hue of every
shade of rose-colour, sometimes snow-white,
on hairy cottony stalks collected into a dense,
round, terminal cluster, ail elegantly pendulous
to one side. It is wonderful that this most
elegant and not uncommon plant is scarcely
delineated at all by the old authors, nor by any
of them correctly.

3. Fine-leaved heath (E. cinerea), found

77

plentifully on dry turfy heaths everywhere. It
grows on a stem a foot high, or more, with nu-
merous upright, round, hoary, flowery, and
leafy branches. The flowers are crimson,
everlasting, with a tinge of blue or gray, occa-
sionally pure white.

4. Cornish heath (E.vagans), growing abun-
dantly in Cornwall; stem woody, two feet high,
copiously and determinately branched, with a
smooth, pale, deciduous bark; leaves ever-
green, smooth.

Mr. J. Hall (Com. Board of ^gr. vol. vi. p.
381) speaks favourably of the advantages to
be derived from heath in the feeding of stock,
and also asserts that an infusion of the finer
parts of heath, when cut young and in bloom,
is preferable to tea.

HEATH GRASS (Triodia deaimbens). The
genus to which this species belongs consists
of hard, rigid, perennial grasses, with leafy
stems. Inflorescence variously panicled. The
decumbent heath grass grows frequent in
spongy bogs, and on barren, sandy, mountain-
ous ground. The root is very slightly creep-
ing, with strong fibres. The whole plant is
harsh and rigid, lying close to the ground, ex-
cept when in flower. The stem is from 4 to
12 inches long, jointed, bent, leafy, and very
smooth. The leaves are linear, striated, rather
glaucous, smooth, except towards the points,
where the rib and edges are very rough.
(Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 131.)

HEATH, SEA (Frankenia). Of this mari-
time decumbent genus of plants there are two
species, natives of these islands.

1. The smooth sea-heath (F. lavis) is a pe-
rennial, flowering in July, found common on
muddy salt-marshes, chiefly on the eastern
shores of England. It has a woody root ; the
stems are quite prostrate, forked, slightly
downy, with leafy, partly ascending branches.
The leaves are somewhat glaucous, about a
quarter of an inch long, revolute, fringed at the
base, convex, and smooth above. The flowers
spring from the forks of the stem, partly ter-
minal, sessile, solitary, and flesh-coloured.

2. Powdery sea-heath (F.pulverulenta). This
is a very rare species, much resembling the
last, but annual, and flowering in July. The
root and stems the same as the former: the
leaves, which are smooth and green above, are
hoary, as if powdery, beneath ; opposite or
four together, single ribbed, and revolute. The
flowers are pale red. (Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. li.
p. 186.)

HEATHY LAND. Ground which is co-
vered with heath. In many districts of the
kingdom of Great Britain, there are immense
tracts of this kind of land, that, in their present
state, are of little value, except for the support
of a few sheep ; but which, by proper cultiva-
tion, might afford useful crops. They, how-
ever, differ mu«h in the nature of the soil. The
best mode of reclaiming these lands is by
draining, deep trenching, or ploughing, and
spreading upon them any calcareous matter,
such as lime, chalk, or marl. And it is very
desirable, in many instances, to provide them
shelter by plantations of timt^r trees. See
Plantations.

HEDGE. A living wall formed of woody

609

HEDGE.

HEDGE.

plants, sown or planted in a line, and cut or
clipped in such a manner as to form a compact
mass of any degree of width or height that may
be required, either for the purpose of shelter,
sej^aration, or defence. The fences most ge-
nerally used in agriculture are made of the
whitethorn, because it has spiny branches, and
forms a strong defence against cattle. Fences
for the purposes of shelter and separation are
chiefly used in gardening, and for the most
part are formed of evergreen shrubs, such as
the holly, yew, box, &c. ; or sub-evergreens,
such as the privet; of flowering shrubs, such
as the Cydonia japoiiica ; or of deciduous shrubs
or trees, with persistent leaves, such as the
hornbeam and beech.

In the management of hedges of every de-
scription, an important point is to keep them
thick, and impervious to wind or animals, near
the ground ; for which purpose the section of
the hedge requires to be made broader at the
base than at the top, in order that the exterior
leaves in every part of the hedge may enjoy
in an equal degree the influence of light, air,
and perpendicular rains. Mr. Stephens (Quart.
Journ. of Jgr. vol. i. p. 574) gives some very
detailed instructions " On the Planting and
Management of Thorn Hedges;" but as these
extend over upwards of 50 pages, we can only
recommend the farmer, who needs information
as to the formation of quickset hedges, to con-
sult the above article ; Mr. Blakie's little work
On Hedges ; and some essays on raising and
managing hedges in the Trans. High. Soc. vol.
iv. p. 353, to 378, by Messrs. Montgomery,
Grigor, and Manson. In the same volume, p.
336, there is an essay on the cultivation of the
common elder {Sambucus nigra) for hedges.
Sir John Sinclair also recommends the tala
plant as a substitute for thorn in hedges.
(Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. ii. p. 408.) It is a
small prickly shrub, growing wild in various
parts of South America, and which has been
extensively used for fences by the Scotch
farmers who have settled near Buenos Ayres.
An " Old Hedger," in the Quart. Jmrn. of Agr.
vol. V. p. 505, also gives the result of his ex-
perience and practice in hedge-making. The
late Francis Blakie of Holkham saw the im-
portance of the farmer paying more attention
than is customary with him to the plantation
of fences, and the management of hedgerow
timber; and in his excellent little work on this
subject, he told him (and his experience was
of perhaps the most difficult of all soils upon
which to rear good hedgerows), " There may
be some difference in opinion as to the best
method of planting and rearing quickset (white-
thorn) hedges, but I think there can be none in
respect to the propriety of thoroughly cleaning
and preparing the ground in the first instance;
and all experienced men will agree, that it is
not advisable to plant a new hedge upon the
same spot where an old one had been recently
grubbed up, vmless under unavoidable circum-
stances, such as boundary fences, &c. ; in that
case the ground should be well loosened, fal-
lowed for a jiear or two, and have fresh earth
or compost added. The better the ground is
prepared, the sooner will the hedge arrive at
maturity, and the longer will be its duration.
610

The practice in this country (Norfolk), even on
our lightest soils, is to put the quicksets (here
called layers) horizontally into the side of the
bank, raised from a four or five feet wide ditch,
of a proportionate depth ; and I have never
seen whitethorn hedges raised quicker or better
than in this country, and all upon that prin-
ciple. I must, however, acknowledge, that
although the Norfolk farmers very generally
excel in raising hedges, they but too frequently
err in the future management of them ; youth
is succeeded by infirmities ; there is no prime
of life."

There is another error which frequently oc-
curs where quicksets are planted on the sides
of banks ; that is, in not varying the height of
the line of quick in the bank according to the
nature of the sides. On the management of
hedgerow timber, the directions of Blakie are
equally excellent. He says, " It is not necessary
for me to particularize all the varieties of
forest trees usually planted in hedgerows. It
is suflicient, in exemplification, to say, beech,
ash, and firs are not only ruinous to fences,
but are also otherwise injurious to farmers ;
while oaks, narrow-leaved elm, and black
Italian poplars do comparatively little injury;
and as to the age of plants, it surely must be
obvious that a thrifty transplanted nursery tree
of three years' growth is more likely to suc-
ceed, when properly planted in a hedgerow,
than a puny yearling drawn out of a seed-bed,
with its root like a piece of whipcord; or a
tender sapling, of six or seven years' growth,
drawn out of a thick wood, whence it had not
been previously transplanted.

" In planting, the usual practice is to lay the
roots of the forest-tree plants horizontally into
the bank along with the whitethorns, and to
cut their heads or tops off close to the ground,
in the same manner as the thorns ; a moment's
reflection will show the absurdity of this prac-
tice. A surface-rooted plant, like the white-
thorn, will thrive if laid into the bank horizon-
tally, or nearly so ; but a deep-rooted plant,
such as the oak, is not likely to thrive if treat-
ed in that manner. The roots of oaks strike
deep into the ground ; consequently, the plants
should be set perpendicularly, and their heads
or tops should on no account be cut off at the time
of planting. But suppose that an oak plant,
when laid into the bank horizontally along
with the quicksets, does grow, and even pros-
pers for a time, which it may do when the ex-
tremities of the roots are bent downwards by
the pressure of the earth in the bank above,
and the plant in consequence finds nourish-
ment and support from the earth below; the
top of the plant will then grow up among the
row of thorns, and be protected by them until
the hedge is cut (which, in process of time, it
must be): the oak plant will then be left ex-
posed, and as the stem will have bent upwards,
at a sharp angle from the face of the bank, the
top of the tree (when agitated by the wind) will
act as a powerful leverage, and have the effect
of twisting and breaking the crooked roots of
the plant in the bank.

" These remarks are, in some degree, appli-
cable to all forest trees planted in hedgerows,
but more particularly to deep-rooted ones.

HEDGE.

HEDGE.

The method which I recommend for planting
forest trees generally in hedgerows, but more
particularly oaks, is as follows : Let the quick-
sets be laid in, and the bank finished in the
usual way; then select good transplanted trees
of 2 or 3 years' growth, fresh drawn from the
nursery. The broken roots and tips of the long
fibres may be cut off; then push the spade
down perpendicularly into the bank between
the roots of the quicksets ; press the spade
from side to side, so as to make a cleft open-
ing, into which put the root of the plant as
deep as it had before stood in the nursery ;
tread the earth firm to the root, and face the
bank up, as before : leave the tops of forest-
tree plants uncut at the time of planting, unless
when they are bushy-headed, and without
leaders or top-shoots ; in that case a few of the
larger side shoots may be cut in, that is, the ex-
tremities of the branches shortened. It is a
most pernicious practice to cut the tops of
young forest trees at the time of planting, and
should only be adopted in particular cases.
"The time most proper for planting hedgerow
trees and quicksets is autumn, or early in
spring; and the work should never be delayed
till late in spring, if it can be avoided. But
when (from necessity) trees are planted late
in spring, and the ground dry at the time, the
roots of the plants should not only be kept moist
before planting, but they should also be dipped
into some earthy sludge at the time they are
planted.

" Training of hedgerow trees is seldom or
never thought of; and I will now add, when
pruning is practised, it is generally performed
in a very injudicious manner. Young hedge-
row trees seldom require much attention in
training until the hedge is cut the first time ; the
trees should then be examined ; if they appear
crooked, stunted, and unthrifty, they should be
cut off close to the face of the bank in the same
manner as the thorn plants are. The oak
stubs may be expected to throw up several
strong shoots from each plant in the following
season ; and in a year or two afterwards, the
best young shoot on such stub should be se-
lected to remain, and all the others be slipped,
or cut off close to the stub ; the reserved shoot,
or (as they may be called) regenerated plants,
may then be expected to become timber trees.
"When an unthrifty young tree is to be cut
off, as here recommended, particular attention
should be paid to the method of attting. The
stroke from the workman's bill-hook or hatchet
should always be upwards, or front the stub, and
never downwards, or to the stub; whenever the
latter practice is followed, the stub is left shat-
tered, the wet penetrates through the clefts into
the stool, or crown of the roots, canker is pro-
duced, and the tree rots. No good timber can
be expected to grow from diseased roots.

"There may be said to be four different sorts
or methods of pruning now in practice; these
I designate under the styles or titles of— first,
natural pruning; second, close pruning; third,
snag pruning; and /ot<r^A, cutting in, or fore-
shortening. The three latter more immediately
apply to hedgerow trees ; but I will review the
four, and in this review I wish fir trees to be
understood as excepted.

"The best of all pruning is what I call na-
tural. This is effected in woods and plant-
ings where trees stand thick: there the tops
of the trees unite ; they draw one another up ;
light and air is excluded from the lower
branches, and those, consequently, dwindle
away ; the stems of the trees grow up straight
and tall ; and they gather proportionate
strength, from the top branches extending,
when the planting is thinned out gradually (as
all plantations of trees ought to be). This re-
mark is also applicable to hedgerow trees, in
their infant state, when they are drawn up and
nourished by the thorn bushes. But when
trees stand singly, they throw out strong side
branches, and their boles or stems seldom rise
to much height, or attain to much cubic mea-
sure, unless the side branches are either crop-
ped by cattle (which is a species of pruning),
or are cut off by the hand of man. Hence
arises the diversity of opinion with respect to
the most proper method of obtaining the de-
sired object, by the assistance of art, when na-
ture ceases to operate in the matter wished for.

" Close pruning answers to a certain extent.
The operation is performed by cutting the side
branches off close to the bole of the tree, when
it is expected that the bark and the timber will
heal over the wound and become united. If
this operation is completed when the branches
are young, or mere saplings, the tree in a
vigorous growing state, and a few only of the
branches cut off in one season, the object will be
obtained, without injuring the growth of the
tree. But the system, from having been mis-
understood, has been misapplied, and carried
to an alarming extent, doing incalculable in-
jury, not only to individuals, but to the country
at large. Immense numbers of large boughs
have been amputated from the trunks of trees,
in the vain hope of the timber growing over the
wounds, and uniting with the stumps of the
boughs left in the body of the tree ; the bark
and sap-wood does indeed sometimes grow
over such wounds, but the stumps of the
branches enclosed go to decay, become a canker
in the bole of the tree, and the result is calami-
tous. It is the ready extension of the bark
over the wounds in trees which has been the
means of misleading so many people ; be-
cause, as they see that the bark unites, they
take it for granted that the woody fibres does
so also ; and so, in fact, the growing part of
the tree will do, but the stump of the ampu-
tated arm becomes a dead substance, and can-
not unite with a living one. On the whole, it
is a dangerous practice to cut large boughs
close to the stems of trees, particularly old and
unthrifty trees. Young thriving trees will suc-
ceed, if close pruned, to a certain extent; but
old, stunted, or full-grown trees, never.

"Snag pruning is a very pernicious practice ;
it is performed by cutting the boughs off" seve-
ral inches from the bole or stem of the tree. In
old trees, those stumps act as conductors for
wet into the body of the tree ; in young trees
the bark of the stubs throw out young shoots,
which flourish for a time, but Uj^ heart-wood
of those stumps decays, and has a similar effect
to the stumps of boughs 'in old trees, which do
not throw out young shoots.

611

HEDGE-BIRDS.

HELIOTROPE.

Foreshortening, or cutting in, is an approved |
method of pruning, and is admirably adapted
to training hedgerow trees, to benefit the land-
lord without doing much injury to the tenant.
This operation is performed by shortening the
over-luxuriant side branches, but not to cut
them to a stump, as in snag pruning; on the
contrary, the top only of the branch should be
cut off, and the amputation effected immediately
above where an axillary (side shoot) springs
from the branch on which the operation is to
be performed: this may be at the distance of
two, four, or any other number of feet from the
stem of the tree; and suppose the axillary
branch which is left (when the top of the
branch is cut off) is also over-luxuriant, or
looks unsightly, it should also be shortened at
its sub-axillary branch, in the same manner as
before described.

" The branches of trees pruned in this man-
ner are always kept within due bounds; they
do not extend over the adjoining land to the
injury of the occupier, at least not until the
stem of the tree rises to a height (out of the
reach of pruning) when the top branches can
do comparatively little injury to the land. By
adopting this system of pruning, the bad effects
of dose and snog pruning will be avoided, the
country will be ornamented, and the commu-
nity at large, as well as individuals, benefited."
{Blakie, On Hedges and Hedgerow Timber.) See
Fences and Hawthoiix.

A great deal of valuable information upon
the subject of hedges in the United States will
be found in almost every agricultural periodi-
cal, in many of which the merits of the Virginia
thorn, Newcastle cock-spur, English black-
thorn, Buck-thorn, Osage orange, &c. &c., and
their adaptations to particular parts of the
country, are discussed. See particularly the
Essays of Caleb Kirk, of Newcastle county,
Delaware, in the first volume of the American
Farmer, and many other communications upon
the same subject in other parts of the same
valuable work.

HEDGE-BIRDS. Various kinds of birds
seek for shelter or food in hedges. Some of
these are more or less destructive of grain and
fruits, as but few live exclusively on insects.
It cannot, however, be doubted that the advan-
tages derived from birds in the destruction of
caterpillars, and various kinds of worms and
insects which destroy the crops, more than
compensate for the small tithe of seeds, grain,
or small fruit they are able to exact during the
short period of harvest.

HEDGE MUSTARD (Sisymbrium.) A genus

4 composed for the most part of worthless annual

and biennial plants, flourishing in the open

ground in any soil. The indigenous species

are three, all annuals.

1. The common hedge mustard (S. officinale),
growing in waste ground, by road-sides, and on
banks; very common in England; flowering in
June and July. According to Haller, hedge mus-
tard springs up Avherever houses have been
burnt. The herb is of a dull green, minutely
hairy or dow||sr; the stem solitary, two feet high,
erect, with numerous horizontal branches,
leafy, round, clothed with fine deflexed bristles.
Leaves hyrate, their lobes runcinate, unequally
G12

toothed ; the upper ones narrowest. The
flowers are pale yellow, small, in little corym-
bose heads, soon becoming very long, straight,
close clusters of erect, tapering pods, finely
downy, rather more than half an inch long, on
very short stalks. Seeds not numerous, about
six in each cell. This species was once used
as a stimulating expectorant, but it is now de-
servedly out of favour.

2. The broad hedge mustard, or London
rocket (S. irio), grows chiefly about London,
and in habit is somewhat like the preceding
species; but the herbage is of a lighter green,
and entirely smooth. The leaves are pinnati-
fid, runcinate, acute, the upper lanceolate, with
hastate base ; the seed-pod is two inches long,
rugged when ripe ; the seeds are very abun-
dant. It is sometimes used as a heating pot-
herb.

3. Fine-leaved hedge mustard or flixweed
(S. Sophia). In this species the root is small
and tapering, and the whole plant of a slen-
der, delicate structure; stem branched, bushy,
erect; flowers small, greenish-yellow. IPods an
inch long, numerous, erect, bearded. {Smith's
Evg. Flor. vol. iii. p. 196.)

This is one of the plants which defeats the
opinion that popular names are never imposed
without good reason. The plant was formerly
supposed to be a cure for fractured limbs,
hence its name, Sophia chirurgorum ; an opinion
only demonstrative of the contemptible state
of surgery at the period when the name origi-
nated. Its medicinal powers as an antidysen-
teric rest on equally mistaken observations.

The S. officinalis is a naturalized foreigner
in the United States. The indigenous species
of this weed found in the States are, 1. The S.
Canadensis, or Hoary sisymbrium. 2. jlrabis-like
sisymbrium. 3. Thnlian sisymbrium, commonly
called Wall cress. Mouse-ear cress, extensively
naturalized in the United States, in which 3 or
4 additional species of the plant are enume-
rated. (See Flor. Cestric.)

HEDGE-KNIFE. Of this implement, for
trimming hedges, there are two sizes, to be
used either with one or both hands. The
smaller one is a common and well-known im-
plement. The larger-sized knife should have
the blade 20 inches long by 2^ broad, and the
handle 3 feet. It is slightly curved at the point.

HEDGE PARSLEY (forilis). Of this use-
less weed there are in England three common
species : the upright hedge parsley (T. anthris-
ats), the spreading hedge parsley (T. infesta),
and the knotted hedge parsley (T. nodosa).
They are annual plants, growing by waysides
and the borders of fields, varying in height from
6 inches to 3 feet. The flowers are small, white
or flesh-coloured, blowing in June; the umbels
lateral and terminal; the rays from 7 to 10,
rough, little spreading. Fruit small, purplish
at the summit, furnished with incurved bristles.
(Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 42.)

HELIOTROPE (Heliotrnpum ; from helios, the
sun, and trope, twining. The flowers are said
to turn towards the sun). Some of the plants
of this genus are highly valued for the fragrant
perfume of their flowers, and are therefore to
be met with in most gardens. They succeed
freely in any rich, light soil ; and cuttings of

HEMLOCK.

HEMP.

the shrubby kinds, taken off when young, rea-
dily strike in the same kind of soil. {Paxton's
Hot. Diet.)

HEMLOCK (Coniuni maculatum). A her-
baceous biennial plant distinguished for its
poisonous qualities, very common in hedges,
orchards, and waste ground, especially near
towns and villages. The root is tape-shaped,
whitish, and fleshy ; from 6 to 12 inches long,
not unlike a young parsnip.

HEMLOCK, THE WATER. See Cow-

BANE.

HEMLOCK, SPRUCE {Abies Canadensis).
See Firs.

HEMP (Dan. hamp. Cannabis sativa). A
very valuable plant of the nettle tribe, Urtica-
cece, which came, it is believed, originally from
India, but has long since been naturalized in
various parts of Europe. The chief cultiva-
tion is now, for the most part, confined to the
Russian empire, where it is grown by the peas-
ants in small plots. It there forms an article
of export of very considerable commercial
importance. Of 530,820 cwts. of undressed
hemp, imported into England in 1831, 506,803
came from Russia, 9472 from the East Indies,
7405 from Italy, 2262 from the Philippine is-
lands, 2248 from the United States. {M'Culloch.)
As Great Britain is principally dependent on
other countries for a supply of hemp, it fol-
lows as a natural consequence, that, in periods
of war, its price is very considerably increased.
The hemp plant is grown in some parts of
Lincolnshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and in Ire-
land (where it reaches a height of 6 or 7 feet) ;
but it is not nearly so much cultivated in the
British islands as formerly, and it is believed
by some of the best of the English farmers to
be a crop that cannot be profitably grown in
England, although the quality of the best Brit-
ish hemp is much superior to that of Russia.
In Oriental countries it sometims attains a
height of 16 to 18 feet. The hemp plant re-
quires for its growth a fair, highly manured
soil, but it is not particular as to the quality.
Old deep meadow lands, all rich alluvial, and
even peaty soils, are adapted to its growth.
Its leaves are strongly narcotic, and in the
eastern climates are used like opium, and
smoked like tobacco. From its seeds (which
are greedily devoured by birds) is extracted
an oil, generally employed by painters. The
Russians and Poles, even of the higher classes,
bruise or roast the seeds, mix them with salt,
and eat them on bread. The hemp plant is fine
and graceful ; its tough and elastic fibres are
adapted, above those of every other plant, for
the making of cordage, canvass, netting, and
various cloths, used in domestic economy, such
as towels, and coarse table-cloths. Besides
the strong cloth and other articles made from
it, hemp is of considerable utility for other
purposes. The refuse, called " hemp sheaves,"
afibrds an excellent fuel ; and the fine oil, ob-
tained from the seed, is peculiarly adapted for
burning in chambers, as it is perfectly limpid,
and possesses no smell. Another valuable
property of hemp is, that it eflTectually expels
vermin from plantations of cabbages ; if it be
sown on the borders of fields, &c., planted

with that vegetable, no caterpillar will infest
it. (Willich^s Dom. Ency.) It possesses the
anomalous property of growing, without dege-
nerating, for a series of years, on the same
ground, provided the land is well manured.
It is what is called a smothering-crop, for its
copious foliage kills every thing that is at-
tempted to be sown with it. It may be grown
in the following rotation, as suggested by Pro-
fessor Low: — I. Fallow; 2. Wheat; 3. Grasses;
4. Hemp ; 5. Oats. The land intended for
hemp should be brought, by repeated plough-
ings, into a fine tilth. The seed may be sown
in April and May, from two to three bushels
per acre, either broadcast, and hoeing out the
plants to a distance of 16 or 17 inches, or by
the drill, at a distance of 30 inches. In the
autumn, the plants are pulled, the male plants
first, and the female plants six or seven weeks
afterwards, when they have ripened their seed.
Thus there are two harvests of the hemp crop.
The male plants are readily known by their
faded flowers, and yellowish colour. They are
then tied in small bundles and carried to the
pool, where they are to be steeped. Hemp,
like flax, poisons the water in which it is
steeped. The same process is followed when
the female plants are pulled ; only these, be-
fore they are steeped, have their seeds beaten
out.

The process of steeping commonly lasts
four or five days, and is continued until the
outside coat of the hemp readily separates. It
is then carefully and evenly spread on some
grass turf, where it remains for three or four
weeks, being turned over about twice every
week, by which the decomposition of the
woody part of the stem is materially accele-
rated. It is next carried to the barn, where it
is bruised by the break, a machine constructed
for the purpose ; it is then bound up into
bundles, and carried to market. {Low's Prac.
Agr. p. 348.) There is a paper on a species
of African hemp by Mr. A. Hunter {Trans.
High. Soc. vol. iii. p. 87) ; others on the culti-
vation of hemp in America, by Mr. W. Tonge
{Ann. of Agr. vol. xxiii. p. 1 ) ; in Italy {ibid. vol.
xvi. p. 439, and vol. ii. p. 216), and in Catalo-
nia. {Ibid. vol. viii. p. 243.) It seems that 100
parts of Indian hempseed yield 20 to 25 per
cent, of oil. {Com. Agr. Asiat. Soc. 1838, p. 69.)
See Flax.

Hemp being an article of extensive utility,
various plants have been tried as substitutes ;
among which are the Canada golden-rod {Soli-
dago Canadensis), a perennial plant that might
easily be cultivated in Britain ; its stalks are
numerous, straight, and grow above five feet in
height ; they afford very strong fibres, if treated
in the same manner as hemp. The sun-flower
{Helianthus) also aflfords single filaments or
fibres, which are said to be as thick, and in all
respects as strong, as small pack-thread. The
fibrous stalk of the common nettle {Urtica
dioica) has been advantageously manufactured
into cloth. Others of the nettle tribe, such as
the Chinese, or white-leaved nettle {U. nivea),
and the Siberian, or hemp-leaved nettle {U. can-
nabina), yield tough and durable fibres ; and
the Syrian swallow-wort {Asclepias Syriaca) is
3F ♦ 613

HEMP.

HEMP.

another of the textile plants; but no conclu-
sively satisfactory experiments of their culture
appear to have been made.

"Various common plants," says Professor
Low {El. of Prac. Jgr. Tp. 351), "yield fibres
of sufficient toughness to be made into thread ;
as the Esparto-rush {Slipa tenacissima), which
is used in Spain for obtaining coarse thread ;
the common broom (^Cytims scoparia) ; the Spa-
nish broom (Spartium junceuin) ; different spe-
cies of aloe, and several plants of the lily tribe.
The warmer regions of the world abound in
plants possessing a fibrous structure of the
bark, which renders them capable of being
employed in making ropes, thread, and cloth."

In Mexico and South America, the famous
centennial American aloe {Agave Americana),
which there grows spontaneously, is extensively
used in the manufacture of cordage of various
kinds. There is no doubt that this plant would
do well if introduced into the Florida Penin-
sula, as it even bears the winters at Charleston,
South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia. "If,"
says a correspondent of the Farmers Register,
(vol. ii. p. 6,) "any additional material for cord-
age is requisite or desirable in this country, we
have one in a native plant, probably not in-
ferior, for that purpose, to the Agave Americana.
I allude to the Yucca filamentosa, which grows
spontaneously in light sandy soils, (and often
on the very poorest) from Virginia to Florida,
and is commonly known under the name of
hear grass, and sometimes under that of silk
grass. The fibres of this plant are remarkable
for their strength, and I have seen ropes made
of it equal in strength and appearance to any
other. To obtain the fibres, the leaves are
• rotted' in water, or by burying them in the earth.
Mr. Elliot, in his Sketch of the Botany of South
Carolina and Geoi-gia, says of this plant, that it
appears to possess the strongest fibres of any
vegetable whatever; and, if it can be raised
with facility, may form a valuable article in
domestic economy. The root is also a substi-
tute for soap in washing woollens.

" Of the facility of its production, I entertain
no doubt. No plant is more hardy, or bears
transplanting better. Its roots are extensive,
having numerous eyes, or buds, and each one
of these will produce a plant. There are mil-
lions of acres in the Southern States unfit for
the ordinary purposes of agriculture, which
would produce this plant very well."

In the Western United States, and especially
"in the upper part of Kentucky, hemp is exten-
sively cultivated, and constitutes a staple crop.
A very interesting communication was made a
few years since to the " Western Agriculturist,"
upon the mode of conducting the various pro-
cesses connected with the hemp culture in
Kentucky, by the distinguished statesman and
agriculturist, Mr. Clay. The correctness of his
views and recommendations are fully confirm-
ed by those who have put them to the test of
experience ; and as the subject is one of great
agricultural importance, we shall extract nearly
the whole of Mr. Clay's essay.

Though raised in other parts of the state of
Kentucky, hemp is most extensively cultivated
in the Elkhorn region around and near Lex-
ington. .
614

The soil of that region,. says Mr. Clay, is
a rich, deep, vegetable loam, free from sand and
with but little grit. It lies on a bed of clay,
interspersed with small fragments of iron ore,
and this clay in its turn reposes on a mass of
limestone lying many feet in depth in horizon-
tal strata. The surface of the country is ge-
nerally undulating. The rich land (and there
is but little that is not rich), in this whole re-
gion, is well adapted to the growth of hemp,
where it has not been too much exhausted by
injudicious tillage. The lands which produce
it best, are those which are fresh, or which
have lain some time in grass or clover. Ma-
nuring is not yet much practised. Clover is
used in lieu of it. Lands which remain in
clover four or five years without being too
constantly and closely grazed, recover their
virgin fertility. The character of the soil in
the other parts does not vary materially from
that in the Elkhorn district.

The preparation of the ground, for sowing
the seed, is by the plough and horses, until the
clods are sufficiently pulverized or dissolved,
and the surface of the field is rendered even
and smooth. It should be as carefully prepared
as if it were for flax. This most important
point, too often neglected, cannot be attended
to too much. Scarcely any other crop better
rewards diligence and careful husbandry. Fall
or winter ploughing is practised with advan-
tage— it is indispensable in old meadows, or old
pasture-grounds intended for producing hemp.

Plants for seed are ordinarily reared, in a
place distinct from that in which they are cul-
tivated for the lint. In this respect, the usage
is different from that which is understood to
prevail in Europe. The seeds which are intend-
ed to reproduce seeds for the crop of the next
year, are sowed in drills about four feet apart.
When they are grown sufficiently to distin-
guish between the male and female stalks, the
former are pulled and thrown away, and the
latter are thinned, leaving the stalks separated
seven or eight inches from each other. This
operation is usually performed in the blooming
season, when the sexual character of the plants
is easily discernible ; the male alone blossom-
ing, and, when agitated, throwing off farina, a
yellow dust or flour which falls and colours
the ground, or any object that comes in contact
with it. A few of the male plants had better
be left, scattered through the drill, until the
farina is completely discharged, for an obvious
reason. Between the drills a plough is run
sufficiently often to keep the ground free from
weeds and grass; and between the stalks in
each drill the hoe is employed for the same
object. The seed plants are generally cut
after the first smart frost, between the 25th
September and the middle of October, and car-
ried to a barn or stackyard, where the seeds
are easily detached by the common thrail.
They should be gathered after a slight, but
before a severe frost ; and, as they fall out very
easily, it is advisable to haul the plants on a
sled, and, if convenient, when they are wet. If
transported on a cart or wagon, a sheet should
be spread to catch the seed as they shatter out.
After the seeds are separated, the stalks which
bore them being too large, coarse, and harsh.

HEMP.

HEMP.

to produce lint, are usually thrown away ; they
may be profitably employed in making char-
coal for the use of powder-mills. In Europe,
where the male and female plants are promis-
cuonsly grown together in the same field, both
for seeds and for lint, the male stalks are first
gathered, and the female suffered to remain
growing until the seeds are ripe, when they
are also gathered, the seeds secured and lint
obtained, after the rotting, from both descrip-
tions.

After the seeds are thrashed out, it is advi-
sable to spread them on a floor to cure properly
and prevent their rotting, before they are finally
put away for use the next spring. Seeds are
not generally used, unless they were secured
the fall previous to their being sown, as it is
believed they will not vegetate, if older; but it
has been ascertained that, when they are pro-
perly cured and kept dry, Ihey will come up
after the first year. It is important to prevent
them from heating, which destroys the vegetat-
ing property, and for that purpose they should
be thinly spread on a sheltered floor.

The seeds — whether to reproduce seeds
only, or the lint — are sowed about the same
time. Opinions vary as to the best period. It
depends a good deal upon the season. The
plant is very tender when it first shoots up, and
is affected by frost. Some have sowed as early
as the 1st of April; but it is generally agreed,
that all the month of May, and about the 10th
of it especially, is the most favourable time.
An experienced and successful hemp-grower,
in the neighbourhood of Lexington, being asked
the best time to sow hemp, answered immedi-
ately before a rain. — And undoubtedly it is
very fortunate to have a moderate rain directly
after sowing.

["Would it not be well to soak the seed in
water a few hours previous to sowing! We
have found this to answer nearly as good a
purpose as rain after sowing, with all seeds
with which we have tried it. The vegetation
of mangle-wurzel is wonderfully accelerated
by il." — Ed. Am. Farmer.']

When the object is to make a crop of hemp,
the seeds are sown broadcast. The usual
quantity is a bushel and a half to the acre ; but
here again the farmers differ, some using two
bushels or even two and a half. Much depends
on the strength and fertility of the soil, and the
care with which it has been prepared, as well
as the season. To these causes may be as-
cribed the diversity of opinion and practice.
The ground can only sustain and nourish a
certain quantity of plants; and if that limit be
passed, the surplus will be smothered in the
growth. When the seeds are sown, they are
ploughed or harrowed in ; ploughing is best in
old ground, as it avoids the injurious effect of a
beating rain, and the consequent baking of the
earth. It would be also beneficial, subse-
quently to roll the ground with a heavy roller.

After the seeds are sown, the labours of the
cultivator are suspended, until the plants are
ripe, and in a state to be gathered — every thing
in the intermediate time being left to the ope-
rations of nature. If the season be favourable
until the plants are sufficiently high to shade
ibe ground (which they will do in a few weeks,

! at six or eight inches height,) there is a strong
! probability of a good crop. When they attain
that height, but few articles sustain the effect
of bad seasons belter than hemp.

It is generally ripe and ready to be gathered
about the middle of August, varying according
to the time of sowing. Some sow at different
periods, in order that the crop may not all
ripen at the same time, and that a press of
labour, in rearing it, may be thus avoided. The
maturity of the plant is determined, by the
evaporation of the farina, already noticed, and
the leaves of the plant exhibiting a yellowish
hue: it is then generally supposed to be ripe,
but it is safest to wait a few days longer. Very
little attentive observation will enable any one
to judge when it is fully ripe. In that respect
it is a very accommodating crop: for if ga-
thered a little too soon, the lint is not materi-
ally injured, and it will wait the leisure of the
farmer some 10 days or a fortnight alter it is
entirely ripe.

Two modes of gathering the plants are
practised ; one by pulling them up by the
roots, an easy operation with an able-bodied
man, and the other by cutting them about two
inches (the nearer the better) above the sur-
face of the ground. Each mode has its parti-
sans, and I have pursued both. From a quar-
ter to a third of an acre, is the common task of
an average labourer, whether the one or the
other mode is practised. The objections to
pulling are, that the plants with their roots
remaining connected with them, are not after-
wards so easily handled in the several opera-
tions which they must undergo ; that all parts
of the plant do not rot equally and alike,
when exposed to the dew and rain; and,
finally, that before you put them to the brake,
when the root should be separated from the
stalk, the root drags off with it some of the lint.
The objection to cutting is, that you lose two
or three inches of the best part of the plant
nearest the root. Pulling, being the most an-
cient method, is most generally practised. I
prefer upon the whole, cutting — and I believe
the number who prefer it is yearly increasing.
When pulled, it is done with the hand, which
is better for the protection of an old leather
glove. The labourer catches 20 or 30 plants
together, with both hands, and, by a sudden
jerk, draws them without much difficulty. The
operation of cutting is performed with a knife,
often made out of an old scythe, resembling a
sickle, though not so long, but broader. This
knife is applied much in the same way as the
sickle, except that the labourer stoops more.

Whether pulled or cut, the plants are care-
fully laid on the ground, the evener the better,
to cure — which they do in two or three days,
in dry weather. A light rain falling on them
whilst lying down is thought by some to be
beneficial, inasmuch as the leaves, of which
they should be deprived, may be then easier
shaken off or detached. When cured, the
plants are set up in the field in which they
were produced, in shocks of convenient size,
the roots or butt-ends resting on the ground,
and the tops united above by a band made of
the plants themselves. Previous to putting
them up in shocks, most cultivators tie the

HEMP.

HEMP.

plants in small hand-bundles of such a size as
that each can be conveniently held in one
han^d. Before the shocks are formed, the
leaves of the plants should be rapidly knocked
off with a rough paddle or hooked stick. Some
suffer the plants to remain in these shocks
until the plants are spread down to be rotted.
Others, again, collect the shocks together as
soon as they can command leisure (and it is
clearly best), and form them into stacks. A
few farmers permit these stacks to remain
over a whole year, before the plants are ex-
posed to be rotted. I have frequently done it
with advantage, and have at this time two
crops in stalks. By remaining that period in
stalks, the plants go through a sweat, or some
other process that improves very much the ap-
pearance, and, I believe, the quality of the lint,
and this improvement fully compensates the
loss of time in bringing it to market. The
lint has a soft texture and a lively hue, resem-
bling water-rotted hemp ; and I once sold a box
of it in the Baltimore market at the price of
Russia hemp. In every other respect, the
plants are" treated as if they were not kept over
a year.

The method of dew-rotting is that which is
generally practised in Kentucky. The lint so
spread is not so good for many purposes, and
especially for rigging and ships, as when the
plants have been rotted by immersion in water,
or, as it is generally termed, water-rotted. The
greater value, and consequently higher price,
of the article, prepared in the latter way, has
induced more and more of our farmers every
year to adopt it; and, if that prejudice were
subdued, which every American production
unfortunately encounters, when it is first in-
troduced and comes in competition with a
rival European commodity, I think it probable
that, in a few years, we should be able to dis-
pense altogether with foreign hemp. The ob-
stacles, which prevent the general practice of
water-rotting, are, the want of water at the
best season for the operation, which is the
month of September ; a repugnance to the
change of an old habit; and a persuasion
■which has some foundation, that handling the
plants, after their submersion in water during
that month is injurious to health. The first
and last of these obstacles would be removed
by water-rotting early in the winter, or in the
spring. The only difference in the operation,
performed at those seasons and in the month
of September, would be, that the plants would
have to remain longer in soak before they
were sufficiently rotted.

The plants are usually spread down to be
dew-rotted, from the middle of October to the
middle of December. A farmer who has a
large crop on hand, puts them down at different
times for his convenience in handling and
dressing them. Autumnal rotting is more apt
to give the lint a dark and unsightly colour
than winter-rotting. The best ground to ex-
pose the plants upon is meadow or grass-land,
but they are not unfreqnently spread over the
same field on which they grew. The length
of time they ought to remain exposed, depends
upon the degree of moisture and the tempera-
ture of the weather that prevail. In a very
616

wet and warm spell five or six weeks may be
long enough. Whether they have been suffi-
ciently rotted or not is determined by experi-
ment. A handful is taken and broken by the
hand or applied to the brake, when it can be
easily ascertained, by the facility with which
the lint can be detached from the stalk, if it be
properly rotted. If the plants remain on the
ground too long, the fibres lose some of their
strength, though a few days longer than neces-
sary, in cold weather, will not do any injury.
If they are taken up too soon, that is before the
lint can be easily separated from the woody
part of the stalk, it is harsh, and the process
of breaking is difficult and troublesome. Snow-
rotting, that is when the plants, being spread
out, remain long enough to rot (which how-
ever requires a greater length of time), bleaches
the lint, improves the quality, and makes it
nearly as valuable as if it had been water-
rotted.

After the operation of rotting is performed,
the plants are again collected together, put in
shocks or stacks, or which is still better, put
under a shed or some covering. When it is
designed to break and dress them immediately,
they are frequently set up against some neigh-
bouring fence. The best period for breaking
and dressing is in the month of February and
March, and the best sort of weather, frosty
nights and clear thawing days. The brake
cannot be used advantageously in wet or moist
weather. It is almost invariably used in this
state out of doors and without any cover, and
to assist its operation, the labourer often makes
a large fire near it, which serves the double
purpose of drying the plants and warming
himself. It could not be used in damp weather
in a house without a kiln or some other means
of drying the stalks.

The brake in general use is the same hand-
brake which was originally introduced, and
has been always employed here, resembling,
though longer than the common flax-brake.
It is so well known as to render a particular
description of it, perhaps, unnecessary. It is
a rough contrivance, set upon four legs, about
two and a half feet high. The brake consists
of two jaws with slits in each, the lower jaw
fixed and immovable, and the upper one
movable, so that it may be lifted up by means
of a handle inserted into ahead or block at the
front end of it. The lower jaw has three slats
or teeth made of tough white oak, and the
upper two, arranged approaching to about two
inches in front, and in such manner that the
slats of the upper jaw play between those of
the lower. These slats are about six or seven
feet in length, six inches in depth, and about
two inches in thickness in their lower edges :
they are placed edgeways, rounded a little on
their upper edges, which are sharper than
those below. The labourer takes his stand by
the side of the brake, and grasping in his left
hand as many of the stalks as he can conve-
niently hold, with his right hand he seizes the
handle in the head of the upper jaw, which he
lifts, and throwing the handful of stalks be-
tween the jaws, repeatedly strikes them by
lifting and throwing down the upper jaw.
These successive strokes break the woody or

HEMP.

HEMP.

reedy part of the stalks into small pieces or
shoes, which fall off during the process. He
assists their disengagement by striking the
handful against a stake, or with a small wooden
paddle, until the lint or bark is entirely clean,
and completely separated from the woody par-
ticles.

After the above operation is performed, the
hemp may be scutched to soften it, and to
strengthen the threads. That process, how-
ever, is not thought to be profitable, and is not
therefore generally performed by the grower,
but is left to the manufacturer, as well as that
of beating and heckling it. Scutching is done
by the labourer taking in his left hand a hand-
ful of lint, and grasping it firmly, then laying
the middle of it upon a semi-circular notch of
a perpendicular board of the scutching-frame,
and striking with the edge of the scutch that
part of the lint which hangs down on the
board. After giving it repeated strokes, he
shakes the handful of lint, replaces it on a
notch, and continues to strike and turn all
parts of it, until it is sufficiently cleansed, and
the fibres appear to be even and straight.

The usual daily task of an able-bodied
hand at the brake is 80 pounds' weight, but
there is a great difference not only in the state
of the weather, and the condition of the stalks,
produced by the greater or less degree in which
they have been rotted, but in the dexterity with
which the brake is employed. Some hands
have been known to brake from 150 to 200
pounds per day. The labourer ties up in one
common bundle the work of one day, and in
this state it is taken to market and sold. From
what has been mentioned, it may be inferred,
as the fact is, that the hemp of some growers
is in a much better condition than that of others.
When it has been carelessly handled or not
sufficiently cleansed, a deduction is made from
the price by the purchaser. It is chiefly bought
in our villages, and manufactured into cotton-
bagging, bales, and other kinds of untarred
cordage. The price is not uniform. The ex-
tremes have been as low as three, and as
high as eight dollars, for the long hundred —
the customary mode of selling it. The most
general price during a term of many years, has
been from four to five dollars. At five dollars
it compensates well the labour of the grower,
and is considered more jtrofitable than any
thing else the farmer has cultivated.

The most heavy labour in the culture of
hemp, is pulling or cutting it, when ripe, and
braking it when rotted. This labour can
easily be performed by men. Various attempts
have been made to improve the process of
braking, which is the severest work in the
preparation of hemp. A newly invented ma-
chine was erected for that purpose on my farm
six or eight years ago, to dress hemp by dis-
pensing with rotting altogether, similar in
structure to one which was exhibited about the
same time at Columbus, during the sitting of
the Ohio legislature. It was worked by horse
power, and detached the lint tolerably well,
producing a very fine looking article, equalling
in appearance Russia hemp. A ton of it was
sold to the navy department, which was manu-
factured into rigging for the ship of the line,
78

!the North Carolina, prior to her making a
i voyage of three years in the Mediterranean.
Upon her return, the cordage was examined
and analyzed ; and although its exterior looked
very well, it was found, on opening it, to be
decayed and affected somewhat like the dry-rot
in wood. I considered the experiment deci-
sive ; and it is now believed that the process
of water or dew-rotting is absolutely necessary,
either before or after the hemp has been to the
brake. There is a sappy or glutinous property
of which it should be divested, and that is the
only process that has been hitherto generally
and successfully employed to divest it.

An ingenious and enterprising gentleman
in the neighbourhood of Lexington, has been,
ever since the erection of the above-mentioned
machine, trying various experiments, by alter-
ing and improving it, to produce one more
perfect, which might be beneficially employed
on rotted hemp, to diminish the labours of the
brake. He mentioned the other day that all of
them had failed; that he had returned to the
old hand-brake, and that he was convinced
that it answered the purpose better than any
substitute with which he was acquainted. I
observe Mr. H. L. Barnum has recently adver-
tised a machine, which he has constructed for
braking and dressing hemp and flax, which
can be procured at the establishment of Mr.
Smith, in Cincinnati. I most cordially wish
him success ; but the number of failures which
I have witnessed, during a period of 30 years,
in the attempts to supersede manual labour by
the substitution of that of machines; induces
me to fear that it will be long before this desi-
deratum is attained.

The quantity of net hemp produced to the
acre, is from 600 to 1000 weight, varying ac-
cording to the fertility and preparation of the
soil and the state of the season. It is said that
the quantity which any field will produce, may
be anticipated by the average height of the
plants throughout the field. Thus — if the plants
will average eight feet in height, the acre will
yield 800 weight of hemp, each foot in height
corresponding to a hundredweight of the lint.

Hemp exhausts the soil slowly, if at all.
An old and successful cultivator told me that
he had taken 13 or 14 successive crops from
the same field, and that the last was the best.
That was probably, however, owing to a con-
currence of favourable circumstances. No-
thing cleanses and prepares the earth better
for other crops (especially for small grain or
grasses) than hemp. It eradicates all weeds,
and when it is taken off, leaves the field not
only clean, but smooth and even.

The rich lands of Ohio, Indiana, and Illi-
nois, are, I have no doubt, generally well
adapted to the cultivation of this valuable
plant; and those states enjoy some advantages
for the cultivation of it, which this does not
possess. Their streams do not dry up as much
as ours, and they consequently employ better
than we can, the agency of water, in the pre-
paration of it. Their projected canals, when
completed, will admit of its being carried to
the Atlantic capitals at less expense in the
transportation than we can send it. {Amt^
rican Farmer, vol. xiv.)

3 r 2 617

HEMP AGRIMONY.

HENBIT.

Mr. Ellsworth, in his report upon improve-
ments in agriculture, &c., made in the United
Slates, in 1842, observes in relation to the hemp
culture, that attention is still directed, and it
\vould seem with somewhat more success, to
the discovery oC a process of water-rotting
hemp ; and it is hoped that the ditficullies on
this subject may yet be removed. It is stated
that, in consequence of the promise last winter
of sending out a government agent to purchase
vater-rotied hemp for the navy, the farmers of
Kentucky and Missouri have Avater-rotted 700
tons or more. This, at the prices paid by
the government for Russian hemp, is worth
$200,000. Many specimens, it is further stated,
have been examined, and pronounced equal
to Russia hemp. Were a suitable reward to
be offered, to stimulate the ingenious, it can
hardly be doubted that, by a variety of expe-
riments, some process of preparing it for the
use of the navy, as well as the Russia hemp,
might be found out.

An important discovery, respecting the ap-
plication of waste hemp to the purpose of
paper-making, has recently been announced;
and if, when it is sufliciently tested, it proves
all that it promises, it will afford an additional
inducement to the culture of hemp. A process
is said to have been found out, by which hemp
can be made white as snow, and that it can be
used in manufacturing the finest and whitest
paper; and a belief is entertained that hemp
waste, which can be furnished at two cents
per pound, will ere long be sought for by
paper-makers, to supply the place of linen
rags.

Hemp is beginning to be raised somewhat
more in the Northern and Eastern States.
This is true especially of the northern part of
the state of New York. At present, however,
it is confined to the seed crop, owing to the
high price of the seed. It is alfirmed to be a
mistake to suppose that it must be confined to
alluvial lands, as has been shown by the
farmers of Saratoga and Washington counties,
in the state of New York. We import hemp
or hempen articles, some years, to the extent of
$9,000,000 or $10,000,000 in value. It is worth
from $200 and upwards per ton. When planted
in drills, at a suitable distance, as it should
be, and properly cultivated, hemp generally
produces from 20 to 40 bushels of seed to the
acre ; and instances are not rare of its yield-
ing from 50 to 60. The seed is generally
worth from 3 to 6 dollars per bushel. When
sown for the lint, it should be sown broadcast,
from 2 to 3 bushels of seed to the acre, depend-
ing on the quality of the land ; and it usually
produces from 700 to 1000 weight of clean
hemp to the acre. Much valuable information
respecting the culture and importance of this
crop may be found in the files of the Kentucky
Farmer for the last few years.

HEMP AGRIMONY (Enpatorivm canna-
hinum). A rough perennial herb, growing in
England in watery, boggy places, especially
about the banks of rivers, with a tufted, some-
what creeping root, with many long fibres.
Stems several, 2 or 3 feet high, branched,
downy, often brown or purplish, filled with
618

! pith. Leaves on short stalks, deep green,
downy, but rather rough to the touch. The
flowers form dense, pale, purplish corymbose
tufts, at the top of the stem and upper
branches. The whole herb is slightly aroma-
tic. Some species of agrimony are used in
gargles, and as tea. See Aokimoxy. (Smith's
Eng. Flor. vol. iii. p. 400.)

HEMP, INDIAN (Jpocynum cannabinum).
An American plant with a perennial root,
found in the borders of woodlands and other
situations in the Middle States, flowering in
August. The stems grow from 2 to 4 feet
high, smooth, purple, slightly glaucous, with
rather erect branches. The leaves are from
2 to 4 or 5 inches long, half an inch to an inch
and a half wide, elliptic in general form, and
more or less downy beneath. The greenish-
white flowers are numerous, and sometimes
tinged with red. There seems to be several
varieties referrable to this species, the bark
of which affords a strong fibre similar to that
of hemp. One or two additional species of
apocynum have been met with in the United
States. (Flora Cestrica.)

HEMP-NETTLE (Galeopsis). A genus of
annual weeds common in corn fields, flower-
ing in July, August, and September. Dr. Smith
describes four native species in England.

1. Red hemp-nettle (G. ladanum).

2. Downy hemp-nettle (G. villosa).

3. Common hemp-nettle (G. tetruhit).

4. Large-flowered hemp-nettle. Bee nettle
(G. versicolor). (Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. iii. p. 92).

HENBANE (Hyoscyamus niger). Black hen-
bane. This annual herb abounds about vil-
lages, road-sides, and among rubbish, and in
England flowers in July. Neither horses,
cattle, swine, nor sheep, will touch this plant,
and it is not relished by goats. The whole
plant is fatal to poultry, whence its common
name; it intoxicates hogs; but cows, horses,
dogs, and goats are able to bear a tolerable
proportion before they are affected. The leaves
are active only in the second year of the plant:
if scattered about buildings, they are said to
drive away mice and rats. If more than a
small portion of the leaves should have been
accidentally swallowed, brisk emetics ought
instantly to be taken ; and after discharging
the contents of the stomach, it will be neces-
sary to administer some mild drinks, such as
large portions of vinegar, or lemon juice di-
luted with water, as the stomach is able to
support them.

Henbane owes its medicinal properties to
an alkali, hyosryamia, which can be obtained
in a separate state. It is crystallizable. Be-
sides this alkali, the plant yields by destructive
distillation an empyreumatic oil, which is a
powerful narcotic poison. Notwithstanding
these virulent properties, henbane has been
professionally administered with considerable
success in many obstinate diseases. The ex-
pressed juice of the leaves, evaporated to the
consistency of extract, has long been used as
a narcotic, an anti-spasmodic, and a sopo-
rific.

HENBIT, THE GREAT, or Hetteit Dkah
Nettle. See Dead Nettle. In England

I'late S.

InferioT Herbage plants occasionally cultnrated

HENBIT.

HICKORY.

henbit is also one of the common names of
the fetid black horehound (Ballota nigra).

In Pennsylvania and other Middle States,
where the dead nettle is extensively natural-
ized, it is a troublesome weed in gardens,
where it may often be seen in flower as
early as February and March. (Flora Ces-
trica.)

HENBIT, SMALL. See Speedwell.

HEPATICA, or LIVERWORT (Jnemme
hepatica). Miller mentions five sorts : the sin-
gle blue (nobilis), the double blue (plena), the
single white (alba), the single red {^vulgaris),
and the double red (rubra). In England these
beautiful and early perennials produce their
flowers in February and March, before any
leaf appears. The double sorts remain longer
in flower than the single ones. The single
flowers produce seed every year; the seed
should be sown in pots or boxes of light earth
in August, to receive only the morning sun till
October, when the plants must be placed in as
sunny a spot as possible through the winter.
The seedlings may be transplanted the follow-
ing August into the borders, and left there
undisturbed. Hepaiicas do not bear trans-
planting well ; and the roots should only be
parted once in three or four years. The hepa-
tica loves an eastern aspect, and a loamy soil.
They are three years before they flower hand-
somely. See Liverwort.

HERBACEOUS (Lat. herba). In describing
the texture of bodies, denotes their being green
and cellular, as the tissue of membranous
leaves. It is also applied to such perennial
plants as lose their stems annually, while their
roots remain permanent in the ground.

HERBAL (Lat. herbarium). A collection of
dried plants, such as the old botanists termed
a horlus siccus or dry garden. It is also applied
to books which contain a methodical arrange-
ment of the classes, genera, species, and varie-
ties of plants, together with an account of their
properties. Dry herbals are formed by glueijig
to sheets of paper, twigs and other parts of
plants pressed flat, and dried in bibulous paper
or otherwise. If well prepared, they are as
useful to the botanist as living plants; but it
is necessary to have some practical skill to be
able to employ them advantageously. The
best method of making a hortus siccus or herbal,
is to place the plant to be dried between paper
of a soft and spongy, unglazed texture, under
a slight pressure. On the following day the
plant should be spread, in as natural a form as
possible, between folds of fresh, dry, blotting
paper; and a pressure greater than before em-
ployed. In a week it will be sufficiently dry
for pasting on a half sheet of white paper ; to
which the name of the plant, its habitat, and
the natural order, with the date, may be ap-
pended. The largest public herbaria"are those
of the museum at Paris, the imperial collection
at Vienna, the royal of Berlin, and that of the
British museum, London, formerly Sir Joseph
Banks's. Nothing certain is known of the
extent of these collections, but they probably
contain in some cases as many as 60,000
species. The herbarium is not an attractive
part of public museums; but a very important
one for numerous purposes of science, both

practical and speculative. (Brandeh Did. of
j Science.)

! HERBIVEROUS ANIMALS, FOOD OF.
I M. Dumas, in a paper recently read before
the French Academy, states, that he has as-
certained the quantity of fat in animals in a
healthy state does not depend on some pecu-
liar process in the digestion, but upon the
quantity of fatty matter contained in the food
eaten. He states, that on analysis of hay and
Indian corn or maize, he found the former
yield 2 per cent, of fatty matter and the latter
9 per cent. Herbiverous animals, he says,
always make less fat than the amount of fat
contained in their food ; but the milch cow
furnishes a larger quantity than any other ani-
mal, and the quantity of butter that she sup-
plies, would, if weighed, be found equivalent
to that contained in her food.

HERD (Sax. hypt.). A number of beasts
congregated together. It is particularly applied
to black cattle. Herd or herdsman also an-
ciently signified a keeper of cattle, and in the
north of England it is still used.

HERD'S GRASS, or Foul Meadow Grass.
This grass is a spontaneous growth, says Buel,
of the wet lands of the United States. The
white top and red top are diflerenl varieties of
herd's grass.

HERRING (Clupea harengus). This well-
known fish is found in great abundance from
the highest northern latitudes down to the
northern coast of France. Large shoals of
them frequent the coasts of the British Islands,
and give employment to a considerable num-
ber of boats ^nd men, forming a principal arti-
cle of commerce. A very elaborate treatise on
the natural history and the different modes of
fishing and curing the herring, by Mr. John
Mitchell, was published in the Edin. Quart.
Journ. of A^., vol. x. p. 1.

The scales and other refuse of the herring
fishery of the Suffolk coast are used with great
success as a manure by the farmers in the
neighbourhood of Lowestoff'. There is no doubt
that this fish is a powerful manure. The cake
produced in Sweden by the herring oil-makers
is considered by the farmers of that cold coun-
try to be the most powerful of fertilizers. And
I have in another place given the result of an
experiment with some spoiled dried herrings
on a Kentish hop plantation. (Johnson on Salty
p. 101 ; Trans. High. Soc. voL v. p. 404.) See
Fish, as a Maxure.

Most of the varieties of herring found in
Europe have been recognised on the Atlantic
coast of the United States. The manhaden^
caught in such numbers on the shores of Long
Island Sound, and there used so extensively
and profitably as manure, belongs to the her-
ring family (Clupea manhaden).

HESSIAN FLY. See Fly ik Wheat.
HICKORY. A common name throughout the
United States, applied to several species of the
walnut genus, which, in the variety of trees
composing the vast original forests east of the
Mississippi, ranks after the oak in the number
of its species. The botanical section which
includes the hickories, according to Michaux*s
arrangement, contains eight species ; namely,
Pacanenut Hickory, Bilternut Hickory, Water Bit"

619

HICKORY.

HICKORY.

ternut Hickory, Mockemut Hickory, Shellbark Hick-
ory, Thick Shellbark Hickory, Pignut Hickory, and
Nutmeg Hickory. The three first-named species
bear the nearest relation with the black walnut
and butternut, their buds not being covered
with scales.

The various species of hickory differ very
jjreatly from the black walnut and butternut in
the properties of their wood. The general form
and foliage of hickories, also, bear a striking
resemblance, though they differ in the number
and size of their leaflets. The fruit often varies
greatly in appearance. All the species of hick-
ory, together with the black walnut and butter-
nut, comprise an indigenous genus, no species
of which is met with in Europe, or any other
part of the old world.

1. Pacanenut Hickory (Juglans oHvcpformis of
Michaux; Carya angnstifolia and Juglans angus-
t(/b/mof other naturalists). This species, which,
says Michaux, is found in Upper Louisiana and
Illinois, is called by the French Pacanicr, and
its fruit Pacanes. On the borders of the rivers
Missouri, Illinois, St. Francis, and Arkansas,
it is most abundantly multiplied. It is also
common on the Wabash, and on the Ohio is
found for 200 miles from its junction with the
Mississippi. Higher than this it becomes more
rare, and is not seen beyond Louisville. This
trtee is partial to cold, wet grounds. On the
right bank of the Ohio, opposite the river Cum-
berland, there is a swamp of 800 acres, which
is said to be entirely covered with it.

The Pacanenut is a beautiful tree, with a
straight and well-shaped trunk, attaining in the
forests the height of 60 or 70 feet. Its wood is
coarse-grained, and, like that of other hickories,
heavy and compact, possessing great strength
and durability, though in this last respect not
equal to some other species. The nuts, which
are usually abundant, are contained in a husk
from one to two lines thick, and have four
slightly prominent angles, corresponding to
their internal divisions. They vary in length
from an inch to an inch and a half, are pointed
at the extremities, of a cylindrical form, and
of a yellowish colour, marked, at the period of
perfect maturity, with blackish or purple lines.
The shell is smooth and thin, though too hard
to be broken by the fingers; the kernel is full,
and, not being divided by ligneous partitions,
is easily extracted. These nuts, which are of
a very agreeable taste, form an object of petty
commerce between Upper and Lower Louisi-
ana. From New Orleans they are exported to
the West Indies and to the ports of the United
States. They are not only better than any other
species of North American walnuts, but they
appear to be even more delicately flavoured
than those of Europe. And, besides, varieties
of the pacanenut are found whose fruit is far
superior to that of the European walnut unim-
proved by culture. This tree therefore merits
the attention of both Americans and Euro-
peans, that by assiduous cultivation it may
be brought to the highest degree of perfection.
These advantages, it is true, are balanced in
part by the slowness of its growth ; there are
trees in France which have been planted more
than thirty years, and which do not yield fruit.
620

If the practice should be successfully adopt-
ed of grafting the pacanenut on the black wal-
nut, or on the common walnut, its vegetation
would be incomparably more rapid, and no
motive would discourage its propagation in
Europe.

2. Bitternut Hickory {Juglans amara). This
tree is also called in Lancaster county and
some other parts of Pennsylvania and the
Middle States by the names of While Hickory
and Swamp Hickory, the latter name being de-
rived from its frequently flourishing on the
rich alluvium found in swamps and on the
banks of rivers subject to overflowing. Far-
ther south it is confounded with the Pignut
hickory. Its vegetation is more hardy than
that of other hickories.

The Bitternut hickory, Michaux informs us,
is nowhere found much beyond the boundaries
of Vermont in the latitude of 45°. " The fruit
is ripe about the beginning of October ; it is so
plentiful that several bushels are sometimes
gathered from a single tree. The husk is thin,
fleshy, and surmounted on its upper half by
four appendages in the form of wings. It
never becomes ligneous like those of the other
hickories, but softens and decays. The form
of the nut in this species is more constant and
more regular than in the others. It is broader
than it is long, being 6 or 7 lines one way and
10 lines the other. The shell is white, smooth,
and thin enough to be broken by the fingers.
The kernel is remarkable for the deep inequal-
ities produced on every side by its foldings.
It is so harsh and bitter that squirrels and
other wild animals will not feed on it while
any other nut is to be found.

"In some parts of Pennsylvania, where this
tree is multiplied, an oil is extracted from the
nuts, which is used for the lamp and for other
inferior purposes. But from these experiments,
in which individuals have succeeded, it is not
to be concluded that a sufficient product of this
sort can be obtained to form a branch of in-
dustry.

3. Water Bitternut Hickory (Juglans aquatica).
"No specific name," says Michaux, "has hither-
to been given to this species, which is confined
to the Southern States ; it is confounded with
the Pignut hickory, though differing from it in
many respects. The name which I propose
appears sufl[iciently appropriate, for I have al-
ways found this tree in swamps, and in the
ditches which surround the rice fields, where
it is accompanied by the red-flowering maple,
Tupelo, cypress, and Carolina poplar. The
Water Bitternut hickory grows to the height
of 40 or 50 feet, and in its general appearance
resembles the other hickories. Its leaves are
8 or 9 inches long, and of a beautiful green.
They are composed of 4 or 5 pair of sessile
leaflets, surmounted by a petiolated odd one.
The leaflets are serrate, 4 or 5 inches long, 8
or 9 lines broad, and very similar to the leaves
of the peach tree.

"The husk is thin, and the nuts are small,
angular, a little depressed at the sides, some-
what rough, of a reddish colour, and very ten-
der. The kernel is formed in folds like that
of the Bitternut hickory: as may be supposed,

/

HICKORY.

HICKORY.

it is not eatable. The wood of this species,
thoug^h partaking of the common properties of
the hickories, is in every respect inferior to
the others, from the nature of the grounds on
which it grows.

4. Mockernut Hickory (Juglans tonientosa of
Michaux, Carya tomentosa of other natura-
lists). Common hickory. "In the parts of
New Jersey which lie on the river Hudson,
and in the city of New York and its vicinity,
this species," says Michaux, ''is known by
the name of the Mockernut hickory, and less
commonly of White-heart hickory; at Phila-
delphia and Baltimore, and in Virginia, that
of Common hickory is the only one in use.
The French of Illinois call it Noyer dur, or
Hard walnut. The first of these denomina-
tions, which is descriptive of the fruit, I have
for that reason adopted.

"This species is not, as the name which it
bears in that country would indicate, more
multiplied in Pennsylvania, and further south,
than the other hickories. I have not seen it
north of Portsmouth in New Hampshire, thoijgh
100 miles south, in the neighbourhood of Bos-
ton and Providence, it is common. Il is most
abundant in the forests that still remain on the
coast of the Middle States, and in those which
cover the upper parts of the Carolinas and of
Georgia; but in the last mentioned states il
becomes more rare in approaching the sea, as
the sterility of the soil, in general dry and
sandy, is unpropitious to its growth. I have
noticed, however, that this is the only hickory
which springs in the pine barrens; the sprouts
are burnt every year, and never rise higher
than 3 or 4 feet. I have made the same ob-
servations in traversing the Big barrens of
Kentucky and Tennessee, where the Mocker-
nut hickory and Black Jack oak alone are seen.
They survive the conflagrations which almost
every spring envel<»pe the prairies, but their
vegetation is checked by the fire, and they do
not exceed the height of 8 or 10 feet.

"Like most of the walnuts, the Mockernut
hickory flourishes in rich soils, and chiefly
on the gentle acclivities which surround the
swamps, where it grows, mingled with the
sweet gum, poplar, sugar maple, bitternut
hickory, and black walnut. In these situations
it reaches its greatest size, which is commonly
about 60 feet in height, and 18 or 20 inches in
diameter. I remember to have seen larger
Mockernut hickories near Lexington, in Ken-
tucky, but this extraordinary growth in several
species of trees is rarely seen on this side of
the Alleghanies, and is attributable to the ex-
treme fertility of the soil in the Western coun-
try. Of all the hickories, however, the Mocker-
nut succeeds best on lands of a middling qua-
lity; for it forms a part of the waste and im-
poverished forests which cover the meager,
sandy soil of Lower Virginia; though under
these disadvantages it exhibits but a mean and
stunted appearance.

"The buds of this species are large, short,
of a grayish white, and very hard; in the win-
ter, after the falling of the leaf, they afford the
only characteristic by which the tree can be
distinguished, when it exceeds 8 or 10 feet in
height.

"The fruit is ripe about the U'ith of Novem-
ber. It is odorous, sessile, or rarely peduncu-
lated, and commonly united in pairs. In form
and size it exhibits remarkable varieties: on
some trees it is round, with depressed seams ;
on others oblong, with angular or prominent
seams ; it is sometimes 2 inches long and 12
or 15 lines in diameter, and sometimes of less
than half this size. The shell is very thick,
somewhat channelled, and extremely hard.
The kernel is sweet, but minute, and difficult
to extract, on account of the strong partitions
which divide it: hence, probably, is derived
the name of Mockernut, and hence, also, this
fruit is rarely seen in the markets.

" Of all the hickories this species is of the
slowest growth : a fact which I have proved
by planting nuts of the several species, and by
comparing the length of their annual shoots.
I have also been led to believe that it is the
most liable to be attacked by worms, and espe-
cially by the CalUdmm flentostim, whose larva
eats within the body of the tree. These con-
siderations appear sufficiently weighty to in-
duce cultivators, in forming large plantations,
to prefer some other species which are de-
scribed in the sequel."

.5. Small-fruiled Hickory (Carya microcarpa of
Nuttall and Darlington, Juglans compressa of
Muhlenburg, and /. alba odorata and Balsam
Hickory of Marshall.) This species is allied
to the Carya tonientosa or Common hickory.
Nuttall informs us that he first observed it oa
the banks of the Schuylkill, in the vicinity of
Philadelphia, and Dr. Darlington remarks that
it is frequent in moist woodlands in Chester
county, Penn. The nut is of nearly the same
form as that of the Common hickory, has a
thin shell, pleasant taste, but is quite small,
seldom exceeding the size of a nutmeg. These
peculiar nuts grow in Massachusetts. The
species is remarkable for the smoothness of its
leaflets, which in this respect, says Nuttall, re-
semble those of the Carya glabra or Pignut,
but they are larger and less deeply serrated.

6. Shdlbark Hickoi-y (Juglans squamosa of Mi-
chaux, and Carya alba of Darlington and other
botanists). The singular disposition of the
bark in this species has given rise to the de-
scriptive names of Shellbark, Shagbark, and
Scalybark hickory, the first of which is in
most general use in the Middle and Southern
States. Many descendants of the Dutch settlers,
says Michaux, call it Ki»ky Thomas nut. It is
not found further north than Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, where its stature is stunted by the
rigours of the climate. "It abounds on the
shores of Lake Erie, about Geneva in Gene-
see, along the Mohawk river, in the neighbour-
hood of Goshen in New Jersey, and on the
banks of the Susquehanna and Schuylkill rivers
in Pennsylvania. In Maryland, in the lower
parts of Virginia, and in the other Southern
States it is less common. In South Carolina I
have not noticed it nearer Charleston than the
parish of Goose-Creek, about 24 miles distant.
It is met with in the Western States, but not
as frequently as the following species, the
Thick Shellbark hickory, to which it bears a
striking analogy, and with which it is con-
founded by the inhabitants. East of the Alle-

621

HICKORY.

HICKORY.

ghanies the Shellbark hickon'' grows almost
exclusively about swamps and wet grounds,
which are exposed to be inundated for several
weeks together: in these situations it is found
in company with the swamp white oak, red-
flowering maple, sweet gum, buttonwood, and
tupelo. Of all the hickories this species grows
to the greatest height with proportionally the
smallest diameter, for it is sometimes seen 80
or 90 feet high and less than 2 feet thick. The
trunk is destitute of branches, regularly shaped,
and of an almost uniform size for three quar-
ters of its le-ngth, thus forming a very fine tree.
The greatest peculiarity in its appearance, and
that by which it is most easily distinguished,
is the surface of the trunk. The exterior bark
is divided into a great number of long, narrow
plates, which bend outwards at the ends, and
adhere only in the middle. Bristling in this
manner with projecting points, the Shellbark
hickory attracts the attention of the most care-
less observer. This remarkable exfoliation of
the epidermis takes place only in trees which
exceed 10 inches in diameter, though it is
much earlier indicated by seams. This cha-
racteristic, by which the tree may be recog-
nised in winter when stript of its leaves, does
not exist during the 7 or 8 first years of its
growth; and during this period it may easily
be confounded with the Mockernut hickory and
Pignut hickory, if recourse is not had to the
buds.

"The fruit of the Shellbark hickory is ripe
about the beginning of October. Some years
it is so abundant that several bushels may be
gathered from a single tree. It varies in size
according to the soil and the exposure in which
it is produced, but 5^ inches may be assumed as
the average of its circumference. The shape
is uniformly round, with four depressed seams,
in which the husk opens at the season of perfect
maturity, dividing itself completely into equal
sections. The entire separation of the husk, and
its thickness disproportioned to the size of the
nut, form a character peculiar to the Shellbark
hickories. The nuts of this species are small,
white, compressed at the sides, and marked by
four distinct angles, which correspond to the
divisions of the husk.

"The Shellbark nut contains a fuller and
sweeter kernel than any American walnut ex-
cept the Pacanenut. These nuts are in such
request, that they form a small article of com-
merce, registered on the list of exports of the
products of the United States. This exporta-
tion, which does not exceed 4 or 500 bushels
annual))', takes place from New York and from
the small ports of Connecticut, to the Southern
States, to the West India islands, and even to
Liverpool, where the fruit is known by the
name of Hickory nuts. In the market of New
York they are sold at two dollars a bushel.
They are gathered in the forests, and from in-
sulated trees which in some places have been
spared in clearing the lands: a precaution
which I have particularly noticed to have been
used near Goshen, in New Jersey, and on seve-
ral estrites about 30 miles beyond Albany.

"The Indians who inhabit the shores of Lake
Erie and Lake Michigan lay up a store of th^se
nuts for the winter, a part of which they pound
' 622

in wooden mortars, and boiling the paste in
water, collect the oily matter which swims 1
upon the surface to season their aliments.

"I cannot forbear mentioning a fine variety <
of Shellbark nuts, produced upon a farm at
Seacocus, near Snake-hill, in New Jersey.
They are nearly twice as large as any that I
have seen elsewhere, and have a white shell,
with rounded prominences instead of angles.
A century of cultivation, perhaps, would not
advance the species generally to an equal de-
gree of perfection, and probably this variety
might still be improved by grafting,"

7. Thick Shellbark Hickory (Juglans laciniosa").
"This species," says Michaux, "bears a strik-
ing analogy to the preceding, and is frequently
confounded with it by the inhabitants of the
western country: some of them distinguish it
by the name of Thick Shellbark hickory, which
should be preserved as its appropriate denomi-
nation. East of the Alleghanies this tree is
rare, and is found only in a few places; it
grows on the Schuylkill river 30 or 40 miles
from its junction with the Delaware, and in the
vicinity of Springfield, 15 or 20 miles from
Philadelphia, where its fruit is called Spring-
field nut. It is also found in Gloucester county,
in Virginia, under the name of Gloucester wal-
nut. These difiTerent denominations confirm
my observation, that this species is little mul-
tiplied on the eastern side of the Alleghany
mountains; a fact of which I became assured
in travelling through the country. It abounds,
on the other hand, in the bottoms which skirt
the Ohio and the rivers which empty into it,
where it unites with the honey locust, black
maple, hackberry, black walnut, wild cherry,
white and red elm, box elder, white maple, and
buttonwood, to form the thick and gloomy fo-
rests which cover these valleys. Like the
Shellbark hickory, it grows to the height of 80
feet, and its ample head is supported by a
straight trunk, in diameter proportioned to its
elevation. The bark exhibits the same singu-
lar arrangement with that of the Shellbark
hickory; it is divided into strips from 1 to 3
feet long, which are warped outwards at the
end, and attached only in the middle. They
fall, and are succeeded by others similarly dis-
posed. It is only observable that in this spe-
cies the plates are narrower, more numerous,
and of a lighter colour.

"The Thick Shellbark hickory, as has been
said, is nearly related to the Shellbark hickory,
and its wood, which is of the same colour and
texture, unites the peculiar qualities of that
species with such as are common to the hicko-
ries. Its fruit, though larger, is inferior in taste,
and this consideration should induce proprie-
tors in the western country, in clearing their
new lands, to spare the true Shellbark hickory
in preference, when both species are found
upon the same soil."

8. Pignut Hickory (Jtiglans porcina of Mi-
chaux, Carya porcina of other naturalists), also {
called Broom hickory. "This species is gene-
rally known in the United States by the name

of Pignut and Hognut hickory, sometimes also
by that of Broom hickory. The first of these
names is most commonly in use ; the others
are known only in some districts of Pennsyl-

HICKORY.

HICKORY.

vania, and particularly in the county of Lan-
caster. Portsmouth in New Hampshire may
be considered as limiting towards the north the
climate of this tree. A little farther south it is
abundant, and in the Atlantic parts of the
Middle States it helps, with the Mockernut
hickory, white oak, swamp white oak, sweet
gum, and dogwood, to form the mass of the
forests. In the Southern States, especially near
the coast, it is less common in the woods, be-
ing found only on the borders of swamps and
in places which are wet without being abso-
lutely marshy or exposed to be long inundated.
This tree is met with in the western country,
but less frequently, I believe, than the Thick
Shellbark and Mockernut hickories. I have
observed that the last mentioned species grows
wherever the Pignut is found, but that the Pig-
nut does not always accompany the Mockernut,
which is satisfied with a less substantial soil.
This remark I have made more particularly in
the lower parts of Virginia, of the two Caro-
linas, and of Georgia. It appears, then, that,
with the exception of the States of Vermont
and New Hampshire, of the District of Maine,
of the Genesee country, and of the cold and
mountainous tracts along the whole range of
the Alleghany mountains, this tree is more or
less abundant in the forests throughout the
United States.

"The Pignut hickory is one of the largest
trees in the United States. It grows to the
height of 70 or 80 feet, with a diameter of 3 or
4 feet

** The nut is small, smooth, and very hard on
account of the thickness of the shell. Its ker-
nel is sweet, but meager and difficult to extract,
from the firmness of the partitions. These nuts
are never carried to market, but serve for food
to swine, racoons, and the numerous species
of squirrels which people the forests.

"In the Pignut hickory the form and size
of the nuts vary more than in the other species.
Some are oval, and when covered with their
husks, resemble young figs; others are broader
than they are long, and others are perfectly
round. Among these various forms some nuts
are as large as the thumb, and others not bigger
than the little finger."

9. Nutmeg Hickory (Juglans myristicopformis).
This tree, so named by Michaux from the re-
semblance of its fruit to the nutmeg, is found
in the Southern and Southwestern States. The
nuts are very small, smooth, and of a brown
colour, marked with lines of white. The husk
is thin, and somewhat rough on the surface.
The shell is so thick as to constitute two-thirds
of the volume of the nut. The kernal is there-
fore very minute, and the fruit even inferior to
that of the Pignut.

Properties and Uses of Hickory Wood. — The
wood of all the species of hickory bears a
striking resemblance, both as to fibre and the
uniform reddish colour of the heart. It pos-
sesses great weight, strength, and unusual plia-
bility and toughness. When exposed to heat
and moisture it is subject to rapid decay, and
is peculiarly liable to injury from worms.

"Throughout the Middle States it is selected
for the axletrees of carriages, for the handles of
axes and other carpenter's tools, and for large

screws, particularly those of bookbinder's
presses. The cogs of mill-wheels are made
of hickory heart thoroughly seasoned ; but it
is proper only for such wheels as are not ex-
posed to moisture; and for this reason some
other wood is by many mill-wrights preferred.
The rods which form the back of Windsor
chairs, coach-v/hip-handles, musket-stocks,
rake-teeth, flails for thrashing grain, the bows
of yokes, or the elliptical pieces which pass
under the necks of cattle: all these are objects
customarily made of hickory. At Baltimore
it is used for the hoops of sieves, and is more
esteemed than the white oak, which is equally
elastic, but more apt to peel off in small shreds
into the substance sifted. In the country near
Augusta in Georgia, I have remarked that the
common chairs are of hickor)' wood. In New
Jersey it is employed for shoeing sledges, that
is, for covering the runners or parts which
slide upon the snow ; but to be proper for this
use it must have been cut long enough to have
become perfectly dry.

"Of the numerous trees of North America
east of the Alleghany mountains, none except
the hickory is perfectly adapted to the making
of hoops for casks and boxes. For this pur-
pose vast quantities of it are consumed at
home, and exported to the West India islands.
The hoops are made of young hickories from
6 to 12 feet high, without choice as to the spe-
cies. The largest hoop-poles sold at Philadel-
phia and New York in February, 1808, at $3
a hundred. Each pole is split into two parts,
and the hoop is crossed and confined by notches
instead of being bound at the end with twigs
like those made of chestnut. From the solidity
of the wood, this method appears sufficiently
secure.

"When it is considered how large a part
of the productions of the United States is
packed for exportation in barrels, an estimate
may be formed of the necessary consumption
of hoops. In consequence of it, young trees
proper for this object have become scarce in
all parts of the country which have been long
settled. The evil is greater, as they do not
sprout a second time from the same root, and
as their growth is slow. The cooper cannot
lay up a store of them for future use, for un-
less employed within a year, and often within
six months after being cut, they are attacked
by two species of insect, one of which eats
within the wood and commits the greatest
ravages.

"The defects which unfit the hickory for use
in the building of houses, equally exclude it
from the construction of vessels. At New York
and Philadelphia the Shellbark and Pignut
hickories have been taken for keels, and are
found to last as long as those of other wood,
owing to their being always in the water. Of
the two species, the Pignut would be prefera-
ble, as being less liable to split, but it is rarely
found of as large dimensions as the other.

" In sloops and schooners the rings by which
the sails are hoisted and confined to the mast
are always of hickor}'. I have also been as-
sured that for attaching the cordage it makes
excellent pegs, which are stronger than those
of oak; but they should be set loosely in the

62vf

HICKORY CATERPILLAR.

HIDE OF LAND.

holes, as otherwise, for want of speedily sea-
soning, they soon decay. For handspikes the
hickory is particularly esteemed on account j
of its strength ; it is accordingly employed in
most American vessels, and is exported for the
sahie purpose to England, where it sells from
50 to 100 per cent, higher than ash, which is
brought also from the north of the United
Slates. The hickories are cut without distinc-
tion for this use, but the Pignut, I believe, is
the best.

" All the hickories are very heavy, and in a
given volume contain a great quantity of com-
bustible matter. They produce an ardent heat,
and leave a heavy, compact, and long-lived
coal. In this respect no wood of the same lati-
tude in Europe or America can be compared
to them ; such, at least, is the opinion of all
Europeans who have resided in the United
States.

"It has been seen by what precedes, that
though hickory wood has essential defects, they
are compensated by good properties which ren-
der it valuable in the arts."

In concluding this article, Michaux recom-
mends particularly for propagation in Euro-
pean forests the Shellbark hickory and the
Pignut hickory, whose wood unites in the high-
est degree the valuable properties of the group.
He thinks, also, that the Pacanenut merits at-
tention from promoters of useful culture, not
so much for its wood as for its fruit, which is
excellent, and more delicate than that of the
European walnut. It might probably be dou-
bled in size, if the practice was successfully
adopted of grafting this species upon the black
walnut, or upon the common European walnut.

HICKORY CATERPILLAR. Whilst the
wood of the hickory is preyed upon by borers,
the foliage suffers in the latter part of summ.er
from troops of caterpillars covered with short
spreading tufts of white hairs, with a row of
eight black tufts on the back, and two long,
slender, black pencils on the fourth and tenth
rings. When fully grown, they are nearly one
and a half inch long. They leave the trees in
September, make cocoons, which are thin, oval,
and hairy. The moths, which come out of the
cocoons in the month of June, are of a very
light ochre-yellow colour, the wings being
sprinkled with brown dots. In England, the
moths that come from caterpillars having long
pencils and tufts on their backs, are called tus-
sock-mdihs; and Dr. Harris says we may name
the one under consideration the hickory tus-
sock-moth (Lophocampa caryce). They expand
their wings from 1^ to 2^ inches or more. The
caterpillars found on the black walnut, butter-
nut, the ash, and even the oak, closely resem-
ble the hickory caterpillar in shape, but not in
colour. They belong to a different species.

HICKORY TREE BORER. The hickory
tree is much exposed to the ravages of the
larvas of wood-eating insects or borers, which
not only attacks the trees of the forests, but
those of orchards, especially after they have
passed their prime. The transformations of
the insects take place in the trunks and limbs
of the trees. " The larvae," says Dr. Harris,
" that are known to me have a close resem-
blance to each otkkt^ a general idea of them
624

can be formed from a description of that which
attacks the Pignut hickory. It is of a yellow-
ish-white colour, very long, narrow, and de-
pressed in form, but abruptly widened near the
anterior extremity. The head is brownish,
small, and sunk in the fore-part of the first seg-
ment; the upper jaws are provided with three
teeth, and are of a black colour ; and the an-
tennae are very short. These grubs are found
under the bark and in the solid wood of trees,
and sometimes in great numbers. They fre-
quently rest with the body bent sidewise, so
that the head and tail approach each other.
This posture those found under bark usually
assume. They appear to pass several years
in the larva state. The pupa bears a near re-
semblance to the perfect insect, but is entirely
white, until near the time of its last transforma-
tion. Its situation is immediately under the
bark, the head being directed outwards, so that
when the pupa-coat is cast off, the beetle has
merely a thin covering of bark to perforate,
before making its escape from the tree. The
form of this perforation is oval, as is also a
transverse section of the burrow, that shape
being best adapted to the form, motions, and
egress of the insect. ,

"Some of these beetles are known to eat
leaves and flowers, and of this nature is pro-
bably the food of all of them. The injury they
may thus commit is not very apparent, and
cannot bear any comparison with the extensive
ravages of their larvae. The solid trunks and
limbs of sound and vigorous trees are often
bored through in various directions by these
insects, which, during a long-continued life,
derive their only nourishment from the woody
fragments they devour. Pines and firs seem
particularly subject to their attacks, but other
forest trees do not escape, and even fruit trees
are frequently injured by these borers."

A borer belonging to another family of bee-
tles is also found in the hickory, namely, the
larvae of the beetle called by naturalists Steno-
corns cinctus, or banded stenocorus, the generic
name signifying narrow or straitened. liong
galleries, running in the direction of the fibres,
are made by this grub in the hard wood of the
hickory. The beetle is of a hazel colour, with
a tint of gray, arising from the short hairs with
which it is covered. There is an oblique ochre-
yellow band across each wing-cover. (Harris.)

HIDE-BOUND. In farriery, applied to a
certain disease of cows and horses, in which
the skin adheres to their sides. Want of pro-
per care, spare diet, and bad food, such as rank
long grass in swampy situations, and musty
hay or oats, are the most probable causes of
this affection. Hide-bound is rarely a primary
disease; it is a symptom of unhealthiness, and
often of disease, of the digestive organs. It is
sometimes an accompaniment of chronic cough,
grease, farcy, and founder. A few mashes, and
a mild dose of physic, often have a very bene-
ficial effect. If the horse cannot be spared for
physic, the following alterative, which is in
common use, may be given every night for
some time in a mash, or in the form of a ball :
levigated antimony,2drachms; nitre, 3 drachms;
sulphur, 4 drachms. For the cow, eight ounces
of sulphur, with half an ounce of ginger, and

HIDE OP LAND.

HIGHWAYS.

a few mashes should be given. (Lib. of Use.
Know.; The Horse, p. 371 ; Cat lie, p. 571.)

HIDE OF LAND (Sax. Hyde lands) was
considered, in ancient Britain, to be such a
quantity of land as one plough and its team
could plough in a year. It was hence called a
ploughland. It was about 100, 120, or 150
acres. Bede calls it a.fumUiare, and says it is
as much as will maintain a family. Crompton,
in Jurisdiction^ f. 222, says that a hide of land
contained 100 acres, and that 8 hides made a
knight's fee. But, according to Sir Edward
Coke, a knight's fee, a hide or ploughland, a
yardland, or an ox-gang of land, did not contain
any certain quantity of acres {On Lit. f. 69),
but was determined by the value of 20/. per
annum. And a ploughland may contain a
messuage, wood, meadow, and pasture; and
every ploughland of ancient time was of the
yearly value of five nobles ; and this was the
living of a ploughman or yeoman. The distri-
bution of England into hides of land is very
ancient, for they are mentioned in the laws of
King Ina.

HIDES (Sax. hyt>e; Germ, haute; Dutch,
huiden). Generally speaking, this term is ap-
applied to the skins of most beasts; but in
commerce it is limited to the strong and thick
skin of the horse, ox, and other large animals.
Hides are raw or green; that is, in the state in
which they are taken off the carcass, or dressed
with salt, alum, and saltpetre, to prevent them
from putrefying; or they are cured or tanned.
The hides of South America are in the highest
repute, and vast quantities of them are annually
imported into Great Britain. Large quantities
are also received from various parts of the
continent, and from Morocco, the Cape of Good
Hope, &c. About 200,000 cwt. of unlanned
hides are annually imported, and about 120,000
cwL of other hides, exclusive of Russia hides,
which form a large proportion of the imports.
The rate ofduty charged on hides is — untanned,
dry, per cwt., 4«. 8</. ; wet, 2*\ id. ditto ; pieces
of hide, or hides tawed, curried, or dressed, 9d.
per lb.; cut or trimmed, Is. 2d. per lb. Those
imported from British colonies are only liable
to half this rate ofduty.

HIGHWAYS received their name from the
Roman method of elevating the road upon
causeways, or by raised earth. In the English
common law, highways are roads common to
all the Queen's subjects, which the parish are
liable to repair. All ways, either for foot pas-
sengers, or carriages and horses, are properly
highways. If a road is dedicated to the public
for 25 years, it becomes a highway, which the
parish are bound to repair, although they have
not acquiesced in the dedication of the road.
And if a road has been freely used by the pub-
lic for 4 or 5 years, a jur"- is warranted in pre-
suming that the owners of the soil consented
to its being thus used. Bridges in highways
become public by whomsoever built, but not
raised causeways furnished with culverts over
meadows, if more than 300 feet from the
bridge ; and a bridge only used by the public
in periods of floods, is merely a public bridge
during that period. By the common law, the
obligation to repair the road lies upon the pa-
rish ; the bridges are to be repaired by the \
79

[ county, and not only the bridge, but since the
22 Henry VIII. c. 5, s. 9, the road or approaches
for 300 feet " from any of the ends of it." Sur-
I veyors of the highways are now annuallj
} elected by the parishioners on or within 14
! days of the 25th of March (5 and 6 W. IV., c.
! 50, s. 6) ; and the surveyor may be, by sect. 6
j of this act, re-elected, who must serve, under a
I penalty of 20/.: he is entitled, however, to a
I salary ; by s. 20, he is liable to a penalty of 5/.
j for neglect of duty. The surveyor, by s. 25, is
authorized to use adjoining grounds as a tem-
porary highway whilst the old road is repair-
ing and widening; and, by s. 27, he is empow-
ed to make a rate on the inhabitants, which
must, however, be allowed by the justices.
By s. 47, any person taking road scrapings or
other materials from the sides of roads, is lia-
ble to a penalty of 10/. The surveyor is em-
powered to dig for road materials within his
own, or any other parish, and to gather stones
free from charge, on any land within his par-
ish, but he must pay for any damage done to
the land daring their removal ; and after ob-
taining license from the justices in special
sessions, he may enter upon and dig for road
materials, making, however, satisfaction to the
owners; and he must fill up the holes he
makes, or have them filled up and sloped
down. No tree shall be allowed to be planted
within 15 feet of the centre of the highway;
and with the authority of a justice of the peace
(after duly summoning the owner to show
cause), the surveyor may order hedges and
trees, which shade or otherwise injure high-
ways, to be cut and plashed. Cartways must
be 20 feet, horseways 8, and footways 3 feet
wide.

A surveyor of highways is not personally
liable to the labourers ; they must look to the
commissioners, or their treasurer. A way
warden may charge law expenses incurred ia
the discharge of his duty.

liepairing Roads. — ^The advantages of keep-
ing roads in repair, if only regarded by the
farmer as lessening the draught of his horses,
may be estimated from the following table of
the average force required to draw a light
four-wheeled cart, weighing, with its load, 1000
pounds :

Force of tnctare
Deacription of Roa4. ^ reqnired to n>ov<)

▼ the carriage.

Turnpike road— hard dry - . - _ 30i lbs.
Tiirn|tike road— dirty _ - _ _ _ 39
Hani, compact loam ----- 53

Ordinary bye-road ------ 106

Turnpike road, newly gravelled - - - 143

Loose sandy road .--... 204

The annual expense of repairing the roads
throughout England, according to a report of a
committee of the House of Commons in 1814,
amounted to 1,500,000/., which Mr. Penfold in
his Treatise on Road-making, divides into

Materials, tradesmen, and officers - . - j^SOO.OOO
Manual labour ------ 250,000

Cartage 750,000

The chief points to be attended to in road
making are — 1, the foundation ; 2, the drainage ;
3, the choice of the materials ; 4, the prepara-
tion of them ; and 5, the size of them. In rc"
pairing — 1, the scraping; 2, the removal of
shading trees, &c.; 3, the watering. A careful
3G 625

HIPPOPATHOLOGY.

HOLCUS.

attention to which points will well repay the
parish for the care bestowed upon them.
There is a paper, by Mr. Whyle, upon a ma-
chine for scraping and cleansing highways
(Trans. High. Soc, vol. iv. p. 349), and on
roads, and the excessive weights carried on
them in narrow-wheeled wagons, by Mr.
Whetly (Com. to Board of Agr., vol. vi. p. 182);
and there is a work on road-making by Sir C.
M'Adam, which every road-surveyor should
possess. Sir Henry Parnell has also publish-
ed a valuable treatise on road-making. Of the
materials best adapted to road-making, Mr.
Penfold remarks, "The trappean and basaltic
rocks are those best seated for the construction
of roads. No material has ever been used su-
perior to the tough basalts, which are brought
as ballast in ships from China and Bombay,
and which have been partially used in the
macadamised streets of London. Limestones,
in many respects, afford an excellent material.
The more unyielding the material, the smaller
is the size to which it ought to be broken.
Limestones have in general a peculiar qua-
lity of making smooth roads, even if not broken
to a small size. Pit gravel, especially that be-
longing to the new red sandstone formation, is
in general not to be depended upon, as con-
taining stones of different sorts, and conse-
quently of different degrees of strength. It is
one of the greatest mistakes in road-making to
lay on thick coats of materials. If there be
substance enough already in the road, and
which, indeed, should always be carefully kept
up, it will never be right to put on more than
a stone's thickness at a lime."

HIPPOPATHOLOGY. The science of vete-
rinary medicine which comprehends the dis-
eases of the horse. Among the writers on this
subject, within the last century, may be enume-
rated Gibson, Clater, Blaine, Lowson, White,
Rydge, Coleman, Dick, Sewell, Percivall,
White, Rydge, Stewart, Youatt, and many
others ; and although a few of their works may
now be obsolete, the greater portion, particu-
larly the valuable work of Mr. Youatt contain
a vast fund of practical and useful information.

HOAR FROST. To the authorities quoted
in the article Frost, I would add that of the
Rev. J. Farquharson. He draws from his ob-
servations the conclusions that these frosts
occur when the thermometer ^s at ten feet from
the ground, of varying degrees of temperature,
sometimes as high as 41° ; 2dly, that they take
place at the time of a high daily mean tem-
perature only during a calm ; 3dly, that the air
is always, or nearly all of it, unclouded ; 4thly,
that they most frequently take place when the
mercury of the barometer is high and rising,
and when the hygrometer for the season indi-
cates comparative dryness. 5thly. In general,
low and flat lands in the bottoms of valleys,
and grounds that are in land-locked hollows,
suffer from these frosts, while all sloping lands
and open uplands escape injury. This he ac-
counts for by supposing that on sloping
grounds there are always currents of air which
mix the upper and warmer strata of air with
that which rests immediately on the ground,
and which it would seem, from some experi-
ments of Dr. Wells, is not unfrequenlly much
626

colder than that only four feet from the sur-
face. He found, on the 19th of August, 181.3
(Trans. High. Soc. ix. 250) :—

Time.

On the ground.

Four feet from
the ground.

0 h. 45 m - - -
7 h. -
7 h. 20 m
7 h. 40 in
1 8 h. 45 m

63»
51

49
42

60i«>

^§'

68
64

The slightest protection, even that of a bush,
thin sprinkling of straw or litter, is suffi-
cient to prevent the deposition of frost, because
it is onlv necessary to prevent radiation.

HOEING BY HAND. The huiid hoe is an
instrument too well known to need any de-
scription. The operation of hoeing is benefi-
cial, not only as being destructive of weeds,
but as loosening the surface of the soil, and
rendering it more permeable to the gases and
aqueous vapour of the atmosphere. Hoeing,
therefore, not only protects the farmer's crops
from being weakened by weeds, but it renders
the soil itself more fertile, as more capable of
supplying the plants with their food. Jethro
Tull was the first who warmly and ably incul-
cated the advantages of hoeing cultivated soils.
He correctly enough told the farmers of his
time, that as fine hoed ground is not so long
soaked by rain, so the dews never suffer it to
become perfectly dry. This appears by the
plants which flourish in this, whilst those in
the hard ground are starved. In the driest
weather good hoeing procures moisture to the
roots of plants, though the ignorant and incu-
rious fancy it lets in the drought.

HOGS. See Swine.

HOG WEED (Heradcum sphondylium). The
weed known by this name in Pennsylvania
and other Middle States, is also called Rag-weed
and Bitter-weed, the Ambrosia Elatior or Taller
Ambrosia of botanical writers. This apparently
very worthless weed is common in pastures
and cultivated fields, always following the
wheat crop immediately after harvest, as
though a parasite of this species of grain. If
the land be good, the plant seems to give place,
the following season, to the crop of clover or
timothy. "I have," says Dr. Darlington "been
puzzled to determine this species satisfactorily.
It is evidently, I think, the Ambrosia Elatior of
Bigelow, and some others, and as clearly the
A. artemisifolia of Barton, &c. ; whilst, at the
same time, it agrees pretty well with Elliott's
A. paniculata. Are they all distinct species'?
Five or six additional species are enumerated
in the Ignited States." (Flor. Cestrica.)

This plant comes into flower about the mid-
dle of May ; its nutritive powers appear to be
considerable when compared to those of lucem
and some other plants. Sinclair found that 64
drs. of the herbage afforded of nutritive matter
90 grs., lucern an equal proportion, the same
weight of burnet and of Bunias orientalis 100
grs. each, of the broad-leaved cultivated clover
SO grains. See Cow-Parsnip. (Hoit. Gram,
IFo6. p. 411.)

HOLCUS. The soft-grass. A genus of
grasses of which Smith, in his Eng. Flor. (vol.
i. p. 107), describes three species, but which

HOLCUS.

HOLCUS.

Sinclair, in his Hortus Graminnts, has extend- 1
ed to 5 species and varieties, including the
northern holy-grass (Hierochloe borenlis), which
Smith very properly refers to another class.

Holcus avenaceus (PI. 5, re). Tall oat-like
soft-grass. In this species the calyx is smooth,
the barren floret lowest, with a sharply bent
prominent awn ; fertile one bent, slightly ele-
vated, scarcely awned; leaves rather harsh;
roots knobbed, or with tuberous joints and
downy fibres. In dry or fluctuating soils the
roots become largely bulbous, and then consti-
tute a troublesome weed. In the works of
Linnseus, Curtis, and Host, this grass is found
under the name of jivena elatior ; it has since
been thought to agree better with holms in
structure ; but it appears to belong to neither
of these justly, serving rather to form the con-
necting link between the avente, hold, and airee.
This grass grows common in pastures, hedges,
thickets, and by road sides. The stem rises to
3 feet high, is smooth, simple, and jointed; the
joints sometimes downy ; the leaves are deep-
green, rough-edged, and rather harsh to the
touch, with long striated sheaths, and abrupt
stipules. The flowering panicle is erect, late-
ral. The seeds are nearly cylindrical, and
coated with the hardened corolla. This grass
sends forth flowering culms during the whole
of the season. The entire plant is subject to
rust after the period of flowering; hence the
crop should be cut as soon as the grass is in
flower. This grass is eaten by all sorts of cat-
tle, and is always present in the composition
of the best natural pastures; but it does not
constitute a large proportion of the herbage.
It perishes rapidly after being cropped ; and
though later in flowering (end of June) than
many other species, produces an early and
plentiful supply of herbage in the spring.
These properties would entitle it to rank high
as a grass adapted for the alternate husbandry,
but with respect to its nutritive properties, it
contains loo large a proportion of bitter extrac-
tive and saline matters to warrant its cultiva-
tion without a considerable admixture of dif-
ferent grasses ; and the same objection extends
to its culture for permanent pasture.

Holms aveymctuft, var. nmfims. Awnless, tall,
oat-like soft-grass. In this variety, which is
smaller in every respect than the preceding,
the leaves are very short, the roots slightly
tuberous, the panicle much contracted, the
flowers without awns ; glumes pencilled at the
apex with purple. It flowers a week later than
the awned variety ; in all other respects it is
the same. It seldom perfects any good seed,
and appears to be much inferior in point of
produce. Hares give a decided preference to
the awnless variety.

Holms lannfitii. Woolly or meadow soft-
grass. The root in this species is tibrous ; the
stem simple, 1^ to 2 feet high, smooth above,
hairy below, with hairy sheaths, and short
blunt stipules. The panicle is thrice com-
pound, erect, and spreading. The calyx of the
flower is woolly, lower floret perfect, awnless ;
upper with an arched awn ; leaves downy on
both sides. This is a very troublesome grass,
which is difficult to get rid of; it grows abun-

dant in meadows and pastures on all soils, from
the richest to the poorest. Cattle prefer almost
any other grass to this ; hence it is seen in
pastures, with full-grown perfect leaves, while
the grasses that surround it are cropped to the
roots. Sir Humphry Davy has shown that
its nutritive matter consists entirely of muci-
lage and sugar; while the same property in
the grasses most relished by cattle has either
a sub-acid or saline taste. This grass might
probably be rendered more palatable to cattle
by being sprinkled over with salt.

Hard stocking, and never sufl'ering it to run
to seed, will at least prevent this grass from
spreading; but ploughing up the pasture, and
taking not less than a five years' course of
crops and then returning the land to other
grasses, will be found the best means of getting
rid of it. It flowers and ripens the seed in July.

Holms mollis. Creeping soft-grass. PI. 5, c.
Couch-grass. The specific character of this
species is, root creeping, calyx partly naked,
lower floret perfect, awnless, upper with a
sharply bent prominent awn ; leaves slightly
downy. The distinctions between this grass
and the woolly or meadow soft-grass, H. lana-
tus, are the creeping root, and the whole plant
being more slender and less downy. The
leaves are also narrower and more soft than
those of the H. lanatus, and grow more distinct
from each other: on the contrary, those of the
H. lanatus are in dense tufts. The panicle is
more loose and smoother, with conspicuous
awns, which, in drying, bend at a right angle,
and extend beyond the calyx. The panicle of
the H. lanatus is generally of a reddish purple
colour tinged with green, or, when growing
under the shade of trees, of a whitish-green
colour. The panicle of the H. mollis is always
of the latter colour. This grass would rank as
one of the superior grasses if it did not usually
tenant a light barren sandy soil ; but it produces
little herbage in the spring, and the aftermath is
next to nothing. Pigs are very fond of the roots,
which contain a very considerable quantity of
nutritive matter, having the flavour of new-
made meal. The herbage is apparently more
disliked by cattle than that of the H. lanatus: it
is extremely soft, dry, and tasteless. The roots,
when once in possession of the soil, can hard-
ly again be expelled without great labour and
expense. It is the true couch grass of light
sandy soils, for its roots frequently attain in a
few months to 4 or 5 feet in length. The best
mode of banishing this impoverishing and
troublesome weed from light arable lands that
are infested with it, is to collect the roots with
the fork after the plough ; and when thus in
some measure lessened to apply yearly dress-
ings of clay, perhaps 50 loads per acre, till the
texture of the soil is changed to a sandy loam;
[ this grass will then be easily overcome, and
the fertility of the soil permanently increased.
! See CorcH.

Holms odoratus (repens). Sweet-scented soft-
grass or northern holy-grass. See Hoix-
GnAss.

I have placed together in a tabular form the
comparative yield of produce of these grasses.
(^Sinclairh Hort. Gram. Wob.)

627

HOLLY.

HONEY.

Holcus avenacens, soil

Produce

per Acre in

PowkU.

Green.

Dry.

NuL Mat.

clavyey loam in flower

17,015

6,380

664

Holcus avenacens, seed

ripe ... -

16,335

6,717

255

Holcus avenaceus, latter-

math - - - -

13,612

-

265

H. avenaceus, var. wim-

iicus, soil rich clayey

loam, in flower -

12,251

4,287

669

— latter-math

3,453

-

53

H. lanatvs, clayey loam,

in flower - - -

19,057

6,193

1191

H. mollis, sandy loam, in

flower- . - -

34,031

13,612

2392

— seed ripe

21,099

8,439

1153

H. oduratus (repens), in

flower - - - -

9,528

2,441

632

— — seed

ripe - - - -

27,225

9,528

2233

HOLLY (Hex aquifoliiim). A handsome
evergreen tree, of slow growth, with a smooth,
gray bark, which, abounding in mucilage,
makes bird-lime by maceration in water. The
wood is hard, close-grained, and covered with
the above smooth gray bark. The leaves are
alternate, stalked, rigid, shining, waxy, with
spinous divaricated lobes ; the upper ones on
old trees entire, with only a terminal prickle.
The flowers are copious, white, tinged exter-
nally with purple, the earlier ones least perfect.
The berries are scarlet, casually yellow. The
holly grows in hedges and bushy places upon
dry hills. Numerous variegated varieties are
kept in gardens, and one whose leaves are
prickly on the disk. Darwin suggested the,
idea, that the points on the lower leaves of the
holly was a provision of nature to prevent
them from being eaten by cattle ; hence, when
the tree grows beyond the reach of the cattle,
the leaves lose the pines, that species of ar-
mature being no longer necessary. The tree
bears clipping well ; but it is not so fashionable
for cut hedges as formerly. The branches,
laden with berries, are stuck about rustic
kitchens and churches at Christmas, and re-
main till Candlemas Day. In Norfolk and
some other English counties the misseltoe ac-
companies them, and sometimes branches of
the spindletree or prickwood.
. The common holly of the United States is
the Ilex opaca of naturalists, a handsome ever-
green which, though in some of the Middle
States a mere shrub, in others assumes the
dignity of a tree. In Kent county, Delaware,
the holly frequently attains a height of 30 to 40
feet. Seven or eight additional species are
found in the United States, chiefly in the south.

HOLM (Sax. and Danish). An island or
fenny place surrounded by water.

HOLM OAK, or HOLLY OAK. See Oak.

HOLT (Sax. a wood; Germ. holz). The
termination of many names of places in Eng-
land, derived from their ancient situation in a
wood.

HOLY-GRASS, NORTHERN (Hierochloe bo-
realis). The sweet-scented soft-grass, Holcus
odor'atus (repens) of some botanists. The pow-
erful creeping roots of this grass, its tender
nature, and the great deficiency of foliage in
the spring are demerits which discourage the
id 3a of recommending it further to the notice
628

of the agriculturist. It comes into flower
about the end of April, and perfects hardly
any seed; but few grasses propagate more
quickly by the roots. This grass is said to be
used at high festivals, for strewing the churches
in Prussia, as Acoi-us calamus has time out of
mind been employed in the cathedral and
streets of Norwich on the mayor's day.

HOMESTEAD, or FARM STEADING. A
collection of farm buildings and offices ar-
ranged in a convenient form.

HONEY (German, honig). A well-known
vegetable substance collected by bees. "Its
flavour," says Dr. A. T. Thomson, " van s
according to the nature of the flowers from
which it is collected. Thus, the honeys of
Minorca, Narbonne, and England are known
by their flavours. It is separated from the
comb by dripping, and by expression ; the first
method aflbrds the purest sort, the second se-
parates a less pure honey, and a still inferior
kind is obtained by heating the comb before it
is pressed. When obtained from young hives
which have not swarmed, it is denominated
virgin honey. It is sometimes adulterated with
flour and starch, which may be detected by
mixing it with tepid water; the honey dissolves,
while the flour or starch remains nearly un-
altered." Honey is easily soluble in water,
and, like sugar, readily undergoes the vinous
fermentation; in this way, in fact, mead is
made, an intoxicating beverage, once much
more extensively prepared than now.

Honey constitutes a very important product
of some countries, among which we may name
Poland, where the management of bees is an
extensive branch of forest culture. Poland
honey is commercially divided into three
classes ; the finest, called li-piec, is gathered by
the bees from the lime tree alone, and is con-
sidered on the Continent most valuable, not
only for the superiority of its flavour, but also
for the estimation in which it is held as an ar-
canum in pulmonary complaints, containing
very little wax, and being, consequently, less
heating in its nature ; it is as white as milk,
and is only to be met with in the lime forests
in the neighbourhood of the town of Kowno,
in Lithuania. It is the June and July work alone
that constitutes this delightful product, and
which is carefully taken from the hives, in
which is left for the store of the bees the honey
collected by them before and after the flowering
of the linden, a tree quite different from all the
rest of the genus Tilia, and called Kamienna
lipsa, or Stone Lime.

The leszny, the next class of honey, which is
inferior in a great degree to the lipiec, being
only for the common mead, is that of the pine
forests.

The third class of honey is the stepowey pra»-
zpymirdy or the honey from meadows or places
where there is an abundance of perennial
plants, and hardly any wood. The province
of Ukraine produces the very best, and also
the very best wax. In that province the pea-
sants pay particular attention to this branch
of economy, as it is the only resource they
have to enable them to defray the taxes levied
by Russia ; and they consider the produce of
bees equal to ready money.

1.1

n^^

-^rr ■

c

y.

<;

ii

!^

^

•"^

^;^

J*^

^

^ cc

^

^n

rjl

HONEY.

HONEY.

In the United States, the capacity to produce
honey seems only limited by the ravages of
that great pest, the bee-moth. Over this, how-
ever, it is to be hoped ingenuity will finally
triumph, if it has not done so already. See
pEKs and Bke-moth.

RcssiAX Ststkm op maxaoino 13kks axd

COXSTRUCTIIfC HlVES.<^

In Russia and other northern parts of Eu-
rope, honey and wax constitute gfreat sources
of private wealth and general trade. A large
amount of this honey is obtained from trees in
the wild forests, which, when not hollowed by
nature, are scooped out by man for the accom-
modation of swarms, nails being driven into
the body, to prevent the bears from climbing
up and getting at the honey. This primitive
plan may be called the Forest gystem, to distin-
guish it from another, consisting of large as-
semblages of hives, entitling it to the appella-
tion of the Camp system. These bee-camps are
often removed from place to place, according
to the abundance or scarcity of flowers. A
new system of managing bees has been lately
introduced into Russia^ which has acquired
immense celebrity, not only in that country, but
in other parts of continental Europe, to the
northern portion of which it may perhaps be
more specially adapted. It is, however, at pre-
sent receiving great encouragement in France,
■where the most active efforts are making to
promote its extension. Although we believe
that the most essential objects obtained by the
Russian mode are gained through some of the
almost innumerable contrivances worked out
by American ingenuity, still we think it proper
to make the citizens of the United States ac-
quainted with what is deemed of so much in-
dividual and national importance abroad.

The Russian system owes its origin and es-
tablishment to M. Prokopovitsh, an individual
who has 'levoted more than half his life to the
subject. His reputation as an apiarian is at
present so high as to have enabled him to esta-
blish an extensive school for teaching the art
of managing bees. His school and dwelling-
houses are situated in the midst of a vast gar-
den, in which are found no less than twenty-eight
hundred hives. The number of his pupils is
never under eighty, which come from all parts
of Russia, and remain two years. His terms
are very moderate.

In studying the nature and characteristics
of the queen, he made the discovery that she
always keeps upon the honeycomb, and never
creeps upon any part of the hive. This obser-
vation he has turned to advantage, so as to
make the bees assort and dispose their honey
in whatever manner he desires it to be depo-
sited.

By discovering a plant pre-eminently rich
in honey, he has rendered another service to
his country, not less important than that just
referred to. This is the Echium Vulgabe,
called in Russia Ciniak. It has long been
known to abound in the materials of honey,
but had always been left in a wild state until
this intelligent Russian took it into regular
cultivation for the use of his bees. In doing
this, says a French writer, he has rendered a

service to Europe similar to that conferred by
Parmentier, who placed the potato among the
number of plants indispensable to the purposes
of domestic economy. Many of the Russian
provinces possess only a very few plants rich
in honey; or, rather, owing to the rigours of
the climate, the plants furnish honey during a
very short period. The Echium is therefore
the more valuable from the fact that it is so
little sensible to the eflects of both heat and
cold, neither of which cause it to part with its
mellifluous qualities. Even after the setting
in of white frosts, which ordinarily commence
about the end of September or first of October,
it still continues to flower.

It is proper to observe that the plant which
has thus acquired such great celebrity bears
the same name with a common and very beau-
tiful English wild plant, belonging to the Bo-
rage family, and that, in his Flora Cesirica,
Dr. Darlington describes the common Echium
as a foreign weed, extremely troublesome in
some portions of the United States, though as
yet rare in Chester contty, Pennsylvania. A
species called Violet Echium is cultivated in
some flower-gardens in the United States, but
no American species has yet been pointed out
by botanists. The French call the common
Echium Viperine, and Herhe aux Vipercs ; the
Germans, iriWf Ochsemunge, and Der Natterkopf.
The popular names in the United States are
Bbte Weedy Blue Devils, and Vipercs Bu gloss. It is
highly probable that the plant so much prized
in Russia is a variety of Borage differing con-
siderably from the weed denounced by Dr. Dar-
lington. His caution, however, ought by no
means to be forgotten by persons who intro-
duce the Echium for the benefit of their bees,
as it is a biennial, furnished with a very thick
and hard tap-root, which must be very difficult
to get out of ground when it has once gained
possession. It should therefore be sown and
kept in places where it may be restrained
within bounds. It may be popularly described
as a plant with long and rather narrow leaves,
coming to a point, which leaves, with the stalks,
are covered with a profusion of hairs. It puts
out numerous spikes bearing one or two bell-
shaped flowers, of a purple-blue colour, having
five petals, which are pubescent or hairy. It
produces small, rough, and brow^nish oval-
shaped nuts, which are angular on the inner
side. (See Fig. 6, on the Plate representing
the Russian Bee-hive, etc.)

Description of the Rttssian Bee-hive.

Fig. 1 represents the hive in perspective,
supported upon a floor of brick or stone, car-
ried beyond the sides of the hive, so as to
secure a solid foundation. The usual size of
this hive is three feet six inches in height,
fourteen, twenty, and even as much as twenty-
two inches in width, and from twelve to sixteen
inches in depth. The box or case is made of
five boards, either nailed, or, what is better,
dovetailed together. The pieces represented
at a, a, a, are three doors of equal size, which
are fixed into mortices or grooves and fastened
by the pegs h, b. r, c, are two movable pieces,
an inch wide, upon which the movable doors
3 e 2 629

HONEY.

HONEY.

rest, d, small slats fastened into the sides of
the hive by mortices. These serve to prevent
the doors from touching the honeycomb. Each
range of frames has one of these slats.

e, "e, e, are small frames in which the bees
work and deposit their honeycombs. These
frames are notched or scooped out circularly
upon the lower side, as well as upon both edges
of the front end,' as represented in fig. 2. The
opening left by the hollow in the lowermost
side serves for the bees to enter from beneath,
whilst the hollows on the two sides of the front
end of the frame admits the movements of the
bees to be observed. These frames are thin ;
their thickness, however, is not arbitrary, but
must be made to correspond to the size and
form which the bees give to their combs.
When placed side by side the frames must not
touch, but a small space is to be left between
to allow a little play, and prevent them from
wedging together and becoming tight in warm
weather, when the wood swells.

/,/,/, are three places of entrance for the
bees, furnished with slides. These are so ar-
ranged that the middle one comes exactly in
the middle of its compartment ; the upper one
is an inch higher than the upper slat; whilst
the lower opening is an inch lower than the
lowermost slat.

h (fig. 3) is a grating to be used in autumn,
when it may be desired to separate the empty
parts from those filled with comb. This grating,
or adaptei; remains in contact with the bees.
g (fig. 4) represents a small board, which is to
be placed on top of the grating.

Fig. 5 is a transverse section, in w^hich may
be seen the places of entrance, /, the depth of
the frames, a, and at c, one of the combs.

The various kinds of hives, constructed in
sections or compartments, may be divided into
two classes, namely, — those in which the divi-
.sions are made either horizontally or vertically.
The first are founded upon the well-known ne-
cessity for allowing space for the new combs ;
the second from the advantage derived from
separating the swarms artificially. To carry
out these plans, very complicated contrivances
have generally been employed, whilst the Rus-
sian hive effects every necessary object to be
gained from section or division hives.

The leading principle of the Russian hive,
which, it will be seen, is quite plain in con-
struction, and economical as to first cost, —
consists in its capacity to be reversed or turned
upside down, a very simple operation, which,
however, leads to the most important results in
the management of bees.

Reversing the hive not only allo\i^s of the
perfect renewal of the wax, but furnishes an
opportunity of inspecting every thing passing
within, by means of the movable doors, and
at the same time, of conducting all the opera-
tions at pleasure, thus uniting all the advan-
tages of the two systems of horizontal and ver-
tical section hives, such as the separation of
swarms, &c.

By means of the operation of reversing, the
bee-manager who introduces a swarm into the
Russian hive, will, during three years, be able
to withdraw each year one of the three divi-
sions alternately, or one-third of the whole
630

I mass of honey deposited ; at the end of the
period mentioned, he will have thus produced
a perfect renewal of the wax; that is to say, at
this time he will be obliged to reverse or turn
up the hive, the former bottom of which now
becomes the lop.

The mode in which M. Prokopovitsh ma-
nages to make his bees assort their honey
themselves, is efiected by means of a very
simple contrivance. Many others have de-
vised modes very similar to those adopted by
the Russian apiarian, but it is asserted that
their objects had not the same end, since they
only sought to obtain the virgin honey. No
one has before believed it practicable to pro-
cure honey of a uniform quality and which at
the same time is virgin honey. The idea
therefore originally belongs to M. Prokopo-
vitsh, who, whilst pursuing his apiarian stu-
dies, had it suggested to him by a plan adopted
by Huber for the mere purpose of being able
to watch the habits of bees.

The process of working the Russian hive is
as follows : In autumn, after having taken the
upper portion of the crop, when the amount of
honey admits this to be done, the part of the
hive thus left empty is separated from the rest
of the comb, by introducing the grating h, and
placing upon it the board g. In this state the
hive is conveyed to some suitable place to pass
the winter. The following summer, at the ar-
rival of the season when the plant from which
honey is to be collected is in flower, the board
is removed, and the frames e placed upon the
grating. These frames, which are made ot
very thin stuff, have a length equal to the
depth of the hive. Their height is about half
that of their length, and their width or thick-
ness ought not to exceed an inch and a half.

Two sides of the frame, have, as already
described, two notches or hollows which re-
duce their width. One of these is the long
side which comes in contact with the grating,
affording passage to the bees, whilst the other
is the end near the door which admits the
movements of the bees to be inspected. Be-
fore these frames are arranged in their places,
a little dry wax is to be stuck along the mid-
dle of the upper side of the frame, (the side
which is not scooped out). This is for the
purpose of directing the bees where they must
place their combs.

By the arrangement described, the bees
finding above them a vacant space, commence
their work in it, and finding in the flowers in
bloom sufficient material, fill the cases with
honey, and this they do with the more rapidity
from the circumstance of the queen's being
separated by a space not yet occupied by the
combs, and her inability to reach these to lay
her eggs in them. The cases in which the
honey is deposited are sealed up immediately,
the comb is observed to have reached the
lower part of the box, and before the queen
has had an opportunity of depositing in it any
eggs. The honey thus obtained is of remark-
able purity, and may be taken to market in the
same frames in which it was originally made.
These may even be packed up together in cases,
and transported in wagons to great distances,
without doing the least injury to tlic honey.

HONEY DEW.

HONEYSUCKLE.

HONEY DEW. See Aphidiaits.

HONEY LOCUST, or Sweet Locust {Gle-
ditsia triacanthos). The sweet locust belongs
peculiarly to the country west of the Alleghany
Mountains, and it is scarcely found in any part
of the Atlantic States, except in Limestone Val-
ley and its branches, which lie between the
first and second ranges of the Alleghanies, be-
ginning near Harrisburg in Pennsylvania, in
the latitude of 40° 42', and extending from
north-east to south-west into the state of Virgi-
nia. The soil in this valley is generally very
substantial. In the fertile bottoms which are
watered by the rivers emptying into the Mis-
sissippi, in the Illinois country, and, still more,
in the southern part of Kentucky and Tennes-
see, the sweet locust is abundant. It commonly
grows with the black walnut, shell-bark hick-
ory, red elm, blue ash, locust, box elder, and
coffee tree, and forms a part of the forests th.at
cover the most fertile soils. In different parts
of the United States, this species is called in-
differently sweet locust and honey locust ; the
French of Illinois call it fevier.

In situations the most favourable to its
growth, such as are observed on the banks
of the Ohio, between Gallipolis and Limestone,
the sweet locust attains a very ample size.
Michaux measured several stocks which were
three or four feet in diameter, and which ap-
peared to equal in height the loftiest trees of
these immemorial forests. Some of them had
the trunk undivided for forty feet.

The sweet locust is easily known by its bark,
which, at intervals of a few inches, detaches
itself laterally in plates three or four inches
wide and two or three lines thick, and by the
form of its trunk, which appears to be twisted,
and which presents three or four crevices of
inconsiderable depth, opening irregularly from
the bottom towards the top. The large thorns
which cover the branches, and frequently the
trunk of young trees, afford another very dis-
tinct characteristic. These thorns are some-
times sevferal inches long, ligneous, of a reddish
colour, and armed, at some distance from the
base, with two secondary thorns, about half the
size of the first.

The leaves of the sweet locust are pinnated,
and composed of small, oval, serrate, sessile
leaflets. This foliage is elegant, and of an
agreeable tint ; but it is thin, and scarcely ob-
structs the passage of the sunbeams. It is shed
annually at the approach of winter.

The flowers are small, not very conspicuous,
and disposed in bunches. The fruit is in the
form of flat, crooked, pendulous pods, from
twelve to eighteen inches long, and of a reddish-
brown colour. The pods contain brown, smooth,
hard seeds, enveloped in a pulpy substance,
which, for a month after their maturity, is very
sweet, and which then becomes extremely sour.
Beer is sometimes made by fermenting this
pulp while fresh; but the practice is not gene-
ral, as the apple tree and peach tree, particu-
larly the last, have become common in the
western country, and afford a much superior
beverage.

The perfect wood or heart of the sweet locust
nearly resembles that of the locust, but its grain
is coarser and its pores more open : in these

respects it is more strikingly characterized
than even the wood of the red oak. When
perfectly seasoned, it is extremely hard. It is
little esteemed in Kentucky, where it is more
employed, and consequently can be better ap-
preciated, than elsewhere. It is used neither
by the carpenter nor the wheelwright: it is
sometimes taken by the farmers for rails to
fence their fields, but only when they are unable
to procure better wood. It is found by expe-
rience to be far inferior to the wild cherry and
black walnut for cabinet-making. The only
destination for which it appears to be pecu-
liarly adapted, is the forming of hedges, which
would be rendered impenetrable by its long
thorns.

The sweet locust has been cultivated for
many years in Europe. It tlourishes, blooms,
and yields seed in the climates of London and
Paris ; but its vegetation is less active than in
the south of France. (Michatix.)

HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera, named after
Adam Lonicera, a German botanist, who died
in 1586). This is a genus of very ornamental
shrubs, closely allied to the genus Capn/olium.
The species grow in any common soil, and are
readily increased by cuttings taken off in au-
tumn and planted in a sheltered situation.
(Pax/o/t's Bot. Did.)

In the English Flora, by Dr. Smith, three in-
digenous species are described.

There are five hardy sorts of honeysuckle
mentioned by Miller; namely, the Virginian
trumpet honeysuckle (L. setnpervirens), Ihe Ger-
main honeysuckle, the Italian honeysuckle, the
English honeysuckle or woodbine (Z. pericly'
mentim), and the evergreen honeysuckle. He
names also three other sorts, which are too
tender to raise without artificial heat.

There are two varieties of the trumpet ho-
neysuckle; one is a native of Virginia, and the
other is from Carolina. The Virginia trumpet
honeysuckle is hardier, its leaves are of a
darker green, and its flowers are a deeper red
than the Carolina. These plants are weak and
trailing; they should therefore be placed against
walls and trellis-work.

The German or Dutch honeysuckle is a hardy
shrub, which can be formed into a good round
head : the flowers are reddish outside and yel-
lowish within, blooming in June, July, and
August. Miller mentions two varieties of this
honeysuckle, the "long blowing" and the "late
red."

The Italian honeysuckle has two varieties,
the "early white," which is fragrant, but of
short duration, blooming in May; and the "yel-
low," which bears yellowish flowers, and is
succeeded by red berries.

The American or evergreen honeysuckle is
the most valuable, for it flowers from June till
the frost nips its blooms. It has strong branches
bearing evergreen leaves and fragrant flowers,
which are bright-red outside and yellow within.

All the sorts are propagated by layers or by
cuttings. The plants produced from cuttings
are the best rooted, and should be done in Sep-
tember. Each cutting should have four joints,
and only one joint should be left above ground.
The honeysuckle loves almost any soil, pro-
vided it be not too dry. See Rhododenuhon.

631

^ HONEYSUCKLE.

HOP.

HONEYSUCKLE, FRENCH (Hedysarum).
Almost all the species of this genus are very
hatidsome flowering plants, producing racemes
of very beautiful pea flowers, particularly
adapted for borders or rock-work. Miller men-
tions nineteen sorts. The greater number are
perennials. The most general species in Eng-
lish gardens is the H. coronanum, which blooms
bright-red flowers, and a variety of it, which
blooms white flowers, both flowering in June
and July. They are propagated by sowing
seed in the spring in light garden mould, and
transplanting the young plants into their des-
tined places in autumn. The herbaceous kinds
are increased by dividing the roots.

HOOF. The horny part which covers the
feet of many valuable quadrupeds. It is either
cloven, as in cattle, or entire, as in the horse.
In the horse it is that portion of the foot which
is composed of the crust or wall, the bars, the
sole, and the horny frog. There is no frog in
the foot of cattle, nor are there the provisions
for the expansion and elasticity of the foot
•which w^e admire in the horse. There is a la-
minated connection between the hoof of the ox,
and the sensible parts beneath, as in the horse;
but the horny plates of the hoof, and the fleshy
ones of the substance which covers the coffin-
bone, are not so wide and deep, and therefore
the attachment between the hoof and foot is not
so strong. The hoofs of cattle are used for
making starch and Prussian blue, as they will
not make glue or soap like the heels. (Cattle,
p. 568 ; The Horse, p. 281.)

HOOP-ASH. See Hackrerrt.

HOOVE. See Cattle, Diseases of.

HOP {Hamulus lupulus). This is a well-
known climber, supposed to be indigenous to
England, plants of it being found in hedgerows
and waste places. The ancients were not un-
acquainted with the hop. It is mentioned by
the Arabian physician Mesue, who lived about
845 ; and it was used for beer in Flanders in
1500. The female flowers, indeed, have been
long used in many parts of Europe for the pur-
pose of imparting a flavour to beer. It was
not, however, cultivated in England for this
purpose until about the year 1525; and as the
Reformation was then in progress, the intro-
duction of the hop is perpetuated by the follow-
ing doggerel :

Hops, heresy, pickerel, and beer

Were brought into England in one year.

In 1528 the parliament was requested to prohi-
bit its use, as an unwholesome weed that would
spoil the taste of beer. It is mentioned for the
first time in 1552 in the statute-book, in the
5 Edward VI. c. 5 (repealed 5 Eliz. c. 2) ; an
act directing that land formerly in tillage should
again be so cultivated, but excepting, amongst
other ground, " land set with saffron or hops ;"
and down to the year 1693 hops were imported
from Flanders in considerable quantities. In
1578 Reynold Scott published a curious little
work on the cultivation of the hop, which is
now rare: it was entitled, "A Perfite Platforme
of a Hoppe Garden," in which the directions
for the cultivation of the hop are given with
considerable care.

The chief counties in which the hop is now
cultivated in England, are those of Kent,
632

Sussex, Surrey, Worcester, and Essex; but the
hop-gardens of these counties are only situated
in particular portions.

The hop plant delights in a rich loam, or
calcareous sand ; and when these are situated
on a calcareous bed, the plants will continue
to flourish for many years; but otherwise ten
or tw^elve years is about the limit of their con-
tinuance in perfection. Under favourable cir-
cumstances, as on the Kentish ragstone, the
roots of the hop plant extend in some instances
to a depth of eight or ten feet. The hop plant
is usually raised from cuttings in the spring.
"In the early part of the spring," says Mr.
Lance, " the old root begins to bud or shoot
from the old stump of the last year's bine,
which will have two or more buds; the crown
of the root is then cleared, and these old stumps
are cut off, or most part of them, the hole co-
vered up, and the crown of the root throws up
additional shoots to be tied up the poles. The
plant is therefore said to have an annual stem,
but a perennial root. The cuttings, or old
stumps, are bedded for a season, to make roots
the best way they can from the edge of the cut-
ting: the plant being exceedingly tenacious of
life, every portion of the crown cutting that has
a bud will grow and throw out roots from the
extremity of the woody cutting; they will make
a circle of roots when healthy, and throw up
bine from the eyes or buds at the surface of
the ground, and other roots will issue from
under the eyes. The shoots of the former year
that may have become covered with earth will
make plants as layers, throwing out many
fibrous roots before they are cut off from the
stump or crown. This is often the most suc-
cessful method of obtaining plants, although it
may in some measure weaken the old root;
but the layer gets the plants a year more forward,
as the roots are already formed when the plant
is taken from the old stock ; but if all the su-
pernumerary shoots are cut off after the prin-
cipal ones are well up the pole, then there can
be no suckling plants formed. There are se-
veral varieties of the hop," adds Mr. Lance,
"named according to the colour of the bine,
the hanging of the fruit, or local circumstances.
The grape-hop takes its name from the hang-
ing of the strobiles; the cluster being close
together, like a bunch of grapes. Those named
from the bine are the green, the white, the red.
Others are named from places, as the Canter-
bury grape, the Farnham bell, the Mayfield
grape ; and some few are named from the per-
sons who have raised them from seed, as Wil-
liams's white bine, at Farnham, being first
raised by a gentleman of that name at Badshot
Place, about the year 1780. This is the variety
now principally cultivated at Farnham, and
may be said to be one of the causes which
make that place so famed for hops, they being
purchased with avidity by the brewers of the
west of England."

The qualities of the hop regarded by the
dealers are the colour, scent, seed, and glutinous
touch. The colour, which should be a light
green, is attained either by a very careful and
early picking, or by exposing the hops when
they are drying to the action of fumes of sul-
phur. By exposure to the air, however, the

HOP.

HOP.

natural brown colour of the hops thus treated
returns ; and hence the Farnham hops are
often preferred by the brewers of pale ale, be-
Icause the colour is not apt to alter,
j About 60 to 100 bushels of the picked hops
are required for a cwt. of dried hops in the bag;
but this varies with circumstances. When
there is an abundance of plump, well-formed
seed, from 40 to 70 bushels will form a cwt.
A bag of hops will weigh about 2^ cwts., and
a Kent pocket about H cwt. The produce of
an acre of hops will sometimes amount to 24
cwt., but the average is about 10 cwt. The
hop plant is subject to many diseases, to the
attacks of caterpillars and other insects, to
mildew, and to a variety of atmospherical in-
fluences, which renders it ever the sport of the
weather, and occasions the proverbial uncer-
tainty of the crop.

In the culture of the hop, a deep soil is pre-
ferable, and many powerful fertilizers may be
had recourse to. There is, perhaps, no plant
which delights more in those of an oily nature
than the hop. The Kentish growers of the
valley of the Medway successfully employ
large quantities of sprats, for which they rea-
dily give lOt/. per bushel. They use from 40
to 60, or more, bushels per acre. Other plant-
ers employ woollen rags, chopped into small
pieces, from 1 to 2 tons per acre. They last
for 2 years. These cost about 5/. 5». per ton.
Salt, also, is an excellent addition, in conjunc-
tion with these, at the rate of from 10 to 1.*)
bushels per acre.

The plants are usually placed on hills, at the
distance of 5 or 6 feet, and this is usually done
early in the spring, about the end of March.
The first year's poles may be about 6 feet in
length, but twelve feet poles are afterwards
needed. Two or three of these are commonly
placed on a hill : they are generally set in the
ground in the end of April. About 500 fresh
poles are annually required per acre, to keep
up the stock of poles, and supply the place of
those broken or otherwise destroyed.

The ground in hop gardens can hardly be
too much stirred over. The drying of the hops
is effected soon after they are picked. For the
despatch of drying, a thickness of from 1 to 2
feet of hops are placed on the kiln floor, and a
fire of culm or Welch coal, coke, charcoal, or
other material that gives out no smoke, is made
in an open fireplace, with only a perforated
hood over it; or, if the kiln fireplace is enclosed,
and the smoke-flue is made to pass round the
building, any firing may be used : but the neat-
est and cleanest method is by passing hot water
through pipes, close beneath the drying-floor.
About 100 to 200 bushels are commonly dried
at once in the ordinary-sized hop-kilns. Con-
siderable quantities of sulphur are sometimes
added to the fire, sometimes as much as a cwt.
to a ton of hops. About 98 to 112 degrees of
heat is that commonly employed in the drying,
and the cost of the process is about 14s. per cwt.

In bagging the hops, great care is requisite
to tread them as close as possible ; for the more
completely the air is excluded, the better the
hops will keep.

The dried hop has been analyzed, and found
to contain lupuline, a bitter principle, opisniy a
80

fatty astringent matter, gum, chlorophylle, and lig-
nin. In the grains of the lupuline a volatile oil
is deposited. The salts of iron, gelatin, chloride
of barium, and oxalate of ammonia, cause pre-
cipitates in the decoction of the hop. As a me-
dicinal agent, hops display tonic and narcotic
properties. A pillow of hops is supposed to be
a good soporific, and was obtained for George
III. when a lunatic. The extract has been
found to allay pain ; but, after all, it is better
as an adjunct to beer than as a medicine.

In England, the expense of i cwt. of hops, if
purchased on the poles (says Mr. Lance,) may
be thus stated : —

The duty -- - - - - - -0

Picking --......0

Bags ...0

Drying ---._-. _0

Uaggjiig -- 0

Cartage ----...-0

Hale 0

1 18 9

The following are the expenses and produce
of 4 acres of hop ground in Mid-Kent, in 1836 : —

Rent and taxea on 4 acres, at 40f. . . .

Culture labour, at 50«. . . . - .

Repair of [lolea ......

Dunging, at 40«. ..-._.
Picking 4,333 bushels, at? for 1«. . . .

Drying, labour only . . . . _

39 pocket.o, making, marking, sifting, and

treadini;, at l«. 2i<.
Pole pullers, measurer, and expenses -
Pocket cloth --.._._
Charcoal ----..--

i^ulphur and lime ..--..
Rent of kiln --...-.
Interest on (irst years' expenditure
Duty on 64 cwts., at 18«. 8<<. .
Tithe -..-._

8 0

10 0

4 0

8 0

23 15

3 IS

- 59 14
-40

147 10 6

The produce, 64 cwt., at 6/. IDs. 416/.

The average produce of hops from 1807 to
1836, as shown in a table from the work of Mr.
Lance on the hop, is 5^ cwt. per acre, the
highest product in one year having averaged
for the crop 12 y^Oj cwt. in 1808, and the lowest

Number of Acret of Hops

in cultivation.

Naof 1 Nn.of

AT.rmr<

Presumed ac-

Acrctetti-I Acre*

price of

tual value, in

Ymt.

nuitdio

initw

the

cludiDK the

England,

CUy».

country.

duty.

L. $.

,

I..

1820

50.H8

694

3 17

10

753,110

1821

45.662

691

4 4

6

1,000,000

IS22

43,554

672

3 12

5

1,221,985

1823

41.458

6TI

10 0

0

446,038

1824

43,449

670

7 0

0

1,847,960

1825

46,718

709

23 0

0

805,874

1826

50,471

715

4 4

0

2,010,590

1827

49,485

715

4 12

0

1,360,835

1828

48,365

711

5 5

0

1,813,680

1829

46.135

702

9 0

n

656.125

1830

46,7-J6

704

10 10

10

1,509,560

1831

47.129

712

5 15

0

1,767,324

1832

47,101

714

9 0

0

2,114,545

1833

49,187

720

6 0

0

1,841,610

1834

51,273

726

5 10

10

1,974.010

]8;<5

53,816

734

5 0

6

2,406,610

1836

55,422

757

8 10

10

3,155,832

1837

56,323

759

4 10

15

l.ti47,396

18.38

56,104

749

5 0

0

1,753.120

1839

52,365

8 3

12

1,241,252

The number of acre.* devoted to the cultiva-
tion of the hop has long been steadily on the

633

HORDEIN.

HORN.

increase since 1693; when they were first suc-
cessfully cultivated in Kent; in 1807, it was
found that the hop-grounds throughout Eng-
land amounted to 38,218 acres: these had in-
creased to 46,293 acres in 1817, to 49,485 in
1827, and to 56,323 acres in 1837; they had
decreased however in 1839 to 52,365.

Hops are extensively and advantageously
cultivated in some parts of the United States.
Gurdon Avery, in the village of Waterloo,
Oneida county, N. Y., raised in 1842, on 12
acres of land, 29,937 lbs. of hops.

The hop is also well known as a garden
plant. It blows its flowers from June till Au-
gust, and is propagated by seed and by dividing
the roots. It likes a deep loamy soil, and is
valuable as an ornamental climber over tem-
porary arbours, trellis, &c. in summer, as its
leaves are very large, and make a fine shade.
The "white bind" and the "gray bind" are the
best sorts for this purpose ; they succeed each
other.

The young shoots of the hop are eaten as a
depurative ; the flowers, besides their bitter
narcotic qualities, are diuretic and sedative.

HORDEIN. A modification of starch, which,
according to Proust, constitutes about 55 per
cent, of barley-meal.

HORDEUM. The barley-grasses. Besides
the species of cultivated barley enumerated in
the article under that head, there are three in-
digenous species which grow wild in Eng-
land.

Hordcum murinum. Wall-barley, mouse-bar-
ley, or way-bennei grass.

This is an annual grass, with a fibrous root,
supporting a number of culms 12 to 18 inches
high, procumbent at the base, afterwards erect,
with three or four joints. Spikes-brittle, two
or three inches long, flowers placed in two
rows. This is one of the most inferior grasses
with respect to nutritive powers ; and the long
awns, with which it is armed must make it
dangerous to the mouths of horses, when it
enters into the composition of their hay. For-
tunately it is uncommon in pastures, being
chiefly confined to roadsides and other beaten
or barren places. I never could observe this
grass eaten by cattle of any description, not
even by the half-starved animals which feed
by roadsides, where, in England, this is often
the most prevalent grass. Dr. Withering,
however, says, it is eaten by sheep and horses,
and that it feeds the brown moth (Phalmia
granella), and the barle)'-fly (Musca frit.) The
nutritive matter afforded by this grass consists
chiefly of mucilage and extractive matter inso-
luble after the evaporation of a decoction of it.
It flowers in England about the first week of
July, and the seed is ripe towards the end of
the same month.

Hordcum praiense. Meadow barley-grass.
PI. 5, d. This species has some affinity to the ;
wall barley-grass in appearance, but differs
from it in being strictly perennial ; and in !
having the culms more slender, much taller,
and erect, and the sheaths roundish ; the spike
(about two inches long) is also slender in com-
parison with that of the H. murinum, and of a
purple or greenish hue, while that of the wall
barley-grass is of a dirty yellow. The husks ,
634

of the calyx are bristle-shaped, rough, but not
ciliate, and the awns much shorter.

This is a very hardy grass, which is tolera-
bly early in the spring produce of foliage, and
its nutritive powers are considerable. Though
said to be partial to dry chalky soils, I have
always found this grass most prevalent on
good rich meadow ground ; it thrives under
irrigation, and there are but few pastures in
which it is not to be found. The Rev. G.
Swayne observes, that in moist meadows it
produces a considerable quantity of hay, but is
not to be recommended as one of the best
grasses for the farmer. It is liable to the same
objection as the last, viz., the long sharp awns
with which the spikelets are armed, rendering
it dangerous to the mouths of cattle by stick-
ing in small fragments to their gums and pro-
ducing inflammation. In England it flowers
in July, and the seed is ripe in August.

Hordcum maritimum. Sea-barley, or squirrel-
tail grass. This species is annual in its habit,
and grows in pastures and sandy ground near
the sea. It most resembles H. murinum in ge-
neral habit, but is on the whole rather smaller,
and more glaucous. The awns are all rougher,
with minute bristly teeth. The plant is not of
common occurrence, although it abounds in
the isle of Thanet. (Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 179;
Hort. Grant. Wob.)

HOREHOUND, WATER. One of the names
of the common gipsy-wort (Lycopus Europceus) ;
which see.

The plant called by this name in the United
States, is the L. sinuatus, which frequents the
low grounds of Pennsylvania and other Middle
States. (Flora Cestrica.)

HOREHOUND, WHITE (Marrubium vuU
gore, from mairob, a Hebrew word, signifying a
bitter juice ; in allusion to the extreme bitter-
ness of the plant). This species grows in
rubbish by roadsides, in dry waste grounds,
and on commons, flowering from July to Sep-
tember. The stem is bushy, branching from
the bottom, bluntly quadrangular, clothed with
fine woolly pubescence. The shape and size
of the leaves varies; the flowers are white, in
dense convex whorls. The whole herb has a
white or hoary aspect, and a very bitter, not
unpleasantly aromatic, flavour. Its extract is
a popular remedy for coughs and asthmatic
complaints; hence also the celebrity of hore-
hound-tea among the common people. Bees
collect honey from the flowers ; but the herb
is not eaten by any of the domestic animals.

Any common soil will suit these plants, and
they are readily increased by divisions of the
roots, or by seeds. (Eng. Flor. vol. iii. p. 103 ;
Paxtov's lot. Did.)

HORN". A hard substance, growing on the
heads of various animals, which partakes of
the chemical nature of the cartilaginous part
of bone ; it consists chiefly of albumen, with
some gelatin and a trace of phosphate of lime.

The horn of the ox is composed of an elon-
gation of the frontal bone, covered by a hard
coating, originally of a gelatinous nature. Its
base is a process or continuation of the frontal
bone, and it is, like that bone, hollow and
divided into numerous compartments or cells,
all of them communicating with each other.

HORNBEAM.

HORNED-POPPY.

and lined by a continuation of the membrane !
of the nose. The bone of the horn is exceed- \
ingly vascular, and hence, when broken, the '
haemorrhage is so great that there could
scarcely be more bleeding from the amputa- j
tion of a limb. The rings on the horns of j
cattle have been considered as forming a cri-
terion by which to determine the age of the ox. j
At three years old the first distinct one is usu-
ally observed ; at four years old, two are seen;
and afterwards one is added each succeeding
year. Thence was deduced the rule, that if
two were added to the number of rings the age
of the animal would be given. These rings,
however, are perfectly distinct in the cow only;
in the ox they do not appear until he is five
years old, and they are often confused : in the
bull they are either not seen until five, or they
cannot be traced at all. As a criterion of age,
this process of nature is far too irregular for
any certain dependence to be placed upon it,
and the rings are easily effaced by a rasp.
The length of the horn — whether classed as
long horns, short horns, or middle horns — now
forms the distinguishing character of the dif-
ferent breeds of cattle. The oxen of the north-
ern part of central Africa, although smaller
than the majority of the English cattle, have
horns that are nearly four feet in length, and
■will contain more than ten quarts. The Bur-
mese oxen, which are much larger, have sin-
gular horns of a half spiral form, very soft,
the pair together scarcely weighing 4 pounds ;
yet Captain Clapperton tells us, they are 3 feet
7 inches in length, 2 feet'in circumference at
the base, and 1 foot 6 inches midway towards
the tip. Some of the true Arnee buffaloes at
Bengal, and the Abyssinian cattle, have also
enormous horns. The horns of cattle are ap-
plied to a variety of purposes ; for making
combs, knife-handles, the tops of whips, sub-
stitutes for glass in lanterns, glue, and the
refuse chippings are used as manure.

The Iceland sheep sometimes carry five or
six horns. (Youatt on Cattle, p. 278—283.)

HORNBEAM {Carpinus belulus, from the
Celtic car, wood, and pinda, head, the wood
being fit for the yokes of cattle). A rigid tree
of humble growth, patient of cropping, and well
suited for hedges or covered walks in gardens
of the old style, some of which may still be
seen attached to several old English mansions.
In England fashion has entirely swept away the
hornbeam, which composed the labyrinth, the
maze, the alleys, the verdant galleries, arcades,
porticoes, and arches of our forefathers, and
which formed the leafy walls that divided their
stately gardens into stars, goose-foot avenues,
and devices as numerous as geometrical figures
are various. When standing by itself and
allowed to take its natural form, the hornbeam
makes a much more handsome tree than most
people are aware of, growing from 12 to 30
feet high. It is found in woods and hedges, on
a meager, damp, tenacious soil, and makes a
principal part of the ancient forests on the
north and east sides of London, as Finchley,
Epping, ifcc. The wood is, as Gerarde -says,
of a horny toughness and hardness: the bark
smooth and whitish or light gray. Leaves re-
sembling those of an elm, but smooth, doubly

serrated, pointed about two inches long, plaited
when young, having numerous, parallel trans-
verse hairy ribs.

Young trees are raised from seeds or layers
without difficulty. It is known by diflerent
local names, such as the hard beam tree, the
horse, or horn beech tree, &c. The leaves of
the hornbeam afford a grateful food to cattle,
but no grasses will grow under their shade.
The wood burns like a candle, is much em-
ployed by turners, and is very useful for various
implements of husbandry, being wrought into
cogs for the wheels of mills, presses, &c. which
are far superior to those made of yew.

There are two trees in the United States
which go under the common appellation of
hornbeam, namely, the water beech (Carpinus
Jlviericana of Michaux, Belulus Virginica of
Marsh,) and the hop hornbeam, more generally
known by the name of ironwood (the Ostrya
Virginica of Darlington, and Carpinus ostrya
of Michaux and others).

The water beech is the only known species
of the Carpinus genus in the United States. It
is found along the margins of rivulets in the
Middle States, where it attains the height of
only 10 or 20 feet, with 2 to 5 inches in dia-
meter, irregularly and obtusely ridged, and
sulcate, often branching from the root. It
bears a broad ovoid nut, somewhat flattened,
smooihish, and dark brown.

The ironwood, or hop hornbeam grows from
20 to 40 feet high, and 4 to 10 inches in dia-
meter, with a brown, roughish, slightly fissured
bark, and slender branches. It bears a nut
seated in the bottom of a sac, 3 or 4 lines in
length, somewhat compressed, smooth, shining,
of a pale olive colour, with a leaden tinge.
This tree is of very slow growth, and its wood,
as its name implies, is very hard, which adapts
it to the various useful purposes enumerated
in the description of the English hornbeam.

HORN BUG. A kind of beetle. The largest
of these beetles, in the New England States,
was first described by Linnaeus under the name
of Lxtcanus capreolus, signifying the young roe-
buck ; but here it is called the horii bug. Its
colour is a deep mahogany brown ; the surface
is smooth and polished; the upper jaws of the
male are long, curved like a sickle, and fur-
nished internally beyond the middle with a little
tooth ; those of the female are much shorter,
and also toothed ; the head of the male is
broad and smooth, that of the other sex nar-
rower and rough with punctures. The body
of this beetle measures from one inch to one
inch and a quarter, exclusive of the jaws. The
time of its appearance is in July and the be-
ginning of August. The grubs live in the
trunks and roots of various kinds of trees, but
particularly in those of old apple trees, wil-
lows, and oaks.

Several other and smaller kinds of stag-
beetles are found in New England, but their
habits are much the same as those of the more
common horn bug. (Hanis.)

HORNED-POPPY (Glandum, from glaukos,
alluding to the hoary gray colour of the plants).
A genus of very pretty annuals, or biennials,
some of which are particularly handsome in
the flower borders of the garden, where they

635

HORNET.

HORSE.

flower and ripen seed in abundance, which has
only to be sown in the open border. The lol-
lowincr are the English species.

.1. Yellow horned-poppy (G. luteum). This
^is a biennial, growing wild on the sandy sea-
coast, producing golden-yellow flowers in July
and August.

2. Scarlet horned-poppy (G. phxnicmm).
This is a very rare, or, as Smith observes,
perhaps doubtful native. It is annual in habit,
the root is tapering, the herb rather less glau-
cous, and more upright than the preceding.
The .flower-stalks and calyx are hairy. The
petals are smaller and narrower than those of
the last described species, and of a rich scarlet,
with an oblong black spot at the base. The
pod is clothed with numerous rigid, silky
bristles.

Violet horned-poppy (G.violacmm). This is
an annual met with sometimes, but not fre-
quently, in grainfields. The root is slender,
stem erect, a foot high, round, even, and quite
smooth ; leaves dark green, twice or thrice
pinnatifid; flowers of a brilliant violet blue,
very splendid, but extremely fugacious, some-
what larger than the last ; pods 2 or 3 inches
long, cylindrical, more or less clothed with
bristly prickles. (Eng. Flor. vol. iii. p. 6 ; Pax-
ton's Fot. Diet.)

HORNET {Vespa crabro). A well-known
fierce insect, which is about one inch in length,
and builds its nest in hollow trees. The sting
of the hornet is severe, and occasions a con-
siderable tumour, accompanied with intense
pain ; for the mitigation of which, there is no
better remedy than sweet oil, or honey water
immediately applied to the place. Hornets are
very dangerous enemies to bees, which they
attack and consume entirely, except the wings
and feet: they are also very destructive to
fruit.

The American hornet is the Vespa maculata
of naturalists. Instead of building their nests
in hollow trees, the American hornets are na-
tural paper-makers, and manufacture water-
tight nests of paper, which they construct
around the branches of trees or shrubs where
they appear as large globes, sometimes a foot
or more in diameter. The material of these
nests consists of the fibres of wood, prepared
by the insects, and wrought into a substance
very similar to common brown paper made
of rags. Like others of the wasp family the
American hornet is a depredator upon fruit,
and comes about houses in search of flies.

HORNWORT (Ceratophyllum, from keras, a
horn, &nd phyllon, a leaf: the petals are cut so
as to appear like a stag's horn). These are
iininteresting water plants, thriving in any
pond, and easily raised from seeds. The com-
mon hornwort (C. demersum) is abundant in
ditches and fish-ponds; the herb floating
entirely under water, dark green, copiously
branched, 2 or 3 feet long, densely clothed with
whorled spreading forked leaves, eight in each
whorl, and axillary, solitary, sessile, pale green
flowers. The Iruit armed with two s^^eading
lateral spines. There is another indigenous
species the unarmed hornwort (C. submersum),
which is a more rare plant, and the fruit is
destitute of spines.
636

I There are two species of this plant found in
the United States. One of them (Ceratophyl-
lum demersum) is described by Darlington as
found in the waters of the Schuylkill, Brandy-
wine and tributaries ; the other (C snbmersuni)
is described by Messrs. Nuttall and Eaton.

HORSE, THE. The genus Eyvus, accord-
ing to modern naturalists, consists of six dif-
ferent animals, — viz. the Equus caballus, or
horse; E. hemionus, the dziggithai; E. asinus,
the ass ; E. quagga, the quagga ; E. zebra, or
mountain zebra ; and E. burchelli, the zebra of
the plains. It is only of the first that I shall
have to treat in this article.

Horse, the. This noble animal, there is little
doubt, is a native of the warm countries of the
East, where he is found wild in a state of con-
siderable perfection. It is there that we find
the barb and the Arab, noble races of horses
that have long mainly contributed to improve
the present English race-horse, until he has
arrived at his present state of unequalled per-
fection. The use of the horse, both as a beast
of burden, and for the purposes of war, early
attracted the attention of mankind. Thus the
Canaanites are recorded as having gone out to
fight against Israel with many horses and cha-
riots. (Joshua ii. 4.) And 1650 years b. c,
when Joseph proceeded with his father's body
into Canaan from Egypt, there accompanied
him both chariots and horsemen. (Gen. xix.)
They were fed in those days on b. * M Kings,
iv. 28) : and 150 years afterwards, * 'lariots
of Egypt are described as being exceedingly
numerous. The horse was early employed on
the course. 1450 years n. c. the Olympic
Games were established in Greece, at which
horses were used in the chariot and other
races.

Preserved from the flood waters in the ark,
the first breed of horses must have proceeded
from the neighbourhood of Mount Ararat; but
whether the original stock were first located in
Asia or in Africa is an inquiry which we have
no means of deciding. Equally ineflfectual are
all the attempts which have been made to de-
cide as to which variety of the horse constitutes
the original breed ; while some contend for the
barb, others prefer the wild horses of Tartary.
It is certain, howev^er, that so late as the se-
venth century there were but few horses in
Arabia; even now the breed is much more
limited in number, according to Burckhardt,
than is commonly supposed. He remarked, in
a letter to Professor Sewel, "It is a mistaken ^
idea that Arabia is very rich in horses; the
breed in that country is limited to the extent of
its fertile pasturing districts; and it is in these
parts only that the breed prospers ; while the
Bedouins, who are in possession of poor ground,
seldom possess any horses. We therefore see
that the tribes richest in horses are those who I
dwell in comparatively the fertile plain of !
Mesopotamia, on the borders of the Euphrates,
and in the Syrian deserts. It is there that the
horses can feed for several spring months
upon the green grass and herbs of the valleys
and plains, produced by the rains, which seem
to be an absolute requisite for its reaching to
its full vigour and growth." The care with
which the Arabs tend their horses is prover*

HORSE.

HORSE.

bial. " The Bedouins," adds Bu rckhardt, "when
a horse is born, never let it drop down to the
ground, but receive and keep it for several
hours upon their arms, washing it, stretching
and strengthening its limbs, and hugging it
like a baby." {Quart. Journ. of Jlgr. vol. vii. p.
577.) None were found either on the conti-
nent or on the islands of the New World. And
yet the large droves of wild horses which have
descended from the two or three mares and
stallions left by the early Spanish voyagers,
and which now abound in the plains of South
America, prove very clearly that the climate
and the soil of the New World are not adverse
to the propagation of the wild horse.

" The horse," says Professor Low (Illustra-
tions of the Ereeds of tlie Domestic Animals, part
ix.), " is seen to be affected in his character
and form, by the agencies of food and climate,
and it may be by other causes unknown to us.
He sustains the temperature of the most burn-
ing regions ; but there is a degree of cold at
which he cannot exist, and as he approaches
to this limit, his temperament and external
conformation are affected. In Iceland, at the
arctic circle, he has become a dwarf; in Lap-
land, at latitude 65°, he has given place to the
reindeer; and in Kamtschalka, at latitude 62°,
he has given place to the dog. The nature
and abundance of his food, too, greatly affect
his charjy^t^^iAnd form. A country of heaths
and innu/*^''"'ls herbs will not produce a horse
so largr .x^^trong as one of plentiful herbas:e.
The horse of the mountains will be smaller
than that of the plains ; the horse of the sandy
desert than of the watered valley."

Leaving, however, these interesting, but for
this work too extensive, researches, I propose
to direct rny attention to the English breed of
horses, and more especially to those which
come particularly within the farmer's pro-
vince.

From a very early period there appears to
have existed in England a powerful, active,
useful, and numerous breed of horses. Cassar,
perhaps with the natural inclination of a con-
queror to elevate the prowess of his defeated
enemies, gives a very lively account of the
horses used by the early Britons in their war
chariots; which, armed with iron scythes
affixed to their axletrees, were driven furiously
and destructively amid the ranks of their ene-
mies. And iPh be true, that when Cassibel-
launus had disbanded the chief portion of his
« army, he yet retained 4000 war chariots
to harass the foraging parties of the Roman
army ; the supply of good horses able to work
these heavy war chariots with sufficient speed
over the open country, and bad roads of that
period, must have been pretty considerable.

Of such imperfect materials is constituted all
the accounts in our possession, of the native
breed of English horses. That they were
valuable, is proved, amongst other things, by
the fact, that the Roman generals carried many
of them to Italy. The improvement of the
breed was an object of the early Saxon princes
of England. Aihelstan imported several Ger-
man running horses, and he even (930) prohi-
bited the exportation of those bred in England,
a decree, which of itself proves that they were

then in demand abroad. It is supposed that
oxen were, in his days, solely used for the
plough ; there is no early record of the horse
being used for such a purpose. The first no-
tice of a horse being employed in agriculture,
is in tapestry of Bayeux (woven in 1066),
where one is depicted drawing a harrow.

With William of Normandy came many
Spanish horses. His army was furnished with
a powerful cavalry, to whom he might well
attribute his hard-earned victory of Hastings.

In 1121, we have the first notice of an Ara-
bian horse being in Great Britain ; for in that
year, I find that Alexander I. of Scotland pre-
sented one to the church of St. Andrews.
King John procured from Flanders 100 stal-
lions, and is to be gratefully remembered for
other efllirts to improve the English breed of
horses. Edward II. and Edward III. also im-
ported horses from Lombardy, France, and
Spain. Henry VIIL did all he could to encou-
rage the breed. Race-courses were now esta-
blished at Chester and at Stamford. But ii
was not till the time of James I. that the mo-
dern system of racing, under certain rules and
regulations, commenced, and a peculiar breed
of race-horses began to be formed; for previous
to that time fast horses of all breeds ran in the
same race.

This noble breed of race-horses, which now
excels in beauty, speed, and endurance that of
all other nations, has been gradually formed
by the introduction of the best blood of Spain,
of Barbary, of Turkey, and of Arabia. It would
be a grateful task to follow the English race-
horse through his entire history, to trace his
progress by gradual yet steady degrees towards
perfection, his generous properties, his con-
tests, and his triumphs over the best horses of
Arabia, of Persia, and of the New World ; out-
footing the fleetest, and in endurance excelling
all that the proud nobles of Russia could pro-
duce of the best and most celebrated Cossack
horses of the banks of the Don. But in a work
devoted to agriculture, my attention must be
more directed to those valuable breeds of
horses generally employed by the farmer.

The Arabian horse is represented in PI. 13,
a ; the English racer, 6, reduced, from Profes-
sor Low's splendid work on British animals.
The English improved hackney, d.

The Cart Horse. — Of this description there
are several varieties, the principal of which are
the Cleveland, the Clydesdale, the Northamp-
tonshire, the Suffolk punch, and the heavy
black or dray horse.

The Clydesdale is a valuable breed of cart-
horses, bred chiefly in the valley of the Clyde
(hence their name). They are strong and
hardy, have a small head, are longer necked
than the Suff«)lk, with deeper legs, and lighter
carcasses. PI. 13, h.

The Suffolk Punch is a very valuable breed
of horses, especially for farms composed of
soils of a moderate degree of tenacity. They
originated by crossing the SuflTolk cart mare
with the Norman stallion. PI. 13, g.

"The true Suffolk," says the author of the

Lib. of Useful Know. (« The Horsed' p. 38), " like

the Cleveland, is now nearly extinct. It stood

from 15 to 16 hands high, of a sorrel colour

3H 637

HORSE.

HORSE,

was large-headed, low-shouldered, and thick
on the top, deep, and round-chested, long-
backed, high in the croup, large and strong in
the quarters, full in the flanks, round in the
leg&, and short in the pasterns. Ii was the very
horse to throw his whole weight into the collar,
with sufficient activity to do it effectually, and
hardihood to stand a long day's work. The
present breed possesses many of the peculiari-
ties and good qualities of its ancestors. It is
more or less inclined to a sorrel-brown : it is a
taller horse, higher, and finer in the shoulders,
and is a cross with the Yorkshire half or three-
fourths bred. The excellence, and a rare one,
of the old Suffolk (the new breed has not quite
lost it) consisted in nimbleness of action and
the honesty and continuance with which he
would exert himself at a dead pull even until
he dropped."

Tke heavy black horse is chiefly bred in Lin-
colnshire, and the midland counties. PI. 13, e.
These are commonly sold by the breeders at
two years old to the farmers of Surrey, and
other metropolitan counties, who work them
till they are four years old, and then sell them
to the London merchants for brewers' drays,
and other heavy carriages. "This kind of
horse," says the same excellent authority I
have just quoted, " should have a broad chest,
and thick and upright shoulders (the more up-
right the collar stands on him the better), a low
forehead, deep and round barrel, loins broad
and high, ample quarters, thick fore-arms and
thighs, short legs, round hoofs, broad at the
heels, and soles not too flat. The great fault
of the large dray horse is his slowness. This
is so much in the breed, that even the disci-
plined ploughman who would be better pleased
to get through an additional rood in the day,
cannot permanently quicken him. The largest
of this heavy breed of black horses are used as
dray hojses. The next in size are employed as
wagon horses; and a smaller variety, and with
more blood, constitutes a considerable part of
our cavalry ; and is likewise devoted to
undertakers' work." (Lib. of Useful Know. p.
46.)

" The dray horse," says Mr. Wilson, " probably
results from a fine carriage horse, possessed
of a certain portion of blood, and a very strong
well-formed mare of the country breed. The
gigantic proportions and immense powers of
these horses are only equalled by their intelli-
gence and docility. It may safely be said that
this breed of horses is not to be paralleled on the
face of the earth." {Quart. Journ. of Jlgr. vol.
ii. p. 34.)

Besides these valuable kinds of English
draught horses, there are a variety of mongrel
breeds employed by the farmers, especially in
the neighbourhood of London, and other large
towns, which it is needless to name, and diffi-
cult to describe. Aged or lamed cab horses,
the refuse of the London hackney coaches, &c.
may all be seen drawing the small farmers'
teams in the neighbourhood of London. An
English draught mare is represented at PI.
13, /, reduced, from Stephens's Book of the j
Farm.

Too little attention is generally paid, in fact, I
638

to the breeding of superior cart horses by the • ♦
farmer. The soil and the food which the dis- *
trict produces, has commonly more influence
upon the size of the animal than the choice of
the mare or the stallion ; and although by the
exertions of the Highland, and other Agricul-
tural Societies, the breed is now considerably
improved, yet still much more remains to be
effected in this way The Ayrshire Agricul-
tural Association, at a late meeting, deter-
mined upon the purchase of a Flemish stal-
lion, for the purpose of improving the breed in
Scotland, the Society being convinced that there
is a much better breed of draught horses in
Flanders than in any part of Great Britain. •

"The most important circumstance," says a
well-known author, " which influences the pro-
fits of the farmer, is the cost of his team and
the wages of his labourers. These vary in
different situations. In some parts of the
country the horses are pampered and kept so
fat that they can scarcely do a day's work as
they ought. In others they are overworked and
badly fed. Either extreme must be a loss to
the farmer. In the first case the horses cannot
do their work, and consume an unnecessary
quantity of provender, and, in the other, they
are soon worn out ; and the loss in horses that
become useless, or die, is greater than the
saving in their food, or the extra work done
by them. A horse properly fed wrilwork 8 or
10 hours every day in the wet Y'*f' 'xss; only
on Sundays. By a judicious ( . ,isi 'mof the
work of the horses, they are never ov^i Work^'d,
and an average value of a day's work is easily
ascertained. This, in a well-regulated farm,
will be found much less than the common
valuations give it."

The labour of a horse is commonly reckoned
equal to that of 5 men; he works, however,
only 8 hours, while a man works 10. It has
often been asserted that the powers of endu-
rance of a man are considerably greater than
that of a horse ; and in a hurdle race at Ips-
wich, in 1841, between a capital hunter carry-
ing 10 stones, and Townshend, a celebrated
runner, over 6 miles of ground, and 100 hurdle
leaps, the horse was easily beaten. In a
second trial, however, the horse came off the
winner. The power of a horse in pulling sel-
dom exceeds 144 lbs.; but he will carry from
500 lbs. to 1000 lbs. The power of a horse in
pulling, if equal to 144 lbs. at a rate of 2
miles an hour, would be reduced to 64 lbs. at 4
miles an hour, and to 36 lbs. at 6 miles. In
wheel carriages, on level roads, a horse will
draw easily about 15 times the power exerted.
A horse, in a single-horse cart, seems capable
of drawing his load to the greatest advantage,
and of late several improved single-horse carts
have been suggested. (See Carts ; and Jour,
of Roy. Agr. Sec. vol. ii. p. 73.) The single-
horse carts, both of London and Liverpool,
convey enormous weights over the paved
streets ; and at Paris a single horse draws 2
tons. The carriers between Edinburgh and
Glasgow, in carts weighing 7 cwt., convey a
ton of goods 22 miles a day with one horse.
The carriers of Normandy, with 4 horses, in
2-wheeled carts, weighing 1 1 cwt., convey from

'/.//6- /S.

British Horses

HORSE.

HORSE.

14 to 22 miles per day 4 tons of goods. See
Traction.

The Hunter. PI. 13, c. It has been said that
the hunter should be rarely under 15 or 16
hands high ; below this he cannot well stand
over his work, and above this he is apt to be
long-legged and awkward at his work. With
the increased speed of the hounds, and by the
enclosures increasing the powers of the coun-
try to retain the scent, the speed of the modern
hunters is much greater than that of the olden
time, when with slow hounds, and strong, ac-
tive horses, the country gentlemen had their
"meets" at break of day, and continued the
chase for hours. Hence it is now pretty gene-
rally agreed that the modern hunter should be
at least three-quarters bred. Many prefer the
thorough-bred horse, especially if he can be
procured with sufficient bone. The proper-
ties which a good hunter should possess, are
thus described in the Library of Useful Know-
ledge (T//C Horse, p. 51): "He should be light
in hand; for this purpose his head must be
small, his neck thin, and especially thin be-
neath his crest, firm and arched, and his jaws
wide. The head will then be well set on ; it
will form that angle with the neck which gives
a light and pleasant mouth. Somewhat of a
ewe-neck, hovrever it may lessen the beauty
of the race-horse, does not interfere with his
speed, because^ more weight may be thrown
forward •^T'lj^/isequently the whole bulk of
'the anin ^kW'^ easily impelled ; at the same
time the*^ jad is more readily and perfectly ex-
lei.ded, the windpipe is brought almost to a
straip'ht Hue from the lungs to the muzzle, and
the breathing is freer. Should the courser, in
consequence of this form of the neck, bear
more heavily on the hand the race is soon
over, but the hunter may be our companion
and our servant through a long day, and it is
of essential consequence that he shall not too
much annoy and tire us by the weight of his
head and neck. The forehead should be loftier
than that of the racer. A turf horse may be
forgiven if his hind quarters rise an inch or
two above his fore ones. His principal power
is wanted for behind, and the very lowness of
the forehead may throw more weight in front,
and cause the whole machine to be more
easily and speedily moved. A lofty forehead,
however, is indispensable in the hunter, the
shoulder as extensive as in the racer, as
oblique, and somewhat thicker ; the saddle will
then be in its proper place, and will continue
so, however long may be the run. The barrel
should be rounder, to give greater room for the
heart and lungs to play, and send more and
purer blood to the larger frame of this horse;
and especially more room to play when the
run may continue unchecked for a time that
begins to be distressing. A broad chest is an
excellence in the hunter. In the violent and
long-continued action of the chase, the respira-
tion is exceedingly quickened, and abundantly
more blood is hurried through the lungs in a
given time, than when the animal is at rest.
There must be sufficient room for this, or the
animal will be blown, and possibly destroyed.
The majority of horses that perish in the field

are narrow-chested. The arm should be as
muscular as that of the courser, or even more
so, for both strength and endurance are wanted.
The leg should be deeper than that of the race-
horse (broader as you stand at the side of the
horse), and especially beneath the knee. In
proportion to the distance of the tendon from
the cannon or shankbone, and more particu-
larly just below the knee, is the mechanical
advantage with which it acts. A racer may be
tied beneath the knee without perfectly de-
stroying his power, but a hunter with this
defect will rarely have stoutness. The leg
should be shorter than that of a race-horse, for
higher action is required of him, that the legs
may be cleanly and safely lifted over many an
obstacle, and particularly that they may be
well doubled up in the leap. The pastern
should be shorter, and less slanting, yet retain-
ing considerable obliquity. The long pastern
is useful by the yielding resistance which its
obliquity affords to break the concussion with
which the race-horse, from his immense stride
and speed, must come to the ground ; and the
oblique direction of the different bones beauti-
fully contributes to effect the same purpose.
With this elasticity, however, a considerable
degree of weakness is necessarily connected,
and the race-horse occasionally breaks down
in the middle of his course. The hunter, from
his different action, takes not this length of
stride, and therefore wants not all this elastic
mechanism; he more needs strength to sup-
port his own heavier carcass, the greater
weight of his rider, and to endure the fatigue
of a long day. Some obliquity, however, he
requires, otherwise the concussion even of his
shorter gallop, and more particularly of his
frequently tremendous leaps, would inevitably
lame him. The foot of the hunter is a most
material point, for it is battered over many a
flinty road and stony field, and if not particu-
larly good, will soon be disabled and ruined.
The position of the feet requires some atten-
tion in the hunter; they should, if possible,
stand upright. If they turn a little outward,
there is no serious objection, but if they turn
inward, his action can hardly be safe, particu-
larly when he is fatigued or over-weighted.
The body should be short and compact com- %
pared with that of the race-horse, that he may
not, in his gallop, take too extended a stride.
This would be a serious disadvantage in a long
day, and with a heavy rider, from the stress on
the pasterns ; and more serious efforts required
when going over clayey, poachey ground in the
winter months. The compact, short-strided
horse will almost skim on the surface, while
the feet of the longer-reached animal will sink
deep, and he will wear himself out by efforts to
disengage himself The loins should be broad,
the quarters long, the thighs muscular, the
hocks well bent, and under the horse." {Ibid.
p. 53.)

Galloways. A horse between 13 and 14
hands high is called a galloway. The name
originated from a beautiful race of little horses
once bred in Scotland, on the banks of the Sol-
way Frith. The pure galloway was distin-
guished for its speed and stoutness, and was

HORSE.

HORSE.

remarkably sure-footed. Horses of this kind
are very serviceable and useful; are capable
of performing a great deal of light active work,
and ^.re rarely so high-priced as the larger

'■'s. Of these there are an endless va-
riety, both in fine shape and value. The Welch
pony is perhaps the most beautiful of the class.
He has a neat small head andbarrel that is at
once round and deep, good feet, short, strong
joints, flat legs, with high withers. Some of
the most beautiful ponies of England are of this
breed.

The New Fo'resters are commonly very ill-
made, coarse, ragged, large-hipped, ugly ani-
mals, but active, enduring, hardy, and easily
maintained upon very coarse food. The same
remarks will pretty generally apply to those of
Exmoor and Dartmoor in Devonshire.

Of the Scotch breeds, the Highland is the
largest, and the most useful ; those of the
Shetland Isles, called in the north shelties, (PI.
13, k,) range between 7^ and 9^ hands in
height, are often small-headed, beautiful, good-
tempered, and docile. They have commonly
short necks, low and thick shoulders, short
backs, possess great strength, and will fatten
upon the coarsest food.

The Irish Horse. — In the rich grazing districts
of Roscommon and Meath, many large tho-
roughbred horses are reared, that were formerly
distinguished for their large, coarse, ragged,
rawboned appearance, but the breed has been
very materially improved by the introduction
of superior stallions and other means, so that
now many of the Irish horses claim an equality
with the best of those of England. The Irish
horse is commonly beautiful, fiery, yet good-
tempered, easily excited, of great endurance,
and perhaps the best leaper in the world. The
Irish Hunter is represented in PI. 13, i, from
Lowe's work on British animals.

Feeding Horses. — The best method of feeding
horses, especially those belonging to the farm,
is a question highly interesting to the farmer.
Many are the substances employed for this
purpose, such as oats, oatmeal, barley, bran,
beans, peas, potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips,
hay, sainfoin, clover, rye-grass, straw, grains,
and sometimes oil-cake : bruised gorse or furze
is excellent. The oats are best given when
bruised, the potatoes should be steamed and
mixed with chaff" and salt ; hay and straw are
economically cut into chaff". In many of the
stables about London, hay is never put into the
rack. Thus in the stables of Hanbury and
Truman, each horse is allowed per day 18 lbs.
of cut hay and straw (one-eighth of the latter),
14 lbs. of bruised oats, and 1 lb. of bruised
beans; half a pound of salt per week is also
given ; in summer the beans are withdrawn,
and the oats increased. In France the daily
rations allowed to the heavy cavalry horses
are, oats 10 lbs., hay 10 lbs., straw 10 lbs. ("On
the Norman Horse," Quart. Joiirn. of Jgr.)

Dr. Sully, of Wivelscombe, some years since,
gave the following statement of the different
articles of food which his horses received to
keep them in excellent condition. He, too, had
no racks in his stables. (Ibid. vol. ii. p.
726.)

640

1. Farinaceoua siibstances,

consisting of bruised or
ground beans, peas, bar-
ley, wlieai, or oals

2. Bran, tine or coarse

3. Boiled or steamed pota-

toes, mashed in a tub
with a wooden bruiser

4. Fresh grains (boiled bar-

ley) . - . .

5. Hay cut down into chaff -

6. Straw cut down into
chatr - - - -

7. Malt dust, or ground oil-

cake - - - -

With 2 02. salt for each class

10
2
.30

30

30

The advantage of cooking the food for horses
has been advocated by Mr. Dick, Ibid. vol. iii.
p. 1024; and in many cases is a practice highly
to be commended. An apparatus for steaming
food for horses with an engine is given, Ibid.
vol. vi. p. 33 ; and Mr. Fisher details the mode
of feeding them with potatoes. Com. Board of
Jlgr. vol. iv. p. 33.5. A machine for bruising
grain for horses is described in Quart. Journ.
of Agr. vol. V. p. 100.

The number of horses of all kinds in Eng-
land is estimated by Mr. M'Culloch, to be from
1,400,000 to 1,500,000, which, at an average
value of from 12/. to 15/., maljes fiieir total
value from 18,000,000/. to 22,500,qoO/. In 1832,
the riding-horse duty was paid xor 182,878
horses. {Com. Diet.)

It appears from the statement accompanying
the census of the United States in 1840, tiia^
the number of horses and mules in the Union
was 4,333,669.

The Wild Horse.— The horse is still found
wild in Africa, in Tartary, and in America, in
the Southern continent, of which last country
they are said to be sometimes found in droves
of iOjOOO. It is here that they seem to act bo;h
in self-defence, and for the attack of their ene-
mies, with a subordination and union of pur-
pose that is not a little curious. It seems that
they have some bold and strong horse for their
chief, who is their courageous leader in the
onset, the first to direct their retreat. They
close, at some intelligible signal, upon their
enemies, and trample them to death. These,
amongst the natives of America, are neither
very numerous nor dangerous. The leopard,
tiger, and lion of the New World are very in-
ferior animals to their namesakes of the olden
continents. Man is their greatest enemy; they
are hunted and captured by the Guachos with
their lassos, or even killed for their skins and
flesh, in considerable numbers. These wild
American horses are not particularly fast, but
they can endure great fatigue, and, when once
tamed, are exceedingly docile. Other wild
horses are found in various parts of the world,
but nowhere in a state of nature does he equal
the size, the form, the speed, or the strength of
the domesticated horse.

For an interesting account of the wild horses
of South America, see the Farmer's Register,
vol. ii.

Good keep and good management, indeed,
strangely improve the appearance of even liie

HORSE.

HORSE.

naturally poorest breeds. The ponies of Shet-
land, or the still more diminutive steeds of
China, when bred on rich English pastures,
rapidly increase in size. The horses of Arabia
do the same.

In the extensive territory of the United
States, several breeds of horses are found, the
characteristics of which are widely different.

The Canadian. This is one of the principal
races found in the Northern States, and is ge-
nerally considered of French or Norman de-
scent, many of the characteristics of which
are retained.

The Morgan horse. Perhaps the very finest
breed of horses in the United States, when
general usefulness is taken into consideration,
is what is comjnonly known in the Northern
and Eastern Slates, as the Morgan horse. This
breed is distinguished by its activity, united
with strength and hardiness. Its size is mo-
derate, and though not often possessing the
fleetness which recommends it to the sports-
man, it has enough speed to entitle it to the
appellation of a fast traveller. Their usual
height is from 14 to 15 hands, colour bay, make
round and rather heavy, with lean heads, broad
and deep chests, the fore-limbs set wide apart,
legs clean and sinewy, short, strong backs, with
that projection of the ribs from the back-bone
which is a sure indication of great develope-
ment of lungs, and consequently of great wind
and bottom. For saddle, draught, and other
useful purposes, the Morgan horses bred in
Vermont, and in all the Eastern States, includ-
ing the Northern and Western part of New
York, are so much prized as to command much
higher prices in the principal cities of the At-
lantic States than horses from other parts of
the Union.

This fine race is generally believed to have
originated in the northern part of Vermont
about the year 1804, from a mixture of the
French horse from Canada, with New England
mares. The breed is sometimes known by the
name of the Goss horse. Some of the cele-
brated American trotters arc of the Morgan
breed.

Conestoga horse. This horse, which is found
chiefly in Pennsylvania and some of the ad-
jacent states, is more remarkable for endurance
than symmetry. In height it sometimes reaches
17 hands, the legs being long and the carcass
light. The Conestoga breed make good car-
riage and heavy-draught horses.

Virginia and Kentucky horse. This breed,
which predominates in the states named, and,
to a greater or less extent, in all the Southern,
Middle, and Western States, derives its origin
from English blood horses imported at various
times. It has been most diligently and purely
preserved in the South. The celebrated Shark,
Ihe best horse of his day, was the sire of the
best Virginia horses, whilst Tally-ho, a son of
Highflyer, peopled the Jerseys. '{Farmer's Re-
gister, vol. ii.)

In the Southwestern States, wild horses
abound, which are doubtless sprung from ihe
same Spanish stock as the wild horses of the
Pampas and other parts of the Southern con-
tinent, all of which are of the celebrated An-
dalusia breed, derived from the Moorish Barb.
81

The prairie horses are often captured, and,
when domesticated, are found to be capable of
great endurance. They are not, however, re-
commended by the symmetry or elegance of
appearance, for which their type is so greatly
distinguished, being generally rather small and
scrubby.

The following interesting observations rela-
tive to some of the American breeds, were
lately addressed by the editor of the New York
Spirit of the THmes to the editor of the Cultivator.

Fifteen years ago, thousands of dollars would
have been wagered, that no horse in the world
could trot a mile within three minutes; as
many would be laid down now, that it could be
done in two minutes twenty-eight seconds.
Ten years ago, to drive a horse 70 miles be-
tween sun and sun, would have been deemed
a great performance ; but since strains of the
blood of old Messenger have been introduced
into our road stock, at the North, hundreds of
horses can be found that can travel from 80 to
90 miles without distress. In our paper of this
day is a report of the performance of a horse
in Boston that, without being trained, was
driven 103 miles between sunrise and sunset,
over a hilly road, before a carriage, which,
with the rider, weighed 470 lbs.

The acknowledged superiority of northern
carriage and draught stock is owing almost
entirely to the fact, that thorough-bred horses
have found their way north and east from Long
Island and New Jersey, where great numbers
are annually disposed of that are unsuited to
the course. The use of thorough and half-bred
horses, for 'domestic purposes, is becoming so
common in England, that in a few years, no
other will be used for the road. The half-bred
horse is not only much handsomer, but his
speed and powers of endurance are infinitely
greater. His head and neck are light and
graceful, his limbs fine, his coat glossy and
soft as satin, while his action is spirited, and
his courage and stamina sufficient to carry him
through a long journey without his falling off
in condition, or to undergo an extraordinary
trial of speed and game without distress. The
ordinary cocktail is, in most instances, a mere
brute, that in travelling, sinks daily in strength,
losing his appetite, and, of course, his flesh and
action, so that at the termination of a ten days*
journey, he is nearly knocked up; he can travel
but about 40 miles per day, and requires the
whole day to perform this distance. An emi-
nent southern turfman, well known the country
oveT,recovers his horses on a journey; they are
all from the North, and have a dash of blood in
their veins ; after driving them hard about his
plantation in the spring, until they begin to
look thin and rough, he starts on his annual
journey, and by the time he reaches the Vir-
ginia Springs, his horses are literally as fine
as silk, with fine coats, great spirit, and in good
condition for fast work. In travelling, he starts
early, and drives at the rate of 8 or 9 miles the
hour until 10 o'clock, when his horses are taken
out, rubbed dry, watered, and fed. In the cool
of the day, they are again harnessed, as fresh an
if they had not travelled a mile. In this way
he accomplishes a long journey, travelling be-
tween 50 and 60 miles a day, without fatigue
3 H 2 641

HORSE.

HORSE.

to himself or injury to his horses. The slow-
going, no-giving sort of style in which horses
are jogged along at a snail's pace all day under
a hot sun, knocks them up in a short time;
they would neither tire nor lose flesh in double
the time, if driven sharply a few hours in the
morning and evening, allowing them to rest in
the middle of the day. It is the all-day work
that knocks up horses, not the pace.

Our friends of the Cultivator may not be
aware of the vast amount invested in thorough-
bred horses at this moment in the United Slates,
or of the prices some of fashionable blood com-
mand. We can point them to two 5 year old
horses for which $20,000 each has been refused;
to brood mares that will command $5000 each
at auction ; to a colt six months old, for which
$4000 has been refused. Among the popular
stallions we have advertised this season, three
stand at $150 each, fourteen at $100, twelve at
$75, eleven at $60, and twenty-three at $50.
Probably not less than 6000 thorough-bred mares,
and as many more that are full or three-quar-
ters bred, will be stinted this season to horses
that are standing at from $35 to $150. As not
above 2000 out of the whole number foaled
next season, will probably come upon the turf,
it is clearly to be seen that a vast number of
terribly high bred cattle must be used for ordi-
nary purposes. Of these, the colts of good
form, that have plenty of bone and substance,
will of course oust the common tackles and
cider-suckers that infest country taverns, whilst
the others will be used for the saddle and the
road. The result will be, that in a few years,
the stock now in use will be supplanted by
horses of superior action, wind, and courage,
whose greater beauty will not be more appa-
rent than their better style of going, and their
unequalled powers of endurance. (New York
Spirit of the Times.)

In the observations which follow these re-
marks, the editor of the Cultivator states that
he hails with pleasure any improvement which
promises a better race of horses than those
which, too generally in our country, are a mere
caricature of the noble beast. Our duty and
our inclination, however, prompt us to pay
more attention to those breeds and varieties
adapted to agriculture and the road, than to
those calculated for the turf alone. That for
both these purposes horses of a better kind
may be introduced by crosses of the fine-limbed,
hardy-constitutioned, and beautiful thorough-
bred, with those possessing the bone and sub-
stance necessary to give the weight and firmness
required in the draught horse, whether the la-
bour is to be performed on the road or the farm,
we do not doubt. For the farm, the thorough-
bred horse would be comparatively worthless ;
he lacks weight and substance to give value
and power for draft ; for road work, the same
objections will apply, though not perhaps to the
same extent. The best English road horse is
a cross of the thorough-bred and the Cleveland,
and a cross of the same horse with the thick,
heavy Suffolk, has given a most valuable farm
horse. It is not to be expected that the proper
degrees of blood, activity, power of endurance,
weight and docility, so essential to the horse
of the farmer, or for the road, can be obtained
642

at once ; but from what we almost daily witness,
of the good efl!ects that have resulted already
from the comparatively little attention the im-
provement of horses for labour has received,
we can have no doubt that a field is here open
for eflTectually benefiting the community at large
more extensive than can be found almost any-
where else. (Cultivator, for Aug. 1840, Vol. 7.)

A public benefit has been conferred upon
the country by Mr. Edward Harris, of Moores-
town, New Jersey, in the importation of a fine
pair of Norman horses, male and female. The
following particulars relative to the stud were
communicated by Mr. Harris to the Farmer's
Cabinet for April, 1842, and furnish much in-
formation that must be esteemed valuable :

"Diligence is of a handsome dapple-gray
colour, measures 15 hands, and is one of the
most perfect animals of the distinguished breed
of Normandy horses called Percheron. He was
chosen as a full-sized specimen of the breed,
possessing all the quick action of the smaller
horses, in order that his immediate progeny
from our light mares might approach nearer
the true type of the race. It must be observed,
however, that it is more in breadth and size of
bone and muscle that he exceeds the standard,
than in his height, which is very little above
the average. An inspection of the horse will
convince any one that this race is the origin
of the Canadian pony, about whose valuable
properties little need be said, as they are well
known and highly prized in this section of the
country, and still more to the North, where
they have, undoubtedly, given that stamina
and character to the horses of Vermont, New
Hampshire, and the northern section of New
York, which makes them so highly valued all
over the Union as road horses; while it is a
remarkable fact, that in those states where the
attention of breeders has been exclusively de-
voted to the English race-horse, the carriage
and the stage-horse is almost universally sup-
plied from the North. It remains, therefore,
for breeders to determine whether it is not bet-
ter to resort to the full-sized Percheron to cross
upon our light and already too highly-bred
mares, than to use the degenerated Canadian
(degenerate in size only, through the rigour of
the climate, for it must be admitted that the
little animal retains all the spirit and nerve of
his ancestors, and lacks strength only in pro-
portion to his size). My own opinion is, that
a due portion of the French blood mixed with
the English will produce a stock of horses in-
valuable, as combining all the properties that
are required for quick draught on the road or'
the farm. I need not assure you, who are ac-
quainted with the success of Diligence as a
stud-horse in this place, that such too is the
opinion of the farmers of New Jersey.

"I have frequently been questioned as to my
reasons for selecting this horse for farmers'
use in preference to the English draught-horse.
My reply has always been, that the draught-
horse of England, whenever brought to this
country, must prove a failure; he wants the
go-ahead principle ; he cannot move out of a
walk, which is saying quite enough for him,
without dwelling upon his defects of form,
which can only be concealed by loads of fa^

Horse.

HORSE.

and not even then, from the eye of the horse-
man. The true Percheron, or Norman Dili-
gence horse, on the contrary, combines more
strength with activity than any horse I have
ever sat behind. All travellers, on entering
France, are struck with the properties of these
horses, as displayed in drawing the ponderous
machine called a Diligence, by which they are
conveyed through the kingdom at the rate fully
equal to the average of stage travelling in this
country. English horsemen confess that their
road-horses could not hold out the same pace
before the same load.

"The origin of this race, according to French
authorities, dates from the occupation of the
Netherlands by the Spaniards, who introduced
the Andalusian horse, which soon became the
favourite stud-horse all over the continent.
The Spanish horse is known to spring from the
Barb or Arabian, introduced by the Moors on
their conquest of that country. All who are
conversant with the history of the horse, know
that the Andalusian has always been cele-
brated for his beauty, and for his great spirit,
combined with extraordinary powers of endu-
rance. The French horse, upon which he was
crossed, was the old Norman draught-horse,
which still exists in the country in all its
purity, and is perhaps the best of all horses for
slow draught.

"The average height of these horses is 16
hands, and they may be described as follows :
Head short, wide, and hollow between the eyes ;
jaws heavy ; ears small, and pointed well for-
wards ; neck very short and thick; mane
heavy; shoulder well inclined backwards;
back extremely short; rump steep; quarters
very broad ; chest deep and wide ; legs very
short, particularly from the knee and hock to
the fetlock, and thence to the coronet, which is
covered with long hair, hiding half the hoof;
much hair on the legs; tendons large, and
muscles excessively developed." "^

An English writer in the Fritish Quarterly
Journal of Ji^irulture, thus speaks of the Nor-
man horse. After giving an account of its
origin, which he agrees in tracing to the Spa-
nish horse, he observes, " The horses of Nor-
mandy are a capital race for hard work and
scanty fare. I have never seen such horses at
the collar, under the diligence, the post-car-
riage, the cumbrous and heavy voiture or ca-
briolet for one or two horses, or the farm cart.
They are enduring and energetic beyond de-
scription; with their necks cut to the bone,
they flinch not; they put forth all their efforts
at the voice of the brutal driver, or at the
dreaded sound of his never-ceasing whip ; they
keep their condition when other horses would
die of neglect and hard treatment. A better
cross for some of our horses cannot be ima-
gined than those of Normandy."

Whilst lately in Europe, Professor Gibson,
of Philadelphia, a passionate admirer of the
horse, and well versed in the finest blood of
the United States, made close observations of
the horses in different parts of England and
Ireland. The following passage from his
" Rambles" furnishes a condensed view of the
results of his observations :

"The Irish horses have long been consider-

ed the finest in the kingdom, and certainly
I saw none to be compared to them in any
part of Europe. In general they are very
compact, strong, active, and spirited, but high-
tempered, and difficult to manage. They bear
a close resemblance to our Vermont horse in
style, action, and shape, and might readily pass
for the same breed, with the exception of being
larger. In England they bring high prices,
and it is not uncommon to meet with English
dealers at the Irish fairs buying them up, in
great numbers, for their own markets. The
English horse, indeed, within the last 20 years,
has degenerated so much, in some respects, as
not to serve the many useful purposes to which
he was accustomed at that period, owing to
breeders having run too much upon blood.
On this account it is now hardly possible
to meet with any of the old stock of hun-
ters so large and powerful, and with so much
bone and sinew; so that even in York-
shire I saw but a single specimen, a fine
black, in possession of Mr. Whittaker, of Ot-
ley, 30 years of age, but which felt under me
like a colt, after a ride of 20 miles. Even the
carriage horses, indeed, throughout every part
of England, are conspicuous for their long,
low necks, slab sides, and spindle shanks, and
very inferior, as a race, to our own stock, for
the same purposes. In London, it is true,
large showy animals are to be seen in the car-
riages of noblemen and other persons of for-
tune ; but they are procured at immense
prices, often 400 or 500 pounds each, and
even then are deficient in action, and too often
have broken knees, to which indeed most o(
the English horses are so liable, as seldom to
be led or ridden out by the groom without
having their knees protected by leather or
woollen covers or caps. The Irish horse, on
the contrary, is not apparently so high bred as
the English, and therefore a better animal for
draught, saddle, and most other purposes. Yet
no blood horses in England have proved supe-
rior to the Irish racer in speed, bottom, and other
requisites ; and I believe it is admitted on all
hands that there is now no horse in the British
empire to be compared to Irish *Harkaway,*
bred and owned by a linen-bleacher of Belfast.
A great many inquiries were made of me,
also, respecting ' Skylark,* an Irish horse im-
ported into this country a few years back, and
represented, by all that spoke of him, as a
most extraordinary animal, and one that never
should have been allowed to leave the king-
dom. Both animals I had an opportunity of
seeing — the one in England, and the other in
Richmond, Virginia, soon after his arrival —
and finer specimens of the kind I cannot ima-
gine to exist in any country. Through every
part of Ireland I travelled, I could not help being
struck with the form and activity of all classes
of horses; and in Dublin, especially, scarcely
passed a day without noticing ladies and gen-
tlemen splendidly mounted, the finest teams in
mail and other coaches, and carriage horses
of beautiful style and proportion; all which,
however, command there as many pounds
sterling as American horses — excepting, per-
haps, first-rate trotters — dollars in this coun-
try; and it is only surprising some of our

HORSE, AGE OF.

HORSE-HOE.

spirited Yankee dealers do not furnish the
English market with such luxuries."

HORSE, AGE OF. See Ages of AifiMAis.

HORSE-CHESTNUT. If, says a writer in
the ji'/perican Farmer (vol. xiv.), the value of
this nut was more generally understood, it
would not be suffered to rot and perish without
being turned to any account, as at present.
The horse-chestnut contains a saponaceous
juice, very useful, not only in bleaching, but in
washing linens and other stuffs. The nuts must
be peeled and ground, and the meal of 20 of
them is sufficient for 10 quarts of water; and
either linens or woollens may be washed with
the infusion, without any other soap, as it ef-
fectually takes out spots of all kinds. The
clothes should, however, be afterwards rinsed
in spring water.' The same meal, steeped in
hot water and mixed with an equal quantity of
bran, makes a nutritious food for pigs and
poultry. See Chkstnut, Hohsk.

HORSE DEALERS. Persons whose busi-
ness it is to buy and sell horses. Each person
carrying on the business of a horse dealer is
required to keep a book, in which he shall
enter an account of the number of horses kept
by him for sale and for use, specifying the
duties to which the same are respectively
liable. This book is to be open at all reasonable
times to the inspection of the officers ; and a
true copy of the same is to be delivered quar-
terly to the assessor of the parish in which he
resides. Penalty for non-compliance, 50/. (43
Geo. 3, c. 161.) Horse dealers are assessed
if they carry on their business in the metropolis
25Z., and if elsewhere, 12/. 10s. per annum.
From the papers published by the Board of
Trade, it appears that the number of persons
of this class assessed in 1831, was 74 in the
metropolis, and 963 in other parts of the king-
dom.

HORSE, DISEASES OF. See each dis-
order.

HORSE-FLY or FOREST-FLY {Hippohosca
equina, Linn.). In England this fly lives chiefly
on horses, but sometimes also attacks horned
cattle and other mammalia. The male is
scarcely so large as the house-fly ; the female
is larger. The insect generally attaches itself
to the abdomen of the animal, which is least
covered with hair, particularly between the
hind legs. This fly has a singular movement:
it runs very quickly, but sideways like a crab:
it is covered with a hard crust ; and adheres
so firmly by its claws as to render it difficult
to take it off. As it torments the animals very
much, means of driving it away must be thought
of. Picking off by hand is too troublesome.
By the following remedy it may be got rid of in
24 hours' time: take of mineral earth eight
ounces; lard one pound, and make them into
a salve. Some of this salve is to be rubbed on
here and there upon the hair, and worked in
with a wisp of straw. After 24 hours the salve
is to be washed off with warm water, in which
brown soap has been dissolved. Care must be'
taken for some days that the horse does not
catch cold. {Kollar on Insects, Miss ImuiIoiis
Ti-ana.) See Gap-Fiy.

HORSE-HOE, THE. For this valuable im-
plement of agriculture, the farmer is indebted
644

to the justly celebrated Jethro Tull. Previous
to his time, we search in vain in the works of
agricultural authors for the slightest allusion
to such an instrument. The production of the
horse-hoe, indeed, seems to have been almost
a natural consequence of the adoption of the
drill system, for which also the cultivator is
mainly indebted to Tull. He gave in his Hus-
bandry, more than a century since, an engraving
01 a horse-hoe of his own invention, which
resembles a common, rudel3'^-shaped swing
plough, with the mould board omitted, and the
shares having a cutting edge turned up on its
landside. A variety of improvements were
gradually made in the construction of this im-
plement : I proceed to notice those which are
now considered to be the best.

The advantages which these possess over
the hand-hoe are very fairly stated by the late
Mr. Francis Blakie : he remarks, *' In many
cases the hand-hoe may be used to advantage,
and should then be so used. But generally
speaking, the hand is not so efficient as the
horse-hoe. Expedition is a most material point
in all processes of husbandry, carried on in a
variable and uncertain climate, and it fre-
quently happens, that hoeing, in any way, can
only be executed to advantage, in a very few
days in spring : hence the horse-hoe has a most
decided advantage over the hand-hoe, for a
man will only hoe about half an acre a day
with the latter, while, with the former, a man
and a boy, with one horse, will hoe eight or ten
acres a day, and that in a more effectual man
ner." {On Farm-yard Manure, p. 39.)

Among the most approved implements of the
kind in England, are the following : —

Clarke's Universal Ridge Horse-hoe. — This is a
very ingenious contrivance for carrying out
the several operations of ridge culture. It is
adapted for the uses of a double tom, a mould-
ing plough, a broad share or cleaning plough,
ac^i a horse-hoe. It is only as fitted for the
latter purpose that we have now to describe it:
its other forms will be given under the head
Plough.

To the frame of the plough is attached a
pointed share, which serves as a hoe for the
centre of the furrow : a movable frame is at-
tached to the beam, which is readily adjusted
to any given width: to this is attached, when
it is intended to hoe plants upon the ridge, the
stalks of two curved hoes; when used upon flat
work, the flat hoe should be substituted for the
curved or inverted hoe. This forms a very
perfect and simple horse-hoe.

FAakie's Inverted Hoise-hoe. — This excellent
hoe, which was the first that successfully hoed
between several rows of turnips at once, and
which led the way to the recent improvements
of Mr. Garrett, was intended to be attached to
a drill-carriage, or any light axletree, by the
draft-irons fixed to the handles. Blakie de-
scribed it pretty accurately when he said, " it
is adapted for cleaning between rows of plants,
growing at narrow intervals, within which it
may be worked with perfect safety when in
their infant state ; indeed the idea first struck
me on observing a large proportion of the
plants buried by the operation of the hoes
formerly in use."

HORSE-HOE.

HORSE-RADISH.

Garretfs Horse-hoe. — This horse-hoe, invented
by the manufacturers, Garrett and Son, of
Leiston, Suffolk, is suited to all methods of drill
cultivation, whether broad, stetch, or ridge
ploughing; and is adapted to hoeing corn of
all kinds as well as roots. The peculiar ad-
vantages of this implement are that the width
of the hoes may be increased or diminished to
suit all lands, or methods of planting ; the axle-
tree being movable at both ends, either wheel
may be expanded or contracted, so as always
to be kept between the rows of plants.

The shafts are readily altered, and put to any
part of the frame, so that the horses may either
walk in the furrow, or in any direction, to avoid
injury to the crop.

Each hoe, or each pair of hoes, works on a
lever independent of the others; so that no part
of the surface to be cut, however uneven, can
escape ; and in order to accommodate this im-
plement to the consolidated earth of the wheat
crop, and also the more loosened top of spring
corn, roots, <fec., the hoes are pressed in by dif-
ferent weights being hung upon the ends of
each lever, and adjusted by keys or chains, to
prevent their going beyond the proper depth.

And what has hitherto been an objection to
the general use of the horse-hoe is avoided in
this, by adopting a mode of readily shifting the
hoes, by a plan similar to that of the steerage,
so that the hoes may be guided to the greatest
nicety. This implement is so constructed that
the hoes may be set to a varying width, from
seven inches to any wider space ; the inverted
hoes are preferred when the distance between
the rows is sufficient to admit two of them ;
or any other form that may be considered best
for the purpose.

Lord Dude^s Expanding Horse-hoe. — The pa-
rallel expanding horse-hoe is used for hoeing
drill crops, and is constructed principally of
wrought iron : it has five tines, and can be
regulated to any width, from 12 to 27 inches,
with the greatest facility, so that the tine shall
always present its edge to what it has to cut :
this is effected by the support of each tine
moving parallel with the beam : it is worked
on the principle of the parallel rule ; the ma-
chine has one wheel in front, with a tiller for
the horse to yoke to : the depth it enters into
the ground is regulated by raising or lowering
the wheel ; there is a pair of handles for the
man who attends the machine to steady it by.

Grant's Horse-hoe, and Moulding Plough, By
substituting mould-boards in the place of the
wrought iron frame and hoes, this horse-hoe
becomes a moulding plough.

White's Double-action Turnip Hoe. — This im-
plement is constructed so that it may be used
with only one horse and a man, and is intend-
ed to hoe either broadcast, drilled, or ridged
turnips. It hoes two rows lengthways and
crossways at one time when necessary. It
can be set to suit the drills at any distance,
from 15 to 30 inches, and to leave the distance
Df each turnip 9, 12, or 15 inches apart. It
may be used also as a scarifier by removing
the cross-cut hoes, and replacing them with
spear-fooled tines. (See Cultivator.)

HORSE MINT (Mentha sylvestris). A spe-
cies of wild mint, growing freely in waste

ground, especially in watery places. It is a
perennial, blowing dense crowded whorls of
small, pale purple flowers in August and Sep-
tember in England. The whole herb is of a
hoary or grayish green, clothed with fine soft
downy hairs, and exhaling a strong peculiar
scent. The stems are 2 or 3 feet high, rather
bluntly quadrangular; the leaves nearly ses-
sile, 1^ to 2^ inches long, spreading, strongly
and sharply serrated, acute ; their upper sur-
face hoary; under, shaggy, with dense soft
white hairs. It affords oil by distillation with
water. The infusion of it allays sickness.

The plant commonly called Horse Mint, in
the United States, is the monarda fistulosa of
botanists — sometimes called Wild Bergamot.
It has a perennial root, and stem 2 or 3 feet
high, branched, mostly hairy, especially at the
joints and towards the summits. The violet-
purplish or often greenish-white or flesh-co-
loured flowers are pubescent or downy. This,
says Dr. Darlington, is a variable plant; and
Mr. Bentham has reduced several species of
preceding authors into this one. Five or six
additional species of Monarda are enumerated
in the United States. {Flora Cestrica.)

HORSE POWER, in steam-engines, is esti-
mated by Mr. Walt at 32,000 pounds avoirdu-
pois lifted one foot high per minute for one
horse. M. D'Aubuisson, from an examination
of the work done by horses in the whims or
gigs (machines d molettes) for raising ore from
the mines at Freyberg, the horses being of
average size and strength, has concluded that
the usual effect of a horse yoked during eight
hours, by two relays of four hours each, in a
manege or mill course, may be estimated at 40
kilogrammes raised 1 metre per second, which
is nearly 16,440 pounds raised one foot per
minute; being very nearly one-half of Mr.
Watt's liberal estimate for the work of his
steam-engines.

HORSE-RADISH (CochUana armorada—
from cochlear, a spoon, the form of the leaves
being rather hollow, resemble an old-fashioned
spoon). The horse-radish delights in a deep,
mouldy, rich soil, kept as much as possible in
a moderate but regular degree of moistness ;
hence the banks of a ditch, or other place
which has a constant supply of water, is a
most eligible situation for the beds, so that
they do not lie so low as to have it in excess.
If the soil is poor, the roots never attain any
considerable size ; and the same effect is pro-
duced if grown in a shady place, or beneath
the drip of trees. Should the ground require
to be artificially enriched, Mr. J. Knight re-
commends leaf mould, or other thoroughly de-
cayed vegetable substance, to be dug in to the
depth at which the sets are intended to be
planted. If cow or horse-dung is from ne-
cessity employed, it should be in a highly pu-
trescent state. Horse-radish flowers in June,
but in England seldom perfects its seed ; con-
sequently it is propagated by sets, which are
provided by cutting the main root and offsets
into lengths of two inches. The tops or crowns
of the roots form the best ; those taken from the
centre never becoming so soon fit for use, or
of so fine a growth. Each set should have at
least two eyes, for without one they refuse to

645

HORSE-RADISH.

HORSETAm.

vegetate at all. Mr. J. Knight recommends,
for the obtaining a supply of the crowns, any
inferior piece of ground to be planted with
sets, 6 inches apart and 6 deep ; these will fur-
nish v from 1 to 6 tops each, and they may be
collected for several successive years with
little more trouble than keeping them clear of
weeds.

Horse-radish may be planted from the close
of January until the same period in March, but
the best times are in October and February;
the first for dry soils, the latter season for
moist ones.

The sets must be inserted in rows 18 inches
apart each way. The ground should be trench-
ed between 2 and 3 feet deep, the cuttings be-
ing placed along the bottom of the trench, and
the mould turned from the next one over them,
or inserted to a similar depth by a long, blunt-
pointed dibble. When the planting is com-
pleted, the surface should be raked level, and
kept clear of weeds, until the plants are of
such size as to render it unnecessary. It is of
great benefit if the mould lies as light as pos-
sible over the sets; therefore, treading on the
beds should be carefully avoided. They
speedily take root, and send up long straight
shoots, which make their appearance in May
or June. The only cultivation required is to
keep them free of weeds, and as the leaves de-
cay in autumn, to have them carefully re-
moved ; the ground being also hoed and raked
over at the same season, which may be repeat-
ed in the following spring before they begin to
vegetate. In the succeeding autumn they
merely require to be hoed as before, and may
be taken up as wanted. By having three beds
devoted to this root, one will always be lying
fallow and improving, of which period like-
wise advantage should be taken to apply any
requisite manure. If the plants, when of ad-
vanced growth, throw out suckers, these should
be carefully removed during the summer as
they appear. In September or October of the
second year, the roots may be taken up, and in
November a sutficient quantity should be
raised to preserve in sand for winter supply.
To take them up, a trench is dug along the
outside row, down to the bottom of the upright
roots, which by some persons', when the bed is
continued in one place, are cut off level to the
original stool, and the earth from the next row
is then turned over them to the requisite depth,
and so in rotation to the end of the plantation.
By this mode a bed will continue in perfec-
tion for 5 or 6 years, after which a fresh plan-
tation is usually necessary. But the best prac-
tice is to take the crop up entirely, and to form
a plantation annually, for it not only causes
the roots to be finer, but also affords the oppor-
tunity of changing the site. If this mode is
followed, care must be taken to raise every
lateral root, for the smallest of them will vege-
tate if left in the ground. See Scurvt-Ghass.

HORSETAIL (Equisetnm, from equus, a
horse, and seta, hair, in allusion to the fine hair-
like branches). Although the plants of this
genus are looked upon as mere weeds, they
have a very interesting aspect when seen
growing in their natural situations ; they are
found in boggy places, and multiplied by di-
646

visions. Several of the species, like grasses,
secrete a quantity of flinty earth (silica) mostly
lodged in their articulations. There are seveo
indigenous species.

1. Branched wood horsetail (E. sylvaticum)^
growing in shady moist woods, by trickling
rills, but not very frequent. This is a very
elegant species, 12 or 18 inches high ; stems
trect, beset with many whorls of slender, com-
pound, angular, smooth, spreading branrhes.

2. Great water horsetail (E.fluviulile). Horses
eat this plant with avidity, and in some parts
of Sweden it is collected for the purpose of
serving them as winter food; flourishing in
watery places, about the banks of rivers and
lakes. This is by far the largest English spe»
cies, differing from the foregoing in the fructi-
fication, which is a large cylindrical catkin,
having four or five pale teeth on a separate
short stem, differing from the branched or
whorled frond, as is likewise the case with the
following one, E. arvense: all the others hitherto
observed in Britain have terminal catkins at
the top of the fronds. The terminal stems of
the great water horsetail are quite erect; at
least a yard high, often much more, furnished
from top to bottom with whorls of numerous
long slender branches. The catkins are brown,
with scales, which separate and show the
white scales when they are ripe.

3. Corn horsetail (E. ai-vense). This, in Eng-
land, is a very common species growing in wet
meadows and moist grain fields. It is a most
troublesome weed in pastures, and is seldom
touched by cows, unless pressed by hunger,
when it occasions an incurable diarrhcEa ; it is
eaten with impunity by horses, but is noxious
to sheep. The fronds are reckoned unwhole-
some to such animals as feed upon them in
autumn, especially swine. This rough grass
is employed for cleansing and polishing tin
vessels. In this species the root is much
branched, creeping extensively, producing in
the spring several simple, upright, flowering
stems quite destitute of branches; a span high,
cylindrical, smooth, juicy, of a pale brown,
bearing three or four brown-ribbed sheaths,
and at the top a solitary catkin.

4. Marsh horsetail, or paddock pipe (E.
palustre). This species grows most frequent
in spongy watery bogs, and other marshy
places, flowering in June and July. The stem
is rather slender, deeply furrowed, beset
throughout with whorls of slender, angular,
minutely rough branches.

It is not so strong as the preceding species,
but is equally prejudicial to cows. It is also
very troublesome in drains, within which it
vegetates, and forms both stems and roots
several yards in length : thus the course of the
water is interrupted, and the drains are totally
obstructed.

5. The smooth naked horsetail (E. Kmomm)
grows also in marshy watery places, and has
stems stouter than the last, about two feet
high, very smooth to the touch, though finely-
striated.

6. Greater rough horsetail. Shave-grass
pewter wort (E. hyemale). This species is
found in boggy woods, but not very common.
The root is black, variously branched ; stems

HORTICULTURE.

HOVEN.

of a deep glaucous green, from one to two feet
high, cylindrical, uniformly and rather copi-
ously furrowed, the furrows minutely toothed
and of a strong hardness. This species is
wholesome to horses, and is eaten by them ;
but it is hurtful to cows and disagreeable to
sheep. That eminent chemist, Sir H. Davy,
first detected a quantity of pure silex in the
furrowed cuticle of this plant, which accounts
for its power, as a file, in polishing wood,
ivory, or even brass. This purpose it has long
served in England, under the name of Dutch
rushes, being usually imported from Holland,
and is chiefly employed by turners and cabinet-
makers to polish their work, as well as by
dairy-maids for cleaning pails and other wood-
en utensils. So wheat-straw, whose cuticle
contains the same earth in an impalpable
state, like others of the natural family of
grasses, is used, when burnt, to give the last
polish to marble.

Mr. Nuttall observes that this species is very
abundant on the banks of the Missouri below
the Platte, and called " Rushes." It is, he says,
found to be injurious to horses which feed
upon it for any considerable length of lime.

7. Variegated rough horsetail {E.variegatum)
is found in wet, sandy ground in Scotland and
Ireland. The whole plant is smaller and much
more slender than the last. The fibres of the
root of this curious little species are remark-
ably woolly, like those of grasses that grow in
loose sand. The sheaths which crown the
joints are lax, with lanceolate teeth. The
calkin is ovate, acute, blacker than E. hyemalt,
with a more slender stem. (£«g. Flor. iv. 335
— 3il ; WiUirWs Dortu Encyc.)

HORTICULTURE (Lat. hortus, a garden,
and colo, I cultivate). The culture of the
kitchen garden and orchard. The chief dif-
ference between horticulture and agriculture
is, that in the former art the culture is per-
formed by manual labour in a comparatively
limited space, called a garden ; while in the
latter it is performed jointly by human and
animal labour in fields, or in an extensive tract
of ground called a farm.

HORTUS SICCUS. A collection of dried
plants preserved in books or papers. See

HsRBAt.

HOT-BEDS. In gardening, are made either
with fresh horse-dung, or tanner's bark, and
covered with glasses to protect them from the
severity of the wind and weather. It is very
important in making hot-beds not to raise the
temperature too high, as the plants become
scorched. See Kitcheh Gahb£x, and Fohcing
Pits.

HOT-HOUSE. A general term for the glass
structures used in gardening and including
Stoves, Greenhouses, OaANOEaiES and Cojr-
BERVAToniEs. See these heads.

HOT WALLS. In gardening, walls for the
growth of fiuit trees, which are built with flues
or other contrivances for being heated in
severe weather, ko as to facilitate the ripening
of the wood or the maturity of the fruit. The
advantages of hot walls are well illustrated by
their influence in ripening peaches, nectarines,
and similar fruits in England, Scotland, and
many parts of the north of Europe, where such

fruits could not be produced in the open air
without this aid.

HOUND. An appellation given to dogs of
the chase. See Doo and GREYHouNn.

HOUNDS'-TONGUE (Cynoglosmm). A
genus of herbaceous plants, of which only two
species grow wild in Great Britain. The cul-
tivated foreign species are pretty border plants,
succeeding in any common soil, and readily
multiplied by division.

1. Common hound's-tongue (C. officinale) is
found abundant in waste ground and by road-
sides. The root is fleshy and tapering. The
whole herb of a dull green, downy, and very
soft, exhaling when touched a pungent and
nauseous scenL When bruised it is afl[irmed
to drive away mice. The stem grows to two
feet high, branched, leafy, furrowed, and hairy,
bearing terminal panicled clusters of dull
crimson flowers. This plant is eaten by goats,
but refused by sheep, horses, hogs, and cows.
It has a bitter taste, and is esteemed powerfully
narcotic and dangerous for internal use. The
roots are astringent and sedative; and are used
externally and internally in decoction in cases
of scrofula.

2. Green-leaved hound's-tongue (C. sylvati-
cum). This is a more rare plant, growing by
road-sides and hedges in shady situations, and
is distinguished from the common species in
its bright shining green colour, and want of
downy softness, besides having scarcely any
scent. The flowers, which blow in June, are
at their first opening reddish, subsequently of
a dull blue. (Smith'i £ng. Flor. vol. i. p. 259;
Paxton'i Bot, Diet.)

Four species of this plant are enumerated in
the United States. The common hound's-tongue
is a foreigner, now frequent in the Middle States,
and extending itself throughout the country. It
is a biennial, and may be readily known by its
disagreeable odour, somewhat resembling that
of young mice. It formerly enjoyed some re-
putation for medicinal properties.

The wild comfrey (C. Vir^nicum) has a pe-
rennial root, and is common in rich woodlands.
The root is mucilaginous, and frequently era-
ployed, in domestic practice, for complaints of
the chest, internally, and externally in poultices
for bruises, sprains, &c.

H0U3ELEEK (Sempervivum, from semper
vivo, to live forever; the tenacity of life in the
houseleek is well known). There are seven
species of houseleek mentioned by Miller (but
these are only a few of this extensive genus).
They all thrive best on dry rocky situations.
These interesting plants are worthy a place in
every collection. The mountain houseleek is
a very hardy perennial, bearing a purple flower
in June and July. The houseleek (S. arborevm),
which is a native of the Levant, is hardy and
handsome, bearing a golden-yellow flower in
autumn and even in winter. Cuttings taken
off and laid to dry for two or three days, will
root very freely. The juice of the common
houseleek (S. tedorum), applied either by itself
or mixed with cream, gives immediate relief in
burns or other external inflammations. (Pax-
ton's Bot. Did.)

HOVEN. See Cattle, and Sheep, Dis-
eases OF.

647

HUMMELLER.

HUMUS.

HUMMELLER, BARLEY. An instrument
for separating the awns of the barley plant
from the seed. There are various modes of
taking off the awns : a common one is by tread-
ing^ it by a horse walking over it ; another, by
rolling it with a grated roller, an instrument
something similar to a garden roller, the cylin-
der being formed of thin, flat, wrought iron
bars, placed about two inches apart, and the
edges to the surface : this, rolled over the bar-
ley, takes off the awns or ailes. We have also
seen a grated presser or chopper, about a foot
square, barred across with thin plates, which
is lifted up and down by the workman, and
thus chops off the awns. But the best machine
we have seen is one upon a wood stand, with
a hopper into which the barley is thrown, from
whence it falls into a box in which a spindle is
placed in an inclined position, having, when at
a few inches apart, short knives placed spiral-
ly, so as to form a sort of screw, which, when
put in motion, has a tendency to draw the bar-
ley from the upper end of the box to the lower;
during the operation the awns of the barley are
effectually knocked off. This mode of dressing
barley constitutes one of the principal improve-
ments in Salter's patent winnowing machine,
which will be described hereafter; but the
hummeller is made in the form described for
barley only, by several makers. See Wiknow-
ixo Machine.

HUMUS. A modern term given by some
chemists to the very finely divided organic
matters which all cultivated soils contain, and
which is generally regarded as the chief ele-
ment of fertility, the source from which plants
are directly nourished. Woody and vegetable
fibre in a state of decay constitutes the sub-
stance called humus. Liebig lays it down as
established, that man and other animals derive
the means of their growth and support from
the vegetable kingdom, whereas plants find
new nutritive material only in inorganic sub-
stances. According to this doctrine, humus,
being the product of organic matter, does not
contribute direct nourishment to plants, but
only constitutes a medium and agent through
which their nutriment is derived. " The opi-
nion," he observes, "that the substance called
humus is extracted from the soil by the roots of
plants, and that the carbon entering into its
composition serves in some form or other to
nourish their tissues, is so general and so
firmly established, that hitherto any new argu-
ment in its favour has been considered unne-
cessary; the obvious difference in the growth
of plants, according to the known abundance
or scarcity of humun in the soil, seemed to afford
incontestable proof of its correctness.

"Yet this position, when submitted to a strict
examination, is found to be untenable ; and it
becomes evident from most conclusive proofs
that humus,in the form in which it exists in the
soil, does not yield the smallest nourishment to
plants.

**The adherence to the above incorrect opi-
nion has hitherto rendered it impossible for the
true theory of the nutritive process in vegeta-
bles to become known, and has thus deprived
us of our best guide to a rational practice in
agriculture. Any great improvement in that
648

most important of all arts is inconceivable
without a deeper and more perfect acquaint-
ance with the substances which nourish plants,
and with the sources whence they are derived ;
and no other cause can be discovered to ac-
count for the fluctuating and uncertain state of
our knowledge on this subject up to the present
time, than that modern physiology has not kept
pace with the rapid progress of chemistry."

The chemical process through which humus
is usually obtained, is by making an alkaline
solution or decoction of mould, peat, soot,
woody fibre, &c., and adding to such decoction
acids. The flocculent matter precipitated is
called humic acid, a substance but slightly so-
luble in water, requiring no less than 2500
times its weight for this purpose. The com-
pounds which it forms with alkalies, lime, and
magnesia, have the same degree of solubility.
(Sprengel.)

" Vegetable physiologists agree in the suppo-
sition that by the aid of water humus is rendered
capable of being absorbed by the roots of
plants. But, according to the observation of
chemists, humic acid is soluble only when
newly precipitated, and becomes completely
insoluble when dried in the air, or when ex-
posed in the moist state to the freezing tempe-
rature. (Sprengel.)

"Both the cold of winter and the heat of
summer, therefore, are destructive of the solu-
bility of humic acid, and at the same time of
its capability of being assimilated by plants ;
so that, if it is absorbed by plants, it must be
in some altered forna.

"According to Dr. Jackson, the substances
contained in humic extract form soluble salts
with lime. The acids form soluble salts with
the same substance, and the salts are decom-
posed in the process of vegetation.

" The correctness of these observations is
easily demonstrated by treating a portion of
good-mould with cold water. The fluid remains
colourless, and is found to have dissolved less
than 100,000th part of its weight of organic
matters, and to contain merely the salts which
are present in rain-water.

" Decayed oak wood, likewise, of which hu-
mic acid is the principal constituent, was found
by Berzelius to yield to cold water only slight
traces of soluble materials; and I have myself
verified this observation on the decayed wood
of beech and fir.

" These facts, which show that humic acid
in its unaltered condition cannot serve for the
nourishment of plants, have not escaped the
notice of physiologists ; and hence they have
assumed that the lime or the different alkalies
found in the ashes of vegetables render soluble
the humic acid, and fit it for the process of as-
similation.

"Alkalies and alkaline earths do exist in the
different kinds of soil in sufficient quantity to
form such soluble compounds with the humic
acid.

" Other considerations, of a ' igher nature,
confute the common view respecting the nutri-
tive office of humic acid, in a manner so clear
and conclusive, that it is difficult to conceive
how it could have been so generally adopted.

" Fertile land produces carbon in the form

HUNDRED.

HURDLE.

of wood, hay, grain, and other kinds of growth,
the masses of which differ in a remarkable
degree." (Liebig.)

In relation to the fact observed of carbon
and humus often becoming every year more
abundant, in spite of cropping, Mr. Ruffin, an
author so advantageously known to the Ame-
rican farmer, says there is great difficulty
in admitting that land receives no manure,
even when none is conveyed to it by man. In
the case of cultivated lands, from which crops
are taken off, the quantity, it is true, is small,
compared with that of a forest, where much is
left to fall and rot. Mr. Rutfin maintains, that
so much carbon is derived from the atmosphere,
through the leaves of growing plants, that more
than half the whole products may be taken
away, and the other half may supply as much
humus and carbon, or, perhaps, even cause an
increase of both. The severely cropped lands
of the United States, Mr. Ruffin considers as
affording many examples of the draught upon
the land being carried beyond the amount sup-
plied, and a proportional reduction in the quan-
tity of humus. See Gueex Manures.

"The humic acid of chemists," observes
Liebig, "is a product of the decomposition of
humus by alkalies: it does not exist in the
humus of vegetable physiologists." He says
in another place, "Transformations of existing
compounds are constantly taking place during
the whole life of a plant, in consequence of
which, and as the result of these transforma-
tions, there are produced gaseous matters which
are excreted by the leaves and blossoms, solid
excrements deposited in the bark, and fluid so-
luble substances, which are eliminated by the
roots. Such secretions are most abundant im-
mediately before the formation and during the
continuance of the blossoms; they diminish
after the developement of the fruit. Substances
containing a large proportion of carbon are
excreted by the roots and absorbed by the soil.
The soluble matter thus acquired by the soil is
still capable of decay and putrefaction ; and
by undergoing these processes furnishes re-
newed sources of nutrition to another genera-
tion of plants, and it becomes humus. The
leaves of trees which fall in the forest in au-
tumn, and the old roots of grass in the meadow,
are likewise converted into humus by the same
influence: a soil receives more carbon in this
form than its decaying humus had lost as car-
bonic acid. Humus does not nourish plants
by being taken up and assimilated in its unal-
tered slate, but by presenting a slow and last-
ing source of carbonic acid, which is absorbed
by the roots, and is the principal nutriment of
young plants at a time when, being destitute
of leaves, they are unable to extract food from
the atmosphere." {Liebig*s Orgariic Chemistry.)

Some recent experiments of Saussure go to
prove that plants do assimilate humus as direct
nourishment, contrary to the views of Liebig,
who, as we have seen, regards it only as a me-
dium by which nourishment is absorbed and
subsequently given out.

HUNDRED. An ancient division of a coun-
ty, which originated either from its being occu-
pied by 100 families, or because every such
district found the king 100 able-bodied men for
82

1 his wars. They were first constituted by Alfred
I the Great. He is supposed to have derived the
idea from northern Germany; but there centa,
or centena, is a jurisdiction over 100 towns.

HUNDRED-WEIGHT. A weight of 1 12 lbs.
avoirdupois, generally written cwt.

HUNGER-ROT. The name of a disease ia
sheep which speaks for itself. It is occasioned
by poor living, especially during the winter,
and is best cured by better keep.

HURDLE (from the Sax. ii^n^ei, to keep, or
the Germ. hurJen). The hurdles of the ancients
(crates) were somewhat similar to those of the
moderns ; they were a kind of wicker-work,
and used forvarious purposes. Whenemployed
for drying figs or grapes, they were called Jica-
ria: they were also used for screening fruit
from the weather. (Colum. xii. 15.) Hurdles,
Virgil informs us (Georg. i. 94), were employed
as harrows to level the ground which had been
turned up by the rastnim, or heavy rake. They
are also employed to feed silk-worms upon. In
modern husbandry, hurdle implies a light frame
of wood or iron, somewhat in the form of the
common gate, constructed for the purpose of
forming a movable fence for the confining of
sheep and other animals. They are generally
made of some light split timber, or of hazel-
rods wattled together. These are principally
employed where sheep are folded on arable
lands, or where they are fed with turnips in the
field, to keep them on a certain space of ground,
or to confine them to a certain portion of their
food at a time, in which way they are extremely
useful ; as the sheep, by being so closely con-
fined, contribute greatly to the improvement of
the land, in the first case ; and they improve
by having a given quantity of food allowed
them at once, with less loss than they would
do if allowed to range at large over the field.

A dozen and a half hurdles will fold thirty
sheep, and twelve dozen, one thousand. On
the South Downs the allowance is three sheep
to a hurdle : this of course varies with the de-
scription of sheep. A shepherd and his dog,
without any other assistance than having the
hurdles carted to the field, will, with the requi-
site number of hurdles, feed off one hundred
acres of turnips. " The number of hurdles re-
quired {Quart. Joum. of Agr. vol. iii. p. 647), is
one row the whole length of the ridges of an
enclosed field, and as many more as will reach
twice across two eight-step lands or ridges, or
four four-step lands. This number is sufficient
for a whole quadrangular field, whatever num-
ber of acres it may contain. The daily portions
are given, more or less, according to the num-
ber of the flock. Two of these portions are
first set off, or " pitched," the sheep being let
in on the first or corner piece. Next day they
are turned into the second piece, and the cross-
hurdles that enclosed them in the first are car-
ried forwards and set to form the third piece.
These removes are continued daily till the bot-
tom of the field is reached: both the cross-rows
are then to spare, and are carried and set to
begin a new long row, close to the off-side of a
furrow, and the daily folding carried back over
I two or four lands, as at first. It is always pro-
per to begin at the top of the field, if there be
any difference in the level, in order that the
31 649

HURDLE.

HYDRANGEA.

flock may have the driest lair to retire to in !
wet weather. In the setting of hurdles, an iron !
crowbar, or fold pitcher, is employed, by which '
much time and loss by breakage of the hurdles
is^ effected." New hurdles, in the south of
England, are about 16s. per dozen. They are
made at Ad. by professed hurdle-makers, who
find their own tools : they make about a dozen
per day. A larger kind of hurdles, called park
hurdles, cost 2s. each, and iron hurdles about
4s. 6rf. to 6s. ; and these are, in the long run,
for permanent divisions, more economical than
wooden ones. A new kind of iron hurdle for
feeding sheep in gardens and pleasure-grounds
is described, with a wood engraving, by Mr.
Baisl {Ibid. vol. ii. p. 113), and the complete
process of wooden hurdle-making is given,
Ibid. vol. iii. p. 647. There is also another
kind of hurdle, made with twisted hazel-rods,
very common in the south of England, whose
first cost is less than the other kinds, but they
do not last so long, and sooner get out of repair.

The farmer who uses the ash hurdles would
find the advantage, on the score of durability,
of charring (or partially burning) that portion
of them which goes into the ground. Net hur-
dles are also sometimes economically used;
but they are rather more troublesome than
wooden or iron hurdles, and require to be kept
carefully in a dry place, when not in use.
There is a very elaborate paper on hurdling
off, and more especially upon all kinds of fenc-
ing, for the temporary or permanent enclosure
of land, by Mr. Somerville {^Com. Board of Av^:
vol. ii. p. 1); he advocates the more general
hurdling off of grass lands in the spring of the
year.

There are two modes of folding, which
should be practised according to circum-
stances : the first is where the sheep fed during
the day on waste or common land, are penned
at night, for the sake of their manure, on the
enclosed arable pastures of the farm. This is
a highly profitable mode. It is calculated that
the dressing thus given by 300 sheep is suffi-
cient, in a week, for one acre of land, and is
worth three pounds. Hence the enhanced va-
lue of farms having ready access to downs, or
possessing a right of common. The second
mode of folding is the feeding off of green
crops by sheep enclosed in daily divisions, by
hurdles, by which means the land has the full
benefit, equally distributed, yielded by the con-
sumption of the green crop; of course the
value of the folding will mainly depend, both
in quality and quantity, upon the food con-
sumed : hence, too, the superior fertilizing effect
derived from sheep having oil-cake or corn
added to their green food. The plan of feeding
sheep on one field during the day, and folding
them on another during the night, is a bad prac-
tice long since condemned by Arthur Young,
who describes it as " merely robbing Peter to
pay Paul," since it is, in fact, only the removal
from one field to another of the richest organic
matters, the sheep being also injured by the
drift or labour of removal, and by the fasting
(so contrary to their natural habits) during the
night.

The folding of sheep on green crops is one
of the great modern agricultural improvements.
650

It insures the equal distribution of the manure,
prevents waste of food, keeps the sheep quiet,
gives them fresh ground daily, and enables the
farmer to plough close after the sheep, and
thereby prevents the loss by evaporation of the
finest portion of the manure. See Folds and
Folding.

HURDS, or HARDS. A provincial name
for the refuse of hemp or flax.

HURTLEBERRY, and HURTS. Provincial
names of the whortleberry.

HUSKS. The dry envelopes, or outward
integument of either fruits or flowers.

HUSBANDRY. A comparatively primitive
term, including both agriculture and gardening,
or all those country occupations which the fa-
ther of a family is expected to perform in the
country. The term is very commonly used as
synonymous with agriculture. The Berwick-
shire husbandry, the alternate husbandry, and
the convertible husbandry, are terms employed
in agriculture for certain systems of cropping,
in which the land is alternately kept under
grass and tillage. See Aoricvltvre, and Ro-
tation OF Crops.

HYBERNATION (Lat. hybermis, wintry).
The act by, or the state in, which certain ani-
mals exist during the season of the year when
excess of cold, or lack of food, prevents their
going abroad, and performing their customary
functions. The bat and the hedgehog, lizards,
snakes, frogs, toads, &c., are among the ani-
mals and reptiles which hybernate. Some quad-
rupeds, as the dormouse and squirrel, which
subsist on articles of diet better adapted to be
laid up in store than insects, carry a winter
provision to their hybernating nests ; and their
torpidity is more nearly allied to a profound,
but ordinary sleep.

HYBRIDS (Gr.). The produce of a female
plant or animal which has been impregnated
by a male of a different variety of species.

The most common hybrids are those which
result from the connection of different varieties
of the same species, as the produce of the wild
boar and domestic sow; the endless modifica-
tions which result from analogous inter-breed-
ing from varieties of the rose, the African
geranium, and other ornamental plants, are
familiar examples of the principle among vege-
tables. The most common and useful of hybrids
is the mule. Although some rare exceptions
to the rule are on record, it seems to be a
principle of nature that all hybrids should be
sterile.

HYDRANGEA (Hydrangea arborescens). A
hardy perennial, native of North America,
which flowers in July and August. It loves a
moist soil, and should be kept free from weeds.
Its roots may be parted in October. If a severe
winter attacks the plant, it will only die down
to the ground.

Besides the common species, botanists enu-
merate 2 or 3 others found in the Southern and
Southwestern States.

H. hor.'ensis, or the changeable hydrange^,
blooms from June to October. It is a native
of China. Cut the stems down every autumn,
and cover the root through the winter, to guard
it from frost. Hydrangeas are propagated by
cuttings.

1

HYDROGEN.

HYSSOP.

HYDROGEN. A chemical element, which
derives its name from two Greek words that
signify "a generator of water," because it is
one of the constituents of that fluid, which is
always formed when hydrogen gas is burned
in combination with atmospheric air, or with
oxygen gas. It is known to us, in its simplest
form, only in the state of gas, and is speedily
fatal to animal life when it is breathed unmixed
with atmospheric air. It is, however, a com-
ponent of animal matters, and it forms a very
essential part in the economy of vegetable sub-
stances, in which it is always found. Thus
sugar contains 6*90 per cent, of hydrogen ;
gum, 6-93 ; bee's wax, 12-672 ; wood of the oak,
5-69; wheat starch, 6-77; acetic acid (the acid
of vinegar), 6'35 per cent. It is regarded as
an element, because it has resisted every at-
tempt to decompose it. It is the lightest of all
ponderable matter, 100 cubic inches weigh-
ing only 2-15 grains. No known degree of
cold has been able to condense it to a liquid.
It cannot support combustion, but is combusti-
ble in conjunction with atmospheric air. It
constitutes one-ninth of the weight of water, —
a substance essential to vegetation, and which
plants are supposed to have the power of de-
composing. Under such circumstances, Liebig
asserts that 8-04 parts of hydrogen unite with
100 parts of carbonic acid to form woody fibre,
whilst the oxygen is separated in the gaseous
state. (Organic Chem. p. 63.) Most vegetable
structures contain hydrogen in the form of
water, but the hydrogen essential to this consti-
tution cannot exist in the form of water. That
hydrogen gas exerts a considerable influence
upon the leaves of plants, was first noticed by Dr.
Priestley. Sennebier found that plants M'hich
lose their green colour in the dark, preserve it
under those circumstances, if a small portion
of hydrogen gas is present in the atmosphere in
which they are placed ; and Dr. Ingenhous no-
ticed that its presence, when they are growing
in the light, renders their colour of a deeper
green {Jnn. de Chem. vol. iii. p. 57) ; and, again,
M. Humboldt has noticed that the Pou annwt,
Trifolium arvense, and other plants growing in
the galleries of coal mines, preserve their green
colour, although vegetating in the dark, and
that, in such situations, the atmosphere con-
tains a proportion of hydrogen gas.

When applied to the roots of plants in mo-
derate proportion, the influence of hydrogen
gas is evidently beneficial in all those situa-
tions where this gas is evolved, as in drains,
stagnant waters, dung-hills ; and the vegetation
growing over such places is uncommonly rank
and luxuriant. The gas observed to arise by
the agitation of the mud of stagnant pools is
the same gas employed for the purposes of
illumination, or carburetted hydrogen gas, a
peculiar gas composed of carbon 0*416; hy-
drogen 0-0694. In the process of putrefaction,
a quantity of water exactly corresponding to
that of the hydrogen, is formed by the extrac-
tion of oxygen from the air; while all the oxy-
gen of the organic matter is returned to the
atmosphere in the form of carbonic acid. Now
ihe process of vegetable assimilation consists
in the extraction of hydrogen from water, and
carbon from the carbonic acid ; hence the ad-

' vantage of decomposing vegetable matter to
j living plants. A small portion of carburetted
I hydrogen gas in the atmosphere, or in the soil
I of plants, certainly therefore promotes their
j vegetation ; but like pure hydrogen gas, when
it constitutes their entire atmosphere, it de-
stroys them. {Thomson^s Chem. vol. iv. p. 347.)
See Casks, THE! K Use to Vegetatiox.

H Y(5R0METER (Gr. J>^oc, moist, and /urr^ov,
measure). An instrument which indicates the de-
gree of moisture or vapour present in the atmo-
sphere, or its relative degrees of dampness and
dryness. Hygrometers are of several forms,
and a rude hygrometer is easily made by means
of a long hair, or strip of leather, or cat-gut,
suspended from a peg, kept in its upright po-
sition by a slight weight: these, by their very
sensible contractions and expansion according
to the humidity of the air, indicate, by an at-
tached scale, its variations. Hygrometers of
this kind, however, are defective, from the
irregularity of their action, and the impossibi-
lity of comparing them with each other, their
alteration by time, and other circumstances.
These disadvantages gave rise to the construc-
tion, by Professor Daniel, of that now common-
ly used in England, and called by his name.
This instrument is, however, somewhat com-
plex and costly, requiring considerable skill ia
its use. It will doubtless be superseded by
other contrivances for ascertaining the precise
quantity of moisture in air, one of which, in-
vented by Prof. A. D. Bache, of Philadelphia, has
been already described under the head of Dew.
The dew-point is the temperature imme-
diately below that of the vapour contained in
the surrounding atmosphere : the difference,
however, between the dew-point and that of
the vapour is so slight, that for all ordinary
purposes they may be considered the same.

The temperature of the invisible vapour of
the atmosphere being thus ascertained (for it
differs materially from the temperature of the
air in which it is contained), it is easy to cal-
culate the force it exerts as thus existing in
the state of steam, and the weight of a given
bulk of it. Tables have been formed showing
the proportion of watery vapour in each cubic
foot of atmospheric air corresponding to every
degree of the dew-point.

HYSSOP, COMMON (Hyssopus officinalis,
probably from the Hebrew). There are three
varieties, distinguished by the colour of the
flowers, the white, red, and blue ; the last of
which is most commonly cultivated. It is a
perennial, native of Siberia. The root is
knobbed, woody, fibrous ; the stem about two
feet high, quadrangular, erect, branching.

A dry soil is the one most appropriate for
hyssop. If it is grown on a rich or wet one,
it becomes luxuriant; but, from a deficiency
of woody matter, is generally destroyed by the
frost, as well as rendered less aromatic and
powerful in its medicinal qualities. It is pro-
pagated by seed and slips of the branches and
young shoots, as well as by offsets. The seed
may be sown from the close of February until
the end of May. Rooted ofi'sets may be planted
in March, April, August, and September; cut-
tings of the branches in April and May, and
slips of young shoots in June or July.

651

ICE.

ICE-HOUSE.

The seeds maybe inserted broadcast, or pre-
ferably in drills, six inches apart, in either case
not being buried deeper than half an inch. It
is the usual practice, when the seedlings have
"attained the growth of six weeks, to prick them
out 12 inches apart; but it is by much the best
practice to raise them where they are to remain.

The slips and offsets are best planted at first
in a shady or north border ; they are generally
firmly rooted in two months.

In September or October they are all fit for
removal to their final stations. After every
removal, whether of planting, pricking, &c.,
they must be watered plentifully and regularly
until established. Hyssop possesses some ex-
citant and tonic powers, but is now rarely em-
ployed in medicine.

I.

ICE (Sax. it; Dutch, eyse). Water in a state
of congelation. Ice is about one-eighth part
lighter than fresh water; hence it swims in
that element; and, owing to this property, the
icebergs and ice-islands are floated down to
southern latitudes from the arctic circle. Wa-
ter, which freezes at 32° of Fahrenheit, sud-
denly expands, and consequently, when it is
interposed in crevices and clefts of rocks, it
separates these, and often precipitates immense
masses from the tops of mountains into the
adjoining valleys. This is a principle which
should be kept in remembrance by the farmer
in making mounds or walls of earth, for if the
smallest clefts be left, the walls may be broken
down and crumbled to pieces even by mode-
rate frosts.

ICE-HOUSE. A house or vault for the
preservation of ice in summer, should not be
regarded as merely administering to purposes
of luxury, since ice contributes so much to the
convenience, comfort, and even health, as to
make it almost an indispensable article of do-
mestic economy. The effects of the excessive
heat which commonly prevails in the sum-
mers of the United States, are greatly obviated
by the use of ice, which not only serves for the
preservation of fresh meats, butter, &c. ; but in
addition to these advantages and its grateful
employment for assuaging common thirst, it
is a powerful agent in tranquillizing the irrita-
bility of the stomach in bilious fevers and dys-
enteries, and relieving the pain and burning
heat often attendant upon inflammations and
fevers. Thus, by soothing the stomach, and
removing excessive heat, iced drinks and ap-
plications restore the deranged functions of the
nervous and muscular systems of the sick,
whilst they refresh and invigorate persons in
health so as to render them capable of enduring
exercise and exertion even under circum-
stances calculated to produce great oppression
and inconvenience.

An interesting writer, has left the following
testimony in favour of ice, as a restorative and
remedy in fevers, which has been abundantly
corroborated by subsequent experience. "I
never," says he, "was in better spirits than
here in this hot country (Sicily). I believe the
quantities of ice we eat, in ices, contribute to
it ; for I find, in a very violent heat there is no

such cordial to the spirits as ice, or a draught
of iced water. Its cold braces the stomach, and
gives a new tone to the fibres. I knew an Eng-
lish lady, at Nice, soon cured of a threatening
consumption, by a free indulgence in the use
of ices. It is the common practice here, Sicily,
to give quantities of ice-water to drink in in-
flammatory fevers." (Brydone.)

"The custom in Sicily and Italy," says an-
other author, "of taking ice, is considered as
a powerful remedy in many diseases. The
physicians of these countries do not give many
medicines ; but frequently prescribe a severe
regimen; and prevent the baneful effects of
various diseases, by suffering the sick, for se-
veral days, to take nothing but water cooled by
ice, sweet oranges, and iced fruits." (Stolberg^)

One of the greatest advantages afforded by
ice houses, is that of enabling families to pre-
serve their butter, meat, fish, poultry, game,
«fec., in states of the weather which would,
otherwise, quickly induce them to spoil. In no
part of the world are ice-houses more essential
to comfort, convenience, and health, than in the
United States, and in all the northern and Mid-
dle States the winters are sufficiently cold to
furnish ice of sufficient thickness to lay by for
preservation. The cities of the Southern States
are now regularly supplied with thick blocks
of ice from New England, which not only afford
a regular article of export to the West Indies,
but also to Calcutta!

Considering the small expense and trouble
at which ice houses or vaults may' be con-
structed, and the many advantages to be de-
rived from them, it is surprising that any re-
spectable country establishment should be
without one.

It is considered that the simplest, and most
scientific form for an ice-house, is a double
cone, that is to say, two cones joined base to
base, the one sunk into the earth with its point
downwards, into which the ice is rammed,
the other being a conical roof, generally of
wood-work, covered with thatch and pointed at
top. The entrance should be placed always
on the north side, and provided with two doors
some distance apart, and the spot screened
from the sun by trees, shrubbery, a hill, cliff,
or other barrier. The lower part may be dug
about 16 feet in diameter, terminating below
like the point of a sugar-loaf. Its ordinary
depth, for a moderate family, may be about 24
feet. The larger the dimensions, the longer
will it preserve the ice, provided it be filled.
In digging, the workmen should slope the
ground progressively towards the axis of'the
cone, to prevent the earth falling in. This
conical slope should be faced with brick or
stone work about one foot thick, and jointed
with Roman cement, so as to be air and water
tight. A well is to be excavated at the bottom
two feet wide and four deep, covered at top
with an iron grating for supporting the ice,
and letting the water drain away.

The upper cone may likewise be built of
brick- work, and covered with thatch ; such a"
roof would prove the most durable. Whatever
kind of roof be preferred, there must be left in
it an oblong passage into the interior. This
porch should face the north, and be at least 8

ICE-HOUSE.

ICHNEUMON FLIES.

feet long by 2^ feet wide ; and perfectly closed
by a well-fitted door at each end. All round
the bottom of this conical cover, a gutter should
be placed to carry off the rain to a distance
from the ice-house, and prevent the circumja-
cent ground from getting soaked with moisture.

The ice-house should have no window to
admit light ; but be, so to speak, hermetically
sealed in every point, except at its cess-pool,
which may terminate in a water-trap to pre-
vent circulation of air.

A clear day should be selected for charging
the ice-house ; but before beginning to fill, a
quantity of long dry straw should be laid on
the bottom crosswise ; and as the ice is pro-
gressively introduced, straw is to be spread
against the conical sides, to prevent the ice
from coming into contact with the brick or
stone work. The more firmly compacted the
ice is, the better does it keep. No layers of
straw should be stratified among the ice, for they
would make its body porous. Some persons
recommend to pour in a little water with the
successive layers of ice, in order to fill up its
small crevices, and convert the whole into one
mass. This may answer well when the ice is
put up very cold, as the water may then be
directly frozen into a solid mass.

Over the top-layer a thick bed of straw should
be spread, which is to be covered with boards
surmounted with heavy stones, to close up the
interstices in the straw. The inner and outer
doors should never be opened at once; but
the one should always be shut before the other
is opened.

Dry snow well rammed keeps equally well
with hard ice, if care be taken to leave no ca-
vities in the mass, and to secure its compact-
ness by sprinkling a little water upon the suc-
cessive charges.

To facilitate the extraction of the ice, a
ladder is set up against its sloping wall at one
side of the door, and left there during the
season. (Urc^s Did.)

The lime preferred for filling an ice-house,
should, when practicable, be during the preva-
lence of extreme cold, or as soon after as pos-
sible, since the colder the ice when packed
away, and the thicker the blocks, the longer it
will last. Ice and snow can often be laid by,
even in the Middle States, many degrees below
32° or the common freezing point of water.
The larger the quantity of ice accumulated in
one place, the slower will be the rale at which
it will melt.

One of the principal objects to be kept in
view in the construction of an ice-house, is to
have it so that the water will pass off directly,
as fast as the ice thaws. If the situation is
sandy, or if you come to a layer of sand or
gravel about the proper depth, no further care
will be necessary ; but if you find a stiff clay,
rock, or earth of any kind impervious to water,
you must contrive an outlet or abandon the
place. This outlet may be consirructed in se-
veral ways. If on the side of a hill, dig a drain
and make it air-tight by means of a water-trap or
inverted syphon; or the water may be drained
into a well and pumped out ; or you may sink a
well in the bottom until you come to sand or
gravel, and fill it up with stone. The cellar

walls may be laid with stone,brick,or even lined
with wood, as is most convenient or economi-
cal. A space of 8 or 10 inches is generally
left between the wall and surrounding earth,
which is filled in with tan, charcoal, straw,
corn-stalks, or any other non-conductor of heat,
the first-named article being generally pre-
ferred. A house 9 feet square in the clear,
and 9 feet deep, will hold about 25 cart-loads
of ice, which will be enough for a large family.

A cheap ice-house may be made thus : — Dig
a cellar, say 10 feet square, and 10 feet deep.
Then cut small timber from the woods the pro-
per length, and build up in the cellar after the
plan of building log-cabins, leaving a space
between the logs and earth to be filled in with
straw, tan, or other suitable material. Raise
the wooden walls 2 or 3 feet above the sur-
rounding ground, and heap up a bank so as to
turn off the rain-water. A thatched roof is
generally recommended, as the best to keep
out heat, but some object to such covering as
affording harbour to rats and other vermin.

The importance of keeping ice well sur-
rounded with a non-conductor, and having the
water absorbed as fast as melting takes place,
is shown in the following extract from the
Kentucky Farmer: —

" We take at sunrise from the ice-house, as
much as will be probably wanted through the
day, and cover it up in some saw-dust placed
in a barrel in the dairy-house. At night, the
size of any given piece is scarcely perceptibly
diminished. It is a perfect charm."

In some parts of the United States where
thick ice is rare, some persons pack away
large quantities of snow, which, if the mass be
large, and the snow dry or previously well
drained, will often keep through the summer.
In most seasons ice may be collected in sufSr
cient quantities to fill ice-houses in every lati-
tude of the Middle States. If no pond or
stream of water of sufficient size be at hand,
advantage may be taken of any little rill, which,
by the erection of a small dam, may be made
to overflow a considerable space. If the water
be not more than 6 or 8 inches deep it will
answer every purpose.

In stowing away ice the pieces should be as
square as possible, and as large as they can be
got or handled. They should be placed closely
together like stone in a wall, and the crevices
well filled with smaller fragments. The plan
sometimes recommended of pounding or crush-
ing the large pieces is reprehensible.

ICHNEUMON FLIES. Insects belonging
to the natural order Hymenoptera, which in-
cludes bees, wasps, ants, saw-flies, &c. The
injury caused by this whole order is so small,
and the benefits derived from many of them so
great, that instead of being enumerated among
destructive insects, they may be pronounced
the benefactors of the human race.

With regard to the ichneumon flies, they
perform an important and very singular part
in the economy of nature, by working the de-
struction of caterpillars, plant-lice, and oth^r
destructive insects. This they effect by piercing
their bodies with a kind of sting or piercer
called ovi-positor, and thus laying their eggs
in a living nest. Each ichneumon fly seems
3 I 2 653

IGNIS FATUUS.

IMPLEMENTS.

to single out the larva or pupa of some parti- ' fo their destruction. The cause of the pheno*
cular kind of caterpillar or other insect, to menon does not seem to be perfectly under-
which it therefore stands in the relation of stood ; it is, however, generally supposed to be
parasite. The eggs hatch in due time, and the produced by the combustion of some highly
larva of the ichneumon commences feeding inflammable gas, such as phosphorated hydro-
upon its victim, the vitals of which are soon I gen, which takes fire spontaneously on rismg

destroyed, after which the parasite or ichneu-
mon comes forth in due time to another state
of existence.

Some of the ichneumon flies are extremely
small, and confine their attacks to the eggs of
other insects, which ihey puncture, and the
little creatures produced from the latter find a
sufficient quantity of food to supply all their
wants within the larger eggs they occupy. The
ruby-tails and cuckoo-bees lay their eggs in the
provisional nests'of other insects, whose young
are robbed of their food by the earlier hatched
intruders, and are consequently starved to
death. The obligations which the farmer and
society at large owe to certain parasite insects
is forcibly illustrated in the case of the Hessian
fly, the devastations of which are often prevent-
ed through the destruction, during a single
season, of nearly a whole race by its parasite.
Professor Peck has described a minute ich-
neumon fly, stated by Mr. Westwood to be a
species of Encyrtus, that stings the eggs of the
slug-fly, and deposits in each one a single egg of
her own. From this in due time a little maggot
is hatched, which lives in the shell of the slug-
fly's egg, devours the contents, and afterwards
is changed to a chrysalis, and then to a fly like
its parent. Professor Peck found that great
numbers of the eggs of the slug-fly, especially
of the second hatch, were rendered abortive by
this atom of existence.

In treating of the pigeon tremex (Trernex co-
lumba), which in its larva state is a destructive
tree-borer, Dr. Harris observes that it is often
destroyed by two kinds of ichneumon-flies,
(Pimpla atrata and lunatorof Fabricius), which
may be frequently seen thrusting their slender
borers, measuring from three to four inches in
length, into the trunks of trees inhabited by the
grubs of the tremex and by other wood-eating
insects ; and, like the female tremex, they some-
times become fastened to the trees, and die with-
out being able to draw their borers out again.
The ichneumon flies are little busy-bodies,
ever on the alert, and with untiring scrutiny
continually prying into every place to find the
lurking caterpillar, grub, or maggot, wherein
to thrust their eggs. (Harris.)

A specimen of this extensive family is re-
presented in Pi. 15, fig. 12, in the Tragus ftdvm,
which commits great havoc among caterpillars
and grubs. See Aphidiaxs, &c.

IGNIS FATUUS (Lat. vain or foolish fire ;
a translation of the French /m follet.) A kind
of luminous meteor, which flits about in the
air a little above the surface of the earth, and
appears chiefly in marshy places, or near stag-
nant waters, or in churchyards, during the
nights of summer. There are, we are told,
many instances of travellers having been de-
coyed by these lights into marshy places, where
they have perished ; and hence the names Jack-
mth-a-lantern, Will-u-it h-a-wisp ; the common peo-
ple ascribing the appearance to the agency of
evil spirits, who lake this mode of alluring inen
654

and mingling with atmospheric air.

Milion, in his Paradise Lost, b. ix. 1. 634, thus

alludes to it: —

A wandering fire,
Compact of uncfuons vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round,
Kindled through apitation to a flame,
Which oft, ihey say, some evil spirit attends.
Hovering and iilazing with delur^jve light,
Misleads the amazed niahl wanderer from his way
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool,
Tht-re swallowed up and lost, from succour far.

IGNITION (Lat. ignis, fire). The act of
setting fire to, or of taking fire, as opposed to
combustion, or burning, which is a conse-
quence of ignition. The term "spontaneous
ignition" is applied to cases in which sub-
stances take fire without previous application
of heat. This is illustrated in the burning of
hay-stacks, when the hay has been put up too
green ; the scorching of corn-stacks from the
same cause, and the taking fire of ships laden
with fermentable products.

IMBRICATED. In botany, a term used in
speaking of the arrangement of bodies, to de-
note that their parts lie partly over each other
in regular order, like the tiles upon the roof
of a house, as the scales upon the cup of some
acorns ; also applied in speaking of the esti-
vation of petals or leaves, to denote that they
overlap each other at the margin without, any
involution. (Brande^s Dirt, of Science.)

IMPLEMENTS, AGRICULTURAL. Almost
all the operations of agriculture may be per-
formed by the plough, the harrow, the scythe,
and the flail ; and these, or similar tools for
performing the same work, are the sole imple-
ments in the primitive agriculture of all coun-
tries. With the progress of improvement, how-
ever, many other implements have been intro-
duced, the more remarkable of which are the
drill-plough, the horse-hoe, the winnowing ma-
chine, the thrashing machine, and the reaping
machine. The object of all these implements
and machines is to abridge human labour, and
to perform the different operations to which
they are applied with a greater degree of ra-
pidity, and in a more perfect manner than be-
fore. In the present work the difl^erent imple-
ments are treated of in their alphabetical order.
Of the progress made in the construction of
agricultural instruments in England, the judges
of implements at the Liverpool meeting of the
English Agricultural Society, in their report
very justly remark, when speaking of "the
good effects which have already resulted from
the public exhibition of implements at the So-
ciety's meetings, in stimulating the talent of
the mechanic and the zeal of the husbandman.
At Oxford the show-yard may be said to have
presented an epitome of the state of agricultu-
ral mechanism existing in 1839, the era of the
formation of the Royal Agricultural Society of
England. No spectator of that show can have
failed to be struck with surprise and admira-
tion at the Liverpool exhibition. At Oxford
there were some examples of good machinery

IMPLEMENTS.

INCUBATION.

and workmanship, but many more of rude, '
cumbrous, and ill-executed implements. At
Liverpool many machines were exhibited, not
only of surpassing skill in contrivance and
execution, but also having for their object the
effecting of processes in tillage-husbandry of
the most refined nature and acknowledged im-
portance, but hitherto considered of very diffi-
cult practical attainment. Some of these may
already be considered as forming part of the
necessary apparatus of every well-managed
farm, and to be essential to its economy and ■
profit. This vast stride in the mechanics of
agriculture, made within so short a period, has
doubtless n risen from the congregating together
of agriculturists and mechanicians from all
parts of the empire: and a still higher perfec-
tion in machinery may be confidently antici-
pated from the opportunity offered, under the
auspices of the Society, of periodically con-
trasting and estimating the merits of varied
implements used for similar purposes in dif-
ferent localities and soils. It is apparent that
the manufacture of even the commoner instru-
ments has already, to a great extent, passed
out of the hands of the village ploughwright
and hedge-carpenter, and been transferred to
makers possessed of greater intelligence, skill,
and capiuil. The improved style of finish, the
greater lightness and elegance of construction,
and the generally superior adaptation of the
means to the end, in every class of implements,
were sufficient manifestations of the beneficial
results arising from the encouragement given
by the Society to these objects. Neither were
examples wanting in the higher classes of ma-
chines to show that the fourth important object
for which the Society was incorporated is, to
some extent, fulfilled — viz. *to encourage men
of science in their attention to the improve-
ment of agricultural implements.*"

The great variety of soils and fluctuations
of climate in the extensive territory of the
United States, call for multiplied expedients
to till the various plants, and provide shelter
from heat as well as cold. The wants and exi-
gencies known in various parts of the country
must therefore contribute to make the United
States a fruitful field of inventions. Ac-
/•.ordingly, by consulting the records of the
Patent Office at Washington, we find that since
the year 1793, when the first patent law was
instituted, and up to the year 1836 inclusive,
the number of patents taken out for inventions
is 6000, of which 124 are for improvements in
the plough,— 119 for threshing-machines,— 80
for churns,— 125 for washing-machines, &c.

The remarks of the Messrs. Ransome, of
Ipswich, upon the preservation of agricultural
implements in general, are such as every far-
mer should be guided by. They suggest to
farmers generally, that a little instruction given
to the workmen in the use of the machines,
and care in preserving them, would add to
their efficiency and durability. Attention to
washing implements and machines before lay-
ing them by, a little oil on such as have re-
volving wearing parts, and a coat of paint
occasionally to each, will cost but little, and
make the difference between having a machine
ready for use, or covered with rust and want-

ing repair just as the season for its use com-
mences. These suggestions are so obvious,
that one would think no apology needful for
making them, as experience proves that a
large proportion of the repairs required arises
from want of attention to these apparently
trifling matters. And to this end the advice
of Mr. Crosskill, of Beverley, may be acted
upon with considerable advantage: he says,
"Select the most likely labourer on the farm,
put the implements under his care, make it a
strict rule with all the men that each imple-
ment done with for the season shall be brought
to one particular place, say near the pond or
pump; the man having charge of the imple-
ments must then wash and clean them well
before putting them into the shed."

IMPOSTHUME. In farriery a sort of swell-
ing, or collection of matter or pus in any part
of the body of an animal. See Abscess.

IN-AND-IN-BREEDING. The practice of
breeding from close relations. See Breediho,
Cattle, Sheep, &c.

INCH. A measure of length, the twelAh
part of a foot.

INCISORS or INCISORES (Lat. incido, I
cut). The teeth implanted in the inter-maxillary
bones of the upper jaw, and in the correspond-
ing place in the lower jaw, and which are
generally shaped for the purpose of cutting or
coarsely dividing the food. The ruminating
animals, including the bull and cow, sheep,
goats, the deer tribe, and the camel have no
incisors in the upper jaw; but some of them
have canine teeth, which project from the
mouth. See Aok of Aitimals.

INCLOSURE (Lat. includo, I shut up). Sec
Enclosure.

INCUBATION (Lat. incumbo, I brood over).
Hatching or the laying down of an animal
upon her own or another's eggs, communicat-
ing to them heat, and maintaining them at
her own temperature, a condition essential to
their developement. In many animals the de-
velopemeni of the foetus takes place after the
exclusion of the egg, and whilst it is maintain-
ed in contact with the external surface of the
parent's body, as in the crab and lobster tribes
beneath the caudal plates ; or agglutinated to
the surface of the abdomen, as in certain spe-
cies of pipe-fish (syngnathus), or concealed in
cutaneous marsupial cavities, as in other spe-
cies of synsrnathug, and the hippocampus; but in
these and other instances from the cold-blooded
animals, the eggs are retained by special con-
trivances in contact with the parent, without
occasioning any restraint upon her postures or
movements.

That a due degree of warmth is the essen-
tial object of incubation in birds is proved by
the ancient and well-known practice of substi-
tuting artificial heat, by which fertile eggs are
hatched in the same period, and the excluded
chick is as fully and strongly developed as
when produced by natural incubation.

Artificial incubation has been practised from
a remote period by the Egj'ptians and Chinese ;
the former, indeed, have carried this process
to such a high degree of perfection, as in many
instances to have entirely superseded the use
of the hen in hatching.

655

INCUBATION.

INDIA, AGRICULTURE OF.

It is effected either by means of an oven,
stove, or steam, and it has been calculated that
the ovens of Egypt every year communicate
life to about 93,000,000 chickens. This por-
cess has received considerable attention from
the French philosophers ; but perhaps the best
exemplification of its results, that has been
witnessed in Europe, was given by the pro-
prietor of the Eccaleobion, which was lately ex-
hibited in Pall Mall, London.

The mean temperature of incubation is 100°
Fahr. ; it may vary from 95° to 105°, and to-
wards the close of the process may be sus-
pended for one or two hours, or for a longer
period, according to the degree of extraneous
heat which the eggs may derive from their
situation, without fatal consequences to the
embryo. The power of communicating the
requisite degree of warmth to their eggs arises
out of the unusual developement of, and deter-
mination of blood to, a peculiar plexus of ves-
sels, distributed over the skin of the abdomen,
and which, in most birds, is connected with a
derivation of blood from the internal organs of
generation after the subsidence of the func-
tional activity of the ovarium and oviduct to
the external "integuments. The vascular, hot,
and sensitive condition of the skin of the ab-
domen is the exciting cause of that uncontrol-
lable propensity to incubate, which the Greeks
denominated "storage," and which, with its
associated phenomena of patience, abstinence,
and self-denial, forms so remarkable a feature
in the economy of birds. The eggs of the bird
present several peculiarities in relation to the
circumstances under which the foetus is to be
developed ; their oval- form permits a greater
proportion of their surface to be in contact
with the heat-communicating skin of the pa-
rent, than if they had been a spherical body ;
while the shell, by virtue of its hard, calcareous
texture, and its arched disposition about the
soft contents, sufficiently defends them from
the superincumbent pressure. As warmth is
the only essential influence which the egg de-
lives from the parent, the shell is porous and
permeable to air, and the germ is surrounded by
an adequate store of nutritious matter. See Egg.

The period of incubation is generally di-
rectly as the size of the bird, but the degree,
of developement which the chick attains prior
to exclusion varies. As a general rule, it is
inferior in birds of flight, as the Accipitrine
and Passerine orders, than in the terrestrial,
wading, and swimming birds; and the warmth
and complexity of the nest bears relation to
this difference of developement. If the thrush
had been forewarned that her young would be
excluded from the egg naked and helpless, she
could not have prepared beforehand a warmer
and more comfortable abode than her instinct
had led her to construct for their accommoda-
tion ; and if with such a nest we contrast the
rude mass of straw in which the hen deposits
and incubates her eggs, it might be imagined
that she knew beforehand that her chickens
would come into the world well clothed and
strong enough at once to run about and pick
up their own food. In this case, therefore, the
nest relates only to incubation ; in the other,
to incubation and subsequent rearing of the
656

young; and according to the degrees of deve-
lopement attained during incubation, and the
associated condition of the nest and habits
of the parent, birds have been divided into two
great groups, the jlves altrices and ^ves prcecoces.
{Braride's Dirt, of Science.)

INDIA, THE AGRICULTURE OF. The
British farmer will, 1 am afraid, not derive
many useful hints from the most careful study
of the agriculture of the eastern portions of
Asia. In Hindostan, for instance, too many
causes have contributed to retard the march
of agricultural improvement. The innate dis-
like of the liatives to innovations of all kinds,
the nature of their region, their indolence, and
the political oppressions under which they
have long been labouring, are amongst the
many causes of the degraded state of Indian
agriculture. I am indebted to my brother, Mr.
George Johnson, of the Supreme Court of Cal-
cutta, for most of the following sketches of
Indian modes of cultivation. He says, in de-
scribing the residences of the Indian ryots or
farmers, "When I speak of an Indian farm,
the image must not rise to the mind of the Eu-
ropean reader of a substantial dwelling-house,
surrounded by commodious outbuildings, and
conveniently placed amongst its compactly en-
closed fields; such an agricultural establish-
ment bespeaks a far advance in the art of cul-
tivation, the employment of large capitals, and
remunerating prices to the cultivator. Now,
none of these contingencies occur in Hindos-
tan; but, on the contrary,the operations of
agriculture are rudely executed; the cultiva-
tors are poor, the profits are small, the results
correspondent. The dwellings of the ryots
throughout India are in no degree superior to
the other mean huts with which they are asso-
ciated in the village. No barn is attached to
the residence of the poorer cultivators, for the
pittance of grain annually raised is imme-
diately beaten out — the major part sold at once
to the merchant, and the small residue for seed
and sustenance is stored in baskets or jars, and
these are usually placed in the room where the
family dwells. The outbuildings rarely ex-
tend beyond an enclosure in which to secure
the cattle at night By far the greatest num-
ber of farms do not exceed a size requiring a
single yoke of oxen, for the occupier is the
only ploughman."

The various imposts to which these little
farmers are exposed, sound strange to Eng-
lish agriculturists ; they are enumerated by
Dr. Buchanan. (Ind. Rech. vol. ii. p. 200.) The
ryot's heap of grain is usually about 3000
seers : of this is first set apart —

Seen.

For the gods, or rather for the priests - - - 5
For charity to the brahmins and other mendicants 5
For the astrologer -------1

For the hereditary brahmin of the village - - 1
For the barber -------2

For the potter -*- - -- -- 2

For the carpenter and blacksmith - - - - S

For the measurer - - - -'- - - 4

For the washerwoman ------ 2

For the beadle -------7

For the chief of the village ----- 53

For the accountant ------ 200

For the watchman -------10

For the conductor of the water - - - - 20

314

INDIA, AGRICULTURE OF.

This leaves a residue of 2686 seers ; of this
government takes 10 per cent., and, after all
the drains have been satisfied, the grower is
left in possession of a residue of two thou-
sand seers of rice. (Buchanan's Mysore, vol. i.
p. 265.)

Irrigation is practised in India, and in almost
all the hot countries of Asia, to an extent of
which the English farmer has little concep-
tion; for, as Mr. George Johnson remarks,
" In every district of Hindostan, as in all other
tropical climates, irrigation is the most effec-
tual mode of promoting fertility. In places
favoured by nature, whole plains are occasion-
ally flooded merely by the construction of a
dam across the outlet of some mountain stream,
or it is confined nearer to its source, so as to
form a reservoir, from which the water may
be obtained at the most desirable seasons. In
less favourable situations, the water frequently
has to be raised to a considerable height, in
order to attain an elevation level with, or
slightly above the cultivated land. This is
very generally effected by a scoop of matting
suspended between two ropes, the ends of
which are held by two men who bale it from
the reservoir into a hole some feet above it,
and from thence it is similarly baled by others,
from hole to hole, until the desired height is
attained. Sometimes the scoop is suspended
between poles erected in the form of a gallows ;
at others, as in the Jaut wells, from which the
water is raised by cattle or by hand in some
districts. The extensive canals formed in the
neighbourhood of Delhi and in the Punjab are
no longer employed. The machinery, so gene-
ral in China, is nowhere used in India for
raising water. In 1798, Dr. Tennant relates,
that the practice of the natives then was, and
is still followed, after ploughing the fields in
the usual manner, but before sowing, to divide
them into regular small squares, like a chess-
board ; each square is surrounded with a shelv-
ing border about four inches high, capable
of preventing the escape of water. Between
these square enclosures, small dykes are
formed for conveying a rivulet over the whole
field; when the water has stood a sufficient time
in one square, it is let off into the surrounding
dyke, and conveyed to another, and so on in
succession through the whole field. The fer-
tility induced amply recompenses the labour,
and the neatness imparted to the country by
this husbandry is very striking." (Ind. Rech.
ii. 167.) In some places the water has to be
raised from deep wells, several of which are
in the most elevated parts of each field. The
work of drawing the water is performed by
two bullocks, not travelling round in a mill,
but pacing in a line direct from the well's
mouth. The various little trenches already
mentioned, all radiate from these wells. About
Palna the irrigation water is raised from the
wells by means of a bamboo lever, with its
fulcrum on a frame about 10 feet high, a weight
at the opposite end being employed to assist
the workmen in caunterpoising the leather bag
of water ; this plan is only resorted to when
the wells are shallow, and the water near the
surface of the earth, and then not bags but
buckets are used, sometimes of leather, but
83

INDIA, AGRICUI.TURE OF.

more frequently of iron. Four bullocks and
three labourers are engaged nine days in irri-
gating one acre of land thoroughly. The im-
portance of this branch of agriculture is evi-
denced by the great number of wells, which
even these most indolent people sink in dis-
tricts deficient in streams. Near Madras, at
Saymbrumbacum, a reservoir more than 7
miles long and 3 broad, for the purposes of irri-
gation, has been formed by merely raising a
bank across a natural ravine. In the Tamul
language a reservoir of this kind is called an
Eray. This supplies 32 villages containing
5000 persons employed in agriculture (should
the rains fail) for 18 months. Sluices lined
with bricks pass under the banks to supply
the fields ; the inner opening of the sluice is
covered by a flat stone, in which is cut a cir-
cular hole, through which the water is allowed
to pass as required, by means of a plug fixed
to a bamboo, and secured from escape by
means of stone pillars and cross-bars. When
bullocks are employed to raise water from
wells, a leathern bucket is used which holds
45 gallons; this two bullocks will raise every
minute and a half from a well 44 feet deep,
and they work eight hours per day.

To the insoluble matter of the water em-
ployed in irrigation, must be attributed a con-
siderable portion of its value. These vary at
different seasons. That of the Ganges, which
is extensively employed in irrigation, was ex-
amined by Mr. Everett. He found in it of in-
soluble matters —

Gnint.
July 3. In a wine quart . . . . l

7. 8

23. 10

Aug. 1-8. 58ia

22. 28

Sept. 6. --------17

24 8

Oct. 8 6

This insoluble or mechanically-suspended
matter was analysed by Mr. Piddington : he
found in 200 parts from the banks of the
Ganges, at Mohulpore —

Vegetable matter ------- 5^

i^aline matters, chiefly muriate of potass - - i
CHrbonate ofliine ------- 16t

Phosphate of lime ------ 1

Oxide of iron -------12

Silex - - 139

Alumina --------141

Water «

Loas 8*

As these rich, purely divided matters, are
depositing on the lower grounds within reach
of the flood waters, it follows as a natural con-
sequence that "the higher soils are generally
and rapidly impoverishing, and this to a de-
gree of which few, who have not made the
subject one of attention, are aw^are."

The rapid effects produced by a copious ar-
tificial watering of grass lands under the burn-
ing sun of India, may be judged by the follow-
ing report made in 1841, by Sir Edward Burnes
to Lord Auckland, upon the artificial grasses
of Cabool.

" There are three kinds of grasses cultivated
in Cabool — 'rishku,' or lucem, ' shuftul,' a kind
of trefoil, and * si barga,' or clover. The first

657

INDIA, AGRICULTURE OP.

INDIAN MILLET.

and the last continue to )ueld crops for some
years, but the • trefoil' (shuftul) is an annual.
The lucern (rishku) is sown in spring, gene-
rally about the vernal equinox; for each ju-
reeb, or about half an English acre, 2 seers of
Cabool, or about 28 lbs. English, are required
as seed. In 40 days it comes to perfection, and
is cut down, and will yield 4 full-grown crops
ere winter sets in, but by early cutting 6 or 8
crops may be drawn ; the last may sometimes
be inferior from premature cold. One jureeb
or half an English acre yields on an average
ten camel loads of grass at each cutting, as a
camel carries about 500 lbs. ; this is a produce
of 5000 lbs. the jureeb, or 10,000 lbs. the Eng-
lish acre, and for four fine crops 40,000 lbs.
English. The third crop is considered the
best, and from it the seed is preserved : of
this the half acre sown with the two seers of
Cabool will yield 40 sears, or about 560 lbs.
This plant requires the best black soil, much
manure, and is watered 5 times each crop — in
fact whenever it droops. It is sometimes sown
along with barley, but in that case the grain,
by exhausting the soil, injures the crop. The
seed is never exported, but the grass is so
plentiful, though all the cattle are fed on it, as
much to exceed the consumption; it is, there-
fore, dried, and that produced at any distance
from a market is generally stored in this man-
ner, and sold during winter. A camel load of
it, or about 500 lbs. English, whether green or
dry, sells for one Cabool rupee, a coinage of
which 115^ are equal to 100 Company's ru-
pees. Lucern generally lasts for 6 years, but
it will yield for 10 years if manure be abun-
dantly scattered over it. The seed is at pre-
sent sold for a rupee, a stone of 14 lbs. ; but as
it is not cultivated for exportation, this is
much dearer than it might otherwise be had,
and its price has been almost doubled by the
arrival of the British troops. The trefoil or
* shuftul' in cultivation, in the time of sowing,
reaping, and soil, resembles lucern, and the
calculations of produce for the one will suffice
for the other, only it is an annual plant. The
seed, too, is dearer by one half than that of lucern.

" The clover or * si barga' (i. e. three leaves),
assimilates likewise to the lucern, and it lasts
as long. I may, however, observe, that the
climate of Cabool is much later than that of
England, and, excepting the seed sown in au-
tumn, nothing is put in the ground here with
advantage before the 1st of April."

Of a rotation of crops, or of fallows, the ryots
of Bengal have but little idea : their richest
low-lying grounds are devoted to the growth
of rice, and on the uplands they generally crop
the soil till it is exhausted, and then abandon
it to the weeds, which soon occupy it in profu-
sion : they have, besides, a wretched method
of sowing various seeds together, in a manner
that cannot be sufficiently reprehended. It is
only in some parts of India that any thing like
rotation of crops is observed. In the highlands
of Behar, the following rotation is usually
adopted: — 1. Year-fallow and wheat; 2, Maize
(muckai), followed by big or bear, a kind of
barley; 3. Murwa, sama, and cowaree, being
species of millet, followed by cotton.

There is nothing remarkable in the domestic
658

animals of Bengal : the oxen are inferior, and
their sheep are described as " small, lank, and
thin :" the colour of three-fourths of each flock
is black or dark-gray. The quality of the fleece
is worse, if possible, than its colour; it is harsh,
thin, and hairy, in a very remarkable degree :
no part of clothing or domestic furniture, so
far as Dr. Tennant had observed, is manufac-
tured of wool, except a coarse kind of blanket-
ing which some of the boatmen (dandies) and
people in the upper districts use during the
cold season, as a wrapper at night.

The same system of irrigation which pre-
vails in Arabia, in Persia, and in Hindostan,
is carried on to a very considerable extent in
the empire of China, where the soil is culti-
vated perhaps more carefully, and with a
greater minuteness of detail, or garden system
of husbandry, than in any other country. I do
not allude in this work to their cultivation of
crops such as the tea plant, or those from
which the English cultivator is as little likely
to derive useful hints. They are remarkable
for the care with which they deepen, even by
the spade, their cultivated lands, and their hus-
banding of manures of all kinds is admirable ;
every thing that is produced in their cities en-
dued with fertilizing properties, is collected
and preserved with the utmost care. The
night-soil, for instance, is made into a kind of
bricks with calcareous matter, and carried into
the most distant provinces, for the use of the
farmers. " There is, perhaps," says the author
of British Husbandry (vol. i. p. 273), " no part
of the world in which the preparation and the
practical application of vegetable and animal
manure is so well understood as in China ; but,
owing to its overflowing population, almost the
whole of the labour is performed by man, by
which the number of working animals is so
much reduced, that night-soil forms the princi-
pal dependence of the farmer. It is extensively
employed in a dried state, and is sold as an
article of commerce throughout the empire, in
the form of cakes, mixed up with one-third of
their weight of marl." To the same end the
poor are employed in collecting in the public
roads and streets all the horse and other dung,
which is also made into cakes with marl, and
these are afterwards dried in the sun.

The system of tillage formed by the Chinese,
however antiquated, is not of a general descrip-
tion, calculated to instruct the English culti-
vator; anu the Chinese husbandmen are en-
tirely uninformed as to any scientific principles,
by the observance of which the cultivation of
the earth is improved. The same remark, in
fact, extends to most oriental farmers : they
merely follow a regular routine of operations,
because it is that which their forefathers adopt-
ed : followed without consideration, it is trans-
mitted unimproved. See iRRioATioif, and
NiGHT-soi L. (Memoir on the Agriculture of IndiOf
by G. W. Johnson.)

INDIAN CORN. See Maize.

INDIAN CRESS. See Cress, Ixdiak.

INDIAN MILLET (Sm-ghum vulgare). Sor-J
ghi is the Indian name, according to Bauhin.!
The French call it grand millet, the Italians]
saggena or so7-go, and the Spaniards alcandicu
It is much cultivated in Arabia and most J

INDIAN RUBBER.

INDIAN RUBBER.

parts of Asia Minor, and has been introduced
into Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and some parts
of Germany; also into China, Cochin-China,
and the West Indies, where it grows commonly
five or six feet high or more, and, being es-
teemed a hearty food for labourers, is called
Negro Guinea corn. Its long awns or bristles
defend it from the birds. In England, the au-
tumns are seldom dry and warm enough to
ripen the seeds well in the field. In Arabia it
is called dora or durra. The flour is very white,
and they make good bread of it, or rather cakes,
about two inches in thickness. The bread
which they make of it in some parts of Italy is
dark and coarse. In Tuscany it is used chiefly
for feeding poultry and pigeons; sometimes
for kine, swine, and horses. Brooms are made
of the spikes, which are also sent to England
for the same purpose. The Indian millet, as
well as the common sort (paiiirum) is cultivated
in some parts of North America, and has been
tried in England, but it is only in the warmest
autumns that it ripens its seeds. (Loudon's En-
cyclof)tpdia of Plants.) See Guinea Corw. ,

INDIAN RUBBER, Gum Elastic, or Caout-
chouc, is a well-known tough and yielding sub-
stance, obtained in South America and Java
from the sap of a tree called the Sipkonia cahuca.
To procure the sap, incisions are made through
the bark in many places, and the milky juice
which exudes is spread over clay moulds, and
dried in the sun, or by a fire, the smoke from
which last blackens it.

The juice itself has been of late years im-
ported. It is of a pale-yellow colour, and has
the consistence of cream. It becomes covered,
in the bottles containing it, with a pellicle of
concrete caoutchouc. Its specific gravity is
1*012. "When it is dried, it loses 55 per cent,
of its weight: the residuary 45 is elastic gum.
When the juice is heated, it immediately coagu-
lates, in virtue of its albumen, and the elastic
gum rises to the surface. It mixes with wa-
ter in any proportion ; and, when thus diluted,
it coagulates with heat and alcohol as be-
fore.

The specific gravity of caoutchouc is 0-925,
and it is not permanently increased by any de-
gree of pressure. By cold or long quiescence,
it becomes hard and stifl". By long boiling in wa-
ter it softens, swells, and becomes more readily
soluble in its peculiar menstrua; but when ex-
posed to the air, it speedily resumes its pristine
consistence and volume. It is quite insoluble
in alcohol ; but in ether, deprived of alcohol
by washing with water, it readily dissolves,
and affords a colourless solution. When the
ether is evaporated, the caoutchouc becomes
again solid, but is somewhat clammy for a
while. When treated with hot naphtha, dis-
tilled from native petroleum, or from coal-tar,
it swells to 30 times its former bulk ; and if
then triturated with a pestle, and pressed
through a sieve, it aflbrds a homogeneous var-
nish, which being applied by a flat edge of
metal or wood to cloth, prepares it for forming
the patent water-proof cloth of Mackintosh.
Two surtaces of cloth, to which several coats
of the above varnish have been applied, are,
when partially dried, brought evenly in contact,
and then passed between rollers, in order to

condense and smooth them together. This
double cloth is afterwards suspended in a
stove-room to dry, and to discharge the disa-
greeable odour of the naphtha.

Caoutchouc dissolves in the fixed oils, such
as linseed oil, but the varnish has not the pro-
perty of becoming concrete upon exposure to air.

It is more or less soluble in the oils of la-
vender and sassafras.

It melts at 248° Fahrenheit, and stands after-
wards a much higher heat without undergoing
any further change. When the melted caout-
chouc is exposed to the air, it becomes hard
on the surface in the course of a year. When
kindled, it burns with a bright flame and a
great deal of smoke.

Neither chlorine, sulphurous acid gas, muri-
atic acid gas, ammonia, nor fluosilicic acid gas
afl[ects it, whence it forms very valuable flexi-
ble tubes for pneumatic chemistry. Cold sul-
phuric acid does not readily decompose it, nor
does nitric acid, unless it be somewhat strong.
The strongest caustic potash ley does not dis-
solve it, even at a boiling heat.

Mr. William Henry Barnard, in the course
of some experiments upon the impregnation
of ropes with cjioutchouc, at the taciory of
Messrs. Enderby, at Greenwich, discovered
that when this substance was exposed to a heat
of about 600° Fahrenheit, it resolved itself into
a vapour, which, by proper refrigeratory me-
thods, was condensable into a liquid possessing
very remarkable properties, to which the name
caoutchoucine has been given. For this in-
vention "of a solvent not hitherto used in the
arts," Mr. Barnard obtained a patent, in Au-
gust, 1833. His process for preparing it is
described in his specification as follows :

" I take a mass of the said caoutchouc, or
Indian rubber, as imported, and having cut it
into small lumps, containing about two cubic
inches each (which I prefer), I throw these
lumps into a cast-iron still. I then apply heat
to the still in the usual manner, which heat is
increased until the thermometer ranges at 600
degrees of Fahrenheit, or thereabouts. And
as the thermometer ranges progressively up-
wards to 600 degrees of Fahrenheit, a dark-
coloured oil or liquid is distilled over, which I
claim as my said invention, such liquid being
a solvent of caoutchouc, and other resinous
and oleaginous substances. When the ther-
mometer reaches 600 degrees, or thereabouts,
nothing is left in the still but dirt and charcoal.

"I afterwards subject the dark-coloured li-
quid thus distilled to the ordinary process of
rectification, and thereby obtain fluids varying
in specific gravity, of which the lightest hitherto
has not been under 670, taking distilled water
at 1000, which fluids I also claim as my said
invention.

" At each rectification the colour of the liquid
becomes more bright and transparent, until, at
the specific gravity of 680, or thereabouts, it is
colourless and highly volatile.

" In the process of rectification (for the pur-
pose of obtaining a larger product of the oil
colourless) I put about one-third of water into
the still. In each and every state the liquid is
a solvent of caoutchouc, and several resinous
and oleaginous substances, and also of other

659

INDtAN TOBACCO.

INDIGO.

substances (such as copal), in combination
with very strong alcohol."

The discovery of the chemical solvent which
forms the subject of the patent above described,
has 'excited considerable interest in the philo-
sophic world, not only from its probable use-
fulness as a new article of commerce, but also
from two very extraordinary characteristics
which it is found to possess, viz., that, in a
liquid state, it has less specific gravity than
any other liquid known to chemists, being con-
siderably lighter than sulphuric ether, and, in
a stale of vapour, is heavier than the most
ponderous of the gases.

Its elementary constituents are.
Carbon - - 6812 - - 8 proportions.
Hydrogen - - 1000 - - 7 ditto.

This new material (when mixed with alco-
hol) is a solvent of all the resins, and particu-
larly of copal, which it dissolves, without arti-
ficial heat, at the ordinary temperature of the
atmosphere ; a property possessed by no other
solvent known ; and hence it is peculiarly use-
ful for making varnishes in general. It also
mixes readily with oils, and will be found to
be a valuable and cheap menstruum for lique-
fying oil-paints ; and, without in the slightest
degree affecting the most delicate colours, will,
from its ready evaporation, cause the paint to
dry almost instantly.

Cocoa-nut oil, at the common temperature
of the atmosphere, always assumes a concrete
form ; but a portion of this caoutchoucine
mixed with it will cause the oil to become fluid,
and to retain sufficient fluidity to burn in a
common lamp with extraordinary brillianc)'.

Caoutchoucine is extremely volatile ; and
yet its vapour is so exceedingly heavy that it
may be poured, without the liquor, from one
vessel into another, like water. (Ure^s Bid.)

INDIAN TOBACCO. See Eyk-brirht.

INDIAN TURNIP (.^mm^7-?>/)i//^Mm), Wake-
robin, &c. An American plant, distinguished
by it^ head of beautiful red berries growing
upon a single stem, and its perennial bulbous
root, resembling a small rough turnip, possess-
ing such an extremely acrid juice as, when
bitten or chewed, causes violent inflammation
in the mouth and salivary glands, inducing
copious salivation. This acrid quality of the
root is, however, dissipated by boiling or dry-
ing. The dried root, grated and boiled in milk,
is a popular remedy for coughs and pulmonary
consumption.

The English wake-robin, or cuckoo-pint, is the
Arum maculatum, which in many of its sensible
qualities resembles the American Indian turnip.

INDIGENOUS PLANTS. Such plants as
are natives of or are common to a country.

INDIGO (Indigofera, from indigo, a blue dye-
stuff, a corruption of Indimm, India, and fero,
to bear; most of the species produce the well-
known dj^e called indigo, the finest of all vege-
'table blues). This is an extensive genus of
rather elegant plants, the shrubby kinds of
%hich are well worthy of cultivation. The
stove and green-house shrubby kinds^ thrive
best in a mixture of sandy loam and peat, and
may be increased without difficulty by cuttings
of the young wood, planted in sand, under a
glass, in heat. The annual and biennial kinds
660

must be raised from seeds sown in a hotbed in
spring; and when the plants have grown a
sufllcient height, they may be planted singly
into pots, and treated as other tender annuals
and biennials. The genus belongs to the natu-
ral order Leguminosce : hence the flowers resem-
ble the pea tribe. The vexillum is round,
emarginate ; the keel furnished with a subulate
spur on both sides; stamens diadelphous; style
filiform ; legume continuous, one or more seed-
ed, two-valved. The Indigofera caerulea yields
the finest indigo; the 7. argentia, an inferior
kind, which comes from Egypt ; the I. tindorioy
besides yielding indigo, is also medicinally
employed ; and the powdered leaf of I. anil is
used in some diseases of the liver. (Paxton,^

Indigo, when cultivated, thrives best in a
free, rich soil, and a warm situation, frequently
refreshed with moisture. The usual course
pursued for its culture is as follows : —

Having first chosen a proper piece of ground,
and cleared it, hoe it into little trenches, not
above two inches or two inches and a half ia
depi^j, nor more than fourteen or fifteen inches
asunder. In the bottom of these, at any season
of the year, strew the seeds pretty thick, and
immediately cover them. As the plants shoot,
they should be frequently weeded, and kept
constantly clean, until they spread sufficiently
to cover the ground. Those who cultivate
great quantities, only strew the seeds pretty
thick in little shallow pits, hoed up irregularly,
but generally within four, five, or six inches of
one another, and covered as before. Plants
raised in this manner are observed to answer
as well as the others, or rather better; but they
require more care in the weeding. They grow
to full perfection in two or three months, and
are observed to answer best when cut in full
blossom. The plants are cut with reaping-
hooks, a few inches above the root, tied in
loads, carried to the works, and laid by strata
in the steeper. Seventeen negroes are sufficient
to manage twenty acres of indigo ; and one
acre of rich land, well planted, will, with good
seasons and proper management, yield five
hundred pounds of indigo in twelve months;
for the plant ratoons (stools, stoles, or tillers,
i. e. it sends out stolones, or new growths), and
gives four or five crops a year, but must be re-
planted afterwards. (Broivne.)

The process by which the blue colouring
matter is extracted from the plant in Mexico,
the East Indies, &c., is as follows : —

The leaves are gathered at maturity, and im-
mersed in vessels filled with water till fermenta-
tion takes place. The water then becomes
opaque and green, exhaling an odour like that]
of volatile alkali, and evolving bubbles of car-
bonic acid gas. When the fermentation has
been continued long enough, the liquid is de-
canted and put into other vessels, where it is
agitated till blue flakes begin to appear. Water
is now poured in, and flakes are precipitated
in the form of a blue powdery sediment, which
is obtained by decantation, and which, after
being made up into small lumps and dried in
the shade, is the indigo of the shops. It is in-
soluble in water, though slightly soluble in al-
cohol; but its true solvent is sulphuric acid,
with which it forms a fine blue dye, known by

M.

INDURATED.

INFLAMMATION.

the name of liquid blue. It aflfords by distilla-
tion carbonic acid gas, water, ammonia, some
oily and acid matter, and much charcoal;
whence its constituent principles are most pro-
bably carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Indigo may be procured also from several other
plants besides Indigofera tinctoria, and particu-
larly from Isatis tinctoria, or woad, a plant indi-
genous to Britain, and thought to be the plant
with the juice of which the ancient Britons
stained their naked bodies, to make them look
terrible to their enemies. If this plant is di-
gested in alcohol, and the solution evaporated,
white crystalline grains, somewhat resembling
starch, will be left behind ; which grains are
indigo, becoming gradually blue by the action
of the atmosphere. The blue colour of indigo,
therefore, is owing to its combination with
oxygen.

Indigo is not cultivated to so great an extent
in the United States as formerly, the imported
article being obtained so readily. The follow-
ing process of manufacturing indigo in small
quantities for family use is extracted from the
SotUhern Agriculturist: — Cut the indigo when
the under leaves begin to dry, and while the
dew is on them in the morning; put them in a
barrel, and fill this with rain water, and place
weights on to keep it underwater; when bubbles
begin to form on the top, and the water begins to
look of a reddish colour, it is soaked enough,
and must be taken out, taking care to wring and
squeeze the leaves well, so as to obtain all the
strength of the plant; it must then be churned
(which may be done by means of a tolerably
open basket, with a handle to raise it up and
down) until the liquor is quite in a foam. To
ascertain whether it is done enough, take out
a spoonful in a plate, and put a small quan-
tity of very strong lye to it. If it curdles, the
indigo is churned enough, and you must pro-
ceed to break the liquor in the barrel in the
same way, by putting in lye, (which must be as
strong as possible,) by small quantities, and
continuing to churn until it is all sufficiently
curdled ; care must be taken not to put in too
much lye, as that will spoil it- When it curdles
freely with the lye, it must be sprinkled well over
the top with oil, which immediately causes the
foam to subside, after which it must stand till
the indigo settles to the bottom of the barrel.
This may be discovered by the appearance of
the water, which must be let oflf gradually by
boring holes first near the top and afterwards
lower, as it continues to settle ; when the water
is all let off and nothing remains but the mud,
take that and put it in a bag, (flannel is the best)
and hang it up to drip, afterwards spreading
it to dry on large dishes. Take care that none
of the foam, which is the strength of the weed,
escapes ; but if it rises too high sprinkle oil
on it.

Seven or eight species of indigo are found
in the United States, most of which are in the
south. The wild indigo {Dyer's Baptisia), com-
mon in Pennsylvania and other Middle States,
yields a considerable proportion of blue co-
louring matter of an inferior kind. (Flora
Cestrirn.)

INDURATED (Lat. induro). A term imply-
ing that a substance naturally soft is hardened.

It is a term frequently used in botanical works
to signify the above-mentioned change.

INERT VEGETABLE MATTER. The
inert vegetable matters of the soil are those
which decompose very slowly, and consequent-
ly afford very little nourishment to the growing
plant. Of this kind are woody fibre, tanner's
bark, peat, &c., all of which, if not previously
rendered more easily soluble by being mixed
with farm-yard dung, or other easily fermenta-
ble substances, afford food to vegetation by
very slow degrees.

INFIRMARY (Lat infirmusy weak). An
hospital for the reception of the sick. The
Veterinary College in London have an infirm-
ary for sick and diseased horses, to which the
horses of their subscribers have access and
medical treatment, free fr9m charge.

INFLAMMATION. In farriery, is a disease
or affection consisting in an increased heat and
action in any part of an animal, arising from
various causes, external or internal, local or
universal. In animals, the chief causes are
wounds, bruises, and sudden or excessive cold,
and the application of heat afterwards.

The horse is subject to inflammation of the
lungs, stomach, bowels, kidney, and of the eye
and foot. Of inflammation of the bowels I
have already spoken (see Bowels). Of in-
flammation of the stomach in the horse, except
from poisonous herbs or drugs, we know little.
It very rarely occurs, and then can with diffi-
culty be distinguished from inflammation of the
bowels ; and in both diseases the assistance of
a skilful veterinary surgeon is required.

Among the causes of inflammation of the
kidney are, improper food, such as mow-burnt
hay, musty oats, &c. Bleeding, in this case,
must be promptly resorted to, and carried to its
full extent. An active purge should next be
administered ; and a counter-inflammation ex-
cited as near as possible to the seat of disease.

Inflammation of the lungs is one of the
causes of roaring : it is generally brought on
by the respiration of heated and empoisoned
air, in neglected and filthy stables ; by sudden
changes from heat to cold, or cold to heat,
f£«m grass to the stable, or stable to grass, and
so on. Bleeding, blistering, and relaxing me-
dicines should be resorted to under the advice
of a professional man ; for the cure of this
malady can scarcely be safely imdertaken
without proper advice.

Cooling applications, such as Goulard's ex-
tract, one drachm or half an ounce of the tinc-
ture of opium to a pint of water, with mash diet
and gentle physic, will usually get rid of com-
mon inflammation of the eye, or the inflamma-
tion will subside itself; but should three or
four days pass and the inflammation not be
abated, we may begin to suspect that it is spe-
cific and fatal inflammation, or true ophthal-
mia, for which there is no cure. See Ete.

Inflammation of the foot is brought on by
over-exertion. If a horse that has been ridden
or driven hard be suffered to stand in the cold,
or if his feet be washed and not speedily dried,
he is very likely to have " fever in the feet."
Bleeding at the foot, and poultices of linseed
meal to cover the whole of the fool and pastern,
with sedative and cooling medicines, should be
3 K 661

INFLORESCENCE.

INSECTS.

resorted to. And to promote evaporation it is
advisable to remove the shoe, pare the sole as
thin as possible, and have the crust, and parti-
cularly the quarters, well rasped. See Grease.

For inflammation in sheep, see Sheep.

In inflammatory fever in cattle, profuse bleed-
ing, followed by immediate purging (1^ lbs. of
Epsom salts dissolved in water or gruel), must
be had recourse to. (Youait on Cattle, p. 359.)

INFLORESCENCE (Lat. inflorescere, to flou-
rish). The general arrangement of the flowers
upon a stem or branch. It consists of the fol-
lowing principal kinds : viz., the spike, the ra-
ceme, the panicle, the capitulum, the cyme, and
the umbel.

The spike is a long rachis of flowers sessile,
or without foot-stalks. The term raceme is
commonly applied to flowers when they are
arranged round a filiform or thread-like simple
axis, each particular flower being stalked. The
panicle is a loose disposition of inflorescence,
in which the primary axis developes secondary
axes, which themselves produce tertiary, as
in oats ; or, in other words, it is a raceme bear-
ing branches of flowers in place of simple
ones. Capitulum implies the arrangement in
small heads. The cyme is a mode of inflo-
rescence resembling a flattened panicle, as that
of the elder.

Of the particular arrangement of the umbel,
the carrot is a familiar example ; the pedun-
cles and pedicles spring from a common cen-
tre, and rise till they form a nearly flat tuft.
The difference between an umbel and a corymb
is, that whilst in the latter the flowers form a
flat head, the pedicles do not, as in the former,
spring from a common centre. {PaxtorCs Bat.
Diet. : Brande^s Diet, of Scienee.)

INFLUENZA. An epidemic catarrh, at-
tended by febrile and other symptoms, which
often run very high, and assume a variety of
aspects, dependant upon the seasons and other
causes. The possibility of the existence of a
peculiar state of the atmosphere, although we
have no means of detecting it, is undoubtedly
the true cause of influenzas. Miasms, or va-
pours of a noxious kind, may exist, though in
very minute quantity, also as exciting causes
of influenza, an idea suggested by Dr. Prout.
It may possibly be of volcanic origin ; and
such a substance as seleniuretted hydrogen,
which, even in extremely minute quantity, is
highly deleterious, might perhaps account for
some of the phenomena of influenza ; but we
must acknowledge that nothing certain is
known respecting the cause of this disease.
See Distemper, Epidemic, and Murrain.

INOCULATION. An operation in the
management of fruit trees, which is some-
times called budding. It is a kind of grafting
practised in the summer months on various
trees and plants, and often succeeds better
than the common method of grafting. (See
BuDDijfo and Grafting.) It is also a term
used to signify the process of transplanting
grasses. See Grasses.

INSECTS (Lat. insecta). A very extensive
and, to the cultivators of the earth, important
class of animals. Insects are distinguished
from Worms by always having feet in their
perfect or winged state, as the beetle, butterfly,
662

moth, «&c. Worms crawl on their bellies, and
have no feet, as the earth-worm, snail, slug,
&c. Insects, above all other animals, are by
far the most destructive to vegetation.

On the subject of the science of entomology,
in this work, we propose only to touch upon
those which are the most injurious or impor-
tant to the farmer ; and many of these, such as
the bee, ant, fly in turnips, wireworm, &c., will
be found under their respective heads ; indeed
the mere list of known insects is so numerous,
that the catalogue alone would be too exten-
sive for a work of this description. "The
great characteristic of this vast assemblage of
animals," says Mr. Swainson "is the total ab-
sence of internal bones ; hence, their hardest
parts are always external, and the muscles are
usually attached to the under side of the sub-
stance which forms the covering of the ani-
mal. The body is always divided into rings
or transverse joints, from which circumstance
naturalists have agreed to call them annulose^
or ringed animals." This name is peculiarly
applicable, since it expresses a marked dis-
tinction from such as have an internal skele-
ton., analogous to that of man, and which are
called Verlehrata, from possessing a spine.
The ^nnulosa contain Insecta (insects proper) ;
Arachnida (spiders) ; Crustacea (crabs) ; and
Annelida (worms) ; excluding the soft Vermes
of Linnaeus, which include the shell-fishes, or
Mollusca. So diversified, indeed, are the difl'er-
ent groups of this immense assemblage, or
sub-kingdom of the animal world, that it is im-
possible to assign to them any other character,
as a whole, than that just mentioned.

From the works of Mr. Swainson, of Kirby
and Spence, the papers of Mr. Duncan, in the
Quart. Journ. of Agr., the work of V. Kollar,
On Insects injurious to Gardeners, Foresters, and
Farmers, and especially from that of Dr. Har-
ris, the chief facts are obtained. In the words
of M. Kollar, "To enable the readers, for whom
this work is intended, to find more easily the
insect particularly interesting to each, it has
been considered proper not to treat of families
and species in any systematic arrangement,
but according to the branch of culture to
which they are particularly injurious." And,
in pursuance of this object, I shall only briefly
allude to some of the chief of the insect depre-
dators, for "to enumerate," says Davy, "all
the destroying animals and tyrants of the vege-
table kingdom, would be to give a catalogue
of the greater number of the classes in zoology;
almost every species of plant is the peculiar
resting-place or dominion of some insect tribe;
and from the locust, and caterpillar, to the mi-
nute aphis, a wonderful variety of inferior in-
sects are nourished, and live by their ravages
upon the vegetable world."

Of the considerable extent to which the va-
rious insect tribes commit their depredations,
no farmer will for a moment doubt, and yet he
forms his judgment only upon the ravages of
the larger insects. Of the smaller tribes — thej
minute trespassers — the animalculae — thosdl
only discernable through the microscope, he^
forms no estimate. Yet of those that he doe»i
see, the catalogue is fearfully alarming.— j
" There is," says Mr Duncan, " scarcely one

INSECTS.

INSECTS.

of our most useful plants which is not assailed
in some way or other; and the forms of in-
sects, and their modes of living, are so infi-
nitely diversified as to enable them to continue
their depredations in all the different states of
these plants. The various kinds of grain, for
example, have a host of enemies in the sub-
terraneous larvae of beetles which consume
the roots ; various kinds of caterpillars feed
on the blade ; some particular species attack
the ear; and even when laid up in apparent
security, a small beetle is often found to scoop
out the interior of each grain, and convert it
into an abode for itself. (See Corn Weevil.)
In England, if the seed of the turnip escape
the attack of a minute weevil, another enemy
awaits the unfolding of the cotyledon leaves,
and a third buries itself in the bulb and root-
lets, which become diseased and covered with
unseemly excrescences (see Anburt), while
the mature foliage is often consumed by cater-
pillars.

"But even when there is no remarkable
augmentation of their numbers, there is rea-
son to believe that the injury occasioned to
vegetation by insects is at all times greater
than is generally supposed. Their operations
are often carried on under cover, either be-
neath the surface of the soil, within the sub-
stance of the plant, or in other situations
where they escape observation. Many kinds
.again feed only during the night, and conceal
themselves during the day in holes and cre-
vices. In consequence of this latent and in-
sidious mode of attack, there is no doubt that
we are often led to ascribe the unhealthiness
and decay of plants to badness of soil, unfa-
vourable weather, and other causes, when in
reality they are produced entirely by insects."
(Quart, Journ. Jgr. vol. viii. p. 97.) " The only
course," adds Mr. Duncan, ** which is likely to
lead to the discovery of proper remedies, is to
investigate carefully the habits and natural
history of insects in connection with the struc-
ture and general physiology of the plants
which they attack. In prosecuting this object,
the attention should be directed to ascertain
the time when, and the manner in which, the
eggs are deposited, as well as their composi-
tion, and that of the enclosing membrane, with
a view to determine in what way the vital
principle might be most easily destroyed. The
habits of the larvce call for particular atten-
tion, as it is generally in this state that the
mischief is committed ; the period of their ap-
pearance, their times of feeding, plants on
which they feed, and (if attached to more than
one) the kind they seem to prefer, the part of
the plant attacked, duration of the larvae state,
should be carefully noted; an acquaintance
with the places to which the larvae usually re-
treat when about to change to pupa?, and with
the structure, duration, &c. of the latter, might
probably suggest some easy means of destroy-
ing many in that dormant state. A knowledge
of the economy of the perfect insect is of
course of the utmost importance ; if we could
become acquainted with the retreats in which
they pass the winter, or find means to destroy
the few that generally survive, when they first
appear in the spring, and before they have de-

I posited their eggs, the injuries which are sus-
tained by their means might be altogether pre-
! vented." (Ibid. p. 99.)

Let not, however, the farmer, when he is thus

warmly engaging in the destruction of the an-
noying insects of the field, omit to consider
whether many of these are not, in some shape
or other, productive of benefit — whether they
: do not serve to keep within reasonable limits
'■ other insects, or perhaps perform some other
' wise purpose in the works of the creation.
I This has been proved to be the fact in the case
of the common earth-worm, whose casts so
! often annoy the gardener and the farmer. (See
Earth-Worm.) For these not only assist in
the continual admixture of diflTerent strata of
earths, but, by boring the soil, they promote in
it the circulation of the atmospheric gases, and
even the drainage from it of its superfluous
moisture. And as White, of Selborne, remarks
in his Natural History, "The most insignificant
insects and reptiles are of much more conse-
quence, and have much more influence in the
economy of nature, than the incurious are
aware of. From their minuteness, which ren-
ders them less an object of attention, from their
numbers and fecundity, earth-worms, though in
appearance a small and despicable link in the
chain of nature, yet, if lost, would make a
lamentable chasm."

Insects have been divided by entomologists
into two great divisions — the winged and the
windless.

Winged insects are divided into the follow-
ing orders: —

1. Coleoptera, Of this order are the weevils,
the rose-bug, ground and dung beetles, &c.

2. Orthoptera. Of this order are the cock-
roach, field cricket, grasshopper, &c.

3. Hemiptera. Of which are the field, tree,
and bed-bugs, fetid bugs, &c.

4. Netiroptera. In which are comprehended
the dragon fly, lace fly, ephemera, &c.

5. Hymenoptera. In this order are bees,
wasps, ants, saw-flies, gall-flies, &c.

6. Lepidoptera. Of which order are the but-
terflies, moths, &c.

7. Rhipiptera. Of which are certain minute
insect parasites living on bees, wasps, &c.

8. Diptera. Of this order are gnats, house
flies, musketoes, ox and horse flies, &c.

The insects without wings (Aptera) are di-
vided into the following orders :

9. Myriapoda. Of this are the centipede,
lulus, &c.

10. Thysanura. Including small, soft, leaping
insects, generally covered with a silvery down,
and found in damp places, under logs, &c.

1 1. Parasita. The lice tribe, &c.

12. Suctcrria. The flea.

I. The Transformation of Insects. — Insects
commonly change their form several times in
the most apparently magic manner. A few,
the Aphis, for instance, are viviparous, but
they are generally produced from eggs, that is,
the eggs are produced in the body of the mo-
ther. "The female," says Kollar, "lays her
eggs (which are often stuck on and covered
with a kind of glue to protect them from the
weather) shortly after pairing, instinctively in
the place best adapted for their developement,

663

INSECTS.

INSECTS.

and which offers the proper food to the forth-
coming brood.

Most insects issue from their e^gs as larvae ;
those of the butterflies are provided with feet,
and are called Caterpillars ; those of beetles,
grubs ; and when they have no feet, they are
called maggots. In this state, as their bodies
increase, the insects often cast their skin, and
sometimes change their colour. Many winged
insects, such as the grasshoppers, dragon flies,
&c., very much resemble in their larva state
the perfect insect; they only want the wings,
which are not developed till after the last
change of the skin. The larva state is the pe-
riod of feeding ; and insects are then usually
the destructive enemies of other productions
of nature, knd objects of persecution to far-
mers, gardeners, and foresters.

The nympha or pupa state succeeds that of
the larva. Insects do not now require nou-
rishment (with the exception of grasshoppers
and a few others), and repose in a death-like
slumber. To be safe from their enemies and
the weather, the larvae of many insects, par-
ticularly butterflies, prepare for themselves a
covering of a silky or a cottony texture. Many
form themselves a house of earth, moss, leaves,
grass, or foliage. Many even go into the earth,
or decayed wood, or conceal themselves under
the baric of trees, and other places of security.

After a certain fixed period the perfect in-
sect appears from the pupa. It is usually fur-
nished, in this state, with other organs for the
performance of its appointed functions, as for
the propagation of its species, &c. The male
insect seeks the female, and the female the
place best suited for laying her eggs ; hence
most insects are furnished with wings. Food
is now a secondary' consideration ; consequent-
ly, in many, the feeding organs are less per-
fectly developed than in the larva state, or very
much modified, and suited for finer food, as,
for example, in butterflies, which, instead of
the leaves of plants, only consume the honey
out of their flowers.

n. The food of insects is indeed procured from
an extensive pasture. "From the majestic
oak," observes M. V. KoUar, " to the invisible
fungus or the insignificant wall-moss, the
■whole race of plants is a stupendous meal to
which the insects sit down as guests. Even
those plants which are highly poisonous and
nauseating to other animals are not refused by
them. But this is not yet all. The larger
plant-consuming animals usually limit their
attacks to leaves, seed, and stalks : not so in-
sects, to the various families of which every
part of a plant yields suitable provender.
Some which live under the earth, attack roots ;
others choose the stem and branches ; a third
division live on the leaves ; a fourth prefers
the flowers ; while a fifth selects the fruit or
seed. Even here a still further selection takes
place. Of those which feed on the roots, stems,
and branches, some species only eat the rind
like the bee-hawk moth ; others the inner bark
and the alburnum, like ihe bark beetle; a third
division penetrates into the heart of the solid
wood, like the family of the long-horned bee-
tles. (See BoREns.) Of those which prefer the
foliage, some take nothing but the juice out of
664

the sap vessels, as the aphides : others devour
the substance of the leaves without touching
the epidermis, as the mining caterpillars;
others only the upper or under surface of the
leaves (leaf rollers), while a fourth division
(as the larvae of the Lepidoptera) devour the
entire leaf.

Of those feeding on flowers, some eat the
petals (the rose-bug, &c.), others the farina
(bees, &c.) ; a still greater number consume
the honey from the nectaries (wasps, flies,
&c.) ; other insects injure the plant by punc-
turing it, and laying their egg in the wound,
and with it an acrid matter, which causes a
peculiar excrescence in which their young
are hatched and live, until they are able to eat
their way out, to perform the functions of the
parents, such as the gall-fly, &c. The death-
watch or ticking beetle {Anobium) feeds on dry
wood, long used, as portions of our dwelling
houses.

Those insects which tenant and feed upon
animal matters, have an equally varied taste:
of these are the diflTerent kinds of bird and
sheep lice, &c., gnats, midges, breeze flies,
bugs, fleas, &c. Some of the carnivorous bee-
tles devour their prey entire ; others only suck
out their juices ; others live upon the food they
obtain in water, and devour swarms of the in-
fusoria. Many live on carrion and the excre-
ments of the larger animals, such as the dung-
beetle, and carcass-beetle; others live in the
stomachs of animals ; many moths live en-
tirely upon hair, leather, wool, and feathers.

The food of insects varies strangely with
their transformations : the caterpillar requires
very different food from the butterfly ; the
maggot from the beetle and fly. The larva of the
Sirex gigas feeds on wood, the perfect insect on
flies. Those of some melolonthians live on
roots and tubers, the beetle on leaves. The
quantity of food consumed by diflTerent insects
varies very much : many consume more than
their own weight in a day. The maggot of
the flesh-fly, according to Redi, becomes 200
times heavier, in the course of 24 hours. Cater-
pillars digest every day about one-third to one-
fourth of their weight ; hence the ravages they
commit in a few days. Of others, however, such
as the day-flies {EphemerideB) and the breeze-
flies, and even amongst the Lepidoptera which
spin cocoons, many appear to abstain from
nourishment. Some eat only during the day,
others in the evening; and others, such as the
caterpillars of the night moths, during the
night. Most of them provide their own food;
but a few which live in communities, such as
the wasps, bees, ants, &c., are fed by the per-
fect insect. Many provide a store of food, but
the greater number die unprovided with a
store : others feed their larvae." See Beetle,
and Borers.

III. Destruction of Insects, Sfc. by Artificial
Means. — Various have been the recipes sug-
gested for the destruction of the insects
which destroy the cultivator's crops. Ants,
it is said, may be easily destroyed by toasting
the fleshy side of the skin of a piece of bacon
till it is crisp, and laying it at the root or
stem of any fruit tree that is infested by these
I insects, placing something over the bacon to

INSECTS.

INSECTS.

keep it dry— the ants will go under it ; after a
time lift it up quickly, and dip it into a pail of
water. While treating of insects, I may inci-
dentally allude to worms and slugs, or naked
snails. For the destruction of slugs, warm in
an oven, or before the fire, a quantity of cab-
bage leaves, until they are soft, then rub them
with unsalted butter, or any kind of fresh drip-
ping, and lay them in the places infested by
slugs. In a few hours the leaves will be
found covered with snails and slugs. Wood-
lice are destroyed in the same way. For field
operations, perhaps, the best means of destroy-
ing slugs and worms is common salt, an agent
too little knowafor this purpose, yet its powers
are undoubted.

No person has employed common salt for
the purpose of destroying worms to a greater
extent than Jacob Busk, Esq., of Ponsbourn
Park, in Hertfordshire. His valuable experi-
ments have extended over some hundreds of
acres of wheat. To use his own words, — '*In
every situation, and at every time, the efiect
appeared equally beneficial." The quantity
per acre, — "about four or five bushels sown
out of a common seed-shuttle." The period, —
"In the evening." The effect, — "In the morn-
ing each throw may be distinguished by the
quantity of slime and the number of dead slugs
lying on the ground. In some fields it has cer-
tainly been the means of preventing the de-
struction of the whole crop." Six bushels of
salt per acre was applied by hand, in April,
1828, to a field of oats attacked by the slugs
and worms, and the crop was completely saved
by this application, although an adjoining field,
not salteil, was entirely destroyed by this sort
of vermin.

Salt, too, is a complete preventive of the
ravages of the toeevil in grain. It has been
successfully employed in the proportion of a
pint of salt to a barrel of wheat. I learn from
an American merchant, that wheat placed in
old salt barrels is never attacked by these de-
structive insects. Six or eight pounds of salt
sprinkled over 100 sheaves in stacking, pro-
duces exactly the same effect.

The Eriosoma lanigera upon apple trees, and
several other insects (See American Blight),
may be killed by clay and water, made as thin
as whitewash, and mixing with every b gallons
of it 2 lbs. of cream of tartar, 1 lb. of soft soap,
and half a peck of quicklime. " When you
think," says Mr. Loudon, "that the weather is
likely to continue dry for some time, take a
bucketful of this mixture, and with a large
brush wash over the bark of the trees, wher-
ever you think it has been infected with the
bug. A man will dress a number of trees over
in a few days with a whitewash brush and this
liquid ; it is only necessary to be careful to do
it in dry weather, so that the rain may not
wash over the mixture for some time. The
clay and water alone are sometimes effectual.
Flies and wasps. — A mixture of pepper, sugar,
and water will speedily attract and destroy
them. (Gard. Mag. No. 37 ; Q^art. Journ. Ag;r.
vol. iii. p. 1071.)

Moss and Insects. — Mr. Thomas recommends
that the trees infected should be sprinkled,
with a fine powder in March, and again in Oc
84

tober, on a foggy day when the trees are damp
but not dripping, and I have no doubt of its
efficacy. It is composed as follows : slack five
bushels of lime, hot from the kiln, with com-
mon salt and water (say one lb. of salt to each
gallon of water). When the lime has fallen to
a fine powder, add by small quantities at a
time a bushel of soot, stirring it until com-
pletely incorporated. Mr. Thomas has found
that one man can dust over with the powder fifty
trees in a day, and that the moss in the turf
under fruit trees thus treated is also completely
destroyed by the application. (Trans. Sac. Arts.)
Worvis in grass plats may be readily destroyed
by copiously watering the turf with lime-water
(hal/ a pound of the hottest quick-lime well
stirred in each gallon of water), or by sprin-
kling common salt (20 bushels per acre) over
it, or by strewing it on gravel walks in rather
large proportions. Lime is recommended for
the destruction of the worm which sometimes
injures young larch plantations ; coal-tar and
tar water to preserve hop poles and other
wood from the ravages of insects. The cater-
pillars on cabbages may be readily destroyed
by sprinkling them with finely powdered lime ;
and when some years since a black caterpillar
attacked very generally and extensively the
turnips, in some instances they were very suc-
cessfully destroyed by tuniing into the fields
considerable numbers of common ducks.
Heavy rolling, especially during the night, is
in many cases destructive of slugs; and it is
certain that, by occasional material variations
in the rotation of crops (see Rotation- of
Crops), the number of predatory insects may
be very considerably reduced in cultivated
soils by depriving the larvae of their particular
and essential food.

Mr. Knight recommends the use of carbonate
of ammonia for the destruction of the insects
upon the pine and other plants. Mr. Baldwin,
in effect, does the same, when he commends
the use of the steam from hot fermenting horse
dung. Mr. Robertson found soot (which con-
tains ammonia), when diffused in water, to be
an excellent application. When speaking of
the use of fermenting horse dung in the de-
struction of insects, Mr. Knight remarked, "I
conclude the destructive agent in this case is
ammoniacal gas, which Sir Humphry Davy
informed me he had found to be instantly fatal
to every species of insect; and, if so, this
might be obtained at a small expense by pour-
ing a solution of crude muriate of ammonia
upon quicklime ; the stable or cow-house would
afford an equally efficient, though less delicate
fluid. The ammoniacal gas might, I conceive,
be impelled by means of a pair of bellows
amongst the leaves of the infected plants, in
sufficient quantity to destroy animal without
injuring vegetable life." Ammonia seems pe-
culiarly distasteful to insects. Carbonate of
ammonia is often successfully placed in meat-
safes to prevent the attacks of flies.

IV. The natural Enemies of Insects. — Amongst
the enemies by which insects are kept in
check, may be numbered long-continued rains,
late frosts, inundations, storms ; and, among
the animals, bats, mice, moles, squirrels, foxes,
&c. Birds devour them by myriads; the green-
3 K 2 665

INSECTS.

INSECTS.

finch tears open (says Reaumur) the strong
nest of the yellow-tailed moth, and eats the
infant caterpillars. The woodpeckers and tree-
creepers commit great ravages amongst the
beetles and caterpillars. Crows, which in some
sections destroy the corn, commit great ravages
upon cutworms and destructive insects. In
one of the English counties where the rook (a
bird allied to the crow) had increased so as to
do some damage to the crops, a destructive
war was waged against them, so that they
were nearly exterminated. But under these
circumstances various species of the insect
tribe increased so rapidly, that it became ne-
cessary to import the rooks again from the
adjoining counties. In fact, it remains to be
proved whether any omnivorous bird is more
prejudicial than useful. Insects in their va-
rious states exist throughout the warm season,
whilst the crops are exposed to the birds for a
comparatively short period. Every protection
should be given to birds, and boxes should be
fitted up for martins, wrens, and bluebirds. To
these may be added the frog, the toad, &c.
Many insects, such as the ground beetles, de-
vour the pupae of others. Then, again, there
is the numerous order of the Ichneumonidce,
which lay their eggs in the bodies of other in-
sects and destroy them. The eggs are hatched
within the body of the living insect, and the
young parasites, in the most literal sense, fat-
ten on the entrails of their prey. At last the
wounded caterpillar sinks, the enemies escape
through the skin and become pupae; or the
caterpillar, notwithstanding its internal para-
sites, enters the pupa state ; but, instead of a
butterfly, one or more Ichneumonidce appear.
The beautiful little red insect familiarly known
as the lady-bird or lady-bug, is of vast service
by the havoc which it makes among the plant
and bark-lice. Many a friendly ichneumon fly
or lady-bird has been killed by those whose
want of knowledge led them to consider these
insects destructive to vegetation. To these
wonderful animals we often owe the preserva-
tion of our orchards, woods, and grains. Many
other modes, besides those I have enumerated,
have been suggested, by which the number of
the cultivator's predatory insects may be re-
duced, most of which I shall notice under their
respective heads. I am quite of the opinion,
however, of the authors of the "Work I have so
extensively quoted, "that the most essential and
necessary means to be opposed to the serious
injuries caused by insects, consists in the uni-
versal dissemination of the knowledge of the
natural history of hurtful insects amongst far-
mers, gardeners, foresters, and all those, in
fact, who are in any manner connected with
agriculture."

V. Of the Insects which live and propagate on
domestic animals. — The chief are lice, which
commonly originate from want of cleanliness,
poor, unwholesome food, or from the weaken-
ing effects of other diseases. Old horses are
more subject to them than young ones ; they
are common in sheep, and in swine; for which
the best remedies will be found under their re-
spective heads. (For the bots in horses, see
Box ; for those in sheep, see Sheep Bot ; for
the ox- warble, see Wakble.) The forest fly,

or horse fly, lives chiefly on horses. It flies in
short flights quickly, and moves about with
considerable agility. The female lays but one
e^^ at a time, from which the fly is hatched.
They abound in the New Forest. See Horse
Fly.

The well-known sheep tick has no wings ;
the fore part of its body is very small, but the
abdomen is large. Its colour reddish, with
white lines on the side of the abdomen. The
farmer will find the following an excellent
receipt for a sheep-dipping wash, by which
they are readily destroyed : — ^ a lb. of powder-
ed white arsenic, 4^ lbs. of soft soap. Boil
these for a quarter of an hour, or until the ar-
senic is dissolved, in five gallons of water.
Add this to the water suflicient to dip fifty
sheep. The quantity of arsenic usually re-
commended is too large. See Ticks.

VI. Insects which injure Bees. — There are seve-
ral insects which injure bees, such as a para-
site bee-louse, which is about the size of a flea,
has no eyes, but the rudiments of four feelers.
They tenant chiefly populous hives : sometimes
two or three are found on a bee. These para-
sites disturb and annoy even the queen bee.
" A bee," says M. Kollar, " infested with a bee-
louse, endeavours, but to no purpose, to get rid
of such an unwished-for guest, till at last she
creeps under a number of other bees, and rubs
oS the louse from her back, when it imme-
diately betakes itself to the back of another bee.
That the presence of this parasite causes pain
to the bee, is apparent from the restlessness
with which she runs out at the hole and back
again. The queen is also disturbed in her em-
ployment of egg-laying, when she is infested by
them, so that the hive suffers in another way
by impoverishment. It may even happen that
when many of these parasites infest a queen,
she must eventually perish. In winter the in-
fected bees usually fall to the floor, and perish
with cold and hunger." Spiders also destroy
bees, but only in their nets. Then there is the
caterpillar of the honeycomb-moth, whose ra-
vages are very considerable, when once they
find their way into a hive. They devour only
the wax. Three hundred have been found in
a hive, and there are two generations of these
caterpillars in a year. Ants also are very fond
of honey, and find their way into hives. Wasps
very frequently do the same. Bees even rob
each other's hives.

VII. The Insects which injure Grain. — These
are numerous: the chief of them are the larvae
which feed on the green leaves and roots of
grain. On these the blackbirds, crows, and
other useful birds feed very copiously. The
barley-midge (Tipula cerealis) attacks the bar-
ley and spelt plants.

VIII. Insects which injure Meadows. — This is
also a very numerous class. "Most of the in-
sects that choose the various sorts of corn for
their food," says M. Kollar, "do not reject the
other sorts of grasses, in the meadows. The
herbage of the meadows has also often pecu-
liar enemies, which are very difficult to find
out and destroy. In most cases the meadows
suffer from the roots of the grass plants being
injured, which is chiefly occasioned by the
larvae of various species of cockchafiers, living

ria/e /(J

■ #

DESTItrCTIVE K\.SECTS. etc

F SDnvaJ taniFlul'

INSECTS.

INSECTS.

in the earth. When bare spots are seen on
meadows, we maybe pretty sure that the larvee
of some species of melolontha are there carry-
ing on their work of destruction. The sub-turf
plough disturbs the operations of these vermin;
the crows devour them.

IX. Insects injurious to cultivated Vegetables —
Are also numerous, and highly injurious to the
gardener's crops. The flea-beetles {Halticd)
are great pests to the gardener: they attack
and devour, during the summer months, various
members of the cabbage tribe, such as the cab-
bage, cauliflower, and colewort, the turnip, the
radish, common and water cress : they also
prey upon flax, hops, sainfoin, &c. (See Flt
lie Turnips.) The mole cricket {Gryllotalpa)
is often peculiarly injurious to the German
cultivators. It does not confine its ravages to
the garden crops, but injures very materially
those of the meadow and corn-fields. It mea-
sures, when full-grown, about two inches in
length. The plant-lice {Aphis) chiefly haunt
the cabbage, peas, and beans. They are de-
voured in great numbers by several of the lady-
birds (Coccinella) and fly tribes.

X. Insects which injure Green-house Plants. —
Of these I need only mention the orange scale
insect (Cocais hesperidum) ; the pine-apple scale
insect (Coccus bromelia) ; the mealy bug (Coccus
Adonidum) ; the oleander scale insect (Aspidio-
tue Nerii), abounding on oleanders, acacias,
aloes, palms, &c. ; the rose scale (A. rosee),
found in old rose stems and twigs ; the cactus
scale {A. echinocacti), on the cacti ; the sweet-
bay scale (A. lauri), on the sweet bay; the rose-
moth (Tinea (Or nix) rhodophagclla) ; and the
plant-mite or red spider (Acarius telarius).

XI. Insects which attack Fruit Trees.— The
number of iftsects which live either partially
or entirely upon fruit trees, is very considera-
ble. I can hardly do more in this work than
give the names of the most formidable of these
little depredators.

XII. Insects injurious to Forest Trees.'— These
are divided by M. Kollar into two classes : —

1. Those which attack deciduous trees; and,

2. Those which are injurious to the evergreens.

XIII. Insects which attack the Fir and Pine
Tribe — These often injure very seriously the
leaves, bark, and young shoots of some of the
Pinus tribe.

Such, then, is a very brief glance at that im-
mense and important class of animals which
are included in the science of entomology. It
must be considered, to use the words of Mr.
Swainson, only as suggestions and stimulants
to further inquiry. The review, however, can-
not but fill us with astonishment ; for, although
we see only a very limited portion of the insect
world, yet that view, limited as it is, is fraught
with instruction to the cultivator. It will lead
him, perhaps, to a clearer understanding of the
often-repeated truth, that nothing is created in
vain. It may suggest to him also the means,
in some cases, of arresting their ravages, when,
by their excessive numbers, they become a
nuisance ; and it may perhaps be instrumental
in saving from destruction many a useful bird,
when the sportsman is made aware of the num-
ber of predatory insects which they so unceas-
ingly destroy. The astonishing number, habits,

and instincts of the insect tribe, too, are equally
instructive, and can only be explained in one
way. These phenomena did not escape the
notice of the great Paley. Thus he observes,
" Moths and butterflies deposit their eggs in the
precise substance (that of a cabbage, for in-
stance) from which not the butterfly herself,
but the caterpillar which is to issue from her
eggs, draws its appropriate food. The butterfly
cannot taste the cabbage ; cabbage is no food
for her; yet in the cabbage, not by chance, but
studiously and electively, she lays her eggs."
And when referring to this immense mass of
animal life, he says, in another place, "To this
great variety in organized life the Deity has
given, or perhaps there arises out of it, a cor-
responding variety of animal appetites. For the
final cause of this we have not far to seek. Did
all animals covet the same element, retreat, or
food, it is evident how much fewer could be
supplied and accommodated than what at pre-
sent live conveniently together, and find a plen-
tiful subsistence. What one nature rejects,
another delights in. Food which is nauseous
to one tribe of animals, becomes, by that very
property which makes it nauseous, an alluring
dainty to another tribe. Carrion is a treat to
dogs, ravens, vultures, fish. The exhalations
of corrupted substances attract flies by crowds.
Maggots revel in putrefaction." Neither can
the astonishing changes of some of the insect
tribe be regarded by a rational being without
very considerable interest. "The wonderful
metamorphosis undergone by the order Lepi-
doptera," says Swainson, " would be almost
incredible, were it not familiarized to us from
early childhood, that a crawling worm, rave-
nous of grass food, should voluntarily seek a
retreat in the earth, or spin its own shroud;
that such a change should come over it, so
complete, as that not a lineament of its first
form was retained; that in this state, after re-
maining a misshapen lump, to all appearance
inanimate, it should suddenly burst forth, full
of life and joy, and, with many-coloured wings,
ascend into mid-air, and derive its only suste-
nance from the nectar of flowers ; — all this, we
say, is one of those miracles of nature, which,
were it told of an insect that had never yet
been seen, the world would not believe."

Description of the Plate of Noxious Insects. —
Throughout this work we have made great use
of the valuable treatise of Dr. Harris on destruc-
tive insects; but, as it is unaccompanied by
plates, the reader who is unacquainted with the
subject may be occasionally in doubt as to the
aspect of those described. On this account we
have devoted Plate 16 to the illustration of a
few of the principal forms, both of destructive
insects and those which prey upon them. The
species figured are,

1. Elaphidion jmtator, oak pruner. See Bo-
rers, p. 205.

2. Clytus Jlexuosus, locust tree borer. See
Borers, p. 208.

3. Criociris trilineata. Potato-vine bug.

4. Haltica striolata, cucumber flea (magni-
fied), p. 371.

5. Phyllophaga quercina, p. 172, 173.

— 6. Hylobius pales, which is very destructive
to the pine forests of the south. The plum

667

INSTEP.

IRRIGATION.

weevil and grain weevil, as well as this spe-
cies, belong to ihe Curculio family.

7. ^gratis dandestina, cut-worm.

8. ^gcHa exitiosa, peach tree borer, female.

9. Galkrea cereana, bee-moth, p. 168.

10. Caravus Goryi, which may be taken as a
representative of a large family which feeds
upon other insects, caterpillars, etc.

11. Coccinella borealis, which in its larva and
perfect state, feeds upon the aphides so destruc-
tive to roses and other plants.

12. Tragus fulvus. The members of the ex-
tensive family {Jchnenionidce) to which this
species belongs, commit great havoc among
caterpillars and grubs.

INSTEP. In farriery, a name given to that
part of a horse's hind-leg which reaches from
the ham to the pastern joint.

INSURANCE. One means of security
against fire. The farmer being constantly sur-
rounded by much combustible matter, should
never, when possible, omit rendering himself
safe by insuring his stock of every kind in
some public office, instituted for this pur-
pose.

In England, the legislature has wisely afford-
ed very considerable facilities to the insurance
of farming stock, which, by an act of Parlia-
ment, is exempted from duty. "The Farmer's
Insurance Institution" of London insures it at
Is. 9rf. per cent., without the average clause ; thus
easily repaired are the ravages of the incen-
diary, of accidental fires, and lightning.

INTEGUMENT. The outer covering or
skin of an animal : it is also used in the same
sense as a synonyme for Testa, for the husk or
exterior covering of seeds.

INVENTORY (Fr. inventaire ; Lat. inventa-
rium). A detailed account taken of any thing
upon a farm. Inventories of the various kinds
of farming stock should be taken annually, at
the close of the year. See BooK-KEEPiif& and
Appraisement.

INVOLUCRE, or INVOLUCRUM. In bo-
tany, the bractes (or small leaves placed near
the calyx, or the peduncle or pedicil) which
surround the flowers or the umbels. Involuccls
are the partial involucres of umbelliferous
plants. {PaxtorCs Bot. Diet.)

IRIS (from iris, the rainbow; alluding to the
variety and beauty of the colours of the flower).
This extensive genus has long been, as it still
continues to be, a great favourite in the flower
garden. "The sword-leaved sorts (says Sweet)
do best in a light loamy soil, and increase freely
by suckers from the roots or by seeds. The
tuberous-rooted ones are more difficult to cul-
tivate, and thrive best in a mixture of loam,
peat, and sand, as does also the tribe to which
/. perxica belongs, as /. alata, I. caucasica, I. reti-
culata, &c. The common bulbous species do
well in any garden soil, the more sandy the
better." /. tuberosa is aromatic as well as
emetic and purgative, and 7. versicolor and 7.
verna are used in the United States as cathar-
tics. {Paxton's Bot. Diet.) Two species of iris
only are indigenous to England,

1. The yellow water iris, or flower-de-luce
(7. pseud-acorus), which grows wild in ditches,
pools, and rivers, and forms a handsome orna-
668

ment for the banks of ponds and streams,
blowing from three to six large, bright yellow
flowers in July. The root is horizontal, de-
pressed, brown, very astringent ; the stem 3 or
4 feet high ; leaves erect, ribbed, grass-green.
The disks of the larger segments of the flowers
are pencilled with dark purple.

2. Stinking iris, or Gladwyn. Roast-beef
plant {I. fcEtidissima). This species grows in
groves, thickets, and under hedges, but it is
rather rare. Dr. Withering, however, observed
it to be very common in England in all the
southwest counties. It is a perennial, grow-
ing to about 2 feet high ; the leaves are dull
green, exhaling, when rubbed, a scent com-
pared to that of roast beef, to which it is no
compliment. The flowers, which appear in
May, are dull, pale purple, pencilled with dark
veins. Seeds orange-coloured, polished. (Eng.
Flor. vol. i. p. 48.)

Miller only mentions 19 species of cultivated
irises, but there are now nearly 100 known
species and varieties. Two or three only are
much admired as ornamental flowers. The
7. xiphium is a bulb from Spain, blowing blue,
white, yellow, and violet flowers in June. The
Persian iris blows a fragrant flower in March
and April ; plant the bulb in October, in a pot
filled with equal quantities of fine mould and
sand, and house it during frost. The dwarf
iris is ornamental ip clusters in a garden ; it
grows only three inches high, and blows in
April. Part its roots in autumn. The Siberian
iris blows in June, and likes a moist situation;
it bears flowers whose falling petals are blue,
and the upright ones dark purple ; its stem is
tall, and its leaves are narrow. 7. susiana, or
fleur-de-lis. The plant is tuberous rooted, loves
a good soil, and should be removed every three
years. It flowers handsomely in June, bearing
varieties of pale blue, deep blue, and striped
or bluish-white flowers. Its odour is feeble,
but it is fetid. These are the most favourite
kinds in gardens. The 7. florentina, which is
occasionally seen in our gardens, yields the orris
root, which is the dried and peeled rhizomes
of the plants. Orris root is prized chiefly on
account of its odour, which resembles that of
the violet. It is added on this account to tooth
powders and hair powder. A hazardous cus-
tom prevails of giving the entire root to infants
to gnaw during teething, from which fatal re-
sults have followed.

The wild flag, Colour-changing flax (7m Vir-
giniana), is common on the margins of ponds
and in miry places in the Middle States. Dr.
Bigelow remarks that the root of this is a vio-
lent emetic. Seven or eight other species of
iris are enumerated in the United States. (Flor.
Cestrica.)

IRON-WOOD {Carpinus ostrya). See Horn-

BEATff.

IRRIGATION (Lat. irngio, to water). In
agriculture, the watering of the earth, to in-
crease its productiveness. The term, however,
is confined to that species of flooding which
consists of spreading a sheet of water over a
field or meadow, in such a manner that it can
be easily withdrawn.

Irrigation, or the artificial watering of the

IRRIGATION.

IRRIGATION.

earth, chiefly to produce increased crops of
grass, has been in use from a very early pe-
riod. In Oriental countries, in fact, the heat
of the climate is such, that in many situations
the now productive soil would be absolutely
sterile, were it not that the cultivator enriched
his ground with a copious supply of water.
The simile employed by Isaiah (i. 30), to indi-
cate barrenness and desolation, is " a garden
that hath no water." And that, in patriarchal
times, they laboured hard to supply their
grounds with water by means of various hy-
draulic machines, some of which resembled
the water-wheels of the fen districts of Eng-
land, and were worked by the feet of men,
something after the style of the modern tread-
mill, is certain. Moses alluded to this prac-
tice when he reminded the Israelites of their
sowing their corn in Egypt, and watering it
with their feet (Deut. xi. 10; 2 Kings, xix. 24),
and in the sandy soils of Arabia the same sys-
tem is still continued. {Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 121.)
According to Dr. Shaw, the following is the
modern mode of raising and using the water
of the Nile for the purpose of irrigation in
Egypt. "Such vegetable productions as re-
quire more moisture than what is occasioned
by the annual inundation of the Nile, are re-
freshed by water that is drawn at certain times
out of the river, and lodged in large cisterns
made for that purpose. The screw of Archi-
medes seems to have been the instrument for-
merly made use of for that purpose, though at
present the inhabitants either supply them-
selves with various kinds of leathern buckets,
or else with a sakiah, as they call the Persian
wheel, which is the most useful and generally
employed machine. Engines and contrivances
of both these kinds are placed all along the
banks of the Nile, from the sea to the cataracts,
their situations being higher, and consequently
the difficulty of raising the water being greater,
as we advance up the river. When their pulse,
saffron, melon, sugar-canes, &c. (all of which
are commonly planted in rills), require to be
refreshed, they take out a plug from the bot-
tom of the cistern, and then the water gushing
out, is conducted from one rill to another by
the gardener, who is always ready as occasion
requires to stop and divert the current. In
Egypt at the present day, according to Dr.
Clarke, the water is sometimes raised for the
purposes of irrigation by means of a wicker
basket lined .with leather, which is held by
cords between two men, who, by this laborious
means, swing it over the banks of the Nile into
the canal which conveys it to the lands intend-
ed to be irrigated. A machine similar to the
Persian wheel is still employed in China by
the cultivators for the purposes of irrigation.
This use of machinery for the purposes of
watering might, in fact, in many situations, be
advantageously employed in England to a
much greater extent than is commonly be-
lieved. It is well known how many thousand
acres of valuable land are profitably drained
by means of the steam-engine. At this very
period a public company is proposing to en-
close and drain an arm of the sea in Lincoln-
shire, by the assistance of its gigantic aid.
Yei how rarely, if ever, is that power employed

to irrigate the thirsty lands of England ; lands
of all others the most profitable, the best adapt-
ed for the formation of water meadows. The
tracts to which I allude are those on a slope,
as on the side of a hill; but these are rarely
found in situations where a sufficiently copious
supply of water can be constantly obtained for
the purposes of irrigation. Yet the quantity
thus required is not so large as to be beyond
the power of the steam-engine to supply; thus,
to sufficiently saturate a square yard of a cal-
careous sand soil with water to the depth of
one foot, as in irrigation, requires about 30
gallons of water, equal to about 145,000 gal-
lons per imperial acre. Now, that the steam-
engine could readily and profitably supply this
quantity of water may be concluded from seve-
ral facts ; thus, the two engines, one of 80, the
other of 60 horses' power, which keep Deeping
Fen, near Spalding, completely drained, when
working, in 1835, only 96 days, of 12 hours
each, raised more than 14,000,000 tons of wa-
ter several feet. The district drained by them
contains about 25,000 acres (Brit. Farm. Mag.
N. S. vol. iii. p. 300), which would otherwise
be a complete swamp. And it has been proved
that, by a common condensing steam-engine,
one bushel of coals will raise more thaa
50,000,000 lbs. of water one foot. In many
situations, therefore, where, for the purposes
of irrigation, good river water can be copious-
ly obtained, and fuel is at a moderate price, I
am confident that great results are yet to be
obtained by the aid of mechanical power. For,
by the steam-engine, the soils of all others the
best adapted for irrigation, may be successfully
brought into cultivation ; for instance, the poor
sands and gravels on the sloping banks of
many of the English and Scotish rivers, many
of whose waters, from being charged with or-
ganic matter, the carbonate and sulphate of
lime, and various earthy substances, are ex-
cellent for the use of water meadows. The
early employment of irrigation by the Egyp-
tians and Chinese was most likely the result
of the good effects which were observed to be
produced by the overflowings of the Nile and
the Chinese rivers ; for, in the " Celestial Em-
pire," irrigation has, it seems, been employed,
according to their veracious historians, for a
period long before that assigned to the flood.
In Italy, especially on the banks of the Po, the
cultivators of the earth have certainly employ-
ed this process for a period previous to the
days of Virgil {Georg. lib. i. v. lOG— 9),—

Ueinde satis fluvium inducit, rivosque sequentes—

and it is still carried on with a zeal and care
worthy of the art they practise. M. P. Cato,
the earliest of the Roman writers upon agri-
culture (1.50 years before Christ), in his ninth
chapter, told the Italian farmers to "make
water meadows, if you have water, and if you
have no water, have dry meadows." The di-
rections of Columella seem to have all the
freshness of a modern age about them. He
was the first who noticed the inferior nu-
trition afforded by the hay from water mea-
dows. "Land," says he, "that is naturally
rich, and is in good heart, does not need to
have water set over it; and it is better hay

669

IRRIGATION.

IRRIGATION.

"which nature, of its own accord, produces in a
juicy soil, than what water draws from a soil
that is overflowed. This, however, is a neces-
sary practice when the poverty of the soil re-
quires it ; and a meadow may be formed either
T^pon a stiff or free soil, though poor when
water may be set over it ; neither a low field
with hollows, nor a field broken with steep
rising ground, are proper ; the first, because it
contains too long the water collected in the
hollows ; the last, because it makes the water
run too quickly over it. A field, however, that
has a moderate descent may be made a mea-
dow, whether it be rich, or so situated as to be
watered ; but the best situation is where the
surface is smooth, and the descent so gentle
as to prevent either showers, or the rivers that
overflow it, remaining too long; and, on the
other hand, to allow the water that comes over
it quietly to glide off; therefore, if in any part
of the field intended for a meadow, a pool of
water should stand, it must be let off by drains,
for the loss is equal either from too much wa-
ter or too little grass." (Col. lib. ii. c. 16.)
Pliny tells us that "meadows ought to be wa-
tered immediately after the spring equinox,
and the waters restrained whenever the grass
shoots up into stalk." (Nat. Hist. lib. xviii. c.
27.) When, after the fall of the Roman Em-
pire, agriculture, in common with all other
sciences, rapidly declined, a very remarkable
exception to this melancholy result of slavery
and despotism was presented in the case of
irrigation, which was carried on and extended
through the long period of the dark ages with
equal zeal and success. This was more espe-
cially the case in Lombardy, where it was cer-
tainly prosecuted on a very bold and profitable
scale long before 1037. The princes of Lom-
bardy patronised and followed the example of
the various religious establishments which
then monopolized all the wealth and learning
of the land, in extending the employment of
water in all possible directions. The monks
of Chiazevalle, in particular, were so cele-
brated for their knowledge of this branch of
agriculture, and of hydraulics in general, that
the emperor Frederick the First, in the 13th
century, very gladly sought their advice and
assistance. This system has ever been zeal-
ously and carefully extended and improved in
every possible way. The waters of the chief
rivers of the north of Italy, such as the Po, the
Adige, the Tagliamento, and of all the minor
streams, are employed in irrigation. There is no
other country, which possesses an extent of rich
water meadows equal to that of the Lombards.
The entire country from Venice to Turin may
be said to be formed into one great water mea-
dow : yet the irrigating system is not confined
to grass lands; the water is conveyed into the
hollows between the ridges in corn lands, into
the low lands where rice is cultivated, and
around the roots of vines. From Italy the
practice extended into the south of France,
into Spain, and then into Britain. In the
States of Lombardy, the water of all the rivers
belongs to the state ; in those of Venice, the
government extends its claims to that of the
smallest springs, and even to collections of
rain water, so higljly, for the use of the cul-
670

tivator, is water of every kind valued in the
north of Italy. It is necessary, therefore, in
Lombardy, to purchase from the state the
water taken from the river; this may be taken,
by means of a canal, through any person's
grounds, the government merely requiring the
payment of the value of the land to the pro-
prietor, and restraining him from carrying his
channel through a garden, or within a cer-
tain distance of a mansion. The water is sold
by the government at a certain rate, which is
regulated by the size of the sluice, and the
time the run of water is used ; this is either
by the hour, half-hour, or quarter, or by so
many days at certain periods of the year; the
right to these runs of water is regularly sold like
other property. ArthurYoung gives an account
of the sale of an hour's run of water through a
sluice near Turin, which produced, in 1778,
1500 livres. The rent of the irrigated lands in
the north of Italy is, upon an average, more
than one-third greater than the same descrip-
tion of land not watered. (Com. Board of Agr.
vol. vii. p. 189.)

In Bengal, wells are dug in the highest part
of their fields, and from this, by means of bul-
locks and a rope over a pulley, water is raised
in buckets, and cbnveyed in little channels to
every part of the field. No attempts at culti-
vation are here made without the assistance
of water, obtained by some mode or other.
(See India, Agriculture of.) The art of
irrigation was not confined to the Old World.
The Mexicans practised it long before the days
of Columbus; they collected the mountain tor-
rents, and conducted their waters to their lands
in proper channels, with much care and ad-
dress. It was only towards the termination of
the 17th century that water meadows were
constructed in Britain upon any thing like a
regular system. Of these, those in Wiltshire,
which are amongst the most celebrated in
England, especially tjiose in the Wyley Bourn,
were made between 1700 and 1705. Those
of Hampshire and Berkshire were constructed
about the same period, but they were at first
formed very inferior to the modem noble wa-
ter-meadow lands of those countries. Great
improvements were made towards the conclu-
sion of the ISth century, through the publica-
tions of G. Boswell on Meadow Watering in
1780, and of the Rev. T. Wright, of Auld, in
Northamptonshire, whose writings appeared
at intervals from 1789 to 1810. It is notice-
able that the water employed for these cele-
brated southern meads is perhaps the most
clear and swift flowing of all the English
rivers; issuing from the chalk formation, it is
equally copious and transparent. Some of the
chief advantages, therefore, of irrigation may
evidently be derived from almost any descrip-
tion of water; for it is proved by the good
effects produced by the brilliant chalk-waters
of the south of England, and the still greater
fertilizing effect of those surcharged with or-
ganic matter, as in the Craigintinny meadows,
near Edinburgh, that there is no water too
bright, or too full of impurities, to be useless
for the purposes of irrigation.

I propose, in this paper, to investigate the
chemical properties of river water, and of the

raRIGATION.

effects produced by it in irrigation, adding a
few remarks upon the practice of the best and
most skilful cultivators of the water meadows
of the south of England.

1. With regard to the composition of river
water, there have been several chemical ex-
aminations ; that of the Thames was analysed
by Dr. Boslock, who found, in 10,000 parts,
after most of its mechanically-suspended mat-
ters had subsided, about 1^ parts of foreign
substances, viz. :

Organic matters - - - - 007

Carlioiiate of lime - . - 1-53

Sulphate of lime - - - - 015

Muriate of soda - - - - 0 02

In an equal quantity of the waters of the
Clyde, Dr. Thompson found 1^^ part of solid
substances, namely :

Common salt
Muriate of magnesia
Sulphate of soda
Carbonate of lime
Silica . . -

0380
0-305
0114
0394
01)8

The water of the Itchen, in Hampshire, is
one of the most celebrated of all the southern
streams, for the use of the irrigator. I found,
in 10,000 parts of water, about 2^ parts of
solid matter, viz. :

Organic matter -

- ooa

Carbonate of lime

- 189

Sulphate of lime -

- 078

Muriate of soda -

- - 0 01

From an examination of the substances
found in these streams (and they afford a
pretty correct view of the contents of most
others), the farmer will see that they all yield
ingredients which are the food or natural con-
stituents of the grasses. Thus, sulphate and
carbonate of lime are found in most of them,
and there is no river-water which does not
contain, in some proportion or other, organic
matter. To ascertain, therefore, whether pure
water was alone able to effect all the magic
effects of irrigation, it was necessary to em-
ploy other water than that of rivers, lakes, or
even springs. Pure water, as obtained by dis-
tillation, therefore, has been tried as a sup-
porter of vegetation, but it was found totally
inadequate to the support of plants ; they
merely vegetated for a time, but they could
not, by any means, be made to perfect their
seeds. In this conclusion the experiments of
Dr. Thomson, and of MM. Saussure and Has-
senfratz, entirely agree. Pure water, there-
fore, notwithstanding the dreams of the Greek
philosophers, and the celebrated decept've ex-
periments of Van Helmont with his willow
tree, is not able to support the growth of the
grasses. Van Helmont's tree, when he planted
it in an earthen pot, weighed 5 pounds ; the
earth, previously dried in an oven, weighed
200 pounds; after 5 years it weighed 164 lbs.,
although it had been watered during that time
with only rain and distilled water, and the
earth had lost only two ounces of weight.
Hence, said Van Helmont and his disciples,
water is the sole food of plants. Bergman, in
1773, first pointed out the source of error. He
showed, from the experiments of Margraff, that
the rain-water contained a sufficient quantity
of earth to account for the increased weight in

IRRIGATION.

the willow, every pint of rain-water containing
one grain of earth. Then, again, the earthen
vessel (which was sunk in the earth) would,
in this experiment, transmit its moisture im-
pregnated with all kinds of soluble substances.
And yet it has been shown that impure water^
such as that from a sewer, or from a dunghill,
is alone sufficient to sustain vegetation. This
was clearly evidenced in the experiments of
M. Lampadius ; for he found that plants placed
in a pure earth, such as silica or alumina,
although they would not grow when watered
with pure water only, yet, when watered
with the liquid drainage of a dunghill, they
flourished very luxuriantly, and this fact has
been also proved in another way. It has been
shown, by chemical analysis, that the quantity
of solid or earthy matters absorbed by plants
is in exact proportion to the impurity of the
water with which they are nourished. Thus,
equal quantities of some plants of beans, fed
by distilled water, yielded —

Firtt.
Of tnlid matter or ashes - - - 3-9
Those fed by rain-water - - - 7-5
Those grown in garden moulJ - - 120

These facts strongly confirm the conclusions
of some of the most sagacious cultivators, that
the chief advantages of irrigation are attributa-
ble to the foreign substances with which the
water is charged ; although, as I have else-
where observed, almost every farmer has a
mode of accounting for the highly fertilizing
effects of irrigation ; one thinks it cools the land,
another, that it keeps the grass warm in winter.
And this was Davy's opinion. He thought that
a winter flooding protected the grass from the
injurious effects of frost. He says, "Water is
of greater specific gravity at 42° than at 32°,
the freezing point; and hence, in a meadow
irrigated in winter, the water immediately in
conmct with the grass is rarely below 40°, a
degree of temperature not at all prejudicial to
the living organs of plants. In 1804, in the
month of March, I examined the temperature
in a water-meadow near Hungerford in Berk-
shire, by a very delicate thermometer. The
temperature of the air at 7 in the morning was
43°. In general, those waters which breed the
best fish are the best fitted for watering mea-
dows ; but most of the benefits of irrigation
may be derived from any kind of water."

Such were the opinions of Davy as to the
fertilizing properties of water. It is to be re-
gretted that the opportunities for agricultural
observations of this great chemical philosopher
were so few, for his valuable remarks were
always cautiously made. He appears, how-
ever, as I have remarked elsewhere, never to
have steadily investigated the chemical com-
position of river-water, with regard to its uses
in irrigation, and, in consequence, knew little
of the value of some of its impurities to vege-
tation. Thus, if the river-water contains gyp-
sura (sulphate of lime), which it certainly does
— if the water is hard, it must, under ordinary
circumstances, on this account alone be highly
fertilizing to meadows, since all grasses con-
tain this salt in very sensible proportions ; for,
calculating that one part of sulphate of lime is
contained in every two thousand parts of river-

671

IRRIGATION.

IRRIGATION.

water, and that every square yard of dry mea-
dow soil absorbs only eight gallons of water
(and this is a very moderate allowance, for
many soils will absorb three or four times that
quantity), then it will be found that, by every
^ooding, more than one hundred weight and a
half of gypsum per acre is diffused through the
soil in the water, a quantity equal to that gene-
rally adopted by those who spread gypsum on
their clover crops, lucern, and sainfoin, as a
manure, either in the state of powder, or as it
exists in ashes. And if we apply the same
calculation to the organic substances ever more
or less contained in flood-waters, and allow
only twenty parts of animal and vegetable re-
mains to be present in a thousand parts of
river-water, then we shall find, taking the
same data, that every soaking with such water
will add to the meadow nearly two tons per
acre of animal and vegetable matters, which,
allowing, in the case of water-meadows, five
floodings per annum, is equal to a yearly appli-
cation of ten tons of organic matter.

The quantity of foreign substances present
in river-water, although commonly less, yet
very often exceeds what I have thus calculated
to exist in it. I have found it impossible, how-
ever, 10 give, from analysis, the amount which,
under ordinary circumstances, is present in
river-waters, with any tolerable accuracy, since
the proportion not only varies at different sea-
sons of the year, but a considerable proportion
of the merely mechanically suspended matters
subside, when the specimen water is suffered
to rest. In my conclusions with regard to the
theory of irrigation, I have found many excel-
lent practical farmers concur. Thus, Mr. Sim-
mons, of St. Croix, near Winchester, considers
that the great benefit of winter flooding for
meadows is derived, in the first place, from the
deposits made by the muddy waters on the grass ;
and, secondly, from the winter covering with
water preventing the ill effects to the grass of
sudden transitions in the temperature of the
atmosphere. This gentleman is perfectly aware
of the value of the addition of the city drainage
of Winchester to the fertilizing qu.alities of the
Itchen river-water, and of its superiority for
irrigation after it has flowed past the city, hav-
ing water-meadows both above and below the
town ; and he finds that, if the water has been
once used for irrigation, that then its fertilizing
properties are so materially reduced, that it is
of little value for again passing over the mea-
dows ; and so convinced is he of this fact by
long experience, that, having in this way long
enjoyed the exclusive and valuable use of a
branch of the waters of the Itchen for some
grass land, a neighbour higher up the stream
followed his example, constructing some water-
meadows, and using the water before it arrived
at those of my informant, who, in consequence,
found the water so deteriorated in quality
(though not sensibly diminished in quantity),
that he had once thought of disputing the right
with his more upland neighbour. The expe-
rience of other irrigators tends to the same
conclusion. In the best-managed water-mea-
dows of Hampshire, the farmer does not pro-
cure annually more than three crops of grass;
yet in situations where a richer water is em-
6V3

ployed, as near Edinburgh, four or five are rea-
dily obtained. It is evident, therefore, that the
chemical properties of water have a much
greater influence in irrigation than is common-
ly believed. The quality of the water, there-
fore, employed for the purposes of irrigation,
is of the first importance to be well understood
by the farmer ; and although many more mo-
dern discussions have taken place upon the
subject, yet the definition which the great Lord
Bacon gave, in his Natural History, of the ad-
vantages of "Meadow Watering," has never
been excelled, — "that it acts not only by sup-
plying useful moisture to the grass, but like-
wise by carrying nourishment dissolved in tht
water." This nourishment is, generally speak-
ing, composed almost entirely of the animal
and vegetable matters mechanically suspended
or chemically dissolved in the water; — the
fouler the water, the more fertilizing are its
effects. The objection which has been some-
times urged to this explanation, by instancing
the prejudicial effects of some very thick mud-
dy waters (as those of the Humber) on meadow
lands, is very erroneous ; for, in those cases,
the mud deposited on the grass did not consist
of animal or vegetable matters, but of fine
earthy particles, such as clay or chalk, sub-
stances of which the alluvial soil, on which
the same flood waters had for ages occasion-
ally deposited their earths, was in fact en-
tirely composed, and to which, in consequence,
any further supply was almost useless, the
earthy slime merely covering the grass with
mud, without adding a single fertilizing ingre-
dient not already abounding in the soil. If,
however, the soil is naturally deficient in any
of the earthy ingredients contained in the wa-
ter, then even such flood waters are ever found
most fertilizing.

" The agency of water in the process of ve-
getation," says Mr. Stephens, *' has not till of
late been distinctly perceived. Dr. Hales has
shown that, in the summer months, a sunflower,
weighing three pounds avoirdupois, and regu-
larly watered every day, passed through it or
perspired 22 ounces each day, that is, half its
weight. Dr. Woodward found that, in the spac^
of 77 days, a plant of common spearmint i'l-
creased 17 grains in weight, and yet had ho
other food than pure rain water ; but then he
found that it increased more in weight when
it lived in spring water, and still more when
its food was Thames water." (Practical Irri'
gator, p. 2.) And when speaking of the fact,
that some irrigators think clear spring water
equal to any, he adds (p. 24), "I would recom-
mend to those who are of the same opinion,
to inspect the irrigated meadows which are
watered by the washings of the city of Edin-
burgh, where, I trust, they will find the supe-
riority of muddy water to that of clear spring
water most strikingly manifested."

Edinburgh has many advantages over the
most of her sister cities ; the large supply of
excellent spring water is one of the greatest
blessings to her numerous inhabitants, both in
respect to household purposes and keeping the
streets clean, as well as irrigating the extensive
meadows situated below the town, by the rich
stuff which it carries along in a state of semi-

IRRIGATION.

IRRIGATION.

solution, where the art of man, with the com-
mon sewer water, has made sand hillocks
produce riches far superior to any thing of the
kind in the kingdom, or in any other country.

By this water, about two hundred acres of
grass land, for the most part laid into catch-
work meadow, are irrigated ; whereof 130
belong to W. H. Miller, Esq., of Craigintinny,
and the remainder to the Earls of Haddington
and Moray, and other proprietors. The mea-
dows belonging to these noblemen, and part of
the Craigintinny meadows, are what is called
the old meadows, containing about 50 acres,
have been irrigated for nearly a century.
They are by far the most valuable, on account
of the long and continual accumulation of the
rich sediment left by the water; indeed the
water is so very rich, that the tenants of the
meadows lying nearest the town have found it
advisable to carry the common sewer water
through deep ponds, into which the water de-
posits part of the superfluous manure before
it runs over the ground. Although the forma-
tion of these meadows is irregular, and the
management very imperfect, the eflects of the
water are astonishing ; they produce crops of
grass not to be equalled, being cut from four to
six times a year, and the grass given green to
milch cows.

The grass is let every year, by public sale,
in small patches of a quarter of an acre and
upwards, and generally brings from 24/. to 30/.
per acre per annum. In 1826, part of the Earl
of Moray's meadow fetched 57/. per acre per
annum.

About 40 acres of the Craigintinny lands
were formed into catch-work water meadow
before the year 1800, which comprises what
is called Fillieside Bank old meadows, and is
generally let at from 20/. to 30/. per acre
per annum. In the spring of 1821, 30 acres
of waste land, called the Freegate Whins,
and 10 acres of poor sandy soil, were levelled
and formed into irrigated meadow, at an ex-
pense of 1000/. The pasture of the Freegate
Whins was let, previously to this improve-
ment, for 40/. per annum, and the 10 icres for
60/. They now bring from 15/. to 20/. per acre
per annum, but may be much improved by ju-
diciously laying out 200/. more in better level-
ling that part next the sea, and carrying a
larger supply of water to it, which might be
easily done without prejudice to the other
meadows.

This, perhaps, is one of the most beneficial
agricultural improvements ever undertaken;
for the whole of the Freegate Whins is com-
posed of nothing but sand, deposited from time
to time by the action of the waves of the sea.
Never was 1000/. more happily spent in agri-
culture ; it not only required a common sewer
to bring about this great change, but a resolu-
tion in the proprietor to launch out his capital
on an experiment upon a soil of such a nature.

Since the making of the Freegate Whins
into water meadows, Mr. Miller has levelled
and formed 40 acres more of his arable land
into irrigated meadow, worth, before the forma-
tion, 9/. per acre per annum. It will only re-
quire a few years before these meadows will
be as productive as the former; for it is evi-
85

dent that the longer water is suffered to run
over the surface of grass land, the greater
quantity of fertilizing substance will be collect-
ed; therefore, as the water is so very superior
in quality to all other water, a speedy return
for the capital laid out may be expected. The
expense of keeping these meadows in repair is
from 10s. to 15s. per acre per annum, which is
more than double the expense of keeping wa-
ter meadows in repair in general.

It by no means, however, follows, as a neces-
sary result of any contemplated improvement
in irrigation, that the water should previously
undergo a chemical examination. There are
many other modes by which the farmer caa
form a pretty correct conclusion as to the fer-
tilizing properties of the water he. proposes to
employ.

" The surest proofs," says Mr. Exeter, "of the
good quality of water (and the observations of
this gentleman will be readily confirmed by the
irrigators of the southern counties) as a ma-
nure, are the verdure of the margin of its
streams, and the growth of strong cresses in
the stream itself; and wherever these appear-
ances are found, though the water be perfectly
transparent, the occupier of the soil through
which it flows may depend, in general, on hav-
ing a treasure, if he is attentive to it; but that
this is not invariably the case, and that there
are instances where a good water will not im-
prove the herbage of certain soils, is proved by
the following account (and there are several
other cases with which I am acquainted) of
the meadows of Mr. Orchard, of Stokes Abbey,
Devon. These two meadows are situated on
the side of a hill, their aspect nearly south —
the superstratum a fine rich loam, from 8 to 10
inches deep, on a substratum of strong yellow
clay. No difference whatever can be seen by
the naked eye, in either the upper mould or
the substratum, or in the herbage growing on
the surface of them ; except that, in the lower
part of one, a few rushes appear, in conse-
quence of some small springs which rise near
them, but the water from them is not sufficient
to render any part of the land poachy. At the
head of the two meadows is a large pond,
formed by the collecting of some small runs of
spring water rising near it, and which is also
improved by the wash of a small farm-yard
adjoining, which, of course, must add to its
efficacy as a manure. When this water is
thrown over one of the meadows, it produces
the richest herbage in abundance, and this
field is regularly mowed for hay ; on the other
meadow, though repeatedly tried, it produces
no good whatever." (Ann. of Jgr. vol. xxx.
p. 206.)

This result is attributable to the superior
tenacious, retentive quality of the substratum
of the lower field, or of some chemical differ-
ence in the composition of the soil ; and al-
though almost any description of soil is adapt-
ed to the formation of water meadows, those of
a heavy clay description are generally the
most unsuitable, those of a light or peaty kind
are better, and those with a sandy or very ab-
sorbent gravel substratum still more so. There
are some of the most celebrated water mea-
I dows on the banks of the Kennet of this de-
3L 673

IRRIGATION.

IRRIGATION.

scription, and many of the best on the banks
of the Wiltshire Avon have a mass of broken,
porous flints for a subsoil. Those near Edin-
burgh, irrigated by the city drainage, rest upon
the sands thrown up by the sea.
' It is evident, therefore, that it is as impor-
tant an object in the construction of these
meadows to secure a ready and rapid exit for
the flood-waters, as to procure, in the first in-
stance, a copious and fertilizing supply.

The farmer is generally well aware of the
injurious efiects to his meadows of suffering
the water to remain too long on them. He
watches, therefore, with much care, for the
first indications of fermentation having com-
menced, which is evinced by the rising of a
moss or scum to the surface of the water — pu-
trefaction is now beginning in the turf, and he
knows very well that if the water is not speedi-
ly removed, that his grass will be either mate-
rially injured, or entirely destroyed; he hast-
ens, therefore, to open his water-courses.
There are some soils in the vicinity of Standen,
in Berkshire, however, of so porous a quality,
that they need not any drains to empty the
water-courses ; and, in fact, in many instances,
the farmer does not even require them : after
a few hours all the water is absorbed by the
soil ; and yet these lands, with hardly 6 inches
of mould above the gravel, are amongst the
richest of water-meadows ; the roots of the
grasses penetrate readily into the gravel, and
the earliest and sweetest grasses are produced
on them.

Almost any description of grass will flourish
under proper management in water-meadows.
Those whose soils consist of peat resting on
sand, or on sandy loam, with a substratum of
chalk or gravel, generally produce the meadow
foxtail (jilopecurus pratensis), the brome-grass
(Bromus arvensis), and the meadow-fescue
(Festuca pratensis), on the tops and sides of the
ridges. The furrows and sides of the drains
are usually tenanted by the creeping-bent, the
hard-fescue, the rough-stalked meadow-grass,
and the woolly soft-grass. In those water-
meadows whose soil consists of a sandy loam
on a clay subsoil, the chief grasses are com-
monly the creeping-rooted soft-grass, the crest-
ed dog's-tail, the meadow barley, and the
sweet-scented vernal-grass. But some grasses
change their appearance in a very remark-
able degree, when exposed under favourable
circumstances to the influence of the flood-
waters. This fact is strikingly exemplified in
the case of two small meadows situated at
Orcheston, six miles from Amesbury, in Wilt-
shire, denominated, from their great produce,
♦' the long grass meads." These, says Davis,
"contain together only two acres and a half,
and the crop they produce is so immense, that
the tithe hay of them was once sold for 5 gui-
neas." Much discussion took place amongst
the Wiltshire farmers as to the nature of the
crop of these meads, before it was at last
shown that the greatest part of their herbage
consisted of nothing else than the black-couch,
or couchy-bent, the Jgrosiis stolonifern, one of
the worst of the grasses or weeds which haunt
the poor ill-cultivated arable soils.

It is a very general, as well as correct con-
674

elusion of the English farmers, that the gras
and hay of water-meadows is not so nutritious
as that of the permanent pasture lands. The
diflference, however, is not so great as is com-
monly supposed. The late Mr. George Sin-
clair determined this experimentally, and he is
no mean authority with regard to all that re-
lates to the grasses.

He obtained from the rye-grass (Lolium pc
renne), at the time of flowering, taken from a
water-meadow that had been fed off" with sheep
till the end of April, of nutritive matter 72
grains; and from the same-weight of this
grass, taken from a rich old pasture, which
had been shut up for hay about the same time,
92 grains. From the same grass from the
meadow, that had not been depastured in the
spring, 100 grains. And from the same grass
from the pasture which had not been fed oflT,
120 grains. All the grasses, in fact, where
their growth is forced by the application of
either liquid or solid manures, are found to
contain nutritive matter in diminished quanti-
ties : this, too, was determined by Sinclair.
From 4 ounces of a very rankly luxuriant
patch of rye-grass, on which a large portion of
cow-dung had been deposited, he obtained of
nutritive matter 72 grains. From the same
quantity of the same grass growing on the soil
which surrounded this luxuriant patch, he ob-
tained 122 grains.

And, in a second trial, the same species of
grass, on a soil entirely destitute of manure,
afforded of nutritive matter, 95 grains. On the
same soil, excessively manured, the grass af-
forded only 50 grains. In these experiments
the plants were of the same age, and were ex-
amined at the same stage of their growth.
{Hortus Gram. 384.)

With regard to the construction and man-
agement of water-meadows, there are many
practical works of the highest authority to
which the farmer has ready access ; and, in
the following observations, therefore, I shall
merely very briefly paraphrase the accounts
given by Mr. Davis and others, of the practice
of irrigation in the southern counties. In
this, however, even since the time that Davis
wrote, there has been a great and steady im-
provement. The land is better levelled, the
slopes more evenly preserved, the water-way,
aqueducts, and hatches, better constructed, and
in many of the more recent improvements, in
the valley of the Itchen, in Hampshire, the
sliding-water doors are regulated by a cogged
wheel turned with a movable winch, so as to
render them safe from alteration during the
absence of the meadow-keeper.

The management of the Wiltshire and
Hampshire water-meadows, as well as it can
be briefly described, is as follows : — In the au-
tumn the after-grass is eaten oflf quite bare,
when the manager of the mead (provincially
the drmcner) begins to clean out the main
drain, and the main carriage, and to " right up
the works," that is, to make good all the car-
riages and drains which the cattle have trod-
den in, so as to have one tier or pitch of work
ready for drowning. This is immediately put
under water, whilst the drowner is preparing
the next pitch.

IRRIGATION.

IRRIGATION.

In the flowing meadows this work ought to
be done, if possible, early enough in the au-
tumn to have the whole meadow ready to catch
the first floods after Michaelmas ; the water,
being the first washing of the arable lands or\
the sides of the chalk hills, as well as the dirt
from roads, is then thick and good ; and this
remark, as to the superior richness of the flood
waters, is one that is commonly made in Berk-
shire and other parts of England. The length
of the autumnal watering cannot be precisely
stated, as much depends upon situations and
circumstances; but if water can be command-
ed in abundance, the custom is to give mea-
dows a "thorough good soaking at first," per-
haps for a fortnight or three weeks, with an
intermission of two or three days during that
period, and continue for the space of two fort-
nights, allowing an interval of a week between
them. The works are then made as dry as
possible, to encourage the growth of the grass.
This first soaking is to make the land sink and
pitch close together, a circumstance of great
consequence, not only to the quantity, but to
the quality of the grass, and particularly to en-
courage the shooting of new roots, which the
grass is continually forming, to support the
forced growth above.

While the grass grows freely, a fresh water-
ing is not wanted; but as soon as it flags, the
water must be repeated for a few days at a time,
always keeping this fundamental rule in view,
"to make the meadows as dry as possible after
every watering, and to take ofl* the water the
moment any scum appears upon the land,
which shows that it has already had water
enough."

Some meadows that require the water for
three weeks in October, and the two following
months, will not, perhaps, bear it one week in
February or March, and sometimes scarcely
two days in April and May.

In the catch-meadows, which are watered by
springs, the great object is to keep the works
very dry between the intervals of watering;
and as such situations are seldom affected by
floods, and generally have too little water, it is
necessary to make the most of the water, by
catching and rousing it as often as possible ;
and as the upper works of every pitch will be
liable to get more water than those lower
down, a longer time should be given to the lat-
ter, so as to make them as equal as possible.
Davis's Agriculture of Wiltshire, p. 125 — 127.)

In Berkshire they first flood their water-
meadows, about Michaelmas ; these are situ-
ated principally on the banks of the Kennet.
The first flooding they deem the richest in
quality: this they keep on the land for about
four days, and they then dry them for about a
fortnight, and after that the water is let on for
three or four days more ; those meadows which
are the most readily dried are the most pro-
ductive. There are none more so, in fact,
than those which have a porous, gravelly, or
broken flint bottoms, from which the flood-wa-
ter readily escapes, almost without drains.
They begin to feed their meadows with sheep
about the 6th of April, and continue feeding till
ahout the 2lst of May, when the meadows are
again flooded for a crop of hay ; the land is

then flooded and dried alternately for three
days until hay-time.

The number of acres of land in Wiltshire,
' under this kind of management, has been com-
puted, and with a tolerable degree of accuracy,
I to be between 15,000 and 20,000. Some con-
siderable additions, however, have been made
! to the water-meadows of the district since this
calculation was made. (Davis's Wilts., p. 122.)
About the same number of acres are formed
into water-meadows in Berkshire, and a still
larger number in Hampshire. No one has at-
tended more carefully to his water-meadows
than Lord Western, on some of those situated
on the London clay-formation in the Black-
water valley, in Essex, a soil of all others, per-
haps, from its tenacity, the least adapted to
their successful formation, and his testimony
is very important : — " There is an old adage,'*
says his lordship, "that water is the best ser-
vant in agriculture, and the worst master.
Water has in itself intrinsic value; distilled
through chalk, lime, or marl, it acquires a por-
tion of their qualities, though preserving the
most perfect transparency, and, coming down
in torrents and floods, it carries along the finer
panicles of earth and manure from the moun-
tains, or higher grounds, into the valleys;
hence, of course, it is that the valleys derive
their fertility, and the value of the meadow has
been originally created by an accumulatioQ of
wealth from the hills."

" In descending the Jura mountains, which
divide France from Switzerland, the very first
pasture you find on the descent evinces the
value placed on the mountain floods by the in-
habitants of those districts ; and, accordingly,
every stream is sedulously directed and con-
ducted over the pastures in a most skilful
manner. The very washing of the roads in
hasty rains is also attended to and applied to
the same purposes." This system of catching
the uncertain flood-waters is known amongst
farmers by the name of ca/cA-work, and though
highly valuable, yet they deem it infinitely less
important to them than irrigation, which is
watering (generally five or six times a year)
from a certain and ever-accessible head of
water, as a river, &c. And yet Lord Western's
testimony is decisive in favour of even one
cafcA-flooding; for he observes, when speaking
of the expense of constructing the requisite
little channels to disperse the flood-waters over
the grass, " In many cases it will be trifling, in
some cases considerable ; but when the farmer
reflects that one winter's flooding will do more
in many, I may say in most cases, than thirty
loads an acre of the best rotten dung manure
that can be laid upon his grass lands, he can
hardly shrink from some considerable expen-
diture." If, then, the effects even of a catch-
flooding with water are so great, how infinitely
superior are the advantages capable of being
derived from a regular constant supply of the
enriching foul waters, like those issuing from
the drains of a large city, which is even now
most successfully employed near Edinburgh,
but worse than wasted in the case of London !
Whatever may be the value, in an agricultural
point of view, of the solid contents of the Lon-
don sewers, yet to me the absolutely liquid

675

IRRITABILITY.

JACOB'S-LADDER.

portion, for the purposes of irrigation, appear at
least equally important.

Liebig informs us that, "in the vicinity of
Liegen (a town in Nassau), from three to five
perfect crops are obtained from one meadow,
and this is effected by covering the fields with
river water, which is conducted over the mea-
dow, in spring, by numerous small canals.
This is found to be of such advantage, that
supposing a meadow not so treated to yield
1000 lbs. of hay, then from one thus watered
4500 pounds are produced. In respect to the
cultivation of meadows, the country around
Liegen is considered to be the best in all Ger-
many."

There is no agricultural question, therefore,
of more consequence, in a national point of
view, than that of the improvement of the soil
by the practice of irrigation ; for, in its prose-
cution, all the rich, organic, and other matters
diffused through the rivers, which would other-
wise be carried into the sea, are saved to agri-
culture. This is not, therefore, a question like
that attending most other modes of fertilizing
the soil, merely transposing manure from one
field or district to another ; but it is the abso-
lute recovery, as it were, from the ocean, of a
mass of finely divided, enriching substances,
constantly draining from the land. It is the
effectual diversion of a stream which is ever
steadily impoverishing all cultivated soils, and
which unnoticed, and in too many instances
deemed' worthless, gliding into the ocean, is
almost the only drawback to the steadily in-
creasing fertility of our countr)'.

There are papers on irrigation by Mr. J.
Purdy, of Castle Acre, in Norfolk, Com. Board
of Agr. vol. vii. p. 112; by Mr. D. Shank, of
Wigtonshire, ibid. p. 170 ; by Mr. Beck, of Nor-
folk, ibid. p. 108 ; on the irrigation of Lombardy
and Piedmont, by Don R. S. Coutinho, ibid. p.
189 ; in Aberdeenshire, ibid. vol. iv. p. 263 ; in
Denbighshire, ibid. p. 266 ; by Mr. Eyres, of
Norfolk, ibid. vol. vi. p. 328 ; by Professor Ren-
nie. Quart. Journ. of Jlgr. vol. v. p. 24 ; on the
foul water irrigation of Edinburgh, ibid. vol. x.
p. 2.'56. (Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. x. p. 558 ;
Stephens's Practical Irrigator ; Brownh Rural Af-
fairs, p. 263 ; Sinclair's Hortus Gram. p. 382 ;
Davis's Wiltshire : Driver's Hampshire.")

IRRITABILITY OF PLANTS. See Bota-
NT, TEMPEttATunE, and Acclimitatiox of

PlAXTS.

ISNARDIA (named in memory of Anthony
Isnard, member of the Academy of Sciences).
These plants are mere weeds, or creeping
aquatic herbs, growing in marshy situations.

The marsh isnardia (I. palustris) is the only
indigenous species.

It is an annual, growing-in ponds and wa-
tery places, blowing axillary, solitary, sessile,
small, green, and inconspicuous flowers in
July. The herb is floating, smooth, with nu-
merous long filamentous roots. The stems
are several, about a span long, simple, or
slightly branched, leafy, bluntly quadrangular.
The leaves are opposite, stalked, ovate, acute,
entire, scarcely an inch in length, bright green,
somewhat succulent, the mid-rib often red or
purplish. (J!>>ig. Flcn-. vol. iv. p. 264.)

The /. Palustins is common to America as
676

well as to Europe, and is found from Canada
to the West Indies. In Pennsylvania another
species is met with — the Alternate-leaved Is-
nardia (/. alternifolia), commonly called Bas-
tard Loose-strife. The roots of both species
are perennial.

Besides these, there are about a dozen addi-
tional species, as the genus is now constituted,
in the United States. (Flor. Cestrira.)

ITALIAN RYE-GRASS. See Rye-Grass.

ITCH. In farriery, a cutaneous disease.
See Mange.

IVY (Hedera helix). The name appears to
be derived from hedra, a Celtic word signifying
a cord ; and the English name ivy is derived
from ivo, a word in the same language signify-
ing green.) A hardy evergreen climber, com-
mon everywhere in Europe, which is excel-
lent as a screen planted against trellis-work.
The common ivy is very often employed for
covering naked buildings or trees, which latter
it invariably kills. The stem is branched, either
trailing on the ground and bearing 5-lobed
white-veined leaves, but no flowers ; or climb-
ing, flattened and attached by dense tufted fibres,
which serve for support, not nourishment;
the flowering branches are loosely spread-
ing, round, bearing ovate, undivided leaves.
Umbels aggregate, green, many-flowered, their
stalks covered with starry pubescence, and ac-
companied at the base by several small brac-
teas. The berry is the size of a currant,
smooth, black, internally whitish and mealy,
with seldom more than five seeds. The whole
plant is somewhat aromatic ; and a very fra-
grant resin exudes from the old stems when
bruised.

IVY, AMERICAN, Vir-inia Creeper (Am-
pelopsis hederacea). Ivy-like ampelopsis. The
stem of this climbing plant sometimes grows
30 or 40 feet long, branching diffusely, climb-
ing fences, trees, and walls, and clinging to
them by adhesive expansions at the points «f
the tendrils. -The leaves are digitate in clusters
of fives, on long stems. The plant is com-
mon in the United States in woodlands, fence-
rows, thickets, &c. Sir J. E. Smith (in Rees'
Cyclop.) contends that this is a true vitis ; but
Dr. Darlington thinks, that although nearly
allied to, it may be very properly separated
from our grape vines. Two or three other
species of ampelopsis are enumerated in the
United States.

IVY, GROUND. See Alehoof.

IVY, IRISH (Canatiensis), is a fast-growing
climber, with large lobed leaves, which soon
covers walls and houses. It is propagated by
layers, or slips taken off and planted where
they are to grow.

JACOB'S LADDER, Blue or Greek Valb-
RiAX (Polcmonium ceeruleum). This plant is a
common ornament of flower borders in rustic
gardens, of no particular qualities, notwith-
standing its name of valerian, derived perhaps
from the leaves, which resemble those of some
of the Valeriancp.. The root is fibrous, not
creeping, herb nearly smooth, perennial, lA or

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE.

JOHN'S WORT.

* feet high ; stems angular, leafy, hollow, often
reddish, unbranched,panicled at the top; leaves
alternate, of many eliptic-lanceolate, entire
leaflets, with an odd one of nearly equal size.
The flowers, which appear in June, are rather
drooping, numerous, blue, occasionally white.
All the species are of the easiest culture and

propagation.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE.

See Arti-

JOHN'S WORT, or ST. JOHN'S WORT

{Hypericum). The generic name is said to be
derived from uper, and eicon, an image. The
superior part of the flower represents a figure.
The common name is derived from their com-
ing into flower about St. John the Baptist's day.
The most part of the species of this extensive
genus are showy plants. The greenhouse and
frame shrubby kinds do well in loam and peat,
and young cuttings root freely in sand under a
glass. The hardy shrubs are well fitted for the
front of shrubberies, being dwarf and showy.
They may be increased by divisions or seeds,
as well as the herbaceous kinds, which thrive
well in any common soil. The seeds of the
annual species have onl^ to be sown in the
open ground in spring. Some of the species
indigenous to Britain are as follows : —
• 1. Large-flowered St. John's Wort (H. caly-
cinum). A shrub, growing wild in bushy
places in the west of Ireland and Scotland.
The root of this species is creeping, the stems
shrubby, erect, 12 or 18 inches high, with
simple, leafy, square branches, smooth like
every other part. The flowers, which appear
from July to September, are 2 or 3 inches wide,
of a bright golden yellow, with innumerable
reddish tremulous anthers. This plant is a
great ornament to shrubberies and parks, and
excellent as a shelter for game, bearing any
cold of our climate.

2. Tutsan, or Park Leaves (H. androscnnum).
This shrub is found in moist, shady lanes,
thickets, and woods in Britain and Ireland, but
not very general. It is rather taller and more
branched than the preceding. The flowers,
which appear in July and August, are an inch
wide, yellow, with three sets of stamens, and
as many styles. The leaves and other parts
have an aromatic scent when rubbed.

3. Square St. 'John's Wort, or St. Peter's
Wort (H. qxmdrangulum). This species is
perennial, and common in moist meadows and
thickets, and about the banks of rivers. The
root is somewhat woody, creeping ; the herb
smooth, light green ; stems several, from one
to two feet high, erect, leafy, acutely quadran-
gular ; leaves elliptical or ovate, obtuse, many-
ribbed, veiny, full of minute, colourless, pellu-
cid dots, and bordered with a more or less
perfect row of dark-coloured ones yielding a
blood-red liquor. The uppermost branches
form a leafy dense panicle of numerous lemon-
coloured flowers, about half the size of the
last-described species.

4. Common perforated St John's Wort {H.
perforatum). This perennial species is met
with abundantly in thickets, woods, hedges, and
on dry banks. The root is woody, tufted, and
somewhat creeping ; the stem reaches to the

height of 18 inches, and is round and bushy
in consequence of the much greater length of
its axillary leafy branches. The whole herb
is moreover of a darker green, with a more
powerful scent when rubbed, staining the
fingers with a dark purple, from the greater
abundance of coloured essential oil lodged in the
herbage and even in the petals : the leaves are
very numerous, smaller than the last, elliptical
or ovate, obtuse, various in width ; the flowers
are numerous, in dense, forked, terminal pani-
cles, bright yellow, dotted and streaked with
black or dark purple. This species is eaten
by goats, cows, and sheep, but is refused by
horses and hogs. As this plant was found to
bleed at the slightest touch, it was supposed to
have a vulnerary quality, and became the
"balm of the warrior's wound," giving a blood-
red colour to every composition, whether of a
spirituous or oily nature, into which it entered.
It contains resin, and the leaves give a good
red dye to wool and oil.

5. Imperforate St. John's Wort {H. dubium).
This species inhabits rather mountainous
groves and thickets. The young radical shoots
are bright red; the stem quadrangular in the
upper part, but not winged or bordered; the
petals and calyx are dotted and blotched with
dark purple.

6. Trailing St John's Wort (H. hwnifimm).
This is a pretty little procumbent smooth spe-
cies, with the lemon-like scent of H. dubium
and ;)er/ora/um, which tenants sandy or gravelly,
heathy, and rather boggy pastures. The root
is fibrous, stem compressed, prostrate ; flowers
few, somewhat cymose; leaves elliptical,
smooth.

7. Mountain St John's Wort (H. montanum).
Though not an ostentatious plant, this species
well deserves John Bauhin's epithet of "most
elegant." The glutinous dark fringes of its
calyx and brae teas resemble the glands of a
moss-rose ; the stems are erect, round, smooth,
about two feet high ; the leaves ovate, naked,
clasping the stem.

8. Bearded St John's Wort (H. barbatum),
which grows for the most part in bushy places
in Scotland, on an herbaceous stem a foot or
more in height, flowering in September and
October : 9. Hairy St John's Wort (H. hirsu-
fum), flourishing in thickets and hedges, chiefly
on a dry, chalky soil, stem two feet high : 10.
Small upright St John's Wort (H. pulchrum),
met with very frequently in woods and bushy,
heathy places, on a clay soil ; stem 12 to 18
inches high: 11. Marsh St John's Wort (if.
elodes), stems procumbent, creeping. There
are other species, which call for no detailed
description.

The whole genus, says Mr. Nuttall, in his
account of the American species, appears to
possess active medicinal properties in common
with vismia, which affords indeed much more
abundantly a yellow and resinous gum, acting
as a cathartic in doses of 7 or 8 grains. The
Vismia guttifera of Surinam produces a kind
of gamboge. 25 or 26 American species of
hypericum are enumerated by botanists. The
following are mentioned by Dr. Darlington as ^
found in Chester county, Pennsylvania.
3 I. 2 677

JONQUIL.

JUNIPER.

1. Hypericum Vir^nicum^ or Virginia hype-
ricum, having a perennial root, stem 18 inches
to 2 feet high, whole plant of a purplish hue,
flowering in July and August, the blossoms
being of a dull orange colour. It is found in
wet, low ground, though rare.

2. H. punclatum, or dotted hypericum, fre-
quent in open woodlands and fields, flowers of
a pale yellow colour, with numerous oblong
black dots, appearing in July and August.

3. //. perforatum, or perforated hypericum,
commonly called St. John's Wort. This plant
has a perennial root and stem growing from 1
to 3 feet high. It is frequent in fields and
pastures where it puts forth its rich clusters of
yellow, or orange-yellow flowers, from June to
October. This, says Dr. Darlington, is an in-
troduced and pernicious weed. The plant has
a resinous odour; and is believed to prof^uce
troublesome sores on horses and horned cattle,
especially those which have white feet and
noses, the skin of such being more tender, or
irritable. The dew which collects on the plant
appears to become acrid; as I have seen the
backs of white cows covered with sores, wher-
ever the bushy ends of their tails had been
applied, after dragging through the St. John's
Wort. A tincture of the flowers and leaves
has been used, it is said, with good effect in
some complaints of the stomach and bowels.

4. H. cjuinquenei~vum, or five-nerved hyperi-
cum. This is frequent in low grounds, along
streams. Its root is supposed to be annual,
and its slender stems grow 6 to 12 inches high;
the flowers have very small petals of a yellow
colour.

6. H. Canadense, or Canadian hypericum.
This so much resembles the last mentioned
species as to be regarded by some botanists as
identical.

6. H. sarothra, broom-like hypericum, com-
monly called ground pine, netweed, and orange
grass. This is frequent in sandy fields and
along road-sides, where it puts forth yellow
flowers in July and August. Its root is annual,
the stem is slender and grows 4 to 8 inches
high. (Flora Cestrica.)

JONQUIL. A species of daffodil, of which
there are several sorts. The great jonquil and
the odorous jonquil blow about the middle of
March. The lesser or proper jonquil some-
what later. When they blow well and early
they forebode a fine season.

JUDAS TREE (Cercis). This is a beauti-
ful genus of ornamental trees, flowering early
in spring, and looking very pretty planted
singly on a lawn, or trained to a wall or trellis;
they grow to the height of 20 feet, prefer an
open loamy soil, and may be plentifully in-
creased from seeds.

The species found in the United States is the
Cercis Canadensis of botanists, commonly called
red bud. In the Middle States, it is a small
tree 15, 20, or 30 feet high, greatly admired for
the clusters of small flowers, which in April
clothe the limbs in purple before the leaves
appear. The flowers are acid to the taste. It is
the onlv species of cercis in the United States.
JUNE BERRY (Mespilusarborea of MichSLUx).
With the exception of the maritime parts of
678

the Carolinas and Georgia, this tree, as Mi-
chaux informs us, is spread over the whole
extent of the United States and Canada. But
it is most multiplied upon the Alleghany moun-
tains, and upon the elevated banks of the rivers
which flow from them. In the northern section
of the Union it is called wild pear tree, whilst
in the Middle and other Stales it goes by the
various names of wild service berry, June berry,
snowy medlar, and shad-flower. The last name
is derived from its blooming about the time the
shad ascend the rivers (beginning of April),
when it is quite a showy little tree. The flow-
ers, which are white and pretty large, are ar-
ranged in pannicles at the extremities of the
branches. As it blossoms early, so does it
mature its fruit amongst the earliest trees of
the forest. The largest tree, however, rarely
yields more than half a pound. Long culture
has been found to improve the fruit, both in
size and quality. The berries are roundish, 3
or 4 lines in diameter, smooth, dark-red, and
even purple when mature, pleasant flavoured,
and not unwholesome. In Pennsylvania and
the neighbouring states, it is generally found
in moist and shady situations, especially along
brooks and rivulets. In the western country,
however, it grows in the midst of the forest
among the oaks, walnuts, &c., and here reaches
its greatest height, which does not exceed 35 or
40 feet, with a^ diameter of 10 or 12 inches.

JUNIPER (Juniperus, derived from the Celtic
juniperus, rough or rude, in allusion to the stiff
habit of the shrubs). This genus is too well
known to need to be particularized here. All
the species will grow in sandy loam, and some
in any common garden soil. They are mostly
raised from seed, though cuttings will strike
when planted in a sheltered situation, under a
hand-glass. The stimulating and diuretic
powers of the savin (/. sabina) are well known.
The fruit of J. commv/nis are proverbial for the
flavour they give to gin. (Paxton's Bot. Diet.)
The species are all evergreen aromatic shrubs,
with narrow leaves, either spreading and sharp-
pointed, or closely imbricated, minute, and ob-
tuse. The fruit is globular or oval, black or
brown, with a glaucous efflorescence.

J. sabina is a native of the south of Europe,
but it is cultivated as an evergreen in our gar-
dens. The plant is a pyramidal shrub, with
small, closely-adhering, glandular leaves, which
exhale, when rubbed, a strong, heavy odour,
and have a bitter, nauseous taste. By distilla-
tion they yield a large quantity of volatile oil,
which has the odour and taste of the recent
plant. Savin is a powerful acrid poison, irri-
tating and vesicating the skin when it is ap-
plied to it. When swallowed in large doses, it
causes vomiting, purging, and inflammation of
the stomach and bowels.

The common juniper (/. commimis) grows
wild on hills and heathy downs, especially
where the soil is chalky. Dr. Sibthorpe found
it on Olympus and Athos, in Greece. It is,
like all the species, a bushy shrub, with ever-
green, linear pointed, glaucous leaves, dark
green on the under disk. The flowers are
axillary, small, sessile, male and female organs
in separate flowers. The fruit, although called

JURY.

KALE, SEA.

a berry, is a galbalus or succulent cone. It
requires two seasons to arrive at maturity.
The dwarf alpine juniper (/. nana) is a variety
of the communis. It grows upon lofty moun-
tains, and is, as its name implies, more humble
in its growth. These are the only indigenous
species. The tops and the fruit are used in
medicine as powerful diuretics. The former
have a bitter, turpentine flavour and colour;
the fruit is sweetish, with an agreeable, some-
what balsamic odour, depending upon a vola-
tile oil, and a peculiar saccharine matter ana-
logous to the sugar of the grape. The volatile
oil is contained in cells in the shells of the
seeds; hence, in making infusion of juniper,
the seeds should be bruised. The infusion is
made with an ounce of the bruised fruit and a
pint of boiling distilled water. It is a useful
beverage in some kinds of dropsies. The red
cedar (/. Virginia7ia), is a hard}', handsome
evergreen, native of North America, with dark
foliage, producing a small blue berry-like fruit
in May. It frequently attains to the height of
a very lofty tree. See Ckdar, Red.

JURY (from the Latin jurare, to swear). A
body of men sworn to decide a certain fact or
facts according to the evidence produced before
them.

This noble institution, like many others as
dearly cherished by all lovers of freedom, com-
menced among the northern nations of Europe
at a very early period. The early notices of
this mode of trial remaining to us do not speak
of its institution : and, in truth, it most proba-
bly originated in some rude form or other as
soon as men began to dwell together in fixed
habitations.

That trial by jury was employed by our
Saxon ancestors from time immemorial is very
certain, and over-industrious historians have
•wasted much time in fruitless endeavours to
assign the honour of the first discoverer to the
jreal author. Thus Stiernhook (De Jure Sueo-
num, 1. i. c. 4), ascribes the glory to Regner,
king of Denmark and Norway, who was the
contemporary of our Egbert. Archbishop Ni-
cholson carries the date of the invention back
to Woden, the great captain, legislator, and god
of the Northernmen.

Sir Edward Coke appears to have fancied
that there is something in the very number
twelve, in which the laws of God and man
seem to delight ; and he instances the twelve
judges, twelve counsellors of state, twelve to
wager the laws, twelve apostles, tribes, stones,
&c. (Coke on Littleton, s. 334 b.)

Trial by jury is mentioned as early as the
reign of King Ethelred, but not as a novel in-
stitution. ( Wilkins* Laws of the Anglo-Saxons,
117.) And in Magna Charta it is mentioned
more than once, and particularly ordained,
That no freeman shall be dispossessed of his
lands or goods, unless by the judgment of his
peers ; and amid all the long continued strug-
gles of Englishmen for the liberty of the sub-
ject (from the days of King John down to the
time of Fox and his declaration of the office
of juries in libel cases), the preservation of
the freedom of juries has ever b'een a darling
object with English patriots.

K.

KALE, SEA {Crambe maritima), is found wild
on the seashore on the southwestern coast of
Great Britain, where the common people have
from time immemorial been in the practice of
watching when the shoots and leaf-stalks begin
to push up the sand and gravel, in March and
April, when they cut them off under ground, as
done with asparagus, and boil them as greens.
About the middle of the last century it was
first introduced into gardens, and is now al-
most as universal as asparagus.

A light, moderately rich soil, on a dry sub-
stratum, suits it best ; though in any dry soil
it will succeed. A bed may be composed for
it of one-half drift sand, one-third rich loam,
and one-third small gravel, road stuff, or coal
ashes ; if the loam is poor, a little well-rotted
dung or decayed leaves being added. The soil
must especially be deep, so that the roots can
penetrate without being immersed in water,
which invariably causes their decay. Mr. T.
Barton, of Bothwell Castle, has even found it
succeed well on a pretty strong loam that had
a loose bottom. The depth should not be less
than 2^ feet ; and if not naturally deep, it should
be worked to it by trenching. If at all tena-
cious, this opportunity may be taken to mix
with it drift or sea sand, so as to reduce it to a
mouldy texture. If the soil be wet it must be
drained, so that water never shall stand within
three feet of the surface. If poor, well-putrified
dung must be added ; but decayed leaves are
preferable (Trans. Hort. Soc. Lond. vol. i. p. 17),
and sea-weed still more so. These precautions
must all be particularly attended to, for upon
the due richness and dryness of the soil not
only depend the luxuriance and delicate fla-
vour of the plants, but their very existence.
Common salt, as might be anticipated, is found
to be a very beneficial application, either ap-
plied dry, or by occasional waterings with a
solution containing 4 or 5 ounces in the gallon,
round every stool during the summer. As re-
gards the situation, it cannot be too open or
free from trees. Sea kale is propagated both
from seed and slips of the root; the first is by
far the best mode, for although it may be ob-
tained from slips with greater certainty, yet the
plants arising from seed are the strongest and
longest lived; whilst the failure of seed, which
is sometimes complained of, mostly arises
from its being old, buried too deep, or some
other extraneous cause. The seed may be in-
serted in drills from October, or as early in the
spring as the ground can be brought into good
condition. It is by much the best mode to
leave the plants where raised, and with that
intent, to guard against failure, inserting the
seed in patches of 6 or 12 seeds, each 6 inches
apart, and the patches 2 feet asunder. If, how-
ever, they are intended for transplanting, the
seed may be sown in drills 12 inches asunder;
in either case it must not be buried more than
2 inches below the surface; and it is a good
practice, previous to inserting it, to bruise the
outer coat of the seed, without injuring its
vegetating power, as by this treatment the ger-

679

KALE, SEA.

KALE, SEA.

mination is accelerated. The plants will in ge-
neral make their appearance in 4 or 5 months,
never sooner than 6 weeks ; but, on the other
hand, the seed will sometimes remain 12 months
before it vegetates.

' The best time for increasing it by slips is in
March and April. Rooted offsets may be de-
tached from established plants ; or their roots,
which have attained the thickness of the third
finger, be cut into lengths, each having at least
two eyes. To plant the offsets requires no par-
ticular direction: the cuttings must be inserted
in an upright position 2 or 3 inches beneath
the surface. It is best to plant two together, to
obviate the danger of failure, at 2 feet apart,
to remain.

Whatever mode of propagation is adopted,
the bed should be laid out 3 feet wide, and a 2
feet alley between every 2, in preference to the
plan sometimes recommended of planting 3
rows in beds 7 feet wide, for in such the soil
must be consolidated by the feet during the ne-
cessary grades of cultivation.

If the months of June and July prove dry,
the beds should be plentifully watered. The
seedlings require no other attention during the
first summer than to be kept free from weeds,
and, if they come up too numerous, to be
thinned to 6 or 6 in each patch. When their
leaves have decayed, and been cleared away
about November, they must be earthed over an
inch or two with dry mould from the alleys,
and over this about 6 inches depth of long litter
be spread, and thus left to stand the winter.
In the following spring the litter is to be raked
off, and a little of the most rotten dug into the
alleys. When the plants have perfectly made
their appearance, they must be thinned, leav-
ing the strongest plant, or, as Mr. Maher re-
commends, the three strongest, at each patch ;
those removed being transplanted at similar
distances if required ; but it must be remarked
that those transplanted never attain so fine a
growth, or are so long-lived. In this second
winter the earthing must be increased to 5 or
6 inches deep over the crowns, and the cover-
ing of litter performed as before. In the third
spring, the litter being removed, and some dug
into the alleys as before, about an inch depth
of drift sand or coal ashes must be spread re-
gularly over the surface. The sprouts may
now be bleached and cut for use ; for if this is
commenced earlier, the stools are rendered
much less productive, and much shorter lived.
In November, or as soon as the leaves are de-
cayed, the beds being cleared of them, the coat-
ing of sand or ashes removed, and gently
stirred with the asparagus fork, they must be
covered with a mixture of three parts earth
from the alleys, and one part of thoroughly de-
cayed leaves, to the depth of 3 or 4 inches. The
major part of this is to be removed in the fol-
lowing spring, the beds forked, and the cover-
ing of sand renewed ; this routine of cultiva-
tion continuing during the existence of the
beds.

The above course is the one also pursued if
the plants are raised from offsets or cuttings,
as it is much the best practice not to com-
mence cutting until they are two years old.
680

Blanching, as before observed, may commence
the second spring after sowing. The most
simple mode is that originally adopted, name-
ly, to cover over each stool sand or ashes to
the depth of about a foot ; the shoots in their
passage through it, being excluded from the
light, are effectually bleached. But pots are
by much to be preferred to these coverings.
Common flower-pots of large dimensions may
be employed, care being taken to stop the hole
at the bottom with a piece of tile and clay, so
as to exclude ev^ry ray of light.

Previous to covering the stools with the pots,
&c., the manure laid on in the winter must be
removed; and the operation should commence
at the close of February, or at least a month
before the shoots usually appear, as the shel-
ter of the pots assists materially in bringing
them forward. In 4 or 6 weeks after they are
covered the plants should be examined, and as
soon as they appear 3 or 4 inches high, they
may be cut ; for if none are taken until they
attain a fuller growth, the crop comes in too
much at once. In order to prolong the season
of production, Mr. Barton recommends plants
to be raised annually, so that every year a cut-
ting may be had from a yearling crop, which
comes in much later, and consequently suc-
ceeds in production the old established roots.
The shoots should be cut whilst young and
crisp, not exceeding 5 or 6 inches in height;
the section to be made just within the ground,
but not so as to injure the crown of the root.
Slipping off the stalks is said to be preferable
to cutting. The plants may be gathered from
until the flower begins to form, when all cover-
ing must be removed. If, when arrived at the
state in which broccoli is usually cut, the stalks
and immature flowers are employed as that
vegetable, they will be found an excellent sub-
stitute ; and this greatly enhances the value of
the plant, as broccoli does not stand the winter
frosts in the Northern States, and can only be
had when carefully protected ; but this plant
is sufliciently hardy to bear the frost without
injury. It flowers about June, and produces
abundance of seed on every stem, which ripens
about the close of July or early in August.

To force sea kale, Mr. T. Baldwin, of Ragley,
recommends that, on each side of a 3 foot bed,
a trench is to be dug 2 feet deep, the side of it
next the bed being perpendicular, but the outer
side sloping, so as to make it 18 inches wide
at the bottom, but 2^ feet at the top. These
trenches being filled with fermenting dung,
which of course may be renewed if ever found
necessary, and frames put over the plants, the
light is to be completely excluded by boards,
matting, &c. Unlike the generality of vege-
tables, the shoots of forced sea kale are always
more crisp and delicate than those produced
naturally.

"To have this rare vegetable in perfection,'*
says Bridgeman, " it • should be cooked as
soon as gathered. Let it be first soaked in
water, seasoned with salt, for half an hour;
then wash it in fresh water, and put it into the
cooking utensil ; keep it boiling briskly, skim
clean, and let off steam. When the stalks are
tender, which may be expected in from 15 to

KALE.

KELP.

25 minutes, according to size and age, take it
up, dish il, and serve it up with melted butter,
gravy, and such condiments as may be most
agreeable to the palate." (^Gardener's Assistant.)

KALE, THE WOBURN PERENNIAL.
See Cabbagk, BonEcoLE, &c.

KALL A sea weed, from the ashes of which
the alkali, called soda, is procured. See Kelp,
SALTwortT, and Glasswout.

KALMLV. American laurel. A North Ame-
rican genus of hardy shrubs, remarkable for
the beauty of their flowers. The leaves are
considered poisonous to cattle, and are par-
ticularly fatal to sheep. The honey gathered
from the flowers is also charged with possess-
ing deleterious qualities. The plants do best
when grown in a peat soil, though they will
grow in a very sandy loam; they may be in-
creased by layers or seeds.

Mr. Nuttall describes five species of kalmia
found in the United States: — 1. A', latifolia,
laurel, or calico bush, common from Canada
to Georgia. The stem grows 3 or 4 to 10 or 12
feet high, with irregular, crooked, straggling
branches. Il frequents shaded banks and rocky
hills, and blooms its beautiful flowers in May
and June. The wood of this splendid flower-
ing shrub is very hard, and is often used to
make handles for small mechanical imple-
ments. A decoction of the leaves is sometimes
used as a remedy for cutaneous diseases.
{Flora Cestrica.)

2. K. angustifolia, or narrow-leaved laurel,
commonly called sheep laurel, and dwarf laurel.
The stem of this species grows about two feet
high, being slender and, somewhat branching.
This pretty little species of laurel is thought to
be particularly poisonous to sheep and other
stock, when eaten by them. 3. K. glmtca. 4.
K. cuneata, found in swamps betwixt Camden
and Statesville, South Carolina. 5. K.hirsuta,
found constantly on the drier margins of open
swamps, abundant around Savannah, Georgia.

KATY-DID. See Plattphtllum.

KELP, SEA-WEED, BARILLA, &c. I class
these manures together, when ireating of kelp,
since it is to the presence of various salts of
soda that sea-weed principally owes its ferti-
lizing qualities, for when they are washed out,
the residuum is nearly inert. Sea-weed has
been analyzed by M. Gaultier de Claubry. In
the Funis saccharinus and in the Fucus digita-
tus (vvhieh is much used in Scotland as a
manui'fe) he found the following substances
(r/io//jso*t's Chem. vol. iv. p. 298): —

Saccharine matter. Muriate or magnesia.

Mucilage. Carbonate of potash.

VegPtable albumen. Carbonate of soda.

Oxalate of pdiash. Ilydriodaie of potasb.

Malaie of pota.sh. Silica,

gulphate of poiash. Phosphate of lime.

Sulphate of soda. Phosphate of magnesia.

Sulphate of maenesia. Oxide of iron.

Muriate of soda. Oxalate of lime.
Muriate of poiash.

By burning these weeds the kelp and barilla
of commerce is formed; the first of which has
been often advantageously employed in Ireland
and on the coast of Scotland as a manure. The
Suhblk and the Kentish farmers, however, as
well as some of the Scotch, employ the sea-
weed in its freshest state, either ploughing it
into the ground, or spreading it on the top of j
86

their heaps of compost. The first plan, how-
ever, I have ever seen productive of the best
eflects ; and in that conclusion I am supported
by the experience of many excellent farmers.

The salt turf of the sea-shore has been long
used in many parts of England as an excellent
manure, especially for potatoes ; and, accord-
ing to Dr. Holland (^Survey of Cheshire, p. 143),
even the salt mud of the Mersey is extensively
used for the same crop, at the rate of twenty
tons per acre. " The ground thus manured not
only gives a large produce of potatoes, but is
in a state of excellent preparation for a suc-
ceeding crop of either wheat or barley. The
adoption of this practice has increased very
greatly the value of land about Weston."

There can be no doubt of the advantage of
using the sea-weed, or sea-turf, in the freshest
possible stale, after it has been covered with
the salt water, as by a spring tide ; for if the
salt water has been suffered to drain away
from the weeds, and a partial decomposition
has taken place, their value as a manure must
be materially diminished. The Cornish farm-
ers, when they fetch the calcareous sand from
the sea-beach, are careful to obtain it as much
wetted with the salt water as possible : and
there are in the juices and other components
of marine plants a variety of ingredients which
must produce the most luxuriant effects upon
vegetation growing at a distance from the sea ;
and their constituents are peculiarly noxious
to the vermin with which all cultivated soils
abound. If this conclusion be correct, then
the mode adopted by the Isle of Thanet and
Suffolk farmers, of collecting the sea-weed
into heaps, and suffering it to putrefy, is de-
cidedly wrong ; for, by being thus decomposed,
half its fertilizing virtues are lost to the soil.
The common excuse for rendering dung putrid
before it is spread, viz. that it is a necessary
practice to kill the seeds of weeds, has no ap-
plication here, for those of marine weeds will
not grow on arable upland soils.

The use of sea-weed as a manure, in the
isles of Jersey and Guernsey, has been very
extensive from time immemorial. Thus, in a
work upon Jersey, by the Rev. Philip Falle,
published in 1694, he observes, that "Nature
having denied us the benefit of chalk, lime,
and marie, has supplied us with what fully an-
swers the end of them in husbandry — it is a
sea-weed, but a weed more valuable to us than
the choicest plant that grows in our gardens.
We call ii vraic {varec), in ancient records i-em-
citm, and sometimes tvrectmi, and it grows on
the rocks about the island. It is gathered only
at certain times appointed by the magistrate
and signified to the people by a public crier
on a market day. There are two seasons for
cutting it, the one in summer, the other about
the vernal equinox. The summer vraic, being
first well dried by the sun on the sea-shore,
serves for fuel, and makes a hot, glowing fire ;
but the ashes are a great improvement to the
soil, and are equal almost to a like quantity of
lime. The winter vraic being spread thin on
the green turf, and afterwards buried in the
furrows by the plough, it is incredible how with
its fat unctuous substance it ameliorates the
ground, imbibing itself into it, softening the

£81

KELP.

KELP.

clod, and keeping the root of the corn moist
during the most parching heals of summer.
In stormy weather, the sea does often tear up
from the rocks vast quantities of this weed, and
casts it on the shore, where it is carefully ga-
thered up by the glad husbandman."

The plants chiefly valued for making French
varec are Fucus vesiculosus, F. nodosus, F. serra-
tas, Laminaria digitata and bulbosa, Himanthalia
lorea, and Chorda filvm. Twenty-four tons of
the sea-weeds make one ton of kelp. The
Jersey and Guernsey Agricultural Society con-
firmed this account of the excellent effects of
the ashes from sea-weed, in 1797, in their re-
port to the English Board of Agriculture, when
they observed —

" It is judged, that a chabot (half a bushel),
strewed over a perch of ground in winter or
the beginning of spring, will be a sufficient
manure. Our labourers are unanimously of
opinion, that it gives a full ear to the corn, and
prevents it being laid — those who have any
varech to sell may at all times get a chabot of
wheat for a quarter or six bushels of varech,"
(Com. to Board of Agr. vol. i. p. 216.)

The fertilizing effects of sea-weed are not
confined to the better description of soils ; the
poorest kind of heath lands are benefited by the
application of this manure ; — thus, Mr. John"*
Sherriff, of Haddington, has described the
effects of sea-weed, or sea-tang, as it is called
in Scotland, on common heath or moor land,
in the following terms : " Sea-weed, which is a
capital manure for any land, may often be pro-
cured at little or no expense. Crops almost
incredible of turnips, barley, clover, and rye,
have, to the writer's certain knowledge, been
obtained on an extensive tract of the most
miserable benty wastes and poor rabbit war-
rens, by the powers of this manure; soils which,
twelve years since, were not worth three shil-
lings per acre. The bent was torn up by the
common swing plough, burnt, and the ashes
spread ; the soil was then manured with the
sea-tang, as much as could be ploughed in.
Turnips were immediately drilled, and rolled,
to prevent blowing ; this crop was succeeded
by rye or barley, and that by red clover and
rye-grass. On the clover stubble, and some-
times after the turnip crop, plenty of tang was
again laid, the ley ploughed down, and sown
with oats, barley, or rye, and frequently with
turnips, which in this way have succeeded ad-
mirably on the ley with one ploughing." {Com.
to Board of Agr. vol. iv. p. 122.) It is certain,
from the experiments of the late Mr. Knight,
that green manures of all kinds are an admir-
able manure ; and it seems well established
that the more the juice of the vegetables so
employed is impregnated with saline matters,
the more fertilizing are their effects : thus, in
Bavaria, borage is very commonly cultivated
for this purpose, and the reason assigned for
the preference shown to this plant is, that it
contains soda and other salts. {Gardener's
Mag. vol. i. p. 200.)

I have no doubt that in many situations the
sea-weed may be successfully cultivated on the
sea-coast, expressly for manure ; and it seems
that for this purpose hardly any thing is re-
quired except placing stones on the shore, to

which the fuci can attach th'emselves, and in
two years the crop may be cut. According to
Mr. Jamieson {Miner, of Scottish Isles, vol. 2, p.
251), various kinds of stones have been em-
ployed in Scotland, as basalt, sandstone, and
limestone, which last is the best adapted for '
the purpose, and after that the basalt.

There are also in many parts of the coast
of Britain extensive tracts of land which it
would be difficult to enclose, and yet these
places are either already covered with a coarse
turf, or might be so with a little management;
and this turf, when cut and carted on to the
light upland soils, is found almost invariably
to be an admirable fertilizer; — for instance,
when spread over land during the winter, and
then turned into the soil, for potatoes, the crop
is sure to be excellent. No description of fer-
tilizer, perhaps, can be named, which /res^ens,
as the farmers say, an over-cropped soil so
much as a dressing of from 20 to 25 loads per
acre of the turf from the sea-shore, soaked with
sea-water ; and no plant delights in fresh soil
so much as the potatoe. . It is, therefore, more
than probable, that the exertions of the com-
monly cultivated corn crops are peculiar noxi-
ous to this plant; and it is certain that the
potatoe, by the deposit which it leaves in the
soil, renders it distasteful to the crop by which
it is succeeded. Thus the wheat plant rarely
looks well on soils where the potato has im-
mediately preceded it. Saline fertilizers, in
these cases, are sure to be serviceable, for they
unite with, and neutralize the effects, as well
as promote the decomposition, of the excretory
matters which all plants deposit in the soil.

The chief fertilizing qualities possessed by
barilla are attributable to the presence of soda.
This alkali is found in all marine vegetables,
and in most of those which grow on the sea-
shore. It has been used in several experi-
ments as a manure since the price of soda has
been so much reduced; but these have not
been conducted with sufficient accuracy to
enable us to judge of its value as a fertilizer.
What little has been done, promises well.
Thus, it has been found, when a pound of soda
is dissolved in 14 gallons of water, that this
solution forms an excellent liquid manure for
many culinary vegetables ; for instance, the
vegetable-marrow plant, when thus treated, has
been found to flourish better in common garden
mould than other plants growing on a dunghill.
And, as I have remarked in another pl^e, na-
ture is here again our instructor: the fertile
plains of Syria, and some of the most profusely
luxuriant fields of the orientalist, abound in
carbonate of soda. This alkali not only enters
into the composition of many vegetables, but
it promotes the growth of all, by preserving
the moisture of the soil, and by accelerating
the decomposition of the numerous organic
substances found in all cultivated lands. The
sewer water of towns and cities, which has
been found so very rich and fertilizing as a
dressing for grass lands, abounds with soda ; }
for that is contained in the soap suds and other
refuse washings which such drainage matters
always convey. Soda has been found in very
sensible proportions in the urine of the horse,
by M. Fourcroy ; and in that of the ass, by Mr.

KELP.

KELP.

Brande ; and a Small portion of this alkali is | with a view to raising of green crops^it would
usually presented in the waste ashes of soap- be better to mix it in compost with other sub-
makers, which many cultivators consider highly
valuable as a manure.

As the use of kelp has been of late much
greater than formerly as a manure, it will be
useful for the cultivator to learn the proportion
of alkali contained in the kinds usually met
with in commerce, as determined by Mr. Ja-
mieson {Min. of Scottish Isles, vol. ii. p. 248) : —

Barilla from Alicant, good

_

.

S3

8 in 100

Tfeneriffe, bad

-

-

7

Kelp from Norway, indifferent

-

-

11

Shetland, indifferent

.

_

6

Lewis, indifferenl -

-

.

6

W. Highlands, much damaged

^

Arran _ - -

-

-

8

Isla, good

.

_

0

Mull, good

-

-

8

Morven, good -

.

.

8

Skye, good

-

-

0

Leilh shores -

-

-

0

But, besides the alkali referred to, kelp con
tains iodide of potassium, bromide of potas-
sium, and sulphuret of potassium ; all of which
probably exert considerable influence on vege-
tation. It is well known that seeds sown in
pure sand, and watered with a solution of
iodine, germinate very rapidly.

The residuum, when all the soda and com-
mon salt are extracted from the barilla, 'is
principally earthy matters, which are of a very
inert nature, and need not be regarded by the
cultivator as possessing any peculiar fertilizing
properties different from marl, which they
much resemble in composition.

100 parts of these insoluble matters of kelp
are composed of—

ParH.

Sulphureted hydrogen and carbonic acid - 1400

Carbon 4 10

Sulphuric acid ------ -47

Silica 12-30

Lime 32 60

Magnesia 18 50

Alumina 1540

Iron -77

Loss 1-86

From the quantity of kelp produced on the
shores of Scotland, and its reduced price since
the peace, which again allowed the unrestricted
import of Spanish barilla, and more especially
since the discovery of a cheap mode of extract-
ing soda from common salt, the application of
kelp as a manure has engaged the serious at-
tention of the farmers of that part of the island,
and a committee was some time since appoint-
ed by the Highland Society of Scotland to report
upon its pretensions ; in much of that report,
from which the following extracts are made, I
cordially agree : —

" Your committee are unwilling to offer any
theoretical opinion as to the way in which kelp
may operate as a manure. From the quantity
of alkali which it contains, it may naturally be
expected to operate by rendering the animal
and vegetable matter soluble, and a fit food for
plants ; but, from the series of facts to be no-
ticed, kelp would seem to possess other quali-
ties as a manure. Although it may be benefi-
cially applied as a dressing by itself, yet the
committee are at present inclined to think that.

stances. The selection of these must depend
upon what the farmer can furnish; but the
committee think that good earth or moss will
form a good compost, and if to this mixture
can be added a little vegetable or animal ma-
nure, a beneficial result can be relied on. In
this way, a few tons of kelp would enable a
farmer to extend his farm dung over at least
four times the quantity of land."

The relative value of kelp as a manure may
be estimated from the following experiments,
made in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh : —
A field upon the estate of Inverleith, possessed
by Mr. Hutchinson, was selected, which had
been in wheat in the year 1828, hence it was
in some measure in an exhausted state : upon
one ridge of this field there was sown at the
rate of 12 cwt. of kelp per acre ; on a second,
at the rate of 10 cwt. per acre ; and on a third
at the rate of 4 cwt. per acre. Two other
ridges were manured with the best cow and
horse dung, at the rate of 20 tons per acre ;
and the whole was sown with wheat late in the
spring of 1829. The two ridges which had got
the greatest quantity of kelp were equal to that
which had the dung, and the ridge which had
gotlhe smallest quantity was decidedly supe-
rior to the others. Similar experiments were
made upon the same field, by sowing barley-
after the previous crop of wheat ; the result
was, that the barley manured with the kelp
was, according to the estimate of the tenant
and his Stewart, a much heavier crop than
after an application of horse and cow dung,
and that the ridge with the smallest quantity
of kelp appeared the heaviest crop.

A portion of the lands of Bangholm were
manured with kelp of inferior quality, at the
rate of one ton per acre, and the land sown
with yellow turnip ; the crop, upon examina-
tion, is considered to be fully equal to that part
of the field which has been manured with
dung. (Baxter's Lib. ofJgr. Knowl. p. 406.)

Mr. Kerr, of Henfield, has given the result
of his experiments on kelp, from which he is
of opinion that " 5 cwt. of kelp per Scotch acre
will produce a manifest improvement on any
crop." (Trans. High. Sac. i. p. 320.) Care must,
however, be taken not to apply too copious a
dressing of kelp. Mr. Mackinnon, of Corry,
draws the following conclusion from his expe-
riments ; he used the ashes of sea-weed burnt
in a heap: "of the ashes thus manufactured,
20 bushels were allowed to the acre, and dis-
tributed in the drills. When the turnips sprout-
ed, they had an unhealthy green or rather yel-
lowish appearance, but after some time several
patches in the field seemed to be growing lux-
uriantly, while others seemed to retain their
sickly hue. Upon a careful investigation, it
was discovered that wherever the ground was
deepest, and the ashes of the sea-weed had
been most aaixed up with the soil, the turnips
were best ; and, on the other hand, that where
the ashes, not being mixed up with the soil,
came in contact with the seed, the turnips did
not at all thrive. In clearing the ground the
weeds were collected into heaps, and burnt
upon the spot; and it was observed that ou

683

KELP.

KIDNEY-VETCH.

the side of these heaps the turnips were very
nearly as good as those on an adjoining piece
of ground manured solely with dung." (Ibid.
vol. iv. p. 246.) There is a good paper on the
manufacture of kelp in Quart. Journ. of Agr.
vol. ii. p. 927 ; and on mixing kelp with com-
posts, peat, turf, &c., ibid. vol. iii. p. 556.

Every farmer has it in his power, even in
the most inland situations, to procure soda for
the use of his farm, by means of a mixture of
two parts of lime and one part of common salt,
and suffering the mixture to remain incorpn-
rated in a shady place, or covered with sods,
in a dry state, for two or three months ; a plan
which I suggested some years since (Johnson
on Salt, p. 32, 3d edit.), and which has been re-
cently successfully adopted by Mr. Bennet, in
Wiltshire. By this process a gradual decom-
position takes place, chloride of calcium and
soda are formed, the whole mass speedily be-
coming encrusted with this alkali. There is
another advantage to be derived from the adop-
tion of this process, besides the formation of
the soda, viz. that the chloride of calcium is
one of the most deliquescing or moisture-ab-
sorbing substances with which we are ac-
quainted; and, in consequence, wherever it
exists in a soil, the warmth of the sun has, in
summer, much less influence upon it than it
would otherwise have.

Mr. G. Irwin, of Taunton, bears testimony to
the value of common soap-suds. "The portion
of the garden invigorated by the soap-suds,
only annually exhibits a luxuriance almost
equal to anything this fertile neighbourhood
can produce." The Rev. J. Falconer, when
commenting upon this experiment, says, "This
mixture of an oil and an alkali has been more
generally known than adopted, as a remedy
against the insects which infest wall fruit
trees. It will dislodge and destroy the insects
which have already formed their nests and
bred amongst the leaves. When used in the
early part of the year, it seems to prevent the
insects from settling upon them. Mr. Speechly,
the author of a treatise upon the Cultivation
of the Vine, published in 1796, used this mix-
ture with great success, although, from not
having employed a garden engine, he applied
the soap-suds awkwardly and wastefuUy. He
directs it to be poured from a ladder, out of a
watering-pot, over both trees and wall, begin-
ning at the top of the wall, and bringing it on
in courses from the top to the bottom."

Mr. Martin, of Warbleton, has recently used
soda for turnips, half a cwt. per acre, previ-
ously to the last ploughing, thinking, as he ob-
served, that it would destroy such insects as
lie in the ground in an embryo state, or pre-
vent their arriving at maturity so as to injure
his crop. In respect to the use of soda on corn
lands, he said he used it rather extensively last
season, and that he had tried several experi-
ments with it, both upon grass and arable land.
That in a field of wheat, a very thin, poor,
gravelly soil, he sowed one warp without any
manure at all ; on another warp adjoining, he
used one cwt. per acre ; and on a third warp
he put 1^ cwt. per acre. The produce of eight
rods on each warp was as follows ; this was
on land of a very bad description : —
684

Per acre.
8 rods without manure, 7 gallons, or 17i bushels.
8 rods with I cwt. soda per acre, 10^

gallons, or 26 bushels, 2 galls.

8 rods with U cwt, soda per acre,

Idi gallons, or .... 38 bushels, 6 galls.

KENNEL (Fr. chenil, from chien, a dog). #
The hole of a fox or other wild beast. In rural
economy, a habitation for dogs, especially
those of the hound kind : it should be situated
a good distance from the house. Large ken-
nels require to be kept clean, well aired, and
strewed with fresh straw to prevent the mange
or other infectious distempers. Those readers
who wish to acquire information on the man-
agement of the kennel will do well to consult
Blaine's Encydopctdia of Rural Spoi'ls.

KERN-BABY (a corruption of corn-baby)
was an image formerly dressed up with corn,
carried before the reapers to their harvest-
home.

KERNEL (Sax. cypnel, a gland). In general
this word signifies the substance within a
shell; but it has different meanings, some-
times implying anything included in a husk
or integument, as the seed of pulpy fruits, the
grain of oats, &c. In horticulture the hardy
fruits are generally arranged under the heads
of kernel fruits, or pomes, including the apple,
pear, quince, medlar, and service; stone fruits^
as the peaCfi, nectarine, almond, apricot, plum,
and cherry ; berries, as the mulberry, barberry,
elderberry, gooseberry, currant, raspberry,
cranberry, and strawberry ; and nuts, as the
walnut, chestnut, and filbert.

KIDNEY-BEAN, the kind of bean most cul-
tivated in the United States, whereas the va-
riety mostly cultivated in Europe is the horse-
bean. See Beans.

KIDNEY-VETCH (Jnthyllis; derived from
uvQzQ, a flower, and huKcc, down, in reference to
the flowers being usually covered with a soft
or silky pubescence). The species are, for
the most part, elegant and free-flowering, plants
proper for ornamenting rock-work. The hardy
perennial and annual kinds thrive well in a
warm situation and light soil. The green-
house and frame kinds succeed best in sandy
loam and peat ; and increase plentifully from
seeds, and sometimes from cuttings. {Paxton^s
Bot. Did.)

The common kidney-vetch, or ladies' finger
(.^.vulneraria), is the only species indigenous to
the British Islands. It is found growing wild in
chalky or limestone countries, where the soil is
dry and rather barren, and the herbage affords
good pasturage for sheep. The root of this
species is woody, the stems annual, round,
hairy, leafy, mostly simple, ascending, about a
foot high. The radical leaves are simple, ellip-
tical, on long stalks, soon disappearing; the
rest alternate, pinnate, with a terminal ellip-
tical leaflet, and several pairs of opposite,
small, lanceolate ones ; all entire, smooth, and
a little glaucous above, hairy, or rather silky,
underneath and at the margin. The flowers,
which are numerous, in a pair of crowded ter-
minal heads, accompanied by figured bracteas,
are usually yellow, rarely of a fine red. In
Germany, according to Haller, the flowers are
most frequently white. This plant formerly
had the reputation of possessing some vulne-

KILN.

KITCHEN GARDEN.

rary properties, whence the specific name.
(Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. iii. p. 269.)

KILN (Sax. cyin). A kind of furnace or
stove for admitting heat, in order to dry sub-
stances of various kinds, as corn, malt, hops,
&c. It also signifies a fabric or building con-
structed for the purpose of burning limestone,
chalk, and other calcareous stones, into lime.
Kilns are of various kinds, and formed in dif-
ferent ways, according to the purposes for
which they are designed. See Hops, Malt,
LiMK, Clat, Kiln^, &c.

KILN ASHES. The ashes made in kilns
where wood, straw, furze, &c. are burnt. These
ashes are useful as manure for almost any
kind of soil. They are found to succeed best
when spread just before rain. See Ashes.

KIT. In some places a name given to a
milking-pail or vessel in the form of a churn,
with two ears and a cover, used to convey
milk in.

KITCHEN GARDEN. A piece of ground
laid out for the cultivation of fruit, herbs,
pulses, and other culinary vegetables.

The kitchen garden is the most important
object of the horticulturist's care, inasmuch as
its productions, next to those of agriculture,
tend most to the support of mankind.

It often affords the chief support of the cot-
tager, and ought to be the constarft attendant
of his dwelling. Of more exalted mansions it
is alwa)'s an accompaniment, but it is much
to be regretted that a more plentiful use of its
products is not adopted in preference to grosser
aliment.

The kitchen garden also has for its inmates
many plants chiefly valuable as rendering
other kinds of food more palatable, or as pos-
sessing sanative qualities. These last formerly
far exceeded in number the edible plants. The
subsequent more general employment of mine-
ral medicines has reversed this state of our
kitchen garden. The culture of aromatic herbs
is also much less attended to since the intro-
duction of spices. In selecting the site, and in
erecting the enclosures, as well as in the after-
preparation of the soil, the ingenuity and sci-
ence of the horticulturist are essentially requi-
site. He will be called upon to rectify the
defects, and to improve the advantages which
nature affords ; for it is very seldom that the
natural situation of a mansion, or the plan of
its grounds, allows him to construct it in the
most appropriate spot.

The garden is best situated at a moderate
elevation ; the summit of a hill, or the bottom
of a valley, is equally to be avoided. It is a
fact, not very ditficult of explanation, that low-
lying ones are the most liable to suffer from
blights and severe frosts ; those much above
the level of the sea are obviously most ex-
posed to inclement winds. To determine the
appropriate size of a kitchen garden is impos-
sible. It ought to be proportionate to the num-
ber of the family, their partiality for vegeta-
bles, and the fertility of the soil. It may serve
as some criterion to state, that the manage-
ment of a kitchen garden occupying the space
of an acre affords ample emplayment for a
gardener, who will also require an assistant at
the busiest periods of the year. In general, a

family of four persons, exclusive of servants,
requires a full rood of open kitchen garden.
It ought not to be larger than can be conve-
niently cultivated ; and it is too large if its pro-
prietor is induced to bring into it the culture
of the field, for that neatness and fertility
which is essential to the garden can be obtain-
ed by the use of the spade only.

A wall of brick or stone is the best fence ;
one of paling may be placed next in order. It
ought to be set close, and kept in good repair,
and not lower than 6 feet, that poultry may be
effectually excluded. The form of the walks or
divisions must depend upon local circum-
stances, but to some extent the following re-
commendations of Bridgeman (Gardener's As-
sistant, p. 7), may be carried out: "Form a
border round the whole garden, from 5 to 10
feet wide, according to the size of the piece of
land ; next to. this border, a walk may be made
from 3 to 6 feet wide ; the centre of the garden
may be divided into squares, on the sides of
which a border may be laid out 3 or 4 feet
wide, in which the various kinds of herbs may
be raised, and also gooseberries, currants,
raspberries, strawberries, &c. The centre
beds may be planted with all the various kinds
of vegetables. The outside borders facing the
east, south, and west, will be useful for raising
the earliest fruits and vegetables; and the
north border, being shady and cool, will serve
for raising and pricking out such young plants,
herbs, and cuttings, as require to be screened
from the intense heat of the sun." The walks
ought to be drained in some cases, and in all
well gravelled. The edging or border may be
of brick, which for a kitchen garden is prefer-
able to all others, as it affords no shelter for
slugs and vermin, is durable, and requires lit-
tle labour to keep it in repair.

The order in which successive crops are
grown on the same compartment has very con-
siderable influence in prolonging the continu-
ance of the soil in fertility. Some vegetables,
as onions and carrots, are extremely impover-
ishing to the soil, whilst lettuces are but in a
small degree prejudicial. It is, therefore, ob-
vious, that a succession of exhausting crops
should never be grown on the same bed, how-
ever plentiful manure may be, not merely be-
cause abundance is no excuse for a want of
economy, but that fresh applied dung is not so
immediately beneficial as those remains of or-
ganized matters, which, by long continuance
in the soil, have become impalpably divided
and diffused through its texture, and of which
each succeeding crop consumes a portion.
Those plants in general are the least exhaust-
ing which have the largest surface of leaves,
and vice versa, because the first are not only
possessed of a larger proportion of aqueous
than solid matter than the latter, but also are
enabled to obtain a greater quantity of their
food from the atmosphere. It may be objected
to many crops included by this rule, and espe-
cially to turnips, that they require a soil of
extreme fertility; but this is only an apparent
anomaly, for, although the turnip, for example,
requires a rich soil, it is only because it re-
quires a regular supply of moisture ; neither
will a tenacious soil therefore be beneficial;
3M 685

KITCHEN GARDEN.

KITCHEN GARDEN.

on the contrary, a superfluity or deficiency,
according to the season, being then afforded,
decay or immaturity is induced.

There are many other contingencies which
should regulate the rotation of crops. The
rodts of different plants strike in different di-
rections, and to different deptJis ; and, as their
constituents vary, absorb different matters.
Deep-rooted plants, therefore, should be suc-
ceeded by such as spread but a liftle below the
surface; perennials always by annuals; crops
left for seed, or those that are of a dry, solid
texture, by such as are succulent and juicy;
but, above all, the same species of plant should
never be grown in successive crops upon the
same ground. This is not even palliated by
the excuse that manure is abundant, for, as
Sir H. Davy observes, "though the general
composition of plants is very analogous, yet
the specific difference in the products of many
of them prove that they must derive different
materials from the soil; and though the vege-
tables having the smallest systems of leaves
will proportionably most exhaust a soil of com'-
num nutritive matter, yet particular vegetables,
when their produce is carried off, will require
peculiar principles to be supplied to the land
which produces them." {Led. on A^r. Chem.
p. 358.) It is known to every cultivator of
soil, that land soon becomes tired of the same
crop ; in many instances, peculiar diseases are
induced by the repetition. The most beneficial
plan of rotation appears to be that where an
exhausting and non-exhausting crop alterna-
tely succeed each other, for example,

Onions. Turnips,

Lettuce. Peas.

Carrots. Potatoes.

Manure. Manure.

Mr. Kelly, of Airthrey Castle, Scotland, says,
that on poor ground the rotation he finds best
is, 1st, celery; 2d season, cauliflowers, and red
beet; 3d, onions ; 4th, German greens or peas.
By digging deep, and manuring abundantly for
celery, the ground is brought into such fine
tilth, that the whole rotation is. often gone
through without any further addition, and with-
out failing in any of the crops.

A Hotbed will be found useful for forwarding
several kinds of vegetables early in spring. In
it tomatoes, egg-plants, peppers, early bush
squashes, and cucumber plants may be raised*,
and planted out as soon as the danger of frost
is over. The best material for a hotbed is fer-
menting stable manure, which may be mixed
with a portion of cow manure or leaves, and
turned over two or three times, at intervals of
5 or 6 days, before using. If dry, give it a
little water at each turning. The frame may
be made of strong boards or two-inch plank,
about 1 foot high at front, and 1^ foot at back.
The width from back to front may be about 6
feet, and the length of any number of sashes
that may be required. The sashes may be
glazed with small glass from 5 to 10 inches.
The smaller sizes will answer every purpose,
are cheaper, and not so liable to break.
Having fixed upon the size of the frame, and a
sheltered situation in which to make the bed,
place a stake at each corner of it, allowing a
few inches larger each way than the frame.
686

The manure must be well shaken up and tho*
roughly mixed, and, in building, the bed regu-
larly beaten down with the fork or lightly
trodden, and if at all dry, well sprinkled with
water. If wanted for early forcing, the bed
should be at least 4^ feet high; if for starting
vegetables 2 feet will be sufficient. The frame
and sashes may then be put on, and in three or
four days 8 or 10 inches of good light earth
may be put in, and the seed sown. Squashes
and cucumbers will do best in pots. A pot of
4 to 5 inches in diameter will be large enough
for three plants. Tomatoes, egg-plants, and
peppers may be sown over the bed, and after-
wards thinned to regular distances. Early
cabbages, cauliflowers, celery, and lettuce tnay
be raised in the same way, and afterwards
planted where wanted. But should the man-
agement of the hotbed be attended with too
much trouble or expense,

The Frame can be used with much advantage,
as in it plants can be raised and kept safe
from frosts long before they would bear ex-
posure in the open air. The frame may be set
on the ground on the south side of the fence,
and if the earth is rich and light, or made so,
the seeds may be sown broadcast over a space
allotted to each kind, and afterwards thinned
out to proper distances. Lima beans may be
started in this way, and transplanted before
they attain to any great size. The frame is
also useful for preserving cabbage, cauliflower,
and lettuce plants during winter, for planting
in the spring; as well as cabbages, lettuce, and
celery for family use. A few leaves or litter
put among the vegetables will aid materially
in excluding the frost, and a shutter and mat
must be put over the sashes in severe weather.

Our object in this article is to give a con-
densed view of the common operations in th«
kitchen garden, as adapted to the United States,
with a list of such varieties of the different
species of vegetables as have been cultivated in
this country, and can be had from the princi-
pal seedsmen in Boston, New York, and Phi-
ladelphia.* Several articles are omitted, which
obtain a place in some gardens, but these are
either thought not to deserve a place, or to be-
long more properly to field culture. Fuller
information on any particular subject can al-
ways be found under the proper head in the
alphabetical arrangement.

Asparagus (^Asparagus officinalis). Sow early
in the spring; having previously soaked the
seed in warm water for 24 hours, then drill it
thinly, in rows sufliciently wide apart to admit
the hoe ; when two years old, transplant into
permanent beds, which should be so situate as
to cast off an excess of moisture, and having
the soil prepared to the depth of two feet with
plenty of manure under. A convenient width
for the beds is four feet. The plants should
be placed 12 inches apart in each direction;
planted at least 4 inches beneath the surface;
well manured at the time, and annually there-
after. If planted in rows, they should be 2^
feet apart. Common salt scattered over the
bed in the winter operates favourably in im-

* In compiling this article, we would here acknowledge
our obligations to the excellent catalogue of D. Lan-
dretb Sc Co. of Philadelphia.

KITCHEN GARDEN.

KITCHEN GARDEN.

proving the growth of asparagus. Meat pickle
or brine is still better.

Beans, English {Vida faba). Plant very
early in the spring, in rows. Broad Windsor
and Mazagan are the best varieties.

Btish Leans (^Pliuseolus vulgaris). The Early
Six weeks, China red-eye, and Red speckled
Valentine, are among the earlier; the Valen-
tine, Mohawk, and Marrow are very superior
varieties. They may be planted for the first
and succession crops from the middle of spring
till the close of summer; the usual mode of
culture is in rows, two or three in a clump, at
intervals of 10 or 12 inches.

Pole or Climbing Beans (P. multiflorus). The
best varieties are the Lima, Carolina, White
Dutch, Red and White Cranberry, and Lon-
don Horticultural. The Limas are tender,
and should not be planted till the close of
spring. They may be forwarded by sprouting
them in a hotbed, and transplanting them into
hills 4 feet distant from each other. Poles
8 or 10 feet long should be put into the ground
before planting, and (if of seed) 6 or 8 planted
round each pole, as the seed is apt to rot in
cold or damp weather. Thin them afterwards,
leaving three or four good plants in each hill.
The London Horticultural is an excellent va-
riety, and may be used for the Lima in those
districts where the Lima frequently fails to
ripen. See Beans.

Beet {Beta vulgaris). The Turnip-rooted and
Long Blood-red are generally esteemed the best
for table use. The turnip-rooted is somewhat
earlier than the long, and is equally good for
winter use. Sow in drills from early in the
spring till the commencement of summer. The
plants should stand 6 or 8 inches apart in the
drills, but the seed should be put in thick, to
secure a full crop. A good plan is to drop
several seeds together at proper distances, and
when up remove all but the strongest.

Swiss Chard {Beta cicla), is much grown in
Germany and Switzerland, and used as chard
or asparagus. The laminae or thin parts of
the leaves, are eaten as spinage or put in
soaps; and the stalk or midrib is boiled, and
e'lten with melted butter or gravy like aspara-
gus. The culture is the same as for the blood
beet, but the leaves are much larger, and a
greater space should be left between the plants
on that account. See Bkkt.

Cab BARE {Brassica olcracea var. capitata).
The earliest variety is the Early York ; next
the Early Sugarloaf,and Landreth's large York ;
Early Battersea is late in the summer. The
flat Dutch and Drumhead are for winter use,
and red Dutch for pickling. Early and sum-
mer varieties are usually sown in seedbeds
early in autumn, protected therein or in cold
-frames, during winter, and transplanted early
in the spring. Where the climate is mild, and
the land light and dry, they are planted in the
autumn, in which case they head earlier than
those put out in spring.

Should a supply of plants not have been ob-
tained in autumn, sow in a hotbed very early
in spring, or somewhat later, on a warm border
in the open air. But let it be borne in mind
that in no case can fine cabbage (especially
the earlier kinds) be had, unless on heavily

manured and well-tilled land — heavy or strong
loamy soil is best adapted to this crop.

For winter sorts, sow in a seedbed in the
middle or latter end of spring, and transplant
early in summer. To have these kinds to head
early in autumn, sow at the same time as the
early sorts. To preserve from the cabbage-fly,
sow in boxes elevated two or three feel above
the surface, and as soon as the plants are es-
tablished, place them on the ground, lest the
plants burn up. To keep them during winter,
bury the stalk and part of the head with earth,
over which, if the cold be severe, sprinkle
straw, or put in a cold frame.

Savoys and Brttssels Sprouts (J5. oleracea var.
bullata), are good for winter use, and become
very lender after being touched by frost. Cul-
tivate as winter cabbage.

Borecole, Kale, dec. (B. oleracea var. acephala)^
may be treated as winter cabbages. They are
said by Bridgeman iq, be delicious when ren-
dered tender by smart frosts ; and to be valu-
able plants to cultivate, particularly in the
Southern States, as they will there be in the
greatest perfection in the winter months ; they
will also, if planted in a gravelly soil, and in
a sheltered, warm situation, bear the winter of
the Western States ; and may be kept in great
perfection in the Eastern States, if taken up
before the frost sets in with much severity, and
placed in trenches up to their lower leaves, and
then covered with straw or other light cover-
ing. See Cabbaoe.

Broccoli and Cauliflower (B. oleracea var. botry-
tis). Purple Cape broccoli is decidedly the best
of many varieties. Sow in seedbeds in the mid-
dle of spring, and transplant and manage gene-
rally as winter cabbage. Early Asiatic cauli-
flower is sown in seedbeds in the beginning of
autumn, kept in a cold frame during winter, and
transplanted to very rich ground as soon as
the frost ceases. Hand glasses or boxes put
over them at night, when they are first put out,
are useful. The late variety matures in au-
tumn, and is sown at the same time, and man-
aged like Cape broccoli. It is, however, not so
sure to succeed as the broccoli, nor is it a bet-
ter vegetable when obtained. See Broccoli.

CARRorr {Daucus carota var. hortensis). The
Early Horn is best for table use. The Long
Orange is more productive. The Allringham
produces great crops, and is suitable to raise
for horses and cattle. Sow the seeds in the mid-
dle of spring, in a rich, sandy loara, well pul-
verized, in rows a foot apart, cover about half
an inch deep, and thin the plants to 4 inches
distance. Gather the crop soon after the first
hard frost, and keep them in a cave or warm
cellar. See Carrot.

Celert (Jpium graveolens). Sow the seed
early in spring, in rich, mellow ground, and in
a situation where the plants can be protected
from the parching heat of the sun. It can
either be sown broadcast or in drills, if in drills,
they may be half an inch deep and 6 inches
apart, that a small hoe may be worked between
them. Plant out in July, in a piece of rich
ground, in an open exposure, in trenches 8 or
10 inches wide, and allow the space of 4 feet
between them. Dig each trench a spade deep,
laying the earth equally on each side, and

687

KITCHEN GARDEN.

KITCHEN GARDEN.

put 4 inches of good rotten dung into the bot-
tom ; tread it firmly, and cover with an inch
of soil from the sides, then plant a single row
in the middle of each trench, leaving 7 or 8
inches between the plants. Give a plentiful
watering, and shade with a board till they
strike root. It may be grown also in beds, 4
feet wide, with alleys 4 feet between, pre-
pared as above. Plant 4 rows in each bed, at
from 6 to 8 inches apart, and water and shade
as before. To blanch, earth up gradually in
dry weather, as the plants progress in growth,
repeating the earthing every 2 weeks, at
which time care should be taken to gather up
all the leaves neatly, and not to bury the heart
of the plants. The earthing up may begin in
September. See Celery.

CoRx, Indiaw (Zca Mays). There are se-
veral varieties used at table, but none are better
than the common Sweet Corn.

CccuMBER (Cucumis sativus). The Early
Frame and Early Green tluster are good varie-
ties. The LongGreen is chieflyused for pickling.
As soon as the ground becomes warm in spring,
plant in hills 6 feet asunder each way, putting
a dozen seeds in a hill, and covering half an
inch deep. Leave finally but three of the
strongest plants. The ground must be rich
and well manured. For very early use, sow
in small pots in a hotbed; turn them into the
open ground in May, taking care to protect
them from the sun and late frosts. For pickling,
plant in the end of June. See Cucumber.

Eufi-PLAXT (Solanum melongena). Sow in
hotbed, or other protected place, very early in
the spring, and late in the spring transplant
into very rich ground, keeping the plants about
two feet asunder. The seed requires much
warmth to cause it to vegetate. See Egg-
Plant.

Endive (Chichorium endiva). Sow at close
of spring to middle of summer in shallow
drills ; when up an inch or two, thin out to
stand a foot apart. In dry weather tie up to
blanch as needed. See Chicory and Endive.

Leek {Allium porrum). Sow in seed-bed
middle of spring; when the plants are 4 or 5
inches high transplant into rows, setting them
loosely and deeply into the soil, and leaving
space to admit the hoe between them. See
Leek.

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa). The Early Cab-
bage, brown Dutch, Royal Cabbage, Curled India
and Tennisball are good, and stand the climate.
Of the Cos varieties, which are very crisp and
tender, but soon shoot to seed, the Egyptian
Green Cos can be recommended. Sow in seed-
bed from commencement to middle of autumn,
protect the plants by a cold frame or with litter
as they stand on the ground; early in the spring
transplant them into rich ground. For a later
supply, sow in drills from time to time during
spring and summer; when up a few inches,
thin out, leaving plants at proper distances.
See Lettuce.

^~"^-Melox (Citciimis melo). The Citron, Persian,

^ |d Murray's Pine-apple are good va-

ie canteleup or musk-melon. Plant

'rich, light soil, at the distance of 6

ler, in the latter end of spring, putting

ft /eeds into each hill, 2 inches distant

58

from one another, and half an inch deep. Thin
out to 3 in each hill ; draw the earth from time
to time about the hills as high as the seed
leaves. Pinch off the top at the first or second
joint, as this will strengthen the plants, and
cause them to fruit early. Grow no pumpkins
or squashes near them.

Melon, Water (Cucurbita citrullus\. The
Spanish and Mountain Sprout are good varie-
ties. The Citron is cultivated for preserves.
Cultivate as for canteleups, but let the hills be
7 or 8 feet distant.

Okra (Hibiscus esculentus). Plant in good,
rich ground late in spring, as it is a very ten-
der vegetable. Make drills an inch deep, and
3 or 4 feet asunder, into which drop 2 or 3 seeds
together, at intervals of about 8 inches, and
cover them nearly an inch deep. Thin them
out to 8 or 10 inches as the plants advance,
and earth up 2 or 3 times.

Onion. See that head.

Parsley (Jlpium petroselinum). Sow in rows
early in the spring. By soaking the seed in
warm water some hours immediately before
sowing, it will vegetate more speedily. It some-
times lies in the ground 2 or 3 weeks before
vegetating.

Parsnip (Pastinaca mtiva). Sow early in
spring, in good soil, deeply dug, making drills
18 inches apart. When the plants are 2 or 3
inches high, thin out to 6 or 8 inches apart.

Pea (Pisum sativum). Ijandreth's Extra
Early, and Bishop and Russell's Early Dwarfs
are the earliest varieties, and good of their
kind. Dwarf Blue Imperial, and Dwarf Scime-
tar are much esteemed. Knight's Dwarf and
Tall Marrowfats are late kinds, but superior to ■.
all others for flavour and productiveness. Tall ^
and Dwarf Sugar or string peas are sweet, and ,
productive; they are boiled without shelling, 4
and served up as kidney beans. The dwarfs '■
require sticks from 2 to 3 feet long, the others '
from 4 to 6, and a greater width between the
drills.

Pepper (Capsicum). Grossum or bellshaped, jj
Large sweet, and Squash or tomato-shaped, are. J
used for pickling ; the last variety is the best.
The Sweet has a delicate taste, and is used as
a salad. Sow in hotbed in March, and trans-
plant; or in the open ground, late in spring, in
drills 2 feet apart. When the plants are an
inch or two high, thin them out to about l^
inches apart in the rows, and hoe them re-
peatedly.

Potato. See that head.

Radish (Raphanus sativus). Short-top Scar-
let, Salmon, Red and White turnip-rooted, may
be sown in the spring, as early as the ground
can be worked. Yellow turnip-rooted and
Summer White are best for summer use.
White and Black Spanish for winter. Sow
these at close of summer, or early in autumn,
and when ripe store them in a cellar. For a
succession in spring and summer, sow every
two weeks. The ground should be light, rich,
and well worked.

Rhubarb (Rheum). Tobolisk, Mammoth,
and Giant, are the best varieties, and may be
raised .^ dividing the roots early in spring,
and planting them in rich, deep soil, in rows 4
feet asunder and 3 feet distant in the rows.

KITCHEN GARDEN.

KNAPWEED.

To raise from seed, sow late in autumn or early
in spring. Young seedling plants require to
be protected the first winter by soil. To force
very early, cover with boxes or barrels sur-
rounded and covered with horse manure.
Gather before the leaves are fully expanded.

Salsify, or Vegetable Oyster (Tragopogon
porrifolius). Cultivate as directed for carrot.

Sea-Kale. See Kale, Sea.

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea). Round Savoy-
leaved, and Prickly seeded. May be grown
either broadcast or in drills. For spring and
early summer use, sow as early as the ground
can be tilled, and afterwards at short intervals.
For the autumn supply, sow at close of sum-
mer. For winter and early spring use, sow
middle of autumn. The latter sowing will
need a sprinkling of straw or long manure on
the arrival of cold weather. Spinach is one
of those vegetables for which the ground can-
not be too rich ; the stronger it is the more
succulent will be the leaves, and of course the
more delicate and tender.

SauASH (Cucurbita melopepa). Early Bush,
Early Crook-neck, Early Orange, Valparaiso,
Winter and Canada Crook-necks. The three
first are early varieties. The bush occupies
but little room, and is best adapted for small
gardens. Cultivate as directed for cucumber.
The three last are winter varieties, and require
more room.

Tomato {Solanum ly coper sicum). Sow in hot-
bed in March or April, or in a warm border
early ia spring, lihd transplant, after settled
warm weather, in rows 4 feet apart and about
3 feet distant in the row. They may be sup-
ported with brushwood, or trained to a trellis
qr fence.

Turnip (Brassica rapa). Early White Dutch,
Early Stone, Early Red-topped, are best for
early garden culture. For winter use the
Rutabaga, Yellow Stone, Yellow Aberdeen,
and Dale's Hybrid, are excellent.

There is also a variety of aromatic and me-
dicinal herbs cultivated in the kitchen garden,
which are useful for many purposes. Of these,
the Bene Plant, Sweet Basil, Carraway, Cori-
ander, Sweet Marjoram, and Summer Savory
are annuals, the seeds of which may be sown
in the middle of spring, and thinned out to
convenient distilnces.

Balm, Chamomile, Horehound, Hyssop, Fen-
nel, Lavender, Mint, Pennyroyal, Rosemary,
Rue, Sage, and Thyme, are perennials, and may
be propagated by ofisets or parting of the roots,
and from seed sown in drills, and afterwards
transplanted.

These are the most useful productions of the
kitchen garden. The varieties named are be-
lieved to be the best, and such as are most cer-
tain, in the United States, to repay their culture.
Those who desire to go extensively into the
cultivation of vegetables, can consult the works
of M'Mahon, Bridgeman,' and Fessenden, for
more minute details of the modes of culture
and more extensive lists of varieties.

Much success in cultivating vegetables will
depend on the rotation of crops. The same
kinds should not be grown on the ground suc-
cessively. The ground must also be kept
rich, by the application of manure, well work-
87

ed, and above all kept clear of weeds. It
ought always to be remembered that what will
nourish a crop of weeds will produce a crop
of useful vegetables ; and no operation will
tend more to produce luxuriant vegetation, and
prevent the ill effects of drought, than the fre-
quent use of the hoe.

For the compilation of the preceding article
we are indebted to Mr. William Sinton, gar-
dener to General Patterson, Philadelphia.

KNAPPIA, EARLY (Knappia agrosiidea). It
was named by Sir J. Smith in compliment to
Mr. M. Knapp, a writer on British grasses.
Of this, one of the least of the British grasses,
only one species is known ; although common
on the coasts of France, it is very rare in Eng-
land, but is found in maritime pastures, some-
times in Wales. It is an annual ; root of many
long, slender fibres ; stems 1 to 3 inches high,
erect, simple, slender, smooth, triangular,
naked, except at the very bottom, where they
are invested with the membranous sheaths of
a few short, obtuse, channelled leaves. Sti-
pules membranous, bluntish, cloven, but not
deeply divided. Spikes solitary, simple, erect,
of from 6 to 10 flowers, mostly sessile, alter-
nate, erect; two or three of the lowermost only
more or less stalked; their common stalks
zigzag, slender, smooth, angular, but not exca-
vated, as in the truly spiked grasses. Flow-
ers, like the top of the stem, purplish. {Eng.
Flor. vol. i. p. 84.)

KNAPWEED {Centaurea). This is a large
herbaceous genus of plants, which Jussieu,
after Tournefort, has divided into several, by
the structure or termination of the calyx scales.
Linnseus has kept it entire, and Decandolle
has not disturbed it. Smith {Eng. Flora), also,
makes one family of them. The following are
the indigenous species known under the com-
mon name of hiapiceed. I have treated of other
species under the heads Blue Bottle and
Stab Thistle.

1. Brown radiant knapweed (C.Jacea). This
grows in meadows where the soil is tenacious
and moist. It is a perennial, flowering in Au-
gust and September. The root is rather woody,
with many long fibres. Stem solid,erect; a foot
high, branched, angular, furrowed and roughish,
leafy. Leaves, light green, rough, with short
hairs ; radical ones largest, stalked, toothed or
pinnatifid; the rest scattered, sessile, oblong, or
linear lanceolate, entire, or toothed near the base.
Flowers large, numerous, radiant, light crim-
son, solitary at the tumid end of each branch,
accompanied by a few leaves close to the calyx,
which is brown; the calyx scales are mem-
branous, torn. Linnceus says, the herb steeped
in water, with alum, before the flowers expand,
dyes silk of a fine yellow.

2. Black knapweed (C. nigra). This grows
in pastures, and by road-sides, very common,
flowering from June to August. In habit it is
like the last, but the stem is taller, more bushy,
more deeply furrowed, and rather less rough.
The lower leaves are somewhat lyrate, with
angular lobes; upper ones ovate; their colour
always darker than that of C. Jacea. The
flowers are also of a deeper crimson, com-
monly without any radiant or abortive florets.
The flowers are occasionally white.

3 M 2 689

KNAWEL.

KNOT-GRASS.

3. Greater knapweed (C. scabiosa). This is
also a very common species, growing in the
borders and ridges of corn-fields, and by way-
sides. The root is somewhat woody; stem
about two feet high, erect, branched, angular,
furrowed, leafy, smooth to the touch. Leaves
dark green, slightly hairy on both sides, pinna-
tifid. The flowers, which blow in July and
August, are terminal, stalked, solitary, large,
and of a handsome crimson colour, rarely
white ; their radiant florets are large, each
w^ith five deep, long, and narrow segments.
Calyx-scales ovate, green, somewhat downy,
fringed with fine parallel teeth. The seeds are
crowned with many reddish bristles; and after
they are blown away, the calyx becomes reflex,
and displays the silvery shining hue of its in-
side. (E»g. Flor. vol. iii. p. 463.)

KNAWEL (Scleranthus, from (txam^oc, hard,
and av6ic, a flower; in allusion to the dry, juice-
less calyx). These are dry, rigid herbs, which
can only be considered as useless weeds.

The genus is European. There are 3 spe-
cies, one of which, called S. annuus, is so abun-
dantly naturalized in sandy, arable fields, as to
appear native to some of the United States.
(Nutiall).

1. The annual knawel, or German knot-
grass (S. annuus), which grows commonly in
dry, sandy soils and corn-fields, flowering in
July. The root is small and tapering. The
stems numerous, widely spreading, and part-
ly decumbent; round, leafy, a little downy,
branched, and many-flowered at the upper
part. Leaves linear, acute, pale green, combined
at the base by a membranous fringed border.
Flowers small, green, nearly sessile, partly
axillary, partly collected into dense forked
tufts. Calyx of the fruit spreading, with taper,
acute segments. The Swedes and Germans
introduce occasionally the steam arising from
a decoction of the knawel into their mouths,
with a view to cure the toothache. Its leaves
are astringent. Goats and sheep eat this plant,
but cows totally refuse it.

2. Perennial knawel (S. pcrennis). This
species is less common ; it flowers from Au-
gust to October, while the annual knawel blows
in July. The root is woody, branched, with
many decumbent or prostrate stems, 3 or 4
inches long. The whole herb is of a glaucous,
glistening appearance, turning red with age,
especially the stems. The leaves are more
tapering, crowded, and curved, than in the
foregoing. Segments of the calyx more ob-
tuse, concave, and finally converging. In
several parts of Europe the roots of this spe-
cies are attacked by the insect called Coccus
polonicus {Linn. Syst. vol. i. p. 741), which yields
a fine crimson dye : it is said likewise to live
on S. annuus and on some Potentillce. A good
account of its economy is given in the Upsal
Transactions for 1742, t. i. p. 51.

KNEE GRASS. A name sometimes given
to the rough panic grass.

KNIGHT, THOMAS ANDREW, President
of the Horticultural Society of London, F. R. S.,
&c., a distinguished vegetable physiologist and
horticulturist, was born at Wormsley Grange,
in Herefordshire, August 12, 1759. "My fa-
ther," says Mr. Knight, in a late communica-

tion to me, " was a man of much learning and
acquirements. Having great powers of mind,
and living in an extremely quiet and seques-
tered spot, he was supposed by his ignorant
neighbours, in their language, to know every-
thing." He died at an advanced age, when
Mr. Knight was an infant, and as evidence of
the respect his knowledge obtained him, when*
ever in childhood his son sought for informa-
tion upon any unusual subject, he was told
that his father would have answered him, but
that nobody now could. Being born in the
midst of orchards, " I was early led," he con-
tinues, " to ask whence the varieties of fruit I
saw came, and how they were produced; I
could obtain no satisfactory answer, and was
thence first induced to commence experiments,
in which, through a long life of scarcely inter-
rupted health, I have persevered, aiid proba-
bly shall persevere as long as I possess the
power." Mr. K. was distinguished for his skill
in producing hybrid plants, by impregnating
the blossoms. We owe to him a debt of grati-
tude for many fine fruits.

He died May 11, 1838, in the 80th year of his
age. The death of Knight was lamented by all
men of science, for, as it was soon after well
remarked by the Duke of Sussex, when ad-
dressing the Fellows of the Royal Society, "It
would be diflicult to find any other contempo-
rary author, in this or other countries, who had
made such important additions to the know-
ledge of horticulture and the economy of vege-
tation. (Selection from his Papers, p. 69.) To
this interesting work a memoir of its author
is prefixed.

Mr. Knight was author of the following
works, besides numerous papers in the Philo-
sophical and Horticultural Transactions :

1. A Treatise on the Culture of the Apple and Pear,
and on the Manufacture of Cyder and Perry. London.
1797. ]2mo. The 3d edition in 1808. 2. Some doubts
relative to the Efficacy of Mr. Forsyth's Plaister, in re-
novating trees. London. 1802. 4to. 3. Report of a
Committee of the Horticultural Society of London.
London. 1805. 4to. 4. Pomona Herefordiensis, or a
Descriptive Account of the old Cyder and Perry Fruits
of Herefordshire. London. 1809. 4to. 5. A Letter on
the Origin of Blight, and on raising Late Crops of Peas.
This is appended to Sir J. Banks's Essay on the Mil-
dew. London. 1806. 8vo. 2d Edition. (G. fV. John-
son's Hist. Eng. Oard.)

KNOLL (Sax. cnolle). A little round ele-
vation; the top of a hill or mountain.

KNOT-GRASS. The common oat-like soft-
grass (Holcus avenaceus), from its bulbous roots
is often called by farmers knot-grass ; but in a
botanical sense the following are the true knot-|
grasses. '

This grass is preyed upon in Europe by a
species of leaf-beetle (Chrysomela polygoni), and
likewise in the United States by an insect
scarcely to be distinguished from the Euro-
pean beetle. By these the knot-grass is com-
pletely stripped of its leaves two or three times
in the course of a summer. This little beetle,
says Harris, is about three-twentieths of an inch
long. Its head, wing-covers, and body beneath
are dark blue; its thorax and legs are dull
orange-red ; the upper side of its abdomen is
also orange-coloured; and the antennae and
feet are blackish. The females have a very
odd appearance before they have laid their
eggs, their abdomen being enormously swelled

KNOT-GRASS.

LABOUR.

out like a large orange-coloured ball, which
makes it very difficult for them to move about.
I have found these insects on the knot-grass in
every month from April to September inclu-
sive. The larvae eat the leaves of the same
plant. (Harris.)

KNOT-GRASS, COMMON (Polygonum avi-
culare; from mxt, many, and ycru, a knee; re-
ferring to the numerous joints of the stem).
This common annual grass is in England
found almost everywhere, in waste as well as
cultivated ground, streets, paths, and barren
sandy places. The root is fibrous, long, very
tough, and somewhat woody, branched below,
simple at the crown. Stems several, spread-
ing in every direction, generally prostrate,
much branched, round, striated, leafy at the
numerous knots or joints. Leaves alternate,
stalked, hardly an inch long, elliptic or lanceo-
late, entire, obtuse, single ribbed, smooth ex-
cept at the margin; tapering at the base, very
variable in width ; their substance rather co-
riaceous; their colour grayish or glaucous,
stipules membranous, acute, often red, with a
few remote, brownish ribs. The flowers which
appear from April to October are axillary, 2 or
3 together on simple stalks, small, seeds acute-
ly triangular, of a shining black, the food of
many small birds. It is common in the United
States.

KNOT-GRASS, VALENTIA. A name by
which the powdery sea-heath (Frankenia pul-
verulenta), is known in some districts.

KNOT-GRASS, WHORLED (Illecebrum ver-
ticillatum). This is an interesting dwarf pe-
rennial plant, which is not uncommon in
marshy, boggy ground in Cornwall and Devon-
shire, flowering in July. The diff*erent species
are pretty, may be grown in any soil, and in-
crease from seed without difficulty. The root
is creeping; herb smooth, branched, procum-
bent. Leaves small, ovate, acute, or some-
times spatulate, scarcely stalked, rather fleshy.
Stipules intra-foliaceous, small, white, jagged.
The flowers are small, white, or reddish,
whorled, without bractes. (Eng. Flor. vol. i.
p. 335.)
KNOT-WEED. See Persicabia.
KOHL-RABI. Bulb-stalked cabbage (Bras-
sica oleracea, var. cauia-rapa). This curious
variety of cabbage is a native of Germany,
where it is much cultivated, and whence it
was first introduced into England by Sir Tho-
mas Tyrwhitt. The stem is swollen like a
tuber, and, when divested of the leaves, may
readily be mistaken for one. The produce is
nearly the same as that of Swedish turnips,
and the soil that suits the one is equally good
for the other. It may either be sown in drills,
or raised in beds, and transplanted like cab-
bages; in this case the beds require to be
made and sown the preceding autumn. Two
pounds of the seed will produce a sufficiency
of plants for one acre of ground. Hares are
so fond of it, that, on farms where these ani-
mals abound, the culture of this plant is found
to be impracticable. 3840 grains of the tubes
of kohl-rabi afibrd 105 grains of nutritive mat-
ter (Sinclair's Hort. Gram, p. 411). See Cab-
bage, p. 247.

L.

LABELLUM (Lat.). In botany, the front
segment of an orchidaceous or other flower ;
also the lower petal or lip.

LABOUR (Fr. labeur ; Lat. lahw). In a gene-
ral sense, labour implies the exertion of human
strength in the performance of any kind of
work.

Without entering into an abstruse treatise
on the science of political economy, it may not
be out of place to examine shortly the subject,
for labour is the only source of wealth to the
farmer; and having done this, I shall next in-
quire into the means by which labour may be
rendered most efficient. Nature spontaneously
furnishes the matter of which all commodities
are made ; but until labour has been applied to
appropriate that matter, or to adapt it to our
use, it is wholly destitute of value, and is not,
nor ever has been, considered as forming
wealth. Were we placed on the banks of a
river, or in an orchard, we should infallibly
perish of thirst or hunger, unless by an effort
of industry we raised the water to our lips, or
plucked the fruit from its parent tree. But
this illustration is an extreme case; and it is
more to our purpose to remark, that the mere
appropriation of matter is seldom sufficient.
In the vast majority of cases, labour is required
not only to appropriate matter, but to convey it
from place to place, and to give it that peculiar
shape without which it may be totally useless,
and incapable of administering either to our
necessities or our comforts. The coal used in
our fires is buried deep in the bowels of the
earth, and is absolutely worthless, until by the
labour of the miner it has been extracted from
the mine, and brought into a situation where
it may be made use of. The stones and mor-
tar used in building our houses, and the rugged
and shapeless materials that have been fashion-
ed into the various articles of convenience and
ornament with which they are furnished, were
in their original state destitute alike of value
and utility. And of the innumerable variety
of animal, vegetable, and mineral products
which form the materials of our food and
clothes, none were originally serviceable, while
many were extremely noxious to man. The
labour that has subdued their bad qualities,
that has given them utility, and fitted them to
satisfy our wants, and to minister to our com-
forts and enjoyments, is plainly therefore the
only source of wealth. " Labour," to use the
words of Adam Smith, " was the first price, the
original purchase-money, that was paid for all
things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by
labour, that all the wealth of the world was
purchased." ( Wealth of Nations, p. 14.) Those
who observe the progress and trace the history
of the human race in different countries and
states of society, will find that their comfort
and happiness have in all cases been princi-
pally dependent on their ability to appropriate
the raw products of nature, and to adapt them
to their use. The savage whose labour is con-
fined, like that of the Australian, to the gather-
ing of wild fruits, or of shell-fish on the sea-

691

LABOUR.

LABOUR.

coast, is placed at the very bottom of the scale
of civilization, and is in point of comfort de-
cidedly inferior to many of the lower animals.
The first step in the progress of society is
made when man learns to hunt wild animals,
to feed himself with their flesh, and clothe him-
self with their skins. But labour, when con-
fined to the chase, is extremely barren and un-
productive. Tribes of hunters, like beasts of
prey, whom they closely resemble in their
habits and modes of subsistence, are but thinly
scattered over the countries which they occupy ;
and, notwithstanding the fewness of their num-
bers, any unusual deficiency in the supply of
game never fails to reduce them to the extre-
mity of want. The second step in the progress
of society is made when the tribes of hunters
and fishers devote themselves, like the ancient
Scythians and modern Tartars, to the domesti-
cation of wild animals and the rearing of
flocks. The subsistence of herdsmen is much
less precafious than that of hunters ; but they
are almost entirely destitute of the various
comforts and elegancies that give to civilized
life its chief value. The third and most de-
cisive step in the progress of civilization, in
the great art of producing the necessaries and
conveniences of life, is made when the wan-
dering tribes of hunters and shepherds re-
nounce their migratory habits and become
agriculturists and manufacturers. It is then
that man begins fully to avail himself of his
productive powers. He then becomes labo-
rious, and by a necessary consequence his
wants are then, for the first time, fully sup-
plied, and he acquires an extensive command
over the articles necessary for his comfort as
well as his subsistence. The importance of
labour in the production of wealth was very
clearly perceived by Locke. In his Essay on
Civil Government, published in 1689, he has en-
tered into a lengthened, discriminating, and
able analysis, to show that it is from labour
that the products of the earth derive almost all
their value. " Let any one consider," says he,
"what the diflerence is between an acre of land
planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat
or barley, and an acre of the same land lying
in common, without any husbandry upon it,
and he will find that the improvement of labour
makes the far greater part of the value. I think
it will be but a very modest computation to
say, that of the products of the earth useful to
the life of man, nine-tenths are the efiects of
labour; nay, if we rightly estimate things as
they come to our use, and cast up the several
expenses about them, what in them is purely
owing to nature, and what to labour, we shall
find that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths
are wholly to be put on the account of labour.

"There cannot be a clearer demonstration
of any thing than several nations of the Ame-
ricans are of this, who are rich in land and
poor in all the comforts of life ; whom nature
having furnished as liberally as any other
people wiih the materials of plenty, i. e. a fruit-
ful soil apt to produce in abundance what might
serve for food, raiment, and delight, yet for
want of improving it by labour have not one
hundredth part of the conveniences which
might be enjoyed.
692

" To make this a little clearer, let us but
trace some of the ordinary provisions of life
through their several progresses before they
come to our use, and see how much they
receive of their value from human industry.
Bread, wine, and cloth are things of daily use
and great abundance; yet, notwithstanding,
acorns, water, and leaves or skins must be our
bread, drink, and clothing, did not labour fur-
nish us with these more useful commodities ;
for whatever bread is more worth than acorns,
wine than water, and cloth or silk than leaves,
skins, or moss, that is solely owing to labour
and industry; the one of these being the food
and raiment which unassisted nature furnishes
us with ; the other provisions which our in-
dustry and pains prepare for us ; which how
much they exceed the other in value, when any
one hath computed, he will then see how much
labour makes the far greatest part of the value
of things we enjoy in this world. And the
ground which produces the material is scarcely
to be reckoned in as an}', or, at most, but a
very small part of it; so little that even
amongst us, land that is wholly left to nature,
that hath no improvement of pasturage, tillage
or planting, is called as indeed it is, waste; and
we shall find the benefit of it amount to little
more than nothing.

"An acre of land that bears here twenty
bushels of wheat, and another in America,
which, with the same husbandry, would do the
like, are, without doubt, of the same natural
intrinsic value (utility). But yet the benefit
mankind receives from the one in a year is
worth five pounds, and from the other possibly
not worth a penny, if all the profit an Indian
received from it were to be valued and sold
here; at least, I may truly say, not one thou-
sandth. It is labour, then, which puts the
greatest part of value upon land, without which
it would scarcely be worth any thing. It is to
that we owe the greatest part of all its useful
products ; for all that the straw, bran, bread,
of that acre of wheat, is more worth than the
product of an acre of good land which lies
waste, is all the effect of labour.

"For it is not barely the ploughman's pains,
the reaper's and thrasher's toil, and the baker's
sweat is to be accounted into the bread we eat;
the labour of those who sell the oxen, who
digged and wrought the iron and stones, who
felled and framed the timber employed about
the plough, mill, oven, or any other utensils,
which are a vast number, requisite to this
corn ; from its being seed to be sown to its
being made bread, must all be charged on the
account of labour, and received as an effect of
that; nature and the earth furnished only the
almost worthless materials as in themselves. It
would be a strange catalogue of things that
industry provided and made use of about every
loaf of bread before it came to our use, if we
could trace them ; iron, wood, leather, bark,
timber, stone, bricks, coals, lime, cloth, dyeing
drugs, pitch, tar, masts, ropes, and all the ma-
terials made use of in the ships that brought
away the commodities made use of by any of
the workmen to any part of the work ; all which
it would be almost impossible, at least too long,
to reckon up."

LABOUR.

LABOURER.

Labour is the sole source of exchangeable
value, and, consequently, of wealth. It is the
talisman that has raised man from the condi-
tion of the savage ; that has changed the desert
and the forest into cultivated fields ; that has
covered the earth with cities, and the ocean
with ships ; that has given us abundance, com-
fort, and elegance, instead of want, misery, and
barbarism. Labour, according as it is applied
to the raising of raw produce, to the fashioning
of that raw produce, when raised into articles
of utility, convenience, or ornament, or to the
conveyance of raw and wrought produce from
one country or place to another, is said to be
agricultural, manufacturing, or commercial.
An acquaintance with the particular process,
and most advantageous methods of applying
labour in each of these grand departments of
industry, forms the peculiar and appropriate
s'tudy of agriculturists, manufacturers, and
merchants.

In thus endeavouring to exhibit the import-
ance of labour, and the advantages which its
successful prosecution confers on man, it must
not be supposed that reference is made to the
labour of the hand only. This species, indeed,
comes most under our observation ; it is that, too,
without which we could not exist, and which
principally determines the valueof commodities.
It is questionable, however, whether it be really
more productive than the labour of the mind.
The hand is not more necessary to execute
than the head to contrive. All the means by
which labour may be facilitated and wealth
increased resolve themselves, 1st, into the
better division and combination of employment
among individuals and nations ; and 2d, into
the more extensive or more judicious applica-
tion of capital or stock in industrious under-
takings.

The division of employments can only be
imperfectly established in rude societies and
thinly-peopled countries ; but in every state of
society — in the rudest as well as the most im-
proved— we may trace its operation and effects.
Even in the simplest business this co-operation
and subdivision is required ; neither hunting
nor fishing, any more than agriculture or ma-
nufacture, can be advantageously carried on
by solitary individuals. As society advances,
this division of labour extends itself on all
sides ; one man becomes a tanner or dresser
of skins, another a weaver, a third a smith,
and so on. The wealth and comforts of all
classes are, in consequence, prodigiously aug-
mented. In countries where the division of
labour is carried on to a considerable extent,
agriculturists are not obliged to spend their
time in clumsy attempts to manufacture their
own produce, and manufacturers cease to in-
terest themselves about the raising of corn, and
♦he fattening of cattle. The facility of ex-
changing is the vivifying principle of industry ;
it stimulates agriculturists to adopt the best
system of cultivation, and to raise the largest
crops, because it enables them to exchange
whatever portion of the produce of the land
exceeds their own wants for other commodities
contributing to their comforts and enjoyments,
and it stimulates manufacturers and merchants
to increase and improve the quantity, variety,

and quality of their goods, that they may
thereby obtain greater supplies of raw pro-
duce. A spirit of industry is thus universally
diffused ; and that apathy and languor which
characterize a rude state of society entirely
disappear.

Besides that sort of division of labour which
enables each individual in a united society to
confine himself to a particular employment,
there is another and most important branch of
the division of labour, which not only enables
particular individuals, but the inhabitants of
entire districts, and even nations, to addict
themselves in preference to certain branches
of industry. It is on this territorial divisioti of
labour, as it has been appropriately termed,
that the commerce carried on between differ-
ent districts of the same country, and between
different countries, is founded. The variations
in the situation, soil, climate, mineral products,
&c. of the different districts of an extensive
country, render them more suitable for some
than for other species of industry. A district
where coal is abundant, which has- an easy
access to the ocean, and a considerable com-
mand of internal navigation, is the natural seat
of manufactures. Wheat and other species of
grain are the proper products of rich arable
soils ; and cattle, after being reared in moun-
tainous districts, are most advantageously fat-
tened in meadows and low grounds. Nothing
can be more obvious than that the inhabitants
of these different districts will be able, by con-
fining themselves to those employments, for the
prosecution of which they have some peculiar
capability, to produce a much greater quantity
of useful and desirable articles than they could
do were they to engage indiscriminately in
every possible employment.

Providence, by giving different soils, cli-
mates and natural productions to different
countries, has evidently provided for their mu-
tual intercourse and civilization. By permit-
ting the people of each to employ their capital
and labour in those departments in which
their geographical situation, the physical capa-
cities of the soil, their national character and
habits fit them to excel, foreign commerce, or
the territorial division of labour, has a won-
derful influence in multiplying the products
of arts and industry.

Having been led thus far into this fertile
subject, I will conclude with some apposite
and excellent observations by Dr. Paley: —
" Every man has his work. The kind of work
varies, and that is all the difference there is.
A great deal of labour exists besides that of
the hands; many species of industry besides
bodily operation, equally necessary, requiring
equal assiduity, more attention, more anxiety.
It is not true, therefore, that men of elevated
stations are exempted from work ; it is only
true that there is assigned to them work of a
different kind: whether more easy or more
pleasant may be questioned; but certainly not
less wanted, nor less essential to the common
good." (Brande's Diet, of Lit. and Art.)

LABOURER. One who is employed in
coarse and toilsome work. But, in agricul-
ture, the term is applied to a person who per-
forms the manual or most laborious part of

693

LABOURER.

LACTOMETER.

the business of a farm. The price of labour
has at all times varied ; and, as the poorer
classes feel, with additional rigour, every evil
arising from the pressure of the times, different
expedients have been devised, with a view to
alleviate their burdens, supply their wants,
and render them more comfortable. From
these investigations, it appears that, in the
middle of the 14th century, the usual price of
labour was 2d. per day, and wheat was sold at
from 3s. 4rf. to 4s. per quarter. In the middle
of the 15th century the pay of a labourer per
day was 3d., and wheat cost from 5s. to 5s. Grf.
per quarter. In the earlier part of the 16tb
century the price of labour rose to 3^rf., and
that of a quarter of wheat to 7s. 6d. About the
middle of the 17th century the pay of a labourer
upon an average was (in Essex) 13rf., and corn
had risen to 40s. per quarter. Towards the
latter end of the 18th century the daily pay of
a labourer was from 14rf. to 18d. in the coun-
try, and from 2s. to 2s. Gd. in the metropolis,
while the price of wheat was 48s. per quarter.
The payment of daily wages, however, serves
but imperfectly to ascertain the real price of
labour, as a considerable portion of work is
performed by the piece, so that a labourer in
general earns from 2d. to Gd. per day more
than by the common pay. The curious and
philanthropic reader, who feels an interest in
this popular inquiry, will be fully gratified by
a perusal of Mr. Davies's Case of Labourers in
Husbandry Stated and Considered, &C. 4to, 1795,
p. 200 ; and Sir F. M. Eden's State of the Poor,
&c., 3 vols. 4to, 1797. Mrs. Davies Gilbert, of
Eastbourne, a lady whose active interest for
the prosperity of agriculture, and the improve-
ment of the condition of the labouring poor,
may fairly (as has been justly observed) be
set as an example for many country gentlemen
to follow, urges most strenuously, in many pub-
lications (but particularly in the Quart. Joum.
of j3gr. vol. xii. p. 252), the advantages to be
derived from manual labour, in preference to
horse labour. In England, many benevolent
persons of distinguished rank have also re-
cently taken up the cause of the labourer, and
formed themselves into a society, very appro-
priately named "the Labourer's Friend So-
ciety." They advocate strongly, and endeavour
to promote more generally the system of home
colonies for the cultivation of waste land.
See Allotment and Spaiie Husbandbt, Farm
Servants, Workmen, &c.

Farm labourers, being the most valuable
class of men that a populous country pos-
sesses, should have every comfort provided
for them that is compatible with their situa-
tion, and conformable to the general interest
of the community. Their wages ought to be
everywhere and at all times sufficient for the
maintenance of themselves and families while
in health, with a surplus to provide against
the day of sickness, without their being under
the debasing necessity of making application
to their neighbours for relief. Persons so es-
sentially useful to society should not merely
support existence, but have the comforts of
wholesome habitations, with sufficient spaces
of ground to furnish them and their families ,
694

with changes of proper vegetable food without
much expense.

LACTARY. A milk-house, dairy, or place
where milk is kept. The term has been made
to designate the whole establishment of a
dairy. See Dairy.

LACTIC ACID. This substance, in the
opinion of Berzelius and some other chemists,
exists in milk, and in larger proportion when
it has become sour; but others imagine that it
is the product of its decomposition. It was
first recognised as a peculiar acid by Scheele,
but he did not obtain it perfectly pure. It was
afterwards observed by Berzelius in many ani-
mal fluids; and by Braconnet to exist with
acetic acid in fermented rice-meal, wheat-
paste, the juice of the beet-root, and other vege-
table substances: he named it nanceic acid.
It is formed, also, during the putrefactive pro-
cess in some animal bodies. Lactic acid is a
colourless, inodorous, syrupy liquid, and very
sour. It may be so concentrated as to have a
specific gravity of 1-215: it attracts moisture
from the atmosphere, and dissolves in water
and alcohol in all proportions. At 480° Fah-
renheit, it is decomposed. When added to
boiling milk, it is capable of immediately co«
agulating about 700 times its weight; but,
when cold, it produces comparative little effect
upon it: it also coagulates albumen. It, has
the property of dissolving fresh precipitated
phosphate of lime; a property which is of
great advantage in the animal economy, and
might even be rendered useful in manures.
The constituents of the lactic acid are, 6 parts
of carbon, 5 of hydrogen, and 5 of oxygen.
(Penny Cydopcedia, vol. xiii. p. 268.)

LACTOMETER (Lat. lac, milk, and metrMm,
a measure). A term applied to a glass tube
for ascertaining the proportion which the
cream bears to the milk of any particular cow,
or the produce of a whole dairy. Lactometers
of different kinds have been invented ; the best
is called *• the four or five glass lactometer."

The principle of the instrument is, that if
new milk is poured into glass tubes and allow-
ed to remain, the division between the cream,
which floats upon the surface of the milk, will
be so evident that its depth may be easily
measured ; and should the milk from any cow-
produce more cream than that of another, the
difference will be seen by the divisions or

LADIES' FINGER.

LADIES' SMOCK.

marks on the glass tubes. The lactometer
consists of 4 or 5 glass tubes, about half an
inch diameter, and 1 1 inches long, fitted into an
upright mahogany frame ; each tube having a
fine line drawn rouhd it 10 inches from the
bottom ; 3 inches from the line downwards, it
is graduated into inches and tenths of inches.
At milking time each tube is to be filled up to
the line with new milk. After standing 13
hours, the quantity of cream which floats upon
the surface is shown by the scale of inches
and tenths ; each division will therefore repre-
sent one per cent, of the whole.

If the milk given by a cow at one meal is
1 gallon, or 8 pints, and the thickness or depth
of the cream which floats upon it measures 14
divisions, multiply the number of pints, 8, by
the depth of the cream, 14; the result will be
that the produce of the cream of that meal is
112, or I pint j^^. Care must be taken to fill
these tubes as soon as the pail is taken from
under the cow, for if any delay takes place,
some of the cream will have ascended towards
the top. The milk should be taken from the
middle of the pail, which is to be done by dip-
ping a cream-pot below the froth. (Journ. Roy.
last. vol. iv. p. 157; Ree$^a Cyclo. vol. xx.)

LADIES' FINGER. A name given to the
common kidney-vetch {Anthyllis vulneraria),
which, from its soft and downy nature, was
supposed to possess vulnerary properties in
stanching the blood of slight wounds. See

KlllNET-VETCH.

LADIES' MANTLE (Jlchemilla). The spe-
cies of this genus of plants are all astringent
in their root, and somewhat mucilaginous. j1.
vulgaris is slightly tonic. Many of them are
ornamental, and well adapted for planting in
gardens near the front of borders, or for adorn-
ing rockwork. They succeed well in any
common soil, if not over wet, and may be in-
creased from seeds or divisions. The species
indigenous to Britain are —

1. Common ladies' mantle (J. vulgaris). A
perennial, growing in dry, rather mountainous
pastures. The root is woody, with long fibres :
stems from 4 to 8 inches high, more or less
procumbent, alternately branched, round,
hairy, leafy, terminating in numerous little co-
rymbose clusters of green flowers, or smooth,
almost capillary stallfs. The radical leaves
are numerous, on long footstalks, large, round-
ish, kidney-shaped, bluntly-lobed, plaited, ser-
rated, of a fine green above ; soft and hairy
beneath. The stem-leaves are of the same
form, but a great deal smaller; alternate, on
short stalks, with a pair of large notched sti-
pules to each. Horses, sheep, and goats, eat
this vegetable ; but it is not relished by cattle,
and hogs totally refuse it.

2. Alpine ladies' mantle (J. alpina). A pe-
rennial plant growing on alpine rocks, espe-
cially in a micaceous soil. It is rather smaller
in habit than the last specie.", and essentially
different, not only in the silvery pubescence
of the stalks, flowers, and backs of the leaves,
but in the latter being separated to the base
into 5 or 6 obovate lobes, closely serrated to-
wards the extremity. Nothing can be more
beautiful than the silvery splendour of their
under sides, especially in exposed and barren

spots, when the leaves are agitated by the
wind. No figure can do them justice. The
upper surface is smooth and naked, of a fine
green. This species is found on the moun-
tains of New Hampshire.

3. Field ladies' mantle, or parsley piert {A.
arvensis). This annual species will generally
be found in England growing in sandy or gra-
velly fields, especially when fallow, as well as
on heathy banks. The root is small and
fibrous; stems numerous, about a finger's
length, spreading or prostrate, round, leafy,
hardly subdivided. Leaves flat, three-lobed,
variously cut on short stalks. The whole
plant is more or less hairy, and in flavour and
scent approaches its natural ally, bumeu
{Snnth's Eng. Fhr. vol. i. p. 223.)

LADIES' SLIPPER {Cypripedium, from
Cypris, one of Venus's names, and podion, a
slipper; hence the name Venus's or ladies*
slipper). The species of this genus are re-
markably handsome when in flower, and on
that account deserve a place in every collec-
tion. They are all of the easiest culture. The
hardy species succeed well in peat soil, either
kept in a frame, or planted out in a shady
border. The species, natives of America, re-
quire to be protected from severe frost and
rain. The only indigenous species is the com-
mon ladies' slipper (C ralceolus), which is very
rare, growing only in mountainous woods and
thickets in the north of England. It is peren-
nial, blowing large yellow, solitary, terminal
flowers, without scent, in June. The stems are
solid, 12 or 18 inches high, downy, bearing 3
or 4 large alternate, ovate, rather pointed
leaves, clasping or sheathing at their base. —
(Eng. Ftor. iv. 51; Paxton's Bot. Dict.\ see
Darlington's Flor. Cent. 513.)

LADIES' SMOCK {Cardamine). An inte-
resting genus of the simplest culture and pro-
pagation, natives of various countries, gene-
rally preferring watery situations. The native
species are five in number: —

1. Daisy-leaved ladies' smock (C.bellidifolid).
This perennial species grows in moist, grassy,
lofty, alpine pastures. The root is rather
woody, divided at the crown. Herb 2 or 3
inches high, unbranched, erect, bright green,
smooth leaves, sometimes a little wavy or an-
gular, the uppermost nearly sessile. Flowers
few, corymbose, white, appearing in August
Style short, conical.

2. Impatient ladies' smock (C. impatiens).
This annual species grows in shady, rather
moist, rocky situations in the north of Eng-
land ; it is rarely met with in Scotland. The
root is small and tapering; the herbage pale
green; stem 1^ to 2 feet high; leaves pinnate;
leaflets lanceolate, mostly cut; stipules fringed.
The flowers, which are numerous, and small,
and white, appear in May and June. Pods erect,
very slender, composing long clusters, and dis-
charging their seeds with a crackling noise and
great force on the slightest touch or concussion,
by means of the revolute valves. The whole
plant is disagreeably bitterish and pungent.

3. Hairy ladies' smock (C. hirsuta). Also
annual in habit. This species is found very
frequent in waste or cultivated ground, espe-
cially in moist, shady places ; flowering from

695

LADIES' TRACES.

LADY BIRDS.

March to June. The root consists of many
white fibres. The herb is variable in size and
luxuriance, deep green, more or less hairy,
rarely quite smooth ; stem from 3 to 12 inches
or more in height; leaves pinnate, without
stipules ; leaflets stalked, roundish, oblong,
notched.

4. Meadow ladies' smock (Cjsrafcnaw). See
Cuckoo Flower.

5. Bitter ladies' smock (C. amara). This is not
a common species, but is found occasionally in
watery places, by the sides of rivers and brooks.
It is perennial, and before it flowers greatly
resembles water-cress, but the taste is bitter
and nauseous. The root is toothed, somewhat
creeping; stems 1 to 2 feet high, more or less
hairy, creeping at the base, with several radi-
cles, and sometimes a few slender scions.
Leaves pinnate, without stipules ; leaflets of
the lowermost roundish ; of the rest, toothed
or angular. Style obliquely elongated. Flow-
ers, which appear in April or May, always
white or cream-coloured, with violet anthers.
(Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. iii. pp. 186—91.)

LADIES' TRACES (Neottia, a bird's nest, in
allusion to the interwoven fibres of the roots).
This is a pretty genus of orchidaceous plants.
The hardy species will succeed well in chalky
soil, or a mixture of loam, peat, and sand ; they
are all increased by divisions. (Paxton's Bot.
Diet.)

There are in Britain only two indigenous
species : —

1. Sweet ladies' traces (iV. spiralis), which
grows in open pastures, on a chalky or gravelly
soil, or in meadows in various parts of Eng-
land, flowering in August and September. The
leaves are awned, all radical, on broad stalks,
spreading, ovate, acute, ribbed, rather glau-
cous. Stalk a finger's length or more, viscid,
and downy upwards, clothed with several
sheathing, upright, pointed bractes. Spike
spiral, of many crowded small white and
highly fragrant flowers, in a single row, each
with an ovate, tumid, pointed, downy, close
bracte.

2. Proliferous ladies' traces (N. gemmipara).
This species grows in marshes on the west
coast of Ireland, and flowers in July. The
root consists of two thick, fleshy, downy, an-
nual, perpendicular knobs, each about 3 inches
long, and one-fifth of an inch in diameter near
its origin, tapering downwards to a blunt point.
After flowering the root decays. Leaves 5 or 6,
upright, broadly lanceolate, acute, three-ribbed,
3 inches in length. Foot-stalks broad, sheath-
ing, near an inch long. Stalk erect, 2 inches
high, sheathed more than half way up by the
foot-stalks of the innermost leaves, and bear-
ing in the upper part 2 or 3 lanceolate, smooth,
upright bractes. Spike an inch long, ovate,
dense, erect, of about 18 white flowers in 3
rows, twisted round in a very remarkable way,
and each accompanied by a smooth, lanceolate
bracte, as tall as itself. The outside of the
flowers and capsule are downy; every other
part of the herb is smooth. Buds destined to
flower the following year are formed among
the leaves, at the bottom of the flower-stalk. In
the spring, each bud puts forth a pair of oblong

696

knobs and becomes a separate plant. {SmitVs
Eng. Flor. vol. iv. p. 35.)

LADIES' TRACES. Ladies' hair or quak-
ing-grass. See Briza Media.

LADDER. A framework of steps between
two upright pieces. Ladders of various length
are essential requisites on a farm, whether for . /
use in repairs to buildings, for reaching slacks,
or in cases of fire.

"Garden ladders are of three kinds: the
common wall tree ladder, which diflfers from those
used in other arts in having two pieces of 10
or 12 inches in length, projecting at right an-
gles from the upper end, the use of which is to
avoid injuring the trees, by keeping the top of
the ladder at a small distance from the wall,
and thus admit of the operation of nailing. The
orchard ladder consists of a frame on low wheels,
as a basis for several ladders which fit into each
other, and are capable of being hoisted up by
machinery, so as a person near the extremity
of the ladder may have access to any part of a
tree with convenience, either to prune it or
gather the fruit.

The three-styled, forked, and double ladders are
also well adapted for the ordinary purposes of
gathering fruit or pruning. The rule-Joint ladder
is used for working on curvilinear roofs either
of glass, or domes of lead, stone, &c., which
require panes renewed or trees nailed. Such
ladders are particularly useful for repairing the
roofs of hothouses and greenhouses. The step-
ladder, instead of round rods on which to place
the feet, has steps or boards, an improvement
essentially necessary where much work is to be
done, because less fatiguing to the feet. Such
ladders have a back or fulcrum, by which they
stand independently of any other object, and
which is removable at leisure by drawing out
an iron bolt." (Loudon's Enc. of Gard. p. 290.)

LADY BIRDS, or LADY BUGS. Familiar
names applied to small hemispherical beetles,
scientifically denominated coccinella. These little
beetles are generally yellow or red, with black
spots, or black, with white, red, or yellow spots ;
there are many kinds of them, and they are very
common and plentiful insects, and are gene-
rally diffused among plants. They live, both
in the perfect and young state, upon plant-lice,
and hence their services are very considerable.
Their young are small flattened grubs of a
bluish or blue-black colour, spotted usually
with red or yellow, and furnished with six legs
near the forepart of the body. They are hatch-
ed from little yellow eggs, laid in clusters among
the plant-lice, so that they find themselves at
once within reach of their prey, which, from
their superior strength, they are enabled to seize
and slaughter in great numbers. There are
some of these lady-birds, of a very small size,
and blackish colour, sparingly clothed with
short hairs, and sometimes with a yellow spot
at the end of the wing-covers, whose young are
clothed with short tufts or flakes of the most
delicate white down. These insects belong to
the genus Scymnus, which means a lion's whelp,
and they well merit such a name, for their
young, in proportion to their size, are as san-
guinary and ferocious as the most savage
beast of prey. I have often seen one of these

LAIR.

LAND-DITCHING.

little tufted animals preying upon the plant-lice,
catching and devouring, with the greatest ease,
lice nearly as large as its own body, one after
another, in rapid succession, without appa-
rently satiating its hunger or diminishing its
activity. (Hairis.) See Aphis.

LAIR. Provincially, land in a state of grass
or sward. (See Lat.) Also employed in some
countries, to signify soil and dung. Lair is
used sometimes to express the couch or rest-
ing-place of a boar or wild beast, or of cows
in dairies.

LAMA, or LLAMA. See Alpaca.

LAMB'S LETTUCE. See Cohx Salad.

LAMB'S QUARTERS. A name given to
wild or mountain spinach. {Chenopodium al-
bum.) See GoosEFooT.

LAMB SKINS (Germ. Lammsfelk). The
value of lamb skins varies according to the
fineness, brilliancy, and colour of the wool.
Black lamb skins are more generally esteemed
than those of any other colour. English lamb
skins are seldom to be met with perfectly
black ; but since the introduction of merino
sheep into England, many of the white fleeces
have, in point of quality, arrived at a pitch of
perfection which justly entitles them to be
ranked with some of the best fleeces in Spain.
The importation of lamb skins is immense,
having amounted on an average in 1831, and
1832, to 2,365,635. Eight-tenths of the whole
quantity are supplied by Italy. They are
mostly used in the glove manufacture. {M'Cul-
loch's Com. Diet.) See Wool.

LAMENESS. In farriery, an aflfection in
the feet or limbs in horses and other animals, by
which motion is rendered less perfect. In the
horse, it is brought on from various causes —
sprains, over-exertion, diseases of the foot, &c.
The muscles of the shoulder are occasionally
sprained, and in this case the animal cannot
lift his foot without great difficulty, indeed he
will be observed to drag his toe along the
ground. In this case few local measures can
be adopted. The horse should be bled from
the vein on the inside of the arm, fomentations
applied, and a dose of physic given. In this,
as in most other cases of lameness, quiet and
rest are essential to the restoration of the ani-
mal. {The Horse, p. 229.)

LAMMAS DAY. In the English calendar,
the 1st of August. Dr. Johnson supposes this
term to be a corruption of lattermathj which
signifies a second mowing of grass. Others
derive it from a custom which once prevailed
in some parts of England, of bringing a lamb
alive on this day into the church at high mass.
Others again derive it from a Saxon term sig-
nifying loaf mass, so named as a feast of thanks-
giving for the first-fruits of the corn. (Erande's
Diet, of Lit. &c.)

LAMP BLACK. A colouring substance
which is in very general use for several pur-
poses. The finest lamp black is produced by
collecting the smoke from a lamp with a long
xeick, which supplies more oil than can be
perfectly consumed, or by suffering the flame
to play against a metalline cover, which im-
pedes the combustion, not only by carrying off
part of the heat, but by obstructing the current
of air. Lamp black is prepared, however, in
88

a much cheaper way for the demands of trade.
The dregs which remain after the purification
of pitch, or else small pieces of fir wood, are
burned in furnaces of a peculiar construction,
the smoke of which is made to pass through a
long, horizontal flue, terminating in a close-
boarded chamber. The roof of this chamber
is made of coarse cloth, through which the
current of air escapes, while the soot remains.
(Ure's Did.)

LANCEOLATE. In botany a term used to
describe leaves which are oblong and gradu-
ally tapering towards each extremity, or shaped
like a spear or lance.

LANCE WOOD (Guatteria, in honour of J.
B. Guatteri, an Italian botanist, and once pro-
fessor at Parma). This is a splendid genus of
evergreen shrubs, succeeding in a mixture of
loam, peat, and sand. They are natives of
warm climates and require stove culture.
Young plants are readily obtained by cuttings
raised in sand under a glass in heat. (Poar-
tan's Bot. Dirt.)

LAND (Germ.), in the widest acceptation
of the word, is used to denote the solid matter
of which the globe is composed; in contradis-
tinction to the liquid matter or water (see Gko-
looy) : but in its most restricted signification
it is confined to arable ground. The latter is the
legal meaning of the term; and in this sense it
is used in all original writs, and in all court
and formal pleadings.

LAND-DITCHING, or hollow draining as it
is sometimes termed, is chiefly practised in
England in the counties of Essex and Hertford.
It consists in digging both main and side drains,
similar to those generally adopted in draining
land: the former are usually made from 22 to
24 inches, the latter from 20 to 22 inches in
depth. The soil is previously ploughed, and
the length to which the main drains may be
protracted without a vent, depends upon the
situation of the land. When the land has a
regular declivity, the most proper method will
be to carry ofi" as much water as possible, by
means of side drains ; but if the ground be
irregular, it will be requisite to form additional
main drains, so that every advantage may be
derived from the valleys, into which the latter
must often be conducted to a considerable extent.

The length of the side drains varies accord-
ing to the elevation of the soil; in general
they need not be more than one rod apart from
each other; though in very loose or porous
grounds, they may be dug at a distance of one
rod and a half. When the trenches are cut to
a sufficient depth, they are filled up and cover-
ed in the usual manner with straw and bushes.
The expense of this method of draining is com-
puted in England to be nearly 3/. per acre.

Land-ditching not only carries off* the water
from wet or marshy soils, but also meliorates
stiff" loamy clays, which being thus better en-
abled to resist the long continuance of moisture
on their surface during the winter, promote ve-
getation very early in the spring, and the grass
is rendered of a superior quality. The weeds,
I &c. change their colour, and are totally divest-
ed of their rankness ; the corn also increases
both in quantity and weight. Another import-
I ant advantage arising from this practice is, that
3N 697

LANDLORD.

LARCH TREE.

it will admit of the soil being ploughed at an
earlier period of the spring and later in autumn ;
while it may be tilled with greater facility, and
kept clean from weeds at a very small expense.
LANDLORD. One who owns lands or
houses, and has tenants under him. See Te-
nant, Customs of Counties, Lease, Aohee-
MENT, &c.

LANDMARK, signifies in a general sense
any thing by which the boundary of a property
is defined. In ancient times the correct division
of lands was an object of great importance ;
and various means were adopted to give dis-
tinctness and permanency to the boundaries of
every man's property. Stones and hillocks
were the most usual landmarks. The import-
a,nce of this subject among the Israelites par-
ticularly, may be judged of from the denun-
ciation of Moses, "Cursed be he that removeth
his neighbour's landmark."

LANDSCAPE GARDENING. The art of
laying out grounds so as to produce the effect
of a natural landscape. Its principles are the
same as those upon which the landscape painter
proceeds in composing a picture ; and though
it is an art of which, like many others, every-
body thinks he is a judge, it requires to be pro-
perly practised, and the possession of powers
of a much higher order than fall to the lot of
most men. Mr. Brown, commonly called Ca-
pability Brown, was the first who practised the
art in JEngland, so as to render himself worthy
of the name of artist. To lay down the prin-
ciples of this art here would be quite impossi-
ble ; but this general observation contains the
sum of them ; let selected and beautiful nature
be constantly your model, and success must
follow. Loudon's Enc, of Gardening, and Down-
ing''s Landscape Gardening, recently published in
New York, may be consulted with advantage
by those desirous of practising the art.

LANDSLIP. A portion of land that has slid
down in consequence of disturbance by an
earthquake, or from being undermined by the
action of water or other means.

LAND SPRINGS. Land springs are sources
of water which only come into action after
heavy rains ; while constant springs which
derive their supplies from a more abundant
source, flow throughout the year. All springs
owe their origin to rains. In the case of land
springs, the water when it sinks through the
surface, is speedily interrupted by a retentive
stratum, and there accumulating soon bursts
out into a spring, which ceases to flow a short
period after the cause which gave it birth has
ceased to operate ; but the water which sup-
plies constant springs sinks deeper into the
earth, and accumulates in rocky or gravelly
strata, which become saturated with the fluid.

LAND STEWARD. A person who has the
care of a landed estate, and whose duties vary
in different countries, according to the mode
in which landed property is managed. In Eng-
land, where the landlord very commonly under-
takes to keep the buildings and fences of his
tenants in repair, the duties of the land steward
are constant and multifarious ; while in Scot-
land, where the buildings and fences are kept
in repair by the tenant, the duties of the stew-
ard are limited to receiving the rents, and see-
£98

ing that the covenants of the leases are duly
fulfilled. In many parts of the Continent, and
particularly in Italy, where the landlord is a
partner with his tenant, and shares the produce
with him, the duties of the land steward or fat-
tore, as he is there called, are much more one-
rous than in Britain. See Bailiff.

LAND TAX. In England, a branch of
the public revenue, which was first raised in
its present form in 1692. The rate at which
this tax is charged is 4s. in the pound on the
annual value. The amount which it yielded
to the exchequer in 1837 was 1,192,635/.
(Penny Cyclo. vol. xiii. p. 300.)

LARCH TREE (Lat. larix; It. and Span.
larice). The larch is one of the most valuable
exotics which has been introduced into Britain.
In the north of Scotland it has been grown to
a great extent, cultivated with particular at-
tention ; and found to be one of the most pro-
fitable of all trees to the planter, provided the
land be well drained, but it will not succeed in
swampy situations. It grows with great rapi-
dity, is subject to very few accidents, trans-
plants with but little risk, and produces timber
of great excellence and value, not only for do-
mestic but for naval purposes.

In bridges, dock-gates, mill work, and espe-
cially in mill axles (where oak only used for-
merly to be employed), larch has been sub-
stituted with the best effect. The small larch
is useful for agricultural implements, gates,
upright palings, rails, and hurdles. Boats built
of larch have been found sound when the ribs
made of oak 40 years old were decayed. A fine
frigate of 36 guns, named the Atholl, was
launched at Woolwich in 1820, built entirely
of larch, the growth of the Atholl plantations.
It is also very useful for staves for casks.

1. The common larch fir or white larch
(Mies larix). The leaves of all the species are
clustered, and deciduous. The cones vary :
in the common larch they are ovate, oblong,
blunt; and the flowers are pink. In moun-
tainous districts in Scotland the Duke of Atholl
planted this species in immense quantities,
having had nearly 9000 acres in cultivation
with the larch alone. We are told by Dr. An-
derson that his grace planted 200,000 every
year; and in the winter of 1819 and the fol-
lowing spring no less than 1,102,367 were
planted on 556 acres, at 2000 per Scotch acre.
The late Earl of Fife also planted 181,813 in
Morayshire. Goodwood, the property of the
Duke of Richmond, was probably the first
place at which the larch was planted as a
forest tree, and even there it was only in small
numbers. A few years after, viz. in 1738, it
was introduced into Scotland by a Mr. Menzies.
About 1740, James, Duke of Atholl, commenced
planting larches around Dunkeld House and
Atholl House, the two residences of his grace;
and great attention having been paid to these
nurseries by his grace's successors, the plan-
tations have amazingly increased. A very
detailed account of the plantations on the Atholl
estates, and experiments on the wood, will be
found in the 3d vol. of the Prize Essays of the
Highland Society, p. 165, drawn up from pa-
pers and documents communicated by his
grace's trustees. In a communication to the

LARCH TREE.

LARCH TREE.

Board of Agriculture in February, 1812 (vol.
vii. p. 273), the Duke of AthoU, speaking of
the advantages to be derived from a more
general culture of the larch, says, "The lower
range of the Grampian Hills, which extend to
Dunkeld, are in altitude from 1000 to 1200 feet
above the level of the sea ; they are in general
barren, and are composed of mountain schist,
slate, and iron-stone. Up to the highest tops
of these, larch grow luxuriantly, where the
Scotch fir, formerly considered the hardiest tree
of the north, cannot rear its head. In consi-
derable tracts, where fragments of shivered
rocks are strewed so thick that vegetation
scarcely meets the eye, the larch puts out as
strong and vigorous shoots as are to be found
in the valleys below, or in the most sheltered
situation." And it further appears from a re-
port of that nobleman to the Horticultural So-
ciety (Trans, vol. iv. p. 416), that in situations
1600 to 1600 feet above the level of the sea, he
has felled trees 80 years old that have each
yielded six loads of the finest limber. The
growth of larch is not, however, confined to
Scotland ; but much land has been planted in
the northern counties of England. The Society
in London for the Encouragement of Arts and
Manufactures, so long ago as 1783, offered pre-
miums for the planting of larch. A gold me-
dal was offered to those who should plant
within any one year 5000 larches from two to
four years old at a distance of 5 feet asunder ;
and a silver medal to any one who should
plant 3000 larches at the same distance. This
premium only contemplated making planta-
tions solely of the larch. The first claimant
for the premium was the Bishop of Llandaff,
who had by that time planted 48,.500 larches
on 18 acres of the high grounds near Amble-
side in Westmoreland, at a distance of 4 feet
from one another. Immense numbers con-
tinued to be planted annually up to the year
1805, from which year to 1816, no candidates
appeared to claim the premium, in consequence
of the severe blight which affected the larch
trees in England for some years; and which
preventing the formation of the cones, deprived
the growers of larch plants of the usual supply
of seed.

There is no account given of the height at
which these larches were planted. Had they
been placed at a considerable elevation above
the level of the sea, they would have probably
escaped the contagion of the blight. In the
account of the Dunkeld larch plantations, the
late Duke of Atholl conceived that he had in-
troduced three great improvements in the
planting of the larch, when it was to be raised
for useful timber. These improvements were
the planting it at a high elevation on the
mountain side, in a region in which no other
kind of timber tree would grow to perfection
in this country ; the inserting the tree in the
soil at an early age, not exceeding two years
old in the seed-bed ; and the notching the small
plants into the ground by a peculiar instrument
at wide intervals, not nearer than 5^ feet to
each other; for, if planted close, they exhaust
the soil, and prevent its being nourished by the
annual deposition of spines, on account of the
closeness of the trees.

In 1820 the gold medal was awarded to the
Duke of Devonshire for planting 1,981,065
forest trees, 980,128 of which were larch. Be-
sides these instances of the planting the larch
alone, there are many others in England in
which they were planted along with other trees ;
but as they would probably be so planted mere-
ly as nurses to the hard timber, such planta-
tions cannot be considered as interesting ex-
periments, in regard to the value of the larch
as timber. From the foregoing details, how-
ever, we find that, mainly under the auspices
of the Society for the encouragement of Arts
and Manufactures, 1,407,036 larches were
planted in England in 37 years. It is singu-
lar that so much elevated barren land in the
counties of Hants, Sussex, and Kent should be
suffered to remain unplanted with this and
other timber, which would find a ready sale in
the neighbouring government yards.

Plantations that are formed exclusively of
larch destroy the heath and all other vegeta-
bles; but after a few years a fine grass springs
up which is so valuable for grazing, that it has
been let from 10«. to 5/. per acre for this pur-
pose, which, previously to its being planted,
would not bring as many pence.

Three varieties of the common larch are
mentioned by botanical writers; one remark-
able for the young cones being pale green in-
stead of crimson, and erect, not drooping. A
second has a weeping habit, with pendulous
branches, but is distinct in botanic characters
from the black larch (Laryx pendula) of North
America; both these varieties are natives of
the Tyrol. The third sort is of a slow, stunted
growth, and an inelegant appearance, leafing
early, and very subject to injury from spring
frosts. The bark is cinereous, not yellowish
brown. It was raised by the Duke of Atholl
from seed, procured at Archangel in 1806. Both
in its appearance as a tree, and its value as
timber, this Russian larch is much inferior to
the common larch. From the boiled inner
bark, mixed with rye flour, and afterwards
buried a few hours in the snow, the hardy Si-
berian hunters prepare a sort of leaven, with
which they supply the place of common leaven
when the latter is destroyed, as it frequently is
by the intense cold to which hunters are sub-
ject in the pursuit of game. The bark of the
larch is nearly as valuable to the tanner as
oak bark ; this valuable property was first dis-
covered by Mr. T.White in 1812. (Com. to Board
o/^gr. vol. vii. p. 278.) The larch also produces
the substance called Venice turpentine, which
is of considerable use in medicine, and flows in
abundance when the lower part of the trunk
of old trees is wounded or tapped between the
months of March and September. When fo-
rests of larch in Russia take fire, which some-
times happens, a gum issues from the medul-
lary part of the trunks, during the combustion,
which is called Orenburgh gum. A saccharine
' matter, also, resembling manna, and called
! manna of Briangon, exudes from the larch in
; June ; and another sort of manna is exuded
from its leaves in the form of a white, floccu-
Icnt substance, which finally becomes con-
creted into small lumps. From the inner rind
I or bark of the larch the Russians manufacture

699

LARCH, AMERICAN.

LARD OIL.

fine white gloves, not inferior to those made
of the most delicate chamois, while they are
stronger, cooler, and more pleasant for wear-
ing in the summer.

The larch is propagated by seed, which is
generally ripe in September and December,
when the cones may be collected and carefully
dried, and put away till April, which is con-
sidered the best time for sowing. The most
proper season for felling the larch is July.

2. The red larch fir {A. miaocarpa). In this
species the cones are oblong, small, thin;
scales erect, close pressed, the upper ones
much smaller than the lower. It is a grace-
ful tree, with much of the habit of the common
larch, from which, however, its very small
cones, of a bright purple, readily distinguish
it It is a native of North America. This is
by no means so well adapted to the planter's
purposes as the common larch. According to
the Duke of Atholl, trees when 50 years old do
not contain one-third as many cubic feet as the
common larch. The wood is so heavy that it
will scarcely swim in water.

3. The black larch fir (Jl. pendula). Cones
oblong, with numerous spreading scales, which
gradually diminish from the base to the apex
of the cones. Branches weak and drooping.
The leading shoot will often begin to droop at
the height of 15 or 20 feet from the ground, and
after gradually acquiring a horizontal direction,
will bend towards the earth, so as to form a
natural arch of great beauty. This species is
also a native of North America, where it is
found growing on a rich clay soil, mixed with
sand, in cold, mountainous districts. When
cultivated in Britain it is an elegant tree, hav-
ing a good deal of resemblance to the common
larch, but being of a brighter green colour, and
much more graceful. The wood is less valu-
able than the common larch.

There is a report (Trans. High. Sor. vol. v.
p. 391), by Mr. Lawson on larches raised by
him from seed imported from the Tyrol, which
being the native country of the larch, is sup-
posed to mature the most perfect seed.

The larch is affected with many diseases in
Britain. Some of these have been supposed
to arise from a constitutional weakness engen-
dered in the tree from the seed not having been
perfectly ripened. The reader's attention may
be drawn to several valuable treatises on the
diseases of the larch, distributed through the
volumes of the Trans, of the High. Soc. of Scot-
land, &c. In the Quart. Journ. of Jgr. there are
also some able papers, "On the probable Cause
of the Diseases of the Larch in Great Britain,"
by the late M. Decandolle (vol. v. p. 403) ;
"On the Diseases of the Larch in the South of
Scotland," by Mr. Webster {Ibid. p. 535) ; "On
the Rot in Larch," by Mr. Gorrie {Ibid. p. 537) ;
and some remarks on the foregoing papers
{Ibid. p. 574); "On the Canker in Larch," by
Mr. Drummond, vol. ii. p. 221. {Penny Cyclo.
vol. i. ; Quart. Journ. of Jgr. vol. iii. p. 794 ;
Brit. Husb. vol. iii.) See Canker, Fibs, and

PlWES.

LARCH, AMERICAN. See Hackmatack.

LARD. The melted fat of the hog, which is
much used for domestic purposes and in cook- 1
ery, for ointments, pomatums, and other pur- 1
700

poses. Pure lard has little or no taste, and no
odour ; its melting point is about 97° Fahren-
heit. When long exposed to the air it attracts
oxygen, and becomes rancid ; whilst a portion
of carbonic acid is evolved. Lard is a com-
pound of a solid, firm fat, stearine, and a semi-
fluid substance termed elaine, in the proportion
of 38 of the former to 62 of the latter.

Most fats and oils, whether of animal or
vegetable origin, are composed of these two
ingredients, upon the relative proportion of
which their consistence respectively depends.
They may be obtained separate by the action
of boiling alcohol, which on cooling deposits
the stearine, and yields the elaine upon evapo-
ration. Another method is to compress fat, or
oil congealed by cold, within the folds of bibu-
lous paper. The elaine is absorbed by the
paper, and may be separated by compression
under water; the stearine remains.

Elaine resembles oil in appearance, is co-
lourless when pure, congeals at 20° Fahren-
heit, may be evaporated unchanged in vaacoy
has little odour and a sweetish taste, is insolu-
ble in water, but soluble in boiling alcohol, and
consists of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.

Stearine is white, concrete, fusible at 111*'
Fahrenheit, volatilizable unchanged in vacuo^
partly volatilized and partly decomposed when
heated in a retort, insipid, inodorous, slightly
soluble in alcohol, insoluble in water, and com-
posed, like ihe former principle, of carbon, hy-
drogen, and oxygen.

Exposed to the air, lard absorbs oxygen and
becomes rancid. It should therefore be kept
in well-closed vessels, or procured fresh when
wanted for use. In the rancid state it is irri-
tating to the skin, and sometimes exercises an
injurious reaction on substances mixed with it.
Lard should never be used when it becomes
rancid. See Fat and Adeps.

LARD OIL. In the United States, where
swine are raised so abundantly, oil is now
very extensively separated from lard. Its close
connection with the question of disposing of
the agricultural products of the Union, and
especially of the Western States, forms a rea-
son for giving it an extended consideration.
Several large factories for the manufacture of
this oil have been some time in operation in
Cincinnati, and thousands of gallons are daily
prepared for home consumption and exporta-
tion. It is also carried on at Cleveland, Ohio;
Chicago, Illinois ; Burlington, Iowa ; Hanni-
bal, Missouri ; and other places both in the
Western and the Atlantic States.

It is considered much superior to olive or
sperm oil for machinery and for the manufac-
ture of woollens, &c. It can be furnished also
at half the price, and therefore it will doubtless
supersede that article of import. As it con-
tains less stearine than other oils, it is found
much better for combing wool, for which pur-
pose a single factory wished to contract for
10,000 gallons from one establishment. It is
also undergoing trial in England; and, if it
succeeds, of which there can scarcely be 'a
doubt, large orders for it may be expected, or
at least the American lard itself, which pays
a less duty, will find a ready market.

Repeated experiments have shown that for

LARD OIL.

LARVA.

the purpose of combustion, no oil is superior.
It is important, in trying it with this view, to
obtain a good article, manufactured from good
lard, and not from the dark-burned, which
creates smoke and clogs the flame. For want
of sufficient care in this respect, some have no
doubt met with disappointment in their attempts
to substitute this oil for sperm oil in their
lamps.

The following are given as the relative con-
stituents of lard oil and sperm oil, in 100 parts
of either: —

Carbon.

Oxyien.

7903

1142a'

9548

7905

11-6

8-9

Lard oil
Sperm oil

It will thus be seen that the difference in
carbon is only 3-00 ; about the same in hydro-
gen; while in oxygen it is about 4-10 in favour
of the lard oil. The large quantity of carbon
proves that it may be relied on as a material for
giving light, as it is well known that whenever
carbon predominates in an animal oil, the ar-
ticle is capable of a high degree of luminous
power. Experiments have been made which
have shown results in favour of lard oil.
About 60 lbs. in 100 of good lard, in tallow only
28 is oil ; and the processes of manufacture
resorted to show that it may he made a profita-
ble business. Large orders have already been
executed at the West for this oil, to be used in
the Eastern States. The heat of lard oil for
the blow-pipe has been found to be much
greater than that of sperm. Lard itself melts
at 82° to 97° of Fahrenheit; its specific gravity
at 60° is 0.93S. Lard crystallizes in small
globules ; sperm in flakes or scales. It is
soluble in boiling alcohol. The proportion is
80 gallons of lard to 1 of alcohol. The appli-
cation of stearine for candles promises greatly
to reduce the price of that article, so that can-
dles equal to spermaceti may eventually be
reduced to 12^ cents per pound.

As the capillary attraction of the lard oil is
not so great as that of sperm, it is recommend-
ed that the form of the lamp should be such as
to bring the bulk of the oil as near to the point
of combustion as possible.

It is also recommended that the lube should
be filed thinner at the top where the wick is
inserted, to prevent the escape of heat. Various
lamps have been constructed for burning lard
as well as lard oil, which have been found to
answer very well. The burning of this oil has
been introduced with entire success into the
light-houses on Lake Erie. An objection has
been made against lard oil, that it is not capable
of being preserved in a liquid state in cold wea-
ther; but by a process similar to that by which
the winter sperm is prepared, lard oil can be
made which will not chill at 30° of Fahrenheit.
. The importance of this application of lard
can scarcely yet be realized. Vast quantities
of the oil can be manufactured at the West.
Indeed, there is hardly any assignable limit to
the power of production of the article, so that,
•while the demand continues, the business may
be conducted profitably. The immense herds
of swine which can be suffered to range over
the lands adapted to them, and gather their
food from mast as well as the surplus of corn,
wheal, potatoes, &c., ou which they may be

sustained, admit of the manufacture being car-
ried on to almost any extent.

The proportion of lard to the whole hog is
about 60 per cent., after taking out the hams
and shoulders, or taking out the hams only;
the estimate for hogs of the best breeds, and so
fed as to produce the greatest quantity of fat,
is 70 per cent. As the object is not in this
case to make pork for food, the objection
against those species of nuts, and other modes
of feeding which render the animal more gross
and oily, is obviated; and it has been proposed
to feed out oil-cake to swine, to increase the
proportion of oil.

By a new process of steaming, a very sim-
ple method described by Mr. Stafford, it ap-
pears that the whole of the lard or oily matter
in the hog, or of tallow in cattle, may be ob-
tained; while the danger of burning (common
in other modes) is avoided, the consumption
of fuel lessened, and the degree of pressure
required not so great as otherwise. It will be
recollected that, while conducting the manu-
facture of lard, the other parts of the animal,
as the hams and shoulders, may be turned to
profit. Besides these, also, the hides may be
tanned by a cheap process : and the bones,
which are worth half a cent per pound, may be
calcined and made into animal carbon, for
which they are said to be worth, in this cal-
cined state, 2i cents per pound. (Ellsworth's
Report.)

LARKSPUR (Delphinium, from delphin, a dol-
phin, in reference to the supposed resemblance
in the nectary of the plant to the imaginary
figures of the dolphin). All the species of
larkspur are showy, and valuable as border
flowers, especially D. ajacis and D. consolida,
both of which are universally grown among
the border annuals. The herbaceous and pe-
rennial kinds are increased by divisions or
seeds, and the annual and biennial kinds mere-
ly require sowing in the open border, where
they will flower and seed freely. The field
larkspur (D. consolida), grows wild in sandy or
chalky corn-fields in England, and is regarded
as a simple astringent. In gardens this species
is called the branching larkspur, and attains
the height of 3 or 4 feet, blowing vivid blue
flowers.

D. Grandiflorum is a hardy and beautiful pe-
rennial, blowing dark blue flowers in July and
August. It loves a dry soil, and open situation.

The bee larkspur is a beautiful perennial,
blowing bright blue flowers in July and Au-
gust. Sheep and goats eat the wild larkspur,
horses do not relish it, while cows and swine
totally refuse it. Bees are remarkably attach-
ed to its flowers, which are likewise gathered
by the country people of Germany, cut small
and mixed with tobacco, to improve its flavour.

LARVA (Lat. a mask). A term applied to
that state, in which an insect exists, immedi-
ately after its exclusion from the egg, and
which precedes the pupa state. The animals
commonly called grubs, maggots, and caterpillars^
are larvae. Grub appears to be a general
term analogous to larva ; the term maggot is
most generally applied to the larva state of
dipterous insects ; and caterpillar, in the most
common acceptation of the term, is used to de-
3 K 2 701

LAST.

LAVENDER.

signate the larva state of lepidopterous insects.
These terms, however, are used in a very-
vague manner. (Penny Crjclo. vol. xiii. p. 338.)

LAST. An uncertain quantity, varying in
different countries, and with respect to various
articles. The following quantities of different
commodities generally make a last: — 12 dozen
of hides or skins ; 12 barrels of meal ; 10^ qrs.
of cole seed; 10 qrs. of corn or rape seed (in
some parts of England 21 qrs. of corn go to a
lasts); 12 sacks of wool, 1700 lbs. of feathers
or flax. {M'Culloch's Com. Did.)

LATHYRUS (from la, augmentative, and
tkouros, any thing exciting, in allusion to the
medicinal qualities of the seeds). This genus
belongs to the natural order Leguminece. It
consists for the most part of very handsome
plants when in flower, well adapted for arbonrs
or shrubberies, where they must be supplied
with branches to support them, as they climb
by means of tendrils terminating the footstalk,
and sometimes without tendrils. Any common
soil suits them ; they are increased by seeds,
and some of the perennial kinds by dividing
the roots.

The yellow vetchling (i. aphaca) is an an-
nual, flowering in June. The plant is glaucous,
without any true leaves or leaflets, except near
the root. The flowers are solitary on long
stalks, small, drooping, lemon-coloured. The
pod is an inch in length, nearly cylindrical,
smooth, and containing six seeds, which pro-
duce intense headache if eaten in any quantity,
while the roots of X. tuberosum are said to be
wholesome food. (Paxton's Bot. Diet.) See
Vetchling.

Crimson vetch (X. nissolia) is also an annual,
flowering in May. It is destitute of tendrils, it
has a grass-like form, and bears beautiful
crimson flowers, variegated with purple and
white. The pod is long and the seeds nume-
roas.

There are five other species of lathyrus :
namely, X. hirsutus, X. pratensis, X. sylvestris, X.
palmtris, and X. latifolins, which is the only one
of importance as a garden flower.

Broad-leaved, everlasting pea (X. latifolius)
is a perennial, flowering in July and August.
The herb is glaucous, the stem winged, the
leaflets broadly elliptical, bluntish, three or five
ribbed, and the tendrils in five branches. The
stipules are ovate in their upper part, and
broader than the stem. The flowers are large,
handsome, of a fine rose colour, and in tufts
of five or ten. The legume is long, compress-
ed, and narrow. It is one of the most showy
of the herbaceous species of the pea tribe; and
well adapted as an ornament to cottages.

Several American species of lathyrus are
enumerated by Nuttall, among which are, X.
myrtifolius found near Philadelphia. X. vcnosus,
with about five pair of leaflets. This grows
on the declivities of shady hills, and is com-
mon in the Alleghany mountains. X. polymor-
phus, with naked quadrangular stems, and four
or five pair of leaflets. This is found on the
grassy alluvial plains of the Missouri from its
confluence to its sources. The flowers are
as large as those of the Pisum maritimuvi, and
of a tine purple, variable however in size.
{NuttalVs Genera.) See EvEnLASTiXG Pea.
702

LAUREL (from the Celtic word hlaur the 6
is dropped, signifying green, in allusion to the
foliage of the plants). This is a very hand-
some and interesting genus of plants : among
the most interesting and valuable of the hardy
kinds, is the bay tree (X. nobilis), which is in-
jured by severe frost. (See Bat Tree.) L.
benzoin, X. sassafras, and several others are de-
ciduous, and in some situations attain a great
size. They may be increased by layers or
cuttings of the roots. The bark of X. benzoin
or spice wood is stimulant and tonic, and in
North America it is used in intermittent fevers.
In the X. faiens, an acrid red or violet juice is
particularly abundant. All the species are
more or less aromatic and stomachic.

The Portugal laurel (Prunus hmtanica), is a
beautiful evergreen, which grows from 10 to 15
feet high, blowing handsome spikes of white
flowers in June and July. It forms a round
head, and is very ornamental upon lawns.

The Alexandrian laurel {Rusais racemosus) is
a dwarf evergreen shrub, growing about two
feet high, and blowing a yellow flower, suc-
ceeded by beautiful red berries. See Kalmia,
Cherry Laurel, and Spurge Laurel.

LAURESTINE, Lauristinus, or Wild Bay
{Viburnum tinus, s?L.\d. io be derived from vieo,
to tie ; because of the pliability of some of
the branches). All the species of viburnum
are very elegant, rather early-flowering shrubs.
The hardy kinds are well fitted for planting in
ornamental shrubberies. They are increased
by layers or by cuttings planted under a glass
in a shady situation. The berries are vio-
lently purgmg, but become eatable after fer-
mentation, and are made into a sort of cake
by theNorth American Indians. See Guelder
Rose.

LAURUS (Sassafras, spiceioood, &c.). This
extensive genus of shrubs and small trees,
which afford the cinnamon, the cassia, and the
camphor of commerce, is for the most part
confined to the tropical and temperate latitudes.
One species (L. nobilis) is found in Europe;
five in Japan ; India affords three of the most
important species, long celebrated as spices ;
in the Canary islands there are two, the tropi-
cal regions of America afford no less than 21,
amongst the most remarkable of which is X.
caustica of Chili, being poisonous, and the X.
Persea, called avocado, and alligator-pear, pro-
ducing a large and very grateful fruit formed
like a pear.

In the Southern States two species are found,
one called X. catesboti, and the other X. Caroli-
nensis, or Red Bay. This last, which flowers
in July, Mr. Nuttall says he has met with as far
north as Sussex county, in the state of Dela-
ware. The whole plant is aromatic. See
Sassafrass, Red Bat, Camphor Tree, Spick-
wood, &c.

LAVA. The substances which flow in a
melted state from a volcano. They vary con-
siderably in texture and composition.

LA VENDER (Lavandula, from lava, to wash,
in allusion to the use formerly made of its dis-
tilled water in baths, on account of its fra-
grance). The hardy kinds are the only plants
of this genus worth cultivating.

Common garden lavender (X. vera) is well

LAVENDER.

LEAF.

known and much esteemed for the fragrance
of its flowers, and the volatile oil which they
yield by distillation with water. It is cultivated
in great abundance for the London market, at
Mitchara in Surrey. A very poor and light
gravelly soil is best suited to this plant, being
in such more fragrant, longer lived, and more
capable of enduring severe weather than in a
rich soil. In rich or moist soils it grows luxu-
riantly, but is in general destroyed during the
winter. The situation cannot be too open. It
is propagated by slips and cuttings of the cur-
rent year's shoots, which may be planted in
May and June, as well as by cuttings of those
which are a year old ; these are to be planted
in March, April, and early in May. Both slips
and cuttings must be from five to seven inches
in length, these, after being stripped to half
Iheir length of the lower leaves, are to be
planted to that depth either in a shady border,
or in any compartment, to have the shade of a
mat during mid-day until they have taken root,
in rows six inches apart each way. Water
must be given in moderate quantity every eve-
ning until fully established.

Having attained sulhcienl strength, they may
be moved to their final stations in September
or October, which is the season to be preferred
if the soil is not light and dry on which they
have been raised ; or they may be left until the
jsucceeding spring. If it is grown in consider-
kble quantity for medicinal purposes, which is
the only claim it has to a place in the herbary,
it must be planted in rows two feet apart each
way, otherwise, only detatched plants are in-
serted along the borders. The only after-cul-
ture required is the occasional employment of
the hoe, the decayed spikes and branches be-
ing removed in autumn, and the surface gently
stirred with the spade in the spring.

The flowers are ready for gathering either to
dry or for distillation, in July or the end of June.
The flowers are used as excitants and carmi-
natives in medicine, in the form of tinctures.
The oil is an agreeable perfume, and one or
two drops rubbed up with sugar and mixed in
water forms a useful draught in nervous head-
ache and hysteria.

LAVENDER, SEA. See TaRirr.

LAWN. A space of ground covered with
grass, kept short by mowing, and generally
situated in front of a house or mansion, or
within the view from such. Lawns, when once
established, require only to be kept neat by the
ordinary routine of rolling, mowing, and sweep-
ing, except keeping the surface perfectly even,
by making up small hollows with screened
mould early in spring. When lawns become
worn out, a top dressing of any finely divided
manure will refresh them ; malt dust applied
•n October is excellent for this purpose ; and
at the same time an additional quantity of grass
seed may be sown.

LAY. A term applied to land in the state
of grass or sward. This kind of ground is fre-
quently distinguished into such as has been
long in the state of sward, and such as is newly
laid down"to grass, or into old and new lays.
The proper method of managing the latter is
of great importance to the farmer, and which
Young thought should be by keeping them per-

fectly free from stock for the following autumn
and winter after their being laid down, when,
in the spring, they will afford a growth of
young grass highly valuable for sheep, with
which they should only be well stocked, and kept
down then, and during the following summer.
Nothing, in his opinion, being more pernicious
than mowing a new lay, as directed by certain
authors. They may, he thinks, have succeed-
ed in spite of such bad management, but never
hy it.

LAYERING. In gardening, an operation
by which the propagation of plants is eflfected
by laying down or bending the shoot, so that a
portion of it may be covered with earth. A
shoot so operated on is called a layer, and the
point which furnishes the layers bears the
name of stock. Some plants are so much dis-
posed to emit roots that if their branches hap-
pen to come in contact with the earth they im-
mediately begin to strike. Plants so situated as
to render it impossible to bend their branches
to the ground, may nevertheless be layered by
having their shoots introduced into a pot or
box of soil elevated to them, and supported in
a convenient position. This is a common
practice among the Chinese, who cause
branches of trees to root in this manner b}'
partially ringing them, and covering their parts
so ringed with a ball of clay, which is kept
moist. {Penny Cyclo.)

LEAD WORT {Plumbago; from plumbum,
lead). A genus of pretty free-flowering plants,
growing in any common soil, and increased
readily by cuttings. The root of P. europceay it
is said, when chewed, will cure the toothache.

LEAF (Sax.). The well-known fine mem-
braneous part of a tree or plant, which is put
forth and unfolded in the spring, and which in
some trees falls off" in the autumn. " The leaf,"
says a writer in the Penny Cydopcedia, " is an
expansion of the bark of a plant, from whose
axil a leaf-bud is developed : but this opinion
is hypothetical. The leaf is usually thin, and
traversed with one or more veins, composed
of woody and vascular tissue; sometimes it is
fleshy, and occasionally cylindrical, or nearly
so." The functions of the leaf being at once
that of respiration, digestion, and nutrition, its
surface is covered with stomata, or breathing
pores, which communicate with minute hollow
chambers in its interior. It is in the leaf that
all the peculiar secretions of a plant are pre-
pared out of the under sap which the roots ob-
tain from the soil, and which, carried up to the
leaves, is exposed to the air, and undergoes the
action of the vital chemistry which converts it
into the proper juice. It is then returned to
the stem, and forms the different secretions of
the plant, as resin, starch, sugar, gum, &c. A
leaf is either united to the stem by means of a
petiole, or stalk, or it is sessile — that is to say,
seated on the branch without an intermediate
stalk; the veins pass through the petiole be-
fore they can expand into the broad or green
part forming the blade of the leaf. Some
leaves are furnished with an appendage, which
in grasses is a thin membranous body arising
from the base of the lamina, and in palms is a
coarse net, formed, it is said, of tissue belong-
ing to the veins of the leaves. When leaves

703

LEAF.

LEOPARD'S BANE.

have but one blade, they are simple, as in the
apple ; but when there is more than one blade,
each seated on a ramification of the petiole, a
leaf is called compound. Of these, and of the
external form of the leaf, there are endless
modifications. Between 200 and 300 are enu-
merated by Bischoff.

The distinction of leaves made by those who
have written on botany are the following: a
simple leaf is that which is not divided to the
middle. A compound leaf is divided into seve-
ral parts, each resembling a simple leaf, as in
liquorice, &c. A digitate leaf is a leaf divided
into several parts, all of which meet together at
the base, as in hemp, black hellebore, &c. A
trifoliate leaf is a compound leaf, consisting of
three leaflets, as the trefoil, &c. A quinque-
foliate leaf is a leaf consisting of five leaflets,
as in Hedera quinquefolia. A pinnated leaf is a
compound leaf divided into several parts, each
of which is called a leaflet, placed along a
middle axis, either alternately or by pairs.
When the axis is terminated by an odd leaflet,
it is said to be unequally pinnated ; and equally
pinnated when it is not terminated by an odd
leaflet, as in the cassia; when the leaflets are
all nearly of the same form and bigness, it is
called an uniform pinnated leaf, as in the
liquorice; when they are not so, it is said to
be diffbrm, as in the agrimony. A winged
leaf is a pinnated leaf, with an intervening
membrane. A ramose leaf is that which is
still farther divided than the pinnated leaf, as in
the Osmund royal, female fern, &c. An entire
leaf or lobe is that which has no division on
its edges, as in the apple-tree, &c. A sinuated
leaf is that which is cut about the edges into
several long segments, as in common mallows.
A serrated leaf is that which is cut about the
edges into several acute segments, resembling
the teeth of a saw, as in the nettle, &c. A
crenate leaf is that which is cut on the edges
into several obtuse segments, as in betony, &c.
A laciniated or jagged leaf is that which is cut
on the edges into several pretty deep portions
in an irregular manner, as in the horned
poppy, &c.

All the experiments which have been made,
in order to show how serviceable the leaves
of trees and plants are to their well-being, have
proved that when the plants have been divested
of their leaves, or their leaves have been eaten
or cut during their growth, they have been
remarkably weakened or destroyed. If the
leaves of plants be the means by which their
juices are prepared for their support, as has
been just stated, it should teach us not to pull
or cut ofl!" the leaves of trees or plants on any
account, while they retain their verdure, and
are in health, as they may be greatly injured
thereby. Hence, probably, the error of the
common practice of feeding down wheat in
the ivinter and spring with sheep, as, by so do-
ing, the stalks may in many cases be rendered
weak, and the ears shorter, the grains of corn
not being so plump and well nourished as
when it is not fed down upon the ground. It
is well known, too, that in grass which is often
mowed, the blades are rendered finer in pro-
portion to the frequency of mowing; so that,
though this may be a desirable thing in lawns,
701

&c., where regard is had to the produce, it
should certainly be avoided.

The leaves of trees or plants, where they
can be collected in large quantities, as in parks
and woods, may be highly useful in augment-
ing the manure heaps of the farm.

Mr. Young, in his Calendar, recommends
that, in wooded countries, all the leaves that
can be had at little expense, should be raked
up in October, and carted to the yards and
standing folds, for littering and making them
into dung: he did it, he said, at 3rf. per one-
horse cart load. They do not rot easily, but
that is, he thinks, no objection to them ; they
are a sponge to be saturated with urine, and
if not touched previously to carting on to the
land, will convey to the field much of what
might otherwise be lost ; and they are extreme-
ly useful in aiding the main object of bedding
the yards in the autumn and winter season. —
See BoTANT.

LEAF-BUDS. Rudiments of young branches,
made up of scales imbricated over each other,
the outermost being the hardest and thickest,
and surrounding a minute axis, which is in
direct communication with the woods and cel-
lular tissue of the stem. When stimulated by
light and heat they extend into branches; or
if artificially removed from the plant that bears
them, they are capable of multiplying the in-
dividual from which they have been taken. In
this case, however, the individual is not a pro-
geny as from seed, but merely an extension of
the parent.

LEAFLET. A part of a compound leaf, or
a small leaf formed on the petiole of a leaf
branching out.

LEAGUE. A measure of length, princi-
pally used in reckoning distances at sea. The
sea league is 3 nautical or geographical miles,
or the l-20th of a degree, and consequently
about 3*45 English miles. The common land-
league is a well-known itinerary measure on
the continent of Europe, chiefly in France,
The French, however, have two distinct
leagues; the legal posting league, containing
2000 toises, and equal to 2-42 English miles,
and a league of 25 to the degree, or equal to
about 2-76 English miles.

The word is said to have been derived from
the Celtic leachy stone; the distances having
been marked by stones in the Roman pro-
vinces. See MitE.

LEOPARD'S BANE {Doronicum). An or-
namental genus, and from the plants flowering
early in spring, they are well deserving of cul-
tivation ; they grow in any garden soil, and
may be increased with facility by dividing at
the root.

The great leopard's bane (D. pardalianchis),
is a perennial, native of Great Britain, grow-
ing in mountainous pastures or meadows. The
root is creeping, and consists of several knobs
connected by long fibres; woody at the crown.
The stem is 2 or 3 feet high, hollow, round,
leafy, and hairy; branched, and glutinous at
the upper part. The leaves are rather soft and
downy, heart-shaped, more or less regularly
toothed, or wiry. The flowers, which appear
in May, are solitary at the ends of the branches;
2 inches wide, of a uniform bright yellow; the

LEASE.

LEATHER-WOOD.

earliest overtopped by succeeding ones. The |
roots are aromatic, and used by sportsmen in
Alpine countries against giddiness.

LEASE (from hcatio, letting, or dimissio;
from the French laisser, i. e. Himittere, to depart
with). "A lease," says Woodfall, in his Law
of Landlord and Tenant, "is a contract for the
possession and profits of lands and tenements
on the one side, and a recompense of rent or
other income on the other; or it is a convey-
ance of lands and tenements to a person for
life, or years, or at will, in consideration of a
return of rent or other recompense. The party
letting the land is called the lessor or landlord,
and the party to whom the lease is made the
lessee or tenant. The connection between
landlord and tenant has gradually improved
from that of master and slave into a state of
almost total independence and mutual interest
in the soil.

"The beneficial effects, both to the landlord
and tenant, of leases of a sufficient duration to
encourage men of capital and skill to properly
cultivate the land need hardly be pointed out.
And it will be very desirable to have as few
restraining covenants introduced into these as
possible. They merely retard and annoy the
good farmer, and rarely improve the practice
of the unskilful.

. "In the northern part of England, custom
and expediency have very generally fixed the
duration of the lease at about 20 years. Ex-
perience will evince that the time is not always
more than enough to allow the possessor of the
land to conduct and mature a profitable system
of management, and to pay to the owner an
adequate renL All the great operations of the
husbandman have a prospective result as re-
gards the profit to be derived. The capital ex-
pended in such cases is only to be drawn back
by periodical returns after the lapse of time.
In the providing of extraneous manures, in the
adoption of rotations of crops, which, to be eflTec-
tual to the purposes intended, must be extended
through many seasons, in the draining of the
land, and the like, time is necessary, both to
effect the operations, and to recover with a fu-
ture profit the capital employed. When, indeed,
land is of very rich quality, and at once pro-
ductive, without other outlay than the ordinary
expenses of tillage, or when it has the means
of fertilization near to it, and abundant, as in
the vicinity of cities, the duration of the term
may be comparatively short. But in other and
dissimilar cases, this cannot be without a sacri-
fice of present income ; and a landlord will
scarcely fail to experience, that if there be not
a sufficient period of secure possession accord-
ed to the occupier, the necessary expenditure
on the cultivation of the ground will not be
hazarded; but more than this, a person of good
capital will, like every trader, regard as a
benefit the power of carrying on his business
undisturbed, and will set a pecuniary value on
security and independence." (Quart. Journ. of
Jgr. vol. i. p. 795.) With regard to a lease in
general, and its covenants, see a good paper
{Ibid. vol. ii. p. 134). In speaking of rents, the
author remarks, "As to the kind of rent to be
paid, constant experience proves that the best
and most satisfactory is a fixed rent in money.
89

To rents payable in grain, or in money regu-
lated by the prices of grain, there is this ob-
vious objection, that the tenant will generally
be required to pay the highest rent when he is
least able to do so, that is, when prices rise
from a deficiency in the produce of the crop.''
And when speaking of the lease and its pre-
cautionary covenants, he observes, "the great-
est error consists in vain precautions and at^
tempts to provide agamst every possible con-
tingency which, from the nature of the trans-
action, and the unforeseen events to which it
may give rise, it is impossible to do. All that
can be done is to make as precise as possible
the conditions which experience shows to be
necessary. The terms of the contract should
be few and simple, and easily understood and
complied with. Not only are hurtful cove-
nants to be avoided, but such as are unneces-
sary, since to increase the number of them too
much serves but to perplex the lessee, and
give birth to future quarrels, and since all ex-
perience on the subject shows that the interests
of either party may be sufficiently guarded with-
out multiplying too much conditions, penalties,
and restrictions."

LEASH. A term applied to game, &c., by
sportsmen, and which implies three; as throe
hares, partridges, &c. It also signifies a line
to hold a dog bv.

LEATHER "(Germ, leder; Dan. l&der). The
prepared skins of animals. The principal
object of the art of converting skin into leather
is to render it strong and tough, durable, and
often water-proof, and to prevent its destruction
by putrefaction. The skins are first cleansed
of hair and cuticle, then impregnated either
with vegetable tan and extract, as in the pro-
duction of what is called tanned leather. In
this process the tannic acid, which is the active
principle of the astringent vegetables employed,
combines with the gelatin of the skins, and
forms an insoluble tannate of gelatin. It is
this formation which renders the skins imper-
meable to water, and checks the tendency to
decomposition which they, in common with all
animal matter, possess. Instead of tan, some
leather is prepared with alum and other salts,
as for tawed leather. These processes are
sometimes combined; and tanned leather often
undergoes the further operation of currying, or
impregnation with oil. As instances of these
different results, — thick sole-leather is tanned ;
white kid for gloves is tawed; the upper-leather
for boots and shoes is tanned and curried ; and
fine Turkey leather is tawed and afterwards
slightly tanned. Morocco leather, as it is
called, is chiefly prepared from sheep-skins.
Shammoy leather is generally sheep or doe-skin,
prepared by dressing, lining, &c., and dyed, if
necessary, and then finished in oil. Russia
leather acquires its peculiar odour from birch
tan. There is an excellent abstract of the ma-
nufacture of different kinds of leather in Ure^a
Dictionary of Arts, ^c, which those who wish
to pursue the subject further may consult. The
leather manufacture of Great Britain is of very
great importance, being inferior, in point of
value and extent, only to those of cotton, wool,
and iron.

LEATHER- WOOD {Dirca valustris). This

705

LEAVEN.

LEGUMINOUS PLANTS.

is a low shrub, and native of the United States,
growing in moist, shady places, seldom rising
more than four feet high, spreading into a head,
with many small and very flexible branches.
The flowers are produced at the extreme ends
of the former years' shoots ; they are of an
herbaceous colour, and make a tolerable ap-
pearance. The flowers, which appear the lat-
ter end of March, before any perfect leaves, are
of a yellow colour. The bark is uncommonly
tough, yet the enclosed wood is very brittle.
It was highly valued by the native Indians, and
used in the place of cords. This plant, accord-
ing to the information of Mr. W. Bartram,
occupies an extensive range of territory, from
Canada to Georgia. ( WillUh's Dom. Ency.)

LEAVEN (Lat. levare, to raise). A piece of
sour dough, used to ferment and render light
dough or paste. It is a very imperfect substi-
tute for yeasf ; and as it communicates to the
bread an astringent taste, which few persons
relish, it ought to be used only where yeast
cannot be procured. As, however, the latter
ferment cannot always be obtained, especially
during winter, I shall state the most simple
methods of preparing, as well as of preserving
it, under the article Yeast.

By the law of Moses, leaven was strictly
forbidden during the passover ; and the Jews,
who were taught to regard it from the vigil of
the feast as unclean, with religious scrupulo-
sity purified their houses from the contaminat-
ing influence. See Bread.

LEEK {Allium porrum). The leek is a hardy
biennial ; for, although it attains perfection in
size and for culinary purposes the first year, it
does not run to seed until the second, the per-
fecting of which it also often survives. The
whole plant is eaten, being employed in soups,
&c., and is by some persons boiled and eaten
with meat. There are four varieties ; the Mus-
selburgh, and the large London leek, which are
by far the best ; the Scotch or flag, which is
larger and hardier; and the Flanders. It is
raised solely from seed, which must be sown
first in the end of February, a small crop for
transplanting in June and July, as well as in
part to remain where sown ; again for the main
crop in the course of March or early in April ;
and, lastly, towards the close of April or begin-
ning of May, for late transplanting. These
sowings are in general performed broadcast,
and raked in ; though some gardeners employ
drills, the plants to remain after thinning: the
leek, however, is so much benefited by trans-
planting as obviously to point out the error of
this practice. When the plants are three or
four inches in height, in eight or ten weeks
after sowing, they must be weeded, hoed, and
thinned, where growing too close, to two or
three inches apart; water also being given, in
dry weather, will, with the above treatment,
strengthen and forward them for transplanting
in another month, or when six or eight inches
high. They must be taken away regularly
from the seed-bed, the ground being well wa-
tered previously, if not soft and easily yielding.
When thinned out, they may be left to remain
in the seed-bed six inches asunder, as they do
not grow so large as the transplanted ones,
which must be set by the dibble in rows ten
706

inches apart, and eight in the lines, being in-
serted nearly down to the leaves, that the neck,
by being covered with the earth, may be
blanched. Water in abundance must be given
at the time of planting, and the long weak
leaves shortened, but the roots left as unin-
jured as possible. The bed should be hoed
over occasionally, as well to kill the weeds as
to loosen the soil. By this treatment, and by
cutting off the tops of the leaves about once a
month, as new ones are produced, the neck
swells to a much larger size. The several
sowings above directed will yield a supply
from August until the following May, when
they advance to seed. A portion should be
always taken up and laid in sand previous to
the ground being locked up by continued frost,
but they will not keep many days in this situa-
tion. To obtain seed, some of the finest roots
of the previous year's growth, which have been
left where raised, may be transplanted thence
in February or the early part of March, eight
inches asunder, in a row beneath a warm fence;
and when seed-stems arise, they must be at-
tached to stakes for support, or to the fencing:
the closer and sooner they are drawn to this
latter, the better will it enable the seed to ripen ;
for in cold summers, particularly in open ex-
posures, it never comes to maturity, and by the
first sharp autumnal frost it is entirely destroyed.
Good varieties never flower before May or
June, and ripen their seed in September. The
heads should be cut when changed to a brown-
ish colour, with a foot in length of the stalk
left attached, for the convenience of tying in
bundles, three or four together, to dry: when
they are perfectly dry, they may be hung up
and kept in the head until wanted, or imme-
diately thrashed out and stored. As the husk
is very tough, it is usual, tt^hen small quantities
have to be operated upon, to rub them against
a tile, which breaks it more easily than any
other mode that can be adopted. (G. W. John-
son's Kitchen Garden.)

LEES. The dregs or feculencies of liquors,
which, after being separated by fermentation,
fall to the bottom of the vessels. All the vari-
ous kinds of lees, such as those of wine, beer,
ale, oil, &c., may be made use of as manures
when they can be had in sufl[icient quantities.
LEGS. The extremities that form the sup-
port of animals. Of the four legs of a horse,
the two before have several parts, each of which
has a peculiar name : thus, by the name of
fore-leg, we commonly understand that part of
the fore-quarters that extends from the hough
to the pastern-joint, and which is frequently
called the shank. The part that corresponds
with it in the hinder quarters is called the
instep. In the language of the manege, a horse
is said to want the fifth leg when he is tired,
and, bearing upon the bridle, lies heavy upon
the rider's hand.

LEGUMINOUS PLANTS (from Ugumen,
pulse) are those which bear legumes or pods,
such as beans, peas, tares, &c. The Legumi-
nos<B are a very extensive natural order of
plants, found in all parts of the world, forming
large trees and huge twiners in the tropics ;
herbaceous plants or small bushes, rarely trees,
in colder countries. The order contains averj

LEICESTER SHEEP.

LETTUCE.

great variety of useful and beautiful species,
some of which, like clover, lucern, sainfoin,
and vetches, are cultivated for cattle ; others,
as beans, peas, lentils, and various other kinds
of pulse, form part of the food of man. Indigo,
logwood, and many more, are well-known dye-
ing plants: several acacias produce gum; cer-
tain Astragali yield tragacanth ; the tamarind
and others bear pods whose interior is filled
with an agreeable pulp ; Cassia aaitifolia and
other species of cassia yield senna; Glyryrrhiza,
the liquorice-root; Ceratania, the wild locust
fruits of Scripture : finally, many are valuable
tonics, and some are dangerous narcotics,
among which the common laburnum is to be
named.

Leguminous crops, according to the strict
agricultural acceptation, include beans, peas,
and other pulse. But the class is made to em-
brace a much more extensive range of plants,
namely, all such as are considered as ameliorat-
ing or enriching crops, such as clover, potatoes,
turnips, carrots, beets, cabbages, &c. These
latter are far less exhausting than the culmife-
rous or grain plants, as few of them mature
their seeds, and all, on account of their broad
leaves, draw more or less nourishment from
the atmosphere. They also ameliorate the
condition of the soil, by dividing and loosening
it with their tap and bulbous roots. As they
generally receive manure and drill culture,
they are peculiarly adapted to enrich and pre-
pare the soil for the culmiferous crops.
LEICESTER SHEEP. See Sheep.
LENTICULAR. A botanical term, signify-
ing lens or pea-shaped.

LENTIL (Ervum Lens, from erto, tilled land
in Celtic ; some of the species arc a pest in
cultivated ground, being useless and too prolific
weeds). PI. 7, s. ■ An exotic plant of the vetch
or tare kind, cultivated in some parts of Eng-
land as fodder for cattle. The lentil is an an-
nual, growing to the height of about eighteen
inches, with stalks and leaves like those of
tares, but smaller, and producing pale purple
flowers, which are succeeded by small flat pods,
containing two or three round, hard, smooth,
and flat seeds. There are two sorts of lentil,
the white and the yellow; but the latter aff'ords
the greater quantity of fodder. The seeds of this
plant are generally sown in March or April, in
the proportion of one and a half to two bushels
per acre. Lentils also furnish good dry fodder
for cattle, and particularly for cutting into chafi*
as trough-meal for sheep and horses.

LETTUCE {Laduca, from lac, milk, on ac-
count of the milky juice which exudes from
the plants when broken). There are in Eng-
land three indigenous species of lettuce, all
biennials.

1. Strong-scented lettuce (L. virosa), which
grows about hedges, old walls, and the borders
of fields on a chalky soil, not uncommon. The
whole herb abounds with an acrid, fetid, milky
juice, having the smell of opium, but only
slightly narcotic, and little likely to produce the
consequences attending the use of that drug.
This juice springs out suddenly in large drops,
on the slightest touch, from the calyx and ten-
der leaves, when the plant is in flower, but not
at other times ; evincing a considerable degree

of irritability in the plant. The root is tap-
shaped. Stem solitary, two or three feet high,
round, smooth, sparingly leafy, scarcely branch-
ed, panicled at ihe top, a little prickly below.
Leaves horizontal, nearly smooth, finely toothed,
radical ones numerous, obovate, undivided, de-
pressed. Flowers numerous, panicled, light-
yellow.

2. Prickly lettuce (Z. scariola). This species
is found in waste ground, and dry, stony bor-
ders of fields. The whole herb is glaucous,
milky, bitter, hut less fetid than the preceding.
Stem two or three feet high, leafy, panicled.
Leaves numerous, vertical, not horizontal, va-
riously pinnatifid and toothed ; thin midrib fur-
nished with a close row of prominent prickles,
their base clasping the stem. Flowers small,
pale lemon-coloured. ♦

3. Least lettuce (Z. saligna). This species
grows in chalky waste gn)und, or about salt
marshes. The whole plant is very slender.
Stem about two feet high, wavy, pale-brown or
whitish, somewhat branched, leafy throughout.
Leaves glaucous, smooth except the midrib
beneath, linear, hastate or pinnatifid, entire,
sessile. Flowers in small alternate tufts com-
posing long clusters, very small, pale-yellow,
open in sunshine only, and soon fading. (Smith*$
Eng. Flor, vol. iii. p. 344.)

Of the well-known cultivated lettuce (i. »«-
tivn) there are many varieties, which are di-
vided into families, the cos and the cabbage.
The first are more grown in summer than win-
ter; the second at all seasons, but more usually
in winter, on account of their superior hardi-
hood. The cos varieties are characterized by
being of an upright growth, and, with the ex-
ception of the Brighton, require to have their
leaves drawn together for blanching; the cab-
bage, as growing close to the ground, produces
a blanched heart, in the manner of a cabbage,
without any assistance. The cilicias are of a
nature intermediate between the two. When
young, the cabbage varieties are in general
sweeter than those of the cos at the same age;
but at full growth this is reversed : hence the
latter are preferred for salads, and the former
for soups.

The cabbage varieties succeed better in a
hotbed than the cos.

The following varieties are recommended
for cultivation in England ; but as some of
them have been found not to succeed well in
this country, those enumerated in the article
Kitchen Garben had better be depended on
for the main crop.

CABBAOB VABISTISa.

Drumheaded.

Brown Dutcb. »

Tennisball.

Hardy green, or Capuchin.

Prussian.

Prince's.

Common white.

Large white.

Imperial.

Grand admirable.

Large Roman.

Lettuces thrive best in a light, rich soil, with
a dry substratum. In a poor or tenacious one
they never attain any considerable size, but run
to seed prematurely. Like most other crops,
that soil is to be preferred which is rich rather

707

cos TABIETIE8.

Brighton.

Black-seeded green.

Early Egyptian.

Green.

While or Versailles.

Silver.

Spotted or leopard.

Green and brown Cilicia.

Lop.

LETTUCE.

LIBER.

from prior cultivation than the immediate ap-
plication of manure. It is of advantage to
trench it; and if manure is necessarily applied
at the time of insertion, it should be in a state
of forward decay. For the first and last crops
of the year, a warm, sheltered situation is re-
quire4; but for the midsummer ones, a border
that is sheltered during the meridian, but far
from being confined or under the shadow of
trees, is to be preferred. Lettuce is propagated
by seed : that for the first crop should be sown
in a frame, on a warm border, or slender hot-
bed, at the end of January or early in February;
at the close of this last month a larger quantity
may be sown in any open situation, and repeal-
ed once every three weeks in small proportions
until the end of July, for summer and autumn
use; to be continued, alsimilar intervals, until
the close of September, for winter and early
spring. They may be sown either broadcast
or in rows, moderately thin, each variety sepa-
rate, lightly covered, and care being taken that
the bed is trampled upon as little as possible.
It is usual, when the plants are about a month
old, or two inches in height, to thin them to
three or four inches apart, those removed being
pricked out at similar distances. Those from
the sowings in January and February, in a
similar situation to that in which they were
raised ; and thence until August in any open
situation. Those of the August sowing must
be divided into two portions ; the largest being
selected and planted in an open compartment
for late autumn use, and the smaller on a warm
border for winter and early spring.

When planted out finally, they must be set
in rows a foot apart each way, which is abun-
dant for the largest variety, and not more than
necessary for the smaller. At the time of every
removal, whether of picking out or planting,
water must be given moderately, and until the
plants are rooted. It may be remarked, that
transplanted lettuces never attain so fine a
growth as those left where sown, nor become
so soon fit for use; those which are planted out
at once to remain, being better in these respects
than those which are pricked out previous to
final planting. The difference in their time of
becoming fit for use, however, is of advantage,
as by these means a more perfect succession
is obtained. Those which are planted to with-
stand ihe winter are best planted on the sum-
mit or south side of ridges, as this is a great
protection from excessive wet, from which they
always suffer. In every stage of growth they
must be kept free from weeds, well watered,
and the earth around them frequently stirred
for the extirpation of slugs and snails, which
are particularly injurious, and are very preva-
lent in moist seasons.

When the cos varieties have attained an ad-
vanced growth, they require their leaves to be
drawn together with a shred of matting, to ren-
der the interior blanched, care being taken that
it is not performed 30 tight as to bruise them.
Under every favourable circumstance for a vi-
gorous growth, the planis^?specially of the cos
varieties, and during drj^easons, will yet run
up to seed before the heart is perfectly blanched :
to retard this, it is an effectual practice, at the
time of tying them up, to cut out the centre of
703

each with a sharp knife. The plants raised
from the September sowing may be divided as
directed for those of August; but, in addition,
some of the cos varieties may be planted on a
warm border, to have the shelter of frames and
hand-glasses.

To produce seed, some of the finest and most
perfect plants of each variety that have sur-
vived the winter, or from the forwardest sow-
ing of the year, should be selected. The seed
from any that have run up prematurely cannot
be depended upon. All other plants must be
removed from their neighbourhood, themselves
being left at least a foot apart; neither is it
allowable for two varieties to flower near each
other, as only mongrel varieties will be obtained.
Each stem is advantageously attached to a
stake, as a support in tempestuous weather.
It is to be observed, that the branches must be
gathered as the seed ripens upon them, and not
left until the whole is ready, as some will ripen
two or three weeks before others, and conse-
quently the first and best seed will be shed and
lost. It must be well dried before it is beaten
out and stored. Lettuce seed is considered to
be best the second year ; but when three years
old it refuses to vegetate.

The juice of the lettuce inspissated is termed
lartwarium. It possesses slight narcotic pro-
perties, and is useful in coughs.

LETTUCE, LAMB'S. See Corn Salad.

LEVELLING. In husbandry, implies ren-
dering the ground even, and removing of impe-
diments to the common operations of tillage.
This is generally done by the plough, but
sometimes machines are employed for the
purpose.

LEVER. In mechanics, an inflexible rod or
bar, movable upon a fulcnmi or prop, and hav-
ing forces applied to two or more points. The
lever is one of the mechanical powers; and
being the simplest of them all, was the first
that was attempted to be explained.

Examples of the application of the lever are
of constant occurrence in the mechanical arts.
The crowbar, the handspike, nippers, pince4-s,
&c., are levers of the first kind. The second
kind includes the chipping knife, the common
door, nutcrackers, the wheelbarrow, &c. To
levers of the third kind belong the sheep-shears,
the treddle of the turning-lathe, tongs, &c. The
bones of animals are generally levers. The
socket of the bone is the fulcrum ; a strong
muscle, attached to it near the socket, is the
power; and the weight of the limb, with what-
ever resistance is opposed to its motion, is the
weight. A very moderate contraction of the
muscle thus gives considerable motion to the
limb. (Gresrnry's Mech. vol. ii.)

LEVERET. A young hare, in the first year
of its age.

LEY, LEA, or LAY. Land in the state of
sward or grassy surface.

LIBER (Lat. bark). In botany, the 'interioi
lining of the bark of exogenous plants. It con-
sists of woody tissue in great quantity, and
very thick-sided, intermixed with cellular tis-
1 sue. It appears to be formed annually, at the
same time as the concentric zones of woo<^,
and is intended by nature to convey downwaids
I the secretions elaborated in the bark and leaves

LIBRARIES, FARMERS'.

LICHENS.

The liber is the principal seat of lactiferous
vessels.

LIBRARIES, FARMERS'. Collections of
books on agricultural and horticultural sub-
jects are now becoming very general through-
out the country, through the instrumentality of
farmers' clubs. They cannot fail of being
eminently useful to the cause of agriculture,
by diffusing among the cultivators of the soil
the latest discoveries and improvements in
husbandry, as well as the different opinions
and theories entertained on matters having re-
ference to agriculture and its collateral sciences
of chemistry, botany, natural historj', geology,
meteorologv, and vegetable physiology, &c.

LICE ON ANIMALS. There is not an
animal that does not, under suitable circum-
stances, nourish in its hair, wool, feathers, or
its skin, some kind of louse ; and sometimes
more than one kind of these parasites lodge
and prey on the same animal. In ordinary
cases, they do not produce much mischief, but
when they increase so much as to produce the
disease called mange (Pityriatis), they become
truly formidable. The cause of animals being
troubled with lice, may usually be traced to a
want of cleanliness. When the dust and sweat
accumulated on the hair, and in contact with
the skin of the ox or horse, are allowed to re-
main undisturbed by the comb or brush; when
the stables are kept filthy, unventilated, and
unwholesome ; when animals, reduced in au-
tumn by want of pasture, or by living in un-
healthy ones, are suffered to take their chance
for the winter without extra care or attention ;
or when a beast loaded with pediculi is turned
into the yards or the stables of those exempt
from these parasites, it may be expected that
they will multiply and infest animals. When
we see horses rubbing their tails, biting their
manes, and showing other signs of uneasiness
and irritation ; when cattle are observed to be
rubbing their heads against posts or fences, and
the hair coming off from the head and neck ;
or when sheep tear out tuAs of wool with their
teeth, and bite these places till blood appears,
we may expect that lice are present. On most
animals, these parasites have some favourite
place of resort ; on horses, the mane and tail ;
on horned cattle, around the nose, base of the
horns, and the neck ; on sheep, they run over
every part ; and on swine, they do not seem to
be confined to any particular location.

Pure air, room for exercise, plenty of food,
and above all, cleanliness, are the first things
to be attended to in the cure of this evil. Cur-
rying, brushing, and washing should be resorted
to, as, except in bad cases, this treatment will
be usually suflicient to free the animal from
these insects, without recourse to other reme-
dies. Where these fail, it will be necessary to
have recourse to such external or internal
applications as shall operate directly on the
vermin.

One of the most common remedies is the
mercurial ointment, commonly called unguen-
Uim; but this, though effectual, cannot be used
without some danger, as numerous instances
have occurred in which valuable animals j
have been destroyed by its too free use. Care '
should be taken to prevent the animal from I

biting itself where the ointment is applied, un-
til it has had time to take effect. A decoction
of tobacco leaves, in a strong lye, forms a very
good wash; but this, too, owing to the narcotic
poison of the tobacco, has caused death. Va-
rious vegetable remedies have been resorted
to, among which are the seeds of the larkspur
(Delphinium staphysagria) ; and the leaves and
flowers of the ledum palustre, or marsh, or La-
brador tea. The roots of the black hellebore,
or a decoction made from them, have been used
with success ; and it is said that the water in
which the skins or parings of potatoes have
been boiled will effectually destroy lice by a
few washings. The internal use of sulphur is
an excellent remedy, and if given to animals
occasionally, is one of the best preventives.

It is more difficult to apply remedies for lice
to sheep than to any other animals. The English
shepherds make use of a salve compounded
of white arsenic and corrosive sublimate, care-
fully parting the wool, and applying the oint-
ment in small quantities directly to the skin,
and rubbing it down with the finger. Tessier
prefers tobacco smoke to this ointment, as at-
tended with less danger in its use. The sheep
is held in such a manner that tobacco smoke
is forced from a bellows among the wool to the
skin in all directions. After this fumigation,
the sheep must be placed in the open air, that
the vapor may have room to pass off without
being inhaled by them. Perhaps the best re-
medy for lice in animals, where they have not
become so numerous as to produce the disease
Pityriasis, is to rub any oil, such as whale oil
or melted lard, on such places as they most
frequent, or on parts of the animal where they
will be most likely to come in contact with it.
All the pediculi breathe through what are
termed spiracles or openings in their bodies,
and the least particle of oil spread over their
bodies, by causing suffocation, at once effects
their destruction. This is also a perfectly
harmless remedy. But prevention in this case
is better than cure ; and neatness, cleanliness,
and good keeping, by insuring comfort and
health, leaves no opportunity for the attacks
of vermin. (Cultivator.)

LICE ON PLANTS. See Aphidiahb, Amb-
RicAJv Blioht, and Insects.

LICHENS. Plants of a very low organiza-
tion, which grow on the bark of trees or rocks,
when they form a kind of incrustation, or upon
the ground, when they consist of irregular
lobes, parallel with the earth's surface. Occa-
sionally, in all situations, they are found in a
branched state ; but their subdivisions are ge-
nerally irregular, and without order. Their
fructification consists of hard nuclei, called
shields, which break through the upper surface
of the ihallus, or main substance of the lichen,
are of a peculiar odour and texture, and con-
tain the reproductive particles. Lichens abound
in the cold and temperate parts of the world.
The greater part are of no known use; but
some, as the reindeer-moss (Cenomyce rangife-
rina), the Iceland moss (Cetraria Islandica), and
various species of Gyrophora, are capable of
sustaining life, either in animals or man. The
Iceland moss, when deprived of its bitterness
by soaking in an alkali and then boiling, be-
3 0 709

LICKS.

LIGHT.

comes, indeed, a diet recommended to invalids.
Others are used as tonic medicines, as Variola-
ria faginea and Parmelia parietina. Their prin-
cipal use is, however, that of furnishing the
dyer with brilliant colours; orchall, cudbear,
and perolle,with many more, are thus employed.
(Brande's Did. of Scierice.) See Moss.

LICKS. A term applied in the United Stales
to places where salt springs escape from the
earth and impregnate the soil, and sometimes
give rise to an efflorescence of common salt.
To such spots the deer, buffalo, and almost all
graminivorous animals resort, for the purpose
of licking the surface. See Salt.

LID. In botany, the calyx which falls off"
from the flower in a single piece.

LIFE EVERLASTING. See Cudweed.

LIGHT, ITS INFLUENCE ON VEGETA-
TION. That light has a considerable influence
upon the growth of plants, is an observation
that must have been very early made by man-
kind. The inferior green colour of plants
growing in the shade, as in woods, or when
covered with earth, or inverted vessels, would
clearly indicate to the most careless observer,
that light at least influenced the colour of ve-
getation : every gardener, in truth, takes advan-
tage of this fact, when he is blanching his
culinary vegetables. But it was not till after
the days of Priestley, that the other chemical
effects which light produces upon a growing
plant were so much better understood.

It is probable that this influence commences
at a very early period in the life of the plant,
with even the germination of the seed. Ingen-
houz, says Dr. Thomson, found that seed al-
ways germinate faster in the dark than in the
light. (Exper. sur la Veg. 1 1.) And these expe-
riments were repeated by Sennebier with equal
success. (Mem. Physico-Chem. vol. iii. p. 41.)
But the Abbe Bertholin, who distinguished
himself so much by his labours to demonstrate
the eflfect of electricity on vegetation, objected
to the conclusions of these philosophers, and
aflirmed that the difference in the germination
of seeds in the shade and in the light, was
owing, not to the light itself, but to the differ-
ence in the moisture in the two situations, the
moistu re evaporating m uch faster from the seeds
in the light than from those in the shade; and
he aflirmed that when precautions were taken
to keep the seeds equally moist, then those in the
sun germinated sooner than those in the shade.
(Jour, de Physique, 1789.) But when Sennebier
repeated his former experiments, and employed
every possible precaution to insure equality
of moisture in both situations, he constantly
found the seeds in the shade germinated sooner
than those in the light. We may conclude,
therefore, that light is injurious to germination ;
and hence one reason for covering seeds with
the soil in which they are grown. But from
the more recent experiments of Saussure, there
is reason to believe that light is only injurious
to vegetation in consequence of the heat it
produces ; for where the direct ra)'s of the sun
were intercepted, though light was admitted,
the germination of the seeds was not sensibly
retarded. (Reck. Chem. svr la Veg. p. 23 ; Thom-
son's Chem. vol. iv. p. 307.)
And with regard to the after-growth of plants,
710

light exercises a very considerable influence.
It is now clearly ascertained that plants vege-
tating in the light, absorb carbonic acid gas
from the atmosphere, and emit oxygen gas;
but when vegetating in the dark different ef-
fects are produced, for then carbonic acid gas
is emitted, and oxygen gas absorbed. (See
Gases.) This latter process is thus explained
by Liebig : — " It is true that the decomposition
of carbonic acid is arrested by the absence of
light; but then, namely, at night, a true che-
mical process commences, in consequence of
the action of the oxygen in the air upon the
organic substance, composing the leaves, blos-
soms, and fruit. This process is not at all
connected with the life of the vegetable organ-
ism, because it goes on in a dead plant exactly
as in a living one. The substances composing
the leaves of different plants being known, it
is a matter of the greatest ease and certainty
to calculate which of them during life should
absorb most oxygen by chemical action where
the influence of light is withdrawn. The leaves
and green parts of all plants containing vola-
tile oils, or volatile constituents in general,
which change into resin by the absorption of
oxygen, should absorb more than other parts
which are free from such substances. Those
leaves, also, which contain either the consti-
tuents of nutgalls, or compounds in which ni-
trogen is present, ought to absorb more oxygen
than those which do not contain such matters.
The correctness of these inferences has been
distinctly proved by the observations of De
Saussure; for whilst the tasteless leaves of the
Agace Americana absorb only 0*3 of their vo-
lume of oxygen in the dark during 24 hours, the
leaves of the Pinus abies which contain volatile
and*resinous oils absorb 10 times, those of the
Qiiercus robur containing tannic acid 14 times,
and the balmy leaves of the Populus alba 21
times that quantity. This chemical action is
shown very plainly also in the leaves of the
Cotyledon calycinum, the Cacalia ficoides, and
others; for they are sour like sorrel in the
morning, tasteless at noon, and bitter in the
evening. The formation of acids is effected
during the night by a true process of oxydation ;
these are deprived of their acid properties
during the day and evening, and are changed,
by separation of a part of their oxygen, into
compounds containing oxygen and hydrogen,
either in the same proportions as in water or even
with an excess of hydrogen, which is the com-
position of all tasteless and bitter substances.
When the green leaves of the poplar, the beech,
the oak, or the holly, are dried under the air-
pump, with exclusion of light, then moistened
with water, and placed under a glass globe filled
with oxygen, they are found to absorb that gas
in proportion as they change in colour. The
chemical nature of this process is thus com-
pletely established. The diminution of the gas
which occurs can only be owing to the union of
a large proportion of oxygen with those sub-
stances which are already in the state of oxides,
or to the oxydation of the hydrogen in those ve-
getable compounds which contain it in excess.
The fallen brown or yellow leaves of the oak
contain no longer tannin, and those of the poplar
no balsamic constituents, {Or^.. Chem. p. 28.)

LIGHT.

LIGHT.

The action of light upon the growing plant
is in every point of view full of interest to the
cultivator: "If all the branches of a tree, ex-
clusive of one," said Mr. T. M. Knight (and he
\ras one of the ablest of modern vegetable
physiologists), "be much shaded by contigu-
ous trees, or other objects, the branch which is
exposed to the light attracts to itself a large
portion of the ascending sap, which it employs
in the formation of leaves and vigorous an-
nual shoots, whilst the shaded branches be-
come languid and unhealthy. The motion of
the ascending current of sap appears, there-
fore, to be regulated by the ability to employ it
in the trunk and branches of the tree; and
this current passes up through the alburnum,
from which substance the buds and leaves
spring. But the sap which gives existence to,
and feeds the root, descends through the bark,
and if the operation of light give ability to the
exposed branch to attract and employ the as-
cending or albumous current of sap, it ap-
pears not improbable that the operation of
proper food and moisture in the soil, upon the
bark of the root, may give ability to that organ
to attract and employ the descending or cor-
tical current of sap." {Selection of Papert^ p.
160.) "M. Decandolle, I believe, first ob-
served that the succulent shoots of trees and
herbaceous plants, which do not depend upon
others for support, are bent towards the point
from which they receive light, by the contrac-
tion of the cellular substance of their bark
upon that side, and I believe his opinion to be
perfectly well founded. The operation of light
upon the tendrils and stems of the Ampelopsis
and ivy appears to produce diametrically op-
posite effects, and to occasion an extension of
the cellular bark wherever that is exposed to its
influence ; and this circumstance affords, I think,
a satisfactory explanation why these plants ap-
pear to seek and approach contiguous opaque
objects, just as they would do if they were
conscious of their own feebleness, and of power
in the objects to which they approach, to afford
them support and protection. The tendril of
the vine is internally similar to that of the
ampelopsis, though its external form and mode
of aftaching itself, by twining round any slen-
der body, are very different. Some young
plants of this species which had been raised
in pots in the preceding year, and had been
headed down to a single bud, were placed in
a forcing house, and the shoots from these
were bound to slender bars of wood, and train-
ed perpendicularly upwards. Their tendrils,
like those of the ampelopsis, when first emit-
ted, pointed upwards, but they gradually form-
ed an increasing angle with the stems, and
ultimately pointed perpendicularly downwards,
no object having presented itself to which they
could attach themselves. Other plants of the
vine, under similar circumstances, were trained
horizontally, when their tendrils gradually de-
scended beneath their stems, with which they
ultimately stood very nearly at right angles.
A third set of plants were trained almost per-
pendicularly downwards, but with an inclina-
tion of a few degrees towards the north, and
the tendrils of these permanently retained very
nearly their first positioa relatively to their

stems; whence it appears that these organs,
like the tendrils of the ampelopsis and the
claws of the ivy, are to a great extent under
the control of light. A few other plants of the
same species were trained in each of the pre-
ceding methods, but proper objects were placed
in different situations near them, with which
their tendrils might come intQ contact, and I was
by these means afforded an opportunity of ob-
serving with accuracy the difference between
the motions of these and those of the ampelop-
sis under similar circumstances. The latter al-
most immediately receded from light, by what-
ever means that were made to operate upon
them; and they did not subsequently show any
disposition to approach the points from which
they once receded. The tendrils of the vine,
on the contrary, varied their positions in every
period of the day, and afterwards returned
again during the night to the situations they
had occupied in the preceding morning, and
they did not so immediately or so regularly
bend towards the shade of contiguous objects.
But as the tendrils of this plant, like those of
the ampelopsis, spring alternately from each
side of the stem, and as one point only in three
is without a tendril, and as each tendril sepa-
rates into two divisions, they do not often fail
to come into contact within their reach, and
the effects of contact upon the tendrils are al-
most immediately visible. It is made to bend
towards the body it touches, and, if that body
be slender, to attach itself firmly by twining
round it, in obedience to certain causes. The
tendril of the vine, in its internal organization,
is apparently similar to the young succulent
shoot and leaf-stalk of the same plant; and it
is abundantly provided with vessels or pas-
sages for the sap ; and I have proved that
it is alike capable of feeding a succulent
shoot, or a leaf when grafted upon it. It ap-
pears, therefore, I conceive, not improbable
that a considerable quantity of the moving
fluid of the plant passes through its tendrils,
and that there is a close connection between
its vascular structure and its motions." {Ibid.
p. 166.

"The stems of the potato," he adds in an-
other place, "as of other plants, rise perpen-
dicularly under the influence of their unerring
guide, gravitation, so long as they continue to
be concealed beneath the soil ; but as soon as
they rise above it they are, to a considerable
extent, under the control of another agent,
light. Each inclines in whatever direction it
receives the greatest quantity of it, and conse-
quently each avoids and appears to shun the
shade of every contiguous plant; gravitation
labouring to give a perpendicular, the other a
horizontal direction to the leaves, and the com-
parative power of one agent increasing, as that
of the other decreases." (/frtrf. p. 300—306.)

The opinions of Liebig, as to the chemical
changes produced in plants, by the action of
light, and its withdrawal, seem confirmed, in
some degree, by those of Davy. " In the
changes that take place in the composition of
the organized parts," said that excellent phi-
losopher, " it is probable that saccharine com-
pounds are principally formed during the ab-
sence of light; gum, woody fibre, oils, and

711

LIGHTNING.

LIGNIN.

resins, during its presence; and the evolution
of carbonic acid gas, or its formation during
the night, may be necessary to give greater
solubility to certain compounds in the plant.
(Jgric. Chem. p. 223.) And after giving a va-
riety of experiments to elucidate the action
of vegetation on the atmosphere (see Gases,
THEiK Uses to Veg.etation), he adds, "These
facts confirm the popular opinion, and when
the leaves of vegetables perform their healthy
functions, they tend to purify the atmosphere
in the common variations of weather, and
changes from light to darkness. It may occur,
however, as an objection to these views, that
if the leaves of plants purify the atmosphere
towards the end of autumn, and through the
winter and early spring, the air in our climates
must become impure, the oxygen in it dimin-
ish, and the carbonic acid gas increase, which
is not the case ; but there is a very satisfactory
answer to this objection. The different parts
of the atmosphere are constantly mixed to-
gether by winds which, when they are strong,
move at the rate of from 60 to 100 miles in an
hour. In our winter, the southwest gales con-
vey air which has been purified by the vast
forests and Savannas of South America, and
which, passing over the ocean, arrives in an
uncontaminated state. The storms and tem-
pests which often occur at the beginning and
towards the middle of our winter, and which
generally blow from the same quarter of the
globe, have a salutary influence. By constant
agitation and motion, the equilibrium of the
constituent parts of the atmosphere is pre-
served ; it is fitted for the purposes of life :
and those events which superstition former-
ly referred to the wrath of heaven, or the
agency of evil spirits, and in which they saw
only disorder and confusion, are demonstrated
by science to be ministrations of Divine intel-
ligence, and connected with the order and har-
mony of our system." (Ibid. p. 2.30.)

LIGHTNING. An electric phenomenon, pro-
duced by the passage of electricity between
one cloud and another, or between a cloud
and the earth. The identity of lightning with
electricity, though it had been previously sus-
pected, was first directly demonstrated by the
celebrated Dr. Franklin, in the year 1749, by
the experiment of drawing sparks by the elec-
tric kite. Since that time the science of elec-
tricity has been greatly advanced; neverthe-
less, the cause of some of the appearances
connected with lightning is not well explained
even at the present day.

There are three phenomena in particular for
which theory fails satisfactorily to account.
The first is the form of the flash, which is almost
always zigzag, or in broken lines, making a
greater or smaller angle with each other. The
second is the frequent repetitionof the flashes
from the same cloud, which often follow one
another in quick succession, contrary to what
takes place in the case of electric conductors,
which generally recover their natural state, or
discharge the whole of their electricity at a
single stroke. The third is the length of the
flash, which sometimes appears to embrace a
large extent of the sky. This phenomenon can
be best observed from the tops of mountains,
712

reaching above the clouds from which the light-
ning proceeds ; and observers in such cases
agree in stating that they have seen flashes
certainly extendmg several miles in length.

The zigzag form of the flashes is common
to lightning and the electric spark: the same
explanation should consequently apply to both;
but this the theory has not yet been able to give.

The theory of the electric fluid, and the well-
ascertained differences in the conducting power
of different substances, suggested the idea of
protecting buildings from the destructive effects
of lightning by metallic rods. Such rods are
usually made of iron about half an inch in dia-
meter. The lower portion should descend into
the ground some 3 or 4 feet, and in all cases
penetrate to the moist earth. It should be
made rather larger than the rest of the rod, and
have a slant from the foundation, or outwardly.
Some recommend that the lower end should be
pointed in the same manner as the upper ex-
tremity. The top of the rod should have one
or more sharp points. As iron is so liable to
rust, by which the points become blunted, it is
usual to have these either gilt or tipped with
platinum, so as to be preserved from oxida-
tion. The tops of the rods may be raised some *
4, 6, or 8 feet above the chimneys or highest
points of the buildings they are intended to
protect. If the buildings be large, there should
be more points than one elevated at the diffe-
rent parts. Indeed, some persons who have de-
voted attention to the subject, say that there
should always be several projecting points
raised to receive the lightning from different
directions. Lightning rods cost but little, as
the platinum points can be bought for $1,25,
and the conductors may be easily made by any
blacksmith. They should have as few joints
as possible, and be inspected from time to time
to see whether any separation exists, and jvhe-
ther the joint remains in its place. Where,
from rust or other causes, any interruption to
the course of the electric fluid occurs, a light-
ning rod, instead of furnishing protection, is an
additional source of danger.

LIGHTS, NORTHERN, or AURORA BO-
REALIS. A luminous meteor, generalljr ap-
pearing in the northern part of the sky,' and
presenting a light somewhat resembling the
dawn or break of day. The appearances which
it exhibits, and the forms it assumes, are so
proverbially unsteady, that it is not possible to
comprehend them under any general descrip-
tion. In the Shetland Isles, and other coun-
tries in high latitudes, the northern lights are
the constant attendants of clear and frosty
evenings in winter. They are most frequent
in autumn. A very interesting account of this
meteor, and of the works treatingon this subject,
will be found under the head "Aurora Borea-
lis," in Brande's Did. of Science, &c.

LIGNEOUS (Lat. 'lignum, wood). In ento-
mology, a part so called when it is composed
of a hard, inelastic substance like wood.

LIGNIN (Lat. lignum). The woody fibre.
This most important proximate principle of
vegetables exhibits itself in a variety of forms,
constituting the diflferent textures of hard and
soft wood, and various fibrous products, such
, as hemp, flax, cotton, &c. When by fine me-

LILAC.

LILY.

chanical division it is reduced to a pulpy State,
it is formed into paper. When by different re-
agents all the soluble matters are extracted
from wood, the insoluble residue is lignin; its
ultimate components are carbon, oxygen, and ,
hydrogen, the two latter elements being in the
same relative proportions as in water; so that
woody fibre may be considered as a compound
of carbon and water, and, according to Dr.
Prout's experiments, almost exactly in equal
weights. Lignin is very unperishable, but
under certain circumstances it is attacked by
dry rot, arisibg out of the growth of a parasitic
fungus, which causes its rapid decay. Damp
timber, in situations where air has not free
access, is particularly subject to its attacks;
and when once it has made its appearance, the
well-seasoned limber in its neighbourhood be-
comes liable to the same disease. The dry rot
may be prevented by impregnating the timber
with certain saline solutions, and of these, so-
^^tion of corrosive sublimate has been found
most effectual ; this (the bi-chloride of mer-
cury) combines chemically with the albumen
of the wood, and the ct>mpound is very mde-
strucable. (See Dut Rjt.) Lignin has also
a strong attraction for alumina, and hence
linen, cotton, paper, and other forms of this
fibre, may be aluminized by steeping them in
hydrated alumina diffused through water, or
more effectively by soaking them in certain
aluminous solutions, drying them, and after-
wards washing out the excess of the salt. It
is in this Wtiy that cotton goods are impreg-
nated with alumina for the purpose of dyeing
and calico printing. Other metallic oxides ex-
hibit similar attractive powers, especially the
oxide of iron. The analogy that exists between
the composition of sugar, gum, starch, and
even vinegar and lignin, suggests the possi-
bility of the conversion of those substances, by
an exchange of their proximate elements, into
each other; and it has accordingly been found
that by carefully roasting pure and fine saw-
dust, it is rendered partially soluble in water,
and that a part of it is converted into a nutri-
tious substance, probably intermediate between
sugar and starch, and which, when mixed with
a little flour, yields a palatable bread, not very
unlike that made by some of the inhabitants
of the northern parts of Europe of the bark of
trees. Mixed with sulphuric acid, lignin passes
into gum, and from this sugar may be obtained,
by boiling it for some hours in a very dilute
sulphuric acid; this sugar, when purified,
much resembles grape or honey sugar. By
this process, rags may be converted into nearly
their own weight of this peculiar saccharine
matter.

The productionof vinegar by the destructive
distillation of Avood, was originally suggested
about the middle of the I7th century, by Glau-
ber, a celebrated German chemist of that time;
it has lately become a very important branch
of manufacture in England. Upon the whole,
there are very iev/ natural products equally
important with lignin in their applications to
the useful and ornamental arts. See Ptrg-
iieyEocs Acid.

' LILAC (Syringa, from syrinx, a pipe. The
90

branches are long and straight, and are filled
with medulla; hence the old name of the lilac,
pipe-tree. The English name of the genus is
from lilac or lilag, the Persian word for the
flower). The species of lilac are well known
elegant shrubs.

The common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) is a
shrub originally from Constantinople, growing
to the height of 18 or 20 feet. The elegant
lilac-coloured bunches of flowers are very
sweet and graceful to the eye. There is also
the white lilac, still more delicate-looking, and
equally sweet-scented. The most beautiful
variety of the common purple lilac is that
known by the title of the Scotch lilac.

The Chinese lilac {S. diinensis) is a native
of China, and less in size than the common
lilac; it was first brought to this country in
1795. Blooms violet-coloured flowers in May.

The Persian lilac (S. persica) is a native of
Persia, and seldom exceeds five or six feet in
height, blowing light purplish pink flowers in
May. The lilacs love a good garden soil, and
may be propagated by layers, shoots, and
suckers from the roots.

LILY (Lilium, derived from the Celtic word
/i, signifying whiteness; on account of the
beautiful white flowers of the original species).
This is a fine ornamental and well-known ge-
nus of exotic plants, almost all of which are
remarkable for the delicacy and beauty of their
flowers. Most of the species succeed in a
rich, light soil, but the American species
should be grown in peat. (Paxton's Bot. Did.)

Miller, in his Dictionary, mentions 13 spe-
cies, with their varieties: but there are now
more than 34 known species, besides innume-
rable varieties : the finest for garden ornament
are as follows: —

The superb martagon (L.superbtim). A beau-
tiful plant, blowing many bright orange flowers
spotted with violet. It loves bog soil.

Purple martagon, which grows 3 or 4 feet
high, blooming reddish or while flowers spot-
ted with purple. It blows in July. It is some-
times called Turk's cap. It is a native of
Germany.

Scarlet martagon (L, chalcedonicum). Native
of the Levant, blowing a bright scarlet flower
in June and July. It likes a good soil.

Turk's turban (i. pompfmiurn), blows a pretty
pendulous red flower in June, in the shape of
a turban. In Kamschatka the bulb of this spe-
cies is cultivated the same as the potato is in
this country.

Orange or fire lily (L. bulbiferum). Large
flower, of a deep orange colour, flowering in
June and July. The Russians andTungusians
also eat the roots of this species, either boiled
in milk or roasted. A German author informs
us that these mealy roots might, in times of
scarcity, be made into wholesome bread. The
roots are cathartic, and the leaves cooling.

Tiger lily (Z,. tigrinum). A beautiful showy
bulb, blowing an orange flower in June : it
loves a sandy soil and open situation.

Philadelphian lily (Z. Philadelphicum). Na-
tive of North America, blowing a deep orange
spotted or scarlet flower in July. This very
elegant plant may be known from the other
3o2 713

LILY OF THE VALLEY.

LILY, THE WHITE WATER.

species by the claws of the petals. The colour
of the flower is orange-red. Protect it in win-
ter by spreading coal ashes over it.

The American or Canadian lily (L. Cana-
dense), has flowers of a yellowish orange. It
is a fine plant, growing 2 or 3 feet high, and
found in abundance on the marshy shores of
the Delaware below Philadelphia. It is peren-
nial, and flowers in July.

The Superb American lily (L. superbum), is
a magnificent plant, which, says Dr. Wm. P.
C. Barton, may be ranked among the finest
vegetable productions of the United States. It
frequently attains the height of 6 or 7 feet,
supporting a profusion of elegant deep scarlet
flowers. It is found on the marshy shores of
the Delaware, and in the bogs of New Jersey
and other slates. A perennial, flowering in
July and August.

The common white lily (L. candidum), is too
well known to need description. It is hardy,
and produces a beautiful flower, the fragrant
odour of which is so powerful as to induce
fainting if numbers of them be kept over night
in a close apartment. The bulb roasted is
emollient and suppurative. All descriptions
of lilies are propagated freely by offsets from
the bulbs, which should be taken up when the
stem decays, and parted and replanted early in
October, 5 to 6 inches deep, in a light, dry soil.
The bulbs of martagons must never be trans-
planted till after the stem is decayed, as they
will not bear being disturbed. Many varieties
of lilies are produced from seed, which is
treated in the same way as tulip seed.

LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY (Convallana ma-
jalis, from the Latin convallis, a valley). This
very elegant sweet-scented indigenous peren-
nial is not reckoned among the lily tribe. It
grows in woods, heaths, and at the foot of hills,
flourishing and shedding its fragrance in May
and June. The roots are thread-shaped, creep-
ing, much entangled. Leaves two, radical,
eliptical, 3 or 4 inches long, acute, entire,
many-ribbed, smooth-stalked. Flower-stalk
solitary, simple, radical, naked, semi-cylindri-
cal, heaping a simple curved cluster of seve-
ral pendulous, cup-shaped, white flowers, with
rather distant segments. Berry as large as a
black currant, scarlet. There are varieties
with double or with purple flowers, sometimes
seen in gardens ; but not easy of cultivation,
and far less elegant than the wild kind, which
is among the most favourite of our native
flowers.

This vegetable is eaten by sheep and goats,
but refused by cows, horses, and swine. The
flowers when dried have a narcotic scent, and
if reduced to powder excite sneezing; hence
they are sometimes used as a sternutatory. A
beautiful green colour may be prepared from
the leaves, with the addition of lime. The lily-
of-the-valley will grow in any moist, shady
situation, and even under the drip of trees,
where few other plants would succeed. It is
multiplied by dividing the roots in autumn.
See SoioMow's Seal.

LILY, THE DAY (Hemeroeallis, from «>e^«,
a day, and jtaXA&c, beauty; alluding to the beauty
and duration of the flowers). This is an orna-
mental genus of exotic flowering plants of the
714

simplest culture, thriving well in any light
loamy soil, and readily increased by divisions.
The most common species are the yellow day-
lily (H.flava), a native of Siberia, blowing yel-
low flowers in June, and the fulvous or copper-
coloured day-lily (//. fulva), a native of the
Levant, blowing fulvous flowers in July and
August.

LILY, THE WHITE WATER. Candock,
or water-socks. {Nyviphaa, from nymphe, a
water-nymph; alluding to the habitation of the
plants.) These are beautiful plants, well wor-
thy of cultivating in every collection. The
stove species should be grown in tubs of water,
placed in a warm part of the house, with some
rich loamy soil at the bottorh. The hardy kinds
may be grown in ponds, canals, &c. They are
all increased either by seeds, dividing the roots,
or separating the tubers. (Paxton.)

The great white water-lily (N. alba) is a
beautiful perennial, native of Great Britain,
perhaps the most magnificent of all its nativf
flowers, growing in clear ponds and slow rivers.
The root is tuberous, horizontal, sending down
numerous long, stout radicles which are fibrous
at the extremity ; leaves floating, a span wide,
oval, heart-shaped, with nearly parallel or close
lobes at the base, entire, smooth. Every part
of the herb is slightly vascular, perspiring ra-
pidly, and, though so succulent, drying very
soon. Flowers four or five inches wide, white,
with yellow stamens and pistil ; the upper sur-
face of the calyx leaves white, often tinged
with pale red, generally destitute of scent. The
stems are superior to oak-galls fordyeinggreen.
The roots are astringent, and a weak infusion
is said to be useful in lepra. The roots are
used in Ireland and Jura for dyeing a brown
colour. The Egyptians eat the roots boiled,
and convert the seeds into bread. The Swedes
also have used this root in prevailing dearth,
as a substitute for corn ; though it requires to
be previously divested of its bitter taste by fre-
quent washings. According to Gleditsch, the
roots of this species and of the yellow lily are
equally useful in tanning and currying. This
plant is eaten by hogs, but disliked by goats,
and totally rejected by cows and horses.

The white water-lily looks very handsome
in sheets of water, or ponds in ornamented
grounds, blowing its large flowers in June and
July. They have a faint, sweet scent, and ex-
pand in sunshine, in the middle of the day only,
closing towards evening, when they recline on
the surface of the water, or sink beneath it.
The same circumstance is recorded of the
Egyptian N. lotus, from the^ most remote anti-
quity. The stimulus of ligh't, which indeed acts
evidently on many other blossoms and leaves,
expands and raises with peculiar force these
splendid white flowers, that the pollen may
reach the stigma uninjured; and when that
stimulus ceases lb act, they close again, droop-
ing by their own weight to a certain depth.
When the flower-seeds ripen in August, the
plant sinks again to the bottom. In transplant-
ing the water-lily, the pond must be entered,
the stem of the plant felt for, and the roots dug
up with a large ball of its mud left round them i
place it in an old fish-basket, and remove it
speedily, to sink it in the place intended for its

LILY, THE YELLOW WATER,

LIME.

removal. As the basket rots, the plant becomes
fixed in its new situation. Propagate by throw-
ing the ripe seed-vessels into large ditches of
standing water, when the young plants appear
the following spring.

The Great American Water-Lily, one of the
most splendid productions of floral nature, is
comparatively a rare plant. It is found in a
pond about a mile below the city of Philadel-
phia, and not far from Gloucester Point, a place
much resorted to by naturalists and amateur
florists during the season of flowering (August).
Some have asserted a belief that the seeds were
introduced from Europe; but the fact that a
plant precisely similar is found in other parts
of the country, and even in ponds along rivers
west of the Mississippi (the Kanses and Osage,
for example), proves the Cyamus or Ndumbium
a native of North America as well as of India,
where it is called the Saired Lean, .and conse-
crated to religious purposes. '-There is not,"
says Professor W. P. C. Barton, "any plant
in North America comparable to this for gran-
deur, simplicity, and beauty. Truly may it be
styled, as I have elsewhere called it, the Queen
of American Flowers. I regret to say that it is
not as abundant in our vicinity as it was five
years ago. This may be an accidental or tem-
porary decrease, owing to a disturbance of the
site where it grows. The leaves are perfectly
round, and centrally peltate. They are from a
foot to eighteen inches in diameter, of a rich
velvety green above, and very pale underneath.
They are supported by petioles from two to
three and a half feel in length." The flowers are
pale-yellow, globose, and about three or four
inches in diameter, supported above the surface
of the water by petioles or a scape, a yard in
length, frequently viuricate towards the upper
part. From this circumstance, together with
an accurate examination of a fine Chinese
painting of the India species, which differed
in nothing from the American plant, except in
the rose-coloured flower. Dr. Barton considers
the two species as identical.

The seeds are a kind of nut, very similar to
the chinquepin, of a very pleasant flavour, and
eagerly sought after by boys. The Indians in
the Far-West resort to them as food.

Of the genus Nymphaa, the Fragrant Water-
Lily is a species native to the United States, a
j^ery beautiful aquatic plant, with white flowers,
which exhale a delicious fragrance. The leaves
and flowers both float on the surface of the
water. It is a perennial.

LILY, THE YELLOW WATER (Nuphar,
from naufar or vyloufur, the Arabic name of
Nymphaa). This, like the last described, is
a genus of very beautiful plants, admirably
adapted for growing in ponds, cisterns, or lakes;
and they are increased by dividing the roots,
or by seeds, which have only to be thrown into
the water where they are intended to grow.
(Paxton.)

In England, the only indigenous species are,
L The common yellnw water-lily, or water-can
(A^. lu(ea), which is met with very frequent in
the wild state in rivers and pools. The whole
plant is rather smaller than the white water-
lily. Footstalks two-edged, flattened on the
upper surface; leaves entirely smooth, and

even rounded at the end, and generally at the
lobes, which meet and lap over each other.
The flowers, which appear in July, are about
two inches wide, cupped, all over of a golden
yellow, with the scent of brandy or ratafia,
whence they are called brandy-bottles in Nor-
folk. They perhaps communicate this flavour
by infusion to the cooling liquors or sherbets,
so much used in the Levant. The seed-vessel,
a coated berry, when ripe, bursts irregularly,
not dissolving away into a mass of pulp, like
the Nyntpliau. The roots, like those of the
white water-lily, are astringent, and contain a
quantity of fecula. If moistened with milk,
they are said by liiniiopus lo destroy crickets
and cockroaches. Hogs will eat this aquatic
plant, but all the other species of live-stock
reject it.

This aquatic plant is what is so familiarly
known in the United Stales by the name of
splatter-dock, a perennial, blooming its yellow
globular flowers in July and August, filling
ditches, and extending for miles along the shal-
low banks of rivers, below high water-mark.

2. The least yellow water-lily (N. pumila).
This is m"uch smaller than the preceding, and
flourishes principally in the highland lakes of
Scotland. The marsh-trefoil is often called the
dwarf water-lily.

Of the genus Nuphnr, another species (Kah
miuna) found in the United Stales is the Small
Water-Lily, with leaves floating like those of
the common splatter-dock, but only about one-
third the size ; yellow flowers, also floating, and
about half an inch in diameter.

LIMB. The border of a flower; also the
branch of a tree.

LIME (Germ, leim, glue). This very useful
earth is the oxide of a metal called calcium. In
England it is obtained by exposing chalk and
other kinds of limestone, or carbonates of lime,
lo a red-heat, — an operation generally conduct-
ed in kilns constructed for the purpose: the
carbonic acid is thus expelled, and lime, more
or less pure, according to the original qua-
lity of the limestone, remains. In this slate
it is usually called quick-lime. The purest quick-
lime is obtained from the calcination of white
marble. When sprinkled with water it become:^
very hot, and crumbles down into a dry pow-
der, called slaked lime, or hydrate of lime, owing
to the water becoming consolidated and an es-
sential part of the lime. When exposed for
some weeks to the air, it also falls into powder,
in consequence of the absorption of moisture;
but a portion of carbonic acid is also absorbed,
and the lime partially converted into limestone.
The uses of lime are very numerous. Its most
important application is in the manufacture of,
mortar and other cements used in building. It
is also very extensively used as a manure to
fertilize land.

LIME as a manure. There is some reason to
infer that lime has been used as a manure from
aVery remote period. M. P. Cato, in the oldest
agricultural treatise which has escaped to us,
describes, in his sixteenth and thirty-eighth
chapters, with much minuteness, the best means
of preparing it. And although, in the early-
writers on rural affairs, we find but few notices
of its use as a fertilizer, yet we may reasonably

715

LIME.

conclude that its employment was nearly as
extensive and as early as that of chalk or riiarl,
which were in very primitive times largely and
skilfully used for a similar purpose. Pliny
attests ihe use of it by the Roman cultivators
as a dressing for the soil in which fruit trees
wer^ planted.

Of all the earthy manures found in England,
lime is certainly the most powerful and rapid
in its effects on the soil ; and if its use is not
so extensive on the clays and peaty lands of
many districts of the island as is desirable, this
does not arise from the limited powers of this
earth, but rather from a variety of other causes,
such as its expense, the impurity of the lime
employed, and an ignorance of its most econo-
mical mode of application.

The common varieties of lime used by the
English farmers, are procured by calcining
either chalk or limestone. Such lime is there-
fore rarely, if ever, chemically pure, for it
almost always contains a portion of silica
(flint), alumina (clay), and some red oxide of
iron. These, however, are not often present
in sufficient quantities to influence the fertiliz-
ing powers of the lime to any material extent,
as will be readily seen by the analysis of the
limestones and the chalk usually employed by
the limeburners. Common limestone is com-
posed of

Partt.

Carbonate of lime ... 95-05

Water 168

Silica 112

Alumina - - - . - 1*00

Oxide of iron .... -75

100-

The slate-spar limestone contains —

Lime ------ 54-70

Carbonic acid - - _ - 43-30

Silica ------ 0-55

Oxide of iron - - - - 0-80

Loss ---.-- 0-65

100-

Common chalk is composed of —

Lime ------ 565

Carbonic acid - - - - 43-0

Water 05

100-

united with various small proportions of the
other earths. There is also a very considera-
ble proportion of lime made in the north of
England from the magnesian limestone (called
by the Yorkshire farmers " hot lime"), all of
which differ considerably in composition ; that
from Sunderland contains, in 100 parts,

Carbonate of lime
Carbonate of magnesia
Clay, water, &.c.
Oxide of iron

Part*.
56-80
40-84
200
0-36

100-

This "hot lime," which is well known by l*ie
farmers in the neighbourhood of Doncaster,
and other parts of the north of England, can
only be applied in limited quantities, for the
calcined magnesia of the limestone remains
for a considerable period in its pure caustic
.form, without absorbing carbonic acid gas
716

LIME.

from the atmosphere, and in this state its effect
is very pernicious to many kinds of plants. It
is only when pure, however, that magnesia is
prejudicial to vegetation : by exposure to the
atmosphere, it gradually and slowly absorbs
carbonic acid gas, becomes carbonate of mag-
nesia, and in this state forms a part of many
cultivated plants. Some of the most fertile
soils of Britain, in fact, contain it in this form,
in considerable quantities.

Limestone occurs of various colours and
shades, as well as of different degrees of hard-
ness. In weight the compact varieties are
very much alike, being generally a little more
than 2i times (2-7) heavier than water. Lime-
stone may be distinguished from other varieties
of rock, by dropping on it some strong acid,
such as the acetic acid (vinegar), sulphuric (oil
of vitriol), or muriatic (spirit of salt), upon the
addition of either of which bubbles of gas are
observed to escape when lime is present, but
not otherwise.

The action of the fire upon the chalk and
the limestones merely deprives them of their
water and carbonic acid gas, or fixed air. The
farmer must not fall into the very common
error of supposing that any thing is added by
the fire to the lime ; on the contrary, it loses
very materially in weight, by being deprived
of its carbonic acid gas, burnt or quick-Wvae
losing about 44 per cent, of its original weight,
a loss, however, which it gradually recovers
by exposure to the atmosphere, which always
contains this elastic vapour.

One of the most remarkable properties of
quick-lime, is its tendency to combine with
water. If quick-lime be moistened with a
certain quantity of water, it soon becomes
heathed, throws off a portion of the water in
the form of steam, and falls to a very fine,
white powder, which is a hydrate of lime, al-
ways containing 24 per cent, water ; if, how-
ever, more water be added, the same hydrate
is formed, but the excess of water agglutinates
the powder into lumps or masses which will
eventually become hard, and resemble stone.
Still more water immediately applied to quick-
lime, dissolves it, and forms lime-water. If
quick-lime be exposed to the air, it also falls to
a coarser powder by absorbing 12 per cent, of
water and 24 per cent, of carbonic acid from
the air, constituting a mingled carbonate and
hydrate of lime. The same change occurs
gradually with that which has been slacked by
water and is exposed to the air, the carbonic
acid of the atmosphere replacing the water of
the hydrate. The carbonate of lime, such as
exists in chalk, limestone, &c., is scarcely
soluble in pure water, but if the latter contain
carbonic acid, as rain water usually does when
in contact with the soil, the limestone enters
into solution. (Booth's Geology of Delaware.)

The lime which I have used, observes Mr.
C. W. Johnson, has been principally made
from chalk, at an expense of about five pence
or six pence per bushel. That which I made
from the magnesia limestone was from the
neighbourhood of Sunderland. This requires
less fuel to convert it into lime than the common
limestone. For the ordinary kinds, about one
bushel of coals is required for five or six

LIME.

LIME.

bushels of the limestone ; and from my own
experiments, I am inclined to agree in opinion
with many of the farmers of the midland coun-
ties, that the lime procured from limestone is
rather more powerful in its effects on clay soils
than that made from chalk.

la either case the shape of the kiln, and the
steady gradual application of the heat, are very
material circumstances to be regarded by those
M'ho burn their own lime. The limestone and
chalk should be placed in the kiln (which I
think is best of an egg shape), in moderately-
sized pieces, free from the powdered chalk or
stone; and care must be taken to have the
earth thoroughly burnt, of which perhaps the
best indications are its lightness, and the alte-
ration of the colour of the flame issuing from
the top of the kiln, which, when the lime is
sufficiently made, loses its red tinge. The
price of the fuel, and readiness of access to the
limestone or chalk, of necessity governs the
price of the lime: in some districts of the
north it is made by the farmers for not more
than one penny to three halfpence per bushel.

The chemical uses of lime to vegetation may
be conveniently divided into two heads ; first,
its direct action upon vegetation; and second-
ly, its chemical operation on the matters con-
tained in all cultivaieable soils.

In its direct action, as a food or constituent
of plants, its uses are highly important ; for
hardly a single plant has yet been analyzed, in
which the presence of lime has not been de-
lected, in combination with an acid. It must
be regarded indeed as an essential ingredient
in almost all vegetable substances, as a direct
food of plants.

It is found in the commonly cultivated crops
of the farmer, however, in very varying pro-
portions : thus the ashes of the oat-plant contain
more than five per cent, of lime; in two
pounds* weight of the seeds of wheat are com-
monly found about 12 grains of carbonate of
lime; in the same quantity of rye, about 13-4
grains ; in barley 24-8 grains ; 33*75 grains in
the oat, and 46-2 in the same weight of rye-
straw. It abounds also with magnesia in the
wood of trees : the ashes of that of the oak
contain about 32 per cent, of the earthy carbo-
nates ; those from the poplar 27 per cent.; from
the hazel 8 ; of the mulberry 66 ; and from the
hornbeam 26 per cent. The proportion how-
ever of lime found in plants varies with the
composition of the soil on which they are pro-
duced. Thus the ashes of the leaves of the fir
(Pimis abies), growing upon a limestone hill,
were found to contain 43-5 per cent, of the car-
bonates of lime and magnesia, but the ashes
from the leaves of another fir growing upon a
granite soil yielded only 29 per cent, of the
same eanhy salts. There are very few soils
fit for cultivation from which this earth is en-
tirely absent, and its addition is commonly
found by the farmer to promote the fertility of
most barren lands — the most sterile heaths, for
these are the very lands whose soils contain
hardly a trace of lime ; in that of Bagshot, for
instance, it exists in a very minute proportion.
The attraction of lime for the aqueous parti-
cles of the atmosphere is considerable. In my
own experiments 1000 parts of lime previous-

ly dried in a temperature of 212*' gained by ex-
posure for three hours to air saturated with
moisture, at a temperature of 60°, 11 parts.
Professor Schubler found that the same weight
gained in 12 hours 26 parts, in 24 hours 31
parts, in 48 hours 35 parts, when it appeared
to have become saturated with moisture, for in
72 hours it had not again increased in weight.
Lime therefore is not without its uses even in
this respect to vegetation. Lime and chalk
differ in their action, and in their value as fer-
tilizers in several respects; thus lime dissolves
and renders soluble the organic matters of the
soil, which chalk does not; its action, too, as a
direct food of plants, is more rapid, from the
superior readiness with which it mingles with
the soil. And again, its carriage is consider-
ably lighter, for in the process of lime-burn-
ing almost all the water and carbonic acid gas
of the chalk are driven off. These amounted
in some specimens of Kentish chalk, which I
examined, to more than 58 per cent.; so that
when the farmer carries 42 tons of recently
well-burnt lime, he conveys as much real earth
on to his land as is sometimes contained in
100 tons of chalk.

The chemical action of the lime on the soil
is also very considerable; mixing with the
heavy adhesive clays, it renders them more
friable, less liable to be injuriously acted upon
by the sun, and much more readily permeable
by the gases and vapour of the atmosphere. It
renders them, the cultivator tells you, "more
easily workable." And, again, the action of
lime upon the organic substances always more
or less contained in the farmers* soils is very
considerable; and this benefit is not merely
confined to the vegetable remains in the land,
but it extends with equal energy to the dead and
the living animal matters, with which, in a
countless variety of forms, the soil is tenanted.
There are few substances, in fact, more de-
structive to grub-worms, animalculae, <fec., than
lime ; and where these are destroyed by the
action of the lime, the soil is, as a natural
consequence, enriched by their remains. On
soils which abound in sulphate of iron, which
is commonly the case with those containing an
excess of peat, the action of lime is not only
highly beneficial in decomposing or rendering
soluble the mass of inert vegetable remains,
but the lime decomposes the sulphate of iron,
and, uniting with its sulphuric acid, forms the
well-known fertilizer, the sulphate of lime or
gypsum of commerce.

When quick-lime is applied to the soil, it
gradually becomes converted, by exposure to
the atmosphere, into carbonate of lime (chalk) ;
its action as a solvent ceases, and its presence
is now only useful as a direct food or consti-
tuent of the farmer's crops. This, however,
affords an opportunity for the beneficial repe-
tition of the dressing with lime, so far as its
solvent powers are available. But then, as
might, for the above reasons, have been antici- ,
pated, the farmer finds that the after-limings
never do so much good as the first ; and as by
each successive application the lime reduces
still more and more the quantity of organic
matters in the soil, so it follows as a natural
consequence that after each succeeding dress-

717

LIME*

LIME.

ing, the benefit produced becomes less and less, ]
and finally the cultivator informs us that "the
land is tired of lime." This result has been
experienced to a very considerable extent in
the north of England, where the cheapness of
fuel and the abundance of the common lime-
stone has, in too many instances, tempted the
farmer to add to his land lime in excessive
quantities. For such over-limed soils, the only
remedy is the addition of organic matters. In
such cases, peat will, in moderate quantities,
be occasionally found an excellent dressing.

The quantity of lime used per acre of neces-
sity varies with the soil, and the expense with
which it is procured. The heavy clay and peat
soils require the largest proportions; the light
lands need a much smaller quantity to produce
the maximum benefit. I have used it at the
rate of 25 bushels per acre, mixed with earth,
on light soils, and never more than 100 bushels
per acre on clays. This is the proportion com-
monly used on the heavy soils of the midland
counties, and the deep clays of the weald of
Kent. In Scotland they apply sometimes as
much as 360 bushels per acre, and in Ireland
still larger quantities have been successfully
employed; and on some of the peat mosses of
the north of England, more than 1000 bushels
have been used with good effect. The employ-
ment of such large proportions, however, can
rarel}' be justified, even when the lime is ob-
tainable at a very low rate.

I have used lime, and have been present at
other liming operations for many years. I
have chiefly employed it either as a top-dress-
ing, or which, for light soils, I much prefer,
mixed with ditch scrapings, old banks or pond
mud, at the rate of one bushel of lime to a cubic
yard of earth. And then, after thoroughly mix-
ing them together, and allowing the mass to
remain for a month or six weeks, I have al-
ways succeeded in forming a most enriching
compost, which, on even the gravelly soils of
Essex, applied at the rate of 20 to 25 cubic
yards per acre, both for wheat, clover, and po-
tatoes (to which crop, in general, lime is pre-
judicial), has produced the most powerful
effects, certainly increasing by one-third the
produce of the natural soil. It is only in the
state of mixture with earth, or peat, or salt, that
I have found lime profitably useful for light,
gravelly soils. Yet I have varied the applica-
tion in a variety of ways and proportions, but
still, for the gravels or sands, the result was
never entirely satisfactory. But I have wit-
nessed, as a dressing for the black hungry
gravels of Spring Park, near Croydon, lime
and peat mixed together, at the rate of 1 part
of lime and 3 parts of peat, with the most com-
plete success. The peat is reduced to a finely-
divided state, and rendered partially soluble by
the action of the lime, and is a most powerful
top-dressing for young clovers. This is ex-
plainable (amongst other reasons) by the fact
that the peat employed being saturated with a
solution of sulphate of iron, the lime converted
it into sulphate of lime, which is a constituent
or direct food of clover. Equally successful,
on light soils, have been my trials of lime, when
mixed with common salt; 3 parts of lime,
mixed with 1 part of salt in a dry state, and
718

suffered to remain for three months previon*
to its being used in a dry place. By applying
this mixture at the rate of from 40 to 50 bushels
per acre, crops of turnips have been grown
under my directions fully equal to any produced
by 20 cubic yards per acre of farm-yard com-
post: and in 1840, the produce of ground thus
dressed fully equalled that of some adjoining
lands of the same field, which had been ma-
nured with the ordinary compost. And an
excellent neighbouring farmer, Mr. Foster, of
Great Totham, in July, 1840, made an experi-
ment with turnips, entirely confirming those
I had elsewhere instituted. He applied a mix-
ture per acre of 30 bushels of lime with 15
bushels of salt, to 10 acres of a field contain-
ing 12 acres. The land previously had a crop
of rye, which was fed off with sheep ; and on
the 2 acres to which the salt and lime were not
applied, the sheep had oil cake given to them,
and, moreover, the land was sub-soiled to a
depth of 18 to 20 inches. The field previous-
ly had a good summer fallow. The lime and
salt was spread broadcast after the last plough-
ing, and harrowed in before the seed. The
turnips were of the variety called green rounds.
The land slopes to the south, and its soil is a
light, mouldy turnip soil. In examining them
in company with Mr. Foster, in the last week
in August, he expressed himself abundantly
satisfied with the result. The crop of turnips
was equally good all over the field; if there
was a shade of difference, it was in favour of
the sub-soiled and cake-fed land ; but the ad-
vantage, if any, was exceedingly inconsider-
able.

In the use of this mixture, I have found the
moisture of the atmosphere highly advanta-
geous in increasing the operation of the lime
and salt; an observation, too, which is not
confined to the dry, gravelly soils on which
my experiments were carried on. Thus, in
1839, on an exhausted, rather heavy turnip
loam, 80 bushels per acre of a mixture of salt
1 part, and lime 2 parts, made three months
previously, were spread in July, and sown
with the white round turnips. The turnip
plants came up equally well all over the field;
but on the portions where the salt and lime
were omitted, they speedily perished; but in
every part dressed with the lime and salt, the
crop was excellent.

In the dry season of 1840, however, another
portion of the same field being treated in a |
similar manner, the effect produced by the f
lime and salt was not nearly so decisive ; the
plants were weak, the crop inferior. ♦

I have found the lime and salt equally bene-
ficial as a dressing for wheat and barley; but
a description of those experiments will more
properly be found under the head Salt and
Lime ; for when the application is made to the
land, the lime and salt have, in fact, entered
into new combinations ; the compound applied
is no longer a dressing with lime and salt, but
with a mixture chiefly composed of chloride
of calcium and carbonate of soda, with a por-
tion of undecomposed lime and common salt.
I have several times mixed lime, in cases
where I suspected the presence of grub and
the seeds of weeds, with farm-yard compost,

LIME.

LIME.

but never successfully. Convinced of the ill 1
effects of the lime being thus mixed, I have
long since abandoned the practice. There is,
in fact, no beneficial object to be attained by
this mode. The natural well-regulated fer-
mentation of the dung effects all that the lime
can do, and in a better manner ; for the lime
dissolves, and, to a considerable extent, decom-
poses the finer and richer portions of the com-
post ; and it certainly renders the straw and
other coarser portions of the manure drier and
more difficult to dissolve in the soil. The
practice, therefore, seems worse than useless.

In the application of lime to heavy clay
land, I have always found that it was best,
used either in its simple uncombined state, or
after an ultimate mixture of sandy or light cal-
careous earths, or peal, or salt. But by no
means of applying it (and I have varied my
experiments in a variety of ways with con-
siderable industry) on the land, could I ever
produce superior effects than by applying the
lime in its uncombined state, as well burnt and
finely divided as possible ; and this I have gene-
rally done as a top-dressing (merely harrow-
ing it in with the seed), from considering that
by the soluble property of lime (1 lb. of lime
dissolving in 480 lbs. of water), the rain always
•conveys it deeper into the soil.

And yet, from an experiment recently made
at my suggestion by my next neighbour, Mr.
Foster, a very excellent farmer of Great To-
tham, in Essex, I am inclined to believe that
the lime will produce effects nearly equally
important when it is ploughed into the soil.
This trial was made in December, 1839, on a
field of 5 acres, whose soil is a cold, stiff,
deep, hungry loam, that had previously borne
a very poor crop of turnips, which were fed
off with sheep. This field has a declination
towards the southwest, and has always pro-
duced crops of a very inferior description. In
the middle of December, after spreading 80
bushels per acre of lime (made from chalk)
from the cart's tail, by the shovel, it was im-
mediately ploughed in and drilled with the
common red wheat. The effect was excellent,
everj' one of the neighbours agreeing that the
land never produced such a crop before. And
that this was owing to the lime, was evident
from the inferior produce on the spots where
the lime had not been spread.

The exact quantity, however, per acre, Mr.
Foster is unable to state, owing to his being
prevented in the hurry of harvest from keeping
it separate : he estimates it, however, at about 4^
quarters per acre, and he is clearly of opinion
that this large produce (for his land) arose not
so much from the thickness of the crop, as
from the largeness of the ears.

In the boggy, unreclaimed lands of Spring
Park, the effect produced by the direct use of
lime, at the rale cf 200 bushels per acre, is ex-
cellent. The cost is there 4 pence per bushel,
and it is that made from chalk. But on the
light, hungry, black gravels of that farm, as
well in fact as upon the clays of that district
(and the same remarks apply in general to al-
most all light soils and situations), the lime is
never productive of such powerful effects as
when mixed with the earthy matters from

ditches, ponds, old banks, or headlands. Bat
here let me earnestly impress upon the farmer
the necessity and the great advantage of pay-
ing much more than common attention to the
mixing of the lime with the earth.

The lime should not only be of the best
and recently burnt description, but should be
mixed as thoroughly and as finely as possible
with the earth. By this means the heat gene-
rated in the mass by the slaking of the lime is
considerable, and is productive of several ad-
vantages : it kills more completely insects of
all kinds — seeds of weeds, and the more stub-
born roots of weeds. And the mixed earths
are rendered considerably more friable, and
capable of a much more even and economical
distribution on the farmer's crops, than by the
ordinary careless way of mixing them. On
peat soils, and on those abounding in the
tough inert remains of the heath plants, lime
is best applied in its purest stale, unmixed
with any other substances to weaken its effect.
Its action on such soils is not difficult of ex-
planation. It dissolves and renders soluble
the organic matters of the soil, and it decom
poses the sulphate of iron (or green vitriol)
which it often contains. In such lands, too,
we rarely find any lime: it furnishes, there-
fore, to them a portion of an earth whose pre-
sence is absolutely essential to the profitable
growth of all the most valuable vegetables.
How excellent such an addition is to these soils,
even when applied only at the rate of 4 bushels
per acre, has been proved by some extensive
experiments of the Scotch planter, the growth
of whose young woods has been very mate-
rially and rapidly promoted by merely placing
a handful of lime under each plant. Now we
have already seen how copiously this earth is
found in the ashes, not only of the fir, but in
those of all other timber trees. So unvaried, in-
deed, is the presence of the salts of lime in
vegetables, that they have been supposed to
produce a similar supporting effect to that the
same salts of lime yield in the bones of ani-
mals. And it is certainly worthy of remark
that the phosphate and carbonate of lime, of
which the bones of all animals are chiefiy
composed, are precisely the salts of lime the
most universally present in vegetables.

Lime must, therefore, be classed amongst
those manures which commonly serve to pro-
mote the permanent fertility of the land, for un-
less it is washed by the moisture of the atmo-
sphere, or the flood waters, it can only be re-
moved from the soil by becoming the food for
the cultivator's crops. In poor, peaty soils, no
other manure can be compared to it, either for
powerful effect, or for rapidity of action ; and
its usefulness is nearly as great on the stiffest
clay land. Whenever, therefore, the permanent
improvement of such soils shall be considered
with that general and that patient attention
which the importance of the object demands,
at that period the fertilizing powers of lime
will be still more generally appreciated, and
its services be far more extended than at
present.

The quantity of lime applied per acre of ne-
cessity varies with the description of the soil;
that which contains most organic matter will,

719

LIME.

LIME.

of necessity, bear a larger proportion than that
which is more free from vegetable or animal
remains. The quantity usually applied is
much too large, and the dressing too often re-
peated without proper consideration ; and it is
not until the land becomes absolutely over-
charged with lime, that the farmer begins to
have a suspicion that his land is tired of it. In
Ireland it is sometimes applied to old pasture
leys intended for potatoes, at the rate of 400
bushels per acre ; and on some of the moors
in Derbyshire, 1600 bushels per acre have
been found not too large a quantity. In Scot-
land the quantity usually applied for light
land is about 160 bushels per acre; for stiff
ciay soils from 240 to 360 bushels. On the
stiff clays of the Weald of Kent, the quantity
usually employed is about 100 bushels per
acre, and that is often repeated every 5 years,
on the fallow before wheat, for many years.
Lime may be as readily produced by burninsr
limestone with peal as with coals ; the heat
produced is amply sufficient, and the heat
more easily managed.

*'I conceive," says Mr. Hillyard of North-
amptonshire, "lime to be a stimulant only, and
not a manure. Lime gives solidity to light
land, the means of retaining moisture, and in
some degree prevents the rays of the sun from
penetrating so deep into the soil, and drying
up the roots. Lime also encourages the growth
of clover; but it does not do the good that is
equal to the expense, when applied to land that
has for a length of time had it periodically laid
on. It is the common practice in this county
to lime and dung the land for turnips nearly
at the same time, just before sowing. To put
on materials that must cause such different
effects cannot, I think, be quite right, and there-
fore it would be better not to put on the lime
till the next spring, before sowing barley and
seeds. I have heard of lime being laid on a
stubble or clover ley, and when slacked,
ploughed in, thus depositing it at the bottom
of the furrow, where it can do but little if any
good, and it naturally will get lower. It should
be laid on the land after it is ploughed, and,
by harrowing, well incorporated with the soil.
Very little benefit," concludes Mr. Hillyard, "is
derived from laying on a small quantity of
lime ; it requires 20 or 25 quarters per acre to
do a very essential good."

"In the county of Dublin," says Arthur
Young, " they lay 160 barrels, or 640 bushels
on an acre ; strong loam or limestone finds the
greatest benefit from it, and the farmers say it
lasts as long as limestone gravel. In the county
of Cork, Mr. Aldworth found lime to have a
vast effect on strong loam or limestone. . On
all poor, thin, light soils, and others, on a
quarry of stone, especially limestone, that have
been long in tillage, lime is found to do no
service. Upon wet, cold loams, that have not
been sufficiently drained, lime does no good:
and when they are dry, unless they are rich,
this manure will operate very little ; on cold,
wet, tenacious clays, it has often failed, and
also on strong, stony land. Lord Holderness
found some very good land of this description
almost ruined from a long course of liming.
Where there is a great mass of vegetable or
720

animal matter not putrid, and which cannot
putrefy sufficiently, there lime does the busi-
ness at once, and has an effect which has been
thought astonishing.

Arthur Young was of opinion, that the lime
made by calcining limestone was much supe-
rior for agricultural purposes to that made
from chalk, of which last description he had
evidently but a poor opinion as a fertilizer. He
thought too, and very justly, that this earth
was not so advantageously applied, when
mixed with farm-yard dung, as when applied
in its simple state ; a conclusion in which he
was no doubt pretty near the truth, although
he gives some facts observed by a farmer at
Belchamp Water, in Essex, which rather mili-
tates against this conclusion: "It destroys,"
says the Rev. P. Raymond, " all the seeds of
weeds in the crop— 25 bushels of lime to 20
loads of dung per acre. It is found, however,
to be rather detrimental to turnips. Crude
lime, laid upon light, dry land, at the rate of
one bushel to the rod, has produced benefit for
seven years: it is generally in this parish car-
ried on to stiff clay, with great advantage, mixed
with dung. It is of still more use to wheat and
barley." (Johnson on Fertilizers, p. 294.)

There is perhaps no other country so richly
endowed with this earth as England, for,
to say nothing of its great strata of chalk,
how endless are the masses and varieties of
limestones. Let us not therefore neglect, but
extend, by every means in our power, the use
of the treasures we possess ; for by so doing
we may not only increase the fertility of lands
already (like the more tenacious clays for in-
stance) in some degree productive of food, but
we can bring into cultivation, by the judicious
employment of this powerful earth, the most
sterile peats, the trembling bogs, the most
worthless heaths : the inferior plants, such as
the acid sorrel, are banished by its influence,
and the soil which once only held the stagnant
water impregnated with unwholesome vegeia-
table and mineral matters, is now made to pro-
duce the most useful of the cultivator's crops;
and the improvement, too, is of even national
importance, for such lands not only furnish
additional employment to the labourer, but
they now purify an atmosphere which their
exhalations in an unimproved state once cor-
rupted.

" Much has been written and said relative to
the preservative and destructive effects of lime
on organic manures, from which we learn that
it operates both ways, according to its chemical
state. If employed as quick-lime, and placed
in contact with organic matter, its alkaline pro-
perties would lead us to infer a decomposing
influence, which is confirmed by experience;
but the effect is of short duration, and is suc-
ceeded by the reverse operation, that of pre-
serving such matter from farther decomposi-
tion. The truth is, if we could insure a con-
tinuance of its caustic state, we might be
equally sure of its constant decomposing
power, but by this action it generates carbonic
acid from the organic matter uniting with it
and forming a neutral carbonate, which either
acts like other salts in preventing decomposi-
tion by its presence or catalytic influence, or

LIME.

LIME.

being formed and hardened in the interior of
the organized material, protects it from farther
decay. For this reason it may be used to pre-
vent excessive fermentation in the dung-hill;
and to the same properties we may in part
ascribe its utility in the soil, viz., that of per-
mitting the sloAV and gradual decay of organic
matter in quantities suited to the demands of
vegetation. It has been supposed that the
chief value of lime as a manure lay in its
caustic or destructive effects, but that this po-
sition is untenable is proved by the successful
application of marls, and even powdered lime-
stone, which are robbed of their caustic quali-
ties. Sir H. Davy and others who have writ-
ten on the subject of agriculture, refer the
utility of lime to its causticity, and state that
* chalk, marl, or carbonate of lime will only
improve the texture of the soil or its relation
to absorption ; it acts merely as one of the
earthy ingredients.' This view is unquestion-
ably-incorrect, for it has been known to pro-
duce astonishing effects on peaty soils, when
applied in the form of carbonate and not caus-
tic lime, and powdered limestone as well as
marl have been successfully used on ordinary
soils. Besides, if ' the formation of soluble
matter from insoluble organic materials' be
the chief effect of lime, this effect should
take place immediately, while the lime is in
its caustic state ; but it appears that it soon
becomes carbonated in the soil, or by exposure
to the air, and yet its useful effects are more
perceptible a considerable time after its appli-
cation, and may be perceived for many years.
Whence it appears that its action on organic
matters in the soil is continued (probably not
increased) in the soil after carbonation.

" Much of the vagueness in descriptions re-
lative to the use of lime has arisen from an
imperfect knowledge of the organic constitu-
ents of soils, which have lately been partially
developed. Authors have divided the organic
matter into soluble and insoluble, by the for-
mer of which we understand the humic, crenic,
and apocrenic acids, and by the latter, humin,
humus-coal, and vegetable fibre; and they state
that lime is injurious where there is much
soluble matter in the soil, as it forms insoluble
combinations. The truth is, the humate of
lime is partially soluble, the crenate somewhat
so, and the bi-crenate very soluble. Now, by
admitting these acids as active ingredients in
soils, we are at no loss to account for the
utility of carbonate of lime, for the weak affi-
nity of the carbonic acid is overcome by their
superior attraction, and more soluble salts are
formed which may then be received into the
rootlets of plants. There can be no doubt,
however, that caustic lime is of greater benefit
where a soil contains humin and vegetable
fibre, as it promotes their incipient decomposi-
tion. The utility of lime, therefore, is three-
fold : first, that of decomposing organic matter,
and rendering it a suitable nourishment for
plants ; secondly, that of combining with orga-
nic matter and rendering it capable of being
received into the vessels of vegetable organ-
ization for promoting vegetation ; and, lastly,
that of lengthening the time of decomposition
of organic matter, which, therefore, yields nu-
91

trition in proportion to the demands of a plant
in the progress of its growth.

" It has been supposed by many to be neces-
sary that lime should be caustic, a& it is only
then soluble, but it should not be forgotten that
the carbonate is also soluble in water contain-
ing carbonic acid ; and farther, it is not neces-
sary that either the carbonate or quick-lime
alone should be dissolved in order to explain
its influence in vegetation, for moisture, the
medium of chemical action, is always present
in the soil, and assists in its soluble combina-
tion with the organic acids. There is, how-
ever, another action of lime with reference to
the soil itself, which is of importance, viz., that
it renders clayey lands looser, and sandy soils
more tenacious. The latter of these contrary
effects is of a chemical character, and there is
little doubt that lime acts like mortar by com-
bining the particles of sand together. The
former is partly mechanical, the mingling of
less cohesive earthy matter with the clay, and
partly chemical, in which the lime dissolved by
rains is washed into the crevices and cracks
of the clay, where, becoming carbonated, it
prevents their farther adhesion. To effect
these results most powerfully, it is evident
that the lime should be employed in a caustic
or water-slaked state. According to these
views, therefore, it is a matter of less moment
on what kind of land lime should be spread,
as it tends to ameliorate its condition or tex-
ture, and is the medium of conveyance of nu-
trition to vegetable life.

" Nearly all the limestone employed in Dela-
ware for spreading on the soil is magnesian,
and it is therefore worth investigating how far
the magnesia may be injurious. One of the
first limestones employed for this purpose in
Pennsylvania, from which lime derived much
of its reputation as a manure in this section of
country, and which has not lost its character
to the present time, is nearly of the same com-
position with Jeanes' stone ; a very fair proof
that such a content of magnesia is not inju-
rious under certain circumstances. Sir H.
Davy's view of the subject appears to be cor-
rect, that magnesia in a caustic state is inju-
rious, but that when carbonated it is beneficial.
It was stated that it remains caustic for a long
time exposed to the air, and particularly when
mingled with lime; therefore, in employing a
magnesian limestone, if there is little vegetable
matter in the soil it will be apt to injure the
crops; but this effect may be obviated by
mingling it with fermenting manure, which
will rapidly carbonate it. There is another
view of the subject which has never been
broached, viz., the influence of the organic
acids in the soil. If much humic acid be pre-
sent, it will form humate of magnesia, soluble
in 160 parts of water, while humate of lime
requires 2000, so that it will be taken up in
greater quantity than lime. But by referring
to the quantity required by plants as shown
by an analysis of their ashes, we find that oak
requires about 5^ times as much lime as mag-
nesia, and that ashes of straw yield nearly 12
per cent, of carbonate and phosphate of lime,
and no magnesia, from which it would seem
that the latter is injurious to plants from its
3P 721

k^:.

LIME.

LIME.

excess where humic acid is abundant. But if
the soil contain much humin, and other inso-
luble organic matter, its action in a caustic
state would be beneficial like that of lime. We
have, therefore, in Delaware abundant means
of rendering magnesian lime useful, by em-
playing it in conjunction with peaty matter, the
black soil of marshes, creeks, &c." (Booth's
Geology of Delaware.)

All the grain crops, as well as those of grass,
are greatly benefited by judicious applications
of lime in some of its various forms. Oats
take up a larger proportion than almost any
other grain, and hence are observed to be
specially benefited by lime. Rye and Indian
corn are also greatly benefited by lime, and
with regard to wheat, the following strong tes-
timony is from Dr. Jackson, the able American
chemist and geologist. " I find," he says, " by
chemical examination of several soils, that a
very minute quantity of carbonate of lime, viz.
from one to two per cent., is amply sufficient
to render them capable of bearing heavy crops
of good wheat. I am also satisfied that a soil
is incapable of producing wheat of good qua-
lity if it does not contain carbonate of lime,
for this substance is an essential ingredient of
this grain."

It has been computed that every person who
consumes 1 lb. of wheat bread daily, will, in the
course of one year, take into his system 3 lbs.
6 oz. 3 drs. and 44 grs. of phosphate of lime.
"This circumstance is supposed to explain the
reason why this kind of bread is so superior to
that made of other grain, as phosphate of lime
forms a principal element of human bodies. It is
found in milk, where nature seems to indicate
that it is contained for the nourishment of the
young animal, from the remarkable fact that,
when they are able to take other food, the milk
loses its proportion of this substance. Although
phosphate of lime is contained in considerable
quantities in the adult secretions,it is not known
in those of the young, being all taken up for the
purposes of nutriment. The shells of eggs are
formed of this substance, and Dr. Paris has as-
certained the singular fact that, if the legs of a
hen be broken, she will lay her eggs without
shells until these are repaired, for which the lime
is required. Hens will also lay their eggs with-
out shells if there is a deficiency of lime in the
yard in which they roam. It is a remarkable
circumstance, that although the grain contains
the phosphate, the straw contains the carbonate
of lime. Carbon is, next to water, the principal
support of vegetation." (Cultivator.)

Lime-Kilns and Burning. — A lime-kiln is a
furnace or rough structure erected for the pur-
pose of converting limestone into the lime of
commerce, by keeping it for some time in a
white heat.

The forms of lime-kilns vary; but the best
is that of the frustrum of a cone, which per-
mits the ignited mass in the upper part to settle
down freely as the lower portion is drawn out.
In some places the kilns are sunk in the earth,
in the form of inverted cones, and lined with
brick. It is calculated that such kilns will
burn 150 bushels of lime in 24 hours. When
chalk is used, and it is dry, 5 bushels may be
burnt with one bushel of coals ; but the damp-
723

ness of the chalk lessens considerably this
power of the fuel. Peat is sometimes used in-
stead of coals, and some burners prefer it to
coal. Whatever the fuel may be, that is the
best which prevents the lime from running to-
gether in masses. The best test of the lime
being sufficiently calcined is its slaking, and
falling into complete powder when water is
poured on it.

Some excellent practical remarks upon lime
burning, by Sir G. C. Stewart Monteath, were
published some time since. He observes:-—
" Having been engaged in burning lime for the
supply of an extensive district of country for
agricultural improvements, and being distant
from coal 16 miles, it was desirable to find out
the best constructed kiln for burning lime with
the smallest quantity of coal, and having been
aware, from experiment, that the kilns gene-
rally employed in Great Britain for burning
lime are of a construction too narrow at bot-
tom and too wide at top, many kilns of this
construction being not more than 3 or 4 feet
wide at bottom, and 18 feet wide at the height
of 21 feet, were found to waste the fuel during
the process of calcining the lime, or, in other
words, did not produce more than two measures
of burnt lime shells for one measure of coal ;
but it is to be understood that, in whatever con-
struction of kiln lime is burnt, the fuel required
to burn limestone must vary according to the
softness, or hardness, or density of the stone,
and the quality or strength of the coal used.
The same measure of coal in Scotland called
chews, when employed, will burn a greater
quantity of lime in a given time than the same
quantity or weight of small coal, the chews or
small pieces of coal admitting the air to circu-
late more freely through the kiln. Though this
fact should be well known to lime burners, yet
they frequently employ small coal in burning
lime, from its being procured at a less price,
though really at a greater expense, as it re-
quires a much larger quantity to produce the
same effect, and a longer time to admit of equal
quantities of lime being drawn out of the same
kiln in a given time.

" For a sale of lime for agricultural purposes
in a limited district, I have found kilns of small
dimensions to be most profitable ; the construc-
tion of a kiln I have employed for many years
was of an oval shape, 5 feet wide at bottom,
widening gradually to 6 feet at the height of 18
feet, and continuing at that width to 28 feet
high from the bottom. A kiln of this construc-
tion has been found to burn lime in much less
time, and with a smaller proportion of fuel,
than kilns of larger dimensions narrow at bot-
tom and wide at top, as heat is w^ell known to
ascend more rapidly in a perpendicular than
in a sloping direction, from which arises the
superiority of a narrow kiln, with sides nearly
perpendicular, compared with one with side^
that slope rapidly.

"These narrow kilns will admit of being
drawn out of them every day, if fully employed,
more than two-thirds, or nearly three-fourths,
of what they contain, of well-burnt lime; and
aflford fully three of lime shells for one measure
of coal, when large circular kilns will not give
out more than one-half of their contents every

LIME.

LIME GRASS.

<3ay, and require nearly one of coal for every mouths, the stone and coal should be carefully
two measures of lime burnt. In a country sale measured, so that the workmen can proportion
of lime, the quantity sold every day is liable to the fuel employed to the quantity of stones, and
great fluctuations : two or three cart-loads will it is obvious that the quantity of coal to be
sometimes only be required from an establish- used must depend upon its relative quality and
ment which, the day before, supplied forty; and the hardness of the stone to be burnt. If this
as lime is known to be a commodity, when ex- measure was adapted to kilns of any con-
posed to the action of air, which becomes more struction, the lime sneils would be found better
bulky and heavy, and in that state does not ad- burnt.

mit of being carried to a distance without addi-
tional labour, it has been an object of import-
ance with me to find out a construction of a kiln
which will allow of lime being kept for several

" Circular kilns are constructed with similar
eyes or openings at the bottom, and not more
than 8 feet wide at 18 feet from the base, and
contracted to 4 or 5 feet wide at top. In light-

days without slaking, and at the same time to ; ing the kiln at the commencement of burning,

prevent the fire escaping at the top of the kiln,
if the kiln stands 24 hours without being em-
ployed, especially during the autumn and win-
ter, when the air is cold and the nights long.
I now employ kilns of an egg shape, and also
oval ; the oval-shaped kilns are divided by

some care should be taken not to allow the fire
to remain below the upper grate. There are
two iron grates at the bottom of the kiln : the
upper grate consists of iron bars 8 or 10 inches
distant from each other across the kiln, be-
tween which the pieces of burnt lime fall down

arches across the kiln, descending 4 feel from | upon a lower grate with iron bars one inch
the top; the object of the arches across the j from each other, which allows the lime ashes

kiln is to prevent the sides of the kiln falling
in or contracting, and also to enable you to
form circular openmgs for feeding in the stone

to fall through them into an ash pit; these
lime ashes are found very useful as a top-
dressing for grass ground, and are a clear gain

and coal at the mouth of the kiln ; upon this to the proprietor of lime-kilns for public sale,
plan, a kiln of any length might be construct- j As a burner of lime for agriculture in an ex-
ed with numerous round mouths. In the model | tensive district of country to the extent of

of the kiln sent to the Highland Society, Book
er's conical cover may be seen revolving upon
an iron ring placed upon the circular mouth,
and having placed a lid to the cover, I am en-
abled to prevent the escape o^heat at the top,
and by cast-iron doors at the bottom the air is
prevented passing through the kiln ; so that,
by these precautions, the lime burner can regu-
late the heat, and prevent its escape for several
days, when the fire would be extinguished at
this season in the course of 24 hours. This is
an object of great importance, as it enables the
lime to be burnt as well, and with as small a
quantity of fuel in the winter as the summer
season, and to supply the farmer with as well
burned lime, and at any time of the year, which
cannot be done in the common construction of
kilns, open both at top and bottom, for the rea-
sons I have before slated. From the great ex-
pense attending the driving of fuel from a dis-
tance of 25 miles from my own coal-pits, I have
adopted the practice of coking the coal, which
is a saving of eight-twentieths of the weight ; and
I find that an equal measure of coal and coke
furnish the same quantity of heat in burning
lime, which is somewhat paradoxical, but not
the less true. The coal is found to have little
effect upon the stone till it is deprived of its
bitumen, or is coked in the kiln ; for, during the
time the smoke is emitted from the top of a
lime kiln, little or no heat is evolved. A kiln
in which coke is the fuel employed, will yield
near a third more lime shells in a given time
than when coal is the fuel ; so that coke may
be used occasionally when a greater quantity
of lime is required in a certain time than usual,
as it is well known to lime burners that the

150,000 imperial bushels annually, the value
of the lime ashes which fall through the lower
grate amounts to more than 150/. annually;
the lower grate is 3 feet above the ground, and
the upper grate is the same distance from the
lower one. The kilns I employ at Closeburn
are upwards of 30 feet high, and nearly per-
pendicular, which is the cause of the great
heat in this construction of kiln, and which is
found to burn lime more equally than circular
kilns of large dimensions. (Trans. High. Soc.
vol. ii. p. 127.)

The limestone quarries of Scotland are de-
scribed by Mr. Carmichael {Ibid. vol. v. p. 57) :
he observes, when speaking of the uses of this
valuable earth, "how sterile must have been
the soil, how cheerless the dwellings, and how
scanty the resources of Britain before lime
came into general use." And on the method
of calcining limestone in some of the limestone
quarries in Scotland there is a paper. (Ibid.
p. 441.)

Limestone Gravel. — There are some traces of
this manure in the Isle of Anglesea; but in ge-
neral, it is seen in quantities only in Ireland,
where it is very common. It is in appearance
only common gravel, of a blue colour, mixed
with stones as large as a man's fist, and also
with loam or clay : it has a strong effervescence
with acids, and, when used, is attended with the
usual eflfects of marl or lime. For bogs, it ex-
ceeds every other manure, as its weight assists
in the improvemont of that loose and spongy
soil. Upon strong clays, the use of it is unri-
valled, for it has all the eflfect of a dressing of
lime, and gives friability yet more than chalk
does. It destroys moss infallibly. Upon what-

process of burning is done most economically ever soil it is used, it is found very durable,
when the kiln is in full action, so as almost ' lasting, in many instances, in great heart, from
constantly to have a column of fire from the : twenty to forty years. In limestone counties,
bottom to the top of the kiln, with as short in- j all blue gravels should be examined; for it is
tervals as possible in working the kiln. j an invaluable treasure, wherever found.

« In working a kiln with narrow circular | LIME or LYME GRASS. See Eltmus.

723

2lt_.

LIME PLANT.

LIME TREE.

LIME PLANT. A name applied in the
Northern and Eastern States to the indigenous
plant called in the Middle States May Apple
(^Podophyllum peltatum).

LIMESTONE. A generic term for those
varieties of carbonate of lime which are neither
crystallized nor earthy; the former being cal-
careous spar, the latter chalk; when burned, they
yield quick-lime. See Gkology, Chalk, Lime.

LIME TREES {Tilia). These are for the
most part ornamental, lofty-growing trees, well
suited for avenues and parks. They thrive in
any soil, and are increased by layers or seeds ;
if by layers, the tree must be cut down close
to the ground, and from its roots a great num-
ber of shoots are produced in the following
year : these will be strong enough to lay down
the succeeding autumn. Trees raised from
seed are far preferable to those raised from
layers. The Russian bass-mats are made from
the inner bark of the lime tree, while the wood,
from its being light and white, is much used
by the carver and musical instrument maker.

The charcoal is used in the manufacture of
gunpowder, and is considered as scarcely infe-
rior for that purpose to the charcoal produced
from the alder and willow. If we possess no
evidence sufficiently conclusive to prove that
the lime tree in any of its forms is truly indi-
genous in Britain, we have at least enough to
show that it has long been naturalized, and that
its introduction must have taken place at a
very distant period ; for, upon referring to the
earlier works, such as Turner, Gerard, &c.,
we find it (in the form of T. E. mia-ophylla)
spoken of as a well-known, and in their esti-
mation, apparently, as a native tree. By many
botanists (says Mr. Selby), several species of
lime are enumerated as inhabitants of Europe;
andSir J. E.Smith makes three distinct species
of those cultivated and grown in Britain ; viz.,
r. Europcea, T. grandifoliu, and T. parvifolia, the
two latter answering to the T. platyphylla and
T. microphylla of other authors. We are, how-
ever, continues Mr. Selby, inclined to adopt the
views and follow the opinion of the author of
the Arboretum Brilannicum, and to consider these
not as specifically distinct from T. Europcea, in
its usual form, but as marked varieties, or, as
Mr. Loudon designates them, races, originally
produced from the seed of one, and which have
been kept distinct, and perpetuated by means
of layers, grafting, and other artificial modes
of propagation-, a view we think strongly cor-
roborated by the fact that the seeds of the dif-
ferent kinds, or supposed species," do not always
produce plants exactly similar to the trees from
. -which they are gathered, but run into varieties,
the seed of T. E. platyphylla often producing
plants similar in every respect to those of T.
Europata (the common lime), and so with the
other kinds.

The lime tree appears to have been held in
repute in ancient as well as in modern times ;
for we learn from Theophrastus that it was
known to the Greeks ; and Pliny speaks of it
as a tree held in high esteem by the Romans,
not only for the ornament and shade it afforded,
but for the qualities of its wood, and the various
purposes to which it was adapted. Nearly two
hundred vears have elapsed since it was plant-
724

ed along the streets of continental as well as
English towns, where their width would admit
of it, as affording a pleasant shade and protec-
tion during the summer heats, and it was ex-
tensively used in that style of gardening called
architectural, as it bore cutting with the knife
or shears with patience and comparative im-
punity. Examples of this style still exist in
some parts of England, and are frequent upon
the Continent, in France and Holland, where
pyramids, arches, and colonnades are formed
of this tree, and sometimes these produce an
imposing effect. As an ornamental tree in
picturesque gardening, the lime is well worth
cultivating, as it ranks in the first class in point
of magnitude, frequently attaining a height of
eighty or ninety feet, and a trunk corresponding
in circumference to such an altitude. The
lime holds an important place in the Materia
Medica of France and other continental coun-
tries ; but its medicinal powers are very feeble.
Loudon, in his Encyclopaedia of Plants, enu-
merates eight species or varieties of the linden
or lime tree (TiliacecB). 1. Tilia rubra, the red
or common linden. 2. T. intermedia, or inter-
mediate. 3. T. pai-vifolia, or small-leaved.

4. Platyphylla, or broad-leaved. All these are
found indigenous in the woods of Britain.

5. T. AnieHcana, American lime or linden.
(See Bass-wood.) 6. T. pubescens, downy and
thin-leaved lime tree. 7. T. helerophylla, or
various-leaved lime tree. The three last-named
species are indigenous to North America. 8, T.
alba vel argentia, the white or silver linden,
which is stated to be a native of Hungary.

Michaux has described the three American
species of lime tree, one of which has been al-
ready referred to under its common name of
Bass-wood. The American white lime is doubt-
less a distinct species from the Tilia alba of
Hungary.

" I have not," says Michaux, " met with the
white lime tree east of the river Delaware, but
it is abundant in Pennsylvania, Maryland, De-
laware, and the Western States. It does not
grow, like the preceding species, in elevated
places, nor amidst other trees in the forests,
and is rarely seen except on the banks of rivers.
I have particularly observed it on those of the
Susquehanna, the Ohio, and the streams which
empty into them.

"The height of the white lime tree rarely
exceeds forty feet, and its diameter twelve or
eighteen inches. Its young branches are co-
vered with a smooth, silver-gray bark, by which
it is recognised in the winter. The leaves are
very large, denticulated, obliquely heart-shaped
and pointed, of a dark-green on the upper sur-
face, and white beneath, with small reddish
tufts on the angles of the principal nerves.
This whitish tint is most striking on solitary
trees exposed to the sun.

'* The flowers come out in June, and, as well
as the floral leaf, are larger than those of any
other lime tree with which I am acquainted.
The petals are larger and whiter, and are im-
pregnated with an agreeable odour. The seeds
are round, or rather oval, and downy.

" The wood of this tree is white and tender,
and I believe it is never employed in the arts.

"This and the following species have re-

LIME TREE.

LINEN.

ceived no popular specific names, but are both
called lime tree and bass-wood : that of white
lime, which I have given to this species on ac-
count of the colour of its foliage, is peculiarly
appropriate.

" The Downy Lime Tree belongs to the south-
em parts of the United States. It grows on the
borders of rivers and large marshes, where the
soil is cool and fertile, but not exposed to inun-
dation. It is little multiplied, and consequently
is not taken notice of by the inhabitants ; for
this reason, and because it is the only species
of its kind in the maritime parts of the Caroli-
nas and of Georgia, it has received no specific
denomination, and is called simply lime tree;
to which I have added the epithet downy, derived
from a character of its foliage not observed in
the preceding species.

" This tree is forty or fifty feet in height, with
a proportional diameter. In its general ap-
pearance it resembles the American lime tree,
which grows farther north, more than the white
lime tree, which belongs to the Middle and
Western States. Its leaves differ widely in
size, according to the exposure in which they
have grown : in dry and open places they are
only two inches in diameter, and are twice as
large in cool and shaded situations. They are
rounded, pointed at the summit, very obliquely
truncated at the base, edged with fewer and
more remote teeth than those of the other
lime trees, and very downy beneath. The
flowers, also, are more numerous, and form
larger bunches, and the seeds are round and
downy.

"The wood is very similar to that of the
other species, and I do not know that it is ever
employed."

In some parts of Europe, the honey gathered
by bees from a species or variety of the linden
is in great request for its superior qualities, and
real or supposed healing virtues. It would be
highly desirable to have a tree introduced into
the United States which offers such a great re-
source to the bee culturists. See Honet.

Insect enemies. — ^The European species of lime
^ or linden, which has been extensively introduced
into the United States as an ornamental tree, has
suffered greatly of late years from the attacks
of several destructive insects. Some of these
are in the form of long, dark-coloured worms
or caterpillars, with strong webs, which eat off
the foliage; others bore into the wood of the
body and branches, chiefly in the crotches, and
so destroy the strength of the limb, or the body
itself, that one or both yield readily to the wind,
or gradually decay and die. There are also the
leaf-beetles, the most elegant of the family of
Chrysomelians, which inhabit the leaves, not
only of the linden, but of the elm, the broods
being found in April, May, and June, and even
a second brood in September and October.
The trees are often seriously injured by these
flies or beetles and their larvae. After a very
minute description of this beautiful leaf-beetle,
with its dark-green body, silvery-white wing-
covers, ornamented with green spots, and rose-
coloured wings, Dr. Harris remarks that he
thinks the grubs go into the ground to turn to
pupse. When they become so numerous as
seriously to injure the lime and elm trees, Dr.

Harris recommends the employment of decoc-
tions of tobacco or of walnut leaves, thrown on
the trees by means of a garden or fire engine ;
a method which has been tried with good effect
for the destruction of the larvae of Galeruca col"
mam»ms, which appear occasionally in swarms,
and entirely strip the leaves from the elm trees
in midsummer. Dr. Harris describes a species
of lime-looper which proceeds from an umber-
moth greatly resembling that known in Europe,
and called by naturalists Hybemia defoliaria.
The American insect, however, differs so much
in the larva state from the European, as to en-
title it to be classed as a distinct species ; and
accordingly Dr. Harris has called it Hybernia
tiliaria, the lime tree winter-moth, from Tilia,
the scientific name of its favourite tree. The
fore-wings of the male moth are rusty buff or
nankin-yellow, sprinkled with very fine brown-
ish dots, and banded with two transverse, wavy,
brown lines, the band nearest the shoulders
being often indistinct. In the space between
the bands, and near to the thick edge of the
wing, there is generally a brown dot. The
hind-wings are much paler than the others, and
have a small brownish dot in the middle. The
colour of the body is the same as that of the
fore-wings ; and the legs are ringed with buff
and brown. The wings expand one inch and
three-quarters. The body of the female is gray-
ish or yellowish-white ; it is sprinkled on the
sides with black dots, and there are two square
black spots on the top of each ring, except the
last, which has only one spot. The front of
the head is black; and the antennae and the
legs are ringed with black and white. The
tail is tipped with a tapering, jointed egg-tube,
that can be drawn in and out, like the joints of
a telescope. Exclusive of this tube, the female
measures about half an inch in length. The
eggs are beautiful objects when seen under a
microscope. They are of an oval shape and
pale-yellow colour, and are covered with little
raised lines, like net-work, or like the cells of
a honey-comb.

As these span-worms appear at the same
time as canker-worms, resemble them in their
habits, and often live on the same trees, they
can be kept in check by such means as are
found useful when employed against canker-
worms. See SpAx-woRM.

LINDEN TREE. See Lime Tree.

LINEN (Germ, lienwand). A species of
cloth woven with the fibres of the flax plant.
The linen manufacture has been prosecuted in
England for a very long period; but though its
progress has been considerable, particularly of
late years, it has not been so great as might
have been anticipated. It is only within the
last fifty years that any machinery has been
used in the production of linen cloth ; the first
mills for the spinning of flax having been con-
structed at Darlington, about forty-eight years
ago. The principal seat of the manufacture
is, in England, Leeds and its immediate vici-
nity, and in Lancashire, Dorset, Durham, and
Salop ; in Scotland, Dundee, which, indeed,
may be regarded as the chief seat of the British
manufacture ; and in Ireland, the province of
Ulster. The entire value of the linen manu-
facture of Great Britain and Ireland is esti-
3 p 2 726

LING.

LINSEED.

mated at 8,000,000/., and the total number of
persons employed in it, about 185,000.

LING {Calluna vulgans). A species of heath.
To avoid the inconvenience of giving a new
generic appellation to the hundreds of plants
familiar to everybody as Eric(B or heaths, Mr.
Salesbury has judiciously called our common
ling Calluyia, from x.ux\uva>; which is doubly
suitable, whether with Mr. Salisbury and Dr.
Hull we take it to express a deandng property,
brooms being made of ling, or whether we
adopt the more common sense of the word, to
ornament or adorn, which is very applicable to
the flowers. This shrub grows almost every-
where, on dry moors, heaths, and open, barren
wastes, as well as in woods where the soil is
sandy or turfy. The stems are bushy, repeat-
edly and irregularly branched. Leaves deep
green, minute, sessile, acute, keeled, somewhat
arrow-shaped, closely imbricated on the young
branches, making a quadrangular figure, like a
close-beaten chain ; they are generally smooth,
but in one variety are densely hoary all over.
The flowers are stalked, drooping, in longish
unilateral clusters, soon overtopped by leafy
shoots. The inner calyx, which is the most
conspicuous part of the flower, is of a shining
permanent rose colour. The flowers appear
in June and July. Grouse and other birds, as
"well as some quadrupeds, eat the seeds and
young shoots. There is a white-flowered va-
riety, and a very beautiful double red one,
cultivated in gardens, whose flowers, from a
copious multiplication of the corolla, resemble
little roses. See Heath.

LINIMENT (Lat. lino, I anoint). In farrie-
ry, a semi-fluid ointment, or a soapy application
to rub upon painful joints. The term is also
applied to spirituous and other stimulating ap-
plications for external use. Lmiments are in-
tended either to lubricate or to stimulate; but
in either case they can only be regarded as
topical applications, their influence not extend-
ing beyond the part to which they are applied.
In some instances they are anodyne; and con-
tain solutions of opium in oil.

LINSEED or FLAXSEED (Lat. lini semen,-
Germ. Leinsaat). The seed of the flax plant.
See Flax. This seed is small, oval, oblong,
flattened laterally, acute at the extremities,
glossy, brown ; but internally white. It is in-
odorous, and tastes mucilaginous and oily. The
husk or testa yields much mucilage to water,
and the kernel a large proportion of oil to pres-
sure. Besides upwards of 11 per cent, of oil,
linseed contains wax, an acrid soft resin, ex-
tractive, a yellow colouring matter, starch,
gum, tannic acid, albumen, gluten, emulsive,
and some salts. When the seeds are burnt,
the ashes contain oxide of copper. The in-
fusion of linseed in boiling water yields a de-
mulcent mucilage, which is much used as a
domestic medicine in coughs, and in cases of
acrimony in the urinary discharge. The lin-
seed should not be boiled in the water, as that
extracts the oil as well as the mucilage, and
renders the decoction nauseating.

Linseed is much used in the economy of the
farm, for feeding cattle and other purposes. A
bushel of linseed averages in weight about 51
pounds; this weight, when crushed, produces \
726

j about a quarter of its weight of linseed oil, and
[ the remainder is cake. The great bulk of this
seed is obtained from the Baltic and the Black
Sea, and recently considerable quantities have
been received from Egypt and Hindostan : of
this last, the general character is, that although
the seed is good, the impurities with which it
is mixed are very considerable, sucli as the
seeds of rape, &c. ; for which reason the oil
obtained from it does not possess the drying
qualities of that expressed from the unmixed
linseed, and the dealers in consequence will
not give so much for it. This arises not from
any intentional adulteration, but from the bad
farming and want of cleanliness of the ori-
entalists.

Linseed oil contains a very considerable
quantity of mucilage, which it almost entirely
deposits by time ; and hence, old linseed oil is
more valued by the painter, but for the grazier,
perhaps, its nutritive powers decrease by time.
It is said by some persons, that it is to the pre-
sence of this mucilage that we must attribute
the fattening quality of linseed oil when mixed
with other substances, for linseed oil by itself
is almost as powerful a purgative as castor oil,
for which purpose indeed it is very commonly
employed by the farmer; but on the other
hand, we must remember, that in small doses,
even castor oil is very fattening. Linseed is
in fact commonly given to some birds, parrots
for instance, for this purpose. Its purgative
properties are very inferior to those of castor oiL

LINSEED CAKE. Linseed cake is a well-
known and valuable article for the food of live
stock, almost equally good for cattle, sheep, and
horses. It is the residuum, or refuse, left after
the oil is expressed from linseed. 1000 parts
of it, according to Davy, contain about 151
parts of nutritive matter. Its price has induced
many attempts to economize its application. It
has been often given as recommended by Mr.
Hillyard, mixed with other substances, whose
value he thus estimates: —

" The weekly cost of feeding each beast, in-
cluding the expense of getting up, carting, and
cutting the turnips and hay, and attendance,
will be — •

10^ bushels of turnips - - 2

Ucwt. of hay - - - - 5

Turnips - - - _ _ a

U cwt. of cut and uncut bay • 3

I bushel of meal - - - 3

I pint of linseed oil - . . 0

i bushel of linseed
3 gallons of meal
Cut and uncut hay
Turnips -

21 nil cakes, at ^d. -

3 Kallnns of meal

Cut and uncut hay -

Turnips - - . . - 2 9

10«.

lU. M.

14*.

" No food," says Mr. Hillyard, "can be given
to stall-feeding beasts that will fatten them so
soon or so well as linseed oil-cake. It certain-
ly is expensive feed, but not so expensive as it
appears to be, taking into consideration that it
fattens quicker. Beasts that have been ie^
with it, do not, after a long drift to market, lose
their firmness of handling, as those do, fed

LINSEED CAKE.

without either cake or linseed, and whose dung
is not of equal value. Some winters I have
fed with linseed instead of cake, and found it
answer very well, although it added to the
trouble of feeding. My mode of preparing it
has been to break it in a little hand-mill, and
steep it in cold water in seven tubs of a size
sulficient for one day's feed; in this way it
will have been steeped seven days before it is
mixed with cut hay and barley, or (which is
belter) bean meal. If steeped in hot water,
two days will do; if steeped longer than three,
it is apt to get a little sour, which, in my opi-
nion, IS not quite so well for the beasts. Boil-
ing it is troublesome, but it thus becomes more
of a jelly, and mixes better with the cut hay
and meal, and it prevents the numerous seeds
of w eeds, found in foreign linseed, from vege-
tating. One stone of linseed, in a mixture of
other food, will do as much towards feeding
as two stone of cake, which is merely the husk
of the seed after the oil has been pressed out.
Linseed, without being mixed with meal, is of
loo relaxing a nature.

" Finding at Christmas, 1838, that I could
not get English oil-cake at home at less than
about 12/. 10.'!. per ton, I determined to feed the
35 beasts then in my stalls, in the following
way, and I never had beasts that became better
me.it ; but as the process of preparing the food
is very troublesome, I should not recommend
this way of feeding without the owner of the
beasts will daily see that all is done right: —

: d.
Three feeds daily, of half a bushel of cut hay,
which is 5 lbs. each, and 4 lbs. uncut at night ;
1 cvvi. and not quite a qiiiirter - • > -36
Bellied linseed, 2 lbs. daily, bta. per quarter;

weight, r»0 lbs. per bushel - - - - -20
Boiled potiitoes,^ lbs. daily, 1^ gallons - - 1 6

Molit.-ises (which is feeding, but may be left out
when the beasts have takeu lo ihe linseed, as
it is iinlv uiven to iniike the mixture palatable),
aboHt a i^ lb. daily . • . . . .09
Turnips, or inangnl wiirzel - - - - .36
Barley and bean meal, mixed, 3i gallon* - - 1 9

13 0

" If this mixed food could be pressed together
to form a cake, it would be a feeding one, and
the cost llfl. per stone. As a proof that this
mixture is both palatable and nutritive to
beasts, they will not eat, excepting in the night,
where they have nt)ne of il, any of the sweetest
hay that can be put before them." (Prac.
Farm, p. 89.)

Many farmers use ground linseed mixed
with bran and chaff for their stock, deeming it
a more economical plan than the employment
of linseed cake. Others use the linseed un-
ground. The saving by this mode, however,
is doubtful, for it is by no means certain that
the oil possesses any very material fattening
properties; and if it does not, then the cake is
decidedly the cheapest For at the present
prices (1841), 51 lbs. of linseed are worth 7«.
6rf., while 51 lbs. of cake, at 11/. per ton, are
only worth about 5s. ; and admitting that the
oil does contain some fattening properties, yet
it must be remembered that the value of the oil
obtained from a bushel of linseed is worth, for
other purposes, about 4s. But, on the other
hand, I am aware that a very intelligent farmer
near Rumford, Mr. S. Poole, who, in 1840, fed

LIQUID MANURE.

his bullocks with a mixture of linseed oil and
cut chaff, and also other bullocks with linseed
cake and hay, considered the oil to be the
cheapest of the two, and in all respects equally
fattening, but then it is certain that this mode
requires more attention in the mixture of the
oil and chaff than the other plan. He com-
menced with about a quarter of a pint per day,
and gradually increased it to a pint.

The reported results of experiments in feed-
ing cattle with linseed do not always agree. In
a standard work we find the following passage :
"Two Scots were fed on English linseed cakes;
two Devons on unboiled linseed ; two others on
boiled linseed ; and another pair of Devons oa
foreign ; all of them having as much hay and
chaff as they could eat. It was a losing con-
cern in every case. The value of the manure
was not equal to the ditference of the cost and
the selling prices ; and, strange as it may ap-
pear, the greatest loss was sustained, when the
beasts were fed on oil-cake ; the next whea
foreign cake was used ; the next when boiled
linseed was used ; and ihe least of all wlien tne
simple unboiled linseed was given.

LINSEED JELL.Y is easily made by adding
to 6 quarts of water 1 quart of linseed, boiling
it for 10 minutes. This, mixed with other sub-
stances, is sometimes given lo live-stock as
food, and, mixed with milk, is very nutritive
for calves.

LINSEED OIL is an excellent purgative for
sheep, from 2 to 3 ounces; for horses, in doses
of from 16 to 24 ounces; for cattle, from 16 to 20
ounces. The quality of linseed oil may be de-
termined in the following manner: Fill a phial
with it, and hold it up to the light; if bad it will
appear opaque, turbid, and thick ; its taste is acid
and bitter upon the tongue, and it smells rancid;
and strong oil, from fine full-grown ripe seed,
when viewed in a phial, will appear limpid, pale,
and brilliant; it is raellow,and sweet to the taste,
has very little smell, is specifically lighter than
impure oil, and when clarified dries quickly and
finely, (i^uart. Jaurn. of Afp: vol. v. p. 467.)

LIP. In botany, the lower petal of any irre-
gular flower.

LIQUID MANURE. Liquid manure is not
a mode of fertilizing the land altogether of
modern origin, for a fermented mixture of wa-
ter and night-soil has, from a very early period,
been employed by the Chinese farmers ; those
of Italy certainly practised irrigation in the
days of Virgil (Georsrics, b. i. v. 106 — 109), and
Cato adds that they employed a mixture of
grape-stones and water to fertilize their olive
trees (b. xxxvii.). Columella praises very
highly the use of putrid stale urine for vines
and apple trees (b. ii. c. 15), commending also
the lees of oil for the same purpose. More
modern agricultural writers have united in
praising various liquid preparations ; thus
Evelyn (whose ingredients most of the authors
recommend), in his Treatise on Earth, p. 123 —
160, gives several recipes, some of which have
served as the basis for recent modes of prepar-
ing liquid manure, such as the dung of cattle,
urine, salt and lime, and nitre. Of these arti-
ficial mixtures, salt 1 part, and lime 2 parts,
mixed together and allowed to remain in a
heap for 2 or 3 months (Mr. Bennett turns it

727

LIQUID MANURE.

LIQUID MANURE.

over 3 or 4 times in this period), is fully equal,
if not superior, to any thus recommended,
most of which I have tried. When mixed
with water and spread over land intended for
wheat, at the rate of from 25 to 35 bushels of
the salt and lime to 10 or 15 tons of water per
acre" (and it answers very nearly as well when
carried on the land dry), excellent results are
produced. The wheat which I have thus
grown on clover leys has been superior in
height, and strength of straw, to any I have
seen produced under different modes of treat-
ment, and the seed very bright and heavy.

All substances, whether organic, earthy, or
saline, which are employed to fertilize the soil,
or become the food of plants, can only be ren-
dered thus serviceable to vegetation when they
are presented to the roots of plants in solution,
or in a fluid state; and although this may
appear at first rather a sweeping position, yet
such is the real fact, the compost of the farm-
yard, the crushed bones of the turnip cultiva-
tor, the oil and bones of fish, the gypsum of
the grazier, the earths, lime, magnesia, and
even silica, and ail the saline manures, are
dissolved by some process or other before they
can be absorbed by vegetables. Every attempt
which has been hitherto made to make plants
imbibe the most minutely divided powders which
chemistry can produce, has been entirely fruit-
less. Davy ineffectually tried the finest im-
palpable powder of charcoal, and with much
perseverance I have fruitlessly employed the
earths, saline substances, and organic matters,
for the same purpose.

This absolute necessity for every substance
which is the food of plants being of a soluble
nature did not escape the sagacity of the early
Greek and Egyptian philosophers; it is true
they carried their conclusions with regard to
subjects of natural philosophy too far, as in
this instance, when they asserted that water is
the only food of plants ; yet they must have
patiently noticed many facts in vegetable eco-
nomy, unaided as they were by the light of mo-
dern vegetable chemistry, before they could
' have arrived at a conclusion so nearly ap-
proaching the truth. The idea was probably
of Egyptian origin, for the cultivators of that
country could not fail to notice the magic fer-
tilizing powers of the waters of the Nile, whose
annual overflow is perhaps the most extensive
natural irrigation taken advantage of by the
cultivators of the earth.

The same wild dream of water being the sole
food of vegetables was again revived, so lately
as 1610,by M. Van Helmont, a celebrated Dutch
chemist, who made some very plausible, de-
ceptive experiments on a willow tree, which
he watered only with rain water; researches,
however, whose inaccuracy (owing principally
to rain water, as usually collected, not being
quite pure) was shown in 1691 by Mr. Wood-
ward. Although, therefore, it is now well as-
certained that water is not the only food of
plants, yet it certainly contributes universally
and largely to their support; and, as it has been
well observed by Davy, no manure can be taken
up by the roots of plants unless water is pre-
sent ; and water, or its elements, exists in all
the products of vegetation. (Lecture 15.)
728

It must not, however, be concluded that these
carefully considered conclusions, from the re-
sults of often-repeated laborious experiments,
are erroneous, because transparent water, ap-
parently pure, as in water-glasses, or in irri-
gation, promotes the growth of bulbs, grass,
&c., since the very purest spring water, even
rain water, contains foreign substances, as I
have clearly ascertained by experiment; and
when only chemically pure water is employed
cO water plants, they cannot be made to flourish.
I have fruitlessly varied the attempt in several
ways. All the experiments of Dr. Thomson
were equally unsuccessful, the plants vegetat-
ing only for a certain time, and never perfect-
ing their seeds. Similar experiments were
made by Hassenfratz and Saussure, and others,
with the same unfavourable result. Duhamel
found that an oak which he had raised from an
acorn in common water, made less and less
progress every year. The florist is well aware
that bulbous roots, such as hyacinths, tulips,
&c., which are made to grow in water, unless
they are planted in the earth every other year,
at first refuse to flower, and finally even to
vegetate. Moreover, it has been unanswerably
shown by many very accurate experiments
{Rech. sur la Veg. p. 51), at the varied repetition
of which I have personally assisted, that the
quantity of nourishment or solid matters ab-
sorbed by the roots of plants is always in pro-
portion to the impurity of the water with which
they are nourished; thus some beans were
made to vegetate under three different circum-
stances ; the first were grown in distilled water;
the second were placed in sand and watered
with rain water; the third were sown in gar-
den mould. The plants thus produced, when
accurately analysed, were found to yield the
following proportions of ashes : —

1. Those fed by distilled water - 39

2. Those fed by rain water - - 7-5

3. Those grown in soil - - - 13-0

And again, all attempts to make plants flour-
ish in the pure earths have failed utterly when
they have been watered with pure water; yet
a totally different result I have invariably ex-
perienced when I have employed an impure
solution or liquid manure. My trials have
been entirely supported by those of M. Giobert,
who, having formed of the four earths, silica,
alumina, lime, and magnesia, a soil in the
most fertile proportion, in vain essayed to
make the plants flourish in it when watered
with pure water only; but every difficulty was
removed when he moistened it with the water
from a dunghill, for they then grew most luxu-
riantly; and M. Lampadius still further de-
monstrated the powers of such a foul liquid
manure, for he formed plots composed of only
a single earth, pure lime, pure alumina, pure
silica, and planted in each different vegetables,
watering them with the liquid drainings from
a dunghill, and he found that they all flourish-
ed equally well. The soluble matters of a soil
ever constitute, in fact, its most fertilizing por-
tion; and if by any artificial means the richest
mould is deprived of these, as by repeated
washings in cold or boiling water, the re-
siduum, or remaining solid matter, is rendered
nearly sterile : this fact, first accurately demon-

LIQUID MANURE.

strated by M. Saussure (Rech. 150), I have
since confirmed, by a variety of experiments
of my own.

The soluble matters or liquid manures con-
sumed by plants are sometimes imbibed by
their roots unaltered; in other cases they are
decomposed during their absorption. The
earths, gypsum, and other salts, are instances
of the first class ; oil, and other purely animal
matters, of the last. Davy found that some
plants of mint, which he forced to vegetate in
sugar and water, apparently absorbed the sugar
unaltered, for they yielded a considerably
larger proportion of a sweetish vegetable ex-
tract than those of the same weight which he
had grown in common water; and it is an as-
certained fact, that the roots of plants will ab-
sorb or reject the various earthy substances of
a soil, or even when placed in a saline solution,
in a very remarkable manner: thus, when
equal parts of gum and sugar were dissolved
together in water, and some perfect plants of
Polygonum Persicaria placed with their roots
in the solution, it was found that they absorbed
36 parts of the sugar, but only 26 of the gum ;
and when in precisely the same proportions
and manner Glauber salt, common salt, and
acetate of lime were used, then it was found
that the roots of the Persicaria separated these
salts from the solution with much ease, ab-
sorbing 6 parts of the Glauber salt, 10 parts of
the common salt, but not a trace of the acetate
of lime. (Thomson, vol. iv. p. 321.)

These facts will not be uninteresting to the
irrigators or occupiers of the English water-
meadows, since they may, in some degree,
serve to account for the beneficial action of
water on such lands — a question not nearly so
well understood as it ought to be, and on
which widely differing opinions are commonly
held by practical farmers. It is a theme inti-
mately connected with the subject of this arti-
cle, for irrigation is, in truth, a mode of apply-
ing the weakest of liquid manures, on a very
bold scale, to grass-lands. See Irrioatio!?.

The employment of artificially-prepared
liquid manure (though little known at present
in England) is very extensive on the Conti-
nent : the Swiss farmers call it guile ; in France
it is denominated lizier ; and by the Germans,
misf-wasser. They prepare it throughout many
of the German states, and in the Netherlands,
by sweeping the excrements of their stall-fed
cattle into under-ground reservoirs, mixing it
with four or five times its bulk of water, ac-
cording to the richness of the dung: five reser-
voirs are generally employed, of such a size
that they each take a week to fill; and thus
each has four weeks allowed to ferment before
the mass, which in this time becomes of an
uniform consistence, is removed, by means of
a portable pump, in water carts, or large open
vessels. A similar plan is adopted in the
north of Italy, and from lime out of mind has
been practised by the Chinese. In that em-
pire, however, the cultivators chiefly employ
night soil, which is made into cakes for this
purpose with lime or clay, in all their large
cities, to prepare their liquid manure.

It is from long experience an admitted fact
among the German farmers, that there are no
92

LIQUID MANURE.

manures so powerful in their operation as
those which are liquids, such as human urine
or bullocks' blood ; so that no English farmer
need fear deception as to their asserted value.
This very fact was submitted some years
since to the consideration of Professor Hemb-

j stadt, of Berlin, by the Saxon and Prussian au-
thorities, who were anxious to apply the con-

I tents of the city drains towards fertilizing the
barren lands in the neighbourhood of Dresden
and Berlin. This talented agriculturist under-
took, in consequence, a series of valuable ex-
periments, which, varied in every possible way,
were carried on for a considerable period ; the
result of them, so highly advantageous to the
prosperity of Germany, Hembstadt then pub-
lished. They were repeated with unvaried
success by Professor Schvibler, and the results
may be stated in the following order: —

If the soil, without any manure, yield a pro-
duce of three times the quantity of seed origi-
nally sown, then the same quantity of land will
produce —

6 times the quantity of seed sown, when
dressed with old herbage, grass, leaves, &c.

7 times, when dressed with cow dung.
9 times, with pigeons' dung.

10 times, with horse dung.
12 times, with human urine,
12 times, with sheep's dung;.
14 times, with human manure or bullocks* blood.

Thus it will be seen that, of seven usually
employed fertilizers, the liquid manures, urine
and blood, were found to be decidedly the most
powerful.

Both with regard to the quantity of liquid
manure applied per acre, and the mode of
spreading it, much must depend upon the cir-
cumstances under which the cultivator is
placed, and the richness of the liquid he em-
ploys. If the impurities dissolved, or mecha-
nically suspended in the water, are equal to 1
part in 10, then 20 to 30 tons per acre of the
liquid manure I have found amply sufficient,
under ordinary circumstances, to produce the
most excellent results; if the fluid mass is
purer, then more must be applied. For gar-
dens, and small plots of ground in general, the
liquid may be readily and evenly distributed
over the beds by means of a watering-pot or
garden-engine; for fields it must be carried in
water-carts, and distributed either by being let
into a transverse trough, pierced with holes in
the manner of those employed for street water-
ings, or the Flemish plan may be adopted (es-
pecially when the manure is of too consider-
able thickness to flow readily through holes),
of taking it into the fields in the water-carts,
open at the top (furnished with slight movable
covers), and then distributing it out of the cart
very evenly by means of a scoop; and I have
invariably perceived the advantage of plough-
ing the liquid into the soil as soon after it was
spread on the land as possible. The cultivator
will find great advantage if he uses the garden
engine, watering-pot, or cart, from straining
the liquid manure before he pumps it out of
the reservoir, either through straw, coarse
sand, or a basket; the pieces of straw, and
other coarsely-divided matters thus separated
by the strainer, he will discover add very

729

LIQUID MANURE.

slightly to the fertilizing powers of the liquid,
and yet they all materially hinder the even
distribution of the manure.

The expense, per acre, of such an applica-
tion of liquid manure, I thus estimate, sup-
posing the cow-herd to be employed : —

£ 8. d.

Three tons of cow or other frestj dung - - 0 18 0
Labour in mixing and occasionally stirring it

with from 20 to 25 tons of water - - -080
Carting, and spreading it on tlie field • -080

£18 0

If it shall occur to the farmer that the quan-
tity of solid manure thus added to the soil will
not, in reality, much exceed two tons per acre,
and that this is, in appearance, a very small
allowance, I would remind him that the quan-
tity thus conveyed consists of the soluble or
richest portion of the manure, and is, in fact,
the extract without any of the straw, or other
inert residuum usually carried on to the soil ;
besides, it is a very erroneous, though common
conclusion, that to produce fertility a manure
must be used in large quantities. I have ob-
served in this paper that a flooding with river
water, so productive of heavy crops of grass
in the water meadows, does not carry on to the
land more than 2 tons per acre of animal and
vegetable substances ; and in the successful
experiments of the late Lord Somerville, at
Fairmile, with whale blubber, not more than
a ton and a half per acre were applied. The
Essex farmers find three-quarters of a ton of
sprats amply sufficient ; and 2 cwt. per acre of
gypsum is the ordinary successful allowance
for grass land. The exact evenness, therefore,
with which a manure is spread over the land
is a highly important consideration as regards
the economy of manures. There is no com-
monly cultivated plant which more delights in
liquid manure than the potato. It naturally
luxuriates near to wet ditches : on plots which
have received the drainage of a dunghill it
grows with the greatest rapidity. I have in-
variably found that, to any liquid mixture in-
tended as a manure for potatoes, the addition
of 5 or 6 bushels of salt per acre is productive
of great good, both as regards the quantity and
quality of the potatoes.

On clover leys intended for wheat, the liquid
should be turned into the soil as early as pos-
sible after it is spread; and if this operation is
performed in moist, cloudy weather, a very
material advantage will be perceptible in the
succeeding crop. The warmth of the sun is
certainly prejudicial to the thinly-spread liquid
manure, composed of finely-divided animal and
vegetable substances..

Of the tanks for receiving or preparing the
liquid manure, I may remark that I have al-
ways found them best made of flints or bricks
set in good mortar or Parker's cement ; they
may be bedded in clay, but I would not recom-
mend the use of clay for the brickwork, since
worms are sure eventually to penetrate through
it; and I advise the shape to be something like
a decanter, larger at the top than at the bottom,
in the manner introduced at Eastbourne and in
Cornwall, chiefly by the advice of Mr. Davies
Gilbert.

730

LIQUID MANURE.

Mr. Milburn has given the annexed estimate
for cutting, walling, plastering, and covering a
tank of the following dimensions : — Length
within, 13 feet 6 inches ; width, 6 feet 6 inches;
depth, 6 feet, equal to 19^ cubic yards.

Cutting at 3d. per cubic yard

Walling, including bricks and mortar -

Plastering and cement . - .

Covering and flags - - - -

(7Von». High. Soe. vol. ix. p. 280.)

£ s.
0 7
6 8
0 16
2 15

10 6 6

This would be a tank suflliciently capacious
for a farm of 150 to 200 acres.

To the presence of a large proportion of
urine, the richest of liquid fertilizers, must be
chiefly attributed the luxuriant effects produced
by the liquid manure, as prepared on the Con-
tinent, and from the use of the sewerage mat-
ters of large to,wns, as so strikingly proved in
the case of the Craigintinny water-meadows,
near Edinburgh, where the drainage is em-
ployed in the state in which it issues from the
sewers, and from its use several crops of the
most luxuriant grass are annually obtained.
"All urine," said a late distinguished chemical
philosopher, " contains the essential elements
of vegetables in a state of solution." By a
careful analysis, human urine in its fresh state
was found, by Berzelius, to contain the follow-
ing substances : —

Parts.

Water 93300

Urea (the peculiar animal matter of urine) 3 010

Sulphate of potassa - - - - 0*371

Sulphate of soda - - - • - - 0316

Phosphate of soda - - - - 0294

Common salt ------ 0-445

Phosphate of ammonia - _ - - 0*165

Muriate of ammonia . - - - 0150
Lactate or acetate of ammonia - I

Lactic or acetic acid - - - 1 j.^j^
Animal matter, soluble in alcohol |
Inseparable urea . - - - J
Earthy phosphate (earth of bones) with

fluale of lime 0100

Uric acid 0100

Mucus of the bladder - - - - 0032

Silica (earth of flint) - . - - 0003

100*

Thus it will be seen that there is hardly a
single ingredient found in urine which is not
either a direct food for vegetation, or furnishes
by its decomposition a supply in another form ;
for in it are thus detected the ammoniacal salts
of the dunghill, the phosphate of lime of bones,
as well as of many cultivated vegetables, and
abundance of easily decomposed animal mat-
ters.

The urine of the horse is nearly as rich in
animo-vegetable matters; its composition, ac-
cording to the experiments of Fourcroy and
Vauquelin, are as follows : —

Part^

Water and mucus ----- 94-0

Urea 0 7

Carbonate of lime (chalk) - - - 1*1

Carbonate of soda ----- 09

Benaoaie of soda 2-4

Muriate of potassa ----- 0 9

100-

The following are the constituents in that of
the cow, as found by Professor Brande : —

LIQUID MANURE.

LIQUID MANURE.

P:«rt5.

Water 65 0

TJrea 40

Phosphate of lime ----- 30

Muriates of pniassa and amnionia - - 15*0

Sulphate of potassa - - - - - 60

Carbonates of potaasa and ammonia - 4 0

Loss 30

100-

It would appear, from some experiments of
Dr. Belcher, that the ammoniacal salts of urine
have a forcing or stimulating power, which
considerabl} hastens the vegetation of plants.
Hi.s experiments were made with the common
garden cress; and, in iiis trials, some plants
nourished with a solution of phosphate of am-
monia were 15 days more advanced than plants
growing under similar circumstances, but wa-
tered with plain water, in some experiments
of Mr. Gregorj', who watered half a grass field
at Leylon with urine, the portion thus treated
yielded nearly double the quantity of hay pro-
duced by the other unmanured portion ; and
the use of the urine of the cow, so extensively
employed for grass lands, and in the garden
and orchard, by Mr. Harley, in the neighbour-
hood of Glasgow, was attended with results
equally satisfactory, producing, when diluted
with water or soap-suds, very superior crops
of grass on land of a very inferior description.
I shall conclude with a few observations on the
loss which the cultivated lands of England in-
cessantly sustain from the neglect of the liquid
manure of the sewers of her cities and large
towns, — a question to which I have before
alluded in this paper, and which is not nearly
so well understood as is desirable. Thus, by
carefully conducted experiments, and very ac-
curate gaugings, it has been found that the
chief London sewers convey daily into the
Thames about 115,000 tons of mixed drainage,
consisting, on an average computation, of 1
part of solid and 25 parts absolutely fluid mat-
ters; but if we only allow 1 part in 30 of this
immense mass to be composed of solid sub-
stances, then we have the large quantity of
more than 3800 tons of solid manure daily
poured into the river from Londim alone, con-
sisting principally of excrements, soot, and the
debris of the London streets, which is chiefly
carbonate of lime : thus, allowing 20 tons of
this manure as a dressing for an acre of
ground, there is evidently a quantity of solid
manure annually poured into the river equal
to fertilizing more than 50,000 acres of the
poorest cultivated land! The quantity of food
thus lost to the country by this heedless waste
of manure is enormous ; for, only allowing one
crop of wheat to be raised on these 50,000
acres, that would be equal to the maintenance i
(calculating upon an average produce of three '
quarters of wheat per acre) of 150,000 persons. |
London, too, is only one huge instance of this |
thoughtless waste of the agricultural riches of i
the soil of England; from every other English I
city, every town, every hamlet, is hourly pass-
ing into the sea a proportionate waste of liquid
manure : and I have only spoken of the solid or
mechanically suspended matters of the sewer-
age; the absolutely fluid portion is sliil rich in
urine, ammoniacal salts, soda, &c., when all
the mechanically suspended matters have been

separated from the other portions. According"
to very careful experiments, this fluid part often
contains 16 per cent, of animal matters, salts,
&c., intimately or chemically combined with
the water.

No farmer, after such an analysis of the
sewerage of a large city, can feel surprised at
the important results from the use of that
sewer water, as long practised in the vicinity
of Edinburgh. After learning the composition
of such a foul mass — its endless mixture of
organic matters — its soot — its carbonate of
lime — and, above all, its urine, the forcing na-
ture of the ammoniacal salts which that fluid
contains, added to the presence of the other
matters which are the food of plants, and the
constant supply of such irrigation water in all
seasons — he will readily give credence to the
talented editor of the Quarterly Journal of Jlgri-
ntlntre^wheu he asserts that, by such treatment
of the Edinburgh meadows with the sewerage
irrigation, they have been increased in value
several pounds per acre yearly.

I have often employed, with decided effect,
in my own garden, for vines, peach, and stand-
ard apple trees, liquid manure, prepared either
by mixing one part by weight of cow dung
with four parts of water, or the collected drain-
age of the stable and cow-house. Of these the
vine is by far the most benefited by the appli-
cation ; but to whatever fruit-tree the gardener
has occasion to apply manure, there is no form
so manageable and so grateful to the plant
as the liquid. It has been found advantageous
to plants cultivated in stoves to apply even a
liquid manure, composed of six quarts of soot
to a hogshead of water; and although this is a
very unchemical mixture, yet it has been found
by Mr. Robertson to be peculiarly grateful and
nourishing to pines, causing them to assume ao
unusually deep healthy green; and for stoved
mulberry, vine, peach, and other plants, the
late Mr. Knight, of Downton, employed a liquid
manure, composed of one part of the dung of
domestic poultry, and 4 to 10 parts of water,
with the most excellent result — the trees main-
taining, at the end of two years, "the most
healthy and luxuriant appearance imaginable."
(Trans. Hort. Sor. vol. ii. p. 127.)

In whatever way we view the question of
liquid manure, an abundant field of research
presents itself on every side: it is evidently an
investigation likely to amply repay the culti-
vator for the labour he may be induced to be-
stow upon it. By such manures, nourishment
for vegetation is more equally diffused through
the soil, and becomes more speedily service-
able to the crop, than by any other mode of
cultivation. I have endeavoured, also, in this
article, to convince the farmer of what I have
long remarked in my own practice — that a
much smaller quantity of manure, if uniformly
mixed with land, is suflicient for all the pur-
poses of fertilization than is commonly be-
lieved. Such investigations must be of the
highest interest to the farmer and to the public
in general, for they relate to the increased pro-
duce of the land of England ; and not only does
a fortunate experiment carry with it its own
reward, but even an unsuccessful one is not
without its advantages, — it serves, at least, as

731

LIVE-STOCK.

LOBELIA.

a beacon to other cultivators, and affords that
satisfaction which ever accompanies the ac-
quirement of knowledge. {Journ. Roy. Jig. Soc.
vol. i. p. 147.)

LIQUORICE (Glycyrrhiza, from glnkus, sweet,
and rhiza, a root ; the sweetness of the root of
liquorice is well known). A deep, light, sandy
loam suits all the species of this genus, and
they are readily increased by slips from the
roots with eyes, and planting them in spring.

Common liquorice (G. glabra) is a native of
the south of Europe; but it is also cultivated
in England for medicinal use. It is a legumi-
nous plant, with unequally pinnated leaves,
composed of ovate, retuse leaflets ; the flowers
are in racemose spikes, shorter than the leaves.
The legumes are smooth, and six-seeded. The
root, when fit for use, is long, about the thick-
ness of the finger, grayish without, and yellow
within. The sweet, subacrid, mucilaginous
juice contained in the root is much esteemed
as a pectoral demulcent. Liquorice requires
three years to perfect its growth, when the roots
are taken up about the end of November with
the spade ; they are then washed, the fibres
trimmed off, and the smaller roots which are
termed " offal," are separated from the larger.
The small roots are dried and ground into
powder ; but the larger, which form the princi-
pal article of profit, are packed up and sold to
the druggists. A fair crop will yield from 18
to 20 cwt., at an average price of about 45s. per
cwt.; but the expense of digging up and pre-
paring it for market is not short of 10^. per
acre ; which, great as it may appear, is by no
means extravagant, if we consider the depth to
which the roots run, and the care which is ne-
cessary to avoid breaking or leaving any of
them in the ground. (^PaxtorCs Bot. Did.; Brit.
Hush. vol. ii. p. 330.)

LIQUORICE, WILD. A species of the
genus Galium {CirccEzans) found in the United
States, frequent in rich woodlands, &c. Its
root is perennial, and the stems grow 12 to 18
inches high, often branched near the base. The
flowers are purplish-white, and appear in June
and July. The leaves have a sweet taste, re-
sembling liquorice. See Milk-Vetch.

LITTER. The straw, fern, or other dry sub-
stances which are placed under horses and
cattle in the stables, cow-houses, farm-yards,
&c., for the purpose of keeping the animals
clean and warm, and providing a supply of
manure. In this last view, all sorts of dry ma-
terials should be carefully collected and stacked
up for winter use.

LIVERWORT (^Anemone hepatica, Hepatica
Jtmericana, or Three-lobed Liverwort) is very com-
mon in the open woodlands of the United States,
where it flowers in Pennsylvania in May, and
matures its seed in May and June. This plant
has acquired much notoriety, of late years, as
a remedy in pulmonary consumption; but its
virtues have doubtless been greatly exagge-
rated. Dr. Darlington thinks it the only species
in the United States. (Flora Cestrica.) See
Hkpatica.

LIVE-STOCK. See Horsks, Cattle, Sheep,
&c. In Great Britain, the live-stock forms the
chief wealth of a farm. The term implies cat-
tle ; but poultry, too, is strictly live-stock ; and
732

in some countries, fish, game, bees, &c., are of
that importance that they are considered to be
live-stock. In several districts of England,
rabbits are so, and that to a very essential ex-
tent. In some parts of southern Europe, even
the silk-worm is live-stock.

Through the combined exertions of many
distinguished writers, and the practical know-
ledge of modern breeders, a very material alte-
ration for the belter in the breeds of live-stock
has taken place, and is still progressing ; and
there is little reason to doubt but that still
greater improvements are yet to be effected.
To such researches top much attention can
hardly be paid ; for on the well or ill stocking
of the land will mainly depend the cultivator's
success. To this end, however, much must
rest on the circumstances in which he is placed.
See Arriculture in the United States.

LIVE OAK (Querrus virens). See Oak. J

LOAD. A term used in the United Slates
rather vaguely, and meaning different amounts
or measures in different places. The general
meaning of a load of manure, according to
Buel, is what can be drawn by two horses, or
two oxen, to the field where it is to be applied*
At Boston and other large towns in the East-
ern, as well as other States, the term load is
applied commonly to express as much as can
be drawn by four and even six cattle upon a
hard road, or about 96 cubic feet. A load of
earih, clay, or marl, is generally estimated at
a cubic yard, or 27 cubic feet.

LOAM. By this term is generally under-
stood dark-coloured, rich mould, principally
composed of dissimilar particles of earth and
decomposed vegetable matter, moderately co-
hesive, and therefore neither retentive of mois-
ture, like clay, nor too ready to part with it,
like sandy soil. According as the different in-
gredients predominate, loamy soils are of dif-
ferent qualities — friable and mellow, middling,
or heavy loams. (Pract. Hush. p. 284.) Loam
is supposed to consist chiefly of woody fibre in
a state of decay, which, as it progresses, ac-
quires a black-brown colour, and is then mould
or loam. It is a continued source of carbonic
acid, as almost every particle of it is enveloped
by an atmosphere of that gas, which is absorbed
by the roots of plants, and replaced by atmo-
spheric air, to be again converted into carbonic
acid. Upon this transformation the influence
of loam on vegetation is readily understood : it
does not itself nourish plants, but it presents to
them " a slow and lasting source of carbonic
acid, which is absorbed by the roots." (Liebig,
Organic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture^
p. 48 — 61.) See Humus. ^

LOBELIA (Lobelia^ in honour of Matthew
Lobel, author of various botanical works. He
was a native of Lisle; became physician and
botanist to James I., and died in London in
1616). This is an extremely interesting genus
of plants, on account of the beauty of the blos-
soms, and the medicinal properties of some of
the species. The green-house, and stove,
shrubby, and herbaceous kinds, grow well in a
mixture of peat and sand ; the shrubby kinds
are readily increased by cuttings in the same
kind of soil, and the herbaceous species by di-
viding and by seeds. The hardy herbaceous

LOBLOLLY BAY.

LOCUST.

kinds do well in a light, rich earth, or peat soil ;
but in winter most of them require the protec-
tion of a frame. The green-house ansuals and
biennials must be sown in pots, and treated as
other green-house annuals and biennials. The
seeds of the hardy kinds have only to be sown
in the open border. L. longifiora is one of the
most venomous of plants. Barton says the
Spanish Americans call it Febenta cavaUos, be-
cause it proves fatal to horses that eat it, swell-
ing them till they burst. Taken internally, it
acts as a violent cathartic, the effects of which
no remedy can assuage, and which terminate
in death. Another American species, namely,
L. inflata, commonly called Indian Tobacco, is
a powerful antispasmodic and emetic, and is
much employed to allay the paroxysm of spas-
modic asthma. There are two indigenous spe-
cies : 1. The water lobelia (L. Durtmanna),
which grows in the lakes of Wales, Scotland,
Ireland, and the north of England. The root
consists of many long, simple, whitish fibres.
Herb smooth, immersed in water like the Hot-
t(y)iia. Leaves numerous, two inches long,
linear, entire, with two longitudinal cells. The
stem is nearly naked, terminating in a simple
cluster of light-blue, drooping, alternate flowers,
raised several inches above the water, which
appear in July and August.

2. Acrid lobelia {L. wens). This grows wild
on bushy heaths in Devonshire. The root is
fibrous ; stem a foot or more in height, nearly
upright ; lower leaves ovate, slightly toothed ;
upper lanceolate, serrated ; the flowers are in
erect clusters, terminal, of a purplish-blue co-
lour, appearing in August and September. The
whole herb is milky, fetid, and very acrid.

LOBLOLLY BAY (Gorrfwjia lasyanthus).
This American tree is comprehended within
the same limits with the long-leaved pine, being
confined to the maritime parts of the Southern
States, to the two Floridas, and to Lower Loui-
siana. It is very abundant in the branch
swamps, and exists in greater proportion than
the red bay, swamp bay, and black gum, with
which it is usually associated. In the pine
barrens, tracts of 60 or 100 acres are met with
at intervals, which, being lower than the adja-
cent ground, are kept constantly moist by the
waters collected in them after the great rains.
These spots are entirely covered with the lob-
lolly bay, and are called bay swamps. Although
the layer of vegetable mould is only 3 or 4
inches thick, and reposes upon a bed of barren
sand, the vegetation of these trees is surpris-
ingly luxuriant.

The loblolly bay grows to the height of 50 or
60 feet, with a diameter of 18 or 20 inches.
For 25 to 30 feet its trunk is perfectly straight.
The small divergency of its branches near the
trunk gives it a regularly pyramidal form; but
as they ascend they spread more loosely, like
those of other trees of the forest.

The leaves are evergreen, from 3 to 6 inches
long, alternate, oval-acuminate, slightly toothed,
and smooth and shining on the upper surface.
The flowers are more than an inch broad, white
and sweet-scented ; they begin to appear about
the middle of July, and bloom in succession
during 2 or 3 months. This tree possesses

the agreeable singularity of bearing flowers
when it is only 3 or 4 feet high.

The fruit is an oval capsule, divided into
5 compartments, each of which contains small,
black, winged seeds. These seeds appear to
germinate successfully only in places covered
with sphagnum, a species of moss which co-
piously imbibes water, and in which are found
thousands of the young plants, which are
plucked up with ease.

The bark of the loblolly bay is very smooth
while the tree is less than 6 inches in diame-
ter ; on old trees it is thick and deeply furrowed.
In trunks which exceed 15 inches in diameter,
four-fifths of the wood is heart. The wood is
of a rosy hue, and of a fine, silky texture : it
appears to be very proper for the inside of fur-
niture, though the cypress is generally prefer-
red. It is extremely light: when seasoned it
is very brittle, and it rapidly decays unless it
is kept perfectly dry: hence it is entirely neg-
lected in use, and is not employed even for fuel.

The value of the loblolly bark in tanning
compensates in some measure for the useless-
ness of its wood : it is employed for this pur-
pose throughout the maritime parts of the South-
ern States and of the Floridas. For, although
this branch of industry is by no means as ex-
tensively practised in this part of the country
as in the Northern States, and though these
regions afford many species of oak, yet the
species whose bark is proper for tanning are
not sufficiently multiplied to supply the con-
sumption. As much of the bark of the Spanish
oak as can be obtained, of which the price is
one-half greater, is mixed with that of the lob-
lolly bay. This tree has the advantage of
maintaining very long the circulation of its
sap, so that the bark may be taken off during
three or four months.

The luxuriance of its vegetation, the beauty
of its flowers, and the richness of its evergreen
foliage place the loblolly bay among the mag-
nolias ; and, with the other species, it contri-
butes to the ornament of the forests in the
southern parts of the United States. It is less
sensible to cold than the big laurel. (Michaux.)

LOBLOLLY PINE (Pinus tada). See Fibs.

LOCKED-JAW. See Tetaxcs.

LOCKING OF WHEELS. The means of
fastening them so as to prevent their running
too swiftly upon the horses, when coming down
steep hills. This is effected in various ways ;
as by chains, sledges, friction-bars, &c. See
Whkel, and Wago?t.

LOCULAR. A term in botany. A fruit is
called unilocular if it contains but one cell, bi-
locular if it contains two cells, and so on. In
many instances, one or more of the cells are
abortive, and become obliterated as the fruit
ripens.

LOCUST. A name given by the English to
the large grasshoppers, but which, in the United
States, and indeed almost universally, is applied
to the group of insects which naturalists have
termed Cicadians, and which are also called
harvest-flies.

These insects are readily distinguished by
their broad heads, the large and very convex
eyes on each side, and the three eyelets on the
3Q 733

LOCUST.

LOCUST.

crown; by the transparent and veined wing-
covers and wings ; and by the elevation on the
back part of the thorax in the form of the letter
X. The males have a peculiar organization,
which enables them to emit an excessively loud
buzzing kind of sound, which, in some species,
may be heard at the distance of a mile ; and
the females are furnished with a curiously con-
trived piercer, for perforating the limbs of trees,
in which they place their eggs. The musical
instruments of the male consist of a pair of
kettle-drums, one on each side of the body, and
these, in the seventeen-year Cicada (or locust, as
it is generally but improperly called in Ameri-
ca), are plainly to be seen just behind the
wings. These drums are formed of convex
pieces of parchment, covered with numerous
fine plaits, and, in the species above named,
are lodged in cavities on the sides of the body
behind the thorax. They are not played upon
with sticks, but by muscles or cords fastened
to the inside of the drums. When these mus-
cles contract and relax, which they do with
-great rapidity, the drum-heads are alternately
tightened and loosened, recovering their natu-
ral convexity by their own elasticity. The
effect of this rapid alternate tension and relaxa-
tion is the production of a rattling sound, like
that caused by a succession of quick pressures
upon a slightly convex and elastic piece of tin
plate. Certain cavities within the body of the
insect, which may be seen on raising two large
valves beneath the belly, and which are sepa-
rated from each other by thin partitions having
the transparency and brilliancy of mica, or of
thin and highly polished glass, tend to increase
the vibrations of the sounds, and add greatly to
their intensity. In most of our species of Ci-
cada, the drums are not visible on the outside
of the body, but are covered by convex trian-
gular pieces on each side of the first ring be-
hind the thorax, which must be cut away in
order to expose them. On raising the large
valves of the belly, however, there is seen, close
to each side of the body, a little opening, like a
pocket, in which the drum is lodged, and from
which the sound issues when the insect opens
the valves. The hinder extremity of the body
of the female is conical, and the under-side has
a longitudinal channel for the reception of the
piercer, which is furthermore protected by four
short grooved pieces fixed in the sides of the
channel. The piercer itself consists of three
parts in close contact with each other; namely,
two outer ones grooved on the inside and en-
larged at the tips, which externally are beset
with small teeth like a saw, and a central,
spear-pointed borer, which plays between the
other two. Thus this instrument has the power
and does the work both of an awl and of a dou-
ble-edged saw, or rather of two key-hole saws
cutting opposite to each other. No species of
Cicada possesses the power of leaping. The
legs are rather short, and the anterior thighs
are armed beneath with two stout spines.

The duration of life in winged insects .is
comparatively very short, seldom exceeding
two or three weeks in extent, and in many is
limited to the same number of days or hours.
To increase and multiply is their principal bu-
siness in this period of their existence, if not
734

the only one ; and the natural term of their life
ends when this is accomplished. In their pre-
vious states, however, they often pass a much
longer time, the length of which depends, in
great measure, upon the nature and abundance
of their food. Thus maggots, which subsist
upon decaying animal or vegetable matter,
come more quickly to their growth than cater-
pillars and other insects which devour living
plants: the former are appointed to remove an
uffensive nuisance, and to do their work quickly;
the latter have a longer time assigned to them,
corresponding in some degree to the progress
or continuance of vegetation. The facilities
afforded for obtaining food influence the dura-
tion of life ; hence those grubs that live in the
solid trunks of perennial trees, which they are
obliged to perforate in order to obtain nourish-
ment, are longer lived than those that devour
the tender parts of leaves and fruits, which,
though they last only for a season, require no
laborious efforts to be prepared for food. The
harvest-flies continue only a few weeks after
their final transformation, and their only nour-
ishment consists of vegetable juices, which
they obtain by piercing the bark and leaves of
plants with their beaks; and during this period
they lay their eggs, and then perish. They are,
however, amply compensated for the shortness
of their life in the winged state by the length
of their previous existence, during which they
are wingless and grub-like in form, and live
under ground, where they obtain their food only
by much labour in perforating the soil among
the roots of plants, the juices of which they
imbibe by suction. To meet the difiiculties of
their situation and the precarious supply of
their food, for which they have to grope in the
dark in their subterranean retreats, a remarka-
ble longevity is assigned to them; and one
species has obtained the name of Cicada sep-
tendecim, on account of its life being protracted
to the period of seventeen years.

This insect has been observed in the south-
eastern parts of Massachusetts, but does not
seem to have extended to other parts of the
state. The earliest account that we have of it
is contained in Morton's Memorial, wherein
it is stated that " there was a numerous com-
pany of flies, which were like for bigness unto
wasps or bumblebees," which appeared in Ply-
mouth in the spring of 1633. "They came out
of little holes in the ground, and did eat up the
green things, and made such a constant yelling
noise as made the woods ring of them, and
ready to deafen the hearers." Judge Davis, in
the Appendix to his edition of Secretary Mor-
ton's Memorial, states that these insects ap-
peared in Plymouth, Sandwich, and Falmouth
in the year 1804; but, if the exact period of
seventeen years was observed, they should have
returned in 1803. Circumstances may occa-
sionally accelerate or retard their progress to
maturity, but the usual interval is certainly
seventeen years, according to the observations
and testimony of many persons of undoubted
veracity. Their occurrence in large swarms
at long intervals, like that of the migratory
locusts of the East, probably suggested the
name of locusts, which has commonly been
applied to them in this country. It appears

LOCUST.

LOCUST.

that these insects come forth at different places
in different years.

Dog-day Harvest-fly. — Another species of har-
vest-fly, though it does not make its appearance
in such formidable numbers as the seventeen-
years locust, is much more frequently met with.
Dr. Harris calls it the dog-day harvest*fly
{Cicada canicularis), (rom its invariably coming
about the beginning of dog-days. "During
many years in succession," says Dr. Harris,
" with only one or two exceptions, I have
heard this insect on the 23th day of July, for
the first time in the season, drumming in the
trees, on some part of the day between the
hours of ten in the morning and two in the
afternoon."

Dr. Harris describes about twenty other spe-
cies of the locust family found in Massachu-
setts, and concludes the subject in the follow-
ing words :

"After so much space has been devoted to
an account of the ravages of grasshoppers and
locusts, and to the descriptions of the insects
themselves, perhaps it may be expected that
the means of checking and destroying them
should be fully explained. The naturalist,
however, seldom has it in his power to put in
practice the various remedies which his know-
ledge or experience may suggest. His proper
province consists in examining the living ob-
jects about him with regard to their structure,
their scientific arrangement, and their economy
or history. In doing this, he opens to others
the way to a successful course of experiments,
the trial of which he is generally obliged to
leave to those who are more favourably situ-
ated for their performance.

In the south of France the people make a
business, at certain seasons of the year, of col-
lecting locusts and their eggs, the latter being
turned out of the ground in little masses, ce-
mented and covered with a sort of gum, in
which they are enveloped by the insects. Re-
wards are offered and paid for their collection,
half a franc being given for a kilogramme
(about 2 lbs. 3^ oz. avoirdupois) of the insects,
and a quarter of a franc for the same weight
of their eggs. At this rate 20,000 francs were
paid in Marseilles, and 25,000 in Aries, in the
year 1613; in 1824, 5,542; and in 182.5, 6,200
francs were paid in Marseilles. It is stated
that an active boy can collect from 6 to 7 kilo-
grammes (or from 13 lbs. 3 oz. 13-22 dr. to
15 lbs. 7 oz. 2-09 dr.) of eggs in one day. The
locusts are taken by means of a piece of stout
cloth, carried by four persons, two of whom
draw it rapidly along, so that the edge may
sweep over the surface of the soil, and the two
others hold up the cloth behind at an angle of
45 degrees. This contrivance seems to ope-
rate somewhat like a horse-rake, in gathering
the insects into winrows or heaps, from which
they are speedily transferred to large sacks.
A somewhat similar plan has been successfully
tried in this country, as appears by an account
extracted from the Portsmouth Journal, and
published in the New England Fanner, vol. v.
p. .5. It is there stated that, in July, 1826, Mr.
Arnold Thompson, of Epsom, New Hampshire,
caught in one evening, between the hours of 8
and 12, in his own and his neighbour's grain-

fields, 5 bushels and 3 pecks of grasshoppers,
or, more properly, locusts. ' His mode of catch*
ing them was by attaching two sheets together,
and fastening them to a pole, which was used
as the front part of the drag. The pole extended
beyond the width of the sheets, so as to admit
persons at both sides to draw it forward. At
the sides of the drag, braces extended from the
pole to raise the back part considerably from
the ground, so that the grasshoppers could not
escape. After running the drag about a dozen
rods with rapidity, the braces were taken out,
and the sheets doubled over; the grasshoppers
were then swept from each end towards the
centre of the sheet, where was left an opening
to the mouth of a bag which held about half a
bushel ; when deposited and tied up, the drag
was again opened and ready to proceed. When
this bag was filled so as to become burdensome
(their weight is about the same as that of the
same measure of corn), the bag was opened
into a larger one, and the grasshoppers received
into a new deposit. The drag can be used
only in the evening, when the grasshoppers are
perched on the top of the grain. His manner
of destroying them was by dipping the large
bags into a kettle of boiling water. When
boiled, they had a reddish appearance, and
made a fine feast for the farmer's hogs.' When
these insects are very prevalent on our salt
marshes, it will be advisable to mow the grass
early, so as to secure a crop before it has suf-
fered much loss. The time for doing this will
be determined by data furnished in the forego-
ing pages, where it will be seen that the most
destructive species come to maturity during
the latter part of July. If, then, the marshes
are mowed about the first of July, the locusts,
being at that time small and not provided with
wings, will be unable to migrate, and will con-
sequently perish on the ground for the want
of food, while a tolerable crop of hay will be
secured, and the marshes will suffer less from
the insects during the following summer. This,
like all other preventive measures, must be
generally adopted, in order to prove effectual ;
for it will avail a farmer but little to take pre-
ventive measures on his own land, if his neigh-
bours, who are equally exposed and interested,
neglect to do the same. Among the natural
means which seem to be appointed to keep
these insects in check, violent winds and storms
may be mentioned, which sometimes sweep
them off in great swarms, and cast them into
the sea. Vast numbers are drowned by the
high tides that frequently inundate our marshes.
They are subject to be attacked by certain
thread-like brown or blackish worms (Filaria),
resembling in appearance those called horse-
hair eels (Gorditts). I have taken three or four
of these animals out of the body of a single
locust. They are also much infested by little
red mites, belonging apparently to the genus
Ocypete: these so much weaken the insects by
sucking the juices from their bodies, as to
hasten their death. Ten or a dozen of these
mites will frequently be found pertinaciously
adhering to the body of a locust, beneath its
wing-covers and wings. A kind of sand-wasp
! preys upon grasshoppers, and provisions her
I nest with them. Many birds devour them, par-

736

LOCUST-BORER.

LOOSENESS.

ticularly our domestic fowls, which eat great
numbers of grasshoppers, locusts, and even
crickets. Young turkeys, if allowed to go at
large during the summer, derive nearly the
whole of their subsistence from these insects."
(^Harris's Treatise on Insects.)

In England, Locust is the common name of
a species of insects forming a group or sub-
genus of the gryllus of Linnseus. They have
coloured elytra, and large wings, disposed,
when at rest, in straight, fan-like folds, as in
other orthoptera, and frequently exhibiting
bright blue, green, or red colours. The thorax
is capacious, to afford room for the powerful
muscles of the wings, and is marked in many
species with one or more crests, or wart-like
prominences. The locusts fly by starts, but
frequently rise to a considerable height. Cer-
tain species, called " migratory locusts," unite
in incalculable numbers, and emigrate, resem-
bling, in their passage through the air, a dense
cloud: wherever they alight, all signs of vegeta-
tion quickly disappear, and cultivated grounds
are left a desert. One species {Acridium migra-
toiium, Latr.), occasionally commits devasta-
tions in the south of Europe and Poland; and
stragglers have sometimes reached England, a
circumstance which happened in 1748: but
they soon perished. To our ideas of the asso-
ciation of insects, the swarms of locusts which
have occasionally appeared in oriental coun-
tries seem almost incredible. Major Moor states
that a flight which ravaged the Mahratta coun-
try, and which he saw at Poonah, extended in a
dense column 500 miles, and hid the sun like
an eclipse. On that occasion, the natives fried
and ate them. The devastation which they
make is forcibly described by the prophet Joel:
*'The land is as the garden of Eden before
them, and behind them a desolate wilderness."

LOCUST-BORER. See Borers.

LOCUST, HONEY or SWEET. See Honey
LocrsT.

LOCUST TREE (Hymentea, from Hymen,
the god of marriage ; in reference to the two
leaflets). The species of locust tree are highly
ornamental ; they delight to grow in loam and
peat, and cuttings will root in sand under a
glass in heat. The young plants should be
planted out in the autumn of the second year,
cutting them down within three inches of the
ground. They must be preserved from the at-
tacks of hares and rabbits, which are very
destructive to them. See Acacia.

LOCUST TREE CATERPH.LARS. These
are produced from the eggs of a butterfly be-
longing to a tribe which, from their habit of
flying but a short distance at a time with a
jerking motion, have acquired the name of
skippers {He^eriadce or Hesperians). They
frequent grassy places, low bushes, and thick-
ets. When they alight, they usually keep the
hind-wings spread out horizontally, and the
fore-wings partially closed, but not entirely so,
as in other butterflies.

The Tityrus skipper (Eudamus tityrus), and
its offspring, are thus described by Dr. Harris.
« Wings brown ; first pair with a transverse,
semi-transparent band across the middle, and
a few spots towards the tip, of a honey-yellow
colour; hind-wings with a short rounded tail
736

on the hind angles, and a broad silvery band
across the middle of the under-side. Expands
from 2 to 2^ inches.

"This large and beautiful insect makes its
appearance, from the middle of June till after
the beginning of July, upon sweet-scented
flowers, which it visits during the middle of
the day. Its flight is vigorous and rapid, and
its strength is so great that it cannot be cap-
tured without danger of its being greatly de-
faced in its struggles to escape. The females
lay their eggs, singly, on the leaves of the
common locust tree (Robinia pseudacacia), and
on those of the viscid locust (Robinia viscosa),
which is much cultivated here as an orna-
mental tree. The caterpillars are hatched in
July, and when quite small conceal themselves
under a fold of the edge of a leaf, which is
bent over their bodies and secured by means
of silken threads. When they become larger,
they attach two or more leaves together, so as
to form a kind of cocoon or leafy case to shel-
ter them from the weather, and to screen them
from the prying eyes of birds. The full-grown
caterpillar, which attains to the length of about
two inches, is of a pale green colour, trans-
versely streaked with darker green, with a red
neck, a very large head roughened with minute
tubercles, slightly indented or furrowed above,
and of a dull red colour, with a large yellow
spot on each side of the mouth. Although
there may be, and often are, many of these
caterpillars on the same tree and branch, yet
they all live separately within their own cases.
One end of the leafy case is left open, and
from this the insect comes forth to feed. They
eat only, or mostly, in the night, and keep
themselves closely concealed by day. These
caterpillars are very cleanly in their habits,
and make no dirt in their habitations, but
throw it out with a sudden jerk, so that it
shall fall at a considerable distance. They
frequently transform to chrysalids within the
same leaves which have served them for a
habitation, but more often quit the trees and
construct in some secure place a cocoon of
leaves or fragments of stubble, the interior of
which is lined with a loose web of silk. They
remain in their cocoons without further change
throughout the winter, and are transformed to
butterflies in the following summer. The vis-
cid locust tree is sometimes almost completely
stripped of its leaves by these insects, or pre-
sents only here and there the brown and wither-
ed remains of foliage, which has served as a
temporary shelter to the caterpillars. For the
modes adopted to destroy these, see Cateh-

PIUARS.

LOLIUM. See Rye-Grass.

LONDON PRIDE. See Saxifrage.

LONDON ROCKET. See Hedge-Mustar&.

LONG-HORNED CATTLE. A breed of
neat cattle now nearly extinct, chiefly distin-
guished by the length of the horn, the thick-
ness and firm texture of the hide, the length
and closeness of the hair, the large size of the
hoof, and the coarse, leathery thickness of the
neck. See Cattle.

LOOPERS. See Span-worms.

LOOSENESS. See Diarhhcea, and Dis-
eases OF Cattle and Sheep.

LOOSESTRIFE.

LUCERN.

LOOSESTRIFE (Lysitnachiay from lusis, dis-
solution, and mache, strife). A very pretty ge-
nus of plants, with mostly yellow flowers. All
the species are of the easiest culture, and may
be propagated by divisions, except L. dubia
and L. Linum-stellatum, which must be in-
creased by seeds.

Great yellow loosestrife (X. vulgaris), grows
in watery, shady places, particularly the reedy
margins of rivers. The root is creeping; stems
3 or 4 feet high.

Wood leosestrife, or yellow pimpernel (L.
nemorum). This species, which is one of the
elegant though not uncommon English plants,
inhabits woods and shady, rather watery places.
The stems are creeping at the base, decum-
bent, often pendant from banks and rocks.

Creeping loosestrife. Money-wort or herb
tjiropence (i. nummularia). This is a hand-
some free-floweringplant, which, from its trail-
ing habit, is well fitted for decorating rock-
work. It grows wild in wet meadows, boggy
pastures, and the borders of rivulets. The
herbage is smooth, of a pale green ; stems
quite prostrate, creeping, a foot or two in length ;
leaves somewhat heart-shaped; flowers soli-
tary, pale lemon-coloured, rather larger than
the last species; stamens glandular. It flowers
from June to August, and aflbrds a wholesome
food for cattle, especially sheep. On account
of its sifb-acid and mildly astringent proper-
ties, it is considered as one of the most effica-
cious vulnerary herbs. Bechstein asserts that
the leaves and flowers of this plant, steeped in
oil, furnish an excellent remedy for destroying
the worms and insects infesting the floors of
granaries.

LOPPED MILK. Provincially, milk that
has stood till it has become sour and curdled.

LOPPING. The operation of cutting ofi" the
lateral or other branches of trees. See Pbu3t-
iNG and Plantatioxs.

LOTUS. See Birds'-foot Trefoil.

LOUSINESS. In farriery, an aflection of
the skin, arising, in cattle or other animals,
from the irritation of lice or other animalculce,
which may be distinguished by the naked eye.
Most animals, and even insects, are subject to
this annoyance. Lousiness in live-stock is
produced by neglect and low keep. The best
remedy is more attention to cleanliness, with
better food. The lice may be killed by a dress-
ing applied with a brush to the chief affected
parts, composed of four ounces of black sul-
phur, mixed with a pint of train oil, or a small
portion of weak mercurial ointment.

LOUSE-WORT. See Rattle.

LOVAGE (Ligusticum, so named because
some of the species grow in Liguria). A ge-
nus of hardy, herbaceous, and biennial, aro-
matic plants, which, as flowers, are not worth
cultivating. They will grow in any soil, and
are increased by seeds.

The Scottish lovage or sea parsley (X. Scoti-
cum), grows on rocks, cliffs, and the sea-coasts
of Scotland and the north of England, on a
stem a foot high ; root tap-shaped, wiirm and
pungent ; leaves stalked, twice temate ; foot-
stalks bordered with a purplish compressed
membrane at the base; umbels smooth, not
very large, bearing white flowers, with a red-
93

dish tinge : these appear in July. This herb is
eaten by the natives of Scotland and its isles,
either crude as a salad, or boiled as greens. The
flavour is highly acrid, and, though aromatic,
stomachic, and perhaps not unwholesome, yet
very nauseous to those who are unaccustomed
to such food. It is relished by horses, sheep,
and goats, but refused by cows. The stem
yields English opoponax. The roots are re-
puted to be carminative, and an infusion of
the leaves affords a good physic for calves.

Cornish lovage (i. cornubiense). This is a
less common species, found sometimes in
bushy fields in Cornwall. The root is spindle-
shaped, contracted at the crown, descending
to a great depth ; when wounded, discharging
a yellow, resinous juice. The stem is two or
three feet high, solitary, erect, branched, stri-
ated, purple at the base. Leaves deep green ;
the radicles once, twice, or thrice pinnate,
rough-edged, cut ; stem-leaves temate, lanceo-
late, entire. Ribs of the seeds bluntish.

LOVE-APPLE. See Tomato.

LOVE-GRASS (Eragrostis, from eros, love,
and agrostis, grass ; in allusion to the beautiful
dancing spikelets, whence also the English
name). It is a pretty species of foreign grass,
growing in gardens about a foot high in any
common soil.

LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING. The common
name of a species of amaranth (j1. caudatus).

LOY. A very long, narrow spade, peculiar
to the province of Connaught and some parts
of Munster, and only suited to stony land,
where a wider edge could not so easily pene-
trate. (i¥. Doyle's Pract. Husb.)

LUCAMA. A species of fruit growing in
Chili, in size and flavour resembling a peach.
(Ed. Encyr.)

LUCERN, or PURPLE MEDICK GRASS
(Medicago sativa, PI. 8, h). An artificial grass,
called by the French grand trefle, which affords
perhaps a larger produce of fodder than any
other species of artificial grass. Although
found growing wild in hedges, pastures, and
the borders of fields in dry, calcareous soils,
yet it can scarcely be considered a native of
England. The stems are erect or somewhat
reclining, about two feet high. Leaflets oblong,
inclining to wedge-shaped; more or less acute,
sharply serrated towards the end, clothed with
close, silky hairs on both sides. The flowers
are in clusters, many, bluish purple, with a
small bristle-like bracte under each partial
stalk. The legumes are spiral, with rarely
more than two or three turns ; they are silky
when young.

This valuable grass is best cultivated on a
good, dry, warm, barley soil ; it is not adapted
for heavy or wet soils. Being a deep-rooted
plant, it requires a soil in which its roots can
penetrate to a considerable depth. It should
be sown on land perfectly clean, in the months
of March or April, with (or best without) a
crop of grain. It is only adapted to the south-
ern parts of England, since extreme cold de-
stroys it. It is best sown alone in drills, at a
distance of 12 to 15 inches; the quantity of
seed is from 10 to 16 lbs. per acre. Any va-
cancies in the drills may in the autumn or fol-
lowing spring be made good by transplanting.
3 a 2 737

LUCERN.

LUCERN.

By careful weeding and hoeing, and frequent
top-dressings (for which purpose gypsum, cal-
careous matters, ashes, &c., are excellent), the
profitable duration of this crop may be extend-
ed eight or ten years, giving during that period,
on an average, three or four cuttings per an-
num: the first of which, in favourable seasons,
will be as early as the middle of April. It
should always be cut before the appearance
of the blossom. It may be made into hay, al-
though much better adapted for soiling. An
acre will, upon an average, produce fodder for
two horses, from ihe first cutting to October.
It is admirably adapted for milch cows, and is,
indeed, relished by all live-stock.

" Lucern," as observed by Mr. Loudon (En-
cyclo. of Gard.) " is highly extolled by Roman
writers ; it is also of great antiquity in Spain,
Italy, and the south of France ; is much grown
in Persia and Peru, and mown in both coun-
tries all the year round. It is mentioned by
Hartlip, Blythe, and other early writers, and
was tried by Lisle ; but it excited little atten-
tion till after the publication of Harte's Essays
in 17.57 (? 1764). Mr. Towers, speaking of
lucern, calls it ' the plant of plants.' ♦ I have
grown lucern (he adds) during four or five
years, and previously I had witnessed its great
success and extensive culture in the Isle of
Thanet.'"

In cutting for a cow, it will always be ad-
visable to take the plant when it is tender and
juicy; and such it will be when about a foot
high. I have thus cut my plot over six times
after the first year; but they who leave the
plants to grow two feet high, will find the stems
rigid, fibrous, and less juicy; and that what
they gain in bulk will be lost in time and qua-
lity. Lucern is known to produce much milk,
perhaps more than any other of the artificial
grasses (Leguminosa) -^ but some complain that
it communicates an austere or bitter flavour.
I doubt the fact, but would always recommend
that it be not given quite fresh to a cow, par-
ticularly at an early period after calving.

If the required quantity be cut over night, it
will be fit for the stall by ten o'clock of the
following morning, and again the afternoon
meal should be exposed to the sun for 2 or 3
hours before it is used. " As to the trouble in
managing an established crop, it is really no-
thing. Though I allow it is good to hoe twice
during the summer, as the plot is cut piece by
piece, yet one general fork-digging at that pe-
riod of early spring when the plants exhibit
the first symptom of growth, so as to remove
every weed, and loosen the surface of the soil,
will be amply sufficient to secure the safety
and full developement of the herb. Upon the
whole, lucern is a plant of the utmost value ;
for if the seed be good, the ground rich and in
heart, and rendered deep in the first instance
by a thorough trenching, the young plants start
into lively growth, attain strength in the short-
est possible time, and yield a bulk of luxuriant
herbage that cannot be surpassed. If the plant
require four years to attain its maximum of
power, it is still a giant even from its infancy,
advancing from strength to strength. A well
prepared field, if kept clean by the forking,
will remain productive for more than ten years;
738

but as a change of crop always promotes abun-
dance, it would be advisable to prepare a suc-
cessional plot every six years." (Quart. Jown,
of Jgr. vol. ix. p. 96.)

About 80 pounds weight per day of 24 hours
is sufficient for the largest cow, and half this,
with corn, for a horse. No stock should at any
time be permitted to graze upon it.

There are several varieties of lucern, with vio-
let, yellow, and variegated flowers, which are
'.upposed to be only a variation of the same
plant, arising accidentally from the seed.
However, neither the yellow nor the varie-
gated is ever so strong as the purple flowered,
and cannot, of course, be so profitable to the
cultivator. Lucern may be estimated as the
choicest of all fodder, because it lasts many
years ; will bear cutting down four, five, or six
times a year; enriches the land on which«it
grows ; will fatten cattle, and often proves a
remedy for the diseased.

Those who wish to acquire more minute in-
formation relative to the management of lucern,
may consult the Rev. Walter Harte's learned
Essays on Husbandry ; Rocque's Practical Trea-
tise on Cultivating Lucern Grass; and British
Husbandry, vol. ii. p. 307.

Lucern is sometimes called French clover, and
has been introduced into the United States as a
new plant under the name of Brazilian clover,
called in South America Alfalfa, the Spanish
name for lucern. It is a kind of grass which
in some situations has been cultivated with
great success in the United States. It is not,
strictly speaking, a clover, though in some re-
spects similar. It is a perennial, and in favour-
able soils the roots are said to live and flourish
a great many years. Its advantages consist in
affording a greater amount of foliage for any
kind of stock than any other plant, with the
same labour and expense. "Several years
since, while residing in the State of Maine, we
made several experiments with lucern, which,
although some of them terminated unfavour-
ably, satisfied us that the most favourable soil
for it is a deep, sandy loam ; and as the alluvial
soils on this river are generally of this charac-
ter, we last spring resolved on giving it a fair
trial here. We procured from Boston a small
quantity of seed, which was sown on the river
' bottom' the last week in May. As the soil had
been badly managed for several years previous,
we had feared that the great growth of weeds
would check and smother the lucerne, and to
guard against this, and get a chance to extir-
pate the weeds, we sowed the seed in drills.
This was done very expeditiously and exactly
with one of Ruggles, Nourse, and Mason's seed
sowers.

"In the latter part of the month of July, the
lucern had reached the height of 18 inches on
an average, and had considerably blossomed.
We cut it and fed it green, partly to hogs and
partly to milch cows, — both ate it voraciously.
In just four weeks from the time it was cut, it
had again grown to nearly the same height as
before, and was cut a second time, — and on the
first of November it was cut a third time, — the
crop being heavier than either of the preced-
ing. A piece of common red clover (very
flourishing) immediately adjoining, the soil

LUG.

MADDER.

precisely similar, did not yield nearly half as
much, in proportion, as the lucern.

" We have no doubt that it may be cut five
times another year, and will yield at the rate
of a ton and a half of hay to the acre at each
cutting." (^Zanesville Gazette.)

Upon analysis, the stems, &c., of lucern are
found to contain gypsum, and this furnishes a
satisfactory explanation of the fact, that plaster
of Paris applied to the crop generally causes
it to grow luxuriantly. Live-stock prefer plas-
tered lucern to any other herbage.

LUG. A long measure of land, the same
with a pole or perch, 16^ feet. In Gloucester-
shire it however signifies a land measure of
6 yards, or a rod, pole, or perch of 6 yards.
It is a measure by which ditching and other
similar operations are performed there. This
term is likewise applied to the stick by which
the work is measured. It is sometimes called
log.

LUNGWORT {Ptdmonaria; it derives both
its common and generic names from its sup-
posed medical properties in diseases of the
lungs). The species of this genus are very
pretty flowering plants, well adapted for orna-
menting the front of shrubberies. They thrive
in any common soil, and are readily increased
by divisions.

LUPINE (Xuptnux, from /upiM, a wolf; in
allusion to its exhausting or devouring the
soil). The species of this genus are among
the most beautiful of border flowers. They
will flourish in almost any soil, but a rich
loam suits them best. They perfect their seeds
very freely, from which young plants are easily
obtained. In agriculture, the lupine is culti-
vated principally for being turned in as a ma-
nure. (See Green Maxures.) This plant re-
quires but little trouble or labour in its culti-
vation, as it will thrive in any soil except the
bad chalks, and such as are very wet. It will
even grow well on poor, hungry, worn-out land,
especially if it be dry and sand}'. When sown
in February or March, after a single very shal-
low ploughing, and slightly harrowed in, it will
blossom two or three times between May and
August, and prove an excellent enricher of the
ground when ploughed in just after its second
blooming. The best time for mowing this sort
of crop is after a shower of rain, as the seeds
drop easily out of their pods when they are
gathered too dry. They must, however, be
laid up very dry, or worms soon breed in them.
They are inferior to many other plants for the
above use.

LUPINE, WILD. Mr.Nuttallhasenumerated
seven species of the lupine genus found in dif-
ferent parts of the United States and territories.
Dr. Darlington has described common wild lu-
pine, an ornamental plant, found in the wood-
lands and hills of the Middle States. The root
is perennial and creeping; stem 9 to 18 inches
high, herbaceous, erect, or decumbent, some-
what branching, striated, angular, and pubes-
cent. Flower purplish-blue, with violet shades.
Legume or pod about an inch and a half long
and one-third of an inch wide, somewhat flat-
tened, hairy, and of a dark tawny colour. Seed
obovoid, slightly compressed, smooth, speckled
Of variegated with whitish and dark brown.

! LURCHER. A sort of hunting dog, much
j like a mongrel greyhound, with pricked ears,
I a shaggy coat, and generally of a yellowish-
white colour. It is a very swift runner, so that,
if it gets between the burrows and the rabbits,
it seldom misses taking them; and this is its
common practice in hunting.

LURID. In botany, signifies a colour be-
tween a purple, vellow, and grav.

LYME-GRASS. See Eltmus.

LYCHNIS (from lychnos, a lamp; on account
of the brilliancy of the flowers of most of the
species). This is an extremely beautiful genus
of plants, well meriting extensive cultivation
for the brilliancy of their flowers. A red va-
riety is often cultivated in a double state, and
called bachelor's buttons; a name, however,
which is more frequently given to a species of
ranunculus.

LYNCHET. A country term applied to the
stripes or grassy partitions in arable fields in
England, but mostly to such as are in the state
of commonage.

LYNCH-PIN, or LINCH-PIN. The small
pin, in carts or other carriages, that is put
through the ends of the axle-trees, to confine
the wheels on them.

LYRATE. In botany, leaves are called ly-
rate which are shaped in the form of a lyre

M.

MACERATION. The act of softening any
substance by steeping it in cold water or other
liquid.

MACHINE (Gr.). In a general sense this
word signifies any thing which serves to in-
crease or regulate the effect of a given force.
Machines are either simple or compound. The
simple machines are usually reckoned six in
number; namely, the lever, the wheel and axle,
the pulley, the wedge, the screw, and the funi-
cular or rope machine. Compound machines
are formed by combining two or more simple
machines.

In husbandry, the term is applied to various
implements, such as the Drill, Thrarhino,
and Winnowing Machines, the Steam Enoinb,
&c. See these respective terms.

MADDER (Rubia, from ruber, red, in allusion
to the colour of the roots). This is a genus of
interesting plants ; any common garden soil
suits them, and they are easily increased by
seeds or divisions of the roots. The root of R,
tinctorum is one of the most valuable dyes with
which we are acquainted, and is a very import-
ant article of commerce. The plant is herba^
ceous, several stems rising from the same root;
tetragonal, with hooked prickles at the angles.
The leaves are four or six in a whorl, lanceo-
late, with the midrib on the under disk, and the
margins aculeated. The flowers are small,
yellow, supported on axillary trichotomous pe-
duncles.

The dried root of the madder is long, cylin-
drical, the thickness of a goose quill, branched
and covered with a reddish cuticle, which, as
well as the bark, is easily separated ; the odour
is feeble, and the taste bitter and astringent. It
is imported entire from Smyrna and the Levant,
but in coarse powder from Holland and France.

739

MADDER.

MADDER.

The cultivation of madder has been attempted
in England, and it is still carried on to a limited
extent in some districts, but without any very
great success or beneficial results, owing to the
low price at which it can be procured from the
Dutch growers and from Turkey.

Dyers' madder is an agricultural product
which has been very successfully and profita-
bly cultivated in the United States. The root
of the plant is composed of many long, thick,
succulent fibres, almost as large as a man's
little finger; these are joined at the top in a
head, like the root of asparagus, and strike
very deep into the ground, being sometimes
more than three feet in length. From the upper
part or head of the root come out many side-
roots, which extend just under the surface of
the ground to a great distance, whereby it pro-
pagates very fast ; for these send up a great
number of shoots, which, if carefully taken off
in the spring, soon after they are above ground,
become so many plants. The root is peren-
nial, although the stalk dies down every winter.

The soils most suited to the cultivation of
madder are deep, fertile, sandy loams, not re-
tentive of moisture, and having a considerable
portion of vegetable matter in their composi-
tion. It may also be grown on the more light
descriptions of soil, of suflicient depth, and in
a proper state of fertility. The preparation of
the soil may either consist in trench ploughings,
lengthwise and across, with pronged stirrings,
so as to bring it to a fine tilth ; or, what will
often be found preferable, by one trenching, two
feet deep, by manual labour. The sets or plants
are best obtained from the runners, or surface-
roots of the old plants. These being taken up,
are to be cut into lengths of from six to twelve
inches, according to the scarcity or abundance
of runners. Sets of one inch will grow if they
have an eye or bud, and some fibres ; but their
progress will be injuriously slow for want of
maternal nourishment. Sets may also be pro-
cured by sowing the seeds in fine, light earth,
a year before they are wanted, and then trans-
planting them ; or sets of an inch maybe plant-
ed oue year in a garden, and then removed to
the field plantation. The season of planting is
commonly May or June, and the manner is ge-
nerally in rows nine or ten inches asunder, and
fi^ve or six inches apart in the rows. Some
plant promiscuously in beds with intervals be-
tween, out of which earth is thrown in the lazy-
bed manner of growing potatoes ; but this is
unnecessary, as it is not the surface, but the
descending roots which are used by the dyer.
The operation of planting is generally perform-
ed by the dibber, but some ley-plant them by
^ the aid of the plough. By this mode the ground
is ploughed over with a shallow furrow, and
in the course of the operation the sets are de-
posited in each furrow, leaning on and pressed
against the furrow-slice. This, however, is a
bad mode, as there is no opportunity of firming
the plants at the roots, and as some of the sets
are apt to be buried, and others not sufficiently
covered. The after-culture consists in hoeing
and weeding with stirring by pronged hoes,
either of the horse or hand kind. Some earth
up, but this is unnecessary, and even injurious,
as tearing the surface-roots. The madder crop
740

is taken at the end of the third autumn after
planting, and generally in the month of October.
By far the best mode is that of trenching over
the ground, which not only clears it effectually,
but fits it at once for another crop. Where
madder, however, has been grown on land pre-
pared by the plough, that implement may be
used in removing it. Previously to trenching,
the haulm may be cleared off with an old
scythe, and carted to the farmery to be used as
'itter to spread in the straw-yards. Drying the
roots is the next process, and, in very fine sea-
sons, may sometimes be effected on the soil, by
simply spreading the plants as they are taken
up ; but in most seasons they require to be
dried on a kiln, like that used for malt or hops.
They are dried till they become brittle, and
then packed up in bags for sale to the dyer.
The produce from the root of this plant is dif-
ferent according to the difference of the soil,
but mostly from ten to fifteen or twenty cwt.,
where they are suitable to its cultivation. In
judging of the quality of madder-roots, the best
is that which, on being broken in two, has a
brightish-red or purplish appearance, without
any yellow cast being exhibited. The use of
madder-roots is chiefly in dyeing and calico-
printing. The haulm which accumulates on
the surface of the field, in the course of three
years, may be carted to the farm-yard, and fer-
mented along with horse-dung. It has the sin-
gular property of dyeing the horns of the ani-
mals who eat it of a red colour. Madder-seed
in abundance may be collected from the plants
in the September of the second and third years,
but it is never so propagated. Madder is
sometimes blighted, but in general it has few
diseases. (Loudoti's Ency. ^gr.)

In the Netherlands, where every agricultural
process is conducted with such skill and suc-
cess, madder sometimes forms a crop. It is
always put upon land of the best quality, and
with plenty of manure. At the end of April or
May, accordingly as the young plants are large
enough to be transplanted, the land must be
ploughed in beds of two feet and two feet and
a half wide ; the beds are then to be harrowed
and raked, and the young suckers of the roots
or plants are to be put down in rows, at inter-
vals of a foot or a foot and a half, and six or
eight inches distant in the row. During the
entire summer the land should be frequently
stirred, and kept free from weeds. In the
month of November, when the leaves are faded,
the plants are covered with two inches of earth
by a plough, having the point of the coulter a
little raised or rounded, so as not to injure the
young plants. In the following spring, when
the young shoots are four or five inches long,
they are gathered or torn off, and planted in
new beds, in the same manner as has been
pointed out above ; and then, in the month of
September or October, after the faded leaves
have been removed, the old roots are taken up.
The madder thus taken up should be deposited
under cover, to protect it from the rain ; and,
after ten or twelve days, placed in an oven
moderately heated. When dried sufficiently,
it is gently beaten with a flail, to get rid of any
clay that may adhere to the plants; and, by
means of a small windmill, is ground and sifted,

MADDER.

MADDER.

to separate it from any remaining earth or dirt.
It is then replaced in the oven for a short time,
and when taken out is spread upon a hair-
cloth to cool; after which it is ground and
cleaned once more. It is then carried to a
bruising-mill, and reduced to a fine powder, after
which it is packed in casks or barrels for market.

Several interesting communications upon
the subject of the culture of madder in the
Northern and Eastern States, may be found in
the agricultural periodicals. (See American
Farmer, New England Farmer, Cultivator, &c.)

Mr. Russel Bronson, of Birmingham, Huron
county, Ohio, a successful cultivator of madder,
has published a communication upon this sub-
ject, which contains the following information:

A location facing the south or south-east is
to be preferred. A sandy loam not over stiff
and heavy, or light and sandy, or a good
brown, deep, rich upland loam, free from foul
grass, weeds, stones, or stumps of trees. Where
a crop of potatoes, peas, corn, or wheat has
been cultivated the past season, plough deep
twice, once in September and once in October,
and if rather stiff let it lie after the plough
until spring. When the spring opens, and the
ground has become dry and warm (say in
Tennessee, 1st of April, Ohio, 15ih, and New
York, 25th to 1st of May — I speak of the spring
of 1836), plough again deep, the deeper the
better, then harrow well and strike it into
ridges with a one-horse plough, 3 feet wide and
4 feet vacant, or making a ridge once in 7 feet,
raising it, if on rather moist ground, 8 or 10
inches, and dry land 6 or eight from the natural
level ; then with a light harrow, level and shape
the ridges like a well-formed bed of beets, &c.

We will suppose you intend to plant one
acre of ground, and that you have purchased 8
bushels of tap roots in the fall and buried them
like potatoes on your premises— count the
ridges on your acre, and take out of the ground
1 bushel of roots and plant it on one-eighth of
your ridges ; you will then be able to ascertain
how to proportion your roots for the remainder.
The following is the manner of planting, culli-
rating, &c., when the quantities of ground do
not exceed 3 or 4 acres. One person on each
side of the ridge to make the holes (plant 4
inches below the surface of the bed, or there-
abouts, when covered) one on each side to drop
the roots, and 1 on each side to cover, pressing
the hill in the manner of planting corn; or, 3
persons may be placed on one side, as the case
may be, whether you have I or more acres to
plant. Let the owner be the dropper of roots,
and his most thorough assistants behind him.
Make the holes from 12 to 18 inches apart, and
about 6 inches from the edge of the ridge. As
the plants are supposed to have been purchased
in the fall, the roots may have thrown out
sprouts, and possibly have leaved. In this case,
in dropping and covering, you will leave the
most prominent sprout or sprouts a little out of
the ground, as where a plant has leafed, it
ought not to be smothered.

When the plant gets up 3 or 4 inches, weed
with the hoe, and plough with 1 horse, be-
tween the ridges or beds, but not on them ; this
will take place 2 or 3 weeks after planting.
When up 12 or 15 inches, many of the tops will

fall; assist them with 10 foot poles crossing
the bed, covering them with a shovel or garden
rake, throwing the soil from between the ridges.
After loosening with the one-horse plough, you
will with a shovel scatter the earth between the
stalks rather than throw it into heaps ; of
course we wish to keep the stalks separate, as
they are to form new and important roots in
the centre of the beds. About the 20th of June,
you may plough between the beds, and scatter
more earth on the fresh tops (all but the ends),
and when you get through, you may plant
potatoes between the beds if you please. I do
not recommend it, if you have plenty of land,
although I raised 1070 bushels of pink eyes on
8 acres the first year, and 60 bushels of corn.
If your land is perfectly clear of weeds, you
are through with your labour on the madder
crop for this year, except in latitudes where
there is not much snow, and considerable frost;
in this case cover in October 2 inches or there-
about. Second year, same operations in weed-
ing, but no crop between ; cover once in June.
Third year, weed only. Fourth year, weed in
the spring, if a weedy piece of ground.

Begin to plough out the roots in Tennessee,
[3 years old] 1st September. Ohio, [4 years]
same lime. New York, 15th or 20th, after
cutting off the tops with a sharp hoe. In
ploughing out the roots use a heavy span of
horses, and a large plough. We ought to
choose a soil neither too wet nor too dry, too
stiff or light. Shake the dirt from the roots,
and rinse or wash, as the soil may be stiff or
light; dry in a common hop kiln ; grind them
in a mill similar to Wilson's Patent Coffee
Mill; this mill weighs from 1 to 2 pounds.
The madder mill may be from 60 to 80 pounds
weight. Grind coarse, and fan in a fanning
mill ; then grind again for market. The profit
of this crop is immense ; the exhaustion of soil
trifling, and glutting the market out of the
question.

Madder is used in whole, or part, for the
following colours on wool, both in England,
France, and America, viz. blue, black, red,
buff, olive-brown, olive, navy blue, and many
others ; finally it produces one of the most
beautiful, durable, and healthy colours that is
at this time dyed ; as for calico printers, it enters
greatly into their dyes. (Am. Farmer^s Instructor.)

As the tops of the plants spread very much,
some advise placing them in hills somewhat
like Indian corn, 4 and even 6 feet apart each
way, and 2 plants in each hill.

Rules have been laid down by Miller, On the
Culture and Manufacture of Madder, for manag-
ing the land, separating and planting the shoots,
gathering and drying the roots, and for pound-
ing, casking, and preparing them for sale,
according to the most approved English prac-
tice. The reader who wishes to attempt the
cultivation of madder, will also find some use-
ful hints in the Penny Cyclopeedia, vol. xiv. p.
260, and Brit. Husbandry, vol. ii. p. 332 ; Bech-
mann^s Hist, of Invent, vol. iii. ; and The Com-
plete Farmer, vol. ii. The haulm of madder,
though sometimes employed in the feeding of
cattle, is not very generally used for that pur-
pose, for it tinges red the milk, the urine, the
sweat, and even the bones of the animals fed

741

MADDER, THE FIELD.

MAGNOLIA.

upon it. The average annual imports into
England are about 180,000 cwt. of madder-root
and ground madder. The duty changeable on
consumption is 2s. per cwt. on the prepared
madder, and 6rf. per cwt. on the roots. Madder
was formerly used as a medicine in jaundice :
but it possesses no properties which entitle it
to be regarded as a remedy in any disease.

MADDER, THE FIELD. See Sherardia.

MADDER, WILD (Kubia peregrina.) This
is an indigenous species which is found grow-
ing in thickets and on stony or sandy ground in
the west of Britain. The root is creeping,
fleshy, and tender, of a tawny red, useful in
dyeing, but it is very inferior to the cultivated
madder. The stem is branched, spreading,
square, perennial, partly shrubby, its angles
rough with hooked prickles, as are the edges
and midrib of the broad, shining, dark, ever-
green, elliptical leaves, which are four or more
in a whorl. The flowers, which appear from
July to August, are yellowish green, five-cleft,
in forked terminal panicles. The berries are
juicy, in pairs, black and shining.

The plant known in the United States by the
name of wild madder, is the Galium tinctorium of
botanists, or Dyers' Goose-grass. It is a peren-
nial, found in moist woodlands and low grounds,
flowering in July and August. The stems rise
12 to 18 inches high, generally erect, and
branched. The flowers are white. Pursh says,
the North American Indians use this plant for
dyeing their porcupine quills, leather, feathers,
and other ornaments, of a beautiful red colour.

MADI. A plant, said to be a new genus,
growing in Chili. Its seeds furnish an oil
which has been preferred to any of the French
olive oils. (£</. Encyc.)

MAGGOT. See Flt in Sheep.

MAGNESIA (Fr. Magnesie ; It. Magnesia).
One of the primitive earths having a metallic
basis. It is an oxide of magnesium. It is
sometimes found native, nearly in a state of
purity ; but is generally prepared by calcining
the common carbonate of magnesia. It is in-
odorous and insipid, in the form of a very light,
white, soft powder, having a specific gravity
of 2-3. It turns to green the more delicate
vegetable blues, and requires for its solution
2000 parts of water at 60°. It is found com-
bined with carbonic and other acids in plants.

It is a useful purgative in an acid state of
the stomach ; and taken daily, with short inter-
vals intervening, it is a useful preventive of red
gravel or lithic acid deposits in the kidneys.

As all kinds of grain are found to contain a
certain proportion of phosphate of magnesia,
the presence of this substance cannot be sup-
posed to be merely accidental. Hence the
inference that magnesia must be serviceable
as a fertilizer. It enters largely into the com-
position of limestone, of which it constitutes
sometimes almost one half. The magnesian
lime has been long applied with the greatest
advantage in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. In
other places the admixture of magnesia with
lime has been considered as producing sterility
rather than benefit. See Earths, Lime.

When magnesian lime has been applied to
ground in undue quantity, so as to have pro-
duced unfavourable eflects upon vegetation, it
742

I has been found that after two years its hurtful
j influence has become exhausted. Great quan-
tities of it are annually taken from Sunderland
to Scotland by the Fifeshire farmers, and ap-
plied by them as a manure, with the greatest
benefits, even in preference to other kinds of
lime. The same preference is shown by many
Pennsylvania farmers, for magnesian lime.
Experience has shown that it has been unfairly
denounced by Sir H. Davy and Mr. Tennent, as
a sterilizer.

MAGNOLIA (named by Plumier after Pierre
Magnol, prefect of the botanic garden at Mont-
pelier, and author of several works on plants ;
he died in 1715). This is a genus of very ele-
gant and showy plants when in flower, and
well worthy of extensive cultivation. The
hardy kinds, being remarkably handsome
shrubs, should be planted in conspicuous situa-
tions where they will flower profusely M'hen
they attain a good size. M. glauca, and some
others, grow best in a peat soil in a moist situa-
tion. They are generally increased by layers
put down in spring or autumn, or by seeds ;
when the layers are first taken ofi", they should
be potted in a mixture of loam and peat, and
placed in a close frame till they have taken
fresh root. None of the leaves should be taken
off" or shortened, nor any shoots be cut off", as
they will not succeed so well ; for the more
branches and leaves are on the sooner they
will strike fresh root. The Chinese kinds are
often inarched or budded on M. obovata, one of
the readiest growing kinds, which takes rea-
dily. The seeds of the North American species
are received anijually from that country. They
should be sown as soon as possible after their
arrival, in pots of liglit rich earth, covering
them half an inch deep ; these may be placed
either in a hotbed or a warm sheltered situa-
tion, or they may be sown in the open ground,
and when the plants are of sufiicient size, they
should be planted out singly into pots, and
sheltered till they have taken fresh root ; they
should also be protected from the frost by a
frame for two or three successive winters,
giving them the benefit of the open air in mild
weather.

The Genus Magnolia contains about fifteen
species, almost exactly divided between China
and the United States. There is also one spe-
cies in tropical America. The trees are dis-
tinguished by a bark more or less camphorated
and aromatic ; the leaves are alternate, entire,
and large, partly ovate, and in some species
auriculate at the base. The flowers are large,
fragrant, white, yellowish, or brown; the seeds
scarlet or fulvous.

The following summary of the American
species is from NtUtaWs Genera of North Ame-
rican Plants.

1. M. grandiflora. The most magnificent
tree of the southern states, the trunk often pre-
i senting a living column of 80 or 90 feet eleva-
tion, almost unobstructed by branches, and
terminated by a spreading top of the deepest
perennial verdure. 2. Glauca. 3. Macrophylla.
This small pyramidal tree produces the largest
leaves and flowers of any other North Ameri-
can plant. The limits of this interesting spe-
cies appear to be extremely local. I first

MAIDEN HAIR.

MAIZE.

observed it in Tennessee near the banks of
Cumberland river, but of very small size. In
the Southern States it is not at present known
to the most assiduous collectors in any other
spot than a single narrow tract of about 2
miles in length, 12 miles southeast of Lincoln-
ton (Lincoln county, North Carolina). These
limits I have carefully examined and found
them invariable. 4. Tripetnla (Umbrella-tree).
6. Atuminuta (Cucumber-tree). Flowers yel-
lowish green. 6. Cordata. Flowers yellow;
appearing twice in the year in the garden of
Mr. Landreth of Philadelphia. Leaves sub-
cordate-oval, never truly cordate. 7. Auricw-
lata. Leaves rhomboid-lanceolate, auriculate
at the base. Considerably allied to M. Muno-
phylla. ^. Pyrumidata. Nothing more than a
variety of the preceding, having leaves a little
broader and shorter. See Cucumber Trkk.

MAIDEN HAIR (Jdiayitum, derived from
adianios, dry. Pliny says, it is in vain to
plunge the adianium in water, for it always
remains dry). These are elegant species of
ferns with beautiful leaves. They succeed
well in a mixture of loam and peat; but they
appear to thrive best if planted in loose rock-
work where there is a good drainage, and may
be increased by divisions or by seeds. A. Ca-
pillM vctens is the only indigenous species. It
is often supposed that the French syrup called
capillaire is made from this plant; but it is from
the Adiiintum pedatum, a plant growing in the
south of France. Our adiantum, however,
would make as useful a syrup. It is a refresh-
ing beverage, mixed with water, in fevers.
See Fkkn.

MAIZE, MAIZ, or INDIAN CORN (Zea
»na</,s, from 2M0, to live, in reference to the nutritive
properties of the plants elonging to the genus).
A gigantic herbaceous annual plant, belonging
to the family of grasses cultivated for their
grains (Gramineu). Although, in Europe, the
word corn is synonymous with wheat, rye, and
breadstuffs generally, in the United States the
term, used alone, applies exclusively to maize.

In one of the counties of Pennsylvania, a
man having been indicted for stealing so many
bushels of ''corn" exception was taken by his
counsel, that this was not a perfect description
of Indian corn ; the exception, however, was
overruled by the court, who thus decided that
**corn" was the established name for Indian
corn.

Maize is the crop, of all others, best adapted
to the climate of the United States, where it is
cultivated, on every variety of soil, from one
extremity of the Union to the other. It con-
stitutes the main stay of the cereal farmer,
most depended upon to furnish food and pro-
vender for man and beast. The crop raised
in the United States in 1839, has been esti-
mated at nearly 400,000,000 of bushels. That
cf 1842 was much greater. Supposing it to
have been 500,000,000, this at an average price
of only 40 cents per bushel, would make the
total value of the crop no less than 200,000,000
of dollars, which is considerably more than
double the value of the wheat crop estimated
at $1 per bushel. The article on Agbicultcrk
will show the states and districts where the
largest proportion of this grain is produced.

The amount raised annually, increases in rapid
progression.

Although America is doubtless the native
country of a plant so important to her interests;
still this has been a disputed point. Fuchs
very early maintained that it came from the
East; and Mathioli affirmed that it was from
America. Regmir and Gregory have present-
ed fresh arguments in favour of its Eastern
origin. Among them is the name by which it
has long been known in Europe : Ble de Tur-
quie; and varieties, it is said, have been brought
from the Isle of France, or from China. Moreau
de Jonnes, on the contrary, has recently main-
tained, in a memoir read before the Academy
of Science, that its origin was in America.
The name Ble de Turquie no more proves it to
be of Turkish origin, than the name of the
Italian Poplar or Irish potato, proves that the
tree and the plant grew wild in Italy and Ire-
land. It can only signify that it spread from
Turkey into the neighbouring countries. Its
general cultivation in Southern Europe, and
the production of some new varieties, proves
nothing with regard to the country of the spe-
cies. In favour of its American origin, is the
fact that it was found in a state of cultivation
in every place where the first navigators land-
ed. In Mexico, according to Hernandez ; and
in Brazil, according to Zeri; and that in the
various countries it had proper names, such as
Maize, FlaoUi, &c.: whilst, in the Old World,
its names were either all of American origin,
or from the neighbouring region, whence it
was derived. Immediately after the discovery
of America, it was spread rapidly in the Old
World, and soon became common, a fact
not reconcilable with the idea of its former
existence there. To these proofs, Aug. de
Saint-Hilaire has added another. He has re-
ceived from M. de Larranhaga, of Monte Video,
a new variety of maize, distinguished by the
name of Tunicata; because instead of having
the grains naked, they are entirely covered by
the glumes. This variety is from Paraguay,
where ii is cultivated by the Guaycurus In-
dians, a people in the lowest scale of civiliza-
tion ; and where, according to the direct testi-
mony of one of them, it grows in the humid
forests as a native production.

The early authors who have written about
America, with few if any exceptions, mention
maize as an indigenous grain. Thus Acoste,
in his Natural History of the West Indies, calls
it "Indian wheat, to make bread of," and says
" that it was the only grain found, in the West
Indies by the Europeans : — that it grows upon
a long reed with large grains, and sometimes
two ears on a reed, on one of which 700 grains
have been told : — that they sow it grain by
grain and not scattering, as is done with
wheat, and it requires a hot and moist soil.
There are two sorts of it" (says our author),
"one large and substantial, the other small and
dry, which they call 'nioroche.' The leaves of
it and also the reed are very good food for cat-
tle, green ; and dry, it serves as well as straw.
The grain is better for beasts than barley, but
they must drink before they eat it; for if they
I drink after it, it swells and gives them pain.
iThe Indian eat it hot, boiled, and call it

743

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

'mote* and sometimes toasted. There is a
sort of it large and round, which the Spaniards
eat toasted ; they also grind it and make cakes,
which they eat hot; and these, in some places,
they call * arepasJ They also make bread, to
keep, and sweet cakes of it."

As Acoste died in 1600, at Salamanca, in his
60th year, this must be regarded as very early
testimony upon the subject. He surely would
not have been so very particular in his descrip-
tion of this grain had it been previously known
in Europe. Indeed entire ears of Indian corn
have been found enveloped in Peruvian and
Mexican mummies, preserved long before the
discovery of America.

It is probable that some inferior species of
the genus to which maize belongs, have been
found in Guinea, Turkey, and other portions
of the Old World; but that the kinds now so
highly valued and generally cultivated were of
Amierican origin, there can be no doubt, both
from the strongest negative and positive evi-
dence. Maize is now extensively cultivated
in Asia and Africa. In Europe, it is only in the
extreme southern parts, France, Spain, and
Italy, that the crop can be raised so as to be
profitable.

Varieties of Indian Corn. The varieties of
corn cultivated in the United States are very
numerous. A list embracing many of these
has been furnished by P. A. Brown, Esq., in
an interesting Essay on Indian corn. (See
Farmer's Cabinet, vol. ii.) The following va-
rieties, distinguished by peculiar characteristics
of the grain, cob, &c., are included in Mr.
Brown's enumeration. It is an interesting
fact, that the rows of grains on a cob, however
numerous or limited, always present even
numbers.

Yellow Corn. No. 1. The yellow gourdseed,
so called from the resemblance of its long,
narrow grains to the seed of the gourd. This
has 24, and occasionally even more rows. Mr.
Brown makes 7 varieties of this according to
the number of rows regulated by admixture
with other kinds of corn. No. 8. The genuine
King Philip corn, so called from the celebrated
chief of the Wampanoags. It has 8 rows, the
lowest number found on any kind of Indian
corn. It is a hardy plant, the seed of which
was originally obtained from the Northern In-
dians. No. 9. The Sioux or yellow-flint com
with 12 rows, derived from the Sioux tribe of
Indians which formerly resided in Canada.
No. 10. The Sioux variety grown in Pennsyl-
vania. No. 11. The Sioux and gourdseed
mixed — 16 rows.

White Indian Corn, a division in which Mr.
Brown includes the white flint, white flour-corn,
and white sugar, or sweet corn. He has
omitted the white gourdseed, which is by far
the most common corn raised in the South,
where it is sometimes found with from 24 to 36
rows of grains upon the ear. No. 12. Genuine
white-flint, 12 row corn raised in Virginia.
No. 13. White-flint,— 10 rows. No. 14. Early
white flint, and while flour corn, — 12 rows.
No. 15. Peruvian corn, — 8 rows. No. 16. Penn-
sylvania, 8 rows, — called in Maryland, Smith's
early white. No. 17. New Jersey — 8 rows.
No. 18. New York, 10 rows, and Mandan In-
744

dian com. No. 19. Mandan com, and white
sugar corn. No. 20. Early sugar corn, with
shrunken grains and 12 rows.

Hcemetite, or Blood-red Indian Corn. 21. Com-
mon sized hcemetite, with 12 rows and red cob.
22. The red cob with white grains. 23. Red
cob with yellow grains. 24. Red cob with
brown grains. 25. Red cob, with white gourd-
seed. 26. Red cob with gourdseed and yellow
flint. 27. White cob with red grain. 28. Speck-
led red and yellow grains on a white cob.
29. The same on a red cob. 30. The dwarf
haematite, commonly called Guinea corn.
31. Blue corn, with io rows. 32. Texas corn,
each grain of which grows enveloped in a
distinct covering or tunic, the whole ear being
also enveloped in a husk. 33. Mexican corn,
found in the envelope of a mummy. 34. Corn
raised in England by William Cobbett. 35. The
celebrated Dutton flint corn.

The remarks of the late John Lorain, in his
Practice of Husbandry, convey so much infor-
mation relative to the kinds of corn chiefly
cultivated in the United States, the various me-
rits of each kind, and the modes of culture, that
we cannot refrain from giving a condensation
of them.

There are five original corns in use for field
planting, in the Middle and Southern States,
to wit : the big white and yellow, the little white
and yellow, and the white Virginia gourdseed. The
cobs of the two first mentioned are thick and
long, the grains are much wider than deep, and
where the rows of grains meet and unite with
each other, their sides fall off" almost to nothing.
This gives the outside ends of the grain a cir-
cular form ; and communicates to the ear an
appearance somewhat like a fluted column.
This formation greatly diminishes the size of
the ends and sides of the grains; and is the
cause of the hard flinty corns being less pro-
ductive, in proportion to the length and thick-
ness of their cobs, than the gourdseed corn.
As the little white and yellow are formed much
in the same way, and the cobs considerably
smaller, they are still less productive than the
big white and yellow, but ripen earlier.

The grain of those four flinty kinds are very
firm, and without indenture in their outside
ends. The two smaller kinds seem to be still
more hard and solid than the larger ; and the
colour of the little yellow deeper than that of
the big.

The ears of the Virginia gourdseed are not
very long, neither is the cob so thick as that
of the big white and yellow. But the forma-
tion of the grain makes the ear very thick.
They frequently produce from thirty to thirty-
two, and sometimes thirty-six rows of very
long narrow grains, of a soft open texture.
These grains are almost flat, at their outside
ends, are also compactly united from the cob
to the surface of the ear, without any of that
fluted appearance between the rows of grain,
which causes the flinty corns to be much less
productive in proportion to the size of the ears.

The gourdseed corn ripens later than any
other, but is by far the most productive. It is
invariably white, unless it has been mixed
with the yellow flinty corns. Then it is called
the yellow gourdseed, and too many farmers

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

consider it and most other mixtures original
corns. I have often heard of original yellow
gourdseed corn, but after taking much trouble
to investigate the fact, could never find any
thing more than a mixture.

So prevalent are mixtures, says Mr. Lorain,
that I have never examined a field of corn,
(where great care had not been taken to select
the seed,) which did not exhibit evident traces
of all the corns in general use for field plant-
ing, with many others that are not used for
this purpose.

None can be longer or more readily traced
than the gourdseed. If the smallest perfectly
natural indenture appear in the grain of the
hardest corns, those grains, with their descend-
ants, may be grown, until a perfectly white
gourdseed is obtained, be their colour what it
may.

In the northerly divisions of the United
States, they frequently plant the small Cana-
dian corns.

These are solid and very early, but have
been generally thought too small to be very
productive, and are seldom planted in fields,
where the larger corns ripen.

These corns and others which are still much
smaller and earlier, are grown by many for
early boiling or roasting while green.

The Canadian corn plant is considerably
smaller than the corns in general use for field
planting. It is also productive in ears. There-
fore, the intervals, as well as the clusters in
the row, might be closer together. If the
soil were as well manured for this kind of corn
as is done for the larger corns (when the
farmer is well informed and able to do it), very
valuable crops might be obtained from it : par-
ticularly if it were only slightly mixed with
the gourdseed corn.

There are also red, blue, and purple corns,
but none of these are used for field planting ;
still, having been introduced, they too often ap-
pear in our fields, either in their native colours
or in variegated or enamelled grains. The
leaves of the plant are also sometimes varie-
gated from the same cause. It is said that a
good purple dye is formed by using" the purple
corns for this purpose ; and the stalks and
leaves of this plant are parple, or a shade be-
tween that colour and green. I have also seen
corn with red stalks and leaves, but mixed with
more or less green.

As novelty and other causes have introduced
such a great variety into our fields, they will
continue to appear in them until farmers gene-
rally give more attention to the economy of
maize, and see the necessity of growing out
inferior kinds, so far as it may be practicable.
Although they may be divided almost ad infi-
nitum, they cannot be entirely eradicated.
They may, however, be readily reduced and
kept under, so as not to do any material injury
to the crops, provided the cultivator very care-
fully and annually selects his seed. It may be
from the latent remains of these mixed varie-
ties, that nature, from combining causes, some-
times produces plants and animals more per-
fect than the class from which they sprang.

This variety, as it regards corn, proceeds
from the farina fecundans, a light minute sub-
94

stance of a mouldy colour, seen on the clothes
of those working among the plants, when it is
disengaged from the tassels. This is wafted
far by high winds, and is the cause of distant
and unthought-of mixtures. However, in
general, it is lightly and plentifully diffused
through the field, and lodges in sufficient quan-
tities on the silky fibres which project from
the ears. A single fibre proceeds from each
grain. This has been so constructed as to
convey the principle of life contained in the
farina fecundans to the grain from which the
fibre springs, even to the further end of the
cob. This is done with so much certainty that
we rarely see abortive grains, when the plants
have been rendered healthy and vigorous by a
sufficiency of nutriment and good cultivation.
The change produced by this mysterious cause
is generally gradual. We first see scattering,
whitish looking grains on the ears of the yel-
low corn growing among the white, and the
reverse on the ears of the latter, when grown
near to the yellow corns.

The foregoing facts have induced me to
make experiments. The result seems to deter-
mine, that if nature be judiciously directed by
art, such mixtures as are best suited for the
purpose of farmers, in every climate in this
country where corn is grown, may be intro-
duced. Also, that an annual selection of the
seed, with care and time, will render them sub-
ject to very little injurious change ; provided
the desirable properties of any of the various
corns be properly blended together. They do
not mix minutely, like wine and water. On
the contrary, like mixed breeds of animals, a
large portion of the valuable properties of any
one of them, or of the whole five original
corns commonly used for field planting, may
be communicated to one plant; while the infe-
rior properties of one, or the whole, may be
nearly grown out.

When this object is obtained, and we become
acquainted with the proper arrangement of the
plants in our fields, so as to promote the utmost
product, the crops of maize will by far exceed
any estimate which would at this time be con-
sidered probable by those who have not care-
fully examined the economy of this plant.

It should, however, never be forgotten, that a
sufficiency of nutriment and good cultivation
are quite as necessary to increase and perpetu-
ate the size of grain as plentiful and nutritious
food, and proper care and management, are to
accomplish the same in animals.

My ears of maize are now at least one-third
larger, on an average, than were the ears pro-
cured three years ago from Huntingdon for
seed. The same may be also said of some
white, flinty corn, procured by my neighbour,
Mr. H. Philips, from near Erie, for seed.
I The quantity of the gourdseed corn mixed
j with the flintyyellow corns, may be determined,
so as to answer the farmer's purpose. When
the proportion of the former greatly predomi-
nates, the grains are pale, very long and nar-
row, and the outside ends of them are so flat
that but little of the indenture is seen. As the
portion of gourdseed decreases in the mixture,
the grains shorten, become wider, and their
outside ends grow thicker. The indentures,
3 R 746

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

also, become larger and rounder, until the I
harder corns get the ascendancy. After this,
^ the outside ends of the grains become thicker
and more circular. They also grow wider,
and the fluted appearance between the rows
increases. The indentures also decrease in
size until they disappear, and the yellow, flinty
variety is formed. But, as I believe, not so
fully but that the latent remains of mixture will
forever subject it to more or less change.

It is more difficult to determine the quantity
of big and little yellow corns, which may hap-
pen to be mixed with the gourdseed ; and at
the same time with each other. However, by
attention, a tolerably correct opinion of this
may be formed. The grain of the big yellow
is much wider, and nothing like so deep as
that of the gourdseed; and although the grain
of the little yellow is not so wide and deep as
that of the big, still it is wider than the gourd-
seed ; and its colour is deeper than that of the
big yellow, and its cobs are much slimmer, as
well as shorter.

When a mixture with the big yellow and
gourdseed is desirable, care should be taken,
in growing out the little yellow, to preserve as
much as possible of the deep yellow tinge and
solidity communicated to the grain by this va-
riety, and also of its property to ripen early.

The soft, open texture of the gourdseed ren-
ders it unfit for exportation, unless it be kiln-
dried. This has given rise to an unfounded
prejudice among the shippers of this grain, in
favour of the yellow corns, although they are
not more solid than the white, flinty varieties.
However, while this prejudice continues, it is
best for those who depend on selling it for
shipping, to mix the gourdseed with the yellow
flints, and for those who consume the produce
on their own farms, or can readily sell the white
corns, to form mixtures with them and the
gourdseed. It is thought that the white corns
are the most productive, and ripen earlier than
the yellow ; but of this I know nothing certain,
having generally grown the yellow. There can,
however, be no question but that the white
furnishes much handsomer meal for culinary
purposes. It is also free from that strong taste
so readily distinguished by those who have been
accustomed to use the white ; but as most of
the Pennsylvania farmers, and cultivators still
further north, have been used to eat the yellow,
and habit causes most kinds of food to become
agreeable, they seem generally to prefer the
strong taste of this variety to the much milder
and pleasanter taste of the white. However,
in the countries where neither is grown, and to
which it is often exported, there can be but lit-
tle doubt that the white would find a readier
market, and that the demand for this very nu-
tritious grain would greatly increase, if none
but the white were exported : especially, if
laws were passed prohibiting the exportation
of maize until it had been kiln-dried.

I believe there is no grain that will keep
longer or safer than corn, if it be kept on the
cob in open dry cribs, and the climate also
be dry, unless the weevil be introduced by not
carefully cleaning the cribs of every vestige
of the grain and vegetable matters introduced
with it.

746

Flinty corns, after they have been well dried
in such cribs, may be shipped in tight, dry
vessels, with tolerabte safety, to the West In-
dies : but longer voyages subject this grain to
greater injuries, although it may arrive in port
in tolerable safety ; a little damp communicates
a musty taste to maize, and if this does not
happen, it is often spoiled by lying in bulk
after it arrives, and will be considered much
less valuable on this account.

Either the big yellow or white should be
mixed with the gourdseed, for planting in every
climate where this mixture will certainly ripen.
Their cobs being very long, and the grain so
much wider and deeper than those of the little
yellow or white, the mixture with them will be
much more productive. It is also thought, that
the length of the ear communicated by the big
yellow or white will fully compensate for the
shortening the grains of the gourdseed: there-
fore, if the mixture be properly formed, its pro-
duct may even exceed that of the original
gourdseed corn ; I have measured the product
from ears of this mixture, which, when shelled,
yielded a full pint of corn, after they had laia
twelve months in a very dry place, although
the mixture had not been well improved.

The little yellow and white, being earlier
than the big, they should form mixtures with
the gourdseed corn for being grown in climates
more unfavourable for maize. But whoever
may form either of those mixtures, will find,
that he must grow out either the big or little
flinty corns, with many others, as they are
more or less mixed.

The speediest and best way to form either
of those mixtures, is to select one ear that may
possess most of the desirable properties united
in it, and to plant the seed where the farina
fecundans from the general crop cannot readily
obtain access. If it happen to the cultivators,
as it has done with me, he will certainly find
from the growth of this seed many ears in his
patch, very much like the ear that grew the
seed, and many very unlike it ; however, it may
be that he will find some ears approaching
nearer to the variety which he wishes to form
than the original ear; if so, he will of course
select the best, and go on in the same way, until
he has full enough for planting his general
crop. After this, he should aim at an increased
improvement, by carefully selecting his seed
annually for the ensuing crop. (Pradical Hus-
bandry.)

Of these numerous varieties some are best
adapted to the Southern States — the white and
yellow gourdseeds: others to the Middle States
— the gourdseed and flint varieties, pure or
mixed; whilst the heavy flinty grained kinds
are almost exclusively cultivated in the North-
ern and Eastern Slates — to which they are
specially adapted by their disposition to grow
and mature with great rapidity, and thus ac-
comodate themselves to the shortness of north-
ern summers. Like all early maturing corn,
they are dwarfish, though very productive. The
effect of the longer and warmer summers in
more southerly situations is to favour greatly
the growth of the stalk, which frequently attains
10 or 12 feet in height; but such luxuriance,
however splendid in appearance, is by no means

I

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

attended by a corresponding increase in the
product of grain. The time taken by different
varieties in growing and maturing, differs ex-
ceedingly. In the Southern and Middle States
the crop occupies the ground from 5 to 7 months,
whilst in the Northern and Eastern States the
ears come to maturity in 3 or 4 months, and
some is even found so precocious as to ripen
in 6 weeks. An interesting and plausible ex-
planation of these facts is given in the article
on Climate, and its Influexck on the Fruit-
fulness OF Plants.

Since Mr. Lorain wrote his excellent book,
several demonstrations have been furnished of
the practicability of improving corn. One of
the most interesting is that made by Thomas N.
Baden, E^q., of Prince George's county, Mary-
land, who, by carefully selecting the best seed
in his field for a long series of years, having
special reference to those stalks which pro-
duced the most ears, ultimately obtained a va-
riety which yields 4, 5, 6, and even as high as
8 and 10 ears to the single stalk. The parti-
culars of the plan pursued are as follows:

When the corn was husked, he made a
re-selection, taking only that which appeared
sound and fully ripe, having a regard to the
deepest and best colour, as well as the size of
the cob. In the spring, before shelling the
corn, he examined it again, and selected that
which was the best in all respects. In shelling
the corn, he omitted the irregular kernels at
both the large and small ends. He has care-
fully follow^ed this mode of selecting seed corn
for twenty-two or tirenty-lhree years, and still con-
tinues to do so. When he first commenced, it
was with a common kind of corn, for there
was none other in that part of the country. At
first he was troubled to find stalks with even
ttoo good earg on them, perhaps one good ear
and one small one, or one good ear and a
'nubbin.* It was several years before he could
discover much benefit resulting from his efforts;
however, at length the quality and quantity
began to improve, and the improvement was
then very rapid. At present he does not pre-
tend to lay up any seed without it comes from
stalks which bear 4, 5, or 6 ears. He has seen
stalks bearing 8 ears. One of his neighbours
informed him that he had a single stalk with
ten perfect ears on it. In addition to the number
of ears, and of course the great increase in
quantity unshelled, it may be mentioned that it
yields much more than common corn when
shelled. A barrel (10 bushels of ears) of his
improved kind of corn measured a little more
than six bushels. The common kind of corn
will measure abnut 5 bushels only. He be-
lieves that he raises double, or nearly so, to what
he could with any other corn. He generally
plants the corn about the first of May, and
places the hills five feet apart each way, leav-
ing two stalks in a hill.

Some of Mr. Baden's seed-corn was sent
to Illinois, with instructions how to manage it,
and the product was o.ie hwidred and twenty
bushels on an aa-e : there was no corn in Illinois
like it, and it produced more fodder than any
other kind. (Farm. Cab. vol. ii.)

The Buden corn is a white gourdseed, the
stalks of which grow to an extraordinary

height, so that the ears are often 6 or 8 feel
above the ground, and the summits twice that
elevation. The grain is of excellent quality, but
the ears are short and considerably under the
average size of the common varieties of corn.
When removed but little farther north, as for
example to the vicinity of Philadelphia, it sel-
dom matures perfectly. It does not answer
well for high-land culture, but flourishes and
produces abundance of grain and fodder in
the rich flat lands of the Southern and South-
western States. It verifies the observation
that high-growing corn is the least disposed to
ripen the ears, and consequently most liable to
injury from autumnal frosts.

Varieties cultivated for particular purposes.-^
Among the varieties of corn cultivated for
special purposes, we may mention the white
flint, used for making the beautiful hominy
sold in the Philadelphia market; the ^our corn^
with a round, thick grain, filled with a snowy
white powder resembling starch, much used in
New Jersey for grinding up with buckwheat, in
the proportion of about one-fi)urth or one-fifth of
the corn, giving the buckwheat-meal a lighter
colour and otherwise improving it. The early
Jersey truck corn, a middle-sized ear, with
white and rather flinty grains, the earliest corn
raised for the market, but not so sweet as the
Early sweet or Sugar corn, which, when dry, has
shrivelled grains; there are two varieties of
this, the white and red cob kinds. The small
flinty-grained corn usually raised for parching
or popping is considered a distinct species of
maize, under the name of Zea Caragua, or Val-
paraiso corn, to which a sort of religious repu-
tation has been attached, from the circum-
stance of its splitting open when parched or
roasted so as to present some resemblance to
a cross. Its appearance under this form is
peculiarly beautiful, and bears a strong re-
semblance to the flowers of a cruciferous
plant. The flavour is pleasant, and it makes
a very pretty dessert-dish.

Preparation of the Land for planting. — In the
Middle States corn is planted in all conditions
of the land, but in Virginia and Maryland, it
generally follows the wheat crop, upon which
all the farm-yard manure has been spread. In
the upper portion of Delaware and in Pennsyl-
vania, the crop is generally put upon a grass
sward or clover lay. Where the soil is a stiff
clay, much labour is bestowed in ploughing
deep, then rolling and reducing to the finest
tilth by means of harrows. As a general rule,
after a sward has been turned, care is taken
not to harrow so deep as to reach and drag up
the sods, which are suffered to lie and decom-
pose, thus furnishing nutriment to the corn,
and keeping the ground loose and favourable
to the spreading of the roots. Many farmers
spread lime upon the land intended for corn,
in the autumn or winter, previously to plough-
ing. Others put the lime dressing on the
ploughed ground. Although the first may be
considered a good plan, still there can be little
doubt that lime operates most effectually when
left upon the surface so as to be exposed to
the atmosphere, and especially to the full action
of rain water with its dissolving agent carbo-
nic acid gas. But the best plan of all is tQ

747

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

spread the lime on the grass the year preced-
ing the tillage in corn, as then the vegetation
is greatly benefitted, and the lime has full time
to dissolve in considerable proportion and im-
pregnate the soil. Where the land is light
or sandy, shallow ploughing is frequently
praxitised and much less labour is required to
prepare the ground for the crop. In all cases,
however, where there is a retentive clay below
the soil, no doubt can exist of the propriety of
stirring the earth as deeply as practicable, first
by the common plough, and next by the sub-
soil plough, which loosens the earth or clay
below the furrow run by the common plough,
without turning it up. This effectual and deep
breaking up of the earth allows the water to
penetrate quickly into the soil charged with
all its fertilizing gases and salts, which would
otherwise be rapidly dispersed if exposed to
the open atmosphere.

Season for Ploughing. — With regard to the
best time for ploughing, this must depend much
upon the character of the soil. Late fall or
winter ploughing has been thought useful in
turning up and exposing to perish, the grubs
and other insects which have retreated below
the surface for winter quarters ; but in Penn-
sylvania this practice is now generally aban-
doned in favour of spring ploughing.

The roller, when used, must be drawn in the
direction of the furrows, and never crosswise.
Then follows the drag-harrow, in the same di-
rection, being the last instrument which, on
flushed ground, is employed preparatory to
planting. The spikes of this implement should
never be set so deep as to reach and drag up
the sod, an observation which will apply to all
other implements called in requisition during
the working of the crop. The harrowing
should be continued until the surface of the
inverted sward is completely broken up and
pulverized.

In the Middle States, it is a very general
custom to prepare the ground for corn by a
method called listing or double furrowing.
This consists of ploughing so as at first to turn
two furrow-slices together, leaving a middle
space which is subsequently ploughed out by
turning an additional furrow on each side.
This places the ground in narrow lands or
ridges, consisting of four furrow-slices with
deep, intervening trenches. The width from
the middle of one land to the other is generally
about 4 feet. In signing out for planting, a
plough is run across these narrow lands, so as
to strike out rows generally 4 feet apart. The
plough which performs this cross-ploughing,
is immediately followed by a boy who drops 4,
5, or 7 grains of corn directly opposite the
middle of each of the ridges, and the operation
of planting is completed by a man who covers
the seed with a hoe.

Farmers generally agree that corn should be
planted as early in the spring as the weather
will permit, and some of the best are not even
afraid of having the young shoots nipped off
by frost. The usual time of planting in the
Floridas is early in March, whilst in Massa-
chusetts it cannot be done before the middle of
May, — facts which show the great range of
climate in the United Stales.
748

Mr. Lorain, one of the best authorities upon
this and most other agricultural subjects upon
which he has treated, says, — When corn is
planted very early, it is commonly severely
affected by frost ; so much so, that many of the
plants are cut off by the ground. This is un--
questionably an injury to which no judicious
farmer would expose the plant, if the advan-
tages obtained by very early planting could be
had by planting later. Still if the roots re-
main unhurt, they are of consequence esta-
blished, and very soon repair the injury done
above the soil, after the frost ceases to act on
the plants. Of course they take the lead, and
will maintain their superiority over later plant-
ed corn. The ears also fill and ripen much
better in northerly climates from this practice.

The shooting and filling of them take place
when the heat of the sun is much greater;
and when less cloudy, cold, dripping weather
prevails, and the crop is nothing like so liable
to be injured by frost. The grounds are also
sooner ready for crops sown in the fall. This
mode of management will often enable the
cultivator to grow the large and more product-
ive corns, in climates where they have been
abandoned, from observing that they did not
ripen when planted at the usual time.

When I introduced the large yellow gourd-
seed corn, from seed procured from Hunting-
don county, every farmer here ridiculed the
idea of attempting to grow corn of this descrip-
tion. They considered the soil and climate
hostile to the growth even of the smaller corns,
and but little was planted. As they waited
until the earth was warmed before they plant-
ed, the crops were frequently either destroyed,
or greatly injured by frost. (Prad. Husb.)

In Pennsylvania, corn generally forms the
first crop of the' regular rotation, the sod being
ploughed without manure, except the occa-
sional addition of a light dressing of plaster
of Paris (about one bushel per acre) or a full
coat of lime (50 to 100 bushels per acre). The
plan of listing and ploughing out, so common
in the Southern and Middle States is not fol-
lowed by Pennsylvania farmers, who flush up
the ground so as to present a uniform surface.

Planting. — After rolling, and then harrowing
well, the rows are struck out very shallow, and
the corn is planted in hills 3, 4, 4^, or 5 feet
apart, or dropped in rows from 3 to 5 feet
asunder, so as to leave the stalks, when thinned
out, about 1 or 2 feet apart. In this last case
the tillage has of course to be conducted in the
direction of the rows, and never cross-wise, as
is practised when the grain is in hills at regu-
lar distances. The distance of the corn hills
or plants apart must be regulated by the kind
of corn to be planted, and the nature of the
soil. When the growth is high, and the soil
rich, the rows should be farther apart than
where the growth is low, as is the case with
the Northern varieties, which may be planted 3
feet apart.

Whenever manure can be spared for the
corn crop, it will always make a good return ;
for maize cannot well be too highly manured.
If the supply be sufficient, it may be spread
broadcast upon the land previous to ploughing;
or, what is better, spread upon ground that has

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

been flushed up in the autumn or winter, and
then lightly ploughed in. In the Northern and
Eastern States where the summers are short, a
liberal quantity of manure is generally required
to assist in forcing the crop to early maturity.
When not enough is at hand to afford a good
dressing broadcast, it is advisable to apply a
portion of short manure to each hill just before
planting. Ashes are an excellent manure for
Indian corn, and may be dropped upon the
hills in the proportion of a gill to a pint. It is
common to make a mixture of these with lime
and plaster. But there is no doubt that the
main benefit of the mixture proceeds from the
live ashes. Almost every kind of artificial ma-
nure may be advantageously applied to corn,
either in the hill or broadcast; and there is none
perhaps which acts so promptly upon the young
plants as the Poudrette manufactured in New
York and other cities, the basis of which fer-
tilizer is night-soil. A gill of this to the hill
furnishes a fair dressing, and pushes the young
corn forward with such rapidity as to place it
very soon beyond danger from the grub, cut-
worm, and other insect depredators, by which
the plants, especially those on light and ex-
hausted soils, suffer such destruction during
their feeble and tardy growth. As conducing
to the same end, soaking the seed for 24 or 36
hours in solutions of saltpetre, urine, the drain-
ings of the stables and cattle-yards, &c. &c.,
have a very good tendency. To protect it from
the depredations of insects, birds, and vermin,
it is often coated with liquid tar, and subse-
quently rolled in ashes, plaster, lime, or salt-
petre, which last is considered one of the most
convenient, cheapest, and best of steeps. Strong
solutions of copperas, blue vitriol, and even
corrosive sublimate and arsenic, are sometimes
used for the same purpose — which last, how-
ever, is only soluble in water by the addition of
potash, or some other alkali. " The enemies to
be combatted," says Buel, "are the wire-worm,
brown grub, birds, and squirrels. Of these, the
first and two last prey upon the kernels, and
against these tar offers a complete protection. I
soak my seed 12 to 20 hours in hot water, in
which is dissolved a few ounces of crude salt-
petre, and then add (say to 8 quarts of seed) half
a pint of tar, previously warmed and diluted,
with a quart of warm water. The mass is well
stirred, the corn taken out, and as much plas-
ter added as will adhere to the grain. This
impregnates and partially coats the seed with
the tar. The experience of years will warrant
rae in confidently recommending this as a pro-
tection for the seed."

Number of grains to the hill, and depth of plant-
ing.— Where there is reason to apprehend
much mischief to the young plants from black-
birds, crows, vermin, and insects, it is always
best to drop from 4 to 7 grains to each hill, so
that some 2 or 3 may have a chance to escape.
An old quaint couplet lays down a pretty good
(though not sufficiently liberal) rule upon this
subject, when it recommends 5 grains —
"One for the blackbird, and one for the crow,
One for the cut-worm, and two left to grow."

The deficiency is always attempted to be made
up by replanting other grain, but the product of j
this replant is too often feeble, and so late in

maturing, as to be frequently injured by the
frost in autumn. A much better plan is to re-
plant with the surplus of other hills. But this
requires a damp and very favourable condition
of the weather. As to the proper depth of cover-
ing for the seed, much difference of opinion
exists ; some advocating shallow covering, that
is to say, from an inch to 2 or 2^ inches, whilst
others recommend from 3 to 6, 8, and even 10
inches. All covering which exceeds 4 or 5
inches must, under ordinary circumstances, be
considered extravagant and detrimental. Those
in favour of deep covering say that although
the corn does not come up so soon, or appear
so forward, it makes a much better growth
later in the season ; sends its roots lower, and
of course is less affected by dry weather,
whilst the stalks stand much better against the
violence of storms, by which they are often
prostrated. They also urge as additional re-
commendations, that the crows and blackbirds
are unable to pull up the young shoots, so as
to get at the grain from which it springs, whilst
the cut-worm may sever the sprout in the com-
mon situation just beneath the surface, leaving
enough still below to push up and continue the
growth. See Drill.

It cannot be doubted, that where the mould
is of a light texture, moderately deep covering
answers best as a general rule. To cover
deep where the soil is a heavy clay loam,
would either cause the grain to rot, prevent it
from rising, or dispose it to come up twisted,
unless opportunely assisted by rain, to soften
the packed covering.

Tillage. — The corn once planted, its tender
blade pushes through the ground, usually in
about a week or ten days, and even sooner
when the grain has been previously soaked.
Although the field is generally left at rest until
the plants hav« all fairly risen above ground
before the tillage of the crop commences,
some begin with the harrows even before the
com is up. The first objects to be effected are,
to keep the ground stirred and free from grass
and weeds. Where danger is apprehended
from worms, by which it is so frequently at-
tacked, many maintain that the tillage should
not commence very soon, so that some other
vegetation being allowed to start up, the young
corn will thus be in a measure spared; where-
as, if the ground is perfectly clean, the worms,
having nothing else to feed upon, will, of
course, destroy all the young corn. Instances
may occasionally occur where this practice
may prove advantageous, but as a general
rule, the young corn cannot be kept too clean,
or the ground about it too loose.

The modes of tillage vary exceedingly, not
only with the variations in soil and climate,
but with the views of different persons in the
same locality. On stiff, clay soils, there is no
doubt that harrowing just before the proper
time for the corn to come up, favours this pro-
cess, by loosening the tenacious soil, especially
where a timely rain does not occur to soften
the earth. After the corn appears, the harrow
should be kept going until the ground is ren-
dered perfectly loose, hands following with
hoes or short rakes to clear the corn which
may be covered. Then comes the plough,
3 H 2 749

MAIZfi.

MAIZE.

which, in the Southern and lower portion of
the Middle States, is often used to turn a fur-
row from the young corn. This operation is
termed bar-ploughing, because the bar of the
plough is run next to the plants. A few days
after this, the process is reversed, and the
mould-board being turned next the corn, the
loose earth is thrown back again. Many think
that this second ploughing, called moulding,
ought not to be left longer than a few hours
before the earth should be turned back again.
In some places ploughs are still used for this
last purpose with wooden mould-boards, as
these serve best to push the loose earth before
them, crumbling and spreading it about the
plants more advantageously than ploughs fur-
nished with smooth and polished iron mould-
boards. Some use narrow, deep-cutting ploughs,
which do this work with comparatively little
labour to the horse, and render the soil near
the corn much more permeable by the roots,
and at the same time, quickly accessible to the
rain and atmospheric influences. Whatever
tends to favour the extension of the roots
downwards, serves to place the crop beyond
the vicissitudes of the season.

There is, perhaps, no plant which withstands
the effects of drought so well as Indian corn,
whilst young ; but when its top blades begin
to be heavy, its demands for moisture increase
so as to cause it to suffer greatly from very
dry weather. Heat and moisture are the great
promoters of its luxuriant growth.

Mr. Lorain's comments upon the custom of
bar-ploughing, as practised by a distinguished
Maryland farmer and agricultural writer, are
very judicious. Mr. Boardly, he says, plough-
ed from each side of the rows of the plants five
inches deep, while the plants were young; he
then let them rest 10 or 12 days on the narrow
ridges formed by this practice ; this was done,
that the lateral roots should take their direc-
tion under the artificial surface of the ground
formed by the ploughshare. If the corn-plant,
when scarcely three inches high, be pulled up
by the roots from an open free soil, the lateral
roots will be found about 12 inches long, beside
what remains in the ground; consequently
these roots are cut off on each side of the rows,
even by the first cultivation, while the plant is
yet very young ; they are also cut off by every
succeeding cultivation. If the furrows made
along each side of the rows, by the first culti-
vation, were kept continually open, and the
lateral roots of the plants compelled by this
means to cross the bottom of them, a little
within the ground, this would not cause the
roots to grow under the artificial surface of the
ground formed by the ploughshare. Nature
immediately after they passed the open fur-
row, would direct them up into the soil above,
to take their natural range through it : espe-
cially in that part of it where the most genial
heat and nutriment obtained. This is clearly
seen when the lateral roots of trees cross
ditches, or even deep gullies, at the bottom of
them, a little within the ground. They imme-
diately mount upward after they have crossed
the bottom of the ditch, and take their natural
growth at the same distance from the surface
750

of the soil as would have happened if they
had met with no obstacles in getting into it.

The roots of the corn-plant which proceed
downward from the stalk, also those that take
their course along the rows, are not injured;
neither are all those which grow the deepest
within the soil in the intervals cut off. There-
fore as the corn-plant is very hardy, it is sup-
ported by these roots, until nature repairs the
damage done by this truly inconsiderate and
barbarian practice. It is of consequence by
no means wonderful, that Mr. Bordley, who
was in many respects a judicious farmer,
should by his general good management so far
counteract the evils arising from this savage
practice, as to grow, under all the disadvan-
tages resulting from it, crops that were more
than equal to the general crops of his neigh-
bours. Reason, however, as well as practice,
determines that crops obtained in this way
must fall very far short of those that may be
obtained from a rational system of manage-
ment. It is also obvious, that his mode of cul-
tivation is well calculated to cause an exten-
sive, useless waste of the animal and vegetable
matter contained in the soil. Likewise of the
farm-yard manure, if that be applied for the
growth of the crop. (Lorain*8 Pract. Husb.)

The farmers in some of the finest districts in
Pennsylvania have of late years made much
less use of the plough in cultivating their corn
than formerly. They now generally content
themselves with moulding, or throwing a single
furrow on each side of the young plants, leav-
ing a space between the rows of from 3 to 3^
feet untouched. The space left, is afterwards
worked by means of shovel-ploughs, and cul-
tivators, which completely destroy the grass,
and loosen the ground. This mode of culture
is more quickly and economically performed
than the old plan of ploughing the whole space
between the rows, and leaving the surface com-
paratively level. If the land be sufficiently
loose and deeply stirred, there is little use in
hilling it. It is sometimes said corn requires
hilling to support it. Nature disproves this
argument, by the stiff, bracing roots thrown out
by this plant, at the time they are wanted, and
for this very purpose. On wet lands, planting
on ridges and hilling may be advisable, but
such lands should never be chosen for corn.
If wet, drain thoroughly in the first place.
Allow no weeds to grow in your corn, says Buel,
and do not fear to stir the surface in dry wea-
ther. Every weed absorbs nutriment enough
to make a good ear of com, and if any remain
after the plough cannot be used, pull them up,
or cut them with the hoe.

Thinning and Surcouring. — As quickly as pos-
sible after it is ascertained that the plants are
in a thrifty condition, and no longer in danger
of being destroyed by the cut-worm and other
enemies, they are thinned out, so as to leave
only two or three in a hill. Or, should they
stand in rows or drills, the plants are left about
one or two feet apart. The operation of suc-
couring takes place some time after thinning,
and consists in tearing off the side-shoots which
often sprout from the bottom of the main stalk.
It is beginning to be thought that this practice

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

is much more hurtful than advantag;eotis, in-
juring the growth and developement of the
corn, and lessening the produce of both fodder
and grain. The truth of these opinions seem
to have been confirmed by actual experiments.
(See Cultivator, vol. viii. p. 90.)

Many farmers deem the use of the plough
altogether unnecessary and even injurious, and
conduct the tillage of the corn crop throughout
first with the drag-harrow, and successively
with the cultivator, horse-hoe, and hand-hoe.
These are kept going very constantly until
wheat harvest, after which further culture is
suspended, and the corn crop, in common phra-
seology, is said to be laid by. The plants have
now attained from 2 to 4 or 5 feet in height, and
thrown out their side-shoots. These should be
left to extend themselves uninterruptedly in all
directions, which they will do with great rapi-
dity provided the season be favourable and the
soil loose and in good tilth. Should they be
cut or torn asunder by late and too deep work-
ing, the crop must suffer serious injury.

The progressive growth and developement
of Indian corn are well described by Mr. Lo-
rain.

The roots and stem of maize, he says, spring
from the heart of the grain ; the former grows
from one to two or more inches long before the
latter appears, and progresses so very rapidly,
that if pulled up from a loose soil, they will
measure about 12 inches long when the stem
is only about 3 inches high, although their
finer fibres must be left in the ground by this
rude operation.

The stem protrudes itself through the soil in
the form of a bodkin, and is composed of leaves
rolled very compactly together; the first two
leaves expand soon after the plant penetrates
the soil, and other rolled leaves continue to
unfold in succession from the crown of the
plant, until the tassel appears wrapped up in
its own leaves: these also gradually spread
themselves, until the plant is fully formed.

The leaves increase in width and length
from the ground up to where the most perfect
ear is formed ; after this they decrease in
length and width, more rapidly than they in-
creased below, and this decrease is regularly
maintained even to the uppermost leaf, which
forms itself a little below the tassel.

One leaf grows from every joint in the stalk,
but in such a way as to alternate sides ; the
first formed leaf, and after this every leaf in
regular succession, clasps the stalk closely,
until it approaches near to the under side of
the leaf above; after this it grows out from
the stalk, and a beautiful fan-like appearance
is at length produced, which is not equalled
by any other annual plant cultivated for the
value of its fruit; especially when the large
luxuriant ears display at their points elegant
tufts of silky fibres, which vary in colour when
mixtures form the seed.

The height of this plant difl^ers much. The
smallest variety that has been noticed by me
did not seem to exceed 3 feet in height. The
largest plants which I have seen measured
but 13 feet. I have, however, heard of some
which attained the height of 17 feet. These

must have been grown on a very rich, as well
as a very deep and open, free soil.

The lateral roots of maize soon spread
through the whole soil. The finger-roots, as
they are sometimes called, dip much deeper.
I have seen them traced two feet below the
surface of the soil by a grubbing hoe, in the
hands of a rugged workman. How much fur-
ther their finer fibres might have gone was not
ascertained by me, but this convinced me that
the roots of maize were capable of drawing
very much moisture and some nutriment from
a much greater depth than most of the plants
cultivated by us. Also, that these manures
and smaller roots were better .calculated to
effect this very interesting purpose than they
would have been if nature had formed the
whole of them into one single taproot, which
extended no deeper. This is one cause, among
many others, why maize is capable of contend-
ing so powerfully with poverty, and notwith-
standing severe and continued drought, better
than most other cultivated plants. This should
convince us that a plant capable of drawing
such important supplies from beyond the range
of plants in general, will not prove peculiarly
exhausting if it be treated fairly, by having as
much manure or as good a soil appropriated for
it as is commonly used for those plants which
farmers in general have not learned to grow
on poor soils without manure.

The prop roots of maize appear about, or a
little before, the tassels may be seen. They
proceed from the joint at or near the surface
of the soil. They are numerous, and form a
circle round the plant. That portion of them
which grows outside of the ground is hard and
woody, similar to the substance which forms
the outside of the stalk ; but so soon as they
penetrate the soil they become softer, and
spread through it in search of nutriment; this
is just at the time the plant requires most of it.
The tassel and the top of the plants have after
this to attain their full size, and the farina fe-
cundans, which impregnates the grain, is to be
formed. The ears now begin to shoot, and
they are also to be filled and perfected.

The prop roots are exactly calculated to sup-
port the weight of the tassels and ears during
high winds, and when the grounds are softened
by rain. But farmers too generally thwart
this simple but wise arrangement of nature,
by hilling or ridging up the plants. These in-
considerate operations not only cut and rend
the roots, but also compel the plants to grow
new sets of prop roots from the joints above.
These seldom get sufficiently established in
time to support the weight and height of the
tassels and ears ; and many of the plants are
of consequence blown down, or fall by their
own weight, when the grounds have been pre-
viously much softened by rain.

Maize, from its woody texture and com-
manding size, might (without straining the
point very far), be called an annual bread
tree, producing the best of all corns, and at the
same time crops which in magnitude far ex-
ceed that of any other grain. Also tops, husks,
and leaves which can be readily gathered, and
furnish abundant fodder for cattle, equal to the

761

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

best hay ; and independent of this, the stalks
supply much valuable litter for the cattle yard.

That part of the leaf which surrounds the
stalk, and adheres so closely tha.t it does not
permit a particle of moisture to escape, is
very interesting. The peculiar insertion of the
leaf, together with the formation of that part
of the stalk covered by it, forms a cavity for
the reception of the rich moisture, which is
gathered into it from the atmosphere by the
leaves, and for which they are most admirably
formed.

The shoots which form the ear commence
at the joint in contact with the ground. If the
soil be rich or highly manured, they issue from
every joint up to where the uppermost ear is
formed at the footstalk of the tassel. This
last or highest up ear is almost invariably the
largest, and ripens soonest. It seldom occurs
that more than two ears are perfected on one
stalk, unless the clusters of plants are very
distant from each other, and but few plants
stand in each cluster. If the plants stand
thick on the ground, but one ear is commonly
perfected by each of them. The abortive ear
shoots are called suckers. These are com-
monly removed, so far as the farmer considers
conducive to the welfare of his crop. This
should be done so soon as they are large
enough to be pulled off effectually. No part
of them should be left adhering to the stalk,
or they will grow again from the stub left
behind.

If this operation be not early commenced
and frequently repeated, they become so nu-
merous and large in fields highly manured,
especially if the plants stand thin on the ground,
that they are greatly injured ; not only from
the loss of nutriment, but also from the many
and large wounds inflicted by the removal of
them.

After careful experiment in the removal of
suckers, I now pull none above the joint in
contact with the ground; and would not re-
move these if they did not take root in the soil,
and by this means become powerful exhaust-
ers. Although it commonly happens that seve-
ral ear shoots above this point prove abortive,
no sucker can be removed without injuring the
leaf which binds it to the stalk; and so much
that it is commonly rendered altogether inca-
pable of conducting moisture. If it be not so
extensively injured, the receptacle formed by
it is so much deranged by this operation, that
it cannot retain the slight portion which may
happen to be conducted by the leaf into it.

I am still further encouraged to let so many
of these abortive ears stand, as I have observed
that so soon as nature has determined the
number of ears which existing circumstances
may enable her to fill, all her efforts are direct-
ed to them, and the abortive ones immediately
dwindle, and finally wither; and, for aught we
know to the contrary, nature may cause them
to part with the rich matters they had pre-
viously gathered, and apply this nutriment to
assist in maturing her favourites.

I trust it will appear from what has been
advanced, that in place of abusing this invalua-
ble plant as an exhauster of the soil, we should
consider it the pride and boast of American
752

husbandry, as mathematical demonstration
cannot well afford stronger proof than has
been produced that maize gathers a large por-
tion of the nutriment necessary to perfect its
fruit from the atmosphere.

Still, it should be remembered that suflicient
nutriment, provided in the soil, is absolutely
necessary to enable it to do this very exten-
sively. Therefore, "let not what God has
joined together, by man be put asunder," by
vain philosophical theories and sophistical
reasonings. Such as, that the chief use of the
soil is merely to support the plants in their
proper place, or that cultivation will supersede
the necessity of keeping the soil well stored
with animal and vegetable matter.

The middle path is certainly the path of rea-
son and experience, and should be carefully
and diligently pursued by the practical farmer,
leaving those ideal speculations for the amuse-
ment of the learned.

There is no corn crop grown by ns which is
so certain as maize. Its diseases are few, and
most, if not all of them, proceed from an incon-
siderate cultivation. I do not recollect ever to
have seen them so extensive in any field as to
do any very material injury to the crop.

It withstands drought and contends with
poverty better than most other plants cultivat-
ed by us, either for the value of their grain or
roots. It may be advantageously grown in
any soil fit for cultivation, not excepting blow-
ing sands or retentive clay.

Still, this crop fails occasionally, especially
in the higher latitudes, or situations rendered
cold from local causes. It cannot withstand
grass or weeds, and is too generally planted
by far too late. The seed is also covered too
deep, as well as oppressed with clods, stones,
or any other rubbish near at hand, which pre-
vents the plant from coming up. Too little
seed is planted to secure a sufficiency of plants
after birds and quadrupeds have taken that
portion which even proper vigilance cannot
prevent. {Practical Husbandry.)

Saving the Fodder, Sfc. — The tops of the Indian
corn, when cut off for fodder, should be re-
moved previous to stripping the blades from
the stalks below the ear, which last operation
should be delayed till near the time of maturity,
indicated by some dryness of the leaves and
hardness of the grain. The ears are gathered
by hand, and the husks, when perfectly dry,
stript off, and, together with the stalks, laid by
for winter fodder, while the ears are conveyed
to the granary. The green stems and leaves
abound in nutritious matter for cattle, and in
some places it is cultivated solely for this
purpose, especially af\er early crops of other
vegetables; when planted for this object, it
should be sowed very thickly. Corn, when
well dried, will keep good for several years,
and preserve its capability of germination. It
is eaten in various manners in different coun-
tries, and forms a wholesome and substantial
aliment. Domestic animals of every kind are
also extremely fond of it. According to Count
Rumford, it is, next to wheat, the most nutri-
tious grain. It is considered as too stimulating
for the common food of cattle, and is found to
be more stimulating than any other kind of

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

bread used by us. The fattening and invigo-
rating qualities of Indian corn make it the best
of all kinds of food for persons exposed to hard
labour or fatiguing duty. In the United States,
however, the preference so generally bestowed
by the labouring classes upon Indian corn, is
by no means confined to them, but shared alike
by rich and poor, for the sweetness of the bread,
and its wholesome and superior invigorating
virtues. Mixed with rye meal, it forms the
common brown bread of New England; mixed
with water alone, it makes a very palatable
species of extemporaneous bread. When
pounded in a mortar, or ground very coarse
and boiled, it forms the "hominy" and "grits"
which are such great favourites at the south ;
and the fine meal, boiled thick in water, is the
"mush" of Pennsylvania, and the "hasty-pud-
ding" of the Eastern States. In the form of
hulled corn, or samp, the whole grains furnish
a very palatable, although rather indigestible
luxury. Of the husks a beautiful kind of writ-
ing-paper has been manufactured in Italy; and
when soaked in hot water, they make excellent
mattrasses. A grayish paper may be made
form all parts of the plant.

Enemies and Diseases. — The bird, insect, and
other depredators have been already referred
to under the headof Birds, Cut-wohm, WiaE-
w^oRM, Plant-licb, &c. Amoug the diseases,
the chief one is a dark or blue-black spungy
growth, which sometimes takes the place of
the blighted ear of corn. The mass some-
times grows till 5 or 6 inches in diameter, and
is to be considered a luxuriant or rank species
of fungus. As the species of parasitic plants
to which this belongs are so readily destroyed
by applications of common salt, there is reason
to believe that soaking the seeds w.ell in salt-
water previous to planting, or scattering salt
over the ground, will prevent this disease.

In all the fields of maize, says Mr. Lorain,
which have been examined by me, some plants
entirely barren have been seen without any
apparent cause.

The fungus appears to be principally occa-
sioned by wounds inflicted during cultivation.
The plants commonly bleed from these wounds,
and a fungus is formed. This, when in contact
with the ear, is certain destruction to it, unless
the fungus be soon seen and removed. When
it is formed on other parts of the plant, it fre-
quently corrodes them so much that they are
incapable of perfecting their fruit. The only
remedy known to me is speedy removal, and
repeating the operation if the fungus should
reappear : which generally occurs. But even
this tedious remedy is too often found insufii-
cient. It is, therefore, far better not to create
this disease, by mangling the plants, either by
the savage practice of harrowing over them,
or by covering them with clods, stones, or sods,
as is too often done by the inconsiderate mode
of hilling or ridging them up. Although many
of the plants wounded by these injudicious prac-
tices survive and appear to flourish, even when
the fungus is not removed, still, numbers of
them become too debilitated to perfect their fruit.

A reddish kind of rust sometimes appears
on the leaves, but seldom does much apparent
injury to the ears, unless it becomes extensive.
95

However, the same rust sometimes fixes upon
the stalks and causes them to decay.

When this is near the ear, or the decay is
extensive, the plant produces little or no grain;
but I have never seen very extensive injury
done by this disease. The cause of it is un-
known to me. It may, however, proceed from
the bruises and wounds inflicted by an incon-
siderate cultivation ; especially as the tassel,
wrapped in its own leaves, may be seen formed
in the plant when it is quite young. Too many
farmers Uiink the health and vigour of the
plants are greatly promoted by harrowing over
them, and mangling their tops while they are
young. Also, by cutting and rending the roots
of them, provided this be not done after the
tassels and ear shoots appear; than which
nothing can appear more preposterous. (Prac-
tical Husbandry.)

, It sometimes happens, as the effect of storms,
that the pollen is blown or beaten oflT the tassel
before all the silk has protruded from the ear.
The consequence of this is a failure in the de-
velopement of grains in the extremity or other
portion where the silk was deficient. It has
been urged, among the reasons for letting
the suckers grow, that being later in tasseling
and less exposed to high winds, they assist to
promote the process of fecundation after the
tassels of the main stalks have shed their pol-
len. As an evidence of this, it has been stated
that the earliest ears are always best covered
with grain, while those which push late often
exhibit a quarter or a half of naked cob, — the
consequence of imperfect impregnation.

Harvesting the Crop. — This is effected very
differently in different portions of the Union.

1. In Pennsylvania, and the Northern and
Eastern States, the corn is usually cut off" at
the surface of the ground, as soon as the grain
has become glazed, or hard upon the outside,
and whilst the blades are still green, put im-
mediately into shocks, and thus left some time
standing in the field. The corn after becoming
sufficiently dry is husked and cribbed, and the
stalks with all the attached fodder and husks
are carted home and stacked for provender.

2. In the Southern and Southerly portions of
the Middle States, the corn is commonly husked
in the field, the stalks having previously had
the blades stripped below the ears, and the
tops lopped off" above the ears. When, there-
fore, the ear has been separated, the naked
stalk is left standing with the husk, which is
soon afterwards eaten off" by cattle.

There are some other modes of gathering
corn and securing the fodder, but those de-
scribed are by far the most general. In some
parts of the fertile Western States, where the
crops are extremely luxuriant, with the absence
of facilities to get the grain to market, it is
common to husk out and secure enough of the
corn for family use and then turn the hogs and
cattle into the field to consume the remainder.

By the first of these methods the crop may
be secured before the autumnal rains, with all
its valuable fodder, and the ground cleared in
time for a winter crop of wheat or rye. The
juices retained by the stalk are sufficient to
nourish the com to maturity. By the second
mode there is always a loss in the grain pro-

763

MAIZE

duct, which is never so well filled after the
blades and tops have been removed in a green
state. This has been proven by actual experi-
ments, for the particulars of which see liMfs
Farmei's Instructor; also Farmer's Register, vol.
ii. p. 91 ; and Colman's Fourth Rej)ort, p. 16.

All, or nearly all the accounts we have pub-
lished of great products of Indian corn, agree,
says the editor of the Cultivator, in two par-
ticulars, viz. : in not using the plough in the
after culture, and in not earthing, or but slight-
ly, the hills. These results go to demonstrate,
that the entire roots are essential to the vigor
of the crop ; and that roots to enable them to
perform their function as nature designed,
must be near the surface. If the roots are
severed with the plough, in dressing the crop,
the plants are deprived of a portion of their
nourishment; and if they are buried deep by
hilling, the plant is partially exhausted in
throwing out a new set near the surface, where
alone they can perform all their offices. There
is another material advantage in this mode of
cultivating the corn crop — it saves a vast deal
of manual labor.

There is another question of interest to
farmers, which relates to the mode of harvest-
ing the crop, that is, whether it is best to top
the stalks, cut the whole at the ground when
the grain is glazed, or cut the whole when the
grain has fully ripened. Experiments made
by Mr. Clark, of Northampton, one of the
best practical farmers of Massachusetts, and
of other gentlemen, show that the grain
suffers a diminution of six or eight bushels to
the acre, by topping the stalks ; and there
seems to be no counterbalancing benefit to the
fodder, unless at the expense of carrying the
stalks to the borders of the field, that they may
be secured before the crop is gathered, and
before they become blanched and half-ruined.
And it is no protection against early autumnal
frosts, but rather exposes unripened grain to
be more injured. Hence so far as regards
these two modes, all who have made a com-
parison seem to concur in the opinion, that
stripping the corn of its tops and leaves is a
bad practice.

The blades and tops of corn, if well cured,
furnish an excellent fodder for neat cattle and
horses, all kinds of stock being very fond of
them. They serve greatly to increase the
amount of manure, collected in the cattle-yard.
In Pennsylvania, in the Southern parts of
which the crops of corn are very luxuriant, the
fodder is generally considered worth at least
$4 per acre as provender. A distinguished
farmer in Whitemarsh, Montgomery county,
obtained, in 1842, from a 30 acre field, suffi-
cient corn-fodder to winter .30 large steers in-
tended for spring beef. The stalks had been
cut down with blades, &c., attached. Corn is
occasionally sown broad-cast for the purpose
of being mown down as green provender for
milch cows, &c., for which it answers an ad-
mirable purpose. It has been also cured as
hay, and on some highly fertile or rich spots
has yielded 6 tons of hay or fodder.

Preserving Corn. — Corn is usually preserved
by storing away the ears cleared from the
husks, in small or narrow granaries called
754

MAIZE.

cribs, the sides and ends of which are con- ,
structed of logs or laths, so as to leave inter-
stices of about an inch, or rather more, per-
mitting a free circulation of air. If the cribs
be wider than 8 or 10 feet, the middle part is
very apt to have the corn injured, especially
when put away before becoming thoroughly
dry. In the Southern States, corn in the crib
is often seriously injured by the weevil when
attempts are made to keep it over the summer.
But in the Middle and Northern States, it may
be preserved for many years on the cob. In
the Louisiana Register it is stated that sprin-
kling the com whilst housing, with a solution
of common salt and water (in the proportion
of about one pint of salt to a gallon of water),
will entirely prevent the insect from breeding.
The ears of corn are there frequently stored
up in the husks, which are rendered much
more grateful to stock by the addition of salt.

There is perhaps no plant — certainly none
of such vigorous growth, — which will so long
continue highly productive when raised year
after year upon the same soil. In a communi-
cation to the Farmer's Register, by Mr. Shul-
tice, of Mathews county, Va., he says that there
are in the county named, small tracts of land
which have been in corn, year after year, as
far back as the recollection of the oldest in-
habitants extends. The same fields planted in
corn successively for more than half a century,
at present yield fair crops. Such land, when
new (judging by the product of contiguous
recently cleared land), yielded from 3 to 5
barrels per acre. At present the product is
from 2 to 3 barrels, with the occasional appli-
cation of a very meagre dressing of manure.
With a fair supply of manure, the land can be
readily made to yield as much and even more
than it did when first brought under cultiva-
tion. As, in the tillage of this crop, all vege*
tation is carefully destroyed, the materials
constituting the soil or mould must have de-
composed very slowly indeed. Where there
is much sand in the soil, exhaustion takes
place very quickly ; but Indian corn can be
cultivated on land, long after it has ceased to
afl!brd compensating crops of any other grain.

Expenses of Culture. — These are very differ-
ently estimated in different parts of the United
States, being influenced by a variety of local
circumstances. The following estimate and
accompanying statement is from Jonathan Ro-
berts, Esq., a very eminent agriculturist re-
siding in Montgomery county, Pennsylvania :

"An estimate of the expense of cultivating
an acre of maize 15 miles northwest of Phila-
delphia. Soil, a calcareous loam.
Ploughing sward - - - - - -#3 00

Harrowing to proper fineness - - - - 2 00

Marking out and planting - - - - - 2 00

3 loads {2-hor8e wagon) manure to dress the

hills 3 00

Ilorse-hoeing, at least three limes - - - ^ 00
Moulding and horse-hoeing - - - - "00
Harvesting -----"-"?59
Saving fodder -------100

Rent of land *W

Wear of gears and plough - . - - - » w

Amount of expense - - - - - #23 00

Amount of crop 60 bushels, at 60 els. per bushel 36 00

Fodder 4 00

#40 00
Leaving a balance in favor of the corn-crop of #17 00

MAIZE.

"This estimate," says Mr. R., "is predicated
on practical husbandry, with a fair season. It
is not found economical, in a regular course of
cropping, to manure corn land beyond hill
dressing. The decomposing sward will be
found equal to its production. The renovating
process of manure should be applied in putting
in the winter crops with the cultivated grasses.
Lime should not be immediately applied before
sowing the winter crops. Its application ought
to follow the maize in the fall, or at the latest
in the following spring. By such a course of
culture ground may be kept improving in fer-
tility. It is not the pan of practical farming
to increase the crop of corn by an expensive
manuring; it must be taken as one of a series
of ploughed and green crops. On a good soil,
and with a good season, corn may run to 70 and
80 bushels an acre. Good management will
be directed to produce a series of good crops,
with an improvement of soil."

With great deference to an agriculturist of
such matured experience, we cannot help ex-
pressing an opinion that some of the items in
the statement are rated too high, and that it
would perhaps be more correct to bring down
the expenses at least as low as those in the fol-
lowing estimate furnished by Judge Buel. This
last, it must be remembered, does not include
manure, so much more of which is usually re-
quired at the North, as greatly to increase the
expense of the crop.

Estimated expense of cultivating an acre of
Indian corn in the State of New York :

One ploughinp (suppose a clover lay) - . f2 00
Harrowing and planting - - - - > 2 OO
3 hneings, 4dayfl, and horse-tearo - - - 3 75
narvfstinir, 2 days -----. j 50
Cutting and harvesting stalks - - . - 1 50
Rent --_500

«15 75

In the New England States the expenses of
culture are stated to exceed these calculations
considerably. Mr. Colman, in his Fourth
jlgricultural Report to the Legislature of Massa-
chvsetts, gives the following estimates for dif-
ferent townships.

"In Northfield, the estimate was made as
follows :

MAIZE.

Plnnghinf , $i 50 ; harrowing, $2 50 ; holeiof ,

50 CIS. #5 50

6 bushels leeched ashes . . . , . ]0

1 bushel plaster or eypsum, 65 - - _ . 65
Seed, 10 quarts, $i 00; putting on ashes and

plaster, and plantinp, (fl 20 - - - - 2 20

Harrowing, 30; weeding, ^1 50 - - - 1 80

Cultivating twice in a row, 30 ; 2d hoeing, $1 10 1 40

Cultivating, 15; last hoeing, $1 20 - - - 135
Gathering and busking, $5 00 ; gathering stalks,

•I 50 6 50

$\9 50

Corn fodder equal to 1 ton of hay

Crop 50 bushels corn, at #1 00 per bushel -

Balance in favour of crop

♦*It will be seen," says Mr. C, "that in the
above case nothing has been charged for ma-
nure, excepting ashes and plaster. The corn
was raised after a stubble clover-crop ploughed
in, or a green sward inverted. His corn usu-
ally averages 70 bushels per acre.

•*The estimate of the expense of a corn crop
in Deerfield is thus given by a very careful
and successful cultivator:

rinurhing, $2 3t ; harrowing, 50 ; holeing, #1 00,
4 cords of manure, $S 00; spreading manure,

#2 67

8«ed, 25; planting. #100; weeding, #2 00;

horii«, 25

2d hoeing, #1 58; 3d hoeing, #1 58 .
Topping stalks, fl 00; husking, #2 50
Cutting up and gathering butts, #1 00

#3 84
10 87

Interest on land

Dr. the above crop - - -

Proceeds of crop:
Fodder equal to | to^ of bay, $9 00
50 bushels corn . - . .

350
3 16
3 50
1 00

•25 67
600

#31 07

900
90 00

Ploughing - - . - - - - -#4 00

Drauginsr -.---_..ioo
Scordsof manure in the hill - - - - 12 00

Retting out and putting in the hill - - - 4 00
Seed corn 1 peck planted 3i feet each way - 37i
Planting -------.134

Ist hoeing with man and horse - - - - 2 34

2dhoeine. #1 17 ; 3d hoeing, #1 17 - - -9.34
Gathering and busking - - - . - 5 50

#32 89i

Fodder equal to 1 ton of hay - - - - 10 OO
40 bushels of corn, at #1 - - - - - 40 00

#50 00
Balance in favour of com - « . . #17 10^

»5»00
Balance in favour of corn - . . . . f37 33

"In Shelbum.the estimate of the cost of cul<-
tivating an acre of corn is given by a farmer,
whose skilful and successful cultivation needs
no commendation.

Ploughing, 3 50; 20 loads manure (7 cords),
#15 00 §18 30

Getting out and spreading manure 04 50; drag-
ging or harrowinz, #1 00 - . . - 5 50

Seed, I peck, 38; manure for the hills (8 loads),
#« 00 6 38

Planting and manuring in the hill, #4 00 - - 4 00

Weeding and hoeing, #3 33 ; 2d hoeing, #2 33;
3d hoeing, #2 33 799

Catting and shocking, #2 00; husking, #4 00 - 6 00

Proceeds of above crop :
Fodder equal to U ton of hay
70 bushels corn, at #t 00 •

Balance in favour of com

#48 27

18 90
70 00

•82 60
#34 23

"Another farmer in Northfield gives the fol-
lowing estimate of the expense of an acre of
com;

Several other estimates of the expense of
cultivating an acre of Indian com, varying
from 14 to 25 dollars, are given by Mr. C. The
above statements are from farmers of the
highest respectability for intelligence and ex-
actness, and may be relied upon.

755

MAIZE.

MAIZE.

Mr. Colman says, "that on the hilly portions
of Massachusetts but little corn is raised, but
that it makes a large product on the allu-
vial lands of the Deerfield and Connecticut.
The largest amount I have known raised in
one year, by one individual, has been 1400
bushels ; but many farmers produce from 300
to 1000 bushels. The judgment of some of the
most intelligent farmers in Deerfield places the
average yield at 35 bushels to the acre, which
seems to be underrated. I have," he says,
"known upwards of 90 bushels grown on an
acre in Deerfield meadows; an average yield
of more than 70 bushels on several acres in
Northfield ; and other abundant crops, which
show at least what might be obtained by good
cultivation ; and likewise how much more pro-
fitable is good than inferior cultivation. "

It is evident that over that portion of the
Middle and Southern States lying east of the
Mountains, and where the lands have been so
greatly impoverished by long and scourging
culture, commencing with that greatest of ex-
hausters, tobacco, the expenses per acre incur-
red in the raising of corn must be very much
lower than either of the estimates furnished for
Pennsylvania and the Northern and Eastern
States. Large tracts of the light alluvial districts
forming the tide-water sections of Virginia and
Maryland, do not yield an average per acre
exceeding from 10 to 20 bushels; and still corn
continues to be cultivated, even when the price
is below 60 cents per bushel. Such crops would
be ruinous to the farmer, were he not able to
cultivate his acres of light unmanured soil at
less than 5 or 10 dollars each. In the rich
prairies of the West it is stated that crops of
corn, averaging 50 bushels to the acre, can be
raised at an expense of only 3 or 4 dollars per
acre.

Qualities of Corn. — Abundant experience has
shown that the fattening qualities of Indian corn
are exceedingly great; so that all who can obtain
this grain prefer it to every thing else for fatten-
ing stock, all kinds of which eat it with avidity
an'1 advantage. It is rich in oil of a very plea-
sant and useful kind. That which is best
known is obtained in the process of distillation
for making whisky and alcohol — a great per-
version of the use of so precious a grain. The
temperance reform is correcting this evil, and
another mode of manufacturing the oil is now
in great vogue, namely, by passing the grain
through the secreting organs of swine, and
' thus obtaining it in the modified forms of lard
and lard-oil. As these commodities are both
in great request at home, and more especially
in Europe, a new and rich resource is thus
opened to the corn planters of the United
States, those especially who cultivate fertile
Western lands too far from grain-markets, to
be able to dispose of their crops in that form.

The chemical analysis oflndian corn has been
lately efiected by Dr. Dana, of Massachusetts,
and published in the New England Farmer. For
the purposes of comparing its nutritive and
fattening qualities with those of some other ar-
ticles extensively used for feeding stock, Dr.
Dana has added the analyses of ruta-bagas
and potatoes. The great diflference of what
756

Dr. Dana calls the fat forming principles in
favour of corn, will excite but little surprise in
those who have witnessed the effects of the.
several substances on animals, and will go far
to establish the position assumed by Payen and
Boussingalt, that plants are valuable for giving
fat to animals only in proportion to the vege-
table oils ready formed such plants contain.

100 lU of

RutaBaga.

PotaSoa.

Cum.

Fr«b dug.

Fredidug.

Containing of tiesh

forming principles:

gliilen,albumcn,&,c.

126

1-

207

Fal forming princi-

ples : gum, starch.

sugar, woody fibre.

oil, &c. -

88-43

13-

24-34

Water ...

9-

85-

72-

Salts

1-31

1-

139

Ta.ble shotving the average prices of Indian corn in
Philadelphia market for each quarter of the
year, and also the annual averages for thefol-
Imving years, viz. :

Ut Quar.

2d Quar.

3d Quar. 1 4th Quar.

!

Average for
Ihe year.

1827

56 cts.

481 cts.

49 cts.; 481 cts.

51 cts.

1828

43i

39$

39i

491

43

1829

46i

47

47

4H

49

1830

361

39

48

55}

45

1831

61

67f

66

67

63

1832

46f

53f

67

71f

60

1833

49f

671

6H

611

64

1834

49|

571

67

60i

59

18;<5

61i

79i

89

86|

78

1836

7f>i

82i

91

90

85

1837

96f

91i

101

8.H

94

1838

m

74

85J

601

78

1839

86

89

78

62-1

79

1840

531

50*

55

531

52

1841

m

52

m

601

61

1842

521

55!

45

51

Avert

ige for Ifl

years ' -

63 cts.

The above average prices are for Southern
flat yellow corn, commonly called gourdseed,
which generally sells for about 3 cents less per
bushel than the Pennsylvania round or flint
com, which last is heaviest by 3 or 4 lbs. to
the bushel. The amount of white flat corn
sent to the Philadelphia market is inconsider-
able, being only occasionally in demand for
shipment to Southern ports, where the white
corn is preferred for bread, whilst in the North
the preference is always given to yellow corn
meal. White flat corn usually sells about 3
cents lower per bushel than the flat yellow.

Measuring Corn, Shelled or on the Ear. — The
following rule for this purpose is given by
William Murray, Esq. of South Carolina. It
is not to be regarded as strictly accurate, but
an approximation.

Having previously levelled the corn in the
house, so that it will be of equal depth through-
out, ascertain the length, breadth, and depth of
the bulk ; multiply these dimensions together,
and their products by 4, then rut off one fgure
from the right of this last product. This will
give so many bushels and a decimal of a
bushel of shelled corn. If it be required to
find the quantity of ear corn, substitute 8 for
4, and cut oflTone figure as before.

Example. — In a bulk of corn in the ear, mea-
suring 12 feet long, 11 feet broad, and 6 fec't
deep, there will be 316 bushels and j% of a

MAIZE.

bushel of shelled corn, or 633 bushels and
3^ of ear corn — as :

12
11

133
0

793
4

316,8

132
6

633,6

The decimal 4 is used when the object is to
find the quantity in shelled corn, because that
decimal is half of the decimal 8, and it requires
two bushels of ear corn to make one of shelled
corn. In using these rules a half bushel should
be added for every hundred, that amount of
error resulting from the substitution of the de-
cimals. {Southern Agriculturist.)

Distances of Planting. — The following table
furnished by Judge "Duel, exhibits the difference
in product of planting and serves to explain,
in part, the manner in which large crops of
this grain have been obtained. It is assumed
in the estimate, that each stalk produces one
ear of corn, and that the ears average one gill
of shelled grain. This, says the judge, is es-
timating the product low ; for while I am pen-
ning this (October), I find that my largest ears
give two gills, and 100 fair ears half a bushel
of shelled corn. The calculation is also pre-
dicated upon the supposition that there is no
deficiency in the number of stalks, a contin-
gency pretty sure on my method of planting.

Hill*, bush. qtJ.

1. An acre in hflls, 4 feet apart each

way, will produce . - - 2722 42 16

2. The same, 3 by 3 feet ... 4840 75 20

3. The same, 3 by 2i feet - - - 5808 93 28

4. The same, in drills at 3 feet, plants

6 stalks, 1 inch apart in the drills - 29,040 113 14

5. The same in do., 2 rows in a drill, 6

inches apart, and the plants 9
inches, and 3 feet 9 inches from
centre of drills, thus . - - 30,970 120 31

6. The same in do., 3 rows in a drill, as

above, 3 feet from centre of drills - 43,560 170 5

The fifth mode I have tried. The ground
was highly manured, the crop twice cleaned,
and the entire acre gathered and weighed ac-
curately the same day. The product in ears
was 103 baskets, each 84 lbs. nett, and 65 lbs.
over. The last basket was shelled and mea-
sured, which showed a product on the acre of
118 bushels 10 quarts. I gathered at the rate
of more than 100 bushels the acre from four
rods planted in the third method last summer,
the result ascertained in the most accurate
manner. Corn shrinks about 20 per cent,
after it is cribbed. The sixth mode is the one
by which the Messrs. Pratt, of Madison county,
obtained the prodigious crop of 170 bushels
per acre, the largest crop on record. These
gentlemen, I am told, are of opinion that the
product of an acre may be increased to 200
bushels.

I am told the Messrs. Pratt, above alluded
to, used seven bushels of seed to the acre, the
plants being subsequently reduced to the requi-
site number. {BueVs Farmers* Instructer.) See
also Planter's Table.

According to the mode usually adopted in
Pennsylvania, and other States in which the
high-growing varieties of corn are planted, the

MAIZE.

cornhills will average a distance of 4 by 3 feet,
which gives 3,600 hills to the acre, and allowing
2 stalks to each hill, this makes 7,200 stalks per
acre. In more northern situations where they
are compelled to rely upon the quick-maturing
varieties, the lowness of the stalks admit of
closer planting, the hills averaging about 3 by
2^ feet apart, with 4 stalks per hill, by which
means an acre is made to contain 5,808 hills,
and no less than 23,232 stalks — every stalk, in
a good season and with proper tillage, yielding
a good ear.

Sugar from Maize. — Every one familiar with
Indian corn in its growth, must have observed
the very great sweetness of the juice exuding
from the green stalks, when broken or cut.
This, together with the great resemblance
between the true sugar-cane and maize, af-
forded ample ground for believing that sugar
could be procured from its juice. But whether
this can be manufactured with profit, still re-
mains to be fully demonstrated. Partial ex-
periments have afforded favourable results,
among which the following may be mentioned.
The juice of maize contains as much, if not a
larger proportion of sugar than that of the
sugar-cane. This sugar is precisely similar
in its crystallizing and other properties to that
of the cane.

The attention of scientific investigators has
for some years been directed to this subject,
and it has been regarded as an important dis-
covery that the removal of the shoots forming
the rudiments of the ears, before these have
had time to fill, has caused the stalks to retain
all their saccharine matter at an advanced
stage of their growth. Very recently this has
been contested. At a recent meeting of the
French Academy, the distinguished philoso-
pher, M. Biot, read the report of a committee,
which paper contained the following state-
ments : Of the corn stalks experimented upon,
the ears had been removed from one portion,
and left to grow on others. The juice obtained
from the stalks which had been castrated,
yielded 12 per cent, of sugar ; that expressed
from the stalks on which the ears had been
permitted to grow, 13 per cent. It would
hence appear that the results of former experi-
ments showing great apparent advantages from
castration, were fallacious, the operation being
rather injurious than otherwise. The rapidity
with which maize attains its growth, admits of
its being removed from the soil sufficiently
early to give place to a winter crop. This, in
France, is reckoned among the great advan-
tages it has over the sugar-beet, for which it is
proposed as a substitute. In those countries
where the climate is not sufficiently warm to
bring the grain of Indian corn to perfect matu-
rity, such as England and Northern France, it
is probable that the plant might be brought
sufficiently forward to admit of the manufac-
ture of sugar. Mr. Webb, of Wilmington,
Delaware, has made some interesting experi-
ments upon this subject, which are highly
worthy of attention. (See Farmer's Cabinet,
1842, and Ellstoorth's Report, 1843.) The re-
sults afford reasons for believing that the
manufacture of sugar from maize may be ad-
vantageously carried on in the United States,
3 8 757

MALE FERN.

MALT.

especially in the Western States, where such
luxuriant crops of maize can be raised at little
expense.

MALE FERN. See Febn.

MALIC ACID. This vegetable acid exists
in the juices of many fruits and plants, alone,
or associated with the citric, tartaric, and oxalic
acids; and occasionally combined with potash
or lime. Unripe apples, pears, sloes, barber-
ries, the berries of the mountain-ash, elder-
berries, currants, gooseberries, strawberries,
raspberries, bilberries, brambleberries, whortle-
berries, cherries, ananas, afford malic acid ;
the house-leek and purslane contain the malate
of lime.

The acid may be obtained most conveniently
from the juice of the berries of the mountain-
ash, or barberries. This must be clarified, by
mixing with white of egg, and heating the mix-
ture to ebullition ; then filtering, digesting the
clear liquor with carbonate of lead, till it be-
comes neutral ; and evaporating the saline
solution till crystals of malate of lead be ob-
tained. These are to be washed with cold
water, and purified by re-crystallization. On
dissolving the white salt in water, and passing
a stream of sulphureted hydrogen through the
solution, the lead will be all separated in the
form of a sulphuret, and the liquor, after filtra-
tion and evaporation, will yield yellow granu-
lar crystals, or cauliflower concretions, of
malic acid, which may be blanched by re-dis-
solution and digestion with bone-black, and
re-crystallization.

Malic acid has no smell, but a very sour
taste, deliquesces by absorption of moisture
from the air, is soluble in alcohol, fuses at
l.'iO° Fahr., is decomposed at a heat of 348°,
and affords by distillation a peculiar acid, the
pyromalic. It consists in 100 parts, of 41'47
carbon ; 3'51 hydrogen ; and .'V5-02 oxygen ;
having nearly the same composition as citric
acid. A crude malic acid might be economi-
cally extracted from the fruit of the mountain-
ash (sorbus acrenpnria), applicable to many
purposes; but it has not hitherto been manu-
factured upon the great scale, (lire's Diet.)

MALLOW (Mdlva, altered from the Greek
malache, soft, which comes from malarho, to
soften, in allusion to the emollient qualities of
the species). This is an extensive genus of
plants, some of the species of which are very
ornamental. Among the most interesting of
the hardy herbaceous species, are M. moschata,
M. munroana, and M. purpurata. They should
be planted in the flower-border, and increased
by divisions of the roots, or by seeds. The
annual species should be sown in the open
ground; but few of these are worth culti-
vating.

In England, the indigenous species are three
in number. \. Common mallow (M. sylvestris),
a perennial weed which is very common about
hedgerows, roadsides, and in cultivated as well
as waste ground. The root is tapering, branch-
ing, whitish ; stem upright, much branched,
widely spreading, 1^ to 3 feet hi^h, in a barren
soil recumbent; leaves deep-green, soft, and
downy, with seven acute lobes; foot-stalks
and fiower-stalks hairy; the flowers, which
appear from Mav to Ausrust, are numerous, of
758

a shining purple, veiny, on simple aggregate
stalks. The leaves are mucilaginous and
emollient, like the marsh-mallow; and were
formerly often used in food to prevent costive-
ness. The fruit is a depressed disk, and is
called by the country people "cheeses."

2. Dwarf mallow {M. rotundifolia). This
species is also very common in waste ground,
and by footpaths near towns and villages. It
is annual in habit; has a tapering root. The
whole plant is smaller than the last, and is
quite prostrate, with numerous stems scarcely
branched. Leaves roundish, heart-shaped,
with five, often seven, shallow lobes. Flowers
pale lilac-coloured, several together on axillary
hairy stalks ; the stalks when in fruit are bent
downwards.

3. Musk mallow (M. moschata). This is a
less common perennial species, found in the
grassy borders of fields, &c., on a gravelly soil.
The root is tough and woody; the herbage is
bright green, more or less rough. With spread-
ing, simple, not starry hairs, unaccompanied
with any short, dense, woolly pubescence, and
exhaling a musky odour, especially in hot wea-
ther, or when drawn tightly through the hand.
Stems about two feet high, leafy, round, but
little branched. Radical leaves kidney-shaped,
cut, soon withering away; the rest in five deep,
pinnatifid, jagged segments. The flowers, which
appear in July and August, are on long, axillary,
simple stalks, rose-coloured, large and hand-
some ; calyx hairy, its outer leaves linear-lan-
ceolate.

Five North American species of the genus
Malva are described by Nuttall. One of these,
the M. coccinea, is very beautiful, with scarlet
flowers disposed in dense racemes, and is found
from the confluence of the river Platte and
Missouri, often extending over the plains in
such quantities as to communicate a brilliant
redness to thousands of acres. Dr. Darlington
describes two species as found in Chester
county, Pennsylvania, one of which is the
woodland or wild malva (M. sylvestris), some-
times called high mallows. It is a naturalized
foreigner, met with in fields and waste places,
whither it has escaped from gardens. The
other species is the round-leaved malva (itf.
rotundifolia), commonly called low mallows,
and running mallows. This is common in
yards, gardens, and grass-lots. It is also a
foreigner, and so extensively naturalized as to
be somewhat troublesome. It is a popular in-
gredient in domestic practice for poultices,
drinks, &c. "The M. criipa and M. moschata
are frequent in our gardens, and the latter has
in a few instances strayed beyond the garden
limits, but can scarcely be considered as natu-
ralized. Several species have been recently
found in the distant territories of this Repub-
lic, and in British America ; but it is doubtful
whether any genuine malva is indigenous in
the old thirteen states." {Flor.Cestrica.)

MALLOW, THE MARSH. See Marsh-
Mallow.

MALLOW, THE TREE. See Theb-Mal-

LOW.

MALT (Fr. mal; Ital. malto; Lat. maltvm).
The term malt is applied to designate grain
which, being steeped in water, is made to ger-

MALUS.

minale to a certain extent, after which the pro-
cess is checked by the application of heat.
This evolves the saccharine principle of the
grain, which is the essence of malt. Rice, and
almost every species of grain, has been used
in malting; but in Europe, and especially in
England, malt is prepared almost wholly from
barley. It is the principal ingredient in the
manufacture of beer and of ardent spirits.

The process of malting is performed by
steeping any quantity of good barley in cold
water for a period which (as regulated by law)
must not be less than forty hours ; but beyond
that period the steeping may be continued as
long as it is thought proper. The proportion
of water imbibed depends partly upon the bar-
ley, and partly upon the length of time that it
is steeped; but the resullof a good many trials
proves that the medium increase of weight
from steeping may be reckoned at 47 lbs. in
every 100. The average increase of bulk is
about one-fifth. After the grain has remained
a sufficient time in steep, the water is drained
off, and the barley thrown out of the cistern
upon the malt floor, where it is formed into a
heap, called the couch, about 16 inches deep.
In this situation it is allowed to remain about
26 hours. It is then turned by means of wooden
shovels, and diminished a little in depth. This
turning is repeated twice a day or oftener, and
the grain is spread thinner and thinner, till at
last its depth does not exceed a few inches.
The temperature which it is wished to preserve
by these frequent turnings varies from 55° to
62°, according to the different modes of malt-
ing pursued. Soon after the rudiments of the
future stem, called ucrospire by the maltsters,
has appeared, the process of germination is
stopped by drying the malt upon a kiln. The
temperature at first does not exceed 90°, but it
is raised very slowly up to 140°, or higher ac-
cording to circumstances.

Barley, by being converted into malt, gene-
rally increases 2 or 3 per cent, in bulk, and
loses at an average about 20 per cent in weight,
of which 12 are ascribed to kiln drying, and
consist of water which the barley would have
lost had it been exposed to the saiAe tempera-
tare ; so that the real loss does not exceed &
per cent.

The following is Dr. Thomson's analysis of
barley, and the pale malt made from it.

Barl«r. ll>!t.

Gluten 3 1

Sugar 4 16

Gum _ - - - . 5 14

Btarcb ..... 88 69

100 100

The gluten in this case is a most important
component, as by its transformation, when the
malt is converted into wort, ferment is gene-
rated; whilst the saccharine matter, which is
increased fourfold, is the origin of the alcohol
of the beer. Oxygen is appropriated by the
gluten at the same time that the transforma-
tion of the sugar is going on ; and thus carbo-
nic acid and yeast are disengaged simultane-
ously.

In brewing ale, porter, and table beer, three
different kinds of malt are employed: 1, pale
qr amber malt, which yields the saccharine or

MALUS.

fermentable extract; 2, brown or blown malt,
which is not fermentable, but is used to impart
flavour; 3, roasted, black, or, as it is some-
times called, patent malt, which is employed
instead of burnt sugar, merely as a colouring
matter for porter.

The manufacture of malt has been carried
on in England to a great extent from a very
early period ; but it is singular that notwith-
standing the products obtained from it have
always formed the principal beverage of the
great bulk of the people, instead of increasing
with the progressive wealth of the population
of the country, it remained nearly stationary
for more than a century, and it is only within
the last 8 or 10 years that there has been any
increase in the manufacture. This extraordi-
nary result is most probably to be attributed to
the introduction and universal use of tea, cof-
fee, &c., and to the heavy duties that were for-
merly levied on beer and malt. The present
duty on malt from barley is 2s. 7d. per bushel,
and from here or bigg, 2«. The quantity of
malt charged with duly in the United King-
dom during the three years ending 1838, was
41,814,811 bushels; and the revenue derived
from it averaged in the same period 5,282,975/.

The following is the quantity of malt con-
sumed by the brewers of London and its vici-
nity from the 10th of October, 1830, to the 10th
of October, 1840.

Qt«.

Qn.

1831 - 6W,549

1836 -

- 754.313

183-J

6<) 1,477

1837 . 714,488

1833 - 578.588

1838 - 742.5«7

1834 . 662,713

18;)9

750,176

1835

7U2.533

J840 - 776,219

The 6 Geo. 4, c. 107, s. 52, enacts that "malt
may not be imported into the United Kingdom
for home use under pain of forfeiture ; but it
may be warehoused for exportation." The im-
portation of malt is, however, now allowed
under very high duties, fluctuating with the
price of home produce; but under no stale of
the market can any addition be thus made to
the quantity of malt in this country, because
barley which has undergone a voyage of much
length is unsuited to the process of malting.
See Barlet, Brkr, and Brkwixc.

MALT-DUST. The dust or substance that
separates from the malt in the act of drying, or
during its preparation. It is sometimes called
malt-combs,. and has been found useful as a
manure or a top-dressing when sown over the
cereal grasses in the early spring season.

The proper quantity of this dust is, if top-
dressed, for wheat, 36 to 40 bushels ; if drilled
with the crop, for barley and turnips, 30 to 34
bushels. It is also eminently calculated for
grass lands ; and if applied in the latter pro-
portion, it will produce a very considerable
increase of the best feed. The common price
at most malukilns is from 5s. to 6s. per quar-
ter. Malt-dust is also in some places employed
in the feeding of milch cows and pigs.

MALUS (Lat. malum, an apple). The wild
crab {Pyrus malus, see Crab-thee) is the only
apple indigenous to England, and it is on this
stock that most of our valuable apples have
been grafted and raised by the ingenuity of
the gardeners, who have, by sowing the seeds
and studying the soil, so improved and multi-

759

MALUS.

MALUS.

plied the varieties of this most excellent fruit,
that it has now become of great national im-
portance, affording an agreeable and whole-
some diet, in a thousand shapes, to all classes.
Leonard Mascal was the first who introduced
the common or cultivated apple into England,
aboyt the year 1525. The varieties of the
apple are now so numerous that the Horticul-
tural Society's catalogue includes more than
1400. The apple, like most other hardy trees,
may be propagated by seeds, cuttings, suckers,
layers, or engrafting ; by seeds for obtaining
new varieties, and by the other modes for ex-
tending the number of such as are in esteem.
In every garden and private orchard, apples
for ten different purposes are desirable :

1. For summer culinary use, the codlings,
while not fully grown or imperfectly ripe, are
fit for using in June, July, and August.

2. For summer eating or table use, the jen-
neting, pomroy, &c., which ripen in the end of
June or in iu.\y. Margaret, summer pearmain,
&c., (July). Kentish fill-basket, Hawthorn
dean, &c. (August).

3. For autumn baking, the codlings and
Burknott's red-streaks. Eve apple, court pen-
der, nonsuch, &c., which ripen in September.
Piles's russet, Carlisle codling, calsheads, em-
broidered, &c. (October). Wormsley pippin,
golden Harvey, queening, golden russet (No-
vember).

4. For autumn table use, the Kirton and
Dalmahoy pippins, Loan's pearmain, Colville,
Kent, Godolphin, &c., which ripen in Septem-
ber; orange and ribstone pippins, gray rennet,
fameuse, violet, &c. (October). Franklin's
golden, and Borsdorf pippins, Dredge's russet,
margil, &c. (November).

5. For winter culinary use, the Nimier's
dumpling, Burknott, John apple, Mansfield tart,
&c., which are fit to use in December. Hall-
door, royal pearmain, Dutch queening, Adam's
russet (January). Brindgwood pippin, cock-
agee, tankerton, box-apple (February).

6. For winter table use, the golden and
Kentish pippins, golden and Canadian rennets,
brandy, &c., which are fit to eat in December.
The Norfolk storing, Hubbard's Sykehouse,
white court pender, &c. (January). Dredge's
Queen Charlotte, Feams, Skenn's kernel, and
Dalmahoy pippins, royal pearmain, &c. (Feb-
ruary).

7. For spring culinary use, the quince, white
Colville, Lord Camden's rennet, winter pear-
main, which keep till the end of March. Spen-
cer pippin, Trevoider rennet, Macdonald's
Scotch nonpareil, Spaniard, &c. (April). Nor-
folk paradise. Loan's pearmain, English ren-
net, &c. (May).

8. For spring table use, the hollow-eyed,
Cornwall rennet, Hughes's new golden pippin,
«fcc., which will keep till the end of March.
Cockle and Whitmore pippins, golden and
Piles's russet, Wheeler's extreme, &c. (April).
Stone and Spencer pippins, Royal George,
Ward, &c. (May).

9. For summer culinary use, till the apple
season returns, the Lord Cheney's green, Bax-
ter's pearmain, stoup codling, &c., which will
keep till the end of June. Norfolk beaufin,
Norfolk storing, French crab (July).

760

10. For summer table use, till the apple sea-
son returns, the Dredge's fame, oaken peg,
carnation, &c., which keep till the end of June.
Nonpareil, Yorkshire greening, Norfolk Col-
man, which keep till the end of July.

Although the apple flourishes in every part
of the United States, if we except the extreme
southern portions, the fall and winter varieties
commonly come to the greatest perfection in
the Northern States and northern portions of
ihe Middle States, where this fruit constitutes
a very profitable resource to the farmer, both
for the home markets and exportation to the
Southern States, the West Indies, and Europe,
and even to Asia. Good judges assert that the
apples of England and France are not to be
compared, for excellence of flavour, to those
produced in the United States.

The following directions for the culture and
subsequent management of apple trees, is from
the valuable manual published in 1842 by Wil-
liam Kenrick, nurseryman, near Boston.

The seeds or pomace of the apple should be
sown in autumn in a rich soil. When the
young plants appear in spring, they should be
carefully thinned to the distance of 2 inches
asunder, and kept free from weeds by carefully
hoeing during the remainder of the season, or
till of sufficient size to be removed.

At 1 or 2 years of age they are taken up,
their tap-roots shortened, that they may throw
out lateral roots ; they are transferred to the
nursery, set in rows about 4 feet asunder, and
at 1 foot distance from each other in the row,
in a rich and loamy soil. In the summer fol-
lowing they are inoculated, or they are en-
grafted or inoculated the year following.

Size and age for transplanting to the orchard.—'
An apple tree, when finally transplanted to the
orchard, ought to be at least 6 or 7 feet high,
with branches in proportion, and full 2 years
from the bud or graft, and thrifty. Apple trees
under this size belong properly only to the
nursery.

Distance. — The distance asunder to which
apple trees should be finally set, when trans-
planted to the orchard, depends upon the nature
of the soil, and the cultivation to be subse- '
quently given. If the soil is by nature extremely
fertile, 40 feet distance may be allowed, and
even 45 and 50 feet in some very extraordinary
situations ; for before the trees become old,
they will completely shade the ground. If,
however, the soil is not very extraordinary by
nature, or so rendered by art, this distance
would be too great ; for the trees would become
old, and their growth would be finished, before
the ground could be covered by their shadow :
30 feet only may therefore be allowed in land
usually denominated of good quality, and but
20 to 26 feet in land of ordinary quality. But
where economy of time, of land, and of all
things else is consulted, but one-half this dis-
tance will answer for a series of years.

The quincunx mode is recommended for
<;lose arrangement, and short-lived trees may
be set in the intervals.

The size to which an apple tree may attain,
and the ground which should be allotted to it,
depend also, in some measure, on the particu-
lar variety of apple; some sorts being weli

MALUS.

MALUS.

known to attain to a much greater size than
that of others.

The period of growth, or the duration of the
apple tree is comparatively limited; this is
sufficiently evident from the perishable nature
of its timber. Those species of trees only will
continue living and growing for centuries,
whose timber may be preserved incorrupti-
ble during the lapse of a long succession of
ages.

Soil and situation. — A rich soil, rather moist
than dry, is that adapted to the apple tree ; but
what is usually termed a deep pan soil is to be
preferred.

On such a soil, whether^on the plains, or in
the valley, or on the sides and summits of our
great hills, which almost always consist of
good land, and even in situations the most ex-
posed, the apple tree will flourish.

One of the most productive apple-orchards in
the immediate vicinity of Boston is situated on
the north and north-west sides of a hill, the most
exposed to cold winds. The soil of great hills
is generally of far superior quality to that of
the plains ; and it is a very mistaken opinion,
which seems adopted by some, that the soil of
all hills must of necessity be dry and deficient
in moisture. It is the plains and the knolls
that are but too generally thus deficient, not the
great hills, which almost always abound in
springs.

Land half-covered with rocks, and incapable
of being cultivated with the plough, is in some
respects admirably suited to the apple tree ;
for, in such situations, they are not liable to
suffer from drought; they receive nearly a
double portion of moisture from the rains that
fall, and a greater degree of heat by the reflect-
ed rays of the sun.

They may even flourish on sandy plains, if,
where the tree is to be placed, an excavation
is formed 6 or 8 feet in diameter, and 3 or 4
feet in depth, and half-filled either with useless
small stones, intermixed with rich loam, mud
from the low grounds, clay, or gravelly clay, or
mixtures of any of these substances with a
portion of manure, and the remainder of the
excavation filled to the surface with rich loam.
MamigenientoftheLand, — If the ground intend-
ed for the orchard cannot conveniently be kept
wholly in a state of cultivation during the first
years, a portion, at least, ought to be.

A strip of land to each row, of 8 or 10 feet
in width, well manured, may be kept cultivated,
and the vegetables which may here be raised
will amply repay the expense and labour be-
stowed during the first 4 or 5 years. After this,
if the trees have grown well, as they probably
must have done, cultivation at a distance in the
intervals becomes even more important than
within the limited distance of a very few feet
from the trunk of the tree ; for, on examination,
it will be found that the small fibres or sponge-
lets, by which alone the tree derives all the
nourishment it receives from the earth, are
now remote from the trunk of the tree ; they
are now to be found seeking pasture beyond
the limits of its shade, and it becomes neces-
sary that the whole ground should be kept in a
high state of cultivation for the 4 or 5 follow-
ing years. After this period it may occasion-
96

ally be laid to grass, which, however, should
be broken up at frequent intervals, the land
being always kept in good heart.

Pruning. — If the branches of a young tree,
issuing at and above the requisite height, be
made, by pruning, to diverge from the trunk
in every direction above the horizontal, and
the interior of these be carefully kept from
any interference with each other for a few
years, little pruning will ever afterwards be
necessary.

Heavy pruning is seldom necessary or advi-
sable ; but when, as in the case of grafting, or
of heading down for a new growth, it becomes
unavoidable, it should always be performed in
that interval between the time the frost is
coming out of the ground in spring, and the
opening of the leaf.

For that moderate pruning, which alone is
generally needful, June and July, and during
the longest days of summer, is the very best
time : for wounds of all kinds heal admirably
at this period, the wood remaining sound and
bright ; and even a tree debarked at this season
recovers a new bark immediately.

Trees ought not to be pruned in February
and March, at the time the frost is coming out
of the ground. This is the season when most
trees, and particularly the vine and sugar-
maple, bleed most copiously and injuriously.
It causes inveterate canker ; the wounds turn
black, and the bark, for perhaps several feet
below, becomes equally black, and perfectly
dead, in consequence of the bleeding.

The lower side limbs of young trees in the
nursery should be gradually shortened, but not
suddenly close pruned ; they are essential for
a time to strengthen the trunk, and to the
upright and perfect formation of the tree.

These directions are particularly applicable
to the apple tree. I would only add, that when
these directions have been followed, — when
large and profitable crops are desired, — our
cultivators generally avoid robbing their trees
unnecessarily of a particle of bearing wood.

Those limbs which interfere with other limbs
by galling, the suckers, and dead wood, are
alone removed; for they consider that the
warmth of the atmosphere is of itself suflScient
in our climate to ripen the fruit, without at-
tempting to admit the sun to every part of the
tree.

These directions are to be more especially-
observed in regard to old trees in their declin-
ing years: their trunks being too old for the
reproduction and sustenance of a crop of new
and fruitful wood, nothing should be taken
away but the dead branches and suckers. We
have seen old trees, whose branches were an-
nually loaded with fruit, despoiled at once by
the hand of man of half their bearing wood,
under the mistaken idea that the destruction of
the one half of the tree would confer a benefit
on the remainder, and render it still more pro-
ductive. We noticed, however, that the efliect
i thus produced was directly the reverse, as their
total destruction usually followed, as a conse-
quence, not long after.

Insects. — See Borers, Caterpillars, Cur-
cutio, &c. {Kenrick's New American Orchard-
ist.)

3 s 2 761

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The same publication may be referred to for
a descriptive list of apples in cultivation in the
United States, together with select foreign va-
rieties. From more than 200 kinds, our limits
will only admit an enumeration of a list recom-
mended by the experienced author, as a mode-
rate selection of the kinds best known and most
valued at the present day. The numbers refer
to the entire catalogue.

Summer Apples.

3. Berumi, a medium-sized, red, and good
early apple. — July.

4. Early Sweet Emi^h. Size from medium to
large, form oblong, skin yellow, juicy, and fla-
vour excellent. — Early in August.

8. Maiden's Blush, or Haxvthornden of the Eng-
lish. A large and beautiful fruit, shape flat-
tened, colour yellowish-white, with a red blush
on the sunny side. An excellent apple for mar-
ket, and also for drying. — August to September.
A popular fruit in the Philadelphia market.

9. Porter. Size medium, oblong, light-yellow,
with pale blush next the sun, very beautiful ;
flavour lively and pleasant; productive and
profitable; a popular fruit in the Boston mar-
ket. Origin, Sherburne, Massachusetts.

10. Pumpkin Sweeting o{^evf^x\g\d.x\^. Large,
round, flattened, and colour yellow-russet; the
flavour sweet and excellent. — August to Oc-
tober.

11. Red Astracan. An eminently beautiful
and very early apple, of medium size, nearly
globular, of a rich crimson colour, covered
with a fine bloom. Crisp, juic5% and agreeable.
The tree a great bearer, originally from Russia.

18. Williams Apple. A beautiful fruit, of me-
dium size and oblong form ; colour deep-red ;
flavour lively and very pleasant. — First of Au-
gust. A native of Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Autumn Apples.

22. Brabant Belle Fleur, Very large and
handsome ; of great solidity; shape rather co-
nical ; slightly ribbed ; yellow with reddish
stripes; juicy and of very pleasant flavour.
A fine fruit. — November.

28. Emperor Alexander. The fruit of this
Russian variety is very large, cordate, narrow
at the crown ; the eye is in a broad, deep cavi-
ty ; colour greenish-yellow, slightly streaked
with red in the shade, and beautifully marked
and streaked with bright red and orange next
the sun. Flesh yellowish-white, crisp, tender,
juicy, rich, and of aromatic flavour. Excel-
lent for dessert. — October. Keeps till Christmas.

30. Fameuse. Pomrae de Neige. A middle-
sized fruit; shape globular, flattened ; skin light
green,tinged with light-red and dark-red streaks;
deep red next the sun. Flesh white as snow
and very tender; juice sweet, with a musky
perfume. — October. A most beautiful dessert
fruit Origin Canada.

33. Gravenstein, said to be the best apple in
Germany. Shape large, round, and angular at
the crown ; the eye sunk in a broad, deep,
knotty cavity; colour clear straw yellow, with
broken stripes of red next the sun. Flesh pale
yellow, crisp, high flavoured and delicious.
Good for dessert and cider. Ripens in autumn
and keeps till winter. I

762

35. KenricJc, a large round fruit, pale green,
with bright red next the sun. Flesh tender and.
occasionally stained with red. A native of
Newton, Massachusetts.

38. Lyscom. Sometimes called Osgood's Fa-
vourite ; a large fruit, striped with red ; of ex-
cellent quality. Origin Worcester, Massachu-
setts. Ripens in October.

39. Monmouth Pippin. A superior, large, and
handsome fall fruit. Productive and saleable,
from Monmouth, New Jersey.

41. Orange Pippin, called also Marigold Pip-
pin, and Isle of Wight Orange ; in size, form,
and colour, much resembling a middle-sized
orange. Flavour pleasant and good for dessert.
Excellent for cider. In Monmouth county.
New Jersey, considered one of the most sale-
able, profitable, and productive of all fall
apples.

42. Orange Sweeting, or Golden Sweet ; rather
large, flattened at the base and summit ; colour
yellow or orange ; flesh sweet and excellent. In
high estimation at Providence, Rhode Island,
where it is brought from Connecticut. — Sep-
tember. Keeps till December.

44. Red Calville ; of medium size, and very
beautiful ; form conical ; colour fine red, and
on the sunny side, deep crimson ; flesh stained
with red ; of a vinous sweet taste, and perfume
of violets. Ripens in September, and keeps
till winter.

49. Spice Sweet. Fruit large, very sweet
and excellent. Native of Taunton, Massa-
chusetts. Sometimes called Spurr Apple. —
September.

53. York Russeting ; remarkably large, coni-
cal-shaped, and swollen towards the base; co-
lour russet-yellow; juicy, subacid, and good.
Valuable for market, cooking, &c. — October
to December.

Winter Apples.

55. JEsnpus Spitzenberg, large, very beautiful,
and excellent ; shape oblong; colour deep scar-
let, deepening to dark crimson next the sun ;
flesh juicy and high-flavoured. A very cele-
brated fruit, ripening in December, and keep-
ing till March. The Flushing Spitzenberg diflers
from this in being round or flat.

66. Baldvnn. This capital variety is a native
of Massachusetts, a large, beautiful, and fa-
mous fruit. Shape round, of a pale colour in
the shade, and fine scarlet crimson on the sunny
side; sometimes entirely red. Flesh white, *
juicy and sugary, and of an agreeable acid
flavour. The most popular winter apple in the
Boston market. Ripens in November, and
keeps till February and March.

59. Bell flower, or Yellow Bellfoicrr. A large
and beautiful fruit, of an oblong or conical
form, colour bright yellow, with an occasional
blush next the sun. Rich and finely flavour-
ed ; excellent for dessert and cooking, and a
prime favourite in the Philadelphia market.
Ripens in October and November, and will
keep nearly all winter. The seeds are so
loose as to rattle in the middle when shaken.

62. Bltte Pearmnin. A large, beautiful apple,
of a dark-red colour, covered with a thick
bloom. — October. Keeps till January.

63, Chandler, a superior variety from Con-

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necticut, where it is deemed one of the best of
winter fruits. Large, flat, with dull red stripes
next the sun. Eye large and in a deep cavity.
Flavour equal to the Baldwin. Keeps till
March.

67. Datwers' Winter Sweet, or Epses Sweet.
Large and beautiful. Colour bright yellow,
with a faint blush next the sun. Fine for des-
sert and baking. Native of Danvers, and a
popular market fruit.

74. Golden Ball. Size rather above medium ;
ribbed at the sides ; colour golden yellow. A
very popular apple in Maine.

81. Lody Jpple, or Pomme D'Api. Very
small and beautiful. Skin bright and yellow,
with a red blush on the sunny side. — Novem-
ber. Keeps till March.

85. Minister. Large, oblong, and tapering
towards the eye, like the Bellflower, with large
ribs, or calville-formed ; striped, wiih bright
red on aground of pale greenish-yellow. Flesh
yellow and high flavoured. Esteemed by Man-
ning one of the first fruits New England has
ever produced. — November to January. Origin,
Rowley, Massachusetts.

86. La'e Pound Sweet. Very large; form flat-
tened. Colour pale yellow. Origin Vermont.

87. Mela Carla, or Malcarle, Charles Apple,
Pomme Ferivale. One of the most famous of
fruits; size rather large; form globular, but
slightly ovate. Eye and slender stem both in-
serted into deep cavities. Skin beautiful waxen,
a little marbled with faint green near the eye.
Splendid crimson colour on the sunny side.
Flesh white, delicate sweet, with rose perfume.
— September. Keeps till spring. In Italy this
is considered the best of all apples in the world.
It is there cultivated extensively for exporta-
tion. Near Boston, this apple proves good but
not excellent.

88. Monstrous Pippin^ or New York Gloria
Mundi; a fruit of uncommon size. Colour
yellow with numerous spots of white ; eye
very deep. Excellent for cooking. Origin,
Long Island.

90. Murphy. A large and splendid fruit, re-
sembling in appearance the Blue Pearmain,
but more oblong and rather smaller. Colour
pale red, streaked or blotched with darker red,
and covered with bloom. Keeps till February.
Origin, Salem, Massachusetts.

94. Powmil Spitzenbenr. Origin, Vermont.
Resembles the ^sopus Spitzenberg, and high-
ly esteemed.

97. RanisdeWs Red Pwnpkin Sweet ; a beauti-
ful fruit; over medium size; round or oblong;
colour a dark and beautiful red, covered with
a dense blue bloom. The tree a prodigious
bearer, native of Connecticut. Fruit saleable
and profitable ; keeps till January.

98. Rhode Island Greening; Jersey or Bur-
lington Greening ; a very large apple, flattened
at both ends ; colour yellowish green at matu-
rity, covered with dark clouds or blotches;
ripens in September, and keeps till March. A
highly esteemed and profitable fruit. Tree
bears abundantly every other year, and, in
the New England Slates, is preferred for its
productiveness to the Green Newtown Pip-
pin.

99. Rihsfon Pippin, also called Formosa Pip-
pin, and Glory of York ; in England esteemed
very highly; medium size, and globular form;
colour pale yellow, mottled with red next the
sun. Keeps till February.

100. Red Seek-No-Farther. A large round
fruit, contracted towards the summit; colour
fine deep red ; flavour sweet and excellent.
Keeps till March. A Rhode Island fruit.

101. Roxlniry Russeting. A fine old native of
Massachusetts ; fruit large and of a slightly
flattened form ; colour, brownish yellow russet,
with an occasional blush next the sun ; skin
rough. Keeps well till June and July. Raised
in great quantities near Boston, for exporta-
tion, &c.

102. Scolloped Gillyflower. Said by good judges
to far excel the Black Gillyflower, and much
resembling the Cornish variety.

103. Swaar. This and the Jonathan apple
are esteemed equal, at least, if not superior to,
the Newtown Pippins and Spitzenbergs. Size,
medium ; shape, round ; skin, greenish yellow,
with a blush next the sun, and thickly dotted
with brown specks, intermixed with some scar-
let. Keeps till April.

104. White Spitzenberg. A beautiful, fair, and
fine flavoured fruit, about the size of the ^so-
pus Spitzenberg. Keeps all winter, and sells
well in the Albany market.

105. Wine Jlpple, or Hay's Apple ; also called
Large Winter Red, and Fine Winter. Fruit
very large and beautiful ; colour, bright red on
the sunny side, with sometimes a few stripes
and blotches of yellow on the shady side.
Flesh rich and excellent. Keeps till f^ebruary
and March. Tree very productive, and fruit
very saleable in the Philadelphia market.

106. Winter Sireeting ; called also Seaver
Sweeting, and Grafton Sweeting. Fruit large,
round and conical; colour, pale yellow, with a
blush on the sunny side. Flesh yellow, sweet
and fine-flavoured. Keeps till March.

107. Winter White Calville, or Bonnet Carr6.
Fruit large and of a bright yellow colour, with
a bright red blush on the sunny side ; form
rather* flat and ribbed ; flesh white, tender, and
pleasant. Keeps till March.

108. Yellow Newtoion Pippin. A large flat
fruit, of a bright yellow colour, and faint blush
next the sun. Keeps all winter, and flourishes
better in the New England slates than the
Green Variety.

CeLBB BATED CiDXR ApPLES ClTIiTITATBD IK

THE UxiTED States.

109. Harrison, or Long Stem. A native of
Essex, New Jersey. The celebrated Newark
cider is made from this apple; one tree in Es-
sex county, New Jersey, produced 100 bushels
in one year, and 10 bushels make a barrel of
cider, which will yield 14 quarts of brandy.
The fruit is below the medium size, rather
long, and deeply indented at the ends ; stem
very long ; colour yellow, covered with black
spots. Fruit ripens 1st of November. Flesh
yellow, firm, tough, and dry.

110. Taliafero. A Virginia fruit, about the
size of a grape-shot, or from 1 to 2 inches in
diameter ; colour white, streaked with red.

763

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111. Virginia Crab, or Hewes's Virginia Crab.
A very small round cider apple, of a small, red
colour, with streaks of pale yellow.

Varieties for Presertino or Ornamental
purposes.

112. Red Siberian Crab, Tree a profuse
bearer, and very beautiful when the fruit is at
maturity, resembling at a little distance a plum
or cherry tree ; fruit in clusters of a bright
scarlet colour, with long stems. Much used
for preserving.

113. Yellow Siberian Crab. The tree, foliage,
and fruit equally beautiful with the preceding
kind, which it even excels in productiveness.
The little apples grow in clusters, with long
stems ; colour golden yellow.

114. Chinese Double Flowering. Tree small,
bearing very double flowers in clusters, re-
sembling small roses; very superb when in
full bloom. Fruit very small, but tolerable for
eating.

Southern Apples.

The following are stated to be some of the
most esteemed varieties of native apples of
Virginia. Part are described from the autho-
rity of Mr. Uoxe, and the remainder on the
authority of a Virginian.

115. Beverley's Red. The fruit is very large,
the skin smooth, of a crimson colour ; flesh
very white, of a pleasant flavour. A winter
fruit.

116. Cart House, or Gilpin. The tree is a
great bearer. The fruit hangs long on the tree
in autumn. A small fruit, rather oblong ; the
skin smooth, of a deep crimson colour, with
occasional yellow stripes; the flesh yellow,
tender, and of good flavour. A native of Vir-
ginia; highly esteemed for its excellence as a
table fruit in spring ; also a good cider fruit.
Coxe.

117. Curtis. The skin is smooth, of a red
colour; flesh juicy and pleasant. Ripe middle
to end of August.

118. Gloucester White. The tree is of vigo-
rous growth, and beautiful form, and very pro-
ductive ; the fruit of medium size, its form
varying from flat to oblong ; of a fine yellow
colour, clouded with spots of black; the flesh
yellow, breaking, juicy, rich, and delicious. It
ripens early in October; and, according to Mr.
Coxe, is not only a most excellent dessert fruit,
but makes exquisite cider. Much cultivated
and of high reputation in the lower counties of
Virginia.

119. James River, or Limber Tivig. Branches
drooping or pendent; the fruit is of a greenish
colour, with a blush next the sun; the flesh
very juicy, and pleasant at maturity. Winter.
It keeps a long time.

120. Lippincot. A fruit of Maryland. Very
handsome, and striped ; excellent ; one of the
best of all early apples. July and August. R.
Sinclair.

121. Pryor*8 Red. The fruit is very large;
colour brownish red; its flesh at maturity
juicy, and very fine. A winter fruit.

122. i?flu?/e's/ane^ or Rockrimmon. The form
is globular, flattened; the colour red and green;
flesh very fragrant, more juicy, and of superior j

764

flavour to the Newtown Pippin, and keeps
equally as well.

123. Royal Pearmain. Fruit fine, of a large
size, flattened ; skin rough, of a fine russet colour,
but red next the sun, and faintly streaked with
russet ; flesh a rich yellow, firm, but at matu-
rity, tender, sweet, and of very sprightly flavour.
A good table apple; excellent for cider; and
highly esteemed by the planters of Virginia,
near Richmond, from whence Mr. Coxe pro-
cured it. The tree bears uniformly and abun-
dantly. It ripens in October, and will keep till
February or March.

124. Striped June Apple. The fruit is as fra-
grant as a pine-apple melon. It ripens the last
of June and beginning of July.

12.5. Virginia Greening. The fruit is of me-
dium size; colour green, striped with red;
flavour very superior. A winter fruit.

Gathering and Preserving the Fruit.

Various theories have been offered for pre-
serving apples in a sound state for winter use,
or for distant voyages. Some have proposed
gathering the fruit before it is ripe, and drying
it on floors before it is put up ; this has been
tried ; the apples lose their sprightly flavour,
and keep no better than by some less trouble-
some modes. Dr. Noah Webster has recom-
mended that they should be put down between
layers of sand which has been dried by the
heat of summer. This is without doubt an ex-
cellent mode, as it excludes the air, and ab-
sorbs the moisture, and must be useful when
apples are to be shipped to a warm climate.

Chopped straw has also been highly recom-
mended to be placed between the layers of
fruit ; but I have noticed that the straw, from
the perspiration it imbibes, becomes musty,
and may probably do more hurt than good.
When apples are to be exported, it has been
recommended that each be separately wrapped
in coarse paper, in the manner oranges and
lemons are usually put up. This is, without
doubt, an excellent mode. And Mr. Loudon
has recommended that apples destined for'Eu-
rope should be packed between layers of grain.
Packing in oats is said to succeed very well.

Great quantities of fine winter fruit are
raised in the vicinity of Boston, and put up for
winter use, for the markets and for exporta-f
tion. The following is the mode almost uni-
versally adopted by the most experienced ; and
by this mode apples, under very favourable
circumstances, are frequently preserved in a
sound state, or not 1 in 50 defective, for a pe-
riod of 7 or 8 months. The fruit is sufllered to
hang on the tree to as late a period as possible
in October, or till hard frosts have loosened
the stalk, and they are in imminent danger of
being blown down by high winds ; such as
have already fallen are carefully gathered and
inspected, and the best are put up for early
winter use. They are carefully gathered from
the tree by hand, and as carefully laid in bas-
kets. New, tight, well-seasoned flour-barrels,
from the bakers', are usually preferred: the
baskets, being filled, are cautiously lowered
into the barrels and reversed. The barrels,
being quite filled, are gently shaken, and the
head is gently pressed down to its place, and

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secured. It is observed that this pressure
never causes them to rot next the head, and is
necessary, as they are never allowed to rattle
in removing. No soft straw or shavings are
admitted at the ends ; it causes mustiness and
decay. They are next carefully placed in
wagons, and removed on the bulge, and laid in
courses in a cool, airy situation, on the north
side of buildings, near the cellar, protected by
a covering on the top, of boards, so placed as
to defend them from ihe sun and rain, while
the air is not excluded at the sides. A chill
does not injure them ; it is no disservice ; but
when extreme cold weather comes on, and
they are in imminent danger of being frozen,
whether by night or day, they are carefully
rolled into a cool, airy, dry cellar, with open-
ings on the north side, that the cold air may
have free access ; they are laid in tiers, and
the cellar is in due time closed and rendered
secure from frost. The barrels are never
tumbled or placed on the head. Apples keep
best when grown in dry seasons, and on dry
soils. If fruit is gathered late, and according
to the above directions, repacking is unneces-
sary; it is even ruinous, and should on no ac-
count be practised till the barrel is opened for
use. It has been fully tried.

When apples are to be exported, Mr. Cob-
bett has recommended that ' they should, if
possible, be carried on deck; otherwise be-
tween decks.' Between decks is the place,
and in the most dry, cool, and airy part. —
(Kenrick.)

Insects injcrious to Trees axd Fruit.

Among the insects that have been brought
to America with other productions of Europe,
may be mentioned the ..^ppU'Worm, as it is com-
monly called, which has become naturalized
wherever the apple tree has been introduced.
This mischievous creature has been sometimes
mistaken for the plum-weevil, from which,
however, it may be easily distinguished by its
shape, habits, and transformations. Although
the plum-weevil prefers stone-fruit, it is some-
limes met with in apples. On the other hand,
Dr. Harris says he has never known the apple-
worm to be found in plums. It is, he observes,
not a grub, but a caterpillar, belonging to the
Tortrix tribe, and in due time is changed to a
moth, commonly called the Codlingmoth, or fruit-
moth of the apple. An anonymous writer, in
the JSntomological Magazine of London, has well
remarked that this moth " is the most beautiful
of the beautiful tribe to which it belongs; yet,
from its habits not being known, it is seldom
seen in the moth state ; and the apple-grower
knows no more than the man in the moon to
what cause he is indebted for his basketfuls of
worm-eaten windfalls in the stillest weather."

Some interesting facts collected by Dr. Har-
ris, serving to establish the difference between
the plum-weevil and apple-worm (codling cater-
pillar), will be found under the head of Plum-

WEEVH.

The apple-worm has been long known in
Europe, and its history has been written by
some of the ablest naturalists. Accounts of it
have also been furnished in the New England
Farmer and other good American periodicals.

The apple-worm moths may be found in the
early part of summer, about the time of the
first ripening of the fruit. They are sometimes
seen in houses in the evening, trying to get
through the w^indows into the open air, having
been brought in with fiuit while they were in
the caterpillar state. Their fore-wings, when
seen at a distance, have somewhat the appear-
ance of brown watered silk ; when closely exa-
mined, they will be found to be crossed by nu-
merous gray and brown lines, scalloped like
the jplumage of a bird ; and near the hind angle
there is a large, oval, dark-brown spot, the
edges of which are of a bright copper colour.
The head and thorax are brown, mingled with
gray, and the hind-wings and abdomen are
light yellowish-brown, with the lustre of satin.
Its wings expand three-quarters of an inch.
This insect is readily distinguished from other
moths by the large, oval, brown spot, edged
with copper colour, on the hinder margin of
each of the fore-wings. During the latter part
of June and the month of July, these fruit-moths
fly about apple trees every evening, and lay
their eggs on the young fruit. They do not
puncture the apples, but they drop their eggs,
one by one, in the eye or hollow at the blossom-
end of the fruit, where the skin is most tender.
They seem also to seek for early fruit rather
than for the late kinds, which we find are not
so apt to be wormy as the thin-skinned summer
apples. The eggs begin to hatch in a few days
after they are laid, and the little apple-worms
or caterpillars produced from them immediately
burrow into the apples, making their way gra-
dually from the eye towards the core. Com-
monly only one worm will be found in the
same apple; and it is so small at first, that its
presence can only be detected by the brownish
powder it throws out in eating its way through
the eye. The body of the young insect is of a
whitish colour; its head is heart-shaped and
black; the top of the first ring or collar and of
the last ring is also black ; and there are eight
little blackish dots or warts, arranged in pairs,
on each of the other rings. As it grows older,
its body becomes flesh-coloured ; its head, the
collar, and the top of the last ring, turn brown,
and the dots are no longer to be seen. In the
course of three weeks, or a little more, it comes
to its full size, and meanwhile has burrowed to
the core and through the apple in various di-
rections. To get rid of the refuse fragments
of its food, it gnaws a round hole through the
side of the apple, and thrusts them out of the
opening. Through this hole also the insect
makes its escape after the apple falls to the
ground; and the falling of the fruit is well
known to be hastened by the injury it has re-
ceived within, which generally causes it to
ripen before its time.

Soon after the half-grown apples drop, and
sometimes while they are still hanging, the
worms leave them and creep into chinks in the
bark of the trees, or into other sheltered places,
which they hollow out with their teeth to suit
their shape. Here each one spins for itself a
cocoon or silken case, as thin, delicate, am'
white as tissue-paper. Some of the apple-
worms, probably the earliest, are said by K61-
lar to change to chrysalids immediately after

765

MANDRAKE.

their cocoons are made, and in a few days more
turn to moths, come out, and lay their eggs for a
second generation of the worms ; and hence
much fruit will be found to be worm-eaten in
the autumn. Most of the insects, however,
remain in their cocoons through the winter,
and ^re not changed to moths till the following
summer. The chrysalis is of a bright maho-
gany-brown colour, and has, as usual, across
each of the rings of its hind-body, two rows of
prickles, by the help of which it forces its way
through the cocoon before the moth comes
forth.

As the apple-worms instinctively leave the
fruit soon after it falls from the trees, it will be
proper to gather up all wind-fallen apples daily,
and make such immediate use of them as will
be sure to kill the insects, before they have
lime to escape. Mr. Burrelle says that if any
old cloth is wound around or hung in the
crotches of the trees, the apple- worms will con-
ceal themselves therein; and by this means
thousands of them may be obtained and de-
stroyed, from the time when they first begin to
leave the apples until the fruit is gathered. By
carefully scraping off the loose and rugged
bark of the trees, in the spring, many chrysa-
lids will be destroyed ; and it has been said that
the moths, when they are about laying their
eggs, may be smothered or driven away by the
smoke of weeds burned under the trees. The
worms often found in summer pears appear to
be the same as those that affect apples, and are
to be kept in check by the same means. (Harris.)
See Cider and Orchard.

MANDRAKE (Mandragora; the name is
derived from inandra, an ox-stall, something
relating to cattle, and agauros, cruel; on ac-
count of its poisonous effects on cattle, when
accidentally gathered with their fodder in the
countries where the plants abound). These
plants, which are natives of the south of Eu-
rope, thrive well in a light soil, in a shaded
situation. They can only be increased by
seeds. The roots are very apt to rot during
winter. The root has an uncouth form, which
is supposed to resemble the human shape ; on
which account it was imagined to be capable
of preventing barrenness. It is, however, an
acro-narcotic poison, and when taken proves
fatal by the extreme purging which it causes.
The common people still believe in its proper-
ties ; but the root of a species of Bryony
(Tamus comnvums) is usually sold for it in the
herb shops.

MANGE. A cutaneous disease, which at-
tacks several domestic animals, especially the
dog, and which is attended with an eruption
and loss of hair.

In the horse it is known to exist by the
animal's constantly rubbing or biting himself,
so as to remove the hair, and sometimes pro-
duce ulceration ; the hair of the mane and tail
frequently falls off, and small scabs may gene-
rally be observed about the roots of those j
which remain. This disease is seldom met '■
with, except in common stables where scarcely
any attention is paid to the horses, and where
their food is of the worst quality; horses highly
kept, if not properly attended to, are also sub-
ject to this disease, which is very contagious. !
766

MANGEL WURZEL.

The causes of mange are, sudden changes
of temperature, hot stables, bad diet, joined to
want of cleanliness. The perspirable matter
being never properly removed by friction, and
being frequently mixed with dust, <Scc., com-
pletely plugs up the external eshalents, where-
by they become obstructed, and a diseased
action takes place. It may also be caused by
infectious matter coming in contact with the
skin ; as when a sound horse rubs himself
against the stall in which a mangy horse has
been kept. The principal symptoms are, the
horse growing very thin, without any apparent
cause, attended with a staring of his coat.
This is soon followed by eruptions, which dis-
charge a thick yellowish matter, forming a
kind of scurf, which peels off, and is succeeded
by fresh eruptions, and the hair falls off. This,
though partial at first, soon spreads all over
the body, is attended with an itching, and
causes the horse to rub against every thing
he comes near. In this disease great attentioix
to cleanliness is necessary.

In the horse the following will be found the
best remedy. Bleed to the extent of two or
three quarts, according to the constitution of
the animal, and after first preparing the horse
by bran mashes, give the following dose of
physic : —

Barbadoes aloes - - - 6 drachms.

Powdered ginger - - 2 —

Castile soap ... 3 —

Oil of carraways - - - 20 drops.

Honey or treacle sufficient to form a ball.
After which give the following alterative balls :
2 ozs. each of powdered black antimony, pow-
dered nitre, flour of sulphur, Castile soap, and
aniseed powder, 1 oz. of rosin, added to a suf-
ficient quantity of honey to make eight balls,
one to be given every night.

The following ointment may be applied ex-
ternally : —

Black sulphur ..... 8 ozs.

Strong mercurial ointment - - 2 —

Soft soap - - - - - 4 —

Train oil - - . - - - 1 pint.

These ingredients to be well mixed, and one
third part carefully rubbed in daily. If the
above ointment should be found ineffectual, 4
ozs. of spirit of tar may be added.

Dogs and swine are frequently subject to
mange. For the common scabby variety in
the dog, the following ointment is recom-
mended : —

Powdered sulphur .... 4 oz«.

Muriate or ammonia, powdered - i —

Venice turpentine - - - - \ —

Lard, or other fatty matter - - 6 —
Well mixed.

MANGEL WURZEL. Field Beet, or Root
of Scarcity. (Germ. Mangold Wurzel.) The
root of the Beta hybrida, or B. albissima, Linn.
This is a kind of red beet, which, according to
Von Thaer, is a mongrel between the red and
white beet. It has been long cultivated in
France, Germany, and Switzerland, partly as
food for cattle, and partly to be used in distil-
lation, and in the extraction of sugar. Its cul-
ture in Great Britain is more recent; but its
value is now becoming very generally appre-
ciated, and the cultivation likely to become
more extensive. So far back as the year 1811,

I«ANGEL WURZEL.

MANGEL WURZEL.

General Beatson, then Governor of St. Helena,
writina; to the English Board of Agriculture,
and describing the extraordinary produce of
some plants, the leaves of which had been
repeatedly cut to serve as a substitute for |
spinach, says : — It certainly possesses advan- '
tages over every other plant hitherto introduced
in field culture. Its produce is immense ; and
I have found it to grow, with considerable luxu-
riance, upon land where no other vegetation
was ever seen. It has also the singular pro-
perty of being unmolested by the dolphin-fly,
which is here extremely destructive to cab-
bages, turnips, and radishes. I have very
often observed, where alternate plants of cab-
bage and mangel wurzel were growing in the
same rows, and touching each other, that
whilst the former were absolutely annihilated
by the destructive insect, not one was to be
seen on the mangel wurzel leaves."

Lord Spencer reports the result of a trial on
the comparative feeding properties of mangel
wurzel and Swedish turnips. "Believing,"
says his lordship, " that mangold wurzel con-
tained more saccharine matter than Swedish
turnips, and ought, consequently, to be the
more nourishing root of the two, I determined
to try, practically, whether an ox fed upon
mangold wurzel increased in weight more than
one fed upon Swedish turnips, in proportion
to the quantity of each consumed. In order to
have rendered my experiment perfectly accu-
rate, I ought to have ascertained the weight of
hay consumed by each beast during the pro-
gress of the trial ; but I did not do this, although
I am pretty confident that the quantity con-
.sumed by each was nearly the same. I se-
lected two steers, tolerably, and at least equally,
well bred. No. 1, calved March 29th, 1823, and
No. 2, calved May 6th of the same year; and
on the 24th of December, 1825, 1 put No. 1 to
Swedish turnips, and No. 2 to mangold wurzel.
I ascertained their weight by measurement, and
both of them measured the same, viz. 4 ft. 10
in. in length by 6 ft. 5 in. in girth, making them
to weigh 668 lbs. each. On the 23d of Janua-
ry, No. 1 had consumed 1624 lbs. of Swedish
turnips, and measured 4 ft. 10 in. in length by
6 ft. 7 in. in girth, making him to weigh 703 lbs.,
and to have increased in weight 35 lbs., or at
the rate of 48^ lbs. for every ton of Swedish
turnips consumed. No. 2 had consumed 1848
lbs. of mangold wurzel, and measured 4 ft 10
in. in length by 6 ft. 8 in. in girth, making him
to weigh 721 lbs., and to have increased in
weight 53 lbs., or at the rate of 65^ lbs. for
every ton of mangold wurzel consumed.

"This diflference, however, might have arisen
from No. 2 having a greater propensity to feed
than No. 1. I therefore now put No. 1 to man-
gold wurzel, and No. 2 to Swedish turnips.
On the 20th of February, No. 1 had consumed
1884 lbs. of mangold wurzel, and measured 4
ft. 1 1 in. in length by 6 ft. 8 in. in girth, making
him to weigh 734 lbs., and to have increased
in weight this month 31 lbs., or at the rate of
36^ lbs. for every ton of mangold wurzel con-
sumed. No. 2 had consumed 1880 lbs. of Swe-
dish turnips, and measured 4 ft. 11 in. in length
by 6 ft. 8 in. in girth, making him to weigh also

734 lbs., and to have increased in weight during
this month 13 lbs., or at the rate of 15^ lbs. for
every ton of Swedish turnips consumed. I then
put both to mangold wurzel, and divided the
food equally between them. On the 19th of
March, they had each consumed 1792 lbs. of
mangold wurzel ; No. 1 measured 5 ft. in
length by 6 ft. 10 in. in girth, making him to
weigh 784 lbs., and to have increased in weight
50 lbs.; No. 2 measured 5 ft. in length by 6 ft.
9 in. in girth, making him to weigh 765 lbs.,
and to have increased in weight 36 lbs.

"It would appear, therefore, as if the pro-
pensity to feed of No. 1 was greater than that
of No. 2 in the proportion of 50 to 31; but,
notwithstanding this, in the first month, when
No. 1 was upon Swedish turnips, and No. 2
upon mangold wurzel, No. 2 beat No. 1 in the
proportion above stated of 65^ to 48:^. It ap-
pears as if there could be no great inaccuracy
in estimating the relative weight of the ani-
mals, as, soon after the experiment was con-
cluded, I sold No. 1 to a butcher in the country
for 24/. 3«., and No. 2, at Smiihfield, for 24/.

" It will be for practical men to decide upoa
the value of this trial ; what appears to me to
be the most conclusive part of it is, that No. 2,
who had during the first month, when he was
feeding upon mangold wurzel, increased in
girth 3 inches, in the next month, when his
food was changed to Swedish turnips, did not
increase in girth at all ; and when, in the third
month, he was feeding again upon mangold
wurzel, he again began to increase in girth ;
because it is very well known, that, if an ani-
mal is changed from more to less nutritious
food, the probable consequence will be that his
growth will be stopped. The result appeared
to me so decisive that I have not tried the ex-
periment with the same accuracy since; but I
did try, the following year, the feeding a cow
alternately on Swedish turnips and mangold
wurzel, and though 1 have not by me the de-
tails of the trial, I remember that the result
confirmed the experiment of the previous
year."

Mr. Miles of Kingsweston, in the same ve-
lume of the Journal, p. 298, commenting on the
communication of Lord Spencer, describes so
fully and explicitly the best mode of culture*,
&c. of this root, that I cannot do better than
adopt his paper entire.

" Notwithstanding the favourable results of
Lord Spencer's experiment with mangold wur-
zel, the consideration will naturally suggest
itself to the mind of the farmer, previously to
his adopting the cultivation of this root, whe-
ther, although the mangold wurzel may bring
on his cattle faster and better than the Swedish
turnip, it is not more difficult of culture, more
tender in its habits, and less productive in bulk
per acre than the Swedish turnip ; and I think,
therefore, it may not be unprofitable to lay be-
fore the readers of the journal, first, the che-
mical analysis of the highest or lowest order
of turnip and of mangold wurzel as given by
Sir H. Davy, and of the sugar beet and orange-
globe mangold wurzel as lately obtained on the
same plan by the celebrated Bristol chemist,
Mr. Herepath ; and then to point out the system

767

MANGEL WURZEL.

MANGEL WURZEL.

adopted by myself in the west of England in
the cultivation of mangold wurzel, which has
been attended with complete success.

Rootfc

Quantity of Nutritive Matter in 1000 parts.

Species

Muci-
lage or
Starch.

Sacchi-

rine
natter

or
Sugar.

Gluten
or Al-
bumen.

Extract.

Total
■oluble
or nutri-
tive
matter.

Swedish turnip
While turnip -
Mangold wurzel
Orange-globe -
Sugar-beet

9

7
13
25J

m

51
34
119

3

1

4

1-20

U

3

le« than 1

64
42
136

if4

"By this table, it is apparent that equal
quantities of Swedish turnip, orange-globe, and
mangold wurzel contain very different propor-
tions of nutritive matter, the latter more than
doubling the foraier in quantity; and should
the mangold wurzel be of equally easy culture
with the Swedish turnip, it seems almost unac-
countable that it should not yet have come into
more general cultivation. I have grown the
common red sort for six, the sugar beet for four,
and the orange-globe for three years ; these
kinds have regularly come into course with
Swedes upon light land ; the product has al-
ways been equal, in most cases far heavier.
The Swedish turnip has enemies innumerable;
I have never observed the mangold wurzel
attacked either by fly, slug, or wireworm.
Equally a cleansing crop with the Swede, it
stores better, and lasts good for a longer period.
In the summer of this year I was using sugar
beet with stall-fed cattle, which cut perfectly
good and crisp in August. The mode of cul-
ture I adopt, up to depositing the seed in the
ground, is the same as that adopted in North-
umberland for ridging the Swede; great care,
however, must be taken that the seed of the
mangold wurzel is not buried too deep, or it
will not vegetate. Dibbling, as you never can
insure an equal depth, does not answer; nor does
the seed drill well, if properly prepared by steep-
ing, which I should recommend, for at least 24
hours before planting. To insure, therefore,
a proper depth, I have been in the habit of
using an iron wheel, round the outer circum-
ference of which, 18 inches apart, iron points
''project, broad at the base and tapering towards
the point, about 2^ inches long ; this is wheeled
upon the top of the ridge, the man walking in
the furrow, and thus holes are formed which
can never run into the excess of great depth, and
into which the seeds are deposited by women
and boys following the wheel, and generally
covering the seed by drawing the foot as they
advance at right angles with the ridge over the
holes ; the roller follows, and thus the sowing
terminates. One man with the wheel will
keep six persons well employed in depositing
the seed after him. This system was recom-
mended me by my friend Mr. Webb Hall, and
since 1 have adopted it my crop has never
failed.

"The after-culture and the storing is similar
to that of the Swede; great care, however,
should be taken in never permitting two plants
to grow in the same spot, which will be the
case frequently, should only one capsule even
be deposited in each hole, as every capsule
768

' contains many seeds. Should the tops remain
I uncut, the plant will stand a considerable de-
I gree of frost; it should, however, be stored
early in November ; the best and cheapest
method is to build it up against some high wall
contiguous to your beast sheds, not more than
7 or 8 feet deep, carried up square to a certain
height, and then tapering in a roof to the top
of the wall ; protect the sides with thatched
hurdles, leaving an interval between the roots
and the hurdles, which fill up with dry stub-
ble; cover the roof with about a foot of the
same, and then thatch it, so as to conduct all
moisture well over the hurdles placed as a
protection to the sides. In pulling the plants
care should be taken that as little injury be
inflicted upon them as possible; cleansing
with a knife should on no account be permit-
ted, and it is safer to leave some of the leaf on
than by cutting it too close to impair the crown
of the root. The drier the season is for stor-
ing the better, although I have never found the
roots decayed in the heap by the earth, which
in wet weather has been brought from the field,
adhering to them. As to the productiveness
of the different sorts, in one year I have grown
a larger quantity of sugar beet per acre, in an-
other of mangold wurzel; both these, however,
I consider exhaust the land in a greater degree
than the Swede; but I have formed a very high
opinion of the orange-globe, though not so large
a producer generally as the two other sorts ; it
appears always to throw at least two-thirds of
its weight above ground, neither is its tap-root
larger nor its fibrous roots greater than those
of the Swede turnip. Care should be taken in
giving cattle every species of this root, as if
taken in excess it is apt to scour; indeed, from
the avidity with which cattle eat the sugar beet,
and from its viscous properties when quite fresh
from the ground, it should be stored so as to
come into consumption the last of the roots.

"In feeding store cattle I should commence
with Swede turnip, proceed with the orange-
globe, then with mangold wurzel, and finish off
with the sugar beet; thus not only frequently
varying the food, but using them in the order
corresponding exactly with the nutritive mattei'
contained in each description of plant. I have
found, indeed, equally with Lord Spencer, that
it will not do to return from any sort of man-
gold wurzel to Swede turnips, as even beasts
in the straw-yard have for two or three days
refused such a change. I may add that the
earlier in April your mangold wurzel is sown
the better, the deeper the tilth the greater pro«
bability of a heavy crop, but that although both
the mangold wurzel and sugar beet require a
deeper and stronger land than the Swede
turnip, yet that the orange-globe will flourish
wherever the latter will succeed."

Mangel wurzel may be grown on stiffer soils
than those adapted for the turnip, and it is bet-
ter food for milch cows, as it does not, like tur-
nips, give to the milk a taint. It cannot bear
the cold, however, so well as the Swedish
turnip, and hence is more cultivated in the
southern portions of England than in Scotland.
Mr. W. Lester (Quar. Journ. of Agr. vol. iii.
p, 365) describes a method of making ale from
this root.

MANGER.

MANURES.

MANGER. A trough or crib in the stable,
in which corn or cut provender for the horse is
placed. The usual method is to have them the
whole breadth of the stall ; but this is unneces-
sary, as, if 18 or 20 inches in length, and 14 or
16 in breadth, they will be sufficient for every
useful purpose. In the fixing of them, they
should be so contrived as to admit of being
removed for the purpose of being cleaned.
This could, however, never be done in the old
method of fixing them, but by a little contri-
vance may be easily effected. It is, in many
cases, a convenient plan to have them in the
corners or angles at the heads of the stalls.
See Stable and Stall.

MANHADEN (Clupea tnankaden). A species
of herring frequenting the waters of the New
England States and Long Island, where it goes
under the various names of Bony Fish, Mo8$ or
Marsbanker, Hardhead, and Pauhaugen. The usual
length of the manhaden is from 10 to 14 inches.
From July to the last of August, the shores of
the sea swarm with shoals of this fish, which,
being very oily, is but little resorted to for food,
though the better adapted for manure, to which
purpose it is most extensively applied, and with
such beneficial effects that lands formerly worn
out so as hardly to compensate for their tillage,
now yield abundant crops of wheat, grass, &c.
It is taken in large numbers upon the coast of
Massachusetts, where it is used for mackarel-
bait? manure, and is also becoming an article
of commerce. For the former purpose it is
worth from $2 to ;^4 per barrel, in proportion
to the demand. At Lynn, in 1836, 1500 barrels
were used for bait for other fishes, and as many
more were thrown upon the land. At Province-
town they are used only for mackarel-bait. At
Sandwich, where they are very abundant, the
inhabitants strew them upon their lands by the
cart-load; and thus, for miles, immense quan-
tities enrich the soil. It is computed that a
single manhaden of ordinary size is equal in
richness to a shovelful of barn-yard manure.
It is getting likewise to be thought worthy of
preservation as an article of food. In 1832,
300 bbls. were inspected ; in 1833, 480 ; 1834,
1008; 183.'), 1443; 1836, 1488.

Mr. John Wells, of Long Island, in a commu-
nication to the editor of the Culiivalor, gives the
following information in relation to the mode
of applying this fish as a manure, and the good
effects derived from the practice.

"I have," he says, "used fish manure 40
years successively, and my land is much bet-
ter than when I first commenced fishing. I
make use of from 50,000 to 150,000 of fish,
known here by the name of mossbankers, per
annum ; and could I get a million, I should
have none to spare. There is no manure that
I use equal to fish for a crop of wheat, and all
kinds of roots ; but they do not have that effect
after repeating that they have at first. But this
is the case with all kinds of manure. Thence
the necessity of mixing manures. 10,000 moss-
bankers per acre are sufficient for a crop of
wheat, without any other manure. My practice
is, to put on 12 or 15 large wagon-loads of lit-
ter, and 5,000 fish per acre ; and then I calcu-
late for a good crop of wheat, and after the
wheat a good burden of jjrass for 3 or 4 years.
97

The same quantity of manure makes a good
crop of Indian corn. The manure fishery is
the making of the east end of our island. I
think I may say that the production of our land
is 3 limes as much as it was before we com-
menced fishing. But it must not all be attri-
buted to fish. We exert every means to make
and collect manure, for without it we cannot
raise our bread. For a farmer to break up a
piece of land, and lay it down poorer than it
was at first, is like borrowing money to pay
his interest. It is astonishing to me that there
are some few farmers yet, who will let their
manure lie and ferment in the yard, when they
must know that they lose half its virtue ; for
there is no time that it brings forth vegetation
so well as when in a state of fermentation under
the soil. I might say that our soil is a sandy
loam."

The best history of the manhaden, which is
a favourite food of the whale, is by Latrobe,
published in Transactions of the »dm. Phil. Society,
vol. V.

MANNA (Fr. manne ; It. manna). The con-
crete juice of the Fraxinus ornus, a species of
ash growing in the south of Europe. The juice
exudes spontaneously in warm, dry weather,
and concretes into whitish tears ; but the
greater part of the manna of commerce is ob-
tained by making incisions in the tree, and
gathering the juice in L.iskets, where it forms
irregular masses of a reddish or brownish co-
lour, often full of impurities. Manna consists
of two parts ; one a saccharine, crystallizable
principle, named mannil, closely resembling
sugar; the other an acrid, uncrystallizable
principle, which is the purgative agent in the
manna. This substance is now seldom used,
except as a purgative for infants.

MANIOC. The Indian name of the starchy,
nutritious matter obtained from the shrub
Jatropa manihot, from which cassava and ta-
pioca are made in the West Indies. See
Tapioca.

MANURES. The word manure, according
to Todd, is derived from the French manouvrer.
Lemon gives the derivation as follows : " Ma-
nure, * omnia a manu operando.' " Skinner, —
"All improvements in agriculture brought in
by the hand." Webster, Eng. Diet., says, " Ma-
nure, Fr. 7;jan£EMt;r«-, but in a diflierent sense;
Norm, mainoverer, to manure; main, Lat. ma-
nus, hand, and ouvrer, to work, Lat. operor." A
manure may be defined to be any fertilizing
compound or simple ingredient added to a soil,
of which it is naturally deficient; and as all
^uJliv'c *.ed lands should contain the earths, sili-
ca, ca: 'onate of lime, alumina, decomposing
organic matter, and certain saline substances,
it is evident that in cases where any one of
these is contained in the land in insufficient
quantities for the supply of cultivated vegeta-
bles, that then the addition of that substance,
either in its simple or in a compound form^
constitutes the great art of manuring.

Fertilizers therefore naturally divide them-
selves into 3 classes : 1. The earthy, which ate
by far the most permanent portions of a soil,
and are usually applied in the largest propor-
tions ; 2. The organic (vegetable and animal),
which are the least permanent, and are used in
3T 769

MANURES.

MANURES.

much smaller quantities than the earthy; and,
3. The saline, which are the most sparingly
applied of all fertilizers, are the most readily
absorbed by plants, and whose period of dura-
tion in the soil is longer than the organic, but
less than the earthy. A manure is either use-
fur to vegetation, by affording, in its simple or
decomposed state, direct food or constituents,
or else it is a fertilizer, by adding to the soil
additional power to absorb and retain atmo-
spheric gases and moisture. We shall see,
hereafter, that most manures which are com-
monly applied to the land assist the growth of
plants in both ways. Looking at the question
abstractedly, it must be evident, that as animals
receive almost the whole of their nutriment
either directly or indirectly from the vegetable
kingdom, their excrement, or their decomposed
bodies, returning these to the soil, must form
the best manure.

With regard to inorganic substances, clay
of the earthy manures, and some of the saline
fertilizers, act principally by their absorption
and retention of moisture. Gypsum, it is true,
enters into the composition of some of the
grasses, and, in minute proportions, other salts
do the same ; but, if we except phosphate of
lime (the earthy salt of bones), none of the
salts can be considered to be a very general
direct food of plants. Davy very clearly ex-
plains the desirable objects in the fertilization
of soils : he says, "The plants growing in a
soil incapable of supplying them with sufficient
manure or dead organized matter, are generally
very low, having brown or dark-green leaves,
and their woody fibre abounds in earth. Those
vegetating in peaty soils, or in lands too co-
piously supplied with animal or vegetable mat-
ter, rapidly expand, produce large bright-green
leaves, abound in sap, and generally blossom
prematurely. Excess of poverty or riches is
almost equally fatal to the hopes of the farmer;
and the true constitution of the soil, for the
best crop, is that in which the earthy materials,
the moisture, and manure are properly asso-
ciated, and in which the decomposable vegeta-
ble or animal matter does not exceed one-fourth
of the weight of the earthy constituents." {Ele-
ments ofAg, Chem. p. 264.)

Of the organic manures, those which the
most readily putrefy are the most rapid in their
effects; but then they are the most speedily
exhausted: thus oil and fish, the most rapid of
fertilizers, are exhausted by the few first crops;
while bones, which decay more slowly, will
last some lime longer. The effect of chopped
woollen rags is excellent for two years m the
rich clay hop-gardens of Kent, and for three or
four in the light, chalky, arable soils of the
valley of the Kennett. Farm-yard dung, when
applied in different states of freshness, illus-
trates the same position. M. Hassenfratz ma-
nured two pieces of the same kind of soil, the
one with a mixture of dung and straw highly
putrefied, the other with the same mixture newly
made, and the straw almost fresh ; he observed,
that during the first 5'ear the plants which grew
on the land manured with the putrefied dung
produced a much belter crop than the other;
but the second year, the ground which had
been manured with the unputrefied dung pro-
770

duced the best crop : the same result appeared
the third year ; after which both seemed to be
equally exhausted. "Another experiment of
the same chemist," adds Dr. Thomson, ** ren-
ders this truth still more evident. He allowed
wood-shavings to remain in a moist place for
about 10 months, till they began to putrefy, and
then spread them over a piece of ground as a
manure. The first 2 years this piece of ground
produced nothing more than others which had
not been manured at all ; the third year it was
better ; the fourth year it was still better ; the
fifth year it reached its maximum of fertility ;
after which it declined constantly till the ninth,
when it was quite exhausted."

It is of the highest importance to the culti»
vator that he obtains a correct knowledge of
the mode in which those manures operate which
are found to be advantageous to the growth of
his crops. He must discard from his mind all
those false conclusions which are sometimes
drawn with regard to an imaginary power as-
signed to plants of generating vegetable sub-
stances, for they can effect no such miraculous
results. It is true that they can combine the
gases or elements of vegetable matters together,
and form gluten, starch, gum, sugar, woody
fibre, &c.; they can absorb and arrange with
these the earths and saline bodies ; but the
oxygen, the carbon, the nitrogen, and the hy-
drogen, of which the first-named are composed,
and which plants usually obtain from ftither
the atmosphere or by the decomposition of or-
ganic matter, they can no more create than
they can form the lime or the silica, which are
as commonly present in most vegetables as
sugar, gum, or woody fibre. Davy proved this
when he made a plant of the oat grow in pure
carbonate of lime, and watered it with pure
distilled water. It grew but languidly, and al-
though it had a free supply of the atmospheric
air, yet the access of all dust was carefully pre-
vented. Upon analyzing the plant, it was found
to have much increased in carbonate of lime,
but its silica or flint was rather diminished, a
grain of oat being found to yield more : this
Davy attributed to the loss of its husk during
vegetation. (Lectures, ip. 312.) Whatever earthy
or saline matters, therefore, are found in vege-
tables, must have been either derived from the
natural soil or furnished by the manures added
to it — whether it be carbonate of lime (chalk),
or silica (earthy matter of flint), alumina (clay),
sulphate of lime (gypsum), or phosphate of
lime (earthy salt of bone). It should also be a,
received axiom with the farmer, that there is!
no part of any decomposing animal or vegeta-'
ble manure but what is, either in its gaseous or
solid state, the natural food of plants : thus the
gases emitted by the putrefaction of a dunghill
are so much lost to the vegetable matters of the
soil, and such an injury is never submitted to
by the intelligent cultivator, but from an una-
voidable necessity. Hence the value of green
manures ; for in these cases every portion of
the decaying and fermenting fertilizer is gra-
dually absorbed by the roots and leaves of the
succeeding crop.

When the cultivator is in doubt with regard
to the possible advantages of any manure,
whether earthy, saline, vegetable, or animal,

MANURES.

MANURES.

he need only ask himself this question : Does
this manure contain any constituents found in
my crops, and is the land I cultivate deficient
in any of them 1 An inattention to this consi-
deration has been the cause of much disap-
pointment and many mistaken conclusions :
for instance, on many soils the application of
gypsum to artificial grasses, and even to tur-
nips, is very useful ; on others it produces no
effect. Strange opinions were in consequence
long entertained with regard to this manure,
until it was found that the soils on which it
was valueless naturally contained it in abun-
dance, and that those soils in which it did so
much good were nearly or entirely deficient in
this essential ingredient of clover, lucern, &c. ;
for it was now evident, that to add gypsum to
a soil which already contained it in sufficient
quantities, was as needless as to add sand to a
sandy, or clay to a clayey soil.

There is little doubt but that plants derive
all their constituents from the soil or the air,
in either the gaseous or liquid state; that in
the light they absorb carbonic acid gas and
emit oxygen is well known ; by this means,
therefore, they readily obtain the necessary
supply of carbon. The hydrogen of vegetable
substances is most probably furnished by the
decomposition of either water or the carbu ret-
ted hydrogen emitted during the putrefaction
of animal and vegetable substances. This
latter seems peculiarly grateful to plants in
those situations where it is copiously emitted,
as near to stagnant pools, over drains, &c.,
where vegetation is always rank; and when
present in the atmosphere, as in coal-mines,
the green colour of plants growing in it is pre-
served even when they are deprived of light.
The earthy or saline matters of vegetables,
such as silica, carbonate, phosphate, and sul-
phate of lime, &c., are all in minute propor-
tions soluble in water; they are found more or
less in all cultivated soils, and when they are
deficient, their addition, as I have before ob-
served, constitutes the great art of manuring :
but there are such endless varieties of soils,
that there is hardly a manure that will suit
every description — each soil must be separately
examined — practice is the only substitute for
chemical investigations.

Thus, wood-ashes of the beech or bone-
powder form excellent manures for soils defi-
cient in the phosphates ; lime, where chalk is
altogether absent, and so on ; and whilst we
attend to the nature of the soil, we must also
ever recollect, as one of the most important
principles of agriculture, that whatever is com-
pletely removed from a soil by crops, must be in
some way or other restored by artificial means.

That various earthy, animal, and vegetable
substances, when applied to the roots of plants,
accelerate their growth, has been known from
a very early period; but in what manner these
fertilizers serve as the food of vegetables has
not been certainly determined. That they
must all be in a fluid state, is supposed to be
absolutely necessary: thus all the attempts of
Sir Humphry Davy to make plants absorb the
fine impalpable powder of charcoal obtained
by washing gunpowder entirely failed.

The soluble matters consumed by plants are
probably, in general, absorbed by their roots
unaltered, although, in other cases, decomposed
during their absorption. In the experiments
of Davy, he caused the roots of some plants
of mint to be analyzed, which had grown both
in pure water and in sugar and water. 120
grains of the roots of the mint which had
grown in common water yielded 3^ grains of
deep olive extract, of a sweetish and astringent
taste; 120 grains of the roots which had grown
in sugar and water afforded 5 grains of pale
greenish, sweetish extract, not so astringent as
the other. (Lectures, p. 270.) These experi-
ments, therefore, are evidently in favour of the
opinion that plants absorb many of the con-
stituents of manures in an unaltered state, and
the experiments of the late Mr. G. Sinclair
with saline substances are still more decisive.
See Salts.

The roots are the chief organs for absorbing
the food of plants ; and of the roots it is nearly
established that the extremities, or spongioles,
are the only parts which have the power of
absorption; and hence one reason why they
increase in length as the soil at their extremi-
ties is exhausted of nourishment. It is from
this cause that liquid manure is so valuable a
fertilizer; for in the dissolution of the excre-
ments of animals in water, as practised so ad-
vantageously in foreign countries, and long
ably recommended by Mr. Knight, the late
president of the Horticultural Society, for the
adoption of the English farmers, the dung is
merely rendered more easily soluble by the
plant, and better diffused in the land. No new
compound is formed by the mixture ; the action
of the dung, mixed with four or five times its
weight of water, is apparently much less ener-
getic ; and yet this plan is decidedly advan-
tageous, successfully produces the most luxu-
riant crops, is an old practice on the Continent,
is gaining ground in England, and the more it
is known the oftener it will be adopted. Yet
hitherto in England much too little general
attention has been paid to liquid manures ; by
many farmers the drainage of the farm-yard
and the house is generally disregarded, and
allowed to escape in the best way it can, into
the nearest ditch or river, being supposed to
contain nothing that is the food of plants ; and
this, too, by the very same persons who are
particularly careful in the preservation, as
food for their hogs, of every portion of a mise-
rable dish of cabbage- water. See Liq,uid Ma-
nure.

There are certain properties in which all
fertilizers, to a certain extent, agree : — thus
they all contain one or more vegetable con-
stituents, and they have all a strong attraction
for atmospheric moisture (the insensible va-
pour always contained in the atmosphere).
This property is of very considerable advan-
tage to vegetation. The comparative powers,
in this respect, of various manures may be
judged of from the results of my experiments,
which will be found in the following table. In
these the animal matters were employed with-
out any admixture of straw. (Essay oufSalt, p.
8—19.)

771

MANURES.

MANURES.

1000 parts of horse-dung, dried in a temperature
of 100°, absorbed by exposure for three hours
to air saturated with moisture of the tempera-
lure 62°

1000 parts of cow-dung, under the same circum-
stances, absorbed ------

1000 parts of pig-dung _ _ « - -

1000 pans of sheep-dung - - - - -

1000 parts of pigeons' dung _ _ - _

1000 parts of u rich alluvial soil, worth 3 guineas

per acre --------

The following were dried at 212°.

1000 parts of fresh tanners' bark - _ -
1000 parts of putrefied tanners' bark -
1000 parts of refuse marine salt, sold as manure
1000 parts of soot ------

1000 parts of burnt clay - - - - -

1000 parts of coal ashes - - - - -

1000 parts of lime .---_.

1000 parts of sediment from salt parti

1000 parts of crushed rock-salt - -

1000 parts of gvpsum - - - "• -

1000 parts of chalk

145

130
IJO
bi
60

115
145
494
36
29
14
II
10
10
9
4

There is reason to conclude that some ma-
nures act as stimulants to plants, and excite
them to a more vigorous growth : it is proba-
ble that the saline matters of farm-yard com-
post operate in this way, and that saltpetre and
other saline fertilizers do the same. I have
often had occasion to notice the increased
luxuriance and productiveness of fruit trees,
such as cherries and pears, by the application
of common salt. (Essay on Salt, p. 4.) Priestley
made similar observations. " It seems pretty
plain," to give the words of Dr. Thomson,
"that the vessels of plants are made to contract
by various stimuli: the experiments of Coulomb
and Saussure render this probable ; and an
observation of Dr. Smith Barton makes it next
to certain. He found that plants growing in
water vegetated with much greater vigour,
provided a little camphor was thrown into the
water. (Chemistry , vol. iv. p. 338.)

Of the organic manures, the richest abound
in azote, or nitrogen ; and, in fact, there are,
as Dr. Liebig observes (Organic Chem. p. 70),
"numerous facts showing that the formation
in plants of substances containing nitrogen,
such as gluten, takes place in proportion to the
quantity of this element, which is conveyed to
their roots in the state of ammonia, derived
from the putrefaction of animal matter. Am-
monia, which is composed of 14*15 of nitrogen
and 1 of hydrogen, is capable of undergoing
such a multitude of transformations, when in
contact with other bodies, that in this respect
it is not inferior to water, which possesses the
same properly in an eminent degree." "The
employment of animal manure," he adds (p.
86), "in the cultivation of grain, and the vege-
tables which serve for fodder to cattle, is the
most convincing proof that the nitrogen of
vegetables is derived from ammonia. The
quantity of gluten in wheat, rye, and barley is
very different : these kinds of grain also, even
when ripe, contain this compound of nitrogen
in very different proportions. Proust found
French wheat to contain 12-5 per cent, of
gluten : Vogel found that the Bavarian con-
tained 24 per cent.: Davy obtained 19 per
cent, from winter, and 24 per cent, from sum-
mer wheat; from Sicilian wheat 21, and from
Barbery wheat 19 per cent. The meal of
Alsace wheat, according to Boussingault, con-
tains 17-8 per cent, of gluten; that of wheat
772

growing in the Jardin des Plantes 26-7; and
that of winter wheat 3-38 per cent. Such great
differences must be owing to some cause, and
this we find in the different methods of cultiva-
tion. An increase of animal manure gives
rise not only to an increase in the number of
seeds, but also to a most remarkable ditlerence
in the proportion of the gluten which they con-
tain." And he adds (p. 175), when speaking
of the action of manures, "according to the
common view, the action of solid animal ex-
crements depends on the decaying organic
matters, which replace the humus, and in the
presence of certain compounds of nitrogen,
which are supposed to be assimilated by
plants, and employed in the production of
gluten and other azotized substances. But
this view requires further confirmation with
respect to the solid excrements of animals;
for they contain so small a portion of nitrogen,
that they cannot possibly, by means of it, ex-
ercise any influence upon vegetation."

The following table of manures, constructed
from the experiments of MM. Payen and Bous-
singault, showing the number of loads required
in both the moist (or ordinary) and dried (or
prepared) states to equal 100 loads of farm-
yard dung, so far as the quantity of the nitro-
gen they contain is concerned, will be interest-
ing, I think, to the farmer. (Gard. Chron.)

Mf>i»», Dry.

Pea straw ------ 22 100

Saintfoin straw ----- 83 361

Vetch straw ------ 39 174

Wheat straw ------ 166 650

Do. 81 367

Do., lower joints - - - - - 97 453

Do., upper joints, with the heads after

thrashing ------ .^0 137

Rye straw ------ 235 975

Do., of 1841 95 390

Oat straw 142 641

Barley straw ------ 173 750

Wheat chaff 47 207

Jerusalem artichoke straw - - - 108 453

Broom - 32 142

Green beet leaves ----- 80 43

Potato leaves ------ 72 84

Carrot leaves -____- 47 66

Heath leaves ------ 22 102

Sea wrack ------ 46 138

Do. *------- 42 123

Do. 28 85

Do., fresh from the sea . - - 74

Malt dust - - - _ - - 8 39

Buried clover roots _ _ _ _ 24 110

Fla.xcake 7 32

Rape cake .-...- 8 35

Fishcake 74 322

Grease cake ----.. H 49

Beet-root pulp - - - _ _ 35 154

Do. 105 154

Potato pulp ------ 76 100

Starch water ------ — 573

Do. — 645

Starch refuse - - - - - - 111 107

Do. 24 —

Dunghill drainings ----- 67 12?

Sawdust of acacia ----- 137 513

Do. 173 629

Do. firwood 250 8S6

Do. 173 629

Do. oak - 74 256

Solid cow-dung ---__, 125 84
Cow urine ------«051

Mixed cow-dung ----- 97 75

Solid horse-dung ----- 72 ^

Horse urine ------ 15 15

Mixed horse-dung ----- 54 64

Do. pig-dung ----- 63 57

Do. sheep-dung ----- 36 65

Do. goal-dung ----- 18 49

Pigeon-dung ------4 21

Liquid Flemish manure - - - - 210 —

Do. 181 -

MANURES.

Belloni's poudrette

OystM 8hell8 - - - -

Marl

Dry muscular flesh - - -
Cod, salted . _ - -

Do., pressed and salted
Blood, soluble - - - -

Do., liquid - - - -

Do.

Do., coagulated and pressed

Do., dry, insoluble
Feathers - - - - -
Cows' hair _ . - -

Woollen rags - - - -

Horn raspings - - -

Cockchafers - - - -

Bones, boiled - - - -

Do., moist - - - -

Do., fat - - - -

Glue refuse _ - - -

Glue dross . - - -

Graves - - - - -

Animal blacking of the maker
Animalized black

Moist.

10

125

78

3

5

2

3

13

14

8

2

2

2

2

2

12

5

7

6

75

10

3

37

36

Dry. I
44

487

13
17
10
12

213
34
15
95

98
65

Noir dc champs ----- 32

It is a very common error to suppose that
manures of a vegetable or animal nature im-
part any sensible warmth to a soil ; the analogy
sometimes attempted to be drawn between the
action of a fermenting dung-heap and some 15
or 20 loads of fermented dung, or half a ton
of chopped woollen rags, spread thinly over an
acre of ground, is too absurd to be admitted.
Yet, although the dung does not sensibly increase
the warmth of the land, the temperature of
the earth, and the free access of the gases of
the atmosphere have a very material influence
upon the duration of the manure in the soil.
Thus, in the heavy clay and deep alluvial soils
it remains much longer than in the sandy,
chalky, or gravelly. In the first its good effects
may be traced for three or four years; in the
last it is usually consumed in one, two, or at the
utmost three years. To the last description of
land, therefore, the judicious cultivator usually
applies his compost in a half-putrefied state, in
order that it may remain longer in the soil :
this is now the practice of some of the most
enlightened agriculturists.

Too little attention is paid, in general, to the
mbcture of manures by the farmer. This re-
mark not only applies to those of the farm-
yard,— little care being usually taken to spread
evenly those of the horse, the cow, and the pig,
although it is notorious to the best cultivators,
what was stated by the late Mr. Blakie, in his
Essmj on the Managevient of Farm-yard Manure,
that this chief of fertilizers is very considerably
improved by an even mixture, — but the remark
applies to almost all other manures. Thus, old
heaps of weeds, pond-mud, scourings of ditches,
and all the earths in which there is any organic
matter, are best applied to the soil after being
mingled with lime or common salt. Peat, saw-
dust, wood-chips, and tanners' bark, nearly in-
ert substances in themselves, become excellent
manure when mixed with stable-dung. Sprats,
and all other fish, are successfully and econo-
mically added to three or four times their bulk
of mould ; and even bone-dust is successfully
applied with a third of its weight of the dung
of the sheep, and may be then drilled as ad-
vantageously with the turnip-seed as the bones
in their simple state. Then, again, mixing
together some kinds of manures produces, by
their chemical action, a third or fourth, which

MANURES.

is more valuable than either. Thus, when salt
and lime are united together, in the proportion
of one part of the former to two parts of the
latter, a chemical action takes place; the mass
swells, and the salt is gradually decomposed;
and in the course of three months, if the heap
is suffered to remain undisturbed, both the salt
and the lime nearly disappear, and two new
substances are formed by the combinations
into which their constituents have entered, viz.
soda and chloride of lime; both excellent ma-
nures. In other cases, the mere mixture of
two well-known fertilizers, without any che-
mical action between the two, produces much
greater effects than that of both when used se-
parately. Thus, a compound of salt and soot
possesses the most extraordinary fertilizing
effects. The late Mr. G. Sinclair, in his Prize
Essay on Salt, describes it " as remarkable,"
when applied to carrots ; a fact which I have
often witnessed myself. (My Essay on Salt for
Agriculture, p. 145.) The Rev. Edmund Cart-
wright was the first to notice the same result
with potatoes (Com. to Board of Jgr. vol. iv. p.
376); and the same benefit is evident when the
mixture is used as a top-dressing for wheat;
in which observation my experience is con-
firmed by that of others. (My Essay on Salt,
p. 41.) There are a few instances, however,
in which substances used as manures are best
employed in their simple state. Thus, sea-
weed, which many of the farmers on the sea-
coast throw on their dung-heaps, is much better
employed by it.self, turned into the earth in the
freshest and greenest condition : and to all
green manures, and to those which contain
salts of ammonia, such as urine, or the liquor
from gas-works, the same remarks are appli-
cable. See Mixture of Soils.

The proportion in which fertilizers are ap-
plied is generally unnecessarily large, even of
organic manures; and although this bad prac-
tice has been regularly diminishing as agricul-
ture has become better understood, yet much
remains to be done, in preventing that wasteful
expenditure of dung which is continually tak-
ing place.

It is more than probable, that the use of the
improved manure-drills, by the even distribu-
tion of the fertilizer, and bringing it more
closely into contact with the crop, will effect
much towards this very desirable saving; for
it must be evident to the most careless, that in
the manner in which compost is commonly
spread over a field, — suffered to be dissipated
by long exposure in heaps to the sun and wind,
and afterwards spread over spaces in which
there are not any plants to absorb, during its
fermentation, the disengaging gases, a very
considerable portion of it is lost to the farmer's
crops. See Manures applicable bt the
Drill.

It is almost needless to remark upon the im-
portance of such investigations as these, both
to the cultivator and to the land-owner, or of the
caution necessary in drawing conclusions from
experiments in which vegetation is concerned.
"Life," said Davy, "gives a peculiar character
to all its productions ; the power of attraction
and repulsion, combination and decomposition,
are subservient to it; a few elements, by the
3 T 2 773

^mmmm

MANURES.

diversity of their arrangements, are made to
form the most different substances, and simi-
lar substances are produced from compounds
which, when superficially examined, appear
entirely different." And, as he well remarks
in another place, when speaking of the subject
of this article — "The doctrine of the proper
application of manures offers an illustration
of an important part of the economy of nature,
and of the happy order in which it is arranged.
The fermentation and putrefaction of organized
substances, in the free atmosphere, are noxious
processes ; beneath the surface of the ground
they are salutary operations. In this case the
food of plants is prepared where it can be used,
and that which would offend the senses and
injure the health, if exposed, is converted by
gradual processes into forms of beauty and of
usefulness." {Jgr. Chem. pp. 54—309.) All
researches like these carry with them their
own reward; for not only does a successful
experiment do so, but even an unsuccessful
one is not unattended with advantages : it at
least serves as a beacon to other cultivators,
and is sure to afford to the farmer that pleasure
and increased power which ever accompanies
the acquisition of knowledge. (Johnson on the
Fertilizers, p. 32.) See Gases, Earths, Salts,
Watkr, Fahm-Yabd Manure, Boites, Chalk,
Lime, Liaum Manure, «fec.

Weight of a Cubic Yard of various Manures.

Cwts. qrs. lb«.
Garden mould - - - - - - 19 3 25

New dun? - - -- . . 93 18

Leaves and sea-weed ----903

Water 15 0 3

Compost of dung, with weeds and lime,
which had been once turned over in 9

months --14 05

(C. IV. Johnson "On Fertilizers," p. 90.)

Manures, on rendering them more portable and
applicable by the Drill. — The application of ma-
nures in a more concentrated form than that in
which they naturally present themselves for
the cultivator's service, was an effort reserved
for modern agriculturists ; an improvement
chiefly induced by the increase of population,
which almost compelled the farmer to force
into cultivation the poor inland soils of Eng-
land and the Continent : lands which could
only be enriched by fertilizers brought from
other districts, and from places where men
congregated together in large masses. This
necessity was, some years since, first fell and
acted upon by many of the large continental
cities, such as Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, and
some of the other chief German towns. The
contents of the cesspools were, in consequence,
collected ; their fertilizing matters were mixed
with drying, disinfecting substances, and when
thus reduced to powder, or into cakes, sold at
a considerable profit. The enlightened con-
stituted authorities of these places felt that
they were, by so doing, conferring great and
important benefits not only on their fellow-
citizens, but upon the distant cultivator. They
did not confine their attention to the farmers in
their own direct vicinity; because they well
knew that those, in common with the imme-
diate agricultural neighbours of all large cities,
have a ready access to an abundance of organic
manures, since the cultivators so favourably
774

MANURES*

situated carry their produce with facility into
such populous places, and return with their
carriages loaded with manure. And yet, when
the German and French authorities thus hus-
banded,— thus rendered more portable, the
manure of their large towns, they made no
discovery; they merely practised what the
Chinese had preceded them in from time im-
memorial, and what, in Flanders, is an old and
long-cherished custom. The only improve-
ment which the citizens of Paris and Frankfort
have made is, that they form with their night-
soil an enriching powder; while those of China
and of Belgium still make theirs into cakes,
with a portion of either clay or marl ; so that
the powder of Paris can be either applied with
the drill or dibble, but the Chinese and Flem-
ings are obliged to dissolve theirs in water,
before it can be used as a liquid manure with
advantage. In England, however, notwith-
standing the example of our neighbours, little
or nothing has yet been done to render the
commonest manures, such, for instance, as
night-soil, more portable. The nightmen and
scavengers are still compelled to hurry away
their collections only at stated hours and in the
dead of the night; are fined for any neglect,
and harassed in all possible ways, rather than
that this, the most powerful of all the animal
fertilizers, should be preserved for the use of
the farmer in any way that might endanger the
olfactory nerves of the citizens. But an en-
dangerment upon sensitive noses is not essen-
tial ; the night-soil might be preserved without
any offence to the most sensitive. But this
manure has been hitherto little known or em-
ployed in this country ; its powers have been
misrepresented; all sorts of prejudices have
been created against it. I propose here briefly
to show, first, the composition and fertilizing
powers of various manures ; and, secondly, to
examine the modes which have been recently
adopted to render them inodorous and more
easily portable, so as to bring them within the
reach of even the farmer who has to contend
with the poorest, the most upland soils of
Britain, far away from its great towns. And,
although I confine my attention in this essay
chiefly to one fertilizer, yet there are other
manures, now well known to, and extensively
employed by the cultivator, whose powerful
action, when judiciously used in very small
proportions, well illustrates the truth of what I
have so often ventured to urge upon the far-
mer's attention, viz., that a much smaller quan-
tity of manure, composed of any description
of organic decomposing matters, is sufficient,
when applied in a skilful manner, to produce
more luxuriant effects than is commonly be-
lieved. The very great importance of apply-
ing fertilizers in immediate juxtaposition with
the young plant, even in very small propor-
tions, as by the drill, is only now beginning to
be considered with even patient attention ; and
yet there are many circumstances with which
the farmer is well acquainted, which ought to
convince the most inattentive that such is the
fact. The small quantity of oil-cake drilled
with the seed ; the few bushels of bones suc-
cessfully applied in the same way per acre ;
the woollen rags of the Berkshire farmers (half

MANURES.

MANURES.

a ton per acre only) ; the 2 cwt. of gypsum ap-
plied to sainfoin and clover; the 1 cwt. of salt-
petre, or of nitrate of soda, used on the same
extent of land, all indicate the truth of the case,
that it is not absolutely necessary to apply fer-
tilizers of any kind in such great masses as
are commonly deemed essential by the cultiva-
tor. I was told not long since by an excellent
farmer of Middlesex, Mr. George Sherbourn,
that he had succeeded in producing the finest
crops of turnips by merely mixing about 30
bushels of coal-ashes per acre with .3 gallons
of train-oil, and drilling these oiled ashes with
the seed. It is a folly, therefore, to contend
that the careless way in which organic ma-
nures of all kinds are usually employed is the
most economical, and susceptible of no im-
provement. Such complacent feelings have
ever been the bane of agricultural improve-
ment ; for it is then certain to follow as a
natural result, that the system which the culti-
vator deems perfect will, in his hands, remain
as he found it. Having no hope for better
things, belter modes will by him never be dis-
covered.

Some recent experiments on a very broad
scale, in the forest of Darnaway in Scotland,
have shown that the application of a quan-
tity of lime under each seedling tree, even so
small an amount as 4 bushels per acre, has
been productive of the most excellent effects,
imparting to the plantation a degree of luxuri-
ance hardly credible. The same advantage,
therefore, which is derivable from the applica-
tion of a very small quantity of organic ma-
nure, in immediate contact with the growing
plant, is evidently also derivable from a much
smaller quantity of earthy manures than the
farmer commonly supposes.

There are several advantages derivable from
placing the seed in direct contact with the
manure, to which the farmer very rarely at-
tends. For instance, the germinating seed in
the immediate neighbourhood of the fertilizer
is by this means well nourished at the very
period of its growth when it most needs assist-
ance to enable it to develope its fibres, and to
extend its roots. The young plant, so situated,
is not exhausted in its extension ; it avoids the
usual fate of those crops which tenant poor
soils, whose roots are obliged to penetrate some
distance in search of the requisite degree of
nourishment. On the contrary, the strength
of the plant is thrown into the stem and the
leaves, and the crop flourishes luxuriantly; for
the leaves and roots of the invigorated and
healthy plant are enabled to absorb the gases
and aqueous vapour of the atmosphere, by
which the plant is nourished in the most com-
plete manner. The very mechanical effect,
too, of placing the decomposing organic ma-
nure in direct contact with the roots of vegeta-
bles, facilitating the free access to them of the
atmospheric gases and vapour, would be alone
a sufficient reason for the adoption of the
manure drill system, even if we say nothing
of the other certain advantages of the plan,
such as, in the case of decomposing fertilizers,
the presentation of the gases of putrefaction
to the roots of the plant, at the moment of their
extrication, and the economical and forcing

effects of this mode of distributing the manure.
The farmer, in fact, tells us that the plan is
probably a good one, but then his explanation
of the derived benefit is very erroneous. He
informs us, that thus to push forward the
growth of the young crop is very likely to be
good husbandry, especially on light soils,
since, by this means, where the ground is well
covered with the crop, "the moisture is kept in,
and the sun is kept out." If the cultivator would
but remember, that the quantity of moisture
transpired by a given surface of a growing
crop is considerably greater than that emitted
by the most naked fallow, he would no longer
be content with such an explanation as this.

Dr. Hales ascertained that a cabbage trans-
mits into the atmosphere by insensible vapour,
about half its weight of vapour daily ; and that
a sunflower, three feet in height, transpired, in
the same period, nearly two pounds weight.
Dr. Woodward found that a sprig of mint,
weighing 27 grains, in 77 days emitted 2543
grains of water; a sprig of spearmint, weigh-
ing 27 grains, emitted, in the same time, 255S
grains ; a sprig of common nightshade, weigh-
ing 49 grains, evolved 3708 grains; and a
lathyrus, of 98 grains, emitted 2501.

If I were asked to produce any evidence of
the extreme ditficulty with which agricultural
improvements, even of the most undoubted
value, are introduced, I should at once instance
the manure-drill, the progress of which has
been slow — for it has shared the fate of very
many other scientific efforts: it has been zea-
lously opposed by the ignorant, neglected by
the indolent, and ridiculed by the bigoted
farmer, as an innovation upon the good old
system of the days of the patriarchs of agricul-
ture, when the earth brought forth its fruits in
abundance, and the very seeds were not sown
by man. But even here this solitary argument
of the adherent to old customs fails; for the
Chinese (the mo^t expert of farmers) and the
cultivators of Japan and of Arabia have drilled
and dibbled in their seed from time immemo-
rial. The natives of the Carnatic do the same;
and after they have thus deposited their seed,
the Hindoos use a kind of subsoil-plough,
which passes under, and loosens, to the depth
of about eight inches, the soil under, about
three drills' breadth at a time. And so preju-
diced are the natives of those empires, too, in
favour of the customs of their ancestors — so
rarely do they introduce new modes of culti-
vation, that it has been very reasonably con-
cluded that the drill system, so far from being
entitled to the appellation of "the new hus-
bandry," ought rather to be classed with those
branches of the sciences which degenerated, or
were lost in the dark ages.

Sir George Staunton, in his .Account of Lord

Macartney's Embassy to China, says (vol. ii. p.

375) — "Near Sanchoo, wheat was perceived

growing for the first time in China. It was,

though on a dry sandy soil, where no rain had

fallen for the three preceding months, looking

remarkably well. It was very neatly sown in

drills, or dibbled, according to the method used

I of late in some parts of England. A gentleman

I of the embassy calculated that the saving of

i the seed alone in China by this drill husbandry,

775

MANURES.

MANURES.

which would be lost by that of broadcast,
would be sufficient to maintain all the Euro-
pean subjects of Great Britain."

In a communication to the Board of Agri-
culture, dated at Junacondah, December 31,
1 795, Captain Haicott says, — " The drill-plough,
I find, is in general use here, and has been so
time immemorial, in the culture of all grain
(except horse grain), and also of tobacco, cot-
ton, rice, and the castor-oil plant."

The first drill introduced into Europe seems
to have been the invention of a German, who
made it known to the Spanish court in 1647.
(Harte^s Essays on Husbandry.) The Roman
farmers endeavoured to attain the advantages
of row-culture by ploughing in the seeds.

It is useless to search in the works of Jethro
Tull for any recommendation of ihe drill as a
means of applying manure; for all TuU's
arguments and experiments are directed to
proving that the application of manure of any
kind is utterly needless. And yet he had the
discernment, when thus suffering his enthu-
siasm to carry him much too far, to make the
observation, that "almost the only use of all
manure is the same as of tillage, viz., the pul-
veration it makes by fermentation, as tillage
doth by attrition or contusion ; and with these
differences, that dung, which is the most com-
mon manure, is apt to increase weeds, as much
as tillage (of which hoeing is chief) destroys
them." (New Husbandry, p. 166, 1st edit. 1731.)
The advantage, thus glanced at by Tufl, of the
manure keeping the ground light and porous,
is much greater than the cultivator commonly
suspects, and this benefit is mainly owing to
the free access which is thus secured of the
watery vapour and gases of the atmosphere to
the roots of the plants. Now, for the vapour
of the atmosphere, all well-pulverized fertile
earth has a strong attraction : the richer and
the better divided the soil, the more copiously
does it absorb vapour; but the power of the
richest cultivated soils in this respect is very
much inferior to that of even the most ordi-
nary manure. In my own experiments, I have
never found, in a given space, say three hours,
that 1000 parts of the richest soil, previously
dried, absorbed more than from 14 to 20 parts
of moisture ; but in the same time, under simi-
lar circumstances, 1000 parts of horse-dung
absorbed 145 parts; cow-dung, 130 ; pig-dung,
120 ; sheep-dung, 81 ; pigeons' dung, 50. (My
Work ''On Fertilizers" p. 41.) It is evident,
therefore, that for the mere purpose of with-
standing long-continued dry weather, those
plants whose roots have immediate access to
organic manures will be much better enabled
to absorb the necessary supplies of atmospheric
moisture than those merely vegetating in the
unmanured soil.

The merit of the introduction of the drill to
general notice in England, is, however, to be
ascribed, in a great measure, to Jeihro Tull.
Yet Jethro Tull certainly thought himself the
inventor ; for he tells us so very clearly, in the
preface to the first edition of his Horse-hoe Hus-
bandry, published in 1731, and even whence
he derived the hint for his drill; he says, —
"When I was young, my diversion was music;
I had also the curiosity to acquaint myself
776

thoroughly with the fabric of every part of my
organ ; but as little thinking that I should ever
take from thence the first rudiments of a drill,
as that I should ever have occasion for such a
machine, or practise agriculture ; for 'twas
accident, not choice, that made me a farmer."
But he was certainly not the originator of the
idea of thus applying the seed ; for, nearly a
century before his time, John Worlidge inef-
fectually, in 1669, laboured hard to draw the
English farmers' attention not only to the drill,
but to the manure-drill also. And little can be
now added to what, 175 years since, honest
John Worlidge urged in its favour, when he
said, after describing the seed-drill, — " By the
use of this instrument, also, you may cover
your grain or pulse with any rich compost you
shall prepare for that purpose, either with
pigeons' dung, dry or granulated, or any other
saline or lixivial substance, made dispersable,
which may drop after the corn, and prove an
excellent improvement; for we find, experi-
mentally, that pigeons' dung, sown by the hand
on wheat or barley, mightily advantageth it in
the common way of husbandry : much more,
then, might we expect this way, where the
dung, or such like substance, is ail in the same
furrow with the corn ; whereas, in the other
vulgar way, a great part thereof comes not
near it. It may either be done by having
another hopper on the same frame behind that
for the corn, wherein the compost may be put
and made to drop successively after the corn ;
or it may be sown by another instrument to
follow the former, which is the better way, and
may both disperse the soil and cover the ma-
nure and seed."

Worlidge was well supported by Evelyn,
who, in a communication to the Royal Society,
dated in February, 1669, urged the advantages
of a drill-plough, which, first invented in Ger-
many, had thence been introduced at Madrid
under the auspices of the Spanish monarch,
and had been forwarded from Spain by the
Earl of Sandwich, as the invention of a Don
Leucatilla. It is there described as " the Spa-
nish sembrador, or new engine for ploughing,
and equal sowing all sorts of grain, and har-
rowing at once." Leucatilla saw very clearly
the errors of the broadcast system: he ob-
served,— '' Even at this day (1669) all sorts of
seeds are sown by handfuls, heedlessly and by
chance, whence we see corn sowed in some
places too thick, in others too thin."

It was between the years 1720 and 1740 that
Jethro Tull laboured thus hard, and with a
success little equal to his merits, to introduce
the drill system : the honour, however, was rC'
served for the present Lord Leicester, in the
early part of the present century, of inducing
its general employment, for which the soils of
the greatest portion of Norfolk are so very well
adapted. It then naturally followed, that vari-
ous manures were found easily applicable at
the same time with the seed. Powdered oil-
cake was one of the first substances that was
used as a manure, and the discovery of the
value of crushed bones as a fertilizer for tur-
i nips, opened another wide field for the useful
I application of this invaluable machine. The
j manure-drill, in fact, thence received an im-

MANURES.

MANURES.

petus which it will probably never lose, for
with its use is now almost inseparably con-
nected the cultivation of some of the most ex-
tensive districts of the poor light lands in the
north of England; such as on the Wolds of
Lincolnshire, and the sands of Nottingham-
shire. See Bones.

The most recent improvement in the manure-
drill is that of Mr. Grounsel of Louth, for which
the English Agricultural Society awarded
him, in 1839, their silver medal. It is an at-
tempt, and an excellent one too, to imitate the
dibbling system, so as not only to save seed,
but the manure also. And although, in all re-
searches of this nature, it is especially neces-
sary to proceed with great care, and to regard
single experiments with caution, yet what has
been yet experienced of its powers is certainly
of a nature to induce farther and more extend-
ed trials; since it is evident that this drill can
apply, and evenly too, as small a quantity of
crushed bones or ashes as six bushels per
acre. In reply to some inquiries of mine, the
inventor says, — "My drill will deposit from 6
to 100 bushels per acre of any kind of compost
that may be prepared for drilling, from 10
inches to any greater distance apart in the
rows, with turnips or grain, and either in a wet
or dry condition ; but I recommend, from ex-
perience, ashes to be applied in a wot state,
especially in a dry turnip-seed season, for then
the seeds vegetate much sooner. Another
equally excellent drop, and common drill, is
that made by Mr. Hornsby of Grantham." See
Drill.

Admitting the truth of these experiments,
that one-half the quantity of organic manures
usually spread on the land is sufficient, when
applied by the drill, in immediate contact with
the seed, what a field is thus opened for the
manuring of much larger breadths of land
than has hitherto been deemed possible. The
complaints of the deficiency of manures, which
are now so prevalent with farmers, need then
no longer be heard. Their crops will be pro-
perly nourished, and the manure applied with
them will be not only bestowed in the most
scientific manner, but it will lead to other im-
provements ; it will enable the farmer to mix
his manures, according to the nature of his
soil and his crop, with much more facility than
at present : he will then study, not merely the
economy to be regarded in its distribution, but
also its quality, or chemical composition, and
to what soils the manure is best adapted.

There is one class of fertilizers, however,
whose application by the drill requires great
caution; I allude to the saline manures, for
they are often much too powerful in their ope-
ration to be safely applicable in their pure
state or in large proportions. Common salt
has, in this way, carried great destruction by
being drilled in with the seed, and I have wit-
nessed equally disastrous effects from applying
the lime of the gas-works (sulphuret of lime)
in the same way. Yet when the seed-wheat is
welted with a nearly saturated solution of salt,
and then rolled in lime, or the salt and lime are
not used until they have been mixed together
for three months, and then sown on the land
broadcast, — or when the gas-lime is previously
98

mixed with four or five times its bulk of sifted
mould or ashes, then I have seen the most
excellent effects produced by its being drilled
with the turnip-seed: the same remarks apply
to the chloride of lime of the calico-bleachers.
Other salts, whose action is less energetic, or
which are applied in very small proportions,
are perhaps best applied by the drill ; for in-
stance, saltpetre, which is rarely applied in
larger proportion than 1 J cwt. per acre, may
very likely be still further reduced in quantity,
especially if mixed with other substances, such
as three or four times its bulk of mould. Mr.
Beadel of Witham, in Essex, a very excellent
farmer, has found, that where saltpetre was
applied to his turnips broadcast as a top-dress-
ing, it did not succeed, but it did so very de-
cidedly when it was drilled with the seed.

In those situations where night-soil, or sprats,
or bones cannot be obtained at a sufficiently
reasonable rale, very great effects may be pro-
duced by the careful collection of the excre-
ments of domestic animals, and niixing them
with merely a sufficient quantity of dry ashes,
mould, saw-dust, or, what is best of all, recently
prepared finely powdered charcoal, to render
them sufficiently friable to pass the drill: this
is very easily accomplished, by making the
preparation under cover some months before
it is used, and, if necessary, by causing it to
be spread in the sun. By the adoption of
these means, a very recent mixture will be
found available by the farmer; the excrements
of the horse, cow, and especially the sheep
(still more so if fed with oil-cake), will be
found excellent for this purpose. And in very
small proportions the Peruvian farmers, ac-
cording to Humboldt, employ the guano, or ex-
crements of seafowl (which abound in phos-
phate of lime, or earthy salt of bones), which
is brought in sailing vessels, from the rocky
islands of the Pacific, expressly for the use of
the cultivators of that republic. See GcAyo.

And that bones might be very profitably
mixed with other fertilizers, so as to materially
reduce the expense of the manure, is indicated
by more than one successful experiment. To
give another instance, which has recently been
communicated to me, in the trials made by
Daniel Dixon, Esq. of West Clandon, in Sur-
rey. "On a poor chalk soil," observed an ex-
cellent and scientific friend of mine, "he has
used a compost for a manure-drill for turnips
with great advantage. He puts 8 bushels of
ground bones with 24 bushels of any ashes he
can get together in a dry place, and from time
to time (as often as possible) he empties the
liquid sewerage of the house upon it. In two
or three months it is fit for use, working well
out of the drill. The above is the quantity for
an acre. The effect of drilling this mixture
with the seed was very remarkable, and as
bone-manure was drilled by the side of it, the
contrast was at once visible ; the difference
was more than double. In fact, the bones by
themselves seemed comparatively useless.
The soil on which the mixture has been ap-
plied is poor, chalky, and flinty, abutting upon
the sheep-walks and Guildford race-course.
Whenever the mixture is too wet for the drill,
it is spread to dry for a day or two." (Letter*

777

MANURES.

of Henry Dixon, Esq. to the Author, November, 1 839,
and March, 1840.)

" A friend of ours, a farmer in Northumber-
land," says the excellent editor of the Quarterly
Journal of jigriaiUure, " the late Mr. George
Bro-vyn, Hetten Steads, mixed any quantity of
coal-ashes, kept dry, and finely riddled, with a
quarter of bone-dust per acre, and raised as
good a crop of turnips (of course drilled) of all
kinds, on a clayey soil, resting on a retentive
bottom (but drained), as he could with two
quarters of bone-dust." Mr. Turner of Tring,
in Hertfordshire, drilled with his crushed bones
an equal quantity per acre of sheep dung, col-
lected for the express purpose, at an expense
of 2^rf. per bushel paid to the collectors: this
he prepared in the winter, by laying the bone-
dust in alternate layers with sheep-dung, and
suffering them to remain fermenting some
months until the turnip sowing. By this plan,
by the fermentation of the mass, the two ma-
nures are thoroughly incorporated; and he
considers that 35 bushels of the mixture are
fully equal in effect to 25 bushels of the bones.
So that, allowing 3». 6rf. per acre for the ex-
pense of collecting the sheep-dung, there will
be a clear saving of 12s. 6rf. per acre in bones,
valuing these at 2s. per bushel. The mixed
bones and sheep-dung are invariably drilled in
with the turnip-seed.

The application of rape-cake powder by the
drill has never been so common as it ought to
be, for it is not only a very powerful, but a very
easily manageable fertilizer; it has, moreover,
the advantage of being moderate in price, and
easily attainable at all seasons of the year.
There is no doubt of the advantage of feeding
stock with this food, the manure they produce
■when thus fed being exceedingly rich. Many
farmers, however, owing to the want of cattle,
or an unwillingness to lay out the requisite
money in a long course of stall-feeding, are
deterred from using oii-cake to the extent they
would otherwise do. The use of the oil-cake
powder conveys to the land all the enriching
ingredients of this fertilizer at once, and to the
exact extent the farmer requires ; there is
neither the waste, the risk, or the trouble of
stall-feeding to be dreaded. The oil remaining
in the cake certainly constitutes its most en-
riching portion ; the oil abounding in sprats is
an instance familiar to the farmer, and when
this oil is imperfectly crushed out, the cake
produced (as is well known to the Swedish
cultivator in the case of herring-cake) is found
to be exceedingly enriching. A very small
quantity of oil left by the crushers in the cake
w^ill produce very great results ; even three
gallons of train-oil, as I have mentioned in
another place, has been found amply sufficient
per acre, when mixed with earth or ashes, to
produce a capital crop of turnips. It has been
found (and this is another illustration of the
value of the manure-drill), that when rape-
cake is drilled with the turnip-seed, 3^ cwt. per
acre is sufficient, but if it is applied broadcast,
then double the quantity is required. My friend
Mr. Davis, of Spring Park, in Surrey, is well
aware of the powers of oil-cake as a manure;
he has found it even an advantageous plan to
drill common coal, wood, or turf-ashes, at the
779

MANURES.

rate of 40 bushels per acre, with his turnip-
seed; and this he has successfully practised
for some years, so much is he in favour of
bringing the seed and the manure into imme-
diate contact.

In proceeding to examine, as an instance of
one of the least likely substances successfully
applied by the drill, the properties of night-soil,
and the modes which have been adopted to
reduce its weight, without impairing its effect,
many reflections will suggest themselves to
the farmer. He will notice that such a pro-
cess, by producing it in the state of powder,
renders it capable of being readily drilled with
the seed ; and that the same remarks apply in
a great measure to the excrements of the farm-
yard, to whale-blubber, and to fish. The Essex
farmers find, that when sprats are mixed with
earth, finely divided, the mass, when these very
oily fish are quite dissolved in the mould, forms
a very powerful fertilizer, which is excellent
as a drill-manure for turnips. They tell you,
that the sprats lose none of their enriching
powers, even when thus kept mixed with earth
for some months.

Even earthy manures may be advantageously
reduced in weight by exposure to the air, or by
the application of artificial heat. Chalk, I have
found by experiment, loses from 15 to 25 per
cent, of its weight by being thus deprived of its
water ; and a cubic foot of calcareous sand,
when thoroughly wet, contains, according to
M. Schubler, more than 31 lbs. of water ; the
same measure of sandy clay, 38 lbs. ; loamy
clay, 41 lbs.; stiff clay or brick-earth, 45 lbs.;
pure gray clay, 48 lbs. ; garden-mould, 48 lbs.;
and fine slaty marl, 35 lbs. By exposing the
earths to an intense heat, their weight is still
further reduced by the loss of their carbonic
acid gas or fixed air; hence 100 parts of chalk,
for instance, when thus treated, lose very com-
monly 24 parts of water and 34 parts of car-
bonic acid; so that 42 lbs. of lime, when well
burnt, contain as much real earth as 180 parts
of chalk. All these facts are such as the cul-
tivator should be thoroughly acquainted with ;
for, in many cases, the earth which the farmer
removes might be previously very advanta-
geously dried, by exposure in spits to the action
of the atmosphere. Even the difference of
labour to the men and horses, between carting
them after continued dry weather and in wet
periods, is much more material than the culti-
vator commonly believes.

My attention, however, will, in this place, be
principally confined to fertilizers of an organic
nature, and more especially to night-soil.
Night-soil has not, in any form, been employed
by the farmers of England to the same extent
as on the Continent, although it is certainly by
far the most powerful of the organic manures,
and the most easily rendered applicable by the
drill of any of the class. To this neglect many
causes have contributed. Its disagreeable
odour, certain vexatious fiscal regulations with
regard to its removal, to which I have before
alluded, and the erroneous modes of applying
it, either in excessive quantities, or mixed with
other composts in such proportions that its
powers could not be distinguished in the mass;
its semifluid nature requiring for its removal

MANURES.

MANURES.

carriages of a peculiar construction; the ex- [ of Sewers are in an equal ratio impoverishing'
tent and completeness of the sewerage of our , the island. But against this great fertilizing

large cities, and several other minor obstacles
have rendered its use not nearly so extensive
as, even in a national point of view, is desira-
ble. (See NiGHT-soii,.) And yet the neces-
sity for increasing the supplies of manures, in
order to promote the fertility of the soil, will be
self-evident to every one who remembers, not
only the increasing population of the country,
but the immense drains upon its organic fer-
tilizing matters which are hourly pouring their
contents into the sea. Thus, as I have else-
where remarked, by carefully-conducted expe-
riment it has been clearly ascertained that the
principal London drains convey daily into the
Thames 115,000 tons of mixed manure, con-
sisting, on an average composition, of one part
solid or mechanically suspended matter, and
25 parts absolutely fluid; but if we allow only
1 part in 30 of this immense mass to be com-
posed of solid substances, than we have the large
quantity of more than3800 tons of solid manure
daily wasted in the riv^er from London alone.
What might not the farmers of England effect
if this mass of fertilizing matter was preserved,
at a reasonable rale, for their use ] 15 tons of
this solid manure — nay, 10 tons, would render
fertile an acre of the poorest cultivated, or even
common or heath land. But allow, for the
sake of argument, that 20 tons were required,
even then 3800 would give a daily allowance
of manure sufficient for 180 acres of the poor-
est land in England ; and if we give 300 days
on which this manure was collected, that
would afford an annual supply for fifty-four
thousand of such acres, which land would not
again need manuring for 4 years ; and in this
calculation nothing is allowed for thejiuid por-
tion of the drainage. It is the reckless waste
of the drainage of our large cities and towns,
which has alone prevented the cultivated lands
of England from becoming increasingly fer-
tile, because yearly more abounding in organic
decomposing matters. For such is the enor-
mous yearly import of foreign products into
this country, that it must tend to rapidly in-
crease the natural fertility of the soil of Eng-
land, since all their ingredients ought and do,
in some measure, eventually find their way as
a manure upon the land; thus, in 1834, were
imported into the United Kingdom, according
to a parliamentary report, now before me, of—

C«rll.

qri.

\h*.

Birilla ■

.

215.750

1

22

Birk for tanners

.

854.860

3

16

Butler

_

136.674

0

23

CItPftse -

_

134,0^5

3

5

C"ffee, about -

_

a.=io.ooo

0

0

Ciirratila -

-

141.540

3

1

Fitfs

.

15.416

3

14

Raisins -

.

158.290

2

1

Molasses -

.

717,666

3

4

Rice

_

218.867

1

20

Rttetls, clover -

-

5.1.263

I

.10

Siip.tr

,

4,7.12.749

3

22

Tea, ab'Mit

.

250.000

0

0

Wool and cotton,

about

-

3,000,000

0

0

So that, including corn, oil-cake, timber, &c.,
&c., at least 1,000,000 tons of vegetable matters
alone are yearly imported from foreign coun-
tries into the United Kingdom, and added to
the riches of the soil: thus our merchants are
annually fertilizing, while the Commissioners

import, we have at present to set off the large
and ever-flowing drainage of the cities and
towns of the United Kingdom; not only Lon-
don, but Liverpool, Manchester, and a hundred
others, are incessantly pouring the riches of
the land into the sea; and to such an extent is
this done at Bristol, that the Court of King's
Bench was obliged, not long since, to interfere
to protect the inhabitants from the nuisance
created by the non-removal of the city drain-
age from the bed of the Avon.

On the Continent, the use of various manure
powders made from night-soil is equally ex-
tensive and successful. An elaborate report
upon these was made a short time since to the
Directors of the Thames Improvement Com-
pany, by Dr. Granville, who had been commis-
sioned to make the requisite inquiries and
surveys; and from this we learn that the con-
sumption of night-soil in Flanders is very
large; but that the farmers, instead of employ-
ing it in the dry or powdered state, rather pre-
fer to mix it with water, and thus form a rich
liquid manure. Of late years, the French
farmers have adopted the same views with re-
gard to night-soil; but the practice of their
farmers, in this respect, is somewhat different.
They prefer, for the sake of easy and conve-
nient transport, to dry the stercoral substances
to powder, which, bearing the name ofpoiidrette,
is sent into the country from the neighbour-
hood of the capital, and is sold at a high price.
The success of the establishment for the manu-
facture of poudrette, first formed near Paris
about 40 years since, by a person named Bri-
det, has been such that in almost every part of
the kingdom similar manufactories have been
erected, and nothing now is wasted. The Pari-
sians have at present several such large works.
M. Bridet obtained a patent for his process of
manufacturing the poudre vegetatif. He proved,
by experiments, that the poudrette is many
times more valuable than the best sort of ordi-
nary manure. It was found, after repeated
trials, that 240 lbs. of the poudrette would ma-
nure an acre of ground with greater effect than
8 cart-loads of the best stable manure.

Under the name of "Alkali no-vegetative
Powder," another preparation of night-soil was
ushered into notice in France, and generally
adopted, under the auspices of an agricultural
lady, Madame Vivert Duboul, to whom, in con-
sequence, the Royal Society of Agriculture, in
1814, awarded their gold medal. This lady
obtained a patent of 15 years for her process,
which consisted in promoting fermentation in
the most liquid portion of the excrementitious
substances, and treating them with slaked lime
afterwards, so as to form a powder, which has
been found to be very superior to the first-
named poudrette upon cold, light, or moist soils.
Its action is very powerful, and it extends its
influence over the soil for several years with-
out requiring, during that period, a repetition
of the manuring process. This is not the case
with the poudrette of Bridet, the influence of
which over any soil is only annual. "M.
Hermstadt gave, in the Monthly Journal of the
Economic Society of Potsdam, for August, 183%

779

MANURES.

MANURES.

as the result of his experiments instituted with
the view of ascertaining the comparative fer-
tilizing powers of farm-yard manure and pou-
drette, that poudietle is a complete substitute for
common dung, whether with respect to price
or quality."

In 1818 a company was formed near Paris
(Messrs. Donat & Co.), for the manufacture
of another kind of manure from night-soil.
The name of " urate" (from the principal in-
gredient used) was given to it; and the Royal
Society of Agriculture deemed it an object of
sufficient importance to deserve being submit-
ted to the examination of a joint committee of
chemists and agriculturists, in which were in-
cluded the nanqes of Vanquelin, Dubois, &c.
The report made by these distinguished men is
full of interest to the agriculturist. Urine is
the active ingredient, and plaster of Paris
(gypsum), so common in the neighbourhood
of that capital, the other constituent. This
mixture is reported by the joint committee to
be so powerful in its effects upon the dullest
soil, that they recommend that it should only
be employed by skilful and discriminating
farmers. For this discovery the inventor re-
ceived a gold medal from the government. A
powerful manure of the same name is now ex-
tensively prepared by the "London Manure
Company," of40New Bridge street. It abounds
with the salts of ammonia, phosphate of lime,
and the animal matters of urine. It appears,
also, from the fine, dry state of powder in which
the "urate" is delivered, that it is admirably
adapted for application by the drill with the
seed. The quantity applied per acre is about
6cwt.; and, as it is almost entirely composed
of organic matters, phosphate of lime (earthy
salt of bones), sulphate of lime (gypsum), and
various salts of ammonia, it is evidently a
most powerful fertilizer, as well adapted for
turnips as for the grass and grain crops. I
have had an opportunity of inspecting the
manufactory of this company, and from the
care displayed in its preparation, the " urate"
will, I think, be rapidly and extensively em-
ployed by the farmer.

In some recent reports of trials with this
manure upon turnips, I observe that Mr. An-
derson, of Oakley, Bedfordshire, describes it as
proving "itself quite equal, if not superior, to
the farm-yard manure. The land I used it on
was a sharp gravel, and was much out of con-
dition previous to the present crop. The 6
tons were drilled with Swedish turnip-seed, 18
inches apart, on 18 acres."

Mr. Manning, of Elstow, says, "I drilled a
ton of urate upon 3 acres, in rows 17 inches
apart, upon a very hot, gravelly soil ; each side
^butting on this was manured in the usual
way, with good farm-yard manure, about 14
loads per acre. The turnips on the urate were
fit to hoe 7 days before the manured part;
from their first appearance, a stranger could
point out the spot where it commenced and
ended; the difference is still evident, and in its
favour. Both the manured and urate pieces
were sown the same day, about the 14th of
June. I certainly consider it a. good artificial
dressing, and its fertilizing properties great."
In 1820, another patent was granted to a M.
780

Loques, by the French government, for a ma-
nure called "stercorat," consisting of a mix-
ture of both the solid and liquid parts of the
excrementitious matters, and some earthy sub-
stance. It is said to be particularly efiicacious,
and sells at a very high price.

M. Parmentier, a celebrated French agricul-
tural writer, some years since expressed his
surprise at the tardiness of his countrymen in
adopting the practice of their Flemish neigh-
bours, and in continuing so long to pay money
lor getting rid of that which other nations first,
and the French themselves afterwards, found
to be so productive of wealth. He quotes the
case of an individual who in former times had
amassed great wealth by the sale of a manur-
ing powder, which he manufactured from the
very soil he was annually paid by government
to remove out of the extensive military bar-
racks of Lisle.

There existed at one time much public pre-
judice against this mode of rendering the land
more productive, on the wild supposition that
the obnoxious principles of such a manure
would form part of the plants raised by means
of it; but the most accurate experiments have
proved, that not the least vestige of such ani-
mal substances is to be detected either in the
ascending sap, or in the more solid parts of
the plants so cultivated. A great extent of the
rich plains of Normandy are fertilized every
year by the manure powder manufactured at
present out of the cess-pools of Paris.

The poudretle sells for eight francs the sestier
on the premises, and the whole is fetched away
at that price as soon as ready, and principally
distributed within 12 leagues of Paris. Now,
as there are 7^ sestiers in a ton, it is evident
that the value of the latter is CO francs, or 2/.
10s.; and yet the comparative agricultural value
of this compost is not so great as that of the
" Flemish manure." Messrs. Payen and Com-
pany, the patentees of the "engrais animalize,"
or disinfected night-soil, sell their "poudrette"
at 2^ francs per ton under the market price
of that of Montfaugon, and they have rarely
any left on the premises.

The engrais animalize, or disinfected night-
soil, has recently been introduced into England
by M. Poittevin, and a manufactory of it esta-
blished in Whitechapel, near London. It is
there produced by mixing the night-soil of the
metropolis with a considerable quantity of re-
cently prepared charcoal powder, and drying
the mass in a very gentle heat. As thus pre-
pared, its appearance somewhat resembles that
of the friable, rich, vegetable mould of an old
hot-bed ; it is of very dark colour, and totally
devoid of smell. Its introduction into England
has been too recent for any very extensive
trials to have been yet made with it; my own
are only now carrying on; these, however,
promise well. In some comparative experi-
ments made last year with bones, they were
found to answer very completely. These re-
sults have been confirmed by several commu-
nications with which I have been recently
favoured, stating that, to use the words of Col.
Challoner, " this manure, in its effects upon
the turnip crop, was fully equal to bones."
And Mr. Beach, of Oakley Hall, near Basing-

I

MANURES.

MANURES.

stoke, who had applied it by the drill with the !
seed, at the rate of 14 bushels per acre to a '
portion of a field of turnips ; and, on another
portion, drilled three sacks per acre of crushed
bones, mixed with turf-ashes ; and, on a third
portion, with ordinary stable manure, says, in
February last, "It is impossible to distinguish
any difference between the three, some persons
fancying one part, and some another, to be su-
perior. In their early growth, the night-soil
had a decided advantage. The seed came up
as thick as rows of mustard-seed in a hot-bed,
and the turnips were hoed out within a month."
Mr. Beach adds a suggestion, which I think
highly worthy of the attention of the turnip
cultivators: — " I am so well satisfied with it for
turnips, that I shall use a large quantity of the
night-soil powder this season. I shall also mix
10 or 12 bushels with a quarter of crushed
bones, which I am inclined to think will an-
swer well." I have recently been shown a
letter from Mr. Robert MCrea, of Grange
House, near Londonderry, in which he speaks
of this manure in the highest terras, as a dress-
ing for turnips; those thus treated having car-
ried off last year the first prize offered by the
Londonderry Farming Society.

A preparation of night-soil has been lately
imported into Scotland and the north of Eng-
land from Copenhagen, under the name of
Owen's animalized carbon, which has answer-
ed, when applied by the manure drill, very
well for turnips. Mr. James Waldie, in his
recent prize communication to the Ayrshire
Agricultural Society, describes it as a useful,
auxiliary manure, and as likely, in a great
measure, to supersede the use of bones, now
that the latter have risen to the enormous rate
of at least 3s. per bushel. He says, "One ton
of carbon, the cost of which is 3/., is suflficient
for an acre of land; and from experiments
which I have made this year, conjoined with
what I have observed of two successive crops
on a farm in this neighbourhood, where com-
parative trials were made with different ma-
nures, on a very extensive scale, it may be
inferred, that one ton of carbon is equal to 25
bushels of crushed bones." These experi-
ments are supported by the observations of Mr.
M. Milburn, of Thorpefield, near Thirsk, when
describing, in his report to the Yorkshire Agri-
cultural Society, the various fertilizers ad-
vantageously employed on light lands in the
cultivation of turnips; for, he observes, "Ani-
malized carbon has been used advantageously ;
16 bushels per acre, when drilled, is the quan-
tity generally employed. Pigeons' dung is most
valuable ; rape-dust has been used successfully ;
malt-dust is useful as a top-dressing." There
is a chemical "seed manure" prepared by
Messrs. Hodgson and Simpson, near Wakefield,
which is applied, mixed with water, as a liquid
manure, or steep to the seed-corn, and seems,
from a communication with which they fa-
voured me in March, 1840, to be a kind of
secret preparation, composed principally of
saccharine matter, ammonia, common salt, and
nitre. This seed manure is applied according
to the following directions, — instructions which
might be advantageously followed in the use
of other fertilizers: "Dissolve 28 lbs. of this

manure in a pail, by adding water in small
quantities, stirring it at the same time, until
the mixture is of the consistence of thick
cream ; it is then to be poured over the quan-
tity of seed intended to be sown on an acre of
land, and the whole repeatedly turned over, so
that it appears one uniform mixture ; it is then
to be spread out thin on the floor to dry for 10
or 12 hours, and mixed with a sufficient quan-
tity of soot, or any kind of dry ashes, to render
it sufficiently friable to be sown by the hand or
by the drill." The quantity thus directed to be
applied per acre, is certainly very small, and
yet, according to the testimonials which I have
seen, the effect it produces is considerable.
Mr. Milburn, of Thorpefield, in one of these,
tells us: "A new principle in the application
of manure has been developed in the use of
the chemical seed manure, which, by applying
a chemical composition to the seed itself, not
only secures immediate effect in the precise
situation required, but highly economizes the
quantity necessary. I have great pleasure in
detailing a very successful experiment with it
on a barley crop. The field had grown a corn
crop the preceding year — part of the field was
dressed with a coating of fermented farm-yard
dung — the remaining part with the chemical
seed manure, at the rate of 28 lbs. per acre.
The result was, that the barley sown with the
chemical manure exhibited a decided supe-
riority over the rest of the field, in colour,
healthiness, and general appearance, and main-
tained that superiority to the time of cutting,
so much so, that it lodged considerably more
than the rest of the field."

Various modes besides those to which I have
alluded, have, at different times, been suggested,
by which night-soil might be rendered more
concentrated and more portable. Simply dry-
ing it has been attempted with some success ;
but though by this means about 70 per cent,
of water is driven off, yet, at the same time, a
considerable portion of ammoniacal and other
gaseous matters are vaporized : thus the ma-
nure is impoverished, while the stench of the
operation is intolerable. Then, again, it has
been mixed with lime, in the way recommend-
ed by Davy; but judging by my own experi-
ments, and those of my neighbours, I am fully
persuaded that this is not the most economical
way of using night-soil. The lime certainly
dissolves, and partially decomposes it, but the
fertilizing effect of a given weight of night-soil
mixed with lime is clearly not so great as when
a similar weight of it is used either by itself,
or mixed with some merely drying odour-ab-
sorbing substance. There are several prepr-
ration of this kind made in large quantities in
London, such as those of Mr. Clarke, and of
Mr. Lance, the author of the Golden Farmer, all
of which, I believe, are excellent manures ; but
I have not had an opportunity of examining
any of their manufactures except those of the
London Manure Company, and of the Messrs.
Poittevin. The preparation of these gentle-
men is the same as that so successfully carried
into effect by M. Payen at Paris : it combines,
and successfully too, the great object of driving
off the water of urine and night-soil by a gentle
heat, after all its gaseous matters have beeii
3 U 781

MANURES.

MANURES.

absorbed, by mixing with it a portion of newly-
prepared carbon, in the finest possible state of
division, than which no known substance has
such great powers of absorption of all gaseous
matters like those which abound in and impart
the >disagreeable odour to night-soiK These
purifying powers of charcoal have been long
known : the medical man applies it in putres-
cent cases, the housewife rubs it powdered over
her tainted meat, and the sailor chars the in-
side of his water-casks for a similar purpose.
The presence of the carbon in the manure thus
prepared is valuable in two ways; gradually it
combines with the oxygen of the atmosphere,
forming in the state of carbonic acid gas the
food of plants ; and, at the same time, all the
gaseous matters of putrefaction with which it
is saturated are thus preserved, stored up, as it
were, for the service of the roots of the culti-
vator's crops ; nothing is lost, the emission of
the gases from the slowly dissolving charcoal
being so gradual as to be almost, if not en-
tirely, imperceptible to the senses.

Such, then, are the principal facts already
ascertained with regard to the fertilizing uses
of night-soil and other decomposing manures,
in their ordinary form, and when reduced by
various processes to such a state of dryness,
so as to be easily applied in the state of pow-
der to the soil by the drill. In thus investigat-
ing the advantages of rendering manures more
concentrated, I have been induced chiefly to
confine my attention to one only of the organic
manures, night-soil, because, from its nature,
cheapness, and powerful efl^ects, it affords, per-
haps, greater facilities for accomplishing this
important object than any other excrement, and
is, besides, more commonly wasted than any
other fertilizer. I hardly deem it necessary to
make any remarks upon the importance of all
researches which tend to the better understand-
ing of the powers and best mode of employing
manures, for with such investigations is inse-
parably connected the gradual and steady in-
crease of the productiveness of our country.
Such improvements, too, are full of interest, not
only to the cultivator, but to every one to whom
the vegetable kingdom is an object of import-
ance. And, as I have elsewhere had occasion
to remark, it is hardly possible, in reflecting
upon the essential use of organic fertilizers in
the production of our food, to avoid being im-
pressed with the wisdom and beneficence of
the Creator, in thus making decomposing nox-
ious organic substances the nutriment of vege-
tation, rendering the very animal substances
which the grass once formed, its food when
dead. This interchange of their elements, so
essential to each, is equally incessant and re-
markable, the death and decomposition of the
one ever imparting fresh food and life to the
other. Thus the same gases which are at one
moment constituting the noxious products of
putrefaction, are in the next existing in the ex-
quisite aroma of the flower. These facts are,
indeed, too apparent to escape our observation ;
and the marvellous rapidity and advantage to
us of these magic vegetable combinations can-
not but excite both our curiosity and our grati-
tude. (Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. x. p. 142.)

Manures, History of. See the heads Ashes,
782

pARM-'irAttD Mawcre, Bones, Chalk, Limi!,
Green Sand, &c. The application of manures
became one of the sustaining arts of life as
soon as man was ordained to earn his bread
by the sweat of his brow. From that time to
the present, the art of manuring the soil has
been steadily improving; and there is no doubt
but that it will go on advancing, as long as
mankind continue to increase.

The first manure used by man, as soon as
he began to dwell in fixed habitations and till
the land around him, would, of course, be that
of his domesticated animals ; but he is natu-
rally averse to labour, and consequently this
operation would be postponed until the rich
alluvial soils, which would be certainly the
first selected, were exhausted by over-cropping,
and by the increase of population the poorer
descriptions forced into cultivation ; the occu-
pier of the land would naturally avoid, if pos-
sible, the trouble of spreading the dung of his
farm-yards over his fields. Instances of this
kind have not been wanting in recent periods
in the newly settled rich prairies of America,
in which many cases have occurred where, in
consequence of the enormous accumulation of
dung around the farmer's sheds, he has been
induced to remove his buildings to a new spot,
rather than undertake the greater labour of re-
moving the masses of fermentingmanure which
so deeply encumbered his old farm-yard. The
first rude mode in which this was conveyed to
the land, was naturally by hand-baskets, or by
sledges or barrows ; the use of beasts of bur-
den was necessarily a later agricultural im-
provement; and, at first, there is no doubt but
that manure was carried on their backs to the
fields, as is even now practised in the moun-
tainous districts of the Continent, and in some
parts of the north of England, and in Devon-
shire. Dung-carts were a much later improve-
ment; and the preparation of compost heaps,
and exciting and regulating their fermentation
by the use of the fork, has been a much more
modern discovery than is usually believed.

Irrigation, which is a mode of applying the
weakest of liquid manure, by the use of the
waters of rivers, is of a very ancient date. It
has been used from a very early period in Italy
and the East ; in fact, in many warm, sandy
countries, as in China, a copious supply of
water is an essential requisite for the success-
ful cultivation of the earth. Water-meadows
were first constructed in England, on a tolera-
bly regular system, about the termination of the
17th century. Some of the most excellent of
those in Wiltshire, such as those in the Wyley
Bourne, were made between the A'ear? 1700
and 1705; and about half a century afterwards,
the celebrated Craigintinny meadows were
formed near Edinburgh, by which the town
drainage is rendered available in the produc-
tion of the most luxuriant crops of grass.
These meadows were considerably enlarged
towards the end of the 18th century, and again
in 1821. These might be very advantageously
imitated in the neighbourhood of other large
towns.

Amongst the Egyptians and Israelites, whose
climates were hot, a plentiful supply of mois-
ture was necessary for a healthful vegetation ;

MANURES.

MANURES.

and the simile of desolation, employed by Isaiah 1
(chap. i. 30), is, "a garden that hath no water."
In Egypt they irrigated their lands, and the
water thus supplied was by an hydraulic ma-
chine, worked by men, in the same manner as
the modern tread-wheel. To this practice Mo-
ses alludes, when he reminds the Israelites of
their sowing their seed in Egypt, and watering
it with their feet; a practice still pursued in
Arabia. {Deut, xi. 10; Nielmhr^s Voyage en Ara-
ble, i. p. 121.)

Of their knowledge of manures we know
little. Wood was so scarce that they consumed
the dung of their animals for fuel. {Parkhurst,
p. 764.) Perhaps it was this deficiency of car-
bonaceous matters for their lands, that makes
an attention to fallowing so strictly enjoined.
{Levit. xix. 23 ; xxv. 3. Hosea x. 12.)

Agriculture was too important and beneficial
an art not to demand, and the Greeks and Ro-
mans were nations too polished and discerning
not to afford to it, a very plentiful series of pre-
siding deities. They attributed to Ceres, as the
Egyptians did to Isis, the invention of the art
of tilling the soil. Superstition is a prolific
weakness ; and consequently, by degrees, every
operation of agriculture, and every period of
the growth of crops, obtained its presiding
tutelary deity. The goddess Terra was the
guardian of the soil ; Sterculius presided over
manures, &c.

Xenophon recommends green crops to be
ploughed in, and leguminous plants to be raised
for the purpose; "for such," he says, "enrich
the soil as much as dung." He also recom-
mends earth that has been long under water
to be put upon land to enrich it. Theophras-
tus, who flourished in the 4th century b. c, is
still more particular upon the subject of ma-
nures. He states his conviction that a proper
mixture of soils, as clay with sand, and the
contrary, would produce crops as luxuriant as
could be effected by the agency of manures.
He describes the properties that render dungs
beneficial to vegetation, and dwells upon com-
posts. (Hist. Plant, ii. c. 8.) He also recom-
mends the stubble at reaping-time to be left
long, if the straw is abundant; "and this, if
bv.rned, will enrich the soil very much, or it
may be cut and mixed with dung."

From the outline which we can draw from
ancient authorities of the agriculture of the
Romans, we shall be surprised to find how
little they differed from the methods we now
employ. We are superior to them in our im-
plements, and consequently in the facility of
performing the operations of tillage; but of the
fundamental practices of the art they were as
fully aware as ourselves. No modern writer
could lay down more correct and comprehen-
sive axioms than Cato did, in the following
words ; and whoever strictly obeys them will
never be ranked among the ignorant of the art.
" What is good tillage 1" says this oldest of the
Roman teachers of agriculture. "To plough.
What is the second ? To plough. The third
is to manure." (Cato, 61.) In his 4th chapter
he thus expresses his conviction of the utility
of manure: "Study to have a large dunghill,
keep your compost carefully ; when you carry
il out, scatter it and pulverize it ; carry it out in

the autumn. Lay dung round the roots of your
olives in autumn." And in his 29th chapter :
" Divide your manure ; carry half of it to the
field when you sow your provender, and if there
are olive trees, put some dung to their roots."
In his 37th chapter he advises the use of pi*
geons' dung for gardens, meadows, and corn
lands, as well as amerca, or dregs of oil: and re-
commends the farmer to preserve carefully the
dung of all descriptions of animals. This was
advice given 150 years before the Christian
era; and now, after the lapse of 2000 years, the
direction must be still the same. We learn
from Columella (i. 6) and Pliny (xvii. 9 ; xxiv.
19) that they collected their manure and stored
it in covered pits, so as to check the escape of
the drainage ; and sowed pulverized pigeons'
dung, and the like, over their crops, and mixed
it with the surface-soil by means of the sarcle
or hoe. (Colum. i. 16; Cato, 36.) They were
aware of the benefit of mixing together earths
of opposite qualities, and sowing lupines, and
ploughing them in while green. (Varro, i. 23.)

Virgil is very particular in describing fertil-
izers. With common manure he mentions
ashes (Georg. lib. i. 80), pumice-stone, and
shells. (Lib. ii. v. 346, 50, and in v. 250, 8.)
He advises the seeds of corn to be mixed with
saltpetre and the dregs of olive oil, to make the
grain swell. (Lib. i. 195.) Irrigation was
employed in his days. (Lib. i. 106, 9.) The
Italian farmers also fed down over-luxuriant
crops (lib. i. 3), and burned the stubble. (Lib.
i. V. 84, 8.)

Varro (lib. i. c. 38) mentions many kinds of
animal manure, and is particularly minute in
his enumeration of the dung of birds, and in-
cludes even that of blackbirds and thrushes
kept in aviaries.

Columella (lib. ii. c. 5) advises the cultivator
not to carry out to the field more dung than the
labourers can cover with the soil the same
day, as the exposure to the sun does it con-
siderable injury; and he enumerates (lib. ii.
c. 15), as well-known fertilizers, night-soil, the
excrements of birds and sheep, urine (espe-
cially for apple-trees and vines), dregs of oil,
the excrements of cattle, the ass, the goat, of
pigs; ashes, chopped stalks of the lupine (or
hop), leaves of trees, brambles, &c., and mud
from sewers or ditches. Pliny also mentions
that lime was employed as a fertilizer in Gaul,
and marl in the same country and Britain; but
we can only surmise thence, that they were also
probably employed by the Romans. (Pliny j
xvii. 5.)

Liquid manure is not a mode of fertilizing
the land altogether of modem origin. For a
fermented mixture of water and night-soil has
from a very early period been employed by the
Chinese farmers. Those of Italy certainly prac-
tised irrigation in the days of Virgil (Georgic.
lib. i. V. 106, 9) ; and Cato adds, they employed
a mixture of grape-stones and water to fertilize
their olive trees. (Lib. xxxvii.) Columella
praises very highly the use of stale, putrid
urine for vines and apple-trees (lib. ii. c. xv.) ;
commending also the lees of oil for the same
purpose. More modern agricultural authors
have united in praising various liquid prepara-
l tions ; thus Evelyn (whose ingredients most of

783

MANURES.

MANURES.

these authors recommend), in his Treatise on
Earth (p. 123 — 160), gives several recipes,
some of which have served as the bases for
recent modes of preparing liquid manure ;
such as the dung of cattle, urine, salt, and lime,
nitre.

The employment of crushed bones as a manure
is but a very modern improvement ; it is not
one of the fertilizers even mentioned by the
early agricultural writers ; and to this neglect
of bones several causes contributed. The ne-
cessary machinery for crushing them was, in
the early ages of agricultaral efforts, totally
unknown ; and bones when unbroken dissolve
in the soil viuch too slowly to be of any appa-
rent value as a fertilizer. The use of bones is
an improvement, for which agriculture is en-
tirely indebted to the enterprize of the English
farmers. The refuse matters produced by the
ivory and bone turners and cutlers of Sheffield,
which speedily accumulated in very considera-
ble heaps around their manufactories, first
drew the Yorkshire farmers' attention to bone
manure. The cultivators of the poor soils in
the neighbourhood of that town, towards the
conclusion of the last century, began to carry
away these refuse matters with some readiness,
and the turners were at first too glad to be
relieved from this bone-rubbish, to think of
charging them any thing for the valuable ma-
nure they had been the first to employ. As,
however, the Yorkshire farmers soon began to
scramble for these bone-turnings, the manu-
facturers of Sheffield speedily made a small
charge for them, which has since gradually
increased in amount. It required, however,
some time to bring about this great and suc-
cessful improvement. Mr.T. Ellin, late master
cutler of Sheffield, well remembers, some fifty
years since, the bone refuse carted into Shef-
field Moor, and buried in pits as worthless
rubbish ; these old deposits, often found in
digging foundations, are now carried off with
much alacrity to the bone-crushing mills. The
farmers at first gave sixpence a bushel for
these parings and turnings ; of these about 600
tons are annually sold in Sheffield. By the
sole use of this fertilizer, great breadths of
very poor land have been successfully brought
into cultivation, and maintained in a state of
the greatest fertility in the north and east of
England and Scotland. Their effects upon the
wolds of Lincolnshire has been magical. The
first person, perhaps, who successfully used the
roughly broken bones from the dog kennel as
a manure was General St. Leger, in 1775.
{Evehjn's Sylva, by Dr. Hunter.)

Manuring with fish was necessarily an im-
provement of an advanced state of agricul-
ture ; we have no mention of them as thus
used in the early agricultural authors ; the im-
mense shoals of sticklebacks, and other small
fresh-water fish, which once tenanted the fen
counties of England, first gave the farmers of
Lincolnshire an opportunity of using this rich
oily manure ; they were towards the latter end
of the eighteenth century sold by the fen fisher-
men at about sixpence a bushel ; and Arthur
Young tells us, that at one village on the bor-
ders of Cambridgeshire, 2000Z. have been taken
for these fish in one season. It is not often that
784

a glut of herrings, pilchards, or other valuable
fish, enables the farmer to obtain them at a rate
sufficiently reasonable for his land, a purpose
for which they have often, however, been em-
ployed with the most luxuriant effect on the
coasts of Scotland and Cornwall. Sprats, and
the fish called five-fingers, are used to a great
extent by the Essex farmers ; the demand for
these has of late years been fully equal to
the supply, although from the evidence given
before a Committee of the House of Com-
mons in 1833, it seems that during the season
inore than 400 boats are employed in catching
these fish, for the purpose of selling them as
manure.

Manuring with calcareous sand was practised
very early in the middle ages by the English
farmers. This they obtained not only from
inland pits, but from the sea-shore, especially
in Norfolk and Cornwall. The privilege of
freely taking it from the sea-shore, the West
of England farmers enjoyed under a grant
from Richard Duke of Cornwall, confirmed by
another of 45th of Henry III., A. D. 1261. This
is expressed in the preamble of the act of the
6th James IL c. 18, A. D. 1609, which says,
" Whereas, the sea-sand by long trial and expe-
rience hath been found to be very profitable for
the bettering of land, and especially for the
increase of corn and tillage within the counties
of Cornwall and Devon, where the most part
of the inhabitants have not commonly used
any other worth for the bettering of their arable
grounds and pastures." This act, which em-
powers the farmers to take this sand free from
any toll, was, after being several times renewed,
made perpetual by the 16th Charles I., c. 4.
This wise encouragement of the use of ma-
nures by the legislature of England has not
been confined to the sea-land of Padstow har-
bour : thus, uncrushed bones passing through
a turnpike to be crushed for manure are exempt
from toll ; and carts loaded with common ma-
nure are equally free ; or even when going
empty to fetch it ; but this exception does not
extend to lime. And in authorizing the con-
struction of railways, parliament has carefully
provided, that the tolls levied upon the ma-
nures conveyed by them shall be much smaller
than those demandable for any other descrip^
tion of goods : thus, in the Birmingham and
Gloucester Railway Act, the authorized toll is,
for manure of all kinds, only one penny per
ton per mile ; while coals, &c. are to pay three-
halfpence, sugar twopence, cottons and other
manufactured goods, threepence per mile. The
same proportionate rate of tolls are authorized
to be taken on several other railways, such as
the Birmingham and Derby, the Midland Coun-
ties ; and on the Eastern the difference in
favour of the farmer is still greater ; for while
limestone, sand, and clay are to pay a penny,
and all other manures three-halfpence, coals
are to pay twopence, sugar, &c. fourpence, and
manufactured goods sixpence per mile.

Saltpetre is, perhaps, the most ancient of all
the saline manures, and its introduction is not,
as is commonly believed, a modern improve-
ment It is commended by Virgil as a steep
with olive oil, to make the seed-grain swell.
To this knowledge of the fertilizing powers of

MANURES.

MANURES.

saltpetre the early cultivators of the earth were
probably assisted from noticing that those soils
which naturally produce saltpetre are ever
found to be of the most fertile description, and
that all those rich eastern fields which are so
celebrated in Palestine for their fertility, abound
in this salt. Three centuries since, according
to Googe, it was employed by the German
farmers. " Some saie coleworts prospereth
best in salt grounde, and therefore they use
to cast upon the grounde saltpetre or ashes."
In 1676, Evelyn, in his Discourse on Earth, tells
us, " rains and dews, cold and dry winters, with
store of snow, which I reckon equal to the
richest manures, impregnated as they are with
celestial nitre ;" which, although an error, yet
displays his opinion of the fertilizing power of
nitre. "I firmly believe," he adds, " that were
saltpetre, I mean fictitious nitre, to be obtained
in plenty, we should need but little other com-
posts to meliorate our grounds." Evelyn re-
commends saltpetre to be used in solution,
three pounds of this salt to fifteen gallons of
water mixed with earth. And in this way Sir
Kenelm Digby made some barley grow very
luxuriantly by watering it with a very weak-
solution.

It would be, perhaps, difficult to name any
other substance in the catalogue of modern
fertilizers whose powers have been so often
disputed as common salt. For this controversy
many reasons may be assigned. It has been
generally employed with little scientific accu-
racy, has been tried in a manner far too care-
less for any reliance to be placed upon the
majority of the reports which have been fur-
nished to us, and for many years a prohibitory
duty rendered it inaccessible to the farmer; an
impost which has not very long been removed,
and which yet was the occasion of a great
variety of blundering trials, miscalled experi-
ments. The duty on salt was indeed one of
long continuance. It originated, as a war-tax,
in the ninth year of the reign of William the
Third, and was not removed until after an
arduous debate at the end of that of George
the Third. The price of salt, thus raised to
more than SOs. a bushel, was in consequence
too expensive a fertilizer to be employed by
the English farmers. During that long period
it was known only in their traditions. Through
these they were told that it was formerly used
to kill worms and to destroy weeds, that it
cleansed fallows, increased the produce of light
arable soils, and sweetened grass. These re-
ported advantages were rendered more proba-
ble by certain facts that had been forced as it
were upon their attention. Every gardener
was aware that the brine of the pickling tubs,
when poured over his heaps of weeds, not only
killed those weeds and their attendant seeds
and grubs, but that these heaps were then con-
verted into so many parcels of the most fertil-
izing manure, whose good eflfects, especially
upon potatoes and carrots, were very decided.
It was well known, too, that a single grain of
salt, placed upon an earth-worm, speedily de-
stroyed It ; that if brine was poured upon a lawn,
from that spot all the earth-worms were imme-
diately ejected; and that if it was sprinkled over
a portion of the grass, on this salted portion all
99

the deer, or sheep, or horses of the park con-,
stantly repaired, in preference to any other
part of the field. Salt evidently therefore de-
stroyed weeds and worms, and rendered grass
more palatable to live-stock ; and upon con-
sulting the old agricultural writers, it was
found that the notices of salt as a manure
were many and important, and that salt had
been employed in various agricultural opera-
tions from a very early period. Thus, it is
referred to by St. Luke, chap. xiv. 34 ; Virgil
reprobates a salt soil ; Cato recommends it for
cattle, hay, straw, &c.; as does Virgil (Lib.iii.
V. 394). The early German farmers knew of
its value for sheep ; and for the same purpose,
in Spain, it has been employed from the earliest
ages. In 1750, Conrad Herebasch commends
it as a certain prevention of the "murrain or
rotte." In 1653, Sir Hugh Piatt speaks of salt
as a fertilizer, in his usual visionary manner,
and details the result of a very successful
experiment on a **patch of ground" at Clapham,
from which some late writers upon the uses of
salt have led their readers into great blunders,
by staling this experiment to have been per-
formed upon an acre of land.

The use of salt by the cultivator, since the
repeal of the duties in 1823, has been consider-
able, however, in many districts of England, in
spite of these blundering instructions, ill-con-
trived experiments, and ignorant conclusions.
If to this be added the natural difficulty of ob-
taining correct results in any experiments in
which vegetable life is concerned, we need no
longer be surprised that many contradictory
statements have been made with regard not
only 10 salt, but to all other fertilizers.

A mixture of «</// and/iwic was recommended
as a manure by the celebrated German chemist,
Glauber, in his "Hints for the Prosperity of
Agriculture," more than two centuries since.
He at some length described the mode of pre-
paring it, and characterized the compound of
soda and chloride of calcium produced as
" most fit for dunging lands, and to be used in-
stead of the common beasts' dung." {Pros-
perity of Germany, vol. i. p. 417.) Christopher
Packe, who, in 1688, published a huge folio
translation of Glauber's works, enforces the
value of this fertilizing compound with much
earnestness in his preface, describing it " as
the cheapest of all mixtures for the enriching
of poor and barren land." The want of scien-
tific knowledge amongst farmers, and the hin-
drance to the use of salt through the duties
which were so long imposed upon it, naturally
prevented any extensive use of this fertilizer;
yet there have been many accidental or occa-
sional notices of its value. Thus, for a great
many years, it has been the practice of the
farmers of Essex, and other English maritime
counties, to steep their seed-wheat in sea-water,
strengthened with salt, until it is of a sufficient
gravity to float an egg, and then roll the brined,
seed in lime. This they consider not only pre-
vents smut in the corn, but promotes the gene-
ral health and vigour of the plant. The Ess-x
farmers have a tradition that this plan was dis-
covered by the accident of a farmer's labourer
dropping a sack of seed-wheat from the boat in
which he was crossing the mouth of the River
3 u 2 785

MANURES.

MANURES.

Crouch. It was long, however, the supersti-
tious belief of the district, that the salt-water
wetting must be the result of accirfen^ to produce
a good effect. The Cornish farmers have for
centuries used the saline calcareous sand of the
coasts of Devon, which contains 64 per cent,
of lime, fetching it for some miles from the
shore, in preference, says Dr. Paris, to the un-
sailed sand, which they can procure at their
own doors. The very mixture of salt and lime
was successfully employed in Ayrshire many
years since. And George Sinclair, in 1818,
very nearly demonstrated at Woburn the value
of this application. He unfortunately, how-
ever, applied the salt and the lime separately,
yet still with considerable benefit. (C. W. John-
foti's Essay on Salt, p. 40.) The use of salt and
lime was noticed in the year 1800, by Mr. Hol-
lingshead, of Chorley, in Lancashire, who ob-
serves, "Lime prepared for manure should
be slacked with salt springs or salt-water;
lime so slacked will have a double effect." In
1804, in the experiments of the late Rev. Ed-
mund Cartwright, upon potatoes, of 25 ma-
nures, or mixtures of manures, salt and lime
were found superior, in their product of pota-
toes, to 19 others. And in 1816, Mr. James
Manley, of Anderton, in Cheshire, when giving
his evidence before a committee of the House
of Commons, on the salt duties, mentioned that
in getting marl (which is a mixture of carbo-
nate of lime, alumina, and silica), he had
found that, by mixing it with brine instead of
water, the portion of the field on which the
brined marl was used yielded 5 bushels of
wheat per acre more than that portion on
which the watered marl was employed.

The use of ashes as manure may be traced
to a very early age. The Roman farmers were
well acquainted with paring and burning.
Cato recommends the burning of the twigs and
branches of trees, and spreading them on the
land. Palladius says, that soils thus treated
would not require any other manure for 5
years. They also burnt their stubbles — a prac-
tice common amongst the Jews in Palestine.
The ancient Britons, according to Pliny, were
used to burn their wheat-straw and stubble,
and spread the ashes over the soil ; and Conrad
Herebasch, a German counsellor, in his Trea-
tise on Husbandry, published in 1575, which was
translated by Googe, tells us (p. 20), "In Lom-
bardie they like so well the use of ashes, as
they esteem it far above doung, thinking doung
not meete to be used for the unwholesomness
thereof."

Gypsum, or sulphate of lime, when employed
as it exists in an impure state in ashes, which
owe all their virtues to the gypsum they contain,
was used by the early Italian farmers. Virgil
(Georg. i. 1. 80) gives the following injunction :

"Neve

Effoetiis cinenim immiindum jaciare per agros."

"Nor hesitate to scatter the dirty ashes over
the exhausted soils." And he also recom-
mends, in addition to ashes, two other reme-
difis for sterility of soil, viz. stercoratio (or ma-
nuring), and glebarum cum stipulis incensio
(the turning up and burning the stubble). Ro-
bert Ainslie, steward to the celebrated John,
Earl of Stair, at Culhom, in Wigtownshire, had
786

very nearly discovered the agricultural advan-
tages of gypsum in 1728; for in that year the
earl sent from London several hogsheads of
peat-ashes, which abound in sulphate of lime,
with directions for their use, describing them
to Ainslie as being much employed in the
south of England as an admirable top-dressing
for grass, and even tillage lands. These ashes
were used, according to his lordship's direc-
tions, with great success, on both barley and
grass lands. Ainslie, convinced of their fer-
tilizing properties, immediately began to burn
turf, moss, and peat, for the use of the farm
under his care, in considerable quantities; he,
moreover, submitted these ashes to what he
very ludicrously calls an analysis, and gravely
tells us, that " with a great proportion of earthy
substances, they contained many particles of
lime or shelly matter." This was most proba-
bly the gypsum.

The use of the mineral gypsum as a manure
was discovered in 1768, according to Kirwan,
by M. Meyer, a German clergyman of great
talents ; but as in those days the chemical
composition of gypsum was totally unknown,
he naturally confounded it with other calca-
reous earths which it resembled in appearan'ce.
His merit consisted in discovering the use of
a certain mineral substance existing in his
own neighbourhood, which was long after-
wards shown to be sulphate of lime, but of
which fact Meyer was entirely ignorant. Even
as early as 1792 gypsum was tried very suc-
cessfully by Mr. H. Smith, of Highstead, near
Sittingbourne, who first noticed, what has
since been confirmed by numerous observa-
tions, that clover manured with gypsum is
always preferred by horses and cattle to all
other clover.

Sir Joseph Banks recommended this sub-
stance as a fertilizer to Lord Leicester, and, at
his suggestion, it was tried at Holkham many
years since; but, owing to mismanagement in
its application, it did not then appear to an-
swer the intended purpose. Some years after-
wards, owing to the warm recommendation of
Mr. Grisenthwaite, it was again employed
pretty extensively by the same nobleman, and
with great success ; and so satisfied was this
great friend of agriculture with the result, that
he presented Mr. Grisenthwaite with a piece
of plate for his exertions in its introduction.
In a letter with which I was favoured from the
Rev. R. Collyer, dated Holkham, October 17th,.
1837, that gentleman tells me, "Lord Leicester
wishes me to say, in regard to gypsum, that its
effects, when applied to clover and sainfoin,
have been invariably such as to induce him to
speak from his own experience in favourable
terms of that fertilizer." It has since been
gradually creeping into use in the east and
south of England. Mills have been erected for
grinding it, and considerable quantities have
been brought from the northern counties ; but
still not one-thousandth part of the quantity is
employed in agriculture that would be used if
its correct mode of application were more
generally known; since, from the small quan-
tity used per acre, and the low price of the arti-
cle, it constitutes one of the cheapest of the
artificial manures.

MANURES.

MANURES.

From this sketch of the history of the chief
manures, and of the steady improvement in the
mode of applying them, we may safely conclude
that, as regards the cultivation of even the most
barren soils, the drifting lands of Norfolk, the
heath-lands of the north of England and Scot-
land, and even the shingle of its sea-coast, much
will yet be effected by improved modes of ap-
plying manures. Let such improvements pro-
ceed ; lei science go hand in hand with practice ;
let the naturalist discover new cultivatable ve-
getables, or new varieties of those already
known; let the chemist yield his magic aid to
demonstrate the best mode of promoting their
growth, and increasing the fertility of the soil ;
and then I fearlessly assert that many more
than the present inhabitants of Britain may be
amply supported by the produce of the land of
our birth. "Nature," said Davy, "amidst all
her changes, is continually directing her re-
sources towards the production and multiplica-
tion of life ; and in the wise and grand econo-
my of the whole system, even the agents that
appear injurious to the hopes and destructive
to the comforts of man are, in fact, ultimately
connected with a more exalted state of his
powers and his condition. His industry is
awakened, his activity kept alive, even by the
defects of climates and seasons. By the acci-
dents which interfere with his efforts he is made
to exert his talents to look farther into futurity,
and to consider the vegetable kingdom, not as
a secure and unalterable inheritance, sponta-
neously providing for his wants, but as a doubt-
ful and insecure possession, to be preserved
only by labour, and extended and perfected by
ingenuity." (Lectures, p. 267.)

Manure, Law wilhregnrd to. — In most English
farm-leases there are covenants introduced
with regard to manure, which are often worse
than useless ; encumbering the efforts of the
skilful cultivator, and rarely improving the
practice of the ignorant, lazy, and unprincipled.
Thus, by some leases the farmer is allowed, on
certain conditions, to sell his straw and hay,
and bring on to the farm in its stead a given
weight of manure (commonly 2 tons of stable-
dung for a load of straw, and 3 tons for a load
of hay); in others he is restrained from selling
either; in others, from liming or chalking his
land. In most leases he covenants to spread
(he manure on the farm, and to leave it, in the
Concluding year of his term, properly laid up
|n heaps, if it is not already employed on the
land.

The mere relation of landlord and tenant is
a sufficient consideration for the tenam's pro-
mise to manage a farm in a husbandlike man-
ner, and not to carry away any straw, dung,
compost, &c. ; but to promise to spend 60/.
worth of manure every year, is not in law an
obligation arising out of the bare relation of
landlord and tenant. A tenant from year to
year, under a notice to quit, cannot remove
manure, except according to the custom of the
country, and, if necessary, he may be restrained
by an injunction. The custom of the country
is usually followed with regard to the manage-
ment and sale of manure ; but in case there is
a written agreement, no inquiry can be made
as to the custom of the country ; and when an

express stipulation is made, the custom of the
country is excluded entirely. In this case Lord
Lyndhurst said, "The offgoing tenant was
bound by the custom of the country to leave
the manure on the premises, and was entitled
to be paid for it by the landlord, or the succeed-
ing tenant; but in this case they did not rely
on the custom. The lease contained a cove-
nant that the tenant, on quitting the farm,
should not sell or take away the manure which
should be in the fold, but should leave it to be
expended on the land by the landlord or his
succeeding tenant. It is to be left for their
use, and there is no provision as to any pay-
ment in respect of it. We are of opinion,
therefore, that the plaintiff is not entitled to be
paid for the manure." But where an agree-
ment is silent as to the question of manures,
then the custom of the country is valid in law.
If the outgoing tenant has covenanted with
his landlord to sell the manure to the incoming
tenant at a valuation, and to leave it on the
farm, the outgoing tenant has a right of on-
stand on the farm ; and if the incoming tenant
remove the manure before such valuation, he
is answerable to the outgoing tenant in an
action of trespass. A tenant may sell or
assign over manure to an assignee, although
he thereby subjects himself to an action of
covenant. And it is a reasonable custom for
the landlord to pay the outgoing tenant the
expense of manuring. If a tenant, during his
tenancy, removes a dunghill, and at the same
time digs into and removes virgin soil that is
beneath it, his landlord may maintain either
trespass tie bonas asjwrtatis, or trover, for the
removal of the virgin soil. But if a tenant
covenants to sufficiently muck and manure the
land, with two sufficient sets of muck, withiii
the last six years of his tenancy, the last muck-
ing to be within the last three years, this cove-
nant is satisfied by the tenant laying on two
sets of muck within the last three years of his
term, if he shall think fit to do so.

In valuing manure to an incoming tenant,
much depends upon the custom of the countrj',
which is usually followed in these cases.
Land which has been rendered perfectly clean
by a year's fallowing, is denominated a full
tillage, and by tillages the valuation is com-
monly made.

In estimating the value of manure in arable
land, it is done by allowing a full tillage after
a fallow or crop of turnips fed off; after a white
crop, half a tillage ; but after two white crops
no allowance is made.

For bones one tillage more is valued than
for dung, on arable soils ; two-thirds of the
value of the bones, and labour of procuring
and spreading them, being allowed after one
white crop, and one-third of the value after
two white crops. Soot, rape-cake, oil, sprats,
&c., which are quickly exhausted in the soil,
are allowed for as one full tillage before a crop
grown, or after turnips, &c., eaten off; but if
the turnips, &c. have been carried off, then
only one-third of the cost of procuring, carry-
ing, and spreading is allowed.

For earthy manures more is allowed in a
valuation than for those of a perishable na-
ture. Thas, on pasture land, lime, chalk, or

787

MANURES, ARTIFICIAL.

marl are commonly valued for six years after
they have been spread on the land. This in-
cludes prime cost, carriage, and labour in
spreading in full, when laid on not more than
a year; two-thirds of the value if spread within
two years ; one-half in three years ; one-fourth
in four years; and one-sixth in five years: but
when lime is used on arable lands, it is com-
monly valued in the same way as farm-yard
manure.

When compost is in the heap, it is usually
valued in cubic yards, the value of which ne-
cessarily varies; it may be estimated, how-
ever, commonly as of the same value as half
a bushel of wheat. (Woodfall, by Harrison, p.
629; Bayldon wi Rents i Grainger and Kennedy
on Tillage.)

The custom of the incoming tenant paying
for the dung varies in different counties. In
the following counties he wholly pays for all
dung on the farm : viz. Essex, Kent, Northum-
berland, Nottingham (artificial manure), Rut-
land, Stafford, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, West-
moreland, and the West Riding of York. In
the other English counties the dung is usually
left free of charge to the incoming tenant.
This, in Scotland, is called holding in steel-bow.
See Customs of Counties.

MANURES, ARTIFICIAL. A great many
fertilizing compounds are now prepared in
large manufacturing establishments specially
devoted to the purpose, and these are exten-
sively used upon the various field crops to
which they have been found best adapted.
The basis of many of these is night-soil, such
as poudrette, &c. The virtues of others de-
pend upon various salts of potash and soda.
The following list of the leading articles of
this kind now prepared and extensively used
by the English farmers, with the prices at
which they are vended, cannot but be interest-
ing to the American agriculturist. It forms
an ordinary advertisement in a London news-
paper :

Agricultural Salt, per ton, 30«. to 329.

— — fine, per ton, 36s.

Alexander's Compost, per bushel, Is. lOd.
Bleaching Powder, per cwt. 30s.
Bone-dust and half-inch Bone, per quarter, 18*.
Brimstone, per ton, IIZ.

Clarke's desiccated Compost, per hhd., 3/. 12*. 6d.
Daniell's Bristol Manure, according to quantity, per

bushel, lOd.
Guano (foreign), per cwt., 10s. to 12s. <id.

— Potter's English, according to quantity, per cwt.,

13s. to 14s.
Gypsum, according to quantity, per ton, 30s. to 42s.
Hunt's New Fertilizer, per bushel, Is. 8d.
Muriate of Ammonia, per cwt., 24s. to 26s.

— Lime, per cwt., 12s.

Nitrade of Soda, according to quantity, duty paid, per

cwt., 17s. 6d. to 18s. 5d.
Petre Salt, per ton, 31. 10s. to 51.
Phosphate of Ammonia, per lb.. Is. 9d. to 2s. 3d.
Phosphate of Soda.
Poitteviii's disinfected Manure, per quarter, 13s. 6d.

— concentrated Manure, per quarter, 30s.
Rape-dtist, according to quantity, per ton, 11. 10s.
Rock Salt, per ton, 41., in quantity, 3^
Saltpetre, per cwt., 25s. 6d.

Silicate of Potash (pure), per cwt., 65s.

Soda Ash, per cwt., 14s.

Sulphate of Ammonia, per cwt., 18s.

— of Iron, per ton,

— of Soda, per ton, 11.
Sulphur, per cwt., 16s.

Sulphuric Acid, according to strength, per lb., U«f. to2id.
Trimmer's Composition for Clover, per cwt., 8.<.

— — for Wheat, with Silicate of
Potash, per cwt., 32s.

788

MAPLE.

Trimmer's Compost for Turnips, per cwt., 8s,
Urate, per ton, 51.

Watson's Compost, per cwt., 10s., in quantity, 9/. per
ton.

MAPLE (Jeer, from the Celtic ac, a point,
the wood having formerly been much sought
after for manufacturing into heads of pikes
and lances). The maples are for the most
part beautiful trees, of considerable size, gene-
rally employed informing avenues or the back
of shrubberies. The soil they delight most to
grow in is open sandy loam, in which also
cuttings will strike freely in the open air ; or
they may be increased by layers put down in
the autumn : but all the best plants are ob-
tained from seed, which should be sown soon
after gathering. There are a great many spe-
cies of maple ; but two only, with some varie-
ties, are common to Britain.

1. The greater maple or sycamore (J.pseudo'
platanus), which grows in hedges and about
houses, common, but not truly wild. It is a
large, handsome tree, of quick growth, with a
smooth ash-coloured bark, and round spread-
ing branches. The wood is white and soft,
useful for many purposes, such as making
musical instruments, cheese and cider presses,
tables, mangles, and some parts of machinery;
but is chiefly employed by coopers. The sap
is said to yield some portion of sugar, and to
be made into wine in the Highlands of Scot-
land. The sycamore is propagated entirely
by seed. The principal cultivated varieties
are, the yellow variegated sycamore, or Costor-
phine plane {Ac. p. flavo-variegata, Loudon), the
white variegated leaved sycamore (J. p. varie^
gala, Loudon), and the purple-leaved variety.

2. The common or field maple {Jl. campcstre).
This is a common tree in hedges and thickets,
but is rather rare in Scotland and the north of
England. It is of much more humble growth
than the preceding, with more spreading
branches ; the bark corky and full of fissures ;
that of the branches smooth. The wood is
compact, of a fine grain, sometimes beautifully
veined, celebrated among the ancient Romans
for tables, though now superseded by mahogany,
and even by our native oak.

The Norway maple {A. platanoides) has lat-
terly been classed among British forest trees.
It is a tree of the first rank, thrives well in
England, and attains a height equal to that
of the sycamore within a like period of years ;
it is a decided acquisition to park and wood-
land scenery, and its wood promises to be of
more value, and adapted for a greater variety
of purposes, than that of the sycamore, being
white, close-grained, firm, susceptible of a fine
polish, and frequently exhibiting the beautiful
appearance in the direction and disposition of
the fibre, for which the bird's-eye maple of
America is so highly prized and sought after.
The foliage, though not so heavy and massive
as that of the sycamore, is umbrageous ; the
leaves, which in shape bear a striking resem-
blance to those of the Platanus occidentalis, are
large, with slender petioles, and, when fully
expanded, of a fine, shining light-green ; in an
early or half-expanded state, they are of a deli-
cate yellowish-green, and in autumn, before
they fall, become of a rich, warm yellow.

1

MAPLE.

MAPLE.

There are many species of maple found in
the North American forests, which are gene-
rally lofty and beautiful trees. They are ca-
pable of enduring the most intense cold, and
therefore form in the north of the new conti-
nent, as they do of the old, extensive forests,
which, with those of the beech, appear to suc-
ceed the spruce, the larch, the pine, and to
precede the chestnut and oak. Michaux gives
7 species of maple to Europe, and 7 to Ame-
rica, exclusive of the dwarf red maple of the
Northeastern States, and the species found in
the Northwestern territories.
' The wood of the maples differs so widely in
quality in different species, that it becomes diffi-
cult to characterize it by general observations.
It may be remarked that it speedily decom-
poses and decays when exposed to the weather,
that it is liable to be injured by worms, and
that hence it is unfit for building. It possesses
properties, however, which compensate in part
for these defects, and which render it useful in
the arts and domestic economy.

Two of the American maples not only flower
but mature their seed during the spring months.
These are : — the white maple {Acer eriocarpum)
and the red-flowering maple (J. rubrum). In
the other kinds, the fructification is autumnal,
namely : — the sugar maple (A. saccharinum),
black sugar maple (A. nigrum), moose wood,
or striped maple (./?. striatum), box elder, or
ash-leaved maple (.4. ncgwwdo), mountain maple
(A. montanum).

Some of the inhabitants of the Western
States make sugar by boiling down the sap of
the white maple, which, however, like that of
the red maple, yields only half the proportion
of sugar obtained from the juice of the sugar
maple. The sap is in motion even earlier in
the white than in the sugar maple, beginning
to ascend about the middle of January.

The red-flowering maple is the earliest tree
whose bloom announces the return of spring,
the beautiful purple blossoms unfolding more
than a fortnight before the leaves. It never
attains its full size except in swamps where
the bottom is composed of fertile soil, and it af-
fords the wood chiefly used in the manufacture
of Windsor chairs.

The moose wood maple of the Eastern
Slates was so called by the first settlers, from
observing that the moose fed upon its twigs
during the latter part of winter and beginning
of spring. Although it fills the forests in Nova
Scotia and Maine, it becomes rare on approach-
ing the Hudson, to the west and south of which
river it is confined to the mountainous tracts
of the AUeghanies, on the cold and most shaded
sides of which mountains it extends to their
termination in Georgia. Where it mostly
abounds, its principal advantage to the inha-
bitants consists in furnishing them, at the close
of winter, when their forage is exhausted, a
resource for sustaining their cattle, till the ad-
vancing season has renewed the herbage. As
soon as the buds begin to swell, the famished j
horses and neat cattle are turned loose into the
woods, to browse on the young shoots, which
they consume with avidity. Poor, as this re- I
source may appear, it is not wholly inadequate, j
since the twigs are tender, and full of sweet i

juice. This species of maple is much admired
in European parks and gardens, particularly
on account of its variegated trunk. When
grafted on the Sycamore, as is commonly the
case, the striped maple grows to nearly four
times its ordinary size.

The box elder, or ash-leaved maple, is com-
mon in the states west of the AUeghanies, and
rare to the eastward of these mountains. It is
the species which ventures least to the north,
not being seen on the Delaware higher than
the neighbourhood of Philadelphia. It is chiefly
found in low bottoms where the soil is deep,
fertile, and constantly wet. Even in such
situations it seldom attains more than 50 feet
in height, and 20 inches in diameter.

The mountain maple abounds in Canada,
Nova Scotia, and along the whole range of the
Alleghany mountains, preferring the northern
sides, and the moist, coolest, and most shady
situations, on the abrupt and rocky banks of
torrents and rivers. It seldom is more than 6
or 8 feet high, and is most frequently in the
form of a shrub, with a single, straight stock.
Like the moose wood, this maple is frequently
grafted on the sycamore (A. pseitdo-platanus), by
which means it is increased to nearly twice
its natural size. This surprising developement
proves how great are the advantages which
may be derived from this process and from
continued cultivation, in improving inferior
vegetables.

But by far the most interesting tree of this
family to the American i^ the sugar maple,
which in the north begins to appear a little
north of lake St. John, in Canada, near the 48**
of latitude, which in the intensity of its winter
cold corresponds to the 68° in Europe. It is
nowhere more abundant than between the 46**
and 43°, which comprise Canada, New Bruns-
wick, Nova Scotia, the states of Maine, New
Hampshire, and Vermont, where it enters
largely into the composition of the wide-ex-
tending forests. Farther south, it is common
only in Genesee, in the state of New York,
and in the northern highlands of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Rush estimated that in the northern parts
of these two states, there are 10,000,000 of
acres which produce these trees in the propor-
tion of 30 to an acre. In some places large
masses of woods are formed of them almost
exclusively. In Virginia and other Southern
States, the tree is comparatively rare, and only
to be found in mountainous situations. In
those sections of country where the sugar
maple most abounds, they distinguish the kinds
of soil into what are called black, or soft tvood
lands, comprising the pines and spruces cover-
ing the low grounds and valleys, and the hard
wood lands, consisting of leaf-shedding trees,
such as the sugar maple, the white and red
beech, the birch, and the ash. These last oc-
cupy the level grounds. Above the 46° of
latitude, the maple and other trees of the hard
wood class begin to be rare, and the pines and
other resinous trees take their place. Below
43°, the spruce and other soft wood trees are
less common, and lose their preponderance in
the forests, where they become mingled with
the numerous species of oaks and walnut.
Black sugar maple. In the Western States,

789

MAPLE.

MAPLE.

and in the parts of Pennsylvania which lie
between the mountains and the Ohio, this spe-
cies of maple is called the black sugar tree, pro-
bably on account of the colour of its leaves
being darker than those of the genuine sugar
maple. In the Genesee country of New York,
both species are indiscriminately called rock
maple and sugar maple. The two species have
also been confounded by botanists. In the
Northern States, the black sugar maple is in-
ferior in size and also more rare than the true
sugar maple. A few degrees farther south, it
forms a large part of the forests of Genesee,
where it is one of the most common and most
lofty trees. The wood is much like that of the
other species, but coarser grained and less
brilliant when polished. It is comparatively
but little used, because, wherever it abounds,
other trees are found, such as oak, the walnut,
cherry, and mulberr}', more esteemed for
building and cabinet work. It is, however,
preferred for the frames of Windsor chairs,
and, after hickory, considered the best of fuel.
It forms one of the finest shade trees, assum-
ing, when standing alone, a regular and beauti-
ful form. (Michaux.)

The sugar maple covers a greater extent of
the American soil than any other species of
this genus, flourishing most in mountainous
places, where the soil, though fertile, is cold and
humid. Under such favourable circumstances
it is often found 70 or 80 feet high, and pro-
portionably large in diameter. It is one of the
most beautiful native trees, and distinguishable
by the external whiteness of its bark. The
grain of the wood is fine and close, and when
polished it has a silky lustre. It is very heavy
and strong, but wants the property of durabi-
lity for which the chestnut and the oak are so
highly esteemed. Exposed to moisture it soon
decays. The different forms of this wood
furnish the most admired undulated or curled
maple, and the highly esteemed and still more
beautiful spotted variety called bird's eye
maple.

The wood of the sugar maple makes good
fuel, for which purpose it is extensively used
in Boston and other northern cities. The ashes
afford a large proportion of the alkaline prin-
ciples, and, it is asserted, furnish four-fiflhs of
the potash exported in such abundance from
Boston and New York to Europe. The ex-
traction of sugar from the maple is a valuable
resource in a country where all classes of
society daily m.ake use of tea and coflTee. The
process by which it is obtained is very simple,
and everywhere nearly the same. Though
not essentially defective, it might be rendered
still more perfect and profitable than is com-
monly the case.

The work of sugar-making commonly be-
gins in the month of February, or early in j
March, whilst the cold still continues intense
and snow covers the ground. Thus the sap
begins to move nearly two months before the
general revival of vegetation.

In a central situation, lying convenient to the
trees from which the sap is drawn, a shed is
constructed, called a sugar-camp, which is des-
tined to shelter the boilers and the persons who
tend them, from the weather. An auger three-
790

fourths of an inch in diameter, small troughs
to receive the sap, tubes of elder or sumac, 8
or 10 inches long, corresponding in size to the
auger, and laid open for a part of their length,
buckets for emptying the troughs and convey-
ing the sap to the camp, boilers of 15 or 18
gallons' capacity, moulds to receive the syrup
when reduced to a proper consistency for being
formed into cakes, and, lastly, axes to cut and
split the fuel, are the principal utensils em-
ployed in the operation. The trees are perfo-
rated in an obliquely ascending direction, 18
or 20 inches from the ground, with two holes
4 or 5 inches apart. Care should be taken
that the augers do not enter more than half an
inch within the wood, as experience has shown
the most abundant flow of sap to take place
at this depth. It is also recommended to insert
the tubes on the south side of the tree ; but
this useful hint is not always attended to.

A trough is placed on the ground at the foot
of each tree, and the sap is every day collected
and temporarily poured into casks, from which
it is drawn out to fill the boilers. The evapo-
ration is kept up by a brisk fire, and the scum
is carefully taken off during this part of the
process. Fresh sap is added from time to
time, and the heat is maintained till the liquid
is reduced to a syrup, after which it is left to
cool, and then strained through a blanket or
other woollen stufi', to separate the remaining
impurities.

Some persons recommend leaving the syrup
twelve hours before boiling it for the last time;
others proceed with it immediately. In either
case the boilers are only half-filled, and by an
active, steady heat, the liquor is rapidly re-
duced to the proper consistency for being
poured into the moulds. The evaporation is
known to have proceeded far enough, when,
upon rubbing a drop of the syrup between the
fingers, it is perceived to be granular. If it is
in danger of boiling over, a bit of lard or of
butter is thrown into it, which instantly calms
the ebullition. The molasses being drained
ofl^from the moulds, the sugar is no longer de-
liquescent, like the raw sugar of the West
Indies.

Maple sugar manufactured in this way, is
lighter coloured, in proportion to the care with
which it is made and the judgment with which
the evaporation is conducted. It is superior to
the brown sugar of the colonies, at least, to
such as is generally used in the United States;
its taste is as pleasant, and it is as good for
culinary purposes. When refined, it equals in
beauty the finest sugar consumed in Europe.
It is made use of, however, only in the districts
where it is made, and there, only in the country:
from prejudice or taste, imported sugar is used
in all the small towns, and in the inns.

The sap continues to flow for six weeks ;
af\er which, it becomes less abundant, less rich
in saccharine matter, and sometimes even in-
capable of crystallization. In this case, it is
consumed in the state of molasses, which is
superior to that of the islands. After three or
four days' exposure to the sun, maple sap is
converted into vinegar, by the acetous fermen-
tation. The amount of sugar manufactured
in a year varies from diflferent causes. A cold

MARC.

MARK.

and dry winter renders the trees more produc-
tive than a changeable and humid season. It
is observed, that when a frosty night is fol-
lowed by a dry and brilliant day, the sap flows
abundantly; and 2 or 3 gallons are some-
times yielded by a single tree, in 24 hours.
Three persons are found sufficient to tend 2.50
trees, which give 1000 pounds of sugar, or 4
pounds from each tree. But this product is
not uniform, for many farmers on the Ohio do
not commonly obtain more than 2 pounds from
a tree. Trees which grow in low and moist
places afford a greater quantity of sap than
those which occupy rising grounds, but it is
less rich in the saccharine principle. That of
insulated trees, left stinding in the middle of
fields or by the side of fences, is the best It is
also remarked, that in districts which have
been cleared of other trees, and even of the
less vip-orous sugar maples, the product of the
remainder is, proportionally, mostconsiderable.
"Having introduced," says a writer, "twenty
tubes into a sugar maple, I drew from it the
same day, 23 gallons and 3 quarts of sap, which
gave 7} pounds of sugar ; 33 pounds have been
made this season from the same tree; which
supposes 100 gallons of sap. It appears here,
that only a little more than 3 gallons was re-
quired for a pound, though 4 are commonly
allowed.

It has been advanced, and doubtless cor-
rectly, that the Northern parts of New York
and Pennsylvania contain maples enough to
supply the whole consumption of the United
States. But the annual produce by no means
answers to this patriotic calculation. The
trees grow upon excellent lands, which by the
influx of emigrants from the older settlements,
and by the surprising increase of the popula-
tion already established, are rapidly clearing;
so that in less perhaps than half a century, the
maples will be confined to exposures too steep
for cultivation, and will afford no resource,
except to the proprietor on whose domain they
grow. At this period also, the wood will
probably produce a greater and more ready
profit than the sugar. Wild and domestic
animals are inordinately fond of maple juice,
and break through their enclosures to sate
themselves with it.

MARC. The matter which remains after
the pressure of fruit ; or any substance which
yields oil ; or, in fact, any fluid matter for the
separation of which the action of the press is
required. What remains in the press is the
rnarr.

MARCESCENT. In botany, a term applied
to leaves, &c., which are permanent, and when
withered do not fall off.

MARCHES. The name given to the bor-
ders or frontiers of any district, but more espe-
cially applied to the boundaries between Eng-
land and Wales, and England and Scotland.

MARE. The female of the horse. See House.

MARE'S-TAIL (Hippuris vulgaris). A cu-
rious indigenous aquatic, growing in marshy
situations, and in ditches, pools, and the bor-
ders of slow streams.

MARGARIC ACID. An acid obtained from
animal fat. Its derives its name from its re-
semblance to pearl. Its appearance and pro-

perties very much resemble those of stearic
acid, another product of animal fat, the chief
difference being in the greater fusibility of the
margaric, which melts at 140° Fah. See Acids,
Animal.

MARIGOLD (Calendula, nsLxned. from cahndce,
the first day of the month ; there being flowers
almost any month in the year). A genus
of showy plants, among which is the old
and well-known common marigold (C. offici-
naliK). This species was formerly used in
soups and broths, but is now little regarded.

There are several varieties of the common
marigold, among which are —

1. Single. 2. Common doubVe. 3. Largest
very double. 4. Double lemon-coloured. 5.
Great Childinsr. 6. Small Childing.

MARIGOLD, CORN. See Conx MARiooLn.

MARIGOLD, AFRICAN. See Africaic
M\nfootn.

MARIGOLD, THE MARSH. See Marsh
MvniooT.D.

MARINE ACID. See Muriatic Acid.

MARINE SALT. Common sea-salt, or mu-
riate of soda.

MARJORAM (On>nnMw?, from oros, a moun-
tain, and i!;anos, joy ; the delight of the moun-
tain, in allusion to the habitation of the plants).
A genus of well-known, pungent, and grate-
fully aromatic herbs. The plants are all of
easy cultivation ; the shrubby kinds are in-
creased by cuttings or slips; the herbaceous
species by dividing at the roots. There are
as many as 8 species, besides numerous va-
rieties. The species generally cultivated are
the common or pot marjorum (O.vulgare), and
sweet or summer marjoram (O. mnjorana), and
bastard or winter marjoram (O. heradeoticum.)

A light, dry, and moderately fertile soil is re-
quired for their healthy growth ; and if it is
one that has not been cropped for a consider-
able time, it is the more favourable for them.
If the soil is wet or rich, they are deficient in
their essential qualities, and the perennials are
unable to withstand severe weather. The situ-
ation cannot be too open. The sweet marjo-
ram is propagated solely by seeds; the 2 pe-
rennials by seed, as well as by parting their
roots, offsets, and slips of their branches. Sow-
ing may be performed of all the species, from
the conclusion of February, if open weather,
to the commencement of June; but the early
part of April is the usual time for performing
it. Portions of the rooted plants, slips, &c.,
may be planted from February until May, and
during September and October.

The sowing is performed either in drills, 6
inches apart, or broadcast; in either case the
seed being buried not more than half an inch
deep.

The tops and leaves of all the species are
gathered when green, in summer and autumn,
for use in soups, &c. ; and a store of the
branches are cut and dried in July or August,
just before the flowers open, for winter's
supply.

MARK. A term applied to a horse, which
is said to mark when he shows his age by a
black spot, like the eye of a common bean,
which appears at about .5^ years old in the
cavities of the corner teeth, and is gone when

791

MARKET.

he is 8 years old. When he ceases to mark, it
is said he has rased. See Age op Animals.

The term is also applied to a common mode
of marking hogs, &c., in those parts of the
United States where they are allowed to run at
large, and where the owner fixes a mark upon
his property by cropping more or less of the
ears, slitting these into swallow-forks and
every other shape of mutilation.

MARKET. In English law the liberty or
franchise, whereby a town is enabled to set up
and open shops, &c., at a certain place within
its limits for buying and selling, and better
provision of such victuals as the subject want-
eth. The establishment of a market, with the
grant of the tolls thereunto belonging, is one
of the king's prerogatives, and can only be ef-
fected by virtue of the king's grant, or sup-
ported on long and immemorial usage and
prescription, which presuppose such grant.
The general rule of law is, that all sales and
contracts of any thing vendible in fairs or
markets overt (i. e. open), shall not only be
good between the parties, but valid against all
claim by others having any right or property in
the subject. See Fairs.

MARL. Marl implies, properly speaking, a
natural mixture of chalk, shells, or carbonate
of lime, in some of its forms, with clay or sand,
or both. Its application to land, as a fertilizer,
is of very ancient date, as it was much used
by our English forefathers as a manure ; and
no one can read the account given by Pliny of
the agricultural operations of the early Bri-
tons, without being struck with the minute dis-
crimination, the evident result of long, atten-
tive practice, which was displayed by them in
the application of marl to particular soils ; and
from a very early period the Cornish farmers
have been used to employ extensively the sea
sand of Padstow harbour (which contains 64
per cent, of carbonate of lime), for the same
purpose, carrying it from the sea-shore either
in carts, or even on horses' backs, some miles
op the country.

Marl was certainly used by the early Italian
cultivators as a valuable addition to the soil
of their fields. It is thus spoken of by Colu-
mella:— " If, nevertheless, you are provided
with no kind of dung, it will be of great advan-
tage to it to do what I remember Marcus Colu-
mella, my uncle, a most learned and diligent
husbandman, was frequently wont to do, viz.,
to throw chalk or marl upon such places as
abound in gravel, and to lay gravel upon such
as are chalky, and too dense and stiff; and
thus he not only raised great plenty of excel-
lent corn, but made most beautiful vineyards ;
for this most skilful husbandman denied that
dung ought to be applied to vines, because it
would spoil the taste of the wine ; and thought
that stuff gathered together out of thickets, and
from among briers and thorns, or, in a word,
any other sort of earth fetched from any other
place, and carried to them, was much better
for making a plentiful vintage."

The mixture of soils, we find from Theo-

phratus, was a practice common in his days :

they found, it seems, the advantage of uniting

the light with the heavy, the fat with the lean,

792

MARL.

and, in fact, any that were of a contrary na-
ture. This mixture, he tells us, not only sup-
plies what shallow soils need in depth, but
adds to the power of both ; so that a worn-out
soil, thus treated, begins again to bear crops
with renewed energy : thus barren clays, when
thus fertilized, again become fruitful ; in truth,
this mode of cultivation he deemed a complete
substitute for manure. The inhabitants of
Megara, besides practising this system, were
used every 5th or 6th year to trench their land,
digging as deep as they imagined the rain to
penetrate, and bringing the under soil to the
top ; for it was an axiom with the Megarian
cultivators, that the lighter portions of earth
proper for the nourishment of plants are al-
ways washed downwards as far as the influ-
ence of the surface water extends ; so that we
see from this that the advantages of deep
ploughing, or subsoiling, is not a very modern
discovery. (Col. lib. xi. c. 16 ; Theop. 1. ii. c. 25.)

The right of sinking marl-pits is mentioned
in the Chartce Foresta, A. D. 1285; and in the
Statum WalluB, 12 Edward I., marl-pits are men-
tioned as being dug close to common roads.
" It is one of the duties of the sheriff and coro-
ner," says Daines Barrington, "to inquire de
fossatis et marleris levatis juxta iter publicum^*
which shows that this kind of manure was
very commonly used. When a marl-pit was
sunk in ground that did not belong to the king,
but which happened to be in the purlieus or
neighbourhood of a forest, prosecutions were
instituted in the forest, which imposed heavy
fines for the offence, as the pit occasioned both
inconvenience and danger to the hunter.

Marl is found in many parts of England;
and any earthy substance in which the propor-
tion of calcareous matter is apparent, mixed
with sand or clay, is styled, in popular lan-
guage, a marl. Of this there are 3 principal
varieties : 1. Clay marl ; 2. Sand marl ; 3. Slate
or stony marl; 4. Shell marl. Of these the
last is commonly the richest in calcareous
matter. In some shell marl examined by Sir
George Mackenzie, he found —

Lime 41-45

Carbonic acid - - - - 32

Silex 14

Argil 14

Oxide of iron ----- 25

Inflammable matter - . - 2

Losfl 4-70

100

Clay marl usually contains from 68 to 80 per
cent, of clay, and from 32 to 20 per cent, of
calcareous matter. Silicious sand often con-
tains 75 per cent, of sand (Kinvin on Manures^
p. 13). Thus, M. Thaer found in that of Olden-
burgh —

Fine sand ----- 36

Clay 44

Monld 5

Carbonate of lime - - - - 14
Gypsum ------ 1

100

The quantity of marl applied per acre neces-
sarily varies with the kind of soil and the qua-
lity of the marl ; it is usual to employ it in

MARL.

MARSH.

very considerable quantities, and it is often
some years before it is sufficiently incorpo-
rated with the soil to produce an evident im-
provement ; but then that advantage is almost
always, sooner or later, not only decided, but
permanent.

The clay marls render light sandy soils
more tenacious ; the sandy marls materially
improve the friability of the heavy clays. In
Cheshire, they often apply 128 cubic yards of
clay marl per acre to light sandy soils, and
about half that quantity to their heavy lands.
In many parts of Scotland it is spread on grass
lands, and suffered to remain for two or three
winters exposed to the frost, before it is
ploughed in, in about the same proportions per
acre.

"The beginning of all improvements in Ger-
many," says Mr. S. S. Carr, in his Prize Essay,
" is, to give a dressing of marl (containing, on
an average, 60 per cenU of carbonate of lime),
at the rate of 164 cubic feet per acre : by this
means land, not worth cultivation previously,
yields excellent crops for 8 or 10 years; and
if the straw produced during that time is care-
fully converted into manure, the productive-
ness does not materially decrease. Should
that, however, be the case, the deposits of
ponds, and even plots of peat-moss, which not
unfrequently occur, are carried upon the fal-
lows in winter, where these substances, when
broken down by the frost, prove a valuable al-
ternative to the texture of the soil, especially
where the pulse, rape, and clover crops are
gypsumed."

On the heathy sands of Norfolk much im-
provement might be effected by the application
of marl. Mr. Kiddle, of Marsham, in that
county, made many experiments with marl ;
he preferred, from long experience, the variety
denominated "clayey marl," which he thought
the best for sandy lands, even if brought from
a considerable distance. " A few years since,"
said General Vavasour, "I purchased, with
other lands, a field of 10 acres ; it had been
part of a common enclosed about 15 years be-
fore, and was tithe-free, the soil sandy, mixed
with moory earth. I ploughed and sowed it in
divisions with various crops, most of which
failed. Having discovered a stratum of rich
clay marl, within 400 yards of the field, I cart-
ed on 75 cubic yards per acre, at lOrf. per yard,
or 3/. per acre." The result was, that the
value of the land increased from 6«. to 1/. 1«.
per acre.

In Europe, the term marl is applied to va-
rious mixtures of calcareous matter with clay,
sand, &c., and the common test is to effervesce
on the addition of vinegar, or other acid. But,
in the United States, those at least on the At-
lantic coast, where this fertilizer is met with
in great abundance, two kinds of marl are ex-
tensively used, one of which has been already
described under the head of Greex Sand.
This is often so free from lime, as scarcely to
retain a trace, and, consequently, the addition
to it of vinegar, or other acid, would not pro-
duce that effervescence necessary to constitute
it a marl in accordance with the common test.
What, in the states of New Jersey, Delaware,
Maryland, and Virginia, is usually called green
100

sand marl, instead of containing lime, abounds
in potash. See Greek Saxd.

The calcareous marl found in the states
named, generally contains more or less of the
green sand; and this combination of lime and
potash forms a natural fertilizing mixture, the
value of which is scarcely yet appreciated as
it deserves to be. Its great weight makes it an
expensive application to land, wherever much
hauling is required, and consequently it yields
to burned lime under such circumstances.
The admirable treatise upon the subject of
" Calcareous Manures'^ by E. Ruffin, of Virginia,
has been extensively circulated throughout the
United States, and maybe referred to as contain-
ing the most useful body of information upon the
subject of marl ever brought together, embrac-
ing every detail in relation to lifting, transport-
ing, application, and effects, that can be de-
sired by the farmer or general reader. See
Mixture of Soils, Lime, Chalk, Earths, &c.
MARRAM. One of the common names of
the sea mat-weed or sea-reed {Arutido arenaria).
See Reei).

MARSH (Sax. menrc, a fen). A flat surface,
the soil of which is so far saturated with water
throughout the year as to be unfit for culture
by the spade or plough ; but not so much as to
prevent it from producing coarse grasses, and
other kinds of herbage. Marshes are generally
situated in bottoms, where they are kept moist
by the water which descends from the sur-
rounding lands; or along the banks of rivers
or lakes, where their humidity arises from
their being nearly on the same level with the
adjoining water. Where a marsh is situated
so as to be occasionally overflowed by the sea,
or by a river, up which the tide flows, it is
called a salt marsh; and the herbage produced
by such lands is found highly conducive to the
health of animals which pasture on them for a
certain portion of the year, from the alterative
efl!ect of its saline properties.

Salt marshes abound along the shores of the
bays and inlets of the Atlantic coast of the
United States. The natural grasses which
grow so luxuriantly are extensively mown,
and furnish an inferior, and generally a coarse
description of hay, which, however, is much re-
lished by cattle in consequence of its saltness.
It furnishes excellent litter, and thus contri-
butes greatly to swell the manure-heap. On
the Delaware bay it sells for about $2 to $4
per ton.

Salt marshes are often reclaimed by em-
bankments, which keep oflTthe tide-water. The
best mode of managing land thus reclaimed, is
well worth knowing ; and the following direc-
tions from Mr. T. F. Lambson, of Salem, New
Jersey, contain valuable information, the result
of much experience and expense: — "1st. The
marsh should be secured from the tide by a
permanent bank. 2d. A sluice or sluices of
sufficient capacity must be laid to discharge
the rain-water and back-waters which pro-
ceed from adjacent uplands, so that at no time
the water-courses and ditches will be filled to
overflowing. The sluices should be laid deep
enough to draw the water through them from
the lowest part of the marsh : great care should
be taken to have the doors made tight, so as to
3 X 793

MARSH-LANDERS.

MARSH-MUD.

exclude all the tide-water possible. The water-
courses and drains should intersect each other
at right angles, and no lot of marsh should
contain more than 10 acres. If any rain-water
should lay upon the middle of these lots, it will
be^necessary to cut small drains, to let it pass
off freely; these might be covered where the
materials are at hand. The mud and earth
which come out of water-courses and ditches
should be removed into the lowest part of the
marsh; by a neglect of this, the rain-water will
be confined too long upon the surface, and the
most luxuriant growth of timothy or clover
may in a short time be converted into a nursery
of rushes.

"The best time to sow down in grass, is
when the tide is first shut off, and when the
mud is soft; a growth of coarse grass will
spring up sufficient to protect the fine grass in
its tender state; this crop should be mown off,
and not suffered to lodge upon the marsh.
Timothy and herds-grass require about 1 bushel
to sow 4 acres. The former will flourish where
the water can be kept 2^ or 3 feet from the
surface ; where it approaches nearer than this
in the ditches, the latter will succeed best: in
order to avoid having it sown in rows, it should
be sown a second time across the first sowing.
It is not advisable to mow longer than .3 years
in succession ; to mow and pasture alternately
is the better plan. If the high marsh becomes
bound and unproductive, ploughing Avill be
necessary ; and after raising 2 or 3 crops of
rye, Indian corn, or broom corn, without the
application of any manure, the soil will be
quite renovated, and when sown down in grass
will be much more productive. When the
earthy deposit is several feet in depth, it will
not soon become exhausted ; when it is not
desirable to plough, lime may be used with
success. Low marsh, or turf, or, as we term
it here, "harse-dung" mud, should not be plough-
ed; when it becomes unproductive, a covering
of clay or loam, to the depth of 2 or 3 inches,
will be found the cheapest application." See
Bog, Waste Laxti, Peat Soils, Grass Lawds,
iBuifiATioN, and MEAnow.

MARSH-LANDERS. A term provincially
applied in England to neat cattle of the short-
horned breed, or such as are bred on lands of
the marsh kind.

MARSH-MALLOW (Jlthcea, derived from
altheo, to cure ; from the medicinal qualities of
some of the species). This is a genus of tall,
free-flowering plants : the biennial and annual
kinds should be sown in the open border in
spring, and transplanted when sufficiently
strong. The herbaceous kinds may be in-
creased by dividing the roots or by seeds. ^.
rosea, the parent of the many beautiful varie-
ties of holly-hock, yields a blue colouring
matter equal to indigo. {Paxton^s Pot. Die.)

The common marsh-mallow (jl. officinalis) is
in England an indigenous perennial, growing
abundantly in marshes, especially towards the
sea. The root is perennial, tap-shaped, rather
woody. The herbage of a hoary green, pecu-
liarly soft and downy, with a fine starry pubes-
cence. Stems several, about a yard high,
simple, round, leafy, tough, and pliant. Leaves
794

ovate or heart-shaped at the base, various in
breadth, soft and pliable, slightly five-lobed.
Flowers (which blow from July to September)
in very short, dense, axillary panicles, rarely
solitary, of a delicate uniform blush-colour, not
inelegant. Bees are very fond of its mellife-
rous flowers. The whole plant, especially the
root, yields in decoction a plentiful, tasteless,
colourless mucilage, besides a fatty oil, un-
crystallizable sugar, starch, and phosphate of
lime. It is emollient, and salutary in cases of
internal irritation. A syrup made with the
root, as well as the decoction, is an otficinal
preparation of the Pharmacopoeias. It is used
in the coughs of children. See Mallow.

MARSH-MARIGOLD (Caltha, a synonyme
of kalathos, a goblet ; in allusion to the likeness
of the form of the carolla to a golden cup).
The species of this genus are showy, and do
best in a moist situation, but will grow and
flower in a common border. They may be
increased by seeds or divisions. The British
indigenous species are two in number, viz.; —

1. The common marsh-marigold (C. palus-
tris), which grows in marshy meadows, and
about the margins of ponds, rivers, and brooks,
almost everywhere. It is perennial in habit,
blowing in March and April. The root is
thick and somewhat tuberous, with many sim-
ple fibres. Stem 12 or 18 inches high, round,
hollow, leafy, branched, furrowed. Leaves
variously heart-shaped, rounded. Flowers from
3 to 5, large, bright yellow, on alternate soli-
tary stalks. The flower-buds pickled serve
for capers, which they resemble, except in
having numerous germens. A double variety
is frequent in gardens.

2. Creeping marsh-marigold (C. radicans).
This species is found by the sides of lakes and
rivulets in Scotland, and is scarcely half the
size of the common C. palustris. A double va-
riety of this is cultivated near London.

MARSH-MUD. This substance, which forms
such an excellent manure, is not so well appre-
ciated or so generally employed in the United
States as it deserves to be. An intelligent cor-
respondent of the Farmers* Register (for July,
1834) states, that he deems it more valuable
than barn-yard manure, and that it never failed
in any application he had made of it. He even
prefers it to marl, because its effects are more
quickly manifested, and, when readily accessi-
ble, much more improvement can be effected
for the same money than by applying marl.
He, however, confesses that the permanent ad-
vantages of marling are much greater, and
thinks that marl and marsh-mud will both be
improved by combination. This result may
certainly be expected in most cases, but must
depend much upon the prevailing constituents
of the mud. The alluvial deposits found in
marshes, must of course contain more or less
of the ingredients of the soils of the neighbour-
ing uplands. When these contain lime, mag-
nesia, silex, iron, &c., so will the marsh-mud.
This is clearly shown in the following tabular
statements, giving the results of Dr. Dana's
chemical examinations of a few specimens of
marsh-mud taken from the rocky coast of New
England.

MARSH-MUD.

MASTICATION.

Analysis

in the dry

way by

Alkali.

Number.

t^,i:.. Water of

Onrmic
matter.

Silica.

1

Alumina OxiJe gf

Lime.

sam«>iu.

Magnesia. ble in
water.

Sulphuretted
hydrogen
and loss.

135
136

Newburyport -
Medford •

32
95

33
12-5

681
50 95

14-7
149

7-4
815

20 1 08
11 1 02

0-2
0-6

0-3
21

Analysis by Dr. Dana's Method. .

NamberJ Locality.

Soluble 1 Insoluble
Geine. | Griue.

^;'.i!;:l"

Phosphate
of lime.

Granitic
sand.

Specific
gravity.

134
135
136

Cambridjfe

Newburyport - -

Medford

130
1-5
7-5

7-4
0 1
56

23
30
2-6

0-4
0-5
0-3

67-9
95 1
S-IO

1 92
2-52
1-92

"A substance," says Professor Hitchcock,
" so rich in geine or salts of lime and soda,
or in both, as the above analyses show, cannot
but prove a fertilizer of the soil if spread upon
it. If a soil be quite poor, those varieties
should probably be chosen that contain the
most geine ; and this can be judged of by their
comparative lightness when dry ; the lightest
abounding most in organic matter. But if the
soil already contain a good deal of inactive
vegetable matter, the varieties that abound
most in salts will probably be most efficacious;
though an additional quantity of geine can do
no harm, and may do much good. If marsh-
riuid be applied at random, It is not strange
that varieties of it, almost destitute of geine,
should be sometimes put upon exhausted soil,
and that no good effects should follow. Hence
the necessity of some fixed principles to guide
the farmer. And since Massachusetts contains
so much sea-board, and so much land rtear the
coast that may be benefited by. this substance,
a correct mode of applying it is of great im-
portance. (Geological Report.)

The abundant deposit called marsh-mud
found along the extensive marshes which border
many of the shores of the bays and rivers of
the Middle States, is variously constituted, be-
ing sometimes a black, unctuous substance,
made up of vegetable and mineral matter, in
which sometimes no trace of vegetable fibre
can be traced, whilst at others it contains not
only a perceptible portion, but consists mainly
of the fibres of grass-roots and leaves, in a
state of greater or less decay. Professor Booth,
who has treated of the subject in his Geological
Survey of DeLiware, says, that the first of these
is the most valuable, and may sometimes be
directly applied to land without admixture; but
it is advisable to adopt a uniform method of
using it, which may be done in two ways, by
minglins: it with lime, better after exposure to
the air ftir some time, or by drawing it into the
barn-yard to bring it into an incipient fermenta-
tion bv contact with stable-manure. In either
case it will more than repay its expense ; and
if lime be employed on the land at the same
time, a more powerful and durable influence
will be derived from it.

Blue mud. The fertility of those lands of
which blue mud forms the upper surface, and
its beneficial effects in the few instances in
which it has been employed on the upland, are
k warrant of its fertilizing powers, but it is a
matter of some doubt to what substances its
effects are mainly to be attributed. lis basis
is a fat clay, both lead-coloured and yellowish,

with a quantity of organic matter, which ap-
pears to be chietly in the state of crenic and
apocrenic acids, combined with the oxide of
iron. There is no doubt that it would be ad-
vantageous if applied directly to the soil, but
its tenacity is an objection to such a mode of
using it, and hence it is more advisable either
to draw it into the barn-yard, where it will be
broken down and mingled with manure, or to
mix it with lime, and expose it for some time
to the air, adding, at the same time, the black
marsh-soil, which is generally to be obtained
in its vicinity.

The blue mud is wholly unlike a peaty soil,
but being deposited on the river-marshes, it
soon becomes a marshy soil, and many of the
creek and western marsh deposits are far from
being peaty, although they contain much orga-
nic matter. Its value, as a manure, rests not
on a mere theoretic assertion, but it has received
the test and sanction of experience, and such
experience, both in Delaware and elsewhere, as
may not be contradicted. As it would be a
matter of nicety to discriminate between such
varieties as are not sufficiently decomposed,
and require some preparation prior to their
application, and those which might be directly
employed, it would be better to adopt a general
rule relative to the mode of using it, viz., either
to draw it into the barn-yard, or to form a com-
post with lime, or with ashes. In either case
it will form an excellent manure, and with lime
or ashes a durable one.

MARSH-THISTLE, or RED THISTLE
(Carduus paluslris). See Thistle.

MARSH-TREFOIL. See Bcck-bean.

MARUM. Bitter. In botany, the term is
used to signify an herb with a strong smell.

MASH. A soft sort of diet occasionally
given to horses. It is prepared by pouring
boiling water upon a small quantity of ground
malt, bran, or other similar substance, in a
pail, .so as just to wet it well. After this has
been done, it should be well stirred about, till
it is thoroughly mixed and sweetish to the
taste, when, after becoming lukewarm, it is in
a proper state to be given to the animal. It is
frequently used after purges to increase their
operation, as well as after hard labour, and in
the time of disease. Mashes are very useful
for restoring animals in these circumstances.

MAST. The nuts or seeds of the beech, oak,
and chestnut-tree.s, which are the food of hogs,
squirrels, &c.

MASTICATION. The process of grinding
or chewing the solid parts of food between the
teeth, by the united motion of the jaws, tongue,

795

MAT-GRASS.

MEAD.

and lips, in consequence of which it is broken
into small pieces, mixed with the saliva, and
thus adapted for deglutition a? well as more
easy digestion; although it is, perhaps, not
more essential for the latter purpose than
water. Leuchs and Schwan, two German
physiologists, have, however, proved that saliva
has the properly of changing starch into sugar;
and it is a well-known fact that the process of
digestion in the stomach converts starch into
gum, and gradually into sugar. Mastication,
in the animal economy, is so essential to the
prosperity of the individual, that old horses,
&c., whose teeth are impaired, always require
to have their food broken, chopped, or crushed
for them. See Ruminatiox.

MAT-GRASS, or HEATH MAT-WEED
(Nardus siricta). An insignificant species of
grass growing on barren, sandy, moist heaths
and moors, in many parts of Britain. The
root consists of numerous very strong, downy
fibres. Stems and leaves furrowed, roughish
with minute bristles, rigid, four or five inches
high, remaining bleached through the win-
ter. Spikes solitary, purplish, bristle-shaped,
straight, of many slender flowers. Schrank
celebrates this deep-rooted grass as a safe sup-
port to the hands of the Alpine botanist, in
precipitous situations, though it renders his
path very slippery. The hard and wiry foliage
of the mat-grass is eaten by horses and goats,
but disliked by cattle and sheep. This species
is often a troublesome weed on arable lands
and pastures, where it affords but coarse food
to cattle. As it, however, forms large and thick
tufts, which resist the action of the scythe, it
may be usefully transplanted to loose, sandy
lands, where its spreading, horizontal roots will
tend to consolidate the soil, and increase the
stratum of vegetable mould, for the reception
of more useful plants.

MATH. An old term for crop ; hence lat-
termaih is the last mown crop of grass.

MATRIX. The womb, or place where any
thing is generated or formed. In mineralogy,
it implies the earth or stone in which the
mineral is imbedded.

MATWEED, THE SEA. One of the names
of the sea-reed (Jrundo arenarin). See Reed.

MAUDLIN-WORT. See Ox-eye Daisy.

MAUL. A provincial word, variously ap-
plied to a beetle, a mallet, and the mallow, in
different localities.

MAW-SKIN. A word used in some places
to signify the stomach of the calf prepared for
cheese-making. See Renxet.

MAY-APPLE. An American plant, so called
from its flowers being very abundant in the
month of May. Its botanical name is Podophyl-
lum peltatum, and it has also the common names
of Wild Mandrake, and Hog Apple ; the last
name must be regarded as inappropriate, since
hogs seldom, if ever, eat them. The plant
grows very abundantly in all moist and shaded
places in woods, almost from one end of the
Union to the other. It has usually a simple
stem, terminating in a single broad leaf, 4 to 6
inches in diameter, and deeply divided into 5
or 7 lobes. The root of the plant is biennial,
and is frequently used as a medicine, being
active both as an emetic and cathartic, when
796

taken in powder, in small quantities. The
fruit consists of a single large, long, and flat-
tish apple, yellow when mature, and varying
in size from 1 to 3 or 4 inches long by 1 or 2
broad. The soft pulp contained within the
rind has a very peculiar musky taste, which is
relished by many persons. The fruit is by no
means unwholesome, and has been introduced
with the dessert, in which case the pulp may
be squeezed into a wine-glass, and, with the
addition of a little old Madeira and sugar, is
said to be equal to the luscious golden grana-
dilla of the tropics, a fruit which it greatly re-
sembles in appearance. (Jm. Farm. vol. 14.)

MAY-DAY. The first day of May.

MAY TREE. See Hawthorn.

MAY-WEED, THE SCENTLESS. See
CoTiN Fevetifew.

MAY-WEED, THE STINKING, or MATH-
ER. Called in Pennsylvania, Stinking Chamo-
mile, Dog's Fennel, &c. (PI. 10, v.) It is fre-
quent in the farm-yards, lanes, &c., in the
Middle States, and is a disagreeable foreign
weed, now extensively naturalized. It is readi-
ly distinguished from the preceding by its fetid
odor, — as well a5 by its botanical characters, —
on which it has been generically separated from
Anthemis, by Cassini, Lessing, &c. There are
no native species in the United States.

MEAD (Dutch, weet/e). An agreeable vinous
liquor made from honey. The use of this sub-
stance as one of the ingredients in drink is of
very ancient date. When fermented, honey-
water obtains the name of mead, which is, in
fact, honey-wine : indeed the Germans call it
by that name (Homg-wein). Mead is said to
have been the principal beverage of the Britons
before the use of malt liquor among them ; and
long after the introduction of the latter beve-
rage, mead was a favourite drink. Under the
name of metheglin, it was frequently alluded
to by old writers. Mead formed the ancient,
and for centuries the favourite beverage of the
northern nations. It is frequently mentioned
in Ossian. Dryden has a couplet : —

"T* allay the streneth and hardness of the wine.
Let wiih old Bacchus new Metheglin join."

Queen Elizabeth was so fond of mead, as to
have had it made every year for her. Her
receipt for it ha« been preserved, and is given
by Dr. Bevan, in his interesting little volume
on the Honey Bee : — Take of sweet-briar leaves
and thyme each one bushel, rosemary half a
bushel, bay leaves one peck. Seethe these in-
gredients in a furnace full of water (containing
probably not less than 120 gallons): boil for
half an hour: pour the whole into a vat, and
when cooled to a proper temperature (about
75° Fahr.), strain. Add to every six gallons
of the strained liquor a gallon of fine honey,
and work the mixture together for half an
hour. Repeat the stirring occasionally for two
days; then boil the liquor afresh, skim it till
it becomes clear, and return it to the vat to
cool : when reduced to a proper temperature,
pour it into a vessel from which fresh ale or
beer has just been emptied ; work it for three
days and turn. When fit to be slopped down,
tie up a bag of beaten cloves and mace (about
half an ounce of each), and suspend it in the
liquor from the bung-hole. When it has stood

MEADOW.

MEADOW.

for half a year, it will be fit for use. Such was
the receipt.

In Wales, in ancient times, mead was held
in very high repute ; as appears from an ancient
law, which has been given by Dr. Bevan, that —
" There are three things in court which must
be communicated to the king before they are
made known to any other person : 1st, every
sentence of the judge; 2d, every new song;
3d, every cask of mead." The mead-maker
was the eleventh person in dignity at court, and
took precedence of the physician. Besides the
preparation of mead, our forefathers were ac-
customed to flavour their usual grape wines
M'ith honey and other ingredients. There were
two kinds of spiced wines in use in England
in the thirteenth century, called Hippocras and
Clary. The first consisted either of white or
red wine, and the latter of claret, both mingled
with honey and spices. Dr. Henderson, in his
History of prine*, speaks of a receipt still exist-
ing, which gives directions how •' to make
ypocrasse for lords with gynger, synamon, and
graynes, sugour, and turesoll ; and for comyn
pepull, gynger, canell, longe peper, and cla-
ryffyed honey." Mead formed the nectar of
the Scandinavian nations, and was celebrated
by their bards : it was the drink which they
expected to quaff in heaven out of the skulls
of their enemies; and was, as might be expect-
ed, liberally patronized on earth. The Scandi-
navian mead is flavoured with primrose blos-
soms. (Penny Magazine.)

MEADOW. A field under grass caltiva-
tion, generally situated on the banks of a river
or lake; but so far above the surface of the
water as to be considerably drier than marsh
land, and, consequently, producing grass and
herbage of a superior quality. The soil of
meadow lands is generally alluvial, and more
or less mixed with sand ; and it is kept in a
state of fertility by the depositions made on its
surface, in consequence of being occasionally
overflowed by the adjoining waters. The pro-
duce of meadows is generally made into hay,
which, though not equal in quality to that pro-
duced on drier grass lands, is yet superior to
what is obtained from marshes. See Grass,
Hat, Irrigation, and Marsh.

In England some meadows of great extent,
belonging to a community or district in which
every inhabitant has a right to send his cattle
to graze under certain regulations, are never
mown. When the number of those who have
a right of common pasture is not very great,
they frequently agree among themselves to
abstain from depasturing the meadows in
spring, and, dividing them into portions, each
makes hay of his share ; after which the cattle
are admitted in common for the remainder of
the season. Thus a common meadow is con-
verted into a Lammns meadow, that is, a meadow
which becomes a common meadow after the 1st
of August, this being the time when it is supposed
that all the hay has been made and secured.

Low alluvial land, or that which can be
irrigated at pleasure, is usually left for the
scythe, either from its productiveness from
the rich deposits which are periodically laid
upon it, or from its being loo wet for cattle to
graze on it in winter without poaching the

surface. In a proper rotation system, upland
is also occasionally devoted to the production
of grass for the scythe. In upland situations
meadows are either alternately mown and
pastured, or broken up for oats or wheat,
after they have yielded a crop of hay, and been
grazed during the preceding year. The prac-
tice of leaving young leys in pasture one year
after the first mowing, and then ploughing them
up, is very general in England and Ireland.
Grass land kept constantly for meadow, ouglt
never to be depastured except in dry weather,
as the breaking of the surface by the feet of
the cattle, not only injures the grasses of the
sward, but, by causing the stagnation of the
water in holes, promotes the growth of rushes
and other coarse aquatic plants, besides killing
the finer grasses, and rendering the surface
uneven for the scythe. A dressing of sand,
even of the worst kind, and the use of calca-
reous manures, or salt, will be found excellent
for coarse, rushy meadows, by tending to ren-
der the texture of the grasses finer; but as the
rankness and inferiority of the herbage pro-
ceeds from a superabundance of water, drain-
ing will be found the most certain remedy, and
effectual means of improvement. The mea-
dows which are to be mown should be shut
up early in spring, and those which are soft
and wet should have nothing larger than a
sheep admitted into them from November till
after hay-making time the next year.

Of late years the practice of soiling has
been extensively adopted. By this means all
the advantages of mowing for hay are obtain-
ed, besides an abundant supply of rich manure,
which can be applied to the land in a liquid and
diluted state, when its effect is powerful and
certain. So much more fodder is produced
from the land by the system of soiling, that
arable fields are converted into artificial and
temporary meadows, in which the different spe-
cies of grasses are sown, in order to be cut
green or made into hay ; and when, from the
nature of the soil, the herbage degenerates, the
field is ploughed up again, greatly improved
by this change of cultivation.

When a natural meadow has been neglected,
and the grass is of an inferior quality, and
mixed with rank weeds and moss, it requires
much care to restore it to its original fertility.
In most cases (says a writer in the Penny Cy-
clopcedia), the shortest method and the best is to
plough it up, clean and manure it during a
course of tillage, without taking very exhaust-
ing crops from it, and then to lay it down
again, in a clean and enriched state, by sowing
the best sort of grass-seeds; or, which is pre-
ferable, by inoculating or planting in it small
tufts of grass from some rich meadow, which
will soon increase, and produce a new and
improved sward. But when the soil is a very
stiff clay, with only a small depth of good mould
over it, there is some danger in breaking the
old sward, for it will take a long time and much
manure to reproduce a proper covering of
sward. In this case it is a preferable practice
to scarify the meadow, by means of instruments
which do not go deep, but only tear up the sur-
face. If this is done in early spring, when the
ground is moist, and the whole surface is
3x2 797

MEADOW FOXTAIL.

MEAT.

brought to resemble a fallow field, good grass-
seed may be immediately sown. If rich ma-
nure, mixed with lime or chalk, is then evenly
spread over the land, and the whole well har-
rowed and rolled, the old and young grass will
spring up together, and show a wonderful im-
provement in a very few months. Great Britain
and Ireland are reputed to possess the most
verdant pastures and the finest natural grasses
in the vegetable creation.

In extent of meadow and pasture-land, as
"well as in flocks, Great Britain and Ireland
(says a French statistical account) are the
most favoured countries in Europe. They
contain 5572 square leagues (more than two-
thirds of their territory), in meadow and pasture-
land. Germany comes next, having one-quarter
of its surface in this description of land. Prus-
sia, Holland, and Belgium have a fifth ; Austria
and Switzerland a sixth. France does not
reckon in this respect more than a seventh part,
namely, 4000 square leagues. Italy, Naples,
Sicily, and Portugal have only a tenth.

MEADOW FOXTAIL. See Alopecurus
and Grass.

MEADOW-GRASS. See Poa, Couch, Hol-
cus, and Grasses.

MEADOW OAT-GRASS. See Avej^a.

MEADOW-SAFFRON {Colchicum). An or-
namental genus of bulbs, growing best in a
light loamy soil, and increased by ofl!sets, or
from seeds. One species only is indigenous.
See CotcHicuM.

MEADOW-SWEET, or QUEEN OF THE
MEADOWS {SpircBa ulmaiia). In England an
indigenous perennial plant, growing in moist
meadows, and about the banks of rivers and
ditches; flowering in June and July. The root
is fibrous, without knobs ; the stems are her-
baceous, 3 or 4 feet high, leafy, branched, fur-
rowed, angular, smooth. Leaves interruptedly
pinnate; downy beneath; the terminal leaflets
largest, and lobed. Flowers extremely nume-
rous, cream-coloured, with a sweet but oppress-
ive, hawthorn-like scent, in dense, compound,
cymose panicles, with many styles. The taste
of the herbage, like the scent of the flowers, is
aromatic, not unlike the flavour of orange-
flower water. The distilled water is said to be
used by wine merchants to improve the flavour
of made wines. Hogs devour the roots with
avidity ; goats and sheep also relish the herb ;
but horses and cattle refuse it.

MEAL (Dutch, meel). The edible part of
wheat, oats, rye, barley, and pulse of difierent
kinds, ground into a species of coarse flour.
See Flour.

MEASURES. See Weights axd Measures.

MEAT (Sax. moete, food). A general appel-
lation for the flesh of animals when prepared
for human food. See Beef, Bacot?, Cattle,
Mutton, Pork, Sheep, Swine, &c.

" In whatever manner meat is cooked," ob-
serves Mr. Donovan, " there is a considerable
diminution of substance, the loss consisting
chiefly of water, juices, soluble matter, and fat.
In an economical point of view, a comparison
of the loss incurred in the two most usually
employed processes, roasting and boiling, is
interesting, yet it has not occupied the attention
of the public so much as the importance of the
798

subject seems to demand. Professor Wallace,
of Edinburgh, has given us the results of some
experiments made to determine the loss which
meat undergoes in cooking. It is to be regret-
led that it is not more in detail, and that the
weight of the bone in each joint was not as-
certained ; but still it is of great value. The
results, reduced to 100 pounds of meat, are as
follows : —

Lb*.

100 Ihg. of beefiest in boiling - - - - - 26J

100 lbs. of beef lost in roasting - - - - 32

100 lbs. of beef lost in baking 30

100 lbs. of legs of mutton, averaging about 9i lbs.

each, lost in boiling ...... 21|

100 lbs. of shoulders of mutton, averaging 10 lbs.

each, lost in roasting .-..., 31J.
100 lbs. of loins of mutton, averaging 8 lbs. 12 oz.

each, lost in roasting - . - - - - 35^
100 lbs. of necks of mutton, averaging 10 lbs. each,

lost in roasting --.-... 23J

Thus, the loss in boiling beef or mutton was
less than in roasting. And it appears that
meat loses by the cooking about one-fifth to
one-third. A few years since, I undertook the
superintendence of some experiments of the
same tendency, with the view of inserting the
results in this volume. These trials were made
on several parts of the different animals, with
as much attention to accuracy as the nature
of the subject permitted. They were made on
different qualities of the same kind of meat, at
various seasons, both in England and Ireland.
Such experiments are exceedingly troublesome,
and occasion no small inconvenience; it is,
therefore, the less surprising that the subject
has been so little investigated; and the follow-
ing results, in the absence of any others so
particularly detailed, will, perhaps, prove in-
teresting. Allowance must be made for the
nature of such processes, as the difficulty of
fixing an average price of meat, fish, and poul-
try, owing to variations occasioned by the sup-
ply and the season, the want of uniformity in
the prices of the city, and by the exorbitant
demands of some vendors of these articles.
The degree of fatness was in all cases brought
to a standard by cutting off" all excess, and
leaving the meat in a proper state for house-
keepers' use. The meat was in all cases cooked
as nearly as possible to the same degree, and
the weights were determined with exactness;
avoirdupois weight throughout is intended. The
bones were entirely stripped of their meat pre-
viously to their being weighed. The only cost
taken into account is that of meat, leaving out
fuel, &c.

'* Experiment 1. — A piece of beef, roasted.
It consisted of four of the largest ribs, and
was not remarkably fat : its weight was llJ^
lbs. During the process of roasting it lost 2 lbs.
6 oz., of which 10 oz. were fat, and 28 oz. were
water dissipated by evaporation. When the
meat was dissected off" with the utmost care,
the bones weighed 16 oz. Hence, the weight
of meat, properly roasted and fit for the table,
was but 7 lbs. 11 oz., out of llyV lbs. originally
submitted to experiment. This beef would cost
in London 8^^. per lb. The roasted beef cost,
therefore, 12!f/. per pound. In another trial, a
piece of beef of the same description, the tops
of the ribs having been rejected with their
meat, was submitted to the same mode of trial;
the weight of bone in 10.? lbs. was 16 oz., and

MEAT.

MEAT.

the fat 11 02., which agrees with the former
estimate."

Other parts of mutton, submitted to similar
tests, gave the following results.

"Experiment 17. — A leg of mutton, weighing
9} lbs., when boiled gave 1 lb. of bone, shank
included; it lost in the boiling 1 lb. 2 oz. : the
meat weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. If the butcher's
price was 8 J. per lb., the meat cost about lOJrf.
per lb.

"Experiment 18. — A similar leg, weighing 9
lbs. 6 oz., afforded 15 oz. of bone, and lost 12 oz.
in the boiling: the meat weighed 7 lbs. 11 oz.
At S(I. per lb. butcher's price, the boiled meat
would cost 9^(f, per lb.

"Experiment 19. — A leg of small Scotch mut-
ton, weighing 6 lbs., afforded 10^ oz. of bone,
lost 5^ oz. in the boiling, and the meat weighed
5 lbs. : cost 9^d. per lb., if butcher's price be St/."

The following are miscellaneous : —

" Experiment 28. — A fore-quarter of Iamb,
weighing 9 lbs., afforded, when roasted, 20 oz.
of bone, and lost 1;^ lb. in the roasting : the meat
weighed 6 lbs. If the butcher's price be 8^d.
per lb., the roasted lamb costs 12^(/. per lb.

" Experiment 31. — A hand of salt pork weigh-
ing 4 lbs. 5 oz., lost in boiling 11 oz. The bone
weighed 9 oz.: the meat was 8 lbs. 1 oz. If the
first cost of the pork was 7^^/. per lb., the meat,
when duly boiled, cost lO^rf. per lb.

"Experiment 34. — A knuckle of veal weigh-
ing 6 lbs., when duly boiled, lost half a pound.
Its bones, perfectly cleared of meat, weighed 2
lbs. 6oz. ; the meat weighed 3 lbs. 2 oz. Hence,
if the butcher's price was S^rf., the boiled meat
cost lOif/. per lb.

" Exptrimcnt 35. — A goose properly trussed,
weighed 4^ lbs.: in this state it was roasted,
and, when sufficiently done, was found to have
lost 18 oz. The skeleton weighed 12 oz.: the
meat weighed 3 lbs. This goose would cost,
in London, 4s. 6J. Hence the roasted meat
amounted to Is. 8^d. per lb.

" Experiment ^\. — A turkey, with its liver and
gizzard, weighing 4 lbs. 14 oz., was boiled : it
lost 12 oz. The skeleton weighed 13JJ oz.; the
meat, 3 lbs. 4^ oz. If this turkey cost 35. 6d.,
the boiled meat amounted to Is. Irf. per lb.

"Experiment 43. — A young duck, weighing
20 oz., lost 5} oz. in roasting. Its bones weigh-
ed 2 ^Voz-: the meat was 12J oz. It cost 2s.
6t/. : hence the flesh amounted to 3?. 3^rf. per lb.

"Experiment 46. — A fowl, with its liver and
gizzard, weighing 1^ lb., was roasted. It lost
3 oz. : the skeleton weighed 4^ oz., and the flesh
10^ oz. If such a fowl cost 2s. 6:/., its meat,
when roasted, would cost 2>\ i^d. per lb.

"Experiment 47. — A chicken, weighing 1 lb.
4^ oz., when roasted lost 3^ oz. The bones
V-eighed 3 oz., the flesh, 13^ oz. If the chicken
.:c)st 2s. 4c/., the meat, roasted, was worth 2s. [
8d. per lb. !

"Experiment 56. — A fine mackerel, when!
trimmed, and ready for boiling, weighed 23^ I
oz. (including the weight of the roe, 2^ oz.) '
It cost 10c/. It lost 1| oz. in the boiling. The I
skeleton, carefully collected, along with gills, 1
fins, and tail, weighed 4J oz. Hence, the cost
of the eatable parts of the boiled fish was 9|c?.
per lb." I

It will now be necessary to collect the results

of all these experiments into a kind of con-
spectus, for the sake of more easy comparison;
and it is to be understood, that, in the following
estimates, when the butcher's price is men-
tioned, it of course comprises meat and bone
in the usual manner. But, when the ultimate
cost of the cooked meat is specified, it refers to
the price cost of the meat only, the bone being
considered valueless : and it is supposed that
the fatness of the meat was such as good meat
is expected to have, without any redundancy
being left on it. From an average of five ex-
periments, it appears that, when the butcher's
price of ribs of beef is 8^^/. per lb., the cost of
the meat, when duly roasted and fit for the
table, is 11 ^rf. per lb., and that the average loss
of weight arising from the liquefaction of the
fat, and the evaporation of water from the
juices, is 18 per cent. From an average of six
experiments, it appears that, when the butcher's
price of sirloins of beef is 8^^/. per lb., the cost
of the meat, when duly roasted and fit for the
table, is Is. \\d. per lb., and that the average
weight lost during the roasting is 20| per cent.
From an average of other experiments, it ap-
pears that when the butcher's price of salted
briskets of beef is %d. per lb., the cost of the
meat, when duly boiled and fit for the table, is
83^. per lb., and the loss incurred in boiling,
arising from the extraction of fat and juices, is
18 per cent. From an average of two experi-
ments, it appears that when the butcher's price
of salted flanks of beef is 6rf. per lb., the cost
of the meat, when duly boiled, is lid. per lb.,
and the loss in boiling is 131 per cent. From
another experiment, it appears that, when the
butcher's price of salted tail ends of beef is Id,
per lb., the cost of the meat, when duly boiled,
is 8^^. per lb., and the loss in boiling is ^^-^
per cent. From an average of experiments 17,
18, 19, and 2 others, it appears that, when the
butcher's price of legs of mutton is 8d. per
lb., the cost of the meat, when duly boiled and
fit for the table, is \Qd. per lb., and that the
average weight lost during the boiling is 10
per cent. From an average of two experiments
it appears that, when the butcher's price of
legs of mutton is 8d. per lb., the cost of the
meat, when duly roasted, is Is. per lb., and the
loss incurred by roasting is 27,-''i^ per cent.
From an average of two experiments, it ap-
pears that, when the butcher's price of shoul-
ders of mutton is Id. per lb., the cost of the
meat, duly roasted, is \\d. per lb., and the loss
incurred by roasting is 28 per cent. From an
average of experiments it appears that, when
the butcher's price of the fore-quarter of lamb
is 8^rA per lb., the cost of the meat, duly roast-
ed, is 1*. l\d. per lb., and the loss by roasting
is 22i per cent. From experiment 30, it ap-
pears that, if the first cost of hams be \Qd. per
lb., the meat, duly boiled, skinned, and brown-
ed, will amount to Is. \^d. per lb., and the loss
by boiling is 12^ per cent. From experiments
31 and 32, it appears that, when the hand and
leg of salt pork average 8d. per lb., the boiled
meat amounts to lO^t/. per lb., and the loss in
boiling is 13^ per cent. From an experiment
it appears that, if the first cost of bacon is 8rf.
per lb., the meat, when duly boiled, skinned,
and browned, amounts to lO^c/. per lb., the loss

799

MEAT.

MEAT.

in boiling alone being 6^ per cent. From ex-
periment 34, it appears that, when the butcher's
price of knuckle of veal is 5^d. per lb., the meat,
duly boiled, costs lO^d, per lb., the loss in boil-
ing being 8^ per cent. From an average of
experiments 35, 36, 37, it appears that, at the
prices of geese quoted, which average 12^c?.
per lb. for the raw flesh, the cost of the roasted
flesh is Is. 7d. per lb., and the loss per cent 19^.
From an average of three experiments, it ap-
pears that, at the prices of turkeys quoted,
which average lOd. per lb., the cost of the roast-
ed flesh is Is. 2^d. per lb., and the loss per cent
is 20^. From an average of experiments 41
and 42, it appears that, when turkeys are sold
at the last-mentioned price, the cost of the boil-
ed flesh is Is. lid. per lb., and the loss per cent
is 16. It appears also, that the roasted flesh of
turkeys sometimes amounts to 4s. 2c?. per lb.
From experiments 43, 44, and 45, it appears
that, at the prices of ducks quoted, which ave-
rage Is. Ihd. per lb. in the raw state, the cost
of the roasted flesh is 2s. 8d. per lb., and the loss
per cent, is 27,i. From experiments 46, 47,
and 48, it appears that, at the prices of chickens
quoted, which average Is. 6^(/. per lb. in the
raw state, the roasted flesh amounts to 2s. 7d.
per lb., and the loss per cent, is 14f . From an
average of six experiments, it appears that, at
the prices of chickens last quoted, the average
cost of the boiled flesh is 2s. Sd. per lb. and
the average loss is 13^ per cent. From an ex-
periment it appears, that, when turbot in the
raw state is sold at 9|rf. per lb., the boiled fish
costs ll^rf. perlb.; the loss in boiling is 5^ per
cent. From experiment 56, it appears that,
when mackerel sells in the raw state at 6f rf.
per lb., the boiled fish costs 9ld. per. lb., the
loss in boiling being 7^ per cent. From an ex-
periment, it appears that the roasted flesh of a
woodcock sometimes costs 16s. per lb., and
sometimes 2s. But the flesh of the quail is
still more expensive. This bird, when fatten-
ed, is sold at the enormous price of 3s. ; and,
when allowance is made for the loss in cooking

Cost

Cost

Loss per

Names of ihe Article, of Food totimated.

per lb.

per lb.

cent.Tn

raw.

cooked.

cooking.

d.

rf.

Salted flank of beef, boiled -

6

7*

13 1-5

Snlted tail-end of beef, do. -

6

8i

13 7-10

Salted brisket of beef, do

6

8i

18

Mackerel, do. - - -

6J

H

n

Legs of mutton, do.

8

10

10

Bacon, best part, do.

8

m

6*

Hand and leg of salt pork, do.

8

m

m

Knuckle of veal, do.

H

m

8^

Shoulders of mutton, roasted

7

11

28

Ribs of beef, do. - - -

8^

IH

18

Turbot, boiled - - -

n

Hi

5 5-9

Legs of mutton, roasted

8

12

21 7-10

Turkeys, boiled ...

10

13 1-9

16

Sirloin of beef, roasted -

8*

13 1-6

20}

Fore-quarter of lamb, do.

8i

m

22}

Hams boiled - - - .

m

m

m

Legs of mutton, overroasted -

8

14

27 4-10

Turkfiys, roasted - - -

10

IH

20}

Hamburg bung-beef, ribs

12

18

9 1-5

Oeese, roasted - _ _

12i

19

19}

Woodcocks, do., cheap season

24

Chickens, roasted - - _

18i

31

14 3-5

Chickens, boiled - - .

m

32

13}

Ducks, roasted - _ .

13i

32

27 1-6

Haunch of venison, do.

46

Turkeys, large, crammed

_

50

Woodcocks, scarce season -

_

192

Quails, fattened - - -

-

288

800

and the bones, the meat may be estimated at
2 oz., which brings the cost of the cooked flesh
to IZ. 4s. per lb. ! Those to whom such morsels
are necessary are not to be envied. A haunch
of A'-enison, weighing 26 lbs., will cost 3^ gui-
neas. The meat of this, when roasted and
detached from the bone, will amount to about
3s. lOd. per lb.; and if the animal was more
than usually fat, to 4s. The foregoing table
gives the results in a still more abstract form ;
but the prices apply to London only. The
articles are arranged in the order of their cost-
liness in the London market.
It appears from the experiments, that

The loss per cent, on roasting beef, viz. sirloins and

ribs together, is ---__. igi
Do. on roasting mutton, viz. legs and shoulders

together, is 24|

Do. on roasting lamb, viz. the fore-quarter, is - 22}

Do. on roasting geese, is - - - - - 19}

Do. on roasting turkeys, is _ - - ■ 20}

Do. on roasting ducks, is - - - - - 27^

Do. on roasting chickens, is - - - - 14'|

Thus, the loss on roasting varies from 14^ to
nearly double that rate. The average loss on
roasting butchers' meat is 22 per cent., and on
roasting domestic poultry is 20^.

The loss per cent, on boiling mutton, viz. legs, is - 10

Do. on boiling hams, is - - - - - 12}

Do. on boiling salt beef, is - - - - 15

Do. on boiling salt pork, is - - - - 13}

Do. on boiling bacon, is - - - - - 6}

Do. on boiling knuckles of veal, is - - - 8}

Do. on boiling turkeys, is - - - - - 16

Do. on boiling chickens, is ... - 13}

Thus, the loss on boiling varies from 6^ to
16. The average loss on boiling butchers*
meat, pork, hams, and bacon, is 12, and on
boiling domestic poultry is 14J. These esti-
mates of butchers' meat do not agree with
those of Professor Wallace. I shall select for
contrast all those cases that can be compared.

Wallace. My trial.

lOOlbs. of beef lost in boiling - - - 26} 15

Do. in roasting - - - _ _ 32 19i

100 lbs. of legs of mutton lost in boiling - 21} 10

100 lbs. of shoulders of mutton lost in

roasting -____. 3i| 2^

The average loss in boiling and roasting to-
gether is, according to Professor "Wallace, 28
percent.; according to my trials, it is but IcJ.
I know not how to reconcile these resultj
otherwise than by supposing a diflerence in
the meat, or its fatness, or in the duration of
the heat. I used meat of sufiicient, but not
unprofitable fatness, such as is preferred in
faniilies; the meat was in all cases a little rare
at its centre, and the results were determined
with the utmost care. In great public institu-
tions, where economy is studied, and every
thing is regulated by weight and measure,
tables of this kind do not afford a guide that is
to be implicitly relied on. It is obvious that
another element must be taken into the calcu-
lation, to insure true results ; the ratio in which
each article of food satisfies the appetite, which
varies with almost every individual.

Butchers' meat, taking one kind with another,
averages 35 per cent, of real nutritive matter;
at least, such was the estimate presented by
MM. Vauquelin and Percy to the French mi-
nister of the interior. Adopting this determi-
nation, we are prepared to appreciate the

MEAT.

MEAT.

quantity of real nutritive matter received into
the stomach, when a meal of plain meat and
vegetables has been eaten : it is not practicable
to come to any conclusion when made dishes
are used. It is a subject of interest, and par-
ticularly so to the inhabitants of the British
Isles, who are said by foreigners to make
use of more animal food than is necessary or
wholesome.

In order, then, to equalize the animal and
vegetable matter, and to increase the total
quantity, the ratio should be 8^ oz. of boiled
mutton, 10 oz. of potato, and the same of tur-
nip ; the total amount of food swallowed will
be 28^ oz., but the quantity of real nutriment
will be but 6 oz., half being animal and half
vegetable matter. This is certainly a sufficient
meal for most persons who have but little labo-
rious occupation ; for, if a pint of liquid be
drunk at the same time, the load on the stomach
will weigh 3 lb.; and this will be increased to
4^ lb. if a pint of wine be swallowed. Now,
the difference between 8^ oz. of boiled meat
and 10 oz. appears very trivial ; but, if the
greater of the two quantities be persevered in
regularly every day for the term of a man's
adult life of half a century, it may excite a
little surprise in the person who practises it,
to learn that he will have consumed a flock of
sheep, consisting of about fifty-three head, in
excess above what he ought to have made use
of. In a life of sixty-five years, allowing 8^ oz.
per day for fifty years, two-thirds of that quan-
tity for ten years, and 3 oz. a day for three
years of childhood, the total animal food
amounts to 350 sheep. If to this be added the
excess above mentioned, the number of sheep,
the cooked meat of which is devoured by one
man during a life of sixty-five years, is about
400 ; along with 5 tons of potatoes, about the
same of turnips or other vegetables, 9 tons'
•weight of common drink, and 6 tons' weight
of wine, at 1 pint per day for three years
only : thus, for dinner alone, above 30 tons'
weight of solids and liquids must have passed
through the stomach. Inordinate work will
wear out any machinery before its time, espe-
cially if the work performed be of a peculiar
wearing character. Whether it is advisable to
add the fifty-three unnecessary sheep to one's
dinner, is a question which every reader will
answer to himself as he thinks proper. The
food of old Parr, who died at 153 years of age,
consisted of cheese, coarse bread, milk, and
small beer. Would it have made no difference
in the duration of his life if he had swallowed
1050 sheep ! for about this number would have
been his share at the usual rate, along with
his twenty tons of wine. It may assist in
drawing a conclusion, to recollect that when
he was brought to London, and lived in splen-
dour, " fed high, and drank plentifully of the
best wines," he soon died : and his death was
generally attributed to that cause, for he had
vigour of body " to have lived a good while
longer," as the reporter says. (Lardner's Ency.)

1. Selection of Cattle and Beef. — In the selec-
tion of cattle to be sent alive to market, they
should invariably possess fine symmetry and
small bone, carrying the greatest weight of
beef on the most valuable points, such as
101

rumps, loins, and crops ; the back well covered,
the buttocks and flanks well filled up, and the
whole carcass exhibiting a fulness of flesh, ex-
cepting the necks and coarser parts. They
should handle hard and firm, in order to stand
well the voyage, and handle and look well in
the market. Firm handlers, whether heifers
or oxen, always cut well up. A good coat of
hair, too, is of great use in a sea-voyage on
deck, and also in enabling cattle to stand the
vicissitudes of weather in the markets, and it
enables them to be turned out in safety, in
case they should not be disposed of on the first
market-day. Thin-coated cattle always look
tender, and are, in fact, so under any circum-
stances. Cattle only possessing these requisite
properties should be sent to Smiihfield market',
and any others will assuredly incur loss to the
shipper. An ox or heifer of these properties,
weighing 80 stones per Smithfield stone of
8 lbs., will actually realize more money than
a coarse ox or heifer weighing 100 stones.
Heavy cattle, however, do not take readily in
Smithfield, except for a month about Christ-
mas, unless they are remarkably handsome;
nor do very light cattle, under 40 stones, for
two or three months in summer, unless they
are really neatly shaped, and thick on the
backs and best points. The most saleable
weights are from 50 stones to 55 stones. Of
the Scotish breeds, the Galloway and West
Highlanders fetch generally the top price; fine
Angus and Aberdeenshires, of fine points and
thick backs, take well ; and handsome, well-
bred short horns also take readily, but do not
realize so much money as Galloways or West
Highlanders. Fine crosses are also very
saleable.

The meat intended to be sent to the carcass
market in London should be taken from such
cattle as we have described. It is not large
quantities of lean and fat that are wanted there,
but both well mixed. Ox and heifer beef of
equal quality command the same prices.
Rumps, loins, crops, and other fine parts fitted
for roasting and steaks, are more in demand
than the boiling pieces, and realize compara-
tively higher prices, and therefore they alone
should be sent. Coarse beef always fetches
low prices in London, and therefore should be
purchased (to use a sporting phrase) at a low
figure in the country to return any profit, for
the best buyers look more to quality than
quantity; and as this quality of beef is rather
cheaper in London than in Scotland, ship-
pers should be cautious in sending any such
thither.

2. Selection of Sheep and Mutton. — Ripe, com-
pact sheep, of light weights, carrying a large
proportion of lean on the back, loins, and
shoulder, with a full round leg and handsome
carcass, are admirably suited for Smithfield.
Such, from 14 lb. to 20 lb. per quarter, will
take readily ; but they are most valuable from
16 lb. to 18 lb. The nearer the form and quality
approach those of South Downs, the more likely
are they to command the top prices ; for the
Downs have long been unrivalled favourites
in Smithfield. True bred Cheviots and the
black-faced Linton breed approach nearly to
the qualities of the South Downs, and com-

801

MEAT.

MEAT.

mand as high a price. Half-breeds from Lei-
cester rams and Cheviot and black-faced ewes,
which resem*ble the true breeds in form and
quality, form saleable sheep in London. The
old black-faced breed are too thin in the leo;
and back, and are in London termed ''goaty."
There are by far too many of this kind sent
from Scotland, and they are generally, besides,
only ha.\(-?neatefl, or half-fat, and of course only
fetch middling prices. They, however, gene-
rally please the consumer for flavour. Pure
bred Leicesters are too fat, unless they are sent
young, and do not exceed 20 lb. per quarter;
when above that weight they fetch inferior
prices. A fine South Down or Scotch sheep,
of 18 lb. per quarter, will fetch Id. per lb. by
the carcass, whereas a heavy Leicester, Glou-
cester, Lincoln, or Kent, of 24 lb. a quarter and
upwards, will n^alize no more than 6d.

The carcasses of mutton to be sent to Lon-
don should, of course, be those of sheep such
as are here recommended to be sent alive.
Large quantities of fat are not so desirable as
a proportionable mixture of fat with the lean.
In using the loins and other parts of very fat
mutton for chops, much of it has to be pared
away, and sold for the price of raw fat, per-
haps 4d. a pound ; whereas well-mixed chops
may be sold for 7d. or 3d. a pound. This shows
the nature of the mistake committed in sending
fat, heavy mutton to London. The great point
is, to select ripe mutton and sheep ; for the
latter will stand the voyage better than half-fat,
and will not lose half the quantity of flesh in
three days as the latter. No overgrown
animals, having masses of fat on one place
and not on another, would therefore command
the top price : but those having plump car-
casses, well mixed with fat and lean, firmly
and equally laid on, with fine symmetry and
valuable points, will always command the
top price, both at Smithfield and the carcass
markets.

3. Selection of Lambs. — Lambs are a favourite
stock to send to London, and they are always
sent alive. Leicester lambs are admirably
adapted for the London market. They are
handsome, compact, thick on all the points,
and although they might become too fat when
grown to sheep, they cannot be too fat as Iambs.
Their flesh is white, a property much admired
in London, and every joint of them looks well
on the table. The lambs of the cross between
the Leicester and the Cheviot and black-faced
ewes are next best for fat and lean, and cut
■well into joints, although they have not the
handsome figures of the pure Leicester. True
Cheviot and black-faced lambs, unless very
fat, do not take so well in Smithfield, not being
so compact, taking longer time to come to ma-
turity, not cutting up so thick, and presenting
small joints on the table ; but they make very
delicate and high-flavoured chops. No lambs
should be sent to Smithfield until they are at
least three months old, and have obtained the
weight of 9 lb. or 10 lb. a quarter ; and if they
are not fat enough, and have not attained that
weight at that age, they should be kept on.
Shippers may calculate on a loss of 1 lb. a
quarter on the voyage : unless, therefore, lambs
are from 9 lb. to 10 lb. a quarter, they would be

too small after that loss, and they then become
unsaleable except at low prices. Ewe lambs
are preferred, being more delicate than wethers,
which are next in value, for ram lambs are
very unsaleable. All wether lambs, therefore,
intended for Smithfield, should be castrated
when a few days old, and their tails cut short,
leaving not more than three inches. The
docking gives them a very compact form, and
it causes the flesh to grow up towards the back,
long tails giving a contrary tendency.

4. Selection of Pigs and Pork. — Much caution
is requisite on the part of the shipper of pigs
for London. A very mistaken notion prevails
among many shippers, and the notion has been
contracted in ignorance of the nature of the
London market, that pigs must be fat to suit
the English taste. The fact is quite the reverse,
for the larger the pig is fattened, the less money
per pound it fetches. Pigs are worth the most
money when their weight ranges from 35 lb. to
40 lb. ; and from this weight up to 60 lb. or 70 lb.,
they are termed dairy-fed porkers. If at the
former weight, they are of good symmetry, fine
quality, delicate and white in the flesh, and not
more than 1 inch or 1^ inch thick of fat on the
back, they will fetch the top price of the day.
Pigs of the average weight of 60 lb. will give
about 7d. per lb.; from 70 lb. to 100 lb., ave-'
raging 85 lb., and 2 inches thick of fat, 6d. per
lb.; from 100 lb. to 150 lb., averaging 130 lb.,
and about 2^ inches of fat, 5d. to d^d. per lb.;
from 150 lb. to 200 lb., averaging about 170 lb.,
and about 3 inches of fat, id. to 4^rf. per lb. ;
and all above the last weight and thickness of
fat, only about 3^d. per lb. Besides the large-
sized, a very small fat pig is not relished in
London. Indeed, we need not be surprised at
this preference, when we consider that only
the small lean and fat pdrkers are used for
roasting, chops, and pickled pork, and the large
fat pigs are chopped down for sausages. No
pigs, therefore, should be sent to London ex-
ceeding 100 lb., exclusive of head and feet, but
which are only moderately fat and of fine
quality; all other qualities should be cured as
flitch, bacon, and hams. Pigs, if possible,
should be sent alive to London. Occasionally
they arrive in pretty good order in carcass;
but in carcass, in thick weather, the flesh be-
comes very soft, and the skin dry ; and in dry
weather the skin becomes quite hard and
brown coloured. Of equal qualities, the live
pig will draw from a halfpenny to a penny a
pound more than in carcass. Feeders of pigs
should be careful on wKat they feed their pigs,
especially fish. The retail butchers are such
nice judges of pork, that on buying a carcass
at Newgate or Leadenhall market, and cutting
a slice, they can detect the least peculiarity in
taste, which, if they do, they will return it again,
and cause the carcass to be resold for what it
will bring, rather than send any such pork to
their customers.

Cutting vp Meat. — The mode of cutting up
meat is more diversified even than the slaugh-
tering, almost every town having its own. But
as London is the great emporium of the export
meat trade of Scotland, the method of cutting
up meat in the metropolis should constitute the
particular study of the shippers of meat. To

MEAT.

MEAT.

acquire this necessary information, the ship-
pers should have a few of the most expert
butchers in London to slaughter and cut up
the carcasses of the various sorts of animals.
They should never consider themselves above
acquiring such information, when their own
interest will be benefited by its adoption.
Whether the London method of cutting up
meat is really the best of any, and we think it
is, it must be admitted that the London butchers
must have the most extensive and varied expe-
rience ; and any one has only to witness the
operation performed by expert London butchers
to be satisfied that they display great skill in their
art, and execute their work with the utmost pre-
cision. Indeed, the precision with which they di-
vide the diflferent qualities of meat from the same
carcass shows their thorough knowledge of the
qualities of meat; and the variety of prices
which diflferent parts of the same carcass fetch,
shows with what accuracy Ihey can gratify the
tastes of the various grades of their customers.
In practising this precision, they not only
make the best use of the carcass, but realize
the highest value for it, and at the same lime
gratify the taste of the greatest number of cus-

Fip.l.

HUd-quarter.

1. Loin.

2. Rump.

3. Iich or ndze-bone

4. liiittock.

5. Hock.

6. Thick flank.

7. Thin flank.

8. Fore-rib.

Fore- Quarter.
9. Middle-rib.

10. Chnck-rib.

11. Brisket.

12. Leg of mutton piece.

13. CInd and. sticking and neck.

14. Shin.

15. Leg.

Bind- Quarter.

1. Sirloin or back-sye.

2. Hock-bone.

S. Buttock. ")_

4. Large round. I ^'"'"P-

5. Small round.

6. Hough.

7. Thick flank.

8. Thin flank.

9. Nine holes.

Fore-Quarter.

10. Large runner.

11. Small runner.

12. Spare-rib, or fore-sye,

13. Brisket.

14. Shoulder Iyer.

15. Nap or shin. .

16. Neck.

17. Sticking piece.

tomers. In the carcass of any animal, an ox,
for instance, there are difl!erent qualities of
meat, and these qualities are situated in different
parts of the carcass. All the best parts are in
London used for roasting and steaks, and the
inferior for boiling, either in pieces, or making
stock for soups, or minced meat, in the various
forms of pies, sausages, &c.

The carcass of an ox is cut up into the fol-
lowing pieces, as may be seen on referring to
the numbers on the annexed cut, /?g. 1.

The relative value of these different cuts of
an ox may be stated at their current value, viz.,
when the rumps, loins, and fore-ribs of a fine
ox fetch Sd. a pound, the thick flank, buttock,
and middle rib will fetch 6H.; the itch or adze-
bone, thin flank, chuck rib, brisket, and leg of
mutton piece, 5r/. ; the clod and sticking, and
neck, 3(/.; and the legs and shins, 2</. a pound.
Such is the difference in value of the different
cuts of an ox in the meal markets in London.
As an object of comparison, we shall also
give a figure of an ox cut up in the Edinburgh
method, as in fii:. 2, and the great difference
between both methods may be seen at a glance.
See cuts.

It is therefore obvious that, of the
two methods of cutting up beef, the
London affords much more of roast-
ing and steak, that is, the more valu-
able pieces, out of the same carcass;
and, of course, more money would
thereby be realized from it.

Much of what we have said on the
management requisite in sending
beef to the London market will ap-
ply equally to sending mutton, veal,
or Iamb to the same market. The
best pieces only should be sent to
London, and the remainder kept for
the home market: and were this re-
commendation attended to, the ex-
pense of exportation would be dimi-
nished on what was sent; for the best
pieces would pack well together in a
comparatively small space, where-
as whole carcasses of mutton, by the
roundness of the rib, occupy much
unnecessary room, for which freight
must be paid.

Mutton is also cut up differently in
London and Scotland, as may be seen
on referring to the figures at the top
of next page, of which the first repre-
sents the London method.

In the fore-quarter. No. 1 is the
shoulder, 2 and 2 the neck, after the
shoulder has been taken off", and 3 the
breast; and in the hind-quarter, 4 is
the loin, which, when cut double, that
is, partly from both sides of the car-
cass, is called a chine or saddle, and
5 is the leg. A leg of mutton in Lon-
don is cut short; a haunch is cut long,
taking in the hook-bone, similar to a
haunch of venison. The flap of the loin
is left attached to that part of the fore-
quarter called the breast. The Scotch
mode of cutting up mutton is repre-
sented hy Jig. 2, in which, in the hind-
quarter, No. 1 is the gigot, and 2 the
803

MEAT.

MEAT.

loin ; and in the fore, 3 the back ribs, and 4
the breast and shoulders. The gigot is cut
about half-way between the leg and haunch of
the London method ; and the fore-quarter is
cut right through the shoulders in two places,
called back-ribs and breast. Shoulders of
mutton are never cut off in Scotland before
being cooked, except by keepers of eating-
houses ; but the London plan of cutting mutton
is decidedly the best, the shoulder forming an
excellent roast, and the best end of the neck-
piece being admirably suited for chops.

The different joints of mutton vary almost
as much in price in London as pieces of beef.
The leg is sometimes sold as high as lOr/. a
pound, whilst the breast of the same sheep will
only fetch 4r/. or 5d. ; and if, in the wholesale
market, the whole carcass is sold at 6r/. a pound,
the hind-quarter will be worth 7d. and the fore
only 5(i. From these facts it is obvious, that it is
the interestof the shipper only to send hind-quar-
ters of mutton to London, for which 7d. a pound
may be easily obtained, and a ready market for
them in the west-end butchers, who seldom
deal in fore-quarters. The fore-quarters could
be sold at home; hence realizing as much for
them as they could fetch in London, besides
saving on them the freight, commission, and
wharfage. They form excellent joints for trades-
men's families, and are, in fact, generally pre-
ferred by them to the hind-quarters, which are
considered dry eating, and certainly do not
make so good broth as the fore-quarter. Be-
sides the saving of room in packing the hind-
quarters, they would run no risk of being
stained when sent by themselves, as the stain-
ing generally arises from blood oozing out of
the veins in the fore-quarter.

Lamb is cut up in London in much the same
manner as mutton, excepting that the neck and
breast, when the shoulder is taken off, is roast-
ed whole, and the piece is called ribs of lamb.
In Scotland lamb is cut up exactly as mutton.

Veal is cut up in London in a different way
from any other meat. The knife is drawn be-
tween the buttock and itch-bone, and through
the pope's eye, taking a sloping direction
through the coarse end of the buttock, leaving
a flap. The piece thus cut out is called a fillet
804

of veal. It is like a round of beef with a part
of the thin flank left to be skewered around it.
The round bone is taken out, and stutfing put
into its place. When the itch-bone and hook-
bone are cut from the loin, the piece is called
a chump of veal. The hind-quarter of veal
thus consists of fillet, chump, loin, and leg.
The fore-quarter is cut in the same manner as
mutton, having shoulder, breast, andneck. In
Scotland, veal is cut very much like mutton.

The London mode of cutting up pork is the
same as the Scotch mode of cutting up mutton,
so fig. 2 will illustrate the mode; in which, in
the hind*quarter, No. 1 is the leg, and 2 is the
loin; in the fore, 3, back-rib, chine, or hand;
and 4, breast and shoulders, spring or belly.
The spring is used for pickling, and the hand
for roasting, and for chops, or sausages. In
Scotland, the hind-quarter consists of leg and
loin, and the fore of back-ribs and breast. For
pickling or roasting, pork is cut in the hind-
quarter like that of English mutton, and in the
fore like that of Scotch. In both countries,
the ham is cut out alike. (Do7wvan's Dnm.
Econ. ; Quart. Jour, ofjgr. vol. iii. p. 24 1—28 1 .)
See CATTtK and Salting.

MEDICK {Mcdicago). An extensive genus
of herbaceous, mostly procumbent, plants. The
perennial herbaceous species are sometimes
cultivated for ornament; they will grow in any
common garden soil, and are increased by di-
viding the roots of the plants in spring. The
shrubby kinds grow in a similar soil,' and are
readily increased by cuttings. The seeds of
the annual species require to be sown in the
open border in spring. There are six indige-
nous species.

1. Purple medick, or lucem (Tlf.sa/a'a). See
LucEnx.

2. Yellow sickle medick, or button-jags {M.
falcata). This perennial species grows on dry,
gravelly banks and old Avails. The root is long
and woody. In habit it very closely resembles
lucern, but the numerous stems are procum-
bent, spreading every way, hairy. The liow-
ers, which blow in June and July, are generally
pale-yellow, but occasionally violet, and more
frequently green, evidently from a combina-
tion of these two colours. The legumes are
black, downy, sickle-shaped, not twisted in
a screw, as in lucern. This species is, per-
haps, as good fodder as lucern, though less
succulent, and, from its position, less accessi-
ble to the scythe. It withstands severe winters
better than lucern, and is eaten eagerly by
cattle and horses, though its stalks are hard
and woody.

3. Black trefoil medick, or nonsuch {M. In-
pulina). This annual species is, in England,
very common in meadow pastures and culti-
vated fields, where it flowers from May till
August. The black medick has the habit of
some of the procumbent yellow trefoils, and
has such general resemblance to the proper
trefoils or clovers, that it is often mistaken for
some of the smaller species. The form and
colour of the seed-pods afford a ready distinc-
tion. The root is tapering, and somewhat
fibrous. Flowers small, yellow, from 30 to 40
and upwards in each spike, which is at first
roundish, afterwards ovate. Legumes kidney-

MEDLAR.

MELILOT, COMMON.

shaped, rugged and veiny, single-seeded, turn-
ing black when ripe. Sir J. E. Smith speaks
of this as " one of the most valuable of artifi-
cial grasses, affording excellent fodder for
sheep ;" but this good opinion is hardly borne
out by experience, for, though Arthur Young
makes favourable mention of it, Sinclair, in
his more recent experiments on the grasses,
observes that it is only fit for light soils, and
these must be deep, as the root penetrates to a
considerable depth. It does not appear to be
fit for separate cultivation, nor even to be em-
ployed in any large proportion in a mixture of
other seeds ; and the root being annual, its use is,
therefore, confined to the alternate husbandry.

4. Spotted medick (M. maculata). This is
another annual species, growing on a gravelly
soil in the southern parts of England. The
root is fibrous, beset with little fleshy knobs.
Stems prostrate, various in length. Leaflets
inversely heart-shaped, spotted. Stipules di-
lated, sharply toothed. Flowers yellow, rather
small, two or three together. Legumes spiral,
depressed, fringed with long spreading bristles;
when ripe, brown, not black. This has been
mentioned, but not much recommended as a
fodder for cattle.

5. Flat-toothed medick {M. muricata). This
is a doubtful native, growing on the sea-coast.
It is an annual, and flowers in June and July.

6. Little bur medick {M. minima). This is a
little prostrate annual species, growing in sandy
fields, but rare, clothed in every part with fine,
soft, rather silky hairs.

MEDLAR (Mespilus). A genus of large-
growing fruit trees, which are very ornamental,
and therefore worth a place in every shrub-
bery. Any common soil suits them, and they
are readily increased by budding or grafting
on the common hawthorn, or they may be in-
creased by seeds, which do not vegetate till the
second year.

The common medlar (M. Germanica) is indi-
genous, growing wild in hed'^es. The branches
of this tree are spreading, and thorny in a wild
state ; but the thorns disappear by culture, and
are not to be seen in gardens. Leaves decidu-
ous, lanceolate, 4 or 5 inches long, a little
downy. Flowers solitary, nearly sessile, ter-
minal, large, with white undulated petals, in-
odorous. Styles 5. Fruit depressed, con-
cave at the top, somewhat hairy; austere, not
eatable till it is mellowed by keeping. Culti-
vation has produced many varieties, differing
in size and flavour. The Dutch medlar is the
finest as to size, and the Nottingham the most
delicate in flavour.

The wood, being hard and tough, resembling
that of the pear tree, is useful for various do-
mestic vessels, as well as for the smaller im-
plements of husbandry.

MEDULLA, or MEDULLIN (Lat.) Marrow.
In botany that tissue which constitutes the
pith of certain plants, as the pith of the sun-
flower. Medullary rays are the vertical plates
of cellular tissue, which radiate from the centre
of the stem of exogenous plants, through the
wood to the bark. They cause that appearance
in timber which carpenters call silver grain,
or flower of the wood. The medullary sheath is
a thin layer of vessels, which surround the

pulp of exogenous plants, and thence extend
into the leaves and parts of fructification.

MELIC-GRASS (Meliia, from mel, honey ; the
Italian name of the great millet). A genus of
perennied harsh grasses, with slender, oblong
panicles of elegant, often drooping, flowers,
greatly varied in the different species. There
are, in England, three indigenous species.
1. Wood melic-grass (AT. unijiora). 2. Moun-
tain melic-grass (M. nutans), found in the
mountains of England and Scotland. 3. Pur-
ple melic-grass (M. cetndea).

For the purpose of pasture or hay, these
grasses are comparatively of no value. The
country people make of the lough straws a
neat kind of besoms, which they sell to the
neighbouring inhabitants as a cheap, and no
despicable substitute, for hair brooms: they
are even made into baskets where better mate-
rials are rare. Mr. George Sinclair made some
experiments on an exotic species, the fringed
or ciliated melic-grass (M. ciliata), which grows
wild in Germany on hilly grounds, downs, and
by the margins of woods; but the result of his
observations only went to prove that it was
one of the inferior grasses with respect to
produce, nutritive qualities, and reproductive
powers.

MELILOT, COMMON, Melilot Trefoil,
King's clover, Hart's clover. PI. 10, 6. {Trifo-
lium officinale.) This plant is very nearly allied
to the long-rooted clover: the tapering root,
however, appears to be strictly annual. The
lower leaves are oblong, wedge-shaped ; the
upper ones elliptical : they are more serrate,
and smaller in every respect than those of the
long-rooted clover. The flowers are smaller
and more drooping. The legume contains
often more than two seeds, which is seldom or
never the case in the long-rooted clover.

In England the common melilot grows wild
in thickets, hedges, and the borders of fields,
sometimes among com. Stem 2 or 3 feet high,
erect. Clusters unilateral, 2 inches or more
in length, on long axillary footstalks. Flowers
numerous, all drooping towards one side, of a
full yellow, veiny. Stipules awl-shaped. Le-
gumes prominent, acute, transversely wrinkled,
hairy.

All the species of live-stock are said to eat
this clover. Thfe whole plant in drying acquires
a scent like new hay, but far stronger. The
seeds, when mixed with bread-corn, give it a
nauseous flavour. This plant, or a variety of
it, is used in making the Swiss cheese called
schabzieger. It is ground in a mill, and mixed
with the curd into a kind of paste, which is
put into conical moulds, and there dried. See

SCHABZIEGF.R.

From the experience of Sinclair and others,
this plant appears to be very much inferior to
the long-rooted clover, and cannot be put to
any use for which that species is not equally
good or superior : it grows chiefly in clayey
soils. In very exposed situations it attains
only to a small size; while in such as are
sheltered it sometimes reaches to the height of
six feet. It ripens an abundance of seed, and
flowers in the third or last week of Jane.
Melilot is out of use in medicine, though it
served too long to give a green colour and an
3 Y 805

MELILOTUS.

MELON CULTURE.

odious scent to a sort of blister plaster, called
by its name, of no use whatever.

MELILOTUS (Lat. met, honey, and lotus, a
leguminous plant). The plants are similar to
the lotus, and are the favourite haunt of bees.
These are, for the most part, honey-scented
plants, with upright stems, and long erect
racemes of small yellow or white flowers, re-
sembling those of clover, of which they were
formerly considered distinct species. In some
parts of Europe two or three varieties are cul-
tivated as annual fodder plants.

The Melilotus leucantha major is the celebrated
Bohkara Tree Clover, a plant which Mr. Robert
Arthur, of Edinburgh, says, "claims a place in
every flower-garden, for its beauty. It is an
herbaceous plant of very striking appearance,
10 or 12 feet in height, covered wiih spikes of
white pea-blossoms, which also shed a sweet
perfume. Hence it is sometimes called Sweet
Flowering Clover.

"I esteem iis value in agriculture of greater
importance. The objections to its cultivation
are, that cattle give a preference to other green
food, and that the stem contains too much
woody fibre. The plant, however, is new to
Britain, and we know that man and animals
frequently require successive trials of new
food before taste is acquired for it. As a proof
of this, I understand that some cattle are get-
ting very fond of this clover ; and we know
that the tissue of plants in general is changed
more and more into woody fibre as they pro-
gress towards maturity. Nature increases the
woody fibre of this clover for support as it
elongates its gigantic stem. If, however, it is
cut for cattle, when about 2 feet in height, it
will be found nearly as succulent as the com-
mon red clover.

"I exhibited plants of it at the Highland So-
ciety's show, last September, 9 feet in height,
being the second crop of it that season, from
poor sandy land. I know no plant whatever
that will produce so much weight of vegetable
matter in equal time and space ; and were it
only for the production of vegetable manure, it
is a boon to the agricultural world. In my ex-
periments with it last summer, as a manure,
for new varieties of Alsike (1) Clover, I found
it the very best and cheapest manure.

"In the economical formation of manure, it
might be liberally supplied, with other food,
throughout the summer, to young cattle and
pigs, in an open straw-yard profusely bedded
over with layers of turf, peat-earth, whins,
broom, brushwood, ferns, straw, weeds, &c.,
and thus save much outlay on the purchase of
foreign manures.

" The Bokhara Clover may be sown at any
time throughout the growing season; but the
most profitable time to sow it is immediately
after a crop of early potatoes, or even after
grass, barley, wheat, &c. The land being well
manured, ploughed over, and harrowed smooth,
it may be sown in shallow drills 18 inches
apart; being cut once in autumn, it will pro-
duce a much earlier spring crop than tares,
Italian rye-grass, &c. It should always be cut
very close to the ground, as the shoots pro-
duced from beneath the surface are the most
luxuriant, and it will thus stand a severe win-
806

ter much better than when its vitality is ex-
posed on long stubble. Treated in this way
with me, it stood two successive winters, and
acquired all the (jharacteristics of a perennial
root. I have no doubt of its continuing pe-
rennial and more vigorous with the age of the
plants, if only cut close in autumn, and top-
dressed with rich compost."

Mr. James Gowen, who resides at Mount
Airy, near Philadelphia, has been much in the
practice of keeping up a considerable stock of
uncommonly fine cattle, and soiling them in
summer upon lucern, rye, and red clover.
He has raised patches of the melilotus, and
from his observation says, " there is no grass
or plant I have yet seen that afibrds to me such
promise as the Sweet-scented or Bokhara
Clover." (Cultivator, Nov. 1842.)

MELON, THE COMMON, or MUSK (Cm-
ciimis melo). An herbaceous, succulent, climb-
ing, or trailing annual, cultivated for its fruit
in hot eastern countries from time immemorial.
The varieties of the melon are numerous ; yet
few of them comparatively are worthy of cul-
tivation in England. The larger varieties espe-
cially are deficient in flavour and richness.
Mr. Knight says, that whoever is acquainted
with the green-fleshed, and Salonica, or white-
fleshed, will cultivate no other.

The cantaleups are varieties characterized
by their rinds being universally covered with
reticulations. With the exception of the green,
or oblong-ribbed, these bear round fruit, more
or less approaching a flattened spheroid. Their
common name is derived from that of one of
the country-seats of the pope, where they are
much cultivated.

MELON CULTURE. The warm summers
of the Southern and most of the Middle States,
are highly favourable to the culture of melons
of every description, which in some places
constitute a very profitable crop. The follow-
ing communication relative to the culture of
the musk melon or cantaleup, addressed to the
Editor of the Cultivator, hy T. G. Bergen, a per-
son well versed in the business, will show how
this is managed on Long Island, for the New
York market:

The kind which we at present cultivate,
says Mr. Bergen, and with which the New
York market is principally supplied, is known
among us by the name of Skillman melons,
They average about 6 inches in diameter, are
nearly round, have a rough skin, and their
flesh is of a green colour. This is the sixth
variety which has been in vogue during my
recollection, and the finest of tHem all. The
seed from which all these varieties originated,
I believe to have been imported from the coasts
of the Mediterranean. They soon degenerate
unless care is taken in the selection of the
seed. We prefer for melons a rich sandy soil,
and on this they flourish better than on any
other, and are not so liable to speck in rainy
weather. When planted on a red clover sod I
have seldom failed having a good crop; but
when this is not to be had, we prefer preparing
the ground by sowing with rye in August or
September of the preceding year, as described
in my former communication on the cultiva-
I tion of cucumbers : the ground is also pre-

MELON PUMPKIN.

METEOROLOGY.

pared in a similar manner in the spring,
except that the hills are furrowed 5 feet apart,
and the same kind and quantity of manure
made use of.

We generally commence planting about a
week later than we do cucumbers, but occa-
sionally at the same time, dropping from 20 to
30 seeds into a hill, and covering them about
an inch deep with fine soil. Eight or 10 days
after putting in the first seed we commence
planting over, which we seldom perform the
second lime, unless by examination we find the
first seed about to fail. The seed of melons
is not so liable to rot as that of cucumbers, but
long storms are very apt to destroy the young
plants, and they will even produce great injury
when the plants have vined from off the hills.
In 1837, a succession of wet weather caused
the ends of the principal part of the melon-
vines in our vicinity to die as late as the 8th
of July; but mine fortunately did not suffer as
much as those of my neighbours. We cuhi-
vate the plants in the same manner as cucum-
bers, except that in hoeing it is generally ne-
cessary to remove a small portion of the soil
from between them, in consequence of their
being too short to admit of the young weeds
being covered without injury to the plants.
We gradually thin them down to 4 in a hill,
standing from 5 to 6 inches apart. The plants
are liable to the depredations of the same spe-
cies of insects which prey upon cucumbers,
and they are destroyed in the same manner.

Melon vines are in bearing from 5 to 6
weeks ; whenever a drought occurs, this period
is much less, for that of 1838 finished mine in
4 weeks. They often bear a second crop,
Avhich answers for pickling, but I have known
this crop to come to perfection.

When the fruit is ripe, it requires to be
gathered every day, otherwise there would be
large quantities lost in consequence of be-
coming too ripe and soft. When ripe, they
have a yellowish colour; but such as are
cracked around the stem and come off easily
from the vines, we always gather, for they will
be fit for eating by the next day, when sold in
the markets.
' To insure good crops, melons should not be
planted two years in succession on the same
ground ; they require a rotation. Marshall, an
English writer, recommends the carrying of
cucumber and melon seeds a week or two in
the breeches pockets previous to planting, to
dry away some of the more watery particles :
were we believers of this doctrine, it would be
a difficult matter, and require large pockets or
a regiment of small ones to carry it into prac-
tice, since some of us, to ^cure our crops,
plant from 3 to 4 bushels of seed in a season.

The following is the number of hills planted,
produce (large quantities of unsaleable ones
fed to the hogs excepted), and amount of sales
for the preceding 4 years : viz.

Year,

Hills planted.

Biuihelo told.

Amount received.

1835

6.664

1,133

#939 10

1836

- 7,850

661

590 57

1837

8,011

990

913 56

1838

- 7,590

823

713 96

MELON PUMPKIN, or SQUASH (Cucur-
hita jnelopepo). See SQ,UA8a.

MELON, WATER (Cucumis dfrvllus). A
plant well known in the United States for its
delicious and refreshing fruit. To acquire the
greatest perfection it demands a warm and
sandy soil, and this it finds in New Jersey, and
more Southern States, where the water-melon
is extensively cultivated. There are several
varieties, such as the long and striped Caro-
lina, the more round and dark-skinned Spanish,
&c. In some parts of southern Russia, a kind
of beer is brewed from their very abundant
and cheap water-melons, with the addition of
hops: they also prepare a conserve or marmo-
lade from this fruit, which is a good substitute
for syrup or molasses.

MENDING. A country term used to signify
the improving the quality or texture of land by
the application of manure.

MERCURY (MercuriuUs). These are re-
garded as mere weeds, possessing narcotic,
fetid, and dangerous qualities.

MERINO SHEEP. See Sheep.

MESLIN. A term applied in New England
to the crop of peas and oats when sown to-
gether

MESLIN-CORN. A term applied to wheat
and rye produced in a state of moisture.

METEOROLOGY. The science of meteors,
or the science which explains the various phe-
nomena which have their origin in the atmo-
sphere. Under the term meteorology, it is now
usual to include not merely the observation of
the accidental phenomena to which the name
of meteor is applied, but every terrestrial as
well as atmospherical phenomenon, whether
accidental or permanent, depending on the ac-
tion of heat, light, electricity, and magnetism.'
In this extended signification, meteorology
comprehends climatology, and the greater part
of physical geography; and its object is to de-
termine the diversified and incessantly chang-
ing influences of the four great agents of na-
ture now named, on land, in the sea, and in the
atmosphere. It is the object of meteorology to
investigate and discover the modes of opera-
tion, and the causes instrumental, as well as
final, of the multitude of interesting phenomena
which exercise an influence on the animal and
vegetable kingdoms. To this science belongs
the examination of the force of radiation from
the sun, or the temperature directly produced
by his beams; the inquiry into the constitu-
tion, mechanical as well as chemical, of that
intimate intermixture of gaseous bodies which
is the subject of what are called atmospheric
changes; the scrutiny of the laws governing
the variations of climate; that also of those
which regulate the diminution of heat in the
atmosphere, in proportion to the altitude; the
developement of the principles determining the
quantity.and state of the aqueous portion of the
atmosphere ; and the acquirement of know-
ledge, in short, on every subject of science
presented by the atmosphere itself, or by its
modes of relation to the aqueous and mineral
kingdoms, and the general laws of its influence
on organized matter. This branch of natural
history also comprehends the examination of
two great series of phenomena, not strictly
comprised by the foregoing enumeration; by
which, on the one side, its boundaries are

807

METEORS.

MIGNONETTE.

united with those of physical geography, and
on the other side with those of astronomy.
The temperature of the interior of the earth it-
self, and that of the ocean, as well at the sur-
face as at every accessible depth — subjects of
the greatest interest, with respect not only to
the present state of the earth, but also to its
former physical condition — are so intimately
connected with the temperature and other af-
fections of the atmosphere, that the study of
them becomes, in fact, a department of mete-
orology. And the various kinds of luminous
and igneous meteors which appear within the
atmosphere, though some of them originate, in
all probability, in distant regions of the solar
system, — such as the zodiacal light, the polar
lights, or aurora borealis and australis; the
meteors called shooting stars, and the stupen-
dous masses of matter in combustion called^^rc-
ballsy which cast down upon earth immense
blocks of red-hot iron, or showers of heated
stones, — constitute another wide field of mete-
orological inquiry. This interesting branch of
science must ever command the especial con-
sideration of the shepherd, the farmer, and the
cultivator of the soil in general.

METEORS. A name given to any pheno-
mena of a transitory nature originating in the
atmosphere. Meteors are of various kinds:
some are produced simply by a disturbance of
the equilibrium of the atmospheric fluid, and
are called aerial vieteors; such are Winds,
WHinLWTNDS, &c. A second class arise from
the deposition of the aqueous particles which
the atmosphere holds in solution, and which
are precipitated in consequence of a dimi-
nution of pressure or temperature, sometimes
in a fluid and sometimes in a concrete form.
These are called aqueous meteors, sls Dew, Fogs,
Hail, Rain, Snow, Vapour, &c. A third class
of meteors or atmospheric phenomena are
caused by the action of the aqueous particles
dispersed in the atmosphere, or the rays of
light. These are called luminous meteors, and
comprise fata morgana, halo, mirage, parhelia,
the rainbow, &c. A fourth class are the igne-
ous meteors, comprehending those which present
the phenomena distinctive of combustion.
See Aerolite, Northern Lights, Lightning,
Shooting Stabs, &c.

METHEGLIN (Germ, meth, mesid). A be-
verage made of honey and water, fermented by
the addition of yeast. See Mead.

MEZEREON, or SPURGE OLIVE (Daphne
mezereum). This is a pretty shrub, indigenous
to England, where it grows wild in woods, but
is not common. The stem is bushy, 4 or 5
feet high, with upright, alternate, smooth,
tough, and pliant branches ; leafy while young.
The flowers are pale garnet-coloured, highly,
and to many persons too powerfully fragrant,
seated in little tufts on the smaller branches.
The scarlet berries, which are the favourite
food of some species of finch (Loxia) are poi-
sonous to many animals. There are varieties
with pink and white flowers ; and the berries
also vary to a yellow or orange hue. The
bark of the root is employed in medicine. It
is excitant and sudorific. The active principle
is a fixed acrid aloe resin. See Spurge
Laurel.
808

MICA. A well-known mineral, with a pearly,
metallic lustre, consisting of extremely thin, elas-
tic plates or layers somewhat resembling glass.
The largest sheets are brought from Siberia,
and used instead of glass, especially to enclose
fire where it is desirable to see the flame, as in
stoves, &c. Mica enters into the composition
of granite. Its specific gravity is 2-65. When
analyzed it is shown to contain potash, mag-
nesia, silica, oxide of iron, with other ingre-
dients of well-known fertilizing properties.
(See Geology.) Hence, where any of these
are deficient in soils, the application of mica
must be advantageous.

MICE (Mus). A very destructive sort of
vermin to many of the cultivator's growing
and housed crops, and which should, therefore,
be destroyed as soon as possible. Cats, dogs,
owls, snakes, and hedge-hogs are the natural
enemies of rats and mice, and should, therefore,
be encouraged about the farm.

To destroy Rats and Mice in Corn Stacks. — The
following method was adopted by the late Mr.
John Gibson, of Millbeck Hall, Keswick, and is
still continued by his son, Mr. Joseph Gibson,
of the same place, with never-failing success.
It is accomplished by simply driving in a few
hedge-stakes, at about 4 feet distance, round the
stack intended to be housed, and having a
woollen or linen web, of about 6-4ths or 7-4ths
wide, upon the stakes, so as to be perfectly close
at the bottom, of which particular care must
be taken, in order that none of the vermin may
creep under the folds. It is certain that none
will attempt to climb over the top, and it mat-
ters not whether there are fifty or a hundred
within the enclosed area, they will be quite
safe. An active lad and a dog may easily de-
stroy any number, and he must be a clumsy
fellow if he lose one in a hundred. A few
neighbours, by subscribing about 2s. 6d. each,
might get an article at lOd. a yard that would
serve them all for about 20 years. If the
above simple method were generally adopted
for a short time, those destructive enemies to
the stack-yard would soon be considerably re-
duced. A correspondent of the Mark Lane Ex'%
press suggests the following plan for the de-
struction of these obnoxious vermin. Feed
with flour and a few sweet almonds bruised
and mixed together with a small quantity of
treacle, to form a paste (add a few drops of oil
of aniseed), for 5 or 6 nights, until they take
it freely, never laying more of the mixture than
they will eat up clean ; then add a teaspoonful
of carbonate of barytes to about a pound of the
paste. I prefer the barytes to arsenic, it being
free from the sour taste of the arsenic, which the
rats will never taice a second time. By using
the above composition, 1 have kept my pre-
mises clear, without employing a rat-catcher,
at the expense of a few shillings a year.

MID-RIB. In botany, the middle vein of a
leaf, which passes from the petiole to the apex.

MIGNONETTE (Beseda, to calm or ap-
pease; the Latins considered its application
useful in external bruises). The sweet migno-
nette (R. odorata) is an old and universal fa-
vourite, on account of the very pleasant odour
emitted by the flowers. Though usually an-
nual, by care in a green-house and constantly

MILDEW.

MILDEW.

pruning, the cultivated mignonette may be
rendered perennial, and even shrubby.

MILDEW, or RUST. Of all the many dis-
eases which attack our cultivated plants, not
one is so destructive as the mildew. It is the
" plague" of our wheat crops ; and as that fatal
distemper is always lurking in some district
of climes warmer than our own, so the mil-
dew is always in our fields, waiting for cir-
cumstances favourable to its outspread, and
ready to destroy the expected harvest of the
husbandman. So constantly present is this
destructive disorder, that in the fairest fields
of wheat grown in the richest corn districts of
England, and in the most genial years, I never
saw a single acre entirely uninfected. Every
year the farmer is more or less injured by this
disease, for the produce of each acre of wheat
is unquestionably reduced annually several
bushels. Yet those who suffer most by the loss,
the farmers themselves, are almost universally
ignorant of the fact; and their attention is
rarely arrested by it till a year occurs in which
their crop of wheat is nearly annihilated.

lis prevailing injurious nature was well
known in an age as distant as that of the He-
brews ; and it had not spared the Greeks and
Romans. Even the poets, as Horace in his
Odes, speak of it as the "sterile Rubigo" (Car-
min. lib. 3, ode 23) ; and warning voices have
not been since wanting to speak loudly of its
ravages. Mr. Marshall says, " a certain pre-
ventive of tbe mildew would be a discovery
worth millions to this country;" and many others
have coincided in this estimate of its injuries.

This disease is known to be the effect pro-
duced by a minute fungus belonging to a genus
closely allied to that which causes the smut.
The roots of this fungus penetrate the vessels
of the plant, and are nourished by the sap in-
tended for perfecting its seed ; consequently,
if the fungi are so numerous in each stem as
to make it a marked " mildew year," the grain
is either partially or totally shrivelled, owing
to the roots of these parasites intercepting the
sap in its upward passage.

The ignorance relative to this disease is not
a consequence of its novelty, since it has been
known and dreaded in the earliest ages to
which our knowledge extends. Thus, when
God held out as a warning to the Israelites the
afflictions he would bring on them if disobe-
dient, he enumerated the pestilence and the
sword to destroy their persons, "with blasting
and with mildew," to lay waste their fields {Deuf.
xxviii. 22; 1 Kings vi'ii. 37; 2 Chron. vi. 28) ;
and when the same Almighty Being had pu-
nished that rebellious people, he reminded
them by his prophet ; "I have smitten you with
blasting and mildew ; when your gardens ami
your vineyards, and your fig trees, and your
olive trees increased, the palmer-worm de-
stroyed them." {Jmos iv.9.) "I smote you
with blasting, and with mildew, and with hail,
in all the labours of your hands." {Haggai ii.
17.) The Hebrews called it ynrcoon, implying
a yellow pallidness arising from moisture. To
the Greeks it was known as erusibe, i^vnCu ; and
Theophrastus, who wrote his History of Plants
about 320 years before the Christian era, ob- ■
serves (lib. viii. c. 10) rhat it occurs more
102

frequently to corn than to pulse ; that in the
climate of Greece barley was more subject to
it than wheat, and particularly a variety then
known as achdlum barley. Experience had
taught them, that the crops on high lying lands
were seldom attacked by this disease ; but that
the hollows surrounded by hills, where winds
could not get at the crops they bore, were most
frequently infected. It is chiefly generated,
concludes Theophrastus, during the full moon.

By the Romans, the mildew was denominated
^'rubigo.'" Pliny informs us, in his History of
Plants (lib. vii. c. 28 and 29), that it was the
prevailing opinion that this disease arises from
certain dews settling upon the corn, and obtain-
ing a caustic or burning quality from the in-
tense heat of the sun. This naturalist himself
thought, on the contrary, that the disease arises
from cold, considering that infection first occurs
during the sun, and always about the new or
full moon. Pliny, and the still later writers
of the Geoponica (for this work is composed of
fragments of Roman writers living after the
removal of the seat of empire to Constantino-
ple, though written in the Greek language),
considered that the best remedies were* stink-
ing pungent smokes; hence they recommended
fish, horns, goat's dung, &c., to be burned on
such side of the field as would enable the
wind to diffuse the smoke over and throughout
the crop. They evidently had the same pre-
judice as is now entertained by our own farm-
ers, that the mists which frequently prevail
during midday in the hottest periods of sum-
mer are the cause of the mildew; for they
direct those fumigations to be performed at
such time as it is seen in the atmosphere.
They also thought that if branches of the laurel
were fixed among their corn, the mildew would
pass from the crops to those branches. (Geo-
pan. lib. v. c. 33 ; Plinii Hist. Plant, lib. xvii. c.
17, &c.) One of their practices recommended
is much more rational, namely, to bruise the
leaves or roots of the colocynth, to macerate
these in water, and, before the sun has risen,
to sprinkle the infected crop with the liquor
thus obtained. It is possible that the juice of
the colocynth, which is a violent purgative to the
human system, may be destructive to the fungus
constituting the disease. It approaches to that
which, in modern times, has been found the
only effectual curative treatment; and the di-
rection that the application should be perform-
ed in the morning evinces that it was a direction
suggested and confirmed by experience. Co-
lumella (lib. ii. c. 12) says, that hoeing corn
during wet weather is apt to induce mildew.

Some modern writers have considered that
the rubigo of the Romans is the disease known
to us as the smut ; but, independent of the
name, which evidently referred to the red or
rusty hue of the disease, and which is not a
characteristic of the last-named disorder, we
have the direct testimony of Virgil (Geoi: I.
150), that the rubigo was a disease of the straw;
his words are, *' Mox et frumentis labor addi-
tus ; ut mala culmos esset rubigo, &c."

Horace (Carminum, lib. iii. ode xxiii.) and
Ovid (Fast. iv. 907) speak of the same vege-
table epidemic. The Greeks and Romans were
as conscious as the Hebrews of the destruction
3x2 809

MILDEW.

MILDEW.

it would inflict on their crops. They con-
si iered it as the instrument of vengeance di-
rected by a particular deity, to whom they ap-
plied the same appellation as to the disease
itself. (Schneider's Scriptorum Rei Rusticce, vol. i.
pt. ii. p. 246.) To propitiate this presiding
deity, a festival entitled Rubigalia, was institut-
ed by Numa in the eleventh year of his reign,
that is, 704 years before the birth of Christ. It
was celebrated annually on the 25th of April,
in the neighbourhood of a grove, at the fifth
milestone, on the Claudian Way, and comprised
sacrifices, races, and obscenities. Reddish-
coloured bitches {rufce canes) were sacrificed,
because the lesser dog-star was then in the
heavens, and was considered unpropitious to
corn. (Plinii Hist. Plant, lib. xviii. c. 29 ; Varii
Flacci Facti, p. 63.)

Ovid, who enters fully into the religious per-
formances of the festival, says, that the limbs
of a sheep and the entrails of a dog were
offered as a sacrifice on the occasion; and
that the priest informed him that he knew of
no reason for the latter animal being sacrificed,
but that its name coincided with that of the
constellation which at that season was appa-
rent in the sky. The prayer addressed by the
priest to the presiding deity marks so strongly
their knowledge of the extent and inducements
of the disease, that I shall give a nearly literal
translation of a part : —

*'0, blighting Rubigo, spare the corn-plants.
And let the ear wave gently o'er the surface of the

earth :
Suffer the crops which have been nourished by the

propitious
Stars of heaven, to grow until they become fit for the

sickle.
Thine is no small power; the crops thou hast marked
The dispirited cultivator reckons as lost.
Neither winds, nor showers, so much injure the corn ;
Neither when bitten by the frost does it acquire a hue

so pallid,
As if the sun fervently heats the moist stalks ;
Then, O! dread goddess, is the opportunity for thy

wrath; —
Be merciful, I pray, and withhold your rusting hands

from the crops ;
Nor harm the cultivated land : it is sufficient to be able

to do harm."

The misty weather, mistaken by the Roman
cultivators as actually a cloud of mildew, is
only one of many numerous instances which
might be quoted where causes of the disease
have been considered to be the disease itself.
To enumerate these would form a long cata-
logue of mistakes ; yet these I should not he-
sitate to detail, because the refutation would
incidentally introduce much useful informa-
tion, but that they will for the most part be
noticed among the circumstances which pro-
mote the occurrence and aid the progress of
this epidemic.

The first person, I believe, who correctly
pointed out the nature of mildew, was Felice
Fontana, who, in the year 1767, published at
Lucca a very particular description of the fun-
gus occasioning it, in a work entitled " Osser-
vazione sopra la Ritggine del Grano.''' Since then
it has engaged the attention of many botanists,
and the results of their researches have been
to establish it as a distinct species of fungus,
though they differ as to the genus to which
they attach it. It is the Puccinia p-aminis of
810

Persoon (Disp. t. 3, f. 3) ; and it is the Undofru-
menti of Sown-by.

In Plate 2 there is a representation of this
fungi, in which

/, is a portion of wheat-straw affected with
rust, magnified, to show the parasitic plant or
fungus, giving rise to the disease called rust,
blight, and mildew.

m, Another portion of a diseased stem in a
green state, and before the fungus is quite ripe,
w, The small portion marked 1 (1), still more
strongly magnified.

0, p, q, r, s, t, u, Very highly magnified repre-
sentations of the fungus parasite in different
stages of growth and maturity.

0, Shows it in the young state;;?, full-grown;
g, two plants bursting and shedding their seeds
when under water in the microscope ; r, two
plants bursting in a dry place ; s, apparently
abortive ; t, seeds in a dry state ; u, a small
part of the bottom of a pore, with some of the
parasitic fungi growing upon it.

Rust grows on the leaves and stems of wheat,
&c., appears in dense diffuse tufts, often con-
fluent, forming long, parallel lines on the culms ;
at first brownish-yellow, but changing to black.
Sporidia elongated, clavate, very slightly con-
stricted at the septum ; upper cell the shortest;
stipes filiform. It must not be confounded with
another parasitical fungus, which is common
upon the wheat-leaves and culms, but which is
not so injurious, namely, the Uredo rubigo, of De-
candolle (Flora Franca, vol. vi. p. 83). Charac-
terized by spots yellow ; heaps oval, scattered,
generally epiguous ; epidermis at length burst-
ing longitudinally; sporidia sub-globose, red-
brown, easily dispersed. If the straw of wheat
be examined with the assistance of a magnify-
ing glass, its striped surface will be seen to arise
from longitudinal partitions of the outer bark
or epidermis. The depressed partitions are
furnished throughout their length with 1 or 2
rows of pores or orifices, which seem capable
of emitting or imbibing moisture as the wants
of the plant may require. Similar pores,
though varying in form and arrangement, per-
vade the leaves and chaff, or glumes ; and it
is in these pores that the seeds of the parasiti-
cal Puccinia obtain admission, and, vegetating
in the cavities to which they lead, doubtless
thrust their minute roots into the cellular tex-
ture beneath the bark, and intercept for their
own nourishment that sap which should pro-
ceed to the grain for its developement and
completion. The corn necessarily becomes
shrivelled, proportionally as the fungi are more
or less numerous on the plant: and as it is the
nutriment that would have perfected the inte-
rior of the grain, which is chiefly extracted
by the fungi, for the exterior form is nearly
completed before the mildew occurs, the pro-
portion oi flour to bran is always much reduced.
Sir J. Banks observed, in 1804, which was a
"mildew year," that some of the wheat would
not yield from a sack so much as a stone of
flour.

Sir Humphry, then Mr. Davy, placed the
loss caused by this fungus beyond a doubt,
by chemical analysis. He fotand that 1000
parts of

MILDEW.

MILDEW.

Thin-skinnned Sicilian V Gluten, 239 7 qo, ,q

wheat afforded of - t Starch, 7^2 5 ^^ ''^

Middlesex wheat, ave-j Gluten, 190 ) „., .-

rage crop - - -I Starch, 765 j ^^^ *^

spring Wheat, - -{11^;?^?} 940 60

Mildewed wheat of 1S04 1 ^[JJ^J'J^J I 650 350
Mildewed wheatofl806|gjjjj^j'j2| I 210 790
Showing, in one instance, a loss of 31 per cent,
of flour in the mildewed when compared with
the average English wheat, and in the other of
nearly 74 per cent. (Elem. ofjgr. Chem. p. 150.)
Mr. W. Jones of Wilmington, Somerset, found
that wheat, partially mildewed, produced one-
fiffh less of flour than that not aflfected.

I have almost always been able to detect the
Puccinia upon the lower part of the culms,
generally on the shoot-blade (/o/m vaganans),
early in June; but it is not till the following
month that the season determines whether the
ravages of this fungus will be more than ordi-
narily extensive. Throughout July the English
farmer should scrupulously, and almost daily,
examine his wheat crop, especially that which
appears strongest and most luxuriant; and if
he detects any considerable number of tufts of
the fungus upon the stems, must lose no time
in using those curative measures which will
be detailed in the close of this article. If July
is hot and dry, it maybe concluded, without
much fear of disappointment, that there will
be but little injury incurred by the mildew.
The reason of this is very apparent ; for in
such a season no fungus will vegetate vigor-
ously. This order of plants invariably delights
and flourishes in a moist atnwsphere, and in a
subdued light, accompanied by gentle warmth.
A nmsgij season is the most expressive term to
describe that wherein the mildew vegetates
most rapidly. In such seasons likewise, it
unfortunately happens that the wheat plants
remain longest succulent, their pores expanded,
and their fibres relaxed; circumstances pecu-
liarly favourable to the admission of<4he seeds
of the fungus, to their vegetation, and to the
penetration of their roots. That it is in such
seasons the Puccinia vegetates most rapidly and
extensively, is supported by the observations
of others ; for, although they consider such a
season as the actual cause of the mildew, their
testimony is equally valuable, though from it
they have drawn erroneous conclusions. Thus,
M. Duhamel says, that the mildew is caused by
mild, hazy, or gloomy weather, while the com
is at the height of its vegetation ; that is, about
the time of its blooming. When a hot sun has
succeeded such weather, he observed the wheat
crops mildewed in a few days. He alwa)'s
observed wet springs very productive of this
disease ; but it rarely occurs in clear, dry, hot
years. One or two writers have given most
incomprehensible theories of the cause of
mildew.

Mr. R. Somerville concluded that the mildew
originates from the attacks of insects intro-
duced with the manure ; but he evidently in-
tended by his descriptions the minute acarus
(a species of louse), which is almost always
to be found upon decaying vegetable matter;
and in the cases of mildews, this insect is the
follower, not the introducer, of the disease.

The Abbe Rozier,in his ""Bictionary," observes'
that it is "caused by the drops of fog or dew,
dissipated by a hot sun ;" an opinion which is
the echo of Ovid's verses forming part of the
Flamen's prayer for the preservation of the
Roman crops from this disease —

" Quantum, si cuhnos Titan incalfacit udos ;
Tunc locus est irse Diva irenienda tux."

And such a season, as I have before observed,
has a damp atmosphere, which, above all other
states of the air, is favourable to the vegetation
of this Puccinia.' There is no doubt, also, that
in such seasons vegetables are more than ordi-
narily weak and prone to disease, in which
condition they are likely to become the prey
of parasitic plants. "The application of cold
water to the plant," says Mr. Knight, "on which
the sun is shining strongly, is very injurious to
its health, and therefore likely to give increased
activity to any disease to which the plant is
subject." This observation follows the detail
of an experiment, in which he found that
sprinkling wheat plants growing on ground
very dry, with cold water, in the afternoon of a
warm, bright day, caused them to be exten-
sively mildewed. "A considerable absorption,
therefore, probably took place ; and to this ab-
sorption," says he, "and the effects of a sudden
change of temperature, as secondary causes, I
am disposed to attribute the appearance of the
disease ; but whether the seeds of the mildew
were carried into the pores of the plants by the
water, or existed there before, is a question
which I shall not attempt to solve." {Banksy
On the Blight in Com, p. 30.) There is no dif-
ficulty in accounting whence the seeds of the
fungi came : for Mr. Knight records, in the
previous page, that other wheat plants close
by were extensively mildewed.

The observations of Mr. Marshall, which
were the results of long experience in many
counties in England, coincide with the preced-
ing opinions. "In a dry, warm summer," he
remarks, "which is well known to be favoura-
ble to the health, vigour, and productiveness
of the wheat crop, the seeds of the fungi are
harmless, so long as the fine weather continues.
On the contrary, in a cold, wet season, which
gives languor and weakness to the wheat
plants, few crops escape entirely. A succes-*
sion of cold rains, while the grain is forming,
is very inducive." Mr. Marshall previously
concludes that " The fungi' are an effect, not
the cause of the disease ;" an error which is
at once refuted by the fact, that if all the fungi
are removed from a plant, it is speedily cured.

Of other circumstances favourable or unfa-
vourable to the occurrence or exasperation of
mildew, little need be said, because they have
comparatively little influence upon its occur-
rence. All soils and situations are liable to
its incursions ; for it is, in the fullest sense of
the term, epidemic. The soil on which it ap-
pears the most rarely is a tenacious clay; and
that on which, when it does occur, its ravages
are the most extensive and destructive, is the
light, calcareous, and rich. "As far as my ob-
servations extend," says Mr. Egremont, " the
soils wherein clay predominates have yielded
crops the least affected by the mildew. The
soils most liable to have their crops injured,

811

MILDEW.

MILDEW.

particularly that of wheat, are the following,
and in the order stated : — Peat or moor, calca-
reous, calcareous loams, sand, sandy loams,
and another kind not found in any great
breadth, but' in patches, chiefly but not exclu-
sively in clayey soils. The practical farmer
calls it gray earth.''^ {Egremont's Obs. on the Mil-
detv, p. 93.)

'I'he slightly superior power of clayey soils
to protect the crop growing upon them from
being the most severely affected by the mil-
dew, probably arises from the temperature of
such soils being less liable than lighter ones
to sudden vicissitudes of temperature. Dr.
Uales found, in the month of August, when the
temperature of the air and of the surface of
the soil were 88°, that the temperature of the
.soil 16 inches below the surface was 70°. In
October, when the air and surface were at 35°,
the temperature at 16 inches beneath was 48°,
and at 24 inches 50°. This statement led me
to make a few experiments upon the compara-
tive rapidity of cooling, or, in other words, the
])ower of conducting heat of various soils; and
I invariably found, that the mercury in a ther-
mometer, whose bulb was buried equally deep
in a silicious, as those of others were in a cal-
careous and in an aluminous soil, rose most
rapidly, and that in the last-named most slowly.
Their rapidity of cooling followed the same
order. Some experiments substantiating the
same fact will be found in Sir H. Davy's ./^g-
ricuUural Chemistry, p. 179. Every gardener
knows the injury hi-s plants sustain from sud-
den viciss-itudes of temperature. "Whatever
has a tendency to check a quick and great loss
of heat in the substances which surround such
vegetables, particularly their roots, will be best
calculated to save them from that injury, and
from vegetable death ; consequently, those
earths which are the worst conductors of heat,
or, in other words, are the longest in heating
or cooling, will be most favourable in resisting
an)"- sudden alteration, and the vegetables
growing on them will be the least injured
when so assailed." {EgremonC s Observations on
the Mildew, p. 30.)

Situation appears to have rather more tute-
lary power than the soil, since I have invaria-
bly found the wheat growing in fields lying in
closely enclosed valleys more frequently and
more seriously injured by mildew than those
upon elevated exposures. "A Lincolnshire
Farmer," Mr. Lambreth and other writers in
the forty-fourth vol. of the Annals of Agriculture,
agree in this observation, and it is no more than
might be anticipated from our knowledge of the
habits of the fungus tribe ; such situations being
always more damp, and subject to a moist,
foggy atmosphere.

All varieties of wheat are liable to the disease,
but the white is always the earliest affected, and
the bearded or rivet the last. This may arise
from the latter variety having a firmer epider-
mis, arising from its containing a little more
silex, and thence having its pores less easily
acted upon by atmospheric changes, and con-
sequently less liable to the entrance of the
seeds of this fungus. Moreover, the hardness
of the epidermis checks their rapid outspread
812

when vegetating. Mr. Sirs considered spring-
sown wheat not liable to this disease of the
mildew, and that is the general opinion in
South Holland. Other authorities deny that
spring-wheat is exempted from it; and to this
opinion I incline, in the absence of any thing
like decisive knowledge on the point.

Early sowing is advisable, because the wheat
plants, by this means, have a chance of pass-
ing the time of blooming before they are ex-
tensively attacked ; and the more advanced the
growth of the seed, the more it is out of the
power of this parasite to check its perfection.
Another reason suggested by Mr. W. Jones, of
Wilmington, Somerset, is, that when sown late
the plants are green and sappy in July, and
even at the commencement of August, the sea-
son in which the cold and frosts occur that are
so inducive of the disease; and this green
state necessarily renders them more than ordi-
narily liable to suffer by such a reduction of tem-
perature. On this account it is that in super-
luxuriant crops,and plants growing upon dung-
hills, the former are liable to, the later almost
always are infected by, mildew. Yet the time
for sowing is no unfailing preventive, for in
"mildew years" all crops are attacked; and
instances have occurred where, in fields sown
in September, October, and November, the first
and the last have been most injured.

The berberry has been anathematized as a
source of this vegetable pest; but I have never
yet met with any facts which establish the
charge. It is true that Rolesbury, in Norfolk,
is locally known as " mildew Rolesbury," and
that the berberry abounds in the neighbour-
hood of that village; but I know many low-
lying arable districts, proverbially liable to the
mildew, having no berberries in their vicinity.
It is true that a band of mildew has been traced
across a field of wheat from a berberry bush
growing in one of its hedge-rows ; but then I
have seen a similar track of the disease com-
mencing from an oak. It is also true that Mr.
Knight, the late excellent president of the Lon-
don Horticultural society, found wheat, sprin-
kled with water, in which berberry branches
had been washed, speedily became infected
with the mildew ; but he also ascertained that
wheat sprinkled with clear water, became
similarly diseased. I have tried many experi-
ments, with a view to ascertain the truth or
error of this supposition, but have not suc-
ceeded. However, I am convinced that the
parasite which affects the berberry is not the
Puccinia graminis : the sporidia are dissimilar,
and the colour totally unlike; but it may be,
and certainly much resembles, the Uredo rubigo.
It is no objection to say that the identity is un-
likely, because the plants attacked are so
widely distant; for, as already noticed, these
parasites will vegetate on very various and
even dead vegetable matters. The parasite
which infects the leaves of the berberry is the
JElcidium berberidis: it is a beautiful minute gas-
tro mycus, and there is no resemblance be-
tween it and the rust of wheat, except in colour.
It is a vulgar error to suppose that an JEcidium
on the berberry could produce a Puccinia on
wheat." See Berberry.

MILDEW.

MILDEW.

The age of the seeds, the thickness of sow-
in? it, and previous or subsequent cultivation,
appear to have no preservative influence;
therefore, it now only remains to consider
whence ihe seeds of the fungi come to the
crop, which will lead to a consideration of the
modes of prevention ; and, lastly, whether
there is any practicable cure. There seems to
me little doubt that the fungus is communi-
cated from the soil to the crop. It is certainly
not conve)'ed thither with the seed-corn, for no
washing, no cleansing, nor pickling of this has
ever been observed to have any effect. In
"mildew years," all fields of any infected dis-
tricts are affected; and when it is only partial,
one end, or a breadth across the middle of a
field, of which the seed has all been treated
alike, will be grievously injured, whilst the
other parts suffer little more than ordinarily;
for I have previously noticed, every year, and
in all fields, the mildew is partially present.
There is little difficulty in accounting for this.
Every Purrinia sheds some hundreds of seeds,
more minute and lighter even than those of
the puff-ball ; and as every wheat crop an-
nually produces some, these are wafted over
neighbouring closes by every wind during
their seeding-time, which is chietly in the
months between May and October. In the soil
upon which those seeds alight, they attach
themselves to the stubble or other matters, and
vegetate, reproducing seeds, or remaining
without germination until the following spring.
This fungus has also the characteristic of
.spreading by stooling, or throwing out offsets.
This may be seen if its progress is watched
upon any culm which it affects. I once placed
in a paper box some pieces of straw that were
more completely mildewed than any I had be-
fore observed; this was left during the whole
winter in a closet, which at this season is un-
usually damp. Upon opening the box in the
spring following, I found the Puccinia had
grown, and spread in various rectilinear forms,
upon one of its sides, and upon the bottom, a
fact which I remember to have seen confirmed
in one of the volumes of the Quarterly Journal
of Science. The fungus, then, though its na-
tural habitat is the culm of the wheat, will
vegetate upon other vegetable bodies ; and this
satisfactorily explains the mode in which it
may, after being preserved through the winter,
be conveyed to the succeeding year's crop, —
to say nothin'g of those seeds which may be at-
tached to the straw of the preceding year, and
be conveyed to the next year's crop by various
modes.

These facts demonstrate that prevention is
impossible ; for however careful a farmer may
be to avoid every source whence the seeds of
the Puccinia may arrive, yet every summer
wind may waft them to his crops from other,
even far-distant lands. To prevent the com-
munication to the wheat from the soil by the
stooling, or spreading power of the fungus, it
will be well to sprinkle the surface with salt,
immediately after sowing, at the rate of 5 or 6
bushels to the acre; and in the spring, early in
May, to apply, in a similar manner, about the
same quantity of caustic fresh-slacked lime,

applications of which are not only destructive
of the Puccinia, but also of slugs, and promote
the general health of the crop.

For testimonies to the power of common
salt to prevent, in some instances, the occur-
rence of mildew, I would refer the reader to
my brother's Essay on the Uses of Salt, p. 50 —
60, where will be found the concurrent tes-
timony of Sir John Sinclair, Mr. Sickler, Rev.
R. Hoblyn, Mr. S. Robinson, Mr. Wood, and
Dr. Paris. Mr. Prevost, quoted by Sir John
Sinclair, states that ihe sulphate of copper, if
dissolved in water at the rate of 3^ oz. to the
gallon, forms a solution which will prevent the
attack of mildew upon the wheat plants arising
from seed which has been steeped in it. I am
afraid it has no such power.

Salt, if not a complete preventive, is an ef-
fectual cure of the mildew. Mr. Chatterton, a
Lincolnshire farmer, says, in the 44th vol. of
the Annals of Agric, that "on the sea-side the
wheat is little damaged by the mildew, yet
within 3 miles inland the crops are as much
affected as those still further from the sea."
This fact can be supported by the experience
of most farmers whose fields skirt our native
shores ; and unquestionably it is owing, not
only to the soil containing a greater proportion
of common salt than is found in more inland
soils, but because the sea-haze, which rises al-
most nightly in the summer season, bathes, as
it were, the crops in the immediate vicinity of
the coast; and this haze holds in solution a
portion of salt.

The following well-attested communication
from the late Rev. Edmund Cartwright, of Hol-
lenden House, near Tunbridge, is conclusive
on this subject, and gives full directions to the
farmer how to apply, and at what expense, a
practical remedy.

"It gives me great pleasure to have it in my
power to furnish you with some information
respecting the application of salt, which, per-
haps, you are not aware of. I, and a neigh-
bour of mme, have applied it as a remedy for
the mildew in wheat, with the most unequivo-
cal success. I first made the discovery 2 years
ago ; my experiments at that time were upon
a very limited scale; they have this year ex-
tended only over an acre and a half, but under
circumstances that leave not a shadow of
doubt of salt being an absolute specific for
mildew, in the most aggravated stages of the
disorder; of this I will state to you a convinc-
ing proof. In the year 1818 I found a few ears
of wheat, which I conceived to be a new and
improved variety ; from these ears I raised as
much wheat as last year planted a land 4 feet
wide andlOO yards in length : the produce I had
promised to Mr. Coke ; and, to augment that
produce, I had the ground, previously to plant-
ing, highly manured ; and as soon as the wheat
came up I gave it a good dressing with soot,
and this dressing was repeated once or twice ;
in consequence of this superabundant dressing,
the wheat, as might indeed have been expect-
ed, was as rank as the wheat you may observe
growing accidentally upon a dunghill, which
never fails to rot upon the ground, without
1 bringing a single grain to maturity. The mil-

813

MILDEW.

•
dew made its appearance on this particular
part of my field, while the straw was quite
green, and the grain in a milky state ; notwith-
standing the danger that might be apprehended
to the wheat itself, from its being thus succu-
lent, I ventured to give it a dressing with salt
and water ; as a heavy shower of rain fell a
few hours afterwards, the dressing was repeat-
ed the next morning. The proportion of salt
to the water, 1 pound in a gallon, laid on with
a plasterer's brush, the operator bearing a pail
of the mixture in one hand, and the brush in
the other, making his casts as when sowing
corn, or else with ai common watering-pot,
which, being swung with great force, throws
the water very rapidly; 2 men will get over
about 4 acres a day — the one to spread, the
other to supply the mixture. The result was,
that the mildew was completely subdued, and
the wheat went forward to maturity; and al-
though the sample was not so bold as it might
have bee% it was sound and marketable. In
other parts of the field where the mildew
showed itself, not under the aggravated circum-
stances described above, but as it usually ap-
pears, the wheat was not in the least injured
by it after the salt and water was applied ; it
was, indeed, as fine a sample as could be
grown. Both mine and my neighbour's wheat
was examined by many practical farmers, who
are so decidedly convinced of the efficacy of
my remedy, that they intend never to be with-
out a reserve of salt ready to meet the enemy
the moment he appears. The eflTect of the salt
upon the mildew, to those who do not consider
the manner of its operation, is truly astonish-
ing ; I believe it to be instant death to the fungus ;
this, however, is certain, in less than 48 hours
the straw nearly recovers its original colour
and brightness. The certainty and celerity of
its operation I account for thus: the mildew,
it is now well ascertained, is a parasitical
plant of the fungus tribe, the principal con-
stituent of which tribe is water; when salt,
therefore, is applied to them, the aqueous par-
ticles afe immediately absorbed, and their
vitality destroyed. The action of salt upon
mushrooms, as in making mushroom catsup,
confirms this theory." (Johnson's Essay on Salt,
3d ed. p. 52—54.)

I can afford decided testimony to the efficacy
of the cure recommended by Mr. Cartwright;
but I would add these precautions. The safest
quantity of salt per gallon is 8 oz., and then
the application may be rendered more effectual
by frequent repetition, without any danger of
injury t#the plants. If the application is not
made during a clouded day, it is best to defer
it until the evening. Some have recommended
a rope, held at its extremities by two men, to be
drawn up and down each ridge of the infected
crop to remove the fungus ; and there is no
doubt that this treatment is partially effectual,
for the parasite is removed whenever it comes
in contact with the rope, but the points of con-
tact necessarily are limited.

Professor Henslow endeavours to prove (by
strengthening with additional evidence his
previously expressed opinions) the specific
identity of the fungi producing rust and mil-
dew. See Rust, Eugot, Drt Rot, &c.
814

Yards.

Stat, mile

1628

•925

1760

lono

1808

1-027

1984

1127

2240

1-273

4263

2422

4635

2-634

6760

3-841

6859

3-897

6864

3-900

7416

4-214

8237

4-680

8244

4-684

8475

4-815

9113

6-178

9153

5-201

10,126

5'753

11,559

6'568

11,700

6-648

MILK.

Mr. John Baker of Leeds, in commenting
Upon my brother's essay, is of opinion that the
berberry has a considerable influence in the
communication of the mildew to wheat, and
gives several instances which seem to support
his view of the case. But the distinction be-
tween the parasite of the berberry has already
been mentioned, and it is scarcely necessary
to repeat that the one cannot produce the
other.

MILE (Lat. Mille pasuum, a thousand paces).

The following table, given on the authority
of Kelly's Cambist, shows the length of the
modern mile, and also the league, of various
countries, and their relation to the English
statute mile.

Modern Roman mile
English statute mile
Tuscan mile
Ancient Scotisti mile
Irish mile

French posting league
Spanish judicial league
Portugal league
German short mile -
Flanders league
Spanish common league
Prussian mile -
Danish mile -
Dantzic mile -
Hungarian mile
Swiss mile
German long mile -
Hanoverian mile
Swedish mile -

According to the same authority, the Arabian
mile is 2148 yards, the Persian parasang 6086
yards, the Russian werst 1167 yards, and the
Turkish berri 1826 yards. The English geo-
graphical mile is l-60th of a degree of latitude,
or about 2025 yards ; the geographical league of
England and France is 3 such miles, or 6075
yards; and the German geographical mile is
equal to 4 English geographical miles, or 8100
yards.

MILFOIL, THE WOOLLY YELLOW. See
YAnRow.

MILIARY. In botany, a term signifying
granulated ; resembling many seeds.

MILK (Germ. Milch). A well-known fluid,
secreted by animals for the nourishment of
their young. See Lactometek, Butter, Cheese,
Dairy, Cattle, &c.

Cow's milk is that principally used by Eu-
ropeans; that of the goat, and even of the sheep,
is used in some parts of Britain ; that of the
mare is a favourite beverage in Tartary when
it is fermented. If milk be left at rest, the
fatty globules separate, rise to the surface, and
form cream ; if it be long agitated, they attract
oxygen, coalesce, and form butter.

Milk owes its whiteness and opacity to an
emulsion composed of the caseous matter and
butter, with sugar of milk, extractive matters,
salts, and free lactic acid ; the latter of which
causes fresh milk to redden litmus paper.
Milk, in general, contains from 10 to 12 per
cent, of solid matter, on being evaporated to
dryness by a steam heat. The mean specific
gravity of cows' milk is 1-030, but it is less if
the milk be rich in cream. The specific
gravity of the skimmed milk is 1*035; and of
the cream is 1*0244. 100 parts of creamel
milk contain : —

MILK.

MILK.

Caseous matter, containing some butter -
Bugarofmilk _-*----

■Alcoholic extract, lactic acid, and lactates
Balls ; nniriate and phosphate of potash, and
phosphate oflime ------

Water >-----*.-

Cream consists of— Butter separated by churn-
ing -»...----- 4*5

Caseous matter precipitated by the coagulation
of ihe Miilk of the butter - - - - 35

Buttermilk - - 92 0

1000

When milk contained in wire»corked bottles
is heated to the boiling point in a water-bath,
the oxygen of the included small portion of air
under the cork seems to be carbonated, and the
milk will afterwards keep fresh, it is said, for
a year or two ; as green gooseberries and peas
do by the same treatment.

The number of cows kept in London and its
environs for the supply of milk is estimated
by Mr. MaccuUoch to amount to 9000, and their
annual produce of milk to be equal to 78,800,000
.quarts. For this purpose the Yorkshire cow
is preferred to all others. The daily average
of milk yielded by one of this breed is es-
timated, according to Mr. Youatt, at 22 or 24
quarts.

The quantity and quality of the milk pro-
duced by a cow is materially influenced by
the food and distance from calving. Some
interesting experiments to determine this were
made by MM. Boussingault and Le Bel. They
observe, "In the observations, of which the
following table presents the abstract, it will
be seen that the quantity of milk given by
the cows progressively diminished. This di-
minution cannot be attributed to the regimen
to which the cows were subjected, since, in

again putting them on the food on which they
had previously fed, the same quantity of milk
was not obtained as at first ; the diminution
continued. The distance from the period at
which the cow has calved seems to be the
principal cause of the decrease of the milk.
This cause is so strongly marked, that it may
even prevent the influence that the nature of the

food exercises over it from being seen

Indeed, this result permits us to state, that the
nature of the food consumed does not exert so
very sensible an influence on the quantity and
chemical composition of milk (we do not say-
on its quality), if the cows receive equal nu-
trition from the difl!erent kinds of food. It is
very evident, that if the weight of the feeds
were not calculated according to that of the
equivalents, great variations would be observed
in the products of milk ; but then those varia-
tions would be principally caused by the aug-
mentation or diminution of the nutritive matter.
We know, for example, that cows which, dur-
ing winter, are reduced to simple feeding on
chopped straw, cease almost entirely to pro-
duce milk, and with difficulty recover their
ordinary rate of production ; in cognisance of
such a fact, we are led to ascribe the return
and abundance of milk exclusively to the pro-
perties of the green food in spring, whilst that
eflfect is in a great part produced by a real in-
crease in the feeds.

" In establishments where a regular rotation
is followed, healthy and abundant nourishment
to cattle in winter is in a manner assured, the
diflerence, if any exist, betwixt the feeding in
winter and summer, being in all cases muc^
less considerable. These are the results of
experiments made during a year on eight cows
constantly fed together on a great variety of
food."

First Series of Experiments, — CorwTBT Cow.

Nnmher of
<ljy» siuco
^calving.

Milk Kiven
m U boun.

Solid nut.
lert in 100
lbi.orniilk.

LItrei.

1

50

21 «

13

75

24

106

11-3

35

120

131

200

66

123

207

60

124

215

5-6

12-9

2*29

50

135

210

3-6

270

3-4

«

290

3-5

125

302

2-8

13-2

or about 30 ItM. of Hiy.

Potatoes, hay -

Ditto - - -
Hay, green clover
Green clover
Hay -

Turnips - - .
Red beet - - -
Potatoes - - -
Hay -

Potatoes - - -
Jerusalem artichokes
Hay and oil-cake

CompotitlonorMilk.

151

30
31
30
30
3-4
3-4

3-3
34

S-6

8-5
9'6
4-5
4-2
40
4 0

3-5
3-6

Snrar of _ ,.
M.lk. ^"»-

30

4S
4-2
47
50
5-3
59

5-5
60

0-3

02
0-3
01
02
0-2
0-2

0-2
02

78-4

88-8
88-9
87-7
87-6
87-1
86-5

87-5
86-8

Second Series of Experiments. — Swiss Cow.

176
162
193
204

9-3

135

8-9

12-8

9-8

112

7-8

12-6

Potatoes, hay -
Hay, green clover
Green clover
Clover in flower

3-3

4-8

51

0'3

86-5

4-0

4'5

40

0-3

87-2

4-0

2'2

47

03

88-8

3-7

3-5

52

0-2

67-4

There is a paper on the adulteration of milk,
by M. Barruel {Quar. Jour. ofAgr. vol. ii. p. 304),
in which he states that the substances used
to adulterate milk in London and Paris are
usually flour, sugar-candy, potash, and some-
times iodine, to give it its bluish colour.

II i / 1./

In Stephens's ^^Book of the Farm" we find the
following interesting details, relative to the sub-
ject of milk, milch-cows, and their treatment
in Scotland, and more especially in the city of
Edinburgh.

Cows are kept on every species of farm,

815 ^

MILK.

MILK.

though for very different purposes. On carse
and pastoral farms they are merely useful in
supplying milk to the farmer and his servants.
On dairy farms, they afford butter and cheese
for sale. On some/or»is near large towns, they
chiefly supply milk for sale. And on farms of
mixed husbandry, they are kept for the purpose
of breeding young stock.

On carse and pastoral farms, cows receive
only a few turnips in winter, when they are
dr}', and are kept on from year to year ; but
where the farmer supplies milk to his work-
people, as a part of wages, they are disposed
of in the yeld state, and others in milk, or at
the calving, bought in to supply their place,
and these receive a large allowance of turnips,
with perhaps a little hay. On these farms,
little regard is paid to the breed of the cow,
the fact of being a good milker being the only
criterion of excellence.

On true dairy farms, the winter season is
not a favourable one for making butter and
cheese for sale ; for, do what you like to neu-
tralize the effect of the usual rooted green crops
on these products, and especially butter, they
remain unpalatable to the taste. The cows
are therefore in calf during this season, and
receive the treatment described above until the
period of calving in spring.

In and near large towns, the dairy-man must
always have milk to supply his customers, and
it is his interest to render the milk as palatable
as possible. For the purpose of maintaining
the supply, he buys cows at all seasons, just
calved or about to calve. He disposes of the
calves, without attempting to fatten them ; and
to render the milk he sells palatable, he cooks
all the food partaken of by the cows. When
the cows run dry, they are fatt'ened for the
butcher, and not allowed to breed again.

The cows in the public dairies in Edinburgh
are supported in winter on a variety of sub-
stances, namely, turnips, brewers' and distil-
lers' grains, called draff", dreg, malt-comins,
barley, oats, hay-seeds, chaff", cut hay. One or
more of these substances, with turnips, are
cooked together, and the usual process in doing
this, and administering the cooked food, is as
follows : — Turnips, deprived of tops and tails,
and washed clean, are put into the bottom of a
boiler, and covered near to its top with a quan-
tity of malt comins, cut hay, hay-seeds, chaff",
or barley, or more than one of these, as the
articles can be procured. Water is then poured
into the boiler sufficient to boil them, and a lid
placed upon it. After being thoroughly boiled
and simmered, the mess is put into tubs, when
a little pounded rock-salt is strewed over it,
and chopped into a mash with a spade. As
much dreg is then poured upon the hot mash
as to make it lukewarm, and of such a con-
sistence as a cow may drink up. From 1 to 1^
stable-pailfuls of this mixture, — from 40 to 60
pints imperial, — according to the known appe-
tite of the cow, is then poured into the trough
belonging to each. The trough is afterwards
removed and cleaned, and the manger is ready
for the reception of fodder — hay or straw. This
mess is given 3 times a day, after the cows have
been milked, for dairy-men understand that
animals should not be disturbed while eating
816

their food. The times of milking are 6 A. M.,
12 noon, and 7 P. M. The sweet milk and
cream obtained by these means, and received
direct from the dairy, are pretty good. The
former sells in Edinburgh at Id., and the latter
at 1». the imperial pint. Dr. Cleland stales the
price of sweet milk in Glasgow at l^d. the im-
perial pint.

It will be observed that none of the articles
usually given to cows are so expensive as oil-
cake, cabbages, kohl-rabi, or cole-seed. These
products were employed by the late Mr. Cur-
wen in his experiments to ascertain the cost
of raising milk for supplying the poor, and the
results show they left him very little profit.
{Ciirwen^s Agricultural Hints, p. 47 — 52.)

Cattle are fed on other substances than tur-
nips, either with themselves or in conjunction
with turnips. Oil-cake and potatoes are the
most common substances used for this purpose.
Linseed oil and linseed have been recommend-
ed, and many are fed at distilleries on draff and
dreg, as the refuse of distillation are termed ;
and these are also sold to the farmers for the
purpose of feeding. Oats, barley-meal, and
bean-meal, have also been pressed into the
service of feeding cattle.

The potatoes used in feeding cattle are either
the common kinds known in human food, or
others raised on purpose, such as the yam and
ox-noble ; and they are given either alternately
with turnips, or together. In feeding cattle
with potatoes of any kind, and in any way,
there is considerable risk of flatulency and
choking. To prevent the latter, the potatoes
should be smashed with a hammer, or with
an instrument like a pavier's rammer, and
though juice should come out in the operation,
no loss is incurred, as it is considered of no
service in feeding. To prevent flatulence from
potatoes is no easy matter; but a friend of
mine used a plan which completely answered
the purpose, which was, mixing cut straw with
the broken potatoes. The straw obliging the
cattle to chew every mouthful before being
swallowed, may prevent such a large quantity
of gas being generated in the paunch as bruised
potatoes alone would do, and it is this gas
which occasions that distressing complaint
called hcven. A farm-steward, who had con-
siderable experience in feeding cattle on pota-
toes on a led-farm, always placed as many
potatoes, whole, before cattle as they could
consume, and they never swelled on eating
them, because, as he conjectured, and perhaps
rightly, they do not eat them so greedily when
in their power to take them at will, as when
doled out in small quantities. This fact con-
firms the propriety of mixing cut straw amongst
potatoes that are given in small quantities, in
order to satisfying the appetite, and filling the
paunch with unfermentable matter. The only
precaution required in giving a full supply of
potatoes, is to give only a few and frequently
at first, and gradually to increase the quantity.

Oil-cake has been long and much employed
in England for the feeding of cattle, and it is
making its way in that respect into Scotland.
It consists of the compressed husks of linseed,
after the oil has been expressed from it, and is
formed into thin oblong cakes. The cakes are

MILK-FEVER.

MILKING.

broken into pieces by a machine. Cattle are
never entirely fed on oil-cake, but in conjunc-
tion with other substances, as turnips, potatoes,
cut hay, or cut straw. When given with cut
hay or straw, an ox will eat from 7 to 9 lb. of
cake a day, and the hay or straw induces rumi-
nation, which the cake itself is not likely to do.
When given with other substances, as turnips
or potatoes, 3 lb. or 4 lb. a day will suffice. A
mixture of oil-cake and cut meadow-hay forms
a very palatable and nutritious food for oxen,
and is a favourite one in England. Oil-cake
costs from 7/. to 10/. a ton.

Statement of the comparative quality of Milk from
8 Alderney and 8 Kerry (Irish) Cows, upon the
Farm at Oakley Park, in May, June, July, and
August, 1840, by Mr. R. White, tested from a
Lactometer holding 1 Pint of Milk, and divided
into 100 parts by Index.

Cowfc

Pwlion
or Cream
in 100.

Ditbr-
eoce.

Otwerratioi*

May.
Alderneys
Kerrys -

June.
Alderneys
Kerrys -

July.
Alderneys
Kerrys -

Autrnst
Alderneys
Kerrys -

85
10

15
10
13
3

In favour of Alderney.
Ditto.
Ditto.
Ditto.

SO
10

23

10

10
13

Butter churned from 3 pints of cream from
each : —

^.T."' - !lS:51:i:}>«o...o.h.po„„d.

This was taken in August, when the Alder-
ney's produce of cream was at the lowest.

MILK-FEVER. Cows in high condition are
most subject to puerperal fever. This inflam-
matory disease sometimes appears as early as
two hours after parturition ; if 4 or 5 days
have elapsed, the animal may generally be
considered safe. On the appearance of this
fever, from 6 to 10 quarts of blood should be
taken, according to the age and size of the
animal. The bowels must be opened, or the
disease will run its course ; and purging once
established in an early stage, the fever will, in
the majority of instances, rapidly subside,
leaving the strength of the constitution un-
touched. (Ymiatt on Cattle, p. 547, 548.)

MILK-HOUSES AND CELLARS. The
milk-houses in Holland and elsewhere, and the
spring-houses of Pennsylvania, have been re-
ferred to and described under the headof Dairt.
Of late, cellars under houses, properly arranged,
are coming to be preferred for the purpose of
keeping milk to either milk-houses, milk-vaults,
or even spring-houses. Among the advantages
claimed for cellars are, being at hand every-
where at a small cost ; and keeping drier, thus
less disposing to must.

Mr. Miller, of Delaware, a correspondent of

the Farmers' Cabinet (July, 1843), speaking of

the cellars used in the vicinity of Wilmington,

aays : — It is found sufficient, if the cellar be

103

sunk a few feet below the surface of the earth,
with a wide and shallow window on each side,
the bottom of it level with the ground outside;
well protected with a wire guard to keep out
vermin, large flies, &c., and provided with a
close glazed sash, which can be opened and
closed at pleasure, by lifting it up to the ceiling,
which ought to be no higher than the top of the
windows; so that the air of the cellar can be
ventilated by opening the windows of the two
opposite sides, according to the way the wind
sets at the time, .shutting them quickly when
necessary; for in cold, windy, or damp weather,
the sooner the windows are again closed, the
better. Indeed, to the management of the cellar
in this particular, much of the success of dai-
rying is to be attributed; cold and damp air
being unfriendly to the formation of cream,
and its proper and entire separation from the
milk. Hence, therefore, it is a bad practice to
set the pans on the brick floor of the cellar;
they ought always to be placed around on
shelves, about three feet in height, and these,
after being well washed with hot water, should
be wiped quite dry, that no mouldy evaporation
might take place to spoil the butter. The air
near the floor of a dairy is always impure,
being loaded with acid vapours and putrid ex-
halations, the density of which confines it to
the lowest part of the room ; hence it is, that
the doors of some dairies are made with lattice
work, that the air near the floor, as well as that
near the ceiling, might be ventilated at the
same time ; these lattices being furnished with
sliding panels, may be kept close in bad weather.
The milk-cellar ought always to have a northern
aspect, and be well shaded by trees, not grow-
ing too near the windows, so as to impede a
dry current of air, or to create a moist atmo-
sphere ; this consideration being of more im-
portance than would readily be imagined.

Cellars thus constructed and carefully at-
tended, will, no doubt, supersede the use of
spring-houses generally, before many years
have passed away ; by which the business of
the dairy will be rendered more agreeable, less
laborious, and far less inimical to the health
of those, particularly of females, whose occu-
pation it is to attend to its never-ceasing duties.
In the Wilmington market, "cellar-butler"
usually commands an extra price.

MILKING. In the operation of milking, the
great rules to observe are, regularity, gentle-
ness, and cleanliness. The following observa-
tions are taken from an American periodical ;
"When you go to milk, take a vessel of cold
water and sponge. Wash the udder and teats
clean, dashing on the cold water. This will
prevent the teats from becoming sore, and the
udder hot and feverish, besides rendering the
process of milking much neater. Milk with
clean hands. The whole business of milking
is frequently conducted in such a slovenly
manner that the milk is entirely unfit for food.
The cow should be milked while eating her
fodder at morning and evening. She should
always be milked and fed at the same time ia
the day, and uniformly by the same person.
Milk without interruption. Be sure to milk
the cow as dry as possible. To be milked by
different hands, at different times in the day, in
3Z 817

MILK-PARSLEY.

MILK SICKNESS.

a slow, interrupted, gossiping manner, and
leaving part of the milk in the udder, will ruin
the best cow in the world." If the cow has
sore teats, foment them before milking with
warm water, and after milking, dress them with
the following salve : Melt together 1 oz. of yel-
low wax, and 3 oz. of lard, and as these begin
to get cool, rub in a^ of an oz. of sugar of lead,
and a drachm of finely pounded aloes. {Youatt
on Cattle, p. 552.)

MILK-PARSLEY (Selinum, from selinor, the
Greek name for parsley ; applied to this genus
on account of the resemblance in the leaves).
This is a hardy genus of plants of no interest.
The only species indigenous to England is the
marsh milk-parsley {S.palustre), which is pe-
rennial, or, as some have it, biennial, growing
in wet and boggy meadows, with flowers white,
numerous, uniform. The root serves the Rus-
sians for ginger; and the whole herb abounds
with a white, bitter, fetid juice, of the consist-
ence of cream, which soon dries to a brownish
acrid resin.

MILK SICKNESS. This name, together
with "Trembles," has been applied to a pecu-
liar and most malignant disease occurring in
some localities of the Western United States,
and affecting certain kinds of farm-stock, and
persons who make use of the meat or dairy
products of infected cattle. Bishop Hennipin,
a French missionary, who ascended the western
waters early in the last century, mentions the
existence of this singular disease affecting
animals. Although the cause and precise na-
ture of so frightful a malady are still enveloped
in great obscurity, and the treatment is far from
being so generally successful as could be de-
sired, it may be interesting to be acquainted
with some facts connected with its existence.
Dr. George B. Graff, a highly intelligent physi-
cian of Edgar county, Illinois, has a communi-
cation upon the subject in the American Journal
of the Medical Sciences (April, 1841 ), from which
we draw tlie following details : —

The milk sickness is a disease peculiar to
the United States, occurring seldom, if ever, to
the eastward of the Alleghany mountains. It
is in a greater or less degree met with in all
the Western States, as far south as Mississippi,
and extends north to the boundary. The states
of Indiana and Illinois are most subject to its
occurrence, whilst its existence in the border-
ing states is comparatively rare. Among the
early settlers it committed dreadful ravages,
and in the formation of our Western settle-
ments, its prevalence often served as a cause
to disband a communit)'-, and compel the in-
habitants to seek a location which enjoyed
immunity from its occurrence. Many of the
otherwise most desirable portions of that coun-
try remained long exempted from settlement,
and even now the inhabitants of these locali-
ties have, as a condition of their residence,
entirely to abstain from the use of milk, its
preparations, and the flesh of their cattle.

Its occurrence or prevalence is confined to
no season or description of weather, existing
in a like degree in the heat of summer or cold
of winter, and with like virulence and fre-
quency during a dry or wet season. An
opinion is entertained by some, that it is more
818

frequently met with in the spring and fall
months, whilst others have expressed a belief
of its more common occurrence during the
heat of summer. However this may be, we
know of no season during which it does not
occur.

The animals in which it has been observed
are the beef-cattle, horses, sheep, and goats,
which seem to acquire it with their food or
drink.

We will first speak of the symptoms mani-
fested in cattle affected with it, as it is only
through them that we have yet found the dis-
ease communicated to man. They may be
affected to such a degree as that their flesh
and milk will produce the disease, and yet they
themselves manifest no unhealthy symptoms
whatever. This latent condition of the disease
may be discovered by subjecting the suspected
animal to a violent degree of exercise, when,
acc(Jrding to the intensity of the existing cause,
it will be seized with tremors, spasms, convul-
sions, or even death. This is a precaution
practised by butchers in these countries always
before slaughtering an animal in anywise sus-
pected of the poisonous contamination. An
ordinary degree of exertion will not develope
these phenomena unless it produce the symp-
toms usually preceding a fatal termination.
When, for instance, a cow is suflficiently deeply
affected, nothing peculiar is observed until im-
mediately preceding the outbreak of the fatal
symptoms. She is then observed to walk about,
without any apparent object in view ; all food
is refused, and there is evidence of impaired
vision. The eye is first of a fiery appearance,
increasing to a deepened red colour, until the
animal is observed to stagger and fall, when,
if she rises, the trembling of the whole muscu-
lar system will prevent the maintenance of the
standing position. The animal usually dies
after repeated convulsions, never lingering
beyond a few hours. Often it falls suddenly,
as if it received a blow from a heavy body
on the head, and death is produced in a few
minutes.

From the tremulous motion imparted to the
muscles, the affection has received the common
name of the "Trembles" in cattle. A case
which was characterized by the great violence
of its symptoms, I had an opportunity to ex-
amine very shortly after death. The brain I
found suffused with a large quantity of fluid
blood, which, from the amount contained within
the cranium, must have made great pressure
on every part.

In man the symptoms differ from these, and
are varied. The length of time found to elapse
from the reception of the cause to the appear-
ance of the disease, is dependent on a multi-
plicity of circumstances, as the age, sex, or
condition of the patient, and violence of the
poison. It may be developed early as the third,
or deferred until the tenth day. As a premoni-
tory symptom, a peculiar and indescribable
fetor from the lungs is the most prominent;
and so universally have I found it present and
to precede the disease, that in almost every
instance where I have been brought in prox-
imity to a person predisposed or attacked, have
I been able to foretell its approach, and pro-

1

MILK SICKNESS.

MILK SICKNESS.

nounce on the character of the disease. This
fetor can no more be mistaken by a person
accustomed to it, than that which is so univer-
sally attendant on variola ; and it may in fact
be safely stated to be pathognomonic of the
forming and early stage of milk sickness.
This halitus from the lungs, which I have
never found entirely wanting even some days
previous to an attack, increases in intensity
until the disease is fully developed, when it
gradually disappears with the specific symp-
toms, and at the termination of 4 or 5 days
cannot be detected. A person labouring under
the peculiar effluvia from the air passages, in
many cases complains of no illness, and ap-
pears entirely unconscious of his situation,
unless advised of it by his friends or attend-
ants. His appetite may be, and usually is,
destroyed ; and after the lapse of a few days
he is taken down with pain and excessive irri-
tability of the stomach, obstinate constipation
of the bowels, a -cessation of all biliary secre-
tion, general febrile action, sometimes an in-
tense burning sensation in the epigastric region,
with early and obstinate coldness of the ex-
tremities. Often the symptoms are observed
to differ widely from these. Besides the pecu-
liar smell emitted, there is a premonition of the
attack ; for some days previous to its develope-
ment, the patient experiences a restlessness
and uneasiness which he cannot describe, with
a dread of some impending calamity, confu-
sion of ideas, and other indications of irrita-
tion of the brain and nervous system. Vomit-
ing announces the onset of an attack. This
continues at short intervals for many days, the
matters thrown off the stomach consisting of the
fluids swallowed, mixed with a glairy mucus,
and not un frequently tinged with blood. Some
days frequently elapse before pain in the
stomach is complained of, but during the time
the suffering is intolerable, consisting of a sen-
sation of deep distress, which, though referred
to the praecordia, or abdomen, the sufferer can-
not locate in any particular spot. Pain in the
limbs is complained of, and is severally referred
to each of the extremities, but is more constant-
ly located in the spine, particularly at the nape
of the neck. The pulse, during the forming
stage, possesses greater force and volume, with
slightly increased action. The bowels will
remain obstinately constipated, the powers of
nature being incompetent to relieve the condi-
tion, so that unless it be done by appropriate
remedies, at the end of 6 or 8 days an offensive
discharge takes place, quickly followed by dis-
solution, the symptoms being those which
would indicate disorganization of the struc-
ture of the intestines. The tongue, during the
initiatory sta^e, is slightly furred, but other-
wise not much changed in appearance. This
coat disappears soon after the occurrence of
vomiting, and becomes clean, of a pale-red or
pink colour, greatly resembling a piece of raw
veal. Next to the fetor mentioned, the change
of volume occurring in the tongue may be
viewed as the great characteristic of this dis-
ease. It rapidly attains an inordinate size,
completely filling the mouth, and so flabby and
soft in its texture as to retain perfectly the im-
pressions left by the teeth, when extruded.

Often a number of efforts are necessary before
it can be forced out, and then it has a tremu-
lous motion. This condition of the tongue
changes with the stage of the disease. When
the vomiting has been suspended, and free
evacuations from the bowels obtained, it is re-
duced in volume, the surface is for a time
smooth and glazed, soon after becomes dark,
cracks open in transverse fissures, is hardened,
with an obstinately dry and rough surface. Of
all the primary symptoms, vomiting is the last
to disappear; it ceases very gradually to annoy
the patient, and its continued absence is the
most certain indication of a state of convales-
cence. In no disease is there a greater differ-
ence or diversity of symptoms than are usually
found in different cases to constitute what may
be properly termed the secondary stage of milk
sickness.

In some cases the patient is affected with
drowsiness, low muttering delirium, nervous
tremors, and the whole train of symptoms asso-
ciated in low typhus fever. When recovery
takes place after severe attacks, the convales-
ence is very slow, and years may elapse before
a perfect restoration to health. Indeed, it has
been a question with many, whether those once
severely attacked ever regain :i perfect integrity
of constitution. In. cases which terminate fa-
tally (of which description is a large majority),
a length of time of from 1 to 4 weeks is re-
quired, proportionate to the intensity of the
primary effects, the propriety of the treatment,
and the natural powers of the resistance of the
constitution, as they often seem to die from a
wearing out, or gradual destruction of cerebral
and nervous energy. Those cases which occur
during the summer months, are most decidedly
inflammatory, whilst in the winter there is
always observed a disposition to assume a low
form. The autumnal cases, in their secondary
fever, are liable to assume a remittent aspect,
and I have seen them eventuate in a well-
marked intermittent. When recovery has taken
place, the patient retains not the slightest recol-
lection of any thing which occurred during the
progress of the disease, and this forgetfulness
often extends as far back as some days previous
to the active developement of the disease.

Cause. — The cause of this disease in animals
is as yet shrouded in mystery and uncertainty.
No satisfactory account of its nature has ever
yet been given, and it has in turn been sup-
posed to be of vegetable, mineral, and even
aerial origin. The limits of its prevalence is
not often over a large continuous tract of
country, but rather circumscribed, and sur-
rounded by localities never known to produce
it. No example is known in which the property
of producing the disease has been acquired by
any locality which did not previously possess
it. The boundaries which were at the first dis-
covery of the country found to separate the
infected from healthy districts, remain un-
changed. The locality which serves to pro*
duce the disease, most commonly extends as a
vein of variable breadth, traversing the country
for a considerable distance. It can be traced
in one instance for nearly a hundred miles,
running parallel to the course of the Wabash
river, in the state of Indiana.

619

MILK SICKNESa

MILK SICKNESa

Again — it will be found to occupy an isolated
spot, comprised in an area of 100 acres, whilst,
for a considerable distance around, it is not
produced. Thus, having the locality perfectly
circumscribed, much labour has been expended
in order to discover some production peculiar
to the locality. The search has been uniformly
unsuccessful in the attainment of its object.
The general appearance of these infected dis-
tricts is somewhat peculiar. I have always
observed that the situation of the ground is
elevated above that of the surrounding country;
occupying what is denominated a ridge, and
that the quality of the soil is in general of an
inferior description. The growth of timber is
not observed to be so luxuriant as in situations
otherwise similar, but is scrubby, and stunted
in its perfect developement, in many instances
simulating what in the west is denominated
"Barrens." Throughout the entire district in
which these localities are interspersed, there is
observed an absence of the occurrence of
stones scattered over the surface, whilst in the
infected tracts they are almost universally
present. They are of a small size and dark-
ened aspect externally, breaking with a regular
and shining fracture, and, upon analysis, im-
perfectly made, were found to contain a con-
siderable portion of iron, with slight traces of
copper. Another more decided and peculiar
appearance, which serves to distinguish them
from other spots, is the breaking forth of nu-
merous feeble springs, furnishing but a trifling
supply of water, but not varying in quantity
with the change of seasons. In its appear-
ance, it presents the general evidences of a
sulphurous and ferruginous contamination.

Experiments made upon the water collected
from these springs, or more properly called
oozes from the soil, with the greatest care by
the employment of the most delicate chemical
re-agents, failed to indicate the presence of any
mineral except iron, sulphur, traces of mag-
nesia, and a quantity of copper barely capable
of being demonstrated. A belief being enter-
tained by many that the disease is occasioned
by arsenic, or some of its salts, I with much
care and patience subjected not only the water,
but likewise the earth, from these districts to a
most rigid examination, and by no test was I
furnished with the slightest evidence of its
presence.

An intelligent medical friend expressed to
me his belief that it was produced by the inha-
lation of some noxious gases generated during
the night; in proof, he stated that he had ob-
served cattle, which were regularly housed
each evening, escaped its attacks, and that
when suffered to remain at large, they were
frequently seized with the disease. It is dif-
ficult to form this belief of the nature of the
cause, as we can hardly conceive the particu-
lar action of any combination of circumstances,
capable of giving rise to such an emanation
only at night, ceasing to act during the day.
The most popular belief is in favour of a vege-
table origin. The advocates of this method of
production having failed to designate the plant
which they supposed occasions it, have en-
deavoured to sustain their views by supposing
that the poison exists in some shrub or tree,
830

which is eaten by the cattle, but confess their
inability to designate any such peculiar growth
confined to these localities. If certain fields
which are known to affect cattle fed upon them,
be suffered to grow in grass, and the hay pro-
duced be given to them for their continual food,
no disease results, which is a strong circum-
stance, unless it be urged that the active poi-
sonous principle is destroyed by the desicca-
tion. Again, it has frequently appeared with
its greatest virulence when the ground has been
for weeks previously covered with snow.

Butter and cheese, manufactured from the
milk drawn from an infected cow, are sup-
posed to be the most concentrated forms of this
poison. They possess no distinguishing ap-
pearance, odour, or taste, from the healthy
article. A very minute quantity of either will
suffice to develope the disease in man. The
cream, ordinarily sufficient to be added to the
coffee drunk at a single meal, is said to have
induced an attack. The butter or cheese eaten
at one repast, has frequently been known to
prove effective. The property is not contained
in any of the elements of the milk exclusively,
but distributed throughout the whole of them,
being possessed by the buttermilk as well as
by the whey. Beef, in the quantity of a very
few ounces, will produce the disease, and, it is
generally believed, in a more violent and fatal
form than when it is produced by milk, or any
of its preparations.

In the course of my observations I had an
opportunity to experiment with a cow suffering
in but a slight degree from the cause. She was
affected with tremors when unusually exer-
cised, exhibited a red and suffused eye, with
frequent twitches of portions of the muscular
system. She was kept confined without an
opportunity to exercise, and was fed upon ordi-
nary food. At the end of 8 days, the milk
drawn from her possessed as violent poisonous
properties as at the time of her incarceration.
Her confinement was continued for a week
longer, at the end of which period, the milk
taken from her was found in an entirely healthy
condition, and the eyes were restored to their
natural appearance. In this instance it will
be seen that the property of imparting the
poison to the milk was lost in the space of
between 8 and 15 days. We, of course, cannot
fix on the precise period, but we would infer
that the property is suddenly destroyed rather
than gradually dissipated.

My trials with the poisoned flesh were, for
the most part, made upon dogs, which I con-
fined, and often watched the effect of the poison
when administered at regular intervals. In
the space of 48 hours from the commencement
of the administration of either the butter,
cheese, or flesh, from poisoned animals, I have
observed unequivocal appearances of their pe-
culiar action. In a few hours a thirst greater
than natural is created; the appetite remains
unimpaired until the expiration of the fourth or
fifth day, or just before the appearance of fatal
symptoms, when the animal will refuse drinks,
and the most inviting descriptions of food.

Vomiting does not, as in man, always pre-
cede death, but the bowels are constipated
throughout, except that, in a single instance, I

MMI

MILK SICKNESS.

MILK SICKNESS.

observed copious alvine discharges largely
mixed with blood. One ounce of batter or
cheese, or 4 ounces of beef, either raw or boil-
ed, administered 3 times a-day, will certainly
prove fatal within 0 days, and often earlier.
In these cases all exertions and exercise must
be prevented, or death will occur much sooner,
even as early as the third day. When an ani-
mal has been subjected to its influence for only
a short time, and is induced to fatigue itself, or
is driven a distance at full speed, he suddenly
stops and falls, and the severity and duration
of the convulsion or spasm is in proportion to
the intensity of the action of the poison. Often
he will appear to entirely recover from the
first attack, but to be repeated upon the re-
newal of the exercise to a sufiicient degree.

There is, however, one animal which, from
some peculiarity of organization, is rendered
proof against the pernicious effects of this
otherwise powerful agent. I allude to the hog.
Most industriously did I feed a troublesome
sow running at large, administering, daily, 5 or
6 pounds of infected beef. This was perse-
vered in for more than a fortnight, and under
the treatment she fattened, when I was compel-
led to desist from the great quantity necessary
to supply her voracious appetite, without en-
joying the satisfaction to perceive one muscu-
lar twitch as an evidence that it produced the
slightest effect. When I last saw her she en-
joyed excellent apparent health, and was the
mother of a numerous offspring.

From all the experiments I have made, and
the reasoning used, I can arrive at no conclu-
sion, so far as relates to the nature of the ulti-
mate cause in man, to whom it can only be
communicated through the medium of an ani-
mal, and that capability of production can be
acquired only by the animals of circutnscribed
localities. An intelligent medical friend, alike
distinguished as a statesman. Dr. John W.
Davis, of Indiana, in a late letter to me, ex-
presses a belief that milk is never a cause of
the disease. He merely states his belief of the
fact, without the evidences or observations
which have led him to the denial of a proposi-
tion heretofore viewed as settled beyond dis-
pute. My own experience enables me to say
that I have seen a peculiar affection, which I
feel assured could have been no other than the
milk sickness, in a city remote from any of its
local causes, attacking every individual who
partook of a certain cheese which had been
purchased from a wagon arriving from an in-
fected district. In this instance the well-marked
symptoms, confined to those only who partook
of this cheese, appearing nearly at the same
time, with no occurrence of new causes after
the removal of this cause, all together afford
strong evidence of the nature of the origin.

There is a murderous practice now carried
on in certain districts, in which the inhabitants
will not themselves consume the butter and
cheese manufactured; but, with little solicitude
for the lives or health of others, they send it in
large quantities, to be sold in the cities of the !
West, particularly Louisville, Kentucky, and I
St. Louis, Missouri. Of the truth of this I am j
well apprized by actual observation, and I am as I
certain that it has often caused death in those '

cities, when the medical attendants viewed it
as some anomalous form of disease, not sus-
pecting the means by which poison had been
conveyed among them. Physicians of the lat-
ter city having been questioned particularly on
this subject, have mentioned to me a singular
and often fatal disease which appeared in cer-
tain families, the cases occurring simultane-
ously, and all traces of it disappearing sud-
denly, and which I cannot doubt were the
result of poisoned butter or cheese. This reck-
lessness of human life it should be our endea-
vour to prevent, and the heartless wretches
who practise it should be brought to suffer a
punishment commensurate with the enormity
of their crime. From the wide extent of the
country in which it is carried on, we will rea-
dily perceive the difficulties to be encountered
in the effort to put a stop to the practice. This
being the case, our next proper aim should be
to investigate the nature of the cause, and es-
tablished a more proper plan of treatment by
which It may be robbed of its terrors, and the
present large proportionate mortality dimi-
nished.

Nature and Treatment of the Disease. — Much
diversity of opinion exists among medical men
in regard to the essential nature and most
proper mode of treating this fatal disease, from
which hundreds of persons throughout the
West and Southwest annually perish.

Owing to the want of success which has so
uniformly attended the practice of their phy-
sicians, many of the inhabitants depend en-
tirely on their domestic remedies. It is in that
country emphatically one of the opprobria me-
dicorum.

" The primary operation of the poison," says
Dr. Graff, " seems to be on the brain and ner-
vous system,, and this is indicated by the cere-
bral irritation which so often precedes, and al-
ways accompanies an attack, as well as by au-
topsic appearances. Without an exception, in
the animals poisoned, I always found the brain
and meninges phlogosed with a greater or less
degree of inflammatory action."

Dr. Graff relates the following circumstances
connected with the occurrence of the disease,
which will tend to show its mode of develope-
ment and characteristics. The entire family of
a Mr. Frazier, moving westward, purchased a
quantityoffreshbeef in Indiana, of which every
member of the company partook heartily, daily,
until the evening of the fourth day, when they
arrived in the Doctor's neighbourhood. On
this evening they all retired apparently in their
usual health, but during the night he was sum-
moned to attend a female with an attack of
milk sickness. Upon a careful examination
he discovered the peculiar smell present with
every member of the family, and, on inquiry,
ascertained about the beef, and the locality in
which it was purchased, "which," he says, " at
once satisfied him that they were doomed. Be-
fore the next morning every member of that
company of 6 was attacked in a violent man-
ner, and only one of the number recovered."

The Legislatures of several Western States

have offered rewards for the discovery of the

origin of the milk sickness, in order to lead to

its prevention and cure. The reward offered

3 z 2 821

MILK-VETCH.

MILLET.

in Kentucky is $1000. A creeping vine has
been of late years generally believed to be
the occasion of the disease, but this has not
been so well established as to enable the per-
son who made the supposed discovery to claim
the rewards.

MILK-VETCH (Astragalus). This is an
extensive genus of herbaceous and shrubby
plants ; many of the species are very hand-
some, and well suited for the flower-gardea.
There are 4 species indigenous to England.

MILKWORT (Polygala, from poly, much,
and gala, milk; reputed effects of the plant on
cattle that feed upon it.) All the species of
this genus are very showy. The annual kinds
require sowing in the open ground, preferring
a peat soil. Some of the species possess use-
ful medicinal qualities. DecandoUe enume-
rates above 160 species in this genus, but only
one is British.

A considerable number of the species are
natives of the United States, among which the
best known is the P. senega^ or Seneca snake-
root.

MILLET {Panicum, from panieula, a panicle,
or panis, bread). A useful genus of grasses,
one spfecies of which, called Bengal grass, was
some years ago introduced into Pennsylvania
as an object of culture, and excited much inte-
rest for a time among farmers. It was found,
however, not to be so valuable as the usual
summer crop of which it occupied the place,
and it is now pretty much abandoned. The
seed is sown in the early part of May. {Flora
Cesfrica.)

Of the millet there are three distinct genera:
the Polish millet (Digifaria), cultivated in Po-
land; the common millet (Panic«w), or panic
grass, cultivated in Germany, and sometimes
in England; and the great or Indian millet
(Holcus), cultivated in India, Italy, and Ame-
rica.

Of the common millet there are 3 species :
Setaria Germanica, a native of the south of Eu-
rope ; the P. milinreum (PI. 3, Z), a native of the
East Indies ; and the Setaria Italica (m), also
of Indian origin.

The German Millet (Fr. Moha de Hnngrie : S.
Germanica, PI. 3, k) rises with a jointed reed-like
stalk, about 3 feet high, and about the size of
the common reed, with a leaf at each joint, 1^
foot long, and about an inch broad at the base
where broadest, ending in an acute point, rough
to the touch, embracing the stalk at the base,
and turning downwards about half the length.
The stalks are terminated by compact spikes,
about the thickness of a man's finger at the
bottom, growing taper towards the top, 8 or 9
inches long, and closely set with small round-
ish grain. It is annual, and perishes soon after
the seeds are ripe. There are three varieties
of it, the yellow, white, and purple grained.
It was formerly cultivated for bread in some of
the northern countries.

The Common or Cultivated Millet (Fr. Millet
commvn ; Panirum miliaceum), rises with a reed-
like channelled stalk, from 3 to 4 feet high;
at every joint there is one reed-like leaf, joined
on the top of the sheath, which embraces and
covers that joint of the stalk below the l«af,
and is clothed with soft hairs ; the leaf has
822

none, but has several small longitudinal fur-
rows running parallel to the midrib. The stalk
is terminated by a large loose panicle hanging
on one side. Of this species there are two va-
rieties, the brown and the yellow; the latter of
which was formerly in cultivation, and is now
sometimes sown for feeding poultry, and as a
substitute for rice.

The Italian Millet (Panis d'ltalie: Fr. Millet a
grappe ; Setaria Italica, PI. 3, m), rises with a reed-
like stalk, nearly 4 feet high, and much thicker
than that of the preceding ; the leaves are also
broader. The spikes are a foot long, and twice
the thickness of those of the common millet,
but not so compact, being composed of several
roundish clustered spikes ; the grain is also
larger. There are two or three varieties of this,
differing only in the colour of the grain. It is
frequently cultivated in Italy (whence its tri-
vial name), and other warm countries. It is a
native of both Indies, and of Cochin China.

The Polish Millet, or manna grass of the
Germans (Digitaria sanguinalis, formerly Pa-
nicum sanguinalis, PI. 3, w), is a low, decumbent,
annual plant, seldom rising above 9 inches or a
foot high, with hairy leaves and slender pani-
cles. It tillers much, and forms a close tuft,
spreading and rooting at the joints. It is a
native of England, but not common. It grows
in abundance in Poland, and is sometimes cul-
tivated, the seeds being used like those of the
other millets as a substitute for rice or sago.

The Great or Indian Millet (Lat. Holcus sorghum.
Sorghum vidgare, PI. 3, o ,• Fr. Sorgho, gros millet
d'ltalie ; Ger. Sorgsamen ; It. Sagina ; Span. Melxa)
has a stem which rises 5 or 6 feet high, is strong,
reedy, and like those of the maize, but smaller.
The leaves are long and broad, having a deep
furrow through the centre, where the midrib is
depressed in the upper surface, and is very
prominent below. The leaves are 2^ feet long,
and 2 inches broad in the middle, embracing
the stalks with their base. The flowers come
out in large panicles at the top of the stalks,
resembling, at first appearance, the male spikes
of the Turkey wheat (maize) ; these are suc-
ceeded by large, roundish seeds, which are
wrapped round with the chaff. This grain is
a native of India, where it is much used to feed
poultry, and is frequently sent to Europe for
the same purpose. It is much cultivated in
Arabia, and most parts of Asia Minor; and
has been introduced into Italy, Spain, Switzer-
land, and some parts of Germany, also into
China, Cochin China, and the West Indies,
where it grows commonly 5 or 6 feet high, or
more, and, being esteemed a hearty food for
labourers, is called negro Guinea corn. Its
long awns or bristles defend it from the birds.
In England, the autumns are seldom dry and
warm enough to ripen the seed well in the
field. In Arabia it is called dora or durra; the
flour is very white, and they make good bread
of it, or rather cakes, about 2 inches in thipk-
ness. The bread which they make of it in
some parts of Italy is dark and coarse. In
Tuscany it is used chiefly for feeding poultry
and pigeons; sometimes for swine, kine, and
horses. Caesalpinus says, that cattle fed on
the green herb are apt to swell and die, but
thrive on it when dried. They make brushes

MILLET-GRASS.

MILLS.

and brooms of its stalks in Italy, which Ray
observed in the shops of Venice, and which are
sent to England. Of this species there are
two distinct, varieties ; one distinguished by
black, and the other by red, husked seeds, be-
sides subvarieties.

The only sorts of millet which are cultivated
with success in England are the German, cul-
tivated, and the Polish sorts. According to
Professor Thaer, the cultivated is to be pre-
ferred, as having the largest grain.

The soil for the millet should be warm,
sandy, rich, and well pulverized to a good
depth. In England the seed is sown in May,
very thin, and not deeply covered. In the
course of its growth, no plant, Professor Thaer
observes, is more improved by stirring the soil,
after which it grows astonishingly fast, and
smothers all weeds.

In harvesting the millet, great care is requi-
site not to shed the seed ; and as it ripens rather
unequally, it would be an advantage lo cut off
the spikes as they ripen. No grain is easier
to thrash, or to free from its husk by the mill.
It is used instead of rice, and in Germany
bears about the same price. It produces a
great bulk of straw, which is much esteemed
as fodder. (London* s Ency. of AgriruV.ure.)

The great Indian millet will grow in Eng-
land to the height of 5 or 6 feet; but will not
ripen its seeds, or even flower, if the season
is not dry and warm. It would doubtless suc-
ceed in the United States.

MILLET-GRASS, Milim (Fr. viiUel ; Lat. wii-
linm, from mille, a thousand, in allusion to the
immense number of seeds produced by it).
Theseare hardy, annual, and perennial grasses;
but in England the climate is seldom warm
enough to ripen the seed, or to allow of their
being cultivated to advantage. The haiJened
corolla, forming a coat to the seed, affords a
mark of distinction between this genus and
^grostix, no loss obvious than important, as
those most deeply versed in grasses will most
readily allow.

There are two English species: —

1. Spreading millet-grass {M.eff-nsnm). Grow-
ing very common in moist, shady places. The
root is perennial and fibrous, with several
creeping shoots. Stems erect, slender, gene-
rally 3 and 4 feet high, with about 4 joints,
leafy, smooth. Leaves bright-green, flat, very
smooth, thin and weak. Flowers solitary,
slightly drooping, ovate, in a loose spreading
panicle, without awns; panicles from 4 inches
to a foot in length. Mr. Curtis observes, that
this is distinguished from the panic grasses, to
which it has the greatest aflinity, by having a
calyx of two valves only. The produce of this
grass is very light in proportion to its bulk,
and it is but little nutritive. Birds are remark-
ably fond of the seeds : so much as to render
it likely that, for the sake of the seed only, it
could be cultivated to advantage on the farm.
But in covers where game are preserved there
cannot be a better grass encouraged: it will
save the corn fields. About the beginning of
August is the best season for sowing the seed.
The surface of the ground near the roots of the
bushes should be lightly stirred, and the seeds
scattered over it and raked in ; a few of the

decaying leaves that cover the ground should
afterwards be thrown over. It flowers in the
second week or latter end of June, and the
seed is ripe in the middle of July and begin-
ning of August.

2. Panic millet-grass {M. lanigenim). This
annual species is less common, and grows
principally in fields where water has stag-
nated, especially towards the sea. The stem
is branched from the bottom and smooth.
Flowers in a dense, spiked, erect panicle, pale-
green, bristly; corolla awned.

MILLS (Lat. vwla). The term mill seems
to have signified originally an engine for grind-
ing corn, but it is now used in a general sense
to denote a great variety of machines, whose
action depends chi.. fly on circular motion. The
particular purpose is usually indicated by a
prefix: thus, bark-mill, cotton-mill, flour-mill,
oil-mill, saw-mill, spinning-mill, &c.

The machinery by v/hich it is necessary to
accomplish the ultimate objects of the mill
must obviously vary almost indefinitely. Many
voluminous works on this subject have been
published, as well as separate accounts of par-
ticular structures.

The Kibbling-mill is well worthy of notice.
It is composed of a small iron cylinder, usually
about 8 or 9 inches wide, and 6 inches in dia-
meter, tapering slightly to one end, and fluted
on the inside. Within this a barrel of the
same form, but a size less, and fluted on the
outside, revolves by the turning of a spindle
on which it is fixed. The meal is rendered
finer or coarser in proportion as the working
barrel is set nearer to or farther from the
small end. This mill is made entirely of iron
and steel, and is usually attached to a post. It
is provided with a hopper, and is worked by a
crank fixed at one end of the spindle, while a
fly-wheel revolves at the other. It is used for
beans, peas, and other pulse, for malt and va-
rious kinds of grain, and is a very useful and
ingenious contrivance, but requires care in its
adjustment and general management.

Bein-mill. A mill for grinding beans, con-
structed by Seaman and Bryant of Melton, in
Suffolk, is as simple and effective an imple-
ment of the kind as any we have seen. It is
placed on a wooden stand, with crank, fly-
wheel, and hopper; and consists of a coarsely
fluted barrel, working against a front cutting
plate ; the latter being set at the proper distance
from the barrel by means of a screw. It is
used chiefly for beans and peas, but may
be emploj'ed for grinding malt, by exchang-
ing the barrel and cutting-plate for a pair of
rollers.

The Norfolk Crusher is similar in appear-
ance to the foregoing, and is worked by two
rollers of equal dimensions, each being flanged
at one end, and reversed so as to prevent the
grain from falling off at the side. The rollers
are perfectly smooth, and consequently, as its
name implies, it crushes the grain instead of
cutting it.

The Suffolk Crusher is simply a variety of the
above, and differs from it in having its hind
roller finely grooved, and of half the dimen-
sions of the front one ; this has no flange, but
works within the flanges of the front roller

MILLSTONE GRIT.

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

which are attached at both ends. To render
these mills effective for crushing oats, the
rollers should be left rough as they come from
the lathe, to draw in the, kernels, as the latter
are apt to start back at the moment of entering
between the rollers, if they are polished. A
grooved or fluted roller has not been found
adequate to the perfect bruising or cutting of
oats, and a mill that shall effect this object may
be considered a desideratum in agricultural
mechanics.

MILLSTONE GRIT. A geological term
applied to a group of strata which occur be-
tween the mountain limestone and the superin-
cumbent coal formations ; it is a coarse-grained
quartzose sandstone.

MINT (Mentha). The poets celebrate Minthe,
a daughter of Cocytus, as being transformed
into mint by Proserpine ill a fit of jealousy.
(Ovid. Metam. 10, v. 729.) This is an extensive
and well-known genus of useful herbs, with
the culture and propagation of which every
one is familiar. In England there are more
than a dozen native species, besides numerous
cultivated varieties. The roots are perennial,
creeping widely. All the herbage is more or
less hairy, but variable in that respect ; rarely
woolly or finely downy; full of pellucid dots,
lodging a copious essential oil, which is pun-
gently aromatic, cordial, and stimulant, and is
thence used in medicine as an excitant and
stomachic for promoting digestion. The fol-
lowing are the indigenous species. Horse-mint
(M. sylvestris), round-leaved mint (M. rotundi-
folia)j spear or green mint (M. viridis), black
or peppermint (ilf. p»peri/a),bergamotmint (M.
citrata), hairy mint (ilf. hirsuta), fragrant sharp-
leaved mint (M. acutifolia), tall red mint {M.
rubra), bushy red mint {M. gentilis), narrowed-
ieaved mint {M. gracilis), corn-mint (M. arven-
sis), rugged field-mint (M. agrostis), and penny-
royal (^M. pulegium). See Cat-mi?tt, Horse-
Mi xt, Peppermint, Penxt-Rotai,, Spear-
Mint, &c.

MISSELTOE (Viscvm; from wsr«s, birdlime,
on account of the sticky nature of the berries).
The raisseltoe is a well-known parasite, readi-
ly propagated by sticking the berries on thorn
or apple trees, after a little of the outer bark
has been cut off, and tying a shade or net over
them, to protect them from the birds. Sheep
eagerly devour this plant, which is frequently
cut off the trees for them during the severe
winters ; nay, it is even said to preserve them
from the rot. Its branches are much sought
after at Christmas to hang up in houses, along
with other evergreens. It was one of those
plants held sacred to the Druids.

MIST. See Fog.

MITE. See Cheese-Mite.

MIXEN. A compost heap.

MIXTURE OF SOILS, in agriculture, is the
addition of one soil to another, to improve its
fertility.

There is perhaps no agricultural improve-
ment more important in both its immediate and
permanent effects than the careful, judicious
mixture of soils, and there is no question more
likely to repay the cultivator for the care he
bestows upon it. j

This mode of improving the land was one ]
824

which very early engaged the attention of the
farmer. Nature herself, in fact, pointed out to
him the means of producing the richest of
soils by earthy mixtures in very intelligible
language. The solid matters brought down
from the distant hills by the flood-waters, and
deposited in the valleys where the waters
rested, evidently formed, by the mixture of dif-
ferent strata, and by their union only, the rich
alluvial soils of the old and the new worlds ;
for that the mere mechanical separation of the
earth into a fine state of division is not the sole
cause of the increased fertility, is apparent to
every farmer.

It is useless, he well knows, to expect t^e
debris of the hills to produce fertilizing effects
on soil of a similar composition. It is the dis-
similarity of the earths which insures a maxi-
mum fertile mixture : thus, in the soil of the
rich marshes of the banks of the Thames are
found the clay of the London basin, the sands
of Middlesex, and the chalks of Oxfordshire and
Kent; and in a similar manner are formed all
rich alluvial lands. This good effect of earthy
deposits naturally pointed out to the Italian
farmers the use of earthy additions to the soil.
Columella expressly notices the use of sand,
gravel, marl, and chalk (book ii. c. 16, p. 93) ;
and the people of Megara, according to 'I'heo-
phrastus, had made similar observations upon
the importance of mixing together different
strata of earth (lib. iii. c. 25) ; for every fifth
or sixth year they trenched the gravel to a
depth equal to that they imagined the rain had
penetrated. The early inhabitants of Britain
employed marl, as the people of Gaul did lime,
for spreading over their lands. And that this
was done to a very considerable extent, is shown
by several facts. Thus, marl-pits are men-
tioned as early as 1285, in the charter of the
forest, and again in the statute of Wales in the
12 Edward 1. And so early as the days of
Richard, Duke of Cornwall, the Cornish farm-
ers had a grant by which they were empowered
to take the calcareous sandof Padstow harbour,
and spread it over their clayey lands. The
successful mixture of the farmers' soils, there-
fore, is not a modern improvement; it has evi-
dently been practised with success in all cli-
mates, in diflferent ages, and on every descrip-
tion of cultivatable land.

I have witnessed, however, even in soils to
all appearance similar in composition, some
very extraordinary results from their mere
mixture. Thus, in the gravelly soils of Spring
Park, near Croydon, the ground is often exca-
vated to a depth of many feet through strata
of barren gravel and red sand, for the purpose
of obtaining the white or silver sand which
exists beneath them. When this fine sand is
removed, the gravel and red sand is thrown
back into the pit, the ground merely levelled,
and then either let to cottagers for gardens or
planted with forest trees ; in either case the
effect is remarkable : all kinds of either fir or
deciduous trees will now vegetate with re-
markable luxuriance; and in the cottage-garden
thus formed, several species of vegetables,
such as beans and potatoes, will produce very
excellent crops in the very soils in which they
would have perished previous to their mixture.

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

These instances are remarkable, and well
worthy of the careful consideration of the
farmer; for the poverty of both the sand and
the gravel, which is thus so successfully min-
gled together, is very great. The appearance
of the soil here gave no indications of any
good being derived from the union of the two.
The blade gravel and the red sand were equal-
ly sterile; yet their mere mixture yielded a
productive soil.

The permanent advantages of mixing soils,
too, is not confined to merely those entirely of
an earthy composition; earths which contain
inert organic matter, such as peat or moss
earth, are highly valuable additions to some
soils. Thus, peat earth was successfully added
to the sandy soils of Merionethshire by Sir
Robert Vaughan. The Cheshire farmers add
a mixture of moss and calcareous earth to their
"tight-bound earth," the effect of which they
describe as having "a loosening operation;"
that is, it renders the soil of their strong clays
less tenacious, and consequently promotes the
ready access of the moisture and gases of the
atmosphere to the roots of the farmers' crops:
their vigour is promoted, their food better sup-
plied. There are certain natural indications
with regard to the admixture of soils which
are self-evident to every cultivator; and there
are others which are well understood in par-
ticular districts. The Norfolk farmers consider
that marl is not far from the surface when the
weed coltsfoot {Tussilago forfara) abounds : and
that all lands will be much benefited by marl-
ing which produce the weeds corn-marigold,
or briddle (Chrysanthemimi segetum), and smart-
weed, or pale-flowered persicaria (^Polygonum
Pcnnsylvanicum).

In the transfer of the earths the farmer will
find it a profitable practice, especially when the
distance is great, to have them previously dug
in pits, and dried in the sun. In this way the
weight of either chalk, marl, or clay is much
more considerably reduced than the cultivator
would suppose. I have found that when moist
chalk is dried in this way it loses from 20 to
24 per cent, of water. Strong adhesive clay,
under similar circumstances, loses from 32 to
41 per cent., and marl from 18 to 26 per cent,
of its weight; so that, supposing he carts 100
cubic yards of each of these fertilizers, by
merely having them previously dried, he saves
in weight of carriage

Too*.
In the chalk - - - - - 20 to 24
In the clay - - - - - 39 to 42
In the marl 18 to 26

As there are only these earths present to any
extent in all cultivated soils, and as the propor-
t; n which they bear to each other makes the
cnief difference between fertile and barren
lands, I shall confine my attention in this paper
to the application of 1. Chalk, 2. Clay, 3. Sand,
to land which is naturally deficient in them;
and in entering upon the investigation, I shall
suppose that the farmer is aware that it is
merely the excess of one of these earths which
renders a soil unproductive, and that the ap-
plication of the deficient earths operates so
advantageously by tending to render the com-
position more similar to those of richer soils,
104

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

in which the earths are mixed in a more fertile
proportion. It is of the first importance, how-
ever, that the farmer should be aware of this
fact; let him, to this end, contrast the analysis
of a barren soil like that of Bagshot Heath,
which is composed of

Coarse silicious sand
Fine sand - - -
Iron, clay, and cbalk

Fartj.

380

9

11

with that of the soil of a Lincolnshire pasture,
which contains, in the same weight,

l»«rt!i.

Fine calcareous sand and silicious sand - 160

Soluhle matters ----- 6

Organic matters ----- 40

Chalk M

Oxide of iron ------ 8

Alumina (pure clay) ----- 25

Silex (earth of flint)- - - - - 85

Water, and loss ----- 64

400

The soil of Bagshot, he will observe, contains
nearly twice as much silicious matters, and
only one-fifth the proportion of chalk and alu-
mina, that is present in the pasture from Croft
in Lincolnshire.

Chalk and marl are both used for the sake
of the corbonate of lime they contain, and they
may, therefore, be treated of under one head.
The proportion in which I have witnessed these
applied per acre naturally varied with the ex-
pense of the carriage of the material. On the
light gravelly soils of ihe coast of Essex, I have
used, in common with my neighbours, about
20 to 25 tons of the chalk of Kent per acre, at
a cost of about 6«. per ton; but of marl the
quantity applied in the same district is from
50 to 100 t(ms per acre, which may be com-
monly procured for the expense of carriage
and spreading; and this addition to the soil is
a very permanent improvement. Chalking,
the Essex farmers say, lasts for 20 years, and
marling for a man's life.

Upon analyzing a productive soil, worth 30».
per acre, which had been thus chalked about
five years previously, it was found to contain

Pats.
Stones and srravel, principally silicioai - - 27
Vegetable fibres - - - - - - 1 5

28 5

Soluhle matters, principally vegetable extract - 3
Carbonates of lime and magnesia - - - - 18

Oxide of iron --------4

Animal and vegetable matters ... - 1
Alumina -__--. .-4-5

Silica --------40

IM88 . ------ 1

100

A portion of the same field (which was an
enclosure from a poor common), not chalked,
being examined, was found to yield nearly the
same proportion of ingredients, but the chalk
was almost entirely absent. Now, before the
addition of the chalk, the land was too poor to
yield any thing except the fern and the furze.

In Dorsetshire, near Weymouth, and on the
Coomb Hills, which separate Berks from Hamp-
shire, where chalk is in many places readily
obtained by sinking a well, and drawing it up

825

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

by a windlass to the surface, the quantity ap-
plied per acre is much more considerable. I
have seen from 50 to 100, or even 150 tons per
acre, spread on the gravel and clay lands with
decided success.

The cultivator sometimes deludes himself
with the conclusion that applying sand, or marl,
or clay, to a poor soil, merely serves to freshen
it for a time, and that the effects of such appli-
cations are only apparent for a limited period.
Some comparative experiments, however,
which were made 16 years since on some poor,
hungry, inert heath-land in Norfolk, have up to
this time served to demonstrate the error of such
a conclusion. In these experiments the ground
was marled with 20 cubic yards only per acre,
and the same of compost ; it was then planted
with a proper mixture of forest trees, and by
the side of it a portion of the heath, in a state
of nature, was also planted with the same mix-
ture of deciduous and fir trees. Sixteen years
have annually served to demonstrate, by the
luxuriance of the marled wood, the permanent
effect produced by this mixture of soils. The
growth of the trees has been there rapid and
permanent; but on the adjoining soil, the trees
have been stunted in their growth, miserable
in appearance, and profitless to their owner.
Time has made no alteration; while the marled
soil has yielded an annual and luxuriant crop,
the land left in its original state has demon-
strated by its produce that something was
wanting, some earthy ingredient only needed
to render it no longer barren, and the adjoining
marled land has further shown of what that ad-
dition was composed.

The expense per acre of this marling, and
otherwise preparing the soil, was

£ s.

20 cubic yards of marl, at Is. 3«f. - 1 5

20 cubic yards of compost, at 5s. - 5 0

Deep ploughing - - • - 1 10

Trees, carriage, planting - - 7 10

]5 10

In this instance the marl had to be carried
about a quarter of a mile.

It is difficult to account for the want of that
general attention to the use of earthy admixtures
which so many successful experiments with
them would lead us to anticipate. Mr. Rod-
well, of Livermere, in Suffolk, successfully
clayed and marled 820 acres of sandy heath
not many years since, using about 140,000
tumbril loads, which, at 8^d. per cubic yard,
cost him 4958^. He found, from experience,
that clay was to be preferred to marl on all his
sandy soils. The result was highly satisfac-
tory : 350/. per annum was added to the value
of the estate.

This excellent farmer practised also the sys-
tem of hand-barrowing the clay. "The men
make good earnings at lOd. a cubic yard,
wheeling it 30 rods; and down to 7d. a yard at
shorter distances ;" and on the whole, deemed
this " the cheapest method of all others, espe-
cially on heavier soils." But he did by far the
greatest part by tumbrils, the expense of which,
by contract carting, and labour, wa.s 8d. per
cubic yard. He found also, contrary to the
commonlv received opinion, that deep ploughing
826

was the best for his marled and clayed lands.
" I have found," he said, " that the clay and
marl works the better, the more soil it has to
incorporate with."

One cause of the failures which have some-
times taken place in the attempted improve-
ment of soils by their admixture, arises from
the want of a thorough union of the heavy clays,
added to the light sandy soils. The earths were
in these cases never incorporated by the aid
of the harrow, on such frosty mornings as are
best adapted to the mixture, and, in conse-
quence, the more ponderous lumps of clay or
marl were allowed to gradually sink, as the
farmers say, into the sand ; and in some such
soils as these, the stratum of clay and marl
which was applied 10 years since may now be
found in one unbroken seam, at a depth of 12
or 14 inches in the soil. Such erroneous modes
of applying the earths are much to be lamented :
they decide no controverted question, — they
prejudice the unreflecting cultivator, — they
add nothing to the common stock of agricultu-
ral knowledge.

This error was noted by the late General
Vavasour : he told the farmers very correctly,
that under a poor sand, a stratum of clay, marl,
or other substance peculiarly adapted to give
fertility to the soil will generally be found
that nature seems to have designed that no land
should" be unproductive, and if any be unfruit-
ful, the cause is in the ignorance or indolence
of man. If clay marl, he thought, could be
had at a convenient distance, 75 cubic yards
per acre was a good covering ; if of a shelly
or soapy marl, 20 or 25 yards will be sufficient.
The marl, after being spread, should be repeat*
edly rolled and harrowed, to divide and pul-
verize it the better.

The application of sand to the farmers'
heavy clay soils is a practice which, in several
districts of England, is attended with very
decided success. Thus, in that part of Suffolk
which is bounded on two sides by the rivers
Orwell and Stour, there is found a fine red
sand abounding with shells, both in their per-
fect and broken state, which, when applied to
the clay soils at the rate of 20 to 30 tons per
acre, is productive of very excellent perma-
nent good effects.

In the valley of the Kennett, in Berkshire, in
similar proportions I have witnessed the use
of the gravelly debris of the Bath Road used
upon the peaty soils of that district with excel-
lent effect, and with equal success on some
stiff clay meadow-land; the result of di'es.<5iiig
it with about 30 tons per acre with the same
road-sand is equally decided. The land is not
only prevented from cracking in the summer
months, but the produce of grass is very mate-
rially increased.

The employment of sea-sand is a very an-
cient custom in the west of England; it is one,
in fact, to which no one can as.sign the period
of its commencement: many tliou.sand tons
per annum are carried away by the farmers
who cultivate the lands in the neighbourhood
of Padstow Harbour, even on horses' backs,
and they think it we. I worth their v/hile to carry
this sand some miles into the interior of the
country. In a similar manner the farmers of

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

Devon dredge for the sand at the mouth of the I
Tamar, and when they have filled their barges,
carry it up the river. They deem the fine-
grained sand the most immediate in its effects,
hut both are very durable, and decided im-
provements to the soil. The coarse sand, they
say, lasts for many years.

The composition of the sands of Padstow
Harbour, and of the estuary of the Tamar, are
very similar ; they contain from 60 to 70 per
cent, of carbonate of lime, and are both pre-
ferred by the farmers, when they can be ob-
tained, mixed with the sea-water.

Another, but the least commonly practised
mode of improving the staple of a soil by earthy
additions, is claying ; a system of fertilizing,
the good effects of which are much less im-
mediately apparent than chalking, and hence
one of the chief causes of its disuse. It re-
quires some little time to elapse, and some
stirring of the soil, before the clay is so well
mixed with a sandy soil as to produce that
general increased attraction and retentive
power for the atmospheric moisture M'hich
ever constitutes the chief good result of clay-
ing poor soils. Clay must be, moreover, ap-
plied in rather larger proportions to the soil
than chalk ; for not only is its application
rarely required as a direct food for plants, for
the mere alumina which it contains, since this
earth enters into the composition of plants in
very small proportions.but there is also another
reason for a more liberal addition of clay being
required, which is the impure state in which
the alumina exists in what are commonly
called clay soils. For instance, chalk usually
contains, when perfectly dry, about 98 per cent,
of carbonate of lime. Mr. Kirwan found in a
specimen of chalk 2 per cent of alumina, or

Lime 52

Carbonic acid ----- 42

Water S

Aiuiuiiia ...... 3

100

But the heaviest clay soils seldom contain
more than 20 per cent, of alumina ; in the stiff
clays of Sussex and the Weald of Kent are
found only about 28 per cent, of this earth:
even the adhesive clays employed by the pottei
yield only about 33 per cent, of alumina, porce-
lain earth only 47 per cent.

The following is the analysis of a heavy
Sussex clay soil : —

Fkrtk

Silica M

Alumina --...- 28

CHrbniiate oriime .... 3

Oxide of iron - - - . . 5

Organic matters .... 4

Lotis, chiefly moisture ... 3

100

The farmer, therefore, who applies 50 tons
per acre of such a clay to a sandy field, only
adds about 14 tons of alumina to the soil ; but
if he applies 50 tons of chalk, he adds 49 tons
of carbonate of lime.

Hence, is the reason why, in all efforts to
alter the earthy constituents of a soil, a much
smaller quantity of chalk produces more de- j

cided effects than the addition of a much larger
proportion of the most tenacious cla)'. Chalk,
too, when merely spread on the surface of the
soil, and exposed to the action of frost, speedily
crumbles to powder, and becomes intimately
combined with the other earths of the soils.
The clay, however, is too adhesive to be thus
readily, and without some little labour, so inti-
mately mixed with the soil : its effects, how-
ever excellent, are much more slowly appa-
rerit; but patience and judicious management
of clay will do wonders, even on the most un-
likely soils; and I could not, perhaps, state any
more complete cases of tho recovery of an
absolutely barren soil by means of clay and
chalk, and that, too, at a reasonably profitable
rate, than those successful experiments which
have recently been made on the shingle of the
sea-coast near Eastbourn, in Sussex, consist-
ing entirely of silicious pebbles, varying in
size from that of hazel-nuts to hen's eggs, and
that extending to a depth of many feet.

In this case the clay was drawn in hand-carts
by three men, rather belter than a quarter of a
mile. The cart contained about 880 lb. of clay,
or about 13 cubic feet. Eight of these carl-
loads, or about 3^ tons, were spread on each
square rod of 16^ feet, which, when first spread
loosely and in lumps, made the soil 5 or 6
inches deep, and when it had become settled
and solid, about 4 inches ; each cart took back
a load of shingle to fill up the hole made by
the excavation of the clay. The work was la-
borious, but the men readily earned about ls.6rf.
per day, and were contented. They did their
work by contract, receiving 3s. per square rod
for the shingle they thus covered, or 24/. per
acre ; and for this sum they carried 250 tons
of clay. The clay is of the ordinary red de-
scription, so common in Sussex, and though
not particularly adhesive, is yet suflBciently so to
form a plate, on which in wet weather the water
stands, although this superstructure of clay is
resting on a mass of coarse shingle stones, 15
feet in depth. This experiment was made on
a small field of about 3 acres in 1839, and
promises as well as a similar effort made with
the same clay in 1832.

In this instance an acre and a quarter of
shingle was covered with the same clay to a
similar depth. But the clay being only divided
in this case from the shingle by the Eastbourn
and Hastings Road, the expense was less ; the
men digging, carrying, and spreading the clay,
for 25. per rod, or 16/. per acre. This land was
let in 1834, for a term of 14 years, at 40«. per
acre. The tenant has succeeded in making it
produce excellent crops ; has added to it a con-
siderable quantity of muck and ditch scrapings ;
has paid his rent regularly, and is contented
with his bargain : it produced, in 1838, an ex-
cellent crop of rye, which was cut green for
horses ; this was followed by a good crop of
potatoes, and in 1839, the tares which it pro-
duced were a very heavy crop. It is rated to
the poor at 21s. 8d. per acre.

It would be hardly possible, I think, to pro-
duce a more complete case of the absolute for-
mation of a soil, by means of claying, than
these valuable experiments ; the soil (if utterly
barren boulder stones or large shingle throwa

827

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

MIXTURE OF SOILS.

np by the sea can be called soil) not affording '
a single substance of any kind which could, to
any extent, be profitably mixed with the clay.
The attempt, therefore, was one of much more ,
difficulty than any case which usually presents
itself to the notice of the cultivator. It was not
a mere claying a poor sand or chalk, or peat,
either of which would assist in forming a
mould, but the entire soil had to be formed ;
and this, it will be seen, was accomplishel
successfully and profitably, and by manual la-
bour only.

Some valuable observations and experi-
ments upon claying a light sand are contained
in the prize essay of Mr. Linton. The descrip-
tion of land he improved "was a light barren
sand ; the substratum a white sand, from 1 to 4
feet deep ; the surface of the same texture, but
darker in its colour, through the decomposition
of vegetable matter upon it. Beneath the bed
of sand lay a yellowish kind of clay, about 1
foot thick ; under it a rich marl, about 18 feet
deep. The land generally being very wet, my
first object was to underdrain it thoroughly
with tiles ; unless this is first done, where ne-
cessary, marling is a waste of capital. I cut
my drains about 24 inches deep, and 9 yards
apart." As to the choice of clay, Mr. Linton
tested it with vinegar and water: the descrip-
tion he used " effervesced nearly as tartaric
acid and carbonate of soda do when mixed
together in water; this was my test, that it con-
tained a quantity of carbonate of lime, which
rendered it fit for my purpose, and worthy of
the name of marl. I consider, that on the
proper testing and selection of the clay or marl
chiefly depends the success of marling opera-
tions. All clay will do good, there is no doubt,
but on the quality used must rest the amount
of benefit obtained." In these experiments
"the land was made completely level by the
plough-harrows, and in some places the spade,
after which it was ready for the marl being
laid on, which was done at all times of the
year;" he prefers, however, doing this when
the land is in seeds. The quantity laid on
" varied from 100 to 200 cubic yards per acre,
the average 150 yards. Where the land was
very light and barren (which was mostly the
case on elevated parts), a larger quantity was
laid on; but where it was a better soil, a much
less quantity answered the same purpose, my
object being to lay on just as much as would
grow wheat after seeds ; to do more than this
would have been an injury to the land, for eat-
ing turnips upon it with sheep, and for the
barley crop; when suflJiciently clayed to grow
wheat after seeds, a point requiring close at-
tention, I always found it effectually done for
any other crop.

" The way in which it was done. It was neces-
sary, in the first place, to fix upon the most fa-
vourable situation for the pit, keeping three
objects in view. 1. The most convenient place
for carting to the plot of ground intended to be
marled. 2. The best situation for a pond to
answer for a permanent watering-place, cutting,
ifpossible,across a fence, so as to water 2 fields,
one from each mouth of the pit. 3. Where the
clay could be got with the least difficulty. After
the place was fixed upon, the work was carried

on by 5 diggers, a driver, 4 horses or beasts,
and 2 carts (which are of the Scotch kind, with
short bodies, and broad wheels) ; the pit was
dug with a gradual descent, so that .3 horses
could draw out about a ton, which was shot
out where wanted, the last returning by the
time the other was loaded : thus, 3 horses were
always ready for the loaded cart: the clay was
spread by the diggers, at broken times after
being exposed to the action of the air; rain,
after either frosty or droughty weather, would
cause it to fall to pieces, sufficiently for har-
rowing and ploughing in. The expense I paid
for digging, filling the carts, and spreading, was
from 4rf. to 5rf. per cubic yard (full 1 ton), vary-
ing according to the quantity of stones im-
bedded in the clay ; the total expense per acre
was as follows : —

£ s. d.
Digging and spreading 150 yards, at 4Jd. per

yard 2 16 3

4 horses 4 days, at 2s. 6rf. each, 10s. per day - 2 0 0

Driver 4 days, at 2s 6d. per day - - - 0 10 0

Other expenses (wear and tear) - - - 0 3 0

Total expenses in marling 1 acre - - 5 9 8

Mr. Linton marled 80 acres in this way ; but by
employing a windlass to draw the carts out of
the pit, he reduced the expenses per acre 7s.
As regards the improvement of the land by
marling, the value of the produce in 4 years
before marling was

£ s. d.
14 7 0

- 24 16 6

- 22 15 0

In four years after draining : —

When marled npon seeds
When marled upon fallow

Balance in favour of marling upon seeds - 2 1 6

"The land," Mr. Linton adds, "is never so
productive the first 2 years (or until the clay
has got well pulverized and mixed with the
sand) as it is afterwards, and it will not grow
a good crop or a fine sample of barley for 5 or
6 years after the clay is laid on. I have there-
fore sown oats instead. If people (he con-
cludes) would improve the land they have,
particularly light land, by draining, marling,
&c., they would realize a far greater return for
the outlay than by purchasing more." {Journ.
Roy. Agr. Soc. vol. ii. p. 67.)

From these facts the cultivator, I think, will
arrive at the conclusion, that the judicious ad-
mixture of soils, and other applications of
manual labour, for the purpose of increasing
their productiveness, can hardly fail, sooner or
later, to amply repay him for the labour he thus
employs. It is an improvement, let him re-
member, that, when once accomplished, lasts
forever, since the very character of the soil is
changed ; his organic manures, such as farm-
yard compost, oil-cake, and even bones, are
gradually dissolved or decomposed, and disap-
pear from the land, are absorbed by his crops,
or evolved in the gases of putrefaction ; but no
such results arise from either deepening the
soil or the addition of the earths, they, when
once united to the soil, remain there to increase
the crops, to lessen the toils, and to add to the
profits of succeeding cultivators, even in dis-
tant periods. And to effect these important,

MOLASSES.

MOLE.

these national results, let him, too, remember,
that no neighbouring lands are impoverished,
no organic matters are drawn from one field
to enrich another; the dead, the deep-buried
earth is merely brought to the surface, and that
which is utterly profitless in the mass diffuses
riches and gladness when spread over the
farmer's fields.

MOLASSES (Port. Melassd). The saccha-
rine principle in the dregs or refuse drainings
from the casks, &c., of sugar, and the uncrys-
tallizable part of the juice of the cane sepa-
rated from the sugar during the process of
granulation. It consists of sugar prevented
from crystallizing by acids, saline, and other
matters. All cattle are fond of sweets, and
thrive well upon substances which yield a
large proportion of saccharine juice, of which
no better proof can be afforded than the con-
dition of the cattle and swine of the West
India Islands, which are fed mainly on the tops
and refuse of the cane after the juice has been
expressed for sugHr. Mr. E. Waters (Com. to
Board of j9srr. vol. vi. p. 30) gives the result of
a very satisfactory experiment as to the ad-
vantage of feeding live-stock with molasses.
There can be no doubt that when this sub-
stance can be had cheap, its use must prove
very beneficial in improving the condition of
cattle.

MOLE. A species of the genus Talpa, com-
mon in England and other parts of Europe.
This quadruped exhibits in perfection that
modification of structure by which the mam-
miferous animal is adapted to a subterranean
life. Its head is long, conical, and tapering to
the snout, which is strengthened by a bone, and
by strong gristles worked by powerful muscles.
The body is almost cylindrical, thickest behind
the head, and gradually diminishes to the tail.
There is no outward indication of a neck, that
part being enlarged to the size of the chest by
the massive muscles which act upon the head
and fore-legs. These, which are the principal
instruments by which the mole excavates its
long and intricate bu>cows, are the shortest,
broadest, and strongest, in proportion to the
size of the anfmal, which are to be met with in
the mamraiferous class. The food of the mole
consists of worms, insects, and the roots of
plants ; its voracity is great, and it soon pe-
rishes if food be scarce or wanting. The sense
of sight is very feeble, the eyes being minute
and rudimental ; but the other faculties of
smell and hearing, as being more serviceable
in its dark retreat, are extremely acute. The
female prepares a nest of moss, dry herbage,
roots, and leaves, in a chamber commonly
formed by excavating and enlarging the point
of intersection of 3 or 4 passages. The young
are brought forth to the number of 4 or 5 in
April, and sometimes later.

The farmer views the operations of the mole
as destructive to his crops, by exposing and
destroying their roots, or by overthrowing the
plants in the construction of the mole-hills;
his burrows, moreover, become the haunts and
hiding-places of the field-mouse and other de-
structive animals. The mole is also accused
of piercing the sides of dams and canals, and

letting out the water, and of carrying off quan-
tities of young corn to form its nest. Hence
every means are devised to capture and destroy
it, and in Europe men gain a livelihood exclu-
sively by this occupation. Some naturalists,
however, plead that the injury which it perpe-
trates is slight, and that it is more than coun-
terbalanced by the benefit which it produces by
turning up and lightening the soil, top-dressing
pasture-land, and especially by its immer.se
destruction of earth-worms, slugs, grubs, wire-
worms, and many other noxious animals and
insects which inhabit the superficial layer of
the ground, and occasion great injury to the
I roots of grass, corn, and many other plants.
The soundest practical conclusion lies pro-
bably in the mean of these opinions ; and
the enlightened agriculturist, while he takes
prompt measures to prevent the undue in-
crease of the mole, would do well to reflect on
the disadvantages which might follow its total
extermination. The Ettrick Shepherd (James
Hogg), from a course of 30 years' hard-earned
experience and observation, speaks of the per-
nicious effects of destroying the moles on sheep
pasture. He alleges, that besides the inferior
pasturage which the soil affords when moles
have been exterminated, the pining and the
foot-rot, two baneful diseases, come in their
place to annihilate the stock.

There can be no question that moles do much
injury to gardens, by destroying the neatness
of the beds, rooting up onions, tulips, and other
tubers ; but in the wide-spread surface of the
field it is a question whether he does not do
more good by his teeth than injury by his
snout.

The animal so well known in the United
States under the name of mole, belongs to an
entirely different genus of quadrupeds from the
common mole of Europe. The late Dr. God-
man has designated the American, the shrew-
mole, and given, in his Rambles of a Naturalisty
a most interesting account of its habits, &c. It
is the scalops aquaticus of naturalists. Whether
the true mole has ever been found in the
United States, appears doubtful. Moles live in
pairs, and frequent soils of loose textures most
abounding in earth-worms and insects. They
exhibit great dexterity in skinning the worms,
which they always do before they eat them,
stripping the skin from end to end, and squeez-
ing out all the contents of the body.

In the United States where professional mole-
catchers are not yet to be met with, other means
of destroying the pest are resorted to. Dogs
are sometimes found very expert in digging
out moles. Mole-traps are also used, and for a
good design of one see Ellsworth's Rcpoi-t. It is
found that if fine shreds of fresh lean beef are
placed in their furrows, the moles will eat
them, if found soon after deposit ; and if poison,
arsenic or strychnine, is placed on these shreds,
they are frequently killed. The trap most re-
commended is one constructed on the principle
of that, a figure of which is given in the Culii'
vator. Wherever the mole shows itself in
numbers, it is a pest of no small magnitude.
I For accurate descriptions, with drawings, of
I the various animals known in the United
4 A 829

MOLE-CRICKET.

MOON INFLUENCE OF.

States under the names of moles, or mice, the
reader is referred to the 1st volume of the Na-
tural History of the State of New York.

MOLE-CRICKET (Gryllotalpa vulgaris,
^cheta gryllotalpa). This destructive insect is
known in different localities in England, under
the several names of churr-worm, jarr-worm,
eve-churr, and earth-crab. The mole-cricket
measures 2 inches in length, and 4 lines in
breadth. Its colour is dark-brown. The most
remarkable feature in the insect is the size and
strength of its fore-arms. The power which
is requisite to move them is great. The cavity
of the main trunk is divided lengthways by a
double gristly partition, surmounted by a bony
frame, with an inferior condyle, with which the
inner part of the base of the clavicle of the
arm is hinged ; and by this mechanism the arms
are moved. The mole-cricket burrows under
ground, and devours the roots of plants. The
female hollows out a place for herself in the
earth, about half a foot from the surface, in
the month of June, and lays her eggs in a
heap, which often contains from 200 to 300.
They are shining yellowish-brown, and of the
size and shape of a grain of millet. The
young, which are hatched in July or August,
greatly resemble black ants, and feed, like the
old ones, on the tender roots of grass, corn, and
various culinary vegetables. They betray
their presence under the earth by the withered
yellow patches in the meadows, and by the
withering decay of culinary vegetables in the
gardens. In October or November they bury
themselves deeper in the earth, as a protection
from cold, and come again to the surface in the
warm days in March. Their presence is dis-
covered by their throwing up the earth like
moles. The best method of destroying them is
to dig up the young brood ; but boiling water
or oil of any kind poured over their holes will
be found effectual. (Kollar on Insects, p. 144.)
For a description of the American mole-cricket
see Cricket.

MOLE-PLOUGH. See DnAixi^To and
Ploughs.

MOLE-TREE {Euphorbia lathyrus). Com-
monly called Caper Spurge, and by the French
Epurge : a plant with a biennial root ; stem 2
to 3 feet high ; found in the United States in
gardens and lots. It is a naturalized foreigner,
and was originally introduced under a notion
that it afforded a protection against the incur-
sions of moles. The same common impres-
sion once existed in regard to the Palma
Christi ; but little faith seems now to be at-
tached to either plant as protectives against
moles.

MONADELPHOUS. In botany, having the
filaments cohering into a tube, or one bundle.

MONANDROUS. A botanical term applied
to plants having only one stamen, or male
organ.

MONILIFORM. In botany, formed like a
necklace ; that is to say, articulated with alter-
nate swellings and contractions resembling a
strins: of beads.

MONK'S HOOD. See Wolf's-bane.

MONOCOTYLEDONOUS. In botany, hav-
ing only one seed-leaf or cotyledon.

MOON, INFLUENCE OF. The following
830

observations upon this subject are taken from
a lecture delivered before the Franklin Insti-
tute of Pennsylvania, by G. Emerson, M. D.,
of Philadelphia.

There is, perhaps, no opinion relative to
the phenomena of the natural world, more uni-
versally maintained, than that the moon exerts
a decided influence over the states of the wea-
ther. This long-cherished notion has doubt-
less derived increased strength, since it was
shown that the ocean tides depend upon a phy*;
sical connection subsisting between our planet
and her satellite.

I, however, think it capable of conclusive
demonstration, that the moon exerts no influ-
ence in the production of wet or dry weather.

I assume it as incontrovertibly proven, by
the experiments of Mr. Dalton, that the watery
vapour from which rain and all the precipita-
tions are formed, owes its elevation and sus*
pension, in an invisible form, entirely to heat,
deprived of a due proportion of which, by any
refrigerating cause, it is condensed, and falls
from the atmosphere in one or other of the
forms of aqueous precipitation. The conditiofis
of wet or dry weather are, consequently, to be re-
garded OS regulated solely by temperature.

Now, the nicest experiments have failed to
show that the presence and light of the moon
are attended by the slightest change of tem-
perature. The lunar rays have been concen-
trated by powerful lenses and the largest re-
flectors, and thrown upon that most delicate
test of heat, the differential thermometer, with-
out any indication of their effect in raising the
temperature. Unless, therefore, it can be
proved that the moon exerts some perceptible
influence upon the temperature of our atmo-
sphere, we shall be warranted in believing that
she has no power in determining the condi-
tions of the weather, whether this shall be wet
or dry.

I am fully aware of the multitudes of ob-
servations which have from time to time been
made upon this question, and that most of those
reported appear to favour a belief contrary to
the position here taken.

It cannot be denied that the power of the
moon, so conspicuously manifested in the pro-
duction of the ocean tides, may also be felt by
the atmosphere. The aerial ocean must, weight
for weight, be as subservient to the law of at-
traction subsisting between the earth and her
satellite, as any other terrestrial matter ; and
I have no doubt of the correctness of the re-
sults of observations made in Italy and France,
by Polina, Flaugergues, and others, which go
to prove that the mean height of the barometer
is affected by the different positions of the
moon in relation to the earth, the greatest mean
elevations corresponding with the quarters.
But, in thus admitting the existence of lunar
influence upon the terrestrial atmosphere, we
should not deceive ourselves in regard to the
nature of this influence. We must not admit
that every cause which operates in producing
the rise or depression of the mercurial column,
is capable of influencing the hygrometric con-
ditions of the air, or, in other words, exercising
an influence in the production of wet or dry
weather. The attraction subsisting between

MOON.

MOON.

the earth and moon, causes an accumulation
of the liquid and movable materials spread
over the terrestrial surface, on that part ad-
dressed, towards the moon; hence, the rise ob-
served in the sea, and in the mercurial column.
But all this is owing to the agency of gravity,
or attraciion^ which, we contend, has nothing
to do with the production of wet or dry wea-
ther; the elevation and deposition of aqueous
vapour being, as we have said before, subject
to the agency of temperature alone.

As to the calculations, the results of which
seem so irresistibly in favour of lunar influ-
ence upon the weather, we think it easy to
show that that they must be founded upon de^-
ceptive data, and will not bear a close exami-
nation. The estimates of Toaldo, a celebrated
Italian philosopher, embrace a series of labo-
rious observations, collected during many
years, and compute the number of changes of
weather to the difl'erent phases of the moon, as
follows :

New moon, - - - 6 to 1 ;

Full moon - - - 5 to 1 ;

First quarter - - 2 to 1 ;

Second quarter - - 2 to I ;

Perigee - - - 5 to 1;

Apogee - - - 4 to 1.
That is to say, of 7 new moons, 6 were attend-
ed with a change of weather, and at one of
them there v/as no change; of 6 full moons, 5
were attended with a change ; and, at the quar-
ters, the changes were twice as frequent as the
continuance of the previous weather.

Now, such a computation, coming from so
high an authority, might almost be deemed
conclusive upon the subject. When, however,
we come to inquire more closely into the cir-
cumstances involved in the calculation, we
find ample grounds for suspecting its accu-
rac3^ In the first place, the term " change of
weather" is used by Toaldo in an ambiguous
and arbitrary sense, so that we are left igno-
rant of the specific change he refers to. But,
worse than this, he does not restrict himself to
the day when the change lakes place, but in-
cludes any changes within 2 or 3 days preced-
ing or following a phase. It is easy to con-
ceive how a person, especially one prepos-
sessed in favour of a prevailing opinion, might
have been led, with such a privilege as to
limit, to take or reject a change, to throw it
into one quarter or another, as he might choose
to dispose of it, for the purpose of endowing
the moon with a power to which he thought
her entitled.

The results of a series of observations
made by Pilgram, make it appear that the new
moon has less to do with the changes of the
weather than the other phases ; a conclusion
diametrically opposed to that of Toaldo, just
referred to. As the estimate of Pilgram is
founded on observations extending through a
series of no less than 52 years, it might be re-
garded, in point of authority, as at least equal
to that of the Italian philosopher. How are
these clashing results of observations, profess-
ing to be made with the utmost attention, to be
reconciled with truth 1 Do they not leave us
to infer that the data employed have been either
deceptive, unskilfully grouped, or that some

incidental or accidental circumstances have
interfered with the estimates, and led to erro*
neous conclusions'-

The belief in the moon's influence over the
natural operations going forward upon our
earth, has by no means been confined to the
weather; and it would be a tedious task to
enumerate all the agencies she has been allow-
ed to possess over organic and vegetable life
both animate and inanimate. "Many of the
opinions vulgarly entertained upon this head,"
says M. Arago, "are founded on well-establish-
ed facts, the error lying, not in the observa-
tions, but in the theory which makes the moon
the came of phenomena, of which she is only
the silent and unconcerned spectator." The
distinguished philosopher from whom we have
just quoted, has cited a number of highly in-
teresting cases, which show in the clearest
manner how the eff*ects that have been as-
cribed to the moon's influence, can be readily
traced to natural agencies operating around
us, and with which modern philosophy has
rendered us familiar. Such, for example, as
the pernicious influence upon vegetation, at-
tributed by gardeners and agriculturists to the
April moon ; the effect of the moon's rays in
hastening the putrefaction of animal sub-
stances, &c.; all of which effects are doubtless
connected with the presence of moonlight,
merely, however, as an incidental circum-
stance, for they would take place equally well
in a clear atmosphere, even should there be no
such body as the moon in existence.

Let us take, for example, the case of the
April moon, denominated by the French gar-
deners " la lune rousse." The change in this
case takes place in April, and the full either
about the end of this month, or some time in
May ; at which particular season, in our cli-
mate, the mean temperature of the air is but
little above the freezing point. Under these
circumstances the radiation from^the earth,
during a clear night, will often reduce its tem-
perature to, or even below, the freezing point ;
whilst a thermometer suspended in the air, a
few feet from the ground, will remain several
degrees above 32°. Thus, the lender plants in
the soil may become actually frost-bitten, whilst
the atmosphere has been apparently too warm
to admit of such an occurrence. If, on the
contrary, the night be cloudy, the plants will
suffer no injury; not, as the gardeners allege,
because there is no moonlight to hurt them,
but because the radiation and cooling of the
earth will not take place. Thus, moonlight or
starlight, the injury to vegetation will be pre-
cisely the same, and the eflfect might as well
be ascribed to the stars as to the moon.

And, again, it has been noticed by Pliny
and Plutarch, and is generally believed in most
j countries at the present day, that the moon's
light sheds a copious humidity on substances^
j exposed to its rays, and hastens the putrefac-
I lion of animal substances. That a copious
, humidity is often shed during a moonlight
, night, is not to be disputed; neither can it be
\ doubled that meats will spoil sooner, if ex-
posed to her rays, than if protected from them.
The nature and source of this humidity can be
no mysteries now that the rationale of the

831

MOON-TREFOIL.

MORTAR.

ormation of dew is so happily explained ; and
it is sufficient to say, that the moisture deposit-
ed upon the meat causes it to spoil much
sooner than if kept covered, when it would re-
main dry. Meats are constantly preserved by
simple drying; and even the mummies in the
dry caverns of Egypt have lasted thousands of
years, mainly from their depositories being
perfectly free from moisture. The preserving
agency of embalming is, perhaps, a secondary
consideration, when compared with the subse-
quent state of dryness in which the bodies are
kept.

As to the notion of lunar influence on dis-
ease, which still counts numerous partisans, I
regard it as upon precisely the same footing as
the exploded doctrine of the agency of the
stars, so long and stoutly maintained.

Upon the whole, therefore, I look upon it
as clearly demonstrable, upon established phi-
losophical principles,

1st, That wet and dry weather are matters
regulated solely by changes of temperature, over
which the moon has no control :

2d, That the mutual influence exerted be-
tween the earth and moon, as shown in the
ocean and atmospheric tides, depends upon the
play of another and entirely distinct principle,
namely, gravitation or attraction :

3d, That most, if not all, the efiects upon
animal and vegetable substances, popularly
ascribed to the action of the moon, are to be
traced to natural agencies, entirely independent
of this satellite.

MOON-TREFOIL. A name for one of the
species of medick {Medicago arborea).

MOON WORT {Botrychium, from hotrys, a
bunch ; in reference to the form of the fructi-
fication, which is much like a bunch of
grapes). The species of this genus of ferns
are curious and interesting plants ; one only
is indigenous, the common moonwort {B. luna-
ria), which is a perennial growing in moun-
tainous pastures or meadows. The root con-
sists of several simple, cylindrical, clustered or
whorled fibres. The herb is very smooth, a
little succulent, of a pale opaque green, erect,
not a span high. Leaf solitary, pinnate ; leaf-
lets fan-shaped, notched.

MOOR. An uncultivated surface of coun-
tr}', without trees, and with few grasses or
other herbage fit for pasture ; and usually con-
taining scattered plants of heath, with a dark
peaty soil. Moor lands are generally the least
fitted for culture of any description of surface,
not rocky or mountainous. Moors are covered
with a very thin layer of soft, black, sterile
soil ; and the subsoil is generally gravel or re-
tentive ferruginous clay. By the destruction
of the heath or other bad herbage, and by sow-
ing down with grass-seeds, they may be im-
proved. In many cases, also, trees will grow
on drained moors ; in which case the soil ulti-
mately becomes ameliorated by the shade they
afford, and the fall and decay of their leaves.
See Heath, Morass, Peat Soils, and Waste
Lands.

MOORBAND PAN. This is a name given

in Scotland to an indurated combination of

clay, small stones, and iron in a particular

state, situated either immediately, or at some

832

distance below the path of the plough, and
which is nearly impervious to water. All in-
durated incrustations, however, formed under
the sole of the plough, says a writer in a valu-
able agricultural journal, are not moorband
pan. In good alluvial loam of greater depth
than the plough-furrow, and rendered adhesive
by pressure, an incrustation or firming of the
subsoil — that is, the bottom upon which the
plough moves, is frequently formed by the sole
of the plough rubbing constantly on the soil at
the same depth. This incrustated earth can
retain water, but its effects on soils and plants
are innocuous compared to those of moorband
pan. Nevertheless, its disruption by deep
ploughing is of benefit to the soil, and we have
experienced it in very fine deep mould. From
an analysis by Mr. John Gray, of Dilston, of
two portions of moorband pan obtained from
Mylnfield Plain, 120 parts of one were found to
contain 34 of oxide of iron, 74 of silex, and 6 of
alumina or clay and loss; the other contained
43 parts of oxide of iron, 64 of silex, and 8 of
alumina and loss.

MOOSE. See Deeh.

MOOSE-ELM. See Elm, Red.

MOOSE-WOOD. The name of a species
of maple {.Acer striatum), so called in the
northern section of the United States, but in
the Middle States known by the common name
of striped maple.

MOOR-GRASS (Sesleria, named in honour
of M. Sesler, a physician and botanist of the
18th century). These are uninteresting grasses
in an agricultural point of view.

MORASS. Moor lands saturated with water
to such an extent as not to bear the tread of
cattle. A morass is to a moor what a marsh
is to a meadow. It is evident that the drain-
age of morasses and moors, by lessening the
evaporation of water from their surfaces, must
tend to improve the local climate. See Peat
and Plantations.

MORDANT. Any substance used to fix
dyes or colouring matters upon different
stuffs.

MOREL (Germ, moschel). The Moschella es-
culenta is one of the few edible fungi which
may be used as food wuth safety. It occasion-
ally occurs in woods and orchards, whence
it finds its way to the markets; but it is of
comparatively rare occurrence. It has a hoV
low stalk an inch or two high, and a yellowish
or grayish indented head 2 or 3 inches deep.
See Fungi, and Mushrooms.

MORTAR. A well-known cement employed
for building purposes, which is thus described
by Dr. Thomson: "It is composed of quick*
lime and sand, reduced to a paste with water.
When dry it becomes as hard as stone, and as
durable ; and adhering very strongly to the
surface of the stones which it is employed to
cement, the whole wall in fact becomes no-
thing else than one single ston6. But this
effect is produced very imperfectly unless the
mortar be very well prepared. The lime ought
to be pure, completely free from carbonic acid,
and in the state of a very fine powder; the
sand should be free from clay, and partly in the
state of fine sand, and partly in that of gravel ;
the water should be pure, and if previously

MOSSES.

saturated with lime, so much the better." The
best proportions, according to the experiments
of Dr.Higgins,are 3 parts of fine sand, 4 parts
of coarse sand, 1 part of quicklime, recently
slacked, and as little water as possible. The
stony consistence which mortar acquires is
owing partly to the absorption of carbonic acid,
but principally to the combination of part of
the water with the lime. This last circum-
stance is the reason that, if to common mortar
one-fourth part of lime, reduced to powder with-
out being slacked, be added, the mortar, when
dry, acquiies much greater solidity than it
otherwise would do. This was first proposed
by Loriot; and afterwards Morveau found the
following proportions to answer best: —

Parts.
Fine sand ------ 3

Ci^nieiil of well-baked brickB - - 3
Slacked lime ----- 2

Unslacked lime ----- S

10

The same advantages may be obtained by
using as little water as possible in slaking the
lime. Higgins found that the addition of burnt
bones, in the proportion of not more than one-
fifth of the lime employed, improved mortar by
giving it tenacity, and rendering it less apt to
crack.

When a little clay is added to mortar, it ac-
quires the important property of hardening
under water; so that it may be employed by
the farmer in those edifices which are con-
stantly exposed to the action of water. Lime-
stone is found not unfrequenlly mixed with
clay ; and in that case it becomes brown by
calcination, instead of white. These native
limestones are employed for making water
mortar ; but good water mortar may be made
by the following process : Mix together 4 parts
of blue clay, 6 parts of black oxide of manga-
nese, and 90 parts of limestone, all in pow-
der. Calcine this mixture to expel the carbonic
acid; mix it with 60 parts of sand, and form it
into a mortar with a sufficient quantity of
water. The best mortar for resisting water is
made by mixing lime with puzzolano, a vol-
canic sand brought from Italy. Morveau in-
forms us that basaltes, which is very common
in this country, may be substituted for puzzo-
lano. It must be heated in a furnace, thrown
while red-hot into water, and then passed
through a sieve.

MOSSES, in common language, are any
minute, small-leaved, cryptogamic plants.
Thus, club-moss is a lycopodium ; Iceland and
reindeer mosses are lichens ; and the nume-
rous species of Jungermannia are all compre-
hended under the same term. But in systema-
tical botany no plants are considered mosses,
except such as belong to the natural order,
Bryacece or Musci. Such plants are simple-
leaved ; without spiral vessels or stomata ; with
a distinct axis of growth ; and with the spo-
rules, or reproductive matter enclosed in cases
called sporangia or thecce, covered by a cap or
calyptra. It is not a little singular that such
plants should have cases called staminidia,
containing powder}^ matter; among which are
found animalcules, not distinguishable from
105

MOSS LAND.

such as are called spermatic, and which swim
about freely in water. None of the mosses are
of any known use, except for the purpose of
packing plants, and surrounding their roots
when they are sent to a distance. They are
bad conductors of heat, and might be employ-
ed, instead of straw, to guard delicate-growing
plants from the influence of frost.

MOSS LAND. Land abounding in peat
moss, but not so much saturated with water as
to become peat bog or morass. Many reme-
dies have been prescribed for the destruction
of moss. A good scarifying or harrowing,
with short, sharp tines, succeeded by a top-
dressing of salt or soot, is probably the most
efficacious : lime in any form is less powerful,
though (especially when combined with sand)
it remarkably promotes the growth of trefoil
tribes and other grasses, highly palatable to
cattle, but does not avail to the exclusion of
moss. Mr. Bishop of Perthshire, who has ob-
tained from the Highland Society of Scotland
a prize for an essay " On the Management of
Pasture in regard to the Destruction of Mnsci,"
suggests as the most certain remedy, that a
great portion of the summer's grass should
remain unconsumed on the ground until the
following winter, when the barer it is eaten
before the new growth of spring, the finer will
be the following summer's grass. Breaking
up the land, and sowing appropriate grasses
after a course of culture, is a certain remedy,
but often a very inconvenient one. Mr. W.
Bell gives an account of certain experiments
which he carried on veiy successfully for con-
verting moss into manure by the application
of whale oil.

Mr. A. Blackadder, speaking of the manures
for decomposing moss, says: Adjacent rock
strata ought to be carefully explored, as in ge-
neral they have each their corresponding earthy
covering, more or less adapted to the purposes
of vegetation. Where the rocks are of the
primitive class, or of the coal formation, their
disintegrated portions, and ofttimes their super-
ficial covers, are of inferior value as a soil ;
but even the rock-earth of the latter, as also of
clay-slate, lime, or even the old red sandstone,
though not previously mingled nor superim-
posed in the moss, are yet valuable as ingre-
dients of composts for top-dressing, as are also
those of the finer sandstone, greenstone, and
sea-sand containing calcareous matters in a
state of decomposition, or even where these
are absent. While sand laid over moss pro-
duces rapid decomposition, and consequent
vegetation, no such effect is produced by the
purer clays. Putrescent matters, whether ani-
mal or vegetable, possess the most powerful
influence. Lime, unless in compost, seems to
have no such effect on simple mosses ; and its
effects on mixed mosses, or those in a state of
partial decomposition, must depend on the
quantity of foreign matter and other circum-
stances. The value of moss greatly depends
on local circumstances, and particularly with
regard to the supply of operatives at the com-
mencement of improvements ; access to pu-
trescent manures ; markets for the sale of the
produce ; soils affording materials for to,-*
dressing ; and turf suitable for wedge-drains ;
4 A 2 833

MOTH.

MOTH.

or for drain-tiles, or stone for drains, or clean
gravel, if found preferable, the expense at which
these can be laid down at the moss must enter
into the calculation. Or, again, if the moss is
to be entirely removed, whether an adequate
supply of water can be obtained, with access
to ^ river or to the sea, into which it may be
floated off. Nothing adds more to the intrinsic
value of moss than mixtures of other soils
during the progress of its formation, either by
means of the winds carrying drift sand, or by
water transporting earthy particles. When,
again, a considerable quantity is thus super-
imposed, the soil ceases to be a moss, properly
so called, and is an alluvial soil upon a moss
subsoil. In either case, little more is required
than thorough drainmg, in order to the produc-
tion, by the ordinary means, of the best crops ;
and such is the description of the greater part
of the mosses hitherto successfully improved
in Scotland. The same writer furnishes some
causes of the failure in moss improvements.

MOTH. Clothes-moth, Fur-moth, Grease-moth,
&c. The various kinds of destructive moths,
found in houses, stores, barns, granaries,
and mills, are mostly very small insects ; the
largest of them, when arrived at maturity,
expanding their wings only about eight-tenths
of an inch. The ravages of some of these
little creatures are too well known to need a
particular description. Among them may be
mentioned the clothes-moth {Tinea vestic^iella),
the tapestry-moth or carpet-moth (T. tapetzel-
In), the fur-moth (T. peUionella), the hair-moth
(T. crinella), and the grain-moth (T. granella),
with some others belonging to a group, which
may be called Tineans {Tineadce) ; also the
pack-moth (^nacampsis sarcitella), Avhich is
very destructive to wool and fabrics made of
this material, and the Angoumois grain-moth
(^. cerealella), both of which are to be included
among the Yponomeutians. In the cabinet of
the Boston Society of Natural History, the
cases, containing the large and beautiful col-
lection of shells, were formerly lined with fine
white flannel. In this some moths soon esta-
blished themselves, multiplied very fast, and,
in the course of a few years, did so much
damage that it became necessary entirely to
remove the moth-eaten linings. In their winged
state these moths were of a light buff' colour,
with the lustre of satin, and had a thick orange-
coloured tuft on the forehead ; the wings were
deeply fringed, and the first pair were lance-
shaped, and expanded rather more than half an
inch. This species agrees very well with the
description given, by the old naturalist, of the
Ti7iea flavifrontella, or the orange-fronted tinea,
and with Wood's figure of Tinea destructor, the
destroyer. Should it prove to be different from
these, it may be named the satin-buflf moth.
Objects of natural history are very apt to be
injured by another moth, closely resembling
the foregoing, and differing from it chiefly in
being somewhat smaller, and in having the
hind-wings tinged with gray. Chocolate, as
Reaumur has remarked, is devoured by another
tinea, whose little silken cases are often seen
between the cakes, and I have also found them
in chocolate put up in tin cases. Other articles
of food are also devoured by some of these
834

tineae, and even our books are not spared by
them.

Habits of Moths, and Means of preserving Clothes^
Sfc, from their Attacks. — Thd tineans, in the
winged state, have 4 short and slender feelers,
a thick tuft on the forehead, and very narrow
wings, which are deeply fringed. They lay
their eggs in the spring, in May and June, and
die immediately afterwards. The eggs (ac-
cording to Latreille and Duponchel,from whose
works the following remarks are chiefly ex-
tracted) are hatched in 15 days, and the little
whitish caterpillars or moth-worms proceeding
therefrom immediately begin to gnaw the sub-
stances within their reach, and cover themsel ves
with the fragments, shaping them into little hol-
low rolls and lining them with silk. They pass
the summer within these rolls, some carrying
them about on their backs as they move along,
and others fastening them to the substance
they are eating; and they enlarge them froni
time to time by adding portions to the two open
extremities, and by gores set into the sides,
which they slit open for this purpose. Con-
cealed within their movable cases, or in their
lint-covered burrows, they carry on the work
of destruction through the summer; but in the
autumn they leave off" eating, make fast their
habitations, and remain at rest and seemingly
torpid through the winter. Early in the "Spring
they change to chr}''salids within their cases,
and in about 20 days afterwards are trans-
formed to winged moths, and come forth, and
fly about in the evening, till they have paired
and are ready to lay their eggs. They then
contrive to slip through cracks into dark clo-
sets, chests, and drawers, under the edges of
carpets, in the folds of curtains and of gar-
ments hanging up, and into various other
places, where they immediately lay the founda-
tion for a new colony of destructive moth-
worms.

Early in June the prudent housekeeper will
take care to beat up their quarters and put
them to flight, or to disturb them so as to defeat
their designs and destroy their eggs and young.
With this view wardrobes, closets, drawers,
and chests will be laid open, and emptied of
their contents, and all woollen garments, and
bedding, furs, feathers, carpets, curtains, and
the like, will be removed and exposed to the
air, and to the heat of the sun, for several
hours together, and will not be put back in
their places without a thorough brushing, beat-
ing, or shaking. By these means, the moths
and their eggs will be dislodged and destroyed.
In old houses, that are much infested by moths,
the cracks in the floors, in the wainscot, around
the walls and shelves of closets, and even in
the furniture used for holding clothes, should
be brushed over with spirits of turpentine.
Sheets of paper sprinkled with spirits of tur-
pentine, camphor in coarse powder, or leaves
of tobacco, should be placed among the clothes,
when they are laid aside for the summer.
Furs, plumes, and other small articles, not in
constant use, are best preserved by being put,
with a few tobacco leaves, or bits of camphor,
into bags made of thick brown paper, and close-
ly sewed or pasted up at the end. Chests of
camphor wood, red cedar, or of Spanish cedar,

MOTH MULLEIN.

MULBERRY TREE.

are found to be the best for keeping all articles
from moths and other vermin. The cloth lin-
ings of carriages can be secured forever from
the attacks of moths by being washed or sponged
on both sides with a solution of the corrosive
sublimate of mercury in alcohol, made just
strong enough not to leave a white stain on a
black feather. Moths can be killed by fumi-
gating tl\e article containing them with tobacco
smoke or with sulphur, or by shutting it in a
tight vessel and then plunging the latter into
boiling water, or exposing it to steam, for the
space of 15 minutes, or by putting it into an
oven heated to about 150 degrees of Fahren-
heit's thermometer.

Stored grain is exposed to much injur}' from
the depredations of two little moths, in Europe,
and is attacked in the same way, and apparent-
ly by the same insects, in the United States.
See CoRx-MoTH, Graix-Weevil, and Ixsects.

MOTH MULLEIN. See Mulleix.

MOTTLED. In botany, signifies marked
with blotches of colour of unequal intensity,
passing insensibly into each other. It is syno-
nymous with maculated; as, for instance, in
the stems of common hemlock (Conium macu-
latum).

MOULD. A general name for the finely
divided earthy substance that forms the upper
stratum or surface soil of land, and in which
all kinds of vegetables strike root and thrive.
See AxALTsis of Soils, Earths, and Humus.

MOULD-BOARD. See Plough.

MOULD ON HOPS. A vegetable disease,
which is liable to affect the hop plant, in the
more advanced periods of its growth, and pro-
duce much mischief to the crop. See Mildew
and Hops.

MOULDEBAERT. This implement of Flem-
ish husbandry resembles a large square malt-
shovel : it is strongly prepared with three bars
of iron on the lower side, secured by 12 bolts,
and is drawn by a pair of horses with swingle-
trees. It is used for transporting compost,
mould, «Scc., from one spot to another. Its usual
dimensions are as follows: breadth across, 3
feet 6 inches ; length, 3 feet ; height of back, 1
foot 6 inches ; length of handle, 4 feet. The
person who drives, with long reins, by pressing
moderately on the handle as the horses go for-
ward, collects and transports about 5 cwt. of
earth to the place where it is to be laid down,
which is done in the most expeditious manner,
by his letting go the handle ; this causes the
front edge of the implement to dip and catch
against the ground, whereby it is at once turned
over and emptied of its load. The extremity
of the handle, to which a rope is affixed, by
this upsetting strikes against, and rests upon,
the swingle-tree bar, and in this manner the
mouldebaert is drawn along towards the heap
of earth or compost; the driver then, by taking
up the rope, draws back the handle, collects
his load as before, proceeds to the spot which
is to receive it, and the horses are never for a
moment delayed.

MOULTING. TIfe fall of the plumage of
birds. It may be either partial or total : the
complete moult generally takes place annually ;
the partial moult occurs at the change of plum-
age to which some species of birds are subject

j at the breeding season. The moult is always
accompanied by the developement of a new
I plumage, which may be of a different colour
from that which is lost.

MOUNTAIN ASH. See Rowax Tree.

MOUNTAIN EBONY (Bauhinia: in memo-
ry of John and Caspar Bauhin, botanists of the
sixteenth century). A genus of showy and
interesting evergreen shrubs, which will suc-
ceed well in a mixture of sand, loam, and
peat.

MOUNTAIN LAUREL. See Kalsha Lati-

FOLIA.

MOUNTAIN MAHOGANY (Betxda knta).
Black Birch. See Birch.

MOUSE-EAR CHICK WEED. See Chick-
weed.

MOUSE -EAR SCORPION-GRASS. See
Scorpiox-Grass.

MOW. A pile or heap of corn, straw, or
hay placed together for the purpose of being
kept dry. See Stack and Rick.

MOW-BURNT. A term applied to such
substances as are over-heated in the mow by
the process of fermentation.

MOWING. The act of cutting down corn,
grass, &c., by the scythe.

MOWING MACHINES. See Rsapixo Ma-

CHIXES.

MUCILAGE. A turbid, slimy fluid, pro-
duced by treating some vegetable substances
with cold water, others with hot. It resembles
gum, but is distinguished from it by not form-
ing a thick curd with the solution of Goulard's
extract. See Starch, Lixseed, Marsh Mal-
low, &c.

MUCK. A farming term for any sort of ma-
terial, such as dung, straw, &c., that is moist,
or in a fermenting or decomposing state.

MUD. The mechanically suspended matters
of water deposited at the bottom of rivers, ponds,
ditches, &c. As much of this kind of material
should be collected as possible, and be thrown
up into heaps in order to become mellow. It
contains much carbonaceous matter, and is an
excellent manure, either in the simple or com-
pound state, mixed with compost, or with a
bushel of lime or salt to each cubic yard.

MUD WORT (Limosella ; from limos, mud, in
allusion to the habitation of the species ;
whence, also, the English name). , The com-
mon mudwort (Z. aquatica) is an English
annual subaquatic plant, growing in muddy
spots, where water has stagnated during winter.
The herb is diminutive and quite smooth.

MUGWORT (Artemisia vulgaris). This spe-
cies of Artemisia grows very common about
English hedges, in waste ground, and the rough
borders of fields. This species is weakly aro-
matic, and bitterish ; and has, from remote
antiquity, been esteemed an active warm me-
dicine in decoction.

MULBERRY TREE (Morus ; from the Celtic
word mor, signifying black, in allusion to the
colour of the fruit). The species of Moms, or
mulberry, grow from 10 to 30 feet high. A
moist situation and loamy soil, with a free ex-
posure to the sun, suit them best.

1. The common mulberry (M. nigra) is in
general cultivation for the sale of its fruit,
which is well known.

93$

MULBERRY TREE.

MULLEIN.

2. The white mulberry (M. alba) is extensive-
ly cultivated in many countries for its leaves,
which form the chief food of silkworms.

The mulberry tree may be propagated by
layers, cuttings, or grafting. The principal
use of the fruit of the black mulberry is for
the dessert; but from its cooling and laxative
properties, its juice, diluted with water, is some-
limes used as a beverage in fevers. It is also
employed in the form of syrup for medicinal
purposes, chiefly to colour other fluid medi-
cines. The juice is also used to give a dark
tinge to liquors and confections. When pro-
perly fermented and prepared, the fruit yields
a pleasant vinous liquor, known under the
name of mulberry wine. In the cider counties
they are sometimes mixed with apples, to form
a beverage known as mulberry cider. The
bark of the root has an acrid bitter taste, and
is a powerful cathartic ; hence it has been suc-
cessfully used as a vermifuge, in doses of a
scruple, in powder. The wood of the tree is
yellow, tolerably hard, and may be applied to a
variety of uses in turning and carving. It is,
however, necessary to steep it in water before
it is worked, in order to remove the tough and
fibrous bark, which is capable of being con-
verted into strong cordage, ropes, and brown
paper.

Linnaeus has enumerated seven species of
the mulberry known in his day, all which are
employed to feed silkworms, except the Tinc-
toria and Indira, of which the first named fur-
nishes the well-known dyeing substance called
ftistir.

The species of mulberry found growing wild
in the United States, is the Moms rubra of
botanists, the berries being of a round and
oblong form, and red, or dark purple, the pulp
enveloping numerous small seeds. When per-
fectly ripe they are pleasant and wholesome.

The varieties of mulberry employed in Eu-
rope for feeding the silkworm form a long list.
They have usually been multiplied by engraft-
ing the finer kinds on the stalks of the com-
mon white Italian mulberry. Hence, the fine,
large, and firm-leaved kind called the Rose of
Provence, Rose of Lombardy, &c. The exer-
tions made to improve the tree and increase
the size of the leaf by repeatedly sowing the
seed of the best kinds, has resulted in the
greatest success, and now the Moretta, Elata,
and other varieties, are obtained from seed,
with leaves sufficiently large to render grafting
unnecessary.

Besides these long-known varieties of mulber-
ry used for feeding silkworms, comparatively
few of which have been employed in the United
States, there are two others, namely, the Mulli-
caulis and the Chinese, which have been very
greatly multiplied, especially the former. The
Chinese is usually produced from seeds im-
ported from Canton. Its growth is exceedingly
vigorous, and its leaves heart-shaped, flat, and
very large. The Multicaulis is always propa-
gated from cuttings or layers, and is more hardy
than the Chinese, with larger leaves, which are
always hollow and uneven. Even where the
severe winter frosts of the Northern States
cause the Multicaulis to be cut down, the suck-

ers spring up from the old roots so as to
afford in good season an abundance of foliage.
Of late years, a hybrid variety of mulberry has
been produced in France by shaking the pollen
of the Moretta flowers over the flowers of the
Multicaulis. The seed of the Multicaulis pro-
duced by this mixture, produces a hybrid va-
riety with more valuable qualities than the
parent, and nearly as great a capacity for pro-
pagation by layers and cuttings. The hybrid
Multicaulis has large flat leaves, like those of
the Chinese or Canton seedlings. They are
firm, and much relished by the worms. They
endure frost equally well with the white mul-
berry, and are exceedingly well adapted to
the silk-culture, both from their great pre-
cocity of growth, hardiness, and valuable qua-
lities for feeding the worm and making good
silk.

MULE. This is the well-known offspring,
of the ass and the mare, or of the she-ass and
the horse. In the latter case, the produce is
called a jennet, and is much less hardy, and
therefore rarely bred. The term mule is gene-
rally applied in the animal creation in the same
sense with hybrid in the vegetable world, sig-
nifying the intermixture of two distinct species.
Mules are very hardy animals, and therefore
much used in warm climates, where they are
preferred to horses, either for the purposes of
draught or carriage. Considerable numbers
are likewise emplo)^ed in Ireland, and in some
of the northern counties of Britain, on account
of their great strength and durability. No
animal is more sure-footed or more hardy; but
the pace of the mule is disagreeable to those
unaccustomed to its action. The diseases to
which the mule is liable are few. He attains
double the age of the horse, and is much more
easily maintained. The mules of the south
of Europe are frequently very fine animals,
16 or 17 hands in height, active, handsome, and
peculiarly patient of labour ; but very inferior
in beauty to the horse, particularly about the!
head and tail. The importation of Spanish
asses into England has tended greatly to im-
prove its mules, many of which, when bred
with care, are sufliciently thick-set and heavy
for all those purposes in which our largest
draught-horses are employed.

To have large and handsome mules, the
mare should be of a large breed, well propor-
tioned, with rather small limbs, a moderate-
sized head, and a good forehead ; and the ass
should be of the large Spanish breed.

MULLEIN (Verbasawi ; said to be from bar-
bascum, bearded, in allusion to the bearded fila-
ments). The English species of Vcrbascum are
strong, robust-growing plants, producing an
abundance of showy yellow flowers, and on
that account they are well adapted for plant-
ing in the garden at the back of flower borders,
or in shrubberies. They grow freely in any
soil, and are readily increased by seeds ; some
of the perennial kinds by divisions of the root.
(Paxton's Bot. Did.) There are as many as 6
wild species common t(f Britain, viz., great
mullein, or high taper (F. thapsus); white mel-
lein (V. lyrhnitis) ; yellow hoary, or Norfolk
mullein ( V. pulverulentum) ; dark or black

MUNJEET.

mullein (V. nigium) ; large-flowered primrose-
ieaved mullein (V. virgatum) ; and moth mul-
lein (F. blattaria). The dark black mullein is
a perennial, the moth mullein annual, and the
rest are biennial in habit. They mostly grow
to the height of 3 to 5 feet, in fields and waste
places, on chalky and gravelly soils. The
species of mullein common in the United States,
in the fields of slovenly farmers, is the Vcrbas-
cum thnpsns of botanists.

MUNJEET. A kind of madder grown in
the East Indies.

MUIUATIC ACID, called also Hydrochlorir.
acid; anciently Marine acid, and Spirit of sea-
salt,

M URIC ATE. In botany, implies covered
with short, sharp points.

MURRAIN. A contagious, malignant epi-
demic, which frequently prevails in hot, dry sea-
sons among cattle, carrying off vast numbers.
It once used to sweep off the horned stock of
whole districts, and there are few years in
which it is not now seen in some part of the
kingdom. It principally appears in marshy
and woody districts, or where under-draining
has been neglected, or the cattle have been ex-
posed and half-starved. The disease is known
by the animals hanging down their heads,
which are swollen, by short and hot breathing,
cough, palpitation of the heart, staggering, an
abundant secretion of viscid matter in the eyes,
rattling in the throat, and a slimy tongue. The
early stage of murrain is one of fever, and the
treatment should correspond with this : bleed-
ing and small doses of purgative medicine will
be serviceable. The peculiar fetid diarrhoea
must be met with astringents, mingled also
with vegetable tonics. In combating the pus-
tular and gangrenous stage, the chloride of
lime will be the best external application;
while a little of it, administered with the other
medicines inwardly, may possibly lessen the
tendency to general decomposition. Above all,
the infected animal should be immediately re-
moved from the sound ones. {Youatt on Cattle,
p. 379.)

MUSCLE (Fr. muscle; Sax. mufcula). Fleshy
fibres, susceptible of contractions and relaxa-
tions. They constitute what is commonly
called flesh, the most nutritious species of
animal food. See Flesh and Gelatix.

MUSHROOMS (Fr.nmischeron; Lat. ^gan-
cus, from Agaria, a city, or Agarus, a river of
Sarmatia, now Malamonda). A more exten-
sive genus than this is not known in the whole
vegetable kingdom. Some species, as the com-
mon mushroom, A. campesiris, A. vaginatus, &c.,
vire well known for the wholesomeness of the
food which is prepared from them. Others, as
A. niuscariiis, A. necator, the whole genus Ama-
nita, and many others, are very dangerous poi-
sons : indeed, the latter quality exists more or
less in so many species, and these resemble
those that are wholesome so nearly as to ren-
der it advisable to be exceedingly cautious in
the use of fungi, for the most dreadful effects
are well known to have resulted from want
of caution in this respect.

The edible mushroom (A. campestris), is
nearly inodorous, but has a grateful flavour.
The crown or hat is at first hemispherical,

MUSTARD, CULTIVATED.

then convex, and at last flat ; fleshy ; about 2
to 5 inches broad ; white, or very light-brown,
slightly scaly, the scales soft and fibrous ; gills
pink, changing to fuscous black ; the flesh,
when divided, usually changes to a reddish
hue. The use of the mushroom, as an arti-
cle of diet, was known to the ancients. See
Fuxgi.

To produce mushrooms artificially, beds va-
riously constructed are employed ; and, from
the numerous modes which have been invent-
ed and adopted for their production, some ac-
companied with extraordinary expense, it is
obvious that this "voluptuous poison" is with
us, as it was with the Romans, in high estima-
tion.

MUSSELS, or MUSCLES (Mytilis edilis). A
species of shell-fish which abound on the rocky
shores on the borders of the sea in many parts of
the British islands, adhering to the rocks. Mus-
cles are also found in immense beds, both in
deep water and above the low water-mark, in
the British seas. Where they can be collected
in large quantities they may be made use of as
an excellent manure, either alone or in the
state of compost, with earthy substances.

MUST. A term applied to new wine and
wort before it is fermented. It is also given
to the saccharine juice of several fruits sus-
ceptible of the vinous fermentation, and par-
ticularly to the expressed juice of the grape
before its conversion into wine.

MUSTARD {Fr. moutarde ; hat. Sinapis ; from
a-nnTrt, on account of its making the eyes water,
Tnti enrdLi). A genus of upright, branching, an-
nual or biennial herbs, often hairy or bristl)\
There are five wild species common to the Bri-
tish islands ; —

1. Wild mustard (S. arvensis). Avery trou-
blesome annual weed in corn-fields; also abun-
dant in waste ground newly disturbed. The
seeds serve as an inferior kind of mustard, or
rather, to adulterate that made from the com-
mon mustard. See Chaulock.

2. White mustard (S. alba), 3. Common
mustard {S. nigra), are annuals, in general
cultivation, but are also found wild on waste
ground and by road-sides, &c. See Culti-
vated Mustard.

4. Narrow-leaved wall-mustard (S. tenui-
folia). This perennial species is found grow-
ing on old walls and heaps of rubbish about
most ancient cities. The root is tapering,
rather woody. Herb for the most part entirely
smooth, and more or less glaucous all over;
fetid when bruised. Stem bushy, erect, 1^
or 2 feet high, with numerous round, leafy
branches, occasionally besprinkled with a few
hairs.

6. Sand mustard (S. muralis). This annual
species flourishes on sandy, barren ground
near the sea. The root is small and tapering.

MUSTARD, CULTIVATED. The species
of Sinapis generally grown in the kitchen gar-
den for domestic purposes are the white mus-
tard (S. alba), and the common or black mus-
tard (S. nigra). The first is the one grown for
salads ; but the seed of both is employed in the
manufacture of mustard.

The soil they succeed in best is a fine, rich,
mouldy loam, in which the supply of moisture

837

MUSTARD, FLOUR OF.

MUTTON.

is regular ; it may much rather incline to light-
ness than tenacity. If grown for salading, it
need not be dug deep; but if for seed, to full
the depth of the blade of the spade. In early
spring, and late in autumn, the situation should
be sheltered ; and, during the height of sum-
mer, shaded from the meridian sun. For sa-
lading, the white may be sown throughout the
year. From the beginning of November to
the same period in March, in a gentle holhed
appropriated to the purpose, in one .already
employed for some other plant, or in the corner
of a stove. From the close of February to the
close of April, it may be sown in the open
ground, on a warm, sheltered border; and from
ihence to the middle of September, in a shady
one. Both the white and black, for seed, may
be sown at the close of March, in an open com-
partment

For salading, it is sown in flat-bottomed
Grills, about half an inch deep and six inches
apart. The seed cannot well be sown too
thick. The mould which covers the drills
should be entirely divested of stones. Water
must be given occasionally in dry weather, as
a due supply of moisture is the chief induce-
ment to a quick vegetation. The sowings are
to be performed once or twice in a fortnight,
according to the demand. Cress {Lepidnmi
sativum), is the almost constant accompani-
ment of this salad herb ; and as the mode of
cultivation of each is identical, it is only ne-
cessary to remark that, as cress is rather tar-
dier in vegetating than mustard, it is neces-
sary for the obtaining them both in perfection
at the same time, to sow it five or six days
earlier. See Cress.

It must be cut for use while young, and be-
fore the rough leaves appear, otherwise the
pungency of the flavour is disagreeably in-
creased. If the top is cut off, the plants will
in general shoot again, though this second pro-
duce is always scanty, and not so mild or ten-
der. For the production of seed, whether for
manufacture of mustard or future sowing, the
insertion must be made broadcast, thin, and
regularly raked in. When the seedlings have
attained four leaves, they should be hoed, and
again after the lapse of a month, during dry wea-
ther, being set 8 or 9 inches apart. Through-
out their growth they must be kept free from
weeds, and, if dry weather occurs at the time
of flowering, water may be applied with great
advantage to their roots. The plants flower in
June, and are fit for cutting when their pods
have become devoid of verdure. They must be
thoroughly dried before thrashing and storing.
For forcing, the seed is most conveniently sown
in boxes or pans, even if a hotbed is appro-
priated to the purpose. Pans of rotten tan are
to be preferred to pots or boxes of mould. But
whichever is employed, the seed must be sown
thick, and other restrictions attended to as for
the open-ground crops. The hotbed need only
be moderate. Air may be admitted as abun-
dantly as circumstances will allow. (G. W.
Johvson's Kitchen Garrlen.)

MUSTARD, FLOUR OF. The seeds of both
black and white mustard are employed in mak-
ing the ordinary flour of mustard for dieteiical
use. In the dry state, mustard is inodorous,
838

and, were it possible to taste withagat the aid
of moisture in the mouth, it would also be taste-
less ; the principle of its odour and taste not
existing ready formed in the mustard, but re-
quiring water for its developement. The prin-
ciples which exist in the mustard are two: one
an acid, which has been named myronic acid,
and is a compound of carbon, sulphur, hydro-
gen, nitrogen, and oxygen; the other a sub-
stance resembling vegetable albumen, which
has been named emulsin, or myrosyne. When
the myrosyne and the myrenic acid, which is
united with potassa in the form of a myronate
of potassa in the mustard, act upon each other
by the aid of water, the volatile oil of mustard
is formed, and odour and pungency given to
the mustard. It is the volatile oil which red-
dens and blisters when mustard poultices are
used ; and it is important to know that vinegar
checks the acrimony of the poultice, and should
not be used. Tepid water only is required.

MUTTON (Fr. mouton). The flesh of the
sheep. Although, by recent extensive improve-
ments, the breed of sheep have been diminished
in size, yet the smallness of bone and symme-
try of form which the animals have thus ac-
quired, have considerably decreased the quanti-
ty of offal, and added largely to the dead weight
of marketable flesh. Before that time the mut-
ton of those coarse sheep rarely amounted to
more than one-half of their live-weight; where-
as now, the common average is more than two-
thirds ; and Dishley wethers, when well fatten-
ed, are said to be in the proportion of an ounce
of bone to a pound of flesh. The best and most
nutritive mutton is that of sheep w^hich are at
least three, but not more than six years old,
and which have been reared on dry, sweet pas-
tures. The meat afforded by such as have
been fed on salt marshes, or near the sea-coast,
is likewise sweet and wholesome ; for they
have acquired both firmness and a fine flavour
from the saline particles abounding in such
situations.

A sheep, to be in high order for the palate
of an epicure, should never be killed earlier
than when five years old, at which age the
mutton will be found firm and succulent, of a
dark colour, and full of the richest gravy;
whereas, if only two years old, it is flabby,
pale, and savourless. To ascertain the age of
mutton, Mr. EUman directs: "To observe the
colour of the breast-bone when a sheep is
dressed, that is, where the breast-bone is sepa-
rated: which in a lamb, or before it is one
year old, will be quite red ; from one to two
years old, the upper and lower bones will be
changing to white, and a small circle of white
will appear round the edge of the other bones,
and the middle part of the breast-bone will yet
continue red ; at three years old, a very small
streak of red will be seen in the middle of the
four middle bones, and the others will be white ;
and at four years old, all the breast-bones will
be of a white or gristly colour." South Down
wether mutton, in point of delicacy and fla-
vour, is thought equal to any that is killed;
and in summer as preferable to some other
fine-flavoured breeds, especially Norfolk mut-
ton. This circumstance is attributed to the
closeness of the grain, or the specific gravity

MUZZLE.

being greater, rendering it more impermeable
to the air than coarser and looser fleshed mut-
ton, which is, of course, more subject to pu-
tridity. The older the mutton, the finer the
flavour.

It is almost unnecessary to remark, that
wether-mutton is always considered so far pre-
ferable to that of the ewe, that the flesh of the
latter, although more commonly kept to a ma-
ture age, always sells at .an inferior price.
Connoiseurs, however, assert that a spayed or
maiden ewe, kept until five years old before
she is fattened, produces mutton superior to
that of any wether.

The live-weight, with the oflal, of a large, fat
wether, and the joints when cut up for market,
were as follows : —

Live weight ... 13 at. 10 lb«.

Offal. Wn. o«.

Blood and entrails - - - 13 0

Caul and Innne fat - - - 21 4

Head and pluck .... 8 12

Pelt 15 12

Cnrea$$.

First fore-quarter . - - 89 0

Second - - . - . W 12

Firrii hind-quarter . . - 33 8

Second ----- 32 0

Joints of one aide.

Haunch . - . - . S3 0

I»ln 10 4

Neck 12 0

Hhoulder 10 12

Breast _ . - . - 4 8

Loss .-...- 0 12

See Meat and Sfzep.

MUZZLE. The nose of a horse or other
animal. It also signifies a kind of halter put
upon the nose of a horse or mule, to prevent
eating or biting.

MUZZLE OF A PLOUGH. A term some-
times applied to the copse or part to which the
drausht is attached. See Plough.

MYRRH. See Swbf.t Cicelt.

MYRTLE (From myros, perfume; myrtot of
the Greeks, vxyrtm of the Dutch, and of almost
every other European language). The myrtle,
from the delightful perfume, the delicacy of its
blossoms, and the glossy green of its perpetual
foliage, is a favourite and well-known genus
of plants, which grow well in sandy loam and
peat; and cuttings, if not too ripe, will root
freely either in sand or soil under a glass.
There are nearly a dozen distinct species, be-
sides numerous varieties. The myrtus ^im€n/a
yields the allspice or Jamaica pepper.

The common European myrtle (iJf. commtt-
nis) is a native of the south of Europe, grow-
ing 5 or 6 feet high, with very fragrant leaves,
and blowing small white flowers in summer.
Being a tender shrub, this myrtle should have
a southern or southwestern aspect, with pro-
tection in winter.

MYRTLE BILBERRY. See Whortle-

BETtRT.

MYRTLE, THE DUTCH, or SWEET
GALE (Myrira gale; from myrio,\.o flow, being
found on the banks of rivers). This, in Eng-
land, is an ornamental, aromatic, indigenous
shrub, growing wild in bogs and marshes, es-
pecially on a gravelly soil. The stem is up-
right, bushy, ^ or 4 feet high, with numerous
alternate branches. It bears berries which are

NAVEW.

very small, covered with resinous dots, exhal-
ing a delightful fragrance when rubbed between
the fingers. The leaves are aromatic from the
same cause. This plant, perhaps one of the
more innocent substitutes for hops, is used for
brewing by the poor in Sweden. Linnoeus
says the berries boiled in water yield wax like
those of the candleberry myrtle {M. cerifera).
See Cakdlebekut Mtrtle.

N.

NAG. A provincial term applied to a horse,
of a small size for the saddle ; such a horse is
very useful for many purposes, where light
labour is required.

NAPIFORM. Formed like a turnip, tu-
berous,

NARCISSUS (from narkc, stupor, on ac-
count of the effects produced by the smell
upon the nerves). This is an old and very
popular flower of great beauty, and some of
the species are highly fragrant.

NARCOTIC (Fr. narcotique). Substances
having the double property of exciting in the
first instance, and afterwards stupifying and
producing sleep or torpor. In medicine the
term comprehends opiates, anodynes, and other
drugs which induce sleep and allay pain.

NASTURTIUM (from nasus, the nose, and
tortus, tormented). The acridity of N. officinalis
affects the muscles of the nose. Few of these
plants are worth cultivating; they are of the
simplest culture. The seed of the annual
kinds has only to be sown in the open ground
in spring. See Cress.

NAVE OF A WHEEL. The short, thick
block in the centre of the wheel which receives
the end of the axletree, and from which the
spokes radiate : it is bound with hoops, called
nave-bands, to strengthen it. It has likewise
in each end of the hole through which the
axletree passes, a ring of iron called the wash-
er, which saves the nave from wearing.

NAVEL-ILL. See Calf, Diseases of.

NAVEL-WORT, Cotyledon (from kotyle, a
cavity; in allusion to the cup-like leaves).
A numerous and rather ornamental genus of
succulent herbs or shrubs, with very thick,
juicy, alternate, simple, entire, or jagged leaves.
In England, the native species are two in num-
ber: both are perennial in habit, flowering about
June and July.

NAVEW. The common wild navew (Bras-
sica cantpestris) belongs to the cabbage tribe,
and is an annual plant, found in corn-fields,
marshes, and about the banks of ditches and
rivers. The root is tapering; stem erect, 2
feet high, leafy, branched, glaucous ; rough in
the lower part, with small bulbous spreading
bristles; smooth upwards. Radical leaves ly-
rate, toothed, and jagged, rough ; stem-leaves
smooth, clasping, oblong, partly pinnatifid ; all
somewhat glaucous. Flowers blowing in June
and July, yellow, corymbose, almost as large
as those of the turnip. Pods on longish stalks,
1^ inch long, nearly cylindrical, beaked. The
roots are nourishing, containing a sweet juice,
which is sometimes domesticallv used in coughs
and asthma.

NAVICULAR.

NIGHTSHADE.

NAVICULAR. A botanical phrase, signify-
ing boat-shaped.

NEAT CATTLE. See Cattle.

NECTARY, in botany, is applied to those
pans of a flower which secrete honey.

NECTARINE (Jnujgdalus Pcrsica, var. Nec-
tarina). A variety of the common peach, from
which the fruit differs only in having a smoother
rind and finer pulp. The culture is in every
respect the same as the peach. The varieties
of nectarines are numerous, nearly 70 being
described in the catalogue of the Horticultural
Society of London. Forsyth recommends for
a small garden the following sorts: — Fair-
child's Early, Eldridge's Scarlet, Newington,
Red Roman, and Temple's. Nectarines, like
peaches, are subdivided into free-stones and
cling-stones.

NEP. See Catmint.

NERVES. In botany, the strong ribs upon
leaves or flowers, which are bundles of vessels,
chiefly spiral. Besides conveying the sap to
the leaf, and returning the proper juice to the
bark, they often afford distinctive characters to
the leaf.

NETTED. A botanical term, implying that
the veins or membranes are reticulated on the
leaf, or variously intersected.

NETTIE, Urtica (from uro, to burn; in re-
ference to the stinging properties of most of
the species). An extensive genus of herba-
ceous or shrubby plants of little beauty, and
which are justly looked upon in the eyes of the
agriculturist as mere weeds. The herbage in
all the species is copiously armed with veno-
mous perforated bristles, each of which has
a bag of liquid poison at its base. This liquor,
by the slight pressure required to pierce the
skin, is transmitted into it, causing great irri-
tation. Many of the numerous exotic species
have not this stinging property ; but the sting
of common nettles is not to be compared with
that of some of the Indian species grown in
the gardens cf Europe. These are, how-
ever, all surpassed in virulence by one which
in Timor is called duoun setan, or devil's leaf,
the eflfects of which are said by the natives in
many cases to cause death. In England, the
indigenous species of nettle are three; viz. 1.
Roman nettle {U. pilulifera), an annual plant,
growing in waste ground amongst rubbish,
chiefly near the sea. The herb is armed all
over with peculiarly venomous stings. The
stem is branched, leafy, bluntly quadrangular,
often purple, about 2 feet high. 2. The small
nettle (U.urens) is found to be in all cultivated
ground a troublesome weed, especially on a
light soil. It is annual in habit, flowering from
June till October, smaller than the last, and of a
much brighter green ; its copious stings hardly
less virulent. The several parallel ribs of the
leaves form its distinguishing character. The
whole plant being refused by every kind of
cattle, should be carefully extirpated from pas-
tures. 3. The common or great nettle (U.dioica),
which is a noxious perennial weed, growing
almost everywhere, and flowering in July and
August. The root is branchinj; and creeping,
with fleshy roots, and many fibrous radicles.
The herb is of a duller green than the last,
erect, 3 feet high, with less irritating stings.
840

Leaves large, heart-shaped, spreading, pointed
strongly serrated, veiny. The leaves are employ*
ed for feeding poultry, especially in the winter;
when boiled, they are said to promote the lay-
ing of eggs. Asses devour nettles eagerly, but
all other live-stock refuse them, unless they
are dried. In the western islands of Scotland,
a rennet is prepared by adding a quart of salt
to 3 pints of a strong decoction of nettles ; a
tablespoonful of which is said to be sufl[icient
to coagulate a bowl of milk. The young tops
of the common and smaller nettles may be
boiled as potherbs during spring, and eaten as
a substitute for greens ; being not only nourish-
ing, but mildly aperient. The tough fibres of
the stem may be manufactured like hemp, and
are often found in winter naturally separated
and bleached. The roots are astringent and
diuretic. See Dead-Nf.ttle.

NETTLE-HEMP. See Hemp-Nettle.

NETTLE TREE (Celtis). This is an orna-
mental genus of trees and shrubs, varying in
height from 6 to 50 feet. The most of them do
very well in any common garden soil, and are
suitable for the back of shrubberies and planta-
tions. They are increased by seeds or layers.

NETTLE TREE, AMERICAN (Cellis oa-i-
dentalis). Sugar-berry. This American tree,
Michaux says, if not rare, is little multiplied in
comparison with the oaks, the walnuts, and
maples. As it is scattered thinly through the
forest, it is difficult to fix the point at which it
ceases towards the north, but it is believed not
to extend beyond the Connecticut river. In the
Middle, Western, and Southern States, it bears
the name of nettle tree, whilst the French call
it bois inconnu, or unknown wood. On the Sa-
vannah river trees are found 60 or 70 feet high,
and 18 or 20 inches in diameter. In the Mid-
dle States it seldom grows above 10 or 15 feet
in height. It is similar in its foliage and gene-
ral appearance to the European nettle tree.
The flowers are small and white, and open early
in spring. The fruit consists of small berries
disposed on stems singly, of a dull red colour,
purplish when mature, and of a sweetish taste.
(Michaux.)

NICKING. In farriery, an operation per-
formed on the tails of horses to make them
carry them well.

NIGHTSHADE (Solanum). A very nume-
rous, principally tropical genus of shrubs or
herbs, more or less narcotic ; though in some
cases rendered eatable by cookery, as in our
common potato. Some of the genus are very
dangerous and highly virulent poisons. Two
species only are indigenous to England, — 1.
The woody nightshade (S. dulcamara). See
Bittersweet.

2. The common or garden nightshade (.S^
nigrum). This is common everywhere, in waste
as well as cultivated ground. The root is
fibrous, annual in habit, occasionally peren-
nial. Herb fetid, narcotic, bushy, with nume-
rous angular or winged leafy branches. Stem
herbaceous, without thorns. Leaves undivided,
ovate, lengthened at the base, smooth. Um-
bels from the intermediate spaces betvi-een
the leaves, lateral, drooping, solitary, stalked,
simple, downy. Flowers white with a musky
scent. The berries globular, black; some

NIGHTSHADE.

times, as it is reported, yellow. A grain or two
of the dried leaf has sometimes beea given to
promote various secretions. Both its poison-
ous and medicinal powers depend on an alkaline
principle, which can be procured in a separate
state, and has been called solania. It is a
powerful narcotic, and the poisoning principle
of the solanums.

NIGHTSHADE, DEADLY, or DWALE
{Atropa belladonna). A plant with narcotic and
dangerous qualities, found growing in hedges
and waste ground on a calcareous soil, fre-
quentl}' about ancient ruins. The root is fleshy
and creeping. Stems herbaceous, annual, 3
feet high, round, branched, leafy, slightly downy.
Leaves lateral, mostly two together of unequal
size, ovate, acute, undivided. Flowers solitary,
stalked, drooping, dark dull purple in the
border, paler downwards, about an inch long.
Berry of a shining violet black, partially en-
veloped in the calyx, which is persistent, the
size of a small cherry; sweetish, and not nau-
seous, so that children have often been tempted
to eat it to their own destruction. The poi-
sonous principle is an alkali named atropia.

NIGHTSHADE, ENCHANTER'S. See
EvcHWTKu's Nightshade..

NIGHT-SOH.. In agriculture, a powerful
manure. This valuable fertilizer has not been
employed in England to the same extent as
on the continent, although it is certainly one
of the most valuable of the organic manures;
and to this neglect many causes have contri-
buted. Its disagreeable odour.certain vexatious
fiscal regulations with regard to its removal,
and erroneous modes of applying it, either in
excessive quantities, or mixed with other com-
posts in such proportions that its powers could
not be distinguished in the mass; its semifluid
nattire requiring for its removal carriages of
a peculiar construction, the extent and com-
pleteness of the sewerage of our large cities,
and several other minor obstacles, have ren-
dered its use not nearly so extensive as, even
in a national point of view, is desirable. Davy,
however, described it, 25 years since, as "a
very powerful manure, and very liable to de-
compose: a part of it is alwayi soluble in
water; and, in whatever state it is used, whe-
thei recent or fermented, it supplies abundance
of food for plants." (Lectures, p. 229.) "The
disagreeble smell," he adds, " may be destroyed
by mixing it with quicklime ; and if exposed
to the atmosphere in thin layers in fine weather,
and mixed with quicklime, it speedily dries, is
easily pulverized, and, in this state, may be
used in the same manner as rape-cake, and de-
livered into the furrow with the seed."

Night-soil is a mixture of urine and foeces;
and these have been found to contain the fol-
lowing substances. Foeces were analyzed by
M. Berzelius: the products were —

Water _ 733

Vegetable and animal reuiaina - - 7*

Bile 0-9

Albumen ------, 0*9

Peculiar and extractive matter - - 27

Sails 1-2

Slimy matter, insoluble residue, iLC. - 14-

100-

106

NIGHT-SOIL.

The salts detected in this analysis, equal to
1-2 parts, were carbonate of soda, muriate of
soda, sulphate of soda, ammonia, phosphate
of magnesia, and phosphate of lime. (Gehlen's
Journal, vol. vi. p. 536.) To the same great
chemist we are indebted for an analysis of hu-
man urine. He found 1000 parts to contain —

Parts.
Water -----_. 933-

Urea (peculiar animal matter) - . 3010
Sulphate of putash ----- 371
Sulphate of soda ----- 2-16
Phosphate of soda - - - _ _ 2 94
Muriate of soda (common salt) - - 4'45
Phosphate uf ammonia - - - - 165
Muriate of ammonia _ - - . 1-50
Acid matter ")

Acetate of ammonia V - . - 1714
Animal matter and urea 3
Earthy phosphates and tluate oflime - 1'

Mucus 0 32

Silica (earth of flint) . . - - 0 03

ICOO-
i^nnaU of Pkiloa. vol. xi. p. 423.)
The very chemical composition, therefore, of
this compost would indicate the powerful fer-
tilizing effects which it is proved to produce.
The mass of easy soluble and decomposable
animal matters and salts of ammonia with
which it abounds, its phosphate of lime, its
carbonate of soda, are all by themselves ex-
cellent fertilizers, and must afford a copious
supply of food to plants.

The history of the use of night-soil, as a
manure, is attended with difficulties ; for the
very nature of the fertilizer predisposes every
experimentalist, especially in this country, to
be silent as to his knowledge of its powers.
Many absurd prejudices are entertained by the
labouring classes; such as to the imajjinary
taste it imparts to vegetables, when added to
the soil ; and, in the earliest of all authorities,
it is mentioned with becoming reserve. The
warmth of the climate would insure a regular
attention to the removal of excrements of every
kind. Thus we find that, amongst the Jews, the
dung of the bullock slain in sacrifices was
directed to be burned (Exod. xxix. 14; Lev. iv.
1 1, viii. 17, xvi.37; Numb. xix. 5), and used as
fuel; and, in periods of distress, even human
dung (Ezekiel iv. 12 — 15). Dunghills were
evidently formed (Daniel ii. 5, iii. 29 ; Luke xiv.
35), and carried away (I Kings i. 10), to be
spread on the surface of the earth (Psalm
Ixxxiii. 10; Jer. viii. 2, xvi. 14, xxv. 33; Zeph.
i. 17); and straw was spread to increase the
quantity of it (Isa. xxv. 10). And Jerusalem
had even a gate called the Dung Port, or Gate
(Neh. ii. 13, iii. 1.3. 14, xii. 31). The inhabit-
ants certainly applied dung to their fruit trees
(Luke xiii. 8).

The account of eastern customs, furnished
Jby modern travellers, illustrates very remark-
ably the notices of the sacred historians. "In
Arabia, says Niebuhr (vol. i. p. 91), "the dung
of asses and camels is chiefly used for fuel,
because these are the most numerous and
common. Little girls go about gathering
dung in the streets, and in the highways; they
mix it with cut straw; and of this mixture
make cakes, which they place along the walls,
or upon the declivity of some neighbouring
eminence, to dry them in the sun." Tourne-
4B 841

NIGHT-SOIL.

NIGHT-SOIL.

fort, speaking of Georgia, says, "All this fine
country yields not a single tree ; and they are
forced to burn cows' dung." (Toumefort, vol.
iii. p. 137.) And again, when speaking of
Ezeroon, he says, " You see neither tree nor
bush, and their common fuel is cows' dung."
And liC Bruyn speaks of the same custom as
occurring in Persia: — "Wood is very dear,
and is sold by weight; whence it is that they
are obliged to make use of turf made of camels'
dung, cows' dung, sheeps' dung, horses' dunj^,
and asses' dung. They use it more particu-
larly for heating of ovens, in which they bake
most of their meats in this country. They
even apply human dung in this way."

Long experience has taught many nations
the value of this manure. In China it is pre-
served with the greatest care, mixed with a fat
marl ; and, according to Sir George Staunton,
made into cakes, which, after being dried in
the sun, constitute a regular article of traffic
between the citizens and the cultivators of that
singular empire. The same useful practice is
carried on in Belgium. What we throw into
our rivers the more thoughtful Belgians turn
to account; what is a nuisance in London is a
source of revenue at Brussels. To a report
of my friend. Dr. Granville, I am indebted for
a pretty copious account of the value assigned
to this manure in the northern states of the
continent ; and this I will give chiefly in his
own language. When describing a continental
tour, made chiefly for the purpose of examin-
ing the mode of employing this description of
manure in Germany, he says, "The kingdom
of Wiirtemberg is so overstocked with popu-
lation, and land, consequently, is of such
value, that every inch of it is progressively
brought into a state of culture by dint of labour
and manuring, no matter how ungrateful the
soil, or its situation, may at first sight ap-
pear.

"The cultivation of the vine is one which
requires, in certain arid and mountainous soils,
a liberal use of the human manure. Wishing
to ascertain this fact from my own observation,
I undertook a journey through the principality
of Nassau, and along both banks of the Rhine,
examining many of the vine districts, as I de-
scended that river for the purpose of visiting
Holland. On my return, I took French Flanders
in my way, looking particularly to the great
flax districts of Tournay, Lille, Valenciennes,
and Cambray, where the surprising results
obtained from the application of human ma-
nure, like those obtained in Belgian Flanders
by similar means, have induced agriculturists,
within the last few years, to give to that spe-
cies of manure the name of 'Flemish Ma-
nure.' "

And, when speaking of the little care taken
in England of this fertilizer, he continues: —
"In no part of France, Wiirtemberg, Bavaria,
Bohemia, Prussia, Saxony, the Confederated
States of Germany, Holland, and Belgium, is
there a city in which, as in London, the gene-
ral mass of filth, of every description, created
by a vast population, is iSrst allowed to enter
the river which may happen to traverse that
city, and is then returned, diluted with the wa-
ter of that river, to the houses of the inhabit-

ants, to be used either for domestic or culinary
purposes ; although, by avoiding the latter dis-
gusting alternative, foreign cities are less free
from unpleasant smells than London is. In
this respect, it may be truly said that foreigners
smell the filth of their cities, but do not swal-
low it; whereas the Londoner swallows it, but
seldom smells it.

"In no large city of that part of Europe
which I have recently visited, possessing a
river, is any portion of the contents of closets
and cesspools suflTered to find its way, or to be
emptied into it, except at Amsterdam, Ant-
werp, Brussels, Stuttgard, and Leipzig ; and
even there only in a partial manner. In Paris
the Seine is contaminated by one large drain
only, conveying the urine from the large re-
servoirs of night-soil at Montfau9on, and by
2 smaller ones proceeding from cesspools. To
convey generally, or to empty even partially
any such matter into the river, is a practice
against which the laws have provided by heavy
fines and incarcerations. And such is the pre-
sent feeling of all the governments on that
subject, even in the great cities I have just
enumerated as exceptions, that the superior
authorities are seriously engaged in devising
plans for preventing in future every possible
infraction of those laws ; not because it is de-
sirable to preserve pure the water of such
rivers (since no domestic use is made of it),
but on account of the loss of a material, deem-
ed most valuable, which such infractions must
necessarily entail.

"Night-soil is husbanded in every part of
the Continent I have visited, without exception,
with a jealousy and care which prove how
valuable it is considered by the people. In
most of the cities of the second order, and the
smaller capitals, night-soil is a source of profit,
first, to the householder, next to a middleman,
and, thirdly, to the farmer, who is the last pur-
chaser, and employs it.

"In all the towns of the Grand Duchy of Ba-
den, of the kingdom of Wurtemberg, of Bava-
ria (except Munich and Wiirtzburgh), of the
province of Salsburg, of Bohemia (except
Prague), of Saxony (except Dresden), in some
of the minor cities of Prussia, in all the con-
federated principalities, in all the cities on
both banks of the Rhine, particularly Stras-
burg, Mayence, Coblentz, Bonn, Cologne, Dus-
seldorf, Nimeguen, &c., the householder dis-
poses of the contents of his cesspool for a
certain sum of money, besides getting the ope-
ration of emptying it. performed gratuitously.
By comparing the returns of the different
prices paid in those cities for the commodity
in question, one year with another, and equal-
izing them by an average price, the inhabi-
tants appear to be benefited to the amount of 4
francs a head yearly, and the middlemen to at
least 40 per cent, more on the sum he pays to
the original seller. I will cite Strasburg as an
example, since most of the other cities of the
same extent (on the Rhine, and in many parts
of Germany), and a few cities even larger pre-
sented the strongest analogy to the case I have
selected. At Strasburg, a company of middle-
men engage to empty the cesspools, of which
every house has at least two (built air and

NIGHT-SOIL.

NIGHT-SOIL.

water-tight), once a year for nothing, and pays, ]
moreover, 6 francs per charette, containing 96
baqvets, of the capacity of 4 gallons each. This '
quantity the company sells afterwards to the j
farmers for ten francs. (The capacity of the \
charctle being to that of a ton as 28,772 ounces
are to 35,840, it follows that the price of a ton
at Strasburg would be 10s.) Now, as there are
14,000 houses in Strasburg, 10,000 of which
have cesspools affording the soil in question
(which is always semi-liquid), supposing the
latter to be emptied only once a year, and to
furnish each 3 chareltes only, at six francs,
we have 10,000 x 6 X 3 = 180,000 francs, which
the company pays yearly to the inhabitants of
a town having a population of 70,000 souls.
But as the company resell to the farmer the
said soil for manuring purposes, at ten francs
per charette, it follows that this article of traffic
produces yearly at Strasburg 300,000 francs,
or just about 4^ francs for each inhabitant."

The high prices paid for this manure by the
Continental farmers betrays the estimation in
•which they hold it. "The contractor at Brus-
sels, M. Champon," says Dr. Granville, "sells
his manure for 13s. 4rf. per ton — 400 florins, or
33/. 6^/. for a barge-load of 50 tons. M. Smet,
the greatest trafficker, perhaps, in this material
in East Flanders, gets for some of his 10*., and
for the best and larger portion of it 15s. per
ton ; while the contractor at Antwerp disposes
of all he has of Flemish manure at 52 florins
the put, or 624 florins the barge-load, equal to
52/., or 1/. 10s. 9rf. per ton. But if we look to
what takes place every day at Montfaupon,
near Paris, where 200 cart-loads of the con-
tents of the cesspools are dail)' deposited, to be
converted into pondrette, we find the latter (a
dry and compound manure made from night-
soil) to fetch a much higher price than all the
rest.

" But by far the most important point of
practical knowledge in this matter, put forward
bv the same great authorities, and the truth of
which was afterwards confirmed to me by
more than one great farmer in East Flanders,
is, that while the manuring with human soil
has produced 14 times the quantity sown,
where horse-dung has only yielded 10, the pro-
portion of the human or Flemish manure em-
ployed was, to that of the horse-dung, as 1 to 5
only; so that with 1 ton of the Flemish a
larger produce is obtained than with 5 tons of
stable manure." See Maxures applicable bt
THE DaiLi,.

In Sweden the value of night-soil has been
long well understood by the farmers. Nearly
half a century since the Baron de Schulze,
v/hen writing to Sir John Sinclair, observed,
''They have now ceased to spoil the fine har-
bour of Stockholm with nuisances of every
kind. The contents of the privies are now
collected, by undertakers, in barrels, of which |
they are obliged to have a double quantity to
replace those deposited in the reservoirs, from
whence they are carried to the country. My
eldest son, who has changed the sword for the
ploughshare, has particularly attended to this
manure, being favourably situated on the Lake
Malar, 48 English miles from the capital; he;
conveys it in a covered boat, each loading of

which is sufficient to dress about 3 acres of
spring corn, and between 4 and 5 of winter
corn and meadow ground. This manure, by
the motion of the boat, becomes more liquid;
and it is conveyed from the hold of the vessel
by a bucket at the end of a lever, through a
spout into a close cart on shore drawn by two
oxen. These carts are provided with a mova-
ble funnel, and with a "strainer so regulated,
by means of a pole, that the manure can be ad-
ministered at pleasure by the driver, without
further attention to spreading. That the land
may not be overdunged, and the crop conse-
quently lodged, care must be taken not to lay
above 40 such cart-loads on the Swedish acre
for spring corn; each cart containing ISO gal-
lons English, or 1920 lbs. Except that other
powerful manure produced by the refuse of the
herring oil-works, none can come into compe-
tition, for richness, with the contents of the
privy mixed with urine. The eflects of this
manure, no doubt, diminish gradually ; yet its
operation may be plainly perceived in the
fourth successive crop. When clover is meant
to be sown with the spring corn, this species
of manure is unsuitable; for although the seed
be diminished to one-third, the straw becomes
so thick and strong as to choke the clover. A
mixture of lime is sometimes recommended for
this manure, in order to dry it and correct the
smell; but, besides that lime is not plentiful
here, the process would be found to require a
considerable time and expense. A little addi-
tion to the wages of the labourers or cottagers
soon reconciles them to the inconvenience of
the smell, and it becomes still less ofl!ensive to
them if they are allowed to use part of it on
their own little fields. If any particular impe-
diment occurs, such as harvest work, this ma-
nure is then from the vessel conveyed to great
pits, to be, after a mixture with other sub-
stances, driven to the field at a more conve-
nient season." (Com. Board of Jgr. vol. i. p.
326.) The prejudice which some English la-
bourers entertain against the employment of
night-soil is readily overcome by a little ma-
nagement. The stream which flows through
the village of Eastbourn, in Sussex, had be-
come, a few months since, much contaminated
through the night-soil which had been deposit-
ed in it from the adjoining cottages, and it was
in vain that their owners were advised to use
it for their gardens ; until an excellent lady of
the place, who is ever ready to promote the
comfort of her poorer neighbours, desired her
bailiff to go round and propose to purchase it
of them. His offer was, however, rejected, uni-
versally rejected ; and ever since they have
no longer suffered the contents of their privies
to be wasted, but have carefully applied them,
and with the best results, to their own gardens;
remarking, that if it was worth a farmer's
while to buy it of them, it must be worth more
to them for their gardens.

"By this term, night-soil," remarked the in-
defatigable Arthur Young, " at London, is to be
understood the collections there made of what
a French marquis calls * Tespece de fumier que
la politesse empeche de nommer;' from which
trait of him one would not have expected he
should know so much of the value of it as ha

843

NIGHT-SOIL.

NIGHT-SOIL.

really did. An Englishman says, 'tis more
decent and better to let it alone ; but as I con-
ceive it perfectly decent and efficient, I shall
consider human ordure as the very best ma-
nure that can be procured. But here, I shall
first consider the farmer's conduct at home,
K^'here his great object is to raise as much ma-
nure as possible without being obliged to de-
pend on purchases, which are only to be made
in certain situations. If the farmer manages
his necessary-house in such a manner as to
suffer nothing to run off from it, and frequently
throws malt-dust, saw-dust, fine mould, or sand
into it, he may, every year, manure from 1 to
2 acres of land.

" If the farmer is within reach of any con-
siderable town, and there are scavengers or
people who will collect this manure and keep
it separate, the farmer can hardly purchase it
at too high a price. In the last century, the
ordure of the galley-slaves at Marseilles was
all saved, and sold to the farmers as a dressing
for grapes, olives, and figs ; the last of which
produced by it were the best in the world. At
Nice it sells high, and every peasant has a
house of office for passengers. In China it
seems to be a manure, of all others, in the most
request ; and in Italy they are well acquainted
•with its value. At London it sells at from 3s.
to 65. a load ; at 17 miles distant, with turn-
pikes and all expenses, it costs 25s. a wagon-
load ; yet it answered greatly. It should be
laid by the scavengers in very light swamps
(not too deep) in a grass field, and in summer
trenches cut through it to drain ; and then
being thrown in heaps, it is of very light car-
riage. Three wagon-loads, or from 240 to 300
bushels, are enough for an acre of grass land,
upon which I think it answers best; but mixed
with marl, loam, turf, or dry pond mud, its use
for that application is excellent. I have com-
pared it with all other manures, and found that
none of them I could procure equalled it by
many degrees. It is a vulgar error to imagine
that manuring a field with this substance will
give a bad taste to plants. I dressed part of a
pasture with it, fed the whole of that year with
horses, cows, and young cattle, and I remarked
to various gentlemen that saw it how close into
the ground that part was constantly eaten,
w^hile there was much longer grass, &c., in
every other part of the field."

"On October 20th, 1772," adds Arthur Young,
"I marked divisions each of 4 square perches
on a summer fallow ; the soil a poor blue
pebbly gravel, and manured these compart-
ments as follows : —

Produce of Wheat per Acre.

• BmheK

Soil, simple ------- Vl\

Bushels of night-Boir - - - - 320 37i

Do. ._----- 240 3-2^

Do. 160 3!i

Cubic yards of farmyard compost - - 60 25

Do. 30 23*

Do., and 1 cubic yard of chalk - - 30 25

" The effect of night-soil," he continues,"
"was prodigious; it just trebles the produce.
In all the experiments I have made with this
manure, I have ever found this result almost
uniform." (Jnnals of Agr. vol. iii. p. 79.) It is
evident, also, from the experiments of Arthur
844

Young, which are entirely confirmed by those
of the Essex farmers, and my own, that night-
soil is an excellent manure for potatoes. The
following table contains the results of Arthur
Young's trials. The soil on which these ex-
periments were made was a poor gravelly
loam.

Produce per Acre.

Busbe'i.

Soil, simple, produced ------ 120

Night-soil, 10 wagon-loads, each 96 bushels - 600

"_ 6 — — - - 650

— a — — - - 500
Bones 10 — — - - 650

— 6 — _ s- . 640

— 2 — — - - 560
Ilog-dung, 60 one-horse cart-loads - - - 480

— 30 — — - - - 480
Yard-compost, 60 one-horse cart-loads - - 300

— 120 — — - - 480

— 30 — — - - 140

These experiments are useful, as indicating
the comparative value of each fertilizer, al-
though the quantities employed were evidently
excessive. Mr. Hewitt Davis, of Spring Park,
near Croydon, finds 6 tons of night-soil, mixed
with peat, to be amply sufficient for an acre of
ground. He thinks this manure the best for
turnips. Nighl-soil is, however, in spite of all
the obstacles of prejudice and inattention,
much more extensively used in the neighbour-
hood of the large manufacturing towns of the
north of England than it was formerly. Mr.
Dixon, of Hathershaw, in Lancashire, thus de-
scribes his mode of using it. " For the con-
veyance of night-soil and urine, we have the
largest and strongest casks, such as oils are
imported in ; the top of each is provided with
a funnel to put the matters through, and the
casks are fixed on wheels like those of a com-
mon dung-cart. I am fully aware that there
are many localities where neither peat nor
night-soil can be readily obtained; but it is
worth a farmer's while to go even more than
20 miles for the latter substance, provided he
can have it without deterioration: the original
cost is often trifling. On a farm where turnips
ormangel-wurzel are cultivated to some extent,
the system here recommended will be almost
incalculably advantageous. A single horse is
sufficient for one carriage; mine holds upwards
of a ton each ; 6 tons of this manure in com-
post with peat, or, if that is not convenient, any
other matters, such as ditch-scourings, or high
headlands which have been properly prepared
and laid dry in a heap for some time, would be
amply sufficient for an acre of turnips or
mangel. This manure is by far the most in-
vigorating of any I have ever yet tried. Bones
in any state will bear no comparison as a help
for any crop ; but it must be remembered that
I write on the supposition that it has not beea
reduced in strength before it is fetched."

There have been various patents granted in
France for the preparation of manure from
night-soil, several of which have proved very
successful. The poudretle, or dried night-soil,
first prepared by M. Bridet, was found, after
repeated trials, to be a very powerful dressing
for land ; 240 lbs. of this powder producing
effects equal to 8 loads of stable manure. This
substance has been recently examined by Pro-
fessor Hermstadt, who reports it to be a perfect
substitute for common dung; that it is most

NIPPERS.

efRcacious in wet seasons ; and that in dry
seasons it is less useful upon sandy soils than
upon greasy clays. There is no doubt but
that very excellent composis may be made
from night-soil ; and, in fact, several are now
prepared in London, on a very bold scale, for
the service of the farmer; but the success of
these is usually impeded by the preparers pro-
fessing that their preparations may be used in
quantities much too small. Then, again, one
or two patents have been taken out in England
for artificial manures, by persons who were
evidently very grossly ignorant of what they
professed to understand. (Johnson on the Fer-
tilizers, p. 92.) See Fabm-Yard Manure; Ma-

KCIIES APPLICABLK BY THE DjULL; UrIXE.

NIPPERS. A term applied to the four teeth
in the fore part of the horse's mouth, two in
the upper and two in the lower jaw: they are
put forth between the second and third years.
Nippers, in farriery, are the pincers which the
smiths use in shoeing.

NITRA'J'ES OF POTASH AND SODA.
Two salts lately much employed in agricul-
ture. The first (nitrate of potash) is known
in commerce under the name of saltpetre, and
is principally procured from the East Indies,
M'here it is found on the surface of the ground,
especially in the district of Tirhut, in Bengal.
It also abounds in Ceylon, Persia, Egypt, and
even in Spain ; but that which is brought to
England comes chiefly from India in an impure
state, and contains about 70 per cent, of pure
nitre. It, however, varies in quality; but the
average loss in the purification is generally
about 15 to 20 per cent. Nitre is also formed
by artificial composts in various parts of Eu-
rope. When pure, nitre is composed of nitric
acid 54-15 parts, or 1 equivalent; and potash
47-15 parts, or 1 equivalent ; or 52-9 per cent,
of acid 4- 47-1 of alkali = 100.

Nitrate of soda, which is known as cubic petre,
is obtained chiefly from Peru, where it is found
in a thick stratum, at an elevation of 3500 feet
above the level of the Pacific Ocean. (Dar-
win''s Researches, p. 443.) It is sold, it seems, at
the ship's side on the coast of Peru, at 14».per
cwt. It is composed of nitric acid 62-1 parts,
and potash 37-9 parts.

It is only in modern days that saltpetre has
been extensively employed as a fertilizer; for
it is not long that the nitre of commerce has
been produced in quantities sufficiently large
and reasonable to enable the farmer to profita-
bly use it as a manure. That the knowledge
of its enriching qualities, however, is not a
modern discovery, is too self-evident to be
doubted. Virgil (Georgics, lib. i. v. 193, 195)
recommends it to the Italian farmers as an ex-
cellent addition to the dregs of olive oil, to form
a sleep to cause the seed-grain to swell and
vegetate with vigour; and from his days to
our own, hardly an agricultural writer has
omitted to notice its powers. The very first
English author who wrote upon husbandry, in
1532, Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, describes it as
having the power to insure to the farmer the
most abundant crops. And in 1570, a learned
German counsellor, Heresbaschius, in his Trea-
tise upon Rural j^ff airs, describes the use of this
salt as not an uncommon dressing in his time

NITRATES.

for coleworts. A century afterwards, Evelyn^
in his Discourse on Earth, told the farmers »»£
his age that if they could but obtain a plentiful
supply of saltpetre, they would "need but little
other compost to meliorate their ground." And
even Jethro Tull, in the early pan of the last
century, who denied very zealouslv the neces-
sary use of manures of all kinds — even Tull
placed nitre at the head of his list of those
substances which he deemed to be the essential
food of plants.

Saltpetre, therefore, must not be regarded as
a modern introduction into agriculture; for it
has long been used in limited quantities by
previous generations of cultivators, who, like
us, were content to notice the etlects which it
produces, witjjiout being able to exactly com-
prehend its mode of action.

It is idle to merely substitute words in ex-
planation of unknown effects, and to say that
saltpetre is a stimulant, or that it yields nitro-
gen to the plant; and there is little evidence
of its entering into the composition of any of
the more commonly cultivated crops: there is,
therefore, but a slight probability of its being
a direct food of the plants to which the farmer
usually applies it. The only common excep-
tion is that of barley, in which a minute por-
tion of cubic petre (nitrate of soda) is found
to exist.

But although these nitrates have not been
detected in the farmer's crops, yet they are
known to exist in many plants, most likely as
essential ingredients. Thus saltpetre is found
in the common horse-radish, in the nettle, and
the sunflower. M. Chevalier discovered it in
the Chenopodiwn oliJum ; M. Vauquelin in the
deadly nightshade. Dr. John found it in the
Mesembryanthemum crystallinum; M. Chevreul in
woad. The growth of the sunflower is mate-
rially promoted by watering it with a weak
solution of this salt. It languishes in soils
which do not naturally contain it; but when
the salt is added to the earth, then it immediately
makes its appearance in the plant in the usual
proportions.

And although we are not aware of its exist-
ence in the ordinary field-crops, yet still it may
beneficially exist in them, and exert a consi-
derable influence at certain periods of their
growth, although in minute proportions: and,
notwithstanding we have no direct evidence
of the fact, it is not unlikely that its presence
may tend to vary, in the vegetable world, the
essentially present combinations of nitrogen, in
a way which the skilful investigations of the
chemist have not yet succeeded in tracing.
Such researches, however, have already proved
I that nitrogen (of which, with oxygen, the acid
I of saltpetre is formed) performs a much more
i important part in vegetable economy than was
once supposed ; and many facts are already
' apparent which should encourage us to perse-
1 vere in the examination. For instance, it has
been observed by the farmer that these two ni-
I trates (the base of whose acid is nitrogen) have a
I very powerful effect in adding to the deep green
I colour of plants. Now, this is precisely the
eifect produced by other fertilizers, which also
contain nitrogen ; such as gelatine, urine, oils,
blood, soot, fish, &c. In fact, I am not aware
4 n 2 845

NltRATES OP

POTASH AND SODA.

of any manure producing this rapid^ darkly-
green, luxuriant growth, from which nitrogen
is absent. Saltpetre is naturally generated on
the earth's surface under favourable circum-
stances, and in situations much more frequent
than the farmer is wont to suspect. Wherever
Ammonia is copiously generated, as in stables,
farm-yards, &c., and wherever the nitrogen,
which forms a component portion of ammonia,
at the moment of its extrication has access to
potash or calcareous matter, there saltpetre is
usually formed. This is naturally done so
copiously, in some of those situations in which
the farmer is placed, as to form fine crystalline
exudations on the walls ; and it is in such
places that those plants which abound in salt-
petre, as the nettle, the horse-radish, &c., com-
monly flourish with uncommon luxuriance. It
has been proved by those who gather the salt-
petre from the earth's surface in southern
Africa and Hindostan, as well as by those who
prepare the artificial saltpetre beds in Spain
from the sweepings of the streets of Madrid,
that nothing more is requisite for the forma-
tion of saltpetre in these beds of earth, than the
presence of a certain proportion of decompos-
ing animal and vegetable matters, with some
potash, and calcareous matter. Now all these
essentials for the formation of saltpetre must
in many situations be afforded by the farmer's
own soils. There are, in fact, many lands in
the cultivator's possession where, especially
in dry summers, the formation of saltpetre in
minute proportions is continually taking place ;
where the putrefaction of animal matters must
in small proportions be productive of ammo-
nia; and where an abundance of potash is al-
ready existing in the soil to neutralize the
nitric acid produced, and form with it nitrate
of potash or saltpetre. For it has been ascer-
tained that if, at the moment when nitrogen is
evolved, it is presented with oxygen gas, that it
combines with it, and forms nitric acid. Here,
then, we have explained to us the origin of the
acid of the nitre, and we know that its base, or
potash, is to be found in some form or other in
all cultivated soils. And if we admit that this
must in some instances be the case, then we
shall be furnished with a ready explanation of
many of the difficulties and discordant results
which have attended the recent very general
application of these two nitrates, since the fact
that saltpetre has commonly been found to
produce the least results upon those deep, rich,
alluvial soils which must abound in decom-
posing organic matters, in some degree coun-
tenances the conclusion, as does the smallness
of the quantity of saltpetre applied ; for, if once
we concede the possibility of the soil, under
favourable circumstances, being able to gene-
rate this salt, then it will be allowed that one
cwt. per acre is not a large crop for the soil to
produce. 'J'hat in this way it is generated in
some of the richest soils of the East, to such
an extent as to cover the surface with a white
incrustation, is known to every oriental tra-
veller. To a still greater extent is the land
in those countries impregnated in many situa-
tions with the nitrate of lime, a salt which,
possessing the same acid as nitre and cubic
nitre, has lime instead of potash or soda for

' its base \ and from some experiments which I
have made, I have little doubt but this nitrate,
which is of much less cost than either the ni-
trates of potash or soda, will be found a valu-
able agent for the use of the cultivator. For
its excessive deliquescent or moistening pro-
perties, which render it so unmanageable for
many manufacturing purposes, make it more
valuable to the cultivator of the poor, dry,
thirsty soils, where artificial fertilizers are
most in request. If nitrate of lime was import-
ed at a reasonable rate, the farmer could rea-
dily, if he wished, make his own cubic petre,
at a very low price, by mixing the nitrate of
lime with glauber salts (sulphate of soda), by
which means a rapid decomposition takes
place, the result of which is nitrate of soda
(cubic petre) and sulphate of lime (gypsum).
The inferior, impure, refuse glauber salts, made
by the cotton bleachers in the preparation of
their bleaching powder, would answer for this
purpose very well.

My experience of the enriching powers of
saltpetre extends over several years. My ear-
liest experiments were made in the kitchen
and flower garden, in which I found very con-
siderable advantage in increasing the beauty
and in prolonging the bloom of several of the
tenants of the latter; and in the former I found
excellent results from applying it at the rate
of 2 cwt. per acre to my beds of horse-radish,
and in very small proportions, as one-eighth
of an ounce per gallon, to the water with which
I watered, to prevent mildew, &c., my early
and late crops of pease, wall-fruit trees, &c.
My experience with it as a field crop has been
principally confined to the gravels of Essex
and the chalks of Hampshire and Berkshire,
in which, especially upon grass, I have ob-
tained results exceedingly satisfactory. In
1840, 1 tried it upon the old clay grass soils
of Knitbury, in Berkshire, v.'ith various other
manures; 1st, at the rate of 1 cwt. per acre;
2d, nitrate of soda, 1^ cwt. per acre ; 3d, Poit-
tevin's manure, 14 bushels per acre; 4th, gyp-
sum, l^ cwt. per acre; 5th, nitrate of soda,
1} cwt., and gypsum 1^ cwt. per acre. These
were all applied by hand in the month of April;
but although they all produced a better crop
than the soil simple, yet the extreme dryness
of the season operated very materially against
the success of almost all artificial dressings,
and the produce of the whole plot was much
below an average crop. Nos. 1, 4, and 5 were
decidedly the best, producing at the rate of
rather more than 2 tons of hay per acre ; while
the produce of the soil simple was less than
22 cwt. per acre. The grasses were of the
ordinary kinds tenanting the upland pastures,
mixed with a considerable portion of nearly
worn-out roots of lucern, which, in the plot
No. 4, gypsum alone, and in No. 5, gypsum
and cubic petre mixed, was revived by the ap-
plication to a very remarkable degree; its
plants nearly doubling in height any other por-
tion of the land.

In some experiments, at which I was pre-
sent, on the barley and wheat land of the chalk
formation in the neighbourhood of Winchester,
the effect of the saltpetre was excellent; the
green colour of the crops was rendered much.

NITRATES OF

POTASH AND SODA.

more deep, and the increased produce far more
ihan compensated for the expense of the salt-
petre. And the same success attended its ap-
plication to both red clover and sainfoin on the
down lands ; but when I tried saltpetre at the
same rale per acre on the lawn of a rich old
garden, whose earth was also principally
chalk, there was no perceptible effect pre
duced, even in the colour of the grass. This
soil abounded in decomposing organic matters,
was within reach of the soot and other ammo-
niacal matters of the city of Winchester, and,
I have little doubt, in minute proportions al-
ready contained saltpetre. In fact, almost all
the successful experiments with saltpetre have
been made on light, poor land. Those of Mr.
Lightfoot were on the gravels of Hertfordshire,
which have a substratum of chalk ;♦ and yet he
produced with 1 cwt. per acre of saltpetre
effects more than equal to those produced by
folding the land with sheep. And when Mr.
Beadel, of Witham, tried it on the Essex clays,
it produced hardly any effect, except increas-
ing the colour of the wheat; but when he used
the same quantity (1 cwt. per acre) on his light
barley land, after Swedish turnips, the increase
was 15 bushels of barley and 640 lbs. of straw
per acre ; and on a sandy field of oats, the in-
crease from its application was 20 bushels of
oats and half a load of straw. The successful
experiments of Mr. Kimberley, of Trotsworth,
on clover, in which he produced with 1 cwt.
per acre of nitre results fully equal to that from
25 cubic yards of horse-dung, were upon the
sandy lands of Surrey, "of moderate quality."
Mr. iEverili, of North Creake, bears out en-
tirely these conclusions, when he applauds its
use " upon all light, warm soils,*' but predicts
that, "on cold clay land, on an average of sea-
sons, it will not more than repay the outlay;"
and yet this excellent farmer had no reason to
be dissatisfied with his success, having ob-
tained from an application of 1 cwt. of salt-
petre to "good light land," an increase of 6^
bushels of wheat. The experiments of Mr. R.
Harvey, of Harlstone, entirely confirm those
of Mr. Everitt ; and in the Report of the Harl-
stone Fanrtcrs^ Club, in 1839, it is stated to be
"the unanimous opinion of the meeting." that
saltpetre was excellent in its effects on heavy
clover layers, but that on light land it was
highly beneficial to "wheal, clover, and other
layers and tares."

One of my neighbours, too, an excellent
farmer of Essex, in 1839, found on the fine,
light barley soils of his farm the following re-
sults from top-dressing his barley with 1 cwt.
per acre of saltpetre, compared with the soil
undressed, dressed with night-soil, with sprats,
and with farm-yard manure : —

_. ... . Qn. Bathels.

The soil, simple, yielded - - - - 5 41

Dressed with 1 cwt. of saltpetre - - 6 6
Dressed with 50 bushels of sprats per acre,

ploughed in ---_.. 7 j
Dressed with 20 bushels per acre of disin-'

fected night-soil (Poittevin's) - - 6 4^
Dressed with 10 loads of farm manure per

acre 5 g

I have noticed, also (and the same remark
applies to cubic petre), that the effect of salt-
petre is the soonest apparent when it is finely
powdered, and spread on the land in moist

weather. The explanation of this must, per-
haps, be found in the superior rapidity with
which, in such seasons, it mixes with the
soil. The cultivator will remember that moist
weather is also the best adapted for the appli-
cation of other top-dressings, such as gypsum
and soot. I have found in the application of
crushed bones to grass lands, that they never
produce such good effects as when rolled into
the soil by a heavy roller, when the ground is
softened by wet weather. The Staffordshire
farmers will readily attest the same fact. If
long-continued dry weather succeeds the appli-
cation of the nitrates to clover, the leaves of
the grass, wherever the powdered nitrate has
fallen, become covered with yellowish spots.

The application, too, of either nitre or cubic
nitre to grass renders it much more attractive
to live-stock, who, if turned into a grass field
only partially dressed with either, will almost
invariably resort to the portion of the land
dressed with the nitrates. This is one argu-
ment in favour of the conclusion that these
salts are in minute proportions absorbed by the
crops to which they are applied. We know
that this is the case with other saline manures,
such as gypsum (sulphate of lime) and com-
mon salt ; and every cultivator who has dressed
his grass with either salt or gypsum will attest
how decidedly his live-stock prefer the grass so
treated to every other portion of the same field.

The effect of cubic petre as a fertilizer for
heavy soils, seems to be rather more favoura-
ble, as far as my observations extend, than that
of saltpetre; and in this I am confirmed by
the observations of many of my neighbours.
Yet still I am of opinion that, in the great ma-
jority of instances, both the cubic petre and
the saltpetre will be found much more valua-
ble top-dressings for light lands than for the
heavier soils ; and I am not much inclined to
alter my opinion from the results of many of
the carefully observed experiments of the very
dry season of 1840; for in such periods it is
almost hopeless to expect that any kind of top-
dressing will produce results such as may
serve to guide us in our future practice. Thus,
in seasons such as the last, I have repeatedly
witnessed the failure of top-dressings of ail
kinds ; not only of the salts, such as lime and
salt, gypsum and soot, and malt coombs, but
even of the richest manure. My neighbours
in Essex know very well that if a dry summer
follows the application of their sprats (perhaps
the most powerful of all animal manures), the
application is entirely useless. In my own
experiments with nitrate of soda I have inva-
riably found the most excellent effects produced
by its application to barley at the rate of 1} cwt.
per acre, sown broadcast, as finely divided as
possible, soon after the young plants were be-
ginning to show themselves above ground.
The soils on which these experiments were
made were the barley soils of Hampshire and
Essex; and the same increase to the green
colour of the crop, and a similar large increase
to the produce of seed which my neighbours
experienced, resulted from my own experi-
ments. The clover also, which was sown with
the barley in most instances, seemed to derive
a considerable benefit from the dressing; and

817

NITRATES OF

I have noticed on more than one occasion,
the advantage of sowing the cubic petre in
moist weather. In the dry summer of 1840,
the effect of the cubic petre was very inferior
to that produced by it on similar land and crops
in 1838 and 1839— an effect which entirely
."Supports my conclusions with regard to the
inefficacy of all top-dressings in periods of
long-continued dry weather. Of this opinion,
too, is a very excellent and extensive farmer
of Surrey.

Mr. Hewitt Davis noticed too the effect on
some of the clays as well as the sands of Surrey
in 1840, — that the effect of cubif petre upon
young wheats at the rate of 1^ cwt. per acre
was excellent, not only in producing a very
deep green colour, but in inducing a very con-
siderable rankness of growth. But then, in
his experience and observations, he has no-
ticed that the wheat thus dressed has a stronger
tendency to blight than that growing on the
adjoining lands. On his farms, however, this
rankness of growth is not felt as an evil ; for
on all soils, heavy as well as light, he practises
an excellent system of thin sowing, the effect
of which, as I can attest, is excellent in pro-
ducing most abundant crops ; either on the
poor, hungry, black gravels and sands of Ad-
dington in Surrey, or on the tenacious clays of
Sussex, he never drills more than 5 pecks of
seed wheat per acre at intervals of 12 inches.
It is true that by this plan the appearance of
the wheat during the winter months is not so
vigorous as many farmers would at first sight
approve ; but the plants gradually get together,
stool out very abundantly, have all their ears
of a uniform length; the produce is abundant,
the sample generally excellent, and rarely sub-
ject to blight.

These valuable experiments of Mr. Davis
entirely confirm those which I have been in-
duced to make on several occasions, and may,
in a great measure, perhaps, serve to explain
some of the disc(>rdant results of the recent
extensive, and, in the majority of instances,
successful experiments, with nitrate of soda
and saltpetre, as a top-dressing for wheat, bar-
ley, and oats. For in a great many instances
where the cubic petre has failed to produce
advantageous results, the seed has been sown
in rather large quantities ; the corn, therefore,
by the action of the salt becomes darkly green,
grows with great luxuriance — is perhaps too
thick on the ground ; and the farmer, as a
natural consequence, fijids that the nitrated
corn has a tendency to mildew. In the first
number of the second volume of the Journal
of the Royal Jlgnadhtral Society of England, there
is a mass of valuable information, collected by
Mr. Barclay, which illustrates very considera-
bly these observations on the advantages of
thin sowing; such as the experiments of Mr.
Barker, Mr. Hyett, and others. And although
I am not prepared to contend that the effects
of these two powerful salts will be in all cases
the most apparent on thin-sown corn, yet I am
much inclined to think that the farmer will find
that this is very often indeed the case.

In most soils there is to be found a certain
proportion of carbonate of potash, and in many
it exists in sufficient quantity to decompose the
848

POTASH AND SODA.

nitrate of soda, and form nitrate of potash and
carbonate of soda. This may, perhaps, serve
to account, in some instances, for the varying
results obtained in some apparently similar soils
from the application of the nitrate of soda, and
may be one reason amongst others why moisture
is found to be so essentially necessary for the
beneficial action of cubic nitre ; for it is a
chemical axiom, that to produce any chemical
action between two substances, one of thera
must be in a fluid state, perfectly dry sub-
stances hardly ever producing any chemical
action on each other.

Such, then, are the results of the long-con-
tinued experiments and observations upon nitre
and cubic nitre which I have been able to
make, and to suggest to others to re-examine
and verify; and such, too, are, I think, the rea-
sonable conclusions to be derived from our
united experience.

In pursuing a path so novel, and so exten-
sive, it need hardly astonish us that there are
yet several sources of error to be avoided, de-
ceptive appearances to be scrutinized, and ad-
ditional experiments needed, before we can
expect to arrive at the knowledge of the best
and most economical modes of applying these
two valuable nitrates. The soils to which they
are best adapted, and the causes of their not
always producing even on apparently similar
soils the same powerful effects, are amongst
the objects of inquiry to which 1 have alluded
in this paper. The advocates, however, of
these saline manures have no need to com-
plain of the progress which they have made;
for admitting that on some soils they have
apparently produced but trifling effects, and on
other soils hardly any, yet still in the multitude
of instances they have amply repaid the farmer
for his outlay. There is no other instance, per-
haps, of such a rapid introduction of a saline
manure into agriculture, as that of the modern,
extensive, and increasing use of cubic petre by
the farmers of Great Britain ; and if we only
pause to remember the difficulties of experi-
mental researches like those, exposed, as all
examinations of the process of vegetation of
necessity are, to innumerable sources of error,
we shall find no reason to complain of the suc-
cess of its introduction, or of the talent and
enterprize with which the farmers of England
have conducted their valuable experiments.

There are many experiments with these two
salts to be met with in the agricultural journals
of the last few years.

1. Memorandum of saltpetre, nitrate of soda,
and common salt, used as top-dressings in the
south-east garden park, of a lightish land, well
drained, 11th April, 1840, on pasture laid down
with grain in 1839: one acre sown with 1^ cwt.
of nitrate of soda, measured and marked as
such ; then a piece of one rood, without any
dressing; again, one acre sown with 1^ cwt.
of saltpetre ; next to this half an acre dressed
with three-fourths of a cwt. of common salt.

Besvlt. — In little more than a fortnight after
this, having had some favourable showers,
there was an extraordinary change on the two
distinct acres dressed with saltpetre and nitrate
of soda, as compared with the rest of the field.
The grass continued to grow on these divisions

NITRATES OF

POTASH AND SODA.

much stronger, close, and of an infinitely richer
and darker colour; and the cattle lying much
upon it, seemed very fond of it. This superior
appearance continued through May and June,
and perhaps later. The grass was, after this,
eaten so close that no difference could be no-
ticed, if any existed ; it was particularly and
frequently observed in September, October,
November, and now, 8th December; and no
difference was then, or is now, perceptible be-
tween the ground dressed with saltpetre and
what was not so dressed. The pasture seemed
equally benefited by the nitrate of soda as by
the saltpetre ; and as the latter cost in propor-
tion to the former as 30s. to 20s. per cwt., there
can be no question of preferring the nitrate
of soda. No improvement could be perceived
to have taken place from the dressings of com-
mon salt.

2. Another trial was made on pasture of the
second year, in the lawn, on light land and dry,
14th April, 1840; one acre, measured and
marked, sown with IJ cwt. of saltpetre; ad-
joining this, one acre sown with 1^ cwt. of
common salt; and next, one acre, measured and
marked, sown with 1^ cwL. of nitrate of soda.

Result. — Every remark applicable to the ex-
periments in the south-east garden park applies
equally to this. In both, in the different breadi^^
sown by the cast of the hand where the t^
breadths joined, and the ground had got an
extra quantity, the grass was richer and darker,
showing that 1^ cwt. per acre is not an over-
dressing, whether of saltpetre or of nitrate of
soda.

3. Memorandum of dressings of saltpetre,
common salt, and of nitrate of soda, on the
16th of April, on oats already brairded in Stott's
Fauld, partly on well drained, dry, and partly
on light land; one acre and fifteen falls, mea-
sured and marked, sown with saltpetre at the
rate of 1^ cwt per acre; next to this, one acre
and fifteen falls, dressed with common salt in
the same proportion ; next to this, one acre
and fifteen falls, sown at the same rate with
the nitrate of soda.

EesiUt. — It was long before any effect was
perceived on any of the oats dressed as above.
About the end of June a difference was per-
ceived on the acre and fifteen falls sown with
saltpetre, which had previously shown worm-
ing, and then came away darker and stronger,
and became a heavy crop of oats and straw.
The acre and fifteen falls dressed with nitrate
of soda never seemed to be benefited by the
dressing. Being an inferior, light, sandy soil,
with a red, irony bottom, it was injured by the
early drought, and never recovered ; the salt
here, as on the pastures, seemed to have no
effect.

4. Memorandum of dressings of saltpetre and
nitrate of soda, in Laughlan Glenfield, princi-
pally strong clay, thorough-drained, and sub-
soil-ploughed, 26th April, 1840, on red clover,
&c., for green cutting: one acre, measured and
marked, sown with saltpetre, at the rate of 1^
cwt. and 2J cwt. of nitrate of soda, were sown
here in the same proportion.

Result. — The clover, &c., seemed equally
benefited by the saltpetre and by the nitrate
of soda; and, compared with what was not
107

dressed, the improvement was very percepti-
ble in about a fortnight, and it became a much
darker, stronger, and heavier crop than in that
part of the field not dressed, and it was ready
for cutting fully ten days earlier. It was not
weighed, but it is believed there was from one-
third to one-half more on the ground dressed
than where it was not. The second cutting did
not show a better crop than where it was not
dressed. Nearly an acre was dressed with ni-
trate of soda after the first cutting, on the 10th
of August, where one had before been applied,
but it did not seem to do much good.

5. Memorandum of dressing of saltpetre and
nitrate of soda on some winter-sown wheat in
Bridge Park, on clay land, thorough-drained,
and subsoil-ploughed, 20th April, 1840.

First Lot. — Twenty falls, measured and
marked, dressed with 28 lbs. of nitrate of soda.
Produce: Wheat 7 bushels, 17^ lbs., or per acre
(by an acre a Scotch acre is meant throughout,
and a Scotch acre is about one-fifth longer than
a statute acre; and by "a fall," a perch of
land), 58 bushels, 26 lbs.; straw 64 stones, 18
lbs., or per acre 518 stones. Weight of wheat
per bushel, 157^ lbs. Sold to baker for 28«.

Second Lot. — Twenty falls, measured and
marked, sown with 28 lbs. of saltpetre. Pro-
duce : Wheat 6 bushels, 38 lbs., or per acre 52
bushels, 24 lbs.; straw 95 stones, 12 lbs., or per
acre 764 stones. Weight per bushel, 58 lbs.
Sold to baker for 28s.

Third Lot. — Forty falls adjoining, measured
and marked, without any dressing. Prodttce :
Wheat 11 bushels, 1 lb., or per acre 44 bushels,
4 lbs.; straw 79 stones, or per acre 316 stones.
Weight 59 lbs. Sold for seed at 358. per boll.

Fourth Lot. — A small quantity of oats ad-
joining to this winter wheat was dressed with
saltpetre, which produced a great effect on the
strength and colour of the oats ; but the pro-
duce was not weighed or measured after being
cut.

Fifth Zo^— Trial of nitrate of soda on six
drills of potatoes, at the rate of IJ cwt. per
acre, sown over the stems when 5 inches long,
on lOih June. Result : The shaws {tops) seemed
much finer and richer than those not thus treat-
ed; but the potatoes being sold, the compara-
tive produce was not ascertained.

Six drills of Swedish turnips, dressed at the
same rate, 10th June, on a healthy braird, fol-
lowed by fine showers and warmth. Result :
Both shaws and turnips much improved, as
compared with those near them not thus dressed;
in appearance improved by several tons to the
acre, but no comparative weights were taken.

In the trial with nitrate of soda, in the same
proportions, on mangel-wurzel and carrots.
Walls, the overseer, could not observe any dif-
ference between those so dressed and those
which were not; and saltpetre and cubic petre
were also mixed in small proportions with the
compost from an old hotbed, and used in the
garden for turnips, spinach, carrots, cauliflow-
ers, asparagus, and onions, but without any
apparent advantage.

Mr. S. Martin, of Warbleton, in Sussex, has
given, in the Sussex Express, the following de-
tails of his experiments with nitrate of soda as
a top-dressing for corn, on a four-acre field in

849

NITRATE OF SODA.

NUISANCES.

his occupation : — "The soil of the field selected
is a thin, gravelly loam, -"ath a substratum of
sandstone, and was a rye-grass ley, fed with
sheep and -beasts until the last week in May,
1839, when it was ploughed up, and afterwards
vtwice stirred and harrowed, and manured with
120 bushels of lime per acre, previously to its
being sown with the wheat " golden drop" in the
autumn. In the last week of April, this year,

1 applied 1 cwt. of nitrate of soda per acre over
the whole field (with the exception of two lands
in the middle of the field); in the second week
in May, I applied to two lands adjoining those
upon which none had been sown an additional
• 1 cwt. per acre. Previously to the application

of the nitrate, the plants had a very sickly ap-
pearance, getting yellow in patches, and look-
ing, as we call it here, "speary " but in a very
•few days subsequent, its appearance was much
altered, it having (with the exception of the
two lands on which none had been sown, and
which remained in avery sickly state) changed
from a faint yellow to a luxuriant green ; the
two lands upon which the 2 cwt. per acre were
sown were much darker in appearance than
the other, and easily distinguishable from the
remainder at a very considerable distance.

" At harvest I measured off exactly 8 rods
of each, and had it reaped (leaving a stubble
about 16 inches high), and carted and thrashed
separately; the result was asunder: — 8 rods
■without soda produced 1 bushel, 3 galls. 1 pint,
or 27 bushels, 6 galls. 4 pints per acre ; weight,
61 lbs. per bushel ; straw 89 lbs., or 49 trusses,
16 lbs. per acre: 8 rods with 1 cwt. of soda
per acre, 2 bushels, 1 gall., or 42 bushels, 4
galls, per acre ; weight, 60| lbs. per bushel ;
straw, 155 lbs., or 86 trusses, 4 lbs. per acre :
8 rods with 2 cwt. of soda per acre, 2 bushels

2 galls. 7 pints, or 47 bushels, 1 gall. 4 pints
per acre; weight, 60^ lbs. per bushel; straw,
156 lbs., or 86 trusses, 24 lbs. per acre.

"On another piece of land, soil very thin
and gravelly, sown with Talavera wheat in the
autumn, I applied 1 cwt. per acre in the first
week in May, and the result was equally satis-
factory, the produce good, and weighed 64 lbs.
per bushel.

*' In an adjoining field of precisely the same
description of soil, but which had been in hops
for 11 years previously, and amply manured
every year, I sowed on two rods at the end of
one of the lands nitrate equal to 1^ cwt. per
acre, which had a very prejudicial effect; the
part with nitrate of soda being much mildewed
and totally unfit for bread, while the straw on
the remainder of the field was very bright and
clean, and the grain full and handsome. I also
•used nitrate of soda on a meadow, 1 cwt. per
acre, applied the last week in April ; produce
very trifling.

"As far as my experience goes, and from
the effect of nitrate of soda on my neighbours'
lands, I am of opinion that it is a very valua-
ble manure for their light soils, exhausted by
repeated croppings, particularly in districts
where the arable lands have been repeatedly
manured with lime; but I have great doubts
whether it would answer for wheat on newly
broken up or other land in a high state of cul-
tivation and full of manure. In my e?peri-
850

ment on the old hop ground, although the straw
was much longer, with a blade broad and
flaggy, the yield was miserably deficient, both
in quantity and quality, compared with the rest
of the field.

" In respect to its effect on the second crop,
I can only observe, that a very thin, wornout
field of 18 acres, with wheat in 1839, on which

1 cwt. per acre was used (one land of which
had a double quantity), was sown this year
half with oats and half with seeds, that both
oats and seeds were fully equal to any I ever
grew on that field ; and that the land where the

2 cwt. per acre was sown produced fully as
many plants, with longer straw and more grains,
and was, as far as I could judge from appear-
ances (I did not keep it separate), much supe-
rior to the other."

NITRIFICATION. See Eremacausis.

NODI. In botany, the knots or swelled ar-
ticulations of stems ; the place where one joint
is articulated with another.

NONE-SO-PRETTY. One of the names of
the London-pride Saxifrage. See Saxifrage.

NONESUCH, or Black Medick. See Mb-

DICK.

NOONINGS. A term provincially used to
signify working during dinner-hours.

NORFOLK PLOUGH. See Ploughs.

NORTHERN LIGHTS, or AURORA
BOREALIS. See Lights, Northern.

NOSE-BAND. That part of the head-stall
of a bridle which comes over a horse's nose. It
is sometimes termed maserole.

NUCLEUS (Lat). Literally, any thing
round which matter has accumulated, or to
which it is affixed. In botany, it is used in
various significations : — 1. The central, fleshy,
pulpy mass of an ovule. 2. That part of a
seed contained within the testa, and consisting
of either the embryo and albumen or of the
embryo only. 3. In lichens, the disk of the
shield, which contains the sporules and their
cases. 4. In the language of the older bota-
nists, what is now termed by gardeners a clove;
that is, the secondary bulb of a bulbous plant.

NUISANCES, in English law, are of two
kinds : public or common, which annoy the
king's subjects in general ; and private, which
are defined " any thing done to the hurt or an-
noyance of the lands, tenements, or heredita-
ments of another." A nuisance may be defined
to be any act done which renders the lives of
the neighbours less comfortable than they were
before. The remedies allowed by the law are
in some cases summary, as when a gate is
erected across a public highway, or cattle
trespass on the land ; and in which cases the
passenger or owner of the land is justified in
removing the nuisance : or in other cases, the
general legal remedies are, indictment or pre-
sentment, for public nuisances ; or by an action
on the case for damages, for private nuisances.

Indictable Nuisances. — Of the number of
public nuisances which are punishable by
indictment are setting spring-guns and man-
traps, which, by the 7 & 8 G. 4, c. 18, is declared
to be a misdemeanor ; but the act allows such
to be set "from sunset to sunrise in dwelling-
houses for the protection thereof." Other in-
dictable nuisances are for erecting a privy or

NURSERY.

OAK.

placing putrid carrion near a highway, or keep-
ing hogs, and feeding them with offal near to a
street ; for keeping a dangerous bull in a field
through which there is a public pathway (if
the bull or other dangerous animal is purposely
placed there to stop a disputed path, and death
ensues, it is a murder); for keeping unmuzzled
a ferocious dog; for baiting on the queen's
highway a bull, &c. The punishment in any
case of nuisance is fine or imprisonment, or
both ; and the court may order the defendant
to pay the prosecutor his costs. It is no de-
fence to prove that the nuisance has existed
for a number of years ; but in some cases the
facts of the case may be taken into considera-
tion by the jury, who are to determine whether
the benefit derived by the public exceeds the
annoyance. But in indictments for obstruct-
ing the highway by placing on it for a length
of time carriages while loading and unloading,
it is no defence to show that space was always
left for two carriages to pass and repass on
the other side of the street. The non-repair
of a road or a bridge are also well-known
nuisances, which are indictable.

Nuisances on which an Action on the Ceue is
maintainable. — Accidents from the negligent
use of loaded guns; placing baited traps so
near to the premises of another, or the high-
way, that dogs are attracted into them and in-
jured. For an injury by a vicious bull; and
it is no defence by the owner of an animal that
he has had notice of having done an injury,
and has taken every precaution to prevent it
doing so again. No action, hov/ever, lies for
an injury by a dog let loose on the owner's
•closed premises at night for their protection ;
•or on land on which the injured party has no
right to go. If a person harbour a dog, or al-
lows it to resort to his premises, he is liable for
-any damage it may cause. And the owner of
a dog that destroys or in j ures sheep is, of course,
liable to their owner. If the owner catch the
dog in the act of worrying his fowls or sheep,
he is justified in shooting him; but he must
not follow the dog some distance, and then
shoot him; nor may he shoot a dog merely
trespassing; but he may if the dog is chas-
ing deer in a park. And if any man do any
thing on his own soil which is a nuisance to
another, as by stopping a rivulet, and so dimi-
nishing the water used by him for his cattle,
the party injured may enter on the soil of the
other and abate the nuisance ; and this right
of abatement is not confined merely to nui-
sances to a house, to a mill, or to land.

NURSERY. In horticulture, a piece of land
set apart and appropriated for rearing and pre-
serving young plants and trees of different
kinds, with a view to supply both gardens and
plantations. The situation ought to be open
and airy, and the soil of an average quality,
neither too heavy nor too light, so as to be
adapted to the majority of plants ; but in a
complete nursery there ought also to be shady
borders for plants requiring shade, and beds or
compartments of peat soil or other peculiar
earths, for such plants as are not readily in-
creased and grown in ordinary soils. Where
tender plants are propagated, or where hardy
jlants are to be raised from seeds or struck

j from cuttings, which are not easily germinated
or rooted in the open ground and in the ordi-
nary manner, hotbeds, frames, and handglasses
are also requisite. Every private garden of
any extent requires a nursery to raise and
bring forward young plants, as a reserve for
supplying failures by disease or accident in the
general garden ; and in every country where
private gardens or plantations of trees are fre-
quent, public or commercial nurseries are
formed by persons who adopt nursery garden-
ing as a business.

NUT, BLADDER. See Bladdkr-Nct.

NUT, THE EARTH. See Earth-Nut.

NUTRITION. The matter by which an ani-
mal or plant is supported, and its growth in-
creased. See Food and Msat, Gases, Earths,
Salts, Watkr, &c.

NUTS (Lat. Htix). In botany, seeds covered
with hard shells ; but in the general accepta-
tion of the word, signifies the fruit of different
species of hazel (Coryli).

NYMPH. See Pupa.

0.

OAK (Ger. eiche ; Dut. eiAr ; Dan. «g; Sw. eh;
Lat. Quernts ; from the Celtic query fine, and cuez,
a tree ; others derive it from the Greek word
choiros, a pig, because those animals feed on
the acorns).

The oak is indigenous throughout Britain,
and in former ages, before the clearing away
of the forests had commenced, appears to have
covered a very large portion of its surface ; for,
even in districts where the natural or self-sown
oak is now rarely seen, the remains of noble
and gigantic trees are frequently met with,
sometimes in the alluvial deposits on the mar-
gins of rivers, or in boggy places covered with
a layer of peat-moss, which has been gene-
rated around them by the stagnation of the
water caused by their fall.

A fine oak is one of the most stately and
picturesque of trees ; it conveys to the mind
associations of strength and duration, which are
very impressive. The oak stands up against
the blast, and does not take, like other trees,
a twisted form from the action of the winds.
Except the cedar of Lebanon, no tree is so re-
markable for the stoutness of its limbs ; they
do not exactly spring from the trunk, and thus
it is sometimes difl^cult to know which is stem
and which is branch.

English oak warps and twists much in dry-
ing, and in seasoning shrinks about g^d of its
width. This wood is more durable than any
other timber in water ; and in a dry state it has
been known to last nearly 1000 years. The
more compact it is, and the smaller the pores
are, the longer it will last; but the open, porous,
and foxy-coloured oak, which grows in Lin-
colnshire and some other places, is not near so
durable. The bark, leaves, and fruit of all the
species abound in astringent matter, and in
tannic acid. The bark in the spring contains
more tannic acid, and is more easily separated,
than at any other season : hence oaks are
usually barked in May, June, and the beginning
of July. M^'hen separated, the bark is dried by
being set up in ranges, which are called loftes.

851

OAK.

OAK.

In the greater part of North America, as
well as in Europe, there is no tree so generally-
useful as the oak, which seems to have been
multiplied in proportion to its utility.

Linnaeus, in the third edition of his Species
Plantarum, published in 1774, described 14 spe-
cies of oak, of which 5 only are natives of the
New World. Since then, owing to the labours of
those indefatigable naturalists, Humboldt, Bon-
pland, and especially Michaux, the father, the
number of American species of oak has been
increased to no less than 44, all of which are
comprised between the 20th and 48th degrees
of North latitude. In the Old Continents, only
30 species are enumerated, and these are scat-
tered on both sides of the equator. The spe-
cies and varieties of the oak added to those
described by the Michaux, are chiefly found in
the extreme Southern States, Texas, and Mexi-
can possessions.

The following classification of American
oaks was made by the elder Michaux, who in-
cludes in it three European species :

First Division.

Fructification annual.

First Section — Leaves lobed.

1. White oak (Quercus alba).

2. Common European oak (Quercus robur).

3. European white oak (^Quercus robur peduncu-

lata).

4. Mossy-cup oak {Quercus olivceformis).

5. Over-cup white oak {Quercus macrocarpa).

6. Post oak {Quercus obtusiloba).

7. Over-cup oak {Quercus lyrata).

Second Section. — Leaves toothed.

8. Swamp white oak {Quercus prinus discolor).

9. Chestnut white oak (Qwcrcws/jnnttsjaa/Msfris).

10. Rock chestnut oak {Quercus prinus monticola).

11. Yellow oak {Quercus prinus acuminata).

12. Small chestnut oak {Quercus prinus chinca-

pin).

Second Diviston.

Fnictijication biennial; leaves mucronated (except
in the 13th species).

First Section. — Leaves obtuse or entire.

13. Live oak {Quercus virens).

14. Cork oak {Querais suber).

15. Willow oak (Quercus phellos).

16. Laurel oak {Quercus imbricaria).

17. Upland willow oak {Quercus cinerea).

18. Running oak {Quercus pumila).

Second Section. — Leaves lobed.

19. Bartram oak {Quercus heterophylla).

20. Water oak {Quercus aquatica).

21. Black Jack oak {Quercus ferruginea).

22. Bear oak {Quercus banisteri).

Third Section. — Leaves multijid or many-clef ted.

23. Barren scrub oak {Quercus Catesbcd).

24. Spanish oak {Quercus falcata).

25. Black oak {Quercus tinctoria).

26. Scarlet oak {Quercus coccinea).

27. Gray oak {Quercus ambigua).

28. Pin oak {Qtiercus palustris).

29. Red oak {Quercus rubra).

852

The most valuable species of the American
oaks is the white oak, which is found as far
north as the small town of Trois Rivieres, in
Canada, lat. 46° 20', and the lower part of the
river Kennebec, in Maine, and thence south on
both sides of the AUeghanies down to the 28th
degree of latitude. Its vegetation is repr< ssed
in the Northern States by the severity of the
winters. In the lowermost Southern States it
is found only on the borders of swamps, with
a few other trees, which likewise shun a dry
and barren soil. The white oak is observed
to be uncommon on lands of extraordinary
fertility, like those of Tennessee; Kentucky,
and Genesee, and in all the spacious valleys
watered by the western rivers. One may travel
whole days in those states without seeing a
single stock, though the few that exist, both
there and in the Southern Stales, exhibit the
most luxuriant vegetation.

The white oak abounds chiefly in the Middle
States and in Virginia, particularly in that
part of Pennsylvania and Virginia which lies
between the AUeghanies and the Ohio. East
of the mountains this tree is found in every
exposure, and in every soil which is not ex-
tremely dry or subject to long inundations ; but
the largest stocks grow in humid places. In
the western districts, where it composes entire
forests, the face of the country is undulated,
and the yellow soil, consisting partly of clay
with a mixture of calcareous stones, yields
abundant crops of wheat.

By the foregoing observations it appears that
the severity of the climate, the fertility of the
soil, its dryness or humidity, are the causes
which render the white oak so rare over thre^
quarters of the United States that it is in-
adequate to supply the local demand, though
the country contains but a small proportion
of the population which it is capable of sup-
porting.

Among the American oaks this species bears
the greatest analogy to the European oak, espe-
cially to the variety called European white oak,
Quercus pedunculata, which it resembles in fo-
liage and in the qualities of its wood. The
American white oak is 70 or 80 feet high, and
6 or 7 feet in diameter; but its proportions vary
with the soil and climate.

The excellent properties of the white oak
for the construction of houses, ships, and
almost innumerable other purposes, are too
well known to need any particular description
in this place.

Great black oak {Quercus tinctoria). The wood
of this tree is of a coarser grain than that of
the white oak, and of a reddish colour. Be-
tween every year's growth, also, it appears
porous, yet when dry and seasoned, it becomes
strong and durable. The bark has, for a long
time, been in great repute for tanning, and
for the very excellent yellow dye which it
afl!brds. Dr. Bancroft, of London, learned the
use of the bark as a dye, when in this country,
during the revolutionary war; and introduced
it in the manufactories of England, to which
country many ship-loads of the article, ground,
have been annually shipped, under the name
of Quercitron bark.

OAK-APPLE.

OAK BARK.

Spanish oak (Quercus falcata^ of Michaux) ;
the bark of this species is somewhat rough,
and light-coloured. The leaves are deeply and
obtusely sinuated, and end in several acute,
bristly points : the foot-stalks are pretty long.
The timber is generally worm-eaten, or rotten
at heart ; but the bark is preferred to all other
for tanning, and is much dearer.

Live oak {Quercus virens). This species is con-
fined to Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.
The tree is of uncommon magnitude, and sin-
gularly beautiful. The moss hangs in lengths
of several yards from the large branches of the
old trees, and waving with the wind, gives the
tree a venerable appearance. The wood is
proverbial for its durability, when cut at a
proper season, and is much used for ship
timber. See Acorns, Dai Rot, and Planta-
tions.

OAK-APPLE. This is not to be confounded
with those beautiful little excrescences so com-
mon upon the underside of the leaves of the
oak, and known by the name of galls and
spangles ; they are the nidi of different species
of Cynips, produced by the puncture of the ovi-
positor of the female, upon the different parts
where they are found. The oak-apple is also
formed by the puncture of a cynips, upon the
twigs of Q. pedunculata. It rises rapidly, is
usually spheroidal, in size about 1 to 2 inches
in diameter. Its texture is spongy. It has
some resemblance to the Bedeynar of the Eg-
lantine, but is not so rough and fibrous on the
surface. The oak-apples are very astringent,
containing tannic acid, and may be used in
dyeing, making ink, and staining.

The largest galls or oak-apples, found in the
United States, grow on the leaves of the red
oak. They are round and smooth, and measure
from 1^ to 2 inches in diameter. This kind of
gall is green and somewhat pulpy at first, but,
when ripe, it consists of a thin and brittle shell,
of a dirty drab colour, enclosing a quantity of
brown spongy matter, in the middle of which
is a woody kernel about as big as a pea. A
single grub lives in the kernel, becomes a
chrysalis in the autumn, when the oak-apple
falls from the tree, changes to a fly in the
spring, and makes its escape out of a small
round hole which it gnaws through the kernel
and shell. This, says Dr. Harris, is probably
the usual course, but I have known this gall-
fly to come out in October. The name of this
insect is Cynips confluentus. Its head and thorax
are black, and rough with numerous little pits
and short hairs ; the hind-body is smooth, and
of a shining pitch colour ; the legs are dull
brownish-red; and the fore-wings have a brown
spot near the middle of the outer edge. Its
body is nearly one-quarter of an inch long, and
its wings expand five-eighths of an inch.

Clusters of three or four round and smooth
galls are often seen on the small twigs of the
white oak. They are nearly as large as bullets,
of a greenish colour on one side, and red on
the other. They approach in hardness to the
Aleppo galls, and perhaps might be put to the
same use. Each one is the nest of a single
insect, which turns to a fly and eats its way out
in June and July, having passed the winter as
a chrysalis, within the gall, lodged in a clay-

coloured, egg-shaped case, about three-twen-
tieths of an inch long, and with a brittle shell.
These little cases appear to be cocoons, but
are not made of silk or fibrous matter. Similar
cocoons are found within many other galls, and
I have some which were discovered under
stones, and were not contained in galls, but
produced gall-flies, the insects having left their
galls to finish their transformations in the
ground. The gall-fly of the white oak varies
in colour. Sometimes it closely resembles the
gall-fly of our oak-apple, differing from it only
in size, and in wanting the brownish spot and
dark-coloured veins on the fore-wings ; and
sometimes it isof adull brownish-yellow colour,
with a brown spot on the back. It is three-
twentieths of an inch long, and its wings ex-
pand three-tenths of an inch. It is the Diplch
lepis, or more properly Cynips oneratus of Dr.
Harris's " Catalogue."

Galls of the size and colour of grapes are
found on the leaves of some oaks. Each one
contains a grub, which finishes its transforma-
tions in June. The winged insect is the Cynips
nubilipennis,or cloudy-winged Cynips, so named
from the smoky cloud on the tips of its wings.
Excepting in this respect, it closely resembles
the dark-coloured variety of Cynips oneratus,sind
very little exceeds it in size.

One of our smallest gall-flies may be called
Cynips seminator, or the sower. She lays a great
number of eggs in a ring-like cluster around
the small twigs of the white oak, and her punc-
tures are followed by the growth of a rough or
shaggy reddish gall, as large sometimes as a
walnut. When this is ripe, it is like brittle
sponge in texture, and contains numerous little
seed-like bodies, adhering by one end around
the sides of the central twig. These seeming
seeds have a thin and tough hull, of a yellowish
white colour; they are egg-shaped, pointed at
one end, and are nearly one-eighth of an inch
long. The gall-insects live singly, and undergo
their transformations within these seeds ; after
which, in order to come out, they gnaw a small
hole in the hull, and then easily work their
way through the spongy ball wherein they are
lodged. They are less than one-tenth of an
inch long, are almost black, or of the colour of
pitch, highly polished, especially on the abdo-
men, and their mouth, antennae, and legs are
cinnamon-coloured.

It has been observed that no tree in Europe
yields so many different kinds of galls as the
oak. Those described are not all that are
found on oaks in the United States, and they
seem to be sufficiently distinct from the galls
of European oaks. (Harris.)

OAK BARK. The cortical layer stripped from
the oak tree. Oak bark is preferred to all other
substances in the tanning of leather, and in Eu-
rope brings a high price afterwards as a ma-
nure. The exhausted bark is used by gardeners
to produce a slight equable heat by its ferment-
ation, and may be advantageously used as a
manure. The tan-balls, or muddy sediments
of tan-pits, are used for summer fuel. The
bark contains different quantities of tannic
acid, according as it is near to or distant from
the wood. Thus, the inner part, or liber, ac-
cording to Sir H. Davy's experiments, yields
3C 853

OAK PRUNER.

OAT.

about 77 per cent, of tannic acid ; the cellular
layer, lying upon the liber, yields only 56 per
cent ; and the cuticle little or none. Dr. Hig-
gins obtained 108 parts of tannic acid from the
bark of an oak felled in the spring, and only
30 from an oak felled in winter. When the
bark is set up to dry, the air, aided by mois-
ture, acting upon the tannic acid, converts a
portion of it into gallic acid, which is not origi-
nally a constituent of oak bark. See Bark
and Tax.

OAK PRUNER. The ground beneath black
and white oaks is, says Dr. Harris, often ob-
served to be strewn with small branches, neat-
ly severed from these trees, as if cut off with
a saw. Upon splitting open the cut end of
a branch, in the autumn or winter after it
has fallen, it will be found to be perforated
to the extent of six or eight inches in the
course of the pith, and a slender grub, the
author of the mischief, will be discovered
therein. In the spring this grub is transformed
to a pupa, and in June or July it is changed to
a beetle, and comes out of the branch. The
history of this insect was first made public by
Professor Peck, who called it the oak-pruner,
or Si enocorus {Elaphidiori) putator. See PI. 16, 1.
In its adult state it is a slender, long-horned
beetle, of a dull brown colour, sprinkled with
gray spots, composed of very short close hairs ;
the antennae are longer than the body, in the
males, and equal to it in length in the other
sex, and the third and fourth joints are tipped
with a small spine or thorn ; the thorax is
barrel-shaped, and not spined at the sides ; and
the scutel is yellowish-white. It varies in
length from four and a half to six-tenths of an
inch. It lays its eggs in July. Each eg^ is
placed close to the axilla or joint of a leaf-
stalk or of a small twig, near the extremity of
a branch. The grub hatched from it penetrates
at that spot to the pith, and then continues its
course towards the body of the tree, devouring
the pith, and thereby forming a cylindrical bur-
row, several inches in length, in the centre of
the branch. Having reached its full size,
which it does towards the end of the summer,-
it divides the branch at the lower end of its
burrow, by gnawing away the wood transverse-
ly from within, leaving only the ring of bark
untouched. It then retires backwards, stops
up the end of its hole, near the transverse sec-
tion, with fibres of the wood, and awaits the
fall of the branch, which is usually broken off
and precipitated to the ground by the autumnal
winds. The leaves of the oak are rarely shed
before the branch falls, and thus serve to break
the shock. Branches of five or six feet in length
and an inch in diameter, are thus severed by
these insects, a kind of pruning that must be
injurious to the trees, and should be guarded
against, if possible. By collecting the fallen
branches in the autumn, and burning them
before the spring, we prevent the develope-
ment of the beetles, while we derive some
benefit from the branches as fuel.

Oak trees are also subjected to the attacks
of insects, which destroy the leaves, deposit
their eggs in the branches which they destroy,
and others which devour the solid wood. See
Beetles, Borers, Caterpillars, Locusts, &c
8d4

OAT (Russ. owes ; Pol. owies ; Dutch, haver;
Fr. Avoine; Lat. avena). A very valuable cereal
grass, of which several varieties are cultivated
for their seeds: the chief of these are — 1. The
Avena sativa, or common oat. PI. 3, e. 2. The
A. oricntalis, or Tartarian oat, /. 3. A. strigosay
or bristle-pointed oat. 4. A. brevis, or short oat.
5. A. nuda, or naked oat.

The common oat is far the most important
of these species. Its spikelets contain two or
three seeds. Its florets are sometimes furnished
with awns, and at other times are awnless. The
oat is a native of cold climates : it flourishes
in the temperate latitudes, but it degenerates,
and at last refuses to yields profitable crops as
it approaches the equator. It is, however, cul-
tivated with success in Bengal, as low as the
25° of latitude. It flourishes remarkably well
in Ireland and in Scotland, and constitutes the
principal food of the inhabitants. In England
it is cultivated to a very considerable extent iur
the fen districts of the eastern counties, as well
as in the northern border districts, in which
last the oats are considered to be very superior.
By cultivation, difference of soil and climate,
and other causes, the common oat (A. sativa)
has produced several varieties, which have
been divided by some authors into three classes, .
the black, the gray, and the white. Those of
the first class are commonly hardy, have small
seeds, become early ripe, and are hence well
adapted for cold hungry soils, such as those
which are usually found on considerable ele-
vations.

The gray, or dun-coloured oats, although
possessing more valuable qualities than the
black oat, are still inferior in quality to the
white, but on some soils yield very remunera--
tive crops.

The third and most valuable class of oats is
the ivhite. " The most improved of these," says
Professor Low, " are without awns. They are
the- least hardy kinds, but they are of the
greatest weight to the bushel, and the most
productive of meal. In this class the potato
oat is that which has possessed the greatest
reputation for a time in the districts where it is
cultivated. It is not so well suited to inferior
soils as some of the other white and darker-
coloured kinds; it is also less productive of
straw, though the grain is more plump, weighs
heavier, and yields a greater weight of meal.
The hardier kinds, however, are better suited
to certain situations than the finer, just as the
hardier red wheats are better suited to certain
situations than the thin-chaffed and white varie-
ties. The potato oat was the discovery of ac-
cident, and the produce of a single plant. It
has, in many cases, shown a tendency to de-
generate, by the husks becoming thicker and
the body less plump, and by the partial appear-
ance of awns.**

The Poland oat is another valuable cultivated
variety of the white oat. It comes early to
maturity, and is a prolific bearer. Its defects
are a tendency to be deficient in straw, and a
liability to shed its seeds.

Besides these there are several other varie-
ties of the white oat, as the Dutch, or Friesland
oat, the Hopetoun oat of East Lothian, &c.

The Hopetoun oat was produced in 1824, by.

Mi

OAT.

OAT.

Mr. P. Sherriff, of Mungo's well, in the way he
thus describes. " Having frequently had occa-
sion to pass the gateway of a crop of potato
oats, in the summer of 1824, a stalk of remarka-
ble height attracted my attention. When the
crop was reaped, the grains supported by this
stalk, and those upon a short one proceeding
from the same root, were gathered and sown in
the following spring. The crop from the grains
of the gigantic stalk was again conspicuously
tall, and after the crop of 1827 the new variety
established its superiority." In some compara-
tive trials by Mr. Bos well, "on a good free
black soil," the Hopeloun exceeded the potato
oat in produce, as, in some experiments by
Mr. Forsyth, of Elgin, "on a rich loam," it ex-
ceeded the late Angus oat, and in those of Mr.
Howden, at Traprain, in East Lothian, it proved
superior to the gray Angus, the potato, and the
early Angus oats.

The early Jngus oat is well known for its
early ripening, and the late Angus, says Mr.
Sherriff, is also well known for its fine straw
and grain ; and although late in ripening, is the
most esteemed species of oat in the early dis-
tricts of Scotland, such as East Lothian and
Morayshire. There is a difficulty, however
(Mr. Sherriff very justly adds), of ascertaining
the merits of different varieties of grain by ex-
periment, from the many contingencies affect-
ing the results, the most powerful of which is
the nature of the season. Some kinds of oats
grow rapidly in the early part of the season,
and some attain their full height, such as the
Polish and Georgian oats, both of which are
stunted. Others grow slowly, and are later in
arriving at their full height, such as the potato,
Flemish, and early Angus oats, which are also
shorL Others conttaue to grow through the
season, and are. still later in arriving at their
full height, as the Hopetoun and late Angus
oats, which are taller than the others. When
the early part of the summer proves wet, and
is followed by drought, the Polish and Georgian
oats have an advantage over other ^inds, as
they attain their full height before the'drought
commences. When the early part of the sum-
mer is very dry, and moisture succeeds, the
Hopetoun and Angus oats benefit by the mois-
ture, while the others -mentioned do not. When
the season proves wet throughout, and the dif-
ferent oats in consequence reach an extreme
height, the smaller species have frequently an
advantage over the larger in grain produce, in
consequence of the straw of the latter becom-
ing too luxuriant.

The Cumberland early oat, so named from
being raised froni a single head by a Cumber-
land gentleman-, is of a longish grain, more like
the early Angus variety than the potato; colour
dark and dull. It is as much earlier than the
potato oat as the latter is earlier than the
Itopetoun, being ripe nearly a fortnight sooner
than the Hopeloun.

Red Oat. — There is a peculiar variety of oat
(classed with the gray oats), called the red oat,
which is a favourite in some districts, and is
thus described by the celebrated William Daw-
son, of Frogdon, in 1791 : — " Happening to be
at Linton, in Tweeddale, which is about the
highest land kept in cultivation in (he south

of Scotland, I found the farmers complaining
much of the loss they had by late harvests,
and I asked if they had tried the Dutch oats,
which were so much earlier than the common
kinds. They told me that they had tried the
Dutch oats, but that they had a kind in their
own country which were as early as the Dutch,
and were superior in several respects ; they
were not so apt to shake even as the common
oat ; they suited every sort of soil if in good
condition, and they yielded well in meal ; that
they had been sown in that country for fifty
years, but no one knew where they came from.
Upon this information I commissioned a boll
for a trial, and found them answer so well
that I have sown no other sort for several
years. They do not produce much straw, but
what they do produce is very good. I saw a
second crop of these oats upon the same land
last year, which was good. I have found that
they answer the character given of them at
Linton fully. That they answer best upon land
in good condition, but that they produce very
little straw upon poor land ; yet the produce
of corn is not even in these situations inferior
to any other oats. These properties give them
a great superiority over every other kind known
in this country, and grown in high situations,
and cold climates and soils." They are a kind
of oat much relished by horses, who, if used to
them, do not readily take to other, even richer ,
kinds. Carters accustomed to them give them *
a decided preference.

The Georgian Oat was introduced about the
year 1824, but it has not made much progress.
In 1826, Mr. Wilson, of Preston, reported the
following comparative trials between it and
the potato oat {Trans. High. Sor. vol. i. p. 153),
upon 2 English acres of equal land. The quan-
tity sown upon an acre was 6 bushels, and of
the potato 4 bushels. The Georgian was reap**
ed 10 days earlier than the potato, but they'
might have been 14 days. The appearance
of the Georgian was by far the most luxuriant
during the summer, till the end of July, when
the potato shot out considerably longer in the
straw. They were carefully cut down, stacked,
and thrashed in March, 1826 ; the result was,
in —

stone*, lb.

Weight of Straw of the potato oat« per acre - 317 6
Weight of straw of the Georgian oats per acre 238 13

The produce of the potato oats per acre was
69 Winchester bushels, and the Georgian 68.

Weight of meal from 6 bushels of the potato
oats -------- 11 5

Weieht of meal from 6 bushels of Georgian
oats 10 6

The Tartarian Oat is cultivated to some ex-
tent in England, but much more extensively in
some portions of the Continent. "Its fascicle
is contracted, and nods to one side, which dis-
tinguishes it from the common oat. The co-'
lour of its corolla is generally dark, but the
plant improves by culture in a good soil, losing
its awns, and that darkness of colour which ap-
pears to distinguish the oat in its less improved
state." The breadth of this oat annually culti-
vated in England has much increased within
the last few years. It is the best description

855.

OAT.

for the poorest exhausted soils, producing the
most straw on those sorts of any other variety.
The oat can be profitably cultivated upon, per-
haps, a greater variety of soils than any other
of the cereal grasses. It may be grown, too,
successfully with less preparation of the soil,
^nd less manure. The oat plant, however,
succeeds best in fresh soils, in newly broken
up old pastures, and in those abounding in or-
ganic matters.

The organic manures by which the oat crop
is best nourished, appear to be green manures ;
fish, especially those like sprats, abounding in
oil, and, in fact, all those of a readily decompo-
sable description. Recently-drained marshes,
peaty soils after being dressed with lime,
newly enclosed commons after being chalked,
all usually yield large crops of oats.

The land intended for oats should be plough-
ed, if possible, especially on clay soils, in the
previous winter, or at least as early in the
spring as possible : this is a practice almost
always adopted by the best farmers of our
island. A still more common course of crop-
ping is to sow oats after turnips, or other green
crops, and especially on the four-shift system
with grass-seeds.

A miserable custom still prevails in some
pans of England, of taking two crops of oats
in succession, or an oat crop after wheat or bar-
ley. Arthur Young long since denounced this
as bad husbandry. After observing that white
oats should be sown in March, in preference to
any other season, he remarked, that "in the
general conduct of them the farmer should by
all means avoid the common error of sowing
after other corn crops, by which they exhaust
the land. They should always receive the
same preparation as barley, nor ought a good
husbandman to think of their not paying him
as well for such attention as that crop. It is a
very mistaken idea to suppose it more profit-
able to sow barley on land in good order than
oats. He was, from divers experiments, in-
clined to think that oats will equal, and in
many cases exceed, barley. The superior
quantity of the produce will ever be found to
more than counterbalance the inferiority of the
price ; which, however, sometimes exceeds
that of barley."

Oats are commonly sown from March to
April, but it is very probable that they might
be advantageously sown much earlier in many
situations, and when on grass leys generally
broadcast : from 4 to 6 bushels per acre of
seed is the ordinary quantity. By the drill,
after turnips, a much less quantity will be suffi-
cient. I have known from 10 to 11 quarters
per acre grown year after year from only 2
bushels of seed.

They are usually cut in the south by the
scythe — in the north and western portions of
Britain by the sickle; and they should never
be allowed to become perfectly ripe before they
are cut. The usual produce varies from 25 to
60 bushels per acre. In the fens of Lincoln-
shire, and in Essex and Suffolk on land pre-
viously dressed with 35 or 40 bushels of sprats
per acre, the yield is usually much more con-
siderable.

The weight of a bushel of oats varies from
856

OAT.

35 to 45 pounds, and 14 pounds of oats com-
monly yield about 8 pounds of meal.

The following table will show the quantity
of meal that is usually extracted from certain
weights of oats ; and though different results
may be obtained by various qualities and sea-
sons, yet the progressive ratio of the produce
will generally be found nearly similar.

Weight per BusbeL Produce in Meal. Produce of Hutk.

421b. 25 1b. 2oz. 161b. 14 oz.

40 23 6 16 10

38 21 12 16 4

36 20 3 15 13

34 18 11 15 5

3'2 17 5 14 11

30 16 1 13 5

Oatmeal is a well-known article of food ; it
is the flour from which, in the northern portion
of Great Britain, the bread of the working
classes is partly procured. The oat-seed was
examined by Sir H. Davy; he found in 1000
parts of Scotch oats 743 of soluble or nutritive
matter, composed of 641 mucilage or starch, 15
saccharine matter, and 87 gluten or albumen.
In 100 parts of oats from Sussex, 59 parts of
starch, 6 of gluten, and 2 of saccharine matter,
33 husk.

The principal demand for oats in Great Bri-
tain is for horses. Its use for bread is chiefly
confined to the northern districts. Meal is em-
ployed also for various domestic purposes,
feeding pigs, dogs, &c. ; and it has been used
in brewing ale, and in the malt distilleries ;
but for this purpose its value is much inferior
to that of barley.

The seeds were analyzed by Schraeder ; he
found in 227-8 grains of ashes, obtained from

2 lb. of oats-
Gram*.

Silica 1442

Carbonate of lime (chalk) - - 3375

Carbonate of magnesia ... 33*9

Alumina (clay) ----- 4"5

Oxide of manganese - - - - 6-95

Oxide of iron ----- 45

927-8

The analysis of M. Vauquelin rather differs
from this ; he found in 100 parts of the ashes
of the oat —

Part*.
60-7
- - - 39-3

Silica
Pbospbateofliine

100-

But by burning the whole plant, stalk and
seed together, he obtained a residuum com-
posed of —

P»rt«.

Silica -------55

Phosphate of lime - - - - 15

Potash ------ 20

Carbonate of lime - - - - 5

And some oxide of iron.

M. Saussure obtained from 100 parts of the
ashes of the seeds of the oat —

Partfc
Soluble salts ----- I

Earthy phosphates - - - - 24

Silica ------- 60

Metallic oxide - - - - - 025

Loss 14-75

100-

"I

OAT-GRASS.

Average price of oats in England, per Win-
chester quarter : —

£ 8. d. £ s. d.

1771 - 0 16 8 1810 - 19 4

1775 - 0 16 6 1815 - 13 6

1780 - 0 12 10 Per Imperial Quarter.

1785 - 0 17 2 1820 - 14 9

1790 - 0 18 10 1825 - 1 5 8

1795 - 1 4 9 1830 - 14 5

1800 - 1 19 10 18:{5 - 12 0

1805 - 1 8 0 1840 .

The account, in imperial quarters, of the
foreign oats and oatmeal entered for home con-
sumption every five years since 1815, was —

Qrfc q™.

1815 - 214,000 1830 - 900.319

1820 - 726,848 1835 - 176,142

1825 - 15,000 1840 - 510,836

The annual average of oats, in Winchester
quarters, imported into England from 1801 to
1825 was, from —

Russia 46,652

Sweden and Norway - - - - 2,446

Denmark 30.672

Prussia 39.209

Germany ...--- 75,828

Netherlands 84,269

France and Southern Europe • - 1,953

America .--«-- 4

From Ireland were imported into this coun-
try, of oats and oatmeal, in Winchester quar-
ters—

1810 - 4?3T231 1825 - 1,6297856

1815 - 597,537 1830 - 1,47 1,«M

1820 - 916,250 1835 - 1,822,786

Table shoimng the average Price of Oats per Btuhel
in the Philadelphia Market, for the 1st, 2rf, 3d,
and 4th Quarters of the following Years :

Year.

lit Quarter.

Sd Quarter.

3d Quarter.

4.h Quarter.

1833

36 cts.

40 Cts.

30 cts.

35 cts.

1834

27

31

30

33

1835

36

38

38

40

1836

50

42

38

50

1837

50

49

45

36

1838

33

37

41

41

18.?9

44

53

32

33

1840

28

87

25

26

1841

26

87

47

46

1842

43

J7

23

25

Oats raised south of Philadelphia usually
bring about 3 cents per bushel less than those
raised in Pennsylvania and still further north,
which are generally much heavier.

OAT-GRASS. See Avkna.

OATMEAL. The meal or flour of the oat is
used in Great Britain to make porridge, gruel,
bread, and poultices. In the mealing process,
the oats, after being previously dried in a kiln,
are made to pass through the mill-stone to di-
vest them of their coarser husks or " sheal-
ings" before being ground. The kernels are
then named " grits" or " groats ;" and are next
ground over again into a coarse, rough meal,
varying in its fineness according to the custom
of different districts. This is afterwards either
baked upon a heated iron, called a gridle in
Scotland, into thin, flat cakes, or made up with
water into loaves, and baked. When gradually
stirred into boiling water, and boiled into a
thick consistence, it forms the porridge of
Scotland. It is eaten either with skimmed
milk, butter, molasses, or ale. It is thus very
108

OKRA.

generally used as the common porridge for
breakfast and supper of the greater portion of
the peasantry of the northern parts of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, and forms a very nutri-
tive and healthy food. It is, however, apt to
prove acescent in some stomachs, and to cause
cutaneous diseases. See Groats.

OCHRE. See Fcllkh's Earth.

OFFSETS. In gardening, young radical
bulbs, when separated or taken off" from the
parent roots, are so called. One of the chief
methods of propagating plants is by offsets.

OIL-CAKE. The marc which remains after
the oil has been expressed from the seeds of
flax and rape. See Colza, Linseed Cake,
Pai-ma Christi, Rape.

OILS (Ger. oel; Lat. oleum). This term com-
prehends two substances that have very dis-
tinct properties, namely, volatile and fixed oils ;
but, in general language, the term oil is indi-
cative of the latter. Fixed oils are unctuous,
fluid bodies, which, when dropped upon paper,
sink into it, and make it semi-transparent, or
give it what is called a greasy stain. They
are composed of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.
Train oil has been sometimes used as a ma-
nure, and is a powerful fertilizer. See Firh.
Linseed oil is a common food for live-stock.
See Linseed Oil.

The following is the result of analysis of 100
parts of

Hydrogen. 0iy<en. Carbon.

Olive Oil . 13 36 -f- 9437 -f- 77213 = lOO
Train oil - 16 1 -f- 15 03 -[" <^8 67 = 100

Olive oil is chiefly imported into England
from the Mediterranean. It is the produce of
the Olea Europaa, a native of Greece, Africa,
and the south of Europe. The oil is expressed
from the ripe fruit, which resembles a small
purple plum in size and appearance. The
fruit is first bruised in a mill, and then pressed :
the first which flows is termed virgin oil ; after
obtaining which the marc is broken up, moist-
ened with hot water, and again submitted to
the press to procure an inferior oil. The oil
is lel\ for a considerable time, to enable it to
deposit the feculencies, befpre it is ready for
exportation or for use. Good olive oil is of a
pale straw-yellow colour, perfectly inodorous
and tasteless. There are several kinds in the
market: that which comes from Provence is
the best, next to it that from Florence; it is im-
ported in flasks. Lucca and Genoa oils are
also good ; but the greatest part of the olive
oil brought into England is the production of
Naples and Sicily, and known by the name
of Gallipoli oil. Olive oil is used both dieteti-
cally and medicinally. It is superior to butter
for many purposes of cookery.

OKRA (Hibiscus esculentis). This plant is
cultivated extensively in the West Indies, from
whence it has been introduced into the United
States. The pods are gathered green, and used
in soups. They form an important ingredient
in the celebrated Gumbo soup of New Orleans
and other southern places. The pods are filled
with seeds and a mucilage of a bland and
highly nutritious quality. Hence the okra is
frequently recommended to persons afflicted
with dysentery and other bowel complaints,
either eaten boiled, or made into soup. When
3 c a 857

OLEANDER.

OLIVE.

buttered and spiced, they afford a rich dish, '
and with vinegar, they make a good pickle.
The plant comes to maturity in the Middle
States, and the pods are abundant in the Phi-
ladelphia market. Those who become once
accustomed to this wholesome vegetable, con-
tract a great fondness for its peculiar flavour.
• In Louisiana and other southern states, a
dinner is scarcely considered complete without
okra cooked in some way or other, and the
poor consider it one of their greatest blessing'-.
Mr. Legare, editor of the Southern Agriculturist,
has furnished the following recipe for making
okra soup, after the celebrated method pursued
in Charleston. The pods, he says, are of pro-
per size when 2 or 3 inches long, but may be
used as long as they remain tender. If fit for
use, they will snap asunder at the ends, but if
too old and woody, they must be rejected. One
peck of the tender pods are to be cut crosswise
into very thin slices, not exceeding one-eighth
of an inch in thickness. To this quantity add
about one-third of a peck of tomatoes, previ-
ously peeled and cut into pieces. The propor-
tion of tomatoes maybe varied to suit the taste.
A coarse piece of beef (a shin is generally
made use of) is placed in a pot or digester
with about 2^ gallons of water, and a very
small quantity of salt. This is permitted to
boil a few moments, when the scum is taken
off and the okra and tomatoes thrown in. With
these ingredients in the proportions mentioned,
the soup made is remarkably fine. Still, some
think it improved by additions of green corn,
Lima beans, &c. The most essential thing to
be attended to is the boiling, and the excel-
lence of the soup depends almost entirely on
this being done faithfully. For if it be not boil-
ed enough, however well the ingredients may
have been selected and proportioned, the soup
will be very inferior, and give but little idea
of the delightful flavour it possesses when well
done. A properly constructed digester is de-
cidedly the best vessel for boiling this or any
other soup in; but where such a utensil is not
at hand, an earthenware pot should be pre-
ferred ; but on no account make use of an iron
one, as it would turn the whole soup perfectly
black, instead of the proper colour, namely,
green, coloured with the rich yellow of toma-
toes. The time usually required for boiling
okra soup is about 5 hours, during which it
should be occasionally stirred, and the ingre-
dients mashed. When taken off, the original
quantity will be reduced to about one-half, and
the meat "done to rags;" the whole forming a
homogeneous mass, of the consistence of thick
porridge.

OLEANDER (Nerium, from neros, humid;
alluding to the habitat of the plants). This is
a genus of noble evergreen shrubs, of easy
culture, and flowering freely the greater part
of the year. N. oleander and its varieties bear
forcing remarkably well ; and, although treat-
ed as green-house plants, yet they will not
flower well unless they are kept in the stove.
They grow well in any rich, light soils, and
young cuttings root in any soil, if kept moist.
The leaves of N. oleander contain tannic acid,
and the leaves and bark of the root of N. odo-
rum are applied externally as powerful repel-
85&

lants by the Indian practitioners. N. tinctorium
yields indigo. {Paxton^s Bot. Did.)

OLIVE {Olea). This is a very important
genus of plants, on account of the oil, &c.,
which is obtained chiefly from the O. Europcea.

It is an evergreen, small tree, with lanceo-
late leaves, of a deep-green on the upper, and
nearly white or hoary on the under surface.
The flowers are small and while. The fruit is
an elliptical drupe, of a bluish-purple colour
when ripe. The tree lives to an extreme old
age, and continues to bear good olives. It is
also much admired for the fragrance of its
flowers, which render it worthy a place in
every green-house collection. They grow well
in loam and peat; ripened cuttings root readily
in sand, under a glass. They may also be in-
creased by grafting on the common privet.
The unripe fruit of the olive, preserved in salt
and water, is a well-known article for the dessert.

With regard to the capacity of a portion of
the Southern United States to produce the olive,
the following extract from a communication
of John Couper, Esq., will give interesting in-
formation : —

" I had a very pretty grove of 200 olives, im-
ported about 10 years since, their stems from
8 to 12 inches diameter, and perhaps averaging
20 to 25 feet high to the top ; they have borne
fruit for some years. I had also near 600 trees,
or plants, from 1 1 to 5 years old. From com-
parisons between the olive and orange, in pre-
vious severe frosts, where the orange was much
hurt, the olive was uninjured. I have, there-
fore, no hesitation in believing the olive is well
adapted to, and will succeed on our sea-coast,
of both Carolina and Georgia.

"I have been personally acquainted with
sour-orange trees, both on St. Simon's and Je-
kyl, for 58 years, and believe they were plant-
ed near 100 years since; and have never been
killed by frost until last February, when they
were all destroyed. I therefore conclude, that
since the first settlement of Georgia the olive
would have succeeded. It occurs to me that,
notwithstanding the immense value of the olive
in France, they have been cut down in some
severe frosts.

"The olive and orange seemed so completely
destroyed, even to some depth under ground,
that I cut them down, and planted corn in their
place ; on examination about a month since,
the lower roots still appearing fresh, I conclud-
ed that opening the ground around them might
encourage vegetation; and have now the satis-
faction to see the olives pushing out abundance
of fine, strong shoots, not one failing. The
oranges are doing the same, though some ap-
pear dead, not yet decided; by returning the
earth to the olive shoots, they will throw out
roots, and furnish fine plants. In fact, I am
better satisfied respecting the success of the
olive than I was before the severe frost." (Far-
mer^s Register, vol. iii. p. 246.)

OLIVE, THE AMERICAN {Olea Jmenca-
no). This American tree belongs exclusively to
the Southern States, the Floridas, and Louisiana.
Like the live-oak and cabbage-tree, it is con-
fined to the sea-shore. "It is so little multi-
plied," says Michaux, "that it has hitherto re-
ceived no name from the inhabitants of the.

ONIONS.

ONIONS.

country, except on the banks of the river Sa-
vannah, where it is called Devil wood.

"This tree grows in soils and exposures ex-
tremely different: on the sea-shore it springs
with the live-oak in the most barren and sultry
spots ; and in other places it is seen with the
big laurel, the umbrella tree, the sweet leaves,
&c., in cool, fertile, and shaded situations.

" This tree, or, to speak more accurately, this
large shrub, is sometimes 30 or 35 feet high,
and 10 or 12 inches in diameter: but this size
is extraordinary; it commonly fructifies at the
height of 8, 10, or 12 feet. The leaves are 4
or 5 inches long, opposite and lanceolate, en-
tire at the edge, smooth and brilliant on the
upper surface, and of an agreeable light-green.
They are evergreen, or at least are partially
renewed only once in 4 or 5 years. The fer-
tile and barren flowers are on separate trees :
they are very small, strongly scented, of a pale
yellow, and axillary, or situated between the
petiole of the leaves and the branches. The
season of flowering, in the neighbourhood of
Charleston, is about the end of April. The
fruit is round, and about twice as large as a
common pea. When ripe, it is of a purple
colour, approaching to blue, and consists of a
bard stone thinly coated with pulp. As it re-
mains attached to the branches during a part
of the winter, its colour forms, at this season,
an asrreeable contrast with the foliage.

"The bark which covers the trunk of the
devil wood is smooth and grayish. The wood
has a fine and compact grain, and, when per-
fectly dry, it is excessively hard and very diffi-
cult to cut or split; hence is derived the name
of devil wood. It is, notwithstanding, neglect-
ed in use. On laying bare the cellular integu-
ment of the bark, its natural yellow hue changes
instantaneously to a deep red, and the wood,
by contact with the air, assumes a rosy com-
plexion. Experiments should be made to de-
tect the nature of this active principle in the
bark, which causes it to change colour so sud-
denly by exposure to the air.

" From the temperature of the native skies
of this tree, we may conclude that it is capable
of resisting a greater degree of cold than the
common olive: it becomes, then, on account
of its beautiful foliage, its odoriferous flowers,
and its showy fruit, a valuable acquisition."
(Mirhavx.)

ONIONS {Allium cepa). Of this genus, there
are eight individuals that demand the garden-
er's care.

They all require a rich, friable soil, on a dr}'
substratum; a situation enjoying the full influ-
ence of the sun, and entirely free from trees,
which are very inimical to them, especially to
those which have to stand the winter. If the
soil be poor, or exhausted, abundance of dung
should be applied in the preceding autumn or
winter, and the ground thrown into ridges. By
these means it becomes well decomposed and
incorporated with the soil ; for rank, unreduced
dung is generally injurious, engendering de-
cay, and inducing maggots; if, therefore, the
application of manure is neglected until the
spring, it should be taken from an old hotbed,
or other source whence it is to be had in a
thoroughly putrescent state, and turned in only

to a moderate depth. Sea-sand, particularly
if the ground is at all tenacious, is advanta-
geously employed ; coal-ashes, and especially
soot, are applied with particular benefit. In
digging over the ground, small spits only should
be turned over at a time, that the texture may
be well broken and pulverized. A considera-
ble degree of attention is required from the
difficulty of giving the requisite degree of firm-
ness to light soils, which, if rich, are well suit-
ed to the growth of these vegetables. Old, soft,
or light, sandy soils, Mr. A. Gorrie, of Rait, re-
commends to be dug rough in October, and
about January to have a top-dressing of cow-
dung applied and left on, to have its fertilizing
matters washed in until the time of sowing,
then as much as can be is to be raked ofl', and,
without digging, the seed sown, trod in, and
covered with earth from the alleys. By this
management, soils will produce good crops
which before were annually destroyed by the
maggot. Onions for pickling, as well as those
to stand the winter, should be grown on light,
poor soils, which cause the first to be small in
the bulb, and the latter, not growing so luxu-
riantly, to withstand the winter better.

There are 14 distinct varieties of this vege-
table, as appears from the description given by
Mr. C. Strachan, gardener to the Horticultural
Society of London.

1. Silver-skinned onion. 2. Early silver-
skinned. 3. True Portugal. 4. Spanish. 5.
Strasburg. 6. Depiford. 7. Globe. 8. James's
keeping onion. 9. Pale-red. 10. Yellow. 11.
Blood-red. 12. Tripoli. 13. Two-bladed. 14.
Lisbon.

In England the onion is raised from seed,
which may be sown for the first main crop to-
wards the close of February, if dry, open wea-
ther, otherwise only a small portion, in a warm,
dry situation. The principal crop, however,
must be sown during March, it being kept in
mind that the close of February is to be pre-
ferred, for the earlier the seed is inserted, the
finer will be the bulbs : main crops may even
be inserted as late as the beginning of April,
and, at its close, a small sowing to draw young
in summer, and for small bulbs to pickle;
again in July and early in August for salads in
autumn ; and, finally, in the last week of Au-
gust, or early in September, to stand the winter
for spring and beginning of summer. The seed
is sown thinly, broadcast, and regularly raked
in. An ounce of seed is abundantly sufficient
for a rood of ground, especially for the main-
crops, as they should never be allowed to grow
to a size fit for salads without thinning. No
other seed ought to be sown with it; for the
practice of stealing a crop is detrimental to
both crops, without the slightest advantage to
compensate. The beds should be divided by
narrow alleys into portions about four feet
wide, for the convenience of cultivation. In
about six weeks after sowing, the plants will
be of sufficient size to allow the first thinning
and small hoeing, by which they are to be
set out about 2 inches apart; if this is per-
formed in dry weather, it will keep the beds
free of weeds for six weeks longer, when they
must be hoed a second time, and thinned to
4 inches apart; and now, where they have

ONIONS.

failed, the vacancies may be filled up by trans-
planting some of those thinned out into the
places; the best time for doing this is in the
evening, and water must be given for several
successive nights. In transplanting, the root
only is to be inserted, and no part of the stem
buried ; for there is very good reason to be-
lieve that naturally the bulb grows entirely
upon the surface, and that growing within the
mould is a great cause of their not keeping
well. After the lapse of another month thev
must be thoroughly gone over for the last time,
the weeds eradicated, and the plants thinned
to 6 inches asunder ; after this they in general
only require to be weeded occasionally by
hand; they must, however, be kept completely
free from weeds, and the stirring of the surface
which the hoe effects is very beneficial. In
order to prevent their running too much to
blade, it is a good practice early in July, be-
fore the tips change to a yellow hue, to bend
the stems down flat upon the bed, which not
only prevents the rapid growth of the blade,
but causes the bulbs to become much larger
than they otherwise would be. The bend should
be made about 2 inches up the neck.

About the close of August the onions will
have arrived at their full growth, which may
be known by the withering of the foliage, by
the shrinking of the necks, and by the ease
with which they may be pulled up. As soon
as these changes appear, they must be taken
up, the bed being frequently looked over ; for,
if the whole crop is waited for, the forwardest,
especially in moir^ seasons, are apt again to
strike root. They should be spread on mats,
&c., in the sun, frequently turned, and removed
under shelter at night. In 2 or 3 weeks, when
the roots and blades are perfectly withered and
void of moisture, and the bulbs become firm,
they are fit for storing, being housed in dry
weather, and carefully preserved from bruis-
ing: previous to doing" this, all mould and re-
fuse must be removed from them, for these are
apt to induce decay, and spread contagion to
all near them. To prevent this as much as pos-
sible, all faulty ones should be rejected: in the
store-house they must be laid as thin as may
be, and looked over at least once a month.
Notwithstanding every precaution, many will
decay, and more sprout, especially in mild
winters; therefore, to preserve some for late
use, it is useful to sear the roots and the sum-
mits with a hot iron, care being taken not to
scorch the bulb.

For the winter standing crop the only addi-
tional directions necessary are, to tread in the
seed regularly before raking, if the soil, as it
ought to be, is dry and light. They must be
kept constantly clear of weeds, as well as of
the fallen leaves of trees, which cause them to
spindle and become weak, but they need not be
thinned, as they serve as protections for each
other. Early in spring they are to be weeded,
and, as may be necessary, transplanted for
bulbing. There are several modes of cultiva-
tion lately introduced or revived, which pro-
duce onions of superior size and goodness.
The great obstacle to the production of fine
onions in England is the want of a sufficient
continuance of warm weather ; or, at least, the
860

ONIONS.

inclemency of the early part of the year pre-
vents the insertion of the seed until so late,
that the most genial season to vegetation passes
away whilst the plants are in their infancy ; it
is the obviating this unfavourable circumstance
that causes the superiority of the several plans
hereafter detailed.

It is a practice that originated in America,
and which has met with the decided approval
of Mr. Knight and others, to sow in May; to
cultivate the plants as in the other crops ; and,
in October, the bulbs, being of the size of nuts,
are to be taken up, dried, and housed, as directed
for the full-grown bulbs. About the middle of
the following March they must be planted out
in rows 6 inches apart each way, and after-
wards cultivated in the same manner as the
other crops. If sown earlier than May, they
run to seed when transplanted. Another mode
nearly as efficacious, and which, I understand,
has been practised for a great length of time
in the south of Essex, is to sow in the latter
part of August, to stand the winter, and in
March, early or late, according to the forward
growth of the seedlings, to be planted out in
rows at the before-directed distance, and culti-
vated as usual.

In Portugal they sow in a moderate hotbed
during November or December, in a warm
situation, with a few inches of mould upon it;
and the plants are protected from frost by hoops
and mats ; in April or May, when of the size
of a swan's quill, they are transplanted into a
light, rich loam, well manured with old rotten
dung, to bulb.

It would seem, from the practice of Mr. Mac-
donald, gardener to the Duke of Buccleugh, at
Dalkeith, that transplanting alone is of great
benefit. " His soil," he says, " is not very fa-
vourable to the growth of the onion, being light
and thin ; and it was not until after many ex-
periments he was able to obtain fine bulbs, and
which he at length accomplished by sowing in
the end of February, and about April trans-
planting them at the usual distance in drills,
first dipping the root into a puddle, consisting
of 1 part soot and 3 parts earth, mixed with
water; the work being performed in moist
weather." The puddle, as is observed by Mr.
Sinclair, can be of no other use than to assist
the rooting of the plants.

To obtain seed, some old onions must be
planted during February, or early in March.
The finest and firmest bulbs being selected, and
planted in rows 10 inches apart each way,
either in drills or by a blunt-ended dibble, the
soil to be rather poorer, if it differs at all from
that in which they are cultivated for bulbing.
They must be buried so deep that the mould
just covers the crown. Early in spring their
leaves will appear. If grown in large quan-
tities, a path must be left 2 feet wide between
every 3 or 4 rows, to allow the necessary cul-
tivation. They must be kept thoroughly clear
of weeds, and when in flower have stakes
driven at intervals of 5 or 6 feet each side of
every 2 rows, to which a string is to be fasten-
ed throughout the whole length, a f^ew inches
below the heads, to serve as a support, and
prevent their being broken down. The seeds
are ripe in August, which is intimated by the

ONIONS.

ONION, THE WELSH.

husks becoming brownish : the heads must i
then be immediately cut, otherwise the recep- 1
tacles will open and shed their contents. Be- [
ing spread on cloths in the sun, during the day, ]
and taken under cover every night and daring !
inclement weather, they soon become perfectly {
dry, when the seed may be rubbed out, cleaned
of the chaff, and, after remaining another day
or two, finally stored. It is of the utmost con-
sequence to employ seed of not more than one
year old, otherwise not more than 1 in 50 seeds
will vegetate.

The goodness of seed may be easily disco-
vered by forcing a little of it in a hotbed or in
warm water, a day or two before it is employed :
a small white point will soon protrude if it is
fertile.

Onions are raised in large quantities, in the
town of Weathersfield, Connecticut, for exporta-
tion to the West Indies and Southern States.
The business is there reduced to a perfect
system. Early in spring the land is manured,
by ploughing in fine manure from the stable or
barn-yard, in the proportion of about 10 loads
to the acre. That of neat cattle is preferred,
as that of horses is considered to be of too
heating a nature. It is then well harrowed and
laid out into beds of 5 feet wide, by turning a
furrow towards them each way; this raises the
beds above the alleys, and allows the surplus
water to run off. They are then well raked
with an iron-toothed or common hay rake, and
the alleys suffered to remain as left by the
plough.

As early as the season will admit, the seed
is sown in the following manner. A rake, with
teeth a foot apart, is drawn crosswise of the
beds, and drills made for the reception of the
saed; it is then sown with the thumb and fingers
and covered with the hand, allowing 10 or 12
lbs. to the acre. After the plants are up, they
are kept clean of weeds, which generally re-
quires four weedings, using a hoe of suitable
width to pass between the rows, which saves
much labour. When ripe, they are pulled, and
the tops cut off to a suitable length for tying
them to the straw in roping. Three and a half
pounds are required by a law of the stale to be
put in each rope; and the ordinary crop is
from 6 to 8000 ropes to the acre.

Onions may be raised in the same way in the
Middle and Southern States, though the more
common practice is to grow them from small
bulbs raised from seed the previous year, by sow-
ing thickly in rows, about 9 or 10 inches apart,
about the middle of spring; if sown too early,
they are apt to run to seed when transplanted.
Cultivate and preserve as for full-grown bulbs.
Plant early in spring, in well manured ground,
in rows about 6 inches apart, and 5 inches in
the row, allowing about 18 inches after every
fifth row as an alley for convenience in weeding.

If the land is at all light, it is a good practice
to tread or roll well before sowing or trans-
planting, and be careful to disturb the bulbs as
little as possible in weeding.

Potato, or tmder-groiind Onion. — This species
of alliimi has received the above appellations,
on account of its producing a cluster of bulbs
or offsets, in number from 2 to 12, and even
more, uniformly beneath the surface of the soil.

From being first introduced to public notice in
Scotland, by Captain Burns of Edinburgh, it is
there also known as the Burn onion. There
evidently appear to be two varieties of this ve-
getable, one of which bears bulbs on the summit
of its stems, like the tree onion, and the other
never throwing up flower-stems at all. One
variety is muciyarger than the other, and this
vegetates again as soon as ripe.

Both varieties are best propagated by offsets
of the root, of moderate size ; for if those are
employed which the one variety produces on
the summit of its stems, they seldom do more
than increase in size the first year, but are pro-
lific the next ; this also occurs if very small
offsets of the root are employed.

They may be planted during October or No-
vember, or as early in the spring as the season
will allow, but not later than April. In the
west of England, assisted by their genial cli-
mate, they plant on the shortest and lake up on
the longest day. They are either to be inserted
in drills, or by a blunt dibble 8 inches apart
each way, not buried entirely, but the top of
the offset just level with the surface. Mr. Ma-
her, gardener at Arundel Castle, merely places
the sets on the surface, covering them with
leaf mould, rotten dung, or other light compost.
The beds they are grown in are belter not more
than 4 feet wide, for the convenience of culti-
vation.

The only cultivation required is to keep them
clear of weeds. The practice of earthing the
mould over them when the stems have grown
up is unnatural, and by so doing the bulbs are
blanched and prevented ripening perfectly, on
which their keeping depends. So far from
following this plan, Mr. Wedgewood of Betley
recommends the earth always to be cleared
away down to the ring whence the fibres
spring, as soon as the leaves have attained their
foil size and begin to be brown at the top, so
that a kind of basin is formed round the bulb.
As soon as they vegetate, they intimate the
number of offsets that will be produced, by
showing a shoot for each.

They attain their full growth towards the end
of July, and become completely ripe early in
September: for immediate use they may be
taken up as they ripen, but for keeping, a little
before they attain perfect maturity, which is
demonstrated by the same symptoms as were
mentioned in speaking of onion.

ONION, THE WELSH, or CIBOULE.
This is a perennial, which never forms a bulb,
but is sown annually, to be drawn young for
salads, &c.: on account of its strong taste, it
is greatly inferior to the common onion for this
purpose; but from its extreme hardiness in
withstanding the severest frost, it may be cul-
tivated with advantage as a winter standing
crop for spring use. In France two varieties
are in cultivation, the white and the red ; the first
of which is the one in general use in England.
As it may be sown at all times, in common
with the onion, and is similarly cultivated, ex-
cept that it may be sown thicker, and only
thinned as wanted, the directions given for that
vegetable will suffice. The blade usually dies
away completely in winter, but fresh ones are
! thrown out again in February or March.

861

• ONION, THE TREE.

To obtain seed, some of the roots must be
planted out in March, 6 or 8 inches asunder.
The first autumn they will produce but little
seed; in the second and third, however, it will
be produced abundantly. If care is taken to
part and transplant the roots every two or three
years, they may be multiplied, and will remain
productive for many years, and afford much
better seed than that from one-year old roots.
There is good reason for concluding, as Mr. T.
Milne, of Fulham, ingeniously explains, that
by a confusion of names, arising from simi-
larity of appearance, this vegetable is the true
• scaliion of Miller and others, whilst the hollow
:leek of Wales is the true Welsh onion; for
the description of scaliion, as given by Miller,

- accords exactly with that of the Welsh onion ;
, and as he describes it as a distinct variety, we

are reduced to the dilemma of receiving this

- explanation, or considering the variety as lost ;
for from Miller's known accuracy it is impos-
sible to consider that he was deceived. At
present all onions that have refused to bulb,
and formed lengthened necks and strong blades
in spring and summer, are called scallions.

ONION, THE TREE, or CANADA (M-
lium Canadense). This, which is a very hardy
perennial species, like the ciboule, is without
a bulbous root, but throws out numerous off-
sets. Its top bulbs are greatly prized for pick-
ling, being considered of superior flavour to
the common onion for that purpose, as well as
others in which that species is employed.

It is propagated both by the root offsets,
which may be planted during March and April,
or in September and October, and from the top
bulbs, which are best planted in spring, and
not before the latter end of April. The old
roots are best to plant again for a crop of bulbs,
as they are most certain to run to stems. If
the bulbs be planted earlier than as above di-
rected, they are apt to push up the same season,
and exhaust themselves without producing
either good offsets or bulbs ; but on the other
hand, by planting the old roots in the previous
autumn, or early in the spring, they will pro-
duce good bulbs the same year. They must
be inserted in rows 12 inches asunder, in holes
6 inches apart and 2 deep, a single offset or
bulb being put in each. Those planted in au-
tumn will shoot forth leaves early in the spring,
and have their bulbs fit for gathering in June,
or the beginning of July; those inserted in the
spring will make their appearance later, and
will be in production at the close of July or
early in August: they must not, however, be
gathered for keeping or planting until the stalks
decay ; at which time, or in the spring also, if
only of one year's growth, the roots may be
taken up and parted if required for planting; but
when of two or three years' continuance, they
must at all events be reduced in size, other-
wise they grow in too large and sprindling
bunches ; but the best plan is to make a fresh
plantation, annually with single offsets. The
only cultivation necessary is to keep them
•, clear of weeds ; and when the stems run up,
to give them the support of stakes.

The bulbs, when gathered, must be gradually
and carefully dried in a shady place; and if
kept perfectly free from moisture, will continue
862

ORANGE, OSAGE.

in good state until the following May. (G. W
Johnson.)

OPEN. A terra frequently applied to cows
or heifers, signifying that they are not in calf.

OPEN CUTS. Such drains or gutters as
are made in land by the spade, and left without
being covered in. They are used in draining
lands in particular cases. Open cuts, if effec-
tual, are the best of all for forest draining, a«
they cannot be inconvenient, from the plough
not being employed after the trees are planted.
Cuts of this sort are frequently found useful in
the practice of irrigation or watering of land.

OPHTHALMIA. See Sheep, Diseases of.

OR ACHE (Mriplex; from atir, black). A
genus of herbaceous or shrubby straggling
plants of little beauty, and the simplest culture
and propagation. There are in England seve-
ral native species.

The j1. hortensis is cooked and eaten in the
same manner as spinach, to which it is much
preferred by many persons, although it belongs
to a tribe whose wholesomeness is very sus-
picious. It flourishes best in a rich, moist soil,
and in an open compartment. Those, how-
ever, of the autumn sowing, require a rather
drier soil. It is propagated by seed, which
may be sown about the end of September, soon
after it is ripe, and again in the spring, for suc-
cession; the sowing to be performed broad-
cast, the seeds being scattered thin. The
plants soon make their appearance, being of
quick growth. When they are about an inch
high, they must be thinned to 4 inches asun-
der; and those removed may be planted out at
the same distance in a similar situation, and
watered occasionally until established. At the
time of thinning, the best must be thoroughly
cleared of weeds, and if they are again hued
during a dry day, when the plants are about 4
inches high, they will require no further at-
tendance than an occasional weeding by hand.

For early production, a sowing may be per-
formed in a moderate hotbed at the same times
as those in the natural ground.

The leaves must be gathered for use whilst
young, otherwise they become stringy and
worthless. To obtain seed, some plants of the
spring sowing must be left ungathered from,
and thinned to about 8 inches apart. The
seeds ripen about the end of August, when the
plants may be pulled up, and when perfectly
dry, rubbed out for use.

ORANGE, OSAGE (Madura aurantiaca).
This is an American deciduous tree, which
grows wild in Arkansas and Louisiana, where
it attains the height of a tree of the second orthird
class, but in the Middle States it seldom grows
higher than 1.5 or 20 feet. It is very branching ;
each branch being armed with numerous sharp
thorns. The wood is remarkably tough, and
said to be very durable. The male and female
flowers are on separate trees. The fertile or
female tree bears fruit abundantly in a very
few years. These are round, rough, and green-
ish-coloured, resembling somewhat an orange,
and weighing from 12 to 18 ounces, containing
from 100 to 250 seeds.

Recently this thorny tree has received very
considerable attention, with a view to making
it useful in the construction of live fences.

ORANGK TREE.

which puqjose it is extensively cultivated in
nurseries. " Its great merit," says Mr. T. S.
Pleasants, of Virginia, "consists in the spread-
ing manner of its growth, the denseness of its
branches, and the armature with which they
are furnished. Planted in hedge-rows, the ma-
clura would never become unmanageable on
account of its size; at the same time its growth
is sufficiently vigorous to make a fence in 3,

4, or at most 5 years, from the seed. It may
be asserted with safety, that on land of tole-
rable fertility, the labour and expense of per-
fecting a system of hedges would not be greater
than to keep ordinary enclosures in good con-
dition for the time required to construct them.

" The Osage orange trees are readily raised
from the seed, which, unlike those of the com-
mon thorn, require no preparation. On the
contrary, they vegetate with certainty in 2 or 3
weeks after planting. With tolerable care the
seedlings will grow 2 or 3 feet in height the
first season; after which they are to be re-
moved from the nursery rows to the place
designed for the hedge. Fifty of the large
orange-shaped berries yield at least a pound of
seed, or from 8 to 10,000 grains. It is the usual
practice to place the sets from 12 to 15 inches
apart, in a single row." {Farmers' Register , vol.

5, p. 86.)

Though originally from a southern locality,
the Osage orange is so hardy as to stand the
winters not only of the Middle, but of the East-
ern States.

ORANGE TREE (Citrus). The genus to
which the orange tree belongs consists of or-
namental species of fruit trees, growing from
3 to 15 feet high. The leaves are on more
or less dilated and winged footstalks; the
flowers are large, white, and odoriferous, exist-
ing at the same time as the fruit, which is too
well known to require description. Orange
trees thrive best in a good loamy soil, mixed
with a quantity of rotten dung. The different
kinds are procured by budding or grafting on
common stocks. Stocks for working upon are
raised from any oranges, lemons, &c. They
are sometimes raised from cuttings, in which
case they produce fruit when very small plants.
The flowers of the orange tree yield, by distil-
lation, a fragrant volatile oil, known by the
name of oil of Neroli. The fruit of the bigna-
roU or bitter orange makes one of the best pre-
serves which can be eaten, namely, Scotch
marmalade. The unripe fruit is used for fla-
vouring the liquor called curapoa. The ripe
fruit is wholesome, and a useful refrigerant in
fevers.

ORANGE, WILD. See Cherrt, Wild.

ORCHARD (Gr.). In horticulture, an en-
closure devoted to the culture of fruit trees.
In England the surface of the soil in orchards
is generally kept under pasture ; which, while
it prevents the earth from being washed away
by rains, is favourable to the running of the
roots immediately under the surface, by which
they are sooner called into action by heat in
spring, and sooner thrown into a torpid state
by cold in autumn. The principal fruits grown
in orchards of this description in Great Britain
are the apple, the pear, the plum, and the

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

cherry; and wherever wheat can l)e ripened in
the plains, these fruits will arrive at perfection
on declivities exposed to the south and south-
east.

ORCHARD-GRASS (Dadylis glomerata).
Called in England cock's-foot. It is an imper-
fect perennial, native to the United States. See
Cock's-Foot, and Grassks.

ORCHIDACE.E (Orchis, one of the genera).
A natural order of herbaceous endogens, in-
habiting all parts of the world, excepting those
climates situated upon the verge of the frozen
zone, or remarkable for their exceeding dry-
ness. They are well known for the singular
form of their flowers. Some of them grow
in the earth, 'others inhabit rocks and the
branches of trees, and a few appear to be true
parasites. They all belong to the class Gy-
nandria of Linnaius, are often very agreeably
scented, and sometimes produce an aromatic
fleshy fruit, as in the case of the vanilla, which
contains a large quantity of benzoic acid. The
nutritious substance called salep is prepared
from the amylaceous tubers of the male orchis,
merely drying them in ovens. They become
semi-pellucid, and when pulverized, form a
mucilage with boiling water. They are usually
grown in the frame or hothouse, and thrive
best in a mixture of loam, peat, and chalk,
broken small. They can only be increased
from seeds. It would be quite impossible to
describe the characters of each species.

The species indigenous to England are —
1. Butterfly orchis (O. bifolid). 2. Pyramidal
orchis (O. pyramidalis). 3. Green-winged mea-
dow orchis (O. nioris). 4. Early purple orchis
(O. mascula). 5. Dwarf dark-winged orchis
(O. ustulata). 6. Great brown-winged orchis
(O. fused). 7. Military orchis (O. militaris).
8. Monkey orchis (O. tephrosantos). 9. Lizanl
orchis (O. hircina). 10. White cluster-rooted
orchis (O. albida). 11. Frog orchis (0. viridis).
12. Marsh palmate orchis (O. latifolia). 13.
Spotted palmate orchis (O. maculata). 14.
Aromatic palmate orchis (O. conopsia). Most
of the native species of orchis inhabit mea-
dows and pastures, and hilly, chalky downs.
The roots are doubly tuberous, fleshy ; leaves
chiefly radical ; flowers numerous, spiked,
purple, crimson, or whitish — in some highly
fragrant. (Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. iv. pp. 8 — 24).

OREGON ALDER (Jlnus Oregona). A spe-
cies of the alder genus, which, like the Euro-
pean alder, attains the height of 30 or 40 feet.
(NuttaWs Supplement to Michaux.)

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, is that portion
of the science of chemistry which relates to
animal and vegetable substances. "The ob-
ject of organic chemistry," says M. Liebig, "is
to discover the chemical conditions which are
essential to the life and perfect developement
of animals and vegetables, and generally to in-
vestigate all those processes of organic nature
which are due to the operation of chemical
laws." In this article I shall confine myself
principally to the results obtained by the analy-
sis of vegetable and animal substances. Under
the heads Atmosphere, Earths, Gases, Tem-
perature, Water, &c., will be found an ac-
count of their respective uses to vegetation.

863

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

There is no branch of chemistry more diffi-
cult, and yet more interesting, than that of or-
ganic chemistry; for in this the chemist finds,
added to his ordinary difficulties, and to his
many sources of uncertainty, the presence, and
very often the controlling influence, of a living
principle, which in some instances seems to
neutralize and overcome even the most power-
ful chemical affinities. " I would warn, there-
fore, the reader," to use the words of Dr. Thom-
son, "not to expect complete information in
this branch of science; the wonders of the
vegetable creation are still but very imper-
fectly explored; many of the organs of plants
are too minute for our senses, and scarcely a
single process can be completely traced. The
multiplicity of operations continually going on
in vegetables at the same time, and the variety
of different and even opposite substances
formed out of the same ingredients, and almost
at the same time, astonish and confound us ;
the order, too, and the skill with which every
thing is conducted, are no less surprising; no
* two operations clash ; there is no discord, no
irregularity, no disturbance; every object is
gained, and every thing is ready for its intend-
ed purpose. This is too wonderful to escape
our observation, and of too much importance
not to claim our attention. Many philosophers,
accordingly, distinguished equally by their
industry and sagacity, have dedicated a great
part of their lives to the study of vegetation.
But hitherto their success has not been equal
to their exertions. No person has been able to
detect the formative agent in plants, nor even
the principle which is always so busy in per-
forming such wonders, nor to discover him at
his work ; nor have philosophers been much
more fortunate in their attempts to ascertain
the instruments which he employs in his opera-
tions." A great variety of curious and inte-
resting facts, however, have been discovered.
These I shall attempt to collect and arrange, to
point out their dependence on each other, and
to deduce such consequences as obviously
result from the discoveries which have been
hitherto made.

The farmer will, upon reflection, be able to
call to mind many circumstances, showing the
influence of the living principle upon the
chemical substances of organic matter. He
will remember, for instance, that the living sub-
stance flourishes in the very same position,
and under the very same circumstances, where,
when dead, it rapidly putrefies. Every plant
growing on the soil, or on a dunghill, testifies
to the fact. The living plants which /ourisA in
the same solution of a salt in which they are
dissolved, when dead, prove the same thing in
another way ; and these proofs may be multi-
plied very easily on very slight reflection. And
as regards animal life, the very same results
are obtained ; the very gastric juice which the
living stomach holds for an age, dissolves that
stomach when dead. Animals can sustain a
temperature considerably greater than that
where the putrefaction of animal substances
rapidly proceeds ; and men even can exist for a
considerable period in an atmosphere heated
considerably above the boiling point of water.

In this sketch of organic chemistry, I shall
864

principally confine myself to the vegetable
branch of it, and briefly follow the progress of
a plant through its several stages of germina-
tion, its growth, and its decay, leaving the
reader to refer to other heads of this work for
the information he may need.

Germination. That all plants arise from
seeds is now, I believe, undisputed by every
person, notwithstanding the very many puz-
zling phenomena which occasionally occur;
such as the profusion of some of the grasses,
occasioned by the application of certain ma-
nures. Thus, "by dressing certain soils
with bones and wood ashes, the white clover,
which contains this salt, appears in great quan-
tities. Now, phosphate of lime abounds in
bones and in the ashes of wood; other plants,
it is probable, require the same food. Thus,
after the great fire of London, says Mr. Play-
fair, large quantities of the Erysimum latifolium
were observed growing on the spots where a
fire had taken place. On a similar occasion,
the Blitum capilatum was seen at Copenhagen,
the Senecio viscosus in Nassau, and the Spartium
scoparium in Languedoc. After the burnings
of forest pine in North America, poplars, ac-
cording to Franklin, grew on the same soil.
(Liebig's Org. Chem. p. 152.)

Seeds, therefore, the farmer may rest as-
sured, are essential to the production of plants.
Now, the first movement of the seeds towards
the production of plants is denominated their
germination. To this certain requisites are
essentially necessary; such as moisture, mode-
rate heat, and oxygen gas. That all seeds re-
quire a certain degree of moisture before they
will vegetate, is known to every one ; where
there is no moisture, there can be no germina-
tion. This, however, varies according to the
nature of the plant. Some of the mosses, for
instance, will germinate on walls and other
places where the supply is very limited; others,
such as the water plants, will only grow im-
mersed in water. The rice of Hindostan is
grown in swamps abounding with water, which
would be destructive to all the grain crops
of the English farmer. The water-meadow
grasses of our own country illustrate the same
position. The plant, too, has the power of de-
composing water, and assimilating its hydro-
gen in the formation of its own substances.
Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen,
and these substances are always essential in-
gredients in vegetables.

Heat is also necessary to germination : thus
few plants will vegetate below the freezing
point of water ; nevertheless, this low tempera-
ture does not destroy their vitality, for every
farmer is aware that frozen seeds will vege-
tate after they have been thawed. As, how-
ever, there is a peculiar degree of moisture on
which every plant vegetates with the greatest
advantage, so there is a temperature pecu-
liarly favourable to the growth of every plant.
The ivy, the elder, and the honey-suckle, for
instance, invariably produce their leaves long
before any other English plant has felt the
warm reviving influence of spring.

And, again, if the seed is not supplied with
oxygen gas, the most favourable supplies of i
moisture and heat will not induce it to genni \

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

nate. Ray tried this in the vacuum of an ^ir-
pump with some lettuce seed; they did not
germinate in vacuo, but they grew very well
when the atmospheric air (which contains 21
per cent, of this gas) was admitted. It is for
this reason that the farmer is careful not to
bury his seed-corn so deep in the ground as to
be out of the influence of the oxygen of the
atmosphere. Beyond a certain depth, which
varies with diflerent plants, no seeds, in fact,
will vegetate. Seeds have been buried deep
in the earth for centuries, and when, after-
wards, they have been accidentally thrown
upon the surface, have vegetated. There is
reason for believing that it is not the entire at-
mospheric air, but only its oxygen, which is
essential to germination. In the experiments
of M. Saussure, the quantity of oxygen con-
sumed by various plants during their germina-
tion varied very considerably in amount.
Wheat and barley, weight for weight, con-
sumed less oxygen than peas ; and peas less
Ihan beans and kidney-beans. The oxygen
consumed by wheal and barley amounts to be-
tween yaVn^h and ottVa^^i of their weight, while
that consumed by beans and kidney-beans may
amount to jj^jsth part of their weight. The
oxygen absorbed by the seed is in all proba-
bility combined with the carbon of the plant,
and emitted during its germination, in the
state of carbonic acid gas. This gas is com-
posed entirely of carbon and oxygen, in the
proportion of 6-12 parts of the former and 16
of the latter; and the quantity of it emitted is
exactly equal in amount to the quantity of oxy-
gen absorbed by the seed that should unite
with the carbon of the plant, to form the car-
bonic acid gas, and a certain quantity of carbon
is always lost by the seed during vegetation.

When once a plant has vegetated, its growth
proceeds with more or less rapidity ; none that
I am aware of remain stationary; indeed, it
cannot remain stationary, and live. They in-
crease in size, require a supply of various sub-
stances as food, and the examination of the
nature of this nutriment constitutes one of the
most valuable branches of organic chemistry;
for under this head are included the assistance
afforded to plants by the gases, the earths, and by
water. In the examination of the food of plants
will also be illustrated the important questions
of rotation, of fertilizers, and of various other
important questions, which in this work will
be found treated of under their respective
heads ; and it will be useless to repeat what I
have there at some length endeavoured to illus-
trate. That the atmosphere yields its carbon
and its oxygen ; the soil its silica, alumina, and
magnesia, with various saline matters ; and that
water yields both hydrogen and oxygen for the
service of the plant, is pretty well established
by many valuable experiments which I have
there given : and it is impossible to observe
the results of the analysis of a perfect plant
■without being struck with the number of its
ingredients, and perceiving at once the proba-
ble sources from whence it drew its supply.
Take, for instance, the analysis by M. Cadet
of the solid matters or ashes of the common
garlic. From 172 parts of these he obtain-
ed of

109

Parti.

Potash ----- _ 33-

Sulpliate and muriate of potash - 58*

Alumina ------ 2-

Phosphate of lime - - - - 15-6

Oxide of iroa - ... - 1-5

Magnesia --..-_ g-

Lime ------- 14-

Silica- ------ 8-

141 1

All these substances, there is little doubt,
were absorbed by the plant from soil in which
it grew ; but in the fresh or unburnt garlic,
these are combined with about eight times
their weight of mucilage, albumen, sulphur,
vegetable fibre, and water. Now the three
first of these must have been formed during
the growth of the plant, from either the atmo-
sphere or from water : the first (the atmosphere)
being composed of oxygen, nitrogen, and car-
bonic acid; and the latter (water) of hydrogen
and oxygen. Mucilage was found by M. Ber-
zelius to be composed of

Partfc
Oxygen ------ 51 306

Carbon - - - - - - 41-906

Hydrogen ----- 6-788

100-

Albumen contains, according to the analysis
of MM. Gay Lussac and Thenard,

P«Tf«.

Carbon ------ 59-883

Oxygen 28 878

Ilvdrogen ----- 7540

Nitrogen ----- 15705

ICO-
The same excellent chemists have showa

woody fibre to be composed of

Oxygen -

Carbon

Hydrogen

Parti.
42-25
52-
5-75

100-

The chief vegetable matters of the garlic, there-
fore, the student will remark (and the same
conclusion applies to other vegetables), are
composed entirely of two or three principal
ingredients. The composition of all plants is,
in fact, much more similar than is commonly
supposed. For instance, all the vegetable acids,
such as vinegar (acetic acid), sugar, gum,
starch, woody fibre, &c., are composed of three
substances, vi^., carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen,
arranged in different proportions, as may be
seen from the following table :

Acetic acid (vinegar)
Citric acid (of lemons) -
Oxalic acid (of wild sorrel)
Sugar - - - -
Starch - - - -
Gum - - - - -
Woody fibre of the oak -
Woodv fibre of the beech -

Carbon.

Oxygen.

Hydrogen.

'50-224

33-811

26-566

4247

4355

42-23

5253

51-45

44147

59-859

70-689

5063

49-68

50-84

41-78

42-73

5 629

6-330

2745

6-90

6-77

6-93

5-69

5-82

The decomposition of vegetable substances. — All
dead vegetable substances, when left to them-
selves, under favourable circumstances, speedi- •
ly decay, or decompose, and are resolved into
their constituents. This is commonly effeclfM
in two ways, either by fermentation or by putro-
4 D 865

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY.

OSIER.

faction; to this last phenomenon several requi-
sites are necessary ; moisture must be present,
and the temperature must not be below 32° of
Fahrenheit: in fact, it proceeds with extreme
slowness at a temperature below 45°. It is re-
tar^ded in its progress by the absence of the
atmospheric air, but its presence is not essen-
tial : when water, however, is entirely absent,
putrefaction cannot proceed.

The disagreeable odour which is emitted dur-
ing putrefaction is owing to the gaseous sub-
stances which are generated. Those plants
which contain nitrogen emit ammonia: onions
produce phosphuretted hydrogen. By all of
them carbonic acid gas and carburetted hydro-
gen gas are emitted in considerable quantities.
These gases, being, when presented to the roots
and leaves of plants, exceedingly invigorating,
are one of the causes of the increased luxuri-
ance of all crops manured with green vegeta-
ble matters. When the putrefaction of the
vegetable substance is at an end, the carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen, of which it is composed,
are gone, and nothing remains but the earths
and salts with which the purely vegetable mat-
ters were once combined in the plant. The
ashes which are left when putrefaction ceases,
are in fact nearly the same as those left after
combustion. See Putuefactiox.

Animal substances. — The analysis of animal
substances is attended with all the diflSculties
to which I have alluded as attendant upon the
examination of vegetable substances ; and the
progress of chemical philosophy has not yet
succeeded in demonstrating the composition of
any great proportion of the many substances
met with in the animal world. The great mass
of animal matters contain nitrogen, and this is
the chief general chemical difference between
animal and vegetable substances ; hence, when
animal substances putrefy, ammonia is disen-
gaged, for this alkali is composed of nitrogen
and hydrogen.

The following analysis of several animal
matters will show how generally present is
nitrogen in this class of substances : —

Gelatin (glue,

Carbon.

Oxygen.

Hydrogen.

Nilro^en.

isinglass), &c.

47-881

27-207

7-914

16-998

Albumen (white

ot'egg), &c. -

52-883

23-872

7-540

15-705

Fibrin (fibre in

clots of blood)

53-360

19-685

7021

19-934

Urea (found in

urine) -

20-

26-66

6-66

46 66

These are the chief animal substances of
which most others are compounded. Thus
the principal solid matter of animal muscle is
fibrin. The outer skin or cuticle of animals is
composed of from 93 to 95 per cent, of albumen.
The solid matter of the blood is chiefly com-
posed of the same substance. Under the heads
Animai. Manures, Fish, Bones, Gelatin, &c.,
the reader will find all the animal chemistry
bearing upon farming and rural affairs, with
which I am acquainted. The relative propor-
tions of the inorganic constituents of vegetable
substances forms a topic of great interest; and
Professor G. F. W. Johnston's lectures upon the
subject, just published, will be read with satis-
866

faction. See Lect. IX., on the .Application of Che-
mislrii and Geology to Agriculture.

ORNITHOLOGY (Gr.). The science which
teaches the natural history and arrangement
of birds.

OSIER. The name given to various species
of willow or salix, chiefly employed in basket-
making. Although under the heads Sallow and
Willow are noticed most of the species of this
genus, it may be well to describe in this place,
a few of those which are more generally known
under the name osier. Osiers differ from sal-
lows in their long, straight, flexible, and mostly
tough twigs ; thin, generally sessile germens,
and elongated styles and stigmas. The osier
forms a hardy and useful hedge for excluding
boisterous winds ; and as it flourishes in wet
situations is frequently planted with a view to
prevent the banks of rivers being washed away
by the force of the current. Osiers are divided
into two classes : the first is known by their
blunt and downy or mealy leaves, which in the
other are more pointed, smooth, and green, re-
sembling the myrtle.

The common osier {S.viminalis) is one of the
most abundant species. This tree is found
growing in wet meadows, osier-holts, the banks
of rivers, and other moist situations. The
branches are straight, erect, wand-like, very
long and slender, round, polished, downy when
young, with fine silky hairs. Leaves on short
foot-stalks, almost upright, about a span long,
and half an inch wide. The value of the com-
mon osier for various kinds of basket-work is
universally known. There is a variety much
esteemed, called the velvet osier, in which no
external difference is discernible, but the twigs
are said to be more pliant. There are also
various species as well as varieties compre-
hended under the name of osiers, some of
which, having smooth leaves, are noticed under
the articles Sallow and Willow.

The silky-leaved osier (S. Smithiana) is a
shrub found growing in meadows and osier
grounds, the branches of which are brittle and
unfit for basket-work. It is therefore important
for cultivators of osiers to distinguish carefully
between this and the velvet osier ; for while
the latter is, for some kinds of work, greatly
esteemed, the silky-leaved osier proves of no
utility.

The auricled osier (S. stipularis) is a com-
mon species in osier-holts, hedges, and woods,
and is easily known at first sight by its coarse,
tall habit, and conspicuous stipules, but not
worthy of cultivation for any economical pur-
pose. The twigs are upright, tall, soft, and
downy, of a pale reddish-brown, brittle, and of
little or no use as an osier.

The fine basket osier (S. Forbiana) is a shrub
grown in the meadows and osier-holts of the
eastern part of England. The stem is erect,
bushy, with upright, slender, smooth twigs, very
flexible and tough, of a grayish-yellow, not
purple hue, highly esteemed and much culti-
vated for the finer kinds of basket-work.

Green-leaved osier (S. rubra). This is a
small tree, with long, upright, smooth, grayish
or purplish, more frequently tawny branches,
very tough and pliant, this being one of the

OSIER, GOLDEN.

most valuable osiers when cut do\rn annually.
The very long and narrow leaves of this rather
rare species agree in shape with the common
osier (S. viminalis), but want its dense white
pubescence.

In the fens of the east of England many holts
(as they are provincially called) or plantations
of osiers are raised, which beautify the country,
keep the stock warm in the winter, and provide
much useful wood for baskets and all kinds of
wicker-work. The mode of planting is very
simple ; it is, first, to dig the land from 6 to
12 inches tleep, and then to prick down cut-
lings of 4 years' growth, and 18 inches long, at
about 3 feet distance from each other. The
soil may be moor or clay, or any that is low
and wet.

These holts or osier plantations must be
fenced round, either with dikes, which are
most common, or with hedges. The proper
season for making them (they seldom fail of
growing at any time), is from the fall of the
leaf till ver>' late in the spring.

OSIER, GOLDEN, or YELLOW WILLOW.
See Willow.

OUZE. A deposit made by the sea.

OVEN. A domestic furnace used for baking
bread, pies, tarts, &c. Ovens are generally con-
structed of brick-work in a semicircular form,
with a very low roof, and the bottom of which
is laid with stone : in the front is a small aper-
ture and door, by the shutting of which the
heat is confined while the bread is baking.
They are usually heated by means of dry fag-
gots, wood, &c. As these ovens, however, are
not calculated for small families, on account
of the quantity of fuel they consume, others
have been contrived, on a more diminutive
scale : these are usually formed of cast or
hammered iron, and may be heated by the
same fire which serves for the cooking of other
provisions ; but for baking bread these ovens
are inferior to the brick ovens.

OVERLAND FARM. A provincial phrase
usually applied to a parcel of land without any
building or house attached to it.

OVER-REACH. See Clickixo.

OVER-YEARS. A country term applied to
such bullocks as are not finished fattening at
three years old when home-breeds, or the first
winter after buying in ; but kept through the fol-
lowing summer to be finished the next wmter.

OVIPOSITOR (Lat. ovum, an egg; and pono,
I place). In entomology, is the instrument by
which an insect conducts its eggs to their ap-
propriate nidus, and often bores a way to it;
the same instrument is in some genera used
as a weapon of oflTence, whence it is called the
" aculeus." In the gall insect, and some others,
the ovipositor is furnished at its root with a sac
containing an acrid secretion, which is de-
posited in the wound made by the ovipositor
at the same time as the eggs.

OWLING. In law, so called from its being
generally committed during the night. An of-
fence consisting in conveying sheep or wool to
the sea-side, in order to export them clandes-
tinely. The offence was formerly capital, par-
ticularly if the oflender neglected to surrender
after proclamation made for that purpose.

OVv'^LS. A tribe of reptorial birds, including

OXYGEN GAS.

I those which fly by night, and have •the eyes
directed forwards. The owl, although fre-
quently held in disrepute, should never be de-
stroyed by the farmer, to whom he is a great
friend; for his diet consists chiefly of field-mice,
of which he consumes large numbers. The
owls are usually arranged into two principal
groups : one in which all the species exhibit
two tufts of feathers on the head, which have
been called horns, ears, and egrets; in the
second group, the heads are smooth and round,
without tufts.

OX. Synonymous with the generic name
Bos ; in a more restricted sense, it signifies the
castrated male of the domestic variety. See
Cattle.

OXALIC ACID. See Acids.

OXALIS CRENATA. A perennial orna-
mental plant, native of Chili, lately discovered
by Mr. Douglas. The flowers are beautiful,
of a yellow colour, and in umbels ; the stalks
and leaves are succulent, of an acid taste, and
useful as salads ; the roots or tubers are pro-
duced in clusters; their taste, when boiled,
somewhat resembles a chestnut. They are
raised from the tubers, are extraordinarily pro-
ductive, as easily cultivated as the potato, and
decidedly superior in flavour. They require a
rich soil, and, like the potato, are stored during
winter in cellars. (Kcnrick:)

OX-BOOSE. Provincially, a stall or place
where oxen stand in the winter to be fed or
fattened.

OX-EYE (Chrysanthemumy from chrysos, gold,
and anthernnm, a flower ; alluding to the colour
of some of the flowers). The great white ox-
eye maudlin-wort, or mnor daisy (C hucanthe-
mum), PI. 10,tt>, is very common in pastures,
fields, and by way-sides. The flavour of the
whole plant is herbaceous, slightly, not ple-
santly, aromatic. Its properties are not im-
portant; like many other herbs, mixed with
grasses, it makes a part of the hay crop. The
root is branched, tough, and woody, with many
fibres. Stem erect, simple, or branched, ac-
cording to the soil, from one to two feet high.
Leaves deep-green, clasping the stem, oblong,
obtuse, cut, pinnatifid at the base ; radical
ones obovate, stalked. Flowers large, terminal,
solitary, not inelegant, with a broad yellow disk,
and brilliant white radius. See Daisy.

Another wild indigenous species, the yellow
ox-eye (C. segetum), has already been noticed
under the head Con?f Mauicold.

OX-FEET. A term applied to the feet of
horses when the horn of the hind feet cleaves
just in the middle of the fore part of the hoof,
from the coronet to the shoe : they are not
common, but very troublesome.

OX-HARROW. A term applied to a very
large sort of harrow, called in some counties of
England a drag.

OX-LIP. See Cowslip.

OXYGEN GAS. A simple or undecom-
pounded substance, discovered in 1774 by Dr.
Priestley. It constitutes 21 per cent, of the at-
mosphere, and it is that portion of it which
supports animal life and combustion. It is
emitted by plants growing in the light, and is
absorbed by them during the night. It is found
in combination with hydrogen and carbon, and

867

OYSTER SHELLS.

OYSTER SHELLS.

less ofteff with nitrogen, in all vegetable and
animal substances. It unites with various
bases, and forms alkalies, acids, and metallic
oxides. It is tasteless, and soluble in water,
which at a temperature of 60° absorbs about
■^^ of its bulk. One hundred cubic inches of
this gas weigh about 34 grains. See Gases,
their Uses to Vegetation.

OYSTER SHELLS. As a manure, the use
of crushed oyster shells has never been so
extensive in England as in Ireland ; and for
this neglect several causes have contributed.
They are composed principally of carbonate
of lime, chalk, and a membranous substance ;
are in consequence not nearly so valuable as
crushed bones, which contain the phosphate
of lime ; are not to be obtained but at particu-
lar seasons of the year; and, unless pulverized,
are not sufficiently quick in their effects to en-
courage the farmer to use them unbroken. In
England they have been, therefore, little em-
ployed ; even in those districts, such as the clay
and sand formation, where, from the absence of
carbonate of lime in the soil, the calcareous mat-
ters of the oyster shells would be a very valua-
able addition. In Ireland, which is almost en-
tirely destitute of chalk, the use of the broken oys-
ter shells has been more considerable than in
England ; and in Dublin the parish authorities,
in hard seasons, are glad to set the paupers to
work to collect and break the shells which are
thrown away as rubbish ; and I am informed
that the money received for the powdered shells
affords a very tolerable remuneration for the
labour bestowed in their preparation. The
mother-of-pearl with which the oyster shells
are lined is similar in composition to the outer
shell or crust. This has been analyzed by M.
Merat Guillot, who found in 100 parts of mother-
of-pearl, —

Carbonate of lime (cbalk)
Membrane - - -

Parts.
66
34

100

Powdered oyster shells should always, if
possible, be drilled in with the seed; for, by
thus coming into close contact with the plant,
all the volatile and earthy constituents of the
decomposing shell are absorbed by its roots
and leaves with the greater readiness, from
being placed more immediately in contact with
them. In this way they have been found to
answer very well on the light, sandy soils of
Norfolk, when drilled in with the turnip seed;
as will be seen from the following account of
Mr. Blakie, in a letter to Sir John Sinclair,
dated Sept. 18, 1818: — "Oyster shells pounded
or bruised (without having been burned) were
first used upon Mr. Coke's farm as a manure
in the year 1816. In the summer of that year,
the experiment was tried upon a hungry, light,
sandy soil, which had been cleaned for turnips.
The oyster shell dust, or powder, was drilled
in the usual way, upon 27-inch ridges, at the
rate of 40 bushels per acre (without any other
manure), was slightly covered with earth, and
the turnip seed sown upon it. Another part
of the same field, quality of land equal, was
manured with farm-yard dung, at the rate of
8 tons per acre, put into the same sized ridges,
868

and sown with turnip seed as before described,
no other manure having been applied. The
turnips proved a good crop on both pieces: nor
was there any perceptible difference in the
bulk, but the produce was not weighed. The
turnips were all eaten upon the ground by
sheep; and the succeeding crop, barley, was^
good on both, and apparently equal, but the
produce was not thrashed separate. The seeds
or layer crop of clover, in the present season,
1818, is a good plant, and appears equally so.
In this experiment, so far as it goes, it appears
that 40 bushels of oyster-shell powder are equal
in virtue as a manure to 8 tons of farm-yard
dung, at least for the purpose to which it was
applied.

"In the autumn of 1816, powdered oyster
shells were tried as a manure for wheat, in
competition with rape-cake powdered. The
experiment was upon a one year's clover layer;
the wheat sown after one ploughing; the soil a
kind, light, gravelly loam. Oyster-shell pow-
der, at the rate of 4 cwt. per acre, was drilled
with the wheat seed on one part of the field ;
and on another part, of the same quality, rape-
cake dust was drilled with the wheat at the
same rate per acre as the shell powder; no
other manure was applied to either part. The
crop of wheat was good, nor was there any
perceptible difference upon the ground; but the
produce was not thrashed separate. A similar
experiment was tried upon the same wheat
field, the manure applied at spring; the opera-
tion as follows: thewheatseedwas sown without
any manure in the autumn of 1816, and in the
spring of 1817 rape-cake dust, at the rate of 4
cwt. per acre, was drilled between the rows of
wheat ; at the same time an equal weight of
shell powder was applied in like manner to
another part of the field. The result of this
was similar to the autumn experiment, viz.,
there did not appear to be any difference in the
crop produced upon the shell manure from
that on the rape cake. The field on which
these experiments were tried is now in tur-
nips, a good crop, and exhibits no difference
where the manure, as before stated, had been
applied for the wheat crop. These experi-
ments are satisfactory, so far as they go, but
certainly not conclusive ; because the produce
was in no one instance either weighed or mea-
sured. This I very much regret; but it appears
to be almost impossible to conduct such experi-
ments with a requisite degree of accuracy upon
a farm establishment of such magnitude as
that of Mr. Coke at this place. For, during the
hurry incident to collecting the harvest, the
farm manager has so many important concerns
to attend to, that he cannot devote any portion
of his time to superintending experimental
objects; and were he to depute the manage-
ment of such concerns to the labourers, it is
not to be expected that they would pay the
attention requisite. The oyster shells are here
broken to pieces by passing them through the
oil-cake crusher; or are bruised by repeatedly
drawing a heavy iron roller over them when
spread upon a stone or hard-burned brick or
edge floor. I give it as an opinion, that oyster-
shell manure is likely to answer for gardens,
particularly to rake in with onions and other

PACANENUT.

PALMETTO.

Bmall seed. I also think it may prove bene-
ficial as a top-dressing for grass plants, to de-
stroy moss, and prevent worms from casting.

Mr. Livingston, of New York, says {Annals
ofAgr. vol. XX. p. 87), "In April, 1791, 1 strewed
7 bushels of ground oyster shells over half an
acre of rye, growing on a very poor soil, and
3 bushels of gypsum on another half-acre ad-
joining; sowed 10 lbs. of red clover seed over
both. The rye was not better than the rest of
the field; the clover seed being bad, came up
but thinly; that, however, dressed with oyster
shells, much better than that manured with
gypsum."

It is certain, therefore, that oyster shells,
when powdered or crushed, are an excellent
manure ; and, in many parts of England, where
they can be obtained in considerable quanti-
ties, I have every reason to believe that they
will be found very useful to the farmer. {John-
son on l/ie FertUizert, p. 368.)

P.

PACANENUT. See Hickory.

PACE. In horsemanship, the peculiar man-
ner of motion, or progression, in the horse or
other animal. The natural paces of the horse
are, a walk, a trot, and a gallop, to which some
add an amble, as some horses have it natu-
rally. See Caicter, Gallop, &c

PACK RAG-DAY. A provincial term in
England signifying the day alter Martinmas
day, the time of changing farm servants.

PADDLE-STAFF. An implement used by
ploughmen to free the share from stubble,
earth, &c.

PADDOCK. A small field or enclosure. It
also signifies a large toad.

PAIL. A wooden bucket in which milk,
water, or other fluids are commonly carried.

PAIL-BRUSH. A hard brush, furnished
with bristles at the end, to clean out the an-
gles of the vessels more fully.

PALM. An ancient measure of length taken
from the extent of the hand. The English
palm is understood to be three inches.

PALMATE. In botany, divided so as to
resemble a hand spread open.

PALM A CHRISTL See Castor On Plaht.
The cake left after the expression of castor
oil is very advantageously applied to land as
a manure for wheat and other crops. An in-
teresting communication upon this subject may
be found in the first volume of the Farmer's
Register, from T. G. Peachy, Esq., of Williams-
burg, Va., the results of whose experiments
show the great value of the article. In one ex-
periment he applied from 60 to 60 bushels per
acre on 7^ acres of land sown with 10 bushels
of wheat, and the product was 26 bushels of
wheat per acre. In this case the land was so
poor that not over 5 bushels could be expected
from it without the dressing. He recommends
about 40 bushels as an ordinary dressing. Mr.
Peachy does not think the common impression
correct, that the chief efficacy of the cake re-
sides in the portion of oil which it retains.
His press, he says, "is a very powerful one, and

leaves a very small portion of oil in the cake.
There is, moreover, other refuse matter in such
an establishment as ours, which contains a
vast deal more oil than the cake, which I have
used as manure, and been uniformly disap-
pointed in its effects. Accident has enabled
me, I think, to solve the difficulty, and to de-
clare my belief that the fertilizing qualities of
the oil-cake reside chiefly in the farina it con-
tains. Some time last year a vessel laden with
flour was stranded near Jamestown, and the
flour ruined. Mr. John Mann, who owns a
farm in the neighbourhood, took two or three
of the barrels and top-dressed a small portion
of his wheat with it. I was not an eye-witness
of its efiects; but I was informed it produced
as great an increase of that portionof his crop
as my oil cake would have done.

" By experiment, I find that 50 bushels of the
cake will weigh 1800 lbs. ; and of this quantity
I have discovered that \\ is farina or flour —
equal to 5 barrels of flour. The cotton seed, I
fancy, contains more farina, in proportion to
the oil, than the castor bean, and, I believe,
would produce as great an eflTect after being
deprived of its oil, as it would do in its origi-
nal state. I should be much obliged to you to
give us your opinion on this subject." See
Linseed Cake, Rape Cake, &c.

PALMETTO (Chamt£Q/)s palmetto). Cabbagt
tree. This American tree belongs to the ge-
nus of the palms, and is found farther north
than any other species in America. From its
lofty height it is reckoned in the United States
as a tree. It is first seen about Cape Hatteras,
in the 34th degree of latitude, from which it
spreads to the extremity of the Florida peninr
sula, and thence around the Gulf of Mexico.
In the extreme south the palmetto is not en-
tirely confined to the immediate vicinity of the
sea. Its stem or trunk is erect, and rises 80
or 90 feet, embellished at top by a globe of
plumed leaves, each somewhat like a large
fan, and plicated in the same manner, each >
frond, with its stipes or stem, 30 feet in length ;
the frond, or expanded part of the leaf, 15 feet
over. There are six species of the palm in
Carolina and Florida, all of which have fl»-
belli-formed leaves or fronds.

It is the central part of this vast plant at top
which stands erect, like a sharp cone or sugar-
loaf, surrounded by the expanding leaves, which
is eaten roasted or boiled, like cabbage ; and
consists of the young frond, rudiments of
fronds, with all the succeeding appendages of
the future growth, involved together, white and
tender as a curd, as rich, and of the like plear
sant flavour.

A well grown palm stands perfectly erect,
on a shaft or column of 60 or 80 feet high, its
base 3 feet diameter, having 3 or 4 rings and
circular mouldings, 3 or 4 feet upwards ; from
thence upwards to the top it diminishes almost
imperceptibly, forming a model of a pillar
for the architect, almost inimitable. A tree
produces but one cabbage, and as soon as
that is cut off, this glorious production of na-
ture perishes. But, though the tree dies, yet
it ceases not to be useful ; the exterior ligne-
ous part, of three-fourths inch thickness, is
as hard as bone when dry, and the interior
4 B 2 869

PALMS.

PAPAW.

spongy consistence being rotted out, or de-
voured by worms, it makes excellent trunks
or conduits for draining off water, being almost
incorruptible under ground. These shafts also,
split in two, and set upright in the ground,
make strong and durable palisades; and we
are informed that they answered a very good
purpose in South Carolina, at the time of the
revolutionary war, particularly at Sullivan's
Island. The ramparts of the fortifications be-
ing lined with the trunks of the cabbage tree,
spht in two, and set upright against the wall ;
their smooth, firm, and elastic surface, together
with their spongy interior, united to repel the
shot of their assailants.

The stems are also used in Charleston, S. C,
for the facingof wharfs, as the salt-water worm
never touches them. Pieces of the spongy part
of the stem afford a very good substitute for
scrubbing-brushes, and are even preferred for
whitening floors.

The leaves of the smaller species afford ex-
cellent and durable thatch for covering barns
and out-houses; and the younger leaves of the
cabbage tree are manufactured by the negroes
into beautiful, light, and durable hats, called
Bermudian hats. The repent caudex of the
saw-palmetto, being torn from the surface of
the earth, cut into proper lengths, dried, and
burned to ashes, produce the greatest quantity
of potash of any known vegetable. And the
drupes, or large berries of this species, which
are of the size and figure of dates, and as
sweet, afford good and nourishing food to the
Indians and hunters. They are not palatable
to white people till they become accustomed
to them.

PALMS. A natural order of arborescent en-
dogens, chiefly inhabiting the tropics ; distin-
guished by their fleshy, colourless, six-parted
flowers, enclosed within spathes ; their minute
embryo lying in the midst of albumen, and re-
mote from the hilum; and rigid plaited or pin-
nate inarticulated leaves, sometimes called
fronds.

Palms is a common name for the male flow-
ers of the willow.

PALSY. In the horse this nervous disease
is usually confined to the hinder limbs. Old
carriage-horses, and horses of draught of every
kind, although not absolutely paralyzed, have
often great stiffness in their gait, and difficully
of turning. These are evident injuries of the
spine. Bleeding, physicking, antimonial me-
dicines, and stimulating embrocations are the
most likely means of cure for palsy. See
Sheep, Diseases of.

PAMBINA. A species of North American
bush cranberry, discovered on the Columbia
river.

PAN. A term applied to the bed or flooring
upon which the cultivated Soil lies or is placed.
See Moon HAND Pan^.

PANIC-GRASS (Panicum). This is a very
extensive genus of large, coarse grasses, most-
ly annual in Europe, of no agricultural use:
the inflorescence spiked or panicled; the seeds
in some instances used for food. There are
three indigenous species: the rough, the green,
and the loose panic-grass (P. rertidllatum,
vinde, and Crus-galli'). See Millet Grass.
870

PANICLE. In botany, a form of inflores-
cence in which the primary axis developes
secondary axes, which themselves produce
tertiary; or, in other words, a raceme bearing
branches of flowers, in place of simple ones.

PANNAGE. An old manorial term applied
to the food which swine consume in woods, as
acorns, and the mast of beech. It also signi-
fies the money taken by the king's agistors,
for the privilege of feeding hogs in the king's
forest.

PANSY. A term applied chiefly to the gar-
den varieties of Viola tricolor, and others which
are usually cultivated under the name of /tcarf'*-
ease. See Violet.

PAPAW {Anona triloba). An American
plant, which, though most frequently appear-
ing in the form of a shrub, sometimes attains
the size of a tree of the third order. By the
French of Upper Louisiana the papaw is called
Assiminier. It is not found north of the Schuyl-
kill river, in the vicinity of Philadelphia ; and
it appears to be unknown, or extremely rare,
in the low and maritime parts of the Southern
States. "It is not uncommon," says Michaux,
" in the bottoms which stretch along the rivers
of the Middle States ; but it is most abundant
in the rich valleys intersected by the western
waters, where, at intervals, it forms thickets
exclusively occupying several acres. In Ken-
tucky, and in the western part of Tennessee,
it is sometimes seen also in forests where the
soil is luxuriantly fertile; of which its presence
is an infallible proof. In these forests it attains
the height of 30 feet, and the diameter of 6 or
8 inches, though it generally stops short of
half this elevation.

" The leaves are borne on short petioles, and
are alternate, 5 or 6 inches in length, and of an
elongated form, widening from the base to the
summit. They are of a fine texture, and the
superior surface is smooth and brilliant. The
flowers, which are attached by short peduncles,
are pendent, and of a purple hue.

" When the fruit is ripe, which takes place
towards the beginning of August, it is about 3
inches long, and 1^ inches thick, of a yellow-
ish colour, and of an oval form, irregular and
swelling into inequalities. Its pulp is soft, and
of an insipid taste, and it contains several
large, triangular stones. It is never brought
into the markets, and is sought in the woods
only by children. At Pittsburgh some persons
have succeeded in making from it a spiritu-
ous liquor; but, notwithstanding this experi-
ment, very feeble hopes can be entertained of
cultivating the tree with profit for this pur-
pose.

" The trunk of the papaw is covered with a
silver-gray bark, which is smooth, and even
polished. The wood is spongy, extremely soft,
destitute of strength, and applicable to no use
in the mechanical arts. I have noticed that
the cellular integument of the bark, and par-
ticularly that of the roots, exhales in summer
a nauseous odour, so strong as to occasion
sickness if it is long respired in confined air.
(Mirhaux^s Am. Sylva.)

The papaw belongs to the custard-oppU genus,
which in the tropics produces several kinds of
fruit highly esteemed. Among these is the

PAPILIONACEOUS PLANTS.

PARING AND BLUNING.

celebrated Cherimoyer (^Anona chenmnlia) found
in perfection in Mexico, Peru, and Brazil; the
Alligator pear {A. palustris), the Sweet sop (A.
squamosa), all esteemed West India fruits, about
as large as a middle-sized apple, and filled
with a soft, rich, delicious pulp.

PAPILIONACEOUS PLANTS include
many of the most common and valuable plants
supplying food to man and animals, such as
pulse, beans, peas, tares, sainfoin, &c. The
papilionacoe take the name from the resem-
blance borne by their flowers to the butterfly,
as is seen in the blossom of the common pea.
The fruit forms a pod called a legume, and
such plants are hence named leguminous.

PARASITICAL PLANTS are those which
grow into the tissue of other species, and feed
upon their juices. Of this kind are the mis-
seltoe, the broom-rape (Orobanche), the Lathrtea,
&c. Such species have no proper roots. The
term parasitical is, however, often applied to
mosses. Orchidaceous plants, Tillandsias and
the like, which are mostly epiphytes, growing
upon the bark of trees, but deriving their food
from the air, by means of their own roots.

PARING AND BURNING. This well-
known operation of agriculture, once much
more extensively practised in England than at
present, consists in paring ofi' the turf to a
depth of two or three inches, generally with
a breast-plough worked by a labourer, or by a
turf-paring plough drawn by a horse ; allowing
it to dry, and then burning it in heaps. It is
commonly best performed in the months of
April and May. It is a practice now rarely
adopted on sandy or calcareous soils, although
productive of good results on peat, and some
kind of clay soil; but even there it is very
doubtful whether it is the best mode of treat-
ing the land.

The practice is certainly as old as the days
of Virgil, who mentions it in the first book of
the Georgics. Endless have been the theories
brought forward to account for its operation.
Dr. Home thought it dispelled "a sour juice"
from the land. (Prin. of Agr.) Dr. Darwin
considered it produced "a nitrous salt" in the
ashes. " Many such obscure causes," says
Davy, " have been referred to for the purpose
of explaining the eflects of paring and burning,
but I believe they may be referred entirely to
the diminution of the coherence and tenacity
of clays, and to the destruction of inert and
useless vegetable matter, and its conversion
into a manure. All soils that contain too
much dead vegetable fibre, and which conse-
quently lose from one-third to one-half of their
weight by incineration, and all such as contain
their earthy constituents in an impalpable state
of division, such as the stifi" clays and marls,
are improved by burning; but in coarse sands,
or rich soils, containing a great mixture of the
earths, and in all cases in which the texture is
already sufficiently loose, or the organizable
matter sufficiently soluble, the process of torri-
faction cannot be useful. All pure silicious
sands," adds Davy, "must be injured by it;"
and here practice is found to accord with
theory. Arthur Young found "burning injured
Band;" and an intelligent farmer in Mount's

Bay told me that he had pared and burned a
small field, several years ago, which he had
not been able to bring again into good con-
dition. I examined the spot; the grass was
very poor and scanty, and the soil a silicious
sand.

The process of paring and burning, therefore,
seems to be most adapted for peaty or clay
lands ; for, as Davy continues, " the process
of burning renders the soil less compact, less
tenacious and retentive of moisture ; and when
properly applied, may convert a matter that
was stilF, damp, an-i in consequence cold, into
one powdery, dry, and warm, and much more
proper as a bed for vegetable life."

Davy examined three specimens of the ashes
from different lands that had undergone paring
and burning. (See Ashks, ante, p. 115.) "The
great objection," he adds, " to this operation is
that it destroys vegetable and animal matter, or
the manure in the soil : but in cases in which
the texture of its earthy ingredients is perma-
nently improved, there is more than a compen-
sation for this temporary disadvantage. And
in some soils where there is an excess of inert
vegetable matter, the destruction of it must be
beneficial ; and the carbonaceous matter re-
maining in the ashes may be more useful to
the crop than the vegetable fibre from which it
was produced." {Agr. Chein. p. 344.)

Liebig thinks that all the benefit of burning
the soil is attributable to its thus obtaining in-
creased powers for the absorption of ammonia.
He says, " Soils which contain oxides of iron,
and burned clay, must absorb ammonia, which
is favoured by their porous condition ; they
further prevent the escape of the ammonia
once absorbed by their chemical properties.
The ammonia absorbed by the clay, or ferru-
ginous oxides, is separated by every shower of
rain, and conveyed in solution to the soil.
Powdered charcoal possesses a similar action,
but surpasses all other substances in the power
which it possesses of condensing ammonia
within its pores, particularly when it has been
previously heated to redness. Charcoal absorbs
ninety times its volume of ammoniacal gas,
which maybe again separated by simply mois-
tening it with water." {Organic Chem.)

And it is evident, from the experiments
which Liebig gives, that charcoal powder is a
very fertilizing application to some plants.
The practice, however, of paring and burning
is evidently one whose advantages the farmer
and the chemist admit with reluctance. And
it is very probable, that by other means, such
as the use of lime, &c., most soils may be
cultivated with more advantage to the farmer
by the avoidance of this expensive and de-
structive process. "My practice," remarks
Mr. Pearson, "in the use of turf for va:rious
purposes, convinces me that all lands must be
injured by paring and burning, save those
lands, which are few and far between, that
possess too much inert vegetable matter; or,
in other words, lands that grow their crops to
such a state of luxuriance, as to prevent the
desired intent of the cultivator. Those lands
j which possess too much inert vegetable matter
i might also be improved by having part of their

871

PARK.

PARSNIP.

sulDSoils burned ; but not by burning the turf
even here, for that is the only thing that can
be commended on the spot that will cause fer-
mentation in the soil when it is ploughed in."
See Peat Soils.

PARK. A considerable extent of pasture and
woodland, surrounded or adjoining the country
residence of a man of wealth, devoted to pur-
poses of recreation or enjoyment, but chiefly
to the support of a herd of deer, though some-
times to cattle and sheep. Parks were origi-
nally nothing more than portions of forest
scenery appropriated by the lord of the soil for
the exclusive use of animals of the chase; but
this is now become, ingnany cases, a seconda-
ry consideration, and the chief uses of a park
are as indications of wealth and extent of ter-
ritory, and as grazing ground for domesticated
animals.

PARSLEY, CULTIVATED (Jpinm petrosi-
linum). There are two varieties of this well-
known plant, the common plain-leaved, and
the curly-leaved. It is somewhat singular that
the first should be most cultivated, notwith-
standing the superior beauty of the latter, as
•well as by reason of its curled leaves rendering
it more easily to be distinguished from the
JEthusay or fool's parsley, a variety of the hem-
lock, often occurring in gardens : it requires
much care in saving the seed, otherwise it
degenerates into the plain-leaved. Parsley
is raised from seed, which is recommended
usually to be sown annually ; but if never per-
mitted to run to seed, and the stalks are cut
down as often as they rise, it will last for
several years. It may be sown from the close
of February until the middle of June, and this
is repeated about the middle of September, for
the supply of winter and spring ; but this is
unnecessary if the plants are not allowed to
seed. The seed is to be inserted moderately
thick, in narrow drills barely an inch deep, 12
inches apart if in a bed by itself, or in a single
one round the edge of a bed ; the mould being
.raked level, and the stones immediately over
them gathered off. The plants will not make
their appearance in less than three or four,
and sometimes six, weeks. When two or three
inches high, it may be gathered from as re-
quired. In early June, when the plants make
a show for seed, the stems should be cut down
close to the bottom, and again in September, if
it has acquired a straggling, rank growth ; this
will cause it to shoot afresh, and acquire a
strong growth before the arrival of severe
weather. On the approach of frost, if protec-
tion is afforded to the plants by means of haulm
or reed pannels, so supported as not to touch
them, it will preserve them in a much better
sitate for use in winter and spring. To save
seed, nothing more is necessary than to allow
some of the plants to run up in June; they
should not, however, be allowed to stand nearer
than 18 inches to each other. The seed ripens
in early autumn, and, when perfectly dry, may
be beaten out, and stored.

PARSLEY, THE COW. For rough cow-
parsley, see CicELT. Smooth cow-parsley, see
Chervil.

PARSLEY, THE FOOL'S. See Fool's
Parslet.
872

PARSLEY, THE HEDGE. See Hedgz-
Parslet.

PARSLEY, HAMBURGH {Jpium lalifolium).
This esculent is likewise known by the name
broad-leaved and large-rooted parsley. It is
cultivated for its root, which attains the size of
a middling parsnip, boiling exceedingly tender
and palatable. It is eaten both as a sauce to
flesh-meat and in soups, &c. It is propagated
by seed, which may be sown at monthly inter-
vals from February until the middle of June.
It is sown either thinly in drills, 9 inches
apart, or broadcast and raked in. The plants
appear in about a month after sowing, and
when of tolerable growth require to be thinned
to 9 inches asunder, and cleared from weeds
either by hand or the hoe ; which latter opera-
tion being performed as often as weeds appear,
is the only cultivation required. By the end of
July or during August, the earliest sowings
will have acquired a sufficient size for occa-
sional use ; but they seldom attain their full
growth until Michaelmas ; and the latest crops
not until the following year. On the arrival
of -frost some of them must be taken up, and
after the removal of the superfluous fibres, de-
cayed leaves, &c., buried in sand, in a dry
situation, under cover.

To obtain seed, some plants must be left
where grown, and allowed to run in May;
their produce will ripen in July or August,
when it must be cut, and, when perfectly dry,
beaten out and stored.

PARSLEY-PIERT. See Ladies' Maivtle.

PARSLEY, SMALLAGE, or WILD CE-
LERY (Jlpinm graveolens). This wild plant, the
seeds and herbage of which in its native ditches
are acrid and dangerous, with a peculiar strong
taste and smell, by culture becomes the mild and
grateful garden celery, for which and its name
we are indebted to the Italians, and which has
now supplanted our native Alexanders. It is
biennial, and flowers in August and September.
The root is tap-shaped, and the herbage smooth
and shining. The plant grows in ditches and
marshy ground, especially towards the sea.
The stems are widely spreading or floating,
long, branched, furrowed. Leaves bright-green,
pinnate, or ternate ; leaflets wedge-shaped, en-
tire at their base, but variously notched above.
Flowers in terminal and lateral umbels, small,
numerous, greenish-white. Fruit almost glo-
bular, with permanent, wide-spreading, straight
styles.

PARSNIP (Pastinaca, from pastinttm, a dib-
ble, in allusion to the form of the root). The com-
mon wild parsnip (P.sativa) is the well-known
culinary root; the other species are unworthy
of cultivation. The original is a biennial plant,
and found in England growing wild about the
borders of fields, on hillocks, and dry banks, in
a chalky soil, the root being spindle-shaped,
white, aromatic, mucilaginous, and sweet, with
a degree of acrimony, which it loses by culti-
vation. The stem reaches to a yard high,
erect, branched, deeply furrowed. Leaves ob-
long, simply pinnate, downy beneath ; leaflets
serrated and cut, bright-green. Umbels termi-
nal, erect, of several unequal, angular, downy
rays. Flowers small, yellow, appearing in
, July. Fruit large, pale-brown when quite ripe

PARSNIP.

The Field Culture of the Parsnip. — Colonel Le
Couteur describes this valuable field crop as
thriving in anv deep land, whether stiff or light.
It succeeds in the island of Jersey admirably
on soil resting on granite or sienite, or argilla-
ceous schistus, on red clay, or on a gravelly
bottom; on almost pure sand, if mixed with a
light coating of earth, and on soils derived
from pudding-stones, or white and red felspar.
This includes most of the British islands, ex-
clusive of the chalky or limestone ranges.
Some persons cultivate it on poor black heath
soil, not above 7 or 8 inches deep, and by
means of heavy dressings of manure raise a
good crop; but the parsnip in such situations
forms a large shoulder, and forks away into
fingers when near the hard subsoil, whereas, in
very deep land, it will run down a foot or two
of a good size.

An old grass lay is broken up by some per-
sons in September, by others just before the
parsnip seed is sown; the former I consider to be
the best mode. When the turf is well rolled, 20
tons per acre of stable manure are spread over
the land. A trench is then opened through
the centre of the field between 2 and 3 feet
wide, and where the soil will admit of it, from
1 foot to 18 inches deep. A small two-horse
plough then turns the manure and about 3
inches of soil into the trench, and is imme-
diately followed by a large trench plough, with
3 or 4, and, in many cases, with 8 or 10 horses,
which turns a fool or more of clean soil upon
the manure and scurf when the land has been
recently skim-ploughed. The soil is then har-
rowed, and the parsnip seed, which should be
new, is sown at the rate of 3 or 4 pounds to the
acre. The plants, when they are an inch high,
are weeded, and are thinned out to 6 inches
apart, and, according to the soil, should be
again thinned out to 9 inches or more at the
second hoeing. In September, when the fine
aftermath begins to appear, some of this crop
may be taken up for milch cows; as from 12
to 25 pounds of them given at milking-time
will have a surprising effect on the cream, and
produce fine yellow butter, which will keep ad-
mirably, if properly salted and prepared, pre-
serving an excellent and superior flavour.

They are taken up with a fork, or ploughed
up in October or November. The average pro-
duce, per statute acre, is 9 to 11 tons. The dry
leaves of the parsnip are given to cows. The
parsnip will fatten pigs (or poultry if boiled) in
an extraordinary manner, and it is certainly
one of the best preparatory crops for wheat. It
will keep in store until April, and it is advi-
sable to remove the leaves before the roots are
stored. The parsnip being a very hardy vege-
table, the frost does not injure the seed or the
young plant; and, if thought desirable, the
former may be sown as soon as they are ripe
•in autumn. There are only 1 or 2 varieties
of parsnips, of v/hich the common species is
the best for field culture. 1000 parts of the
parsnip yielded Davy 90 parts of saccharine
matter, and 9 parts of mucilage.

Garden Culture. — The soil in which the par-
snip succeeds best is a rich, dry, sandy loam,
and the deeper the belter. The most inimical
to it are gravel or clay. It is always beneficial

no

PASSION-FLOWER.

to trench the ground 2 spades deep, a little ma-
nure being turned in with the bottom spit. If
the soil is suitable to them, they are not much
benefitedby the general application of manure
at the time of sowing, but often injured in con-
sequence of numerous fibres being induced.
Dr. Macculloch says, that in the island of
Guernsey, which has long been celebrated for
the fineness of its parsnips, sea-weed is the
manure chiefly employed. Of excrementitious
manure, that of pigeons is thebest. Decayed
leaves are also very favourable to its growth.
The situation cannot be too -open.

It is propagated by seed. The usual time
for sowing is from the end of February to the
beginning of April, but the earlier the better.
It has been recommended in field cultivation
to sow them in September ; in the garden, when
sown at this season, they also obtain a finer
flavour, but many of them in general run to
seed. In the isle of Guernsey they regulate
their time of sowing according to the soil; in
the most favourable soils they sow in January;
or if the soil is wet or stiff, they do not insert
the seed until the latter end of March.

The seed is sown broadcast, rather thin, and
well raked in. The compartment being laid
out in beds, not more than 4 feet wide, for the
convenience of weeding, &c. When the seed-
lings are 2 or 3 inches high, they are carefully
thinned to 10 inches apart, and the weeds re-
moved both by hand and small-hoeing. The
beds require to be frequently looked over to
remove all seedlings that may spring up afresh,
as well as to be frequently hoed, until the
plants so cover the ground as to render it im-
practicable. The roots may be taken up as
wanted, in September, but they do not attain
maturity till October, and which is intimated
by the decay of the leaves. In November, part
of the crop may be taken up, and the tops be-
ing cut close off, laid in alternate layers, with
sand, for use in frosty weather. The remainder
may be left in the ground, and taken up as re-
quired, as they are never injured by the most
intense frost, but, on the contrary, rendered
sweeter. In February or March, however, any
remaining must be extracte'd, otherwise they
will vegetate. Being preserved in sand, they
continue good until the end of April or May.

For the production of seed, some of the
finest roots are best allowed to remain where
grown; or else, being raised in February,
planted in a situation open, but sheltered from
violent winds. Seed should never be employ-
ed that is more than a twelvemonth old, as it
has generally lost its vegetative power when
of a greater age.

PARSNIP, THE COW. See Cow-Parsnip.

PARSNIP, THE SEA, or PRICKLY SAM-
PHIRE.

PARSNIP, THE WATER. See Water-
Parsxip.

PARTERRE (Fr.). In gardening, a system
of beds of different shapes and sizes, in which
flowers are cultivated, with intervening spaces
of gravel or turf for walking on.

PARTURITION. See Abortiox, Calvutq

OF Cows, Gf.STATIOV, PREQ]yANCr, &c.

PASSION-FLOWER {Passijlora, from pas-
810, passion ; and flos, a flower ; in allusion to

873

P.vSTERN OF A HORSE.

PEA, THE.

the filamentous appendages or rays bearing a
resemblance to the cross ; the emblem of the
passion of Christ). The species of this inte-
resting and elegant genus are admirably adapt-
ed for stove and green-house climbers, being
of easy culture, free growers, and, if allowed
plenty of room, producing abundance of beau-
tiful flowers. Many of the kinds produce fruit
freely, from which, through impregnation,
several fine hybrids have been raised. The
fruit of some, as P. edulis, P. laurifolia, and P.
quadrangularis, or granadilla, are eaten: the
succulent pulp which surrounds the seeds is
found to be fragrant, cooling, and pleasant,
agreeably acid, and admirably adapted for
allaying thirst in hot climates.

All the species will thrive well in a mixture
of loam and peat, and are easily increased by
cuttings planted in sand. The hardy kinds
should be planted in sheltered situations.

PASTERN OF A HORSE. The distance
that intervenes between the joint of that name
and the coronet of the hoof.

PASTURE (Fr.). Ground on which cattle
feed. I have, under the head Ghass, gone at
some length into the question of the grasses
best adapted for different soils. The pastures
of England and Ireland exceed in extend and
productiveness those of any other country of
similar extent. "The excellence of pastures,"
observes the author of The British Husbandry,
vol. i. p. 478, "depends greatly both upon their
position and the different species of animals
for whose support they are intended. Thus,
uplands which are elevated, open, and dry, are
the best adapted for the feeding of sheep;
while a heavy stock is fed with more advan-
tage upon ground which is lower in point of
situation, as well as better enclosed. The soil
of uplands, particularly if it be of a chalky na-
ture, bears a sweet, though a short bite of grass,
which is so favourable to the pasturage of the
smaller breeds of sheep, that although it will
support but a scanty stock, it yet produces the
finest species of mutton. These flocks of sheep,
too, by the folding system, keep in cultivation
many a poor, thin soil, which would otherwise
be worthless. There is an excellent paper, by
Mr. Magillivray, on the natural pastures of
Scotland, in which he traces the natural
grasses which are found on the highest ele-
vations down to the valleys and sea-shore.
"The bleak summits of these mountains," he
remarks, " exposed to the depressing influence
of a low temperature, boisterous winds, and
abundant rains, covered for a great part of the
year with snow, and presenting either bare rock
or a shallow, gritty soil, produce few plants of
any description, and hardly a dozen of those
which are selected by sheep as their food.
These latter consist of 3 or 4 carices or hard
grasses, 1 or 2 junci or rushes, some tufts of
the common club-rush, together with the Fes-
tuca vivipara, and 1 or 2 other grasses. The
extreme heights scarcely present any other
vegetation than Silcne acaulis, Salix herbacea,
and Statice armeria. Farther down the moun-
tains, extending downwards to about 3000 feet
above the level of the sea, we find a vegetation
still poor and stunted, but by no means defi-
cient in beauty, and perhaps affording better
874

pasturage than some of the lower grounds.
We here find irregular patches of verdure,
consisting chiefly of Carices and Srirpus ccespi'
tosos, which, however, are also eaten by sheep;
by the streamlets are several species of Alpine
plants. Farther down the mountains, Aira \
flexunsa grows in tufts, and of a large size. I
Several carices form a tolerable sward in '
many places; the jigrostis vulgaiis, &cc., occa-
sionally occurs. Calluna vulgaris, or common
heath, first makes its appearance. As we
proceed downwards, and arrive at the places
where the mountains begin to expand, we en-
ter upon a region, the predominant feature of
which is the Callwna vulgaris, mingled with
Erica cinerea (the gray-leaved heath) ; the
vegetation becomes more vigorous ; various
grasses present themselves. The valleys of
this region, in which flow the streamlets, are
generally more verdant than the open ground.
The heaths are less abundant, and the pastur-
age consists chiefly of carices and gramineoe,
intermingled with many of the plants of ordi-
nary pasture ground, such as Lotus corniculatus,
Polygala vulgaris, &c. The general aspect of
the vegetation, however, is healthy, and con-
tinues so until we reach the vicinity of the
river." For every information, however, re-
lating to the formation of pastures, and the
cultivation of the grasses, the farmer cannot
consult a better authority than the Hortns *
Gram. Woburnensis of the late Mr. George Sin-
clair.

In feeding pastures, it is usual with those fields
which are shut up from stock at Candlemas, to
graze them in the succeeding May. Those
which are fed until April may, after being shut
up, be grazed again at Midsummer. If it is
intended to feed a pasture during the winter,
it should be allowed to rest in the months of
October and November. See Meadow and
Gkassks.

PEA, THE (Pisum sativum, Fr. pois. Span, pe-
soles. The English is evidently a corruption
of the Latin name). This valuable plant is
supposed to be a native of the south of Europe,,
and was cultivated by the Greeks and Romans.
It is said by Acton to have been brought to
England in 1548. There are only one or two
kinds of pea: the gray pea (P. arvense), and
the pea cultivated as a vegetable in gardens
(P. sativum). Of the last, however, the varie-
ties are endless.

Of field peas, the varieties are distinguished
as the early and the late ripening. The com-
mon early are small and dark-coloured. The
gray pea of this class is the most common.

The later sown varieties are generally simi-
lar in their characters to garden peas ; they
differ, however, from them in having usually
purple flowers. The most common kinds are
the white, the early Charlton, and the pearl.
Field peas, especially where there is a consi-,
derable demand for them, as in the neighbour-
hood of large towns, are a very profitable crop
to be gathered green, since there is time after
the peas are gathered, in the month of June, to
prepare the land for a crop of turnips.

Where they are grown for their seeds, the white
peas are those generally cultivated for the pur-
pose of boiling, the gray as food for animals.

PEAS.

The pea will succeed pretty well on both
heavy and light soils ; but it certainly does best
on the latter, especially if the land abounds
with carbonate of lime. It is an excellent crop
to interpose between corn crops, for it affords
considerable facilities to the cleansing of the
land, and is not otherwise an exhausting crop.
In many parts of England a pea crop is dibbled
on the clover and grass leys, and afterwards a
corn crop is taken with great advantage. In
others a crop of oats is taken, and then a crop
of peas. When this latter mode is adopted, the
land is commonly ploughed in the autumn,
and by cross-ploughing and harrowing in the
spring, brought into some degree of tilth, and
then the seed may be sown with the ordinary
drill. The quantity of seed employed is about
3 bushels per acre, and the rows are usually
from 9 to 27 inches apart. There is every
facility aforded for the use of the horse-hoe.
This instrument, with the early and occasional
use of the hand-hoe,, will cleanse the land; to
which end the crop of peas will, as they approach
maturity, materially assist, by overpowering
and stifling the weeds.

Peas are usually one of the most uncertain
of the English farmer's crops. They are sub-
ject to many casualties — to blight or mildew;
to the attacks of a variety of insects, such as
the grub, which devours the roots; lice, aphides,
&c., which haunt the leaves; and a small bee-
tle, the Bruchus granarius, lays its eggs in the
green pods, which produce a grub that devours
its seeds. Then, again, it is frequently injured
by the weather, in very dry, or in continued
■wet, or late harvests ; and hence in the east
of England it is often designated by the far-
mers as " a gentleman farmer's crop." This
crop, however, is too often mismanaged in the
way to which Arthur Young so well alluded,
when he told the careless farmers of his day
that they were "too apt to sow this pulse when
the land would yield nothing else. They have
a proverb among them," he adds, " which sig-
nifies that the season does as much for peas as
good husbandry; and they from thence take
care that good crops shall be owing to season
alone. Hence arises the general idea of peas
being the most uncertain crop of all others.
This is owing to their being scarcely ever
sown on land that is in good order. Let," he
continues, " the good husbandman lay it down
as a maxim, that he should sow no crop on
land that is not in good order ; not merely in
respect of fine tilth at the time of sowing, but
also of the soil being in good heart, and clear
of weeds. He would not, however, here be
understood to rank all these crops together;
because beans and peas will admit of cleaning
while they grow. On that account, if a farmer
comes to a field which his predecessor has
filled with weeds, a horse-hoed crop of beans
will be expedient, when a barley crop would
be utterly improper; and, after land has yield-
ed one crop of barley, certainly another should
not be sown, but one of pulse substituted. If
these ideas are well executed, the peas and
beans, in every course, will find the land in
heart enough for barley, the soil will always
be clean, and the crop good. Peas, when ma-
naged in a spirited manner, will not have the

PEAS.

reputation of being so very uncertain a crop,
which character has, he thinks, in some mea-
sure been owing to ill conduct."

Peas do not need any particular dressings
with manure ; in fact, few crops require it so
little; and in many situations manure produces
the ill effect of rendering the plant too luxu-
riant. Von Thaer found, by several experi-
ments, that the dung applied to the pea crop is
the most profitable when used as a top-dress-
ing. And, moreover, he contends that on sandy
loams it produces in this way a much better
effect in the succeeding crop. Lime and soot
are, perhaps, the best dressings for peas ; and
these may operate to some degree by killing
the insects of the soil, which might otherwise
prey upon them; besides, the pea plant seems
to delight in every situation where it can have
access to calcareous matter. The crop is com-
monly cut with a hook at the end of a staff, or
the half of an old scythe set in a handle. By
these the peas are severed, and made up into
small bundles, called wads or wisps, and these
remain on the ground until they are sufficiently
dry to be carried. The straw of peas is very
useful for the stock of the farm-yard: cows
eat it, when it has been well gathered, with
considerable avidity. See Haulm.

1000 parts of peas grown in Norfolk afforded
Davy 501 parts of starch, 22 of saccharine
matter, 35 of albuminous matter, and 16 parts
of extract. The ashes obtained by burning the
pea plant in flower and when ripe were exa-
mined by M. Saussure : he found in 100 parts
of these ashes, procured from the Pisum sati-
vum in flower, of soluble salts 49-8 parts, of
earthy phosphates 17-25, earthy carbonates 6,
silica 2-3, metallic oxides 1, and loss 24'65 parts.
And from the ashes of the ripe plant, soluble
salts 34-25 parts, earthy phosphates 22, earthy
carbonates 14, silica 11, metallic oxides 2-5,
and loss 17-25 parts.

The average price of peas in England, per
Winchester quarter, was in

£ M. d. £ s. d.

1793 - 1 12 8 1805 - 3 8 4
179S - 1 18 4 1810 - 3 15 9
1600 - 3 7 3 1815 - 1 18 10

Per Imperial Quarter,

£ ». d. £ ». i.-

1820 - 2 5 11 1835 - 1 16 6

1825 - 3 5 5 1840

1830 - 1 19 3

The amount of the imperial quarters of peas
and beans entered for home consumption in
England every five years, from 1815 to 1835,
was, according to Mr. M'Culloch :

Qr«. Qrfc

1815 - - 323 1830 - - 63,664

1820 - - 761,125 1835 - - 94,540
1825 - - 30,767

The annual average of peas and beans, im-
ported into England from 1801 to 1825, in Win-
chester quarters, was, from

Russia ------ 785

Sweden and Norway - - - 428

Denmark ------ 823

Prussia ------ 7,609

GTinany ------ 7,144

Netherlands ----- 5,802

France and South of Europe - - 9,124

America 898

Ireland 4,929

Other countries - - - - 151

PEAS.

PEAS.

Garden Culture of the Pea. — Of the numerous
varieties, which differ much in their hardiness,
j'ield, height, &c., we may enumerate the fol-
lowing:— Cormack's early dwarf-pea, early
Charlton, early golden Charlton, early Nichol's
golden Charlton, common Charlton, Reading
hotspur, early single-blossomed, early War-
wick, early dwarf frame, early double-blossom-
ed frame, dwarf marrowfat, tall marrowfat,
green or Patagonia marrowfat, early green
nonpareil. Knight's marrowfat or wrinkled pea,
Spanish raoratto, imperial blue, Prussian blue,
eg^, white Rouncival, gray Rouncival, green
Rouncival, blue Rouncival, tall sugar (the
sugar-peas are eaten like kidney-beans), crown
or rose, Leadman's dwarf, dwarf sugar, dwarf
Spanish, sickle pea.

A soil moderately rich and mouldy is best
suited to this vegetable ; rather inclining to
aluminous for the lofty growers and main
crops, but for the early and late ones, light and
dry ; if naturally otherwise, rendered so by the
admixture of drift-sand with the earth of the
drills. Dwarf varieties will grow on poorer
and lighter soils than the others. In an ex-
tremely rich soil they grow luxuriant but un-
productive. They are rather injured than
benefited by the application of unreduced dung
at the time of sowing. Road dirt and rotted
leaves form the best compost for them. For
the early and late crops, that is, from October
until the close of January, and during June
and July, the sowings must be performed in
sheltered situations, as south borders. In De-
cember, the rows are best drawn parallel with
and within a foot of the fence. At other sea-
sons their site cannot be too open.

They are propagated by seed, the sowing of
which commences with the year. In January
they may be inserted in sheltered borders, and
large supplies in an open compartment, and
thence continued throughout February and until
July, once every two or three weeks. During
this last month, and in the first week of August,
the last sowings must be made for produc-
tion the same year. For the first production
in the following year, a small sowing may be
performed at the close of October, and repeated
about the middle of November and December,
though it often happens that these are scarcely
a week forwarder than those inserted in the
following February. The necessary extent of
the various sowings may be determined with
tolerable exactness from the experiments of
Bradley; he found on the average that 3 rods
of ground, containing 18 double rows, afforded
36 quarts of shelled peas.

The seed must be inserted in drills, or by
the dibble, in rows at a distance proportionate
to the height to which the variety grows, as
well as according to the season.

When the plants have advanced to a height
of 2 or 3 inches, they are to be hoed, the weeds
cleared away, and earth drawn round the stems.
This should be performed twice or three times
gradually as they ascend, previous to the sticks
being placed. It should be performed in dry
weather, and the leaves never covered, or in
wet weather they decay. For the winter stand-
ing crops it should be especially attended to, as
it protects them greatly from frosU Peas are
878

always best supported by sticks ; if it is neg-
lected, even for the dwarf varieties, they not
only produce less, but sooner decay, are incon-
venient to cultivate and gather from, and never
so fine. Sticking is not required until the plants
are 6 inches in height, or show their tendrils.
If, during the time of blossoming, or swelling
of the fruit, continued drought should occur,
water may be very beneficially applied, it being
poured between the rows, if they are in pairs,
or otherwise in a shallow trench on one side
of each. Watering the leaves is rather inju-
rious. Failures in the rows of the earliest
crops, whether from mice or other causes, may
be rectified by transplanting. This is best per-
formed in March; the plants thus removed
must be watered until they have taken root, and
also shaded, if the weather is hot. It is a good
practice to nip off the top of the leading shoots
of the early and late crops as soon as they are
in blossom, as it greatly accelerates the setting
and maturity of the fruit. Too much care can-
not be taken when the pods are gathered, not
to injure the stems. I have heard it stated from
lengthened experience, that if the pods are cut
off with scissors, the plants produced one-fourth
more than when roughly gathered from. Brad-
ley makes nearly a similar observation. From
the main crops, or where there is no necessity
for precipitation on account of bringing them
to table early, the pods should not be gathered
until the peas have become plump and mode-
rately firm, yet green and tender. The more
regularly the plants are gathered from, the
longer they continue in production, as the
later pods never attain maturity if the earlier
ones are allowed to grow old before they are
gathered.

In very severe weather the winter standing
crops require the shelter of litter or other light
covering, supported as much as possible from
the plants by means of branches laid between
the rows. Mr. J. Laird, gardener, at Portmore,
N. B., employs straw ropes or twisted bands
for this purpose, which he fixes along each
side of the rows with wooden pins, driven into
the ground. Whichever mode of shelter is
adopted, it must be always removed in mild
weather, otherwise the plants will be spindled,
and rendered weaker. For the imperial blue,
frame, and other dwarf varieties, the sticks
need not be more than 3 feet high ; for the
Prussian blue, hotspur, and other middle-sized
varieties, about 5 ; for the Knight's marrowfat,
and other tall ones, at least 7 ; and for the Pa-
tagonian, not less than 8. The best wood for
this purpose is the brush, or fan-shaped
branches of the hazel, &c. Before they are
employed, the ends that are thrust into the
ground should be charred, or moderately burnt,
which effectually preserves them from decay.
If this is attended to, and, when no longer re-
quired, the sticks, if thoroughly dry, on a fine
day are stored in a dry shed, they will last for
three or more years.

For the production of seed, leave some rows
that are in production during July, or sow pur-
posely in March. Care must be taken, how-
ever, that no two varieties are in blossom near
each other at the same time, but a lapse of at
least three weeks should occur, otherwise no

PEA.

PEA-BUG.

perfect variety can be obtained. We are much
in want of observations on this point. If hot-
spurs and marrowfats are sown on the same
day, the latter will not bloom for nearly four
weeks after the first. If the frame variety and
the moralio are similarly inserted, the latter will
succeed the first in about five weeks. The
plants intended for seed ought never to be
gathered from. When in blossom, all plants
which do not appear to belong to the variety
among which they are growing should be re-
moved. They are fit for harvesting as soon
as the pods become brownish and dry. When
perfectly free from moisture, they should be
beaten out, otherwise, if hot, showery weather
occurs, they will open and shed their seed.
Seed-peas preserve their power of germinating
for eight or ten years.

Forcing commences in December, in the
early part of which month they may be sown
in a hotbed to remain, or thick, to transplant
during the succeeding month into others for
production. These may be repeated in January,
and the transplanting lake place in February.
It is also a common practice to sow in a warm
border daring October, and the plants being
cultivated as a natural ground crop, are re-
moved into a hot-bed during January.

The temperature employed in forcing may
be either progressive, beginning at 40° and 50°,
for the extremes, at the time of sowing, rising
to 52^ and 66° when in blossom, and to 55° and
70° while the fruit is swelling; or the tempera-
ture may be uniformly kept up throughout their
growth, having 50° for the minimum and 70°
for their maximum.

In New York and some other of the North-
ern and Eastern States, the pea forms a highly
valuable crop, not only for its intrinsic value,
but as useful in preparing the land for the
reception of wheat, and other grain, for which
purpose it is considered on a par with the
turnip and other root crops of England. The
soil best adapted to the pea is one that is
good for wheat, and where that grain is certain,
peas may be considered so. The preparation
of the soil demands nothing peculiar; it must
only be made in good order for seed, in the
manner required for other. spring crops, by
being well ploughed, harrowed, and if neces-
sary, manured. If manured too highly, how-
ever, the vine or haulm is apt to be too abun-
dant, and the pea itself inferior in quantity and
quality. In this, as in most other cases, too
great a growth of vine or straw is incompatible
with great crops of pulse or grain. Lime in
all countries has been found an essential ingre-
dient of pea or wheat soils; and where it does
not naturally exist in them, should be applied
previous to attempting the culture of these
crops.

The kinds of pea most usually cultivated as
a field-crop, are the small yellow pea and the
marrowfat. We prefer the latter; as it is
equally certain with the other, is excellent for
the table as well as for feeding, is as nutritious
for animals, and generally more productive.
In some situations, or in exhausted soils, the
small yellow pea may however be preferable.
From 30 to 40 bushels per acre is not an un-
common crop, and this highest amount is often

exceeded. The quantity of seed required per
acre may be stated at 2^ bushels, although
some use only 2, and some put on 3 bushels
per acre. For covering the pea the cultivator
is a very good implement, as it gives them
more earth than the harrow and less than the
common plough. The ground should be left
smooth by the roller or otherwise, as the ease
of gathering is greatly depending on the state
of the surface.

In harvesting the pea, some farmers hook
them up with a scythe, some rake them by
hand with the common hay-rake, but the most
expeditious method by far, is to use the horse-
rake in gathering this crop. In whatever way
peas are gathered, it is necessary they should
be ripe, and of course, if very dry at the time,
there will be some loss by shelling, but not
perhaps more by the horse-rake than by the
other methods, and four-fifths of the time re-
quired by the two first methods is saved. This,
where the land is to be put into wheat, is fre-
quently of great consequence. Once gathered,
there is no crop so easily thrashed and pre-
pared for market as the pea, and few that bet-
ter reward the cultivator.

There is no plant cultivated which will bring
pigs forward more rapidly than the pea, if the
feeding is commenced as soon as the peas begin
to harden, and the whole plant is fed out to
them. ■ When gathered and hard, two methods
of feeding have been adopted, both of which
are far preferable to the barbarous practice of
giving swine the pea without any preparation.
The first is to soak and swell the pea in milk,
if it can be had, if not, in water, and feed it to
them in that state. The second is to grind the
pea, either alone or with other coarse grain,
and feed it to animals in that way. This is
preferable to feeding whole, as in corn or any
other food, the finer it is made the more readily
it will be assimilated, and in all cases, if cooked
into pudding the advantage will be decisive.
In England, where corn cannot be grown, a
mixture of peas and barley is considered supe-
rior to any other food for making pork; here,
closing the process of fattening with Indian
corn, as giving more firmness to the pork, is
preferred.

In the Southern States, a kind of pea, called
there the Cow Pea, is cultivated for the purpose
of making into hay, and for being ploughed
under as a fallow crop, like clover.

PEA-BUG or BEETLE. In the spring of
the year we often find, among seed-peas, many
that have holes in them ; and, if the peas have
not been exposed to the light and air, we see a
little insect peeping out of each of these holes,
and waiting apparently for an opportunity to
come forth and make its escape. If we turn
out the creature from its cell, we perceive it to
be a small oval beetle, rather more than one-
tenth of an inch long, of a rusty black colour,
with a white spot on the hinder part of the
thorax, 4 or 5 white dots behind the middle of
each wing-cover, and a white spot, shaped like
the letter T, on the exposed extremity of the
body. This little insect is the Bruchus Pisi
of LinnoBus, the pea-Bruchus, or pea-weevil,
better known in America by the incorrect
name of pea-bnsr. The original meaning of
4 E 877

PEA-BUG.

PEA, COW.

the word Bruchus is a devourer, and the insects
to which it is applied well deserve this name,
for, in the larva state, they devour the interior
of seeds, often leaving but little more than the
hull untouched. They belong to a family of
the great weevil tribe called BruchidcB, and are
distinguished from other weevils by the follow-
ing characters. The body is oval, and slightly
convex ; the head is bent downwards, so that
the broad muzzle, when the insects are no*
eating, rests upon the breast.

The habits of the Bruchians and their larvae
are similar to those of the pea-weevil, which
remain to be described. It may be well, how-
ever, to state here that these beetles frequent
the leguminous or pod-bearing plants, such as
the pea, Gleditsia, Robinia, Mimosa, Cassia,
&c., during and immediately after the flowering
season ; they pierce the tender pods of these
plants, and commonly lay only one e^^ in each
seed, the pulp of which sulhces for the food of
the little maggot-like grub hatched therein.

Few persons, while indulging in the luxury
of early green peas, are aware how many in-
sects they unconsciously swallow. When the
pods are carefully examined, small, discoloured
spots may be seen within them, each one cor-
responding to a similar spot on the opposite
pea. If this spot in the pea be opened, a
minute whitish grub, destitute of feet, will be
found therein. It is the weevil in its larva form,
which lives upon the marrow of the pea, and
arrives at its full size by the time that the pea
becomes dry. This larva or grub then bores a
round hole from the hollow in the centre of the
pea quite to the hull, but leaves the latter and
generally the germ of the future sprout un-
touched. Hence, these buggy peas, as they are
called by seedsmen and gardeners, will fre-
quently sprout and grow when planted. The
grub is changed to a pupa within its hole in the
pea in the autumn, and before the spring casts
its skin again, becomes a beetle, and gnaws a
hole through the thin hull in order to make its
escape into the air, which frequently does not
happen before the peas are planted for an early
crop. After the pea-vines have flowered, and
while the pods are young and tender, and the
peas within them are just beginning to swell,
the beetles gather upon them, pierce the pods,
and deposit their tiny eggs in the punctures.
This is done only during the night, or in cloudy
weather. Each egg is always placed opposite
to a pea ; the grubs, as soon as they are hatched,
penetrate the pod and bury themselves in the
peas ; and the holes through which they pass
are so fine as hardly to be perceived, and are
soon closed. Sometimes every pea in a pod
will be found to contain a weevil-grub ; and so
great has been the injury to the crop in some
parts of the country, that the inhabitants have
been obliged to give up the cultivation of this
vegetable. These insects, as Mr. Deane has
observed, diminish the weight of the peas in
which they lodge nearly one-half, and their
leavings are fit only for the food of swine.
This occasions a great loss, where peas are
raised for feeding stock or for family use, as
they are in many places. Those persons who
eat whole peas in the winter after they are
raised, run the risk of eating the weevils also;
878

but if the peas are kept till they are a year old,
the insects will entirely leave them.

The pea-weevil is supposed to be a native
of the United States. It seems to have been
first noticed in Pennsylvania, many years ago ;
and has gradually spread from thence to New
Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
and Massachusetts. It is yet rare in New
Hampshire, and I believe has not appeared in
the eastern parts of Maine. It is unknown in
the north of Europe, as we learn from the
interesting account given of it by Kalm, the
Swedish traveller, who tells us of the fear with
which he was filled, on finding some of these
weevils in a parcel of peas which he had car-
ried home from America, having in view the
whole damage which his beloved country
would have suffered, if only two or three of
these noxious insects had escaped him. They
are now common in the south of Europe and
in England, whither they may have been car-
ried from this country. As the cultivated pea
was not originally a native of America, it
would be interesting to ascertain what plants
the pea-weevil formerly inhabited. That it
should have preferred the prolific exotic pea to
any of our indigenous and less productive
pulse, is not a matter of surprise, analogous
facts being of common occurrence ; but that •
for so many years a rational method for check-
ing its ravages should not have been practised,
is somewhat remarkable. An exceedingly
simple one is recommended by Deane, but to
be successful it should be universally adopted.
It consists merely in keeping seed-peas in tight
vessels over one year before planting them.
Latreille and others recommend putting ihem,
just before they are to be planted, into hot
water for a minute or two, by which means the
weevils will be killed, and the sprouting of the
peas will be quickened. The insect is limited
to a certain period for depositing its eggs ; late
sown peas therefore escape its attack. The
late Colonel Pickering observed that those sown
in Pennsylvania as late as the 20th of May,
were entirely free from weevils ; and Colonel
Worthington, of Rensselaer county. New York,
who sowed his peas on the 10th of June, 6
years in succession, never found an insect in
them during that jaeriod. {Harris.)

PEA, COW. The plant called by this com-
mon name in lower Virginia and the Carolinas,
is there extensively cultivated. In some parts
of Virginia it is called the Yeatman pea, from
the person by whom it was introduced from the
Eastern Shore. The pea is of a yellowish
colour, is very productive both in vine and
seed, unusually hardy in remaining uninjured
by rain, after becoming ripe, and for table use
is much esteemed. But it is chiefly cultivated,
in common with several varieties of Indian
peas, in fields, to plough under for the benefit
of successive crops, as a substitute for clover,
buckwheat, and other plants not so well adapt-
ed to southern culture. The vines of this and
the varieties of the Indian pea, all make excel-
lent long forage for common work-horses,
oxen, milch-cows, or sheep. The curing of
the vine is sometimes difficult, as it requires a
longer time than most other forage plants.
Some stack it away with layers of dry straw,

w

PEA, EVERLASTING.

as is practised in the moist climate of England
with cluver.

PEA, EVERLASTING. See Eteklasting
Pea and Lathtrus.

PEAS and OATS. These, in the Eastern
and Northern States, are often sown together
broad-cast, producing a mixed crop called
Meslin. The common proportions are one-
fourth of peas to three-fourths of oats. The
pea commonly sown is the green pea from
Canada, which ripens about the time of the
oats, and for which, while growing, the oats
act as supporters. Peas and oats are usually
ground together as feed for their fatting cattle,
and are deemed valuable, though not so good
or so much relished as Indian meal without
mixture. Forty bushels of peas and oats per
acre would be regarded a large crop. This
has been produced, however, on nine acres, in
Deerfield meadows. Some farmers sow at the
rate of one-third peas and two-thirds oats.

PEA, PARTRIDGE. The Cassia ChamaaHsta
of Beck; a native of the Middle and Southern
States, where it goes by the common names of
Sensitive pea and Magothybay bean. The
stem is 1 to 2 feet high, rather erect, firm, and
much branched, downy, and often purplish.
Leaflets 8, 10, or 12 pairs, ^ to | inch in length
and 2 to 3 lines wide. Petals of the flowers,
deep bright-yellow, obovate, 2 or 3 of them with
a purple spot at base. Stamens 10, unequal, all
fertile; anthers very long, 4 of them yellowish
and 6 purple. Legume about 2 inches long
and i^ to ^ of an inch wide, with a short, abrupt,
oblique acumination, hairy along the sutures.
See Wild Sexsitive Plant.

PEACH (Fr. peche ; Lat. Amygdalus, derived
from artiysso, to lacerate, in allusion to the fis-
sured shell). The tall and coarse portion of
the ornamental, early flowering plants, of which
the peach forms a species, may be advantage-
ously disposed of in large plantations, and the
dwarf kinds in small shrubberies at the front
of the large ones. In England the common
way of increasing them is by budding on the
plum stock or the bitter almond. Rich mould
is a proper medium for them. They are most
valued for producing their showy pink blos-
soms early in the season, sooner than almost
any other shrubs. The peach is now one of
the most esteemed fruits: nearly 200 varieties
are enumerated in the London Horticultural So-
ciety's Catalogue.

Although the peach is raised in the open air,
in every part of the United States, it succeeds
best in the states of New Jersey, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, and some of the Western
States in similar latitudes. The flavour of the
peaches of the United States is far superior to
that of the same kind of fruit in Europe. In
the vicinity of the large cities, or where facili-
ties of quick transportation to these are fur-
nished, the culture of the peach is a source of
great profit.

Mr. Thomas Hancock, a very intelligent
nurseryman, near Burlington, New Jersey, gives
the following description of the mode practised
by him in planting and managing peach or-
chards. " When it is intended to plant out a good
orchard of trees, we generally select an-elevated
position, entirely unprotected by any timber

PEACH.

[or shelter of any kind; if a situation caii be
selected near the bank of a river, the crop is
more certain, as the trees better withstand the
frosts, which occasionally do much damage.

"Plough, and put the land in good condition
for corn or vegetables, and plant the trees 20
feet apart each way ; continue to till the land,
taking off" a crop of peas, beans, potatoes, or
something that does not grow too high : wheat,
r>'e, and oats are very injurious, and should not
be planted. The land must not remain with-
out tillage, as the trees would soon be injured:
indeed, nothing will destroy a fine peach or-
chard sooner than to let it lie in sward.

"The trees should be 2 years old on the stock
from seed, and 1 year from the bud, the year after
budding. This is considered as the best age
for transplanting. If the water stands near
the surface of the soil, or if the land has springs
near the top of the ground, I should not deem
it advisable to plant with the expectation of
very certain crops. I have lost two orchards
planted in this manner, while in an adjoining
field, where the land, or a part of it, was high,
with a dry subsoil, the trees flourished and
produced abundant crops.

"Light sandy soil, or light loam, we consider
the most preferable for planting out peach
orchards, and I should judge that on many of
the elevated knolls, in the vicinity of Boston,
the peach might be cultivated to good advan-
tage, particularly the earlier varieties. It is at
least well worthy of trial." (Orchardist's Com-
panion.)

The peach crop is, however, limited in a
great degree by the destruction of the trees
eflected by a worm which attacks the inner
bark of the root about the crown, and by a
disease of uncertain origin, generally termed
the yellows. In some parts of the country
where the peach was formerly very extensively
raised, the culture has been abandoned in con-
sequence of the destruction of the trees from
these two causes. Mr. Samuel Reeve, of Sa-
lem, New Jersey, very advantageously known
as a nurseryman, says that the attacks of the
peach-worm may be obviated or the insect de-
stroyed by frequently examining the root at the
surface of the ground while the tree is in a
state of vegetation, removing the insects, as far
as possible, and then washing the tree at the
earth's surface with strong soap-suds, every
week or two. Rubbing the trunk and main
branches with soap-suds several times a year,
is also highly conducive to keeping the tree in
a healthy state. The ground should be kept
loose around the peach tree. {Orchardist's
Companion.)

The application of a mixture of common
salt and saltpetre has been recommended by a
gentleman in Maryland, as successful in pre-
serving peach trees against the attacks of
worms. The proportions are, 1 part of salt-
petre to 8 parts of common salt. Half a pound
of this mixture to a tree of 7 years old and
upwards, is to be strewed upon the surface of
the ground around and in immediate contact-
with the trunk of the tree. The mixture is
also recommended to be sown over the or-
chard in the proportion of 2 bushels to the acre.
By this means, it is said, the fruit is improved

879

PEACH.

PEACH TREE BORER.

in size and flavour, the worms destroyed, and
the yellows prevented.

The Yellotvs. The immediate cause of this
fatal disease with which the peach tree is so
often attacked, is still a matter involved in
great obscurity. The following observations,
by Mr. Robert Sinclair, of Clairmont Nursery,
near Baltimore, Maryland, contains the views
of a person of great intelligence and expe-
rience, in regard to the disease in question.

As I have, for about 30 years, occasionally
had my attention drawn to this subject, I am
Mulling, says Mr. Sinclair, to throw in my mite
of experience. I am fully satisfied that the
complaint exists. Some persons say that the
worm at the root is the cause of the yellows.
I acknowledge that any disorder that destroys
the trees will cause the leaves to turn yellow;
but the complaint I call the yellows will kill a
whole orchard, without any visible wounds, on
or before the third or fourth full crop. I think
where any neighbourhood abounds with peach
orchards, it will be nearly impossible to keep
clear of the disease.

On planting out young peach trees on the
site of a peach nursery, two years after the
nursery was removed, and although the ground
was in other respects well suited for the growth
of the peach tree, yet by the next autumn many
of them were dead, and the balance so sickly
that I had them all dug up, and there was no
sign of the worm at their roots. From this,
and other similar experiments, I think the dis-
ease may be generated by planting too near
where a nursery or orchard of peach trees has
been, or where the latter is ; consequently,
where a neighbourhood abounds with peach
trees, there is danger of its becoming over-
spread with disease, without greater care than
is usually taken to prevent it.

I think I have seen evidences of its being in
some degree contagious. Richard Cromwell,
the respectable and worthy peach raiser, near
Baltimore, has for upwards of 30 years sup-
plied that city with peaches of the best quality,
on a large scale. Some time since, when I was
walking with Mr. Cromwell through his peach
orchard, when the trees were hanging full of
ripe fruit: he pointed out a tree that he said had
the yellows, having a full crop upon it, at that
time worth one dollar per peck, and to me it
appeared healthy ; but he observed to me, "as
soon as I lake the fruit from the tree, I shall
dig it up, in order to prevent the disease spread-
ing any farther, for I expect the side of the ad-
joining trees next to it will be affected next
season." I had occasion to pass through Mr.
Cromwell's orchard the next fruiting time, and
the sickly tree had been dug up, but, as had
been predicted, parts of the four neighbouring
trees were evidently much affected, but only
the sides next to the diseased tree, which made
it the more striking, and convincing of the
contagion, if this is a proper term.

On another occasion, I had a favourite early
purple peach, before I had a nursery, that I
suspected was partially affected by the yellows,
and being desirous of preserving the variety, I
cut the healthiest branch I could get, and I had
12 buds inserted in healthy peach stocks; but
when they had grown about 3 feet, they showed
880

the disease so plainly, that in order to prevent
it from spreading, I pulled up all the trees and
had them burnt.

From these cases, it seems to me the disease
may be generated by planting old peach or-
chards or nurseries too soon after the removal
of the old trees, and also by planting top near
those already affected with the disease: and
if cuttings or scions are taken from diseased
trees, their product will be also diseased. I
also think the yellows may be communicated
to young trees by planting seeds taken from
diseased peach trees. (Hovey's Magazine of
Horticulture.)

Drying Peaches. Several modes of effecting
this are pursued. When done in-doors, furnaces
should be placed in the cellar from which the
heated air may rise into the building suitably
provided with shelves, &c.

In some of the Southern States, says Mr.
Kenrick, the process is facilitated by a pre-
vious scalding. This is effected by immersing
baskets of the fruit a few minutes in kettles
of boiling water. They are afterwards halved,
the stone separated, and being laid with the
skins downwards, the drying is effected in the
sun in three days of good weather. They then
may be stored in boxes.

In France, as we are informed, peaches and
other fruits are thus dried whole. The peaches
or other fruits, being pared, are boiled for a few
minutes in a syrup consisting of 1 pound of
sugar dissolved in 3 quarts of water, and after
being drained by being laid singly on board
dishes, they are placed in the oven after the
bread is taken out, and when sufficiently dry
they are packed in boxes. The following is
the mode of drying practised by Mr. Thomas
Bellangee, of Egg Harbour, New Jersey. He
has a small house provided with a stove, and
drawers in the sides of the house lathed at
their bottoms, with void intervals. The peaches
should be ripe, and cut in two, not peeled, and
laid in a single layer on the laths, with their
skins downward, to save the juice. On shov-
ing in the drawer, they are soon dried by the
hot air produced by the" stove. In this way
great quantities may successively, in a single
season, be prepared, with a very little expense
in the preparation of the building, and in fuel.

PEACH TREE BORER. PI. 16, fig. 8. The
following interesting description of the peach
tree worm, with a mode of protecting against
its ravages, is from Dr. Harris's Treatise on
Destructive Insects.

The pernicious borer, which, during many
years past, has proved very destructive to
peach trees throughout the United States, is a
species of ^geria, named exitiosa, or the de-
structive, by Mr. Say, who first scientifically
described it in the third volume of the Journal
of the .Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel-
phia, and subsequently gave a representation
and account of it in his American Entomology,
In the fifth volume of the Neto England
Farmer, I have given the history of this in-
sect, have mentioned the principal authors
who have noticed it, and recommended pre-
ventive measures, which have been found
effectual in protecting the peach tree from its
most serious attacks. The eggs, from which

PEACH TREE BORER.

these borers are hatched, are deposited, in the
course of the summer, upon the trunk of the
tree near the root; the borers penetrate the
bark, and devour the inner bark and sap-wood.
The seat of their operations is known by the
castings and gum which issue from the holes
in the tree. When these borers are nearly one
year old, they make their cocoons either under
the bark of the trunk or of the root, or in the
earth and gum contiguous to the base of the
trees ; soon afterwards they are transformed
to chrysalids, and finally come forth in the
winged state, and lay the eggs for another ge-
neration of borers. The last transformation
takes place from June to October, most fre-
quently, however, during the month of July, in
the state of Massachusetts. Here, although
there are several broods produced by a suc-
cession of hatches, there is but one rotation
of metamorphosei consummated within a year.
Hence borers, of all sizes, will be found in the
trees throughout the year, although it seems to
be necessary that all of them, whether more or
less advanced, should pass through one winter
before they appear in the winged state. Un-
der its last form, this insect is a slender, dark-
blue, four-winged moth, having a slight re-
semblance to a wasp or ichneumon-fly, to which
it is sometimes likened. The two sexes differ
greatly from each other, so much so as to have
caused them to be mistaken for two distinct
species. The male, which is much smaller
than the female, has all the wings transparent,
but bordered and veined with steel-blue, which
is the general colour of the body in both sexes ;
the palpi or feelers, the edges of the collar, of
the shoulder-covers, of the rings of the ab-
domen, and of the brush on the tail, are pale
yellow, and there are two rings of the same
yellow colour on the shins. It expands about
1 inch. The fore-wings of the female are blue,
and opake, the hind-wings transparent, and
bordered and veined like those of the male, and
the middle of the abdomen is encircled by a
broad orange-coloured belt. It expands 1 i inch
or more. This insect does not confine its
attacks to the peach tree. I have repeatedly
obtained both sexes from borers inhabiting the
excrescences which are found on the trunks
and limbs of the cherry tree ; and moreover,
I have frequently taken them in connection on
the trunks of cherry and of peach trees. They
sometimes deposit their eggs in the crotches
of the branches of the peach tree, where the
borers will subsequently be found ; but the in-
jury, sustained by their operations in such
parts, bears no comparison to that resulting
from their attacks at the base of the tree, which
they too often completely girdle, and thus cause
its premature decay and death. The following
plan, which was recommended by me in the
year 1826, and has been tried with complete
success by several persons in this vicinity, will
eflTectually protect the neck, or most vital part
of the tree, from injury. Remove the earth
around the base of the tree, crush and destroy
the cocoons and borers which may be found in
it, and under the bark, cover the wounded parts
with the common clay composition, and sur-
round the trunk with a strip of sheathing paper
8 or 9 inches wide, which should extend 2
111

PEAR TREE.

] inches below the level of the soil, and be se-
I cured with strings of matting above. Fresh
j mortar should then be placed around the root,
I so as to confine the paper and prevent access
j beneath it, and the remaining cavity may be
filled with new or unexhausted loam. This
operation should be performed in the spring or
during the month of June. In the winter the
strings may be removed, and in the following
spring the trees should again be examined for
any borers that may have escaped search be-
fore, and the protecting applications should be
renewed.

PEACOCK (Pavo cristatus.) The peacock
need scarcely be mentioned as a bird of eco-
nomical use. Pea-hens and pea-chickens, in-
deed, are occasionally used for food, but this
splendid creature is, and ought to be, regarded
solely as an object of beauty. The advantages
to be derived from rearing it for food are not
to be thought of. See Fowl, the Pea.

PEARL-WORT (Sogina ; from sagina, fat-
ness; in allusion to its presumed nourishing
qualities for sheep). These are hardy annual
weeds, growing in any soil. There are in Eng-
land three indigenous species.

PEAR TREE (Pyms, from piren, the Celtic
word for pear). Like other species of culti-
vated fruits, there are now a very great num-
ber of varieties, more than 600 being enume-
rated in the Horticultural Society's catalogue.
A deep, rich loam is necessary for pear trees.
They are increased by seeds, or by budding
and grafting, which is the more common me-*
thod, upon stocks of their own kind, or upoa
the quince. The established kinds are multi-
. plied by grafting the choicer on the common
kinds. Almost the same treatment is required
in pruning and training the pear as the apple.
When we reflect on the labours of the horti-
culturists, who have by cultivation made the
pear tree forget its natural thorns, and instead
of an acerb berry, produce us a fruit so fair
and nectareous, we find our warmest gratitude
an insufl^cient return.

The wild pear tree (P. communis) is a tall,
handsome tree, growing in woods and hedges,
with thorny branches, and simple, ovate, ser-
rated leaves ; downy beneath, and fringed with
soft, white hairs. The flowers are copious, ter-
minal, in corymbs, snow-white, with pink an-
thers. Fruit obovate, generally hard and aus-
tere, but liable, even in a wild state, to many
varieties, and sometimes eatable. The wood
is light, of a fine grain, and tolerably hard. It
is used by turners to make joiner's tools and
picture-frames to be dyed black, and is also
frequently stained and substituted for ebony.
The white wild pear tree (P. aria)^ we have
already noticed under the head Beam Tree.
The expressed juice of the pear, when ferment-
ed in the manner of cider, constitutes the well-
known beverage, perry.

Grafting and Inoculating. — In Europe it is very
common to set the pear on a quince stock fof
clayey and light soils, whilst for trees intended
I for sandy and calcareous soils, the free stock
. pear is preferred. Grafted on the white thorn
I (which, like the quince, renders them dwarf-
i ish), pears come very early into bearing, con-
tinue prolific, and, in respect to soil, will thrive
4e3 891

PEAR TREE.

PEAR TREE.

well on a strong clay, which is considered un-
suitable to those on quinces and wildings. But
they are supposed to have an unfavourable in-
fluence upon the fruit, in rendering it small
and hard. The following observations relating
to the pear tree, its fruit, diseases, and insect
enemies, are from the New American Orchardist,
by Mr. Kenrick, whose list of fruits is valuable.

By grafting or inoculating on the quince,
pear trees come much sooner into bearing,
their productiveness is increased, the good
quality of the fruit is not changed, but the size
and longevity of the tree are diminished. Such
pear trees are termed dtcarfs. This mode is
extensively adopted in France ; but all kinds
of pears will not grow on the quince stock.
Those dwarfs trained in the form of a distaif,
are called in that country Qucnouilles.

The pear tree is of an extreme hardihood,
exceeding that of the quince, and is seldom
annoyed by the borer. The quince, when ex-
posed, is liable to danger from the borer in the
same degree as the apple tree. Their attacks
always commence in the parts exposed above
ground, or at the surface of the earth, and never
beneath. In transplanting the pears, therefore,
the quince stock must always be completely
buried more than an inch beneath the soil.
Thus situated and protected, the quince stock,
from its nature, will strike root suddenly, new
and numerous roots being produced on all
sides, quite to the junction of the pear. Such
is the mode adopted in practice by S. G. Per-
kins, Esq., and by other experienced cultiva-
tors, for the complete protection of the quince
stock from all dangers of every kind.

Soil and Distance. — The pear flourishes in
rich soils and gentle declivities ; they will suc-
ceed in the most common, deep, dry soil, and
throw out numerous lateral shoots. But they
do not flourish in moist situations ; in a cold,
strong, moist soil, with a clayey subsoil, they
throw out very few lateral roots, the fruit is not
so fair, or of so good a quality, and the trees
are not so long-lived. They will even grow in
poor soils, and in the clefts of rocks.

Wiih respect to distance, the same observa-
tions to be found under (he head of Apple may
here apply. But the pear, from its pyramidal
form, requires much less space. 20 feet, in
suitable soils, is a good distance; but less
answers in poorer soils. Qvenouilles are found
to answer even at 4 or 5 feet distance, pro-
ducing large crops ; and, as they occupy
but little space, and come suddenly into bear-
ing, they are, for profit, extensively cultivated
in France. The specimen pear trees at the
Jardin du Roi, or Garden of Plants at Paris,
in the autumn of 1840, were under the par-
ticular care and management of Mons. Dal-
bret, the pupil of Thouin, and himself the
author of a most valuable work on pruning.
These trees were kept in the most perfect Que-
nouille or pyramidal form, from the summit
quite down to the ground, by the system of short
or spur pruning; and although at the distance
of but about 7 feet asunder, yet they appeared
to have ample space, and bore most abundant
crops. But M. Dalbret then stated that 10 feet
was the most suitable distance. In the climate
882

of the United Slates, and with more heat and
sunshine, and finer skies, less distance might
suffice. Pears produced on quince stocks are
found to be much improved in flavour; all but
some particular winter kinds, which are said
in some cases to become worse.

The young, luxuriant shoots of the pear tree,
by being bent downwards, generally produced
the finest possible bearing wood for the second
year; and, by grafting on the quince, and bend-
ing the branches, fruit may be produced from
a seedling pear in the third or fourth year from
the seed, which, in the common course, would
require from 7 to 14 years. That system of
rendering trees productive is fully described in
Mr. Kenrick's Orchardist. He believes it to be
the best system of all others.

As to standards, very little other pruning is
necessary, except taking out those fev limbs
that interfere ia keeping the tree well ba-
lanced.

The blight, or, as it is sometimes called, yzrc-
blight, is a malady which sometimes affects the
pear tree during the months of June and July,
causing the tree, or a portion of its branches,
suddenly to turn black, with a mortal affection;
its leaves wither at once, as by a stroke of the
sun, and in a few hours become of a brown or
black colour. Mr. Lowell is of opinion that
this disease is caused by an insect called the
Scolytus pyri. He observes, " On the first ap-
pearance of this disease, I instantly sawed oflf
all the limbs affected, and proceeded to exa-
mine them. I found at last the enemy, not at
the point where death ensued, but some inches
below it. The insect was very small, and ap-
parently incapable of such extensive mischief;
but the effect was certain, and the manner of
producing that eflTect was obvious. It had eaten
a complete circle of the alburnum, or sap-wood,
not exceeding the size of a knitting-needle, so
as completely to intercept the passage of the
sap." This insect was shown by Mr. Lowell
to the late Professor Peck, and in the account
of the insect which was soon after published
in the Massachusetts jlgyicullural Repository, the
professor observed, that the mischievous effects
of this insect may be observed in June and
July, and that the dead part of the branches
should be cut off without delay and burned.
Mr. Lowell has stated (New England Farmer,
vol. V. p. 2), that by steadily pursuing the sys-
tem of cutting off the limbs many inches below
the apparent injury, and burning them, the in-
sects have been extirpated from his estate.

The account of Professor Peck was repub-
lished in the New England Farmer, vol. ii. p. 42.
Some writers have attributed this disease to a
stroke of the sun; others attribute it to manur-
ing too high; some to excessive moisture at
the roots, and too much pruning, which is sup-
posed to cause a surfeit and produce a stagna-
tion. But all agree that the only remedy is to
saw off the limb. {Kenrick'' s Am. Orchardist.)

Some years ago, it was ascertained that a
species ofJEgeria inhabited the pear tree in the
State of Massachusetts, and it is said that con-
siderable injury has resulted from it. An in-
fested tree may be known by the castings thrown
out of the small perforations made by the borers

PEAT.

PEAT.

which liv^e under the bark of the trunk, and
subsist chiefly upon the inner bark. They make
their cocoons under the bark, and change to
chrysalids in the latter part of the summer.
The winged insects appear in the autumn,
having, like others of this kind, left their chry-
salis skins projecting from the orifice of the
holes which they had previously made. In its
winged form, this ^^geria is very much like
that which inhabits the currant-bush ; but it is a
smaller species. It was described by Dr. Har-
ris in the year 1830, under the name of JEgeria
pyri, the pear tree ^geria ; and his account of
it will be found on the second page of the ninth
volume of the Netv England Farmer. Its wings
expand rather more than half an inch; are
transparent, but veined, bordered, and fringed
with purplish black, and across the tips of the
fore-wings is a broad, dark band, glossed with
coppery tints; the prevailing colour of the
upper side of the body is purple-black; but
most of the under-side is golden-yellow, as are
the edges of the collar, of the shoulder-covers,
and of the fan-shaped brush on the tail ; and
there is a broad yellow band across the middle
of the abdomen, preceded by two narrow bands
of the same colour. {Harris.)

Drying Pears. — When dried in ovens, the
fruit will keep for years. This mode of pre-
serving is common in France. Bosc has de-
scribed two modes of drying pears, and adds,
that, in some of the cantons of that country,
the cultivators annually preserve, by these
means, supplies of subsistence extremely
agreeable and wholesome during winter and
spring. He invites cultivators not to neglect
this resource. In this mode of drying, those
varieties of middle size, melting and sweet,
are preferred. After the bread is drawn from
the oven, they are placed on the swept hearth,
or on hurdles or boards. This operation is
repeated a second, a third, and even a fourth
time, according to their size and the degree of
heat. The heat must not be so great as to
scorch, and the fruit must not be dried to
hardness. Lastly, they are placed in bags, and
preserved in a dry place. The second mode
of preserving is practised chiefly on the Rous-
selets and fi nest-flavoured varieties. Bosc
states that he has tried them after three )'^ears'
preservation, and found them still good ; but
they are better during the first year. They are
gathered a little before their maturity, and after
being half-boiled in a small quantity of water,
they are peeled and drained. They are next
carried on hurdles to the oven, after the bread
is drawn, or the oven is heated to a suitable
degree; here they remain twelve hours; after
which they are steeped in the syrup, to which
have been added sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and
brandy. They are again returned to the oven,
which is now heated to a less degree than at
first. This operation is thrice repealed, until
they are sufficiently dried, or of a clear brown '
colour, and firm, transparent flesh; and finally '
they are packed in boxes lined with paper. '
(Kenrick^s Orchardist.)

PEAT. A collection of vegetable remains, '
commonly collected together in considerable :
masses, either on the surface of the earth, or
in iiraia, at various depths. Owing to the '

changes which the plants composing it have
undergone, it contains much tannic acid, which
preserves the vegetable matter from further
decomposition. It contains elements for the
formation of the richest manure when sub-
stances are added to it to decompose the tan-
nic acid, and hasten the decomposition of the
vegetable matters, such as lime or marl. Peat
has been found, when used alone as manure,
not to possess any fertilizing qualities, as might
be expected from its nature; but it has been
advantageously employed as a mixture with
compost. See Farm-Yard Manure.

It often happens that in extensive agricul-
tural districts at a distance from cities and
other places from which they might obtain
supplies of animal manures, the domestic re-
sources of the farm-yards are entirely inade-
quate to preserve the fertility of the extensive
fields. It becomes a question of deep interest
whether it be possible to enrich barren fields
without the aid of animals and the resources
of the farm-yard. Under the head of Farm-
Yard Mamtres it will be seen that by Lord
Meadowbank, Mr. Dickson, and other English
agriculturists of high reputation, one load of
dung has, by judicious mixture with peat and
other matters, been made into six loads of ma-
nure, possessing equ'al fertilizing power.

The regular peat formation of geologists, so
extensive in Britain, can hardly be said to ex-
ist in the United States. But a substance is
found in abundance in bogs and marshes
throughout the Union, sufliciently analogous in
composition to answer most, if not all, the va-
luable purposes of European peat.

Dr. Samuel L. Dana, of Lowell, Massachu-
setts, has published a work of the highest in-
terest to agriculturists, under the title of A
Muck Manual for Farmers. After treating of
the various matters relating to soil, its ele-
ments, and the agencies brought to act upon it,
he introduces, under the head of Artificial Ma-
nures, chiefly consisting of geine, the subject
of swamp-muck, mud, or peat.

Peat, he states, is the result of a spontaneous
change in vegetable matter, which ends in the
production of geine , a term which he applies to
designate humus and humic acid. Among
manures, consisting chiefly of geine, peat, he
says, is what bone-dust is among manures,
consisting of animal matter. Peat is highly
concentrated vegetable food. Under the gene-
ral name of peat. Dr. Dana comprises several
varieties, distinguished as, 1st. Peat, the com-
pact substance generally known and used as
fuel, under this name. 2d. Turf, or swamp
muck, by which is to be understood the paring
removed before the peat is dug. It is a less
compact variety of peat, common in all mea-
dow swamps, and includes the hassocks or
tussacks. It includes also the mud of salt
marshes. 3d. Pond mud, the slushy material
found at the bottom of ponds when dry, or in.
low grounds, the wash of higher lands. This
seldom contains more than 20 per cent, of
geine. These varieties comprise probably a
fair sample of all the peat, and swamp muck,
and pond mud, which occur in the various parts
of the country. Dr. Dana h?s given analyses
of 12 specimens representing the different va-

883

PEAT.

PEAT.

rieties, the average of the 10 best being per
100 parts, dried at a temperature of 300° Fah-
renheit,— by which process it loses 73 to 97 per
cent, of water : — soluble geine, 29-46 ; insoluble
geine, 55-03 ; total geine, 85-39 ; salts and sili-
cates, 15-59. The poorest varieties of pond
mud gave only 5 to 8 per cent, soluble geine,
6 to 9 per cent, insoluble geine, or about 14 per
cent, total of geine, and 85 of salts and sili-
cates.

When fresh-dug peat, of average quality,
is analyzed in its wet state, it is found to con-
tain : —

Water 85-

Salisoflime ----- -50

Silicates ------ -50

Geine - - - - 14*

100-

It is an interesting fact that this result differs
very little from the result of the analyses of
fresh cow dung, so far as the proportions of
geine, water, and salts are concerned.

When allowed to drain as dry as it will,
pond-mud still contains about two-thirds of its
weight of water. It shrinks from two-thirds
to three-fourths of its bulk, a cubic yard wet
becoming one-fourth to one-third of a yard
when dry.

A cord of pond mud weighs, when dug, 6117
lbs., and contains solid matter, 3495 lbs.; com-
posed of geine, 495 lbs. ; of silicates and salts,
3005 lbs.

The salts and geine of a cord of peat are
equal to the manure of one cow for three
months. It is certainly a very curious coin-
cidence of results, that nature herself should
have prepared a substance, whose agricultural
value approaches so near cow dung, the type
of manures. The power of producing alkaline
action on the insoluble geine, is alone wanted
to make peat good cow dung.

The great question comes, how is to be given
to peat, a substance which in all other respects
is so nearly allied to cow dung, that lacking
element, ammonia, without which cow dung
would be no better than peat, nay, not so good,
since in peat nearly one-half of the geine or
humus is already in a soluble state. It is well
understood that the various matters used as
manure, either solid or liquid, from whatever
source derived, all possess a common property
of generating ammonia. Peat in its ordinary
slate contains traces of ammonia, which is
evolved freely on the addition of caustic pot-
ash or common ashes. Peat, then, is a source
of nitrogen, since this with hydrogen consti-
tutes ammonia. Without going into all the
nice chemical reasoning of which Dr. Dana
avails himself, we will simply state his main
conclusion, namely: that by the addition of
alkali to peat, it is put into the state which
ammonia gives to dung.

With regard to the quantity of alkali required
to be added to swamp-muck or peat, in order
to bring it to an equality with cow dung, "It
is found," says Dr. Dana, " that

52 parts of ammonia are equal to
58 parts of soda, or white ash, or to
72 parts of 1st quality pot or pearlash, or
86 priris of 2d quality pot or pearlash. ^
884

For all agricultural purposes, it may be con-
sidered, that salts of hartshorn, or carbonate
of ammonia, and white or soda ash, are equal,
pound for pound, and that pots and pearls may
be taken at one-half more.

"If all the nitrogen in dung becomes ammo-
nia, then each 100 lbs. affords 2 lbs. 2 oz.
Hence, if to 100 lbs. fresh-dug peat, there are
added 2 lbs. of soda ash, or 3 lbs. of pot or
pearl ashes, all the good effects of real cow
dung will be produced. Peat or muck thus
requires 2 per cenu of soda ash, or 3 per cent,
of potash.

"A cord of green peat weighs 9216 lbs.; 2
per cent, is 184 lbs. Hence, a cord requires
that amount of soda ash, or 276 lbs. of potash.
But if the peat is quite dry, so as to have lost
i of its bulk, then 736 lbs. of soda ash, or
1104 lbs. potash will be necessary. Two per
cent, of alkali seems enormous. It is stated,
in the hope that it may lead to experiments on
the free use of alkali. But as it will be here-
after shown, that this is to be reduced by mix-
ing with loam or other matter, this quantity,
even if applied to one acre, will probably pro-
duce very good effects.

"There are other practical facts, which may
help to a solution of the question, how much
alkali is to be added to a cord of peat. Ac-
cording to the experience of Mr. Phinney, of
Lexington, an authority which may not be
questioned, a cord of green dung converts
twice its bulk of peat into a manure of equal,
value to itself — that is, a cord of clear stable
dung, composted with two of peat, forms a^
manure of equal value to three cords of greea
dung. Indeed, the permanent effects of this
compost, according to Mr. Phinney, exceed
those of stable dung. On this fact, 2 lbs. of
ammonia in 100 lbs. of cow dung, should con-
vert 200 lbs. of fresh-dug peat into good cow
dung. The equivalents of these, as has been
shown, are 2 lbs. of soda ash, or 3 lbs. of pot-
ash. Allowing the gaseous ammonia to be
divided equally among the 300 lbs. of dung
and peat, this is in proportion of lO^J oz. of
soda ash, or 1 lb. of potash to 100 lbs. of fresh
peat. Now this calculation, deduced from ac-
tual experiment, confirms the theoretical pro-
portions, supposing only ^ of the nitrogen acts,
though that was made before the author met
with the statement of Mr. Phinney."

Dr. Dana furnishes another striking evidence
of the favourable results from applying artifi-
cial manure. " Mr. George Robbins, of Water-
town," he says, " is an extensive manufacturer
of soap and candles, and of starch, and, still
better, a man who employs the refuse of those
trades in enriching and gladdening his land.
For four years (and it is believed his crops
will compare with any of the best cultivators
around him) he has not used a spoonful of
manure made by any animal, walking either
on two legs or on four. He keeps 11 horses,
4 cows, 100 hogs; he uses not a shovelful of
their manure, but, selling that, he uses peat and
swamp-muck, mixed with his spent barilla
ashes. The proportions are, 1 part of spent
ashes to 3 of peat, dug up in the fall, mixed in
the spring. After shovelling two or three times,
it is spread and ploughed in. The effect is

PEAT.

immediate, and, so far, lasting. The eflfects of
this spent ashes alone on sandy loam, are ex-
cellent ; it makes the whole quite ' salvy.' "

"In the preparation of manure," says Dr.
Dana, "price is every thins;. Let the cost be
estimated per cord, of artificial manure, pre-
pared in the proportions stated. Peat or muck
may be called worth 50 cents per cord, and the
labour of digging, say $1.

$1 50

92 lbs. potash, 6 cents - $5 SS"]
or 61 " soda ash, or white '.average of ") , gc

ash, 4 cents - - 2 44 f alkalies J
cur 44 bush, ashes, m cenU 3 00 J

3)10 96

3<5

"Were they really good hard wood-ashes,
about 16 bushels would be sufficient, but an
excess here is allowed, to compensate for va-
riation in quality. But this may appear a very
high price ; but it is to be remembered, that its
value is to be compared with that of a cord of
clear cow dung. What is the value of cow
dungi It appears from the barn account of
the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, that
for 9^ years, ending October, 1838, a bushel of
clear cow dung costs 21^ cents. During the
same time dung of inferior quality was de-
livered at the printworks, by the neighbouring
farmers, at 20 cents per bushel. Clear dung
is delivered at the printworks in Dover at 12^
cents per bushel, and at several of the print-
works in Rhode Island, at 16 cents per bushel,
giving an average of 17-45 cents per bushel,
and as a cord contains, in round numbers, 100
bushels, its price is $17 45

Deduct from this the price of an

artificial cord, 5 15

$12 30
"It is hence evident that an artificial cord is
only about one-third of the price of a natural
cord, and if the last may be mixed with two
parts of loam or swamp-muck, so may the first,
which will reduce the price of a cord of artifi-
cial manure to $2 71. Now this is equal, ac-
cording to all experience, cord for cord, to stable
manure ; the value of that may be estimated
at $5, so that an artificial cord costs only about
one-half. The best plan for preparing the ar-
tificial manure, would be to dig the peat or
swamp-muck in the fall ; in the spring of the
year let this be mixed in the proportion of 30
lbs. of potash, 20 lbs. of soda ash, or 8 bushels
of common house-ashes, to every cord of fresh-
dug peat, estimating this by the pit dug out,
and allowing nothing in the spring for shrink-
ing. If ashes are used, they may be mixed in
at once with the muck, but if soda ash or pot-
ashes are used, they must be dissolved in water
and the pile evenly wet with the solution. The
pile is then to be well shovelled over, and used
as is other manure. But it has been found by
experience, that the peat may be dug in the
spring, immediately mixed with the alkali, and
used forthwith. If spent ashes are used to
prepare this muck, add one cord of spent ashes
to three cords of peat or swamp muck.

" There are other sources of alkali, for con-
verting peat into soluble manure. Of these the

PEAT SOILS.

chief is animal matter. Here we have am-
monia produced. It has been actually proved
by experiment, that a dead horse can convert
20 tons of peat into a valuable manure, richer
and more lasting than stable dung; a barrel
of alewives is equal to a wagon load of peat.
The next great and prolific source of ammo-
nia is the urine. The urine of one cow for a
winter, mixed up, as it is daily collected, with
peat, is sufficient to manure half an acre of
land with 20 loads of manure of the best qua-
lity, while her solid evacuations and litter, for
the same period, affiarded only 17 loads, whose
value was only about one-half that of the
former.

"It need only be added in confirmation of
all that has been advanced, that those who have
had the prudence to fill their yards and hog-
pens with meadow-mud which has thus be-
come saturated with ammonia, have in no wise
lost their reward. If they have been satisfied
with their practice, perhaps they will be no less
firm in their belief of success, when science
ofiers them a reason for the faith that is in
them. {Muck Maniuil.)

PEAT SOILS. The improvement of peat
soils is a subject of very considerable agricul
tural importance in England, where it involves
not only the permanent improvement of large
estates, but these peat soils include a very
large proportion of several counties in the
United Kingdom.

The deep peat mosses, or bogs, which are
naturally the most difficult to bring into culti
vation, often extend to a depth of many feet,
contain but little earth, are usually tolerably
level, and consist of a mass of light vegetable
fibres. This peat, even in the midst of sum-
mer, is commonly saturated with water; at
other periods semi-fluid, and very often a trem-
bling, dangerous quagmire. Its soil, if I may
call it such, is usually of a dark brown, chang-
ing to a blackish colour when thoroughly dried
by a gentle heat. In this s^ate the peat is easily
inflammable, is commonly used for fuel, and
has been occasionally employed by the gas-
manufacturer, the lime-burner, the charcoal-
maker, and even the iron-smelter.

The common masses of peat existing on the
earth's surface in England are the products of
the decay of the mosses, common heath-plants,
coarse grasses, and the sedges which often
accompany them. But the varieties of peat
are numerous, according to their age and situ-
ation. There are some of the peats which are
found beneath the soil, in the lower portions of
the valley of the Thames, which are evidently
the remains of considerable masses of under-
wood, and contain sulphate of iron. Many
others, dispersed over the coast of Essex and
in Ireland, abound with the remains of large
forest trees, and were most probably produced
by some great convulsion of the earth in a dis-
tant period. In the southern counties, except
in those of the banks of the Kennett and the
Thames, the depth of the peat has not often
exceeded a few inches; but in the places men-
tioned, and in those in the northern counties,
the depth generally extends to several feet.

The formation of bog-moss is first com-
menced in very many instances by the rapid-

885

PEAT SOILS.

growing broad-leaved bog-moss (Sphagnum la-
tifolium), a plant of very curious habits, whose
growth under favourable circumstances (and
it is strictly an aquatic) extends from an inch in
length to 2 or 3 feet. In dry situations, or in
those only periodically flooded, its progress is
not rapid ; but when it vegetates always im-
mersed in the water of low, stagnant situations,
there it increases with great vigour. It is true
that this plant is an annual; but it sheds an
abundance of hardy seeds, producing seed-
lings, which vegetate and easily support them-
selves in the water, with a slight assistance
from the mere remains of their preceding ge-
neration. Their thread-like stems remain on
the surface of the water till the seed is ripened ;
they then fall to the bottom and form distinct
layers, which, in some specimens of peat, may
be distinctly traced. The bog-moss thus com-
menced, gradually gets mixed with a variety
of lichens, mosses, and scirpi, which annually
add to the depth of the accumulating peat ; and
as the moss becomes firmer, other plants gra-
dually establish themselves, such as several
varieties of the rushes and sedges. It is only
when the peat-moss is raised by the gradually-
accumulated remains of these peats from be-
neath the surface of the stagnant waters, that
the heaths, the cranberry, the bilberry, and the
grass- weeds make their appearance. The few
plants which commoif^y tenant peat moors and
bogs are of the most worthless kind, such as
all live-stock commonly refuse. Besides the
common heath-plants there are various rushes
(Jiincus), sedges (Carex), rush-grasses (Scha;-
nus), club-rushes (Cypcnis), cats'-tail rushes
{Typha), bur-weeds (Sparganium), &c.

Amongst the few specimens of the common
grasses which are found in such places, strug-
gling, as it were, for existence, are the marsh-
bent (Agrostis pabtslris'), the awnless brown-
bent (Agrostis canina). This is a very common
grass in bogs whose winter waters are deep.
The awned creeping-bent (J. stohnifera var.
aristata)y the small-leaved creeping-bent {A.
sto. ang.), the black couch-bent {A. repens), the
white bent (A, alba), the flote fescue {Glyceria
fluitans), tall fescue (Festuca elatior), turfy hair-
grass (Aira ceespitosa), knee-jointed fox-tail
grass (Ahpeairus geniculaivs'), water hair-grass
{Aira aquatica), -water meadow-grass (Poa aqua-
tica), long-leaved cotton-grass (Eriophorum poly-
stachion), and the sheathed cotton-grass (£. va-
ginaluvi).

It is of primary importance that the farmer
should clearly understand the chemical compo-
sition of the peat with which he has to con-
tend, and that of the watery solution with
which it is usually saturated. The common
varieties of peat, when dried by a moderate
heat, lose a very considerable portion of their
weight, and are materially reduced in bulk.
The dry mass consists chiefly of woody fibrous
remains of a dark-brown colour, of which a
very inconsiderable portion is soluble in water;
and even by exposure to the unassisted action
of the sun and air, under the most favourable
circumstances, it decomposes with extreme
slowness. When burnt to an ash, the solid
product thus obtained, varies commonly in its
composition with the nature of the stratum of

PEAT SOILS.

earth on which the mass of peat rests. If this
is of a gravelly or argillaceous nature, the
ashes are generally composed chiefly of silex,
and a small portion of alumina, oxide of iron,
with some carbonate of lime and sulphate of
iron : if, however, the substratum immediately
under the peat is calcareous, then the ashes
commonly yield a considerably larger propor-
tion of carbonate of lime, the sulphate of iron
(green vitriol) is absent, and the sulphate of
lime (gypsum) abounds in its place. The cele-
brated Dutch ashes, which are productive of
such large crops of clover, are composed of —

ParU,

SiliciouB earth ------ 32

Sulphate of lime (gypsum) - - _ 12
Sulphate and muriate of soda (Glauber

salt and common salt) - - - - 6

Carbonate of lime ----- 40

Oxide of iron ------ 3

Loss --..-.-- 7

100

The liquid with which peat is usually soaked
is also equally varying in its composition. It
almost always contains a very small portion
of brown vegetable extract, a quantity of the
red oxide of iron, and when pyrites (sulphur
and iron) are contained in the gravelly or
other substrata, these are gradually, by the
action of the water and the oxygen of the at-
mosphere, converted to sulphate of iron, which
dissolves, and is found in the water. When,
however, this solution comes in contact with
chalk or other calcareous matter, the lime de-
composes the green vitriol, the iron is precipi-
tated, and sulphate of lime, so enriching to
some of the artificial grasses, is very com-
monly found with red oxide of iron, dissolved
in the peat-water.

The chemical composition of peat soils of
course varies in the proportion of their consti-
tuents. The following analysis of a specimen
of an entirely barren peat moss, in a perfectly
dry state, will give the farmer a tolerable idea
of their general composition : —

„ . rartiu

Fine silicious sand ----- go

Inert vegetable matter - - - _ 289
Alumina ----.-_]4

Oxide of iron ------ 30

Soluble vegetable matter, with some sul-
phate of potash - - - - _ n

Sulphate of lime (gypsum) - - - 12
Loss ---- ---15

400

Such is the composition of a barren peat
moss. The analysis of an active or fertile peat
moss, with which it will be well to compare it,
gave the following results, after being also dried
in a gentle heat : —

„ . Parlfc

Fine Bilicions sand ----- 156

Unalterable vegetable fibre - - - 8

Decomposing vegetable matter - - 110

Silica (flint) ------ 102

Alumina (clay) ----_. 16

Oxide of iron -,----_ 4

Soluble vegetable and saline matter - 4

Muriate of lime - - - - _ 4

Loss -------- 2

400

Such is the usual chemical composition of
peat. This, however, is occasionally varied

PEAT SOILS.

PEAT SOILS.

by the presence of other substances, but the
above sketch will afford a tolerably correct
view of its ordinary properties ; and this kind
of knowledge will very materially aid the
farmer in proceeding to examine the mode in
which the composition of such soils may be
altered so as to be rendered tenantable by use-
ful varieties of plants.

The most common delusion in which the
possessors of peat soils are apt to indulge, is
the belief in the possibility of rendering them
permanently productive without either previous
drainage or the application of earth. The me-
lancholy attempts of this kind which I have
witnessed on the peat land of various parts of
England, especially in timber planting, can
only excite the pity of those who witness the
effects of such misspent time and money. The
young trees too, which are most commonly
employed in these ill-judged attempts, are usu-
ally of the fir tribe, precisely the kind the least
adapted to prosper in a bog of water and peat.
Common reflection would suggest that, if any
kind of trees could be expected to vegetate with
even moderate vigour in soils such as these,
composed as they are, often of merely a mass
of hard inert vegetable matters, saturated with
a weak solution of green vitriol — if any kind
of plantations would progress, it would be the
alder, the willow tribe, or the hardy birch tree,
tenacious of life, which can endure more mois-
ture and subsist on poorer soils than most other
plants. After the slightest consideration we
should hardly decide upon placing on such
swamps trees which delight in dry upland
slopes, as the Scotch fir and the larch ; yet we
can hardly traverse a single line of railway,
driven as their constructors have too often
been to take for their line of country the most
trembling', dangerous bogs, the most worthless
heaths, without being struck with the ludicrous
appearance of bright yellow-lopped larches and
ragged, sickly-looking Scotch firs, soaking in
hog-water — and that too not in mere patches,
but over hundreds of acres. I do not confine
these observations to the north of England — to
Lancashire and Yorkshire — but the remark
applies to many of the southern counties: for
instance, by the road-side between Wareham
and Poole, in Dorsetshire, may be seen similar
wet, peaty, heath plantations of Scotch firs.

In effecting the underdraining of peats, the
first error to be carefully avoided is placing the
drains too near the surface. I have invariably
found in deep peats, that where the drains can-
not be placed beneath the peat, they should be
constructed at least at a depth of from 4 to 6
feet or even more ; and this is not adding ma-
terially to the expense, for the peat-owner will
find that one drain at the depth of 5 or 6 feet
will produce more powerful and far more per-
manent good effects than three drains at a
depth of three feet. The good results of depth
in peat-land drainage will be found by the
farmer years after the soil is reclaimed — for,
as the peat is dried and its upper portion de-
composed and rendered solid by cultivation,
the mass of peat gradually and very materially
sinks, and this too in deep peats for a length-
ened period. And as this contraction is chiefly
confined to the upper portion of the peat, the

result is that the improving soil of the surface
gradually approaches the drains, and that in
some varieties of the softer kinds of peat to a
very injurious extent. Such too is the porous,
spongy nature of most peat soils, that it is dif-
ficult to remove entirely the water from those
portions of them lying on a level with the
sides of the drains, and in consequence the
roots of many cultivated crops are apt to pene-
trate, under the shallow-drain system, into the
corrosive water of the peat, which they never
do without material injury.

For let me again remind the farmer, it is not
the mere presence of too much water which
renders the peat moss sterile, but the noxious,
astringent, irony quality of that water.

In the reclamation of peat soils, the neces-
sary drainage being effected (see Draining),
the next important object is to furnish the soil
with a sufficient quantity of earthy mutter to
support vegetation, and this may be done in
several ways: that by paring and burning, so
common in various parts of Cambridgeshire
and Lincolnshire, I consider the worst of all
modes; for it merely furnishes the soil by an
expensively rapid progress with the freed
earths of the peat, which its gradual decom-
position would by other modes more profitably
and steadily effect.

The first operation after the water has been."
drained off is to break up as deeply as possi-
ble, by the common and the subsoil-ploughs,
the surface of the peat; and then, if good well-
burnt lime can be procured, there is no earthy
addition so rapid and so powerful in dissolving
and rendering pliable the peat as this. A few
ploughings, assisting the combined operations
of the atmosphere and the lime, will, in a few
weeks, bring the soil into such a state as to
enable it to bear a first crop. The quantity of
lime should be about 250 or 300 bushels per
acre; but the quantity of necessity must vary
with the readiness with which the lime is pro-
curable; where it is very expensive, the culti-
vator is obliged either to reduce the quantity,
or mix it thoroughly with a proportion of cUy
or marl before he spreads it over the surface
of the peat. Where limestone is to be obtain-
ed in the immediate neighbourhood, and other
fuel is not to be readily procured, peat may be
employed in many cases in the process of
lime-burning without much difficulty, it chiefly
requiring that the peat should be thoroughly
dried previous to its being used. For a first
crop on the thus so far reclaimed peat soils, I
have found no other crop equal to potatoes.
These are best planted in ridges; the horse
hoe-plough can then be easily kept at work,
which not only considerably promotes the de-
composition of the peat, by facilitating the in-
troduction of the moisture and gases of the at-
mosphere, but this very operation adds very
materially to the vigour and produce of this
valuable root, than which no other plant more
delights in fresh soils, such as that produced
by well-drained, fresh earth-dressed peaty lands.

It is well to avoid for a year or two all at-
tempts to produce grain crops on land like that
I am describing. The course of cropping
which the farmer will almost always find the
most profitable, is to follow the potatoes with

887

PEAT SOILS.

PECK.

peas, then turnips, oats, grass-seeds, peas,
wheat. In all cases, too, he must remember in
what small proportion some of the essential
ingredients of his crops are at first existing in
this peaty soil, and how valuable even a slight
dressing of clay or marl will be found in sup-
plying such deficiencies.

And, again, it is here that the services of the
manure-drill are available to an invaluable
extent in applying bone-dust, or any kind of
organic or even earthy manure, especially to
the young land's earliest crops. For the na-
tural results of the progress of cultivation, the
gradual decomposition of the soil and tough
vegetable remains, the accumulation of more
easily decomposable vegetable matters, the ap-
plication of the ordinary farm-yard compost,
finally sufficiently enrich the ground with those
salts of lime and of potash which form the es-
sential ingredients of all fertile land.

To expedite the accumulation of decora-
posing soluble matters in the soil, several ex-
pedients may be adopted. For instance, if the
farmer has access to night-soil, an admirable
compost may be made by mixing this seven or
eight weeks previous to its employment with
the peat itself. I know of no other compost so
powerful on peat soils as a compost of well-
putrefied peat and night-soil: 4 or 5 cubic
yards of the night-soil is an ample dressing per
acre with 12 or 15 cubic yards of peat. If the
farmer has not access to night-soil, let him
substitute farm-yard compost with the peat in
a rather larger proportion, or even urine, or
the drainage from his farm-yard. This plan,
first, I believe, successfully adopted by the late
Lord Meadowbank, is well described by Mr.
Dixon, of Heathershow, in an essay for which
a prize was awarded to him, in 1839, by the
Royal Agricultural Society of England.

The farmer must, to derive the maximum
benefit from this plan, avoid certain errors,
which will else materially deteriorate the rich-
ness of the compost. He must be careful to
have the peat he intends to use dug for some
time previously, and exposed in spits to the
drying influence of the sun and winds. The
peat, in fact, can hardly be employed too dry ;
and the farmer will find that, if he makes the
compost in the dry, warm weather of summer,
he may then use more peat in proportion to his
farm-yard dung or night-soil, than if he makes
the mixture when the temperature of the air is
less. In the warm weather of the spring and
summer months, the cultivator will find I cubic
yard of fresh, good farm-yard compost suffi-
cient for 3 or 4 cubic yards of peat; but in
colder weather the proportion of peat must
be decreased. The farmer will find that the
fresher and richer the animal manure, the
larger will be the proportion of peat with
which it may be successfully mixed. Thus,
with the rich semi-fluid mixture from the
slaughter-houses of London, with 1 cubic yard
of this, 6 or 7 cubic yards of peat may be
mixed ; and I have found, on several occa-
sions, every reason to agree with Lord Mea-
dowbank and others who have employed peat
in this way, that it is very desirable not to mix
more than half the intended proportion of peat
88S

at first, but to wait until *he fermentation of
the mass is somewhat advanced, and the tem-
perature of the peat increased, before the last
half is added to the heap. Some persons re-
commend the addition of a portion of lime to
this compost; but this is a plan I do not con-
sider either advantageous or harmless : for the
lime combines with, and even partially decom-
poses, some of the richest portions of the ani-
mal matters of the manure ; and I have on
some occasions suspected, from certain ap-
pearances, that it retarded, when thus used,
the dissolution of the peat. In 8 or 9 weeks
the compost will be ready for use ; the peat
and dung will be thoroughly mingled together,
and the whole heap will have the colour of a
dark garden-mould. Of the nourishing quality
of this mixture of peat with night-soil or yard-
manure, or urine, the farmer will readily con-
vince himself by the fertile effects which it
produces ; and, when drilled with turnip-seed,
the roots of the young plants will be found to
encircle the lumps of it, just as they do in the
case of crushed bones.

If the possessor of a peat soil cannot well
prepare a compost of either night-soil or farm-
manure with the peat, he may still furnish his
soil with a valuable dressing, by mixing hot
lime and peat together, at the rate of 1 cubic
yard of the former with 3 or 4 cubic yards of
the latter. In this case it is not necessary to
dry the peat previously, for the lime readily
absorbs the water contained in it, and in the
course of 7 or 8 weeks the entire mass is re-
duced to the state of mould. From some ex-
periments which I have made on a small scale,
i have found that the addition of a portion of
common salt to the lime, not exceeding 1 part
of salt to 3 parts of lime, will still more in-
crease the fertilizing powers of this peat com-
post; but my experiments on this head require
repetition before I can confidently recommend
this plan for the farmer's adoption.

When once the peat is well drained, a very
thin covering of earth will produce much
greater effects in forming a solid soil than the
farmer may imagine possible : the facility with
which roads are made across the extensive
deep Scotch peat-mosses and the great Irish,
bogs, in some degree illustrates the same fact :
the bog, when once dried, is found to require
only a thin layer of gravel to make an excel-
lent road. It is true that these are apt to
tremble pretty considerably under the feet of
the plough-horses, but .they bear the heaviest
carriages with perfect safety, even in places
where the bog of peat is of a depth of from 20
to 40 feet.

Peat-moss lands are commonly divided by
the deep ditches or channels by which they are
drained.

A valuable account of the practice of Eng-
lish farmers in^ the improvement of peaty
ground, by Ph. ipusey, Esq., more especially
those of Lincolnshire, is contained in the
Journ. Roy. jigr. Sor. vol. ii. p. 390.

PECK. A measure of capacity containing
2 gallons, or the fourth of a bushel. The im-
perial peck contains 5.54*55 cubic inches. Be-
sides the standard peck, there are in England

PEE-TSEE.

PERRY.

local pecks, which are extremely various : thus
the Lancashire peck contains six gallons ; but
in other counties it is much less.

PEE-TSEE. A species of water chestnut,
which grows in the southern provinces of
China, in shallow rivers and ponds, with leaves
like a bulrush, and hollow like the stalk of an
onion. lis fruit is in the capsule of the root,
like the husk of a chestnut.

PENNYROYAL (Mentha pulegium). Eng-
lish pennyro)'al. This well known perennial
plant is found growing wild in England on wet
commons, and about the margins of small
brooks. It has a strong acid, and very pecu-
liar smell, and is stimulant and tonic, but less
grateful than peppermint. The stems are
somewhat procumbent, or quite prostrate.
Leaves ovate, scarcely half an inch long, full
of pellucid dots. Flowers whorled. Flower-
stalks purplish, clothed entirely with very short,
dense, hoary pubescence.

Pennyroyal is cultivated in Europe for its
use in culinary and pharmaceutical prepara-
tions. There are two varieties — the trailing,
which is usually cultivated, and the upright.
These plants are best grown on a tenacious
soil : even a clay is more suitable to them than
a light silicious one. It should be moderately
fertile, entirely free of stagnant moisture, and
consequently on a dry subsoil, or well drained.
A wet soil makes them luxuriant in summer,
but insures decay in winter.

They are propagated by parting the roots in
February or March, September or October, and
by slips or offsets at the same season. The
mints likewise may be increased, by cuttings
of the annual shoots in May or June, as well
as by cuttings of the roots either in spring or
autumn. For production of green tops through-
out the winter and early spring, the spearmint
is often planted in a hot-bed ; and more rarely
pennyroyal, every three weeks during October
and three following months.

The pennyroyal indigenous to North Ame-
rica is the Hedeoma pulegioides, an aromatic an-
nual plant, very different in its habits from the
European pennyroyal. It grows in all parts
of the country, preferring dry grounds and
pastures, where it often scents the air to a con-
siderable distance. {Flora Cestrica.)

PEPPER-BRAND. A disease in grain.
See MiLHEw.

PEPPER-GRASS (Lepidium sativum).
Tougue-grass. A kind of cress, possessing
very pleasant and refreshing qualities, and
generally cultivated in the United States for
the table. The Virginia lepidium, or wild pep-
per-grass, is an annual commonly found in
fields and along road-sides. One or two other
species are known in the United States. (Flora
Cestrira.)

PEPPERIDGE. An appellation improperly
applied by the descendants f the Dutch in
New York, to the tupelo or biack-gum. The
name more appropriately belongs to the com-
mon barberrv.

PEPPERMINT (^Mentha piperita). This
species differs from the common spear or green
mint chiefly in the intensity of its taste and
dark colour of its foliage. It is only cultivated
for distillation; the essential oil or distilled
112

water enters into various cordial and medical
preparations.

PEPPERS. See Capsicum.

PEPPER-SAXIFRAGE (Cnidum, the an-
cient name of orach). These are worthless
herbaceous plants.

The meadow pepper-saxifrage (C silnus) is
an indigenous perennial species, with smooth
dark-green herbage. The root is spindle-
shaped ; stem erect, furrowed, solid, tough,
from 1 to 2 feet high. Flowers yellowish or
greenish-white, blowing in August and Sep-
tember. The whole plant being fetid when
bruised, is supposed, in some pans of Norfolk,
Eng., to give a bad flavour to milk and butter;
but cattle certainly do not eat it, except acci-
dentally or in small quantities. When this
herb abounds in pastures, it may be found par-
tially cropped, though generally left almost
entire.

PEPPER, THE WALL. See SrowEcnop.

PEPPERWORT (Lepidium, from lepis, a
scale, in allusion to the shape of the pods,
which appear like little scales). Most of these
plants are uninteresting, and none of them are
pretty. Z. sativum is the well-known garden
cress. There are, in England, four indigenous
species.

PERCH. In land measure is the fortieth
part of a rood, or equal to ^0^ square yards.
Perch is also sometimes used as a denomina-
tion of long measure, when it signifies the
same thing as a rod or pole, being 5^ yards or
16i feet.

PERENNIALS (Lat. perennes, lasting
throughout the year). In botany, those herba-
ceous plants, the roots of which remain alive
more years than two, but whose stems flower
and perish annually. Gardeners generally call
them herbaceous plants.

PERIWINKLE (Viiica, probably from vin-
culum, a band ; in allusion to the suitableness
of the shoots for making bands). These plants
are well adapted for covering naked ground in
shady situations. Any common soil suits them,
and they are readily increased by separating
the rooted trailing shoots. The two species
indigenous to England are called the greater
and the lesser periwinkles.

PERRY. A pleasant and wholesome liquor
made from the j-uice of pears, by means of
fermentation somewhat in the same manner as
cider from apples.

The best pears for perry, or at least the kinds
which have been hitherto deemed the fittest for
making this liquor, are so excessively tart and
harsh, that no one can think of eating them as
fruit; for even hungry swine will not eat them.

It is observed by Mr. Knighc, that in making
this liquor, the pears are ground and pressed in
exactly the same manner as apples in the ma-
nufacturing of cider; but that it is not usual
for the reduced pulp to be suffered to remain
any length of time without being pressed.

The after-management is in all respects so
nearly similar to that of cider, that no further
description is necessary here.

On the whole, the pear furnishes a less po-
pular but a very superior liquor to that afforded
by the apple. The tree is capable of being
grown on a greater variety of soil, and is more
4F 889

PERSIMMON.

PINE TREE.

productive, furnishing in the proportion of 600
gallons of liquor to the acre, where the trees
are full grown. See Ciher and Peak.

PERSIMMON {Diopyros Virginiana), The
banks of the Connecticut, below lat. 42°, has
been considered by Michaux as the northern
limit of this American tree. But it is rendered
rare in those parts by the severity of the win-
ter, whilst in New Jersey, southern Pennsyl-
vania, and others of the Middle, Southern and
Western States, it is abundant. The French
call it Pluqneminier, and its fruit plaquemines.
The tree varies surprisingly in size in different
soils and climates, being in the vicinity of New
York not more than half as large as in the
more Southern Stales, where, in favourable
situations, it is sometimes 60 feet in height and
18 to 24 inches in diameter. The tree belongs
to the class of plants of which the male and
female flowers are on different stocks. It is
remarkable for producing a great abundance
of fruit of a roundish-oval shape, about an
inch in diameter, of a reddish orange colour
when mature, which is generally just after the
first autumnal frosts. Whilst green, the fruit
is proverbial for its harshness and astringency,
but when ripe, it abounds in saccharine and
other properties which render it luscious,
wholesome, and highly nutritious.

PHLEUM. See Cat's Tail.

PHLOX (From phlox, a flame ; alluding to
the appearance of the flowers). This is an
elegant genus of plants. The species are all
rendered more valuable from their lively red,
purple, or white flowers, being produced at a
season of the year when the majority of the
plants that flower at the same period are syn-
genesious, and for the most part yellow. All
the species root freely by cuttings under glass,
or by divisions.

PHOSPHORIC ACID. See Acids.

PIE. A provincial term for a raised mound,
or pit for preserving potatoes and other roots ;
and it is also applied to the compost heaps
formed when the farm-yard dung is carried into
the fields.

PIECE-WORK. That which is done by the
job or piece. It is sometimes called task-work.
See LABorn.

PIG. See SwiiTE.

PIGEON (Columba). This bird, with all
its numerous varieties of tumblers, carriers,
powts, &c., is derived from one common spe-
cies, denominated the stock-dove. Mr. Yarrell,
in his History of British Birds, describes five
species of doves or pigeons, viz. —

1. The ring-dove, or wood pigeon (C. palurri'
bus), so called from the white feathers which
form a portion of a ring round its neck, a well-
known bird, which is also called a wood pigeon
in many parts of England, is the largest wild
pigeon known in Europe. In England, the
ring-dove is also called the cushat, and the
queest: the last names having reference to a
tone of sadness which pervades their notes.

The whole length of this bird is 17 inches.
The plumage of the upper parts of the body is
bluish-gray, the neck and breast are vinous
purple-red ; the belly, &c., ash-gray ; legs and
toes red.

3. The stock-dove (C. anas). This species
890

derives its name from building in the stocks of
trees, particularly such as have been headed
down, and have become in consequence rug*
ged and bushy at the top. The plumage is for
the most part bluish-gray, the sides of the neck
glossy, with green reflections ; breast purple-
red. The whole length of the female is 13
inches.

3. The rock-dove (C. livia), as its name im-
plies, is a species which, in its natural and
wild state, inhabits high rocks near the sea-
coast, in the cavities of which it lives the
greater part of the year. The whole length of
the bird is 11^ inches.

4. The turtle-dove (C. turtur) is only a sum-
mer visitor. These birds arrive in England
from the African coast about the end of April
or the beginning of May, and are rather more
numerous in the south-eastern, southern, and
midland counties, than in those which are
farther north. The plumage is in general
brown, of various shades ; legs and toes yellow-
brown. The whole length of the bird is 11^
inches.

5. The passenger pigeon (C. Ectopistes migra-
torius). This beautiful bird is a native of North
America. Its appearance on the English coasts
is very rare. The whole length of an adult
male bird is 17 inches.

PIGEON'S DUNG. See Dove-cotk and

GUAXO.

PIGGERY. A collection of small sties
where hogs or swine are lodged. See Swiitk.

PIKE. A word of various signification in
different districts. In some counties it is ap-
plied to a prong, or what is generally called a
fork, used for carrying straw, &c, from the barn,
cocking of hay, &c. In others it signifies a
sort of stacklet or load, cock of hay, &c. In
the midland districts it means to glean.

PILE. A sharpened beam of wood driven
down into the ground to protect the banks of
rivers or for other similar purposes. Pile is
also provincialiy applied to the breaking off
the awns of thrashed barley, and to a blade
of grass.

PILING-IRON. A tool used in breaking off
the awns of barley, and sometimes the tails of
oats, an operation which with the farmers is
called piling barley. See Hummellkr.

PILEWORT CROWFOOT. SeeCnowFoox.

PILL-WORT iPilularia, from pilula, a pill ;
shape of the heads containing the reproductive
organs). The creeping pill-wort, or pepper-
grass (P.globulifera), is in England an obscure
little plant, found in dark meadows among
grass, especially where they have been over-
flowed with water during winter. It is peren-
nial in habit, putting forth brown flowers in
June and July.

PIMPERNEL (Jlnagallis). A genus of very
pretty, interesting plants, of easy culture.

PINE TREE (Finns, from pinos; a Greek
word used by Theophrastus, to designate a pine
tree; and some authors derive it from the Celtic
pin or pyn, a mountain or rock, alluding to the
habitat of the tree). This much-esteemed and h
well-known genus, belonging to the gymnosper- ■^
mous division of exogens, contains some of
the trees of most universal use in civilized so-
ciety, and which form a very important article

PINE, THE GROUND.

PLANT.

of commerce, both in Europe and America.
The genus Firms is distinguished from the firs,
by the leaves being needle-shaped and grouped
in pairs, or in three, four, or five together; held,
as it were, together by a sheath at their base.
Most, if not all of the species, are highly de-
serving of culture, being very ornamental and
■ beautiful in every stage of their growth. They
will succeed on almost any kind of soil, but to
bring the timber to its greatest state of perfec-
tion, a soniewhat loamy surface soil and a cool
subsoil are requisite. Young plants may be
obtained by a variety of methods. All the spe-
cies may be propagated by layers, by inarching
on nearly allied kinds, and by herbaceous
grafting; many may also be increased by cut-
tings, but the speediest way is by seed, and
which process I shall briefly notice. In some
of the species the cones attain their full size
the first year, but in most not till the end of the
second autumn. The cones of the Scotch pine
(P. fylvestri$), and those allied to it, open of
themselves shortly after b^ng gathered from
the tree, and spread out in the sun ; but the
cones o^ P. pinaster, P. pine a, and similar kinds,
do not, though treated in the same manner; and
open their scales only after several months.
The seed should be sown on a finely-prepared
rather sandy soil, in March or April. The seeds
of the most common kinds are always sown
on beds, and after being gently beaten down
are slightly covered with light soil.

There are upwards of fifty species of pines,
and the appearance of the tree, as well as the
quality of the timber, varies with the species
and with the situation in which each grows.
Generally speaking, the timber is hardest and
best in exposed cold situations, and where its
growth is slow. See Fir Trke.

PINE, THE GROUND. See Bcole.

PINK {Dianthus ; from dios, divine; and
anfhos, a flower, in reference to the fragrance
of the blossoms and the unrivalled neatness of
the flowers). A truly beautiful and ornamental
genus, containing some of the most prized
flowers we possess, on account of the beauty
and fragrance of their blossoms, and their fo-
liage, which is as green and vivid in winter as
it is in summer. The genus is divided into those
with solitary and those with aggregate flowers.

PIP. A disease among poultry, consisting
* in a white thin skin, or film, growing upon or
tinder the tip of the tongue, which hinders the
feeding. It is supposed to arise from the drink-
ing of foul water, or eating filthy meat; it is
usually cured by pulling off" the film with the
fingers, and washing the part with a solution of
common salt.

PIPE-CLAY. A species of clay abounding
in Devonshire and other parts of England, em-
ployed in the manufacture of earthenware.
See Mixture of Soils.

PISTIL. In botany, the columnar body in
the centre of a flower, consisting commonly
of three parts; viz., the ovary, styles, and stig-
mas. It is one of the essential parts of the
flower; and when it is absent the flower is
sterile. It receives the pollen, and communi-
cates its stimulus to the ovules ; without which
ihe seeds are imperfect, and do not germinate.

PITCH {Ger. pecli). In commerce, the resi-

duum which remains on inspissating tar, or
boiling it down to dryness. It is a black solid
substance, with a shining fracture, softens at
90°, and becomes liquid in boiling water. It
is extensively used in ship-building, and for
other purposes. Large quantities are manu-
factured in Great Britain, but not sufficient to
supply the great demand. The duty on im-
portation is 10^. percwt. In husbandry, pitch
signifies a fork-full of hay, corn, or straw, or
as much as is raised to the load, stack, or mow,
at one time.

PLANER TREE {Planeraulmifolin). "Ken-
tucky, Tennessee, the banks of the Mississippi,
and the Southern States, are, says Michaux,
the only parts of the American republic where
my father and myself have found the planer tree.

" I have more particularly observed the planer
tree in the large swamps on the borders of
the river Savannah in Georgia. It is a tree
of the second order, and is rarely more than
35 or 40 feet high, and 12 or 15 inches in dia-
meter. Its bloom is early and not conspicuous.
Its minute seeds are contained in small, oval,
inflated, uneven capsules. The leaves are
about IJ inch long, oval-acuminate, denticu-
lated, of a lively green, and a little like those
of the European elm, to which this species
bears the greatest analogy.

"The wood of the planer tree is hard, strong,
and seemingly proper for various uses; it is
probably similar in its characters to the ana-
logous species in the north of Asia, the Siberian
elm ; but the tree is rare and the wood is neg-
lected." {N. A. Sijlva.)

PLANKS (Ger. planken; T)2in. planker ; Fr.
planches). Thick strong boards cut from vari-
ous kinds of wood, especially oak and pine.
Planks are usually of the thickness of from
one inch to four. They are imported in large
quantities from the northern ports of Europe,
and from several ports of North America.
Those employed for making sheds or farm
out-houses should be tarred, or steeped in cor-
rosive sublimate.

PLANT. In natural history. See Acclixa-

TATIOX, BOTAXT, EaRTHS, Ga8£S, OrGANIC ChB-

MisTRT, Temperature, Water, &c.

PLANTS IX cLosELT GLAZED CASES. By the
recent discovery of Mr. Ward, of London, that
certain plants will grow when enclosed in
glazed cases, the most forbidding local circum-
stances may be overcome, and any person,
whether inhabiting the most humble or the
most splendid dwelling, provided they are ex-
posed for a few hours every day to the sun's
light, has it in his power to rear and cultivate
a miscellaneous collection of plants, to enjoy
the beauty of their appearance, and to watch
their progress through all the stages of their
growth, at an expense so insignificant as to be
within the means of every one, even in very
moderate circumstances; in short, to enjoy,
even in rooms heated with anthracite coal, a
parlour green-house.

To do this an apparatus must be provided,
consisting of a box and a glass roof, such as are ,
used for raising cucumbers, for instance, or
more ornamental, as may be desired. The box
should be lined in the bottom with zinc to pre-
vent leakage. The whole should be close, to

891

PLANT.

PLANT.

prevent evaporation, and may be painted to
represent any description of wood; a hole or
holes should be left in the bottom, thro«°;h the
zinc and board, to carry off any extra water, if
you find there is too much for the health of the
plants enclosed. At the upper edge of the box
a groove is sunk to receive the lower edge of
the glass roof, which rests tightly upon it.

The frame-work cover should be glazed with
jifood glass, with a door on one side made to fit
close, and which may be opened to remove dead
branches, for trimming, and the addition or sub-
traction of plants. Along the top of the roof,
hooks or brass rods ma)'^ be placed, from which
small pots may be suspended with brass wires ;
twine will soon decay in the continued damp-
ness. The whole of the frame-work should be
well fitted, so as to preclude, as far as possible,
all interchange between the air in the case, and
that in the room.

Lay the bottom of the box with pieces of
broken earthenware, as an open subsoil. Next
lay a stratum of turfy loam, one inch deep, and
fill in the remainder of the space with soil,
composed of equal portions of peat and loam,
mixed with about one-twentieth part of rough
white sand, free from iron. The artificial gar-
den plot is now ready to receive the plants.
Plant these in the usual manner, and then
shower over them, with a fine rose watering-
pot, sufllicient water to saturate the soil, till the
liquid begins to run off by the opening in the
bottom. After draining thus for 24 hours, cork
up the hole or holes, place the glass case on
the box, and the operation will be finished.

The most remarkable part in the economy
of the case, thus closed up, is the preservation
of atmospheric purity. To all who reflect, for
the first time, on this subject, it will seem in-
comprehensible how the plants can possibly
thrive and blossom, without the occasional in-
terchange of fresh air with the atmosphere.
This certainly does appear extraordinary, yet
it is ascertained by experiment, that no such
reinvigoration is requisite ; to account for the
phenomenon it will be necessary to explain the
constitution of atmospheric air, and the means
adopted by nature for its purification.

Air consists of three gases in close me-
chanical union, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbonic
acid, in the proportions of about 79 of nitrogen,
SO oxygen, and 1 of carbonic acid, in 100 parts
of pure air. In this mixed composition, the
essential element for the support of respira-
tion in both animals and plants, and also for
combustion, is the oxygen, the nitrogen being
little else than a diluent to modify the strength
of the oxygen. It was long believed by men
of science, that plants possessed the power of
exuding oxygen, and so formed a prime agent
for restoring vitiated air to purity. Eater in-
vestigations, however, by French chemists,
have made it evident that plants have no such
power, unless when placed under the influence
of. the sun's rays, or, in other words, that solar
light is the grand cleanser of the atmosphere,
and without which, both plants and animals
languish and;jd^ With; respect to plants in
particular, ifi|^^certaihed, that while inhaling
ox5''gen,anliyfepiring carbonic acid, their leaves
possess the remarkable property, in conjui^ction
892 ~ :,'

with the sun's light, of retransforming the car-
bonic acid into oxygen. At night, when the
light of day has departed, the expired carbonic
acid may be detected in the neighbourhood of
plants, and hence, one cause of injury to health
by breathing night-air; but when the morning
sun again bursts upon the scene, a great che-
mical process commences in the atmosphere :
the carbonic acid is decomposed, oxygen is
evolved, and all nature rejoices in re-creation
of its appropriate nourishment.

A question will here readily occur — What
species of plants are best adapted for these do-
mestic green-houses 1 This has been answered
ably by Mr. Ellis, in a paper read before the
Edinburgh Botanical Society in 1839. Accord-
ing to this gentleman's statement, the plants
most suitable are "those which partake largely
of a cellular structure, and possess a succulent
character, and especially those which have
fleshy leaves ; whilst on the contrary, the con-
tinued humidity is unfavourable to the deve-
lopement of flowers of most exogenous plants,
except such as naturally grow in moist and
shady situations." Plants, therefore, which
grow naturally, and bloom in cavernous and
moist situations, or in moist and warm cli-
mates, are best adapted for these cases ; within
this class of vegetables there are many beauti-
ful and luxurious plants, which it would be no
small pleasure to contemplate. We name but
a few which have eminently succeeded. A
specimen of this mode of culture may be seen
in the possession of Mr. J. J. Smith, Jr., Libra-
rian of the Philadelphia Library, which is emi-
nently successful.

Crocuses, and winter aconite; joy; lycopo-
dium ; the various cactuses ; aloes ; primroses ;
the fairy roses; begonias; all the ferns; ane-
mone ; musk plants ; myrtles ; jasmines, &c.

All the vacant spaces in the case may be
employed in raising salads, radishes, &c. ;
"and I think," says Mr. Ward," "that a man
would be a bad manager who could not, in the
course of a twelvemonth, pay for his case out
of its proce^fls."

Sir W. J. Hooker, in a letter to Mr. Ward,
saj's, "Splendid as is the hot-house and green-
house collection at Woburn Abbey, I doubt
whether that gives more pleasure to the noble
proprietors and their numerous visiters than
the beautiful little collection in Mr. Ward's
case, that occupies a table in the library, and
flourishes without requiring the skill of the
gardener in its cultivation." Once properly
watered, these cases have remained for seven
years without any additional moisture.

The uses to which this discovery of Mr.
Ward's has led, are important to man ; espe-
cially so in the transmission of plants from
one country to another by sea. So admirably
does it answer to thus enclose plants for sea-
voj'ages, that few instances of failure have oc-
curred in their transmission, where care has
been taken to renew the glasses, if broken, and
to expose the cases to the action of the sun's
rays on deck in fine weather. But, even more
important than this, it will enable the chemist
to make observations strictly comparative on
the effects of different soils, manures, &c.; to
determine the powers possessed by plants of

PLANTAIN.

PLANTATION.

absorbing, and selecting various substances by
their roots ; to ascertain the existence and na-
ture of the deleterious excretions from the
roots ; the poisonous character of these excre-
tions, if they exist, being rendered very pro-
blematical by the circumstance of plants, in a
state of nature, occupying the same situations
for ages ; to prove the effects of poisons on
plants; to test the influeace of light in pro-
tecting planis from the effects of low tempera-
tures ; and, lastly, by means of these cases the
scientific naturalist will be assisted in explor-
ing that debatable ^ound on the confines of
the animal and ve^table kingdoms, where it
is often impossible lo determine the point at
which one ends and the other begins.

PLANTAIN {Pluntago: derived from planta,
the sole of the foot ; resemblance in the leaves).
A genus of plants, the greater number of the
species of which are mere weeds: they are
generally almost stemless, and for the most
part perennial. There are in England five na-
tive species : —

1. Greater plantain, or way-bread (P. myor),
which is very common in meadows, pastures,
and waste and cultivated ground, perenni.il,
and in flower all summer. The root consists
of many long, stout fibres. The leaves are
radical, numerous, broad, with seven or nine
ribs, on channelled, ribbed stalks, often longer
than themselves; margins wavy or toothed.
Flowers on long spikes, small, whitish, with
reddish anthers, very numerous; the spikes,
each on a simple, naked, radical stalk. The
seeds, which are angular, in a membranous
capsule, are the food of small birds. The rose-
shaped variety and the panicled one are often
cultivated in gardens for the sake of curiosity,
and afford remarkable instances of vegetable
transformation. This species, like the whole
genus, in general, is mucilaginous, and some-
what astringent, qualities which render it not
altogether a useless rustic medicine. Cows
and horses do not relish this plant, but it is
eaten by sheep, goats, and swine. This peren-
nial-rooted plant is extensively naturalized in
the United States, and is remarkable, says Dr.
Darlington, for accompanying civilized man
growing along his foot-paths, and flourishing
around his settlements. From this circum-
stance, the American Indians call it by a name
which signifies "the while mail's foot."

2. Hoary plantain (P. media). This species
grows abundantly in chalky or gravelly hills.
The root is rainer woody. The leaves are
ovate, downy, all pressed close to the ground,
hoary, entire, with five or seven ribs. The
hoary plantain, a great and lasting nuisance in
fine grass-plats, is best killed by a drop of vi-
triolic acid on the crown of the root, which it
never long survives. Its medical qualities are
like the former.

3. Ribwort plantain, or rib-grass (P. lanceo-
Inta), is also a very common species in mea-
dows and pastures. PI. 9, i. The leaves are
numerous, erect, deep-green, acute, each taper-
ing at the base into a broad, flat, ribbed foot-
stalk, accompanied at its insertion with large
tufts of soft, white, woolly fibres. Flower-
stalks taller than the leaves, likewise woolly at
the base, five-angled, with intermediate fur-

rows, nearly smooth, twisted. Spike ovate, an
inch long, with black imbricated bractes, occa-
sionally leafy at the base. This species makes
a part of most meadow hay, and has been culti-
vated as a crop, but seems to be now disused.
Cattle are said not to eat it willingly, at least
by itself. The total absence of rib-grass in
marshy lands is a certain criterion of their in-
different quality; and in proportion as such
soils are improved by draining, this plant will
flourish and abound.

4. Sea plantain (P. mnritima). This grows
in muddy salt-marshes, and about the mouths
of large rivers. It is perennial, and flowers in
August and September. The root is long and
cylindrical ; herb various in luxuriance. The
leaves are all radical, numerous, from four to
twelve inches long, dull-green, linear, chan-
nelled, hairy, nearly entire. Flower-stalks
round, longer than the leaves, erect, smooth.
Spikes cylindrical, slender, many-flowered,
dense, with fleshy keeled bractes, not longer
than the calyx. Sheep appear lo be very fond
of this species.

5. Buck's-hom plantain, or star of the earth
(P. Coronnpus). This is an annual species,
which flourishes on dry, sandy, or gravelly
ground, flowering from June to August. The
root is tapering; leaves pale, hairy, in pinnati-
fid, pointed segments. Spikes numerous, dense,
cylindrical, varying greatly in length, on
spreading hairy stallls.

The While, oj Virginia Plantain, is a native of
the United States, where it is commonly found
in barren old fields and stony hills. It has a
biennial root, leaves 2 or 3 inches long and
from 1 to 2 wide, the whole plant being covered
with a gray pubescence or down. Nine or ten
additional species of plantain are enumerated
in the United States.

PLANTAIN, WHITE, see Ccdweed.

PLANTATION. In England this term is
applied to a piece of ground planted with trees
for the purpose of producing timber or cop-
pice wood; and the term is also applied to
a collection of trees or shrubs placed in the
ground for their beauty or usefulness.

For the correct consideration of the best
mode of forming plantations of timber trees,
several circumstances must, of necessity, be
taken into the planter's account, of which the
principal are — 1st, Thecompositionof the soil;
2dly, The trees to which that soil is best
adapted ; 3dly, The elevation, or inclination
of the land: an inattention to these three pri-
mary questions has been the source of much
waste of time, of labour, and of capital.

In this, as in all researches where vegeta-
tion is concerned, nature is ever our best guide
and instructor. We find indigenous on the
chalks, the beech, the birch, and the ash; the
oak tenants the clay formation, the elm delights
in rich alluvial bottoms, and in warm, sheltered
situations. To the sand is left the fir tribe,
the ash, and the birch; which last most pic-
turesque tree will endure a climate, and vege-
tate on soils, far too cold and too barren for
any other to exist in. On the warm gravels,
and on deep, light loams, we find the Spanish
chestnut located ; and if, on even the peat, we
only occasionally meet with a few straggling
4f2 893

PLANTATION.

PLANTATION.

mountain ash and Scotch firs, it is not because
the composition of the soil is too poor to sus-
tain a better description of timber tree, but that
the soil is usually saturated with water, too
much impregnated with the salts of iron for
any plants to be successfully planted till that
corrosive moisture is removed.

Then, again, as regards the temperature best
adapted to the tree, much too little attention is
commonly paid. The fir tribe are found to de-
light in dry, cool elevations, whilst attempts to
make the larch grow in warm, rich bottoms,
generally fail.

These facts should be more carefully at-
tended to by the planter : he should consider
the inequalities of his land and the habits of his
trees, and distribute them accordingly. Leaving
the natives of a temperate climate to the south-
ern and western slopes, he should devote to
the northern declinations the natives of a colder
clime; to them consign the larch and the
Scotch fir, the ash and the birch.

This last-mentioned tree will, in fact, grow
at a greater elevation above the sea, and in a
more northern latitude, than any other. As we
approach the Arctic regions, it is the last tree
that remains to us. Long after all others have
departed it still flourishes : in Greenland there
is no other tree.

Then, again, as in all other questions where
plants of any kind are to be made to vegetate,
the chemical composition of the soil is a tole-
rably certain criterion, when compared with
that of the wood of trees, to guide us in our
selection of the species to which that land is
the best adapted : the earths found m them by
the chemist are sure to indicate the soils on
which they will flourish. Thus, the ashes of
the perfect wood of the oak contain more than
38 per cent, of soluble salts, and only 2 per
cent, of silica (flint); that of the fir (^Abies),
grown on granite, only 16 per cent, of soluble
salts, and 19 per cent, of silica. Now the
fir flourishes very well on the poorest silicious
sands, but the oak will not grow on such
soils without a dressing of other earths. Car-
bonate of lime (chalk), when in excess in
soils, is less prejudicial to the growth of trees
than an excess of any other earth. Now the
carbonate of lime is precisely that earth which
is most commonly found in timber trees, and
in the largest proportions. The ashes of the
wood of the oak, for instance, contain about
22 per cent, of the earthy carbonates, the pop-
lar 29, the hazel 22, the hornbeam 26 per cent. ;
and that of the beech a still larger proportion.
And so almost universally does carbonate of
lime and silica exist in wood, that M. Einhof,
an able Prussian chemist, came to the conclu-
sion that the plant had the power of forming
these earths when growing on soils that did not
contain them: they certainly, however, are
found to absorb the largest proportion of car-
bonate of lime and silica on soils in which
those earths abound. Thus M. Saussure found
in the ashes of the fir, growing on a soil which
contained 1-74 per cent, of carbonate of lime,
46-34 per cent, of this earth ; but in the ashes
of the same wood, produced from a soil con-
taining 93 per cent, of carbonate of lime, he
found 63 per cent, of that earth. And when the
894

I soil contained 75-25 per cent, of silica, the tim-
I ber growing on it contained 13-49 per cent. ;
but when the soil was entirely free from the
earth, it was equally absent from the wood.

The observations of the planter confirm en-
tirely those of the chemist. Thus, on the poor,
hungry, heath lands, such as those of Norfolk,
Surrey, and the north, which contain hardly a
trace of carbonate of lime, they find that by
dressing land intended for planting with chalk
or marl, the growth of the trees is very mate-
rially increased; and more recently, as in the
forest of Darnaway, in Sk^ptland, the planters
have found the greatest ao^ntage from placing
only a handful of lime (about four bushels per
acre is sufficient) in the soil under the plants :
by this means the young trees, they say, are
foi-ced forward, that is, they are supplied with
the carbonate of lime at the very period of their
growth when their roots, from want of extent
and vigour, are least able to absorb from the
soil the portion of this earth so essential for
their healthy growth. And it is precisely such
heath soils as those to which I have alluded as
being so materially benefited by the applica-
tion of lime, chalk, or marl (which also con-
tains chalk), that are found when examined, in
their natural state, to be nearly destitute of
carbonate of lime.

It is for the same reasons that, in the early
state of their growth, timber plantations are
benefited so materially by being manured with
organic matters, a fact well known to those
who plant for merely ornamental purposes;
and it is because all timber trees contain phos-
phate of lime in very considerable proportions,
that crushed bones are found to be so excellent
a fertilizer for them ; and hence one reason
why it has been long a well-known fact, that
by burying dead animals under trees nearly
exhausted for want of nourishment, those trees
will almost invariably be considerably revived,
and send out their shoots with unusual vigour;
and how essential the presence of phosphate
of lime is to their growth, may be judged of
from the fact, that this salt constitutes 4-5 per
cent, of the ashes of the oak, 35 in those of the
hazel, 16*75 of the poplar, 23 in the hornbeam,
12 per cent, in those of the fir.

These chemical examinations naturally sup-
port the conclusions to which I have longQome
in my own experiments, that in all plantations
of timber trees, both on the score of profit and
of ornament, it is in almost all situations de-
sirable to assist the growth of the young trees by
a small addition of manure. On a large scale,
this must be chiefly confined to the use of the
earths, either lime, chalk, or marl, according
to their respective local value ; and for this
purpose a smaller proportion per acre of any
kind of manure is of much greater value than
is commonly supposed. In Scotland they have
found about 4 bushels of lime an abundant ad-
dition, since they merely mix a handful of this
earth in the soil under each plant ; and in the
fine woods produced by Mr. Withers, of Holt,
by spreading a poor marl over his hungry,
black, heath soil, and then ploughing them in
very deeply, he merely added about 20 cubic
yards per acre.
In preparing the laud for plantations, the

PLANTATION.

PLANTATION.

same chemical examination of its composition
well illustrates the advantage derived by the
plant from merely previousl}' stirring the soil,
since it is evident that when the constituents
of the young trees are contained in it in only
very limited proportions, in such case the more
easily their roots are enabled to penetrate in
search of that necessary nourishment, the more
rapid will be their growth. Previous trenching
of the soil also conduces to the healthy growth
of trees in more ways than one. It renders
them less subject to injury from want of moist-
ure in the heats of summer; the atmosphere
more freely finds a.o0ss to their roots, and not
only yields its watery vapour in the warmest
weather for their service, but its gases, so
essential to their very existence, are also in a
similar manner more readily absorbed.

I have had many occasions to notice the ad-
vantages of deeply stirring the land for timber
trees. In my early plantings, my larch and
other timber trees made but little progress, for
1 merely placed them in holes dug in the soil ;
I neither manured, nor in any way prepared
the soil. An experiment, however, which I
made some years since — in which, by merely
trenching the soil with the fork in a clump of
larch, Scotch firs, and birch, to the depth of
about 20 inches, the growth of the trees, which
had for several years been extremely slow, was
in the succeeding years exceedingly vigorous —
convinced me of the truth of the observations
made by Sir Henry Steuart, Mr. Withers, and
others, of the great advantages of trenching the
soil, either by the spade or by the common or
the subsoil plough.

The opinions and explanations given by the
labouring woodmen of the cause of the occa-
sional very luxuriant patches in extensive
young plantations accord with these conclu-
sions. They tell you that those favoured trees
are on a diep, tender piece of land.

The last branch of the investigation — that
of the best mode of planting and of expense —
■is now to be considered. Too little attention
is usually paid by planters in the choice of their
plants, the manner in which they have been
reared, and in the care of their removal : in-
stead of attending to the acquired habits of the
tree, it is a very common practice for the plants
to be bought of some nurseryman, who has
reared them in a warm, rich bottom, and then,
as a natural consequence, when the trees are
transplanted to a cold, poor, hungry, exposed
soil, a large portion of them are sure to perish,
or, if they live, many become stunted or stag-
headed. That all these evils may be avoided
with only ordinary care, is proved by the ex-
perience of the best planters, who are careful
to procure their seedlings from land at least
not better than that on which they are intended
to be placed; and is further evidenced by the
fact that, when the soil is prepared by either
deep digging or manuring, or both, then the
mortality amongst the plants is very small in-
deed,—they need no further attention, they
equally set at defiance the extremes of heat
and cold, are very rarely diseased, and shoot
with uncommon vigour. This attention to the
early acquired habits of the plant is not entirely |
a modern observation — the early Italian plant- i

ers were, careful in replacing the tree in the
same position as regards the cardinal points
that it occupied in its early growth. (riVg^i/,
Geo. ii. 2G9.)

There are other very common errors, of which
I have long noticed the ill effects; for instance,
the want of care with which the roots of the
young trees are deposited in the earth, and the
unnecessary length of time which is suffered
to elapse between the period when the plant is
taken from the nursery and replanted. I have
always found the after good effect of causing
the roots of the young plant to be carefully
arranged, and spread out before the earth is
thrown in upon it; the usually heedless way
in which the roots are thrust into the hole, and
perhaps broken or materially bruised in the
apt of treading in the earth upon them, is of
necessity very prejudicial to the young plant ;
and then, again, a still more negligent practice,
thsit of ploughing in the young trees, is too often
adopted on a large scale, by which the plants
are still more hastily deposited in the soil, and
are neither fixed with sufficient firmness in the
ground, nor even placed in an upright position.
From these causes I have witnessed some very
decided failures; and there is certainly no eco-
nomy in this hasty mode of planting; the trees
perish in great numbers ; they linger for years
without vigour; have to be replaced at a con-
siderable expense ; and in the mean time the
owners lose all the advantages which might
have been insured from a more skilfully ob-
tained rapidity of growth.

The grouping or mixture of trees is a ques-
tion which rarely engages the attention of the
planter, although it is certain that, like the
commonly cultivated crops of the farmer, some
trees grow better when mixed with other kinds
than when vegetating in plantations of the same
species; that they have certain secretions, and
excrete matters, both by their roots and leaves,
which are noxious to other trees, is certain.
Thus the ash, and more particularly the locust,
are very obnoxious to most trees. Then, again,
the grouping together of certain trees is parti-
cularly grateful to them all. Thus, the larch
is a very good neighbour ; the Scotch fir, the
birch, and the Spanish chestnut grow very
luxuriantly with it; the oak, the elm, the hazel,
and the hornbeam are evidently good neigh-
bours. The Roman planters had remarked this
habit of trees. Thus, they believed that the
elm was particularly grateful to the vine ; and
they were so convinced of the existence of what
they called the sympathy between them, that
they called the elm the husband of the vine.
It was invariably their custom to plant them
near each other; and as we are indebted to them
for the introduction of the vine into England,
so hence, in all probability, came with them
our first elm trees.

The expense of these different modes of
planting is next to be ascertained ; it is an in-
quiry which will well repay the planter. The
favourite mode, that of digging a small hole
arid inserting the tree, is, apparently, attended
with the least outlay of money; in some in-
stances it has been dune for 4/. or 5/. per acre,
or even less ; but such plantations are very
rarely prolitable,— the plants die, or barely

895

PLANTATION.

PLANTATION.

vegetate for years, have to be renewed again '
and again, and the general appearance of the
plantation, overrun with weeds, or heath-moss,
or fuize, is very melancholy. About 40s. per
acre more, bestowed in deep ploughing or sub-
soiling, will make a strange difference in the
rapid growth and consequent early profit of the
plantation, and, moreover, save materially the
expense of the trees ; for the number of them
which perish in land thus prepared for their
reception is very small.

In a still greater degree are these good re-
sults obtained by the addition of say 20 cubic
yards per acre of marl, or clay, or a still less
quantity of chalk, according to the nature of the
soil, or lime, which may usually be procured
for an outlay of less than SOs. per acre ; or of

2 or 3 tons of well putrefied farm-yard manure,
a shovelful under each tree, in the manner I
have before described. Now, supposing that
even all these preparations of the soil are made,
the expense per acre will then, in many situa-
tions, stand as follows, —

' £ 8. d.

Ploughing deeply - - - - - -200

20 cubic yards of marl or clay, or 10 of chalk - 1 10 0

3 cubic yards ofdung, ut 65. - - - - 0 18 0
Trees, ploughing, &.c. - - - - -600

10 8~1

Subsoil ploughing will cost from 24s. to 30s.
per statute acre.

If the manure is omitted, as well as the earth
and the ploughing, the outlay of 5s. per acre in
lime, in the way I have noticed, will not be
without decided advantage. I am quite con-
vinced, therefore, that if all planters were to
confine their operations to a less extent of
land, and prepare and plant that ground well,
they would reap a much earlier and richer
harvest from the money expended than they
now do from a much greater extent of ill-
planted, exhausted soil. Such are the facts
which I have noticed, in my own practice
and that of others, as most necessary to be at-
tended to in rearing profitable, luxuriant planta-
tions of timber trees, on the poorest lands of
England; hardly any of whose soils, however,
are so barren or so elevated as not to be able
to produce, with only reasonable care and ex-
pense, an ample return for the capital of the
planter. It is a pursuit which is, in more re-
spects than one, worthy of the attention of the
landed proprietor, since he not only by his
plantations adds to the beauty and income of
his own estates, but at the same time yields to
the community at large great and important
services ; its barren wastes are made to pro-
duce timber and underwood, the soil is gradu-
ally rendered fertile, profitable supplies of la-
bour are afforded, its health is promoted, the
very climate by a general system of plantations
is ameliorated, for its bleak hills are clothed,
its stagnant swamps are drained.

There is an excellent paper "On collecting
and preparing the seeds of Forest Trees, the
mode of sowing them," &c., by Mr. Adam, and
other planters. {Trans. High. Soc. vol. iii. p. 329.)
He advises Scotish planters to collect the seed
of the white larch (Ptnus laiix) in November,
from trees of 20 to 40 years of age, at an ele-
vation not exceeding 400 feet; that the seed-
S03

bed should be manured with cow dung, well
mixed with the soil for some time previously to
sowing the seed, which should be in April and
May; the beds to be 42 inches in breadth, with
intervals of 18 inches. The seed should be
sown so that each square yard of ground may
produce 2000 plants, which in the first year
should reach to a height of 5 or 6 inches. One-
third of the plants may be drawn and pricked
out in rows at a distance of 10 inches, and the
remainder left for another year. The autumn,
Mr. Adams thinks, is the best time for forming
plantations.

The seed of the Scotd^fir (Pinus sylvestris)
is gathered in the same way, and, to separate
the seeds from the cones, it is necessary to
kiln-dry them; about 11 ^ quarters of cones
produce about 112 lbs. of seed. The Scotch
fir must stand 2 years in the seed-bed. Oaks
are to be sown early in February: the best
acorns are to be had in Kent, the brightest and
heaviest being the most valuable ; they keep
very well spread on a deal floor; and may be
placed in drills a foot apart, 2 inches deep, to
be planted out when 2 or 3 years old. Jsh keys
are gathered in December or January, and laid
in heaps mixed with one-third of their hulk of
sand under cover; they should be turned over
once or twice in the following year, and thus,
after resting for 12 or 14 months, are ready for
sowing in March, in drills a foot from each
other, and H inches deep. The seed of the
Scotch elm is ripe in June, and should be sown
soon after; that of the beech is gathered in
September, and sown in the following March
or April, in drills 1^ inches deep. The seeds
of the Spafiish chestnut are best procured from
S^ain : they may be sown in February, in drills
4 inches deep. The horse-chestnut seeds are to
be sown in October: those of the weeping birch
should be sown as soon as gathered, and co-
vered with earth half an inch deep. Those of
the lime should be gathered and sown ip Octo-
ber. Poplars are propagated by cuttir^s.

For a description of the advantages, of pre-
paring the land for plantations, I would advise
the young planter to consult the worjis of Mr.
Withers, the excellent Planter's Guide of Sir
Henry Steuart, and the Journal of the Royal
.Agricultural Society of England. And for those
who wish to plant in the most simple way at
an expense of only 10s. per acre, see a paper
by Mr. Grigor. (Trans. High. Soc. vol. iii. p. 363.)

By this mode, which consists ofmerely mak-
ing a hole, or raising the turf of the ground
suflSciently to put in the plants, the estimate is
for a Scotch acre (which is equal to 6150 square
yards) —

500 one-year transplanted larches -
1500 two-year seedling, do.
500 one-year transplanted Scotch firs
1000 two-year seedling, do.
Carriage of plants to the moor -
Expenses of planting 3,500

Total expense per Scotch acre

- 10 0

See Elk, Fir, FoBEST, Larch, Oak, Pine, &c.

PLANTING. In arbo iculture, the art of
forming plantations of trees. Also the art of
inserting plants in the soil by the spade, dibble,
trowel, or by other means in use in agriculture

PLANT-LICE.

PLASTER OP PARIS.

and gardening. As in the preceding article I
have gone very fully into the particulars of
planting trees, I shall only add in this place
the following useful table, showing the number
of plants required for one acre of land, from 1
foot to 21 feet distance from plant to plant.

Sulphuric acid
Lime -
Waler

Oisb

ace.

niiUiice.

Ft.

In,

Number.

Ft.

In.

Number.

1

0

43,560

8

6

_

602

6

19,360

9

0

-

538

2

0

10.890

9

6

-

482

2

6

6,960

10

0

.

436

3

0

4,810

11

0

.

361

3

6

3,556

12

0

_

302

4

0

2,722

13

0

.

258

4

6

2.15f

14

0

.

223

5

0

1,742

15

0

.

194

5

6

1,410

16

0

-

171

6

0

1.210

17

0

.

151

6

6

1,031

18

0

.

135

7

0

889

19

0

.

121

7

6

775

20

0

_

109

8

0

680

21

0

-

99

PLANT-LICE. See ApHiniAxs.

PLASHING. A mode of repairing or modi-
fying a hedge by bending down a portion of
the shoots, cutting them half through near the
ground, to render them more pliable, and twist-
ing them among the upright stems, so as to
render the whole effective as a fence, and at
the same time preserve all the branches alive.
For this purpose the branches to be plashed or
bent down must not be cut more than half
through, in order that a sufficient portion of
sap may rise up from the root to keep alive the
upper part of the branches. Where hedges
are properly formed and kept, they can very
seldom require to be plashed; but this mode
of treating a hedge is most valuable in the cases
of hedges abounding with hedge-row trees,
when from neglect, or from any other cause,
the hedge has become of irregular growth.
See HfinGEs.

PLASTER OF PARIS, or GYPSUM. One
of the common names of the sulphate of lime
or plaster stone, which is found abundantly
near Paris. When burnt and reduced to pow-
der, and then mixed with water, it forms a firm,
sonorous substance, admirably adapted for
forming models and casts.

Plaster of Paris or Gtpsum, as a Ma-
iruRE. It is useless to search in the works of
the early agricultural writers for any notice of
the employment of gypsum as a manure. It
is true that Virgil speaks of the value of a very
impure variety of it, when he is commending
the use of ashes to the Roman farmers. The
early inhabitants of Britain thus used it; the
farmers of Lombardy did the same ; but ages
elapsed before even chemists were able to dis-
tinguish this salt from limestone, or other cal-
careous matter. Its uses, in its simple state as
a manure, were first noticed, according to Kir-
wan, about the middle of the 18th century, by
a very able German clergyman, of the name of
Meyer, who tried with success various expe-
riments with a mineral substance found in his
neighbourhood, which was long afterwards
shown to be an impure sulphate of lime. The
name of plaster of Paris, by which this sub-
stance is commonly known, arose from its
abounding in the neighbourhood of that capi-
tal, where it was burnt into a powder, and
used as a stucco. The composition of sulphate
of lime, when pnre, is —
113

Partfc
43
33
24

100

But the gypsum of commerce is usually united
with a portion of silica and carbonate of lim^.
It is thus combined in its native state. Ac-
cording to Chaptal and Buchholz, gypsum con-
sists of —

Pirts.

Sulphuric acid - - - - 32 or 43

Lime - - - - - - 30 or 33

Water 38 or 24

There is, perhaps, no artificial manure so
decided in its eflects upon some soils, so readily
obtainable by the farmer, and so plentiful, a.%
gypsum. Its mode of action, too, is now easily
understood. It acts as a direct food for some
plants. There are five commonly cultivated
crops which contain gypsum in sensible pro-
portions, and to which, in consequence, it is a
direct food, viz., lucern, sanfoin, red clover,
rye-grass, and turnips. Now, these are pre-
cisely the crops to which the farmer finds, oa
most soils, gypsum to be a fertilizing top-
dressing. Wheat, barley, oats, beans, and
peas, do not contain a trace of this salt ; and
the farmer tells you that gypsum is of little or
no service to these crops, however the appli-
cation may be varied. That it does not ope-
rate by its attraction for atmospheric moisture,
I some time since determined by my own ex-
periments; for 1000 parts, previously dried,
when exposed to air saturated with moisture
for 3 hours, only gained 9 parts, while under
the same circumstances a good arable soil,
worth 2 guineas per acre, gained 14 parts;
and when compared with other manures, the
disproportion is still greater: thus soot gained
36 parts, and horse-dung 145 parts. That it is
not a promoter of putrefaction, I have ascer-
tained by mixing this salt with various animal
and vegetable substances ; it seemed, in every
case, rather to retard than promote the spon-
taneous decomposition of them all. The house-
wives consider hard water, which commonly
owes its properties to the presence of this salt,
to be a greater sweetener of tainted food than
soft water. Davy, also, in some experiments
with minced veal, thought that the addition of
the gypsum rather retarded putrefaction.

There is no reason to believe that the pro-
portion of sulphate of lime found in certain
plants is as essential to their growth as the
presence of the other earthy salts and pure
earths. Thus, those plants which yield this
salt never grow well on lands which do not
contain it; those in which carbonate of lime is
found never flourish in soils from which this
salt is absent. Plants which abound with ni-
trate of potash (saltpetre), such as the sun-

j flower and the nettle, always languish in soils
free from that salt ; but when watered with a

I weak solution of it, their growth is very mate-

j rially promoted, and the saltpetre is then found
in them, as shown, upon analysis, in very sen-

^ sible proportions. The same remarks apply
to the growth of those plants which contaia

' common salt, or phosphate of lime ; the eflect

1 is the same, the result invariable.

897

PLASTER OF PARIS.

Liebig contends that the nature of gypsum
consists in its giving a fixed constitution to
the nitrogen, or ammonia, which is brought
into the soil, and is indispensable for the nutri-
tion of plants. He says, that 100 lbs. of gyp-
sum give as much ammonia as 6250 lbs. of
horses' urine would yield it : 4 lbs. of gypsum,
he affirms, increase the produce of the mea-
dow 100 lbs. The decomposition of gypsum
is slow, which, he says, explains the reason
why the action of gypsum lasts for several
years. See Ammonia.

I have noticed, in applying gypsum to
grasses, that the weather, at the time of
spreading it, has a very material influence
upon the result of the experiment. Its effects
are never soon apparent when it is sown in
dry weather; but if the season is damp, so that
the white powdered gypsum adheres to the
leaves and stalks of the young grass, the good
effect is then immediate. This observation
was made many years since by Arthur Young,
by Mr. Smith, and by the American farmers :
it is a well-known fact with the sainfoin grow-
ers, of the Berkshire and Hampshire chalk
formation ; the clover cultivators of the gravels
and loams of Surrey and Kent; and on the lu-
cern grounds of the alluvial soils of Essex and
Middlesex. The farmers of the United States,
when dressing their clover or turnips with
gypsum, always found it answer best when
spread in rainy weather.

The result of the analysis of the clover and
sainfoin grasses shows that an ordinary crop
of these usually contains from 1^ to 2 cwt. per
acre of sulphate of lime. Now, this is pre-
cisely the proportion of gypsum which the best
cultivators find to be attended with the maxi-
mum benefit; those of Kent and Hampshire
find it useless to apply more ; but then they
all agree that the annual repetition of the
dressing, as long as the grass is suffered to re-
main on the ground, is attended with renewed
benefit. It is here again that the experiments
of the chemist and the farmer mutually con-
firm and illustrate each other; the very quan-
tity of sulphate of lime which the first shows
to be carried off the land in the clover, is pre-
cisely that which the latter returns to it in his
dressings with gypsum.

One of the chief reasons why gypsum has
not been universally employed by all cultiva-
tors of the artificial grasses, arises perhaps
from the fact that many good soils naturally
contain sulphate of lime in sufficient abun-
dance for the service of the plant; and, in con-
sequence, to such lands the application of gyp-
sum is useless — it is an attempt to supply a
deficiency which doe not exist. I have inva-
riably found in those soils to which gypsum is
not a manure an abundance of this salt. It is
not, however, necessary for the farmer to have
his soil analyzed to determine the probable ad-
vantages of applying gypsum to his clover and
other grasses; there are several easy observa-
tions which will readily indicate to him the
nature of the case. Thus, when he finds that
those fields which once produced luxuriant
crops of red clover or sainfoin will no longer
yield them in abundance ; if he notices that the
young plants spring up very numerously, but
898

PLASTER OF PARIS.

die away as the summer advances ; if he finds,
that his fields will only grow clover success-
fully once in 8 or 12 years, and that his neigh-
bours tell him his land is tired of clover, or " clo-
ver-sick ;" if he notices that even the application
of farm-yard compost hardly adds to the luxu-
riance of his grasses ; he may then safely con-
clude that his crops have gradually exhausted
his land of sulphate of lime ; and he may, with
every confidence of success, apply a dressing
of gypsum, at the rate of 2 cwt. per acre, taking
care to choose a wet morning for the applica-
tiojj ; and this may be done at any season of
the year, but it is best either in April or the
first days of May. These facts I can attest
from the results of my own observations and
experience. In an old grass paddock, of about
70 acres, in the vale of Kennett, in Berkshire,
the grass had for many years gradually be-
come less and less productive, and this in spite
of all kinds of applications ; the earths (such
as clay and chalk), farm-}'ard compost, &c.,
had been liberally and repeatedly spread, with-
out producing any thing like a luxuriant crop:
but it was found at last that the peat ashes of
the banks of the Kennett, when spread at the
rate of about 40 bushels per acre, produced the
very best results, an excellent crop, both in
weight and in colour; certainly more than a
ton of hay per acre beyond what the soil yield-
ed before. The fact was now evident that it
was gypsum that the soil needed; for as these
peat ashes contain about 12^ per cent, of sul-
phate of lime, more than 2 cwt. of gypsum was
conveyed into the land in them ; it constitutes,
in fact, by far the chief fertilizing ingredient
in these peat ashes, the remainder being about
40 per cent, of sand, and the rest chalk, red
oxide of iron, and a small quantity of common
salt.

If this conclusion, therefore, was correct, as
to the gypsum being the only valuable portion
of the peat ashes, it was certain that an appli-
cation of 2 cwt. per acre of gypsum to the same
land would produce similar beneficial results;
and, upon a trial, it was found that benefits
fully equal to any yielded by the application
of the peat ashes resulted. 2 cwt. per acre of
gypsum, in fine powder, was spread on a por-
tion of the grass with the most excellent effect:
the grass not only grew with greatly increased
vigour, but a quantity of white clover and
other grasses made their appearance on the
portion dressed, in so marked a manner as to
attract the attention of the tenant to the fact.
The soil on which these experiments were tried
consists of —

I Part..

Oreanic matter, chiefly vegetable - - 3-5

Soluble matters - - - « _ 3-

Carbonate of lime and magnesia - - 19*

Oxide of iron- - - - - . 275

Alumina ---_•- 8-5

Sand and gravel ----- 62-

98-75

This is about 10 inches deep, and it rests on a
thin stratum of gravel and thin chalk.

There is another fact which clearly sup-
ports these conclusions, viz., the great use of
common coal-ashes as a top-dressing to clover,
sanfoin, and lucern ; there is no manure uni-

PLASTER FOR TREES.

PLOUGH.

vcrsally in the possession of the farmer, in
fact, equal to them for immediate effect upon
those grasses. Now, coal-ashes usually con-
tain about 10 per cent, of sulphate of lime;
and, therefore, a dressing with 50 bushels of
coal-ashes per acre is equal to an application
of about 5 bushels of gypsum ; the remaining
portion of the ashes consists principally of
about 10 per cent, of lime and sand, and a
small portion of red oxide of iron and alumina :
so that the gypsum is here again evidently the
active ingredient — the other constituent parts
being nearly inert substances. My own ex-
periments and observations have been con-
firmed by many others within the last two
years, for gypsum is evidently creeping gra-
dually into use as a manure for the grasses.

In England, the expense of the application
of the gypsum is about 7s. per acre ; this sub-
stance being usually sold in London for about
2/. 10s, per ton — at Reading and Southampton
at Is. 9d. per bushel. Th the midland counties
it may be had at a still more reasonable rate ;
thus, in Derbyshire, it is so plentiful that the
farmers' cheese-room floors are commonly
formed with it; it abounds, too, in the north
of England. The comparative produce of the
gypsumed over not-gypsumed land is very
great ; it of course varies in amount. I have
seen it double the produce of clover hay, and
give an equally copious crop of lucern ; but
this last I invariably cut green for soiling.

Mr. Smith, of Highstead, found still greater
benefit from the use of gypsum to his clover
leys; for where the simple soil produced 1 ton
only per acre of hay, the portion of the same
soil U> which 5 bushels per acre of gypsum
had been applied yielded 3 tons; the first yield-
ing only 20 lbs. of seed, while the latter pro-
duced 105 lbs. Mr. Smith, too, first noticed —
what my own observations have confirmed —
that cattle, horses, &c., always prefer the grass
growing on the gypsumed portion of the field
to any other. The same remark is made by
those who spread coal-ashes on their grass
leys: the peat-ashes of Berkshire produce the
same effect.

The general introduction, then, of gypsum,
as a top-dressing for the artificial grasses which
I have mentioned, is certainly an object of no
mean interest to the farmer, especially if he cul-
tivates the poor inland soils of England, where
artificial manures are scarce, and the carriage
of even the most portable is expensive ; for
gypsum possesses, in this respect, two advan-
tages combined, which do not belong to any
other, even of the saline manures : its first cost
is trilling, and its carriage light, since a wagon
will convey suflicient gypsum to dress 30 acres
of grass.

PLASTER FOR TREES. See Caxketi.

PLASTIC CLAY. Clay used in the manu-
facture of pottery.

PLATYPHYLLUM CONCAVUM, or
KATY-DID. A kind of grasshopper found in
the United Slates. Dr. Harris, who was the
first to give a scientific description, has called
it Platyphyllum concavum. The front of its head
is obtuse, body of a pale-green colour, the
wing-covers and wings being somewhat darker.
Its thorax is rough like shagreen. The musi-

cal organs of the male consist of a pair of
taborets, formed by a thin, transparent mem-
brane, stretched in a strong half-oval frame in
the triangular overlapping portion of each
wing-cover. During the daytime these insects
are silent, and conceal themselves among the
leaves of trees; but at night, they quit their
lurking-places, and the joyous males begin the
tell-tale call with which they enliven their silent
mates. This proceeds from the friction of the
taboret frames against each other when the
wing-covers are opened and shut, and consists
of two or three distinct notes, almost exactly
resembling articulated sounds, and correspond-
ing with the number of times that the wing-
covers are opened and shut; and the notes are
repeated, at intervals of a few minutes, for
hours together. The mechanism of the tabo-
rets, and the concavity of the wing-covers, re-
verberate and increase the sound to such a de-
gree, that it may be heard, in the stillness of
the night, at the distance of a quarter of a
mile. At the approach of twilight the katy-
did mounts to the upper branches of the tree
in which he lives, and, as soon as the shades
of evening prevail, begins his noisy babble,
while rival notes issue from the neighbouring
trees, and the groves resound with the call of
" katy did, she did," the live-long nighu From
the head to the end of the wing-covers, this
insect measures rather more than 1^ inch, the
body alone being 1 inch in length. The piercer
is broad, laterally compressed, and curved likw^"*
acimeter; and there are, in both sexes, two
little thorn-like projections from the middle of
the breast between the fore-legs. It is found
in the perfect state during the months of Sep-
tember and October. (Harris.)

PLEASURE-GROUND. That portion of
ground adjoining a dwelling-house in the
country; and which is exclusively devoted to
ornamental and recreative purposes. In the
ancient style of gardening, the pleasure-ground
was laid out in straight walks, and regular or
symmetrical forms, commonly borrowed from
architecture ; but in the modern style, it is laid
out in winding walks, and in forms borrowed,
direct from nature. A portion of lawn or
smooth grassy surface may be considered as
essential to the pleasure-ground under both
styles. See Gardenixo, Lawk, and Pabtebke.

PLOUGH. (Sax. Plou,- Dan. Ploegh.) A
well-known, perhaps the most ancient, cer-
tainly the most valuable of all agricultural im-
plements. There are traces of it in even the
earliest of all written authorities, and, judging
of its importance in agriculture, we can hardly
imagine it possijble to carry on extensive sys-
tems of cultivation in any period or country
without its assistance. By consulting the sa- ^
cred records, we find, that in very early times ♦
they ploughed with two oxen (Deut. xxii. 10), '
that their plough had a coulter and plough-
share (1 Sam. xiii. 20), and that they were
early aware of the advantages of a winter's
fallow (Prov. XX. 4). It is certain that their
ploughs were long since furnished with wheels ;
a fact which is proved by the drawings of the
early Greek ploughs which have escaped to us.

Hesiod (Works andDays,p. 50 — 441) advised
the Greek farmers to have a spare plough, that

899

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH,

an accident might not interrupt the work; and
he also enforces the advantages of careful and
skilful ploughing.

The ploughs of Rome were of the most sim-
ple form, as may be inferred from ancient
drawings. See Agkicultuiie.

Rivalling these in simplicity and rudeness
of form, are the never altered or improved
ploughs of the Hindoos and the Chinese, from
whose implements it is probable the shape of
those of Rome was borrowed.

The object sought to be etfected by means of
the plough, is exactly ihe same as that accom-
plished in the primitive ages by the spade.
The addition of catile to force the plough in
the operation of breaking up the ground, leads
to complexity. But although the spade is an
implement of such great simplicity, the act of
digging with it exacts a great deal of indivi-
dual exertion, almost every muscle of the body
being called into play in alternately pushing
and lifting. In this respect the modern im-
proved plough possesses great advantages in
being propelled by animals and directed with
very little individual muscular exertion.

It is curious to trace the progress of plough-
making in England. Those of the early culti-
* vators were of necessity rude and imperfect,
for in those days the ploughman made his own
plough. A law of the early Britons in fact
directed that no one should guide a plough until
he was able to make one. The driver was, by
the same law, to make the traces by which it
was drawn, and these were to be formed of
withes of twisted willow ; a long-exploded cus-
tom ; many of the olden terms of which, how-
ever, are still retained by the rustic plough-
men. Thus the womb-withy is yet called the
wambtye or wantye. IVithen trees are denomi-
nated tvilten trees, or Whipple trees, &c.

It is uncertain whether the early British
ploughs had wheels ; some of those of the
Saxons were certainly furnished with them.
Yet it is pretty certain that they used ploughs
of a form rivalling those of modern India in
simplicity ; a rude sketch of one of these is
given in a Saxon MS. {Harl MS. 603), from
which it would seem that our Saxon forefathers
were wont to fasten their horses to the plough
by their tails ; a barbarous custom, which cer-
tainly was formerly practised in Ireland to such
an extent that the legislature interfered in 1634,
and declared by the 11 «fe 12 Car. IL c. 15 (Irish
Pari.), entitled "An act against ploughing by
the Tayle, and pulling the Wool off living
Sheep," that "in many places of this kingdome
there hath been a long time used a barbarous
^ custome of ploughing, harrowing, drawing,
and working with horses, mares, geldings, gar-
rans, and colts by the taile, whereby (besides
the cruelty used to the beasts) the breed of
horses is much impaired in this kingdome.
And also divers have and yet do use the like
barbarous custome of pulling off the wool
yearly from living sheep, instead of clipping
or shearing of them." These wretched prac-
tices are then declared illegal, and to be pun-
ishable with fine and imprisonment.

The Norman plough was also furnished with
wheels, and it was usual for the ploughmen to
carry a hatchet to break the clods, as is de-
900

picted in an ancient picture from whence the
sketch at page 41 is engraved.

It is pretty certain that the ox was at first,
and for a lengthened period, the only animal
employed to draw the plough. Thus, although
the plough and oxen are so frequently men-
tioned in conjunction in the Bible, the horse is
never alluded to for such an occupation: aa
old British law forbade the use of any animal
except the ox for this purpose. The first re-
presentation, of which I am aware, observes
Mr. J. A. Ransome, of a horse employed in the
plough, is that given (A. D. 1066) in the tapes-
try of Bayeux.

There are evident traces in the early English
agricultural authors of the importance which
they ascribed to the improved construction of
the plough. This implement, however, was
long drawn entirely by oxen in Britain.

Fitzherbert, in his Boke of Husbandrye (1532),
speaks in a manner that shows that even in his
day plough-horses were not generally employed ;
he observes, " a husbande may not be without
horses and mares, and especially if he goe with
a horse-plough." Worlidge, in his Mystery of
Husbandry, describes (A.D. 1677) very clearly
the first rude attempt to construct a sub-soil
plough: he tells us, p. 230, "of an ingenious
young man of Kent, who had two ploughs fas-
tened together very firmly, by the which he
ploughed two furrows at once, one under
another, and so stirred up the land 12 or 14
inches deep. It only looseneth and lighteneth
the land to that depth, but doth not bury the
upper crust of the ground so deep as is usually
done by digging." When Heresbasch wrote
(1570), it was not uncommon in some of the
warmer parts of Germany and Italy to plough
during the night, " that the moisture and fattness
of the ground may remain shadowed under the
clodde, and that the caltell through overmuch
heate of the sunne be not diseased or hurt."
(31 b.) Jethro Tull, more than a century since,
paid considerable attention to the plough ; he
had even searched into the early history of this
implement, and concluded that it was "found
out by accident, and that the first tillers (or
ploughers) of the ground were hogs." {Hush.
p. 131.) The ploughs which he describes, and
of which he gives drawings, were evidently
(although rudely and heavily constructed) su-
perior in several respects to all that had pre-
ceded them.

It is not necessary to do more than thus
slightly advert to the various notices which are
to be found in the early histories and pictures
of this invaluable implement; for, in fact, for
ages the plough was little more than a rude,
clumsy instrument, which served only to rake
the surface, instead of making furrows in the
land sufficiently deep for the seeds to be buried.
It was not brought to any thing like a perfect
tool for the purposes required till the close of
seventeenth century.

The plough, being the fundamental imple-
ment of agriculture, common to all ages and
countries, its primitive form is almost every-
where the same. The forms used by the Greeks
and Romans (see Agriculturk) seem to have
spread over Europe, and undergone no change
till probably about the sixteenth century, when

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

they began to be improved by the Dutch and
Flemish. In the seventeenth century the plough
underw^ent further improvement in England;
and it was greatly improved in that following,
in Scotland. There are now a great variety of
excellent forms, the best of which, for general
purposes, is, in Britain, universally allowed to
be what is called the Scotch plough, and in
Scotland the improved Scotch plough. In speak-
ing of the implement we shall adopt the latter
term, because the unimproved Scotch plough
differs little from some old forms of the imple-
ment common to Europe from the time of the
Romans. As the operation of ploughing, like
many other operations in practical husbandry,
must often vary in the manner of its being
performed, it is evident that no one particular
sort of plctugh can be superior to all others, in
every season, and under every variety of soil
or inclination of surface. The Scotch plough,
however, and the variations of which it is
susceptible, render it perhaps the most uni-
versal tillage implement hitherto invented or
used.

In Britain ploughs are classed into two kinds :
those fitted up with wheels, and called wheel-
ploughs ; and those without wheels, called
swing ploughs. The latter arc the lightest of
draught, but require an experienced and atten-
tive ploughman to use them ; the former work
with greater steadiness, and require much less
skill in the manager : some sorts, indeed, do
not require holding at all, excepting at entering
in, and turning on and off the work at the ends
of the ridges. On the whole, taking ploughmen
as they are, and ploughs as they are generally
constructed, it will be found, that a district
ploughed with wheel-ploughs will show greater
neatness of work than one ploughed with
swing ploughs : but, on the other hand, taking
a district where the improved form of swing
ploughs is generally adopted, the ploughmen
will be found superior workmen, and the work
performed in a better manner, and with less
expense of labour, than in the case of wheel-
ploughs.

In the constraction of ploughs, whatever be
the sort used, there are a few general principles
that ought invariably to be attended to ; such
as the giving the throat and breast, or that part
which enters, perforates, and breaks up the
ground, that sort of long, narrow, clean, taper-
ing, sharpened form that affords the least re-
sistance in passing through the land ; and to
the mould-board, that kind of hollowed-out and
twisted form, which not only tends to lessen
friction, but also to contribute greatly to the
perfect turning over of the furrow-slice. The
beam and muzzle should likewise be so con-
trived, as that the moving power, or team, may
be attached in the most advantageous line of
draught. This is particularly necessary where
a number of animals are employed together,
in order that the draught of ^the whole may
coincide.

Land, when properly ploughed, must be re-
moved from a horizontal position, and twisted
over to a certain angle, so that it may be left
in that inclining state, one furrow leaning upon
another, till the whole field be completely
ploughed. The depth and width of the furrows

which is most approved of by farmers, and
commonly to be met with in the best-ploughed
fields, are in the proportion of 2 to 3; or, if the
furrow be 2 deep, it must be 3 wide, and left at
an angle of 45 to 46 degrees.

Various forms have been given to the diflfer-
ent parts of the plough, by ingenious persons,
according to their ditferent fancies, in order to
diminish the weight of the draught, and to turn
over the furrow, and leave it in its proper posi-
tion, without tearing or breaking it.

To have the line of draught at right angles
to the horses' shoulders is of great importance
in the formation of a plough ; a circumstance
of which the greatest part of the plough-makers
are totally ignorant, although it is well known
to every one that has the least knowledge of
mechanics. If we take the angle that the
horses' shoulders make with a perpendicular
from the horizon, and continue another line at
right angles to it, or parallel to the draught
chain ; the length of this line from the horses*
shoulders to where it meets or crosses the
coulter, at half the depth of the furrow, will be
13 feet 2 inches for ordinary sized horses.

Length of beam. — If the plough be properly
made, the line of draught should pass through
the middle hole of the plough bridle at the point
of the beam. This requires the beam to be 7
feet long, to give it a proper height at the
bridle.

Left side plane. — That part of the plough
next the solid land should be made a perfect
plane, and run parallel to the line of draught;
whereas some of the common ploughs are
completely twisted in that part, and deviate
more than 2 inches from the line of draught;
this throws the plough to the left, and causes
the hinder part of the mould-board to press
hard against the furrow, and crush and break
it, besides increasing the labour of the cattle.

The position of the coulter must not deviate
much from an angle of 45 degrees : for, if we
make it more oblique, it causes the plough to
choke up with stubble and grass roots, by
throwing them up against the beam; and, if ,
less oblique, it is apt to drive the stones or
other obstacles before it, and make it heavier
to draw.

The mould-board, for all free soils, and for
working fallows, is generally most effective
when it has a considerable concavity; but for
breaking up clover leys, pasture, or any firm
surface, and also for clayey soils, it is found to
clean itself better and make neater work when
it approaches nearer to a plane, and in very
stiff" clays, is formed with a concave surface.
The lower edge of the mould-board, on the
most improved forms, is in a separate piece,
which, when it wears, can be taken off and
renewed. The technical name of this slip of
iron is the wearing-piece.

The materidls with which ploughs are con-
structed is, generally, wood for the beam and
handles, cast iron for the head, side-plates,
mould-board, and sole, and wrought iron for the
share, coulter, and muzzle. But of late years,
in consequence of the dearness of timber, and.
the cheapness of iron in Britain, they have
been constructed wholly of the latter material,
and with considerable advantage in point of
4G 901

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

strength and durability, and some also in point
of convenience. Among the conveniences may
be mentioned, the facility which they afford of
bending the left handle to the right of the
straight line first introduced by Mr. Wilkie
of Uddingston (who, if not the inventor,
may certainly be considered the greatest im-
prover of iron ploughs,) by which means the
ploughman is permitted to walk with ease in
the bottom of the furrow. The stilts or handles
may also be joined to the body of the plough,
in such a way as to admit of taking off and
packing for a foreign country, or raising or
lowering the points of the handles according
to the size of the ploughman, as in Weather-
ley's plough.

A wooden Scotch plough with irbn mount-
ings, says Mr. Stephens, usually weighs 13
stones imperial, and an iron one for the same
work 15 stones. The cost of a wooden one is
3/. 16s., capable of being serviceable, with
repairs, for the currency of a lease of 19 years ;
that of an iron one 4/. 4s., which will last a
lifetime, or at least many years. Some farm-
ers, however, still prefer the wooden one, al-
ledging that it goes more steadily than the iron.
Whatever of prejudice there may be in this
predilection for the wooden plough, it must be
owned that the iron one executes its work in a
satisfactory manner. There is, I believe, no
great difference of economy in the use of the
two kinds of ploughs. (Slepkens.)

Of swing plmtghs, says Loudon, by far the
best is the implement known in England as the
Scotch plough. It is almost the only plough used
in Scotland, and throughout a considerable
part of England; it is drawn with less power
than wheel-ploughs, at least, those of the old
construction, the friction not being so great;
and it probably admits of greater variations in
regard to the breadth and depth of the furrow-
slice. It is usually drawn by two horses abreast
in common tillage; but for ploughing between
the rows of the drill culture, a smaller one
drawn by one horse is commonly employed.
A plough of the swing kind, having a mould-
board on each side, is also used both in form-
ing narrow ridges for turnips and potatoes, and
in laying up the earth to the roots of the plants,
after the intervals have been cleaned and pul-
verized by the horse and hand-hoe. This
plough is sometimes made in such a manner
that the mould-board may be shifted from one
side to the other when working on hilly
grounds ; by which means the furrows are all
laid in the same direction.

Siving ploughs, similar to the Scotch plough, have
been long known in England. In Blythe's Im-
prover Improved we have engravings of several
ploughs ; and what he calls the "plain plough"
does not seem to differ much in its principal
parts from the one now in use. Amos, in an
Essay on ^Agricultural Machines, says, that a per-
son named Lummis (whom he is mistaken in
calling a Scotchman) " first attempted its con-
struction upon mathematical principles, which
he learned in Holland ; but having obtained a
patent for the making and vending of this
plough, he withheld the knowledge of these
principles from the public. However, one
Pashlev, plough-wright to Sir Charles Turner
'902

of Kirkleathem, having a knowledge of those
principles, constructed upon them a vast num-
ber of ploughs. Afterwards his son establish-
ed a manufactory for the making of them at
Rotherham. Hence they obtained the name
of the Rotherham plough ; but in Scotland they
were called the Dutch or patent plough." Plate
17,a, represents a Rotherham plough constructed
chiefly of wood. The Americans have claimed
the priority of the invention ; and President
Jefferson, of the United States, presented the
principles for the construction of a mould-
board, first to the Institute of France, and next
to the Board of Agriculture in England.

The Scotch plough was little known in Scot-
land till about the year 1764, when Small's
method of constructing it began to excite at-
tention (Small^s Treatise on Ploughs and Wheel
Carriages, 1784; and Lord Knimes's Gentleman
Farmer). This ingenious mechanic formed
the mould-board upon distinct and intelligible
principles, and afterwards made it of cast iron.
His appendage of a chain has been since laid
aside. It has been disputed, whether he took
the Rotherham, or the old Scotch plough, for
the basis of his improvements. The swing
plough has been since varied a little, in some
parts of Scotland, from Small's form, for the
purpose of adapting it more completely to parti-
cular situations and circumstances. Since 1810,
this plough has been very generally made en-
tirely of iron. In Northumberland, the mould-
board is made less concave than in Berwick-
shire, and in Berwickshire it is even less con-
cave than in Small's plough. Different degrees
of concavity in the mould-board suit different
soils : soft and sandy soil requires most, and a
loamy or clayey soil least concavity. The
following are the principal varieties of the
improved Scotch plough at present in use in
the most improved districts of the north, and
among scientific farmers in all countries.

SmalVs plough. — The mould-board is more
concave than in most other varieties, and this
may be considered its characteristic as com-
pared with these varieties. It is sometimes
drawn by a chain proceeding from the muzzle
to the head, in order to lessen the strain on the
draught-beam, and in that case it is called Small's
chain-plough. It is commonly made of wood and
iron. PI. 17, b. For a design of the East Lo-
thian plough, or Small's improved, see PI. 17,
c, d, the figures representing two views.

In this plough the proper lines of the body
on the land-side lie all in one plane, which, in
working, should be held in the vertical position,
or very slightly inclining to the left. The
coulter slightly oblique to the land-side plane,
the point standing towards the left, the rake
of the coulter varies from 55° to 65°. In the
mould-board the vertical sectional lines ap-
proximate to straight lines, giving the charac-
ter of apparent concavity, and it is truncated
forward. Shai^ pointed, with a feather or
cutter standing to the right, having a breadth
of at least ^ the breadth of the furrow, the
cutting edge of the feather lying nearly as low
as the plane of the sole. The neck of the
share is prolonged backward, joining and co-
inciding with the curve of the mould-board,
which curvature is also carried forward on the

Plate //

I^^XGLISH and SCOTCH Pl.OTUHS

M<T>,^al. Lith.l'hilf

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

"back of the feather. The character of this
plough is to take a furrow of 10 inches in
breadth by 7 inches in depth, cut rectangular,
leaving the sole of the open furrow lev^el and
clean. The resistance to the draught is gene-
rally below the average of ploughs, and this
plough is employed for every kind of soil.
The improved English swing plough, as made
by Ransom, is represented in PI. 17, e.

The Northumberland plous^h, and the Benvirk-
shire plough, are very nearly the same imple-
ment, differing from Small's plough in having
the mould-board less concave.

Wllkie^s swing plough, which Loudon says is
the best iron swing plough in Scotland, is
formed entirely of iron, except the points of the
handles. Its characteristic, in point of form,
is a longer mould-board with a greater twist
in it, the object of which is to reverse the fur-
row more completely in light or highly pul-
verized soils.

Finlaysun's iron ploughs are, as he informs us
(British Fanner, p. 9), constructed in imitation
of those of Wilif ie, but with improvements and
modifications adapted for particular circum-
stances.

The heath or self-cleaning plough, or rid plough,
is formed with the beam so curved vertically,
or divided and curved horizontally, as to leave
no resting-place for stubble, heath, or other ve-
getable matter, at the top of the coulter, where
in rough grounds, with ploughs of the ordinary
construction, it gets entangled and stops the
work.

Finlayson's Kentish skeleton self-cleaning plough
(PI. 17,/) is intended as a substitute for the
"common Kentish turn-wrest plough. "The
soil, in great part of Kent, is of a peculiarly
adhesive clay. When this soil is between the
\ret and dry, it adheres to the body of the
plough like glue, by which the draught is in-
creased probably double or treble." By sub-
stituting 3 or 4 iron rods for the mould-board,
the soil is prevented from adhering, while the
operation of ploughing is at the same time
performed in an equally perfect manner with
two horses as with four. This is accounted
for " by the whole surface of this plough not
being more than one-third or one-fourth the
surface of other ploughs." In like manner,
when it is necessary to dig or trench very
strong clayey soil brtween the wet and the dry,
the operation is performed with much greater
ease by a two-pronged fork. It is important to
agriculturists to know the opinion and expe-
rience of a man of so much science and ex-
tensive practice as the late Mr. Finlayson, who
says, "from my own experience I have no he-
sitation in saying that the most adhesive land
may, with ease, be ploughed by the skeleton
plough and one pair of good horses."

Fitilaysoii's line plough is characterized by a
rod which proceeds from the sheath of the
plough to the muzzle, which is put on when
the plough is drawn by horses in a line — a very
disadvantageous manner, but yet common in
many parts of England.

The Sinnerville sicing plough is known by its
mould-board, a part of which is rendered mo-
vable by hinges; the advantage of this is, that
the furrow can be laid more or less flat at

' pleasure. This plough, however, has been but
little used, and does not seem to meet the ap-
probation of the best cultivators.

Turn-wrest swing ploughs are such as admit
of removing the mould-board from one side to
another at the end of each furrow, for the pur-
pose of throwing the earth removed always to
one side. Their principal use is in ploughing
I across steep declivities, in order that the
furrow-slice may always be thrown down.
i Wherever it is practicable, however, it is best
to plough obliquely up and down such decli-
vities ; because the other practice soon renders
the soil too rich and deep at bottom, and too
thin and poor at top.

Gruy^s turn-wrest stving plough is one of the
most scientific implements of the kind. The
beam, head, and sheath, must always be placed
in the direction of a line passing along their
middle; and the two handles must be placed
equidistant on each side of that line. There
are two mould-boards and two coulters, and a
mould-board is produced on either side, at
pleasure, by moving a lever between the
plough handles from the one side to the other.
The line of draught can be shifted with equal
ease and expedition, and at the same time one
of the coulters raised up clear of the land, and
placed along the side of the beam, whilst the
other is put down, and placed in a proper po-
sition for cutting off the furrow-slice from the
furrow-ground. All this is performed at once,
without the ploughman changing his position,
by means of two levers.

jj skim-coul-er (PI. 17, m, «j) may be added
to any plough, and may be useful in turning
down green crops and long dung, as well as in
trench ploughing. But in most instances it is
thought a preferable plan, where the soil is to
be turned to an unusual depth, to make two
common swing ploughs follow each other in
the same track; the one before taking a shal-
low furrow, and the other going deeper, and
throwing up a new furrow upon the former.

The double share plough is distinguished by
having one share fixed directly over the other.
It is made use of in some of the southern dis-
tricts of England with advantage, in putting in
one crop immediately after ploughing down
another; as by it a narrow, shallow furrow is
removed from the surface, and another from
below placed upon it, to such depth as may be
thought most proper, — it being capable of act-
ing to 10 inches or more. In this manner
many sorts of crops, such as rye and other
green crops that have much height of stem,
may be turned down without the inconvenience
of any of the parts sticking out through the
seams of the furrow-slices, by which the farmer
has a clean surface of mould for the reception
of the grain.

The mining plough, or trenching plough, is some-
times employed for the purpose of loosening
the soil to a great depth, without bringing it up
to the surface ; a mode of operation which is
particularly useful for various sorts of tap-
rooted plants, as well as for extirpating the
roots of such weeds as strike deep into the
1 ground. For these purposes it may be em-
I ployed in the bottom of the furrow after the
1 common plough. It is constructed in a very

903

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

strong manner, having a share, but no mould-
board. The share raises the earth in the
bottom of the furrow, and, passing on under
what it has raised, leaves the soil where it was
found, but in a loosened state. See Subsoii.
Plough.

Somerville^s double-furrow plough is obviously
advantageous in performing more labour in a
given time, with a certain strength of team,
than other sorts of ploughs, as producing two
furrows at a time. It has been found useful
on the lighter sorts of land, where the ridges
are straight and wide, though some think it
more confined in its work than those of the
single kind. The saving of the labour of one
person, and doing nearly double the work with
but little more strength in the team, in the same
time, recommend it for those districts where
four-horse teams are in use. This plough has
been brought to its present degree of perfection
by Lord Somerville, especially by the introduc-
tion of movable plates at the extremities of
the mould-board, as in his lordship's single
plough. But, as observed by an excellent au-
thority, " with all the improvements made by
Lord Somerville, it can never come into com-
petition, for general purposes, with the present
single-furrow ploughs." Lord Somerville ad-
mits, that it would be no object to invade the
system already established in well-cultivated
counties ; though, where large teams are em-
ployed, with a driver besides the ploughman, it
would certainly be a matter of importance to
use this plough, at least on light, friable soils.
"Their horses," he says, "will not feel the
difference between their own single furrow,
working one acre, and the w£ll-constructed
two-furrow plough, with two acres per day ;
here is no system deranged, and double work
done." This plough is also of particular va-
lue for ploughing up and down steeps.

The Jrgyleshire plough differs from Small's, or
any single swing plough, in having no coulter
fixed in the beam, but, in lieu of this, a fin or
knife rising from the left side of the share,
•which serves the purpose of slicing off" the
furrow as well as a coulter. This fin or fea-
ther must be placed at the same angle as the
coulter, and should terminate in a lance-like
shape, in order to furnish the least obstruction
to stubble, weeds, or stones. This plough is
not liable to be choked by stubble, or thrown
out by catching small stones between the
points of the coulter and sock. In point of
draught it is precisely the same as the common
plough.

The double mould-board plough is a kind of
plough often used with advantage in clearing
out furrows, in setting potatoes, cabbages, and
other similar crops, and in earthing up such
as are planted in wide rows. Those whose
mould-boards move on hinges, and may be set
wide or narrow at pleasure, are the most con-
venient. A variety of this plough, made by
"Weir of London, admits of removing the mould-
boards, and fixing in curved coulters and hoes,
for cleaning between drilled turnips and similar
crops.

The binot is almost the same thing as the
double mould-board plough, and the one is
commonly sold for the other, with no loss to the
904

purchaser. It has two mould-boards, one on
each side of the beam. It is used in some soils
in forming a ribbed or ridged bed for wheat or
other grains; by which means, when the graia
is sown over the ribs or ridgelets in the broad-
cast manner, as it falls for the most part into
the furrows, or is harrowed into them, it comes
up in rows. It is also used in earthing up
crops ; and sometimes in Flanders, but never
by the best cultivators in England, in giving
the first furrow to stubbles.

The marking plough is used in straightening
and regulating the distance of ridges where the
drill system is practised. Any plough with a
rod fixed at right angles to the beam, and a
short piece depending from this rod, will trace
a line parallel to the furrow drawn by the
plough, which line will serve for a guide as to
the width of ridges, &c.

Clymer's plough is a recent modification of
the implement, formed entirely of iron, and
chiefly remarkable for the absence of the coul-
ter, or rather its attachment to the breast, and
for the share, mould-board, and other parts
which move under ground, being composed of
distinct pieces of cast-iron. This is considered
as cheaper to commence with and easier to
repair, because any one part may be renewed
of the same material without deranging the
rest ; whereas renewing or repairing wrought-
iron shares, mould-boards, or coulters, is found
in many districts both diflScult and expensive.
It has never come into use in England.

Siothnrdh plough is characterized by a per-
forated mould-board. The holes may be in any
form or dimensions ; and their object is to al-
low the air to pass through, and thereby pre-
vent the adhesion of wet earth, which it is
contended adheres in ordinary ploughs with
such a degree of tenacity as greatly to increase
the friction, and diminish the speed of the
horses.

Morton's trenching plough has two bodies, the
one working 4 or 6 inches deeper than the other.
The first cuts or pares off" the surface to the
required depth, say 5 inches, and turns it over
into the furrow, 10 or 12 inches deep, made by
the main body. The second body generally
works from 10 to 12 inches deep, but might be
made to work to the depth of 13 or 15 inches ;
upon its mould-board is formed an inclined
plane, extending from the back part of the
feather of the sock or share to the back part
of the mould-board, where it terminates about
6 inches above the level of the sole. This in-
clined plane raises the soil from the bottom of
the furrow, and turns it over on the top of that
which has been laid in the bottom of the pre-
vious furrow, by the body going before.

Draining ploughs are of various kindS, but
none of them are of much use ; the work can
always be done better, and generally cheaper,
by manual labour.

Ulieel ploughs are of two kinds: by far the
most common, are those where the wheel or
wheels are introduced for the purpose of re-
gulating the depth of the furrow, and rendering
the implement more steady to hold; those less
common are where a wheel is introduced tor the
purpose of lessening the friction of the sole or
share. This last description of wheel plough

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

is scarcely known, but it promises great ad-
vantages. The former is of high antiquity,
having been used by the Romans.

Ploughs with wheels for regulation and
steadiness vary considerably in their construc-
tion in different places, according to the nature
of soils and other circumstances ; but in every
form, and in all situations, they probably re-
quire less skill in the ploughman. Wheels
seem, indeed, to have formed an addition to
ploughs, in consequence of the want of expe-
rience in ploughmen ; and in all sorts of soil,
but more particularly in those which are of a
stony and stubborn quality, they afford great
assistance to such ploughmen, enabling them
to perform their work with greater regularity
in respect to depth, and with much more neat-
ness in regard to equality of surface. From the
friction caused by the wheels, they are gene-
rally considered as giving much greater resist-
ance, and consequently demand more strength
in the team that is employed ; and, besides, are
more expensive in their construction, and more
liable to be put out of order, as well as more
apt to be disturbed in their progress by clods,
stones, and other inequalities that may be on
the surface of the ground, than those of the
swing kind.

With regard to wheel ploughs, those more
especially in which the wheel is placed in the
heel of the plough, the following extract from
Mr. Stephens's Book of the Farm, will explain
both the philosophy and practical effect :

The application of a wheel in the heel of a
plough, does not come under the same mode of
reasoning as that under the beam, the former
becoming a part of the body, from which all
the natural resistance flows ; but in viewing it
as a part of that body only, we can arrive at
certain conclusions which are quite compatible
with careful experiments.

The breadth of the whole rubbing surface
in the body of a plough, when turning a furrow,
is on an average about 17^ inches ; and sup-
posing that surface be pressed nearly equal in
all parts, we shall have the sole-shoe, which is
about 2^ inches broad, occupying \ part of the
surface ; and taking the entire average resist-
ance of the plough's body, as before, at 336 lb.,
we have | of this, equal to 48 lb., as the great-
est amount of resistance produced by the sole
of the plough. But this is under the supposi-
tion that the resistance arises from a uniform
degree of friction spread over the whole rub-
bing surface of the body ; while we have seen,
on the contrary, that the coulter, when acting
alone, presents a resistance equal to the entire
plough. It is only reasonable, therefore, in
absence of further experiments, to conclude,
that the fore-parts of the body, the coulter and
share, yield a large proportion of the resistance
when turning the furrow-slice ; but since we
cannot appreciate this with any degree of
exactness, let the sole have its full share of the
resistance before stated, namely, 48 lb. If a
wheel is applied at or near the heel of a plough,
it can only bear up the hind-part of the sole,
and prevent its ordinary friction, which, at the
very utmost, cannot be more than half of the
entire friction due to the entire sole. Awheel,
therefore, placed here, and acting under every
lU

favouring circumstance, even to the supposed
extinction of its own friction, could not reduce
the resistance by more than 24 lbs., being the
half of that due to the entire sole, or it is j\ of
the entire resistance. But we cannot imagine
a wheel so placed to continue any length of
time, without becoming clogged in all direc-
tions, thereby greatly increasing its own fric-
tion ; and when it is considered that the neces-
sarily small portion of any wheel that can be
so applied will sink into the subsoil, to an
extent that will still bring the sole of the plough
into contact with the sole of the furrow. It
will thus be found that the amount of reduction
of the general resistance will be very much
abridged, certainly not less than one-half, which
reduces the whole saving of draught to a quan-
tity not exceeding 12 lb., and even this will be
always doubtful, from the dilKcully of keeping
such wheels in good working condition. This
view of a wheel placed at the heel has been
confirmed by actual experiments, carefully con-
ducted, wherein Palmer's patent plough with a
wheel in the heel, as patented many years ago
(but in this case it was applied on the best prin-
ciples), gave indications of increased resistance
from the use of the wheel, as compared with
the same plough when the wheel was removed ;
the difference having been 1^ stone in favour
of no wheel. I hesitate not, therefore, to say,
that in no case can wheels be of service
towards reducing the resistance of the plough,
whether they be placed before or behind, or ia
both positions, and the chances are numerous
that they shall act injuriously. That the use
of wheels may, under certain circumstances,
bring the implement within the management
of less skilful hands than is required for the
swing plough, must be admitted; but, at the
same lime, there may be a question whether,
even with that advantage, the practice is com-
mendable. I should be wanting in candour if,
for myself, I answered otherwise than in the
negative.

Having, says Mr. Stephens, in a general way
described the construction of the frame-work
and the acting parts of the wheel plough, there
remains for me to say a few words on the wheels
with which it is furnished. I have already
adverted to wheels, as they appear to me to
affect the draught of ploughs, and have ex-
pressed myself in sufficiently distinct language
to show that, in my opinion, they must in all
cases be injurious, and tend to increase the
resistance of the plough to which they are ap-
pended, whether they be applied within the
body, or under the front, or any other part of
the beam. That wheels may be of advantage
for the working of a plough in the hands of an
unskilful ploughman may be true ; but if this
advantage is acquired by a certain additional
expenditure of horse-power, which, however
much the proprietor of the team may blind
himself to, will ultimately, though probably
unheeded, tell on his profit and loss account,
there will be no gain, but an ultimate loss. It
must be admitted, even by the advocates of the
wheel plough, that though they may be handled
with perfect regularity in ploughing along
ridges, whether the holder be an experienced
ploughman or not, yet in cross-ploughing they
4 o 2 906

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

carniot by any means be brought so handily to
follow the undulations of the surface. In
leaving one ridge, the share will pass too shal-
low, and in entering on the brow of the next,
it wi\\ go too deep, or at least deeper than the
average of the ploughing. There is also the
element of time, which in all farming opera-
tions is an important one ; and here wheel
ploughs are found to come short by about 25
per cent, as compared with swing ploughs. Mr.
Pusey, in his paper on the draught of ploughs,
incidentally observes : " While the work of our
ploughing teams is at best but ^ of an acre
upon strong ground (and sometimes as much
as one acre upon the lightest), the daily task
performed by 2 Scotch horses upon strong land
is 1^ acre." This deficiency of effect cannot
be attributed to want of power in the horses,
for English horses are at least not inferior to
those employed in Scotland for agricultural
purposes, neither can it be from unskilfulness
in the ploughmen, for even the most skilful
seem to come short in this respect, by not being
able to plouo^h more than ^ of an acre in a
day, while with the swing plough almost any
ploughman will turn over his acre a day. From
the remarks of the same writer, it is to be in-
ferred that a Scotch swing plough was incapa-
ble of being drawn through a certain clay soil
by 2 horses, while the wheel ploughs were found
to perform the work with tolerable ease, though
still a heavy draught. There may be such
cases ; but from the conditions of this par-
ticular case, where the draught that baffled the
horses in the swing plough seems not to have
exceeded 52 stones, there is an ambiguity in
the matter that leads to doubts of the accuracy
on the part of the observers of the experiment.
We know well that in working the Scotch
swing plough in an 8 or 9-inch furrow on stiff
land, the draught is not unfrequently as high
as 7 cwt. or 56 stones ; but 2 good horses never
shrink from the task ; and how a less draught,
whatever be the soil, should have baffled the
exertions of 2 good horses in a swing plough,
even in the Oxford clay, requires some further
investigation to be satisfactory.

Among agricultural writers, it seems, says
Mr. Stephens, to be a prevalent opinion, that
land when ploughed receives a curvature of
surface ; whereas, correct ploughing, that is,
making the furrow-slices on the same ridge all
alike, cannot possibly give the surface any
other form than it had before it was ploughed.
If the former surface were curved, then the
newly ploughed surface would also be curved ;
but if it were flat, the new surface will be flat
also. A thoroughly good ploughman, and I
have known a few, but only a few of such
valuable men, avoids so objectionable a prac-
tice, and ploughs always a true, sound furrow,
making it larger or smaller as the particular
state of the work may require.

Without putting much value on the informa-
tion, it may serve as a fact to refer to, in case
it should be wanted, to state the weight of earth
turned over in ploughing. If 10 inches are
taken as a fair breadth for a furrow-slice, there
will be 18 such slices across a ridge of 15 feet
in breadth ; and taking 7 inches as a proper
depth for such a furrow-slice, a cross section

of the slice will have 70 square inches. A
cubic foot of earth is thus turned over in every
24^ inches and a little more of length of such
a slice ; and taking 2*7 as the specific gravity
of ordinary soil, every 24^ inches and a frac-
tion more of such a slice will weigh 12 stoneis
1 lb. imperial.

The usual speed of horses at the plough may
be ascertained in this way. A ridge of 5 yards
in breadth will require a length of 968 yards to
contain an imperial acre; and to plough which
at 9 bouts, of 10-inch breadth of furrow-slice,
counting no stoppages, will make the horses
walk 9'^ miles, which in 10 hours gives a speed
of 1742^ yards per hour. But as ridges are
not made of 968 yards in length, and as horses
cannot draw a plough that distance without
being affected in their wind, and as allowance
must be made for time lost in turning at the
ends of the ridges, as well as for affording rest
to the horses, that speed will have to be con-
siderably increased to do that quantity of work
in the time. By experiment it has been found,
that 1 hour 19 minutes, out or 8 hours, are lost
by turnings while ploughing an acre on ridges
of 274 yards in length, with an 8-inch furrow-
slice. Hence, in ploughing an acre on ridges of
250 yards in length, which is the length of ridge
I recommend as the best for horses in draught,
in 10 hours, with a 10-inch furrow-slice, the
time lost by turnings is 1 hour 22 minutes. I
presume that the experiment alluded to does
not include the necessary stoppages for rest to
the horses, but which should be included ; for
however easy the length of ridge may be made
for draught, horses cannot go on walking in
the plough for 5 hours together (one yoking)
without taking occasional rests. Now 250
yards of length of ridge give nearly 4 ridges
to the acre, or 36 bouts ; and allowing a rest
of 1 minute in every other bout, 18 minutes will
have to be added to the 1 hour 22 minutes lost,
or very nearly 1| hour of lost time, out of the
10 hours, for turnings and rest. Thus 18,000
yards will be ploughed in 8^ hours, or at the
rate of 1 mile 422 yards per hour. I think this
result is near the truth in regard to the plough-
ing of lea in spring ; it is too little in ploughing
red land in summer, and perhaps too much in
ploughing stubble land in winter; but, as lea-
ploughing is the criterion by which all others
are estimated, this result may be taken as a
near approximation to the truth.

The comparative time lost in turning at the
ends of long and short ridges may be seen
from the following table, constructed from data
furnished by the experiment above alluded to :

Lrnfth of

Brwdth of

Time (Oft in

Time de-
voted to
ploughiog.

Hours of

ridge.

furTOW-slice.

turning.

work.

Yard:

Incia.

h. m.

A. m.

A.

78

10

5 11

4 4

10

149

—

2 44

7 16

— -

200

—

2 1

7 59

—

212

—

1 56i

8 34

—

274

—

1 28

8 32

—

Thus it appears that a ridge of no more than
78 yards in length requires 5 hours 11 minutes
of time to turn at the landings, to plough an
acre in 10 hours, with a 10-inch furrow-slice ;
whereas a ridge of 274 yards in length only re-

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

qnires I hour 28 minutes for the same purpose, '
making a difl'erence of 3 hours 43 minutes in
favour of the long ridge in regard to saving of j
time. Consequently, in the case of the shortest
ridge, only 4 hours 49 minutes out of the 10
can be appropriated to ploughing, whereas in
that of the long ridge, 8 hours 32 minutes may
be devoted to the purpose. Hence, so very
short ridges require double the time of long
ones to plough, and are thus a decided loss to
the farmer. This is a subject well worth your
experimenting on, by ascertaining the time
usually taken in ploughing and turning and
resting on ridges of different lengths, in the
different seasons, and in different soils. A
watch with a good second-hand to mark the
time will be required, and the observations
should be made unknown to the ploughmen,
at their usual rate of work ; for if you be con-
stantly in the presence of the men, more than
the usual work will be done, and less than the
usual rests taken.

The whole value of ploughing, scientifically
speaking, depends upon its having the effect of
loosening the texture of the soil, and thus per-
mitting a free circulation of air and moisture
through its interstices, for the double purpose
of increasing the rapidity of the disintegration
of its stony portions, and of re-reducing to
powder what had formerly been pulverized,
but which, from the joint action of pressure,
and the binding effect of root-fibres, had become
agglutinated together.

However well you may manure your land,
however thoroughly you may drain it, you will
never obtain the crops it is capable of yielding,
unless you pulverize it; nay, so important did
Jethro J'uU think this, that he fell firmly per-
suaded that if you pulverized your soil well,
you need not manure at all. I need hardly tell
you, that we shall prove hereafter Jethro Tull
to have carried his conclusions too far; but
still so direct and unqualified a statement, from
such a writer, should have its full influence
upon all who wish to learn thoroughly the art
of agriculture. Always bear in mind that the
impalpable powder is the active part of soil,
and that no other portion has any direct influ-
ence upon vegetation, and you will then, at all
times, be sufticiently impressed with the neces-
sity of thorough ploughing, harrowing, &c. ;
indeed, you may rest assured that, except upon
some few very light sands, you cannot pulverize
the soil loo much — economy alone must fix the
limit of this useful operation.

Tempering, Sfc. — A good ploughman will have
his plough so ^^ tempered" or its different parts so
regulated or adjusted, that it will neither have a
tendency to take more or less earth, or, in other
words, go deeper or more shallow than is ne-
cessary. The width of the furrow-slice will
be at the same time regulated, so thai neither
mm-e nor less land be taken than is requisite.
Some ploughmen, says Mr.Stephens, habitually
make the plough lean a little over to the left,
thus giving it in effect less land than it would
have, were it made to move upon the flat of the
sole ; and to overcome the consequent tendency
of the plough to make a narrower furrow-slice
than the proper breadth, they move the draught-
bolt a little to the right. The ploughing with

a considerable lean to the left is a bad custom,
because it makes the lowest side of the furrow-
slice, when turned over, thinner than the upper
side, which is exposed to view, thereby de-
luding you into the belief that the land has all
been ploughed of equal depth ; and it causes
the horses to bear a lighter draught than those
which have turned over as much land in the
same time, with a more equal and therefore
deeper furrow-slice. Old ploughmen, becoming
infirm, are very apt to practise this deceptive
mode of ploughing. The plough should always
move flat upon its sole, and turn over a rectan-
gular furrow-slice; but there are certain ex-
ceptions to this rule, depending on the peculiar
construction of parts of certain forms of ploughs.

None assume the habit of leaning the pleugh
over to the right, because it is not so easy to
hold it in that position as when it moves upoa
the sole along the land-side.

Other ploughmen, especially tall men, prac-
tise the habit of constantly leaning hard upon
(\\e stills, or of steeping; and as this practice
has the tendency to lift up the fore-point of the
plough out of the ground, they are obliged, ia
order to keep it in, to put the draught-bolt
farther from the ground than it should be. A
liitle leaning of the hands upon the stilts is
requisite at all times, in order to retain a firm
hold of them, and thereby have a proper guid-
ance of the plough.

A good ploughman will use none of these
expedients to make his plough go steadily, nor
will he fall into any of these reprehensible
habits. He will temper the irons so as there
shall be no tendency in the plough to go too
deep or too shallow into the ground, or make
too wide or too narrow a furrow-slice, or cause
less or more draught to the horses, or less or
more trouble to himself, than the nature of the
work requires to be performed in the most
proper manner. If he have a knowledge of
the implement he works with — I mean, a good
practical knowledge of it, for a knowledge of
its principles is not requisite for his purpose, —
he will temper all the parts, so as to work the
plough with great ease to himself, and, at the
same lime, have plenty of leisure to guide his
horses aright, and execute his work in a credit-
able manner. I have known such ploughmen,
and they invariably executed their work in a
masterly way; but I never yet saw a plough-
man execute his work well, who had not
acquired the art of tempering the irons of his
plough. Until he learns this art, the best-made
plough will be comparatively worthless in his
hands.

The state of the irons themselves has a ma-
terial effect on the temper of the plough. If
the cutting edge of the coulter, and the point
and cutting edge of the sock, are laid with
steel, the irons will cut clean, and go long in
smooth soil. This is an economical mode of
treating plough-irons destined to work in clay-
soils. But in gravelly and all sharp soils, the
irons wear down so quickly, that farmers prefer
irons of cold iron, and have them laid anew
every day, rather than incur the expense of
laying them with steel, which perhaps would
not endure work much longer in such soil than
iron in its ordinary state. Irons are now seldom

907

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

if ever steeled ; but whether they are steeled
or not, they are always in the best state when
sharp, and of the proper lengths.

An imperfect state of the mould-board is
another interruption to a perfect temper of the
plough. When new and rough, it accumulates
the loose soil upon it, whose pressure against
the turning furrow-slice, causes the plough to
deviate from its right course. On the other
hand, when the mould-board is worn away
much below, it is apt to leave too much of the
crumbled soil in the bottom of the furrows,
especially in ploughing loose soils. Broken
side-plates, or so worn into holes that the earth
is easily pressed through them into the bosom
of the plough, also cause rough and unequal
work; and more or less earth in the bosom
affects the balance of the plough, both in its
temper and draught. These remarks are made
upon the supposition that all ploughs are
equally well made, and may, therefore, be tem-
pered to work in a satisfactory manner; but it
is well known that ploughs sometimes get into
the possession of farmers, radically so ill-con-
structed, that the best tempering the irons are
capable of receiving will never make them do
good work.

When all the particulars which ploughmen
have to attend to in executing their work, — in
having their plough-irons in a proper state of
repair, in tempering them according to the kind
of ploughing to be executed, in guiding their
horses, and in ploughing the land in a method-
ical way — when all these particulars are con-
sidered, it ceases to surprise that so few plough-
men should be first-rate workmen. Good
ploughmanship requires greater powers of ob-
servation than most young ploughmen possess,
and greater judgment than most will take time
to exercise, in order to become familiarized
with all these particulars, and to use them all
to the best advantage. To be so accomplished,
implies the possession of talent of no mean
order. The ship has been aptly compared to
the plough, and the phrase "ploughing the
deep" is as familiar to us as ploughing the
land: to be able to put the ship in "proper
trim," is the perfection aimed at by every sea-
man; so, in like manner, to "tempera plough"
is the great aim of the good ploughman ; and
to be able to do it with judgment, to guide
horses with discretion, and to execute plough-
ing correctly, imply a discrimination akin to
sailing a ship. (Slcpheiis.)

Plough Handles. — The handles should be suffi-
ciently wide apart to allow the ploughman to
walk in the furrow, and long enough to give
him a full command of the plough, so that he
can lift or depress it readily in work, guide it
to the right or left hand, and swing it round at
the land's end out of the furrow into another.

Plough-beam. — The beam should be of such
a length, that its end, commonly called its head,
shall cut at the point of draught, upon a line
drawn from that part of the collar to which the
traces are attached, to the share or that part of
it where it first raises the soil. On the right
arrangement of the point of draught in the
structure of the plough depends much of its
steady working at its proper depth. It is from
908

the principle of balancing from a point ad-
justed to the line of draught, that the plough
takes its name of swing, in contradistinction to
the names of foot and wheel ploughs.

The beam should be curved upwards at the
coulter and throat of the plough, to clear itself
of rubbish which sometimes accumulates, and
should be inclined slightly from the land, or, in
other words, towards the furrow, because its
tendency is to yield towards the loosened land,
and it therefore requires this counteraction in
the line of draught to keep it in a right line.
This is supposing a pair of horses to be har-
nessed abreast ; if they be harnessed at length,
the beam should be still more inclined ; for as
neither horse then walks on the "land," the
direction of the force towards the land-side is
still further decreased.

Plough-head. — The cross-head of the plough
forms a ready means of increasing or de-
creasing the inclination last spoken of, and
the hake, or draught-iron, which moves in the
arc of a circle along the cross-head, has notches
by which the depth of the plough can be regu-
lated in unison with the line of draught. There
are various contrivances for these purposes,
most of which involve the use of a screw as a
means of adjustment ; but the plan of pins and
notches is sufficiently accurate, and not liable
to be out of order. Sketches of two, the one
English, h, the other Scotch, i, are given in
PI. 17.

Plough-share. — The plough-share is the apex
of the sole, as the hind part is called the heel.
It varies in shape for different purposes. On
stony lands it is best with a point, as figured
PI. 17, k. But where the land is free from
stones, the wing is best when angular, and the
cutting edge in a line, or nearly so, as figured
in PI. 17, /.

For different work, "hard lands" and "sum-
mer lands," shares of a greater " dip" or " pitch"
are requisite. A common plan is to use new
shares on hard lands, and to wear them a day
or two, and then lay them aside for summer
lands.

Mould-board. — The upper part over the box
of the share should form the first part of the
rise of the mould-board. After the coulter and
share have made the vertical and horizontal
cuts for the depth and width of the furrow-slice,
the mould-board has to complete the work by
turning it over and leaving it in its proper po-
sition. On the precision with which this part
of the plough performs its work, much, indeed
nearly all, of the beauty of the ploughing de-
pends : hence the importance of discovering its
true form for the land on which it has to be
used. Desirable, however, as this is, there
does not as yet appear to be any precise rule
for the formation of the mould-board, that has
met with so uniform an approval under the
test of practice, as would lead us to speak with
entire confidence of it. We have looked at the
mechanical principles laid down by Small,
Bailey, Gray, Amos, Jefferson, Clymer, and
others, but are not aware of any plough-makers
of the present day who strictly adhere to either
the one or the other ; and so long as the mould-
board cannot be used on even the same farm

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

tinder circumstances always similar, as its !
operation will necessarily be affected by the j
weather, the stale of the land, with the varying
depth and width of the plough, it is not an easy
matter to determine which form is best for
general purposes. It is clear that different
soils, as, for instance, light sand and heavy
clay, require mould-boards almost the itpposit^
of each other; and such they are. The Nor-
folk mould-board is short, wilh rather a hollow
or concave surface, whilst that used in the
hundreds of Essex is long and convex.

Lord Western, many years ago, improved
upon the form of the heavy land mould-board
in use in that part of the county of Essex where
he resides, by cutting away a considerable por-
tion of the lower and hinder part of the figure,
and by making it in a straight line lengthwise
from the nose to the hind part.

Were the circumstances always the same,
there can be no question but that one mathe-
matical form of the mould-board would be pre-
ferable to ail others ; but, under circumstances
so various, the plan hitherto adopted has been
to prove, by experience and from practical
operation, the forms best suited to different
lands under an average depth and width of
work, keeping as nearly as possible to the
principle of the wedge, as necessary for the
proper lifting, turning, and laying over the soil.
Provided the mould-board be made so that the
work, while in operation, goes on as it should
do, a good practical criterion as to its figure
will be found in the evidence of friction it has
undergone, and this, with the fine cast metal
now in use, can be determined to a nicety. If,
on a given soil, the mould-board becomes
brightened uniformly — if the mould appears to
slip with light friction and with the same pres-
sure from one end of it to the oiher, it cannot
be far, if any thinsr, out of its proper shape for
the purpose intended. And yet, if the same
mould-board be used on some other lands, it
will immediately show its inapplicability to
them by the soil adhering to it in parts, not
slipping well through it, and thus evidencing a
want of uniformity in its general friction.
Therefore, considering that neither depth nor
width of furrow is always the same, and that
scarcely one circumstance affecting its use is
unvarying, it is difficult to find a rule which
shall aptly suit these changes. At the same
time it is not pre.>umed that such will not or
cannot be found ; and the theory which most
accords with our view, is one which has re-
cently been laid down by the Rev. W. L. Rham,
Sector of Wirikfield, Berkshire, a gentleman
whose scientific and agricultural knowledge
entitles his opinion to considerable deference.
His theory is, that the mould-board should be
composed of straight lines in the direction of
its length, with continually increasing angles
to the line of the furrow : these last lines being
either strp.ight, convex, or concave, horizontal
sections of the mould-board.

Cen'lcr. — Simple as the coulter may appear
to be, it is a very important part of the plough,
and much depends upon its being properly I
formed and fixed for the work it has to perform |
in the operation of ploughing. It should be I

made of iron and steel, and of sufficient sub-
stance to stand firmly to the position in which
it is set for its work, not bending either to the
right hand or to the left. The blade or cutting
part should be about 2^ inches wide, and
formed by the meeting of two curves, as this
shape cuts the land easier than when the edge
is either in a straight line or curved forward.
TWf land side of the coulter should be flat, and
the opposite side a gradual taper from the edge
to the back: the thickness must be determined
by the strength of the work it has to perform.

The angle at which the coulter is usually set,
is about forty-five degrees from the plane of
the ground ; but in summer lands it requires to
be placed in a more slanting position, and to
take the lead of the share about three-quarters
of an inch, to prevent the grass or rubbish
driving in a heap, as it otherwise might do. On
the contrary, when used for ploughing up hard
fallows, it requires to be fixed in a more up-
right position, and rather more backward than
the point of the share. It should be placed
about half an inch above the share, and a
quarter of an inch to the land side of it. Every
good ploughman has his own notions on the
subject of setting the coulter, but the above
directions are given from practical observation.

The usual mode of fixing the coulter in the
socket of the frame or beam, is by means of
wood or iron wedges driven above or below the
socket, or by a coarse cut screw-bolt, which
turns into the side of the socket and presses
against the coulter-stalk. Each of these modes
is defective, there being a complication in the
details of all that appears not quite adapted to
the class of workmen who have to use them.

Skim Coulters. — Skim coulters are sometimes
used for the purpose of burying the surface-
grass or rubbish. Sketches of two kinds are
given in pi. 17, m, m. The usual plan is to fix
the skim about six inches before the coramoa
coulter.

Wheel Coulters are used in the fen lands, and
are useful when ploughing up turf. One of
these coulters is represented in pi. 17, n. The
cutting-disk should be made of steel, with a
nave sufliciently long for it to be steady, and
the box should be bored true, and revolve on a
well-fitted steel pin, as on the perfect fitting of
the box and axle the correct working of the
disk, and consequently the effective operation
of the plough, depends.

Swing Ploughs. — The advantages attributed
by Mr. Ransome to the swing plough are as
follows : —

1. It admits of being set into its work at a
given depth, either shallower or deeper, by the
alteration of the draught iron at the point of
draught, or by increasing or decreasing the
distance at which the power of the horses is
applied.

2. The ploughman has also the power of re-
gulating, in some degree, the depth of the work,
by either lifting or bearing upon the handles.

3. It is a plough of more simple construc-
tion than any other, and less expensive in its
first cost.

4. A skilful workman can plough across
ridge and furrow at very nearly a uniform

909

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

depth ; he can work with it on almost all lands,
and in all weathers when ploughing can be
done at all.

The IVfieel Plough (ivithhigh Gallowses). ^This
derives its name from having the appendage
of a ^carriage and wheels. The body of the
plough is essentially the same as that of the
swing plough, and notwithstanding the different
form of its beam, the point of draught should
be the same as that of the swing plough,
name))% to cut a line drawn from the horse's
shoulder to the share or point of resistance.

In the Report to the Board of Jsriculture from
the county of Leicester, published in 1808, it
is stated, "that more than thirty years ago,
wheels were first applied to the fore-end of the
beam, and it was found by * pitching' the plough
a little deeper, and setting the wheels so as to
prevent its drawing too deep, the wheels were
a sufficient guide, and the plough required no
one to hold it except in places of difficulty."
If properly adjusted,- a lad of 14 years of age
can manage it easily ; and the writer of this
article once saw, at a ploughing match, a lad
havpg a plough of this sort — the only one in
the field — walking leisurely beside it, to the
great astonishment of the other competitors,
and from whom, to their still greater astonish-
ment, he carried away the prize. This lad had
been taught ploughing only a few months.

When one wheel only is attached to the
plough, some persons give the preference to a
small one to run upon the unploughed land, as
it is less likely to clog up, and requires no al-
teration towards the end of the furrow; but
others prefer 'a larger wheel which runs in the
furrow, as it has an even bottom to travel over,
and correctly regulates the width of the furrow-
slice. It also more effectually facilitates the
turning round at the headland, particularly if
the horses have to go to the right hand. The
larger wheel to run in the furrow, therefore, is
best for general purposes, and, with a lever
attached to it, is rendered very easy of adjust-
ment.

In the use of a gauge for the depth of plough-
ing, whether of two wheels, one wheel, or a
foot, the plough should be so regulated as to
press but lightly on the ground when passing
over it; thus admitting as little of the counter-
acting force between the wheel and share as
possible.

In the Prize Essay by Henry Handley, Esq.,
the advantages of wheels are clearly set forth,
and his arguments in favour of their use have
since been very strikingly confirmed by the
trials made under the directions of Philip
Pusey, Esq.

The silver medal of the Royal Agricultural
Society of England was awarded to John
Clarke, of Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, for the
invention of a plough (see Jour, of Roy. Agr.
Soc.y vol. i. p. 66) for the purpose of ridge cul-
ture ; by a^h easy transition of shape, which
is accomplished in a very simple manner, this
implement becomes,

1. A double torn or ridge plough.

2. A moulding plough.

3. A horse-hoe, or cleaning plough.

4. A skeleton, or broad-share plough.
■Subsoil Ploughs. — At the thought of a subsoil

910

plough, says Mr. Ransome, our minds turn at
once to James Smith, of Deanstone, as the gen-
tleman who has opened a very interesting and
important view of tillage, by the system of sub-
soil ploughing, and thereby breaking the under
soil without turning it up to the surface. His
practical knowledge has long been devoted to
the intejipsts of agriculture, and the results have
Been most beneficial. The plough he invented
for the purpose is too well known to need a de-
scription, though we should consider our Essay
incomplete without a sketch of it. See pi. 17, o;
also g.

Following the invention of James Smith, of
Deanstone, was another of a different and
much lighter description, the invention of Sir
Edward Stracey, Bart., Rackheath, and the
plough is called by the latter name. It answers
the purpose of deep ploughing, that is, from 10
to 16 inches below the surface, and when pre-
ceded by the common plough, which is th
plan recommended, the depth below the sur-
face-ground is just as much again as the firs
plough effects.

This plough answers admirably for under-
ploughing grass lands, and is made into a sub-
lurf plough by changing the wheel gear in
front, to that of a carriage and two wheels.

P. Pusey, Esq., in an interesting paper in
the Eng. Agr. Soc. Journ. (vol. i. p. 434), gives
an account of a plough, made to his order by
Charles Hart, of Wantage; at the hinder part
of this plough was fixed a strong tine, some-
thing like those on Biddel's scarifier, for the
purpose of under-ploughing the soil. This tine
was made to rise or lower at pleasure; and
from the description of its use and operation,
given in the above paper, we should think it a
valuable invention, as it may be easily attached
to a plough of the common sort, and removed
when not wanted.

Skeleton, or Cleaning Ploughs, are often the
transformations of "common ploughs for that
purpose, by taking the mould-boards and shares
off, and substituting for the shares subsoil or
cleaning shares, with prongs. See PI. 17,/.

The plan of laying furrows in one direction,
so as to have neither ridge nor water furrows,
has within the last year attracted more than
common' attention in Britain. It has led to a
careful inquiry into the the system of ploughing
pursued in Kent, and there seems to be a dis-
position among many first-rate agriculturists
to try the jj^n, provided lighter implements
can be furnished for the purpose, not exceed-
ing the power of two horses' draught. To this
object some eminent practical farmers have
turned their attention, and a plough, made
under the direction of Mr. William Smart, a
farmer of great respectability and experience
at Rainham, in Kent, bids fair to open a new
and very important view of the mechanical
principles of the turn-rest plough, which he
has remodelled ; and it may be made equally
applicable to the power of two or four horses.

This gentleman, after many trials, arrived
at the conclusion that, inasmuch as the work
of the turn-rest plough depended on its wedge-
like construction, its form could only be cor-
rect in proportion to its approach to the per-
fect wedge; and this form, obtained by straight

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

lines in the direction, first, from the point of
the share to the throat of the plough, to pro-
duce the effect of elevating the furrow-slice ;
and, second, from the edge of the coulter to the
heel of the rest, to effect the turning of the flag,
is that which he has adopted ; making these
lines tend to an angle of 15 degrees. With the
assistance of an ingenious ploughwrig^t in hi^
own neighbourhood, several ploughs on thi?
principle were constructed, and these have
been the basis upon which still further im-
provements in the detail have been carried
out. They are now so constructed that the
ploughman can readily shift his coulter by
means of a lever, which reaches the bottom of
the handles, and also his rests or mould-boards
from side to side, without leaving his station
between the handles of his plough, they being
so arranged that, by withdrawing a small pin
and pressing the projecting rest towards the
body of the plough, the mould-boards on either
side become alternately the land side when not
in work.

Ploughs for the purpose of turning the fur-
rows all in one direction, and laying the slices
at an angle with the horizon, as is done by
ihe common plough, have been within the
last year or two brought before the public, but
we cannot learn that they have been generally
adopted.

In going thus at length into the subject of
the plough, we have shown the present state
of agricultural mechanics as respects those in
general use. To have gone more fully into
the description of those out of the common rou-
tine of farming, would have carried us beyond
vhat we imagine to be the proper limit of
this portion of the work. At the same time it
must be observed, that there are a variety of
purposes for which ploughs of a particular
form, different from any already described, are
required ; such as paring ploughs, draining
ploughs, driJl ploughs, &c. &c. JDti each, in-
deed on all of which, a considerable amount
of judgment and ingenuity has been expended.

Ploughs even for common purposes have
been long in arriving at their present state;
and there are doubtless many improvements
that may yet be accomplished.
' In the construction of ploughs, the first ob-
ject to be borne in mind is the proper perform-
ance of the work to be done; the next, that this
should be effected with the least expenditure
of animal power, and with the greatest econo-
my; and, lastly, that they should be made as
simple as possible in reference to the plough-
man who will have to use them. The circum-
stance of repairs, which will be continually re-
quired as the parts wear out, should also be
kept in view, and the whole require to he made
on an accurate plan, so as to insure every part
fitting properly; the workman may then fix
them on the spot as readily as a mechanic at
his manufactoiy. Nor should it be forgotten
that quality of materials and workmanship are
main points in economy, and that to dispense
with either is to pave the way to dissatisfaction
and trouble to all parties concerned.

It is difficult to suggest alterations on the
present implements, which appear adapted

to the purpose, and likely to agree with the
description of the requisites just given ; but
there is no doubt that the plough, in its various
forms, is capable of great improvement; and
amongst the points to which attention may be
usefully directed are the following : —

Amount of draught that different forms of
mould-boards and shares require, in order to
de4^mine those best suited to the purpose.

A mould-board that will best turn the work
on either side of the plough, so as to admit of
its being changed from one to the other, after
the plan of the Kent turn-rest.

A ready means of altering the depth or pitch
of the swing plough while in motion, without
stopping the horses, so that it may be accom-
modated to any difference in the nature of the
soil, or inequalities on its surface, which the
plough may meet with.

The same as respects the wheel plough, with-
out placing any of its forces in opposition to
each other.

Many papers on ploughs and ploughing are
contained in the best modern agricultural pe-
riodicals. Wilkie's turn-rest plough is de-
scribed in the Trans. High. Soc. vol. vi. p. 484.
Mr. Heathcote's steam plough, Ibid. p. 72. Mr.
Laidlaw "On the general advantages of Two-
horse Ploughs," Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. ii. p.
712. "On the Plough of Palestine," Ibid. vol.
iii. p. 373. "On Small's Plough as a Drill
Plough," Ibid. p. 854. " On the Mathematical
Construction of the Plough," by Mr. Amos,
Coin. Board of Agr. vol. vi. p. 437. " On Wheel
and Swing Ploughs," by Mr. Handley, Journ,
Roy. Agr. Soc. vol. i. p. 140. " On Draught in
Ploughing," by Mr. Pusey, Ibid. p. 219. "On
Subsoil Ploughing," by Sir James Graham,
Ibid. p. 245. "On the Rackheath Subsoil
Plough," by Sir E. Stracey, Ibid. p. 253. " Oa
the Charlbury Subsoil Plough," by Mr. Pusey, *
Ibid. p. 433. "On the Rackheath Subturf
Plough," by Sir E. Stracey, Ibid. vol. ii. p. 37;
and " On a Light Subsoil Plough, adapted for
two Horses," by Mr. Gabell, Ibid. p. 421.

The Plough in the United S/a/cs.— Whilst in
Europe, and particularly in Great Britain, the
plough has been so much improved, American
intelligence and ingenuity have been rewarded
with great success in the same pursuit. The
implement w"hich the pioneer is obliged to
make use of in first stirring and partially turn-
ing up the soil filled with roots and stones, is
necessarily very rude, sometimes almost equal
in this* respect to those of the primitive ages
of husbandry. One of these rough contri-
vances is, in New England and the Northern
States, familiarly called the Bull plough. The
several improvements on the plough in the
United States seem to have progressed, for the
most part, with little or no reference to Eu-
ropean plans or models, and to have been
almost exclusively confined to swing-ploughs,
wheel-ploughs being scarcely ever seen. Sim-
plicity and economy seem to have been kept in
view by all who have undertaken to improve
or modify the implement. As the various sec-
tions of the Union present varieties in the con-
ditions of the soil, the ploughs are constructed
with reference to these conditions, so that in

911

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

the Northern, Eastern, Middle, and Western
States, ditferent ploughs are vaunted for iheir
excellence. It has been observed as a singular
circumstance, that to the celebrated author of
the Declaration of Independence the United
States should be also indebted fur the first theory
of the plough formed on mathematical princi-
ples. President Jefferson's letter to Sir John
Sinclair, president of the British Board of^g-
ricullure, addressed in 1798, is published in the
Transactions of the ^m. Philosophical Society,
vol. iv. p. 314. It describes the mould-board,
and the principles upon which it is properly
constructed. (See American Farmer, vol. ii.
p. 185, and Domestic Encyclopedia, vol. iii. p.
113.)

In England the most complete set of experi-
ments yet made to ascertain the particular
merits of different ploughs, are those instituted
by Mr. Pusey, president of the Royal Agricul-
tural Society, and described by him in the 3d
No. of the Journal of that Society. A con-
densed view of the objects and results of these
experiments may be found in the Cultivator,
(vol. viii. p. 10), together with the results ob-
tained with American ploughs at the Worces-
ter ploughing match in 1840.

The points embraced in the English experi-
ments were :

1. The comparative lightness in draught, of
wheel and swing ploughs.

2. The lightest plough absolutely, of what-
ever kind.

3. The effect of different soils upon the qua-
lities, and chiefly on the draught of the plough.

4. The comparative tenacity of different
soils.

5. The power of two horses to plough the
strongest or clay soil.

, Ten ploughs, embracing some from the most
celebrated makers in England, the highly famed
Scotch swing plough, and several of those in
common use in the different districts of the
kingdom, were selected by Mr. Pusey for his
experiments, and he was aided by the presence
and advice of some of the most distinguished
agriculturists in the country. The ploughs
were worked by skilful ploughmen ; and, as
much interest was attached to the experiment
on the Scotch ploughs, a Clydesdale span of
horses and a ploughman accustomed to the
plough were sent up by Lord Moreton to
manage that part of the trial. The Scotch
plough has obtained considerable celebrity
from the strong praise bestowed upon it by Mr.
Loudon, who declares the improved Scotch
plough to be superior to any similar implement
known in England. They are constructed on
the principles laid down by Mr. Jefferson, in
his celebrated Report on the true shape of the
mould-board, addressed to the French Institute,
which, he showed from mathematical data,
should be in the form of a gentle hollow
curve ; other ploughs constructed more full and
short, not raising the earth gradually like a
wave, but throwing it over at once. In con-
densing Mr. Pusey's experiments, we shall
select, as sufficient for the present purpose,
from the list given by him, three ploughs — 1st,
the improved Scotch plough made by Fergu- {
912

son, and entirely of iron — 2d, a one-wheeled
plough of wood, with an iron breast, by Mr.
Hart, but commonly known as the improved
Berkshire plough ; and 3d, an old-fashioned
plough made of wood, and such as is in general
use in many parts of England, where it is called
the old Berkshire plough. Some previous ex-
^lerimeifts had convinced Mr. Pusey that the
Hart plough was of easy draught, and the ones
now instituted showed that his impressions
were correct

The Clydesdale horses were much admired
in their work; and it was the opinion of the
bystanders that such land, usually worked with
four horses in line, might be ploughed with two
such horses abreast; though it was said it
would cost as much to keep two horses in that
condition, as to support the four in their usual
working state. On this ground, where the
horses had a firm footing, they worked with per-
fect ease.

In summing up the trials, Mr. Pusey remarks
that the plough requiring the least draught was
Hart's, though in the last trial it was beat by
Ransome's two-wheel plough; and that of all
modern ploughs the Scotch swing plough was
the heaviest, "out of the question on a li?ht
soil, and by no means the best on a heavy
one." The following table shows the average
draught of all the ploughs on the several soils
in which the experiments were made :

Trial 1. Sandy loam - - - - 17? stone.

2. Clay loam - - - - 47^ "

3. Loamy sand - - - - 16^ *•

4. Strong loam - - - - 31| "

5. C^lay loam - - - - 28| "

6. Moorysoil - - - - 20 "

A drawing of Hart's improved Berkshire
one-wheel plough is given in the Cultivator,
(vol. viii. p. 10.)

The trials at the Worcester ploughing match
in 1840, were made to determine the award of
two premiums offered by the Massachusetts
Agricultural Society, of $100, and $75, for the
best ploughs, one for lapping furrows and the
other for laying them flat. The following re-
marks by the reporting committee will enable
the reader to understand the experiments,
whilst the list of ploughs will show the num-
ber of inventors and improvers whose imple-
ments have acquired most celebrity in the
eastern portion of the United States.

The power required to turn over a given
quantity of earth by a plough is a very im-
portant consideration. This power can be
measured with great accuracy; greater than
many of the committee supposed, before they
witnessed the operation. The dynamometer,
inserted between the plough-beam and the
chain, measures with great accuracy the
strength exerted by the team. Suppose the
strength applied be the same that would be re-
quired to raise 336 lbs. over a single pulley;
suppose also that the depth of the furrow is 6^
inches with a width of 13 inches. Multiply 13
by 6^, and you will have 84 with a fraction.
Now, if 336 lbs. of power will take up and turn
over 84 inches of earth, then 112 lbs. will turn
28 inches. Tried in this way, the ploughs ex-
hibited showed the following results. The
power in each case is 112 lbs.

^1

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

FinsT TniAi.-

Ploughsfor lapping furrows.
' 29^ inches.

By Charles Hnward

Kuegles, Nourse & Mason - 24

John Wilson - - - - 21}

Stephens' plough - - - 20

James .Stewart (Scotch plough) 19}

Cornelius Bergen - - - 18

Barnaby & Mooers -- - -HI

E. G. Whiting - - - - 18

Secoxd Trial.

Prouty & Mears
Charles Howard
RugKles, Nourse & Co. -
Barnaby & Mooers -
E. G. Whiting - . -
Another plough by Prouty tc Mears 26
Do. do. Charles Uoward 25

For flat furrows.

. . 27}

25

24

18}

14

The terms used in this experiment are dif-
ferent from those adopted in the English one ;
but those who choose may easily compare
them with each other by remembering that 112
lbs. is 8 stone, and making the furrow-slice to
correspond, which in the American experiment
was 84 inches, and in the English one 45; or
6^ by 13, to 5 by 9. When this is done, the
experiments will be found to correspond re-
markably well, and the general results of both
may be considered as establishing many im-
portant truths, some of which have been
already pointed out. Thus it will be seen that
in the same soil, and under the same cir-
cumstances, one plough will work 100 per
cent, easier than another, or that one horse
will perform the work of two, or two that
of four, with the same ease. Could horses
speak, they would doubtless direct a vote
of thanks to the men who have invented, and
the farmers who use, implements by which
one-half of the severest labour the horse per-
forms is done away. We very much question
whether our farm-horses on our heavy wheal
lands do not often perform much more severe
labour than the highest rate named by Mr.
Pusey (52 stone, or 728 lbs.), as we have seen
them day after day showing more exertion and
evident distress in ploughing than when draw-
ing a ton a day over hard roads. Whatever may
be the obduracy or tenacity of the soil, or the
toughness of the sward ; only one pair of horses
is used, where, under the same circumstances,
four would be used abroad, and the question is

never asked whether the plough is of a con-
struction so defective as to require 5 cwt. to
move it, or whether it works with ease, with a
force of 2 cwt. applied. Mr. Pusey estimated
the fair draught of the Clj'desdaie- horse at 168
lbs. or 12 stone, and that of a common English
farm-horse at 112 lbs. or 8 stone.

At a fair held by the New York Agricultural
Society, at Syracuse, in 1841, the first of the
regular premiums, $30, was awarded to the
plough made by Howard Delano of Mottsville,
the second premium of $20 to E. G. Holliday,
for his plough, favourably known as the Laugh-
lin plough. The Wisconsin and other ploughs
attracted considerable notice; but the double
mould-board plough of Barnaby and Mooers,
from the excellence and novelty of its con-
struction, the facility with which it would ope-
rate on side hills as well as on level land, and
its ease of draught, rendered it deservedly a fa-
vourite implement, and the honorary premium
was deemed well awarded. It was supposed
by many very good judges of ploughing, that
the resistance offered by the land-side share
would increase the draught sensibly, but the re-
sult showed that such was not the case.

The trial of ploughs which took place under
the direction of a committee of the Americaa
Institute, at New York, was very well con-
ducted; and although the number of ploughs
on the ground was not as great as at Syracuse,
the trials with the dynamometer were more sa-
tisfactory. It is to be regretted that some of
the favourite Massachusetts ploughs had not
been present for competiti«in, as a full investi-
gation and understanding of the matter requires
repeated and careful comparison of ploughs in
the same soils, and as near as possible under
the same circumstances. We believe that
such will hereafter be the case. The manner
in which the report of the trials of ploughs last
year at Worcester was presented, renders a
comparison of the actual draught used there and
at New York, difficult; but as the mode was
adopted at New York that English experiment-
ers have used, a comparison between the
ploughs of England and Scotland, and those
of this country, is more easily made. The fol-
lowing table, which we find prepared at our

Nuae of Plough.

Hart's English .... - 140 lbs. 400 lbs.

Ransonie's wheel, do. ... 168 480

Tester, No. 1, Scotch- - - _ 170 380

" 2, English - . . 136 440

Scoular's swing, do. - - - - 150 446

Hunter's English _ - - _ 190 560

Currie's Scotch - - - . _ 170 500

Coltnian's do. - - - . - 178 500

Hadden's do. - - - - - 180 510

Neiil'sdo. --_-_. 185 500

Wilkens's English - - - - 175 540

Ransome's swing - - _ - 160 462

Palmer's wheel, English - _ - 230 560

New spring, Scotch - - - . 189 560

Sussex, English 189 680

The following ploughs were tried at Sing Sing, 14th October :

Weight of Ptougb.

Draft by

Furrow not well taken out.
Between furrow not well laid up.
Clean furrow.

Furrow not well laid up.

Second best furrow.

Third

Good furrow.

Good work.

Barnaby &. Mooers -
Wisconsan
Beebe's swing -
Minor, Horton & Co.'s
Cornelius Bergen's -

142
170

350
438
451
460
472

Best work of any American
Second best rate.
Good furrow.

115

4H

913

PLOUGH.

PLOUGH.

WiJth of
furrow. Force.

12 in. 350 lbs.

13 1-6 662

hand in an account of the New York trials,
given in the Brooklyn Slaj; we transfer to our
columns with pleasure, merely remarking that
we have verified the correctness of the foreign
results, by reference to the reports in the Jour-
nals'of the English Royal Agricultural Society,
and the Scotch Highland Agricultural Society,
from which they were taken. The reader will
see that the best British plough, Yester No. 1,
weight 170 lbs., draught 380 lbs., removed a fur-
row-slice of only 10 inches by 6, while the best
American, Barnaby and Mooers' double mould-
board side-hill plough (the same that received
the premium at Syracuse), weight 142 lbs.,
draught 350 lbs., removed a furrow-slice of 12
inches by 8, or nearly twice as large. We are
gratified to learn that this plough, which re-
ceived the premiums at Syracuse and New
York, has been presented by the Institute to
the Royal Agricultural Society, and that doubt-
less it will be subjected to comparison with the
ploughs of that country. In examining the list
of English agricultural implements, we have
often remarked the fact, that English ploughs
range in prices from $20 to ^30, while the best
improved American ones do not cost more
than from $10 to $15. The table will be un-
derstood without further explanation.

In a report of a committee appointed to su-
perintend a trial of ploughs near Baltimore,
in 1842, the following results are stated.

Depth of
Plough. furrow.

1. Barnaby & Mooers' 5 2-0 in.

2. i\Ioti'3 Wiley plough 6 6-9

3. Provity &; Mears' cen-

tre-draught plough,

Boston - - - 5 1-9 121-6 500

4. Howard Plough, Bos-

ton . - - 5 7-9 14 550

5. The Davis Plough. This plough worked well, but

was withdrawn before trial with the dynamometer.

The committee remark, " the task to the com-
mittee, of deciding where such excellence was
to be found in each of the implements contend-
ing, was one of difficulty, and would have been
more so, but for the various purposes to which
the Barnaby and Mooers' plough is adapted, it
being in fact a plough of all work, and from
the fact of its executing its work with so much
less draught than either of the others."

In commenting on the qualities of the seve-
ral ploughs submitted to trial, the committee
say of Barnaby and Mooers' side-hill plough,
the one used: — "There is a peculiarity about
this plough which is worthy of note. On the
bottom of the furrow, and on the land side, it
cuts out fully 12^ inches of the earth, so as to
reduce resistance to the turning of the succeed-
ing furrow, thereby facilitating, not only that
operation, but insuring the exactitude with
which it is performed, leaving a clean and
broad furrow behind, in which the furrow-horse
can walk, and preventing the treading of the
ground in turning."

Although the trials- made at the various ex-
hibitions have thus far resulted so much in
favour of the double mould-board plough of
Barnaby and Mooers, still has this been less
extensively adopted than it would appear to
deserve. Associated with its great merits, there
may yet remain some obstacle to its general
\ise, of easy removal. The objection from great
914

weight requiring unusual exertion in throwing
out and turning, might possibly be obviated
by the addition of a wheel or some other
device.

The price of this plough varies from $4 for
No. 3, a 7 inch seeding plough, to $10 for
No. 8^, a heavy twcf or three horse, 12 inch
plough.

The following is a summary notice of the
ploughs best known to the farmers of the Mid-
dle States. The order in which they are men-
tioned is not intended to express the precise
dates of their invention or their relative merits.

EeedCs Self -sharpening Plough has a concave
mould-board. Its price varies with the size,
from $6 to $10, the average price being $8.

Miles's Plough, known also by the name of
Dicksonh, has the bar-share, land-side, and lock-
coulter of wrought iron. They cost about $13.
This plough still retains precedence in the old
counties of Pennsylvania, its execution being
excellent, and its strength enabling it to con-
tend successfully against obstacles met with in
stony ground and tough swards.

Peacock^s Plough. — This has been long known
and is still extensively used. It has a bar-
share and lock-coulter, and is best adapted to
soils of a light texture, where shallow work
will answer. It does not turn a sod so well as
is desirable.

Wiley Plough. — One of the oldest of the
cast-iron ploughs still in use is that of B. H.
Wiley. The share of this has two points
capable of being turned once. It is adapted
to stubbles, but does not perform so well in
tough sward.

Wbodcock^s Plough. — For the last few years
this has been in extensive use in Lancaster
county, Pennsylvania, and Newcastle county,
Delaware. It is a self-sharpening implement,
with a slightly concave mould-board. A cast-
iron angular cutter supplies the place of a
coulter. It is sometimes constructed so as to
have the mould-board on either the right
or left side, thus adapting it to the habits
of a few old farmers who retain a partiality
for ploughs turning the furrow-slice to the left
hand.

Prouty and Mears's Centre-draught Plough.-One
of the chief late improvements on American
ploughs consists in lengthening or extending
the mould-board, and still retaining the centre-
draught principle, a construction which enables
the instrument to turn a sod or furrow-slice so
as merely to lap, or to lie completely flat, at the
discretion of the ploughman. The cost of
these ploughs, which possess high merits, va-
ries, according to size, from $7 to $12. The
larger sizes are provided with a small wheel to
each, attached near the beam, a rare thing in
America, but which in the present instance
serves to render it more easy for the plough to
follow the horses with proper steadiness, thus
serving to ease the ploughman as well as the
horses, the tendency to sink too deeply into the
soil being completely checked. With regard
to the wheel to ploughs, it is worthy of remark
that there is a disposition beginning to be ma-
nifested in the United States in favour of at
least one such appendage.

Subsoil Ploughs, now so extensively used in

PLOUGHING.

PLOUGHING.

Great Britain, are rapidly coming into use in j
the United States, where various sizes are
made, the largest being a heavy tug for four
horses, whilst the smallest may be worked by
two mules or one stout horse. Those made
by Prouty and Mears are very efficient imple-
ments, the prices varying from $8 for the sin-
gle horse, and $10 to $12 for the larger sizes.
A more simple and cheaper subsoil plough,
which has proved very successful on trial, has
lately been made in the city of New York,
adapted to one or more horses. These consist
of a comnion plough from which all the upper
portion of the mould-board has been cut away,
so as to leave the mere skeleton, which strikes
deep and stirs up the subsoil very effectually.
The price of these varies from $4 to $6, ac-
cording to size, &c. They may be had in New
York at most of the agricultural implement
stores, and in Philadelphia, of E. Chandler,
agricultural implement maker, 196 Market
street. See Scbsoil PLocoiiiiio.

PLOUGHING. The art of turning over the
soil by means of the plough. There are va-
rious kinds of ploughing. Trench ploughing
is effected by the plough passing twice along
the same furrow: the first time for the purpose
of throwing the surface soil into the bottom of
the furrow, and the second time for raising a
furrow-slice from under that which had been
already turned over, and raising it up, &c.,
turning it upon the first furrow-slice, by means
of which the surface soil is entirely buried,
and a stratum of subsoil laid over it: thus
effecting in the field what trenching with the
spade does in the garden. Trench ploughing
can only be employed with advantage where
the subsoil is naturally dry and of good qua-
lity, or where it has been rendered so by drain-
ing and subsoil ploughing; for bad subsoil
brought to the surface, unless considerably
altered in composition and texture, would be
unfit for receiving seeds or plants.

To excel in the art of ploughing, the plough-
man should take a pleasure in his work, and
not rest satisfied till he can make his furrows
in a straight line, and lay the slices as much
as possible at the same angle from the bottom
of the furrow. He should open his first furrow
in a uniform manner, and proceed with regu-
larity of width and depth of the furrow-slice,
and "shut up" clean at last.

Ploughing matches, which of late years have
been so general, have given a very increased
interest to ploughmen and ploughboys. The
face of the country is in many parts strikingly
improved by the change which sound plough-
ing has effected, and much of this may be
traced to the lively interest which has been
paid to this part of tillage by agricultural so-
cieties and by practical farmers. I never knew
a ploughing-match meeting established in any
rural district without very beneficial effects be-
ing produced on the character of the peasantry.
It never fails to elevate the ploughman in his
own opinion ; it induces him to strive to excel
in his honourable vocation, to please his em-
ployer, and to stand well in the estimation of
his richer neighbours. The very assemblage
of the neighbouring farmers and gentry to wit-

ness the trial of skill, brings out all the latent
pride of the roughest ploughman. The flowers
in his horses' bridles, the network on their
ears, the new, gay-coloured tape with which
their manes and tails are braided, betray the
little feelings of honest pride in the plough-
man's bosom. When at a recent meeting I
noticed the air of triumph with which the vic-
tor in the field of Langley, in Buckingham-
shire, after having had the queen's prize of
five guineas awarded to him, marched his
sleek, well-fed plough-horses off the field, with a
sprig of laurel in their bridles, I could not but
admit that the effect of that meeting would be
felt, not only amongst the contending plough-
men there assembled, but through the adjoin-
ing hundreds. The triumph, too, was not con-
fined to the ploughman ; his master, nay, his
parish, shared in the honour; and I will en-
gage that many an honest ploughman, betweea
one year's meeting and the next, as he ploughs
"his acre," thinks of the field of meeting, and
of the best means of securing a prize. Such
meetings, moreover, teach even the most igno-
rant the importance of such affairs; that there
is a great difference in the neatness, style, and
profit to the farmer where the ploughmen ex-
ecute their work properly ; and they are pretty
sure to convince even the most listless that
there is more skill required in a ploughman
than many persons would readily believe.

I believe it admits of no doubt, says Mr.
Stephens, that, since the institution of plough-
ing matches throughout the country, the cha-
racter of our farm-servants as ploughmen has
risen to considerable celebrity, not but that in-
dividual ploughmen could have been found
before the practice of matches existed as dex-
terous as any of the present day, but the gene-
ral diffusion of good ploughing must be ob-
vious to everj' one who has been in the habit
of observing the ploughed surface of the coun-
try. This improvement is not to be ascribed
to the institution of ploughing matches alone,
because superior construction of implements,
better kept, better matched, and superior races
of horses, and superior judgment and taste in.
field labour and in the farmer himself, are too
important elements in influencing the conduct
of ploughmen, to be overlooked in a considera-
tion of this question.

But be the primary motive for improvement
in the most important branch of field labour as
it may, there cannot be a doubt that a properly
regulated emulation amongst workmen of any
class, proves a strong incentive to the produc-
tion of superior workmanship, and the more
generally the inducement is extended, the im-
provement arising from it may be expected to
be the more generally diffused ; and on this
account the plough medals of the Highland and
Agricultural Society of Scotland, being open for
competition to all parts of Scotland every year,
have perhaps excited a spirit of emulation
among ploughmen, by rewarding those who
excel, beyond any thing to be seen in any other
country. Wherever 15 ploughs can be gather-
ed together for competition at any time and
place, there the ploughman who obtains the
first premium offered by those interested in the

915

PLOUGHING.

PLUM.

exhibition, is entitled to receive, over and above,
the Society's plough medal of silver, bearing a
suitable inscription, with the gainer's name.
About 40 applications are made for the medals
every year, so that at least 600 ploughmen an-
nually compete for them ; but the actual num-
ber far exceeds that number; as, in many in-
stances, matches comprehend from 40 to 70
ploughs, instead of the minimum number of 15.
The matches are usually occasioned by the
welcome which his neighbours are desirous of
giving an incoming tenant to his farm, and its
heartiness is shown in the extent of the assist-
ance which they give him in ploughing a field or
fields at a time when he has not yet collected a
working stock sufficient for the purpose.

Ploughing matches are generally very fairly
conducted in Scotland. They usually take
place on lea ground, the ploughing of which is
considered the best test of a ploughman's skill,
though I hold that drilling is much more diffi-
cult to execute correctly. The best part of the
field is usually selected for the purpose, if there
be such, and the same extent of ground, usually
from 2 to 4 ridges, according to the length, is
allotted to each portion of ground to be
ploughed. A pin, bearing a number, is pushed
into the ground at the end of each lot, of which
there are as many marked off" as there are
ploughs entered in the competition. Numbers
corresponding to those on the pins are drawn
by the competing ploughmen, who take pos-
session of the lots as they are drawn. Ample
time is allowed to finish the lot, and in this
part of the arrangements I am of opinion that
too much time is usually allowed, to the annoy-
ance of the. spectators. Although shortness of
time in executing the same extent of work is
not to be compared to excellency of execution,
yet it should enter as an important element in-
to the decision of the question of excellence.
Every competitor is obliged to feer his own
lot, guide his own horses, and do every other
thing connected with the work, such as assort-
ing his horses, and trimming his plough-irons,
without the least assistance.

The judges, who have been brought from a
distance, and have no personal interest in the
exhibition, are requested to inspect the ground
after all the ploughs have been removed, hav-
ing been kept away from the scene during the
time the ploughs were engaged.

The primary objects of the institution of
ploughing matches must have been to produce
the best examples of ploughmanship ; and by
the best must be understood that kind of
ploughing which shall not only appear to be
well done, but must be thoroughly and essen-
tially well done. In other words, the award
should be given to the pjough that produces
not only work of a proper surface finish, but
which will exhibit, along with the first, the-pro-
perty of having turned up the greatest quantity
of soil and in the best manner. (Book of the
Farm.)

The following will be found a useful table,
showing the distance travelled by a horse in
ploughing or scarifying an acre of land; also
the quantity of land worked in a day, at the
rale of 16 and 18 miles per day of 9 hours.
916

Breadth of
Furrow-slice
or Scarifier.

Space travelled

in ploughing

an acre.

Extent ploughed per day, at the
rate of

Inchea.

' Milefc

18 Miles. 1 16 Miles.
Acres.

7
8

iS

It

11

9

11

13-5

u

10

9 9-10

14-5

13-5

11

9

2

If

12

?l

2 1-5

1 9-10

13

n

2 1-10

14

7

n

n

15

6*

2f

2 2-5

16

6 1-6

2 9-10

2 3-5

17

5*

3 1-10

2J

18

H

2 9-10

19

^i

3i

3 1-10

20

4 9-10

3 3-5

H

21

4 7-10

3 4-5

3|

22

4i

4

3^

23

4i

4 1-5

3 7-10

24

4

4i

3 9-10

25

4

4i

4

26

3 4-5

4f

4 1-5

27

3 3-5

4 9-10

^

28

H

l\

^

29

H

4 3-5

30

3t

5f

4 4-5

31

3 1-5

5

5

32

3 1-10

5 4-5

H

33

3

6

51

34

2 9-10

6 1-5

5}

11

2 4-5

6^

53.5

36

2f

6i

5 4-5

37

2^

6.i

6

38

2 3-5

6 9-10

H

39

n

i«_

H

40

n

7

H

41

2 2-5

7f

6f

42

2i

7

6 2-3

43

2 3-10

7 4-5

7

44

2

8

7 1-10

45

2 1-5

8 1-6

7i-

46

2 1-6

8^

7 2-5

47

2 1-10

8

7 3-5

48

2 1-12

8*

7f

49

2

8 9-10

7 9-10

60

2

9 9-10

8 1-10

51

19-10

91-5

8i

52

19-10

n

8 2-5

63

19-10

9*

8J

54

14-5

9 4-5

8 9-10

55

14-5

10

8

56

If

lOi

9

57

If

10 2-5

9 1-5

58

17-10

10 3-5

9^

59

17-10

m

n

60

1 3-5

10 9-10

9 7-10

61

13-5

11 1-5

9 4-5

62

1 3-5

lU

10

63

13-5

lU

10 1-5

64

H

11 7-10

101

65

H

114-5

10*

66

H

12

10 3-5

67

H

12i

10 4-5

68

u

12 2-5

11

69

12-5

12 3-5

iH
lU

70

12-5

12*

71

12-5

12 9-10

lU

72

12-5

131

113-5

73

H

13i

114-5

74

U

i.n

12

75

U

13 3-5

^n

76

. 13-10

13 4-5

I2i

77

13-10

14

I2i

78

1:

14i

12 3-5

79

14 2-5

12}

60

\\-

14 3-5

12 9-101

81

1 1-5

141

13 1-10

82

1 1-5

15

m

fi5

1 1-5

l-H

13 2-5

84

1 1-6

151

13 3-5

PLUM (Prunus, from prune, its Greek name)
A genus of trees and shrubs, several of which
are indigenous to Britain. Having already
noticed the bird cherry (P. padus), the wild
cherry tree (P. ccrastis), the wild bullace tree
{P.insitiHa),ihe black thorn or sloe (P.spinosa),

PLUM.

PLUM TREE WEEVIL.

under their several heads, it only remains to ]
speak in this place of the wild and cultivatec?
species of plum tree. The wild plum tree
(P. domesticu) is a moderate sized tree, without
thorns, found g^rowing sometimes in woods and
hedges, flowering in May. The fruit is rather
oblong, seldom quite globular, its colour and
flavour very variable. "Whether all our cul-
tivated plums have originated from this spe-
cies, or from the wild bullace tree" (P.insiiitia),
says Sir J. E. Smith, "its thorns having disap-
peared by culture like those of the pear tree,
is a question which perhaps no botanist can
ever solve." As to its varieties, Gerarde de-
clares that " to write of plums particularly
would require a peculiar volume, and yet the
end not be attained unto, nor the stock or kin-
dred perfectly known, neither to be distin-
guished apart." He adds that each country
has an abundance of its own peculiar varie-
ties. All the kinds of plum grow well in any
common soil, and are increased by seeds or
suckers, or by grafting or budding to perpetuate
the particular kinds. There are 274 varieties
named in the catalogue of the Horticultural
Society. As a choice selection for a small
garden, Mr. Nicol recommends the following
twelve varieties : Jaune Haiive, Wilmot's Or-
leans green gage, red magnum-bonum, white
ditto, Coe's golden drop, Caledonian, mussel,
damson, wine-sour, white bullace, blue impe-
ratrice.

The jDcst plums for cultivation may be thus
classed —

a. Purple Rouitd. — Shoott smooth, — Purple gage;

nectarine plum ; Kirkes ; virgin ; queen-
mother.

Shoots downy. — Royal native; Orleans;
early Orleans ; Coxe's fine late red ; wine-
sour. ,

b. Obloxg. — S'}oots smooth. — Blue imperatrice ;

Inkworth imperatrice ; Cooper's large red.
Shoots downy. — Blue perdrigon; Shrop-
shire damson.

a. Pale Round. — Shoots smooth. — Green gage;

Knight's large green dryiog; Lucombe's
nonsuc.h.

Shoots downy. — Drap d'or; Mirabelle;
Washington.

b. Obloxo. — Shoots smooth. — Coe's golden drop;

St. Catherine ; White magnum bonum.

Shoots downy. — Gumaraen ; While per-
drigon.

If plum trees are much pruned, they grow
too luxuriant to produce fruit, and often gum
and spoil. The choice varieties of plums are
much esteemed for the dessert; the more com-
mon sorts are used for pies, tarts, preserves,
&c. The wood is employed for turnery and
cabinet work, and for the manufacture of mu-
sical instruments.

The following information relative to the
cultivation and management of plum trees, is
from a communication made by Mr, S. Reeve,
of Salem, N. J., to that valuable American
work, Hofly's Orchardist's Companion.

Plum trees, like other fruit trees, when first
transplanted, and for a few or several subse-
quent years, should be managed and cultivated
alike; but when the plum tree has arrived to
maturity and ready to bear, the soil around it

should be thrown into a hard texture, for in-
stance, of the consistency of a gravel walk.

A pig and poultry yard which remains un-
cultivated, and never suffered to become a
sward, is also very appropriate, from the cir-
cumstance of its being promenaded over con-
stantly by bipeds and animals so as to preclude
the possibility of grass growing.

In a soil of this description, owing to its be-
ing compact and consequently remaining drier,
the trees do not grow so fast as in cultivated
grounds, the beneficial result is, that the sap cen-
tres itself more in the fruit ; whereas, when the
sap is too abundant, it is more apt to flow past
the fruit into the branches, and thus ultimately,
from a want of nourishment, the plums drop
off in profusion, owing to their starved condi-
tion, and not so much, as it is often supposed,
from the bore or sting of the curculio, of which
it is frequently found divested when picked
from the ground.

From a compact position or nature of soil
as before described, another important advan-
tage arises : although not operating as a perfect
antidote tq the attacks of the curculio, it is
nevertheless a great preventive to its depreda-
tions, from the circumstance that this insect,
when the fruit does fall, not meeting with a
surface or soil such as sward, garden ground,
&c., in which to take shelter until the following
spring, when it hatches and assumes the
winged form, and again commences its destruc-
tive attacks upon the fruit.

Mr. Reeve submits it therefore as his opi-
nion, that it would fully repay any person
for his trouble or expense in removing (which
should only be done when vegetation is
checked) from the plum tree, when it has ar-
rived to the age of 8 to 10 years, all the rich
subsoil from around the tree in a circumfe-
rence of from 10 to 12 feet down to the clay
soil, and fill up the space again with poor earth,
sand, or gravel, so as to check the growth of
the tree for the benefit of the fruit, in accord-
ance with the first principles stated in this ar-
ticle.

PLUM TREE WEEVIL. It is now well
known that the falling of unripe plums, apri-
cots, peaches, and cherries, is caused by little
whitish grubs, which bore into these fruits.
The loss of fruit, occasioned by insects of this
kind, is frequently very great ; and, in some of
our gardens and orchards, the crop of plums
is often entirely ruined by the depredations of
grubs, which have been ascertained to be the
larvae or young of a small beetle of the weevil
tribe, called Rhynchanus (Conotrachelus) Nenti-
phar, the Nenuphar or plum-weevil. "I have
found the beetles," says Dr. Harris, of Boston,
" as early as the 30th of March, and as late as
the 10th of June, and at various intermediate
times, according with the forwardness or back-
wardness of vegetation in the spring, and have
frequently caught them flying in the middle of
the day. They are from three-twentieths to
one-fifth of an inch long, exclusive of the
curved snout, which is rather longer than the
thorax, and is bent under the breast, between
the fore-legs, when at rest. Their colour is a
dark-brown, variegated with spots of white,
ochre-yellow, and black. The thorax is ua-
4h3 917

PLUM TREE WEEVIL.

PLUM TREE WEEVIL.

even; the wing-covers have several short
ridges upon them, those on the middle of the
back forming two considerable humps, of a
black colour, behind which there is a wide
band of ochre-yellow and white. Each of the
thighs has two little teeth on the under side.
They begin to sting the plums as soon as the
fruit is set, and, as some say, continue their
operations till the first of August. After mak-
ing a suitable puncture with their snouts, they
lay one egg in each plum thus stung, and go
over the fruit on the tree in this way till their
store is exhausted ; so that, where these beetles
abound, not a plum will escape being punc-
tured. The irritation arising from these punc-
tures, and from the gnawings of the grubs
after they are hatched, causes the young fruit
to become gummy, diseased, and fing-lly to drop
before it is ripe. Meanwhile the grub comes
to its growth, and, immediately after the fruit
falls, burrows into the ground. This may
occur at various times between the middle of
June and of August ; and, in the space of a
little more than three weeks afterwards, the
insect completes its transformations, and comes
out of the ground in the beetle form. The
history of the insect thus far is the result of
my own observations; the remainder rests on
the testimony of other persons."

In an account of the plum-weevil, by Dr.
James Tilton of Wilmington, Delaware, pub-
lished in the Domestic Encyclopcedin, (article
Fruit,) and since republished in the " Georgi-
cal Papers for 1809" of the Massachusetts Agri-
cultural Society, and in other works, it is stated,
that peaches, nectarines, apples, pears, quinces,
and cherries are also attacked by this insect,
and that it remains in the earth, in the form
of a grub, during the winter, ready to be
matured into a beetle as the spring advances.
These statements, says Dr. Harris, I have not
yet been able to confirm. It seems, however,
to have been fully ascertained by Professor
Peck, Mr. Say, and others, in whose accuracy
full confidence may be placed, that this same
weevil attacks all our common stone-fruits, such
as plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and
cherries; Dr. Burnett has recently assured me
that he has seen this beetle puncturing apples ;
and it is not at all improbable that the trans-
formations of some of the grubs may be re-
tarded till the winter has passed, analogous
cases being of frequent occurrence. Those
that are sometimes found in apples must not
be mistaken for the more common apple-
worms, which are not the larvoe of a weevil.
The Rev. F. V. Melsheimer remarks in his ca-
talogue, that this insect lives under the bark
of the peach-tree. Professor Peck raised the
same beetle from a grub found in the watery
excrescence of a cherry tree, and from this
circumstance named it Rhynchcenus Cerasi, the
cherry-weevil. The plum, still more than the
cherry tree, is subject to a disease of the small
limbs, which shows itself in the form of large
irregular warts, of a black colour, as if charred.
Grubs, apparently the same as those that are
found in plums, have often been detected in
these warts, which are now generally supposed
to be produced by the punctures of the beetles,
and the residence of the grubs. Professor
018

Peck says, that " the seat of the disease is m the
bark. The sap is diverted from its regular
course, and is absorbed entirely by the bark,
which is very much increased in thickness;
the cuticle bursts, the swelling becomes irre-
gular, and is formed into black lumps, with a
cracked, uneven, granulated surface. The
wood, besides being deprived of its nutriment,
is very much compressed, and the branch above
the tumour perishes." The grubs found by Pro-
fessor Peck in the tumours of the cherry tree,
went into the ground on the 6ih of July, and on
the 30th of the same month, or 24 days from
their leaving the bark, the perfect insects began
to rise, and were soon ready to deposit their
eggs in healthy branches.

In speaking of the difference between the
grub of the plum-weevil and apple tree cater-
pillar. Dr. Harris observes, " It must be borne
in mind that this plum-weevil, an insect un-
known in Europe, when arrived at maturity, is
a little, rough, dark-brown or blackish beetle,
looking like a dried bud, when it is shaken from
the trees, which resemblance is increased by
its habit of drawing up its legs and bending its
snout close to the lower side of its body, and
remaining for a time without motion and seem-
ingly lifeless. In stinging the fruit, before lay-
ing its eggs, it uses its short curved snout,
which is armed at the tip with a pair of very
small nippers ; and by means of this weapon
it makes, in the tender skin of the young plum
or apple, a crescent-shaped incision, similar to
what would be formed by indenting the fruit
with the finger-nail. Very rarely is there more
than one incision made in the same fruit; and
in the wound, the weevil lays only a single egg.
The insect hatched from this egg is a little
whitish grub, destitute of feet, and very much
like a maggot in appearance, except that it has
a distinct, rounded, light-brown head. By means
of the microscope I have satisfactorily ascer-
tained that the grubs from the fruit and from the
warts were exactly alike, and that both were
without feet. It appears, furthermore, that the
tumours on plum and on cherry trees are infested
not only by these insects, but also by another
kind of grub, provided with legs, and occasion-
ally by the wood-eating caterpillars of the JEgeria
exitiosa, or peach tree borer. When the grubs of
the plum-weevil are fully grown, they go into
the ground, and are there changed to chrysaiids
of a white colour, having the legs and wings
free and capable of some motion ; and finally
they leave the ground in the form of little
beetles, exactly like those which had previously
stung the fruit. Further observation seems to
be wanting before it can be proved that the
cankerous warts on plum and cherry trees
arise from the irritating punctures of the plum-
weevils, and of the other insects that occasion-
ally make these warts their places of abode ;
although it must be allowed that the well-
known production of galls by insects on oak
trees and on other plants, would lead us to sup-
pose that those of the plum tree have a similar
origin. In addition to the means already re-
commended for preventing the ravages of
plum-weevils, I would observe that wall-fruit
can be perfectly secured by a screen of railli-
uet or close netting, which should be put on as

POA.

POA.

soon as the fruit is formed, and should remain
til! it begins to ripen.

The following, among other remedies that
have been suggested, may be found useful in
checking the ravages of the plum-weevil. Let
the trees be briskly shaken or suddenly jarred
every morning and evening during the tiine
that the insects appear in the beetle form, and
are engaged in laying their eggs. When thus
disturbed they contract their legs and fall ; and,
as they do not immediately attempt to fly or
crawl away, they may be caught in a sheet
spread under the tree, from which they should
be gathered into a large, wide-mouthed bottle or
other tight vessel, and be thrown into the fire.
All the fallen wormy plums should be immedi-
ately gathered, and after they are boiled or
steamed, to kill the enclosed grubs, they may
be given as food to swine. The diseased ex-
crescences should be cut out and burned every
year before the last of June. The moose plum
tree (Prutnis Jmericana), which grows wild in
Maine, seems to escape the attacks of insects,
for no warts are found upon it, even when
growing in the immediate vicinity of diseased
foreign trees. It would, therefore, be the best
of stocks for budding or engrafting upon. It
can easily be raised from the stone, and grows
rapidly, but does not attain a great size. For
further suggestions and remarks, the account
of this insect by Dr. Joel Burnett, in the 18th
volume of the New England Farmer^ may be
consulted. (Harris.)

Plums, nectarines, and apricots have been
saved after being stung, by extracting the stung
part. This may be done with the point of a
knife or nippers properly adapted to the pur-
pose. The wounds heal and the fruit grows
and attains to perfect maturity.

POA (From poa, signifying grass or her-
bage). The meadow-grass. A genus of grasses
of considerable extent, and very abundant in
the pasturages of Europe. This genus con-
tains some valuable hay and pasture grasses,
succeeding well in rich loamy soil ; some of
the species are aquatic, growing only in water,
or in very moist situations ; and increased by
seeds or divisions of the roots. Poa annua, pi.
6, f, is the most common of all grasses. P. tii-
vialis and P. prntensis are sown extensively as
ft part of the artificial grasses for pastures and
lawns, which are now commonly made with
picked grasses instead of "hay seeds." In
general these grasses appear to be nutritious
and agreeable to cattle. There are, in Eng-
land, nine indigenous species, besides several
varieties.

1. Flat-stalked meadow-grass (P.compressa),
pi. 7, h. This is a very common species in
dry, barren ground, flowering from June to Sep-
tember.

The root is moderately creeping, with downy
fibres ; stems obliquely ascending in the lower
part, then erect and often crowded together,
from 1 to 1^ foot high, remarkably compressed,
by which this species may readily be known,
as also by a sudden contraction where the
panicle begins. Leaves short, narrow, rough-
ish, especially at the edges, with long com-
pressed sheaths, and a short obtuse stipule.
The whole plant is more or less glaucous.

! Florets from three to eight or nine, connected
at the base by a mass of white folded threads,
as fine and soft as a spider's web, which may
be drawn out to a considerable length. This
grass, though not succulent, is eaten by all
cattle, but cannot be cultivated in moist or
manured ground. It never forms a close turf,
and although it possesses superior nutritive
powers, its produce anywhere is far from
abundant.

A variety of this species (P. c. var. erecta) is
mentioned by Sinclair, which differs from the
last, in having culms more upright, less com-
pressed, and produced in greater quantities. It
grows closer, forms a pretty good sward, and
the roots are less inclined to creeping. But it
is nevertheless inferior in point of early growth,
and the produce of the foliage. See Blue Giiass.

2. Alpine meadow-grass (P. alpina), pi. 6, /.
This species is chiefly confined to alpine re-
gions and lofty mountains.

3. Wavy meadow-grass (P. laxa). This spe-
cies grows in some of the Highlands of Scot-
land. It possesses no agricultural merit.

4. Bulbous meadow-grass (P. hulbosa). This
species tenants the sandy sea-shore, and other
dry, barren ground. It is perennial, and flowers
in April and May.

5. Ronghish meadow-grass (P. trivialig), pi.
5, t. This is a very common species, in mea-
dows and pastures, especially such as are
rather moist. Perennial, flowering from June
to October. The root is fibrous, and tufted;
the stems several, about eighteen inches high,
erect, leafy, with several knots, the naked part
cylindrical, roughish to the touch, as are the
edges and backs of the flat, slightly spreading,
lax, linear, deep-green leaves. In their long
compressed sheaths also a slight roughness is
sometimes perceptible. Panicle large, spread-
ing with half-whorled, horizontal, wavy, angu-
lar, rough-compressed, unequal branches. Mr.
Curtis, deeply versed in the practical economy
of grasses, declares this to be one of the most
valuable for pasturage and hay, yielding abun-
dantly, though not particularly early ; and of
the most excellent quality. Mr. G. Sinclair,
another practical authority on the grasses, also
observes, "The superior produce of this Poa
over many other species, its highly nutritive
qualities, the seasons in which it arrives at
perfection, and the marked partiality which
oxen, horses, and sheep have for it, are merits
which distinguish it as one of the most valu-
able of those grasses which aflect moist, rich
soils and sheltered situations : but in dry, ex-
posed situations it is altogether inconsiderable;
it yearly diminishes, and ultimately dies ofi",
not unfrequently in the space of four or five
years. Its produce is always much greater
when combined with other grasses than when
cultivated by itself; with a proper admixture,
it will nearly double its produce, though on the
same soil, so much does it delight in shelter.
Those spots in pastures that are closely eaten
down, consist for the most part of this grass."

6. Smooth-stalked meadow-grass (P. praten-
sis), pi. 5, h. This is a very common species

I in all meadows and pastures. It is perennial,
' flowering in May and June. The root is strong
i and creeping, with horizontal runners. The

919

POA.

POA.

general aspect of the plant is very like the last,
with which it has usually been confounded ;
but the stems and leaves betray no roughness
when drawn through the hand. Spikelets four-
flowered ; florets lanceolate, ribbed, connected
by a. web. But the clear and essential mark
of this species, compared with the last, consists
in its very short, abrupt, pointless stipule, which
in every leaf of every variety proves constant
and invariable.

As an object of agriculture, this species is
not less valuable than the P. trivialis, especially
for permanent pasture. It is earlier in leaf,
and will thrive with less moisture, though the
rough-stalked meadow-grass produces, at last,
a better crop. Mr. Curtis, and several other
able botanists, have rendered great service to
the farmer in directing his attention to such
objects ; and it is undoubtedly worth his while
to be select in seeds for grass lands. But, after
all. Nature is supreme in the accommodation
of particular grasses to certain soils and situa-
tions, and whatever we may sow, unless we
have well studied her laws, she finally tri-
umphs. The great objection to this grass is
the property of the creeping roots to scourge
the soil.

Mr. Sinclair notices, in his experiments on
the grasses, two varieties, the short blue mea-
dow-grass (P. pratemris subccet-ulea) and the nar-
row-leaved meadow-grass (P. pralensis angusti-
folia), pi. 6, e, which requires some notice here.

The discriminating characters of the first-
named are as follows : — Panicle diff'iise ; spike-
lets oval, generally three-flowered; the culms
shorter, and somewhat glaucous ; and the
leaves much shorter and broader than those of
the Poa pralensis. It may be further distin-
guished by its delicate sky-blue or glaucous
colour. From its creeping roots and other de-
merits, this is evidently one of the inferior
grasses. Although the botanical characters
of the narrow-leaved meadow-grass (P. angus-
iifolia) are not sufficient to constitute it a dis-
tinct species, its agricultural merits cause it to
differ from P. pralensis, to which it is much
superior. Its spring produce is considerable,
and its properties of early growth and great
nutritive matter would rank it with the most
valuable grasses, but for its powerful creeping
root. The culms are most valuable for the
manufacture of the finest straw-plait, in imita-
tion of the celebrated "Leghorn." See Blue
Grass.

7. Annual meadow-grass, Suffolk-grass (P.
annua), pi. 6, c. This is an exceedingly com-
mon species everywhere, as well in waste as
cultivated ground, flowering from April to No-
vember. The root is fibrous. Stems pale,
very smooth, oblique, compressed, 3 to 12
inches long. Leaves of/ a fine light-green,
spreading, linear, bluntish, flaccid, roughish at
the edge only. Panicle small, widely spread-
ing. Spikelets ovate, five-flowered ; florets a
little remote, five-ribbed, without a web.

This is a good grass for fodder, abundant in
proportion to the richness of the soil, easily
raised, but not durable. The diminutive size
of the plant, however, renders its cultivation
unprofitable, compared with that of any other
of the pasture grasses. It is the most Irouble-
920

some weed that infests gravel walks, stone
pitchings, and the like. The most effectual
way to extirpate it in such situations is to
sprinkle salt on it ; some recommend boiling
water and a layer of litter, &c.

This grass, which Dr. Darlington calls mea-
dow-poa, in the Middle States goes by the name
of green grass, spear-grass, and meadow-grass;
Although it is styled an annual, it has a peren-
nial root. This species varies considerably,
in size and appearance, when growing in dif-
ferent soils and situations. In our best soils,
the radical leaves are very long and luxuriant,
— when it is known by the name of green grass.
This has by some botanists been made a dis-
tinct species, under the name of P.viridis: but
it is probably nothing more than a variety. It
is, indeed, as Muhlenberg terms it, " oplimvm. pa-
bulum;" being decidedly the most valuable of
all the grasses known in our pastures. It has
not been found necessary to cultivate it, by
sowing the seed ; for when the land is duly
prepared by lime and manure, it soon takes
possession of the soil, — or comes in, as the
farmers term it; and supersedes the artificial
grasses. In very poor land, it deteriorates so
much that it would scarcely be recognised as
the same plant. It is generally believed by the
botanists to be a naturalized foreigner in the
United States.

8. Glaucous meadov/-grass (P. gZawca). This
species is found on the mountains of Wales,
Scotland, and the north of England.

9. Wood meadow-grass (P. «emora/is). This
is a very common species in some districts in
groves and woods, especially on chalk soils.
The whole plant is very slender and delicate,
1^ or 2 feet high. Stems several, slightly com-
pressed, smooth, striated, leafy, with 4 or 5
joints. Leaves almost all on the stem, grass-
green, narrow, flat, more or less rough, taper-
ing to a fine slender point. Mr. George Sin-
clair speaks favourably of a variety of this
species, which he names P. nemoralis, var. an-
guslifolia. Although the produce is inconsider-
able compared to that of many others equally
nutrient, yet the early growth of this grass in
the spring, and its remarkably fine, succulent,
and nutritive herbage, recommend it strongly
for admission into the company of the superior
permanent pasture grasses. It flowers in the
third week of June, and ripens the seed in the
end of July.

The P. aquatica, PI. 5, m, or water meadow-
grass, of some botanists, is the reedy sweet-
grass {Gly ceria aqualica) o( ^m'iih. The decum-
bent meadow-grass (P. decumbens) is the de-
cumbent heath-grass {Tnodia dccumbens) of
Smith's English Flora. The reflexed meadow-
grass (P. disfans) of Sinclair is the reflexed
sweet-grass {Glyceria dista7is) of modern bo-
tanists. The G/t/cma^it»fans is also sometimes
called the Poafluitans.

One or two exotic species are mentioned in
Sinclair's work on the grasses, viz.,

The soft meadow-grass (P. cenisia). This
alpine species is a native of Germany, and
attains to a greater size than most others of
the same class. The root is fibrous. Panicle
diffuse, nodding. Its nutrient properties, as
indicated by the quantity of nuiritive matter it

POCKET.

POLYPODY.

contains, are not superior to those of several
other grasses, which afford a greater abundance
of herbage throughout the season.

The fertile meadow-grass (P. fertilis). It
produces flowers about the first and second
weeks of July, and seeds in the second week of
August. This grass, which is also a native of
Germany, seems to be allied to the Poa nemo-
ralis. It differs in having the panicle more
loose and spreading, and less attenuated. The
spikelets are more oval, and nerved. The
culm rises from a foot and a half to 2 feet in
height, and sometimes more, ascending at the
base, afterwards erect, somewhat compressed.
The root is slightly creeping. In regard to
early growth, this grass stands next to the
meadow fox-tail, cock's-foot, and tall oat. The
herbage is more nutritive than that of either of
those grasses ; and from its agricultural merits
it deserves a place in the composition of rich
pastures, and ranks with the superior grasses
of irrigated meadows. It flowers in the begin-
ning of July, and the seed is ripe towards the
end of the month.

The nerved meadow-grass (P.nervata). This
species is a native of North America. Pani-
cle upright, often half a foot or more in length,
with slender branches, pressed close and sub-
divided. Spikelets small, of a green colour.
Valves of the blossom smooth, having five
raised nerves on each valve. Leaves in two
rows, resembling a fan, somewhat rough.
Culm a little compressed. This grass is re-
markably hardy, and possesses many very ex-
cellent properties : it will be found a valuable
ingredient in permanent pastures, where the
soil is not too dry, but of a medium quality as
to moisture and dryness. The root leaves are
produced on a shoot, and stand in two rows
after the manner of a fan. This shoot, which
is formed by the union of the base of the leaves,
is very succulent, and contains a greater pro-
portion of nutritive matter than the leaves,
which accounts for the superior nutrient quali-
ties of the lattermath. It flowers in the third
week of June, and the seed is ripe in the last
week of July.

POCKET. A large kind of bag in which
hops are packed up.

POD. A term used to express the siliqua
and silicula of botanists. A seed-vessel of
some plants, consisting of two valves, sepa-
rated by a linear receptacle, along each of the
edges of which the seeds are alternately ranged.
The wall-flower affords an example of the sili-
qua, which differs from the silicula merely in
being oblong instead of being short and round.
The satin-flower, or honesty, bears a pouch or
silicula.

POISON (Fr.). Any substance which in
small quantity disturbs, suspends, or destroys
one or more of the vital functions. Poisons are
classified by Orfila under the four heads of irri-
tants, narcotics, narcotico-acrids, and putrefi-
ants, or septics, and, we may add, sedatives.
The same poisons which affect men usually
I affect horses, cows, and dogs ; but goats and
swine eat many things that are virulent poisons
to other animals. Sweet almonds and aloes
are poisonous to dogs; sugar is poison to
pigeons, parsley to parrots, and pepper to hogs.
116

Pnxince.
Tods. Cwt.

I

9 3
10 1

-

15 10
13 14

-

11 0
10 5

On the other hand, hogs devour Nux vomica and
henbane with impunity ; goats browse on Jcorf
ite, Ciruta virosa, and Arnica montana, harmless;
and sheep eat common hemlock without suffer-
ing. See AxiMAL and Vegetable Poisoks,
Fungi, Sheep, Diseases of, Yew, &c.

POITTEVIN'S MANURE, /f compound or-
ganic and earihy manure powder, well adapted
for the use of the drill. See Manures appli-
cable BY THE Drill.

In three experiments with this manure, tried
in 1840, on turnips against bones, the following
are the results.

First, on the stony soil.

24 bushels of Poittevin'8 -

16 bushels of bones - - -
Second, on a sandy soil.

24 biishehs of Poittevin's -

16 bushels of bones - - -

Third, on a sandy soil with Swedes.

1.3 bushels of Poiiievin's -

12 bushels of bones - - .

This manure answers best on light soils; it
is generally used too sparingly.

POLE. .\ measure of length equal to 16^ feet.

POLLARD. A name given to a tree that
has been frequently polled or lopped, and its
top taken off, or headed down to the stem, for
the purpose of fire-wotd or small poles for
hurdle-wood and other similar uses, as well as
for hop-poles, &c. The term is most com-
monly in use in the southern and eastern dis-
tricts of Great Britain. Pollard is also applied
to the fine bran or inner husk of wheat. It is
a substance much used in feeding hogs and
different domestic animals.

POLLEN. In botany, the pulverulent sub-
stance which fills the cells of the anthers of a
plant, consisting of a multitude of little hollow
cases, filled with a fluid holding very minute
molecular matter in suspension. The latter is
eventually discharged by the grains of pollen
through their hollow tubes, and is supposed to
be the spermatic fluid of a plant. When the
pollen alights on the stigma of the plant, the
membrane lining the shell is protruded to a
tube, which enters the stigma, and lengthens
until it reaches the ovule, into which it empties
the impregnating fluid. The pollen grains
vary in form and magnitude, being globular,
angular, compressed, simple, and compound.
Pollen is also a provincial name given to the
hen-roost. It is sometimes written hen-pollen.

POLIj-EVIL. An accident which sometimes
occurs to horses, from the animal's rubbing or
striking his head against the lower edge of the
manger, or hanging back in the stall and
bruising the part with the halter. Such inju-
ries are serious in their nature and difl!icult of
treatment, and will usually require the skill
and anatomical knowledge of the veterinary
surgeon.

POLYPODY. (Polypodium, from poly, many,
and pons, a foot; having numerous root-like
feet. This is an extensive genus of very orna-
mental ferns. The hardy kinds are Avell
adapted for ornamenting rock-work, or they
may be grown in pots, in light loamy soil.
All the species may be readily inqreased by
dividing the roots, or by seeds.

There are in England four indigenous spe-
cies.

931

POMEGRANATE.

POPLAR.

POMEGRANATE (Punica, from punirus of
" Carthage," near which city it is said to have
been first found; or from jmniccus, scarlet;
alhiding to the colour of the flowers). A beau-
tiful, hardy, deciduous shrub, growing from 12
to 15 feet high. There is no tree more showy
than the pomegranate. P. granatum, and its
varieties, produce their splendid flowers and
fruit very plentifully from July to September,
when planted against a south wall. They all
grow well in a light, rich loam, and strike root
freely from cuttings or layers ; the rarer varie-
ties are sometimes increased by grafting on the'
common kinds. The pomegranate requires
shelter from frost. The pulp of the fruit is of
an agreeable acid, and the rind is highly
astringent.

POPLAR (Poptdus; some derive the word
from paipallo, to vibrate or shake ; others sup-
pose it obtained its name from being used in
ancient times to decorate the public places in
Rome, where it was called ^rbor populi, or the
tree of the people). Most of the species of
poplar are very ornamental, more especially in
early spring, when the catkins of the males are
produced. Their favourite place of growth is
in moist soil, near a running stream; but they
do not thrive in very marshy situations. All
the species are readily increased by cuttings
or layers, and some by suckers. There are in
England four indigenous species of poplar: the
white poplar, already noticed under the head
Abele Tree; the gray or common white pop-
lar (P. canescens)\ the trembling poplar (See
AsPEx) ; and the black poplar (P. nigra).

The black Italian, or necklace-bearing poplar
(P. monilifcra), appears to have been first intro-
duced into Britain from North America^ in 1772.
Of all the poplars hitherto introduced, it is by far
the most valuable, looking to it in the light of
a useful and profitable limber tree, as it grows
■with astonishing rapidity, and produces a tim-
ber of large scantling and excellent quality,
equal, if not superior, to that of any other of
its genus. The wood is of a grayish-white
colour, tough when seasoned, and, if kept dry,
very durable; its great size renders it fit for
the largest buildings, and as flooring for manu-
factories and other erections, nothing can sur-
pass it; for, in addition to the property of not
splitting by percussion, it possesses the pecu-
liar advantage of not easily taking fire, and,
even when ignited, burning without flame or
violence. As an ornamental tree, it well de-
serves a place in extensive grounds, its spiry
height and pyramidal form, before it becomes
aged, being well calculated to break long hori-
zontal lines, or the monotonous effect of round-
headed trees ': it also in a great measure, from
its semi-fastigiate growth in the young state,
supplies the place of the Lombardy poplar in
such scenery, either of w^ooded landscape or
in combination with buildings, as is improved
by the presence of that tree.

The Lombardy poplar {P. fastigiata). In its
close fastigiate growth and cypress-like form,
which seems to be retained during the whole
of its existence, the Lombardy poplar is too
conspicuous not to be immediately recognised
and readily distinguished from all other spe-
cies of the genus. As a useful and profitable
089

timber tree it is greatly inferior to some of the
species already described, the twisted and
deeply-furrowed trunk, even of the tallest and
largest trees, cutting to much waste, and afford-
ing boards of only a moderate size when sawn
up. The wood is also softer and more spongy
than that of the black and the black Italian
poplars, and rapidly decays unless kept per-
fectly dry. In Britain, therefore, it is cultivated
almost exclusively as an ornamental tree, for
which its towering height and spire-like form
eminently qualify it.

The Athenian poplar (P. Graca) as an or-
namental tree is superior, in many respects, to
the aspen (to which it is closely allied). It
grows rapidly, young trees often making shoots
in one season of 5 or 6 feet in length, and,
though a slender-stemmed tree, it has the valu-
able property of resisting the wind, and is never
seen, even in the most exposed situations, but
an erect and perpendicular trunk.

The bark of all the poplars is more or less
antiperiodic and tonic, containing an alkali,
which can be procured separate, and is known
by the name of Salicina. It may be used for
curing agues in the same manner as Quininey
an alkaloid got from Peruvian bark.

There are many North American species of
poplar, among which is the tulip tree (Lirio-
dendron tulipifera), one of the most majestic
trees of the American forests, but which has
been improperly classed among the poplars.
See Tulip Tree.

The other and more genuine species is the
Carolina poplar (P. angulata). The lower part
of Virginia, says Michaux, is the most northern
point at which this species is found.

In the shape of its leaves and other charac-
teristics, it bears a very strong resemblance to
the cotton tree. The two species may, how-
ever, be readily distinguished by their buds,
those of the Carolina poplar being short, of a
deep green, and destitute of the resinous, aro-
matic substance which covers those of the
cotton-wood, and of which the vestiges remain
till late in the season. The wood of the Caro-
lina poplar is white, but so very soft as to be
of little value.

The Cntton-aoood (P. Canadensis). — I have
found this tree, says Michaux, in the upper
part of the State of New York, on the banks
of the Genesee, in some parts of Virginia, and
on several islands in the Ohio, always on a
fat, alluuial soil.

The leaves of this tree are trowel-shaped,
approaching to heart-shaped. The seeds are
surrounded with a beautiful plume which has
the whiteness of cotton, and the young buds
are covered with a resinous, aromatic sub-
stance of an agreeable odour. In the Atlantic
States this poplar is rare, and has received no
specific name.

American poplar (P. Hudsonica). — This species,
Michaux says, he found only on the banks of
the Hudson, above Albany, where it attained
a height of 30 or 40 feet, with 12 to 15 inches
in diameter. Several large poplars of this
kind grow in and near the city of New York,
where it is usually called American black
poplar.

Virginia poplar {P.monilifera)* — This species

POPPY.

POPPY, THE HORNED.

was not found by the Michaux, but has been
long cultivated in Europe as a North American
tree. It is also called the Swiss poplar, and is
confounded with the cotton-wood.

Cotton tree (P. argentia). This species is
scattered over a great extent of country com-
prising the Middle, Western, and Southern
Slates ; but it is so rare as to escape the no-
tice of the greater part of their inhabitants. It
is called cotton-wood on the Savannah in
Georgia, where it is confounded with the Ca-
rolinian poplar.

Tacamahaca or Balsam poplar (P. balsa7n{ca).
This species belongs to the northern regions
of America, being very abundant in Canada,
in the districts watered by the river Sagney,
between the 47th and 49th degrees of latitude,
where, notwithstanding the severity of the win-
ter, it rises to the height of 80 feet, with a dia-
meter of 3 feet. In the spring, when the buds
begin to be developed, they are abundantly
coated with a yellowish, glutinous substance,
of a very agreeable smell.

Heart-leaved balsam poplar (P. candicans). In
the Northern and Eastern States, this tree,
which Michaux says is a genuine balsam, is
commonly seen growing before the houses in
town and country. In spring, a fragrant re-
sinous balsam exudes from its bods ; but it
differs from the Tacamahaca, its leaves being
three times larger and more heart-shaped.

American aspen (P. tremidoidcs). See Abpkx,
Amkricax.

American large aspen (P. grandidenta'). This
species belongs rather to the Northern and
Middle than to the Southern States. It is larger
than the preceding species, with which it is
usually confounded.

POPPY (Papavery from papa^ pap, or thick
milk; the juice of the poppy was formerly
used in children's food to make them sleep).
These plants succeed best in a light, rich soil.
The perennial kinds are increased by dividing
at the roots. All the species are narcotic. In
England there are six indigenous species of
poppy, which are nearly all annuals. They
are arranged under two sections: — 1. Those
with bristly capsules; 2. Those with smooth cap-
sules.

The 1st section contains the round, rough-
headed poppy (P. hybridxim), which grows in
sandy or chalky fields. This is not a hybrid,
as its name implies, but a true permanent
species.

Long, rough-headed poppy (P. argemone).
This grows in grain fields and thin borders,
also on gravelly or sandy soils. It is annual,
and flowers in June and July. The herbage
resembles the preceding, but the bristles are
less closely pressed to the stem, and the seg-
ments of the leaves are somewhat broader.
Petals pale-scarlet, black at the base, soon
falling, often jagged.

The 2d section contains the long, smooth-
headed poppy (P. dubium). This species is
found in cultivated fields, especially on a light
soil. Annual, and flowering in June and July.
It is of a stouter, more luxuriant habit than the
foregoing, with broader leaves. The stem is
clothed with spreading hairs; the flower-stalks
with close-pressed bristles. Petals broader

than they are long, of a light-scarlet, the mar-
gin mostly crenate.

Common red poppy, or corn rose (P. rliceas)
See Cony Poppi. This is the only officinal
species of the British poppies ; but it is used
in medicine merely as a colouring agent.

While poppy (P. somnifemrn). This species
appears to grow wild on sandy ground in the
neighbourhood of some of the fen lands. But
it is probable that in places where it is found
apparently wild, the seed from the cultivated
poppy has been deposited by birds. The som-
niferous poppy is a native of Asia and Egypt.
It is cultivated in Hindoslan, Persia, and Egypt,
on account of its opium ; in Germany for the
oil expressed from its seeds ; and in England
for the capsules, which are used in medicine.
It is universally known in our gardens as an
ornamental flower, and is much cultivated in
the vicinity of London. The whole herb is
glaucous, and generally smooth, though the
flower-stalks now and then bear several rigid,
spreading, bristly hairs. The stem is 3 or 4
feet high, erect, branched, leafy. Leaves broad,
wavy, lobed, and bluntly notched, clasping the
stem with their heart-shaped base. Flowers 3
inches broad, while or bluish-white, with a
broad violet spot at the base of each petal. In
gardens, double varieties of every shade of
purple, scarlet, crimson, and even green mixed
with white, are common, though nothing can
be more liable to change. The capsule is near-
ly globular. Seed small, whitish-brown, oily,
sweet, and eatable. There are two varieties,
namely, P. album and P. nigrum, chiefly distin-
guished by the foramina under the stigma be-
ing absent in the former, and present and open
in the latter. The milky juice of the capsules,
when abstracted by transverse incisions and
inspissated, forms opium, which, as Haller well
observes, is far more potent and dangerous ia
hot countries than in our cooler climates. The
capsules boiled afford a mild, narcotic decoc-
tion, more generally used for fomentations in
inward pains, and for making a syrup, which
is misused by lazy nurses, who administer it
to restless infants, and sacrifice them to their
own love of ease. Nothing is more to be con-
demned than the indiscriminate use of syrup
of poppies. No opium, except as experiment,
is made from poppies in England ; and, could
it be made, both it and the foreign opium
should never be employed except by the advice
of those who alone ought to direct its use.

Yellow poppy (P. cambricum). This is a pe-
rennial species (and the only indigenous one)
which flourishes in moist, rocky situations in
Wales and Westmoreland. It flowers in June.
The herbage is tender, brittle, of a light, slight-
ly glaucous green ; its juice lemon-coloured.
Stem a foot high, many-flowered, thinly cover-
ed with upright hairs, leafy, branched. Flow-
ers of a most elegant, full lemon colour, deli-
ciously fragrant.

Field poppy (Papaver dubium), bastard poppy.
This foreign annual, says Dr. Darlington, has
made its appearance in some of the cultivated
grounds of Pennsylvania and other parts of the
United States, and, if neglected, may become
a troublesome weed.
POPPY, THE HORNED. See Horned Poppx.

923

POPULATION.

POPULATION. As very erroneous notions
with regard to over-population are often enter-
tained, and as many of the most phihinlhropic
men in England have, at considerable personal
trouble and cost, promoted emigration, to avert
the>evils of war, pestilence, and famine, from
what Mr. Malthus supposes to be the tendency
of mankind to excessive population, it may be
well for the public to peruse a paper {Quart.
Journ. Jgr. vol. iii. p. 89), which, in detail,
ably examines and refutes many of Mr. Mal-
thus's data, calculations, and conclusions.
Mr. Malthus states, from data derived through
a variety of sources, that the average births
from each marriage are —

In Europe 4000

England 4-136

France, during the six years ending in 1822 - 4370

Russia 4110

America (in towns) according to Mr. Barton 4500

America (in town and country average) - 5"000

But, from returns made to government, it
appears that the average births in England and
Wales, during the 30 years ending 1820, fell
considerably under 4 from each marriage; and
of these, from personal deformity, and a hun-
dred other causes, a considerable portion of
women must remain unmarried.

But supposing every woman, married or sin-
gle, who lived to 18 years of age, should have 7
children, and the rate of mortality as favour-
able as at Carlisle, the population would re-
quire more than 26 years to double itself; and
25 years is the lowest rate of increase Mr.
Malthus has contemplated. But, supposing
one-tenth part of all the women who attain 20
to remain in a state of celibacy, and the rest
were to bear each 3*66 children, which is stated
by Mr. Sadler to be the average prolificness in
England, and the mortality continued as at
Carlisle, thepopulation would remain entirely
stationary. In the rich and fertile country of
France, the population is nearly stationary,
and in Ireland, population increases faster
than in England; which can only be account-
ed for by the institutions which encourage in-
creased forethought before entering on the
married state. Amongst barbarous nations, the
period of marriage is almost always early; but
as countries become civilized, a portion of early
life is devoted to labour of mind and body; and
the desire of distinction in some, and, amongst
all, the pursuit of gain, delays marriage ; and,
happily for mankind, nothing is less consist-
ent with universal experience than the terrible
succession of evils Mr. Malthus fears from
over-population. Natural evils, and the more
dreadful effects of misrule, have, indeed, spread
death and desolation; but the consequences
have not been increased plenty to the surviv-
ors: on the contrary, the page of history shows
that, in the fairest portions of the habitable
world, poverty and want have followed de-
creasing numbers.

Whereas the wiser the laws, and, consequent-
ly, the more secure person and property, the slower
men are to marry till they have secured for
themselves and families, in a habitation of their
own, the conveniences they were used to under
their paternal roofs; and, consequently, the
less tendency to the e:^cessive multiplication

POPULATION.

of mankind ; and we refer to Scotland, France,
&c., as existing proofs.

No society, well governed, we repeat, has
been known to outgrow, or tend to outgrow, its
means of subsistence. When, in our own coun-
try, one of the most populous in the world, we
see how far the earth is yet from producing all
that labour, well-directed, can bring forth, when
we look at the tracts lying waste or half-culti-
vated, we must see how little it is to be feared
as a possible evil, that our population will ever
increase beyond the means of supplying itself
with food. We have only to look to what mi-
nute care can effect in multiplying the produce
of the earth, to feel in what a prodigious ratio
it may be multiplied. A piece of heath land
the most worthless, converted into a cottager's
garden, yields a return of food exceeding that
of the richest land of the cultivated fields. And
nothing prevents the increase of this species of
culture but the want of hands to cultivate and
of mouths to consume. Every vegetable that
grows, and is consumed, affords new materials
for fertilizing the earth, and increasing its pro-
ductions ; and thus every increase of the num-
ber of consumers is a means of calling new
food into existence.

The introduction of a single plant from
another hemisphere has more than doubled
the power of this and of every country in Eu-
rope to support their inhabitants. An acre of
potatoes will supply food sufficient for the sup-
port, in healthful existence, of a family of 6 hu-
man beings for one year; a square mile of land
producing potatoes, therefore, will support 3840
persons for the same time. But the produce
of the potato is as nothing to that of the banana
and other plants of the tropical regions. Nor
does the produce of the potato in our fields
show the full power of the earth to produce
food. By the minute cares of the gardener,
successive crops of vegetables may be pro-
duced from the same surface, and in the same
season. Our present knowledge of agriculture
shows us, that throughout the whole kingdom
the productions of the earth may be prodi-
giously multiplied ; but what our present know-
ledge of this art is in comparison with what it
may become, we know not. What other plants
are yet to be applied to the support of animal
life, what other means of fertilizing the earth
are yet to be discovered, what other application
of mechanical power may yet take place in aid
of human labour, we know not; nor need we,
with relation to our present subject, be too
curious in inquiring. It suffices that, with our
present means and knowledge, limited as they
are, we can multiply our means of subsistence
in a degree to furnish food for increasing num-
bers for more generations of men than the
cares of the living race need extend to.

And if such be the case with a long-peopled
country, what must we think of the fear that
the entire world will be over-peopled I The
richest regions of the globe have yet been
scarcely trodden by the foot of the hunter; a
great part of Europe is still a desert; and a
long desolation has overspread lands that once
were the seats of nations, and which only de-
mand security that they may be blessed with
abundance again, $uch as Asia Minor, Syria,

POPULATION.

PORES.

and Greece, and such the long-desolated shores I
of Northern Africa. It is not Nature that is
barren of her gifts, but it is man that has
abused them all; and, in the climates and the
lands where we might look for the verdure of
an eternal spring, we find only the moving
mountains and interminable tracts of the de-
sert.

It is unnecessary, perhaps, to enlarge upon
this statement, but one or two facts wijl surely
convince the most incredulous that we are not
yet nearly arrived at the maximum available
produce of the earth. Even as regards the
saving in the seed-corn, we have witnessed in
our time that the drill has done much, and the
dibbling system still more ; but, by transplant-
ing, greater things may yet be done. I will
illustrate this position by only one or two facts
out of many of a similar kind that I am ac-
quainted with. At the Battle Horticultural
show (in 1837), R. White received a prize for
Gl fine ears of wheat growing from one grain,
which are deposited at the apartments of the
Labourer's Friend Society in Exeter Hall, and
another prize at the Society for Encouragement
of Arts, &c., in the Adelphi, and similar pre-
miums are again offered there and elsewhere.
P. Brown raised that year 345 roots, with 4250
ears, from one grain, since June, 1836, the
plants having been divided three times; and it
is recorded in the Philosophical Transactions for
1768, that in the same space of time, one grain
of wheat produced 21,109 ears, containing
576,840 grains, or nearly a bushel of clean
grain ; thus, an acorn cup would hold seed-
wheat enough to raise plants for an acre of
land, and full 10,000,000 bushels of seed-wheat
might be saved on the 4,000,000 acres under
wheat in England and Scotland; which quan-
tity, allowing 8 bushels to each person, would
support 1,250,000 persons, who, if employed in
weeding the crops, would double the produce,
as is shown by the increased crops raised by
the tenants under the allotment system.

And again, as regards manuring the soil,
agriculture is yet only in its infancy; crushed
bones, now so extensively employed, were un-
known as fertilizers 25 years since; gypsum,
which abounds in England, is only slowly com-
ing into use; and millions of tons of the rich-
est manure are now annually wasted in our
cities and towns — suflfered to putrefy in cess-
pools, or poured into the sea through a thou-
sand sewers; "and yet," says the Thames Im-
provement Company, "strange as it may ap-
pear, England is almost the only nation in
Europe, notwithstanding its advance in agri-
cultural knowledge, which suffers the peculiar
manure in question to be wasted and cast
a.way; while all the other nations on the Con-
tinent, and even China, husband it, and trea-
sure it up for their lands, make it an object of
extensive and lucrative tratfic, and some ex-
port it to their colonies. The principal Lon-
don sewers have been carefully gauged, and
are found to convey daily into the river
Thames 115,608 tons of mixed drainage."

By these and other certain improvements,
we may safely conclude that, as regards the
cultivation of the most barren tracts, the drift-
ing sands of Norfolk, the heath lands of the

north of England, and even the shingle of its
sea-coast, hardly a tithe has yet been effected
in the way of cultivation. At the suggestion
of the Archbishop of Dublin, an acre of shingle
at East Bourn was covered with 3 or 4 inches
of clay, at a cost of only I6d. This has formed
a plate to retain what mould, &c., the tenant
has added, who has hired this ground for four-
teen years at 40s. per acre. So no land is
hopelessly barren. Let such improvements
proceed ; let science go hand in hand with the
farmer ; let the naturalist find new cultivata-
ble vegetables, or new varieties of those al-
ready known ; let the chemist yield his magic
aid to demonstrate the best mode of promoting
their growth and increasing the fertility of the
soil ; and then, I fearlessly assert that many
times the present inhabitants of Britain may
be amply supported by the produce of the land
of our birth.

POPULATION, AGRICULTURAL, OF
THE UNITED STATES. By the census of
1840, it appears that the number of all the
males, of 10 years old and upwards, in the
United States and Territories, exclusive of the
naval service, was 5,907,752. The whole
population of the Union was 17,069,453, of
which the number engaged in agricultural pur-
suits is more than a fifth part of the whole
population. When this is compared with the
proportions engaged in some other pursuits,
we find the next most numerous class com-
prised of those engaged in the various manu-
factures and trades, which, in the non-slave-
holding states and territories, amounts to 1 in
17, and in the slave states to 1 in 40 — averag-
ing, in the whole Union, 1 to 22 of all the in-
habitants. The largest proportion of manu-
facturers is in Rhode Island, where it consti-
tutes about four-fifths of all the males above
20 years of age ; next in Massachusetts ; next
in Connecticut ; next in New Jersey ; next in
New York. The proportion employed in com-
merce comprises, in the free states, 1 in 122,
and in the slave states 1 in 197 — the average
in all the states being I in 146 of the whole
population. The largest proportion is in Lou-
isiana, which contains the great depot for the
commerce of the Mississippi Valley. The
next largest is in Wisconsan Territory, and
the next in Rhode Island. The proportion era-
ployed in ocean navigation is greatest in
Massachusetts, where it amounts to 27,153,
being 1 in 31 of the whole population of the
state, and nearly one-half of all those engaged
in the same pursuits in the whole Union, viz.,
56,021, or 1 in 305. The next greatest is in
Maine, where it amounts to 10,091, being 1 in
49-72 of the state population. New York has
5511, Connecticut 2700, and Pennsylvania
1815, employed in ocean navigation. The pro-
portion engaged in the learned professions, in-
cluding engineers, amounts to 45,162, or 1 in
217 of the whole population of the free states,
and 20,093, or 1 in 361, of the whole inhabitants
of the slave states.

PORES. In botany, apertures, more or less
visible, in the cuticle of plants, through which
transpiration takes place. They may exist on
the cellular tissue ; and when there they are
the organs of insensible perspiration of the
4 I 925

PORK.

POTATO.

plant: they may exist as cortical pores; or
on the leaf as stomata or breathing pores.
Pores also exist in some kinds of anthers,
through which the pollen is ejected; as in the
potato (Solanutn tuberosum).

PORK. The flesh of swine killed for culi-
nary purposes. See Bacon, Ham, Meat,
Swine, &c.

PORTER. A well-known malt liquor. See
Ale, Beer, and Brewing.

POTASH, or POTASSA. The name of one
of the alkalies, composed of 39*15 parts of pe-
culiar metal called potassium, 8 parts of oxy-
gen, and 9 of water. It derives its common
name from being first obtained from the ashes
of vegetable substances which had been burn-
ed in iron pots, hence named pot-ashes. Pot-
ash is found in almost all land plants, in com-
bination with the tartaric, citric, or other vege-
table acid. The potash in these is no doubt an
essential food or constituent of vegetation, and
there is no fertile soil which does not, in some
form or other, contain this alkali. It exists,
however, in plants in varying proportions.
See Alkali. The potash of commerce is an
impure carbonate mingled with salts of lime
and other substances. In its separate or pure
state, free from carbonic acid, it is a white
salt, powerfully attracting moisture from the
air, very soluble in water and in alcohol, cor-
roding animal substances, consequently de-
stroying the skin when applied to it. But pot-
ash usually means the carbonate. The quan-
tity procured from different plants varies.
Fumitory yields 79-0 in 1000 parts, worm-
wood 73-0, young wheat-stalks 47-0, thistles
35-0, vetch 27-5, common nettle 25-3, the sun-
. flower 20-0, bean-stalks 20-0, barley straw 5-8,
.vine-shoots 5-5, wheat-straw 3-9, and flax 5-0.
The younger a plant is, if full-grown, the more
potash it yields.

" The perfect developement of a plant," says
Liebig (Organic Chem. p. 104), "according to
this view, is dependent on the presence of alka-
lies, or alkaline earths, for when these sub-
stances are totally wanting, its growth will be
arrested, and when they are only deficient it
must be impeded. In order to apply these re-
marks, let us compare two kinds of trees, the
wood of which contain unequal quantities of
alkaline bases, and we shall find that one of
these grows luxuriantly in several soils, upon
which others are scarcely able to vegetate.
For example, 10-000 parts of oak wood yield
250 parts of ashes, the same quantity of fire-
wood only 83, of linden wood 500, of rye 440,
and of the herb of the potato plant 1500 parts.
Firs and pines find a sufficient quantity of al-
kalies in granitic and barren, sandy soils, in
which oaks will not grow, and wheat thrives
in soils favourable for the linden tree, because
the bases which are necessary to bring it to
complete maturity exist there in sufficient
quantity. The accuracy of these conclusions,
so highly important to agriculture, and to the
cultivation of forests, can be proved by the
most evident facts. All kinds of grasses, the
equisetaceoc, for example, contain, in the outer
parts of their leaves and stalks, a large quantity
of silicic acid (silica), and potash in the form of
acid silicate of potash. The proportion of this
926

salt does not vary perceptibly in the soil of
corn-fields, because it is again conveyed to
them as manure, in the form of putrefying
straw. But this is not the case in a meadow;
and hence we never find a luxuriant crop of
grass on sandy and calcareous soils, which
contain little potash, evidently because one of
the constituents essential to the growth of
plants is wanting. Soils formed from basalt,
grauwacke, and porphyry, are, cacteris paribus,
the best for meadow land, on account of the
quantity of potash which enters into their com-
position."

In the experiments of the Rev. E. Cartwright
with various manures applied to potatoes,
wood-ashes, which contain potash, were found
to produce very superior efl!ects to several
others : thus, where the soil, without any dress-
ing, produced 157 bushels per acre, the land
dressed with 60 bushels of wood-ashes yielded
187 ; with 60 bushels of malt-dust, 184 bushels ;
with 363 bushels of decayed leaves, 175 bush-
els ; with 363 bushels of saw-dust, 155 bushels;
with 121 bushels of lime, 150 bushels per acre.
(Com. Board ofJlgr. vol. iv. p. 370.) See Gresit
Sand, Alkalis, and Salts.

POTATO (Sola7iuni tuberosum). A valuable,
well-known root, first imported from America
into England by Sir M^'alter Raleigh, and first
grown at Youghall, in Ireland. In many parts
of England this tuberose plant is very exten-
sively cultivated, both in the field and in the
garden ; but, in districts removed from large
towns, or convenient markets, its cultivation
is of necessity restricted to the garden, or for
the consumption of the live-stock of the farm.
As regards the field management of the crop,
a writer in a popular journal remarks, when
speaking of the preparation of the ground —

" It is, I know, customary, upon a large scale,
to plough the land and make it tolerably fine
before potatoes are planted ; but if it is plough-
ed 5, 6, or 7 inches deep, and made fine and
mellow, still at the bottom of such ploughing
the land is hard and smooth ; and as the potato
is a root that sends out fibres not only near the
surface, but deeply, if possible, it can never por-
duce such a crop as where the land is broken
18 inches to 2 feet. The potato, like the cu-
cumber, only enjoys itself in deeply pulverized
soils, which causes them to flourish so much
in well-managed sandy land.

" I should therefore recommend that, in all
land where potatoes are to be grown, if the
land be springy, or otherwise damp, that it be
drained deep enough to take ofi" all springs or
surface water. When this is done, the land
should either be fully trenched, or bastard-
trenched, by the spade or plough, but I prefer
the spade. The width of the drills from each other
must depend entirely upon the goodness of your
soil : the richer the land, the wider apart must
be your rows and sets in your rows ; say, in
ordinary land rows, at 2 feet from each other,
and 12 inches from set to set may do; but if
your land be very rich, 3 feet from row to row,
and 18 inches from plant to plant, will not be
too much."

In preserving your sets, always select the
largest and finest potatoes you can procure;
do not use the small refuse or middling-sized,

POTATO.

POTATO.

the plant and produce from the latter being
much inferior.

The potatoes most valued in field culture are
the ox-noble, yam, champion, purp!e-red, rough-
red, hundred-eyes, kidney, and Moultou white.
The nutritive qualities of these were examined
by Mr. George Sinclair, with his usual accu-
racy. "The yam," he observes, "is a very
productive variety, attains to a large size, but
is often hollow, and less nutritive than most
others ; 64 drachms afford of nutritive matter
190 grains, which consist of starch 164 grains,
and saccharine and albuminous matters 31."

The ox-noble is a productive potato, adapted
for stock ; and 64 drachms of it contain 194
grains of nutritive matter, consisting of starch
164, and saccharine, mucilaginous, and albu-
minous matters 31.

The purple-red is smaller than the ox-noble,
but well-flavoured, and very prolific in light,
moist soils: 64 drachms afforded 200 grains of
nutritive mailer, consisting of starch 169, and
albuminous and saccharine matters 31 grains.

The hundred-eye is very prolific on dry
loams ; 64 drachms afford 218 grains of nutri-
tive matter, composed of 170 grains of starch,
and the rest albuminous and other matters.

The rough-red produces plentiful crops on
soils or climates of a moister nature than that
adapted for the hundred-eyed variety : it is
well-flavoured; 64 drachms afford 250 grains
of nutritive matter, which is composed of 199
starch, and 46 mucillage, sugar, and albumen.

The champion grows to a moderate size; is
very productive, and little subject to the disease
called ntrl.

It is, hence, of great importance, in choosing
seed potatoes, to consider the nature of the soil
and climate; thus some of our finest varieties,
which yield abundantly when planted in suit-
able soils and moist situations, will yield but
inferior returns when planted in drier situa-
tions.

In 7000 ([rains, or 1 poand
of the bread-fruit pota-
to, 1 found by careful
and repeated trials

the Barbadoes potato

black kidney potato

Soluble
matter.

Starch.

Fibr*

W.ler.

975
080
970

548
667
695

477
616
633

5000
4737
4713

The soluble matters consisted of gum, or
mucilage, extractive, and saline matters.

The potato, although a tender plant, is grown
in nearly all parts of the world, from the equa-
tor to Norway; and although it is usual to
plant it early in the spring, yet it is possible, by
choosing a quick-ripening variety, to plant it
successfully even as late as July.

The best manures for the potato crop are
common farm-yard compost, only partially de-
composed, decayed leaves, sea-weed, the po-
. tato haulm, and any organic manures, that,
i while they afford nutriment, have a tendency,
, by rendering the soil lighter, to facilitate the
V extension of the roots. Lime is injurious to it.
;, Pond mud or ditch scrapings, to each cubic
. yard of which, a month previously, a bushel of
■ bacon salt, or other refuse common salt, has
been mixed, is excellent. The soils best adapted
for the cultivation of the potato are of the light,

I sandy, drained, peaty, or loamy description.
lit delights in fresh soils; those of a newly
broken-up meadow, old woodlands, or the site
of old yards or buildings, are excellent. It
j does not do well on wet clays.
{ Potatoes are readily consumed by live-stock
in their unboiled state ; but, generally speak-
ing, they are best when steamed and mixed
with chaff.

The cultivation of the potato is thus de-
scribed by Mr. George Johnson ; and although
his remarks were intended for the gardener,
yet they apply in a great measure to the field
culture of this valuable root.

The varieties of the potato are numerous,
and continually increasing, as well as becom-
ing extinct; the number, however, is very
largely increased by local names for the same
variety being classed distinct.

For forcing, or first crop in the open ground:
— there are Broughton Dwarf, Early Warwick,
Ash-leaved Kidney; Fox's Seedling, Early
Manly, Early Mule, earliest for general culti-
vation, Earley Kidney, Nonsuch, Early Shaw,
Goldfinger.

For main crops, the varieties are ranged in
this class, according to their forwardness in
ripening: — Early Champion, Ox Noble, Red-
nose Kidney, Large Kidney, Bread-fruit, Red-
streak or Lancashire Pink-eye, Black Skin,
Purple, Red Apple, Rough Red.

No inhabitant of the garden varies more in
quality in different gardens than the potato ;
for a variety will have a strong, unpleasant
flavour in one soil, that has a sweet, agreeable
one in another. In a heavy, wet soil, or a rank
black loam, though the crop is often fine and
abundant, it is scarcely ever palatable. Sili-
cious soils, even approaching to gravel, though
in these last the tubers are usually corroded or
scabby, are always to be planted in preference
to the above. A dry, mouldy, fresh, and mode-
rately rich soil is unquestionably the best for
every variety of the potato; and, for the
earliest crop, it may be with advantage more
silicious than for the main ones. The black-
skinned and rough red thrive better than any
in moist or strong, cold soils. If manure is
necessary, whatever may be the one employed,
it is better spread regularly over the surface
previous to digging, rather than put into the
holes with the sets, or spread in the trench
when they are so planted. Stable dung is,
perhaps, the best of all factitious manures:
sea-weed is a very beneficial addition to the
soil, as is salt. Coal-ashes and sea-sand are
applied with great benefit to retentive soils ;
but calcareous matter should never be used.
The situation must always be open.

It is propagated in general from cuttings of
the tubers, though the shoots arising from
thence and layers of the stalks may be em-
ployed. New varieties are raised from seed.
Planting in the open ground of the early kinds
may commence towards the close of February,
in a warm situation, and may thence be con-
tinued until the same period of March ; and it
j is only during this latter month that any con-
I siderable plantation should be made, as the
j late frost are apt to injure, or even to destroy
I the advancing plants. In the course of April,

927

POTATO.

POTATO.

the main crops for winter's use should be in-
serted ; for although in favourable seasons they
will succeed if planted in May or even June,
yet it ought always to be kept in mind that the
earliest planted, especially in dry soils, pro-
duce the finest and most abundant crops.

Of the preparation of the sets, there is a
great diversity of opinion. Some gardeners
recommend the largest potatoes to be planted
whole; others, these to be sliced into pieces,
containing two or three eyes ; a third set, to
cut the large tubers directly in half; a fourth,
the employment of the shoots only which are
thrown out, if potatoes are kept in a warm,
damp situation ; and a fifth, that merely the
parings be employed. Cuttings of the stalks,
6 or 6 inches in length, or rooted suckers, will
be productive, if planted during showery wea-
ther in May or June ; and during this last
month, or early in July, it may be propagated
by layers, which are formed by pegging down
the young stalks when about 12 inches long,
they being covered 3 inches thick with mould
at a joint. These three last modes are prac-
tised more from curiosity than utility, whilst at
the same time none of the first five mentioned
plans can be individually followed to advan-
tage, without modification. For the main crops,
it is evident, from experiment, that moderate-
sized sets, having two healthy buds or eyes, are
most advantageously employed; middling-sized
whole potatoes are the best, from which all but
the above number of eyes have been removed,
but especially having the crown, which is a
congeries of small eyes always present, first
removed; for from these proceed an equal
number of little spindled stalks, which are
comparatively worthless, and injure the main
stem.

For the early crops, almost the very con-
trary to the above is the most advantageous to
be practised. The set should have the crown
eye, which is one growing in the centre of the
congeries of small ones above mentioned, pre-
served. Some potatoes have two such eyes,
but the generality only one. This is always
the most prompt to vegetate; and if not known
by this description, may b'^ evinced by placing
two or three potatoes in a pan of moist earth,
near the fire ; if the earth is kept moist, the
crown eye will be in a slate of vegetation in
five or six days. Again, as Mr. J. Knight re-
marks, although abundant crops of late varie-
ties may be obtained from very small sets, by
reason that tubers are not produced until the
stem and roots become capable of supplying
them with nourishment; yet, to obtain early
crops, where tubers are rapidly formed under
a diametrically opposite state of the plant,
large sets must be employed ; in these, one or
two ej'es, at most, should be allowed to remain.
Mr. Knight plants the largest undivided tubers,
which, from experiments, evidently support the
plants, and finally produce the earliest and
largest produce he ever obtained. Another re-
mark, which he makes, restrictively for the
early crops, but may well be attended to for all,
is, that if the sets are placed with their leading
buds upwards, few and very strong early stems
will be produced ; but if the position is re-
versed, many weak and later shoots will arise,
928

and not only the earliness, but the quality of
the produce be depreciated. For the earliest
crops, there are likewise several modes of as-
sisting the forward vegetation of the sets.
These should be prepared in November, by
removing every eye but one or two; and being
placed in a layer, in a warm room, where air
and light can be freely admitted, with a cover-
ing of straw, they soon emit shoots, which
must be strengthened by exposure to the air
and light as much as possible, by taking oflT
the covering without injuring them. During
cold weather, and at night, it must always be
renewed. The leaves soon become green, and
tolerably hardy. In early spring they are
planted out, the leaves being left just above the
surface, and a covering of litter afforded every
night, until the danger of frost is passed. The
only modification of this plan that is adopted
in Cheshire, where they are celebrated for the
early production of potatoes, is, that they em-
ploy chaff or sand for a covering instead of
straw. The most preferable mode of inserting
them, is with the dibble, in rows, for the early
crops, 12 inches apart each way; and for the
main ones 18. The set should never be placed
more thin 4 inches beneath the surface in the
lightest soil, but in the more tenacious ones,
3 is the extreme. The potato dibble is the best
instrument that can be employed; one person
striking the holes, and a second dropping the
sets, the earth being afterwards raked or struck
in with the spade. There are several other
modes of insertion, as opening a small hole
with a narrow spade, and the set being dropped
in, it is covered by the earth taken out in form-
ing the njext hole : or, at the time of digging
over the ground, a second person follows the
one so employed, and places the sets in the
trench he opens in the pursuance of his work;
but both these modes are open to numerous
obvious objections.

The compartment may be laid out level and
undivided, i^i the soil is mouldy and favour-
able ; but if a heavy one is necessarily em-
ployed, it is best disposed in beds, 6 or 8 feet
wide. If the staple of the soil is good through-
out, the alleys may be 2 feet wide, and dug deep,
otherwise they must be made broader, and only
one spit taken out, the earth removed being
employed to raise the beds. If the land is low
and wet, it is still further of advantage, after
the beds, which should not be more than 4 feet
wide, have been thus raised, if they are dug in
parallel ridges, and the sets inserted along their
summits. Some gardeners, on such soils, with-
out digging the surface, lay some long litter on
the intended beds; upon this the sets being
placed, some more litter is thrown regularly
over them ; the earth is then dug from the
alleys, and turned to the requisite depth over
the whole. As soon as the plants are well to
be distinguished, they should be perfectly freed
from weeds ; and, of the early crops, the earth
drawn round each plant, so as to form a cup,
as a shelter from the cold winds, which are
their chief enemy at that season ; but the main
crops need not be earthed up until the plants
are 6 inches in height. It is contended by
some that this practice is immaterial in its
effect. If the earth is brought so as to be of

POTATO.

POTATO.

considerable depth about the stems, it must be
even injurious ; but if properly performed, it is
certainly beneficial. Throughout their growth
they should be kept perfectly clear of weeds.
It is very injurious to mow off their tops, as is
sometimes recommended. The foliage ought
to be kept as uninjured as possible, unless, as
sometimes occurs on fresh ground, the plants
are of gigantic luxuriance, and, even then, the
stems should be only moderately shortened.
It is, however, of considerable advantage to
remove the fruit-stalks and immature flowers
as soon as they appear. This has been de-
monstrated by the experiments of President
Knight, and others; indeed, that such would
be the case is a reasonable expectation, since
it is known that the early formation of tubers
prevents the production of blossom. It is also
worthy of notice, that a potato plant continues
to form tubers until the flowers appear, after
which it is employed in ripening those already
formed.

The very earliest crops will be in production
in June, or perhaps towards the end of May,
and may thence be taken up as wanted, until
October, at the close of which month, or during
November, they may be entirely dug up and
stored; or, at all events, before the arrival of
any severe frost. Their fitness to be taken up
for keeping is intimated by the decay of their
foliage, which generally loses its verdure with
the first frosts. The best instrument with which
they can be dug up is a three-flat-pronged fork,
each row being cleared regularly away. The
tubers should be sorted at the time of taking
them up ; for as the largest keep the best, they
alone should be stored, whilst the smaller ones
are first made use of. The most common mode
of preserving them throughout the winter is in
heaps or clamps, sometimes called pycing them.
These are laid in pyramidal form, on a bed
of straw, and enveloped with a covering 6 or 8
inches thick, of the same material, laid even,
as in thatching, and the whole enclosed with
earth, in a conical form, a foot thick, taken
from a trench dug round the heap, well smooth-
ened with the back of the spade. Potatoes
should not be stored until perfectly dry, nor
unless free from mould, refuse, and wounded
tubers. It is a good practice to keep a hole
open on four different sides of the heap, entirely
through the mould and straw, for a week or
two after the heap is formed ; for in proportion
to its size it always ferments, and these orifices
allow the escape of the vapours, and perfect
the drying. An equally good mode, and much
more convenient, is to have them heaped in a
dry shed, and covered thick with straw, as op-
portunity is given to look over them occa-
sionally for the removal of decayed tubers,
shoots, dec. If carefully preserved, they con-
tinue in perfection until late in the following
summer. A variety of the potato is generally
considered to continue about 14 years in per-
fection, after which period it gradually loses its
good qualities, becoming of inferior flavour and
unproductive. Fresh varieties must therefore
be occasionally raised from seed. For doing
this there are two modes; the first of these,
about to be detailed, is, however, the one
usually pursued.

117

The berries or apples of the old stock having
hung in a warm room throughout the winter,
the seed must be obtained from them by wash-
ing away the pulp during February. This is
thoroughly dried, and kept until April, and then
sown in drills about half an inch deep, and 6
inches apart, in a rich mouldy soil. The plants
are weeded, and earth drawn up to their stems
when an inch in height ; as soon as this h.as
increased to three inches, they are moved into
a similar soil, in rows 16 inches apart each
way, and during their future growth earthed
up 2 or 3 times. Being finally taken up in the
course of October, they must be preserved
until the following spring, to be then replanted,
and treated as for store crops. (Dr. Hunter's
Georg. Essays.)

Some gardeners sow in a moderate hot-bed,
very thin, in drills, the same depth as above,
and 9 inches apart. Water is frequently and
plentifully poured between the rows, and earth
drawn about the stems of the seedlings, until
they are a few inches in height. They are then
transplanted into rows, water given, and earth-
ing performed as usual. The only additional
advantage of this plan is, that as the seed can
be sown earlier, the tubers attain a rather
larger size the first year.

It is to be remarked, that the tubers of every
seedling should be kept separate, as scarce 2
will be of a similar habit and quality, whilst
many will be comparatively worthless, and but
few of particular excellence. If the seed is
obtained from a red potato, that flowered in the
neighbourhood of a white-tubered variety, the
seedlings in all probability will in part resem-
ble both their parents, as a cross fecundation
may take place; but seldom or never does a
seedling resemble exactly the original stock.
At all events, only such should be preserved
as are recommended by their superior size,
flavour, or fertility. It may be stated as an in-
dication before these qualities can be positively
ascertained, that President Knight remarks, that
the rough, uneven surface of the foliage, which
in excess constitutes the curl, appears to exist
as, and form a characteristic of every good
variety ; for he never found one with perfectly-
smooth and polished leaves which possessed
any degree of excellence, though such are in
general more luxuriant and productive.

The early varieties, on account of their never
flowering, were, until 1807, obtained by chance
from plants that might now and then be pro-
duced from seed of the late kinds. In that
year, Mr. Knight discovered that the cause of
their deficiency of bloom was the preternatural
early formation of the tubers. His mode of
causing them to produce seed is to plant the
sets on little heaps of earth, with a stake in the
middle, and when the plants are about 4 inches
high, being secured to the stakes with shreds
and nails, to wash the earth away from the
bases of the stems, by means of a strong cur-
rent of water, so that the fibrous roots only
enter the soil, and these being perfectly dis-
tinct from the runners that furnish the tubers,
and which spring from the base of the stem,
none of these are produced, and the effect is,
that blossoms appear and perfect seed.

There are numerous valuable communica-
4 I 2 929

POTATO.

tions with regard to the potato dispersed
through the agricultural journals, among which
is one " On the Manures best adapted for Pota-
toes," by the Rev.E. Cartvvright. He remarks,
*' The soil on which my experiments were tried
is a ferruginous sand, brought to a due texture
and> consistence by a liberal covering of pond-
mud. Of this soil, in its improved slate, I mean
by the accession of pond mud (for, having been
used merely as a nursery for raising forest
trees, previous to these experiments, the nur-
seryman had not thought it necessary to make
use of any other manure), the following is the
analysis 400 grains gave :

Grains.

Of silicioiis sand, of different degrees of fineness 280
Finely divided matter ------ 104

Loss in water _--_-«- 16

400

" The finely divided matter contained —

Grains.
Carbonate of lime - - . - . _ 18

Oxide of iron ------_. 7

Loss by incineration (probably vegetable decom-
posing matter) ---.__- 17

" The remainder, principally silex and alu-
mina. There were no indications of either
gypsum or phosphate of lime.

" On the 14th of April, 1804, a portion of this
soil was laid out, in beds 1 yard wide and 40
in length, and were manured as in the follow-
ing table. On the same day the whole was
planted with potatoes, a single row in each
bed, and that the general experiment might be
conducted with all possible accuracy, each bed
received the same number of sets. On the
21st of September the potatoes were taken up,
when the produce of each row was, in succes-
sion, as follows :

Manures in bushels, per acre. Producp.

1. No manure ---_-__ I57

2. Salt 8 bush., soot 30 bush. - - _ _ 240

3. Chandler's graves 9^ cwt. - _ _ « 220

4. Salt 8 bush., wood-ashes 60 bush. - - - 217
6. Salt 8 bush., gypsum peat 363 bush., lime 121

bush. 201

6. Salt 8 bush., lime 121 bush., dung 363 bush. - 199

7. Salt 8 bush. ---.--_ ]98

8. Salt 8 bush., graves 9J cwt. - - - - 195

9. Soot 30 bush. ---_-__ 192
1-0 Fresh dung 363 bush. . - ... 192

11. Salts bush., malt-dust 60 bush. - - . 189

12. Wood-ashes 60 bush. - . _ _ _ 187

13. Salt 8 bush., decayed leaves 363 bush. - - 187

14. Salt 8 bush., peat-ashes 363 bush. - - - 185

15. Malt-dust 60 bush. 184

16. Salt 8 bush., lime 121 bush., peat 363 bush. - 183

17. Salt 8 bush., saw-dust 363 bush. - - _ 180

18. Salt 8 bush., peat 363 bush., bone-dust - - 178

19. Decayed leaves 363 bush. _ - - - 175

20. Salt 8 bush., lime 121 bush., sulphuric acid - 175

21. Salt Shush., peat 363 bush. - - - - 171

22. Salt 8 bush., lime 121 bush. .... 167

23. Peat 363 bush. --_... 159

24. Saw-dust 363 bush. .... _ 155

25. Lime 121 bush. --_... 150

The following experiments upon potatoes are
extracted from Mr. George Sinclair's Commu-
nication to the Board of Agriculture, February
25th, 1820. These experiments were made upon
a soil composed of three-fourths silicious sand,
in plots of 36 square feet.

Bushels of Salt
per Acre. No.

1. Planted without any kind

of manure - - - Q 124

2. Twelve cubic inches of

salt with the seed - 13f 106 the smallest.

3. Si.x cubic inches of salt

with the seed - - 6^ 90

4. Twelve cubic inches of

salt mixed with the soil 12} 03 the largest.

930

POTATO-FLY.

" The weight of the crop of potatoes was not
taken. The superior size of the roots pro-
duced by No. 4, left no room to doubt of the
advantage of 13 bushels of salt per acre, ap-
plied to the soil previous to planting, over the
other modes of application; still the superi-
ority was not very great." " I may notice
here," observes Dr. Holland, "a practice pur-
sued at "Weston, near Frodsham, in the culture
of potatoes, which seems deserving of atten-
tion. At this place, situated close to the junction
of the Mersey and Weaver, sea mud is used
as a manure for crops of potatoes ; 20 loads
being the quantity usually laid on an acre.
The ground thus manured not only gives a
larger produce of potatoes, but is in a state of
excellent preparation for a succeeding crop of
either wheat or barley. The adoption of this
practice has increased very greatly the value
of land about Weston."

There is also a paper by Mr. Knight " On
the advantages of employing large Tgbers for
Seed." "The good effects," he observes,
" which I have proved to arise from planting
large tubers of the potato plant, obviously
spring from the large accumulation of fecula
in them. Fed by means of this, not only a
large breadth of foliage is produced, and ex-
posed to sight more early in the year, but that
foliage contains much disposable organizable
matter, which once formed a part of the parent
tuber." Knight thought that the ordinary pro-
duce of potatoes might be very materially in-
creased. He remarks, " My opinion is, that
more than a thousand bushels of potatoes may
and will be obtained from an acre of ground."

Potatoes are fermentable, and are conse-
quently employed along with barley by the
Scotch distillers ; and, also, by the London
bakers in the manufacture of bread. The
fecula is also separated and sold as arrow-root:
it is a good and sufficiently pure starch ; but it
is less nutritive than the potato itself, owing to
the separation of the saccharine matter and the
albumen.

POTATO-FLY or BEETLE. The green
cantharides, or Spanish-flies, as they are com-
monly called, are found in the south of Europe,
and particularly in Spain and Italy, where they
are collected in great quantities for exporta-
tion. In these countries they often appear in
immense swarms on the privet, lilac, and ash,
which are quickly stripped of their foliage by
these leaf-eating beetles. In like manner the
American species of cantharides devour the
leaves of plants, and sometimes prove very
destructive to them, especially to those of the
potato. Four native species of the cantharides
found in the United States, have been tried and
ascertained to be as effectual in raising blisters
as the imported species. The kind found on
the potato is the striped cantharis (Cantharis
vittata). It is of a dull, tawny yellow or light
yellowish-red colour above, with two black
spots on the head, and two black stripes on the
thorax and on each of the wing-covers. The
under-side of the body, the legs, and the anten-
nee are black, and covered with a grayish
down. Its length is from five to six-tenths of
an inch. In this and the three following spe«
cies the thorax is very much narrowed before*

POTATO-FLY.

POULTRY.

and the wing-covers are long and narrow, and
cover the whole of the back. The striped can-
tharis is comparatively rare in New England ;
but in the Middle States it often appears in
great numbers, and does much mischief in po-
tato-fields and gardens, eating up not only the
leaves of the potato, but those of many other
vegetables.

The most destructive kind of Cantharis,
found in Massachusetts, is of a more slender
form than the preceding, and measures only
from f\ve and a half to six-tenths of an inch in
length. Its antennae and feet are black, and all
the rest of its body is ashen gray, being thickly
covered with a very short down of that colour.
Hence it is called Cantharis cinerea, or the ash-
coloured cantharis. When the insect is rubbed,
the ash-col.oured substance comes off, leaving
the surface black. It begins to appear in gar-
dens about the 20th of June, and is very fond of
the leaves of the English bean, which it some-
times entirely destroys. It is also occasionally
found in considerable numbers on potato-vines ;
and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it has re-
peatedly appeared in great profusion upon
hedges of the honey-locust, which have been
entirely stripped of foliage by these voracious
insects. They are also found on the wild indi-
go-weed. In the night, and in rainy weather,
they descend from the plants, and burrow in
the ground, or under leaves and tufts of grass.
Thither also they retire for shelter during the
heat of the day, being most actively engaged
in eating in the morning and evening. About
the 1st of August they go into the ground and
lay their eggs, and these are hatched in the
course of one month. The larvce are slender,
somewhat flattened grubs, of a yellowish co-
lour, banded with black, with a small reddish
head, and six legs. These grubs are very
active in their motions, and appear to live
upon fine roots in the ground; but I have not
been able to keep them till they arrived at ma-
turity, and therefore know nothing further of
their history.

About the middle of August, and during the
rest of this and the following month, a jet-black
cantharis may be seen on potato-vines, and
also on the blossoms and leaves of various
kinds of golden-rod, particularly the tall golden-
rod (Soluhgo altissima), which seems to be its
favourite food. In some places it is as plenti-
ful in potato-fields as the striped and the mar-
gined cantharis, and by its serious ravages has
often excited attention. These three kinds, in
fact, are often confounded under the common
name of potato-flies; and it is still more re-
markable, that they are collected for medical
use, and are sold in our shops by the name of
Cantharis vittata, without a suspicion of their
being distinct from each other. The black
cantharis, or Cantharis atrata, is totally black,
without bands or spots, and measures from
four-tenths to half of an inch in length. I have
repeatedly taken these insects, in considerable
quantities, by brushing or shaking them from
the potato-vines into a broad tin pan, from
which they were emptied into a covered pail
containing a little water, which, by wetting
Iheir wings, prevented their flying out when

I the pail was uncovered. The same » . _^^
I may be employed for taking the other kinds oi
cantharides, when they become troublesome
and destructive from their numbers; or they
may be caught by gently sweeping the plants
they frequent with a deep muslin bag-net.
They should be killed by throwing them into
scalding water, for one or two minutes, after
which they may be spread out on sheets of
paper to dry, and may be made profitable by
selling them to the apothecaries for medical use.

A species of the genus Meloe (august icollis),
or narrow-necked oil-beetle of Say, about aa
inch long, and of a dark indigo-blue colour, is
very common on butter-cups in autumn, and
is also found on potato-vines.

POTATO-WORM. See Caterpillar.

POULTICE. An external application em-
ployed for promoting the suppuration of tu-
mours, or abating painful inflammation. The
chief intention of the poultice is to retain the
stimulus of heat on the tumour for a sufficient
length of time, consequently the worst con-
ducting of farinaceous matters are the best
fitted for poultices. The fatty matter usually
added is to give softness to the poultice, which
is otherwise apt to harden as the moisture eva-
porates. Poultices for animals are generally
prepared with linseed meal, to which is added
oil, lard, or other unctuous matter to prevent
adhesion to the inflamed part. Bran, although
frequently used for poultices, is objectionable,
because it so soon becomes dry. Few farmers
are aware of the value of these simple applica-
tions in abating inflammation, relieving pain,
cleansing wounds, and disposing them to heal.
The poultice may be rendered more soothing
by opium, or increased activity may be given
by the addition of common turpentine or chlo-
ride of lime, and in cases of foul ulcers, pow-
dered charcoal may be added. As an emollient
poultice for grease and cracked heels, and
especially if accompanied by much unpleasant
smell, there is nothing preferable to a poultice
of mashed carrots with charcoal. See FoatKsx-

ATIOX.

POULTRY. A general term including every
kind of domestic fowl, which is reared about
the house or farm-yard, as cocks and hens,
ducks, geese, turkeys, &c. Poultry constitutes
a part of every farmer's stock, but the rearing
of it in England is not often productive of
any pecuniary advantage ; for though fowls are
considered chiefly as an article of luxury, and
sold at high prices in the market, they seldom
or ever repay the value of the corn which they
have consumed, especially if such grain must
be purchased. Indeed, where profit is the ob-
ject of the husbandman's labours, no poultry
should be admitted into the vicinity of barns,
unless for the purpose of picking up scattered
grain ; though, in general, it cannot be denied,
that they acquire their fat substance from the

I corn left in the straw by negligent thrashing.
The poor villager may, however, reap, in some

I cases, benefit from poultry, as the fowls are
able to shift for themselves the greatest part of

j the year, by feeding on insects, corn, or any

1 thing of that nature.

I There are many different breeds of this sort

POUND.

l^^t '^ibck; but those best known are the
game breed, the white or English breed, the black
or Poland breed, the Dorking breed, the large or
Shakebag breed, and the Malay breed. The two
first are much smaller breeds than the others.
This^kind of stock affords profit in the eggs, as
well as the chickens ; therefore such as are the
best layers and sitters should be chosen, which
are in general the ganfe and Poland breeds, but
the other breeds have probably the advantage
in respect to the size of the eggs : as food, the
game and the white breeds are said to be the
most delicate.

The care and management of the poultry-
yard usually devolves upon the farmer's wife,
and the industrious housewife will do well to
see to their food and rearing, &c., herself, and
not trust too much to servants. For the most
economical methods of keeping and managing
poultry, &c., I refer the reader to the different
heads of Dovecote, Ducks, Fowls, Goose,
Turkey, &c. See also Eoos, Feathers.

The comparative value of the keep for domes-
tic fowls is as follows: geese 5 per cent., ducks
7^ ditto, pigeons 10 ditto, dunghill fowls 40 ditto,
turkeys and Guinea fowls 50 ditto. From a series
of observations made on the diseases of domes-
tic poultry, Mr. Flourens makes the following
conclusions: — 1. In these animals cold exer-
cises a constant and determinate action on their
lungs. 2. The effect of this action is the more
rapid and more severe, the younger the animal is.
3. When cold does not cause acute and speedily
fatal inflammation of the lungs, it produces a
chronic inflammation, which is pulmonary
consumption itself. [This, however, is a mis-
take, as pulmonary consumption is the deposi-
tion of tubercles in, not inflammation of, the
lungs.] 4. Heat always prevents the attack of
pulmonary disease : when the latter has taken
place, heat suspends its progress, and even
sometimes arrests it entirely, and effects a com-
plete cure. 5. Pulmonary consumption in any
stage is never contagious : fowls affected with
that disease were not only all day along with
the healthy fowls, but at night roosted in the
same places, without communicating their dis-
ease to them. 6. Lastly, the action of too long
confined air exposes these animals to abscesses
of the cornea, and inflammation of the ball of
the e3^e. These abscesses and inflammations
are also caused in a still more cruel manner by
cold, especially when accompanied with mois-
ture. (Jnnales des Sci. Nat.) The reader will
find an interesting essay by Mr. England on the
rearing and management of domestic poultry,
in the fourth volume of the Trans, of the Highl.
Sac, to which a premium was awarded. There
is also a paper on the same subject in the
eighth volume of the Quart, Journ. of Agr.
p. 509.

FOUND. In law. a place where cattle and
goods which have been distrained are to be
lodged and kept until redeemed. The common
meaning in the United States is, a place where
cattle are enclosed and kept. See Distbkss.

POVERFY GRASS, or Forked Arlslida;
frequent in the Middle States, on dry, sterile
soils.

PREGNANCY. In cattle, the state of being
with vonng. Under the heads Abortion,
'933

PREGNANCY.

Calviito, Gestatiox, &c., I have gone fery
fully into this subject. The following excellent
observations by Mr.Youatt, on the detection of
pregnancy in the mare and the cow, are highly
practical and useful.

Among healthy animals, the impregnation
of the female rarely fails to be the result of an
intercourse between the sexes. The assurance,
however, of this having taken place, is, occa-
sionally, an affair of considerable interest, and
of no little difliculty; and the value and the
destiny of the female may very much depend
on the decision of the question. A certain time
having elapsed, the thing will speak for itself;
but are there any symptoms or circumstances
that will warrant the veterinary surgeon, or the
agriculturist, in giving a decided opinion on
the case in an early period of supposed preg-
nancy]

It occasionally happens that the fifth or the
sixth month arrives, and, even to the practised
eye, there are few or no indications of conception
having taken place. There are, also, but some-
what unfrequently, diseases which very closely
simulate this natural process. Can the vete-
rinary surgeon or the breeder decide] The
answer is in the affirmative, and plainly and
unequivocally. This is one of the boons which
the veterinary art can now confer on the agri-
culturist. The altered character of the female
is regarded, and very properly, as a circum-
stance of no little weight. She is compara-
tively calm and quiet; her appetite returns, and
she regains her former condition and her former
habits. Five or six weeks pass, and there is no
outbreak of any kind. The owner concludes,
and he is not often wrong, that she is impreg-
nated. He, however, has had little to do with
mares or with cows who has not witnessed the
return of the most furious CEstrum, after a much
longer period of time has elapsed. I have known
more than 3 months pass in this delusive qui-
etude, and then a salaciousness worse than at
first has indicated that no actual impregnation
had taken place. On the other hand, the
oestrum, but not with all its former fury, has
returned, 2, and 3, and 4 months after the con-
nection; and yet, as the result finally shows,
impregnation had taken place at their first in-
tercourse.

Many circumstances' may cause the owner
to be anxious to know the truth of,, the matter.
He may wish to sell her, or he may be unusu-
ally desirous to breed from her. Let the animal
be examined per vaginam. Let the hand be
slowly and cautiously passed up the vagina
until it reaches the os uteri. Let there be no
attempt to penetrate farther. No information
can be gained from introducing the fingers into
the uterus. It is simply wished to ascertain
the character of the os uteri. In its natural
and unimpregnated state it will be closed; but
it will not be tightly or spasmodically so, and
the contraction of the mouth of the womb will
form a kind of cup, with the base towards that
viscus. If she is impregnated, the entrance to
the uterus will be more firmly closed, and the
protrusion will be towards the vagina. This
is the only exploration per vaginam which I
would allow ; it is easily made, and it will be
satisfactory. If an exploration of this kind is

PREGNANCY.

PRIMROSE.

alterapted when half or more than half of the
period of pregnancy has passed, it is not at all
onlikely that so much irritation of the parts
will ensue as to cause the expulsion of the
fetus,

I will suppose that 2 months have passed
since the supposed impregnation. The fetus
is still remaining in the pelvic cavity. The
heart has begun to beat, and the blood to cir-
culate through its little veins. It will be situ-
ated ina mediately below the rectum. I intro-
duce my hand into that intestine. I have not
occasion to pass it very far up. I feel the little
substance ; for it then is small in proportion to
its after growth. I feel it under my hand. I
am certain that I am pressing upon the uterus
and its contents. I cannot perhaps detect the
pulsation of the embryo; but if I had delayed
my examination until the fetus was 3 months
old, I should have assurance that it was there
by its now increased bulk, while the pulsation
of its heart would tell me that it was living.

For 2 months from this period in the cow,
and for 3 in the mare, I should have no other
indication of the presence of the fetus, nor of
its life and growth, except from the gradual
enlargement of the abdomen of the mother;
and, by that time, the little one would have in-
creased in size and strength, and would have
begun to take occasional exercise in its first
domicile, and then would become the more
evident, but not more satisfactory proof of the
life of the fetus ; its motion strong enough to
be seen through the integument.

I might, perhaps, wish to give this assurance
of the life of the fetus to some curious spec-
tator, or to some intended purchaser. I would
not gallop the mare in order to effect this: I
would not so far disturb her or the young
animal that she bore within her. Much less
would I give her cold water to drink, and
which she usually would drink until she an-
noyed the fetus, and the unborn animal told us
how much we annoyed him by endeavouring
to shift his quarters and get away from the
action of the cold. I would not run the hazard
of giving her the colic, and perhaps destroying
him or her by this unscientific and somewhat
cruel method of exploration ; but I probably
should give a tap or two on the outer wall of
his dwelling, just sutficient to rouse him from
his slumbers, and induce him to express his
anger at the annoyance by a tolerably distinct
plunge or kick.

Most certainly, if it was a cow that I was
exhibiting, I would not give, nor would I suffer
any one else to give those terrible punches in
the right flank which I have no doubt are the
cause of much unsuspected injury, and, occa-
sionally at least, connected with, or the origin
of a ditficult or a fatal parturition.

I may here observe that the fetus of the mare,
from the beginning, occupies nearly the centre
of the belly. In the early stage, Mr. Mogford
generally found it "lying across the pelvic
cavit3% the spine being immediately under; the
head on the left side, and the tail on the right
side." In the latter portion of its fetal state its
motions are pretty equally distributed on either
side, and the beating of the fetal heart is most
plainly heard at the very base of the abdomen.

The fetus of the cow is huddled up on the right
side of the bell}^ There its motions are most
seen, and the beatings of its heart best heard.
The enormous paunch, lying principally on the
left side, presses every other viscus, afld the
uterus among the rest, into the right. flank.
This also explains a circumstance familiar to
every breeder. If the cow should happen to ,
carry twins, they are crowded together in the
left flank, and one seems absolutely to lie upon
the other. Whenever the farmer notices the
kicking of the fetus high up in the flank, he at
once calculates on twins.

To return from this digression. If half the
period, or more, of utero-gestation had passed,
and I could not get the little stranger to move
by my gentle tapping, and it was a cow with
which we had to do, and a quiet one, I would
have her carefully held by the cowherd, while
I stooped and applied my ear flat upon the
flank, and then slowly and with gentle pres-
sure upwards and downwards, and forwards
and backwards, over the flank and the lower
partof it, until I heard— and which I should do
in a great majority of cases — the pulsations of
the fetal heart I should recognise it by their
quickness, the pulsations of the fetus being
double or more than double those of the other.
If it was a mare, I would have a halter put
on her, and an assistant should hold up one of
her legs, while some person interested reached
under, or perhaps knelt under the belly of the
mare, and passing one ear along an imaginary-
line from between the teats to the chest, and
deviating a little from one side to the other, he
would then also recognise the quick pulsation
of the fetal heart.

These observations are addressed to prac-
tical men, and will be speedily put to 'the test
by them. The object of the author is to get
rid of the vulgar and inefficient methods of de-
tecting pregnancy which are now in general
use, and to introduce others that are founded
on a surer and more scientific basis.

This subject has been treated of by oihei-s,
and Dr. J. C. Ferguson, of King's College, Lon-
don, has published an Essay on Auscultation^ as
the only unequivocal Evidence of Pregnancy. Aus-
cultation is the method employed by physicians
to determine the healthy or diseased condition
of the lungs and other internal parts, by means
of the ear and stethoscope.

PRICKING. In hunting, the tracing of a
hare, where her footing can be perceived. In
farriery, the term is used to signify the driving
a nail into the soft or quick part of a horse's
foot, so as to cause temporary lameness.

PRIMROSE (Primula, from primus, the first;

in allusion to the early flowering of the plants).

This is an extensive genus of small, but very

pretty and desirable plants. All the species of

primrose succeed best in a mixture of loam

I and peat, and increase readily by seeds, or by

dividing the plants, which should be done as

I soon as they have flowered. There are in

England five indigenous species.

I 1. The common primrose (P. vulgaris),

I grows common everywhere in England,

I adorning the groves, hedges, and waste grassy

places in spring; flowering from March to

; June. Flowers numerous, large, sulphur-

933

PRIMROSE PEERLESS.

PULSE.

coloured, with a darker radiating spot in the
middle ; their scent agreeable, though slight.
There are cultivated varieties, white, purplish,
or brown, single or double, of which the double
sulphur-coloured is peculiarly elegant.

2. Oxlip primrose (P. elatior). This is a
less common species, found in woods and pas-
tures, but rare. It is perennial, and flowers in
April.

3. Common cowslip, or paigle (P. veris).
See Cowslip.

4. Bird's-eye primrose (P. farinosa). This
species is found growing in wet pastures and
by rivulets, on mountains in the north of Eng-
land as well as in Scotland. It flowers later
than the preceding species, in June and July,
and is only about half the size of the cowslip.
It is distinguished by the white mealiness of
the flower-stalks and backs of the leaves,
whose upper sides are green, smooth, and
even, as well as by the beautiful rose-coloured
flowers, whose mouth is surrounded with a
notched, yellow, glandular border.

6. Scottish primrose (P.Scotica). This spe-
cies is met with occasionally in the north of
Scotland, and is near akin to that last described.

PRIMROSE PEERLESS, or Narcissus.

PRIV^ET (Ligustrum, from ligare, to tie; in
allusion to the very flexible branches). The
common privet, print, or prim-print (L. vulgare),
is a hardy shrub, growing from 6 to 8 feet in
height, in its wild state tenanting rather moist
thickets and hedges, on a gravelly or chalky
soil: but it grows well in any situation, and in
all soils. It may be propagated by seeds,
layers, or cuttings. These plants are well
suited for making cut-hedges in gardens, espe-
cially the evergreen varieties of the common
privet. The branches are straight, tilled with
pitch, and the wood is hard.

PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. The
greater number of plants are propagated na-
turally by means of seeds ; but, in addition to
these, many plants are extended over the sur-
face on which they take root by the production
of runners, or lateral shoots, which spread
along the surface, and root at the joints or buds,
from which they send up new plants, by suck-
ers, or side shoots from the roots, by bulbs, by
tubers, rhizomes, and by various other natural
means. Artificially, plants are propagated by
seed, by runners, suckers, offsets, dividing the
tubers, layers', cuttings, grafting, budding, in-
arching, &c. Seeds are gathered when mature,
and sown on recently-stirred soil, and covered
to different depths according to the size of the
seed, the nature of the soil and situation, and
other circumstances. The plants formed by
runners are separated from the parent plant by
cutting through the runner, and removing the
young plant, in order to plant it elsewhere.
Suckers, slips, or side-shoots from the roots are
separated from the parent plant by being slipped
down, or cut off", so as to carry with them a
portion of fibrous roots ; and they are after-
wards planted in suitable soil, &c. Oflfsets
are small bulbs which are produced round the
base of larger ones, or on stems, in the axillae
of the leaves, and, being taken off" and planted,
become plants. Tubers are underground '
stems containing leaf-buds ; and these may be i
934

separated and planted entire; or cut into as
many pieces as there are buds, in either of
which cases new plants will be formed. Lay-
ers are branches or shoots of either woody or
herbaceous plants, which are bent down, and
a portion of their length buried a few inches
in the soil ; that portion having been previous-
ly wounded by cutting, bruising, or twisting,
which, by checking the descent of the sap,
gives rise, after a certain period, to the pro-
duction of roots.

After these roots are formed, the portion of
the layer which has produced them is sepa-
rated from the main stock or parent plant, and
planted by itself.

Cuttings are portions of shoots, either of
ligneous or herbaceous plants, and they are
made of the young shoots with the leaves on,
or of the ripened wood, either with or without
its leaves; and after they have, either in an
herbaceous state with the leaves on, or with the
wood mature, and with or without the leaves,
been properly prepared and planted, they form
roots at the lower extremity, each cutting be-
coming a perfect plant. In general, cuttings
should be taken from those shoots of a plant
which are nearest the soil ; because, from the
moisture and shade there, such shoots are
more predisposed to emit roots than those on
the upper part of the plant.

The young, or last-formed shoots, are to be
taken in preference to such as are older, as
containing more perfect buds in an undeve-
loped state, and a bark more easily permeable
by roots ; and the cutting is to be prepared by
severing its lower extremity across at a joint,
the lenticells, or root-buds, being there most
abundant. When the cutting is planted, the
principal part of the art consists in making it
quite firm at the lower extremity, so as com-
pletely to exclude the air from the wounded
section. Cuttings emit roots at this section,
either in consequence of the action of the ac-
cumulated sap in the cutting, as in the case
of the ripened wood in deciduous trees and
shrubs ; or in consequence of the joint action
of the accumulated sap and of the leaves, as
in the case of cuttings of soft wood with the
leaves on, and in a living state. A few plants
are propagated by cuttings of the leaves, the
petiole of the leaf being slipped off from the
parent plant, and probably containing the latent
embryos of buds. Grafting, inarching, and
budding, are processes which have been al-
ready explained. See Budding, Gkafting,
Latertno, &c.

PUCCOON (Batschia Canadensis). A plant
in the United States with an extremely red
root, called American Alkanet.

PULSE. A term applied to all leguminous
plants, as peas, beans, tares, vetches, lupins,
&c. All the species of pulse afford excellent
manure when turned into the soil in a green
state. The custom of ploughing in green suc-
culent plants of this kind is very ancient. All
the Roman agricultural writers commend it
highly. Columella, particularly, advises lupins
as a manure, which, if cut down and turned in
while green, will have as good effect as the best
and strongest dunging whatever. They may
be sown upon poor land about the middle of

1

PUMPKTN.

PUTREFACTION.

September, and be ploughed in before they
attain their full growth. In gravelly soils they
should be cut down after they have put forth
their second flower ; and in strong lands, where
a little more advanced. In the former of these
grounds they are turned in while young and
tender, that they may quickly rot; and in the
latter, are let stand till they grow stronger, that
they may produce a better effect on the stiff
clods of earth, and render them more mellow
and friable. This practice is still extensively
followed in northern Italy.

Peas, beans, lupins, vetches, and other suc-
culent plants, have also been strongly recom-
mended by the older writers on husbandry, as
excellent manures,especially for sandy ground ;
these plants enriching the earth greatly if
ploughed in, either green, or when in bloom.
In strong land they are advised not to be turned
down till the pods begin to harden. See Gheetc
Crops, LEouMiJious Plants, Peas, Rotation
OF Crops, &c.

PVMPKiN (Cururbitapfpo). The pumpkin
is extensively cultivated in the United Slates,
■where there are many varieties, some of them
attaining the enormous size of 2 feet or more in
diameter. But such large ones are not so highly
esteemed. The belter sorts are often used at
table, affording the celebrated pumpkin pie of
New England; and the coarser varieties are
esteemed for feeding stock. When growing in
the vicinity of squashes, the fruit of this is
liable to be converted into a hybrid, of little
or no value. Crops of pumpkins have been
totally spoiled by that cause, the fruit becom-
ing very hard and warty, unfit for the table,
and unsafe to give to cattle. Flora Cestrica.

PURGATIVES. In farriery, such medicines
as lend to evacuate the crudities of the bowels
by stool, and which are sometimes called ca-
thartics. See PuReiNo.

The purgatives most frequently employed
for horses and cows are sulphur, jalap, aloes,
gamboge, Rhamnus catharticus, and calomel.
Saline purgatives are not often required; but
when they are, Epsom salts (the sulphate of
magnesia), is adequate for every purpose.

PURGING is necessary in a variety of cases,
for different sorts of animals, particularly in
diseases of the inflammatory kind, swellings in
the extreme parts. Aloes is the best form of
physic; but Epsom salts, linseed, and olive oil,
are sometimes used on certain occasions as
laxatives with great propriety and benefit, and
in gross, full horses, in some disorders of the
stomach, liver, &c^ but it should always be di-
rected with caution.

Violent purging or scouring, attended with
inflammation, will sometimes arise when a
horse is worked h^rd upon green meat. The
remedy is change of diet or less labour. As-
tringents should be used with much caution.
It is probably an effort of nature to get rid of
something that offends. A few doses of gruel
will assist in effecting this purpose, and the
purging will cease without astringent medi-
cine. See Aloes, Balls, DaEarcHEs, Linseed
Oil, &c.

PURSLANE (Portulnca .- from porfo,to carry,
and lac, milk; juicy nature of the plants),
purslane is now but little noticed as a garden

flower, but in Britain is still cultivated as a
salad and pot-herb. The species usually grown
in the kitchen garden are the green or garden
purslane (P. o/e/aceo), and the golden purslane
(P. sativa).

PUTREFACTION (L^t Putrcf actio). The
spontaneous decomposition of animal and ve-
getable substances, attended by the evolution
of fetid gases. The putrefactive fermentation,
of animal substances is usually attended by
more fetid and noxious exhalations than those
arising from vegetable products. This appears
principally referable to the more abundant
presence of nitrogen in the former; and, hence,
those vegetables which abound in nitroginife-
rous principles, such as most (if not all) of the
cruciform plants, exhale peculiarly nauseous
effluvia; hence, also, such animal products as
are destitute of nitrogen, are either unsuscepti-
ble of what is commonly called putrefaction,
or suffer it slowly and imperfectly. The for-
mation of ammonia or of ammoniacal com-
pounds is a characteristic of most cases of
animal putrefaction ; while other combinations
of hydrogen are also formed, especially carbu-
retted hydrogen, and sulphuretted hydrogen,
together with complicated and often highly in-
fectious vapours or gases, in which sulphur and
phosphorus are frequently discerned. These
putrefactive effluvia are, for the most part,
easily decomposed, and resolved into new and
comparatively innocuous compounds by the
'agency of chlorine ; hence the importance of
that body as a powerful and rapidly acting dis-
infectant. The rapidity of putrefaction and the
nature of its products are, to a great extent, in-
fluenced by temperature, moisture, and access
of air; they do not ensue below the freezing
point, nor in dry substances, nor under the
entire exclusion of oxygen ; and hence various
means suggest themselves of retarding or pre-
venting putrefaction, as well as of modifying
its results. A temperature between 60° and
80°, a due degree of humidity, and free access
of air are the circumstances under which it
proceeds most rapidly. The most effectire
antiputrefactives, or antiseptics, are substances
which either absorb or remove a portion of
the water or moisture, and enter into new com-
binations with the organic matter. The astrin-
gent or tannic principle of vegetables is also a
powerful preserver of most organic tissues ;
it enters into chemical combination with the
albuminous and gelatinous membranes and
fibres; and the resulting compound, of which
leather furnishes a characteristic example, is
comparatively little prone to change, although
the tanning material itself, as well as the animal
principles with which it unites, are separately
liable to decay. Among saline substances, the
antiputrefactive powers of salt are commonly
known : when a piece of flesh is salted, brine
runs from it, in consequence of the energy
with which the salt abstracts the component
water of the muscular fibre ; the flesh becomes
indurated, and its susceptibility to putrefactive
changes is greatly diminished; but it becomes
at the same time less easy of digestion as an
article of food. Corrosive sublimate is a far
j more powerful preservative than common salt;
! and it appears to act not by the mere abstrac-

935

PYROLIGNEOUS ACID.

tion ofVater, but by entering into chemical
union with the fibre. Sulphate of copper and
several other metallic salts are similarly effica-
cious; but their poisonous nature prevents
their employment in the preservation of arti-
cles of food.

The inhabitants of northern climates avail
themselves of freezing to prevent the putrefac-
tion of their food, and the supplies of game
and other articles in the Russian markets are
retained in a frozen state. Our fishmongers
resort to the same expedient for the preserva-
tion of their unsold fish, which is daily removed
to the ice-house, after having been exhibited in
their shops ; salmon is packed ih ice for the
purpose of transport and preservation. See
Decoxposition, Dry Rot, Fermentation, Ma-
KURES, Organic Chemistry, &c.

PYROLIGNEOUS ACID. This term is
generally applied to the acid liquor which
passes over along with tar and gaseous pro-
ductSj when wood is subjected to destructive
distillation. This acid liquor is an impure
vinegar, from which acetic acid is obtained.
It has in its impure state a powerful smoky
odour, not unlike that of Westphalia ham.
The acid is purified by converting it into ace-
tate of soda, and decomposing that salt by
means of sulphuric acid. This acetic acid,
after distillation, is in a high state of concen-
tration ; but it differs from concentrated acetic
acid, by being neither combustible nor crystal-
lizable. It is usually lowered by the addition
of water. If intended for the table or for do-
mestic use, as a substitute for other forms of
vinegar, it is usually coloured with a little
burned sugar. This manufacture of vinegftr
is now carried on upon a very large scale, and
the greater part of the vinegar used for domes-
tic purposes and in the arts, in many of which
it is largely consumed, is derived from this
source. Ordinary vinegar, besides containing
acetic acid and water, contains also sulphate
of lime, some ethereal matter, a portion of sul-
phuric acid, and a colouring principle. See

ViNEGAH.

Q.

QUAKING GRASS (Briza; named from
brizo, to nod, on account of the quaking cha-
racter of the spikelets). A genus of grasses of
which some species are pretty and interesting,
as JB. minor, B. rubra, and B. clusii; but the
greater portion are mere weeds. The whole
are of easy cultivation. Two species are in-
digenous to Britain, the smaller quaking grass
{B. minor), and the common quaking grass {B.
media), pi. 6, n. See Briza.

QUARRY. A pit or drift jfrom which stones,
gravel, slates, or some other similar mattrial
is raised.

QUARTER. The fourth part of any thing,
as of a carcass. As a term of weight it de-
notes the fourth of a hundred weight, or 28 lbs.;
as a dry measure it signifies the fourth of a
chaldron. Quarter is also a measure of grain
containing 8 bushels : it is the common mea-
sure by which grain is sold in the southern
districts of England, especially when in large
quantities.
936

QUINOA.

QUARTZ. A German terra, now universally
adopted in scientific languages, and commonly
applied in mineralogy to the purer varieties of
silica, especially to rock crystal. Quartz oc-
curs also in bieds ; it is usually granular, white,
sometimes mixed with mica.

QUICKS. The young sets of the white thorn
used in planting hedges. The term is also
applied to couch-grass in some places* See
Quickset.

QUICKSANDS— Are sandy spots of soil
which contain water in such a proportion as
to form a sort of shaking quag at certain times.

QUICKSET. A term applied to the white
or hawthorn, the sets or young plants of which
are raised by the nursery gardeners for sale
for this purpose. See Fence, Hawthorn, and
Hedge.

QUINCE (Cydonia). A well-known genus
of fruit trees. C. vulgaris is the species gene-
rally cultivated for its fruit. It is a native of
Candia; but cultivated over most parts of Eu-
rope and North America. It belongs to the
natural order Pomacctp. The fruit, or quince,
is of a roundish, somewhat pyriform shape,
and contains ovate-pointed, plano-convex seeds,
yielding to boiling a large quantity of muci-
lage, which is employed in medical practice as
a demulcent. The quince will thrive in any
soil, and may be multiplied by suckers. C. ja-
ponica is one of the handsomest hardy shrubs,
producing its beautiful scarlet or white flowers
in great abundance. The Portuguese quince
is reckoned the best. Quince-marmalade is
greatly admired by those who are fond of the
fruit, and all good housewives know its value
in adding richness of flavour to apple-pie.

QUINOA, or PERUVIAN RICE (Chenopo-
dium quinoa). Humboldt speaks of this plant
as one of the few cultivated in the highest and
coldest regions of the And^s and the Mexican
Cordilleras, where it ranks in utility with the
potato, Indian corn, and wheat. Whilst young,
the leaves are used as spinach, oxalis (sorrel),
or common greens, whilst the seeds are boiled
in soups and used as a substitute for rice. The
plant is an annual, and resembles French spi-
nach, or its kindred Lamb's-quarter (Chenopo-
dium album), which is so widely diffused
throughout the United States. The seeds»are
small, about the twelfth of an inch in diameter,
yellowish-white, flat, resemble those of millet,
and are easily pulverized. The plant attains
about 3 feet in height, and produces greenish
flowers about the 1st of August. Mr. Gideon B.
Smith has raised the quinoa at Baltimore, and
found it very productive, (^^m. Farmer, vol. 13.)
There are a great many species of chenopo-
dium, many of which are enumerated under
the head of goose-foot. Ig Peru, it would
seem the quinoa is subjected to a process of
scalding or part-boiling, before it is disposed
of by the cultivator, whether for the purpose
of assisting in its preservation, or to prevent
its cultivation in other countries, is not ascer-
tained. To this fact may probably be ascribed
the failure of all previous attempts to cultivate
it. Having, says Mr. Smith, eaten the quinoa,
prepared in several ways, we are of course en-
abled to speak of its qualities from experience.
Gentlemen who have eaten it in Peru, speak

QUITTER.

of it in the highest terms of praise. It has a
very pleasant flavour, although this is peculiar
and ma}' not at first be relished. The taste
more resembles that of oat-meal than rice. The
grain is chiefly composed of a grain or sprout
of the young plant, closely coiled, and imbed-
ded in farina. In boiling, this spiral germ is
detached, and the dish presents the appearance
of being full of skippers, something similar to
a dish of boiled beans. The description of the
mode of sowing and cultivating the quinoa in
Peru, together with the seed, was furnished Mr.
Smith by Lieut. Fitzhugh, U. S. N. From this
it appears that it is sown broadcast, and gathered
in the same seasons as wheat. When ripe, the
grain shells off very easily, and to prevent loss,
it is cut carefully and gathered in on cloths of
cotton or linen.

QUITTER. In farriery, an ulcer formed
between the hair and hoof, usually on the in-
side quarter of a horse's foot ; it often arises
from treads and bruises, sometimes from gra-
vel, which, by working its way upwards, lodges
about the coronet; if it is only superficial, it
may be cared by cleansing dressings, bathing
the coronet every day with spirits of wine, and
dressing the sore with lime-water, or a deter-
gent application, such as red precipitate.

R,

RABBIT. (Lepuscuniculus)^ A well-known
animal, resembling the hare, smaller in size,
belonging to the order Rodentiee. . The rabbit has
shorter hind-legs than the hare, and the ears
are more thinly covered with hair. Rabbits
abound in England, and are in many cases
preserved in warrens. They are very prolific,
and begin to breed at six months old, and have
several broods in a year, and from five to seven
young ones in a brood. The young are blind
at birth, and nearly naked. Their fur, in a
"wild state, is of a brown colour; but varies
■when domesticated It constitutes a principal
article in the manufacture of hats. Owing to
its slight conducting power, it is, next to hare's
fur, an excellent thing to wear over the shirt
for those predisposed to consumption.

RACEME (Lat racemnSy a bunch of grapes).
In botany, a form of inflorescence, in which
the flowers are stalked along a common un-
branched axis, as in the hyacinth.

RACHIS (Gr.). A branch which proceeds
in nearly a straight line from the base to the
apex of the inflorescence of a plant. It is also
applied to the petioles of the leaves of ferns.

RACK. A railed convenience formed above
the manger in a stable for the reception of the
hay. It should be constructed with openings
at the bottom for the seed or dust to pass
through.

RADICLE. In botany, that portion of an
embryo which eventually becomes the descend-
ing axis or root. It is the lowest of the two
opposite cones of which an embryo plant con-
sists.

RADISH, CULTIVATED (Raphanus sati-
vus). There are two kinds of cultivated radish,
the fusiform, or spindle-rooted, and the globu-
lar, or turnip-rooted; and these again are di-
118

BABISH.

vided into the spring and autumn varieties. As
for the designation of short and long top, by
which the old gardeners divided the varieties,
I perfectly agree with Mr. Strachan, the gar-
dener of the London Horticultural Society, in
considering it as giving importance to a differ-
ence that is by no means permanent. The
first may be sown at all times of the year; but
the last, requiring a greater length of time to
perfect their roots, can only, as the name im-
plies, be obtained during the latter part of the
year.

Spring Varieties. — Fusiform-rooted : 1. Long
white, called also the white transparent, white
Italian, and Naples radish. 2. White Rus-
sian, probably the- iifl/j/ifl/itis sa/u'ws of Gerard.
3. Twisted radish of Mons. 4. Scarlet or
salmon, or scarlet-transparent radish. 5. Pur-
ple, formerly called exclusively the short-
topped. 6. Red-necked white.

Turnip-rooted : 7. White turnip is the only
one noticed by Gerard, as the Raphnntts orbicw
latus. 8. Early while turnip. 9. Pink, rose-
coloured, scarlet, and crimson turnip. 10. Pur-
ple turnip. 11. Yellow turnip.

Jutumn and Winter Varieties. — These are all
of the turnip-rooted kind; and in the following
list they are described in the order they follow
in coming into use. 1. Yellow turnip. 2. Round
brown. 3. White Spanish, is Miller's Rapha-
nusalbus orbicularis. 4. Oblong brown. 5. Black
Spanish. 6. Large purple winter, or purple
Spanish.

The soil best suited for this vegetable is a
mouldy loam, rather silicious than otherwise,
and mode'rately fertile. It should be dug a full
spade deep, and well pulverized. The subsoil
is best to be rather hard. Manure should not
be applied at the time of sowing, if avoidable,
as it is apt to cause the roots to be fibrous. If
employed, itshould be in a finely-divided, putres-
cent state. The situation should always be
open ; but for early and late crops, warm and
sheltered. Radishes are propagated by seed,
which may be sown at all times throughout the
year. For the earliest productions, during De-
cember, January, and February, in a hot-bed;
and in the open ground once a month during
winter, and every fortnight during the other
seasons of the year.

The time of drawing radishes is by no means
indiflTjrent. They eat in the greatest perfection
if pulled in the morning before the sun has
attained any power, and laid in a cool, damp
place until wanted. The bed should have a
plenteous watering the morning before that on
which they are taken, but none afterwards
until subsequent to the drawing. In Nov-em-
ber, those wanted for winter must be taken up
during dry weather, and preserved in sand.,

Fordng. — A moderate hot-bed is required for
this crop, of a length according with that of
the frame to be employed; the mould, about
eight inches deep, on the surface of which the
seed is to be sown as soon as the violent heat
is abated, and an additional half inch of mould
sifted over it. The seedlings are in general
up in less than a week, and in six they will be
ready to draw. Throughout their growth air
must be admitted as freely as is allowable.
The glasses, however, must be closed on the
4K 937

RADISH, THE HORSE.

RAIN.

approach of evening, and mats or other co- '
vering put on in proportion to the severity of
the season. When the mould appears at all
dry, a light watering must be given during i
noon. 'J'he plants must not stand nearer than j
iwov inches to each other The temperature I
required is from 50° to 70°; and it must be I
kept to this heat by moderate coatings as j
required. j

If there is a deficiency of frames, hoops and
mats may be employed, a frame of boards
being formed round the bed, light and air being
admitted as freely and as often as possible. If
seed is sown within a frame without any bot-
tom heat, the plants will be two or three weeks
forwarder than if sown in the open ground.

RADISH, THE HORSE. See Horse-Radish.

RADISH, THE GREAT WATER. See
Chess.

RADISH-MAGGOT. Radishes, while grow-
ing, are very apt to be attacked by maggots,
and rendered unfit to be eaten. These maggots
are finally transformed to small, ash-coloured
flies, with a silver)'-gray face, copper-coloured
eyes, and a brown spot on the forehead of the
females ; they have some faint brownish lines
on the thorax, and a longitudinal black line on
the hind-body, crossed by narrower black lines
on the edges of the rings. They vary in size,
but usually measure rather more than one-fifth
of an inch in length. They finish their trans-
formations, and appear above ground, towards
the end of June. The radish-fly is called An-
thomyia Raphani, in my " Catalogue," from the
botanical name of the radish, on the root of
which its larvae feed. It closely resembles the
root-fly (jinthomyia radicuni) of Europe. {Dr.
Harris.)

RADISH, WILD (Raphanus Raphanisticum).
A troublesome weed found in arable lands.
See Charlock.

RAG. A torn piece of cloth of any sort:
when of the woollen kind, they are used as
manure. Woollen rags are almost entirely
composed of animal matter: they are found to
contain a very large proportion of albumen, (a
substance similar in appearance to boiled white
of e^g), minute portions of lime and silica, and
traces of various salts. They form, therefore,
an excellent manure, by slowly decomposing in
the soil ; and are found to remain dissolving in
it, and forming soluble and elastic matters for
the service of plants, when applied at the rate
of 1200 weight per acre, for periods varying
from two years on the heavy clays, such as
those of the hop-grounds of the Weald of Kent,
to three or four on the light, chalky soils of the
valley of the Kennet, in Berkshire. The light-
ness of carriage, and its readiness, as well as
cleanliness of application, render it peculiarly
eligible as a fertilizer ; it keeps, too, for any
length of time, until the farmer is ready to
apply it to his ground, and is much more slowly
decomposed and consumed than either blubber,
rape-cake, train-oil, or bone dust.

The consumption of these rags by the Berk-
shire and Oxfordshire farmers, and especially
in Kent for the hop grounds, is very consider-
able. I am informed by an extensive dealer in
these rags, that at least 20,000 tons are annu-
ally consumed by the farmers of the south of
808

England. My informant himself has a sale of
more than 500 tons per annum, which he de-
livers free on board a vessel, at any of the Lon-
don wharves, for 5 guineas per ton. The cus-
tom of the farmer is, to cut the woollen rags, by
means of a chopper and block, into shreds
about the size of a crown-piece, and then
spread them on their fields by hand, out of a
common seed-basket, as evenly as they can ;
they find that this manure is admirably adapted
for hops, wheat, turnips, &c., and that the bene-
ficial effect is as great the second year as the
first. It appears that one farmer in Kent, Mr.
Ellis, of Barming, purchases annually 4 or 500
tons of these rags, almost exclusively for his
hop grounds. The farmers of Kent think the
application of the rags "tcarms" the ground, as
they slowly putrefy in the soil ; they certainly
afford nourishment to the crop, for wool is com-
posed almost entirely of a peculiar animal sub-
stance, with a slight portion of phosphate of
lime, or earthy matter of bones.

RAGWEED (Ambrosia elatior). See Hog-
weed.

RAGWORT {Senecio). A portion of the
species of this extensive genus has already
been noticed under the head Grottndsel ; but
there are in England four or five species of
ragwort, properly so called. These belong to
that section of the genus which have flowers
with spreading rays and pinnatifid leaves ; the
others to that with undivided leaves and radiant
flowers.

RAIN (Ger. regen). In meteorology, water
falling from the clouds.

As the effects of rain upon vegetation are
so highly important, it will be useful to ascer-
tain the quantity or depth of rain that falls
annually in various places, and the difference
in the effects which are produced by it, more
especially for the formation of reservoirs for
agricultural purposes. To use the words of
Mr. G. Tatem: — Although "fully aware, that
little reliance can be placed upon any theory
founded on data so uncertain as the quantities
of rain that fall in different years, I am con-
vinced that something might be done towards
establishing rules for the guidance of agricul-
turists and botanists, if observations were made
at the same place for a series of years, and the
results recorded." The average quantity of
rain which falls in a year at any given place,
materially affects the productiveness of the
soil, and is necessarily influenced equally with
the climate by a variety of general circum-
stances and local causes ; such as latitude,
proximity to the sea, elevation of the region,
configuration of the country and of the moun-
tain ranges, exposure to the prevailing winds,
&c.

Near the foot of high hills a greater quantity
commonly falls than over a level country; the
currents of the atmosphere in their course
meeting with a hill, are forced to ascend, and
gaining a higher, and of course colder situa-
tion, the vapour is condensed into clouds, and
even into rain, so that a deposition in showers
very frequently follows. Hence the reason
why clouds are so often observed on the sides
and tops of mountains, which have been in-
correctly supposed to attract them. The quan-

RAIN.

RAIN.

tity that falls, and the manner in which it falls,
are the circumstances to be attended to. A
great number of rainy days are more injurious
to the soil, even where the quantity is not
great, than heavy falls at distant intervals of
time ; the ground, in the first case, being con-
stantly over-saturated, its fertility is much less-
en'id ; in the other, the superfluous moisture
being soon drained off, only the portion neces-
sary fur the nourishment of plants is left, which
is gradually given out in dry weather, during
which the ground for a time is in its most pro-
ductive state.

In general, more rain falls in the north of
England than in the south. The east and
southeastern counties have usually the driest
seasons and years. The fall of rain is various,
however, at any period of the year, as may be
seen from the annexed tables. The mean quan-
tity falling annually in England is reckoned to
be 32 inches, or, according to Dalton, 31-3; but
this is unequally distributed.

The annual amount in Westmoreland and

Lancashire, according to Mr. Whistlecraft,
usually ranges from above 40 to nearly 70
inches, while that noted by the gauge in Essex
and Suflfolk is as low as from 14 to 32 inches ;
seldom, however, does it exceed 25 inches. It
may, indeed, be fairly inferred, that these two
parts of England produce extremes.

Mr. Howard gives the annual average at
London equal to 24-9 inches ; Professor Phil-
lips at York 25-7; and Mr. Adie at Edinburgh
25 inches.

At Keswick, in Cumberland, the depth on an
average of 7 years was found to be 67 inches;
at Baverstock, near Salisbury, during the same
period, 32| inches ; and at Plymouth, in De-
vonshire, 45 inches. In the western parts of
Scotland the depth is from 30 to 35 inches,
which is from 6 to 10 inches more than that
on the east coast.

The mean monthly and annual quantities of
rain at various places, deduced from the ave-
rage for many years, by Dalton, is given in the
following table : —

MADChe*-
ter,33
yeart.

Liverpool,

Chato-

worth, 10

yea™.

L»n«ailer.

Keodal.

Duinfriei.

Glanow,

r-iwHon,

,/"'••

Vivien,

General

ISjrean.

20 yean.

2i yean.

itf yean.

17 yean.

40 year*.

15 yean.

40 yean.

arerage.

J..ch«.

Inch««.

Inehe*.

iDChot.

IlM-hM.

Inehe..

lDche«.

Inchet.

French in.

French in.

Inrhe*.

January
February -
MarcU

2-310

2177

2196

3-461

5-2M

3095

1595

1-46-4

1-228

2-477

2530

2-568

1847

1652

2 995

5126

2 837

1741

1-250

1232

1-700

2 295

2098

1 523

1M2

1753

3151

2 164

1 184

1-172

1 190

1-927

1-748

April -

2010

2101

2-078

3180

2-986

2017

0979

1-279

1-185

2 686

1-950

/ay - -
June -

2-895

2-573

2-118

2460

3480

2-568

1-641

1-636

1767

2931

2-107

2-502

2816

2 2S6

2-512

272-2

2 974

1-343

1-738

1-697

2-562

2-315

July -

3697

3-fi63

3-OOrt

4-140

4-959

3256

2303

2448

1-800

1-882

3115

August

3-665

3311

2435

4581

5aS9

3 199

2-746

1807

1-900

2 347

3-103

8e[tieiiil»er -

3-281

3-654

2-289

3751

4-874

4-350

1617

1-842

1 550

4140

3135

October

3 922

3 724

3079

4-151

5-4.19

4143

2-297

2-092

1-780

4741

3-537

November -

3-360

3441

2«:<4

3755

4-785

3-174

1-904

2222

1720

4-187

3-120

December -

3-832

3-288

2569

3-955

6 084

3 142

1981

1-736

1600

2-397

3-058

Annual -

36-140

.'14-121

27-664

39-714

53944

36-919

21331

20 686

18-649

33-»n

The greatest depth of rain which has been
registered at any place in a year, is at Maran-
ham, lat. 2^° S., and which is stated by Hum-
boldt to be 277 English inches. But this is
greatly above the average, and, indeed, more
than double the annual quantity which has
been observed at any other locality. At St.
Domingo, the annual fall is estimated at 120
inches; at Cayenne, 116 inches; at the Ha-
vana, 91; at Calcutta, from 76 to 118; at Bom-
bay, from 83 to 96; the island of Martinique,
87 inches ; and at Sierra Leone, 86. Of Eu-
ropean countries, Portugal appears to be the
most humid, 123 inches having been observed
at Coimbra in a year.

Although winter usually produces more rainy
days than summer, the quantity of rain which
falls is greater in the latter season. Dr. Dal-
ton has ascertained that the first six months of
the year may be regarded as dry, and the last
six as wet months. Another ingenious author
has inferred, from long observation, that in
spring it rains oftener in the evening than in

I the morning, but that towards the end of sum-
mer, oftener in the morning than in the even-

j ing. At St. Petersburg, rain and snow fall on
an average 84 days of the winter, and the

'quantity amounts to about 5 inches; on the
contrary, the summer produces 11 inches in
the same number of days. In Canada, the
average fall of rain usually is about 3 feet,
which furnishes about 20 gallons of water for
each square foot of surface during the year.

In the United States, the quantity of rain
falling per annum increases in going south. At
Philadelphia, a medium point, the results of
33 years' observation of the rain-gauge have
been estimated by Mr. Owen Evans as fol-
lows:— Whole quantity, from 1810 to 1842 in-
clusive, 1276-435 inches; annual mean or ave-
rage, 38-68 inches; greatest amount in any one
year, 55-278 inches (in 1841); smallest quan-
tity, 23-354 inches (in 1819).

Mr. Evans has also constructed the follow-
ing table, showing the monthly averages of.
rain, estimated for 5 years (1838 to 1842 in-

Annual

Rain in inches
Wind North -

Jin'y.

Feb'y.

Mirfh.

^pril.

May.

June.

July.

August.

Sept'r.

October.

Nov'r.

Dec'r.

mean.

3637

2-574

3 224

4-600

4-290

4-669

4-785

5-581

3555

3-698

3-399

4-083

48145

2|

2

3

u

M

U

2

4

2

2|

2

2*

26|

" Northeast -

5

4

6

5|

4*

2^

3

5^

6

5|

1|

5

57^

♦• East - -

i

i

t

H

2

2

1

H

H

H

J

\

m

*• BoutkeaBt

1

\

1

2

2

H

2

3

2*

H

\

\

17i

" South -

3

3

2*

2*

3

3f

3f

4

If

2

1

1

28^

<• Southwest -

8

7

6

7

7*

81

111

H

9

5f

1\

6

90

" West -

5

4|

3

3

4

5|

•H

?i

3

.^

6

^

53

*' Northwest -

n

8

9

7

6f

^

5

3*

4i

7

8

9

..-"^

RAIN-GAUGE.

RAKE.

elusive), tog-ether with the number of days in
each month during which certain winds pre-
vailed, the last being the results of three ob-
servations each day.

RAIN-GAUGE. An instrument for measur-
ing br gauging the quantity of rain which falls
at a given place. It is also known under the
several names of ombrometer, udometer, plu-
viameter, and hytetometer. Its principles and
construction are of the simplest nature ; but
it is made in a variety of shapes.

A convenient form of the instrument is that
where the rain which enters a funnel of certain
size, is collected in a bottle or other vessel, and
afterwards measured in a graduated cylindri-
cal gl"ass tube, the marks on which not only
represent the tenths and hundredths, but even
the thousandth part of an inch of water. The
height is read immediately on the scale.

It is requisite to be particular in the situa-
tion of the instrument. The gauge is best
placed about 3 or 4 feet from the ground. In
all cases an open space, free from trees, shrubs,
or buildings, must be chosen.

RAKE. A tool of the toothed kind, of va-
rious sizes and forms, made use of in garden-
ing, and for different agricultural purposes.
There are several others used for field opera-
tions, some of which are worked by horses.

Tke drag-rake, in its simplest form, is merely
a long cross-head, with a row of teeth placed
in it: in some these are straight; they are,
however, generally bent, with their points pro-
jecting forward. A very excellent and light in-
strument, having the teeth of steel, and made
with screws, so as to admit of their being easily
replaced in case of accident, is well known in
England as Badgley's improved drag-rake.
These rakes had, from time to time, increased
in length and weight, till they became too large
to be balanced by the hand. Two small wooden
wheels were then added, which rendered them
manageable by women or boys. Further ad-
ditions having been made to them, they are
now sufficiently strong to be worked by a horse.
Used on fallows when foul, to remove the
couch-grass, they act as a harrow, to get to-
gether the rubbish; or in harvest-time they act
as a rake to collect the loose corn which may
have escaped from the scythe or sickle. In
order to clear them readily, there are different
contrivances. One of the most simple and
efficient is an arrangement which, by lifting
the handle, causes the teeth to be raised and
brought between two iron bars, which constitute
part of the framing; by this means all the rub-
bish is stripped off from the teeth of the rake.

In " Wedlake's Horse Hay-Rake," the weight
of the rake is balanced upon the carriage by
Iwo heavy balls projecting in front of it ; so
that a slight lifting power applied to the handle
will raise it from the ground, and disencumber
it of the hay or stubble it may have gathered.
This rake obtained the commendations of the
Committee on Implements, at the meeting of
the Royal English Agricultural Society at Cam-
bridge.

The East'Lothian Stubble-Rake is a machine
not so well known in England as its merits
deserve. Its advantages over those previously
940

described are as follows: — It has each tooth
placed in a separate head, which, working upon
a centre like the levers of a drill, adapt' them-
selves to any inequality in the ground. To the
handles, a bar the length of the harrow is firmly
fastened, and from this bar each lever is sus-
pended by a few links of chain. When it is
necessary to clear the rake, these handles, on
being elevated, lift all the levers between a
framing of light iron rods.

An ingenious practical farmer, .Tohn Sayer,
of Bodham, in Norfolk, made considerable im-
provement upon this rake, by altering the form
of the teeth to avoid tearing the land ; and in
order to effect more work without increasing
the width of the rake, the naves of his wheels
were made to project inwards, so that two ad-
ditional levers could be introduced, working
quite close to the spokes.

But within the last few months a very im-
proved implement of this character has been
introduced and patented by J. C. Grant, of Stam-
ford, which obtained the prize of the Royal Ag-
ricultural Society of England, at its meeting at
Liverpool. Its advantages consist in the adap-
tation of a compound lever, by which the whole
row of tines may be instantly raised, and as
quickly allowed toresume their position, while
the form of the teeth being such as to describe
part of a circle, the centre of which is the axis
of the separate levers to which they are at-
tached, each portion of the curve is succes-
sively brought into a vertical position, thus
rapidly disengaging the teeth from the mate-
rial collected, so that, without stopping the
horse, the process of collecting is resumed,
leaving no interval beyond what is requisite
for the deposit of the hay, corn, or stubble pre-
viously collected.

Several minor improvements are included in
the patent, but as these mainly refer to modes
of construction, it will not be necessary here
to particularize them.

A hay-making machine invented by Robert
Salmon, of Woburn, and patented in 1816, con-
sists of a series of rakes revolving upon two
skeleton frames, to which motion is communi-
cated by cog-wheels attached to the naves of
the wheels in which it travels. It has under-
gone considerable improvement by R.Wedlake,
an ingenious manufacturer, residing at Horn-
church. These improvements consist in form-
ing the cylinder in two parts, each of which
has motion independent of the other, and ia.
placing the tines or rake-teeth upon a bar,
which, being supported by a spring, will yield
to any obstruction caused by sudden uneven-
ness of the surface of the ground, and return
again to its original position. Its object is to
spread the hay, and by thoroughly separating
its parts, continually to expose them to the sun
and wind, which it so thoroughly effects as to
render the hay fit to cart much earlier than by
the common process of shaking it by the hand.
To the practical agriculturist, it will not be ne-
cessary to remark on the advantages accruing
from the ability to hasten, if only by a few
hours, the process of hay-making; but it will
be valuable to know, that the universal testi-
mony of all with whom we have conversed is,

RAKE.

RANUNCULUS.

that this implement is a time-saving machine,
and therefore one of the greatest value.

American Revolving Haij'rake. — This rake is
drawn by one horse ; and it can be made to go
either along or across the ridges, as may be
required. It can carry between 100 and 200
lbs. of hay; and when that quantity is upon it,
the hay can be deposited, by a simple revolu-
tion of the instrument, in rows, or at any par-
ticular place required, without stopping the
horse.

The common horse-rake, much used in the
United States, especially in the North, is de-
scribed and figured in the Cultivator, vol. vii.
p. 89. It is made of a piece of strong scant-
ling, 3 inches square, and 10 feet long, into
which about 15 teeth are inserted horizontally,
and made of strong white ash or other tough
wood. The teeth should be about 22 inches
long, and I inch by IJ at the place of insertion,
and tapering on the under side, so as to give
them a slight turn upward at the point, to pre-
vent their running into the ground while using.
The draught-ropes are attached to the end of

2 projecting pieces of wood parallel to the teeth
at each end of the rake. These projecting
pieces should be about one-third of the length
of the teeth. Those unskilled in the use of the
rake sometimes attach the ropes al once to
the ends of the head; in this way, it becomes
almost entirely unmanageable. The forward
ends of the draught-ropes are to be fastened to
the horse's collar, leaving space enough be-
tween the horse and rake for the collecting
hay. Handles are to be inserted in the head
near the middle, for guiding the teeth and lift-
ing the rake from the ground when necessary.

In using this rake, instead of the teeth moving
onward upon their points, as in the common
hand-rake, they run along flat upon the ground,
passing under and collecting the hay ; when
full, the handles are thrown forward, the rake
emptied, and lifted over the winrow for another
load. The rake thus passes backwards and
forwards across the field, always emptying op-
posite the last heap, and thus forming regular
winrows at right angles with the path of the
rake. A few hours' practice will enable any
one to use this rake without difficulty, the only
skill required consisting in keeping the points
of the teeth just so low as to pass under all the
hay, and yet not run into the ground. When
small obstructions occur, the handles are de-
pressed, thus causing the teeth to rise, and the
rake passes freely over. Large obstructions,
as slumps and stone-heaps, require the rake to
be lifted from the ground.

The chief recommendation of this kind of
rake, is its cheapness and simplicity. A good
one need not cost more than $2. It may also
be used on rougher ground than the revolving
rake, as it is more easily lifted over obstruc-
tions. Where the ground is very uneven, the
teeth should be much shorter. When one be-
comes well accustomed to the use of it, work
may be done nearly as fast with this, as with a
revolving rake, though much more laborious.
Twelve acres of hay, part of it yielding nearly

3 tons to the acre, on a meadow of the writer,
were raked into winrows, by means of one of
these rakes, in about 6 hours' working time.

It possesses another advantage over the revolv-
ing rake — it may be used for scraping the win-
rows into heaps for drawing, and if the hay is
stacked in the field, for drawing the hay to the
stack. A man with a rake and horse not only
raked the hay, but drew it at the saniettime to
the stack, a distance of from 10 to 20 rods, as
fast as an active man could pitch with a fork.
A hand-rake need scarcely ever be used on the
meadow, as all the scattered hay may be raided
up in a short time after the rest of the hay has
been drawn off.

The horse-rake is very useful in raking
stubble of wheat, and eminently so in pulling
and gathering peas.

Shafts, instead of ropes, have been attached
to the head of the rake, and have been strongly-
recommended ; but they diminish the simpli-
city of the rake, and appear to possess no ad-
vantage on the whole, and for gathering and
drawing hay, are positively detrimental.

RAMPIONS, or RAMPION BELL-FLOW-
ER (Campanula rapunculus). The esculent
roots of this vegetable are far more delicate
than turnips or radishes. They are long, white,
and in the shape of a spindle. Like the radish,
it is eaten raw, having a nut-like, pleasant
flavour. The plant rises to the height of 2 feet,
with blue flowers.

It is propagated by seed, which maybe sown
during March, April, and May ; the plants from
sowings in the two first months, soon, however,
run up to seed. The insertions may be per-
formed either in drills 6 inches apart, or broad-
cast; in cither mode the seed to be buried ^ an
inch deep, effecting it in the latter by sifting
mould over it ; for, if the seed is raked in, from
its minuteness, it is apt to be buried too deep.
The plants are to remain where sown; though,
in case of any deficiency, those which are taken
away in thinning the crops may be transplanted
successfully. The best lime for performing the
removal is of an evening. They are fit for
thinning when about 2 inches in height ; they
must be set at a distance of 6 inches apart,
being hoed at the time, and the same operation
repeated two or three times, which, if perform-
ed in dry weather, will keep them free from
weeds until used.

The plants of the sowings during the two
first mentioned months will be fit for use at the
close of August, or early in September, and
continue throughout the autumn. Those of
the last one will continue good throughout the
winter, and until the following April. The soil,
throughout their growth, must be kept moist,
effecting it in dry weather by giving frequent
but moderate waterings through the fine rose
of a watering-pot.

The root, for which it is cultivated, either to
be sliced, together with its leaves, in salads, or
eaten as the radish, as well as to be boiled like
asparagus, is most palatable when drawn
young, and eaten fresh from the ground.

For the production of seed, a few of the
winter standing plants are left unmoved. These
shoot up in the spring, flowering in July and
August, and ripening abundance of seed in
earlv autumn. (G. W. Johnson's Kitch. Gard.)

RANUNCULUS (From rana, a frog; several
of the species being found in moist places fre-
4k2 9tl

RAPE.

RAPE.

quented by that reptile). Many of the plants
belonging to this extensive genus are well
worth the cultivator's care, and they have long
been favourites with the florist. The aquatic
kinds require to be grown in water. The
grunac^e-rooted species will thrive in any com-
mon soil and situation ; they are increased by
offsets from the roots, or by seeds. These
plants are acrid, and most of them poisonous.
See Crowfoot and Spearwort.

RAPE. A plant of the cole kind, greatly
cultivated in Flanders for the sake of the seed,
but extremely valuable also as green food for
cattle and sheep in winter and spring. " The
plants," says Mr. Low, "usually cultivated
under the name of rape, are the fusiform va-
rieties of the following species of brassica.
Cole or rape (J?, napus), colza (B. campestris),
fusiform common turnip (5. ra^a), and early
cole (B. pracox)" There are different modes
of treating this plant, according to the uses for
which it is designed. The whole plant is of
great service in feeding cattle ; and after the
seed is thrashed, the straw and chaff, on being
burnt, afford ashes equally valuable as the best
potashes. Wheat yields an excellent crop
after rape, and the plant is grown with great
advantage on bog plant, where paring and
burning has been practised. Rape is very
hardy, and with fair treatment it never fails on
any soil. Cattle are so successfully fattened
with it, that many farmers prefer it to turnips.
See Cole.

For garden culture, rape is propagated by
seed, and, like mustard, and other small salad-
ing, may be sown at any period of the year,
when in request; being allowed a separate bed.
For the production of seed, some plants of a
sowing which has been made about the middle
of July, must be thinned to about 18 inches
apart: they will survive the winter in England,
and flower in May and June of the next year.
The seed, which is produced in great abund-
ance, ripens in July and August, and must then
be cut and laid upon cloths to dry, as it is very
apt to shed.

In England, rape (Brassica napus sylvestris) is
frequently called coleseed, and in France navette.
In both countries it is highly prized, not only
for the value of the oil expressed from the seed,
but for the cake left after pressure, which is
extensively used for feeding cattle, its qualities
for this purpose resembling those of the oil-
cake left after pressure of flaxseed in making
linseed oil. Rape belongs to the cabbage or
turnip family, but it never heads, like the
former, and its roots are of little value com-
pared with the latter. Of the two kinds most
commonly cultivated, one is biennial, sown one
summer and harvested the next, whilst the
other is a spring or summer crop.

Rape, though but little known in the United
States, has been tried in various parts, and
found to stand the winters even in New York
and New England. Whenever, therefore, a
demand shall be made for this valuable pro- j
duction of the soil, or its near kindred of the
cabbage family, colza, the United States can
yield them abundantly, in almost every part.

According to Loudon, the place which rape
occupies in a rotation, is between two culmi-
9*2

ferous or grain crops. On rich soils it may be
succeeded to the greatest advantage by wheat,
as it is found to be an excellent preparation
for that sort of grain ; and b}' its being taken
off early, there is sufficient time allowed for
getting the land in order for sowing wheat.

In Notes on the Jlgriculture of Germany, by Mr.
Carr, an English gentleman, he says the after
course is as follows : —

1 year fallow, well dunged,

2 " rape,

3 « wheat,

4 " barley,

6 " peas, light dunging,

6 " rye,

7 " oats, with rye, or timothy grass-
seeds, and red clover.

The clover and peas plastered in May. The
clover is mown twice for hay, and left two
years for pasture, when it is heavily manured,
fallowed, and again sown with rape. " The
rape-seed is sown broadcast in the last of July
or first of August. This crop is greatly bene-
fited the following spring by dusting gypsum
over it, about 100 lbs. to the acre. In July the
seed is ripe, and as the weather is generally
fine, is trodden out by horses very expeditious-
ly on large canvass sheets in the field. The
oil of this seed pressed out, when purified, is
without smell, gives a brilliant, clear-burning
flame, and is universally iised all over Ger-
many, in the saloon of the rich, and the cottage
of the poor. The value of the crop is some-
what precarious, because it is subject to so
many contingencies ; the turnip-fly and cater-
pillar prey upon it when young, and when in
flower, a small beetle (Haltica nemorum) often
eats away the blossom-bud, or lays its minute
larvae in the petals, ultimately furnishing every
seed-pod with a maggot which either eats the
seeds away, or, forcing the pod open when
nearly ripe, causes it to fall out. When spared
these calamities, it is, however, a very remu-
nerating crop, worth from 10/. to 20Z. an acre,
especially if there is a foreign demand. The
straw is generally burned, and the ashes scat-
tered over the field ; it is sometimes sold to the
soap-makers, who prize it highly. Two fur-
rows are now given for wheat sown broadcast
in September."

Mr. Blackie, in his Essay on the Improvement
of small Farms, says, that the produce of rape,
when icell manured, is beyond any thing almost
that can be imagined, if let stand until it gets
into blossom. Manure, he adds, makes the
stalk tender and juicy, which would otherwise
be hard and dry, so that if cut into small pieces
for the purpose of feeding green to cattle, not
a bit will be lost, and it grows to a height of 6
feet. I am, he says, almost afraid to say, that
I believe, with the addition of some straw, an
acre will keep 30 head of cattle in full milk for
a month.

RAPE, edible-rooted. This name may be ap-
plied to a variety of the rape mentioned by Mr.
Dickson, one of the vice-presidents of the Hor-
ticultural Society. Its root is white, and car-
rot-shaped, about the size of the middle finger.
It is much more delicate in flavour than the
turnip, like which root it is cooked, only that it
is not peeled, but scraped, its skin being re-

RAPE-CAKE.

RAT.

markably thin. It has been cultivated for a
great length of years on the continent, and for
about 30 years in England, but only by one
person, as far as Mr. Dickson is aware. It is
propagated by seed, which, for the main crop,
may be sown from the middle of July to the
end of August, or even later: these will supply
the table until April ; and, if wanted through-
out the year, a little may be sown in the latter
end of October, the plants from which will be
fit for use, if they succeed, during April and
May: the last crop to be inserted from the
middle of January to the middle of February,
which will come in at the end of May and dur-
ing June. On a north border, and if the soil
is sandy and moist, it is possible to have them
sweet and tender during the whole summer, to
effect which the seed must be sown at the close
of March and May. They require the same
modes of cultivation and treatment as turnips.
In dry weather the beds must be watered regu-
larly, until the plants have got three or four
leaves. One great advantage attending the
cultivation of this vegetable is, that it requires
no manure. Any soil that is poor aiid light,
especially if sandy, is suitable to it. In rich
manured earth it grows much larger, but not
so sweet and good. For the growth of seeds,
Mr. Dickson recommends, in February or
March, some of the finest roots to be trans-
planted to 2 feet asunder ; but it would, per-
haps, be a better practice to leave them where
grown.

RAPE-CAKE. The refuse or marc remain-
ing after the oil has been expressed from the
rape or cole-seed. (See Lisseeu Cake.) The
use of rape-cake as a manure is pretty ex-
tensive in some parts of England, and its effects
are so immediate and powerful, that its ex-
pense alone retards its more general employ-
ment. It contains a large quantity of mucilage,
some portion of albuminous matter, and a
small proportion of oil. It should be kept dry,
and used when recently made. It answers
admirably for turnips. When first recom-
mended as a fertilizer, it was used in the pro-
portion of half a ton per acre ; but by pul-
verizing it, and drilling it in with the seed,
about half that quantity has been found suffi-
.lient. Rape-cake produces, when ploughed in
with wheat, excellent crops. It has been found
exceedingly noxious to the wireworm, and
other field vermin, and when applied in com-
post, with 30 times its weight of farm-yard
dung, it forms a very excellent manure.

Rape-cake, in common with all fertilizers of
an oily nature, is much more decided in its
effects in wet than in dry seasons. In York-
shire and Lincolnshire the quantity applied
is about 16 bushels per acre. It is more ser-
viceable on clays and other moist lands than
on dry soils ; its benefit extends to only on«
crop, although there have been occasional in-
stances of its extending to two. It may be
either drilled with the seed or spread on the
land before it is ploughed. See Lijtseed, Oil-
Cake, Palma CunisTi, &c.

The practical benefits which are capable of
being derived from -a correct knowledge of the
mode in which green manures operate, are
considerable. It should teach the cultivator to

carefully bury in the soil every portion of either
animal or vegetable matter he can command ;
for every weed, every fragment of straw he
thus employs, will again, under judicious ma-
nagement, be returned to him in new forms of
beauty and usefulness.

RASPBERRY {Rubus idceus). This shrub, in
its wild state, is found growing in our moun-
tainous woods and thickets : flowering in May
and June. The root is creeping. The stems
are biennial, erect, 3 or 4 feel high, branched,
round, pale or purplish, more or less be-
sprinkled with small, straight, slender prickles,
frequently rather resembling bristles than
prickles, and sometimes altogether absent.
Leaves primate, of five or three ovate, rather
angular, lateral leaflets, serrated or cut, and
angular, green, and nearly smooth above, very
downy beneath, and a larger terminal leaflet.
The footstalks are furrowed, downy, and prick-
ly, with narrow lateral stipules. The flowers
are small, white, or pinkish-white, pendulous,
in drooping terminal clusters. Fruit crimson,
of numerous juicy grains, beset with the per-
manent styles, and highly fragrant, with a
very deliciously perfumed sweet and acid fla-
vour, more exquisite in the wild state, in gene-
ral, than when cultivated.

The wood of the raspberry bush produces
fruit but one year, therefore that should be
carefully cut down below the surface of the
earth, and the young shoots should be shorten-
ed to about 2 feet high; and not more than three
or four shoots should be left to each root, as
these will produce a greater number of berries,
and larger fruit, than would be obtained if
twice that number of suckers were left. The
middle or end of October is the proper time for
this pruning. The fruit is produced from young
branches out of the last year's shoots or suck-
ers. The plants raised by layers are much
preferred to those taken from suckers; they
should also have plenty of room, for when
there is not space for the air and light to pass
between the rows, the fruit will be small, and
not ripen well. They require a fresh, strong
loam, deeply trenched and well manured in
the first instance, for in warm, light ground
they produce but little fruit.

The following selection is recommended for
a small garden : — Barnet, Cornish, Double-
bearing red Antwerp, Williams's preserving
yellow Antwerp.

This fruit is employed for the dessert; it is
also in very general use for jams and tarts,
and is converted into wine and vinegar, which
is a refreshing beverage, when diluted with
water, in fevers. The young and fresh leaves
of the common raspberry are eagerly eaten by-
kids. (See Bramble.)

RAT. The name of a large, destructive,
and very prolific species of the genus Mus, the
brown, or water-rat (Mus decumamis, Linn.),
introduced into the British islands from Asia,
not, as is commonly believed, from Norway.
It has spread over all the country, and multi-
plied at the expense of the old British species,
called the " black rat" {M. rattus, Linn.).

Of all the four-footed animals (says the au-
thor of Brit. Husb.) included in the rank of
vermin, rats and mice are the most pernicious;

943

REAPING.

REAPING MACHINE.

for they build their nests under the floors and
in the roofs of barns, nor are even the stacks ex-
empt; and are so prolific that, if not destroyed,
they occasion incalculable mischief. It there-
fore behooves every farmer to use all possible
means to check the evil, and one might suppose
that every exertion was invariably made for
that purpose; yet we constantly find homesteads
overrun with these pests, without any other
pains being taken than an occasional rat-hunt
by farm servants, aided by a terrier, which,
though not to be neglected, is a very ineffectual
remedy. The best is, unquestionably, the con-
struction of the barn-floor and roof in such a
manner as to prevent them obtaining a perma-
nent harbour in the building. The next is, be-
fore the entire clearance of the barn, while yet
a little corn remains to prevent them from
quitting it, to close every part of the barn, by
carefully covering any holes there may be with
sacks and tarpaulings, so as to prevent all ac-
cess of the outward air, leaving only the door
for a few minutes open while the process is
going on. This done, some common iron
chafing-dishes, which may be purchased for a
trifle, should be placed upon the floor, and in
the bags ; or, if they cannot be had, build up
a few bricks, clay, or any rubbish that will
secure a fire from spreading, leaving a cavity
in the centre, and filling it up with charcoal.
Then light the charcoal from the bottom, and
when the heaps are all burning, quickly strew
a good quantity of broken brimstone upon the
top ; retire immediately, shut the door fast, and
leave the building entirely closed during a
couple of days following. On opening it, the
greater portion of the rats and mice will be
found dead around the charcoal ; and, aithough
some may have been suffocated while in their
holes, and if not discovered will occasion an
unpleasant smell until their remains are dried
up, yet it will not last long. The operation
should be again repeated just previous to har-
vest, and if any opening be found into the
barns while they are full, by the burrowing of
the rats, brimstone matches should be inserted
into them before they are stopped up. Traps
and poisons are only partially efficient; but an
effectual mode of trapping is detailed in a small
pamphlet, published some years ago by Mr. B.
Broad, of Thurton, under the sanction of the
Hereford Agricultural Society, which ought to
be in the hands of every farmer in the kingdom.

The ferret is a decided enemy to the rat, and
if kept in a hutch or cage, and only occasion-
ally used, will be found very serviceable : but
he should be well fed to induce him to return,
or otherwise he will escape and become de-
structive to poultry. A cat or two should also
always be reared about a barn. In new barns
and outhouses, the entrance of rats is effectu-
ally prevented by steeping the joints, rafters,
and flooring in a solution of corrosive subli-
mate. If a rat or a mouse attempt to gnaw
wood so prepared, their saliva moistens the
sublimate, they take it into the stomach, and
are so destroyed by it. See Mice and Vermik.

REAPING. Cutting down wheat or other
corn, grain, or pulse with a sickle, hook, or
scythe, or by a reaping-machine. These ope-
rations are more advantageouslv performed
944

when the corn or pulse is not quite ripe, than
when it is thoroughly ripe; because, in the
latter case, the seeds are apt to drop out in the
process of handling, turning, and drying.

Mr. Hannum enters into some elaborate cal-
culations on the advantages of reaping wheat
a fortnight before it is ripe, from which he
deduces the following results ; that, independ-
ently of a gain of 4 per cent, on the value of
the grain, we have, 1st, straw of a better qua-
lity; 2dly, a better chance of securing the
crop ; and, 3dly, a saving in securing it. (See
Wheat.) The smaller the sheaves are, the
better, especially in a wet harvest: in* general,
the diameter of the sheaf should not exceed 30
inches. It is of some importance, also, not to
tie the sheaves too near the ears. In making
the shocks, they should be placed across the
furrows, in order to procure a free circulation
of air around them.

In some districts in England, the scythe has
of late years been partially employed for the
purpose of reaping, but with no satisfactory
result ; and in Berwickshire the scythe-hook is
now generally used in preference to the toothed
sickle of our fathers. Cutting corn with a
sickle of some sort is, however, considered
preferable to mowing it with a scythe, unless
the crop stands up well, and time presses.
Barley and oats may be frequently mown Avith
advantage; but wheat, which requires imme-
diate and clean binding, and is too valuable to
admit of any irregularities or wastefulness in
harvesting, should be reaped. The mode of
reaping called bagging, and practised a good
deal about London, and part of the west of
England, is thus executed: — The left leg being
pushed into the standing corn, and the straw
inclined with the left hand over the left foot, is
then cut close to the bottom with a stroke from
the right hand. The increase of straw, where
this is valuable, renders this a good method of
reaping.

In England the mode of reaping varies with
the nature of the crop. Barley and oats are
generally cut with the scythe, beans with the
sickle ; peas with what are called fagging-
hooks, -which rather tear up than cut; and
tares in the same way.

Reaping is a great part of the expense of a
crop. The average price in England is from
12s. to 15s. an acre. See Bands, Barlet, Har-
vesting, Wheat, &c.

REAPING-HOOK. An implement used to
cut down corn. It is one of the oldest instru-
ments employed in husbandry. There are two
kinds of hooks; that which is principally used
by the British labourer has a smooth blade of
wrought iron and steel, about 25 inches long,
and curved nearly to a semicircle ; the other,
which is universally preferred by the Irish
reaper, has a finely serrated edge, and towards
the lower point recedes from the curved direc-
tion to nearly a straight line. The real action
of the reaping-hook is that of a saw, conse-
quently the serrated edge is an advantage. See
Sickle.

REAPING MACHINE. A contrivance for
the purpose of reaping grain by means of ani-
mal labour. With this view, and to facilitate
an operation of such importance to the farmer.

REAPING MACHINE.

RED-ROOT.

different attempts have been made to construct
machines, so as to despatch the work in a rapid
manner by the assistance of horse labour, but
the success with which they have been attended
in England has hitherto been far from com-
plete.

Many contrivances have also, of late years,
been resorted to for supplying the place of the
reaping-hook, but hitherto none have proved
effectual, nor are the difficulties arising from
roughness and irregularity of surface likely
soon to be surmounted. No one will dispute
the great utility and advantages of an efficient
reaping machine, if it could be carried into
operation, as these advantages are universally
acknowledged. In England, such an imple-
ment is the more required now that the agri-
cultural labourers are greatly reduced in num-
ber by emigration, and harvest work has be-
come more expensive. There is now a much
greater quantity of corn to cut down, and most
of the grain ripens about the same period. In
1815, Mr. Smith, of Deanston, invented a reap-
ing machine, which, in some experimental
trials, appeared to perform its work exceed-
ingly well; but, upon longer trial, it has not
answered the favourable expectation formed of
it. Since that period, another invention of a
similar nature, by Mr. Patrick Bell, has at-
tracted considerable attention, but does not ap-
pear to be of sufficient merit to have come into
general use. The original cost of these ma-
chines, 40/. or 50/., must, in many instances,
preclude their employment.

An excellent article on the advantages of a
reaping machine will be found in the first
volume of the Quart. Journ. of Agr. p. 137; and
Mr. Bell's machine is figured and described at
p. 217 of the same volume.

American ingenuity has been active in the
invention of machines for harvesting wheat
and other grains. Among those which have
been brought into the field, ^Wilso)C a Mowing
Machine, or Grass and Grain Cutter** is highly
commended by some who have tried iu It has
been most in use along the Hudson river, and
is considered an improvement of Smith's Eng-
lish reaping machine.

But the machine that is perhaps best entitled
to the notice of farmers, is the one invented
by Obed Hussey, which is recommended for
its simplicity, durability, and the great regu-
larity and cleanness with which it performs its
work. Even when the grain is too much
lodged to be cradled, it will cut at the rate of
two acres per hour, nearly as clean as if it had
been standing. It can be adapted to the ine-
qualities of the surface of a field, and has been
so improved by its original inventor as to ope-
rate with great facility on stony land. This
machine has received the most unqualified ap-
probation of nearly all farmers who have tried
it, or witnessed its operation. The Board of
Trustees of the Agricultural Society for the
Eastern Shore of Mar}'land, in their Report,
made in 183G, say, "We deem it a simple,
strong, and effective machine, and take much
pleasure in awarding unanimously the meri-
torious inventor of it (Mr. 0. Hussey) a hand-
some pair of silver cups."

The committee appointed by the Philadel-
119

phia Society for Promoting Agriculture, to su-
perintend the operation of Mr. Hussey 's ma-
chine, make a very favourable report, recom-
mending it to the attention of the society and
the agricultural community generally. They
state that it was put in operation in a piece of
several acres of heavy wheat, considerably
lodged, and, contrary to their expectations, it
performed remarkably well.

"The committee estimate the ordinary per-
formance of the machine at from ten to twelve
acres per day ; although they fully believe, that
on an emergency, it would accomplish twice
this amount of work. In confirmation of this
they would state, that it cut, on this occasion,
630 square yards in 2 minutes, doing its work
in the most perfect manner." The cost of the
machine is $150. (See Farmer* s Cabinet, vols,
ii. and iii., Cultivator, and other American agri-
cultural periodicals.)

Mccormick's Reaping Machine is used in Vir-
ginia, and spoken of very favourably by the
editor of the Southeryi Planter, who has furnish-
ed a cut and explanation of it in the number
of that excellent periodical for January, 1843.
It is said to cut 15 acres per day without leav-
ing a single stalk in the field, and some think
the wheal saved in harvesting a large crop will
more than repay the first cost of the machine.
It weighs about 600 lbs., rests upon two wheels,
and is drawn forward by two horses. The cost
of the machine is $100.

A machine for harvesting grain has been in-
vented by G. G. Carpenter, of Caledonia, New
York, which not only reaps the crop, but
thrashes it out. In speaking of his machine
and its merits, Mr. Carpenter observes, — "The
great saving in grain and labour is in finishing
the work without laying the grain on the ground.
It may be gauged to cut as high as the grain
will admit, and the 9-feet swath streams from
the cradles to the thrasher so evenly, that no
more power is required to finish 15 to 20 acres
a day than is necessary to drive a common
thrasher, which only thrashes say 200 bushels
in a day, with many hands in attendance.**
This machine costs $600. The hands required
to attend it are, one to drive the team, and one
to take care of the machine. (See Cultivator^
vol. vii.)

Other labour-saving contrivances for har-
vesting grain have been invented in the United
States of late years, descriptions of which may
be found in various agricultural periodicals.

RED BAY (Laurus Caroliniensis). An Ameri-
can species of the laurus genus found in the
Southern States. (See Michaux's North Ameri-
can Sylva, vol. ii. p. 150.)

RED BUD. See Judas Thee.

RED GUM. A disease of grain, a kind of
blight. See Blight.

RED-ROOT (Lithospermtim arvense). Stone-
weed. A worthless plant which has been in-
troduced into the United States, where it has
spread itself extensively, especially in some
parts of New York, where it is considered even
a worse pest of the fields than the Canada
thistle. Dr. Darlington describes the plant as
being hispid, or beset with bristle-like and
rather short hairs ; the root annual ; stem 12 to
IS inches high, generally much branched from

RED SPIDER.

RED-WATER.

the root, and often branched near the summit. [
Leaves 1 to 2 inches long, and ^ to 5 wide, I
without stems, narrowed at the base, and spear-
shaped flowers, which show themselves in May
in the Middle States, have yellowish or milk-
white and rather small corollas. The seed-
nuts are ovoid, with tapering points, rough,
wrinkled, and brown, when mature. When
this formidable weed, which is the pest of the
northern wheat-crops, first appears in a field,
it may be removed by carefully pulling it up
while in flower, and thus preventing it maturing
seed and propagating itself. Where it once
gets possession, it is exceedingly difficult to
destroy, as the seeds will lie many years in the
soil without coming up, in this respect resem-
bling those of charlock or the wild radish and
mustard. One of the best methods of treating
it, says the editor of the New Genesee Farmer
(vol. i. p. 92), is to harrow, or lightly plough
the wheat-stubble immediately after harvest, to
cause the fallen seeds to vegetate, and destroy
the young plants the next season by summer
crops, which should be repeated for a year or
two, when the land may be summer fallowed
for wheat. Successive crops of buckwheat are
said to be advantageous.

Red-Root {Ceanothus Americanus). New Jer-
sey tea. A plant with a large, red, perennial root,
found in the United States. The stem grows
2 to 4 feet high, and is branched. It possesses
considerable astringency, and during the revo-
lutionary war the leaves were substituted for tea.

Red-Root (Sanguinaria Canadensis). The
generic name is derived from the colour of the
sap, which resembles blood. This American
plant, which abounds in the forests, is variously
called puccoon root, turmeric, and Indian paint.
The root is perennial, with fibres attached to a
reddish, horizontal stem, about 2 or 3 inches
long and ^ an inch thick, growing under
ground. It possesses emetic and other medici-
nal properties. It is the only species of its
genus.

RED SPIDER (Jcarus). A well-known pest
of gardens. It may be destroyed by application
to plants of whale-oil soap, in the manner di-
rected in the destruction of plant-lice. See
Aphis.

RED TOP. See Herd's Grass.

RED TOP, TALL (Tricuspis Seslerioides).
A perennial grass, found in the Middle States,
on dry banks and sterile fields, flowering in
August and seeding in September. It has an
erect, jointed culm or stem, 3 or 4 feet high
and very smooth. Pursh calls it " a most ex-
cellent grass," and says he has seen " most
excellent crops" of it, in the mountain mea-
dows of Pennsylvania, where they mow it twice
a year. Such crops may possibly pass for
"excellent" in mountain meadows; but, ob-
serves Dr. Darlington, they would be not so
considered in Chester county. If Mr. Pursh
has not misapprehended the fact, he is certain-
ly mistaken in the character of the plant; for
it is a dry, rigid grass, with unusually hard
culms, and altogether unfit for making good
hay. It is the only species of the genus in the
United States. (Flor. Cest.)

RED-WATER. In Britain, a well-known dis-
ease in cattle. " The disease commonly called
946

red-water, brown-water, black-water, moor-ill,
&c.," says Mr. R. Thompson, of Auchterarder,
" is most prevalent in old, foggy pastures. It
is seldom seen in hill pastures, or in new-sown
pastures, in which there is abundance of clover ;
but it sometimes happens at the stall, where the
animal has no other allowance than straw,
turnips, and potatoes. It usually makes its ap-
pearance after a few days of rain, followed by
«.old, dry weather. As the disease appears at
times in all situations, it is difficult to trace its
existing cause, which may be the nature of the
pasture, or the state of the weather, or both
combined. It attacks every breed and kind of
cattle.

"The first symptom is the appearance of
something like blood mixed with the urine. So
trifling is the complaint in some instances, that
no inconvenience seems to be felt by the ani-
mal, who eats and drinks as usual, chews the
cud, and is free of the disease in a few days.
In such cases a natural diarrhosa comes on, to
which the cure may be attributed. In general,
however, the disease is not observed until the
animal refuses food, separates from the rest of
the herd, appears dull and heavy, and mani-
fests great langour and apathy. The ears
droop, the urine is of a reddish or brownish
colour, and if it be a milch cow, the milk is
often similarly tinged. The pulse ranges from
60 to 70; there is obstinate constipation of the
bowels; the urine is discharged in moderate
quantity, and apparently v/ithout pain. If re-
lief is not afforded by some brisk purgative, at
the period when the urine changes colour from
red to brown, the pulse begins to sink, and if a
little blood be drawn at this time, its surface
assumes a brownish colour; the eye appears
of a yellowish-brown tint; the urine acquires a
darker hue ; the animal refuses to rise ; the
pulse sinks ; the legs, tail, and horns turn cold ;
and the animal dies, to all appearance per-
fectly exhausted, although it has manifestly no
symptoms of acute pain during the course of
the disease.

"Purgatives of any kind, if given in large
quantities of water, are found to be the best
medicines that can be employed. Medicines
given to cattle that have lost the power of chew-
ing the cud, generally pass into the first and
second stomachs, and if a good draught of
water is not given to wash them from thence,
if the animal dies, the greater part of the medi-
cines will be found in these stomachs; and
upon this principle, common salt, if properly
managed, will be found among the best. Dis-
solve the quantity to be given in as much
water as will enable it to pass freely from the
bottle or drenching horn, and let the animal
have plenty of water to drink afterwards.
Should it refuse to drink, no time should be lost
in drenching it profusely with water. With-
out a plentiful dilution, there is no certainty of
purging cattle that have lost their cud. If
purging does not commence in from 12 to 24
hours, a second dose should be given. Injec-
tions of soap and water should also be tried, if
the case is obstinate, and when they operate, a
i pint of linseed oil should be given as a laxa-
, tive. So obstinate is the constipation in some
' cases, that the salt acts only as a diuretic,

REED.

RESINS.

causing a plentiful discharge of urine. Dia-
relics and astringents combined seem only of
service when the bowels are open, and their
improper administration often causes inflam-
mation of the bowels and kidneys. If, after
purgation, the bowels are kept open by laxa-
tives, such as linseed infusion, the disease will
gradually disappear without their use. In the
last stage of the disease, when the urine as-
sumes a dark-brown or black colour, no remedy
seems to have any efficacy; the animal is sunk
beyond recovery, the bowels lose their ac-
tion, suppression of urine follows, the animal
stretches itself out and dies, as if perfectly
exhausted.

"There are two diseases which in their
symptoms bear some resemblance to red-water
in cattle, viz., inflammation of the kidneys, and
inflammation of the mucous membrane of the
bladder or the urethra, which often happens at
calving. In these cases the urine, which is
discharged with pain, is mixed with blood, but
not so intimately so as the coloured urine in
red-water, and it has generally more or less
mucus mixed with it. Inflammation of the kid-
neys in cattle is comparatively rare. I have
seen only one well-marked case, which termi-
nated fatally. The animal experienced con-
siderable pain upon pressure being applied to
the region of the kidneys. The urine was
small in quantity, and nearly as thick as blood ;
and pulse ninety and very hard. As the dis-
ease advanced, the urine became black and
fetid. The animal all along exhibited symp-
toms of excruciating pain, until death termi-
nated its sufferings. Post-mortem examination
disclosed extensive inflammation of the perito-
naeum. The abdominal cavity contained a
large quantity of dark-coloured, fetid fluid ; the
fat surrounding the kidneys, as well as the
kidneys themselves, was in part gangrenous ;
and the fat generally exhibited a yellow colour,
as is usual in cases where death terminates in-
flammatory diseases." (^Trans, High. Soc' vol.
ix. p. 9.)

REED (Arundo). A genus of aquatic plants,
in most instances mere weeds, infesting boggy
low lands or meadows on the sides of rivers.

The best method of destroying reeds, is by
draining the land; for if the drains be cut
deeper than their roots, it will take away their
nourishment, and consequently destroy them.
Common salt, ashes, or soot, will likewise
sometimes kill them ; and so will ploughing
up the land, and laying it in high ridges.
Reeds always indicate a deep, good, moist soil,
as a bad one will not nourish or support them.
See Aruxdo, Aromatic Reed, and Bent or
Stakr.

The term reed is sometimes provincially ap-
plied to the straw of wheat, rye, &c., that has
not been bruised.

REED-GRASS. See Cat^art-Grass.

RENNET, or RUNNET. The prepared
inner membrane of the calf's stomach, which
has the property of coagulating the albumen
of milk, and converting it into nird and v)hey.
The maw is cleaned, salted, and suspended in
paper bags. Previously to its use, the salt is
extracted by washing the rennet ; which is then
soaked in hot water during the night ; and in

the morning the infusion is poured into the
milk to coagulate it. This is the result of the
gastric juice, which is acid; and acts upon
the caseous part of the milk, in the same man-
ner as other acids. It sometimes happens that
no rennet sufficiently good for curdling milk
can be procured; hence various plants have
been advantageously substituted for this pur-
pose. The principal of these are the flowers
of the yellow ladies' bedstraw {Galium vcrum)^
used in England, and the cardoon (Cynara car-
dunctilus), in Spain. A strong infusion is made
of the down of the latter vegetable in the
evening, and on the succeeding morning ^ a
pint is poured among 14 gallons of new milk,
which is thus effectually coagulated, and in
consequence produces a delicious cheese. See
Cheese and Cheese Rennet.

RENT {Redditus ; from redeundo). The sum
of money or other consideration issuing yearly
out of lands and tenements paid by the oc-
cupier to the owner. This, in Britain, has
gradually taken the present form of payment
in money, from a very different original tenure;
for, in former days, the land was generally held
of the superior lord, by certain services ren-
dered, of either a military or servile nature,
such as carrying out the lord's manure on to
his land; certain days of ploughing, digging,
or cutting the corn, &c. of the landlord; the
general adoption of a fixed rent or money pay-
ment in lieu of these arbitrary and vexatious
tenures, was an advance of modern days.

RESERVOIR. A conservatory of water.
The husbanding of water is now becoming a
subject of peculiar interest to the English ag-
riculturist. This arises from its scarcity in
many districts, in consequence of the improved
drainage of the land, and from the many uses
to which machinery maybe applied in farming
operations by the agency of water power. The
construction of reservoirs must resolve itself
into the following heads ; —

First, where a sufficient quantity of water
can be diverted directly from the channel of a
stream or river.

Second, where the supply is to be obtained
from drainage, which maintains a stream dur-
ing part of the year, but which stream fails
during the summer months.

Third, where there are grounds affording a
favourable situation for the construction of a
reservoir, but through which there is no natural
stream passing. See Ponds and Tanks.

RESINS. Peculiar vegetable substances of
allied properties, composed of carbon, hydro-
gen, and oxygen; the most common of which
is the rosin of commerce, or residue after the
distillation of turpentines, in order to obtain
the volatile oil. When no water is used in this
process, an empyreumatic, brownish-yellow,
semi-transparent substance remains, namely,
colophony or fidler's rosin; when water is used,
the residue is the opaque yellow substance
called yellow rosin. When every particle of
water is evaporated from the last, and it is
kept in a state of fusion at a moderate tempe-
rature, and then allowed to cool slowly, the best
resin is procured. It is translucent, brittle,
fusible at a moderate heat, inflammable, and
soluble in spirits of wine, volatile oils, and

947

REST-HARROW.

RHUBARB.

also fixed oils and fat, when aided by heat.
The mineral acids convert it into artificial
tannin ; the alkalies into soap. Resin in com-
bination with wax, a little oil of turpentine and
wax, forms a good polish for furniture. Resin
contains oxygen 13-337, carbon 75-944, hydro-
gen 10-719. The chief of the other resinous
substances are elemi, copal, mastic, sandarac, lac,
labdanum, amber, &c. They are almost all solu-
ble in alcohol.

REST-HARROW (Ononis, from onos, an ass,
and onemi to delight ; some of the species are
said to be grateful to asses). All the plants
belonging to this genus are of easy cultivation,
and several of them are rather handsome when
in flower. The common rest-harrow or cam-
mock (0. arvetisis), is a native plant, with a
woody, tough, and strong root, resisting the
harrow's prongs, whence the English name.
The stems are annual, though often considera-
bly woody, or shrubby, various in length, hairy.
Leaves generally simple, entire towards their
base. Flowers mostly solitary, large, and
handsome, of a brilliant rose colour. See PI. x. A:.

RHIZOMA (Lat. Rhiza, a root). A term ap-
plied to roots which spread under ground, like
those of the iris.

RHODODENDRON (From rhodo, a rose, and
dendron, a tree, because of the appearance of
the terminal bunches of flowers). The rhodo-
dendron is decidedly one of the finest of all
known genera, containing some of the most
handsome, elegant, and showy shrubs ; all of
which are admirably adapted either for orna-
menting the green-house or shrubbery, or for
planting singly on lawns. Peat soil is most
suitable to these plants, but they may also be
grown in very sandy or vegetable mould. They
are propagated by layers or seeds. The small-
wooded kinds may be also increased very freely
by young cuttings, planted in sand, under a
glass.

The species found in the United States are,
the Rhododendron nudiflorum, or naked-flowered
rhododendron, commonly called the wild ho-
ney-suckle, a beautiful American shrub found
in the Middle States, frequent in woodlands
and thickets, where it blooms from April to
May. The flowers are of various shades, from
very pale to bright purple. There are appa-
rently several varieties of this beautiful flow-
ering shrub. The leaves are subject to large
green excrescences, produced by the puncture
of insects. See Azalea.

Rhododendron viscosM«i, clammy rhododendron,
or sweet white honeysuckle, a fragrant, pretty
species, with very clammy white flowers, found
in rocky woodlands in the Middle States, flow-
ering in June. The stems grow to the height
of 4 or 6 feet, with numerous short and crooked
branches. See Azalea.

The Rhododendron maximum, or dwarf rose
bay, forms a magnificent ornament of the
American mountain forests. It generally pre-
sents itself in the form of a shrub, of less than {
10 feet in height, although it occasionally at- !
tains an elevation of 20 to 25 feet, with a di- 1
ameter of 4 or 5 inches.

RHUBARB {Rheum rhapnnticum, from psa, to
spread, and Rheum hyhidum). A hardy peren- \
Dial plant, a native of Asia. The leaves are i
948

very broad, and 2 feet long. Their petioles or
stalks are large, and these only are used. They
are agreeably acid and vinous, very wholesome,
and much admired, whether stewed alone with
sugar for tarts, and puddings, and pies, or com-
bined with other fruits. Its use with us is fast
increasing, and although its introduction to the
London market did not take place, it is said,
till 1815, yet now, we are told, a thousand cart-
loads are there annually sold. The soil best
suited to these plants is one that is light, rich,
deep, and moderately moist. A poor heavy or
shallow soil never produces them in perfection.

It may be propagated by cuttings, but the
mode almost universally practised in England
is by seed. This should be sown soon after it
is ripe in September or October, for if kept out
of the ground until the spring, it will often con-
tinue dormant for twelve months ; if the danger
of this, however, is risked, it must be inserted
early in February or March. The seeds are
best inserted in drills 3 feet apart and an inch
deep, the plants to remain where raised; for
although they will bear removing, yet it always
checks and somewhat lessens their growth.
When they make their appearance in the
spring, and have been thoroughly cleared of
weeds, they may be thinned to 6 or 8 inches
asunder, and the surface of the ground about
them loosened with the hoe. Towards the con-
clusion of summer, when it can be determined
which are the strongest plants, they must be
finally thinned to 3 or 4 feet, or the hybrid to 6.
They must be continually kept clear of weeds.
In autumn, when the leaves decay, they a/*e
removed, and the bed being gently turned over,
a little well-putrefied stable-dung added, and
some of the earth applied over the stools. In
the spring, the bed may be again dug, previous
to the plants making their appearance ; and as
the stalks, when blanched, are much less harsh
in taste, require less sugar to be rendered
palatable, and are greatly improved in appear-
ance, at this period a trench may be dug
between the rows, and the earth from it laid
about a foot thick over the stool. This cover-
ing must be removed when the cutting ceases,
and the plants allowed to grow at liberty. As
the earth in wet seasons is apt to induce decay,
the covering may be advantageously formed
of coal-ashes or drift-sand, which are much
less retentive of moisture. Those plants pro-
duce the seed in greatest perfection that are
not gathered from, but on no account must they
be subjected to the process of blanching. Two
year aid plants often produce seed, but in the
third year always. It must be gathered as soon
as ripe, and great care taken that none is scat-
tered over the beds, for the plants then pro-
duced often spring up and greatly injure the
old plants by growing unobserved amongsl
them.

Varieties. — 1. Euck^s neio early Scarlet Rhubarb.
— A new and beautiful variety, and very early.
The stalks and the juice are of a beautiful red
colour, and quite as high-coloured as the juice
of red currants, and of excellent flavour. Fit
for use, in our climate, in April.

2. Tobolsk. — A new and very superior va-
riety; the earliest of all the early, not except-
ing, perhaps, Buck's Early Scarlet. The stalks

RHUS.

are of a beautiful pink colour, and of excellent
flavour. Originated in England by Mr. Youle,
and fit for use here in April.

3. Dulleifs Goliah. — A new variety, which
grows to a very large size.

4. Dulley's Mmiral — A variety of a still more
recent date, and remarkably large.

5. Elfort Rhubarb (Var. Undulata).

6. Giant Rhubarb. — A new and large species.

7. Wilmoi't Early Red. — Early and fine, with
red stalks.

8. Myatt'$ Victoria. — A magnificent produc-
tion, with leaves and stalks of enormous size,
exceeding, in this respect, all other varieties.
New, and of excellent quality.

9. .Australian Rhubarb (Rheum AustraU). —
A new variety and valuable acquisition; later
in its vegetation than any other kind: it also
continues to grow vigorously, and to furnish
a supply of leaves long after all other varie-
ties are gone, or till hard frosts. By protec-
tion and a frame, it lasts till January. The
flavour of Rheum JIuatrale resembles apples;
and, though thought by some to be more medi-
cinal in its effects than other sorts, yet those
who have used it for years have never found
it prove injurious.

Young seedling plants only need to be pro-
tected the first winter by soil. Rhubarb may
be forced very early, by being covered with
boxes or barrels, surrounded by horse-manure
at ihe lop and sides. The rhubarb is highly de-
serving of cultivation by every family.

Rhubarb Wine. — The leaf-stalks of green-co-
loured rhubarb, being cut in pieces as for tarts,
and bruised with a mallet to extract the juice,
will make a delicious wine, quite equal to green
gooseberry wine, and very closely resembling
Champagne. Of the red rhubarb a fine red
wine is made.

Rhubarb Jam and Jelly. — A superior jam or
jelly is thus made from the tender leaf-stalks
of rhubarb, equal or superior to that from cur-
rants, and of excellent flavour. To one pound
of the stalks, cut as for tarts, add one pound of
loaf or brown sugar ; boil till the ingredients
acquire a proper consistence. Unground gin-
ger and lemon peel added to the jelly have
been found a decided improvement Buck's
early scarlet rhubarb has a preference in point
of colour, which is beautiful red; it is also of
fine flavour, though not, perhaps, superior in
this respect to other varieties. Rhubarb will
answer for jelley three months before the cur-
rant is ripe. An excellent preserve is also
made of rhubarb. For this purppse the stalks
are cut into inch pieces, and preserved in the
usual way with sugar. (Kenrick.)

RHUS (Derived from rous, in Greek, which
is from rhudd, a Celtic word, signifying red ;
alluding to the colour of the fruit and leaves
of some species in autumn). The hardy kinds
are rather ornamental, and well fitted for shrub-
beries ; some are propagated by cuttings of the
roots, and others by cuttings and layers. The
juice of R. radirans, poison or swamp sumach,
and R. toxicodendron, poison vine or poison oak,
is milky, stains black, and is extremely poi-
sonous. R. coriaria is powerfully astringent,
and is used in tanning Turkey or Morocco
leather.

RICE.

RIB-GRASS. See Plaxtatw.

RIBBON-GRASS (Phalaris). The variety
of the genus Phalaris called picta, from its
striped leaves, is found in gardens and yards
as an ornamental plant. From its tendency to
strike deep roots and spread, it often becomes
troublesome to eradicate. The species called
reed-like or American Phalaris, is common in
swampy places in the Middle and Northern
States. When, says Dr. Darlington, the pani-
cles of this plant first appear, they have some
resemblance to those of orchard grass ; but he
thinks it far inferior to the orchard grass, and
too much of an aquatic for regular culture.
Another species, the Phalaris canariensis, or
wild canary grass, is particularly naturalized
in some of the Northern and Eastern States,
where it produces crops of the greatest luxu-
riance. It is perennial, spreads rapidly, and
may be easily propagated by transplantation.

RICE (Oryzn, from the Arabic word crttr,
the Greeks coined their word c^u^u, and the va-
rious modern nations of Europe their rice, riz^
reis, &.C.). O. sativa, the common rice, has the
culm from 1 to 6 feet in length, annual, erect,
simple, round, jointed. Leaves subulate-linear,
reflex, embracing, not fleshy. Flowers in a
terminating panicle. Calycine leaflets lanceo-
late. Valves of the carolla equal in length ;
the inner valve even, awnless ; the outer twice
as wide, four-grooved, hispid, awned. Style
single, two-parted.

O. mutica, the dry or mountain rice, cultivated
in Ceylon, Java, and of late in Hungary, has
the culm 3 feet high, and more slender. Fruit
longish, with awns the longest of all. It is
sown on mountains and in dry soils ; rots with
a long inundation, and perishes with sea-water.

The varieties of rice, as of other cultivated
grain, are as numerous as the different ^oils,
climates, and other physical circumstances, in
which it is cultivated: besides the dry rice, the
chief sorts, by some considered species, are
Ihe O. precox, or early rice, and the O. glutinosOf
or clammy rice, both cultivated in irrigated
lands.

The native place of rice, like that of the
other sorts of grain in common use, is un-
known ; it is cultivated in great abundance all
over India, where the country will admit of
being flooded ; in the southern provinces of
China, in Cochin China,Cambodia,Siam, Japan,
&c. In Japan it is very white, and of the best
quality. It has also been introduced into culti-
vation in the southern kingdoms of Europe,
Italy, Spain, the south of France, and within a
few years into Hungary and Westphalia. la
Carolina it has long been a staple commodity.
Houghton's account of its introduction there
is, that Ashby was encouraged to send a hun-
dred pound bagful of rice to that province,
from which, in 1698, 60 tons were imported into
England. Dalrymple says, that rice in Caro-
lina is the result of a small bag of paddy, g'wen.
as a present from Dubois, treasurer of the East
India Company, to a Carolina trader. A Dutch
vessel also, from Madagascar, brought rice into
the same province; and to this is attributed
their having two kinds.

In the hilly parts of Java, and in many of the
Eastern islands, the mountain rice is planted
4L 949

RICE.

RICE.

upon the sides of hills, where no water but rain
can come; it is, however, planted in the be-
ginning of the rainy season, and reaped in the
beginning of the dry season. The natives call
iiPaddy Gunung, which signifies mountain rice.
It is^entirely unknown in the western parts of
India, but it is well known in Cochin China,
where it thrives in dry, light soils, mostly on the
sides of hills, not requiring more moisture than
the usual rains and dews supply, neither of
which are frequent at the season of its vege-
tation.

There is a kind of hill rice which is hardy
enough to grow on the edge of the Himalayan
snows. This, it may be expected, will, at some
future time, prove an acquisition of value to
the European and American cultivators.

Rice is extensively cultivated in the East
Indies and China, chiefly on low grounds near
large rivers, which are liable to be annu-
ally inundated, and enriched by the deposition
of mud. According to Sir George Staunton's
account, the Chinese obtain two crops of rice
in a year from the same ground, and cultivate
it in this way from generation to generation on
the same soil, and without any other manure
than the mud deposited by the water of the
river used in overflowing it. After the waters
of the inundation have withdrawn, a few days
are allowed for the mud to get partially dry ;
then a small spot is enclosed by a bank of clay
slightly ploughed and harrowed, and the grain,
previously steeped in dung, diluted with animal
water, is then sown very thickly on it. A thin
sheet of water is immediately brought over it,
either by a led stream, or the chain-pump.
Thus a seed-bed or nursery is prepared, and,
in the mean time, the remainder of the tract is
preparing for being planted. When the plants
are 6 or 7 inches high, they are transplanted in
furrows made by the plough, so as to stand
about a foot apart every way; water is then
brought over them, and kept on till the crop
begins to ripen, when it is withheld; so that
when harvest arrives the field is quite dry. It
is reaped with a sickle, threshed with a flail or
the treading of cattle, and the husk taken off
by beating it in a stone mortar, or passing it
between two flat stones, as in a common meal
mill. The first crop being cut in May, a second
is immediately prepared for by burning the
stubble, and this second crop ripens in October
or November. After removal, the stubble is
ploughed in, which is the only vegetable ma-
nure such lands can be said to receive from
man. In Japan, Ceylon, and Java, according
to Thunberg, Davis, and Raffles, aquatic rice is
cultivated nearly in the same manner. Moun-
tain-rice is grown much in the same way as
barley.

In Lorabardy and Savoy rice is sown on rich
lands, the sower often wading to the knees in
water: one crop a year only is obtained ; but
four crops are often taken in succession. In
America a similar practice obtains.

In Westphalia, and some other parts of the
south of Germany, rice has long been culti-
vated ; there it is sown on lands that admit of
irrigation ; but the water is not admitted till the
seed has germinated, and it is withdrawn, as in
Italy, when the crop comes into flower. From
950 J i.

long culture, in a comparatively cold country,
the German rice has acquired a remarkable
degree of hardiness and adaptation to the cli-
mate ; a circumstance which has frequently
been alluded to as an encouragement to the
acclimating of exotics. It is found. Dr. Walker
remarks (Essays on Nat. Hist.), that rice seeds
direct from India will not ripen in Germany at
all, and even that Italian or Spanish seeds are
much less early and hardy than those ripened
on the spot.

In Hungary rice has not been longcultivated:
the mountain sort has chiefly been tried, and
that in the manner of our barley or summer-
wheat.

In England a crop of rice has been obtained
near Windsor, on the banks of the Thames.

By far the best imported rice is that from
Carolina : it is larger and better tasted than
that of India, which is small, meager, and the
grains frequently broken. As an article of diet,
rice has been extolled as superior almost to any
other vegetable : but whatever it may be in
warmer climates, where it is a common, and
to many persons almost their only food, it does
not appear so well calculated for European
constitutions as the potato ; for we find that
the poor constantly reject the use. of rice when
potatoes are to be had; and whilst these can
be obtained, we may venture to predict, that
rice will always be considered, in Britain,
rather as a dainty, to be eaten with sweet con-
diments, spices, fruit, &c., than as ordinary
food. Loudon's Ency. of Plants.

The mountain rice has been raised in Mary-
land by Mr. Bordley, on dry sandy land. The
following comprehensive directions respecting
the water culture of rice, were furnished by one
of the most successful cultivators in South
Carolina:

Begin to plant about the 25th March, trench
shallow and wide, and scatter the seed in the
row ; make 72 or 75 rows in a task, and sow 2
bushels to an acre.

1. Hoe about the end of April or beginning
of May, when the rice is in the fourth leaf;
then flood, and clear the field of trash. If the
planting be late, and you are likely to be in
grass, flood before hoeing; but hoeing first is
preferable. The best depth to flood is 3 or 4
inches. It is a good mark to see the tops of
the rice just out of the water: the deep places
are not to be regarded; the rice will grow
through in 3 or 4 days. Observe to make a
notch on the frame of the trunk, when the
water is at a proper depth : if the rains raise
the water above the notch, or it leaks out, add,
or let off" accordingly. This is done by putting
a small stick in the door of the trunk, about an
inch in diameter : if scum or froth appear in
8 or 10 days, freshen the water, take off" the
trunk doors, run off the water with one ebb, and
take in the nexi flood: then regulate as before.
Keep the water on about 15 or 17 days, accord-
ing to the slate of the weather; that is, if a hot
sun, 15 days; if cool and cloudy, 17 days, count-
ing from the day the field is flooded ; then leak
off with a small stick for 2 days, then run off
the whole, and keep the field dry. In 4 or 5
days after, hoe the second time, stir the ground,
whether clean or not, and comb up the fallen

RICE, WILD.

ROLLERS.

rice with the fingers. Keep dry and hoe through
the field. Hoe the third time and pick clean.
This will be about the beginning of July. Then
flood as you hoe. Let the water be the same
depth as before. If any grass has escaped, it
must be picked in the water after it shoots out.
This is called the fourth hoeing, but the hoe is
never used except for some high places or to
clean the dams. If the rice is flaggy and likely
to lodge, flood deep to support it, and keep it
on until fit to harvest. (Domestic Encyclopedia.)

If land is well drained and in good order, it is
calculated that 5 acres of rice and 1 or 1^ of
provisions may easily be cultivated to the hand.

Rice was formerly almost altogether export-
ed in the form of clean rice, but at present the
largest amount of that taken to England is in
the husk or rough state, called paddy or cargo
rice. The rice crop for 1842 has been esti-
mated by Mr. Ellsworth at 94,007,484 pounds.

The following statement shows the annual
quantities and value of rice exported from the
United States at diflferent periods :

YeATt. £x|)orti ib TierMfc ▼•In*. ■

1791 - - - - 96,«80

1792 . . r - 141, 76«

1803 . - - . 81,838 #9.455,000

1816 .... 137,W3 3,455.000

1818 ... - . 88.181 3.26^697

1836 .... ai'2,983 2,548,7:.0

1838 ... - 71,018 1,7-21,81»

1841 .... 101,617 2,010,107
(Hunt's Merekanls' Magazine, July, 1843.)

RICE WEEVIL. See Graix Wketii,.

RICE, WILD (Zizania). Nuttall mentions
three species of aquatic grasses, called wild
rice, found in the United States, viz.: the Zizania
aquatica (P\.A, c); Z.miliacea; and the Z. Jlui-
tans. This last is very small and easily con-
founded with other aquatic grasses. He found
it around Savannah in Georgia.

The Z.a<juatica is found in almost every part
of the Northern and Middle States, where it
goes by the names of water oats, Indian rice,
and reed. The seeds resemble those of Polish
millet. It is exceedingly prolific. The root is
perennial. It grows in swampy places, and in
deep water at the edges of ponds and sluggish
streams. Stock of ail descriptions are fond of
the plant when green, or cured as hay. It re-
sembles, at a distance, slender shoots of Indian
corn. The stems are jointed, and as large as
the little finger. The panicle or head is a foot
or more in length, and the seeds blackish,
smooth, narrow, cylindrical, about three-quar-
ters of an inch long, white and farinaceous
within. Gilleland's Ohio and Mississippi Pilot
contains the following interesting details rela-
tive to wild rice : " Among the vegetable pro-
ductions of the Western Territory north of Illi-
nois and west of Green Bay, on the Ouiscon-
sin and Fox rivers, the wild rice, called Folle
avoine by the French, and Menomen by the In-
dians, claims particular attention. It grows in
inexhaustible abundance, through all parts of
the territory, in almost every one of the innu-
merable lakes, ponds, bays, rivers, and creeks.
It is said to be as palatable and as nourishing
as common rice, and if so, it will be incom-
parably more valuable. It grows where the
water is from 4 to 6 feet deep, and where the
bottom is not hard or sandy. It rises above
the surface of the water from 4 to 8 feel, and

is often so tnick as almost toprevent canoes from
passing through or among ii. The stalk is soft
like the bulrush, but grows in joints like reed-
cane, which it much resembles. It is usual for
the Indians to force their canoes through it,
just before it ripens, and tie it in large bunches
for the purpose of preventing the wild ducks
and geese from breaking it down and destro}-
ing it. When fully ripe, they pass through it
again, and, spreading their blankets in the
inside of their canoes, they bend the branches
of the wild rice over them, and thresh oflf the
grain with sticks; an operation which requires
little time, and is generally performed by the
women. After drying it in the sun, they put it
into skins, for future use. Every autumn and
spring the wild ducks and geese resort to the
wild rice lakes in flocks incredibly numerous.
It is thought by many that the Zizania aquatica
will some day be an object of culture, which
may atford a means of bringing into use large
tracts of inundated land."

RICK. A pile of corn, hay, straw,.&c., regu-
larly heaped up in the open air, and sheltered
from wet by thatch. See Stack.

RIDDLE. A sort of sieve used to separate
dust and the seeds of plants from corn. They
are made of various sizes for different uses.

RIGGIL. An imperfect male sheep, having
only one or no testicle in the scrotum.

RIME. A hoary or white frosty appearance,
sometimes on the ground in the autumnal,
winter, and early spring mornings. See Dew
and Frost.

RIJV G-BONE. In farriery, a callus growing
in the hollow circle of the little pastern of a
horse, just above the coronet. It has its name
from the resemblance to a ring.

RINGS, FAIRY. See Fa hit Rinr.

RIPPLE GRASS. A popular name of the
English plantain (P. lanceolata).

ROADS. See Hikhwais.

ROARING. In farriery, a disease well known,
to jockeys and horse-dealers, which usually ac-
companies or precedes broken wind. It is
generally the result of long-continued or vio-
lent exercises. It is connected with dilatation
of the air-cells of the lungs, and is incurable.
See BnoKEJf Wi^n.

ROCHAMBOLE. See Garlic.

ROCK CRESS. See Chess, Wall.

ROLLERS. An implement of simple con-
struction, like the roller, the main object of which
is to render smooth the surface of arable lands,
would not seem to admit apparently of much va-
riety in its construction. Nevertheless, it is ati
implement in which greater diversity of form is
found to exist than in most other agricultural
machines. Rollers are of all sizes, weights,
and lengths; and the material of which they
are made is occasionally iron, sometimes stone,
but most commonly wood. Of these, the first
is undoubtedly the best, and particularly for
the jointed roller, by which the operation of
turning at the ends of the ridges is materially
facilitated, and the slading of the earth which
would otherwise take place on the head-lands,
not only to their great detriment, but to the no
small increase of labour to the horses, is there-
by prevented.

An ingeniotis gentleman, the late George
^ 951

ROLLERS.

ROLLERS,

Booth, Esq., of Allerton, near Liverpool, who
to a great love of farming added a very tolera-
ble share of mechanical skill, and to both am-
ple means to carry out his various devices,
constructed a roller, or rather a nest of rollers,
on the lever principle. He contended for a
very small diameter as the most effective in
crushing the clods, and throwing the greatest
possible weight on the surface of the ground.
We regret being only able to give an idea of
his invention from memory; but do not think
his roller was more than a foot in diameter at
the outside. It consisted of five cylinders or
rollers, arranged in such manner that three
hind ones, separated from each other, have the
two spaces overlapped by two cylinders placed
in front.

Drill rollers. — These are made of rings adapt-
ed to a shaft. They are not by any means of
modern invention, having been well known to
the English farmers of Norfolk and Suffolk for
the greater part of a century. The only im-
provement they have undergone has been to
render each ring independent of its neighbour,
so that the process of turning at the end of the
field is facilitated, as in the case of the jointed
roller. The modern drill rollers in other re-
spects have not improved, if the doctrine of
Mr. Booth, already noticed, be correct, that a
small diameter is better than a large one. The
drill roller is used for the double purpose of
crushing clods on rough lands, and making
grooves ready to receive the seed of wheat or
other grain sown broadcast on light soils. It
is a capital tool for either purpose. In the first
case it is followed by a harrow, of sufficient
weight to lighten up the surface ; in the other,
the fine, short-toothed harrow, or even a mere
bush-harrow, will be found sufficient. The
less such land is disturbed after sowing the
better, and the more distinct will be the seve-
ral rows or grooves of corn.

Heavy rollers. — The heavy roller is a very
effective implement. It is formed of 3 sepa-
rate cylinders, about 2 feet in diameter, and
of the same length; the axis of each being in-
dependent of the other. On turning, they con-
sequently revolve in different directions, and
thus "slading" at the land's end is avoided.

The double-jointed barley roller is a very use-
ful implement. It is so constructed that the
two sides, being separate rolls or distinct
frames, may revolve at opposite angles ; and,
when required, one may be placed behind the
other. A plan has for many years been in use
in Norfolk, of constructing them with twisted
joints, so that the under end of one roll shall
work behind the end of the other, thus leaving
no seam between the roller.

Crosskills' clod-crusher is, under many circum-
stances, a valuable implement. It is composed
of a series of iron rings, with notched edges,
set apart from each other about 3 or 4 inches.
Small cross-bars or knives are placed at fre-
quent intervals on the faces of these, and near
their outer notched rims, so as to intersect
every portion of land over which it passes. Its
construction, combined with its great weight,
renders it very effective for the purpose which
its name denotes. Indeed, as an old farming
952

bailiff once aptly remarked, it is a roll and a
harrow combined. The roller is an implement
which requires some judgment as to the time
of its use, and this remark applies with in-
creased force to the one under consideration.

Seam or land-presser. — If a drill is so effective
an implement, far more so is the seam or land-
presser, inasmuch as its whole force and
weight is directed to each individual furrow,
as it is turned over by the common plough.
The seam-presser is in fact an abstract of a
drill roller, consisting of but two cylinders of
cast-iron, which, following in the furrow, press
and roll down the newly turned-up earth, and
it is more particularly useful when applied to
clover stubbles intended for wheat. {Ransome
on Jigr. Imp.')

In the United States the roller is constructed
of wood, stone, or cast-iron, according to con-
venience or the purposes for which it is used.
In American husbandry we have yet no reason
to expect, or perhaps desire, any but those
made of wood, and such as any farmer, who
has a moderate degree of mechanic skill, and
the carpenter's tools which every farmer ought
to keep, may readily construct himself. A
good, sound, oak log, with the frame and shafts
appended, makes a good roller. They are
made of different lengths and sizes, varying
from 15 to 30 inches in diameter. The lighter
kinds are made in one piece, but the larger
and heavier kinds are advantageously made in
two pieces, with an iron rod passing through
the centre of both, and upon which they re-
volve. English farmers construct the frame
so as to rise above the roller, upon which a
box is fixed, either to contain stones to add to
the pressure of the roller, or to receive small
stones and rubbish, collected on the field while
at work, which are to be carried off. Their
shafts, when at work, are generally horizontal.
We think the roller is more easily drawn when
the draught is on a right line from the collar
or yoke of the team to the point of resistance.
This may be done, and the advantages of the
box retained.

The uses and advantages of the roller are
many and important, and no farmer should be
without one. They are particularly important
in the seeding process, to break down the clods,
pulverize and smooth the surface, and to press
the earth to the smaller seeds, which otherwise
often fail to germinate for lack of moisture.
This is particularly the case with oats, barley,
and the grass seeds. In autumn the roller is
sometimes passed over winter grain, with a
view to counteract the effects of frost the fol-
lowing winter. In spring it is advantageously
passed over winter grain, as soon as the ground
is so solid and dry that the feet of the cattle
will not poach the surface. It renders light
ground more compact ; presses the soil to the
roots, of the grain, and thus promotes their
growth ; and upon all soils closes the innume-
rable cracks and fissures which abound on the
appearance of dr}' weather in spring, and, by
partially burying the crown, causes grain to
tiller better, that is, send up more seed-stalks.
Finally, the roller is of great advantage to
grass lands in the spring, by reducing the in-

ROLLING.

equalities of surface, and pressing down the
plants or earth which have been thrown up by
the frost.

There are also rollers for other purposes, viz.,
the spiked roller, which is used for pulverizing
stiff soils, preparatory for wheat. This is
formed by inserting several rows of spikes, or
cast or wrought-iron darts, in a common hard-
wood roller. The concave or scalloped roller is
adapted to the form of ridges, and is often at-
tached to the turnip drill. (Cultivator).

ROLLING. In agriculture, the action or
operation of drawing a roller over the surface
of the ground, with the view of breaking down
the clods, rendering it more compact, and
bringing it even and level; or for only level-
ling the surface, as in grass lands. This is a
practice that becomes necessary both upon the
tillage and grass lands, and which is of much
utility in both sorts of husbandry. In the for-
mer case it is made use of with different in-
tentions, as for the purpose of breaking down
and reducing the cloddy and lumpy parts of
the soil in preparing it for the reception of
crops. It is also of great use in many cases
of light soils, in rendering the surface more
firm, even, and solid, after the seed is put in.

ROOT. In botany, that part of the central
axis of a plant which is formed by the descend-
ing fibres, and whose function is to attract
liquid food from the soil in which it is mingled.
It differs from the stem in not having leaves or
buds upon its surface, and in its tendency to
burrow under ground, retreating from light;
nevertheless, some kinds of roots are exclu-
sively formed in air and light, as in the ivy and
other such plants ; but these are to be regarded
as prehensile organs, to support the plants,
rather than as roots, or nutritious organs. The
root-stock or rhizome is a prostrate, rooting,
thickened stem, which yearly produces young
branches or plants. Ginger and orris-root are
common instances of it. It is often confound-
ed with the root. There are many appendages
to the roots, namely, tubers, bulbs, &c., which
are mere reservoirs of food for the lateral pro-
geny of the plant. See Bulb, Ruizome, Tuber,
&c.

ROSE (Lat. Rosa, from the Celtic rhod, red,
in reference to the prevailing colour of the
flowers). In botany, the English name for the
well-known and universally cultivated flower
of the genus Rosa. It is an extensive family,
but all of the species love a stiff soil. No roses
"will thrive in shallow, poor ground. Standard
roses are obtained by budding them upon vigor-
ous stocks raised from the seed of the hedge
or dog-rose, managing the stocks in the same
■way as fruit-stocks. Their heads must be
pruned occasionally to prevent their rambling.
The dwarf roses in flower borders should be
pruned in January, down to a foot high, cutting
out the old and dead wood. They will produce
finer flowers. Roses bear their flowers upon
wood of the last year. Only the China roses
flower upon the shoots of the same year. Roses
continue blowing a long time, if the fading
flowers are cut off instead of being allowed to
seed.

Nearly a dozen species of the wild rose are
foand in the United States, among which are
120

ROSE-CHAFER.

those familiarly known as the swamp, rock,
dwarf, wild, &c.

ROSE BAY, or MOUNTAIN LAUREL.
See RHononENnRON Maximum:.

ROSE-CHAFER, or ROSE BUG, is a diurnal
or day-flying beetle of the Melolonthian genus.
Dr. Harris states that this insect, which is com-
mon in the vicinity of Boston, is, or was a few
years ago, unknown in the northern and west-
ern parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
and Maine. The natural history of the rose-
bug, one of the greatest scourges with which
American gardens and nurseries are afflicted,
was for a long time involved in mystery, but
is at present fully cleared up.

For some time after they were noticed, says
Dr. Harris, rose-bugs appeared to be confined
to their favourites, the blossoms of the rose ;
but within 30 years they have prodigiously in-
creased in number, have attacked at random
various kinds of plants in swarms, and have
become notorious for their extensive and de-
plorable ravages. The grape-vine, in particu-
lar, the cherry, plum, and apple trees, have an-
nually suffered by their depredations; many
other fruit trees and shrubs, garden vegetables
and corn, and even the trees of the forest and
the grass of the fields, have been laid under
contribution by these indiscriminate feeders,
by whom leaves, flowers, and fruits are alike
consumed. The unexpected arrival of these
insects in swarms at their first coming, and
their sudden disappearance at the close of their
career, are remarlfable facts in their history.
They come forth from the ground during the
second week in June, or about the time of the
blossoming of the damask rose, and remain
from 30 to 40 days. At the end of this period
the males become exhausted, fall to the ground,
and perish, while the females enter the earth,
lay their eg«^s, return to the surface, and, after
lingering a few days, die also. The eggs laid
by each female are about 30 in number, and
are deposited from 1 to 4 inches beneath the
surface of the soil ; they are nearly globular,
whitish, and about one-thirtieth of an inch in
diameter, and are hatched 20 days after they
are laid. The young larvce begin to feed on
such tender roots as are within their reach.
Like other grubs of the Scarabaeians, when not
eating, they lie upon the side, with the body
curved so that the head and tail are nearly in
contact; they move with difficulty on a level
surface, and are continually falling over on
one side or the other. They attain their full
size in the autumn, being then nearly three-
quarters of an inch long, and about an eighth of
an inch in diameter. They are of a yellowish-
white colour, with a tinge of blue towards the
hinder extremity, which is thick and obtuse or
rounded; a few short hairs are scattered on the
surface of the body; there are six short legs,
namely, a pair to each of the first three rings
behind the head; and the latter is covered with
a horny shell of a pale rust colour. In Octo-
ber they descend below the reach of frost, and
pass the winter in a torpid state. In the spring
they approach towards the surface, and each one
forms for itself a little cell of an oval shape, by
turning round a great many times, so as to com-
press the earth, and render the inside of the ca-
4 L 2 953

ROSE-CHAFER.

ROT.

vity hard and smooth. Within this cell the grub
is transformed to a pupa during the month of
May, by casting off its skin, which is pushed
downwards in folds from the head to the tail.
The pupa has somewhat the form of the perfect-
ed Ipeetle; but it is of a yellowish-white colour,
and its short, stump-like wings, its antennce, and
its legs are folded upon the breast, and its whole
body is enclosed in a thin film, that wraps each
part separately. During the month of June this
filmy skin is rent, the included beetle withdraws
from it its body and its limbs, bursts open its
earthen cell, and digs its way to the surface of the
ground. Thus the various changes, from the egg
to the full developement of the perfected beetle,
are completed within the space of one year.

Such being the metamorphoses and habits
of these insects, it is evident that we cannot
attack them in the egg, the grub, or the pupa
state ; the enemy, in these stages, is beyond
our reach, and is subject to the control only
of the natural but unknown means appointed
by the Author of nature to keep the insect
tribes in check. When they have issued from
their subterranean retreats, and have congre-
gated upon our vines, trees, and other vegeta-
ble productions, in the complete enjoyment of
their propensities, we must unite our efforts to
seize and crush the invaders. They must in-
deed be crushed, scalded, or burned, to deprive
them of life, for they are not affected by any of
the applications usually found destructive to
other insects. Experience has proved the uti-
lity of gathering them by hand, or of shaking
them or brushing them from the plants into tin
vessels containing a little water. They should
be collected daily during the period of their
visitation, and should be committed to the
flames, or killed by scalding water. The late
John Lowell, Esq., states that, in 1823, he dis-
covered on a solitary apple tree the rose-bugs
"in vast numbers, such as could not be de-
scribed, and would not be believed if they
were described, or, at least, none but an ocular
■witness could conceive of their numbers. De-
struction by hand was out of the question" in
this case. He put sheets under the tree, and
shook them down and burned them. Dr.
Green, of Mansfield, whose investigations have
thrown much light on the history of this in-
sect, proposes protecting plants with millinet,
and says that in this way only did he succeed
in securing; his grape-vines from depredation.
His remarks also show the utility of gathering
them. "Eighty-six of these spoilers," says he,
*'were known to infest a single rose-bud, and
were crushed with one grasp of the hand." Sup-
pose, as was probably the case, that one-half
of them were females ; by this destruction 800
eggs, at least, were prevented from becoming
matured. During the time of their prevalence,
rose-bugs are sometimes found in immense
numbers on thejlowers of the common white-
weed, or ox-eye daisy {Chrysanthemum leucanthc-
mum), a worthless plant, which has come to us
from Europe, and has been suffered to over-
run our pastures and encroach on our mowing
lands. In certain cases it may become expe-
dient rapidly to mow down the infested white-
weed in dry pastures, and consume it, with the
sluggish rose-bugs, on the spot.
954

Our insect-eating birds undoubtedly devour
many of these insects, and deserve to be che-
rished and protected for their services. Rose-
bugs are also eaten greedily by domesticated
fowls; and when they become exhausted and
fall to the ground, or when they are about to
lay their eggs, they are destroyed by moles, in-
sects, and other animals, which lie in wait to
seize them. Dr. Green informs us that a spe-
cies of dragon-fly, or devil's needle, devours
them. He also says that an insect, which he
calls the enemy of the cut-worm, probably the
larva of a Carabus, or predaceous ground-bee-
tle, preys on the grubs of the common dor-bug.
In France the golden ground-beetle (Carabus
auratus) devours the female dor or chafer at
the moment when she is about to deposit her
eggs. I have taken one specimen of this fine
ground-beetle in Massachusetts, and we have
several other kinds, equally predaceous, which
probably contribute to check the increase of
our native Melolonthians. (Harris.)

ROSE-LICE. See Aphis.

ROSEMARY (Rosmarinus officinalis; from
ros, dew, and marinus, of the sea, on account
of its maritime habitat. Poetically implying
"the dew of the ocean"). There are 3 varie-
ties— the green, golden-striped, and silver-
striped. The first is the one in general culti-
vation.

ROSE-SLUG. See Slug.

ROSIN. See Resix.

ROT. In farriery, a disease in sheep and
other animals, in which both the liver and
lungs are affected, and there is commonly a
dropsical tendency. Its ravages are chiefly,
however, confined to sheep, and it is most com-
monly closely connected with excess of moist
food, or placing these animals in low, wet situa-
tions, every way foreign to their natural habits ;
for sheep, in a state of freedom, seek the most
elevated, dry, and heathy situations — an in-
stinct which long imprisonment and domesti-
cation has not yet eradicated: every farmer is
aware with what tenacity his sheep adhere to
the very highest portions of a field. It is only
when we force them to inhabit low grounds,
and situations foreign to their habits, that they
thus become diseased. In a state of nature, too,
they browse upon the heath plants, and seek
with avidity at certain periods salt springs and
salt exudations, facts which have not entirely
escaped the notice of modern flockmaslers.
Thus the argali or wild sheep of Siberia, which
are the presumed origin of all our domestic
sheep, are found about the size of the fallow
deer, on the immense chain of mountains
reaching through the middle of Asia to the
Eastern Ocean. They are found in small
flocks, ranging over the highest elevations. As
the winter approaches, they move downwards
into the plains, and exchange their food from
the mountain plants to grass and other vegeta-
bles. They are so partial to salt, that they
scrape away the earth in considerable quanti-
ties in the neighbourhood of saline places in
order to procure it. All animals in fact seek
salt with the greatest avidity. In Flanders,
sheep owners deem its use an effectual prevention
of the rot, and there is-very considerable reason
to believe that by the use of this valuable con-

ROT.

tor.

diment, the ravages of this dreadful disease
might either be very materially modified, or
perhaps entirely prevented.

Mafly years since, Ellis, in his Practical Hus-
bandry, recommended the use of salt, mixed
with wort, in which had been boiled sage,
pennyroyal, wormwood, shepherd's purse, com-
frey, &c., as a prevention of the rot ; 7 or 8
spoonfuls was the dose, once a week after
April, whenever the weather was wet.

More than three centuries since, Fitzherbert,
the earliest of the English agricultural writers,
alluded to this dreadful disorder in his Boke of
Husbandry, and in his section entitled What
thynges rolleth Shepe, he says, " It is necessary
that a shepherde shoulde knowe what thynge
rotteth shepe, that he myghte kepe theym the
better. There is a grasse called sperewort,
and hath a longe narrow leafe lyke a spere
heed, and it wyll growe a fote hyghe, and bear-
eth a yellowe floure in lowe places where the
water is used to stande in wynter. An other
grasse is called pehy grasse, and growethe
lowe by the erthe in a marshe grounde, and
hath a leafe as brode as a peny or two pence,
and neuer beareth floure. All manner of
grasse, that the lande floudde runneth ouer, is
very evylle for shepe, bycause of the sande
and fyhhe that stycheth uppon it. All moorish
grounde and marsche grounde is yll for shepe.
The grasse that groweth upon falowes is not
good for shepe, for there moche of it wede, and
ofte tymes it commeth uppe by the rote, and that
bryngelh erthe with it, and they eate both, &c.
Myldewe grasse is not good for shepe, and that
ye shall knowe two wayes : one is by the leaves
on the trees in the morninge, and specially of
ekes; take the leaves and putte thy tongue to
them, and thou shall fcle like hony uppon them.
And also there will be many kelles uppon the
grasse, and that causeth the myldewe, where-
fore theye may not well be left out of the folde,
tyll the Sonne have domination to drye them
awaye. Also hunger rotle is the worst rolte
that can be, for there is neither goode fleshe nor
goode skynne, and that comethe for lacke of
meate, and so for hunger they eate suche as
they can fynde, and so will not pasture shepe,
for they seldom rot but wythe myldewes, and
than wyll they have much talowe and fleshe,
and a good skyn. Also white snailes be yll for
shepe in pastures, and in falowes there is an
other roite whiche is called pelte rotte, and that
commeth of grealte wete, speciallye in woode
countryes where they canno|»drye."

The symptoms of the rot, and of some of its
most decided remedies, have been thus de-
scribed by Dr. Brown, of Boston (Mag. of Nat.
Hist. vol. V. p. 93), " It cannot, I conceive, be
demonstrated that in this disease the bile is
thrown back upon the system, and mingles
with the circulating fluid; for in the early
stages there is no obstruction to the bile ; and
in the latter, what little is secreted is inter-
cepted by the flukes on the hepatic side of the
gall-bladder. The eye, which some persons
take to be an index to the bilious condition of
the system, has really not that 'tinge of yellow
and jaundiced-like appearance' at the com-
mencement of the disease. On the contrary,
the peculiar whiteness of the eyes is the first

s)'mptqm which guides the shepherd to the un-
Avelcome truth. If the bile ducts be carefully
examined in the earliest stage of the complaint,
there will be found a few flukes in the duct
which conveys the bile from the gall-bladder to
the intestine, but none in the gall-bladder, and
none beyond it, a sound liver, no 'tubercles,*
no 'abscesses,' and withal a fine, fat, healthy-
looking carcass. If it be in the latest stage
when the examination is made, the gall-blad-
der will be found filled with flukes instead of
bile: and the animals will be seen making
their way up those channels which convey the
bile from the liver to the gall-bladder, arresting
it in its course, and pressing forward and en-
larging the biliary tubes. Thus, when but few
of these animals have possession of this viscus,
its function is not materially impaired ; the
parenchyma, or substance of the liver, is un-
altered in appearance; the mucous channels,
which convey the bile to the gall-bladder, and
from the gall-bladder to the intestines, have
not yet felt their presence, and the bile itself is
secreted apparently unaltered in quality or
quantity : but here, as they live in a medium
of perpetual nourishment, they multiply to an
extent incredible, and impede the natural action
of the liver and subordinate organs of the
body. They at length completely block up the
conduits of the bile, devouring the bile as fast
as it is secreted ; spreading irritation and dis-
ease from the vessels in which they live to the
whole mass of the liver itself; and in some in-
stances they carve their way through the mem-
brane which encircles them, and escape by
myriads into the cavity of the abdomen; thus
completing the destruction of an important
organ, and with it the life of the animal. These
extreme states are generally associated with
dropsy and a total degeneracy of the muscular
tissue ; the blood is deficient in quantity, very
serous, and almost destitute of fibrin. A cor-
respondent inquires the class and family of the
fluke, in hopes o[ finding a remedy for a disease
so fatal. He will find it in the class Vermes,
and order Intestina, and it is the Fasciola hepd-
lica. Contemplating it, as it is, as a variety of
exotic worm, it occurred to me that vermi-
fuges, destructive to other species, might be
employed with advantage against this. But in
instituting experiments on the living animals,
I discarded those popular remedies which have
only a mechanical action, and which could
never reach the liver, for those v/hich operate
by a wider range of influence. What I have
observed is, that there are in this class of re-
medies those which have little or no eflfect
when brought in contact with the living fluke ;
and there are others which destroy the animal
immediately. To the first of those which are
inert, Taelong solutions of vegetable bitters,
spirits of tar, and several others, which need
not be enumerated. To the second, or to those
which destroy the animal, belong solutions of
mercury and the spirits of turpentine. For
example : a little calomel suspended in water,
and dropped upon the animal, quickly deprives
it of life; and a drop of the spirits of turpen-
tine kills it in a few seconds. The oil of tur-
pentine is a deadly poison to the fluke. The
, next consideration is, how far it may be safe

955

ROT.

ROT.

to administer this medicine to the living sheep,
and what probability there is of its disturbing
an animal inhabiting the liver. With regard
to the first exception, there can arise no diffi-
culty. The spirit of turpentine is borne rea-
dily by children, and has been given to adults
in doses of a quarter of a pint; it is likewise
applied externally to blistered surfaces, and as
a styptic to the bleeding mouths of ruptured
blood-vessels. There can be as little douU
■with regard to the second exception, when we
consider the penetrating nature of this drug;
when we know that the mere immersion of the
hand in it is sufficient to impregnate the uri-
nary secretion ; nor can we doubt that its influ-
ence will be acknowledged by an org^n ap-
proximating and communicating with the
stomach, and by the worm inhabiting that
organ."

The outward symptoms of this disease were
many years since well described by Dr. Har-
rison of Boston, Lincolnshire, Avhen he said,
"If in warm, sultry, and rainy weather, sheep
that are grazing on low and moist lands feed
rapidly, and some of them die suddenly, there
is reason to fear that they have contracted the
rot: this suspicion will be further increased,
if in a few weeks afterwards the sheep begin
to shrink, and become flaccid in their loins.
By pressure about the hips at this time, a
crackling is sometimes perceptible. Now or
soon afterwards the countenance looks pale,
and upon parting the fleece, the skin is found
to have parted its vermilion tint for a pale-red,
and the wool is easily separated from the pelt;
as the disorder advances, the skin becomes
dappled with yellow or black spots. About
this time the eye loses its lustre, and becomes
white and pearly, from the red vessels of the
tunica adnata and eyelids being contracted or
entirely obliterated. To this succeeds debility
and emaciation, which increase continually till
the sheep die, or else ascites or perhaps gene-
ral dropsy supervene before the fatal termina-
tion."

Such are the symptoms and the most power-
ful known remedies for this disease ; an equally
important research is its origin, its predispos-
ing circumstances, or immediate cause. In
this, however, in common with most other dis-
eases of animal and vegetable life, difficulties
occur at every turn, of a nature almost entirely
inexplicable. We must be content to do little
more than merely trace its symptoms and the
course in which it commonly runs. No flock-
masters are perhaps more anxiously alive to
the disease, or more often its victims, than the
owners of the noble water-meadows of the
south of England, such as those of the valleys
of the Kennett, the Itchen, and the Wiltshire
Avon.

These excellent farmers have noticed, that
the first crop of spring water-meadow grass
never imparts the rot to sheep ; but that the
second crop, which they therefore make into
hay, is almost certain to do so. They notice,
also, that the worst rotting-time is from Mid-
summer to Michaelmas ; that almost all mea-
dow land, if chance flooded in summer, that is,
if covered by the overflowing of rivers, so as
to be covered with their muddy waters, is
956

almost certain to rot the sheep ; that gravelly
bottomed t/jfl^er-meadows, like those between
Marlborough and Hungerford, never rot the sheep
fed on them, in any season or period of the year.
This would appear to confirm the very common
suspicion that it is not tlie grass which rots the
sheep, but the gaseous or aqueous vapours
which emanate from such places, more copi-
ously as the weather becomes warmer in the
summer; but, then, againsf such a conclusion
we have the fact, well known to owners of the
water meads, that when sheep are soiled even
upon fine dry elevated soils (such as never
render sheep rotten), with the second crop of
grass from water-meads — that then the sheep
become as equally rotten as if they had been
pastured on the very meadows from whence
the grass was carried. It would seem, there-
fore, that there are more watery matters, or
other sources of disease in the second crop
than in the first.

That the grass of the second crop varies
very materially in its chemical composition
from that of the first, has been clearly shown
by the analysis of the late Mr. George Sinclair.
He found that rye-grass (Lolium perenne) at the
time of flowering, taken from a water-meadow
that had been fed off" with sheep till the end of
April, afforded of nutritive matter 72 grains.
The same grass from the meadow that had not
been depastured in the spring, afforded 100
grains. The same weight of this grass, taken
from a rich old pasture that had been shut up
for ha)'^ about the same time, aflforded of nutri-
tive matter 95 grains. That from the rich pas-
ture that had not been depastured, afl[c)rded 120
grains. {Hort. Gram. Wob. p. 384.) And in the
great majority of instances, the aftermath of
the upland grasses is considerably less rich in
nutritive matters than that of their first or
spring crop.

Such, then, are the supposed causes, symp-
toms, and treatment recommended for the cure
of this disease. For the cure, both turpentine
and common salt seem to have sometimes been
successfully used. But the eflfect of salt seems
to be much more decided when employed as a
prevention, rather than a cure. As a preventive,
too,. the use of aromatic vegetable substances
seems to be excellent. It is the kind of pre-
vention also which might be supposed to be
efficacious from following the order of nature,
and observing the habits of the sheep in their
wild state, browsing as they invariably do upon
the aromatic plants, and the shoots of moun-
tain shrubs; and never descending to live upon
the rank and watery grasses of the valleys,
until compelled by the severity of the weather.
Every farmer is aware with what avidity they
consume such domestic herbs — the parsley, for
instance — as abound in essential oils. An
attempt has indeed been recently made to culti-
vate this herb in the fields as feed for sheep;
and I have-little doubt that if some attention
were paid to the cultivation of such plants (if
the parsley will not bear the browsing of the
sheep, they might be occasionally soiled with
it), by way of condiment or change ; if the
flock were allowed, at all times and seasons,
access to common salt (and this might be
mixed, if necessary, with aromatic substances

ROT IN TIMBER.

ROTATION OP CROPS.

grateful to the sheep) ; and, lastly, if some
care were taken in supplying them, when feed-
ing on watery plants, with a little hay, corn, or
oil-cake, that then the destruction caused by
this melancholy scourge of the flock-master
would be either entirely prevented or very ma-
terially reduced. See Fluke.

ROT IN TIMBER. It has been noted, that
wood saturated with common salt is never sub-
ject to this disease. Mr. Bethel has proposed
a plan for its prevention, by saturating the
wood with coal-tar. Mr. Ryan uses for the
same purpose a solution of corrosive subli-
mate (muriate of mercury). Sir W. Burnet
employs a solution of muriate of lime. See
Dbt-Rot.

ROTATION OF CROPS. The order in
which difterent crops are made to succeed each
other. It was only towards the middle of the
last century, that the importance of a scientific
rotation of crops began even to attract the
farmer's attention. Previous to that period we
search in vain in the works of agricultural au-
thors for tlie slightest notice of such a theme.
The writers before those days, as Arthur
Young noticed, recited courses of husbandry,
good, bad, and execrable, exactly in the same
tone as matters not open to praise or censure,
and unconnected with any principles that could
throw any light on the arrangement of the
farm, or its more successful cultivation. And
yet it is on this difticuk part of the farmer's bu-
siness being scientifically pursued, that much
of the profits and advantages which he is to
derive from his land for a course of years must
depend. Arthur Young, the most popular and
the most rapid of observers, saw the import-
ance of this difficult inquiry in its true light:
he correctly enough told the farmers of his day,
that whenever very good or very bad husbandry
is found on arable land, it is more the result of
a right or wrong arrangement of crops than
of any other circumstance ; that no district is
well cultivated under bad rotations, while it is
extremely rare to find any badly cultivated
under such as are good. More accurate and
more generally diflfused observations have long
since, however, led the present race of culti-
vators to assign to the inquiry its proper value.
The importance in fact of the investigation no
modern farmer will for a moment doubt. It
may not be a useless mode of conducting the
research, if we inquire, as we proceed in our
proposed examination, into the few yet valu-
able lights which chemical and entomological
investigations have shed upon this important,
yet, from the endless variety of soils and situa-
tions, somewhat intricate and laborious theme.
In regard to the general principles, as it has
been well observed, on which the proper crop-
ping of land depends, it is now perfectly under-
stood, that some kind of crops deteriorate or
exhaust the land to a much greater degree than
others ; that some by their capability of being
consumed on the farm (though they do exhaust
the soil) return, in such consumption by live-
stock, as much or perhaps rather more to the
soil than they draw from it, during the period
of their growth. And again, that other crops,
by admitting of profitable tillage and cleansing
the land during their growth, aid very much in

the essential destruction of weeds, insects, &c,
and in ameliorating the land for the succeeding
crop ; while, on the other hand, different crops,
by not permitting such cultivation, and being
great exhausters when following in immediate
and rapid succession, not only deteriorate the
soil, but fill it with weeds and grubs. Hence
it follows in practice, that by suitable arrange-
ments of these diflferent crops in rotation, most
kinds of land may, without lying idle, be con-
stantly preserved in a clean and productive
condition. In the management of rotations,
however, much careful attention and discrimi-
nation is requisite in the cultivator, to profit-
ably adapt them to the nature of the soil, and
the other circumstances under which he is
placed. Above all, the farmer must remember,
that as different kinds of plants require differ-
ent kinds and proportions of nutritious mate-
rials to be drawn from the earth for their in-
crease and perfect growth, so also they need
different situations and conditions of soil for
their most profitable development.

The farmer, too, is well aware that certain
crops never prosper well two or more seasons
together in the same land ; that they in fact
commonly exhaust or "tear out" the soil to
such an extent, that every lawyer's clerk is
aware of and notices it in some restraining co-
venant of " the lease."

Even the gardener, aided as he is by the
most copious supplies of enriching composts,
always avoids as much as possible planting a
tree where one of the same species has pre-
ceded it.

Now it is of primary importance that we
should endeavour to understand, if possible,
the cause of this phenomenon. This question,
therefore, has long engaged not only the atten-
tion of the most sagacious farmers, but of
marfy distinguished chemical philosophers. By
these it has been regarded in chiefly two points
of view. First, it has been contended, that as
each plant has peculiar excretory matters,
which it constantly deposits in the soil in
which it is placed — matters which are found
to be particularly noxious to other plants of its
own species — that in consequence, until these
are decomposed and removed from the earth
by other plants, or by the gradual effects of de-
composition, the same crop cannot advanta-
geously prosper in the soil. And in support
of this doctrine is adduced the well-known fact,
that the excretory matters deposited or diffused
through the water in which bulbs or other
roots have been cultivated, will not well sup-
port other bulbs; yet still that such impure
water is found to be more grateful than clear
water to vegetables of another species.

And, again, that certain plants and trees are
well known to be excellent and mutually fer-
tilizing neighbours, — a knowledge indeed as
old as the days of Rome under her emperors ;
for at those periods the Italian farmers com-
monly planted the elm as the companion, or
" husband," as they called it, of the vine ; and
every farmer is aware, amongst other facts of
a similar nature, that the corn-flower can be
found only amongst his corn crops — it is in
vain to search for it elsewhere. The gardener
also well knows, that it is almost useless to

937

ROTATION OP CROPS.

ROTATION OP CROPS.

replant old orchards with the same trees, or to
replace old quick^hedges with young quick
plants, yet an old orchard or the site of an old
hedge-row are proverbial for their fertility,
when planted with other crops. There is con-
siderable importance I think to be attached to
this mode of accounting for the facts of the
case, but it is by no means so complete an ex-
planation as is desirable. There are some
soils, for instance, which would seem (if this
■were the sole cause of the phenomenon) to defy
all the excretory powers of the plant. Some of
the newly-enclosed lands of the United States
of America, for instance, have produced excel-
lent wheat crops for even 20 years without in-
terruption. Some of the alluvial soils of the
lower portion of the valley of the Thames have
yielded alternate crops of wheat and beans
from time immemorial ; and by the addition of
manure, the potato grounds near London yield
abundant crops for a series of years. There
are other observations too, of a similar kind,
which will readily be remembered by the in-
telligent farmer, which do not seem to assimi-
late entirely with this mode of removing the
difficulties of the case.

The other way of explaining the reluctance
"with which a crop follows another of the same
description is, by supposing that each kind of
plant has some peculiar and essential ingredi-
ent which it absorbs from, and in a great degree
exhausts the soil, and that it is, therefore, only
after a lapse of some time, when that ingredi-
ent or those ingredients are restored by the ap-
plication of manure, or by other modes, that
the same plants can be again profitably culti-
vated. To a great extent this theory is not
only a very plausible but a very probable and
reasonable explanation of the difficulty. Thus
the farmer is well aware that certain soils on
which red clover formerly grew very succ'ess-
fully once in 4 years, will now only yield any
profitable degree of produce of the same plant
once in 8 or once in 12 years. The excretory
powers of the plant in this instance, therefore,
are useless in explanation of the difficulty; for
according to that theory, the excretory matters
which long were successfully dissipated or ab-
sorbed by other plants in the course of 4 years,
should do so in our age just as well as in a for-
mer period. But if we admit what has been
not only sometimes, but very often clearly
proved to be the case, that the soils which are
thus reluctant to produce red clover, are now
totally exhausted of sulphate of lime (gypsum)
— that, moreover, every fair average crop of
this valuable grass contains from 100 to 200
pounds weight per acre of this salt — and that
by dressing the land with this manure, in
almost exactly the same proportion and quantity
as that which is contained in the clover, that
then the land will again grow the very same
crop once in 4 years ; when these and other
similar facts are proved, the very strong pro-
bable conclusion to which we must arrive is
apparent, viz., that the clover had gradually
exhausted the land of an essential ingredient
which only needed to be restored to it, to enable
the clover again to flourish with its wonted
vigour. And this is not a solitary instance :
thus, marine plants will only grow successfully
958

in inland situations, where common salt is
added to the soil. The sun-flower and the nettle
need in an equal degree the assistance of salt-
petre. The presence in the soil of phosphate
of lime (the earthy salt of bones) is equally
essential to the vigorous growth of almost all
the grain crops.

Then, again, there are other facts of a differ-
ent nature well known to the farmer, which-
appear to lead us to the same conclusion; fo
instance, every cultivator is aware that b
cutting his crops green, his land is not near
so much exhausted as when the same croi
are allowed to ripen their seeds. And if, in
explanation of this observation, it can be shown
that the plant, when ripe, contains a larger pro-
portion of any peculiar saline or earthy ingre-
dient than it does when in a growing, unripe
state, this will further tend to establish the
truth of the last-named theory — that it is the
abstraction from the soil by the plant of some
peculiar substance, which thus exhausts and
indisposes it to support the same crop. Now
this, according to chemical investigations,
seems, at least in many instances, to be the case.
Thus, M. Saussure, in his chemical researches,
has shown by the results of his analysis, that
the ashes of the plants of peas {Pisvm sati-
vium), when green and in flower, contain only
17-25 per cent, of phosphate of lime, but that,
when ripe, they yield 22 per cent. And, again,
that the ashes of plants of vetches (Viciafaba),
which yielded only 13*5 per cent, of the same
salt when in flower, contain 17-75 per cent,
when they are ripe. The same result was ob-
tained from other plants : the Solidago vulgaris,
for instance, which yielded 8-5 per cent, of
phosphate of lime when first in flower, con-
tained 11 per cent, when ripe. The turnsole
{Helianthus annuus), which aflTorded only 6 per
cent, when flowering, contained 22-5 per cent,
when ripe. The wheat plant, which held 10-75
per cent, in flower, contained 11-75 when ripe.
The ashes of the straw of wheat were found to
yield only 6-2 per cent, of this essentially pre-
sent salt, but its seeds held 44-5, and its bran
46-5 per cent, of it. M. Vauquelin obtained a
result somewhat similar in his examination of
the ashes of the oat plant; the seeds afl^ording
him 39-3 per cent, of phosphate of lime, but
when he burnt the whole plant, seed and stalk
together, he then found only 15 per cent.

The evidence, therefore, in favour of the ab-
sorbent theory, is certainly rather stronger than
that in support of the excretory mode of ex-
plaining the phenomenon. Yet, in all proba-
bility, both causes may contribute to produce
the effect. Davy, the chief of modern che-
mists, adopted the former mode of explaining
the reluctance with which a crop grows for 2
years successively on the same land. {Lee-
tvrcs, p. 357.) Changes of all kind seem, in
truth, ever to be grateful to vegetation — change
of soil, of seed, of the course of cropping, of
manure, &c. "Peas and beans," said Davy,
" in all instances, seem well adapted to prepare
the ground for wheat; and in some rich lands,
as in the alluvial soil of the Parret, and at the
foot of the South Downs, in Sussex, they are
raised in alternate crops for years together.
Peas and beans contain a small quantity of a

ROTATION OF CROPS.

ROTATION OF CROPS.

matter analogous to albumen (hard white of
egg) ; but it seems that the nitrogen which
forms a constituent part of this matter is de-
rived from the atmosphere. The dry bean leaf,
when burnt, yields a smell approaching to that
of decomposing animal matter; and in its de-
cay in the soil may furnish principles capable
of becoming a part of the gluten in wheat.

" Though the general composition of plants
is very analogous, yet the specific difference in
the products of many of them, and other well
ascertained facts, prove that they must derive
different materials from the soil; and though
the vegetables, having the smallest systems of
leaves, will proportionately most exhaust the
soil of common nutritive matter, yet particular
vegetables, when their produce is carried off,
will require peculiar principles to be supplied
to the land in which they grow. Strawberries
and potatoes at first produce luxuriantly in
virgin mould, recently turned up from pasture,
but in a few years they degenerate and require
a fresh soil ; and the organization of these
plants is such as to be constantly producing
the migration of their layers. Thus, the straw-
berry, by its long shoots, is continually en-
deavouring to occupy a new soil ; and the
fibrous radicles of the potato produce bulbs at
a considerable distance from the parent plant.
The most remarkable instance of the powers
of the plant to exhaust the soil of certain prin-
ciples necessary to its growth, is found in cer-
tain fungi. Mushrooms are said never to rise
in two successive seasons on the same spot;
and the production of the phenomena called
fairy rings, has been ascribed by Dr. Wollaston
to the power of the peculiar fungus which
forms it, to exhaust the soil of the nutriment
necessary for the growth of the species. The
consequence is that the ring annually extends,
for no seeds will grow where their parents
grew before them, and the interior part of the
circle has been exhausted by preceding crops;
but where the fungus has died, nourishment is
supplied for grass, which usually rises within
the circle, coarse, and of a dark-green colour."
" When cattle," adds Davy, " are fed upon land
not benefited by their manure, the effect is
always an exhaustion of the soil : this is parti-
cularly the case where carrying-horses are
kept on estates ; they consume the pasture
during the night, and drop the greatest part of
their manure during their labour in the day-
time. The exportation of corn from a country,
unless some articles capable of becoming ma-
nure are introduced in compensation, must
ultimately tend to exhaust the soil. Some of
the spots, now desert sands in northern Africa
and Asia Minor, were anciently fertile ; Sicily
was the granary of Italy, and the quantity of
corn carried off from it by the Romans is pro-
bably a chief cause of its present sterility."

The same theory is also supported by M.
Liebig: in his excellent work on Organic Che-
mistry, p. 158, he remarks, "It is evident that
two plants growing beside each other will mu-
tually injure one another, if they withdraw the
same food from the soil. Hence, it is not sur-
prising that the Matricaria chamomilla and Spnr-
tium scoparium impede the growth of grain, when
it is considered that both yield from 7 to 7-43

per cent, of ashes, which contain six-tenths of
carbonate of potash. The darnel and the Eri-
geron acre blossom and bear fruit at the same
time as the wheat ; so that, when growing min-
gled with it, they will partake of the compo-
nent parts of the soil, and, in proportion to the
vigour of their growth, that of the corn must
decrease; for what one receives the others are
deprived of Plants will, on the contrary, thrive
beside each other, either when the substances
necessary for their growth, which they extract
from the soil, are of different kinds, or when
they themselves are not in the same stages of
developement at the same time. On a soil, for
example, which contains potash, both wheat
and tobacco may be reared in succession, be-
cause the latter plant does not require phos-
phates, salts which are invariably present in
wheat, but requires only alkalies and food con-
taining nitrogen. According to the analysis of
Posselt and Reimann, 1000 parts of the leaves
of the tobacco plant contain 16 parts of phos-
phate of lime, 8-8 parts of silica, and no mag-
nesia; whilst an equal quantity of wheat-straw
contains 47'3 parts; and the same quantity of
the grain of wheat 99*45 parts of phosphates."
The late George Sinclair took a similar view
of the cause of the exhaustion of soils. "If,"
he says, "a plant impoverishes a soil in pro-
portion to the weight of vegetable matter it pro-
duces on a given space of ground, the follow-
ing will be the order in which the under-men-
tioned plants exhaust the ground, being the
proportion they bear to each other with respect
to weight of produce : —

Mangel-wurzel ----- 25

Cabbages ------ 25

White turnip ----- 16

Potatoes ------ 15

Kohl-rabi (bulb-stalked cabbage) - 14

Bwedish turnip ----- 13

Carrots ------ 11

But when we take the weight of nutritive
matter which a plant affords from a givea
space of ground, the results are very different,
and will be found to agree with the daily ex-
perience in the garden and the farm.

The following figures represent the propor-
tion in which they stand to each other with re-
spect to the weight of nutritive matter per
acre, and in exhausting the land : —

Potatoes ------ 63

Cabbaifes 42

Mangel-wurzel ----- 28

Carrots ------ 24

Kohlrabi 17

Swedish turnip ----- 16

Common turnip ----- 14

Change of crops also prevents very mate-
rially the increase of the predatory grub and
insects which also more or less prey upon the
farmer's crops. The parent of the English
wire-worm, for instance, which is the larva of
a small beetle, the Elater segetis, may be seen
in the summer months depositing its eggs on
lays or meadows abounding with the cereal
grasses; for instinct teaches it to place its eggs
where the young wire-worm will meet with its
natural food, which are the cereal grasses.
Change of crops, therefore, not only checks the
deposit of the eggs, but, by removing the natu-
ral food of the young vermin, it materially pre-

959

DOTATION OF CROPS.

vents increase, or even their continuance;
which otherwise, as is the case, for instance,
with the wire-worm, might for 4 or 5 years be
a pest to the soil. See Bketle.

The ordinary course or rotation of crops
under which the light lands of England are
cornmonly cultivated, is either on what is de-
nominated the four-course or shift system, or
the five-course or shift.

The four-shift system commonly consists of
fallow, manured; 1, turnips, fed off; 2, oats or
barley; 3, grass seed; 4, wheat.

The five-shift system, which is in many situa-
tions a much more advantageous course of hus-
bandry, is commonly fallow: 1, turnips; 2,
oats, or barley; 3, clover; 4, peas ; 5, wheat.

On clays the course varies : on some kinds
of heavy clays it is usually fallow, with ma-
nure; wheat; beans; wheat, manured; clover;
oats, or wheat.

On other clays the system pursued is fallow,
with manure; wheat, or oats ; clover; beans;
wheat.

The variations, however, are of necessity ex-
ceedingly various. Thus, on some of the infe-
rior adhesive clays of the midland counties,
they adopt the four-course system.

Another system of moderately heavy soil
husbandry is : —

Acres.

1. Turnips ------ 20

Fallow ------ 20

2. Barley ------ 20

Oals ------ 20

3. Seeds - 20

Tares fed off - - - - - 20

4. Wheat 40

There are endless variations, however, of
this system, varying in their course from that
practised in some of the heavy, rich Essex
soils, of a two-shift system; viz., 1, wheat; 2,
beans ; 3, wheat ; with an occasional fallow.
And that more extensively used in the hun-
dreds of that great agricultural county, of a
five-shift system of fallow: 1, oats; 2, clover,
dunged; 3, wheat; 4, beans; 5, wheat. To the
nine-shiftsystemof husbandry, sometimes prac-
tised, which is about the longest course with
which I am acquainted, viz.:

so acres fallow, or turnips manured.

20 acres oats or barley.

20 acres clover.

20 acres wheat, well hoed.

20 acres winter tares, sheep-fed.

20 acres wheat, hoed.

20 acres seeds, sheep-fed.

20acrP8, 15 of beans and 5 of peas, dunged.

20 acres wheat, hoed.

The following course, which takes in every
valuable crop, without in any instance violat-
ing the rules that science directs, seems to me
the best, and is recommended by a Norfolk
farmer for most clays not too wet. Say for a
farm of 350 acres — 100 acres of green crops,
such as cabbages, turnips, rape, and tares,
adapting the green crops to the nature of the
land ; 50 acres of peas or beans ; 50 acres of
barley or oats, laid down with clover; and 100
acres of wheat.

You will by this course have every year 200
acres of wheat and other corn, 50 of clover,
and 100 of green crops, thus saving your land

960

t

ROTATION OF CROPS.

from exhaustion by too frequent repetition of
crops of the same genus. And white crops
will in no instance succeed each other. The
wheat stubbles are in this way sown with green
crops, to be followed by 50 of barley and 50 of
beans or peas ; the barley sown with clover
and followed by wheat, which will thus be 50
acres on clover, and 50 on the bean or pea
stubble, taking care that the 50 acres of green
crops, followed by beans or peas, when next
coming in course for green crops, shall be
sown with barley and clover, as by this means
the clover comes only once in 7 years.

In whatever point of view, therefore, the far-
mer examines the rotation of crops best adapt-
ed to his land, the more highly interesting does
the investigation appear. Long observation
and the practice of ages have convinced the
best English cultivators that sooner or later the
soil is tired of or exhausted of something essen-
tial to its luxuriant produce by a repetition of
the same crops; that the richest meadows gra-
dually decrease in their produce ; other soils be-
come "clover-sick;" and it is now even pretty
generally suspected that the land is in many
districts gradually getting tired of turnips. To
the examination, tht refore, of this great question,
let every farmer contribute his mite of practical
observations : it is a theme whose investiga-
tion has long yielded a rich harvest to English
agriculture; for amongst its fruits must be
numbered the introduction of turnips, of man-
gel-wurzel, and other green crops ; its exami-
nation led to the adoption of the four-shift sys-
tem, and the banishment of that which for ages
rested on the miserable plan of one crop and
a fallow. It is idle, therefore, to contend that
nothing more is to be effected by change of
crops ; for the experience of all periods is
against so indolent and so erroneous an as-
sumption. Let the farmer only remember
what has been accomplished by the mere in-
troduction of the turnip plant; what thousands
of acres have been brought into cultivation by
its means, and how many mouths are fed by
the increased fertility of the land produced by
the adoption of that four-shift system of rota-
tion of which it is the first crop. Let him
bring to mind what superior crops are now
produced by the adoption of new seeds and
novel courses, to those which a century since
tenanted the lands of merry England; and he
will then see abundant reason for hope, and
for an energetic perseverance in a course of
discovery, which has already rendered such an
abundant harvest to the excellent cultivators
of our soil. See M. Bousingault on the " Ro-
tation of Crops," Quar. Jour. Jgr. vol. x. p. 251;
Liebig^s Organ. Chem. of J^gr., &c.

To prevent the depreciation of soil and im-
prove its productive capacity, a proper rota-
tion of crops is indispensable. The same
general principles upon which these objects
may be most judiciously accomplished will
apply to all countries, but the manner of car-
rying out these principles must vary with lo-
calities and peculiarities of climate and soil.

It was once thought that, after culture, it was

necessary to allow the land to remain for one

j or more years at rest and idle, or fallow and

ROTATION OF CROPS.

ROTATION OF CROPS.

unused, in order that the soil might thus have
its strength renovated. It has, however, been
found that with judicious management land
need never be sutfered to lie idle, but cultivated
every year in one or more crops with profit,
and even with improvement of the soil. In
other words, the system carried out on a small
scale in gardens ma)' be extended to farms. A
large portion of Europe is at present cultivated
without naked fallows, which are unknown in
the vast productive agricultural operations of
China.

In the United States, the rotations of crops
vary considerably in different sections. In
Massachusetts, one of the oldest settled por-
tions of the Union, and the usages of which
may perhaps represent those prevailing through-
out the New England States, it would appear
from Mr. Colman, that little of what may be
called systematic husbandry prevails, the suc-
cession of crops being dictated rather by acci-
dent or convenience than by any well-con-
sidered principles. The following details from
his 4lh Report on Agriculture, will show how
things are managed in different parts of Massa-
chusetts.

The rotation of crops in Franklin county is
very limited, as the crops cultivated are few.
In Buckland, the first year the land is broken
up, corn is planted and manured : the second
year, oats are sowed without manure, and the
land laid down to grass. It is continued in grass
five years and then broken up, and the same
course repeated. The first year of grass the
produce is about two tons per acre, and when
It yields not more than 1500 lbs. it is consider-
ed proper to break it up again. In Shelburne,
on one of the best farms in the state, the course
is, first year, Indian corn on green sward, ma-
nured; second year, spring wheat, and laid
down to grass ; the grass-seed sown with* the
wheat; one peck of herd's grass and one of
red-top to the acre. The land remains in grass
ordinarily five years. The average yield of
grass is estimated at three tons to the acre, —
which I think must be an over-estimate, — and
the cost of getting the hay at $2 per ton. For
spring wheat, in the second year of the coUrse,
is sometimes substituted rye, or oats, or oats
and peas, or oats and wheal.

In Whately, first year, Indian corn ; second
year, oats, and laid down with herd's grass
(timothy) and clover, and remains in grass
three years.

On much of the meadow land in Deerfield,
the first year the land is in corn ; the succeed-
ing year peas and oats, and so on continually.
The corn is manured in the hill. The land,
after the corn is gathered, is sometimes sown
with winter rye.

In some parts of Deerfield, the usual rotation
is, first year, corn, usually manured in the hill;
the second year, spring wheat, or wheat and
oats, or peas and oats, or rye with southern clo-
ver; third year, clover; and then plough again.

The best farmers universally advise to sow
the southern or June clover with grain, to be
ploughed in with the stubble where the land is
not to remain in grass, with a view to enrich
the land. If the grain is winter grain, the
121

clover is usually sown in the spring before the
snow has left the ground, at the rate of a bu-
shel of clover chaff or clover-seed not cleaned,
or else at the rate of 6 or 7 lbs. of cleaned seed.
One of the most experienced farmers in the
town has been accustomed to sow rye and
clover together on the same land for a succes-
sion of years; in which case the clover and
stubble were always ploughed in together for
the purpose of enriching the land for the suc-
ceeding crop, and in this process he states that
the condition of the land was continually grow-
ing better. The crops, however, at best were
not large.

I think proper here to mention the statement
of another farmer, a man of much intelligence
and experience, in confirmation of the expe-
rience of two other farmers referred to in a
former report, that it is much better that the
clover should be withered or dead when it is
ploughed in, rather than in a green or succu-
lent state.

In some instances, as in Sunderland, for ex-
ample, broom-corn is repeated several years in
succession on the same land, and, as it is
stated, without a diminution of product. In.
these cases, the crop is manured in the hill
every year ; and the corn-stalks, after the brush
is gathered, are burnt upon the land.

In the oldest cultivated sections of Penn-
sylvania, the rotations seem to have been
conducted with much good judgment, as is
evinced by very successful results generally
obtained. These, as well as the system highly
approved by many of the most judicious far-
mers, are set forth in the following communica-
tion in the Farmers' Cabinet (vol. v. p. 94).

The example to which I refer, says the cor-
respondent, is that of an old, practical, hard-
working farmer, who commenced in the world
as a day-labourer, and who is now worth at
least $100,000, not taking in the account many
heavy pecuniary losses he has, at various times,
sustained. This man, when 30 years of age,
by the avails of his industry, added to a small
legacy, was enabled to purchase and pay, in
part, for a farm of 130 acres of land, 100 of
which was under cultivation, but in a very low-
state. This farm is altogether upland, with a
soil composed of lime, clay, and sand, in the
chief of which the latter preponderates, the
former being least considerable. When he
commenced farming, he adopted a particular
system of rotation, to which he has implicitly
adhered from that time to the present, which is
40 years, and his success is the best comment
on the worth of his experiment. His mode was
as follows : having divided his farm into eight
fields of equal size, as nearly as possible, three
of these fields are sown with wheat each year,
one with rye, one planted with com, two in
clover, and one an open fallow, on which com
had been raised the year previous. One of the
two clover-fields is kept for mowing, the other
for pasture, both of which are ploughed as
soon after harvest as possible, and prepared
for wheat in the fall. All the manure which is
made on the farm for one year is hauled, in the
spring, on the field intended for open fallow,
which is then ploughed, and after one or two
4 M 961

ROTATION OF CROPS.

ROTATION OF CROPS.

cross-ploughings through the summer, is also
sown with wheat in the fall. The field on which
rye is sown, is that from which a crop of wheat
had been taken the same year, and which had
yielded three crops of wheat, alternating with
crops ^ of clover. Corn is planted on the field
from which rye had been gathered the year pre-
vious, the stubbles of which are ploughed down
in the fall. Clover-seed is sown early in the
spring on two of the wheat fields, those which
have been most recently manured. By this me-
thod, each field yields three crops of wheat, two
of clover, one of rye, and one of corn, ev ery eight
years. Each field, in the mean time, has lain an
open fallow, and received a heavy dressing of

man are, perhaps at an average of 15 four-horse
loads per acre. His crop of wheat is seldom
less than 1500 bushels, but often much more.
His average rye-crop is about 450 bushels, and
his corn crop, annually, about 500 bushels —
all which grain, at the present low prices, would
amount to more than $2000 annually, and at
former prices to double that amount; and his
farm is withal very highly improved.

This system corresponds very nearly with,
that of which a tabular statement is presented
in the same volume, by Mr. W. P. Kintzer, of
Pequea, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, as
successfully practised by himself. It is as
follows : —

IstYear - - -

Field No. I.

Wheat

Field No. 2.

Field No. 3.

Field No. 4.

Field No. 5.

Field No. 6.

Field No. 7.

Field No. 8.

Rye

Wheat

Clover

Corn

Wheat

Clover

Oats

ad " - - -

Rye

Clover

Corn

Wheal

Oats

Clover

Wheat

Wheat

3d " - - -

Clover

Wheal

Oala

Rye

Wheat

Wheat

Corn

Clover

4th "

Wheat

Corn

Wheat

Clover

Clover

Rye

Oal8

Wheat

5ih " - ^

Corn

Oats .

Clover

Wheat

Wheat

Clover

Wheat

Rye

6th " - . .

Oats

Wheal

Wheat

Corn

Rye

Wheat

Clover

Clover

7lh •' - - -

Wheat

Clover

Rye

Oats

Clover

Corn

Wheat

Wheat

8th " - - -

Clover

Wheat

Clover

Wheat

Wheat

Oats

Rye

Corn

In the county of Montgomery, where agri-
culture is in a very flourishing state, — the crops
consisting of the ordinary grains and hay-
grasses, — A five-shift rotation, from the division
of the farm into five fields, is very much pursued.
Commencing with Indian corn, the sod, which
has been top-dressed with lime the previous
season, is ploughed in the fall or spring. The
corn is followed by oats, which being harvested,
the stubble is turned under, manure spread upon
the ground and wheat sown, with timothy-seed
in the fall and red clover in the spring. The
wheat has thus the important advantage of
immediately succeeding two cleansing crops, and
the ground, after harvesting the wheat, is left
in fine condition for the hay grasses. The first
year after the wheat is harvested, the grass is
mown, the second year pastured, after which
the sod is again turned under for corn, and the
rotation recommences.

What is known in Pennsylvania as the Old
i'ork and Lancaster system, corresponds with
the one last described, so far as the succession
of grain crops and sowing of the grass-seeds
are concerned, but difiers in allowing the hay-
grasses to occupy the field five years. The
first two years are most productive in red
clover, which, being a biennial and the root
dying out, leaves the ground in possession of
the timothy and other perennial grasses.

The following interesting view of the former
and present Virginia modes of conducting ro-
tations, and the improvements introduced and
suggested, is from the able editor of the Far-
mers^ Register (vol, vii.).

The first and most humble attempt at a
rotation in this country, and the one which
formerly was general on the greater part of
most farms, and is even now in extensive use,
is the two-shift ; which, however, short as it is,
had various grades of bad quality. This usu-
ally followed the continual cultivation of the
land, in its newer condition, in tobacco, while
rich enough for the crop, and afterwards in
com, every year.

The two-shift was most usually this :
063

1st year, corn —

f wheat — or oats, if on land too light or
, J too poor for wheat —
'] after harvest, grazed closely until next
i^ spring, when ploughed for corn again.

When too poor to bear any small grain crops,
that part of the course was omitted on such
poorer spots of the field, and afterwards on all;
thus changing the rotation to

1st year, corn —

2d " natural cover of weeds, grazed.

When not grazed the second year, as was
sometimes the case, for want of separate fenc-
ing, or some other cause, this rotation made a
nearer approach to alternate and improving
husbandry. It was then —

1st year, corn —

2d " weeds not grazed, and which (if
not burnt off, as was done most usually) form-
ed a very poor manuring crop.

The celebrated Eastern Shore rotation is of
two shifts or fields, but of three crops in the
two years. This is —

1st year, corn —

2 . C first crop, oats —

' (_ secondary crop, Magothy bay bean —
a spontaneous and close cover immediately
succeeding the oats, and which remains mostly
or entirely untouched by the grazing stock,
and is ploughed under for the next crop of
corn. The interposition, by nature, and not
by the design or industry of the cultiva-
tors, of this leguminous and manuring crop,
is a most valuable feature in a rotation
which otherwise would be altogether exhaust-
ing and destructive. The moisture of the air,
no less than the sandiness of the soil, and the
cleanness from other plants, give vigour to this
bean, and make one-third of the whole course
meliorating, to two-thirds of exhausting crops.
The same moisture also nourishes the oats,
and prevents that crop exhausting so much, as
in dryer regions — and also by its greater bulk
of straw, furnishing more materials for ma-
nure. These circumstances render this rota-
tion, severe and barbarous as it is, less exhaust-

ROTATION OF CROPS.

ROTATION OF CROPS.

ing (or more improving, if much attention is
paid to manuring) than the ordinary three-shift
rotation. Except in the chance-made addition
of the spontaneous bean crop, this rotation
offends against every principle and rule which
ought to govern.

The three-shift rotation was the next step in
the supposed march of agricultural improve-
ment, and even yet is that which many remain-
ing two-shift or no-shift cultivators aspire to
reach, as the limit of their farming and im-
proving ambition, and their ne plus ultra of
mild cultivation. This was

1st year, corn —

2d " wheat, and afterwards the sponta-
neous grass and weeds grazed —

3d " pasture, closely grazed.

The severity of the second year was gene-
rally moderated on the poorer parts, by the
wheat being there necessarily omitted, which
of course gave to those parts two years rest
from tillage, in three; and, while the wheat
was growing, a cessation from grazing also.
With very few exceptions, such was the gene-
ral system of the best cultivated farms in lower
Virginia, when Taylor wrote ; and it is on this
kind of three-shift rotation that his denuncia-
tions were so deservedly cast. This rotation
violates every sound principle and rule, and
certainly deserved to be treated without mercy ;
but many have continued to denounce the
three-shift rotation, even when rendered com-
paratively mild, as if the evil was in the num-
ber three, and not in circumstances more im-
portant than the mere number of shifts.

But, taken in the aspect above described,
and which was the best then that was exhibited,
the three-shift rotation had no merit whatever.
It had no other than fibrous-rooted plants ; no
other than narrow-leaved crops ; no root, legu-
minous, or even grass crop ; • for the close
grazing merely served to prevent the scanty
weeds and grass from growing; and while
every year's crop was exhausting, the system
furnished but small resources and materials
for manure. For the grazing animals were as
many as the land could keep alive, and scarce-
ly any were fattened (by grazing alone) for
home consumption or market; and their sup-
port served to diminish, instead of adding to,
the fattening or manuring of the land. At that
time it would have been dilRcult for a reading
farmer to comprehend this undoubtedly sound
maxim of English writers, "the more cattle
kept, the more grain and other crops produced."
But the English farmer keeps no animal ex-
cept for the profit it will yield; and all that
are so kept, give their rich and abundant pro-
ducts of manure, as an additional profit to the
soil. But when a stock of cattle,^ sheep, and
hogs, can barely make out to keep alive through
the year, and never fatten, except by stall and
grain feeding, then keeping them certainly
yields no clear profit to their owner, and their
close grazing of the fields takes aAvay more of
fertilizing materials than their dung can pos-
sibly replace. An English or French farmer
would be no less at a loss to comprehend the
object (or even to believe in such a general
practice) of keeping a large stock of animals
from which no net profit was obtained, or even

hoped for; and he would justly think that it
would not be more absurd for a farmer to tend
a crop of grain, and then leave it to rot on the
field, than to give all his grass through summer
to animals, and then lose the flesh so acquired,
by starvation through the winter. Indeed, the
general cattle management of this country
would scarcely be believed in any good grazing
or farming region. On the farms under the usual
three-shift rotation, sa\' of 400 acres of arable
land, there would be from 40 to 60 head of
grazing cattle, which furnished annually to the
owner, at most, about as much milk and butter
as two well-kept cows might supply, one or
two passable beeves, with the aid of grain
feeding, a few poor calves for veal, and a pretty
large supply of hides from deaths by starvation
in the spring. There were hogs enough to
funiish the year's supply of bacon ; but only
by means of grain feeding, which alone was
admitted to cost nearly or quite a3»much as the
ntarket price of the meat. A flock of poor
sheep were on some fiirms also, of which, be-
fore shearing-time, half the wool of many was
hanging on the briers, and the remaining
fleeces filled with burs. This sort of grazing
system accompanied the old threc-shifl rota-
tion ; and, inveterate as were old habits, and
patient as we are of long-borne grievances, this
evil was so great, that none could deny but
that the mere expense of the dividing fences,
necessary to keep the cattle from the fields of
grain, cost more than all the returns from the
grazing animals.

The four-shift rotation, recommended and
practised by Col. Taylor, was —

1st year, corn —

2d " wheat, and clover sown — or if too
poor for wheat, left at rest, and
not grazed —

3d " clover (or weeds), not mown or
grazed —

4lh " clover, not mown or grazed.

This rotation, as before stated, was the first
introduction of manuring fields by their own
vegetable cover, and this practice, and the ad-
mission of the opinions on which the new
practice was founded, was a prodigious step
towards agricultural improvement. It is true
that even this rotation is opposed to the rules
of good husbandry in most respects. But the
giving of two and a half years out of four for
vegetables to grow, that were to die and decay
on, and be finally ploughed into the land, was
a feature that compensated for every fault, and
made the rotation decidedly meliorating, if on
land capable of being enriched by the mere
application of vegetable matters.

In the first of these numbers, it was stated
incidentally to other matters why this rotation
became of less benefit and more objectionable,
in proportion to the time, and to the effect with
which it operated ; and if it improved the pro-
ductive power of any land, that it also greatly
j increased the labours of tillage, and the de-
struction of products, by increasing weeds and
noxious insects. In consequence of this ob-
jection, very few disciples of the great intro-
ducer of and advocate for this rotation, have
continued long to pursue it strictly.

Th^ four-shift and clover falU/w rotation dlQex%.

963

ROTATION OF CROPS.

RUBBING- POST.

"widely- from that of Col. Taylor. This has
been, and I believe still is pursued with great
success by Hill Carter, of Shirley, John A. Sel-
den, of Westover, and has been on some other
of the best lands on James River, where it has
since, in other hands, been either neglected or
abandoned, for some modification of the three-
shift rotation. This four-shift system is

1st year, corn —

2d " wheat, and clover sown, and not
grazed —

3d " clover, not grazed, and ploughed in
deeply in August and September,
and the field sown in wheat —

4th " wheat, to be followed by corn, in
recommencing the rotation next
year.

A sufficient standing pasture was kept on
other, land. Mr. Carter, for a considerable
length* of time, substituted oats for corn in the
first year.

The farmers above named (whose account?
of their systems and their products were re-
ported at length in vol. i., Far, Reg.), and others
also, undoubtedly made great crops, and great
improvement of land, under this very severe
rotation. But those results were due more to
the excellence of their general management
than to their rotation. None but admirable
executive farmers can possibly overcome the
great difficulties which accompany this rota-
tion. He who, in our dry climate, on a stiff"
or even medium soil, can plough every August
and September one-fourth of all his arable sur-
face, to the depth of 8 or 10 inches, and turn in
and cover effectually a heavy coat of clover —
and this without failing in any year — shows
thereby alone his ability to execute the most
arduous undertakings, and to do well every
thing which he may make a part of his general
plan of operations. This rotation, in such
hands as have directed it, has some admirable
features ; but it must be executed in tlie most
perfect manner, or these best features are lost,
and there will remain only the great evil of
three fibrous-rooted, narrow-leaved, and ex-
hausting grain crops, in .succession.

The great merit of the four-shift rotation, in
genera], and considering it as embracing both
of these very different varieties, is its easy
adaptation to more mild or more severe culti-
vation, without any different arrangement or
number of fields. Thus, Taylor's rotation may
be rendered still milder (as is needed on the
poorest lands) by omitting the wheat crop ;
and as the land improves,the richer spots may
be thrown under the more severe cultivation
of the other four-shift system, as practised by
Mr. Carter or Mr. Selden. But, in any form,
the rotation still remains objectionable, for the
succession of grain crops (if there are even
two in the course), as well as for other things,
in one or the other variety, which have been
already stated.

Every rotation yet known in Virginia is more
or less objectionable, upon one or more of the
following grounds :

The adoption of certain usual crops, without
regard to the various qualities and the wants
of the soils, or even to the demand of the
market. Thus every farmer is sure to make

corn and wheat (or oats) his principal, if not his
only crops. Thus, the fields are deprived uni-
versally of the most improving culture of roots,
which dip into and draw from the soil deeply :
and of pea crops, which feed on the air, and
give the product to the soil as manure ; and of
all annual green manure crops, which would
cleanse the soil by their getting in, their growth,
and ploughing under, as well as manure it ; and
the store cattle and hogs suffer for the want of
roots and other succulent food, and those which
are necessarily well fed consume grain almost
exclusively. Besides these and other objec-
tions, which any good practical farmer, or sound
theorist, would make, I would further object to
the great defect of the preparatory crop not
serving to destroy the weeds which will ob-
struct, and the insects which will prey on the
succeeding crop. Two great exceptions to this
last general fault are presented when wheat
follows clover, or tobacco, both of which are
plants of the broad-leaved kind, unlike in all
respects to the succeeding crop, and of such
unlike conditions also, that it may be presumed
that the growth of either has served well to
destroy many of both the weeds and insect
depredators, which are injurious to wheat. Ac-
cordingly, these two crops are the best forerun-
h-^rs of wheat; which after them always is an
excellent crop for the land and the season.

Every well-informed farmer will agree to the
importance of there being more meliorating
crops introduced in our rotations — more grass,
peas, roots, and broad-leaved vine crops. But
the objection always is to making crops for
which there is no sale or market demand. But
suppose there is no direct sale and money profit
made from hay or roots, they will yield as much
profit by being used to feed and fatten {not merely
to keep alive) the necessary farm-stock, and thus
allow to be sold the corn and other grain which
would be otherwise consumed by the animals,
with less relish and less benefit.

While roots are totally wanting in our rota-
tions, one important office is left unfilled, that
is, the deep piercing of the soil and thorough
opening of it by tap-rooted and tuberous-rooted
plants. Another thing wanting, is the plough-
ing under of pea or other annual green crops,
to cleanse, as well as to manure the soil. These
properly introduced, and the grain. crops sepa-
rated by green crops, would produce rotations
far more improving to the land than any yet
known, and probably as much better for early
annual income as for improvement of the land,
the farmer's best capital.

ROWAN TREE {Pyrus aucuparia). The
quicken tree, or mountain ash, as it is some-
times called, is a handsome tree, of slow
growth, with a lough, cross-grained, not very
hard wood, indigenous to our mountains,
woods, and hedges. The leaves are pinnate,
scarcely a span long, composed of leaflets, uni
form, serrated, smooth. The fruit is globose,
scarlet, very juicy, sour, and bitter. They are
eagerly devoured by birds of the thrush kind<
The fruit, also, when the bitter is extracted by
soaking it in water, may be made into a pre-
serve.

RUBBING-POST, A stone pillar or post set
up in a field for cattle, bpg§, or other animals

RUDDLE.

KYE- GRASS.

to rub against, and for the protection of the
gates, trees, and fences themselves.

RUDDLE or RADDLE. A kind of red
earthy ochre, or ironstone, very easily reduced
to powder, which is found in several parts of
England, especially in Derbyshire; and is used
in marking sheep.

RUE {Ruta graveolens). Rue thrives best in
a poor brick earth, in which a portion of cal-
careous rubbish has been mixed. It will not
endure the application of dung or a rich soil,
for although this causes a luxuriant growth in
summer, death is as certainly produced by
severe frosts. It is propagated by slips and
cuttings as well as from seeds ; the first two
modes being usually practised as being the
most easy. It may be planted or sown any
time during the spring.

RUNCINATE. A botanical term, applied
to the lobes of leaves : a leaf is said to be run-
cinate when it is irregularly lobed, the lobes
gradually diminishing to the base, and hooked
backwards. The leaf of the dandelion (Taraxa-
cum) is a good example of the runcinate leaf.

RUNT. A name given to a small kind of
black cattle brought from Wales and Scotland.
See Cattle. It is also a term applied to the
weak and stunted pigs of alitter ; also several
species of pigeons ; as the Leghorn, Spanish,
and Friesland runt.

RUSH (Juncus; Linnaeus derived the name
from jungo, to join; in allusion to the first
ropes being made from rushes). This is' an
extensive genus of coarse plants, many of them
aquatics, which are common on most wet
lands. Rushes always intimate a deep, rich
soil, and thrive best in land which is too cold
and wet for other plants. The growth of these
plants may be easily prevented by under or
surface draining, which will prevent the stag-
nation of water on the soil ; and by the appli-
cation of saline or calcareous lop-dressings,
such as sand, lime ashes, and road-scrapings.
All the species of rush do best cultivated in a
moist situation, some of them entirely in water,
and others in a peat soil ; they may be in-
creased by seeds, or dividing the roots. In
Japan they cultivate the soft rush (/. effusus)
for making floor-mats.

Sir J. E. Smith, in his English Flora, enu-
merates 23 indigenous species of rush. (Pax-
ton's Bot. Diet. ; Smith's Eng. Flor.)

Of the scirpus genus of plants, which in-
cludes the rushes, about 40 species have been
found by botanists in the United States. Among
these are the club-rush, or marsh scirpus; the
bull-rush, which is also called tall club-rush or
lake scirpus, which grows so luxuriantly along
the shores of the Delaware ; and the brown
cotton-grass, or wool-bearing scirpus.

The species of club-rush commonly met
with in the United States are the Scirptts palus-
tris, S. obtusis, S. tenuis, which, with the com-
mon bull-rush, S. Lacustris, are all worthless
occupants of low, wet grounds. (Flora Ces-
trica.)

RUST. See Mildew.

RUTA BAGA. See TuRuiPg.

RVE (Secale cereale ; Germ, roggen dut rog).
This species of grain is much more hardy, but
incalculably less valuable in every respect than i

wheat. It has been cultivated from time im-
memorial, and is supposed to be a native of
the Caspian Caucasian desert. In England
it is very little used as an article of food com-
pared with wheat and oats, though in the north
of Europe, and in Flanders, it forms a princi-
pal article of human subsistence, but generally
mixed with wheat, and sometimes also with
barley. The grains consist of 65-6 of meal,
24-2 of husk, and 10-2 of water. The prepa-
ration and culture of rye are essentially the
same as for wheat ; but the same quality of
soil is not equally suited to each. Rye grows
most luxuriantly for feeding when sown oa
hazel mould, but any poor, dry, sandy soil is fit
for its production. It is sown either broadcast
or in drills, in the autumn or spring; but the
spring variety is that most hardy and most
generally cultivated. The proportion of seed
is about two or three bushels per acre whea
required for a crop, and three bushels and a
half when it is intended to be fed off. The
meal of rye is considered second only to
wheat ; it is often used alone or mixed with a
proportion of wheat flour to make bread and
gingerbread. In those unaccustomed to its use,
it is apt to cause an acescent slate of stomach
and diarrhoea. Rye is liable to a disease called
ergot, which depends on a fungus, which at-
tacks and alters the character of the grain. It
becomes long, of a deep violet hue externally,
and pinkish-white within. The odour of the
ergotted grain is fishy and fetid, the taste
slightly acrid. Ergotted or spurred rye is poi-
sonous, when it is baked into bread. It causes
febrile symptoms, great debility, often paraly-
sis, tremors, abscesses, gangrene, and death.
Some of the epidemics which have occasion-
ally nearly depopulated the north of Europe,
have been traced to the use of the spurred rye.
As green food for sheep, rye is not only valu-
able for its early produce, but as producing a
flow of milk in the ewes. The straw is highly-
esteemed for Dunstable work, for thatching and
litter ; and is also used to stuff horse-collars.
See Eroot.

RYE-GRASS or RAY-GRASS (Lolium pe^
renne), pi. 5, a. There has been much differ-
ence of opinion respecting the merits and com-
parative value of rye-grass. It produces an
abundance of seed, which is easily collected
and readily vegetates on most kinds of soil
under circumstances of different management;
it soon arrives at perfection, and produces ia
its first year of growth a good supply of early
herbage, which is much liked by cattle. These
merits have no doubt upheld it till the present
day in practice, and will probably for some
time to come continue it a favourite grass with
many farmers. But the latter-math of rye-
grass is very inconsiderable, and the plant im-
poverishes the soil in a high degree, if the
culms, which are invariably left untouched by
cattle, are not cut before the seed advances
towards perfection. The spike of the Lolium
perenne is awnless ; calyx shorter than the
spikelets ; floret lanceolate. The varieties of
this species are very numerous, such as the
slender r)^e-grass (var. tenue) ; compound or
broad-spiked rye-grass (var. compositum) ; Pa-
cey's rye-grass (var. ramosiwi) ; Russell's grass
4 M 2 965

SACCHARINE.

SAGO.

(Russellianum); Whitworth's grass (Whiitoorthi-
ensis) ; Stickney's grass (Stkkneiensis) ; pani-
cled rye-grass (paniculahnn)', double-flowered
rye-grass (monstrosum) ; viviparous rye-grass
{viviparum) : all the varieties have a strong
tendency to vary their form when sown on dif-
ferent soils. The annual species are common
only to land under cultivation, under the alter-
nate husbandry.

Rye-grass appears to have been cultivated
previous to the year 1677 (Wotdridge's Husb.
1st ed.), besides which, red clover, spurrey, tre-
foil, and nonsuch were the only plants then
cultivated as grasses, or termed such ; and it is
only of late years that any other species of the
natural grasses has been tried as a substitute
for it in forming artificial pastures. One peck
of rye-grass, with fourteen pounds of clover,
per acre, is generally considered sutficient for
sowing artificial pastures. Rye-grass, when
not more than three years old, flowers in the
second week of June, and ripens the seed in
about 25 days after : as the plants become older
they flower much later, sometimes so late as
the beginning of August. See Grasses.

A variety called the Italian rye-grass was
some time since brought prominently into no-
tice, and is well spoken of. One species of
rye-grass, the bearded darnel (LoUum temulen-
tum) is poisonous. PI. 7, c. It is an annual, and
flowers in July. The root is downy and fibrous;
the culm leafy, smooth, about two feet high,
with leaves of a bright-green, rough in the
under disk. The spike is a span long, and
roughish. The calyx of the flowers linear,
flattish, many-ribbed, rising above the spike-
lets. The florets are six, with the outer valve
of the corolla elliptical, concave, with a dorsal
awn. The seeds are elliptical, flattened, and
furnished with a furrow along its upper side.
See Daritel.

S.

SACCHARINE. A term applied to such
substances as contain sugar. The plants in
■which this substance is abundant are in gene-
ral highly nutritious and useful in the fattening
of animals. See Molasses and Sugar.

SACKS. The term sack, in the sense of a
bag, is found in all the European and many
Asiatic languages.

SAFFRON (Crocus sativus). The stigmata
of this purple crocus are of a deep orange
colour, and when in quantity have a peculiar
and very characteristic odour; they are used
in medicine, chiefly as a rich yellow or orange-
colouring matter. Saff"ron is now chiefly im-
ported from the south of Europe, especially
Spain ; it was formerly much cultivated in
England in the vicinity of Saff'ron Walden, in
Cambridgeshire.

SaflTron is often largely adulterated with the |
petals of other plants, especially with those of i
the marigold. The English saffron is superior j
to that brought from Spain. It should never '
be compressed into cakes, but the stigmata left j
in a dry, shrivelled state, or, as it is termed, hay ;
saffron. Where the stigmata are pale, the saf- [
966

fron is bad. Saffron, as a medicine, is of little
value. See Carthamus and Crocus.
SAFFRON, THE MEADOW. See Col-

CHICUM.

SAGE, GARDEN {Salvia officinalis; from
salveo, to be safe, on account of the sanative
properties with which it was supposed to be
fraught). Sage is now used principally in cu-
linary preparations. There are several varie-
ties, as, 1. The common green. 2. Worm-
wood. 3. Green, with variegated leaves. 4. Red,
with variegated leaves. 5. Painted, or parti-
coloured. 6. Spanish, or lavender-leaved.
7. Red. A dry, moderately fertile soil, is best
suited to their growth, in a rather sheltered
situation. If the soil is rich, or super-abound-
ing in moisture, they grow luxuriantly, but are
apt to perish in winter. Sage is propagated by
cuttings of the young shoots from the sides of
the branches, sometimes also by rooted offsets,
and likewise by seed. See Clary.

SAGE, THE WOOD. See Germawder.

SAGO (Malay and Jav. sagu). A species
of fecula or starch obtained from the cellular
substance of a palm tree — the Sagus fariniferoy
Gaertn; Sagus Rumphii, Wild. In the early-
writers it is called sagu, suga, and zaga. In
Java the word signifies bread. The sago
which is procured from the above palm, and
six other species of the same family; is the
pith of the trunk. When the tree is of suffi-
cient age it is cut down, split, and the pith ex-
tracted and reduced to powder, which is mixed
with water and strained through a sieve. The
sago is deposited from the fluid, and after two
or three washings it is fit for use, and is called
in this state, when dried, sago-meal. For the
European market it is made into a paste and
granulated, and is known in the trade under
the name of pearl sago. The consumption of
sago has undergone an almost incredible in-
crease within the last twenty years, which is
wholly ascribable to the reduction in the inter-
val of the oppressive duties by which the arti-
cle was formerly loaded. Sago has latterly
been brought prominently into notice as food
for domestic animals usually reared upon the
farm, particularly horses and calves. Experi-
ence having decided in favour of its whole-
someness and economy, it will no doubt very
soon become a general and staple article of
food on all farms that rear young stock. From
its emollient and nutritive properties, it ap-
pears to be admirably adapted for calves while
on milk ; for cows sometimes before and after
calving; for young horses in winter, instead
of much dry corn, or none at all, as is too fre-
quently practised; and for young pet lambs,
whose mothers have either died or forsaken
them, in which events a serious encroachment
is apt to be made on the milk intended for the
calves. Sago seems peculiarly well adapted
for horses for fast work, and for sporting dogs,
since it is found to leave the wind unaffected;
and with regard to fowls, the whole class of
them might be rendered by it much more white
in flesh and delicate for the table, than the food
usually allowed them on farms.

Sago is most commonly used in a gelatinous
slate, and it is easily reduced to that state by
boiling water.

SAINFOIN.

SALT. COMMON.

As a drink for horses, after a severe run or
burst in the field, sago gruel, consisting of
about a pound of the mucilage or jelly, com-
pletely dissolved in two or three gallons of
warm water, is found to be superior to any
other kind of drink. For cows, the jelly
should also be given in the shape of drink.
Sago jelly mixed with new milk forms an ex-
cellent food for calves. Dogs should have the
jelly poured over biscuit, bread, or potatoes.
To pigs sago should be administered in the shape
of drink, from 2 to 3 pounds being given to each
pig once a day ; and the jelly for fowls should
be in warm balls, mixed up with barley meal.

Sago has been sometimes used as an ingre-
dient of household bread, in the proportion of
1 part of sago to 3 of whealen flour. It forms
an excellent pudding for the convalescents
from acute diseases. It is only moderately nu-
tritious, consisting chiefly of starch ; yet it is
the bread, and may be termed the staff of life
of natives of the Molucca islands.

SAINFOIN or SAINTFOIN (Hedysarum
onobrychis). The Bourgogne or Esparette of
the French. PI. 8, g. Having been first intro-
duced to the farmer from France, this plant
brought its French name of saint-foin along
with it; and cock's-head, by which it was be-
fore known as a native of England, is become
obsolete. The stems of sainfoin are recum-
bent, 2 or 3 feet in length ; leaves pinnate,
nearly smooth; flower-stalks axillarj', ascend-
ing, longer than the leaves, each bearing a
dense tapering spike of handsome variegated
•crimson flowers. The fruit is a legume, erect,
single-seeded, toothed at the margin and ribs.
Sainfoin is a well-known object of cultivation
as fodder for cattle, on dry, barren, especially
chalky or marly ground, in open situations.
From its not thriving well except the soil or
subsoil be calcareous, sainfoin is not generally
met with in England; it is most extensively
cultivated on the Cotswold Hills, and on the
chalk soils of Surrey, &c. Its nature, quali-
ties, and treatment are similar to those of Lc-
CKRN, which see.

SAINT JOHN'S-WORT. See Johx's-Wort.

SAINT PETER'S -WORT. See Johji's-

WOHT.

SALAD, CORN. See Cork Salad.

SALAL BERRY. A new fruit from the valley
of the Columbia river. It is about the size of
a common grape, of a dark purple colour, and
possesses a sweet and pleasant flavour.

SALLOW. The common name of several
species of Salix, which, unlike those known
under the name of osiers, are not flexible, but
form large trees or rough bushes, which grow
in moist, marshy woods and hedges, in various
parts of England. Sallows generally yield the
best kind of charcoal for the manufacture of
gunpowder, though all the species of salix are
burnt for the preparation of this substance.
Sir J. E. Smith particularizes, in England,
nearly a dozen diflerent native species of sal-
low. See Osier and Willow.

SALLOW-THORN (Hippophue, from hippos,
a horse, and phao, to destroy ; in reference to
the supposed poisonous qualities of the seeds).
The species are mostly ornamental trees or
shrubs, growing in any common soil, and may

be readily increased by layers or cuttings of
the roots. The common sallow-thorn or sea-
buckthorn (H. rhamnoides) is a bushy, rigid
shrub, 5 feet or more in height, with hard
wood, and straight, spreading, leafy branches,
each terminating in a thorn. The shrub is a
native, being found growing wild on sandy
cliffs on the eastern coast of England. The
leaves are linear-lanceolate, scattered, decidu-
ous, 1^ inch long, on short stalks, dark-greea
on the upper side, minutely dotted, beautifully
silvery as well as scaly beneath.

SALSIFY (Tragopogon porrifolius). An or-
namental plant, which, when grown in the
kitchen garden, succeeds in any common soil.
It is sown and treated in the same manner as
carrots ; the flavour of the root is mild and
sweetish. When properly cooked, it has a
flavour much resembling that of oysters, from
which it often goes by the name of oyster plant

SALSILLA {Edible ahtrceinena). A very
herbaceous plant, a native of Peru. Its roots
are eaten like the potato. It is cultivated in
the West Indies, and may answer well in many
parts of the United States. {Kenrick).

SALT, COMMON, as a manure (Germ. saU;
It. sale). This salt is a compound of chlorine
and a metal, the base of soda, called sodium ;
or, in chemical language, salt is a chloride of
sodium. It is too well known to require de-
scription; but it may be proper to state that it
dissolves equally well in cold and in hot water.

It would be, perhaps, difficult to name any
other substance in the catalogue of modern fer-
tilizers, whose powers have been so often and
so warmly disputed as common salt ; and for
this controversy many reasons maybe assigned.
It has been generally employed with little scien-
tific accuracy, and in far too loose a manner
for any reliance to be placed upon the majority
of the reports which have been furnished to us ;
and for many years a prohibitory duty in Eng-
land rendered it inaccessible to the farmer —
an impost which has not very long been re-
moved, and which yet was the occasion of a
great variety of blundering trials, miscalled ex-
periments. The duty on salt was, indeed, one
of long continuance. It originated as a war
tax, in the ninth year of the reign of William
III., and was not removed until after many
an arduous debate, in the end of that of George
IIL The price of salt, in consequence of the
duty, was raised from 6rf. a bushel to more thaa
20». ; and was, therefore, during the continu-
ance of the tax, too expensive a fertilizer to be
employed by the English farmer; and it was
only after being for a century and a half lost
to agriculture, that it was again presented, in
1823, unshackled with duties, to the notice of
the agriculturist. During that long interval,
salt, as a manure, was known only in the tra-
ditions of the English farmers. Through these
they learned, that it was formerly used to kill
worms, and to destroy weeds ; that it cleansed
fallows, increased the produce of light, arable
soils, and was good to sweeten grass. These
reported advantages were rendered more pro-
bable by certain facts that had been forced, as
it were, upon their attention. The gardener
was well aware that the brine of the pickling-
tubs, when poured over his heaps of weeds, not

967

SALT, COMMON.

SALT, COMMON.

only killed every weed, every seed, and every
grub, but that these heaps were then converted
into so many parcels of the most fertilizing
manure ; the good effects of which, especially
tipon potatoes and carrots, were very decided.
It was well known, too, that a single grain of
salt 'placed upon an earthworm speedily de-
stroyed it ; that if brine were poured upon the
lawn, all the earthworms were immediately
ejected from that spot; and that if it were
sprinkled about over a portion of the grass, to
this salted portion all the deer, sheep, or the
horses of the park constantly repaired, in pre-
ference to any other part of the field. Salt evi-
dently, therefore, destroyed weeds and worms,
and rendered grass more palatable to live-
stock ; and, upon consulting the old agricultu-
ral writers, it was found that the notices of salt
as a manure were many and important; and
that salt had been employed in various agri-
cultural operations from a very early period.
Thus it is referred to in St. Luke, xiv. 34. Vir-
gil reprobates a salt soil. Cato, 150 years b. c,
commends it for cattle, hay, straw, &c. ; as
does Virgil, lib. 3, v. 394. The early German
farmers knew of its value for sheep ; and for
the same purpose, in Spain, it has been em-
ployed from the earliest ages. In 1670, Conrad
Heresbach commends it as being a certain pre-
vention of the "murrain or rotte." In 1653,
Sir Hugh Piatt speaks of salt as a fertilizer in
his usual visionary manner, and details the
result of a very successful experiment on a
** patch of ground" at Clapham; from which
some late writers upon the uses of salt have
led their readers into great blunders, by stating
that this experiment was performed on an acre
of land.

The use of salt by the cultivator, since
the repeal of the duties in 1823, has been
considerable, however, in many districts of
England, in spite of these blundering instruc-
tions, ill-contrived experiments, and ignorant
conclusions. If to this be added the natural
difficulty of obtaining correct results in any
experiments in which vegetable life is con-
cerned, we need no longer be surprised that
many contradictory statements have been made
with regard, not only to salt, but to all other
fertilizers.

Common salt is composed of 35-42 parts of
chlorine, and 23-3 of sodium. This is not the
place to enlarge upon its almost universal pre-
sence in almost all waters, soils, and situa-
tions, nor of the masses with which our country
is endowed. Its fertilizing properties, when
applied to land, may be described as five in
number.

1. In small proportions, it promotes the' de-
composition of animal and vegetable substances
— a fact first ascertained by Sir James Pringte
and Dr. Macbride. Salt, therefore, promotes
the rapid dissolution of the animal and vege-
table remains contained in all cultivated soils.
The recent discoveries of M. Macaire, with
regard to the excretions of vegetables, impart
considerable information as to the use of com-
mon salt in promoting the putrefaction of vege-
table substances in the soil ; since it has been
shown by this gentleman that the brown excre-
tory matter of a plant is extremely noxious to
968

those of its own species ; the salt, therefore, by
its presence in the soil, promoting the putre-
faction of the excretion, naturally assists in.
removing the offending matter ; and, in so doing,
the excretion, as it decomposes, certainly af-
fords nourishment to the plant which produced
it. We are fully aware that this hypothesis
may be disputed : we therefore offer it merely
as an hypothesis. But it is true that salt, pro-
perly used, enables land which has been de-
teriorated by one crop to bear another with
advantage.

2. It destroys vermin and kills weeds, which
are thus converted into manure. 3. It is a di-
rect constituent or food of some plants ; and it
has been clearly ascertained, that if salt is
applied to a soil, the vegetables afterwards
growing on that land are found to contain an
increased proportion of common salt. (Mr.
George Sinclair, Prize Essay on Salt as a Ma-
nure.) All marine plants contain it in consider-
able proportions. 4. Salt acts on vegetable
substances as a stimulant. Dr. Priestley tried
various experiments, all supporting this suppo-
sition. He added to phials, containing an
ounce and a half of water, various proportions
of common salt, from 1 to 12 grains, and
in the solutions placed various sprigs of mint
and other vegetables. In those solutions which
contained more than 12 grains, the plants died
immediately, and the rest died in their order,
except that which contained 3 grains of salt,
which seemed to grow as well as plants grow-
ing in simple water. It was remarkable, how-
ever, that this plant, as well as all those that
died in the stronger solutions, seemed to flou-
rish at first more than those which were grow-
ing in simple water, and that that which had
3 grains of salt, and that which had 1 grain
only, continued to live after the plants in sim-
ple water were dead. (^Nat. Philos. vol. i. p.
106.) That vegetable substances are capable
of being stimulated by chemical solutions, is
well known. A solution of chlorine in water
will make certain seeds vegetate which would
otherwise rot in the earth ; and a mixture of
camphor, &c., has been found to be very bene-
ficial in restoring vitality to cuttings of various
exotics too long delayed on their passage.
5. Salt preserves vegetables from injury by
sudden transitions in the temperature of the
atmosphere. That salted soils do not freeze so
readily as usual when salt is applied to them,
is well known ; and that salt preserves crops
of turnips, cabbages, &c., from injury by the
frost, is equally well established. (Johnson's
Essay on Salt, pp. 6—68.)

6. Salt renders earth more capable of ab-
sorbing the moisture of the atmosphere — a
property of the first importance, since those
soils which absorb the greatest proportion of
moisture from the atmosphere are always the
most valuable to the cultivator. " It affords,"
said the illustrious Davy, "one method of
judging of the productiveness of land." (jSgr.
Chem. p. 184.) See Earths.

The impure picking of scalings of the salt-
makers is usually to be obtained by the farmer
at a very low rate, and from its being a mixture
of common salt and gypsum (sulphate of lime),
it is excellently adapted as a manure for the-

SALT, COMMON.

grasses, such as clover, lucem, sainfoin, &c.;
and, as such, I will give the chemical analysis,
for the information of the cultivator, of the re-
fuse of the marine and fossil salt-makers.
The pan scale of the Lymington marine salt-
makers consists, according to the analysis of
Dr. Henry, of —

Muriate of magnesia - - _ - 29

Desiccated sulpiiate of magnesia - 18

Carbonate of lime and magnesia - 127

Sulphate of lime ... - 216

Muriate of soda (sea-salt) - - - 610

1000

Of the pan scale of the fossil salt-refiners of
Norwich, two specimens were examined by
Dr. Henry ; the first was composed of —

P»rtt.

Common salt ----- 960
Carbonate of lime - - - - 10
Bulpbate of lime - - - - 40

1000

The second variety was composca of—

Common salt
Carbonate of lime
Sulphate of lime

100
110
790

1000

Salt, it should be remembered, rarely causes
the wheat plant to grow larger or taller, but it fills
up the ear better, and brings the weaker plants
forward. Mr. Sinclair informs us, that " sail
appears to lessen the produce of straw, and
increase the weight of grain." I have never
been able in my experiments, nor in any I have
■witnessed (with salt alone), to observe any in-
creased quantity of straw, even in cases where
there was an increased produce, by means of
salt, of 6 bushels of wheat per acre. The salt
should be applied some time before sowing the
seed, not less than 10, and not more than 20
bushels per acre. In my own experiments upon
a light gravelly soil, at Great Totham, in Essex,
the use of this quantity of salt per acre (in
1819) produced an increase of 5^ bushels per
acre. The following statement of the result
of some trials in 1820, on a light and gravelly
soil, will show how important may be the result
to the country at large by its judicious applica-
tion. I regret that incessant employment of a
very difierent nature has hitherto prevented my
continuing these experiments.

Prodtice per Aert. BwbeU. lbs.

No. I. Soil without any manure for 4 years - 13 36
S. Soil manured with stable dung to the

previous crop (potatoes) - - 26 52
3. Soil with 5 bushels of salt per acre,

and no other manure for 4 years - 26 12

The testimony of a plain Essex farmer cor-
roborates these results. " The soil," says Mr.
James Challis,of Panfield, " that I described to
you to be of rather a loose, hollow description,
had a dressing of salt in November, after the
wheat was sown, about 14 or 15 bushels per
acre : it produced at the rate of 6 bushels per
acre more than that which was not dressed,
and it may be stated to be II. per load of 40
bushels better in quality." (Essay on Salt, p. 45.)

It is a custom in most counties of England,

to apply salt and water as a steep to prevent

the ravages of the disease in wheat, called

smut ; the value of this is known to almost

122

SALT, COMMON.

every farmer. Recent experiments have sug-
gested that it may even be of use, when em-
ployed in larger quantities, as a preventive
of mildew ; the most dreadful of the numerous
diseases to which the cultivated grasses are
exposed. The experiments of the late Rev. E.
Cartwright strongly evidence, that when salt
and water are sprinkled with a brush upon
diseased plants, it eflfects a complete cure, even
in apparently the most desperate cases. (My
Essay, p. 49.) "The proportion, one pound to
a gallon of water, laid on with a plasterer's
brush, the operator making his casts as when
sowing corn, is instant death to the fungus."
The time and expense are trifling. It appear-
ed, in the course of some inquiries made by
the Board of Agriculture, that a Cornish farmer,
Mr. Sickler, and also the Rev. R. Hoblin, were
accustomed to employ refuse salt as a manure,
and that their crops were never infected mth the
rust or blight. See Mildew.

Experiments demonstrate the efficacy of salt
on barley and oats. In 1820, on a good alluvial
soil, at Heybridge, in Essex, in a field of barley,
the results of two experiments were —

Bathelt.

1. Soil dressed with 6 bushels of salt per acre, and

20 loads of earth and stable dung, at turnip-
lime, produced per acre - - - - 65

2. Soil dressed with 20 loads of dung and earth - 60

In the same year, at Sproughton, in Suffolk,
on a sandy, barley soil, belonging to Mr. Ran-
some : —

BiMbel* o<
. Bajriey.

1. Soil without any manure produced, per acre 30

2. Soil dressed with 16 bushels of salt per acre

in March -------51"

The following table contains the results of
fourteen experiments, made in 1819, by the late
Mr. George Sinclair, at Woburn, on the uses of
salt to the barley crop. The soil had, the pre-
vious year, carried a crop of turnips, and was
composed of three-fourths silicious sand: —

KiiidorM«Mf«,.Ddiiod«or

Qui«J»Tp.r

Prodow.

Bnbelt
of
Silt.

B<uh«U

of
Lime.

Boih.

Weiflit
BuT...

BARLBT.

Soil without manure of

any kind
Salt sown with the seed -
Salt sown with the seed -
Salt applied before sowing
Salt applied before sowing
Salt applied before sowing
Lime and salt applied be-
fore sowing - - -
Lime and salt applied be-
fore sowing - - -
Lime and salt before sow-
ing - - . -
Lime mixed and sown with
seed - - - .
Lime mixed with soil pre-
vious to sowing -

OATS.

Sown without any manure
Salt with the seed -
Salt mixed with the soil -

55

3I'

11
5}

33

11

16J

44
44

60
60
30
60
60

12
20
20
28J

28*
23*

9
22

m
m
m

n

27

Ilw.

43i

43i

J?
43

42i

42J

43

43*

43i

33
30i
27

In these experiments upon oats, the quantity
of salt applied was evidently too great. Mr.
Legrand states, that in his experiments upon
barley, " it gradually advanced in its effects to
16 bushels, and as gradually diminished to 4o
bushels, when vegetation was stopped."

969

SALT, COMMON.

The following table contains the results of
the experiments made at Woburn, 1818-19,
by the late Mr. George Sinclair, with his usual
scientific accuracy. I would direct the farmer's
attention to this table, as containing a mass of
valuable information.

SALT, COMMON.

The soil on which these experiments were
made was sandy, and the plots each contained
36 square feet ; the Talavera wheat was drilled
into the soil November 5th, and reaped August
2d, 1818.

Kind of Manure, and Mode of appljriof it

Manuret, omittiDg Fraetioni.
Quantity per Acre.

Oil-
Cake in
Buahelt.

Bpit manure applied previous to sowing the seed ...
Salt and spit manure dug in salt mixed with seed - - -
Salt mixed with soil 4 inches deep before sowing - _ -
Salt ditto ditto ditto . - . -

Salt sown with seed ---------

Salt combined with manure, dug in 4 inches deep - . -
Salt and manure : salt sown with seed, manure dug jn -
Salt and manure : salt applied to the surface - - - -

Salt simply applied to the surface ------

Salt and manure : salt applied to the surface - - - -

Salt simply applied to the surface ------

Salt and lime mixed, and applied f^ith the seed - - -
Salt and lime mixed, and applied before sowing - - .
Salt and lime mixed, and applied on the surface . - .
Lime applied with the seed -------

Lime applied to the surface -------

Salt, lime, and dung mixed, and applied as manure - - ' -
Long dung dug in as manure -------

Salt and long dung mixed, and applied as manure - . -
Lime and long dung mixed, and applied as manure - - -
Salt and long dung mixed, and applied as manure - - -
Oil-cake mixed, and applied with the seed - - - .
Oil-cake applied as common manure _ - - . -
Oil-cake and lime applied as common manure - - - -

Salt and oil cake mixed, and sown with the seed . - -
Salt and oil-cake mixed, and applied as manure - - -
Salt, oil-cake, and manure, applied as manure - - .
Salt, oil-cake, and manure; the salt and oil-cake sown with
seed, manure previously dug in ----- -

Salt, oil-cake, and lime, applied as manure - . - -
Salt, oil-cake, and lime, sown with the seed - - - -

Salt, oil-cake, and lime, applied to the surface - - -
Salt applied to the soil in the preceding spring - - .
Salt.applied to the soil in the preceding spring - . - -

45

44

44
5*
H
5i
5*
5*
5*

44

44
6i
5i
5*

121
120
120
120
120
120

ISO

90

5i

5i
6i
5i
5^

62

31

120

120
120

49
75
91
77
73
75
95
82
60
55
77
66
68
64
53
67
62
71
71
54

48

73

74i

60i

74i

74^

55i

71

55i

66

44A

26i

57f

58

59

59

57

52*

59

57i

55

53f

56

56*

56f

56

52*

54*

56*

56*

56

57

56

56

60

1»

58
58

55*
51*
55*

58

57*

47*

A$ a Manure for Grass Land, Meadows, Sfc, salt
has been used in all parts of England, with
varying success. It always, however, sweetens
the herbage. It has been employed at the rate
of 6 to 16 bushels per acre, and where the pri-
mary object has been the destruction of the
old turf, even 30 to 40 bushels have been suc-
cessfully employed on the same extent of land.
It has the effect of completely preventing worm-
casts on lawns, &c.

In a letter with which I was favoured from
Mr. Collyns, of Kenton, Devonshire, 1826, he
says — "One of my neighbours writes me, *In
using salt as a manure on grass land, I have
found the salted portions not to be affected by
severe frosty nights, when every blade of grass
on the unsalted portions has been in a frozen
state. I observe, too, that it is destructive to
every kind of grub and worm ; and I am con-
vinced, where it has been used with judgment,
that it has not failed.' Another intelligent
neighbour," continues Mr. Collyns, " whose
farm is almost entirely a light black sand,
writes, *I have found salt answer my most
sanguine expectations for barley, oats, pota-
toes, and turnips, both as to the increased
quantity and improved quality of the crops, of
which I can now give ocular demonstration :
my barley and oats, which used to yield me
only 15 to 20 bushels per acre, now yield from
40 to 45. My wheat is certainly much im-
970

proved in quality, but I expected more in quan-
tity. I have had 35 bushels of wheat from an
acre dressed with 10 bushels of salt ; and from
the same field last year, after the same quan-
tity of salt, 140 bags of potatoes per acre. This
year again, dressed with 10 bushels of salt, I
have not more than 20 bushels of wheat per
acre, but the quality very superior indeed, and
the root of clover in it very fine and luxuriant.
In every field I have salted, I find the grass
very much superior to any produced before the
use of salt.' I have since," adds Mr. Collyns,
" gone over his farm, and am astonished at the
verdant pasturage, in what used to be coarse
and rushy meadows. In this arable land, he
never got more than 10 bushels of wheat per
acre until he used salt : so that this is also a
decided improvement."

In Suffolk, according to a statement furnish-
ed to me by Mr. Broke, of Capel, near Ipswich,
"In the month of April, 1821, 6 bushels of salt
manure were applied to half an acre of red
clover ; the soil good turnip land, not sharp ;
extent of the field 10 acres. The salted clover
at first looked very yellow, and apparently in-
jured, but it soon began to recover, and when
mown, the increased produce was, at the very
least, 10 cwt. per acre; and the aftermath pro-
portionally good ; the cattle eating it dowa
closer, and in preference to any other part of
the field."

SALT, COMMON.

With potatoes. — There have been various ex-
periments made with salt as a manure for po-
tatoes. The author of this work, in 1817, on a
gravelly soil, at Great Totham, in Essex, made
the following trials : —

Bmh«U.
1. Soil simple, produce per acre , - - ISO

% Soil with 20 bushels of salt in September' - 193

3. Soil with stable manure, 20 loads in the

spring of the year ----- 219

4. Soil with 20 loads of manure and 20 bushels

of salt 234

5. Soil with 40 bushels of salt alone - - - 193^

6. Soil with 40 bushels of salt and 20 loads of

manure - 244

The Rev. Edmund Cartwright, of Hollenden
House, in Kent, in 1804, made various import-
ant trials of salt as a manure for potatoes.
The soil on which the experiments were made
consisted of three-fourths sand. See Potatoes.

" Of ten different manures," said this agri-
culturist, " salt, a manure hitherto of an am-
biguous character, is (one only excepted) supe-
rior to them all. The effect of the mixture of
salt and soot is remarkable." The writer of
this witnessed the same result on carrots, at
the rate of 10 bushels of each per acre.

Vermin. — With regard to the destruction of
vermin by means of salt, we may safely assert,
that there is, perhaps, no agricultural use of
■common salt more undoubted. The effect, too,
is direct, and the result immediately apparent.
For this purpose, from 5 to 10 bushels per acre
are sufficient. The agriculturist need be under
•no apprehension that the salt will destroy his
crop, for 20 bushels of salt per acre may be
applied to young wheat with perfect safety: I
have seen even 25 bushels used with advantage.
•See Insects.

In reference to Weeds. — Salt has been of late
years used at the rate of from 20 to 40 bushels
per acre, to kill weeds and to cleanse fallows,
with great advantage ; it also, in the large pro-
portion we have named, will destroy coarse,
sour grass, &c.; and though, for a time, all
vegetation is destroyed, yet, in a short period,
a much superior turf is produced. If the culti-
vator can collect weeds, parings of turf, ditches,
banks, &c., of the most foul description, and
spread evenly on the surface of the heap half
a bushel of salt to every ton of the collection,
he will find every weed, in the course of a few
weeks, killed and dissolved away. This plan
I have long followed myself, on a light, gravelly
soil ; and upon spreading this salted mixture,
at the rate of 14 or 15 loads per acre, its bene-
ficial effects can be traced to an inch. I have
principally used it as a dressing for turnips
and oats.

In the Garden. — Salt has been employed by
the gardener for many purposes; most com-
monly on lawns, at the rate of 10 bushels per
acre, to prevent worm-casts ; and on gravel
walks in a larger proportion, to kill weeds ; it
may be employed, however, as a fertilizer in
gardens with decided advantage. I have wit-
nessed the results of the following experiments
made by my brother, Mr. George Johnson, at
Great Totham; and I the more readily give
them a place here, from knowing with what
^care they were made : —

.The soil was composed of —

SALT, COMMON.

Stones and travel ----- IT

Vegetable fibre ----- li

Soluble matter . _ . - . )

Carbonates of lime and magnesia - - 18 li

Oxide of iron ------ 4 |

Animal and vegetable matter . - 1

Alumina ------ 4.^

Silica 4»**

Loss ------ 1

100

Windsor beans were sown on it —

8 ProdiMaper

Acre.

Soil treated with 20 bushels of salt per acre,

bushels 217

Soil simple ------- 115

Onions —

Tom. ewt qn. iix.

Salt 20 bushel, manure 20 tons, per acre 3 12 3 12
Manure 2 10 * It

Carrots —

1. Soil without any manure - - - 13 4 0 0

2. Soil with 20 tons of manure - - 22 18 0 W

3. Soil with 20 bushels of salt - - 18 2 0 0

4. Soil with 20 bushels of salt, and 20

tons of manure - - - -2301 18

Parsnips —

1. Soil with 20 tons of manure, and 20

bushels of salt - - - -6 15 00

2. Soil with 80 tons manure - - - 6 U 1 I

Early potatoes —

kkliu

1. Soil simple - - SN

2. Soil with 20 bushels of salt - . - - 584

Beets —

; Tom. ewt. m.

1. Soil simple 4 10 1 ,

2. Soil with 20 bushels of salt - - - 4 8 3

3. Soil with 20 tons of salt, and 20 tons of

manure - - - - - -700

4. Soil with 20 tons of manure - - - « 10 0 |

In preventing clubbing in the roots of some
of the brassica tribe, Mr. Johnson found salt
highly useful ; he states, in some observations
on this disease read to the Horticultural So-
ciety of London, October 16, 1821:— "Some
cauliflowers were planted upon a light silicious
soil, which had previously been manured with
well-putrefied stable manure, and over one-
third of the allotted space was sown salt, at
the rate of 20 bushels per acre, immediately
before planting in July, 1821. The previous
crop had been broccoli. Fifty-four plants were
set on the two-thirds unsalted, and 26 on the
one-third salted : the result has been, that of
the .54 unsalted, 15 have been diseased and un-
productive, but of the 26 salted only 2."

There is little doubt, but that salt might b
much more extensively employed by florist
than at present. A very small quantity of sal
added to the water in which flowers are placed,
adds considerably to their duration. There are
many bulbous-rooted flowers which flourish
best in the immediate vicinity of the sea. Mr.
Edwin Greville remarked, in 1824, that some
common salt applied at the rate of 16 bushels
per acre to a portion of a bed of stocks, in his
garden at Wyaston, in Derbyshire, made them
grow most decidedly stronger and finer, and
bloom much more perfectly than those grow-
ing in the same bed unsalted. " There was no
possibility of error or doubt on the subject,"
said my intelligent informant. I have given
the experiments of Dr. Priestley upon various
plants vegetating in salt and water. He found

971

SALT, €OMMON.

SALT, COMMON.

that the use of salt materially protracted the
existence of the plant. It is a common custom
with the importers of. exotic plants, to dip cut-
tings in salt-water. Before the adoption of this
plan, they almost invariably perished in the
passage.

'Among the many excellent communications
with which I have been favoured on the use of
salt in the cultivation of plants, was one from
an eminent florist, near Paddington, Mr. Thos.
Hogg. " From the few experiments," he ob-
serves, " that I have tried with salt as a garden
manure, I am fully prepared to bear testimony
to its usefulness. In a treatise upon flowers,
published about 6 years since, I remarked, that
the application of salt, and its utility as a bia-
nure, was yet imperfectly understood. It is a
matter of uncertainty, whether it acts directly
as a manure, or only as a kind of spice or
seasoning, thereby rendering the soil a more
palatable food for plants. The idea that first
suggested itself to my mind arose from con-
templating the successful culture of hyacinths
in Holland. This root, though not indigenous
to the country, may be said to be completely
naturalized in the neighbourhood of Haerlem,
where it grows luxuriantly in a deep, sandy,
alluvial soil; yet one great cause of its free
growth, I considered, was owing to the saline
atmosphere : this indiiced me to mix salt in the
compost; and I am satisfied that no hyacinths
will grow well at a distance from the sea, with-
out it. I am also of opinion, that the numerous
bulbous tribes of amaryllidaceae, especially
those from the Cape of Good Hope, ixias, al-
liums, which include onions, garlic, shalots, &c.,
anemones, various species of the lily, antho-
lyza, colchicum, crinum, cyclamens, narcissus,
iris, gladiolus, ranunculus, scilla, and many
others, should either have salt or sea-sand in
the mould used for them. I invariably use salt
as an ingredient in my compost for carnations;
a plant which, like wheat, requires substantial
soil, and all the strength and heat of the sum-
mer, to bring it to perfection ; and I believe I
might say, without boasting, that few excel me
in blooming that flower."

In the inundations of the sea, as in Friesland,
for instance, in 1825, various curious effects
were produced by the salt-water. The oak, the
mulberry, pear, peach, and others with deep
roots, did not suffer ; neither did the asparagus,
onions, celery, &c., for they were never finer,
or more luxuriant. But the vines and goose-
berries contracted a salt taste ; and the apricots,
apples, cherries, elms, poplars, beech, willows,
&c., could not bear the over-dose of sea-water.
They pushed out a few leaves, but speedily
perished. (Turmr's Sacred Hist. p. 117.) Simi-
lar results were noticed, after an inundation
of the sea, in the garden of the late Richard
Gower, Esq., near Ipswich, in Suffolk, in No-
vember, 1824. In this instance a portion of
the garden remained 24 hours under the sea-
water. The asparagus beds were materially
improved in their produce. The cherry trees,
in the following year, produced a numerous
crop of cherries, which tasted, however, so very
salt that they could not be eaten, although very
fine in appearance. These trees all died in
972

the following year, 1826. {Johnson on the Ferti-
lizers, p. 374.)

Salt, with other Manures. — Salt and Lime.
With a mixture of salt and lime, a manure is
gradually formed of a most powerful descrip-
tion. It promises now, through the successful
example of Mr. Bennett and Sir C. Burrell, to
be very generally adopted. It is difficult to ac-
count for the neglect of this manure, on any
other ground than the difficulties which were
so long thrown in the farmer's way, by the long-
continued tax upon salt. That it is not a novel
plan for enriching the land is quite certain.
Glauber, a celebrated German chemist, one of
the last of the alchemists, described it in the
jargon of his craft nearly two centuries since ,
when he said "The Salmirabilis (common salt),
as it is of itself, is, by reason of its corroding
virtues, which it as yet retains, plainly unfit
for the multiplication of vegetable, for that
being so used would prove more hurtful than
profitable. Upon this account it is necessary
that to one part of it be added two parts by
weight of the best calyx vine (lime), which
being moistened with water and made into
balls, are to be well heated red-hot for an hour,
that so all the corrosivity being introverted, the
sal mirabilis may be alkalizated, and used to
vegetables for an universal medicine : for it
conserves its attracting force, and loseth it not
in the heating red-hot." (Glauber^ s Wmks, by
Packe, pp. 2, 47.)

Christopher Packe, who, in 1688, published
in English Glauber's folio volume, dwells at
considerable length in his preface upon this
mixture of salt and lime; "for the enriching
of poor and barren land, it is the cheapest of
all mixtures, and is most easy to be done ; for
any ploughman having but once seen it done
may be presently able to manage it."

Salt and lime was used as a manure by Mr-
Mitchell, of Ayr, many years since, and he, not
knowing what others had done with this fer-
tilizer before his time, considered himself to
be the discoverer. He thus described his pro-
cess : — Take 32 bushels of lime, and ^lack it
with sea-water, previously boiled to the satu-
rated state. This quantity is sufficient for an
acre of ground, and may be either thrown out
of the carts with a shovel over the land in the
above state, or made into compost with 40
loads of moss or earth, in which state it will
be found to pay fully for the additional labour,
and is sufficient for an acre of fallow ground,
though ever so reduced before. Its component
parts are muriate and sulphate of lime, mineral
alkali, in an uncombined state, also muriate
and carbonate of soda. All the experiments
have done well with it, but especially wheat
and beans ; and it has not been behind any
manure with which it has been compared.
There is one instance in which it was tried in
comparison with 72 cart-loads of soaper's waste
and dung; and although this was an extraordi-
nary dressing, yet that with this salt and lime
manure was fully above the average of the
field. Mr. Mitchell calculates that 3000 gallons
of sea-water, boiled down to about 600 gallons,
will slack 64 bushels of shell lime. (These
3000 gallons of sea-water will contain about

SALT, COMMON.

SALTS.

for 2 acres. The expense of carrying the water
from the sea, the evaporation, &c., he adds, will
cost 205. The 64 bushels of limestone cost him
40s., or 3/. for 2 acres.

The use of this mixture of salt and lime was
also noticed in the year 1800, by Mr. Hollings-
head, of Chorley, in Lancashire, who observes :
"Lime prepared for manure should be slacked
with salt-springs or salt-water : lime so slacked
will have a double effect." And in 1816, Mr.
James Manley, of Anderton, in Cheshire, when
giving his evidence before a committee of the
House of Commons on the salt duties, men-
tioned, that in getting marl (which is a mixture
of carbonate of lime, alumina, and silica), he
had found that, by mixing it with brine instead
of water, the portion of the field on which the
brined marl was used yielded 5 bushels of
■wheat per acre more than that portion on
which the watered marl was employed ; and
it may be well to remember, that the celebrated
salt sand of Padstow Harbour is composed of
64 per cent, of carbonate of lime ; and that, in
the experiments of the late Rev. Edmund Cart-
wright, upon potatoes, of 25 manures, or mix-
tures of manures, salt and lime were found
superior in their product of potatoes to 19
others.

Every farmer has it in his power, even in the
most inland situations, to procure this most ex-
cellent manure for the use of his farm, by
means of a mixture of two parts of lime and
one part of common salt, and suffering it to
remain incorporated in a shady place, or cover-
ed with sods, for 2 or 3 months ; a plan which
I suggested some years since. {Essay on Salt,
p. 32, 3d ed.) By this process a gradual de-
composition takes place, muriate of lime and
soda are formed, the whole mass speedily be-
coming encrusted with alkali. There is another
advantage to be derived from the adoption of
this process, besides the formation of soda, viz.,
that the muriate of lime is one of the most
deliquescing or moisture-absorbing substances,
with which we are acquainted ; and, in conse-
quence, whenever it exists in a soil, the warmth
of the sun has, in summer, much less influence
on it than it would*otherwise have.

I would especially warn those who try the
effect of a mixture of salt and lime, to attend
carefully to the directions I have given, and
not, as some farmers have done, to use the
mixed salt and lime immediately, before any
decomposition has taken place. After it has
been well mixed together in a dry state, it
should be allowed to remain 2 or 3 months un-
disturbed, and then applied at the rate of from
35 to 60 bushels per acre, either by sowing it
out of a seed-basket, or mixed with earth, and
spread in the usual way. It is necessary to
give the mixture time, since the decomposition
proceeds very slowly, and is not to be hastened
by any simple process. See Lime.

Salt and iSoo^— Salt has never been employed
with other substances so extensively as it
might. I have used it for potatoes, mixed with
earth, ditch-scrapings, and with soot, with the
most decided success ; the places where it has
been thus applied being much superior, both
in appearance and in produce.

The mixture of salt with soot produces
the most remarkable effects, especially when
trenched into ground prepared for carrots. Mr.
G. Sinclair found that when the soil, uuma-
nured, produced twenty-three tons of carrots
per acre, the same soil, fertilized with a mix-
ture of only six bushels and a half of salt, and
six and a half of soot, yielded forty tons per
acre. Mr. Belfield describes the mixture as
equally beneficial for wheat. And Mr. Cart-
wright found, that when the soil, without any
addition, yielded per acre 157 bushels of pota-
toes, that, dressing the same land with a mix-
ture of thirty bushels of soot and eight bushels
of salt, made it produce per acre 240 bushels.
(Johnson on Fcrtiliztrs.)

SALTS, their uses to vegetation. That peculiar
saline substances exist in almost all vegetables,
was an early observation made by the natural
philosopher. The saline and alkaline taste
perceivable in the ashes obtained by the com-
bustion of these substances, very plainly indi-
cated the fact. And although the skill of the
chemist did not at first enable him to accu-
rately discriminate between the salts, the alka-
lies, or even the earths contained in plants,
with even tolerable accuracy, yet the progress
of science has long since surmounted a mass
of difficulties, and has detected a strange va-
riety of salts in plants. A salt, be it remem-
bered, is a substance produced by the combi-
nation of an acid with a base, that is, with an
earth, an alkali, or a metallic oxide : the class
of salts, therefore, is exceedingly numerous
(they have been estimated at about 2000), and
includes many substances which at first sight
do not appear entitled to such a name ; thus
the union of the carbonic acid with the earth
lime, which is an oxide of a metal, forms the
salt carbonate of lime, or chalk, marble, &c.
Sulphuric acid and lime form the salt sulphate
of lime (gypsum), with phosphoric acid, phos-
phate of lime (earthy matter of bones), and
many other earthy salts look to the mechanical
eye as little like salts as these.

The farmer must avoid, in entering into this
examination, the common error of supposing
that the saline substances found in plants are
not their essential constituents or food, but are
merely there by chance ; that their presence is
unattended with benefit, and their absence
totally unproductive of injury ; for such is a
most erroneous conclusion. Not only are cer-
tain salts, the phosphate and sulphate of lime,
and the carbonate of potash, for instance, inva-
riably present in certain plants, but without
those salts are present in the soil in which they
grow, they will not maintain a healthy vegeta-
tion. Under the head Earths, Gases, Watkb,
I have endeavoured to show how essential
those substances are to vegetation, and what a
great part they perform in the support of the
farmer's crops ; but still it will be found, that
when a soil is carefully composed of all the
pure earths discovered in plants, watered in
abundance with pure water, and supplied with
all the gases of putrefaction and of the atmo-
sphere, that still all these are not sufficient by
themselves to support a single ordinarily culti-
vated crop; but then it is found that where
such a soil is supplied with various saline sub-
4 N 073

SALTS.

stances (for instance, with the various sa-
line matters draining from a dunghill), that
then every difficulty is removed. Neither must
the cultivator suppose, that when saline sub-
stances are mixed with the soil, that then the
plant growing upon it absorbs those salts as a
mat'ter of necessity, united with the moisture
contained in that soil, without having the power
of rejecting or separating it from its solution ;
for such an assumption has been proved to be
contrary to the fact by several very accurate
experiments. M. Saussure, for instance, found
that plants had the power, ^hen placed in sa-
line solutions, foreign to their habits, of sepa-
rating them from the water in which they were
dissolved. These are researches fraught with
instruction to the cultivator. He dissolved the
following salts in water, in such proportions
that each solution contained y^^ part of its
weight of the salt — muriate of potash, muriate
of soda (common salt), nitrate of lime, sul-
phate of soda (Glauber salt), muriate of am-
monia (sal ammonia), acetate of lime, sulphate
of copper (blue vitriol). In each of these so-
lutions he put plants of Polygonum Persiairia,
or of Bidcns cunnabhia, furnished with their
roots. The Polygonum grew for five weeks in
the solution of muriate of potash, nitrate of
lime, muriate of soda, and sulphate of soda,
and its roots increased in them as usual. It
languished in the solution of sal ammoniac,
and the roots made no progress. It died in 8
or 9 days in the solution of acetate of lime,
and in less than 3 days in the solution of sul-
phate of copper. When such a number of
plants of Polygoyium were put into the solu-
tions as to absorb one-half of each in 2 days,
the remaining half was found to have lost very
different proportions of the salt which it had
originally contained. Supposing the portion
of salt at first in solution to be 100, the follow-
ing table exhibits the quantity of each which
had disappeared when one-half of the liquid
was absorbed —

SALTa

0 CNitraleoflime
' \ Sulptiate of CO

copper

f Sulphate of soda
l.< Muriate of soda
C Acetate of lime

17

34
6

10
0

Muriate of pntaeh
Muriate of soda
Nitrate of lime -
Sulphate of soda
Muriate of ammonia
Acetate of lime •
Sulphate of copper

Part*.
14-7
13
4

14-4

12

8

47

The Bidens absorbed pretty nearly the same
proportions, but in general did not vegetate so
long as the Polygonum.

When various salts were dissolved at once
in the same solution, and plants made to vege-
tate in them, it was found that different propor-
tions of the salts were absorbed. The follow-
ing table exhibits the results of these trials,
supposing, as before, the original weight of
each salt to have been 100, each solution con-
tained J Jjj part of its weight of each salt—

J S Sulphate of soda -
■ 1 Muriate of soda
3 f Sulphate of soda -
■( Muriate of potash -
2 f Nitrate of lime

\ Muriate of ammonia
^ f Acetate of lime

1 Sulphate of copper
, f Acetate of lime
" ( Muriate of potMto -
y?4

Pari*.

11-7

22

12

17

4-6
M-6
31
84

8
17

These experiments succeeded nearly equally
with other plants, as the Mentha piperita and
the Scotch fir. When the roots were cut or
removed, the plants absorbed all solutions in-
discriminately; on examining the plants, the
salts absorbed were found in them unaltered.
It being thus clearly established that plants
possess a discriminating power, and that they
do not absorb saline solutions merely because
they happen to be dissolved in the soil, it next
becomes an object of interest, as an illustra-
tion and guide for the operations of agricul-
ture, to ascertain what salts are found by the
researches of the chemist in commonly culti-
vated plants. And if, at the conclusion of our
examination, we find that certain salts are
found in abundance only in certain plants, and
that these saline substances exist in them in-
variably in all soils and situations, and that
without their presence the plant languishes and
merely supports a sickly existence, we shall
be almost driven to the conclusion, that these
are as essentially the food of plants, as any of
the other substances with which they abound.
For a lengthened period, the vegetable alka-
line salt, carbonate of potash, has been ob-
tained from plants. Procured at first by their
combustion, in iron pots, it hence obtained its
name. Dr. Thomson has given a table of the
quantity of potash obtained from 100 parts of
the ashes of various trees and plants. See
Alkali.

In general, says Dr. Thomson, three times as
much ashes are obtained from shrubs as from
trees. An equal weight of the branches of
trees produce more ashes than the trunk, and
the leaves more than the branches. Herbs ar-
rived at maturity produce more ashes than at
any other time. Green vegetables produce
more ashes than dry. The salt which is ob-
tained by the combustion of plants, although
chiefly composed, does not consist wholly of
potash: there are many salts mixed with it;,
these are usually sulphate of potash, muriate
of potash, sulphate of lime, phosphate of lime,
&c., but these bear in general but a small pro-
portion to the potash.

Perhaps the most copious table of the alka-
line and other salts obtained by the combus-
tion of various plants has been given by M.
Saussure in his chemical researches on''vege-
tation. He obtained from 100 parts of the
ashes of the —

Leaves of oak {Q_uercus Rehur), May 10 It***

Do,, September 27 .... 17.
Wood of a young oak, May 10 - - 7-
Bark of do, ----._
Perfect wood of oak - - . .
Albumen of do. - - - . .

Bark of do.

Cortical layers of do. - -' - _
Extractof wood ofdo, - - . _
Soil from the wood of do, ...

Extract from do.

Leaves of poplar (Popnlus nigra), May 10

Do., September 12 - - . .
Leaves of hazel .....

Do,, washed in eold water - . -
Leaves of do., June 22 ....

Do., September 29 ... .

7-
38*8

7-
7-
51-
84-

ca-
se-

S6-
86-
8-2
82-7
11-

SALTS.

Wood of hazel, May 1 - - - - S4-5

Bark of do. 12-5

Wood of mulberry, November - - 21-

Wood of hornbeam, November - - 22-

Wood of horse-chestnut, May 10 - - 9 5

Fruit of do., October 5 - - - - 82-

Plants of peas (Pisum sativum) in flower 49-8

Do. ripe 34 25

Plants of vetches (Fteia faba) before

flowering. May 23 - - - - 55-5

Do. in flower ----- 55-5

Do. ripp, July 23 50-

Beedsofdo. 69 28

Do. in flower raised in distilled water - 60-1

Plants of tamsole, June 23 - - - e3-

Wheat, in flower 4325

Do., seeds ripe ----- 11-

Do. a month before flowering - - 60-

Do. in flower, June 14 - • - - - 41*

Do., seeds ri|Ms ----- 10'

Bran 4416

Plants of maize or Indian corn - - 69*

Chaff" of barley 20-

8<?ed8ofdo. ..---- 29"

Oats ------- 1-

Leaves of flr ^Pinua ahiea), raised on

limestone ------ 16'

Leaves of fir, raised on granite - - 15-

Branches of pine 15-

M. Vauquelin found 20 per cent, of potash
in the ashes of the oat ; and from his experi-
ments it is probable that potash exists in plants
in combination with the acetic and carbonic
acids.

The mineral alkali soda, or carbonate of
soda, is found in almost all the plants which
are found growing in the sea, or on the shore,
within reach of its influence. The amount of
alkali which these produce, is considerably
greater, in proportion to that produced by
plants natives of inland places. Thus, 100
parts of the salsola soda yield 19-921 parts of
ashes, and these contain 1-992 parts of soda
and common salt. Many plants, the vegetable
marrow and the vine, for instance, derive great
benefit from the application of soda to their
roots. Soap-suds arc used as an excellent
liquid manure by many gardeners.

Sea-weed, kelp-soda, barilla, and the com-
mon washing-soda of the shops, have all been
used successfully as saline manures ; and the
well-known fertilizing mixture of salt and lime,
after it has remained undisturbed for some
time, contains chloride of lime and soda in
abundance. Sea-weed abounds with a strange
mixture of alkaline salts, and there is no green
manure more powerful in its effects than this,
especially when it is ploughed in as fresh as
possible. Mr. Gaultier de Claubry found in the
jPuotts saccharinus and in the Fucm digitatus
(which is much used in Scotland as a manure)
the following substances — saccharine matter,
mucilage, vegetable albumen, oxalate of pot-
ash, malate of potash, sulphate of potash, sul-
phate of soda, sulphate of magnesia, muriate
of soda, muriate of potash, muriate of magne-
sia, carbonate of potash, carbonate of soda, hy-
driodate of potash, silica, phosphate of lime,
phosphate of magnesia, oxide of iron, oxalate
of lime. In the islands of Guernsey and Jer-
sey they employ the ashes of the sea-weeds,
which they call vraic. Half a bushel strewed
over a perch of ground in winter, or the be-
ginning of spring, is sufficient. It gives a full
ear to the corn, and prevents it from being laid.

■"Phosphate of lime, which is composed, ac-
cording to the experiments of M. Berzelius, of

SALTS.

phosphoric acid 100 parts, and lime 84*53,
abounds in vegetable substances. It forms the
basis of bones, from which, for the purposes
of experiment, it is commonly procured. Ob-
tained in this way it is always in the form of a
white powder, without either taste or smell ; is
insoluble in water, and unaltered by exposure
to the atmosphere. Phosphate of magnesia is
composed of phosphoric acid and magnesia ;
is a salt soluble in 15 times its weight of water.
These two salts have been found in a variety
of vegetable substances by MM. Vauquelin,
Saussure, and other able chemists. See Bones.

There is little doubt but that these salts are
absorbed from the soil by the plants. Almost
all cultivated soils contain them in some fornt
or other; and of the value of their addition to
the soil in almost every form, there is consi-
derable evidence. Thus, phosphate of lime
abounds in all the richest animal manures,
such as in bone-dust and the richest excre-
ments of animals; and, again, it is found by
the Cheshire graziers, that the earthy salts of
bones obtained from the size-makers, after
most of the oily matters are removed by the
action of steam, and hardly any thing but (he
salts of lime remain, are quite as fertilizing to
their pastures as when used in their fresh
state, abounding with animal matters.

Sulphate of lime, or gypsum, is another salt,
which is invariably found in and promotes the
growth of certain plants.

It must, I think, be regarded as one of those
salts which constitute the food or constituents
of plants. It is always present in the clover,
lucern, and sainfoin, and in smaller propor-
tions in the potato and the turnip. See Plas-
ter OF Paris.

That it is a food for plants, was the opinion
of Sir Humphry Davy. He remarked, when
speaking of gypsum and the alkalies, "It has
been generally supposed that these materials
act in the vegetable economy in the same man-
ner as condiments or stimulants in the animal
economy; and that they render the common
food more nutritive. It seems, however, a
much more probable idea, that they are ac-
tually a pan of the true food of plants, and that
they supply that kind of matter to the vegeta-
ble fibre, which is analogous to the bony mat-
ter in animal structures. Thus, those plants
which are most benefited by the application
of gypsum, are those which always afford it
on analysis. Clover and most of the artificial
grasses contain it, but it exists in very mi-
nute quantity only in barley, wheat, and tur-
nips." (^g. Chem. p. 19.) And it is notice-
able, that most of these remarks apply to the
phosphate of lime (which can hardly be re-
garded as a stimulant), since it is not even
soluble in water ; it is also worthy of observa-
tion, that the same salts of lime (the phosphate
and the carbonate) which Davy thus supposes
to be placed in plants to add to their strength
and solidity, are precisely those salts which for
that very purpose are placed in the bones of ani-
mals. They thus, as it were, mutually nourish,
each other. The very phosphate of lime, which,
in the dissolving bone-dust is absorbed by the
plant, again becomes, in the food of animals, a
material for the formation of other bones.

975

SALTS.

The carbonate of lime, in some of its forms
of chalk, limestone, marl, &c., is the most uni-
versally present of all the salts contained in
vegetables. It is, in minute proportions, solu-
ble in water, and more so if the water is satu-
rated with carbonic acid gas, hence it is readily
absorbed by the roots of plants. It exists in
vegetables in very varying proportions; thus,
the ashes of the perfect oat plant, straw and
seed together, were proved by M. Vauquelin to
contain more than 5 per cent, of this earth.
{Ann. de Chein. vol. xxix. p. 19.) In 32 ounces
of seeds of wheat, M. Schraedar found 12
grains of carbonate of lime; and in the same
quantity of seeds of rye 1 3-4 grains ; 24*8 grains
in seeds of barley; 33-75 in those of the oat;
and 46-2 in the same weight of the straw of
rye. It is most commonly, although not al-
ways, found in vegetables with carbonate of
magnesia. These were found together by M.
Saussure in the ashes of the following different
substances. He obtained from 100 parts of
the ashes of the —

Part*.

Leaves of oak, gathered in May - - 0*12

Do., September ----- 23*

Bark of the oak ----- 63-25

Wood of oak ------ S3*

Soil from wood of oak - - - - 10-

Wood of poplar ----- 27*

Wood of hazel ----- g-

Wood of mulberry ----- 56"

Wood of hornbeam ----- 26*

riants of peas, in flower - - - 6-

Do. of vetches, in flower" - - - 4'12

Do. raised in distilled water - - 0-

Wheat in flower ----- 025

Do. seeds, ripe - - - - - 0-25

Do. straw ------ 1*

Do. bran ------ 0"

Oat seeds ------ 0'

Barley seeds ------ 0*

Do. chaflT - - - - - - 12-5

Leaves of Rhododendron, ferruffineum,

raised on limestone - - - - 43-25

Do. raised on granite - - - - 16-75

Leaveffofflr, raised on limestone - - 43-5

Do., raised on granite - - - - 29-

Now, these two soils (the granite and the
limestone) contained carbonate of lime in the
following proportion : —

Granite. Limestone.

Carbonate of lime - - - 1-74 98-

Alumina 13-25 0-625

Silica ------ 75-25

Petroleum ----- 025

Iron and manganese - - - 9- 025

99-24 99-275

Carbonate of lime has also been detected in
the sap and white matter of the ulcer of the
elm by M. Vauquelin ; in the ashes of worm-
wood (more than 50 parts in 100), by Kuns-
muller; in the flowers of the arnica, by M.
Chevalier ; in the potato, by M. Einhof ; in the
red bark of St. Domingo, in Peruvian bark, and
in the wood of the quingania, by M. Fourcroy.
Existing, therefore, so universally in plants,
there can be no doubt of the fact that this salt
is fulfilling, then, some wise and salutary pur-
pose ; not fortuitously, but with design ; not by
chance, but by the regulation and arrangement
of their Divine Architect.

The action of saltpetre or nitrate of potash
upon vegetation is not so easily explicable as
that of many other salts ; and the same remark
applies to that of cubic petre or nitrate of soda.

Nitrate of potash, which is composed of ni-
976

SALTS.

trie acid 54-34 parts, and potash 45-66 parts,
enters into the composition of a few plants, it
is true, but in the greater number, even in
those of the farmer's crops, on which on some
soils its application produces such luxuriant
effects, its presence cannot be detected, even
in minute proportions. Some plants, however,
do contain it in considerable quantities. Thus
it has been found in the common nettle, the
horse-radish, and the sunflower. M. Chevalier
found it in the Chcnopodium olidum ; M. "Vau-
quelin in the leaves of the deadly nightshade;
M. Chevreul in woad ; Dr. John in the Mesem-
bryanthemum crystallinum. M. Boullion Le-
grange made various plants, such as the sun-
flower, vegetate in soils which did not contain
any saltpetre: upon examining them, no traces
of saltpetre were discernible, but upon water-
ing them with a weak solution, it made its ap-
pearance in them as usual. (See Nitrates.)
The presence of cubic petre (nitrate of soda),
which is composed of nitric acid 62-1, and soda
37*9, is still more rare in plants ; it has only
been detected in barley.

The salts formed with the vegetable acids
existing in the juices of plants are rather nu-
merous. Oxalate of potash, for instance, exists
in the Oxalis acetocella, and several others ;
oxalate of lime in rhubarb, parsley, fennel,
squills, tormentilla, deadly nightshade, and spi-
nach. Nitrate of lime is contained in the onion;
malate of lime in the houseleek, wake-robin,
mignionette ; and malate of potash in rue, the
garden purslane, nasturtians, lilac, madder, &c.

There is, perhaps, no saline substance that
exists to so great an extent in marine plants,
and which has been used for so long a period
and to such an extent for those growing in in-
land situations, as common salt. (See Salt.) A
substance which not only abounds in all plants
growing on the sea-shore, but always exists in
smaller proportions in many of those growing in
upland districts. Thus, Mr. G. Sinclair obtained
from 1450 grains of wheat-chaff from Bedford-
shire, ashes 50 ; common salt 2| : from 1450 parts
of the seed, ashes 10 ; common salt ^. But from
the same crop, which had been dressed with 44
bushels of common salt per acre, he obtained
from 1450 parts of the chaff, ashes 40 ; com-
mon salt 4 : and from 1450 parts of the seed,
ashes 10; common salt }.

Common salt is found generally in minute
proportions in most cultivated soils. Davy
detected in 400 grains of a good silicious soil
from a Tonbridge hop-garden, nearly 8 parts
of common salt.

Besides being in small proportions a direct
food for plants, common salt also seems to
perform several other services to vegetation,
and the same remark probably applies to other
salts ; for instance, when applied to the soil in
small proportions, it certainly promotes the
putrefaction of its organic matters. See Salt.

And again, salt, in common with several
others, appears to excite or stimulate the plant,
when applied to it in proportions not too ex-
cessive ; a fact first noticed by Dr. Priestley.

Another use of common and other salts to
vegetation is, the preservation of the plant
from injury by sudden transitions in the tem-
perature of the atmosphere : salted soils only

SALTS.

SALTS.

freeze in intense frosts. I have repeatedly wit-
nessed in the case of culinary vegetables, such
as cabbages, broccoli, &c., that, while the pro-
duce of the unsalted portions of the ground
were half-killed by the Irost, the salted portions
have totally escaped. Many salts have also
the property of retarding the evaporation of the
moisture of the soil : others absorb it from the
atmosphere, or are of the class of deliquescing
salt; such are the common salt, chloride of
calcium, chloride of magnesia, cubic petre, or
nitrate of soda, &c., which, in consequence,
"when they are used as fertilizers, they increase
this property, so valuable and so essential to
all cultivated soils. Thus I found by some
experiments upon a rich soil near Maldon, in
Essex, worth 42s. per acre, that 1000 parts,
dried at a temperature of 212°, absorbed in 18
hours, by exposure to air saturated with moist-
ure at a temperature of 62°, 25 parts. But
1000 parts of the same field, which had been
dressed with 12 bushels of marine salt per
acre, under the same circumstances gained 27
parts; and 1000 parts of the same soil, which
had been dressed with 6 bushels per acre,
gained 26 parts. The attraction of some sa-
line substances for the moisture of the atmo-
sphere is very considerable. I found that 1000
parts of refuse salt manure, dried at 212°, ab-
sorbed in 3 hours, by exposure to air saturated
with moisture at 60°, 49^ parts. 1000 parts of
the sediment or pan-scratch of the salt-makers,
gained 10 parts; 1000 parts of Cheshire crushed
rock-salt, 10 parts; 1000 parts of gypsum, 9
parts. Chloride of calcium is so powerfully
deliquescent, that it absorbs sufficient moisture
from the air to dissolve in it and form a solu-
tion. Dr. Marcet found that 288 grains in 124
days absorbed 684 grains of water. 288 grains
of nitrate of lime, a salt found in some of the
richest alluvial soils of the East, absorbs in 147
days 448 grains. Carbonate of potash, another
saline fertilizer, also absorbs moisture. Now,
it is worthy of the farmers' notice, that chlo-
ride of calcium is the very salt which is pro-
duced in such abundance by the decomposition
cf common salt by lime, in the way so suc-
cessfully recommended first, by the old Ger-
man chemist Glauber, by Mr. Hollingshead,
Mr. Bennett, and Sir Charles Burrell (See Salt
and Lime); for, by the slow action carried on
for three months by these substances on each
other, this salt and soda are produced by the
decomposition; and it is not improbable that
when these salts are present in the juices of
plants, that by this means the attractive powers
of their leaves and roots for aqueous vapour
may he increased. Davy alludes to these es-
sential, yet too little understood powers of ab-
sorption posses-sed by vegetable.^, when he says
(Lectures, p. 207), — "In very intense heals, and
when the soil is dry, the life of plants seems
to be preserved by the absorbent power of their
Jeaves; and it is a beautiful circumstance in
the economy of nature, that aqueous vapour is
most abundant in the atmosphere when it is
most needed for the purposes cf life, and that
when other sources of its supply are cut off,
this is most copious."

Of the salts of ammonia, as T have in another
place remarked, carbonate of ammonia has
123

been detected in the Chenopodium olidum by
Messrs. Chevalier and Lasseigne ; and it pro*
bably exists in other plants which are distin-
guished for their powerful disagreeable odour.
Muriate of ammonia has been found in woad
by M. Chevreul. The salts of ammonia are in
general exceedingly fertilizing in their effects
upon vegetation. Sooi owes part of its efficacy
to the ammoniacal salts it contains. The liquor
produced by the distillation of coal contains
carbonate and acetate of ammonia, and this
liquid of the gas-makers is a very good rnanure.
"In 1808,'* says Davy, "I found the growth of
wheat in a field at Roehampton assisted by a
very weak solution of acetate of ammonia." The
experiments of Mr. Robertson with soot clearly
show the fertilizing effects of the soluble por-
tion of it. He mixed together, in order to form
a liquid manure, six quarts of soot in a hogs-
head of water. "Asparagus, peas, and a va-
riety of other vegetables," says this intelligent
horticulturist, "I have manured with this mix-
ture, with as much effect as if I had used solid
dung." Care must be taken, however, in using
this and all other liquid fertilizers, not to makfi
the solutions too strong: it is an error into
which all cultivators are apt to fall in their
early experiments. Even Davy was not an
exception, since, from making his liquids too
concentrated, he obtained results which widely
differed from his later experiments. There is
no doubt but that the salts of ammonia, and all
the compound manures which contain them,
have a very considerable forcing or stimulat-
ing, or, perhaps, from their decomposition,
nourishing effect upon vegetation. In the ex-
periments of Dr. Belcher upon the common
garden cress, by watering them with a solution
of phosphate of ammonia, the plants were l5
days forwarder than plants growing under
similar circumstances, but watered with plain
water; and he also describes the experiments
of Mr. Gregory, who, by watering one-half of a
grass field with urine, nearly doubled his crop
of hay. Other testimonials in support of the
fertilizing powers of the salts of ammonia are
furnished by Mr. Handley.

Of the mode in which ammonia operates
upon plants, a late valuable work on organic
chemistry, by M. Liebig, abounds with ob-
servations, with some of which I cheerfully
and cordially agree. To understand these re-
marks, however, the farmer must remember
that ammonia is composed, according to the
analysis of Davy, of hydrogen 74 parts, and
azote or nitrogen 26 parts. "The nitrogen of
putrefied animals," he observes, "is contained
in the atmosphere, as ammonia in the form of
a gas, which is capable of entering into com-
bination with carbonic acid, and forming a
volatile salt. Ammonia in its gaseous form,
as well as all its volatile compounds, are of
extreme solubility in water. Ammonia, there-
fore, cannot remain long in the atmosphere, as
every shower of rain must condense it, and
convey it to the surface of the earth: thence,
also, rain-water must at all times contain am-
monia, though not always in equal quantity.
It must be greater in summer than in spring
or in winter, because the intervals of time be-
tween the showers are greater; and, where
4 ir 2 977

SALTS.

SAMPLE.

several wet days occur, the rain of the first
must contain more of it than the second. The
l^in of a thunder-storm, after a long-protracted
drought, ought, for this reason, to contain the
greatest quantity which is conveyed to the
eartji at one time. But all the analyses of
atmospheric air hitherto made have failed to de-
monstrate the presence of ammonia, although,
according to our view (says M. Liebig), it can
never be absent. If a pound of rain- water con-
tains only one-fourth of a grain of ammonia,
then a field of 40,000 square feet must receive
annually upwards of 80 lbs. of ammonia, or 65
lbs. of nitrogen ; for, by the observations of
Schubler, which were formerly alluded to,
about 700,000 lbs. of rain fell over this sur-
face in 4 months. This is much more nitro-
gen than is contained in tlie form of vegetable
albumen and gluten in 2650 lbs. of woad, 2800
lbs. of hay, or 200 cwt. of beet-root, which arc
the yearly produce of such a field ; but it is
less than the straw, roots, and grain of corn
which might grow on the same surface would
contain. Experiments made in the laboratory
of Giessen, with the greatest care and exact-
ness, have placed (continues Liebig) the pre-
sence of ammonia in rain-water beyond all
doubt. It had hitherto escaped observation,
because no one thought of searching for it."
See Ammonia.

I cannot recommend the farmer to adopt the
able conclusions of M. Liebig without consider-
able caution : hardly any thing retards the pro-
gress of science more than erroneous theories.
Fortunately, however, the farmer can in all
cases patiently and successfully examine and
apply the valuable facts of the skilful chemist
without mystifying himself with not always in-
telligible doctrines. It is very probable that
plants have the power of decomposing ammo-
nia, and of assimilating the nitrogen which it
contains, in the same way as there is little
doubt the hydrogen of water is assimilated by
them ; but we have no direct evidence of the
facts, and the best course, therefore, will be to
regard them not as absolute chemical truths,
but merely as of the class of what may be per-
haps denominated scientific probabilities.

Some of the other compounds of chlorine,
the old class of chlorides of the chemist, have
been tried as fertilizers, with very doubtful
success ; for although at first the seeds which
had been steeped in them germinated with a
considerably increased rapidity, yet they speed-
ily seemed to suflTer by this additional stimu-
lus. Davy tried solutions of chlorine, and sul-
phate of iron (green vitriol) : he says, "Though
the plume was very vigorous for a time, yet it
became at the end of a fortnight weak and
sickly, and at that period less vigorous in its
growth than the radish sprouts which had been
naturally developed, so that there can be
scarcely any useful application of these expe-
riments. Too rapid growth and premature de-
cay seem invariably connected in organized
structures, and it is only by following the slow
operations of natural causes that we are capa-
ble of making impiovements." Oxymuriate
of lime, or, properly speaking, chloride of cal-
cium, however, appears to be beneficial to
vegetation: this was ascertained in 1796, by
•78

Ingenhouz ; and I have given in my wo»ic 0n
Fertilizers, p. 367, the result of some trials bjr
Mr. Fincham with this chloride that were highly
successful : he says, " Half of some tumip<
seed were steeped for 36 hours in a solution
of chloride of calcium, composed of 1 part
chloride of calcium, and 48 parts water; this
was sown under precisely similar circum-
stances of soil and aspect with the (Uher half
unsteeped. The first came up much sooner,
was never attacked by the fly, and the produce
was half as much again, and the tops made
more luxuriant. He attributes the failure of
Davy to his having used the chlorine, uncom-
bincd with the base lime. Such then are the
chief facts with which I am acquainted, relating
to the uses of the saline bodies to vegetation.
It is a research much more extensive and
valuable than it at first may appear to the in-
telligent farmer. What we already know of
the action and the eflfects of these saline bodies
as the food or constituents of plants, he will
find exceedingly important. It is more than
probable, that the salts act upon vegetation in
many beneficial ways, yet unknown to the phi-
losopher. The material action upon some soils
of saltpetre (nitrate of potash), for instance, is
to us inexplicable by any chemical knowledge
that we at present possess. The effect of cubic
petre and other salts is ofYen equally mysteri-
ous; but although there are diflficulties of this
kind, the scientific farmer, far from allowing
such impediments to restrain either his ardour
or his thirst for knowledge, will only see in
these at present hidden truths additional rea-
sons for a noble perseverance in the pursuit of
knowledge ; for he will feel that the discovery
of the reasons of the at present many unknown
phenomena of vegetable life will in all reason-
able probability extend very materially the
powers, and increase the sphere of usefulness
of many succeeding generations of enlightened
cultivators.

SALTPETRE (Germ, and Fr. salpelre). See
NiTHATES and Salts.

SALTWORT (Salsola, from salsus, salt ; in
allusion to the saline properties of the species).
A genus of plants which inhabits the sea-coast,
especially abundant on the coast of the Medi-
terranean, where they are extensively gathered
and burnt for the manufacture of barilla and
soda. See Kelp.

SALT-MARSH CATERPILLAR. See Ca-

TEHPILLAH.

SALVING or SMEARING sheep is resorted
to in various districts, for the purpose of pre-
serving the fleece from the effects of weather,
destroying injurious insects, and preventing
cutaneous diseases. A mixture of damaged
butter, hog's lard, resin, and Gallipoli oil, is
found to be the most efficacious salve. Tar
stains and spoils the colour of the wool. See
Sheep.

SAMPLE. A small quantity "of a commodity
exhibited at public or private sales, as a speci-
men. Wool, wine, corn, seeds, and indeed
most species of agricultural produce and mer-
chandise that can be conveyed in small bulk,
are sold by sample. If an article be not at an
average equal to the sample by which it is
sold, the buyer may cancel the contract, aH'"*

SAND.

SASSAFRAS.

return the article to the seller. (M*CuUock's
Com. Diet.)

SAND (Germ.). Finely divided silicious
inatter constitutes common river and sea-sand :
particles of other substances are often blended
with it, and sometimes it becomes calcareous
from the prevalence of carbonate of lime.

Sand is often employed as a manure by the
cultivator of the poor, hungry clays, especially
if he can obtain calcareous sand. Sec Earths,
MiXTunE OF Soils.

SANDWORT. See Chickweed. {Jlrenaria,
from (irena, sand ; referring to the sandy situa-
tion in which most of the species are found.)
This is an extensive genus of herbs, of humble
growth, with numerous slender stems, opposite,
mostly narrow, entire, undivided leaves, and
«mall, white or reddish, inodorous flowers, with
coloured anthers. This succulent vegetable
l>ears a great resemblance to samphire, and
considerable quantities of it are pickled and
sold for that plant.

SANICLE (SortiVw/a, from tanOj to heal.)
The wood sanicle (S. Etiropea) is a mere pe-
rennial weed, growing in woods and groves
abundantly, about a foot high, flowering in
May. 'J'he root is tufted, with fleshy fibres.
The leaves are chiefly radical, simple, with
deeply cleft lobes, veinj', and of a deep shining
green. Flowers cream-coloured, in capitate
umbels, in an irregular, twice compound, partly
umbellate panicle. The herb is bitter, with an
acrid, somewhat aromatic pungency. Its re-
puted vulneraiy qualities are no longer be-
lieved.

SAP. In botany, the fluid which is absorbed
by the roots from the earth, and undergoes the
first action of the vital chemistry of the plant,
is called the sap. It is formed as the absorbed
fluid ascends upwards into the stem. It is
aAerwards conveyed to the leaves, where it is
Exposed to the influence of light and air, loses
a large portion of its v/ater, undergoes a che-
mical change, and, being returned to the
branches and stem, it is analogous to the blood
in animals ; all the secretions being formed
from it. Changed in the leaf into proper juice,
it is assimilated to the various parts of the
plant. In its crude state it consists of little
(except water, holding earthy and gaseous mat-
ter in solution, especially carbonic acid; but
as it rises through the tissue of the stem, it dis-
solves the secretions it meets with in its course,
and thus acquires new properties, so that by
the lime it reaches the leaves it is entirely dif-
ferent from its state when it first entered the
root. The course taken by the sap in its pas-
sage through the stem, is by the whole of the
tissue included within the bark, provided it is
all permeable; but as, in many plants, the
central part of the stem becomes choked up
with solid matter deposited in the tissue, it
wsually happens, especially in trees, that the
course of the sap is confined to the outer part
of the wood, hence called sapwood. It is not
certainly known through what kind of tissue
the upward motion of the sap takes place, but
it is probable that it is carried onwards through
fill the tubes and vessels of the wood, and their
intercellular passages. The dotted vessels of
■the wood seem more especially destined to

fulfil this office when the sap is in rapid mo-
tion ; but as they afterwards become empty,
while the ascent of the sap continues, there can
be no doubt that the woody tubes or pleuren-
chj ma offer the most constant means by which
the sap is conveyed. See Alruusum.

SAP-SAGO. A kind of cheese made in
Switzerland, having a dark olive-green colour
and agreeable flavour, derived chiefly, if not
entirely, from the addition of mellilot. See
CnsESE and Zabziegkr.

SAVIN. SeeJoNiPER.

SAW-DUST. The refuse or waste powder
obtained from saw-pits, after any wood or tim-
ber has been separated or cut asunder by the
saw. If fresh oak sa\v-dust be scattered on
gravel walks it efllectually prevents the growth
of weeds, and when mixed with blooJ and
quicklime it forms an excellent manure for the
garden. This substance has lately been brought
prominently into notice as an adjunct <o other
manures. There can be no doubt of its use-
fulness when made into compost with putres-
cent manures, salino' substances, and organic
matters. A compost of this kind, which has
been well mixed and decomposed, and turned
over with the spade at proper time, will pro-
duce an excellent crop of turnips.

SASSAFRAS (Laurus sassafras). This, on
account of its sensible qualities, and real or
supposed active medical virtues, was among
the first American trees which became known
to Europeans. In the United Slates, the
neighbourhood of Portsmouth, New Hamp-
shire, in latitude 43°, may be assumed as one
of the extreme points at which it is found
towards the northeast. But here it is only a
tall shrub, rarely exceeding 15 or 20 feet in
height, whilst in the Middle States it attains a
height of 50 or 60 feet, being still more stately
farther south. It is found in the Western and ex-
treme Southern States, and in the low, maritime
parts of Virginia, of the two Carolinas, and of
Georgia. The sassafras is observed to grow
of preference about plantations and in soils
which have been exhausted by cultivation and
abandoned. The old trees give birth to hun-
dreds of shoots which spring from the earth at
little distances, but which rarely rise higher
than 6 or 8 feet. Though this tree is common
on poor land, and blooms and matures its seed
at the height of 15 or 20 feet, yet it is never of
very ample dimensions except in fertile soils,
such as form the declivities which skirt the
swamps, and such as sustain the luxuriant
forests of Kentucky and West Tennessee.
About New York and Philadelphia the sassa-
fras is in full bloom in the beginning of May,
and six weeks earlier in South Carolina. The
wood stripped of its bark is very durable, strong,
and resists worms, &c. It forms excellent posts
for gates. Bedsteads made of it are never
infested with bugs. It is, however, only occa-
sionally employed for any useful purpose, and
never found in the lumber-yards of large towns.
The pith and dried leaves of the young branches
of the sassafras contain much mucilage, resem»
bling that of the okra plant, and are extensively
used in New Orleans to thicken potage, and
make the celebrated gumbo soup. In Virginia and
other Soatbern States, the inhabitants make a

979

SAW-FLIES.

SAW-FLIES.

beer by boiling the young shoots of the sassa-
fras in water, to which a certain quantity of mo-
Ja^ses or sugar is added, the whole being left to
ferment. The beer is regarded as a wholesome
and pleasant drink during summer. So is an
infusion of the bark of the roots, which is
much drunk for the cure of cutaneous and
other disorders.

SAW-FLIES. The names of above 60
srpecies of saw-flies, natives of the United
States, and found in Massachusetts, are given
in Dr. Harris's Catalogue. Some of these are
very interesting in their caterpillar stale. One
of the largest flies is called Cimhex Ulmi, be-
cause it inhabits the elm. The female of this
species, at first sight, might be mistaken for the
hornet. (The name Cimhex was originally
given by the Greeks to certain insects resem-
bling bees and wasps, but not producing honey.)
The elm saw-fly measures an inch in length,
the wings expanding about 2 inches. It ap-
pears in the Eastern States from the last of
May to the middle of June, during which the
female lays her eggs upon the common Ameri-
can elm, the leaves of which serve as food for
the young caterpillars hatched out. These
come to their growth in August, and then mea-
sure from 1^ to 2 inches in length. Like all
false caterpillars of the genus Cimhex, this in-
sect, when handled or disturbed, betrays its
fears or its displeasure by spirting out a watery
fluid from certain little pores situated on the
sides of its body just above its spiracles. The
false caterpillars of other saw-flies prove very
destructive to pines and other fir trees. They
crawl down the trees and weave cocoons which
are concealed in the leaves, &c. In the follow-
ing spring the insects burst their chrysalids
and come forth as winged flies.

No means, says Dr. Harris, for the destruc-
tion of the caterpillars of the fir saw-fly have
been tried here, except showering them with
soap-suds, and with solutions of whale-oil
soap, which has been found effectual. They
may also be shaken off' or beaten from the
trees, early in the morning, when they are tor-
pid and easily fall, and may be collected in
sheets, and be burned or given to swine. For
other means to check their depredations the
reader may consult the articles on the pine and
fir saw-flies of Europe, contained in KoUar's
Treatise.

Dr. Harris has described a kind of saw-fly
(Selandria vitis), which attacks the grape-vine.
It is of a jet-black colour, except the upper
part of the thorax, which is red, the legs being
a pale-yellow or whitish. The body is about
^ of an inch long. The false caterpillars pro-
ceeding from the eggs of these flies may be
found in swarms of various ages on the lower
.sides of the leaves, some very small and others
fully grown. When fully grown they measure
about |ihs of an inch in length. The body is
a light-green, the legs and tip of the tail being
black. After the first moulting they become
almost entirely yellow, and then leave the vine
to burrow in the ground. 'J'hey come out again
from their chrysalis state in about a fortnight,
pair and lay eggs for a second brood. 'J'he
young of the second brood are not transformed
into flies until the succeeding spring, remain-
080

ing in the ground in their cocoons through the
winter. *• For some years previous to the pub-
lication of my Discourse," says Dr. Harris, "I
observed that these insects annually increased
in number, and, in the year 1832, they had be-
come so numerous and destructive that many
vines were entirely stripped of their leaves by
them. Whether the remedies then proposed
by me, or any other means, have tended to di-
minish their numbers, or to keep them in check,
I have not been able to ascertain, and have
had no further opportunity for making observa-
tions on the insects themselves. At that time,
air-slacked lime, which was found to be fatal
to these false caterpillars of the vine, was ad-
vised to be dusted upon them, and strewed also
upon the ground under the vines, to insure the
destruction of such of the insects as might
fall. A solution of one pound of common hard
soap in five or six gallons of soft water, is used
by English gardeners to destroy the young of
the gooseberry saw-fly ; and the same was re-
commended to be tried upon the insects under
consideration.

"All the young of the saw-flies do not so
close!}' resemble caterpillars as the preceding;
some of them, as has already been stated, have
the form of slugs or naked snails. Of this de-
scription is the kind called the slug-worm in
this country, and the slimy grub of the pear
tree in Europe. So diflferent are these from
the other false caterpillars, that they would not
be suspected to belong to the same family.
Their relationship becomes evident, however,
when they have finished their transformations;
and accordingly we find that the saw-flies of
our slug-worms and those of the vine are so
much alike in form and structure, that they
are both included in the same genus. More-
over, there are certain false caterpillars, inter-
mediate in their forms and appearance between
the slimy and slug like kinds and those that
more nearly resemble the true caterpillars ;
thus admirably illustrating the truth of the re-
mark, that nature proceeds not with abrupt or
unequal steps ; or, in other words, that amidst
the immense variety of living forms, where-
with this earth has been peopled, there is a re-
gular gradation and connection, which, in par-
ticular cases, if we fail to discover, it is rather
to be attributed to our own ignorance and
short-sightedness, than to any want of harmony
and regularity in the plan of the Creator. la
considering the resemblances of species, we
cannot fail to admire the care that has been
taken, by almost insensible shades of diflTer-
ence among them, or by peculiar circum-
stances controlling their distribution, their ha-
bits of life, and their choice of food, to prevent
them from commingling, whereby each species
is made to preserve forever its individual
identity.

•♦ The saw-fly of the rose, which, as it does
not seem to have been described before, may
be called Selandria rota, from its favourite
plant, so nearly resembles the slug-worm saw-
fly as not to be distinguished therefrom except
by a practised observer. The caterpillars of
these perform their appointed work of destnic-
tion in the autumn ; they then go into the
ground, make their earthen cells, remain there-

SAW-G1?ASS.

SCARIFIER

irt throughout the winter, and appear, in the
winged foroa, in the following spring and
Bummer."

During several years past, ihese pernicious
vermin have infested the rose bushes in the
vicinity of Boston, and have proved so inju-
rious to them, as to have excited the attention
of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, by
whom a premium of $100, for the most suc-
cessful mode of destroying these insects, was
offered, in the summer of 1840. Showering or
syringing the bushes with a liquor, made by
mixing with water the juice expressed from
tobacco by tobacconists, has been recom-
mended; but some caution is necessary in
making this mixture of a proper strength, for
if too strong it is injurious to plants; and the
experiment does not seem, as yet, to have been
conducted with sufficient care to insure safety
and success. Dusting lime over the plants
when wet with dew has been tried, and found
of some use; but this and all other remedies
will probably yield in efficacy to Mr. Hag-
gerston's mixture of whale-oil soap and water,
in the proportion of two pounds of the soap to
fiAeen gallons of water. For particular direc-
tions to use this, see Apiiidks.

For a species of minute saw-fly, destructive
to the turnip crops in England, see Fly in

TORNIPS.

SAW- GRASS. See Boo-Rusii.

SAXIFRAGE (Sjfifraga ; from saxum, a
stone, and frango, 10 break; in allusion to its
reputed medical qualities in that disease).
This is a very extensive genus of beautiful
alpine plants, the greater part of which are par-
ticularly suitable for ornamenting rock-work,
or growing on the sides of naked banks. They
are all readily increased by seeds or divisions.
These herbs are, for the most part, perennial,
various in habit, often in some degree hairy
and glutinous, with stalked, simple, undivided
or lobed leaves. Flowers either panicled,
rarely solitary, on a long naked stalk, or co-
rymbose at the top of a round leafy stem ;
erect, white, yellow, or purple, frequently spot-
ted, inodorous. Dr. Darlington describes two
American species under the names of Virginia
or Early Saxifrage, and Pennsylvania or Tall
Saxifrage. Canada and Labrador have some
species.

SAXIFRAGE, BURNET. See Burnet.

SAXIFRAGE, GOLDEN. See Golden Saxi-

FBAGE.

SCAB. A contagious disease incident to
sheep, which, like the mange in cattle, horses,
and dogs, and the itch in the human subject, is
the effect of certain minute insects belonging
to the class Acari ; at least these insects al-
ways are present in this disease. In the human
subject the itch insect obtains its food from the
pustules of the disease. The cure of scab,
however, is supposed to be in the destruction
of this insect. Washes, whether infusions of
tobacco, hellebore, or arsenic, appear to be ob-
jectionable, and a safer and more effectual
method of curing the disease and benefiting
the wool is the application of a mercurial
ointment. The ointment should be made cf
two strengths. That for bad cases should con-
sist of common mercurial or Trooper's oint-

ment, rubbed down with three times its weight
of lard. The other, for ordinary purposes,
should contain five parts of lard to one of the
mercurial ointment. {Youatt on the Sheep, p.
536.) See Sheep, Diskasks of.

SCABIOUS (Scabiosa, from scabies, the itch;
the common kind is said to cure that disorder).
Some of these plants are well adapted for or-
namenting the flower-border. The herbaceous
species are readily increased by division at
the root, or.by seed. The seeds of the annual
kinds merely require sowing in the open bor-
der. There are -three indigenous species, all
perennials ; viz., the devil's-bit scabious (S.
succisa), which is common in grassy, rather
moist pastures, flowering from August to Oc-
tober (see Devil' 8-BiT Scabious); the field
Scabious (S. arvensis), growing in corn-fields
and pastures, with a bristly stem a yard high.
The radical leaves are lanceolate, serrated,
stalked, the rest pinnatifid and quite sessile.
The flowers, which appear in July, are large
and handsome, of a fine pale purple. Sheep
and goats are said to eat this herb ; but its bitter
and nauseous flavour is not agreeable to do-
mestic cattle. The small scabious (S. colutn-
baria) is a less common species, attaining to
the height of twelve or eighteen inches. The
leaves and flowers are smaller and more deli-
cate than the last.

SCALD CREA.M. Provincially, cream
raised by heat, or clouted cream. See Dairt^
Milk, Butter, Lactometer, &c.

SCALLIOx\. See Onion.

SCAPE. In botany, a stem rising from the
roots, more frequently from a rhizome or un-
derground stem, bearing nothing but the flow-
ers. The iris is an example.

SCARIFIER. A tillage implement for stir-
ring and loosening the soil, without bringing
up a fresh surface. Under the same head may
be included the grubber, the cultivator, and the
scufiler, all of which act on the combined
principles of plough and harrow at the same
time. Some of these implements have wheels,
by the raising or lowering of which the tines
or prongs may be made to sink more or less
into the earth. See Harrow.

Amongst the earliest of the many varieties
of this implement that I am acquainted with
(says Mr. J. A. Ransome, in his work upon the
Implements of Agriculture), is one which the
late T. Cooke used, attached to the frame-
work of his drill, the coulters and apparatus
of which, being removed, gave place to a bar,
or head, suspended by joints to the axle, oa
which a row of strong tines was fixed. See
PI. 14, fig. 2.

On a similar plan to this, but working on a
plough-carriage, another invention by Robert
Fuller, a practical farmer of Ipswich, came
into operation, and worked exceedingly well.

BiddelVs Scarifier and Extirpator (PI. 15, fig.
3) is held in deservedly high repute in Suffolk
(where it originated) and the eastern and mid-
land counties, where it is now in very general
use. It is an implement of immense power,
and well calculated to supersede the extensive
use of the plough, otherwise indispensable ia
the cultivation of strong land, and we are in-
clined to believe with better effect. There can

SCARrriER,

SCOURING.

be no question that in a general way a finer
tilth may be obtained with Biddell's scarifier
than with any plough ; and, for this reason,
strong and tenacious clays and even many of
the belter loams, though dry at the surface and
apparently in good order for ploughing, fre-
quently turn up coarse and "loamy." In the
early part of the spring, the combined action
of frost and the atmosphere may probably in
lime effect what a scarifier would do at once,
viz., reduce the clods to a comparatively fine
mould, without which the hope of a good bar-
ley crop is but slender. There is no reason
why the process of scarifying should not
prove equally beneficial to the turnip or any
other crop. Indeed, some are of opinion that
what is usually called a stale furrow, in contra-
distinction to a newly ploughed one, is more
favourable to the germination and after-growth
of a plant like the turnip than a sowing on soil
freshly turned up.

A great improvement on Fuller's extirpator,
was Fitdayson's Patent Self-cleaning Harrow. PI.
15, fig. 5. This well-known implement may be
called the parent of several of the same de-
scription, which, in improved forms, have sub-
sequently come into use. It is formed of ii*on,
and, according to the inventor, has the follow-
ing advantages: — 1. From the position in
which the tines are fixed, their points (aaaaa)
hanging nearly on a parallel to the surface of
the land, it follows, that this implement is
drawn with the least possible waste of power.

2. From the curved form of the tines, all stub-
ble, couch, &c., that the tines may encounter in
their progress through the soil, is brought to
the surface, and rolled up to the face of the
tines ; when it loses its hold, and is thrown off
(a.t b b b b b), always relieving itself from be-
ing choked, however wet or foul the land.

3. The mode by which this harrow can be so
easily adjusted to work at any depth required,
renders it of great value ; this is done as quick
as thought by moving the regulator (c) upwards
ordownwanls between the lateral spring (de);
and by each movement upwards into the open-
ings (f g h i k), the fore-tines QUI) will be
allowed to enter the soil about 1^ inch deeper
by each movement into the different spaces,
until the regulator is thrown up to (<?), when
the harrow is given its greatest power, and
will then be working at the depth of 8 or 9
inches. Also the axletree of the hind-wheels
is moved betwixt o and p, a space of 7 or 8
inches, by a screw through the axletree, which
is turned by a small handle (g-), so that the
hind part of the harrow, by this simple mode,
is also regulated to the depth at which it is
found necessary to work. 4. When the har-
row is drawn to the head or foot lands, the re-
gulator is pressed down to d, and the fore-wheel
(m) is then allowed to pass under the fore-bar
(«), by which the nose of the harrow is lifted,
and the points of the fore-tines (////) will then
be taken 2 or .3 inches out of the soil, which
affords the means of turning the harrow with
the greatest facility. 5. Being made of malle-
able iron, its durability may be said to be end-
less ; whereas, if made of wood, the prime cost
would be entirely lost at the end of every 5 or
6 years. Lastly, the mode of working is so

.982

easy, that any boy of 10 or 12 years of age is
perfectly qualified to manage it. Next to Wil-
kie's brake, we consider this the most valuable
of pronged implements, and think that, like
Wilkie's implement, it might be substituted for
the plough, after drilled green or root crops, on
light soil generally. Some account of the as-
tonishing powers of the implement, as exem-
plified in breaking up Hyde Park, London, in
1826, will be found in the Gardener's Magazine^
vol. ii. p. 250.

Wdkic^s Parallel .Adjusting Brake is very nearly
allied to the implement last mentioned ; its chief
improvement consists in the triangular adjust-
ment of the teeth or prongs, and the facility
with which they may be completely throwa
out of work; whereas, with Finlayson's har-
row this can only be partially done, the hind-
teeth of the latter still retaining some hold of
the ground, even though the first row be lifted
up. This we are aware has been represented
as an advantage, inasmuch as the slight hold
retained by the back-row of tines prevents the
implement from running on the horse's heels,
when turning at the ends of the stetches on
hilly ground. We see but little in this as an
argument in favour of any implement of the
kind. Indeed, we are rather disposed to give
the preference to one like Wilkie's brake,
which, by a parallel movement of the frame in
which the tines are fixed, can, either at the
turnings or while in action, be elevated or de-
pressed en masse.

Kirkwood's Grubber in its operation somewhat
resembles those last described, but is superior
to them in working. The leverage that is ob-
tained by pressing on the handles or stilts of
the machine, whether in action or rest, is so
simple, and yet so powerful in its effect, as to
regulate the depth of the tines to the greatest
nicety; or, in cases of obstruction, to throw
them out of work altogether. It is an admira-
ble implement, and well deserving the high
commendation which has been bestowed on it.

SCORE. A term signifying 20 lbs. in speak-
ing of the weight of cattle or swine.

SCORING. A provincial term signifying
the glossing or making the furrow-slice ia
ploughing or turning land up, by the plough
acting as a trowel. It is sometimes written
scowering.

SCORPION-GRASS (Myosotis, from myos, a
mouse, and otos, an ear ; fancied resemblance
in the leaves.) All the perennial species of
this genus are very beautiful, especially the
well-known Forget-me-not (M. paluslris). They
grow best in moist places, or by the edges of
ponds or ditches ; they may also be grown in
pots among alpine plants. The annual species
like a dry, sandy soil ; most of the perennial
kinds may be increased by divisions of the
roots, and all by seeds. Sir J. E. Smith de-
scribes seven species of scorpion-grass indi-
genous to England, two of which are annuals,
the rest perennials. Besides the M. paluslria
and M. arvensis, there are one or two other spe-
cies found in the United States.

SCOTCH FIR. A common but improper
name for the Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris).
See PixE and Fin.

SCOURING. See Puboiwo.

SCRAPEav.

8EDOB.

SCRAPER. See MouLnBART.

SCUFFLER. An implement of somewhat
the same kind as the scarifier, but which is
mosilv lighter and employed in working after
it. See Hahrow.

SCl'LL-CAP (Scutellaria). There are seve-
ral species of this plant found in the United
Stales. The common hairy scull-cap (S. pitosa)
has a perennial root, and stem 12 or 18 inches
higfl, more or less hairy, and often purplish.
The flower is a purple-blue colour, and opens
from June to August. There are several va-
rieties of this speeies. The large-flowered or
entire-leaved scull-cap (S. integrifolia) is dis-
tinguished for its handsome, large, bluish
flowers, which bloom in June. It is intensely
bitter to the taste. The lateral-flowered scull-
cap (S. lalerifolia), has acquired the name of
mad-dog scull-cap, from its having acquired
much notoriety some years ago as a supposed
remedy for hydrophobia. "Like its numerous
predecessors of the same pretensions," says
Dr. Darlington, '* it had its day of importance
among the credulous, and then sank into the
t)bIivion which necessarily awaits all such
specifics.*' Several other species of scull-cap
aje enumerated in the United States.

SCURVY-GRASS (Cochlearia). A genus of
plants of little interest, with the exception of
horse-radish (C. armoracea), and the common
scurvy-grass (C. offidnalit). Besides these
there are three other indigenous species: the
Greenland scurvy-grass, the English scurvy-
grass, and the Danish scurvy-grass. They are
either annual or biennial herbs, and were once
celebrated as antiscorbutics, but have lost their
reputation. The plants are mostly smooth and
rather succulent, with branched, spreading
stems, and simple leaves, the radical ones
stalked and most entire. Flowers white, or
pale-purplish.

The common scurvy-grass is cultivated in
gardens for its leaves. It flourishes best in a
sandy, moist soil, but will succeed in almost
any other, especially if abounding in moisture.
The situation must always be as open as pos-
sible. It is propagated by seed, which should
be sown as soon as it is ripe in July or June,
for if kept from the ground until the spring,
they will entirely lose their vegetative power,
or produce plants weak and unproductive. The
sowing is performed in drills 8 inches apart,
and half an inch deep.

SCYTHE. This implement for mowing
grass has been latterly much used for cutting
grain crops, and with great success, when it
has been properly mounted with a rake or
cradle, and put into expert hands.

Drummond's iron-handled scythe is consi-
dered in Scotland very effective. A good
mower will cut down with it from an acre and
-a half to two acres in the day, and with this
scythe he can eiiber cut out from the standing
corn when upright, or cut in, as he may deem
the better way at all times.

The common grass-scythe will cut oats and
barley also very well when upright, but the
raower will perceive his inability to lay down
evenly and at right angles with the standing
corn, for the convenience of the binders, a

heavy crop of wheat with this scythe, even if
furnished with a bow.

The Hainault or Flemish scythe, the favour-
ite Belgian implement for severing corn, ap-
pears to be a very efficient instrument, but
although all the trials made with it in Scotland
and England report favourably of it, it has not
come into use even partially; prejudice and
the results of habit and custom rendering the
old sickles, scythes, and reaping-hooks more
popular. See Hat-Makinq, Reapino-Hook,

SiCRLR, &.C.

SCYTHE AND CRADLE. The well-known
American implement called the scythe and cra-
dle used in the United States (pr harvesting
wheat and all other kinds of small grain, is
much preferable to the Hainault scythe. The
cradle is made with 5 long teeth extending the
full length of the scythe, and bent to the same
shape. These teeth are generally made of the
strong and pliant ash, shaved down so as to be
as light as is consistent with the necessary
strength. The handle is bent in such a
manner as contributes greatly to the conve-
nience of using the implement. It is slowljp
becoming introduced into England.

SEA-BUCKTHORN. Sec Sallow-Tborw.

SEA-HOLLY. See Erynoo.

SEA-KALE. See Kalk.

SEA-LAVENDER. See Thrift.

SEA-MUD or OUSE. This rich saline de-
position from salt-marshes and the sea-shores
is found to possess very enriching properties,
and to be a useful addition to the soil where it
can be obtained in any quantity. See Allu-
viTM, MAR8H-Mun, and Warping.

SEAM. A provincial term applied to any
fatly substance, as tallow, grease, or lard. A
seam of corn is also a quarter or 8 bushels, and
a seam of wood a horse-load, or about 3 cwt

SEA-MILKWORT (Glaux, from glaukot,
gray, in allusion to the colour of the leaves).
The common sea-milk wort, or black salt-wort
(G. maritima), is in England a pretty little in-
digenous perennial plant, growing abundantly
in muddy salt-marshes.

SEA-SHELL. All marine shells, where they
can be obtained in sufficient quantity, form a
durable and lasting addition to the soil. See
Oyster-Shells.

SEA-WARE. A term frequently applied to
the weeds thrown up by the sea in many situa-
tions, and which is collected and made use of
as manure and for other purposes. It con-
sists principally of the Quercus marina, and var
rious species o( Fud, and has often the names
of sea-wrack, ore-weed, sea-tangle, &c. Sec
Kelp.

SECHIUM (Sechium edulis or Siegos eduli$).

A new vegetable from South America; in size

and form resembling a very large bell-pear;

the skin smooth, of a pale-green colour; the

flesh solid. For the table it is prepared in a

manner similar to the squash, and is stated to

be of a more delicate flav-jur. It has but one

I single flat seed, which is larger than a Lima

bean. A new vegetable, imported by Mr. Buist,

j of Philadelphia, and altogether unlike any thing

i before known or cultivated here.

I SEDGE {Carex, from careo, to want, the upper

983

SEED.

SENSITIVE PLANT.

spikes being wiihoal seeds). This is a very
extensive genus, the species of which are un-
interesting; pari of them are natives of marshy
situations, while a few thrive on dry, sandy
eminences ; they seed freely, by which they are
increased. The roots are, perhaps without ex-
ception, perennial, mostly creeping; sometimes
fibrous and tufied only; herbage grassy; stem
simple, generally with jhin, finely serrated, and
sharply-cutting angles, without knots or joints.
Leaves linear, pointed, flat, roughish, with
.similarh' cutting edges; their bases more or
less tubular and sheathing, membranous at the
summit, often auricled, the upper ones becom-
ing bractes. Sir J. E. Srnilh enumerates and
describes no less than 62 species of Carices in-
digenous to Great Britain. There are a great
many species of sedge fou4fd in the United States.

SEED is the reproductive part of a plant,
resulting from a change effected in the ovules
by the process of impregnation: it contains the
embryo or rudiment of a future plant.

For the preservation of the seed from insects
and decomposition, and for food for the em-
bryo, seeds contain fecula, saccharine, oily,
and gummy matter within their coverings, and
sometimes acrid, poisonous principles. In
their coverings they also contain mucilage,
oil, both fixed and volatile, and other principles

which man makes sub.servient to his use, either
as diet or condiments, or for other purposes.
Seed is a form of reproductive matter peculiar
to flowering plants, its equivalent in flowerless
plants being the sporuli. It is commonly and
very justly remarked, thai, as the seed is the
part intended by nature to multiply the race.s
of plants, in this respect it resembles the egg,
and, like it, long retains its vitality. ^

The choice of the seed intended to be sown
is an object of greater importance than many
farmers seem to imagine. It is not suflScient
that the finest grain be chosen for this purpose,
unless it be likewise clean from weeds. Iti
procuring seed, it should be a rule with the
farmer to purchase or reserve such as is the
most full, plump, sound, and healthy, whatever
the kind may be, as it is perhaps only in this
way that crops of good corn can be insuretL
And this pr«ctice is still more obvious from
the circumstance of its being in some measure
the same with plants as with animals, that the
produce is in a degree similar to that from
which it originated. See Bahlet, Guasses,
Oats, Tkmperatdrk, Whkat, &c.

The usual quantity of seed applied per acre
for the ordinary crops of the English farmer,
when either broadcast, drilled, or dibbled, is as
follows : —

Wheat- - - -

Oats - - - -

Birley . - - -

Rye ... -

Beans - - - -

Peas - - - -

Tares . - - -

Buckwheat - - -
Clover, Red -

. White ->w.„-.r

Red Clover 3 seed- ^

Rye Grass - - -

Turnips . - -
Mangel-wurzel

Potatoes - . _

Time of lowing.

Broadcast.

Urilt.

Dibblrd.

September to December

2J to 3i bushels.

2 to 3 bushels.

U to 2 bushels.

February to April

4 to 6

3i to 4f

2ito3

February to May -

3 to 4

2i to 3i

August and September -

n to 3i

2 to 3

November to March

3 to 4

n to 3i

2 to 3

January to March

3i to 4i

3 to 4

3

August to March -

2Ho3

2to2i

May - - - .

2to2i

2

March and April -

12 to 16 lb.

10 to 14 lb.

Do. - - - -

3 to 4

Do. - - - -

2

Do. ....

2

Do. -

Ipeck

May to August

2 to 3 lb.

lito21b.

April and May

March to June

-

20 to 25 hush.

The quantities here given are those common !
throughout the island. But from the general
custom in Flanders, and from the extensive
practice which I have witnessed on the farms
of Mr. Hewitt Davis and other excellent far-
mers, I am inclined to think that these quanti-
ties may be considerably reduced. As in most
cases it is usual to have on the land many
■more seedling plants than the soil can properly
mature, thinner sowing has the efiect of pro-
ducing stronger, healthier, and more prolific
heads ; and I am still inclined to this opinion
in favour of thinner sowing, notwithstanding I
am aware that such excellent agriculturists
as Lords Leicester and Western practise, and
strongly recommend, thick sowing.

As to the season for sowing, only general
directions can be given. It is a highly impor-
tant subject, much too little attended to in ge-
neral. In the north of England they are fre-
quently sowing weeks earlier than in the
south.

SEED-LIP. A sort of basket in which the
sower carries the seed he is about to scatter
over the ground.
984

SEEL. A term provincially applied in Eng-
land to time or season in respect to crops, as
hay-seel, or hay-time, and barle)'-seel, or bar-
ley-seed time, bark-seel, barking-season, &c.
It is sometimes written seal.

SENNA, WILD (Cassia Marylandica). This
plant, which is abundant in the Middle States,
is quite ornamental, and often introduced into
gardens. It has a perennial root and erect
stem, growing to the height of 3 or 4 feet, and
branching. The leaves resemble those of the
imported senna (also a species of cassia), for
which they are a good substitute, the medical
properties being nearly similar. Its flowers
are yellow and in clusters, followed by a seed-
pod or legume 3 or 4 inches long.

SENSITIVE PLANT, WILD, commonly
called TwinklingCassiaCCaMianiV/i/ans). This
plant is found in the Middle States, on road>-
sides, &c. Its root is annual, and the stem
grows 6 to 12 inches long, mostly oblique,
slender, branching, and roughish-hairy. It pro-
duces yellow flowers in August, succeeded by
seed-pods an inch to an inch and a half long,
and two or three lines wide.

SEPTA.

SHEEP.

SEPTA. In botany, the pnrtitions which
divide the interior pnrts of a fruit.

SERRATE. A botanical term, implying
notched, or cut like the teetli of a saw.

SERVICE TREE (Pynis). There are in
E ijrlaiid two species of this tree, the wild ser-
vice tree (P. tormina lis), and the true service
Iree (P.domestira). Both are indigenous trees,
often of considerable size, of extremely slow
growth, and the wood is very hard. The service
iree is still occasionally to be met with in the
hedgerows in Kent, and in the wealds of Sussex,
as also in the north of England and Wales.
The leaves of the wild service tree are dark-
green, deciduous, simple, somewhat heart-
shaped, serrated, seven-lobed, on long stalks.
Flowers white, numerous, in large, terminal,
corymbose, downy panicles. The umbilicated
fruit, which is not larger than that of the haw-
Ihorn, becomes agreeably acid and wholesome
ftit T the frost has touched it, or when, like the
medlar, it has undergone a kind of putrefactive
fermentation. Ray prefers its flavour to the
true service, which latter is now become obso-
lete. See June Brrrt.

SESSILE. A botanical term, applied to
leaves without footstalks, which are seated close
upon the stem.

SETACEOUS. In botany, implies shaped
like bristles.

SE TON. In farriery, a small cord consti-
tuted of a number of threads laid together and
passed through the skin by a proper needle, for
the purpose of keeping open an issue.

8HAL0 T or ESCALOT (Mliumascalonicum).
Having a stronger taste than the onion, yet not
leaving, as it is said, the strong odour on the
palate which that species of Mlium is accus-
tomed to do, the shalot is often preferred, and
employed instead, both in culinary prepara-
tions and for eating in its natural state. Each
offset of the root will increase if planted in a
similar manner to its parent. The planting
may be performed during October or November,
or early in the spring, as February, March, or
beginning of April. The first is the best sea-
son, especially if the soil lies dry, as the bulbs
become finer; but otherwise the spring is to be
preferred, for excessive moisture destroys the
sets. Mr. Henderson supports the practice of
planting in autumn, and says, " if the smallest
offsets are employed for planting, they never
become mouldy in the ground, and are never
injured by the most intense frosts." They are
to be planted 6 inches asunder each way, in
beds not more than 4 feet wide, being usually
inserted in drills, by the dibble, or with the
finger and thumb.

SHAMROCK. The national emblem of
Ireland. The terra " shamrock" seems a ge-
neral appellation for the trefoils, or three-
leaved plants. There has been much dispute
as to what is the true Irish shamrock ; it has
generally been considered to be the clover or
Tri/oHum repens, A writer in the Journal of the
Boyal Inst. No. 3, advances abundant testinaony
in proof of the wood-sorrel {Oxalis acetosella)
being the true shamrock.

SHARE OF A PLOUGH. That part which
exits or breaks the ground. See Pi^coh.
124

SHAW. A country term applied to a wood
that encompasses a close.

SHEARING OF SHEEP. The operatioa
of cutting off" the fleece or coat of wool with a
pair of shears.

This is performed in different ways, but the
best mode is that of the circular or round the
sheep, instead of the longitudinal, which is
now mostly in use in Britain. Shearing is
usually performed about June or July, accord-
ing to situation and season, but should not be
done either too early or be too long protracted,
as injury and inconvenience may attend either
extreme. A good clipper is capable of clipping
from 14 or 15 to 20 or 25 sheep in the day, and
more are frequently done by very expert per-
sons. Great care should be taken not to cut or
prick the animals ; but where this accident
happens, in the northern parts of the kingdom,
they touch the part with a little tar or sheep-
salve ; and in Sweden it is often done with train-
oil and resin melted together. After shearing,
the sheep should be turned into a warm, dry
pasture. See Sheep.

SHEARLING. The name given to a sheep
that has been once shorn.

SHE.\RS. A name appli'jd to some instru-
ments employed in agriculture. The shears
used for sheep-shearing are of very ancient
origin : they were termed /o>/(fx by the Romans;
and it appears that no improvement has been
made on the instrument. In a collection of
antique gems at Berlin, called the Stosch col-
lection, is a gom bearing a representation of a
newly shorn sheep, and the shears, which are
exactly the same as those now used. Shears
are also employed for clipping hedges.

SHEATH. In botany, the lower part of the
leaf that surrounds the stem.

SHEEP (Ovis aries, nat. ord. Ruminanlia). Of
the original breed of this invaluable animal,
which is in modern English farming almost
equally important for furnishing the farmer
with a dressing of manure, and the community
at large with mutton, clothing, and other almost
necessaries of life, nothing certain is known.
Several varieties of wild sheep have, by natu-
ralists, been considered entitled to the distinc-
tion of being considered the parent stock. Of
these are, 1. The musmon {O. Mu8i7non), still
found wild in the mountains of the larger
islands of the Mediterranean and in European
Turkey. 2. The argali (O. Jlmmon), or wild
Asiatic sheep, which are the tenants of the
highest mountains of central Asia, and the
elevated, inhospitable plains of its northern
portions. 3. The Rocky Mountain sheep (O.
moyUana), which is found on the mountains of
North America ; and, 4. The bearded sheep of
Africa (O. tragelaphus), found in the high lands
of Egypt, and in Barbary. It is doubtful
whether sheep are indigenous to Britain, but
they are mentioned as existing there at very
early periods. The Romans established a
woollen manufactory at Winchester, at which
city the first guild of /tillers was established.
The natural habits of the sheep attach it to the
highest ground, to the upland slopes, where
the heath and other aromatic plants aboundi
Nature never intended this ai\i«ial to occupy
4 0 985

SHEEP.

8HBEP.

tbe deep alluvial turnip lands of our rich I
arable farms, or to consume the succulent '
grasses of our water-meadows: every shepherd
is aware that their natural instinct, after being
for ages domesticated, still leads them invaria-
bly to the elevated portions of the field in which
they are placed. All these facts tell the farmer
in very intelligible language that it is change
of food, of pasturage, and, if possible, the giving
them occasionally aromatic food, that will best
conduce to the prosperity of his flock. With
this view parsley has been successfully culti-
vated. Then, again, the wild sheep are found
to frequent all those places where saline exu-
dations are to be found. In common with the
deer and other ruminating animals, they lick
the salt clay of some of the American uplands
to such an extent, that these places are denomi-
nated licks. Some of the most skilful of the
English flock-masters never allow their sheep
to be without salt. The female sheep goes
with young twenty-one weeks, produces one,
and rarely more than two at a birth ; her milk
yields abundance of strong-tasted cheese, but
a very limited quantity of cream. The sheep,
in temperate climates, is clothed with wool,
which is annually renewed, but in warmer
countries the animal is furnished with hair.
In its wild state it has generally horns, but
these have nearly disappeared in most of the
breeds of domestic sheep. The domesticated
sheep is known in England by different names,
according to its age or sex. "The male," says
Mr. Youatt, " is called a ram or tup. While with
his mother he is denominated af«j9,orram lamb,
a, heeckr, and in some parts of the west of Eng-
land a pur lamb. From the time of weaning
until he is shorn he has a variety of names;
being called a hog, a hogget, a hoggerel, a lamb
hog, a tup hog, or a teg ; and, if castrated, a
leether hog. After shearing, when probably he
is a year and a half old, he is called a shearing,
a shearling, a shear hog, a diamond, or dinmont
ram or tup, and a shearling wether when cas-
trated. After the second shearing he is a two-
shear ram or tup or tvcther ; at the expiration of
another year he is a three-shear ram, &c., the
name always taking its date from the time of
shearing. In many parts of the north of Eng-
land and Scotland he is a tup lamb, after he is
salved and until he is shorn, and then a. tup hog,
and after that a tup, or if castrated, a dinmont or
tvedder. The female is a ewe or gimmer lamb
until weaned, and then a gimmer hog or ewe hog,
or teg, or shceder ewe. After being shorn she is
a shearing ewe or gimmer, sometimes a theave or
double-tool hed ewe, or teg; and afterwards a/uxj-
shear or three-shear, or afotir or six-tooth ewe or
theave. In some of the northern districts, ewes
that are barren or that have weaned their
lambs are called tild or yeld ewes." {Youatt on
Sheep, p. 2.)

The teeth of the sheep are in number the
same as those of the ox, viz., eight incisor or
cutting-teeth in the lower jaw, and six molar
teeth on each side, and in each jaw.

When the lamb is born he has either no in-
cisor teeth or only two, but before he is a month
old he has eight. The two central teeth of
these are shed, and again at two years old at-
986

tain their full growth : when between two ami
three years of age, the two next incisors are
shed; at three years old, the four central teeih
are fully grown; at four, he has six completo
teeth. That the primitive breed of sheep were
horned, we have direct evidence. (Gen, xxii.
13; Joshua vi.6.) Immense flocks of this ani-
mal have in all ages of the world been kept by
man, but more universally for their wool and
skins than for their flesh : for that is yet to
many nations by no means a favourite meal.
The Calmucs and Cossacks still prefer that
of the horse and the camel ; the Spaniard who
can procure other flesh rarely eats that of the
Merino; to many North Americans it is still
an object of dislike. Englishmen, perhaps,
consume more mutton than the people of aay
other country, but the taste for this is certainly,
of modern origin. It has rapidly extended, a»
better breeds and sweeter kinds of mutton have
been produced.

My limits will not allow me to describe the
great variety of breeds of sheep which belong^
to various countries ; I shall, therefore, con-
fine myself to a brief notice of those which
tenant the British islands, referring those of
my readers who need further information oa
the valuable work of Professor Youatt On tha
Sheep, and to Professor Low's Illustrations of
the Breeds of Domestic Animals, from whence
this article is chiefly taken ; there is also aa
excellent essay upon the sheep by Mr. Ellmaa
in Baxter's Library of Agricultural Knowledge*

Class I. — Sheep without Horns.

The neto Leicester Sheep, says Mr. Youatt,
which comprehends the most excellent of
Bakewell's own breed, and of Culley's variety
or improvement on it, is precisely the form for
a sheep provided with plenty of good food, and
without any great distance to travel or exertion
to make in gathering it. It should have a head
hornless, long, small, tapering towards the
muzzle. Eyes prominent, with a quiet expres-
sion; ears thin, rather long, directed back-
wards ; neck full and broad at its base, gradu-
ally tapering towards the head, particularly
bare at the junction with the head ; the neck
seeming to project straight from the chest, so
that there is, with the slightest possible devia-
tion, one continued horizontal line from the
rump to the pole. The breast broad and full ;
the shoulders broad and round, no uneven or
angular formation, no rising of the withers, no
hollow behind the situation of these bones.
The arm fleshy throughout, even down to the
knee. The bones of the leg small, standing
wide apart, no looseness of skin about them,
and comparatively bare of wool. The chest
and barrel deep and round; the ribs forming a
considerable arch from the spine ; the barrel
ribbed well home ; the carcase gradually dimi-
nishing in width towards the rump; the quar-
ters long and full ; the legs of a moderate
length; the pelt moderately thin, soft, and elas-
tic, covered with a good quantity of white woof,
not so long as in some breeds, but considerably
finer. The principal recommendations of this
breed are its beauty, and its fulness of form;
in the same apparent dimensions greater
weight than any other sheep; an early maiu-

&HEEP.

SHEEP.

rlty and a propensity to fatten, equalled by no
other breed; a diminution in the proportion of
offal, and the return of most money for the
quantity of food consumed. (CiUley on Live-
Stork; MarshalVs Midland Counties; Youatt on
Sheep, yt. 111.)

For Bakevvell's views, when engaged in im-
provinjj sheep, see Dishlrt Bukbd.

The Teeswater Sheep was bred originally on
the banks of the Tees ; it came from the slock
of the old Lincolnshire, and, like them, it is
nearly extinct. It was a tall, clumsy animal,
polled, and with while face and legs ; they
were crossed by ihe Dishley sheep, because a
smaller and a better breed, and few traces are
oow to be found.

The Lincolnshire Sheep. — Culley described the
old breed of Lincolnshire sheep, half a century
since, as having "no horns," white faces, long,
thin, and weak carcasses; the ewes weighing
from 14 to 20 lbs. per quarter, the three year
old wethers from 20 to 30 lbs ; thick, rough,
white legs, large bones, thick pelts, and long
wool, from 10 to 18 inches, and weighing from
8 to 14 lbs. per fleece, and covering a slow-
feeding, coarse-grained carcase of mutton. Cul-
ley, however, ran into the opposite extreme;
if the Lincolnshire farmers bred only for the
wool, he regarded, only the mutton. A cross
between the two produced a very profitable
and much improved animal.

The Cotswold Sheep have been long celebrated
for the fineness of their wool. In 1467, a flock
of these sheep were carried into Spain by
license from Edward IV. Gervas Markham,
in the time of Queen Elizabeth, describes them
" as long-woolled and large-boned breed." Few
of the original Cotswold breed, however, now
remain ; they have been gradually improved
by crossing with the Leicester sheep, and it is
this half-bred Cotswold and Leicester which
now chiefly tenants the Gloucestershire and
Worcestershire farms. The old Cotswold
sheep are described by Mr. Youatt, as being
taller and longer than the improved breed,
comparatively flat-sided, deficient iu the fore-
quarter, but full in the hind-quarter, not fatten-
ing so early, but yielding a longer and heavier
fleece. ( Youatt on Sheep, p. 340.) The mutton
of this breed is well described by Mr. Ellraan,
as fine-grained aud full-sized, but capable of
great improvement by proper crossing. " The
Cotswold," he adds, "differ from the South
Down in several particulars ; the skin of the
Cotswold is much thicker than the South Down;
the head long and thin ; ears wide and not too
thin, having no wool but a tuft on the poll;
wool below the hock considered objectionable.
On the Cotswold they never allow two rams to
run together." He thinks twin ewes have
much more to do with getting twins than twin
rams ; bolh, however, should be attended to, as
well as a still more important particular, their
keep. (Bax:er's Lib. of Agi:)

The Dartmoor Sheep.— **The short or rather
middle- woolled sheep of Devonshire," says Mr.
Youalt, "a few of which are still seen in South
Devon, and on the greater part of the hills in
the northern district, but most numerously on
the forests of Dartmoor and Exmoor, are every-
where of nearly the same character, and betray

on a smaller scale a great affinity with the
Dorsets; have white faces and legs; some
with and some without horns ; small in the
head and neck, and generally small-boned;
carcase narrow and flat-sided, weighing when
fat from 9 to 12 lbs. per quarter; the fleece 3
or 4 lbs. in weight in the yolk; wool shor^
with a coarse and hairy top."

The South Dotcn Sheep. — The remarks of Mr.
Ellman of Glynde, in Sussex, who has done
more than any one to improve the race of
South Down, are so practical and clear, that
what he has done so well it is useless to give
in any other language; he says, when speak-
ing of this valuable breed, " the head should be
neither too long nor too short, the lip thin, the
neck neither too long nor too short, but thin next
the head, and tapering towards the shoulders.
South Down breeders object to a long, thin
neck; it denotes delicacy. The breast should
be wide and deep, projecting forward before
the fore-legs ; this indicates a good constitu-
tion, and disposition to feed. The shoulders
should not be too wide between the plate-bones,
but on a level with the chine; if the shoulder-
blades are wide on the top, the animal generally
drops behind the shoulders. The chine should
be low and straight from the shoulders to the
tail ; the ribs should project horizontally from
the chine, for the animal will then lay its meat
on the prime parts ; the sides high and paral-
lel; the rump long and broad; the tail set on
high, and nearly on a level with the chine; the
hips wide ; the ribs circular, and barrel-shaped ;
the legs neither very long nor very short; the
bones moderately fine." (Baxter's Lib. ofjlgr
p. 570.)

Romney Marsh Sheep. — Towards the begin-
ning of this century, Mr. Price described "the
pure Romney Marsh bred sheep as distin-
guished by thickness and length of head, a
broad forehead with a tuft of wool upon it, a
long and thick neck, and carcase flat-sided;
chine sharp, tolerably wide on the loins, breast
narrow and not deep, and the fore-quarter not
heavy nor full ; the thigh full and broad, the
belly large; the tail thick, Jong, and coarse, the
legs thick, feet large, the muscle coarse, bone
large. Wool long and not fine; have much
internal fat, much hardihood; requiring no
artificial food during the hardest winter, ex-
cept a little hay." (Ycuatt on Sheep, p. 334.)
With all these good properties, however, the
old Romney Marsh sheep has been nearly obli-
terated by occasioftal crossings with the Lei-
cester sheep ; which, by judicious management
(taking care not to render the breed too tender
by the introduction of too much of the Leices-
ter), has produced a sheep possessing suflScient
hardiness for these bleak marshes, yet produc-
ing more symmetry of form, with earlier ma-
turity, and greater propensity to fatten.

The Cheviot Sheep are a peculiar breed, which
are kept on the extensive range of the Cheviot
Hills. They are described as having " the
face and legs generally white; the eye lively
and prominent; the countenance open and
pleasing; the ear large, and with a long space
from the ear to the eye; the body long; and
hence they are called 'long sheep,' in distinc-
tion from the black-faced breed. They are full

987

SHEEP.

8HEEP.

behind the shoulder, have a long, straight back,
are round in the rib, and well-proportioned in
the quarters ; the legs clean and small-boned,
and the pell thin, but thickly covered with fine,
short wool : they possess very considerable
fattening qualities, and can endure much hard-
ship, both from starvation and cold. He is fit
for the butcher at three years old, and at two
when crossed with the Leicester." (Youatt on
Sheep, p. 285 ; "On crossing the Mountain and
Cheviot Sheep," by Mr. Hogg, Quart. Journ.
jSgr. vol. i. p. 175.)

Class n. Horned Siiekp.

The Dorset Sheep. — " Most of these," says Mr.
Youatt, "at least of the pure breed, are entirely
•while; the face is long and broad, and ther^ is
a tuft of wool on the forehead ; the shoulders
low and broad; the back straight; the chest
deep; the loins broad ; the legs rather beyond
a moderate length, and the bone small. They
are, as their form would indicate, a hardy and
useful breed. They are good folding sheep;
their mutton well-flavoured, averaging, when 3
years old, from 16 to 20 pounds a quarter.
Their principal distinction and value is the
forwardness of the ewes, who take the ram at
a much earlier period of the year than any
other species, and thus supply the market with
lamb at the time when it fetches the highest
price. These sheep are principally bred within
a circle of 12 miles round Dorchester, where a
considerable quantity of house lamb for the
London market is produced. In other parts of
Dorset the South Down breed prevails; ex-
cept in Portland and on poor, sandy, heath soils
near Warebone and Poole, where a poor small-
horned breed prevails, with black muzzles, well
adapted for this locality. Their meat is tender."

The Norfolk Sheep. — "A peculiar variety of
heath sheep," says Mr. Youatt, " has been found
in the localities of Norfolk and Suffolk from
time immemorial. The carcass was long and
slender; legs long; face and legs black or
mottled; face long and thin; the countenance
lively and expressive of mingled timidity and
wildness : taken altogether, there was more re-
semblance to the deer in the Norfolk sheep
than has been observed in any other species.
They were attempted to be improved by being
crossed with the South Downs ; but at length
the pure South Down was generally preferred
to the pure Norfolk, and, in consequence, the
race is now nearly extinct."

The Merino Sheep. — This celebrated breed are,
in Spain, divided into the estantes, or stationary,
and the transhumantes, or migratory. The first
are those which remain during the year in one
place or farm : the last travel some hundred
miles every year in search of pasture. They
are thus described by Mr. Low in his excellent
Illustrations of the Breeds of Domestic Animals.

"The stationary sheep consist partly of the
larger sheep of the lower country, partly of
mixed races, and partly of pure Merinos, which
do not differ in any respect from the migratory
sheep of that name, except in the method of
treatment. The stationary Merinoes are reared
where the district or farm affords them suffi-
cient food during the whole season. They are
most numerous in the central countries, where
the pastures are less apt to be scorched by the

heats of the summer, as in Segovia, and the
mountain ranges to north of Madrid.

"'J'he migratory sheep have been reckoned
to amount to ten millions, which is probably
equal to half the whole number of the sheep
of Spain. They may be divided into twa
great bodies: those which are to pass further
to the eastward, to Soria, or even beyond the
Ebro. These vast hordes of sheep break up
from their winter cantonments, south of the
Guardina, about the 15th of April, and proceed
chiefly northward. The rams having been ad-
mitted to the ewes in the month of July, the
lambs are born in November. In the course
of their journey northward, they are shorn in
large buildings erected for thai purpose. The
western, or Leonese division, crosses the Tagus
at Almaray. The eastern, or Sorian division,
crosses the same river further to the eastward,
at Talavera. and in its course approaches the
city of Madrid. Having reached their desti-
nation, they are pastured until the end of Sep-
tember, when they recommence their journey
southward. Each of these journeys, of seve-
ral miles in length, occupies about 6 weeks in
travelling. The older sheep, it is said, when
April arrives, know the lime of setting off", and
are impatient to be gone. In the ten or twelve
latter days, increased vigilance is required, on
the part of the shepherds, lest the sheep should
break out. Some of them do so, and pursue
their accustomed route, often reaching their
former year's pastures, where they are found
when the main body arrives ; but, for the most
part, these stragglers are carried off by wolves,
which abound along the course which the mi-
gratory flocks pursue.

"These migratory sheep are divided into
flocks of a thousand or more, each under the
charge of its own mayoral, or chief shepherd,
who has a sufficient number of assistants
under his command. It is his province to di-
rect all the details of the journey. He goes in
advance of the flock ; the others follow with
their dogs, to collect the stragglers, and keep
off the wolves, which prowl in the distance,
migrating with the flock. A few mules or
asses accompany the cavalcade, carrying the
simple necessaries of the shepherds, and the
materials for forming the nightly folds. In
these folds the sheep are penned throughout
the night, surrounded by the faithful dogs,
which give notice of the approach of danger.

" When the sheep arrive at the esquilcos, or
shearing-houses, which is in the early part of
their journey northward, a suflicient number
of shearers are in attendance to shear a thou-
sand or more in one day. The esquilcos con-
sist of two large, rude rooms, and a low, narrow
hut adjoining, termed the sweating-house. The
sheep are driven into one of the large rooms,
and such of them as are to be shorn on the fol-
lowing day are forced into the long, narrow
hut as close as it can be packed, where they
are kept all night. They undergo in this state
a great perspiration, the efl!ect of which is to
soften the hardened unctuous matter which has
collected on the fleece. They are then shorn
without a previous washing, and the wool is
left in the esquilcos, where it is sorted, and
made ready for sale. By this arrangemeal

SHEEP.

SHEEP.

1000 sheep, or more, are shorn with only the
delay of a day.

"The shepherds employed in tending these
sheep amount to 50,000, which, supposing there
to be 10,000,000 of sheep, is at the rale of
200 to each shepherd. The number of dogs is
calculated at 30,000. These shepherds form a
peculiar class of men, strongly attached lo
their pursuit, and living in a state of great sim-
plicity. Their food is chiefly black bread, oil,
and garlic. They eat the mutton of their sheep
when they die or meet with accidents. In tra-
velling they sleep on the ground, wrapping
themselves in their cloaks; and in winter they
construct rude huts to afford shelter. They
seldom, it is said, marry, or change their calling.

"The whole of this extraordinary system is
regulated by a set of laws ; and an especial
tribunal, termed the mesta, exists for the pro-
tection of the privileges of the parties having
the right of way and pasturage. These par-
ties claim the right of pasturage on all the open
and common land that lies in their way, a
path of 90 paces wide through the enclosed and
cultivated country, and various rights and im-
munities connected with the pasturage of the
flocks. The system is opposed to the true in-
terests of Spain. A change of pasture may be
required for the flocks in the drier countries at
certain seasons, but the periodical migration
of so vast a body of sheep cannot be necessa-
ry to the extent to which it takes place. Enor-
mous abuses are committed on the cultivated
country as they pass along. A fourth part of
the year consumed in travelling must be pre-
judicial to the health of the animals in a
greater degree than the benefits they derive
from a change of pasturage. A prodigious
mortality accordingly takes place among these
sheep ; and more than half the lambs are vo-
luntarily killed, in order that the others may be
brought to maturity. The sale of the lamb-
skins, which form a subject of export to other
countries, is indeed a source of profit, but no-
thing equal to what the rearing of the animals
to their state of maturity would produce. That
these extensive migrations are necessary to
preserve the fineness of the wool is conceived
to be an error. Attention to breeding and rear-
ing would more certainly produce this effect
than a violent change of place. In Spain
itself there are numerous flocks of stationary
Merinos, whose wool is of all the fineness re-
quired; and in other countries of Europe,
where the sheep are never moved ofll'the farms
that produce them, wool is produced superior
to that of the migratory flocks of Spain. The
.system is of great antiquity, and is so rive'ted
in the habits of this ignorant and intractable
people, that it is likely to be one of the last of
those ancient abuses which will yield to the de-
sire of change which at this moment agitates
the feelings of men in this distracted country.
The Spaniards long preserved the monopoly of
this race of sheep with jealous care; but other
countries at length were able to carry off* the
Golden Fleece of Spain, and the Merino race
is now spread over a great part of Europe.

" The Merino breed, which had extended to
so many countries, was at a period more recent
introduced into the British Islands. George

HI., a zealous and patriotic agriculturist, re-
solved to make a trial of this celebrated breed
on his own farms, and means were taken to
obtain a small Merino flock. This was done
clandestinely; the animals were selected from
the flocks of different individuals where they
could best be got; were driven through Portu-
gal, and embarked at Lisbon. They were
safely landed at Portsmouth, and conducted to
the king's farm at Kew. The flock was bad;
the selection had been carelessly or ignorantly
made; and the animals being taken from dif-
ferent flocks, presented no uniformity of cha-
racters. It was then resolved to make direct
application to the Spanish government for per-
mission to export some sheep from the best
flocks. The request was at once complied
with ; a small and choice flock was presented
to his majesty, by the Marchioness del Campo
di Alange, of the Negretti flocks, esteemed to
be the most valuable in Spain; and in return
his majesty presented to the Marchioness eight
splendid coach horses.' This flock arrived ia
England in 1791, and was immediately trans-
ferred to the royal farms, while all those previ-
ously imported were disposed of or destroyed,
"On the first change of these sheep to the
moist and luxuriant pastures of England, the/
suffered greatly from diseases, ai;d, above all,
the rot, which destroyed numbers of them ; and
from foot-rot, which atlected them to a grievous
extent. By a little change of pastures these
evils were remedied; and, after the first season,
the survivors became reconciled to their new
situation, and their progeny seemed thoroughly-
naturalized, and remained as free from diseases
as the sheep of the country. The wool was
from year to year carefully examined ; that of
the original stock remained unaffected by the
change of climate, while in that of their de-
scendants little degeneracy could be detected
either in its felting propensities or its fine-
ness.

"The most distinguished breeders of Merinos
at this time in England are Lord Western and
Mr. Bennet, M. P. for Wiltshire. Lord West-
ern's stock is either Saxon, or has been crossed
by Saxon rams ; Mr. Bennet's is pure Spanish,
and has undergone progressive improvement
by selection of individuals of the same blood.
The number of his flock amounted atone time
to 7000; it was subsequently reduced to 3500.
It was treated in the ordinary manner of sheep
in England. Lord 'Western's, it is believed,
is managed more in the Saxon manner, with
respect to protection from the weather. Mr.
Bennet's fine flock, notwithstanding it had been
thus acclimated, perished in great numbers ia
a severe winter some years ago, proving that
the race had not yet lived sufficiently long in
England to be perfectly inured to its cold and
variable climate. Other gentlemen have im-
ported Merinos direct from Saxony, and thus
obtained at once the highest perfection of the
fleece; but there is little reason to believe that
their experiments will be more successful than
those previously made. Merinos have lately
been carried in some numbers to Ireland, and
may perhaps prove more advantageous than
some of the existing breeds; but this will not
show the great value of the Merinos, but the
4 o 2 989

8HEEP.

SHEEP.

comparatively little value of the races which
they have supplanted."

The first impression (says Mr. Youatt) made
by the Merino sheep on one unacquainted with
its value would be unfavourable. The wool,
lying closer and thicker over the body than in
most other breeds of sheep, and being abun-
dant in yolk, is covered with a dirty crust, often
full of cracks. The legs are long, yet small in
the bone ; the breast and the back are narrow,
and the sides somewhat flat ; the fore-shoulders
and bosoms are heavy, and too much of their
weight is carried on the coarser parts. The
horns of the male are comparatively large,
curved, and with more or less of a spiral form.
The head is large, but the forehead rather low.
A few of the females are horned, but, gene-
rally speaking, they are without horns. Both
male and female have a peculiar coarse and
unsightly growth of hair on the forehead and
cheeks, which the careful flock-master cuts
away before shearing-time : the other part of
the face has a pleasing and characteristic vel-
vet appearance. Under the throat there is a
cingular looseness of skin, which gives them
a remarkable appearance of throatiness, or
hollowness in the pile: the pile, when pressed
Tipon, is hard and unyielding ; it is so from the
thickness with which it grows upon the pelt,
and the abundance of the yolk detaining all
the dirt and gravel which falls upon it; but,
•when examined, the fibre exceeds in fineness,
and in the number of serrations and curves,
that which any other sheep in the world pro-
duces. The average weight of the fleece in
epain is 8 pounds from the ram and 5 from the
ewe : when fatted, these sheep weigh from 12
to 16 pounds per quarter. The excellence of
the Merino consists in the fineness and felting
quality of their wool, and the weight yielded
by each sheep; the ease with which they adapt
themselves to the climate, the readiness with
■which they take to the coarsest food, their gen-
tleness and tractableness. Their defects are
their unprofitable and unthrifty form, voracity
of appetite, a tendency to barrenness, neglect
of their young, and inferior flavour of the
mutton. {On Sheep, p. 148; Dr. Parry on the
Merino sheep, Com. loard of Jlgr. vol. v. p. 337 ;
8ir Joseph Banks on ditto, Ibid. vol. vi. p. 269 ;
Mr. Downie on ditto, Ibid. vol. vii. p. 61.)

The Irish Sheep have been much improved by
the importation of English rams. Culley de-
scribes them as ugly and ill-formed. Bodies
large. Legs long, thick, crooked, and of a gray
colour. Faces gray. Heads long, large flag-
ging ears, sunken eyes. Neck long, and set
on below the shoulders. Breast narrow, short,
and hollow ; flat-sided.

The Shetland Sheep are described by Mr. Wil-
son (Quart. Jour. Jlp-. vol. ii. p. 557) as small
and handsome ; hornless, seldom exceeding 40
pounds in weight ; hardy, feeding on even sea-
weed : wool soft and cotton}'.

The Hebridean Sheep is described by Mr. Wil-
son as the smallest of its kind. Shape thin
and lank. Face and legs white. Tail short.
Wool of various colours, bluish-gray, brown,
or deep russet. Even when fat, this sheep
iveighs only 20 pounds: the wool rarely weighs
more than 1 pound.
9iM>

With regard to the profitable management
of sheep, it is only possible to ofier general
suggestions to assist the farmer. I have alluded
already to the advantages of varying the food
of sheep, and I shall refer at the end of this
article to various important testimonials in
favour of the superior profit derived from
keeping sheep dry and warm. In every case
they should have access to dry food, and, if
possible, occasionally to those lands where
heath and other plants which are indigenous to
upland soils are to be found : in all cases, too,
they should have access to common salt.

The importance of salt to the general health
of sheep is now, in fact, generally admitted.
Every farmer observes that his cattle, horses,
&c., are remarkably fond of licking the salt
earth of the farm-yard, stables, &c. In Spain,
they give their sheep salt with great regularity:
112 lb. in 5 months to 1000 sheep. I subjoin
the statement of the late Mr. Curwen. He
employed salt to his live-stock daily for years ;

For horsee he gave - - 6 oz. per day.

Milch cows - - - 4

P«?edinvoxen - - - 6

Yearlings ... 3

CbIvcb - - - - 1

Sheep - - - - 2 to 4 per week,

if on dry pastures; but if they are feeding on
turnips or coles, then they should have it wilh-
oi.t stint. Some give it to the live-stock on a
slate or stone, some lay lumps of it in the cribs
or mangers. It is an asserted fact, that i[ sheep
are alloiced free access to salt, they will never it
subject to the disease called llie ret. Some recent
experiments also lead me even to hope that I
shall one day or other be able to prove it to be
a cure for this devastating disease. I have
room but for one fact. " Mr. Rusher, of Stan-
ley, in Gloucestershire, in the autumn of 1828,
purchased, for a mere trifle, 20 sheep decidedly
rotten; and gave each of them, for some weeks,
an ounce of salt every morning. Two only
died daring the winter; the surviving 18 were
cured, and have now," says my informant,
" lambs by their sides."

The late Mr. Butcher, of Brook Hall, in Es-
sex, for years employed salt for his cattle and
sheep on his farm near Burnham, in Norfolk.
One of his fields was so very unfavourable for
sheep, that before he used salt he had lost 10
and 12 sheep in a night, when feeding on the
turnips; but after he had adopted salt, he
never lost one. He used to let the sheep have
the salt without stint; and he remarked, that
the sheep always consumed four times the salt
on this particular field than when feeding on any
other on the farm. Mr. Butcher one year let
this field of turnips to a neighbour, who did
not use salt; and consequently, after losing
10 sheep the first night, gave up the field in
despair.

There are several points in the management
of sheep to which I can only briefly allude.
Coupling the male and female is too rarely at-
tended to; and yet, by an attention to this im-
portant point, properties are added in one sex
which may be deficient in the other ; but extreme
care is necessary in arranging this, not to in-
troduce other points which may be still more
objectionabU? than those attempted to be re-
moved. Mr. Ell man is of opinion that twin-

8HEEP.

SHEEP.

getting is hereditary : " Experience," he says, I
•*has satisfied me that a ram which may be a j
twin would get double the number of twin
iambs than other rams." He advises that, just I
previous to lambing-lime, the ewes should not '
be kept too well, but that their food should be i
increased a few days after parturition. Clean- {
liness in the Iambi ng-yards he very properly
deems to be of the greatest importance. Lambs
nre best castrated at from 8 to 12 days old. In
the performance of this operation it is calculated
Ihal, when properly performed, the deaths do
not average 1 in a 1000. Mr. Ellman recom-
mends 80 to 100 ewes to each ram, or, when
lamb rams are cmploj'ed, only 40; and that
ihey should remain with the ewes 3 weeks, in
Ecparaie lots.

Sta!isUrs. — The number of sheep in Great
Britain has long been gradually on the increase,
vith the demands of an enlarging population.
To this the introduction of turnips and other
better supplies of winter food, which much in-
creased the facilities for their keep, has mainly
contributed. In 11^8, Gregory King calculated
that there were 12,000,000 sheep in Great
Britain; in 1741 the number had increased to
15,640,000; in 1774,accordingto Arthur Young,
the number was 25,.'>89,754 ; in 1801, Mr. Luc-
cock estimated them at 26,148,463. Mr. M*{'ul-
loch.in 1834. slates the number to be 32,000,000;
the value of the wool 7,000,000/.; and that of
the manufactured woollen articles 21,000,000/.;
and the number of persons employed in the
manufacturing of these goods about 332,000.
(Youatt on Sheep; Lord's Prfir\ .^>fr., and J^reeds
tf Dom.. Animals; Bax!et^$Jgr. Lib.; M^OuUoch's
Com. Dirt.)

Of the many valuable papers upon sheep
dispersed through the British agricultural pe-
riodicals, I can. in this place, only give a brief
Catalogue. There is a letter by Mr. T. Es-
rourt, Ct«;?. to Hoard of ^gr. vol. iv. p. 294, "On
keeping Sheep warm when feeding," which
shows very clearly the advantages of sheep
being kept dry .ind warm when feeding, a sub-
ject not nearly so well understood as is desi-
rable; see also "On Sheep Stells (Timber
Clumps)," by Dr. Howson. Trans. High. Sor. vol.
vi. p. 332; "On Rain-proof Feeding Troughs,"
by Mr. Buist, Quart. Jotirn. of Af>,r. vol. ii. p. 1 14 ;
•*0n Canvass Sheds for Sheep," by Mr. Mimro,
Jhid. vol. xii. p. 290; "On Shed-feeding," by
Mr. Childers, Journ. Roy. Jgr. Soc. vol. i.p. 169 —
407; " On the Improvement of the fine-woolled
Breed," Com. to Jzoard of Jgr. vol. vi. p. 65 ;
the Rev. Edmund Cartwrighl "On feeding
Sheep on Muscovado Susar," Ibid. p. 405 ;
•♦On the Braxy in Sheep," Trans. High. Sor.
vol. i. p. 43 ; "On the Flesh Fly and Maggot,"
by Mr. Hogg, Ibid. p. 325, and by Mr. Mather,
Ibid. vol. iv. p. 221, and Quirt. Journ. of Jgr.
vol. i. p. 210. "On Salving Sheep," by Mr. J.
Graham. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 243 ; this salve is com-
posed of 7 lb. of rosin, 17 lb. of butter, 16 lb. of
palm oil, 2 chopins of fish oil: and by Mr.
Harkness, Jhid. vol. iv. p. 125. " On the Lou-
pingiil," by Mr. Tod and Mr. Lain?, Ibid. vol. iii.
p. 73; "On the Foot Rot," by Mr. Hogg and
the Rev. H. Riddell, Ibid. p. 307; by Mr. Dick,
Quart. Journ. of Ag): vol. ii. p. 852, and by Mr.
Biack, Ibid. vol. iii. p. 654; " Ob Blindness in

Sheep," by Mr. M'Farlane, Tram. High. Soc,
vol. iv. p. 393; "On Rabies," by Mr. Dickson,
Ibid. vol. vi. p. 261; "On certain Diseases of
Sheep (the Pining, Scab, &c.)," by Mr. Hogg,
Quart. Jovrn. of Agr. vol. ii. p. 697; "On the
Origin and Natural History of the Sheep," by
Mr. Wilson, Ibid. p. 354 — 536; "On drafting
Sheep," Ibid. vol. iii. p. 1005; "On the acute
Dysenter}'," by Mr. Dick, Ibid. vol. p. 411 ; "On
the Rot," Ibid. p. 503; and vol. vi. p. 1 17; "On
the Physiognomy of Sheep," Ibid. vol. x. p. 298 ;
"On diflTerent Breeds, and on feeding and
dressing Tups," by Mr. Hogg, Hid, vol. xi. p.
105 — 108; "On a peculiar Aflfeclion of the
Liver in Ewes," by Mr. Buckley, Jourv. Roy.
Jlgr. Sor. vol. ii. p. 116. Sec Foon, Meat, Mut-
Toy, Wool.

All the best varieties of sheep known in
Europe have been introduced into the United
States, where the raising of sheep, both for
the profits of carcass and wool, is a highly
productive branch of agriculture. 'J'he num-
ber of sheep in the United States, in 1840, was
estimated at about 20,000,000. Immense num-
bers of th?!se are raised in the high and cool
districts in Northern Pennsylvania, New York,,
and the Eastern States. Various American
agricultural periodicals contain valuable ob-
servation in regard to sheep in the United
States. Jonathan Roberts, Esq., a veteran
farmer of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania,
who has taken much interest i\\ this kind of
stock for the last half-ceniury, has favoured us
with the following valuable observations :

" Many of the diseases which prevail among
sheep in Britain are little known in this part
of the United Slates, where the air is drier.
Such air, associated with a broken and even
mountainous counlr)-, seems best adapted to
the breeds of this animal. Early in my experi-
ence I witnessed the renovation of a flock of
what we call country sheep, that had been too
long propagated in the same blood. This was
about the year 1789. An imported ram from
England, with heavy horns, very much resem-
bling the most vigorous Spanish Merinoes,
was obtained. The progeny were improved
in thequality of fleece and in vigour of constitu-
tion. On running this slock in the same blood
for some 12 years, a great deterioration became
apparent. A male was then obtained of the
large, coarse- woolled Spanish stock; improve-
ment in the vigour of the progeny was again
most obvious. A Tunis mountain ram was
then obtained, with a result equally favourable.
In this process, fineness of fleece or weight was
less the object than carcass. In 1810, a male of
not quite pure Merino blood was placed with
the same stock of ewes ; and a change of the
male from year to year, for some time, pro-
duced a superior Merino stock. Wool of a
marketable quality for fine cloths was now the
object, and it was not an unprofitable husband-
ry, when it would sell in the fleece unwashed,
from 86 cents to $1. The Saxon stock then
became the rage, and the introduction of a tup
of that country diminished greatly the weight
of the fleece, without adequately improving its
fineness. A male of the Spanish stock would
give sometimes 9 lbs., and the marsh graziers say
thai they went so high as 15 lbs. Saxon malc»

»91

SHEEP, DISEASES OF.

SHEEP-HOUSE.

fscarcely exceed 5 lbs., and the ewes 2^ lbs.
By running in the same blood, and poor keep-
ing, the fleece may be made finer, but it will be
lightened in proportion, and of a weak and
infirm texture. Thereare few stock-keepers who
have mixed the Spanish with the Saxon breeds
but what either do or will have cause to regret it.
In this part of the country a real Spanish Me-
rino is not to be obtained. Sheep-raising has
ceased to be a business of any profit nearer to
the maritime coast than our extensive moun-
tain ranges, whether for carcass or fleece. I
sold, the last season,' water-washed wool of
very fine quality, for 30 cents per lb. At such
a price for wool, land near our seaports can be
turned to better account, even in these dull
times, than wool-growing. Stock-sheep do best
in stony and elevated locations, where they
have to use diligence to pick the scanty blade.
Sheep on the seaboard region should be kept
more for carcass than fleece: and feeding more
than breeding, ought to be the object for some
1-00 miles from tide-water. It is now a well
ascertained fact, that health and vigour can
only be perpetuated by not running too long on
the same blood. The evils I have witnessed
■were due to a want of care on this head more
than to any endemical quality in our climate.
Sheep kept on smooth land and soft pasture
are liable to the foot-rot. I have found this
readily relieved by a little spirits of turpentine
or salted grease and tar, or tar only. The hoofs
of the Merino require paring occasionally, for
want of a stony mountain-side to ascend. It is
no longer a problem that this is to be a great
wool-growing country as well as a wool-con-
suming one. There is, in our wool-growing
country, land in abundance, held at a price
that will enable the wool-grower to produce the
finest qualities at 30 cents per lb., the cloths to
be manufactured in proportion, and the market
to be steady. I have seen Merino wool since
1810 range from $1 per lb. to 18| cents, though
I do not recollect selling below 22 cents. The
best variety of sheep stock I have seen, putting
fineness of fleece aside, was the mixed Bake-
well and South Down, imported by Mr. Smith,
of New Jersey. The flesh of the Merino has
been pronounced of inferior flavour. This,
however, does not agree with my experience,
as I have found the lambs command a readier
sale than any other, from being preferred by
consumers."

In regard to the particular distribution of
sheep through the several states, we find, ac-
cording to the returns accompanying the
census of 1840, that there were in Maine,
649,264; New Hampshire, 617,390; Massachu-
setts, 378 226 ; Rhode Island. 90,146 ; Connecti-
cut, 403,462; Vermont, 1,681,819; New York.
6,118,777; New Jersey, 219,285; Pennsvlva-
nia, 1,767,620; Delaware, 39,247; Marv'land,
2.57,922; Virginia, 1,293,772; North Caro-
lina, .538,279; Tennessee, 741,593; Kentucky,
1,008,241; Ohio, 2.028,401 ; Indiana, 695,982;
Illinois, 395,672 ; Missouri, 348,018.

SHEEP, DISEASES OF. Jpoplexy.— Bleed
copiously ; then give 2 ounces of Epsom salts
in a quarter of a pint of water.

Blackwaler. — Keep the bowels open with Ep-
som salts ; and give a tea-spoonful of elixir of
992

vitriol, or sulphuric acid, diluted with 7 parts
of water, in an infusion of oak bark. • -

Elacknmzzle. — Mix an ounce of verdigris
(acetate of copper), 4 ounces of honey, half a
pint of vinegar ; simmer them together over a
fire for 10 minutes in an earthen pipkin. Ap-
ply it to the mouth on a piece of rag.

Coughs or Cold. — Bleed ; give a solution of
Epsom salts.

Dianhaa. See Calves, Diseases of.

Dysentery. See DiAHiiHSA.

Fly. — Fly powder : Two pounds of black sul-
phur, half a pound of hellebore; mix them to-
gether, and sprinkle the sheep from the head
to the tail with a dredgiiig-box. Sheep wash:
The farmer will find this an excellent recipe:
Half a pound of powdered white arsenic (ar-
senious acid), 4^ pounds of soft soap. Beat
these for a quarter of an hour, or until the
arsenic is dissolved, in 5 gallons of water.
Add this to the water suflScient to dip 50 sheep.
The quantity of arsenic usually recommended
is too large.

Foot Rot. — One drachm of verdigris (ace-
tate of copper), 1 drachm of blue vitriol (sul-
phate of copper), 1 drachm of while vitriol
(sulphate of zinc), 2 ounces of water,2 drachms
of nitric acid, 2 drachms of butter of antimony;
pare away the horn, and apply the lotion upon
a feather to the part aflfected.

Redwater. See Redwatkr.

Rot. See Rot.

Scab, or Schab. — Apply a lotion formed of 1
ounce of corrosive sublimate, 4 ounces of sal
ammoniac, dissolved in 4 quarts of rain-water.
This is a powerful stimulant, and must be used
with caution.

Ticks. See Fly.

Wounds. — Wash the part, and apply a lotion
formed of vinegar 1 pint, spirits of wine 1
ounce, spirits of turpentine 1 ounce, Goulard's
extract 1 ounce. If the wound be a recent one,
it is better to stitch it up with separate liga-
tures, which can be easily withdrawn, and
dress with cold water.

SHEEP-FOLD. A yard or other coutri-
vance for the purpose of confining and keep-
ing sheep during the nights or in bad weather,
in order to afford them protection and shelter.
They are sometimes fixed, being constructed
of any convenient sort of light material, so as
to enclose a space in proportion to the number
of sheep, whicbvis kept constantly well littered
with some dry substance, such as stubble, re-
fuse straw, dry sand, &c., during the lime the
sheep are folded and foddered in them, in order
that as much manure may be raised as pos-
sible. In some cases, also, for the more perfect
protection of the sheep, they have sheds all
around them, under which the sheep may lie
without injury from rain, snow, or any sort of
moisture. These usually are termed s'.anding
foldf, and are either formed about the home-
stead or on some dry, rather elevated situation
on the farms, having the bottoms well laid with
some sort of material that is capable of keep-
ing the sheep dry and clean. See Folp, Foll-
iNO, and HuRDLKs.

SHEEP-HOUSE. A slight wooden buildin»
constructed for the purpose of containing and
protecting sheep in bad weather, &c. Houses

SHEEP-PENS.

SHRUB.

«f this kind are usually made low for the sake
of warmth in the winter, being mostly a third
part longer than they have breadth : they should
also be sufficiently large for the quantity of
sheep that they are to contain. The side should
be lined with boards, and the bottoms be laid
in an even manner with stone or some other
material, that the litter may be well impreg-
nated with the urine of the sheep. The sides
exposed to the sun should be lined with mova-
ble hurdles, that when it shines the whole
may be laid open, to give due refreshment and
afford the sheep an opportunity of feeding upon
the pasture wherein they stand. They should
be well and securely covered with some sort
of proper material upon the tops. They are
sometimes fixed in particular situations ; but
in other cases, which is the more improved
method, so constructed as to be capable of
being removed as they may be wanted.

SHEEP-PENS. The divisions made by the
small movable gates or hurdles which are
set up to keep sheep in some particular spot.
They are usually formed on a dry place about
the corners where diflerent enclosures of the
pasture meet, so as to be convenient for the
whole. Pens are useful for examining and
selecting the sheep, being divided so as to con-
tain about 3 dozen sheep each, as by this means
they are always at the command of the shep-
herd for any purposes he may have in view.
The bottoms should be firm and dry, so that the
sheep may not be soiled.

SHEEP-STEALING. By the 7 W. 4, &
1 Vict. c. 90, every person convicted in Eng-
land of stealing any horse, mare, gelding, colt,
filly, bull, cow, heifer, ram, ewe, sheep, or lamb,
is liable to be transported for a term not ex-
ceeding 15 years, nor less than 10 years; or
be imprisoned for any term not exceeding 3
years.

SHEEP'S SORREL (Rtwiex aeetosella). A
perennial species of dock, which in England is
found growing abundantly in dry, gravelly
fields and pastures. The herb is acrid, with
.some astringency. The root is creeping. The
stem wavy, slender, often decumbent. Theflow-
«rs are dioecious, small, separate, in numerous
whorled leafless clusters. The leaves lanceo-
late-hastate above, but hastate in the lower part
of the stem. The acid which they contain is
the oxalic, combined with potassa, as a binox-
alate ; but it is less used than its fellow-species
R. acttosa. See Sorrel.

Dr. Darlington informs us that there are in
the United States 10 or 12 additional species
of sorrel, but it is difficult to say how many of
these are indigenous.

SHEPARDIA, SILVER-LEAVED. See Buf-
falo Berrt.

SHEPHERD. The person who has the care
and management of a flock of sheep. Mr. Ban-
nister says, that it is necessary to have for this
employment " a person who is well skilled in
the nature and management of sheep, and hath
been brought up in that employment from his
infancy; who is sober, diligent, and good-na-
tured ; qualities essentially necessary in a shep-
herd, who, although he may seem to lead a life
of indolence, when contrasted with the more
laborious servants of the farm, need rarely to
125

have a minute's time hang heavily on his
hands, if he will be attentive to his business,
which will furnish him with sufficient employ-
ment throughout the day, particularly in the
lambing season, or where there are two folds at
work; nor will he want opportunity for the
exercise of his patience and good temper in his
attendance on the sheep, which is by nature an
animal of great obstinacy and perverseness,
and hath often paid the forfeit of its life to these
innate qualities, where the shepherd was a
man of a morose and surly disposition."

SHEPHERD'S NEEDLE {Sca.idix Pecten
Vcnens). This is a troublesome annual weed,
very common in cultivated fields in England.
The root is tapering. The fruit is nearlj'
smooth, with a bushy edge, having a beak
from 1 to 2 inches long ; whence the specific
name.

SHEPHERD'S PURSE (^Thlaspi, from thlao,
to compress ; the seed-vessels are compress-
ed). In England this is a genus of worthless
plants, the principal species of which is the
common shepherd's purse (T. bursa pastoris),
which occurs in almost every part of the globe.
It is an annual plant, with a tapering, whitish
root, having a peculiar smoke-like scent. The
herbage is rough, with prominent hairs. Stem
bjranched, leafy, from 6 to 12 inches high. Ra-
dical leaves deeply pinnatifid. Flowers small,
corymbose, often tinged with purplish-brown.
Pouch inversely heart-shaped, somewhat tri-
angular. Seeds about 5 or more in each cell.
Small birds eat the seeds and flowers.

SHEPHERD'S STAFF. See Teasel.

SHERARDIA (named by Dillenius in ho-
nour of his patron, W. Sherard, LL.D., consul
at Smyrna). This is a genus of uninteresting
plants. One species, the blue sherardia, or
little field-madder (S. urvensis), is indigenous to
England, where it grows in fallow fields, or
among corn, on a light or gravelly soil. The
plant is annual; herbage generally hairy;
stems several, branched, spreading, mostly de-
cumbent, 3 to 6 inches long. Leaves whorled,
pale-green. Flowers pale purplish-blue, in a
sessile terminal umbel.

SHERDS. In gardening, fragments of earthen
pots, &c., employed to drain the soil supplied
to potted plants, and also as under-draining for
gravel walks.

SHIFTS. See Rotation of Crops.

SHIM. A tool of the tillage kind, used in
breaking down and reducing the more stiff and
heavy sorts of land, as well as cutting up and
clearing them from weeds. They are made of
different forms and constructions, to suit dif-
ferent purposes.

SHOCK. See Shuck.

SHORE WEED (Littorella, from lUt%u, the
shore, in allusion to its place of growth). The
plantain shoreweed (L. lacustris) is a pretty
little perennial sub-aquatic, indigenous to Eng-
land, flowering in June. It has no stem; but
the root, which is fleshed and tap-shaped,
throws up many long, linear, channelled leaves.
The flowers are whitish-green.

SHORT-HORNS. See Cattle.

SHRUB. A small, low, dwarfish, woody
plant, resembling a tree, which, instead of one
single stem, frequently puts forth from the

SHUCK.

SILK CULTURE.

same root several sets or stems. The most
hardy, indigenous shrubs are the box and ivy,
which resist the severest winters. Next, in
point of hardiness, are the holly, juniper, and
furze; but there are besides numerous orna-
mental shrubs, well calculated to diversify
park's and lawns.

SHUCK. A husk or shell. In husbandry,
it also signifies a shock or stouk of 12 sheaves
of corn set up together in the harvest field.
See Reapijjg.

SHY. In Horsemanship, the starting sud-
denly aside of a horse.

SICKLE (Sax. ricol ; Dutch sickel ; from Lat.
secale). A hook with which corn is reaped. See
Reapiko-Hook, Scttue, &c.

SILICA. The chemical name of the earth
which forms almost the entire mass of flint,
quartz, rock-crystal, and other well-known
mineral substances. It is composed of a pe-
culiar substance, having somewhat of a me-
tallic nature, called silicon, united with oxygen,
in the proportion, according to Dr. Thomson,
of silicon 54*66, oxygen 45*34. Silica enters
into the composition of plants, and is invaria-
bly found in some proportion or other in all
cultivated soils. See Earths, their Uses to Vege-
tation.

SILK CULTURE. The United States being,
like China, situated on the eastern side of a
great continent, oflfer peculiar advantages for
the production of silk. From the general pre-
dominance of westerly winds in extra-tropical
regions, the eastern sides of continents in these
possess a dry and warm summer climate, pe-
culiarly adapted to the prosperity of the silk-
worm. In Europe, the region of the silk-culture
is confined to the southern portions, and com-
mences at a distance from the sea, on the east-
ern side of the mountain ridge of the Cevennes.
These mountains ofi'er a barrier to the moisture
borne far inland by the prevailing westerly
winds sweeping from the Atlantic. In the
United States the prevalence of the same
winds keeps off a large amount of the moisture
from the sea, and leads to a comparatively dry
atmosphere. So far as this characteristic of
climate is concerned, the culture of silk may
be extended to the very shores of the Atlantic.
At various times attempts have been made to
introduce it into the United States, but it is
only within a very few years past that the
subject has received the attention which it
merits as an important and most valuable
agricultural resource. Among other obstacles
which have tended to prevent the developement
of the silk culture, the comparatively tardy
growth of the ordinary kinds of mulberry trees
cultivated for feeding the silk-worm has been
not the least, since where immediate sources of
profit exist in other products of the soil, few
will engage in enterprises, the profits of which
have to be so long anticipated. The introduc-
tion of a new kind of mulberry, the Morus Mul-
ticaulis, a tree of rapid developement, having in
a great measure removed the obstacle referred
to, the silk culture has, to a greater or less de-
gree, been introduced from one end of the
country to the other. Strange as it may seem,
the Eastern States, with a comparatively rigor-
994

ous climate, have heretofore been almost the
sole producers of domestic silk as an object of
profit. In some of the townships of Connecti-
cut and Massachusetts, silk has for many years
been an object of domestic culture ; but this was
carried on to great disadvantage, the cocoons
having been usually wound off upon common
wheels, and spun into sewing silk. No such
thing as a regular filature for converting co-
coons into reeled silk, and thus preparing it for
being woven into different fabrics, existed in
the Eastern States ; so that, instead of using
only the refuse cocoons in making sewings, the
very best were thus appropriated. The intro-
duction of suitable reels for winding off silk
and placing it in the best form for mercantile
purposes, has been comparatively slow, owing
in a great degree to the introduction of many
contrivances intended to curtail labour by wind-
ing immediately from the cocoons and twisting
by the same process into sewing silk. Most
or all such contrivances have proved very
unprofitable, and have yielded, or may be ex-
pected to yield, to the simple but effective ope-
ration of the Piedmontese red, the most perfect
of all devices for taking silk from the cocoons,
and placing it in the best forms for market.
Many very skilful reelers have been made in
various filatures in the United States. Although
in every part of the Union the mulberry can
be reared, and the silk-worm successfully
fed, still it cannot be doubted that the southern
portions of the Middle, and all the Southern
States, afford peculiar advantages to the silk
culture. An agricultural resource, which in
France and other countries is so highly appre-
ciated and fostered with so much zeal by the
government, by the establishment of model fila-
tures, and the zealous, attentions of men of
skill and science, should be regarded as well
worthy the protection of the general and state
governments of the Union. Many states already
allow liberal premiums for cocoons and raw
silk produced within their borders, and these
inducements to individuals should be continued
until the silk culture becomes fairly establish-
ed as a regular branch of rural labour; after
which it will, like most other branches of in-
dustry once fairly set on foot, take care of itself.
Large crops of cocoons were last year pro-
duced in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Ten-
nessee, and Indiana. The comparatively small
cost of conveying to market an article so highly
valuable as silk, should encourage its culture
in districts from which the heavy and bulky
products of agriculture cannot be transported
so as to leave a fair profit to the producer. In
Ohio many thousand yards of silk stuffs
were woven in 1842, the manufacturers pay-
ing for the cocoons about $4 per bushel. The
culturists find their advantage in having the
silk reeled from the cocoons into organzine,
instead of the formerly unprofitable mode of
turning the most valuable silk into sewings.
American raw silk, when properly reeled, is
superior to that generally produced in Europe.
A person who had been many years engaged
in weaving silk in different establishments in
London, having had (as he says) for 15 years
from 250 to 300 lbs. of the raw material, of

SILK CULTURE.

SINCLAIR, GEORGE.

every grade and name, passing through his
hands weekly, expresses the following opinion
relative to silk produced in the United States :

"lam qualified to affirm, from various ex-
periments I have tried, that the silk is superior
to any I have seen from Italy, China, France,
Piedmont, or Valencia, where the worms are
fed upon multicaulis, or Italian. Its brilliancy,
strength, and scent are superior. I am aware
that an exposure to the saline air, in the pas-
sage across the ocean, may be the cause of the
loss of fragrance to imported silk; but the
brilliancy is peculiar to American silk, if reeled
in a proper manner, with cleanliness.

"I am confident that the mammoth sulphur-
worm is the pure Fossam brown. To try this,
I had about 3 lbs. of silk reeled, and enclosed
it in an air-tight box for 3 weeks. When I took
it out it had the fragrance of the Fossam brown
stronger than any that I ever smelt in Eng-
land, which convinced me that the mammoth
sulphur is the identical si\k which is always
from 5 to 8 shillings per pound higher than or-
dinary silk. The mammoth white and the pea-
nut white is a Novi, and superior to any I have
seen in England. The yellow or orange I can-
not, satisfactorily to my own mind, yet define,
but am trying experiments in order to ascer-
tain. I am strongly persuaded it is a Bergam.
Should this be the case, it will prove a great
acquisition to manufacturers of silk velvet.
Some have supposed the pea-nut white is the
Piedmont, but they are mistaken. The Pied-
mont cocoon is lily-white, very diminutive,
with a sharp point."

Where legislative patronage has been ex-
tended in the allowance of bounties on cocoons
and raw silk, the state treasuries may be re-
ferred to as criterions showing the increase or
diminution of the silk crop with great preci-
sion. The treasurer of Massachusetts has fur-
"nished the following report, indicating how the
matter stands in that state :

1836 -

. $:i 37

1S40

■ #1,233 59

1837 -

- 198 00

1S4I

- 2,111 42

1838 -

- 350 52

1942 to Oct. 1

3,351 01

1839 -

- 434 62

" Another consideration, calculated to urge
the business forward," says the Northampton
Silk Convention, " is found in the fact that all
our present agricultural staples are now ex-
tremely depressed, and are likely to remain so.
The market is completely glutted. Our far-
mers must take up something new, or their suf-
ferings will be prolonged indefinitely. In this
crisis, silk comes to their aid. In the produc-
tion ofithis article they cannot glut the market
for one whole generation, most assuredly."

Without desiring to excite undue expecta-
tions, it is a question which deserves serious
consideration, whether much more may not be
realized from the prosecution of this business
than has hitherto been? The little town of
Mansfield, in Connecticut, by a persevering
devotion to it, undiscouraged by the ill-success
of others, has been enabled to derive therefrom
a good profit; and it appears from the last
census that, with a population of 2276, not less
than $20,000 is annually received from this
business.

The bounty paid in Ohio, in 1841, amounted

to $2681 76; in Pennsylvania $4418 55. In
1842 there was paid as bounty, in Ohio,
$6699 61. The whole amount of reeled silk
produced in Ohio is set down at 3000 pounds.
One person sold 300 pounds of reeled silk for
$1600. The whole aggregate of the silk crop
throughout the United States, for 1842, is given
in a tabular view, by Mr. Ellsworth, at 244,124
pounds of cocoons. (EUstcortK's Report to Con-
gress.)

Under the head of Mulbehri:, some observa-
tions have been made in relation to the varie-
ties of the tree best adapted to the silk culture
in the United States. Besides the numerous
communications to be found in most of the
American periodicals devoted to agriculture,
and some specially to the silk culture, many
excellent original treatises have been written
upon the same subject. Among the last we
may name the essay published under the aus-
pices of P. S. Duponceau, Esq., of Philadel-
phia, one of the greatest champions of the
legitimate silk culture that the Union has pro-
duced. By legitimate gilfc ailturcy is meant the
employment of the Piedmontese reel, the use
of which is absolutely necessary to give the
product of the cocoonery its proper value.
The work thus referred to is a duodecimo
printed in Philadelphia, and bears the name
of M. d'Homergue. It is particularly useful in
relation to the subject of the Piedmontese reel.
A summary of the principal Chinese treatises
on the culture of silk, &c., was published, in
1838, by P. Force, Esq., Washington. An ex-
cellent Treatise on the Mulberry Tree, and the
Production and Manufacture of Sil/c, was pub-
lished in Philadelphia, in 1839, by Mr. John
Clarke. Several Manuals on the silk culture,
furnishing abundant information, embracing
the most minute details, have been published
by Roberts, Cobb, Kenrick, Comstock, Clarke,
&c., &c. Among the periodicals specially de-
voted to the subject, the Silk CuUurist, edited
by F. G. Comstock, of Hartford, Connecticut,
in 1835-6, and the Burlinfrton Silk Record, by E.
P. Morris, may be mentioned. In the latter
are given the interesting views of Mr. Morris,
with a description of his newly invented and
valuable feeding-shelves, together with the re-
sults of many experiments in raising worms
upon an extensive scale.

SILK- GRASS or BEAR-GRASS. See
Yucca.

SILK-WEED. See Cotton, Wild.

SILLS. A country name for the shafts of a
cart, &c.

SILVER BELL. See Halesia.

SILVER FIR. See Fib and Pixe.

SILVER-WEED, or WILD TANSEY (Po-
tentilla anserbia). An indigenous perennial
plant, which, according to Linnoeus, indicates
clay under the surface. Although it is found
frequent in osier holts and spongy meadows, it
grows most commonly upon cold, stiff* land, and
is a sure mark of the sterility of the soif.
Flowers large, bright-yellow, the calyx hairy;
and each on a long, simple stalk, mostly erect,
blowing all the summer. See Ci.vauEFoit.

SINCLAIR, GEORGE. An able and suc-
cessful writer and experimentalist on the arti-
ficial and other grasses. He carried on a se-

995

SIT-FAST.

SMITHFIELD.

Ties of valuable researches on these in the
grass garden at Woburn Abbey, under the di-
rection of the Duke of Bedford, the results of
which he gave to the world, in his justly cele-
brated work, the Hortus Gramincus Woburncnsis.
He also edited a fragment of a work of Mr.
Holdlch on The Weeds of Agriculture. He died
in 1835, in the r>2d year of his age.

SIT-FAST. In farriery, an ulcerated sore in
which a part of the skin has turned horny; if
it cannot be dissolved and softened by rubbing
with mercurial ointment, it must have a mild
blister applied, which will cause it to separate.
It generally proceeds from a warble or little
tumour resulting from the pressure of the sad-
dle. See Back-Sohe and Galls.

SIZE. See Glue.

SKEGS. A kind of oat, sometimes culti-
vated as a crop in Nottinghamshire. It is the
Avenu slipiformis of Ljnnocus. See Oats.

SKEP. A coarse, round, farm-basket. It is
also provincially used to signify a bee-hive.

SKID. The chain by which the wheel of a
wagon is fastened, so as to prevent its turning
round, upon descending a steep hill. See
DaAO.

SKIM COULTER. See Plough.

SKUNK-CABBAGE; S vvamp-cabbage ;
Skunk-weed. Familiar names applied to a
plant common in low grounds in the United
States. It is the Symplocarpus fcctida of some
botanists, and the Pothos fcetida of others. It
has a perennial root, and very large leaves,
often, when fully grown, measuring 2 feet long
and 1 foot wide. "This plant," says Dr. Dar-
lington, " is notorious for the pole-cat-like odour
which it emits, when wounded ; and is said to
possess some medicinal virtues, as an anti-
spasmodic. The root, when chewed, produces
a tingling or pricking sensation in the mouth.
It is the only species of the genus in the United
States : Dr. Barton, however, describes a pretty
distinct variety, near Philadelphia."

SLATE. A well-known, neat, convenient,
and durable material for the covering of the
roofs of buildings. There are many varieties
of slate, and it likewise differs very greatly in
its qualities and colours. In some places it is
found in thick lamina or flakes, while in others
it is thin and light. The colours are white,
brown, and blue. Slate is so durable in some
cases as to have been known to continue sound
and good for centuries.

SLAUGHTER-HOUSE. See Abattoir.

SLEET. SeeSxow.

SLOE. The American species of sloe belong
to the viburnium family, and are not to be con-
founded with the black hedge thorn. See
Blackthorn.

SLOUGH-HEAL. See Self-heal.

SLUG. Jl genus of molluscous animals, or
naked snails, comprehending several species,
which differ only in colour. Slugs infest gardens
and fields, and are very injurious to the growing
crops ; hence it becomes essential to destroy
them. Dry lime and slacked lime have been re-
commended, which, being dissolved by the dew
and moisture of the atmosphere, act as a poison
to these animals. But pulverized lime is not
suitable to all soils, and may even prove inju-
rious to some crops. Lime-water appears to

be preferable. But as many husbandmen may
not have an opportunity of liming their fields
or gardens, or of keeping a sufficient stock of
geese, fowls, ducks, &c., to turn in and devour
the slugs, common salt will be found an effec-
tual cure; and tar-water or other refuse of
gas-works will prove destructive to them, if
sprinkled on the land. See Insects and Snails.

The disgusting slug infesting pear and cherry
trees in the United States is a slimy false ca-
terpillar, the nature and characteristics of
vv^hich, and the parent-fly, are particularly de-
scribed by Professor Peck and Dr. Harris. See
Saw-flibs.

SMALL AGE PARSLEY. See Ckleih,
Wild.

SMITHFIELD. The principal market for
the sale of live cattle in the United Kingdom.
It is very inconveniently situated in the heart
of the metropolis. The numbers of cattle
slaughtered have been more than double dur-
ing the last century,, (See Cattle, ante, p. 293.)
Although this increased consumption is scarce-
ly proportioned to the increase of population,
it should be remembered that a very different
description of cattle are now slaughtered to
what were then killed. The present average
dead weight of the bullock is about 656 lbs., of
the calf 144 lbs., of the pig 96 lbs., and of the
sheep and lamb 90 lbs. ; approaching to double
the weight of these animals in 1730. This
renders the number of cattle slaughtered in the
metropolis, and the increasing number of the
inhabitants, a little more proportionate. From
this estimate, and the number of cattle sold in
Smithfield market in the year 1830, we may
now form some not very inaccurate idea of the
amount of this branch of the provision trade
in London.

Averace Weight. No. of lbs.

Cattle - - 159,907 6561b. 104,898,998

Sheep, &;c. - 1,287,070 90 115,836,300

Pigs - - - 254,672 96 24,448,512

Calves - - 22,500 144 3,240,000

Number of lbs. of meat consumed _- 248,423,804

This, estimated at the average price of 6</.,
would be 6,210,595/. 2s. Orf. ; at 8rf., it would
produce 8,268,293/. 9s.4rf., exclusive of bacon,
hams, and all salted provisions brought from a
distance (the importation of Irish bacon and
hams into Great Britain is 500,000 cwt.), and
also fish and poultry. This calculation will
enable us to determine another curious ques-
tion,— what is the average quantity of meat
consumed by each individual in the course of
a year? If we divide the gross number of
pounds, 248,423,804, by 1,450,000, the estimated
number of inhabitants in London and its envi-
rons, the quotient will be 170, or each indi-
vidual consumes nearly half a pound of meat
every day. This is a very high calculation
compared with that of Paris, where each per-
son is sup)3osed to consume but 80 pounds in
the year ; and Brussels, where 89 pounds form
the allotment of each ; but the English is a
meat-eating population, and composed chiefly
of Protestants ; and when we remember that
this includes the bones as well as the meat,
half a pound a day is not too much to allow to
each person.

Cattle are sent from every part of the king-

SMUT.

SMUT.

dora to Smithfield market, but many more from
some districts than from others. The farmer
has personally little to do with the sale of his
cattle, but custom and interest induce him to
consign them to a salesman, who is acquainted
with all the butchers and dealers of the district,
and with the contractors. He sees at a glance
what is the state of the market; he can tell
whether it is likely to rise or fall ; and com-
paring the lot which is intrusted to him with
others, and with, the market generally, he knows
■what they ought to fetch. The salesmen are
generally honourable men ; they procure for
the owner the value of his cattle under all the
circumstances of the market, and although it
may not always be so much as the grazier had
expected, it is more than he could have got
himself, and he is always sure of receiving his
money. See Poultut, S;ikei», Swixe, &c.

SMUT. A disease affecting almost every
species of corn, the grains of which become
filled with a fetid black powder, instead of con-
taining farinaceous matter. Wet seasons, ani-
malcule, organic weakness, deGciency of the
parts of generation, and other circumstances,
have been assigned as the primary causes of
this disease, but all the results of experience
are against the opinion that these are more
than contingencies which aggravate the symp-
toms, and accelerate the progress of the infec-
tion. That the smut does not arise from a de-
ficient fecundity is apparent, because it affects
and destroys the grain long before the sexual
organs are fully developed. Fogs, exposure
to intense sunshine when moist, or other atmo-
spheric influences upon the ear after it has
been protruded, have been assigned as causes;
but these cannot be productive of the mischief,
for the disease has been observed during an
early stage of the vegetation of the ear, and
long before it has escaped from the leafy en-
velopes; this also dismisses the opinion enter-
tained by some that the disease occurs after
the grains are fully formed. It does not arise
from the too abundant moisture of the soil, be-
cause I have universally observed that the
driest parts of a field are as liable to bear an
infected grain as the most wet ; and we all
know that an infected plant stands surrounded
by others entirely untainted. Some persons
have thought that insects are the origin of the
disease; but the most accurate observations
have refuted this opinion, and shown that the
diseased grains may be an agreeable nidus for
the larvae, but that these always appear after
the disease is matured. Upon examining some
of the diseased grains, Mr. R. Somerville found
upon them a minute insect, in form like a
wood-louse, which I know from observation to
be a species of the acarus, and these he con-
sidered the cause of the disease. But this is a
conclusion unwarranted by observation, for
similar vermin are found upon the roots of the
Brassica tribe that are infected with anbury;
and, indeed, this genus of insects is invariably
found upon decaying vegetable matter; it is
their habitat.

Other persons have thought that the grains
injured by the process of thrashing are most
liable to the disease ; but this is refuted by the
fiact that it appears in some years, and is

scarcely to be detected in others. The Rev.
Dr. Hales bruised numerous grains of wheat
of different sizes with a hammer, but the result
convinced him that this opinion is erroneous.
Wolfins thought it arose from a monstrosity
of the embryo; but M. Cymen has shown that
the male flowers of some plants sufler from
smut as well as the female, and the former we
know have no embryo.

Some farmers have considered that pigeons'
dung induced the disease, but general expe-
rience is against this idea. Nor is the disease
the consequence of any defect of the sap, for
all the parts except the ear are healthy; and
there are some plants, observes M. Cyjjien,
having perennial roots, and which are vigor-
ous, yet their seeds are annually attacked with
this disease.

Having thus disposed of the several causes
which have been erroneously assigned, I will
now proceed to detail the more correct know-
ledge that has been accumulated respecting
this plague of our corn crops.

This disease is severally termed smut, dust-
brand, blis^lu, burnt corn, &c. In France it is
commonly known by the names ofcharbon and
nielU volante. Botanists, aided by the micro-
scope, have discovered that the cause of smut
is a parasitical fungus, which preys not only
upon the sap, but destroys the very organic
structure of the grain and chaff upon which it
fixes. The majority of naturalists agree in dis-
tinguishing the fungus by the title of Uredo
segelum ; but as it has other synonymes, these,
and the authors who have employed them, may
be usefully enumerated. Urtnh segetum, Pursh,
n. 27; Chaos tiKtilago, Lin. Syst. Nat. 1326, n. 4;
Rtticulaire des bUs, Bulliard's Fungi, vol. i. p. 90,
plate 472, f. 2. Jlcticuluria scgetuni. Withering,
iv. p. 388. Charbon, Tessier, Des Maladies des
Grains, 299. Bulliard describes this fungus as
globular, extremely fine, and attached to a fine *
elastic thread. They are exceedingly nume-
rous, enveloping the seed and chaff of the
plants they affect, and are, as well as their own
still more minute seed, of an intense black
colour, having a disagreeable fetid smell, which
has been not inaptly compared to stale lobsters.
Mr. Kirby tells us that Mr. Lathbury examined
the dust of this fungus under a powerful mag-
nifier, and found it consisted of numerous mi-
nute particles, uniform in shape and size, much
smaller and blacker than those of the pepper
brand, and less easily separable : they seemed
to be contained in little irregular cells. This
dust or seed is the food of a small, shining,
black insect, the Dermestes ata of Marsham.

Chemical analysis has demonstrated that
this fungus effects an entire decomposition of
the vegetable particles of the grain it infects,
the saline constituents remaining nearly un-
altered in th6 grain. Parmenlier, Cornet,
Girot, Chanlians, Fourcroy, and Vauquelin,
have successively examined it, and the result
of their researches is, that smutted grains of
wheat are composed, 1st, of about one-third
their own weight of a green, butyraceous, fetid
and acrid oil; 2d, nearly one-fourth of a vegeto-
animal substance, perfectly similar to that
which comes from putrid gluten; 3d, a black
coal, one--fifth of their weight, similar to that
4P 997

SMUT.

SMUT.

which is found in all remnants of putrefied
organic compounds ; 4th, free phosphotic acid,
amounting scarcely to more than '004 of the
smut ; 5th, phosphates of ammonia, magnesia,
and lime, 'in the proportion of a few thou-
sandths. " We must remark," say MM. Four-
croy and Vauquelin, " that in one examination
of putrefied gluten, we found characters very
similar to those of the smut of wheat ; and that
the products of the one are so like those of the
other as to render it difficult, in certain cases,
not to confound them together. It requires a man
to be well practised in chemical experiments to
discern the slight differences that exist between
these two putrefied matters, because the dif-
ferences are only delicate shades, not easily
discernible. The contagion attacks especially
the gluten, and precedes, indeed prevents, the
formation of the starch ; since we know posi-
tivel}' that this fecula, no traces of which are
found in the smut of wheat, suffers no altera-
tion from the septic process which so power-
fully attacks the glutinous substance." The
ravages of this disease are chiefly, though not
exclusivel)^ confined to the cereal plants. Mr.
Kirby says it is common to wheat, oats, bar-
ley, and rye; and that he has seen the flote
fescue (Glyceria fluitans), and some other
grasses, affected with it. Barley and oats are
more frequently affected by it than wheat,
which may proceed from the latter being usu-
ally steeped before sowing. Wildenow, who,
in his Principles of Botany, § 331, describes the
smut under the name of " Ustilago," and as
being a small fungus, says, "This singular
variety of gangrene occurs most frequently in
the species of Gramineae, rarely in other plants,
sometimes in Scorzonera, Tragspogon," &c.
The ear of corn which is attacked is in gene-
ral totally destroyed, but sometimes the same
ear contains sound as well as smutty grains ;
^ and even one end of the same grain has been
found diseased and the other end sound. How-
ever, as all the grains in an ear are usually
infected, so, when one stalk is smutty, it gene-
rally happens that all the ears from the same
root are so too. In March or April, upon care-
fully opening the hose or blade (folimn vagi-
luins) which covers the ear, and examining the
young ear, although it was not above one-sixth
part of an inch long, and almost close to the
roots, M. Du Hamel found this embryo already
black and distempered; a fact confirmed by
the researches of Mr. Kirby. When the dis-
eased ear 6omes out of the above-mentioned
envelope, it looks lank and meager. About
half an inch of the upper part of its stalk is
commonly not quite straight. If cut asunder
at not more than a quarter of an inch below
the ear, it will be found nearly solid or filled
with pith; the circulation above is therefore
obstructed. The next most important point for
consideration is, from whence is the infection
communicated; and the following experiments
will be found to have demonstrated that it is
capable of being conveyed to the plants by the
agency of the parent seed. These experiments
are satisfactory and decisive; for, although
they are only in accordance with the most pre-
valent opinions of farmers upon the point, yei
prevalent opinions are not always in accord-
998

ance with truth, and are never to be implicitly
received until sustained by evidence, which is
independent of prejudice, and more accurate
than surmise.

Mr. R. Somerville, in a paper published in
the Communications to the Board of Agriculture,
details experiments fully substantiating the
fact, that the disease is communicable to the
crop from the parent seed. He mixed some
^mutted grains with others perfectly healthy,
and kept them in a box for two months ; after
which, previously to sowing, he rubbed them
together between his hands. The sample was
then divided into two equal parts, one of which
was well washed with clear water three or four
times, and then sown in a drill in his garden.
The other half was sown similarly, but without
being •u'ashed or otherwise prepared. The
blades appeared above the surface at the same
time, and during the first two months of their
growth there was no visible difference in their
appearance. Soon afterwards many of the
plants from the unwashed seed were observed
to have a darker and more dirty green hue than
those from the seed that had been cleansed
with water. This difference of colour by de-
grees became more striking, and increased
until the grain was protruded from the blade,
at which time many of the dark-coloured plants
evinced symptoms of decay ; and the whole of
them, when fully developed, were found to
be completely destroyed by the smut. The
plants from the washed seed produced scarce-
ly a single diseased ear. These results were
not fortuitous, for the experiment afforded a
similar testimony when repeated the next
season.

The experiments of Mr. Harrup agree with
the preceding. In these, wheat, consisting
half of sound and half of smutted grains, was
sown without being previously at all prepared,
and this produced a crop of which nearly two-
thirds were smutted. Similar wheat, soaked
for twelve hours in a saturated solution of
common salt, and then mixed with quicklime,
produced on the same soil, in the same situa-
tion, and in the same season, a crop in which
not a smutted ear could be found.

Similar, but more extended, and even more
accurate experiments, were completed by Mr.
Bevan, and are recorded in the ninth volume
of The .Agricultural Magazine. They give the
result of his trials with various liquids as
steeps for seed-wheat. The wheat was grown
on a sandy- soil, at Leighton in Bedfordshire.
The columns in the accompanying table which
are marked A. contain the results from the
sound grain that was sown ; and those marked
B. are the results from smutted samples. (See
Table at top of the next page.)

The conclusion from these and many other
accordant experiments is^ that washing the
seed is effective in preventing the communica-
tion of the disease to the crop to which it gives
birth. If the washing was frequently repeated,
or the cleansing made complete, by passing a
continual stream through the seed for some
hours, it is probable that simple water might
be employed for this purpose as effectually as
any saline solution. But as this would require
more labour than is desirable, and as the salts,

SMUT.

SMUT.

&c., employed are beneficial in other ways, by I ing to the future vigour of the plants, ste^s are
protecting the seed from vermin, and minister- 1 generally and very properly adopted.

Liquid employed.

Solution of potash

muria^ of potash - - - -

nitrate of potash (saltpetre) -
soda ......

muriate of soda (common salt)
sulpliate of soda (Glauber salt)
muriate of ammonia (sal ammoniac)
common soof - - - - -

lime saturated - - - - -

nitric acid (aqua fortis)*
muriatic acid (spirit of salt) -
sulphuric acid (oil of vitrol) -

Dry in Us natural state . - . - -

Washed in common water - - - -

Specific

Gravity

or the

Sotntion.

1-357
1097
1080
1056
1 089
1 047
1026
1025
1003
1018
1011
1050

Number of
tmutted Ears in
tlu'ee Sheaves.

13

6
None
sown.

B.

81
218
115
159
290
241
150

136

323
}l07

Bushels of good
Wheat per Acre.

21-6
20-2
238
202
24-0
21-6
198
20-8
21-9

20-7
20-4
203

13-6
101
143
11-7
145
123
17-6
11-4
12-4

161
17-8
14-7
183

Cwts. of Straw
per Acre.

36-6
360
360
35-6
415
38-5
35-4
34-8
38-7

35-7
35-4
35-7

211
31-9
26-7
33-3
27-8
302
25-3
25-9

341
371
310

35-8

* The seed treated with this acid did not vegetate.

The experiments of Mr. Bevan indicate that
lime-water is the most effective of these prepa-
rations ; and, if this be adopted, it may be pre-
pared by mixing 1 pound of fresh lime with
3 gallons of boiling water, and the clear liquor
then to be poured off and immediately used.
In this liquor the wheat should be soaked for
12 hours, stirred twice or thrice during the i
time, and then mixed upon a floor, with the |
powder made by pouring 3 gallons of boiling
water upon 4 pounds of lime. I have had no
experience of the effects of lime-water as a
preventive of the smut; but with stale urine,
and a solution of common salt, I have wit-
nessed numerous and extensive experiments.
The results, without exception, were favour-
able and nearly similar; and this being the
case, a preference is to be given to common
salt, as being decidedly the most cleanly and
the least disgusting. The mode which I have
•observed to be the most effective is, to wash
•the seed with pure water, pouring this off with
all the floating grains, and then allowing the
seed to soak for 12 hours in a solution of com-
mon salt, having a strength or specific gravity
suflicient to float a hen's egg. I have no doubt
that lime, like common salt, is effectual against
"the disease, by reason of its powerful action
upon the texture of the fungus tribe. Every
housekeeper knows how completely mush-
rooms dissolve away when sprinkled with salt ;
and in experiments I have made upon the
Urego segelum, I found that the effect of common
salt upon this fungus is not less remarkable.

Mr. TuU, MM. de Lignerolle, Douat, and
others, agree in recommending that the seed to
be sown upon any farm should be frequently
obtained from other soils ; but, however bene-
ficial this may be for securing other desired
effects, I do not understand how it can prevent
the occurrence of smut unless the seed is ob-
tained from a crop and a district notably free
from the disease. There is little doubt but that
the method in which the disease is imparted to
the plant is by its root imbibing the extremely
minute seeds of the Urcdo along with the mois-
ture of the soil. This opinion is confirmed by
the observation that the disease is most preva-
lent when the winter has been mild and the
spring wet ; for, in such seasons, the abundant
moisture passing through the soil is most likely

to convey the seeds to the mouths of the plants'
radicle fibres.

I remember trying some experiments, the
full details of which I have accidentally lost,
in which I buried some of the Uredo segettun
about an inch below the surface of the soil, in
a garden pot in which some wheat was grow-
ing, supplying those plants, during their after
growth, plentifully with water poured upon the
surface of the soil. Not one of these plants
escaped infection.

Another garden pot, in which wheat from the
same sample was growing, and similarly treated
in every respect, but to which moisture was
supplied solely by means of the saucer in
which it was placed, both pots being sheltered
entirely from the rain, produced plants which
were not at all infected. Although it is very
apparent that the smut is generally imparted
to a wheat crop by the agency of the seed
sown, yet I am by no means of opinion that
this is the only^ source of infection. I have
kept ears of wheat that were covered and de-
stroyed by the Uredo during more ^han twelve
months in a situation where they experienced
the vicissitudes of temperature during all the
seasons, unprotected by more than the paper
envelope in which they were suspended in an
outhouse. Yet when the Uredo that had been
thus exposed was mixed with healthy well-
washed seed-wheat, this produced diseased
plants in a triplicate proportion more numerous
than that not so mixed. This experiment de-
monstrates that frost and drought, acting in
concert with a damp atmosphere, dojiot destroy
the vegetating power of the Urcdo's seed. Such
being the fact, why may not this seed remain
in the soil ready to impart the plague 1 We
know that, owing to its extreme lightness, the
seed floats buoyantly in the air, and may be
carried by winds to distant soils, which in the
autumn of the same year, before any extremity
of cold has been endured, will have to bear the
wheat crop for the following harvest. The
opinion that the soil is one source. of infection,
is sustained by the fact that fields in the vici-
nity of the sea are rarely injured, and never
extensively, by the ravages of the smut.
I Such soils are impregnated more than any
other with common salt, and the effect of
1 this saline compound upon the Uredo has been

999

SMUT.

SNAKE.ROOT.

noticed already. These considerations suggest
that applications to the soil as well as to the
seed are necessary for the banishment of the
disease ; but a more full notice, and some cu-
rious particulars upon this point, will be found
detailed under the head Mildew.

I ^ have frequently examined the roots of
wheat plants affected by the smut, but have
never perceived that they had a diseased ap-
pearance; a fact which I find confirmed by
the researches of Mr. Kirby. Although the
root is not affected, yet I have invariably found
the smutted plants of a form and habit much
less robust than those undiseased. The ave-
rage result of Mr. Be van's experiments is, that
smutted wheat produces straw in the proportion
of only 30 to 36-75, when compared with wheat
unattacked by the smut. This is not a result
contrary to that which might be anticipated;
for in plants, as well as animals, an organic
affection so serious as this is usually accom-
panied by a general emaciation of the frame.
So decidedly is this effect produced upon wheat,
that a practised eye can at once detect by its
appearance, before the diseased ear is pro-
truded, a plant that is thus distempered. The
stem and leaves look upright, thin, and stiff,
wearing the aspect that is best described, to
those who know the appearance, by the term
staring. I cannot conclude without remarking
that these facts strengthen the analogy I am so
fond of tracing between plants and animals.
The atrophy exhibited by both, when under the
influence of disease, is strikingly illustrative
of their close relationship ; and this is further
carried on by their being equally liable to the
ravages of parasites. The skin of every ani-
mal is liable to be infested by vermin, as its in-
testines and other viscera are by worms and
various other creatures. So plants are not
only subject to invermination, but, like ani-
mals, they are preyed upon by various genera
of their own race. Their barks are assailed
by numerous lichens and fungi, whilst inter-
nally they are a prey to the Uredo I have just
described, and to several others of the fungus
tribe. Animals have their larger parasites, as
the lick, &c., and vegetables similarly bear the
misseltoe, dodder, and others. This repeated
urging that plants are closely allied to animals
in every particular is not without its use.
Every year's experience convinces me that it
is not less beneficial to cultivate plants with
the least possible injury to their various parts,
than it is to treat our farming stock with gen-
tleness anS an attention to their comfort ; and
it is by demonstrating the analogy between
the two great divisions of created beings, that
the reason of the cultivator is to be drawn to
regulate his practice.

Finally, I will observe, that the farmer is
much too prone to regard the diseases of his
crops as of trivial importance. In such cases
as where the curl destroys whole fields of his
potatoes, or the mildew reduces the produce
of each acre of wheat to a few bushels, he is
miserably sensible of the injury he has sus-
tained; but if, within the circle of corn-ears
around him, as he surveys his crops, he only
sees a sprinkling of those affected with the
smut, he looks upon this as of insignificant
1000

consequence. Yet, in the experiments of Mr.
Bevan, in the instances where only two smut-
ted ears occurred in three sheaves, the weight
of the straw was reduced nearly one-third, and
that of the grain three- sevenths. (Essay by
G. W. Johnson, Quart. Journ. Jgr. vol. ix. p. 45.)
See Blight and Mildew.

SMUT-MILL. Of late years the millers in
the United States avail themselves of contri-
vances called smut-mills, the passage of the
wheat through which clears it very effectually
from the offensive dust. Wheat affected with
smut was formerly much objected to by the
grain merchants and millers, but since the in-
troduction of the machines referred to, is so
readily cleansed that smut is scarcely objected
to in the sample, and the market price reduced
but little, if at all.

An inquiry made, in March, 1842, into the
merits of a smut-mill invented by Mr. Wm. C.
Grimes, of York, Pennsylvania, by a committee
of the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania, war-
ranted them in recommending the machine to
the notice of millers, as caps^)le not only of
making good white flour from wheat so badly
smutted as to be generally considered unmer-
chantable, but which will also improve the
general quality of flour, by the removal of
cheat, and of the down or furze which covers
one end of the grain, and of most other acci-
dental foreign matters which tend to injure the
quality of the flour. (Jour, of the Franklin Inst.^
of Penn. vol.iv., third series, p. 32.)

SNAILS (Helix— Helicidff). A well-known
genus of molluscous animals, comprising a
great many species. They live throughout the
winter in a torpid state, in cavities in the earth,
which are covered over with a calcareous kind
of wall, partly formed with its mucous secre-
tion. The animal escapes from its cell in April,
bursting its operculum, and again breathes as
before its hybernation. The species of shell-
snails are very extensive. In the garden, snails
do much damage to the vegetables in cultivated
grounds, biting off pieces of the leaves by
means of a semicircular, dentated, horny plate
which is aflSxed to the upper lip. To extirpate
them, it has been recommended to strew the
ground with lime and ashes, or salt. Snails
seldom annoy farmers, unless it be under the
hedges ; and if they venture out into the mid-
dle of a field, the roller is a certain destructive
implement to their fragile coverings. The red,
or great vine-snail (H.pomatia), formed one of
the luxuries of the tables of the ancient Ro-
mans, and by peculiar feeding and other treat-
ment was brought to attain an immense size.
It is still an article of food in certain cantons
of Switzerland and France, and some of the
provinces of Spain and Portugal. This spe-
cies of helix was brought to England by the
Howard family, and placed on the grounds in
the neighbourhood of Box-hill, where it is still
found; but it does not attain to the size it often
displays in Italy. It is supposed to be a good
article of food for the consumptive.

SNAKE-ROOT. Several plants in the United
States go under this appellation. The Virginia
snake-root (.^ristolochia serpentana) is the well-
known fibrous root, noted for its intense bitter-
ness, and extensively employed in medicine as

SNOW.

SOOT.

as a tonic. It is found in rich woodlands, in the
Middle States. The root is perennial.

The tall snake-root, or black snake-root (Ac-
tea racemosa.) This plant has a perennial root,
large and branching. The stem grows 4 to 6
feet high, slender, smooth, leafy near the mid-
dle. It flowers in June. "The white racemes
of this plant," says Dr. Darlington, " when in
flower, are quite conspicuous in our woodlands.
The plant itself has a heavy disagreeable odour
when bruised. The root is somewhat mucila-
ginous and astringent; and is a very popular
medicine both for man and beast. It is used
in infusion, or decoction, chiefly as a pectoral
remedy for human patients ; and many persons
consider it almost a panacea for a sick cow.
Its virtues, however, are probably much over-
rated.

Black snake-root, Maryland sanicula (Sa-
nictUa Marylandica, vel canadtnsis). This plant
has a perennial root, and is frequent in wood-
lands and thickets where it flowers in June and
July. The stem grows 2 feet high, branched
above, grooved and smooth. The flowers are
white and sometimes yellow.

Button snake-root, or blue blazing star (Lia-
tris spicata). This plant has a perennial, tu-
berous root with many small fibres. The stem
grows 2 to 4 or 5 feet high, with numerous
leaves, disposed alternately. The purple flow-
ers appear in August. The root of this hand-
some plant is a popular medicine, being em-
ployed either as a tea or spirituous tincture
for the cure of chronic rheumatism, debility, &c.

The Seneka snake-root or mountain flax,
has been mentioned under the head of Milk-
wort.

SNOW. This well-known precipitation
from the atmosphere serves to defend winter
grain-crops and all other vegetables from the
severity of frosts ; for, being a very bad con-
ductor of heat, it prevents the internal warmth
of the earth from being carried oft' through the
surface of the land, and consequently amelio-
rates the soil. The plants being thus sheltered,
shoot forth in the spring with renewed vigour;
and, cherished by the genial rays of the sun,
vegetate with increased luxuriance. As am-
monia and other saline matters, possessing
fertilizing matters, have been detected in snow,
it not only cherishes vegetation by the protec-
tion it afibrds, but by the direct influence of the
lertilizers referred to.

SNOW-BALL. See Gdeldbr Rose.

SNOW-DROP TREE. See Halebia.

SOAPWORT {Saponaria, from tapo, soap ;
the bruised leaves are said to produce a lather,
like soap, when agitated in the water). This
genus contains some truly beautiful plants,
well deserving of a place in every garden.
One species, with some varieties, is indigenous
to England. The common soapwort (S. offici-
ncUix), a perennial, grows in meadows, by
rivers, and under hedges. The root is branch-
ing, rather fleshy, with many long, creeping
scions. Herbage smooth, or nearly so, a little
succulent. Stems about 18 inches high, erect,
round, leafy. Leaves eliptic-lanceolate, acute.
Panicle dense, of many erect, large, handsome,
flesh-coloured, or pale-pink flowers, with an
oppressive sweetness.

186

This plant, which bears the common name
of bouncing-bet, has been introduced into the
United States, where it often proves somewhat
troublesome in gardens and meadows. When
bruised, and agitated in water, it raises a lather
like soap ; and has been used as a substitute
for it. A decoction has been employed some-
times as a wash for the itch, and other cuta-
neous diseases. There are no native species ;
and this is the only one of the genus which
has become naturalized in the United States.

SODA. See Kelp ; Salts, their uses to vege-
tation, ^c.

SOD BURNING. See Pari wo and Burkiho.

SOFT-GRASS. See Holcos.

SOIL. See Earths, Analysis and Mixture
OF Soils.

SOILING. The practice of supporting ani-
mals in the summer season, with green food,
cut daily and given to them in the houses,
stalls, or yards. A number of different plants
and grasses may be had recourse to for this
purpose, particularly those which have a quick
and luxuriant growth; as lucern, sainfoin,
tares, clover, turnips, &c.

Soiling appears to be highly advantageous,
in a variety of ways, by the food being con-
sumed with much less waste, by the great in-
crease of good manure that is produced, and
by the stock feeding with less interruption and
inconvenience, from their being more effectually-
shaded from the excessive heat of the sun, and
better protected from the attacks of flies and
other insects. In all these respects it would
seem to have a gr^at superiority over that of
letting the animals range indiscriminately in
the pastures or other grass lands.

Soiling has been found, by the most careful
experiments, to answer perfectly both with
horses, neat cattle, and swine ; and with cows
it has been found very beneficial in the trials
of Mr. Curwen and several others.

By an extensive and judicious use of soiling,
the farmer may derive benefit in being enabled
to have a considerably larger extent of land
both under the states of tillage and grass, from
the considerable increase of manure that is
produced.

SOLAR INFLUENCE. See Tempehaturk
and Light.

SOOT is very extensively employed in the
east of England, as a powerful manure, and
produces, when used at the rate of 12 or 20
bushels per acre, most luxuriant crops of
wheat and other grain. This valuable ferti-
lizer is composed of a mixture of charcoal, an
oil, salts of ammonia, some muriatic acid, lime,
magnesia, silica, and other foreign substances ;
but the charcoal is by far the largest ingredient,
and has a powerful influence on vegetation ;
and, according to Liebig, it can " completely
replace vegetable mould or humus. Plants
thrive in powdered charcoal, and may be
brought to blossom and bear fruit if exposed
to the influence of rain and the atmosphere."^
{Organ. Chem. p. 61.) All the substances con-
tained in soot are the natural food of vegetation ;
the carbon gradually combines with the oxy-
gen of the atmosphere, and is converted into
carbonic acid gas, which is readily absorbed,
by the roots and leaves of plants.

4 p 2 1001

SORREL.

SOUTHERNWOOD.

In Essex,the chief employment of soot is for
wheat, and it is generally applied by the chim-
ney sweepers to the land, out of a basket, in
the same manner that seed is sown. This is
usually done in the spring of the year, in
March, April, or May. Wheat so treated
speedily assumes a very deep green, [and on
some soils grows with greatly increased luxu-
riance. Soot was employed by the Rev. E.
Cartwright as a manure for potatoes, both by
itself and in combination with various other
fertilizing substances. The experiments were
made on a portion of the same soil as that de-
scribed in the article Ashes. The following
were the results obtained :

Per Acre.

1. The soil, without any manure, yielded bushela

of potatoes -.-.--- 157

2. Soot 30 bushels 192

3. Soot 30 bushels, salt 8 bushels - . - - 240

Various agriculturists have noticed the good
results from mixing salt and soot. Mr. George
Sinclair, in his prize essay On Salt as a Manure,
mentions it as "remarkable" in the case of
carrots. Mr. Belfield of Elford has done the
same with regard to wheat.

In Mr. Sinclair's experiments upon carrots.

Per Acre.
Tons. cwt. lb».

The soils without any manure produced
carrots 23 9 107

Soil with 6^ bushels of salt dug in - - 44 14 17

Soil with 6} bushels of salt, and 6i bush-
els soot 40 4 97

In both the liquid and solid state, it has been
employed by Mr. John Robertson of Kilkenny,
with great success. " On meadows," he says,
"I have used soot with great advantage in sub-
stance; and though sown by the hand, one
dressing gave me always heavy crops of hay
for two successive seasons. But this is a
wasteful mode of applying it, a great portion
of its ammonia, one of its most active ingre-
dients, being volatilized, and dissipated in the
atmosphere: when dissolved in water, there is
no waste, — it is all available ; and for horti-
cultural purposes I have mostly used it in that
state, mixing it up in the proportion of about
six quarts to a hogshead of water. Asparagus,
peas, and a variety of other vegetables, I have
manured with it, with as much eflfect as if I
had used solid dung; but to plants in pots,
particularly pines, I have found it admirably
well adapted ; when watered with it, they as-
sume a deep, healthy green, and grow strong
and luxuriant." Mr. A. Main makes some
pertinent remarks on soot as a top-dressing to
crops, and describes a machine for distributing
it, in the sixth volume of the Trans, of the High-
land Soc. p. 535.

SORREL (the genus rumex, from the shape
of the leaves in many of the species, resem-
bling a pike or spear). There are in England
several indigenous species of sorrel, some of
which have already been described. The
common English sorrel' {Rumex acetosa) is a
perennial plant, met with almost e%'erywhere
in meadows and pastures, flowering in June.
The root is long and tapering, astringent, and
5omewhat woody. The herbage is smooth,
.powerfully and agreeably acid. Stem from 1
.to 2 feet high, erect, simple, leafy, striated.
Leaves oblong, arrow-shaped. Flowers dioe-
1002

cious, with permanent tuberculated petals. The
acidulous taste of sorrel depends on binoxalate
of potassa and tartaric acid: the astringency
on tannic acid.

The flavour of the wood-sorrel (Oxalis acelo-
sella) is much more grateful, and the leaves
are more juicy, than those of the common
sorrel (R. acetosa) and the French or Roman
sorrel (R. sciitatus). The acid is merely the
oxalic, free and^lso combined with potassa and
ammonia. It likewise contains some saccha-
rine matter. The garden cultivation required
by them is identical. The leaves are employed
at all seasons of the year, in salads, sauces,
&c. The wood-sorrel requires a silicious, yet
moist and moderately fertile soil, in a shady
situation, as beneath a hedge with a northern
aspect. The garden sorrel thrives best in any
mouldy garden soil that tends to lightness ra-
ther than tenacity, and is not too poor. The
situation must be open. French sorrel is most
healthful in a light, dry soil, that is tolerably
fertile, in an open compartment. The rumexes
are propagated by seed, and all of them by
parting the roots, both which modes may be
practised from the middle of February until
the same period in May, and by the latter also
in September and October. The finest plants
are raised by seed, but those from portions of
the roots are soonest in production. [

Sheep-sorrel, or field -sorrel (iJ. acetosella), is
abundantly diffused throughout the United
States, and often forms a great pest to the far-
mer. The best way to subdue it is by means
of liberal dressings with lime. This has been
disputed by some, but where the application
has been made in large quantity, it will seldom
or ever fail. Of this genus two other species,
troublesome to farmers, have been already
mentioned. These are the sour or curled dock
(i?. crispus), and the bitter or broad-leaved dock
(jR. obtusifolius). See Dock.

SORREL TREE {Andromeda arhorea). This
is the only species of andromeda, which rises to
a sufficient height to be ranked among forest
trees. It begins to appear on the Alleghanies
in Virginia, and is found to their termination
in Georgia. In the fertile mountainous regions
of North Carolina, it attains a height of 50 feet,
with 12 or 15 inches in diameter. The name
is derived from the acidity of the leaves, which
in drying become black. When sumac is not
to be obtained, these leaves are used as a sub-
stitute in dyeing wool. The tree will endure
much cold, and grows well in the vicinity of
New York. It has small, white flowers, formed
into spikes 5 or 6 inches long. These render
the tree a very pretty ornament to gardens, &c.

SOUTHERNWOOD (Absinthium). The field
southernwood (A. campcstris) is a rather rare
species. It is perennial in habit. The whole
herb is without any aromatic or bitter flavour.
Stems at first prostrate, becoming more or less
upright as the flowers appear, branched, leafy,
straight and wand-like, smooth, often reddish,
near 2 feet high. Leaves irregularly and dou-
bly pinnatifid, in many linear; blunt segments.
Flowers drooping, small, ovate, yellow with a
purplish calyx, forming numerous slender leafy
clusters at the ends of the stems and branches.
See Wormwood.

SOWING.

SPAN-WORMS.

SOWING. See Seed.

SOWING MACHINE. See Drill.

SOW-THISTLE (Sonchus, from scmphus, hol-
low ; the stems being hollow). A rather large
genus of annual or perennial plants, rarely
shrubby, generally tall. They have hollow
stems, and more or less pinnatifid or lyrate
leaves, toothed or prickly at their edges. The
surface of the herbage is usually smooth, that
of the inflorescence hairy or glandular, often
viscid. They contain a bitter white juice, and
are plants of easy culture in any common soil.
The herbaceous species are increased by divi-
sion ; the seeds of the annual and biennial
kinds only require to be sown in the open
ground. There are in England three indige-
nous perennial species : the blue sow-thistle
(S.casruleus), the tall marsh sow-thistle (S.pa-
lu8tri$), one of the largest herbaceous plants,
growing from 6 to 8 feet high ; and the corn
sow-thistle (-S. arvcnsis). The most common
native species is annual in habit,''viz., the com-
mon sow-thistle (S. oleraceus), which is found
almost everywhere, in cultivated and waste
ground; flowering from July to September.
Hares and rabbits are very fond of the herb-
age, which, like the root, is milky and bitter.
The leaves are sometimes dressed and eaten
among other culinary herbs, and the roots have
occasionally been converted into bread.

SPADE HUSBANDRY. There are many
situations in which, from the small size of the
enclosures, or the want of suflicient power for
the easy working of the common or the subsoil
plough, the cultivator may prefer the employ-
ment of manual labour with the spade ; and it
is fortunately found by experience that the
diflierence in the expense of deep-digging, or
spade husbandry, is not materially different
from that of the subsoil plough. A great mass
of information on this head was collected by
the late Dr. Yelloly ; not, however, so much
with the view of showing the increased fer-
tility of the soil by deep-stirring, as with the
intention of demonstrating the immense field
which is thus opened for the profitable labour
of a teeming and increasing population. (See
Dr. Yelloly on Spade Husbandry ; also British
Farmer's Magazine.)

The trials which have been hitherto made
of spade husbandry, in various parts of the
kingdom, have been insufticient, in point of
extent, to afi'ord any adequate criterion of the
general applicability of that practice. Such
trials, indeed, have been usually regarded either
as matters of speculation and experiment, or
as charitable efforts adopted by the benevolent
to give employment to the poor, without refer-
ence to pecuniary expediency.

In most parts of Biscay and the north of
Spain, the fields are commonly cultivated by
the spade : great crops of potatoes and turnips
are raised by these means." (Sinclair, p. 394 ;
Brit. Husbandry, vol. ii. p. 571.) See Flanders,

HUSBAXDRT OF.

SPANISH NEEDLE (Bidens). See Bcr-
Marioold.

SPAN-WORMS. A common appellation
applied to those caterpillars called also loopers,
and geometers. In New England they are
called canker-worms*

The caterpillars of the Geometrae of Lin-
naeus, earth-measurers, as the term implies, or
geometers, span-worms, and loopers, have re-
ceived these several names from their peculiar
manner of moving, in which they seem to
measure or span over the ground, step by step,
as they proceed. Most of these caterpillars
have only 10 legs ; namely, 6, which'are jointed
and tapering, under the fore-part of the body,
and 4 fleshy proplegs at the hinder extremity;
the 3 intermediate pairs of proplegs being want-
j ing. Consequently, in creeping, they arch up
the back while they bring forward the hinder
! part of the body, and then, resting on their hind-
legs, stretch out to their full length, in a straight
' line, before taking another step with their hind-
legs. They have the power of letting them-
selves down from any height, by means of a
silken thread, which they spin from their
mouths while falling. Whenever they are
disturbed they make use of this faculty, drop
suddenly, and hang suspended, till the danger
is past, after which they climb up again by the
same thread. These span-worms are naked,
or only thinly covered with very short down ;
they are mostly smooth, but sometimes have
warts or irregular projections on their backs.
They change their colour usually as they grow
older, are sometimes striped, and sometimes of
one uniform colour, nearly resembling the bark
of the plants on which they are found. When
not eating, many of them rest on the two hind-
most pairs of legs against the side of a branch,
with the body extended from the branch, so that
they might be mistaken for the twig of the tree ;
and in this position they will often remain for
hours together. When about to transform,
most of these insects descend from the plants
on which they live, and either bury themselves
in '.he ground, or conceal themselves on the
surface under a slight covering of leaves fas-
tened together with silken threads. Some make
more regular cocoons, which, however, are
very thin, and generally more or less covered
on the outside with leaves. A very few of the
span-worms fasten themselves to the stems of
plants, and are changed to chrysalids, which
hang suspended, without the protection of any
outer covering.

In their perfected stale these insects are
mostly slender-bodied moths, with tapering
antenna?, which are often feathered in the
males. Some of the females are without
wings, and are distinguished also by the oval
and robust form of their bodies. These moths
are most active in the night; but some of them
may be seen flying in thickets during the day-
time. They are very short-lived, and die soon
after their eggs are laid.

It was formerly supposed that the canker-
worm moths came out of the ground only in
the spring. It is now known that many of
them rise in the autumn, and in the early part
of the winter. In mild and open winters I have
seen them, says Dr. Harris, in every month
from October to March. They begin to make
their appearance after the first hard frosts in
the autumn, usually towards the end of Octo-
ber, and they continue to come forth, in greater
or smaller numbers, according to the mildness
or severity of the weather after the frosts have

1003

SPAN-WORMS.

SPAN-WORMS.

bcgnn. Their general time of rising is in the
spring, beginning about the middle of March,
but sometimes before, and sometimes after this
time ; and they continue to come forth for the
space of about 3 weeks. It has been observed
that there are more females than males among
those that appear in the autumn and winter,
and that the males are most abundant in the
spring. The sluggish females instinctively
make their way towards the nearest trees, and
creep slowly up their trunks. In a few days
afterwards they are followed by the winged and
active males, which flutter about and accom-
pany them in their ascent, during which the
insects pair. Soon after this, the females lay
their eggs upon the branches of the trees,
placing them on their ends, close together, in
rows, forming clusters of from 60 to 100 eggs
or more, which is the number usually laid by
each female. The eggs are glued to each other,
and to the bark, by a grayish varnish, which is
impervious to water; and the clusters are thus
securely fastened in the forks of the small
branches, or close to the young twigs and buds.
Immediately after the insects have thus pro-
vided for a succession of their kind, they begin
to languish, and soon die. The eggs are usually
hatched between the first and the middle of
May, or about the time that the red currant is
in blossom, and the young leaves of the apple
tree begin to start from the bud and grow. The
little canker-worms, upon making their escape
from the eggs, gather upon the tender leaves,
and, on the occurrence of cold and wet weather,
creep for shelter into the bosom of the bud, or
into the flowers, when the latter appear. Where
these insects prevail, they are most abundant
on apple and elm trees ; but cherry, plum, and
lime trees, and some other cultivated and na-
tive trees, as well as many shrubs, often sufter
severely from their voracity. The leaves first
attacked will be found pierced with small holes ;
these become larger and more irregular when
ihei canker-worms increase in size ; and, at
last, the latter eat nearly all the pulpy parts of
ihe leaves, leaving little more than the midrib
and veins. A very great difference of colour
is observable among canker-worms of different
ages, and even among those of the same age
and size. It is possible that some of these va-
riations may arise from a difference of species;
but it is also true that the same species varies
much in colour. When very young, they have
2 minute warts on the top of the last ring ; and
they are then generally of a blackish or dusky
brown colour, with a yellowish stripe on each
side of the'body; there are 2 whitish bands
across the head ; and the belly is also whitish.
When fully grown, these individuals become
ash-coloured on the back, and black on the
sides, below which the pale yellowish line
remains. When fully grown and well fed,
they measure nearly or quite 1 inch in length.
They leave off" eating when about 4 weeks old,
and begin to quit the trees ; some creep down
by the trunk, but great numbers let themselves
down by their threads from the branches, their
instincts prompting them to get to the ground
by the most direct and easiest course. When
thus descending, and suspended in great num-
bers under the limbs of trees overhanging the
1004

road, they are often swept off by passing car-
riages, and are thus conveyed to other places.
After reaching the ground, they immediately
burrow in the earth, to the depth of from 2 to 6
inches, unless prevented by weakness or the
nature of the soil. In the latter case, they die,
or undergo their transformation on the surface.
In the former, they make little cavities or cells
in the ground, by turning round repeatedly and
fastening the loose grains of earth about them
with a few silken threads. Within 24 hours
afterwards, they are changed to chrysalids in
their cells. The chrysalis is of a light brown
colour, and varies in size according to the sex
of the insect contained in it ; that of the female
being the largest, and being destitute of a
covering for wings, which is found in the chry-
salis of the males. The occurrence of mild
weather after a severe frost stimulates some of
these insects to burst their chrysalis skins and
come forth in the perfect state ; and this last
transformation, as before stated, may take
place in the autumn, or in the course of the
winter, as well as in the spring; it is also re-
tarded, in some individuals, for a year or more
beyond the usual time. They come out of the
ground mostly in the night, when they may be
seen struggling through the grass as far as the
limbs extend from the body of the trees under
which they had been buried. As the females
are destitute of wings, they are not able to
wander far from the trees upon which they had
lived in the caterpillar state. Canker-worms
are therefore naturally confined to a very
limited space, from which they spread year
after year. Accident, however, will often carry
them far from their native haunts, and in this
way, probably, they have extended to places
remote from each other. Where they have
become established, and have been neglected^
their ravages are often very great. In the early
part of the season the canker-worms do not
attract much attention ; but in New England it
is in June, when they become extremely vora-
cious, that the mischief they have done is ren-
dered apparent, when we have before us the
melancholy sight of the foliage of our fruit
trees and of our noble elms reduced to withered
and lifeless shreds, and whole orchards look-
ing as if they had been suddenly scorched
with fire.

In order to protect our trees from the ravages
of canker-worms, where these looping spoilers
abound, it should be our aim, if possible, to
prevent the wingless females from ascending
the trees to deposit their eggs. This can be
done by the application of tar around the body
of the tree, either directly on the bark, as has
been the most common practice, or, what is
better, over a broad belt of clay-mortar, or on
strips of old canvass or of strong paper, from
6 to 12 inches wide, fastened around the trunk
with strings. The tar must be applied as early
as the 1st of November, and perhaps in Octo-
ber, and it should be renewed daily as long as
the insects continue rising; after which the
bands may be removed, and the tar should be
entirely scraped from the bark. When all this
has been properly and seasonably done, it has
proved effectual. The time, labour, and ex-
pense attending the use of tar, and the injury

SPAN-WORMS.

SPAN-WORMS.

that it does to the trees when allowed to run
and remain on the bark, have caused many
persons to neglect this method, and some to
try various modifications of it, and other expe-
dients. Among the modifications may be men-
tioned a horizontal and close-fitting collar of
boards, fastened around the trunk, and smeared
beneath with tar; or four boards, nailed to-
gether, like a box without top or bottom, around
5ie base of the tree, to receive the tar on the
outside. These can be used to protect a few
choice trees in a garden, or around a house or
a public square, but will be found too expen-
sive to be applied to any great extent. Collars
of tin-plate, fastened around the trees, and
sloping downwards like an inverted tunnel,
have been proposed, upon the supposition that
the moths would not be able to creep in an in-
verted position, beneath the smooth and sloping
surface. This method will also prove too ex-
pensive for general adoption, even should it
be found to answer the purpose. A belt of
cotton-wool, which it has been thought would
entangle the feet of the insects, and thus keep
them from ascending the trees, has not proved
an effectual bar to them. Little square or cir-
cular troughs of tin or of lead, filled with cheap
fish-oil, and placed around the trees, 3 feet or
more above the surface of the ground, with a
stuffing of cloth, hay, or sea-weed between
them and the trunk, have long been used by
various persons in Massachusetts with good
success ; and the only objections to them are
the cost of the troughs, the difficulty of fixing
and keeping them in their places, and the in-
jury suffered by the trees when the oil is
washed or blown out and falls upon the bark.
Mr. Jonathan Dennis, Jr., of Portsmouth, Rhode
Island, has obtained a patent for a circular
leaden trough to contain oil, offering some
advantages over those that have heretofore
been used, although it does not entirely prevent
the escape of the oil, and the nails, with which
it is secured, are found to be injurious to the
trees. These troughs ought not to be nailed to
the trees, but should be supported by a few
wooden wedges driven between them and the
trunks. A stuffing of cloth, cotton, or tow,
should never be used; sea-weed and fine hay,
which will not absorb the oil, are much better.
Before the< troughs are fastened and filled, the
body of the tree should be well coated with
clay-paint or white-wash, to absorb the oil that
may fall upon it Care should be taken to
renew the oil as often as it escapes or becomes
filled with the insects. These troughs will be
found more economical and less troublesome
than the application of tar, and may safely be
recommended and employed, if proper atten-
tion is given to the precautions above named.
Some persons fasten similar troughs, to con-
tain oil, around the outer sides of an open box
enclosing the base of the tree, and a projecting
ledge is nailed on the edge of the box to shed
the rain ; by this contrivance, all danger of
hurting the tree with the oil is entirely avoid-
ed. In the Manchester Guardian, an English
newspaper, of the 4th of November, 1840, is
the following article on the use of melted Indian
rubber to prevent insects from climbing up
trees. "At a late meeting of the Entomolo-

gical Society [of London], Mr. J. H. Fennel!
communicated the following successful mode
of preventing insects ascending the trunks of
fruit trees. Let a piece of Indian rubber be
burnt over a gallipot, into which it will gradu-
ally drop in the condition of a viscid juice,
which state, it appears, it will always retain ; for
Mr. Fennell has. at the present time, some
which has been melted for upwards of a year,
and has been exposed to all weathers without
undergoing the slightest change. Having
melted the Indian rubber, let a piece of cord or
worsted be smeared with it, and then tied seve-
ral times round the trunk. The melted sub-
stance is so verj' sticky, that the insects will
be prevented, and generally captured, in their
attempts to pass over it. About 3 pennyworths
of Indian rubber is sufficient for the protection
of 20 ordinary sized fruit trees." Applied in
this way it would not be sufliicient to keep the
canker-worm moths from getting up the trees ;
for the first comers would soon bridge over the
cord with their bodies, and thus afford a pas-
sage to their followers. To insure success, it
should be melted in larger quantities, and
daubed with a brush upon strips of cloth or
paper, fastened round the trunks of the trees.
Worn-out Indian rubber shoes, which are
worth little or nothing for any other purpose,
can be put to this use. This plan has been
tried by a few persons in the vicinity of Bos-
ton, some of whom speak favourably of it. It
has been suggested that the melted rubber
might be applied immediately to the bark with-
out injuring the trees. A little conical mound
of sand surrounding the base of the tree is
found to be impassable to the moths, so long
as the sand remains dry ; but they easily pass
over it when the sand is wet, and they come
out of the ground m wet as often as in dry
weather.

Some attempts have been made to destroy
the canker-worms after they were hatched from
the eggs, and were dispersed over the leaves
of the trees. It is said that some persons have
saved their trees from these insects by freely
dusting air-slacked lime over them while the
leaves were wet with dew. Showering the
trees with mixtures that are found useful to
destroy other insects, has been tried by a few,
and, although attended with a good deal of
trouble and expense, it may be worth our while
to apply such remedies upon small and choice
trees. Mr. David Haggerston, of Watertown,
Massachusetts, has used, for this purpose, a
mixture of water and oil-soap (an article to be
procured from the manufactories where whale-
oil is purified), in the proportion of 1 pound of
the soap to 7 gallons of water; and he states
that this liquor, when thrown on the trees with
a garden engine, will destroy the canker-worm
and many other insects, without injuring the
foliage or the fruit. Jarring or shaking the
limbs of the trees will disturb the canker-
worms, and cause many of them to spin down,
when their threads may be broken off with a
pole ; and if the troughs around the trees are
at the same time replenished with oil, or the
tar is again applied, the insects will be caught
in their attempts to creep up the trunks. In
the same way, also, those that are coming down

1006

SPAN-WORMS.

SPEARMINT.

the trunks to go into the ground will be caught
and killed. If greater pains were to be taken
to destroy the insects in the caterpillar state,
their numbers would soon greatly diminish.

Even after they have left the trees, have
gone into the ground, and have changed their
for^is, they are not wholly beyond the reach of
means for destroying them. One person told
me that his swine, which he was in the habit
of turning into his orchard in the autumn,
rooted up and killed great numbers of the chry-
salids of the canker-worms. Some persons
have recommended digging or ploughing under
the trees, in the autumn, with the hope of
crushing some of the chrysalids by so doing,
and of exposing others to perish with the cold
of the following winter. If hogs are then al-
lowed to go among the trees, and a few grains
of corn are scattered on the loosened soil, these
animals will eat many of the chrysalids as
well as the corn, and will crush others with
their feet. Mr. S. P. Fowler thinks it better to
dig around the trees in July, while the shells
of the insects are soft and tender. He and
Mr. John Kenrick, of Newton, Mass., advise us
to remove the soil to the distance of 4 or 5 feel
from the trunk of the trees, and to the depth of
6 inches, to cart it away and replace it with an
equal quantity of compost or rich earth. In
this way, many of the insects will be removed
also ; but, unless the earth, thus carried away,
is thrown into some pond-hole, and left covered
with water, many of the insects contained in
it will undergo their transformations and come
out alive the next year. (See Yankee Farmer,
of July 19, 1840, and New England Farmer of
June 2, 1841, for some valuable remarks by
Mr. Fowler.)

Canker-worms are subject to the attacks of
many enemies. Great numbers of them are
devoured by several kinds of birds, which live
almost entirely upon them during their season.
They are also eaten by a very large and splen-
did ground-beetle {Calosoma scrutator), that ap-
pears about the time when these insects begin
to leave the trees. These beetles do not fly,
but they run about in the grass after the canker-
worms, and even mount upon the trunks of the
trees to seize them as they come down. The
latter are also stung by a four-winged ichneu-
mon-fly, which deposits an egg in every can-
ker-worm thus wounded. From the egg is
hatched a little maggot, that preys on the fatty
substance of the canker-worm, and weakens it
so much that it is unable to go through its fu-
ture transformations. I have seen one of these
flies sting several canker-worms in succession,
and swarms of them may be observed around
the trees as long as the canker-worms remain.
Their services, therefore, are doubtless very
considerable. Among a large number of can-
ker-worms, taken promiscuously from various
trees, I found that nearly one-third of the whole
were unable to finish their transformations, be-
cause they had been attacked by internal ene-
mies of another kind. These were little mag-
gots, that lived singly within the bodies of the
canker-worms, till the latter died from weak-
ness; after which the maggots underwent a
change, and finally came out of the bodies of
their victims in the form of small two-winged
1006

cuckoo-flies, belonging to the genus Tachina.
Mr. E. C. Herrick, of New Haven, Connecticut,
has made the interesting discovery that the
eggs of the canker-worm moth are pierced by
a tiny four-winged fly, a species of Platygastery
which goes from g%^ to egg, and drops in each
of them one of her own eggs. Sometimes
every canker-worm egg in a cluster will be
found to have been thus punctured and seeded
for a future harvest of the Platygaster. The
young of this Platygaster is an exceedingly mi-
nute maggot, hatched within the canker-worm
egg, the shell of which, though only one-thir-
tieth of an inch long, serves for its habitation,
and the contents for its food, till it is fully
growii; after which it becomes a chrysalis
withiii the same shell, and in due time comes
out a Platygaster fly, like its parent. This last
transformation Mr. Herrick found to take place
towards the end of June, from eggs laid in No-
vember of the year before ; and he thinks that
the flies continue alive through the summer,
till the appearance of the canker-worm moths
in the autumn afibrds them the opportunity of
laying their eggs for another brood. As these
little parasites prevent the hatching of the eggs
wherein they are bred, and as they seem to be
very abundant, they must be of great use in
preventing the increase of the canker-worm.
Without doubt, such wisely appointed means
as these were once enough to keep within due
bounds these noxious insects; but, since our
forests, their natural food, and our birds, their
greatest enemies, have disappeared before the
woodman's axe and the sportsman's gun, we
are left to our own ingenuity, perseverance,
and united efforts, to contrive and carry into
effect other means for checking their ravages.

Apple, elm, and lime trees are sometimes
injured a good deal by another kind of span-
worm, larger than the canker-worm, and very
diflferent from it in appearance.

Probably more than one hundred different
kinds of geometers may be found in Massa-
chusetts alone. Seventy-eight are already
known to me. Some of these are small, and
are not otherwise remarkable ; some are dis-
tinguished for their greater size and beauty in
the moth state, or for the singularity of the
forms and habits of their caterpillars. None
of them, however, have become so notorious oa
account of their devastations as the species
already described. {Harrises Treatise.) See
LiMK TnEE, Insect Enemies.

SPATTLING POPPY. A name sometimes
applied to chickweed.

SPAVIN. In farriery, a disease in horses,
consisting of a swelling in or near some of the
joints, by which a lameness is produced, and
of which there are three kinds ; the blood-spavin,
the bog-spavin, and the bone-spavin.

SPAYING. The operation of castrating or
extracting the ovaries of the females of different
kinds of animals, as sows, heifers, mares, &c.,
in order to prevent any future conception, and
promote their fattening.

SPEAR GRASS. The American name for
the great smooth-stalked meadow-grass. See
PoA Pratensis.

SPEARMINT (Mentha viridis). This species
of mint is employed in sauces and salads, a»

SPEEDWELL.

SPINDLE-WORM.

well as dried for soups in winter. There are
two varieties, the broad and narrow-leaved,
equally good. See Mint.

SPEEDWELL (Veranica). An extensive
genus of herbaceous or somewhat shrubby
plants, with annual or perennial roots.

Common or male speedwell (Officinal vero-
nica), called by the French The d'Europe, is a
common plant in the Middle States, found on
dry banks, woodlands, and commons, flowering
in June and July, and ripening its seed in Au-
gust and September. Water speedwell, or
long-leaved brooklime, is also occasionally
found along the muddy margins of rivulets,
and also the scull-cap speedwell, or shield-like
Veronica, with some other species. (Dr. Dar-
lington's Flora Cestrica.) See Binu's Etk.

SPHAGNUM. A name used by Pliny for
some kinds of moss. The species belonging
to this genus are found in bogs at all seasons.
The leaves are nerveless, and of a singularly
whitish colour. {Paxlon^s Bot. Diet.)

SPICE WOOD iLaurus Benzoin). An Ameri-
can shrub or small tree, called also in the
United States by the common names of wild
allspice, fever bush, and Benjamin tree. The
stems grow to the height of 8 or 10 feet, and
are branched, the wood being very brittle, and
when broken giving out a very pleasant aro-
matic odour. It is found in moist low grounds.
An infusion of the branches is often used medi-
cinally, more especially, in the spring of the
year, as a drink for horned cattle. See Laurus.

SPIGNEL. See Fexxkl.

SPIKENARD, PLOUGHMAN'S (Conyza,
from A:o?iis, dust; because it was supposed to have
the power of driving away flies; whence also
one of the common names, flea (fly) bane. The
genus Erigeros is, however, the real fly-bane ;
some of its viscid species, dipped in milk, being
used i,*i the south of Europe to catch the va-
rious little winged insects so troublesome in
warm climates). This is a numerous herba-
ceous or shrubby genus, of which the only
British species (C.squarrosa) is the type. This
is a perennial plant, growing in chalky or
lime-stone countries, frequent in woods, or a
marly soil. The root is tapering, fleshy, much
branched ; the herbage soft and downy, bitter,
somewhat aromatic, with a portion of mucilage.
The stem is upright, angular, leafy, 2 or 3 feet
high, terminating in a corymbose, leafy pani-
cle of numerous dull yellow flowers. The
radical leaves bear some resemblance to those
of foxglove, but when rubbed are readily dis-
tinguished by their aromatic scent.

SPIKE ROLLER. See Rolleh.

SPINACH (Spiyiacca oleracea. From spina,
on account of its prickly seed). There are two
varieties, the round-leaved or smooth-seeded,
and the triangular-leaved or prickly-seeded.
The first being the most succulent, and conse-
quently less able to endure a low degree of
temperature, is employed for the spring and
summer crops, and the latter for autumn and
winter. For the round-leaved variety, a rich,
moist, and mouldy loam, in an open situation,
is preferable ; but for the triangular-leaved a
light, moderately fertile, and dry one, which may
likewise be an open compartment, but a shel-
tered border is most conducive of a continued

supply throughout the winter. The earth-
should always be well pulverized at the time
of digging, as a fine tilth is one of the greatest
inducements to its vigour. It is propagated by
seed. The first sowing of the round-leaved
variety may take place at the close of January,
in a warm situation, to be repeated in larger
but still small breadths at the commencement
and end of February ; and thence to be con-
tinued, as the plants rapidly advance to seed,
every 3 weeks until the middle of April, when,
as this aflection increases, it must be performed
once a week until the close of May, when it
may be reduced to once a fortnight, and so
practised until the end of July. With August,
the sowing of the triangular-leaved variety
commences, the main crop of which should be
sown during the first 10 days of that month.
The sowing may be repeated, aAer intervals of
3 weeks, until the early part of September.

The sowings may be performed broadcast
and regularly raked, which is the mode gene-
rally practised for the principal crops, and for
the winter-standing always, or in drills an inch
deep and a foot apart ; in cither mode the seed
being scattered thin.

Tetragonia, or New Zealand spinach (Tclra-
qonia expansa), is much admired as a substitute
for summer spinach, being of more delicate
flavour, and not so liable to run to seed. It is
propagated by seed, which is sown, in the seed-
vessel, as gathered the preceding autumn, at
the latter end of March, in a pot, and placed in
a melon-frame. The seedlings must be pricked
while small singly into pots, and kept under
a frame without bottom heat until the third
week in May, or until the danger of frost is
past.

SPINAGE, WILD. See Goosefoot.

SPINDLE TREE (Euonymxis Europaus.) This
shrub or small tree grows wild in English
hedges and thickets. The very hard and fine-
grained wood is preferred for spindles and for
skewers. It is fetid in every part when bruised,
and esteemed poisonous. The branches are
smooth and even angular when young ; after-
wards round, with a green, smooth, not warty
bark. Leaves ovate, pointed, finely serrated,
about 2 inches long, furnished with awl-shaped
stipules. Flowers fetid, small, greenish-white,
mostly four-cleft. The capsules usually of a
fine rose colour : seeds orange-coloured.

SPINDLE-WORM. These American insects
are fatal to the plants attacked, the greater partof
which, however, are without value to the farmer.
Indian corn must be excepted; for it often suflers
severely from the depredations of one of these
Nonagrians, known to our farmers by the name
of the spindle-worm. Th"s insect receives
its common name from its destroying the spin-
dle of the Indian corn ; but its ravages gene-
rally begin while the corn-stalk is young, and
before the spindle rises much above the tuft
of leaves in which it is embosomed. The mis-
chief is discovered by the withering of the
leaves, and, when these are taken hold of, they
may often be drawn out with the included spin-
dle. On examining the corn, a small hole may
be seen in the side of the leafy stalk, near the
ground, penetrating into the soft centre of the
stalk, which, when cut open, will be found to

1007

SPINES.

SPURGE-LAUREL.

be perforated, both upwards and downwards,
by a slender, worm-like caterpillar, whose ex-
crementitious castings surround the orifice of
the hole. This caterpillar grows to the length
of an inch or more, and to the thickness of a
goose-quill. It is smooth, and apparently naked,
yellowish, with the head, the top of the first and
of the last rings black, and with a band across
each of the other rings, consisting of small,
smooth, slightly elevated, shining, black dots,
arranged in a double row. With a magnifying
glass, a few short hairs can be seen on its
body, arising singly from the black dots. This
mischievous caterpillar, says Dr. Harris, is not
confined to Indian corn ; it attacks also the
stems of the dahlia, as I am informed both by
Mr. Leonard and by the Rev. J. L. Russell,
both of whom have observed its ravages in the
stems of this favourite flower. The chrysalis,
which is lodged in the burrow formed by the
spindle-worm, is slender. It is shining maho-
gany-brown, with the anterior edges of four of
the rings of the back roughened with little points,
and four short spines or hooks, turned upwards,
on the hinder extremity of the body. The moth
produced from this insect differs from the other
Nonagrians somewhat in form, its fore- wings
being shorter, and more rounded at the tip. It
may be called Gortyna Zece, the corn Gortyna :
Zea being the botanical name of Indian corn.
The fore-wings are rust-red ; they are mottled
with gray, almost in bands, uniting with the
ordinary spots, which are also gray and indis-
tinct; there is an irregular tawny spot near
the tip, and on the veins "there are a few black
dots. The hind-wings are yellowish-gray, with
a central dusky spot, behind which are two
faint, dusky bands^ The head and thorax are
rust-red, with an elevated tawny tuft on each.
The abdomen is pale-brown, with a row of
tawny tufts on the back. The wings expand
nearly one inch and a half.

In order to check the ravages of these in-
sects, they must be destroyed while in the
caterpillar state. As soon as our corn-fields
begin to show, by the withering of the leaves,
the usual signs that the enemy is at work in
the stalks, the spindle-worms should be sought
for and killed ; for, if allowed to remain undis-
turbed until they turn to moths, they will make
their escape, and we shall not be able to pre-
vent them from laying their eggs for another
brood of these pestilent insects. (Harrises
Treatise.)

SPINES. In botany, branches that, being im-
perfectly formed, lose their power of extension,
become unusually hard, and acquire a sharp
point. They are very different from aculei, or
prickles, which are a kind of hardened hair. In
leaves they are processes formed either by an
elongation of the woody tissue of the veins or by
a contraction of the parenchyma : in the former
case they project beyond the surface or margin
of the leaf, as in the holly ; in the latter case they
are the veins themselves indurated, as in the
palmated spines of Eerberris vulgaris.

SPLINT. In farriery, a hard excrescence
growing on the shank-bones of horses. It ap-
pears first in the form of a callous tumour,
and afterwards ossifies. If the splint interfere
with the action of some tendon or ligament, the
1008

hair should be removed, a little strong mercu-
rial ointment be rubbed in for two days, and
then an active blister applied. (Youatt on the
Horse, p. 244.)

SPRING WHEAT. See Whkat.

SPRUCE PINE {Pinus Canadensis). Hem-
lock spruce. A tree which abounds in the
northern parts of Pennsylvania, New York,
and the Eastern States. See Fins.

SPUD. An implement used advantageously
in cutting up weeds. It consists of a chisel-
formed tool, about 2 inches wide on the cutting
edge, inserted into a handle of some 4 or 6 feet
in length ; it is often made use of by the far-
mer as a useful substitute for the walking-cane,
affording an opportunity of destroying weeds
with the utmost facility whilst walking over
his grounds. Every farmer ought to own a
spud.

SPURGE (Euphorbia; Linnaeus named this
genus after Euphorbus, a physician to Juba,
King of Mauritania). This is an exceedingly
variable and a very extensive genus of plants^
comprising a number that are entirely unworthy
of cultivation. The hardy perennial species
thrive in any common garden soil, and in-
crease by divisions of the roots or by seeds.
The hardy annuals and biennials merely re-
quire sowing in the open ground. The tender
kinds must be sown in the hot-house or in a
hot-bed frame, and, when potted off, must be
set with other tender annuals and biennials.
The root of E. ipecacuanha is said to be equal
to that of the true ipecacuanha. E. antiqttonmif
E. canariensisj and some other fleshy species,
produce the drug " euphorbium," which is the
inspissated milky juice of such plants. There
are in England 13 indigenous species, but the
only one necessary to be noticed is the lesser
spurge (E. lathyris). It is a biennial, flower-
ing in June and July. The stem rises from a
strong, fibrous root to the height of 3 to 4 feet,
purplish, smooth, round, hollow. The leaves
opposite, spreading, in fours, sessile, oblong,
acute, entire, and glaucous. The flowers are
in a terminal, solitary umbel, consisting of 4
repeatedly forked branches, furnished with cor-
date, entire bractes : the flowers are variegated
with yellow and dark purple. Capsules are
large and smooth, and, when half-ripe, are
pickled as capers. The seeds, when pressed
between moderately heated iron plates, yield a
fixed, acrid oil, which might be advantageously
substituted for castor oil. See Molk Trke.

SPURGE-LAUREL {Daphne laureola.) A
British evergreen shrub, growing in woods,
thickets, and hedges, flowering in March. The
stem is 2 or 3 feet high, with round, pale,
smooth, brown, upright, tongh, and pliant
branches, crowned with tufts of evergreen
leaves, elegantly drooping in all directions,
and about 2 or 3 inches long, on short foot-
stalks. The flowers are deep-green, in axillary
clusters, with orange anthers. Their scent, re-
sembling saffron, with an overpowering sweet-
ness, is perceptible in an evening only. The
berries, which are oval and black, are poison-
ous to all animals except birds. Every part
of the plant is very acrid, producing, like the
mezereon, a burning heat in the mouth and
throat. The bark of its root is commonly used

SPURGE, OLIVE.

8QUA8H-BUG.

instead of mezereon. It is powerfully excitant
and diaphoretic. The bark of the stem, soaked
in vinegar and beaten out flat, forms an excel-
lent a2:ent for keeping blisters open.

SPURGE, OhIVE. See Mezkkkoh.

SPURREY (Spergula, from spargo, to scatter,
because it expels its seeds.) A genus of herba-
ceous, annual, or perennial plants, with slen-
der linear leaves and white flowers. There are
in England four indigenous species, the most
common of which is the rough-seeded corn
spurrey (S. arvensis), an annual plant, which
grows in sandy corn-fields, and flowers from
June to August. (See PI. 9, b.) The stems are
spreading, lax, 6 inches to 2 feet long, mode-
rately branched, jointed, leafy, angular, and
hairy and viscid in the upper part. Leaves
whorled, linear, narrow, fleshy, downy, obtuse,
with short stipules. The flowers are white,
on slender, downy flower-stalks. The rough-
seeded spurrey is a common weed in sandy
soils, and is in Scotland called yarr, and in
Norfolk pick-purse. It is devoured with avi-
dity by all cattle, and appears to be conducive
to their health, while it remarkably tends to
increase the milk of cows, and to fatten sheep.
Hence a large, smooth-seeded variety of this
weed (S. saliva) is industriously cultivated in
Flanders, because it is so far superior to other
pasture grasses that it continues green till a
late period of autumn, and often throughout
the winter. Its seeds afibrd on expression a
good lamp oil ; the flour obtained from them,
when mixed with that of wheat or rye, pro-
duces wholesome bread, for which purpose it
is often used in Norway and Gothland. Poultry
eat spurrey greedily, and it is supposed to make
them lay a great number of eggs. Whether
given as hay, or cut green, or in pasture. Von
Thaei; observes that it is the most nourishing,
in proportion to its bulk, of all forage, and
gives the best flavoured milk and butter. It
has been recommended to be cultivated in
England, but it is not likely that such a plant
can ever pay the expense of seed and labour
in that country, even on the poorest soil; or, at
all events, as Professor Marlyn observes, we
have nnnv belter plants for such soils.

SQUASH {Cururbita). Of this plant there
are many varietie<i, distinguished by peculiari-
ties of sljapes, colours, &c. The young fruit
is a rich and excellent vegetable for boiling,
Slewing, or baking. The common round kind
(Cuiurbia muhpepo) is also called Cyvibling
(and by the French Bonnet de Prefre). The
warty or long squash (C. verrucosa), is said by
Mr. Nntiall to be cultivated by the Indians of
the Missoui-i to its source. Mr. Kenrick, of
Bjston, Udtices the f(»llowing varieties:

1. E irly orange; 2. Early long wnrted ; 3.
Euly scalhip; 4. Acorn; 5. Canada crook
jieck; 6. L'>n2 3'ellow crook neck; 7. Commo-
doie Porter's Valparaiso; 8. Autumnal marrow;
9. Si'-arlel summer.

The early orange is a new summer variety,
very early, and of superior quality. 'J'he Cana-
da crook neck is, without doubt, far superior to
any and all others, for ihe late or main crop.
It is fine-grained, mealy, and of a sweet, excel-
lent rt.ivour. By being kept in a dry and suita-
ble temperature, they may be preserved till the
127

I following summer. Sow in April or May, as
; soon as the frosts are over, and the earth be-
corae.s warm ; the early or summer varieties in
hills 6 feet asunder ; the winter varieties in hills
8 feet asunder, and 4 plants may remain in a
hill.

Autumnal marrow squash (Cucurbitasuccado)^
introduced to notice by John M. Ives, Esq., of
Salem. A fine, new variety, of an ovate form,
pointed; the skin extremely thin, of a cream-
colour; the flesh orange; the grain delicate,
flavour excellent; seeds large, pure white.
Average weight, 8 pounds. It keeps well in
winter.

The scarlet summer squash is a new and
beautiful flat variety, from France, of the acora
species, of a fine scarlet colour.

The Valparaiso squash, the seeds of which
were brought from the Pacific by the late Com-
modore Porter, is a splendid vegetable, without
any neck, in shape and size somewhat resem-
bling a long watermelon, flattened, and of a
rich citron or orange colour. Mr. Comfort,
of Bucks county, near Philadelphia, has raised
someweighing 100 lbs., which have been greatly
admired at agricultural and horticultural exhi-
bitions. This vegetable possesses all the good
qualities of the common kinds of pumpkin and
squash, of which it would seem to be a hybrid
variety, very superior to either. Being neither
watery or stringy, it makes a delicious pie, far
more rich and delicate than that of the ordi-
nary pumpkin. It is also served up at table
with meat, like the common squash, either
boiled, or baked like a loaf of bread or sweet
potato : containing a large amount of saccha-
rine and other nutritious properties, they are
also excellent food for farm-stock, especially
milch cows. They are cultivated like other
vegetables of the same family, but much care
must be observed to keep them at a considerable
distance from other varieties, with which they
have a strong tendency to mix, thus leading to
depreciation. They keep well in winter.

StiUASH-BUG. The common American
squash-bug (Corcut tristit), so well known for
the injurious eflects of its punctures on the
leaves of squashes, is one of the most remarka-
ble insects belonging to the natural division,
which includes bed-bugs, fruit-bugs, and vari-
ous other fetid bugs (Hemiptera). It was first
described by De Geer, who gave it the specific
name of trisds, from its sober colour, which
Gmelin unwarrantably changed to inncstus, hav-
ing, however, the same meaning. Fabricius
called it Coreus rugator, the latter word signify-
ing one who wrinkles, which was probably
applied to this insect, because its punctures
cause the leaves of the squash to become
wrinkled. Mr. Say, not being aware that the
insect had already been three times named and
described, redescribed it under the name of
Coreus ordinalus. Of these four names, how-
ever, that of irislis, being the first, is the only
one which it can retain. About fhe last of
October squasJi-bugs desert the plants upon
which they have lived during the summer, and
conceal themselves in crevices of walls and
fences, and other places of security, where
they pass the winter in a torpid state. On the
return of warm weather, they issue from
4 Q 1009

SQUASH-BUG.

STACK.

-winter-quarters, and when the vinea of the
squash have put forth a few rough leaves, the
bugs meet beneath their shelter, pair, and im-
mediately afterwards begin to lay their eggs.
This usually happens about the last of June or
beginning of July, at which time, by carefully
examining the vines, we shall find the insects
on the ground or on the stems of the vines,
close to the ground, from which they are hardly
to be distinguished on account of their dusky
colour. This is the place where they generally
remain during the daytime, apparently to es-
cape observation ; but at night they leave the
ground, get beneath the leaves, and lay their
eggs in little patches, fastening them with a
gummy substance to the under-sides of the
leaves. The eggs are round, and flattened on
two sides, and are soon hatched. The young
bugs are proportionally shorter and more
rounded than the perfect insects, are of a pale
ash-colour, and have quite large antennae, the
joints of which are somewhat flattened. As
they grow older and increase in size, after
moulting their skins a few times, they become
more oval in form, and the under-side of iheir
bodies gradually acquires a dull ochre-yellow
colour. They live together at first in little
swarms or families beneath the leaves upon
which they were hatched, and which, in conse-
quence of the numerous punctures of the in-
sects, and the quantity of sap imbibed by them,
soon wither, and eventually become brown, dry,
and wrinkled ; when the insects leave them for
fresh leaves, which they exhaust in the same
way. As the eggs are not all laid at one time,
so the bugs are hatched in successive broods,
and consequently will be found in various
stages of growth through the summer. They,
however, attain their full size, pass through
their last transformation, and appear in their
perfect state, or furnished with wing-covers and
wings, during the months of September and
October. In this last slate the squash bug
measures six-tenths of ah inch in' length. It is
of a rusty black colour above, and of a dirty
ochre-yellow colour beneath, and the sharp
lateral edges of the abdomen, which project
beyond the closed wing-covers, are spotted
with ochre-yellow. When handled, and still
more when crushed, the latter give out an
odour precisely similar to that of an over-ripe
pear, but far too powerful to be agreeable.

In order to prevent the ravages of these
insects, they should be sought and killed when
they are about to lay their eggs ; and if any
escape our observation at this time, their eggs
may be easily found and crushed. With this
view the squash-vines must be visited daily,
during the early part of their growth, and must
be carefully examined for the bugs and their
eggs. A very short time spent in this way
every day, in the proper season, will save a
great deal of vexation and disappointment
afterwards. If this precaution be neglected or
deferred till the vines have begun to spread, it
will be exceedingly diflicult to exterminate the
insects, on account of their numbers; and if
at this time dry weather should prevail, the
vines will suffer so much from the bugs and
drought together, as to produce but little if any
fruit. Whatever contributes to bring forward
1010

the plants rapidly, and to promote the vigour
and luxuriance of their foliage, renders them
less liable to suffer by the exhausting punctures
of the young bugs. Water drained from a cow-
yard, and similar preparations, have, with this
intent, been applied with benefit.

The leaves of the squash are also preyed
upon by another insect of a very different de-
scription, namely, the Cocdnella borealis (See
PI. 16,/g. 11). Although the genus of insects
to which this belongs destroys Aphides, there
are, as Professor Halderman, of Pennsylvania,
observes, a few exceptions, among which is the
species named, which may be found, both in
the larva and perfect state, eating the leaves
of the squash.

SQUAW-ROOT (American orobranrhe).

SQUILL (Srilla, from skylla, to injure, the
bulbs being poisonous). An extensive genus
of interesting bulbous plants. A light soil is
most suitable for them ; and they are readily
increased by offsets from the bulbs. The
leaves are radical, linear. The flowers in
clusters, blue, purplish, or while. There are
four indigenous species, the vernal squill (&
verna), the two-leaved squill (S. bifolia), the au-
tumnal squill (S. autumntdis), and the harebell
squill, or wild hyacinth (S.miians). The bulb
of the wild hyacinth contains much mucilage,
which can be readily separated from an acrid
principle which is conjoined with it. It is much
emploved by calico-printers.

SQTIITCH-GRASS. See Bent and Coucir.

ST. JOHN'S WORT. See John's Wort.

STACK. Corn in the sheaf, piled up in a
circular or rectangular figure, brought to a
point or ridge at the top, and afterwards
thatched to protect it from the influence of the
weather, and more especially from rains. The
term is also sometimes applied to hay piled up
in the same manner, which, however, in most
places is called a rirfc. The foundation of a
corn stack is commonly made on a platform
of wood or iron, raised on props to protect it
from the moisture of the soil, and also from
rats and mice; in which respect stacks of com
differ from ricks of hay, which ar^ built always
on the ground. It is of great advantage to
soak the props in corrosive sublimate, which
not only preserves the wood, but also destroys
vermin. Stacks are of various forms and di-
mensions, according to circumstances; but for
grain those of a long, narrow," square shape
are probably the most advantageous, where the
quantity of corn is considerable; as they are
found to stand more firmly, have a better ap-
pearance, are more conveniently and readily
built, and preserve the grain better than those
of any other form. And they have the great
advantage of requiring less thatch as well as
labour in putting it upon them than the round
stack. But where the corn is only in a small
I proportion, the round or oblong shape may be
more proper and suitable, as being more readily
drawn up in the roof; but the circular, with a
' conical top and cylindrical body diverging a
I little at the eaves, is esteemed the best form by
some. For hay, the form of the rick or stack
is a matter of still less consequence ; the long
square or oblong shapes are perhaps the most
safe and convenient, especially when not too

STAG.

STEAM.

broad, as they admit the air most fully, and are
besides the most convenient to cut from in
trussing hay for sale at the market.

STAG. A term applied provincially in Eng-
land to a young horse. Also to the male of the
deer kind. See Deer.

STAGGER. BUSH {Andromeda Mariana).
This American plant grows in the Middle
States, with a stem 3 to 3 and 4 feet high. It
is very abundant in New Jersey, where the
farmers are of opinion that it is destructive to
sheep, when eaten by them, producing a disease
called the staggers.

STAGGERS. See Apoplext.

STALL-FEEDING. The process of fatten-
ing cattle in the stall. The best practice in
this mode of fattening is probably that of
wholly confining them to the stalls, as by this
means they are kept quiet, and free from inter-
ruption, and of course feed more quickly and
with greater regularity, which seem to be
points of great importance in this system of
management. There are, however, many other
methods adopted in different situations and cir-
cumstances.

In regard to the sorts of food that may be cm-
ployed in the way of winter-fattening animals,
they are very numerous, but the principal suc-
culent kinds are carrots, parsnips, potatoes,
Swedish turnips, cabbages, common turnips,
grains, &c.; and of the more dry sorts, oil-cake,
oats, barley-meal, rye-flour, beau and pea-meal,
and others of the same nature, with different
kinds of straw cut into chaff by means of ma-
chinery, or hay cut in the same manner. It is
usual with some to employ the different meals
in ^. slate of mixture in nearly equal propor-
tions, except bean-meal, which, from its heat-
ing quality, is mostly made use of in smaller
quantities. But on the principle of fresh kinds
of food having a more powerful effect on the
systems of animals when first applied, it may
be more beneficial to have them given in alter-
nation, or at distant intervals, as their effects
may in this way be more fully experienced.

In respect to the cut straw and hay that is
made use of in this way, the first should be
prepared from that which is fresh thrashed out.
The hay, instead of being of the inferior kind,
should be the best that the farm affords, and
such as is not in the least injured in the smell
or taste by keeping. The more inferior kinds
of hay have, however, by the addition of a
very small proportion of common salt, been
made to be preferred to the best when not pre-
pared in that way. See Cattle, FoLniNo, Food,
Soiling, &c.

STANDARDS. The young trees reserved
at the felling of woods, for the growth of tim-
ber. It also signifies such fruit trees as are
intended to grow in an open exposure, and not
to be hacked and mangled with the knife, as
the dwarf trees and those planted against
walls are.

STARR, or BENT. See Abcndo and Elt-

MCS.

STARCH (Germ. Hdrke). One of the com-
mon proximate principles of vegetables. It is
characterized by its insipidity, and by insolu-
bility in cold water, in alcohol, and in ether.
The term " starch" is commercially applied to

that obtained from wheat, which for this manu-
facture is ground and diffused through vats of
water, where it remains two or more weeks, and
undergoes a slight fermentation, and acquires
a peculiar sour smell. The sour liquor is
drawn off, and the precipitate washed in sieves,
through which the impure starch passes with
the water. It is afterwards passed through
other waters, drained through boxes lined with
linen or canvass, and ultimately stove-dried in
paper. When drying, it cracks into the pris-
matic pieces, resembling miniature basalt,
which is its usual form. Starch may be ob-
tained from many other grains, and from pota-
toes and several esculent vegetables. Arrow-
root is the starch of the Maratita arundinacea ;
British arrowroot that of the root of Arum micw
latum ; sago, of the Sagus faranifera, an East
Indian palm tree; and tapioca and cassava, of
the Jatropha manihot. In the process of germi-
nation, and by various chemical agents, starch
may be converted into a species of gum and
sugar. Pure starch is while, tasteless, and
inodorous. It consists of two distinct sub-
stances, that are readily recognised under a
good magnifying lens, namely, a membrane
called amylin, and a gummy semifluid matter
named amiolin; the one the husk, the other the
contents of the granules. In cold water, unless
triturated in a mortar, the grains do not burst,
but remain entire and insoluble; but in boiling
water they burst and form a mucilage. Starch
is a compound of 42-8 pans of carbon, 6-.35 of
hydrogen, and 50*85 of oxygen in 100 parts.
Starch is much less nutritious than wheat
flour, or the farina of any grain which con-
tains gluten ; and on this account the starch of
arrowroot, sago, &c., is used as a diet for the
sick. Starch is detected from other mucilages
by forming a blue colour with iodine, when the
n[iucilage is cold. Starch in England is charged
with a duty of 3^^/. per lb., and its manufacture
is consequently placed under the control of the
excise. •

STAR OF BETHLEHEM. See Bethlk-
OKM, Star of.

STAR-THISTLE. A name applied to some
species of Cenfaurea, viz. Jersey star-thistle (C
isnardi), the common star-thistle (C. ralcitrapa),
and the yellow star-thistle, or St. Barnaby's
thistle (C. soUtUialii), The first is a perennial
weed, the others are annuals. See Blue-Bot-
tle, Knapweed, &c.

STARWORT {Aster, a star; whence also
the common name, the flowers resembling little
stars from the rays of their circumference).
Many species of this extensive genus are
stately and handsome plants. The swellings
or galls as large as a walnut, so often found
on the stems of some American species of
starwort, or aster, are caused by the punctures

STARWORT, THE WATER (Callitriche;
named by Pliny from kalos, beautiful, and thrix,
hair). Annual aquatic plants, which grow in
ditches, ponds, and lakes.

STEAM. Water converted into an elastic
fluid by the application of heat. It would be
foreign to our subject to go into any detail of
the various mechanical uses and improve-
ments to which bteam has been applied with

1011

STEAMING FOOD.

STRAINS.

so much success. Latterly, however, a spirit
of inquiry has led to an investigation into the
application of steam to purposes of husbandry,
such as engines for ploughing, draining, &c. ;
and, though there are obstacles in the way of
their successful operation, there is little doubt
that eventually the spirit of research and im-
provement will overcome these difficulties, and
create a r.ingular revolution in the practical
operations of agriculture, whereby a vast
amount of animal power will be saved, and an
increased impetus be given to production. A
series of very able papers on this subject ap-
peared a few years ago in the Quart. Journ. of
Jigr. vols, v., vi., vii.

STEAMING FOOD. The advantages to be
derived from boiling or preparing the food of
live-stock are now very generally understood
and appreciated ; although it is still a question
•whether it always compensates for the extra
labour and time consumed. We have already
gone into this subject under the head Food, and
merely revert to it now to call attention to
some articles describing apparatuses for steam-
ing food, which will be found in the Quart.
Journ. of jjgr. in vols, iv — vi. Steaming is
also popularly treated of and explained in the
first volume o( Brit. Husb, p. 129, and has been
frequently discussed in American periodicals.

STEARINE (Gr.). That part of oils and
fats which is solid at common temperatures.
Both in fats and in fixed oils it is associated
with a fluid principle, which cannot be ren-
dered solid at the lowest known temperatures.
Stearine is only found in animal fats; or, at
least, is rarely present in those of a vegetable
origin. See Fat.

STEELYARD. A well-known balance, by
which the weights of bodies are determined by
means of a single standard weight-

STEEN KROUT (Lithoapermum arvense).
Stone Seed, Wheat Thief. See Red Weed.

STEEPING. See Buinino of Gbaik and
Smut.

STEPPES (Russ). The name given to the
vast extent of plains peculiar to Asia; synony-
mous with the prairies of North America, and
the llanos of South America. The steppes of
Russia are not unlike the heaths of Germany;
being in part susceptible of cultivation, and
affording pasturage for numerous herds belong-
ing to nomadic tribes.

STITCH WORT (Stcllaria, from Stella, a
star; the flowers are star-like). A genus of
herbaceous plants which are mere weeds.
Some are annual, the others are perennial.
See Chickwked.

STIGMA. In botany, the upper extremity
of the style without a cuticle, in consequence
of which it has almost uniformly a humid and
papillose surface. It is the part upon which
the pollen falls, and where it is stimulated into
the production of the pollen tubes, which are
indispensable to the act of impregnation.

STILES. A well-known contrivance for the
admission of foot-passengers, without permit-
ting the stock of the enclosures to escape.
Stiles are made in very difiereni forms and
manners in different districts, according to the
materials, situations, and purposes for which
they are intended.
1012

STINGERS and PIERCERS. A class of

insects embracing bees, wasps, ants, saw-flies,
ichneumon-flies, &c.

STIPULES. In botany, small scales or ap-
pendages situated on each side at the base of
the petioles or leaf-stalks, most commonly of a
less firm texture than the latter, and having a
subulate termination.

STOCK-NUT. See Hazel.

STOLONIFEROUS. Bearing runners
wnich root at the joints.

STOMATA. In botany, orifices through the
epidermis of plants, chiefly of the leaves, hav-
ing the appearance of an areola, in the centre
of which is a slit of various form and size,
that opens or closes, according to circum-
stances, and lies over a cavity in the subjacent
tissue. They are universally regarded as spi-
racles, or breathing pores. In leaves of trees
and plants exposed to the air they usually oc-
cupy the under disk; on those that lie upoa
the surface of water, the upper disk.

STONE. An English common weight esti-
mated at 14 lbs.

STONECROP iSedum). A genus of herbs,
with alternate, very succulent, either flat, cy-
lindrical, or tumid leaves. Root mostly peren-
nial. Flowers yellow, white, or reddish, usu-
ally cymose, rarely axillary. There are, in
England, ten indigenous species, which inhabit,
for the most part, old walls, roofs, and dry
sandy ground. See House-Leek and Orpine.

STONE-PARSLEY (Mhamanta). These
are chiefly weeds.

STONE PINE. See Firs.

STONE WEED (Field Lithospermum). See
Red-Root.

STOCKING. The Scotch term for setting
up sheaves of corn in stocks or shocks. The
operation is performed soon after the corn is
cut, it being previously tied into bunches or
sheaves.

STOOL. The root of a timber tree, which
throws up shoots. Coppice wood consists
chiefly of the shoots sent up by the roots of
stools, or trees or shrubs which have been cut
over by the surface. In general, all dicotyle-
donous trees are endowed by nature with the
property of sending up shoots from the stumps
or stools ; but this is not the case with most of
the gymnosperms or coniferous trees. A wood
of pines or firs, therefore, when once cut down,
can never be renewed, except by seeds. It is
a curious fact that the shoot, however large the
stool may be, can be traced to the pith, and
therefore appears to have been originally a
shoot of the first year's growth of the plant.
That its growth has been impeded is evident;
but when the tree is cut down, and the whole
sap is thrown into a small space, the latent, yet
vital gum is stimulated, and a twig thence pro-
duced.

S'I'ORK'S-BILL (Erodiuni, from erodios, a
heron; the carpels resemble the head and
beak of that bird). This is an extensive genus
of plants of considerable beauty : they thrive well
in any common soil with the usual treatment.

STRAINS. In farriery, accidental injuries
arising from over-distension of the muscles or
tendons, in consequence of which the animals
suffer great pain, and are generally lamed.

STRANGLEa

STRENGTH.

STRANGLES. In farriery, a disease which I
is principally incident to youns; horses ; usually |
appearing between the fourth and fifih year, j
and oftener in the spring than at any other sea- 1
son. It is preceded by cough, and is a disease [
to which all horses are subject, but it never
returns. A blister will be found the best appli-
cation to hasten the formation and suppuration of
the tumour under the jaw, which, from its situa-
liofi,has probably given the name to this disease.

STRATH, in Scotland, is generally under-
stood to signify a valley of considerable size,
whose appellation is determined by some river
running through it, or some particular charac-
teristic.

STRATUM. When different rocks lie in
succession upon each other, each individual
forms a stratum. See Gkoloot.

STRAW. The stalks or culms on which
corn and other grasses grow, and from which
the grain has been separated by thrashing.
When chopped or cut small, it affords a whole-
some provender for horses and oxen, especially
if it be mixed with green food. (See Chafp
and Chaff Exoijces.) When not allowed to
be carried off the prenfiises, the chief value of
white str?iw for farm purposes lies in ils con-
version into manure; for although it may carry
store catile through the winter, it will neither
fatten them nor enable any animal to work ;
and its intrinsic worth for the uses of litter and
of occasional feeding has been estimated by
experienced farmers in England at 20». to 30«.
the ton. See Haulst.

STRAWBERRY (Fragaria, from fragrant,
fragrant; the perfumed fruit of the strawberry
is well known). The strawberry is our ear-
liest fruit, and as the harbinger of the fruclus
hnrcei, its appearance is as welcome as its fla-
vour agreeable. The cultivation and propaga-
tion of this plant is so familiar to every one, as
are the wholesomeness and deliciousness of
the fruit, that neither need be particularized
here. Three species of strawberry found wild
in the United States are enumerated by Mr.
Nuftall : 1. F. vesca, in the state of Ohio, near
Lake Erie. 2. F. Virginiana. 3. F. Canadensis,
both common in the Southern, Middle, and
Northern States. The species indigenous to
Britain are two, the wood strawberry (F. vesca),
and the haulbois strawberry (F. elatior). The
covering of strawberry plants with sea-weed
in the winter has been found to increase the
size of the fruit to a prodigious degree. This
is much practised in the island of Jersey.

STRAWBERRY-LEAVED CINQUEFOIL.
See Cixai^EFoiL.

STRAW-CUTTER. See CHAFF-EsGijfK.

STRAW- YARD. The yard into which straw
is thrown in thrashing. Also the enclosure in
which cattle are confined in winter, for the pur-
pose of being foddered on straw. There ought
to be open sheds for shelter in the straw-yard;
for though pure air is essential to the health of
store and working cattle, cold winds and rain
are highly injurious to them. The great use
of a straw-yard is for the accumulation of ma-
nure, which cannot be rich unless the cattle
get some food besides straw to support them.

STREET DUNG. The mixture of animal
and vegetable matters, comminuted particles,

&c., swept tip from the streets of large towns,
whieh is found to be an excellent fertilizer; it
is composed of a mixture of horse dung,
debris of the paving stones, soot, lime, and me-
tallic particles.

STRENGTH, in mechanics, is used in the
same sense as force or power. Thus, strength
of animals is the muscular force or energy
which animals are capable of exerting;
strength of materials is the resistance which
bodies oppose to a force acting upon them. It
is obviously a matter of much importance to
be able to estimate with tolerable accuracy the
efforts which an animal of the average strength
employed in labour is capable of exerting, and,
accordingl)', very numerous observations have
been made on the subject; but this species
of force is subject to variation from so great a
number of circumstances, both physical and
mechanical, that the results given by different
authors present very little agreement with each
other, though they are of great value as afford-
ingdalafordeterminingthe modes in which ani-
mal labour is most advantageously employed.

Of all animals employed as first movers, the
horse is, beyond question, the most useful, and
that whose labour is susceptible of the most
numerous and varied applications. For the
purpose of determining his muscular power,
the dynamometer may be conveniently used;
but, as the action of the animal is very quickly
reduced by continued exertion, it is more usual
to estimate it according to the amount of daily
labour performed. Desaguliers and Smeatoa
estimate the strength of a horse as equivalent to
that of 6 men ; the French authors have com-
monly stated it as equal to 7 men ; and Schulze
makes it equal to that of 14 men in drawing ho-
rizontally. According to Desaguliers, a horse's
power is equal to 44 lbs. raised 1 foot high in 1
minute. Smeaton makes this number 22*916,
Hachett 28, and Watt 33. The last estimate
i§ commonly understood by the term horse^
poiotr as applied to steam-engines. The quan-
tity of action which a horse can exert dimin-
ishes as the duration of the labour is prolonged.
Tredgold gives the following table, showing the
average maximum velocity with which a horse
unloaded can travel according to the number
of honrs per day : —

Time of
March ia

Houn.

Greatest Velocity
per Hour in Milei.

Time of

Mxrch io

Houn.

14-7

10-4
8-5
73
6-6

OreatMt Velocity
per Hour io Milee.

80
55
5-S
4-9
4-6

The useful effect a horse is capable of pro-
ducing, depends much upon the manner in
which his strength is applied. See Carts,
Dtkaxometer, Hohse-Powek, Thrashing Ma-
chine.

Strength of Materials. — There are four differ-
ent ways in which the strength of a solid body
may be exerted: first, in resisting a longitu-
dinal tension, or force tending to tear it asun-
der; secondly, in resisting a force tending to
break the body by a transverse strain ; thirdly,
in resisting compression, or a force tending to
crush the body; and, fourthly, in resisting a
4%2 1013

STUBBLE.

SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING.

force tending to wrench it asunder by torsion.
Mr. Hodgkinson gives the following results of
his experiments on the resistance of a crush-
ipg force of short pillars of some of the most
wtamon descriptions of wood, the force being
applied in the direction of the fibres.

Dcwription of Wood.

Strenjlh per »quare loch
iDlbi.

Alder

AHh

Hay

Beech

Knglish birch

Odar -----
Red deal ....
While deal - - - -

Elder

Klin

Fir (spruce) - - - -
Mahogany - - - -
Oak (Qnebec) - - -
Oik (English) - - .
Pine (pilch) - - -
Pin« (red) . - - -

Poplar

riuni (dry) . - - -

Teak

Walnut - - - -
Willow ....

6831 to 6960
8683 9363
7518 7518
7733 9363
3297 6402
6674 5863
5748 6686
6781 7293
7451 9973

10331
6499 6819
8198 8198
4231 5982
6481 10058
6790 6790
6395 7518
3107 5124
8241 10493

12101
6063 7227
2898 6128

(Brande^s Diet, of Science; Barlow* s Treatise on
the Strength of Timber.)

STUBBLE. The root ends of the culms of
porn left in the field, standing as they grew,
after the corn has been reaped by the sickle or
scythe. In some parts of England only a small
portion of the straw is cut off with the ears of
corn, and the stubble in that case is a foot or 18
inches in length ; but in others the corn is cut
as close to the surface as possible, in which
case the stubble is quite short. In general,
long stubble is a symptom of bad farming, be-
cause a quantity of straw is in this case left to
waste in the field, which might have been car-
ried home and rotted into manure.

STYLE. In botany, is that elongation of the
ovarium which supports the stigma. It is an
extension of the midrib of the carpellary leaf,
or is formed by the rolling up of the attenuated
extremity of the latter.

SUBSOIL-PLOUGH (PI. 17,0, g). See
Plough and Subsoil-Ploughixg.

SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING. In farming, the
operation of breaking the substratum by means
of a plough constructed especially for that pur-
pose. Considerable discussion has taken place
with regard to the advantages of subsoil-plough-
ing; adifferenceof opinion whichappearstohave
been principally caused by an inattention to the
, chemicaleflfects produced by thesubsoil,or Dean-
stonizingsystem of tillage, so named from being
first employed, or at least first brought into gene-
ral notice, by Mr. Smith, of Deanston, in Stirling-
shire, when he was examined, in 1836, before
the Agricultural Committee of the House of
Commons. By this system, by means of a sub-
soil plough, of which there are several kinds,
the subsoil, or under crust of earth, is merely
broken and pulverized, say to the depth of from
14 to 20 inches, without being brought to the
surface, or mixed with the upper soil; after a
lapse of 4 or 5 years, a portion of the previously
disturbed substratum is found, by experience,
in a state to be advantageously (by deep plough-
ing) brought to the surface; it being in this
1014

time,' by the action of the atmosphere, and per-
haps by a partial mixture with the surface-
mould, rendered sufiiciently friable and fertile.
It is of necessity a consequence of this subsoil-
ploughing, that the permanent drains of all
lands thus cultivated must be constructed rather
deeper in the soil than is usual with farmers;
the top of those at Deanston are placed at a
depth of 22 inches from the surface, so as to
be completely out of the way of the subsoil
which the plough has turned over.

As the description of this valuable plough
cannot be too generally circulated, I will here
introduce it in Mr. Smith's own words : —

"The subsoil-plough has been constructed on
principles appearing the best fitted to break up
the subsoil completely to a depth sufficient for
thorough cultivation, say 14 to 16 inches, whilst
the active soil is still retained on the surface;
to be of the easiest possible draught in refer-
ence to the depth of furrow and firmness of the
subsoil ; to have strength and massive weight
sufficient to penetrate the hardest stratum ; to
resist the shocks from fast stones, and to throw
out all stones under 200 lbs. in weight. All
this has been accomplished and practically-
proved at Deanston, over an extent of at least
200 acres of various soils; and also in various
parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, during
several seasons. The plough requires 4 good
horses, an active ploughman, and a lad to
drive the horses and manage them at the turn-
ings. Six horses, yoked three and three abreast,
may be necessary in some very stiflf or stony
soils. A common plough, drawn by two horses,
goes before the subsoil-plough, throwing out a
large open furrow of the active soil ; the sub-
soil-plough following, slits up thoroughly and
breaks the subsoil, and the next furrow of
active soil is thrown over the last opened fur-
row of the subsoil; the stones brought to the
surface by the subsoil-plough being thrown
aside on the ploughed part of the land by a lad:
thus the work proceeds until the whole field is
gone over. The lad should carry a bag . of
wooden pins, that he may mark the site of the
large fast stones which the plough cannot throw
out, and which must afterwards be dug out
with the pick, and perhaps blasted.

" The charge of subsoil-ploughing a Scotch
acre may be estimated at 24s. or 30«. per statute
acre, being one-fifth of what a similar depth
with the spade would cost, and, upon the whole,
as eflfectually done. When land which has
been opened up by the subsoil-plough shall
have undergone the first rotation of cropping,
several inches of the subsoil may be taken up
by the plough to mix with the active soil ; and
in proportion as the subsoil is ameliorated, so
may the greater depth be taken up with advan-
tage. In the richer subsoils it is sometimes
expedient to plough to the whole depth of the
moved subsoil on the first application of the
trench-plough. The trench-plough recommend-
ed for this process should be made in the form
ofWilkie's plough, having all its dimensions
made of double size; or, what is found to an-
swer fully as well, by a plough in the fashion
of the old Scotch plough, but also of double
dimensions. Such ploughs require six horses,
yoked three and three abreast, with one man to

SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING.

SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING.

bold the plough, and another to manage the
horses, to do the work effectually. This ope-
ration should be performed in turning over the
winter furrow preparatory to a green crop, and
the sooner the work is performed after harvest
the better. In estimating the expense of this
operation, the horses may be charged at 4s. each,
to cover all expenses, tear and wear, &c.,
which will amount to 24s.; two men, 2.'?.=4s.;
and an attendant lad to pick out stones, Is.;
in all 29s. As the work is heavy, the motion
of the horses is necessarily slow, and it will,
in general, take 8 hours* working to accom-
plish one statute acre. The expense of this
operation may appear alarming; but when it
is considered that one such ploughing will be
more effectual in killing weeds, and in expos-
ing the soil to the air, than two ordinary plough-
ings, we may deduct the cost of two such='20«.,
leaving 9s. to be charged against the deep
working.

" When land has been thoroughly drained,
deeply wrought, and well manured, the most
unpromising sterile soil becomes a deep, rich
loam, rivalling in fertility the best natural land
of the country ; and from being fitted for rais-
ing only scanty crops of common oats, will
bear good crops of from 32 to 48 bushels of
wheat, 30 to 40 bushels of beans, 40 to 60
bushels of barley, and from 48 to 70 bushels
of early oats per statute acre; besides potatoes,
turnips, mangel-wurzel, and carrots as green
4Jrops, which all good agriculturists know are
the abundant producers of the best manure.
It is hardly possible to estimate all the advan-
tages of dry and deep soil. Every operation in
husbandry is thereby facilitated and cheapen-
ed ; less seed and less manure produce a full
effect ; the chances of a good and early tid (a
Scotch term for that state of the ploughed soil
which is most suitable for receiving the seed,
neither too moist nor too dry) for sowing are
greatly increased, a matter of great importance
in our precarious climate; and there can be
no doubt that even the climate itself will be
much improved by the general prevalence of
laud dry."

In this instance, as in most other novel agri-
cultural efforts, the zeal of its promoters has
sometimes carried them too far; they have
even confidently contended that in most situa-
tions subsoiling will render draining unneces-
sary; a result which would hardly have been
arrived at by the most sanguine subsoiler, if
he had paused to recollect that deepening the
soil, however it may promote the absorption
of atmospheric moisture, can in few situations
enable land-springs and stagnant waters to
escape. The objects to be attained by these
operations are, in fact, diametrically opposite.
The one is ;»dopted to increase the gradual
healthful supply of food and moisture by the
earth t») the roi)ts of the crop, in the degree
the most grateful to its habits. The other ex-
pensive practice is to remove that moisture
when (from any cause) it becomes too abun-
dant for healthful vegetation; this removal can
only be obtained in very peculiar situations by
the mere use of the subsoil-plough, and then
to a very limited extent; such, for example, as
when the crust or subsoil is of such a degree

of thinness as to be completely penetrated by
the plough, and thus the upper soil brought, by
breaking up the separating crust, into imme-
diate contact with a substratum of earth of
greater absorbent properties than the pan-crust
which has hitherto separated them.

The farmers of the chalky soils of Sussex,
Dorsetshire, Wilts, and Hampshire, very ad-
vantageously raise the substratum of chalk ex-
isting under their lands, and spread it in con-
siderable quantities on the surface. Those of
Essex and Suffolk in many places do the same
with the under-stratura of clay or marl on
which their surface-soils immediately rest; and
they find this a very profitable practice, because
the earths which constitute all fertile soils
being also the necessary constituents of the
commonly cultivated grasses, are gradually
and incessantly carried off from thence by con-
tinual cropping, and consequently in time an
advantageous opportunity is afforded for their
being replenished with the earths, perhaps con-
tained in the subsoil, in which they may have
become deficient.

Thechemical effect of pulverizing and break-
ing up a subsoil is certainly advantageous to
the plant in two ways, besides others with
which we are very likely at present unac-
quainted; first, it renders the soil penetrable
to a much greater depth by the roots, or minute
fibres of the plant, and consequently renders
more available any decomposing matters, or
earthy ingredients, which that substratum may
contain ; and, secondly, it renders the soil much
more freely permeable by the atmosphere, ren-
dering, in consequence, a greatly increased
supply, not only of oxygen gas to the roots of
the plants, but also yielding more moisture, not
only from the soil, but from the atmospheric
air ; which moisture, let it be remembered by
the cultivator, is in all weathers as incessantly
absorbing by the soil as it is universally con-
tained in the atmosphere, abounding most in
the latter, in the very periods when it is most
needed by the plants — that is, in the warmest
and driest weather.

It is, perhaps, needless to prove, that the
roots of commonly cultivated plants will pene-
trate, under favourable circumstances, much
greater depths into the soil, in search of mois-
ture, than they can, from the resistance of the
case-hardened subsoil, commonly attain. Thus
the roots of the wheat plant in loose, deep soils,
have been found to descend to a depth of 2 or
3 feet, or even more ; and iu is evident, that
if plants are principally sustained in dry wea-
ther by the atmospheric, aqueous vapour ab-
sorbed by the soil, that that supply of water
must be necessarily increased, by enabling the
atmospheric vapour and gases, as well as the
roots of plants, to attain to a greater depth ; for
the interior of a well-pulverized soil, be it
remembered, continues steadily to absorb this
essential food of vegetables, even when the
surface of the earth is drying in the sun. i

And by facilitating the admission of air to
the soil, another advantage is obtained, that of
increasing its temperature. The earths are
naturally bad conductors of heat, especially
downwards ; thus it is well-known, that, at the
siege of Gibraltar, the red-hot balls employed

1015

SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING.

SUBSOIL-PLOUGHING.

by the garrison were readily carried from the
furnaces to the batteries in wooden barrows,
whose bottoms were merely covered with earth.
Davy proved the superior rapidity with which
a loose, black soil was heated compared with a
chalky soil, by placing equal portions of each
in the sunshine; the first was heated in an
hour from 65° to 88°, while the chalk was only
heated to 69°. (Elements of Jgr. Chem. p. 178.)
This trial, however, must not be regarded as
absolutely conclusive, since the surface of the
black soils naturally increases more rapidly
in temperature when exposed to the direct rays
of the sun than those of a lighter colour. A
free access of air to all soils also adds to their
fertility, by promoting the decomposition of the
excretory matters of plants, which otherwise
would remain for a longer period, to the annoy-
ance of plants of the same species.

In a recent communication to the secretary
of the English Jgricultural Society, Sir E. Stracey
has given some of the results of his experience
with the Rackheath subsoil-plough, and they
are of a description which cannot be too gene-
rally known :— "On my coming," he remarks,
**to reside on my estate at Rackheath, about 6
years since, I found 500 acres of heath land,
composing 2 farms (which had been enclosed
under an act of parliament about 40 years),
without tenants ; the gorse, heather, and fern,
shooting up in all parts. In short, the land was
in such a condition, that the crops returned not
the seed sown. The land was a loose, loamy
soil, and had been broken up by the plough to
a depth not exceeding 4 inches, beneath which
■was a substratum (provincially called an iron
pan) so hard, that with difficulty could a pick-
axe be made to enter in many places ; and my
bailiff, who had looked after the land for 35
years, told me that the lands were not worth
cultivation — that all the neighbouring farmers
said the same thing — and that there was but
one thing to be done, viz., to plant with fir and
forest trees ; but to this I paid but little atten-
tion, as I had the year preceding allotted some
parcels of ground, taken out of the adjoining
lands, to some cottagers ; to each cottage, about
one-third of an acre. The crops on all these
allotments looked fine, healthy, and good, pro-
ducing excellent wheat, carrots, peas, cabbages,
Potatoes, and other vegetables in abundance,
'he question then was, how was this done ?
On the outside of the cottage allotments all
was barren. It could not be by the manure that
had been laid on, for the cottagers had none
but that which they had scraped from the
roads. The magic of all this I could ascribe to
nothing else but the spade; they had broken up
the land 18 inches deep. As to digging up 500
acres with the spade, to the depth of 18 inches,
at an expense of 61. an acre, I would not
attempt it. I accordingly considered, that a
plough might be constructed so as to loosen the
soil to the depth of 18 inches, keeping the best
soil to the depth of 4 inches, and near the sur-
face, thus admitting air and moisture to the
roots of the plants, and enabling them to ex-
tend their spongioles in search of food ; for air,
moisture, and extent of pasture, are as neces-
sary to the thriving and increase of vegetables
as of animals. In this attempt I succeeded, as
1016

the result will show. I have now broken uj>
all these 500 acres, 18 inches deep. The pro«
cess was by sending a common plough, drawn
by two horses, to precede, which turned over
the ground to the depth of 4 inches ; my sub-
soil-plough immediately followed in ihe furrow
made, drawn by four horses, stirring and
breaking the soil 12 or 14 inches deeper, but
not turning it over. Sometimes the iron pan
was so hard, that the horses were set fast,
and it became necessary to use the pickaxe to
release them before they could proceed. After
the first year, the land produced double the
former crops, many of the carrots being 16
inches in length, and of a proportionate thick-
ness. This amendment could have arisen
solely from the deep ploughing. Manure I had
scarcely any, the land not producing then stover
sufficient to keep any slock worth mentioning,
and it was not possible to procure sufficient
quantity from the town. The plough lore up
by the roots all the old gorse, heather, and fern,
so that the land lost all the distinctive charac-
ter of heath land the first year after the deep
ploughing ; which it had retained, notwithstand-
ing the ploughing with the common ploughs, for
35 years. Immediately after this subsoil-plough-
ing, the crop of wheat was strong and long in
the straw, and the grain close-bosomed and
heavy, weighing full 64 pounds to the bushel.
The quantity, as might be expected, not large
(about 26 bushels to the acre), but great in
comparison to what it produced before. The
millers were desirous of purchasing it, and
could scarcely believe it was grown upon the
heath land, as in former years my bailiffcould
with difficulty get a miller to loolc at his sam-
ple. Let this be borne in mind, that this land
then had had no manure for years, was run out,
and could only have been ameliorated by the
admission of air and moisture by the deep
ploughing. This year the wheat on this land
has looked most promising ; the ears large and
heavy, the straw long ; and I expect the pro-
duce will be from 34 to 36 bushels an acre : the
wheat, the " golden drop." My Swedish turnips
on this land this year are very good; ray pud-
ding and sugar-loaf turnips failing in many
parts, sharing the fate of those of my neigh-
bours, having been greatly injured by the tor-
rents of rain which fell after they had shown *
themselves above the ground. Turnips must
have a deep and well-pulverized soil, in order
to enable them to swell, and the tap-roots to
penetrate in search of food. The tap-root of a
Swedish turnip has been known to penetrate
39 inches into the ground."

Sub-turf Plough, — "Being on the subject of
the sub-soil plough," says Sir Edmund Stracey,
"I may as well tell you I have contrived an-
other plough, from the use of which the great-
est benefit has been derived by my park land.
I call this my ' sub-turf plough.' It is used to
loosen the turf about 10^ inches deep below
the surface, without turning over the flag;
loosening the soil underneath, consequently,
admitting the air and the rain, and permitting
the roots of the herbage to spread in search of
food. There are no marks left by which it can
be known that the land has been so ploughed,^
except from the straight lines of the coulter, at

SUBSTRATUM.

SUGAR.

the distance of about 14 inches one from an-
other. In about three months from the time of
plonfrhing the>e lines are totally obliterated,
and the quantity of aftermath, and the thick-
ness of the bottom, have been the subject of
admiration of all my neigjhbours. Another
advantage from this subturf-ploughing is, that,
before that tc^ok place, water was lying stag-
nant in many parts (after heavy rains), espe-
cially in the lower grounds, to a great depth:
now no water is to be seen lying on any part,
the whole being absorbed by the earth." (journ,
of Eiifr. Agr. Sor. vol. i. p. 253.)

And for heavier soils, the evidence in favour
of subsoil-ploughing is equally valuable. In
the year 1838, an experiment was made by
Sir jfames Graham, which is important in se-
veral respects. It was on a field of about 8
acres, of the poorest and wettest land. "The
surface-soil is about 5 inches deep of black
earth, of a peaty quality. The subsoil is a
weeping retentive clay, with sand and rusty
gravel intermixed. This clay extends to the
bottom of the drains, which are of tile, laid 30
inches deep in every furrow. This field was
rented by the out-going tenant at 4». 6d. per
acre. It was in pasture of the coarsest de-
scription, overrun with rushes and other aqua-
tic plants. After draining, on one-half of this
field I used Mr. Smith's subsoil-plough. On
the other half I trench-ploughed to the depth
of 10 inches, by two ploughs following in suc-
cession. In the first part, not mixing with the
surface any of the subsoil; in the last part,
commingling the surface and the subsoil in
nearly equal proportions. The whole field
was heavily, but equally manured, and planted
with potatoes ; and though the potato crop,
even on good land in this neighbourhood
(Cumberland), was below an average, yet the
crop in this field exceeded an average, and
yielded about 12 tons per acre. The field is
equally drained in every part. The crop was
so equal throughout the field, that I am un-
able to pronounce positively which part was
the best, but I am inclined to give the prefer-
ence to that portion where Mr. Smith's subsoil-
plough was used."

SUBSTRATUM. A stratum lying under
another stratum. The term subsoil is generally
applied to the matters which intervene between
the surface soils and the rocks on which they
rest ; thus, clay is the common substratum, or
subsoil, of gravel.

SUCCORY. See Chiccort.

SUCCULENT. A botanical term, signify-
ing fleshy, or filled with juice.

SUCKER. A young twig or shoot from the
root of a plant. See Propaoatioit.

SUDORIFIC. Having the power of pro-
ducing perspiration.

SUET. The fat situated about the loins and
kidneys, which is harder and less fusible than
that from other parts of the same animal.
That of the ox and sheep is chiefly used; and,
when melted out of its containing membranes,
it forms tallow, and is largely used in the ma-
nufacture of candles and the ordinary soaps.
Beef and mutton suet, when fused, concrete at
a temperature of about 100°. Like other kinds
128

of fat. it is a compound of carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen. See Adkps, Fat, Lard, &c.

SUFFRUTICOSE (Lat. svffrulex, an under-
shrub). Any plant which is not exactly either
a shrub or an herbaceous plant, that is, which
has not hard woody twigs and complete buds,
like the one, nor perishable, succulent leaves
and shoots, like the other, is so termed. La-
vender is an instance of a suflfruticose plant.

SUGAR (Fr. sucre ; Germ, zuckei). The
great commercial demand for sugar is almost
exclusively supplied from the sugar-cane
{Arundo sacchari/era), which contains it in great-
er quantity and purity than any other plant,
and consequently aflbrds the greatest facilities
for its extraction. Cane sugar is combined, in
the juice of the plant, with a number of other
substances. The following analysis of M.
Avequin shows the nature and proportions of
these:— 0-46 albumen, 0-81 gum, 101-2 crys-
tallizable sugar, 41-6 uncrystallizable sugar,
0-85 chlorophyle and oil, 0-75 stearin, 1*28 resin,
3*58 salts, and 700'8 water, in 1000 parts.
The juice, after expression, is freed from some
acid which it contains, by means of lime, and
then concentrated by boiling; after which, as
soon as brown grains form, the syrup is puri-
fied, and allowed to crystallize. The crystals
are next separated from the molasses, or un-
crystallizable sugar, by dripping. This forms
muscovado or brown sugar, which is afterwards
purified. The purest raw sugar comes from
Demerara. Pure sugar is a compound of
44-44 of carbon, 6-18 of hydrogen, and 49-78
of oxygen, in 100 parts. Sugar is nutritive,
demulcent, and powerfully antiseptic. Grape
sugar undergoes fermentation more readily
than cane sugar. A large quantity of sugar,
identical to cane sugar, is contained in the sap
of the American maple (Acer saccharinum), that
of the cocoa-nut (Cocos nuci/era), and in the
juice of the beet-root (Beta vulgaris), from each
of which it may be economically obtained: it
has also been extracted from grapes or raisins,
and, as is well known, is contained abundantly
in many ripe fruits and esculent vegetables. It
is, however, in these seldom so pure or in such
quantity as to admit of ready separation, or
crystallization. The total average quantity
entered annually for home consumption in
England, is, in round numbers, nearly 4,000,000
cwts. See Maize, Maple, Molasses, &c.

The sugar-cane, under the name of the su-
gar-reed, is mentioned in the oldest records of
antiquity as a product of the Eastern world. It
would also appear, that the sugar-cane was
found growing luxuriantly in Hispaniola, when
Columbus first discovered America, according
to the account given by Peter Martyr, written
during the second voyage of Columbus. There
are many varieties or species of the reedy
grass producing sugar, both cultivated and
growing wild on the banks of rivers and mea-
dows, in both the Indies, China, Africa, the
South Sea Islands, and America. The common
sugar-cane (Saccharum qfficinarum), Plate iv. rf,
is a perennial-rooted plant, very susceptible to
frost, and therefore restricted in its cultivation
to a belt or zone extending from 35° to 40° on
each side of the equator. In the Southeni.

1017

SUGAR.

SUGAR.

Ifnited States the cultivation cannot be carried
on advantageously higher than about the 32d
degree of latitude, and here the cane dies down
annually, unless cut in time to escape the
effects of frost. It attains the height of 7 or 8
feet, or more, and its broad leaves, and large,
silky f)anicles, give it a beautiful aspect. The
stems are jointed, very smooth, shining, and fill-
ed with a spongy pith : the flowers of the sugar-
cane are small, and very abundant, being cloth-
ed externally with numerous silky hairs. But,
in the regular course of cultivation, it never
flowers in Louisiana, and but rarely in the
West Indies. Consequently, seed is difficult
to be procured, short of Otaheiie or China. It
is well known that where the plant is allowed
to go to seed, this natural process interferes
with the developement of the saccharine ma-
terials. In the West Indies, it is propagated
by cuttings from the main stalk, planted in
hills or trenches in the spring or autumn.
The cuttings root at the joints under ground,
and send up shoots, which, in 8, 12, or 14
months, are from 6 to 10 feet long, and fit to
cut down for the mill. A plantation lasts from
6 to 10 years, but in Louisiana the planting has
to be renewed every 2 or 3 years.

The juice of the sugar-cane is so palatable and
nutritive, that, during the sugar harvest, every
creature which partakes freely of it, whether
man or animal, appears to derive health and vi-
gour from its use. The meager and sickly ne-
groes exhibit at this season a surprising altera-
tion ; and the labouring horses, oxen, and mules,
though constantly at work, yet, as they are
allowed to eat, almost without restraint, of
the refuse plants and scummings from the boil-
ing-house, improve infinitely more than at any
other period of the year. The sugar-cane is
now cultivated in all the warm parts of the
globe. The variety from Otaheite has lately, in
the West Indies, superseded all other kinds of
cane, and succeeds in soils too poor for the
common varieties. The qualities of the sugar
are also very superior.

Sugar is now cultivated to considerable ex-
tent in the United States. On the northern coast
of the Gulf of Mexico, for the distance of about
300 miles, the sugar region is almost entirely
embraced within the limits of Louisiana. Here,
the soil being all alluvial and of the richest
description, the cane is forced by its exceeding
fertility, together with the warmth of the long
summers, to a state of maturity which enables it
to yield sugar in the greatest abundance, and of
the finest quality. Thus, the natural strength
of the soil and warmth of the summer compen-
sate in a great degree for other defects of the
climate. The extent of lands in this portion
of the United States admitting of the profitable
culture of sugar, is sufficient not only to supply
the entire amount required forborne consump-
tion, but for large exportation. The sugar cul-
ture in the United States is now protected by a
duty on muscovado or brown sugars of 2^ cts.
per lb. White sugars from Havana pay a duty
of 4 or 4^ cts. per lb. Louisiana brown sugar
has been sold in the spring of 1843, at 4 to 5
cents, per lb. wholesale, in all of the Atlantic
cities.

Varieties of the Cane. — There are four varie-
1018

ties of cane mostly planted in the West Indies
and Louisiana. The Otaheite cane is, as has
been before observed, more extensively culti-
vated at present in the West Indies than any
other. It will grow better on the lighter and
older cultivated soils, and has several peculiar
advantages over the Brazilian or Creole canes
in former use, but now generally superseded.
The last named is more delicate and requires
more culture than any other variety, but pro-
duces sugar of the finest quality. The variety
most extensively cultivated on the rich lands
of Louisiana, is the Blue-ribbon cane, the most
luxuriant of all others. All the varieties
" rattoon," that is to say, produce a growth from
the roots two and sometimes three successive
years in Louisiana. The consumption of Eng-
land now amounts to upwards of 400,000,000
pounds, which gives an average of about 30
pounds for each individual. That of the United
States is about 250,000,000 lbs. per annum,
which, considering the population, gives a
larger individual rate of consumption than
any other country in the world.

In an interesting communication in ' the
Farmers* Register, vol. iii., Mr. Macrae, a Flo-
rida sugar planter, speaks of the sugar cul-
ture in that region as profitable, but still, he
thinks, too uncertain, from the effects of frost,
to be depended upon to the exclusion of other
southern crops. The season for manufactur-
ing, he observes, may not admit of the saving
of 500 acres of cane ; but it assuredly admits
of 100 acres being profitably saved, with 50
effective hands, and the requisite machinery;
and that, too, without any serious sacrifice of
cotton, or great loss of labour. The opinion
there generally maintained, that the manufac-
ture of a sugar crop will essentially interfere
with and diminish the cotton crop, he regards
as erroneous. In the proportion of one-fifth
cane, he says there need be no such interfer-
ence— admitting that the earliness and severity
of frost is such as to compel the immediate ser-
vice of all other labours to the security of the
cane. "Your 50 hands will mattress it (100
acres) in from 3 to 5 days, where it may lie
for a month. Half your force, with tried ma-
chinery, will then manufacture it in a fortnight,
without any extra labour ; and your other re-
maining half of labourers will certainly, at that
season, save all the cotton that is liable to fall.
It is not, however, one year in ten, that the sea-
son would compel this entire disposition of
your labourers ; and certainly your chance of
revenue from two crops, not liable to the same
disasters (for none can deny that the cotton
plant has nearly as many risks to run before
its fruit is saved, as the cane), is more than
equivalent to a moderate loss by a heavy blow
of cotton. No one should attempt the cane
cultivation as a source of revenue, with a less
force than 50 effective hands ; and I attribute
the heretofore failures of sugar herejn a great
measure, to overcropping, and a poverty of
labourers."

The operation termed " mattressing,** consisls
in piling the cane which is cut, to prevent
injury from frost, in rows in the field. The
plan recommended by Mr. Macrae, is to cut
the cane down close to the ground, and

SUGAR.

SUGAR.

Arow three rows into one, thus forming wind-
rows across the field, taking care to place
the foliage of one stool of cane over the butts of
the previous one, and laying them to the height
of 3 or 4 feet, like a thatched roof. In this way
the cane can be kept several weeks for grind-
ing and pressing. " Mattressing" the cane for
a limited period, even after the frost, so far
from injuring its product, will, he says, in-
crease it in Florida. "As long as the demand
for cotton will give 20 cents, or even 15 cents
per pound, it is undoubtedly a more profitable
article of culture, and sufficiently so to annihi-
late any other substitute; and even at 10 cents
per pound, it is unquestionably a more -expe-
dient entire crop than sugar; and no prudent
man will, under any circumstances, in my
opinion, here attempt a sole sugar crop; its
results will be, nine times in ten, complete ruin.
I advocate only sugar in combination with cot-
ton." In his estimate of the comparative pro-
fits of cotton and sugar, both rated at 10 cents
per pound, he computes the product of an acre
of cotton at 1000 pounds, and an acre of cane
at only 1000 gallons of juice, equal to 500
pounds of sugar. In Louisiana, about 1000
pounds of sugar per acre is considered an
average yield ; in the West Indies from 3000
to 6000 pounds."

At present the cane crop of sugar in the
United States is almost exclusively confined to
Louisiana. The capital employed in its cul-
ture in 1842 has been estimated at about
152,000,000. In 1840 the sugar crop of Louisi-
ana was reported in the census returns at
1 19,947,720 pounds. In 1842 the crop was esti-
mated at 130,000,000 pounds, being the greatest
erer before known. The annual average for
several years is represented to exceed 80,000,000
pounds, with an addition of 4,000,000 gallons
of molasses.

"Whilst the crop of cane sugar is increasing
annually at the South, that from the maple is
becoming greater in the Northern and Western
States. The amount of sugar made in 1840,
from both sources, has been reported at
155,100,809 pounds. In Michigan alone, there
is said to be no less than 30,000 acres abound-
ing with the maple. These trees have been
estimated at an average as worth to the farmer,
for the purpose of sugar-making alone, from 2
to 3 dollars each. The proportion of sugar-
maples per acre in the sugar districts has been
computed at 30. See Maple.

Under the head of Maize reference is made
to the proposed manufacture of sugar from In-
dian corn, one acre of which, of luxuriant
growth, has been estimated to produce from 600
to 1000 pounds and more of good sugar. The
manufacture of sugar from the beet, so exten-
sively carried on in France, Germany, and
other European countries, has never been suc-
cessfully introduced into the United States.
To succeed fully, the manufacture must be
carried on upon a large scale, with ample capi-
tal. Many excellent essays upon the subject
may be found either separate or published in
Tarious agricultural periodicals.

Chemical composition of Sugar. — The progress
of modern chemistry in ascertaining the pre-
cise elements of various substances, has de-

veloped some highly interesting facts relative
to sugar, showing the very slight difference
between its composition and that of many other
matters to which it apparently bears not the
least resemblance, such as starch, saw-dust, or
common woody fibre, linen rags, &c., which by
slight additions have been actually converted
into sugar. By some chemists, and particu-
larly Prout, starch is considered as sugar
partly organized, containing but a small quan-
tity of carbon and hydrogen more than sugar,
the excess however being sufficient to prevent
crystallization or conversion by nature into
sugar. The following table, prepared from the
statements of Berzelius, Raspail, and Dumas,
by Dr. Prout, shows in a curious and interest-
ing light, by what mere shades of difference iu
their constituent atoms, substances, which to
the sense appear as far apart as the zenith from
the nadir, are separated. Water is composed
of definite and well-ascertained proportions of
oxygen and hydrogen, and in the formation of
sugar, starch, acetic acid, and lignin, or the
pure woody fibre of trees and plants, these two
materials are found united in the same propor-
tions as in water; the only ingredient added
for their completion being carbon. These sub-
stances, sugar, acetic acid, starch, and lignin,
may therefore be considered as composed of
carbon and water in the proportions here given.

Cwboo. Water.
Sugar.— \00 pnrtg of sugnr from starch
contain . . - -
From honey - - - -

From East India moist -
From beet -root and maple -
From English refined -
From sugar candy, pure
Jlettic Acid ------

5(areA.— Arrow root in its ordinary
state - -
From wheat in its ordinary

state

From wheat dried 212" -
Zi^m.— In its ordinary state nfdrynees
From willow dried 212°
From box do.

Dr. Prout, in his Bridgewater Treatise, re-
marks, " that both starch and wood can by dif-
ferent artificial processes b'e converted into
sugar or vinegar. But we are unable to re-
verse the process, and convert vinegar into
sugar, or starch into wood." The chemist Bra-
connet has ascertained that a pound of linen
rags yields rather more than a pound of sugar.

Mr. Guthrie of Sackett's Harbour, in his
attempts to make sugar from potatoes, pro-
duced large quantities of molasses, but with all
his skill was unable to crystallize or grain it,
without the introduction of some deleterious
substance, lead, for instance ; and consequently
all his was used in a liquid form, of the con-
sistence of thick syrup, or rather honey. The
potatoes were first converted into starch, and
then, by boiling in sulphuric acid, diluted, for
some hours, into sugar. The directions in the
Encyclopedia Americana for this process are,
2000 parts of starch, 8000 parts of water, and 40
parts strong sulphuric acid — the mixture to
boil some 36 hours in silver or lead; but Mr.
Guthrie accomplishes the conversion by the
use of steam in about 6 hours. The produc-
tion of sugar or molasses is possible from a
great variety of materials provided by nature,
such as the cane, maple, beet honey — all plants

1019

36-20

6380

36 36

6364

4088

59 13

4210

57-90

4205

58^

4-2-85

57 15

47 05

52-W

3604

63 0»

37-50

62 50

42-80

57-20

42-70

5730

49-80

60-20

50 00

60 00

SUGAR BEET.

that afford starch, or substances that by chemi-
cal process can be converted into gum, as flax,
linen rags, &c.; still none have yet been found,
which can successfully enter iulo competitiou
with the cane.

SUGAR BEET. The white beet already
mentioned under the head Bekt. As it is not
probable that this root will soon be brought into
requisition for the production of sugar in the
United States.where so many other sources exist
from which this may be readily procured, we
shall confine our observations to it as an article
of food for farm-stock.

The following information relative to the
beet culture, &c., is from Mr. Col man's i'^ottr/A
Report upon the Agriculture of Massachusetts:

"Beets are often a very profitable crop.
They are raised in considerable quantities; are
packed in barrels and shipped to the south.
One dollar and a half is a common price for a
barrel containing 2^ bushels. The farmer
giving this statement has often produced 600
bushels to the acre. They are planted on
ridges about 4 feet apart, in double rows ; and
the intermediate spaces are often sown with
turnips. The ridge planting is decidedly pre-
ferred here for all vegetables of this kind. In
my opinion, and so far as my own experience
goes, which has not been small, it would be
better to make the ridges about 27 inches apart,
plant the beets in single rows, and cultivate
them with a plough. A very useful machine
for planting beets is a wheel, set like that of a
wheel-barrow, with pins projecting from the
rim 2 inches, and placed 8 inches apart, which
is passed along on the top of the ridge, and the
seeds dropped by hand into the holes marked
by the pins. They may then be covered by
drawing a rake-head along the top of the ridge.
Too much care cannot be taken to perform all
operations in planting, where the vegetable is
afterwards to be cultivated, in straight lines.
The work is by this means greatly facilitated."

A crop of sugar beets was raised at Nahant,
in 1840, by Mr. Frederick Tudor, of 42,284 lbs.
on 93 rods, or at the rate of 36 tons 746 ,<y^ lbs.
net weight per acre, being about 1300 bushels
per acre, allowing 56 lbs. per bushel. One of
the roots cropped and cleaned, weighed 31 lbs.
The ground was trenched to the depth of 20
inches, and well manured, the stones removed
being all laid at the bottom of the trenches.
Allowing the beets worth $5 a ton, this would
give $180 to an acre, leaving the land in high
tilth for further rich crops. The expenses of
cultivating an acre of sugar beets in t'he New
England States, have been thus stated by the
editor of the Yankee Farmer.

U«e of an acre of land well prepared for beets,
and manured, or managed in Ibe previous

crop #14 00

Ploughing •......_ 4 00

Culiivaior-in^, horse, cultivator and hand, two

hours ---..._. 50

Twice more before soiwing .... i 00

Harrowing -----.. 50

Beed ^2 25, sowing with a machine 75 - - 3 00

First hoeing - 400

Second hoeing, thinning, and transplanting to

supply deficiencies - - . . _ 4 OO
Hoeing again, and loosening the ground with

machines ----.._ 200

Harvesting ------. 900

1020 ♦^

SUGAR BEET.

I This we think a high estimate. Still, it must
be admitted that the cost of cultivating an acre
of sugar beets much exceeds that of an acre of
^ Indian corn. In some places the proportional
i expense of a root over a corn crop is double^
I in others treble. The following observation*
j upon the mode of cultivating the beet crop, are
j also taken from the Yankee Farmer.

Make the rows 2 feet 4 inches apart, and
! then a cultivator can be used in hoeing. If
the beets stand one foot apart in the rows, and
weigh 2^ lbs. each, the yield will be 20 tons.
In rich ground, at that distance a great number
will weigh 4 or 5 lbs. each ; 20 tons is a good
crop, but not extremely large, for in some cases
25 or 30 tons to the acre have been raised in
this country. At the above expense of $40 to
the acre with a yield of 20 tons, the cost would
be $2 per ton. We make this estimate, to show-
how cheap beets may be raised under favour-
able circumstances, such as good land at a fair
price, convenient machinery and implements,
and the most prudential jnanagement in the
culture, with labour at a moderate price, and
a favourable season.

Supposing we reckon the produce only two-
thirds as much as above, say 13^ tons, and the
cost 32^ per cent, more, which will be $53 33;
then the cost of the beets will be only $4 per
ton, one-fifth less than Mr. Bosson reckoned in
his calculation on the cost of beet sugar. If
we reckon 50 lbs. to the bushel, 13^ tons per
acre would be only 533 bushels, which would
be no more than a middling crop ; not half as
much as has been raised in a number of case»
that have been named.

In estimating the value of sugar beets for
feeding stock, &c., Mr. P. Diehl, of Pennsyl-
vania, says that in his neighbourhood, persons
feeding the beet to cows, readily procure 3
cents per lb. more for their butter than their
neighbours who do not use the beet. His hogs
are wintered entirely on beets and kitchen slop,
and kept in fine condition. He stales that he
has fattened solely on sugar beets, beeves,
which when sold, were pronounced by the
butchers the best they had killed for manj
years before. In contrasting the probable
amount of profit to the farmer, per acre, of a
crop of corn and a crop of beets, he says : Al-
lowing for the average crop of beets 1000 bu-
shels per acre, which is moderate, this quantity-
will fatten 11 head of steers in 90 days, at one
bushel per day for each steer. Allowing the
average corn crop to be 50 bushels ppr acre,
which is very large, this product will fatten
only li head, in the same time, feeding at the
usual rate of 1^ pecks per day. This leaves
a balance in favour of beets, fractions aside,
of about 800 per cent. (See Cultivator, vol. viii.
p. 119.) There is perhaps no food which will
contribute in winter so much to increase the
quantity and quality of the dairy products as
the sugar beet But it should be used along
with good hay, fodder, and other dry pro-
vender.

Under the head of Maxgel Wurzkl, a tabular
view is given of the comparative nutritive ma/-
terials in several of the roots most usually cul-
tivated for agricultural purposes. From this
it will be seen, that in saccharine matter as

SUNDEW.

SWEET-GRASS.

\rell as in the total amount of soluble matter,
the beet transcends all the other roots taken into
the estimate. The proportion of nutritious
noatier in carrots and parsnip:; is also very con-
siderable. See table, Art. Foon, p. 499.

SUNDEW (Drosera, from droseros, dewy).
This is a most singular and beautiful genus of
plants, whose leaves are ornamented with red
glandular hairs, discharging from their ends a
drop of viscid, acrid juice, which, from its
semblance to dew, has given rise to the com-
mon and generic name. These hairs are so
irritable as to contract when touched, imprison-
ing insects, after the manner of Diovaa niusci-
pula. In their native state they are found
f^rowing on mossy, turfy bogs. They are all
increased by seeds, which should be allowed to
sow themselves. In England there are three
indigenous species, all perennials. The leaves
are either undivided or lobed, entire. Flowers
terminal, racemose, rarely solitary. Petals red
or white. Several species are found in the
United States.

SUNFLOWER {Htlianthtu, from htlioi, sun,
and anihos, a flower; on account of the bril-
liant colour of the flowers, and from the erro-
neous idea that the flowers always turned
towards the sun). A highly ornamental and
extensive genus of plants; and from their tall
growth they are particularly adapted to the
back of flower-borders or the front of shrub-
beries, in which situations they make a splen-
did appearance in autumn : they grow well in
any common garden soil, the tender kinds
being protected in winter. It appears to pos-
sess far more profitable qualities than were
bitherto supposed, and, besides forming a beau-
tiful object in a bed of flowers, it may be culti-
vated with advantage, and applied to many
useful purposes. An acre of land will contain
■26,000 sunflower plants, 12 inches distant from
each other. The produce will be according to
the nature of the soil and mode of cultivation;
but the average has been found to be 50 bush-
els of the seed per acre, which will yield 60
gallons of oil. The oil is excellent for table
use, burning in lamps, and for the manufac-
ture of soaps. The marc, or refuse of the
seeds after the oil has been expressed, made
into cake, will produce 1500 lbs., and the stalks,
when burnt for alkali, will give 10 per cent, of
potassa. The green leaves of the sunflower,
when dried and burnt to powder, make excel-
lent fodder for milch cows, mixed with bran.
From the ease with which sunflowers are pro-
duced in gardens (for they seem to flourish in
any soil, and to require no particular care),
we may safely say that an acre of land will
yield a considerable return. Poultry are very
fond of the seeds.

SUNFLOWER, WILD or FALSE. Sneeze-
*peed {Helenuim an uru/iale). A plant with a
biennial root found in the United States.

SWAMP. Ground habitually so moist and
soft as not to admit of being trod by cattle, but
at the same time producing particular kinds of
trees, bushes, and plants. A swamp differs
fr;)m a bog and a marsh in producing trees
and shrubs, while the latter produce only herb-
age, plan's, and mosses. In autumn and
spring, th«» exhalations from swamps are pro-

ductive of agues, consequently it is important
to fill them up or drain them.

SWAN (Cygmis). Of the noble web-footed
birds so called there are three British species:
the Hooper, or Bewick's; the wild, and the
tame swan. The wild swan and Hooper ought,
perhaps, to be regarded as the only true native
species. The lame swan (C. olor) is superior
in bulk to either of the wild species, and is at
once distinguished by a large, black, callous
knob on the base of the bill. Our remarks in
this place will be exclusively directed to the
domesticated swan. These graceful birds are
rarely dressed for the table; they are consi-
dered too ornamental to destroy. They are not
destructive to ush, and they keep the water free
from weeds. Mr. Main, who long studied their
habits, in his work on Domestic Poultry, says
the tame swan is herbivorous and granivorous;
that is, they feed upon weeds and grain. They
love also bread, vegetables, dec, which they
eat greedily from the hand.

The swan lays from 6 to 8 eggs in the sum-
mer, and breeds only once in the year. Thej
love an islet to breed their young upon, for the
sake of its quiet; and a little straw deposited
there is all they require for making their nest.
The swan sits a month, but if the weather is
bad, they are known to remain longer before
they hatch. The cygnets, or young swans, re-
main a year with their parents ; but when the
breeding season approaches, the old cob or
male bird drives them away. This is the pe-
riod to sell ; and if the birds have paired, they
fetch a higher price in the market. Swans are
not in full plumage till the third year. These
birds often take flight at the fall of the year,
therefore the old birds should have the first
joint of one wing removed, which would pre-
vent their roving. Two pair of swans will
seldom agree together upon the same piece of
water. The cob, or male swan, is larger than
the female, and bolder. They require feeding
in very severe winters, and the ice should be
broken for them to swim about. At other times
they feed on weeds growing in the water, or
herbage on the banks of it. Swans and cyg-
nets are caught most easily with a swan-hook,
which is a long pole of 10 or 12 feet, with a
blunt hook 10 inches in length, bent at right
angles to the pole ; the angle should be turned
like a ring, and open in the inner side, to let in
the neck of the bird. The swan has a pecu-
liar kind of snort, but no voice. They hiss
when angrry.

SWARD. Green turf; that is, the surface
of land under pasture grasses. A fine sv/ard
may be called the characteristic feature of
British landscape, not being found in the same
degree of perfection in any other country, not
even in Ireland.

SWEAL. To singe or bum off the hair, as
in hoffs.

SWEET-BRIPJR. See Eolaxtixe.

SWEET FLAG. Sec Aconus and Aroma-
tic Rkkd.

SWEET- GRASS (Giyreria, from ghikeros,
sweet, alluding to the herbage; whence also
the comn#n name). A genus of grasses of
which some of the species are aquatics. Dr.
Smith emumerates 6 species indigenous to
4 R 1021

SWEET POTATO.

SWINE.

England : viz. the reedy sweet-grass (G. aqua-
tica), the floating sweet-grass (G. fluilans), the
reflexed sweet-grass (G. distans), the creeping
sea sweet-grass (G. maritima), the procumbent
sea sweet-grass (G. procttm6e/w,) and the hard
sweet-grass (G. n?irfa). 'J 'he only species
which have been thought worthy of trial by
Mr. Sinclair and other experimental cultiva-
tors of grasses are: —

1. The floating sweet-grass (G. fluitans).
Marona grass. The panicle is oblong, branched,
divaricating. Spikelets close pressed. Florets
numerous, obtuse, seven-ribbed, with short in-
termediate ribs at the base. Nectary obtuse,
tumid. This species appears capable of being
cultivated as a permanent pasture grass. The
seed will not vegetate unless kept very moist.
It flowers from the first or second week of July
till the end of summer. Birds are fond of the
seeds, and generally strip the panicle ere the
seeds are all perfected. Schreber informs us
that it is cultivated in several parts of Ger-
many for the sake of the seeds, which are es-
teemed a delicacy in soups and gruels. When
ground into meal, they make bread, very little
inferior to that from wheat. The bran is given
to horses that have the worms; but they must
be kept from water for some hours afterwards.
Fish, particularly trout, are said to be very
partial to the seed.

2. The reedy sweet-grass (G. aquatica). In
this species the panicle is erect, repeatedly
branched, spreading. Florets numerous, ob-
tuse, with seven ribs. Nectary cloven, acute.
This grass is common on the banks of rivers,
and frequent on the margins of standing pools.
On the banks and little islands of the Thames,
where it is generally mown twice in the year
for hay, it affords abundant crops of valuable
winter fodder. Mr. Curtis informs us that in
flat countries, which do not admit of being suf-
ficiently drained, it is almost the only grass for
hay and pasturage. In the fens of Cambridge,
Lincoln, &c., immense tracts which used to be
overflowed and produce useless aquatic plants,
and still retain much moisture, though drained
by mills, are covered with this grass, which
not only affords rich pasturage in summer, but
forms the chief part of their winter fodder. Its
powerful creeping roots make it a dangerous
and troublesome weed in ditches, where, with
other aquatic plants, it soon chokes them up.
In the fens of the Isle of Ely this grass grows
to the height of six feet, and proves excellent
fodder for milch cows, though horses are not
fond of it. The nutcitive matter of this grass
contains a greater proportion of sugar than
exists in any of the superior pasture grasses.
The best manner of propagating it is by plant-
ing the roots either in autumn or spring. It
flowers about the second and third weeks of
July, and the seed is ripe in the second week
of August.

SWEET POTATO (Convolmihis battatus).
Carolina potato. The fine, esculent, tuberous
root of this species of low-creeping vine or
convolvulus, is perennial. It flourishes in the
Middle and Southern States — to which last it is
native — wherever the soil is light and sandy,
refusing to grow and perfect itself on clay or
stiff loam soils. The plant is propagated by
1022

planting the tubers in beds early in the spring,
from which the young sprouts are subsequently
planted out in hills 5 or 6 feet apart. The
trailing vines must not be allowed to strike
root. The long roots are of different colours,
being rich yellow, red, or white, and attain a
large size, from a few ounces to several pounds
in weight. When boiled, baked, or roasted,
they have a sweet and very agreeable taste,
and are very nutritious.

SWEET SCENTED SHRUB (Calycanthui
.^/ort<fi«),Carolina Allspice. An American spicy
shrub, the flowers of which are extremely odo-
riferous, the perfume resembling that of the
strawberry. The wood and especially the
root are strongly camphorated, and may, Mr,
Nuttall thinks, probably produce this drug as
abundantly as the Laurus cutnphora. By cutting
off the terminal leaf-buds after the usual sea-
son, it is said that a succession of flowers may
be obtained throughout the summer, every leaf-
bud so extracted being constantly succeeded by
two flowers. The flowers of the Calycanthus
rarely produce seed, even in its native moun-
tains of Carolina.

SWINE (Genus Sus). The hog has been
generally described as a creature of gross ha-
bits and unclean tastes, as having the senses
of touch and taste obtuse, and even as being
so insensible that mice may burrow in his skia
without his seeming to feel. But these opi-
nions are most unjust and incorrect. Far from
being unclean,, nature has furnished him with
powerful organs of digestion, enabling him to
derive sustenance from a variety of substances,
and his voracity is only the result of the extent
and perfection of his digestive and respiratory
organs. Although one of the pachydermatous,
or thick-skinned animals, the hog feels blowji
acutely, and manifests his suffering by loud
cries. Indeed, the inference that his sense of
touch is dull, because of the thick layer of fat
with which his body is enveloped, is most erro-
neous, for it is well known that the plexus of
nerves which gives sensibility to the body is
exterior to this fatty layer. So far from being
insensible to pain, the hog even suffers under
the irritation arising from the punctures of
gnats, musquitoes, and other small insects, and
endeavours to protect himself from their per-
secution by rolling in moist places and cover-
ing himself with mud.

Natural History of the Hog. — "The hog (sayg
Prof. Low) is subject to remarkable changes
of form and characters, according to the situa-
tions in which he is placed. When these
characters assume a certain degree of perma-
nence, a breed or variety is formed ; and there
is none of the domestic animals which more
easily receives the characters we desire to im-
press upon it. This arises from its rapid pow-
ers of increase, and the constancy with which
the characters of the parents are reproduced in
the progeny. There is no kind of live-stock
that can be so easily improved by the breeder,
and so quickly rendered suited to the purpose.s
required; and the same characters of external
form indicate in the hog a disposition to arrive
at early maturity of muscle and fat as in the ox
and sheep. The body is large in proportion to
the limbs, or, in other words, the limbs arc

8WINE.

SWINE.

short in proportion to the body ; the extremi-
ties are free frorp coarseness; the chest is
broad, and the trunk round. Possessing these
characters, the hog never fails to arrive at
earlier maturity, and with a smaller consump-
tion of food, than when he possesses a different
conformation."

The wild boar, which was undoubtedly the
progenitor of all the European varieties, and
also of the Chinese breed, was formerly a na-
tive of the British Islands, and very common
in the forests until the time of the civil wars in
England.

The wild hog is now spread over the tem-
perate and warmer parts of the old continent
and its adjacent islands. His colour varies
with age and clinjate, but is generally a dusky
brown with black spots and streaks. His skin
is covered with coarse hairs or bristles, inter-
sected with soft wool, and with coarser and
longer bris'.les upon the neck and spine, which
he erects when in anger. He is a very bold
and powerful creature, and becomes more
fierce and indocile with age. From the form
of his teeth he is chiefly herbivorous in his
habits, and delights in roots, which his acute
sense of smell and touch enables him to dis-
cover beneath the surface. He also feeds upon
animal substances, such as worms and larvee,
which he grubs up from the ground, the eggs
of birds, small reptiles, the young of animals,
and occasionally carrion ; he even attacks
venomous snakes with impunity.

The female produces a litter but once a year,
and in much smaller numbers than when do-
mesticated. She usually carries her young for
4 months, or 16 weeks.

In a wild state the hog ha.n been known to
live more than 30 years; but when domesti-
cated he is usually slaughtered for bacon be-
fore he is 2 years old, and boars killed for
brawn seldom reach to the age of 5. When
the wild hog is tamed, it undergoes the follqw-
ing amongst other changes in its conformation.
The ears become less movable, not being re-
quired to collect distant sounds. The formi-
dable tusks of the male diminish, not being
necessary for self-defence. The muscles of
the neck become less developed, from not be-
ing so much exercised as in the natural state.
The head becomes more inclined, the back and
loins are lengthened, the body rendered more
capacious, the limbs shorter and less muscu-
lar; and anatomy proves that the stomach and
intestinal canals have also become propor-
tionately extended along with the form of the
body. The habits and instincts of the animal
change: it becomes diurnal in its habits,
not choosing the night for its search of food ;
is more insatiate in its appetite, and the tend-
ency to obesity increases.

The male, forsaking its solitary habits, be-
comes gregarious, and the female produces her
young more frequently, and in larger numbers.
With its diminished strength and power of ac-
tive motion, the animal also loses its desire for
liberty. These changes of form, appetites, and
habits being communicated to its progeny, a
new race of animals is produced, better suited
to their altered condition. The wild hog, after
it has been domesticated, does not appear to

revert to its former stale and habits ; at least
the swine of South America, carried thither by
the Spaniards, which have escaped to the
woods, retain their gregarious habits, and have
not become wild boars.

In its wild stale the hog has 6 incisor teeth
in the upper, and 6 in the lower jaw; but
when domesticated the number is reduced to
3 in each jaw, and this number is not constant.
The vertebrae of the back vary from 14 to 15
in number; the lumbar and the sacral from 4
to 6; the caudal from 2 to 3 or 4, the tail being
often rudimental in the domesticated races.

Mr. T. E. Eyton (Trans, of Zool. Soc., Feb.
1837), amongst other osteological differences
in the races of hogs, points out the following
as applicable to the number of vertebrjE: —

'£',:'•

African
male.

Chinett

nuUe.

Wild
Bo«r.

Dom«Uc
Hog.

Cervical
Dorsal -
Lumbar
Sacral -
Caudal

7
15
6
8
SI

7
13
6
5
13

7
15
4
4
19

7
14
5
4

ao

7
14
5

4
23

55

44

49

50

53

The hog family includes several species, but
these have usually been divided into three
genera.

1. The true hog, which is the most diffused
and important class, comprehending the wild
boar (Susaper) of Europe, Asia, and Africa; the
babiroussa (Sus babirussa) of the islands of
the Eastern Archipelago, which is of lighter
form than the common wild hog; the Papuan
hog (Sus papuensis) of New Guinea, and the
wood swine, or masked African boar {S. Uur-
vatus), of Southern Africa and Madagascar.

2. The wart-bearing hogs of Africa (Phaco-
chares).

3. The peccaries of America. Of these
there are two species, the collared peccary
(DuotyUs torquatus) and the white-lipped pec-
cary (D. Inbiatus), both inhabiting the countries
of the Atlantic from Guiana and Paraguay,
extending into the northern continent, being
common on Red River. The peccaries are
rather smaller than the common swine of Eu-
rope : they are covered with stiff bristles, very
long upon the neck and spine, which they erect
when irritated, are nearly destitute of tail, and
are further characterized by a glandular open-
ing in the back, whence the generic term
dicolyUs, signifying a double navel.

The true hog does not appear to have been
indigenous to America, but was taken over by
the early voyagers from the old world, and it
has now spread and multiplied throughout the
continent.

The first settlers of Canada, the British
North American settlements, and the United
States, carried with them the swine of the pa-
rent country, and a few of the breeds still re-
tain traces of the old English character. From
its nature and habits the hog was the most pro-
fitable and useful of all the animals bred by the
early settler in the distant clearings. It was
his surest resource during his first years of toil
and hardship. It arrived earlier at maturity,
required less care, sought out, for the most
part, its own food, was the least subject to ac-
10^3

8WINE.

SWINE.

cidents and diseases in a new situation, and
4herefore best repaid any portion of attention
bestowed on the breeding and rearing it.

Their widely extended foreign commerce af-
fordedihe Americans opportunitiesof procuring
the varieties from China, Africa, and other coun-
tries. The large consumption of pork in the
United States, far exceeding the consumption
of any other country, has also contributed
mainly to the improvement of the breeds, by
causing the Americans to pay considerable at-
tention to the rearing of swine, which have
thus become one of the most important articles
of commerce, and a source of considerable
profit to the breeder on a large scale.

Breeds. — The various breeds which have
been reared by crosses between those procured
from different countries are so numerous, that
to give any thing like a detailed description of
all would fill a volume instead of an essay. 1
shall, therefore, confine myself to a short no-
tice of those which are either considered as
the origin of some peculiar race, or most gene-
rally bred for their fattening or other profitable
qualities. The celebrated English breeder, Gal-
ley, only distinguishes four breeds, the Berk-
shire, the Chinese, the Highland, and the Irish
species.

The principal breeds of England have been
usually named after the particular counties or
localities where they have been, for the most
part, reared. Thus, we have the Berkshire, the
Hampshire, the Essex, the Suffolk, and a dozen
others, each supposed to be distinguished by a
certiain set of common characters. Those ap-
proved on account of their superior size, and
therefore usually reared for the purpose of
making bacon, are the Berks, Hants, Hereford,
Salop, Norfolk, and Chester breeds. The
breed best adapted for table pork is the small
"white Chinese. There are, however, particu-
lar breeds preferred by individuals.

The Berkshire Breed. This was one of the
earliest improved of the English breeds, and
it is now the most widely distributed, as it
is the most superior, of the numerous varieties
of England. It is a breed which is distinguished
by being, in general, of a tawny white, or
rufous-brown colour, spotted with black or
brown; head well placed, large ears, generally
standing forward, though sometimes hanging
over the eyes; body thick, close, and well
made; legs short, small in the bone; coal
rough and curly, wearing the appearance of
indicating both skin and flesh of a coarse qua-
lity. Such, however, is not the case, for they
have a disposition to fatten quickly: nothing
can be fijjer than the bacon, and the animals
attain to a very great size, averaging from 50
to 60 stone, although they have not uncom-
monly reached to the prodigious weight of 100
stone and upwards.

The county of Berkshire has long been cele-
brated for its famous breed of swine, and the
breed has, by frequent and judicious crossing,
been much altered for the better. The original
breed was of the larger race of swine, and is
described as being long, and rather crooked-
snouted, with uncouth, heavy ears; body long
and thick, though not very deep; legs short,
with much bone; although slow feeders, they
1024

always made great weights. The character of
the true Berkshire seems to indicate that one
of the earliest means employed to improve
them was a cross with the wild boar. The
improved breed is lighter in the head and ear,
shorter in the carcass, with somewhat less
bone, and higher in the leg: in colour gene-
rally dark spotted. They have little offal, thin
rind and hair, and few or no stout bristles.
The native breed is still occasionally crossed,
eiiher with the pure Chinese or the Tonquin
race ; and it is asserted, on good authority, that
if not crossed once in 6 or 7 years with the
Asiatic breed, they will degenerate in shape
and quality. The improved Berkshires will
be found excellent in all respects, but particu-
larly as a cross for heavy, slow-feeding hogs.
The unqualified approbation which this breed
has obtained, renders it incumbent on every
breeder who wishes to improve his stock of
swine to obtain a cross with that race. Al-
though hardy and thrifty in its nature, the
Berkshire hog requires constant good keep, or
it will decline fast.

The old English Breed. — The original native
breeds of Great Britain may be arranged into
two general classes ; but between these ex-
tremes there are so many varieties, that num-
bers cannot be reduced to eiiher class.

1. Those of small size, with the ears erect, or
partly so, of which the most marked are those
of the Highlands and islands ot* Scotland. They
are hardy creatures, usually of a dusky-browa
colour, having an arched back, with coarse
bristles on the neck and spine; and approxi-
mate closely in character and habits to the
wild hog. They are, for the most part, left ta
provide for themselves, ranging at large over
the heaths and moors, grubbing up roots and
destroying the eggs of birds, and even newly-
born iambs, when they come in their way.
These hogs are usually very meager and thin;
flesh coarse and fibrous; but it is greatly im-
proved when the animals are confined and
properly fed. When rooming at large on the
sea-coast, their flesh, from feeding on shell-
fish, sea-weed, and the bodies of fish which
are cast up by the tide, acquires a rank and
unctuous taste.

2. The second class comprises those of a
larger body, with long, pendent ears.

Although their colour varies considerably,
they are, for the most part, white, or white
spotted with black. 'J'he characteristics of this
old race, where it exists without intermixture
with foreign blood (which is not often the case
in the present day), are a huge, uncouth form,
large bones, long limbs, archeil and narrow
back, low shoulder, and long snout, with the
ears large and flapping, covering the greater
part of the face. They consume much food,
are slow feeders, and their only lecommendi-
tion is that of being prolific breeders, and at-
taining to a large size when fattened at the age
of two or three years. The old English breed,
atid many other once celebrated local r.Tces of
that country, have all had their distinctive cha-
racters more or less efll'aced by crossing.
j The Chinese or Kame^e breed.— The varieties
of this widely-extended race which are the
most common in England, were brought to

SWINE.

SWINE.

America and England from Canton and other
Indian ports, for the most part as sea-slock, by
the vessels employed in the tea trade, &c. Ow-
ing to the much larger consumption of pork by
the Chinese than of any other animal food, they
pay great attention to the rearing and fattening
of their swine. It is said they even use the
milk of the sow for domestic purposes. The
pure Chinese breed is too delicate and sensi-
ble of cold to be of much value in climates
liable to frequent changes of temperature. It
is chiefly, therefore, by intermixture that its
value is recognised; and it is for this reason
that its introduction has proved so beneficial
in England, by correcting the coarseness of
form, quieting the restless disposition, and add-
ing a greater tendency to mature quickly and
fatten kindly. The flesh of the Eastern hogs
is more suited for pork than for bacon. Mr.
Culley subdivides the Chinese breed into seven
varieties, but there appear to be only two dis-
tinct species — the while and the black; the for-
mer better shaped than the latter, but less hardy
and prolific. Both are, however, small-limbed;
ears and head thin and transparent, small and
fine ; neck thick ; the body close, compact, and
well formed ; legs very short ; flesh delicate ;
round in the carcass, thin-skinned, and the
head so embedded in the neck that, when quite
fat, the end only of the snout can be seen.
They are rather difficult to rear; the sows are
bad nurses ; and, from their small size, they
seldom reach to a greater weight than from 10
to 12 stone when one year old, and 16 lo 18
stone when two years old.

The black race, from their valuable proper-
ties of fattening on a small proportion of food,
being very thrifty, and prolific breeders, not-
withstanding their inferior size, have been ad-
vantageously crossed with other breeds.

There is a mixed tawny breed, or patched
with black and v/hite, which is valuable for
breeding sows and roasters.

Hampshire breed. — This is a very large breed,
which is longer in the neck and body, but not
so compact in form as the Berkshire. They
are mostly of a white colour, or spotted, and
are well disposed to fatten, coming up to a
great weight when properly managed in re-
spect to food. The goodness of the Hampshire
hog is proverbial ; it is principally fattened for
large hams and bacon.

The Shropshire breed is large and coarse ; but
these hogs are found profitable where the keep
is in sufficient abundance for their support;
hence they are held in estimation in England
by distillers, and are commonly fed to 30 score
weight and upwards. They are neither so well
formed as those of the Berkshire breed, nor do
they equal them in their disposition to fatten
and thrive on cheap food. The standard co-
lour of the Shropshire hog appears to be white,
or brindled with black, and sometimes sandy
patches. The breed may be described as flat-
boned, deep and flat-sided', harsh or rather wiry-
haired, the ears large ; head long, sharp, and
coarse ; leg too long, low, although very sub-
stantial, yet not sufficiently wide, considering
the great extent of the whole frame. Within
the last 15 or 20 years this breed has been
much improved by a cross with the Berkshire,
12»

which has reduced the length both of their legs
and carcass, and rendered the head lighter.

The Rudgwick breed. — This is the most enor-
mous breed in Great Britain, and is reared
about the neighbourhood of a village on the
borders of Sussex and Surrey, whence it takes
its name. They feed to an extraordinary fiize
without any peculiar care, and weigh, at two
years old, on an average, full 70 stone, which
is nearly double what other kinds will weigh
at the same age. The Rudwick sows are ac-
counted good mothers, very prolific and hardy,
and are particularly noted as being an ex-
tremely large sort, having been known to
weigh from 80 to 116 stone, 8 lbs. to the stone.
Indeed, some have reached to the extraordi-
nary weight of 182 stone. As large breeds
pay the farmer the best in many cases, such a
breed as the Rudgwick deserves to be attended
to in the system of hog management.

The Suffolk and Norfolk breeds have been long
in repute as hardy and prolific species, and
when crossed with either the Dishley or the
Berkshire hog, produce animals which are
held in very general esteem.

The Norfolk breed. — This is described as be-
ing a small, short set-cared, thin-skinned pork-
ing sort, various in colour, white, bluish, stri-
ated; generally an inferior kind. But on the
Lincoln side of the county there is a large
spoiled variety of very good form and quality.
The Suffolk breed is a small, delicate, white
race, which has for many years been held in
good estimation. They are shorter and more
pug-formed than the Norfolks; and by their
dish face and pendent belly, it is to be pre-
sumed that the variety proceeded originally
from the while Chinese breed. Their defects
are, that they are great consumers in propor-
tion to their small bulk, and that they produce
little flesh.

The Woburn breed. — ^This is a large, hardj,
well-formed, and very prolific variety, intro-
duced by the late Duke of Bedford, which is
generally while, spotted with various colours,
round in the carcass, small-limbed and headed,
and so kindly disposed to fatten, that they are
said to attain about twice the size and weight
of other sorts of hogs within the same given
period of time.

The Tonkey or Tonquin breed is a cross be-
tween the Berkshire and the Chinese, which
has produced a species possessing very many
good points.

The Dishley breed, reared by the celebrated
cattle-breeder, Bakewell, are remarkably fine-
boned and delicate, besides possessing consi-
derable beauty, and are said to lay on a larger
quantity of meat, in proportion to bone and
oflfal, than any other kind known. When fat,
they are nearly equal in height, length, and
thickness, their bellies almost touching the
ground, the eyes being deep-set and sunk from
fat, and the whole carcass appearing to be a
solid mass of flesh. As a set-off to these good
qualities, are the defects of their being slow of
growth, tender constitulioned, bad nurses, not
very prolific, and requiring more food in fat-
tening than the larger hogs. By a cross with
a Dishley boar, several of the native breeds of
the different English counties have been muck
4 B 2 1036

SWINE.

SWINE.

improved. A roundness has been given to the
frame, with a proportionate depth of body; the
legs have been shortened, a finer bone pro-
duced, with a better appearance when growing
as a store, and a disposition to feed, quicker
and more kindly in the sty.

Small white English breed. — This breed of
small hogs is met with in several districts, but
prevails most in the northern parts of England.
It is • of a white colour, thick, compact, and
well made in the body, short in the leg; the
head and neck well formed, ears slouching a
little downwards ; hardy, and well disposed to
' fatten.

The Essex breed. — The original Essex breed
was not held in much repute. Their peculiar
character was a Jong, sharp head • round-
backed; carcass flat, long, and generally high
upon the leg; bones not large; colour white,
or black and white; bare of hair; quick feed-
ers, but great consumers, and of an unquiet
disposition. A variety known as the Essex
half-blacks, which were introduced some years
ago by the late Lord Western, as descendants
from the Berkshire, have now justly acquired
such very great celebrity, as to be considered
by many good judges superior to most breeds
in the kingdom. They are described in the
Essex Report as black and white, short-haired,
thin-skinned, with smaller heads and ears than
the Berkshire, but feathered Mdth inside hair,
which is a distinctive mark of both ; having
short, snubby noses, very fine bone, brpad and
deep in the belly, full in the hind-quarters, but
light in the bone and offal. They feed remark-
ably quick, grow fast, and are of an excellent
quality of meat. The sows are good breeders,
and bring litters from 8 to 12; but they have
the character of being bad nurses.

The Wiltshire Breed. — Originally this was a
long-bodied, low hog, hollow about the shoul-
ders, and high on the rump ; with middling
large pointed ears ; round bone ; and light in
colour. But of late years this breed has been
advantageously crossed with the pig and Berk-
shire sorts, and a smaller and better variety
produced.

The Gloucester, the Yorkshire, the Northampton,
and the Hereford breeds, call for little notice.
The Hereford appears to be a descendant of
the Shropshire, and is a large, useful race ; but
the others are very inferior kinds, possessing
few good points.

In reviewing the various breeds of swine,
a brief survey of the principal continental va-
rieties and distinct races may not be out of
place. I shall therefore give a slightly altered
abridgment of a diffuse article which some
time since appeared in the Quart. Jour, of Agr.
vol. iii. p. 49.

France. — In the time of Buffon, the greater
portion of the hogo of Vivarez and the north
of France were white ; while in Dauphiny,
Languedoc, and Provence, they were all black:
black pigs still prevail both in Spain and Italy.
The variety known in France under the name
o^ pore de nobles appears to be derived from the
improved English breed, which originated in
a cross between an Anglo-Chinese sow and an
emancipated American boar. The French
breeds of swine are in general bad, but excel-
1026

lent hams are sent from Bretagne from hogs-
reared on acorns and fatted off with maize^
The principal breeds of France at the present
time are —

1. The race of the Pays d^Auge, in which the
head is small and sharp, ears narrow and
pointed, body long, legs broad and strong, hair
coarse, white, and bones small. It attains to
the weight of 800 lbs.

2. The race of Poitou. — The distinguishing
characters of which are, head long and thick,
with the point projecting, ears large and pen-
dulous, body long, bones large, but broad and
strong, bristles coarse. Its weight seldom ex-
ceeds 500 lbs.

3. The race of Perigord. — Neck thick and
short, body broad and compact, hair black.
This race, crossed with others, has produced the
pied swine, so common in the south of France.

4. The race of Champagne. — These do not fat-
ten well, they are of large dimensions, with
long, flat sides, broad, pendent ears, and coarse
white hair.

.5. The race of Boulogne are also of considera-
ble size, and disposed to fatten quickly; ears
very broad, general colour white. This breed
has sprung from a cross between the larger
English breed and one of the common races
of France.

The French pigs, although they have excited
many facetious observations from travellers,
and not unfrequently been compared to grey-
hounds, may be fattened, we are assured, at a
small expense ; and the method of doing this
is now beginning to be understood. The
Chinese and English breeds are also getting
into use for crossing. The fact that 4,000,00a'
pigs are killed yearly in France, shows of how
great importance they are to the small agricul-
turist. (For. Quart. Rev.)

Other European breeds. — In some parts
of Hungary the breed of swine is excellent..
In Germany swine are common, but the breed
is everywhere indifferent. Of the other con-
tinental races only a very few require particu-
lar notice.

The Jutland swine, which are of a large size,
and form an important branch of Danish com-
merce, have the ears large and pendent, body
elongated, back somewhat curved, legs long.

The Stvedish swine. — The most peculiar and
characteristic breed of Sweden are supposed
to contain a cross of the wild boar, and have
the head broad, turned upwards ; ears unusu-
ally erect, body lengthened, legs long.

The Polish and Riissian pigs are generally-
small, and of a reddish or yellowish colour.

Race of the Cape of Good Hope. — This breed is
somewhat less in size, but else approaches
closely to the Siamese pig, and is nearly iden-
tical with the breed of the South Sea Islands-
It probably originated in India. The hair is
black or deep chestnut, hard, and thinly scat-
tered ; the ears are straight, and tail pendent
and terminated by a tuft of bristles. This race
is now very generally distributed ; it has been,
propagated extensively in Australasia, and now
occurs not only in Southern Africa, but in
several parts of South America. ,

The smooth or short-legged swine, a breed de-
rived from the Chinese, are bred in Spain, For-

SWINE.

SWINE.

tugal, Savoy, and the north and south of Italy.
This pig is of small size, very productive, and
a ready fattener; it is usually of a copper
colour, but sometimes occurs of a bright fiery
red. The head is unusually short, the jaws
thick, the forehead stunted; the skin falls in
folds above the eyes ; the ears are short, pointed,
and almost erect ; the neck is thick and strong,
the chest very vigorous, the body round and
lengthened, the legs short and strong, the skin
yery thin, and the bristles short and slender.

The Zealand hog is of a mixed Chinese race,
and weighs from 160 to 240 lbs. about the end
of its second year. It has the ears erect, body
short, back strongly bristled, tail small.

The Turkish hog fattens in half the time re-
quired by many of the larger and more com-
mon breeds, and weighs from 300 to 400 lbs.
It prevails throughout European Turkey, and
a great portion of the Austrian dominions.
Ears straight and pointed ; legs short and fine ;
body scarcely longer than high, and covered
all over with slender frizzled bristles, of a gray
colour, more or less deep, approaching to
rufous brown.

The pig of Guinea (not the Guinea pig) is a
remarkable variety, which is little known.
The back is bare ; head small ; ears long,
slender, and much pointed; tail long, naked,
reaching to the ground; hair short, red, shining,
finer and softer than that of any other known
racer

In Asia only Europeans and the low Hindoos
eat pork. Wild hogs are abundant, and do so
much injury to the rice fields that it is a mate-
rial part of the ryot's business to watch them,
which he does night and day, on a raised plat-
form of bamboos.

Of the Mediterranean breeds there are seve-
ral, which are approved and held in much esti-
mation ; among these are the Maltese, the
Neapolitan, &c., and hogs are occasionally
brought from the sea-ports of Turkey and
Spain.

The Maltese breed was at one time in great
favour in England ; it was of small size, of a
black colour, nearly destitute of bristles, with
an aptitude to fatten readily. A breed from
the country near Naples has been recently in-
troduced, which is extensively employed as a
cross with the existing native breeds. This
Neapolitan breed is very similar to the Maltese
breed already alluded to. Their flesh is good
and delicate, but the animals are not hardy,
and quite unfit for general use. The duchy of
Parma is said to produce the best hogs of Italy,
which possess all the good qualities of those
about Naples. They are also more hardy, and
of larger size.

In Mexico they have a very fine race of hogs,
which are regarded as an important article of
commerce. They are kept very clean, and
often given a cold bath, as the breeders find
from experience that cleanliness contributes
mainly to their rapid growth, upon less food.
This is fully corroborated by the following ex-
periment, which was recently made by a gen-
tleman from Norfolk. Six pigs of nearly equal
size were put to keeping at the same lime, and
treated the same as to food and litter for seven
weeks. Three of them were left to shift for

themselves as to cleanliness ; the other three
were kept as clean as possible by a man em-
ployed for the purpose, with a currycomb and
brush. The last consumed in seven week*
fewer peas by five bushels than the other three^
yet weighed more when killed by two stooe and
four pounds upon the average.

Bullock informs us that the Mexicans are
very curious in rearing and feeding Swine, and
that an essential requisite in a Mexican swine-
herd is an agreeable voice, in order that he
may sing or charm the animals into peace
when they quarrel and fight, and lull them to
sleep at proper times, to promote their fatten-
ing. (Traveb, 1824.) There are many wi|d
swine in Paraguay.

Characteristics of a good hog. — There is evi-
dently much diversity in swine in different cir-
cumstances and situations. Like other descrip-
tions of stock, they should be selected with
especial reference to the nature of the climate^
the keep and the circumstances of the manage-
ment under which the farm is conducted. The
chief points to be consulted in judging of the
breeds of this animal are the form or shape of
the ear, and the quality of the hair. The pen-
dulous or lop ear, and coarse, harsh hair, are
commonly asserted to indicate largeness of size
and thickness of skin ; while erect or prick ears
show the size to be smaller, but the animals to
be more quick in feeding.

In the selection of swine, the best formed are
considered to be those which are not loo long,
but full in the head and cheek ; thick and rather
short in the neck ; fine in the bone ; thick,
plump, and compact in the carcase ; full in the
quarters, fine and thin in the hide ; and of a
good size according to the breed, with, abote
all, a kindly disposition to fatten well and expe-
ditiously at an early age. Depth of carcass,
lateral extension, breadth of the loin and breast,
proportionate length, moderate shortness of the
legs, and substance of the gammons and fore-
arms, are therefore absolute essentials. These
are qualities to produce a favourable balance
in the account of keep, and a mass of weight
which will pull the scale down. In proportion*
too, as the animal is capacious in the loin and
breast, will be generally the vigour of his con-
stitution ; his legs will be thence properly ex-
tended, and he will have a bold and firm foot-
ing on the ground.

For head and ears, the small Berkshire or
Oxford pigs are good models ; and for irae
shape, the improved Shropshire, Hereford, and
Gloucester. If colour deserve any considera-
tion, perhaps the light, sandy, and ydiow
spotted are to be preferred, as these appear to
afford by far the most delicate meat when dead.

Proneation. — The sow generally goes with
young four lunar months, but the period of ges-
tation in different species varies considerably-
According to the experimentsof M.Teissier «i
the gestation of animals, it appears that the ex-
treme periods of 25 sows were 109 to 143 daysy
which would lead to the inference that they g<^
on an average 127 days from the time of
taking the boar until they farrow; but expe-
rience proves that they most commonly farrow-
within little more than 16 weeks, although thejr
occasionally go with young 20 weeks. Botb

102'}

SWINE.

SWINE.

the sexes manifest a desire for coition at 7 or 8
months old ; and although frequently brought
together at a still earlier age, it is more prefer-
able to restrain them until they have attained
to the age of 12 months, as a larger and
stronger litter will be produced. The boar
should not commence serving until at least a
year old, and he may be considered in his
prime at 2 years old. He should not be strain-
ed by being allowed to serve too many sows ;
from 12 to 14 being sufficient. The sow should
rarely be put to the boar before 8 months old.
See Gestation.

The animals when collectively spoken of
are usually either termed swine, "hogs, or pigs;
but when distinctively named, the young gelded
male is called a "barrow," the male when not
castrated is called a " boar," and the female a
•* sow," or " shoot ;" their progeny when very
young being styled " sucking pigs," and when
advanced somewhat larger in size, " porkers."
There is much difference of opinion as to
the best age for breeding sows. Some con-
siders that sows at 3 years old throw their
stock much larger and stronger than when of
a less age; while others are of opinion that
they are never such good breeders as at the
age of from a year and a half to two years and
a half old ; 'after which they throw the pigs
unevenly.

Regarding the sex of the progeny, it is as-
serted in a recent French work on the subject
of generation {Giron, sur la Reproduction des
Animaiix Domestiques), that among females
those which receive the male first produce
generally more males than females. This is
not a matter of much consequence in swine ;
but in horses and cattle it is a question of
some moment: and if this theory is borne out
by experience, the hint thrown out may prove
useful to breeders. The sow will produce two
litters in a year (occasionally five in two years),
and from 8 to 12 pigs in each farrow. The
number of pigs to be kept will be easily indi-
cated by the number of teats which the mother
has ; and on no account should more be at-
tempted to be retained than nature has thus
provided for.

"The choice of a boar," says a modern
writer, " depends so much upon fancy, or local
prejudice, in favour of a particular breed, and
is so little governed by either soil or climate,
that no other general rule can be laid down
upon the subject, than to avoid an animal
which is not small-headed, deep and broad in
the chest, the chine rather arched, the ribs and
barrel well rounded, and the haunch falling full
down nearly to the hock. He should also be
more compact in his form and rather smaller
than the sow ; for, if she be coarse, her pro-
geny will be improved in form and flesh by the
cross, and the more roomy she is, the better
chance will she afibrd of producing a large and
healthy litter." {Brit. Hush. vol. ii. p. 511.)
The boar cannot be too well kept ; but the sow
should not be highly fed before taking the boar.
The plan or custom oi breeding in and in from
close relations is a most injudicious course,
and seems to bring on degeneracy in the oiT-
spring. In selecting both sows and boars, a
due regard must be paid to the object for
1028

which the progeny are designed. Small bone
is desirable in stock reserved for breeding, as
this description produces the least offal.

Uses. — A pig, for its size, is one of the most
useful animals in the whole creation, inasmuch
as he is food from top to toe, and there is no
part of him which cannot be turned to account.
His fat is made into lard, M'hich is used in
medicine, as well as by housekeepers, confec-
tioners, and others. That about the loins is
the firmest and the most dense. For ordinary
use it must be separated from the membranes,
which is eftected by melting it over a slow fire
and straining through cloths. It should be
stirred as it cools, to prevent the separation of
the solid part or stearine from the eluine or
oily part. The flesh is either eaten fresh when
young, or of the adult animal, bacon hog, salted
in brine or with dry salt, and then either kept
moist, as pickled pork ; or merely dried, white
bacon ; or cured, dried, and smoked, bacon ; that
of the hind legs, ham, equally nutritive, but less
easily digested; the collar and head of the old
boars are made into bratvn ; the skin or rind is
eaten with the flesh, if not smoked, and is also
tanned for saddle-seats, shoes, covers for pocket-
books, &c.; the bladders are prepared as ox
bladders. The bristles clean our teeth and
brush our clothes : those of superior quality
from Russia, fetch H/. to 26/. the cwt.; the
second quality, from 5/. to 10/. The abdominal
fat is used ; as also the blood for food, and it
yields a bezoar, principally from a morbid con-
cretion in the stomach of the wild hog. Evea
the intestines are used for chitlings, and con-
verted into an inferior kind of lard, by being
cut open and washed clean, and (after the
water is well pressed out of them) melted in
the same way as lard : this substance is very
useful for making common candles, greasing
wheels, and other general purposes. To sum
up all, the hog multiplies his species in a
degree proportioned to his usefulness.

The flesh of the hog, when fresh, is easy of
digestion and nutritive ; but it is not a food
capable of being eaten for a length of time with
impunity. It is apt to cause derangements of
the mucous membrane, and diseases of the skin.
Bacon. — In Great Britain the curing of bacon,
as an article of commerce, prevails most in the
counties of York, Hants, Cumberland, North-
ampton, Dumfries, Galloway, and the northern
and other ports of Ireland.

For bacon flitches, the larger breeds, such
as will weigh, when killed, from 18 to 22 impe-
rial stone, are always preferred, from being the
most profitable to the farm and readily taking
the market. In selecting pigs for this purpose,
the sow should be of a large, deep carcass ;
head long, with deep ears, straight chine, and
of equal symmetry from the shoulders to the
tail ; of fine skin, which shows an aptitude to
fatten, and the boar should be of a thicker and
closer make than the sow.

Small hogs for bacon will be ready for the
knife in 12 weeks, and the larger from 16 to
20 weeks. The girth of fat bacon hogs is
about as follows : — When ten score, 4 feet 1
inch ; twelve score, 4 feet 4 inches ; fourteen
score, 4 feet 7 inches ; sixteen score, 4 feet 11
inches ; eighteen score, 5 feet 2 inches ; twenty

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SWINE.

score, 5 feet 7 inches. (Hillyard's Pract. Farm.
p. 51.)

"In Hampshire, and some adjoining coun
ties, after the hog is killed, they first swale him,
or singe off the hairs, by kindling a fire round
him, which is far preferable to scraping off the
bristles with warm water, as the latter mode
softens the rind, and injures the firmness of
the flesh. He is then cut into flitches, which
are well rubbed with common salt and salt-
petre mixed, and are laid in a trough, where
they continue for three weeks or a month, ac-
cording to size, and are often turned. They are
then taken out, suspended in a chimney, over
a wood or turf-fire, or in regular curing-houses,
till they are quite dried. In Kent they are dried
before a slack fire, which requires a similar
method and time to that employed in salting.
They are hung up or deposited on racks for
use. Somersetshire or Wiltshire bacon, which
is the best in England, is cured as follows : —
The sides of the hogs are laid in large wooden
troughs, sprinkled with bay salt, and left un-
moved for 24 hours, to drain off the blood and
juices. Then they are taken out, and wiped
quite dry, and some bay salt, |freviously heated
in an iron fryingpan, is rubbed into the flesh,
till enough of it is absorbed. This is continued
for four successive days, during which the
flitches are turned every second day. With
large hogs, the flitches must be kept in brine
for 3 weeks, and must be turned every other
day, after which they are dried as usual. In
these methods the hide or skin is left on; but
in some counties there is a different practice,
which has been recommended abroad as pre-
ferable, because it affords an opportunity of
converting the skin into leather, while the meat
takes the salt and is cured as well as in the for-
mer mode. The hides of swine have long been
made into shoes in China. Where the con-
sumption of bacon is very rapid, the last-men-
tioned practice may be adopted ; but it is cer-
tain that bacon will in a short time become
rusty, and consequent loss be incurred, if it be
not cured with the rind, and kept in a dry
room." (The Complete Grazier.) See Bacos.

Pork. — In England, mess or table pork, or
that for the London market, is generally cured
near the principal sea-ports, and along the
coast, from whence it can easily be shipped to
the metropolis. If the object of breeding hogs
is for pork and hams only, it is evident that
pork from a hog of 25 to 35 stone (8 pounds to
the stone) is by far more profitable than those
from 35 to 50 stone; in which case a cross
between the Chinese and Essex will be found
to answer very well, as the progeny come to
early maturity. {Baxter's Jgr. Lib.)

The middle-sized hogs, such as the Northum-
berland, the Berkshire, the Suffolk, and Oxford
breeds, are those generally preferred for this
purpose, and their ordinary weight will be
from 8 to 10 or 12 imperial stone.

For delicate pork for family use, the smaller
kindly-feeding pigs are chosen. The Berk-
shire and the Suffolk breeds, when not too
large, will be the best for this purpose. The
Chinese will answer well at 6 or 8 months old,
when it will weigh 4 to 8 imperial stones. By
higher feeding it may be made, when a little.

older, to attain to double this weight ; but the
meat will then be found coarse. Weanlings
are generally fatted in a very short period. A
pig of 5 or 6 months old will fatten, if in good
condition, in 8 or 10 weeks.

The fat of the hog is neither mixed with the
flesh nor collected at its extremeties, but covers
the animal all over, and forms a thick, distindt,
and continued layer beneath the integuments,
and in this respect may be said to resemble the
whale and other cetaceous animals. It is
termed lard, and differs in chemical composi-
tion and properties from the fat of the rumi-
nating animals. It more readily imbibes salt
than any other kind of fat ; and the same pro-
perty being possessed by the flesh, there is no
animal food better suited than pork for preser-
vation by salting. See Larp.

Statistics. — The number of swine sold in
Smithfield market in 1830 was 254,672, which,
at the average weight of 96 lbs. each (a very
moderate computation), gives the number
of pounds of pork consumed annually at
24,448,512. {Youatt on Cattle.) The swine
sold in Glasgow market in 1822 were 6539.
The exports of swine from Ireland in 1825,
were 65,919; in 1835, 376,191. Estimated
value in the latter year, 893,839/. Increase
between these two periods, 310,272.

In the United States of America a very large
number of hogs are reared; and latterly much
attention has been paid to the improvement of
the breed by judicious crosses. The piggeries
are on an extensive scale ; and it is no uncom-
mon thing in some of the Western States for a*
drover to have from 3000 to 4000 pigs. In a
letter written from Michigan city, dated 11th
September, 1841, the writer, a farmer, states
that he had then .3500 pigs up to fatten ! The
bountiful crops of Indian corn raised on the
fertile Western lands afford greater advantages
than any other part of the world for the rearing
of this kind of stock. Corn-fed bacon is pro-
verbially excellent.

Swine in the British North American colo-
nies, and the United States : —

1832.* 18361 1841.

Upper Canada - - 220,000 250,000
Lower Canada • - 350,000 400,000
New Brunswick - - 65,000 80,000

Nova Scotia and Cape

Breton - - • 98,214 100 000
Prince Edward's Island 30,000 22,000 35,521

Newfoundland and La-
brador - - - 16,000 20,000

United States 26,301,293

The states producing most swine are — Ten-
nessee, 2,926,607 ; Kentucky, 2,310,533; Ohio,
2,099,746; New York, 1,900,065; Virginia,
1,992,155 ; North Carolina, 1,649,716; Indiana,
1,623,608; Pennsylvania, 1,503,964; Illinois,
1,495,254; Georgia, 1,457,755; Mississippi,
1,271,161. The swine in the whole six Eastern
States, according to the census returns of 1840,
numbered only 851,698.

Diseases. — This subject has been so much
neglected by practical men, that but little is
known in the way of cure. In the absence,
therefore, of scientific prescriptions, it will be
most advisable to study prevention rather thaa
hazard a trial of the numerous recipes recom-

♦ M*Oregor^s Jfortk America, 2d ed. vol. ii. p. 589.
t Martin's British Colonies.

1029

SWINE.

SWINE.

fhended as cures. The diseases of swine are
generally the result of want of care and clean-
liness, or arise from injudicious and irregular
feeding; from their being kept in loathsome
and uncomfortable situations, inhaling the most
noxious vapoury and at one time overfed, and
another stinted in their supply of food. Is it
to be wondered at that they become subject to
internal and cutaneous diseases 1 Fortunately
they will generally eat when even sick ; and
salts (1 to 2 oz.), sulphur (2 to 3 drachms), an-
timony, and such like aperients, may be mixed
with their food for measles, and other disorders
arising from an impure state of the blood. If
they will not eat, there can of course be no
cure applied.

In swine-pox, sufphur and madder may be
administered in small quantities, with treacle,
in the wash ; fresh brewer's grains, or pollard,
may also be given. Madder and sulphur will
also be found the best alterants in foulness of
the skin or habit. Salt, mixed with ground
ivy, leeks, or other similar vegetables, is one
of the best applications for the sores of sw^ine.
Bat for cutaneous diseases in general, an oint-
ment formed of equal parts of mutton suet and
tar, with the addition of a little sulphur, will
be found beneficial. Strong beer and pea-
porridge are recommended as tonics.

In cases of surfeit, indigestion, or injury
from eating slightly poisonous matter, swine
will refuse their food, constantly lie down, and
have the stomach distended. In this case, two
lieads of garlic, mixed with 6 oz. of fresh but-
ter, will aiford relief, given every 6 hours.
Soap-suds are said to have the effect of empty-
ing the stomach.

The most formidable of the diseases to which
swine are liable, is inflammation of the lungs,
and other internal parts. This disease has
been known to destroy a fourth of the hogs in
a distillery in the course of a few weeks. The
chief indications of the disease will be the dis-
tressing cough, the heaving of the flanks, and
the refusal of all food. Bleeding must be
promptly resorted to, and moderate purges
cautiously administered. The safest aperients
are castor oil or Epsom salts, after which the
following sedative powder may be given : fox-
glove {digitalis) 2 grs., antim. powd. 2 grs.,
nitre half a drachm.

In cases of murrain, a species of leprosy,
which prevails chiefly in hot seasons, the best
advice that can be given is to keep the animal
cool, and not suffer carrion or portions of ani-
mal food to be given.

The health of swine is to be estimated by
their cheerfulness, by the gloss upon their
coats, their skin being wholly free from erup-
tion. If pigs snort on being disturbed, it is an
excellent sign of sound health and good keep.
The stale of the excrement or digestions will
generally indicate pretty correctly the thriving
condition of the animal, for unless these are
of a firm consistence, the hog will not fatten
rapidly. If store or stock-pigs are kept well
and in good condition, it will prevent most of
the diseases to which the animals are subject,
and they will also thrive and fatten at half the
expense when shut up for that purpose. From
Ihe confinement of the hog, and the nature of
1030

his food, a description of dyspepsia takeif place,
a superabundant acid is formed in the stomach,
and, the skin sympathizing, cutaneous erup-
tions display themselves ; one of the best pro-
phylactics in such a condition of the animal
are cinders or charcoal. It operates as a most
salutary tonic, and improves the general pow-
ers of digestion. Hogs are so fond of cinders,
that when a handful of them is thrown into a
s'.y, the animals fight for them.

Weaning. — If the young pigs have been well
fed, they may be weaned after six weeks, and
in all cases in two months. In their after
treatment, when separated from their mother,
they should be regularly fed 3 times a day,
and their food should at first consist of warm
liquid food, such as whey, milk, or the refuse
of the dairy and kitchen, &c., raised to the
temperature of the mother's milk by the addi-
tion of a little warm water. They will soou
learn to partake of more solid substances.

The rearing and fattening of the hog pre-
sents little difficulty, for this animal is reared
equally well on a small or a large scale ; by
the cottager, from the wash and refuse of his
house and garden, or by the extensive breeder,
who has more abundance and variety of food
at command.

As the situation, climate, crops, and other
local circumstances must to a great extent
regulate the breeding and feeding of swine, it
is quite impossible to lay down rules of gene-
ral application, or to describe a practice which
necessarily varies in almost every district. I
shall content myself, therefore, with noticing a
few of the substances upon which the animals
are usually fed and found to thrive best.

It constitutes the principal value of swine,
that they can be maintained on almost any
kind of aliment. In America, Indian corn or
maize is largely used. In the West Indies, the
cane tops, refuse trash from the cane after the
juice has been expressed, and the washings of
the sugar-coolers, boilers, distillery vats, &c.,
form their principal food. In Newfoundland,
Labrador, and other parts where fish is plenti-
ful, they are freely fed upon the waste refuse
from the fisheries ; and although they thrive
well upon this food, their flesh is coarse and
strong.

Where the farmer or breeder has a rich
piece of grass or clover unemployed, hogs
which are not put up for feeding may be turned
into it with advantage ; but there is an objec-
tion to this on the score of the manure which
is lost. When the field is so situated that the
hogs can return at night to the well-littered
sties, the practice may then be found beneficial.

But roots, rather than herbage, is their na-
tural food, such as earthnuts, the roots of
couch grass, &c.: acorns, chestnuts, beechmast,
hazel-nuts, and other dry seeds and fruits, are
eagerly consumed by them ; and hence, in the
countries in the south of Europe, in the neigh-
bourhood of forests where these abound, they
are frequently suffered to range at large and
collect their own food. Hogs are also very
partial to juicy and pulpy fruits, such as the
grape, the orange, the refuse of apples, pears,
olives, &c., after the juice has been expressed.
Although hay and dried fodder is not adapted

SWINE'S CRESS.

TANK.

jp the feeding of swine, if these substances
are chopped and boiled they will not refuse
them.

Moist, succulent, green food, such as clover,
tares, lacern, sainfoin, buckwheat, succory or
chiccory, cabbage, lettuce, »Scc.,is more suited to
their taste. Every kind of farinaceous sub-
stance, such as oat-meal, barley-meal, bran,
maize, millet, pease or beans bruised, and in-
deed the seeds of all gramineous and legu-
minous plants, are the most fattening sub-
stances that can be given to them. They will
if feed greedily, and thrive surprisingly, on most
kinds of roots and tubers, such as carrots, tur-
nips, beets, potatoes, the Jerusalem artichoke,
&c., particularly when prepared by boiling. It
may be taken as a general rule, that boiled or
prepared food is more nutritious and fattening
than raw or cold food ; the additional expense
and labour will be more than compensated by
the increased weight and quality. Thus cab-
bage, turnip and potato tops, the husks of peas
and beans, and even many green weeds, such
as nettles and thistles, fatten ; and others, void
of poisonous qualities, will be found very fat-
tening if boiled and mixed with other food, and
given, as most food should be, lukewarm. The
refuse of the kitchen, garden, and dairy, the
grains and wash or liquid refuse of breweries,
distilleries, and sugar manufactories, where
they can be obtained, the sweepings of barns
and granaries, will all be found exceedingly
fattening. Animal substances, particularly
fish, should, however, be seldom or never
given as food, since they will necessarily im-
part a strong and disagreeable flavour to the
meat. A little salt should be generally added
to all their victuals, which will create thirst,
and induce the animals to consume a greater
quantity of food. Fermented wash is found to
fatten swine much quicker than fresh food.

Ringing, — The practice of pnging swine,
•which was usually performed at the time of
weaning, is growing into disuse, and the ring-
ing is not advisable, inasmuch as it not only
proves painful to the animal, but troublesome
to the owner; for it frequently happens that
the ring breaks, or is worn out ; the cartilage
gives way, and the ring has to be as often
replaced by a fresh operation. A more pre-
ferable and lasting process is now adopted,
which consists in either cutting the two strong
tendons of the snout (the cartilaginous and
ligamentous prolongations) about an inch and
a half from the nose, by a slight incision with
a sharp knife, or else to shave or pare off the
•gristle on the top of the nose, which may be
done without prejudice to the animal, when
about two or three months old. The place heals
over in a short time, and the animals are thus
prevented from grubbing or tearing up the
ground. (Prize Essay on Sivijie, by P. L. Sim-
monds ; Wilson « On the Hog," Quart. Jour, of
•Agr. vol. iii. p. 38; Low's Uluslratians of the
Breeds of Dom. Animals.)
- SWIRE'S CRESS. See Wart-Chxss.

SWINGLE-TREE. See Plough.

SWING PLOUGH. See Plough.

SYCAMORE. See Bcttowwoou.

SYTHE. See Sctthe.

TACAMAHACA. See Poplih.

TAG. A term applied to a young sheep of
the first year. See Sheep.

TALLOW (Germ. talg). The fat obtained
by melting the suet of the ox and sheep, and
straining it so as to free it from membrane.
When pure, it is white, tasteless, and nearly
insipid ; but the tallow of commerce has
usually a yellow tinge, and is divided, accord-
ing to the degree of its purity and consistence,
into candle and soap tallow. Tallow consists
of stearine, eluine, margarin, and traces of
hircin. According to Chevreul, its ultimate
components are 78-996 of carbon -f- 11*708 of
hydrogen -\- 0-304 of oxygen in 100 parts. It
is used in medicine as an emollient and a
demulcent. Tallow is an article of great im-
portance. It is manufactured into candles and
soap, and is extensively employed in the dress-
ing of leather and in various processes of the
arts. Besides the supplies of native tallow, a
very large quantity is annually imported into
England, principally from Russia. The exports
of tallow from Petersburg amount, at an ave-
rage, to between 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 poods,
of which the largest portion by far is brought
to England. (M'CuUochU Com. Diet.)

TAMARISK (Tamarix). This is a genus of
very elegant shrubs. The hardy indigenous
species, or French tamarisk (S. GalHca), is well
suited for ornamenting shrubberies : it will
grow in any soil or situation, and is freely in-
creased by cuttings planted in the open ground,
in spring or autumn. Sheep feed greedily on
this species for the sake of its salt taste. The
stem is slender, with abundance of long, droop-
ing, smooth, red, shining branches. Leaves
minute, lanceolate deciduous, spurred, acute.
Lateral cylindrical clusters of numerous, nearly
sessile, reddish or white bracteated flowers,
without scent.

TANK. In gardening, a cistern or reservoir
made of stone, timber, or some other material.
Tanks are used for collecting and preserving
water during a scarcity or drought. They are
sometimes built in the ground, and lined with
lead or cement. Where wells cannot be sunk,
and water is scarce at some seasons, tanks
are necessary appendages to a house.

A tank, 12 feet by 7 feet, has been found
sufficient to supply with water a large family
and 6 horses : this was surrounded by only 4^
inch brick-work, resting solid against the sides,
in consequence of being, like a decanter,
smaller at the bottom than higher up; and the
iome is constructed on the Egyptian plan, by
projecting horizontally each row of materials
one-third of their length beyond those below,
by filling up the back with earth as it pro-
ceeded, to balance the weight of this projecting
masonry.

At the Eastbourne work-house for 14 parishes,
a tank has been made 23 feet deep by 11 wide,
of the roughest materials, being only flint
stones, and though they reguire more mortar
than if they had been regularly shaped, only
90 bushels of lime were allowed, including 3

1031

TANNER'S BARK.

TAR-ROOT.

coats of plaster, and the workmanship is exe-
cuted like field walls at 10s. per 100 square
feet; the only essential being that no clay be
used (which worms in time bore through), and
that the lime, or Parker's cement, be good.

A current of air is said to promote the purity
of water in tanks, which is easily effected by
the earthenware or other pipe which conveys
the water from the roof being of 6 or 8 inches
in diameter, and an opening left for the surplus
-water to run away; and where the prevailing
winds do not blow soot and leaves on the house,
the water remains good, even for drinking, with-
out clearing out the rubbish more than once a
year; but, in some cases, filtering by ascension
may be found useful, and effected by the water
being delivered by the pipe at the bottom of a
cask or other vessel, from which it cannot
escape till it has risen through the holes in a
board covered with pebbles, sand, or powdered
charcoal. See Resekvoirs, Ponds, &c.

TANNER'S BARK. The bark of oak,
chestnut, willow, larch, and other trees, which
abounds in tannic acid, and is used by tanners
for preparing leather. After being exhausted
of the tanning principle by being chopped into
small pieces, or bruised and steeped in water,
it is laid up in heaps to dry, and sold to gar-
deners for the purpose of producing artificial
heat by fermentation in pits or beds, in bark-
stoves or other out-houses. See Bark and
Farm-Yaui) Manure.

TANNIC ACID. This term has been espe-
cially applied to a substance obtained by Pe-
longe, by acting upon bruised galls by common
unrectified ether, in a long, narrow funnel or
percolater. Tannic acid is a white uncrystal-
line powder, very astringent, little soluble in
water, and reddening litmus. When moistened
and exposed to air, it attracts oxygen, is de-
composed, and is converted into gallic acid.
It is extremely astringent, and appears to be the
active principle of tanning substances (tannin)
in general. Its ultimate elements are 30 atoms
of carbon, 18 of hydrogen, and 24 of oxygen.

TANNIN. A word synonymous with tannic
acid, the pure astringent principle upon which
their power of converting skin into leather
depends. Its leading character is its property
of producing a dense whitish precipitate in a
strong solution of animal jelly, such, for in-
stance,* as isinglass; and on this account it
condenses the gelatin of animal hides, and, ren-
dering them impermeable to water, converts
them into leather. It may be obtained tolera-
bly pure by infusing bruised grape-seeds in
cold water, or more circuitously by adding
acetate of copper to filtered infusion of galls,
■washing the precipitate, and decomposing it
(diffused through water) by sulphuretted hy-
drogen. On evaporating its solution, it is
obtained as a pale yellow extract of a strong
astringent taste. The action of astringents
upon persalts of iron has given rise to its dis-
tinction into two varieties, the first changing
them to deep blue or black, the second to green.
The tan of galls, oak, bark, grape-seeds, &c.,
possesses the former property ; that of catechu
and tea, the latter. {Brande's Diet, of Science.)

TANNING. The art of preparing leather
from raw skins and hides so as to render them
1032

more pliant, durable, and impermeable to
water. The processes employed for this pur-
pose are various, every tanner adopting some
peculiar or favourite method.

A discovery has recently been made which
seems likely to revolutionize the tanning trade.
By means of a tanning machine, or pair of
horizontal rollers fixed over a tan-pit, between
which is fixed a band or belt of hides attached
by ligatures to each other, to the number of 50
to 100, and by which the rollers are constantly
fed or supplied, the hides are lifted out of the
pit on one side of the machine; as they pass
between the rollers, the exhausted ooze or tan-
ning liquid is pressed out of them, and they
are deposited in folds in the pit on the other
side of the machine, where they absorb another
supply of fresh tannin. The first hide having^-
been inserted between the rollers, the others
follow in succession, and upon arriving at the
end of the band the motion of the roller is.
reversed, and the belt is returned through the
machine to receive another squeeze. This al-
ternating motion is constantly repeated, the pit
being replenished from time to time with fresh
solutions of tan, till the operation is completed.
The effects produced by this simple plan, are —
1. The shortening of the time of tanning to
one-fourth of that generally required. 2. The
production of a considerable increase of weight*
3. The leather tanned by this method resists
water longer than that tanned by the old pro-
cess. 4. The new method is cheaper than the
old. 5. It is applicable to the existing tan-
yards, at a comparatively trifling expense, with
a capability of working in rounds or series, and
of expending tan or liquor. 6. That it is availa-
ble for all sorts of leather.

TANSY {Tanacetum). The species of tansy
are not possessed of much beauty. The hardy
kinds succeed in any common soil, and are
readily increased by rooted slips of the fibrous
creeping root. They increase freely by cut-
tings. Withering asserts that if meat be rubbed
with the leaves of tansy, the flesh-fly will not
touch it. In England the only indigenous spe-
cies is the common tansy (T. vulgare). Every
part of the herb is bitter, willf a strong but not
unpleasant scent. The qualities are esteemed
of a tonic and cordial nature, expelling intes-
tinal worms, and strengthening the digestive
powers. The plant, however, does not agree
with every stomach. There are two varieties
of this species, the variegated, and the curled
or double tansy, which is kept for use in gar-
dens, as being more wholesome or milder than
the wild sort; but in England tansy pudding is
out of fashion.

TAPE-GRASS or EEL-GRASS. See Va-

LESNERIA.

TAPIOCA. A white, edible substance, con-
sisting of very pure starch, obtained from the
root of a tropical plant called manioc {Jatropa
vianihot) or cassava.

TAP-ROOT. A root which penetrates deep
and perpendicularly into the ground without
dividing, and has few lateral fibres. In shape
it resembles a spindle ; hence it is botanically
termed a fusiform root. But the main trunk

, of any root that penetrates vertically deep int<^

I the ground is called the tap.

TAR.

TENANT.

TAR. A dark brown, viscid liquor, obtained
"by charring the wood of the fir tree ; it consists
of resin, empyreumatic oil, and acetic acid.
When inspissated by boiling, it is convened
into pitch. The manufacture, which is carried
on in the pine forests of Northern Europe, is
simple. A conical hole, usually in the side of
a bank, being made, roots and fillets of pine
are let into the cavity, and the whole is cover-
ed with turf, which is beat firmly down above
the wood. The wood being kindled, a slow
combustion takes place. A cast-iron pan at
the bottom of the cavity receives the fluid, and
has a spout which projects through the bank
and carries the tar into barrels. As quickly
as the barrels are filled, they are closed with
bongs, when the material is ready for exporta-
tion. This manner of preparing tar has been
derived from the earliest ages. Tar is a very
compound substance; it contains modified re-
sin, and oil of turpentine, acetic acid, charcoal,
and water. Tar is used in medicine as well
as in the arts. It is an excellent topical stimu-
lant, when made into an ointment with lard, in
dry skin diseases. These two substances, tar
and pitch, are of extensive use in the arts.

Tar may be found useful as an application
for cuts in sheep by clipping, and also to the
parts affected by the fly. It is also of great
use in some cases for applying as a paint to
boarding, &c.; but in this use a little tallow or
Other coarse fat should be melted with it, as by
this means it goes farther, and resists the wea-
ther more effectually. Large quantities of tar
are made from the abundant pine forests of
North Carolina. See also Gab-Tab.

TARE EVERLASTING. See Lathikcs
and Vktchlino.

TARES (£rvufn, from <rro, tilled land; some
of the species are a pest on cultivated ground).
The word tare is frequently applied to what
is properly the common vetch (Vicia saliva).
There are in England two indigenous species
of tare, which are troublesome annual weeds.

1. Smooth tare (E. tetraspermum^ PI. 10, r),
•which grows in corn-fields, hedges, and thick-
ets, particularly such as are rather moist. The
root is small and tapering. The herbage is
besprinkled with fine, soft hairs, especially the
flower-stalks and calyx. Stem weak, quadran-
gular, branched from the bottom, leafy, climb-
ing to Che height of 2 or 3 feet. Flowers mostly
in pairs, small, drooping, pale gray; the stand-
ard streaked, and the keel tipped with a deep
blue. Legumes pendulous, oblong, bluntish,
smooth. Seeds most generally 4.

2. Hairy tare {E. hirsutum), which is in
habit much like the foregoing; the flowers are
in clusters of 5 or 7, very small, pale blue, or
almost white, with two dark spots on the keel.
Legumes short, dark brown, besprinkled with
hairs, to which the specific name alludes.
Seeds two in each legume, large and promi-
nent. See Lathtrus, Soilixo, Vetch, Vetch-
XIKO, &c.

TARO. A bulbous-rooted plant of the genus
Arum, a native of the valley of the Columbia
river. It is planted on hills, and cultivated in
the manner of rice, on ground so situated as
to be partially flooded with water. It comes
to maturity in 8 or 10 months from the time
130

of planting. To prepare them for food, they
are roasted; they then become a substitute for
bread; or they are made into poi, by pulveriz-
ing and convening them into a paste.

TEAM. A number of horses or oxen draw-
ing at once in the same plough, cart, or other
carriage.

It has been long a disputed point among far-
mers whether horses or oxen form the most
economical and advantageous team for the
purpose of the cultivator in performing his
work. The question remains still undecided,
though many intelligent farmers in England
now incline to the side of horse teams, except
in particular circumstances and situations.

TEASEL, or TEAZLE {Dipsacus, supposed
to be derived from dipsaoy to thirst; in conse-
quence of the leaves holding water). It is a
curious genus of plants : some of the species
are pretty flowering plants, especially the small
teasel. They grow well in any common soil,
and are readily increased by seeds. There are
in England three native species, all biennial.

1. The manured or fuller's teasel (Z). ftdlo-
rum), although growing about hedges, can
scarcely be considered wild. This species is
extensively cultivated in the west of England,
the dried heads of which furnish the teasel
used by fullers in dressing cloth. The root is
fleshy, branched, and tapering. Stem 5 to 6
feet high, erect, strongly furrowed, prickly,
leafy, branched at the top. The leaves sessile,
combined, serrated, with prickly ribs. Flowers
whitish, with pale purple anthers, very nume*
rous, in a close, obtuse, conical head, the in-
termediate scales bristly at the edges; rigid
and hooked at the points, by which they are
rendered serviceable for teazing woollen cloth,
being fixed in several rows in wooden frames
with handles adapted for that purpose. The
scales are just strong enough to raise the wool,
giving way before they can injure the clothi
Many mechanical inventions have been at-
tempted to set aside the teasel, but without
success, all of them having proved inefl!icient
or injurious. The dressing of a piece of cloth
consumes from 1500 to 2000 teasels. They
are repeatedly used in diflferent parts of the
process. Some esteem this but a luxuriant
variety of the following, as it requires a very
richly manured soil to preserve its characters
and useful properties.

2. Wild teasel (Z>. sylvestris). In England a
very common species about moist hedges and
by road-sides, less robust than the foregoing;
about 4 feet high. Leaves opposite, serrated.
Scales of the receptacle straight. Common
calyx inflexed, longer than the head.

3. Small teasel, or shepherd's staff" (D. pilo-
sus). This species grows in moist, shady
places, on a chalky or limestone soil. This is a
useless weed, but not troublesome to the farmer.

TEATHING. Provincially, the practice of
eating turnips off", upon young wheat crops, in
the early spring months, by live-stock, as sheep
and bullocks. It is often written tathing.

TEETH. See Aoe of Akimals.

TEMPERATURE. See Atmosphere, Altl
TUDE, Climate, Earths, Elevatiow, Meteor-

OLOCT.

TENANT (Tenens, from the Latin tenerey to
4 S 1033

THISTLE.

Table exhibiting the degrees of the Centigrade and
Fahrenheit's Thermometers corresponding to those
of Reaumur's Thermometer.

TENDRILa

hold). In law, one who holds or possesses
lands or tenements by any kind of right, either
in fee for life, for years, or at will. See Lease.
TENDRILS. The curling, twining organs
of prehension, by which some plants lay hold
of others.

TEN-O'CLOCK. A troublesome perennial
plant and weed, with a bulbous, fibrous root,
difficult to destroy, as it will grow even years
after the tops are cut off. Fields must not be
ploughed. This foreigner has escaped from
the gardens, and has become a grievous nui-
sance on many farms. Although it rarely per-
fects its fruit, the bulbs are propagated laterally
with great rapidity; and are extremely difficult
to extirpate. One native species has been
found in the United States, on the Rocky
Mountains. (Flora Ceslrica.)

TETHERING. The practice of confining
to precise limits or pasturage any kind of
stock, by means of light chams or ropes fas-
tened to iron pins (with swivel rings) driven
into the ground. For the small farmer with
indifferent fences, or for gentlemen with limited
and ornamental lawns, this practice, which
secures shrubs and pleasure-grounds from
injury, is obviously often an advantageous
system ; and indeed a rich lawn immediately
in view of a house is the fittest situation for
tethering, as an impoverished field would dis-
appoint, and demand a too frequent and there-
fore troublesome change of tether. The prac-
tice is almost universal throughout France,
even in common farms.

THATCH. Straw, or any other dry vege-
table substance, laid on the top of a building,
rick, &c, to keep out the wet.

There are many different sorts of materials
that may be made use of as thatch, but the
straw of wheat and rye, when well laid, forms
the neatest and most secure covering for gene-
ral purposes.

The reed is a highly valuable article for the
purpose of thatch, where a lasting roof is re-
quired; but is much too expensive at first,
although it is cheapest in the end. Reed is
also thought to be too stubborn for common
purposes. Fern is also occasionally used.
See Fern.

THERMOMETER (Gr.). An instrument for
measuring variations of heat or temperature,
too well known to need description. See At-
mosphere, Climate, METEonoLOGr, &c. See
also Table in next column.

THISTLE. A well-known prickly weed,
common in corn-fields and pastures. Where-
ever thistles grow naturally it is a sure sign
that the land is strong, and of a tolerably good
quality ; but they are at the same time a great
annoyance to every plant intended to be cul-
tivated.

By an excellent regulation in France, a
farmer may sue his neighbour who neglects to
thistle his land at the proper seasons, or may
employ people to do it at the other's expense ;
and it were to be wished that a similar law was
in force here, to prevent the wide-spreading
mischief occasioned by the seeding of this
pernicious weed ; among which may be reck-
oned, besides its choking the young corn, that { ^Aoitfcs), the slender-flowered thistle (C. tenui-
•if wheat in particular be not well thistled, the \florus), the common sow-thistle (JSonchus olera-
1034

Room.

Cent.

Fahr.

RMum.

Cent.

F»hr.

80

100-

212-

29

36 25

97-25

79

9875

209-75

28

35

95-

78

97-5

207-5

27

33 75

92-75

77

96-25

205 25

26

32-5

90-5

76

95-

203-

25

3125

88-25

75

93 75

200-75

24

30-

86-

74

92-5

198-5

23

28-75

83-75

73

91-25

196-25

22

27-5

81-5

72

90-

194-

21

26 25

79-25

71

88-75

191-75

20

25-

77-

70

87-5

189-5

19

2375

74-75

69

86-25

187 25

18

22-5

72-5

68

85-

185-

17

21-25

70-25

67

83-75

182-75

16

20-

68-

66

82-5

180-5

15

18-75

65-75

65

8125

178-25

14

175

63-5

64

80-

176-

13

16-25

6125

63

78-75

173-75

12

15-

59-

63

77-5

171-5

13-75

56-75

61

76-25

169 25

10

12-5

545

60

75-

167

9

11-25

52-25

59

73-75

164-75

8

10-

50-

58

72-5

1625

7

8-75

47-75

57

71.25

160 25

6

7-5

455

56

70-

158-

5

625

4325

55

68-75

155-75

4

5-

41-

54

67-5

1535

3

8-75

38-75

53

66 25

151-25

2

25

36-5

52

65

149-

I

125

34 35

51

63-75

146-75

0

-0

32-

50

62-5

1445

1

1-25

29-75

49

6125

142-25

2

25

27-5

48

60-

140-

3

3-75

25^

47

58-75

137-75

4

5-

23-

46

57-5

135-5

5

625

20-75

45

56-25

133-25

6

75

18-5

44

55-

131-

7

8-75

16-35

43

53-75

128-75

8

lo-

14-

42

52-5

1265

9

ll 25

1175

41

51-25

124 25

10

125

9-5

40

50-

122-

11

13-75

7 25

39

48-75

119-75

12

is-

5-

38

47-5

117-5

13

lets

275

37

46-25

115-25

14

17-5

05

36

45-

113-

15

18-75

1-75

35

43-75

110-75

16

20-

4-

34

425

108-5

17

21-25

6^

33

41-25

106-25

18

225

8-5

32

40-

104-

19

23-75

10-75

31

38-75

101-75

20

25-

13-

30

37-5

99-5

reapers take up the grip so tenderly, lest thej
should prick themselves, that, by their loose
handling of them, they sometimes leave upon
the ground corn enough to sow the whole field.
There are no plants over which the economical
farmer ought to keep a more watchful eye thaa
the thistle tribe, as they are not only useless,
but occupy much ground, and, being furnished
with winged downy seeds, are capable of being
multiplied and carried almost to any distance:
besides, they do much mischief by impeding
the work both in handling hay and corn crops.
It is, of course, a matter of much consequence
to be well acquainted with the qualities of each
kind, in order to enable us to judge with cer-
tainty how far and by what means their de-
struction may be effected in the most certain
and ready manner.

There are in England many sorts of thistles,
but those which chiefly deserve the attention
of the farmer are either of the annual, bien-
nial, or perennial kinds.

The annual species of thistle are the musk-
ihistle (CarduKs nutans), the milk-thistle (C.
marianus), the welted or curled thistle (C acan-

THISTLE.

THORN.

cms). The principal biennial thistles are the
spear or bull-thistle (C. lanceolatus), the marsh-
thistle (C. palustris), and the cotton-thistle
(Onopordum acantheum). The perennial species
are two, the common sow-thistle (Sonchus ar-
vensis), and the common or field-thistle (Cnicus
arvenm), or Canada thistle. The dwarf or
stemless thistle (C. acaulis), the star-thistle
(Centaurea calcihapa), and the common carline-
thistle (Carlina vulgaris), are more frequently
found to infest dry sandy pastures and calca-
reous soils than loamy or damp grass-lands.
Where they prevail to a great extent, there is
no remedy like breaking up the land and taking
a course of crops ; for palliative remedies are
of little avail. Hand-weeding, when the weeds
are confined to local spots, and are only just
beginning to spread generally over the soil,
will be found effectual ; but when once the pas-
ture becomes generally infected with the seeds
and roots of these plants, no time should be
lost in using the plough, harrow, and horse-hoc,
and a judicious course of cleansing crops be-
fore returning the land again to permanent
pasture.

Among the species of pasture-weeds that
generally prevail in loamy soils, and are also
prevalent in clayey and damp soils, are the
marsh or red plume-thistle (Cnicus palustris),
the meadow or small purple plume-thistle
{Cnicus pratensis), and the melancholy plume-
thistle {Cnicus heterophyllus). In crops of artifi-
cial grasses, such as sainfoin, lucern, <Scc.,
where the dwarf plume-thistle (Cnicus acaulis)
prevails, and when it is impracticable, under
such circumstances, to draw out this weed
without injuring the crops, a good remedy will
be found in the use of common salt. Children
may be employed to apply the salt by hand to
the crown of the weed. If the least part of the
root of the thistle be left, it springs up season
after season. Besides possessing this principle
of vitality in the root, its seeds are so winged
with down as to render dissemination, even to
a great distance, by means of the wind, almost
certain.

It is obvious that the annual and biennial
species of thistles may be readily removed by
preventing their running to seed and dissemi-
nating themselves, which is best effected by
carefully eradicating them, or frequently mow-
ing them over close to the surface, and rolling.
But in the perennial kinds, from their roots
continuing in the earth, increasing and throw-
ing out new shoots or stems every year, there
is much difficulty in extirpating them, and they
perhaps can be no other way destroyed than
by rooting them out of arable land by deep
ploughing and frequent harrowings, or by fal-
lowing or laying the land down to pasture ; the
annual species seldom appear in pasture-lands.
But for destroying the common thistles the best
method is by weeding-pincers, or the finger and
thumb when in loose land, cutting them over in
the bleeding season frequently by weeding-
knives, and applying salt to the cut stalk.

The most common thistle found in the United
States is the C. lanceolahts, a biennial. The
most troublesome pest, the C. arvensis. (See
Canada Thistle.) Dr. Darlington thinks the
yellow thistle a foreigner introduced into the

United States. It is the most prickly of all
the tribe, and hence called by botanists Carduus
spinosissimus, and Cnicus horriduus. The root
of this is considered by some biennial, by others
perennial. The tall or tallest thistle {C.altissi-
mus), is common along fence-rows, &c., in the
Middle and other States. The dwarf carduus
{Carduus Puniilus), is common in Pennsylvania
and other Middle States, growing in old fields,
&c., from 1 to 2 feet high, with flowers of a pale
reddish-purple, and quite fragrant. The heads
are handsome, and the largest of any other
American species. Several other species of
thistle are found in the United States. See
Canada Thistle.

THISTLE, PLUME {Cnicus). This is a
separation from the genus Carduus made by
Sir J. E. Smith. They are prickly, herbaceous
plants, and differ chiefly in the down being
evidently feathery, not merely rough. The
biennial species may be readily destroyed by
mowing before the flowers form seed. There
are in England nine indigenous species of
plume thistle. Some of which are commoain
waste ground, moist meadows, &c. Those
which give most trouble to the farmer are, the i

Marsh plume-thistle {C. palustris), a biennial,
growing plentifully in moist meadows or pas-
tures, and watery spots by road-sides. Stem
from 3 to 6 feet high.

Creeping plume-thistle (C. arvensis). A very
troublesome perennial weed in cultivated fields
and by way-sides, from its fleshy root, which
is very tenacious of life, creeping deeply into
the earth to a great extent. Stems 3 or 4 feet
high.

Branching bog plume-thistle (C. Forsteri). A
perennial, flowering in July and August, with
a tapering root.

Woolly-headed plume-thistle (C. eriopkorus).
A large and conspicuous perennial plant, grow-
ing in waste mountainous ground, and by road-
sides, on a limestone or chalky soil.

Melancholy plume-thistle (C. heterophyllus).
A perennial, growing in moist mountain pas-
tures in the north.

Meadow plume-thistle {C. pratensis). A pe-
rennial, growing in low, wet meadows and pas-
tures, especially among trees. Root fibrous.

Dwarf plume-thistle (C. acaulis). A peren-
nial, growing on chalky and grayelly soils.
Root woody, running deep into the ground.
Stem entirely wanting. The large bright-green
leaves, spreading close to the ground, in a
circle near a foot in diameter, choke all other
herbage.

THORN (CrattBgus). A name given to
several indigenous shrubs and small trees.
See BtACK-TuoHN, BccKTHORir, Hawthoba,
White-Thorn, &c.

Of this genus of shrubbery trees so valuable
in an agricultural point of view, there are
many species and varieties. Dr. Darlington de-
scribes the following as found in Chester county,
Pennsylvania 1. The Newcastle or cockspur
thorn (C. crus galli). Two varieties of this exist,
the most common of which is much employed
in making the fine hedges for which New-
castle county, Delaware, is celebrated. Dr.
Darlington thinks that, with proper manage-
ment, this kind will ultimately make a more

1035

THORN.

THRASHING-MACHINE.

durable and effective hedge than the Washing-
ton thorn (C cordata), which is now generally
used in Chester county. It is a more rugged
plant, and seems to be less liable to disease, or
to be injured by insects, than the Washington
thorn. (Flora Cestrica.)

2. The small-leaved thorn (C. parvifolia), a
rugged little bush abundant in New Jersey.

3. Thorn-bush or dotted Crataegus (C. punc-
tata), a red-fruited variety. The fruit is large,
half to two-thirds of an inch in diameter, mostly
three-seeded, red, sometimes yellow when ma-
ture, dotted and esculent.

4. Black-thorn (C.flava), yellow Crataegus,
an apparent misnomer. The fruit is pear-
shaped, large (about half an inch in diameter),
three or four-seeded, greenish-yellow, with a
tinge of dark red when mature, esculent, but
rather insipid.

5. White-thorn or crimson Crataegus (C.
eoccinea). This is the most common species in
Chester county, Pennsylvania. The thorns
have more resemblance to the cock-spur, than
those of the real n-us galli or Newcastle thorn.
The fruit is one-third to half an inch in diameter,
and bright purple when mature.

6. The Washington thorn (C. cordata). This
species, says Dr. Darlington, was introduced
into Chester county from the neighbourhood
of Washington city, and is now extensively
used in hedging. It grows fast in favourable
situations, under good management, and will
make a handsome hedge in about 10 years
from the time of planting. It does not succeed
well on dry, rocky banks, and especially in the
red shale districts. The young branches are
also subject to disease from the puncture of
insects. "I have used this thorn," says Dr.
Darlington, " to a considerable extent, and have
succeeded in obtaining some pretty fair hedges ;
but I am now strongly inclined to the opinion
that the C. crus galli, or cock-spur thorn, is en-
titled to the preference, for that object. One
important fact, however, applies to every sort
of thorn, and should be remembered by all
persons who may undertake hedging, which is,
that if they are not carefully attended to, and
skilfully managed, the hedges will become a
nuisance and a source of vexation, rather than
a benefit, and had better never be attempted.
With due care and skill, they make a valuable
and ornamental enclosure.

7. Hawthorn or English thorn (C. oxyacan-
Ma),sharp-thorned Crataegus. This species (of
which there are several varieties in Europe)
was introduced many years ago, and is appa-
rently naturalized in a few localities ; but does
not seem to extend itself much. It is said to
be the favourite thorn for hedging in England ;
but is rarely applied to that use here. Some
10 or 12 additional species have been enume-
rated in the United States ; but the genus stands
greatly in need of a careful revision. (Flora
Cestrica.)

Many species of the thorn genus are highly
ornamental. Of these the most beautiful of
all thorns when in bloom, is the C. oxyacantha
rosea superba, with deep crimson flowers and
small red fruit. The sweet-scented thorn (C.
odoratissima) has very large, pale red fruit.
The large tansy-leaved thorn (C. Leeana), has
1036

large pale red fruits The small black-fruited
thorn (C. Oliveriana), bears very profusely, but
matures late. The new double-scarlet is a
most beautiful variety of the C. oxyacantha
rosea superba, just mentioned.

THORN-APPLE (Datura). An ornamental
genus, but chiefly composed of plants possess-
ing very deleterious qualities. One species
indigenous to England, is the common thorn-
apple (D. stramonium), an annual, which grows
iu waste grounds and dung-hills. It is a bushy,
fetid herb, 2 or 3 feet high, of a narcotic quality,
and greatly in repute as a remedy for the
asthma, being smoked like tobacco. The leaves
are ovate, smooth, sinuated. The flowers are
axillary, erect, white, sweet-scented, especially
at night, about 3 inches long. Fruit as big as
a walnut in its outer coat, very prickly. Seeds
black. In the United States it goes by the name
of Jamestown weed, doubtless from the place
where it was first naturalized, in Virginia.

THRASHING, or THRESHING. The act
of beating out the corn from grain or other
crops. The flail was the implement formerly
used for thrashing corn, and which separated
the grain from the straw and husks very effect-
ually and expeditiously; but as it is now be-
come expensive, and always bruises a great
many seeds, it has been attempted to avoid
these inconveniences by proper machines pro-
vided, with a number of flails, or other parts
answering the same purpose, made to move by
the power of water, wind, or horses. By this
means the business of thrashing is.found to be
performed cheaper, more expeditiously, and
with less damage to the health of the thrasher,
which is frequently thought to be injured by
the dust, &c., which arises in the common way
of thrashing, as well as by the extreme labo-
riousness of the work. Various machines for
effecting the purpose of thrashing have been
lately invented. See Flail, and Thrashino-

THRASHING-MACHINE. To the farmer
on an extensive scale, the thrashing-machine
is absolutely necessary. He cannot wait for
the tedious operation of the flail to prepare a
delivery of corn for a given day, or pressing
purpose ; nor can he, without the risk of pil-
fering and imposition, keep his barn constantly
open for thrashers. The flail, however, is still
the implement in general use among all who
farm on a scale not sufficiently extensive to
require any of the complex machiner}' which
modern skill has invented. The advantages
of the flail are, its simplicity, the power of
giving employment to the labourers in the
barn during wet days, and the convenience of
having fresh straw for fodder every day.

The following description of the thrashing-
machine is chiefly derived from the valuable
essay On Aricultural Implements, by Mr. J. Allen
Ransome, of Ipswich, England.

In ancient times various modes of thrashing
out grain were resorted to, and we read of
" the bruising with the cart-wheel," " the sharp
thrashing instrument having teeth," "the
trampling under the feet of the unmuzzled ox,"
or ** the rollers plain or fluted" mentioned ia
the later practice of continental agriculture.
But of all these the flail alone remains in use

THRASHING-MACHINE.

THRASHING-MACHINE.

in England; and it is with this instrument,
preserving very nearly its original form, by
which till very lately the entire growth of corn
and seeds in this kingdom were thrashed.

That the flail may be made thoroughly to
eflect, though at great cost of labour and lime,
the purpose of clearing the grain without
damage either to the corn or the straw, is a
point none will be inclined to dispute. But the
disadvantages attending its use are not confined
to waste of labour and time ; for, though it may
be granted that the operation, if properly per-
formed, may be perfect, how difficult it is to
secure its proper performance, every agricul-
turist whose journeys to his barn have from
time to time interrupted his surveys of other
not less important agricultural operations, can
fully testify. It is evident that the latter part
of this operation will require much more la-
bour to produce a given quantity than its earlier
stages ; and hence the straw is frequently passed
away partially thrashed, in order to procure a
greater bulk in a given time. Nor are these
disadvantages all with which we have to con-
lend : constant inspection may, perhaps, to
some extent, remedy them ; but no attention
will altogether suffice to remove the temptation
to pilfer, which is continually presented where
large quantities of grain are ever under the
eye and in the power of those to whom a small
portion is of great importance ; and hence
arises, even when undetected, and often indeed
when not committed, a cause of painful tempta-
tion on the one hand, and injurious suspicion
on the other.

To overcome these evils, prejudicial not
only to the true economy of the farm, but to
those feelings of confidence which, justly to
sustain the social bond, should ever exist in
the relation between the labourer and his em-
ployer, the attention of our enterprising neigh-
bours in Scotland was first directed to the con-
struction of machinery; and in 1732, Michael
Menzies, a gentleman of East Lothian, invented
and patented a machine for thrashing grain.
We regret that, as nothing but the bare record
of this invention is enrolled in the Patent-office,
we have not been able to learn more of this,
the germ of thrashing-machine invention, than
that it was a contrivance by which a series of
flails were made to revolve upon a cylinder ;
but we are pleased to be able in some decree
to redeem it from the "condemnation of mint
praise," with which we find its memory gene-
rally accompanied, by reference to the report
of a committee appointed by the Society of
improvers in Scotland, to inspect its operation,
and determine upon its merits. This com-
mittee, after various trials, reported it to be
•*• their opinion that the machine would be of
great use to farmers, both in thrashing the grain
clean from the straw and in saving a great deal
of labour ; for one man would be sufficient to
manage a machine which would do the work
of six." They further recommended the so-
ciety " to give all the encouragement they could
to so beneficial an invention, which, being
simple and plain in the machinery, might be of
universal advantage." The society approved
of the report, and acted upon the recommen-
dation.

During the next period of twenty years we
are not aware of ar.y other attempts to carry
out the object of thrashing by machinery; but
in 1753-8, Michael Sterling, a farmer in the
parish of Dumblane, Perth, applied the princi-
ple of the mill in common use for hulling flax
to this purpose. This mill had a vertical shaft,
with 4 cross arms enclosed in a cylindrical case,
3 feet 6 inches high, and about 8 feet in diameter.
The shaft was made to turn at considerable ve-
locity, and the sheaves were gradually let down
from an opening at the top ; the grain and straw,
after being subjected to this healing, were then
pressed through an opening in the floor, where
rakes and fanners completed ihe separation of
the grain from the straw and chaff*. It was,
however, found that this machine broke off" the
ears of barley and wheat instead of clearing
them of the grain, and that at best it was only
fit for oats.

It is curious to trace the various plans by
which the desideratum of thrashing by ma-
chinery was attempted to be accomplished ; a
few of these we shall venture to bring before
our readers, and a slight sketch of them will
suffice satisfactorily to show that in following
out the principles which distinguish Meikle's
machine (hereafter to be mentioned), little of
value has been lost to the public of those which
have fallen into desuetude. In 1772, two gen-
tlemen residing in Northumberland, Alderton
and Smart, invented a machine, by which the
sheaves were carried round between an in-
dented drum of 6 feet diameter and a number
of fluted rollers, which, pressing by means of
springs against the fluted concave, rubbed out
the corn from the ears; and in 1785, William
Winlaw, of Mary-le-bone, patented an invention
which he denominated a "mill for separating
grain from straw."

This mill was made on a principle similar
to the cofiee-mill, but was found to ^xceed the
simple object proposed in the specificadon, by
grinding the grain as well as separating it from
the straw. Other machines upon the plan of
rubbing out the corn were also tried, but, on
account of the damage done to the grain, were
discarded. In addition to the mill invented by
Winlaw, a machine was in 1792 patented by
Willoughby, of Bedford, Notts, the principle
of which appears to have been somewhat simi-
lar to that of Menzies ; how nearly so, we regret
we have not the opportunity of judging. It
comprised a series of loose flails made to act
upon a grated floor, and turned rapidly round
by means of a horse-wheel. The straw was
presented by hand to the action of the flails.

In 1795, an individual of the name of Jubb,
residing at Lewes, obtained a patent for an in-
vention of which the principal feature was the
passing the straw between two rapidly revolv-
ing beaters, under which it was hisld by two
feeding rollers, whence the corn fell into a
winnowing-machine.

The inventive talent of the Americans was
at this time brought to bear upon this import-
ant subject. James Wardrop, of Ampthill,
Virginia, invented a machine, which was intro-
duced into England about 1796, to be worked
by two men ; it was made with flails or elastic
rods 12 feet in length, of which 12 were attached
4 s 2 1037

THRASHING-MACHINE.

THRASHING-MACHINE.

in series, each having a spring requiring a
power of 20 pounds to raise it 3 feet high at
the point; a wallower shaft, with catches or
teeth, in its revolution successively lifted each
flail in alternate movements, so that three of
the flails were operated upon by the whole
power, viz., 20 pounds. The flails beat upon a
grating to which the corn is introduced by hand.

In 1785, Andrew Meikle, an ingenious me-
chanic of Tyningham, East Lothian, first in-
troduced to the public, through the medium of
a gentleman of the name of Stein, of Kilbogie,
the invention whose principle has been the
basis upon which the machines in use in Bri-
tain up to the present time have been mainly
constructed. It appears that, his attention
having been long turned to the subject, he dis-
covered that the plan of rubbing would never
be otherwise than attended with the disadvan-
tage before alluded to; and his son George
agreed with the gentleman above named to
erect a perfect machine, and in 1786 he com-
pleted the first that was ever made, adopting
the plan of introducing between two rollers the
corn, which was then thrashed out by four
beaters fixed upon a revolving drum, each
striking, as it revolved, the corn held between
the rollers. The machine alluded to was
erected, and found to work exceedingly well.
A patent was accordingly applied for, and,
after some opposition from a party not con-
cerned in the invention, obtained.

In the trials between the erection of the ori-
ginal machine and the obtaining the patent, a
new principle appears to have suggested itself,
viz., that of stripping off the corn from the ear
by a comparatively sharp edge, or, as termed
by him, " scutching out the grain," instead of
beating it by a flat surface. The difference has
been partially illustrated by supposing a hand-
ful of straw with the corn in the ear to be held
in the hand, while with the flat sides of a two-
feet rule the ears should be struck or beaten ;
this is the operation of the common beater. If,
instead of striking the ears with the flat side, a
sharp blow be given with the thin edge of the
rule in the direction of the ear where the rule
touches, it will strip the corn from the ear with
less labour and with greater certainty. This
may be called the scutching principle to which
Meikle's beaters in his patent were applied.

It will not be uninteresting to learn, upon the
authority of Sir John Sinclair, " that the invent-
or of this important machine was rendered
comfortable in his old age, and enabled to pro-
vide for his family after his death, by the vo-
luntary donations of his grateful countrymen."
Not less gratifying is the testimony of Pro-
fessor Low, in his admirable treatise on the
Elements of Practical Agriculture, that " to An-
drew Meikle, beyond a question, belongs the
honour of having perfected the thrashing-ma-
chine. Changes and improvements have in-
deed been made on certain parts of the original
machine ; but in all its essential parts, and in
the principle of its construction, it remains as
it came from the hands of its inventor."

By the drawings and specification of Meikle's

machine, it appears that, at the time of taking

out this patent, the plan of shaking the straw

by means of circular rakes had not been sug-

1038

gested; and in the report drawn up for the
consideration of the " Board of Agriculture"
for the county of Northumberland, we find that^
in 1789, the first machine having a circular
rake attached, and with fanners below, to per-
fect the cleaning of the grain, was erected. Al-
though it is not there stated, we have gooci
reason to believe that this important improve-
ment, occasioning the addition of but one light
wheel to the machine, was the invention of J.
Bailey, the enterprising occupier of Chilling-
ham, one of the gentlemen appointed to dravsr
up the report alluded to.

We have thus far traced carefully, and, we
trust, correctly, the progress of the invention
of the thrashing-machine used in Scotland, till
it has arrived at very nearly its present perfec-
tion. Various combinations of mechanical
powers, and many contrivances, have doubt-
less been since added to produce particular
effects, which have progressively tended to its
improvement and ultimate perfection.

It will be difficult, within the limits to which
this article must necessarily be confined, to
enter minutely into detail, or adequately to set
forth the merits of the various inventions and
improvements on this machine, for which in
the course of the last half-century no fewer
than 25 patents have been obtained; besides
several awards from the Bath and West of
England Society and the Society of Arts. But
we should do injustice to the subject, did we
not here mention the name of Lester, whose
mechanical talent and skill as an engineer
have not a little contributed to the establish-
ment of a higher style of excellence in agri-
cultural mechanics than was coincident with
the then taste of the age in that much neg-
lected department.

The machines now in general use through-
out the eastern counties of England are, with-
few exceptions, portable. They are frequently
the property of individuals who, itinerating
from farm to farm, thrash at a certain price per
quarter; the farmer finding horses, and, with
the exception of the proprietor, who feeds the
machine, the necessary complement of men.
They are simply thrashing instruments, having
neither circular rakes nor fanners attached.
The beaters, 4, 5, or 6 in number, are so placed
round the drum that their beating edge shall
radiate from the centre. These strike upon the
3traw, which is passed along a feeding-board
placed at an inclination of about 30°, tending
to a point equidistant from the centre and
upper part of the circumference of the drum»
The concave describes the third part of a cir-
cle, and is formed alternately of iron ribs and
open wire-work in segments, so placed that its
inner surface may be brought into near contact
with the edges of the revolving beaters, and
susceptible of adjustments by screws to in-
crease or diminish the distance. The usual
plan is to place it with about | of an inch
space at the feeding part, and gradually to
increase the distance to IJ or 2 inches at the
lower end, where the straw is delivered upon a
fixed harp or riddle, through which such part
of the grain as is not driven through the wired
part of the concave falls, while the straw is re-
moved by forks.

THRASHING-MACHINE.

THRASHING-MACHINE.

The thrashing part, commonly called the
bam work, occupies a space of 6 feet by 4^
feet, and, together with the apparatus by which
motion is communicated (which is made either
for 2, 3, or 4 horses' power), may at pleasure
be elevated upon a pair of wheels and axle,
and thus removed by two horses.

Many of these machines are made by per-
sons who possess little claim to any mechanical
knowledge, and who, purchasing the unfitted
castings, by the help of village artisans, pro-
duce an imitation of those which are considered
good. As the perfection of these machines
must depend upon mathematical accuracy in
the adjustment of all their parts, and in the
truth and precision of their fittings, it is un-
reasonable to expect that this can be accom-
plished where no facilities exist beyond the
forge and the work-bench ; and hence arises a
degree of discredit, which is unfairly thrown
upon the principles upon which the machine
is constructed.

With these machines, properly constructed,
barley may be thoroughly thrashed with as
little or less damage than with the flail, and
wheat straw need not be so broken as mate-
rially to diminish its usefulness even for the
purpose of thatching. We cannot, with Sir
John Sinclair, reckon the circumstance of
breaking the straw one of the advantages of
thrashing by machinery, as we do not think it
desirable that any slovenly performance of the
thrashing-machine should trench upon the
legitimate occupation of the chaff-engine ; and
we repeat our opinion that all disadvantages
from the above-mentioned causes may, by a
well-constructed machine and a competent
manager, be entirely remedied.

Vhe latest patent which is at present in ope-
riation is one taken out by Joseph Atkinson, of
Braham Hall, Yorkshire, which appears to be
of American origin. The thrashing or beat-
ing-out process is obtained by means differing
from any previously mentioned ; the drum be-
ing surrounded by a series of pegs, so arranged
as in its motion to pass similar rows of pegs
placed at intervals in a concave, surrounding
nearly one-half of the circumference of the
drum. This machine is not at present so fully
introduced into England as to aflford opportunity
for fairly testing its comparative merits ; and it
would be unfair to give, upon slight evidence,
an opinion which may have any tendency to
increase the difficulty of the introduction of a
new article. We can therefore say little more
than that while such trials as have fallen under
our own inspection have not convinced us of
its superiority, we are inclined to the belief
that the principle is not so defective as to pre-
vent its being carried out to advantage, under
such modifications as may be suggested upon
further trials.

We have now to draw the attention of our
readers to a machine in operation upon Lord
Ducie's example-farm at Whitfield, of which it
is probable, in a forthcoming report of that in-
teresting establishment, that a full account, ac-
companied by the necessary drawings, will be
given. Through the kindness of the manager,
John Morton, in accordance with whose sug-
gestions it was constructed, we have been

favoured with an opportunity of witnessing its
performance, and with the following descrip-
tion, which we give in his own words :—

" This machine is worked by a steam-engine
of six horse power. The corn is brought from
the stack upon wagons running along a tram-
road upon an inclined plane, to the doors of
the building, whence, sheaf by sheaf, it is
thrown by children into the buckets of an ele-
vator, which, in its rotation, carries them to the
feeding-board. This feeding-board is placed
at a tangent from the drum parallel with its
top ; and, as in Lee's machine, and the portable
machines in Suffolk and Norfolk, the feeding-
rollers are dispensed with, an endless web
gradually carries the unlhrashed straw to the
feeding-mouth, from which the revolving
scutches rapidly convey it to the concave.

"The drum and concave, being the part on
which the separating of the corn or thrashing
principle depends, we shall first describe: —
The drum is about 18 inches diameter, formed
of sheet-iron strained round a cast-iron skeleton
accurately turned ; upon this the beaters, or
rather scutches, formed of angle-iron with its
edges planed, are so placed as to describe an
angle with the surface of the drum, pointing for-
ward in the direction of its motion ; these project
about seven-eighths of an inch. The screen
or concave encloses the drum to the extent of
about one-third of its circumference, and con-
sists of 4 or 5 arched pieces of grating, 3 inches
wide, jointed together. It is made of cast-iron
bars, having a square section placed so that
every one shall present an edge to the passage
of the straw, uniting (as is not uncommon in
other machines) the fluted concave of the
Scotch machine with the wired grating of the
English ones ; the screen is supported on iron
bolts, so that it approaches to within about one-
eighth of an inch of the edge of the scutcher.
Spiral springs surround these bolts, which per-
mit the bars of the concave to yield when too
much pressure may at any time occur between
them and the revolving drum. The grain is
thus separated, most of it passing through the
screen of the concave ; but in order that no
grain shall be allowed to pass away with the
straw, it is thrown upon the shaker below.

The motion given to the straw by this shaker
is the most perfect we can conceive; the blows
occasioned as^ each series of spars strike it
from beneath, effectually remove every particle
of loose grain, while the shaker rapidly carries
forward the straw, and at its termination depo-
sits it in the straw-house, while the corn sifted
out by its action falls before the blast of a
fanner (the construction of which is peculiar);
and all the light grain and short straws thrown
out by the first winnowing into the light corn
spout is then taken up by another elevator,
deposited again upon the feeding-board, and
passed a second time through the drum, in
order effectually to separate any that may re-
main. After passing through another win-
nower, the thoroughly cleaned corn is taken
up by a third elevator, and dropped into a
hopper, through which it passes into a sack,
wh'ch is placed on a weighing machine, and it
is there weighed and left thoroughly fit for
market.

1039

THRASHING-MACHINE.

THRASHING-MACHINE.

We have introduced at length the descrip-
tion of this machine, or rather series of ma-
chines, as beinf? the most complete of any that
have fallen within the range of our observa-
tion; the most comprehensive in its design,
performing every operation, from receiving
the sheaf at the barn-door to depositing its grain
in a clean state weighed up in the sacks, and
excellent in the greater part of its detail, which
is carried out, both as regards ingenuity and
workmanship, in a style very superior to the
general character of agricultural machines.

With regard to the moving power most ad-
vantageously connected with the thrashing-
machine, it may be observed, that where the
locality admits of the use of a water-wheel,
this power is most economical and easily ma-
naged ; but the advantage is limited to peculiar
situations.

Where the quantity of work to be performed
is sufficient to repay the interest of outlay,
expense of wear and tear, &c., a steam-engine
would be most advantageously employed on
the farm. Of its economy, as compared with
either horse or manual labour, there need be
no question. But as few farms in England at
present have these appendages, the question
for consideration is narrowed to the compa-
rison between horses and manual labour. On
the authority of Dr. Gregory, the dynamic
power of a horse at a dead pull may be calcu-
lated in the main as equivalent to that of six
men, or to 420 lbs., if exerted in a direct line ;
but the result of experiments made by Tred-
gold tend to prove that sustained effort at the
rate of three miles per hour must not be calcu-
lated at more than equivalent to 120 lbs. drawn
over a pulley. This, taking six hours of labour
per diem as the utmost he would recommend,
would be the maximum of useful effect. Under
the circumstance of any deviation from a straight
line, this must be materially reduced ; and in
describing a circle of 18 feet radius, the cramp-
ed position of the horse will probably prevent
his power from being advantageously exerted
to the extent of much more than half. It will,
therefore, be seen that a very large proportion
of dynamic effort is wasted ; and this not only
arises from the constrained position of the
horse's movement, but from the friction of the
mill by means of which motion is communi-
cated to a machine.

It is affirmed by Emerson that a man of or-
dinary strength, turning a roller by the handle,
can act for a whole day against a resistance
«qual to 30 lbs. weight; and if he works 10
hours a day, he will raise this weight through
3J feet in a second, or about 2^ miles per hour.

Animal power is, however, so varied by the
character of the exertion, that it is difficult to
arrive at a correct calculation. The late Ro-
bertson Buchanan ascertained that in the action
of working a pump, of turning a winch, of
ringing a bell, or rowing a boat, the dynamic
results were respectively as the numbers 100,
167, 227, and 248. See Strength.

Having caused a machine with beaters to be
constructed, worked by 4 men whose force
should be exerted as in the manner of rowing
a boat, the results, as compared with a ma-
chine requiring the force of 4 horses in a circle
1040

of 18 feet radius, we found might be taken on
an average as 5 to 12. It was thought the
continuous effort might be for an equal length
of time exerted by 6 men relieving each other
at intervals, as by the same number of horses
relieved in the same way.

We have not yet had opportunity to repeat
the experiment; and we instance this only to
show that, although advantage may be on the
side of horse-labour for large quantities, ma-
iiual force is not so inapplicable to this object
as most writers have represented it to be ; and
we are of opinion that, on small farms, hand-
machines may with great advantage be used.
A simple and effective hand thrashing-machine,
which was exhibited at the Royal Agricultural
Society's meeting at Liverpool, obtained the
commendation of the judges (vide their re-
port). It is worked by 4 men, and the moving
power being obtained by means of a lever on
the one side, and by a crank handle on the
other, the men working it may relieve each
other by change of motion. It requires one
man to feed the machine, and the number of
hands necessary to bring the sheaves and re-
move the straw will depend upon the distance
it has to be conveyed. When the straw is
short, and the wheat of average yield and in
good condition, it will thrash at the rate of 12
to 16 bushels per hour.

In England the cost of the thrashing-ma-
chines of former days varied considerably, and
their performances were very unequal. It may
not be uninteresting to compare them with those
of the present day. The following are ex-
tracted from the Agricultural Reports : —

Thrash IDS per D»f.
In the reports of Roxburgh and Sel-"^ «,, _ on Knii-

kirk, in 1796, R. Douglas slates that ' -" „, from '

mills by water, or with 4 horses, Iira f^ion i!!.„i.

would do great execution. J *^ '° ^^ »'"»'»•

In the report of Norfolk, in 1804,
Arthur Young gives an account of
mach'ies which belonged to the fol-
lowing parties:

Droziers, Reedham, built by Wigfull, dnn^' hJl^^^

cost 120^, worked by 7 persona and^ ^ ''^^ oats ©r

^ ^°"^^- I peas.

Farrow, Shibidham, built by WlgfulI, f?? ^"" hJlt^t

worked by 7 persons, and by 4, 5,^ in Jl: -?» f^r

-.- #5 !,«-„„„ ' ' ♦ I 40 CO. oats or

°' ^ ''°""- L peas.

Beck, Castle Rising, built by Wigfull,") 32 co. wheat,

cost 200 guineas, worked by 6 per- >61 co. barley.

sons, and 4, 5, or 6 horses. j^O co. peas.

Whiting, Tring, built by Fordyce,") 24 co. wheat.

from Scotland, cost 200/., worked >5.S co. barley.

by 6 persons and 6 horses. 3 63 to 84 co. oatf. ,

Bevan, Riddlesworth, engineer from") 40 co. wheal.

Leith, cost lOOZ., worked by 10 >40 co. barley.

men and 8 horses.- J 50 co. oats.

Coke, Holkham, cost 600/., worked Ira ,„ ,„!,..♦

by 12 men and 8 horses. f 64. co. wheat.

Reeves, Heverland, built by Assby,^30co. wheat.

Blyboro', cost 100 guineas, worked >32 co. barley.

with 2 or 3 horses. j 40 co. peas.

Styleman. Smithsham, cost 300/., ^®° '^''- **'''^**-

worked by 10 persons and 8 horses.

In the report of Kent, R. Boys, in"
1805, remarks on the only thrash-
ing-mill then in Kent, which, by a , „, wheat
numberof improvements, and after I ,„ •J'"' r',^*'
_i. .: i._ c_j_ .~ rJ* qrs. nariey,

120 CO. barley,
peas, or oats.

many alterations, he finds to an-
swer extremely well ; and he slates
that it requires 4 horses and 12 men
to work it.
In Sir John Sinclair's System of Hus-
bandry, published in 1812, we find
an account of R. Kerr's machine,
which, with 6 horses, 4 men, and 4
womeo, would tbraah

40 qrs. oats.

50 bolls, or aboat
300 bushel! of
wheat.

THRASHING-MACHINE.

THRIFT.

Considerable improvements have since been
effected. In the statements of the trials of im-
plements at the Royal English Agricultural So-
ciety's meeting at Cambridge, in 1841, the
quantity of wheat thrashed by two four-horse
portable machines manufactured by J. R. and
A. Ransome, of Ipswich, and R. Garrett and
Son, Leiston, was respectively 61 bushels and
I of a peck, and 61 bushels and i of a peck
per hour ; and the corn was clean thrashed and
uninjured.

This must not be taken as a criterion on
which to found an average, as it was doubtless
the result of stimulated exertion ; but it is not
unusual with machines of this construction,
with reaped wheat in fair condition, to thrash
100 CO. or 400 bushels in a day of 10 hours, and
the same quantity of mown barley.

It should, however, be observed, that these,
having neither rakes nor fans, the work of
which is done by hand, would require 8 men
and 5 boys, and a change of horses in the day.

Thrashing-machines are now verj- generally
used in the United States, to gel out the crops of
wheat, &c. Before their introduction flails were
employed in the Northern and Eastern States,
whilst in the Middle and Southern States,
treading with horses and cattle was the cus-
tomary mode of thrashing. The cost by em-
ploying the flail was generally estimated at 10
bushels out of every 100, which, when wheat
was a good price, proved very expensive. The
employment of horses, though expeditious, is
very objectionable, the grain being rendered
gritty and filthy, so as to lessen its value in
the market. The practice, too, of setting
horses at such hard and peculiar work in hot
weather proved injurious and often destructive
to them.

The notice furnished in this article of the
successive improvements made in Britain, in
contrivances for thrashing out grain, will show
the efforts there made and the results obtained.
Ingenuity would seem to have been still more
actively employed in the same pursuit in the
United States, where, within a few years past,
more than 100 patents have been obtained for
inventions and improvements of the thrashing-
machine. These have nearly all involved two
main principles: 1st, a beater consisting of
bars ; and, 2dly, a cylinder furnished with
spikes instead of bars. This last may perhaps
be called the American principle, ;>ar ejrce//c«ff.
Where bars are used, the machine requires an
increased velocity equal to 300 revolutions per
minute, over what is requisite where the cylin-
der is furnished with spikes. It is for this rea-
son chiefly, that the spike machines have been
so much more generally used. It must, how-
ever, be observed, that where the beater is com-
posed of bars, the force required to work the
machine is about one-third less in performing
the same amount of work. In Eams's patent,
the bars are of wrought or cast-iron, notched
on the edges.

Pitts's Thrasher and Separator is con-
sidered a machine by which a great saving of
labour is effected over the ordinary machines,
the operations of thrashing and cleaning being I
performed at the same time. The bundles are |
131

fed to the machine at one end, and the cleaa
seed, without a kernel being scattered, taken
from the other. Its weight is about 700 lbs.,
and it occupies a space about 8 feet by 2 feet 4
inches. The whole machinery is durable, and
easily kept in repair. It thrashes and cleans
all kinds of grain in the best manner, perform-
ing the work at the rate of from 25 to 50 bushels
per hour. Four hands are required to tend the
machine when in operation, viz. — one to for-
ward the bundles, one to feed, one to measure
and put the grain into bags, and one to pitch
the straw away as it comes from the machine.
It can be easily moved from place to place, and
attached to any horse power, and can be used
in the field as well as on the thrashing-floor,
there being no loss or scattering of grain after
it is once fed into the machine. The late Judge
Buel considered this machine as the best adapt-
ed to the purpose of any he had ever seen.

Horte Power. — The power almost universally
employed to propel thrashing-machines in the
United States is that adapted to horses. These
are generally of a description which admits of
transportation along with the machine from
place to place. They are of two kinds, one
called the nveep power, in which the horses
attached pass round in a circle ; the other
called the endless chain or tread power, where the
horse or horses move as if walking or trotting,
but in consequence of the rotation of the end-
less chain of bars on which they are placed,
always remain in the same place. Mixe's cast
iron portable stceep potvcr is generally considered
the best now in use, in the Middle States at least.
Its weight is from 700 to 1000 lbs., and the price
$80 for a two-horse, and $90 for a four-horse
power.

The endless chain or tread power is coming
into very general use, being specially adapted
to farms where there is much barn or shed-
room, admitting of the thrashing being done
under shelter; whereas, with the sweep power,
the operations require the open yard.

The tread power, called Pitts's, is now in
high repute. These, as well as all other kinds
of machinery used in thrashing, are exten-
sively manufactured in Wilmington, Delaware,
by Hollinsworth & Co., and may also be had
of Mr. Chandler, manufacturer of agricultural
implements, 196 Market street, Philadelphia,
as also at most of the numerous depots for
agricultural implements in that and other cities
in the United States. The price of the one-
horse endless chain power is $75 ; of the two-
horse do., $85. It is said that a two-horse
tread power is equal to a four-horse sweep
power.

THREAVE. A quantity of grain, consisting
of 24 sheaves. It is sometimes written thrave.

THRIFT (Statice, from statizo, to stop: in
allusion to the powerful astringency of some of
the species). The species of thrift ought to be
in every garden, on account of their lively little
flowers. There are three indigenous species
of thrift or sea-lavender, all perennial, viz : —

1. The common thrift, or sea gilliflower (S.
jlrmeria), which is a common ornament of rus-
tic gardens, where it serves for edgings of
flower-beds ; nor does this plant suffer much

1041

THRIPS.

TOAD.

from the smoke even of London. The flowers
are numerous, rose-coloured, inodorous.

2. Blue spiked thrift, or common sea-laven-
der (S. limonium), which grows plentifully on
muddy sea-shores, and about the mouths of
large rivers. The root is woody and tough.
Leaves leathery, glaucous, usually 2 or 3
inches long. Panicle of spikes of imbricated,
upright, fine blue flowers.

3. Matted thrift (S. reticulata), growing on
muddy sea-shores, chiefly on the eastern coast
of England. (Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 1 15.)

A kind of American sea-lavender, S. Carolini-
ana) is described by Nuttall as apparently a
mere variety of the S. limonium. The flowers
are of an elegant blue.

THRIPS. The Thnps, or vine-fretter, as it
is often called, is a very minute, light-coloured
or spotted fly, exceedingly active in all its mo-
tions, and appearing to leap rather than fly.
They live on the buds, leaves, and flowers of
plants, being so small as readily to escape
notice, unless particular attention is directed
^ to them. They are generally found by observ-
ing the effects of their apparently poisonous
bites which produce deformities in the leaves
or blossoms, causing these often to swell or
curl up. The peach tree occasionally suffers
severely from their attacks, as well as from
those of the plant-lice, to which family of insects
they are allied. (Harris on Destructive Insects.)

A remedy for thrips will be found, with the
mode of using it, under the head of jiphis.

A new disease of the plum tree, occasioned
by thrips, is described by Dr. Harris, in Ho-
vey's Horticultural Magazine.

THYME, GARDEN (Thymus vulgaris, from
^fjLOi, courage, being considered a reviver of
the spirits ; or from ^va, to sacrifice, being
employed as incense). The varieties are, —
the broad-leaved green, narrow-leaved green,
variegated, and lemon-scented. The varie-
gated is grown almost solely on account of its
ornamental foliage. A poor, light, and dry
soil is best suited to it. In moist or rich ones,
it becomes luxuriant, but deficient in its aro-
matic qualities, and generally perishes during
the winter. The situation cannot be too open.

Thyme is propagated both by seed and
rooted slips. Sowing may be performed from
the middle of March until about the beginning
of May. Slips may be planted from the begin-
ning of February until the close of May.

The seed must be sown neither thin, nor
raked in more than half an inch below the sur-
face. It is sometimes sown in drills of a simi-
lar depth, six inches apart, or as an edging to
a bed or border. The seedlings must be kept
clear of weeds, and, if the season is dry, watered
moderately twice a week. When of about six
weeks' growth, or when 3 or 4 inches high,
they require to be thinned to 6 inches apart,
unless grown as an edging, when they must
be left thick. Those removed may be pricked
out to a similar distance, if required. Water
is required occasionally until they have taken
root. The plants may be left in the situations
they are placed in at this season, or be finally
plantediOTJt in, September or October, or in the
early spring of the following year. To obtain
slips, some old stools may be divided into as
1042

many rooted portions as possible, or layers
may be obtained by loosening the soil around
them, and pegging the lateral shoots beneath
the surface. They must be planted out at dis-
tances similar to those raised from seed, water
and weeding being similarly required.

In autumn the decayed stalks should be
cleared, and a little fresh earth scattered and
turned in among the stools.

Although this herb is perennial, yet after 3
or 4 years it becomes stunted and unproduct-
ive, consequently requiring to be raised peri-
odically from seed. For the production of
seed, some plants should be allowed to run up
without being gathered from in early summer.
The seed is ripe during July, and must be cut
immediately it is so, and laid on a cloth to dry,
otherwise the first rain will wash it out of the
s c c (!•" V c s s cl s

THYME, WILD (Thymus). A genus of aro-
matic, pungent, branched, somewhat shrubby
plants, belonging to the natural order Labiata.
They are often diffuse in England, and of hum-
ble growth : in some instances annual. The
common wild thyme (T. serpyllum) is plentiful
almost everywhere, particularly on heaths and
dry mountainous ground. The odour of the
plant is gratefully aromatic. Bees are fond of
the flowers. Whether, as alleged, the quality
of mutton is improved by the sheep feeding on
this plant, or on fine, short grasses which usu-
ally accompany it, is still a matter of great
doubt. See Basil, Calamint, and Thy.mk.

TICKS. See Sheep, Diseases of.

TILLER. A term applied to the branching
of the stems of wheat, &c., from the roots.

TILTH. The condition of the earth after
ploughing, &c. ; or the state of the soil in
respect to tillage as relating to manure.

TIMBER (Germ, zimmer ,• Du. timmerhout).
The term used to express every large tree
squared, or capable of being squared, and fit
for being employed in house or ship-building.

TIMBER TREES. See Trees, Plakta-^
TioNs, and the several indigenous trees, under
their alphabetical heads.

TIMOTHY GRASS (Phleum prateme). See
Cat's-Tail Grass.

TINE. A tooth or spike placed in any im-
plement, but especially in the harrow kind-
See Haruow.

TOAD (Rana hufo.) A well-known and
much dreaded, though perfectly innoxious rep-
tile of the frog genus, which feeds on insects,
flies, ants, &c. It is preyed upon by owls,
buzzards, snakes, &c. ; otherwise the toad at-
tains to a considerable age, some remarkable
instances of which have been recorded.

Dr. H. Storer, in some remarks upon reptiles
furnished by him to Professor Hitchcock, and
published in the Zoological Survey of Massachu-
setts, observes: — Great errors also exist with re-
gard to the order Batrachia. The acrid secretion
found upon the skin of the Hyla versicolor, the
toad, and several species of efts and newts, has
caused them to be considered venomous —
which is incorrect. Every species of this
order is inoffensive, and, when better known,
will undoubtedly be found beneficial to man.

In some countries, the flesh of the diflferent
RancE, frogs, is an article of food. With us>

TOAD-FLAX.

the nabits of the Bufo jimericanus, or common
toad, are becoming better understood, and the
horticulturist, instead of destroying, carefully
preserves it on his grounds, for the benefit it
affords him, by feeding upon noxious insects.
In the same way are our springs and wells
rendered the purer by the presence of the car-
nivorous salamander.

TOAD-FLAX. A name applied to two pe-
rennial species of Antirrhinum. 1. The creep-
ing, pale blue toad-flax {A. repens) is a rare
species, growing on chalky banks or rocks
near the sea. The herbage is smooth and
glaucous, stem panicled, leaves linear, scat-
tered, partly whorled ; flowers sweet-scented.

2. Common yellow toad-flax (A. linaria),
which is common about hedges and the bor-
ders of fields. The leaves are linear-lanceo-
late, crowded ; stems erect ; spikes terminal ;
flowers terminal, inodorous. (PI. 10,a:,T.) See
FiuELLiif and Sxap-Dhagos.

Common linaria is found in the Middle States,
where it bears the names of toad-flax, butler-and-
eggs, and Ram stead-weed. It is a foreigner, fre-
quenting fence-rows and pastures, where it is a
showy but very obnoxious weed. (Flora Ces-
trica.)

TOAD-FLAX, BASTARD. See Bastard
Toad-Flax.

TOBACCO. Botanists have given this well-
known American plant the generic name of
Nicotiana, from John Nicot, of Nismes, in Lan-
guedoc, ambassador from the King of France
to Portugal, where he procured the seeds from
a Dutchman who had derived them from Flo-
rida. The first plant was said to have been
presented by Nicot to Catharine de Medicis,
whence the former French name, Herbe a la
Heine, or the queen's plant. The name tobacco,
which has superseded all others, is an appella-
tion acquired from the place from whence it
was originally most generally derived, namely,
the island of Tobago, in the West Indies. Ac-
cording to Linnaeus, tobacco was known in
Europe as early as 1560. It was taken to
England from the West Indies or Mexico by
Ralph Lane in 1586, but only the herb for
smoking, a practice introduced into England
by Sir Walter Raleigh, who acquired it from
Captain Lane. In the house in which he lived
at Islington are his arms on a shield, with a
tobacco plant on the top. Smoking has conse-
quently been common in Europe for upwards
of two centuries. It is a powerful narcotic,
an<J also a strong stimulant with respect to the
whole system, but especially to the stomach
and intestines, to which, in small doses, it
proves emetic and purgative. The smoke
thrown up the anus acts as a glyster : an infu-
sion of the leaves forms a powerful lotion for
obstinate ulcers. The decoction, powder, and
smoke of tobacco are used in gardening to de-
stroy insects, and in agriculture for the same
purpose, and to cure cutaneous eruptions in
domestic animals.

Botanists have identified many different spe-
cies of tobacco, and Loudon, in his Encydopee-
dia of Plants, makes the following list of those
enumerated under the generic head of Nico-
tiana, with the places from which they were
derived : —

TOBACCO.

Common Name.

Origin and Date.

Virginian

America

157»

Large-leaved

America

Shrubby

China

1699

Sweet-scented

N. S. W.

1800

Common-green

America

1570

Panicled

Peru

1752

Clammy

Peru

1759

Curled-leaved

America

1816

Primrose-leaved Vera Cruz

1733

Four-valved

N. America

1811

Dwarf.

N. America 1823

Langsdorfl''s

Chili

1819

Honeywort

"

1821

Havannah

Havana

1823

Species.

Nicotiana tabacum
macrophylla
fruticosa
uiidulata
rustica
paniculata
glutinosa
plumbaginifolia
pusilla
quadrivalvis
nana

Langsdorffii
cerinthoidea
re panda

In the 4lh plate there are representations of
the species known as Virginia tobacco {NicO'
tiana tabacum, /), common green tobacco (iV.
rustica, g), Havana repanda (h), of which the
fine and fragrant cigars are made ; the Qua-
drivalvis, or four-leaved tobacco (i), and the
Nana, or dwarf species (k), both of which last
are used by the Indians of the Rocky Mountains.

Tobacco is cultivated in Europe as far north
as Sweden, and is also grown in China, Japan,
and other eastern and hot countries. The sort
most generally preferred is the Virginia spe-
ciei, a very beautiful plant. The common
green kind (N. rustica), is also frequently cul-
tivated, especially in Europe, it being consi-
dered hardier than the Virginian sort. Parkin-
son says he has known Sir Walter Raleigh,
when prisoner in the Tower, prefer it to make
good tobacco, "which he knew so rightly to
cure." Tobacco has been successfully culti-
vated and cured in England, but its growth is
prohibited as a crop, and it is now only grown
for curiosity as a border flower, or by garden-
ers for the destruction of insects. In Germany
and other northern countries, most families
who have gardens grow enough of N. rustica
for their own use ; but as they do not know
how to cure it properly, it is not much valued,
and is never made into chewing tobacco or
snuff, but used for smoking.

Although tobacco, an annual plant, may be
brought to maturity in almost every country,
even in Russia and Sweden, with their tran-
sient summers, still will the plants, under such
unfavourable circumstances, be small, and their
flavour weak. In long, moist, and not very
warm summers, such as those of Ireland, the
plants may attain a very large size, but they
will not have that superior flavour which can
only be derived from abundance of clear sun-
shine, and free, dry air. The fragrant tobacco
of Havana and Luconia may retain pre-emi-
nence for smoking, but for all other purposes
the peculiarly high and rich flavour of the to-
bacco of Maryland, Virginia, and neighbouring
states must always give it preference, both at
home and abroad.

It will be seen from an estimate furnished
Congress by Mr. Ellsworth, Commissioner of
Patents, of the agricultural products of the
United States in 1842, that tobacco, though cul-
tivated in every State of the Union, constitutes
a staple crop in comparatively few, namely,
Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky,
Tennessee and Missouri. The crop of the
year mentioned, was below the average, and
in Virginia not over two-thirds of the regular
crop, being both light and of bad quality. It
was distributed as follows ;—

1043

TOBACCO.

states. n No. of pounds gathered.

Maine 82

New Hampshire _ - - - 290

Massachusetts 97,297

Rhode Island 499

» Connecticut ... - 630,275

Vermont ------ 781

New York 1,086

New Jersey 2,958

Pennsylvania ... - 480,374
Delaware ------ 401

Maryland 21,199,696

Virginia 59,627,369

North Carolina - - - 16,129,474
South Carolina - _ - - 55,654

Georgia ----- 141,523

Alabama 264,018

Mississippi - - - - 145,212

Louisiana ----- 118,146

Tennessee - - - - 28,289,171

Kentucky 45,494,083

Ohio - 5,264,766

Indiana 2,660,408

Illinois 984,960

Missouri 12,727,350

Arkansas 212,266

Michigan 2,725

Florida Territory - - - - 86,877
Wisconsan Territory - - - 862
Iowa Territory ----- 11,153
District of Columbia- - - - 65,654

194,694,891

Increased attention has been latterly paid to
the culture of tobacco in Illinois and even in
some of the New England States. The follow-
ing statement would seem to show, that, not-
withstanding the vast amount of tobacco
raised in the Union for home consumption and
exportation, there is yet no reasonable ground
for apprehending an over-stock of the market.
In a letter of the Secretary of the Treasury
relative to the amount of home consumption
and exports of tobacco, with a great variety of
other particulars, it is stated that the whole
amount supplied elsewhere than in the United
States, is about 150,000,000 pounds; the
amount of possible consumption of American
tobacco is put at not less than 1,000,000,000
pounds. So that were only one-half of this
quantity actually consumed, it would be four
times more than our present export, which, in
value, is only second to that of cotton.

In almost every country in Europe the most
vexatious restrictions in the forms of excessive
duties and imposts are levied upon tobacco.
In general, the governments, such as France,
Spain, Italy, &c., take possession of all the
tobacco imported or raised, and farm or let out
to great capitalists for immense sums, the pri-
vileges of vending to manufacturers and re-
tailers. In this way the cost of tobacco in
Europe is usually extremely high, and govern-
ments manage to derive from their subjects
vast sums of money by exactions in the shape
of imposts upon the tobacco they consume.
In France, the revenue thus annually derived,
is $10,000,000, and all this from a reduced im-
portation of some 6000 or 7000 hogsheads. It
would indeed seem to be a favourite object for
excessive taxation in nearly every government.
At a great meeting of tobacco planters held in
May, 1840, it was shown from authentic docu-
ments, that on an export of 100,000 hogsheads,
valued here at $7,000,000, a duty was paid by
the consumers in the various countries of Eu-
rope, of more than $30,000,000. "As a matter
of interest to many of our readers," says the
editor of the Cultivator, " we copy or condense
1044

TOBACCO.

from the report of that body, the amount of
tobacco exported to the European countries ,.
respectively, or the most prominent ones ;

Countries. Eiport o( Tobacco id hhdt. Tax per lb.

Russia - - - 358

Holland - - - 3,300 - - 13 cts. '

Belgium - - , 6,000 - . 24 «• J

Great Britain - - 28,772 - - 72J " -

France - - . 12,000

Spain - - - 5,700

Portugal - - . 363

Italian States - - 2,000

Austria - - - 4,000

The remainder of the 100,000 hogsheads is
distributed through the German States, Sardi-
nia, Hungary, &c. &c. We have been unable
to ascertain the precise duties paid in all cases,
but the enormous rales of those ascertained,
and the fact that the tobacco import is in most
of the countries of Europe farmed out for a
stipulated sum, renders it certain, that while
none are below what is here named, some of
the highest much exceed the almost prohibitory
imposts of Great Britain. A duty of 800 per
cent., such as England imposes on our tobacco,
is an anomaly in the history of trade; and
which, under all circumstances, may be deemed
positively unjust." This excessive duty, how-
ever, is imposed merely for revenue purposes,
not for protection to agriculture, like the duty
on wheat ; as, excepting a few plants for pri-
vate use, for medicinal purposes, &c., it is pr(>-
hibited to be grown.

"The culture of tobacco is every year ex-
tending itself in the Western States, and pro-
mises to become a most important article of
export from the rich districts north and south
of the Ohioi That tobacco can be grown in
Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, with
a profit greater than that attending the culture
of wheat and corn, seems certain; and we
doubt not, that as the cultivation progresses,
and the better methods of curing are adopted,
the tobacco of the new States will rival in qua-
lity and celebrity that of the old. The plants
on new land grow more luxuriantly than on
soils cultivated for any considerable time ; but
experience proves that the quality is not so
fine. The best tobacco in any country is
grown on lands in good condition, but not ex-
travagantly rich, or highly manured."

Many facts connected with the history of the
first production and exportation of tobacco in
America are highly interesting. Some of these
were collected by an intelligent investigator
a few years ago, from which we extract the
following. In a letter still extant, of the Go-
vernor and Council of Virginia, dated James*
City, January 20, 1622, it is stated, that there
was not then above 60,000 lbs. of tobacco made
in the colony. In 1639, however, only 17
years afterwards, the Grand Assembly passed
a law which recites, that, " Whereas, the ex-
cessive quantity of tobacco of late years
planted in the colony, has debased the quality,"
and enacts, " that all the tobacco planted this
present year, and the two succeeding years, in
the colony of Virginia, be absolutely destroyed
and burned, excepting and reserving so much
in equal proportion to each planter, as shall
make in the whole just the quantity of 120,000
lbs. of tobacco, stripped and smoothed, &c. In
consideratioii whereof, the creditors of the

fLctte ^.

Tlice. Sugar, Tobacco, etc

TOBACCO.

TOBACCO.

planters were compelled to "accept and re-
ceive 40 lbs. of tobacco so stripped and
smoothed, in full satisfaction of every 100 lbs.
now due them." It is not important to ascer-
tain whether this law was re-enacted at the
end of the 3 years named in it ; for we find in
an official report to the commissioners, that the
yearly exports of tobacco for ten years end-
ing in 1709, were 28,868,666 lbs., of which
11,260,659 lbs. were annually consumed in
Great Britain, and 17,598,007 lbs. in other
countries of Europe. In 1744 — 1776, the ave-
rage annual exportation was 40,000,000 lbs.,
of which 7,000,000 lbs. were consumed in
Great Britain, and 33,000,000 lbs. in other Eu-
ropean countries. The annual average ex-
portation from 1768 to 1770, both inclusive,
was 67,780 hhds. of about 100 lbs. each, or
67,780,000 lbs. As we have now approached
the period when the exportation of tobacco ar-
rived at a point from which it has vibrated,
(sometimes a little above or below it,) we sub-
join a statement of the exportation for the
years 1772—1775, inclusive, which will fur-
nish the remarkable fact that (compared with
any succeeding four years since that period)
the annual exportation of tobacco just before
the Revolution, was about the same that it has
been at any time since, in our most prosperous
periods. For although 1790 — 1792 were three
years of very heavy exportalions, they fell off
in 1793 nearly one-half, making the annual
average exportation not materially different
from 1772—1775:

Statement showing the quantity of tobacco export-
ed frwn the United Colonies from 1772 to 1775,
inclusive.

Jwm.

PooiidtuporM.

hLkl in S^
Bntaia.

Pounrft conranMd
or rrodiuinx oo
haod in oUwr
eouDtri«of£u-
rop*.

1772
1773
1774
1775

97,799,263
100,472,007

97,397,252
101,828,617

97,791,805
3,695,564
18,698,337
27,623,451

7,458
96,778,443
78,676.915
74,205,166

397,497.139

147,809,157

249,665,982

Total exportation for the 4 years, 397,497,139
lbs., or an annual average of 99,374,785 lbs.
This brings up to the period of the Revolution.
The following will exhibit the exportation of
the article during that period.

Statement shmoing the quantity of tobacco exported
from the United Colonies, from 1776 to 1782,
inclusive.

Tvn.

Pounds exported.

Poandi eonranied
or remaining on
hand in Great
Britain-

Pound* consnmed
or remainioK on
hand in other
coontriet of Eu-
rope.

1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782

14,498,500
2,441,214
11,961,533
17,155,907
17,424,267
13,339,168
9,828,244

•
f
7.520,550
10;982,899
11,474,791
7.600,296
6,364,813

14,498,500
2,441,214

4,440,783
6,173,008
5,950,176
5,738,872
3,463,431

86,649,533

43,913,349

42,705,984

♦ This year Great Britain exported to the Continent
nearly 26,000,000 lbs. of old etock.

\ Great Britain exported this year to the Continent
6,000,000 lbs. of former stock.

Total exportation for the 7 years, 86,649,533*
lbs., or an annual average of 12,378,504 lbs.
Of the total 7 years' exportation, 33,974,949 lbs.
were captured by the British during the war. -

The following table exhibits the exports of
tobacco from the United States, for the vears
1787, 1788, 1789, immediately preceding the
adoption of the present Constitution.

Statement showing the quantity of tobacco exported
from the United States, from 1787 to 1789, in-
clusive.

Yean.

-

Poundt exported.

Poundt consumed
or remaiDiDg on
band in Great
Britein.

Pounds consumed
or remaining on
hind in other
couutriee of Eu-
rope.

1787
1788
1789

99,041,000
88,595,000
88,675,000

45,379,795
39,600,404
48,831.232

44,661,205
48,995,186
39,843,768

267,311,000

133,811,431

133,500,159

It may be proper to remark, that the weight
of a hogshead of tobacco is much greater now
than formerly. Originally, tobacco being less
compactly pressed, the hogsheads averaged
only 600 lbs., but they gradually increased, and
in 1770, reached 1000 lbs. average. At this
time Kentucky averages about 1300 lbs. per
hogshead, and the average of all kinds (Ken-
tucky, Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio) we have
estimated at 1200 lbs. per hogshead, wlfich we
believe to be very nearly right. The annual
average exportation for the last 21 years, from
1815 to 1835, inclusive, is within a fraction of
82,760 hogsheads. Taking our estimate of
1200 lbs. per hogshead to be the true weight,
we shall thus have 99,313,000 lbs. as the an-
nual average for the last 21 years; and we
have seen that the annual average exportation
for the four years ending in and including
1775, was 99,374,785 lbs., which establishes
the remarkable fact, that the exportation of
leaf tobacco has remained stationary for a
period of 60 years.

On a careful examination of the foregoing
statements, it appears, that when our exports
of leaf tobacco, for two or three successive
years, much exceed 100,000,000 lbs.; for some
succeeding years they are proportionably re-
duced below that standard. It is also evident
that the revolutionary war gave a check to the
exportation of leaf tobacco from which it has
never recovered ; for until that period, as may
be seen by reference to the preceding state-
ments, the annual average exportation increased
regulariy and steadily. It was 37,780,000 lbs.
greater for the years 1763 to 1770, than for the
years 1744 to 1746; and for the years 1772 to
1775, it was 31,594,785 lbs. more than the an-
nual average for the years 1763 to 1770. In
other words, for the 31 years immediately pre-
ceding the revolution, our exports of leaf to-
bacco annually increased very nearly 2,328,000
lbs., and for the 60 years since that period, it
has remained stationary, except when inter-
rupted by wars or other commercial embar-
rassments. The reason is apparent. Before
the revolution, all Europe depended on us for
supplies of the article ; but, being cut off from
the supplies by the war, Europeans turned
their attention to growing it for themselves, anil
4 T 1045

TOBACCO.

TOBACCO.

Statement exhibiting the number of hogsJieads of tobacco exported from the United States from 1790 to
1835, inclusive, and the average price per pound, and gross value from 1802 to 1835, inclusive. Also
the number of pounds of manufactured tobacco and snuff exported from 1791 to 1835, inclusive, and
gross value from 1817 to 1835, inclu^ve.

Ye»n.

No.ofhh(lfcLeaf
Tobacco.

Average price
per lb.

Total value.

Manufacturad To-
bacco-lbs.

Snuff.

Value of manufac-
tured Snoff.

1790*

118,460'

1791

101,272

81,122'

1792

112,428

liZ'SI*

1793

59,947

137,784

1794

72,958

19,370

1795

61,050

.

Average price

Total value of

20,263

1796

69,018

per lb. not

Leaf Tobacco

29,181

1797

58,167

ascertained.

ascertained.

1^22^

1798

68,567

142,269

1799

96,070

406,076

1800

78,686

457,713

1801

103,758 J

472,282

1802

77,721

6Jc.

$6,220,000

233.591

Snuff and

1803

86,291

6

6,230,000

152,415

"

manufactured

Value unas-

1804

• 83,341

5;

6,000,000

298,139

Tobacco in-

certained.

1805

71,251

71

6,341,000

428,460

cluded.

1806

83,186

6,^

6,572,000

381,733

^

I807f

62,236

7J

5,476,000

274,952

1808t

9,576

7i

838,000

36,332

1809

53,921

5*

3,774,000

350,835

1810^

84,134

5

5,048,000

529,285

1811

35,828

9

2,150,000

752,553

1812

26,094

9

1,514,000

588,618

1813

5,314

5

319,000

283,512

1814

3,125

6i

232,000

79.377

■

1815'

r

85,337

8

8,235,000

1,034,045

1816

69,241

I5i

12,800,000

576,246j

1817

68,365

m

9,230,000

1,115,874

5,080

♦281,509

1818

84,337

10

10,241,341

1,486,240

5,513

373,875

1819

69,427

m

8,874,167

926.833

13,710

237,192

i^

83,940

8

8,188,188

593.358

4,996

149,589

66,858

n

5,798,045

1,332,949

44,552

149,083

1822

83,169

61

6,380,020

1,414,424

44,602

157,182

1823

99,000

H

6,437,627

1,987,507

36,684

154,955

1824

77,883

H

5,059,355

2,477,990

45,174

203,789

1825

75,984

6^

5,287,976

1,871,368

53,920

172,353

1826

64,098

6J

5,347,208

2,179,774

61,801

210,134

1827

100,025

5J

6,816,146

2,730,255

45,812

239,024

1828

96,278

41

5,480,707

2,637,411

85,655

210,747

1829

77,131

5f

5,185,370

2,619,399

19,509

202,390

1830

83,810

H

5,833,112

3,199,151

29,425

246,747

1831

86,718

41

4,892,388

3,639.856

27,967

292,475

1832

106,806

41

5,999,769

3,456,071

31,175

295,771

1833

83,153

5*

4,755,968

3,790,310

13,453

288,973

1834

87,979

6i

6,595,305

3,956,579

57,826

328,409

1835

94,353

7i

8,250,577

3,817,854 36,471

357,611

♦ French revolution.
$ Rambouillet decree.

f Berlin and Milan decrees.
II War with Great Britain.

t Embargo.
H Peace.

have continued to cultivate it all over the con-
tinent.

It will be observed that the exportation of
manufactured tobacco and snuff has increased
more than 44 fold since 1791, and more than
3 fold since 1817; but the gross value has not
proportionably increased, at least since 1817.

From a review of the subject, as above de-
tailed, it will be perceived, that, if it were
in our power to furnish a precise statement of
the exports of each description of tobacco, and
the countries to which it was exported (al-
though very desirable on many accounts), it
would not furnish satisfactory evidence that
the consumption of tobacco generally, or of
any particular description, had increased or di-
minished in Europe, without knowing ivhat they
grotv, as well as ivhat we export. We have de-
voted much labour and attention to this part of
the subject; but, although we can learn gene-
rally that the production of it in Europe keeps
pace with the increased consumption, yet our
researches have not enabled us to lay before
you any useful statement, either as to the quan-
tity or the qualities grown, except for 3 years
in France, as follows :
1046

Statement showing the quantity of Tobacco grown
in France for the years 1818 — 1820.

Fea™.

KUogrammes...

P«„„J. No.ofhhdi.,e8ti-
*^"'"'*- mated at 1,200
Ibt. per bhd.

1818
1819
1820

7,418,000
10,360,000
13,155,000

18,545,000
25,900,000
32,887,500

15,454
21,583
27,406

This shows an increased production of near-
ly double in the 3 years.

It will strike you with surprise, as it did us,
that the consumption of tobacco has increased
so much in our own country as to carry off
the very large surplus grown beyond the foreign
demand. Formerly, when all the tobacco was
grown in Virginia and Maryland, we exported
as much as we do now ; and now, in addition
to those states, which produce nearly, or quite
as much as they did then, Ohio, Kentucky, and
Tennessee, together with Connecticut, Penn-
sylvania, Indiana, and Missouri, produce as
much more. We must, therefore, consume
more than the quantity required for exportation.

Remarks. — If the preceding statements may
be relied on as correct, it appears that there

TOBACCO.

TOBACCO.

has been a very surprising increase of the use !
of tobacco in this country, and that the annual
consumption now amounts to upwards of i
100,000,000 lbs. : — giving about 7 lbs; to every [
man, woman, and child. The sum annually j
paid by the consumers of this quantity of to-
bacco in its manufactured state, has been com- 1
puted by a writer in The Portsmouth Journal, at
$20,000,000. (National Gazette, Philadelphia,
Oct. 6, 1836. Republished in Farmer's Registei;
vol. vi. 1838.)

Culture of Tobacco. — The following concise
directions for the cultivation and management
of tobacco are chiefly taken from a communi-
cation drawn up by Mr. J. F. Edmunds, of
Mecklenburg, Virginia, and originally pub-
lished in the Farmer's Register.

Raising the Plants. — The land for the plant-
bed is usually selected in a warm exposure on
the south or southeastern side of a hill in a
wood, new ground being always preferred.
From this the roots should be grubbed, the rub-
bish cleared away and the old leaves raked off,
Brush of pine or other wood is then to be
piled on until from 2 to 3 feet thick all over the
bed, and this is to be set on fire. As the beds
should be prepared for seeding immediately
after the frost is out of the ground, the brush
should be collected and put in place some time
during the winter. Instead of burning over
the whole bed at once, a part may be fired for
an hour or so at a time, proceeding thus over
the entire bed. The place is then to be broken
up with hoes, and sometimes with coulters
drawn by horses or oxen, and the work re-
peated until the earth is made perfectly fine,
being careful to avoid turning under the sur-
face. All the roots should then be extracted,
and the land laid off in beds (slightly elevated
if dry, and more if moist or wet) 4 feet wide.
And to 16 square yards, a common pipe-bowl
of seed is sown. The bed is then trodden or
pressed with hoes, and well covered with brush
to protect the plants from frosts. When the
plants have come fully out, they should be
slightly manured with strong manure made
fine ; this should be repeated frequently, and
in larger quantity, as the plants increase in
size and are able to bear it.

When the plants have attained a good size,
and there is no longer danger of frost, the
covering of brush is removed, and the bed
weeded with the hand, those employed in this
duty taking great care to avoid bruising the
tender plants. The beds require frequent pick-
ing to keep down the weeds.

Preparation and Planting. — The plants will
be generally ready for removal about the last
of May or first of June. They are to be drawn
out after a rain and transplanted in good
ground previously well prepared for their
reception.

Soil and Seasoti. — In Virginia and the other
states, the best tobacco is grown in rich, light,
alluvial, loamy land, or such as has been re-
cently cleared and brought into cultivation.
Tobacco requires a mild and warm season, and
can never be worth growing in situations ele-
vated much above the level of the sea, in
northern exposures, or in wet and springy land.

Field Culture. — The land for tobacco should

be of the best quality, either newly cleared and
virgin soil, or old ground highly manured and
well pulverized, or good clover fallow, ploughed
in the fall, manured and cross-ploughed in the
spring, just before planting, well harrowed,
and then laid off with a plough in rows 3, 3^,
or 4 feet apart each way. Every square thus
made is to be scraped with the hoe so as to
form a hill in which one plant is to be set. la
case the plants die from drought, or are de-
stroyed by worms, a very common occurrence,
others must be set in their places.

Cultivation. — The culture is very much like
that usually adopted for Indian corn, the plough,
cultivator and hand-hoe being freely u^ed to
keep down weeds and loosen the earth.

It is important to the early growth of the
plant to plough and work deep once or twice,
so that when it is ripening, the ground will
be broken deep and fine. (The coulter is
preferred for this operation.) This should be
effected without much interference with the
roots, as that would check the growth, and pre-
vent the plant from attaining its proper size.
And hence the advantage of greater distance
between the rows than the common distance
of 3^ feel — because the wide rows can be
ploughed, and worked with less damage to the
roots. In this, as in all other crops, if we wish
a good return, " we must speed the plough" and
hoe, before the roots run out. On our high
lands we should endeavour, by deep and
horizontal ploughing, to counteract the bad
efiects of drought. On our flats, we should aim
to prevent the collection of water by drains dis-
charged at the lowest point.

The bed is best for high land, because it
retains more moisture where it is generally
needed. The hill, retaining less moisture, is
best for flat land, where there is commonly a
superabundance.

Priming, Topping, Suckering, and Worming.—'
As the tobacco plant grows and developes, a
blossom-bud puts out from the top, which is
termed buttoning. This top must be pulled off
along with such of the upper leaves as are too
small to be of any value. The plants are thus
left usually about 2 or 3 feet high. The
plants also shoot out suckers from every leaf,
which must be broken off", care being taken not
to break the leaf from the main stem. This
causes the leaves to spread.

The most regular topping is performed by
measure. The topper carries in his hand a
measure 6 inches long, by occasionally apply-
ing which, he can regulate the priming with
great accuracy ; and as the remaining leaves
are numbered, this governs the operation, and
gains the object of even topping. The topper
should always carry this measure in his
hand, as it serves to prevent excuses foe
negligence and uneven topping. Prime six
inches, and top to eight leaves. We have
found, by experience, that this is the best ave-
rage height. We sometimes, but seldom, vary
from this general rule. If the land is poorer
than common, or if, from the backwardness of
the plant, and the advanced state of the season,
we apprehend frost, we do not prime as high ;
(say 4 inches.) If we have an uncommonly
rich spot, and there is danger that the top

1047

TOBACCO.

TOBACCO.

leaves will come to the ground, we should rise
in the same proportion. The crop should be
wormed and suckered, at least once a week.

Cutting and Housing. — In about 3 months
after setting out, the plants assume a spotted
and yellowish appearance, indicating that they
have attained sufiicient maturity for cutting
and housing. This stage of the tobacco cul-
ture is generally reckoned the most difficult
and delicate part of the whole business, and
the planter, if he wishes to be successful, must
give it all his attention, as the profit of a whole
plantation, for the year, greatly depends upon
the diligence and skilful management exercised
during the few days of cutting. He should
therefore be well prepared for this state of the
crop, by having the barns close, carts and
wagons in good order, and every thing ar-
ranged to despatch business as much as pos-
sible, since it is hard work he has to encounter.
To save a heavy crop in the best manner
requires both energy and activity. The most
^judicious hands should be selected for cutters.
The plants are cut with a knife near the
ground, and suflfered to lie in the sun for a
few hours, to cause them to "fall" or wilt.
When the field is a pretty large one, a middling
or average hand should count the whole num-
ber of plants he cuts, so that, allowing each
cutter the same number, we may arrive at
nearly the whole quantity cut. We should
never cut more nor less than will fill the con-
templated barn ; otherwise there is labour lost
in attending to a barn not full, or the overplus
is injured for want of firing. The tobacco,
after it has "fallen," or becomes sufficiently
limber, is carried to the barn in carts or wa-
gons, being from 6 to 10 plants on a stick, and
stowed away for firing. It is also of great im-
portance to be particular in the arrangement
of the sticks. The equal and general circula-
tion of heat throughout the house depends on
the manner in which this is done. Our barns
commonly have three firing tiers above, and
three below the joists. We commence ar-
ranging the sticks on the most elevated tier
in the roof, to which we give five inches dis-
tance ; and on each tier, as we descend, we
gain one inch ; so that on the lowest tier, near-
est the fire, the sticks are placed eleven inches
apart. This disposition of the sticks, I have
ascertained by late experiment, is important.
The sticks of tobacco being wider apart, next
o the fires, gives a freer circulation, and, con-
sequently, a more equal temperature, than the
usual way of equal distance from bottom to
top. The heat having more space to ascend,
must be more equal and generally difi'used, and
■will give a more uniform house of tobacco. I
esteem this a considerable improvement ; and
if we have house-room, and make a greater
difierence in the proportionate distance be-
tween the sticks, it will be a still better arrange-
ment.

Curing. — We commence our warming or
preparing fires, says Mr. Edmunds, the day
after housing. We prefer what is commonly
called the " bed logs" of green, and the " feed-
ing" of dry or seasoned wood. By this ar-
rangement the fires are rendered more govern-
able. The bed logs should be nicely fitted to
1048

the barn floor, two lengths to reach across, tli«
large ends placed outwards, to guard against
the tendency of heat to the centre. We keep
up our warming fires from 36 to 48 hours, the
mercury ranging from 100° to 115*^. This
will generally bring the leaf to the drying state;
the tail, or end of the leaf, now begins to curl
handsomely , and then the planter must be on the
alert. If he is careless, and his fires are made
too hot, the aromatic oil passes off with the sap
and smoke, and he has a house of red or dark
inferior tobacco. If his fires are kept loo low,
his tobacco gets into a clammy sweat, and the
oil escapes. There is much more danger of
the former than of the latter evil. There is
more tobacco injured by too much heat thaa
by the want of a sufficiency. The fires should
now be kept steady and regular, with a gradual
increase of heat, so that in 48 hours the mer-
cury will stand 150° to 160°. It must be kept
at or about that temperature until the tobacco
is cured.

Stripping, Prizing, Sfc. — After the plants be-
come suf&ciently dried, known by the stems
getting hard, which will be in about 2 months
after housing, the leaves are stripped from the
stalks. For this operation a moist time in the
spring or late in winter is chosen, to prevent
the leaves from crumbling. They are divided
by select hands into three classes for stripping:
1st, that which is of the best colour and qua-
lity; 2dly, that which is somewhat inferior,,
comprising the balance of the leaf; 3dly^
lugs, or ground leaves. Some planters make
still more classes, but this requires more at-
tention and discrimination than can be gene-
rally bestowed, at least by ordinary hands-
After sorting, the leaves are neatly tied up in
bundles called *' hands," consisting of 4 leaves
in each bundle of the first class, or 6 of the-
second and third classes. The hands are next
" put down to condition," as the process is
commonly termed. This consists in putting it
in large bulks and subjecting it to pressure
from weights, in which state it undergoes a
sweat. It must be watched during this pro-
cess, and as soon as it is observed beginning
to heat, taken out and hung up to dry. After
drying thoroughly, it must be again taken down
and put into bulk, a damp spell being chosen
so as to prevent the leaves from breaking or
crumbling. In Mr. Edmunds' instructions he ob-
serves, that, " at the close of each day's stripping, »
and oftener if the weather is drying, we bulk
down what has been stripped, being careful to
pack straight. It is left in this situation until
we wish to commence prizing, and then hung,
from 12 to 15 bundles on a smooth stick, and
hoisted in the barn, the sticks placed 6 inches
apart, the bolster carrying a measure in his
hand. It is important to measure, as the order
will be more uniform. It should remain until
the stems are perfectly dry; after which it
should be taken down for prizing, as dry as it
can be handled without breaking. It remains
in this state a few days, until the leaves are
pressed together, and we have soft weather
for packing. Each bundle is then carefully
straightened, repacked, and heavily weighted.
It is then ready for prizing. We should prize
in weather when the order of the tobacco will

TOBACCO.

TOBACCO.

not change. Each bundle should be straight, and
closely packed in hogsheads in the usual way."
Some very excellent views upon the culture
and subsequent management of tobacco will
be found dispersed through the different south-
em agricultural periodicals, and especially the
first volume of the Farmer's Register. One of
the communications in this last work, signed
Frederick Oronoko, is very full of information
upon every branch of the subject. The writer
states that two great errors are generally com-
mitted in topping and primiiig. On rich land
the plants are topped too low, which, with
planting too far apart, causes the leaves to
grow too large, coarse, and curly. On such
lands, instead of making 10 leaves, at least 12
should be made by topping to about 16, and
not finishing priming with the topping, but
commencing again when the four top leaves
get about half-grown. If the seasons be fa-
vourable to a rapid growth, some of the high
top suckers shoula be indulged a while, which
in a wet summer will prevent the leaves from
growing coarse. Nothing, he says, is easier
than to keep down the size of the leaves, and
prevent them from getting too large, if you will
only top high and indulge the suckers to a pro-
per extent in the early part of the summer,
when the seasons are favourable to rapid
growth. Sucker and prime judiciously, as the
rains subside and dry weather sets in. By
turning out a superabundance of leaves, it en-
ables one to speculate on the weather in this
crop with more certainty than can be done
with any other. The four top leaves are al-
ways the richest, if ripe, and of much the best
and most useful shape. In a plant of 10 leaves,
he thinks, in general, they are worth more than
the other six, although the four are not so
large, and do not usually weigh more than half
as much as the six. The same rules, he thinks,
are also applicable to the culture of tobacco on
thin land, such as can just barely produce a
crop, although he is opposed to the culture of
such poor land. One-third to one-half of the
Virginia crop is made upon such land as does
not pay for the labour. It is a general im-
pression that much of the fine, high-priced
tobacco has been made on poor land. It will,
he says, "be well to correct this error, as it has
caused much injury, and great loss of labour,
and final destruction and death to a great deal
of thin land, either poor originally, or in the
last stage of consumption by the Virginia-kill-
ing mode of cultivation. It is true, however,
to a notorious degree, that several poor coun-
ties have of late been very conspicuous, and,
perhaps, meritoriously celebrated, for making
fine, high-priced tobacco ; but the fine tobacco
was not made on poor land, when the land was
actually poor; it was made on the richest,
liveliest spots that could be picked out in those
poor counties. Many of those who have not rich
land, have resorted to the necessity of picking
the best spots of thin land with only a meager
coat of soil, and that coat nearly all composed
of vegetable matter, scraped into hills, which
causes them to be tolerably rich, active, and
productive for one or two years, as this is
generally new ground. In this way a part of
the fine, high-priced tobacco has been made,
132

but much the greater part has been produced
by the rich land, with the aid of the art of high
curing, with but little or no fire."

Another great error dwelt upon by the same
writer is that of cutting before the plant gets
entirely ripe, which is the chief cause why so
much is defective in flavour, colour, and sub-
stance ; and why so much feels rich and thick
without being so. The odoriferous qualities
of most aromatic plants are acquired in great-
est perfection during the last stages of their
growth, and some are never fully developed
till they get through the process of curing,
which is peculiarly the case with tea, coffee,
and tobacco. Much of the substance as well
as weight are therefore sacrificed by premature
cutting, which also prevents the plant from
curing with a good, lively, healthy colour. A
dull, dingy hue will inevitably be the aspect of
all that is cut green, cure it as you may. Any
bright colour given to it artificially by the pro-
cess of curing will fade away. "I hazard no-
thing in the declaration that every rich plant
cut in perfection, fully ripe, whether on rich
or thin land, bottom or high land, may be cured
of good colour and flavour, that will be lasting
and delicious to the taste and smell. And al-
though good colour and flavour constitute the
chief value, yet no more than about one-tenth
of the Virginia crop has ever come to market
with these great advantages.

" Many incorrect and erroneous opinions
have gone into circulation respecting colour.
Impressions have been extensively made in the
country that yellow is a favourite hue. A
bright, lively colour is invariably admired by
the purchasers who give the highest prices.
But neither brown, red, nor yellow will do. A
rich mixture of red and yellow on the under
side of the leaf is desirable; such a mixture
as is to be found in fat lightwood, and brilliant,
rich, bright mahogany. The dull brown and
dark, dingy colours are very objectionable.
The next best colour to the favourite one just
described, is a rich, deep yellowish-green, or
rather the fat lightwood colour, with a slight
admixture or tinge of green, but it is so much
the worse of the green, in the ratio that it con-
tains that shade, which lessens the fine flavour,
and detracts from the value.

"A similar colour, in a faint and feeble de-
gree, can be given to the poor, thin tobacco,
and is certainly a handsome dressing for it in
the new state, and is well calculated to take
with superficial judges. But as such a dress-
ing injures the stamina, and increases the fad-
ing in going through the sweat, either on land
or at sea, it should never be attempted, as it is
an injury, and will never take with any com-
petent judge."

The dapple, or pieball, is very much admired
by many purchasers who are esteemed good
judges, but the writer thinks those variegated
colours a disadvantage, and the results of either
too rapid curing, or bruising in pressing. A
competent judge, he says, had rather have the
under side of the leaf, stem, and fibres, all of
one colour, of the fat lightwood appearance ; and
this uniformity in colour proves the maximum,
and is the best evidence of rich, well-cured
tobacco, in its highest perfection.

4 T 2 1049

TOBACCO.

TOBACCO.

The same writer thinks that firing has been
carried to great excess, very much to the injury
of tobacco, of late years, both in smoking it too
much, and parching and curing it too rapidly.
The smoke is a very objectionable flavour,
and the excessive parching makes the leaf too
crisp, and destroys the valuable elasticity. It
should be well cured, with as little fire as pos-
sible. Some cure it very well xoilhout fire.

Several years ago, a great number of plant-
ers took up the impression, that the purchasers
were fond of hard-fired tobacco, from the erro-
neous opinion of some of them, who said they
liked to smell the effects of fire, because it
was an evidence that it was well cured ; but
they have since discovered their error, and no
one is now fond of the smell of smoke, which
is a great objection in every market in Europe
as well as in America.

The following additional observations rela-
tive to curing tobacco, are furnished by the
same authority.

Sunning the tobacco is very necessary after
cutting; but it should not be kept in the field
any longer than to kill and make it sufficiently
limber for removal to hang on sticks upon a
scaffold at the tobacco-house, where it should
hang in open airy order, at first letting in the
sun well upon the stalks. In this way the butt-
end of the stalks and big ends of the leaves
and stems will get a great deal of the sun's
heat, which they require in curing. And as
fast as the leaves contract and draw up from
heat, and in drying, the plants should be moved
up nearer to each other, in closer and closer
order, to prevent the lower parts of the leaves
from being exposed to the sun.

It would be a great advantage to split the
stalks, as it facilitates the curing-very much.
They should be split from the top down within
2 or 3 inches of the cutting point. The plants
thus split should straddle the sticks, and the
sticks should range north and south, so that
the morning's sun will shine on one side of the
stalks, and the evening's on the other. In this
manner it should take the sun and open air
night and day, until it becomes well cured,
and until the stalks, and stems, and leaves get
dry. Showers of rain, and even heavy shov:ers,
in this situation, while the leaf continues green,
are of little disadvantage ; because they only
wet a small part, viz.: the under side of the
leaves, which are now uppermost. Nearly all
of the rich ingredients are concentrated on the
upper side of the plants as they stand growing.

But hot, sultry spells of rainy or very damp
weather, of many days continuance, will
mould, mildew, rot, or wash it to destruction,
particularly after a considerable progress in
curing. And when the winds come from the
eastward, preceded by several damp, cloudy
days, you may count" upon a long spell, and
then you should commence housing before the
rain sets in, or much falls ; and use fire as the
weather may require.

The firing should be in close houses ; the
•closer the better. And the more windows, the
better, all with tight shutters, to shut out the
damp in long wet spells, and let it in when
wanted to bring the tobacco in order. No to-
1050

bacco can be finally well cured without coming
and going frequently. You cannot have any
command of your tobacco as regards weather,
without close, tight houses, which are of very
great importance.

Five fires dispersed are enough for a room
20 feet square ; and they should not be large,
but burn free, steady, and gradual, and would
be the better of never going entirely out, if you
intend curing by this destructive mode. But
why make fires in the house at alii As
smoke is now so very objectionable, why not
do the little firing that may be necessary in
very long wet or damp spells, to prevent mould,
mildews, &c., in the manner that plank is
steamed and dried at saw-mills 1 — by stoves,
or by running a ditch or two through the house,
and covering this with flat slabs of rock, or
arching it over with brick, and making the fire
at one end, out of doors. The heat and smoke
thus procured will be enough in a close house,
with the windows all shut, to prevent mould,
mildew, <Stc.

Those who cure without firing, or with as
little as possible, let it remain after it turns
yellow until the stalks and stems as well as the
leaves get dry, in the open air and sun, if
the weather permits, or in the house by the aid
of fire, if necessary. But if the stalks, stems,
and leaves get dry before the leaves get suffi-
ciently yellow, let the tobacco hang until it be-
comes very high indeed from wet or damp wea-
ther, and bulk it in this damp, soft, high order, in
very large bulks, in a very close room, and cover
well with straw, &c., with heavy weights on
the top, and let it remain till it gets warm ; ex-
amine it every three to four hours night and
day, and as soon as it yellows sufficiently,
hang it up in the house, if the weather be wet
or very damp, and fire it moderately and gra-
dually until dry.

The best kinds of woods to use are those
which make the most heat and weakest smoke.
The kinds best for smoking bacon are the worst
for firing tobacco, since the smoke flavour has
become objectionable.

Another correspondent of the Farmer's Re-
gister shows, by observations of the thermome-
ter, the precise degrees of heat to which the
tobacco is subjected in the different stages of
firing. He has also furnished valuable in-
formation in relation to other points connected
with the curing process. In warm weather,
says this writer, we hang from 8 large plants
to 10 small ones on each stick; the sticks
should be carried immediately into the house,
and placed 8 or 9 inches apart. The sticks
having been regularly arranged throughout the
house, the process of curing then comes on.

My practice for several years, with but little
variation, has been to regulate the sticks, the
day after cutting and next morning. Com-
mence with small fires, so as to raise the ther-
mometer to 90° ; this heat should be continued
from 36 to 48 hours, which we call the warm-
ing or preparatory fire: (the small yellow
I tobacco, when cut, requiring a shorter prepara-
[ tion than large, thick, green tobacco;) the heat
I should then be raised gradually 10°, and con-
I tinued 4 or 5 hours — thus continuing to raise

TOBACCO.

TOBACCO.

the heat throughout the whole process 10°
every 4 or 5 hours, until the thermometer
reaches 150°, which is called a curing heat.
The continuation of this heat depends much
on the state of the atmosphere, as well as on
the size of the plant : it should, however be
continued until the whole plant is thoroughly
cured. As soon, then, as the tobacco comes in
order to handle, you may remove it to some
other house, hanging it as thick as you can
conveniently press the sticks together, where
it will remain in perfect security until you are
ready for stripping.

In the month of November you may safely
begin to strip ; and much care should be used
in making the difierent qualities, as well as
tying the different bundles; the "tie leaf"
should be stemmed, which looks much better
than to have one-half of the leaf hanging
down the bundle. A good hand will tie from
700 to 1000 bundles in the day The tobacco
stripped during the day, can be easily packed
down in bulk at night, on a platform raised 18
or 20 inches from the floor, where it may re-
main until winter is nearly over, when it must
be rehung in order to get it in prizing order.

Much depends on the order for prizing. The
stem must be perfectly dry : never strike or
take down tobacco for prizing, unless the wind
is at some southern point ; and it should be
taken down as dry as you can possibly handle
without very much breaking it. When down,
it should be well covered with fodder or leaves ;
if the " season" continues, you may pack it in
bulk as straight as possible for prizing ; the
hogshead weighing from 16 to 18 cwt. The
following are a few extracts from notes taken
last summer during the curing season.

" 15th Sept. 1833. First barn — tobacco very
ripe — weather hot and dry^-cut Friday — com-
menced firing Monday morning — thermometer
90° at 9 o'clock— 12 o'clock 106°— process too
rapid— half past 3 o'clock, 110° — fired all night
— Tuesday 9 o'clock, 120°— 3 o'clock 150°—
fired all night— Wednesday 150°— fired all
night— Thursday 150°— Friday 150°— fires
kept up irregularly, and stopped in the evening,
High wind each day — thermometer at back
side of the house." When this tobacco came
in order to be examined, I discovered that a
small portion was somewhat injured by the
fires being too strong in the commencement,
as seen above.

"16ih Sept. 1833. Second barn— tobacco
ripe — but not very ripe — weather hot and dry —
cut SatuMay — commenced firing Monday —
smoked all day at 90° — Tuesday the same half
day — Tuesday evening thermometer 100° —
Wednesday morning leaf half cured on the
lower tier — heat 140° — fired half night — Thurs-
day 146°— Friday 146°— fired half night— hand-
somely cured — thermometer 3 feet from the
door and 5 feet high — windy each day.

"22dSept. Third barn— dry weather — cut
Saturday — not very ripe — commenced firing
Monday morning 90° — continued all night at
same — Tuesday 9 o'clock 110° — tails curling —
tobacco looks very well — Wednesday 120° at
9 o'clock — lower tier leaf nearly cured — Thurs-
day 150°— fired all night— Friday 160°— fired

till bedtime." This house, on examination,
was very well cured.

I forgot to mention in the proper place that
my barns are made as tight and close as pos-
sible. I do not, however, think that the roof
should be very close ; my barns are covered
with oak boards, and are generally open enough
to let off the smoke and vapour as fast as they
are formed. Some of my neighbours have win-
dows made just under the comb of the house.

As the essential properties of the tobacco
plant are very volatile, the writer maintains
that the sooner it is well cured and pressed into
hogsheads the better, and the hogshead cannot
be too tight. If the crop comes in early, so as
to admit of being cured in autumn, it will be
all the better. It should not, if possible, be al-
lowed to remain out of the hogsheads all winter.
He tells the planters of Virginia not to fear that
they will ever overstock the world with fine
tobacco, and thereby reduce the price. The
finer it is made, the less will be made in Eu-
rope and other countries not so favourable to
the perfection of its qualities. The low, dull
state of the markets for common and inferior
tobacco, is not the result of too much, but a
consequence of its indifferent quality, which
causes it to be little if any better than that
which is made on the continent of Europe,
with which it comes in competition.

In Maryland and Virginia it is estimated
that one good hand can manage 6000 plants,
which, allowing a yard to each, would cover
about an acre and a quarter. A hogshead
weighing 1.350 lbs. (some weigh 1800) is con-
sidered a good yield for one hand. On the fine
rich lands of Kentucky, from 1000 to 1500 lbs.
are raised per acre. In Virginia the leaves of
4 good plants are estimated to make 1 lb. of
cured tobacco.

Some of the diseases, accidents, and ene-
mies to which tobacco is exposed, are, in the
language of the planter, worm-holes, ripe-shot
or sun-burnt, moon-burnt, stunted, torn by
storms of hail and wind, injured or killed by
frost, house-burnt.

Tobacco, Chemistry of. Under the head of
Ammoitia it has been observed that the juice of
fresh tobacco leaves contains ammoniacal
salts. The existence of the volatile alkali in
cured tobacco, is shown by the action of the
smoke of a cigar upon blue vegetable flowers,
or vegetable colours, turning the reds to purple,
and the purples to green.

When the leaves of the tobacco plant are
subjected to distillation with water, a weak
ammoniacal liquid is obtained, upon, which a
white, fatty, crystallizable substance swims,
which does not contain nitrogen, and is quite
destitute of smell. But when the same plant,
after being dried, is moistened with water, tied
together in small bundles, and placed in heaps,
a peculiar process of decomposition takes
place. Fermentation commences, and is ac-
companied by the absorption of oxygen ; the
leaves now become warm and emit the cha-
racteristic smell of prepared tobacco and snuff.
When the fermentation is carefully promoted
and too high a heat avoided, this smell in-
creases and becomes more delicate ; and after

1051

TOMATO.

TORMENTIL.

the fermentation is completed, an oily, azotized,
volatile matter called nicotine is found in the
leaves. This substance, nicotine, which pos-
sesses all the properties of a base, was not
present before the fermentation. The different
kinds of tobacco are distinguished from one
another, like wines, by having very different
odoriferous substances, which are generated
along with the nicotine.

On a soil which contains potash, both wheat
and tobacco may be reared in succession, be-
cause the latter plant does not require phos-
phates, salts which are invariably present in
wheat, but requires only alkalies, and food
containing nitrogen.

According to the analysis of Posselt and Rei-
mann, 10,000 parts of the leaves of the tobacco
plant contain 16 parts of phosphate of lime,
8*8 parts of silica, and no magnesia ; whilst
an equal quantity of wheat straw contains 47-3
parts, and the same quantity of the grain of
wheat 99-45 parts of phosphates.

Now, if we suppose that the grain of wheat
is equal to half the weight of its straw, then
the quantity of phosphates extracted from a
soil by the same weights of wheat and tobacco
must be as 97"7 : 16. This difference is very
considerable. The roots of tobacco, as well as
those of wheat, extract the phosphates contain-
ed in the soil, but they restore them again, be-
cause they are not essentially necessary to the
developement of the plant. (Liebig's Organic
Chemistry.)

TOMATO, or LOVE-APPLE (Solanum lyco-
persicum ; Lycopersicon esculatum). There are
two species of the tomato at present in culti-
vation in England: the red-fruited and the
yellow-fruited. Of each of these there are
several sub-varieties, chiefly differing in the
size and shape of their fruit. The most esteem-
ed is the common large red, though for pickling
some of the smaller-fruited varieties are pre-
ferable.

Of the red there are —

1. The common large. 2. Small. 3. Pear-
shaped. 4. Cherry-shaped.

Of the yellow there are —

1. The large yellow. 2. Small, or cherry-
yellow.

The soil best suited for the love-apple is
rich, light, and mouldy, in a dry subsoil ; for,
although a regular supply of moisture is a
chief requisite, yet stagnant water is very in-
jurious. Sea-weed may be applied with advan-
tage to the border on which it is grown, as
may kelp or common salt in small quantities.
The situation must be sheltered. It is propa-
gated by seed, which may be sown at the close
of March or early in April, in a hot-bed or
stove, which latter is to be preferred. The hot-
bed must be of a moderate durability, earthed
about 6 inches deep. The sowing must not be
performed until the requisite time has elapsed
for guarding against the danger of a violent
heat arising. If a hot-house be employed as
the nursery of the seedlings, the seed must be
sown in pots or boxes set on the flues or round
the edges of the pits.

In whatever situation sown, the seed must
be scattered thin, and not buried more than
half an inch below the surface. The plants
1052

are not long in appearing; when of two or
three weeks' growth, in which time they ac-
quire a height of as many inches, they must be
thinned to 3 inches apart, and those removed,
if wanted, pricked at the same distances, in a
similar- bed to that from which they may be
removed; shade and water being aflTorded as
may appear necessary. Air and light must
be afforded freely in every stage of their growth.

This annual trailing plant is a native of
South America, and is now most extensively
used in Europe, but still more so in the United
States, where they flourish most luxuriantly
and mature in the open air, the fruit of
some species growing to a very large size,
sometimes a single one weighing a pound, and
even 1^ lbs. It is used in the preparation of
soups, and when stewed it forms a fine vege-
table sauce, of a rich and pleasant acid fla-
vour. In its preparation the ripe fruit is cut ia
halves, and squeezed sufficiently to extract the
water and seeds, and, being put in a pan, with
a pod of pepper or capsicum, and a small portion
of beef-gravy or butter, it is stewed over a slow
fire for an hour ; it is afterwards rubbed through
a sieve into a clean stew-pan and simmered a
few minutes, salt and other seasoning having
been added. When well prepared, it constitutes
a superior vegetable. The tomato is reputed to
be possessed of highly valuable medicinal vir-
tues, and forms a most wholesome article of food.
With sugar it makes a very valuable preserve.
In the Middle or Northern States, the seed may
be sown in April, in a hot-bed ; or in May, in a
warm situation, and transplanted as soon as the
season will admit. A middling soil produces
more fruit and less vines than a very rich soil.

Tomatoes remaining on the vines late in
the season, and which, if left out, would be de-
stroyed by frost, may be preserved for many
weeks by simply pulling up the vines and hang-
ing them up, with the fruit upon them, in some
house or sheltered situation. Those not ripe
when the vines are pulled mature afterwards.

Cows are said to thrive well and give an in-
creased quantity of milk of improved quality
when fed upon tomatoes. They may not take
them kindly at first, but are said to grow fond
of them soon.

TOMENTOSE. In botany, covered with
dense, close, white hairs, or down.

TOP-DRESSING. A term applied to such
manures as are laid upon land without being
turned in : and also to the practice of dressing
the surface of grass land, or other crops, with
some kinds of highly reduced manure, that caa
be evenly spread out or sown equally over them
by the hand.

A great variety of substances are in use for
this purpose, such as soot, ashes, the dung of
pigeons and other birds, rape dust, lime, gyp-
sum, &c., the benefits of which are noticed
under their respective heads.

TORMENTIL (Tormentilla, alluding to a
supposed efficacy in toothache, as well as to a
belief that it could cure diseases of the bowels).
The British species are two ; both perennial.
They are now regarded as belonging to the
genus Potentilla, and the natural order Rosacea.

1. In England common tormentil or sept-foil
{P. officinalis or tormentilla) grows in barren pas-

TOUCH-ME-NOT.

TREES.

tares, heaths, and bushy places. The stem is
slender, ascending, branched. The woody red
roots are so astringent as to be used in the
western isles of Scotland for tanning leather,
for which purpose they are superior even to
oak bark. The root is likewise one of the most
efficacious of English indigenous aromatic as-
tringents, and may be used with great effect in
cases where medicines of this class are proper;
namely, in chronic purgings. It is usually
given in decoction, but is best administered in
powder.

2. Trailing tormentil (T.reptans). This spe-
cies grows sparingly about the borders of fields
and hedges. The stems are 2 feet long, hairy,
prostrate, but not creeping ; the leaves com-
posed of 5 leaflets, obovate, strongly serrated,
bright green, on long hairy footstalks. Flower
of a full yellow, twice the size of the foregoing.
Stipules undivided. It is also astringent, but
less so than its congener.

TOUCH-ME-NOT. See Balsaw.

TOWER-MUSTARD (Turritis, from turris,
a tower; the foliage is so disposed on the stems
as to give them a pyramidal form, and for the
same reason the plants are called tower-mus-
tard). The species are hardy annuals: one,
the smooth tower-mustard (T. glabra), is indi-
genous, and grows wild on banks and by road-
sides, in a dry gravelly soil. The flowers are
numerous, closely corymbose, pale sulphur-
coloured. Pods very long and slender, on
short stalks. Seeds about 60 in each cell, very
small. ,"

TRACTION. Sec Cahts, Hobse, Road,
Btrknoth, &c. The reader may also consult
a very able essay " On Draught" in Professor
Youalt's work on The Horse, of which our space
will not allow us to give even an outline.

TRANSPLANTING. The act of removing
either cuttings, layers, roots, or entire plants,
from one soil into another. See Plaxtiii© and
Fbopaoatiok.

TRAPA NATANS. This plant grows in
ponds, and is eaten like the chestnut. The
canal of Versailles is covered with the plant,
and the root is sometimes served up at table.

TRAVELLER'S JOY. See Clematis.

TREACLE- MUSTARD (£ry«mu»;i, from
erion, to draw and cure : it is popularly reck-
oned a cure for a sore throat, and is also said
to draw and produce blisters). An extensive
genus of plants, possessing warm and pungent
qualities. The leaves are simple, often lanceo-
late, and nearly entire. Flowers corymbose,
yellow, sulphur-coloured, or white. Pods in
very long upright clusters. There are in Eng-
land three indigenous annual species. 1. The
worm-seed treacle-mustard (£. cherianlhoides) ;
2. The garlic treacle-mustard (£. alliaria),
known also under the local names of Jack-by-
the-hedge, or sauce-alone. 3, Hare's-ear trea-
cle-mustard (£. orientate). The second is the
most common. The whole herb is smooth,
shining, deep green, and exhales, when bruised,
the smell of garlic; and the seeds are stronger
•than the other parts of the plant. The stem is
a foot high, somewhat branched. The leaves
stalked, cordate, acute, veiny, and broadly ser-
rated. The flowers are white. The pods erect,
smooth, on a spreading stalk. The peasantry

eat the young leaves with bread and butter.
See Hedge Mustakd.

TREES are divided naturally into two prin-
cipal classes, namely, fruit and timber trees :
the former includes all such as are raised
chiefly, or entirely, for their edible fruit, an ac-
count of which, together with their modes of
cultivation, the reader will find in alphabetical
order, and also in the articles Fhuit, Obcuard,
Pbunino, &c.

The second division comprehends those
trees, the wood of which is employed in ship-
building, machinery, or for other useful pur-
poses, such as the oak, elm, larch, &c., the
culture of which has been discussed under
those respective heads. For the diseases of
trees, see Ameeicax Blight, Camkeb, Mil-
dew, &c.

By timber, in English law, is intended only
such trees as are considered fit and proper by
the custom of the country to be employed in
building or repairing houses ; and timber trees
are those which are of 20 years' growth. The
custom of the country naturally varies with re-
gard to the kind of trees which are considered
to be timber. The oak, the elm, and the ash are
universally deemed to be such : beech is con-
sidered so in Buckinghamshire, birch in York-
shire, because it is generally used for buildings
of an inferior kind. Thus the chestnut, wal-
nut, lime, and others may, under similar cus-
toms, be considered timber. If pollards are
sound, it seems that they must be considered
as timber : this was the opinion of Chancellor
King.

According to English common law, the
property of the tree is in the owner of the soil
on which it grows ; and though its roots may
extend into two estates, yet it belongs to the
owner of the land on which it was originally
planted or sown. Nurseries of young fruit
trees, raised for filling up orchards, cannot be
removed by the tenant, but a nurseryman may
do so.

The tenant for life, without impeachment of
waste, of an estate, may cut down timber in a
husbandlike manner. But the Court of Chan-
cery will restrain such tenant from cutting
down underwood of an insufiicient growth, or
ornamental or sheltering trees. But this shel-
ter or ornament is not to be construed to mean
extensive woods.

By custom, but not by common law, the trees
growing on a copyhold estate may belong to
the lord. The copyholder is not guilty of
waste if he cut timber merely for necessary
repairs. Timber trees growing on the estates
of ecclesiastical corporations are to be devoted
to the repair of the church. And consequently
neither they nor their lessee can fell timber for
their own use. Neither can a mortgagor cut
down timber if the land without it is a scanty
security. But the Court of Chancery will not
restrain a mortgagor from cutting timber,
unless the security is insufficient without it.
Though the timber of the estate belongs to the
landlord, and also such trees as are likely to
become timber, yet the general property in
bushes and trees not timber is in the tenant ;
and, therefore, the landlord cannot maintain an
action of trespass against a stranger, for cut-

1053

TREFALLOW.

TUCKAHOE.

ting bushes and thorns growing in a hedge, if
the tenant afterwards assented. The tenant or j
lessee has no right to cut timber; and in an
action for waste the defendant cannot give in
evidence, even in mitigation of damages, that
the timber was cut for the purpose of neces-
sary repairs ; or, that after it was cut the tim-
ber was exchanged with the lessor's consent
for timber more fit for the purpose intended.
But he may cut timber without waste which
has been cut within 20 years ; and in Kent they
are in the habit of cutting trees of 26 or 28
years' growth. Windfalls belong to the lord,
and the Court of Chancery will, if necessary,
order it to be preserved for him who has the
first estate of inheritance in the land. See
Bark, Forests, Nursery, Timber, &c.

TREFALLOW. A local term, signifying to
plough land the third time before sowing.

TREFOIL {TrifoUum, from tres, three, and
folium, a leaf. Ail the species have trifoliate
leaves. The French call it trefle, and the Eng-
lish trefoil, or clover). An extensive and well-
known genus of herbaceous plants, natives of
cold or temperate climates, either perennial or
annual. Many of the species are highly im-
portant as food for cattle, either fresh or in the
state of hay, often acquiring a fragrant scent
in drying. The white, red, and yellow clover
are amongst the most valuable herbage plants
adopted in European agriculture.

Lucern has been recommended as superior
to clover and sainfoin, and various other legu-
minous plants have been highly extolled ; yet
the red clover for mowing, and the white for
pasturage, far excel all other plants in these
respects. All the species thrive in common
garden soil, and many of them being very
showy are well suited for ornamenting the
flower border. The perennial kinds are rea-
dily increased by dividing the plants at the
roots in spring, or by seeds. See Biru's-Foot
Trefoil, Clover, and Melilot.

TREFOIL, THE MARSH. See Buck-Beax.

TRENCH PLOUGH. See Plough.

TRENCHING. See Subsoil Ploughi:?g.

TRIFOLIUM INCARNATUM. A well-
known and much esteemed species of trefoil.
See Clover and Trefoil.

TRITICUM. See Wheat-Grass.

TRUFFLE (Tuber cibarium). A round fun-
gus growing under ground in many parts of
Southern Europe, destitute of roots and leafy
appendages. It absorbs nutriment at every
point on its surface. The truffle is composed
of globular vesicles, destined for the reproduc-
tion of the vegetable, and short, barren fila-
ments, called by Turpin tigcUules; and the re-
productive bodies, trufinelles. Each globular
vesicle is fitted to give origin to a multitude of
reproductive bodies, but a few of them only
perfect the young vegetable. The parent dies ;
the trufinelles are nourished by its dissolving
substance, and the cavity it originally filled
becomes the abode of a multitude of young
truffles; but many of them die, the stronger
starving the weaker. As truffles spread over
a large space, it is difficult to say by what
means they progress. The truffle is one of the
most wholesome and nutritive of the esculent
fungi, and is generally discovered by means of
1054

dogs, which are taught to scent it ; so that, on
smelling the truffle, they bark and scratch it
up. Truffles are highly esteemed at the tables
of the luxurious, where they are served up,
either roasted in a fresh state like potatoes, or
they are dried, shred, and dressed as ingredi-
ents in soups and ragouts. See Tuckahoe.

TRUSS. A bundle of hay, straw, &c. It
may be observed that in England a truss of
hay must contain 56 lbs. or half a cwt. ; a truss
of straw 36 lbs. : 36 trusses make a load. In
June, July, and August, a truss of new hay
must weigh 60 lbs. See Hat and Straw.

TUCKAHOE. This curious vegetable is
sometimes known by the name of Indian bread,
or Indian loaf. It is found in the Southern
States on the Atlantic, and even as far north as
Kent county, Del. It is a natural production,,
the origin of which has greatly perplexed na-
turalists, as it is commonly found several feet
under the surface, and, like the truffle of Eu-
rope, has apparently no stem or leafy appendage
connecting it with the external atmosphere.
They are generally found through the instru-
mentality of hogs, whose acute sense of smell-
ing enables them to fix upon the spot where
they lie buried. They are usually of a glo-
bular or flattened oval shape, and rather regu-
lar surface, the large ones resembling some-
what a brown loaf of coarse bread. The size
varies from that of an acorn to the bigness of
a man's head. Clayton, the celebrated bota-
nist, was the first naturalist who has mentioned
the Tuckahoe. He gave it the Latin name of
Lycopcrdon solidu. (See his Flora Virginica.) In
May, 1817, Dr. Macbride, of Charleston, S. C,
communicated a memoir on the subject to the
New York Philosophical Society. Although
the tuckahoe is quite common in the Southern
and one or two of the Middle States, its natu-
ral history is still involved in nauch obscurity.
Its name in the Indian language is said to de-
signate bread, and is applied to certain edible
roots. Though sometimes found emerging
from the earth and exposing a small part of
the surface, it is generally met with 2 or 3 feet
below the soil. When first dug up, it is soft
enough to be easily cut with a knife, and of an
acrid taste. Its colour internally is white, like
that of the meat of the cocoa-nut, and its tex-
ture compact and homogeneous. It is covered
with a tough substance, strongly adhering to
the white parenchyma, of a dark brown colour,
and somewhat wrinkled. When dried, the in-
ternal substance becomes hard and loses its
acrimony, possessing very little taste or smell,
and capable of being reduced to powder with-
out difficulty. When examined by the mi-
croscope, the tuckahoe exhibits no fibres or
pores or any other indications of organization,
so easily detected in roots and other vegetable
productions of ordinary growth. Its substance
breaks as easily in one way as another, like a
lump of starch or chalk. From these charac-
teristics, together with the peculiar nature of
the bark or external covering, it has been
classed among the fungus tribe. In those parts
of the country, however, where the tuckahoe
most abounds, it is generally supposed to be
the root of a species of Convolvulus (Pandura-
|«ns), called "the man of the earth:' But both

TULL, JETHRO.

TULL, JETHRO.

Dr. Macbride and Mr. La Conte, after much
attentive examination in its native state, are
decidedly of the contrary opinion, the roots of
the Convolvulus being unlike those of the tucka-
hoe. Most of the southern botanists regard it
as a fungus. (See Medical Repository, vol. vi.)
See Trwffle.

TULIP {Tulipa). A genus of celebrated
and much-prized florists' flowers. They suc-
ceed well in rich loam and sand, and are in-
creased by offsets ; new varieties are obtained
from seed. The choicer kinds require to be
taken up and dried after they have ceased flow-
ering, and planted again in the autumn. They
should be slightly protected in very rainy or
frosty weather, as they are very liable to rot.
One species, the wild tulip (T. sylvestris), is in-
digenous to England, growing about old chalk-
pits. It bears sweet-scented, bright-yellow,
somewhat drooping flowers in April. Although
the Tidipomnnia, which rose to such an absurd
height in Holland in the 17th century, is long
since extinct, yet the rage for producing fine
tuhps still exists. The finest tulips are reared
at Haarlem. The principal florists have their
favourite breeders. A breeder is a seeding
tulip, 8 or 9 years from the seed, but still vigor-
ous. If the stem be tall; the petals of the
flower blunt at the apex; if the flower be self-
coloured, or of an equal, uniform colour on
both surfaces of the petals ; if the base be pure
white or bright yellow; and the anthers and
stigmas dark or black, it is highly esteemed as
a breeder. The bulb is planted deep in a shel-
tered, sunny place, and care is taken to prevent
the leaves being injured by wind or hail; the
stem is propped, and the flower carefully se-
cured from .the hot rays of the sun, as well as
from wind and violent rain. The seed is care-
fully collected, and from it many fine tulips are
anticipated. The varieties at Haarlem are
very numerous; they are chiefly varieties of
the Tulipa Gesneriana and T. Suaveolens.

TULIP POPLAR {Liriodendroti tulipifera).
This tree, the only one of its genus, is found
in great abundance in the Middle United States,
where, on the rich woodlands in the alluvials
bordering the Delaware and other bays, it at-
tains a growth which makes it the most majes-
tic tree of the American forest. Trees are
frequently found from 100 to 140 or 150 feet in
height, and 6 or 8 feet in diameter, the trunk
being sometimes 60 or 80 feet perfectly straight
and without a knot or branch. This stately
tree, when its wide-spreading branches extend
from the ground to the summit, loaded in May
with its tulip flowers, has been referred to in
the article on the Bee, as the most magni-
ficent of floral productions. The wood, which
is very soft, is highly valued for building, and
also for many purposes to which it is applied
by the cabinet-maker and other mechanic ar-
tists. The variety called yellow poplar is gene-
rally preferred. It is known by its thicker
and more deeply furrowed bark. The bark,
which is very thick and spongy, is also a valu-
able aromatic bitter; and has been success-
fully used in intermitlents.

TULL, JETHRO. The science of agricul-
ture, although the first in importance to man-
kind, is yet remarkable for the few great names

whose discoveries or general abilities adorn its-
history. For an explanation of this fact, we must
in some measure be contented with the com-
mon observation that its advances, its improve-
ments, are so slow, as to be almost impercep-
tible ; are dependent upon much more tedious
experiments than any other science : for in-
stance, it is true that many, very many of the
processes, daily witnessed and carried on by*
the cultivator, are based upon chemical princi-
ples, and may be illustrated, and very materi-
ally assisted, by chemical experiments : but
those who have studied the science the most
carefully are fully aware that no experiments
upon the laws of dead matter even nearly
equal in difliculty those upon living substances,
for these last, in many instances, seem endow-
ed with powers which completely neutralize
and overcome the very principle of chemical
attraction and repulsion. Such experiments,
too, are not, like those made in the philoso-
pher's laboratory, secure from interruption, and
carefully and readily guarded from every source
of error; on the contrary, those of even the
most scientific, the most careful cultivators,
are of necessity liable to many accidents, are
ever the sport of the winds and the weather,
require months to complete, and often the dura-
tion of a life to repeat and firmly establish.
Then, again, to add to the difficulty of such in-
vestigations, there are hardly two soils to be
found, in England or elsewhere, whose compo-
sition and conditions are even nearly the same.
All diflfer either in the proportion of some ingre-
dient, in climate, in declination, or in the nature
of their substrata; the variations in their treat-
ment, therefore, must often be as different as their
numerous varieties. Thus, encircled with difli-
culties, requiring for the attainment of consider-
able eminence the union of both practical ex-
perience, patient and long-continued research,
and scientific knowledge, we need hardly feel
surprised that those who have made important
improvements in agriculture have been but
few in number, and that these illustrious ex-
ceptions to the general rule have appeared at
very distant intervals. The farmer, too, how-
ever skilful and successful in his business,
however industrious and talented, is but rarely
induced to describe the improvements he has
caused, or the implements he has improved or
invented ; he is too often content with the profit
derived from his own ingenuity, and too fre-
quently lets others reap all the honours of dis-
coveries to which he is more justly entitled.

In the list, however, of distinguished English
farmers, Jethro TuU presents us with a highly
honourable exception to the general rule; for,
utterly regardless of all selfish considerations,
he not only made great and successful efforts
for the promotion of agriculture, but he made
those valuable researches, publicly known in
a work entitled the Horse-hoeing Husbandry,
which will hand him down to all after-ages as
one of the chief of English farmers ; as a pa-
triot who, undaunted by the natural difficulties
of the attempt, attained great and important
advances in the cultivating and increasing the
fertility of the land, and in enlarging the re-
sources of the followers of a business to which
he was not originally bred; for, as we shall

1055

TULL, JETHRO.

TULL, JETHRO.

presently see, TuU became a farmer not from I
inclination, but from the effects of a sickly con-
stitution and diseased frame.

The life of Jethro Tull will, indeed, well re-
pay the careful and often-repeated study of the
English farmer in more ways than one; will
afford not only instruction, but encouragement
to him who has to contend against the poorest
soils, the most adv^erse of circumstances ; for,
if such a cultivator holds a poor, thin, hungry
soil, so did Jethro Tull ; — if he farms in a re-
mote and desolate district ; if he has ignorant
and obstinate labourers ; if he is visited by
sickness ; if he is almost driven from his pro-
fession by even incurable diseases, so, let him
be assured, was that great farmer whose la-
bours are the subject of this memoir. The
dauntless intrepidity and perseverance, too, of
Tull, should always be remembered to his
honour. Knowing, as he did, the correctness
of the principles for which he so nobly contend-
ed, he never relaxed in his endeavours to in-
duce their general adoption ; and if it was only
after the lapse of many years, when Tull had
long been in his grave, that those principles
and those mechanical inventions for which he
so energetically contended were commonly
adopted, the fault was not TuU's, but must be
attributed to the ignorance and the apathy of
the age in which he made his important, his
ill-requited discoveries.

The debt of gratitude which all modern far-
mers owe to Tull is, indeed, a large one;
he was the first who boldly and zealously
contended for the adoption of improved ma-
chinery in all agricultural operations; the
ploughs which he depicts in the engravings
which accompany his Horsc-hoe Husbandry,
have not been very materially improved in the
last century. He invented several varieties
of hand and horse-hoes. He was very nearly,
if not quite, the first who produced a practically
useful drill. He shared the fate of all those
■who, as discoverers, have the temerity to dis-
turb old systems. He was regarded by the
bulk of his contemporaries as an idle, restless
innovator. He was ridiculed, thwarted, and
opposed in every way, not, as might have been
reasonably expected, by the most ignorant, but
by those who either did know, or ought to have
known, better things. His neighbours regarded
him as almost a lunatic ; and the tradition of
the neighbourhood of Shalborn still is, that he
was even wicked enough to attempt to banish
the flail from his farm, and that he had a ma-
chine in his barn at Prosperous, which worked
a set of sticks so readily as to thrash out his
corn without the assistance of the labourer.
This, there is little doubt, was an attempt to con-
struct a thrashing-machine ; and that it was, in
those quiet days for agriculture, regarded as a
wonder, is proved by the exisfence of the tra-
dition. When thus located in a remote rural
parish, on the borders of the counties of Berks,
Hants, and Wilts, Tull wrote his Husbandry,
a book which is not nearly so well known as
it ought to be; for, though the progress of
science has rendered a considerable portion of
Tull's writings obsolete, yet much, very much,
remains unaltered by the progress of discovery,
1056

to amply repay the farmer for a careful and
often repeated perusal.

Tull wrote with all the modesty and diffi-
dence of genius : he tells us, in the preface to
his Husbandry, that he knew that he had un-
dertaken a task of which he was incapable,
and that it was produced during a long con-
finement within the limits of a lonely farm, in
a country where he was a stranger. And
when we remember that he was, through life,
an invalid, — obliged to abandon his sedentary
profession of the law, and seek for health by
foreign travel and by country pursuits, — when
we think of these things, we cannot but still
more admire the energy of mind he betrayed, ^
and the diflliculties he overcame. He feelingly
alludes to some of these, when he says, with
regard to his great work — " 'Tis no wonder
that the style is low as the author, or as the
dust that is here treated of, since the whole was
written in pains of the stone, and other dis-
eases as incurable and almost as cruel ; but
fine language will not fill a farmer's barn."
Every thing connected with tthe history of this
great benefactor of agriculture must be inte-
resting to the cultivators of this and all other
countries. I regret that, with some industry, I
have not been able to obtain for the farmer
more information with regard to him. He was
born in Oxfordshire, on his paternal estate.
He was educated for the legal profession, be-
came a member of Staple Inn, and was called
to the bar on the 11th December, 1693, by the
benchers of Gray's Inn, and not at the Temple,
as is commonly asserted in the biographical
dictionaries. He was afflicted soon after his
call to the bar with a pulmonary disorder, and,
in consequence, abandoned his Oxfordshire
farm, and for some time travelled on the Con-
tinent. He was for a considerable period at
Montpelier, in the south of France. Returning
to England, he took into his own hands the
farm called Prosperous, at Shalborn, in Berk-
shire, where, again resuming those agricultural ;
efforts which he had commenced in Berkshire, '
he wrote his Horse-hoe Husbandry.

During his tour on the Continent, Tull care-
fully compared the agriculture of France and
Italy with that of his own country, and omitted
no occasion to observe and note every thing
which supported his own views and discove-
ries. He particularly, on more than one occa-
sion, in his work, alludes to the similarity of
the practice followed by the vine-dressers of
the south of Europe, in constantly hoeing or
otherwise stirring their ground, and his own
horse-hoe husbandry. Finding that they did
not approve of dunging their vineyards, Tull
readily adduced the fact in favour of his own
favourite theory, that manuring a soil is an un-
necessary operation.

After Tull's decease, his lands in Berkshire
found their way into Chancery, and were sold,
by order of the court, in 1784, to Mr. Blandy,
the father of the present owner. It consists of
about 70 acres of freehold land, but Tull held
about 130 acres in addition, by a different te-
nure. The house in which he dwelt has been
modernized, but the old-fashioned brew-house
yet remains as Tull had it ; and when I visited

TULL, JETHRO.

TULL, JETHRO.

Prosperous, in July, 1840, was still in very-
good condition. Of the out-houses, TuU's gra-
nary and his stables are yet in existence,
though fast verging to destruction ; and at the
end of this granary, which Tull built, is an old
■well in which, when cleared out some years
since, was found, deeply buried in the accu-
mulated mud of nearly a century, a three-
pronged hoe, which there is no doubt belonged
to Tull, and is now in the museum of the Royal
Agricultural Society of England. Into this well
it was most likely thrown by his men, who,
adopting the use of his new tools with the ut-
most reluctance, annoyed him in many ways.
Against these he declaims with much bitterness :
"'Tis,"he says, "the most formidable objec-
tion against our agriculture, that the defection
of servants and labourers is such, that few
gentlemen can keep their lands in their own
hands, but, rather than make nothing of them,
they let them for a little to tenants who can
bear to be insulted, assaulted, kicked, cuffed,
and bridewelled, with more patience than gen-
tlemen are endowed with." This burst of feel-
ing would very clearly intimate the probable
truth of the case — that Tull was energetic and
irritable — that his servants pillaged and an-
noyed him, and that he did not submit to their
impositions without struggling against them in
a way which his legal education should have
taught him to avoid.

Such was the spirit of enterprise, and such
was the genius of Tull, that no difficulties, how-
ever formidable, stopped him in his researches.
His experiments, carried on in his garden and
in his house, with regard to the food and the
habits of plants, some of which he gives in the
first pages of his work, betray the thirst for
knowledge, the industry, and tact, which he
possessed.

The tradition of his neighbours is, that, when
confined to his room and to his couch by his
incurable maladies, he yet managed to carry
on his experiments on vegetation, by having
large boxes and garden-pots of earth placed in
his room, and before his windows, where he
«oweJ his seeds, and watched their progress
Tinder different modes of cultivation, with all
the zeal of a martyr, and the enthusiasm of an
inventor. He is still spoken of by the old
labourers of that district, as being a man whom
it was impossible to oppose, in any of his
plans, with eventual success. He was evi-
dently the wonder of his neighbours, who
would, perhaps, have regarded him as a ma-
gician, if the age of witchcraft had not then
been nearly, if not quite, over. It would seem.,
from what Tull says (p. 50), that it was in
1701 that he constructed his first drill for plant-
ing sainfoin. And the occasion of his doing
so he thus describes in his preface: "It was
very difficult to find a man that could sow
clover tolerably ; they had a habit (from which
they could not be driven) to throw it once with
the hand to two large strides, and go twice on
each cast; thus, with 9 or 10 pounds of seed
to the acre, two-thirds of the ground was un-
planted, and on the rest it was so thick that it
did not prosper. To remedy this, I made a
hopper, to be drawn by a boy, that planted an
dcre sufficiently with 6 pounds of seed; but
133

when I added to this hopper an exceedingly
light plough, that made 6 channels 8 inches
asunder, into which 2 pounds of seed to an
acre being drilled, the ground was as well
planted. This drill was easily drawn by a
man, and sometimes by a boy."

Jethro TuU's great improvements in tillage
consisted in the use of his drill, and in the adop-
tion of such wide intervals between his rows
of turnips (several feet, 3 to 6), that the horse-
hoe could be easily and constantly employed.
He ridiculed, very justly, the delusions under
which the farmers then laboured with regard
to the unvaried advantages of thick sowing.
He told ihem that they " did not grudge to be-
stow three or four pounds in the buying and
carriage of dung for an acre, but that they
thought themselves undone if they afforded an
extraordinary eighteen-pennyworth of earth to
the wide intervals of an acre, not considering
that earth is not only the best, but also the
cheapest entertainment that can be given to
plants." And again, in another place (p. 32),
he told the thick-sowing, broadcast cultivators
of those days, what must have not a little as-
tonished them, " that every row of vegetables
to be horse-hoed ought to have an empty space
or interval of 30 inches on one side of it at
least, and of nearly 5 feet in all sorts of corn;"
and he was very justly suspicious that what he
was going to advance " would seem shocking
to them before they have made trials."

Tull was the first English farmer who advo-
cated to its fullest extent the decided advan-
tages of constantly pulverizing and stirring the
soil, to illustrate which almost all his experi-
ments were directed. His explanations, how-
ever, of his own discoveries were not always
so good as the object he had in view, although
there is little to find fault with in his theory of
the advantages of tillage. "I have had," he
says (p. 24), "the experience of a multitude of
instances, which confirm it so far, that I am in
no doubt that any soil, be it rich or poor, can
ever be made too fine by tillage ; for one cubi-
cal foot of this minute powder may have more
internal superficies than a thousand cubical
feet of the same or any other earth tilled in the
common manner; and I believe no two arable
earths in the world do exceed one another in
their natural riches twenty times ; that is, one
cubical foot of the richest is not able to pro-
duce an equal quantity of vegetables, cceteris
paribus, to 20 cubical feet of the poorest ; there-
fore, it is not strange that the poorest, where,
by pulverizing, it has obtained 100 times the
internal superficies of the rich, untilled land,
should exceed it in fertility ; or, if a foot of the
poorest was made to have 20 times the super-
ficies of such rich land, the poorest might pro-
duce an equal quantity of vegetables with the
rich. Besides, there is another extraordinary
advantage when a soil has a large internal
superficies in a very little compass ; for then
the roots of the plants in it are better supplied
with nourishment, being nearer to them on all
sides within reach than it can be when the
soil is less fine, as in common tillage, and the
roots in the one must extend much farther than
in the other to reach an equal quantity of nou-
rishment: they must range and fill perhaps
4 U 1057

TULL, JETHRO.

TULL. JETHRO.

above 20 times more space to collect the same
quantity of food. But, in this fine soil, the
most weak and tender roots have a free passage
to the utmost of their extent, and have also an
easy, due, and equal pressure everywhere, as
in water."

He did not confine his attention to the ad-
vantages of thoroughly pulverizing the land :
he was also an advocate for much deeper
ploughing than was usual in his time, and in
one or two places laments the supineness of
the farmers in this respect, and the idleness
of the ploughmen, in only half-penetrating the
soil, for fear of injuring the appearance of their
horses ; and he illustrated the advantages of
his proposed mode of ploughing by the best
means in his power, not only by general ob-
servation, but by also appealing to several
very ingeniously-contrived little experiments
upon the habits of plants.

TuU saw very clearly that this theory of the
advantages of pulverizing and deepening soils
would be strongly supported if it could be
shown that the roots of the commonly culti-
vated grasses would, imder favourable circum-
stances, penetrate to more considerable depths
than the ordinary shallow soils of the farmer
allowed them. He paid, therefore, considerable
attention to the roots of plants, not only in his
small experimental glasses and pots, but in his
fields. He found, by some observations on the
roots of some wheat plants growing in a deeply
loosened soil, that their roots had penetrated to
more than double the depth of the commonly
ploughed land of the farmer; and all this I can
support from ray own observations on the roots
of the crops growing on the edge of chalk and
loam pits, and in other situations where the
soil has been loosened to great depths. Tull,
too, noticed the very considerable and rapid
extension of the roots of trees growing near
to old dunghills, sewers, <fec., and he hence ad-
duced another argument in favour of the advan-
tages which are derived from assisting, in the
best ordinary way them known, the roots of
plants to penetrate deeper into the soil. Had
Tull lived in our days, he would have been an
ardent advocate for the subsoil and subturf
ploughs : he would not then have confined his
efibrts to the increased use of the common
plough and the trenching-spade.

A century has now elapsed since Jethro Tull
thus earnestly endeavoured to draw the atten-
tion of the farmers of England to the import-
ance of deepening, pulverizing, and mixing
their soils. Tull, unfortunately for himself,
lived an age or two too soon : had to encounter
the ignorance and the obstinacy of his work-
men, the apathy of his neighbours, the ridicule
of those who understood him not, and the anger
of the indolent. The principles, however, which
he inculcated have survived and overcome all
these obstacles; are yearly more prized, be-
cause better understood. Tull thought that the
earth, and the earth alone, did every thing for
vegetation; astonished at the effects which
were produced by merely deepening and pul-
verizing, he allowed his enthusiasm to carry
him too far. "Every plant," he tells us, "is
earth, and the growth and true increase of a
plant is the addition of more earth ;" and in
1058

another place he adds, "too much nitre cor--
rodes a plant, too much water drowns it, too
much air dries the roots of it, too much heat
burns it ; but too much earth a plant never can
have." Thus impressed with the value and
the all-sufficient powers of earth to support
vegetation, it need hardly surprise us that Tull
soon came to the conclusion that, under a pro-
per management of the plough and the scarifier
(for a rude instrument of this kind was known
in TuU's days), the land might be so pulverized
and deepened as to bear its crops without the
addition of any decomposing manures.

Tull deceived himself, in this instance, by
not attending to the quantity of finely-divided,
slowly decomposing substances, which all cul-
tivated soils contain in some shape or other.
By ploughing and pulverizing, the progress of
the putrefaction of these organic matters was
accelerated, they were rendered more soluble,
and then the succeeding crop was, by their de-
composition, sufficiently nourished. But these
operations could not be long continued; at
each repetition of the experiment the amount
of the stubborn, slowly decomposing matters
of the soil became reduced, and, in conse-
quence, the crops produced under the system
became less. TuU's farm at Shalborn was
well adapted to try the efiect of this theory ; it
is situated on the crown of a rising ground,^
whose thin-skinned soil is a light loam mixed
with gravel, resting on chalk ; of such a soil
the organic matters, of necessity, are speedily
exhausted by cropping and pulverizing. Tull
soon found this out; he struggled hard against
the necessity, but he finally had recourse to
the employment of manures ; he found at last,
that, however valuable good tillage is to the
application of fertilizers, it is utterly incapable
of supplying their place. The failure of Jethro
Tull, therefore, in this great eflTort was com-
plete ; but it was the failure of a man of genius.
He tardily admitted the value of dunging the
land; but he still explained its operation in
such a way as to refer all the benefit to the
earth, when he told the farmers of those days,
"its use is not to nourish, but to dissolve, that
is, divide the terrestrial matter which affords
nutriment to the mouths of vegetable roots."
To a very considerable extent TuU was cor-
rect in this explanation of the mode in which
common manure operates in rendering the soil
more fertile ; for it renders the land more per-
vious to the atmospheric gases and vapour,
and, in consequence, all vegetation growing
upon the land is better nourished. But the
benefit, as Tull imagined, does not end here ;
the organic matters of the compost, as they
slowly dissolve in the soil, gradually give out
a considerable proportion of various gases,
such as carburetted hydrogen and carbonic
acid gas, all of which are absorbed by the plant
at the moment of their extrication, enter into
new combinations, and promote its vigorous
growth. That this is not a merely mechanical
advantage is proved in several ways ; for in-
stance, the benefit of the application of the de-
composing compost is proved to be just as
advantageous in some instances to the crop
where it is not even mixed with the soil. This
is shown by the effect (known to every gar-

TULL, JETHRO.

TULL, JETHRO.

dener) which is produced by placing the ma-
nure in a chamber beneath the soil, so that the
roots of the plants neither mix with, nor does
the soil even touch the compost. The gases
of putrefaction, however, arise and mix with
the soil, and the most luxuriant effects are pro-
duced without any division of " the terrestrial
matter," which Tull imagined to be so essen-
tial to the explanation of the phenomenon. We
need not search in the works of Tull for any
attempts to use the drill for the application of
fertilizers, for all Tull's efforts were directed
to cultivate the earth without manure of any
kind. He admitted the necessity, of using it at
all only with extreme reluctance ; he told his
readers, 7 years before his death, that "the par-
ticular scheme of raising constant annual crops
of wheat without dung or fallow is as yet only
upon probation ; but, by six crops I have had
in that manner, I see nothing against their be-
ing continued. This, it is true, requires greater
care in their management than any other branch
of the husbandry; but he who can do this with-
out dung or fallow, may easily do it with one
or both of them ; and there may be such wet,
clayey land which the plough cannot well pul-
verize without help of the ferment or dung."

Tull, in fact, let no opportunity escape him
to decry the ill effects of employing manure.
Modern gardeners would be astonished at his
zeal when he contends for its banishment from
the kitchen garden. " There is," he says (p.
18), " much more reason to prohibit the use of
dung in the kitchen garden, on account of the
ill taste it gives to esculent roots and plants,
especially such dung as is made in great towns.
It is a wonder how delicate palates can dis-
pense with eating their own and their beasts'
ordure, but a little more putrefied and evapo-
rated, together with all sorts of filth and nasti-
ness, a tincture of which those roots must un-
avoidably receive that grow amongst it. In-
deed, I do not admire, that learned palates, ac-
customed to the gout of silphium, garlic, and
mortified venison, equalling the stench and
rankness of this sort of city muck, should
relish and approve of plants that are fed and
fattened by its immediate contact People
who are so vulgarly nice as to nauseate the
modish dainties, and whose squeamish sto-
machs even abhor to receive the food of nobles,
so little different from that wherewith they re-
gale their richest gardens, say, that even the
very water wherein a rich garden cabbage is
boiled stinks; but that the water whereiu a
cabbage from a poor undunged field is boiled
has no manner of unpleasant savour ; and that
a carrot bred in a dunghill has none of that
sweet relish which a field carrot affords. Dung
not only spoils the fine flavour of these our
eatables, but it spoils good liquor. The dunged
vineyards in Languedoc produce nauseous ,
wine ; from whence there is a proverb in that
country, that poor people's wine is best, be- '
cause they carry no dung to their vineyards."
Our author, however, had a better opinion of '
vegetable manures than those of animals, for '
he says, " Vegetable dung, unless the vegetable ;
he buried alive in the soil, makes a much less
ferment in it, and, consequently, divides it less !
than animal dung does. But the dung of vege- !

tables is much more wholesome for the use of
edible roots and plants than that of animals."

Jethro Tull, according to Chalmers, died at
his house at Prosperous, January .3, 1740. Of
his works and inventions of agricultural ma-
chinery I have already spoken. Five chapters
of his only work that I am acquainted with.
Hie Horse-hoe Husbandnjy were published ia
folio in 1731, the chief volume in 1733; and
I in the same year some additions were printed
' which are not found in many of the copies of
that year, or even in that of 1761. Cobbett,
however, was careful to add it to an octavo edi-
tion which he printed in 1829. In this, he
omitted only the plates of the ploughs and
other agricultural implements ; but he added
an introduction, in which he did Utile except
laud Tull, and vituperate those who had adopt-
ed TuU's plans, without acknowledging the
source of their obligation ; not remembering
that many a Tullian improvement has been
often made since our author's time, by plain,
practical farmers, who never even heard the
name of Tull mentioned.

Tull, as I have before remarked, published
his " addenda" to his Husbandry in the same
year that the first edition appeared; in these he
takes more notice than was perhaps necessary
of certain attacks which had been made upon
his book, by the members of a certain " equi-
vocal society," amongst whom was the cele-
brated Stepljen Switzer, the most talented
seedsman, gardener, and horticultural author
of his day. It appears, too, that a society of
gentlemen in Dublin had, without his leave,
reprinted for distribution his five " specimen
chapters," all of which annoying circum-
stances evidently irritated him; besides these
controversial notices, and certain corrections
of the errors made by the printer, the long ad-
denda do not contain any thing very valuable.
Time has settled pretty well the respective
merits of the contending parties ; the fame of
Tull is steadily increasing, while the name and
works of even the classical, the elegant Swit-
zer, are much loo little known amongst modern
cultivators.

Twenty-four years after the death of Jethro
Tull, a paper appeared in the Gentleman's Ma-
gazine, vol. xxxiv. p. 522, dated at Hungerford,
about 4 miles from the farm where he lived and
died, and signed with the initials D. Y., which
details almost all that is known of the life of
the great introducer of the drill system. It
was written by one of his neighbours, who had
known and associated with him, and valued
very properly his services in the cause ©f agri-
culture. He describes in that essay the sen-
sation produced by the unheard-of attempts of
Tull. He says, " Novelty always excites cari-
osity— many gentlemen came from different
parts on the fame of this new method of farm-
ing, some of whom were persuaded by the
weight of Mr. Tull's arguments, to go hand in
hand with him in the course of his experi-
ments, while others, who thought themselres
more wise and more discerning, took every
occasion of ridiculing the practice, and of re-
presenting it as a fanciful project, that, after a
great expense, would end in nothing but the
ruin of the proprietor. In general, the whole

1050

TULL, JETHRO.

TULL, JETHRO.

tody of farmers and husbandmen pronounced
the man as a conjuror, who, by sowing a third
part of his land, would make it produce a
quantity equal to that of sowing the whole."

The farm of Jethro TuU will ever be an ob-
ject of interest to the lover of agriculture. Ar-
thur Young made a pilgrimage to Prosperous
{Annals of Agr. vol. xxiii. p. 173), and William
Cobbett did the same. More persons would
visit it if they knew where it was to be found.
To such it will be interesting to know that the
rural parish of Shalborn is situated under the
Coomb Hills, about 4 miles south of Hunger-
ford ; that the roads are tolerable, and the pre-
sent holder of the farm obliging, and not insen-
sible of TuU's great merits. If TuU was de-
ceived in his belief of the powers of the
plough to render the soil fertile without the as-
sistance of manure, he was yet fully justified
in almost every thing that he predicted, with
regard to the advantages of thoroughly pulver-
izing and increasing the depth of the soil.

" The difference betwixt the operation of the
spade and that of the common plough," he ob-
serves, " is only this, that the former commonly
divides the soil into smaller pieces, and goes
deeper ;" and he adds, " how easy and natural
it is to contrive a plough that may equal the
spade, if not exceed it, by going deeper, and
cutting the soil into smaller pieces than the
spade commonly does." The explanation, too,
which Jethro TuU gave to the advantages or
theory of deep ploughing was excellent, consi-
dering the chemical knowledge of his days;
for the modern cultivator must remember, that,
in his time, the composition of the atmosphere
was almost entirely unknown. TuU could not
have known any thing of the three gases, —
nitrogen, oxygen, and carbonic acid, — of which
it is now fpund to be constituted ; and of the
existence of its insensible aqueous vapour he
was equally unacquainted ; he did not know
how important these are to the roots of plants,
and how the access of them all is naturally
promoted by pulverizing the land on which they
vegetate. But though TuU did not know these
things, yet it is certain that he had carefully
observed many facts which proved that vapour
was absorbed by the soil, and that this absorp-
tion was promoted by pulverization. "To de-
monstrate," he says (pp. 27, 28), " that dews
moisten the land when fine, dig a hole in the
hard, dry ground, in the driest weather, as deep
as the plough ought to reach ; beat the earth
very fine, and fiU the hole therewith ; and after
a few nights' dews, you will this fine earth be-
come moist at the bottom, and the hard ground
all round will become dry. Till a field in
lands: make one land very fine by frequent
deep ploughing, and let another be rough by
insufficient tUlage alternately ; then plough the
whole field crosswise in the driest weather,
which has continued long, and you will per-
ceive, by the colour of the earth, that every
fine land will be turned up moist, but every
rough land will be dry as powder from top to
bottom. In the driest weather, good hoeing
procures moisture to roots; though the igno-
rant and incurious fancy it lets in the drought,
and therefore are afraid to hoe their plants at
such times."
1060

These enlightened observations of TuU have
been verified and illustrated by the progress of
agricultural discovery, by the improved modes
of practice adopted by modern farmers, and by
the march of chemical philosophy. Evelyn
had observed the advantages of continually
keeping the ground of fruit orchards hoed or
dug. Sir Henry Steuart attests, with Sir Wal-
ter Scott, Withers, and a hundred others, the
same fact, as applicable to timber plantations.
The farmers of even the most sandy soils of
Norfolk, on the very same principle, keep the
ground between their rows of turnips con-
stantly stirred, just as TuU proposed and prac-
tised a century since. And when, long after
TuU was in his grave, Dr. Priestley discovered
the oxygen gas of the atmosphere, it was soon
found that its presence was essential to the
growth of plants ; that it was highly grateful
to the roots of plants, either when applied to
them in its simple state, or when combined
with the aqueous matters of the atmosphere ;
and that this application was very sensibly
indeed promoted, in either form, by increasing
the finely divided state of the soil ; and, fur-
ther, that without this division of its particles,
the earth was totally incapable of absorbing
either the necessary gases or the watery va-
pour.

The subsoil-plough of Mr. Smith of Dean-
stpn, and the subturf-plough of Sir Edward
Stracey, which have both proved so successful
in our days, only illustrate the truth of TuU's
principles and TuU's sagacious observations.
TuU was an advocate for deep ploughing, and
for internal pulverizations : he did not, it is
true, see the necessary limits, on ordinary soils,
and with common ploughs, to the realization
of this theory : he forgot that the inert nature
of many substrata would render it impossible
to bring them at once to the surface ; but
though he omitted to take this into his calcula-
tion, yet still he argued correctly enough, when
he so strenuously urged his brother farmers to
increase the depth of their soils by every prac-
ticable means, to let in the air to the roots of
their crops, and to give every facility possible
to the growth of the roots of the plants ; for, by
so doing, he very plainly told them they derived
benefits which exclusively belong to the vege-
table world. ** There is yet," he said (p. 28),
" one more benefit hoeing gives to plants,
which by no art can possibly be given to ani-
mals ; for all that can be done in feeding an
animal is, to give it sufficient food at the time
it has occasion for it; if you give an animal
any more, it is to no manner of purpose, unless
you could give it more mouths, which is im-
possible ; but, in hoeing a plant, the additional
nourishment thereby given enables it to send
out innumerable additional fibres and roots ; so
that hoeing, by the new pasture it raises, fur-
nishes both food and mouths to plants."

To every agricultural operation, in fact, of a
mechanical nature, TuU's genius was admira-
bly adapted; his ploughs, his hoes, his drills,
were all of a description far superior to those
of the rest of the farmers of those days. It was
only where he attempted to reason upon the
habits and food of plants, involving chemical
truths, that Tull made great blunders. Thus,

TULL, JETHRO.

believing, as he did, that earth, and earth alone,
was the sole food of plants of all kinds, he
ridiculed the opinion of Dr. Woodward, that all
the constituents of plants were conveyed to
them through the agency of water. Woodward
thought, very justly, "that water is only the
agent that conveys the vegetable matter to the
bodies of plants, that introduces and distributes
it to their several parts for their nourishment."
This theory seemed absurd to Jethro TuU, who
believed that all plants fed upon the same kind
of food, and that that food was earth, and only
earth. It is true that Tull had a very indistinct
idea that something else was requisite for the
food of plants, and that "certain materials con-
tribute in some manner to the increase of
plants." And he then specifies five substances,
at the head of which it is not a little singular
that he places saltpetre or nitre. But how this
salt operated as a fertilizer was not at all more
clear to Tull than to any who have succeeded
him in the investigation. "Nitre," he says,
(p. 10), "is useful to divide and prepare the
food, and may be said to nourish vegetables, in
much the same manner as my knife nourishes
me, by cutting and dividing my meat; but when
nitre is applied to the root of a plant, it will
kill it as certainly as a knife misapplied will
kill a man. Nitre is, in respect of nourish-
ment, just as much the food of plants as white
arsenic is the food of rats." Tull, however,
had a high opinion of the powers of common
salt, when used as a steep for seed-corn, to pre-
vent the smut in wheat; and he gives (p. 6G)
this account of the origin of the practice.
"Brining of wheat, to cure or prevent smutti-
ness, was accidentally discovered about 70
years since, in the following manner : A ship-
load of wheat was sunk near Bristol in autumn,
and aAerwards at the ebb-tide all taken up,
after it had been soaked in sea-water ; but it
being unfit for making of bread, a farmer
sowed some of it in a field, and when it was
found to grow very well, the whole cargo was
bought at a low price by many farmers, and all
of it sown in diflerent places. At the following
harvest, all the wheat in that part of England
happened to be smutty, except the produce of
the brined seed, and that was all clean from
smuttiness." He then gives the farmer direc-
tions for drying the brined seed, by rolling it
in quicklime, just as is now commonly prac-
tised by the farmer.

Water, Tull thought, was not a food for
plants, because it commonly contains earth, to
which he attributed the origin of the common
opinion that water is a/oorf of plants. And as
to air being their food, which it certainly is,
Tull considered this as a complete "phantasie,"
— quite an "airy hypothesis." In common with
many of the learned of his days, Tull here
strangely confused himself, by not attending to
observations and experiments with regard to
plants, and to these only. The merit, however,
of Tull, amid his occasional mistakes, was en-
hanced by his modesty; and it is impossible
for us, when we reflect upon the difficulties he
had to encounter in the prosecution of his re-
searches, and in the production of his book, to
be insensible to his appeal, where he tells us,
at the conclusion of his preface, "One cause

TUMBRIL.

that made the three parts of this book (that is
to say, the theory, or speculative part, the prac-
tical part, and the description of the tools), the
more defective was, that all three were too
many for me to make perfect at once, and two
would have been useless without the third;
therefore, it was better to give but a sketch of
all than to have made any two of them never
so full and perfect, leaving out the other."

Such was the modesty, such were the merits
of this great father of the drill and the horse-
hoe husbandry, to whose memory something, I
hope, will one day be erected — some memorial
to indicate the agriculturist's gratitude, worthy
of the English farmer. Tull lies buried with-
out even a stone to indicate that such a bene-
factor of agriculture reposes beneath it. His
grave is even doubtfully placed. If Tull died
at Shalborn, as Chalmers asserts, he was not
buried there. There is no trace of him in the
parish register ; the tradition of the old people
of the neighbourhood is, that he died and was
buried in Italy. His deeds, his triumphs, it is
true, were of the quiet, peaceable kind, with
which the world in general is little enamoured;
but their results, their value to the land of his
birth, were of no mean order. His drill, his
horse-hoe, have saved his country, in seed
alone, the food of millions ; and when used
as a distributer of manure, it has done, and it,
will hereafter accomplish, still greater things.
It has brought into cultivation thousands of
acres of the barren craig, the wolds of Lincoln-
shire, of the deep sands of Norfolk; and its
powers are not yet nearly exhausted, for, as
fresh fertilizers are discovered, the drill evenly
and economically distributes them; and as im-
provements in its construction are continually
taking place, there is evidently much yet to be
achieved by its use. The same remarks apply,
in a great measure, to his hoe, and to his sys-
tem of attempted cultivation without manure ;
for, although the last was a complete failure,
yet even this bold attempt was not unattended
with benefit to agriculture; for the farmer was
hence taught, that, although by deep ploughing
and complete pulverization of the soil the use
of manure could not be entirely avoided, yet
that by these means a much smaller quantity
was sufficient than under the old and indolent
mode of tilling the land. The effiarts, too, of
Tull were productive of advantage in other and
in indirect w^ays; — his researches, his suc-
cesses, his example, excited a spirit of inquiry,
which since his days has hardly ever entirely
slumbered. He was certainly the first who
dared to boldly quit the beaten track, which
had been used by the farmer for ages, and fol-
low a way of his own. And although he has
been well followed and imitated by succeeding
cultivators, who have availed themselves of
new discoveries and machinery of which Tull
had not the assistance, yet there have been none
who have since excelled, or perhaps equalled
him, in the boldness and originality of his con-
ceptions, or in the energy with which he real-
ized them. (Quart. Journ. of Agr. vol. xi. p. 342.)

TUMBREL. A sort of dung-cart, convenient
for many purposes.

TUMBRIL. A machine employed chiefly in
the county of Lincoln, for the purpose of giving
4 u 2 1061

TUPELO.

TURNIP.

hay to sheep during the winter. It resembles
the basket fish-pots used by fishermen, and con-
sists of a circular cage or crib, which may be
made of osiers, willows, or other pliant brush-
wood of any kind. The whole is about 10 feet
in circumference, and closely wattled to the
height of about one foot, above which it is left
open for the space of 18 inches; it is then
wattled again to the height of 8 or 10 inches,
and an opening, about 18 inches in breadth, is
left at the top, for putting in the roots or other
food, whether green or dry. The staves which
form the skeleton of it are 10 inches asunder,
so that 13 sheep may feed at the same time in
each tumbril.

TUPELO. Under this name Michaux de-
scribes three species of the genus Nyssa found
in the United States. One of these, the Nyssa
ciquatica, has already been described with the
Black gum, with which it is commonly con-
founded where both grow together. {Michaux,
vol. iii. p. 40.)

TURF, A term often applied to the green
surface or sward of grass lands. Also the
name given to peat, which is used in several
parts as fuel. It varies much in its nature in
different places, being sometimes hard and of
a dark or black colour, while in others it is
soft and spong)% It is a substance very useful
in burning calcareous stones into lime. See
LixE, Moss, Peat.

TURKEY {Meleagris gallo-pavo). A wild
fowl, originally introduced into Europe from
America. They require care in their infancy.
The black turkey is the best sort, both for size
and delicacy. Turkeys are particularly clean
birds, loving sweet food and delighting in air.
They prefer roosting in trees, for which reason
an evergreen, such as a yew tree, spruce fir,
&c., is a great advantage, planted in the centre
of a poultry-yard. Turkeys and pea-fowl hop
up gradually from the low branches, and are
sheltered from frost. But where this is not
the case, the turkey-house must be dry and
warm in winter, and cool in summer; it must
be kept free from vermin, and the dung and
litter of feathers, &c., should be often swept
away. The perches must be large for their
talons to grasp ; and there should be plenty of
ventilation, by gratings or holes bored in the
floor.

Turkeys seek quiet places to lay in, and
often stray far from home. Their nest must
be watched, and the newly laid egg exchanged
for one made out of chalk every day. The
turkey-hen lays from 12 to 20 eggs; and when
she desires to sit, place her in the turkey-house
on her eggs, and coop her up with them, if she
is unwilling to remain, till she becomes settled.
Do not disturb the hen while sitting, or attempt
to assist the chick in piercing the shell. When
the young ones are born, keep them in the nest
for some time, as they love warmth, but do not
handle them. Keep them warm and dry. When
the red colour of the head appears, they are
considered safe from the diseases of their in-
fancy. Do not allow a turkey to sit twice in a
season; the young ones never succeed unless
they are full feathered before Michaelmas.
Feed young turkeys three or four times a day,
and let the food be a thickish paste, made of
1062

fine barley-meal, mixed with finely chopped
onions, nettles, and pot-herbs. The French
give their turkeys plentiful supplies of nettles,
of which they are very fond ; it is a warming
and nutritious herb. Let the food be given
fresh every day, and place it on a board with a
shallow pan of water. Coop the hen while the
young ones feed, or she will eat it herself.
When the chicks begin to follow the turkey
into the poultry-yard, do not let them out till
the dew is ofi^ the ground. Vetch and marrow-
fat peas are poisonous to young turkeys ; let-
tuce brings on looseness; and hemlock and
henbane should be destroyed near all poultry-
yards.

Turkeys love oats, boiled potatoes mashed
with the meal of buckwheat, barley, or beans ;
or plain barley, like other fowls. Let the water
always be sweet and clean. A turkey is six
weeks fattening; if possible, feed two or three
together, as they do not love solitary confine-
ment. Let them eat as much as they like, but
let the food be fresh every day, and let it be the
paste above mentioned, softened by melted lard.
Cramming turkeys is a cruel practice, and is
not often done. They will feed well enough
and fast enough if plenty of sweet food is
placed before them, and if they are allowed
some little space to move about in. It is a
curious fact, that turkeys in America feed on
the caterpillars that are found on the tobacco
plant with impunity.

Turkey eggs are very good in pastry, and
mixed with hen eggs they improve omelets.
Turkey's dung, properly mixed with other com-
posts, makes a valuable manure.

TURNIP (Brassica rapa). No vegetable has
had such influence in advancing the husbandry
of Great Britain as the turnip. By whom and at
what period turnips were first used in England
as the food of cattle, however, does not appear;
but from various accounts, their culture and uses
were known in the Low Countries as far back
as there are any records. The ancients ap-
pear to have been well acquainted with the
value of this root; Columella, speaking of the
several kinds of vegetables adapted for the
farm, recommends the cultivating of rapa in
plenty, because, says he, those roots that are
not wanted for the table will be eaten by the
cattle. Worledge, in his Mystery of Husbandry ^
&c., printed in 1669-81, says, that "although
turnips be usually nourished in gardens, and
be properly a garden plant, yet are they, to the
very great advantage of the husbandman, sown
in his fields in several places in England, not
only for culinary uses, as about London and
other great cities, but also for the food of
cattle." Again, he says, "that in Holland they
slice their turnips with the tops, and rape-seed
cakes and grains, &c., and therewith make
mashes for the cows and give it them warm,
which the cows eat like hogs." He likewise
complains of the very great neglect and defi-
ciency of English husbandry in this particular.
Some time since, a very excellent paper " On
the Cultivation of the Turnip Crop on Light
Soil, by Mr. M. Milburn," appeared in the
Transactions of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society,
from which this paper is chiefly extracted.
It is generally supposed that the cultivation

TURNIP.

TURNIP.

df turnips as a field crop was introduced into
Norfolk by Lord Townshend ; but there is still
further evidence that they were known as such
some time before the date assigned for their
introduction. They are mentioned in Hough-
ton's Collection of Papers, vol. i. p. 213, as food
for sheep, in 1684. Since that period consi-
derable improvements in their cultivation have
taken place, and a great variety of very inferior
soils have been made capable of growing con-
siderable crops of them, by judicious manage-
ment and proper selection of manure.

On the value and importance of the turnip
crop to England, it is unnecessary to expatiate.
Not only does it enable the farmer to supply
the consumer with fresh meat during the win-
ter, instead of the salted food upon which our
ancestors had almost exclusively to depend,
but also partially supplies the place of a fal-
low; it imparts to the land a degree of fertility
which ensures.under proper management,a suc-
cession of crops for the following years of the ro-
tation. It is indeed the sheet-anchor of light soil
cultivation, and the basis of the alternate sys-
tem of English husbandry, to which every class
of the community is so much indebted.

Preparation of the Soil. — Turnips generally
succeed a crop of wheat. In some cases, on
very poor soils, the clover leys are broken up
for turnips; and, on others, a crop of winter
tares, either mown or depastured, are taken, off
between the wheat crop and ploughing for tur-
nips. As a regular system, the former cannot
be pursued ; for the frequent recurrence of the
turnip and clover crops would operate injuri-
ously, and defeat the object of the cultivator ;
and the latter is only applicable to soils quite
free from root weeds, of a superior staple, or
in a very high state of cultivation.

As soon as the grain crop is secured, and
the stock have passed over the stubble, it is
desirable to have it ploughed, to subject the
soil to the ameliorating; influence of the frosts
of winter. In all cases the plough should be
below the couch-grass, which is usually most
abundant on inferior soils, but seldom below
the mould. In ordinary cases, nothing is more
necessary than to prevent the water from stand-
ing in any part during the winter; where the
land is intended for Swedes, an effort should be
made to have it partly or entirely cleared of
weeds before the winter.

When the land is free from weeds, the cross-
ploughing may be begun as soon as the drj'-
ness will admit of it. It may take place in
February with advantage ; inasmuch as it ex-
poses a new and more extensive surface to the
action of the frosts which generally succeed.
If allowed to remain a month or two longer, it
may advantageously be crossed with Finlay-
son's harrow. Where the couch-grass, how-
ever, is abundant, it is positively injurious to
cross-plough early, as the operation breaks the
roots, and renders the clearing of the land
afterwards tedious and difl!icult. Where very
abundant, the operation should be delayed until
the soil is dry, even if it should be the latter
end of April or the beginning of May; more
will be effected by one ploughing in this case
than by two under different circumstances.
When the dryness admits of it, usually in

two or three days, the land should be harrowed
across ; first with the patent or hinge harrows,
and subsequently with the loose harrows, which
separate the rubbish more effectually from the
soil ; and then the weeds should be raked off,
which is generally performed by women.

As soon as the couch-roots, &c., are cleared
off, either by carting into large, or burning in
small heaps, the land may be dragged with Fin-
layson's or any approved drag; and the same
course followed alternately, so long as any
roots remain. When they are unable to rake
them off, they should be hand-gathered, and no
dependance whatever should be placed on the
destruction of any by the sun's rays, until the
25th of June, a time when, on most soils, the
sowing should be concluded. It is desirable
that the land should lie a week or ten days be-
fore the last ploughing is given to it, as it
admits of the germination of such seeds of
weeds as may be lying dormant in the soil, and
is likewise favourable to the accumulation of
moisture in a dry season. The turnip-seed
should be sown immediately, however, after
the last ploughing.

Manure. — In treating of the manures with
which the turnips should be dressed, farm-yard
manure stands the foremost, because it is what
every farmer possesses, and, with the excep-
tion of the calcareous soils in the East Riding
of Yorkshire, is almost invariably employed in
the cultivation of turnips. In general, it never
will, and never can be superseded; and, though
every deference is due to the practical know-
ledge of the East Riding farmers, there can be
no doubt that, if their straw were more carefully
made into manure, and applied to the turnip crop
in conjunction with bones, it would be decidedly
advantageous. It is unnecessary to say that
house-made manure, and by fattening cattle,
especially such as are consuming artificial
food, is the best; and that of horses, cows,
pigs, &c., should be mixed as intimately as
possible, the hot character of horses' dung neu-
tralizing the coldness of that of the cow, and
vice versa. It is desirable to cart this mixture
to the fields intended for turnips in January
and February, during the frost, or at such other
times as convenience may dictate; but the ear-
lier the better. About three weeks before used
it should be turned over, the sides of the mixen
teing carefully turned into the middle. With-
out entering in particular into the much dis-
puted question of the fermentation of dung be-
ing useful or otherwise, thus much every farmer
will know well the truth of, that on light soils,
and for turnips, well rotted dung is indispensa-
ble, where it is used at all. When fermentation
is progressing so fast as to induce destructive
heat, or mouldiness, it may be checked by
treading the mixen and covering it with soil ;
and when it is sluggish, it may be excited by
turning and watering.

For sandy or gravelly soils, farm-yard ma-
nure is an almost necessary ingredient in pro-
ducing a crop of turnips. The rapid decom-
position of vegetable matter which takes place
on such soils requires that there should be a
supply for that succulent crop ; and, as before
stated, there can be no doubt of its utility to
calcareous soils; but for peaty descriptions,

1063

TURNIP.

TURNIP.

where there is abundance of vegetable matter,
it is less useful.

The time for laying on the manure depends
on the method of sowing adopted, and clear-
ness of the land from weeds. If the plough-
drill be used, it is desirable to immediately
precede the plough ; if the Norfolk, or large
drill, it is better to lay it on a week or two be-
fore sowing, to allow it to mix intimately with
the soil, especially if other manure is intended
to be used, and the soil pretty free from weeds.
The quantity to be applied will vary with cir-
cumstances : 12 to 14 tons per acre may be
stated as an average, and more if the soil be
poor and no other manure intended; while less
may be used in proportion as other manures
are applied.

Lime stands next in importance, as a dress-
ing. The object of all manure is to supply
some deficiency, remedy some mechanical in-
convenience, or correct some detrimental agent
in the soil. When dung, for instance, has been
applied for several successive crops, a quantity
of undecomposed vegetable matter accumu-
lates, which the natural soluble properties of
the soil cannot dissolve, and it remains inert.
A dose of lime will correct this, and bring
every particle of such inert matter, with which
it comes in contact, available as food to the
plants. It also assists in the intimate pulver-
ization of the soil, as well as corrects any
acidity which may exist in it, from causes
■which the agriculturist can seldom foresee, nor
correct, except by its use. It is also destruc-
tive to weeds in the soil, and hence exceedingly
valuable ; for every farmer knows that weeds,
being indigenous, are much more ready to
grow in the soil than his crops, which are arti-
ficial, and often exotic. For peaty soils, an oc-
casional dressing of quick lime is invaluable,
especially if there is an addition of clay, road
scrapings, &c., to give the requisite firmness
to the soil. It should be laid on as soon as
convenient after bringing from the kiln, and in
as hot a state as possible. The time for laying
on lime is a few weeks before the sowing, in
order that the subsequent ploughings may mix
it thoroughly with the soil, and thus its effects
be more immediate after the sowing. The
quantity per acre entirely depends upon the
character of the lime in the locality. Two to
four chaldrons per acre are used ; but as it is
applied for turnips generally in conjunction
with other fertilizers, the former may be stated
as the better quantity. If dung is also applied,
they should be used at as great a distance of
time between each other as circumstances will
admit of, and the latter not long before the
sowing.

Bones form one of the most valuable ma-
nures for turnips on all light soils, on account
of their portable and stimulating character;
they are least useful on a gravelly or loamy
soil. They have converted barren moor lands
into rich, fertile, and productive farms, luxuri-
ating in every valuable product of the earth.
Their value is beyond all praise. The East
Riding of Yorkshire affords a specimen of
what they have effected ; and they require only
to be known to be extensively applied. In
1064

many cases they are used alone ; in others, in
conjunction with farm-yard manure, with ashes,
and with lime. Ashes are sometimes drilled
with them as a substitute, by diminishing the
quantity of the bones. Lime is a valuable
auxiliary, on " old going land," or soil which
has been long under cultivation. On peaty
soils, having a substratum of sand, they have
produced wonderful crops, by supplying them
with the necessary animal matter. The quan-
tity varies from 12 to 30 bushels per acre. Six-
teen bushels per acre will produce a fair crop,
on average soils ; and some farmers say that
more than that quantity is waste. It is desi-
rable to mix them with a quantity of ashes,
when they are drilled in the above quantity.
This facilitates the early progress of the plants,
and supports them until the bones become
available. English bones are generally pre-
ferred to foreign ; but from experiments made
by the writer, he prefers foreign to English,
and also to recent bones ; for, although the
latter have more of their juices than the former,
the former sooner decompose ; and the fat and
animal juices require considerable chemical
changes before they are available as food for
the plants. A mixture might be judicious, but
he has not tried it, nor is he aware of the trial
having been made.

Other manures of a miscellaneous character
are used for turnips. Pigeon's dung is most
valuable ; rape dust has been used success-
fully; and animalized carbon has also been ad-
vantageously employed. Sixteen bushels per
acre, when drilled, is the quantity generally
applied. Malt culms are useful as a top-dress-
ing. {Trans. York. Agr. Soc.)

A machine for sowing turnip-seed with bone-
dust is described in the second volume of
Trans. High. Soc. p. 205; and the results of
some experiments with different manures is
given. Trans. High. Soc. vol. i. p. 66, 72, vol. iv.
p. 233.

Weirds Manuring one-rotv Turnip Drill, is de-
scribed and figured by Loudon, and said to be
a remarkable improvement on the Northum-
berland implement. It has a manure hopper,
and a seed hopper, the same as the others ; but
the manure, in place of being dropped along
with the seed, is deposited in a deep gutter
made by the coulter which goes before ; this-
manure is covered by a pronged coulter which
follows the other : next comes the coulter
which forms the gutter for the seed, which are-
deposited 1 inch above the manure. (See
Loud. Ency. of >Agr.)

Varieties. — There are numberless varieties
and sub-varieties of turnips, which arrange
themselves under four heads : — 1. Swedish tur-
nips, or Ruta baga ; 2. Yellow and white tur-
nips ; 3. Yellow turnips ; and 4. White turnips.
Professor Low has divided them into three
classes, distinguished by their form: — 1. The
round, or globular; 2. The depressed; and
3. The fusiform. These may be considered as
types, to which the different cultivated kinds
more or less approach. Many varieties are
cultivated which are more fanciful than useful..
For the main particulars of the following list^
I am chiefly indebted to an interesting Essay on^

TURNIP.

TURNIP.

Turnips published by Dr. William Ellis of
Caistor, Lincolnshire, and to Messrs. Lawson's
excellent Agriculturist's Manual.

Swedish Turnips. — The RiUa Baga,orSwed-
ish turnip is hardier and more nutritious than
any of the common sorts, and in addition to its
being more esteemed as food for horses through-
out the turnip season, is better adapted for spring
feeding generally. It, however, requires a
somewhat deeper and superior class of soils,
together with a greater allowance of manure.
Swedish turnips are generally sown from about
the middle to the end of May, and 2 to 2^ lbs.
of seed per imperial acre are, under ordinary
circumstances, considered sufficient. They
possess an advantage over the others in being
easily transplanted, so that the blanks in the
rows, either of the Swedes or other sorts (when
they occur), are by that means easily filled,up.

Skirving's new improved Purple-topped Sivede. —
Mr. William Skirving of Walton Nursery, near
Liverpool, who has for many years directed his
attention to the improvement of agricultural
roots and plants, introduced last season for the
first time the above variety. From comparison
with every known variety of turnip, which Mr.
Skirving has been at pains to collect from all
quarters, both in England and on the continent,
it appears to have shown itself to possess all
the good qualities of a turnip, and gives a
greater weight per acre of sound nutritive
bulb : it is also hardier, and keeps longer than
any other variety. The leaves of Mr. Skir-
ving's Swede appear to partake considerably
of the character of those of the common tur-
nips, being less smooth and more serrated at
the edges, and deficient in that glaucous bloom
■which distinguishes the leaves of the genuine
Swedish turnip, wtich leads me to suspect that
he has attained the size by hybridizing with
some of the larger varieties of yellow turnips.

Ballantyne's new improved Purple-topped Swede.
— This improved variety for symmetry of
shape, equality of size, and for the uniform deep
purple colour of its top, is unsurpassed by any
other variety which has come under our notice.

Scott's Prize Purple-topped Swede. — This is ox-
heart shaped, purple above ground, and yellow
fleshed, with a small top.

Laing's new Purple-topped Swede is a decidedly
distinct variety. It has a leaf something like
that of a lettuce. The leaves are so inserted
in the top of the turnip as to give it much the
appearance of that of a pine-apple. It grows
to a good size, keeps well, and bears a very
high character among the agriculturists of
Berwickshire and Northumberland, where it is
extensively cultivated. The crop has a most
beautiful appearance when in full leaf.

Green-topped Yellotc Sicede. — This variety is of
longer standing than the purple-topped, since
the introduction of which less attention has
been bestowed by cultivators in procuring im-
proved stocks of the green-topped Swede,
■which has on that account fallen somewhat in
the estimation of growers ; but, where the same
care is taken in selecting the roots grown for
seed, the green-topped may be considered as
being equal in merit to the purple.

Scott's Prize Green-topped Yellow Swede is an
improved variety of the above. The purple-
134

topped Swedes are at present more popular, as
we before mentioned ; but where, as is the case
with Mr. Scott's, equal care has been bestowed
on the selection of stocks, and in the subse-
quent management, the green is in no way in-
ferior to the purple-topped variety.

Hillyard's Thoipeland Swede. — This has the Jlp-
pearance of a true Swedish turnip, and is said to
be more nutritive, bulk for bulk, than some of
the larger varieties, which may or may not be
the case. Its dwarfish size, and the impossi-
bility of raising any great weight of food per
acre from it, must, notwithstanding its other
merits, be a great obstacle to its making its
way among the larger sorts which now invite
the attention of cultivators.

Cox's new Imperial Stcede. — This variety may
be considered as intermediate in colour be-
tween the purple and green-topped sorts; its
roots often attain a large size, but are rather
irregular, and of a somewhat coarse-like quality.

White Swede. — The roots of this turnip are
very irregularly shaped, with numberless fangs :
they are white under the surface of the ground,
and greenish above. It is impossible to say
what improvement may do for even this kind,
but at present we are acquainted with no va-
riety of white Swede worthy of cultivation.

Yellow and White Turnips. — Common
turnips are divided into two important classes,
viz. the white and yellow-rooted ; the former
comprehending those which are most tender
and arrive soonest at maturity, and which are
best fitted for using during the earlier part of
the season ; and the latter, with trifling excep-
tions, such as from their hardiness and period
of arriving at perfection, are intermediate be-
tween the white sorts and the Swedes, and, like
the latter, require a somewhat superior soil
and an additional allowance of manure. The
period of sowing common turnips should be
regulated according to the length of time that
the variety to be grown requires to arrive at
maturity ; for when allowed to remain in the
ground in what may be termed growing weather,
or before winter sets in, after they attain to a
full size, they become soft, spongy, and of in-
ferior quality. A general rule, however, is, to
commence with the yellow sorts about a fort-
night after the Swedes, or about the beginning
of June, and to follow with the white sorts from
the middle till towards the end of that month.

Yellow Turnips. — Altringham Yellow. —
This turnip — although from its being rather
below the medium size attained by yellow tur-
nips in general, it is more particularly suited
for garden culture — is also in good repute in
some quarters as a field turnip. It is recom-
mended for its fine globular shape, and the
superior solidity of its flesh. It has a light
greenish top, very small neck, and tap-root.

Aberdeenshire Sugar Yellow. — This is a very
hardy turnip ; it buries itself considerably in
the ground, is highly nutritious, and one of the
most approved of the varieties lately intro-
duced.

Border Imperial Purple-topped Yellow. — The
following particulars, respecting this variety,,
are given by Mr. Hogg : — " This turnip pos-
sesses all the qualities of the Swedish, with,
the advantage of being a much freer grower. -

1065

TURNIP.

TURNIP.

It produces a larger crop than the white globe,
is a good feeder, and stands the winter better
than any of the common yellows. It is in full
perfection for using in February, and continues
for as long a period as the Swedes; and should
the latter fail, the border imperial being sown
as%late as the month of June, will yield a crop
equal, if not superior, to what might have been
expected from the Swedes, had they suc-
ceeded."

Greeii-topped Bullock Yellow. — This turnip at-
tains a medium size. Its shape is globular, or
somewhat flattened, with a very small tap-root;
it is an old variety, and is held in deserved es-
timation.

Purple-topped Bullock Yellow. — This variety
differs from the former chiefly in the colour of
the top ; the size, shape, and quality of the
roots being pretty nearly the same. It is also
highly esteemed, and is considered by some to
come nearest to the Swedes in hardiness and
solidity of texture.

Skirving's Improved Pwple-topped Bullock- Yel-
low.— This improved variety of the above ob-
tained for its introducer — Mr. Willaim Skirv-
ing, of Liverpool — the medal of the Highland
Society of Scotland. It has been generally
grown for a number of years by the first agri-
culturists in Lancashire and the northwestern
counties.

Green and Puiple-lopped Yellow Scotch differ
but little in any of their essential properties
from green and purple-topped bullock yellow.
The roots are flatter, and grow more in the
ground.

Ox-heart Yellow is an excellent turnip; al-
though it comes early to maturity, and attains
a considerable size, it is by no means deficient
in hardiness.

Yellow Globe. — This is a superior turnip, both
for field and garden culture. Its roots are of
medium size, globular, and always nearly un-
der the surface of the ground ; top greenish,
leaves rather small and spreading.

Yellotv So7ic. — This variety differs from the
last in growing more out of the ground, and
having a greener top; in other respects it is
pretty similar.

Brown-topped Tankard Yellotv. — Root bright
yellow, with a purple or brownish top, of a
somewhat irregular long or tankard shape.
This variety is in great repute in Aberdeen-
shire. A sub-variety, of not so very long a
shape, is preferred by some growers. They
are both excellent turnips.

Green-lopped Tankard Yellow differs from the
above chiefly in the colour of the top. Of this
there is also a sub-variety, of a flatter shape.

Large Laurencekirk Yellow Tankard, intro-
duced by Mr. Robert Scott, of Laurencekirk,
resembles Dale's hybrid in many particulars,
like which it grows a good deal out of the
ground, but is distinguished by its more oblong
and more uniformly shaped roots. It arrives
early at maturity, but is generally considered
as rather less hardy, although it yields an
equally bulky crop.

Dale's Hybrid. — This highly esteemed variety

is a cross between the green-topped Swede

and white globe, procured by repeated impreg-

uations. Its most distinguishing characteristics

1066

are as follow : — foliage strong and luxuriant,
roots of a large size, oblong shape, and of a
lightish yellow colour, with light green top,
having also a small neck and tap-root. The
form of the root, however, although generally
oblong, is rather apt to vary, being sometimes
almost globular; but its more material cha-
racteristics, of large size and luxuriance of
growth,- are always the same. Compared with
any other of the yellow field sorts, it is found
to arrive sooner at maturity, and consequently
may be sown at a later period of the season ;
while at the same time it is equally hardy, or
at least has been found sufficiently so, to with-
stand the severest winters which have occurred
since its introduction.

Gordon^s Yellotv. — This very superior variety
is of a rather oblong shape, deep green colour
on the top, which is generally very slightly
tinged with red. It is very nearly allied to
Dale's hybrid, being a cross between the Aber-
deenshire bullock yellow and the Swede. Sir
F. A. Mackenzie, Bart., upon whose extreme
accuracy as an experimentalist the utmost re-
liance may be placed, grew last year a con-
siderable number of the most approved kinds
of turnips, on his farm at Conan Mains, near
Dingwall, in Ross-shire, with the view of select-
ing such as might be found most worthy of
being kept in cultivation as best suited to the
soil and climate of Ross-shire. The result of
his experiments was, that of Swedes, Skirv-
ing's is decidedly the best, Gordon's yellow
the best of the yellow-fleshed, and Scott's pur-
ple-topped hybrid and the old white globe, of
the white-fleshed kinds.

Hood's New Large Yellow is a very superior,
large, globular-shaped, hardy turnip, remarka-
bly perfect in symmetry, with rather a lightish
green top.

Pollexfen Yellow. — This turnip derives its
name from its introducer, Thomas Pollexfen,
Esq., of Cairston. From his peculiar method
of selecting and transplanting the bulbs, as
well as of stacking and preserving the seed, the
turnip-seed of Mr. Pollexfen's growth has long
been held in deserved estimation in Scotland,
and has commanded the highest prices. The
insular situation of Orkney, although in lati-
tude 59° north, renders its climate less exposed
to the extremes of heat and cold than in more
continental situations farther south, the winters
being mild, and the frost so gentle that the
ice is seldom sufficiently strong to sustain the
weight of a man. Its climate is on that ac-
count peculiarly favourable to the growth of
turnips, and turnip-seed grown in Orkney is
accordingly highly prized by the Scotch far-
mers. The Pollexfen yellow is a green-topped
turnip of a large size, rather flattish in shape,
skin very smooth and thin; the flesh is firm
and nutritious, being slightly impregnated with
the green topped Swedish. It is adapted for
winter and spring feeding, and is not liable to
injury from frost. This turnip obtained the
prize at the meeting of the Highland and Agri-
cultural Society of Scotland, held at Inverness
in 1836, in the report of which it is highly
commended.

White Turnips. — Wliite Globe. — Roots glo-
bular; skin smooth, and perfectly white; neck

TURNIP.

TURNIP

and tap-root small. Although the above de-
scription embraces the principal characteristics
of the white globe turnip, yet there is a con-
siderable variety in those to which the name
is applied, arising from the degree of care and
attention bestowed by growers in selecting
their seed-roots ; and the shape is often not
a little affected by the kind and state of the
soil in which they are grown. Thus globes
of any kind, and particularly the variety here
mentioned, when grown on a very superior
rich soil, may be said to be forced beyond their
natural size, and thereby acquire somewhat of
a monstrous or overgrown appearance, losing
in a great measure their natural symmetry of
shape.

Pameranian Globe.' — This variety was intro-
duced some years since from Pomerania, and
may be considered the most perfect globe tur-
nip in shape, as well as the most regular or
uniform grower. Its skin is of a smooth white,
and somewhat shining or transparent-like in
appearance ; leaves smoothish, of a dark green
colour, with whitish nerves.

Green Globe. — Roots of a fine globular shape,
with a small neck and tap-root; very while
beneath, and green above the surface of the
ground, of medium size, hardy and firm of tex-
ture, but scarcely so much so as the green round,
although it arrives at maturity rather earlier.

Stone Globe. — This is considered to be the
hardiest of all the entire white globe turnips.
It grows naturally deeper in the soil than the
others, and has stronger and darker green
foliage.

Red Globe. — Roots medium-sized, globularly
shaped, and firm in texture. This is an old,
and, in some districts, a pretty extensively cul-
tivated variety. It is medium early, and gene-
rally allowed to be particularly well suited for
light soils and exposed elevated situations.

While Round is known in Lincoln by the
name of spring white. It is the largest of the
round turnips, and, at the same time, the soft-
est and most irregular in shape. It is gene-
rally hollowed towards the neck, and, being so,
is apt to be injured by retaining moisture,
which renders it unfit for using, except in the
beginning of the winter season.

Green Round. — The round turnips are all of
a peculiar flattish shape, rather hollowed to-
wards their neck, as also on their under side ;
and, when grown to a large size, they become
more or less of an irregular round, or some- j
what cornered shape. The green-topped va- !
riety possesses these characters in a less de- j
gree than the former, and is generally of a
pretty, regular, round shape, flattened, but not
much hollowed, on the upper and under sur-
face, the former of which is of a green colour, ,
and the latter white. It is also the hardiest of
the round turnips.

Red Round. — This sort is inferior in size to I
the two former, but rather firmer in texture, |
and more regular in shape. It should also be i
used in the early part of the season. j

White Tankard.— The tankards, like the three !
preceding kinds, are unsuitable for winter j
feeding, not so much on account of their soft- I
ness, as from their standing mostly above j
ground, and being thereby much exposed to I

frost. They are generally earlier in arriving
at maturity than the others. The white tan-
kard has its roots more than half out of the
ground, oblong, or tankard-shaped, but often
bent or crooked. It is the largest of the tan-
kards, but is also softer in texture than either
red or green ; its leaves are large and luxu-
riant; it is the earliest in maturing of any, but
will not stand the frost.

Green Tankard. — The roots of this species
are also more than half above ground ; of a
greenish colour, except on the under surface,
which is white.

Red Tankard. — In size, form, and texture, this
variety may be considered as occupying an
intermediate place between the white and
green tankard. It is of a bright red colour on
the upper surface, and white on the under.

Lawlon Hybrid. — This variety, which was
raised by James Wright, Esq., of Lawton, near
Perth, may be considered as bearing the same
relation to the Swede as Dale's hybrid. Its
leaves are darkish green, rather small and
smoothish, roots roundish, or somewhat heart-
shaped, being often tapered on the under side ;
white below and green above the surface of
the ground : they are hardy, and possessed of
more solidity and firmness of texture than
most of the white sorts.

ScotCi improved Pwple-topped Hybrid. — This
variety obtained the prize of the Highland So-
ciety of Scotland at the meeting at Glasgow in
1839. For a white-fleshed turnip it is remark-
ably solid, and attains a great size. This
turnip was decidedly the best in point of size,
symmetry of shape, uniformity of growth, and
quality of fle^h, of all the white-fleshed varie-
ties grown by us last season in our experi-
mental ground. It occupied the same pre-
eminent place among those made trial of by
Sir F. A. Mackenzie, Bart.

Lewitham Green-topped Ox-heart. — This is an
excellent variety, grown in some of the south-
ern districts of England, and in Scotland. It
acquired this name from having been first
introduced by Messrs. Willmot & Co. of Lew-
isham.

Autumn, StubbU, or Six Weeks. — Roots much
above ground, rather large, of an irregular
globular shape, or in form between the white
globe and white round, and rather soft. This
sort arrives sooner at maturity than any of the
others, the tankard turnips perhaps excepted ;
and from its natural softness of texture should
always be sown late, and used before the se-
vere frosts set in. As descriptive of its for-
wardness, it has received the above names,
being suited for sowing in early situations in
autumn after the corn crop has been removed,
and it is also valuable for making up blanks
in turnip fields, where the first sowing may
have partially failed.

The comparative nutritive powers of the
different varieties of turnips appear to be as
follow : —

Grains of
Nutritive Matter.

64 drachma of the Swedish turnip afford - 110

Stone or garden turnip ... - 85

Norfolk white turnip .... - 83

Common or white loaf .... 80

T»Dkard or long-rooted . - - - 76

{Sinclair's Hort. Oram. p. 406.)
1067

TURNIP.

Methods of sowing. — ^The modes of sowing are
various ; but the general principle to be at-
tended to is, to get the seed into the nearest
possible connection with the manure used, so
that it may have all the advantage of its fer-
tilizing influence in the earliest stage. This
is forestalling, because, it decides the drill
method to be the most valuable, before we de-
scribe the others ; but it is a principle so ne-
cessary and obvious as to strike every reflect-
ing person at the outset. The old broadcast
plan was, to spread on the manure, plough it
in, and then very carefully sow the seed with
the hand. This practice is almost everywhere
abandoned, nor can it be justified or recom-
mended in any case.

The plough drill is used where farm-yard
manure only is employed. The manure is
spread on the ground, and the plough follows
with the drill, being fixed to the right-hand side
of the plough, and thus deposits the seed im-
mediately in the seam made by the plough, and
directly upon the manure just covered by the
plough. The plough-drill is only useful where
very bulky manure alone is applied. See
Drill.

The ridge or Scotch method is used with
success, especially on inferior and thin soils,
and has its decided advantages. The ridges
are made either with a single cast of the double
mould-board plough, or a double one of the
common or ribbing plough, and from 20 to 28
inches apart. A cart with manure follows, and
women are generally employed to drop the
manure into the seams made by the plough.
The plough again follows, and closes the
ridges, covering the manure ; and the drill
succeeds, drawn by one horse, and sows one
ridge at a time. A light roller goes over the
sown ridges to cover the seed, and sometimes
the ridges are rolled before the sowing. This
plan takes more time and labour to effect it,
but the turnips generally succeed; and if they
should be destroyed by the flea-beetle, they can
be resown with more probability of success
than by any other method.

The general and most expeditious way is by
the large drill. This is constructed to deposit
the bones, ashes, &c., with the seed, upon the
level surface, drilling 6 or 7 rows at once. It
is drawn by 3 horses, and will drill 12 acres
per day. The seed does not run down the
same funnel as the bones, but has a separate
apparatus immediately behind the latter, and
the coulters of the drill generally cover the
whole. A pair of light harrows are usually
passed over once after the sowing ; and should
much heavy rain succeed, it is desirable to
give it another turn with the harrows imme-
diately before it is dry, to prevent it from
scarping. The quantity of seed sown by each
of these methods, is from 2 to 3 pounds per
acre.

Jtftir Culture. — When the turnip plants are
of about 3 weeks' growth, they require to be
thinned, and the weeds destroyed. This is
usually performed by hand-hoeing; but in
some cases Swedes are hand-thinned by wo-
men, and subsequently horse-hoed, which can
be done in all cases where they are sown in
ridges, and is a considerable saving of labour. '
1068 '

TURNIP.

No two plants should be left together at the
first hoeing, but they should be thoroughly
singled ; and a second hoeing must take place
about 2 or 3 weeks afterwards, to destroy the
weeds. For ordinary crops, they should be
left 7 to 12 inches distant, according to the
richness or poverty of the soil ; if the latter is
the case, they should be at shorter distances,
as they will grow to a smaller size. The
whole of the ground should be gone over, as it
loosens the earth, and promotes the growth of
the plants. The double operation is usually
performed for from 6s. to 7s. per acre. Some-
times the crop requires hand-weeding in the
autumn, especially if the soil is infested with
charlock.

Diseases. — The extensive and repeated cul-
ture of the turnip has fostered the rapid in-
crease of its natural enemies ; and after all the
pains, labour, and expense of the cultivator, he
often sees his crop entirely destroyed, or seri-
ously injured. The remedies he can apply for
many of these can only be termed palliative ;
but still he has much in his power; and as the
knowledge of natural history and field-ento-
mology advances, he may expect more and
more assistance. See Insects.

The turnip flea-beetle (Haltica nemorimi) is-
one of the worst enemies which attack the
turnip plant, which it does when in its seed-
leaf state, and often destroys a crop, and even
the second and third sowings. Various steps
have been taken in order to prevent its attacks^
and several steeps for the seed used, but with-
out success; top-dressings of a saline and as-
tringent character have been applied, but have
failed; machines have been invented, but none
of these have succeeded. The only directions
which can be given are: sow plenty of seed;,
use stimulating manure, to excite the plants to
vigorous growth in their first stages, and se-
cure a sufficiency of moisture in the soil at the
time of sowing; especially keeping seedlings
in turnip fields clear of charlock, which nurses
the flea. See Fly ix Turnips.

The black caterpillar, larva of the Jtthalia
centifoliee, also preys upon the leaves in a more
advanced stage, appearing on the plants when
they are about 3 weeks old. See Saw-Flt.

Another disease to which the turnip is liable,
is vulgarly called "fingers and toes." See An-
bury.

The wire-worm is a sad enemy. (See Wikb-
Worm.) The swarms of aphides, or plant
lice, severely injure the turnips; and, from the
smallness of their size, are often unobserved.
In 1836 they committed terrific ravages. They
suck the juices of the plant, and appear in
countless numbers. They are both oviparous
and viviparous, and increase with amazing
rapidity. Happily they are always followed by
swarms of lady-cows, which feed on them, as
well as insectivorous birds, which destroy vast
numbers. No remedy can be applied with any
probability of success. Every farmer should
carefully protect swallows, red-breasts, «fec.,.
which are great destroyers of the aphides.

Slugs are, especially on newly ploughed soils^
great devourers of the turnip plant in all its-
stages. Ducks will devour them, but always
injure the plants. Three bushels of quiclc

TURNIP.

TURNIP.

lime per acre, scattered over the plants early
in the morning, when the slugs are active, is a
certain method of destroying them. Perhaps
the very best preservative from all the above
diseases may be stated to be — liberal manuring,
adapted to the soil ; thorough clearing of the
land from weeds ; and, in short, pursuing the
steps above detailed for securing a full crop.
The vigour of the plants in such cases, and
their rapid vegetation, often enable them to
overcome many serious attacks.

Storing. — There are different modes of per-
forming this useful practice. The common
way is to take up the turnips, choosing dry
weather, cutting off the leaves and taproots
(provincially called topping and tailing), which
operation should be performed with as much
exactness as possible, so as not to wound the
bulb, as this would cause the turnip to rot ; nor
yet to leave much of the leaves, as this would
make the turnip vegetate on receiving a flight
degree of heat ; after this the turnips are
placed in a well-aired situation, adjoining to
the feeding byre, in a narrow tapering ridge,
similar to potato pits, and this is covered with
straw and secured with ropes. The situation
chosen for the store should be as dry as pos-
sible. The heaps must not be covered with
earth, like potatoes ; for this would cause the
turnips to heat and completely destroy them.

But as this practice of storing is only adapt-
ed for the Swedish and yellow varieties, the
white globe variety possessing too much water
to be preserved for any length of time, another
method is often practised by what is called
placing. The tap-roots being taken off, the
bulbs, with the leaves, are placed close together
in the position they grew, upon some dry place
near to where they are to be consumed. In
this way they will keep longer than if they had
been left in the field, as they are not so apt to
run to seed.

But even the placing system has its objec-
tions ; for if a tract of dry weather set in, the
turnips, from being merely on the surface, be-
come soft and shrivelled, and not so palatable
to the cattle, and will even continue so for a
considerable time, although the weather should
be rainy, until the fibres begin to take hold of the
soil ; and another objection is, that if the turnips
are not placed near the steading, the destruction
from game, hares, wood-pigeons, &c. is very
great, particularly if the turnip -be Swedish.

In order, therefore, to remedy these objec-
tions, another method has been adopted, which
has been found to answer every purpose in-
tended. The turnips are brought from the
field, without either "topping or tailing," to a
piece of dry ground near the straw-yard ; then
a man with one horse in a plough makes a
straight furrow ; the turnips are then placed in
the furrow quite close together, till the whole
is filled from end to end; then the man with
the plough moves round to where he com-
menced, drawing another furrow just as close
to the turnips as to enable him to cover them,
and so on alternately, the men making the fur-
row and covering the turnips, while the women
and girls lay in the turnips. By this method
the turnips keep as fresh, preserving all their
natural juice and are as well relished by the

cattle as though they were taken from the field ;
thus' allowing the land to be sown with wheat.

The report of the Harleston Farmers' Club
for 1839, atfirms that the best method of pre-
serving roots during the winter, is by clamping
them, both as regards protection from frost and
maintaining their quality ; and that the follow-
ing is a very effectual method of making the
clamps : — Select a convenient and dry situa-
tion, and pack the roots carefully, with their
crowns outside, in a row about 6 feet wide at
the bottom, and terminating in a narrow ridge
at the top ; then dig a trench, commencing im-
mediately at the edge of the roots, 2 feet wide
and 1 deep, turning the mould from the heap;
thatch the latter carefully with straw, com-
mencing in the trench, so that all the raiifmay
drain off the heap into it. The clamp may be
left two or three weeks in this state, that the
evaporation from the roots may escape ; the
mould already taken out of the trench is then
to be laid on the straw, commencing at the bot-
tom of the thatch, and covering the heap 12
inches thick throughout, finishing with a sharp
edge. Half the trench originally made will,
of course, by this plan be filled up with straw
and mould; the other half will remain as a
channel for the water falling off the heap; and,
as sufficient mould will not have been raised
from the original excavation, it will be advis-
able, in procuring more, to make the channel
left round the heap a few inches deeper, as
well as wider. If the roots are stored late in
the season, and the probability of frost setting
in renders it necessary to cover the heap with
mould as soon as it is made, it would be better
to leave the top uncovered for a week or ten
days longer, that the heat may escape. There
is no objection to the roots being wet and dirty
when they are clamped : the tops should be cut
off, but not too close to the crown ; the roots
and fibres should be left on.

In England, the turnip crops cultivated with
so much care and at so much cost, yield a
most abundant supply of vegetable matter,
most of which, owing to the comparatively
mild winters, is left on and in the ground to be
eaten off by sheep. This adds great fertility
to the soil and prepares it for producing those
astonishingly luxuriant crops of wheat of 40,
50 and 60 bushels to the acre. The profits of
the turnip crop, either direct or indirect, must
be very great, to authorize a tenant on land
loaded with taxes, to go to an expense of nearly
^50 per acre in putting in his root crop, as
may be seen in the article Appuaisemejtt,
where the details of expenditures in putting in
only 17 acres of Swedish turnips are estimated
at £117 15s. sterling, equal to nearly $900, of
federal money, a sum actually paid for the
crop in the ground by an incoming tenant.
The root crops of Britain which form the basis
of her agricultural prosperity, can only be par-
tially carried on in the United States, owing to
the severity of the winter, by which every thing
on or near the surface of the ground is bound
in early and enduring frost. But then, where
cold thus opposes a barrier, a high summer
heat opens a new resource, and where nature
obstructs the way in one direction, she opens
others to agricultural thrift. One of these is
4 2C 1069

TURNIP CART.

TUSSER, THOMAS.

the Indian corn crop, denied to Europe, except
in a small space on or near the Mediterranean.
The value of this crop, far transcending that
of any other staple, is referred to under the
head of Maize. In reference to the agricul-
tural value of the turnip and other roots, Mr.
Nicholas Biddle in an address before the Phi-
ladelphia Agricultural Society in 1842, made
the following interesting observations : —

"It is strange how things so lowly acquire
national importance. The best farming is that
which will give the greatest mass of suste-
nance to aniraals-^since the less land required
for animals, the more can be given for the
maintenance of human beings. That fine
farming region, England, had reached the limit
of Its power of supporting animals — since it
turned to the root culture it more than doubled
or quadrupled its power — and now, odd as the
mingling of such dissimilar notions may seem,
it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, that Eng-
land's power is based upon its iron, its coal,
and its turnips. Then, that beet, which the
commercial jealousy of Napoleon endeavoured
to raise to the dignity of the sugar-cane, which
at this moment yields to France more than 60
millions of pounds of good sugar, and has now
become so incorporated into the French agri-
culture as to divide the government of France
between the encouragement of the foreign
sugar-cane and the domestic sugar beet. To
us the question is unimportant, since sugar is
so cheap in this country as to leave to us the
sugar beet as an excellent food for our cattle."

Although the excessive frosts in the United
States interfere with the English plan of feeding
the turnips from the ground during winter, still
there is no question that great; advantages may
be derived by the American farmer from the
cultivation of the turnip, the Swedish especially,
to lay up as green and succulent food for stock,
to be used conjointly with hay and other kinds
of provender. Very satisfactory experiments
have demonstrated the value of turnips appro-
priated in this way, for an account of which the
reader may consult BucVs Farmer''s Instricctor,
Coleman's Reports, the Cultivator, and other Am.
agricultural periodicals.

The insects which attack turnips in America will
be found described under the heads Caterpil-
XAR, Fiea-Beetle, Fly ix Turnips, &c.

TURNIP CART. This is an ingenious
adaptation of the disc turnip cutter to the tur-
nip cart. The disc is put in motion by a face-
wheel fixed upon the nave of the cart-wheel,
which, as it revolves communicates by means
of cog-wheels with the axis of the cutting-
plate. It offers a very convenient mode of
feeding sheep on pastures or lawns, and was
introduced about the year 1834, by Arthur Bid-
dell, farmer, of Playford, the inventor of the
well-known scarifier, which bears his name.

TURNIP CUTTERS. Although there are
several kinds of turnip cutters, the principles
upon which they are constructed do not em-
brace much variety : setting aside the simple
application of the knife with a lever handle,
the others may be divided into two classes ;
first, those which have their knives placed on
a disc ; and secondly, those with their cutting
edges arranged on a cylinder.
1070

As the object to be effected is simple, and
involves little mechanical contrivance, a short
description will suffice.

Gardner's Patent Turnip Cutter, is pronounced
the best known in England. In Ransome's Bar-
row Turnip Cutter, Gardner's machine is used,
the disc of which is attached to the side of a
barrow, which serves as a hopper ; the knife is
nearly the length of the radius, and when re-
quired to cut the turnip in slices is alone used;
if it be necessary to cut small slices for sheep,
the small cross-knives are, by a simple con-
trivance, adjusted to dissect the slice; and in
this case the barrow is useful, as it is easily
moved from trough to trough, into which the
small slices may be made to fall.

It is intended to cut into small slices for
sheep, and is generally acknowledged to be the
best implement for the purpose that is at pre-
sent in use in England.

TURPENTINE. A transparent, oleo-resin-
ous substance, which exudes naturally, but is
chiefly obtained by incision, from various spe-
cies of pine. There are several kinds of tur-
pentine, namely, common, Bordeaux, Cana-
dian, Strasburg, Venice, and American white.
The Chian turpentine is the production of the
Pistachia icrebinthus; but all of them possess
the same general and chemical properties.

TUSSER, THOMAS, a celebrated agricul-
tural writer. Five-and-twenty years after the
publication of the first English work upon agri-
culture (Fitzherbcrt's Boke of Husbandrye), ap-
peared (in 1557) the One Hundred Points of
Good Husbandry, by Thomas Tusser. This
celebrated work must be regarded more as a
series of poetical good farming, and domestic
directions and axioms, than as a regular treat-
ise upon agriculture. All that is known of the
author of this curious production has been col-
lected by Dr. Mavor, in his able edition of
Tusser's book, and by my brother, Mr. George
W. Johnson, in his History of English Garden-
ing; and both these authors have been obliged
to content themselves chiefly with Tusser's
own account of himself; for Tusser did what
few men ever attempt — he wrote his own life,
and in a manner still more rare, in verse. His
life was full of adventure ; for he evidently had
all the restlessness of genius, with the unsettled
habits too commonly confirmed by continued
change of occupation.

He was born about the year 1515, at Riven-
hall, a village on the high-road between the
towns of Witham and Keldevon, in Essex, of a
family allied by marriage to the higher ranks
of society.

He was buried in the church of St. Mildred
in the Poultry, according to Stowe, with this
epitaph :

" Here, Thomas Tuseer, clad in earth, doth lie.
That Bometime made the Points of Husbandry :
By hirn then learn thou may'st ; here learn we must,.
When all is done, we sleep, and turn to dust :
And yet, through Christ, to heaven we hope to go :
Who reads his books, shall find his faith was so."

In whatever capacity he at various times
lived he acted with ability, yet never so as to
benefit his fortune. That he excelled as a
chorister, — to which he was originally edu-
cated, though strongly against his inclination^

TUSSER, THOMAS.

TUSSER, THOMAS.

— is certain ; for none but those of more than
ordinary powers are admitted into the royal
choir. As a courtier he was unfrowned upon
till the disgrace of his patron. As a farmer it
is evident that he possessed a correct know-
ledge, from his work upon the subject. The
same book testifies that, as an author and a
poet, he was far above mediocrity. Fuller, in
his Worthies of Essex, describes him, in his
usual quaint manner, as " a musician, school-
master, serving-man, husbandman, grazier,
poet; more skilful in all than thriving in any
vocation. He spread," he adds, " his bread
with all sorts of butter, yet none would stick
thereon." The testimony of Fuller to the ex-
cellent private character of Tusser is valuable
as coming from one who must have been the
contemporary of many persons who well re-
membered our author. "I hear," says Fuller,
" no man to charge him with any vicious ex-
travagancy or visible carelessness." The true
reason of his ill success in life is to be found,
perhaps, in the verses of a poet almost his con-
temporary. Peacham, in his Minerva, a book
of emblems, published in 1612, has a device of
a whetstone and a scythe, with this beneath:

"They tell me, Tusser, when thou wert alive.
And hadst for profit turned every atone.
Where'er thou earnest thou couldst never thrive,
Thouf^h hereto best couldst counsel every one ;
As it may in thy Husbandry appear,
Wherein afresh thou livest amon|r us here.
So, like thyself, a number more are wont
To sharpen others with advice of wit,
When they themselves are like the whetstone blunt."

Tusser's work first appeared in 1567, en-
titled "j1 Himdreth Good Pointes of Hutbandrie :

"A hundreth good points of husbandry
Maintaineth good household, with huswifry.
Housekeeping and husbandry, if it be good.
Must love one another like cousinnes in blood.
The wife, too, must husband as well as the man.
Or farewel thy husbandry do what thou can.

Imprinted at London, in Flete strete, within
Temple barre, at the sygne of the hand and
starre, by Richard Totell, the third day of Feb-
ruary, An. 1557. Cum priviligio ad imprimea-
dum solum."

A copy of this edition, which Dr. Mavor con-
siders to be unique, is in the British Museum.
It consists of only 13 quarto leaves.

The Book of Husurifry, it is supposed, was at
first printed by itself; it was afterwards added
to the editions of the Husbandry.

Editions of this work appeared in 1561, 1562 ;
and another, "newly corrected and amplified,"
1570, 1571 (Watts). To these succeeded an
enlarged edition and several reprints, the last
of which is that edited by Dr. W. Mavor in
1812, 4to and 8vo, with many notes and addi-
tions.

To this Book of Husbandry, says Weston, is
often joined The Booke of Regarde, containing the
Castle of Delight, the Garden of Unthriftinesse, the
Arbour of Virtue, and the Castle of Repentance.
Another work is ascribed by Haller to the pen
of Tusser, viz. Tractate de Jgricultura Versibus
Jlnglicis. London, 1638-72. Both these last-
mentioned works are extremely rare.

Tusser dedicated his book first to Lord Wil-
liam Paget, in an acrostic, and after his death
to " the Lord Paget of Beaudesert," his son and

heir. From this we find that Tusser shared an-
author's very common fate, for he tells us —

" By practice and ill speeding,
These lessons had their breeding.
And not by hearsay or reading,

As some abroad have blown ;
Who will not thus believe me,
So much the more they grieve me,
Because they grudge to give me.
What is of right mine own."

Its price, when first published, as described
in his prefatory address to the reader, was only
4rf. or Qd. He says,

" What is a groat
Or twain to note.
Once in the life.
For man or wife 1"

The style in which Tusser wrote his book is
plain, and sometimes rather hobbling; but at
the same time it is a metre easily remembered;
and verse is well adapted to impress upon the
memory the mass of useful truths and rural
directions contained in the work. In the rhym-
mg preface, "to the buyer of this book" (for
Tusser seemed to do every thing in verse), he
says, —

" What look ye, I pray you shew what 1

Terms pointed with rhetorick fine 1 •

Good husbandry seoketh not that,
Nor ia't any meaning of mine."

His tenth chapter consists of a series of 63
excellent "Good Husbandry Lessons, worthy
to be followed of such as will thrive." He
omitted no opportunity to give occasion for
seasonable reflections :

"As bud, by appearing, betok'neth the spring.
And leaf, by her falling, the contrary thing ;
So youth bids us labour to get as we can.
For age is a burden to labouring man."

He comments the system of moderate corn-
rents, and was evidently no enemy to the sports
of the field :

" To hunters and hawkers take heed what ye say,
Mild answer with courtesy, drives them away ;
So where a man's better will open a gap.
Resist not with rudeness, fur fear of mishap."

He begins his monthly husbandry with Sep-
tember, for that was then the period, as now in
England, when arable land was commonly en-
tered upon by the farmer. He says, in his
opening stanza, —

"At Michaelmas lightly, new farmer comes in.
New husbandry forceth him ; new to begin ;
Old farmer, still taking, the time to him given,
Makes August to last untill Michaelmas even."

In furtherance of his object, that of giving ^
some very minute directions to the incoming
tenant, he even gives a catalogue of farming
implements in verse, in which he manages
with some adroitness to include several ap-
parently impracticable names, such as, —

"A hand-barrow, wheel-barrow, shovel, and spade,
A curry-comb, mane-comb, and whip for a jade."

It was the approved practice in Tusser's
days to " sow timely thy white wheat, sow rye
in the dust." They were used also to put rye-
meal into their wheat-flour :

" But sow it not mixed to grow so on land.
Lest rye tarry wheat till it shed as it stand."

Thick and thin sowing had even then their
respective advocates :

1071

TUSSER. THOMAS.

TUSSER, THOMAS.

*' Though beans be in sowing; but scattered in,
Yet wheat, rye, and peason, I love not too thin :
Sow barley and dredge with a plentiful hand,
Lest weed, stead of seed, overgroweth thy land.

It is evident that in those days the farmers
inhere not able to grow their grain on many soils
where the modern holders find no obstacles.
Thus he speaks of the difficulty they found in
producing barley in the parish of Brantham,
in Essex, where he farmed some land; and,
again, he tells us, what will surprise the mo-
dern skilful Suffolk farmers, —

" In Suffolk, again, whereas wheat never grew,
Good husbandry, used, good wheat land I knew."

And he adds, —

"As gravel and sand is for rye and not wheat."

He mentions several varieties of wheat then
grown by the farmers of the reign of good
Queen Bess, such as white and red rivet, white
and red pollard, Turkey and gray. But of this
last he says, —

" Oats, rye, or else barley, and wheat that is grey,
Brings land out of conifort, and soon to decay."

The land, however, was evidently farmed
with little skill :

"Two crops of a fallow, enricheth the plough,
Though t' one be of pease, it is land good enough :
One crop and a fallow some soil will abide,
Where, if ye go further, lay profit aside."

He warns the farmers to beware of corn-
stealers, and to keep their soil in good heart ;
to manure their land with the earth from head-
lands and old banks ; he commends the use of
night-soil for gardens; and recommends the
manure of the farm-yard to be laid up "round
on a hill." And he had the wisdom to perceive
the advantages of shed-feeding live-stock :

" The houseing of cattle, while winter doth hold.
It is good for all .such as are feeble, and old ;
It saveth much compass and many a sleep.
And spareth the pasture for walk of thy sheep."

Grazing has, since Tusser's days, been more
and more on the decline, as soiling has been
better appreciated. A distinguished modern,
witty divine, in a letter to a friend, thus zeal-
ously denounces the grazing system : " Grazing
is an absolute barbarism ; it is just the same
as if you desired your servants to trample and
roll over your bread and butter."

For faint cattle he recommends the use of
bay-salt ; and in his February's husbandry gives
some directions for the management of their
dung, which betrays a deplorable want of know-
ledge in its economy :

" Wholayeth on dung, ere ho layeth on plow,
Such husbandry useth, as thrift doth allow :
One month ere ye spread it, so still let it stand,
Ere ever to plow it, ye take it in hand.

Place dung-heap alow, by the furrow along,
Where water, all winter-time did it such wrong :
So make ye the land to be lusty and fat.
And corn thereon sown, to be better for that."

In another place, however, he recommends
the farmer to use the mud from ditches and
ponds as a dressing for their land.

They harvested their corn, it seems, then,
much after the same manner as at the present
day. They reaped their wheat and mowed
their stubbles ; and this they carried as we do
now, as soon as possible after harvest :
1072

" For fear of destroying with cattle or rain.
The sooner ye load it more profit ye gain."

And as to barley, Tusser says, —

" The mowing of barley, if barley do stand.
Is cheapest and best, for to rid out of hand :
Some mow it, and rake it, and set it on cocks ;
Some mow it, and bind it, and set it on shocks."

They let out, at the period when Tusser
wrote, it seems, the harvest-work either by the
acre or by the day ; of which modes of getting
in the corn he seems to prefer the latter :

" By great will deceive thee, with ling'ring it out,
By day will despatch, and put all out of doubt."

His directions to the farmer with regard to
the treatment of his harvestmen and the poor
gleaners, and his warm hopes for the farmer's
success, betray the excellent benevolent spirit
with which he was actuated. He says, —

" Corn carried, let such as be poor go and glean.
And after thy cattle, to mouth it up clean ;
Then spare It for rowen till Michel be past.
To lengthen thy dairy, no better thou hast.

In harvest-time, harvest-folk, servants and all,
Should make altogether, good cheer in the hall ;
And fill out the black bowl of biythe to their song,
And let them be merry all harvest-time long.

Once ended thy harvest, let none be beguil'd ;
Please such as did help thee — man, woman, and child.
Thus doing, with alway, such help as they can ;
Thou winnest the praise of the labouring man.

Now look up to God-ward, let tongue never cease
In thanking of Him for his mighty increase,
Accept my good will,— for a proof go and try ;
The better thou thrivest the gladder am I."

Having commenced his directions with the
outgoing tenant, his last stanza concludes with
a reference to the incoming :

" New farmer he thinketh each hour a day,
Until the old farmer be packing away."

"Thus endeth and holdeth out
August's Husbandry till
Michaelmas Eve. Tho. Tusser."

The Book of Husbandry of Tusser is also in-
teresting from the information it gives us with
regard to the oustoms and habits of the farmers
of more than two centuries and a half since.
It is evident that they then lived very much
upon salt fish, for in his directions for the far-
mer's diet, he mentions for Lent herrings and
salt fish — at Easter they had veal and bacon —
at Martinmas, beef— before the feast of St.
John, mackerel — fresh herrings at Michaelmas
—at Hallowtide, sprats and spurlings— for
Christmas fare they seemed to have all the
modern standing dishes, —

"Good bread and good drink, a good fire in the hall,
Brawn-pudding and souse, and good mustard withal;
Beef, mutton, and pork, shred pies of the best, ^ .

Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well drest.*

They evidently, however, lived generally
very frugally :

"Where fish is scant, and fruit of trees.
Supply that want with butter and cheese,
Quoth Tusser."

They bought, in Tusser's time, such stocks
of salt fish as would amaze a modern farmer
in these protestant days, when, by the increase
of green winter food, cattle and sheep are kept
easily through the winter, and fresh meat is
always to be had. Few farmers would now
think of undertaking a journey to buy fish ;
yet he directed the farmer of the sixteenth
century,—

TUSSER, THOMAS.

UDDER.

" When harvest is ended, take shipping or ride,
Ling, salt-fish, and herring for Lent to provide ;
Get home that is bought, and go stack it up dry.
With pease-straw between it, the safer to lie."

They had a rude way of measuring time, it
seems :

" As huswives are tcached, instead of a clock.
How winter nights passeth by crowing of cock."

The care of the garden evidently fell to the
wife's share, who had also to see to the feeding
of the household. It seems that the labourers
had then a great fondness for porridge, for
Tusser tells us, —

" No spoon-meat, no bellyfull, labourers think."

In other days, too, it is evident that spinning
was no mean part of the mistress's avocation,
for it is here said, —

"Wife, pluck fro thy seed hemp the fimble hemp clean ;
This looketh more yellow, the other more green.
Use t'one for thy spinning, Michell the t'other.
For shoe-thread and halter, for rope and such other :
Now pluck up thy flax for the maidens to spin."

Tusser never seems to have forgotten, on
any occasion, to recommend to the landholder
the payment of his just dues; even the ques-
tion of the tithes, once so obnoxious to the
farmer, was not overlooked by him. He ad-
vised his farming brethren to

"Tithe duly and truly, with hearty good will,
That God and his blessing may dwell with thee still ;
Though parson neglecteth his duty for this,
Thank thou thy Lord God, and give ev'ry man his."

The Points of Hustvifery, united to the Comfort
of Husbandry, by Thomas Tusser, Gentleman,
was, it is concluded, first published with The
Husbandry in 1561 or 1562. It is written in
rather a more lively style than the former, and
has an epistle dedicatory, " to the right honour-
able, and my especiall good lady and mistress,
the Lady Paget," which he thus commences :

"Though danger be mickle,
And favour so fickle;
Yet duty doth tickle

My fancy to write:
Concerning how pretty,
How fine and how netty.
Good huswife should jetty

From morning to night."

This work contains an abundance of direc-
tions, in his usual style of versification, for the
conduct of household duties. He directs the
servants, before breakfast, to be set to work :

"Let some to peel hemp, or else rushes to twine.
To spin, or to card, or to seething of brine."

At breakfast time the wife was, in those
days, the carver for the farm servants :

"Let huswife be carver, let pottage be heat,
A mess to each one with a morsell of meat."

In the cookery department the now nearly
extinct race of turnspits were indispensable
attendants upon the cook :

"Good diligent turnbrocbe, and trusty witbaL"
In his washing section he is rather more
terse than gentle in his conclusion :

■"Maids, wash well, and wring well, but beat, ye wot
how.
If any lack beating, I fear it be you.

In his directions for malt-making he alludes
to the use of straw and wood, but does not
mention the modern fuel, coke, or cinders.
They used, it seems to dine at noon :
135

** By noon, see your dinner be ready and neat ;
Let meat tarry servant, not servant his meat."

The mistress of the house then made, as now
in some parts of England, her own candles, it
seems :

" Provide for thy tallow, ere frost cometh in.
And make thine own candle, ere winter begin."

Twice a week, Sundays and Thursdays, the
ploughmen were entitled to roast meat for sup-
per ; and to a harvest goose when the corn was
gathered in. At harvest-home the mistress was
enjoined, —

" Remember thou, therefore, though I do it not,
The seed-cake and pasties, and furmety pot."

In Tusser's time a very unwholesome custom
prevailed, in the absence of carpets, of strew-
ing the citizens' houses with rushes, and those
of the country with flowers. He gives, there-
fore, a list of " strewing flowers of all sorts,"
in which we find only the common sorts of
flowers now cultivated, such as cowslips, dai-
sies, lavender, roses, sage, tansy, violets, &c.

Such were the works of Tusser, writings
which were long in the hand-book of the Eng-
lish country gentleman. That they were popu-
lar is evidenced by the rapid succession of
copious edition^ which fell to their lot; that
they were read with delight is shown by the
way in which he is commonly quoted by the
farmer of all grades. If he had spoken in
prose, as has been sometimes suggested, he
might certainly have been more instructive to
the few, but he would not have been read by
the many.

The popular details and histories of all na-
tions escaping from rudeness are commonly
written in verse ; and multitudes can learn
these by heart who never were taught to read.
Tusser, therefore, is deserving of the gratitude
of the English farmer, for his labours tended
to improve, to refine, to elevate the profession
he celebrated in his verses. The attempt at
any thing like a systematic treatise on farming
had not, when Tusser died, been deemed pos-
sible. {Quart. Journ. Jlgr. vol. xii. p. 69.)

TWAYBLADE (Listera ; named in honour
of Martin Lister, M.D., a famous English phy-
sician and naturalist; best known as aconcho-
logist and entomologist). A genus of curious
little native plants, growing wild in shady
places. They may be grown in a mixture of
peat and loam, and are increased by divisions
of the roots.

T W I G - R U S H (Cladium, from klados, a
branch or twig, referring to the appearance of
the plant). This is a genus of hard, harsh,
rushy, often prickly-edged plants, whose stems,
whether round or triangular, are more or less
clothed with alternate sheathing leaves or
scrIcs

TWITCH. See Couch.

U.

UDDER. The glandular organ of a cow,
mare, ewe, or other animal which is destined
for the secretion of milk. There are four teats,
each of which consists of two granular lobated
glands, comprehending bloodvessels, nerves,
4x2 1073

UMBEL.

VEGETABLE CHEMISTRY.

and milk ducts, all of which first unite into
eight or ten principal ducts, and these again
into one, which perforates the skin of the teat
at its apex. The granular part is the secreting
organ.

UMBEL. In botany, a particular arrange-
ment of the flowers in certain plants, of which
the carrot is a familiar example ; the pedun-
cles and pedicles spring from a common centre,
and rise till they form a somewhat flat tuft.
The umbel is a loose inflorescence, the primary
axis of which is short, and the secondary long;
and the umbel becomes compound when the
secondary axes are developed, in the same
manner as the primary. Both the primary and
the secondary umbel is generally furnished
with bractes at the point of its divergence.
The secondary umbel is termed umbellule. The
difference between an umbel and a corymb is,
that in the latter the flowers form a flat head,
the secondary axes arising alternately from
different points of the primary, not, as in the
former, springing from a common centre. See

IXFLORESCENCE.

UMBELLIFEROUS PLANTS (Umbelli-
ferce). An extensive group of useful plants,
including those well-known garden vegetables
parsley, celery, carrots, fennel, caraway, cori-
ander, dills, anise, lovage, angelica, eryngo,
samphire, hemlock. The name of the class
was given from a fanciful resemblance to
some parts of an umbrella or parasol. The
flower-stem divides at the top into a number
of short, slender branches, which all run from
a common point or centre like the rays of an
umbrella from the ring sliding up and down
the stick. The class, though containing so
many useful plants, has many possessed of
extremely poisonous qualities, such as hem-
lock, the fool's parsley (JEthusa cynapium, PI.
10,g), dropwort, &c. The blossom of the elder
resembles at first sight those of umbelliferous
plants, to which, however, the elder does not
belong, because the rays of the flower do not
proceed from a common point, some being
higher and some lower.

UNDERWOOD. A term applied to coppice,
or any wood not accounted timber. See Cop-
pice, Forest, and Plantation.

URINE. A saline fluid secreted from the
blood of animals by the kidneys, collected in
the urinary bladder, and emitted by the canal
of the urethra. Urine differs in different ani-
mals, and varies in its characters, according to
the kind of food employed. The usual salts
contained in it are, sulphates, phosphates, and
chlorides, all of which are fertilizing sub-
stances. The urine also of oxen and horses is
alkaline ; it undergoes decomposition less ra-
pidly than that of carnivorous animals : it
contains hippurates, but no lithic acid, that
substance which forms red gravel in man.
Hippuric acid contains 7 per cent, of nitrogen.
Urine, therefore, is of much use as a manure,
improving most kinds of soil. Columella has
asserted that, stale, it is excellent for the roots
of trees. And Hartlib commends the Dutch
for preserving the urine of cows as care-
fully as they do the dung, to enrich their
lands.

1074

It is a fluid capable of being employed with
great benefit both on meadotvs and on arable
land. See LiatJiu Manure and Night-soil.

URITH. Provincially the etherings or bind-
ings of hedges.

USTILAGO (from ustus, scorched appear-
ance). A genus of fungi, parasitical, which
are found preying upon the cereal and other
grasses. See Smut.

V.

VALLESNERIA (Spiralis). This plant
grows very abundantly from the bottoms of
fresh water rivers and lakes over the whole
United States, where the flow of water is not
very rapid. It goes by the different names of
eelgrass, tapegrass, and channelweed. It is
upon the roots of this grass, or a native spe-
cies of vallesneria, that the canvass-back
duck feeds, and to which its peculiarly delicate
flavour is ascribed, by Wilson, the ornitho-
logist.

VALUATION. See Appraisement.

VEGETABLE CHEMISTRY is that branch
of the science of chemistry which relates to
vegetable substances. tjnder the heads
Analysis, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry,
Gases, Earths, Water, Salts, &c., I have
endeavoured to include all the facts supplied
by this important science for the assistance
of the farmer with which I am acquainted;
I shall, therefore, merely insert in this place
the chemical analysis of the inorganic sub-
stances found in several of the commonly cul-
tivated crops of the farmer ; and this I take
from p. 318, of the valuable Lectures on Agri-
cultural Chemistry and Geology, by J. F. Johnston ;
see also Liebig's Organic Chemistry.

Besides the elements of the organs of plants^
other substances, obtained from inorganic na-
ture, are necessary for certain organs destined
to special functions peculiar to each family of
plants. In the ashes of the plants left after
burning them, these substances are found.
Almost all plants contain acids, in combination
with soda, potassa, lime, alumina, or magnesia^
The quantity of these salts varies at different
periods of the growth of the plant : thus unripe
grasses contain more bitartrate of potassa than
the ripe, and the potato more potassa before it
blossoms than afterwards. The nature of a
soil, as has already been detailed, alters the
quantity of salts found in plants. The Salsola
kali, raised from seeds of plants near the sea,
in an inland garden, contains both potassa and
soda ; but the plants from the seed of this con-
tain potassa only. But these facts are detailed
under the head Salts, &c.

In examining the results of these analyza-
tions, the farmer must remember, that the acids
and their bases do not exist in plants in aa
uncombined state, but in combination with
each other; that is, as salts.

1. Of the Ash of W^Aea^— According to the
analysis of Sprengel, 1000 lbs. of wheat leave
11-77 lbs. and of wheat straw 35* 18 lbs. of ash»
consisting of—

VEGETABLE CHEMISTRY.

VEGETABLE CHEMISTRY.

Potash _ - - -

Soda

Lime - - - - -
Magnesia - - - -
Alumina, with a trace of iron

Silica

Sulphuric acid - - -
Phosphoric acid - - -
Chlorine ... -

Grain of
Wheat.

straw of
Wheat.

2-25 lbs.

0-90
0-26
400
0-50
040
010

0 20 lbs.
0-29
2-40
0-32
090
28-70
0-37
1-70
030

11-77 lbs.

3518 lb8.

2. Of the Ash of Barley. — A thousand pounds
of the grain of barley (two-rowed, Hordcum dis-
tichon) leave 23^ lbs., and of the ripe dry straw
62-42 lbs. of ash. This ash consists of —

Potash

Soda ...

Lime - - -

Magnesia -

Alumina

Oxide of iron

Oxide of manganese

Silica -

Sulphuric acid -

Phosphoric acid -

Chlorine

23-49 lbs. 52-43 lbs

2-78 lbs.

180 lbs.

290

0-48

106

554

1-80

0 76

025

146

a trace.

0 14

020

IIM

38-56

0-59

118

210

1-60

019

OTO

3. Of the Ash of Oats.— In 1000 lbs. of the
grain of the oat are contained about 26 lbs.,
and of the dry straw about 57^ lbs., of inorganic
matter, consisting of— (see next column)

Potash

Soda - - -

Lime - - -

Magnesia

Alumina

Oxide of iron

Oxide of manganese

Silica - - -

Sulphuric acid -

Phosphoric acid -

Chlorine

Grain.

1-50 lbs.
1-32
086
0-67
0-14
0-40
0-

19-76
0-35
0-70
010

Straw.

8-701
0-2
1-52
0-22
0-06
0-02
0-02
45-88
0-79
0-12
005

25-80 lbs. 57-40 lbs

4. Of the Ash of i?yc.— The weight of ash con-
tained in 1000 lbs. of the grain of rye is 10^ lbs.,
and of the straw 28 lbs. This ash consists of —

Potash

Soda - - -

Lime - - -

Magneaia -

Alumina

Oxide of iron

Oxide of manganese

Silica -

Sulphuric acid -

Phosphoric acid -

Chlorine

5-32 lbs.

f 0-32 lbs.
iOll

122

1-78

0-44

0-12

0-24 \
0-42 1

025.

0 34

164

22-97

023

1-70

0-46

051

009

0-17

10 40 lbs.

27-93 lbs.

5. Of the Ash of Beam, Peas, and Vetches.— The
ash of the seed and straw of the field bean, the
field pea, and the common vetch ( Vicia sativa)^
dried in the air, contains in 1000 lbs. the several
inorganic compounds in the following propor-
tions:—

Potash -

Boda ...

Lime ...

Magnesia

Alumina

Oxide of iron -

Oxide of manganese

Silica ...

Sulphuric acid

Phosphoric acid

Chlorine

415
816
1-65
1-58
031

1-26
0-89
2-92
041

21-36

Sinir.

1656
0-50
634
3-9
010
007
0-05
330
0J4
336
0-80

8-10
7-39
0-58
1-36
020
010

4*10
053
1-90
0-38

335

31-21

34-64 I 49-71

SmiL

Straw.

8-97
6-23
1-60
142
0-22
009
0-05
2-00
0-50
1-40
043

22 90

1810

0 52
1955

324
015
009
0-08
442

1 22
2-80
084

51-01,

6. The Ash of the Turnip, Carrot, Parsnip, and I from the field, contain respectively in 10,000
Potato. — These 4 roots, as they are carried lbs. —

Potash ...
Soda ...
Lime . - .
Magnesia

Alumina . . -
Oxide of iron -
Oxide of manganese
Silica - . -
Sulphuric acid
Phosphoric acid
Chlorine

ToraifM.

Rooti.

23-86
10-48
7-52
2-54
036
0-32

3"88
801
3-67
2-39

633

Leave*.

32-3
222
62-0
5 9
0-3
1-7

12*8

25-2

9-8

8-7

35-33
922
6-57
3-84
0-39
0-33
0-60
1-37
2-70
514
0-70

180-9 I 66-

Pannip.

20-79
7-02
4-68
2-70
0-24
005

1-92
1-

1-78

41-80

Top*.

81-9

0-9

129-7

17-0
0-4
0-2

49-4
4-2

19-7
5-0

82-83 I 308-4

7. (y the Ash of the Glasses and Clovers.— The
following table might have been much en-
larged. I have thought it necessary, however,
to introduce in this place only those species
of grass and clover which are in most exten-

sive use. I have also calculated the weights
given below for these plants in the state of hay
only, as the succulency of the grasses — that is,
the quantity of water contained in the green
crop — varies so much that no correct estimate

1076

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.

could be made of the quantity of inorganic
matter present in hay or grass, from a know-
ledge of its weight in the green state only. The

annexed quantities are contained in 1000 lbs.
of the dry hay of each plant :

Potash

Lime - - -
Magnesia
Alumina
Oxide of iron
Oxide of manganese
Silica - - -
Sulphuric acid
Phosphoric acid -
Chlorine

Rye-graM. Red
Hay. Clover.

8-81
3-94
7-34
0-90
0-31

27 72
3-53
0-25
006

52-86

19-95
5-29

27-80
3-33
014

3-60
4-47
6-57

74-78

White
Clover.

31-5
5-79
23-48

063

14-73
3-53
505
211

91-32

95-53

20-67
4-37

21-95
2-88
0-66

5-

341
916
1-67

6957

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY is that sci-
ence which treats of the vegetable kingdom, its
habits, properties, and organization, in the most
comprehensive manner. Its objects have been
clearly stated by Mrs. Marcet, in her excellent
Conversations on Vegetable Physiology, when de-
scribing the lectures of M. DecandoUe on this
science ; and what she has so well described,
it is needless for me to give in other words.
*'So far from confining himself to the classifi-
cation of plants, the physiologist examines the
vegetable kingdom in its most comprehensive
and philosophical point of view. In describing
the structure, he investigates the habits and
properties of plants, and shows, not only how
wonderfully they have been formed to fulfil the
purposes of their own multiplication and pre-
servation, but how admirably they answer the
high purpose which nature has assigned to
them, of ministering to the welfare of the ani-
mal creation, and more especially to that of
man. He turns his attention particularly to
point out the means by which the science of
botany can promote that with which it is most
intimately and importantly connected — agricul-
ture. He makes ready the soil and sows the seed
for the husbandman ; he extracts the healing
juices and the salutary poisons for the physi-
cian ; he prepares materials for the weaver, co-
lours for the dyer : in a word, as he proceeds,
there is scarcely an art on which he does not
confer some benefit, either by pointing out a
new truth, or warning against an old-establish-
ed error." From this description of the objects
of the science of vegetable physiology, the
reader will see that almost all its different
branches are treated of separately in articles
which are dispersed through this volume. It
is only, therefore, a few scattered fragments
which I propose to gather together in this
place. See Acclimatiox, Botany, Earths,
Gases, Ltoht, Putrefaction, Salts, Tempe-
KATURE, Water, &c.

The description of the cambium for the de-
scending sap of plants was omitted in its pro-
per place, and the eflfect of gravity or attrac-
tion upon j^ants was referred to this head.
The sap havmg ascended into the leaves, and
being in its course gradually altered into a
fluid suitable for the nourishment of the plant,
descends principally through the liber, or inner
layer of bark, but a small portion also descends
through the young wood, or alburnum. This
movement, especially through the plants with
1076

pendent branches, is materially facilitated by
motion, as by the action of the wind. " Mr.
Knight," adds Mrs. Marcet, " has made a va-
riety of interesting experiments on this subject.
He confined both the stem and branches of a
tree in such a manner that it could not be
moved by the wind. The plant became feeble,
and its growth much inferior to that of a
similar tree growing in its natural state. He
confined another tree so that it could be moved
only by the north and south winds, and ob-
tained the singular result of an oval stem, the
sides accessible to the wind growing more
vigorously than those sheltered from its influ-
ence. Every species of restraint, and espe-
cially such as tend to render plants motion-
less, impedes their growth. Stakes by which
young trees are propped, nailing them to walls
or trellises, green-houses, or confined situations
where the air has not free access, check and
injure the vigour of vegetation, and render
plants diminutive and weakly. The cambium
descends almost entirely through the liber or
most internal and youngest layer of the bark ;
if, therefore, a ring is cut completely through
the bark, this fluid is arrested in its course,
and, accumulating around the upper edge of
the intersected bark, will cause an annular pro-
tuberance. The descent of the cambium thus
being obstructed, it will accumulate in that part
of the tree above the intersection, afl!brd it a
superabundance of nourishment, creating a
proportional vigour of vegetation, and a cor-
responding excellence and profusion of pro-
duce." This operation, or Hnging, is often per-
formed on the non-productive branches of fruit
trees.

The eflfect of gravitation or attraction upon,
plants is of the highest importance to their ger-
mination and their growth. From the very
nature, however, of this essentially present
power, a principle known only to us by its
effects, the research is surrounded with diflSl-
culties. Mr. Knight, the late excellent presi-
dent of the Horticultural Society, described
some of the eff'ects of gravity upon plants ia
his usual happy manner, when, in addressing
the fellows of the Royal Society, he observed,
"It can scarcely have escaped the notice of the
most inattentive observer of vegetation, that in
whatever position a seed is placed to germi-
nate, its radicle invariably makes an eflx)rt to
descend towards the centre of the earth, while
the elongated germea takes precisely the oppo-

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.

site direction ; and it has been proved by Du-
hamel, that if a seed during its germination be
frequently inverted, the points both of the radi-
cle and germen will return to the first direc-
tion. Some naturalists have supposed these
opposite effects to be produced by gravitation ;
and it is not difiicult to conceive that the same
agent, by operating on bodies so differently
organized as the radicle and germen of plants
are, may occasion the one to descend and the
other to ascend." The hypothesis of these na-
turalists it was the intention of Knight to exa-
mine by certain experiments, which he thus
proceeds to describe: "I conceived that if gra-
vitation were the cause of the descent of the
radicle and the ascent of the germen, it must
act either by its immediate influence on the
vegetable fibres and vessels during their forma-
tion, or on the motion and consequent distribu-
tion of the true sap afforded by the cotyledons;
and as gravitation could produce these effects
only while the seed remained at rest, and in
the same position relative to the attraction of
the earth, I imagined that its operation would be-
come suspended by constant and rapid change
of the position of the germinating seed, and
that it might be counteracted by the agency of
centrifugal force. Having a strong rill of wa-
ter passing through my garden, I constructed a
small wheel, similar to those used for grinding
corn, adapting a wheel of a different construc-
tion, and formed of very slender pieces of
"Wood, to the same axis.

"Round the circumference of the latter, which
was 11 inches in diameter, numerous seeds of
the garden bean, which had been soaked in
water to produce the greatest degree of expan-
sion, were bound at short distances from each
other. The radicles of these seeds were made
to point in every direction, some towards the
centre of the wheel, and others in the opposite
direction ; others at tangents to its curve ; some
pointing backwards and others forwards, rela-
tive to its motion, and others pointing in oppo-
site directions in lines parallel with the axis
of the wheels. The whole was enclosed in a
box and secured by a lock, and a wire-grate
was placed to prevent the ingress of any body
capable of impeding the motion of the wheels.
The water being then admitted, the wheels per-
formed something more than 150 revolutions
in a minute, and the position of the seeds rela-
tively to the earth was as often perfectly in-
verted within the same period of time, by which
I conceive that the influence of gravitation
must have been wholly suspended. In a few
days the seeds began to germinate; I soon per-
ceived that the radicles, in whatever direction
they were protruded from the position of the
seed, turned their points outward from the cir-
cumference of the wheel, and in their subse-
quent growth receded nearly at right angles
from its axis. The germens, on the contrary,
took the opposite direction, and in a few days
their points all met in the centre of the wheel.
Three of these plants were suffered to remain
on the wheel, and were secured to its spokes
to prevent their being shaken off by its mo-
tion. The stems of these plants soon extended
beyond the centre; but the same cause which
first occasioned them to approach its axis still

operating, their points returned and met again
at its centre. The motion of the wheel being
in this experiment vertical, the radicle and ger-
men of every seed occupied during a minute
portion of time in each revolution precisely the
same position they would have assumed had
the plants vegetated at rest; and as gravitation
and centrifugal force also acted in lines paral-
lel with the vertical motion and surface of the
wheel, I conceived that some slight objections
might be urged against the conclusions I felt
inclined to draw. I therefore added to the ma-
chinery I have described another wheel, which
moved horizontally over the vertical wheels ;
and to this, by means of multiplying wheels of
different powers, I was enabled to give many
different degrees of velocity. Round the cir^
cumference of the horizontal wheel, whose dia-
meter was also 11 inches, seeds of the bean
were bound as in the experiment which I have
already described, and it was then made to per-
form 250 revolutions in a minute. By the
rapid motion of the water-wheel, much water
was thrown, upwards on the horizontal wheel,
part of which supplied the seeds upon it with
moisture, and the remainder was dispersed in
a light and constant shower over the seeds in
the vertical wheel, and on others placed to
vegetate at rest in different parts of the box.

"Every seed on the horizontal wheel, though
moving with great rapidity, necessarily retained
the same position relative to the attraction of
the earth, and therefore the operation of gravity
could not be suspended, though it might be
counteracted in a very considerable degree by
centrifugal force, and the difference I had an-
ticipated between the effects of rapid vertical
and horizontal motion soon became sufficient-
ly obvious. The radicles pointed downwards
about 10 degrees below, and the germens as
many degrees above, the horizontal line of the
wheel's motion, centrifugal force having made
both to deviate 80 degrees from the perpendi-
cular direction each would have taken had
they vegetated at rest. Gradually diminishing
the rapidity of the horizontal wheel, the radi-
cles descended more perpendicularly, and the
germens grew more upright, and, when it did
not perform more than 80 revolutions in a mi-
nute, the radicle pointed about 45 degrees be-
low, and the germens as much above, the hori-
zontal line; the one always receding from,
and the other approaching to, the axis of the
wheel.

"I would not, however, be understood to
assert that the velocity of 250 or 80 horizontal
revolutions in a minute will always give accu-
rately the degrees of depression and elevation
of the radicle and germen which I have men-
tioned ; for the rapidity of the motion of my
wheels was somewhat diminished by the col-
lection of fibres of confervee against the wire
grate, which obstructed in some degree the
passage of the water ; and the machinery hav-
ing been the workmanship of myself and my
gardener, cannot be supposed to have moved
with all the regularity it might have done, had
it been the work of a professed mechanic. But
I conceive myself to have fully proved that the
radicles of germinating seeds are made to de-
scend, and their germens to ascend, by some

1077

[VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.

external cause, and not by any power inherent I
in vegetable life ; and I see little reason to |
doubt that gravitation is the principal, if not ;
the only, agent employed in this case by nature." I
Mr. Knight has endeavoured to point out the j
means by which he conceives the same agent
may produce effects so diametrically opposite
to each other.

It has, however, been objected by Duhamel
(and the greatest deference is always due to
his opinions) that gravitation could have little
influence on the direction of the germen, were
it, in the first instance, protruded, or were it
subsequently inverted, and made to point per-
pendicularly downwards. To enable myself,
says Mr. Knight, to answer this objection, I
made many experiments on trees of the horse-
chestnut and of the bean, in the box I have
already described ; and as the seeds there were
suspended out of the earth, I could regularly
watch the progress of every effort made by the
radicle and germen to change their positions.
The extremity of the radicle of the bean, when
made to point perpendicularly upwards, gene-
rally formed a considerable curvature within
3 or 4 hours when the weather was warm.
The germen was more sluggish ; but it rarely
or never failed to change its direction in the
course of 24 hours ; and all my efforts to make
it grow downwards by slightly changing its
direction were invariably abortive.

As trees possess the power of turning the
upper surfaces of their leaves and the points
of their shoots to the light, and their tendrils in
any direction to attach themselves to conti-
guous objects, it may be suspected that their
lateral roots are by some means directed to any
soil in their vicinity which is best calculated
to nourish the plant to which they belong ; and
it is well known that much the greater part of
the roots of an aquatic plant which has grown
in a dry soil, on the margin of a lake or river,
have been found to point to the water, whilst
those of another species of tree which thrives
best in a dry soil have been ascertained to take
an opposite direction : but the result of some
experiments I have made is not favourable to
this hypothesis ; and I am inclined to believe
that the roots disperse themselves in every
direction, and only become more numerous
where they find most employment, and a soil
best adapted to the species of plant.
' A tree growing upon a wall at some distance
from the ground, and consequently ill supplied
with food and water, has also been observed to
adapt its habits to its situation, and to make
very singular and well-directed efibrts to reach
the soil beneath by means of its roots. Dur-
ing the period in which it is making such
efforts, little addition is made to its branches,
and almost the whole powers of the plant ap-
pear to be directed to the growth of one or
more of its principal roots. To these much in
consequence is annually added, and they pro-
ceed perpendicularly towards the earth, unless
made to deviate by some opposing body; and
as soon as the roots have attached themselves
to the soil, the branches grow with vigour and
rapidity, and the plant assumes the ordinary
habits of its species.

In some other experiments of Knight to illus- 1
1078

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.

trate these highly interesting habits of plants,
pieces of alum, and of the sulphate of iron
Cgreen vitriol), blue vitriol (sulphate of cop-
per), were placed at small distances perpendi-
cularly beneath the radicles of germinating
seeds of different species, to afford an oppor-
tunity of observing whether any efforts could
be made by them to avoid poisons ; but they
did not appear to be at all influenced except by
actual contact of the injurious substances.
The growth of their fibrous lateral roots was,
however, obviously accelerated when their
points approached any considerable quantity
of decomposing vegetable or animal matter;
and when the growth of the roots was retarded
by want of moisture, the contiguity of water
in the adjoining mould, though not apparently
in actual contact with them, operated benefi-
cially: but I had reason to suspect that the
growth of roots was, under these circum-
stances, promoted by actual contact with the
detached and fugitive particles of the decom-
posing body and the evaporating water.

The way in which plants establish them-
selves in opposition to the various obstacles
they have to encounter, as, for instance, in
withstanding violent winds, is very remarkable.
The growth and forms assumed by the roots
of trees of every species are, to a great extent,
dependent upon the quantity of motion which
their stems and branches receive from winds ;
for the effects of motion upon the growth of
the root and of the trunk and branches are
perfectly similar. Whatever part of a root is
moved and bent by winds or other causes, aa
increased deposition of alburnous matter upon
that part soon takes place, and consequently
the roots which immediately adjoin the trunk
of an insulated tree in an exposed situation be-
come strong and rigid, whilst they diminish
rapidly in bulk as they recede from the ;runk,
and descend into the ground ; by this sudden
diminution of the bulk of the roots the passage
of the descending sap through their bark is ob-
structed, and it, in consequence, generates, and
passes into many lateral roots, and these, if the
tree be still much agitated by winds, assume a
similar form, and consequently divide into
many others. A kind of net-work, composed
of thick and strong roots, is thus formed, and
the tree is secured from the danger to which
its situation would otherwise expose it. In a
sheltered valley, on the contrary, where a tree
is surrounded and protected by others, and is
rarely agitated by winds, the roots grow long
and slender, like the stem and branches, and
comparatively much less of the circulating
fluid is expended in the deposition of alburnum
beneath the ground ; and hence it not unfre-
quently happens that a tree in the most shel-
tered part of a valley is uprooted, whilst the
exposed and insulated tree upon the adjoining
mountain remains uninjured by the fury of the
storm.

All such investigations as these are fraught
with instruction to the cultivator of the earth.
They not only illustrate the every-day opera-
tions of the farmer, but they guard him against
the adoption of specious novehies and unsci-
entific efforts to increase the fertility of the
soil. Such researches, too, will hardly fail to

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.'

VERJUICE.

instruct and elevate the character of the tiller
of the earth in more ways than one. They
•will teach him, as M. Mirbel long since well
remarked, that every operation "is connected
in the vast system of the globe, and that order
emanates from the equipoise of conflicting
phenomena. Animals carry off the oxygen of
the atmosphere, replacing it by carbonic acid
gas ; and are thus at work to adulterate the
constitution of the air and render it unfit for
respiration. Vegetables take up carbonic acid
gas, retain the carbon, and give out oxygen ;
and are thus purifying the air tainted by ani-
mals, and re-establishing the necessary propor-
tions between its elements. In Europe, while
our vegetables, stripped by the severity of the
season of their foliage, no longer yield the air
contributing to life, the salutary gas is borne
to us by trade winds from the southernmost
regions of America. Breezes from all quar-
ters of the world intermingle thus the various
strata of the atmosphere, and keep its consti-
tution uniform in all seasons and at all eleva-
tions. The substances which are produced by
the dissolution of animal and vegetable matter
are absorbed by plants, and constitute a por-
tion of the nourishment by which they are
maintained; plants, in their turn, become the
food of animals, and these again the prey of
others which subsist on flesh. Yet, in spite of
this perpetual state of war and destruction,
nothing perishes, for all is regenerated. Na-
ture has ordained that the two great divisions
of organized beings should depend the one
upon the other for support, and that both the
life and death of individuals should be equally
serviceable in preserving the harmony of the
universe."

If we come to consider vegetation as it re-
gards ourselves, we shall find that this great
agent of nature, subjected in a certain degree
to the control of man in a state of society, is
the main source of his prosperity or of his
misery. How many countries have the greedy
ambition of princes, and the degradation and
ignorance of the people, made barren ! Recol-
lect what Asia Minor, Judea, Egypt, the pro-
vinces at the foot of Mount Atlas, have been,
and behold what they are at this day. Recol-
lect Greece, once the country of science and
of liberty, now that of ignorance and slavery ;
she can be only recognised in her ruins, and
her monuments of the dead. Man had denied
his labour to the earth, and the earth her trea-
sures to man: all vanished with agriculture.
The traveller who passes that country of so
great renown, finds, in the place of the fine
forests that crowned its mountains, of the rich
harvests reaped by twenty busy nations, of the
numerous flocks that enriched its fields, only
naked rocks and sterile sands, with here ,and
there a miserable village. He seeks in vain
for several rivers recorded in history ; they are
gone ! Thus the rage of conquest and of rule
not only overturns cities, depopulates whole
countries, and brings back barbarism, but it
dries up the very springs from which the natu-
ral riches of the earth have flowed. To these
melancholy results of our passions we might
oppose the more cheerful ones of our industry;
l>ut they are more properly within the province

of the arts of cultivation than of vegetable
physiology.

VEGETABLE MARROW (Cucurbita ovifera).
This fruit of the succada gourd is uniformly
of a pale yellow colour, and of an elliptic-
oblong shape, the surface having irregular,
longitudinal ribs, uniting into a projecting
apex. When full grown it is about 9 inches
in length and 4 in diameter, and is by far the
best adapted for culinary purposes of any spe-
cies of the gourd tribe. It is of recent intro-
duction into Europe, having been brought from
Persia. It is useful for culinary purposes in
every stage of its growth ; when very young,
it is good if fried with butter ; when large, or
about half-grown, it is excellent either whea
plain, boiled, or stewed with rich sauce ; for
either of these purposes it should be cut in
slices. The flesh has a peculiar tenderness
and softness, from which circumstance it has
received its name, much resembling the buttery
quality of the beurre pear, and this property re-
mains with it till it is full-grown, when it is
used for pies. It is in its intermediate state of
growth that it is likely to be most approved.
Compared with all the other vegetables of the
same family, its superiority is decided. I con-
sider the vegetable marrow without a rival.

" Wc have grown the true vegetable marrow
two seasons," says the editor of the Cultivator,
"and although we have not used it in the inter-
mediate state of its growth, as recommended by
Mr. Sabine, we esteem it among the best varieties
of the cucurbita for boiling and for pies. It is
cultivated like the common pumpkin or squash,
and will ripen in the U. S. in a high latitude."

VEGETABLES. The observations of vege-
table physiologists and the researches of che-
mists have mutually contributed to establish,
the fact, that the growth and developement of
vegetables depend on the rejection of oxygen,
which is separated from the other component
parts of their nourishment.

In contradistinction to vegetable life, the life
of animals exhibits itself in the continual ab-
sorption of the oxygen of the air, and its com-
bination with certain component parts of the
animal body.

While no part of an organized being can
serve as food to vegetables, until, by the pro-
cesses of putrefaction and decay, it has as-
sumed the form of inorganic matter, the ani-
mal organism requires, for its support and
developement, highly organized atoms. The
food of all animals, in all circumstances, con-
sists of parts of organisms.

Assimilation, or the process of formation,
and growth, — in other words, the passage of
matter from a state of motion to that of rest, —
goes on in the same way in animals and in
vegetables. In both, the same cause determines
the increase of mass. This constitutes the
true vegetable life, which is carried on without
consciousness. (Liebig's Animal Chemistry.)

VENISON. The flesh of deer. See Deer
and Meat.

VERBENA. See Vervatx.

VERJUICE. An acid liquor, prepared from
the twigs of the vine, or from grapes or apples
that are unfit to be converted into wine or cider.
It is also made from the wild crab apples.

1079

VERMIN.

VETCH.

VERMIN. A general name for all birds,
animals, insects, &c., which prey upon or
prove injurious to the cultivator's crops, and to
his live-stock.

The insects, &c., comprise the most exten-
sive and fearful class of depredators. Among
these are the aphides, caterpillars, ants, beetles,
and their grubs, wire-worms, slugs, earth-
worms, &c.

VERNAL GRASS. See Aitthoxanthum.

VERSATILE. In botany, signifies swinging
lightly on the stalk, so as to be continually
changing direction. It is illustrated in the
leaves of the aspen.

VERTICILLATE. Disposed in a whorl.

VERVAIN (Verbena; said to be derived
from its Celtic name Ferfaen). This is a genus
of extremely beautiful ornamental plants while
in flower, either when grown in pots in the
green-house or when planted out in the flower
garden ; and they will all succeed well in the
•open ground during the summer months. The
flowers of V. leucrioides have a delightful jas-
minelike odour. They all flourish well in a
light loamy soil, with careful drainage when
kept in pots. The herbaceous perennial kinds
increase rapidly by cuttings, planted in sand
under a glass ; the green-house kinds in a little
heat. The annuals and biennials should be
raised on a gentle hot-bed.

One species is indigenous to England, the
common vervain (V. officinalis), a perennial
which grows by road-sides and in dry waste
■grounds, or pastures about villages. The root
is woody, somewhat creeping. Stem ascend-
ing, 1^ foot high, leafy, roughish, with minute
•prickles or bristles. Leaves deeply cut. Spikes
•slender, several composing a sort of panicle
of small, bluish, inodorous flowers. This spe-
cies has scarcely any aromatic or other sen-
sible quality. The root worn about the neck
with a string is an old superstitious remedy or
charm for the king's evil.

A great many species of vervain or verbena
are found in various parts of the United States.
Nuttall enumerates 10 in this country, and
altogether 20 American species in the two
hemispheres.

VESICLES. In botany, inflated, hollow ex-
crescences, like bladders or blisters.

VETCH {Vicia, from vincio, to bind together,
because the species have tendrils by which
they encircle other plants). Some of the spe-
cies of this genus are well worth cultivating in
the flower-border for the beauty of their flowers.
They are of the easiest culture in any common
garden soil. The perennial kinds may be rea-
dily increased by dividing the root or by seeds.
The seeds of the annual kinds only require to
be sown in the open border in spring. V. sativa
and its varieties are extensively cultivated, and
well known by the common name of vetch or
tares; they are used in England as early fodder
for all kinds of cattle, and are allowed to be
more nutritive and profitable than hay or any
other herbage. The seeds also form "the food
of pigeons. There are in Britain 10 indigenous
species of vetch, the principal of which are the
tufted vetch, wood vetch, common vetch, and
bush vetch. Of all the diflferent vetches (says
Sinclair) that were submitted to experiment,
1080

the winter tare or common vetch (F. sativa,
var.) afl^orded the most nutritive matter; 64
drachms of the herbage, cut at the time of
flowering, afibrded 4 drachms 4 grains of nu-
tritive matter; while spring tares only yielded
3 drachms 3 grains, which confirms the justice
of that preference which practice has given to
the former.

1. The tufted vetch (F. cracca), is a peren-
nial, very common in England in a wild state
in hedges, thickets, osier grounds, and bushy,
low meadows. The stems are 2 or 3 feet high,
furrowed, rather downy, climbing by means of
their long, many-branched tendrils, by which
they choke and overtop other herbs. Flowers
numerous, in dense clusters, beautifully varie-
gated with tints of bright violet-blue, and some
purple. Legume scarcely an inch long, smooth,
with 4 or 5 dark, globular seeds, the size of a
lentil. This vetch is said to be nutritious food
for cattle, but it has not come into use, proba-
bly from the difficulty of gathering, or of culti-
vating, so pertinacious a climber. Dr. Plot, in
his History of Staffordshire, says that this and
the Vicia sylvatica advance starved or weak
cattle above any thing yet known; and Dr.
Anderson, in his Essays, speaks highly of this
plant. It is inferior to the wood vetch, or com-
mon tare (F. sylvatica), in the quantity of nu-
tritive matter it affords, but contains much less
superfluous moisture. This must give it a su-
periority, in regard to nutrient properties, over
tares which contain an excess. But it has a
strong, creeping root, that will always prevent
its admission to arable lands. It might be best
cultivated on tenacious soils, and used after
the mariner of lucern, to which it is much su-
perior in nutritive qualities, though greatly de-
ficient in the weight of crop. Forty-three grains
of nutritive matter consisted of —

Saccharine matter, or sugar
Mucilage - - - -
Insoluble and saline matter

The tufted vetch flowers about the middle of
July or the beginning of August, and the seed
is ripe at the beginning of September.

2. The wood vetch ( V. sylvatica) grows in woods
and hedges, chiefly in the more mountainous
parts of Britain, and is one of our most elegant
wild plants, well worthy to decorate shrubbe-
ries, or to be trained over a trellis or bower.
The habits of this vetch are similar to those
of the species last described, but it seems more
impatient of exposure, and thrives best where
it has the support of bushes. The root is creep-
ing, perennial ; herbage smooth. Stems nume-
rous, much branched, climbing to the height
of 6 or 7 feet, and spreading widely, decorating
the bushes which support them with a profu-
sion of delicate flowers, elegantly variegated
with blue and white, streaked with gray. Le-
gume the size of the last, bright brown, minutely
dotted. When transplanted to open situations,
the produce is inconsiderable compared with
that of the tufted vetch or the bush vetch,
though in its natural place of growth the pro-
duce is six times that of either of these species ;
it is likewise superior in the quantity of nutri-
tive matter it affords. Horses, cows, sheep,,
and the South American llamas, at© this vetch.

VETCH, THE BITTER.

with more eagerness than they did the other
vetches or natural grasses that were on seve-
ral trials offered to them. The wood vetch
flowers in July and August, and the seed is
ripe in September.

3. The common vetch or tare (V. sativa, PI.
7, r) is an annual plant, which is in general
cultivation, and therefore too well known to
need description; 3000 grains of the green
herbage of the common vetch consist of —

Woody or hidigestible substance
Water - - - - -
Nutritive matter - - -

Grains.

557
2250

193

Hence 1,135 grains of the woody fibre of tares
are combined with 27^ grains of saline matter.

In England vetches are very commonly sown
upon a wheat stubble, and no crop better re-
pays the addition of any organic fertilizers.

The bush vetch ( V. sepium) has been already
noticed. See Bush Vetch.

The other British species of vetch or tare are
the narrow-leaved crimson vetch (F. angusti-
folia), spring vetch (F. lathyroides), rough-pod-
ded yellow vetch (V. lutea), hairy-flowered yel-
low vetch {V. hybrida), smooth-podded sea-vetch
(F. kevigata), and rough-podded purple vetch
(F. bithyrica). These call for no detailed de-
scription. A few species of the vetch family are
found in the United States and Territories. The
species called tufted vetch (F. aacca), is com-
mon on the borders of woods and meadows, and
troublesome in some gardens in the southern
parts of Pennsylvania and other Middle States.
Mr. Nuttall says it is smaller than the European
plant described under the same name, but Dr.
Darlington does not feel satisfied of its being
a native of the United States.

The species enumerated by Mr. Nuttall are,
I. V. pusilla. 2. Sativa. ^.Americana. 4. Syl-
vatica, inhabiting the alluvial banks of the Mis-
souri as far north as Fort Mandan. Leaflets a
little more obtuse than usual. 5. Cracca. 6.
Caroliniana. See Tare and Vetchliko.

VETCH, THE BITTER (Orobut, from oro,
to excite, and bous, an ox ; the orobos of Theo-
phrastus was the name of a plant used for fat-
tening oxen). The plants of this genus deserve
to have a place in every flower-border, on ac-
count of their very elegant papilionaceous blos-
soms. Any soil suits them, and they are readily
increased by dividing the plants at the roots in
spring, or raised by seeds. There are in Eng-
land two native species, both perennials.

1. The common bitter vetch, or heath pea
(O. tuberosus), grows in elevated or mountain-
ous pastures, thickets, and woods. The root
is creeping, externally blackish, swelling here
and there into oblong knobs. Herbage smooth,
darkish green. Stems simple, erect, a foot high,
compressed and winged. Leaves alternate.
Flowers in loose, long-stalked, axillary clus-
ters, elegantly variegated and veined, with pur-
ple, crimson, and shades of blue and flesh co-
lour. Legumes pendulous, long, cylindrical,
black when ripe. The roots have a sweetish
taste, and afford some luxuries and refresh-
ments to the hardy independent Highlander.
There is considerable elegance in the flowers,
and in the plant altogether.

2. Wood bitter vetch (O. sylvaticus). In this

136

VETERINARY COLLEGE.

species the root is woody and tough, deeply
fixed in the ground. The stems are numerous,
spreading or recumbent, 1 to 2 feet long, hairy,
more or less branched. Clusters of numerous
flowers, which have a hairy calyx, are cream-
coloured, streaked, and tipped with purple.
The legumes are ovate-oblong, smooth, com-
pressed, and shorter than usual in the genus.

VETCH, KIDNEY. See Kidney-Vetch.

VETCH, MILK. See Milk-Vetch.

VETCH LING (Lathyrus.) A numerous
herbaceous genus of annual or perennial plants.
The flowers are stalked, axillary, either soli-
tary, in pairs, or in clusters ; either crimson,
purplish, blue, or yellow. The herbage com-
monly affords good fodder; the seeds are scarce-
ly used for any purpose. There are seven indi-
genous species of vetchling, or everlasting pea;
the yellow vetchling (L. aphaca), the crimson
vetchling or grass-vetch (i. nissolia), the rough-
podded vetchling (i. hirsutus), the yellow mea-
dow vetchling, or tare everlasting (L. praten$i$)^
narrow-leaved everlasting pea {L, sylveslris)^
broad-leaved everlasting pea (i. latifolius), and
the blue marsh vetchling (L. palustris): most
of these species have been already noticed un-
der the heads Everlasting Pea and Latht-
RU8. The lati/olius is that species usually cul-
tivated in gardens on account of the beauty of
the flowers. It has been recommended for field
cultivation, but the advice has not been fol-
lowed. Bees procure much honey from the
flowers.

VETERINARY COLLEGE. The Highland
Society of Scotland have instituted a veterinary
school in connection with their establishment,
which is under the management of Professor
Dick. By diffusing generally a practical know-
ledge of veterinary medicine, it cannot fail to
be attended with the happiest consequences to
the community at large. A veterinary college
has long been established in London; and that
useful periodical, the Veterinarian, edited by
Professor Youatt, has added much valuable in-
formation to our stock of knowledge on the dis-
eases of animals. See Farriert and Hippo-

PATHOLOGT.

The London Veterinary College was first
established in the year 1792, at St. Pancras.
Mr. Boardman, in his Dictionary of the Veteri-
nary Art, remarks, that " the public are indebt-
ed for this national foundation to the exertions
of the Agricultural Society of Odiham, in
Hampshire. The first professor was M. St.
Bel, a Frenchman, who had previously signal-
ized himself in this country as a veterinary
anatomist, by dissecting the famous race-horse
Eclipse. This college is supported by public
subscription. The annual contribution is 2
guineas, but payment of 20 guineas at once
constitutes a subscriber for life.

" The views and objects of the college ap-
pear in the following statement, printed by the
authority of the governors. The grand object,
they observe, is the improvement of veterinary
knowledge, in order to remedy the ignorance
and incompetency of farriers, so long univer-
sally complained of. For this end, a range of
stables, a forge, a theatre for dissections and
lectures, with other buildings, have been
erected: a'gentleman of superior abilities has
4 Y 1081

VILLOUS.

VINE.

teen appointed professor, with other requisite
officers.

"The anatomical structure of quadrupeds,
as horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, &c., the diseases
to which they are subject, and the remedies
proper to be applied, are investigated and re-
gularly taught; by which means enlightened
practitioners of liberal education, whose whole
study has been devoted to the veterinary art in
all its branches, may be gradually dispersed
over the kingdom, in whose skill and expe-
rience confidence may be securely placed.

"Subscribers have the privilege of sending
their diseased animals to the college, without
further expense than that of their daily food,
and these in general form a sufficient number
of patients for the practice of the professor
and pupils. On fixed days, the professor pre-
scribes for animals belonging to subscribers
who find it inconvenient to spare them from
home, provided the necessary medicines be
furnished and compounded at the college;
subscribers' horses are also there shod at the
ordinary prices."

VILLOUS. A term in botany, signifying
covered with soft, close, long, loose hairs, re-
sembling shag.

VINE (Vitis, from the Celtic gwid, signifying
the best of trees. Wine is derived from the
Celtic word gtcin). A valuable genus of plants.
The common grape vine (V. vinifera), with its
very numerous garden varieties, is in general
cultivation for its much-esteemed fruit. None
of the other species are worth cultivating.
The acids of grapes are chiefly the tartaric
and acetic; but malic acid is also present in
them. Mr. Loudon, in his Encyclopcedia of
Gardening, thus botanically describes the vine:
— "The grape vine is a trailing, deciduous,
hardy shrub, with a twisted irregular stem, and
long flexible branches, decumbent, like those
of the bramble ; or supporting themselves,
when near other trees, by means of tendrils,
like the pea. The leaves are large, lobed, en-
tire, or serrated and downy, or smooth ; green
in summer, but when mature, those varieties
in which the predominating colour is red con-
-stantly change to, or are tinged with, some
shade of that colour ; and those of white, green,
or yellow grapes as constantly change to a
.yellow, and are never in the least tinged with
purple, red, or scarlet. The breadth of the
leaves varies from 5 to 7 or 10 inches, and the
length of the footstalks from 4 to 8 inches.
The flowers are produced on the shoots of the
same year, which shoots generally proceed from
those of the year preceding; they are in the
form of a raceme, of a greenish-white colour,
appearing in the open air in England in June;
<and the fruit, which is of the berry kind, attains
such maturity as the season and situation ad-
jmit by the middle or end of September. The
berry or grape is generally globular, but often
ovate, oval, oblong, or finger-shaped ; the colours
are green, white, red, yellow, amber, or black, or
a variegation of two or more of these colours.
The skin is smooth ; the pulp and juice of a
dulcet, poignant, elevated, generous flavour.
Every berry ought to enclose five small heart
or pear-shaped stones ; but as they are par-
tially abortive, they have seldom more than
1083

three ; and some varieties, as they attain a
certain age, as the Ascalon or Sultana raisin,
have none. The weight of a berry depends
not only on its size, but on the thickness of its
skiu, and texture of the flesh, the lightest be-
ing the thin-skinned and juicy sorts, as the
sweet-water or Muscadine."

Although we presume the excellent treatise
of Mr. Clement Hoare on the Culture of the Vine
is in the hands of most of our readers, yet, as
there is no other standard work of reference
on this subject, we must necessarily draw upon
this for our extracts.

Of all the productions of the vegetable world
(observes this experienced cultivator) which
the skill and ingenuity of man have rendered
conducive to his comfort and to the enlarge-
ment of the sphere of his enjoyments, and the
increase of his pleasurable gratifications, the
vine stands forward as the most pre-eminently
conspicuous. Its quickness of growth, the
great age to which it will live, — so great, in-
deed, as to be unknown ; its almost total ex-
emption from all those adverse contingencies
which blight and diminish the produce of other
fruit-bearing trees ; its astonishing vegetative
power ; its wonderful fertility, and its delicious
fruit, applicable to so many purposes, and
agreeable to all palates, in all its varied shapes,
— combine to mark it out as one of the great-
est blessings bestowed by Providence to pro-
mote the comfort and enjoyments of the human
race.

From the remotest records of antiquity, the
vine has been celebrated in all ages as the type
of plenty and the symbol of happiness. The
pages of Scripture abound with allusions to
the fertility of the vine as emblematic of pros-
perity ; and it is emphatically declared, in de-
scribing the peaceful and flourishing state of
the kingdom of Israel during the reign of So-
lomon, that "Judah and Israel dwelt safely,
every man under his vine and under his fig
tree, from Dan even to Beersheba." The
source of enjoyment thus mentioned to record
the happy state of the Jewish nation may be,
with reference to the vine, literally possessed
by the greater portion of the inhabitants of
Great Britain.

The native country of the vine is generally
considered to be Persia. The finest grapes in
the world are those of Shiraz and of Casvin.
The latter city, says M. Morier, is environed
by vineyards and orchards, and the former
yield a grape which is celebrated throughout
Persia. It is along the line of mountains that
stretch from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian
Sea, that the best vine districts are situated;
but the grape vine has been found wild in
America, and has now become naturalized in
all the temperate regions of the world. In the
northern hemisphere it forms an important
branch of rural economy, from the 21st to the
51st parallel of latitude; and by an improved
method of culture very fine grapes may be
annually grown on the surface of walls, in the
open air, as far north as the 54th parallel, and
even beyond that in favourable seasons. The
vine is supposed to have been introduced into
Britain at the commencement of the Christian
era. It certainly did not exist before the Ro-

VINE.

VINE.

man invasion, as neither Cesar, Pliny, nor
Tacitus notice it in the description of Great
Britain. Bede informs us, that in the com-
mencement of the eighth century the cultiva-
tion of the vine had made some progress in
Great Britain : vines are mentioned in the laws
of Alfred. History, indeed, amply proves, that
for a long series of ages vineyards were com-
mon in the southern parts of England, and that
the quantity of wine produced from them was
so great as to be considered one of the staple
products of the land. Lambarde (Topographi-
cal Dictionary of England) informs us, that at
Hailing, near Rochester, the bishop's vineyard
yielded such excellent wine, that a present of
it was sent to Edward H. when he was at
Bakingfield. There was a royal vineyard at
Rockingham, in the fifth year of King Stephen ;
and William of Malmsbury, speaking of the
vale of Gloucester, says, " this district, too,
exhibits a greater number of vineyards than
any other county in England, yielding abund-
ant crops, and of superior quality." The same
author also says, that in the isle of Ely the
soil is •* covered with vines, which either trail
along the ground or are trained on high, and
supported on poles." In the time of Richard,
II., also, the vine grew so plentifully in Wind-
sor Little Park, that part of the wine made
there was sold for the king's profit. From
some cause or other, however, the cultivation
of the vine has fallen into general neglect,
although, good grapes might be grown on vines
trained as espaliers, or in the same manner as
in the vineyards abroad, from which excellent
wine could be made, at a cost that would not
exceed that of moderately strong beer. Why
vineyards should have so completely disap-
peared, it is difficult to say, since there are
many thousands of acres of poor land that are
of little value in an agricultural point of view,
but on which vines would flourish, and pro-
duce abundant crops of grapes, and yield there-
by a most profitable return.

Fruit-bearing Powers of the Vine. — From a
long course of experiments, Mr. Hoare has
computed the following scale of the greatest
quantity of grapes which any vine can per-
fectly mature, in proportion to the circum-
ference of its stem measured just above the
ground.

Cireum.

lb.

Circwn.

lb.

3 inches

-

.

5

7 incbei

.

_

45

3i -

.

.

10

71 -

.

.

50

4

.

.

15

8 -

_

.

55

4* -

.

.

ao

8* -

.

.

60

5 -

-

_

25

9

.

.

65

H -

_

.

30

9i -

.

_

70

6 -

.

_

35

10 -

_

_

75

«* -

-

-

40

No vine should be suffered to ripen fruit
until its stem measures 3 inches in girt. In j
general, vines are allowed to bear a much |
greater quantity of grapes than the above scale :
represents, but in all such cases it will be j
found that they are not perfectly ripened ; and j
moreover, by producing a superabundance of i
fruit, the plants are crippled for many years, j

Jispect. — The warmer the aspect, the greater !
perfection does the grape attain in the climate
of England, provided all other circumstances
are alike ; and if the greatest quantity of the
sun's rays shining on the surface of a wall

were alone to be considered as constituting the
best aspect, there would, of course, be no dif-
ficulty in naming a due southern one as better
than any other. But warmth alone is not suffi-
cient; shelter from the withering influence of
the wind is equally necessary. The best as-
pects are those that range from the eastern to
the southeastern, both inclusive. The next
best are those from southeast to south. i

Soil. — The natural soil which is most con-
genial to the growth of the vine, and to the
perfection of its fruit in this country, is a light,
porous, rich, sandy loam, not more than 18
inches in depth, on a dry bottom of gravel,
stones, or rocks. A strong argillaceous soil is
injurious to the vine : it checks the expansion
of the roots, and retains too much moisture.
In calcareous soils the vine always flourishes,
especially if the bottom be stony or gravelly.
No subsoil can possess too great a quantity of
these materials for the roots of the vine, which
run with eagerness into all the clefts, crevices,
and openings in which such subsoils abound.
In these dry and warm situations, the fibrous
extremities, pushing themselves with the great-
est avidity, and continually branching out in
every possible direction, lie secure from that
excess of moisture which frequently accumu-
lates in more compact soils ; and, clinging like
ivy round the porous surfaces of their retreats,
extract therefrom a species of food, more nou-
rishing than that obtained by them under any
other circumstances whatever. All borders,
therefore, made expressly for the reception of
vines, ought to be composed of a sufficient
quantity of dry materials, such as stones and
brickbats, broken moderately small, lumps of
old mortar, broken pottery, oyster shells, &c.,
to enable the roots to extend themselves freely
in their search after food and nourishment; to
keep thera dry and warm by the free admission
of air and solar heat, and to admit of heavy
rains passing quickly through, without being
retained sufficiently long to saturate the roots,
and thereby injure their tender extremities.
The sweepings obtained from a turnpike road,
or from any other high road kept in a good
state of repair by the frequent addition of
stones, and on which there is a considerable
traffic of horses or other cattle, is the very best
compost that can be added to any border in-
tended for the reception of vines. Its compo-
nent parts, consisting chiefly of sand, gravel,
pulverized stones, and the residuum of dung
and urine, afibrd a greater quantity of food,
and of a richer and more lasting nature, than
can be found in any other description of com-
post that I have ever seen or heard of being
used for that purpose. Borders in which vines
are planted should never be cropped nor digged.

Manure. — The best species of manure for the
vine are those which aflford a considerable de-
gree of nourishment, but at the same time
slowly decompose in the soil. Such are bones,
whole or crushed, the horns and hoofs of cat-
tle, the entire carcasses of animals, cuttings of
leather, woollen rags, feathers, and hair, and
the leaves of the vines themselves. Liquid
manures are also valuable, and forcing in their
effect ; of this class the most powerful are
urine, soot-water, blood, the drainings of dung-

1083

VINE.

VINE.

heaps, and soap-suds. It should, however, al-
ways be recollected, that the more manure is
used, the poorer the wine procured from the
grapes. As a top-dressing, and to be forked
into the border, night-soil, refuse fish, stable
manure, and the excrements of all birds and
animals, will be found highly enriching sub-
stances as fertilizers, and their nutritive and
stimulating properties have been frequently
alluded to in the progress of this work; but if
rich manures are used, they should be mixed
with turf and sand. In the Alto Douro is a
law which prohibits the vine being "littered;"
as this operation, though it considerably aug-
ments the produce, tends to deteriorate the
quality of the wine.

On tfu Construction of Walls. — No general
rule can be laid down as to the height of the
wall, which must necessarily vary under differ-
ent situations and circumstances. Mr. Hoare
states, that in unsheltered situations and ex-
posed aspects he has never seen fine grapes
produced much higher than 8 feet from the
ground.

But, in favourable situations, height is no
consequence. If built for the express purpose
of rearing grapes, low walls of not more than
6 feet are to be preferred, as more convenient
for pruning and training the vines. Brick
walls are undoubtedly the best, the surface
being smooth and even. A considerable heat
is obtained by blackening the wall.

Propagation. — Vines are propagated in the
open ground by layers and by cuttings. The
former is the most expeditious mode, provided
the shoots be laid down in pots, and planted
out the same summer. The latter mode is
much the best. To provide cuttings to be
planted at the proper season, select at the au-
tumnal pruning a sufficient number of shoots
of the preceding summer's growth. Choose
such as are well ripened, of a medium size, and
moderately short-jointed. Cut them into con-
venient lengths of 6 or 8 buds each, leaving at
the ends not less than a couple of inches of
the blank wood for the protection of the termi-
nal buds. Stick these temporary cuttings about
9 inches in the ground, in a warm and sheltered
situation, where they will be effectually pro-
tected from the severity of the winter. The
best time to plant them out is about the middle
of March, but any time from the 1st of that
month to the 10th of April will do very well.

Priming and training are so closely connected
together, and so mutually dependent on each
other, that they almost constitute one operation.
The judicious pruning of a vine is one of the
most important points of culture throughout the
■whole routine of its management. The object
is to get rid of all the useless and superabun-
dant wood, for those shoots of a vine which
bear fruit one year never bear any afterwards.
There are three methods of pruning vines in
practice amongst gardeners; namely, the long-
pruning, spur-pruning, and the fan or fruit tree
method. The first is considered to be the most
eligible method, and is that which is practised
and recommended by Mr. Hoare. As the sole
object in view in pruning a vine is to increase
its fertility, the best method to accomplish this
is to leave a sufficient supply of bearing shoots
1084

on the least possible proportionate quantity of
old wood.

Long-pruning appears to recommend itself
by its simplicity ; by the old wood of the vine
being annually got rid of; by the small num-
ber of wounds inflicted in the pruning; by the
clean and handsome appearance of the vine ;
and by the great ease with which it is managed,
in consequence of its occupying but a small
portion of the surface of the wall.

Mr. Hoare lays down the following practical
general rules for the guidance of the pruner : —

1st. In pruning, always cut upwards, and in
a sloping direction.

2d. Always leave an inch of blank wood be-
yond the terminal bud, and let the cut be on
the opposite side of the bud.

3d. Prune so as to leave as few wounds as
possible, and let the surface of every cut be
perfectly smooth.

4th. In cutting out an old branch, prune it
even with the parent limb, that the wound may
quickly heal.

5th. Prune so as to obtain the quantity of
fruit desired on the smallest number of shoots
possible.

6th. Never prune in frosty weather, nor when
a frost is expected.

7th. Never prune in the months of March,
April, or May. Pruning in either of these
months causes bleeding, and occasions thereby
a wasteful and an injurious expenditure of sap.

8th. Let the general autumnal pruning take
place as soon after the 1st of October as the
gathering of the fruit will permit.

Lastly, use a pruning-knife of the best de-
scription, and let it be, if possible, as sharp as
a razor.

Training. — To train a vine (Mr. Hoare goes
on to observe) on the surface of a wall is to
regulate the position of its branches, the prin-
cipal objects of which are, to protect them from
the influence of the wind ; to bring them into
close contact with the wall, for the purpose of
receiving the benefit of its warmth ; to spread
them at proper distances from each other, that
the foliage and fruit may receive the full effect
of the sun's rays, and to retard the motion of
the sap, for the purpose of inducing the forma-
tion of fruit-buds. The flow of sap, it must be
remembered, is always strongest in a vertical
direction, and weakest in a downward one.
For this reason, the method of serpentine train-
ing may be considered preferable to every
other, being calculated in a greater degree to
check the too rapid ascent of the sap, and to
make it flow more equally into the fruiting
shoots, and those intended for future bearers^
On walls that are much less than 5 feet high,
a portion of the shoots must be trained hori-
zontally.

Varieties of Grapes. — The following 12 sorts
of grapes are those best adapted for culture on
open walls in England: —

1. Black Hamburgh. As a splendid table
fruit, this is, in every respect, one of the most
valuable grapes that can be grown on open
walls. It is a prolific bearer, hardy in its na-
ture, and under judicious culture will ripen
with as small a portion of direct solar heat as
any grape we have.

VINE.

VINE.

2. Black Prince. This is a very fine grape,
and nearly if not quite equal to the black
Hamburgh; both of these sorts ripen in a
southeastern aspect, about the middle of Oc-
tober.

3. Esperione. The Esperione vine is very
hardy, extremely prolific, and ripens its fruit
perfectly in any season, however unfavourable.

4. Black Muscadine. This is also a prolific
bearer, but it requires a good aspect to ripen it
perfectly.

5. Miller's Burgundy. This is a very hardy
and prolific grape, and ripens perfectly in any
season. Its leaves, which are very thick, dis-
tinguish it from every other sort, being covered
on both sides with a hoary down, which, when
they are young, is nearly white ; hence it is
called the "miller's" grape.

6. Claret grape. This is a very fine wine
grape. It requires a good aspect. Early in
the summer its leaves change to a russet red,
and die in the autumn of a deep purple blood
colour.

7. 8, 9. Black, grizzly, and white Frontignan.
The flavour of these three sorts is so extremely
delicious, that no good vine wall should be
without them. They ripen well in favourable
aspects, and where the soil is very dry; but,
being thin-skinned, and constitutionally dis-
posed to decay after they become fully ripe,
they cannot be kept long on the vine, particu-
larly if the wall against which they are grow-
ing be destitute of a projecting coping.

10. White Muscadine. This is an exceed-
ingly fine grape, and a prolific bearer; and
from its hardy nature, and the certainty with
which it ripens in any season, it may be con-
sidered as the best white grape that can be
grown on open walls.

11. Malmsey Muscadine. This resembles
the preceding, except that the berries are
smaller, and the branches not so regularly
formed; but the juice is sweeter, and pos-
sesses a higher flavour.

12. White Sweetwater. This is a delicious
grape; but, owing to its tenderness when in
blossom, the berries sit very unevenly on the
branches.

If it be desired to have a very early sort, to
the preceding may be added the early black
July; which, though the branches and berries
are smaller, and the latter in general unevenly
set, is a very sweet and also a well-flavoilTed
grape. (Hoare on the Cultivation of the Grape-
Vine on open Walls, 3d edition ; Phillips's Hist.
of Fruits, p.m.)

The work of Mr. Hoare is so full of details
that it is scarcely necessary to add any thing
to the directions contained in his work ; and
we shall therefore confine ourselves to a state-
ment of a few general truths in regard to the
cultivation of the vine in the United States, the
results of much observation and some experi-
ence.

1. The vine is a native of America, as it is
of Asia, while it was an exotic in Europe.
There is nothing, therefore, in the soil or cli-
mate of America uncongenial to the vine, and,
in fact, there are few parts of the United States
where the forests are not filled with grape-vines
growing with the greatest exuberance. If,

therefore, the cultivation of the vine has made
comparatively little progress, it is mainly be-
cause other fruits and other crops have offered
greater attractions. But as the country has
advanced, and the population is concentrated
in large towns, the grape has become an ob-
ject of more interest, and we think it would
now reward the industry of our farmers.

2. This cultivation would have two objects,
the making of wine, and the supply of grapes
for the table. As to the first, we have no doubt
that wine can be made of an excellent quality
and at not unreasonable prices in the IJnited
States. In fact, we know that cultivators on a
large scale, such as Mr. Rapp, at Harmony, Mr. ^
Longworth, in Ohio, Mr. Geo. Sheaff", and Mr. N.
Biddle, both of Pennsylvania, have succeeded
in making wine — good, sound, palatable wine,
which would require only the wine-dealers' arts
to place it on a footing of equality with some of
the best wines of Europe. But so long as the
wines of France and of the old-established wine
countries of Europe can be produced so cheap-
ly, and imported with scarcely any duty, the ^
competition of the foreign wine-makers is difli- m,^
cult to withstand, and it is mainly, therefore, ^.
when raised for the table that grapes will repay w
the labour of the farmer; and. this, we think,
they certainly would do. The importation of
grapes and raisins into the United States will
afford the best evidence of the consumption of
those articles, and their cost to us.

We happen to have before us two returns
of importations for different years, from which
we make the following extracts.

In the year 1834 the importation stood thus —

Raisins in jars
All other raisins

Quantity.

6,897,517 Itm.
7,423,567

14,331,064

The importation of 1837 was —

Raisins in boxes -
All other raisins -

quantity.
12,331,782 lbs.
6,805,316

19,137,M6

Value.

©477,318

306,516

•783,834

Value.

#960,201

340,629

#1,320,830

We have not at hand any more recent state-
ments, and therefore do not know how these
importations have been sustained. But these
tables show an efficient demand for grapes,
fresh and dried, of no less than 1,320,000 dol-
lars in a single year. Such an object is worth
contending for. These imported grapes are
generally not of the best kind, even in their
own country, being selected mainly on account
of their hard skins and their ability to bear the
long voyage. They are gathered before they
are fully ripe, and, being packed in sawdust,
they retain too much of the flavour of that ma-
terial. Now, if these grapes were met on their
arrival by grapes grown here, and plucked
from the vines within a few hours instead of
a few months before they are brought on the
table, the preference could not fail to be given
to the native fruits.

Such fruits might be furnished from vineries
covered with glass, or raised in the open fields.

For raising grapes under glass, we do not
think it necessary to give any directions, since
whoever proposes it will find ample instruc-
4x2 1085

VINE.

VINE.

tions in the works of M'Inlosh and other gar-
deners. Of the kinds of grapes best adapted
for culture under glass we may speak with
some confidence. These kinds are very nume-
rous— great varieties of Chasselas — great va-
rieties of Muskats — many of Frontignac. But
we think that the labour and time are best re-
warded by the black Hamburgh, which, for its
excellence and its abundant bearing, may per-
haps be placed at the head of all the grape
family ; by the Muscat of Alexandria, the fla-
v^l" of which is of surpassing richness, though
an uncertain and scanty bearer, and by one or
two varieties of the Frontignac. These are at
the head of their respective kinds, and none
of the imported grapes can be placed in any
sort of comparison with them.

The cultivation of grapes in the open air is
of course cheaper and easier to farmers.

The best kind of foreign grapes, such as are
above enumerated, may be successfully grown
in city gardens with much shelter and care,
and there are few gardens in which they would
not prosper. But as yet the foreign grape has
not succeeded in field cultivation, and accord-
ingly for this purpose we must employ other
varieties, which, though of inferior quality,
are either natives, civilized by cultivation, or
foreigners gradually acclimated. The sorts
which are most considered are the Scuppernon,
a vine of doubtful origin, which thrives well
and bears abundantly in North Carolina, but
as yet has made little progress to the north,
though worthy, we believe, of more extensive
experiments. Those most known to field cul-
tivation in the Middle States are the Alexan-
der, the Isabella, and the Catawba; and on
these our markets will probably rely for some
time. They may be cultivated in rows exactly
like Indian corn, with the plough and the hoe-
harrow; they do not require even as much
trouble as a field of Indian corn, and, instead
of being renewed and replanted every year,
the plants will last for many generations of
men. They require no covering in winter, but
will stand unharmed the severest frosts and
snows.

On the whole, what we think should come
next in the progress of American farming is, that
everyfarm-house should have its patch of grapes
as well as of peas or beans, of the improved
native grapes, and that by degrees the highest
kinds of foreign grapes should be acclimated,
so as to form a part of field cultivation. This
we believe entirely practicable, and to this we
invite the attention of farmers.

Of foreign grapes two kinds are well known
in Virginia and other Southern as well as Mid-
dle States, namely, the Summer Sweetwater and
the White Sweetwater. Highly interesting com-
munications upon the subject of the vine cul-
ture in the United States will be found in the
American Farmer, Farmer^s Register, and many
Other valuable periodicals.

Among the various species of grape-vines
found wild in the forests of the United States,
the following have been described by botanists.

1. Fox-grape (Vitis labruska or Vitis vulpma).

The berries of this luxuriant vine grow in short

clusters, and are about half an inch and often

more in diameter, varying at maturity from near-

1086

ly black to dark amber or copper colour and
greenish-white. The flavour is musty and strong.
"All kinds of this grape," says Bartram, " possess
a strong, rancid smell and taste, have a thick
coriaceous skin, and a tough, jelly-like pulp or
tegument which encloses the seeds. Between
this nucleus and the skin is a sweet, lively
juice, but a little acerb or stinging to the mouth
if pressed hard in eating them. There is an-
other property of this grape which alone is
sufficient to prove it to be the V. vulpina, that
is, the strong, rancid smell of its ripe fruit,
very like the efliuvia arising from the body of
the fox, which gave rise to the specific name
of this vine, and not, as many have imagined,
from its being the favourite food of the animal;
for the fox (at least the American species) sel-
dom eats grapes or other fruit if he can get
animal food." "In the wild state," says Dr.
Darlington, " we find varieties in the fruit, and
in our gardens and vineyards we have grapes
under several names, which appear to be no-
thing more than varieties of this — (or possibly
some of them may be hybrids) — such as the
Isabella grape, the Schuylkill (called also Alexan-
der's and Tasker's grape), the Catawba grape, and
Bland^s grape. The two former of these are
nearly black, the two latter copper or amber
coloured — with less of the musky flavour than
the others. The Schuylkill and Catawba varie-
ties have been cultivated with the most suc-
cess in Chester county." (Flora Cestrica.)

2. Little summer grape (V. aestivalis), called
also the Common blue grape and Bunch grape.
In this most common of all American wild
grapes the berries are round and small, gene-
rally about one-fourth of an inch in diameter,
of a deep blue or nearly black colour, covered
when ripe with a thick bloom or powder. Their
flavour when mature, which is generally after
the first frost, is of an agreeable sprightly acid,
"This species," says Dr. Darlington, "presents
several varieties ; some of them with a larger
fruit, which is much esteemed, and well worthy
of culture. It sometimes attains to a great
height in rich woodlands ; the upper branches
sustaining it by clinging to the limbs of tall
trees, and gradually ascending, whilst the older
branches below die and drop ofi", leaving the
stem naked and suspended, somewhat resem-
bling a topgallant halyard, belayed at the root.""

3. Chicken grape (F. cordifolia and V. labrusca
of Marsh, and V. serolina of Bartram), also
called Winter grape and Bermudian grape.
This kind has very small berries, not so large

as currants. They are very late in ripening, -
and, when mature, are nearly black, and pos-
sessed of so much acerbity, that even birds
will not eat them until they have undergone
melioration from autumnal frosts. This vine
is remarkable for its sweet flowers. It mounts
to the top of trees, and its stems and twigs are
more hard and woody than those of the preced-
ing variety, or Summer grape.

4. Bull or Bullet grape ( V. iaurina of Bartram,
and V. vulpina of Linnaeus and Walter). This
excellent grape is a native of the Southern
States, and in the Carolinas, Georgia, and the
Floridas is called the Bull grape. It is pro-
nounced by Bartram and others a distinct va-
riety from that which it resembles in external

VINEGAR.

VINEGAR.

appearance, called Fox grapes from Pennsyl-
vania to Florida. The Bullet or Bull grape is
described by Bartram as having "a stiff, lig-
neous, smooth stem, of pale ash colour, and
mounts to a great height by climbing up trees.
The leaves are cordated and serrated, thin, and
both surfaces naked or smooth. The racemes
or fruit bunches short, containing 15 or 20
grapes at a medium. The berries or acini are
large, near the size of a rifle-ball; of a black
colour when ripe ; having a bluish nebule
over them, which being rubbed off, they appear
of a deep blood colour. In figure they approach
to an ellipsis or prolate spheroid; however, at
a little distance they appear black and round.
This species is deservedly esteemed the best
native grape in America, and would make a
rich and delicious wine. The juice is sweet,
rich, and lively, and there is but little of the
tough, jelly-like substance enclosing the seed.
The skin of the grape is rather thick, yet there
is a sweet, melting pulp within, which mixes
with the saccharine juice when eaten. This
undoubtedly is the first American grape which
merits attention and cultivation for wine. It
thrives in every soil and situation, from the
sea-coast to the mountains ; it even thrives and
is fruitful when growing in the barren sand-
hills of Carolina and Florida."

After describing these distinct varieties of
grapes found in the United States, Mr. Bartram
mentions several others which he considers de-
rived from a commixture of those described,
as Alexander's or Tasker^t grape ; Bland's grape ;
Raccoon grape. Other varieties, possessing still
superior properties, have since been added,
such as the Isabella, Potoell, Cataxcba, Scupper-
rwn, &c., already mentioned.

VINEGAR is the acetous and acetic acids
of the chemist, containing a variety of foreign
admixtures, some colouring matter, and an
ethereal substance or spirit, which gives it a
grateful aroma. Vinegar has been known from
a very early age. It was by far the earliest
known acid of commerce. That it was drunk
in remote periods, diluted with water, by the
labourers and soldiers, is very certain. It is
repeatedly mentioned in the Old Testament.
But then they had several descriptions, one of
which, a kind of small wine, which they called
pesca or sera, is supposed to be that offered to
Ruth {Ruth, ii. 14), and to our Saviour by the
Roman soldiers {Matt, xxvii. 48). The stronger
variety of vinegar is alluded to in another
place {Prov. x. 26). They mixed it also with
nitre, or, properly speaking, natron, which
was an alkali that, by neutralizing, destroyed
its sharpness. " As vinegar upon nitre, so is
he that singeth songs to a heavy heart."
{Prov. XXV. 20.) They made it in those days
from wine. {Numb. vi. 3.) It is known to
every one, that when wine or beer is exposed
to the influence of the atmosphere, it becomes
sour or acid ; now this acid is the acetic. In
the wine countries it is chiefly made from the
produce of the vine, weak or low wines; the
shoots of the vine, &c., being also employed
for that purpose. It may be readily made from
merely sugar and water. That of commerce
in England is usually made from wort from
malt liquor or cider. Vinegar is of a yellow-

ish or reddish colour, an acid taste, and plea-
sant odour. Its specific gravity is commonly
between 1-0135 and 1-0251. It usually holds
in solution various foreign substances, such as
colouring matters, sulphate of lime, mucilage,
sulphuric acid, and the ethereal spirit already
mentioned. Vinegars differ greatly in strength
and in purity. The best known in England
for domestic purposes is the French white
wine vinegar; but the Vinaigre d'Orleans, made
from the red wine of the Orleanois, is that most
esteemed in France ; and that imported ffrtn
Bourdeaux, although named Champagne vine-
gar, is ofien^ade from red wine.' The density
of French vinegars varies from 10-14 to 10-22.
The free sulphuric acid in British vinegar is
permitted by the English excise laws to the
amount of one part in one thousand, but it is
often added to four times that amount.

Vinegar is readily purified from its impuri-
ties by distillation, and in this form is the trans-
parent distilled vinegar of commerce. But even
then it is united with a considerable portion o£
water.

The specific gravity determines this point.
Thus, at 10-14 it contains 10 per cent, of real
acetic acid, at 10-22 15 per cent., at 10-25 18
per cent., at 10-35 26 per cent., at 10-60 50 per
cent., and so on, until it reaches 10-635, which
is the strongest liquid acetic acid.

When deprived of all impurities and water,
by chemical means, pure acetic acid is com-
posed, according to the analysis of M. Berze-
lius, of —

Pwr»t.

Carbon 46 83

Oxygen --.--_ 4682
Hydrogen ------ 635

100

Some plants contain acetic acid naturally.
M. Vauquelin found it in the sap of various
trees, and in the chick-pea. Scheele detected
it in the elderberry. It has been found also in
the date palm tree, and in several others ; and
few plants exist in which acetic acid in the
form of salts, such as the acetates of lime or
potassa, is not found.

In England, for domestic purposes, it is pre-
pared in several very considerable manufacto-
ries from a mixture of barley or malt with wa-
ter, by keeping the wash exposed in open ves-
sels to the influence of the atmosphere, in rooms
heated to a particular temperature. The forma-
tion of the acetic acid in this manner is in these
works promoted by the addition of a certain
small proportion of acetic acid.

An excellent vinegar for domestic purposes
may be readily made by exposing a mixture
of one part of brown sugar by weight with
seven parts of water and some yeast, in a cask
whose bung-hole is only slightly covered over
(as by a piece of gauze pasted down to keep
out insects), for some weeks to the action of
the atmosphere and the sun. The acetic fer-
mentation and the goodness of the vinegar are
promoted by the addition of vine leaves.

Athough vinegar is familiarly used in small
quantity as an agreeable and useful addition to
food, yet in large quantities it interrupts diges-
tion, and induces emaciation. In combination

1087

VIOLET.

WALNUT TREE.

with water, it is an excellent cooling and invi-
gorating substance when employed for spong-
ing the body, especially in febrile conditions
of it : its vapour inhaled with the vapour of hot
water relieves hoarseness ; and, when mode-
. rately diluted, it forms an excellent gargle in
inflamed or sore throats. See Acids and Px-

HOLIGNEOUS Acil>.

VIOLET (Viola). All the species of this
genus deserve to be cultivated, either for the
beauty or the scent of their flowers. The spe-
cies natives of America thrive best in vegeta-
ble mould or peat, and are readily increased
by parting the roots or by seeds. There are 8
native species of violet in England, and, ac-
cording to Schweinitz, 29 in the United States.

VIOLET, AMERICAN (Erythronium jlmeri-
canum). Sometimes called Dog's-tooth violet.
This ver}. pretty plant is found throughout
the Atlantic States on the lowest alluvial
banks of streams, and in most moist places,
where it puts forth its beautiful violet flowers
in April and May. It has a perennial bulbous
root, rather deep in the ground. Among other
American species of the violet enumerated by
botanists, is the white violet (£. albidum), found
throughout the Western States and Territories,
in Upper Louisiana, and on the banks of the
Missouri, where no other species appears to
^ exist. There appears to be a yellow-flowered
species confounded with this white species,
and nearly allied to it.

VIPER'S BUGLOSS. See Honet, Ciniak.

W.

WAGES. The price or hire paid to labour-
ers or servants for performing different sorts
of farm work.

These differ greatly in different districts and
situations, and according to the character and
employment of the workmen, but in all they
are considerably increased within the last 15
or 20 years. They may perhaps be stated as
varying, in England, under different circum-
stances, from 9s. to 18s. by the week, and from
9Z. to 15Z. or 18/. by the vear.

WAGON. A wheel-carriage, of which there
are several varieties, accommodated to the dif-
ferent uses which they are intended to serve.

In the business of husbandry, wagons con-
structed in different forms, and of various di-
mensions, are made use of in different districts
or parts of the kingdom ; and mostly without
much attention to the nature of the roads, or the
articles which are to be conveyed by them;
being in general heavy, clumsy, and incon-
venient. There is, however, a wagon much
employed in Berkshire, England, which is
constructed on a more simple and convenient
principle than those mostly met with in the
other southern parts of the island, not having
the height or weight of them, while it possesses
sufficient strength, and is easy in the draught.

Wagons require more power in the draught
than carts, which is certainly an objection,
though they carry a much greater load, and are
far from being so handy and convenient ; and
Mr. Parkinson is of opinion, that more work
1083

may be done in any particular time, with the
same number of horses, by carts than by wa-
gons, in the general run of husbandry busi-
ness, especially where the distance is small be-
tween loading and unloading; a fact which
has long been known and attended to in Scot-
land.

Where wagons are used for husbandry, they
should be made wide and low. Manures may
be carried in this sort of wagon almost as
well as in carts. Broad wheels are improper
for passing and repassing upon tillage lands ;
for, if in fallow, they press the land too much,
and make it so hard as to prevent its being
ploughed till wet comes ; but on grass land
broad wheels are proper for all uses, as there
they operate as rollers.

Wagons are probably the best conveyances
for different sorts of heavy loads to a distance ;
but for home business, especially harvest and
other work, which requires to be speedily per-
formed in the field, carts with proper shelving
will be found preferable. See Cabt and
Highway.

WAIN. A name applied to an ox cart,
without any side rails, or ladders, in some dis
tricts in England; but in others shelvings are
added, and the body is large and open. They
are rarely met with at present. In Gloucester-
shire they adapt them to harvest work by fixing
ladders and rathes on them. In the lower part
of the vale they are called dungpots ; but in the
forest districts, where drawn by oxen, wains.

WALNUT TREE (Juglan$,irom Javis glans ;
literally the nut of Jove). All the species of
the ornamental genus to which the well-known
walnut tree belongs are tall, stately-growing
trees, well adapted for parks and lawns. They
grow freely in any rich loamy soil, and are
raised from seeds. This deciduous tree was
formerly held in great esteem in England for
its wood, which is often very finely veined;
but, on account of its aptness to be worm-
eaten, it has long since given place to the ma-
hogany. As a fruit tree, independent of its
timber, which is still of much value, it merits
attention, and it is also useful as an ornamental
tree. There are several species capable of
being cultivated with advantage both for their
wood and fruit; as the common walnut, the
white walnut, and the black walnut tree.

The common walnut (7. regia) is a very
large and lofty tree, which has strong spread-
ing boughs. The leaves are pinnate, with a
very strong but not unpleasant smell ; the leaf-
lets 3 pairs (sometimes 2 or 4), nearly equal,
except that the odd one is largest; they are en-
tire, smooth, and shining. The male flowers
are in close, pendulous, subterminating fila-
ments ; the females scattered, frequently 2 or
3 together. Fruit an ovate, coriaceous, smooth
drupe, inclosing an irregularly grooved nut,
which contains a four-lobed, oily, eatable ker-
nel, with an irregular knobbed surface, and
covered with a yellow skin. This tree is a
native of Persia.

It has been noticed by Martyn, " that as they
all vary again when raised from the seed, and
that as nuts from the same tree will produce
different fruit, those who plant the walnut for
its fruit should make choice of the trees in the

WALNUT TREE.

WALNUT TREE.

nurseries, when they have their fruit upon
^hem."

The common walnut has several varieties,
as the oval walnut, the round walnut, the large
walnut, the small-fruited walnut, the double
walnut, the early walnut, the late walnut, the
tender thin-shelled walnut, and the hard thick-
shelled walnut.

There are two other species, the hickory-nut,
or white walnut (/. alba), and the black walnut
(/. nigra). Both these are natives of Virginia;
but they are seldom cultivated in Britain, ex-
cept as timber trees.

The best manure for the walnut is ashes,
spread in the beginning of winter, the land
having been first ploughed or trenched over in
an effectual manner.

The length of time in which the English
walnut bears well from the nut is about 20
years.

Mr. Knight has suggested that this tree will
tear much sooner when raised by grafting,
with bearing branches, by approach. But
where the trees are intended for timber, it is a
^ood practice to plant them out at once where
they are to grow, as they thrive faster, and
form better trees, by that method of raising
4hem.

These trees should not be planted nearer
.together than 40 feet, and even more distant,
if they are designed for fruit. They delight in
a firm, rich, loamy soil, or such as is inclinable
40 chalk or marl; and will thrive very well in
stony ground, or on chalk hills, as is evident
from those large plantations near Lealherhead,
Godstone, and Carshalton in Surrey, where
great numbers of these trees planted upon the
downs produce annually large quantities of
^fruit, to the no small advantage of their owners.

In order to preserve this fruit, it should be
left upon the tree till it is thoroughly ripe, and
then, as it would be exceedingly troublesome
to gather it by hand, it may be beaten off, but
not with such violence as is commonly used,
from a mistaken notion that the tree is im-
proved thereby; for most certainly it cannot
be benefited by that rough way of forcing off
the young wood upon which this fruit grows.

The fruit is used in two different stages of
its growth : as when green, to pickle ; and
when ripe, to eat the kernel. For the first pur-
pose, the young green walnut, when about half
or near three parts grown, before the outer coat
and internal shell shall become hard, is most
excellent, for which they are generally ready
in July or the following month, and should be
gathered by the hand, choosing such as are as
free from specks as possible. But the fruit is
discovered to be fully ripe by the outer husk
easily separating from the nut, or by the husks
sometimes opening at the valve, and the nuts
dropping out, which occurs usually about the
latter end of September. In trees of consider-
able growth, it is commonly beaten down with
long poles; for, as the walnuts grow mostly at
the extremity of the branches, it would, in
very large spreading trees, be troublesome and
tedious work to gather them by hand. As soon
as gathered, they should be laid in heaps a few
days to heat and sweat, to cause their outer
husks, which closely adhere, to separate from
137

the shell of the nuts ; after which they should
be cleaned from the rubbish, and deposited ia
a dry room for use, covering them over close
with dry straw, a foot thick, where they will
keep 3 or 4 months. They always command
a ready sale at market in large towns, where,
at their first coming in, they are bought with
their husks on, and sold by the sack, or bushel,
but afterwards cleaned, and sold both by mea-
sure and by the thousand.

Plantations of these trees in England are
therefore profitable, in their annual crops of
fruit, while growing, and in their timber when
felled or cut down.

It is stated in the Gloucestershire Report, that
"it will grow almost in any soil, wants no
pruning nor care, and in less time than the oak
it will make a large tree. The wood is too
valuable to apply to the usual purposes of tim-
ber trees, but is always used either in cabinet
work or for gun-slocks ; for the latter, indeed,
so great has been the demand for a few years
past, from the Birmingham gun-makers, that
the county has been ransacked for this wood,
and high prices have been held out to tempt the
sale of it. In consequence of this, the stock
has been much diminished, and, with very few-
exceptions, only here and there is a solitary
walnut tree seen growing. In the parish of
Arlingham there are more, perhaps, than in
many other parishes combined."

Were it only for the oil that these nuts afford,
the trees which produce them would be worth
some care. It has been observed by Evelyn,
that one bushel of them will yield 15 lbs. of
peeled kernels, and that these will yield half
that weight of oil, which, the sooner it is drawn,
is the more in quantity, though the drier the
nut, the better is its quality. He adds, that the
lee, or marc of the pressing, is excellent for
fattening hogs. Certainly it would be good
manure for land; as are the cakes of linseed,
rape, &c., after the oil has been squeezed out
of them. The green husks boiled, without any
mixture, make a good colour to dye a dark yel-
low-brown. The kernel being rubbed upon
any crack or chink of a leaking vessel, stops
it better than either clay, pitch, or wai. (Phil-
lips's Frttits, p. 342.)

In the variety of trees which compose the
vast forests of North America east of the Mis-
sissippi, the walnut, says Michaux the younger,
ranks after the oak, among the genera whose
species are most multiplied. In this particular,
the soil of the United States is more favoured
than that of Europe, to no part of which is
any species of this tree indigenous. This ar-
dent student of nature has designated 10 spe-
cies of walnut in the United States, including
the hickories, and thinks others may yet be
discovered in Louisiana. There is, he adds,
room to think that species may be discover-
ed, susceptible, like the pacanenut hickory,
of speedy melioration, by the aid of grafting
and attentive cultivation. Some weight is given
this consideration, by an observation of Michaux
the father, that the fruit of the common Eu-
ropean walnut, in its natural state, is harder
than that of the American species just men-
tioned, and inferior to it in size and quality.
To the members of agricultural societies ia

1089

WALNUT TREE.

WALNUT TREE.

the United States it belongs to extend their ob-
servations and experiments on this subject,
after the example of our ancestors, to whom
we are indebted for a rich variety of fruits,
equally salutary and beautiful.

The walnuts of North America appear to
present characters so distinct as to require
their division into two sections. These cha-
racters consist principally in the form of the
barren aments or catkins, and in the gceater or
less rapidity of vegetation in. the trees. The
first section is composed of walnuts with sin-
gle aments, and includes two species, the
black walnut and the butternut ; to which sec-
tion is added the Europeaw walnut. The second
section consists of such as have compound
aments, and comprises the 8 species already
described under the name of Hickokt.

The black walnut (^Juglans nigra), is known
by no other name in all parts of the United
States where it grows. East of the Alleghany
mountains, the most northern point at which it
appears, is, says Michaux, about Goshen in
the state of New Jersey, in the latitude of 40°
50'. West of the mountains, it exists abun-
dantly 2° farther north, in that portion of Ge-
nesee which is comprised between the 77th
and 79th degrees of longitude. This observa-
tion, as I shall have occasion to remark, is ap-
plicable to several other vegetables, the north-
ern limit of whose appearance varies with the
climate, and this becomes m'ilder in advancing
towards the west.

This last observation of Michaux in respect
to the amelioration of climate in going west,
has been ascertained, from exact thermometri-
cal observations, to be applicable only to those
sections of country situated sufficiently near the
Lakes, and to the eastward of them to be in-
fluenced by the greater equality of temperature
maintained by bodies of water than by land.
The proximity of those great internal seas have
a similar effect in modifying climate* to that
manifested on th? Atlantic border, where many
trees and plants creep up several degrees higher
than they can be found further in the interior.
(See Climate of the United States.)

The black walnut is multiplied in the forests
about Philadelphia, and, with the exception of
the lower parts of the Southern States, where
the soil is sandy, or too wet, it is met with to
.the banks of ' the Mississippi, throughout an
extent of 2000 miles. East of the Alleghany
mountains in Virginia,' and in the tipper part
of the Carolinas and of Georgia, it is chiefly
confined to the valleys, where the soil is deep
and fertile, and which are watered by creeks
and rivers: in the western country, in Ge-
nesee, and in the states of Ohio and Kentucky,
where the soil in general is very rich, it grows
in the forests, with the coffee tree, honey-locust,
red mulberry, locust, shellbark-hickory, black
sugar maple, hackberry, and red elm ; all
which trees prove the goodness of the soil in
which they are found.

It is in these countries, says Michaux, that
the black walnut displays its full proportions.
On the banks of the Ohio, and on the islands
of that beautiful river, I have often seen trees
of 3 or 4 feet in diameter and 60 or 70 feet in
height. It is not rare to find them of the ihick-
1090

ness of 6 or 7 feet. Its powerful vegetatioit
clearly points out this as one of the largest
tYees of America. When it stands insulated,
its branches, extending themselves horizon-
tally to a great distance, spread into a spacious
head, which gives it *a very majestic appear-
ance.

The leaves of the black walnut when bruised
emit a strong aromatic odor. They are about
18 inches in length, pinnate, and composed in
general of 6, 7, or 8 pair of leaflets, surmount-
ed by an odd one. The leaflets are opposite
and fixed on short petioles ; they are acuminate,
serrate, and somewhat downy. The barren
flowers are disposed in pendulous and cylin-
drical aments, of which the peduncles are
simple, unlike those of the hickories. The
fruit is round, odoriferous, of rather an uneven
surface; and always appears at the extremity
of the branches : on young and vigorous trees,
it is sometimes 7 or 8 inches in circumference.
The husk is thick, and is not, as in the hicko-
ries, divided into sections; but when ripe it
softens and gradually decays. The nut is hard,
somewhat compressed at the sides, and sul-
cated. The kernel, which is divided by firm
ligneous partitions, is of a sweet and agree-
able taste, though inferior to that of the Eu-
ropean walnut. These nuts are sold in the
markets of. New York, Philadelphia, and Bal-
timore, and served upon the tables. The size
of the fruit varies considerably, and depends
upon the vigour of the tree, and upon the na-
ture of the soil and of the climate. On the
banks of the Ohio, and in Kentucky, the fruit
with the husk is 7 or 8 inches in compass,
with the nut proportionally large : in Genesee,
on the contrary, where the cold is intense, and
in fields exhausted by cultivation, where these
trees have been preserved since the first clear-
ing of the land, it is not of more than half this
bigness. Some variations are .observed in the
form of the fruit, and in the moulding of the
shell ; but these I- consider as merely acci-
dental differences. Indeed, there is no genus
of trees in America, in which the fruit of a
given species exhibits such various forms as
in the walnut; and doubtless this circumstance
has misled observers, who, being acquainted
only with the small number of trees existing
in European gardens, have described them as
distinct species.

The bark of the black walnut is thick, black-
ish, and on old trees deeply furrowed. When
the timber is freshly cut, the sap is white and
the heart of a violet colour, which after a short
exposure to the air assumes an intenser shade,
and becomes nearly black : hence probably is
derived the name of black walnut. There are
several qualities for which its wood is princi-
pally esteemed; it remains sound during a
long time, even when exposed to the influences
of heat and moisture ; but this observation is
applicable only to the heart ; the sap speedily
decays. It is very strong and very tenacious :
when thoroughly seasoned it is not liable to
i warp and split ; and its grain is sufficiently
I fine and compact to admit of a beautiful polish.
' It possesses, in addition to these advantages,
i that of being secure from worms. On account
I of these excellencies, it is preferred and sue-

WARBLE.

WARPING OF LAND.

<jessfully employed in many kinds of work,
chiefly in cabinet-making.' /

The husk of the fruit yields a colour similar
to that which is obtained from the European
walnut. It is used in the country for dyeing
woollen stuffs.

This tree has been long since introduced, in
England and Franiie, into the gardens of the
lovers of foreign culture. It succeeds per-
fectly and yields fruit abundantly. Though
differing widely from the European species, it
bears a nearer resemblance to it than any
other American walnut. By comparing the
two species as to their utility in the arts and in
commerce, it will appear that" the wood of the
black walnut is more compact, heavier, and
much stronger; that it is susceptible of a finer
polish, and that it is not injured by worms;
qualities which, as has been seen, render it fit
not only for the same uses with the European,
but also for the larger works of architecture.
These considerations sufliciently evince that it
is a valuable tree, and that it is with great
reason that many proprietors in America have
spared it, in clearing their new lands. On high-
roads, I am of opinion that it might be chosen
to succeed the elm; for experience has proved,
that torinsure success ih the continued culti-
vation of trees or herbaceous plants on the
same soil, the practice must be varied with
species of different genera.

Nuts of the European walnut and of the
black walnut have been planted at the same
time in the same soil ; those of the black wal-
nut are observed to shoot more vigorously, and
to grow in a given time to a greater height.
By grafting the European upon the American
species at the height of 8 or 10 feet, their ad-
vantages, with respect \o the quality both of
"wood and of fruit, might be united. (^Michaux,)

The second species of walnut, properly so
called, has been described under the head of

BOTTEHNUT.

WARBLE. .See Back-sobk, Galls, and

SiTFAST.

WARP. A slimy deposit or ooze left npon
land by the receding sea tides in particular
situations. See Alluvium and Wirpino.

WARPING OF LAND. A mode of fertiliz-
ing and improving rillage lands practised in
particular situations on the borders of large
rivers and waters into which the sea tides flow,
and where the level of the ground is such as
to admit of their being flooded with great faci-
lity. The.practice is, for the most part, confined
to the districts situate on the coasts of Liticoln-
shire and Yorkshire. The water of the. tides
that conie up- the Trent, Ouze, Dun, and other
rivers which empty .themselves into the great
estuary of the Humber, is muddy to an excess;
insomuch that in summer, i( a cylindrical
glass, 12 or 15 inches long, be filled with it, it
will presently deposit an inch, and sometimes
more, of what is called warp : a circumstance
which renders them so fertile.

The fertility of Egypt, of the land bordering
on the shores of the Ganges, and some of the
large Ainerican rivers, I have already shown
to be attributable to the periodical overflowing
pf the waters, which are surcharged with a

large quantity of earthy substances which they
hold in solution.

" The effect of warping is very different from
that of irrigation ; for it is not the water that
works the effect, but the deposition of the mud,
so that in floods the business ceases, as also in
winter; and the object of this practice is not
to manure the soil, but to create it. The qua-
lity of the land intended to be warped is not
of the smallest consequence; a bog, clay, sand,
peat, or a barn floor, are all one ; as the warp
raises it in one summer from 6 to 16 inches
thick, and in the hollows, or low places, 2, 3,
or 4 feet, so as to leave the whole piece level.
Thus a soil of any depth you please is formed,
which consists of mud of a vast fertility,
though containing not much besides sand."

This is a practice which is begun in the
month of July, and is proceeded with during
the summer season ; and as it can only be
performed at that period, every occasion of
having it executed should be embraced, by
having the work in perfect repair, that every
tide may be made to produce its full effect
With regard to the advantage of doing this
work in the summer months, it may be re-
marked that at these times the lands not only
become the soonest dry, a circumstance which
must always fully take place before the pro-
cess of cultivation can be carried on, but the
tides are less mixed with fresh water, in which
situation they are constantly found the most
effectual.

The method of executing the work is thus
described, in the Jgricullural Survey of the West
Riding of Yorkshire, by Lord Hawke : —

"The land to be warped must be banked
round against the river. The banks are made
of the earth taken on the spot from; the land:
they must slope'6 feet, that is, 3 feet on each
side of the top or crown of the bank, for every
foot perpendicular of rise : their top or crown
is broader or narrower, according to the impe-
tuosity of the tide and the weight and quantity
of water.; and it extends from 2 to 12 feet:
their height is regulated by the height to which
the spring tides flow, so as to exclude or let
them in at pleasure. In these banks there are
more or fewer openings, according to the size
of the ground to be warped, and to the choice
of the occupier; but in general they have only
two sluiQes, one called the flood-gate, to admit,
the other called the dough, to let off the water
gently; these are enough for 10 or 15 acres.
When the spring tide begins to ebb, the flood-
gate is opened to admit the tide, the clough
having been previously shut by the weight of
the water brought up the river by the flow of
the tide. As the tide .ebbs down the river, the
weight or pressure of water being taken from
the outside . of the' clough next the river, the
tide water that has been previously admitted
by the flood-gate opens the clough again, and
discharges itself slo.wly but completely through
it. Thecloughsare walled on each side, and
so constructed as to let the water run off be-
tween the ebb of the tide admitted and the flow
of the next ; and to this point particular atten-
tion is paid. The flood-gates are placed so
high as only to let in the spring tides when

109i

WARRANTY.

WASP.

opened. They are placed above the level of
the common tides.

" Willows are also occasionally planted on
the front of the banks, to break the force of the
tides, and defend the banks by raising the front
of them with warp thus collected and accu-
mulated ; but these willows must never be
planted on the banks, as they would destroy
them by giving the winds power to shake them."
It is stated that in England the first cost of a
sluice for warping, that is, 5 feet in height and
7 feet in width, may be estimated at from 400/.
to 500Z ; and that such a sluice will in general
be adequate to the warping of 50 acres annu-
ally, and, where the soil is contiguous to the
river, for 70 or more.

The following is given as the substance of a
note by a commissioner employed in warping:
— « Warp leaves one-eighth of an inch every tide
on an average ; and these layers do not mix in
a uniform mass, but remain in distinct layers.

"If only one sluice, then only every other
tide can be used, as the water must run per-
fectly off, that the surface may incrust ; and if
the canal be not empty, the tide has not the
effect.

" As a new soil is created by this practice, it
is of little consequence what the original nature
of the land may be, almost all kinds being im-
proved by it. But at the same time it may be
the most beneficial in such light soils as are
very open and porous, and such stiff ones as
are defective in calcareous matter, and which
require substances of this kind to render them
less tenacious. Land, when once well warped,
will continue for a vast length of time in a
good state of fertility ; but still it is suggested
by some experienced warpers as a better prac-
tice to apply a small portion of warp whenever
the land is in the state of fallow, which will be
about every 5 or 6 years, as by this means the
farmer will be more secure of having good
crops. The depth to which the lands are co-
vered by the tides must be regulated according
to their levels, and the height of the tide in the
rivers from which they proceed. It may be
admitted to the height of 3, or 4, or more feet ;
but the deposit of sediment is in some measure
proportionate to the height of the water, though
the same effects may be obtained from much
smaller quantities of water by continuing the
process a great number of tides."

The expense of this mode of improving
lands must necessarily differ much.in different
cases, according as the circumstances of situa-
tion and distance vary ; but, according to Mr.
Young, it^ can seldom exceed 12Z. or 15/. the
acre, and in most instances it must be greatly
below such estimates.

Warped lands are found capable of growing
most kinds of crops in great plenty, but par-
ticularly oats, beans, wheat, flax, potatoes, and
grass-seeds.

WARRANTY. In horsemanship, &c., a
term applied to the assurance of the animal's
being sound when purchased. See Buriwo
and Sellittg.

WARREN. A franchise, or place privileged,
either by prescription or grant from the king, to
keep beasts and fowls of warren in ; as rabbits,
hares, partridges, pheasants, &c.
1092

By statute 21 Edw. 3, a warren may lie open,
and there is no need of closing it in, as there
is a park.

In the forming a warren, great caution is to
be used for the fixing upon a proper place and
a right situation. It should always be upon a
small ascent, if possible, and exposed to the
east or the south. The so^ that is most suita-
ble is that which is sandy ; for when the soil
is clayey or tough, the rabbits find great diffi-
culty in making their burrows, and never do it
so well ; and if the soil be boggy or moorish,
there would be very little advantage from the
warren ; for wet is very destructive to these
animals. See Rabbit.

WASP (Vespa). An extensive genus of in-
sects, of which three species are common to
Britain. The hornet, or V. crabro, already men-
tioned; common wasp, or V. vulgaris, which
makes its nest in the ground ; the small wasp,
or V. coaretata, the nest of which is a kind of
paper made of woody fibre and suspended to
the boughs of trees.

Of the wasps most commonly known in the
United States there are two species, namely,
the large, fierce, stinging insect which builds
its flat paper nest in bushes, &c., and the more
harmless blue-winged mud-wasp, commonly
called the mason, from its plastering its nest
with mud against the walls of houses, &c.
These nests are composed of cells, each one
of which contains a single egg, together with a
considerable number of living spiders, caught
and imprisoned therein solely for the purpose
of affording the little mason's young a ready
supply of fresh provisions. In noticing this
characteristic of the mud-wasp. Dr. Harris also
refers to the habits and nests of some other
tribes of the same family, such as the holes of
the stump-wasp, stored with hundreds of horse-
flies for the same purpose ; the skill of the
leaf-cutter bee in cutting out the semicircular
pieces of leaves for her patchwork nest; the
thimble-shaped cells of the ground-bee, hidden
in clusters under some loose stone in the fields,
made of little fragments of tempered clay, and
stored with bee-bread, the work of many weeks
for the industrious labourer ; the waxen cells
made by the honey-bee, without any teaching,
upon purely mathematical principles, measured
only with her antennae, and wrought with her
jaws and tongue ; the water-tight nests of the
hornet and wasp, natural paper-makers from
the beginning of time, who are not obliged to
use rags or ropes in the formation of their
durable paper combs, but have applied to this
purpose fibres of wood, a material that the
art of man has not yet been able to manufac-
ture into paper. These are only a few of the
objects deserving of notice among the insects
of this order; many others might be men-
tioned, that would lead us to observe with what
consummate skill these little creatures have
been fashioned, and how richly they have been
endowed with instincts, that never fail them
in providing for their own welfare, and that of
their future progeny. (Treatise on Des.. Insects.)
Wasps are not only destructive to grapes,
peaches, and the more delicate kinds of fruit,
but also to bees, the hives of which they attack
and plunder, frequently compelling these in-

WATER.

WATER.

dustrious insects to change their habitation.
The nests of those wasps which build in the
earth may be destroyed with hot water or oil ;
those on trees are best suffocated by lighted
brimstone. {Kollar on Insects, p. 79.)

Wasps are much affected by cold ; so that
when wintef begins to set in they become less
bold and savage, and they all perish, except a
few females, as soon as the frost begins. This
is a wise provision of nature ; for, did they
survive the winter, they would soon rival the
locust in their destructive depredations.

WASTE LAND. The following is an ac-
count of the quantity of land uncultivated and
waste in the British dominions, including Scot-
land, Ireland, and the British islands, according
to the evidence of Mr. Cowling before the
Emigration Committee in 1827: —

England . - -
Wales ... -
Scotland ...
Ireland . . -
British Islands -

UocQltivated

ACTW.

Unprofitable
Acrei.

3,454,000

530,000

5,950,000

4,900,000

166,000

3,256,000
1.105,000
8,523,930
2,416,664
569,469

15,000,000

15,871,463

WATER. A well-known, universally dif-
fused substance, which in ordinary tempera-
tures is fluid, but is solid when cooled down to
32° of Fahrenheit's thermometer. It rises into
vapour at all temperatures, even below the
freezing point, and at 212° expands suddenly
into steam. It is composed, by weight, of oxy-
gen 8 parts, and hydrogen 1 part.
• Water is one of the most useful elements in
the arts and manufactures, as well as in rural
and domestic economy. The extensive utility
of water for imparting motion to machinery, and
for domestic purposes, is too well known to
require explanation; and as we have already
treated of its beneficial properties for irrigat-
ing land, under this head we shall have prin-
cipally to confine ourselves to its uses to
plants.

Its Uses to Vegetatio7u — ^The value of water to
vegetation very early attracted the attention of
mankind. In the most ancient of all books,
Genesis ii. 10, we are told that " a river went out
of Eden to water the garden." And the earliest
of the Greek and Egyptian philosophers, as-
tonished and confused by the magic effects
which water produced upon the rank and luxu-
riant lands of the warm eastern climates, were
loud in their praises of the unaided pow£rs of
water to support vegetation. They not only
regarded it as one of the four elements of which
the world was composed, but Hippocrates con-
sidered it to be the substance which nourishes
and supports plants and animals. Theophras-
tus even considered that all metals were pro-
duced from water. The opinion that pure
water, and water only, was able to support
vegetation, was in succeeding ages long the
opinion of many philosophers distinguished
for their laborious investigations and their
ardent love of truth. Amongst these may be
named Van Helmont, Bonnet, Duhamel, Tillet,
and the illustrious Boyle. These great men
deceived themselves, however, by not suffi-
ciently attending to the purity of the water

with which they experimented,or guarding with
rigid accuracy against other sources of error-
Of the many researches which they instituted
to determine this point, none was more appa-
rently conclusive than that of the well-known
willow tree experiment of Van Helmont, which
long deceived, from its apparent accuracy, the
philosophers of that age. This celebrated ex-
perimentalist planted a willow which weighed
5 lbs. in a common earthen vessel filled with
200 lbs. of soil, which had been previously
thoroughly dried in an oven, and then moisten-
ed with only rain-water. This earthen vessel
he placed in the earth in a garden, covering it
over in such a manner that all access of dust,
&c., was prevented. For five years this willow
continued to grow, although moistened only
with either rain or distilled water. At the end
of that period, it was found to weigh 169 J lbs.,
although the earth in which it was planted,
when again dried and weighed, was found to
have lost only two ounces of its original weight.
Here, then, said the contemporaries of Van
Helmont, is an increase of 164 lbs., and yet
the only food the willow had was water ; it i»
evident, therefore, that pure water, and water
only, is quite sufficient to support vegetation.

Various sources of error were, however,
speedily discerned to prove that this experi-
ment was totally insufficient to decide this
question. The illustrious Bergman, in 1773,
showed that the rain-water employed by Van
Helmont, so far from being chemically pure,
contained sufficient earthy matters to supply
the whole of that found in the willow tree.
And, in addition to this, it was afterwards
shown that unglazed earthen vessels readily
imbibe and transmit the moisture of the soil
in which they are placed : now this moisture
abounds with a variety of solid matters, both
organic, earthy, and saline. {Thomson, vol. iv.
p. 313.)

Still more accurate experiments have been
since instituted with water chemically pure, with
very different results. In this way all attempts
to raise plants have in every instance totally
failed, although, as I have in another place
had occasion to remark, I have fruitlessly va-
ried the attempt in several ways. See LiauiB
Manure.

Although, however, it is, from the result of
these laborious researches, pretty clearly
proved that water is not the sole food of plants,
yet it must be evident to the most casual ob-
server what an indispensable food this univer-
sal fluid is to vegetation. To all vegetation, in
fact, it is an indispensable necessary of life,
although almost every species of plant re-
quires to be supplied with it in varying pro-
portions : some, such as the aerial epidendron,
and other Oriental plants, being able to supply
themselves from merely the aqueous portion
of it which always exists in the atmosphere ;
while some, such as the rice plant, and the
aquatics, cannot prosper without being sup-
plied with it in such copious quantities as
would be destructive to the ordinary crops of
the farmer. In some proportion or other, how-
ever, they all require it, and all attempts have
been in vain made to cause plants to grow in
situations where moisture was absolutely
4 Z 1093

WATER.

removed both from the earth and their sur-
rounding atmosphere.

M. Berthollet was of opinion that the leaves
of plants have the power of decomposing wa-
ter when exposed to the light of the sun. The
oxygen gas, according to this distinguished
philosopher, which is always emitted under
these circumstances, is derived partly from the
decomposition of the water. "Indeed," adds
Dr. Thomson, "If we consider the great quan-
tity of hydrogen contained in plants, it is diffi-
cult to conceive how they should obtain it,
provided the water they absorb does not con-
tribute to furnish it." {System of Chem. vol. iv.
p. 349.) These views open a field for future
and highly interesting researches, which will
probably lead to the establishing of new facts
highly important to the cultivator. And as
Davy, the chief of chemists, well said, "We
can only reason from facts. We cannot imi-
tate the powers of composition belonging to
vegetable structures, .but at least we can under-
stand them ; and as far as our researches have
gone, it appears that in vegetation compound
forms are uniformly produced from simpler
ones ; and the elements in the soil, the atmo-
sphere, and the earth, absorbed and piade parts
of beautiful and diversified structures." (icc-
<wres,p. 314.)

Pure water, therefore, is certainly not capa-
ble of entirely supporting vegetation. Yet,
although it cannot produce effects so extensive
as these, yet its uses are many and important,
and it is more than probable that it is decom-
posed by plants, its oxygen partially evolved,
and its hydrogen assimilated with carbon and
oxygen into a variety of vegetable substances,
most of which contain hydrogen in some form
or other : thus

Sugar is composed of —

Hydrogen 618

Oxygen 4938

Carbon ------ 4444

100

Gum, of —

Hydrogen ----- 043

Oxygen ------ 51-46

Carbon 4211

100

Starch, of —

Hydrogen ----- 6-^2

Oxygen ------ 4978

Carbon ------ 44*

100

It would be difficult indeed to account for the
large proportion of hydrogen present in vege-
table substances, without we allow that in some
instances water is decomposed by the plant.
"All the hydrogen," says. Professor Liebig,
rather too sweepingly, "necessary for the for-
mation of an organic compound is supplied to
a plant by the decomposition of water. {Organ.
Chem. p. 66.)

That plants have a strong attraction for wa-
ter is evident from a variety of circumstances;
thus by their leaves and roots they separate
the aqueous vapour of the atmosphere from
the gases in which it is contained, and that too
1094

WATER.

in all ordinary, temperatures. This unvaried
presence of aqueous vapour in the atmo-
sphere is not-less remarkable by the immense
importance it is to vegetation ; for without the
assistance which the farmer's crops derive
from it in dry weather, the warmth of the sun
would too often in the summer months wither
and destroy them. This beautiful arrange-
ment of creative wisdoni did not escape the
Attention of Davy, who noted too the variations
in its quantity according to the changing de-
mands of- vegetation. The quantity of water,
he remarked {Elements of Jigu Chem. p. 207),
which exists in air as vapour, varies with the
temperature. In proportion as the weather is
hotter the quantity is greater. At 50° of Fah-
renheit's thermometer, air contains about one-
fiftieth of its volume of vapour; and as the
specific gravity of vapour is to that of air nearly
as 10 to 15, this is about one seventy-fifth of its
weight. At 100°, supposing that it has a free
communication with water, it -contains about
one-fourteenth part in volume, or one twenty-
first in weight. It is the condensation of va-
pour by the diminution in the temperature of
the atmosphere which is probably the princi-
pal cause of the formation of clouds, and of
the deposition of dew, mist, snow, or hail. The
leaves of living plants appear to act upon the
vapour likewise in its elastic form, and to ab-
sorb it. Some vegetables increase in Weight
from this cause when suspended in the atmo-
sphere, and unconnected with the soil; such
are the house-leek, and different species of the
aloe. In very intense heats, adds Davy, ahd
when the soil is dry, the life of plants seems to
be preserved by the absorbent power of their
leaves ; and it is a beautiful circumstance in
the economy of nature, that. aqueous vapour is
most abundant in the atmosphere when it is
most needed for the purposes of life, and that
when other sources of its supply are cut ofi',
this is most copious.

And, again, when water is combined with
saline substances, the roots of plants separate
it from them in a very remarjcable manner.
Some curious experiments of this kind were
made by M. Saussure. See Salts, their Uses to
Vegetation.

That plants have the power, when nourished
only with pure water, of decomposing the car-
bonic acid gas of. the atmosphere, has been
shown by some very careful experiments of
M. Saussure. He found that some sprigs of
peppermint, when supplied with pure water
only, and allowed to vegetate for some time in
the light, nearly doubled the portion of carbon
which they originally contained. The quan-
tity of water which, under ordinary circum-
stances, plants absorb, is very considerable ;
thus, Dr. Hales ascertained that a cabbage
transmits into the atmosphere, by insensible
vapour, about half its weight of water daily;
and that a sunflower, 3 feet in height, trans-
pired in the same period nearly 2 lbs. weight.
(Veg. Statics, vol. i. p. 5, 15.) Dr. Woodward
found that a sprig of mint, weighing 27 grains,
in 77 days emitted 2543 grains of water. A
sprig of spearmint, weighing 27 grains, emitted
in the same time 2558 grains. A sprig of com-
mon nightshade, weighing 49 grains, evolved

WATER.

WATER.

3708 grains, and a lathyrus of 98 grain?
emitied 2501 grains.

In a previous page of this Encyclopaedia, I
have endeavoured to show the various uses of
the earths to vegetation. (See Eaiiths.) The
cultivator will-observe how many of their chief
fertile properties are connected with their at-
traction for the- aqueous vapour of" the atmo-
sphere, their powers of absorption, their capa-
bility of retaining it. It is in vain, indeed, by
-any contrivance to attempt to make plants of
any description vegetate in absolutely dry earth,
or in air from which the aqueous vapour is en-
tirely withdrawn. It is true that some of the
flowering roots of the East, and some of the
mosses of our own country, almost appear to
do sq; but such plants support themselves by
absorbing a certain degree of moisture, even
■when suspended, as in oriental countries, by a
silken cord from the ceiling of the room, or
from apparently dry brick walls; for when by
chemical means the moisture is entirely re-
moved from them, even these hardy plants
«ease to vegetate.'

Various foreign substances have been sup-
posed to exist in minute proportions in rain-
vater, to which its fertilizing effects have been
chiefly ascribed: thus ammonia is believed by
Professor Liebig to exist in rain-water. No-
thing, however, is more likely to lead to erro-
neous general conclusions than the detection
of minute foreign substances in water. Such
hasty generalizations have often deceived the
most excellent philosophers : thus the great
Boyle, by digesting pure water for a lengthen-
ed period in glass vessels hermetically sealed,
found that it deposited a minute quantity of
flint in powder; and hence he was led to con-
clude that water was in this way converted by
long boiling into silica, an error which several
other philosophers adopted, until the celebrated
Lavoisier and Dr. Priestley proved that the
flint deposited arose from the water having, by
long boiling, partially dissolved the glass. In
the same way even Davy, the moSt cautious
of experimentalists, once thought that chlorine
and soda might, by the influence of the voltaic
pile, be obtained from water absolutely pure;
but more careful and rigid experiments soon
convinced him of the extreme difliculty of pro-
curing entirely pure water, the vessels in which
the water was procured communicating, with
«very apparent caution, sundry impurities ; and
this difliculty, I think it very likely, the skilful
chemists of Germany have not successfully
escaped.

Water exists in all cultivated land in some
■proportion or other. The quantity, however,
necessary to be present in the farnier's soils to
obtain the maximum advantage varies with
their nature, the climate, and the crop. For
instance, the rice-fields of India require a de-
gree of moisture which would be utterly de-
structive to the grain crops of the English far-
mer. The most porous, sandy land in a rainy
climate will be prolific, when the same soil in
a dry, warm country will be absolutely barren.
Even the drifting sands of Arabia, for instance,
if placed under the incessant rains of the Ame-
rican Andes, would certainly be speedily cover-
ed with vegetation. Some of the richest water-

meadows of the south of England and of Scot-
land are formed on subsoils of broken flints,
gravels, and the roughest shingle. And, again,
the meadow-lands often need such copious sup-
plies of moisture as would be the means of de-
stroying the grain crops. The surface water
which tenants many uncultivated soils is.gene-
rally surcharged with a variety of foreign sub-
stances, very commonly with vegetable mat-
ters. That in the gravelly soils is usually sur-
charged with oxide of iron; that resting on
calcareous soils, with sulphate of lime (gyp-
sum); whilst those from peat lands commonly
abound with sulphate of iron, or the red oxide
of the same metal.

In most of the soils which the farmer has to
bring into cultivation, t1ie removal of these wa-
ters is his first care; for such an abundance
of moisture is not only pernicious, from the
usual bad quality of the land water, but from
the quantity being far too great for the habits
of the plants which the farmer intends to cul-
tivate; such waters, too, dissolve, and some-
times carry off from the soil, in their imper-
ceptible drainage, all the soluble richest por-
tion of the soil. For many reasons, therefore,
draining has been long very justly held to be
the foundation of all agricultural improve-
ments; since its good effects are not confined
to the low marsh land, but its beneficial influ-
ence is extended to the most upland soi^s. It
removes the land springs, and dries the sur-
face of thousands of acres of even the most
elevated of the English gravels.

Almost to an equally beneficial extent has
the addition of water to plants for a lengthened
period been carried on by the cultivator in a
variety of modes ; by the gardener, either ia
steam in his conservatories, or by the watering-
pot'in the open ground. Almost endless, in-
deed, are the varieties of artificial irrigation,
from the minor applications of the gardener to
the more gigantic efforts of the managers of
the water-meads. It is this branch of the in-
vestigation of the uses of water to vegetation
which is the most interesting to the farmer,
and to the head Iriiioation I must refer the
reader. In regarding the uses of water to vege-
tation in this manner, however, the cultivator
must remember that it is not pure water that he
is thus using for his crops, but, as I have be-
fore remarked, water surcharged with a variety
of earthy, saline, and organic matters, to whose
presence a chief portion of the fertilizing effect
of such streams must be attributed ; for it is
found that the most foul and impure waters arc
much the best for the purposes of irrigation :
thus the water of a river below a town is found
to be much more fertilizing than the same wa-
ter before it has been mixed with the contents
of the sewers. These are facts well known,
for instance, to the owners of the fine water
meadows of the valleys of the Itchen, the Ken-
net, and the Avon. That of the Thames above
the influence of the tide is not nearly so valua-
ble to the grazier as it is after it has had mixed
with its waters the huge mass of impure matters
from the London sewers. Then, again, by far
the richest irrigating waters, because the very
foulest of all, are those of the sewers of the
city of Edinburgh, which produce such singu-

1095

WATER.

WATER-MELON.

larly luxuriant crops of grass on the Craigin-
tinny meadows. This observation is not con-
fined to the English graziers : those of the duchy
of Milan long since made the same remark.
Half a century since, Mr. Songa, when describ-
ing the meads of the banks of the Brembo,
says, "" That water is found excellent which
passes through the fosses of the town of Tre-
viglio, and discharges itself from them by form-
ing a canal of 8 or 10 feet broad, and 1 foot or
1^ foot deep. The lands irrigated with this
■water seem to receive every time the advan-
tage of a dunging, and on this account sell
from a third to a half dearer than any other of
an equal quality of soil." ( Youngs Annals, 1793,
p. 182.) Watering the land to add to its fer-
tility is a very ancient practice.

Such, then, are a few of the well-ascertained
facts with regard to the application of water to
vegetation, uses which are so valuable when
well understood by the farmer. In all his ope-
rations this universal fluid will be found to in-
fluence his arrangements; and in a due and
regular supply of it to his crops consists, in
fact, the success of most of his efforts. If, for
instance, a farmer would judge of the .value of
a particular field from merely a specimen of its
soil, the attraction of the previously dried earth
for the moisture of the atmosphere will afford
a very tolerable indication of its comparative
value ; those soils which attract the most wa-
ter being commonly those which obtain the
highest rents.

All researches like these, in many obvious
and indirect ways, are attended with consider-
able advantage to the cultivator. For, the
more he becomes acquainted with the uses and
properties of water, the more readily will he
be able to avail himself of every opportunity
•which may present itself for extending its
sphere of usefulness. It is idle to conclude
that every thing possible has been effected with
regard to the agricultural uses of water; for,
saying nothing of the inferior extent of our
water meads to those of even the banks of
the Italian rivers, much still remains to be ac-
complished in rendering available, not only the
liquid drainage of our large towns, but in the
use of the steam-engine for the purposes of
irrigation ; an agent to which I have in this
work already alluded, and for obtaining whose
magic assistance the farmers of no other coun-
try are so well situated as those of our own
island. To the cultivator, therefore, an exami-
nation of the powers and properties of water
will in many ways be attended with benefit;
for if the farmer once seriously contemplates
the powerfully invigorating and enriching qua-
lities of the waters near to which he is very often
placed, the abundance of organic matters which
they contain, and the advantages to be derived
from their judicious application, he will speedi-
ly devise some means or other by which he
may avail himself of this too often neglected
agent. The finely divided earthy and organic
matters which now so copiously pollute the
waters of our rivers are in fact the only great
drawbacks upon the otherwise gradually in-
creasing productiveness of the land. (See Al-
XTJviuM and Warpixg.) These, be it remem-
bered, are ever quietly yet incessantly acting
1096

as drains upon the fertility of the land ; they
never cease the work of impoverishment ; and
it is only by the efforts of the merchant, the
fisherman, and the irrigator, that any portion of
these finely divided matters ever return again ta
the cultivated soils of our country. See Irri-
gation and Rain.

WATER-ALOE, or WATER SOLDIER
{Stratiotes aloides; from stralos, an army, in allu-
sion to its long sword-like leaves). In England,
an ornamental native aquatic, which fills the
ditches in summer with a close phalanx of
sword-like leaves, and increases so fast in the*
ponds where it is planted as to become almost
a troublesome weed. In its wild state it inha-
bits deep ditches and pools, and is a stolonife-
rous, smooth, floating herb, with numerous ra-
dical leaves, and a solitary central flower-stalk,
but no stem. The parent plant sinks to the
bottom after flowering, and sends out long sim-
ple runners, each terminating in a leaf, bud, or
young plant, which first takes root in the mud,
by several long fibres, and in the following
summer rises to the surface of the water, blos-
soms and then again subsides to ripen its seeds
and throw out fresh runners, each tuft of
leaves flowering but once. The leaves are a
span long or more, acute, highly vascular,
fringed with very sharp saw-like teeth. Flow-
ers white, large and handsome, the stalk firm,
stout, two-edged, much shorter than the leaves.

WATER-CARPET. A name in Pennsylva-
nia for the Golden Saxifrage, which see.

WATER-CO WBANE. See Cowbane.

WATER-CRESS. See Cress.

WATER-DROPWORT. See Dropwort.

WATER-ELDER. See Guelder Rose.

WATER-FARCY. See Farcy.

WATER-HEMLOCK. See Cowrane.

WATER-LILY, THE FRINGED. See
Bcckbean.

WATER-LILY, YELLOW.— See Lilt, Wa-
ter.

WATER-LILY, WHITE. See Lilt, Water.

WATER-MELON. The following direc-
tions for cultivating water-melons for an early^
market, are given in the Southern Agriculturist.

Select a high and dry soil for the purpose.
Plough it up well, and harrow it. Check off"
the spot thus treated at distances of 10 feet
each way. Dig out each check with a hoe or
spade, and into the same place 5 or 6 quarts of
cotton seed ; or if this cannot be procured, fill
the place with stable manure, partly decom-
posed. Haul over this the earth before dug
from the hole, and mix it well with the manure.
If you have used cotton seed, in the spring, it
will have sprouted a week or two after being
put into the hole ; and must now be killed by
chopping up the same well, and mixing it with
the soil. This being done, you may now haul
up the manure and earth as before directed,
into hills, on the top of which you must place
about a peck of sand, taken from some street
or well-travelled road. Your hills will be now
ready for planting. I should, however, state-
that the hills must, instead of being made high,,
be made flat and broad.

Soak your seed over night in milk- warm'
water, and plant them out the next morning,
placing from 5 to 6 seed to each hill. The

WATER-PEPPER.

WAY-GOING CROP.

seed must not be covered more than 1 or 2
inches under ground. Water the hills for a
few days until the seed has sprouted, and then
leave the plants to run.

As soon as the plant has got 6 leaves, take
off the centre plant with a sharp penknife, and
when the lateral shoots are 6 inches or a foot
long, take off all but three. When the shoots,
thus left, begin to run to the ground- between
the hills, stake them down with a small cross-
stick.

As the vines begin to branch, at every 3 or
4 feet, where the vine branches, put a shovel-
ful of rich earth over the same, and press it
down lightly with the foot. Wet weather should
be selected for this operation, and by so doing
the vines will never fail to take where they
have been set. The spaces between the hills
should be kept free of grass — and by following
the above directions, large melons will be pro-
duced.

From a quarter acre of land thus treated,
more melons will be made than from four
times the amount as usually cultivated. See
Mkiow, Water.

WATER-PEPPER (Polygonum pwnctatum).
A plant found in the Middle and other States,
possessing very acrid qualities, causing obsti-
nate ulcerative inflammation when applied to
the skin.

WATER-PLANTAIN (Jlisma, from the
Celtic alls, water). A genus of pretty little,
aquatic, perennial, smooth plants, with simple,
entire leaves, and numerous, stalked, white,
yellowish or purplish, panicled or umbellate
inodorous flowers. In England, there are four
native species; viz.:

1. The greater water-plantain, or thrumwort
(^. plantago), which is very common in pools,
ditches, and about the margins of rivers. The
root is fibrous. Leaves all radical, on long
stalks, erect, ovate, acute, ribbed, in deep or
running water lengthened out more or less. It
has been recommended in hydrophobia; but,
like many other wonder-working remedies, it
is worthless.

2. Star-headed water-plantain {A. damasoni-
um), found in ditches and pools on a gravelly
soil, but not common. The root consists of
many long pale fibres. The leaves all radical,
floating, bluntish or oblong, heart-shaped at the
base. Footstalks very broad, with many ribs,
and a membranous border, tapering upwards.
Flower-stalks scarcely a span high, bearing
1 or 2 whorls of white flowers, yellow in the
middle. Capsules six, spreading in the form
of a star, half-ovate.

/ 3. Floating water-plantain (^.na/an«). This
species frequents the lakes of North Wales
and Cumberland.

4. Lesser water-plantain (A. ranunculoides).
This grows in swamps and turfy bogs, but is
not a very common species.

5. Creeping water-plantain {A. repens). This
has only been found on the margins of some
of the lakes in North Wales.

WAX (Germ, tcachs). A solid concrete
abounding in the vegetable kingdom, whence
it is erroneously supposed that it is collected
by bees. Bees' wax is a secretion in the body
of the bee, and is accumulated in what are
138

called the wax-pockets. Bees confined to a
hive, and fed merely on sugar, form wax. It
constitutes the partitions of the cells in which
they store their honey. It is obtained by melt-
ing the comb. Wax, when pure, is of a whit-
ish colour; it is destitute of taste, and has
scarcely any smell. Bees' wax, indeed, has a
pretty strong aromatic odour ; Ijut this seems
chiefly owing to some substance with which it
is mixed ; for it disappears almost completely
by exposing the wax, drawn out into thin
ribands, for some time to the atmosphere to
blanch, frequently changing the surface thus
exposed, by remelting it, and reducing it again
to thin flakes. By this process, which is called
bleaching, the yellow colour of the wax disap-
pears. White wax is principally used in mak-
ing candles, and in white ointments, for the
sake of its colour. Wax is insoluble in water;
nor are its properties altered though kept under
that liquid. When heat is applied to wax, it
becomes soft ; and at the temperature of 142^,
if unbleached, or of 155°, if bleached, it melts
into a colourless transparent fluid, which con-
cretes again, and resumes its former appear-
ance, as the temperature diminishes. If the
heat be still further increased, the wax boils
and evaporates ; and if a red heat be applied
to the vapour, it takes fire and burns with a
bright flame. It is this property which renders
wax so useful for making candles. Wax com-
bines readily with fixed oils when assisted by
heat, and forms with them a substance of greater
or less consistency, according to the quantity
of oil. This composition, which is known by
the name of cerate, is much employed by sur-
geons. V

According to the experiments of Gay-Lussac
and Thenard (Rcch. Physico-Chim. vol. ii. p. 316),.
100 parts of wax are composed of —

Parts.
Oxygen ------ SM

Hydrogen ----- |2-67

Carbon 81-78

100

Wax is sometimes adulterated with the white
oxide of lead to increase its weight, with white
tallow, and with potato starch. The first is
detected by melting the wax in hot water, when
the oxide falls to the bottom undissolved ; the
presence of tallow is indicated by the wax be-
ing of a dull opaque white, and wanting the
transparency which distinguishes pure wax;
and starch may be detected by applying strong
sulphuric acid to the suspected wax, as the
acid carbonizes the starch without acting on
the wax.

Notwithstanding the large supply of wax
produced in England, a considerable quantity is
imported from abroad ; but it is subject to the
high duty of U. 10«. per cwt. The price va-
ries, duty included, from bl. to 10/. per cwt.
(Thomson's Chem. vol. iv. p. 103 ; Thomson's Dis-
pensatory ; M^Culloch's Com. Did.)

WAX-MOTH. See Bke-Moth, and PI. 16, g.

WAY-BREAD. One of the common names
of the Common or Great Plantain.

WAYFARING TREE. See Guelder Rose.

WAY-GOING CROP. That which is taken
from the land the year the tenant leaves a farm.
4 z 2 1097

WAY, PRIVATE RIGHT OF.

WEATHER.

WAY, PRIVATE RIGHT OF. This may
arise either from grant or by prescription and
usage from time immemorial, for this is in law
supposed to arise from a grant. According to
English common law, a right of way may be
to a particular person to go over the grantor's
land to church, to market, or to any particular
close. Such a special permission is, however,
to be construed strictly : the gfantee cannot,
under such a grant, justify going beyond the
place specified in the grant ; nor can he take
any other person with him ; neither can he as-
sign over this right, — it dies with him. And a
grant for agricultural purposes does not au-
thorize the grantee to use the road for com.-
mercial or general purposes ; neither does a
prescriptive right of way for all kind of car-
riages, prove a right of way for all manner of
cattle. If a grantor convey a piece of ground
in the middle of his own land, the law will
presume that he also granted a way to it.
'* When," said Lord Kenyon, in this case,
*'• they made the conveyance, it must be. taken
for granted that they intended to convey some
beneficial interest ; but he can derive no bene-
fit whatever from the grant unless he has a
right of way to the land." 'But if by purchas-
ing other land, or new circumstances after-
wards arise by which he can approach the
public road, then the right of way ceases with
the necessity. And if a private way is granted,
that does not justify a person for going over
the land by the side of it, even if the road is
overflown with water from an adjoining river.
Lord Ellenborough, C. J., said, in this case, "It
is a thing founded in grant, and the grantor of
a private way does not grant a liberty to break
out of it at random over the whole surface of
his close."

By the 2 & 3 W. 4, c. 71, it is enacted, that
in all claims for right of way by prescription,
where it has been enjoyed for 20 years, such
right shall only be defeated or destroyed by
showing that such .right was first expired at
any time previous to such 20 years ; and where
it has been enjoyed for full 40 years, the right
shall be absolute and indefeasible, unless it
shall appear that the same was enjoyed by
some consent or agreement by deed or writing.

WEANING. The means employed to re-
concile a young animal to the loss of its mo-
ther's milk, and habituate it to take common
food. Under the h'ead Foal we have already
given directions for their management during
and after weaning. The process of weaning
calves is variously managed by different far-
mers. When not let run with the cow, the
most advisable mode, as it regards the calf, is
to place it loose in a crib, and to suckle it by
hand with the mother's new milk, of which it
will consume for some time not more than
about four quarts per day : Ihe quantity, how-
ever, must then be gradually increased, as it
will, in the course of a few weeks,require as
much as three gallons. If the weather be fine,
it should be, within a fortnight or three weeks,
turned out daily in the orchard, or some well-
sheltered enclosure of sweet herbage; and^as
it will in the course of 10 or 12 weeks have
acquired some relish for- the pasture, it may be
regularly weaned by gradually diminishing the
1098

quantity of .milk, and then substituting the
skimmed for the new. Calves may, however,
be reared with skimmed milk and meal, with-
out any portion of new milk, except the first
few days' biestings, and many persons give
them nothing but water-gruel arid hay-tea with-
in a fortnight after they have been removed
from the cow. Sago and linseed jelly are also
very nutritious, and calves may be weaned on
them without any other food. {Briiish Husb,
vol. ii. p. 441.)

The time of weaning lambs differs mate-
rially, according to the locality of the farms
and the quality of the pasture. Four months
old is about the period usually selected.

The lambs should be turned into somewhat
better pasture than that to which they had beea
accustomed, in order to compensate for the loss
of the mother's milk. Many farmers are very
fanciful as to the provision for the weaned
lambs. The clover or the sainfoin, or the
aftermath, are selected by some ; others put
their smaller and more weakly lambs to weed
the turnip crops ; but there can be nothing
more desirable than a fresh pasture, not too
luxuriant, and yet sufficient to maintain and
increase their condition. {Youatt on Sheep, ^p.
516.) For directions as to weaning pigs, see
Swine.

WEASEL-SNOUT (Galeobdolonluteum). The
weasel-snout, yellow archangel, or dead nettle,
is a pretty, indigenous, perennial plant, found
abundantly in most parts of England,in marshy,
shady places. The root is somewhat tuberous,
moderately creeping. The stems are 18 inches
high, simple, leafy, covered with close deflexed
hairs. Leaves stalked, ovate, acute, serrated,
slightly hairy, bright green, various in breadth.
Whorls numerous, each composed' of many
large, handsome, inodorous yellow flowers,
whose lower lip is spotted with red, the middle
segment stained with orange-colour. The
flowers afford to bees an abundant supply of
honey.

WEATHER (Sax.). A term applied to de-
note the state or disposition of the atmosphere,
with regard to heat and cold, drought and
moisture, fog, fair or foul, wind, rain, hail,
frost, snow, &t.

A knowledge of this is of vast importance
to the farmer,, as the securing of his produce
in a perfect manner greatly depends upon it;
and as it is in and by means of the atmosphere
that plants are nourished, and animals live
and breathe, any alteration in its density, heat,
purity, &c., must, of course, necessarily be
attended with proportionable effects on orga-
nization.

The great but regular alterations a little
change of weather makes in many parts of
inanimate matter is fully shown in the com-
mon instances of barometers, thermometers,
hygrometers, &c.; and it is owing partly to
our inattention, and partly to other causes, that
man, like other animals, does not feel as great
and as regular ones in the tubes, chords, and
fibres of his own body.

In order fully to establish a proper theory
of the weather, it would be necessary to have
registers carefully kept in different parts of the
globe for a long series of years, whence we

WEATHER.

WEATHER.

might be enabled to deterqaine the directions,
breadth, and bo.unds of the winds, and of the
weather they bring with them; with the cor-
respondence between the weather of divers
places, and the difference between one sort and
another at the same place; and thus, in time,
learn to foretell many great emergencies; as
extraordinary hea^s, rains, frosts, droughts, &c.
Bat hitherto very few, and only partial, regis-
ters or accounts of the weather have beeh kejpt..
The Meteorological Society of Great Britain,
and the British Association for the Advance-,
ment of Science, have latterly done much to-
livards increasing our slock of meteoric know-
ledge, and have collected an immense body of
facts and registers, from which many useful
inferences have been drawn, and some impor-
tant theories deduced. The general conclu-
sions that have been drawn from the experi-
ments that have been made on this subject are
— that barometers generally rise and fall toge-
ther, even at very distant places, and a conse-
quent conformity and similarity of weather;
but this is the more uniformly so, as the places
are nearer together, as might be" expected; —
that the variations of the barometer are greater
as the places are nearer to the pole : thus, for
instance, the mercury at London has a greater
range by 2 or 3 lines than at Paris ; and at
Paris, a greater than at Zurich; and at some
places near the equator there is scarcely any
variation at all ; — that the rain in' Switzerland
and Italy is much greater in quantity for the
whole year than in Essex; and yet the rains
are more frequent, or there are more rainy
days, in Essex than at either of these places ;•=—
that cold contributes greatly to rain, apparently
by condensing the suspended vapours, and so
leading to their precipitation ; thus, very cold
months or seasons are commonly followed im-
mediately by very rainy ones, and cold sum-
mers are always wet ones. High ridges of
mountains, and the snows with which they are
covered, not only affect the neighbouring places,
but even distant countries often partake of
their effectsr.

The science of meteorology, or the study of
the changing phenomena of the atmosphere,
^c, has from the earliest periods occupied a
greater or less share of attention from the tiller
•of the soil, the gardener, and those engaged in
the pasturage of animals. To no individual
(the mariner, perhaps, excepted) is a fore-
knowledge of the probable future state of the
weatheY of more consequence and importance
than the agriculturist; for on. this must mainly
depend the progress and success of his field
operations, his seedtime and his harvest, and
the greater or less return afforded by his crops.

It may not comport with the dignity of' the
man of science, or the elevated learning of the
erudite philosopher, to have his eyes and ears
open to the plain and simple rules and guides
which nature lays out before hira. Perhaps he
has little of leisure to note the every-day phe-
nomena which the atmosphere and all animate
and inanimate nature hold up to observation,
as in a glass, where all who use their eyes may
read as they run. The companions of his
study are the more costly and elaborately pre-

pared philosophical instruments: how much,
however, might their value be enhanced by a
careful and comparative observation of the
" skyey influences," as the poet terms them?
But to these closet companions, the husband-
nnan, the shepherd, the traveller, the fisherman,
and the'mariner have rarely access, while en-
gaged in the busy out-of-door occupations of
their several avocations. Those who till the
land, or who go down to the sea in ships, of
all others, are they who become, by habits of
observation and reflection, most conversant
with the signs and. changes of the heavens;
the sun, the moon, and the stars are to them
monitors and instructors, whose warning voices
meet a prompt and ready response. The ripple
of the wave, the curl of the smoke, the pass-
ing shadow of the cloud, the budding of the
tree, the arrival and departure of the migratory
birds, the frolicsome gambols of animals, every
leaf that quivers in the sunbeam, every plant
that drinks the dew of heaven, the myriads of
insects, and creeping things innumerable, that
inhabit each leaf and opening flower, are all
fraught with instruction and information to the
experienced and watchful observer.

Around, above, beneath, all animate and in-
animate creation, animals, vegetables, the ele-
ments, a thousand objects in a thousand direc-
tions, in every recurring season, furnish their
quota of information towards our stock of mete-
oric knowledge, and foretell the approaching va-
riations of atmospheric phenomena. The ex-
perienced fisherman and the watchful and w4ry
mariner will predict the coming storm, by the
tiny cloud and other unerring criteria which
frequent and attentive observance of the sky
has rendered familar, long before its approach
is visible to the ken of the ordinary and inat-
tentive observer.

It has been well remarked, that " the shep-
herd, whose sole business it is to observe what
has a reference ta the flock under his care,
who spends all his days and many of his nights
in the open air, under the wide-spread canopy
of heaven, is obliged to take particular notice
of the alterations of the weather; and when
he cares to take a pleasure in making such ob-
servations, it is amazing how much progress
he makes in them, and to how great a certainty
he arrives at last, by mere dint of comparing
signs and events, and connecting one observa-
tion with another. Every thing in time be-
comes to him a weather-gauge : the sun, the'
moon, the stars, the clouds, the winds, the
mists, the trees, the flowers, the herbs, and
almost every insect, animal, and reptile with
which he is acquainted — all these become, to
such a person, instruments of real know-
ledge."

To the farmer, a careful study of the wea-
ther, and of the inferences to be drawn from
precedent, and from natural and artificial data,
come fraught with numerous and important
considerations. Like the angler, the husband-
man " must observe the wind, sun, and clouds
by day; the moon, stars, and wanes of the air
by night." Few are so entirely dependent on
the caprice of the weather, for the commonest
routine operations of the farm, as the agricul-

1099

WEATHER.

WEATHER.

turist. And how soon may his fairest crops
be blighted by adverse and unfavourable sea-
sons, or by the baneful effects of scorching and
arid winds, of severe frosts, of heavy rains.
Some winds come fraught with disease and
death; murrain, malaria, and epidemics, in hot,
dry seasons, commit fearful ravages among his
live-stock ; and these are frequently to be attri-
buted to some mysterious atmospheric agency:
other winds bring swarms of noxious insects
and predatory birds to our shores ; the light-
ning and the whirlwind level his plantations or
fire his ricks ; the hail-storm, and the frost, and
excess of rain, damage and destroy his grow-
ing crop, or that to which he has looked for
reward and profit for all his toil and outlay.

The various casualties and diseases to which
his crops are liable are frequently attributable
to, and certainly much aided by, the state of
the weather and conditions of the atmosphere.
Information relative to many of the impor-
tant phenomena connected with the atmo-
spheric states and changes, will be found
dispersed through this work under various
heads, such as Atmosphere, Altitude, Ba-
rometer, Climate, De.w, Fogs, Frost, Hoar
Frost, Liohtnii^g, Raiit, Snow, Moojt, In-
fluence of, &c.

As means of prognosticating the future states
of the weather, data, either natural, artificial,
or both combined, are usually referred to. In
the natural data are included those of —

1. The vegetable kingdom; many plants
shutting or opening their flowers, contracting
or expanding their parts, &c., on approaching
changes in the humidity or temperature of the
atmosphere.

2. The animal kingdom; most of those fa-
miliar to us exhibiting signs on approaching
changes, of which those by cattle and sheep
are more especially remarkable.

3. The mineral kingdom ; stones, earths, me-
tals, salt, and water of particular kinds, often
affording indications of approaching changes.

4. Appearances of the atmosphere, the moon,
the general character of seasons, &c. The
characters of clouds, the prevalence of parti-
cular winds, and other signs, are very com-
monly attended to.

The artificial data are the various meteoro-
logical instruments, as the barometer, hygro-
meter, pluviometer, and thermometer, &c.,
which are all extremely useful aids to the
farmer.

It is a very common error to predict the fu-
ture state of the season from some single appear-
ance in the commencement of it, as an early
bee, an early bud or blossom, the premature
appearance of a swallow; but this is both un-
philosophical and fallacious.

In England a moist autumn, succeeded by a
mild winter, is generally followed by a dry and
cold spring, in consequence of which vegeta-
tion is greatly retarded. Should the summer
be uncommonly wet, the succeeding winter
will be severe ; because the heat or warmth of
the earth will be carried off by such unusual
evaporation. Farther, wet summers are mostly
attended with an increased quantity of fruit on
the white-thorn {Mespilus oxycantha) and dog-
1100

rose {Rosa canina) ; nay, the uncommon fruit-
fulness of these shrubs is considered as the
presage of an intensely cold winter.

A severe winter is supposed to be indicated
by the appearance of birds of passage at an
early period in autumn; because they never
migrate southward till the cold season has
commenced in northern regions. Great storms,
rains, or other violent commotions of the
clouds, produce a kind of crisis in the atmo-
sphere ; so that they are attended with a regu-
lar succession either of fine or of bad weather
for some months. An unproductive year mostly
succeeds a rainy winter, as a rough and cold
autumn prognosticates a severe winter. Very
cold months or seasons are commonly followed
immediately by very rainy ones, and cold sum-
mers are always wet ones.

Plants. — The sensitive indications afforded
us by many plants first claim attention, and
will be found amply to repay the time that
may be bestowed upon the singular properties
inherent to them.

Very many of our most common plants are
unerring guides for the foretelling rain and
other atmospheric changes. The opening and
shutting of some flowers depends not so much
on the action of the stimulus of light as on the
existing state of the atmosphere, and hence their
expansion or contraction betokens change.

The common chickweed or stitchwort (Stel-
laria media) may be considered a natural baro-
meter; for if the small, white, upright flowers
are closed, it is a certain sign of rain ; while
during dry weather they expand freely, and are
regularly open from nine in the morning till
noon. After rain they become pendent, but in
the course of a few days they again rise.

The purple sandwort {Arenaria rubra) is an-
other example of a true prophet prior to a
coming shower. The beautiful pink flowers
expand only during sunshine, and close at the
approach of evening or before rain.

The pimpernel {Anagallis arvensis) has been
very justly named "the poor man's weather-
glass." This little plant blooms in .June in our
stubble-fields and gardens, and continues in
flower all the summer. When its tiny brilliant
red flowers are widely expanded in the morn-
ing, we may generally expect a fine day; on
the contrary, it is a certain sign of rain when
its delicate petals are closed.

The goat's-beard (Tragopogon pratensis) will
not unclose its flowers in cloudy weather.
From its habit of closing its flowers at noon,
this plant has received the common name of
"Go-to-bed-at-noon," and in many districts the
farmers' boys regulate their dinner-hour by the
closing of the goat's-beard.

It is stated in Keith's Botany, that if the Sibe-
rian sow-thistle shuts at night, the ensuing day
will be fine ; and if it opens, it will be cloudy
and rainy.

When the African marigold remains closed
after 7 o'clock in the morning or evening, rain
may be expected. If the trefoil and the con-
volvulus contract their leaves, thunder and
heavy rain may be expected. Lord Bacon
tells us that the stalks of the trefoil swell and
grow more upright previous to rain.

WEATHER.

WEATHER.

The dark and lovely gentianella opens its i
blue eyes to greet the midday sun, but closes
its petals against the shower.

The germander speedwell (Veronica chamce-
drys), so universal a favourite in every hedge-
row, closes its blue corolla before rain comes
on, opening again when it ceases. The red
«arapion {Lychnis diurna) uncloses its flowers
in the morning. The flowers of the white cam-
pion (Lychnis vespertina) open and expand
themselves towards the approach of night.
The wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella, "la Petite
Oseille," or Suselle, of the French), an unobtru-
sive, elegant little inhabitant of the moist,
shaded bank, as soon as night approaches, as it
is of too delicate a structure to bear the storm,
closes up its curious triple leaves, hanging its
flowers towards the earth, thus preserving the
more tender parts from injury; but as soon as
Che morning sun arises, these expand and re-
gain their beauty. Most of the Hieraciums,
or hawkweed tribe, also open their flowers
■with the morning light, going to sleep again in
the afternoon. The clear, bright, and gay
flowers of the succory (Cychorium intylms) fore-
tell the commencement of the daylight. Another
of the components of Flora's clock which de-
serves a passing word, is the common daisy
{Bcllis perennis), opening at sunrise, and clos-
ing its flowers at sunset: hence by Chaucer
called the "Eie of Day." The great white ox-
eye (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), foretelling
the coming storm, closes its flowers. The
flowers of the alpine whitlow grass (Draba al-
pina), the bastard feverfew, the winter green
{Trientalis Europaa), all hang down in the night
as if the plants were asleep, lest rain or the
moist air should injure the fertilizing pollen.
The common nipplewort (Lapsana communis),
that lovely gem, the white water-lily (Nympheta
alba, " the naiad of the river,") and several of
the diadelphous tribe of plants, in serene, calm
weather expand their leaves in the day-time,
and contract them during night.

Animals. — Among quadrupeds the following
are believed to indicate, by their restlessness
and peculiar actions, a foreknpwledge of ap-
proaching changes of weather. When horses
stretch forth their necks, neigh much, snufFthe
air with distended nostrils, and assemble in the
corner of a field with their heads to leeward,
rain may be expected.

Sheep are seen running to and fro> jumping
from the ground, and in their gambols appa-
rently fighting, previously to a change of wea-
ther. Fine weather may be expected to con-
tinue when cattle lie in the open field or in the
courts instead of the sheds ; when sheep take
up their lair for the night on the brow of a
knoll ; when pigs lie down for the night with-
out covering themselves up in litter. Bad wea-
ther is said to be prognosticated when asses
hang their ears forward, or rub themselves
against walls or trees. Swine also become un-
easy, restless, grunting and squealing loudly,
and return to their sties. Before rain dogs are
apt to grow very sleepy and dull, and to lie all
day before the fire, showing a reluctance to
food, except grass. When cats lose their viva-
city, remaining within doors, wet or windy
weather may be expected. Finally, when rats

and mice are more than usually restless, for-
saking the fields and ditches, approaching rain
may be anticipated.

Fallow deer, and many other animals, be-
coming restless from the uneasiness they feel
owing to the altered condition of the atmo-
sphere, prognosticate the approach of rain. If
frogs croak more than usual — if toads issue
from their retreats in great numbers — if earth-
worms come forth from their holes — if moles
throw up the soil more than usual — if pigs
shake and spoil the stalks of the corn— if oxen
lick their forefeet — all these signs are said to
indicate rain.

It may be remarked that, in summer, whea
sheep rise early in the riiorning, it is a sure
sign of either rain or a very hot day; and that
in all seasons when they jump and play about
it is a sign of rain or wind (but generally both)
in the summer, and very stormy weather in the
winter.

In winter, when the sheep lie under a hedge,
and seem loth to go off" to pasture, and bleat, it
is considered a sign of a storm.

When rabbits come out to feed early in the
evening, it is a sign of rain in the night in sum-
mer, and of either rain or snow in winter; and
when it is likely to be a bad night, they will be
apt to return to their burrows before it is dark.

Next, with respect to birds : there is an old
saying that "when swans fly it is a sign of
rough weather," and the correctness of this
saying would appear to be proved. A late
writer states that he had invariably found that
when the swan flies any distance against the
wind, however fine the weather may be at the
time, so sure will a wind, almost amounting to
a hurricane, arise within 24 and generally 12
hours after ihe bird has taken flight. The
early appeara,nce of woodcocks, snipes, field-
fares, and other birds of passage, &c., are prog-
nostics of severe winters. When owls hoot
and screech during bad weather, it is a sign of
coming fine weather. The missletoe thrush
(Turdus viscivorus) frequently sings particularly
long and loud before rain, and sometimes even
during severe storms : hence it is termed the
"storm-cock." The blue macaw is said to be
a true indicator of the changes of the weather.
Dr. Thornton is stated to have had one some
years ago whose blue feathers assumed a
greenish hue in rainy weather, or gray in clear
weather, if likely to change for wet.

When cranes fly exceedingly high, in silence,
and ranged in order, it is said to indicate fine
weather ; but if their flight is in disorder, and
they speedily return with cries, it foretells wind.
If fowls roll themselves in the sand more than
usual, it denotes rain; also when the cocks
crow in the evening, or at unusual hours.
When peacocks cry at night, rain may shortly
be expected. When peacocks roost on the tops
of houses, when the raven sails round and
round high up in the air, and when the song-
birds carol late in the evening, the weather will
continue fair.

The croaking of crows is said to indicate fine
weather. When ducks and geese fly backwards
and forwards, and frequently plunge into the
water, or send forth cries ; or when pigeons
return slowly to their houses, the probability

1101

WEATHER.

WEATHER.

is that the succeeding day will be rainy. It is
a sign of rain or wind when sparrows chirp a
great deal ; if the redbreast be seen near houses ;
or swallows fly near the ground, or brush the
surface of the water. When sea-fowl and other
aquatic birds retire to the sea-shore, or more
inland, it generally indicates a change of wea-
ther. If larks or kites soar high, and continue
so for some time, it is generally a sign of fine
weather. If the kingfisher disappear, expect
fine weather. If swallows and martins fly lower
than usual, foul weather may be expected.

Mr. Yarreil, in his History of British Eirds,
vol. iii. p. 117, records an instance of instinct,
showing how useful an attention to the move-
ments of animals, *&c., might occasionally
prove: — "I am indebted' to the kindness of
Lord Braybrooke for the following account of
a female swan, on the small stream at Bishop's
Stortford. This swan was 18 or 19 years old,
had brought up many broods, and was highly
valued by the neighbours. She exhibited, some
8 or 9 years past, one of the most remarkable
instances of the power of instinct that was ever
recorded. She was sitting on four or five eggs,
and was observed. to be very busy in collecting
grass, weeds, &c.,to raise her nest; a farming
man was ordered to take down half a load of
haulm straw, with which she most industriously
raised her nest and the eggs 2^ feet; that very
night there came down a tremendous fall of rain,
which flooded all the malt-shops, and did great
damage. Manma.de no preparation; the bu-d
did. Instinct prevailed over reason ; her eggs
were above, and only just above, the water."

The same author, in his account of the green
woodpecker (Picus viridis), known in some lo-
calities as the "rain-bird," from being very
vociferous when rain is impending, alludes to
the probable means by which birds and some
other animals become cognisant of approach-
ing changes in the weather. The following is
the rationale referred to; —

" It is highly probable that no change takes
place in the" weather without some previous
alteration in the electrical condition of the at-
mosphere, and we can easily understand that'
birds, entirely covered as they are with feathers,
which are known to be readily affected with
electricity, shou4d be- susceptible of certain im-
pressions, which are indicated by peculiar
actions; thus, birds and other animals, "cover-
ed only with the production of their highly sen-
sible skin, become living- barometers to good
observers." (YarrdVs British' Birds, vol. ii, p.
136.)

Insects, being very sensible of every change
in the atmosphere, are good weather guides.

When gnats collect themselves before the
setting sun, and form a sort of vortex in the
shape of a column, it announces fine weather-.
If they play up and down in the open air near
sunset, they presage heat ; if in the shade, mild
and warm showers ; but if they sting, those
passing them, cold weather and much rain may
be expected.

If gardeii spiders break off" and destroy their
webs, and creep away, expect continued rain
and showery weather.

If spider webs (gossamer) fly in the autumn,
expect fine weather.
1102

• The following curious observations on the
singular foreknowledge possessed by the spider
are extracted from a little work entitled The
Pocket Barometef. This despised insect often-
times indicates a coming change in the weather
10, 12, or 14 days previous to its taking place.
The following directions will be a guide to the
curious in their observations of this insect:—
If the weather is likely to become rainy, or
windy, spiders fix the terminating filaments on
which the whole web is suspended unusually
short. If the terminating filaments, on the
contrary, are very long, the weather will be
serene, and continue so for 14 days. If spiders
be totally indolent, rain generally ensues;
though their activity during rain is a certain
proof of its short duration, and that it will be
followed by fine and settled weather. Spiders
usually make some alteration in their webs
every 24 hours. If this take place between
the hours of 6 and 7 p. m., it foretells a clear
and serene night.

The weather is about to become cloudy and
change for wet, when flies sting and are more
troublesome than usual. Most insects become
torpid when their temperature is much reduced.
When it approaches the freezing point, they
fall into a lethargic state, and require no food.
Ants present a remarkable exception to this
rule ; for they are not benumbed till the ther*
mometer is 27° of Fahr., or 5° below freezing-
point. When bees do not range abroad as
usual, but keep in or .about their hives, it is a
sign of rain.

In the summer season much information re-
lative to the change of the weather may be
gained from watching the movements of ants.
The finer the day, the more busily are they
employed, as they never bring out their corn to
dry but when the weather is clear and the sun
very hot. A celebrated naturalist relates the
following curious anecdote : -^ He one day
observed these little creatures, after having
brought out their corn at eleven in the forenoon,
removing the same, contrary io their usual
custom, before one in the afternoon. ' The sun
being very hot", and the sky remarkably clear,
he could perceive no reason for it ; but half an
hour after, his surprise ceased — the sky began
to be overcast, and there fell a shower of rain,
which caused all this bustle, no doubt, among
these active little creatures: they evidently
foresaw rain, and provide^ accordingly; and
were we minutely to examine into the economy
and management of these wonderful artificers,
many other similar and equally curious facts
might be gleaned relative to the weather.

The leech also possesses the peculiar pro-
perty of indicating approaching changes of the
weather in a most eminent degree. In fair ahd
frosty weather it remains motionless and rolled
up in a spiral form ^t the bottom of the vessel;
previous^ however, to rain or snow, it will
creep to the top, where, should the rain be
heavy, or of long continuance, it will remain
for a considerable time, — if transient, it will
descend. Should the rain or .snow be accom-
panied with wind, it will dart about with great
velocity, and seldom cease its evolutions until
it blows hard. If a storm of thunder or light-
ning be approaching, it will be exceedingly

WEATHER.

WEATHER.

agitated, and express its feelings in violent
convulsive starts at the top of the glass. It is
remarkable, that however fine and serene the
weather may be, and to our senses no indica-
tion of a coming change, either from the sky,
the barometer,or any olher cause, yet, if the
leech shifts its position, or moves about slug-
gishly, the coincident results will undoubtedly
occur within 26 hours.

Signs of Rain. — Although we have incident-
ally glanced already at some of these indica-
tions, it may be well to sum them up in a body,
as being more easy of reference.

A white mist in the evening over a meadow
or a river dispersed by the sun next morning,
indicates that the day will be bright. Five or
six fogs, successively, portend rain. Where
there are high hills, and the mist which hangs
over the lower land draws toward the hills in
the morning, and rolls up to the top, it will be
fair; but if the mist hangs upon the hills, and
drags along the woods, there will be rain soon.
A general mist before the sun rises is a sign
of fair weather.

Against much rain, the clouds grow bigger
and increase very fast, especially before thun-
der. When the clouds are formed like fleeces,
but dense in the middle, bright towards the
edge, with the sky bright, they are signs of a
frost, with hail, snow, or rain. If clouds breed
high in the air, in the white train like locks of
wool, they portend wind, and probably rain.
When a general cloudiness covers the sky,
and small black fragments of clouds fly un-
derneath, they are sure signs of rain, and pro-
bably it will be lasting. Two currents of
clouds generally .portend rain, and in summer
thunder.

If the dew lies plentifully on the grass after
a fair day, it is a sign of another fine day. If
not, and there is no wind, rain will follow. A
red evening portends fair weather; but if
spread too far upward from the horizon in the
evening, and especially morning, it foretells
wind or rain, or both. When the sky in rainy
weather is. tinged with sea-green, the rain will
increase; if deep blue, it will be showery.

If there be a haziness in the air, which fades
the sun's light, and makes, the orb appear
whitish or ill-defined; or at night, if the moon
and stars grow dim, and a ring encircles the
former, rain must follow. If the sun appears
white at setting, or goes down into a bank of
clouds in the horizon, bad weather is expected.
If the moon looks pale and dim, we expect
Tain ; if red, wind ; and if the natural. colour,
with a clear sky, fair weather. If the setting
sun appears yellow or gold colour, and parti-
cularly if accompanied wiih purple streaks,
the following day will be fine.

If the wind veers about much, rain is pretty
sure. If, in changing, it follows the course of
the sun, it brings fair weather; the contrary,
foul. Whistling or howling of the wind is a
sure sign of rain.

The aurora boreal is, after warm days, is
generally succeeded by cooler air. Shooting
stars are supposed to indicate wind.

Before rain, swallows fly low; dogs grow
sleepy and eat grass ; waterfowls dive much;
fish will not bite ; flies are more troublesome ;

toads crawl about; moles, ants, bees, and many-
insects, are very busy; birds fly low for insects;,
swine, sheep, and cattle are uneasy, and even
the human body.

" The air, when dry, I believe, refracts more
red or heat-making rays ; and as dry air is not
perfectly transparent, they are again reflected
in the horizon. I have generally observed a
coppery or yellow sunset to foretell rain ; but,
as an indication of wet weather approaching,
nothing is more certain than a halo round the
nnioon, which is produced by the precipitated
water; and the larger the circle, the nearer the
clouds, and consequently the more ready to
f^ll." (Sir H.Davy.)

To turn now to the atmosphere: the bulk
of our most valuable meteorological observa-
tions are, of course, deducible from its electri-
cal condition, and the precise kind of electricity
present ; from the power of eva'poration exer-
cised, from the state and direction of the wind,
from a careful examination of the clouds; in
fact, the phenomena of the atmosphere are
wellnigh endless. But, though endless in the
variety of their forms and consequences, and
for the most part uncertain in the time of their
occurrence, yet they are successively the same
in their nature to parts and properties, and are
all the production of simple causes. The
principal agents in producing these phenomena
have already been noticed under the head Me-
TEGROLooT. I uccd not enlarge further upon
the advantages to science in general derivable
from the accurate and careful investigation of
meteorological researches, aided by the excel-
lent instruments that are now attainable, and
at a moderate expehse. From the accumula-
tion of a multitude of such facts can we alone
hope at some future, time to derive that accu-
rate; knowledge and insight into the secret
springs that would appear to be the movers of
these phenomena. This may not be too much
to eflfect frgm the analogies Of' the seasons and
the results of experience; and this, we may
venture to predict, will be the crowning reward
of meteorological research. (Trans, of Met. Soc,
vol. i. 1839.) See Moox, Influence of.

Clouds. — The following definition of the de-
scriptive terms now employed by meteorolo-
gists to define various clouds, may prove useful
to those in the habit of consulting meteorolo-
gical registers, which are occasionally .pub-
lished in newspapers and scientific journals.
It is taken from Ure^s Chemical and Miner. Diet.,
article " Cloud," p. 338.

A cloud is a mass of vapour,' more or less
opaque, formed and sustained at considerable
heights in the at.mosphere, probably by the
joint agencies of heat and electricity^ The
first successful attempt to arrange the diversi-
fied forms of clouds, under a few general mo-
difications, was made by Luke Howard, Esq.
We shall here give a brief account of his in-
genious classification.

The simple modifications are thus named and
defined — ^^1. Cirrus; parallel, flexuous, or di-
verging fibres, extensible in any or in all direc-
tions. 2. Cumulus; convex or conical heaps,
increasing upwards from a horizontal base.
3. Stratus; a widely extended, continuous hori-
zontal sheet, increasing from below.

1103

WEATHER.

WEATHER.

' The intermediate modifications which require
to be noticed are — 4. Cirro-cumulus; small,
well-defined, roundish masses, in close horizon-
tal arrangement. 5. Cirro-stratus; horizontal
or slightly inclined masses, attenuated towards
a part or the whole of their circumference, bent
downward, or undulated, separate or in groups,
consisting of small clouds having these cha-
racters.

The compound modifications are — 6. Cumulo-
stratus ; the cirro-stratus blended with the cu-
mulus, and either appearing intermixed with
the heaps of the latter, or superadding a wide-
spread structure to its base.

7. Cumulo-cirro-stratus, vel Nimbus ; the rain
cloud, a cloud or system of clouds from which
rain is falling ; it is a horizontal sheet, above
which the cirrus spreads, while the cumulus
enters it laterally and from beneath.

The cirrus appears to have the least density,
the greater variety of extent and direction, and
to appear earliest, in serene weather, being in-
dicated by a few threads pencilled in the sky.
Before storms they appear lower and denser,
and usually in the quarter opposite to that from
which the storm arises. Steady high winds
are also preceded and attended by cirrus streaks
running quite across the sky in the direction
they blow in.

The cumulus has the densest structure, is
formed in the lowest atmosphere, and moves
along with the current next the earth ; a small
irregular spot first appears, and is as it were
the nucleus on which they increase. The lower
surface continues irregularly plain, while the
upper rises into conical or hemispherical heaps,
which may afterwards continue long nearly of
the same bulk, or rapidly rise into mountains :
they will begin in fair weather to form some
hours after sunrise, arrive at their maximum
in the hottest part of the afternoon, then go on
diminishing, and totally disperse about sunset.
Previous to rain the cumulus increases rapidly,
appears lower in the atmosphere, and with its
surface full of loose fleeces or protuberances.
The formation of la^ge cumuli to leeward in a
strong wind indicates the approach of a calm
with rain ; when they do not disappear or sub-
side about sunset, but continue to rise, thunder
is to be expected in the night. The stratus has
a mean degree of tensity, and is the lowest of
clouds, its inferior surface commonly resting
on the earth or water. This is properly the
cloud of night, appearing about sunset. It
comprehends all those creeping mists which in
calm weather ascend in spreading sheets (like
an inundation of water) from the bottom of
valleys and the surfaces of lakes and rivers.
On the return of the sun the level surface of
this cloud begins to put on the appearance of
cumulus, the whole at the same time separating
from the ground. The continuity is next de-
stroyed, and the cloud ascends and evaporates,
or passes off with the appearance of nascent
cumulus. This has long been experienced as
a prognostic of fair weather.

The cirrus having continued for some time
increasing or stationary, usually passes either
to the cirro-cumulus or the cirro-stratus, at the
same time descending to a lower station in the
atmosphere. This modification forms a very
1104

beautiful sky, and is frequent in summer, as
an attendant on warm and dry weather. The
cirro-stratus, when seen in the distance, fre-
quently gives the idea of shoals of fish (a
mackerel sky). It precedes wind ami rain; is
seen in the intervals of storms, and sometimes
alternately with the cirro-cumulus in the same
cloud, when the different evolutions form a cu-
rious spectacle. A judgment may be formed
of the weather likely to ensue, by observing
which modification prevails at last. The solar
and lunar halos, as well as the parhelion and
paraseline (mock sun and mock moon), prog-
nostics of foul weather, are occasioned by this
cloud. The cumuh-stratus precedes, and the
nimbus accompanies rain.

When there are small round clouds, of a
dapple-gray colour, with a north wind, it may
be concluded that there will be fair weather for
2 or 3 days, but that large clouds like rocks
are a sign of great showers. And when small
clouds increase, it is a sign that there will be
much rain, but if the large clouds are seen to
lessen, there will be fair weather.

In summer or harvest, when the wind has
been south 2 or 3 days, and it grows very hot,
and clouds are seen to rise with great white
tops like towers, as if one were on the top of
another, and joined together with black on the
lower side, it may be considered a sign that
there will be thunder and rain suddenly. When
two such clouds rise, one on each hand, it is
time to make haste to shelter.

When a cloud is seen to rise against the
wind or side wind, it is a sure sign that when
the cloud comes up near you, the wind will
blow the way that the cloud came. It is the
same with the motion of a clear place, when
all the sky is thick except one edge.

At all times, when the clouds look black in
the west, it is sure to rain, or if raining, it is
sure to continue, whatever quarter the wind
may be in ; and, on the contrary, if it breaks
in the west, it is sure to be fair.

It is often observed, on those clear sunny
mornings which occur in summer and autumn,
that it is very likely, if not certain, to rain be-
fore evening; and there is frequently much
truth in the remark. The reason is, that when
moisture accumulates in the air, before it be-
gins to be precipitated, it imparts to it a higher
refractive power; and it becomes, in conse-
quence, more bright and transparent. (British
Almanac, 1830.)

The gradual diminution of clouds, till they
are no longer observable, is a sign also of fine
weather. So, likewise, is the continuance or
abundance of dew upon the grass, after a
serene day.

During winter, fleecy clouds being thick and
close in the middle, and very white at the
edges, the surrounding sky being remarkably
blue, indicate hail or snow, or cold, chilling,
showers of rain.

Where the clouds appear moving in two op-
posite currents, and the lowest is wafted rapidly
before the wind, it is a certain sign of rain ;
and if this occurs during summer, or generally
in hot weather, it announces a thunder-storm.
It may be a useful piece of information for
agriculturists, or those concerned in getting ia

WEATHER.

WEATHER.

their crops, to describe the appearance of a
small cloud, which, from its rapid formation
and disappearance, is likely to escape the ob-
servation of most persons, but which, from my
own experience, I have found a very faithful
forewarner of foul weather.' It appears mostly
in the mild weather of spring, summer, and
autumn, when its warning token becomes most
acceptable. It is a small, delicately soft, thin,
white, curved cloud, formed suddenly upon the
summit of those fine heaped clouds (termed
cumuli) which often prevail in warm weather,
and appear to tower up to a prodigious height.
It is necessary to keep a watchful eye upon the
summit of the cumulus. When this little film,
which I term " the storm cap," appears, it lies
closely over the rounded summit, like a white
silken web ; in a very few seconds it will dis-
appear, sinking, I suppose, into the cumulus;
but in a little time, and when heavy foul wea-
ther threatens, the film again appears, disap-
pearing as shortly as before. (.Mag. Nat. Hist.
Tol. iv. p. 444.)

The following indications have been record-
ed, as shown by the predominance of certain
of the prismatic colours of the rainbow, but
they are perhaps too fanciful to be de-
serving of much credence. — 1. Red; if this
colour be very predominant, wind, or wind and
rain, may be expected. 2. Orango ; when the
orange colour appears strong and very full, it
generally indicates approaching rain. 3. Yel-
low; when yellow is more conspicuous than
the other colours, it foretells dry weather. 4.
Green; approaching rain may be expected
-when the green is very predominant 5. Blue;
fine weather rflay be expected when the blue is
particularly full. 6. Purple ; if the purple be
a very full colour, wind and rain may be ex-
pected. 7. Violet ; the violet, when very clear,
generally indicates approaching fine weather.
See Rainbow.

The Wind. — The earth is surrounded to the
extent of 60 miles with an atmosphere, on
which all nature mutually depends for life.
This aiTial ocean revolves with our earth
round the sun, is very susceptible of motion,
and some parts of it is constantly in restless
commotion. These commotions are called
winds, and are principally caused by heat from
the rays of the sun, which, rarefying the air,
causes it to ascend; and the vacuum thus
formed is filled up with a colder air from the
north and south.

Wind has been explained in the following
manner: — Heated air has a tendency to rise,
and cold air rushes in to supply its place.
Thus the heated air of the equatorial regions
rises and gives place to a current sent from the
polar regions, which is a process that serves to
equalize the temperature of the world. But
the polar countries lying near to the axis of
the sphere, the air from those regions has not
received so much motion as that about the
equator, or greatest distance from the axis;
wherefore it arrives at the equator, where the
motion of the earth is greater. If it had no
motion before, an east wind would be the con-
sequence, and the force of that wind would be
as the difference between the motion of the
earth where the air came from, and that where
139

it arrived: but then, in the northern hemi-
sphere, it has a motion to the south; for it is
rushing into a vacuum left by the air which
rises; so that the wind will not be from the
east, but northeast; and the number of degrees
north of the east from which it will blow will
depend upon the comparative force of the cur-
rent of air from the north to the difference be-
tween the earth's motion at the equator and at
the polar region, whence the air comes. As
there must be a corresponding efflux from the
equator higher up, according to this theory the
wind should everywhere be northeast or south-
west, but it blows in very different directions
at different times and places, owing chiefly to
circumstances connected with the distribution
of land and water, and the variations in tem-
perature at different times and places.

From observing the wind a fair idea of the
coming weather may oftentimes be drawn; and
yet, as Solomon observes, "he that considers
the wind shall never sow;" that is, he that
busies himself too much about the wind will
become superstitious. The indications to be
drawn from observing the direction and changes
of the wind must vary in different countries,
according to the relative positions of these in
regard to the sea, lakes, plains, or mountains
covered with snow. For an explanation of
some of the phenomena of climate and weather,
the reader is referred to preceding articles,
under the heads of Bauometer, Climate ot
THE United States, &c.

In all countries, therefore, particular winds
are noted for being accompanied with either
wet or dry weather. Thus the south and south-
west winds bring much moisture into Britain;
while those from the north and northeast are
cold, dry, and penetrating. Hence the old Eng-
lish proverb —

" When the wind 's in the south,
It's in the rain's mouth."

Not only does this arise from the immense
surface of ocean over which these winds sweep
south of the equator, the evaporation from which
must be prodigious; but from these southerly
winds being of a higher temperature, whereby
they hold a greater quantity of vapour in sus-
pension or solution, the condensation of which
must be proportionally greater on arriving in
this colder climate. Accordingly, it has been
observed that the wind will turn from the north
to the south quietly and without rain ; but on
returning from the south to the north, will blow
hard and bring much rain. Again, if it begin
to rain from the south, with a high wind for 2
or 3 hours, the wind falls ; but if the rain con-
tinues, it is likely to rain for 12 hours or more,
and does usually rain until a strong north wind
clears the air. For the same reason, winds
from the west and southwest are in England
considered to bring with them wet weather.
(Chambers* Information for the People, No. 58,
New Series.)

A change in the warmth of the weather is
often followed by a change in the wind. Thns,
the northerly and southerly winds, though com-
monly accounted the causes of cold and warm
weather, are really the effects of the cold or
warmth of the atmosphere.

5 A 1105

WEATHER.

WEATHER.

Mr. Towers (Quart. Jour, of Agr. vol. ix. p.
39) relates the case of a person in Somerset-
shire who had been haymaking nearly 40 years,
and had hardly in one instance failed to carry
in good condition. He had observed that in the
month of June, earlier or later, there are three
or more days wherein the wind blows from the
northeast, and that period is invariably dry.
When that wind first occurred, he seized the
opportunity of cutting his grass and carrying
the crop before the wind veered to the south.
This theory holds good as respects the south-
western counties, where the wind from any
quarter between north and east is the sure con-
comitant of dry weather.

The following predictions of the weather are
met with in the Holy Sciptures ; and, applying
with equal correctness in the present day as at
the time they were written, I subjoin them : —
A south wind, or great heat in summer, por-
tends a whirlwind. {Job xxxvi. 9.) Cold or
fair weather is indicated by the north wind,
which drives away rain. {Ibid, xxxvii. 9, 22.)
A red sky in the evening foretells fair weather;
in the morning, foul. " When it is evening ye
say. It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.
And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-
day, for the sky is red and lowering." {Malt.
xvi, 2, 3.) " When ye see a cloud rise out of
the west, straightway ye say. There cometh a
shower ; and so it is. And when ye see the
south wind blow, ye say. There will be heat ;
and it cometh to pass." {Luke, xii. 54, 55.)

It results from observations made by M.
Schow, that in the north of Europe the west-
ern winds are more frequent than the eastern.
This rule is without exception ; but the west-
ern winds diminish more and more as we ap-
proach the centre of the Continent, being more
frequent in England, Holland, and France than
in Denmark and the greater part of Germany;
and more frequent in these latter countries than
in Russia and Sweden. At London, the east
wind is to the west as 1- to 1-7; at Amsterdam,
as 1 to 1'6; at Copenhagen, as 1 to 1-5; at
Stockholm, as 1 to 1*4; at Petersburg, as 1 to
1'3. The west winds seem to incline the more
to the south according to the propinquity of the
Atlantic sea; towards the interior of the Con-
tinent they incline more to the northwest. The
north winds appear to increase towards the
east. Amongst the winds which come from the
west, that of the southwest predominates in
England, Holland, and France ; that of direct
west in Denmark and the greater part of Ger-
many; at Moscow the northwest predominates;
at Petersburg and Stockholm the north wind is
much more frequent than in the western parts
of Europe. In the western and middle districts
of northern Europe, such as England, France,
Denmark, Germany, and Norway, the west
winds are much more frequent during the sum-
mer than during the winter or spring. This
does not appear to be the case in Sweden and
Russia. During the winter the west winds are
more southerly; during the summer more di-
rect and more northerly. {Jahrb. der Phys. und
Chemie, 1828.)

With regard to the supposed influence of the
moon upon the conditions of the weather, and
1106

the strong evidences to prove that this satellite
exerts no influence in controlling the atmosphere,
so far as wet and dry weather are concerned,
see Moo>-, Influence of.

Under the head of Barometer it has been
observed that changes of weather are indicated,
not by the actual height of the mercury, but by-
its change of height. One of the most general,
though not absolutely invariable, rules, is, that
where the mercury is very low, and, therefore,
the atmosphere very light, high winds and
storms may be expected.

In winter the rising of the barometer pre-
sages frost ; and in frosty weather, if it falls
three or four divisions, there will follow a thaw;
but if it rises in a continued frost, snow may-
be expected.

The mercury generally rises very fast after
great storms of wind, when before it was very
low. In England it has been observed to rise
an inch and a half in six hours, after a long-
continued storm of southwest wind.

The words on the plate of a barometer are
not strictly to be adhered to, though they will in
general agree; for a fluctuating and unsettled
state of the mercurial column indicates uncer-
tain or changeable weather. The height of the
mercury does not so much indicate the wea-
ther as its motion up and down : to know, there-
fore, whether the mercury is actually rising or
falling, observe —

1st. If the surface of the mercury is convex
(or stands high in the middle), it is then rising.

2d. If the surface is concave (standing low
in the middle), it is then falling.

3d. If the surface is plain, or a little con-
vex, it may be considered as stationary.

4th. A small tap on the barometer case, by
shaking the tube will sometimes bring the mer-
cury to its approaching height.

The greatest heights of the mercury are on
easterly and northeasterly winds ; and its low-
est station on southerly winds.

If the weather is about to be cold, frosty, or
foggy, it rises pretty high ; but if going to be
windy or tempestuous, it will then sink very
low, and, as soon as the first storm is over, it
will rise again apace.

The domestic barometer would become a
much more useful instrument if, instead of the
words usually engraved on the plate, a short
list of the best established rules, adapted to the
particular locality in which it was situated,
accompanied it, which might be either engrav-
ed on the plate, or printed on a card. It would
be right, however, to express the rules only
with that degree of probability which observa-
tion of past phenomena has justified. There
is no rule respecting these efiects which will
invariably hold good.

In the following table the mean temperature,
mean highest, and mean lowest, have been
calculated from observations made on regis-
tering thermometers, hung on a post 2 feet
8 inches from the grass, facing the north,
and in no way sheltered. The barometer is
in a vestibule. No corrections of any kind
have been made in registering the barometer.
{Johnson^ 8 and Shaw's Farmer's Almanac, vol. i^
p. 157.)

'f"-*^Lcl "'**""'"m'^"-""> f"^-' "f — ^vv

V7/ ^/^2cZ

WEEDS.

Tables calculated from Atmospherical Observations,
made in the Parish of Cobham, Surrey, England,
during the Eight Years from 1833 to 1840.

THERMOMETSR.

WEEDS.

January -

February

March

April

May

June

July

August -

September

October -

November

December

tJtmost
Range.

39-84
4202
46-25
55-25
61-31
63 00
61-83
56-32
49-87
4364
38-98

Mean
Higb«it.

52 6
54-7
601
71-3

79-8
88-5
89-2
85-8
760
68-4
58-8
57-5

14-6
20-6
20 5
230
303
37-8
39.2
367
323
25-8
21-8
18-8

Difference,
or Solar
Variation.

380
34-1
39-6
48-3
49-5
50-7
50-0
49-1
43-7
42-6
370
38-7

BAROMETER.

Month.

Dtmwt Range.

Mean.

Meu
Higbett.

Mean
Lowest.

Dltfer-i

January -

30-83

28 97

29-986

30-59

29-17

1-42

February

30 62

28-62

29-819

30 44

29(M

1-40

March -

30 68

28-70

29-915

30-47

29 24

123

April

30 53

29 02

29-999

30 41

29 34

107

May -
June

3062

2942

29 960

3042

29 54

0-88

3042

29 29

30 008

30 35

29 55

0-80

July
Au§ru8t -

30-47

29-37

30 039

30 36

29-57

0 79,

30-48

29-11

30023

30-35

2942

0-93

September

30-58

28 99

31-182

30 34

29 26

108

October -

30-71

28-98

29 997

30 50

89-24

126

November

30-48

28-67

29-822

30-38

29-00

1-38

December

30-66

29 04

30-038

30-50

29-28

1-22

Tables showing the mean temperatnre in
most sections of the United States, and also at
many noted places in Europe and Asia, will
be found under the heads of Atmosphere and
Climate.

WEEDS. A weed has been aptly defined
"a plant out of place." The clearing of all
kinds of crops, and keeping them free from
weeds, is an essential part of cultivation : if
this be omitted, neglected, or but partially per-
formed, a portion of the crop will be lost, in pro-
portion to the prevalence of such w^eeds, from
defective preparation or partial extirpation.
The nourishment drawn from the ground by the
roots of all vegetables being somewhat simi-
lar, where that nourishment is suffered to be
drawn by weeds, it is lost to the intended crop,
which will therefore be reduced in produce in
proportion as . it has been deprived of nutri-
ment from the soil, and prevented from occu-
pying its whole extent of ground. The same
observation will apply to pastures, to hedges,
and plantations, and to all parts of the earth's
surface reclaimed, occupied, and cultivated for
the use of man ; for therein the growth of
noxious or useless plants will be injurious to
the success of the useful ones, and in propor-
tion as the former abound, the latter must prove
defective.

The clearing of crops from weeds must be
effected in two ways: 1. In the preparation;
and, 2. During the growth of the crop. In the
preparation, attention must be given to dis-
tinguish root weeds from seedlings, as their
destruction must be effected upon different
principles. In the spring of the year particu-
larly, attention should be paid to hoeing and
weeding.

And old Tusser's advice may be followed
with advantage :—

"In May get aweed-hook, a crotch, and a glove.
And weed out such weeds as the corn doth not love ; '
For weeding of winter corn, now it is best,
But June is the better for weeding the rest.

The May-weed doth burn, and the thistle doth fret.
The titches pull downward both rye and the wheat.
The brake and the cockle be noisome too much,
Yet like unto boodle no weed there is such.

Slack never thy weeding, for dearth nor for cheap,
The corn shall reward it, ere ever ye reap ;
And 'specially where ye do trust for to seed.
Let that be well used, the better to speed."

The plants we term weeds, considered as
respecting mankind, are not totally useless ;
many of them have valuable medical quali-
ties, and some of them may be applied to use-
ful purposes, so as to pay something towards
the expense of clearing them from the ground.
Thus, sow-thistles (Sonchus) afford food for
rabbits or hogs ; the hog-weed, or cow-parsnip
(Heracleum sphondylium), is good for either
swine or cattle; horses and asses are fond of
young thistles when partially dried, and the
seed may be prevented from spreading by
gathering the down, which makes good pillows ;
however, there is some danger of trusting them
to this stage of growth, as a high wind would,
and frequently does, disperse them over a
whole country. Charlock, or wild radish,
when drawn, may be given to cows, which are
very fond of it, particularly of the smooth kind;
and, in the Oxford Report, it is stated that it can
be converted into good hay. Nettles, fern, and
the more bulky hedge-weeds, are, in Stafford
shire, collected annually about midsummer
and burned; their ashes being afterwards
formed into balls, which are of considerable
value, being used in composing a ley for scour-
ing and cleaning linen and other clothes.

It is said that pigeons are of use in picking
up the seeds of many weeds that would other-
wise vegetate ; and I have no doubt but that a
prodigious quantity of the seeds of weeds are (
eaten by small birds, particularly of most of
the snake- weeds (Polygonums), of the spurry
(Spergula), and, in severe weather, of the dif-
ferent sorts of charlock (Sinapis, Brassica, and
Raphanus), and of many other kinds. It has
been observed that bees have not thriven so
well in England since the extirpation of weeds
has been more attended to. In China and Ja-
pan, it is said, not a weed is to be seen, and
that they only make use of night-soil as a ma-
nure, partly with a view of preventing any
rise of wjeeds.

Weeds, like all other vegetables, may be
distinguished into annuals, biennials, and pe-
rennials, according to their term of duration.

Annuals are those which continue only one
year, the plants dying after perfecting their
seeds : these are generally very prolific in seed.
Biennials are those which continue two years,
and die after perfecting their seed : these also
produce an abundance of seed. Perennials
are those which continue many years ; some
of these perfect their seeds every year, and
others, being very tenacious of growth by their
roots, and having the faculty of reproducing
themselves in this way, are less prolific in
seeds ; but many of them increase both by
seeds and roots.

The weeds of agriculture are very numerous,
but by far the greater part are underlings, and

1107

\ WEEDS.

are little noticed ; these are comparatively in-
nocent, and a very great portion of them have
no local or common names. Mr. William Pitt,
in his essay On the Extirpation of Weeds {Com.
to Board of Jgr. vol. v. p. 233), enumerates 55
weeds, and the list might have been greatly
extended ; but few farmers, whose knowledge
is bounded by the soils they respectively cul-
tivate, would think themselves troubled with
more than a dozen to twenty ; that is, four or
five which trouble them in their fallows ; four
or five, the seeds of which infest their samples
of corn ; and a few besides, which are locally
prevailing and obtrusive, but (as seems to have
been too generally considered) not very hurtful.

The fact was, that, before the improved
agriculture became so generally known, those
weeds which did not hurt the samples the far-
mers cared little about ; not considering how
much they hurt the crops : and hence it has
been, that on the different soils corn poppy,
charlock, blue-bottles, corn marygold. May-
weed, &c., have been suffered to abound.

The weeds of agriculture may be divided
into, 1. Those which infest samples of corn ;
2. Rooted or fallow weeds, and such others as
are hard to destroy ; 3. Those which are prin-
cipally objectionable as they encumber the
soil ; 4. Underling weeds, such as never rise
with the crop or come into the sickle. Under
their respective heads, in alphabetical order,
we have already treated of the deteriorating
qualities and mode of destruction of each weed;
but, following the above arrangement, we shall
classify them, and add such further remarks as
may be required.

1. Weeds which infest Samples of Corn. — In
England the weeds of this description do not
exceed ten in number, and it very rarely hap-
pens that more than two sorts are found asso-
ciated in one sample of wheat. They vary as
to soil so much, that some of the worst weeds
in fens and marshes are not known at all on
clay, cold soils, and are but very little seen on
any sort of dry turnip land. Light loams and
deep, loose soils generally have most weeds by
nature. The weeds which infest the sample
are, darnel, cheat, or chess {Bromus secalinus
and mollis), cockle {Agrostemma Githago), tares
(JBrvttm telraspermum and hirsutum), melilot
(Melilotus officinalis), wild oats {Avcna fatua),
harifi" {Galium Aparine), crow-needles, or shep-
herd's needle {Scandix pecten Veneris), black
bindweed {Polygonum Convolvulus), annual
.snake- weed {Polygonum lapathifolium), and
charlock seeds in barley sometimes.

Of these ten weeds, whose seeds infest sam-
ples of corn, five are principally injurious to
wheat ; the others are partial, and more com-
mon in barley and oats.

2. On Fallow Weeds.— The. objects of a fal-
low are, and always were, first, to eradicate
root weeds, and cleanse and open the soil to
the fibres of future crops ; second, to pulverize
and break down the texture of clay soils, and
mix them with manure, in order to bring the
land periodically into a mild and fertile condi-
tion. Seedling weeds are destroyed incident-
ally ; and good fallows, with good seasons,
kill a great many, though it be not the object
of fallowing.

1108

WEEDS.

The English fallow weeds are principally
the following: couch, including Triticum re-
pens, Agrostis repens, Holcus mollis, and Poa pra-
tensis, rest-harrow {Ononis arvensis), saw-wort,
the common way-thistle, or pasture-thistle
{Carduus anjcnsis), curled dock {Rumex crispus)^
tall oat-like soft-grass {Holcus avenaceus),co\l's-
foot {Tussilago Farfara), corn bindweed {Con-
volvulus arvensis), corn mint {Mentha arvensis),
sarface-t witch {Agrostis stolonifera angustifolia)^
black foxtail-grass {Alopecurus agrestis), com-
mon knot-grass {Polygonum aviculare), wild
carrot {Daucus Carota), hedge parsley, or dill
{Totilis infesta), common fool's parsley {JEthur
sa Cynapium), spingel or fennel {Meum Fasnicu-
lum).

3. Weeds which are principally objectionable as
they encumber the Soil, or whose Roots are annual^
and whose Seeds pass the Cornrsieve. — Of this
class of weeds, the following deserve particu-
lar notice : charlock (several species), corn
poppy {Papaver Rhceas), blue-bottle {Centaurea
Cyanas), stinking May-weed {Anthemis cotula),
corn marigold {Chrysanthemum segelum).

To extirpate these weeds, clean corn-seed
must be used, not a single plant of these weeds
must be suffered to perfect seed in the hedge-
rows, and a judicious rotation of crops adopt-
ed, so as to admit of the unsparing use of the
horse-hoe, as well as of the hand, in weeding;
by which means these noxious and disgraceful
pests of corn-fields will be overcome, and
banished from the soil.

The corn-poppy particularly accumulates
upon gravelly soils of low quality, also on dry
sandy soils, and generally on all dry and shal-
low lands which are overcropped and neglect-
ed. But much better soils, as loamy gravel,
&c., are infested with it ; only here the crops
are generally good enough to keep it under,
and being less abundant, it is much easier sub-
dued by weeding. But the corn poppy is never
so triumphant as in a hot and dry season, in
which case many fields, which should have
been corn, are wholly covered with it. One of
three things must be done by way of remedy :
1st, the soil must be clayed or marled ; 2d, or it
must be fed with much larger quantities of
farm-yard dung or compost ; 3d, if neither of
these be easily practicable, the rotation must
be changed.

4. Of the Weeds called Underlings, or such as
never rise in the Crop, nor come into the Sickle. —
These are groundsel or Simson {Senecio vulga-
ris), annual meadow-grass {Poa annua), chick-
weed {Stellaria media), shepherd's purse {Thlap-
si bursa pasloris), spurry {Spcrgula arvensis),
camomile feverfew {Matricaria Chamomilla),
fat hen or wild spinach {Chenopodium album)^
corn salad, or lamb's lettuce {Fedia olitoria),
flixweed {Sisymbrium Sophia), common fumito-
ry {Fumaria officinalis), and sand mustard
{Sinapis muralis).

Land may be rendered inert or unfertile from
an excess of manure, as well as from the want
of it; severe and avaricious cropping, long
persevered in, being understood in both cases.
Over-stimulus, as in the first instance, wears
out, or renders inert, the principle of fertility
in the land ; and, in the latter instance, the
want of stimulus produces the same effect.

WEEDS.

WEEVILS.

The underling weeds, above mentioned, flou-
rish and prosper under this state of the land,
brought on by either cause. The remedy is
therefore obvious, viz., rest, or a clear-out sum-
mer fallow; and if in the first mentioned case
(which is to be met with in deep fen land and
in old garden mould), apply a dressing of lime,
and sow down with the superior pasture-grasses
and clovers, to remain for not less than five
years. In the latter case, or when the fertility
of the soil is worn out by injudicious cropping,
and a niggardly supply of manure, joined to
the naturally thin and poor staple of the soil,
then a full application of manure, or marl and
manure, the latter consisting as much as pos-
sible of cow-dung, should be given, and the
land sown down with the superior permanent
pasture-grasses suited to the soil, with a due
admixture of clover.

5. Pasture Weedi;. — Some fanners seem to
suppose that if they keep the weeds subdued
in the growing crops, they have performed
wonders (and too many have reason to con-
gratulate themselves if they do this), while all
kinds of nuisances in the shape of weeds dis-
figure and overrun their pastures. But this-
tles, milkweed, everlasting, John's-wort, sweet
elder, &c., flourish undisturbed, and fill the
earth with seeds or roots in readiness to spread
and grow whenever the earth is moved for
their reception. Any plant not wanted on a
farm, or not required in course of cultivation,
should never be allowed to perfect its seeds on
any part of it ; if they are, the farmer will
find, to his sorrow, that he has suffered an ene-
my to steal a march upon him, one which it
may require much time and labour to subdue.
Allow, then, nothing to go to seed on your farm
you do not mean to cultivate ; dig them up root
and branch, or, if this is not practicable, take
your scythe and cut them at once.

The following weeds are more frequently
found to infest dry, sandy pastures, and calca-
reous soils, than loamy or damp grass lands.
Dwarf-thistle {Carduus acau/is), common camo-
mile {Anthemis nobilis), ox-eye daisy (Chrysan-
themum leucanthemum), great fleabane,or plough-
man's spikenard (Conyza squarrosa), cheese
refining, or yellow ladies' bedstraw (Galium
verum), longrooted hawk-weed, wild thyme
(Thymus serpyllum), sheep's sorrel (Rumex Ace-
tosella), knot-grass, or snake-weed (Polygonum
aviculare), yellow rattle (Rhinanthus cristagalli),
common Carline thistle (Carlina vulgaris).

Where these are found to prevail to a great
extent, there is no remedy like breaking up the
land and taking a course of crops, for pallia-
tive remedies are of little avail. The this-
tles, sheep's sorrel, and knot-grass, are the
most formidable. Hand-weeding, when the
weeds are confined to local spots, and are only
just beginning to spread generally over the
soil, will be found effectual; but when once
the pasture becomes generally infected with
the seeds and roots of these plants, no time
should be lost in using the plough, harrow, and
horse-hoe, and a judicious course of cleansing
crops, before returning the land again to perma-
nent pasture.

The pasture weeds which generally prevail
in loamy soils, and such as are prevalent in

clayey and damp soils, are principally as fol-
lows : — yellow goat's beard (Tragopogon pratevf
sis), marsh, or red thistle (Carduus palustris),
melancholy plume-thistle (Cncius helerophyllus),
meadow plume-thistle (Carduus pratensis)^
common butter-bur (Tussilago Petasites), rag-
wort (Senecio'Jacobaa), common daisy (Bcllh
perennis), black knap-weed, or matfellow (Cen-
taurea nigra), broadleaved dock (Rumex obtusi'
folius) ; several species of orchis, commoa
cow parsnip, or hog-weed (Heracleum Sphondy-
lium), and sedge (Catex).

The means to be adopted for the extirpation
of these noxious weeds in pastures must be
regulated by the nature of the soil and the
comparative prevalence of the weeds. In good
pasture land, where, from accident or neglect,
these weeds, in part or wholly, have insinuated
themselves, hand-weeding may most advan-
tageously be had recourse to ; and particularly
for the larger weeds, such as thistles, rag-weed,
docks, and knapweed, it will be found the best
temporary remedy. Should the coarseness of
the pasture have been occasioned by too fre-
quent haying, then depasturing closely for two
or three years, with a good top-dressing of dung
compost applied in the early part of the spring
or late in the autumn, with strict attention to
hand-weeding, will be found effectual to reco-
ver the pasture and extirpate the weeds. Fre-
quent top-dressings are of the greatest use ia
effecting the above improvements on deterio-
rated thin pasture lands, as regards the destruc-
tion of weeds, as well as of improving the
quality of the pasture. When the sedges,
marsh-thistle, pestilent wort, &c., prevail ia
meadows, then recourse must be had to other
means than that of hand-weeding, viz., drain-
ing, paring and burning, liming, and a judi-
cious rotation of crops under the horse-hoe
husbandry, until every vestige of the seeds and
roots of these noxious weeds disappear. The
ground may then be laid down to permanent
pasture, with the seeds of the most valuable
species adapted to the soil, and, where water
can be commanded, converted to water mea-
dow, by which the value of the land will be
considerably increased. (Holdich's Weeds;
Pin's Essays on Weeds.) See Cawada Thistlb,
Charlock, Couch, &c., &c.

WEEVILS. In the winged state, the insects
thus called are hard-shelled beetles, which,
says Dr. Harris, are distinguished from other
insects by having the forepart of the head pro-
longed into a broad muzzle or a longer and
more slender snout, in the end of which the
opening of the mouth and the small homy
jaws are placed. The flies and moths produced
from certain young insects, called weevils by
mistake, do not possess these characters, and
their larvae or young differ essentially from
those of the true weevils. The latter belong to
a group called Rhynchophorida, literally, snout-
bearers.

Among insects of this class is the Pales
weevil, Curculio (Hylobius) Pales. See PI. 16, 6.
This is a beetle of a deep chestnut-brown co-
lour, having a line and a few dots of a yellow-
ish-white colour on the thorax, and many srnall
yellowish white spots sprinkled over the wing-
covers. All the thighs are toothed beneath^
5a2 1109

WEEVILS.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

and the snout is slender, cylindrical, inclined,
and nearly as long as the thorax. On account
of the length of the snout this insect has been
placed in the genus Rhynchcenus by some natu-
ralists ; but the antennae are implanted before
the middle of the snout, and not far from the
sides of the mouth. This beetle measures
from two to three-eighths of an inch in length,
exclusive of the snout. It may be found in
great abundance, in May and June, on board-
fences, the sides of new wooden buildings, and
on the trunks of pine trees. I have discovered
them, in considerable numbers, under the bark
of the pitch pine. The larvae, which do not ma-
terially differ from those of other weevils, in-
habit these and probably other kinds of pines,
doing sometimes immense injury to them.
Wilson, the ornithologist, describes the depre-
dations of these insects, in his account of the
ivorj'-billed woodpecker, in the following
words. " Would it be believed that the larvae
of an insect, or fly, no larger than a grain of
rice, should silently, and in one season, destroy
some thousand acres of pine trees, many of
them from 2 to 3 feet in diameter, and 150 feet
high 1 Yet whoever passes along the high-
road from Georgetown to Charleston, in South
Carolina, about 20 miles from the former place,
can have striking and melancholy proofs of
the fact. In some places the whole woods, as
far as you can see around you, are dead, stripped
of the bark, their wintry-looking arms and bare
trunks bleaching in the sun, and tumbling in
ruins before every blast, presenting a frightful
picture of desolation. Until some effectual
preventive or more complete remedy can be
devised against these insects and their larvae,
I would humbly suggest the propriety of pro-
tecting, and receiving with proper feelings of
gratitude, the services of this and the whole
tribe of woodpeckers, letting the odium of
guilt fall to its proper owners." {American
Ornithology, vol. iv. p. 21.) Some years ago
Mr. Nuttall procured, near the place above
mentioned, specimens of the destructive in-
sects referred to by Wilson. They were of
three kinds. Those in greatest abundance
were the pales weevil. One of the others was
a larger, darker-coloured weevil, without white
spots on it, and named Hylobius picivorus, by
Germar and Schonherr, or the pitch-eating
weevil ; it is seldom found in Massachusetts.
The third was the white pine weevil. It is said
that these beetles puncture the buds and the
tender bark of the small branches, and feed
upon the juice, and that the young shoots
are often so much injured by them as to die
and break off at the wounded part. But it
is in the larva state that they are found to be
most hurtful to the pines. The larvce live
Tinder the bark, devouring its soft inner sur-
face, and the tender newly formed wood. When
they abound, as they do in some of the pine
forests of the United States, they separate large
pieces of bark from the wood beneath, in con-
sequence of which the part perishes, and the
tree itself soon languishes and dies.

The white pine weevil, Rhynchcenus (Pissodes)
Slrobi, of Professor Peck, unites with the two
preceding insects in destroying the Ameri-
can pines, as above described. But it em-
1110

j ploys also another mode of attack on the white
pine, of which an interesting account is given
by the late Professor Peck, the first describer
of the insect, in the 4th volume of the Massa-
chusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, ac-
companied by figures of the insect. The lofty
stature of the white pine, and the straightness
of its trunk depend, as Professor Peck has re-
marked, upon the constant health of its leading
shoot, for a long succession of years ; and if
this shoot be destroyed, the tree becomes
stunted and deformed in its subsequent growth.
This accident is not uncommon, and is caused
by the ravages of the white pine weevil. This
beetle is oblong-oval, rather slender, of a
brownish colour, thickly punctured, and varie-
gated with small brown, rust-coloured, and
whitish scales. There are two white dots on
the thorax ; the scutel is white ; and on the
wing-covers, which are punctured in rows,
there is a whitish transverse band behind the
middle. The snout is longer than the thorax,
slender, and a very little inclined. The length
of this insect, exclusive of its snout, varies
from one-fifth to three-tenths of an inch. Its
eggs are deposited on the leading shoot of the
pine, probably immediately under the outer
bark. The larvae, hatched therefrom, bore into
the shoot in various directions, and probably
remain in the wood more than one year.
When the feeding state is passed, but before
the insect is changed to a pupa, it gnaws a
passage from the inside quite to the bark,
which, however, remaining untouched, serves
to shelter the little borers from the weather.
After they have changed to beetles, they have
only to cut away the outer bark to make their
escape. They begin to come out early in Sep-
tember, and continue to leave the wood through
that month and a part of October. The shoot
at this time will be found pierced with small
round holeg on all sides ; sometimes 30 or 40
may be counted on one shoot. {Harris.) See
Corn Weevil, Curculio, Grain Weevil, Pea
Weevil, Plum Tree Weevil, &c.

WEIGH. In England, a weight of cheese,
wool, &c., containing 256 lbs. avoirdupois. Of
corn, the weigh contains 40 bushels ; of barley
or malt, 6 quarters. A weigh of cheese or
butter in Suffolk is 256 lbs., and in Essex
336 lbs.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. The pro-
portions or quantities by which various sorts
of agricultural or other produce are disposed
of. In Britain they vary greatly in different
districts, and even in different places of the
same district or county.

In a general sense the term measure is ap-
plied to that by which any thing is compared
in respect of quantity. Thus we have mea-
sures of extension, of weight, time, force, re-
sistance, temperature, &c.; in short, of every
thing of which greater or less can be predi-
cated; and it frequently happens that the unit
or measure is not taken in the thing or pro-
perty which is the immediate subject of con-
sideration, but in something else which de-
pends on it, or is proportional to it. Angular
space, for example, is measured by an arc of a
circle ; time, by the rotation of the earth upon
its axis, or its revolution around the sun ; force,

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

l)y the quant
body; degree
metals or othe
by the resista

METER, StBE?

By measur
stood the uni
sure extensio
of length, of
pacity ; but, a
in all cases f
sary to establ
The choice ol
ent multiples
of society, foi
of metrology.

As no prec
magnitude of
comparing it
length, the n<
the interchan,
tirely arbitrar
ligible alike tc
perceived in
nated the foo
from the elbo!
the ulna, arm,
finger; the p
the extremity

ity of motion it impresses on a
s of heat, by the expansion of
;r substances ; muscular strength,
nee of a spring. See DrxAMo-
fGTH, Thehmometer, &c.
e, in an absolute sense, is under-
t, or standard, by which we mea-
D. We have, therefore, measures
superficies, and of volume or ca-
ts the two latter may be deduced
rora the former, it is only neces-
sh a unit, or standard of length.
" such a standard, and the differ-
and parts of it taken for the uses
■m a metrical system, or system

ise notion can be formed of the
a line in any other way than by
with another line of a known
jcessity of having recourse, for
2;e of ideas, to measures not en-
y, but fixed by nature and intel-
) all mankind, seem to have been
the earliest ages. Hence origi-
t, the cubit, or length of the arm
V to the tip of the middle finger ;
or yard ; the span ; the digit, or
ilm ; the fathom, or space from
of one hand to that of the other,

when they are both extended in opposite direc-
tions ; the pace, the barley-corn, the hair's
breadth, and other denominations of measure
taken from parts of the human body, or from
natural objects, which, though not of an abso-
lute and invariable length, have a certain mean
value sufficiently definite to answer all the pur-
poses required in a rude state of society. But
as civilization advanced, the necessity of adopt-
ing more precise standards would be felt, and
the inadequacy of such measure as the foot,
the cubit, &c. (referred only to the human
body), to convey accurate notions, would be
rendered most apparent in their application to
itinerary measures, or the estimation of great
distances.

English System of Lineal Measures. — The unit
of lineal measure in England is the yard, all
other denominations being either multiples, or
aliquot parts of the yard. The yard is divided
into 3 feet, and the foot subdivided into 12
inches. The multiples of the yard are the pole
or perch, the furlong, and the mile ; 5^ yards
being a pole, 40 poles a furlong, and 8 furlongs
a mile. But the pole and furlong are now
scarcely ever used, itinerary distances being
reckoned in miles.and yards.

The relations of these different denomina-
tions are exhibited in the following table : —

InOM.

Feet

Tank.

Pole*.

FurloDgi.

M.le*.

12

36

199

7920

63360

0083

1

3

16-5
660
5280

0088
,0333
1

5-5
S20
1760

000505
006060
01S18
1
40
320

0 00012626
000151515
0004545
0025

8

0-0000157828

0 00018939

000056818

0003125

0125

1

Of the different measures of length used in
European countries, the foot is the most uni-
versally prevalent. We subjoin the relation
between the foot of different coantries and the
English foot.

Ei^iihfeot.

Russian fool - - - - 1-

Paris foot 1 065765

Prussian and Danish foot - 1-029729

Bavarian foot - - . - 0057561

Hanoverian foot ... 0*958333

Saxon foot - - _ . 0-929118

Austrian foot .... 1 037128

"See Foot, League, Milk, Ac.

Measures of Superficies. — In square measure
the yard is subdivided, as in general measure,
into feet and inches; 144 square inches being
equal to a square foot, and 9 square feet to a
square yard. For land measure the multiples
of the yard are the pole, the rood, and the acre ;
30^ (the square of 5^) square yards being a pole,
40 poles a rood, and 4 roods an acre. (Sec
Acre.) Very large surfaces, as of whole coun-
tries, are expressed in square miles.

The following are the relations of square
measure : —

SqunFMt

SqwraTanh.

miM.

Roods.

Acrta.

9
97S-S5

10890
43360

01111
1
30.25
1210
4840

000367309
003305798
1
40
160

00000918-27
0000626448
0025
1

4

0-000022957
0000206612
000625
0-25

Land is usually measured by a chain of 4
poles or 22 yards, which is divided into 100
links. Three chains in length and one in
breadth make an acre, which equals 169 square
perches, or 4840 square yards.

Land Measure.

CountriM.

Und
Meuure.

EoKli.h

England

Acre

4840

Scotland

6150

Ireland -

7840

Prance .

Hectare

11960

Prussia -

Morgen -

30.53

Ila/nbur?

11545

Amsterdam -

9722

Dantzic -

—

6650

No. equ»l to

10 Ei>;liih

Acres.

10000
7860
6173
4016

15853
4102
4978
7278

Square, or Superficial Measure.

144 square inches = 1 square foot.

9 — feet = 1 — yard.

30J — yards = 1 — rod.

40 — rods = 1 — acre-

640 — acres = 1 — mile.

Measures of Volume. — Solids are measured by
cubic yards, feet, and inches; 1728 cubic
inches making a cubic foot, and 27 cubic feet
a cubic yard. For all sorts of liquids, corn,
and other dry goods, the standard measure is
declared by the act of 1824 to be the imperial
gallon, the capacity of which is determined im-
mediately by weight, and remotely by the
standard of length. See Gallon.

The parts of the gallon are quarts and pints,
2 pints being a quart, and 4 quarts a gallon.

1111

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

Its multiples are the peck, the bushel, and the
quarter; the peck being 2 gallons, the bushel
4 pecks, and the quarter 8 bushels. The fol-
lowing are the rotations : —

Pint..

.ftuarls.

Gallans.

Pecks.

Bushels.

Quarters.

1

2

8

16

64

1512

0-5

5

8

32

256

0125
025
1
2
8
46

0 0621
0125
05
1
4
32

0 015625
003125
0125
0-25

8

0001953125

000390625

0 015625

003125

0 125

I

Cubic or Solid Measure.

1728 cubic inches make
27 cubic feet - - .
40 feet of rough timber")
50 feet of hewn timber 3

1 cubic foot.
1 cubic yard.

1 load.

This comprehends length, breadth, and thick-
ness.

And 108 solid feet, that is, 12 feet in length,
3 feet in breadth, and 3 feet deep, or commonly
14 feet long, 3 feet I inch broad, and 3 feet 1
inch deep, are a stack of wood.

And 128 solid feet, that is, 8 feet long, 4 feet
broad, and 4 feet deep, are a cord of wood.

Grain Measures,

Countriea.

Bushels.

No.of equal
to Enelish

Name of
Measure.

Ensland

Scotland

France

Holland

Prussia

Spain ...

Poland - -

1000
1022
4427
3157
1479
1599
1451

8800

7827
1807
2534
5409
5003
5513

Setior.

Mudde.

Scheffel.

Fanaga.

Korzee.

(Loudon's

Encyc. of A

gr. p. 20.)

4 gills
2 pints

4 quarts
2 gallons
8 gallons
8 bushels

5 quarters

English Corn Measures.

1 pint
1 quart
1 gallon
1 peck
1 bushel
1 quarter
1 load

34| cubic in.

69i

277i

544i

2218f

10^ cubic ft.

5U

See BusHEi, Peck, Quarteh.

The Winchester quarter is more than the
Imperial quarter, being in the proportion of 1
to 0-96945. The English Imperial quarter, in
estimating weight, means the ^ of a ton of 2240
lbs. = 560 lbs. or 1 quarter.

English Measures of Wood and other Fuel. —
Cord-wood, being the bigger sort of fire-wood,
is measured by a cord or line, whereof there
are two measures ; that of 14 feet in length, 3
feet in breadth, and 3 feet in height. The other
is 8 feet in length, 4 feet in height, and 4 feet
in breadth. This last is generally adopted, in
the United States.

Weights. — Weights are used to ascertain
the gravity of bodies, a quality depending part-
ly on their magnitude and partly on their den-
sity. The determination of the gravity or
weight of different bodies supposes the in-
vention of the balance. Nothing is known of
the steps which led to its introduction ; but it
was used in the remotest antiquity. Weights
have frequently been derived from grains of
corn. Hence in England, and in some other
European countries, the lowest denomination
of weight is a grain ; and 32 of these grains are
directed, by the ancient statute, called Composi-
tio Mensurarunif to compose a pennyweight,
1112

whereof 20 make an ounce, 12 ounces a pound;
and so upwards.

Tables of Weights and Measures accoiding to iht
Imperial Standard.

16 drachms
16 ounces
28 pounds
4 quarters
•JOcwt.

Avoirdupois Weight.

" drachm

1 ounce
1 pound =;=

1 quartercwt.=
1 cwt. =

1 ton. =

French pframme*.
1 771
28-346
453-544

12 699 kilQgram.
50-796
1015920

In England the stone is generally 14 lbs.
avoirdupois weight, but for butchers' meat or
fish it is 8 lbs. Hence the cwt. equals 8 stone
of 14 lbs., or 14 stone of 8 lbs.

Hay and straw are sold by the load of 36
trusses. See Hay and Truss.

The custom of allowing more than 16 ounces
to the pound of butter used to be very general
in several parts of England.

Wool Weight. — Like all other bulky articles,
wool is weighed by avoirdupois weight, but the
divisions differ thus.

1 clove.
1 stone.
1 tod.
1 wey.
1 sack.
1 last.

1 clove.

1 wey in Essejf.
1 wey in Suffolk.
1 firkin of butter.

7 pounds
2 cloves
2 stone
6^ tods
2 weys
12 sacks

Cheese and butter.

8 pounds =

32 cloves :=

42 cloves =

56 pounds =

Miscellaneous Information relative to Weights
and Measures. — Specific gravity is determined
by weighing the substance first in air, and then
in water at the temperature of 60° Fahrenheit.
In the latter case the substance loses of its
weight a quantity precisely equal to the weight
of its own bulk of water. The total weight in
air is then divided by the loss of weight in water,
and the quotient is the specific gravity. This
is either over or under that of pure water,
which is the standard of comparison. The
standard of weights is, the cubic inch of dis-
tilled water, weighing 253-458 Troy grains;
the Troy pound, 5760 grains, or 22-8157 inches.
The same standard of 7000 Troy grains makes
the pound avoirdupois, 27-7274 cubic inches;
10 of which, or 277-274, being the imperial
gallon, or a quart 69-32 ; and a gill of 5 ounces
of water, equal to 8-664.

The specific gravity of water being l-OOOj
that of alcohol, pure, is 0-829 ; beer, 1-034
cider, 1-018; milk, 1-032; linseed oil, 0-94
vinegar, 1-025; sea-water, 1-026; ox bone,
1-666; brass, 7-824; brick, 2-; cork, 0-24; gold!
19-2587; granite, 2-728; bar-iron, 7-68 ; lead
11-352; lignum vitae, 1-33; mahogany, 1-06:
marble, 2-716; mercury, 13-58; oak, M7
platina, 20-722; silver, 10-474; clay-slate, 2-67
tin, 10-717; limestone, 1-386; elm, 0671 ; ho-
ney, 1-45. (^Treasury of Knowledge.)

A cubic foot of loose earth or sand weighs
95 lbs.

A cubic ft. of common soil-weighs 124 Ibs^

strong soil,
clay,

mason's work
distilled water,
cast-iron,
steel,

127 "
135 «
205 «
62-5 «
450-45 «
489-8 "■

WEIGHTS AND MEASUREa

WEIGHTS AND MEASTJRES.

cubic ft. of lead,

weighs

709-5 lbs

« «

platina.

"

1,218-75 «

(( «

copper,

«

486-75 "

u u

cork,

«

15

M «

tallow,

M

59 «

M <C

oak,

«

73-15 "

<( a

brick.

M

125

« «

air,

((

•0753"

The American quintal is 100 lbs. The ton
2240 lbs.

The weight of a cubic inch of distilled wa-
ter, in a vacuum, is 252-722 grains, and in air,
is 252-458 grains.

The Turkish pound is 7578 grains; the
Danish, 6941 ; the Irish, 7774; the Neapolitan,
4952 ; the Scotch pound Troy, 76208.

The imperial gallon contains 10 lbs. avoir-
dupois of distilled water, weighed in air at 62°,
with the barometer at 30 inches. Two gallons
are equal to a peck, 8 gallons to a bushel,
and 8 bushels to a quarter.

Heaped measure, per bushel, is 2815^ cubic
inches clear.

The Winchester bushel is 18^ inches in dia-
meter, and 8 inches deep, containing 2154-42
cubic inches.

1000 ounces of rain-water are equal to about
7^ gallons wine measure, or to a cubic foot.

Seven lbs. avoirdupois is a gallon of flour.

A chaldron of coals is 58| cubic feet.

Twelve wine gallons of distilled water weigh
100 lbs. avoirdupois.

The imperial dry bushel, when not heaped,
is 2218-192 cubic inches; the peck, 554:548;
gallon, 277-274, and quart, 69-3185. The bu-
shel is 8 inches deep, and 18-8 wide, with a
heap 6 inches high.

A bushel of wheat is 60 lbs.; rye, 53 lbs.;
barley, 47 lbs. ; oats, 38 ; peas, 64 ; beans, 63 ;
clover-seed, 68 ; rape, 48 lbs.

A Scotch pint is equal to 4 English pints.

A Scotch quart is 208-6 cubic inches.

There are 545,267,000 cubic yards in a cu-
bic mile.

According to usage in Philadelphia and other
parts of the United States, building-stone, when
piled, or " perched," as it is usually termed, is
measured by allowing 25 cubic feet to the
perch. But when placed in the wall, only 22
feet are allowed to the perch. In measuring
stone wall, 14 inches of thickness is usually
allowed. When the thickness of the wall ex-
ceeds 14 inches, the extra thickness is estimated
and made an additional charge. This is the
common rule when the walls have only one
face. In double-faced walls, there is common-
ly an allowance of about one-third more. Three
pecks of good lime will generally suffice to lay
one perch of stone wall. About 2 one-horse
loads of sand are allowed to make mortar for
3 perches of stone wall.

To convert cubic feet into perches, divide
by 25; or, what is still more easy, multiply
by -04.

In brick-work, 14 bricks are usually allowed
to the cubic foot: sometimes only 13 are al-
lowed. To convert cubic feet into cubic yards,
divide by 3, and the product by 9.

Lumber Measure. — In estimating the number
of feet in a board, the length in feet is to be
multiplied by the width in inches, and the re-
140

suit, divided by 12, shows the contents in feetb
When boards are more than 1 inch thick, all
over is added. A board 12 feet long and 1^^
inch thick, would of course be estimated to
contain one-fourth more than a board only 1
inch thick.

A bill passed by the legislature of Pennsyl-
vania, in 1833, for the regulation of weights and
measures in the state, provides for procuring
and preserving standards, which are to con-
form to those of the United States, when esta-
blished ; the linear standard to be the yard, with
the customary multiples allowed.

Superficial Measure. — Acre defined to be 4840
sq. yards.

Capacity Measures, — Wine gallon 231 cubic
inches. Beer gallon 282 cubic inches. Bushel
21.50-42 cubic inches. Lime bushel 13^ inches
diameter at bottom, 15 inches at top, and 13-47
inches deep. A cord of wood to contain 128
cubic feet. A hogshead of cider 110 wine
gallons.

Weights. — Troy pound to be equal to that of
the United States mint, and the avoirdupois
pound to bear to it the ratio of 7000 to 576

60 lbs. of wheat to pass for a bushel.

58 — rye.

58 — corn.

48 — buckwheat.

47 — barley.

32 — oats.

85 — coarse salt (foreign).

70 — ground salt.

62 — fine.

80 — anthracite coal, 112 lbs. to make 1
cwt., and 2240 lbs. = 1 ton.

If the square of the diameter of a circle be
multiplied by -7854, the product is the area.
If the diameter of a sphere be cubed and mul-
tiplied by -6236, the product is the solidity ; and
the square of the diameter, multiplied by
3-14159, is the surface of the sphere.

To find the contents of a cask, add double
the square of the bung diameter to the square
of the head diameter, and multiply this sum by
the head of the cask ; then divide the product
by 1077 for ale gallons of 280 cubic inches
each, or by 882 for wine gallons of 231 cubic
inches each.

Method of ascertaining the Weight of Cattle
while living. — This is of the utmost utility for
all those who are not experienced judges by
the eye, and, by the following directions, the
weight can be ascertained within a mere trifle^
Under the head Cattle we have already given
a useful table on this subject; but the annexed
rules will be found of service. Take a string,
put it round the beast, standing square, just
behind the shoulder-blade; measure on a foot-
rule the feet and inches the animal is in cir-
cumference, this is called the girth ; then with
the string measure from the bone of the tail,,
which plumbs the line with the hinder part of
the buttock ; direct the line along the back to^
the fore-part of the shoulder-blade ; take the-
dimensions of the foot-rule, as before, which is
the length, and work the figures in the follow-
ing manner ; — Girth of the bullock, 6 feet 4
inches; length, 5 feet 3 inches; which, multi-
plied together, make 31 square superficial feet;
that again, multiplied by 23 (the number of

1113

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

pounds allowed to each superficial foot of all
cattle measuring less than 7 and more than 5
feet in girth), makes 713 lbs. ; and allowing 14
lbs. to the stone, is .50 stone 13 lbs. ; and where
the animal measures less than 9 and more than
7 feet in girth, 31 is the number of pounds to
each fool. Again, supposing a pig or any
small beast should measure 2 feet in girth, and
2 feet along the back, which, multiplied to-
gether, make 4 square feet, that multiplied by
11, the number of pounds allowed for each
square foot of cattle measuring less than 3 in
girth, makes 44 lbs. ; which, divided by 14, to
bring it to stones, is 3 stones 2 lbs. Again,
suppose a calf, sheep, &c., should measure 4
feet 6 inches in girth, and 3 feet 9 inches in
length, which, multiplied together, makes 16^
square feet; that multiplied by 16, the number
of pounds allowed to all cattle measuring less
than 5 feet and more than 3 in girth, makes
264 lbs. ; which, divided by 14, to bring it to
stones, is 18 stones 12 lbs. The dimensions
of the girth and length of black cattle, sheep,
calves, or hogs, may be as exactly taken this
"way as it is at all necessary for any computa-
tion or valuation of stock, and will answer ex-
actly to the four quarters, sinking the offal, and
which every man who can get even a bit of
chalk may easily perform. A deduction must
be made for a half-fatted beast of 1 stone in 20
from that of a fat one, and for a cow that has
had calves, 1 stone must be allowed, and an-
other for not being properly fat.

The last act of Parliament on the subject of
weights and measures, is the 5 & 6 W. 4, c. 63,
which contains some important provisions. It
abolishes all local or customary measures
under a penalty of 40s. for every sale made by
them ; it prohibits the mischievous practice of
selling by heaped -measure; it enacts that coals
shall in all cases be sold by weight ; that with
the exception of the precious metals, jewels,
and drugs, all other articles sold by weight
shall be sold by avoirdupois weight only; and
that a stone shall in all cases consist of 14 lbs.
avoirdupois ; a hundred weight of eight such
stones, &c. Lead and pewter weights are not
to be stamped. It enacts that the Winchester
bushel, the Scotch ell, and all local or customary
measures shalt be abolished ; and every person
who shall sell by any measure other than one
of the imperial measures, or some multiple or
aliquot part thereof, shall be liable to a penalty
not exceeding 40s. for every such sale. That
the use of heaped measure shall be abolished,
and all bargains, sales, and contracts made
after the passing of this act, by heaped mea-
sure, shall be null and void.

Articles sold by heaped Measure, how to he sold.
— Whereas some articles heretofore sold by
heaped measure are incapable of being stricken,
and may not be conveniently sold by weight;
it is enacted, that all such articles may hence-
forth be sold by a bushel measure, correspond-
ing in shape with the bushel prescribed by the
■6 G. 4, c. 74, for the sale of heaped measure,
or by any multiple or aliquot part thereof, filled
in all parts as nearly to the level of the brim
as the size and shape of the articles will ad-
mit ; but nothing herein shall prevent the sale
1114

by weight of any article heretofore sold by
heaped measure.

All coals, slack, culm, and cannel of every
description shall be sold by weight and not by
measure.

All articles sold by weight shall be sold by
avoirdupois weight, except gold, silver, platina,
diamonds, or other precious stones, which may
be sold by Troy weight, and drugs, which, when
said by retail, may be sold by apothecaries*
weight.

The stone, hundred weight, ^c. — From and after
the passing of this act, the weight denominated
a stone shall, in all cases, consist of 14 stand-
ard pounds avoirdupois, the hundred weight of
8 such stones, and the ton of 20 such hundred
weights ; but nothing herein shall prevent any
bargain, sale, or contract being made by any
multiple or aliquot part of the pound weight.

Fiar prices. — In Scotland, from and after the
passing of this act, the fiar prices of all grain
in every county shall be struck by the imperial
quarter, and all other returns of the prices of
grain shall be set forth by the same, without
any reference to any other measure whatso-
ever; and any sheriff-clerk, clerk of a market,
or other person offending against this provision,
shall forfeit not exceeding 5/. See Fiar.

Penalty on price lists, Sfc. — From and after the
1st of January, 1836, any person printing, or
clerk of any market or other person making
any return, price list, price current, or any
journal or other paper containing price list or
pricq^urrent, in which the weights and mea-
sures quoted or referred to denote or imply a
greater or less weight or measure than is de-
noted or implied by the same denomination of
imperial weights and measures under the pro-
visions of this act, shall forfeit and pay not ex-
ceeding 10s. for every copy of every such return,
price list, price current, journal, or other paper
which they publish. {Brande^s Diet, of Science;
M'CullocKs Com. Diet.)

The following observations relative to the
w^eights and measures of the United Stales are
derived from a correspondent of the Farmer's
Cabinet.

The subject of establishing by the Congress
of the United States a uniform standard of
weights and measures for the whole confede-
racy, is a matter of great importance to the
agricultural and commercial interests. Most
of the states, perhaps all, have legislated on
this very interesting, important, and difficult
subject, and it is obvious, from the results of
their disjointed labours, that there is still room
for the exercise of the skill, judgment, and
science of the- most learned men in the nation,
to reduce the chaos to order, and to prepare a
uniform system, founded on scientific princi-
ples, for the use of the whole nation. Much
confusion and loss must be sustained by the
great discrepancies which exist in the weights
and measures in use in the different states
which are in habits of constant commercial
intercouse.

On an examination of the learned and able
report made by John Quincy Adams to the
Senate of the United States in 1821, and that
made by F. R. Hassler to the same body in

WELD.

WELD.

1832, on this subject, it does not appear that
the bushel in any two states contains the same
number of cubic inches, and some of them
differ materially from each other ; the weights
also are variant, and the measures do not al-
ways correspond with each other. In Penn-
sylvania the Winchester bushel, 18'5 inches in
diameter and 8 inches deep, and containing
3150*42 cubic inches, is understood to be the
standard dry measure; one-eighth of this, or
368-8 inches, is a gallon, and 67-2 cubic inches
the quart, dry measure. The ale gallon is 282
cubic inches, and the quart 70*5 inches ; and
this is understood to be the quart by which dry
articles are measured. The wine gallon, which
is also the measure of all spirituous liquors,
contains 231 cubic inches, and the quart 57*75
inches. The reason for these differences is not
sufficiently apparent to be recognised by any
person of ordinary understanding, but they are
calculated to produce much embarrassment,
and not a little fraud, for there are always per-
sons who are disposed to sell by the smaller
rather than the larger measure. In England,
whence we obtained all our standards of
weights and measures, a better system has of
late years been adopted, by which the pint,
quart, and gallon, for wine, ale, beer, and grain
or corn, measure the same with regard to mag-
nitude ; 8 of these gallons make one bushel ;
and one gallon contains 277*274 cubical inches,
or 10 pounds of distilled water at a tempera-
ture of 62 degrees ; and the imperial bushel
2218-192 cubic inches, or 80 pounds of water
at 62 degrees.

From the above it appears that the English
bushel at present in use contains 67*772 cubic
inches more than the standard bushel of Penn-
sylvania.

WELD (Reseda hUeola). The dyer's weed,
yellow rocket, or yellow weed, is in England
an indigenous annual plant, growing in waste
ground, especially on a chalky soil, as well as
in fallow fields, and on walls. The root is
tapering. The stem wand-like, striated, leafy,
somewhat branched, smooth, like the rest of
the herb; 2 or 3 feet high. The leaves are
sessile, of a darkish green, linear-lanceolate,
obtuse, entire, single-ribbed. The flowers are
in terminal clusters, erect, many-flowered,
dense, pointed. The flowers themselves, which
blow in July, are small, greenish-white, with-
out much scent. Weld is cultivated for the
sake of its stalks, flowers, and leaves, which
are employed for dyeing wool and other sub-
stances yellow, or, mixed with indigo, green.
The whole plant is fetid when bruised. When
it has attained maturity, which is about the
time of flowering, it is pulled, and made into
bundles and dried, in which state it is used as
a dye-stuff. Weld is preferred to all other sub-
stances for giving the lively green lemon-yel-
low: but, to render the yellow permanent, the
wool must be previously prepared with a mor-
dant of alum and tartar. Being an exhaust-
ing crop, and liable to failure from many
causes, the cultivation of the dyer's rocket is
only partially carried on in Essex and a few
other places in England.

Weld will grow on any soil, but fertile loams
produce the best crops. Loudon gives the fol-

lowing directions for sowing and managing
weld.

The soil being brought to a fine tilth, the seed
is sown in April or the beginning of May, ge-
nerally broadcast. The quantity of seed is from
two quarts to a gallon per acre, and it should
either be fresh, or, if two or three years old,
steeped a few days in water previously to being
sown. Being a biennial, and no advantage ob-
tained from it the first year, it is sometimes
sown with corn crops in the manner of clover,
which, when the soil is in a very rich state,
may answer, provided also, that hoeing, weed-
ing, and stirring take place as soon as the corn
crop is cut. The best crops, however, will
obviously be the result of drilling and culti-
vating the crop alone. The drills may be a
foot asunder, and the plants thinned to 6 inches
in the row. In the broadcast mode it is usual
to thin them to 6 or 8 inches distance every
way ; often, when weld succeeds corn crops, it
is never either thinned, weeded, or hoed, but
left to itself till the plants are in full blossom.

The crop is taken by pulling up the entire
plant, and the proper period for this purpose
is when the bloom has been produced the whole
length of the stems, and the plants are just be-
ginning to turn of a light or yellowish colour ;
as in the beginning or middle of July in the
second year. The plants are usually from 1 to
2^ feet in height. It is thought by some ad-
vantageous to pull it rather early, without wait-
ing for the ripening of the seeds, as by this
means there will not only be the greatest pro-
portion of dye, but the land will be left at
liberty for the reception of a crop of wheat or
turnips ; but in this case a small part must be
left solely for the purpose of seed. In the exe-
cution of the work, the plants are drawn up by
the roots in small handfuls, and set up to dry
after each handful has been tied up by one of
the stalks, in the number of 4 together in an
erect position against each other. Sometimes
they, however, become sufficiently dry by turn-
ing without being set up. After they have re-
mained till fully dry, which is mostly effected
in the course of a week or two, they are bound up
into larger bundles, that contain each 60 hand-
fuls, and which are of the weight of 56 lbs. each :
60 of these bundles constituting a load. These
last, in places where this kind of crop is much
grown, are tied up by a string made for the
purpose, and sold under the title of weld cord.

The produce o/iveld depends much on the na-
ture of the season ; but from half a load to a
load and a half is the quantity most commonly
afforded, which- is usually sold to the dyers at
from 5/. or 6/. to 10/. or 12/. the load, and
sometimes considerably more. It is mostly
bought by persons who afterwards dispose of
it to the dyers occasionally as they find it con-
venient. The demand for it is sometimes very
little, while at others it is so great as to raise
the price to a high degree. It is sometimes
gathered green, and treated like woad or in-
digo ; but in general the dried herb is used by
the dyers in a state of decoction.

The use of loeld in dyeing is for giving a yel-
low colour to cotton, woollen, mohair, silk, and
linen. Blue cloths are dipped in a decoction
of it, which renders them green ; and the yel-

1115

WELL.

WHEAT.

low colour of the paint called Dutch piuk is
obtained from weld.

To save seed, select a few of the largest and
healthiest plants, and leave them to ripen. The
seed is easily separated.

Th^ chief disease of weld is the mildew, to
which it is very liable when young, and this
is one reason that it is often sown with other
crops.

WELL (Sax.). A term sometimes applied
to a chimney or vent-hole left in a rick or mow
of hay, or other similar materials, to prevent
its overheating.

WHEAT {TrUicum). This is undoubtedly
the most important genus of the order Grami-
necB ; for wheat is that species of grain which
is more generally cultivated than any other,
and, from the universal demand and high price
it obtains, best repays the European farmer's
toil and outlay.

The flour of wheat is the most nutritious and
palatable of all the cereal grasses used as the
food of man. Linnaius comprehended all the
different varieties of wheat known in his day
under six species ; but modern botanists enu-
merate about 30 species, and some hundreds
of sub-varieties brought into existence by con-
tinued cultivation. It has been well observed
that for mere practical purposes it is sufficient
to have two general classes, namely, white and
red, and the varieties distinguished by their
spikelets, as the smooth or bearded, the woody-
chafl^ed or the hairy-chaffed. There are some
varieties characterized, also, as spring or win-
ter (Lammas) wheats, though these are fre-
quently apt to lose their distinguishing charac-
ters, and to accommodate their habits to the
season in which they are sown.

"It is to be presumed," says Colonel le Cou-
teur, " from the passage ' In the sweat of thy
face shall thou eat bread,' (Gen. iii. 19), that
wheat was coeval with the creation ; and that
upwards of a thousand years before the Chris-
tian era, some improvement in its culture and
some knowledge of a superior variety had been
attained, by the circumstance of its being stated
that ' Judah traded in wheat ofMinnith.' " (Ezek.
xxvii. 7.)

Columella, who wrote about the time of our
Lord, makes some interesting remarks on
wheat: —

"The chief and the most profitable corns for
men," he observes, "are common wheat and
bearded wheat. We have known several kinds
of wheat; but of these we must chiefly sow
what is called the red wheat, because it excels
both in weight and brightness.

"The white wheat must be placed in the
second rank, of which the best sort in bread is
deficient in weight.

"The trimestrian shall be the third, which
husbandmen are mighty glad to make use of;
for when, by reason of great rains or any other
cause, the early sowing has been omitted, they
have recourse to this for relief; it is a kind of
white wheat." Pliny says that "this is the
most delicious and the daintiest of any sort of
wheat, exceeding white, but without much sub-
stance or strength, only proper for moist tracts
of land, such as those of Italy, and some parts
of Gaul; that it ripens equally, and that there
1116

! is no sort of corn that sufl'ers delay less, be-
cause it is so tender that such ears of it that
are ripe presently shed their grains ; but in the
stalk it is less in danger than any other corn,
for it holds its ear always upright, and does
not contain the dews which occasion blasting
and mildew." (This description of Pliny's
seems to accord with the spring wheat of the
present day, which, be it remembered, came to
us from Spain.)

"The other sorts of wheat are altogether su-
perfluous," continues Pliny, " unless any man
has a mind to indulge a manifold variety, and
a vainglorious fancy. But, of bearded wheat,
we have commonly seen four sorts in use ;
namely, that which is called clusinian, of a
shining bright white colour; a bearded wheats
which is called venuculum ; one sort of it is of
a fiery red colour, and another sort of it is
white, but they are both heavier than the clusi-
nian. The trimestrian, or that of 3 months*
growth, which is called halicastrum ; and thi»
is the chief, both for its weight and goodness^
But these sorts, both of ordinary common
wheat and of bearded wheat, must, for these
reasons, be kept by husbandmen; because it
rarely happens that any land is so situated that
we can content ourselves with one sort of seed,
some part of it happening, contrary to our ex-
pectation, to be wet or dry. But common
wheat thrives best in a dry place, and bearded
wheat is less affected by moisture."

Hence it appears that Romans were aware
of the propriety of selecting their wheat, and
that it was then believed that winter or beard-
less wheat was best suited to dry uplands, and
bearded wheat to low or moist lands. In addi-
tion to the winter wheats, some of which he
states to be bearded, he distinctly alludes to the
trimestrian or spring wheat, of which I shall
speak hereafter. In the edition of Gerard^s
Herbal, printed in London in 1660, only 5 kinds
of wheat are enumerated ; and, although this
was the leading botanical work of the day^
these are most indistinctly described.

Modern writers generally are equally vague ;.
they merely designate a number of varieties ;
but no attempt appears to have been made to
class them correctly, or to ascertain their rela-
tive values by comparison.

In Sinclair''s Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis, 43
of the cultivated varieties are enumerated as
winter or spring wheats, according to the ar-
rangement of Linnaeus, which this illustrious
writer has merely given as a sort of botanical
classification.

The Maison Rustique for 1835, enumerates 39"
varieties ; and, although a short notice is given
of them, it is by no means sufficient, as their
farinaceous qualities are not explained. Mr.
Paxton, in his Botanical Dictionary, enumerates
25 distinct species, besides several varieties.

A classification of wheat is much required,
pointing out the relative value of varieties, in
their quantity of meal, the weight of bran and
pollards, with the weight of straw of each, and
their adaptation to soils. That this is a deside-
ratum no one, I imagine, will deny ; but that it
requires time, attention, and perseverance, to
make such discoveries, will also be conceded,
when it is stated that I already possess up-

ricLie 2

"Voriefies of Wheat.^ththemost destmctive Bncmles

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

wards of 150 varieties or sub-varieties. (Ze [
Couteur on Wheat.) |

The most popular description of the different
species of wheat which admit of cultivation
for their seed is that given by Professor Low,
in his work on the Elements of Jgnndture, and
I shall therefore avail myself of his scientific
description.

Specific character. — The calyx of wheat con-
sists of 2 valves or glumes, enclosing several
florets. In each of these florets there are 2
valves, forming the corolla, and enclosing the
seed. Sometimes the corolla encloses a per-
fect seed, and sometimes the seed is not per-
fected. Each calyx, with the florets which it
encloses, is termed a spikelet. The part to
which the spikelets are attached is termed the
rachis or shaft, and the spikelets placed one
above the other, on each side of the rachis,
form the ear or head. The rachis is jointed,
and the spaces between the joints are termed
the internodii.

Species. — 1. Spring or summer wheat (T. (rsti-
vum) PI. 2, a, has awns both on the calyx and
corolla. Each spikelet has usually 5 florets,
of which 2. are barren. The grain is loo ten-
der to bear the frosts of the winter, but as
quick in progress from its first shoot to ripe-
ness as barley, oats, or any other spring corn.
It requires a shorter period to complete its ve-
getation than any of the other kinds. Summer
wheat is the prevailing species of warmer
countries, and is cultivated in many parts of
Europe. It is much used in France, where it
is called bid de Mars, from the season in which
it is usually sown, and in some provinces bleds
tremois, from the time it takes between seed-
lime and harvest. In Spanish it is called trigo
de margo ; in Portuguese trigo tremes ; and in
German sommer waitzen, all which names mark
distinctly the diflTerence between this and win-
ter corn. It does not appear from the older
books on husbandry, that it was at any period
much cultivated in England ; the more modern
ones are, in general, silent on the subject of it;
they mention, indeed, under the name of spring
wheat, every kind of winter wheat which will
ripen when sown after turnips in February.
This is probably the reason why the real spring
wheat has been so little known ; agriculturists
in general conceiving themselves to be actually
in the habit of sowing spring wheat, when, in
reality, they were substituting winter wheat in
its place, have been little inclined to inquire
into the properties of the true spring wheat
when they had an opportunity of so doing.

. Its grains are, for the most part, small, and
the produce of the straw is less than that of
some other species, when cultivated under the
same circumstances. Professor Low says, that
**the trials which have been made with it in
this country have shown it to be inferior in
productiveness and quality to the better kinds
of winter wheat. The advantage which it pos-
sesses is the earlier period of its ripening, on
which account it may be sown so late, even in
this climate, as the beginning of May." The
Board of Agriculture being desirous of bring-
ing spring wheat into general cultivation, in
1805 offered large premiums to those who
should, ia the spring of that year, sow the

greatest quantity of land with spring wheat.
In one of the communications made to the
Board, Sir Joseph Banks slates that " in the
countries best acquainted with its culture,
spring wheat is preferred to all other corn for
raising a crop of seeds. This is owing to the
small quantity of leaf it bears, less, perhaps,
than any other corn, and to the short duration
of the leaf, which fades and falls down almost
as soon as it has attained its full size.

" In cases where red wheat has been da-
maged by the wire-worm, a mischief 'which
seems of late years to have increased in Great
Britain, spring wheat appears to hold out an
easy and simple remedy. In the first week of
May the ravages of the worm have somewhat
abated ; if then the seed of spring wheat is at
that time dibbled, or only raked with a garden
rake, into the naked spots left by the worm,
though it will not attain the growth at which
the worm begins to prey upon it till he has
changed his state for that of a winged beetle,
it will certainly be ripe as soon as the winter
wheat, and may be thrashed out and sold with
it ; or, if it is preferred, may be reaped sepa-
rately, as the appearance of the ears, which, in
the Lincolnshire sort, have longer beards or
awns than the rivet or cone wheat, will point
it out to the reapers in such a manner that no
great error can happen in separating it from
the Lammas." (Com. to Board of Agr. vol. v.
p. 181.) To the miller this mixture of graia
can be of no consequence ; but it would be
scarcely safe to employ the produce as seed.

From the analysis of Sir H. Davy it may be
inferred that bread made of the flour of spring
wheat is more nutritious than that made of
winter wheat, because the former contains a
larger proportion of gluten or half-animalized
matter. He found that

100 parta of the best Sicilian

wheat contained
100 parts of spring wheat of

1804 - - . . -
100 parts of good English

wheat of 1803 -
100 parta of blighted wheat of

1801

OlQtra.

Starch.

Iiwolobt*
Matter.

21

75

5

24

70

6

19

77

4

13

52

44

2. Winter, or lammas wheat (T. Lyhurnvm),
PI. 2, 6, is distinguished from the last by its
appearance, being much more vigorous in the
stem, more erect and thick in the ear, by hav-
ing no awns upon the calyx, and only short
awns upon the corolla, near the summit of the
spike. But the awns not being a good botani-
cal character, many botanists have conceived
the species to be the same. The characters,
however, of either kind being permanent and
remaining under given circumstances un-
changed for an unknown period, they may be
regarded as species. The winter wheat has
usually 5 or 6 florets, of which 2 are barren.

Winter wheat is that which is the most im-
portant with relation to its cultivation in North-
ern Europe. It is, in England, generally sown
in autumn, or previously to the winter months,
and ripens its seed in the following summer ;
but it is an annual plant, and may be sown in
spring.

5B 1U7

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

" Slight varieties of this species are exceed-
ingly common in different localities, and are
probably attributable to some peculiarities in
the mode of culture. The common varieties
of winter wheat are distinguished from each
other &.ccording to the colour of the tunic en-
veloping the grain, and the difference observ-
able in their chaff. The colours are usually
divided into white and red, the latter of these
including many different shades of brown. Red
wheat is commonly said to be more hardy than
white ; it is therefore thought better suited for
cultivation in bleak and upland districts. The
plant is, however, not so productive as the
white, and the flour which it yields is seldom
of so desirable a quality." {Baxter's Lib. of
Agr. p. 640.)

• 3. Compact wheat (T. compadum) is allied
to the two last-named species, and may be
merely a variety of them. In it the internodii
of the rachis are very short. It is partially
produced in diflerent parts of Europe. " I
have received specimens of it," says Professor
Low, " from France and Sweden, and have cul-
tivated them without observing any change of
characters. Whether, however, the charac-
ters which distinguish it are sufficiently per-
manent to entitle it to be regarded as a species,
has not been determined. In the mean time,
following the authority of Host (Icones e(- Des.
Gram. JIusL), I have placed it amongst the
species."

4. Egyptian, or many-spiked wheat (71 com-
positum), PI. 3, c, is distinguished from the
others by its branched or compound spike,
which no other species tends, under any cir-
cumstance, to produce. Its seeds are nume-
rous, and the produce abundant. It requires a
good climate and a fertile soil, for in unfavour-
able situations the branches of the spike are
not evolved, and then it assumes the appear-
ance of ordinary wheat. It is cultivated in
Egypt and the east, as it is in the south of Eu-
rope and diflerent parts of Italy. It was known
in Germany about 240 years ago, and in France
it is said to haVe been cultivated for about 80
years, having been brought from the east un-
der the name of wheat of Smyrna. In England
it has been partially cultivated as the subject
of experiment. It is uncommonly fruitful, and
the straw is very strong and tough, whence it
has received the name of reed wheat.

The grains, however, do not yield so large a
proportion of flour or meal as any of the other
species and their varieties, and the flour is
scarcely superior to that obtained from the
finest barley. Egyptian wheat will bear great
degrees of heat and drought without harm, so
that it is found to yield abundantly in situations
where other kinds would be greatly injured, if
not destroyed ; a circumstance which points it
out as admirably adapted to the arid lands
whereon it is chiefly cultivated. It would be
more cultivated in England, if its form did not
cause it to hold the wet at harvest-time, and
hence it is very liable to be laid.

.5. Turgid wheat (T. turgidum), PI. 2, d. In
this species the corolla is awned, but not the
calyx ; the spikes are covered with soft hairs,
and in some varieties change to a dark colour,
and the awns drop off as the seeds become
1118

I ripe, in which respect it differs from summer
I wheat. It is known in different localities un-
der the several names of gray wheat, duck's
I bill wheat, gray pollard, rivet, pole rivet, cone,
: pendulum, &c. This species grows very tall,
I with a thick and rigid stem. The spikes are
large and heavy, and nod to one side as the
I grain increases in weight. The kinds or minor
varieties are distinguished by the farmer from
their qualities of earlier or later ripening, and
greater or less productiveness. One of the
most esteemed of these is cone wheat, so named
from the conical form of its spike. The tur-
gid wheats are productive in corn and straw,
but the grain is coarse and hard, and the flour
much browner and of an inferior quality.
They are chiefly suited to the inferior clays,
upon which in England they are extensively
cultivated. They are valued under such cir-
cumstances for their productiveness in grain
and their large growth of straw; but being in-
ferior to the winter wheats in the quality of
their produce, the cultivation of them is not
likely to be extended in that country.

6. Dark-spiked wheat (T. atralum) is allied
to the last species, if it is not rather to be re-
garded as a variety of it. It has merely been
made the subject of experiment, but not of
extended cultivation. It is not superior in
productiveness to the turgid wheats in com-
mon use.

7. Barley-like wheat {T. hordieifm-me), so
named from its peculiar form, resembling that
of barley, seems, like that last described, to be
derived from Africa. The florets are awned,
and the calyx and corolla become dark as the
seeds ripen. But it resembles the class to be
next referred to, termed spelt-wheat.

8. Far (T. zea) is one of the class of spelt-
wheats. It is distinguished by the distance of
its spikelets from one another. The straw is
rigid ; the calyx and corolla adhere closely to
the seed, and the spikelets again so closely to
the rachis, that they cannot be separated from
the rachis without breaking it. This wheat is
cultivated in some parts of Europe on inferior
soils.

9. Spelt-wheat (T. spelta). Pi. 2,/, is distin-
guished like the last by its spikelets being
firmly attached to the rachis, and by its rigid
calyx and corolla closely enveloping the seed.
Spelt is much cultivated in the south of Eu-
rope. It is grown extensively in the southern
provinces of France, in Switzerland, Italy, in
several parts of Germany, and in Arragon,
Catalonia, and other parts of Spain, as well as
in the north of Africa, and at the Cape of Good
Hope. Spelt could be raised in England with
facility, and it is probable on soils low in the
scale of fertility. It has been cultivated in
Scotland, 600 feet above the level of the sea.
It is said that spelt-wheat is better adapted
than any of the more delicate kinds for culture
in Australia, and probably it will be found the
more preferable sort in all the more southern,
wheat-growing countries.

There are two distinct varieties of spelt,
distinguished as the awned and the awnless;
the latter is perhaps the most naked of all the
cerealia. The grains of this are large, but the
ear contains only a small number of them, as

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

a portion of the flowers prove barren. It is
generally, if not always, a spring-sown crop ;
grows strongly, and its stalks are nearly solid.
Bread made of its flour is said to be of a dry.
quality. It is well known in commerce that
the incomparable Nuremberg and Frankfort
starch and flour are solely obtained from spelt-
wheat. The grain cannot be divested of its
husks by thrashing, and therefore requires to
be passed through a mill. It should however
be sown or drilled with the husks on.

10. One-grained wheat, or St. Peter's corn
(T. motioccocum), PI. 2,g,is readily distinguished
from all the other wheats by its general ap-
pearance, in which it resembles barley. Its
spikelet consists of three or four florets, one

•of which only is for the most part fertile, and
hence its name of one-grained wheat. The
fertile floret has a long awn. The stem of this
species of wheat is slender and rigid ; and,
from being both hard and fine, the straw is ex-
cellent for thatching. It is allied to the spelts,
with which it was classed by some of the older
botanical writers. This species is principally
cultivated in the mountains of Switzerland and
other elevated regions of Europe, and in barren
soils. In consequence of its containing less
gluten than common sorts, it answers better for
being boiled into gruel and for being baked
into bread. The four-sided form of the ripe
ear is so regular, that it has the appearance
of being carved in ivory. It has never formed
an object of cultivation in this country, and
does not appear to possess properties to entitle
it to be introduced.

11. Polish wheat (T. polonicum), PI. 2, e.
This species has long awns, and is distin-
guished from all the others by its long and
leafy calyx and corolla. It is cultivated in
Germany, in Poland, and in Spain. It was
brought into notice, and partially cultivated, in
some of the counties of England, in the latter
part of the seventeenth century ; and it is said
to have been valued on account of its produc-
tiveness of flour. But, although it may be
possessed of this quality, its florets are often
infertile, and it does not merit a more extended
culture in this country. Unless sown sparing-
ly, it is apt to lodge, in consequence of which
the quality of the corn is impaired.

Varieties. — The minor varieties of any spe-
cies of wheat are not permanent in their cha-
racter, though, under given conditions, they
will remain unchanged for an indefinite period.
Under other circumstances, however, they de-
generate ; and hence particular kinds that were
once valued have now ceased to be so. The
best advice that can be given, therefore, in the
choice of varieties and sub- varieties, is to select
those which the practice and experience of the
principal farmers of the neighbourhood have
stamped as the best. Colonel Le Couteur, one
of the best authorities on the culture of wheat,
has given us the result of his experiments and
great experience, upon four of the best pure
and improved varieties of wheat lately intro-
duced into England. {Journ. Roy. Eng. Jgr.
Soc. vol. i. p. 113.)

1. White doxony. — ^This excellent variety is
believed to be the same that is so well de-
scribed by Boys in his General View of the Agri-

culture of Kent, as the " Hoary White," or " Vel-
vet-eared," said by him to have been much
prized by the millers, but then entirely lost.
The seed after being washed and steeped was
sown in drills 7 inches apart, at the rate of two
bushels or a little more to the acre. The wheat
was carefully hand-hoed in the month of May,
which caused it to tiller freely. The preceding
crop was potatoes. This wheat will withstand
the most severe weather. The season 1837 to
1838 was a very trying one, both as to wetness
and severity of cold, the thermometer having
fallen to 18° below freezing ; but the crops of
this wheat raised by my neighbours were per-
fectly insensible to it, and of great prodiice.
This wheat is not remarkable for its early
maturity, though it cannot be called a tardy
variety. It is not subject to degenerate, and
if attention is paid to sowing the seed pure,
and annually, or even occasionally, varying
the manure intended for it, it is possible that
it may never degenerate. The only objection
to it is the huskiness or velvety ear, which in
damp weather is retentive of moisture; and in
snatchy seasons the grain is more apt to sprout
than the smooth-chaflfed varieties. It is not
much afiected with dust-brand; and when
pickled and limed, has never been found with
smul-balls. It is little liable to shed, even
when over-ripe, and will resist very heavy
gales without being laid or broken.

2. Jersey Dantzic. — The seed is described as
having been raised from a single ear, originat-
ing from seed procured from Dantzic, selected
from the finest "high mixed." It is, however,
suspected to be identical with some excel-
lent sorts, called in Sussex, Kent, and some
parts of Surrey, the " Chittums ;" in other
parts "Pegglesham;" in Berkshire, "Trump;"
in Essex, " Hardcastle ;" in some counties,
"Old Suffolk;" in Scotland, "Hunter's White;"
and assuming several other names. This
wheat is not quite so hardy as the " hoary ;" it
is, nevertheless, considered sufficiently so to
succeed throughout the kingdom, excepting the
northern parts of Scotland. In rich soils it
tillers amazingly, and produces a longer straw
than the hoary, nor is it so liable to sprout in a
moist climate from being smooth-chaffed: in
very severe, moist, and stormy weather, it will
be laid sooner than the hoary.

It ripens a week earlier at least than the va-
riety last described, and should be reaped
while the grain can be marked by pressure
from the thumb-nail, as it is rather liable to
shed if over-ripe, a disadvantage which the
hoary is peculiarly free from, as it is tenacious
to the ear. In the dry season this wheat will
afford a beautiful, clean, white straw, fit for
bonnet-making, or any purpose of thatching :
it is firm and tenacious. In wet seasons it is
rather subject to rust, which, under such cir-
cumstances, almost all wheat suffers from.

3. Whiltvrgton Wheat. — The seed was ob-
tained from Mr. Whittington himself, and was
a very fine, pure sample. The grain is large,
full, and plump, rather of a whitish-red cast,
and a little thick-skinned. The seed was
washed, pickled, drained, and limed, then sown
in drills seven inches apart, about three bushels
to the acre. When the seed is large, it is con-

1119

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

sidered prudent to add half a bushel or more to
the acre. I consider this to be a very hardy
wheat, affording much herbage and straw, very
fit for being eaten down by sheep in the spring
when sown early in the fall. The Whittington
is rather a late wheat, ripening a week or ten
days' later than the Jersey Dantzic before de-
scribed, though it was in bloom on the same
day. From the purity of the seed, and the
uniform appearance of the crop, it does not
appear likely to degenerate, nor does it seem
more liable to disease than other wheats. The
straw is brittle, and many ears break off. I*
am of opinion, from what I have witnessed,
that the value of this description of wheal is
much overrated: the millers dislike it, and in
-certain situations it is apt to blight.
' 4. Bellevite Talavera. — This admirable variety
is invaluable where it is adapted to the soil
and climate. The seed being large, a greater
quantity of it should be allowed than usual.
This wheat has succeeded in the north of Scot-
land, and is sufficiently hardy to withstand the
winter in its grassy state, but it is otherwise
more valuable as a spring crop: without doubt
it may be sown as late as the first week in Feb-
ruary in all the milder parts of England, with
a prospect of reaping quite as good an average
crop from it as from any other wheat, but with
a certainty of obtaining more flour than from
most. There is no tendency to degenerate ob-
servable in this wheat, as far as the experience
of five or six years goes ; nor, from its early
habits, is it at all likely to become intermixed
by fecundation from other varieties, though
sown about the same period, as it will, in such
cases, flower a fortnight or three weeks before
them. It is not more liable to disease than or-
dinary white wheats, and afibrds a very fine,
clear, while straw: it is, indeed, one of the
Italian bonnet-making varieties. There is,
however, one disadvantage in it, which is, that

the ear is so heavy that it is apt to break down,
though not break off, when swept by a gale
about the period of ripening; but it has a
countervailing good quality, of ripening the
grain equally well though bent down ; as is the
case with spring wheats, which ripen their
seed well though quite laid, which with winter
wheats is doubtful. Another peculiarity is the
tenacity of the chaff to the ear, more remain-
ing on it after passing through the thrashing-
machine than any other variety I am acquainted
with.

The following sorts I have also grown expe-
rimentally, but, not having raised them in quan-
tities sufficient to warrant a positive opinion,
which probably might only tend to mislead,
they are merely named.

The "golden drop" is one of the best red
wheats, affording great produce in corn and
straw, and a larger quantity of flour than some
white wheats.

"Hickling's prolific red" is a productive va-
riety, but rather coarse. The properties of this
wheat are, straw long, stout at the bottom, and
tapering at the head ; head short, thick, close,
and heavy; kernels four in the row across the
ear, and red in colour, with the chaff white ; in
sample the wheat is short, plump, thin-skinned,
and looks as if it would flour well : colour
dark orange-red.

Brown's "ten-rowed chevalier," or prolific,
is well named, where it suits the soil and cli-
mate: it is, when pure, a very fine variety.

"Gale's Hampshire" is a very enormously
productive sort of bearded wheat. "Essex
red," a very good variety. "The duck's-bill"
wheat is very productive, but shedding greatly,
and not very farinaceous.

In order to present the particular points of
comparison between the four principal varie-
ties above-described, the results are appended
in a tabular form: —

VarMiet

Sou,

Manure.

per Acre.

Time of
Sowing

Harvested.

Produce per Acre.

Produce per
Acre in

1^

r

1

•s

z

a

1

1

1

II

1
1

1

White (
Downy")

Jersey |^
Dantzic S

Whitting-f
ton 1

Bellevue >
Talavera J

Argillaceous
schist, light
and rich.

Ditto.

Do. on a r
red clay <
bottom. (.
Ditto.

7 Kelp ashes, 9 ■>
j" qrs. S

Ditto.

•2hhds. of lime.
6 qrs. lime ashes.
5 qrs. kelp ashes.

Ditto.

2 bushels.

Ditto.
Is bush.

Ditto.

Jan. 29.

Ditto.

Jan. 8.

Feb. 3.

Aug. 16.
Aug. 12.
Aug. 24.
Aug. 17.

busb.
48

43i

33

52

lbs.

4557
4681
7786
5480

lbs.

315
430
483
282

ibi.

62
63
61
61

Ibf.

2402
2161
1454
3485

lb*.
542

606

524

626

lbs.
25

25J

23f

S5

£. i.d.
7 49

5 99

2 7 6

812 9

N. B.— In the estimate of profit, in the last column, the calculation is not made with relation to the respective
values of the wheats as to their productiveness in flour, which it might be, but according to the ordinary market-
able value of good wheat; the straw is valued as intended for manure.

The following is an excellent account of an
experiment on the relative values of several
varieties of wheat by Mr. John Morton, which
1 have extracted from the first volume of the
Journ. of the Eng. Agr. Soc, p. 39. It is from
practical and carefully carried out experiments,
such as these, that we shall be able to arrive
at the proportionate value of different species
and new varieties of wheat, and from which
we may be enabled to select the good and re-
ject the bad kinds.
1120

The profits of farming, whether the land be
pasture or arable, and the tenant be a feeder
of stock or a tiller of the ground, may be in-
creased in two ways. The stock-farmer knows
very well that the return he obtains from his
cattle depends, not only on the kind of food
given to them, and the manner in which it is
supplied, but also on the feeding qualities of
the breed to which they belong; and he in-
creases his chance of profit as much when, on
purchasing from the breeder, he selects with

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

judgment, as when he adopts an improved
mode of feeding. The intelligent farmer of
arable land, again, expects a greater crop, the
more he has been able to improve the texture
of the soil, and the better the nature and state
of the manure which it contains. He expects it,
because he knows that it depends on the nature
•of the food given to the plants, and the manner
in which they are provided with a constant
•supply of it. The crop does not, however, de-
pend only on this : for as two beasts, fed in
exactly the same manner, may not be equally
profitable, owing to a difference between them
regarding the quantity and quality of the meat
they afford, so two different kinds of wheat,
though sown on land precisely similar, and in
equally good condition, may give unequal re-
turns, owing to a difference between them re-
garding the quantity and quality of the flour
they afford. Hence the importance, too often
overlooked by farmers, not only of preparing
the land for the crop in a good and sufficient
manner, but also of selecting that kind of seed
which experience has pointed out as being
most valuable and productive. It was with a
view, not only of ascertaining the relative
value, hardiness, and other properties of seve-
ral of the most commonly planted wheats, but
also of effecting an improvement in the best
•of them, that the following experiment was
commenced on the 1st of November, 1837. To
insure accuracy in the results, it was neces-
sary that the seeds of each variety should be
planted so as to have them all at equal distances.
To effect this, two boards were used, each 6
inches wide, 9 feet long, and i inch thick.
Along the centre of each board was a row of
holes, 3 inches apart and 1 inch in diameter.
A dibble was made to fit into the holes, having

a shoulder at the distance of 2§ inches from
the point.

When the board was placed on the ground,
and the dibble put through each hole in succes-
sion, a series of holes was thus made, 2 inches
deep, and 3 inches apart from centre to centre.

After this had been done through the first
board, the second, which was touching it, and
parallel to it, was served in the same way ; and
then the first was taken up, and placed on the
other side of the second. By proceeding thus,
the whole ground was finished, and then one
grain of wheat was dropped into each hole.
The rows were thus exactly 6 inches apart,
and the grains in the rows were 3 inches from
one another. The regularity with which the
planting was performed was thus mathemati-
cally accurate. The ground planted lies on
the lower edge of the great oolite formation,
and the soil is a stone brash, about 10 inches
in thickness. Crops of potatoes had beea
taken off it for a succession of eight years;
and it had been manured every alternate year
with a compost of equal bulks of stable-dung
and earth, at the rate of about 20 cubic yards
per acre. It was 67 feet in length ; and 3
rows of each variety of wheat were planted,
except the first and last numbers, of which
there were 4 rows. The outer row of each of
these, however, was not taken into account,
because their roots had a much greater extent
of ground for their growth than the others,
whose roots touched one another all round.
The end plants of each row were also rejected
for the same reason. Sixty-six feet in length
of ground were thus taken up, and three rows
of each variety occupied in width 1^ foot: the
ground occupied by each variety was thus 99
square feet, the 440th part of an acre.

No.

Lammas.
Goldandrop.
Ten-rowed

prolific.
Hooter's.

Thickaet
Suffolk.

BickiDK't
prolific

Silver drop.

Scotch

white.
T»lavera.
Smilbera'

Hereford

white.
A red wheat.
Egyptian

cooe.
Red itraw.

Lajnnaaa.
Blue CODC.

Hareby, Lin-

rolmhire.
Leek, Lin.

colnshire.
Lyford,

Berk*.
Old Bucking-

intcham,

Norfolk,
VVallingford,

Berks.
Lyford,

Berks.

Taunton.
Cirencester.
(Smith).

of99s<i.
Feet.

05 2469
501 3542
401
519
672

6

6
S 1-2

4 1-4

4 1-2

4 1-2

5 M

4 1-2

63-4

5 1-2

5 1-4

6 1-2
2 1-4

7 1-2
6

7
10

«

4 1-9
4 12
10 1-2

10 1-4
6

6 1-4
5 1-4

9 1-2
12
3 M

4 12
6
10
II

Weight of

Wheat per

Acre.

T. cwt.qr. lb.

1 3 i 8

16*8
0 16 2 16

0 16 2 16

2 110

1 19 3 3

1 3 1 20

1 11 1 20

14 2 6
1 0 2 14

1 17 1 8

2 5 1 12
0 13 0 34

0 16 2 16

1 3 1 28
1 19 1 4

12

27
27
72 1-4

69 1-2
41 1-2
56

65 1-2

82 1-2

23

27

41 12

68 3-4

13

ft. in.
6 8

6 6

5 6

5 6

6 8

•58

M

r

16 1-2

15 1-4
12 3 4
12 3-4
19 12

16 12

15 M
18 1-2

16 1-2
14 1-2

8 1-4

14 1-2

9 3-4
12 1-2

16

Weight of

Straw per

Acre.

T. cwtq
3 5 i

S 0 0 3

2 10 0 10

2 12 0 10

3 6 2 14

3 6 224

3 0 0 0

3 12 2 12

3 5 224

2 16 3 14

3 8 3 20

4 7 0 2

1 II 2 2

2 16 3 4

1 16 1 16

2 9 0 0

16

5 .

7 i-e

63^

6 1-2
6

5 1-2

6 1-2

6

9

3

5
6

43-4
17

Weight of

Roots per

Acre.

T. cwtqr. Ih
0]19 ft 6

1 0 2 14

0 19 2 6

0 19 2 6

1 9 I 24

16 2 8

1 I 2 12

13 2 8

1 1 2 IS

1 1 2 12

0 19 2 0

1 16 2 6

0 II 3 4

0 19 2 6

13 2 8

0 18 2 10

18

A'ofc— Specimens, in the straw, of each of the yarietiea mentioned in the Table, were laid before the Society.

Athough the tabular form in which this ex-
•periment is detailed explains itself by the head-
ings of each column, yet it is considered ne-
xessary to give a somewhat fuller account of
141

it. The seed from which the first ten varieties
were raised was carefully selected from speci-
mens of each obtained in the ear. The others
were from samples, and here, also, the greatest
5 B 2 1121

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

care was taken that the seed from which each
was raised should be the best and plumpest
that could be obtained.

The first five columns need no explanation
beyond what is given at the head of each ; the
sixth, shows the number of grains lost from
casualties. If the frost had been the only agent
in the destruction of so many of the seeds, this
column might have been considered as a very
accurate index of the relative hardiness of each
variety. This, however, is not the case ; for
the havoc which the birds made must also be
taken into account. It was thought at the time
that more injury was sustained from the latter
cause by those varieties planted on the 21st
than by any of the others ; but this does not
appear to have been the case, for, if the great
loss sustained by these had been wholly owing
to the havoc committed by the birds, it is evi-
dent that the varieties marked Nos. 12 and 15
would not hare been so slightly injured, while
Nos. 11, 13, 14, and 16 suffered so severely.
The figures in this column may, therefore, be
said to indicate with tolerable accuracy the re-
lative ability of each variety to withstand the
effects of a severe and changeable winter, such
as that during which the experiment was made.
The number of plants of each variety which
came to perfection is placed opposite the name
of each in the seventh column. This was as-
certained by pulling each as they respectively
ripened, and counting the plants of each before
proceeding to the others. In this way, by a
simple subtraction, the numbers contained in
the sixth column also were ascertained.

When all the plants of any variety had been
pulled, the number of ears also belonging to
them was counted, and the results are placed
in the eighth column.

By dividing these by 99, the number of square
feet which each variety occupied, we obtain the
number of ears in each square foot; and this
is placed opposite the name of each wheat, in
the ninth column.

The average number of ears to each root,
ascertained by dividing the number of ears by
that of the roots, is placed in the tenth column.
This column shows the degree in which each
species possesses the important property of
spreading and shooting out stems, or, as it is
technically termed, of tillering; and it will be
seen that they vary in this respect greatly.

After having been pulled and dried, the wheat
was carefully rubbed out ; and, after the light
and imperfect grains had been separated, the
weight of the remainder was taken, and placed
opposite each sort, in the eleventh column.

The thirteenth column contains the number
of bushels per acre raised from each variety.
As the quantity produced was so small, there
was some difficulty in obtaining the particulars
which this column contains.

The mode adopted was this : The average
weight of several of the varieties was ascer-
tained, by weighing 8 pints of each, to be at
the rate of 64 lbs. per bushel, some being rather
more and others less. The number of bushels
were then obtained from the weight of wheat
per acre, by dividing it by 64.

The weight of straw, which is placed in the
fifteenth and sixteenth columns, was ascertain-
1122

ed after the roots had been cut oif, and after it
had remained out sufficiently long to dry it
perfectly.

After the earth had been removed from the
roots, which had been cut off" with about two
inches of the stem, they were weighed, and the
result placed in the seventeenth and eighteenth
columns. The object of this was to ascertain
the amount of vegetable matter left in the soil
after the wheat crop has been removed, and
the result greatly exceeds any conception of it
that had been previously entertained.

The inferences which, it is presumed, may
be drawn from the above details, are the fol-
lowing:—

1st. With regard to the hardiness of the va-
rieties, which, as we have already said, may^
to a certain extent, be deduced from the parti-
culars contained in the sixth column, that they
may be placed in three classes. Nos. 5, 6, 8,
12, 15, 4, and 2 being the hardiest; Nos. 13, 14,
16, and 10 being the most delicate; and Nos.
1, 3, 7, 9, and 11 occupying an average station.

2d. With regard to the property of tillering,
of which we have already spoken, that Nos. 12,
14, 16, and 1 possess it in the greatest degree;
that Nos. 3, 13, 4, 5, 6, 15, 8, and 2 possess it
in the least; and that Nos. 7, 9, 10, and 1 1 hold
a medium rank.

3d. That with respect to the relative value
of each variety mentioned in the table. No. 12
is undoubtedly the best of any, in productive-
ness, and in being sufficiently hardy; that No^
13 is as undoubtedly the worst of any, as will
be seen by a reference to any of the columns ;
and that the others vary greatly, some possess-
ing nearly three times the productiveness of
others.

These 16 different sorts of wheat, with the
exception of Nos. 13, 15, 16, which are beard-
ed, are merely varieties of one species of the
genus Triticum; and the circumstance of dif-
ferences existing among them, some possess-
ing three times the value of others, shows that
any variety is capable of improvement. This,,
indeed, is shown by many other plants besides
the wheat. The originals of the potato, the
carrot, and the turnip, were comparatively in-
significant and useless in their application as
food, and it was only by careful and repeated
cultivation that they were at length brought to
their present condition, and made to hold such
an important rank among the many nutritive
plants cultivated for the food of man and beast*
It is supposed, then, and where it has been tried
experience shows it to be a fact, that, by first as-
certaining the best of many varieties of wheat,
and planting the finest and plumpest seeds se-
lected from the best sample that could be obtain-
ed of it, the last of a succession of crops, the first
of which was raised in this manner, and all the
others from seeds selected out of the produce
of the preceding harvests, would, at length,
afllbrd a wheat of a more productive and valu-
able kind than has hitherto been used by the
farmer. The experiment here detailed is, then,
merely the first step in the process ; it merely
points out the best of the varieties which were
tried. The improvement of these by repeated
cultivation still remains to be effected.

During the growth of the wheat, a journal

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

was kept, an extract from which is given here,
as it refers to an insect which was observed
after the blossoming of the plants, and to which
the destruction of many of the seeds was owing.
Observations of this kind might be easily and
generally made, and they would be useful as
information regarding the nature and habits
of the insects which attack wheat; and answers
to the how, when, and where, on the sub-
ject, which would thus be obtained, afford the
only guide to the invention of means for their
destruction.

1838. Etctract Jrom Journal.

July Sth.—All the wheat is in blossom, except
Nos. 13 and 15.
14th.— Very rainy and windy weather.
Whether will this be found to
injure or improve the quality of
the grain 1
16th.— Since the rain of the 14th, an orange-
coloured substance, like rust, has
been observed in the seed-vessels
of some of the ears, as if the rain
had got in and rotted the pollen.
A very small fly has been ob-
served about the ears in the even-
ing. Many of the ears are filling
rapidly ; some are already full,
and others are only in blossom.
19th. — In the ears of wheat, which were
before-mentioned as having abor-
tive grains, owing, as was thought,
to the pollen having been rotted
by the rain, I now find small
orange-coloured grubs, about the
tenth of an inch long, doubtless
the offspring of the small fly ob-
served about a week ago.
Aug.iih. — All these grubs have disappeared.
27th. — Nos. 4, 10, and 11, are ripe and

pulled.
28th. — Nos. 3, 5, and 6, are ripe and pulled.
29th. — Nos. 7, 8, and 9, are ripe and pulled.
30th. — Nos. 2, 12, and 16, are ripe and
pulled.
Sept. 1st. — Nos. 1 and 14 are ripe and pulled.
2d. — Nos. 13 and 15 are ripe and pulled.
The account of this experiment is thus
finished, and there now remains but to state
what will have already occurred to the reader,
especially if he be a practical man, that it is
not one nor many experiments, if conducted on
a small scale, which will accurately determine
the point this tends to ascertain.

Soil. — Although wheat can be cultivated on
any soil, yet heavy loams, strong clays, and
marls are considered to be the best wheat soils,
and the larger the proportion of alumin in the
soil, the heavier will be the grain, and the more
productive the crop.

Sandy soils (says a modern writer) are un-
favourable to the growth of wheat, for they are
deficient in that degree of firmness which is
necessary to support the roots of the plants. It
is therefore a crop which should never be
sc-vn on such land ; or if grown, it should only
be upon one ploughing of a clover ley, and
then afterwards folded by a flock of sheep.
(Brit. Hush. vol. ii. p. 140.)
Very fine descriptions of wheat are grown

on gravelly, chalky, and flinty soils, whicli
have a dry subsoil.

In England the cultivation of wheat varies
in different districts, and according to the na-
ture of the soil. Upon heavy clays, the course
of cropping is commonly a twelvemonth's fal-
low, with from four to six ploughings, &c., and
a dressing of manure or lime, or both. On
this description of land, wheat also very com-
monly follows beans, which have been care-
fully cleaned ; and, thirdly, is sown extensively
upon clover-leys. On lighter soils, a crop of
turnips or rape sown in May, and fed off by
sheep early in the autumn, is frequently sub-
stituted with advantage instead of a year's
naked fallow. And, again, a practice, but
which I strongly condemn, is still followed in
several parts of England, of sowing dressed or
folded rye-grass leys with wheat. (See Rota-
tion OF Chops.) On soils adapted for turnips,
and where the drill and horse-hoe are employ-
ed, a course I much approve from the ley's
return, from a small expenditure, consists of:
1st, turnips; 2d, oats or barley; 3d, clover;
4th, beans or peas ; and then, 5th, wheat.

The quantity of seed varies considerably;
and, although I have witnessed large crops
grown from one bushel of seed drilled per acre,
the rows at foot intervals, yet the general
practice may be taken at from two to three
bushels per acre. The time of sowing is from
September to March; the winter varieties
should be in the ground by the end of Novem-
ber, and the spring varieties as early as the
season will admit. For the diseases of wheat,
see Flt ix Wheat, Mildew, and Rust. And
I may observe that, although subject to several
diseases, yet upon the whole it is the hardiest
of the cereal grasses, and flourishes under a
greater variety of seasons and climate.

Sowing. — Wheat is either sown broadcast, or
by the drill or dibble. Drilling is the most
preferable mode. When it is sown in drills,
the usual distance between the rows is from
9 to 12 inches; but it is conceived that the
larger intervals are the better, and that they
may in most cases be even more than 12
inches. The best period of sowing, it has been
said, is from about the middle to the end of
September. The early part of October, how-
ever, is well suited to the sowing of wheat, and
it may be continued till the middle of No-
vember.

The proportion of seed that is necessary
must depend upon and be regulated by a va-
riety of different circumstances, but in general
from two to three bushels, according to the
state of the soil, the nature of the climate, and
the period in which it is put into the ground,
may be the most suitable proportion for soils
j of a medium state of fertility, under the broad-
cast method of husbandry ; but where the drill
j or dibble system of culture is practised, a con-
I siderably less quantity may be sufl5cient for
! the purpose. See Seed.

} In the case of summer-fallow the quantity
I of seed need not exceed two bushels to the
j acre. When the sowing takes place in spring-,
i the quantity may be extended to three bushels,
i rather less than more.

I The cultivation of wheat is very rapid by

1123

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

either of the following methods : 1. By select-
ing the grains of superior ears and dibbling
them in a seedling bed, 4 inches apart every
way. 2. By dividing and transplanting the
roots.

The same weight of Rostock and Dantzic
flour from wheat grown in the Baltic, made
only 23 pounds of bread, very light and good,
but not so white by many shades or well-fla-
voured as that made from the two first varie-
ties of home growth.

These experiments having been made in my
own presence, may be relied on. The dough
was worked in the French mode, not pushed
down, turned and worked with closed hands,
but drawn up into long strings, and repeatedly
lifted, in order to expose it to the action of the
air as much as possible, which tends greatly to
improve the bread, by rendering it more light
and easy of digestion. See Brbad.

The superiority of the hoary variety of wheat,
which furnished three pounds more bread on a
baking of 18 pounds of flour, or an increase of
one-sixth over the Dantzic and Rostock, which
was also a very fine sample of flour, is thus
clearly established. (Le Couteur on Wheat,
p. 44.)

Securing the crop. — ^I have already briefly ad-
verted under the head Reaping to the advan-
tages to be derived from harvesting the grain
before it is fully ripe, but have reserved to this
place some further experiments and details
corroborative of the benefit and profit resulting
therefrom, by Mr. John Hannam of North
Deighton, near Wetherby. This gentleman
remarks, —

"Having selected a field of 'old square-headed
red wheat' for the experiments, on August 4,
1840, 1 cut a sheaf. At this time it was quite
green, i. e. both straw and ears were in full
vigour, and full of sap. Though the grain ap-
peared perfectly formed, the chaff" still adhered
so firmly to it that it was -scarcely possible to
separate them by friction in the hands. When
separated it was large and plump, but so full
of milk, that the slightest pressure reduced the
whole to a juicy consistency or pulp.

"This sheaf stood in the field for a fort-
night, when it was housed. On the same day,
August 18, 1 cut another. The wheat was, of
course, yet ' green,' speaking positively, or
*not ripe,' if we speak negatively, — being what
farmers commonly term 'raw.' This is, the
straw, though appearing at a distance green,
when examined closely, was of a hue fast ap-
proximating to yellow ; while, for about a foot
"upwards from the ground, it was quite yellow.
The ears, too, were more open, the chaff" tinged
with various shades of yellow and green, and
the grain itself, when separated, soft and pulpy,
but not near so full of fluid as before. The
judgment of the farmer will, however, best tell
him the conditions of the wheat, both at this
and at the preceding cutting, when I say, that
in another fortnight the whole field was ripe.
At the end of this fortnight, (September 1,) I
housed the sheaf cut on August 18, and which
had remained exposed to the weather in the
interval, and cut a third. This I have said
was * ripe ;' but by the term I don't mean that
degree of ripeness when the straw breaks, the
1124

ears curl, and the grain shakes out ; but that
condition in which it is customary to commence
reaping it, — when the straw, from the roots to
the ear, is uniformly yellow, and has lost all
symptoms of vivid health.

" On the 14th of September the third sheaf
was taken from the field and carefully pre-
served, along with the other two, till the 1st of
November, when, out of each sheaf, I selected
iOO ears, and put each parcel into a separate
bag. The straw from each of these parcels of
ears was preserved carefully.

"The ears in one bag (No. 1, or that cut
very green) were now thrashed, the chaflT care-
fully separated, arid the gross weight of the
corn yielded ascertained by an extremely ac-
curate balance. The weights of a fixed mea-
sure of a certain number of grains were next
found. To avoid error, this was repeated several
times.

" No. 2 (cut raw) and No. 3 (ripe) under-
went the same process : for the results of
which see the following table : —

Comparative Weights of Wheat reaped at different
periods.

Time of reaping, Md Condition.

Gran
Produce.

Equal
M«Lure.

Numter of
Grain*.

No. 1. August 4 (very

green - . .

No. 2. August 19 (raw)

No. 3. Sept. 1 (ripe) -

576
736
650

568
580
570

m

"As this table is merely comparative (the
weights used being in parts, and decimal parts
of the same, for the convenience of minute ex-
periments), it may not be unnecessary to give
the following table of the absolute weights of
each sample in oilnces, drachms, scruples, and
grains Troy : —

Gross Produce.

Equal Meawre*.

Equal Number
of Grains.

No. 1.
No. 2.
No. 3.

i 3 9 gr-

4 0 0 0

5 0 2 13
4 4 0 6

§ 5 9 gr.

3 7 1 13

4 0 0 13
3 7 2 0

i3 9gr.

0 1 0 51

0 1 om

0 1 0 151

" The straw belonging to each sample was
now weighed (all the parcels having previ-
ously been made of the same length, commenc-
ing from the bottom of the ear), when the fol-
lowing was the result: —

Comparative Weights of 100 Straws of an equal
length, belonging to the samples Nos. 1, 2, 3.

No. 1. (green)
No. 2. (raw)
No. 3. (ripe)

550.
475.
450.

"The next thing to be ascertained was the
quality of the produce, or the comparative
worth of each description. Believing in the
old saying, that,

'The proper value of a thing
Is just as much as it will bring,'

on the 5th of November I attended market, and
asked the opinion of an extensive corn-grower
as to the values of the respective samples, ac-
cording to the prices of the day. His opinion

was,

No. 1. - - - 61s. per quarter.

No. 9. . - - 64s. do.

No. 3. ... 62}. do.

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

Putting the same samples into the hands of an
extensive corn-factor and miller, his opinion of
its value, and what he would give to buy, was for

No. 1.

- 61s. per quarter.

No. 2.

- - 63s. do.

No. 3.

- 61s. do.

Adding these values respectively together, and
taking the mean price of each (by which we
shall obtain as near an approximation to the
truth as possible), we have

No. 1. = 61s. Od. per quarter.

No. 2. = 63s. 6d. do.

No. 3. = 61s. &d. do.

" The loss or gain on these samples, by reap-
ing at different periods, will be best seen from
the following

Table of the relative Weights and Value of Wheat
cut August 4, August 18, and September 1 ; that
cut last {or ripe) being taken as the standard,
and unity assumed as its value in each column.

1

Weijbt
Produce.

Weight

of an

equal Na

o^Oraioa.

Value.

Seraw.

No. 3. Sept. 1.

(ripe) - -
No. 2. August.

(raw)
No. 1. August.

(green)

1

Hi

1

Hi

1

itV

" According to this table, it is evident that
the wheat reaped a fortnight before it was ripe
has the advantage of the ripe in every point :

1st. In weight of gross produce ^^^^, or 13}
per cent.

2d. In weight of equal measures 3^, or near-
ly i per cent.

3d. In weight of equal number of grains ^,
or nearly 21 per cent.

4th. In quality and value j^j, or above 3J
per cent.

5th. In weight of straw -Jj, or above 5 per
cent.

On the other hand, that reaped a month before
it was ripe, has an advantage of 22 per cent,
in weight of straw, compared with the ripe,
but in every other point has -the disadvantage :
thus,

1st. In weight of gross produce ^W, or 1 If'j
per cent.

2d. In weight of equal measures ^|j, or
rather more than ^ per cent.

3d. In weight of equal number of grains ^,
or better than 12^ per cent.

4th. In quality and value yi^j, rather more
than j per cent.

" It may be here necessary to mention that
the sample No. 3 (ripe) was very bold, but
rather coarse, feeling rough in the hand ; while
No. 2 (raw) was quite as bold, but very fine and
thin in the skin. No. 3 (green) was also a good
and clear sample, but much smaller than either
of the others. This will account for the appa-
rently anomalous fact of there being scarcely
any difference in the marketable value of the
green compared with the ripe, while there is
a difference of 13 per cent, in favour of the
ripe in weight of equal numbers of grains ; for
the sample being dry and good, the buyer lost
little by this inferiority in the size of grain, as
the weights of equal measures were ihe same,

— the difference of -^\j scarcely making ^ ib
in the sack.

" Before venturing to draw any deductions
from these experiments, let us put their results
in a still more practical point of view.

" Suppose we have 3 acres of wheat, 1 of
which, reaped when ripe, yields us 30 bushels
of corn and 1 ton of straw ; what will be the
gross value of the same] And what the value
of the other 2 acres, according to the data fur-
nished by the foregoing experiments, supposing
each acre to be exactly equal in crop, and the
one reaped a fortnight and the other a month
before the ripe.

" Before answering this, we must fix a value
for the straw — say 2^/. per stone, which, taking
into account that used by the farmer himself^
and many cannot sell any — is as much as it is
actually worth. Whence we have, for the acre
of ripe,

L. I. d.

30 bushels of wheat, at 61s. %d. per quarter

(the price of sample No. 3.) - - - 11 10 7^
I ton of straw, at 2d. per stone - - - 1 6 8

Gross produce

jEia 17 3t

" Let us next take the acre cut * raw.' Before
we can come to its value, we must first resolve
the question. How much, in measure, will the
acre produce us, supposing it to produce 30
bushels, if cut when ripe !

" In solving this, as we must assume each
crop to be exactly equal if cut at the same
time, it is obvious that, if we would determine
the difference caused by reaping at an earlier
period, we cannot found our calculations upon
the gross weight of the two samples (Nos. 2 and
3) ; for, although there is no doubt but that this
weight was materially affected by the condition
of the wheat at the time of reaping (indeed,
the difference in the weight of equal numbers
of grains proves the fact), it is possible that,
in selecting the 100 ears from the sheaf, I
might take out of one sheaf ears with a greater
number of grains in them than those taken out
of the other. This, then, would affect the total
or gross weight ; and, therefore, it cannot be
taken into account in the present case, where
both acres are supposed to have an equal number
of grains.

" To the weights of equal measures, and of
equal numbers of grains, both the result of
many careful trials, this objection cannot be
urged ; and they are amply sufficient to enable
us to tell the produce of an acre of 'raw,' when
that of the * ripe' is 30 bushels. Thus, in the
first table, we have,

Weiifht of equal Weight of equal

Meaaurea. Number* of Onina.
580 23-25

570 22-75

No. 2. (raw) -
No. 3. (ripe) -

Now put w^this measure, and n=the num-
ber of grains weighed of each sort ; then
22-75
n : 22-75 : : 1 : =the weight of one grain

of No. 3., whence

^ : 1 : : 570 : |^=the number of grains
of No. 3 in the measure m.

Again, similarly, n : 23-25 : : 1 :
of one grain of No. 2, and

23 25

, weight

1125

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

-^ : 1 : : 580 : 33:^=^^^ number of grains

of No. 2 in the measure m.

- , 570n 22-75TO ^, . ,

And ^*-J-22^^^ 570^^^ space occupied
by one grain of No. 3 (ripe) ; and

580n 23 25m ,, . , .

'""^23^^^'580w ^^ space occupied by one
grain of No. 2 (raw).

Now, as there are the same number of grains
upon each acre, and as the acre of ripe yields
30 bushels, we have

^r^ : ?g^ : : 30 bushels : 30-1307313 bush-

570n ooOto

.els, the "produce of one acre cut a fortnight be-
fore the ripe.

Again, by reference to the second table, we
have 1 and l^^i^ as the relative weights of the
straw No. 3 and No. 2; whence, as No. 3 is
supposed to produce one ton,

1 : ly»8 : : 160 stones : 168| stones, the weight
upon the acre reaped when raw. And for the
whole produce of the acre, we have

L. I. d.

301307 bushels of wheat, at 63s. 6d. per
quarter 11 19 IJ

168 stones of straw, at 2d. per stone - - 1 8 IJ

£13 7 3i

Adopting the same course for the produce of
the acre cut first, i. e. a month before the ripe,
and which corresponds with sample No. 1, we
get^^

=the number of grains of the green in

568n

ia-75
the measure m

, 19-757n .,

whence ...^ =the space oc-

568n

cupied by one grain of green.

But (vide iabove),-r=r-^=space by one grain

r*u • u 22 75TO 19 75 »^ , , ,

of the ripe ; whence ^„^ ; r^^— : : 30 bushels :
^ ' 570n 568to

26-1356 bushels, the produce of the acre cut a

montk before the ripe. And {vide "Table of

relative weights," &c.

1 : 1 g : : 160 stones : 195f stones of straw, the

produce of the same ; whence we have

261356 bushels of wheat, at 61s. per quarter
195 5-9 stones of straw, at 3d. per stone

L.
r 9

1

1.

19
12

d.
3i

£11

11

m

The total products of the three acres stand
thus : —

L. t. d.

No. 3. Reaped when ripe - - - 12 17 3^

No. 2. Reaped a fortnight earlier - 13 7 3|

No. I. Reaped a month before the ripe 11 11 10^-

Showing a loss of 1/. 5s. 5c?., or about 10 per
cent., by cutting very green ; and a gain of
lOs. per acre, or nearly 4 per cent., by reaping
in a raw state, or a fortnight before it was ripe.
"From the above details, it would appear
that it is the farmer's interest to cut his
wheat before it becomes thoroughly ripe.
Many, no doubt, will be disposed to doubt de-
ductions of such importance, drawn from such
limited experiments. This objection the writer
anticipates, because it is a natural one, which
he felt himself, when he considered the most
important conclusions which resulted; when,
however, he retraced, step by step, his investiga-
tions, vxithout any variation in that result, he could
1126

no longer refuse to believe it true till he proved
it untrue. He is aware that there are other
points of consideration in this subject — that
there are peculiarities in the nature of land, of
seed, or of season, and that there is, as in all
man's investigations, a. possibility of error; any
of which circumstances might materially affect
the result of experiments upon so limited a
scale as the present one ; and for this reason
he will, if all be well, give the subject a trial in
the ensuing harvest, on a much more com-
prehensive scale. That the results of these
experiments will be corroborative in the main
points, he has no doubt, and for this cause he
feels no hesitation in laying the preceding
'details' before the agricultural world; more-
over, as he has in no case given a deduction
without the grounds upon which it rested, the
degree of 'acceptation' which the reader may
give it rests with himself. The most skeptical,
he, however, flatters himself, will think it
* worthy of being tested, if of nothing more.

" In testing, however, the conclusion which
the foregoing experiments warrant, there are
some other advantages which strengthen that
conclusion, which must not be forgotten. That
they have not been considered in the preceding
pages, is not because they are of no import,
but, on the contrary, because they are of such
consequence, that the writer could not assign
them an adequate momentary value. And had he
attempted to do so, he would have at once
made the details of his experiments valueless
by mixing the real results of practice with the
imaginary ones of opinion. Before the sub-
ject, however, can be thoroughly sifted, they
must be considered. The circumstances are
these : — independently of the 4 per cent, gain
(according to the foregoing experiments) by
reaping our wheat a fortnight before it is ripe,
we have,

" 1st, Straw of a better quality.

"2d, A better chance of securing the crop;
and,

" 3d, A saving in securing it.

"1st, 'Straw of a better quality.' This is
easily demonstrated, both for the purpose of
food and manure.

"As an article of food, the value of any
vegetable depends upon the gross quantity, or
upon the combination of certain substances
termed soluble, from their entering into union
with water. This rule applies particularly to
the grasses which are used for the purpose of
feeding stock. The substances generally found
in these grasses are saccharine matter or
sugar, mucilage or starch, and gluten or albu-
men, and bitter extract and saline matters. Of
these the sugar is, no doubt, the most, and the
extractive matter the least, nutritive ; the
latter having been found, by experiment, to
come away in the dung of the animal con^
suming it, while the other matters were ab-
sorbed by the body.

"Now, wheat is a species of grass, and the
value of the straw, as an article of food, depends
upon the quantity of nutritive matter contained
in it. 'This nutritive matter must be very
small in straw, as now generally used,' the
practical farmer will say, 'for straw per se is
but poor food, and scarcely able to sustain life.'

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

This is true ; * from 400 grains of dry barley- 1
straw,' says Sir H. Davy, *I obtained 8 grains
of matter soluble in water, which had a brown
colour, and tasted like mucilage. From 400
grains of wheaten straw I obtained 5 grains of
a similar substance.' With this paucity of nu-
tritive matter in the straw before us, how can
we account for the fact that, in the sap of
wheat, the straw, and in all succulent plants,
there is naturally a great proportion of mucilagi-
nous and saccharine matter? The answer is this :
in all grasses and succulent plants, the great-
est proportion of this is present before the
flower is dead ripe. So in wheat, when we
allow the straw to remain till thoroughly ripe,
a portion of the sugar is converted, by the
action of light, heat, &c., into mucilage, and a
great proportion of the nutritive powers of the
grass absorbed by the atmosphere, or lost in
some manner; for, as Mr. Sinclair observes in
his Report of Experiments of Grasses, 'there is a
great difference between straws or leaves that
have been dried after they were cut in a suc-
culent state, and those which are dried (if I
may so express it) by Nature while growing.
The former retain all their nutritive powers, but
the latter, if completely dry, very little, if any.*

"As a manure, too, the straw cut 'raw' is
equally superior to the ripe ; for, as it is an
agricultural axiom, that the better the food of
an animal is, the better the manure from it;
the manure from a stock consuming this
straw, containing a fair proportion of nutritive
matter, must be more valuable than that from
stock consuming the ripe with scarcely any
in it.

" But a great proportion of the farmer's straw
is converted into manure without undergoing
the process of mastication and digestion. For
this purpose the unripe straw is equally pre-
ferable, as all unripe vegetables are manures urith-
out preparation ; the soluble and nutritive ex-
tracts which they contain, being the principal
agents in forming vegetable manure ; as they
not only combine to render the process of de-
■composition the more rapid, by breaking down
tiie woody fibres, &c., in the manure heap, but
are aiso, in their pure and separate stales, sti-
mulants to vegetation.

" It may be urged, that the increased value
of the straw is more in favour of that cut very
green (No. 1) than that cut a fortnight later
(No. 2). This is true ; but to produce this in-
■crease of value, if we cut our wheat so early as
No. 1, we have a desiccation of the grain to such
an extent as to diminish the measured produce above
12 per cent.,- while, by reaping with No. 2, we
are, so far from injuring either sample or mea-
sure, actually improving both, and at the same
time gaining above 5 per cent, in the weight,
and at least as much in the quality of the
straw. For the increase of weight in the latter
is not produced by a greater produce, but by
the presence of a greater portion of those solu-
ble substances which are alike necessary to
animal and vegetable life — are alike the nutri-
tive part of food and the quickening principle
©f manure.

"2d, We come now to the second advantage,
the ' better chance of securing the crop.'

" This is self-evident. We gain a fortnight

at the commencement of harvest. If the
weather be good, we can secure a great portioa
of our wheat before we should scarcely have
begun upon the old system. If not, we can
wait ; so, under any circumstances, our chances
of securing the grain must be greater. More-
over, if we take a retrospect of the harvests for
a number of years, we shall find that nearly all
the early harvests have been what we term
* good' ones, t. e. good as regards weather and
the condition in which the grain was secured.
When the peculiarities of our climate, its ge-
neral fickleness, and its still greater liability to
change as the autumn advances, are consider-
ed, this will require no explanation.

" If we look, too, at the later harvests, we
shall, I venture to say, find, that in nine cases
out of ten, the grain which was first cut was
secured in the best condition. As an example
of this, the crop of 1839 will suffice. The
crops were late, the beginning of reaping the
same, and the result was, that in the North of
England /u// 75 per cent, of the whole wheat crop
ivas damaged. And full 75 per cent, of that
which was uninjured, I will also venture to say,
was that which was cut the first. In Yorkshire
this was especially seen ; for the earliest wheat
was, with the greatest difficnlty, secured. In
this village (North Deighton) not a sheaf was
in stack till the day before, and on some
farms, the very day on which the rainy weather
set in.

" The frequent recurrence of such years as
this, will teach the value of even a fortnight,
better than any thing that can be said here.
And that they will recur is beyond a doubt.
What has happened once may happen again,
but what has frequently happened (as this sort
of harvest has), with the same causes in opera-
tion, we are warranted in saying vrill happea
again, and often.

" 3d, The saving in securing the crop is a dou-
ble one. In the first place, there is less waste
in moving or reaping, and no danger of 'shak-
ing' or ' necking' in strong winds. In the
second place, there is an absolute economy in
the expense of reaping the crop, which may be
thus illustrated.

" The busy period of harvest with the farmer
generally extends over four or five weeks. In
this month a certain portion of his work is
done by his own hands, i. e. by the regular la-
bourers and servants of the farm ; therefore, by
beginning a fortnight sooner, and extending the
season of harvest over six weeks instead of
four, it is evident that these regular servants
would cut a much greater proportion of his
crop — in fact, one-half more. By this he is ren-
dered less dependent on those extraneous 'helps*
or 'takers' who, in the seasons of hurry and
anxiety, fix their own terms.

"To assign a value for these advantages is,
as has been said before, for the farmer himself;
and it will not be an insignificant one. For if
beginning harvest a fortnight earlier enables
him to save a crop from spoiling once in a life-
time,— if the improved quality of his straw as
food for his stock allows him to plough out an
acre more, or to pasture another acre of clover
with feeding-stock, instead of mowing it for his
lean stock, every grain saved, every extra bushel

' 1127

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

of corn -produced, and every extra head of stock fed,
is a benefit to the whole community as well as
to himself, — is so much added to the gross
produce and wealth of the country : there be-
ing, in fact, an increased return without an in-
creased outlay.'* (Quart. Journ. of J:gr. vol. xii.
p. 24.).

In a recent obliging communication, with
reference to this important subject, made to
me (March 1842), by Mr. John Hannam, he
observes in reference to the experiments above
detailed, " At the time I wrote you last I stated
that the bulk of the wheat reaped by me during
the present harvest was unthrashed. I could
therefore only give you an idea of the quality
of the ratv and the ripe by public opinion from
a sample sheaf. Since then the various cut-
tings (for I made several) have been thrashed
and ground. The result of which was, 3^
bushels of the ripe gave 10 st. 11 lbs. of good
flour, 1 St. 9 lbs. of seconds (technically termed
* sharps'), and 2 st. 5 lbs. of bran : 3^ bushels of
raw gave 12 st. 6 lbs. of flour, 12 lbs. of sharps,
and 2 st. 1 lb. of bran. From which it appears
that the raw cut wheat gave 6^ lbs. of flour to
the bushel more than the ripe gave, while the
latter gave 3\ lbs. more sharps and 1^ lb. more
bran than the former per bushel.

"Your question as to the effect of early reap-
ing upon the vegetative powers of the seed I
have not answered, because I can give no an-
swer but what depends more upon opinion than
fact. I have never seen a practical trial made
of wheat, as seed, in the various conditions
necessary to warrant a final and definite con-
clusion. An American writer, commenting
upon my experiments, while he coincides with
my conclusions as incontrovertible, says that
it is * equally indisputable' that the ripe wheat is
preferable for seed. For all this, I am not dis-
posed to assent blindly to any such doctrine,
because I have seen early cut wheat used with
perfect success as seed many times."

The editor of the Cultivator, in noticing these
facts, remarks: — "A farmer friend of ours,
growing wheat extensively, found last season
that one of his fields of wheat, then in a very
raw or green state, was badly struck with rust.
He determined to cut it at once, and did so,
amid the laugh or pity of his neighbours, who
thought him little better than crazy. The ad-
joining fields suffered little from rust, and stood
till fully ripe ; yet, at thrashing, the wheat first
cut gave the finest wheat and the best yield."
Mr. Hannam mentions a similar instance, in
■which it was remarked of a farmer who was
cutting his wheat earnestly, that he " had cut
grass, and stacked muck;" when thrashed it
yielded four bushels per acre more than it had
been estimated at, and was sold for the highest
price in the market. In this country, the same
reason, arising from bad weather or a late
harvest, does not exist for early cutting, as
in England; but there are others which ren-
der the subject of little less interest here than
there ; and the agricultural public of both coun-
tries are certainly much indebted to Mr. Han-
nam for the skill and perseverance with which
he has pursued these investigations in all their
parts.

The editor of the Cultivator proceeds to no-
1128

tice the experiments reported by Mr. Hannam,..
and in so doing exhibits the results in a man-
ner calculated to be more striking than the
statements recently presented in detail. It
appears, says the editor, that J. Hannam, Esq.,
a farmer of Yorkshire, England, made an ex-
periment in cutting wheat by reaping at five
different times from the same crop, with the
following results as to the time of cutting and
value of the produce of an acre, which he sets
down at 28 bushels :

No. 1 was cut a month before fully ripe.

No. 2 was cut 3 weeks before fully ripe.

No. 3 was cut 2 weeks before fully ripe.

No. 4 was cut 2 days before fully ripe.

No. 5 was cut when ripe.

Taking 100 lbs. of grain, he found it to yield:
flour as follows : —

No.

Flour.

Seconds.

Bran.

J

75 lbs.

7 lbs.

17 lbs.

2

76

7

16

3

80

5

13 1

4

77

7

14

5

72

11

15 «

"It thus appears," says Mr. Hannam, "that"
No. 3 (cut two weeks before it was fully ripe) •
is superior to all other varieties; giving more
per bushel than No. .5 (cut when fully ripe) by
6^ lbs. of flour, and again of about 15 per cent,
on the flour of equal measure of grain. 100 lbs.
of wheat of No. 3 makes 80 lbs. of flour; while
100 lbs. of No. 5 yields 72 lbs. ; showing an
average of 8 per cent, in favour of grain cut
raw. In grinding, it was found that No. 5
ground the worst — worse than No. 1. In No*
5 were a greater quantity of flinty particles,
which would not pass the bolt, than in any of
the others.. The bran from No. 5 was coarse
and heavy; while that from No. 3 was 'thin as
a bee's wing.' "

Mr. Hannam extended his experiments to
some length, and sums up the advantages of
cutting wheat two weeks before it is fully ripe,,
as follows : first, there is a gain of 15 per cent.
of flour upon equal measures ; second, a gain
in the weight of straw of 14 per cent.; third,
a gain of about 163 in the value of every
quarter of wheat; and, fourth, a gain of about
583 upon every acre producing 28' bushels.
These calculations are founded upon the price
of wheat in England, at the time the experi-
ments were made. The flour produced from
No. 3 was of a far better quality than that pro-
duced from the grain cut at any other times.

Produce. — The fair produce of wheat (as is
well observed 'by the author of British Hus-
bandry) varies so much upon different kinds
of land, and is so much governed by climate
and mode of cultivation, that it is difficult to
form any acreable estimate of the amount
or average quality in ordinary seasons and
under the common course of management;
it may, however, be fairly calculated at 3
quarters, or, perhaps, 28 bushels per imperial
acre. To produce the latter quantity, circum-
stances must, however, be favourable, and any
thing beyond that may be considered large,
though on some land 4 to 5 quarters are not
unusual. The weight may average 60 lbs. per
bushel. The straw is generally reckoned to
be about double the weight of the grain; aft
acre producing three quarters of wheat of the-

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

ordinary quality may therefore be presumed to
yield about 26 cwt.

The use to which the grain is applied is al-
most exclusively that of food in its various pre-
parations, and chiefly in that of bread, though
a considerable quantity — but generally of an
inferior or damaged kind — is employed in the
manufacture of starch. This preference is due,
not only to the superiority of its nutritive pro-
perties, but also to their peculiar nature ; for
"more water is consolidated in bread made
from barley, and still more in that from oats ;
but the gluten in wheat being in a much larger
quantity than in any other grain, seems to form
a combination with the starch and water which
renders it more digestible than any other."
{Lectures on Jgr. Chem. p. 121.)

Since the Western States have become
thickly settled, and so much of their rich lands
been brought under tillage, especially since the
completion of numerous canals and rEiil-roads
have opened ready markets in the commercial
cities, they have poured into these such vast
quantities of wheat as have reduced the price
and tended greatly to lessen the profits of hus-
bandry in the old Atlantic Stales. At present,
more than a third of the whole wheat crop in
the Union is produced west of the mountains,
and the proportion is every year rapidly in-
creasing. By reference to the tabular state-
ments of crops (art. A6hicultcre) it appears
that Ohio stands at the head of the wheat-grow-
ing states ; her product in 1839 having been es-
timated at over 16,500,000 bushels. Pennsyl-
vania stands next, having furnished that year
upwards of 13,000,000. The produce of New
York is estimated at over 12,000,000; and of
Virginia, 10,000,000 for the same time. These
four large states raised upwards of .52,000,000
of the total amount of 84,823,272 bushels
produced that year in the whole United States.
The aggregate of the wheat crop of the United
States for 1842, has been estimated at 1 02,3 1 7,540
bushels. {Ellsworth's Report to Congress.) The

Governor of Ohio, in his message, computes-
the wheat crop of that state in 1842, at no less
than 24,000,000 bushels, of which, he thinks,
14,000,000 may be allowed for exportation, after
deducting 10,000,000 for domestic consump-
tion. Some idea of the rapidity with which
the wheat crop increases in the Western States,
may be formed from the fact, that, in 1840, the
amount of wheat shipped from Chicago to Buf-
falo amounted to only 20,000 bushels, whilst,
in the following year, 1841, it amounted in the
same period to no less than 200,000 bushels.

The United States present almost boundless
facilities over an immense extent of fertile
territory for raising wheat. But, great as the
aggregate crop at present appears from the
preceding statements, it scarcely exceeds
that of the comparatively insignificant li-
mits comprehended by the United Kingdom
of Great Britain. Notwithstanding her im-
mense domestic product of wheat, England is
compelled to import annually many millions
of bushels from other countries, for only a
small portion of which is she indebted to the
American farmers, who have for so long a pe-
riod worn her cloths and tilled their ground
with implements of British manufacture. In
1841, when the imports of foreign wheat into
the kingdom amounted to 21,604,840 bushels,,
the proportion received from her great cus-
tomer the United States, only amounted to
2,628,600 bushels.

In June, 1840, Lord Palmerston, the British
prime minister, caused letters to be addressed
to the British consuls in various parts of North-
ern and Southern Europe, from which wheat is
extensively exported. These letters contained
certain queries relating to points connected
with the grain-growing countries and their
markets. A great many highly interesting
facts were elicited in the answers to these cir-
culars, many of which have been condensed in
the following tabular form.

St. Petersburg
Riga -
Liebau -
Odessa -
Warsaw
Stockholm -
Dantzic -
Konigsburg -
Stettin -
Memel -

Elainore

Hamburg

Rotterdam

Antwerp

Palermo

Tout -

Gen'l average

tity of Wheal
might be ex-
pected io
England.

Quarten.
192,500

30,000

150,000

300,000

1,000

315,000

65.000

250,000

5,964

175,000
538,000

200.000

2,223,464

Averace price of.
Wheat

d. I.

1 to 0
7 to 0
7 to 0
6 to 0
0 to 0
0 to 35
0 to 0
0 to 45
40 0 to 0
35 0 to 0

0 to 36
0 to 46
0 to 0
5 to 0
0 to 0

¥is. M.

Whether the quntity produced would be BMlertaHjr

Annotr*.
No

No - .-

No

No -

To a certain extent, say - - -
Yes, if foreign capital were employed
No .------

No

No

Might be increased one-fourth if there
were a great demand . . .

Yes

Probably not - - - - -
To no great extent . . . -
No -.--.-_.
Would increase in 3 or 4 years -

Freight per
Quarter.

K d. ,. d.

4 5 to 5 0

4 9 to 0 0

4 6 to 5 0

10 0 to 0 0

6 to
6 to

4«. 9id.

Coit per both,
on board of

Liverpool.

D. ctt. -

0 93i

1 50
1 32i
1 00

1 42

0 99

1 19i
1 30i

1 m

1 02
1 21J
1 57
1 61i
1 27

24i

Other facts elicited by these inquiries with
respect to other countries competing with the
agricultural interests of the United States, mav
be interesting. Among these are the following":

It appears that in the grain-growing districts
in Europe, the soil contiguous to seaports has
142

already been extensively tilled, and cannot be
pushed further without the aid of artificial ma-
nures, while the bad roads from the interior
shut them out from a competition with this
and other countries more favourably situated.
Thus in Russia : The corn districts are too
5C 1129

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

remote from the seaports for the grain to be
ready, in season, for exportation ; the rapid in-
crease of manufactures has withdrawn from
tillage, &c.

In Poland, there is a deficiency of manure,
and scarcity of hands, and want of skill in
cultivation.

From Odessa, the report is that the crops are
precarious, on account of drought; tillage is
defective, and improvement difficult ; distances
great; no roads; the rivers unnavigable ; the
landholders impoverished, and no improve-
ments to be expected.

It may also be gratifying to some to compare
the transportation of flour, &c., from Poland
(one of the greatest grain-growing districts)
and the United Slates to England.

From Poland to Dantzic, the grain is chiefly
brought from the interior in flatboats of the
rudest construction, similar to those in use on
the western waters of the United States, at an
expense of 25 cents per bushel, open to the
weather, <&c. During the voyage the wheat
sprouts, and forms a thick mat or covering for
the bulk. On reaching Dantzic, the boat is
broken up and sold, the wheat taken out and
dried in the fields, then stored in the ware-
houses at an expense of 6 cents per bushel.
From Dantzic to England the freight, &c., not
including the duty, is nearly 8d. — equal to about
16 cents per bushel ; making in all about 46
cents per bushel. From Illinois to Liverpool
the whole freight would be 14s. per quarter,'or
Is. 9d. — equal to 38 cents per bushel; being
about 8 cents in favour of Illinois. There are
costs and charges also, in both cases, which
would probably be in favour of our export.

In this connection, it may be interesting to
compare a detailed estimate of the exports of
wheat from Illinois to England, both by New
Orleans and Canada.

Illinois wheat, via New Orleans to Liverpool.

Wheat, 4} bushels, at 50 cents, is - - >2 37

Grinding and barreling (with offal) - 50

Freight to New Orleans ... 62

Freight to Liverpool - - _ _ 66

which is a little less than 90 cents per bushel.
Charges would be alike in both cases.

View the matter in another point of light.
Suppose the wheat or flour of the Western
States carried through Canada, and, after the
5th July, to pay 3s. on an imperial quarter, viz.,
(8 bushels), which is about 85 cents per bushel :
Foreign wheat would have to pay, at the pre-
sent sliding rule, about 60 cents per bushel.

The United States, therefore, could succeed
with the greatest competitor; but that compe-
titor cannot supply 1,500,000 bushels- — less
than the surplus of some of the smaller states
of this Union produce ; and, indeed, all Eu-
rope could not supply England with more than
18,000,000 bushels, under the most favourable
circumstances — about three-fourths as much
as the stale of Ohio now furnishes.

It may be remarked, too, that the crops on
the continent are far more precarious than
those of the United Stales ; and hence the con-
tinental governments find it necessary, and are
careful to reserve large granaries, to guard
1130

against such a misfortune as a failure of the
usual harvest. Exportation thence is also for-
bidden in certain cases, but in the United
States no such prohibition exists.

While, therefore, we may look with confi-
dence to advantages in our favour in the Bri-
tish market, we must remember that we have
to compete against almost ilnpaid labour, and
cannot expect a great profit on our culture, un-
less the very cheapest mode of production is
studied. Labour (as we have before remarked)
must doubtless fall very considerably in agri-
cultural districts, or else farmers and planters
cannot hire. {EllswortKs Report.)

With regard to the different kinds of wheat
cultivated in the United States, some are best
adapted to one latitude and soil, some to an-
other. The fine varieties which succeed so well
in England and other parts of Northern Eu-
rope, very often fail in the United States, and
the most common difficulty with them arises
from the circumstance of their tardy habit of
maturing, which exposes them to rust and mil-
dew. Seeds from the southern parts of Eu-
rope and shores of the Mediterranean, are those
which seem best adapted to the climate of the
United States, since these mature very early. A
fine red variety, now commonly known as the
Mediterranean wheat, is being very extensively
cultivated. It seems to have improved under cul-
ture in the United States in the essential quali-
ties for making flour, since the millers, who at
first objected to it and would only purchase at
a reduced price, now pay the same as for other
red wheat. This wheat has been already men-
tioned as resisting the attacks of that great
American scourge of wheat crops, the Hes-
sian fly.

For the following valuable table, showing
the exports of flour from the United States,
during a long series of years, with the prices
per barrel, we are indebted to Hunt's Merchant's
Magazine.

Exports of Flour from the United States, and PricCf
from 1795 to 1843.

Tear.

Flour.
Barrels.

Price per
Barrel.

Year.

Flour.
Barrel..

Price per
Barril.

1795

687,369

#12 00

1819

750,660

»8 00

1796

725,194

16 00

1820

1,177,036

537

1797

515.633

10 00

1821

1,056,119

425

1798

567,558

7 00

1822

877,867

7 00

1799

519,265

10 00

1823

756,702

7 75

1800

653,052

10 00

1824

996,792

6 62

1801

1,102,444

13 00

1825

857,820

5 37

1802

1,156,248

9 00

1626

868,696

525

1803

1,311,853

7 00

1827

837,385

8 00

1804

810,808

7 75

1828

860,809

5 50

1805

777,513

13 00

1829

1,227,434

5 50

1806

782,724

7 50

1830

1,806,529

7 25

1807

1,249,819

8 25

1831

864,919

5 62

1808

262,813

6 00

1832

955,768

587

1809

846.247

7 50

1833

835,352

550

1810

789,436

8 25

1834

955,768

5 00

1811

1,445,012

10 50

1835

779,396

900

1812

1,443,492

10 75

1836

505,400

7 50

1813

1,260,942

13 00

1837

318,719

10 25

1814

393,274

14 50

1838

448,161

9 50

1815

862,739

9 25

1839

923,121

6 75

1816

729,053

7 37

1840

1,897,501

5 00

1817

1,479,198

14 75

1811

1,032,011

6 50

1818

1,157,697

10 25

1842

-

4 50

From these tables it appears that, during the
period 1795 to 1810, which embraced the Eu-
ropean wars, and when the population of the
United States averaged 5,000,000, the exports

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

of flour averaged nearly 1,000,000 barrels per
annum, at near ^10 per barrel, or an export of
1 barrel to every 5 inhabitants. During the
non-intercourse, from 1807 to 1811, the price
fell very low; and in 1812 the export was re-
sumed, and was so large that the rates again
rose very high, so high as to check the export.
Under the high successive tariffs of 1824-28-33,
the export of flour declined, and with that de-
cline prices fell; until after 1834, when debt
and state stocks were exported in return for
foreign goods, instead of the legitimate export
of produce, and the rage of speculation, by
checking agriculture, produced actual scarcity,
which again brought up prices. The revulsion
drove people to work, and the large crops of
1839, assisted by a scarcity in England, caused
a great export, which, with the 1,000,000 bar-
rels sent forward in 1841, raised the value of

the whole crop $1 50 per barrel, or 25 per cent,
in that year. The surplus of those two years
may be estimated at 2,500,000 barrels. Ac-
cording to the census, there were produced in
1839, in round numbers, 8,000,000 barrels of
flour, and the product of 1840 was estimated at
12,000,000 barrels, worth $60,000,000. The
export of one-sixth part, or 2,000,000 barrels,
raised the price to $6 .50 in 1841, or the value
of the crop to $78,000,000; making a dif-
ference, in favour of the farmer, equal to
$18,000,000 or 30 per cent. (Hunt's Mag.)

The average price of wheat may be esti-
mated pretty correctly from that of flour, by
adopting the miller's rule of computing the
price of a bushel of wheat weighing 60 lbs. ac
one-fifth the price of a barrel of flour. See
Bread, Flour, Fly ik Wheat, Grain, Graik
Fly, &c.

Parliamentary Papers relating to Wheat and other Grain.
Statement of the QuatUities of each kind of Grain imported into England from 1828 to 1841.

WHEAT and
WHEAT FLOUR.

QuaatitiM imported.

QwatitiM eaterwi for Home CoMumptioo.

QiwntiliM remaioiog in War*.
bouM at the end of each Year.

Pocelri.

ColooU.

To<«I.

Fofip,.

Cotooial.

Totol.

ror«r».

Colonial.

Tola!.

Q«.

^ «

Qrt

Q«.

Qrt.

(in.

Qi«.

Qr*.

Qnu

1828 (from 15lh July)

570,799

20,130

590,929

740,458

20,021

760,479

32,005

212

32,217

1829 - - -

1,715,442

10,339

1,725,781

1,434,096

8,605

1,442,701

246,092

1,660

247,752

1830 - - -

1,592,768

70,515

1,663 283

1,667,228

60,559

1,727,847

143,131

11,236

154,367

1831

2,083,812

226,158

2,309,970

1,369.044

135,696

1,506,740

801,527

99,925

901,445

18.'«

345,386

124,516

469,902

182,770

193,985

376,755

673,673

28,620

702,293

1833 - - -

183,229

114,336

997.565

1,330

82,706

84,036

764,984

57,868

822,852

1834 - - -

109,734

^•?^

*I5'S'

290

64,684

64,974

715,132

59.053

774,185

1835

43,801

23,104

66,905

124

88,430

28.554

627.180

53,978

681,158

1836

234,503

7,240

241,743

1,045

29,062

30,107

599,463

.11.980

631,443

1837 - . -

544,150

15.792

559,942

210,897

33,375

244,272

630,310

14,361

644.671

1838 - - -

1,355,314

16,643

1.371,957

1,818,828

29,647

1.848.475

24.229

1,500

25,729

1839 - - -

2,860,833

12.772

2,875.605

2,696,981

12,742

2,711,723

174,188

1,494

175,682

1840 - - -

S,W4,289

148,476

2,432,765

2.287,637

113,799

2,401,436

102,845

36,563

139,408

184i* -

Total - -
BARLEY.

»,5«4,443

259,159

2,783,602

2,388,072

259,736

2,647,808

16,450,503

1,115,767

17,566,270

14,800,860

1,075,047

15,875,907

1828 (from I5th July)

125,490

.

125.490

195.075

. ■

195.075

699

_

699

1829 ...

305,798

.

305,798

209,799

.

229.799

64,979

.

64,979

1830 . - .

132,210

.

132,210

49.505

.

48,505

147,025

_

147,025

1831

368,809

213

369,032

514.395

215

514,610

1,889

.

1,889

1832

101,713

97

101,810

77.891

97

77.988

17,504

.

17,504

1833 . - .

5f'*^»

.

85,221

1,226

.

1.226

98,341

.

98,341

1834 - - -

88,562

.

88,562

11,071

_

11.071

165,717

_

165,717

1835

67,796

.

67,796

136.853

.

136,853

51,762

_

51,762

1836 - . .

^^

.

83,483

110,021

_

110.021

7,078

.

7,078

1837 . - .

87,791

.

87,791

47,475

.

47,475

37,053

.

37,053

1838 - - -

2,203

.

2,203

8,192

_

8,192

11,409

_

11,409

1839 ...

579,405

.

579,405

594,301

_

594.301

1,121

_

i;i21

1840

625,437

_

625,437

619,801

.

619,801

9,110

.

9,110

1841* ...
Total - -
OATS and OAT-

264,460

525

264,965

222,312

525

222,837

2,918,378

845

2,919,223

2,816.917

837

2,817.754

MEAL.

1828 (from 15tli July)

147,251

580

147,831

11,790

• 580

12,370

143,606

_

143,606

1829 ...

548,588

61

548,649

189,815

61

189,876

443,451

_

443,451

1830 - . -

511,936

^.•iSS

513,491 1 902,917

1,555

904,472

25,726

.

25,726

1831

616,117

. 7,099

622,216

348,666

6,826

355.492

282,251

233

282,484

1832 ...

31,138

709

31.847

2,150

932

3,082

223,175

-

225,175

1933 ...

23,334

-

23,334

975

_

975

226,394

226,384

1834 ...

175,026

.

175,026

55,620

.

55,620

331,521

^

331,521

1835 - . -

113.188

-

113,188

176,142

_

176,142

239,688

_

239,688

1836

131,466

-

131.466

97,197

-

97,197

216,660

.

216,660

1837

418,895

.

418,885

334,024

.

334,024

253,854

_

253,854

1838 ...

55,539

4

55.543

11,068

4

11,072

242.199

_

242,199

1839 - . -

670,453

60

670,513

862,729

60

862,789

15,845

15,645

1840 ...

541,400

4,663

546,263

513,338

3,714

517,052

15,011

975

15,966

1841* ...
Total

123.006

8,ni9

131,025

20 769

7,149

27,918

4,106,327

22,950

4,129,277

3,527,200

20,881

3,548,081

♦ The Returns for 1841 will be liable fo alteration (although not to any considerable extent) when the Accounts
of that year shall have been finally adjusted.

1131

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

Quantities Imported.

Quantities entered for
Home Consumption,

Quantities remaining in
of each Year.

RYE, from 15

Foreiga.

Colonial.

Total.

Foreign.

Colonial.

Tow.

Foreign.

Colonial.

Total.

l^- .

Qra.

Qrs.)

Qra.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

28,172

-

28,172

144

-

144

31,609

31,609

1829

67,392

. -

67,392

64,963

.

64,963

26,435

_

26,435

1830

44,784

-

44,784

19,189

-

19,189

17,604

_

17,604

1831 -

93,006

-

93,006

56,203

-

56,203

20,703

_

20,703

1832

4,646

-

4,646

60

-

60

4,054

_

4,054

1833

3,370

-

3,370

1

-

1

6,720

_

5,720

1834 -

10

-

10

22

22

5,108

_

5,108

1835 -

_

-

3

3

3,450

_

3,450

1836 -

6,626

-

6,626

18

-

18

6,805

_

6,805

1837

30,711

-

30,711

19,576

-

19,576

12,047

_

12,047

1838

1,781

-

1,781

2,517

-

2,517

5,079

_

5,079

1839

153,673

-

153,673

152,582

-

152,582

3,036

_

3,036

1840

3,332

_

3,332

1,857

-

1,857

3,326

_

3,326

1841* -

Total,

PEAS, from

15,600

-

15,600

518

-

518

453,103

-

453,103

317,653

-

317,653

15 July—

1828 -

41,295

1,499

42,794

42,269

1,499

43,768

8,338

_

8,338

1829

39,272

1,140

40,412

35,271

1,140

36,411

10,207

-

10,207

1830

32,667

1,905

34,572

42,598

1,909

44,507

192

_

192

1831

58,925

582

59,507

57,365

612

67,977

699

_

699

1832 -

20,190

8

20,198

16,587

8

16,595

3,088

_

3,088

1833 -

15,879

. 11

15,890

18,081

11

18,092

315

_

315

1834 -

67,595

285

67,880

57,417

285

57,702

9,935

_

9,935

1835

23,566

650

24,216

24,525

659

25,184

7,705

_

7,705

1836

78,289

10

78,299

80,918

10

80,928

3,154

_

3,154

1837 -

111,254

7

111,261

87,608

7

87,615

22,929

_

22,929

1838 -

29,753

95

29,848

11,525

93

11,618

35,120

1

35,121

1839

139,734

278

140,012

169,991

279

170,270

3,867

.

3,867

1840

154,270

4,216

158,486

155,202

4,255

159,457

2,904

_

2,904

1841* -

Total,

BEANS, from

132,769

16,728

149,497

118,113

14,744

132,857

945,458

27,414

972,872

917,470

25,511

942,981

15 July—

1828

37,230

-

37,230

72,863

-

72,863

17,951

-

17,951

1829 -

46,487

-

46,487

61,406

-

61,406

2,557

_

2,557

1830 -

16,909

-

16,909

18,697

_

18,697

808

-

808

1831 -

22,345

-

22,345

17,678

_

17,678

5,305

_

5,305

1832 -

27,914

_

27,914

7,439

_

7,430

20,962

_

20,962

1833 -

22,859

_

22,859

6,028

_

6,028

37,223

■.

37,223

1834

,47,756

-

47,756

44,566

-

44,566

38,557

.

38,557

1835 -

34,380

-

34,380

69,824

-

69,824

2,306

-

2,306

1836 -

93,056

-

93,056

87,796

_

87,796

7,374

-

7,374

1837 -

105,607

-

105,607

109,076

,_

109,076

4,519

_

4,519

1838 -

64,358

_

64,358

54,240

_

54,240

14,314

_

14,314

1839

109,810

_

109,810

123,597

_

123,597

701

_

701

1840

129,361

57

129,418

129,460

57

129,517

760

-

760

1841 ♦ -
Total,

294,532

-

294,532

267,697

-

.267,697

1,052,604

57

1.052,661

1,070,367

57

1,070,424

Previously to 1833, the monthly returns of the importation and consumption of foreign and colonial corn were
collected together, in annual periods, commencing on 1st January, and terminating on 31st December. From 1833,
downwards, they have been made up, like the other accounts of this department, in periods, commencing on 6th
January in each year, and terminating on 5th January, in the year succeeding. This circumstance is necessary to
be noted, inasmuch as it explains why the aggregate imports and consumption of the several years, from 1826 to
1832 inclusive, as exhibited in the present statement, will be found to differ, to a small extent, from the quantities
shown in otlier accounts, which have been compiled, not, as in this case, from special monthly returns of the corn
trade, but from the ordinary records of the general commerce of the country.

♦ Aotc.— The returns for 1841 will be liable to alteration (although not to any considerable extent) when tho
accounts of that year shall have been finally adjusted.

Statement of the Septennial Prices of each kind of Grain, as prepared for the Purposes of the Tithe Commission, in

each Year, from 1835 to 1841.

Period* of Seven Years
ending Christmas.

1835 -
1836

1837 -

1838 -
1839
1840
1841

1132"

s.

i.

7

O4

6

8i

6

6f

6

6^

6

9

6

lU

7

31

Average Prices per Imperial Busbd.

Hi
11*

'^

iH
1
2

A.
9
9

r

lU

Bye.

10
6*

9i

8^

8

9

lOi
lOi

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

"Statement of the Total QuatUities of Wheat and Wheat Flour imported into, and exported from. Great
Britain, in each Year, from 1697 to 1841.

Yean.

Imported.

Exported.

Yean.

Imported.

Exported.

Yean.

Imported.

Exported.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

1697

400

14,698

1746

-

131,105

1795

:313,793

18,839

1696

1,689

6,886

1747

-

270,491

1796

879,200

24,679

1699

^ 486

557

1748

6

545,240

1797

461,767

54,525

1700

5

40,057

1749

382

631,007

1793

396,721

59,782

1701

1

96,324

1750

880

950,483

1799

463,185

39,362

1702

-

90,230

1751

3

662,957

1800

1,264,520

22,013

1703

50

106,615

1752

-

430,117

1801

1,424,765

28,406

1704

9

90,314

1753

-

300,754

1802

647,663

149,304

1705

-

96,185

1754

201

356,781

1803

, 373,725

76,580

1706

77

188,332

1755

-

237,466

1804

461,140

63,073

1707

-

174,155

1756

5

102,752

1805

920,834

77,955

1708

80

•83,969

1757

141,562

11,545

1806

310,342

29,566

1709

1,552

,71,618

1758

20,353

9,234

1807

404,946

25,113

1710

400

16,607

1759

162

927,641

1808

84,889

98,005

1711

-

80,941

1760

3

393,614

1809

455,987

31,278

1712

-

148,539

1761

-

441,056

1810

1,567,126

75,785

1713

-

179,969

1762

56

985,385

1811

336,131

97,765

1714

16

180,665

1763

72

429,538

1812

890,710

46,325

1715

-

173,237

1764

1

S96^7

1813

559,000

r Records
t destroyed.

1716

_

75,876

1765

104,547

167,126

1717

,

25,637

1766

11,020

164,939

1814

852,567

111,477

1718

A _

74,381

1767

497,905

5,071

1815

384,475

227,947

1719

80

130,533

1768

349,268

7,433

1816

332,491

121,611

1720

_

84,343

1769

4,378

49,892

1817

1,069,855

317,524

1721

.

82,748

1770

34

75,449

1818

1,694,261

58,668

1722

-

178,915

1771

2,510

10,089

1819

625,638

44,689

1723

_

158,082

1772

85,474

6,959
7,637

1820
1821

996,479
707,384

94,657
199,848

1724

148

247,162

1773

56,857

1725

12

211,175

1774

889,149

15,928

1822

510,602

160,499

1726

.

143,626

1775

560,988

91,037

1823

424,019

145,951

1727

.

31,030

1778

20,578

910,664

1824

441,591

61,680

1728

74,574

3,935

1777

- 233,323

87,686

1825

787,606

38,796

1729

40,315

18,993

1T78

106,394

141,070

1826

807,127

90,054

1730

76

94,530

1779

5,039

222,261

1827

711,868

57,323

1731

4

130,650

1780

3,915

224,059

1828

1,410,300

76,489

1732

-

802,612

1781

159,866

103,021

1829

2,190,095

75,097

1733

7

427,425

1782

80,695

145,152

1830

2,205,751

37,140

1734

7

498,747

1783

584,183

51,943

1831

2,867,860

65,875

1735

9

155.280

1784

216,947

89,288

1832

1,254,351

289,558

1736

18

118,218

1785

110,863

132,685

1833

1,166,457

96,212

1737

32

466,071

1786

51,463

205,466

1834

981,486

159,482

1738

3

588,284

1787

59,339

120,536

1835

750,808

134,076

1739

23

285,492

1788

148,710

82,971

1836

861,156

256,978

1740

5,469

54,391

1789

112,656

140,014

1837

1,109,492

308,420

1741

7,540

45,417

1790

222,557

30,892

1838

1,923,400

158,621

1742

1

295,698

1791

469,056

70,626

1839

3,110,729

42,512

1743

3

375,979

1792

22,417

300,278

1840

2,526,645

87,243

1744

8

234,274

1793

490,398

76,869

1841

2,923,189

30,390

1745

8

325,340

1794

327,902

155,048

JV0(«.— This Account includes the Trade with Ireland.

5c 2

1133

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

Statement of the Quantities of the several kinds of Grain and Meal imported from each Country, and
likewise of the Quantities re-exported from the Warehouse to each Cowntry, in each Year, from 1828
to 1840, {omitting 1829 and 1831.)

Russia - - -

Sweden - - -

Norway - - -
Denmark

Prussia - - -
Germany

Holland' - - \

Belsrium - - j"

France - - -

Portugal, Proper -

Azores -

Madeira -

Spain

Canaries

Gibraltar

Italy

Malta - - -

Ionian Islands

Turliey -

Egypt - -

Tripoli, Tunis, Al-
giers, and Morocco

Cape of Good Hope -

E. India Company's
Territories and
Ceylon

British Settlements
in Australia -

British North Ame-
rican Colonies

United States of
America

Chili

Peru - . -

Channel Islands

Total

Quantitiet impoHed into the United Kingdom.

Qrs.

18,096
1,303

41,150
251,206
142,396

167,025

- •
22,216

5,216

1
14,415

22,359

Qrs

235,302
2,937

88,032
517,844
364,961

76,711

15,219

,141

39,493

28,612

58,963
6,086

32,079

Qrs.

91,290

33,5'}8
119,320
43,046

1,763

2,304

1,062
10

1,642

945

25

89,516

Qrs.

18,656
357

7,958
87,903
49,421
f 276

2,696

752

79,410

Qrs.

11,732
29,826
42,770

1,616

471

1,766

44,907

Qrs.

9,758

3,236

11,577

8

111

2,158

1,107

336

1

14,326

715,242 1,475,314 391,417 248,171 133,091 42,628 168,647 455,871 1,241,460 2,634,556 1,993,383

Qrs

1,036

10,258

100,199

61,562

3,9&4

1,593

Qrs.
11,244
251

18,240

315,121

87,665

10,741

420

746

4,483
6,390

257

310

Qrs.
41,339

111,499

550,826

312,442

82,010

17,396

53,190

15

421

30,264
11,647
5,370
3,150

555

20,581

Qrs

371,693

. 392

360

196,7.30

740,203

409,729

116,480

23,141

278,182

26,382

1,561

616

17,741

4,573

335,612

16,370

13,928

43,740

1,729

3,360
3

27
3,766

Qrs

268,263
2

150,351

800,508

364,553

50,612

7,627

48,350

1,396

1,544
1,960
4,802
2,874

8,192

73,755

91

12,233

Russia - - -

Norway - - -

Denmark

Prussia - - -

Germany

Holland - - \

Belgium - - j

Prance - - -

Portugal, Proper -

' Azores -

Madeira -

Spain

Canaries -

Gibraltar

Italy . . _

Malta

Ionian Islands

Cape of Good Hope -

Mauritius

E. India Company's
Territories and
Ceylon

China - - -

British Settlements
in Australia

British North Ame-
rican Colonies

British West Indies

United States of
America

Brazil - . -

States of the Rio de
la Plata

Channel Islands

Total

1134

Quantities re-exported from the United Kingdom.

Qrs.

1,849
23,904

100

2,996

23,804

58,646

Qrs.

2,900
20,660

670

25,050

Qrs.

1,677

75,017

147,443

883

450

3,595

175

,212

63

3,441

235,883

Qrs.

5,187
1,182
50
1,351
150
5,609

3,346

5,971
1,027

1,127

3,339
1,577

34,480

Qrs.
3,772

6,296

68,891

7,117
3,403
1,035
2,404
2,030
5,748

300

4,748
308

62

3,420
3,051

113,576

Qrs.
■ 713
1,283

281
1,083

1,818
111
874
580

19,118

10,540

423

390

6,222

923

966

21,569
1,-

7,486
1,029

3,460

Qrs.

3,360

250
1,122

872
3,313

10,393
64,055

80,972
114

173,934

Qrs.

40

10,235

708

2,180
4,437

1,718

99,522
121

87,418

3,300 8,658

215,837

Qrs.

539

4,442

1,371
1,109

87,368
14,530

5,146

95,402

Qrs.

3,052

2,100
818

603

1,179

7,770

Qrs.

11.468

2,411
1,500

3,308
479

11,874

31,745

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

Statement of Quantities of Grain and Meal imported, and Quantities re-exported, in each Year, from

1828 to 1840 — Continued.

Countriw.

BARLEY.

Qusmtities imported into the Uoited Kingdom.

1828.

1829.

IE30.

183).

1832.

1833.

1834.

1835.

1836.

1837.

1838.

1839.

1840.

Qr..

Qni.

Qr..

Qr»^

Qr,.

Qr..

Qr..

Qrs.

Qr«.

Qrs.

Qr,.

Qr..

Qrs.

Rnggia

1,824

7,989

4,062

42,568

8,820

1,579

1,270

24

338

18,338

4,657

Sweden

1,393

5,179

579

1,719

.

27

_

.

_

_

_

2,499

23,783

Norway

-

14.?

_

_

-

_

-

.

-

_

233

820

Denmark -

96,044

144,262

75,537

115,658

54,859

70,651

82,781

65,693

21,779 23,536

11 210,134

252,037

Prussia

21.297

49,615

29,508

60,886

11,373

8,734

2,166

823

29,586:28,443

469

139,153

189,167

Germany -

33,031

55,193

27,722

116,928

16,208

4,219

2,161

1,267

24,327 24,780

1,384

75,694

81,017

Holland - ">
Belgium - /

9,137

4,182

1,184

12,284

-

?.'

178

7

6,333
735

3,585
404

-

13,057
4,318

5,584

France

3,227

9,845

-

18,738

4,381

I

2

459

3,706

-

105,326

.'58,207

Portugal, Proper

.

-

-

-

.

-

.

-

-

-

.

555

Spain and the Ba-

learic Islands -

_

139

.

2.318

_

_

_

-

_

.

_

600

677

Canaries

.

.

419

Italy and the Ita-

lian Islands

_

,

_

3,003

.

ft

.

,

I

2,696

Malta - - -

.

_

1

.

.

.

.

.

_

.

1,660

594

Turkey

.

.

024

96

-

-

-

-

-

-

1,772

Egypt -

.

,

_

-

_

.

-

.

_

604

-

-

5,676

Cape of Good Hope

_

_

-

1

Bast India Compa-

ny's Territories

and Ceylon

.

_

_

15

a

.

_

_

_

1

_

3

British N. Ameri-

can Colonies -

_

.

_

223

go

United States of

America -

_

1

Isles of Guernsey,

Jersey, Alder-

ney, and Man

(Foreign Goods)

Total

Total quantities \
re-exported J

2,718

5,159

6,528

1,128

-

-

-

4

262

8

-

6,621

3,661

168,672

281,713

145,119

376.513

95,839

85,221

88,561

67,796

83,483| 87,790

2,203*579,405

625,438

4,117

10,297

1,285

642

7,822

3,210

9,865

44,365

16,219| 10,605

19817

620

4,379

Statement of Quantities of Grain and Meal imported, and Quantities re-exported, in each Year from
1828 to 1840 (omitting 1929)— Continued.

Count ri«».

OATS.

QoantiliM imported into the United Kincdom.

1828.

1830.

lesi.

1832.

1833.

1831.

1835.

1836.

1837.

1833.

1839.

1840.

Russia ...

35^36

122^15

37^710

17,696

Qr..
18,047

is'Jn

12370

r:3,

Qr.

151,205

Qn.

10,229

316^23

Qr«.
167,249

Sweden - - -

13,601

8,732

20.663

1,120

19,667

26,785

5,735

2,307

3,604

17,047

Norway - - _

_

1

_

_

480

_

3

Denmark

65,403

118,203

96,996

7,-«92

2,888

79,128

52,591

23,321

26,109

3,085

46,235

78,919

Prussia -

12,063

130,961

70,597

_

83

11,189

4,051

18,749

99,251

198

99,521

105,629

Germany

25,354

68,324

31,434

2,273

530

26.717

12,210

36,086

91,897

15,879

75,010

114,668

Holland - - 1
Belgium - - j

10,523

39,891

15,641

221

^m

22,835
2,422

5,035

45,413

40,082
130

23,681
467

101,336
21,196

50,215
266

France - - -

1,308

15,684

7,936

-

-

80

5,640

606

Portugal, Proper -

_

.

.

4

_

_

.

_

.

300

Spain -

_

_

30

_

_

20

Italy and the Italian

Islands

_

_

1

_

_

_

_

_

5,361

_

83

Cape of Good Hope

.

_

East India Compa-

ny's Territories

and Ceylon

-

.

.

2

-

-

_

_

4

_

4

British North Ame-

rican Colonies -

580

1,223

6,329

.

_

_

_

1

British West Indies

.

672

United States of

America

.

.

599

_

_

_

.

_

_

_

_

5306

Channel Islands -

Total -

Total quantities \
re-exported j"

2,351

1,600

-

-

-

-

20

"

-

452

745

166,423

506,637

621,940

28,858

23,334

174,975

113,067

131,056

416,424

53,544

670,117

540,736

6,6W

26,140

5,571

83,793

19,491

13,446

30,792

56,184

46,917

54,424

40,205

36,486

Jfote.—Of the Oats re-exported, by far the largest amount went to the British Colonies, especially to those in
the West Indies.

1135

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

/Statement of Quantities of Grain and Meal imported and Quantities re-exported, in each Year, from

1828 to 1840— Continued.

, CountriM.

RYE.

Quantitie. imported into the Dnited Kingdom.

1828.

1829.

1830.

1831.

1832.

1833.

1834.

1835.

1836.

1837.

1838.

1839.

1840.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Qrs.

Russia - - -

12,469

29,478

15,625

53,911

4,62"

3,363

998

2,105

14,030

Sweden - - .

-

1,432

333

60

_

_

_

_

3

,

273

Norway - - -

_

_

.

.

_

_

_

_

86

606

Denmark

1,154

6,103

1,151

5,832

_

-

-

.

1,100

_

16,460

333

Prussia - - -

13,909

19,693

21,460

18,447

_

_

_

_

5,542

24,057

1,29C

97,834

2,932

Germany

2,025

8,662

5,785

7,103

_

_

_

_

67

36C

16.588

R

Holland - - \
Belgium - - 3

-

4,531

153

4,205

- {

-

-

-

-

2,401
370

131

6,170
215

France - - -

_

_

.

137

_

_

_

1,738

Italy and the Italian

Islands

_

_

_

_

10

United States of

America

_

_

1,867

_

6

_

_

_

_

_

59

Isles of Guernsey,

Jersey, Alderney,

and Man (Foreign

Goods)

Total -

Total quantities ■>
re-exported 3

2

9

45

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

365

29,562

65,910

45,155

91,565

4,627

3,369

10

-

6,626

30,710

1,781

153,673

3,332

886

7,861

35,408

36,735

18,216

1,521

600

926

3,300

5,932

6,080

4,192

1,215

JVbtf .— Of these re-ej

cportat

ons th

e large

St amo

unt we

nt to I

iolland

and B

elglum

,and i

a the V

ears 183

6. 1837.

And 1838 to the United States.

Statement of Quantities of Grain and Meal imported and Quantities re-ezportea, m each year, from
1828 to 1840, {omitting 1829)— Continued.

Countriai.

BEANS AND PEAS.

Quantities imported into the United Kingdom. 5

1828.

1830.

1831.

1832.

1833.

1834.

1835.

1836.

1837.

1838.

1839.

1840.

Russia -

Sweden . - -

Norway - - _

Denmark

Prussia - - -

Germany

Holland - - ">

Belgium - - 3

France - - -

The Azores -

Spain - - -

Gibraltar

Italy

Malta -

Tripoli, Tunis, Al-
giers, and Morocco

Western Coast of
AfVica -

Egypt -

Cape of Good Hope -

Mauritius

E. India Company's
Territories and
Ceylon

China -

British North Ame-
rican Colonies

British West Indies

United States of
America

Channel Islands

1 Total

Total quantities \
re-exported 3

Qrs.
1,642
2,324

35,796
13,624
43,506

10,456

1,881

1,936

12,904

10

1,868

100
246

Qrs.

788
516

5,181
23,931
19,063

1,411

15

' 2

8

1,424

185

Qrs.
6,418
34

3,966
37,318
21,627

7,543

1,576

5

3,691
1,031

136
461

Qrs.
1,364

7,044
14,869
15,550

29

8

649

3

2,295

8
2

Qrs.
146

108

8,599
4,734
15,282
f5,104

' 1

4,760

10

Qrs.

197
2,686
165
26,927
12,131
64,455
6,734
618

1
f,2I5

35
283

280

Qrs.

87
752

13,420
7,778

34,881
1,007

" 2

15

650
1

Qrs.

1

222

34

37,838

44,556

79,448

8,114

692

1

2

"103

6

E 4

329

Qrs.
3,121
144

37,010

64,873

71,041

21,077

1,388

9,567

1

6

8' 115
313

8
203

Qrs.
1,126

23'875
8,656

53,951

4,776

1,648

30

7

1

55

39

39

Qrs.
3,104
1,506
484

29,579
113,610

50,521

19,109
2,351

28,580

1

8

1

'36

279

654

Qrs.
270

3,688

46,207

110,076

74,194

12,684

18,780

536

1

390

15,191

1,459

■ 57

53
1

4,216
96

126,299

52,533

83,904

41,825

38,749

115,635

58,596

171,355

216,868

94,207

249,823

287,905

2,977

677

597

3,011

1,381

672

3,792

2,379

4,813

5,389

2,446

2,055

JiTote.— Of these re-exportations of Beans and Peas, many went to the British North American, but by flir the
largest went to the West India colonies.
1136

WHEAT.

WHEAT.

Russia _ - - . -
Sweden - - - _ -
Ueiiiiiark - . - . .
Prussia - - » _ .
tierinany - - - - -
rroiland - - - - ■
Belgium - - - - J
France _ _ - _ -
Portugal, Proper _ _ -
Spain and the Balearic Islands
Gibraltar - - - - -
Italy and the Italian Islands -

Malta

Turkey - _ - _ -

E?ypt

Western Coast of Africa -
Cape of Good Hope - - -
East India Company's Territo-
ries and Ceylon - - -
China - - _ - -
British Settlements in Australia

North American Colonies

West Indies - - -

United Slates of America

Brazil

<;hannel Islands (Foreign Goods)

Total - - - .

WHEAT-MEAL AND FLOUR.

Qt»D i(ies imported into the United Kingdom.

lt'2S.

Cwts
226
2
2.41
6,426
6,846

60
1,534
4,485

I 1832.

Cwts.

1,740

79

246

7,936

3,570

5,112

I Cwt«.

10
534

16,575

1
47,470

64,992

61,916

3

623,745

30,219

48,831

3

114,909

7,

41,749

3,541

IS33. I I<iJ6.

Cwb.

8,577
37,292
5,196

32

Cwts.

32,560

79,7y{)

97,649

179

21,
137

40,386

8

34,074

718

15,897

14

35

12
7,172

9,735| 18,025

6 125

6,809, 1,183

1,389, 13,374

41,370
122,959
120,133
919
956
883
42

44,667

i\

Cww
241

77,233
123,119
131,936

3,1
26,740

199
2,596

1

' 40
5

18.911

9,527 39,745

5

19,550

130
20,974

12,756

Cwts.
3,946

39,395
96,360
66,528
1.474
6,061
115,502

185

422

19,488

60

17,532

27,094

1

432,742

3,251

12,917

15 1, 038j 707,082 191,896 151,306! 84,969 355,8311361,218 456,739 843,016

Cwtfc

63

23

10.951

23,433

21,795

175

1,070

73

13,026
10
24

478,969

984,467

1

3,753

7,836

Russia ....

•Sweden . - _ -
Norway - . - -
DHumark - . - . <
Prussia . . - - .

•Germany . - - - .

Holland ....

Belgium ....

France . . . - .

Portugal, Proper

Azores

Madeira

Spain and the Balearic Islands

Canaries . . -

<Jibraltar

ItHly and the Italian Islands -

Malta

■Ionian Islands - - . .

Morea and the Greek Islands -

Turkey

Syria and Palestine - - .

lEgypt _ - . . .

Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Mo-
rocco - - - . .

Western Coast of Africa -

Cape of Good Hope . . .

Cape Verd Islands - . .

St. Helena - . . -

Mauritius - . . . •

Isle of Bourbon ...

Arabia - . . . .

East India Company's Territo-
ries and Ceylon ...

Sumatra, Java, Jkc. ...

Philippine Islands ...

China

British Settlements in Australia

New Zealand - . - -

British North American Colonies

West Indies - - -

Hayti . . . . .

Cuba and other Foreign West
Indies - - . - .

United States of America

Mexico - . . . .

Guatemala . . . .

Columbia - > . . .

Brazils .....

States of the Rio de la Plata -

Chili

Peru

Channel Islands (Foreign Goods)

Quantilica re-eiported from tb« United Kin(dom.

93

497

700

8,563

61

319
84

437
379

370

20,255

87.469

3,119

138

4,591

4,332

87

9,741

41

12

2

14,92.5

27,776

119

Total

174

288

5,709

1,623

52

9

1,980

313 9M
2,514 11,676

1,997
23
61

914

52

11.776

9,149

5

26
86
35

19

3,999

653

196

48

37

168

f 130
I 10

35

1,393
34

'308
14
44
8

31

2,054

46

1,680

5

174

8,258

231 232

46! 513

'9431 1,152

4,901 9,217
21

35

2,418 2,W9

379

21

241

,963

1,465

19,719

36,966

16

119
207

38

25,3.38

559

37

64

12,169

9,785

57,776

12

12
86
28

2,581

525

9

340

9,365

5,269

79,875

421

530

6,921

32

40 9

74,357 41,328

928 432

721 1,683

81 1 833

1,557

90

178

73

1,739

30

105
88
6
3

" 14

717
4,776

2*039
8,557

4,271
1,533

'277
16,422

49,091

133,645

1,375

66
15,780

14
42,567
61
43
84

2

12

10

7

1,547

2,790

683

73

24

5

7

4

2,561

5

3,492

9,379

53

14

547
3,8)
3

557
3,332

58,846j 33,768| 83,073 160.731 165,309(283.862

27

2,911
31
11
145

5,331

65,700

181,462

2,364

1,752

1,233

62

40

900

39,363

50

122

67

2,646
1,081

210

7,776

30

58,202

102,131

1,344

131

600

18

16

29,107

222

43

53

344

344
9,640

1,357
3,861

1,396

56
10,525
2,

6,006
57,288

10

9

800

8

840

5

16

68

7

8

1,463

5
12
SO

63

1!

691
37,199

1,368
15,343

16

5,521

234

19

153

65,151

3,535

4,609

33,775

194

14

113

18

181
38

11,901 20,848
931 115
333| 158
108
9,559

323,244 312,461 1 106,930| 181,306j

143

1137

WHEAT, COW.

WHEAT-GRASS.

Jn Account of the total Quantities in England of each kind of Grain, Foreign and Colonial, with the
total Amount of Duty paid upon each kind, and the average Rate thereof during the xchole Period
from July, 1828, to December, 1841.

CORN, MEAL AND FLOUR,

FOREIGN CORN, MEAL, AND FLOUR.

out of Europe.

Qiiantitiet chargnl

Quantities ehsryed

wiih Uu'v for home

w.th duly for home

coiisoniplinn, under
A<^9G. JV.c. 60,

. AmoDDt of

Rates of Duty,
i.kenon 'he

coostiiiiurinn, under
Act 9 0. IV. c. 60,

it mount of

R>»esofduiy,
lakeu no the

from the pa-sin? of

avrr^Keof the

fmni Ihi- |'*>t!rn([of

avrratc of (he

"J,

Ihc Act (15 h July,
l!>2siolheA'li
J.iiiu»ry, 1842.

wfaoie ijeriod.

ttieAct(liihJuy,
1828). m ihesib
Januaiy, IM2.

whole p.;riod.

Per Qr,

Per qr.

qr..

£

. rf.

Qr».

£

». </.

Wheat - - .

13,555,471

3.779,417

5 7

589,012

104,639

3 7

B.rley

2,826.397

659,5^9

4 8

839

89

2 1

Oats - - - -

3,53I,H27

1,137,940

fi 5

9,060

303

0 8

Rye - - - -

.319,842

49,195

3- 1

Peaa - - - -

9l9.-i27

2f.6.374

5 10

25,872

1,786

I 5

Brians- ...

1,071,369

371,698

6 11

57

1

0 6

Indinn corn

140,164

26,9 iO

3 10

8,365

456

1 1

Buckwheat

40,024

12,337

6 2

Per Cwt.

Per Cwt.

CwK

*. d.

Cwts.

t. d.

Wheat meal and floor

4,303,981

428,083

2 0

1,704,528

81,479

0 11

OHtmeal ...

1,422

253

3 7

18,877

932

1 0

Statement of the Decennial Fluctuations in the
Price of Wheat in England, from 1646 to 1815;

. from 1816 /ol828; and from 1829 to 1841;
exhibiting the highest and lowest annual Average
in each Decennial Period and the per-centage
Amount of Difference.

Annuil

Ayerare

Period..

Pr it. ^

P«r cent.
Difference.

Highest

Lowest,

». if.

$. d.

ri646tol655

77 10

23 9

227-

1656 •' 16t>5

67 9

37 1

82-

1666 " 1675

62 10

33 0

90-

1676 " 1685

55 0

34 9

58-

1686 " 1695

61 11

23 0

169-

1696 " 1705

65 0

26 11

141-

1706 " 1715

71 11

23 9

202-

1716 " 1725

44 5

31 9

40-

1st period -{

1726 " 1735

49 11

24 4

105-

1736 " 1745

46 5

22 9

104-

1746 •' 1755

40 10

29 8

37-

1756 " 1765

55 0

27 7

99-

1766 " 1775

59 1

41 10

41-

1776 » 1785

51 3

34 8

56-

1786 •• 1795

75 2

40 0

87-

1796 " 1805

119 6

51 10

130-

L1806 " 1815

126 6

65 7

92-

8d period - 1816 " 1828

96 11

44 7

117-

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WHEAT, COW {Melampyrum, from melas,
black ; zndpyros, wheat). A genus of branched,
spreading, annual, nearly smooth herbs, grow-
ing to the height of twelve or eighteen inches.
The seeds, which resemble grains of wheat in
shape and colour, turn black in drying. There
are, in England, four indigenous species of
cow-wheat, namely : —

1. Crested cow-wheat (3f. <ristatum), which
grows in woods and thickets, and sometimes in
corn-fields, flowering in July. Flower rather
Bmall, not quite closed, variegated with cream
colour and light purple; the palate yellow.
The seed-vessel is a crescent-shaped capsule,
containing two large seeds in each cell.

2. Purple cow-wheat (M. arveti-ae). This
species grows in corn-fields on a light soil, and
flowers in July. Stem 1^ foot high, purplish,
acntely quadrangular; the branches more up-
right than in the foregoing. Leaves lanceolate,

1138

rough-edged. Spikes ]ong, many-flowered.
Bractes loosely spreading, deeply pectinated or
pinnatifid, the upper ones entirely, and the
lower ones partially, coloured of a delicate
purplish rose colour. The flowers are large
and scentless. The seeds are two or three in
each capsule, but one is often abortive. This
is one of the most beautiful of English wild
plants. It will grow from fresh seeds in a dry
garden, and is well worthy of cultivation.

3. Common yellow cow-wheat (M. pratense),
PI. 7, q. This is a very common species in
woods and bushy places, especially on clay or
loamy soil. It flowers in July and August.
Stem smooth, with several wide-spreading
branches. Leaves bright green, lanceolate.
Flowers axillary, solitary, opposite, turned in
pairs to one side. The capsules have a curved
point. Cows are reported to be fond of this
plant ; and Linnreus says the best and yellow-
est butter is made where it abounds.

4. Wood cow-wheat (M, sylvaticum). This
species grows in alpine woods, especially in-
forests of fir. It agrees with the last in gene-
ral habit, but is rather smaller, especially the
flowers, and the capsule is less pointed.

Two or three species of cow-wheat are
found in the United States.

WHEAT-GRASS (Trilicum). Of this ge-
nus, to which belongs our cultivated wheat,
there are five species indigenous to England.

1. Sea rushy wheat-grass {T. junceum), which
is frequent on the sandy sea-coast, is a pe-
rennial, and flowers in July. The root, with
its widely creeping, numerous woolly fibres,
is well calculated for binding the loose sand,
which purpose it serves in common with Ely^
mus arenarius, Arundo arenaria, Sec. The whole
plant is glaucous and rigid, like those grasses.
Stem 12 or 18 inches high, simple, inclining,
smooth, even and polished, tinged with a bright
violet hue below, striated above. Leaves in-
volute, sharp-pointed.

2. Creeping wheat-o;rass, or couch-grass (T,
repens). PI. 10, i. This is a common pest
everywhere, in waste as well as cultivated
land. The long-jointed, creeping root-stock, or

WHEAT-GRASS.

WHEEL.

rhizome, strikes so deeply and widely as to be
very difficult of extirpation. It is, in fact, an
underground stem, vivacious, and consequently
shooting up stems and leaves at every joint.
The stem above ground is slender, 2 feet high,
and leafy. Leaves linear, flat, of a dull, some-
what glaucous green, most numerous on the
lower part of the stems. But the plant is so
well known that it requires no description.
Forking out the roots after the plough is doubt-
less ihe best mode of extirpating this noxious
weed ; but the process must not be discontinued
while a particle of the root-stock is suspected
lo remain in the soil, as the leas! portion will
grow, and the land being so much broken and
loosened by the operation, gives double encou-
ragemenl for the rapid growth «>f the plant. Ii
does not thrive well when combined with other
grasses, but is naturally more common in
hedges. The root-stock contains a large pro-
portion of nutritive matter; it is esteemed
abroad for feeding horses. At Naples the root-
stocks are collected in large quantities for this
purpose, and brought to market. The nutritive
matter from the leaves contains an excess of
bitter extractive and saline matters. Dogs cat
the leaves, and also those of the Holcus avena-
ceus, to excite vomiting; hence it is sometimes
called dog's grass, and in other places bears
the name of quitch or quicks. See Couch.

3. Fibrous-rooted, or bearded wheat-grass
(T. canititim). This differs essentially from
the common couch-grass last described, in
having the root fibrous, without a rhizome. It
grows in woods and shady hedges on a chalky
or limestone soil. The stems are 2 feet high,
very smooth. Leaves nearly upright, lanceo-
late, taper-pointed, thin, flat, bright green, rough
on both sides. As this grass yields a large
supply of early spring herbage, and produces
a sufficiency of seeds, which vegetate quickly
on all soils except such as are tenacious or re-
tentive of moisture, it might be cultivated to
advantage on soils of an inferior quality in-
stead of rye-grass. But for soils of the best
quality it does not, as yet, uphold a sufficient
claim, the awns of the spike being objectiona-
ble, and the produce of the latter-math very in-
considerable.

4. Crested wheat-grass (T. cristatum), a na-
tive of Scotland. The roots of this species
consist of several long, strong woolly fibres,
suited to a sandy soil. The culms are ascend-
ing, 12 or 18 inches high, simple, rigid, slen-
der, leafy ; hairy at the top. This grass seems
well adapted, from its comparative merits, for
culture on light heath soils; the produce of
early herbage in the spring being superior to
most of the alpine grasses, or those which
affect sandy dry soils. The latter-math is pro-
ductive, and very nutritious. It flowers about
the second week of July, and the seed is ripe
about the end of August.

5. Dwarf sea wheat-grass (T. loliaceum).
This is an annual species, growing on the
f-andy sea-coast, flowering in June and July.
The root is formed of many long downy fibres.
Stem rigid and wiry, branched from the bottom,
generally 2 or .3 inches high, but various in
luxuriance, leafy, very smooth, and polished,

erect or decumbent. Leaves linear, acute,
nearly smooth, involute when dry.

WHEEL. A circular piece of wood, me-
tal, or other substance, that revolves on an
axis. It consists of three principal parts,
the nave, heel, or the centre ; the spokes or
radii, and the periphery or ring. The strength
of the wheel depends much on the framing
and the arrangement of the spokes, every one
of which should stand perpendicularly, to the
nave. In England and other parts of Europe,
the elm is considered the best wood for making
naves, as it bears the cutting of the mortices
truer than any other. See Elm. In making
wheels, after they are loosely put together, they
are either left to season in a current of air for
some weeks, or they are exposed to a heat of
140** Fah. in a kiln. After this they are exa-
mined, and if every thing is correct, the tire or
iron hoop is put on, whether made of one hoop
or separate pieces. Some years since a patent
was taken out in England by Mr. T. Jones for
making iron wheels, many of which are now
in use. These wheels are not conical, nor what
is termed dished, but cylindrical, which enables
them to run lighter and also prove less destruo-
live to roads. They are not heavier thaa
wooden wheels, they require less draught, and
are more durable. Some improvements hava
been made on Mr. Jones's wheel by Mr. Wil-
liam Howard, but the merits of this have not
yet been fully proved.

The utility of wheels to carriages may be
said to be twofold ; namely, by diminishing or
more easily overcoming the resistance or fric-
tion from the carriage, and more easily over-
coming obstacles in the road. In the first the
friction on the ground is transferred, in some,
degree, from the outer surface of the wheel to
its nave and axle, and in the latter they serve
easily to raise the carriage over obstacles and
asperities met with on the roads. In both
these cases the height of the wheel is of mate-
rial consideration ; as the spokes act as levers,
the top of an obstacle being the fulcrum, their
length enables the carriage more easily to sur-
mount them, and the greater proportion of the
wheel to the axle serves more easily to dimi-
nish or to overcome the friction of an axle, as
has been shown by Jacob in his work on Wheel
Carriages.

Carriages with four wheels are much more
advantageous than carriages with two wheels,
as carts ; for with two wheels, it is plain, the
tiller horse carries part of the weight in one
way or other; in going down hill the weight
bears upon the horse, and in going up hill the
weight falls the other way and lifts the horse,
which is still worse. Besides, as the wheels
sink into the holes in the roads, sometimes on
one side, sometimes on the other, the shafts
strike against the tiller's sides, which destroys
many horses ; moreover, when one of the
wheels sinks into a hole or rut, half the weight
falls that way, which endangers the overturn-
ing of the carriage.

With respect to the utility of broad wheels
in amending and preserving the roads, it has
been so long and generally acknowledged as to
have occasioned the legislature to enforce their

1139

WHEEL-PLOUGH.

WHORTLEBERRY.

use. At the same time the proprietors and i
drivers of carriages seem to be convinced, by
experience, that a narrow-wheeled cart is more ,
easily and speedily drawn by the same number i
of horses than a broad-wheeled one of the same |
burdeii: probably because they are much
lighter, and have less friction on the axle.

WHEEL-PLOUGH. See Plough.

WHEY. A provincial term applied to the
serous part of the milk, from which the curd
has been separated.

Whey, when new and of a pale green colour,
forms an agreeable beverage, and with oatmeal
makes an excellent gruel or porridge. Left till
it gets sour, it undergoes the vinous fermenta-
tion as readily as buttermilk. Among the Tar-
tars and Scythians a spirituous liquor is pre-
pared from milk which has undergone fer-
mentation.

Whey is divided into two sorts, green and
white; the former escaping readily from the
curd, while the latter is freed from it by means
of pressure. There are different methods of
extracting the whey. In some dairies the whole
whey, when taken from the cheese-tub, is put
into pails or other vessels, where it remains
for about 24 hours; when it is creamed, and
the whey is applied to the use of calves and
pigs, which are said to thrive as well on it
after the cream has been taken from it as be-
fore. The cream, when skimmed off the whey,
is put into a brass pan and boiled, and after-
wards set in pans or jars, where it remains till
a sufficient quantity for churning is procured,
which in large dairies happens generally once,
but sometimes twice, in the week. In Ayr-
shire whey is given to horses. See Daibt and
Milk.

WHEY BUTTER, as its name implies, is
butter made from the whey which is taken from
the curd, after the milk is coagulated for the
manufacture of cheese. It is chiefly made in
those counties where cheese is manufactured,
and where it forms no inconsiderable part of
the profits of the dairy. In the county of Derby,
more butter is said to be made from whey than
from the cream of milk, or from milk churned
altogether. A similar preparation in the United
States goes under the names of cottage cheese,
schn)eer case, &c.

WHIN, or GORSE. See Furze.

WHISKY. A spirit obtained by distilla-
tion from corn, sugar, or molasses, though
generally from the former. Whisky is the
"national spirit," if we may so term it, of
Scotland and Ireland; but that distilled in the
former is generally reckoned superior to that
of the latter.

WHITE CROPS. A term used in England
to designate crops of grain, such as wheat,
barley, oats, &c.

WHITE-ROT (Hydrocoiyk ; from hydor, wa-
ter, and cotyle, a cavity; in reference to the
plants growing in moist situations, and the
leaves being hollowed like cups). One spe-
cies only is indigenous, the common white-rot
or marsh penny-wort (H. vulgaris), which grows
very frequent on moist heaths, boggy com-
mons, and the margins of little clear rivulets.
It is perennial in habit, flowering in May or
June. The roots are fibrous ; stems creeping
1140

to the extent of 2 or 3 feet, slender, smooth,
often subdivided, quite prostrate. Leaves soli-
tary or aggregate, on upright, simple foot-stalks,
2 or 3 inches high; orbicular, peltate, smooth,
cloven at the base. Umbels very small, of di-
minutive whue or reddish, nearly sessile flow-
ers. Fruit somewhat wrinkled, compressed.
This herb is acrid, and, probably, like others
of the umbelliferous tribe growing in wet
places, poisonous. But whether it causes the
rot in sheep, and, indeed, whether these ani-
mals ever touch it, is doubtful. Too moist a
pasture is known to produce that disease, and
there the Hydrocotyle is generally to be found.
See Rot.

WHITE-THORN. See Hawthorw.

WHITE-TOP {Jgj-ostis alba). See Herd's
and Ykllow-Top.

WHITLOW- GRASS (Draba, from drabe,
acrid, biting; alluding to the taste of the
leaves). Some of the species of this genus
are very pretty, being well adapted for orna-
menting rock-work or growing in pots among
other alpine plants. A mixture of loam and
peat suits them best ; and they increase with
facility, either by dividing at the root or by
seeds. There are in England five native spe-
cies: the common whitlow-grass (Z). verna);
the yellow alpine whitlow-grass (D. aizoides) ;
the simple-haired whitlow-grass (D. hirta); the
twisted-podded whitlow-grass (D. incana) ; and
the speedwell-leaved whitlow-grass (D. mura-
lis). The leaves are undivided; the flowers
either white or yellow.

WHORTLEBERRY (Vaccimum). A genus
of shrubs mostly of very humble growth, with
simple, alternate, evergreen, or deciduous
leaves. Flowers stalked, solitary or aggre-
gate, reddish or white, very elegant. Berries
blue, black, or red, acid and eatable. The ge-
nus is chiefly American, and the foliage turns
red in decay. All the species are well worth
cultivating, some of them for the sake of their
fruit, some for curiosity, and others for orna-
ment. The different kinds of whortleberry and
bilberry succeed well in peat soil or very
sandy loam. Some of them grow best in moist
situations, and others in dry. They may be
raised from root suckers, creeping roots, trail-
ing rooting stems, or from seeds. There are
four indigenous species, namely: —

1. In England the black whortleberry or bil-
berry ( V. mirtyllus), is a shrub growing on stony
heaths, and in woods where the soil is turfy,
chiefly in mountainous countries, abundantly
flowering in May. The stem is bushy, from 1 to
2 feet high, with irregular, smooth, green, leafy,
angular branches. Leaves stalked, ovate, ser-
rated, about an inch long, bright green, smooth,
thin, delicate, and veiny; deciduous. Flowers
on simple, axillary, solitary, drooping stalks.
Corolla ovate, bright red, with a waxy trans-
parency. Berries bluish-black, of 5 cells, acid,
but not agreeable nor wholesome except when
dressed. They are, nevertheless, eaten raw in
some countries with boiled cream and sugar.
The leaves contain a good deal of tannic acid,
and have been substituted for those of Uva wm,
as an astringent medicine, but are very inferior
to them.

1. Bog whortleberry or great bilberry (F.

WHORTLEBERRY.

WILLOW.

tilifrinosvm), grows on boggy, mountainous '
heaths,and is common in ihe Hij^hlands of Scot-
land. Ii flowers in May. Taller than the pre-
ceding, with round branches. Leaves obovate,
entire, smooth, deciduous. Flowers several
together, flesh-coloured. Berries large, bluish-
black, less acid, and less wholesome than the
former.

3. Red whortleberry, or cowberry (V. vitis
idaa.) This species grows on dry, stony, turfy
heaths, or in mountainous woods, in many
parts of Scotland, Wales, and the north of
England. It is plentiful in Derbyshire. It is
an evergreen, flowering in June. The roots
are creeping; stems erect, 3 or 4 inches high,
with a few irregular, wavy, leafy, downy
branches at the summit. Berries globose,
deep red, astringent, and acid, with much bit-
terness, which they lose by immersion for some
hours in water before they are made into pies,
rob, or jelly. In the latter state this fruit is
excellent for sore throats, as well as for eating
with venison or other roast meat, as is prac-
tised generally in Sweden. The leaves of this
species are often mistaken for those of Uva urti.
They contain much astringent matter, and are
little inferior to Uva ursi as a medicine.

4. Marsh whortleberry, or cranberry (V.oxy-
coccus). This species grows in clear, watery,
turfy bogs, among mosses. The roots are
creeping, with many long fibres. Stems slen-
der, wiry, trailing, and creeping, with numerous
leafy branches. Leaves ovate, entire, smooth,
revolute, acute, perennial. Flowers very ele-
gant, drooping, on simple red stalks, several
together at the end of each branch. Berries
spotted in an early state, finally deep red, very
acid, highly grateful to most people in tarts or
other preparations with sugar; though in
Sweden they serve only for the acid liquor to
boil silver plate in, to eat away the minute ex-
ternal particles of the copper alloy.

Mr. Nuttall enumerates twenty-five species
of whortleberry, or huckleberry, natives of
the United States, 17 of which are deciduous,
and 8 evergreens. The following is his enu-
meration :

1. Leaves deciduous.

1. Vaccinium stamineum. Berries large, partly
pyriform, and green when ripe; bitter and
scarcely edible. 2. album. 3. arboreum. The
largest species of the genus in North America;
branches divaricated; flowers partly as in V.
stamineum ; berries rather dry but sweet, with
a granular pulp. 4. dumosum. Very low, and
running profusely ; berries perfectly black to
appearance, conspicuously crowned by the
persistent calyx. 5. frondosum. Berries and
under side of the leaves glaucous ; fruit large
and rarely copious; agreeable, but quickly de-
liquescent, and subject to be infested by the
larva of insects. 6. pallidum. 7. resinosum.
Flowers reddish, angular. Fruit not much es-
teemed. 8. corymbosum. Fruit subacid, and
agreeable, as well as that of the following.
9. amoenum. 10. virgatum. 11. fuscatum. 12.
galezans. 13. liguslrinum. 14. tenellum, some-
times called sugar-huckleberries, small and
rather too saccharine, but a very agreeable
fruit, brought in great quantities to the Phila-

delphia market. 15. uliginosum. The European
whortleberry. 16. myriilloides. 17. caspilosum,

2. Leaves sempervirent.

18. ViiisidcBa. Berries scarlet, farinaceous,
and insipid. A small subalpine species, indi-
genous also to the north of Europe. 19. myr-
tifolium. 20. crassifolium. A variety probably
of the following. 21. niddum. Branches pro-
cumbent and repent. From Virginia to Georgia.
22. myrsiniles. 23. buxifolium. 24. ovattim. 25.
obtusum. These two last are indigenous to the
northwest coast.

Vaccinium is a North American genus, with
the exception of 3 species in Europe, 1 in Ja-
maica, 1 in the island of Taheiti, in the Pacific,
1 indigenous to Madeira and Cappadocia, and
3 in Japan.

The species firslnamed by Mr.Nutlall, is what
is commonly called in the JVIiddle States squaw
huckleberry and deerberry, the stems of which
are low. The 5th species, or leafy vaccinium, is
commonly called blue huckleberry, and blue-
tangles. The stems grow from 2 to 5 feet high.
The large and dark blue berries of this species
are a very agreeable fruit. The 7lh species, or
resinous vaccinium, is commonly known in the
Middle States by the appellation of black huckle-
berry ; the fruit of this has larger seeds ihaa
the species last described, and, though pleasant,
is not so much esteemed. The 8ih species, or
corymbose vaccinium, is what is known in the
Middle States as the swamp, or tall huckleberry,
a stout shrub, growing from 5 to 10 feel high,
yielding abundantly large berries, one-third of
an inch in diameter, purplish-black when ripe.
Some other species, especially the V. fuscaiumf
and V. amoenum, are confounded with this by
some naturalists. The 14th species is also called
thePennsylvania vaccinium, and commonly the
sugar-huckleberry. The stem of this is from I
to 2 feet high, and much branched. The berries
are middle-sized and covered with a little sil-
very powder or bloom when mature. The pro-
duct is very abundant and the fruit sweet and
pleasant.

In Kent county, Delaware, a new species or
variety of whortleberry has been recently
discovered, the fruit of which is of a beautiful
rich white colour with a yellowish tinge. The
flavour is extremely pleasant, and free from the
least harshness or acerbity. They are of course
exempt from the objection to the common
kinds, that of staining the teeth and Hps.

In the valley of the Columbia river a new
species of bushberry has been discovered,
called Pambina.

WIKES. A provincial term in England,
signifying temporary boundaries or marks, set
up to divide swath, to be mown, such as boughs
in the common fields, or meadows. Also boughs
set upon haycocks for tithes, &c.

WILD OATS. A name given to the tall
oat-like soft grass {Holcus avenaceus). A noxi-
ous weed in arable lands. See Holcus.

WILD PEAR TREE. See June Berrt.

WILLOW (Salix; from sal, near, and lis,
water (Celtic) ; in allusion to the place of its
growth : or from salire, to leap, because of the
rapidity of its growth). An extensive genus
of well-known useful and ornamental treea
5D 1141

WILLOW.

WILLOW.

and shrubs. They all delight to grow in
swampy places, and are increased by cuttings,
though some of the more rare alpine kinds
root with difficulty. There is no tribe of trees
of such various magnitude as the willows, from
the large white willow to the minute Salix her-
bacea,six of which may be placed between two
leaves of a duodecima, roots, stems, leaves,
and flowers. Many of the species of willow,
under the names of osier and sallow, are ex-
tensively grown for the manufacture of basket-
rods ; the best sorts for which are the great
round-leaved sallow (S. capren) and the com-
mon osier (S. viminalis). The branches of
some of the species are used as stakes, poles,
handles to rakes, hoes, and a great variety of
economical purposes. Loudon (jlrb. Brit.) says,
*'In the north of Europe the bark of S. alba is
used for tanning leather, and for dyeing yarn
of a common cinnamon colour; and the leaves
and young shoots are given to cattle in a green
state, or dried like the twigs of the birch, and
laid up for winter fodder." The bark, how-
ever, is less valuable than that of some of the
other species. The leaves of the least willow
(S. hcrbaceu), soaked in water, are employed in
Iceland for tanning leather. {Paxton^s Bot.
Diet.) The arrangement of the species of
willows is a matter of considerable difficulty,
as well as their technical discrimination.
Among the numerous species of willows there
are only a few which are cultivated for farm
purposes: of these we shall enumerate and
describe the following : —

1. The long-leaved triandrous willow (S.
triandra). This tree is very common in wet
woods, hedges, and osier grounds. It is of an
upright form, rising naturally, when not in-
jured, to the height of 30 feet; towards autumn
casting the bark of its trunk and larger branches
in broad, solid portions, cracking angularly
asunder, like the plane tree. The young
branches are erect, long, tough, and pliant,
smooth, leafy, brownish, somewhat brittle at
their joint or insertion. Leaves linear-oblong,
serrated, smooth, rather unequally sloping at
the base. The narrower-leaved willows gene-
rally come under the denomination of osiers,
of which this is one of the most valuable. It
is cultivated for while basket-work, producing
rods 8 or 9 feet long, tough and pliant, even
when stripped of their bark, and very durable.
They are cut down every year. There are
several varieties of this species ; one, called
the French willow, is cultivated in Sussex and
in the eastern parts of England; it is more
slender in form, and only about 12 or 15 feet high.

2. Bedford willow (S. RusselUana). When
this tree was first recommended for cultivation,
by the name of the Leicestershire, or'Dishley
willow, it was regarded with scorn as "only
the crack willow" (S. fragilis), a sort noto-
riously useless. This ignorance and prejudice
are now removed, and this willow is found the
most profitable for cultivation of any species j
of the genus, for the value of its timber as j
well as bark, the rapidity of its growth, and '
the handsome aspect of the tree. This spe- 1
cies of willow was first brought into notice by
the late Duke of Bedford, who engaged an

1142

able chemist, Mr. Biggin, to make experiments
upon it. It was found to contain in its bark
more of the tanning principle than any other
tree of England, except the oak. The bark
also contains the largest quantity oi salirina, a
salt which has been found useful as a substi-
tute for the quinia and cmchona in agues, and
which is much less liable to excite irritation
in the stomach than the salts of the cinchona.
It is of great importance that the distinctions
between this willow and the crack willow (5.
fragilis) should be clearly pointed out, on ac-
count of the wide difference in their qualities
and value. This tree is more handsome than
the crack willow in its mode of growth, as well
as altogether of a lighter or brighter hue. The
branches are long, straight, and slender, not
angular in their insertion, like S. fragilis; and
the trees, when stripped of their leaves, may
always be distinguished by these marks. They
are polished, very tough, flexible, round, and
smooth. Leaves lanceolate, tapering at each
end, serrated throughout, and very smooth.
Those of S. fragilis are ovate-lanceolate; the
foot-stalk, also, is longer than the scale, whilst
in S. fragilis it is so short that the leaf is nearly
sessiie. In both it is glandular or leafy.

3. Bitter purple willow (S. purpurea,). This
is a shrub growing in low meadows, about the
banks of rivers and ditches, but not common.
The trunk is 3 or 4 feet high, with long, slen-
der, very smooth branches, spreading widely,
and, if not supported, trailing on the ground,
of a rich and shining purple, with a somewhat
glaucous hue. Leaves partly opposite, obovate-
lanceolate, serrated, very smooth, narrow at the
base. This is a very valuable osier for fine
basket-work, but nlore especially for platting
into low, close fences, to keep out hares and
rabbits; the leaves and bark being intensely
bitter, those animals will not touch either. The
twigs, moreover, are so long, tough, and flexi-
ble, that they may be interwoven into any
shape, and kept very close to the ground, as
they always retain their horizontal mode of
growth. Such a fence is scarcely inferior to
one made of wire, and is, perhaps, more dura-
ble, as continually producing young shoots, to
supply the place of those that decay. It is im-
portant to distinguish this useful and elegant
willow from that to be next described. The
bark contains much salicina.

4. The rose willow (S. helix) grows ia
marshes, osier holts, and about the banks of
rivulets. It is a tree of humble growth, erect,
about 10 feet high, smooth in every part, alto-
gether of a lighter hue than the last. The
branches not trailing, but upright, smooth, and
polished, of a pale yellowish or purplish ash
colour, tough, and pliable, less slender and
elongated than the foregoing species, though
useful for the coarser sorts of basket-work.
Leaves partly opposite, oblong-lanceolate,
pointed, slightly serrated, very smooth, linear
towards the base. Their colour a light, rather
glaucous green, turning blackish in drying.
The leaves and twigs are less bitter than the
former, and the greater size of the trunk, as
well as branches, renders this species fit for
several purposes which that is not. It also

WILLOW.

WILLOW-HERB.

makes a better figure in plantations, and the
roots give more solidity to the banks of rivers
or ditches.

5. Common white willow (S. alba). This is
a tall tree, whose bark is thick, full of cracks,
useful for tanning ; and, as yielding much sali-
cina, good also for the cure of agues, though
inferior in quality to that of the true Bedford,
or Huntingdon willow. The bark is called
cortex salignvm, and angliranum by some writers.
The branches are numerous, spreading widely,
silky when young. Leaves all alternate, ellip-
tic-lanceolate, pointed, serrated, silky on both
sides; the lowest serratures glandular. There
is a variety which is very superior in the
value of the wood and bark, and the rapid
growth as well as handsome aspect of the
tree, to the original species. See Osier and
Sallow.

The willow genus contains more than 130
species, chiefly distributed over the northern
parts of Europe and America. Many of the
species are alpine. Only 4 have as yet been
found indigenous to South America, whilst in
North America botanists enumerate upwards
of 25 indigenous kinds. Some of these are
mere shrubs.

The black willow (8. nigra) is the most com-
mon of the American willows, and the most
analogous to that of Europe. It is less multi-
plied in the Northeraand Southern than in the
Middle and especially in the Western States.
It is found on the banks of the great rivers,
such as the Susquehanna and the Ohio, and is
called black willow, or simply willow.

The black willow is rarely more than 80 or
35 feet high and 12 or 15 inches in diameter.
It divides at a small height into several diver-
gent but not pendentlimbs,and forms a spacious
summit. The leaves are long, narrow, finely
denticulated, of a light green, and destitute of
stipulac. In the uniformity of its colouring the
foliage of this species differs from that of the
European willow, the lower surface of which
is glaucous.

Upon the trunk the bark is grayish and fine-
ly chapt; upon the roots it is of a dark brown,
whence may have been derived the specific
name of the tree. The roots afford an in-
tensely bitter decoction, which is considered
in the country as a purifier of the blood, and
as a preventive and a remedy for intermittent
fevers.

The wood is white and soft, and the branches
are easily broken from the tree. Neither the
wood nor the twigs are applied to any useful
purpose. {Michaux.)

Michaux describes two other species of Ame-
rican willow. One, from being found on the
shores of Lake Champlain, he calls Cham-
plain willow (.J?. ligustrina). It grows 20 to 25
feet high, with 7 or 8 inches diameter, and very
much resembles the black willow, except that
the leaves are longer and narrower. The other
is the shining willow {S. lurida), so called on
account of the brilliancy of ils foliage. This
Michaux found only in the Middle and North-
ern States. It is found in moist but open
grounds, and is more common on the edges of
the salt meadows than in the interior of the
forests ; it is aUo seen on the islands, not co-

vered with woods, in the rivers, and near the

shores of the lakes.

This species is easily distinguished by the
superior size of its leaves, which are oval-
acuminate,denticulated, and sometimes 4 inches
in length.

The shining willow attains the height of 18
or 20 feet; but its ordinary elevation is 9 or 10
feet. Baskets are made of its branches, when
those of the European willow, which are pre-
ferable, cannot be obtained; but it possesses
no property that recommends it to attention.

Many species of willow are found in the
United States and in Canada, the greater
part of which are susceptible of no useful em-
ployment. The three species described are
distinguished only by their superior height;
but even these are greatly inferior to the Eu-
ropean willow in size and in the properties of
their wood. In the Northern and Middle Slates,
particularly in Pennsylvania and in some
townships in the lower part of New Jersey,
great numbers of the European willow have
been planted, of which light baskets are fabri-
cated for the market of Philadelphia. This
tree furnishes the charcoal for the manufacture
of gunpowder. {Michaux.)

The common yellow willow is the S. vitellina
of botanists. It is also frequently called golden
willow, and by some egg-yolk willow. 'I'he
French call it Le Saule. This, says Dr. Darling-
ton, was early introduced here as a shade tree,
and has become partially naturalized in many
places. I think I have never seen any but the
pistillate plant. A variety with paler bark (per-
haps the S.alba of authors) is also occasionally
to be met with. The handsome S. babylonica, or
weeping willow, is more generally preferred as
an ornamental shade tree, and the pistillate
plant of that species is extensively propagated
about houses, but it can hardly be said to be
naturalized.

WILLOW-HERB (Epilobium,from epi, upon,
and lobosy a lobe ; the flowers have the appear-
ance of being seated on the top of the pod).
Many of the species of this genus are very
ornamental, as E. angustifolium ; while a few
others, such as E. montanum, are mere weeds.
They all grow well in any common soil, and
are either increased by seeds or by dividing
the roots. The indigenous species are nine,
namely, the rosebay willow-herb {E. angustifo-
lium), the great hairy willow-herb (E. hirsutum)t
the small-flowered hoary willow-herb (E.par-
viflorum), the broad smooth-leaved willow-herb
{E. montanum), pale smooth-leaved willow-herb
{E. roseum), square-stalked willow-herb (E. te-
tragonum), round-stalked marsh willow-herb
(jB. palustre), chick weed-leaved willow-herb
(E. alsini folium), and the alpine willow-herb
{E. alpinum).

These are all perennial herbs, with simple,
grenerally toothed, leaves; flowers mostly pur-
ple, in terminal leafy clusters or spikes, with-
out scent. The most common of these are —

1. The rose-bay willow-herb {E. angustifo'
Hum), which grows wild in meadows and moist,
shady places, chiefly in the north of England.
The root is creeping, fleshy, with numerous
buds, stems from three to six feet high, erect,
roundish, leafy, smooth, reddish, seldom branch-

1143

WILLOW-LICE.

WINE.

ed. Leaves scattered, numerous, nearly sessile,
linear-lanceolate, acute, various in breadth,
veiny, smooth. Flowers crimson, inodorous,
very handsome, numerous, in long terminal
upright clusters. This is a very ornamental
flower, common in gardens, where it increases
but too rapidly; thriving, like many mountain
plants, even in the smoky air of London. There
is a white variety. 2. The great hairy willow-
herb (£. hirsutum). This species is very com-
mon in England in all watery places, ditches,
and the margins of rivers; among reeds, coarse
grasses, and willows. It has an extensively
creeping root. The whole herbage is downy,
soft, and clammy, exhaling a peculiar but tran-
sitory acidulous scent, justly compared to the
flavour of boiled codlings and cream. Stems
four feet or more in height, round, leafy,
copiously branched, and bushy. Leaves half,
clasping the stem, ovate-lanceolate, hairy.
Flowers in leafy corymbose clusters, large, of a
delicate pink. Of this genus, which is most
multiplied in the North of Europe, there are 8
species enumerated in NuttaWs Genera as in-
digenous to North America.

WILLOW-LICE. See Aphidians.

WILLOW-WEED. In England, a name
applied in the fens to the snake-weed, or pale-
flowered persicaria {Polygonum lapathifolmm),
an annual plant, which grows very freely on
all loose and deep soils, and on marshy lands,
though it be scarcely known to any of the cul-
tivators of clay, and it is as rarely to be seen
on any sort of turnip land. This plant grows
commonly from 18 inches to 2 feet; its stalks
are tender and succulent, pale, spotted, or red-
dish ; the joints much swollen. The plant
branches most when it has free growth, and
produces a great number of crowded spikes of
seeds. The leaves resemble those of the wil-
low, but are charged with dark spots in the
middle. The seeds are very bright and heavy,
highly nutritious, and therefore very grateful to
birds, especially partridges. Those who keep
decoys for catching wild ducks will buy the
seeds to feed and entice the fowl. Pigs will do
well on them, if boiled. These seeds very
much infest samples of fen corn, whether
wheat, oats, or barley. As a weed in fen soils,
this plant is the most ramping and cumber-
some of any weed that grows.

WIND. See Weather.

WIND-FLOWER. One of the names of the
marsh gentian. See Gentian,

WIND, in HORSES. See Broken Wind
and RoAuiNo.

WINDMILL. A well-known contrivance
for grinding corn or raising water, which is
put in motion by the action of the wind upon
its sails or vanes. They are of two kinds, ver-
tical and hoi-izontal, but the former is generally
preferred. Since the extensive introduction of
improved horse power, hand, and steam ma-
chinery, windmills are becoming much less
common throughout the country; and from
depending entirely upon the caprice of the
weather, they are only suited to elevated or ex-
posed situations, where they will catch every
passing breeze; and are much less useful than
water-mills, which can generally be kept at
work continuously, or for a much longer
1144

period. A set of arms and sails might he ad-
vantageously used in some situations for pump-
ing up water from a well into a trough or cis-
tern for cattle, or for the purposes of irrigation.
In the West Indies, a simple apparatus of (his
kind is usually attached to the pump or well in
the farm-yard. The velocity of the sails of a
windmill, in a moderate wind, was calculated
by Mr. Fergfuson to be thirty miles an hour.

WIND-PLANT. Wood or Grove Anemone
(J. nemorosa). An American plant, with a pe-
rennial root, found in the moist woodlands and
thickets of the Middle States, flowering in April
and May. Flowers white, often tinged with
purple.

WINDROW. A term signifying in England
the green parts, or borders of a field, dug up,
in order to carry the earth on other land to
mend it; so called because it is laid in rows,
and exposed to the wind. It is also applied
to a row of peats or a line of hay exposed la
dry, and also to turfs cut up in paring and
burning.

WINE (Vinum, Lat.; vin, Fr. ; vino, Ital.
and Span.; vinho, Portu.; v)ein, Germ.; w'yn,
Dutch; -iviyi, Swed. ; viin, Dan.; vino, Russ.) A
well-known agreeable, and, when moderately
used, wholesome liquor, prepared from the
juice of the grape, and that of some other
fruits. The invention of wine is involved in
the obscurity of the earliest ages. The sacred
writings, however, lead us to believe that it
must have been known before the deluge ; for
we are informed that the patriarch Noah, im-
mediately after that overwhelming event, "be-
gan to be a husbandman ; and he planted a
vineyard ; and he drank of the wine, and was
drunken" (Genesis, ch. ix. v. 20, 21), a suffi-
cient reason for supposing that it was a fer-
mented liquor, and not merely the simple juice
of the grape. It is, indeed, natural to imagine,
that in those countries where the vine is a
native, the spontaneous fermentation of the
juice of the fruit, when it was expressed, either
purposely or accidentally, and not immediately
used as a beverage, would have naturally led
to the invention of making wine at a very
early period. It is, nevertheless, certain, that
until modern times the preparation of wine
was purely empirical.

The history of wine is of great interest, but
it would be impossible to attempt even a very
brief sketch of it in an article of this descrip-
tion, and therefore we shall confine our remarks
upon that part of the subject to some account
of the wines used in England, our object
being rather to treat of the general rules to be
followed in making and preserving wine, and
to explain its dietetic qualities, than to trace its-
history.

Wine, at a former period* was made in
England for sale, and most of the large abbeys
were supplied with it from grapes raised in
their own vineyards ; but at no time was it con-
sidered equal in quality to foreign wine ; and
certainly no stronger reason for the neglect
into which wine-making in England fell need
be stated. Soon after the Norman conquest,^
much encouragement was given to the importa-
tion of the wines of Anjou and of Poitou ; and
in the time of Henry III. we find those of the

WINE.

Mo-selle and St. John, probably an Italian sweet
winp, were added to the imports. But for a
considerable period the foreign wines were
not drunk in their genuine form, but were
mixed with honey, sugar, orange juice, and
even opium. Chaucer, in the Knight's Tale,
speaks of

•* A clarrie (claret) made of cprtain wine,
Willi narcotise and opie of Thehes fine."

These mixed wines received different names,
according to the nature of the wine employed.
When made with Burgundy or Bordeaux, the
mixture was called Bishop; when with old
Rhenish, its name was Cardinal; and when
with Tokay, it was dignified with the title of
Pope. In the reign of Edward II. the taste for
sweet wines prevailed; and consequently we
find the wines which Alsace then furnished,
which were chiefly sweet, were much used. In
the time of Elizabeth, the profusion and diver-
sity of wines displayed on the tables even of
the citizens of the metropolis, and the inhabit-
ants of the southern provinces, almost exceed
belief. Harrison, in his account of the mode
of living in England in that reign, states, that
there were upwards of eighty-six different
wines in use; "whereof," he adds, "Vernage,
Cate-piment, Raspis, Muscadell, Romnie, Bas-
tard, Tire, Oseie, Caprike, Clareie, and Mal-
meseie are not least of all accompted of, be-
cause of their strength and valure." (Ilollins-
hed's Chron. p. 167.) Sack, with which all are
familiar who have read the works of our im-
mortal dramatist, was a dry Spanish wine; but
sugar was often added to it, with the view, as
Venner informs us, to lessen the hot and pene-
trative quality of the wine. In truth, the best
sack (for there were several kinds in use) was
of the growth of Xerez, or in other words
sherry. In PasquiVs Palinodia, published in
1619, this is stated in the following lines: —

" give me sacke, old sacke, boys,

To make the muses merry ;
The hfe of mirth, and the joy of earth,
Is a Clip of good old sherry."

The Spanish wines still retained the first
place on English tables, at the commencement
of the seventeenth century. After this time, the
preference was given to the Canary wines,
more of which, Howell (Familiar Letters, part
ii. 60) informs us, " was brought into England
than to all the world besides." Champagne ap-
pears to have been unknown in Britain until a
present from Louis XIV. of two hundred hogs-
heads of wine, consisting of Champagne, Bur-
gundy, and Hermitage, was sent to the king of
England; but it was long after this time un-
known to those not connected with the court,
and, therefore, it was regarded, as Venner
terms it, " a regal wme." Even at this period,
however, although much wine was drunk, yet
few persons kept a stock of it in private cel-
lars; the chief consumption was in taverns.

The war with France in 1689 introduced the
use of the wines of Portugal, particularly the
red wine, or port, as a substitute for the growths
of Bordeaux; and the celebrated Methuen
treaty, which obliged us to receive the wines
of Portugal in exchange for our woollen manu-
factures, and at one-third less rate of the duty
144

WINE-

levied on French wines, confirmed the taste of
Englishmen for this strong and intoxicating
beverage, a taste which is again happily, as
respects health and longevity, on the decline.

From the foregoing sketch it is evident that
the English taste in wine has varied considera-
bly at different periods. For five or six cen-
turies, the light wines of France and the banks
of the Rhine, and the rich sweet wines of the
Mediterranean and the Archipelago, were in
high estimation. Then came the dry Spanish
wines; and at the close of the seventeenth
century the red growths of the Bordelais were
in most frequent demand ; which, however,
owing to the wars with France, were given up,
and the rough wines of Portugal substituted
for them. But, as we have already said, the
use of these is now on the decline, and our
growing intercourse with the continent has
revived the taste for light wines. {HendersorCs
History of Wine.)

As far as concerns what is denominated
home-made wines, there is in England scarcely
any, if we except the gooseberry (intended to
imitate Champagne) and raisin wine, that
merit any notice. Indeed, it is an incontro-
vertible fact, that grapes ripened on walls and
trellises are in general unfit for the manufac-
ture of wine ; and, in England, those cultivated
under glass are too valuable for the dessert and
other purposes, in their recent vState, to be em-
ployed for making wine. Still, however, to
make home-made wine forms one of the occu-
pations of the wife of a farmer, and tolerable
wine may be made with a mixture of raisins
and grapes cultivated in the open air, in favour-
able seasons. The principles of wine-making
are the same, whatever kind of fruit is em-
ployed: in knowing, therefore, the manufacture
of grape-wine, it is easy to modify the process,
so as to render it applicable to every other
description of wine.

The juice of the grape, when chemically
analyzed, is found to consist of a considerable
portion of sugar and water, mucilage, tannic
acid, bitartrale of potassa, tartrate of lime,
phosphate of magnesia, chloride of sodium,,
sulphate of potassa, and a mucososaccharine
principle, on which the fermentative process
productive of the wine depends. Thenard, a
distinguished French chemist, assures us that
this substance excites the vinous fermentation
by abstracting a portion of oxygen from the
sugar, by means of its carbon, forming carbonic
acid gas, whilst its hydrogen and the remaining
oxygen and carbon of the sugar are converted
into alcohol, the basis and exciting principle
of all wines. When the must, or expressed
juice of the grape, is exposed to a temperatune
of 65° Fahr., this chemical change or fermenta-
tion commences; an intestine motion takes
place in the liquor; bubbles are evolved, which
buoy up the grosser matter, increasing the bulk
of the mass, and forming a scum upon the
surface. An augmentation of temperature now
takes place ; the must loses its saccharine
taste ; it acquires a deeper colour than before,,
and a vinous flavour, which increases with the
advancement of the process. After a few days,,
the fermentation gradually subsides, the mass
returns to its original bulk, the scum sinks to
5d2 1145

WINE.

WINE.

the bottom of the vessel, the liquor becomes
transparent, and it is now wine. The constitu-
tion of the must is liable to be greaily influ-
enced by the quality, the variety, the climate,
and the culture of the grapes, as well as the
nature of the seasons. In a cold year, owing
to the deficiency of the saccharine matter, the
wine is weak, harsh, and acescent; in wet sea-
sons it is devoid of a competent quantity of
spirit: high winds and fogs are also injurious.

In England, the mode of training the vine
high upon walls is a disadvantage for making
the fruit into wine. In the best wine countries,
it is never allowed to grow more than 3 or 4
feet high; and it is found that the bunches
nearest to the soil, if they do not touch it, are
always the richest. It is a mistake to suppose
that sweet wines are the most susceptible of
decomposition; on the contrary, they can be
kept for almost an indefinite length of time
without undergoing any deleterious change.
All wines continue to suflTer a certain degree
of fermentation after they are racked ofi' and
put into casks ; and as long as the saccharine
matter is supplied to maintain this slow fer-
meniation, the wine remains good ; but, when
that is exhausted, the acetous fermentation
begins, and the wine is converted into vinegar.

Admitting, however, the goodness of the fruit,
and the wine to be made consequently expected
to be excellent, many circumstances may de-
stroy that hope, for the process does not pro-
ceed in the regular manner above described,
unless certain j;xiles be strictly observed: these
are the following : — 1. The grapes should be
well and equally bruised or trodden ; for the
juice that first flows contains little mucoso-
saccharine matter, and consequently does not
ferment freely. That substance is contained
chiefly in the insoluble organized parts and the
skin, which also contains the greatest part of
the acid, the resinous extractive, and the colour-
ing principle. 2. The fermentation should be
conducted at a temperature of 60° to 65° Fahr.,
below which it languishes, and above which it
proceeds too violently. When it progresses
too slowly, that evil may be remedied by the
addition of a little boiling must. 3. The con-
tact of air is essential in the commencement;
and this affords another reason for the good
bruising of the fruit, as much air is absorbed
in that stage of the process. But after the fer-
mentation is established, the air should be ex-
cluded, for the sake of preserving the aroma;
and to secure this, the French chemist, Chap-
tal, who paid much attention to the manufac-
ture of wines, recommends the vats to be co-
vered with boards and linen cloths. 4. The
greater the bulk of material, the more perfect
the wine. 5. When the wine is perfected and
racked off; it should be sulphured by burning
sulphur-matches within the casks intended to
contain it, in order to restrain, wiihiu a cer-
tain degree, the further fermentation.

When good wine is actually produced, much
of the advantage expected from the possession
of it depends on the future management and
preservation of it; for every wine contains
within itself the sources of both improvement
and decline. The chief points to be attended
to are guarding against vicissitudes of tempera-
1146

' ture and the contact of air. Wines in the cask
or wood, as the term is, are liable to become
sour, either by a sudden transition from cold
to heat, or the reverse; and the same suscepti-
bility to acescency is favoured by defect of
proper fining; but this process should not be
frequently repeated, as it impairs the flavour
and the body of the liquor. Wines are mel-
lowed by the slow precipitation of the tartar,
which carries down with it the colouring mat-
ter and the salts of lime; and this occurs in
the ratio of the evolution of the alcohol, during
the continued gradual fermentation which goes
on even after the wine is bottled. This would
strengthen wine in the cask, were it not
balanced by the evaporation of the alc()hi)l
through the sides of the cask. Old Rhenish
wines kept in .the barrel lose nearly one-half of
their original alcohol; yet it is an undoubted
fact, that wine in bottles, not corked, but tied
over with a bladder, becomes stronger: — that
membrane permitting water to pass through it,
but not spirit. Another curious fact, however,
must not be forgotten, namely, that whilst the
wine becomes weaker when kept in cask, it
becomes much improved in its other qualities;
a fact which is illustrated by the transporta-
tion of Madeira to India, or keeping it in a
warm place.

The adulteration of wine is too comprehen-
sive a subject to be here fully treated of; but,
independent of this evil, every foreign wine
sent to Great Britain, except the best of the
Rhenish wines, contains much uncombined
brandy, which tends not only to render them
unwholesome, but impairs their original fla-
vour, and risks their partial decomposition.
Were home-made wines free from this evil, it
would tend greatly to encourage a new branch
of trade which has lately sprung up in Scot-
land, chiefly at Edinburgh, licith, and Glasgow.
From a parliamentary return, we find that
24,848 gallons, equal to nearly 150,000 bottles,
were sent to England in 1839, and 23,089 gal-
lons in 1840. Of the 24,848 in 1839, about
13,000 gallons were shipped from Leith, and
11,000 from Glasgow; and of the quantity in
1840, about 14,700 gallons went from Leith,
and 7,000 from Glasgow.

In the present day, when temperance has
made so favourable an impression on the
halDits of all classes of society, some remarks
on the dietetic properties of wine become
essential in an article devoted to its other
qualities. Were technical phraseology allow-
able, we should say that wine is stimulant and
salutary in small, narcotic and poisonous in
large quantities. This opinion, however, nei-
ther implies that it is necessary as an ordinary-
article of diet, nor that it is deleterious eveti in
the largest doses, as a medicinal agent. Wine,
moderately used, in the artificial state of mo-
dern civilized society, is not at all essential for
the healthy, however occupied, except under
exposure to unusual fatigue. But were this
principle of necessity to guide the regulation
of diet and beverage, the art of cookery would
be annihilated ; and the growth of wine, as well
as the manufacture of every spirituous liquor,
under whatever name it is known, ardent spi-
rits, cider, or malt liquor, would cease to exist

WINE.

WINNOWING-MACHINE.

In noticing, therefore, the dietetic properties of
wine, we must take society as we find it, not as
it ought to be constituted. The stimulant ope-
ration of wine is exerted on the nerves of the
stomach, and the secreting powers of that
organ are influenced by these; and thufj a
beneficial eflfect results when the digestive
powers are depressed. This, in a great degree,
depends on the alcohol contained in the wine;
yet it is a fact, that the same quantity of brandy
diluted with water, to the strength of wine, will
cause intoxication more speedily than when it
is taken in the fi»rm of wine, especially if the
wine contains no uncombined alcohol, 'i'he
stimulant power of wine, however, depends on
the quantity of alcohol in its composition ; but
this power is much greater in those wines that
contain adventitious and imperfectly combined
spirit. On this account. Port-wine is more apt
to derange the stomach, and to cause intoxica-
tion, than Sherry of the same strength ; and
Claret or Rhenish less than either. But besides
the evils arising from wines containing uncom-
bined brandy, those wines that contain much
acid are usually deleterious to persons of
sedentary habits, or who have weak stomachs.
Indeed, the daily use of the best wine can only
be supported with impunity by those who take
much exercise in the open air. But, if we
admit that wine is a necessary article of life
for the healthy, there can be only one opinion
respecting the superiority of the better kinds of
Bordeaux. Whatever wine is taken, it should
not be conjoined with other sorts, as nothing
impairs digestion more than ramgling several
sorts of wine at one meal.

Such are the general effects of the moderate
use of wine; its abuse is so well known, both
in reference to mind and body, that it is unne-
cessary to make a single remark, in this place,
upon the subject, except to caution those who
feel no immediate injurious effects from a pint
of Port, or indeed of any wine, daily, not to
rely too confidently upon their apparent pow-
ers of resisting its evil influence ; for a foun-
dation may be slowly formed for maladies, that,
when they appear, are always difficult of cure,
and often altogether irremediable.

With respect to the comparative value in
reference to the wholesomeness of different
wines, a few remarks may be necessary, be-
fore concluding this article. Among the brisk
wines. Champagne is the least noxious, even
when it is drank to excess, the excitement is
of shorter duration, and the subsequent ex-
haustion is less. It is said to be hurtful to the
gouty ; but gout is almost unknown in the pro-
vince where it is made ; and more of the evil
said to be caused by Champagne is due to the
variety and the nature of the dishes, and the
period of the day at which they are eaten, than
to the wine itself. The red wines of Burgundy
are strong, heating, and consequently intoxi-
cating, and they should only be taken in very
small quantity. The Bordeaux wines, as we
have already stated, are the safest for daily use.
They certainly do not excite inebriety so ra-
pidly as most other wines. The wines of
Oporto abound in astringent matter, and in un-
combined brandy. They are unfit for weak
stomachs ; they tend to cause sleep rather than

to elevate the spirits, and they are the most
pernicious as daily beverage. The Spanish
wines, especially Sherries, are less objection-
able, but they should never be drunk without
dilution with water, unless for medicinal pur-
poses. The same opinion may be hazarded
with respect to Madeira; and perhaps no wine
is more suited for the dyspeptic, if hypochon-
driasis be absent. The best light wines of the
Rhine and the Moselle are, of all others, the
most wholesome. They contain little alcohol,
and that little is wholly combined. They prove,
in many instances, refrigerant, and have a ten-
dency, from the nature of the acid which they
contain, the tartaric, to diminish obesity. Last-
ly, all sweet wines are apt to disorder the sto-
mach ; and when used freely they intoxicate as
readily, and cause as deleterious subsequent
effects as the stronger wines. But, after all, we
must revert to the opinion, that wine is an un-
necessary article of diet for all who are healthy
and robust; and must truly be regarded, be-
yond certain limits, either as a medicine or a
poison. {Henderson* 8 History of Ancient and Mo-
dern Wines ; MacuUoch on Wine-7naking.) See
Alcohol and Vink.

Account of the Q^antity of Foreign Wine retained
in England for Home Consumption^ in Wine Gal*
Urns, from nS9 to 1836.

Ve««.

Oallmw.

rear*.

OalloM.

1789

5,814,605

1823 -

4,845,060

1790 -

6,492,313

1824

5,030,091

1792 -

8,082,249

1825 -

8,009,542

1794

6,799.220

1826 -

6.058,443

1796 -

5,732,.W5

1827

6,826.361

1798 -

4,760,657

1828 -

7,162,376

1800 -

7,728,871

1829 -

6 ?17,652

1809

6,355,749

1830 -

6.434,445

1804 -

4,840,719

1831

6,212,264

1805

5,936,235

1832 -

5.965,542

1810 • -

6,805,276

1833 -

6,207,770

1815

5,968.435

1834 -

6,480.544

1820 -

5,019,960

1835 -

6,420,342

1822 -

4,975.159

Account exhibiting the Quantities of the different
Sorts of Wine imported into and exported from
the United Kingdom in the Year ending the 5tk
of January, 1S40, and the gross Revenue accru-
ing thereon.

QuanlitiM

Quintitiet

OroM amount

SpwdMorWiat.

imuorled into
th^Uoitea

ei ported from
the United

or revenue
rece Ted

Kiogdom.

Kiogdom.

Ihereon.

Gnllont.

Gallnni.

£

Cape -

723.740

3,520

73,596

Frencli

508,329

121,525

109,820

Madeira -

267,047

162,527-)

Portuguese

3,272,206

299 355 1

Spanish

4,130,753

989 776 1

Rhenisli .

82,910

13,350 ,

1,732,232

Canary

341,225

292,779 '

Fay at

202

90

Sicilian and

170,163j

olber wines
Total -

582,310

9,908,722

2,053.085

1,915,648

WINNOWING-MACHINE. A contrivance
employed for separating, by an artificial cur-
rent of air, the chaff from the grain, after it
has been thrashed out of the straw. Various
are the accounts (remarks Mr. J. A. Ransome
in his Treatise on the Implements of Agriculture)
given of the introduction of this machine, and
many the claimants for the credit of having
been the first maker of this piece of mechan-

1147

WINNOWING-MACHINE.

WINNOWING-MACHINE.

ism in Eno^land or Scotland. All, however,
a^ree that the idea, design, or model was origi-
nally furnished from Holland, earlier, however,
than the date of any of lhe.se by at least a pe-
riod of twenty years. We learn from the pa-
pers of Robert Somerville of Haddington, that
in 1710, pursuant to articles of agreement be-
tween himself and Fletcher, laird of Saltoun,
James Meikle (father to Meikle of thrashing-
machine memory) visited Holland for the pur
pose of learning "the perfect art of sheeting
barley," in order to the introduction of the bar-
ley-mill. The same authority, 1805, states,
"that on Meikle's return he made the first fan-
ners which were seen in Britain;" and that
these were in use only a few years before that
date at the Saltoun barley-mills. That the ma-
chine was not made public till many years
afterwards may be attributed to a clause in the
above-mentioned agreement, by which Meikle
was bound, on leaving Saltoun's service, "not
to profit any more by this mill, nor communi-
cate the arts he had learned to any other." In
1737, through the medium of Rogers of Cavers
and others, it was brought into more general
use ; and in 1768, A. and R. Meikle obtained a
patent for a machine of this kind. Although
a very considerable advantage over the plan
of dressing by hand, these still appear to have
been but very imperfect, the corn having to be
passed through them twice or thrice, in order
to be perfectly separated. And in 1798, R.
Douglas, in his Agricultural Survey of Roxburgh-
shire, remarking upon these defects, mentions
an improvement invented by one Moodie of
Lilliesleaf, "in which he had happily combined
some properties of other fans, so that the grain
at one operation could be both separated from
the chaff and lighter seeds, and completely rid-
dled of all sorts of refuse."

Other patents had been taken out which do
not appear to have involved much real im-
provement, till, in 1800, 1. Cooch of Northamp-
ton patented the machine which has since been
known by his name, and has obtained deserved
commendation, being in use and approved be-
yond most at the present day. This machine
dresses all kinds of seeds, and its work is per-
formed in a perfect manner: its principle in-
volved more mechanical combinations than
were at that time generally understood by the
class for whose use it was intended ; and this,
together with its then cost, retarded its more
general adoption.

In 1812, John Elmy obtained a patent for
improvements in winnowing-machines, and
produced a very efficient implement; the ar-
rangement of its various parts were simple,
and greater effect was obtained from the blast.
Comparing this with the drawings and descrip-
tion of one we find in the Edinburgh Journal of
Agriculture, and with that described by Profes-
sor Low, we have little doubt of their general
identity with this, the model upon which the
machines in general use are now made.

In 1839, T. F. Salter obtained a patent for a
machine for winnowing and dressing corn and
seeds, which at the R. A. S. E. meeting at Cam-
bridge was exhibited, and obtained the silver
medal.

In this invention are combined the princi-
1148

pies of Grant's hummelling machine, describe\l
in Fritish Husbandry, vol. xi. p. 204, and of
Hall's smut machine (Loudons Enry. of Agr. p.
439, fig. 403), with the operations of the com-
mon winnower.

-The undressed grain from the hopper passes
through a cylindrical sieve, having within it a
rotary spindle, upon which short blunt arms
are arranged in a spiral direction; these agi-
tate the grain as it passes along, and thus se-
parate the small dirt and dust as well as the
awns of barley, which fall through in a closed
box or cupboard. The cylinder is placed in a
slanting direction, and is provided at each end
with slides, which regulate the quantity and
speed with which the grain shall pass. Through
the slide aperture at the lower end the grain is
introduced upon other sieves, which, having a
backward and forward motion, distribute it
equally over their surface, when it is subjected
to the blast of the fan, driving obliquely through
the sieves ; this carries the chaff out of the
machine ; the grain falls on a screen, which,
having a similar motion to the sievevS, separates
from it all small seeds, and the dross corn is
carried away in a division formed for the pur-
pose. The grain, dross, corn and chaff are
thus all thoroughly separated from each other,
and the dust, dirt, and small seeds, having fallen
in an enclosed box from the cylinder, may be
entirely removed.

We have heard this machine highly ap-
proved by many, and when pains are taken to
separate the cornT from the short straw, &c^
previously to submitting it to the machine, we
believe it to be very effective; but as there is
some degree of complication in its details, it is
chiefly suited to those to whom a high degree
of excellence in the manner of " making up
their corn" is a matter of more importance
than the time or labour it may require.

We now come to the description of the win-
nower used in combination with the thrash-
ing apparatus at Whitfield, in which the prin-
cipal feature is the improvement of the fan or
blower. Having noticed that the ordinary form
and position of the fans, which are flat boards,
radiating from the centre, tended to keep the
air contantly whirling within the casing, rather
than to force it forwards; and that if, instead
of being flat, they were curved forward in the
direction of their motion, they would draw the
air in from the tube and force it out at the
sides, J. Clyburn of Uley, the engineer by
whom the machinery at Whitfield was executed,^
constructed a blower, in which, by a certain
curvature of the fans, and a different arrange-
ment of the chamber in which they revolve,
the tendency to form a vacuum is considerably
increased, and greater force is consequently
obtained from the blast.

We are not disposed to leave this part of
our subject without some allusion to an inven-
tion for still further carrying out the process
of cleaning corn, known as Tuxford's reeing-
machine. This consists of a series of sieves,
to which a rotatory motion is given : the grain- is
by this means separated from any small dust
j and dirt, which passes through the wires of
the sieve, while all the lighter rubbish is by
' the motion brought to the top» whence it is re-

WINTER CHICKWEED.

WIRE-WORM.

moved by hand. This implement is more,
perhaps, adapted for millers; and its cost pre-
sents, in its present form, a bar to its general
introduction. If it could be reduced to the
power of being worked by hand, it would be a
very valuable assistant to the proper prepara-
tion of the grain for market.

The American machines for cleaning grain
are commonly designated Fans, Grain Fans,
and in the Eastern States, IVinning Mills. Their
construction differs materially from such as
are used for similar purposes in Europe, being
much more simple, and not having more than
half the machinery. The old " Dutch Fan,"
formerly used, and which had no shaking screen,
is now superseded by highly improved fans.
The principal modern improvement in these
consists in the application of a screen attached
to the shaker, which more effectually rids the
grain from cockle and dirt that cannot be
blown out. The ordinary size of an American
fan is about 5 feet in the frame or boarding, 3^
feet in height, and about 2 feet 4 or 6 inches in
width. The blower or fan is about 2^ feet in
diameter. Screens and riddles from 18 to 20
inches square, from 3 to 6 riddles accompany-
ing each fan. The most simple arrrangement
for working a shaker is a small crank attached
to a rod leading from the side of the fan to the
riddle-frame or shaker.

A fan of the dimensions described will clean
from 40 to 60 bushels of wheat per hour. Eng-
lish farmers who have come to the United States,
say that these simple winnowing-machines do
far more work than the English, which last are
complicated with much machinery, for cleaning
smut, &c. (See Smut-Mill.) The English
winnowing-machines cost from $40 to $60,
whilst the American are made for $16 to $24,
according to the size and number of screens ; at
which prices they are furnished, among other
places, at No. 196 Market street, Philadelphia,
by Mr.Chandler.agricultural implement maker.

WINTER CHICKWEED. See Cuickweed,
European.

WINTER-CRESS (Barbarea, on account
of its being formerly called the herb of St.
Barbara). There are, in England, two indi-
genous species ; 1. The bitter winter-cress, or
yellow rocket (B. vulgaiis), a perennial, which
is common in rather moist waste ground, about
hedges, or in marshy meadows. The root is
tapering, somewhat woody ; stem about 2 feet
high, simple or branched, leafy, stout, angular,
and furrowed. Lower leaves lyrate, the termi-
nal lobe roundish ; upper obovate, toothed,
strongly ribbed, of a fine texture, quite smooth.
Flowers bright yellow, in round-headed corym-
bose clusters. Pod quadrangular, about an
inch long. The whole herb is nauseously bit-
ter, and in some degree mucilaginous. A dou-
ble-flowered variety, with innumerable petals
produced in long succession, and turning white
as they fade, is frequent in gardens. 2. Early
winter-cress (B. prcecox). This biennial spe-
cies is found in watery, grassy places, or on the
banks of ditches. Stems, one or more, erect,
li or 2 feet high, smooth, a little branched,
tinged at the bottom with a violet hue. Lower
leaves lyrate: upper deeply pinnatifid, with
linear, oblong, entire segments; flowers fewer,

smaller, and paler than those of B. vulgaris.
Pods thrice as long as in that species, exactl)'
square, smooth. This species propagates
itself abundantly by seed, but the root is not
perennial. It may be eaten like water-cresses,
with which it agrees in flavour, except being
rather more pungent.

WINTER-GREEN (Pyrola, from the leaves
being similar to those of the pear tree). A
genus of very pretty plants, rather difficult to
cultivate. A shaded peat border appears to
suit them best, and they are readily increased
by divisions or seeds. The whole genus is
astringent and tonic. There are, in England,
five native species, all perennials, as follows : —
1. Round-leaved winter-green (Pyrola rolundi-
folia). 2. Intermediate winter-green (P. media).
3. Lesser winter-green (P. minor). 4. Serrated
winter-green (P. secu7ida) ; and, 5. Single-flow-
ered winter-green (P. unifiora). They all in-
habit alpine wooded localities ; the flowers are
white or reddish, often highly f^ragrant. P. uni-
fiora is one of the most curious and elegant of
British flowers.

Winteii-Green, American {Pyrola umbel-
lata), Pipsissiwa. The Chitnaphila umbellata
of Nutlall. This plant is very abundant ia
cool situations in the United States. It has a
long creeping root, and ascending stem 3 to 6
inches long, leafy at the top. The leaves are
of a deep green and very glossy, possessing a
peculiar flavour, some bitterness, and a mode-
rate degree of astringency. Under the Indian
name of Pipsissiiva, this plant has been long
noted as a popular medicine. It has doubtless
some virtues, but its properties are very often
misapplied in its empirical use.

The Spotted Winter-Gnen (Pyrola maculatd)^
is also a common plant in the United States,
erroneously called Pipsissiwa by Pursh. Its
properties are similar to those of the first-
named species, though weaker. Five or six
additional species of the Pyrola genus are
found in the United States.

WINTER-PROUD. A term provincially
applied to wheat which in winter puts on a
more green and luxuriant appearance than it
is able to support in the following summer; or
in which the ramifications become too nume-
rous to be kept up, or brought to maturity, from
the previous over-exertion of the soil. In
these cases the crops decline during the spring
and summer, and at harvest yield imperfectly,
falling much below other crops which had a
more backward appearance in the winter.

WINTER-WEED. A name given, in Nor-
folk and other parts, to the ivy-leaved speed-
well (Veronica hederifolia). See Spekhwell.

WIRE-WORM (Elater segetis). These are
larvas of that tribe of insects named Elaterida:^
or click-beetles, which are readily known by
having- the sternum produced behind into a
strong spine fitted to enter a groove in the ab-
domen situated between the intermediate pair
of legs. By bringing these parts suddenly into
contact, the insects are enabled to spring to
some height into the air, and thus recover
their natural position, when they happen
to fall on their backs, which they frequently
do, when dropping from plants to the ground.
A special provision of this kind is rendered

1149

WIRE-WORM.

WIRE-WORM.

necessary, in consequence of the shortness and |
weakness of their legs. The wire-worms have
a long, slender, and cylindrical body, covered
by a hard crust, which has obtained for them
the above name. They are composed of twelve
segments fitting closely to each other, and are
provided with six conical scaly feet, placed in
pairs on the three segments next the head.
The latter is furnished with short antenna?,
palpi, and two strong mandibles or jaws.

Upwards of sixty different species of these
insects occur in Britain, and it is probable that
a considerable proportion of them feed upon
the most valuable cultivated plants. The same
species of larva does not appear to confine
itself to one kind of food, but attacks indiscri-
minately the roots of grain and other grasses,
as well as esculent roots, such as turnips, car-
rots, radishes, &c. Bui it is at the same time
deserving of notice, that as a strong similarity
prevails among larvae specifically distinct, it is
probable that different kinds may often have
been confounded, and a more correct know-
ledge may prove them to be more restricted in
their choice of food than is at present sup-
posed: this, at least, is rendered not unlikely
by what is observed in analogous cases. We
are as yet acquainted with the metamorphoses
and habits of a very small number of these
insects ; and it is, therefore, highly desirable
that whenever a destructive species of wire-
worm prevails, it should be traced to the per-
fect condition. This, however, is attended
with considerable difficulty, owing to the length
of time they continue in the larva state, ex-
tending, in many instances, to several years.

This insect occurs in considerable plenty
throughout the country in grass fields and pas-
ture lands, and is usually found creeping
among the herbage, or lying at the sides of
stones; it is scarcely ever observed on the
wing. The extent of the injury they sometimes
occasion may be estimated from the fact, that
a single worm has been observed to bite from
8 to 20 plants in a very short time; and they
are occasionally so abundant, that from 4 to 8
have been turned up by the spade in a space
of 4 square feet. The depredations of the
wire-worm in England being principally con-
fined to wheat sown upon clover leys, old pas-
lares recently broken up, pea and bean stub-
bles, &c., we may suppose the general average
of the injury to amount to about a twentieth
part of what is sown upon this description of
lands. This may be deemed a very fair and
moderate calculation.

When the fields lie fallow, these insects conti-
nue to feed on the grass and other weeds, which
are frequently allowed to overrun the surface ;
whereas, if the soil were kept clean, they would
either die for want of food, or be compelled to
remove to some other place. As these larvae
invariably live beneath the surface of the soil,
every plan suggested for their destruction must
be founded on this consideration.

Without adverting to this fact, many super-
ficial applications, such as strewing the sur-
face with quicklime, soot, &c., have been tried
without effect. The most obvious remedy is to
saturate the soil with some fluid which has
been previously ascertained to destroy the in-
1150

sects without injuring the plants ; that is, if the
latter be of a kind which it is necessary to
preserve, as will usually be the case. In a fal-
low field, this precaution need not be observed,
as a double benefit would ensue from the de-
struction of both insects and weeds. More
carefully conducted experiments, and on a
more extensive scale than any that have yet
been undertaken, will be necessary to show
what kind of liquid is best adapted for this
purpose. Probably, different substances will
be found most useful in different situations, ac-
cording to the nature of the .soil and the chemi-
cal ingredients which enter into its composi-
tion. The latter consideration should be par-
ticularly attended to in all experiments on the
subject, as most likely to suggest the most ap-
propriate remeily; and it might even happen
that the fluid employed to destroy the insects
might be so managed as to produce a most
beneficial change in the chemical qualities of
the soil. If a strong saline solution, for exam-
ple, should be found to kill the insects, as it is
very likely to do, there are few soils which
would not derive benefit from such an applica-
tion. Of course, many substances prove
speedily fatal to these insects, and among these
the choice would have to be determined by
cheapness and ease of application. Beirkan-
der, a Swedish observer, who has investigated
their habits, found that they lived among —

Garlic

Spruce leaves -
Fir leaves
Ledum pa lustre
Myrica gale
In water -

Davt. Honn.

9 0

0 14

0 12

0 9

0 a

4 0

He suggests that such of these plants as
proved most speedily fatal should be mixed
with the manure. He also considers it of great
advantage to cause children to follow the
plough, and pick up all that happen to be-
turned up. He states that in this way he has
seen 351 wire-worms collected in a field not
exceeding 600 feet by 66.

Sir Joseph Banks suggested a very simple
plan for alluring the wire-worms from the
plants, and collecting them that they might be
destroyed. This consisted merely in burying
slices of potato, stuck upon skewers, near the
seeds sown. As the larvae are very fond of this
root, they leave the young plants and fix upon
it These slices require to be examined every
day, and the wire-worms collected upon them
destroyed. Mr. Tall ant atfirms that he has fre-
quently freed fields entirely from wire-worms
by sowing a crop of white mustard-seed. The
experiment he has tried so frequently, and in
circumstances so well calculated to demon-
strate its eflTects, that he is perfectly satisfied
that the remedy is efficient. "Encouraged,"
he observes, " by the results of my former
trials, I sowed a whole field of 42 acres, which
had never repaid me for 19 years, in conse-
quence of nearly every crop being destroyed
by the wire-worm ; and I am warranted in
stating that not a single wire-worm could be
found the following year; and the crop of
wheat throughout, which was reaped last har-
vest, was superior to any I had grown for 21
years. I am, therefore, under a strong persua-

WISP.

WOAD, DYER'S.

Bion that the wire-worm may be successfully
repelled and eradicated by carefully destroying
all weeds and roots, drilling white mustard-
seed, and keeping the ground clear by hoeing."
(Brit. Farm. Mag. 1831.)

Nature herself has taken means to check
their superabundant increase by making them
the prey of a small ichneumon, which searches
out their retreats, and deposits its eggs in their
bodies, which are cunsumed by the parasitical
larvae as soon as hatched." (Mr. Duncan, Quiirt.
JoHrn.ofJgr.yolviii. pp. 96, 348.) (See In-
8KCTS.) Under ihe head Bbetlk, at page 174.
the American wire-worms have been described
as materially differing in structure and habits
from those of Europe.

WISP. A term applied to a small bunch
of hay or straw, when used in rubbing down
horses or cattle.

WITHY. A name sometimes given lo the
flexible boughs of willows and osiers.

WOAD, DYER'S (hatis linrtoi-ia). This is a
biennial plant, growing wild in cultivated fields
and about borders in England, but rare. As
the ancient Britons are reported to have paint-
ed their bodies with the blue colour obtained
from this plant, which is still used in dyeing,
the woad is most probably an original produc-
tion of England; though what occurs now and
then about cultivated fields is supposed to have
escaped from the crops occasionally raised,
chiefly in the middle part of the island. The
naturalized plants are less perfectly smooth,
and far less luxuriant than the cultivated ones.
This plant has a tapering and fibrous root.
The stem rises 2 or 5 feet high, wand-like,
slightly glaucous, leafy, panicled at the top.
Panicle of many compound racemose branches,
beset with diminished lanceolate leaves, all of
a yellow hue as well as the stalks. Flowers
numerous, small, bright yellow.

Woad has been cultivated in France from
time immemorial. In England its culture is
mostly confined to Lincolnshire, where it is a
common practice to take rich flat tracts near
rivers, at a high price, for the purpose of grow-
ing it for 2 or 4 years. Those who engage in
this sort of culture form a sort of colony, and
move from place to place as they complete
their engagements. It is sometimes, however,
grown by stationary farmers. The leaves are
the parts of the plant used, and it is considered
as a severe crop.

There is a varie'y of woad, called the Dalma-
tian, described by Miller, and also a wild sort,
but only the common is cultivated in England.

The soil for woad should be deep and per-
fectly fresh, such as those of the rich, mellow,
loamy, and deep vegetable kind. Where this
culture is carried to a considerable degree of
perfection, as in Lincolnshire, the deep, rich,
putrid, alluvial soils on the flat tracts extend-
ing upon the borders of the large rivers, are
chiefly employed for the growth of this sort of
crop; and it has been shown by repealed trials
that it answers most perfectly when they arc
broken up for it immediately from a stale of
sward.

The preparation of the toil, when woad is lo be
grown on grass land, may either be efl^cted by
deep plonghings, with the aid of the winier's

frost; cross-ploughing and harrowing in spring;
by deep ploughing and harrowing in spring; by
paring and burning; or by trench-ploughing or
spade-trenching. The first mode appears the
worst, as it is next to impossible to reduce old
turf in one year, and even if this is done, the
danger from the grub and wire-worm is a suf-
ficient argument against it. By ploughing deep
in February, and soon afterwards sowing, the
plants may germinate before the grub is able
to rise to the surface ; by trench-ploughing the
same purpose will be more effectually obtained;
and, best of all. by spade-trenching. But a me-
thod which is equally eflvctual with the first,
more expeditious, and which has a superiority
over it in more completely destroying grubs,
insects, and other vermin, which are apt to
feed on the plants in their early growth, is that
of paring and burning. This is, however,
chiefly practised where the sward is rough and
abounds with rushes, sedge, and other plants
of the coarse kind, but might be had recourse
to on others with benefit.

The time of sotcing may be extended from Feb-
ruary to July. Early sowing, however, is to be
preferred, as iti that case the plants come up
stronger, and afford more produce the first
sea.^on.

The mode of saving is generally broadcast, but
the plant might be most advantageously grown
in rows and cultivated with the horse-hoe. The
rows may be 9 inches or a foot apart, and the
seed deposited 2 inches in depth. The quantity
of seed for the broadcast method is 5 or 6 lbs.
to the acre; for the drill mode, 2 lbs. are more
than sufficient, the seed being smaller than that
of the turnip. New seed, where it can be pro-
cured, should always be sown in preference to
such as has been kept for some time ; but when
of the latter kind, it should be steeped for some
time before it is put into the ground.

The afler-eulture of the woad consists in hoe-
ing, thinning, prong-stirring, and weeding,
which operations may be practised by hand or
horse-tools, as in the culture of teazle.

In refpect to the business of gathering the rropSf
with the spring-sown ones, the leaves will ge-
nerally be ready to be gathered towards the
latter end of June or beginning of July, accord-
ing to the nature of the soil, season, and cli-
mate ; but for those put in at a later period ini
the summer, they are often fit to be gathered
earlier. This business should, however, con-
stantly be executed as soon as the leaves are
fully grown, while they retain their perfect
green colour and are highly succulent, as,
when they are let remain till they begin to turn
pale, much of their goodness is said to be ex-
pended, and they become less in quantity, and
of an inferior quality for the purposes of the
dyer. In the execution of this sort of business,-
a number of baskets are usually provided in-
proportion to the extent of the crop, into which
! the leaves are thrown as they are taken from
the plants, which is eflfected by the hand, by
{ grasping them firmly and giving them a sort
of a sudden twist. In favourable seasons,
where the soils are rich, the plants will often
' rise to the height of 8 or 10 inches; but in-
j other circumstances they seldom attain more
1 than 4 or 5 ; and where the lands are well ma*

1161

WOLF'S-BANE.

WOOL

naged in the culture of the plants, they will
often alfnrd two or three gatherings, but the
best cultivators seldom take more than two,
which are sometimes mixed together in the
manufacturing of them. It is necessary that
the after croppings, when they are taken, are
constantly kept separate from the others, as
they would injure the whole if blended together,
and considerably diminish the value of the pro-
duce. It is said that the best method, where
a third cropping is either wholly or partially
made, is to keep it separate, forming it into an
inferior kind of woad.

The produce is mostly from about a ton to a
ton and a half of green leaves. The price
varies considerably; but for woad of the prime
quality it is often from 25/. to 30/. the ton, and
fof that of an inferior quality 6/. or 11, and
sometimes much more.

To prepare it for the dyer, it is bruised by ma-
chinery to press out the watery part; it is after-
wards formed into balls and fermented, re-
ground, and fermented in vats, where it is
evaporated into cakes in the manner of indigo.
The haulm is burned for manure or spread
over the straw-yard, to be fermented along with
straw-dung.

The use of woad in dyeing is as a basis for
the black and other colours.

To save seed, leave some of the plants unde-
nuded of their leaves the second year, and
when it is ripe in July or August, treat it like
turnip-seed.

The only diseases to which the woad is liable
are the mildew and rust; when young it is
often attacked by the fly, and obliged to be re-
sown, and this even on winter-ploughed grass
lands more than once. {Loudon.)

WOLF'S-BANE {Aconitum). A genus of
oroamental, tall, free-flowering, very hardy
plants, succeeding well under the shade of
trees ; increased by division or by seeds. All
the species are to be dreaded, being of a poi-
sonous quality, highly narcotic, and acid. The
aconite has, however, become of great service
as a narcotic in many very troublesome disor-
ders. One species, the common wolf's-bane
or monk's-hood {A. napcllus), is a native of
Greece, but now grows wild in this country in
watery places. It is perennial in habit. Root
fleshy, tapering; stem erect, simple, leafy,
clothed with minute, close hairs, and terminat-
ing in a solitary, simple, upright, spike-like
panicle of large, dark-blue, helmeted flowers,
without scent. The nectaries are full of honey,
and form the spur of the flow^er. Leaves deeply
five-cleft, cut, with linear segments, furrowed
above, and of a deep green, but pale beneath.
See Aconite.

WOOD. The fibrous or ligneous substance
of which the branches, trunks, and roots of
trees are principally composed. In vascular
trunks, the hardest wood is always in the
centre. See Bakk, Liber, Lionin, Timber,
Trefs <^c

WOODBINE. See Hosktsuckle.

WOOD-RUSH (Luciola, from the Gramen
Luzulse, or glow-worm grass of Bauhin). These
plants are nearly related to Junacs, from which
they are at once distinguished by their flat
leaves. They possess little beauty, and are of
1152

the easiest culture. There are seven indige-
nous species, all of which are described in
S))nlh''s Ens;. Flor. vol. ii. p. 177.

WOODSIA (named in honour of Joseph
Woods, F. L. S., an excellent practical British
botanist, who first illustrated our native species
of Hosa), A genus of small ferns, of which
two species only have hitherto been discover-
ed : — the oblong Woodsia ( W. ilvensis), and the
rounded-leaved Woodsia ( W. hyper borea). These
ferns grow best in peat and loam mixed, and
are increased by division, or by seed. Their
roots are fibrous; fronds tufted, erect, stalked,
pinnate, pinnatifid, clothed with simple hairs,
or narrow-pointed scales. (Smith's Eng. Flor.
vol. iv. p. 322.)

WOOD-SORREL (Oxalis, from oxys, acid;
the leaves have an acid taste). Most of the
plants of this genus deserve cultivating on ac-
count of their very pretty blossoms, which are
produced in great abundance. The hardy
species should be planted in a shady border,
where they will grow and flower very freely.
The seeds of the hardy annual species may be
sown in the open border in spring. There are
in England two wild native species, — 1. The
common wood-sorrel (O. acctosella), which
grows abundantly in groves and shady places.
Stalks radical, single-flowered. Leaves ternale,
inversely heart-shaped, hairy; root of many
scaly joints. Leaflets of a delicate bright green,
often purplish at the back, drooping at night, on
long, hairy, radical, purplish foot-stalks. Flow-
ers solitary, drooping, bell-shaped, either white
or purplish, always streaked with fine branching
purple veins. When ripe, the blackish shining
seeds are projected to a distance on the slight-
est touch or motion, by their elastic tunics,
which remain contracted and wrinkled in the
capsule. This herb is powerfully and most
agreeably acid, making a refreshing and whole-
some conserve with fine sugar; its flavour
resembling green tea. Few of our wild flowers
are more elegant.

2. Yellow procumbent wood-sorrel (O. cor-
niculata). This species is annual, growing in
shady, rather moist waste ground. The root is
fibrous, and it has become almost a weed in
gardens. Stems branched, procumbent Flov/er
stalks in small umbels of yellow flowers.

Several species of oxalis have been found in
the United States, among which are the follow-
ing, enumerated by Nuttall. I. O. acetosella.
2. violacea. This species appears often to
flower again late in the autumn, and is then
destitute of leaves. 3. Lyoni. Ph. 4. Corniculata,
5. Slricta. 6. Dillcnii. These two last are
scarcely distinct species.

This genus of more than 100 species is, with
a few exceptions in Europe and America, pe-
culiarly indigenous to the Cape of Good Hope.
The leaves of all the species are more or less
sensitive and nictitant. (Paxton's Bot. Diet.;
Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 323.) See Sorrel.

WOOD-WASP. See Saw-Flt.

WOOD- WAXEN. See Greenweed.

WOOL (Germ, xvolle; Dutch, wot; Rus.
wolna). The soft, hairy, or downy substance
which forms the covering of sheep, and js
found in smaller proportion on many other
animals. It is an article which has continued

WOOL.

WOOL.

from the earliest period down to the present
day to be of primary importance, having
always formed the principal part of the clothing
of mankind in most temperate regions. Authors
have seemed to imagine that the production of
wool was confined to the sheep ; practical men,
however, know that there is a numerous list
of animals, on whom, at some season of the
year at least, wool is found.

M. Chevreul, who has long devoted himself
to the examination of wool, has proved that
wool contains three or four diflferent substances.
The following is the result of an examination
of 100 parts of a merino fleece : —

Earthy substances
Fat matters dissolved by washing
Fat matters - - - - -
Clean wool - - - - ■

32-74

9-97

3123

100 00

A consideration of the most important pro-
perties of wool cannot be better introduced
than in the words of one to whom the agricul-
turist, whatever department of husbandry may
chiefly occupy his attention, is much indebted.
— "Fine and coarse," says Arthur Young,
"are but vague and general descriptions of
wool ; all fine fleeces have some coarse wool,
and all coarse fleeces some fine. I shall en-
deavour, for the information of my readers, to
distinguish the various qualities of wool in the
order in which they are esteemed and preferred
by the manufacturer. First, fineness with close
ground, that is, thick-matted ground. Second,
fineness. Third, straight-haired, when broken
by drawing. Fourth, elasticity, rising after '
compression in the hand. Fifth, staple not too |
long. Sixth, colour. Seventh, what coarse is
in it to be very coarse. Eighth, tenacity.
Ninth, not much pitch-mark ; but this is no '
other disadvantage than the loss of weight in
scouring. The bad or disagreeable properties
are, — thin, grounded, toppy, curly-haired, and,
if in a sorted state, little that is very fine, a
tender staple, no elasticity, many dead white
hairs, very yolky. Those who buy wool for
combing and other light goods that do not want
milling, wish to find length of staple, fineness
of hair, whiteness, tenacity, firmness, elasticity,
and not too many pitch-marks." {Jlnnah of
jlpHcuUure, vol. xviii. p. 329.) The fineness of
the wool diflers greatly on the different parts of
the sheep. That running down the side of the
neck, and covering the shoulders, the ribs, and
the back, is the finest; the next covers the
superior parts of the legs and the thighs, and
extends up to nearly the haunch and the tail,
and a still inferior portion runs along the
upper part of the neck, the throat, the breast,
the belly, and the lower part of the legs. There
is considerable variation in this respect in dif-
ferent breeds, and in individuals of the same
breed ; and although a fleece, taken generally,
may be said to be adapted to a particuter use,
yet a portion of it may be employed in the
manufacture of a much more valuable article;
and at the same time, a greater quantity will
be thrown aside as not sufficiently fine for the
originally intended purpose. The influence of
temperature on the growth of wool is very con-
siderable. Sheep in a hot climate will yield a
145

comparatively coarse wool, and those in a '
cold climate will carry a finer, but, at the same
time, a closer and a warmer fleece. The na-
tural instinct of the sheep would seem to teach
the wool-grower the advantage of attending to
the influence of temperature on him. He is
evidently impatient of heat. In the open dis-
trict, and where no shelter is near, he climbs
to the highest parts of his walk, that if the rays
of the sun must still fall on him, he may never-
theless be cooled by the breeze; but if shelter
is near, of whatever kind, every shaded spot is
crowded with sheep. Pasture has a very great
influence on the fineness of the 'fleece. The
staple of the wool, like every other part of the
sheep, must increase in length or in bulk,
when the animal has a superabundance of nu-
triment; and, on the other hand, the secretion
which forms the wool must decrease, like
every other, when sufficient nourishment is
not afllbrded. Connected with fineness is true-
ness of staple — as equal a growth as possible
over the animal — a freedom from the shaggy
portions, here and there, which are occasion-
ally observed on poor and neglected sheep.
These portions are always coarse and com-
paratively worthless, and they indicate an
irregular and unhealthy action of the secretion
of wool, which will probably weaken or render
the fibre diseased in other parts. Soundness'
and elasticity are also very important proper-
ties in wool. . ;

If the pile is sound, there are few qualities
in wool of so much consequence as softness.
Fashion has done much in effecting this. Soft-
ness of the pile is evidently connected with the
presence and quantity of yolk. There is no
doubt that this substance is designed, not only
to nourish the hair, but to give it richness and
pliability. Bad management, neglect, expo-
sure, starvation, impair the pliability of the
woolly fibre, but chiefly so because they arrest
the secretion of the yolk, or change its proper-
ties. The colour of the fleece is of minor, and
yet of no trifling importance. The alteration
of the colour was the first recorded improve-
ment of the sheep ; and its purity, its perfect
whiteness, should never be lost sight of by the
sheepmaster of the present day. To a certain
extent, the fleece is frequently stained with the
colour of the soil on which the animal grows.
In some parts of Gloucestershire the wool ac-
quires an orange colour; in Hertfordshire and
Warwickshire it is of a brownish red ; and in
the fens of Lincoln and Cambridge it has a
dark blue tint.

In some districts, and particularly in the
west of England, the farmer needlessly uses a
considerable quantity of ochre or ruddle, either
in the composition of his salving m'ixture, or
to gratify a foolish fancy. The tar gives con-
sistence to the oil or butter, and although it is
often with considerable difficulty washed away,
yet while it remains on the fleece, it gives a
permanency to the smearing process ; not one
plea, however, can be offered in favour of the
ruddle. See Saivixg.

It is not necessary (nor, indeed, would our

space permit it) to go into the construction of

wool, as seen through the microscope. We

shall pass on, therefore, to point out the differ-

5 £ 1153

WOOL.

WOOL.

ence between hair and wool. The fibre of I a single fleece ; and if the best wool of one
wool is crisped or curled, the curls increasing I fleece be not equal to the finest sort, it is thrown

according to the fineness and felling property
of the wool: hair is often disposed to curl, but
in an inferior degree. The distinction, there-
fore, between these substances is more in de-
gree than intent. Wool is decidedly crisped
and serrated ; hair is sometimes curled, but to
an inferior degree, and the irregularities of its
edge, ih some few cases, assume the form of
slight serrations. Wool will felt; hair will
only ent:ingle and harle to a limiied extent.
See Fklt and Hair.

I'he old and apparently simple division of

Price of Sjuthdoivn Wool in England, in different
Years.

ing" and "clothing wool;" but there was con-
siderable difficuliy in arranging some fleeces
which were of intermediate lengths, and con-
vertible to either purpose. A third subdivision,
that of "middle wool," has recently been added.
These are again divided into subordinate
classes, according to the fineness of the fibre.
*' In sorting wools," says Mr. McCulloch, " there
are frequently eight or ten different species in
jSn .Account of the Quantify and declared Value of British Woollen Manufactures exported from the
United Kingdom in the Year 1841. (Pari. Paper, No. 23,"Sess. 1842.)

to a 2d, 3d, or 4ih, or to a still lower sort, of an
equal degree of fineness with it. The best
English short native fleeces, such as the fine
Norfolk and Southdown, are generally divided
by the wool-sorter into the following sorts, all
varying in fineness from each other:— viz.
1. Prime; 2. Choice; 3. Super; 4. Head; 5.
Downrights; 6. Seconds; 7. Fine Abb; 8.
Coarse Abb; 9. Livery; 10. Short coarse, or
breech wool. The relative value of each va-
ries, according to the greater demand for coarse,
fine, or middle cloths." (Youalt on Sheep;

wool was inlo long and short, or, according to HtikeioeWs Observations on Wool,- Lurrork on
the purposes to which it was devoted, '-comb'j Wool; .Anderson, on Wool.) See Alpaca, Flrece,

Lamb-skins, and Shkkp.

f. d.

$. d.

1781

-

s\

1810

_

.

2 4

17rf5

_

9

1815

_

,

1 11

1790

_

- i oi

1820

.

.

1 5

1793

.

- 1 3

1825

.

_

1 4

1600

.

- I 5

1830

,

_

0 10

1805

-

- 2 3

1833

-

.

1 5

i

B

r

(4

||

Ill

11.
PI

Cewt'-in tn which
uporled.

Cloths
of all
torts.

i
s

B,izn
of all
lorta.

Piecei.

StuflPi,
Woolen

or
Worsted.

Flannel.

Bhnketi

and
Blanket-

ios.

Carpe's
and Car-
peliug.

Woollens
mii-d
with

COIIOD.

4^

c

P

1

Pieces

Pieces.

Pieow

Pi«c»..

yard<.

Yards.

Yard*.

VanJ,.

Dozen
Fairs.

£

Rnwla - -

839

1

3fi7

-

52,212

2.798

1,451

5,360

90,430

253

332

102.73.1

Swedfn

264

_

50

-

14.905

594

2.'>(«

l,73ti

9,450

14

302

26,620

Norway

671

136

157

117

2,650

3,608

416

410

3,383

363

1,05.5

11,9.30

Denmark

61

101

39

-

318

565

6(1

222

1,196

' 7

105

1,774

Prussia

5

_

9

_

164

_

19S>

366

2,000

_

.

663

Germany

15,800

5,12t

2,663

824

512,493

385,083

86,80fi

93.776

519,623

1,053

19,73?

883,878

Holland

1,624

1,?)85

26*^

15,662

156,747

127,.')00

572

62,771

246.049

4.13

8,025

316,769

Relgiiini

562

2,325

421

112

56.272

114.973

3,4 4 i

19,167

193,570

3,968

900

110.792

France

274

135

50

15

18,299

10,424

1,000

26,259

129,853

22

863

38,043

Pi)rtnpal. Azores,

and Madi^irfi -

10,031

41

319

3,474

44,623

8,943

3,771

3,952

31,955

2,125

1,242

164,251

Spain and the Ca-

naries

969

101

211

3,207

25.30P

4,313

8,000

16.718

7,727

600

649

60,342

Rihr^ltHr -

5,758

26

727

58

38.912

28.031

70(1

8.837

67,082

207

2,557

92.261

Italy -

2,1^.7

-

1,429

3

112,73

3,191

7,118

22,997

224,031

2,270

3,917

203.797

Malta ...

1,436

30

25

6

3,17;^

4,625

5.738

2,487

200

94

27'!

15,010

Ionian Islands -

9S

.

3

3

'522

3,458

■2OU

485

470

24

327

2,234

Kingdom of Greece

.

24

.

2>>fi

0 390

.

35

360

_

193

752

Turkey

238

40

78

-

10,2*2

3,034

448

14,620

17,290

125

691

30,913

Syria and Palestine

-

-

-

40S

-

-

-

2,000

-

-

571

East Indies and

China

45,068

94

265

122

126,016

164,170

33,130

9,947

62,159

. 2,090

6,699

532,710

Settlements inAiis-

tralii

4,282

27

em

151

10,521

83,976

227,8«1

25,672

52,709

4,87f

6,028

91,851

\ew Zealand

27

.

22

8

419

3.9-22

26,834

3,198

1,200

196

277

4,767

Cape of Good Hope

2,416

798

856

680

12,400

56,475

27,390

3,370

57,100

1,113

3,214

55,185

Oihfr parts of
Africa -

879

_

43

221

6,193

10,316

6,452

465

10,796

2,111

3,798

24,447

British Colonies in

North America

22.374

766

2,981

575

106.510

509,861

466,3.58

186,567

373,200

29,900

28,471

515,344

British West Indies

2.708

13

184

258

14,381

59,527

56,86&

2,031

57,969

2,376

8,907

62,919

Foreign West In-
dies - - .

1,823

.

25

154

12,181

1,667

90,830

6,145

26,457

895

3,201

56,962

United States of
America -

39,670

42

5,866

370

498,216

29,115

r25,038

166,820

2325.488

68,554

46.263

1521.980

Brazil -

17,325

100

2,374

7,326

79,789

17,360

150,382

10,125

142,885

2,312

7,098

329,984

Mexico and the

states of South
America -

33,274

_

1,749

3,750

86,142

98,089

36,365

85,661

353,455

6,193

7,396

468,070

isles of Guernsey,

Jersey, Alderney,
and Man -

2,579

6

-

64

4,256

79.230

19,6.38

29,116

-

-

1,383

31,121

\ Total

1

213,125

11,491

1

n.3.

37,160 2007,366

1820,244

2187,329

809,315

5015,087 135,909|

163,900

5748,673

1154

WOOL.

WOOL.

jSn account of Sheep and Lambs* Wool imported
into Great Britain in the undermentioned Years.
(McCulloch's Com. Diet.)

, Qiinntlty of rnreien slipep «nd lambs* won!
rfriiHiiiiiie WHretioiised under bond on 5th
January. 1812

In 1810
1^20
182-.
18 0

1839
1811

10,911,137
y,7S5) 0-2()
43,795.2Sl
?2.n3.0-.<)
?8,076,«I3
57,:^7M,P2■^
56,170,974

6,912,060

^n .^fcoHnt of the Quantity of Sheep and Lambs*
Wool imported into the Uni'ed Kingdom in the '
Year 1841 ; specifying the Countries from which
it came, the Quantity that paid a Duly of One
Penny per Pound, and the Quantity th.it paid a
Du'y of One Halfpenny per Pound ; of the
Quanti y of Foreign Wool re-exported during
the same period, and the Countries to which it
was sent; and the Quantity remaining warehimsed
under Fond on the ft'h day of Jinuary, 1842.
(Pari. Paper, No. 237, Sess.1842.)
Quantity of sheep and lambs' wool imported

into the United Kingdom : —

From nnssia -....-. 4,131,652

Bwedt-n and Norway - - - - \f>,i2i

Denmark ----_- 778.2.")«

Priinpia 16-1,125

Germany -.-.-_ 20.9S8.775

Holland I2I,0«I

Belgium ...... 300,862

France ....... I l.fiiQ

Portugal _-.... 670.071

Bpain 1,088,200

Gibraltar ...... 25,678

Italy 1,50-2.254

.^11 Account of the quantify of British Sheep and
Litnlis* Wool, and Woollen Yum, er par ed from
the Unicd Kingdom in the Ye:tr 1841; specify-
ing the Countries to which they were sen!. (Piirl.
Paper.)

Malta

Turkey ......

Euypt -..---
Morocco - . . . .

Cape of Good Hope - . -
8t. Helena - - . . .
East India Company's Territories
New South Wales - - -

Van Uiemen's Land . - -
Swan River Settlement
South Australia . . - -
New Zealand . . . .

British North American Coloniei
British West Indies . . .
Cura^oa - - - . .

United States or America

Brazil

States of the Rio de la Plata

Chili

Peru --.-..

)2t,089

447,563

70

85 250

1,079,910

990

.'»,008,fi«4

7,993,060

3,597.5.? I

48,590

759,909

272

4.8M

5,014

224

58,791

318

5,105,6.37

923,832

3,144,462

Foreign wool ...
Produce of the Isle of Man

Total quantity imported

56,170,974
8,667

56,179,641

Quantity of foreign sheep and lambs' wool
retained for home consumption : —

Charged with duty at l<f. per lb. - - -
Do. - at id. do. - - -
Do. - at 6d. do., beine red wool

Duty-free, being the prodtice of British pos-
sessions ........

Total quantity retained for home consump-
tion ------..

22,051,796

14,495,002

4,306

16,310,916

52,862,020

Qtiantity of foreign sheep and lambs' wool
re-exported : —

ToGereimny - ... - . _ _ J9.48t

Holland --._--. 67,517

Belgium ..-.-.- 1,094,636

France ---._.. 816,460

P'Ttuffal 3,9-27

United Slates of America ... 520,460

IslaiidsofGuernsey, Jersey, and Man - 1,971

Total quantity re-exported -

. 2,554,455

>Vn..l<e »n

W.„sr..Y.,,

(i clui.-e

Count. its to wLk-h exporteJ.

Uiiib»' Woul.

Y..n..f Wo

nr W.imtril

m xeH w,ih

...hrr

Lbs.

t. .

Riisaia -----

_

121,8t)6

Sweden - . - - -

_

1,961

Norway - - - . .

-

9.-)5

Denmark - - - .

_

8-2S

Prn«si=i

.

914

Germany - . - -

2,514

2.638,:tll

MollHIld

Id, 2i

l,-2«4.090

Itelsiuiil - . . - .

7.544, li)6

I2t,784

France - - - - -

894,701

S00,5t^0

Piirtugal, Azores, and Madeira

2,780

Snain and the Canaries -

_

96

Gibraltar - - . .

.

50,9.'»S

I'aiy

_

51,591

BHHt Indies and China -

3,7.'>2

Western Co^st ol Africa

_

150

British Colonies iu North

Amerii!H - - - _

70

22,335

Briiisli West Indies

16

Foreign West Indies

4.480

112

U.ii,-d States «.f America

8,9:0

292,754

Chili

234

Isles of Guernsey, Jersey, Al-

derney, and Man

5,796

20,188
4,903,291

8,471.2.35

Account of the Pieces of Woollen Cloths, Coatings,
and Kerseymeres, exported in the Years 1820,
1830. and 1840.

Coantrin lo which exportH.

i82a

1830.

1840.
Pii^en

Pii-re*

RuSHia ... -

31,824

7,415

1,680

Sweden - - - -

_

33

205

Norway - . - -

790

1,276

550

Denmark ...

220

248

101

Prussia - - - -

54

14

.

Germany - . -

91,802

54,502

21,572

Netherlands . . -

24J584

21,313

10,832

France - - - -

15

169

211

Porlugal, Azores, &c. -

51,979

29,597

10,577

Spain, «tc. - - -

4,791

5,685

969

Gibraltar - - -

7,248

2,122

2 093

Italy ....

28,967

15,204

2,829

Malta ....

725

736

644

Ionian Isles ...

12

134

207

Turkey and Levant

313

1.762

663

Guernsey, Jersey, &;c. -

3,192

3,419

2,809

East Indies and China •

43,133

72.390

44,396

Australia - - -

684

1.3«3

7,3:^6

Cape of Good Hope

2.2.=8

3.8(0

3.354

Other parts of Africa

I9:{

370

1,006

British Amerira

20,513

33.088

25.661

Kritish West Indies

1 1,559

S,'2(ii

3.623

Foreign West Indies

5,fi3.1

3.8.'>9

2.525

United States of America

7t',I14

101 294

46,945

Rrazils - - - -

.35 913

22,509

18,044

Me.xico - - - -

12,063

51,': 60

40,370

Total -

|-27,2?8

I45..V0 !

2.' 8,9 42 (

(Leeds Times, Aug. 1811.)

Under the head of A6Htcui,TuiiAL Puoducts
OF THE UxTTKi) SrATKs, the oTos.s amouttt of
wool for 1839 was stated. The proportions
furnished by individual states were as fol-
lows:—

1155

WOOL.

"StaJes, &c, Poundt of Wool.

Maine 1,465,551

New Hampshire - - - - 1,260,517

Massachusetts - - - - 911,906

Rhode Island - - - - 183,830

Connecticut . - - - 889,870

Vermont 3,699,235

New York 9,845,295

New Jersey - - . - 397,207

Pennsylvania ... - 3,048,564

Delaware 64,404

Maryland 488,201

vVirginia 2,538,374

North Carolina - - - - 625,044

South Carolina ... - 299,170

Georgia 371,303

Alabama 220,353

Mississippi 175,196

Louisiana - - - . - 49,283

Tennessee 1,060,332

Kentucky 1,786,847

Ohio 3,685,315

Indiana 1,237,919

Illinois 650,007

Missouri 562,265

Arkansas . - - - - 64,943

Michigan ... - - 153,375

Florida Territory ... 7,285

Wiskonsan Territory - - - 6,777

Iowa Territory - - - - 23,039

District of Columbia - - - 707

Total 35,802,114

The following statement from a Vermont
paper, (the Burlington Democrat,) shows the
prices of wool from 1821 to 1843.

1821 - 55 to 85 cts.

1831

_

45 to 70 cts

1822 - 33-65

1832

.

42 - 63

1823

. 35 - 65

1834

_

43 - 60

1824

25 - 70

1835

.

55 - 65

1825

25 -70

1836

_

60 -80

1826

25 - 65

1838 .

_

45 - 47

1827 - • 25 - 50

1839

.

45 .60

1838

. 30 - 50

1840

.

43 - 44

1829 - 25-45

1843

-

25 - 30

1830 - 38-68

An interesting view of the foreign wool trade
and the check upon this effected through the
protection received from Congress, is exhibited
in the'foUowing account derived from the co-
lumns of the New York Journal of Commerce,
(for Sept. 1843.)

In a communication to the Middlebury Peo-
ple's Press, dated 10th July last, and signed by
the Hon. William Slade, late a member of Con-
gress from Vermont, some interesting facts are
stated as to the operation of the new Tariff
upon the importation of wool from foreign
countries. By information received from the
Register of the Treasury, it appears that dur-
ing the 1st half of the present fiscal year, which
commenced on the 1st of October last, about a
month after the new Tariff went into operation,
there was imported into the United States, of
■wool costing 7 cts. a lb. or under, only 881,568
lbs. and of wool costing over 7 cts. a lb., only
175,962 lbs. Making a total of only 1,037,530
lbs. of all descriptions of wool in 6 months !
This is a most extraordinary falling ©ff, com-
pared with the importations of previous years,
as will be seen from the following schedule :

Year.

Under 8 cts.

Over 8 cts.

1835 - -

5,543,626

388,830 lbs.

1836 - -

11, 033,0 W)

806,370

1837 - -

9,480,195 -

703,276

1838 - -

6,551,126

445,478

1839 - -

7.398,519

527,620

1840

9,303,992

675,009

1841

11,409,764

981,281

1842 - -

10,558,998 lbs.

351,384

Making, on an average of 7 years, something
over 9,000,000 lbs. per annum, y^ths of which,
at the place whence imported, cost less than 8
1156

WOOL. '

cts. a lb. The new Tariff makes the minimum:
7 cts. per lb. instead of 8 cents, and levies a
duty of 5 per cent, on wool not above that mi-
nimum, whereas under the old Tariff such wool
was duty free. But these changes are so slight,
that they are not at all sufficient to account for
the immense decrease in the amount imported.
Lest such should be the inference of the wool-
growers, Mr. Slade tells them that through the
efforts of the Vermont delegation in Congress,
the word "coarse" was inserted in connection
with cheap wool, so that now, in order to be
admitted at the low duty of 5 per cent, (which
cannot exceed 3^ mills per lb.), wool must not
only have been bought at 7 cts. a lb. or under,
but must also be coarse : and he adds, " I have
no doubt that with a careful and thorough exe-
cution of the coarse wool provision, according
to its true intent and meaning, the reduction [in
the quantity of wool imported] would have
been still greater." To illustrate this point, he
states the following particulars :

" It appears from the Custom House returns
that 1101 sheep, of the aggregate value of
$10,565 — averaging $9 60 each, and therefore
presumed to have been merino bucks — were
exported from the United States to Buenos
Ayres in the years 1837 and 1838. The quan-
tity of wool, the product of the crossings of
these merino with the native South American
sheep, imported into the United States at and
below the value of 8 cts., cannot, of course, be
ascertained. The importations from that coun-
try of wool costing 8 cts. and under, were
greatly increased in the succeeding years ; em-
bracing, as is well known, much fine wool, and
therefore presumed to have been the product
of the crossings referred to. That increase
will appear by the following statement of the
importations of wool costing 8 cts. and under,,
from Buenos Ayres, during the years 1839, 1840, ,
and 1841, compared with the previous 3 years..

In 1836 2,256,887 pounds.

1837 2,108,582

1838 2,515,883

1839 683,535

1840 566,468

1841 8,870,799

" The French blockade of Buenos Ayres in
1839 and 1840 diminished the exports of those
years, and consequently swelled those of 1841
when the blockade was raised. The annual
average of the 3 years was 3,373,600 lbs. That
of the preceding 3 years was 2,293,784 lbs. ;
making an excess of the average of the last '3,.
over that of the first 3 years, of 1,079,816 lbs.
— an increase of about 47 per cent.

"It was the extraordinary quantity of fine-
wool thus cheapened in the market of Buenos
Ayres, and thrown, in large quantities, upon
our own, that suggested the necessity of the
introduction of the word 'coarse' into the
clause in question. Its intended effect was, to
subject to the higher duty all wool not coarse,
though costing less than 7 cts."

This higher duty, which applies to all wool
costing over 7 cts. a lb., and, according to Mr.
Slade's construction, to all wool not coarse,
whatever may be its cost, is 3 cts. a lb. and 30
per cent, ad valorem. Hence the duty on wool
costing 10 cts. at the place whence imported^
is 6 els. a lb. ; and on wool costing 20 cts., 9

WOOLLEN RAGS.

WORLIDGE, JOHN.

cts. a lb. This is a large per centage, we
admit ; but not so large as that established by
the Tariff of 1832, which on all wool over 8
cts. a lb. levied a duty of 4 cts. a pound and
32 per cent, ad valorem. On wool costing over
8 cts., the duties during all the years embraced
in the second of the above tables, except a part
of 1842, were, on an average, as high as they
are now. We wish this fact to be particularly
noted ; for it affords conclusive evidence that
the smallness of the importations of wool since
the new Tariff went into operation, is not oc-
casioned by that Tariff. It is occasioned, in
part, by the market having been over-stocked
with coarse wool during 1841 and 1842 (nearly
17,000,000 lbs. having been imported during
those 2 years from Buenos Ayres alone), —
partly by the prostration of carpet manufactur-
ing in this country for the last year or two, on
account of low prices and the scarcity of mo-
ney,— and partly by the cheapness of wool grown
in the United States. This last is what is going,
very soon, to nullify the Tariff, and importa-
tions too, so far as wool is concerned. We
have no doubt that in 10 years — perhaps less —
we shall become a wool-exporting country to
such an extent that protection against imported
wool will be as effective as it now is against
imported cotton ; — and no more so. [We still
lay a duty of 3 cts. a pound on cotton, which
does neither hurt nor good.] The great west
is coming, with her immense prairies, admi-
rably adapted to sheep, — and she will soon de-
luge the country with wool and sheep-skins, as
she now does with hogs, bacon, pork, lard, lard-
oil, soap, &c.

WOOLLEN RAGS. See Rag.

WORK. See Labour.

WORLIDGE, or WOOLRIDGE, JOHN. An
early English agricultural writer. But little
more is known of his history, than that he was
a gentleman who was a great lover of rural
affairs and gardening. Of his works I am only
acquainted with the following: — 1. Systema
AgriculturcE ; The Mystery of Husbandry disco-
vered and laid open, 1669—77—81, 1687, folio,
1716, 8vo. 2. Treatise on Husbandry, 1675,
folio. 3. Systema Horticulturee ; or, The Art
of Gardening, 1677. 4. Vinetum Britannicum,
1678 — 91, 8vo. 5. The most easy way of mak-
ing Cyder, 1678. 6. Jpiarium, 1691, 12mo.

The Systema Agriculturce was the most bulky
folio volume on agriculture that had yet ap-
peared, and its comprehensive themes are all
set forth in its first page. The authors of those
days seemed to consider it essential that their
readers should have, in the title-page of a book,
a complete summary of its inviting contents.
Woolridge was evidently of this opinion, for
his title-page announces that this was the
** Systema Agriculturae, or the Mystery of Hus-
bandry discovered ; treating of the several new
and most advantageous ways of tilling, planting,
sowing, manureing, ordering, improveing, of
all sorts of gardens, orchards, meadows, pas-
tures, corn-lands, woods, and coppices ; as also
of fruits, corn-grain, pulse, new hays, cattle,
fowl, beasts, bees, silk-worms, and fish, with
an account of the several instruments and en-
gines used in the profession ; to which is added,
Kalendarium Rusticum, or the husbandman's

monthly directions; also the prognosticks of
dearth, scarcity, plenty, sickness, heat, cold,
frost, snow, winds, rain, hail, thunder, &c.;
and Dictionarium Rusticum, or the interpreta-
tion of rustick terms ; the whole work being
of great use and advantage to all that delight
in that most noble practice." It is dedicated
to the gentry and yeomanry of England, and
opens with a preface laudatory of agriculture.
Notwithstanding, however, the ill aspect of
this heavy title-page, the book contains more
useful and more enlightened observations on
many points of husbandry than any which had
preceded it. He was a warm friend to the en-
closure of commons and other waste land, and
he suggested, what in fact he appears (p. 21)
to have carried into effect in 1665, at Wilton,
the erection of water-works for the purpose of
flooding meadows, an improvement of which
I think not nearly so much has been made as
is possible in this land of steam and steam-
engines. He was evidently well acquainted
with the management of water-meads, and his
directions with relation to them are practical
and sensible. He advises that sandy meadows
should be chalked, and ashes applied to sour
rushy grasses. When speaking " of several
new species of hay or grass," he enumerates
clover-grass, trefoyle, St. Foyn, La Lucern,
ray-grass, &c. He also recommends the deep
ploughing or digging of land, and on all occa-
sions seemed alive to any improvement in the
implements of agriculture. After giving an
account, at some length, of the rude and clumsy
contrivance of Gabriel Platte, for a dibbling-
machine, he elaborately and earnestly advocates
the use of a drill, an engraving of one of which,
primitive enough, it is true, in its appearance,
he gives in his work. "To remove,'.' he says,
"all manner of errors or inconveniences that
can be found in setting or hoeing of corn, I
shall here give you a plain and perfect de-
scription of an easy and feasible instrument
that shall disperse your corn, grain, or pulse,
of what kind soever, at what distance, and in
what proportion you please." The farmer
may be curious to know the construction of
this drill of a century and a half since. It had
a coulter, a pipe, a hopper, wheels, and axle-
trees. He was the first English author, I be-
lieve, who suggested the use of the manure-
drill, for, when speaking of the drill, he says
(p. 52), " By the use of this instrument also,
you may cover your grain or pulse with any
rich compost you shall prepare for that pur-
pose, either with pigeon's dung, dry or granu-
lated, or any other saline or lixivial substance
made disperseable, which may drop after the
corn, and prove an excellent improvement; for
we find experimentally, that pigeon's dung,
sown by the hand on wheat or barley, mightily
advantageth it by the common way of hus-
bandry; much more might we, therefore, ex-
pect this way, where the dung, or such like
substance, is all in the same furrow with the
corn, where, in the other vulgar way, a great
part thereof comes not near it. It may either
be done by having another hopper, on the same
frame, behind that for the corn, wherein the
compost may be put, and made to drop suc-
cessively after the corn, or it may be sown
5 E 2 1157

WORLIDGE, JOHN.

WORLIDGE, JOHN.

with another instrument to follow the former,
which is the better way, and may both dis-
perse the soil, and cover both soil and seed."

Woolridge was evidently an observer who
was able and willing to think for himself. He
advocated change of seed "from dry, hungry,
barren land, to rich and fat land; also from
land inclining to the south, to land inclining
towards the north, and the contrary;" all of
which, he well adds (and the reader must re-
member that Woolridge was writing when
chemistry existed only in name), "are mani-
fest signs that there is some particular thing
wherein each seed delights, which if we did
but understand we might properly apply it, and
gain riches and honours to ourselves; but be-
cause we are ignorant thereof, and are content
so to remain, we must make use of such soils,
dungs, composts, and other preparations and
ways of advancement of the growth of vege-
tables as are already discovered and made
use of." (p. 57.)

He extols the use of steeps for seed-corn,
mentions with approbation for this purpose
nitre, common salt, as well as urine, and gives
a recipe for making a kind of liquid manure
with sheep-dung (^ bushel), saltpetre (^ lb.),
and common salt (1 lb.), boiled together for
ten minutes in water (20 quarts), and this he
commends very highly as a steep ; and I am
inclined to believe that something of this kind
of rich liquor, more especially if the seed was
afterwards dried by being sprinkled with some
of the very fine manure powders at present
proposed, such as the urate of the London
Manure Company, the composition of M. Poitte-
vin, the guano, gypsum powder, &c., might be
used more profitably by the cultivator than at
first sight he may be inclined to believe. He
was in favour of paring and burning on some
soils, and had the good sense to discern the
advantages capable of being derived from the
permanent improvement of the soil by the use
of earthy manures. He devotes, therefore, a
chapter to the soils and manures taken from the
earth (p. 65) ; notices the uses, for this pur-
pose, of chalk, lime, marl, clay, fuller's earth.

The value of sand as a fertilizer did not
escape our author's attention. He notices the
value to some soils of that of the calcareous
shores of Cornwall, and of the Suffolk craig
formation, and of that which he advises the
farmer to lay under his farm-yards and sheep-
pens.

The excrements of fowls were strongly re-
commended by Woolridge as a fertilizer. He
describes those of pigeons and hens as "incom-
parable,— one load is worth ten loads of other
dung;" commends the use of "all marrow-
bones, fish-bones, horn, or horn-shavings ;"
but' he fell into the error with regard to those
which it required a century and a quarter to
remove, viz., he fancied that all the enriching
4jualities of the bones were to be attributed to
the g"ease they contained, instead of to their
phosphate of lime. He advocated the mixture
of peat, saw-dust, and tanners' refuse bark
with dung-heaps, — a plan which is even now
not nearl}' so extensively adopted as its merits
deserve. Indeed, as honest John Woolridge
-concludes his section (p. 85), "The well-pre-
1158

paring of rfwng-jmx^ is a piece of husbandry not
to be slighted, on which point of good or ill
husbandry depends the rise and fall of the
rents or values of many farms in this king-
dom."

Every account of live-stock given by the
earlier agricultural writers betrays the total
want of attention then paid by the farmers to
the breeding of stock, or if they do mention the
points to be commended in an ox or a sheep,
they are precisely those which a modern
breeder endeavours to avoid. For instance,
the chronicler Hollingshed commends the Eng-
lish cows for their largeness of bone, and
even Woolridge, writing centuries after him,
although very elaborate on most points of hus-
bandry, treats of the farmer's live-stock in a
manner that clearly indicates that in those
days, to use a Norfolk phrase, "a cow was a
cow, and a sheep a sheep." Thus all the in-
struction he gives the breeder with regard to
the selection of a cow is, that " the best sort is
the large Dutch cow, that brings two calves at
one birth, and gives ordinarily two gallons of
milk at one meal." His account of sheep I
will also give, without abridgment, for its facts
will sound still more novel to a modern farmer:
— "There are divers sorts, some bearing much
finer wool than others : as the Herefordshire
sheep about Lemster bear the fairest fleeces of
any in England. Also they are of several
kinds as to their proportion: some are very
small, others larger. But the Dutch sheep are
the largest of all, being much bigger than any
1 have seen in England, and yearly bear two
or three lambs at a time. It is also reported
that they sometimes bear lambs twice in the
year." This seemed to convince Woolridge,
and very naturally, too, of their value, for he
adds, "It may doubtless be of very good
advantage to obtain of those kinds and also of
Spanish sheep that bear such fine fleeces."

The scientific modern breeder, when he
smiles at this negligence and folly of a by-gone
race of farmers, must remember, however, the
diflicullies under which they laboured, not only
from lack of knowledge, but also of the means
to improve at a reasonable rate their ill-
shaped, large-boned, and slow-feeding race of
oxen. He should recollect that they had not
had the advantage of a Bakewell, a CuUey, or a
Ceilings, to labour during a lengthened period
for their improvement, — the days of the Smith-
field Club, and of the Highland Society, were
yet far distant. They had not even a suspicion
of what improved breeding would effect ; and
if they were ignorant, as they evidently were,
that their breeds were inferior, we can hardly
wonder that they were content to labour on,
since the very first step to improvement, a be-
lief in greater excellence being possible, was
wanting.

The opinions, however, of Woolridge with
regard to plantations of timber-trees were evi-
dently more enlightened ; for although he lived
a century before the days of our modern ex-
tensive planters — of such men as the Lords
Alhol, Devonshire, and Fife, and of Sir Henry
Steuart — yet he earnestly advised the planting
of the poorer soils of our island; he asked the
landowners of his time, after describing to

WORLIDGE, JOHN.

WORLIDGE, JOHN.

them the profit they might derive from such
foresighted enterprise, "What can be more
pleasant than to have the bounds and limits of
your own property preserved, and continued
from age to age by the testimony of such grow-
ing and living witnesses, in the spring yielding
a reviving cordial to your winter-chilled spirit,
giving you an assurance of the approaching
summer by their pregnant buds and musical
inhabitants'? In the summer, what more
delectable than the curious prospect of the
variety of greenness, dark shades, and retire-
ment from the scorching sunbeams 1" He
well knew, too, what some of my northern
friends are only now proving to be practically
the case, that "woods also finely refrigerate
the air in the summer's parching heats, and
qualify the dry and injurious winds, both in
winter, spring, and autumn." He devotes a
long chapter to the profits and pleasures of
fruit trees, and ridicules very quaintly the ob-
jection too commonly made to such plantations,
viz., " that their fruit would be stolen." "When,"
he says, "they become more common, they
will be little regarded by these filchers, or if
they do borrow a few sometimes in their
pockets, or to make a few apple-pies withal,
yet that is a poor discouragement to an inge-
nious spirit, and much like that rustick humour
of one that would not improve a very good
piece of ground for that purpose with fruit
trees, because the parson would have the deci-
mation of it, and so denied himself the nine
parts, because the parson should not have the
remainder."

Of the ploughs employed 150 years since, he
mentions the double-wheeled or Hertfordshire
plough, the turnwrest or Kentish plough,
"which surpasseth for weight and clumsiness"
the one-wheeled plough, the plain plough, and
the trenching plough.

Woolridge gives also sundry directions for
angling, fowling, bird-catching, horse-breeding,
and sundry other rural affairs, and finally he
winds up with a Kalendarium Rusticum. In
these he gives various monthly directions, of
which one specimen will suffice, of the mode
of farming then commonly adopted. In May
he directs the farmer " to kill ivy, to feed down
or mow rank corn ; to sow barley, buckwheat,
pease, hemp, and flax, clover-grass, St. Foyn,
and other French grasses ; to pare and burn
land, and wean lambs." He every month, as
if in rivalry of the almanac-makers of former
generations, treated the farmer to some poetry,
often of a most absurd description ; thus, in the
month of March, after having told them that
"this month ushers in the most welcome sea-
son of the year," and that " now gentle Zephyrus
fans the sweet buds, and the caelestial drops
water fair Flora's garden," he could not help
adding some of his own poetry, telling them
what must have been indeed novel informa-
tion, that now

•' The lofty mountains Btnnding on a row.
Which hut of late were perriwijrg'd with anow,
DolTiheir old coats, and now ate daily seen
To Bland on tiptoes all in swappering green ;
Meadows and eardens are prankt up with buds.
And chirping birds now chant it in the woods."

Woolridge laboured hard, however, in spite

of occasional absurdities of expression, to ele-
vate the science of agriculture; and that it was
deemed a science in the 17th century, is evi-
dent in this opening address to the farmer,
when he says, " Agriculture hath been (not
undeservedly) esteemed a science that prin-
cipally teaches us the nature and divers pro-
perties and qualities, as well of the several
soils, earths, and places, as of the several pro-
ductions or creatures, whether vegetable, ani-
mal, or mineral, that naturally proceed or are
artificially produced from, or maintained by,
the earth." This he promi.ses the husbandman
he will do "after a plain and familiar methud."
He soon, however, begins to illustrate his
"plain and familiar method," by talking of the
"secret, mystical, and raechanick indagations
of nature, the universal spirit, or spirit of mer-
cury and of salt ;" and gives us but a mean
opinion of his natural philosophy, by gravely
telling us that "soon will horse-hairs receive
life lying in rain-water but a few days in the
heat of the sun in spring-time."

But in spite of these occasional mistakes,
the book of Woolridge was perhaps the most
practical, and therefore the most useful book
which had yet appeared treating of agriculture
and rural affairs. The very publication of
such an expensive folio, of 326 pages, betrays
the increasing thirst for knowledge of the cul-
tivators of those days, and the same remarks
apply generally to those of Platte and of Hart-
lib ; in truth, both agriculture and agricultural
writers could hardly fail to keep pace with the
rapid increase to the general stock of know-
ledge which the age in which they flourished
received to so remarkable an extent; and this
improvement was not, as my brother, Mr.
George Johnson remarks {Hist, of Gard.), in
only one branch of knowledge, but in the whole
circle of the arts and sciences. The reforma-
tion was not confined to religion. By deliver-
ing the human mind from servile thraldom, and
teaching man, instead of bowing blindly to
custom, merely on account of its antiquity, to
have a self-dependence, it gave an impulse to
improvement which no tyrant opposition of
either bigotry, indolence, or self-sulficiency
could check. Such men as Bacon, Peiresc,
and Evelyn arose, and whilst the first traced
the path which men of science should tread, the
two latter lent their talents and their wealth to
sustain them in the pursuit. Bacon, it has
been truly observed, was the first who taught
men that they were but the servants and inter-
preters of nature, capable of discovering truth
in no other way than by observing and imitat-
ing her operations ; that facts must be collected
instead of speculations formed, and that the
materials for the foundations of true systems
of knowledge were to be discovered, not in the
books of the ancients, not in metaphysical
theories, not in the fancies of men, but by care-
ful, and laborious, and patient experiments
and observations in the external world. Peiresc
was a munificent man of letters; his advice,
his purse were open to the votaries of every
art and every science ; his library was stored
with the literature of every age and nation, his
garden with the rarest and most useful exotics,
and these last he delighted to spread over the

1159

WORM.

WOUNDWORT.

country. When, indeed, we cast our eyes over
a list of the men of science and literature of all
kinds that adorned this age, especially in
chemistry and in botany, the two sciences per-
haps of all others the most important to agri-
culture, we need not be surprised to find how
rapidly it was rising from being a mere art of
empiricism ; and when we note how rapidly
the thirst for foreign research was prevalent,
we can easily perceive how improved modes
o^ culture and new plants were acquired to
agriculture. Cavendish, but especially Ra-
leigh, by their visits for lucre as well as fame
to the Spanish settlements of America ia
1580-8, led the way in a path which Lancaster
and Raymond followed in 1791, and laid the
foundation of that anomalous copartnership of
commercial monarchs, the East India Com-
pany. Annual fleets now returned from the
east and west, laden with the curiosities of both
the animal and vegetable kingdoms; of these
the potato, tobacco, and tea need alone be in-
stanced ; and although the views of men were
not yet liberal enough to prompt them to
voyages of discovery, with an unmixed desire
of extending the field of science, or an enlarged
wish to benefit mankind, yet new plants, in
common with other hitherto strange natural
products, attracted their attention, and, though
at first imported as novelties, soon became by
degrees to be desired and sought for as the
luxuries and necessaries of life. (Quart. Jour.
Jlgr. vol. xii. p. 460.)

WORM. See Cut-worm, Earth-worm,
Wire-worm, &c.

WORM-SEED (Chenopodium). See Goose-
foot.

WORMS, INTESTINAL. A troublesome
sort of vermin found in the intestines of horses
and other animals. There is, perhaps, nothing
so destructive to the health and appearance of
the horse as worms. When they have obtain-
ed a settlement in the intestines, neither the
labour of the groom nor the liberality of the
master will prove of any avail towards im-
proving the animal's condition : for as fast as
Ihe chyle is formed from the aliment, which
ought to be converted into blood, these nume-
rous guests first satiate their craving appe-
tites, and leave but a scanty supply for the
exhausted system of the horse, so that a double
allowance of corn would not preserve a healthy
state; because the digestive organs cannot ex-
ert an extraordinary power for any length of
time, without producing such a state of debility
as to render them incapable of performing
afterwards their proper office.

In these animals, the most common kinds
are the following: — 1. Bots, which many young
horses are subject to in the spring ; 2. Those
that resemble earth-worms, and which, by phy-
sicians, are called lumbrici ; 3. Those that are
about the size of the largest sewing-needles,
with flat heads, called ascarides; 4. That species
of worm called tcenia, or tape-worm. See Bots,
Fluke-worm, &c.

WORMWOOD {Artemisia, so named in ho-
nour of Artemisia, wife of King Mausolus, or
of Diana Kgnfjui). There are four perennial-
rooted bitter aromatic herbs included under
this name, and cultivated solely for medicinal
1160

purposes: — Common wormwood {A. ab-
sinthium) is a native of almost every part of
Europe, and in England is found by road-sides
on heaps of rubbish, <fec. It is an erect under
shrub, with hoary tri-pinnatisert leaves. The
flowers in small, globose, nodding, racemose
panicles. The same remarks apply to the
drooping sea-wormwood {A. maritivia), which
is found on salt marshes and the sea-coast.
Roman wormwood {A. pontica) is a native of
Italy; and Santonicum or Tartarian worm-
wood (A. Santonica), which is a mere variety
of A. ,naritima, of Persia and Siberia. The
soil best suited to the growth of these plants is
one that is dry, light, and poor, otherwise they
become luxuriant, and are defective in their
medicinal qualities, as well as in their power
to withstand the rigour of the winter. Any
situation will suit the common and the sea-
wormwoods that is open and unconfined ; but
the exotic species require to be sheltered from
the severe aspects. In a severe winter, the
Tartarian can only be preserved under a frame.
The sea-wormwood seldom flourishes from the
want of a genial soil; the application of salt
would undoubtedly be beneficial.

They are all propagated by seed, as well as
slips and cuttings, the first of which may be
sown in March or April, and the latter planted
during June, July, and beginning of August.
The seed is sown thinly broadcast, and when
the plants arrive at a height of 2 or 3 inches,
are weeded and thinned to 6 inches asunder;
and those taken away pricked out at a similar
distance, water being given if the weather is
at all dry. The slips and cuttings are planted
in a shady border, about 8 inches apart, and
water given regularly every evening until they
have taken root. They are all to be trans-
planted finally early in the following spring, by
whichever mode they are raised, setting the
plants at last 18 inches apart. See Mug wort,
and SouTHER?iwooD.

WOUNDWORT (Stachys, from stachys, a
spike, alluding to the mode of flowering). A
genus of rather weedy-looking plants, hardly
worth cultivating for ornament. They all
succeed in common garden soil. . The peren-
nial kinds are easily increased by dividing the
roots in spring or autumn. The seeds of the
annual kinds should be sown in spring, in the
open border. As a vulnerary these plants have
no power. There are five indigenous species:
the hedge woundwort (S. sylvatica) ; the ambi-
guous woundwort (<S. ambigua) ; the marsh
woundwort (S. palustris) ; the downy wound-
wort (5. gemianica) ; and the corn wound-
wort (S. arvensis). The marsh woundwort
has a fleshy root, creeping extensively; throw-
ing out in autumn a number of tuberous
shoots, which render it, in low, wet ground,
very difficult of extirpation. This, therefore,
should be attempted in summer before these
knobs are produced, when the flowers are
appearing.

Several species of woundwort, or hedge-
nettle, are found in the United States. One,
called S. sylvatica, is found on the banks of the
Ohio, on the skirts of thick€ts, giving out the
same fetid odour as the European species.
The flowers are, however, paler. (Nuttall.)

YAM.

YEAST.

YAM (Dioscorea saliva), A climbing plant,
cultivated in the East and West Indies. Its
roots are very large, flattened, sometimes pal-
mated. It is boiled or roasted like the potato,
and is wholesome, palatable, and nutritious.
The flour is also used for puddings and bread.
The D. alata is equally cultivated ; its root is
3 feet long, and often weighs 30 lbs. Of both
kinds there are numerous varieties.

YARD-DUNG. See Farm-Yard Makckk.

YARD OF LAND. A quantity of land
which in some counties in Eng'and signifies
15 acres, in some 20, and in others 24, 30, and
34 acres.

YARROW {Achillea). A genus of showy,
free-flowering plants, succeeding well in any
common soil, and readily increased by divid-
ing the roots. The species are possessed of
aromatic, bitter, tonic, and stimulating quali-
ties. In England the following are indigenous
perennials : —

1. Sneezewort yarrow, or goose-tongue {J.
ptarmica), which grows in wet hedges, or about
the banks of rivers, flowering in July ard Au-
gust. The root creeps widely, and is diflicult
of extirpation where the soil is moist. Stems
upright, about 2 feet high ; corymbose at the
top. Leaves sessile, linear, pointed, equally
and sharply serrated, and of a glaucous green.
Flowers numerous, small, milk-white in the
disk as well as in the radius, with an irregular
number of ligulate florets. The whole plant
has a pungent flavour, provoking a flow of
Baliva, and this flavour renders it acceptable,
as Schreber asserts, to sheep, who delight es-
pecially in saltish food. The sneezing caused
by the dried and powdered leaves *is rather
owing to their little, sharp, marginal prickles.
Its name is derived from this property of caus-
ing sneezing.

2. Serrated yarrow (J. serrata). This is a
much less common species, in which the root
is fibrous, leaves linear, lanceolate, downy,
deeply serrated. Flowers of a yellowish-white
or buff* colour, not half the size of the forego-
ing. The whole herb has a powerful aromatic
1 - ^ ' • " .'.what like ;

tracted from the flowers ; and an ointment
made of the leaves is reckoned good against
the scab in sheep. A. moschata, an exotic spe-
cies, a native of Italy, is sudorific and acrid,
and makes a wholesome food for cattle.

4. Woolly yellow milfoil, or yarrow (A. to-
mentosa). This species grows about dry hilly
pastures in Scotland and Ireland. The root is
woody, slightly creeping, with many long fibres.
Stems scarcely a foot high, curved at the base,
then erect. Leaves doubly pinnalifid, woolly,
segments linear, crowded, acute. Flowers
densely corymbose, on woolly stalks, of a
bright golden yellow. The whole herb, as well
as the flowers, has an aromatic scent when
rubbed. It serves to decorate rock-work in
gardens, but will not bear wet or shade.

YEARLINGS. A term applied to calves,
colts, and other young stock, when they have
completed their first year.

YEAST. The froth or scum which rises on
beer during the act of fermentation. (See
Brewing and Fermentatiox.) It contains a
variety of components ; among others, carbon,
acetic and malic acids, alcohol, potassa, lime,
a saccharine, mucilaginous extract, gluten, and
water.

Yeast is an article of the greatest importance
in domestic economy, forming a necessary in-
gredient in the manufacture of bread, which
would otherwise become heavy and unwhole-
some. When put in contact with saccharine
matters, at a temperature of between 50° and
60°, it causes fermentation, and changes the
sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid. Yeast
may be dried and yet retain its properties, but
a temperature of 212° destroys it.

The yeast prepared by the Hungarians will
keep for a whole twelvemonth. During the
summer season they boil a quantity of wheaten
bran and hops in water ; the decoction is not
long in fermenting, and when this has taken
place they throw in a suflicient portion of bran
to form the whole into a thick paste, which
they work into balls, that are afterwards dried
by a slow heat. When wanted for use they
are broken, and boiling water is poured upon
them: havinP' stnoH a nrr>r,o,- ♦: — ♦i-- ^-•'

••' : II .''.'av'-Tiincr Drfiia.

.V v-ciled fttut or ftrment,de-

-o*n the pover Jt possesses of

'"•'•ne

YEAST.

YELLOW-WOOD.

ing. Its action is arrested also by the tempera-
ture of boiling water, by alcohol, common salt,
an excess of sugar, oxide of mercury, corro-
sive sublimate, pyroligneous acid, sulphurous
acid, nitrate of silver, volatile oils, and, in
short, by all antiseptic substances.

" The insoluble part of the substance called fer-
ment does not caiisc fermentation. For when the
yeast from wine or beer is carefully washed
with water, care being taken that it is always
covered with this fluid, the residue does not
produce fermentation.

" The soluble part of ferment likewise does not ex-
aie fermentation. An aqueous infusion of yeast
may be mixed with a solution of sugar, and
preserved in vessels from which the air is ex-
cluded, without either experiencing the slight-
est change. What then, we may ask, is the mat-
ter in ferment which excites fermentation, if nei-
ther the soluble nor insoluble parts possess the
power] This question has been answered by
Colin in the most satisfactory manner. He
has shown that in reality it is the soluble part.
Before it obtains this power, the decanted in-
fusion must be allowed to cool in contact with
the air, and to remain some time exposed to
its action. When introduced into a solution
of sugar in this state, it produces a brisk fer-
mentation ; but without a previous exposure to
the air it manifests no such property.

" During the fermentation of sugar by yeast,
both of these substances suffer decomposition
at the same time, and disappear in conse-
quence. But if yeast be a body which excites
fermentation by being itself in a state of de-
composition, all other matters in the same con-
dition should have a similar action upon sugar;
and this is in reality the case. Muscle, urine,
isinglass, osmazome,* albumen, cheese, glia-
dine, gluten, legumin, and blood, when in a
state of putrefaction, have all the power of
producing the putrefaction or fermentation of
a solution of sugar. Yeast, which by con-
tinued washing has entirely lost the property
of inducing fermentation, regains it when its
putrefaction has recommenced, inconsequence
of its being kept in a warm situation for some
time.

'*If we consider the process of the fermenta-
tion of pure sugar, in a practical point of view,
we meet with two facts of constant occjij:i:e*^ "
When the quantity of fer-^'^'*^^

sary in order to effect the transformation of a
certain portion of sugar, not because it acts by
its quantity increasing any aftinity, but because
its influence depends solely on its presence,
and its presence is necessary, until the last
atom of sugar is decomposed.

" We have seen that ferment or yeast is a
body in the state of decomposition, the atoms
of which, consequently, are in a state of mo-
tion or transposition. Yeast, placed in contact
with sugar, communicates to the elements of
that compound the same state, in consequence
of which, the constituents of the sugar arrange
themselves into new and simpler forms, name-
ly, into alcohol and carbonic acid. In these
new compounds, the elements are united toge-
ther by stronger affinities than they were in
the sugar, and therefore under the conditions
in which they were produced further decompo-
sition is arrested.

" We know, also, that the elements of sugar
assume totally different arrangements, when
the substances which excite their transposition
are in a different state of decomposition from
the yeast just mentioned. Thus, when sugar
is acted on by rennet or putrefying vegetable
juices, it is not converted into alcohol and
carbonic acid, but into lactic acid, mannite,
and gum.

"ifVgain, it has been shown, that yeast added
to a solution of pure sugar gradually disap-
pears, but that when added to vegetable juices
which contain gluten as well as sugar, it is re-
produced by the decomposition, of the former
substance.

" The yeast with which these liquids are made
to ferment, has itself been originally produced
from gluten.

" The conversion of gluten into yeast in these
vegetable juices is dependent on the decompo-
sition (fermentation) of sugar; for, when the
sugar has completely disappeared, any gluten
which may still remain in the liquid does not
suffer change from contact with the newly de-
posited yeast, but retains all the characters of
gluten.

"Yeast is a product of the decomposition
of gluten ; but it passes into a second stage
of decomposition when in contact with water.
On aT. .-*•-■ '•^r'-ther

nov

of '
roc

'uu), ll.

.'^t); the

■' '■"-^i■

' ^ \vny wour

•m woor.

I common kiiiii>'w<

wn«i,..^T*-.

L iiuis, which many

to in the spring: 2.

' arth- worms, and wh ■

reudei ii

lied lumbrici. 3. Tie

of extirp''

-'^ ■-- '- ' ,j^

•••- altempte/

.b6

are produ-

.. V. .«j^^ -v.i.ij. .",V1-.«J ""•■

'■"

c»* «... , . ,

or hedgt

r"- f'frmisia, ?'> nann^d in )i

-. elates, n'r,
the banks
t Ls, giving u J .
t; European specie.
r, paler. {SuttulL)

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